It's more interesting to ask honestly why we believe what we do, than to congratulate ourselves for believing it, is what I'm saying. — Snakes Alive

So one supposes. But that is to not address the discussion.

If the question were posed to me, I'd answer it this way:

As to Christianity, you're right, its view of eschatology probably makes no moral sense, and it's probably bad to believe it (though I do think Christianity's recommended virtues in life are far better, and it's unlikely that any better ones have ever been elaborated by people).

As to the believers, blaming someone for adhering to a traditional faith with unpleasant implications is probably a bad idea if it has any concrete consequences (such as eschewing or punishing that person), as it's all metaphysical stuff and thus not worth much. Thinking otherwise strikes me as hysterical and short-sighted, and indulges in a moral smugness we're not entitled to.

It also seems to me easy to blame people for things that don't matter (metaphysics), especially when we are heirs to what is in contention for one of the worst concrete evils in world history (the British Empire and its offshoots) – this changes the topic a bit, but I always see a kind of deflection from things that actually happened when we retreat to quibbling over things that don't exist anyway.

There's folk as will give aid to the homeless, not because they wish to avoid torture, but because it is the right thing to do. — Banno

There are also christians out there who believe similarly I would think.

Ok, I'm just going to gather my courage and say it: This discussion is stupid.
It's rude, untenable, and quite frankly uninteresting. Moral character is not decided by religion, it's decided by the person. Please tread carefully before assuming through "logic" that all christians are evil, or are of bad moral character.

It remains difficult to see how a finite number of transgressions merits a non-finite punishment — Banno

Agreed, that's an unsolvable problem with the fairy tale.

I was trying to find a way to take 'eternity' as a way of conveying that our actions have inconceivably high moral stakes, rather than something to do with duration. (Nietzsche uses eternity to convey stakes, in a way. Thoreau had that line, "As if you could kill time without injuring eternity," and he doesn't seem to be talking about 'lots of time' either.)

I don't really see the point in arguing against what I'm calling the "fairy tale". You always have the option of taking lots of scripture as illustrative storytelling. (Hardly anyone doesn't take Genesis that way.) What the stories are meant to convey is a certain way of living a spiritual life, so if you focus on the fairy tale, religious folks will always feel like you don't really get it. Every time you say "evidence", for instance, believers yawn.

What the stories are meant to convey is a certain way of living a spiritual life, so if you focus on the fairy tale, religious folks will always feel like you don't really get it. Every time you say "evidence", for instance, believers yawn. — Srap Tasmaner

How does one determine the difference between the extraneous 'fairy tale' and the significant 'spiritual life'? How do you know what's in and what's out?

I have an additional moral question which may not have been directly flagged. What are we to make of an insuperable entity that insists on being worshiped and thanked in perpetuity? Set the punishment aside for a moment. What's up with the perpetual need for devotion and praise? This creature knocks out a cosmos and then require endless thanks? In human terms this sounds egomaniacal. It's certainly not a gracious or humble use of power.

There are also christians out there who believe similarly I would think. — john27

Doubtless.

This discussion is stupid. — john27

You don't have to be here. But there might be more courage in staying than walking away.

You don't have to be here. But there might be more courage in staying than walking away. — Banno

I'm unconvinced. Where is the pursuit of truth? Where is my philosophical growth? What courage does it take to fester in these sorts of grand generalizations? Most christians that I know of haven't even heard of Epicurus, so why are we generalizing these complex ideological implications when their view on the matter is so much more simpler/contained? To me it just seems like senseless bullying. We know that Christianity is flawed-that doesn't mean the people are.

'eternity' — Srap Tasmaner

Indeed, there might be replies that rely on eternity outside of time in the place of sempiternity. It is difficult to see how this ameliorates the use of terms such as "everlasting fire". It's like claiming that sinners will burn in hell, then pretending the fire will not be quite as hot as expected... It doesn't seem to help.

I don't really see the point in arguing against what I'm calling the "fairy tale". — Srap Tasmaner

I'm not sure I understand the term "fairy tale". I'd taken you to be referring to what Lewis called the "fantasy" that "allows the suffering of our mundane lives to be redeemed". It seems you mean something else.

What are we to make of an insuperable entity that insists on being worshiped and thanked in perpetuity? — Tom Storm

Indeed. Apparently if we only understood, we too would join in the choir eternal.

