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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: How can I enjoy heaven when my loved ones are in Hell?
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
If God were perfectly benevolent hell would not exist. Hell is a place of perfect malevolence, created by and at the will of God. That your God creates, enables, and allows hell proves beyond all possible doubt that He is not perfectly benevolent and that your assertion here is utterly false.
If I tell you "Don't walk off that cliff. You will fall and die. Here, follow that guide whom I have hired for you to avoid the fall" and you then push away the guide, walk off that cliff, fall and die - was I lacking benevolence? Of course, in analogy to our case you could complain that the cliff is only there because I blasted it into the rock myself. So the opportunity to walk off the cliff only exists because of me. But is that malevolence? Only if it is my intention to see you fall off the cliff. In which case it would be odd that I warn you about doing so and provide you with a guide.
The analogy doesn't work.
You tell me there is a cliff, but I can't see one. Indeed, every rational experience I have tells me that there is no cliff.
I could take the detour you suggest to avoid the "cliff" you tell me is there, but I *can* see rational, tangible, reasons why walking straight ahead is expeditious and in my interests and the interests of those I love.
So yes, creating a cliff edge that I can't see or feel, and tempting me towards it with, say, the sound of my children urgently calling me, and then claiming that I was warned when I fall to my death - that all seems pretty malevolent.
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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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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Your God gratuitously tortures people through a mechanism set up to torture people and whose only purpose is torturing people. And all your analogies that do not squarely face this point are distractions.
Rather, you refuse to consider any argument that does not say "God tortures, therefore He is bad", and you think that you can hide your lack of engagement by just repeating "torture, torture, torture, …." over and over again. We are agreed that God tortures (the wicked in hell). We are not agreed that God is bad. That is what the analogies are about. And to call this torture "gratuitous" is nothing but trying to establish the outcome you want prior to the discussion.
Let us establish clearly where we are at. Your attempt to show that hell cannot be understood in terms of human justice unequivocally and definitely fails. I need to state only two things to show this: First, as mentioned, assume justice that considers the status of the victim, and of course assign infinite status to God. Therefore every human sin is an infinite crime against God, deserving infinite punishment by Him. Since human beings are finite, the only way of dishing out infinite punishment is by making it eternal. Second, consider punishment in terms of retributive justice, i.e., the aim is not to "reform" the perpetrator but to punish him in proportion to his deeds. And we are done. This just is a human understanding of the justice of hell. It is also not some construct merely created to justify hell. These are very common conceptions of justice that human beings have used among themselves. Indeed, arguably these are the most common conceptions of justice at least historically, if not still today. The one and only additional assumption I had to introduce was the infinite status of God, and that assumption is certainly entirely coherent and reasonable in terms of the Christian faith, whatever you may think of it.
What I've been doing here with my analogies is to propose a different understanding perhaps more in tune with now more common conceptions of justice (in fact, mostly remaining apart from considerations of justice). But your attempt to shout this down with a "torture" mantra can really only disrupt my discussion. It cannot establish the principle incompatibility of hell with human justice. Because that compatibility is easily established within quite regular human conceptions of justice. And you know of course that you must shut down each and all "escape routes" if you want to topple faith by argument. Well, you cannot possibly do that here, the escape route is right there. That game is over, so how about giving the disruptive rhetoric a rest?
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
How the joy of the saints comes against the backdrop of the sufferings of the damned - something that Tertulian and Aquinas both claim enhances the experience of heaven and anyone with functional moral sensibilities see as ensuring that it is impossible for truly good people to abide in heaven.
What these gentlemen may have said, or not, about that issue may be worth discussing. But it is not official doctrine of the Church (best I know), and it certainly is pointless to discuss until you admit the justice of hell, at least for the sake of argument. Because that is a key assumption they made in saying what they said. So once more this is mere rhetoric: you try to stoke up more sentiment by all means possible in order to "win" the actual discussion on emotions. But you have already won on emotions anyway (at least here in this place), and you have already lost on principle anyway (as pointed out above). This really is a pointless game.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
There is an underlying intention to do two things. The first is to select. But the mere fact of selection does not make necessary treatment (eternal torment) that makes the experiences in the Nazi death camps look like a childrens' picnic.
The necessity of this punishment can be established in terms of human justice, if that floats your boat. See above. I've been trying to discuss ways of understanding this that I find more interesting. Let me know if you are interested in talking about them. Part of those other ways is realising that you are actually making a category mistake here in comparing temporal with eternal experience. Eternal punishment is not temporal punishment infinitely prolonged, because eternity is not an infinite stretch of time. In fact, this is a key question: is hell eternal, or of infinite duration, and what are the experiential consequences of that for (resurrected) human beings?
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
But when you select for people who are smart enough you do not then round up the people who failed your selection criteria, lock them in cages, and poke them with cattleprods for a few days. And it is this last that God does.
Sure, the selection is a judgement with punishment being a possible outcome. A judgement that can be understood by human conceptions of justice, if you wish. See above.
Personally I think the difficulties that arise here come from thinking of God as a Person first, and then retrofitting Divine attributes to that Person. But since we have only experience of human beings, we thereby create a super-human in our minds, and when we then retrofit Divine features onto that super-human we soon run into trouble. I think of Divine attributes first, like changelessness, and retrofit Personhood. Obviously that has its own problems, but more in terms of connecting theology with religious practice. Basically, if you start with the Divine attributes, then talking about the justice of hell is really a lot like talking about the justice of falling to your death. Sure you can blame gravity for that, because gravity is the cause of it, but that nevertheless is a bit daft. Our reaction is more "tragic, but he really should have watched his step." Obviously Personal responsibility of God is introduced when I retrofit Personhood. But if we come from that angle we can just see, I believe, that we are mixing questions of what it means to be a person with questions of justice. There are real issues with coherence there, but they are not necessarily in the realm of justice. At least in part we may well be incoherent in how we think of the Personhood of God.
To put it simply, I think the Incarnation is of the structure A -> B. But much of modern Christianity has then inverted that to conclude A <- B. That is to say, Jesus Christ is projected back onto the Godhead in a logically illicit manner. But God is decidedly not human, indeed not even any kind of creature. There are necessarily severe limits to how much we can read God as God out of God as human. Rather, we can read human as human ought to be out of God as human. And these are very much different things.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Um... yes it is.
No, eternity is not a infinitely long time in Christian understanding (well, in traditional Christian understanding - you can find any sort of teaching if you consider all that calls itself Christian, of course). It is more the opposite of time, really, insofar as it rejects both the successive movement of "one after the other" and the limited reach of the "now". If you can imagine a now that unchangeably comprises all, then you get a taste of eternity.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And the answer is no. Because conventional crime and punishment can not accomodate infinites. It is also no because you are not using conventional crime and punishment.
It certainly can accommodate infinities, since the primary concept of retributive justice is proportionality without any reference to "size". And I have used entirely conventional concepts of justice. Perhaps you are right in saying that the concepts of justice now employed in our societies do not allow a description of hell as just. So what? The only argument I have to fear is one of principle incompatibility with human conceptions of justice, and this argument fails, as demonstrated conclusively. It simply is a different discussion whether it should worry us or not that the justice we now follow in our societies is not up to this job. I can for example just say "horses for courses" and be done with that.
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Originally posted by Justinian:
Now we've established that you will use the justification that is the complete opposite of your last one (there's little less majestic than a baby and that's why we object) which one can we throw out?
We are particularly upset about an attack on young children because of their innocence, i.e., because they are necessarily free of all reasonable blame for whatever is done to them. In a similar way, the infinite status of God can be considered as deriving from His infinite holiness. God cannot be blamed for the sins against Him, all evil is imposed on Him by us not caused by Him. I was simply pointing out the similarities of such sentiments.
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Originally posted by Justinian:
It is possible to think just about anything.
Indeed. But it is possible to think the justice of hell in terms of quite conventional and common conceptions of justice. Therefore the rhetorical appeal that this is "unthinkable" fails.
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Originally posted by Justinian:
Treating others as you would have them treat you involves working out what would help them. Because you'd want them to do the same to you.
I think you are overextending. I think it would really help you to run around in sackcloth and ashes, to urge you to find faith in Christ. It would really help me if you gave me all your money, so that I can buy more books to deepen my faith in Christ. Clearly then, you donning sackcloth and ashes and giving me all your money is an application of the Golden Rule. Well no, it isn't. The power of the Golden Rule resides precisely in not allowing speculations about what might be good for the other, but rather in insisting on sticking to the immediate concerns that one has oneself. It is a "cut the bullshit" rule, and has power as that. It also has limitations as that, and cannot serve as the sole principle of moral behaviour.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And going back to the natural law issue, if Roman Catholic moral teaching is (as you hold) based on natural law rather than as I hold uses natural law as an ex-post-facto justification for people for whom Holy Tradition is not enough, then it should update itself when our understandings of the natural world change. Given how much of what we understand about the world has been overturned since 1054, when has it done this specifically citing a developing understanding of the natural world?
The "nature" of "natural moral law" is not the "nature" of "modern natural science" - one is about the essence of things, the other about their physical features and relationships. We do not need quantum physics to determine that murder is illicit. It is a different kind of analysis, and progress in modern natural science offers few relevant insights to it. Mostly progress in the modern natural sciences throws up new cases that have to be dealt with, like in vitro fertilisation. It is actually cultural developments that are more significant for our ability to discover and understand natural moral law. If you were transported back to ancient Egypt, for example, then I doubt that your struggles with the morality that you encounter would have much to do with their primitive technology and science.
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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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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
Reading through this thread, I'm getting an image of someone under torture, for whom it's eventually too much, and who cries out, "I'll say anything you want. Just please make it stop."
And the voice of God whispers in their ear, "But that's not enough. You have to love me." - as he fires up the electrodes one more time.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Reading through this thread, I'm getting an image of someone under torture, for whom it's eventually too much, and who cries out, "I'll say anything you want. Just please make it stop." And the voice of God whispers in their ear, "But that's not enough. You have to love me." - as he fires up the electrodes one more time.
This is precisely the key misunderstanding I keep going on about: to turn the eternity of the next world into a time-bound scenario in this world, and to turn God into a human being. If nothing else, this completely fails to take into account that there actually is this time-bound world. If the above was anywhere near the truth, then what exactly are we doing here? Clearly we could just take care of all this torturing business in the next world directly.
As for what God actually demands of us, let's not forget that the Church provides absolution for our sins through confessions motivated by "imperfect contrition" (or "attrition"). That is, motivated by the mere selfish desire to save ourselves and not by any love of God. So the above is not only deeply mistaken about the next world and God, but also entirely unjust in the sort of attitude it projects onto God and the Church.
