Should unbelievers be punished? Why?

[unknown soldier]

Why should unbelievers be punished for not believing what Christians claim? In what way is skepticism regarding the claims of Christ morally wrong?

[unknown soldier]

I see. Mark 16:1-8 is about Jesus' memorial tomb and the remainder of the chapter is spurious, it doesn't appear in earlier manuscripts. It was added later.

I see that you recognize that at least part of the Bible is "spurious." What other parts of the Bible do you see as baloney?

In any event, there are tons of other Bible passages that threaten people with punishment. Consider Matthew 25:46:

And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

And Matthew 10:28:

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are you a afraid of God like Jesus commanded? If you displease God, he will make you pay dearly.

Your call...
...No you don't...
No it isn't....

Please concede my points if you cannot argue against them. I demonstrated that it is foolish to believe what Christians say knowing their poor track record and that they have no evidence to back up what they say. I also know that trusting Christians is risky because they conned me out of $900. If I had been skeptical, then I would not have been scammed by them.

Well . . . you didn't know the source you used was spurious.

Do you know that every "source is spurious"? How do you know that that email you received telling you you've won the Nigerian lottery cannot be trusted? I do know that Christian evangelists very often get their facts wrong and have little respect for the truth.

There was the destruction of Jerusalem which Jesus foretold 40 years earlier. Many Christians listened and escaped. Those who didn't listen suffered horrible deaths.

Actually, that "prophecy" was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. Even if Jesus did say it forty years before the event, how was anybody supposed to know when it would happen? Do you think they should have watched out for it for four decades not knowing when it would take place?

Besides, I know of a better way for the Jews to have escaped death at the hands of the Romans: they should have faced the fact that rebelling against Rome was hopeless. No God would have helped them. Their religious beliefs resulted in their deaths.

Perhaps some people disagree with your misrepresentation of the so called New Testament regarding punishment meted out to sinners by the Christian god. In at least this case that is the only thing I reject.

I posted the proof that I'm right. I see you reject the truth about the Bible. That's blind faith.

[RJG]

No one should be punished for not being a believer. The Bible is a less than credible collection of documents, which seem to be very human creations with no input from any external entity.

[DavidLeon]

I see that you recognize that at least part of the Bible is "spurious." What other parts of the Bible do you see as baloney?

I don't think any of it is baloney, but 1 John 5:7; John 7:53-8:1-11; John 5:4 are spurious.

In any event, there are tons of other Bible passages that threaten people with punishment.

And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

I only asked why, in this particular case, being that of unbelievers, should we interpret the revocation of eternal life as punishment. I didn't say it wasn't punishment or that there wasn't occasion where God punished the disobedient. I compared translations of Matthew 25:46 and nearly all of them convey the idea of punishment. (source). My favorite translation, the NWT, translates it as: "And these will depart into everlasting cutting-off, but the righteous ones into everlasting life." with a footnote that reads: "Lit., "lopping off; pruning." Gr., ko′la·sin. See 1 Jo 4:18 ftn." 1 John 4:18 reads: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love throws fear outside, because fear exercises a restraint. Indeed, he that is under fear has not been made perfect in love." The footnote given with the word "restraint" which reads: "Or, "checking; correction; punishment." Lit., "lopping off." Gr., ko′la·sin. Compare Mt 25:46 where the same Gr. word occurs." So punishment is an accurate translation but the original language literally means cutting off. A comparison of 1 John 4:18 shows most reading punishment, but some reading torment, pain, one reading "fear is crippling, a fearful life - fear of death, fear of judgment - is one not yet fully formed."

So, unbelievers are restrained, cut off, from everlasting life. As punishment for disbelief? Are they who Jesus refers to here? They are the ones, from the founding of the world, who were not welcoming to those with the message of God. There being a distinction between the earth and the world. The earth lasting forever upon which the meek shall live and the world scheduled for destruction along with the wicked who support it.

