I don't see anything in the presentation of the problem that excludes Christians from joining in the dissection of it. — Isaac

This is the part that is confusing. Lewis makes it explicit that he will not tolerate any form of Christianity other than that which he sets out because he doesn't think it is real Christianity or he thinks that Christianity can't survive without his requirements. I've quoted the sections from his article.

His argument form is simple -
god is reprehensible as defined,
people that admire god share in that reprehensibility,
Christians cannot be determined to admire god until they are pointed to the "neglected argument",
once he has pointed them to it, then he can evaluate them,
if they remain Christian, then he knows they are not admiration worthy.

We can formalize the argument or refine it however you like, but what you can't do is change that Lewis has made explicit his own requirements for Christianity - if someone does not admire the reprehensible god, they are not Christian.

discuss a novel philosophical argument — Banno

There is nothing even remotely novel about Lewis's argument. At twelve I was perfectly able to articulate the argument and tell Christians that they believed in a bully and that they were demented for doing so. The argument is obvious on its face and is regularly discussed as a failing of Christianity.

Your god is a tyrant and yet you exalt it - what is wrong with you?

If we (the secular) aren't 'getting' what the Christians are saying, then we need to try harder. All of us. So that the baffled secular and the agonised Christian can help each other sort out the painful contradictions. Simply saying that the Christians issues are not within our understanding, by fiat, seems a bit of a cop out. — Isaac

Agreed, and to the extent that’s what my take looks like, that’s on me.

There is the spectre of believers getting a “free pass” — Dennett wrote a whole book about it, and @Banno has invoked the idea of a “taboo” hereabouts. Am I claiming Christians should get a free pass? A free pass for what? To believe what they believe? To experience the world as they do? Well, none of that is up to me anyway, not a choice I face. To remake my country’s political institutions in accordance with their creed? Fuck no.

I think I’m being asked to disapprove of their beliefs, yes? Well, I already don’t share them. Is there a stronger form of disapproval I should plump for? Yes, there is: they shouldn’t believe what they believe either. Why not? Because what they believe is irrational, inconsistent, contradictory, unsupported by the evidence, or morally reprehensible, something from that list. Because presumably that’s why I don’t believe what they believe, paragon of rationality and morality that I am. But here’s where I get stuck.

God being the creator of the universe having no implications at all for whether we worship him. A thing being divinely revealed doesn't have any necessary implication for whether one follows it. — Isaac

When a deity speaks to me, I’ll let you know. People worship human beings, of all things, how do you expect them to react to what they take to be actual divinity? Something or everything in the range covered by the phrase “fear of God” would be my guess. I keep coming back to such experiences because I don’t see how it could be anything but overwhelming.

I’m not trying to dodge the question about doctrine, just put it in some perspective. Without the feeling of having encountered the divine, it might be much easier for a Christian just to call bullshit on the concept of hell and bolt. On the other hand, such experience is exactly what empowers some to leave: the loving God they know is misrepresented by what Lewis calls the orthodox view.

I’m still not much addressing the intended thrust of the thread, I know, which was not supposed to be about what believers go through, but about how non-believers should think about believers, insofar as they accept some version of eternal damnation. There is, as the paragraph just above suggests, room for us to expect a true believer to hold onto their personal religious experience but abandon certain chunks of Christian doctrine. (And loads of Christians do this. American bishops are more or less continually frustrated that a whole lot of American Catholics don’t believe everything they’re supposed to.) That seems like a pretty reasonable course, but in practice it means holding people accountable for not breaking with their family, their friends, their social circle. It’s a big ask, as the kids say, but maybe it’s the right one:

For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. — That Guy

Of course, That Guy thought he was divine. I don’t feel like I quite have the standing to ask something like that of people. Also, I by and large don’t give a shit what people believe in the privacy of their own homes and places of worship. (Until a couple generations ago, evangelical Christianity in the United States was almost uniformly and resolutely anti-political. Same doctrine before as now.)

