Does hell give life meaning and purpose? [Archive]

jan

17th July 2005, 04:09 AM

Originally posted by Atlas
In addition, Life is sweet if you know your enemies are going to suffer in anguish forever.

Originally posted by Tertullian [De Spectaculis]

But what a spectacle is that fast-approaching advent of our Lord, now owned by all, now highly exalted, now a triumphant One! What that exultation of the angelic hosts! What the glory of the rising saints! What the kingdom of the just thereafter! What the city New Jerusalem! Yes, and there are other sights: that last day of judgment, with its everlasting issues; that day unlooked for by the nations, the theme of their derision, when the world hoary with age, and all its many products, shall be consumed in one great flame! How vast a spectacle then bursts upon the eye! What there excites my admiration? what my derision? Which sight gives me joy? which rouses me to exultation?--as I see so many illustrious monarchs, whose reception into the heavens was publicly announced, groaning now in the lowest darkness with great Jove himself, and those, too, who bore witness of their exultation; governors of provinces, too, who persecuted the Christian name, in fires more fierce than those with which in the days of their pride they raged against the followers of Christ. What world's wise men besides, the very philosophers, in fact, who taught their followers that God had no concern in ought that is sublunary, and were wont to assure them that either they had no souls, or that they would never return to the bodies which at death they had left, now covered with shame before the poor deluded ones, as one fire consumes them! Poets also, trembling not before the judgment-seat of Rhadamanthus or Minos, but of the unexpected Christ! I shall have a better opportunity then of hearing the tragedians, louder-voiced in their own calamity; of viewing the play-actors, much more "dissolute" in the dissolving flame; of looking upon the charioteer, all glowing in his chariot of fire; of beholding the wrestlers, not in their gymnasia, but tossing in the fiery billows; unless even then I shall not care to attend to such ministers of sin, in my eager wish rather to fix a gaze insatiable on those whose fury vented itself against the Lord. "This," I shall say, "this is that carpenter's or hireling's son, that Sabbath-breaker, that Samaritan and devil-possessed! This is He whom you purchased from Judas! This is He whom you struck with reed and fist, whom you contemptuously spat upon, to whom you gave gall and vinegar to drink! This is He whom His disciples secretly stole away, that it might be said He had risen again, or the gardener abstracted, that his lettuces might come to no harm from the crowds of visitants!" What quaestor or priest in his munificence will bestow on you the favour of seeing and exulting in such things as these? And yet even now we in a measure have them by faith in the picturings of imagination. But what are the things which eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and which have not so much as dimly dawned upon the human heart? Whatever they are, they are nobler, I believe, than circus, and both theatres,and every race-course.

jan

17th July 2005, 04:21 AM

Some may long for 72 virgin Hūris; but others long for the sight of philosophers and actors being burnt in hell. Indeed, how can your life be meaningful without the prospect of seeing your opponents burning in hell? Claiming that you feel sorry for those 99.99% of mankind that will end up in hell is just modern weaselism.

Mojo

17th July 2005, 05:21 AM

Originally posted by jan
Some may long for 72 virgin HūrisAnd I guess they're going to be kind of disappointed if it turns out, as has been suggested, that what's on offer is actually a plate of dried grapes (http://www.guardian.co.uk/saturday_review/story/0,3605,631332,00.html)...

Edited to add link.

triadboy

17th July 2005, 06:58 AM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Life would lack meaning if we could not choose to reject God, which is how I define Hell and how many other people define Hell as well.

I assume you are just talking about xians here?

"Hell" is the fear factor required to enslave a people's 'spirit'. If a religion offers 'bliss' upon death to faithful adherents - the need for 'anguish' upon death by the faithless is obvious.

triadboy

17th July 2005, 07:10 AM

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 07:10 AM

Originally posted by FreeChile
Now the basic problem is that God is unatainable. Hence wanting God is a sickness, a neurosis. Not even Freud can help you there. The very definition of pleasure requires that there be pain--don't mean to get dual on you. So how could you have God (ultimate pleasure) without pain?

I don't think that God is unatainable, for I believe in the sacramental presence of God in the Eucharist.

You're free to have any opinion about my mental state, whatever makes you feel good. You can die thinking about how neurotic all of the people surrounding you were. And then it won't matter to you anymore. You can make much ado about nothing if you want. Thankfully, your opinion about my personal mental state is useless, besides the effect that judgment has on your own personal mental state.

Let's just call people who think different than us neurotic. That's brilliant. That'll show 'em.

Some people find things pleasurable that other find painful.

I don't define God as ultimate pleasure, and I'm surprised that is your definition of God. No wonder you don't believe in God. Because that is your working definition it's tough to see any point in what you've said.

-Elliot

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 07:12 AM

Originally posted by clarsct
I've been trying to decipher elliotfc's post here.

Are you saying that of you do not worship God, then, by default, you worship Satan?

Or am I misunderstanding?

You are misunderstanding, and frankly, I have no idea how you came to that conclusion based on what I said.

I think you could surmise that if you do not worship God, then, by default, you worship yourself. And I didn't say that either. And I think that's a pretty harsh thing to say actually which is only true for some people.

-Elliot

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 07:17 AM

Originally posted by jan
Some may long for 72 virgin Hūris; but others long for the sight of philosophers and actors being burnt in hell. Indeed, how can your life be meaningful without the prospect of seeing your opponents burning in hell? Claiming that you feel sorry for those 99.99% of mankind that will end up in hell is just modern weaselism.

But mine is. I have no desire to see anyone burn in Hell. If some people are burning in hell, or do burn in hell, it's because they rejected God of their own free will. I think the burning in hell bit would be their own manifestation of their eternal reality, and that manifestation is variable.

I don't think that 99.99% of people will burn in hell.

I think peoples' lives can be meaningful for a litany of different reasons, and wondering about that is kind of silly. How can a person's life be meaningful given A, B, and C? It just seems like a silly question to ask, or a silly point to make. People find meaning in the most outrageous things, the most mundane things, the most random things, etc.

See, meaning is a personal choice. Right? It's not some objective thing that can be stated scientifically.

It's bizarre that atheists/agnostics are hung up on meaning, but whatever.

-Elliot

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 07:19 AM

Originally posted by triadboy
"Hell" is the fear factor required to enslave a people's 'spirit'. If a religion offers 'bliss' upon death to faithful adherents - the need for 'anguish' upon death by the faithless is obvious.

I disagree with your notion of Hell.

I have no need for anguish on others, yet I have faith.

Not sure what else I can say...besides that you have an apparent "need" to fixate on other's needs.

-Elliot

triadboy

17th July 2005, 07:27 AM

Originally posted by elliotfc
I have no need for anguish on others, yet I have faith.

Of course YOU don't - however your religion needs a 'hell' for the anguish of others.

jjramsey

17th July 2005, 07:30 AM

Originally posted by jan
Some may long for 72 virgin Hūris; but others long for the sight of philosophers and actors being burnt in hell.

Not just the philosophers and actors, though, but also the governors who persecuted Christians. I know I have heard Christians say informally that they hope that there is a special place in Hell for pedophiles. Not too surprisingly, these Christians are parents. Elie Wiesel gave a prayer (http://www.wujs.org.il/activist/programmes/tekasim/shoah/elie_wiesel.shtml) at Auschwitz asking God to have no mercy on those responsible for killing Jewish children in the Holocaust. Right or wrong, wanting to see one's tormentors and others who get away with wrongdoing get their comeuppance is understandable.

Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

17th July 2005, 07:51 AM

Elliotfc said:
The possibility of Hell is the necessary result of free will, I think. Free will doesn't have any meaning or purpose if their is an inability to choose Hell (the rejection of God).
Could you define free will for us? We've been around this free will thing many times, but have yet to see a definition. The term appears to be important as far as heaven and hell are concerned.

~~ Paul

advancedatheist

17th July 2005, 07:52 AM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Life would lack meaning if we could not choose to reject God, which is how I define Hell and how many other people define Hell as well.

So, can the christians who make to heaven choose to "reject God"? Or do they lack this ability and therefore lack M&P?

advancedatheist

17th July 2005, 08:04 AM

Originally posted by jan

Quoting Tertullian:

What world's wise men besides, the very philosophers, in fact, who taught their followers that God had no concern in ought that is sublunary, and were wont to assure them that either they had no souls, or that they would never return to the bodies which at death they had left, now covered with shame before the poor deluded ones, as one fire consumes them!

These philosophers sound like Epicureans, though Tertullian doesn't name them. No doubt he'd find it bitterly ironic that after many centuries the Epicureans' better ideas would prevail.

Igopogo

17th July 2005, 10:31 AM

Heaven and hell are concepts that exist in human centric religions. They ignore the reality around them, (God - if you want to define it that way), and arrogantly invent a means to correct the mistakes they feel that God made in doling out our lots in life.

Putting your faith in what is written about God in holy texts means putting your faith entirely in man. Clearly you have to believe the exact will of God is translated perfectly through the writing, translating, editting, publishing and survival of these texts, all completely in the domain of man. To trump the study of reality with wishful thinking of holy texts is to give yourself over to a human worshipping cult.

The irony is that science in it's purest form is the study of the works of God (when defined as the universe as we find it = God), that tries to remove the mistakes of man's limitations. Text based religious groups are the ones who have turned their backs on God and have put all their faith entirely in mankind.

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 10:57 AM

Originally posted by triadboy
Of course YOU don't - however your religion needs a 'hell' for the anguish of others.

I don't think religions have needs! They aren't people. People have needs.

I do think that there needs to be a place for anguish! And that place wouldn't be heaven. People have free will, and they can choose anguish if they want to. Why take that choice away?

-Elliot

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 11:00 AM

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Could you define free will for us? We've been around this free will thing many times, but have yet to see a definition. The term appears to be important as far as heaven and hell are concerned.

~~ Paul

I can dig pretty much what this link says:
http://www.christiantreasury.org/HumanWill/HumanWill_Anselm_Definition.htm

But simply put, free will is the ability for a human being to make choices. Adding theology/sin/god to the mix, that choice can be directed toward God, or away from God. Or neither. Like, whether to have the red M&M or the blue one.

-Elliot

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 11:05 AM

Originally posted by advancedatheist
So, can the christians who make to heaven choose to "reject God"? Or do they lack this ability and therefore lack M&P?

I think that anyone at any time can choose to reject God, be you human or angel.

As for heaven...I think it's a state of being. Christianity, or at least Catholcism, actually doesn't have a whole lot of specifics about it. Christians believe in the resurrection of the body, Christians believe that we were created to be heaven, and heaven for us could actually be a life (in harmony with God i.e. Adam & Eve) on a recreated Earth.

In my opinion, and I'm a believing Christian, this heaven/hell thing is not as straightforward as it's being talked about. It isn't you go to the good place, or you go to the bad place. I can hardly defend that way of thinking when it's not my way of thinking.

I do join in with everyone who finds fault with people who say that 99% of all souls burn in hell. Things like that.

There isn't a SINGULAR way of thinking about heaven/hell in Christianity. Oh, certainly some Christians will say there is, and I'd guess they'd consider self-proclaimed Christians who have alternative views to not actually be Christians. Whatever. It's an open question, but I insist that free will is always inviolable. As for the details about heaven/hell, I hardly have a need to obsess over them, I'm still trying to get this life sorted. It's interesting stuff to think about, and I use my own ideas about the nature of God to help we get through it.

-Elliot

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 11:14 AM

Originally posted by Igopogo
Heaven and hell are concepts that exist in human centric religions. They ignore the reality around them, (God - if you want to define it that way), and arrogantly invent a means to correct the mistakes they feel that God made in doling out our lots in life.

I'm not sure how it ignores the reality around them. I think we all are cognizant about what generally happens on Earth, regardless of our views on heaven/hell.

I think that all organized groups of people are...human centric. That's kind of the point.

No, Christians do not believe that heaven/hell are the means for God to correct God's mistakes. Since you believe that, of course you're not a Christian. If I believed that, I wouldn't be a Christian either. When this is cleared up to you (as I believe it eventually will be), I think you'll be allowed to see it for what it really is, and then you can make a more informed choice about the matter at that time.

Putting your faith in what is written about God in holy texts means putting your faith entirely in man.

That's like saying that putting your faith in what is written about science in a science book is putting your faith entirely in man. It's not that simple. Of course we're all in this together. God understood that, and God too became a man. So yes, that's part of it.

Clearly you have to believe the exact will of God is translated perfectly through the writing, translating, editting, publishing and survival of these texts, all completely in the domain of man.

No you don't. I don't, and I'm a believer. Can you explain that? That goes against your dogmatic precept.

To trump the study of reality with wishful thinking of holy texts is to give yourself over to a human worshipping cult.

But that's because you don't believe God exists, so of course Christians can't worship God. We say we do worship God, we say it directly and clearly, and if God exists, I'll stick with his opinion on the matter. If he doesn't exist, it doesn't matter.

The irony is that science in it's purest form is the study of the works of God (when defined as the universe as we find it = God), that tries to remove the mistakes of man's limitations. Text based religious groups are the ones who have turned their backs on God and have put all their faith entirely in mankind.

We have faith that God uses man to transmit faith from generation to generation. God can choose to act in whatever way he wants. Jesus didn't write the Bible, after all. He left that to others. We're all in this together, that's what Christians believe.

-Elliot

jjramsey

17th July 2005, 11:18 AM

RandFan

17th July 2005, 11:28 AM

Originally posted by Atlas
In addition, Life is sweet if you know your enemies are going to suffer in anguish forever. Absolutely. There is something comforting in the fact that there is an ultimate judgment and that lying, obfuscation and the ability to afford Johnny Cochran cannot circumvent. Hitler, OJ, Robert Blake and the guy who stole my mag wheels from my Camaro are all going to burn in hell. Especially the guy who stole my mag wheels. Prick.

jan

17th July 2005, 11:56 AM

Originally posted by Mojo
And I guess they're going to be kind of disappointed if it turns out, as has been suggested, that what's on offer is actually a plate of dried grapes (http://www.guardian.co.uk/saturday_review/story/0,3605,631332,00.html)...

I think you are confusing Islam and Protestantism here. See, a Muslim doesn't have to rely on the Holy Book as the only source of wisdom: there is the tradition, there are holy men. Tradition obviously tells us that Haura = Virgin Babe. Otherwise, all those suicide bombers would be wrong, wouldn't they? I am aware that some historians and philologists claim that this word means grape, but their ηoppinionη is completely irrelevant hereη, since they are not part of said traditionη.

Originally posted by elliotfc
But mine is. I have no desire to see anyone burn in Hell. If some people are burning in hell, or do burn in hell, it's because they rejected God of their own free will. I think the burning in hell bit would be their own manifestation of their eternal reality, and that manifestation is variable.

I don't think that 99.99% of people will burn in hell.

I think peoples' lives can be meaningful for a litany of different reasons, and wondering about that is kind of silly. How can a person's life be meaningful given A, B, and C? It just seems like a silly question to ask, or a silly point to make. People find meaning in the most outrageous things, the most mundane things, the most random things, etc.

See, meaning is a personal choice. Right? It's not some objective thing that can be stated scientifically.

Regardless whether you think the metaphysical claims of Christianity to be true or not, either ways it may be an interesting question what the psychological motivation of believers is. You may argue that Christians belief christian beliefs because they are true, so the question of motivation may be ignored. Nevertheless, it seems obvious that the prospect to see his enemies burn in hell is part of Tertullian's motivation. He, at least, enjoys to imagine his proponents in hell, and freely admits it.

If you say that you don't want to see anybody in hell, all I can say is that I am glad to hear that. Perhaps the difference between you and Tertullian is that your theology is more advanced than his, that his is a bit outdated. But I suspect it is more a question of temper, and you are probably just a nicer guy than Tertullian.

I know Christians who belief that hell doesn't exist, or that it is at least only a temporal state, and that everybody will be saved, given enough time. That a hell lot more sympathetic than what Tertullian writes (although I doubt that it goes very well with the bible). It should have been obvious that I didn't really claimed that you need hell for life to be meaningful, since I believe in neither heaven nor hell. But if meaning really is, as you claim, a personal choice, at least some have chosen to use the prospect of their enemies burning in hell as something to add meaning to their lifes.