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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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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
First, as mentioned, assume justice that considers the status of the victim, and of course assign infinite status to God. Therefore every human sin is an infinite crime against God, deserving infinite punishment by Him. Since human beings are finite, the only way of dishing out infinite punishment is by making it eternal.
That's about as shitty as it gets. I hurt my husband and he, being merely human, is able, eventually to forgive me. God, being God, and "infinite", isn't? and those are just the rules? he's so much more "God" than us that anything we do has to be punished as if it were an infinite number of times worse than it actually is?
You'd think he could be a bit... *bigger* about it.
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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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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
That's about as shitty as it gets. I hurt my husband and he, being merely human, is able, eventually to forgive me. God, being God, and "infinite", isn't? and those are just the rules? he's so much more "God" than us that anything we do has to be punished as if it were an infinite number of times worse than it actually is?
You'd think he could be a bit... *bigger* about it.
Indeed. When God is portrayed in these terms, I sometimes think it can't be much fun being God, going around being infinitely offended all the time.
And IngoB, you don't get out of this one by dodging behind the old eternity/temporality thing. I don't care whether Hell is a lot of pain for ever and ever, or infinite pain for no time at all, like some bizarre divine Dirac delta function - it still bloody hurts.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Reading through this thread, I'm getting an image of someone under torture, for whom it's eventually too much, and who cries out, "I'll say anything you want. Just please make it stop."
And the voice of God whispers in their ear, "But that's not enough. You have to love me." - as he fires up the electrodes one more time.
I think we can turn this on its head. It's not about saying what God wants, it's about saying what we want.
It's full exposure to God's love that's torturing a soul who is conscious that he or she did not respond to it, and not only did that mean neglecting to love God and other people, it meant causing others harm. Forgiveness was on offer. Is it still on offer?
If we want it to stop, but do not want forgiveness and the opportunity of heaven, annihilation may be an option offered in love.
Irresistible love and forgiveness without repentance to all universally on death would surely remove the free will option at that point, and remove accountability.
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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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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
You tell me there is a cliff, but I can't see one. Indeed, every rational experience I have tells me that there is no cliff.
That is, of course, bullshit. The very fact that you are participating in this discussion shows your awareness of the cliff.
However, let's be clear: a mortal sin (one that potentially lands you in hell) does not merely require grave matter, but also full knowledge and deliberate consent.
Thus if you really do not know much about the cliff, or step off it accidentally, gravity is suspended and you will not fall but walk on air, hopefully meandering back to more solid ground.
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I could take the detour you suggest to avoid the "cliff" you tell me is there, but I *can* see rational, tangible, reasons why walking straight ahead is expeditious and in my interests and the interests of those I love.
I'm sorry, committing mortal sins is in the interests of you and your loved ones how?
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
So yes, creating a cliff edge that I can't see or feel, and tempting me towards it with, say, the sound of my children urgently calling me, and then claiming that I was warned when I fall to my death - that all seems pretty malevolent.
Obviously you can turn any scenario into a malevolent one by adding malevolent features to it. Since however this destroys the analogy in question, nothing follows.
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
That's about as shitty as it gets. I hurt my husband and he, being merely human, is able, eventually to forgive me. God, being God, and "infinite", isn't? and those are just the rules? he's so much more "God" than us that anything we do has to be punished as if it were an infinite number of times worse than it actually is? You'd think he could be a bit... *bigger* about it.
First, if you are not satisfied with the "infinite guilt" explanation, welcome to the club. I do not think that this is the best way of addressing the issues. However, it is a way, and since it is not obviously irrational or immoral it does provide us with the space to think about other ways. We are not under pressure to find any explanation at all, as for example Justinian tries to insinuate, we already have at least one. We are merely now trying to improve on it.
The key words in your complaint above are "as if it were." Remove them, and your complaint falls apart. But these words are simply an expression of your modern attitude that rejects considerations of status, they cannot be argued from first principles. So this complaint provides motivation to seek for other explanations, as I do, but it provides no conclusive argument against hell.
Second, God of course is willing to forgive you any sin and instantly, if you are merely willing to acknowledge it and repent of it. Unless your husband is a perfect saint, God is hence certainly "bigger" than him. But this world, in which both your husband and God forgive you, has an end - or more likely, you will have an end in it (before it ends). Death is not merely a brief pause between two otherwise basically identical lives. It is the gate to something quite different. You hence cannot simply extrapolate from this live to the next.
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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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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Rather, you refuse to consider any argument that does not say "God tortures, therefore He is bad", and you think that you can hide your lack of engagement by just repeating "torture, torture, torture, …." over and over again.
You mean that you refuse to entertain any argument that could possibly lead to God being bad.
quote:
We are agreed that God tortures (the wicked in hell). We are not agreed that God is bad.
My argument:
God Tortures in your conception. Torture is bad. Therefore God does that which is bad.
The conclusion follows directly and inexorably from the premises. Literally the only counter-argument that can be made if you accept premise 1 is the argument you are failing to make. To attack premise 2. You are twisting and turning to avoid facing that you must somehow defend the notion that torture is not bad.
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That is what the analogies are about.
The analogies you are offering are all nothing but a distraction from the actual problem. None of them engage with either premise.
The syllogism is that God tortures. Torture is bad. Therefore God does that which is bad.
Unless your argument engages directly with either "God tortures" or "Torture is bad" it is irrelevant. All your safety nets are nothing but distractions saying that "God only tortures a few people." So what? God still tortures.
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Let us establish clearly where we are at. Your attempt to show that hell cannot be understood in terms of human justice unequivocally and definitely fails.
If and only if you accept unjust notions of morality that exalt the mighty in their seats and cast down and afflict the humble. Notions of "justice" that are designed to fill the rich with good things and send the poor away empty.
The notion that the greater the person the greater the magnitude of the offence against them literally does reinforce the proud in the conceit of their heart and the mighty in their seat.
Now you might think that reinforcing such morality is a small price to pay for reinforcing your belief in the nature and supposed goodness of God. But such notions of "justice" are as far as I am concerned simple answers to the oldest problem in moral philosophy; the search for a superior justification for self interest, as defined by the powerful.
And that you are ready, willing, and able to use such perverted notions of "justice" as evidence that humans bending over backwards can find a justification for evil.
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I need to state only two things to show this: First, as mentioned, assume justice that considers the status of the victim, and of course assign infinite status to God.
Which, as I mentioned, is a notion of "justice" that is one beloved by the powerful looking to remain in their seats and the rich looking to send the poor away empty.
Unless you do it properly when you do take account of the status - and point out that those with high status are less affected.
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Therefore every human sin is an infinite crime against God, deserving infinite punishment by Him.
Funny way of writing "infinitessimal".
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Second, consider punishment in terms of retributive justice, i.e., the aim is not to "reform" the perpetrator but to punish him in proportion to his deeds.
Ah, the notion of justice that involves an eye for an eye. And that makes turning the other cheek and going the extra mile into unjust acts. The notion of justice that begets cycles of revenge and returns evil for evil - or to quote Ghandi "An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind".
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This just is a human understanding of the justice of hell.
So. Your argument is that because some people have had warped notions of justice hell must be just. Right.
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It is also not some construct merely created to justify hell.
No. It's a construct merely created to exalt the mighty and humble the weak. And using it turns God into the biggest tyrant in existance.
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What I've been doing here with my analogies is to propose a different understanding perhaps more in tune with now more common conceptions of justice (in fact, mostly remaining apart from considerations of justice). But your attempt to shout this down with a "torture" mantra can really only disrupt my discussion.
That is because your so-called discussion in which you pull out perverse notions of justice that are entirely against the teachings of the Gospels is itself a distraction from the very simple syllogism. Even if it were accurate it would have no bearing on the fact that torture is wrong. As it is, the very best your digression can do is show God to be Lawful Neutral. A God whose nature is seldom to have mercy.
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It cannot establish the principle incompatibility of hell with human justice.
The problem here is that once more you are attempting to digress from the central point. There are notions of justice in which you return evil for evil - retributive justice. But these notions of justice involve doing evil. So that you say you can do evil in the name of justice doesn't change the point that God is doing evil.
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And you know of course that you must shut down each and all "escape routes" if you want to topple faith by argument. Well, you cannot possibly do that here, the escape route is right there. That game is over, so how about giving the disruptive rhetoric a rest?
Indeed. How about giving the disruptive rhetoric a rest? All your analogies, all your claims abhout notions of justice have been nothing more than disruptive rhetoric in an attempt to avoid dealing with the very simple syllogism that God tortures and torture is evil therefore God does evil. That you can spend thousands of words waffling about human notions of justice doesn't change this syllogism one iota. It just means that your entire case is disruptive rhetoric and that I'm trying to bring it back to the point that you resolutely refuse to engage with. Not all human systems of justice are good.
That your disruptive rhetoric is also in opposition to the supposed Good News of the Gospels is a whole different kettle of fish.
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and it certainly is pointless to discuss until you admit the justice of hell, at least for the sake of argument.
For the sake of argument I will accept that up is down, black is white, "justice" that exalts tyrants and grinds down the poor is acceptable, and that Lawful Evil is still Lawful and therefore Just even if untempered by mercy.
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Because that is a key assumption they made in saying what they said.
Even if hell is just, this does not turn taking active delight in the sufferings of others into anything other than a bad thing.
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So once more this is mere rhetoric: you try to stoke up more sentiment by all means possible in order to "win" the actual discussion on emotions. But you have already won on emotions anyway (at least here in this place), and you have already lost on principle anyway (as pointed out above). This really is a pointless game.
Bollocks! I've won on principle as well. All the chaff that you are throwing in your vain attempt to get away from the fact that God tortures and that torture is evil gets you precisely nowhere. Your claim that some systems of "justice" allow torture doesn't make torture just - it merely means that some systems of human justice are flawed. For that matter all are flawed - just some are more obviously flawed than others.
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Part of those other ways is realising that you are actually making a category mistake here in comparing temporal with eternal experience. Eternal punishment is not temporal punishment infinitely prolonged, because eternity is not an infinite stretch of time. In fact, this is a key question: is hell eternal, or of infinite duration, and what are the experiential consequences of that for (resurrected) human beings?
Both are forever with no hope of reprieve. I doubt that it matters which is which to those in hell.
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Personally I think the difficulties that arise here come from thinking of God as a Person first, and then retrofitting Divine attributes to that Person.
... says the person trying to justify God's vile behaviour using the most self-serving legal systems humans have come up with.
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It is more the opposite of time, really, insofar as it rejects both the successive movement of "one after the other" and the limited reach of the "now". If you can imagine a now that unchangeably comprises all, then you get a taste of eternity.
