[Evilmav2]

I think the purgatory thing is just a red herring that the writers have thrown out into the early episodes. Incidents like the black woman telling Jack that her husband is the one who is alive, as well as the repeated statements by different characters expressing the question 'how could we have survived', all kind of point in this direction, but it just doesn't make complete sense to me.

Why would so many folks die violent, and often pointless deaths in purgatory? Why would that random passenger get pointlessly sucked into the airplane engine in episode 1? Why would the pilot get mangled and killed by the 'monster' in episode 1 if the island was purgatory? Why did the US marshall die of his terribly painful wounds in episode 3 (aside from the obvious Jack answer)? Were these all bad folks who died because they deserved to go to hell (something that might be argued in the marshall's case)? Or were they good folks who were freed by their violent, gruesome deaths to go to heaven? The violent deaths don't make a whole lot of sense to me if the island is supposed to be some kind of afterlife waystation, so in that sense I don't buy the purgatory arguments...