I’ve heard that one too, but I’m not sure how functionally different from pitchforks and brimstone I’d consider it to be, especially in light of the idea of a Last Judgment common to Christianity and Islam.
Oh, there’s a difference alright, one that could be cynically interpreted as an attempt to dodge the issue of cruel and disproportionate punishment by theologians. The version above suggests that God doesn’t ever actively punish anyone at all, He simply refuses to force His way to someone who rejects him, even if they suffer as a result. That’s sometimes assumed to be due to God’s respect for free will.
Yeah. Thing is, we’re dealing with an entity who created the system and has unbounded power within it. Respect for free will is a pretty good excuse, but given that it’s conceivable for a soul to be created that wouldn’t respond with permanent and unspeakable despair to separation from the Christian God (or to the presence of a God whom the soul has rejected, in the other scenario), making souls that way looks, at best, rather irresponsible.
If I remember right the standard response to that is to say that human souls were created to be part of a system with God at its center, but that just raises further questions.
What, so god judges that eternal torture is somehow preferable to violating someones free will by inviting them to eutopia?
I am so tired of theists making their god so unable to be falsified that he becomes useless. Let’s assume for a moment that some form of god actually exists. I don’t care how much he loves us in his own twisted little way, I can think of 100 ways to improve the world and he isn’t doing any of them. It seems to me that we ought to be able to do better than what god has done, and in fact we have.
The standard response to theists postulating a god should be “so what?”.
I’ve heard that one too, but I’m not sure how functionally different from pitchforks and brimstone I’d consider it to be, especially in light of the idea of a Last Judgment common to Christianity and Islam.
Oh, there’s a difference alright, one that could be cynically interpreted as an attempt to dodge the issue of cruel and disproportionate punishment by theologians. The version above suggests that God doesn’t ever actively punish anyone at all, He simply refuses to force His way to someone who rejects him, even if they suffer as a result. That’s sometimes assumed to be due to God’s respect for free will.
Yeah. Thing is, we’re dealing with an entity who created the system and has unbounded power within it. Respect for free will is a pretty good excuse, but given that it’s conceivable for a soul to be created that wouldn’t respond with permanent and unspeakable despair to separation from the Christian God (or to the presence of a God whom the soul has rejected, in the other scenario), making souls that way looks, at best, rather irresponsible.
If I remember right the standard response to that is to say that human souls were created to be part of a system with God at its center, but that just raises further questions.
What, so god judges that eternal torture is somehow preferable to violating someones free will by inviting them to eutopia?
I am so tired of theists making their god so unable to be falsified that he becomes useless. Let’s assume for a moment that some form of god actually exists. I don’t care how much he loves us in his own twisted little way, I can think of 100 ways to improve the world and he isn’t doing any of them. It seems to me that we ought to be able to do better than what god has done, and in fact we have.
The standard response to theists postulating a god should be “so what?”.
’s cool, bro, relax. I agree completely with that, I’m just explaining what the other side claims.