The Bible has a short prologue, from Genesis 1:1 - 3:14. The brief prologue tells of Jehovah creating the heavens and earth and man, living forever, being given earth to fill and subdue it. Man, being created perfect, meaning with great potential as a newborn baby has great potential but is undeveloped, is given a period in time for maturing. You recall the translation above reading "fear is crippling, a fearful life - fear of death, fear of judgment - is one not yet fully formed." This was Adam's state, and so he was separated in a sense, from God. Undeveloped but with great potential. God calls this the seventh day, the day of rest. A period in which man was allowed to mature to wisdom, knowing, like the angels, what is good and what is bad. But Adam chose to decide for himself what was good and what was bad before he had matured.

To make this brief, from Genesis 3:15 through to the conclusion of Revelation the Bible tells of God's arrangement for man's original purpose to be fulfilled. To live forever on earth, to enter into God's rest knowing what is good and bad and that their creator, Sovereign Lord Jehovah, knows best what that is. We can reject it or accept it, living our lives accordingly.

Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are you a afraid of God like Jesus commanded? If you displease God, he will make you pay dearly.

I'm not afraid of anything. Hell is a pagan myth adopted by apostate Christianity long after the Bible was written. (See my post on hell) So really what Jesus was saying, and what the Bible says, is that the physical body we have now, under sin, can be destroyed by anyone, but the life or soul, can be resurrected or not, in other words destroyed, for the unrighteous who reject God's promise of everlasting life. In other words by rejecting God's promise of everlasting life you simply die much the same as your atheistic beliefs dictate. You can say that is punishment, but to me it seems more like results. If a parent tells his child to study and the child doesn't and fails the class, it isn't the parent punishing the child, it's the result of the child's lack of study.

Your call...
...No you don't...
No it isn't....

Please concede my points if you cannot argue against them. I demonstrated that it is foolish to believe what Christians say knowing their poor track record and that they have no evidence to back up what they say.

I don't actually recall your doing that exactly, but I certainly wouldn't argue it. Modern day Christians are more interested in nationality and pagan nonsense.

I also know that trusting Christians is risky because they conned me out of $900. If I had been skeptical, then I would not have been scammed by them.

You should have been skeptical. I certainly would have been. I'm always skeptical, but I said skepticism wasn't the wisest course because, like Christians, the skeptical aren't sincerely skeptical. I'm skeptical of the skeptical. Skepticism is more often than not an atheistic ideology based upon a poorly constructed criticism of Christianity. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

Well . . . you didn't know the source you used was spurious.

Do you know that every "source is spurious"?

Probably not.

How do you know that that email you received telling you you've won the Nigerian lottery cannot be trusted?

That I've never played the Nigerian lottery would be a red flag.

I do know that Christian evangelists very often get their facts wrong and have little respect for the truth.

We all often get the facts wrong. The Christians haven't cornered the market on that.

There was the destruction of Jerusalem which Jesus foretold 40 years earlier. Many Christians listened and escaped. Those who didn't listen suffered horrible deaths.

Actually, that "prophecy" was written after the destruction of Jerusalem.

No it wasn't.

Even if Jesus did say it forty years before the event, how was anybody supposed to know when it would happen? Do you think they should have watched out for it for four decades not knowing when it would take place?

Yes. Which they did. They knew the event that would precede it. As Jesus had told them.

Besides, I know of a better way for the Jews to have escaped death at the hands of the Romans: they should have faced the fact that rebelling against Rome was hopeless. No God would have helped them. Their religious beliefs resulted in their deaths.

The Christians didn't rebel against the Romans. Nero, not the Christians, burned Rome to the ground. God did help them but even if he hadn't their beliefs transcend death. Go back to that verse in Matthew you quoted and give it more thought.

Perhaps some people disagree with your misrepresentation of the so called New Testament regarding punishment meted out to sinners by the Christian god. In at least this case that is the only thing I reject.

I posted the proof that I'm right. I see you reject the truth about the Bible. That's blind faith.

Overconfidence. Nevertheless, welcome to the forum, I'm glad to see new posters.

[unknown soldier]

I don't think any of it is baloney, but 1 John 5:7; John 7:53-8:1-11; John 5:4 are spurious.

Baloney = Spurious

I only asked why, in this particular case, being that of unbelievers, should we interpret the revocation of eternal life as punishment. I didn't say it wasn't punishment or that there wasn't occasion where God punished the disobedient. I compared translations of Matthew 25:46 and nearly all of them convey the idea of punishment. (source). My favorite translation, the NWT, translates it as: "And these will depart into everlasting cutting-off, but the righteous ones into everlasting life." with a footnote that reads: "Lit., "lopping off; pruning." Gr., ko′la·sin.

