# Are souls fireproof. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 10, 2016, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300 "2016-08-10T01:14:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disgruntled_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/81 "2016-08-11T23:11:27Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > **cmkeller** : The same problem pertains. Why eject the Canaanites by bloodshed, massacre, warfare of the most ghastly form – which God not only approves of but commands – when God could politely have inspired in the Canaanites the calm desire to migrate somewhere else. > > Why is God unable to find the quiet, peaceful solution, especially if he is all-powerful and all-good? > > Any one of us, here, would have done a better job! I higly doubt it. Most things that people call evil I’ve found to be a matter of perspective. Finding a balance amongst all these perspectives would be mind boggling. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/82 "2016-08-11T23:17:00Z")
> [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](#): > > I hope you feel good that you’ve derailed a perfectly civil conversation. … It’s the hostility and coming in with guns blazing that disappoint me. Most hilarious thing I have read on the SDMB for months. Most hypocritical thing posted for days… ok _hours_… but still. ---
**Author:** ![Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disgruntled_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/83 "2016-08-11T23:21:52Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > It’s not like He sends us out there to fend for ourselves and then condemns us. He gives us every chance in the world, and grace to do His will if we’re open to it, and forgiveness and second, third and millionth chances. He takes on our burdens and died for us so we don’t have to die. Given all that, He is merciful and He is also just. Given that the reason that we all have to die is because we have displeased him. That’s a burdon he does not have to saddle us with but chooses to. Why? I have no idea but thats not something that humans really need to know. We can’t even handle the knowledge of good and evil. I wonder if the issue there was because we just got a taste of the apple without the time and preparation required to be able to wisely utilize such knowledge. Maybe it was meant that we’d eventually get that knowledge when we were ready. I mean, the tree was created there for a reason. Perhaps that was not to tempt us at all but it turned into that. ---
**Author:** ![Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disgruntled_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/84 "2016-08-11T23:23:01Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Most hilarious thing I have read on the SDMB for months. > > Most hypocritical thing posted for days… ok _hours_… but still. Sorry, you won’t get a fight out of me. I don’t post to engage in fights any more. They aren’t any fun. ---
**Author:** ![Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disgruntled_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/85 "2016-08-11T23:27:06Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Alas, he also sends earthquakes and plagues, and in one case is said to have wiped out humanity in a flood. The fantasy is not supportable that every single human was so evil as to require killing…and if God were merciful and just, he’d have just snapped his fingers and the sinners would have fallen dead. > > God, in the Bible, is a completely pointless drama queen. The whole crucifixion was never necessary: God, as all-powerful, could simply have decreed mankind redeemed, and it would have been so. No sacrifice was necessary; to say it was means that God is not all-powerful, nor even able to govern the operations of his own creation. > > God, in the Bible, is more than a little monstrous. Unleashing the Children of Israel on Canaan was a dog-rotten way of giving his Chosen People a homeland. If he can raise and lower the sea, why not lift up a nice, fresh, new, empty peninsula or island for them to live in? Why did it have to be someone else’s land, to be seized by exceptional brutality? > > Either God is not all-powerful, or he is not all-good, and the Bible strongly suggests both. What else would you expect from a book promoted by his adversary? Satan’s going to promote his enemy? It does sound like propaganda. I’m really not sold on that hypothesis but things like this are what make it such an appealing argument to me. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/86 "2016-08-11T23:45:52Z")
> [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](#): > > I higly doubt it. Most things that people call evil I’ve found to be a matter of perspective. Finding a balance amongst all these perspectives would be mind boggling. Well, yeah, that’s fair. None of us could claim we’d have done a perfect job. But I stand by my claim we could have done a better job. Like, c’mon, sending your kid to be crucified, in order to fulfill your plan of moral redemption? As an all-powerful deity, I’d skip that step. It only results in pain and suffering, and doesn’t do anything I couldn’t do just by omnipotent decree. Ditto for the Canaanites: I’ve already suggested two ways of providing a homeland for the Chosen People that doesn’t involve dashing babies’ brains out against stones. If that’s the way God wanted it, then he is a nasty little God. ---