I cited an article describing the current pope's view — unenlightened

What Francis said was frankly surprising, and I’m not sure what to make of it. Even more interesting to me was the chorus of children who thought God would not send this non-believer to hell. Where did that come from? Had they been improperly catechized? Were they too young to remember the right answer? The article makes them sound pretty confident they knew the right answer. Were they relying on that clever Catholic fallback, purgatory? (Hoping I end up in heaven’s waiting room if it turns out I was wrong to leave mother church.) Were they ignoring their catechism and substituting their own morality for what they had been taught? Geez, I don’t even know what doctrine is here, so maybe I’m roughly in the position of those children.

The problem with this thread lies in its presumption. It starts with a screed against something. What is the something? Well, that's the "orthodox story" Lewis attributes to Christians. But he's never clear about what the story is or where exactly it comes from. We may infer it is the general belief in eternal damnation for temporal failures. Of this, two things may be observed: 1) that some people who call themselves Christians believe it, and 2) that some Christians believe it. And there is ample evidence to support these two observations.

In the interests of brevity, is this what Christians believe? Ans.: no. And while here might follow much commentary, that a tedious exercise we'd like to avoid. We offer a clue understanding by saying that if you fail to secure a seat at the world's best restaurant, then eo ipso you are forever damned to burn in hell!

No one argues that excessive punishment is not excessive, or those or any who might impose such a problem and objectionable. What is argued here is the simple error of attribution. If @Banno et al so fervently wish to waggle their disapproving fingers, they ought to point them in the right direction and not in the wrong direction.

As it sits, the argument is highly prejudicial not only to Christians (and any others caught in this net) but also to clear thinking. Banno either knows better or doesn't, either way a problem!


.

The problem with this thread lies in its presumption. It starts with a screed against something. What is the something? Well, that's the "orthodox story" Lewis attributes to Christians — tim wood

No. The problem is that we judge the character of an individual by her actions. We don't judge classes of people. Period.

No. The problem is that we judge the character of an individual by her actions. We don't judge classes of people. Period. — frank

Please clarify. As is, as a reply to me, it seems a non sequitur at best, or incoherent - but that no doubt because a few words missing.

Please clarify — tim wood

Sure. To know a person's moral character, we look at that person's ACTIONS. (I'm making the words bigger so they cross the confusion barrier a little better.

ACTIONS ARE WHAT WE JUDGE.

A person could be a devil worshiper, but if they're good in all they do, we have to say they appear to have good character because we don't have

X-RAY VISION

into their psyche.

See?

The essence of the doctrine of The Fall is disobedience. And disobedience is its own punishment. — EnPassant

That's like saying that drugs are bad because one disobeyed the order not to take them.
And not perhaps because they are toxic substances that mess up one's body.

But can't God show us how to live wisely so we won't turn our lives into hell? This is what religion is meant to do.

The way religions expect women to readily risk health and life is hell.

But people don't always listen. They want to live by their own lights even if that leads to hell. They will drink even if they risk ending up in the gutter. They will commit crimes even if that risks ending up in jail. God is the light by which we should live and if we turn away from it there is only darkness. Some are determined to go their own way. "My way or no way" - self will. No matter what the danger and no matter how many warnings "I will not serve". So be it.

This is not generally true. A rich and powerful person can kill, rape, and pillage, and it has no bad consequences for them. If, in contrast, a poor person kills, rapes, and pillages, this tends to bring them a lot of trouble.
Rich people can afford drugs that have few negative side effects and they can afford doctors that can fix those side effects. Poor people can't afford that.

The essence of the doctrine of The Fall is disobedience. And disobedience is its own punishment.
— EnPassant

That's like saying that drugs are bad because one disobeyed the order not to take them.
And not perhaps because they are toxic substances that mess up one's body. — baker

What I mean is that it leads to its own punishment.

A rich and powerful person can kill, rape, and pillage, and it has no bad consequences for them

What happens to them in the next life?