It's bizarre that atheists/agnostics are hung up on meaning, but whatever.

Maybe you just confused this. Some atheists/agnostics are simply annoyed by some Christians (not necessarily all) who claim that you need to believe in an afterlife, otherwise life would be meaningless. I guess advancedatheist was just attacking such a notion with the opening post.

Originally posted by jjramsey
Right or wrong, wanting to see one's tormentors and others who get away with wrongdoing get their comeuppance is understandable.

I agree that it is understandable. But I nevertheless think better of people who resist that temptation.

Originally posted by advancedatheist
These philosophers sound like Epicureans, though Tertullian doesn't name them. No doubt he'd find it bitterly ironic that after many centuries the Epicureans' better ideas would prevail.

Perhaps he would be more surprised to learn that so many people call themselves "Christians", without taking it too seriously.

Edited to add: those things indicated with η, for clarification.

advancedatheist

17th July 2005, 12:14 PM

Originally posted by RandFan
the guy who stole my mag wheels from my Camaro are all going to burn in hell. Especially the guy who stole my mag wheels. Prick.

If the material world ultimately doesn't have any value, why do theists put so much emphasis on punishing property crimes?

jjramsey

17th July 2005, 12:30 PM

Originally posted by advancedatheist
If the material world ultimately doesn't have any value, why do theists put so much emphasis on punishing property crimes?

Two problems:

Theists do not necessarily believe that the material world ultimately doesn't have any value.

Theists do not necessarily put so much emphasis on punishing property crimes. Right now, the hot-button issues are abortion and homosexuality, which don't have much if anything to do with property. If anything, theists tend to focus on issues relating to sex rather than property.

JR "BOB" Dobbs

17th July 2005, 12:34 PM

I've often found this argument a stick in hardcore theists eyes - a moral atheist is theoretically a better person than a moral theist, because the moral theist is acting this way because they are under threat of divine punishment while the moral atheist is inherently moral (as in behaving morally without the presence of consequences). The answer I usually get is "you satan-loving heathen!", but you get the point. Part of the definition of being a Christian is that they are flawed because of the mistake of Adam and Eve (and only through Christ may you atone for these sins blah blah). When an atheist is moral, it defies the Christian paradigm of humans being flawed.

In direct answer to your question, I certainly don't think so, being an atheist myself. It's hard to say what a Christian answer might be, as their answers are as varied as their sects though. I don't think all of them are that hardcore though.

jan

17th July 2005, 12:45 PM

advancedatheist

17th July 2005, 01:33 PM

Originally posted by jjramsey
Two problems:

Theists do not necessarily believe that the material world ultimately doesn't have any value.

A nontrivial number of them have jumped on the "end times" bandwagon with their foolish delusion about getting "raptured" before Armageddon. It sounds to me as if they've deeply discounted the future value of the material world.

Theists do not necessarily put so much emphasis on punishing property crimes. Right now, the hot-button issues are abortion and homosexuality, which don't have much if anything to do with property. If anything, theists tend to focus on issues relating to sex rather than property.

But how can the things people do with their material organs get their "spirits" in trouble?

advancedatheist

17th July 2005, 01:36 PM

Originally posted by jan
You should act like you should act, according to them, because you fell in love with God.

It sounds as if "ethical" behavior telegraphs reproductive fitness signals to your deity.

Igopogo

17th July 2005, 01:39 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
No, Christians do not believe that heaven/hell are the means for God to correct God's mistakes.

(snip)

That's like saying that putting your faith in what is written about science in a science book is putting your faith entirely in man. It's not that simple.
-Elliot

I didnâ€™t say that â€œChristians believeâ€ that heaven/hell are the means for God to correct God's mistakes, just that thatâ€™s the way it really is as I see it.

How do we know about the concepts of heaven & hell, and the criteria for who goes where? Not through physical evidence (unless you can show us some), but through concepts written in religious texts. Believing what is written about these concepts requires faith that the texts are correct. And believing that these texts are correct requires faith in the infallibility (a god-like quality) of the chain of people who bring you these texts.

If these concepts written fly in the face of empirical evidence and are easily explained by the desires and politics within human nature, then what can they reveal about the nature of reality? From my point of view â€“ nothing, except what I already perceive - that we humans have a human-centric view of reality.

Your answer to my remark about faith in the bible is putting faith in man with â€œThat's like saying that putting your faith in what is written about science in a science book is putting your faith entirely in man.â€ - If you are trusting what is written in the face of what can be tested true or false, then yes, itâ€™s the same thing. This would be religion, not science.

What science really is, is a process by which we attempt to correct past ideas with more accurate explanations of reality. No one has a monopoly on the truth, there are no sacred cows. Ideas stand or fall on their own merits.
So this is why I conclude:

Believing in religious texts = Human worship
Science = An attempt to understand the true nature of God (reality)

So, who's the atheist?

RandFan

17th July 2005, 01:55 PM

Originally posted by advancedatheist
If the material world ultimately doesn't have any value, why do theists put so much emphasis on punishing property crimes? Good question. I'm afraid there is no simple answer and I don't think it is necessarily true that they do put so much emphasis on punishing property crimes.

And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

--Christ It's been a long time since I have heard a discourse on the subject of the Sermon on the Mount but I think the idea is that just because Christians are forgiving is not a reason that justice should not be served. The sermon ostensibly places civil law outside of the individual and places it in the hands of the society. So while the material object is not paramount justice is. Furthermore, after all is said and done one must be willing to forgive and forget and not allow material objects to create enmity. My wheels not withstanding I happen to agree with this principle (the story about the wheels was tongue in cheek btw).

ETA, in case I didn't make it clear I'm not a theist.

Igopogo

17th July 2005, 02:06 PM

Originally posted by jjramsey
This is half-wrong and a bit incoherent. Heaven and Hell are certainly doctrines that deal with the fact that those who do wrong often don't get their comeuppance in their lifetimes. Where you go wrong here is in assuming that those who believe in Heaven and Hell see the prosperity of cheaters as the result of "mistakes they feel that God made in doling out our lots in life." The incoherency is the idea that the concepts of Heaven and Hell imply ignorance of the reality that good things happen to bad people and vice versa, when this is the very reality that the doctrines of Heaven and Hell address.

Huh? Not too sure what youâ€™re saying here, but your last sentence makes it sounds like weâ€™re in agreement.

Correct me if Iâ€™m wrong, but is your point - that people believe in heaven and hell because when good things happen to bad people and vice versa, itâ€™s only half the story. We find out the actual reality of the â€œbig pictureâ€ in the afterlife. If so, this is my point too.

That is - believing in heaven/hell is wishful thinking improving what we donâ€™t like about our direct experiences of reality.

jan

17th July 2005, 02:28 PM

Originally posted by advancedatheist
It sounds as if "ethical" behavior telegraphs reproductive fitness signals to your deity.

If I were you, I wouldn't believe everything jan says at face value, but read Attar or Eckhart instead. Maybe it's just my sloppy abstract that sounds that way.

Atlas

17th July 2005, 02:43 PM

Originally posted by advancedatheist
If the material world ultimately doesn't have any value, why do theists put so much emphasis on punishing property crimes? I once asked a born-again buddy to explain why more Christians don't forsake all they own and follow Jesus. I wish I could remember his response. We went round and round. What I do remember was the notion that all things are from God. God gave Adam and Eve territory and they blew their claim. God gave the Jews the land of milk and honey.

The Early Jews equated personal wealth with God's blessing - if you amassed it (children, cows, land, money) you were living right with God. Likewise when He smited one with disease, crop failure, a child's death it was common to turn skyward and scream, "Why? Why? Why? What did I do to deserve this?"

Anyway, since land, kids and property meant God was blessing you and your neighbors could guage how much God smiled on you just by judging how poor you were it was more probably important enough to fight over. Plus a few possessions in the desert might mean the difference between life and death.

When Christians purchased the Jewish faith they jettisoned a few ideas but territoriality and property rights were biblically desirable ideas. (Sanctions against pork were less desirable and so were seen as only for Jews. Christians are still working out how much to hate gays.)

This all comes from a conversation 30 years ago so I don't really have much to back up any claims. I just thought it was interesting so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Mojo

17th July 2005, 02:58 PM

Originally posted by jan
I think you are confusing Islam and Protestantism here. See, a Muslim doesn't have to rely on the Holy Book as the only source of wisdom: there is the tradition, there are holy men. Tradition obviously tells us that Haura = Virgin Babe. Otherwise, all those suicide bombers would be wrong, wouldn't they?Yes, fair enough. But do you have any evidence that these delusional inadequates aren't wrong?

jan

17th July 2005, 03:08 PM

Originally posted by Mojo
Yes, fair enough. But do you have any evidence that these delusional inadequates aren't wrong?

Why not make a bet? If those 72 whatever are really grapes, you can have my 72 grapes. If they are virgins, I get your 72 virgins too.

Mojo

17th July 2005, 03:10 PM

And, frankly, if the only way they can get their message across is by killing innocent bystanders they are clearly inadequates;

if they think that doing this will provide them with 72 brides, they are clearly delusional;

and if they think that having 72 wives is desirable, they clearly have no experience of proper grown-up relationships.

Mojo

17th July 2005, 03:11 PM

Originally posted by jan
Why not make a bet? If those 72 whatever are really grapes, you can have my 72 grapes. If they are virgins, I get your 72 virgins too. Actually, I don't believe they will even get a grape.

Atlas

17th July 2005, 03:43 PM

Do Muslims ever try to figure the math involved? If good muslims get 70 brides and martyrs get 72 virgins - isn't there some sharing going on? And why would women want to stay virginal? Doesn't heaven sound a bit hellish to be owned by some mad bomber with an eternal erection ordering you about forever?

Robin

17th July 2005, 04:00 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
If some people are burning in hell, or do burn in hell, it's because they rejected God of their own free will.
Even with today's politically correct Hell, most Christians agree that Hell will be a really bad thing - even if there are no literal flames.

So suppose I say to someone, "do as I say or I will punch you in the nose", and they don't do as I say and I punch them in the nose.

Is it his fault that he got punched in the nose because he freely chose to not to do as I said?

jjramsey

17th July 2005, 04:24 PM

Originally posted by advancedatheist
A nontrivial number of [theists] have jumped on the "end times" bandwagon with their foolish delusion about getting "raptured" before Armageddon. It sounds to me as if they've deeply discounted the future value of the material world.

And a nontrivial number of theists think that the guys all wrapped up in the rapture stuff are heretics. Discounting the material world is simply not a core attitude among theists.

Originally posted by jjramsey
Theists do not necessarily put so much emphasis on punishing property crimes. Right now, the hot-button issues are abortion and homosexuality, which don't have much if anything to do with property. If anything, theists tend to focus on issues relating to sex rather than property.

Originally posted by advancedatheist
But how can the things people do with their material organs get their "spirits" in trouble?

There are at least half a dozen answers to that question, ranging from "they don't" (which is what some Gnostics apparently thought) to denial that the spirit is a ghost trapped in a flesh machine, that the mind and body are intimately connected and that you can't affect one without the other being affected as well.

Anyway, my point was that your assertion was that you were wrong in supposing that property crimes were a focus, and that the focus, right or wrong, was really on sexual issues.

clarsct

17th July 2005, 04:36 PM

So...what I'm getting here from the theists is that Hell really doesn't give their life any more Meaning or Purpose.

Or once again, am I in the dark?

Atlas

17th July 2005, 04:36 PM

Originally posted by Robin
...So suppose I say to someone, "do as I say or I will punch you in the nose", and they don't do as I say and I punch them in the nose.

Is it his fault that he got punched in the nose because he freely chose to not to do as I said? It's not about fault. He committed a sin that distanced himself from you by not groveling to your whim. Plus, I think this is an unwinnable dilemma. You were gonna smite him anyway, weren't you?

Robin

17th July 2005, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by Atlas
It's not about fault. He committed a sin that distanced himself from you by not groveling to your whim. Plus, I think this is an unwinnable dilemma. You were gonna smite him anyway, weren't you?
Not at all! I was going to give him an unspecified reward after he died.

Naturally he would have had to accept this on faith, but his decision not to believe me was just as much an act of faith because he had no way of proving I couldn't reward him after he died.

Atlas

17th July 2005, 04:55 PM

Originally posted by Robin
Not at all! I was going to give him an unspecified reward after he died.

Naturally he would have had to accept this on faith, but his decision not to believe me was just as much an act of faith because he had no way of proving I couldn't reward him after he died. It sounds like you are all good and deserving of all his love. Now I want to punch him too.

triadboy

17th July 2005, 05:03 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
I don't think religions have needs! They aren't people. People have needs.

What would xianity be without hell? Doesn't the concept need hell to be viable?

I do think that there needs to be a place for anguish!

That's a lovely xian sentiment.

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 08:45 PM

Originally posted by jan
Regardless whether you think the metaphysical claims of Christianity to be true or not, either ways it may be an interesting question what the psychological motivation of believers is.

I agree; I'm sensitive about it because the conclusions that are drawn regarding the psychological make-up of the "other" on this forum tend to be predictably negative and belittling and rarely neutral. After a while it reads like a mantra, a statement of belief regarding the "other" that has to be true; or, it reads like a way of self-validation. If it was sporadic I wouldn't feel that way, it's just so pervasive here.

You may argue that Christians belief christian beliefs because they are true, so the question of motivation may be ignored.

Or, more correctly (or more universally acceptable) because they think they are true. The question of motivation would then be the desire to be in line with what one thinks is true, which is a rather sensible thing to do.

Nevertheless, it seems obvious that the prospect to see his enemies burn in hell is part of Tertullian's motivation. He, at least, enjoys to imagine his proponents in hell, and freely admits it.

Tertullian was something else. Crazy times back then, lots of theologians screaming at each other. It was a very young church back then, think of an little kid in a really bad mood:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14520c.htm

But if meaning really is, as you claim, a personal choice, at least some have chosen to use the prospect of their enemies burning in hell as something to add meaning to their lifes.

I think that's one of the indisputable points about meaning, isn't it? Something can be meaningful to person A and not meaningful to person B. It's totally variable.

I was thinking of that, seperate from objective meaning, which may or may not exist, depending on your belief. I wasn't thinking about that kind of meaning since there isn't agreement about it's existence.

Having said that, you are correct. I have no idea on the percentage of Christians who find validation in hell...less than a third, more than 10%? I don't really know.

Is it akin to people who see a child molestor on TV and wish that the molestor gets the death penalty or a painful death in a jail? It's a passionate feeling driven by an extreme need that absolute justice be meted our severely on the transgressor. It's also sort of unchristian in my opinion. It's natural and understandable, and we've probably all had that sort of feeling at least once or twice (be it supernatural or temporal justice).

-Elliot

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 08:53 PM

Originally posted by JR "BOB" Dobbs
I've often found this argument a stick in hardcore theists eyes - a moral atheist is theoretically a better person than a moral theist, because the moral theist is acting this way because they are under threat of divine punishment while the moral atheist is inherently moral (as in behaving morally without the presence of consequences).

You may or may not be correct...but, from the perspective of the hardcore theist (I may or may not be one), it is silly to argue over who is a better person. We are primarily sinners. If someone is a better person, that's nice and all, but you don't stop and pat yourself on the back for that. You strive for perfection and don't worry about who is a better person.

Actually the BEST people spend their time focusing on how good other people are. You know? I knew a guy in Ann Arbor who always had wonderful things to say about people, that was the kind of guy he was. I really don't think he contemplated about if he was better than anyone else. It was irrelevant to him. The best people are charitable towards others; they see the beauty in their fellow man. The guy I'm thinking of...I'm certain he would compliment a moral atheist and congratulate him for the litany of things that he/she deserved congratulations for.

I'm not sure what percentage of hardcore theists are motivated by hell avoidance. I'm not even sure how you define hardcore theists. For all I know, part of the definition is that they DO practive hell avoidance.

When an atheist is moral, it defies the Christian paradigm of humans being flawed.

I don't think so. If that was the case, that would mean that no good was possible before Christ entered the scene, and that's ridiculous. Or, atheists actually need Christ to do good, they just don't know it. I don't even believe what I just wrote (or maybe just sort of and I wouldn't phrase it that way...) but I'm just pointing a couple things out that could be said in opposition to your claim.

