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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Is the Traditional, Biblical view of the afterlife messed up?
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
So deification is about us becoming the people we're supposed to be with regards to character and disposition.
And yes, we might want to rebel against that. We might want to remain selfish and grumpy. But we'd be wrong.
I just want to be me. My character flaws are a part of that - I'd no more remain me if you took away my selfishness and indifference towards most of the rest of humanity than if you took away my sense of humour. I'd be a completely different person.
Which is fair enough, but if you don't aspire to fairly basic, widespread and generally agreed within Christianity across centuries and denominations qualities like unselfishness and concern for others, why be a Christian at all? Wouldn't something else suit you better?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I just want to be me. My character flaws are a part of that - I'd no more remain me if you took away my selfishness and indifference towards most of the rest of humanity than if you took away my sense of humour. I'd be a completely different person.
I think most people feel that way, not that we all don't seek improvement.
My belief is that what you want is what actually happens. People keep their character in the next life, only discarding what they wish to discard. The life we live is the one that we choose, and whatever happiness or unhappiness we experience is connected to it in the usual way.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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goperryrevs
Shipmtae
# 13504
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
It doesn't solve the human condition.
I wasn't aware it was a problem to be solved in the first place.
Then turn on the news.
(edit: code)
[ 03. October 2012, 12:39: Message edited by: goperryrevs ]
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"Keep your eye on the donut, not on the hole." - David Lynch
Posts: 2098 | From: Midlands | Registered: Mar 2008
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
I don't care what career or hobbies my daughter ends up doing. She can be a ballerina or a librarian, or whatever. But I do care greatly what kind of a ballerina or librarian or whatever she is. I want her to be a honest, passionate, self-sacrificing, humble, loving, truthful etc. etc. ballerina.
I agree with this. And I think that therefore if God loves us in anything like the way a good (not abusive or controlling) parent loves, he must want us to be good people, and be prepared to go quite far in trying to make us good.
But I also agree with Marvin - the traditional Biblical view is fucked up. The traditional Biblical view has God deliberately condemning people to torment with no hope of remission, and no possibility of improvement. Re-interpreting that to be annihilation doesn't stop it from being extremely horrible.
That sort of thing has no parallel with the love a parent displays. I have two kids, and they can make me very angry and frustrated, by deliberately bad behaviour, but they couldn't ever be so evil that I would wish them dead, or want them to suffer unimaginable torment without hope of escape. That makes no sense at all. To suggest that a loving parent might act like that is just fucked up. To suggest that God acts like that is fucked up.
I do think it's a fucked up answer to a real problem, though. God has to be just, as well as loving. He has to want us to be good, as well as respecting our decisions. He can't force his love on the unwilling, and he can't be willing to give up on us. There does seem to be space in all those tensions for the possibility of our getting things wrong, even catastrophically wrong. But the traditionally Biblical view of God intentionally hurting and humiliating people forever as a key part of his Big Idea - that's fucked up. It can at best be a warped view of some part of what might be true.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Nah. It's just telling you what's considered good and what's not.
Oh. OK.
quote:
if you don't aspire to fairly basic, widespread and generally agreed within Christianity across centuries and denominations qualities like unselfishness and concern for others, why be a Christian at all? Wouldn't something else suit you better?
Well firstly, I still believe in God. I just don't particularly care about Him, excepting His ability to seriously fuck my shit up, which this thread appears to be at pains to persuade me doesn't exist anyway.
Secondly, if I left Christianity I would possibly lose a lot of good friends, and possibly even some family. Big risk to take just for the sake of a little theological consistency...
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Nick Tamen
Ship's Wayfaring Fool
# 15164
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
Nick Tamen, I should have said, of course, that in no way was I meaning to throw rocks in your direction.
My agitation is more with folk on this thread liabling the Scriptures (and their Author) by alleging that they say this or that one single thing about the afterlife. And, with the Perverted Western Preoccupation with the Four Last Things: Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell.