**Author:** ![Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disgruntled_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2016, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/87 "2016-08-11T23:52:03Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, yeah, that’s fair. None of us could claim we’d have done a perfect job. But I stand by my claim we could have done a better job. > > Like, c’mon, sending your kid to be crucified, in order to fulfill your plan of moral redemption? As an all-powerful deity, I’d skip that step. It only results in pain and suffering, and doesn’t do anything I couldn’t do just by omnipotent decree. > > Ditto for the Canaanites: I’ve already suggested two ways of providing a homeland for the Chosen People that doesn’t involve dashing babies’ brains out against stones. If that’s the way God wanted it, then he is a nasty little God. It could also be that he is an absentee dad pretty much. He told us the rules, showed us examples of what he can do if we break them, gave us free will then said, I’ll see you on judgement day. Good luck. That’s pretty fair to me. Maybe he’s got other creations that we have no reason for him to tell us about as we’ll never meet them that he has to deal with and maybe he’s a little busy. My point is, how can we ascribe motives as evil if we have so little information to go on? ---
**Author:** ![Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disgruntled_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2016, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/88 "2016-08-12T02:33:06Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I think this explains the OP. > > Bias and ignorance about the subject. Just came here to bash religion. I’ll make one more attempt here. I reread the post that you posted and read it is if read not by me but by someone I was aking the question of and I can see how it would come off sounding bad. I am not a perfect communicator and I obviously failed here because what I meant was not the way it read. It may not be any better to you, but I would like to clarify. I was speaking to someone who believes that the bible is literal and had posted a passage that to my way of thinking is as i described in my post. Of course, someone whose thinking I am trying to understand isn’t thinking about the post the same way; that’s the premise of why I’m asking the question. It sounds like I’m saying that you’re monsters but I’m trying to say I know you’re not monsters, what am I not seeing. What I was doing was trying to communicate how that sounds to me. To let you know where I’m thinking so that if I’m wrong, you can then clarify so I can understand what you’re thinking. It’s not to mock. I could do that much easier than what I’ve been doing, that post aside if you still think I’m not being truthful. What really isn’t helping me at all is trying to communicate how I am seeing things because it upsets but if I don’t and I get a conversation I’m afraid it would just be like my tea party experience where everyone started with the assumption that my thought processes were similar to theirs which they’re not. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2016, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/89 "2016-08-12T21:41:55Z")
Trinopus: > [@](#): > > The same problem pertains. Why eject the Canaanites by bloodshed, massacre, warfare of the most ghastly form – which God not only approves of but commands – when God could politely have inspired in the Canaanites the calm desire to migrate somewhere else. > > Why is God unable to find the quiet, peaceful solution, especially if he is all-powerful and all-good? > > Any one of us, here, would have done a better job! Maybe because free will can’t exist in the absence of consequences for adverse behavior. If G-d had determined they deserved a peaceful exit, that’s what he would have given them. Einstein’s Hund: > [@](#): > > If god was the owner of that land and wanted the Israelites to dwell there, he did a piss-poor job of taking care of that, and an even worse and most brutal job of correcting that little inconvenience. And by the way, the chosen people in the OT don’t behave one iota morally better than their defeated neighbors most of the time. It’s right there in the book. Which is why, after a suitable period of sinning, they too were expelled - but because G-d made a covenant with their partiarch Abraham, their exile was not permanent. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2016, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/90 "2016-08-13T01:58:19Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > . . . Maybe because free will can’t exist in the absence of consequences for adverse behavior. . . . Tricky… I present you with a choice: you can have the apple pie, or you can have the salad with lo-cal dressing. The free will comes with a consequence: you gain a couple pounds…or you don’t. All’s well. But, in addition, I have a dragon sitting near the apple pie, and the instant you touch it, the dragon bits the top of your skull off. The consequences are glaringly disproportionate. Also, the game starts to appear rigged. You really want to call that a “free choice?” There’s an effin’ dragon eyeing me and licking his chops. The choice is now very heavily influenced. What, exactly, did the Canaanites do that warrants having their babies’ brains dashed out on stones? They worshiped the wrong gods? Okay, wicked, wicked Canaanites: why not send them a great teacher? Why, instead, drive the rampaging Israelites over them like a stampede of yaks? God’s moral actions fly utterly in contradiction to his moral declarations. “Love your neighbor” – and dash his baby’s brains out against a stone. There’s a certain degree of dissonance here… ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2016, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/91 "2016-08-13T10:11:30Z")
