Here's a story I would like you to read... The Disrespectful Boys A group of boys join a school football team. Their coach tells them that the game is all about everyone having fun, but people can't have fun if there is violence as it spoils it for the other players. The coach tells the boys that if anyone is caught being violent they will be punished, and will face disqualification from the team. Most of the boys respect the coach's wisdom, so they follow his advice and try to do their best. But some of the boys think they know better than the coach and don't give a fuck what he tells them. They are disobedient and rude to the coach and he keeps having to warn them. The day arrives of the big game (against the school's rival team). Most of the boys play well, remembering everything the coach taught them. But the disobedient boys got drunk before the game and become really violent on the pitch and lots of people get hurt. After the game, the boys are punished, and disqualified from the team. On the other hand, the boys who respected the coach are rewarded with an after-game party, and they go on to win loads of trophies, all thanks to the coach's guidance. Okay, my questions are: 1. Is it fair for the coach to punish the boys? 2. Is the coach punishing the boys for his own amusement, or for the sake of the team? 3. Did the boys who were punished have any warning that they were going to be punished? 4. Did the boys really need a coach telling them what to do? 5. Would the boys have more fun without rules? You don't actually have to answer the questions (because i know half of you will agree with me, and the other half will just make sarcastic comments about the coach being gay or something). But perhpas this story will have made you think?
Well I'm wondering why you've got this under the Christianity forum, so I start with the disclaimer: I am responding in terms of the story itself. I am not responding as if this could be some allegorical story. I could respond in those terms if that's what you want. But as is, my response would be: you join the team, and you're a minor. The coach has certain rules of respect so that everyone will get on well. They broke the rules. They're out. Sounds pretty basic to me.
Life is far more rich, diverse, and complex than that presented by trivializing individual views or dogmatic religious persuasions into a set of simplistic "do's" and "don'ts." Trivialising life into a metaphorical game is an absurdity, especially given that the supposed "bad boys" got drunk before the game, which is speculatively presumptuous in support of a (presumedly) biassed slant that you are presenting which shepherd answers toward your favoured view. Try an unbiassed question ~ Who wins in life? Who wins in death? How?
Being sent to eternal punishment for ever and ever, and being excluded from a party and a football team are really fucking different, you know? I mean, first, if you get kicked off the team and miss a party, so what? You can party on your own, join other teams. Also, and this is my most important point here, you can LEARN FROM THE EXPERIENCE. You learn nothing from hell, there is no point to it but to inflict pain. Because there is no getting out, no lesson to be learned. Just you, lamenting your decisions, forever being tortured, no end in sight, no moral to be learned and put to use. It is cruel and unusual in the highest, worst sense...mainly because of the extreme form of it, and it's pointlessness. And, Mr Ree is right on, it's a biased story which leads the reader to your preferred conclusions.
Hell is not preventative punishment. It's pure justice. Perhaps my analogy was poor, but people don't go to hell because they break rules. They go to hell because they don't respect God and don't want to know him. Not a brilliant analogy, but I wrote it because I was sick of people saying God likes to punish people.
There is nothing a human could ever do in their 70 years (give or take) that could be deserving of an ETERNITY of horrible torture. That's not justice, my friend, it's pure evil. Ponder on what eternity means for a while, and compare it to 70 years and the small crimes we humans commit, and you'll see what I mean. Even major sins like murder aren't worthy of an eternity of unrelenting pain. And the fact that we're supposedly sent there simply "for not believing in god" disgusts me. What a minor little thing, to get the sentence of unending pain. And the fact that there is no redeeming value to this torture, no reason but to cause pain forever, makes this one of the most repulsive ideas I've ever heard.
Trippin, There is a popular myth about hell being eternal punishment (along with the Devil being a big red monster, and hell being a place underground etc.) But I don't believe hell is eternal punishment. The definiteion of hell is being without God (which is exactly where people who reject God have chosen to be, since they don't choose him). Whether these people survive after death is debatable. Personally, I very much doubt it. I've been told there's a line (maybe two) in The Bible which suggestst that unsaved people might live forever. But when you look at the big picture, the message overwhelmingly clear: the only way to live forever is through Christ. The Bible goes on and on and on about Christ being the way to life, and other other road leading to death. What does "saved" mean if not "saved from death"? We are told that God is just, and all we will all be punished. Whether hell is the punishment, or they are two separate phenomena is debatable, but it seems most likely that such punishment would be administered all at once (as apparently happened to Jesus). A finite number of sins cannot take eternity to be punished, unless the punishment actually is "eternal punishment" and that is neither just, nor mentioned in The Bible. Nor do I believe hell is "torture". I've personally never read anything about torture in The Bible. The Bible only speaks of justice. Torturing someone who has never tortured anyone cannot be justice. The most logical punishment for any sin would be to receive the consequences of that sin. So if you hurt someone, you would feel that hurt youself. This is more or less what The Bible says happens to you! You speak of denying God being a "minor little thing", but he gave you life, and he made everything you love. So God is absolutely paramount to your life. Do you regard your parents as minor trivialities of life? Do you think shunning one's parents is no big deal? Probably not. Your earthly parents matter to you, so why should your heavenly parent not matter either?
You have your whole life to learn. Life is FREE, and you can learn and make mistakes without punishment WHILE ON EARTH. You could sin many many times here as a human and there would be no earthly punishment (God won't come down and smack you every time). Life is learning without punishment but death is the test time. Who said anything about learning a lesson? Hell is not all about pain, it's about getting exactly what you chose: a place without God. No moral to be leaned, you said? You learned morals and beliefs in your life, those are the ones you will be held accountable for.
God has to introduce God's self to God's children, so the child is not responsible for disbelief prior to being introduced. Those who do not believe simply have not had the experiences necessary for belief. The whole faith issue (belief in things not seen) is not about believing in God without seeing God- it is about knowing the outcome of uncomfortable situations is for the good of all even when it seems that the situation can only lead to bad. Be like a plant in your faith- trimming a few branches will actually make you healthier later on, even if it is uncomfortable now.
Well Dizzy Man ~ we don't actually know if people go to hell or not. It is said by some that they do, and by some that they don't. So it is entirely speculative with no definitive basis other than superstition, hear-say, belief, etc. Then there's the "justice" speculation. Where is "injustice" or "justice" other than in the minds of people? To presume, on the basis that people think that way then so must "god" is to make "god' human, which is a contradiction in term and form. The paradigm of religion, in this case christianity, is to confine thought into the 'either, or' parameters that the religion subscribes to. But what if the love of "god" is so far above human abilty to understand that the simplifications of religion are out of touch with the reality? What if "justice" or "injustice" only exist in our minds, and to "god", all experience is to be treasured whether positive, negative, or indifferent, and there is no "right" or "wrong", but there simply "is" a state of being that enciompasses all? What if?...........
It's wrong because it's not an informed decision. We do not and cannot know for sure if hell (or god, for that matter) exists. We're shooting in the dark. Yeah, people go out and rant about the Bible being the True Word of God, but there's no evidence for it save their fervent belief. I can't make good decisions based on that, especially when others fervently believe in other gods, or no gods at all. "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything" ~Nietzsche Also, it is ignorant and foolish to ask people to live a life of misery or at least somewhat unfulfillment in order to have good times when they're dead. That's just stupid. It smacks of a belief handed down from the ruling class to keep people in line, telling us to turn the other cheek, give them the shirt off our back...because, they promise we'll get all we ever wanted when we die. Life, not death, is the time for living.