We know that Christianity is flawed-that doesn't mean the people are. — john27

Christians would consider themselves flawed, it being part of Christian doctrine. You're not the one who can save them, either. So, don't feel too bad about it.

Where is the pursuit of truth? — john27

Truth without coherence or consistency? Lewis is pointing out the consequences of certain christian dogma. Your response to what he says - growth or stagnation - is over to you.

It seems you mean something else. — Banno

I think Genesis is an indication of what I mean. Many many Christians take the story in Genesis to be, well, a story, just a picturesque way of conveying the idea of a creator. Only certain sorts of believers take it literally. A lot of the interpretation of scripture relies on various sorts of symbolic analysis. It's normal. I'm suggesting that it's open to a believer to take a lot as just storytelling to convey some pretty abstract stuff. Hellfire needn't be taken literally, nor torment. All that stuff could reasonably be taken as storytelling to convey ideas about one's spiritual state. (Didn't Kierkegaard somewhere say you could replace the whole New Testament with "There was a man among us whom we believe was God"?)

How does one determine the difference between the extraneous 'fairy tale' and the significant 'spiritual life'? How do you know what's in and what's out? — Tom Storm

Dunno. Biblical interpretation can get pretty sophisticated. It's clear enough that Christians do this, as the Genesis example shows. Must you believe Moses literally parted the Red Sea to be a Jew or a Christian? Obviously not. And theologians have often taken much, much more to be fairy tale than normal believers.

I grew up Catholic, so I've never even read the Bible. ;-)

Christians would consider themselves flawed, it being part of Christian doctrine. You're not the one who can save them, either. So, don't feel too bad about it. — Ciceronianus

Thats not what I meant by flawed, and I think you know that.

Truth without coherence or consistency? Lewis is pointing out the consequences of certain christian dogma. Your response to what he says - growth or stagnation - is over to you. — Banno

I'm not sure I follow.

Nevertheless, this discussion just missed the mark for me. I apologize, I got a bit heated. I'll see myself out.

Well, yes, there are doubtless different, creative ways of reading the scriptures that excuse god from being a bit of a bastard. The need to engage in such a process speaks loudly to the poverty of those scriptures.

The need to engage in such a process speaks loudly to the poverty of those scriptures. — Banno

I don't think it's anything special about the Abrahamic religions. Wisdom literatures always accumulate interpretations and theories of interpretation. Even Zen, which you might think would be immune. We still have knockdown drag-out fights here about our preferred ancients.

Hell as a place of torment was a Jewish idea, although they didn't use that word. "Hell" was a Norse goddess of the dead.

Well, yes, there are doubtless different, creative ways of reading the scriptures that excuse god from being a bit of a bastard. The need to engage in such a process speaks loudly to the poverty of those scriptures. — Banno

The bit in the Bible that mentions loving thy neighbor are true - all that other stuff about genocide, rape, torture, retribution, judgment, misogyny and homophobia and never wearing mixed fabrics - that stuff is allegorical.

Not what I was saying and missing the point of this discussion.

You're just saying that you don't agree with what gets marked as right and wrong in the Bible, and I'd largely agree with you, but so what?

The issue we were addressing was the afterlife story about heaven and hell, eternal reward and punishment. What you're rewarded or punished for is a separate issue.

About the just vs unjust views of punishment in hell. I don't think we need to pull that in.

An analogy: You're in a jail cell with a 230 lbs bodybuilder. You are no match for his strength. You are doing things you don't really want to do, because he tells you to do them. Once in a while you don't obey, and he severely beats you or tortures you.

Is justness in the picture? In your mind, maybe, and in the bodybuilder's mind. But basically justness has nothing to do with it. He says do it, and you do it.

God says "worship me", and you worship him.

Sartre said "life is hell". No. Life is life imprisonment. You don't get out of there alive.

The bit in the Bible that mentions loving thy neighbor are true - all that other stuff about genocide, rape, torture, retribution, judgment, misogyny and homophobia and never wearing mixed fabrics - that stuff is allegorical. — Tom Storm

But - and this is obviously of great urgency considering lunch time tomorrow in Australia - what about eating prawns?

