God and Retribution are Inseparable

 
Psa 5:4-6
For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful man.
Psalm 5:5,
The boastful shall not stand before Thine eyes; Thou dost hate all who do iniquity.
Psalm 11:5
The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence His soul hates.
Lev. 20:23
Moreover, you shall not follow the customs of the nation which I shall drive out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I have abhorred them.
Prov. 6:16-19
There are six things which the Lord hates, yes, seven which are an abomination to Him: Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, A heart that devises wicked plans, feet that run rapidly to evil, A false witness who utters lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers."
Hosea 9:15
All their evil is at Gilgal; indeed, I came to hate them there! Because of the wickedness of their deeds I will drive them out of My house! I will love them no more; All their princes are rebels.
NOTE: He vows to love them no more. And he says that all their princes are rebels against him and not some. That is strong hate-speech.
Luke 14:26
If any man come to me (Jesus), and hate [MISEO] not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
Thayer Definition (miseo):
1) to hate, pursue with hatred, detest
2) to be hated, detested
NOTE - The claim that it is only the translations not the original Greek that preach hate is a bold faced lie.
Acts 7:24-25
NOTE - Moses happens upon one of his own race being attacked by an Egyptian and he murders the Egyptian. The text makes it clear that his motive was vengeance and that Moses understood that this was God's will so that Moses could free his people. The text approves of his vengefulness because it appears in a sermon on how God used Old Testament people of importance in the plan of salvation.
 And when Moses saw one of his people being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand.
 
 
EZEKIEL 18
The word of the Lord came to me:

2 “What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge’?

3 As I live, declares the Lord God, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel.

4 Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.
5 “If a man is righteous and does what is just and right—

6 if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor's wife or approach a woman in her time of menstrual impurity,

7 does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment,

8 does not lend at interest or take any profit, withholds his hand from injustice, executes true justice between man and man,

9 walks in my statutes, and keeps my rules by acting faithfully—he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord God.
10 “If he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, who does any of these things

11 (though he himself did none of these things), who even eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor's wife,

12 oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination,

13 lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself.

Note: The meaning seems to be that if the father fails to try and stop his son, he is as much to blame as he is. Ezekiel explicitly stated that God said that each one has to pay for his own sin.

 

25 “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear now, O house of Israel: Is my way not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?

26 When a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and does injustice, he shall die for it; for the injustice that he has done he shall die.

27 Again, when a wicked person turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he shall save his life.

28 Because he considered and turned away from all the transgressions that he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die.

29 Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ O house of Israel, are my ways not just? Is it not your ways that are not just?

Note: Today, many Christians say that God does not send punishment if you sin. What happens is, you sin and that invites bad consequences. But the text is speaking of more than just mere bad consequences. It says the evil person who converts is spared. If you sin through drug abuse, repentance will not save you from the consequences. So the text is speaking of divine punishment and not the mere bad results of self-abuse through sin. God judges YOU not your actions as if they can be imagine to be separate from you. It is you that is the problem and the actions are not the problem for they only show the problem. If God does not do his duty and punish the wicked then he is not a just God. The Christians are worshipping an unjust God - to the delight of their Satan!

 

I feel though that people know that judging is only right when it is about protecting the innocent from the wicked. That is why the judging God is not popular. It is vindictive to believe in such a God because it is we who have to stop the wicked. Nobody in their right mind depends on God to do it.
 
Retribution is the idea that a person has to suffer for doing wrong. This is not necessarily motivated by hate. It is merely to see justice done because if the person gets away with it then the message is that the wrong they did is no big deal and it is rewarded. It is insulting to treat the good person and the evil person alike. Mercy means the cancellation of retribution or its reduction.
 
Retribution and the concept of morality are inseparable. One is based on the other. Morality is about laying down law about what is good and to be rewarded and what is bad and what is to be punished. Modern society does not really like the notion of morality. Christians however are so fond of it they are not happy with just having a moral code. They go as far as to say that God and morality are one and the same! In other words, morality is a person or persons - if you believe God is three people. To worship God is to worship morality.
 