What is a hardcore theist? Is it possible for a hardcore theist to not believe in heaven or hell?

-Elliot

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 08:56 PM

Originally posted by advancedatheist
But how can the things people do with their material organs get their "spirits" in trouble?

Because our spirit and our body are entwined, and everything we do to our body affects our spiritual makeup. Kind of like the F Scott Fitzgerald story where the guy is on a deserted island because he saw people not as they materially looked, but as they spiritually looked, and everybody of course looked ugly.

-Elliot

elliotfc

17th July 2005, 09:01 PM

Originally posted by Igopogo
How do we know about the concepts of heaven & hell, and the criteria for who goes where? Not through physical evidence (unless you can show us some), but through concepts written in religious texts. Believing what is written about these concepts requires faith that the texts are correct. And believing that these texts are correct requires faith in the infallibility (a god-like quality) of the chain of people who bring you these texts.

No, the texts could merely be partially correct, or, could be steps in the right direction, if you believe that theology evolves over time, like I do.

We are guided by prayer, discernment, our belief in the nature of God, a whole bunch of stuff. Our opinions about heaven/hell are not the same as the objectively true details about heaven/hell, which we do not possess.

Christians (not myself) will express more certainty about heaven/hell than I admit, so you may not be talking to me, and I'm certainly not trying to defend them.

If these concepts written fly in the face of empirical evidence and are easily explained by the desires and politics within human nature, then what can they reveal about the nature of reality? From my point of view â€“ nothing, except what I already perceive - that we humans have a human-centric view of reality.

Yes, I believe that we humans do have a human-centric view of reality. God believed that too, which is one explanation of the Incarnation.

Your answer to my remark about faith in the bible is putting faith in man with â€œThat's like saying that putting your faith in what is written about science in a science book is putting your faith entirely in man.â€ - If you are trusting what is written in the face of what can be tested true or false, then yes, itâ€™s the same thing. This would be religion, not science.

Many beliefs that scientists have, have never been tested, nor can they be tested, so I'm not digging your absolute dichotomy.

What science really is, is a process by which we attempt to correct past ideas with more accurate explanations of reality. No one has a monopoly on the truth, there are no sacred cows. Ideas stand or fall on their own merits.
So this is why I conclude:

Believing in religious texts = Human worship
Science = An attempt to understand the true nature of God (reality)

So, who's the atheist?

Well that depends on whether or not you believe in God, right?

You may be more profound than I and I'm just missing the depth of what you're saying. If so, that's certainly my fault and not yours.

-Elliot

Thomas

18th July 2005, 01:35 AM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Many beliefs that scientists have, have never been tested, nor can they be tested, so I'm not digging your absolute dichotomy.
You're right. We might as well believe in this:

http://www.stevequayle.com/News.alert/Lighter_Side/Lighter_pics/Noahs.ark.jpg

Don't worry, we all know he got the woodpecker in the end. Dubi-dubi-dubi-dubi-DUB... MAB! MAB!

http://www.wels.net/wmc/Downloads/clipart2/Sabc095.gif

Notice the hip-hop styled arm posture by DJ Adam. I think'y him say: "Yo-Ho-Bitch, I hope ya'r top better at da nasty thing than them uncool animals!".

http://www.meridianmagazine.com/images/030805/03a.jpg

I think the burning bush was made of hemp. That would explain a lot. "Far out maaaaan! It talked!".

http://associate.com/photos/Christian/slides/jesus-resurrection.jpg

Here's Queen Jesus the Fag at the local stripclub. As illustrated; not all the troopers thought him equally hot, but there do is something about that divine nipple. Isn't there?

Someone translated the Greek word "erection" into "resurrection" - as the difference might be subtle in the spelling. And there you have it, Elliot.

jan

18th July 2005, 08:39 AM

Originally posted by Atlas
Do Muslims ever try to figure the math involved? If good muslims get 70 brides and martyrs get 72 virgins - isn't there some sharing going on? And why would women want to stay virginal? Doesn't heaven sound a bit hellish to be owned by some mad bomber with an eternal erection ordering you about forever?

I am not an expert in this kind of question and just mentioned it for the giggle value (and it borders on an attempt to derail the thread), but as far as I understood it, those Hūris are supposed to be completely independently created beings, not former human women. So there is no sharing needed. Also, the don't stay virginal (not together with a man with an everlasting erection), but they are supposed to become virginal again every new morning. Whatever that may mean.

Originally posted by elliotfc
I agree; I'm sensitive about it because the conclusions that are drawn regarding the psychological make-up of the "other" on this forum tend to be predictably negative and belittling and rarely neutral. After a while it reads like a mantra, a statement of belief regarding the "other" that has to be true; or, it reads like a way of self-validation. If it was sporadic I wouldn't feel that way, it's just so pervasive here.

[...]

Or, more correctly (or more universally acceptable) because they think they are true. The question of motivation would then be the desire to be in line with what one thinks is true, which is a rather sensible thing to do.

Point taken. Maybe the real reason for this thread was Interesting Ian's implicit assumption in another recent thread that you need an afterlife to have a meaningful life.

Tertullian was something else. Crazy times back then, lots of theologians screaming at each other. It was a very young church back then, think of an little kid in a really bad mood:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14520c.htm

But Tertullian wasn't a kid when he became a Christian. See, I don't want to hold you or any Christian responsible for some weird theologian who lived long time ago and who even might be considered as a heretic. But your excuses don't sound that convincing.

I have no idea on the percentage of Christians who find validation in hell...less than a third, more than 10%? I don't really know.

Is it akin to people who see a child molestor on TV and wish that the molestor gets the death penalty or a painful death in a jail? It's a passionate feeling driven by an extreme need that absolute justice be meted our severely on the transgressor. It's also sort of unchristian in my opinion. It's natural and understandable, and we've probably all had that sort of feeling at least once or twice (be it supernatural or temporal justice).

I don't know whether such an urge is "natural". Perhaps education and cultural environment might have a saying too?

So, maybe there is a hell, and per chance it fulfills an emotional need of many people.

Or, perhaps, there is a hell, and it fulfills an emotional need of many people per design, since God created both hell and our hearts.

Or there is no hell, but some people would want it to exist.

Nevertheless, I would prefer if there would be no hell — not because I am in terror I might end there; I am thinking more along the lines of what I would do, would I be omnipotent.

Does God need a hell? Does hell give God's life meaning and purpose?

FreeChile

18th July 2005, 08:50 AM

Originally posted by elliotfc

I don't think that God is unatainable, for I believe in the sacramental presence of God in the Eucharist. How does one attain God through this process?You're free to have any opinion about my mental state, whatever makes you feel good. My post was not about calling people names. It was about describing a contradiction. Wanting God is a neurosis. Why? Because the individual who wants God or Heaven as those concepts have been defined, wants something that does not exist. For example, look at â€œGod is love.â€ How could you possibly want love without pain. You can die thinking about how neurotic all of the people surrounding you were. And then it won't matter to you anymore. You can make much ado about nothing if you want. Thankfully, your opinion about my personal mental state is useless, besides the effect that judgment has on your own personal mental state. It is interesting that you appeal to fear of death here in retorting to my comment. It is that fear of coming to an end that has created this notion of God and Heaven. That is the way I see it. You may not even admit this to yourself. So this fear has created God and Heaven and yet you expect God and Heaven to take away this fear. Do you see the contradiction there?Let's just call people who think different than us neurotic. That's brilliant. That'll show 'em.

Some people find things pleasurable that other find painful. I donâ€™t see how this is related to the contradiction I brought up. If anything, it makes my point even stronger as things cannot even be defined on equal terms. So even what anyone says about God is questionableâ€”and youâ€™re telling us that communion brings us closer to God! Why not simply having bread and wine in a bar? I guess they both give you a good fix. Of course, in the bar, you usually know what youâ€™re getting, unless you think youâ€™re going to hell for it.I don't define God as ultimate pleasure, and I'm surprised that is your definition of God. No wonder you don't believe in God. Because that is your working definition it's tough to see any point in what you've said. Then please tell us how one should define Heaven and God and the reason people want both if not in terms of love and hate, pleasure and pain. Simply if there were no apparent benefit in wanting God, people wouldnâ€™t want God.

Also, why have you interpreted my comments to mean that I do not believe in God? I have not taken a position here on that issue.

Thomas

18th July 2005, 09:50 AM

I don't care what you think. Spiderman can beat up Hulk any day!

Oh, wrong thread? Well, spot the difference.

Iacchus

18th July 2005, 12:41 PM

Originally posted by advancedatheist
Christians tend to argue that god's existence and activities give life meaning and purpose (M&P). I wonder if they extend this idea to their belief in hell. Would life lack M&P if eternal punishment didn't exist? What the hell? ... :D

So, do you think punishment serves as an effective deterrent against those who do "unacceptable" things? What about the "living hell" commonly referred to as "going to prison?"

Atlas

18th July 2005, 03:00 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
I don't think that God is unatainable, for I believe in the sacramental presence of God in the Eucharist. Originally posted by FreeChile
How does one attain God through this process? I do like this forum because of questions like this that just stop me cold for a moment. Here is an event that spans the spiritual and physical worlds like very few others. It comes down through a tradition began by the Son of God himself.

There is something in the notion of cannibalism which seems to be a parallel. Some cannibals take their enemies spirit power into themselves through the consumption. It's a little different because they are the masters, they have claim on the spirit because they've conquered and taken the life.

I've also seen video footage of eskimoos pulling a walrus up through the ice after spearing it, and cutting out it's heart and sharing between themselves in ritualistic consumption on the ice. The walrus is as much a god to that tribe of eskimoo as the buffalo was to the native American Indian.

So different cultures do have rituals involvings consuming the flesh of their god or other spirits. One thing about food is that it makes you strong - compared to not having food, that is.

It's funny, after watching a Popeye cartoon as a little kid, I could eat a little bit of canned spinich (I really hated that stuff). My brothers and I would always fight one another afterwards growling more like the Hulk than Popeye. We were made stronger by the idea of magic food - at least we sure thought so. And the Eucharist was no different. If you really believed you were taking Jesus into your body it had profound psychological effects.

Atlas

18th July 2005, 03:51 PM

Originally posted by Iacchus
... So, do you think punishment serves as an effective deterrent against those who do "unacceptable" things? What about the "living hell" commonly referred to as "going to prison?" Prison deters criminal activity in the general population by keeping the prisoners outside the general population, something death does even more effectively than prison. So Hell is superfluous as a deterrent. Just leave the corpse rotting away in the grave and the soul dead and rotting with it.

Prison time also allows the prisoner to reform and reenter society having "paid his debt". Hell is not set up for that either. It's strictly a center for cruel and unusual punishment that is to last forever and removes all hope from the damned.

It's interesting Iacchus but aren't you also damned by Christians as a heretic and numerologist - some of the "unacceptable" things deserving of eternal punishment.

Iacchus

18th July 2005, 04:18 PM

Originally posted by Atlas
Prison deters criminal activity in the general population by keeping the prisoners outside the general population, something death does even more effectively than prison. So Hell is superfluous as a deterrent. Just leave the corpse rotting away in the grave and the soul dead and rotting with it. Superfluous? You don't believe there aren't varying "levels" of hell?

Prison time also allows the prisoner to reform and reenter society having "paid his debt". Hell is not set up for that either. It's strictly a center for cruel and unusual punishment that is to last forever and removes all hope from the damned. Ever hear the expression, "Lock em' up and throw away the key?" Yes, the prison system can be very much like this too. In fact it has, for those who have become incorrigible.

It's interesting Iacchus but aren't you also damned by Christians as a heretic and numerologist - some of the "unacceptable" things deserving of eternal punishment. And just because I don't go by such an un-Godly label as "Christian," I don't have a right to believe in hell? It must not be "my hell" that they're referring to then. ;)

Atlas

18th July 2005, 05:07 PM

Originally posted by Iacchus
Superfluous? You don't believe there aren't varying "levels" of hell? I don't know if you understand the meaning of superfluous. Hell is not needed. It's an extravagant extra that serves no good or even necessary purpose. If God wants to reward people with heaven - Fine. He can and should hold those He loves close. I got no problem with that. Leave the rest dead. Isn't that punishment enough for a being who is all good? What purpose is served by eternal torment? Ever hear the expression, "Lock em' up and throw away the key?" Yes, the prison system can be very much like this too. In fact it has, for those who have become incorrigible. But death is exactly that lock down. The key has been thrown. Hell is gratuitous. And just because I don't go by such an un-Godly label as "Christian," I don't have a right to believe in hell? It must not be "my hell" that they're referring to then. ;) Hey spell it out. Hell has a common understanding. When you refer to a hell, your hell, you should clarify at least that you aren't talking about the same thing everybody else is. I know clarity is not something you aspire to but it's something that aids communication and understanding.

I don't know why you would believe in your hell. Who is your God to make such a place for you. Why would you love a god who threatens you with it? Tell me of your home world, oosul.

elliotfc

19th July 2005, 12:50 PM

Originally posted by FreeChile
Now the basic problem is that God is unatainable. Hence wanting God is a sickness, a neurosis. Not even Freud can help you there. The very definition of pleasure requires that there be pain--don't mean to get dual on you. So how could you have God (ultimate pleasure) without pain?

I don't believe that God is unattainable, so your point doesn't mean anything to me. If it makes you feel better to label me as neurotic go right ahead, it's a vacuous opinion. I think we're talking past each other. The only question I have left is why you'd want to engage someone who is beyond help, or, at least beyond the help of Freud. I don't think I engage neurotics (you may think think that I do, but we obviously disagree about who is neurotic and who isn't). At least in the instance of me, you are engaging someone who you believe to be neurotic. That's kind of interesting I guess.

Re: pain/pleasure...that's why I don't use those words. You do. But again, we're just talking past each other.

As long as there are imperfect choosers who can reject God, of course there will be alternate (if only theoretical) states which would enable words like pain/pleasure to be meaningful for us. If we didn't exist (or, if no imperfect choosers existed), neither would duality. Duality is contingent upon the existence of creators who are less than perfect than God. It's not an eternal condition.

-Elliot

elliotfc

19th July 2005, 12:54 PM

Originally posted by clarsct
I've been trying to decipher elliotfc's post here.

Are you saying that of you do not worship God, then, by default, you worship Satan?

Or am I misunderstanding?

Apologies if I've already responded to this...

Worship, in the conscious sense of the word, can be willfully directed, and understood to be willfully directed, towards what the person would define. A person may choose to not engage in such activity, and thus that person would not, by default, worship Satan.

On an unconscious level I might suggest that all humans worship themselves, but I'd never suggest that people who don't worship God must worship Satan.

I don't think it's as simple as you think it might be (you either worship God or you worship Satan), and if I implied that the fault is probably mine.

-Elliot

elliotfc

19th July 2005, 12:59 PM

For non-Muslims, the reality about whether it's 72 virgins or 72 grapes according to the holy book is not as important about what the suicide terrorists are thinking. See, if the suicide terrorist thinks it's 72 virgins, that, to me, is more significant than what the book may or may not say, since I know nothing about Arabic and any nuances or varying meanings of the words.

Or, we should infiltrate Islamofascist sites and inform them that they are really grapes, something proactive like that.

But maybe they're as much into grapes as they are virgins. Honestly, I'd take a fat grape over a fat virgin anyday of the week...(no offense to fat people, who probably don't want a scrawny guy like me anyways).

-Elliot

elliotfc

19th July 2005, 01:09 PM

Originally posted by Robin
Even with today's politically correct Hell, most Christians agree that Hell will be a really bad thing - even if there are no literal flames.

Agreed. But that's we also think that communion with God is a really good thing. If you don't think that's a really good thing, maybe Hell isn't as bad as it would be for a Christian.

I'm not trying to say that Hell is the paradise for people who want to reject God absolutely. Rather, I think it is only better, or good, relatively speaking. I think that all souls have the ability to put a happy face, even on the worst situation. This doesn't mean that people in Hell are thinking how great they have it, but it's like Lucifer saying it's better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

So suppose I say to someone, "do as I say or I will punch you in the nose", and they don't do as I say and I punch them in the nose.

