That is a very good argument I’d first heard at a converted Muslim’s testimony (did God change his mind between Jesus and Mahomet ?).
My gut level tells me that genocide and torture is wrong.
On the other hand, I’ve heard that Hell was not as torturous as usually assumed. A priest told me that the most horrific punishment was knowing our guilt and refusing to bask in God’s glory. That resonates with my guts strongly, given that I feel existential anguish at the idea of being evil.
Of course, that does not solve the question of why God used to flood the Earth and turn people into salt, and I gladly accept that as strong evidence that God does not exist.
I don’t understand why God’s motivations are so weird. But I don’t understand the motivations of most people I know (why do so few people try to be intelligent ?), so I take it as evidence that I should ask for help in the matter.
I’ll consult a priest and report back on that.
As for my gut feeling about God’s actions being morally okay, you’ve clearly demonstrated that my gut feeling is not coherent with what I believe… I’ve got to work on that, either by discovering a reason why God was justified (if it exists) or accepting this was not justified (or that it didn’t happen).
Accepting that it was not justified and that God did it is of course contradictory with my current belief in God.
No. I have not read the New Testament fully either.
I’m not sure of what you want to imply by that comment. I think I have read enough of the Bible to comment on its contents for the level of knowledge used above, if that is what you doubt. I was referring specifically to the story of Noah and Sodome by “flood” and “turning people into salt” respectively.
(For the sake of completeness, I’ll still include the priest’s answer here. He gave a somewhat complicated argument, but the main idea was that the Old Testament is not accurate. In general, according to him, the bible was written taking into consideration the people of the time who would read it.)
From that, I would say that both you and priest have formed a morality that it is independent of the text and is then reflected that back on the text. Ie read one passage (my favorite would instructions to Joshua to commit genocide against the Canaanites) and say “Oh, that one needs to be read in context”, whereas read other eg “Love your neighbour” and say, “yes, that is where I derive my morality”. Ie it seems to be starting with a sense of what is moral and projecting it back onto a concept of God.
Take another step—did say the Ancient Greeks or say the Masai have a concept of morality? What formed their moral world? And as others have said, you can derive a morality from game theory for social animals via evolution (eg see work of Martin Nowak at Harvard). Or simply, that well-being of the tribe is utility function. A behaviour that would damage that well-being if EVERYONE did it, is labelled evil. A behaviour that enhances the tribal well-being if everyone did it, is labelled good.
You can find many vivid descriptions of the environment of Hell here. Probably the one that most directly compares the experience of Hell to an experience of living agony is this:
“And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’” Mark 9:43-9:48
Here, note that it’s said to be better for you to cut off a hand and foot, and tear out an eye, than to go to hell. In other words, Hell is described as being worse than literal physical torture.
I realize Hell as commonly understand in recent centuries doesn’t really show up in the Bible, but I suggest reading Psalm 58, and then reading the part of St. Augustine’s Summa Theologiae where he discusses how the blessed will rejoice in the suffering of the wicked.
If hell isn’t as bad as actual torture, then the Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13 must be both very metaphorical and very exaggerated. I highly doubt a priest would want the faithful to discount other parables so much—we don’t interpret the Good Samaritan’s story to mean “Helping people is great and all, but really is mostly supererogatory.” That kind of thinking is something that St Francis of Assisi railed against, and that the camel/eye of a needle metaphor warns against.
Also, going back to St Augustine, he believed in Purgatory, which I assume would be less bad or at least no worse than Hell in some sense(s) other than just temporal, and said of the cleansing fires of purgatory that “yet will that fire be more grievous than anything that man can suffer in this life whatsoever.”
Hell as the absence of God reads like Limbo from Dante’s inferno, or like the Hell CS Lewis describes. If you know of any premodern account of Hell that aligns with this view, let me know. Otherwise, what you’re discussing is a modern change to Christian doctrine, which if valid means either God lied to the early church, or changed his mind, or he takes Matthew 16:19 very seriously. In the first two cases God proves himself untrustworthy as a lawgiver (though we already knew that from many cases where God deceives people, sometimes to terrible effect), while the latter case would imply God turned the duty of establishing morality over to mankind.
The parable of the tares is obviously a metaphor? I mean, it’s weeds growing in wheat, and burning weeds so they can’t grow in the next season seems pretty logical (I’m not a 0th century farmer, so I wouldn’t know). The parable can easily be read as saying that god allows good christians and deviants to grow in the same “field”, and he will sort them into heaven and not-heaven at the time of “harvest”.
Saying that it implies the deviants will literally burn is reading too much into it, although it seems that there’s a long tradition of people reading too much into the bible.
That’s true, good point, though I have a hard time interpreting “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” as referring to the plants being burned and not people being hurt.
That is a very good argument I’d first heard at a converted Muslim’s testimony (did God change his mind between Jesus and Mahomet ?).
