Deal with the Devil by Cruzader

Basically, the ALT Timeline we have been watching is the life that MIB can offer to our characters if they join him. I think at one point, every character will have to decide whether they choose MIB's deal or Jacob's deal.

Jacob's deal is for people to stay on the Island until they have overcome their own flaws. You see, Jacob and MIB both offer a better life, but MIB offers the easy way out. You can have a mediocre life with some happiness (i.e. Hurley being happy with the lottery), or you can choose Jacob's pathway to confronting your fears and shortcomings on the Island and bettering yourself in this life.

I think this is a classic choice between the "devil's" easy way out and the religious concept of looking inside and making yourself a better person by confronting and overcoming your flaws.

Yes, Jacob deceives people by offering them incentive to play his "game" (i.e. healing Juliet's sister, saving Dogen's son), but if you think about it, in the end, it all works out for the better. He requires you to stay on the Island to finish out your "therapy", and meanwhile, he takes care of your loved ones until you return.

So I believe the characters are left with a choice:

1) Choose the Man in Black's offer of an "ideal" life, where all the things you lost have been returned and you will therefore be theoretically "happy"

2) Choose Jacob's offer of "therapy" on the Island, where you stay on the Island until you can finally overcome your flaws, in order for you to be a better person. You can't leave until it is over or you won't be ready (i.e. the O6 were miserable), but while you are on the Island, Jacob will protect your loved ones until you return.

In keeping with the theme (and false theories) of the Island being a Virtual Reality Psychiatric Hospital of some sort, I think with this prospect of the story, we can reconcile the "therapy" part of the storyline with the "supernatural" part of it. Its a good vs. devil story intertwined into the concept of supernatural therapy vs. the easy way out.

MIB offers to give you back what you have lost, but Jacob offers to guide you to find it yourself. LOS