Presupposing Islam is true, an eternal hell is justified.

C1: Status and MoralityIt seems to me, in fact, that Pro's contention is radically counter-intuitive despite Pro's protestations otherwise.C1.1) I'm not sure by whom it would be considered "much more immoral to harm or kill a highly respected member of society rather than the common man" but I would consider someone who held such a moral principle to be, in the best of lights, a deep moral confusion. It might be more disastrous (for American society) if the President of the United States is murdered than if I were murdered, but it's unclear how it'd be more immoral (assuming we were murdered under similar contexts). In fact, if the moral principle that everyone has equal moral worth is true than Pro's contention is just false, full stop. The president is no more instrinsically morally valuable than I or the poor child in Africa. C1.2) Besides the fact Pro's contentions here stem from an archaic model of crime based on fuedal relationships- where the seriousness fo the crime is deterimined by both the act and the social status of both the perpetrator and the victim - that are no longer held to, this threatens to destroy a central intuition motivating retributivism which the theory of punishment assumed by Pro. [1] The intuition is this: the seriousness of the crime determines the seriousness of the punishment. It'd obviously be unjust if I decided that I was going to kill my nephew because he stole some candy as "punishment". So, if all sin against Allah merits an infinite punishment what is entailed by that statement is that stealing candy and murdering 26 people both merit an eternity in hell as both are a sin against Allah. This runs counter to the main intution motivating retributivism, i.e. it is radically counter-intuitive.C1.3) It's not even clear why one should accept the proposed claim "since the more serious a crime is the more serious its punishment should be, all sin against Allah merits an infinite punishment." in the first place! As Pro somewhat alludes to the nature of the offense also figures heavily into the moral calculations. Say I have 100 "units" of moral status and worth. Imagine Pro comes along and just punches me in the face for no discernible reason. Then imagine someone else comes up to me and roughly shoulders me to the side. Clearly Pro here is the one more seriously encroached on my moral status and worth. Both of these acts can't be worth a full 100 "units' Of moral dishonor and demerit.C2: Consequences of Sin and C3: Free WillThere are 3 major issues here - here I will largely just be modifying slightly what I've said in earlier debates on similar subjects from both respective round 3's. C 3.1 actually touches on C2 as well so it can be considered a response to both.C2.1/3.1) As Marilyn McCord Adams has aptly pointed out it'd be entirely irrational, unreasonable, and unethical for Allah to trust such psychologically limited, ignorant, and deception-prone creatures such as ourselves to make decisions regarding our eternal fate - especially since the consequences are so horrible in the case of hell! [2] In short, we have "diminished capacities". [3] What this means is that we literally don't have the coginitive faculties capable of truly recognizing how truly terrible eternal punishment; if that is the case (and it surely is) then our moral culpability for "choosing" to go to hell is severly diminished. To think that Allah created us with all these setbacks to the clear thinking we need in order to avoid hell and then expect the majority of us not to go hell borders on almost unbelievable. We are in a state in which we cannot discern of the relevant distinctiosn between an act and it's consequences. [4] It'd be like parents putting their two year old in a room with perfectly safe, breathable gas but the gas will ignite if a flame is started in the room. Now,imagine further, the parents have also put in the room gaudy (kid-attractive) colors as a "test" to see if their child will obey them. Even if the parent tells their child not to touch the matches and light them and the child knows to obey their parent the parents are still at fault for putting their child in a situation like that in the first place. We wouldnt seriously blame the two year old for "freely choosing" to disobey their parent. We wouldn't even adequately conceive a "direct choice" for hell, much less an "indirect choice" in favor of hell.C3.2) Even supposing that the foregoing point is wrong, the very notion of choosing to "freely reject" Allah is nonsense and lapses into incoherency. Talbott asks us to imagine a normal boy who, inexplicably and randomly, thrusts his hand into a fire while screaming in pain. Nonetheless, he does it even though he has strong motive not to do it and the absence of any motive to do it. Could we coherently say this boy had made a free choice to stick his hand into the fire or that he could be held morally responsible for his actions? It doesn't seem so. So, as we can see a minimal degree of rationality is required for an agent to make a free choice. But, then, we have to ask ourselves what kind of rational person would choose to be separated from God and suffer eternal torment? Remember, on Islam, Allah is the source of all goodness and happiness and fundamentally wants what's in our best interests and he wants what we would want for ourselves and others if we were thinking clearly. What rational person would "freely choose" to actively subvert what's in their best interests? This raises a dilemma. Perhaps, Pro can allude to something like C.S. Lewis when he writes about those in hell trapped on the inside - those caught in self-delusion (and/or ignorance/misunderstandings); perhaps that sort of person would "freely choose" to reject Allah. But then they wouldn't really be rejecting the real and true Allah, now would they? They'd be rejecting a Allah of their own construction and delusions - an infantile caricature of Allah. Perhaps they are like those misinformed souls today who believe that Islam is best represented by those of Bin Laden's ilk. One could hardly say they are "freely choosing" to reject Allah on that horn. But, on the other hand, if the person is removed of all delusions, ignorance, and misunderstandings about Allah they'd immediately recognize that it'd be positively absurd to "freely choose" to reject Allah. On either hand, the notion of "freely choosing" to reject God is simply incoherent. [5]C3.3) Why is free will supposedly so sacrosanct wherein it is elevated to something so absolutely inviolable by Allah? Why could Allah not simply just override a persons' choices at least some of the time...? Remember, hell is an irreparable harm and anyone who had an adequate conception of hell would not want to go there. So the only the way they could choose to go there is only through irrationally choosing to go there (and so it wouldn't be a free choice; more like a random event). If I were to irrationally (maybe due to a mental illness) choose to jump off a 20 story buidling without a parachute for no particular reason I would hope someone I know would stop me and my 'free will' be damned. I would not want them to sit back and say, "Oh, well, you know, that's his choice and I'm going to respect that. Even though in a sane and rational state of mind he would never choose to do that and he has no reason to do it now, I'm going to just sit back and watch it play out." Would, Allah who is said be good and merciful, just sit back and watch as his creatures freely choose to do irreparable harms to themselves? Why is the value of free will so elevated in the face of unrelenting torment? [6]Sources[1] http://www.jstor.org...;[2] http://www.debate.org...[3] http://philpapers.org...; (p. 3) [4] ibid[5] http://www.debate.org...;[6] ibid