Is it his fault that he got punched in the nose because he freely chose to not to do as I said?

No, of course not.

Are you relating hell to being punched in the nose? If you are, that's not how I personally see it. I see it as wish fullfillment. If you want to be cut off from God, you'll be allowed to be cut off from God. So, the way I'd relate it is if someone actually wanted to be punched in the nose, than they could be. But I don't think that's how you meant it.

You may not be as interested in my perspective on Hell as you are in a more classical understanding of Hell. I don't think that the punishment idea of Hell is totally out of whack. It may be helpful for someone people, just as reward/punishment is helpful, in general, in our society. Whether it's not most sophisticated or rational way of understanding things is besides the point, since we're all very different and, like it or not, reward/punishment is pervasive and will always be pervasive in our daily lives. I don't think a society without reward/punishment could exist, and it's a natural extension to imagine the afterlife in the same way.

God's way of punishing us (in my opinion) is to let us punish ourselves.

-Elliot

elliotfc

19th July 2005, 01:13 PM

Originally posted by clarsct
So...what I'm getting here from the theists is that Hell really doesn't give their life any more Meaning or Purpose.

Or once again, am I in the dark?

You could build a continuum out of Christians on this one, with people on one end, the other end, and every where in between.

At some level...everything that is objectively true gives my life meaning. Look at it this way. I believe in Free Will. I believe that Hell is an extension of Free Will. Since Free Will gives my life meaning, an extension of Free Will will also give my life meaning. In that way it does give my life meaning. But I don't think about Hell unless somebody brings it up, so it really doesn't give meaning to my life. I'm having it both ways, see?

-Elliot

elliotfc

19th July 2005, 01:16 PM

Originally posted by triadboy
What would xianity be without hell? Doesn't the concept need hell to be viable?

[b]

That's a lovely xian sentiment.

Yeah it is.

God, how many Christians today refuse to believe in Hell exactly? I'm surprised that you have a hard time understanding that Christianity doesn't need Hell when so many Christians don't have the belief in Hell. Yes, I know you're not a Christian. But you have to recognize that the two ideas are compatible (Christianity/nohell) because they, frankly, are compatible to many Christians.

-Elliot

elliotfc

19th July 2005, 01:21 PM

Originally posted by Thomas
You're right. We might as well believe in this

You're being silly. You're offering extreme examples in response, as if anything in between is not possible or likely. I'm not telling you what to believe in making my point, your extreme examples obscures what I think is just true. Some scientists believe things that are beyond testing. Don't hide from that by throwing nonsense in my face. Or do, and then I won't take you seriously, which may be what you want, I dunno.

-Elliot

elliotfc

19th July 2005, 01:42 PM

Originally posted by jan
Point taken. Maybe the real reason for this thread was Interesting Ian's implicit assumption in another recent thread that you need an afterlife to have a meaningful life.

Not if you're an ubermensch. Meaning, I think you could take a person who doesn't believe in an afterlife, and continually berate them, telling them how all of their opinions and beliefs don't mean a damn thing because they will be dead and it will all be nothing. But if you're an ubermensch you can rise above that and create subjective meaning. And there's nothing wrong with that at all, and I'd say it's an admirable thing to do, if the alternative is just blind depression when faced with certain oblivion.

Now, if the debate was that you needed an afterlife to have an *objectively* meaningful life...I'd have to think about that one some more. I suspect yes...or, I think you'd have to have some eternal mind at the very least. Meaning, there could be no afterlife for us at all, but there could be an eternal mind which transcends materialism who is influenced by our lives (it may lead him to create a universe in a different way, or something).

But Tertullian wasn't a kid when he became a Christian. See, I don't want to hold you or any Christian responsible for some weird theologian who lived long time ago and who even might be considered as a heretic. But your excuses don't sound that convincing.

Excuses for Tertulllian? He definitely had some views that are specifically labelled as heretical. I'm sure he wasn't all bad, and I'm his worst writings only reflect a part of his personality. Yes, I could see him at his worst. I don't seem his at either his best or his worth. He was of his times, and they were times of persecution and stress and savagery and all that. I don't think that .001% of Christians know anything about Tertullian these days so he's just, to me, an interesting footnote. I could condemn him harshly for maybe enjoying the idea that his enemies would suffer eternally...it's an extreme take on absolute justice, and he was self-righteous. That flew better back then, and it doesn't fly in our society today.

I don't know whether such an urge is "natural". Perhaps education and cultural environment might have a saying too?

Everything that goes into the human experience has a say in it. When I say natural, I mean natural for humans, and not other animals. I'm trying to think if there's ever been a time in the organized (civilized?) human experience where the sentiment that some people needed to be punished (whether children or criminals) didn't exist. It is just a though exercise, and I tend to think humans have always had the desire to see trangressors punished. Whether humans should get past that desire (like I'm sure many individuals have) is another question.

Or, perhaps, there is a hell, and it fulfills an emotional need of many people per design, since God created both hell and our hearts.

If so, it would be a peripheral effect. Yes, God created hell to *house* those who would reject him (that's my definition), that's the important thing. It may or may not fulfill an emotional need, but God did not create it for that reason, and I don't think it matters to God whether it does or doesn't fulfilly an emotional need of some humans. Or, it would matter to God, but only if the person obsessed over it or something.

Or there is no hell, but some people would want it to exist.

Yes, if there is no hell, some people would want it to exist (of course they wouldn't think there was no hell).

Nevertheless, I would prefer if there would be no hell — not because I am in terror I might end there; I am thinking more along the lines of what I would do, would I be omnipotent.

Does God need a hell? Does hell give God's life meaning and purpose? [/B]

These are the questions that I consider to be crucial.

God needs to allow Free Will to work even AFTER WE ARE DEAD. That's why he *needs* a hell, for it would enable Free Will (the choice to reject God eternally) in the afterlife.

Hell gives Free Will meaning and purpose. I don't think the question, then, is whether or not Hell gives God's life meaning and purpose, but whether or not Free Will (and everything that it enables, from love to hate) gives God's life meaning and purpose. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

-Elliot

Iacchus

19th July 2005, 02:21 PM

Originally posted by Atlas
I don't know if you understand the meaning of superfluous. Hell is not needed. It's an extravagant extra that serves no good or even necessary purpose. If God wants to reward people with heaven - Fine. He can and should hold those He loves close. I got no problem with that. Leave the rest dead. Isn't that punishment enough for a being who is all good? What purpose is served by eternal torment? It's all about the dynamics of one's choice. One cannot possibly "choose" God, without an alternative. Otherwise there is nothing which makes heaven viable.

But death is exactly that lock down. The key has been thrown. Hell is gratuitous.God is gratuitous.

Hey spell it out. Hell has a common understanding. When you refer to a hell, your hell, you should clarify at least that you aren't talking about the same thing everybody else is. I know clarity is not something you aspire to but it's something that aids communication and understanding. We are ruled by what we love, even in hell.

I don't know why you would believe in your hell. Who is your God to make such a place for you. Why would you love a god who threatens you with it? Tell me of your home world, oosul. "Seek and ye shall find" ... Which is to say, we all see what we want to see, even if it's contrary to what God wishes. This is the only reason why hell exists, to keep the bad segregated and, from tormenting the good. So instead, they're allowed to torment each other which, out of the shear love of torment -- what we might call blaming others for our problems -- at least in the beginning -- they can conceive of nothing better to do. This is what "my hell" is about anyway. And, it's completely non-denominational. ;)

jan

19th July 2005, 02:32 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
But maybe they're as much into grapes as they are virgins. Honestly, I'd take a fat grape over a fat virgin anyday of the week...(no offense to fat people, who probably don't want a scrawny guy like me anyways).

I have some trouble to read sura 55 or 56 with "haura" as grapes (it doesn't really fit, but who am I to decide). The number 72 is not mentioned in the Quran, as far as I remember.

I don't think that there are many people who are willing to kill themselves and others to be rewarded with 72 virgins. I would guess the main source of motivation lies elsewhere. But I am unable to see insight the mind of a suicide bomber, so it's just guesswork.

elliotfc, I may perhaps address your longer post tomorrow. That other thread (Unforgivable Sin (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59740)) drained all eloquence out of me for today.

elliotfc

19th July 2005, 04:41 PM

Originally posted by FreeChile
How does one attain God through this process?

I rarely submit links to answer questions, maybe once for every 100 questions I answer. This will be one of those times, because I think the best thing to do is get the scoop on the Real Presence directly from the church, and not me. Also they'll give a better explanation than I would.
http://www.nccbuscc.org/dpp/realpresence.htm

My post was not about calling people names. It was about describing a contradiction. Wanting God is a neurosis. Why? Because the individual who wants God or Heaven as those concepts have been defined, wants something that does not exist.

*As they have been defined*...

By saying that phrase, you are speaking to working definitions that you apply to the neurotics in question. I'm going to assume (more on that later, as you bring it up at the end of this post) that your working definitions do not correspond with the working definitions of most Christians, so that takes much of the sting out of the point you are making.

Much ado about nothing. Does it matter if you think most, or all, Christians, are neurotic? I shouldn't have taken it as personally as I did, so I'll let it go.

For example, look at â€œGod is love.â€ How could you possibly want love without pain.

Ummm...by simply wanting love without pain? People want all sorts of things...just by wanting them. Now, you may not want love without pain, but why can't others?

It is interesting that you appeal to fear of death here in retorting to my comment. It is that fear of coming to an end that has created this notion of God and Heaven.

I disagree with your opinion, but we can agree to use the "appeal to fear of death" on each other, OK? And if you insist otherwise (you're not really afraid of death), I'll insist otherwise too. OK? My fault for stepping into this, when I usually, as a rule, try to avoid fear of death arguments, sometimes I slip.

That is the way I see it. You may not even admit this to yourself.

You've bang on here. Yes, it is the way you see it. And no, I don't admit things to myself that I know are not true.

So this fear has created God and Heaven and yet you expect God and Heaven to take away this fear. Do you see the contradiction there?

Since I REJECT the first premise, of course I see the contradiction. Duh.

So even what anyone says about God is questionableâ€”and youâ€™re telling us that communion brings us closer to God!

I am only saying what I don't think I can argue against! Can you question anything that I say about God? Surely you can. Therefore, anything that anyone says about God is, in fact, questionable! Right?

So of course you can question the Eucharist. I was acknowledging that point. Most Catholics don't even believe in the Real Presence.

Why not simply having bread and wine in a bar?

Mass can be celebrated anywhere. You need a priest, and it has to be consecrated, but it could happen in a bar.

I guess they both give you a good fix.

Mental state/expectation/belief are the key ingredients. Meaning, I'm sure I'd get more out of a Catholic Mass than you would.

Then please tell us how one should define Heaven and God and the reason people want both if not in terms of love and hate, pleasure and pain. Simply if there were no apparent benefit in wanting God, people wouldnâ€™t want God.

First, I can, and have, offered by beliefs and opinions about God and Heaven and Hell. Not once have I told you how you should define them. Nor do I want to, so, I'll politely refrain from telling you how to define God/Heaven/Hell. It's on you to define them in your own way...and you do...and I reserve the right to take issue with your definitions.

Second, "if not in terms of love" is something that you came up with. I never mentioned that phrase.

Third, why shouldn't there be a benefit in wanting God? There's benefits in wanting all sorts of things in life, why not God? Should we do it *solely* for the benefit? That is independent of whether or not there is a benefit. Like, if there's a reward for turning in a murderer, that is independent of whether or not a person should turn in a murderer. The reward is a nice touch though, no?

Also, why have you interpreted my comments to mean that I do not believe in God? I have not taken a position here on that issue.

You got me there, sorry about that. It's an assumption I made based on the prepoderence of people on the board, and the type of responses I typically get from people. Based on your response, I made that conclusion.

By the way, do you believe in God? If you don't want to answer that, I respect that. From now on I'll not assume anything about whether or not you believe in God.

-Elliot

Robin

19th July 2005, 06:25 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
No, of course not.

Are you relating hell to being punched in the nose? If you are, that's not how I personally see it. I see it as wish fullfillment. If you want to be cut off from God, you'll be allowed to be cut off from God. So, the way I'd relate it is if someone actually wanted to be punched in the nose, than they could be. But I don't think that's how you meant it.
I can point you to centuries of mainstream scholarship (including recent stuff) that say Hell is infinitely worse than a punch in the nose. C.S Lewis who is considered to have been a moderate and intellectual Christian painted it as maddeningly horrific.

In my model I give the guy two choices - do as I say or be punched in the nose. He might believe that being punched in the nose is preferable to doing as I say in which case it is better, or good, relatively speaking to be punched in the nose. If he chooses the punch in the nose then he is allowed it. As I see it Christianity defines God as offering such a binary. How can it be wish fulfillment? I don't sit and wish for an unpleasant eternity any more than my friend wishes for a punch in the nose.

But how many people want - as you say - to be "cut off from God"? Satanists maybe but they are a trivial minority - genuine Satanists are an even tinier minority. People who believe in a loving God generally want to accept God. Otherwise people don't believe in such a God. Presumably an infinitely merciful God will not be consigning people who genuinely don't believe in the Christian God to Hell. So who is in Hell? And where are the people that genuinely don't believe in the Christian God?
You may not be as interested in my perspective on Hell as you are in a more classical understanding of Hell.
I am not so much interested in the classical understanding of Hell than what might be considered the contemporary mainstream understanding of Hell. But I am also interested in your understanding of this concept.

triadboy

19th July 2005, 07:16 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Yeah it is.

God, how many Christians today refuse to believe in Hell exactly? I'm surprised that you have a hard time understanding that Christianity doesn't need Hell when so many Christians don't have the belief in Hell. Yes, I know you're not a Christian. But you have to recognize that the two ideas are compatible (Christianity/nohell) because they, frankly, are compatible to many Christians.

-Elliot

Honestly - this is brand new to me. I've never heard of xians who don't believe in Hell (and I assume a devil). Please point me to a link or book that explains how this works. It must be fascinating!

Thomas

20th July 2005, 04:46 AM

I would also like to see how xians can renounce critical thinking without the threat of eternal hellfire.

Atlas

20th July 2005, 07:01 AM

Originally posted by Iacchus
It's all about the dynamics of one's choice. One cannot possibly "choose" God, without an alternative. Otherwise there is nothing which makes heaven viable.

God is gratuitous. For me, the sky god is gratuitous to my understanding of reality. But you, why would you say this? Please clarify your meaning.

As far as choice. I'm trying to demonstrate that there is a choice without hell. There is the grave. If God remembers you in love your reward is to be held close in an eternal heavenly reward. If God forgets you, you are dead to Him, forever - forgotten in the grave.

There is nothing different between this God and the Christian God except for the psychopathic side of God who creates the horror dream of hell to terrorize the souls that do not please Him for eternity.

Do you see the choice? It says something about us that we choose a God who is filled with our own darkness. A true God of love would not set us against ourselves as sport the way you describe below. We are ruled by what we love, even in hell.

"Seek and ye shall find" ... Which is to say, we all see what we want to see, even if it's contrary to what God wishes. This is the only reason why hell exists, to keep the bad segregated and, from tormenting the good. So instead, they're allowed to torment each other which, out of the shear love of torment -- what we might call blaming others for our problems -- at least in the beginning -- they can conceive of nothing better to do. This is what "my hell" is about anyway. And, it's completely non-denominational. ;) Iacchus, can you possibly believe that this is what love is? This is what comes of your flight from clarity. You have stopped exploring the depth of those words you claim are most dear. Meaning and love.

How is it that you find love in the diabolic laughter of souls tormenting one another. Is that what love means in your life? List the qualities of love and you'll see that demonic torture fails to find a place on the list.

Hell is a holdover from an ideology you learned to accept as a child. Now it remains, a shadow that haunts your consciousness. See how it perverts the mind. You find that love is a sick unrelenting bedevilment intended to bring suffering, agony, and anguish on others. It is not the soul's choice - It is God's choice to maintain a madness such as this in His creation - and you call Him love too. Cast this idea aside Iacchus. It infects your dream of perfection and light and renders it an ugly, festering malignance.

Atlas

20th July 2005, 07:56 AM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Yeah it is.

