I’ve had Christians respond to this by saying that Christianity has the worst punishment. That obviously isn’t true since I can easily imagine of a religion in which the punishment is a million times worse than Christianity. But it still sidesteps the issue. Religions are not true based on how bad punishment is. Pascal’s Wager is problematic no matter how you look at it.
The way hell was explained to me (I grew up Southern Baptist, and many of the preachers I listened to as a child were rather obsessed with the “hell” aspect of Christianity), hell is, by definition, absolutely and superlatively and beyond superlatively the worst, most horrible, most gruesome, most painful, most unpleasant situation imaginable, and then some–eternal, unimaginable anguish, for ever and ever, with not the slightest or briefest respite. Physical torture beyond the cruelest design of mere mortals, psychological torture beyond the comprehension of humans. In other words, if you can imagine something a million times worse than Christian hell, then Christian hell is worse by a factor of a million to the millionth power, and a million times worse than that, too. The language doesn’t exist to describe the horrors of the hell that I learned about.
I don’t believe in this hell anymore, of course, and I know that not all preachers rely equally on hell as selling point. Still, this is the version I grew up with.
As has been said so many times in so many threads, atheism is not a religion. Religion requires faith, and usually involves worship and addresses eschatological issues. Yes, I know about that other definition of religion, anything that one is obsessed with and bases one’s life on. But by that definition, football and music are also religions to some. Let’s be honest and admit that it’s a different kind of religion that we talk about most of the time in these GD threads.
Atheism requires no faith. It is therefore not a religion. Some atheists are very absolute about their disbelief, but an absolute disbelief is still not faith. It is an absolute lack of faith.
What’s a million times eternity?
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An eternity in which every second is a million times longer than normal. True, this isn’t any longer than an eternity, but it seems longer.
With respect, I suggest MrO re-read my post. As I made clear, there are two divisions of atheism: hard and soft. Please re-read what I actually wrote:
Later, I wrote:
An agnostic or “soft atheist” takes the philosophical position that we can have no knowledge of the transcendental, so talk of a God or gods or supernatural is empty and meaningless. We have no faith because there is no foundation at all – no empirical evidence, if you will – that the supernatural can exist; although with no evidence to the contrary, we cannot possibly say God or the supernatural does not exist, either.
A “hard atheist”, on the other hand, believes or is certain that there is no God. Since this question is empirically unanswerable by reason of the fact that the transcendent is actually defined as being beyond all human knowledge, such a belief forms the basis of a faith: a faith in the non-existence of God. To skeptics, agnostics, and “soft atheists” alike, the “hard atheist” view is irrational and equivalent to a religious faith.
This is perhaps the main reason I prefer the term “agnostic” over “atheist”. To call oneself an agnostic makes it absolutely clear that one has no faith either pro- or anti-God. To simply call oneself an atheist, as MrO does, leaves the matter ambiguous.
To which MrO replied:
And andros asked:
MrO’s and other responses seem to me to lack imagination and displays one-dimensional thinking.
I submit that the following scenario is a million times worse than the Christian hell:
For the lack of belief of one single person, one million relatives of that person, by blood, marriage, or adoption, will also be condemned to hell for all eternity, and each will know of everyone else’s totally arbitrary damnation. And if any of those also did not believe, the same for all their relations by blood or marriage or adoption. And if one of those also did not believe, etc., etc., etc., ad infinitum
There is nothing so cruel as arbitrary, capricious punishment.
FTR, I would say that MrO’s comment wasn’t his actual belief, and andros was just joking. People were saying that the major flaw in the argument was that other religions had worse punishment than Christianity, and MrO was sayig that here are Christians who belief that it is isn’t possible to get any worse, because anything our mortal minds could think of cannot measure up to the Godly measure of depravity. I don’t think you can really say “well MrO’s wrong cause this other thing is worse” because what we’re talking about is so incredibly abstract that if somebody wants to say “it just doesn’t get any worse than OUR hell”, then that’s all there is too it. Theres no real logic or factual information you can apply to prove this wrong without just rejecting Christianity all-together, which was not the point of the statement.
First of all, I also find Pascal’s Wager very uncompelling, even intellectually embarrassing. I wasn’t trying to defend it at all. I was only saying that the version of the Christian hell that I was force-fed was, by definition, the absolute worst thing possible, far worse than the worst thing imaginable.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by ambushed *
**
I probably agree, there is nothing worse. The Christian Bible has quite a lot of that sort of thing. But the people who taught me about hell would respond that the pain of being totally separated from God would be far worse than even this scenario. How? I don’t know; it’s not my fairy tale. Lack imagination? I wasn’t trying to imaginative; I was trying to convey what I was taught (and have since rejected totally) about hell. One-dimensional? Yes, and childish too. But it isn’t my story. Of course Kaje was right; I don’t believe this story.