The observation here is quite specific: hell is immoral. The simple answer is that assuming god is good, then there is no hell, and various popular forms of christianity and other religions are simply wrong. — Banno

That's like saying that the police and the justice system are immoral, and that if they were good, there would be no arrests, no judicial processes, and no prisons.

Most people are on the conventional level of morality per Kohlberg's theory of moral development:

Level 2 (Conventional)

3. Interpersonal accord and conformity
(Social norms)
(The good boy/girl attitude)

4. Authority and social-order maintaining orientation
(Law and order morality)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development

Christians tend to be this way as well, except that they believe the true law and authority comes from God.

Christians don't think that God is evil; they don't feel addressed by the type of criticism your OP sets out.

The law is the law and it must be obeyed, or else, "there are consequences".

Again, yes to this and what follows. Belief in hell has implications in terms of explaining the behaviour of the believer. Perhaps there is some potential to understand the cruel behaviour of so many who call themselves christian in understanding the cruelty inherent in their belief. How much of their behaviour can be explained as resulting from fear of damnation?

For my own part, it puzzles me that a religion supposedly founded on love of one's fellows can result in the Australian Christian Lobby, in the insanity of Texas abortion law, and the horrors of Canada's residential schools. Lewis may have identified the common thread. — Banno

All this can be explained with Kohlberg's theory of moral development.

The salient point isn't "people who don't do as God says deserve to burn in hell forever", it's "people who transgress the law should be punished, and we must not question the justness of the law".

The latter is a very common stance, and can be found among the religious and the non-religious alike.

What happens to them in the next life? — EnPassant

They rejoice in heaven.

The observation here is quite specific: hell is immoral. The simple answer is that assuming god is good, then there is no hell, and various popular forms of christianity and other religions are simply wrong. — Banno

What if good ultimately involves allowing creation to risk suffering by being free?

In any case the point was that religious faith does not consist in some set of beliefs so much as it does in a feeling. — Janus

I agree, but I contend that that "feeling" is the feeling of certainty about the Christian doctrines. And that this feeling is due to having been born and raised into the religion, ie. having internalized it from an early age, before the physiological ability to think criticially has developed. The effect of this early internalization is then that "feeling", the "mystical experience", the sense of the "noumenous".

It's a feeling, an experience that is impossible to recreate at will for an adult person.
Except perhaps to some extent for adults who are going through an existential crisis and who in the process of their existential quest turn to religion/spirituality.

(The frequent call to "become like little children" is, in effect, a reference to just this, an infantilization of the adult.)

One bit I've been thinking about is this: imagine teaching someone how to pray. You tell someone they can ask God's forgiveness. "How do I do that?" First you must have a contrite heart. "How do I do that?" Open your heart to His grace. "How do I do that?" I've run out of words here, though an experienced pastor may have more. At some point you will have to give up describing the experience of prayer as you might a technique and suggest your pupil try it and see what experience they have. I think this is true as well of, say, woodworking or meditation or rock climbing. A lot can be put into categorical propositions, maybe eventually everything, I don't know, but every learner will have the experience of the teacher's words not making sense right up until they have a particular experience and then everything is clear. "This is what he meant!" — Srap Tasmaner

That's why it's so important to start early in life, so that the person internalizes the right propositions at the right time, so that later on, those propositions appear self-evident to them, they can take them for granted.

This way, the difference between Christians and non-Christians is that Christians can take some propositions for granted that non-Christians can't.

(Often I see that neither Christians nor non-Christians are aware of this. So Christians believe we have "hardened our hearts" or a "stiff-necked", and non-Christians believe Christians are believing things "without sufficient evidence".)