Morality is a person and it is God! There is something vindictive about going that far. It would be better if you approve punishment to approve it for the sake of people in general. It is wrong to approve it to please God or uphold his rules. The motive is about him and not people. We need to see punishment as a necessary evil not as something to be worshipped as God. And morality is an abstract thing in our minds. To worship morality as a person or as God is idolatry. We cannot force ourselves to seriously worship a maths teacher as being equal to 1 and 1 being equal to 2. Our feelings and our reason make it impossible. To say that God is morality and morality is a person is clearly to repudiate morality and basic honesty.
 
Hurting criminals to make an example of them or to reform them is not punishing them. It is mean to use people as an example. It treats them as things to be used and not as people. And if the example is so important, then why not at least sometimes frame the innocent to use them as examples? And the reforming thing is stupid because people need to reform themselves. It is cruel and ineffective to try and reform anybody.
 
God is supposed to be just. That goes with the notion that he must mete out punishment. The Bible says he punishes in this life and when we die we will be punished in Hell if we don't repent our grave sins.
 
Some Christians say that God doesn't actively hurt or punish those who are in Hell. This contradicts the doctrine of God's mercy. A God who gives out mercy but not retribution would be an absurdity. Retribution needs to be afflicted on you. You cannot inflict it on yourself. Jesus spoke of God excluding people from Heaven. He told parables to illustrate this. The foolish bridesmaids wanted to go to the feast but the groom representing God locked them out.
 
Those deniers of a God who excludes people say he does not punish but people punish themselves. They say the judge does not hurt his prisoners by sending them to jail. They hurt themselves and send themselves to jail and the judge merely informs them about what they have done to themselves. This is nonsense for the judge hurts them far more than they hurt themselves. He could show mercy but doesn't. The judge hurts them through delegating the job to others. The judge hurts them indirectly. A person who lets you be as vicious as you want to be and who lets you have the resources is far worse than a person who inflicts pain on you in the name of justice. And if God shouldn't actively hurt the damned then he shouldn't judge them and let them go to eternal punishing either.
 
Some religious authors say that sin is not punished by God but keeps you away from God. It is a barrier you make. But this denies that God is moral. The sun is very bright. You cannot look at it. It is not stopping you seeing it on moral grounds. It is just that your eyes are not strong enough to see it. The power of your eyes and the power of sunlight are incompatible. If sin is incompatibility with God and nothing more, then the sinner is not being punished by being kept away from God. In reality sin does not matter morally at all. It should not be even called sin for sin is a moral - as well as religious - term.
 
If it is true that sin is a like a disability that prevents you going near God and this is not punishment then why say it is just sin that causes this problem? Perhaps there is something about having black skin that keeps you away from the presence of God. Perhaps if you make genuine mistakes and you have the wrong beliefs about God you won't get near him either. The point is, if the separation with God is caused by some inability and not by any moral problem, then the separation can be caused by anything not just our bad deeds.
 
If it is true that our exclusion from God is not because we are immoral but because a barrier is created by us then it follows we should despair and weep forever over those who suffer forever in Hell. They are to be pitied not condemned. Indifference towards them is not an option. Poor God wants to treat evil and good alike and have both in his eternal Paradise of Heaven and ignore the immorality. So we have to feel sorry for him too. The more we love him the greater the pain we will feel.
 
Whoever worships this amoral God and praises his amorality will be in trouble if there really is a Satan and Hell for they are adoring the kind of nonsensical God Satan would want them to worship.
 
Christianity says we should not be happy to see grave criminals getting away with it and we should want justice. Thus they indicate that they want to see those who die in serious sin suffer eternal punishment.
 
It is strange that Christianity can condemn hate. For many who suffer the rigours of the law, the worst thing for them is the feeling that people hate them for their crime.
 
True retribution would indicate that if a person hates then they should be hated back.
 
Retribution when coming from a Christian is just hypocrisy.
 
Christianity likes to say it judges actions as evil but does not judge the soul of the person who commits the actions. It says only God can do that for he sees the secrets of every heart. Assessing and judging are not the same thing. Assessing is saying the action is a mistake. Judging is saying it is a sin and that the person is flawed as a person and needs punishment. It is odd how people are comforted by the thought that the Church does not judge them! What about God? Do they think they are too good to be judged by God? If your actions should be judged by God and not you then the doctrine that he will judge YOU is harmful and spiteful and evil.
 
Christianity is upholding judgement and bigotry as good principles. This is what it is doing whether there is a God or not. We must say no to all that.