"And we'll pray / That there's no God / To punish us..." - For me, though this quotation does not originate from an epic literary source as per usual, it nonetheless is a powerful statement about the human condition. Every person fears that there is a third party adjudicator who presides over our lives, all the errors, the mistakes and the successes as well. Theologically this concept has been with us practically from the dawn of our existence and an awareness of conscience and responsibility (leading to inevitable retribution or reward) for the actions we take, is inherent in almost every human being. In Marlowe's 'Dr Faustus', the idea is put forward that Hell and punishment may in fact be a psychological state just as much as a spiritual: "Nor is it circumscribed to one self place / For where we are is Hell, and where Hell is; must we ever be" - here Mephistophilis shows that Hell is within himself, an idea Milton later utilised in the legendary Paradise Lost: "He bore a Hell within him..." Either way whether we take it that our punishment is masochistically psychological or literally spiritual, human beings seem to generally accept the idea that unless a moralistic life is lead there is consequence and repercussion. There are few who seem confident in their own absolution, and fewer who accept no moral responsibility. Arguably if the ideas of Darwinism and Evolution are pursued to their utmost extremes the room for morality and love in a world populated by animals desperate for survival becomes limited; if there is no spirit, no God, no divine order, no spiritual law, and our primary purpose is to reproduce and survive, then there is no compunction about me killing a loving husband and taking his wife from him, an act which is abhorrent and unjustified. Society cannot function without a modicum of acknowledging punishment, an idea which was taken to extreme and grotesque levels in the Elizabethan era with people having molten lead poured into open wounds, evisceration by horses, and other such horrific retributions for any crime.
The quotation at the start comes from Muse - Fury, and for me the oxymoron of praying for there to be no God is an ingenious summation of atheism - they cannot deny the need for punishment, and yet equally they are striving to disprove the only consistent moral force in the universe. Similarly it can apply to religious individuals, we are all praying that the God we are certain exists is merciful and benevolent, whilst still hoping he will dole justice to the "wicked". Human beings are constantly caught in this paroxysm and contradiction as we also consider another important idea, the concept of the eternal and the infinite. There is a famous passage from Corinthians which reads: "For what is seen is temporary, and what is unseen is eternal..." - the Greeks encapsulated the idea of a repetitive and inescapable eternity with the myth of Tantalus and Sisyphus who are both doomed to bizarre punishments and 'tasks' that can never be completed. Sisyphus can never get the boulder up the hill; Tantalus can never drink from the water or eat the fruit. In fact their punishments cease only once in the entirety of all Greek literature, and that is when Orpheus descends into Hell and plays for Hades. At this moment the sublime nature of the music actually brings a halt to all the machinations of the Underworld, if only for a brief moment before the trials are resumed. Unfortunately for them, even when broken into, eternity remains and continues on afterwards as if unbroken, and perhaps that is partly the cause of the innate fear that all humans have of eternity and punishment. A punishment that is everlasting and that can see no end even if there is a temporal respite is truly terrifying indeed.
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