God, how many Christians today refuse to believe in Hell exactly? I'm surprised that you have a hard time understanding that Christianity doesn't need Hell when so many Christians don't have the belief in Hell. Yes, I know you're not a Christian. But you have to recognize that the two ideas are compatible (Christianity/nohell) because they, frankly, are compatible to many Christians. Elliot,

Do you have insight into their theology? According to the Creed, Jesus descended into Hell and from there rose again from the dead.

Do those Christians deny the resurrection too? Or do they accept the entire Judeo-Christian saga as nothing but the power of myth to inform our existence?

Do you know if they believe in the devil or even what sect of Christianity teaches no hell?

It's a fascinating departure from dogma, don't you think?

jan

20th July 2005, 09:16 AM

Originally posted by Atlas
Do you have insight into their theology? According to the Creed, Jesus descended into Hell and from there rose again from the dead.

Do those Christians deny the resurrection too? Or do they accept the entire Judeo-Christian saga as nothing but the power of myth to inform our existence?

Do you know if they believe in the devil or even what sect of Christianity teaches no hell?

It's a fascinating departure from dogma, don't you think?

As far as I know, the term "Christian" is not copyrighted, nor patented, nor is it a registered brand or trade mark.

But of course a Christian who doesn't believe in hell can't be the one and only true scottsman...

As it happens, I also know a few Christians who don't believe in hell.

Some even don't believe in a literal resurrection. Some do.

jan

20th July 2005, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Now, if the debate was that you needed an afterlife to have an *objectively* meaningful life...I'd have to think about that one some more. I suspect yes...or, I think you'd have to have some eternal mind at the very least. Meaning, there could be no afterlife for us at all, but there could be an eternal mind which transcends materialism who is influenced by our lives (it may lead him to create a universe in a different way, or something).

How does any of this gives your life an objective meaning? After all, what does it mean, to have an objectively meaningful life?

Excuses for Tertulllian? He definitely had some views that are specifically labelled as heretical. I'm sure he wasn't all bad, and I'm his worst writings only reflect a part of his personality. Yes, I could see him at his worst. I don't seem his at either his best or his worth. He was of his times, and they were times of persecution and stress and savagery and all that. I don't think that .001% of Christians know anything about Tertullian these days so he's just, to me, an interesting footnote. I could condemn him harshly for maybe enjoying the idea that his enemies would suffer eternally...it's an extreme take on absolute justice, and he was self-righteous. That flew better back then, and it doesn't fly in our society today.

I think that Tertullian is of minor importance here, so I would like to drop that theme, especially since our views of Tertullian don't seem to be completely irreconcilable. But after having said that: was his time really one of "persecution and stress and savagery"? I thought he died of old age?

Everything that goes into the human experience has a say in it. When I say natural, I mean natural for humans, and not other animals. I'm trying to think if there's ever been a time in the organized (civilized?) human experience where the sentiment that some people needed to be punished (whether children or criminals) didn't exist. It is just a though exercise, and I tend to think humans have always had the desire to see trangressors punished. Whether humans should get past that desire (like I'm sure many individuals have) is another question.

But perhaps we could manage to create a society in which most people would be ashamed to publicly demand that offenders should be punished for eternity.

Perhaps it is natural to want to see offenders punished, but wanting them to see to suffer for eternity seems to me to be a bit over the top and reveals a lack of humanity.

Yes, God created hell to *house* those who would reject him (that's my definition), that's the important thing. It may or may not fulfill an emotional need, but God did not create it for that reason, and I don't think it matters to God whether it does or doesn't fulfilly an emotional need of some humans. Or, it would matter to God, but only if the person obsessed over it or something.
Does God need a hell? Does hell give God's life meaning and purpose?
These are the questions that I consider to be crucial.

God needs to allow Free Will to work even AFTER WE ARE DEAD. That's why he *needs* a hell, for it would enable Free Will (the choice to reject God eternally) in the afterlife.

Hell gives Free Will meaning and purpose. I don't think the question, then, is whether or not Hell gives God's life meaning and purpose, but whether or not Free Will (and everything that it enables, from love to hate) gives God's life meaning and purpose. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.

Your idea of hell sounds extremely mild. Difficult to reconcile it with what the Bible claims Jesus had said.

If hell is nothing but a place where all those people who, for whatever reason, don't like God or don't care about him, can life together in peace and harmony — then I guess we totally changed the subject. Would I be omnipotent, I might be in fact considering to create such a hell. I wouldn't call it "hell", though. And there could be quite frequented roads between heaven1 (for the believers) and heaven2 (for the nonbelievers).

Therefore, I ask more specifically: does (or could) a hell that punishes and tortures its inhabitants give God's life meaning and purpose? Does God need such a hell?

I assume since you tried to construct a very different hell, you don't see the need for such a (more traditional) hell.

elliotfc

20th July 2005, 11:46 AM

Originally posted by Atlas
There is something in the notion of cannibalism which seems to be a parallel. Some cannibals take their enemies spirit power into themselves through the consumption. It's a little different because they are the masters, they have claim on the spirit because they've conquered and taken the life.[/QUOTE]

I've got an anthropology background, and the consensus is that there really have never been "cannibals", or, cultures that were primarily anthropophagic. There have certainly been isolated cases of it, it has occurred in times of stress, and yes, there is the link to martial belief as well.

That doesn't mean that the link is not a valid one; it certainly is. Eating and drinking are universal to human beings, and Jesus uses this mechanism as a way to empower his believers. In addition, in both cases, a supernatural transfer of power is invoked. I think belief is vital to both practices as well.

We were made stronger by the idea of magic food - at least we sure thought so. And the Eucharist was no different. If you really believed you were taking Jesus into your body it had profound psychological effects.

I think all Christians who believe in the Real Presence would agree that belief is necessary for the Eucharist to have an effect on the consumer.

-Elliot

elliotfc

20th July 2005, 11:51 AM

Originally posted by Atlas Prison deters criminal activity in the general population by keeping the prisoners outside the general population, something death does even more effectively than prison. So Hell is superfluous as a deterrent. Just leave the corpse rotting away in the grave and the soul dead and rotting with it.

Fair enough Atlas, but Hell could serve as a deterrent in a different way. You define it in a very specific, and very direct way.

Prison time also allows the prisoner to reform and reenter society having "paid his debt". Hell is not set up for that either. It's strictly a center for cruel and unusual punishment that is to last forever and removes all hope from the damned.

I won't bring up different conceptions of Hell because obviously you have one in my mind, so I'll just stick with that one. Cruel and unusual punishment is a human concept that does not apply to God's justice. Or, it may apply to God's justice. It wouldn't have to. So yes, it isn't exactly like a human prison. It would be exactly like God's prison. They will have things in common, and there will be differences too.

-Elliot

elliotfc

20th July 2005, 12:18 PM

Originally posted by Robin
I can point you to centuries of mainstream scholarship (including recent stuff) that say Hell is infinitely worse than a punch in the nose. C.S Lewis who is considered to have been a moderate and intellectual Christian painted it as maddeningly horrific.

You're right.

In my model I give the guy two choices - do as I say or be punched in the nose. He might believe that being punched in the nose is preferable to doing as I say in which case it is better, or good, relatively speaking to be punched in the nose. If he chooses the punch in the nose then he is allowed it. As I see it Christianity defines God as offering such a binary. How can it be wish fulfillment?

Some people would not want to be with God (and do all that would be involved with that, namely, capitualation) for all eternity. Do you disagree with that?

I don't sit and wish for an unpleasant eternity any more than my friend wishes for a punch in the nose.

I'm not saying that you do. I'm not saying that anyone does, either. You have identified one of the options (an unpleasant eternity) without really going into the other part of the binary opposition. So I could ask you this question. If you die, are confronted by God, and told that your beliefs on Earth (as sincere as they certainly were) were incorrect, and that you (like all people) need to understand that your sinful life was a sign that you were at war with God and that your sins need to be fully appreciated and understood and that Jesus is the only way to the Father (I could go on and on and on), and only after accepting all of that (ideas and beliefs that you may have completely rejected in your earthly life), would you *totally* capitualte to that objective truth? Would it be a hard choice for you? Granted, this is my personal view of how a person achieves eternal communion with God (I'm not going to call it eternal pleasure or happiness, because the focus is on God). Or, if you're not sure how you'd act in this case, could you possibly *respect* or *understand* someone who refuses to capitulate to God in such a way, and then chooses Hell in order to stay true to the individual's own principles? Or, could you conceive that (even if you don't respect/understand it) as a possibility?

But how many people want - as you say - to be "cut off from God"?

On this earth? To the atheist it would be irrelevant, as how can you be cut off from someone that doesn't exist? To the theist, they will believe (like myself or a terrorist bomber or an irreligious type who only prays once or twice a year) that they have God pegged, so surely they wouldn't want to be cut off from their particular impression of God.

But I'm not talking about the on earth scenario. I'm talking about when it's all laid out. Then you have to dispose of your pride completely. See, we'll all be wrong about God (some more than others). Will we be content with that fact, or, will we refuse to admit any flaw in ourselves, looking for any excuse or anyway to hold onto our pride? This is the time where I'll suggest that some people may decide to *want* to be cut off from God. And I have no idea about a percentage of people who would choose what would be, in my opinion, a really bad situation. But if Lucifer could choose it, why couldn't we?

Would an eternal soul want to be cut off from God if he/she can't have God on his/her own terms? Maybe. Why not? See, I'm not fixated on pain/pleasure/sad/happy, or anything like that. Those are not the crucial issues, and anyone who thinks that they are will also have to dispose of *that* belief.

Presumably an infinitely merciful God will not be consigning people who genuinely don't believe in the Christian God to Hell.

Losing the modifier, they'll have to believe in God as God is. I, as a Christian, don't have the full appreciation of God, and I may have it a bit wrong. I'm not going to tell God that he has to fit in my own personal Christian conception of God. Actually, nobody is going to have to believe in the *Christian* conception of God. When you are judged, there's no more picking and choosing; or, there's only the *correct* choice, or a perception that the person will refuse to relinquish.

So who is in Hell? And where are the people that genuinely don't believe in the Christian God?

The Catholic Church (I am a Catholic) has never proclaimed that any individual (that can be named) is in Hell. I don't know who is in Hell, but I think that there are people in Hell. The people who don't believe in the Christian God (or, more correctly, didn't believe in the Christian God while alive on Earth) will be allowed to, by a merciful God, to accept Jesus as the way to the Father after they are dead. That is my personal belief, and many Christians believe differently.

I am not so much interested in the classical understanding of Hell than what might be considered the contemporary mainstream understanding of Hell. But I am also interested in your understanding of this concept.

I will stubbornly insist that people can choose Hell, and that God will allow that free choice to be made. I think Hell is a variable. It could be hellfire and brimstone, it could be an infinite supply of heroin, it could be an eternity with demonic 6 year old boys. The only ingredient off limits would be the love of God.

-Elliot

elliotfc

20th July 2005, 12:25 PM

Originally posted by triadboy
Honestly - this is brand new to me. I've never heard of xians who don't believe in Hell (and I assume a devil). Please point me to a link or book that explains how this works. It must be fascinating!

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=359
Scroll to table 3. It says that 82% of Christians believe in Hell (and only 99% of Christians believe in God. Heh).

As to how it works? A person can believe in anything they want. No labeled person is *confined* to believe in everything that the label is supposed to believe in.

-Elliot

elliotfc

20th July 2005, 12:28 PM

Originally posted by Thomas
I would also like to see how xians can renounce critical thinking without the threat of eternal hellfire.

Thomas, do you have a hard time conceiving the possibility or something?

A person can stand on a corner and renounce people who stand on street corners renouncing things. How? Just by doing it.

You sound like a doubting Thomas. Do you really need to see it to believe it?

-Elliot

elliotfc

20th July 2005, 12:43 PM

Originally posted by Atlas
Elliot,

Do you have insight into their theology? According to the Creed, Jesus descended into Hell and from there rose again from the dead.

A few answers.

First, according to a 2003 Harris poll, 18% of people who label themselves as Christians do not believe in Hell. I think that most, if not all of those people, would reject Creeds (I think you're referring to the Apostles Creed, or the Nicene Creed) that include any mention of Hell. Maybe the Christian has constructed a personal creed, and subscribes to it, and not any creeds constructed by particular churches.

Second, I've met very many Catholics who insist that there is no Hell (some of them may have actually meant that there is no fire/brimstone/punishment Hell and they might have had something else in mind, I don't know) and that the bit in the Creed is really about Jesus going into a limbo-like place, a holding cell for souls who died before the Incarnation.

Third, some Christians can conceivably believe that Hell is an archaic theological construct that has to be clipped just as most Christians have clipped many of the harsh proscriptions in Mosaic Law. These would be modernist, or sophisticated Christians, who might feel Hell to be incompatible with their idea of an eternally loving and forgiving God. I've read some books/articles which hold this way of thinking.

Do those Christians deny the resurrection too? Or do they accept the entire Judeo-Christian saga as nothing but the power of myth to inform our existence?

4% of Christians in the referred to poll reject the resurrection, compared to 18% who reject Hell.

Do you know if they believe in the devil or even what sect of Christianity teaches no hell?

18% of Christians do not believe in the devil. I don't think any mainstream churches hold that line. I'm sure there are dozens of small, unitarian style churches when many Christian members. I think the Gurneyites (small sect of Quakers) reject hell and Satan. I can't remember why I think that, but it's in my head so it must be true arf arf.

It's a fascinating departure from dogma, don't you think?

No, it is dogma actually. Once you've settled on what dogmas to pick, they become personal dogmas. ;)

-Elliot

elliotfc

20th July 2005, 01:25 PM

Originally posted by jan
How does any of this gives your life an objective meaning? After all, what does it mean, to have an objectively meaningful life?

What it means is up to the objective judge, who would be God, by definition. Objective meaning means true meaning, and not one that can be debated. It can be rejected (go to hell and all of that).

I think that Tertullian is of minor importance here, so I would like to drop that theme, especially since our views of Tertullian don't seem to be completely irreconcilable. But after having said that: was his time really one of "persecution and stress and savagery"? I thought he died of old age?

Yes, but the apostle John also died of old age while the other apostles were mostly martyred. Tertullian also wrote this letter, called "On Flight in Persecution".
http://www.molloy.edu/academic/philosophy/SOPHIA/tertullian/tertullian_flight_txt.htm

But perhaps we could manage to create a society in which most people would be ashamed to publicly demand that offenders should be punished for eternity.

I think we've achieved that society! Stree corner preachers who spread hellfire and brimstone are not popular! It is becoming increasingly uncool to be a religious extremist of that ilk (you're all going to hell). They are lambasted on television and film, and most Christians have mastered the phrase "yes, I'm Catholic/Christian but..." Like me! I'm Christian, but I don't think that all non-Christians are going to burn in Hell.

I understand the impression that people have of fundamentalist Christians, that they're everywhere, that they want to scare us all about the reality of Hell, etc. With 300 million people you're going to have a few million of such people. That's just the way it is. And they know how to sound more numerous than they really are, just like the Confederacy knew how to inflate the size of their forces by strategic displacement.

Perhaps it is natural to want to see offenders punished, but wanting them to see to suffer for eternity seems to me to be a bit over the top and reveals a lack of humanity.

Yes, but it would also reveal a lack of humanity to not understand how a father, who's daughter was tortured, raped, and murdered, might want the perpetrator to burn in hell.

Your idea of hell sounds extremely mild. Difficult to reconcile it with what the Bible claims Jesus had said.

Jesus wanted to paint a stark and scary depiction of Hell and I ain't going to begrudge him that. I actually do consider Hell to be an awful place to be...because I am a believer! When you say my idea is mild...I'm trying to accentuate a philosophical understanding of Hell, and I'm not to concerned with the blood and guts of Hell. Some people are, and some people are helped by such depictions of Hell, and I ain't going to begrude that either.

If hell is nothing but a place where all those people who, for whatever reason, don't like God or don't care about him, can life together in peace and harmony — then I guess we totally changed the subject.

If we have, my bad.