Incidentally (it’s just a semantic quibble; I’m not looking to start a fight here), the way I’ve read and heard these terms (agnostic and soft atheist) used, they are not the same. Don’t want to be picky; I just want to make sure I’m using the words precisely. This is what I’ve been able to gather, and I’d be grateful for any clarification that others can offer:
An agnostic is one who doesn’t know whether gods exist. A “strong” agnostic is one who goes on to say that gods cannot be known. The “weaker” form of agnosticism is compatible with both theism and (weak) atheism. (I suspect that an agnostic would be pretty weak as a theist too, but I don’t really know.)
An atheist, on the other hand, is one who doesn’t believe that gods exist. A “strong” atheist goes on to say that gods absolutely do not exist.
I see that you’ve used quotation marks, implying that the word is being used in a non-standard way. You’ve even modified it with the word “secular,” which means not religious. It is imaginative, but it’s a contradiction in terms.
Well, even if belief and certainty were the same, strong atheism still isn’t religion. If you believe the transcendent is defined as being beyond all human knowledge, then you are a strong agnostic (gods are not only unknown, but unknowable). Not everyone believes that. Some religious people believe that God can be known, through spiritual means that are beyond science.
Agnosticism is the absence of knowledge, especially knowledge of gods. Atheism is the absence of faith in gods. It’s possible to have both, but your absence of knowledge does not make my absence of faith a religion.
Again, my main concern here is to use the words precisely. Lest I come off as too dogmatic (and draw another accusation of being a religious person), I’d be grateful for any clarification.
It seems to me that the main feature of a religion is structure, be it social, heirarchy, or otherwise. To be in line with the various teachings of a religion, but not being at all part of that structure, would seemingly make your system a “faith” or “ideology” rather than a “religion”. These are how I pictured these words anyway. And by that, since there is no such structure for atheism, it’s not a religion. But to each his own.
As far as levels of agnosticism go, I would think that maybe “soft” and “hard” or “skeptical” and “absolute” might be better suited to describe them than “weak” and “strong” simply because “weakness” is, well, not necessarily fair. I just sorta made up the skeptical/absolute thing so don’t quote that or anything it just seemed that perhaps that might do justice to the nature of those beliefs. That is to say, an agnostic that doesn’t necessarily buy that God must be unknowable could be demonstrating a sort of skepticism, whereas the absolute variety is self-explanatory.
Kaje, please don’t feel the need to instruct me as to what people were saying, okay? It’s quite condescending.
I understood perfectly well what tone and point of view MrO was using. I see MrO himself didn’t appreciate that fact, so the fault must therefore be mine, and I apologize since I apparently did not make myself clear. This really shouldn’t need to be explained, but here we go…
MrO made a remark that, even though he told us he didn’t believe it personally, represented a particular perspective. In doing so, he put forth an argument even though it was not his argument. In my previous response, I showed how logically flawed that position was for anyone. I knew perfectly well that MrO did not advance the argument as his own.
I also knew that andros was being arch. I really wish you would give me more credit.
The point of my response is that if we exercised our imagination, we could easily think up things what were at least a million times worse than the Christian notion of Hell. It does no good at all to claim that the Christian Hell is the worst possible Hell because clearly it isn’t, since the theology of the issue makes it is abundantly clear that – outside of Mormonism anyway – the punishment of the Christian Hell is limited to the one, single, individual sinner, and not a million arbitrarily chosen people!
This really should be quite obvious.
**Sheesh!{/b]
I understand those were the words they used, but as I said in my previous post, they were obviously mistaken. Repeating the words makes no difference, since their defintion simply cannot be sound. Logically, a million people suffering the same fate as the reputed Christian Hell even though they were completely undeserving of such punishment is OBVIOUSLY far worse than the Christian Hell, since the Christian God is not alleged to punish capriciously. Agreed?
As for your clarification of my nomenclature, I appreciate your correction on a few points, but I do not accept your main thesis. Here is why…
For me, a religion is any manifestation or construction of faith, casual or ornate, that includes or embodies a dogma, not just a faith in God or the supernatural. Thus, faith and religion are logically and linguistically related, and there is nothing contradictory in the concept of a secular religion. The reason I put the word “religion” in quotes is that most people erroneously (but understandably) only think of theistic beliefs when considering religion.
If I may give an illustration from science fiction, consider Asimov’s Foundation series, in which the ruling body of the Foundation decides to guarantee its political and economic hegemony in technology by inventing a secular religion surrounding exported nuclear power. Consider also libertarianism, where the dogma of laissez faire economics and free markets must be accepted on faith and never be questioned; or communism, where history is granted an absurd – even mystical – role in human life.