> [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](#): > > Does it work? No, it doesn’t work so all the murder was in vain. The kicker? He is omnipotent so he knew it wouldn’t work when he did it. The word you were looking for was “omniscient”. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2016, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/92 "2016-08-13T15:56:05Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > almost everything attributed to the afterlife of the damned in Hell was pretty much made up, most famously by Dante Alighieri in _Inferno_\*, the first book of his Comedy. . Um, no. That would be quite a trick, considering that there are plenty of graphic descriptions of hell (including explicit descriptions of the punishments for different categories of sinners, e.g. usurers, abortionists, blasphemers, etc.) from the early second century, more than eleven hundred years before Dante. The _Apocalypse of Peter_ is one of the more famous, and was included in some early versions of the Biblical canon before being omitted later, but there were other apocalypses (apocalypse = ‘unveilieng’) including visions of hell, attributed to various other early Christian worthies, that date from the first couple centuries of the Christian era. Very little of Dante’s conception of hell and purgatory was original to him, most of it built on a very ancient tradition of Christian visions of the afterlife. (The idea of punishment fitting the specific nature of the sin might have been his own invention). The actual New Testament doesn’t contain much of a description of hell, but it does contain a description of it as a place of torment (in the story of Dives and Lazarus), and it does contain some references to flames, the “lake of fire”, eternal torment, etc. in the Book of Revelation. (The term translated ‘eternal’ is a little slippery, and means something more like ‘ageless’ than literally ‘eternal’). I’m also not sure what ‘made up’ is intended to mean here. “Noncanonical” doesn’t necessarily mean “made up” or “fictional”. If you’re a nonbeliever, then the Old and New testaments are presumably ‘made up’ as well. I don’t think that, of course, but I think God can inspire people besides the New Testament authors in lots of different ways, including through supernatural visions of the afterlife. None of those visions are included in the New Testament, but I’m quite open to the possibility that some of them were true visions that conveyed something real. I think hell is at least in some sense a physical place, and I think it will involve unimaginable suffering. I also think that it will be, for most or all human sufferers, temporary. It would be unjust for any truly repentant sinner to remain in hell, and I think it has to be at least _possible_ for anyone, even in hell, to ‘change their mind’ and repent. If it isn’t, then we don’t have free will any longer, and if we don’t have free will in the afterlife, then we aren’t really human any more. ---
**Author:** ![Oddball\_92](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/b3f665/32.png) [@Oddball\_92](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oddball_92)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2016, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/93 "2016-08-13T18:06:06Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > I think hell is at least in some sense a physical place, and I think it will involve unimaginable suffering. I also think that it will be, for most or all human sufferers, temporary. It would be unjust for any truly repentant sinner to remain in hell, and I think it has to be at least _possible_ for anyone, even in hell, to ‘change their mind’ and repent. If it isn’t, then we don’t have free will any longer, and if we don’t have free will in the afterlife, then we aren’t really human any more. I agree that hell will be a physical place. Just as Heaven will be. To avoid hell the person must repent before they die. The judgement God will give to us is based upon or repentance in this life. Take the story of the rich man in hell who spoke to Abraham and Lazarus…don’t you think the rich man was repentant? I have no doubt that a few moments in hell would make anyone repentant of anything. As for free will in the afterlife I have to admit I have never really thought about that… but we wont be “human” anymore anyway, thank God. ---
**Author:** ![Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disgruntled_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2016, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/94 "2016-08-13T20:24:54Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > The word you were looking for was “omniscient”. No, unfortunately I was not looking for it. It is the word I should have used and I know better but at the moment, I wasn’t thinking. Correction noted. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/95 "2016-08-14T15:22:18Z")
> [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](#): > > True, but his way of doing it is outsourced in this case. I’m wondering about the guy it’s outsourced to and his methodology. Plus, if we weren’t to question the methods why did he suggest a specific method that would be used? That doesn’t add up. When I was in grammar school, I began to formulate the proposition that you have, that the suffering after death for the wicked can’t have the same force that suffering of a corporeal being faces. I maintained this position well into college, when I shared it with some other biotech students. And they said I had way over simplified the problem to my own detriment. There is no reason an omnipotent being is in any way limited by the medium of a non-corporeal soul. There’s no reason the soul, in ghostly form in hell, can’t have ghostly neurons, with ghostly receptor molecules driven by ghostly sodium and potassium ions, just like my corporeal form. There’s nothing stopping an omnipotent being from giving me Wolverine-like regeneration ability, and nothing but pain receptors, meant to fire, constantly, for eternity. Even though my corporeal form doesn’t. I said, “Cut that shit out, you’re scaring me.” ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2016, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/96 "2016-08-14T23:45:34Z")