Better be preoccupied with the divinization, the theosis, the deification of humankind.
quote:
...grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity...
quote:
If the Word has been made man, it is so that men may be made gods.
It makes me want to belt out, BLESSED ASSURANCE, JESUS IS MINE! The task at hand is not so much to fret, but to strive to become by grace what God is by nature.
If you don't like the proof-texting from the liturgy and the Fathers, go to 2 Pet. 1:4.
No worries, TSA. I didn't perceive any rocks. And Amen to what you write.
[ 03. October 2012, 13:11: Message edited by: Nick Tamen ]
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The first thing God says to Moses is, "Take off your shoes." We are on holy ground. Hard to believe, but the truest thing I know. — Anne Lamott
Posts: 2833 | From: On heaven-crammed earth | Registered: Sep 2009
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
It all sounds like desperate attempts to make God safe to me.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It all sounds like desperate attempts to make God safe to me.
And why not!
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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daronmedway
Shipmate
# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
So deification is about us becoming the people we're supposed to be with regards to character and disposition.
And yes, we might want to rebel against that. We might want to remain selfish and grumpy. But we'd be wrong.
I just want to be me. My character flaws are a part of that - I'd no more remain me if you took away my selfishness and indifference towards most of the rest of humanity than if you took away my sense of humour. I'd be a completely different person.
In other words, you've allowed your sense of self to be hijacked by your love of sin. This is something we all do. I do it. I convince myself that my sin is "who I am" precisely because I've believed the lie that holiness requires the holocaust of my personality. It doesn't, but the reason you think it does is because you think God hates who you are and not just what sin has done to you.
[ 03. October 2012, 13:19: Message edited by: daronmedway ]
Posts: 6976 | From: Southampton | Registered: Jul 2002
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas
Even agreeing with your dubious assertions, why not? It's preferable to torturing people.
If God can't cure people, surely he can afford them a little palliative care. If their evilness causes them pain, then put them somewhere they can't hurt anyone but themselves, and give them some high grade morphine.
Dubious assertions?
Why do you think they're dubious? If you're going to make such a comment, at least have the intellectual courage to support it.
High grade morphine?
But what if God's morphine (his love, kindness and grace) has the opposite effect on them?
What if they hate God's morphine? In that situation what are you expecting God to do? Give up his character in order to relieve the sufferings of those who hate him?
Actually, if the door of hell is locked on the inside (as I believe), and the key is in the door, then God has already given these people his "morphine": just open the door and walk through it (it's called "repentance").
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It all sounds like desperate attempts to make God safe to me.
It used to be openly and widely believed that God would rightly and justly judge the wicked and sentence them to deserved everlasting fire.
Clearly very few people on this thread believe that outcome to be just or likely. But a larger number seem reluctant to outright deny or refashion it. Instead we get downplaying of either the punishment or the judgment (it's not God's fault - bad people condemn themselves and make their own hell and God is powerless to stop them.).
Maybe the question should be - what is a just outcome in the afterlife, worthy of a just, loving, all-powerful God? An outcome that doesn't require us to make excuses for God? What would that look like?
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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The Silent Acolyte
Shipmate
# 1158
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It all sounds like desperate attempts to make God safe to me.
You talkin' to me?
Posts: 7462 | From: The New World | Registered: Aug 2001
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But what if God's morphine (his love, kindness and grace) has the opposite effect on them?
Then he could just give them normal morphine instead.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc
Yes, if you want to use logic to argue what God can or cannot do in Heaven, then go ahead. But to me, Heaven is beyond my understanding and my God is greater than that. I just trust myself to the Grace of this God.
You are, of course, free to think whatever you like about anything, based on gut feeling, what you had for breakfast this morning, or whatever. But if you are going to abdicate thinking, then you have no moral right to go around calling other people's views "silly". If you want to call them silly, because you actually have the courage to try to refute them, then fair enough. But it really is a cheap shot to dismiss them as silly while also refusing to say why, other than "logic doesn't count in this situation" (and also not explaining why logic doesn't count in that situation). That is about the biggest intellectual cop-out imaginable.