Hard atheism is very much such a secular religion. According to that view, the non-existence of God must be accepted on faith alone, since the non-existence of anything can never be established.
I must respectfully disagree. This is fundamentally a question of knowledge, and hence a philosophical issue in epistemology. I will not presume to talk down to you by repeating the formal philosophical definition of knowledge, but few – if any – modern critical thinkers accept the idea that any kind of knowledge is possible without empirical evidence (obviously, I don’t consider believers to be rational thinkers). Thus, since no hard atheist can posses any empirical knowledge of the non-existence of God, they simply cannot know that God does not exist. Therefore, to proclaim that God does not exist is an act of faith; it is a religious notion.
Although there is the risk that it may confuse the terminology even more, allow me to quote from the Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy:
"atheism n. The view that there is no divine being, no God. Sometimes a distinction is made between theoretical [i.e., “Hard”] and practical [“soft”] atheism. A theoretical atheist believes that there is no divine being, no God [emphasis in the original]. Practical atheism has been used in two entirely different senses. In one sense that occurs in Cudworth, it is the (Epicurean) view that the gods exist but do not do anything that has a bearing on human affairs. In the other, more usual sense, a practical atheist is one whose actions are not influenced by any belief in God…
“Atheism can be distinguished from pantheism and from agnosticism. Pantheism is the view that God and the world are in some sense identical. Opinions have varied on the question of whether this is a form of atheism. Agnosticism (in religion) is the view that it is impossible for us to know whether God exists.”
I think this backs up my position entirely that hard atheism, being a belief and an act of faith, is essentially a secular religion. Note that this doesn’t mean I disagree with you that people can be agnostics and soft atheists at the same time.
In conclusion, however, I have no desire to be a pedant. When I see people call themselves atheists, I give them the benefit of the doubt and lean towards the opinion that they are really agnostics or skeptics/soft atheists.
One should be careful not to confuse religion with a church. I could invent my own religion – secular or otherwise – at a moment’s notice and be the only one to ever hear or know about it. This is not true for a church, which as you say is social and usually hierarchical.
I understand and appreciate your reluctance to use the terms “hard” and “soft”, but they are quite traditional terms in philosophy. For example, there is the dichotomy of “hard determinism” versus “soft determinism”, which are terms that are respected, well-established, and universally recognized. “Hard atheist” and “soft atheist” can be considered to be in a similar category. However, I have no problem with substituting other terms.
However, as I believe I established in my previous posting of the formal definitions, there is only one variety of agnosticism.
I know that you weren’t talking to me there, but:
You said it “with respect,” and yet the condescension is still apparent. I had already read what you actually wrote.
But you attacked my imagination and thinking processes for reporting the argument.
With respect, such punishment is not obviously far worse than the Christian hell. The Christian hell is often described as total separation from God; whatever principles guide his behavior do not exist there. The cruelty of being shown that my failures have also condemned a million innocent, and the resulting torment, is not precluded. Further, even if I can’t imagine anything more horrible than that, it doesn’t follow that something more horrible can’t exist. According to some Christians, what you describe as a million times worse than the Christian hell is not yet one millionth as horrible as the Christian hell.
You use the word “logically.” You assume that what is obvious to you, according to logic, is the whole truth. According to the Christian story, it isn’t. This story has entire dimensions of cruelty that ye know not of. Therefore, to a believer, the argument that the Christian hell is absolutely the worst seems valid, and to some, lends support to Pascal’s wager.
Please understand that I am fully aware of the weaknesses of Pascal’s wager. As I said before, I consider it an intellectual embarrassment. But you have shown how flawed it is only for those who are operating on logic. The Christian position is not limited to logic. In this respect, it certainly does not lack imagination. It alludes to (it can do no more, since language and human imagination are so limited) horrors far beyond your imagination and mine.
Also, I find the alleged actions of the Christian God capricious in the extreme, and have been told by some Christians that some doctrine teaches that certain people are predestined to heaven and others to hell, according to the incomprehensible judgement of God, “totally irrespective of human merit,” as John Calvin put it. That strikes me as pretty capricious. Therefore, not agreed. In both theology and philosophy, nothing is obvious.
The hard atheists that I know do not have faith that there is no god. There is no dogma requiring them to believe that there is no god. To be sure, if a hard atheist were to begin to accept the possibility of a god, he or she would no longer be a hard atheist. But they aren’t excommunicated from atheism; they simply stop fitting the definition. You haven’t demonstrated that hard atheism is a religion or puts forth any dogma; you’ve only demonstrated that the term has a definition. The secular part is clear, but atheism is a religion only in the sense that health is a disease; i.e., it isn’t.