The observation here is quite specific: hell is immoral. The simple answer is that assuming god is good, then there is no hell, and various popular forms of christianity and other religions are simply wrong.
— @Banno

That's like saying that the police and the justice system are immoral, and that if they were good, there would be no arrests, no judicial processes, and no prisons. — baker

Forgive me, but this is just a stupid comparison, and needs to be called out. We are talking about a God, according to some Christians, obviously not all, who sends people to eternal damnation for not believing or accepting certain beliefs. We are also talking about a God, who created humans knowing full well that many would reject these beliefs, given their free will. So, God would have known that creating this or that person, at the very least, would result in, or at least there would be a good chance, that that person would go to hell. If such a God existed, I would do all that I could to oppose that being. Moreover, such a view makes this God responsible for the resulting evils that occur given God's knowledge. It would be like me creating a robot, giving it free will to do whatever, knowing that it's probably going to result in a certain amount of evil, sometimes even great amounts of evil. I would be responsible for the evil that ensued as a result of such a creation, and I should be held responsible for that evil and punished.

Furthermore, eternal punishment or damnation, is excessive by definition, even if you don't think of it as torture. Most people go through their lives without committing the most egregious of sins, yet because their not within the fold of Christian beliefs, they are damned, forever (according to many Christians, Protestant and Catholic). This is not just, and should be rejected as part of any Christian belief, and many Christians do reject it.

Finally, to compare this belief with what we do in our legal system, is just ridiculous, to say the least. Even we recognize that sending someone to prison forever for minor crimes is not just, period. Yet this is what the God, as defined by some Christians, does! We at least try, although not always successful, to be just in our deliberations about punishment. We can recognize, generally, what's just and not just, given the crime. But the concept of God as defined by these particular beliefs (I don't believe such a God exists), is outright immoral. So, on the one hand you have no justice, or very little justice, and on the other hand you have an attempt to be just.

Forgive me, but this is just a stupid comparison, and needs to be called out. We are talking about a God, according to some Christians, obviously not all, who sends people to eternal damnation for not believing or accepting certain beliefs. We are also talking about a God, who /.../ knowing full well that many would reject these beliefs, given their free will. So, God would have known /.../ at the very least, would result in, or at least there would be a good chance, that that person would go to hell. — Sam26

Except for the portions on "creating humans", the above is just like the things human lawmakers know: they know that some people will not abide by the laws and will be punished.

If such a God existed, I would do all that I could to oppose that being.

But could you oppose it? The being that created you? You cannot draw a breath without this being approving of it, and you think you could oppose it?

Furthermore, eternal punishment or damnation, is excessive by definition, even if you don't think of it as torture.

"Excessive" is a matter of degree and opinion. Some countries have capital punishment, some don't. I live in a country where up until recently, the longest possible prison sentence regardless of the crime was 20 years. When recently a man here was sentenced to 30 years in prison, a prominent lawyer here remarked that the country has set on a course of barbarism. On the other hand, even some first world countries have capital punishment and lifelong imprisonment.

Most people go through their lives without committing the most egregious of sins, yet because their not within the fold of Christian beliefs, they are damned, forever (according to many Christians, Protestant and Catholic). This is not just, and should be rejected as part of any Christian belief, and many Christians do reject it.

Why would it not be just? Can you explain?
Is capital punishment ever just?

Oh absolutely. But here I find these struggles are presented as segregated from ours. We can't understand theirs, they can't understand ours. The point I was making was that since we seem to all be in the same boat (and they hardly seem to have it all worked out), a more parsimonious approach (and dare I say possibly even a better one for all) would be to assume, for starters, that we're not so incommensurable after all. That, if the Christian is struggling with the concept of hell, Lewis might actually be able to help - just in the same way as your (sometimes quite pointed) critiques of my positions have helped me. It's what we do. Put our positions into the crucible of public debate to have the edges taken off, the loose ends picked at. We do this by sharing a language. — Isaac

No. Do that, and you cut yourself off from religiosity.

If we (the secular) aren't 'getting' what the Christians are saying, then we need to try harder. All of us.

Why?? They aren't willing to do the same for us!

Simply saying that the Christians issues are not within our understanding, by fiat, seems a bit of a cop out.

Or it's simply a case of "not my circus, not my monkeys".