FWIW, your view is unbiblical, because Jesus prayed that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and he referred to the kingdom of God as the "kingdom of heaven". How can the things of heaven be applied to earth if heaven is run on lines which are so alien to logic? An illogical God could be divided against himself (and, as Jesus said, "a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand"). How can God's character, as revealed to us on earth, be utterly different in heaven?
Furthermore, if logic doesn't apply in heaven, then how do you know that God is a God of grace in heaven? What exactly are you trusting in? The illogical - or extra-logical - God in heaven could be the devil, for all you know!!
[ 03. October 2012, 13:41: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It all sounds like desperate attempts to make God safe to me.
Just less of a tyrannical cosmic dirt-wad, really.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I hope you're not too put off by how ugly it all is.
Actually it's a bit of relief from loneliness and the real possibility of despair. So thanks.
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And I shot a man in Tesco, just to watch him die.
Posts: 2950 | From: I cannot tell you, for you are not a friar | Registered: Jan 2006
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It all sounds like desperate attempts to make God safe to me.
I think it is a desperate attempt to replace Marvin's childish and primitive understanding of God into a grown-up version.
It is like an ignorant and superstitious primitive who believes that the spirits who inhabit the rivers and control the weather are out to get us. If the crops fail it is because the crop gods hate us. If the river floods or people drown it is because the river gods hate us. If we fall out of trees it is because the tree gods hate us. We rail against the unfairness of the system.
The idea that the afterlife is similarly harsh, arbitrary and unfair has more in common with that primitive understanding than with a mature understanding of biblical logic.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Demas
Then he could just give them normal morphine instead.
What you are basically asking is "why can't God show incorrigibly evil people kindness, given that it is generally accepted that pain alleviation is an application of kindness?"
But what I am saying is that God will show (or is showing, depending on your theology) these people kindness.
But it's the kindness of God (you know, love and all that stuff) which tortures them.
So it's not God's problem, because he is doing all he can to help them. They do not want this help.
As for the idea of "normal morphine": is there a spiritual variety of morphine? I'm not sure that's available on the NHS or the celestial equivalent!
[ 03. October 2012, 13:52: Message edited by: EtymologicalEvangelical ]
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I think it is a desperate attempt to replace Marvin's childish and primitive understanding of God into a grown-up version.
The grown-up version? What, that there is a hell (which, while not the hyperbolic "lake of fire" referred to in the Bible, is still a pretty unpleasant place to spend eternity), and there are people there, but they totally deserve to be because they're not very nice people?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
(My internet connection is really fucking terrible right now! :angry:)
quote:
EtymologicalEvangelical: But if you are going to abdicate thinking, then you have no moral right to go around calling other people's views "silly".
I can't help it, but this is the reaction I have to it. The whole idea that an Almighty God could be restricted by the lines that EtymologicalEvangelical has logically laid out for Him... It just works on my humour nerves.
quote:
EtymologicalEvangelical:
FWIW, your view is unbiblical, because Jesus prayed that God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and he referred to the kingdom of God as the "kingdom of heaven". How can the things of heaven be applied to earth if heaven is run on lines which are so alien to logic?
The way I see God's Kingdom on earth, is when we try to live a bit more like the example that Jesus has shown us. How this Kingdom on Earth relates to the Kingdom in Heaven, I don't know. I'm sure that God has an idea about that.
quote:
EtymologicalEvangelical:
An illogical God could be divided against himself (and, as Jesus said, "a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand").
What do I know if God could be divided against Himself or not? I really couldn't dare to say that I know how His mind works. The only thing I can do, is to trust Him.
quote:
EtymologicalEvangelical:
Furthermore, if logic doesn't apply in heaven, then how do you know that God is a God of grace in heaven?
Faith.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc
quote:
EtymologicalEvangelical: But if you are going to abdicate thinking, then you have no moral right to go around calling other people's views "silly".
I can't help it, but this is the reaction I have to it. The whole idea that an Almighty God could be restricted by the lines that EtymologicalEvangelical has logically laid out for Him... It just works on my humour nerves.
