Inquiry into the Justice/Injustice of Eternal Punishment

[Youngfod]

Back again.

What I was trying to point out is that God does not punish you. If you decide not to follow God then that is YOUR decision. It's rather like making a decision at school that you will not listen to your teacher and will not do any homework. You don't start work because you have nothing to offer. Should the employers be blamed for not employing you. The afterlife goes on and on, and you having made your decision to ignore God continue to ignore God, and in all probability very quickly hate God. God is not punishing you you chose that form of existance.

So which God was a question. First, there can only be one God by logical definition. Any religion that has become obsolete rules out that/those Gods. So you are looking at current religions but not new ones, they also do not comply with a God who created men and wants them to chose him. God creates out of love, there is no other reason that fits reality. Any religion that does not advocate love for all of Gods creation is false. I imagine that only leaves one but there are pretenders in there as well. You have to filter them out.

[kudayta]

So which God was a question. First, there can only be one God by logical definition.

So, polytheism isn't a word that appears in your dictionary?

Any religion that has become obsolete rules out that/those Gods.

That sounds like an Argument from the Masses to me.

So you are looking at current religions but not new ones, they also do not comply with a God who created men and wants them to chose him.

How old does a religion have to be before it can be considered valid? What does the age of the claim have to do with it? This sounds like an Argument from Tradition to me.

God creates out of love, there is no other reason that fits reality.

Yes there is. Deism and atheism are both consistent with all observations.

Any religion that does not advocate love for all of Gods creation is false.

On what grounds?

I imagine that only leaves one but there are pretenders in there as well. You have to filter them out.

How do you determine what's true from what's false with respect to religious matters then?

[kudayta]

If you had been alive 2000 years ago, and met a man named Jesus who said he was God, would you believe him?

Pedantically, if I met anyone named "Jesus" 2000 years ago, I'd ask how to pronounce those funny symbols "J" and "U" first.

Setting that aside though, sure, I'd believe that anyone who claims to be The One True God believes that in his own head. But I would not believe anyone correct on merely that basis though, I'm far too naturally skeptical of humans to just take their word for something like that. Now, if the dude started healing the sick by merely touching them or turned some water into delicious merlot, then I'd start with the ruling out of various hypotheses (he's an alien, he's a time traveler, etc.). After all reasonable doubt has been extinguished, then I'd believe him (conditional upon the discovery of new evidence, of course).

[Lomax]

Hello Youngfod,

Alot of white noise here. kudayta dispensed with most of it but I'll fill in the gaps.

What I was trying to point out is that God does not punish you. If you decide not to follow God then that is YOUR decision.

I hear this quite often from apologists, with increasing emphasis, but they do not realise that they have missed the point. Consider:

1. Person P makes decision D
2. D is P's decision
3. D is caused
4. Some entity E created the causal laws which link one state of events to another
5. Therefore, P made D because of E's laws

Note that we can reject (3), giving us:

1. Person P makes decision D
2. D is P's decision
3. D is uncaused
4. Therefore, P is not responsible for D

Note that if we want to charge P with responsibility for D, we also have to charge E with the same thing, since E had at least as much to do with causing D as P did.

As reconsiderate and I agreed, the best solution is to drop premise (4) of the first argument. So, we have ruled out those religions (or versions of religions) which claim their creator to be both benevolent and omnipotent.

You don't start work because you have nothing to offer. Should the employers be blamed for not employing you.

No, but that is because they have to keep an eye on factors such as productivity. Your god, on the other hand, employed you.

If you were to train a dog to be brutal towards humans, would you expect the dog to take all the blame after you have unleashed it on a child? The dog makes the decision to bite, but you made it make the decision.

The afterlife goes on and on, and you having made your decision to ignore God continue to ignore God, and in all probability very quickly hate God. God is not punishing you you chose that form of existance.

So whence Hell? If somebody hates me I do not condemn them to eternal pain. Rather, I just let them get on with it.

God creates out of love, there is no other reason that fits reality.

A quick survey of the horrors of the 20th century alone might lead us to better postulate: "God creates out of hate, there is no other reason that fits reality".

There's nothing inconsisent about the idea of a malicious creator; furthermore, with your credulous attitude, how would we know a Satan from a God?

Lomax

[kudayta]

A quick survey of the horrors of the 20th century alone might lead us to better postulate: "God creates out of hate, there is no other reason that fits reality".

20th Century behavior of humans is pretty bad, but there's always the apologist dodge of "free will" in those cases. I think it's best to respond with something like the Digger Wasp as an example.

