Explanation for Bible-Thumpers and Hell?

The BBQ Pit
41

The problem here, Polycarp is that all too many times, Christians, both mainstream and fundamentalist types, seem to think that no one else has ever considered this problem and that their (the Christian’s) answer is the only one possible.

Fundamentalist Christians are especially noxious about this, they seem to believe the rest of us are totally ignorant of the Christian message despite the fact that Christianity has held sway in western culture for over 900 years. I agree with Ben on this one, they must worship some form of a demon to be so effective at driving so many people way from (the J/C/I) God by their actions. That demon (call it Satan for good measure) must be laughing gleefully every time His4Ever, JerseyDiamond, Joe_Cool or our newest fundamentalist, Svt4Him, opens their mouth to preach the Message. Their self-righteous attitude is more than I can stomach and I would never belong to a religion that would have them as members.

All religions have some answer to the question of what constitues the Afterlife. It can range from “joining the Ancestors” to gaining Nirvana or ending up in Hell or Heaven or Paradise or going thru a series of incarnations whereby we learn something more each time around so that we no longer need physical bodies and become Gods ourselves. I believe that ultimately it comes down to this:

  1. I don’t know the final answers

  2. It doesn’t really matter, after all.

If a being is sent to eternal torture (or just eternal separation) simply because it was a bad person, it shows an incredible lack of intelligence, imagination and empathy on the part of the God would would create or instigate such a system. I believe the Gods have more intelligence, imagination and empathy than I can conceive, so I’m fairly certain that whatever awaits me, “punishment” for supposed crimes or breaking the “law” will be no part of it.

42

So, if paradise is whatever we want it to be, and my vision of paradise includes a Godless universe, I’m pretty much set, right? It’s a sort of “Saved if you do, saved if you don’t” situation.

Seriously, though, as attractive as your vision of the afterlife is, it’s still basically wish-fulfillment. There’s no more evidence that you’re correct than there is that Fred Phelps is correct. Or maybe your both wrong and we’re all screwed because we haven’t been keeping up with the virgin sacrifices. There’s simply no way to know, which makes the discussion pointless on any level past bongsmoke debating. And if there is a God, there’s probably a reason why he made the world that way. It seems to me that, if there is an afterlife for which God has not given us any evidence, then that’s most likely because we’re not supposed to concern ourselves with it yet.

43

Well, yeah. There is no proof. I put my trust in what Jesus had to say, and try to do what He commands. That’s faith.

And this series of posts is the most I’ve dealt with the afterlife in a good long time – what I’m supposed to be doing needs doing right here and now. I know I can trust Him when the whole thing is over with, and I tend not to worry about it.

44

I think that Polycarp indirectly answered that before you asked:

So, Taxguy, if God has given me the gift of freedom (in this case the freedom to choose what parts of the Bible influence me the most), what right has anyone to interfere with that choice?

andros! Well done! http://fathom.org/teemingmillions/pof-oneliners.adp?time=1059188202

45

Pretty much my point, too. Saying “Act like this and you get to go to heaven” isn’t an incentive, because there’s no objective way to judge the veracity of someone’s claim about the afterlife. Which, of course, isn’t something I’ve ever seen you do: my earlier comment, while in response to what you said, was really aimed more at Fuel.

46

Hey, Miller, I’m assuming since this was posted right below my post, it’s directed at me.

You’re right, I have no solid, objective proof of the afterlife. I base my own beliefs off of two things, however. First, my own ecstatic experience that showed, to me, the existence of the Gods. Second, that any being who could be rightly called a god would be above the petty petulances that characterize the being that the above mentioned fundamentalists follow.

I’ll also agree that the afterlife is something not worth worrying about, for me it’s the equivilent of summer break between semesters. Nice to enjoy and relax, but hardly the purpose of “going to school.” I only posted in this thread to voice my annoyance at the many fundamentalists and how their efforts at conversion are doing more harm than good and to point out another variation of how to conceive of the afterlife. All too often, the SDMB is monotheistically myopic and I try to offer another option.

47

Actually, I meant to post it right below Polycarp, although, like I said, the sentiment was mostly aimed at Fuel. Sorry for the confusion.

48

Wow, Zoe. I’m immortal. Again. Kewl.

49

I don’t want to make a big deal out of anything, but I couldn’t let this pass without comment. Why are we supposed to look forward to heaven? People keep making arguments that we have suffering on earth so that we can appreciate the good; we have sin on earth so we can have freewill; God doesn’t want mindless robots, He wants people to choose to worship him.

But descriptions of heaven turn this all around. Why would heaven on earth be such a bad thing, but it’s ok for heaven? You want to spend a few years learning, choosing, growing, feeling, etc., on earth, just to give it up and become a robot without free will, never feeling pain to appreciate the good, for the rest of eternity? None of that makes sense. But maybe that’s something for another thread, and maybe it has already been done.

50

One problem for Western societies, and probably most others, is that we seem to need to have opposite poles.

Thus we have up and down, left and right, and heaven must also have its opposite.

Intuitive logic seems to say that since heaven is paradise, then its counterpart must be its unpleasant counterweight, a question of balances.