My point is that it is *essentially* a place where people who reject God go. The details, the depths of despair, all of that is not of vital importance to me. The subject is Hell, and I'm trying to offer something that I think I can offer. A sort of detached, and unemotional, picture of Hell. If you're looking for something else, God knows you could find it. If you want to focus on the pain/suffering of Hell (whether you believe in it or not), you can definitely do that. I don't think doing so is wrong, or disordered. It's just not the best way for me to think about Hell.

Therefore, I ask more specifically: does (or could) a hell that punishes and tortures its inhabitants give God's life meaning and purpose? Does God need such a hell?

I don't think that anything, besides God's mere existence, gives God's life meaning and purpose. The meaning and purpose comes before any activity of God. If God was contingent upon what he creates to have meaning, he would be a contingency, but that doesn't make any sense.

God chooses to respect Free Will, and a ramification of that is Hell. I don't think that need has anything to do with it. The fact that God respects Free Will shouldn't be transformed into a need.

I assume since you tried to construct a very different hell, you don't see the need for such a (more traditional) hell.

No, I see a need, because Jesus saw a need too. I'm talking about depictions of Hell as other people would appreciate them.

As for my personal needs, no, I really don't need the Hell as torture device model.

-Elliot

elliotfc

20th July 2005, 01:46 PM

"Does hell give life meaning and purpose?"

Having written a few thousand words on that already, I think the question begs the question "would life *not* have meaning or purpose without Hell?

So I'd ask the people who don't believe in Hell if life has meaning or purpose without Hell. If so, is it conceivable then that even people who believe in Hell would *agree* with you, that life has meaning or purpose without Hell? Does that make sense? Or, to rephrase that thought, is a person who believes in Hell precluded from having the same notion of a non-believer of Hell, that life has meaning and purpose, for the same reasons.

Or, if people who don't believe in Hell *also* don't believe that life has meaning or purpose, would you propose the question as a way of discovering under what possible circumstances a human could find meaning/purpose in life?

-Elliot

Thomas

20th July 2005, 01:52 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Thomas, do you have a hard time conceiving the possibility or something?
I'm open to all possibilities as long as it doesn't conflict with common sense.

A person can stand on a corner and renounce people who stand on street corners renouncing things. How? Just by doing it.

Sorry, you might want to elaborate on that so I don't misunderstand it.

You sound like a doubting Thomas. Do you really need to see it to believe it?
You're not the first one to call me that. But actually I believe in things from theoretical physics which can't be directly verified. For one thing, I believe that the universe are striving towards a state of extreme symmetry (or maximum immunity). You can see how symmetry increase by the minute by looking at the history of almost everything. It's an abstract hypothesis, but so is the idea of hell, and if you watch the news it could seem that we're already there.

One thing I have never told you. I'm actually quite impressed by your calmness. Hats off for that. I figure you must be an excellent priest, because your calmness will have a contagious effect on the believers you help in the daily (if I'm right about you being a priest?).

Add to this that I don't sympathize with religion, and I think you could use your traits in far more suited areas of study and social affairs. Religion tend to block scientific progress and critical thinking.

jan

20th July 2005, 03:16 PM

Originally posted by Thomas
I'm actually quite impressed by your calmness. Hats off for that.

I would like to second that.

Iacchus

21st July 2005, 08:02 AM

Originally posted by Atlas
For me, the sky god is gratuitous to my understanding of reality. But you, why would you say this? Please clarify your meaning.

As far as choice. I'm trying to demonstrate that there is a choice without hell. There is the grave. If God remembers you in love your reward is to be held close in an eternal heavenly reward. If God forgets you, you are dead to Him, forever - forgotten in the grave. And what you don't seem to understand, is that what we receive in the next life is contingent upon what we adamantly hold onto in this life. So, why shouldn't God fulfill our wishes and give us what we desire most? This is what makes Him gratuitous.

There is nothing different between this God and the Christian God except for the psychopathic side of God who creates the horror dream of hell to terrorize the souls that do not please Him for eternity. The psychopathic side you speak of here, is the hell which is exhibited in man.

Do you see the choice? It says something about us that we choose a God who is filled with our own darkness. A true God of love would not set us against ourselves as sport the way you describe below. Iacchus, can you possibly believe that this is what love is? This is what comes of your flight from clarity. You have stopped exploring the depth of those words you claim are most dear. Meaning and love. The only choice I see here is the love of self, over the welfare of others.

How is it that you find love in the diabolic laughter of souls tormenting one another. Is that what love means in your life? List the qualities of love and you'll see that demonic torture fails to find a place on the list. So, what exactly do sado-masochists get out of torturing each other?

Hell is a holdover from an ideology you learned to accept as a child. Now it remains, a shadow that haunts your consciousness. See how it perverts the mind. You find that love is a sick unrelenting bedevilment intended to bring suffering, agony, and anguish on others. It is not the soul's choice - It is God's choice to maintain a madness such as this in His creation - and you call Him love too. Cast this idea aside Iacchus. It infects your dream of perfection and light and renders it an ugly, festering malignance. Hey, nice projection. But, I'm afraid that's all it is. ;)

Atlas

21st July 2005, 09:07 AM

Originally posted by Iacchus
And what you don't seem to understand, is that what we receive in the next life is contingent upon what we adamantly hold onto in this life. Ok... You're right. I don't understand the contingency you name. You seldom refer to religion, I don't think of you as a religionist. I think of you as a numerologist which Christian religions consider occult and sinful, I believe. Are all beliefs equivalent? How do know your truth leads to heaven and not hell. And how do you know that your definition or idea of hell has any merit or truth value? That is, how can you have confidence in what seems to me as your own invention?
So, why shouldn't God fulfill our wishes and give us what we desire most? No reason, I guess. But the opposite question should also be asked - Why should He? He doesn't do so here. Nor does He give any indication what many want to know... What happens when we die? Isn't it a leap, and an incredible one at that, to assume that you know or can know what God's plans are? How do you come by your knowledge?
The psychopathic side you speak of here, is the hell which is exhibited in man.No. I'm asking about the deity gleefully watching the souls He created toment each other eternally. What "loving" God would allow such a thing much less create the timeless arena.The only choice I see here is the love of self, over the welfare of others.You are willfully blind. Try... you can do it.So, what exactly do sado-masochists get out of torturing each other? Thrill - Not love.

Ossai

21st July 2005, 09:16 AM

elliotfc
I think that anyone at any time can choose to reject God, be you human or angel.

As for heaven...I think it's a state of being. Christianity, or at least Catholcism, actually doesn't have a whole lot of specifics about it. Christians believe in the resurrection of the body, Christians believe that we were created to be heaven, and heaven for us could actually be a life (in harmony with God i.e. Adam & Eve) on a recreated Earth. So A&E messed up while in heaven and the whole Jesus bit is just to get back in? So whatâ€™s to stop someone after arriving in heave, from getting kicked out again? Would they be sent back to earth or would they go straight to hell, do not pass GO, do not collect $200.
If they are kicked out, do they get another chance at heaven?
What about the people that donâ€™t go to heaven, are they stuck in hell or can they change their mind? If free will is so important couldnâ€™t they just decided to accept god and be welcomed back?

Putting your faith in what is written about God in holy texts means putting your faith entirely in man. That's like saying that putting your faith in what is written about science in a science book is putting your faith entirely in man. I see no reason not to put trust in man. After all, weâ€™re all weâ€™ve got.

To quote Upchurch
Having faith in scripture is kind of like have unprotected sex, you are having faith in every single person who has ever manipulated the scripture.

But that's because you don't believe God exists, so of course Christians can't worship God. We say we do worship God, we say it directly and clearly, and if God exists, I'll stick with his opinion on the matter. If he doesn't exist, it doesn't matter. To quote Homer. â€˜What if you pick the wrong god and the real one is sitting in heaven just getting madder and madder?â€

We're all in this together, that's what Christians believe. To pick a nit. No, thatâ€™s what you as a Christian believe. That is not what all Christians believe.

jjramsey
[quote] Originally posted by Igopogo
Heaven and hell are concepts that exist in human centric religions. They ignore the reality around them, (God - if you want to define it that way), and arrogantly invent a means to correct the mistakes they feel that God made in doling out our lots in life.
This is half-wrong and a bit incoherent. Heaven and Hell are certainly doctrines that deal with the fact that those who do wrong often don't get their comeuppance in their lifetimes. Human centric.

Where you go wrong here is in assuming that those who believe in Heaven and Hell see the prosperity of cheaters as the result of "mistakes they feel that God made in doling out our lots in life." The incoherency is the idea that the concepts of Heaven and Hell imply ignorance of the reality that good things happen to bad people and vice versa, when this is the very reality that the doctrines of Heaven and Hell address. I read Igopogoâ€™s statement differently. Itâ€™s not the ignorance but the knowledge that good things happen to bad people that form the basis for heaven and hell. There would be no need for hell if bad people got their comeuppance while alive.

Seriously, even most inerrantists believe that only the original versions of the Bible documents (which are now lost) are infallible, while copies and translations may have errors. From the buckle of the bible belt here, but youâ€™re very wrong on this one, at least in this part of the country. Come down and listen to some Church of Christ sermons for starters.

Ossai

jan

21st July 2005, 09:53 AM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Yes, but it would also reveal a lack of humanity to not understand how a father, who's daughter was tortured, raped, and murdered, might want the perpetrator to burn in hell.I can understand if he wants to break all the murderers bones, smash his teeths, gouge his eyes, strip his skin and burn him alive. But hell?

Atlas

21st July 2005, 10:17 AM

Originally posted by jan
I can understand if he wants to break all the murderers bones, smash his teeths, gouge his eyes, strip his skin and burn him alive. But hell? Good point. Our outrage can push us toward hope for extreme retribution - but hell is so over the top. Unending, incomprehensible torture - its senselessness offends us.

Religionists are trapped by the idea of the eternal soul. Hell is an unfortunate upshot of their assumption.

Iacchus

21st July 2005, 02:26 PM

Originally posted by Atlas
Ok... You're right. I don't understand the contingency you name. You seldom refer to religion, I don't think of you as a religionist. I think of you as a numerologist which Christian religions consider occult and sinful, I believe. Are all beliefs equivalent? How do know your truth leads to heaven and not hell. And how do you know that your definition or idea of hell has any merit or truth value? That is, how can you have confidence in what seems to me as your own invention? I am also relativist -- and mystic :) -- and suggest that we are all creatures of our own invention. Do you know of any two people who think and act alike? I don't. So in that sense heaven and hell must be as varied as the number of people on this planet. Which isn't to say we all don't derive our perception from the same thing. There's only one sun in the sky isn't there?

No reason, I guess. But the opposite question should also be asked - Why should He? He doesn't do so here. Nor does He give any indication what many want to know... What happens when we die? Isn't it a leap, and an incredible one at that, to assume that you know or can know what God's plans are? How do you come by your knowledge?If God didn't allow for free will -- how else could we come to acknowledge Him, by being "good little robots?" -- there would be no need to hold anyone accountable for "playing God."

No. I'm asking about the deity gleefully watching the souls He created toment each other eternally.The only ones getting "a thill" out of this are the sado-masochists in hell.

What "loving" God would allow such a thing much less create the timeless arena.You are willfully blind. Try... you can do it.God is more like the neutral zone which exists between our thoughts and feelings. Whereas without this sense of equillibrium, there would be nothing.

Thrill - Not love. No, it's simply a matter of what you desire most.

elliotfc

21st July 2005, 03:29 PM

Thomas, I'm surprised that I came across as calm. It was my intention to come across, with you, as dismissive, due to your frankly repulsive (yet colorful!) post that you offered. I'm not a priest, yet I could play one on television. Jesuit high school and college, employed by several churches and one seminary, but not enrolled in any order or vocation. I teach kids, so at least I can assume the role of the calm and measured man, yet I insist it isn't true. I'm hyperactive and my mind is always racing.

I do have a good effect on my students, but that might be a bad thing, because students are very impressionable, and I try to make impressions on them when it comes to...dare I say...critical thinking...

Anyhow, I understand how religion, for the most sincere and legitimate reasons, causes you some form of consternation or other. It has been, and can be, an impediment to scientific progress (you do realize, though, that there should exist institutions outside of science that should offer a check to unbridled, or undirected, scienctifc progress). I don't think that scientific progress is the most important thing for humanity in general, and certainly me in particular. Not that I have a problem with it either. It is what it is.

As for critical thinking...I know over a hundred priests, and have talked to I don't know how many religious in a variety of forums and mediums. What kind of generalization can I make easily? The elementary conclusion that religious believers *do* think critically. Believers have such a scattered array of theological notions and explanations, and they have such a hard time of fitting the pigeonholes that they would be stuffed into that it's clear the religious individual does think critically. They just don't come up with the conclusions you'd have them come up with.

A critic can be critical and come up with bad criticism. I think you'd be better served to think that religious people are *bad* thinkers, or *wrong* thinkers. Granted, that's more of a moral judgment.

-Elliot

elliotfc

21st July 2005, 03:39 PM

Originally posted by Atlas
Good point. Our outrage can push us toward hope for extreme retribution - but hell is so over the top. Unending, incomprehensible torture - its senselessness offends us.

Religionists are trapped by the idea of the eternal soul. Hell is an unfortunate upshot of their assumption.

If it was truly senseless, it wouldn't resonate with people. Yes, I recognize that it does offend a good number of people, for good reason. I think primitive might be a better way of describing the notion of hell. Surely it's not senseless, just based on its pervasiveness and history. It would be senseless that the notion could be in such widespread circulation if the notion truly was senseless.

If the soul doesn't exist...even in that case I wouldn't say the religionist was trapped by the notion of the soul. If it's just this life and no eternity, the individual has the *freedom* to come up with any notions they want. If Hell doesn't exist, I don't think the notion is all that effectively unfortunate.

So, whether or not the soul and/or hell exist, I don't see how it is trapping or unfortuante to any significant degree.

-Elliot

triadboy

21st July 2005, 04:00 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
As to how it works? A person can believe in anything they want. No labeled person is *confined* to believe in everything that the label is supposed to believe in.

I have to believe these "Christians" are EXTREMELY liberal to not believe in hell. Hell is in the bible, so one would think a Christian would believe it

elliotfc

21st July 2005, 04:20 PM

Originally posted by triadboy
I have to believe these "Christians" are EXTREMELY liberal to not believe in hell. Hell is in the bible, so one would think a Christian would believe it

Yes. I think that there are probably even Christians who believe that Christ was a mythical figure. [But he was a mythical figure, i know i know i know]

Triad, do you consider the fact that Christians choose from the chinese buffet of beliefs to be a good thing, a bad thing, or just something curious? Or is that question not really meaningful to you?

If it's a meaningful question. is it significant of what you'd consider to be a fundamental defect of religion?

Personally, it just demonstrates to me that religion isn't some thing that forces anyone to do or think anything (the exception being the imposition of religion on others). The person (even the most fundamentalist or the fudamental) is just believing as they want to believe. Which is OK by me. Since I believe as I want to believe too.

I ask you these questions with some trepidation, as you may have the same emphatic position in regards to believe/belief as you do to faith.

-Elliot

jjramsey

21st July 2005, 05:23 PM

Originally posted by Ossai

jjramsey (in response to Igopogo)

This is half-wrong and a bit incoherent. Heaven and Hell are certainly doctrines that deal with the fact that those who do wrong often don't get their comeuppance in their lifetimes.

Human centric.

I never contested the human-centeredness of it. My disagreements with Igopogo on the matter were elsewhere. The rest of the paragraph to Igopogo read: "Where you go wrong here is in assuming that those who believe in Heaven and Hell see the prosperity of cheaters as the result of "mistakes they feel that God made in doling out our lots in life." The incoherency is the idea that the concepts of Heaven and Hell imply ignorance of the reality that good things happen to bad people and vice versa, when this is the very reality that the doctrines of Heaven and Hell address." No arguments about human-centeredness here.

Originally posted by Ossai
I read Igopogoâ€™s statement differently. Itâ€™s not the ignorance but the knowledge that good things happen to bad people that form the basis for heaven and hell. There would be no need for hell if bad people got their comeuppance while alive.

