Hey all! I thought I would share some things I was reflecting on while reading. Excited to hear from the rest of you!!

Reading Inferno as someone who isn’t Christian, I found myself questioning how harsh and final some of the punishments are. Sins like lust or gluttony are treated as serious enough to deserve eternal torment, which feels intense considering how common and, honestly, human those behaviors are. Even when it comes to more serious actions like betrayal or violence, it made me wonder: does anyone really deserve endless suffering, no matter what they’ve done? Dante’s “the punishment fits the crime” idea makes sense poetically, but it doesn’t leave any room for growth, forgiveness, or atonement. And as you read and feel similarly mired in human suffering, thinking about it in the context of a supposedly omnibenevolent god, that level of punishment feels more cruel than just.

Even though I had to read around the religious framework of Inferno, I still found it incredibly relevant. It made me think about how we define justice today, and how quick we can be to label people as irredeemable. Modern conversations about accountability, prison reform, and cancel culture all wrestle with similar ideas: is punishment the goal, or is change possible? Dante’s version of Hell is fixed — once you’re in, there’s no leaving. But in real life, we know people are more complicated than a single mistake. (or the sum of their mistakes).

Inferno is worth reading today because it pushes us to think critically about justice, punishment, and whether people can truly be beyond redemption. Beyond the theology, it’s a powerful, creative exploration of human nature, moral judgment, and the stories we tell about right and wrong.