Different wording of "question about hell"

notachance · Post by **notachance** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 7:39 am

There are many competing opinions among theists regarding the nature of God and the nature of what happens after death. So I was hoping to identify a bottom line all theists can all agree on.

Are we completely free to love God, hate God, ignore God, fight against God, rebel against God, reject God, spite God, believe that he doesn't exist, disobey his commandments, believe in a false God, start a competing religion, worship the devil, not worship anything, etc without fear that there might be some kind of eternal unpleasantness in the afterlife?

Can I be absolutely 100% certain that no matter what, GOD WILL NEVER TORMENT ME, PUNISH ME, DEPRIVE ME OF HIS PRESENCE, TORTURE ME, ALLOW THE DEVIL TO TORTURE ME, ANNIHILATE ME WHILE ALLOWING OTHERS TO LVE FOREVER or any such fundamentally unfair and cruel thing?

Can I be absolutely certain of at least that?

It's a very simple question, which requires a yes or no answer.

The reason I ask is this: If an omnipotent entity cannot be counted on to at least not cause its creations to suffer for eternity, then by definition it is not worthy of its creations' love.

Disclaimer: This is all a thought experiment for me. Obviously, since there is no evidence for God or for an afterlife, and since there is a mountain of empirical evidence that positively suggests the non-existence of God or an afterlife, I don't believe that any of this is real.

AquinasD · Post by **AquinasD** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 11:15 am

Your question doesn't make very much sense. Are you simply assuming that God should not enact justice? Or is there some assumption about what counts as justice?

For example, let's suppose that someone brutally murder half a dozen small children for no reason other his own pleasure. Even if we suppose that the murderer does come to feel regret and seeks reconciliation for his acts, does not justice still demand a punishment fitting the crime, i.e. execution?

No matter your own thoughts on capital punishment, certainly you can see it doesn't make sense to say "If I can't commit this crime against someone without them coming to despise me and demand justice be fulfilled, they don't love me."

Why would it be different with God? Why do you believe that a person who spites God, even though that person owes everything to God and God is infinitely worthy or honor, veneration, and worship, does not incur some punishment for their crime?

Before you change the question, I will note that you've grouped in a lot of "offenses" that I'm not talking about, i.e. mere disbelief in God's existence. In a lot of those cases, it depends on why a person is doing something; are they disbelieving in God's existence simply because they don't see why He must exist, or out of some spite? There's a difference between those instances of disbelief.

notachance · Post by **notachance** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:05 pm

AquinasD wrote:Your question doesn't make very much sense. Are you simply assuming that God should not enact justice?

No. I'm saying that while a father figure has the right to punish his children for their wrongdoings, there has to be a line the father will not cross.

I can count with 100% certainty that my father will never TORMENT me. Or allow somebody else to torment me if he has the power to prevent it. Or torture me. Or abandon me forever.

If I can't count on at least that much from God, then he doesn't deserve love.

Also, an entirely different line of thought that literally just occurred to me:

Why did my father punish me when I ran with scissors pointing up? Because by causing a comparatively small harm (a spank or whatever) he was helping me avoid a greater harm which he would have otherwise been unable to protect me from (poking my eye out if I fell). The net result is an increase in my wellbeing.

That analogy doesn't apply to the God & Hell scenario.

What God is doing is letting me walk with scissors in my hand, letting me fall, letting me poke my eye out, and then as punishment for having walked with scissors and having poked my eye out, poke my other eye out too and then wait for a week before taking me to the hospital, for the purpose of teaching me through excruciating pain that I should have listened to him when I still had the chance, but now it's too late.

The entire danger is created by God. It's not like if he wanted to abolish hell he would not be able to, as opposed to a father who is not able to avoid dangers in his son's life.

The purpose of hell is not to teach a lesson, but to punish for failure to love. That is not what a benevolent father does, that is what an evil dictator does.

That is perverted.

God is punishing me with eternal torture for the crime of not trying to avoid being tortured for eternity.

That is not justice. That is perversion. Why should I love a pervert?

(again, this is all in the context of a thought experiment. I don't actually believe that any of this is true)

AquinasD · Post by **AquinasD** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:39 pm

notachance wrote:No. I'm saying that while a father figure has the right to punish his children for their wrongdoings, there has to be a line the father will not cross.

I can count with 100% certainty that my father will never TORMENT me. Or allow somebody else to torment me if he has the power to prevent it. Or torture me. Or abandon me forever.

If I can't count on at least that much from God, then he doesn't deserve love.

I think you're being a tad emotional. You keep throwing around the word "torture," as if it follows from punishment. Torture implies some undue duress a person is put under only to derive satisfaction to the torturer, or to coerce something. It hasn't been demonstrated that a punishment from God for the sin of, say, murder, would be torture.

Also, an entirely different line of thought that literally just occurred to me:

Why did my father punish me when I ran with scissors pointing up? Because by causing a comparatively small harm (a spank or whatever) he was helping me avoid a greater harm which he would have otherwise been unable to protect me from (poking my eye out if I fell). The net result is an increase in my wellbeing.