What’s that I smell? Dogma? I’m glad I didn’t step in it.
I think you are using the term in the sense that Huxley intended it, so maybe that is the “true” sense. In that sense, ultimate reality is both unknown and unknowable, and consequently, hard atheism is as untenable as theism (though still not a religion). But that was 1876. The meaning has since expanded to include soft or “empirical” agnostics, who hold that the evidence is simply inconclusive. They do not say that ultimate reality is unknowable, just unknown. There is more than one variety of agnosticism. Again, nothing is obvious, but use the terms any way you like. I’ve been called every class of agnostic and atheist, heathen, heretic, apostate and infidel. I like all of them.
Jeez, for a while there I thought I was back in grad school. I can hardly believe I squandered all that energy defending an argument that I don’t believe. I could’ve been watching TV, or even attending to real life.
Honestly, I think that libertarianism and libertarians come in far too broad a range to make any such blanket statements. A fair number of libertarians think that laissez faire economics should be accepted because they have questioned the value of the various economic systems and have found (to their satisfaction, at least) that free market economics are the pragmatic and practical choice. On the other hand there are those that believe that any other type of economics violates various moral principles that they hold (how they derive those principles may or may not be based on faith, of course) and that therefore economic considerations may or may not be relevant. In any case, I believe that your statement that “laissez faire economics and free markets must be accepted on faith and never questioned” isn’t accurate. Just because advocacy of laissez faire economics appears to be a fundamental part of the ideas supported by most libertarians does not mean that that advocacy was derived through irrational means.
Actually I was referring to MrO’s use of “strong” and “weak” agnosticism. I proposed “soft” and “hard” as a better alternative (along with “skeptical” and “absolute”)
I’ve heard hard/soft, strong/weak, and a few other terms too. If there are differences here that I’m unaware of, I stand corrected.
I wasn’t saying that your terms were incorrect. I was just saying that “weak” carries some negative connotations, so to be more open it might be better to use different adjectives.
True enough. But I wouldn’t want to imply, by using the term “soft,” that these people have erectile difficulties.
But as we saw in the Noah’s Ark thread, you clearly did NOT read my posts carefully enough, since you clearly misunderstood what was actually a simple argument. That seems to be also true in this thread.
Yet I am moved to apologize, for I see now that you can be more than a bit touchy and sensitive, to wit:
Attacked you? My, my! It seems you consider a bit of casual banter an attack. All I wrote was: “MrO’s and other responses seem to me to lack imagination and displays one-dimensional thinking,” suggesting that if we put our minds to it, we could easily propose punishments far worse than the Christian Hell. And indeed we can!
Even though MrO insisted he doesn’t believe in the Christian Hell, he seemed to be defending it’s adherent’s arguments as if the mere words of the position itself ends all debate. Surely you can see, MrO, that these Christian adherents are merely echoing a child’s bragging contest…
“My Hell’s worse than yours is!”
“Unh-uh, my Hell’s worse than your Hell by lots and lots!”
“No way! My Hell’s a jillion times worse than your Hell!”
“Oh, yeah? Well, my Hell’s an infinity times worse than your Hell!”
“Well, whatever Hell you think up, my Hell will be a jillion zillion infinities worse than whatever you can ever imagine! Nya, nya, nya!”
I don’t know why I’m bothering with this, but can you really tell me that there is nothing worse imaginable than the Christians’ Hell in their minds? How about one person steps on a crack in a sidewalk and God commits every single thing that lives, has ever lived, or will ever live, to not only the Christian Hell and the absence of God, but to the Christian Hell followed by God’s own complete self-removal from all existence, both temporal and transcendental, only to be replaced by a supreme being modeled after Satan’s most depraved impulses, who’s free to impose new dimensions of suffering that would be far too evil for God to possibly contemplate? As I said, there seems to be a lack of imagination involved in the view you were defending.
Nothing could be further from what I said. Logic does not lead to truth, it simply helps us eliminate falsehoods.
Language and logic (in the sense of reasoning or argument), are inseparable. Given any statement that sounds as if it might be true, if it is illogical, we can then know that it is surely not true. So logic deals not with the truth directly, but instead with how truth may be properly expressed.
And, as you admit, the Christian definition of Hell you seemed to previously defend is illogical, since definitions don’t “float” or automatically expand as soon as somebody thinks of something that would necessitate the expansion of the definition to include new torments. That would be akin to saying that God constantly monitors all our minds to see if someone thinks of something worse than what God already had in store for sinners, and re-vamps Hell to fit! At the very least, that would paint those Christian’s God as the most vile and contemptible entity in the Universe! Isn’t He also supposed to be merciful?
Nevertheless, I will concede your point and stop kicking this long dead horse…