I believe that not only is the literal separation from God, but that it is we who separate ourselves rather than being banished. A truly wicked soul would not feel comfort in the presence of a perfect being but would rather feel pain and shame from their own lost potential. ---
**Author:** ![ultimate11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/49beb7/32.png) [@ultimate11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultimate11)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/97 "2016-08-15T01:06:51Z")
Hell is what we make of it. That fire and brimstone stuff was conceived by Renaissance artists, and shouldn’t be taken to scientific fact. (We guessed what was inside Venus for decades before the Russians found out the real truth later on). For all we know, Hell could be at absolute zero, or have absolutely no temperatures to begin with. It might not be Sulfur, it could be liquid metal of any solid noble metals, forced to swim in the cold or hot metal like the T-1000 at the end of T2: Judgement Day. Are souls fireproof? I can’t picture it about, but I assume it’s true. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/98 "2016-08-15T01:14:26Z")
> [@Arkcon](#): > > . . . I said, “Cut that shit out, you’re scaring me.” If a fire-and-brimstone sermon doesn’t scare you, they aren’t doing it right! > [@drewder](#): > > I believe that not only is the literal separation from God, but that it is we who separate ourselves rather than being banished. A truly wicked soul would not feel comfort in the presence of a perfect being but would rather feel pain and shame from their own lost potential. I can sort of see this, but only up to a degree. If St. Peter shows me two doors, and one is pain and shame, and the other isn’t…I’m not going to choose “separation from God” and misery. The problem is that Christianity claims that it has shown me the two doors…and I can’t agree. Christianity says there are two doors, but they cannot show them. They can’t present me with convincing evidence, but can only tell me I must accept it on faith. > [@ultimate11](#): > > Hell is what we make of it. That fire and brimstone stuff was conceived by Renaissance artists, and shouldn’t be taken to scientific fact. . . . For all we know, Hell could be at absolute zero . . . DC Comics (there’s a highbrow cite for you) played for some time with the notion that Hell is what you expect it to be. If you go there thinking pools of flames…you get pools of flames. If you go there imagining Sartre’s “No Exit” then you will find yourself in a sitting room with two other people, and make each other miserable. If you imagine falling through emptiness…you fall through emptiness. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@Disgruntled\_Penguin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disgruntled_Penguin)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/99 "2016-08-15T08:08:58Z")
I want to thank everybody who has responded to the thread. Believe it or not it was very helpful to me. I didn’t get an answer for why some people believe the way they do but I did gain a realization about myself and why I wouldn’t be able to understand it even if someone had tried. I get where the disconnect is and it’s not really with them. It’s with me and I don’t think it’s something I can change but now that I understand that I won’t need to try for understanding rather I can work on accptance. I’m also really happy to see how many people think fairly similar to how I do. I may not share all the characteristics of the faith but in my search I haven’t strayed too far from the core ideas that I am comfortable with. I really needed to know this. That’s not what I wanted to learn but it is what I gained from this thread. It helped clear the noise and I realized that the signal wasn’t as far off as it seemed and why did I ever think that it was? Oh yeah, because the noise is very loud. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2016, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300/100 "2016-08-15T22:14:08Z")
Trinopus: > [@](#): > > What, exactly, did the Canaanites do that warrants having their babies’ brains dashed out on stones? They worshiped the wrong gods? Hardly. The Egyptians, Edomites, Moabites, Ammonites, Philistines, and a host of other nations that the Biblical-era Isralites encountered worshiped the wrong dieties as well, but none of them were the subject of G-d’s wrath like the Canaanites. No, the Bible lays numerous sins at the feet of the prior residents of Canaan, including various forms of incest, adultery, bestiality, homosexuality (let’s not being modern Western mores into this; we’re talking from a Biblical perspective of sin here), child sacrifice, sorcery and necromancy, that’s just from the verses that I could cite off the top of my head. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-souls-fireproof/762300.md?page=6)