Cutting off the Last Straw from Religion - Fear of Hell - Two Quick Reasons to let go

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

It also doesn’t work in a godverse where god created everything.

Boru

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

He created Heaven, he created Hell, he created sin, he created the Department of Justice prosecuting offenses, and he created flawed humans he knew would be susceptible to temptation only to demand obeisance or eternal punishment despite his creations not being responsible for any of this.

"Free will"? My ass. Dumbass was asking a ball to roll uphill, while stacking the table against it.

The clincher is that if God created everything, he also created choices, thus elimination even any semblance of free will. And even more damning (pun very much intended), God also created the consequences of those choices.

The inescapable conclusion is that God knows which people are going to Hell - because he forced them into it -, but he created them just the same. It seems to me that God could have created only those people who would NOT end up in the fiery fire of fire. He didn't so, you know, fuck God.

Boru

[Rizen]

When I was leaving Christianity as a young teen, I recall the last thing holding me back was the fear of hell. The point of this post is to show two quick reasons for those in this in-between state of religion and irreligion (specifically in regard to Christianity/Islam which threatens your eternal afterlife with punishment) and how you can move past this.

1. Fear is not a reason to believe + Belief is not something you can choose

Fear being used to act a certain way, to behave in a specific manner or declare something is not a reason. It is not a logical argument or evidence. It is a coercion tactic. Think of the action-movie you've seen with the prisoner strapped to the chair being beaten to give secrets. That is what religion does with belief.

If the last thing holding you onto religion is the fear of the afterlife (hell), then recall that fear is not a reason. It is a coercion tactic. If all that's left is the coercion, the fear itself, but there is no substance (no evidence to the truth or existence of God/Chrsitianity), then there is no reason to believe.

Furthermore, if it is just a deep-seated fear that is left, maybe you are due for a bit more introspection. If there is no other reason, then you simply cannot choose to believe in the existence of god. There is a distinction between choosing to act a certain way versus believing something. You cannot choose what you believe in. You are convinced of it, and so you believe in it. If you somehow believe in something you are not convinced of, you are just lying to yourself, or acting.

2. Giving yourself to a lying religion then causes you to lose this life to it.

If you're afraid of losing an eternal afterlife due to lack of belief, consider the alternative-- you are losing this life to religion if you decide to pursue it and it is a lie. Every minute you spend praying, every hour spent in church, every moment spent studying its scriptures, you are wasting your time on lies. Now, if you want to study Christianity as an intellectual exercise, by no means will that be a waste of time, but the time is wasted when you realize it is all a lie. It is like spending time with a scammer who is buttering you up to steal from you. It is like going on dates with someone who is not interested in you.

For as much fear as you have to losing an afterlife, do not forget the risk you incur of losing this life you're in right now.

Those are just two of the big arguments to fear of hell/pascal's wager that I see less often talked about, and thought was worth a post.

Forever Sophist

The right wing is very good at fear mongering. It's like you said, you're wasting this life by sacrificing all your time to being religious for fear of something that is mere speculation. There was a Rush song that reminds me of where he's sing about how you bet your life with everything you do. We only have a limited time on this earth.

[Thumpalumpacus]

He created Heaven, he created Hell, he created sin, he created the Department of Justice prosecuting offenses, and he created flawed humans he knew would be susceptible to temptation only to demand obeisance or eternal punishment despite his creations not being responsible for any of this.

"Free will"? My ass. Dumbass was asking a ball to roll uphill, while stacking the table against it.

The clincher is that if God created everything, he also created choices, thus elimination even any semblance of free will. And even more damning (pun very much intended), God also created the consequences of those choices.

The inescapable conclusion is that God knows which people are going to Hell - because he forced them into it -, but he created them just the same. It seems to me that God could have created only those people who would NOT end up in the fiery fire of fire. He didn't so, you know, fuck God.

Boru

Either he knew or he didn't know.

If he knew he was creating people only to suffer for eternity, then he is party to that suffering.

If he didn't know where they'd end up, then he is not omniscient.

Either way, the Christian conception of god is outgassed.

[AFTT47]

The clincher is that if God created everything, he also created choices, thus elimination even any semblance of free will. And even more damning (pun very much intended), God also created the consequences of those choices.

The inescapable conclusion is that God knows which people are going to Hell - because he forced them into it -, but he created them just the same. It seems to me that God could have created only those people who would NOT end up in the fiery fire of fire. He didn't so, you know, fuck God.

Boru

Either he knew or he didn't know.

If he knew he was creating people only to suffer for eternity, then he is party to that suffering.

If he didn't know where they'd end up, then he is not omniscient.

Either way, the Christian conception of god is outgassed.

I haven't chimed in on this thread at this point because I don't know how helpful it is to proclaim that I have never been intimidated by the threat of Hell. The fear is real to some people and I don't like trivializing it.