And to those suffering for eternity, this difference is meaningless.
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Perhaps you are right in saying that the concepts of justice now employed in our societies do not allow a description of hell as just. So what? The only argument I have to fear is one of principle incompatibility with human conceptions of justice, and this argument fails, as demonstrated conclusively.
You mean that simply because you can find a corrupt notion of justice among the dozens of ones humans have come up with there is no argument? As I say, this is pure disruptive argument from you.
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We are particularly upset about an attack on young children because of their innocence, i.e., because they are necessarily free of all reasonable blame for whatever is done to them.
You mean because they are weak and need protection.
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In a similar way, the infinite status of God can be considered as deriving from His infinite holiness. God cannot be blamed for the sins against Him, all evil is imposed on Him by us not caused by Him. I was simply pointing out the similarities of such sentiments.
And this is pure nonsense - both the comparison and the idea that God bears no responsibility for that which God created. That which God created in God's image is flawed but God bears no responsibility. Riiiight.
Your definition of holiness is (as normal) special pleading to absolve the Most High of all blame for anything that the Most High might be responsible for.
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I think you are overextending. I think it would really help you to run around in sackcloth and ashes, to urge you to find faith in Christ. It would really help me if you gave me all your money, so that I can buy more books to deepen my faith in Christ. Clearly then, you donning sackcloth and ashes and giving me all your money is an application of the Golden Rule. Well no, it isn't. The power of the Golden Rule resides precisely in not allowing speculations about what might be good for the other, but rather in insisting on sticking to the immediate concerns that one has oneself.
This, of course, is a hypersimplification. See the porpoise example. Think yourself into the head of the other and work out what they want and need from their perspective. Because that's what you'd want them to do. Unless you don't want to be treated as an individual.
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The "nature" of "natural moral law" is not the "nature" of "modern natural science" - one is about the essence of things, the other about their physical features and relationships.
And with that I consider my case proven. Your dualistic arguments about the nature of things being different from their features and relationships is creating a distinction without a difference in order that you can claim that your preconceptions still hold.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
I could take the detour you suggest to avoid the "cliff" you tell me is there, but I *can* see rational, tangible, reasons why walking straight ahead is expeditious and in my interests and the interests of those I love.
I'm sorry, committing mortal sins is in the interests of you and your loved ones how?
Sin wouldn't be tempting if it didn't seem like a good idea at the time, would it? e.g. using artificial means to limit the size of one's family, masturbating privately instead of pressurising and upsetting an impotent spouse, limiting one's giving to an amount that still allows you to build up a capital sum to give your children a more comfortable life than other people's, stealing a couple of hours from your employer because you're so tired you're worried you're going to break?
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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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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Reading through this thread, I'm getting an image of someone under torture, for whom it's eventually too much, and who cries out, "I'll say anything you want. Just please make it stop."
And the voice of God whispers in their ear, "But that's not enough. You have to love me." - as he fires up the electrodes one more time.
I think we can turn this on its head. It's not about saying what God wants, it's about saying what we want.
It's full exposure to God's love that's torturing a soul who is conscious that he or she did not respond to it, and not only did that mean neglecting to love God and other people, it meant causing others harm. Forgiveness was on offer. Is it still on offer?
If we want it to stop, but do not want forgiveness and the opportunity of heaven, annihilation may be an option offered in love.
Irresistible love and forgiveness without repentance to all universally on death would surely remove the free will option at that point, and remove accountability.
And literally none of that makes any sense when dealing with an eternal hell. Given that both hell and heaven are eternal there is nothing that justifies either way. Accountability would work with non-eternal notions like reincarnation or purgatory. But any pretense of accountability disappeared when it was made pass/fail.
And love does not torture eternally. It may cause tears - but that's a whole different story. If God's love hurts eternally then it's the "love" of an abuser.
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
You tell me there is a cliff, but I can't see one. Indeed, every rational experience I have tells me that there is no cliff.
That is, of course, bullshit. The very fact that you are participating in this discussion shows your awareness of the cliff.
No. It merely shows that Erroneous Monk and I are aware that there are people jumping up and down and screaming that there is a cliff. Whether the cliff is actually real or a collective delusion they hold is another matter entirely.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
One of the major problems I have with the idea of eternal hell is the fact that, from my observation and experience, no one actually really genuinely and sincerely believes it, such that they will act accordingly.
If a hell-believing Christian really believed that most people are going to an eternity of the most unspeakable horror, from which there is no hope of escape, then he would treat that possibility as any member of the emergency services would when responding to a grave emergency. He would pull out all the stops to prevent people suffering this disaster. Normal life would go on hold. All leave would be cancelled. His whole life would be lived in "crisis mode". He would probably hardly be able to eat or sleep properly, such would be his anxiety and distress. His body would be high on adrenaline the whole time, as he toiled and fought to save people from this vile fate.
But what do we see in reality? Christians lounging at home writing long posts on the internet defending the doctrine of hell, instead of walking up and down the street every waking hour shouting at the top of their voices warning people of the impending disaster. Fiddling while Rome burns. If the government knew of an approaching hurricane or could predict a major earthquake, they would be severely censured for not doing all they could to warn people. But the Church hardly does anything much to warn people of the approach of a disaster infinitely worse than all the natural disasters one can imagine combined! And what relatively little it does do speaks against the seriousness of the problem.
In fact, even Jesus himself, during his ministry on earth did not act as though most people were going to hell. There is no sense that he operated in "emergency service" mode. And what did he do in those years before his baptism and ministry? He was merely the carpenter's son in Nazareth. Think of all those poor souls who went to hell during that period of his life. Think of all the souls dying in China at the time!
I am not suggesting, of course, that Jesus did not believe in hell, or God's judgment, but rather that hell must be very different from that portrayed by much of Christian tradition.
If the human race is going to eternal hell, and the only escape is belief in Jesus, then why doesn't God just put normal life on hold, rip open the sky and just shout out the truth to every human being, so no one is left in any doubt? All the niceties concerning free will and seeking the truth and so on are pretty much irrelevant in the face of the horror of hell. As I say, in any proper emergency, normal life and practices go on hold. That is how a normal, civilised society works. Even our less than perfect society doesn't pussyfoot around calamity. But the Church carries on as if there is hardly any crisis and calamity - and that goes for all churches, including the RCC and fundamentalist / evangelical churches. I have never yet met a Christian who believes in the traditional view of hell such that he acts appropriately.
There is a practical culture of denial of this idea. Lip service is paid to it, out of fear of being cast as a heretic. But nobody - and I mean nobody - treats it with the seriousness such a concept deserves. Furthermore, Christians who say that they are not sure of their salvation are completely unconvincing. If I really believed that there was a possibility of going to hell when I die, then I would be utterly unable to function in my daily life. It would be infinitely worse than living on death row. But such Christians carry on with a blase attitude and apparent lack of concern, and it's frankly just not credible. Despite all their protestations they just do not really believe it, otherwise they would be mental wrecks.
This, in my view, is the strongest argument against the traditional interpretation of hell.
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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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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
Is there an opposite to evangelisation ? 'Cos Justinian's principled atheism is sounding rather more attractive than IngoB's authority-fetishing theism...
I can see the logic that if God is totally mysterious to us then we can have little basis for discussing what it is moral for Him to do or not do.
But the Christian tradition talks of God as a king and as a father. And to the extent that there is merit in such comparisons, it makes sense to ask whether He is like a bad king (tyrannical, vengeful, absolute, arbitrary) or a good king (dutiful, serving with justice, respectful of the traditional rights and expectations of his people even as he judges and makes laws for the common good). Like a good father (who builds up and supports his children as they grow) or a bad father (who for his own gratification keeps them permanently infantile and dependent).
Hiding behind the mystery of God whenever your own propositions about Him throw up questions or implications that sit uneasily with your tradition is just weaselly.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And literally none of that makes any sense when dealing with an eternal hell. Given that both hell and heaven are eternal there is nothing that justifies either way. Accountability would work with non-eternal notions like reincarnation or purgatory. But any pretense of accountability disappeared when it was made pass/fail.
And love does not torture eternally. It may cause tears - but that's a whole different story. If God's love hurts eternally then it's the "love" of an abuser.
In the absence of time, eternally can mean in the twinkling of an eye. Accountability before a judge does produce a pass/fail, innocent or guilty verdict. The sentence might equate to reincarnation or purgatory in our human way of seeing things, within a time context, which is perhaps why we might latch on to these ideas. We know we have whatever time we have left in this life to turn to Christ, and start afresh, but we can't know for sure what happens after death. We know that we can only try to get it right, and that none of us is perfect, therefore none of us is guaranteed an easy time before the judge. It could be that we'll all get off, we can hope so. I'm thankful for the hope of a future life with God after death, and I'd like to think that my close loved ones will be there too.
The scriptures seem to indicate that there is a cut-off point, when all will change forever and there will be no more opportunity to accept God's love. This is the second coming of Christ which we focus on in Advent. We look forward to its joy, the time when there will be no more pain, as every tear will be wiped away. Love and abuse can't co-operate.
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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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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
All we know about Jesus comes from the Gospels. Most of the biblical support for eternal and conscience torment comes from the Gospels. Therefore, the idea of eternal conscience torment must be reconciled with the Jesus presented in the Gospel.
Well yes. But how we reconcile the discrepancy is the issue at hand isn't it?
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Personally, I believe more in purgatory, annihilation, or a combination of both than I do in eternal conscience torment.
Why? Because you too see the cognitive dissonance in the gospels?
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
God being God does not have to abide by our human notions of justice, fairness, love, or anything else. So, subjecting those who reject God to eternal conscience punishment is God's prerogative simply because God is God.
But it contradicts his teaching of love.
If that's his prerogative, then why should we bother believing in the love God teaches? Is God really that capricious? Is a God that does whatever God wants without sticking with the love expressed in the incarnation really worthy of worship?
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
EE - that's one of the best posts you've ever made. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
Is there an opposite to evangelisation ? 'Cos Justinian's principled atheism is sounding rather more attractive than IngoB's authority-fetishing theism...
I know what you mean. I don't think anything about this thread is going to endear the gospel to the Ship's atheists and sceptics. ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
I don't disbelieve in Hell, precisely because Jesus referred to it. It's described in various ways: a fiery lake, a place of darkness and deep despair, etc. All these are metaphors. Obviously. But I don't believe that Jesus peddles in empty rhetoric. He more than implied that Hell is separation from God. Having said that, I do not believe it is a place where human souls are tortured by God acting as chief torturer. That is a medieval, not biblical, picture. Neither do I believe that the saints in eternity rejoice at the sufferings of the damned. I can’t go with the Church Fathers on this – they are not as authoritative as Scripture, and this notion isn't anywhere in Scripture: sure, those martyred for their faith in Christ cry out to God for justice against the cruel powers that killed them, in Revelation 6:10, and rejoice at the overthrow of those dark powers, but that's not even remotely the same thing as the saints in glory gloating over their loved ones roasting. ('Powers' are also spiritual powers in the Bible, not just human agents.)