But you are attempting to speak on behalf of this Almighty God!
Who gave you the right to say that Almighty God does not approve of EtymologicalEvangelical's lines? Who gave you the right to say that Almighty God is not logical?
If I am being presumptuous, then you are also.
Again you are contradicting yourself (but given your view of logic, I don't suppose you are really bothered by that).
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Silent Acolyte:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
It all sounds like desperate attempts to make God safe to me.
You talkin' to me?
Not you in particular, no. "It mostly sounds like desperate attempts to make God safe to me" would be more precise, I suppose.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I think it is a desperate attempt to replace Marvin's childish and primitive understanding of God into a grown-up version.
The grown-up version? What, that there is a hell (which, while not the hyperbolic "lake of fire" referred to in the Bible, is still a pretty unpleasant place to spend eternity), and there are people there, but they totally deserve to be because they're not very nice people?
Not that at all. The grown-up version is a God who is rational and reasonable, who does what we would expect God to do, who is kind and who loves us, and whose creation is a system that makes sense and seems fair.
Since this kind of God is necessarily very complicated this is not the God that children understand or that is most obviously presented in Scripture - although it is if you read carefully.
It is pretty important to understand hell as a reasonable part of God's system. It is really better not to think of it as a place but as an attitude. There are plenty of attitudes that are pretty unpleasant for the one having the attitude. There are people who maintain bad attitudes over long periods of time. It would be possible for God to create a system where bad attitudes were impossible, but would that really be better?
Another important concept is the distinction between the subjective experience and the objective reality. Objectively speaking, the people who spend night after night at the bar forgetting their troubles are probably wasting their time. Their own subjective experience may be different. They would very likely object to someone telling them that their lives were unhappy ones. I think the same is true of people in hell.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Alogon
Cabin boy emeritus
# 5513
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
A torturer who acts out of love for the victim is still a torturer,
Like a husband who loves his wife, she wants a divorce, and he doesn't want to give her one but insist that they go on living together?
God isn't that kind of spouse. He or she will let us go where we wish.
It sounds as though you have no problem with eternal bliss except that it's called heaven and God is there, too. Do you want to go there? If not, how much do you not want to go there and why? God will let you go somewhere else. Why isn't that good news?
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Patriarchy (n.): A belief in original sin unaccompanied by a belief in God.
Posts: 7808 | From: West Chester PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by saysay:
Because that's what heaven is? Being around people who are really really different from you and getting along?
Unless you're claiming that that's the only possible form Heaven can ever take in any reality*, all you're doing is begging the question.
And, again, that's what we're told it is like in the New Testament. So of course that's what I'm claiming.
quote:
*= As opposed to, say, separate areas where people who get on with each other can be kept safely away from those they don't get on with.
What kind of wedding banquets do you go to where people aren't doing a certain amount of social arranging to make sure those who can't get along aren't forced to sit together or interact for lengthy periods of time?
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's monstrous. God gives us no choice, no means of escape, and we just have to shrug and accept it. Which is exactly what I was railing against on the other thread, only to be told it was a "fucked up" view of God...
The problem with you is that you get much of the analysis right, and then you draw the astonishing conclusion that it would be best to rail and whine about it all, loudly, angrily and incessantly. That makes no sense whatsoever, it is flat out self-contradictory! If God is anything like what you think He is, then not only should you shut your trap, very firmly, but you need to do a lot better than just to "shrug and accept" your lot. For while I am fairly certain that God finds your endless litany of complaints at least as groan-inducing as I do, that litany will not stop for God unless it stops in your mind. There is an upside though, which you can enjoy while washing your brain with hyssop. You will find that the bible turns from something to be fudged hard (as for so many on this thread...) to something written for you. For example, you may find that Psalm 139 really speaks to you.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why not? Why can't He, for instance, just put everyone into their own personal Heaven filled with the things they love and completely free of the things they hate?
