[Serious] What God's justification for eternal torment?

[Confused-by-christianity]

We all deceive ourselves.  We're the first and primary target of our own fiction.  In this case, though, I'm not wondering whether you deceive yourself about a god, about theism.  Rather, whether you have deceived yourself into believing that you can't know such and such until you die.  

If we can refer to our experience in the alleged soul forge, and if we take our experience to be instructive, why couldn't we know things about the soul forge before we die?  Isn't the soul forge proposition a claim about the reality we experience, in and of itself?  For example, when I posited that the soul forge must be inefficient or slow - that's based on our experience in it.  Presumably, it's been working on human beings for a quarter million years or so...and there have been alot of deaths in childhood and infancy, and..presumably, a great many people die having not learned whatever it is we imagine they ought to.  You reckon that we're still somewhere near the beginning of it's run, for your part.  

Alot of forging with no teachable moment or means, and no noticeable improvement in souls.   By our experience, which is important to us and which we both take to be instructive, the soul forge isn't a great forge.  Now..sure, sure, maybe we could be wrong about things we think we know - even when it comes to experience.  That immediately presents another wrinkle.  Why would that change when we die?  People ask ghosts questions any number of ways but we seem to forget that those ghosts could easily be people we wouldn't have asked any question of in life.  Asking Ogg the Village Idiot who died in 8k bc the meaning of everything is a fools errand, chasing other fools.

I'm basically saying I believe a thing.  But, I don't rule out that I could be wrong.  (I don't think I am wrong).  

I had an experience (a few actually) and I really do believe it was God coming to me.
  
Some would say the experience was real but I am mistaken about it really being "God".  
That would be a fair point - I can't rule that out.

However - for me, I'm convinced.

"...wondering whether ... you have deceived yourself into believing that you can't know such and such until you die." - I don't think so.  I'm expecting some things will become clearer when I die.  That's not to say "You cannot know before that".  
I did say "I guess I'll have to wait until I die to find out" - this was referring to an expectation.

Simply put - I often don't rule things out in an effort to keep an open mind and really listen, or understand.  (Thats not to say there aren't some things I do rule out).

[The Grand Nudger]

That's all well and good, but I'm wondering about something a little closer to the ground, about what has you convinced and what you're convinced of and whether death is necessary to any of that - or would improve the situaion.

What about your experience in this life leads you to believe that it's a soul forge,...and, if it is, what kind of soul forge is it (again, according to your experience)? Additionally, what do you expect to change when you die that might give you more insight than you have now?

I hope to help you get passed the "can't know till im dead" defense mechanism..mostly since you're already making claims as you live. When thinking about your experiences and what they suggest or imply or otherwise convince you of that you do believe in..you insist that your experience is informative...but when it's pointed out that these things could also be used to more accurately describe or even disprove the contents of that belief, you no longer find experience informative.

If it's true, you can know in this life and have had certifying experiences in this life. If it's wrong, can't know till you're dead. Doesn't that seem strange to you? Leading us into the next lie we tell ourselves. That any of this is an example of being open minded. I'm no more open minded about life being a soul forge than you are about a godless world with no forging.

[Confused-by-christianity]

That's all well and good, but I'm wondering about something a little closer to the ground, about what has you convinced and what you're convinced of and whether death is necessary to any of that - or would improve the situaion.  

What about your experience in this life leads you to believe that it's a soul forge,...and, if it is, what kind of soul forge is it (again, according to your experience)?  Additionally, what do you expect to change when you die that might give you more insight than you have now?

I hope to help you get passed the "can't know till im dead" defense mechanism..mostly since you're already making claims as you live.  When thinking about your experiences and what they suggest or imply or otherwise convince you of that you do believe in..you insist that your experience is informative...but when it's pointed out that these things could also be used to more accurately describe or even disprove the contents of that belief, you no longer find experience informative.

If it's true, you can know in this life and have had certifying experiences in this life.  If it's wrong, can't know till you're dead.  Doesn't that seem strange to you?

I edited the post above as you wrote this reply.

[The Grand Nudger]

No worries, but I don't think that the edit addresses my questions so much as reinforces them. I'm not asking you anything about a god, but your responses refer to them at every point, leading me to posit that you are defending god (or, more accurately, your god beliefs) rather than being open minded about our respective positions on the soul forge.

It's conceivable that a god exists, and life is not a soul forge, wouldn't you agree? If we can agree to that, then no comment about whether life is or isn't a soul forge (or what kind of soul forge it is, if it is) has any necessary implications for your god or your god beliefs. I get why you believe in god - you had an experience. Why do you believe in the soul forge, what experience about a soul forge have you had, and what does (or can) your experience tell you about the soul forge?

[Silver]

We can conceive of things that don't exist. Religion is mere fantasy, mythology paved by way of the imagination.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure we can, but the point of asking if we can conceive of a world in which there is a god but life is not a soul forge is to demonstrate that the two concepts are distinct.

As such, any explanation of why a person believes in the soul forge that amounts to "cuz I believe in god" is a non sequitur. It doesn't follow and it's not really why they believe in a soul forge anyway. Plenty of people who believe in gods don't believe that life is a soul forge and neither idea depends on the other for it's own truth value. We can just as easily conceive of a soul forge with no gods, as well.

I'd object to religion as mere fantasy in much the same way. We can propose (and not without merit) that religion is fantasy, but there's nothing mere about it, and none of it truly depends on whether there's a god or a soul forge. Deconverts might notice that the contents of how they think the world should be don't change all that much when they lose their beliefs in gods or whatever whatsit they used to believe in. They find new (and perceptually better) ways of affirming religious content.

[Silver]

Such a proposition would be false.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and that's the rub. When we make a cognitivist statement about something we insist could be provably true (in this life or the next) we have also tacitly accepted that the same statement could be provably false. That's a requirement of cognitive propositions. That they be capable of being true or false. Not just true.

The soul forge as a cognitive proposition, and especially with reference to a gods justification for eternal torment, opens itself up to other cognitive propositions, and to a cognitive assessment of those propositions. If we balk at that, then we can't rationally or genuinely posit the soul forge to begin with.

In this case, even the truth of the soul forges existence might not offer the justification desired. Perhaps the operator of the forge is making weapons. Maybe we're meant to be psychotic spiritual bombs. Or maybe no one is running the forge (either ever, or anymore), and it's chewing up life unattended to no specific end or purpose.

[Silver]

The rub is only there if you make it so. If one incorporates the rub into too many aspects of his life, what does he become? Quite frankly, an ignoramus.

[The Grand Nudger]

Id say that a person who incorporates consistent thoughts on cognitive propositions is pretty much the opposite of an ignoramus, even if they happen to be considering content and propositions which seem silly to you or I or anyone else on their face. It's not a comment on the quality of the content of the proposition, but the quality of our handling of those propositions.

If we insist that something might be provably true, but balk at the possibility of it being provably false (or worse, in context of moral justifications...even worse -if- true) then we were not genuine in our initial assertion of the proposition. It was, more likely, the assertion of a defense mechanism for a cherished belief. The codification of a cognitive bias by fiat. Only informative if it's true, but not informative at all if it's false or worse-if-true.