[Lomax]

Hello kudayta,

20th Century behavior of humans is pretty bad, but there's always the apologist dodge of "free will" in those cases. I think it's best to respond with something like the Digger Wasp as an example.

Well, I do not think the "free will" is an effective answer (which is one of the things I am debating with Youngfod). But yes, the digger wasp is always a classic :)

Lomax

[reconsiderate]

A quick survey of the horrors of the 20th century alone might lead us to better postulate: "God creates out of hate, there is no other reason that fits reality".

I think many theists would agree with you, except they would name the supernatural being responsible "Satan," instead of "God." The only relevance in that is they would not agree that humans were achieving their intended purpose by self-destroying. Therefore they would attribute the intent of self-destruction to forces in opposition to that of creation. You could argue that creation itself results in destruction, but that is exactly what the bible says by mythologizing the birth of Satan as the falling of an angel from the grace of God. So where do you actually differ with biblical mythology? Are you saying that Satan was trying to save the world and God caused so much destruction to prevent him from enslaving it to evil? That would actually be a plausible theological hypothesis.

[Lomax]

Hello reconsiderate,

You could argue that creation itself results in destruction, but that is exactly what the bible says by mythologizing the birth of Satan as the falling of an angel from the grace of God. So where do you actually differ with biblical mythology? Are you saying that Satan was trying to save the world and God caused so much destruction to prevent him from enslaving it to evil? That would actually be a plausible theological hypothesis.

Well, where I actually differ from Biblical mythology is that I do not think the God hypothesis is particularly tenable at all, but never mind that. What I am saying is that, if God is omnipotent He cannot be benevolent, since we are His creations, Satan was His creation, the causal laws were His creations, and so on. Any suffering which occurs is ultimately accountable to God, if He exists. So really my point is not one about how God actually is in real life, but how He would be, were He real.

Lomax

[reconsiderate]

Well, where I actually differ from Biblical mythology is that I do not think the God hypothesis is particularly tenable at all, but never mind that. What I am saying is that, if God is omnipotent He cannot be benevolent, since we are His creations, Satan was His creation, the causal laws were His creations, and so on. Any suffering which occurs is ultimately accountable to God, if He exists. So really my point is not one about how God actually is in real life, but how He would be, were He real.

Funny, as I read the first part of this post I was wondering whether you talked about God from the perspective of theological discourse as a purely metaphysical reference without the need for physical existence or whether you were addressing the plausibility of God's existence as an external physicality like the sun. I do not think it is necessary to believe in God's existence to engage in theological reasoning. You just have to have a sense of how the logic of the mythological concepts and symbolism works.

Satan my have been God's creation, as are humans, but BECAUSE God endowed His replicants with free will, He CHOSE to respect his own causal law of free will and allowed them to go against His will if they so CHOOSE. Sorry for all the caps. Theological "His" used to irritate me but now I just do it because it makes it that much easier to recognize who the "he" refers to. So anyway, if you CHOOSE to attribute all things to God's original causation, then you'd be opposing God's will that His replicants act according to His will, no? I suppose I'm accusing your perspective of being evil now, but this is almost amusing to me because this is mainly a philosophical exercise to me; even though there could be some truth in it - that would be up to you to decide. I could also see saying that because you are making a good-faith attempt to reason about a valid logic to theological mythology, you are actually pursuing the light and truth of God, which makes your ideas inherently good instead of evil.

Anyway, you are basically claiming that if God knew everything and he still allowed evil and harm to occur, that would make him evil. Yet, couldn't you also say that if God constantly intervened in the free will of His replicants, that he would be depriving them of the opportunity to achieve good over the possibility of evil? Likewise, if He protected everyone from harm, wouldn't God be depriving them of the ability to overcome suffering or achieve peace-of-mind despite adversity? Perhaps God sends angels to sometimes balance the choices when the temptation of evil is so strong that choosing for good seems nearly impossible. Yet, He may refuse to completely eliminate the power of people to choose for evil because He sees that in itself as evil and He Himself is resisting evil. Certainly the story of the flood and the rainbow-covenant following it is an example where God is supposed to have acted wrathfully and enlightened himself through His self-observed mistake. Maybe the point of this story is to tell people not to obsess over whether someone is perfect or not (including God) and instead to view mistakes as enlightening and wisdom-producing. This may be another part of the reason why God allows suffering to occur.

[Lomax]

Hello reconsiderate,

I do not think it is necessary to believe in God's existence to engage in theological reasoning.

Certainly, all of my point is hypothetical. Assuming that God exists, I am claiming that if He is omnipotent then He is no benevolent, and vice versa.