Well, for that matter, why this shit place at all? Why do we not simply start in "personal heaven" and eternally remain there? But the world was not made for you. You, along with the rest of the world, were made for God. If every Divine attempt fails to get you back on track, and boy is He trying hard, then you will be thrown where you belong: into Gehenna, the garbage dump, where the fires burn eternally.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'm still stuck on "why should he be the one who defines justice?" And yes, I know it's pointless to even ask that question given that He's God, He can obliterate the entire universe with the merest thought, and that means He's the one who gets to call every shot. But I don't have to like it.
Indeed. Try fearing it. For if you really believe what you are saying there, then you should not be jumping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin. Rather, you should be afraid. And you should recite Psalm 103, to remind yourself of what is promised to those who fear the Lord.
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Congratulations, that's one of the most terrifying things I've ever read on these boards.
Really? I find that quite amusing. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why can't He, for instance, just put everyone into their own personal Heaven filled with the things they love and completely free of the things they hate?
I, for one, think that this is exactly what happens.
The principle involved is that when it comes to spiritual things, like attracts like. So in the next life you are drawn to others like yourself, who have similar interests, and surrounded by the things that you enjoy and that are consistent with your inner qualities.
This is the principle that ensures the stability of heaven.
Unfortunately, it works the other way too.
so if you are fine with cheating on the wife you will quickly find like-minded individuals. Life in their company is what it is, and will be lived free of those who disapprove. Whether that seems like an enjoyable life or not depends on individual taste. But it should be obvious that there are disappointments and issues that are inescapable in that situation.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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saysay
Ship's Praying Mantis
# 6645
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Why can't He, for instance, just put everyone into their own personal Heaven filled with the things they love and completely free of the things they hate?
I, for one, think that this is exactly what happens.
And I think it's such a bizarre nonsense question that it's ridiculous. What does it even mean to talk about being surrounded by things you love and free from things you hate?
Maybe I've just listened to too much Johnny Cash (Ring of Fire). Or Eminem. Or something.
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"It's been a long day without you, my friend
I'll tell you all about it when I see you again"
"'Oh sweet baby purple Jesus' - that's a direct quote from a 9 year old - shoutout to purple Jesus."
Posts: 2943 | From: The Wire | Registered: May 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
Freddy, it is just plain ridiculous to sell this to Marvin as fulfilling his request for a personal heaven.
If I were to like cheating and screwing around, then my "heaven" - according to Marvin - is a place where I get to cheat and screw around to my heart's content. It is decidedly not a place where all the other cheaters hang out with me, in consequence of which I end up being sexually frustrated and emotional devastated due to the fierce competition and everybody betraying everybody. How can that be called "filled with the things I love and completely free of the things I hate?" as Marvin requires? I do not like everybody to be cheating and screwing around, just myself! (In case my wife is reading: Merely for the sake of argument, of course.)
In fact, what you have described here is nothing but a version of Dante's hell! If you ever read the Inferno, then you will find that in his hell everybody gets punished precisely along the lines of their actual evil-doing in life. The punishment fits the crime by virtue of the crime becoming the punishment. That's just straight Dante, a possible vision of Catholic hell, and most definitely not what Marvin had in mind for his personal heaven (if I may be so bold and speak for Marvin here).
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Demas
Ship's Deserter
# 24
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
quote:
Originally posted by Demas
Then he could just give them normal morphine instead.
What you are basically asking is "why can't God show incorrigibly evil people kindness, given that it is generally accepted that pain alleviation is an application of kindness?"
But what I am saying is that God will show (or is showing, depending on your theology) these people kindness.
But it's the kindness of God (you know, love and all that stuff) which tortures them.
So it's not God's problem, because he is doing all he can to help them. They do not want this help.
As for the idea of "normal morphine": is there a spiritual variety of morphine? I'm not sure that's available on the NHS or the celestial equivalent!
I am a worm and no man, but even I could make Hitler happy, merely by wiring his brain up to a battery.
If God wishes us to feel happiness, contentment -- or simply not tortured -- then surely he can do so.
I find the assertion that he is simply incapable of making people not feel tortured to be frankly unbelievable.