Isn't "cutting off" a punishment? I've noticed that many apologists try to wiggle out of difficulties by picking and choosing definitions for words that they hope solve the problem. In this post you've done it twice trading "spurious" for "baloney" and "cutting off" for "punishment." But in both cases you really didn't gain much ground at all because your "word substitutes" mean about the same as the words first used.

I'm not afraid of anything.

Then let's see you walk the narrow ledge of a tall building.

But seriously, if you truly aren't afraid of anything, then I suggest that you get help. It's dangerous not to fear that which can do you harm.

Hell is a pagan myth adopted by apostate Christianity long after the Bible was written.

Hell is a pagan myth like much of the Bible, but Christians put their own spin on it getting ideas from Gehenna, a garbage dump outside Jerusalem in which refuse burned. In the context of the gospel story, Jesus clearly believed in a place of punishment in which unsaved sinners were tormented in fire. The writer of Revelation added details making over hell as a lake of fire.

...by rejecting God's promise of everlasting life you simply die much the same as your atheistic beliefs dictate. You can say that is punishment, but to me it seems more like results.

There are no "atheistic beliefs." Atheism is an absence of belief in gods. I see death as the end because I know that all living things eventually die and stay dead. To tell me that we humans will return to life is as ridiculous as to say the tuna I ate for lunch will rise again.

(I imagine that if tuna had religion, they would believe they would be resurrected post-sandwich.)

If a parent tells his child to study and the child doesn't and fails the class, it isn't the parent punishing the child, it's the result of the child's lack of study.

God never told me to do anything.

I demonstrated that it is foolish to believe what Christians say knowing their poor track record and that they have no evidence to back up what they say.

I don't actually recall your doing that exactly...

Then go ahead and believe whatever you are told by any person regardless of how outlandish the claims are and how bad the person's reputation is for misinforming people. Let me know how you make out.

You should have been skeptical.

I am now! I learned my lesson never to believe anybody claiming miracles without proof for them.

I certainly would have been.

Then why do you fork over money to Christians claiming they represent an all-mighty God? Didn't you ever think that if their claim was true, then they wouldn't need to beg for money?

...I said skepticism wasn't the wisest course because, like Christians, the skeptical aren't sincerely skeptical. I'm skeptical of the skeptical. Skepticism is more often than not an atheistic ideology based upon a poorly constructed criticism of Christianity. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

I've often wondered if Bigfoot apologists complain about those who don't buy the Bigfoot claim the same way Christian apologists complain about atheists. Are Bigfoot "doubters" closet Bigfoot believers, and do Bigfoot apologists know the Bigfoot doubters are "insincere" by reading their minds? Bigfoot apologists can always dismiss the skeptics claiming that the doubters haven't done a good job of constructing a valid criticism of belief in Bigfoot.

In either case, I wonder if smearing the skeptics has succeeded in winning over more believers in Bigfoot or Jesus. Does anybody say: "Wow--those skeptics are so hypocritical! I better start believing in both Bigfoot and Jesus."

That I've never played the Nigerian lottery would be a red flag.

Great! Then you know better than to believe wild claims even if you don't know for sure that those claims aren't true.

We all often get the facts wrong. The Christians haven't cornered the market on that.

So the clergy is excused from lying because everybody lies.

No it wasn't.

I'm just using basic common sense. If you read about an event, then it's sensible to conclude that the work was written after the event--not before. It's commonly accepted that the gospels were written after 70 CE which would date their writing after the destruction of the Temple.

Yes. Which they did. They knew the event that would precede it. As Jesus had told them.

How do you know that the early Christians were waiting around for forty years for the temple to be destroyed?

The Christians didn't rebel against the Romans. Nero, not the Christians, burned Rome to the ground. God did help them but even if he hadn't their beliefs transcend death.

I believe Jim Jones preached to his followers that their beliefs "transcended death" prior to their mass suicide. In this case and the case of the early Christians "God's help" resulted in people dying.

Religion is dangerous!

[bluegreenearth]

Why should unbelievers be punished for not believing what Christians claim? In what way is skepticism regarding the claims of Christ morally wrong?