Lewis has raised a concern about what Christian doctrine says. His argument (as I read it) is basically "Isn't is a moral danger to allow people to worship a torturer whose punishments are out of proportion to the crime?". That's a legitimate concern on it's face. There's lots of evil in the world to account for. Much of it is religiously motivated or carried out by the religious (or those raised in a religion). So pointing out a potential cause seems to be well within the wheel-house of normal conversation.
/..../
Do I need to stand in your shoes to fully understand why you believe the things you believe? Almost certainly, yes. Do I need to stand in your shoes to even critique the things you believe? I hope not, that would rather render the whole forum (not to mention the whole of consensus-building politics) pointless.

This naively neglects the reality of daily life, which is all about power hierarchies, and having one's career, and more, on the line.

The one thing that religious/spiritual people understand very well, but ivory tower dwellers not so much, is the earnestness of life, the reality of the struggle for survival.

Unless we're actually going to believe religious claims to divine access, it seems far more parsimonious to believe that the mess of contradictions, inconsistencies and post hoc rationalisations we perceive in Christianity are, in fact a mess of contradictions, inconsistencies and post hoc rationalisations. — Isaac

Not if we take the Catechism of the RCC as an example. They've worked for centuries to make it internally consistent.

(Although, ironically, the Catholic doctrine is probably the most lenient as far as eternal damnation goes, given the many exceptions that are listed in its Catechism.)

It just seems really odd that a group of people who - let's be clear - do take part in the world of discourse, do say things to the secular, do expect to have their beliefs acted upon in our shared world... are given a sort of diplomatic immunity as if merely ambassadors from some other world where their beliefs have only impact on them and not us.

Christians, and religious/spiritual people in general believe that they are in this world, but not _of_ this world, so this explains their aloof attitude.

The religious are somehow thereby immunised from making the same mistakes of inconsistency, incoherency as are the bread and butter of the discussion we have here. — Isaac

It's not like they care about us, so ...

I’m still not much addressing the intended thrust of the thread, I know, which was not supposed to be about what believers go through, but about how non-believers should think about believers, insofar as they accept some version of eternal damnation. — Srap Tasmaner

One part of this is actually simple: Once the eternal damnation believers discover that you don't believe like they do, _they_ will ditch you. They will be the ones who will be the first to set boundaries between themselves and you.

You are free to think about them what you want, but on their part, they will limit their association with you, so that the question of whether you should associate with them or not becomes moot. (Unless you want to force yourself on them.)

Here’s a question for you, Banno. You say above, that “perhaps there is some potential” to explain Christian behavior you find abhorrent by reference to Christian doctrine — Srap Tasmaner

It's only fair to assume that Christians do things for Christian reasons.

All you you seem to be saying here is that some people who believe that an old book says a thing think they have more authority than someone who challenges received opinion. They might object more powerfully me, sure, and still be wrong. My standards are based on humanism rather more than a gut feeling. — Tom Storm

But you hold to humanism with your gut feeling, don't you?
Or do you feel an overwhelming certainty that humanism is the right doctrine, for which you are willing to live, die, and kill?

What I can't do is just condemn 1/4 of the species (or whatever it is) and leave it there. That's a dangerous mindset.
— frank

Why? Could you elaborate?
— baker

It sets the stage for immoral action. Any time you condemn a class of people, your unconscious, which holds all sorts of anger and frustration, will set on that class as deserving of punishment.

Then it only takes a weak moment and bad timing, and woops, you just committed an injustice and you should have known better. — frank

That's only a problem if you're poor and powerless.

Sure. To know a person's moral character, we look at that person's ACTIONS. (I'm making the words bigger so they cross the confusion barrier a little better.

ACTIONS ARE WHAT WE JUDGE.

A person could be a devil worshiper, but if they're good in all they do, we have to say they appear to have good character because we don't have X-RAY VISION into their psyche.

See? — frank

Even monkeys can discern intent, and judge an action by the actor's intent.

