Oh. Disgusting as that scenario was, I consider myself whooshed.
Robin
Just here to say that I love the thread title. Full points for that. 
I think it is. As a child growing up in the Pentecostal and Assemblies of God churches, we were repeatedly exposed to religious films that were only slightly less graphic. Lest we forget, we’ve also got the infamous Hell House and various Jack Chick tracts that confirm Ben’s challenge is valid for certain sects of Christianity.
To the contrary, he is avoiding your cheap tactics.
Really, the honorable thing for you to do would be to dispute him on logical grounds. What you are trying for instead, is to maneuver him into association with something that - however logically defensible - is emotionally unpalatable for many people. I don’t think he needs to bother with that. And you should be able to do better.
It’s not a “cheap tactic” to show how a belief system leads to an “emotionally unplatable” situation if that’s the entire prupose of the debate.
Okay…I am so completely lost. I have tried for 2 freaking days now to wade through all of these posts revolving around Svt4Him and I still haven’t scratched the surface. I am so going to get fired…
So, somebody be a pal and answer this for me… Based on what I have scanned so far am I correct in saying that Svt4Him believes that anyone who has broken one of the Ten Comandments is doomed for Hell? Is that accurate or have I completely missed his point?
Help!
Wait-so Ben wrote that? Or he found it somewhere?
H’uh?
FTR, I think it was kind of a fallacious argument, in a way.
Aries, yes, that is what Svt4Him has been saying. (what is it with people with 4’s in their nicks?)
For those who think Ben’s challenge is fallacious or illogical, please point out where the reasoning is flawed. Is this not, in fact, exactly what a lot of fundies think?
If you believe in Hell you believe it’s pretty horrible, do you not? And if you believe that only Christians can go to Heaven (and only the right kind of Christians at that) then you have to believe that decent people, kind people, even God-loving people must go to hell. This is where so many fundies get squeamish. They either have to admit that their dogma is flawed or that God is a demon. There’s no other choice. What is fallacious about this question?
Because it’s essentially baiting, and we get nowhere.
So does this mean it’s OK now for me to say that “Svt4Him” sounds to me like someone wanting to get fucked by God? because you know, last time I said that I got all sterned at.
I don’t see why. Ben says, “You have stated that non-Christians go to hell. Here is a scenario in which a non-Christian goes to hell. Do you agree that this scenario expresses the will of a loving God?”
I don’t see how it’s fallacious.
The question itself, if asked as a straightforward question, is valid. But the vivid, graphic depiction is not.
Consider a medical analogy. A doctor is recommending that a person undergo a certain operation. And he lays out all the pros and cons of the procedure, along with the conclusion that overall it is worthwhile. Someone else opposes the idea. But, unable to argue on logical grounds, the guy goes after the patient with graphic descriptions of his insides being cut open, with blood and guts all over, along with horrible pictures of similar operations. And if the doctor doesn’t want to participate in this display, the guy says that the doctor is only “unwilling to stand up for his (repulsive) beliefs”.
In sum, there are a lot of things that are logically defensible, but are unpleasant for the human mind to think about. Forcing a debate from logical grounds onto emotional ones is a sleazeball tactic, IMHO.
I think it was mostly the extreme graphic description that got to me.
That’s silly. If the doctor had any chutzpah, she would say, “Yes, I do believe in doing all of that, however brutally you care to describe it, because I believe it’s necessary to save the patient’s life.”
The question is whether Svt4Him can make any sort of defensible, analogous claim about this case. If you’re going to defend something, better that you know what you’re defending. A lot of times, things are so clear in the mind of a True Believer that the unjust situations (this post has been nominated for Understated Adjective of the Year Award) such as described in the OP can be swept under the mental rug. That’s why they’re brought up.
The graphic illustration of hell is taken from the fundies’ own descriptions. There are websites that revel in that shit.
Izzy’s right.
I don’t see what the big deal is. Fundamentalist Christians like Svt4Him believe that non-Christians go to hell, even if they are devoted to God. As an ex-fundamentalist, I can tell you from experience that many of them believe that kind of thing only because they can sweep the real implications of it under the rug.
Anyway, it’s not like I’m putting a gun to his head and demanding that he reject Christ. He believes something, so he should have the guts to speak up for it in all its gruesome glory.
being a Hopeful Universalist Christian and believing in a finite Hell, I’d disagree with Svt4Him’s belief in eternal Hell for non-C’tians but to be fair to fellow C’tians such as Svt4Him. However, I used to be an Eternal-Hellist & I never believed any such scenario- I considered the fate of decent people who rejected Christ much like those in Dante’s Limbo, the outermost circle of the Inferno- outside of God’s Presence but not part of the Theme Park of Agony the rest of the Inferno was. I always believed people would be treated in Hell on the basis of how much they
really knew of God/Christ & their actions.
Yes.
I’m talking about the rape description.
Look, maybe I’m wrong, but I keep getting the impression that Ben enjoys baiting people for the hell of it.