I will say this: we are quick to complain at God when evil people seem to get away with it. (Why, for example, does Robert Mugabe just seem to live on and on and ON, when so many others, far more deserving of life, die tragically?) But then we complain at Him when He says He will actually do something about the evil ... according to Revelation, He will obliterate evil from the universe forever.
(I find CS Lewis's The Great Divorce quite a helpful book.)
[ 20. November 2013, 13:03: Message edited by: Laurelin ]
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, I'd agree that EE is making a terrific amount of sense there too.
I don't know whether EE has ever heard it, but there used to be a very old-fashioned story doing the rounds in certain evangelical churches of my acquaintance which cited the example of Charlie Peace the notorious Victorian burglar and murderer.
The story was recounted in Leonard Ravenhill's book 'Why Revival Tarries' and in this version Peace, being led to the scaffold in Armley Gaol, is surprised at the professional and unconcerned tone with which the accompanying chaplain read the passages about death and eternal judgement from 'The Consolations of Religion.'
According to the story, the criminal was shocked that the chaplain could read these passages in such an objective way. Surely if he really believed them he would live and act accordingly?
'Sir'' the convicted criminal is supposed to have said, 'If I believed what you and the church of God say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worth while living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that!'
The story was used, of course, to provoke and encourage congregations to more fervent evangelism. Listen, if this convicted criminal could see the truth of these words, how much more should we spend ourselves and be spent in bringing the Gospel to every teaching under heaven ...
I heard it used that way more than once. Guilt-manipulation has always been the stock-in-trade of a particular kind of evangelical preacher.
It always made me uncomfortable though. Still can, still does ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Which of the Church Fathers would that be, Laurelin?
I think it's been decided upthread that only Tertullian among the original, pre-Schism Fathers held the view that the sight of the wicked being punished enhanced the joy and rapture of the saved ...
That view is more a feature of late-medieval Scholasticism, I think ... Aquinas on the RC side of things and Calvin and his followers among the Reformed.
That's why, it seems to me and I'll be shot down in flames I know, that certain RCs and certain Calvinists appear to meet around the back somewhere ... because both systems - at the extreme end - are characterised by sophistry and a rather wooden insistence on some form of authority or other - be it Papal or in the case of the more full-on Reformed, the 'Paper-Pope' of the Bible - or rather, their own particular interpretation of it.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Laurelin
Shipmate
# 17211
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Which of the Church Fathers would that be, Laurelin?
The sexist ones, of course. ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) Don't have much time for them either. ![[Biased]](wink.gif) Yeah, OK, I'll get on point ...
quote:
I think it's been decided upthread that only Tertullian among the original, pre-Schism Fathers held the view that the sight of the wicked being punished enhanced the joy and rapture of the saved ...
Gotcha.
quote:
That's why, it seems to me and I'll be shot down in flames I know, that certain RCs and certain Calvinists appear to meet around the back somewhere ... because both systems - at the extreme end - are characterised by sophistry and a rather wooden insistence on some form of authority or other - be it Papal or in the case of the more full-on Reformed, the 'Paper-Pope' of the Bible - or rather, their own particular interpretation of it.
Exactly the same thought had occurred to me. There is something extremely Calvinistic about Ingo's Catholicism. That is not meant as an insult. (I just agreed with a very good post of his in the Messianic Jews thread.) But. Yes.
More seriously, I can perfectly well understand why atheists/secularists find a Christian defence of the indefensible so outrageous. I do too.
I do not believe I can make God fit into a box. He is far greater, more beautiful and holy than I can possibly conceive. I do not believe that He is immoral, and as a Christian I will not defend that which is immoral. I do not believe that God is a torturer. If I did, I would not be a Christian.
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"I fear that to me Siamese cats belong to the fauna of Mordor." J.R.R. Tolkien
Posts: 545 | From: The Shire | Registered: Jul 2012
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
There is nothing particularly Calvinist about IngoB's arguments, at least not in terms of what makes Calvinism distinct from Catholicism. A Calvinist would not argue that human moral goodness is inherent to the human condition.
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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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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Indeed. When God is portrayed in these terms, I sometimes think it can't be much fun being God, going around being infinitely offended all the time.
About as much fun as being crucified, presumably.
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
And IngoB, you don't get out of this one by dodging behind the old eternity/temporality thing. I don't care whether Hell is a lot of pain for ever and ever, or infinite pain for no time at all, like some bizarre divine Dirac delta function - it still bloody hurts.
I have not made the slightest claim that eternity somehow lessens the pain, anywhere. However, it is plain idiocy to address the afterlife without considering the impact of "eternity vs. temporality". In particular, sinners cannot repent and reform in eternity, because that would require a temporal "before and after" change at odds with eternity. One cannot simply tell this-worldly stories about the afterlife and then add "like that but forever" to somehow make them coherent. One has to consider the afterlife on its own terms, and these terms simply include eternity.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
You mean that you refuse to entertain any argument that could possibly lead to God being bad.
Perhaps. But unlike you, I'm not simply trying to raise emotions by endlessly repeating a mantra of horror.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
God Tortures in your conception. Torture is bad. Therefore God does that which is bad.
The minor premise fails. Of course torture is bad for the tortured. It is a type of punishment, and all punishment is bad for the punished. That is the very point of punishment. However, it is not morally evil to punish the wicked in due proportion to their deeds, rather that is morally good. Thus if we can show that due proportion is maintained, then torture as punishment for evil deeds is in fact good. Whereupon the opposite results from your syllogism: God does that which is good. And we can show such due proportion in at least one of the common conceptions of human justice.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
All your safety nets are nothing but distractions saying that "God only tortures a few people."
No, they are actually an attempt to reframe the whole debate in terms that I consider more helpful. Not because I cannot defend all this on "crime and punishment" logic, I sure can and have, but because I think this is not the best way of describing what is happening. Regrettably, you have no intention to listen to anything but your own "torture" mantra.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
The notion that the greater the person the greater the magnitude of the offence against them literally does reinforce the proud in the conceit of their heart and the mighty in their seat.
It may. But it also justifies the harsher judgement against those who fail in upholding the dignity of their office through personal example. Perhaps Rob Ford smoking crack is not just one drug addict among many after all. I also seem to remember somebody hammering away at the Pharisees in charge even though from a modern perspective their sect wasn't extraordinarily bad at all. It's basically upping the ante for people in power. You may wish to argue that practically speaking, the powerful will avoid being called to account at this higher level while nevertheless imposing that higher level on those who would attack them. That is perhaps true in this life. But then of course there is the next life. Again, I seem to remember somebody talking about millstones. It is probably true that currently popular systems of justice rely less heavily on compensation in the next life. Hence considered in this life only, they may deliver "more justice". Whether that is still true when considering this and the next life together is a different question.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Ah, the notion of justice that involves an eye for an eye. And that makes turning the other cheek and going the extra mile into unjust acts. The notion of justice that begets cycles of revenge and returns evil for evil - or to quote Ghandi "An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind".
Selectively quoting Jesus does nothing to advance this discussion. After all, that we talk about eternal hell at all is largely due to Christ's insistent teaching about it. Anyway, charity is indeed something that goes above and beyond justice. But where does it have to be acted out? In this life! And is God charitable in this life? Most charitable! All offences that you may have committed, no matter what and how many, are forgotten as soon as you admit them and repent of them. Does this not go way beyond all worldly justice? Does this not challenge even the most saintly of saints? Your complaint, once more, relies on pretending that the next life is simply a continuation of this life. It is not.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
As it is, the very best your digression can do is show God to be Lawful Neutral.
Indeed, I think that the afterlife might not really be a moral issue at all. The morals of this play out in this life. In the next life, we run into a number of necessities that simply determine how things must go.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
But these notions of justice involve doing evil.
Punishing someone justly is not generally considered evil, but rather good, even though obviously the punished suffers the evil that the punishment entails. It seems to me that it is you who is attempting to establish non-standard justice here.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
That you can spend thousands of words waffling about human notions of justice doesn't change this syllogism one iota.
You have raised your syllogism only in the previous post. I have immediately answered it now. My thousands of well considered words were trying to address more interesting concerns, but you continue to be only interested in talking about torture. This time with a faulty syllogism.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Even if hell is just, this does not turn taking active delight in the sufferings of others into anything other than a bad thing.
It is a side issue, and nothing what I have said so far depends on it. I also do not know where Tertullian speaks of this (and he is a heretic, so whatever he says always has to be taken with a grain of salt). As far as Aquinas goes, you are … unsurprisingly … misrepresenting him (emphasis mine):
quote:
A thing may be a matter of rejoicing in two ways. First directly, when one rejoices in a thing as such: and thus the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked. Secondly, indirectly, by reason namely of something annexed to it: and in this way the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked, by considering therein the order of Divine justice and their own deliverance, which will fill them with joy. And thus the Divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed: while the punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Both are forever with no hope of reprieve. I doubt that it matters which is which to those in hell.
I agree that the lot of the doomed doesn't get any better, experientially, if the punishment is eternal rather than of infinite duration. (Or at least I do not know how it would, though it might - it is very hard to imagine what eternity is like.) However, that was not the point. The point was procedural and fundamental: if the afterlife just is eternal, then punishment just is eternal there as well. It is not imposed "on top of" a planned punishment, it is not an infinite increase in the severity of the sentence.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
That which God created in God's image is flawed but God bears no responsibility. Riiiight.
Only God is flawless. Any creation necessarily contains flaws. However, as far as moral responsibility goes, God created man flawless but with the possibility of failure resulting in flaw. Man promptly realised that possibility. We can certainly attribute the "design choice" to God, but not straightforwardly the flaw.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
This, of course, is a hyper simplification.
No, it isn't. Rather you are now trying to import the whole of moral calculus by virtue of "thinking about what is good for the other". That's complete bunk. The power of the Golden Rule resides precisely in its simplicity, and hence your cartoon is funny by breaking that down. The idea of the Golden Rule is "I don't want to be hit, so I probably should not hit that guy." Simple. "I'm a masochist." Complicated. Exit Golden Rule.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Your dualistic arguments about the nature of things being different from their features and relationships is creating a distinction without a difference in order that you can claim that your preconceptions still hold.
I'm looking forward to your explanation of how quantum physics and general relativity have shaped your morals.
