Wasatch

The Mormons have a really nice hell called the Telestial Kingdom.
It is supposed to be better than this earth. Sounds good to me.
They also have another place called outer darkness, but you have to be a Mormon
gone astray to get there.
But I guess the logic is to pick the Religion with the worst Hell.
Wasatch

Muad'Dib

That is precisely why I have created Muad'Dibism.

My heaven far surpasses the splendor of the heavens of the organized religions today; and my hell makes the hells of the organized religions look like a day at the carnival. Dante's demons have nothing on my professional torturers. Molten brimstone is desperately desired by the denizens there to cool them: unlike Revelation's hell, which is at around the melting point of sulfur, mine is far past the boiling point. Believe, or be fried!

What do you mean, you don't believe me?

The point behind this exercise in flippancy is to show that one needs to consider not only the potential for suffering in hell, but also how likely the existence of any particular hell is. As bad as my hell is, the likelihood of its existence is zero, so it would be unreasonable to take it into consideration. A priori, we know nothing about how likely it is that the Christian hell, or the Muslim hell, or the Mormon hell, or the JW hell, or the Hindu hell (which is non-eternal) is the real one--or maybe it's some other non-described hell, or maybe no hell at all. So on what basis do we conclude that (say) the Christian hell, or the Muslim hell, is the one to be legitimately feared?

One reason why Pascal's Wager fails to convince me is simply because there are too many religions on the market threatening damnation for unbelief when I can't very well believe in all of them.

(I should offer credit to gcameron for inventing gcameronism last summer, and to SingleDad for making a similar argument about the probability of hell [IIRC] a few months back.)

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: Muad'Dib ]</p>

Talulah

Hey all, thanks for responding, I really appreciate it. It has given me some things to think about. I have thought before about HOW a person goes about knowing which hell is the one you are supposed to be avoiding, when each book tells differently how to avoid it. Interesting.

Hands down, the worst hell would be an eternity of Gospel Meetings complete with off-key singing(I am shuddering)

SingleDad, PK, told me to come here and post this question to get more opinions. Bet all those on the CoC board would be interested to know I am a budding heretic. I always love how people are nice to you until they find out you have 'forbidden' feelings and ideas.

Talulah

Wasatch

Muad
It would be difficult to create a better heaven than the Mormons,
where one can become "God" or "Q"
Wasatch

Kosh

Throw in constant Jimmy Buffet musac, Tequilla
with no hangovers, and 72 virgins with oral
fixations, and I'll sign up!

Muad'Dib

I'll see your "becoming Q," and raise you the impossibility of being bored! (Q's boredom is brought out more in the ST:TNG novels than in the episodes, but it's surely a relevant concern for any omnipotent being.)

Kosh--you'll be omnipotent, you can have all those things and more...

My point, again, is that what a religion offers you is irrelevant; what matters is what it can actually deliver.

Muad'Dib

Here are a couple of interesting threads:

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=51&t=000043" target="_blank">OT references to a flat earth</a>

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=000010" target="_blank">Problems with flood geology</a>

The last one's a bit dense since it's one of Patrick's, but it's good stuff. There's also a lot more information on problems with the flood in the Evolution/Creation forum.

[ February 27, 2002: Message edited by: Muad'Dib ]</p>

Hugh Jass

Thanks Clarice those are useful references.

Zenaphobe

Hi Talulah,

I can relate to the feelings of dread that you have concerning hell.

I struggled for quite some time with the unsettling fear of being burned alive for eternity after leaving church and faith behind several years ago.

Depending on how thoroughly this was drilled into your thinking, it could take some time to recover fully from the fears.

As a child I was told that if a horse bit you, it couldnt open its mouth back up until its teeth touched. Im serious So this ment a horse would have to take a chunk out of a person if it bit them.

Since I knew nothing much about horses and had been told this by someone I trusted, I believed it was true and lived accordingly and kept my distance from horses.

This belief continued into adulthood, I didnt know any better. It fianally dawned on me that horses didnt have to bite through a bit in their mouth to have it removed and the fear was seen for what it was, irrational.

When I began to look at hell from a critical position I realized that I had been indoctrinated as a child and believed people I trusted.

Irrational as it was, the fear was real.

Hope things go better for you as time wears on.

Amos

If your parents misled you about religion in the same way I can see why you would become an atheist.