Satan my have been God's creation, as are humans, but BECAUSE God endowed His replicants with free will, He CHOSE to respect his own causal law of free will and allowed them to go against His will if they so CHOOSE.

Okay, but as I said: "free will" is either free from causation or not; if it is, then it is determined by the laws and arrangement of the universe; if it is not, then it happens wholly fortuitously, and the agent is not to be held accountable.

So anyway, if you CHOOSE to attribute all things to God's original causation, then you'd be opposing God's will

Well maybe, or maybe not, but the point is that I'd be quite correct; if God wants me to be wilfully incorrect about some matters then He and I shall have to agree to disagree.

I suppose I'm accusing your perspective of being evil now, but this is almost amusing to me because this is mainly a philosophical exercise to me; even though there could be some truth in it - that would be up to you to decide.

Haha, I've had worse accusations. Don't feel you need to be careful around my emotions.

Anyway, you are basically claiming that if God knew everything and he still allowed evil and harm to occur, that would make him evil. Yet, couldn't you also say that if God constantly intervened in the free will of His replicants, that he would be depriving them of the opportunity to achieve good over the possibility of evil?

Yes, but in the same broad stroke He could be eliminating the very evil that we are supposed to be getting rid of. For instance, suppose you had small children of your own (maybe you do, I don't know): would you let them play near fire, in order to give them the opportunity to avoid the danger of their own free will? I rather fancy you would restrict their access, and so would I.

It is also worth noting that a great amount of the potential harm in the world is not caused by sentient beings. God could get rid of volcanoes and disease and asteroids and whatever you like, without interfering with your free will.

Further, as the laws of physics stand, there are all sorts of things we cannot do. We cannot fly, why let us walk? We cannot change our length, why let us change our breadth? Alot of God's decisions about whether to grant or restrict our freedom, seem altogether arbitrary.

Yet, He may refuse to completely eliminate the power of people to choose for evil because He sees that in itself as evil and He Himself is resisting evil.

If so, then He has made that conscious choice, and is accountable for its consequences, both good and bad.

Certainly the story of the flood and the rainbow-covenant following it is an example where God is supposed to have acted wrathfully and enlightened himself through His self-observed mistake.

If you don't mind me asking (because my Biblical knowledge is probably not as good as yours): where does it say that God has learnt from these mistakes?

Maybe the point of this story is to tell people not to obsess over whether someone is perfect or not (including God) and instead to view mistakes as enlightening and wisdom-producing. This may be another part of the reason why God allows suffering to occur.

Perhaps, but note, then, that we have forced another feature of our God hypothesis to be dropped: if God needs to learn from His mistakes, then He is not omniscient.

Lomax

P.S. I just use the royal "He" to keep theists happy, really. But I think it has become misleading with the rise of feminism, since we now use "they" rather than "he" to make a gender-indeterminate reference. It has yet to be established that God is male, or gender-bound at all for that matter.

[sorenlaw]

One idea I have heard some people pose is that perhaps your situation in an afterlife would be determined by yourself. You would punish yourself as far as you found yourself guilty, and reward yourself as far as it was warranted. Perhaps God lays your sins bare before you, forcing you to realize all the evil you have committed, and shows your noble deeds, and one judges themselves fairly according to themselves. They won't be able to lie to themselves anymore, Hitler can't think that his holocaust was just, etc. They will then proceed to limit, restrict, and punish themselves, and place themselves in a station in the afterlife that is good according to their acts. Eventually, people will learn from their mistakes and penitence, and allow themselves more freedoms as they improve themselves in this afterlife.


This is a nice idea of how an afterlife might work, but this opens up the idea of why we had a mortal existence in the first place if we can fix the damage to our souls after the fact.

Hard to say...

That is interesting. I like the idea of the no more "Bad Faith" wake up call, but as far as penitence..I just don't think so.

[sorenlaw]

Thanks for your thoughtful responses, Lomax, it has given me a lot to think about.

I saw some talk on the reliablity of the bible. Professor Bart D. Ehrman, who ironically is agnostic-but for the reason of injustice in the world, is one of the foremost experts in the history of the bible. He gave a course titled, "History of the Bible." (You could download at bb-wares).

Basically I have been through several of his lectures and conclude that given the historical situation and all the other factors involved, the bible is fairly reliable, particularly in it's overall theme. There are definately some exceptions to this, ie Paul's pastorial epistiles. It's a complicated matter, but he illustrates issues involved very well. Fair I thought.

To clarify I am not saying that he verifies the miracles or anything like that, just that the people who wrote the New Testiment were what they said they were, really written by them, for the most part. It is a more or less correct record of what they believed. It gets much more complicated after the "Church" was established, power, corruptions, etc....