Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 17:23:49 +0100

to theponderer:

My dad gave me the, 'i don't question god's will' shrug.

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:56:32 +0100

Yes, I realize I misspelled sulphur in my previous diatribe. I hope you'll all still respect me in the morning.

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:50:21 +0100

Michae1803:

You're right about the Code of Hammurabi. That was what I was searching for in my memory banks when I blurted out Gilgamesh, which is of course the "great flood" story predating the Genesis account of Noah. My apologies for being sloppy. Guess I shoulda Googled Gilgamesh before I made the entry, to prevent just such a faux-pas.

Now, on to my next potential foot-in-mouth experience: From my reading of the New Testament, which is not, I admit, comprehensive, I have not encountered any descriptions of Hell as a place where the damned are simply isolated from God. There seems to always be an element of physical violence in the descriptions---"lake of fire", "torment", etc.

So, okay, for the sake of argument let's assume those threatening terms aren't meant to be taken literally. Assume the NT's authors were using hyperbole to drive home the point that Hell is an undesirable destination. Assume that there is no literal physical torture, and that Hell is "separation from God", which many modern Christians do embrace as an apt interpretation. Now we've moved from corporal punishment to solitary confinement.

From my layman's POV, that's analogous to a child's parents eschewing spanking for the more civilized "time-out". I still have a problem with being put in time-out forever. It implies that once a person has shed the physical body, there is no more chance to learn a lesson. Zero mercy from a supposedly-merciful God. Wear your dunce cap and put your nose in the corner forever. Still sounds excessive to me. Any punishment that goes on without end seems cruel to me. Call me a bleeding-heart liberal, or intellectually stunted (then again, please don't do that, it would be mean), but I don't get it.

Maybe it's my difficulty with the concept of eternity as a timeless state that is tripping me up. Without time, there seems to me to be no frame of reference for events. Without time, nothing can happen, since time is the interval between events. If eternity means "outside of time", how can there be any thought? Thinking takes time. If there is no perception of time, how can anything be experienced or contemplated? Without time, how can one feel lonely? How can one feel anything, or even be aware of one's own existence?

Help me! I'm bogged down in metaphysical quicksand! And still, I'm waiting for someone to be an apologist for the fire-and-brimstone scenario. Will no one take up the gauntlet? The "Hell is not a lake of molten sulpher" and the "eternity contains no sense of time" arguments are moot points in light of the question I asked.

I'm not saying any one of you is wrong; most of you have thoughtful, valid points. Some of you are admittedly better-read than I am. Most likely, I am asking the impossible, which is, in essense, for someone to present a remotely viable justification for immeasurable cruelty.

Tens of millions of Americans believe in the horribly violent version of Hell that I am decrying. Surely one of them will step up and play "deity's advocate" for that version. I will check this site as often as time allows (uh, oh, there I go mentioning time again), but I won't be holding my breath.

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 21:33:49 +0100

This is a really profound problem. Unfortunately, several of the anti-theistic comments above betray some really shallow and underdeveloped thinking wrapped in the writers' personal bigotry.
The comment about the over-"Dante-fication" of hell is especially apt, however.
What if hell is not a place of torment as such? Rather, isn't it state of being, a consequence of one's rejection of the Creator's Unbounded, Unconditional Love for those s/he created? I understand Hell to be a state of eternal incompleteness--of ultimate loneliness chosen freely by the individual. It is eternal because it exists outside of time: it therefore has no beginning or end. Concepts of proportionality, which were pre-saged in the Code of Hammaurabi(not the epic of Gilgamesh), have no relevance to such a choice or its consequence. Ultimately allowing the consequence is simply an expression of the eternal respect of the Creator for the choice of the creature.

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:39:42 +0100

tiak:

I gather from point 2 of your last entry that you are under the impression that our modern thinking about fairness and reciprocity is different from that of Biblical times. The "eye for an eye" concept, meaning that severity of punishment should not exceed the severity of the crime, is right there in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, and is "borrowed" from texts that are even older than that (Gilgamesh, I think, but I may be mistaken). The concept of proportional punishment is not modern in origin. It just seems that proportionality applies to us humans but not to God.

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:21:55 +0100

badwims67:

You didn't say how your dad responded to the question. Would he want you to suffer for eternity for rejecting him?

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:44:59 +0100

I am not going to solve the issue, but to stir the pot a little:

1. I think that our modern thoughts about hell have been influenced way too much by Dante.

2. I also think that we judge ancient ideas based on our modern ideas of fairness and reciprocity sometimes with to little critique of these ideas and too much towards
those that are older.

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:31:51 +0100

Great question and responses.

I had a debate with my dad about this same question some years back. He's a christian who belives in hell. And I'm not. He says those who reject god get punished.

I asked him to imagine if I denied that he was my father. Would he not still love me? Would he want me to suffer for eternity for rejecting him?

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:29:49 +0100

The Hell myth is just a big stick that some clever priest dreamed up to scare the children. When you are dealing with children (and faith in a notion like Hell is very childish) you get a lot of milage with exaggeration.

Off subject: Musycks made an interesting comment about the holocaust and German christians acting barberously under orders. I think that the situation was as little more complex than that. German soldiers did many evil things and probably had little choice. There are accounts of the traumatising impact of mass executions on the soldiers involved and this was a factor in the 'industrialisation' of the exterminations as the war progressed.

I like to think that that trauma says more about their humanity than their religious beliefs.

RO

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:35:13 +0100

healingzero: wonderful comment about the baby and the bath.

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:38:57 +0100

It cannot be justified for the same reason Heaven cannot be justified. This leads to young men growing up in a religious culture that demonises and marginalises women, who's highest reward is guess what?, several dozen virgins in heaven!... the price of entry? we all know the answer to that....

and regarding Hitler.. an evil man would be an understatement, but still a man. And his heinous directions were carried out by men, mostly Christian, their faith apparently no impediment to acts of barbarism.

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 02:47:06 +0100

Orthodox Christianity has a lot of bath water with an itsy bitsy tiny baby. Great baby, don't get me wrong, it's just bathed in a lot of dirty water.
Love and Peace.

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:36:21 +0100

Thanks for responding. I've always had a problem with an "infinitely-loving" God who could devise such a cruel fate for the creatures he values more than the angels.

Comment on: How Can Eternal Damnation Be Justified?

Bigthink — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:40:22 +0100

I'd have to agree with your logic. I actually confronted my priest at Sunday school when I was ten over the same thing. How could I go to hell, not for a day, or even a lifetime, but forever, just becuase I thought about fighting another boy. It was enough even at ten to make me realize something was up with this religion.