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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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South Coast Kevin
Shipmate
# 16130
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Of course torture is bad for the tortured. It is a type of punishment, and all punishment is bad for the punished. That is the very point of punishment. However, it is not morally evil to punish the wicked in due proportion to their deeds, rather that is morally good. Thus if we can show that due proportion is maintained, then torture as punishment for evil deeds is in fact good. Whereupon the opposite results from your syllogism: God does that which is good. And we can show such due proportion in at least one of the common conceptions of human justice.
So do you think eternal punishment is 'in due proportion' to the wicked deeds done by an unrepentant person? Could you explain how, please?
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My blog - wondering about Christianity in the 21st century, chess, music, politics and other bits and bobs.
Posts: 3309 | From: The south coast (of England) | Registered: Jan 2011
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
However, it is not morally evil to punish the wicked in due proportion to their deeds, rather that is morally good.
I think this just isn't true. If I think of a really awful offence against love - let's say, a mother torturing her child to death (and sadly, we get a few of those cases here ![[Frown]](frown.gif) ) - yes, there is a part of me that would like to see that mother receive the treatment she meted out. But to call my anger a desire for justice, and therefore morally good, seems warped.
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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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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Also, some people who torture children to death are themselves mentally unhinged. Well, maybe a lot of them are. I suppose therefore you could separate them off from the sane ones, who get tortured? Shudder.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
Sin wouldn't be tempting if it didn't seem like a good idea at the time, would it? e.g. using artificial means to limit the size of one's family, masturbating privately instead of pressurising and upsetting an impotent spouse, limiting one's giving to an amount that still allows you to build up a capital sum to give your children a more comfortable life than other people's, stealing a couple of hours from your employer because you're so tired you're worried you're going to break?
Sure, but which of these really is a mortal sin in practice? In an attempt to make all these more palatable, you have already supplied extenuating circumstances that might very well mean that all of these are venial sins or perhaps not even reckoned as sins at all. And if you think that some of these still are mortal sins, even given the circumstances, then does not that very same logic tell you why they are not good for you and your loved ones? The mere fact that you may still be tempted does not mean that you are incapable of realising what is truly good and bad. And even if you do commit one of these, and it is a mortal sin, how is that not still taken care of by God's mercy in confession? Yes, this remains challenging. But let's not make the challenge larger than it is.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
One of the major problems I have with the idea of eternal hell is the fact that, from my observation and experience, no one actually really genuinely and sincerely believes it, such that they will act accordingly.
I hear that there are people who know full well that smoking is really unhealthy, even deadly, and yet they continue to smoke. Doctors even. Remarkable. I hear that there are people who know that an exam is coming up that will decide the very course of their lives, yet they still procrastinate and do not study day and night. Remarkable. I hear that people know with perfect certainty that fighting with their partner will do nothing but destroy their relationship, hurt their children and make everybody terribly unhappy. Yet still they shout at each other. Remarkable.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If a hell-believing Christian really believed that most people are going to an eternity of the most unspeakable horror, from which there is no hope of escape, then he would treat that possibility as any member of the emergency services would when responding to a grave emergency.
But for the not-hell-believing Christian there is no particular urgency in carrying out God's will? This world is for them not in any kind of emergency state? Christianity is more a kind of hobby making the world a bit prettier, not unlike say gardening? How interesting.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But what do we see in reality? Christians lounging at home writing long posts on the internet defending the doctrine of hell, instead of walking up and down the street every waking hour shouting at the top of their voices warning people of the impending disaster.
Sorry? So when people spend hours defending the doctrine of hell against denials among people that are at least somewhat inclined to listen, then that counts for nothing as far as their faith is concerned. Whereas it would count massively if the same people went around shouting loudly on the streets? Does faith then require inefficient and untargeted modes of delivery that will most likely get one locked up?
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
But the Church hardly does anything much to warn people of the approach of a disaster infinitely worse than all the natural disasters one can imagine combined!
So that some parts of some of the major churches have gone rather quiet on hell since roughly the 1960s, after millennia of unrelentingly preaching on the horrors of hell, is what then? A sign of progress in engaging with the world, or a sign of false accommodation of the world?
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
In fact, even Jesus himself, during his ministry on earth did not act as though most people were going to hell. There is no sense that he operated in "emergency service" mode.
Yes, we all know that Jesus mostly preached about the weather. Not a hint of any concern about repentance, the afterlife, eternal fires or anything like that. Instead we have the fabulous parable about it getting a bit chilly already so early in the year.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
He was merely the carpenter's son in Nazareth. Think of all those poor souls who went to hell during that period of his life. Think of all the souls dying in China at the time!
You are worried that the Limbo of Patriarchs was getting overrun by Chinese? That's a bit racist, isn't it?
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I am not suggesting, of course, that Jesus did not believe in hell, or God's judgment, but rather that hell must be very different from that portrayed by much of Christian tradition.
And hence we must now rewrite scripture and reject tradition in accordance with the better teachings of EE.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If the human race is going to eternal hell, and the only escape is belief in Jesus, then why doesn't God just put normal life on hold, rip open the sky and just shout out the truth to every human being, so no one is left in any doubt?
Why doesn't the teacher give us the answers to these exam questions? We might fail! How terribly unfair, how can he believe that simply having taught us is sufficient? Does he expect us to learn? Are we supposed to do some work? Unbelievable. It clearly is the duty of a teacher to make every student pass their exam no matter what the student brings to the table.
Here's a different suggestion. If God is going to shout at all of us until we make it into heaven, we can save each other a lot of unnecessary noise if He just put us into heaven straight. There's really no need for this world at all.
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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I have never yet met a Christian who believes in the traditional view of hell such that he acts appropriately.
Well, I guess three hours of my life dedicated today to correcting errors about hell on the internet is just about enough frivolity. I will briefly read up on Mark 9:23-29 and then there is some shouting on the streets to do.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If I really believed that there was a possibility of going to hell when I die, then I would be utterly unable to function in my daily life.
Did I mention that I ride a car to work? Often people come up to me, wanting my autograph, and ask me how I can possibly be so daring given the high chances of getting maimed and killed in a car accident. They just cannot imagine facing such incredible and devastating risks on a daily basis. Such power of concentrating on the task of driving just seems superhuman to them. I then tell them about my daily practice of meditation holding a razor blade before my face while drinking a special brown brew made by the mystical monks of Kenya. That unrelenting practice allows me to push aside all those threats of doom and focus my mind on steering the car. I can see though how this ability must be near magical to common people, whose minds always dwell on a complete risk assessment of their lives.
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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
This, in my view, is the strongest argument against the traditional interpretation of hell.
I'm delighted to hear that. Sincerely.
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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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Of course torture is bad for the tortured. It is a type of punishment, and all punishment is bad for the punished. That is the very point of punishment.
No it's not. It's meant as a deterrent. If it's not good for the punished, it's just cupidity. God getting his rocks off by making people suffer. Parents don't punish their children because they have breached their parently authority. They punish them in order to teach them to lead better lives, which in the long haul is good for the little tykes, even though not fun in the short term. Eternal punishment does not teach the punished anything. It is thus evil.
The problem with your "god" is that its morals are so completely different from human morals as to be inscrutable. And you defend this like it's some kind of wonderful thing. If our morals and its morals are so utterly different, then "moral" loses any meaning.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Desert Daughter
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# 13635
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The problem with your "god" is that its morals are so completely different from human morals as to be inscrutable. And you defend this like it's some kind of wonderful thing. If our morals and its morals are so utterly different, then "moral" loses any meaning.
well said. ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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"Prayer is the rejection of concepts." (Evagrius Ponticus)
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
By gum, that's good (mousethief, I mean).
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
Neither do I believe that the saints in eternity rejoice at the sufferings of the damned.
See my post above, at least as far as Aquinas is concerned: The saints do not rejoice in the suffering of the damned as such, but in what it represents, namely the justice of God and their own salvation.
quote:
Originally posted by Laurelin:
I can’t go with the Church Fathers on this – they are not as authoritative as Scripture, and this notion isn't anywhere in Scripture
If anybody has any idea where the Church Fathers discuss this topic, I would be interested. Anyway, if you want scripture, consider "For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, says the LORD; so shall your descendants and your name remain. From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, all flesh shall come to worship before me, says the LORD. "And they shall go forth and look on the dead bodies of the men that have rebelled against me; for their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." (Isaiah 66:22-24) This states that the doomed in hell are known to the saints in heaven in all their punishments; and while it says nothing about "rejoicing", the saints clearly do not abandon worship of the Lord over this and there is no indication of pity for the doomed from the saints. And make of this "The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked. Men will say, "Surely there is a reward for the righteous; surely there is a God who judges on earth."" (Psalm 58:10-11) what you will… (And I mean that, St Augustine for example does not think that this has to do with hell as such. Still, I think it speaks against easy optimism for the wicked.)
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Originally posted by Laurelin:
There is something extremely Calvinistic about Ingo's Catholicism.
Perhaps I should read some Calvin at some point in time, if he is such a reasonable fellow.
quote:
Originally posted by South Coast Kevin:
So do you think eternal punishment is 'in due proportion' to the wicked deeds done by an unrepentant person? Could you explain how, please?
I've explained that several times already. It has to do with evaluating the severity of a crime in accordance with the status of the victim, if you want to stay with the usual "crime and punishment" logic. The same idea is expressed here in perhaps slightly less contentious terms by Aquinas: "Punishment is proportionate to sin. Now sin comprises two things. First, there is the turning away from the immutable good, which is infinite, wherefore, in this respect, sin is infinite. Secondly, there is the inordinate turning to mutable good. In this respect sin is finite, both because the mutable good itself is finite, and because the movement of turning towards it is finite, since the acts of a creature cannot be infinite. Accordingly, in so far as sin consists in turning away from something, its corresponding punishment is the "pain of loss," which also is infinite, because it is the loss of the infinite good, i.e. God. But in so far as sin turns inordinately to something, its corresponding punishment is the "pain of sense," which is also finite."
quote:
Originally posted by Erroneous Monk:
If I think of a really awful offence against love - let's say, a mother torturing her child to death (and sadly, we get a few of those cases here ) - yes, there is a part of me that would like to see that mother receive the treatment she meted out. But to call my anger a desire for justice, and therefore morally good, seems warped.
Wrath against evil is not "warped". However, we do have good reason for not torturing the mother to death in response, no matter whether that would be justified as such. Namely precisely that while the mother is alive, there is hope that she will repent of her sins and reform her life. It's pretty damn difficult to repent while you are being tortured, and impossible when you are dead. At least in part then, our entire modern justice system has arisen exactly out of the desire to give people as much opportunity as possible to repent, realising that their death would end this opportunity.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
It's meant as a deterrent.