They did those experiments with chimpanzees (?, some primates) where a chimpanzee accidentally dropped and damaged a banana, and then deliberately dropped it. It turned out the chimpanzees can tell the difference. They punish the deliberate damaging.

I was referring to those who are genuinely imbued with religious feeling.

The right feeling for the religious is love and compassion. And I think it's fair to say that those who are authentically religious, whether Buddhists, Christians, Hindus or Muslims, believe in compassion and love for others regardless of cultural or religious differences. — Janus


I can't make sense of this. The right 'feeling' is love and compassion (as if it isn't also for the non-religious!), but later you say they "believe in" it? What would it mean for someone to not "believe in" it? That they don't believe the emotions exist? That they don't believe they'll work (for what)? That they don't believe they're 'right (by what measure)? — Isaac

All I am saying is that love and compassion are the feelings advocated by the scriptures and that those who are genuinely religious; those who really have a feeling for it, will manifest those feelings towards others. What "non-religious" do is irrelevant, since I haven't made any claim about them.

I agree, but I contend that that "feeling" is the feeling of certainty about the Christian doctrines. And that this feeling is due to having been born and raised into the religion, ie. having internalized it from an early age, before the physiological ability to think criticially has developed. — baker

If that were true then adult conversion would be impossible, which it obviously isn't.

I think that's true, but they must have some ties into the world, else what are they by little antigonish's? They need coherence, implication, consequence...something like that, to be real at all in a social world. I'm happy with incomplete commensurability, but not with no commensurability. No commensurability just means we have an entire mental world without a single tie-in to ours and that seems completely implausible on the face of it. It's not a good model of the behaviour we actually see. — Isaac

Again, this is where Kohlberg's theory of moral development comes handy, esp. on the point of how a person goes from one stage of moral reasoning to another. It takes time, and it cannot be done simply through reading arguments.

Not to mention the fact that Christians, bless them, are a part of our world, and moral actors within it. If we simply set them outside of our moral talk we undermine the whole project of morality (which is about us, not about me, you, them). Morality relies on at least a sufficient degree of commensurability to give a baseline of understanding common to all in the community.

Instead of conceiving of the problem as "us vs. Christians", we can conceive it as "person on level 1 of moral development vs. person on level 2 of moral development" and so on.

It's the same type of problem. It's why, for example, telling a small child that it is wrong to steal because it hurts the other person's feelings will do nothing, the child doesn't understand this kind of reasoning. Or if you try to argue for Social contract orientation with someone who is hellbent on Law and order morality, or someone set on "What's in it for me?", all you say will fall on deaf ears.

I think that baseline, that commensurability, is in the concept of moral judgement. A Christian child doesn't need to understand the bible to understand that hitting people to get sweets is wrong. Christian adults don't routinely consult their bible or their priest in novel situations to work out who they should and should not spit in the eye of.

So it seems 'wrong' comes first, religion then tries to piggyback off that to say 'here's some other things that are also 'wrong' you might not have thought of'.

No. The Christian child has been taught, per Christian doctrine, about right and wrong. Sure, later on, Christians don't routinely consult the Bible etc. -- but that's because by then, they have already internalized Christian moral principles, not because they would have moral principles that would be quite separate from Christian doctrine.

So with the most charitable interpretation I can muster, I find it virtually impossible to believe that a Christian has an incommensurable understanding of 'wrong'.

I find it entirely possible. Ideally, religious people do things for religious motivations, with religious justifications.

For example, ideally, a theist eats in order to get sustenance so that he can be a good steward of what God has entrusted him with. Ideally, a theist shouldn't eat to satisfy his hunger, or to enjoy the food (that would be selfish, ignorant of God).
Ideally, a theist brushes his teeth in an effort to take good care of the body God has so kindly provided him.
And so on.

If that were true then adult conversion would be impossible, which it obviously isn't. — Janus

Like I said in the same post of mine you quoted:

It's a feeling, an experience that is impossible to recreate at will for an adult person.
Except perhaps to some extent for adults who are going through an existential crisis and who in the process of their existential quest turn to religion/spirituality. — baker

I was referring to those who are genuinely imbued with religious feeling. — Janus

And you are the judge of who is "genuinely imbued with religious feeling"?

