Guilty conscience?

RE: ‘Dead at 76, OJ takes secrets to the grave’ (Mail): I’ve read many social-media posts saying the deceased OJ Simpson must now be somewhere in Dante’s Inferno’s unpunished-murders section. Though no fan nor defender of his, I still wonder whether his spirit or consciousness may finally be 100% free of the purely cerebrally based agitation and contempt that may have actually blighted much of his life.

A few decades ago, I learned from two Latter Day Saints missionaries that their church’s doctrine teaches that the biblical ‘lake of fire’ meant for the truly wicked actually represents an eternal spiritual burning of guilt over one’s corporeal misdeeds. Bemused, I thought and said: ‘That’s it? Our punishment is our afterlife guilty conscience?’

During the many years since then, however, I’ve discovered just how formidable burning guilt can be. I’ve also considered and decided that our brain’s structural/chemical flaws are what we basically are while our soul is confined within our physical, bodily form. The human soul may be inherently good, on its own, but trapped within the physical body, notably the corruptible brain, oftentimes the soul’s purity may not be able to shine through.

Thus, upon the multi-murderer’s physical death, not only would he (or she) be 100% liberated from the anger and hate that blighted his physical life; his spirit or consciousness would also be forced to exist with the presumably unwanted awareness of the immense amount of needless suffering he personally had caused.

But for greatly victimised people, like Ronald Goldman and his left-to-mourn family, all of the above would undoubtedly be of no consolation.

FRANK STERLE JR, White Rock, British Columbia, Canada.