On Hell and Forgiveness

[Angrboda]

Christianity in particular, and god based religions in general, simply ascribe everything good to their God, whether doing so makes sense or not.  

The notion that God is the ultimate good is only latent in the OT. In it the only thing that is clearly expressed is that God is Just and long-suffering. The NT brings in more explicit notions Mercy and the seemingly novel concept of the Divine Logos.  As it developed, the Christian tradition incorporated Hellenistic ideas of ‘The Good’. The Scholastic merger of Neo-Platonism and Middle Eastern religion gave us demonstrations that first posit an Ultimate Good known from general revelation that is then recognized by Christians as the God know through special revelation. That’s my vast oversimplification but I believe generally accurate in a low-resolution way. So no, Christian doctrine does not start with God and attribute to Him all conceivable good properties; but rather, it starts with the concept of a transcendent Good and recognizes in God the full expression of that concept.

Six of one, half a dozen of another. I know references to God's omnipotence and perfection are in the OT (and the articles I've read indicate that his perfection in these statements is alluding to moral perfection). And I know from my experience as a Hindu, that similar things apply to Hindu Gods (for example, you notice the multiple faces of depictions of Kali, that is a symbolic expression of omniscience). So I think you're straining at gnats here.

Of foundational importance here is Moses' statement that the Lord's "works are perfect" ( Deut 32:4 ). Light is shed on this claim by four other clauses in the same verse that parallel and thereby explain it: (1) " [God] is the Rock"; (2) "all his ways are just"; (3) " [he is] a faithful God who does no wrong"; (4) "upright and just is he." God's perfection is an attribute of who he is as a person, not an idea or theoretical postulate, and it involves ethical qualities like justice and uprightness rather than properties that would indulge selfish human desire and pleasure (as in "a perfect meal" or "a perfect day"). Elsewhere the Old Testament asserts that God's "way is perfect; the word of the Lord is flawless" ( 2 Sam 22:31 ; Psalm 18:30 ). God "is perfect in knowledge" ( Job 37:16 ). God's "law is perfect, reviving the soul" ( Psalm 19:7 ).

https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictiona...ction.html

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For those claiming that theistic beliefs mean a person is delusional, I assume you realize that 17% of people world wide are non religious. Do you really think 83% of the earth's population have delusional disorder? (plus whatever percentage would come from the non religious group). That is an astounding number of people with a pretty serious mental disorder. Maybe we are wrong for having a religion, and you are right for not. But to claim we are all mentally ill, all 83% of us, is unreasonable and illogical.

I wouldn't claim that religious people are delusional in the same sense that a person with mental illness is delusional, but at the same time religious behavior shares some features with it that merely being mistaken does not. Of particular note is the absolutism, the supposition that one's belief is knowledge, the fixedness of the beliefs, and the extreme lengths to which religious believers go to defend their beliefs, as well as the tendency to spin ad hoc rationalizations rather than questioning belief. These are traits that are, at minimum, more emphatic in the religious than in those who are simply mistaken. So I think there is some merit to analogizing it to delusion, even if it is not one in the same sense. The reasons for this likely have to do with the neurological support for concepts like God which imbue them with a reality that mere abstract belief does not possess (e.g. the sensus divinitatis). So religious belief seems to fall in a hinterland between mistaken belief and mental disorder. And moreover, that aspect of religion tends to be responsible for motivating much of the harm that religious people cause in this world.

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It is when I'm being told I'm delusional, particularly by people who themselves have a mental illness while I don't, that upsets me.

Why does them having a mental illness and you don't bother you more than being told by someone who is emotionally healthy? If anything, it should be the reverse, as someone like myself who has suffered delusions is likely a lot more familiar with the characteristics of delusion than someone who has not. That is, to my mind, a bizarre statement.