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They did not appear very religious; that is, they were not melancholy; and I therefore suspected they had not much piety - Life of Rev John Murray
Posts: 1894 | From: Thessalonica | Registered: May 2004
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I'd say the absence of a Cosmic Judge who will send you to eternal damnation for not doing (or even believing) the right things is a definite plus point.
If there is a populated Hell then I'm pretty sure I've described it fairly, if perhaps hyperbolically. On the other hand, if my understanding of the traditional, Biblical view of the afterlife is fucked up, then that must mean there is no Hell. And not only no Hell, but no eternal torment at all, of any kind - there's no weaselling out of this one with guff like "the unrepentant feel the love of God as a burning flame" or "the door to Hell is locked on the inside". Whichever way it's put, it still boils down to "if you're the wrong sort of person, God's Will is that you burn for eternity".
There are only two options that don't boil down to that statement, and they're universalism and oblivion (be it for all or just for the Damned). I'm not aware that either of those options has ever been considered Biblical or Traditional by any even vaguely mainstream denomination, though.
So what's fucked up about my understanding of the traditional, Biblical view of what happens to those who are, through their own fault or not, the wrong sort of people for Heaven? What have I missed, here?
What's distorting your view imo are the phrases 'send you to eternal damnation for not doing (or even believing) the right things' and 'the wrong sort of people for Heaven'.
We don't go to Heaven as a result of what we do, and we can't be the wrong sort of person. God loves everyone, regardless. In the OT God time and again calls people to serve who have done evil things in their past. As for believing the right things, please expand.
It's our call for justice which God promises us. Some people who call for the death penalty in the world find it difficult to accept that there might be a spiritual death penalty. I don't know whether there is or there isn't. I keep an open mind, and trust in God's good judgement and the loving nature that's been revealed to me.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
Posts: 4359 | From: The United Kingdom | Registered: Sep 2011
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Freddy, it is just plain ridiculous to sell this to Marvin as fulfilling his request for a personal heaven.
You and Saysay are right, of course. It was stupid of me to suggest it.
I do appreciate that you realize the implications of my version of what Marvin asked for.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
It would be possible for God to create a system where bad attitudes were impossible, but would that really be better?
Yes.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alogon:
It sounds as though you have no problem with eternal bliss except that it's called heaven and God is there, too.
My problem with Heaven is I can't see how I'll ever get there. That's why I worry about Hell so much.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
The problem with you is that you get much of the analysis right, and then you draw the astonishing conclusion that it would be best to rail and whine about it all, loudly, angrily and incessantly. That makes no sense whatsoever, it is flat out self-contradictory!
The contradiction is mostly because I'm trying to stop myself believing it. I just can't seem to do it.
quote:
But the world was not made for you. You, along with the rest of the world, were made for God. If every Divine attempt fails to get you back on track, and boy is He trying hard, then you will be thrown where you belong: into Gehenna, the garbage dump, where the fires burn eternally.
And you're OK with that?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
The traditional view of Hell is NOT the Biblical view, and if you take out the un-Biblical doctrine of an immortal soul, it makes no sense and is quite unnecessary. Without the belief that you're by nature designed to live forever, the picture becomes much clearer -- you are a mortal, destined to live for a period of time and then die. The possibility of eternal life (always referred to as a "gift") is offered to you, and you can choose to accept or reject. If you reject it, you die and exist no more.
This view makes God neither a sadistic torturer who will keep people alive eternally just to torment them (I can't understand why anyone would hold that view of God), nor an endless Re-Educator who will keep imposing His will eternally on people until they finally break and accept it.
But of course you're not going to explore this view because it doesn't fit your initial criteria of being taught by denominations that are mainstream enough (although there are plenty of people within mainstream denominations who accept this view).