But yeah, it fails the logic test big time. I always likened it to if I had designed, engineered and built a car that employed a wooden dowel as a steering rod to couple the steering wheel to a rack and pinion steering system. Predictably, the dowel fails, the driver loses steering control and there is a crash. Who's at fault? Me, obviously. But am I criminally culpable? Maybe not. Maybe I'm just a shitty engineer. But give me the unlimited intelligence and knowledge of God (to say nothing of prescience) and I'm guilty as hell. I knew damn well that the wooden steering dowel wouldn't last long at all. I knew that a crash was inevitable, perhaps with fatal results. There's no blaming the driver or anyone else. It's all on me.

That's where God is for every single soul that ends up in Hell. It's all on him.

The Christian concept of Hell is ridiculous.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Either he knew or he didn't know.

If he knew he was creating people only to suffer for eternity, then he is party to that suffering.

If he didn't know where they'd end up, then he is not omniscient.

Either way, the Christian conception of god is outgassed.

I haven't chimed in on this thread at this point because I don't know how helpful it is to proclaim that I have never been intimidated by the threat of Hell. The fear is real to some people and I don't like trivializing it.

But yeah, it fails the logic test big time. I always likened it to if I had designed, engineered and built a car that employed a wooden dowel as a steering rod to couple the steering wheel to a rack and pinion steering system. Predictably, the dowel fails, the driver loses steering control and there is a crash. Who's at fault? Me, obviously. But am I criminally culpable? Maybe not. Maybe I'm just a shitty engineer. But give me the unlimited intelligence and knowledge of God (to say nothing of prescience) and I'm guilty as hell. I knew damn well that the wooden steering dowel wouldn't last long at all. I knew that a crash was inevitable, perhaps with fatal results. There's no blaming the driver or anyone else. It's all on me.

That's where God is for every single soul that ends up in Hell. It's all on him.

The Christian concept of Hell is ridiculous.

(Bold mine)

'The New Testament is both good and original, but what is good is not original and what is original is not good.' -Thomas Paine (often misattributed to Samuel Johnson)

Boru

[FreethinkingSceptic]

When I was leaving Christianity as a young teen, I recall the last thing holding me back was the fear of hell. The point of this post is to show two quick reasons for those in this in-between state of religion and irreligion (specifically in regard to Christianity/Islam which threatens your eternal afterlife with punishment) and how you can move past this.

1. Fear is not a reason to believe + Belief is not something you can choose

Fear being used to act a certain way, to behave in a specific manner or declare something is not a reason. It is not a logical argument or evidence.

It is a coercion tactic. Think of the action-movie you've seen with the prisoner strapped to the chair being beaten to give secrets. That is what religion does with belief.

One could also say that the threat of prison for committing violent crimes is a coercion tactic as well. Does that mean you would believe there is nothing wrong with violent crime, simply because the state coerces people who commit it?

If the last thing holding you onto religion is the fear of the afterlife (hell), then recall that fear is not a reason. It is a coercion tactic. If all that's left is the coercion, the fear itself, but there is no substance (no evidence to the truth or existence of God/Chrsitianity), then there is no reason to believe.

I'm curious what is stopping you from committing violent crime? If there is no afterlife, and serial killers such as Jeffery Dahmer want to spend their lives harming people, what is stopping them from doing that? Or you, for that matter, if that's what you decide you want to do?

Furthermore, if it is just a deep-seated fear that is left, maybe you are due for a bit more introspection. If there is no other reason, then you simply cannot choose to believe in the existence of god. There is a distinction between choosing to act a certain way versus believing something. You cannot choose what you believe in. You are convinced of it, and so you believe in it. If you somehow believe in something you are not convinced of, you are just lying to yourself, or acting.

2. Giving yourself to a lying religion then causes you to lose this life to it.

If you're afraid of losing an eternal afterlife due to lack of belief, consider the alternative-- you are losing this life to religion if you decide to pursue it and it is a lie. Every minute you spend praying, every hour spent in church, every moment spent studying its scriptures, you are wasting your time on lies. Now, if you want to study Christianity as an intellectual exercise, by no means will that be a waste of time, but the time is wasted when you realize it is all a lie. It is like spending time with a scammer who is buttering you up to steal from you. It is like going on dates with someone who is not interested in you.

Right, but that merely presumes that there isn't an afterlife, or that your actions in this life don't affect lives to come.

I would argue that you don't know there isn't an afterlife, and even if you fall back on insisting that the material world is all that exists, or that existence ceases when your brain stops functioning, those premises can easily be argued against.

For as much fear as you have to losing an afterlife, do not forget the risk you incur of losing this life you're in right now.

Those are just two of the big arguments to fear of hell/pascal's wager that I see less often talked about, and thought was worth a post.

The problem is that even if you disbelieve in Christianity or the Judeo-Christian concept of hell, you still haven't proven that a God or an afterlife, or consequences for your actions in this life don't exist.

Sure, you can insist that they don't, but one could easily argue that this is just being willfully ignorant and that ignoring the possibility of your actions in this life affecting lives to come isn't worth the risk. Wouldn't spending some of your life trying to find out if there is a God or afterlife, rather than just blindly believing that there isn't any, be a smarter choice?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Oh, this numpty again.

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm starting to get the feeling our new friend has a list of names in cherry lipstick on a mirror somewhere.

[awty]

Necropost closed.