That appears to be Igopogo's interpretation of his words as well. However, he still wrote that Heaven and Hell "ignore the reality around them," which seemed an odd statement to make about doctrines that address the knowledge of which you just spoke. I don't doubt that he meant what you said he meant, but he did not express himself too clearly.

Originally posted by jjramsey
Seriously, even most inerrantists believe that only the original versions of the Bible documents (which are now lost) are infallible, while copies and translations may have errors.

Originally posted by Ossai
From the buckle of the bible belt here, but youâ€™re very wrong on this one, at least in this part of the country. Come down and listen to some Church of Christ sermons for starters.

That's just it, the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Statement_on_Biblical_Inerrancy) may be too liberal in your neck of the woods, but hardly everywhere. Don't assume that your fundamentalist neighbors are representative of all conservative Christians.

Atlas

21st July 2005, 05:35 PM

Originally posted by Iacchus
I am also relativist -- and mystic :) -- and suggest that we are all creatures of our own invention. Do you know of any two people who think and act alike? I don't. So in that sense heaven and hell must be as varied as the number of people on this planet. Which isn't to say we all don't derive our perception from the same thing. There's only one sun in the sky isn't there?
I appreciate your thoughts. You are a very confusing pesonality to me. You invent yourself and choose a hell that must exist for other people. You express complete freedom from dogma, you search for meaning and love and you come away with a God of love that will surely elevate you but has eternal torment in his plan "bad" people. I accused you before of having the idea of hell imprinted on your psyche when you were young - you answered me harshly. That makes me believe that you developed you ideas of hell as you invented yourself. It certainly has no logic to me. And for someone like you, a mystic, full of sunshine, smileys and dolphins, to saddle your personal God with a personality that demands he build a wing of creation for cruelty - as a mystic you are mystifying.

I hope you revisit your idea of the Good and God and the insignificance of man is the largeness of his design and at the very least remove eternity from your idea of hell.

It's strange to me that I care about this. I don't fight the idea among religionists. They buy a religion and are kinda stuck with what it tells them. You are different. You can believe anything and you have chosen hell. You cherish this darkness when merely by changing your mind - mystically - you could embrace the light.

You seem incredibly adept at changing ideas. You hesitate to answer questions I ask. You talk of free will as if I should know that free will demands a God of hell.

I'll pull back now. I wish you'd reconsider your position but I don't think the world cares to much what I wish for. Good Luck.

Thomas

21st July 2005, 06:11 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Thomas, I'm surprised that I came across as calm. It was my intention to come across, with you, as dismissive, due to your frankly repulsive (yet colorful!) post that you offered.

Yes, that was quite colorful wasn't it? It was also meant to be repulsive, and you should be aware that most religious folks would have ripped my head off for such a post. But you don't, you just ask questions. If that's your aggressive state, then your calm state would have to be sleep or something.

I'm not a priest, yet I could play one on television. Jesuit high school and college, employed by several churches and one seminary, but not enrolled in any order or vocation. I teach kids, so at least I can assume the role of the calm and measured man, yet I insist it isn't true. I'm hyperactive and my mind is always racing.

I remember once you talked about your church, but it merely came out as your church, but I guess that was a misunderstanding then.

I do have a good effect on my students, but that might be a bad thing, because students are very impressionable, and I try to make impressions on them when it comes to...dare I say...critical thinking...

Yes, you often use the Socratic approach, as you mostly give your opinions in the form of questions (but not rethorical ones).

Anyhow, I understand how religion, for the most sincere and legitimate reasons, causes you some form of consternation or other. It has been, and can be, an impediment to scientific progress (you do realize, though, that there should exist institutions outside of science that should offer a check to unbridled, or undirected, scienctifc progress). I don't think that scientific progress is the most important thing for humanity in general, and certainly me in particular. Not that I have a problem with it either. It is what it is.

We differ in opinion there, as I consider science one of the most beneficial approaches mankind has ever used. We wouldn't be able to have this conversation without it.

As for critical thinking...I know over a hundred priests, and have talked to I don't know how many religious in a variety of forums and mediums. What kind of generalization can I make easily? The elementary conclusion that religious believers *do* think critically. Believers have such a scattered array of theological notions and explanations, and they have such a hard time of fitting the pigeonholes that they would be stuffed into that it's clear the religious individual does think critically. They just don't come up with the conclusions you'd have them come up with.

This is an age old debate. It all depends on the definition people use of critical thinking. I'm personally in favor of skepticism in its original form, where you can't be sure about anything. That's what I consider the top of critical thinking, otherwise I wouldn't do it.

A critic can be critical and come up with bad criticism. I think you'd be better served to think that religious people are *bad* thinkers, or *wrong* thinkers. Granted, that's more of a moral judgment.
By your definition of a critical thinker I can agree with that, but I also think it's a rather exotic ad hoc definition you use.

At least, if you beleive in any of the things I ridiculed in the post you call repulsive and colorful, then I personally don't think you're a genuine critical thinker, and I think most of the participants on this board would agree with that.

Atlas

21st July 2005, 06:13 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
If it was truly senseless, it wouldn't resonate with people. Yes, I recognize that it does offend a good number of people, for good reason. I think primitive might be a better way of describing the notion of hell. Surely it's not senseless, just based on its pervasiveness and history. It would be senseless that the notion could be in such widespread circulation if the notion truly was senseless.

If the soul doesn't exist...even in that case I wouldn't say the religionist was trapped by the notion of the soul. If it's just this life and no eternity, the individual has the *freedom* to come up with any notions they want. If Hell doesn't exist, I don't think the notion is all that effectively unfortunate.

So, whether or not the soul and/or hell exist, I don't see how it is trapping or unfortuante to any significant degree. I could have chosen a better word than senseless. I agree with the rest of humanity on the finality of death. We can never walk this way again. If the soul exists and continues it will be as something different, inhuman. Death for a human being is a forever thing. It is the eternal nature of death that suggests the eternal nature of the departed soul. Along with death is the ugly corruption of the flesh. The corpse is foul and worm food. The underworld is dark and destroying. Visions of a rotting corpse, rotting flesh, offend us and we know it is our fate.

We yearn for an alternative and seek some brighter future. Maybe if we grovel to the God of death and destruction he will not eat us.

For people who lived in dark ages and saw plagues destroy loved ones and had no way to think about themselves except as pawns of the gods, horror was close and all too real. Hell was a natural thing to believe of God. He was harsh and mean and demanded worship, adoration, and fealty. Unscrupulous men saw profit in the wielding of ideas of hell against the masses.

The scientific age has found more terrestrial answers to problems inflicted on us from the gods and demons. It has brought a light into the world. God has changed in my lifetime from a wrathful being to one of love. I was raised Catholic like you.

Hell resonates only because humans have a knowledge and fear of their own death. Priests and other religious exacerbate the problem for business reasons. One God is as good as the next but if you can control people's vision of hell - you own them. They'll pray to whichever God you tell them if they can escape the hell that scares them the most and is promised them if they fail to follow orders.

Just as I told Iacchus, a loving God, if He exists, would reward those whom he chose to reward and leave the rest dead. There is an economy to the vastness of creation. A beauty. For a loving God to make an eternal Hell for cruel and eternal terror and punishment would be senseless. For a priest to tell you about Hell is good business.

ETA: To clarify, the eternal soul traps us by our fear of eternal hell. If hell merely burns up the soul it is not horrible enough for the business of religion to use to control and extract our money and lives.

triadboy

21st July 2005, 08:51 PM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Triad, do you consider the fact that Christians choose from the chinese buffet of beliefs to be a good thing, a bad thing, or just something curious? Or is that question not really meaningful to you?

I'm not convinced that Christians choose from the buffet of beliefs at all. I really don't buy those poll results. It's like imagining Muslims are free to choose from the buffet also.

elliotfc

22nd July 2005, 11:59 AM

Originally posted by Thomas
We differ in opinion there, as I consider science one of the most beneficial approaches mankind has ever used. We wouldn't be able to have this conversation without it.

I didn't say it wasn't beneficial, just not the most important thing in human existence. I tip the cap to science, it does enable this conversation, yet this conversation, likewise, isn't crucial by any stretch. We'll both persist in our particular outlooks, for better or for worse. See, I can take anything I want from science, benefit from it, and not have any reason to elevate it beyond what it is. Without it I wouldn't know any better.

What we make of existence, and what we consider to be beneficial, is not directed by science, but by something outside of science. That something I consider to be more significant.

At least, if you beleive in any of the things I ridiculed in the post you call repulsive and colorful, then I personally don't think you're a genuine critical thinker, and I think most of the participants on this board would agree with that.

I'll have to settle then for the additional qualifier of "genuine". Thankfully yours, and the others, opinion is merely a subjective one of limited significance. For if I am not a critical thinker or if I am disingenuous/non-genuine, by a certain selected standard, that standard does not have any deterministic effect on me. Science can only enable the standard, and not enforce it or make it irrefutably significant.

As for being a skeptic, I remain skeptical of skeptics. :) I question just how skeptical they are of themselves sometimes.

-Elliot

elliotfc

22nd July 2005, 12:51 PM

Originally posted by triadboy
I'm not convinced that Christians choose from the buffet of beliefs at all. I really don't buy those poll results. It's like imagining Muslims are free to choose from the buffet also.

Interesting, really interesting.

Despite what you say, I *know* that Christians really do pick and choose what they want to believe. I do it myself. Does that mean I'm not really a Christian?

Do you think that there are some fundamental Christian beliefs, and others are non-fundamental, and that the Christian can not choose from fundamental Christian beliefs? And that those who do not select some of the fundamentals are not Christians?

How do you define Christian anyhow? Is it what you believe, or what you think you are?

Like a member of my immediate family doesn't believe in the existence of hell or demons, but does believe in Jesus and considers himself a Christian. What can you make of that? Hasn't he picked and chosen what to believe? The only thing you can say to be coherent is that he is not really a Christian. But he says he is a Christian and attends Mass and all that.

-Elliot

elliotfc

22nd July 2005, 01:31 PM

Originally posted by Atlas
I could have chosen a better word than senseless. I agree with the rest of humanity on the finality of death.

But what about the people who say that death is not final? Do they not really know what they are saying, and therefore, there assertion can be ignored? And if so, don't you have to say that humanity doesn't agree on the finality of death, just by the fact that you can state that some people are wrong regarding the question?

We can never walk this way again. If the soul exists and continues it will be as something different, inhuman. Death for a human being is a forever thing.

Christians believe in the resurrection of the body. Or they should. Some don't (the pick and choose thing). It's in all of the earliest creeds. Christians believe that we were created to *be* human.

This might be the time to state something about heaven (I know this thread is about hell). I think that heaven is not a place, but a relationship. Adam & Eve (I'm forgetting the fact that I don't agree in the literal delivery of Genesis) were in heaven. The resurrected Jesus is the form of what I think we'll end up as. We certainly aren't going to end up like angels. Angels are an entirely different species, we are not on their level. And if we were created to be immaterial, why the hell were we given human bodies? And if God means to scrap the whole idea of humanity in the end (all souls being disembodied in heaven) why the hell did he become a human being?

Anyhow, for what I insist are good Christian theological reasons, I disagree that death *for a human being* is a forever thing. I was created to be a human being, and I believe that I'll be one again, that God will rectify the human condition. If I wasn't created to be a human being I would not be a human being. It's pretty elementary to me. And again, the earliest creeds preach the resurrection of the body.

It is the eternal nature of death that suggests the eternal nature of the departed soul.

That's a possibility. But some cultures didn't draw that conclusion, and certainly you don't. I think death suggests death, and that's about it. For death to suggest life you have to have something other than death enter the equation. Right?

Along with death is the ugly corruption of the flesh. The corpse is foul and worm food. The underworld is dark and destroying. Visions of a rotting corpse, rotting flesh, offend us and we know it is our fate.

Yes, but then why do people make zombie movies, and why I can't I get enough of them?

Outside of zombie movies I never think about visions of rotting corpses. Plus, believers and skeptics can be equally adept and nonchalant about doing autopsies or embalmings.

We yearn for an alternative and seek some brighter future. Maybe if we grovel to the God of death and destruction he will not eat us.

Well sheesh, if I had that attitude...

If God really was the God of death and destruction, would there be a brighter future?

For people who lived in dark ages and saw plagues destroy loved ones and had no way to think about themselves except as pawns of the gods, horror was close and all too real. Hell was a natural thing to believe of God. He was harsh and mean and demanded worship, adoration, and fealty. Unscrupulous men saw profit in the wielding of ideas of hell against the masses.

You'll admit that the depictions of Hell did not originate in the Dark Ages.

Interesting that you mention it, anyhow. I never get people telling me about the horrors of hell. In the past few years, the people who insist on them are the skeptics on this board. Meaning they conjure them up, even though they don't believe in them. Talk about unscrupulous...

And since we're past the dark ages, what's the problem exactly? Isn't it good if Christians like me not talk about hell in such ways, and water it down or something? And those who do invoke the horror hell, haven't they been effectively marginalized? I guess that's disputable. Yet you do bring up the....DAH DAH...

The scientific age (boldface mine) has found more terrestrial answers to problems inflicted on us from the gods and demons. It has brought a light into the world. God has changed in my lifetime from a wrathful being to one of love. I was raised Catholic like you.

Yes, of course it has found more answers. It is a vicious cycle, and this isn't my line. They say that for every answer science provides, it raises more questions. Which lead to more answers. It's insane. It's madness. Of course you have found more answers. You're always making the questions!

I'm being a bit silly. But not totally. Some of the questions/answers are banal. Yes, banal I says, and I means it. I don't care about a better GameCube or fancy shmancy TV.

More importantly, it hasn't banished *any* of the fundamental concerns of humanity. Yes, science has cured many diseases. And we expect science to cure every disease. No contentment there. How about suffering? Do humans suffer less, today, than in the Dark Ages? Sure. And we probably bitch and moan about, and are more fearful about, suffering today than then. Are people happier? Ask your shrink for the answer.

Science will never cure the human condition, short of nuclear or viral or weather-related annihalation. It's an admirable goal, but all the answers just lead to more questions. No end in sight. Unless that's the point. Never-ending question and answer.

It's fine for what it is. I'll reap the benefits of science without worshipping it or making it the most important thing in my life. It ain't gonna deliver me from death, that's for sure.

Hell resonates only because humans have a knowledge and fear of their own death.

So, people who find resonance in hell must be afraid of their own death? What if a person claims to find resonance in hell, and also claims to not be afraid of their own death? Are they mistaken? And if so, how can that be determined short of empathic supernatural powers?

To make that statement suggests you need to believe that people who have certain beliefs have to be motivated in a certain way. The only way you can have such a belief with any knowledge is if a)when you were a believer, you know that you were motivated by fear or b)an ex-believer admits a similar scenario or c)a believer admits to be motivated by fear. But why should those three scenarios be deterministic for how all believers would be motivated. Now there's a question I'd like to see science answer.

Priests and other religious exacerbate the problem for business reasons.

Bwah! And skeptics. Skeptics make money give speeches and write books about how the religious exacerbate the problem. It's a conspiracy!

One God is as good as the next but if you can control people's vision of hell - you own them. They'll pray to whichever God you tell them if they can escape the hell that scares them the most and is promised them if they fail to follow orders.

Sheesh, that's pretty harsh.

Let's say you're right. So what?

Just as I told Iacchus, a loving God, if He exists, would reward those whom he chose to reward and leave the rest dead.

Yeah, but you're not the expert on what a loving God would have to be, so that doesn't mean much. It only means something if God exists. If God exists, and he's not the loving God that you would define, that would be the hypothetical I'd like to hear you comment on. The other hypothetical is impotent, since you have no control on what a loving God would or wouldn't do.

You're not a theologian, nor do you claim to be one on television. That's why I'm being dismissive about your definition of a loving God. You're defining a God that you don't believe exists.

There is an economy to the vastness of creation. A beauty. For a loving God to make an eternal Hell for cruel and eternal terror and punishment would be senseless. For a priest to tell you about Hell is good business.

No, anything that God would do would make sense.

The good thing here is that you recognize how bad hell would be, so I'm not that worried about you.

The business stuff doesn't mean much because I can't remember the last time a priest told me about hell and nobody on this forum spends more time listening to priests talk than me.