There are many types of disciplinary actions including positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. The purpose of any disciplinary action is behavior modification; to encourage or discourage a specified behavior. If a behavior cannot be modified by any type of disciplinary action, then the behavior is necessarily intrinsic. For instance, no type of disciplinary action might be able to convince a serial killer to not act on the desire to murder other people. Therefore, no disciplinary action could be taken that would modify a behavior that is intrinsic to the serial killer. As such, a serial killer should be subsequently isolated away from society for the protection of other people but not as a form of punishment. This because the objective for punishment should be rehabilitation, but a serial killer cannot be reliably rehabilitated. Therefore, imprisoning a serial killer should not entail gratuitous suffering of any kind because a painful punishment serves no ethical purpose in that context. For this reason, all imprisoned people should receive humane treatment. Personally, this is one reason why I object to the death penalty.

Now, because the function of discipline is behavior modification, it makes no logical sense to deploy punishment as mechanism for belief revision. In other words, if a group of people believed they would enjoy murdering other people at random but understood where it is more beneficial for them to comply with the legal requirement to not commit murder, then punishing those people as a consequence of their belief would not modify their behavior because they were already behaving in accordance with the law. Furthermore, the punishment wouldn't change what they believe about murdering other people at random. At best, people who are punished for something they believe but never act upon would only be encouraged to wish they could believe differently but lack an ability to make that choice. The only way those people could be encouraged to believe differently, which may not even be possible, is for them to be convinced by some relevant and compelling reason to believe they wouldn't actually enjoy committing random murders. However, I fail to see the point in punishing those people at all since they are not inclined to act upon their belief and aren't posing a threat to anyone.

Punishing people for having incorrect beliefs is unethical enough, but punishing people for lacking belief is just completely illogical in addition to being unethical. People who lack belief in a particular claim neither believe it is true nor believe it is false but are withholding belief until they become convinced it is true or false. If these people are not convinced either way, then their behavior is not informed by the belief that the claim is true or false but informed by other beliefs. Once again, if the purpose of punishment is to modify behavior, then punishing someone for lacking belief in a claim that doesn't even inform their behavior makes no sense whatsoever.

The final problem is the concept of life-time punishment whether that life ends at death or continues for an eternity during the claimed after-life. Obviously, there is no logical or ethical justification for sentencing people to a life-time punishment for what they believed, didn't believe, or how they behaved because the behavior modification intended by the punishment would have no purpose in that context. Remember, while it might seem like an act of punishment to imprison a dangerous criminal for a lifetime, this action is done for the protection of other people and not for the purpose of rehabilitating the offender. Why go through the trouble of using punishment to encourage a group of people to modify their behaviors if there is no intention of every permitting them the opportunity to freely demonstrate compliance?

So, after considering the logic of discipline, it seems reasonable to concluded that punishment could potentially cause people to modify their behavior but not their beliefs. At the same time, for punishment to be effective as a mechanism for deterring people from taking a forbidden action or as negative reinforcement for people who have already misbehaved, people have to believe the punishment will likely occur or have previously experienced the punishment. To threaten a punishment which no one can confirm will occur or know could even be possible cannot serve as an effective deterrent against forbidden behavior. However, if there is no intention of ever permitting punished people to demonstrate where their behavior has been successfully modified, then the act of punishment has no logical purpose in that circumstance anyway. Similarly, if the goal is belief revision, then punishment has no purpose in that application either.

[DavidLeon]

Baloney = Spurious

I got that.

Isn't "cutting off" a punishment? I've noticed that many apologists try to wiggle out of difficulties by picking and choosing definitions for words that they hope solve the problem. In this post you've done it twice trading "spurious" for "baloney" and "cutting off" for "punishment." But in both cases you really didn't gain much ground at all because your "word substitutes" mean about the same as the words first used.