Punishment as deterrent is only one of several reasons typically given for justification. Retribution is another. Also typical are rehabilitation and incapacitation.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Eternal punishment does not teach the punished anything. It is thus evil.
Actually, deterrence from sin in this life is a typical reason given for eternal punishment. Obviously it is too late for the doomed in hell to be deterred, but it is not too late for you to be deterred by the prospect of joining them. And if God is trying to get you to reform your life by threatening you with eternal hell fire, as He clearly does in the person of Jesus Christ, then He must also carry out this threat if He is being ignored. Otherwise He would be scaremongering, lying.
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The problem with your "god" is that its morals are so completely different from human morals as to be inscrutable. And you defend this like it's some kind of wonderful thing. If our morals and its morals are so utterly different, then "moral" loses any meaning.
Nothing could be further from the truth. You have no difficulty whatsoever to understand what I'm saying, and there is no doubt possible that plenty of humans have used such moral arguments among themselves. You just don't like the arguments and their consequences, hence you are desperately trying to reject them as unthinkable. Their threat to you, however, lies precisely in how thinkable they are. If I was just talking gibberish, you would just shrug and get on with your life.
Meanwhile, I would be somewhat interested in your own thinking about hell, in the context of scripture and (Orthodox) tradition.
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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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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
One of these years we'll get like/don't like buttons.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Eternal punishment does not teach the punished anything. It is thus evil.
Actually, deterrence from sin in this life is a typical reason given for eternal punishment. Obviously it is too late for the doomed in hell to be deterred, but it is not too late for you to be deterred by the prospect of joining them. And if God is trying to get you to reform your life by threatening you with eternal hell fire, as He clearly does in the person of Jesus Christ, then He must also carry out this threat if He is being ignored. Otherwise He would be scaremongering, lying.
Well that's a rather incoherent answer, because hell can only be a deterrent to those who actually believe in it. If its role as deterrent is the justification for its sufferings being regarded as 'punishment', then it follows logically that only people who believe in hell could ever go there. So all that anyone needs to do in order to avoid it is not believe in it, so that it is not a deterrent for them.
Unless of course you want to believe that God has revealed this reality to everyone. But you don't really believe that, do you? To quote you from the linked post:
quote:
As someone who grew up in an agnostic / atheist household, I can honestly tell you that talk about hell was something I considered mildly ridiculous, and mostly an embarrassment to the person talking in that way (and probably telling us something nasty about their character). There was zero impact of that sort of thing, or if there was impact, then only the usual social evasion one performs when meeting unpleasant characters. Of course I had a conscience back then, but I did not see it in any way as connected to God, much less to some conception of heaven and hell.
So hell is not a deterrent, right?
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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
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
originally posted by Evensong:
Well yes. But how we reconcile the discrepancy is the issue at hand isn't it?
I don't really see a discrepancy. God in God's loving mercy provides a means of reconciliation. The sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross went far beyond just the suffering associated with a crucifixion. Throughout Jesus earthly ministry, he warned there would be consequences for not following Him. How can we be surprised that there are in fact consequences to not following Him?
quote:
originally posted by Evensong:
Why? Because you too see the cognitive dissonance in the gospels?
No, I believe the Bible taken as a whole supports annihilation more than eternal conscience torment. We believe in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. If the faithful are resurrected into eternal life, then it stands to reason that eternal death awaits those who don't die.
quote:
originally posted by Evensong:
If that's his prerogative, then why should we bother believing in the love God teaches? Is God really that capricious? Is a God that does whatever God wants without sticking with the love expressed in the incarnation really worthy of worship?
Wouldn't capricious be preaching consequences for those who don't repent and then rewarding them with eternal life?
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Adeodatus
Shipmate
# 4992
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
No, I believe the Bible taken as a whole supports annihilation more than eternal conscience torment. We believe in the resurrection of the dead and life everlasting. If the faithful are resurrected into eternal life, then it stands to reason that eternal death awaits those who don't die.
Indeed. As I recall, the word "destruction" gets thrown around quite a bit in the New Testament. And then there are other ideas, such as non-eternal punishment, for instance when Matthew has Jesus say that our punishment won't end "until [we] have paid the last penny".
However, I'm not too surprised that the early Church opted for the eternal punishment model. There were some really angry people in the early Church.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
Posts: 9779 | From: Manchester | Registered: Sep 2003
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Well that's a rather incoherent answer, because hell can only be a deterrent to those who actually believe in it.
Well, yes, but how's that "incoherent"? It's not like I have said that deterrence is the only reason for hell. Indeed, up to this point I did not talk about that at all, but about retribution. And even if it was the only reason (which is not the case), deterrence is never a justification on a universal basis anyway. Nobody expects that punishment for tax fraud, for example, will scare all people into paying taxes properly. It will do that for some people though, and that's all justification by deterrence relies on.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
If its role as deterrent is the justification for its sufferings being regarded as 'punishment', then it follows logically that only people who believe in hell could ever go there.
This simply does not follow at all. Plenty of people who do not believe that the taxman will catch up with them end up being punished for tax fraud. You can perhaps claim that if I'm ignorant of tax law, and not culpable for this ignorance (i.e., not studiously avoiding all information about it), then I should be dealt with more leniently. I do think that something like that in fact holds as far as salvation is concerned. But I also think that it does not make the salvation chances of a non-Christian better than that of a Christian. (Basically, any such "ignorance discount" improves salvation chances less than the extra graces on offer to a Christian.)
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So all that anyone needs to do in order to avoid it is not believe in it, so that it is not a deterrent for them.
I do not believe that this is the case, and I'm not aware that anybody has ever claimed that deterrence works like that either for hell or for secular punishment. If you get thrown in jail for tax evasion, even though you didn't believe that you would get caught, or didn't believe that the tax law was just, or weren't even aware of the tax law you were violating, then I still find that rather deterring.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Unless of course you want to believe that God has revealed this reality to everyone.
I'm not sure what precisely you mean by "revealed" there. In the sense of John's Revelation, hell has not been revealed to me even now. In the sense of "being informed about", hell was revealed to me long before I became Christian. In either sense, there are of course still many people to whom hell has not been revealed.
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So hell is not a deterrent, right?
I find it very deterring.
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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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
You just don't like the arguments and their consequences, hence you are desperately trying to reject them as unthinkable.
Don't tell me what I think.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
hosting/
It seems especially appropriate to this thread to remind all posters that their contributions should not contain content reserved for Hell.
/hosting
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Laurelin, you've got it the wrong way round.
There isn't anything particularly 'Calvinistic' about IngoB's Roman Catholicism so much as there's something very medievally-Catholic about Zach82's Calvinism ... only he fails to see the connection.
Sure, Calvinism differs from Roman Catholicism in various ways, not least because it's view of human nature can be even bleaker.
That's what I mean when I say that at its core Calvinism is simply a form of late-medieval Scholasticism taken too far and taken to its logical neo-Platonic and - dare I say - almost Gnostic conclusion.
Calvinists will wriggle and write and shout until they are blue in the face that this isn't the case but it darn well is.
What Scholastic, Thomas Aquinas style uber-traditional and ultramontane Roman Catholicism and Calvinism have in common is a cold, relentless logic that makes sense to a certain extent (and is certainly internally consistent) but then it goes flying off beyond anything that can be reasonably deduced from scripture and/or tradition into a speculative, Scholastic fantasy-island of its own making.
Sure, it'll ring true in some respects - God is sovereign, there are consequences for sin etc - and I have no desire here to elide the implications of that - but in terms of how it all works out in practice it's a bit like putting 2 and 2 together and making 48.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
That's what I mean when I say that at its core Calvinism is simply a form of late-medieval Scholasticism taken too far and taken to its logical neo-Platonic and - dare I say - almost Gnostic conclusion.
It's anticipated in Ockhamist Nominalism.
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
It seems to me that the key question that should be asked of those who try to defend the idea of eternal torment with reference to retribution and punishment is this: Do you want certain people to go to hell?
I think of Stephen when he was martyred:
quote:
When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
I think that this incident gives us a little glimpse into heaven. Stephen was filled with the Holy Spirit and gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God. And what was the result? He was filled with overwhelming forgiveness towards his murderers.
The idea that someone filled with the Holy Spirit and living in the presence of the glory of God could spend eternity drooling and gloating over the torments of the damned, is completely contradicted by this witness of Scripture. God's desire is that all should be saved, and He does not change. That should also be the eternal desire of all those who are redeemed.
Interestingly, Revelation 21:4 says, concerning the New Jerusalem (heaven):
quote:
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.
There will be no more pain. But presumably, given that heaven is a place of forgiveness and everlasting mercy, and given that God's will is that all should be saved and that is therefore also the will of the redeemed, then it follows that heaven would be full of sorrow at the fate of the lost. But there is no sorrow (and certainly no Schadenfreude) in heaven.
The only way I can explain it is that the redeemed must have an overwhelming sense that the damned are utterly and eternally and actively loved by God, but that they (the damned) stubbornly hate that love, and through all eternity only have themselves to blame for their self-imposed exclusion from the joys of heaven. It's got nothing to do with retribution or God refusing to save them or withholding mercy from them (quite the opposite!) or God feeling personally obliged to torture them lest he be accused of having issued an empty thread or tormenting them for having failed to tick all the right boxes before they died. The damned are eternally loved. That is their problem. They hate love (excepting self-love, of course).
[ 21. November 2013, 09:35: 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
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
What you've articulated there, EE, is very close to the Orthodox position on these things as far as I understand - or at least, to a particularly strong position within Orthodoxy which, if I understand it correctly, allows for a range of views/opinions on this issue.
Whatever the case, it's certainly a position I feel more comfortable with these days - and I don't think one has to be particularly squeamish to take such a view. The scriptures you cite are pertinent on this point.
@Kaplan - on the Oakhamist Nominalism thing, quite possibly - although I know little about William of Ockham apart from his famous razor.
Whatever the shortcomings of his theology/approach, I suspect all of us could do with having a good shave with that particular implement every now and again.
It ain't for me to say, but I certainly wish that both the RCs and the Calvinists would apply it to their own chins at times ... whilst fully accepting that I ought also to apply it to my own.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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christianbuddhist
Apprentice
# 17579
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Posted
"For the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, their hatred, and their envy have now perished; nevermore will they have a share in anything done under the sun." - Ecclesiastes 9:5-6
Life everlasting is something experienced during this life on earth, the only life we have. I'm much more interested in what Jesus said about life than about death.
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
You mean that you refuse to entertain any argument that could possibly lead to God being bad.
Perhaps. But unlike you, I'm not simply trying to raise emotions by endlessly repeating a mantra of horror.
