I don’t think there is a single “Christianity” as such. There are multiple religions that use the title Christianity and often consider themselves to be the truer account. — Tom Storm

Of course. They've even killed eachother over who has the right understanding of God.

It seems part of Christianity's success is precisely its vagueness, its amoebic, shape-shfting identity. How its concepts mean everything and nothing, how it can go a million ways. How it's ungraspable.

After he created us by default such that we only deserve to suffer for all eternity.

In Christianity, we reap what we sow; and only those that on their demerits will they go to hell. What you have done is omitted justice from the discussion and straw manned Christianity with the idea that everyone should go to hell despite having sinned or not. — Bob Ross

Strawmanned? Eh?
Learn your doctrine.
Once born, we are said to bear the stain of the Original Sin, and this is enough to send us straight to eternal suffering.

Likewise, it is up for debate what exactly ‘suffering’ is like in hell. The popular view in present day is that hell is just a maximally distant place from God—from goodness itself—and those who deserve to be there tend to want to to be there by obstinately rejecting goodness itself.

Then they'll be happy!

Think of Satan as an embodiment of this: he was a high-ranking archangel with solid knowledge of God’s goodness, and he rejected in favor of his own autonomy—to be his own god.

That story would be silly if it weren't so cruel in its misrepresentation. Angels are incapable of even desiring autonomy.

He first fucks us up

God didn’t cause us to fall: adam and eve did and we suffer the consequences—but not guilt—of their sin.

And yet God made Adam and Eve.

It has to be conditional to be just. If you do not want to be saved, for example, then it would be unjust to force you to be saved: that would violate your free will and autonomy to choose what is good or evil. God’s plan is the perfect synthesis of justice and mercy—not one at the expense of the other.

These are all truisms that mean nothing until we clearly specifiy what exactly is "good" (and "evil").

 resting on picking the right religion.

This isn’t true, and is a common misunderstanding among areligious and even some religious people. There is a Divinely revealed and guaranteed way to end up saved (which is the Sacraments); but this does not mean that anyone not on that path is going to hell.

Why, yes, indeed, according to the Catechism of the RCC, it's virtually impossible to go to hell.
However, the RCC is just one Christian denomination claiming to have the right understanding of God, among several thousand.

You are straw manning traditional Catholicism with an oversimplification of ‘picking the right religion’.

Again with the accusation of strawmanning! You don't say!

How is it an act of infinite wisdom and goodness to create living beings who by default deserve only eternal suffering?

I would like to ask you why you believe that Christianity teaches that we deserve only eternal suffering by merely being born human: that’s not the traditional nor a predominant view.

It's not a specifically Catholic view, sure. But I never claimed to be presenting or arguing against the Catholic view to begin with. That's your strawmanning. You should be sorry.

The view that God creates living beings who by default deserve only eternal suffering is the view with the most damning implications, and as such, it's the one that needs to be refuted or resolved, or overcome, or whatever.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with you: I think that if I understood your background and what you have come to know and why you have come to believe it that I would completely understand why you believe it as true (although it is false).

Oh, and I should believe you, and not the other Christians. Right.

You Christians should first sort things out amongst yourselves before you go out to preach to others, blaming your confusion and lack of unity on others.

@Fire Ologist @Tom Storm
See this:

/.../ why you believe it as true (although it is false). — Bob Ross

This is Bob Ross feeling superior to me.

Twice he invents the charge of strawmanning against me, and he believes he knows The Truth About God while I don't.

This is the feeling superior to others that I'm talking about.

I find the period during which the Roman Empire transitioned from a largely tolerant polytheistic society to an intolerant monotheistic society fascinating.
/.../
I wonder how and why this enormous alteration in the ancient world took place — Ciceronianus

The Fall of the Roman Empire and the associated economic downturn seem to be part of a reasonable explanation.
Once people have to struggle for survival, the knives come out.

Ideally, one should be virtuous for the sake of being virtuous. — Ciceronianus

But not in a world where there is God.
In a world where there is God, everything is related to God and ordered (ie. put in order) by God, which is why virtue, too, has to be directly related to God, and not be something stand-alone.

It seems part of Christianity's success is precisely its vagueness, its amoebic, shape-shfting identity. How its concepts mean everything and nothing, how it can go a million ways. How it's ungraspable. — baker

I can see that.

This is the feeling superior to others that I'm talking about. — baker

Seems to me that on a discussion forum feeling superior or better informed to the other person is a frequently occurring idea.

Maybe part of the issue is that people arrive here to defend positions.

CC: @Fire Ologist, @Tom Storm

The point was that it did not fruition through violent dominance as @Ciceronianus suggested.

Learn your doctrine.
Once born, we are said to bear the stain of the Original Sin, and this is enough to send us straight to eternal suffering.