As for your idea that God could give each person an eternal Heaven where they could continue in their sin to do what they like ... surely that's in the "Could God make a stone so big He couldn't move it?" category. Such a heaven could ONLY be for one individual at a time, because sinful choices and decisions in the long run will always hurt others, so it wouldn't be heaven for them even if it was for you. I suppose it could be filled with hologram people who appeared to enjoy whatever you were doing, with built-in safeguards to make sure that even your self-destructive tendencies didn't hurt yourself and you could go on enjoying them consequence-free for eternity. I suppose God COULD theoretically put everyone in their own little holodeck like that for eternity, but again, that's only a concept you'd have to posit if you're stuck with the idea of immortal souls, which the Bible isn't.
I do agree with you that the god who tortures people forever in Hell is a god well worth hating and rejecting.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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The Revolutionist
Shipmate
# 4578
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Now, God has elected every human being to participate in His eternal life after a finite temporal life. I do not think that a moral case can be constructed out of that in any way or form. I suggest that we should respond with gratitude, but really, it is a Jobian moment: this is what God has chosen to do, and it is as such beyond human reckoning of good, bad or ugly. It just is the case.
It's monstrous. God gives us no choice, no means of escape, and we just have to shrug and accept it. Which is exactly what I was railing against on the other thread, only to be told it was a "fucked up" view of God...
quote:
Why can't He, for instance, just put everyone into their own personal Heaven filled with the things they love and completely free of the things they hate?
You're assuming that God could make the choice between Heaven or Hell otherwise - that somehow he could grant us an existence independent of himself that wasn't Hell.
But there's no other choice not because God is cruel or arbitrary, but because God is ultimately the source of all life, goodness and happiness. God offers us eternal fellowship with him, and if we refuse that, there can be no possible elsewhere for our happiness.
Posts: 1296 | From: London | Registered: May 2003
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
The contradiction is mostly because I'm trying to stop myself believing it. I just can't seem to do it.
I guess that's no surprise, since the art of "psychoengineering" faith is sort of lost these days... we just live with some still functioning artefacts of the "psychoengineers" of old. However, the necessary information is quite easily accessible, and it isn't rocket science. Here's the problem you have though: I see no particular reason why I should help you to shake off your faith...
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
And you're OK with that?
In principle, yes, of course. In practice, yes, as long as I don't end up there myself (or rather, I plus the people most dear to me).
Mind you, I wish for everybody to go to heaven. For some by natural inclination, for most due to the command of my Lord (who told me to love my neighbour, and indeed, even my enemies). However, at the same time I realize that not everybody will go to heaven. Such "universalism" is in my opinion making a mockery of tradition, of the bible in general, and Christ's words in particular. It is perfectly possible and rational to maintain both at the same time. All that means is that I realize that my wish will not always come true.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
It would be possible for God to create a system where bad attitudes were impossible, but would that really be better?
Yes.
Well there's the issue right there. You are saying that it should not merely be wrong to voice a different different view, it should be impossible.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by The Revolutionist:
You're assuming that God could make the choice between Heaven or Hell otherwise - that somehow he could grant us an existence independent of himself that wasn't Hell.
But there's no other choice not because God is cruel or arbitrary, but because God is ultimately the source of all life, goodness and happiness. God offers us eternal fellowship with him, and if we refuse that, there can be no possible elsewhere for our happiness.
If God is the source of all life, why should/could there be existence apart from Him at all? Shouldn't the result of being cut off from the source of all life be non-existence?
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
This is probably going to sound flippant but it absolutely isn't. Anyone who has ever attended a patient on the burns unit of a hospital realises in about a millisecond that the gospel stories of everlasting fire are the product of a seriously sick imagination. I mean, psychotic. The thought of anyone who can imagine that everlasting burning might be a good punishment for any - yes any - human wrongdoing or wrongbelieving, makes me retch. So does the thought of a god who might impose such a punishment.
So who's the sick pervert? God, or his evangelists? Let's hope it's his evangelists, whom we can safely dump, and get on with the business of reimagining an afterlife based on everything else we know about God.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
This is probably going to sound flippant but it absolutely isn't. Anyone who has ever attended a patient on the burns unit of a hospital realises in about a millisecond that the gospel stories of everlasting fire are the product of a seriously sick imagination. I mean, psychotic. The thought of anyone who can imagine that everlasting burning might be a good punishment for any - yes any - human wrongdoing or wrongbelieving, makes me retch. So does the thought of a god who might impose such a punishment.