My gut level tells me that genocide and torture is wrong. On the other hand, I’ve heard that Hell was not as torturous as usually assumed. A priest told me that the most horrific punishment was knowing our guilt and refusing to bask in God’s glory. That resonates with my guts strongly, given that I feel existential anguish at the idea of being evil. Of course, that does not solve the question of why God used to flood the Earth and turn people into salt, and I gladly accept that as strong evidence that God does not exist. I don’t understand why God’s motivations are so weird. But I don’t understand the motivations of most people I know (why do so few people try to be intelligent ?), so I take it as evidence that I should ask for help in the matter.
I’ll consult a priest and report back on that.
As for my gut feeling about God’s actions being morally okay, you’ve clearly demonstrated that my gut feeling is not coherent with what I believe… I’ve got to work on that, either by discovering a reason why God was justified (if it exists) or accepting this was not justified (or that it didn’t happen). Accepting that it was not justified and that God did it is of course contradictory with my current belief in God.
Have you read the old testament fully?
No. I have not read the New Testament fully either.
I’m not sure of what you want to imply by that comment. I think I have read enough of the Bible to comment on its contents for the level of knowledge used above, if that is what you doubt.
I was referring specifically to the story of Noah and Sodome by “flood” and “turning people into salt” respectively.
Generally, reading the old testament is a good way to get people to start people to doubting Christianity.
I think you should not only derive your opinions from authorities (like a priest) but read the old testament yourself.
If you want to be a rationalist you can handle reading the old testament and use your own ability to reason.
(For the sake of completeness, I’ll still include the priest’s answer here. He gave a somewhat complicated argument, but the main idea was that the Old Testament is not accurate. In general, according to him, the bible was written taking into consideration the people of the time who would read it.)
From that, I would say that both you and priest have formed a morality that it is independent of the text and is then reflected that back on the text. Ie read one passage (my favorite would instructions to Joshua to commit genocide against the Canaanites) and say “Oh, that one needs to be read in context”, whereas read other eg “Love your neighbour” and say, “yes, that is where I derive my morality”. Ie it seems to be starting with a sense of what is moral and projecting it back onto a concept of God.
Take another step—did say the Ancient Greeks or say the Masai have a concept of morality? What formed their moral world? And as others have said, you can derive a morality from game theory for social animals via evolution (eg see work of Martin Nowak at Harvard). Or simply, that well-being of the tribe is utility function. A behaviour that would damage that well-being if EVERYONE did it, is labelled evil. A behaviour that enhances the tribal well-being if everyone did it, is labelled good.
You can find many vivid descriptions of the environment of Hell here. Probably the one that most directly compares the experience of Hell to an experience of living agony is this:
“And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’” Mark 9:43-9:48
Here, note that it’s said to be better for you to cut off a hand and foot, and tear out an eye, than to go to hell. In other words, Hell is described as being worse than literal physical torture.
I realize Hell as commonly understand in recent centuries doesn’t really show up in the Bible, but I suggest reading Psalm 58, and then reading the part of St. Augustine’s Summa Theologiae where he discusses how the blessed will rejoice in the suffering of the wicked.
If hell isn’t as bad as actual torture, then the Parable of the Weeds in Matthew 13 must be both very metaphorical and very exaggerated. I highly doubt a priest would want the faithful to discount other parables so much—we don’t interpret the Good Samaritan’s story to mean “Helping people is great and all, but really is mostly supererogatory.” That kind of thinking is something that St Francis of Assisi railed against, and that the camel/eye of a needle metaphor warns against.
Also, going back to St Augustine, he believed in Purgatory, which I assume would be less bad or at least no worse than Hell in some sense(s) other than just temporal, and said of the cleansing fires of purgatory that “yet will that fire be more grievous than anything that man can suffer in this life whatsoever.”
Hell as the absence of God reads like Limbo from Dante’s inferno, or like the Hell CS Lewis describes. If you know of any premodern account of Hell that aligns with this view, let me know. Otherwise, what you’re discussing is a modern change to Christian doctrine, which if valid means either God lied to the early church, or changed his mind, or he takes Matthew 16:19 very seriously. In the first two cases God proves himself untrustworthy as a lawgiver (though we already knew that from many cases where God deceives people, sometimes to terrible effect), while the latter case would imply God turned the duty of establishing morality over to mankind.
The parable of the tares is obviously a metaphor? I mean, it’s weeds growing in wheat, and burning weeds so they can’t grow in the next season seems pretty logical (I’m not a 0th century farmer, so I wouldn’t know). The parable can easily be read as saying that god allows good christians and deviants to grow in the same “field”, and he will sort them into heaven and not-heaven at the time of “harvest”.
Saying that it implies the deviants will literally burn is reading too much into it, although it seems that there’s a long tradition of people reading too much into the bible.
That’s true, good point, though I have a hard time interpreting “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” as referring to the plants being burned and not people being hurt.