That is simply false. Original Sin is distinct from personal sin; and does not carry with it guilt. See CCC 1:2:1:1:7:

By yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.294 It is a sin which will be transmitted by propagation to all mankind, that is, by the transmission of a human nature deprived of original holiness and justice. and that is why original sin is called "sin" only in an analogical sense: it is a sin "contracted" and not "committed" - a state and not an act.

405 Although it is proper to each individual,295 original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants. It is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence". Baptism, by imparting the life of Christ's grace, erases original sin and turns a man back towards God, but the consequences for nature, weakened and inclined to evil, persist in man and summon him to spiritual battle.

-- (see here)

Original Sin affects us, as children of Adam and Eve, like a baby born damaged from their mother's smoking habit. We are not guilty of anything but we are subject to concupiscence due to being born without a state of grace. You do not go to hell because of Original Sin; but you are more likely to sin (personally) because of it.

That story would be silly if it weren't so cruel in its misrepresentation. Angels are incapable of even desiring autonomy.

This is also incorrect. An 'angel' is a being of pure form that is an absolutely unique form (viz., it is its own species); and each has the free will (being a substance of a rational nature) to choose to will in accord with their nature. Since they're unique form makes them what they are; if they choose to go against their nature that itself transforms them into another absolutely unique being, namely a unique demon. This is why demons are of each their own unique, fallen species and it is relative to what they were as an angel.

And yet God made Adam and Eve.

That doesn't make Him culpable for their free actions. That's like me deciding to have a son with my wife, my son grows up to be a serial killer, and you say "well that's your fault for having him in the first place".

These are all truisms that mean nothing until we clearly specifiy what exactly is "good" (and "evil").

Goodness is the equality of a thing's essence and esse; and badness (evil) is privation of goodness.

Why, yes, indeed, according to the Catechism of the RCC, it's virtually impossible to go to hell.
However, the RCC is just one Christian denomination claiming to have the right understanding of God, among several thousand.

Catholicism, including Orthodox churches, is historical Christianity. Protestantism didn't come around until the 1500s; and most of its influential founders (like Luther) don't even believe the same things as modern Protestants. I am not interested in trying to defend every version of Christianity: proper Christianity is catholocism.

Again with the accusation of strawmanning! You don't say!

That is a straw man. Christianity, even in protestant thought, does not rest its ethics on 'picking the right religion'.

It's not a specifically Catholic view, sure. But I never claimed to be presenting or arguing against the Catholic view to begin with. That's your strawmanning. You should be sorry.

The vast majority of Christian denominations are incompatible with your claims about them. They are unfounded and incorrect. Sure, there is probably some protestants out there that have wild views; but Christianity has a traditional view that is held predominantly by Christians. I am not straw manning you by responding with the basic 101 views of standard Christianity (despite denomination).

For example:

The view that God creates living beings who by default deserve only eternal suffering is the view with the most damning implications, and as such, it's the one that needs to be refuted or resolved, or overcome, or whatever.

Not a single mainstream version of Christianity believes this. Not one. I would be interested to hear why you believe this, though.

This is Bob Ross feeling superior to me.

I don't feel superior to you; in fact, what you quoted of me was the exact opposite of what a person would say if they had a superiority complex. Being confident in one's views on a topic is not the same as feeling superior to others.

Twice he invents the charge of strawmanning against me, and he believes he knows The Truth About God while I don't.

I'm sorry, but your views are patently straw mans of Christianity. No mainstream version of Christianity thinks that by default we go to hell; or that you merely 'pick the right religion' to go to heaven.

...are patently straw mans of Christianity. No mainstream version of Christianity thinks that by default we go to hell; or that you merely 'pick the right religion' to go to heaven. — Bob Ross

I don’t really have a dog in this fight. People have very idiosyncratic views about what Christianity stands for, both from within and outside the faith. The version I grew up with didn’t believe in a vindictive account of hell and saw it more as a gentle place of re-education or simply a state without God.

I'm not aware of any Christian tradition that guarantees hell for all. However, many mainstream Protestant faiths, especially fundamentalist literalists, do seem to embrace a hellfire-and-damnation view. I’ve certainly heard sermons claiming people will go to hell for being gay or for atheism, with warnings of “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Some might even consider Protestant literalism a heresy (I think David Bentley Hart who I quite like, despite his sometimes being an arrogant shit, holds that view).

I'm not aware of any Christian tradition that guarantees hell for all. However, many mainstream Protestant faiths, especially fundamentalist literalists, do seem to embrace a hellfire-and-damnation view. I’ve certainly heard sermons claiming people will go to hell for being gay or for atheism, with warnings of “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Some might even consider Protestant literalism a heresy (I think David Bentley Hart who I quite like, despite his sometimes being an arrogant shit, holds that view). — Tom Storm

I would add that, upon closer examination, regarding the proposition of what is and is not hell or heaven. I wrote about this in one of the threads earlier.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/16096/the-origins-and-evolution-of-anthropological-concepts-in-christianity/p1