So who's the sick pervert? God, or his evangelists? Let's hope it's his evangelists, whom we can safely dump, and get on with the business of reimagining an afterlife based on everything else we know about God.
^^This raised to the power of lots.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
It's not flippant at all; it's exactly to the point. How anyone can worship that god is genuinely beyond me.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
So who's the sick pervert? God, or his evangelists? Let's hope it's his evangelists, whom we can safely dump, and get on with the business of reimagining an afterlife based on everything else we know about God.
Ummm. Or we can intelligently realize that these images accord with the well known New Testament model of metaphor and hyperbole.
Graphic images draw our attention to real issues. Let's not get stuck on the images themselves.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
It's not flippant at all; it's exactly to the point. How anyone can worship that god is genuinely beyond me.
One is tempted to say "fear of being roasted". Or Stockholm Syndrome. Or doublethink.
Some people make the decision to play it safe and Kiss Hank's Arse.
[ 04. October 2012, 12:43: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
So who's the sick pervert? God, or his evangelists? Let's hope it's his evangelists, whom we can safely dump, and get on with the business of reimagining an afterlife based on everything else we know about God.
Ummm. Or we can intelligently realize that these images accord with the well known New Testament model of metaphor and hyperbole.
Graphic images draw our attention to real issues. Let's not get stuck on the images themselves.
Sure, but there are quite a lot of people that believe God is literally going to roast people's flesh for all eternity. Aren't THOSE the people getting stuck on the images (and doing irreparable damage to God's PR?)
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
Ummm. Or we can intelligently realize that these images accord with the well known New Testament model of metaphor and hyperbole.
Sorry, but no. An ear of corn producing a hundred grains is hyperbole. A mustard plant being the greatest of all shrubs is hyperbole. I'll even grant - God help us! - that plucking your eye out if it offends you is hyperbole. Being burned over ever square inch of your body for ever and ever and ever is just plain sick.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
But the Bible never actually says anything about people being burned for all eternity. Those are embellishments by later preachers and writers. The Biblical references to hellfire are all to a fire that consumes and destroys eternally -- in keeping with the texts that tell us that the wages of sin is death and that those who do not accept eternal life will "perish."
The only verse in the Bible that describes anything close to eternal punishING (as opposed to the eternal, permanent punishMENT of death, which is the natural state for a mortal creature who has not been given the gift of immortality) is Revelation 20:10 which speaks of "being tormented day and night forever" but this is not in reference to the wicked, or unbelievers, or anything like that -- it's the devil, the beast, and the false prophet. Whoever you believe those entities to be, they are the only ones described as suffering forever -- and in context of everything else the Bible says about life and death, I would suggest those could probably be read as hyperbole anyway.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Now that I can believe, Trudy.
D'you think God will fall for it if I present "Trudy said so" as a defence? ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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The Revolutionist
Shipmate
# 4578
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Posted
In Revelation 20, eternal torment is only explicitly mentioned in verse 10 when the devil, beast and false prophet are cast into the lake of fire. But it goes on to describe the judgement of the dead and to say that "whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire".
Revelation 14 also talks about the "smoke of the torment" of those who worshipped the beast going up forever. Without taking this imagery literalistically, it seems to me clear that human beings are at risk of a fate that is unpleasant and eternal.
But it's not just Revelation, of course. Jesus himself used the image of fire for judgement - for example, Matthew 5:22, 13:41-42, 18:8. If you think that language is too strong, the image too horrific, take it up with him.
Hell and judgment are difficult and disturbing subjects. We need to be careful to separate what the Bible actually teaches, what God has revealed to us, from the cultural baggage those concepts have acquired. But I don't think we can explain them away or ignore them if we take what the Bible says seriously.
Posts: 1296 | From: London | Registered: May 2003
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