Hell

[annatar]

@ Matthew, lets assume, for the arguments sake, you are correct. And people did misinterpreted those verses, including me. You can't deny that those verses can easily be misinterpreted. Why would god send his messages through such fucked up way?

[Minimalist]

Hell is an evening with a life insurance salesman.

[Matthew]

I can't speak for other non-believers but I take the view that scripture says whatever the reader wants it to say by process of selective reading, selective contextualizing and other tactics to support their own bias. Read cover-to-cover, it's a long, rambling and self-contradictory book. It provides no clear picture as to what the afterlife is going to be, what you have to do to achieve what fate in the afterlife, or even if there is one.

I agree with you that there is a grave danger when reading Scripture (as with any literature) of being swayed by one's own biases and personal circumstances. But once we are aware of that danger, we are able to apply principles which help us to understand the text as it would have originally been understood. For example, we ask questions about the genre, the audience, the nature of the language and how it would have been understood by them, the historical context, etc. And we can ask questions about ourselves - the assumptions we bring to the text because of our beliefs and opinions, the traditions we associate ourselves with, 21st Century culture, values and modes of thought.

You say that Scripture is a "long, rambling and self-contradictory book", and seem to be under the impression that it should be read cover-to-cover (Genesis to Revelation). These are assumptions that you are bringing to the text. Scripture is not a "book" - it is a collection of writings of many different genres written in different times and places by different kinds of people. If there is unity to the whole of Scripture it is not a literary unity but a theological one. The whole idea of reading the Bible from the beginning to the end is a modern Western conception and not an ancient one. Scripture consists of literary units which individually were intended to be read as such. While reading the Bible in its historical sequence is a valuable activity (and even then not all the writings of Scripture make historical claims), making the judgement that the Bible is long and rambling is to rather miss the point of what the Bible actually is. [I wonder whether you would come to the same conclusion about the consistency of Scriptures teaching if you took into account the points that I've made in the last two paragraphs when interpreting it.]

You say that Scripture provides no clear picture of what the afterlife will be like. Why is this an objection? Shouldn't we actually assess the clarity of Scripture based on the questions that it is answering, rather than the ones we are asking? You assume that the questions you have about the afterlife are somehow relevant to the intentions of the writers of Scripture. As to your questions themselves; I agree with you that Scripture is not clear about exactly what general resurrection will be like, and the writers did not intend to be; your second question is flawed in that it assumes that the afterlife is something which is achieved; and your third about the very existence of an afterlife is simply absurd, as there is no text that teaches that there is no afterlife whatsoever for all people.

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@ Matthew, lets assume, for the arguments sake, you are correct. And people did misinterpreted those verses, including me. You can't deny that those verses can easily be misinterpreted. Why would god send his messages through such fucked up way?

Perhaps God wants us to think.

What's that first commandment again? "Love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength."

[Welsh cake]

I personaly think Hell improbable. I do believe in God but I don't know wich one so I supose though improbable its talked about a lot in many religions.

The real question is do you believe you will retain your consciousness after death? If not, then it is just as senseless entertaining notions of heaven and hell as it is pointless worrying whether you'll join Aslan in the real Narnia or vanish into a shadow-realm.

On the other hand if you do believe you'll continue to experience self-awareness, that is retaining your memories and personality after biological death while your physical brain that supports your very conscious dies then you must ask yourself, how?

If theists can't demonstrate a soul exists, then I see no reason why anyone should accommodate ideas of the hereafter especially when they try being authoritative about how we should live our lives, which as far as we know for certain, are our one-and-only-lives.

[OnlyNatural]

Perhaps God wants us to think.

Oh really? God must have made a mistake when designing our brains, then, since actual critical thinking, about the Bible as well as our accumulated real-world evidence, tends to move people further away from belief in the supernatural, not closer.

What's that first commandment again? "Love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength."

Isn't the first commandment 'Thou shalt not have any gods before me' ?

I'll throw a quote out there too, from an author we actually know for sure existed: 'All thinking men are atheists' (Ernest Hemingway).

[annatar]

Perhaps God wants us to think.

He doesn't want us to believe then...

[Ervin]

I would still like to see theists who believe in eternal torment defend it and say why is it the right thing to do for lets say not belonging to their particular faith?

I can understand temporary suffering limited to a lifetime especialy if you get a reward for it but not eternity in the most unbearable possible circumstances.

Thanks

[Matthew]

Oh really? God must have made a mistake when designing our brains, then, since actual critical thinking, about the Bible as well as our accumulated real-world evidence, tends to move people further away from belief in the supernatural, not closer.

How did you come to this conclusion?

Isn't the first commandment 'Thou shalt not have any gods before me'?

That is the first of the Ten Commandments, yes. What follows?

I'll throw a quote out there too, from an author we actually know for sure existed: 'All thinking men are atheists' (Ernest Hemingway).

The history of Western philosophy springs to mind for some reason.

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Perhaps God wants us to think.

He doesn't want us to believe then...

Premise: God wants us to think.
Conclusion: Therefore, God doesn't want us to believe.

I'm am trying here, but completely failing, to think of a premise that both completes your argument and is worth believing.

[annatar]

I'm am trying here, but completely failing, to think of a premise that both completes your argument and is worth believing.

Let me help you then.. If there is a god and he did send a book written 2000 years ago, by fallible man as I recall, and that book has lots of funny verses, stories like fairytales and lots of contradictions, and there is no evidence to prove god in the bible exists, no more than Zeus. You can't possibly believe such crap if you think. So if god want us to think he will only accept nonbelievers to heaven...

[OnlyNatural]

Oh really? God must have made a mistake when designing our brains, then, since actual critical thinking, about the Bible as well as our accumulated real-world evidence, tends to move people further away from belief in the supernatural, not closer.

How did you come to this conclusion?

Because critical thinking entails questioning the assumptions you hold and evaluating the evidence for your beliefs. There is no evidence for God or the afterlife, and yet the faithful believe. Normally, a hypothesis that is not supported by evidence is modified or discarded. What makes religious claims exempt?

That is the first of the Ten Commandments, yes. What follows?

What follows is irrelevant, the Bible is no more sacred or valid a source of knowledge than any other compilation of ancient mythical writings.

Back to the topic of Hell, of course I find it very improbable, for reasons others have mentioned. I especially think it's contemptible that the idea of eternal torment is indoctrinated in some children. But even if someone just interprets Hell to be a place of eternal death/annihilation without conscious awareness, what's the difference between that and good old-fashioned non-religious death? God is unnecessary, and it's nothingness either way.