No. You are doing your best to avoid looking at the mantra of horror you are preaching as good. That it is a mantra of horror is the entire point.
quote:
The minor premise fails. Of course torture is bad for the tortured. It is a type of punishment, and all punishment is bad for the punished. That is the very point of punishment.
I've cited the classical theories of punishment already in this thread. How is rehabilitation intended to be bad for the punished? How is social protection intended to be bad for the punished? Even restoration isn't meant to be bad for the punished per se.
And as a deterrance, hell utterly fails. The point of a deterrant is that it is meant to be extremely public - rather than to happen after the person has left this world and is no longer able to communicate.
You are only able to make that statement because your moral philosophy is an ex-post-facto justification that attempts to make the monstrous reasonable. You need to discard everything except retribution in order to make your claims get anywhere because retribution is the only possible justification for hell.
quote:
However, it is not morally evil to punish the wicked in due proportion to their deeds, rather that is morally good.
Um... no. It is not morally evil to prevent the evil committing further acts of evil. Punishment is a whole different can of worms.
quote:
Thus if we can show that due proportion is maintained, then torture as punishment for evil deeds is in fact good.
So all Jesus said about turning the other cheek was meaningless. Right. Proportion does one thing. Establishes the maximum you can inflict in the name of justice. Assuming retributive justice. An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind.
quote:
Whereupon the opposite results from your syllogism: God does that which is good.
Indeed. It is well known that if you add a falsehood to a logical statement you can prove anything - see Bertrand Russel proving that 1+1=1 made him the Pope.
quote:
No, they are actually an attempt to reframe the whole debate in terms that I consider more helpful.
Of course you do! Pointing out that God is a sadistic torturer who set things up such that humans were going to get tortured as the perfect result of God's perfect will is not something you want to hear. It is, of course, the point.
quote:
It may. But it also justifies the harsher judgement against those who fail in upholding the dignity of their office through personal example.
That is one way to justify it. It is not the only way to justify it. Rob Ford smoking crack while clamping down on crack is hypocricy. Jesus hammered away at the pharisees because they were the ones who provided leadership and as such had a disproportionate influence in corrupting others. Social protection and rehabilitation rolled into one package.
You do not need to treat those in power as having their own private law in order to hold their feet to the fire when they abuse that power. All you need is the mantra that "With great power comes great responsibility".
quote:
Selectively quoting Jesus does nothing to advance this discussion. After all, that we talk about eternal hell at all is largely due to Christ's insistent teaching about it.
Pointing out that even by a morality based on the teachings of Jesus hell is evil demonstrates just how shaky and amoral your position is.
quote:
Anyway, charity is indeed something that goes above and beyond justice. But where does it have to be acted out? In this life! And is God charitable in this life? Most charitable! All offences that you may have committed, no matter what and how many, are forgotten as soon as you admit them and repent of them. Does this not go way beyond all worldly justice?
Ah, yes. That famous child rearing method. Until they are 18 the kids can do whatever they like if they say sorry. Once they turn 18 they get tortured as soon as they put a foot out of line.
This isn't justice either. Justice requires consistency. If this is God's normal behaviour then hell is changing the rules in the course of play - the opposite of justice.
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Indeed, I think that the afterlife might not really be a moral issue at all. The morals of this play out in this life. In the next life, we run into a number of necessities that simply determine how things must go.
*Another* attempt to absolve the architect for setting up the system and creating the torture chamber, paying for the torturers, and making sure that there would be a supply of victims?
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Punishing someone justly is not generally considered evil, but rather good, even though obviously the punished suffers the evil that the punishment entails. It seems to me that it is you who is attempting to establish non-standard justice here.
Because of course we have never had prison reformers due to the barbaric way we treated the condemned. Once more your apparent lack of anything other than Catholic philosophy and morality is showing.
Under the justice system of the time the auto da fe was just. This does not make it other than monstrous and the people who first tortured (in order that the Church could wash its hands of the torture) and then burned the victims alive do not get a free pass because that's what the law said.
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As far as Aquinas goes, you are … unsurprisingly … misrepresenting him (emphasis mine):
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A thing may be a matter of rejoicing in two ways. First directly, when one rejoices in a thing as such: and thus the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked. Secondly, indirectly, by reason namely of something annexed to it: and in this way the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked, by considering therein the order of Divine justice and their own deliverance, which will fill them with joy. And thus the Divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed: while the punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly.
Aquinas is creating a distinction without a difference. He is also creating a group of unfeeling robots in heaven, less than humans because they lack other than reasoned passions.
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However, that was not the point. The point was procedural and fundamental: if the afterlife just is eternal, then punishment just is eternal there as well. It is not imposed "on top of" a planned punishment, it is not an infinite increase in the severity of the sentence.
It is however infinitely disproportionate to the magnitude of any offence unless God is infinitely petty, mean, and weak.
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Only God is flawless. Any creation necessarily contains flaws.
Then as a creator God is not flawless.
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However, as far as moral responsibility goes, God created man flawless but with the possibility of failure resulting in flaw. Man promptly realised that possibility. We can certainly attribute the "design choice" to God, but not straightforwardly the flaw.
And God is responsible for the consequences. Just as if I create a robot and it goes on a murder spree because I fucked up that's my responsibility.
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No, it isn't. Rather you are now trying to import the whole of moral calculus by virtue of "thinking about what is good for the other". That's complete bunk. The power of the Golden Rule resides precisely in its simplicity, and hence your cartoon is funny by breaking that down.
Repitition doesn't make truth. The virtue of the golden rule resides in symmetry, simplicity, and depth - I want others to think what would be good for me so I do the same for them. The cartoon demonstrates the problems with naive, short sighted, and hyper-simplistic interpretations.
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I'm looking forward to your explanation of how quantum physics and general relativity have shaped your morals.
I could bring in the observer effect and the uncertainty principle - but that would be ex-post-facto justification.
Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, with the need for diverstity in order to have the tools available to adapt to new situations, and the way things get more diverse when there are no stresses on the other hand has shaped my morals. As has game theory.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Erroneous Monk
Shipmate
# 10858
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And as a deterrance, hell utterly fails. The point of a deterrant is that it is meant to be extremely public - rather than to happen after the person has left this world and is no longer able to communicate.
And the Gospel as written is unpleasantly smug about this. Dives, burning in Hell, pleads for mercy - and gets none - and then, compassionate despite his torment, pleads for a credible warning to be sent to those he loves. And he gets told: "No, it's up to them to believe the incredible warning that you didn't believe. Yes, I could make it easy for them to believe in the threat of Hell and the bliss of Heaven and therefore to change their ways, but I'm not going to do that."
Why?
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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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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
There's the rub, Erroneous Monk. The Bible, and even the Gospels, portrays God as both a loving and forgiving Father, and as a sadistic bastard. The IngoBs of the world square this circle by saying that being a sadistic bastard is a fine thing if you're God (but not if you're man) because God's morals include being a sadistic bastard, and man's do not. Or to put it the nice way, what counts as sadistic bastardy in man does not count as sadistic bastardy in God because, well, because God.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
As for sins against the infinite God being infinitely bad and worthy of infinite punishment, this is bass-ackwards.
God, as infinite, is impervious. Of all the sins you can commit, sins against God are the ones that do not harm their victim. Or if they do, the victim is able to absorb them and in the end come to no permanent harm. Sins I commit against another man can have devastating results. One tiny .22 caliber bullet can take a life. Fire that bullet at an elephant, you might be lucky if it penetrates the hide. Fire it at the infinite God, ... nothing.
So are our sins. (And don't give me the "it was the intent of firing the bullet not the bullet that does harm" -- that's just bending the metaphor to suit one's own purpose. If you're going to argue using someone else's metaphor, you have to meet it where it is, not twist it into something else.) Like that tiny bullet, our sins can cause great and horrendous harm to our fellow human beings. If they can cause infinite harm to God, then he is a weak and puny God, not an infinite and almighty one.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
That it is a mantra of horror is the entire point.
It is your entire point, certainly.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
How is rehabilitation intended to be bad for the punished?
It may be the aim of the punisher to set the punished on a path to a better life through the punishment. That does not change the fact that the punishment itself is an evil suffered by the punished. For example, prison severely restricts the prisoner's freedom of motion and control over their life. That's an evil suffered. If you have any doubts on this matter, I'm happy to have you incarcerated until you learn to post more meaningfully on SoF.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And as a deterrance, hell utterly fails. The point of a deterrant is that it is meant to be extremely public - rather than to happen after the person has left this world and is no longer able to communicate.
The English used to deport prisoners to Australia. At the time, very little if any news came back from Australia. Are you seriously claiming that "being deported to Australia" would not have acted as a deterrent for you if you had lived at the time? For that matter, I do not actually know any former or current prisoners (I think). Nevertheless, a prison sentence is certainly deterring to me. Information about the punishment must reach us to achieve deterrence, not necessarily information from the punished.
It really is patently absurd to claim that hell cannot act as a deterrent. The typical complaint is rather that it has been over-used in this way in the past.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
You need to discard everything except retribution in order to make your claims get anywhere because retribution is the only possible justification for hell.
Both retribution and deterrence. As well as possibly incapacitation, though that would require some interesting theological and philosophical speculations - which are not going to happen here, unfortunately.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
So all Jesus said about turning the other cheek was meaningless.
Again, Jesus also spoke lots about eternal hell fire and the doom of the wicked. You cannot simply rip one saying out of context and use it to dismiss a truckload of other sayings.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Pointing out that God is a sadistic torturer who set things up such that humans were going to get tortured as the perfect result of God's perfect will is not something you want to hear. It is, of course, the point.
It is your point, certainly, and you wish to establish it by endless repetition, since you cannot by reason. However, I'm quite happy to acknowledge, as it happens, that God created man in a way and under circumstances that make it possible for man to end in eternal torture. So in that ultimate sense God is indeed responsible for the fate of the doomed. I just don't think that that is "malevolent", exactly. As I've said above, I think "challenging" is a possible descriptor. If you want it more negatively, you could say "not nice".
I've always wondered where the concept of a "nice" God comes from. Certainly not from scripture...
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
That is one way to justify it. It is not the only way to justify it. Rob Ford smoking crack while clamping down on crack is hypocricy.
I've not claimed that it is the only way. All I was showing is that you were stressing one side of upping the ante on the uppers, but ignoring the other. One nice effect of this is that Rob Ford does not have to say anything on crack, and still stand condemned for being unworthy of his office. It is not required that he is a hypocrite, smoking crack is as such incompatible with the dignity of the position he has claimed for himself.
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Originally posted by Justinian:
All you need is the mantra that "With great power comes great responsibility".