That analogy doesn't apply to the God & Hell scenario.

Well no. Because the punishment you are speaking of is corrective punishment. Purgatory might be a place of corrective punishment, but Hell by definition is a place without hope. Hell serves as retributive punishment; and don't let us forget that Hell is, in itself, negative punishment, while there may be positive punishments in addition to the negative punishment of eternal separation from God.

But you keep assuming that a person might go to Hell when they might not go to Hell. There is no doubt about a person who is going to Hell that they are entirely rejecting God and become unable to "un-reject" God. A person isn't sent to Hell because they once rejected God for something else, but because they reject God as a finality, for eternity. What causes the eternal separation from God is not God, but the person who chooses that. How they choose it and why is, obviously, their choice, but it is a final choice that isn't made in one single choice we can analyze here on earth.

The entire danger is created by God. It's not like if he wanted to abolish hell he would not be able to, as opposed to a father who is not able to avoid dangers in his son's life.

The danger of Hell is "created by God" insofar as He gives people free will. God cannot randomly impugn somebody with Hell, because it can only come after the free will choice to ultimately reject God. Hell, which is eternal separation from God, is possible because we have free will which makes it possible for a person to choose to reject God.

I think the problem you are having with the concept of Hell is that you keep confusing it with some outlandish caricatures. It seems whenever I give an explanation to one thing, you gloss over that explanation to find another problem which occurs because you aren't keeping in mind what I've been saying about Hell.

Zzyzx · Post by **Zzyzx** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 1:49 pm

.

AquinasD wrote:You keep throwing around the word "torture," as if it follows from punishment. Torture implies some undue duress a person is put under only to derive satisfaction to the torturer, or to coerce something. It hasn't been demonstrated that a punishment from God for the sin of, say, murder, would be torture.

Aquinas,

If a friend of mine wrote the things you are writing here, I would respectfully suggest that they step back and re-read what they have written as though it had been written by someone else. If that didn't make an impression, I would again respectfully suggest that they have a trusted confidant who is not in lock-step with their beliefs to read and critique.

AquinasD · Post by **AquinasD** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 3:46 pm

Zzyzx wrote:Aquinas,

If a friend of mine wrote the things you are writing here, I would respectfully suggest that they step back and re-read what they have written as though it had been written by someone else. If that didn't make an impression, I would again respectfully suggest that they have a trusted confidant who is not in lock-step with their beliefs to read and critique.

I don't understand what you mean to imply. Are you saying that what I'm saying is hard to understand?

I think it is true that the use of the word "torture" to describe punishment from God hasn't been justified. My pointing it out is to insist that it would need to be demonstrated that the punishment I am describing, and to which I hold is not unreasonable, is torture (though of course it might be applied to notachance's ridiculous caricatures, but the analogy hasn't been demonstrated).

Question Everything · Post by **Question Everything** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 4:07 pm

AquinasD wrote: But you keep assuming that a person might go to Hell when they might not go to Hell. There is no doubt about a person who is going to Hell that they are entirely rejecting God and become unable to "un-reject" God. A person isn't sent to Hell because they once rejected God for something else, but because they reject God as a finality, for eternity. What causes the eternal separation from God is not God, but the person who chooses that. How they choose it and why is, obviously, their choice, but it is a final choice that isn't made in one single choice we can analyze here on earth.

Can they make this choice after they die?

AquinasD · Post by **AquinasD** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 4:30 pm

Question Everything wrote:Can they make this choice after they die?

I'm led to believe that the final decision a person makes only occurs then, but is informed by their choices and motivations here on earth.

Question Everything · Post by **Question Everything** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 5:17 pm

AquinasD wrote:
Question Everything wrote:Can they make this choice after they die?
I'm led to believe that the final decision a person makes only occurs then, but is informed by their choices and motivations here on earth.

That would make sense. I wouldn't have much problem with Hell as long as people could choose to go there after seeing it for what it is and fully understanding what will happen to them. The biggest problem I have with it is the idea that people are sent there screaming simply because they believed in the wrong thing when they were alive.

Zzyzx · Post by **Zzyzx** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 6:18 pm

.

AquinasD wrote:
Zzyzx wrote:If a friend of mine wrote the things you are writing here, I would respectfully suggest that they step back and re-read what they have written as though it had been written by someone else. If that didn't make an impression, I would again respectfully suggest that they have a trusted confidant who is not in lock-step with their beliefs to read and critique.
I don't understand what you mean to imply. Are you saying that what I'm saying is hard to understand?

Hard to understand????? Heck no. But since you ask, the words I might use include simplistic, delusional, misguided, gullible, obscured, etc.

AquinasD wrote:I think it is true that the use of the word "torture" to describe punishment from God hasn't been justified. My pointing it out is to insist that it would need to be demonstrated that the punishment I am describing, and to which I hold is not unreasonable, is torture (though of course it might be applied to notachance's ridiculous caricatures, but the analogy hasn't been demonstrated).

Your personal "interpretation" of "hell" may not be "torture" in YOUR view. However, you do not represent all of Christendom in its tens of thousands of varieties. What makes you right and others wrong?