The article seems to require that believers have a 'clear headed' conception of their God's atrocities to be simultaneous with their worship in order to transfer that veneration to the atrocities of God and tarnish the believer's character.

The final paragraph references nonbelievers being understanding of believers due to lack of a clear/ unified conception of God the Benevolent and God the Eternal Punisher - salvation through cognitive dissonance or avoided thought.

I wonder whether it is even possible to worship the God of the bible in such a 'clear headed' fashion? — fdrake

Machiavelli's The Prince, Green's 48 Laws of Power, and other such literature and its popularity suggest that it is possible to deliberately, in a 'clear headed' fashion think that way, and to think that way about God as well, such as in Kalomiros' River of Fire.

The River of Fire is certainly worth the read (and it's not for the faint of heart).

So I don't think one can generalise about the moral character of Christians in the way that Lewis appears to be doing. — unenlightened

Plus generalizations like these offer nothing but more fuel to the atheists / theists battle. Which has its immediate impact to our common societies we share.

And when you attack theists with arguments like these, you make them stick to their beliefs even more.
So if your actual "goal" as an atheist is to make them see how wrong they are, you achieve the exact opposite. You make them even more dogmatic. In all occasions it's a lose-lose case for both sides.

Theists and Atheists should learn to coexist. We share the same society.
And judging someone as moral or not in general,cause of his belief or not to any kind of God(especially since everyone "experience" belief in his own personal way) is a logical fallacy.

Sure. To know a person's moral character, we look at that person's ACTIONS. — frank

if they're good in all they do, we have to say they appear to have good character — frank

So you're saying Lewis's argument is faulty because he's judging a class?

And two points: Aristotle seems to have felt you could(/should/must) judge a man from his speech. And, as to what we know, is that an appearance or more than just an appearance? Corollary: of what value knowledge if itself unqualified? That is, knowledge has to be knowledge of, yes?

It's a feeling, an experience that is impossible to recreate at will for an adult person.
Except perhaps to some extent for adults who are going through an existential crisis and who in the process of their existential quest turn to religion/spirituality. — baker

Right, I didn't see that. I think feelings in general are impossible to simply create, in the sense of instantly just "conjure up". I also agree that existential crisis is often involved in religious conversions.

And you are the judge of who is "genuinely imbued with religious feeling"? — baker

No, why would you think that? I think people who are imbued with a feeling of religious reverence inspired by the scriptures of a religion; will experience the feelings that are advocated by the scriptures they are enraptured by. At the very least they will sincerely try to cultivate those feelings.

BTW my computer will not download the River of Fire you linked; it advises that it is a security risk. Maybe the computer is concerned that I might feel insecure if I read it. :wink:

Why does this even need to be asked? Of course not. — frank

I think there's a relevant difference between believing literally like a fundamentalist and not believing "clearly"/in a "clear-eyed" way in the article's sense. The article is not aimed at fundamentalist Christians, it is aimed at those who believe in God and eternal punishment and nevertheless venerate/worship God. That it's a thorny and intimately felt question even by nonfundamentalist Christians isn't in question. If you worship a God who you believe tortures people forever, what does that say about you?

The answer could very well be 'nothing', however most would not say 'nothing' for admiring (pick divisive or perverse or monstrous figure of your choice). The moral force of the argument, as I read it, is pointed at a contrast. On the one hand how we would treat a Christian who believes literally in the claim that God eternally punishes with torture and worships the figure and on the other how we would treat just as sincere a believer in a mundane tormenter.

I don't buy the argument in the article, but I don't think it's bigoted and can immediately be dismissed as such. The author doesn't seem to show any prejudice towards Christians, and he goes quite a distance to provide rigorous argument and analogies. Worth looking at in depth if you don't agree with it.

I cordially invite the thread to up its game.