Rape, Murder, and Suicide. Then what?

In a discussion on the Atheist Experience, a theist caller questions what happens if there is no God or heaven or hell.  If that is the case, what is the punishment for bad people?

Matt answers that there is no punishment.  They just die.  If someone rapes and murders people, and then commits suicide, they’ll be dead.

Then Matt says “Let’s flip it around.  What’s the punishment for someone who rapes and murders people, and then gets saved?”

The caller says “The punishment is hell…”

Matt says “No, they got saved!  Are you saying rapists can’t get saved?”

“Uhhhh…”

 

The caller falters, at a loss for words.

Matt responds with one of the greatest rants of all time:

“See, this is the problem with Christian religion.  It establishes unrealistic and irrational and immoral criteria by which to live, and then it creates a loophole so that you don’t ever have to be responsible for those actions. Christianity is not a moral system.  It is an immoral system.  Because it specifically says there aren’t necessarily consequences that you’re going to have to pay because of a loophole.  And what is the loophole?  It has nothing to do with how good you are, how morally you act, or anything else.  It has to do with whether or not you’re willing you are to be a sycophant to an idea.  And if you are, then there is now an exception for which you no longer have to suffer a penalty for this.  So the idea that secular morality offers no guarantee that people will ever pay for their crimes and their atrocities is not an argument against secular morality, because that is a tenet of Christianity.  It is the foundation.  The idea that the Christian god is just is directly contradicted by the idea that the Christian god is merciful.  Perfect justice and any mercy are necessarily directly in contradiction, because mercy is a suspension of  justice.  So do not pretend that your religion is moral and just, and then try to attack my position, which is based on reality, because somebody might rape people, shoot themselves in the head, and then not get punished.  That’s asinine.”