I think Genesis is an indication of what I mean. Many many Christians take the story in Genesis to be, well, a story, just a picturesque way of conveying the idea of a creator. Only certain sorts of believers take it literally. A lot of the interpretation of scripture relies on various sorts of symbolic analysis. It's normal. I'm suggesting that it's open to a believer to take a lot as just storytelling to convey some pretty abstract stuff. — Srap Tasmaner

I totally agree if you view it from our modern point of view. I wasn't there then, but I imagine that the Torah was accepted as physical reality in Jesus' time. The interpretations kept creeping in due to the fact that man's growing knowledge of the physical world rendered the stories untrue. What could one who wanted to continue to believe do? Invent the notion that they are allegorical.

I have news for the allegorists: everything can be viewed and interpreted as an allegory.

While that does not say much, it means as much as to say that "your allegory is never superior to mine, and mine is never superior to yours. Our allegories are interpretations, and totally at our will of imagination."

What I'm trying to say is that allegorical reading of the Christian scriptures is modern, because they need reconcile the book with reality.

Not what I was saying and missing the point of this discussion. — Srap Tasmaner

ST I was just riffing off a theme for mild comic relief - sorry about that. The joke was referencing progressive Christians who energetically jettison the obvious discordant morsels of scripture in order to favor the construction of a liberal church built from a bowdlerized Bible.

's all good, man

IOW, set ourselves up as the judges over other people's religious identity.
— baker
I begin to suspect you're crazy. Where does your thinking come from? People say all kinds of things, but saying alone never makes it so, right? Being a Christian - or anything - is not settled merely because a person says he is. If that, then a Christian - or anything else - is whatever anyone says it is, whenever it pleases them to say it. Is that how you understand that world to operate when its operating reasonably well? — tim wood

*sigh*

So who decides who is a real Christian? You?

/.../

That's not the point; it is the supposed monopoly on salvation, not charity, that lacks coherence. In question is the judgement of those who think an evil god worthy of worship. — Banno

If you read the most original Gospel, that of Saint Mark, Jesus did not speak of hell, but of the Kingdom of Heaven. The concept of hell is Greek like Paul of Tarsus, who used it to convince through fear. If you read the episode of Jesus and the two crucified thieves (Lk 23), when one of the thieves defended him from the insults of another and begged him to remember him when he was going to the kingdom of heaven, Jesus replied that in that day he would be with him, because the kingdom of heaven is not a place, but a state of the heart, from which he lives without antithesis, from which he behaves honestly. A thief, also crucified, who did everything possible to prevent a righteous man from being mortified, had already transformed his condition, had entered the Kingdom of Heaven.
I don't know if you've ever fallen in love. If you fell in love you will remember that the world was still the same, but not you. You were completely another. You lived in the Kingdom of Heaven. Life was different. Completely.

Christianity as a religion, as we know it, would not exist but for Paul of Tarsus. It's largely his creation, I think. There's no escaping him and his influence. Without him, it's likely it would have been a Jewish sect. — Ciceronianus

Christianity is a sect of sects. There is an orientation chart here.

Let's take as an illustration two notable christian philosophers, Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine:
— Amalac

Thanks for this. Those who have claimed that belief in hell is not central to Christianity would do well to consider your post. — Banno

The threat of eternal damnation is Christianity's only selling point.

I say a god who inflicts infinite torture for finite offences is not worthy of worship. — Banno

If someone who claims to have the "Truth about God" (in this case, a Christian) tells you to convert to his religion, and you refuse to do so, he interprets this as if you had said "I hate God, we're through". (Nevermind your actual reasons. Neither God nor Christians care about those.)
In that sense, you have indeed committed a finite, but most importantly, final offense toward God, and it's an offense that severs all ties between you and God, and between you and Christians, thus you earn eternal damnation.

To be clear, you wouldn't actually be believing in God, you'd be believing in what some people told you on the topic of God. Unless we have actual, first-hand knowledge of God (which most of us don't), it all comes down to just believing what other people say.

The issue here is as to the puzzling inconsistency of certain common doctrines. — Banno

There is an explanation with the help of which it all makes sense: Jehovah is a _demigod_. Not the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Acting in line with them makes one a loser.
— baker

O loser of what? — Janus

Socioeconomic status. Happiness.

In order to be happy and to succeed in this world, it appears that a person must be willing to engage in and engage in a measure (the right measure) of lying, stealing, killing, cheating, gambling.

Official morality states that one is supposed to be fair, honest, kind, generous, goodwilled, respectful, responsible, hardworking, and such. But a person who actually behaves that way is a ninny and doesn't do well in life.