That's working well in practice, is it?
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Until they are 18 the kids can do whatever they like if they say sorry. Once they turn 18 they get tortured as soon as they put a foot out of line. This isn't justice either. Justice requires consistency. If this is God's normal behaviour then hell is changing the rules in the course of play - the opposite of justice.
It's the same mistake over and over and over again. The afterlife is not a simple continuation of this life, like ageing one extra day to become 18 years old certainly is. It is a qualitative step change, a completely different set of circumstances and drastically altered players. It is simply not true that you can just extrapolate from this life into the next. Both lives are connected, by personal continuation, but through a radical transformation. And the living situation is just totally different before and after.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
*Another* attempt to absolve the architect for setting up the system and creating the torture chamber, paying for the torturers, and making sure that there would be a supply of victims?
That you refuse to think about the differences before and after does not make them any less important or meaningful. It is also slightly amusing that you paint a picture of hell much like Hieronymus Bosch would. But anyway, as mentioned above, I do think that God is in fact responsible for the fact that you might end up in hell. He is not responsible if you do end up in hell, that will be your fault. But God is responsible for offering a choice where there would not need to be one. So God is not "loving" in a simplistic "all giving, never demanding" sort of way. That bit should be sort of obvious from just living this life, but it apparently is not to some...
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Once more your apparent lack of anything other than Catholic philosophy and morality is showing.
I think that one can likely show that our modern system of justice derives in part from Christians worrying about allowing sufficient opportunity for repentance to perpetrators. It's rather ironic that the resulting justice system now gets twisted against these concerns.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Under the justice system of the time the auto da fe was just. This does not make it other than monstrous and the people who first tortured (in order that the Church could wash its hands of the torture) and then burned the victims alive do not get a free pass because that's what the law said.
The Spanish Inquisition, as the name says, was primarily a national institution more comparable to a secret police force, or perhaps the FBI. Religious adherence was back then considered part and parcel of adherence to a crown busy with "overcoming" the multi-religious legacy of the reconquest. If you want an appropriate comparison to modernity, then perhaps the current "war on terror" will do. I'm not so sure that our modern justice systems are holding up all that much better under political pressure now than they did back then.
Anyway, this is a side issue, surely.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Aquinas is creating a distinction without a difference.
It is a distinction of obvious merit. If I rejoice in your suffering, then I hate you. If I rejoice in justice being carried out, even if that entails suffering for you as the perpetrator, then this does not have to involve any animosity on my part for you (but for what you have done).
At a minimum you were misrepresenting Aquinas unintentionally. I think it would be a basic sign of fairness to acknowledge that. That really costs you very little here, since once more this was a side issue.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
He is also creating a group of unfeeling robots in heaven, less than humans because they lack other than reasoned passions.
It would be correct to say that Aquinas believes that in the saints reason is perfectly in charge, and that the passions are in harmony with reason ("reasonable", not "reasoned"). This obviously is not "unfeeling", and your claim was self-contradictory there. But it is indeed very different from how we are now.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
It is however infinitely disproportionate to the magnitude of any offence unless God is infinitely petty, mean, and weak.
Rather, of infinite goodness and dignity.
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Originally posted by Justinian:
Then as a creator God is not flawless.
In the restricted sense that God could not create perfection, since that is impossible, but nevertheless chose to create - you can say that.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
And God is responsible for the consequences. Just as if I create a robot and it goes on a murder spree because I fucked up that's my responsibility.
You are not a robot, you are a free agent. You can avoid going on a murder spree. If you nevertheless go on a murder spree, you are to blame.
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
Evolutionary theory, on the other hand, with the need for diverstity in order to have the tools available to adapt to new situations, and the way things get more diverse when there are no stresses on the other hand has shaped my morals. As has game theory.
Please do go ahead and extend your explanation to some actual moral laws, and show how you could not have arrived at these laws otherwise (or at least how this would have been very difficult).
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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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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
The way I see it is based around the 1 Corinthians quote above…
What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.
The idea behind this for me is that the physical body is left behind forever, to decay and die, to be separated from God, which is one definition of Hell, and one I subscribe to.
The spiritual body is raised at the death of the physical body, and is taken to Heaven.
The “bad” parts of us die with the physical body and remain in the Hell of separation, and the “good” parts of us live on eternally in God’s love and grace in Heaven.
But we don’t notice the death of the bad parts, they are of this world, they actually ARE our physical bodes and our minds and thoughts. We only display our sinful natures in this world using what we have here on Earth, and so when we die those sinful aspects remain in this world with the physical body, to die and remain separated from God. The spiritual parts of us, the love, mercy and just parts of us, however large or small, enter into the divine love of God.
It may not be theologically sound, but I just cannot accept that a just God will offer eternal punishment for wrongdoing committed in a physical realm of finite length. As humans we have no concept of “eternity” and what it means, so to use that as a punishment is not Just.
If I kill someone I may deny them of 50 years of mortal human life, if they are 40 and would die naturally at 90. Is it just that I spend more than 50 years being punished for that killing? A hundred? A thousand? Ten million, twenty billion? Eternity? At what point does a punishment become unjust for denying someone of 50 years of Earthly life? God created everything, seen and unseen and so He must bear ultimate responsibility for His creation and our sinful natures. Which he did, on the cross.
A merciful and just God must be one who cannot punish, but must forgive all and embrace them with love and mercy.
Of course my theorem doesn’t offer hope for punishments beyond the grave for those whom we would like to see punished for eternity. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, any child rapist and murderer you care to mention, will all leave behind their evil natures to rot or burn with their Earthly bodies. Sorry if that doesn’t appeal, but in claiming that God is just and merciful, then I must be a Universalist, and I can’t be a Universalist and exclude even one from Gods mercy and love.
The theorem is also rooted in my own Atonement theorem, in that I believe that Christ looked at us and saw that every one of us was capable of love. Even Hitler probably loved his mother, and even if someone doesn’t love anyone, we are all capable of love. We, as humans, have the capacity for love, and I think that was enough for God to want to bring us into His own infinite and everlasting love. We get the prize because we can reciprocate. We have no choice, having the capacity to love is built in to humanity.
Therefore Christ died for us in order that he was able to defeat death’s hold over us and threw open wide the gates of heaven. No longer are we dead in the ground, but our spirits, our love is taken into heaven and those parts not needed are left behind.
I have no theological basis for my own belief, but as I’m a High-Church Anglican with Affirming Catholic and sometimes Anglo-Catholic leanings, I am used to having my cake and eating it. I will gratefully accept any Biblical passages, canonical or non-canonical, early church father writings of what have you that justify my theories, and will equally cheerfully ignore anything that knocks it down.
Yes it is an easy theology to use as an excuse for sinning when convenient, but I truly cannot comprehend of a just God as having use for punishments at all, let alone ones lasting an eternity for sins committed in a finite, mortal realm.
I don’t mean that to mean we should all behave sinfully, selfishly and power-seeking. I think we are not like that as humans. That spark of love in all of us burns brighter in the majority and we do try for a just and peaceful world here on Earth in the main. We don’t always succeed, but humanity really does strive for the good rather than the bad, on the whole.
Posts: 2118 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: Nov 2006
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The Bible, and even the Gospels, portrays God as both a loving and forgiving Father, and as a sadistic bastard. The IngoBs of the world square this circle by saying that being a sadistic bastard is a fine thing if you're God (but not if you're man) because God's morals include being a sadistic bastard, and man's do not. Or to put it the nice way, what counts as sadistic bastardy in man does not count as sadistic bastardy in God because, well, because God.
At long last, some reason and honesty! I'm not sarcastic at all, it is refreshing to hear that somebody actually has read the bible for what it is. The "My Little Pony" gibberish I often hear about scripture makes a session of Vogon poetry seem highly attractive in comparison.
We can quibble about the "sadistic bastard" bit, but I will take that in my stride since you of course have to motivate somehow why you are not attempting to "square the circle" yourself.
But "squaring the circle" is just right for me. That is exactly what theology must be like, in my opinion. And I do not reject this, I embrace it enthusiastically. The harder it gets to square the circle, the closer to God. Reality is the ultimate koan, and God is gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate (gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond).
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Fire that bullet at an elephant, you might be lucky if it penetrates the hide. Fire it at the infinite God, ... nothing.
Well, that didn't last long... Back we are to firing bullets at an incorporeal Spirit. Nobody has ever claimed that sin consists in harming God physically (?!?) - unless you are talking about the special case of the Incarnation. The offence against God results from a privation of form or order or due measure of what He has willed for the world, a falling short as compared to what He has ordained. God wills that the world be thus, but it is not, as a result of our will enacted. Ultimately, it is an uprising against rightful rule, a denial of supreme authority, a disobedience of God, even if that is not the primary intention that we have. Sin "harms" God insofar as His will ought to be done on earth as it is in heaven, but isn't. This offence is infinite insofar as we reject the infinite good, God, over some finite good, which we wish to obtain by sinning.
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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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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB
The afterlife is not a simple continuation of this life, like ageing one extra day to become 18 years old certainly is. It is a qualitative step change, a completely different set of circumstances and drastically altered players. It is simply not true that you can just extrapolate from this life into the next. Both lives are connected, by personal continuation, but through a radical transformation. And the living situation is just totally different before and after.
That is actually not quite true.
There is a spiritual continuity from this life into the next. As concerns condemnation...
John 3:18-19 - "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil."
In other words, those who love darkness rather than light, and therefore are judged to be 'unbelievers', are condemned already. This is not just a legal status that is held in suspense until they die, because the passage refers to their actual spiritual state. Their condemnation consists in the fact that they "hate the light". This is completely consistent with everything I have said about the nature of hell, that it is the spiritual experience of the wicked when exposed to the reality of God. The light of Christ - His presence, which of course includes His love - is abhorrent to those who love evil. This is a reality in this life, as well as the next.
As concerns salvation...
Colossians 3:1-4 - If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
True believers have already been raised with Christ spiritually. This is also mentioned in Ephesians:
Ephesians 2:4-7 - But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
A genuine conversion involves a real spiritual change which is the beginnings of a process which finds its ultimate fulfilment in heaven. But that journey is a continuum, as this verse makes clear:
Proverbs 4:18 - But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.
This describes a continuum. The "perfect day" is not essentially different from the shining that increases throughout the life of the just person.
And finally...
1 Corinthians 2:9-12 - But as it is written:
“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
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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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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Reality is the ultimate koan, and God is gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate (gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond).
The answer to that Koan as Martin would say is Love.
I can't conceive of any position more diametrically opposed to the message of the Heart Sutra than the one articulated by you in this thread.
The Thathagata's don't hate and they most certainly don't torture.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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