seebs

I haven't "jettisoned" the theory of Hell; I've studied it, thought about it, and concluded that it is the least-immoral possible outcome in a world with created beings.

Furthermore, I think your basic approach to respect is wrong. To respect a person is not to agree with that person, but to acknowledge that that person is, well, a person.

I would say that Christianity should be respected, not because it's flawless in both design and execution, and makes people wonderful, but because it has helped many people survive lives they found otherwise untenable, and brought joy to millions. Is there a down side? Yes. But that's true of any belief system, any philosophy. They all suck, except when they work, and then they're all pretty good.

(A detailed discussion of my understanding of hell is probably inappropriate for this thread, so I'm omitting it.)

Heathen Dawn

seebs, have you any idea what the doctrine of eternal hell means? Have you any idea what it means for myriads of people to be tortured eternally, with no way of getting out? How can I respect that? How can I respect anyone who believes in that, and furthermore believes that it is perfect justice? The doctrine of eternal hell is pure human evil and total depravity, and I oppose it, and all those who believe in it, with my very being.

I am in no obligation at all to respect Christianity, which holds such a doctrine. Let that be perfectly clear. If you believe eternal torture in hell is God’s perfect justice, then you have lost any respect I ever had for you.

seebs

My guess is that what I believe and what you're talking about are subtly, but meaningfully, different.

That said, I have come to respect the version of Christianity which does the "you didn't learn the right words, into the flaming pit" thing. I don't believe it to be true, and I don't like it, but I can admit that people who hold to it have a cosmology which apparently, in many cases, works for them, and which does no harm to me by existing. It may predict dire harms to me, but many belief systems do that.

Now, it does have a greater chance of leading to beliefs which actually harm me... and that's a problem. But I wait until people actually cause me trouble before defending myself, and many people who adhere to very simplistic versions of the Hell belief turn out to be harmless to me.

Heathen Dawn

Magus, there is no excuse for eternal torture. It is evil. It is unjust. By any standards. Absolute. Immutable. Unchanging. Case closed.

Eternal torture is unjust and evil no matter who does it—a human, a demon or God. Here’s one atheistic moral absolute for you, Magus. The case is closed and not under trial.

seebs

Could you be more specific about what exactly you mean by "torture"? Does this word carry, for you, the same connotation I hear in it, of willfully inflicting suffering?

Heathen Dawn

Either wilfully inflicting suffering, or allowing it to happen by omission. We might say that a living organism being eaten by parasites is also a form of torture, which God does nothing to prevent.

seebs

Does omission imply that there's a specific thing you could do which would prevent the suffering, and that the results of that action would be better than the suffering, rather than worse?

seebs

Well, as long as we're talking about nature, we're not talking about any creature suffering eternally.

(Hmm, wondering if this should move into a different thread.)

I'm not sure that a system such as the one you describe would have much in the way of logical coherency, and it might lack crucial features of the world we are in. In a world without suffering, how would anyone learn empathy or compassion? It may be that these are worth the tradeoff.

In short, at this point, we're into the area where it is possible to have interesting debates about what could be, or should be, possible... which means it's probably not appropriate to handwave and say "obviously this is evil". We lack information we would need to make an informed judgement; all we can do is guess. My guess is that this is the best of all *possible* worlds. Not "all worlds I can describe with language", but "all worlds which actually make any sense".

livius drusus

This thread was split from the Hatred at Straw Atheists dicussion, and contains two quotations from posts still on that thread.

Heathen Dawn

From Richard Dawkins, who knows his zoology:

Surely God could do better than that? I don’t think this could be called the best of possible worlds by any stretch of imagination.