Well, actually you substituted spurious for baloney and I said punishment was acceptable. In translation a variety of words can typically be used. Punishment is acceptable perhaps, but cutting off is more accurate in two different contexts that I considered. Punishment, and torment can be translated from a word that can also mean "jailer." When you and I associate torment with a jailer we may not think the same thing. Complicate that with a couple thousand years and a different language and that's why theists like to look at different variations of words. Torment in hell may mean to you the devil with a pitchfork but the Bible writers meant everlasting cutting off which is the alternative to everlasting life. To some punishment fits with their idea of God punishing the wicked but what exactly is the punishment isn't established in the case we first examined. Cutting off is the punishment. The question is, why? So I explained briefly the meaning of the Bible. I could put that into an archaic expression that you would be familiar with. One bad apple spoils the barrel. From the 1340 expression "A rotten apple quickly infects its neighbor." Language is cool.

Hell is a pagan myth adopted by apostate Christianity long after the Bible was written.

Hell is a pagan myth like much of the Bible, but Christians put their own spin on it getting ideas from Gehenna, a garbage dump outside Jerusalem in which refuse burned. In the context of the gospel story, Jesus clearly believed in a place of punishment in which unsaved sinners were tormented in fire. The writer of Revelation added details making over hell as a lake of fire.

Tormented ... tormented ... where have I heard that before. Gehenna, refuse dump .... Did you know that hell is thrown into the lake of fire in Revelation? You didn't read my post on hell, did you?

...by rejecting God's promise of everlasting life you simply die much the same as your atheistic beliefs dictate. You can say that is punishment, but to me it seems more like results.

There are no "atheistic beliefs." Atheism is an absence of belief in gods. I see death as the end because I know that all living things eventually die and stay dead. To tell me that we humans will return to life is as ridiculous as to say the tuna I ate for lunch will rise again.

You are substituting the word belief with see? You know all living things eventually die and stay dead? That must have required a great deal of research in the past, present and future ... or belief.

(I imagine that if tuna had religion, they would believe they would be resurrected post-sandwich.)

Oh! Now you've substituted belief with imagine.

If a parent tells his child to study and the child doesn't and fails the class, it isn't the parent punishing the child, it's the result of the child's lack of study.

God never told me to do anything.

Well then you've got nothing to worry about. Forget about study.

I demonstrated that it is foolish to believe what Christians say knowing their poor track record and that they have no evidence to back up what they say.

I don't actually recall your doing that exactly...

Then go ahead and believe whatever you are told by any person regardless of how outlandish the claims are and how bad the person's reputation is for misinforming people. Let me know how you make out.

So far I'm $900 ahead of you.

[Willum]

Personally, I would rather burn in Hell with Gandhi, then enjoy a Heaven with a redeemed Hitler.

[Bust Nak]

Why think of it as punishment? If someone shows up to your house and says there's a horrible storm coming but if you want and you behave well, you can come with them and be saved from the storm and you say, nah. When the storm takes you out is that the person who invited you punishing you? No. That's you getting what you wanted, which wasn't what you thought it was.

You have not taken into account the narrative that the "horrible storm" is an artificial one, created for the purpose of taking those out for failing to take up the invitation, as opposed to a natural even. In that context, such a storm would be indeed a punishment. It's the difference between "don't touch the oven or you will burn your hand" and "don't touch the oven or I will burn your hand."

[brunumb]

If someone shows up to your house and says there's a horrible storm coming but if you want and you behave well, you can come with them and be saved from the storm and you say, nah. When the storm takes you out is that the person who invited you punishing you? No. That's you getting what you wanted, which wasn't what you thought it was.

Or, you listen to the person and decide to go with him. No storm comes and while you are gone his accomplices break into your home and rob you blind. Stories are just that, stories.

The person inviting you is not the one punishing you. The storm is a natural event and has not taken you out purposefully. God on the other hand is the perpetrator of the consequences of your failure to believe. To say that people are getting what they wanted is really an insult. If God wants everyone to believe in him then, being omnipotent, he can make that happen easily. He should be communicating with everyone directly rather than using other human beings who are really none the wiser themselves and relying on a poorly contrived collection of ancient myths and legends.

[1213]

Why should unbelievers be punished for not believing what Christians claim? In what way is skepticism regarding the claims of Christ morally wrong?

Jesus said:

If anyone listens to my sayings, and doesn't believe, I don't judge him. ..
John 12:47

So, I don’t think there is really any judgment because of disbelief. According to the Bible, judgment goes like this:

This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and doesn't come to the light, lest his works would be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his works may be revealed, that they have been done in God."
John 3:19-21