This ignores one point I'd like you to address. Would a human being have the right to make the choice to reject God? And if so, shouldn't that choice be respected? And if it's a bad choice, shouldn't discomfort arise from it?

And if you are to say "but who would choose hell if it's so bad", I'd ask you to address the other point I asked earlier. What would you make of a God who would have hell exist? Would you reject that God? If the answer is yes, than the answer would be you. You would choose hell. And failing to choose means you would be too proud to choose, or above the choice. Which is itself a choice.

The more people insist about the nature of a loving God, but more they insist that God must be as they want God to me, the more hell makes sense. I'm not saying you're going to hell, because over the months I've determined that you are a fair-minded and sensible person. But any opinion (a loving God MUST be this way) can be held for eternity.

I guess that's what I'd like Atlas. Could you address those two questions?

1)If God existed, and if Hell existed, would you have a problem with that?
2)If you had a problem with that, would you prefer Hell (as bad as it may be) to a reconciliation with a God who you have a serious problem with?

Personally, I don't find the existence of Hell as problematic as you. I see it as an existence of Free Will. The fact that it is painful (you are free to use additional adjectives as you'd like) follows the reality that the rejection of God is a bad choice. Why shouldn't a bad choice lead to bad consequences? It all just makes sense to me, and if it doesn't make sense to you at the moment, I think God understands that and it won't be held against you (unless you want it to be held against you).

ETA: To clarify, the eternal soul traps us by our fear of eternal hell. If hell merely burns up the soul it is not horrible enough for the business of religion to use to control and extract our money and lives. [/B]

Heck, we all have to make a living. I could question the motivation of anyone who got paid, I guess.

-Elliot

Iacchus

22nd July 2005, 04:17 PM

Originally posted by Atlas
You seem incredibly adept at changing ideas. You hesitate to answer questions I ask. You talk of free will as if I should know that free will demands a God of hell. There are lots of "Gods" in hell, and they expect to be worshipped. The problem is, they're competing with all the rest of the "Gods" in hell -- which, is the origin of their torment.

Atlas

23rd July 2005, 01:03 PM

Originally posted by Iacchus
There are lots of "Gods" in hell, and they expect to be worshipped. The problem is, they're competing with all the rest of the "Gods" in hell -- which, is the origin of their torment. You choose to believe so much that is at odds with Judeo Christian ideas. Why cling so fiercely to the ugliest idea of all?

Atlas

23rd July 2005, 03:18 PM

There is way too much stuff to comment on in this post. So I'll answer with short statements and I'll expand on anything you'd like more in depth later.
Originally posted by elliotfc
But what about the people who say that death is not final? Do they not really know what they are saying, and therefore, there assertion can be ignored? And if so, don't you have to say that humanity doesn't agree on the finality of death, just by the fact that you can state that some people are wrong regarding the question?
My comments were directed at this lifetime only. Any resurrection will be on a new Earth or heaven. This life ends, on that we can rely.
Christians believe in the resurrection of the body. Or they should. Some don't (the pick and choose thing). It's in all of the earliest creeds. Christians believe that we were created to *be* human.Do humans stay dead til they get their bodies back or do they hover as disembodied spirit consciousness. What is the difference? Jesus was resurrected bodily, so way his mom. Why? Heaven is for angels and God - spirits - what's a body for?
This might be the time to state something about heaven (I know this thread is about hell). I think that heaven is not a place, but a relationship. Adam & Eve (I'm forgetting the fact that I don't agree in the literal delivery of Genesis) were in heaven. The resurrected Jesus is the form of what I think we'll end up as. We certainly aren't going to end up like angels. Angels are an entirely different species, we are not on their level. And if we were created to be immaterial, why the hell were we given human bodies? And if God means to scrap the whole idea of humanity in the end (all souls being disembodied in heaven) why the hell did he become a human being?"Our Father who art in 'a relationship'"?? You can believe what you want. The people he taught the prayer to knew different. According to the NT we were made lower than the angels to be placed above them. How is the body going to help with that? Why did God become a human being? Pick your answer... All humans are God or --- He didn't.
Anyhow, for what I insist are good Christian theological reasons, I disagree that death *for a human being* is a forever thing. I was created to be a human being, and I believe that I'll be one again, that God will rectify the human condition. If I wasn't created to be a human being I would not be a human being. It's pretty elementary to me. And again, the earliest creeds preach the resurrection of the body.A human centric idea, very Ptolemaic. We are the greatest God could conceive. He fashioned a Universe from his word and a human out of dust and spit and why would he build more? Your's is the same idea that dust and spit would individually offer.That's a possibility. But some cultures didn't draw that conclusion, and certainly you don't. I think death suggests death, and that's about it. For death to suggest life you have to have something other than death enter the equation. Right?

Outside of zombie movies I never think about visions of rotting corpses. Plus, believers and skeptics can be equally adept and nonchalant about doing autopsies or embalmings.Our world is not the world of the ancients. Death was ugly and smelly and close. We clean it up and get it out of sight. In the "Unforgivable Sin" thread I've got a link to Gehenna. It was a refuse dump. They threw some human corpses into the brimstone fire. Death doesn't suggest life. It suggests eternity. Life, that thing before death, is what suggests life. The equation includes hope.If God really was the God of death and destruction, would there be a brighter future?There is no reason except hope to expect anything of any God who created us. He created earthly horrors as well as sunshine. We may be being treated as we do cattle. Feed and raise them - for slaughter and to eat. You'll admit that the depictions of Hell did not originate in the Dark Ages.I think Dante's ideas come from the 1200s. I discuss it a little more in the "Unforgivable Sin" thread.
Interesting that you mention it, anyhow. I never get people telling me about the horrors of hell. In the past few years, the people who insist on them are the skeptics on this board. Meaning they conjure them up, even though they don't believe in them. Talk about unscrupulous...Visiting Christians to this forum do occasionally remind us that we are doomed to the pit. You don't hear it because the business has changed. The God of love sells today. The pendlum will swing back though. The Falwell types believe we deserve God's wrath and that 9/11 was caused by our permissive society wheeling us all toward perdition. Hell is alive and well and dwells just under the surface of love.And since we're past the dark ages, what's the problem exactly? Isn't it good if Christians like me not talk about hell in such ways, and water it down or something? And those who do invoke the horror hell, haven't they been effectively marginalized? I guess that's disputable. Yet you do bring up the....DAH DAH...The Christ myth is evolving, much of the darkness is being jettisoned. But it is the same harsh desert God of the Bible. He lurks ready to raise jihad in the hearts of all of Abraham's spiritual descendents. We live inside this myth and can be turned inside out by charismatic interpreters.Yes, of course it has found more answers. It is a vicious cycle, and this isn't my line. They say that for every answer science provides, it raises more questions. Which lead to more answers. It's insane. It's madness. Of course you have found more answers. You're always making the questions!
More importantly, it hasn't banished *any* of the fundamental concerns of humanity. Religion has been around alot longer, nothing changed. Jesus died for our salvation - nothing changed. Sin didn't disappear, nor disease, nor war, nor pestilence, death is just as big as ever. And people still have all the same questions. Science lets me ponder these ideas because I can read the thoughts of many different opinions and see great minds discuss both sides. I'd be tending sheep in ignorance or dead from smallpox or something without science. Yes, science has cured many diseases. And we expect science to cure every disease. No contentment there. How about suffering? Do humans suffer less, today, than in the Dark Ages? Sure. And we probably bitch and moan about, and are more fearful about, suffering today than then. Are people happier? Ask your shrink for the answer.

Science will never cure the human condition, short of nuclear or viral or weather-related annihalation. It's an admirable goal, but all the answers just lead to more questions. No end in sight. Unless that's the point. Never-ending question and answer.

It's fine for what it is. I'll reap the benefits of science without worshipping it or making it the most important thing in my life. It ain't gonna deliver me from death, that's for sure.Whatever is the destiny of man will be realized more from science than religion. We seem to be in disagreement on a lot, don't we.
So, people who find resonance in hell must be afraid of their own death? What if a person claims to find resonance in hell, and also claims to not be afraid of their own death? Are they mistaken? And if so, how can that be determined short of empathic supernatural powers?

To make that statement suggests you need to believe that people who have certain beliefs have to be motivated in a certain way. The only way you can have such a belief with any knowledge is if a)when you were a believer, you know that you were motivated by fear or b)an ex-believer admits a similar scenario or c)a believer admits to be motivated by fear. But why should those three scenarios be deterministic for how all believers would be motivated. Now there's a question I'd like to see science answer.Psychology might help - I'm not sure it's science but it often tries to follow scientific ideals. Skinner box behaviorists have shown "superstition" to be the most powerful reinforcement mechanism known. Fear is uncomfortable and discomfort is a strong reinforcement mechanism as well.
Bwah! And skeptics. Skeptics make money give speeches and write books about how the religious exacerbate the problem. It's a conspiracy!As long as you agree about the religious agenda, we're cool.Sheesh, that's pretty harsh.

Let's say you're right. So what?So we should look for better myths and recognize that the desert God is not a healthy choice for humanity.
Yeah, but you're not the expert on what a loving God would have to be, so that doesn't mean much. It only means something if God exists. If God exists, and he's not the loving God that you would define, that would be the hypothetical I'd like to hear you comment on. The other hypothetical is impotent, since you have no control on what a loving God would or wouldn't do.

You're not a theologian, nor do you claim to be one on television. That's why I'm being dismissive about your definition of a loving God. You're defining a God that you don't believe exists.I have notions about what love is. Saying God is all love doesn't make it so. If you would question the meanings of common phrases abvout the deity you'd realize the mythic truth is the real truth. And there is no hell except in scare stories. Heaven can still be sought.... as in "A man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for"?No, anything that God would do would make sense.But to no one else but God. And we can only hope He's sane. This ignores one point I'd like you to address. Would a human being have the right to make the choice to reject God? And if so, shouldn't that choice be respected? And if it's a bad choice, shouldn't discomfort arise from it?My right to explore athiestic ideas should be respected, if that's what you mean.And if you are to say "but who would choose hell if it's so bad", I'd ask you to address the other point I asked earlier. What would you make of a God who would have hell exist? Would you reject that God? If the answer is yes, than the answer would be you. You would choose hell. And failing to choose means you would be too proud to choose, or above the choice. Which is itself a choice.This is a good question. And I would like to turn it back on you. If an alien ship appeared in our skies and began to systematically turn the Earth into a vision of Hell, would you fight it? Why would you it from a stronger being than an alien. Wrong is wrong. Hey maybe the alien would even call itself God - would you cower or would you fight it as evil?

The more people insist about the nature of a loving God, but more they insist that God must be as they want God to me, the more hell makes sense. I'm not saying you're going to hell, because over the months I've determined that you are a fair-minded and sensible person. But any opinion (a loving God MUST be this way) can be held for eternity.

I guess that's what I'd like Atlas. Could you address those two questions?

1)If God existed, and if Hell existed, would you have a problem with that? Yes, I would - The Catholic Hell anyway.
2)If you had a problem with that, would you prefer Hell (as bad as it may be) to a reconciliation with a God who you have a serious problem with? Would I trade a thousand years in flames for a hundred billion of bliss or would I prefer that death null me out? I would prefer death null me out. I really really would.Personally, I don't find the existence of Hell as problematic as you. I see it as an existence of Free Will. The fact that it is painful (you are free to use additional adjectives as you'd like) follows the reality that the rejection of God is a bad choice. Why shouldn't a bad choice lead to bad consequences?Hell is a gun to your head. If you accept its reality you are not making a free will choice to worship and adore God. It all just makes sense to me, and if it doesn't make sense to you at the moment, I think God understands that and it won't be held against you.Well, at least I got that going for me.

Iacchus

23rd July 2005, 04:33 PM

Originally posted by Atlas
You choose to believe so much that is at odds with Judeo Christian ideas. Why cling so fiercely to the ugliest idea of all? Why do I choose to observe the negative? Why does the word strife exist in our vocabulary? Does turning my head the other way make the ugliness go away? No, in fact it doesn't. So, all that I ask is where does ugliness manifest itself from? It just doesn't appear out of thin air does it?

Atlas

23rd July 2005, 04:53 PM

Originally posted by Iacchus
Why do I choose to observe the negative? Why does the word strife exist in our vocabulary? Does turning my head the other way make the ugliness go away? No, in fact it doesn't. So, all that I ask is where does ugliness manifest itself from? It just doesn't appear out of thin air does it? What? Ugliness comes from hell? God created hell so the world would bubble up ugly?

The question was put this way.... You choose to believe so much that is at odds with Judeo Christian ideas. Why cling so fiercely to the ugliest idea of all? Please try again and reread your answer before posting it to see if it comes close to answer the question that was asked.

Iacchus

24th July 2005, 07:06 AM

Do you deny that negativity exists? This is not what you mean by ugly?

triadboy

24th July 2005, 08:28 AM

Originally posted by elliotfc
Interesting, really interesting.

I'll say

Matthew 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

I understand there are many different fragments of xianity - because the words are so vague.

But a traditional Christian must:

believe in hell

believe in a devil

believe in heaven

believe in Yahweh (or 'God' - his egotistical nickname)

believe in a 'Holy Spirit' (who used to be female, but apparently had an operation called an Addidictomy)

believe in Jesus as God

believe in a talking snake (without the talking snake Jesus is not needed)

Now - of course there are mutations - but when questioned, their beliefs will contradict themselves. True Christian beliefs are a long string of spaghetti logic - every little meatball must be in place for it to work.

Atlas

24th July 2005, 10:07 AM

Originally posted by Iacchus
Do you deny that negativity exists? This is not what you mean by ugly? Look, you might be thinking you're defending the existence of Hell with these comments but your reasoning is lost on me. Still, I'll answer your questions though you don't seem inclined to defend the thoughts that drive your own assertions.

Man is the measure of all things. That's from the Greek philosopher Protagoras. I accept it as fact and I don't see where a subjectivist such as yourself would argue against it. I also accept that we live in a world of opposites. Perceived opposites, that is. Up is not down. That's our assessment. But up and down are not principles of the universe. Likewise, human beings perceive good and bad. They are artifacts of a consciousness afflicted by survival based needs that produce brain states appreciated as pleasure and pain. Good and Bad are not principles of the universe.

It is our plight that the world of opposites is so apparent. We make judgements around these assessments so naturally that we make them even when they are not warranted. God and the devil are examples, for me, of such unnecessary perceived (manufactured) opposites. It is because of those assessments of Good and Bad, and their Lords, that we name their domains - (Heaven and Hell).

It is because I have adopted a posture that identifies the opposites of Good and Bad (negativity, or whatever you like to call it) as ghosts that I do not accept religions the identify them with their core principles. I can dispense with the devil and with his domain. I am left to wrestle only with the God of Creation. And here, in my philosophy, I find myself drifting spiritually in a kind of Buddhist enlightenment. The appreciation of the One, of Oneness, liberates me from the twoness of God and Creation. There is only one thing and that is what the materialist/naturalist calls the Universe. I still often refer to it as Creation but I mean Universe.

And God? God is a human feeling. An emotional rationalization not based in logic or evidence. Merely a felt experience not unlike hunger, yearning, joy, or even headache. That's really all I know and all I can know about God at large in the Universe - I occasionally have feelings that remind me of the God concept that was part of my religious upbringing.

The Universe is what it is. It is sometimes experienced as awesome and beautiful and sometimes as ugly and banal. But it is really always all those things and more. As humans we must live within the world of opposites we perceive but we should not be slaves to that world. It is in the middle we find the balance of the opposites and in each new moment where we choose which side holds the most value for our own human life, the darkness or the light.

Anyway, that's my simple construction and that's how I end up dismissing Hell. I'll expand on anything you find bizarre or confusing. I offer it as kind of a framework or an example for the kind of response I'd like from you. I'm asking why you reject the Hell of the various religions but feel the need to create your own special version where the bulk of humanity will suffer. You're not like Elliot who actually lives in a religion with dogma and a name. You blaze your own way and choose your own God but for some reason you choose a God with a torture chamber that offers horrors forever - in God's love and the soul's love of torment. It's a weird choice you have made and I am unable to see why you have constructed it into your subjective appreciation of the unknown.