This type of thinking puts up a huge barrier in other areas such as quantum mechanics, where we have difficulty understanding how a quantity seems to exist in two or more forms at the same time and in other cases without any obvious opposite.

To me it show how simplistic Christian thinking is, and maybe the rest of us too, the world is not nice and neat black and white, nor even shades of grey, more closely, I think there are realms of related possibilities.

We think too linearly.

Hell itself has a history of evolving, it did not start out as the punishment wing of the Christian prison, I am reasonably certain the idea of hell actuallly predates Christianity and originally took a very differant form.

It is especially sick that some fundie Christians dream up various agonies for a person to suffer, its almost as if they are personally imagining how they would hurt those who have the temerity to be non-Christian.History has shown us all too horrifically and too often that those who dream up such pain are very ready to test their nightmares out on others.

Whenever we look at those religious terrorists in the Christian world, we also see others such as Poly who appear to be the epitome of reasonableness, but in fact are merely part of the spectrum of intolerance, with Jack Chick and the Inquisistion at one end, and genuine caring folk at another.

Unfortunately they all think they are caring, they all think they are helping one way or another to guide errant souls on their way, and even some of the moderates have pretty grim opinions on the sins of the blameless such as sufferers of illness, or those good and devout folk of other faiths.

We can look back on history and see major figures who actually believed in their horrific activities as a path of salvation for themselves and others, do these folk go to heaven or hell ?
Richard Coeur De Lion or Thomas De Torquemada are seen as pretty beastly repellant figures(and if you don’t then scan the net and find out more).

So will todays Christians be judged in a differant light in the distant future when times are perhaps more enlightened ?

Out standards across centuries have changed, does this mean that those past are subject to the standards of their time, ours, or a future time ?

Poly, Fuel I’m sure you do the best you can, but in that distant future, you may well apear to those generations quite differantly, and if you were, would you deserve to go to hell just because all your referances to enlightenment have been redefined ?

…and when you answer that question, then think about the referances that Jews, Muslims and all the rest have, do they deserve to go to hell for committing the ‘crime’ that you yourselves may be guilty of according to future generations ?

51

Your statement makes sense addressed to Fuel, but I do not understand your inclusion of Polycarp in this statement. Poly has never expressed the thought that heaven is a gated community that only lets in people with the special Christian password.

52

OK I accept this, maybe Fuel could reply, but looking further I guess the best answer would be the one from Polycarp

53

Polycarp

My allegiance, rather, is to a Person, Jesus Christ, and through Him to the Triune God. I believe myself sometimes guided by the Holy Spirit (and suspect that He’s constantly noodging but sometimes I don’t listen). Within the bounds of modern Biblical criticism, I accept the teachings of Jesus as they are set forth in the Gospels. I understand an underlying message consonant with what He said in passages of the Old Testament, where the prophets had a grasp of God’s purpose that varied from dim to clear.

I wish you would stop with this blather. As I have pointed out before you don’t follow the teachings of Jesus. In fact recently as in this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=197947, you were taking Paul’s instructions over that of Jesus with regards to the TEN COMMANMENTS. Which I kindly pointed out and you ignored.

*Given that, though, I take what I read seriously, and consider that what Christ expects me to do is a Hell of a lot tougher than snipping out a convenient set of rules as the “Bible-believing Christians” do. So I’m quite pissed at being accused of “picking only the stuff I like.”

Fair warning – the next person who accuses me of that will get a nice neat Pit thread devoted to him.*

You know Polycarp, if enough people accuse you of cherry picking you might take it as a hint. Also, don’t forget that Jesus says anger is a sin.

54

**chad[b/], will you ever lost that hard-on you have for Poly?

Fuck, learn a new trick, huh?

55

This very first point is based on a false assumption – that the existence of God is a known fact. If I believed in God, then ignoring him would be rather inexplicable. Forgive me, Fuel, you seem more thoughtful than many fundamentalists I’ve talked to, but sometimes with them it’s necessary to make this real clear:

I don’t fucking believe in God. I don’t believe he exists. There’s no point in saying over and over that I’m turning my back on God, because to me you sound like a delusional schizophrenic in a psych ward berating me for not wanting to have anything to do with his invisible green monkey.

Now, do you really believe in a God who: a) creates me as an intensely rational being who doesn’t believe in things without clear evidence; b) provides no unamibiguous evidence for his existence; and then c) punishes me for being rational by (I suppose) revealing himself to me when I die and then separating me from him forever? If so, you’re welcome to him.

56

andros:

**chad[b/], will you ever lost that hard-on you have for Poly?

Sure, as soon as he starts posting from a less inconsistent/dishonest position while acting all pious.

Fuck, learn a new trick, huh?

Cuz why?

57

Well, actually that wouldn’t be so bad, considering that Dante’s Inferno contained a torture-free zone for the Virtuous Pagans. As Hamish has described it to me, it’s sort of an eternal picnic, minus the presence of God.

58

But that’s for heterosexual V.P.'s You “Sodomites” get accommodations a bit further down.

(Don’t blame me; Dante wrote the rules for that one! ;))

59

Come to the Red Party at Club Azazel!

60

Exactly. But, the Bible predicts that humans will indeed think it’s a bad thing once they get there, for whatever reason.