excreationist

So you believe that everyone has a soul that can not be destroyed? I find that ridiculous.

BTW I think the NT included Greek words such as "Hades"...

excreationist

I didn't mean that that link is 100% appropriate to this thread but much of it is - the analysis of the Bible.

It isn't really relevant but there are far more believers in the gospel than Plato.

I mean that the traditional view - that became popular after the Bible was written has become very popular seems convincing when you begin with the assumption that the soul is eternal.... there are MANY passages that seem compatible with the idea that the torment is eternal since these passages sometimes don't explicitly say that the torment is limited. But if you remember the passages about death and destruction vs conditional immortality those passages can be explained. I think its length is required in order to thoroughly examine those passages. (It also looks at it in other ways such as with moral arguments)

excreationist

The author is partly using moral arguments - but he also uses Biblical arguments, etc.

The OT punishments involve death or LIMITED punishment... not years of torment. If it is detestable in God's sight then it could be argued that the punishment fits the crime. Christians would argue that the punishments for working on the Sabbath (stoning) did somehow fit the crime - in the old covenant. BTW limited torment and death are one thing - the concept of eternal torment for a limited crime is another.

I think death/limited punishment for some weird laws (that can be followed) fits the crime more than eternal torment for everyone that isn't saved by Jesus. Also about the Flood - everyone was exterminated - even babies - but on the other hand their suffering was brief.

excreationist

Yes that's what I'm saying. He is still a bit bad for causing the guy in Number 15 carrying sticks to be stoned to death, and innocent children dying in the Flood, etc.

BTW if eternal torment was true I don't think Jesus's torment was enough... he apparently saved billions of people from eternal punishment... I think to be fair he should still be in hell until the end of time.

Angra Mainyu

Yes, he uses both.
The point I was trying to make is that the moral arguments fail in that context, because of the reasons I've explained earlier, among others.

Let me put it in a slightly different way: the moral arguments suggest that the proper interpretation is not infinite torment because infinite torment would be unjust, and so (allegedly) Yahweh would not do that because he's always just.

However, with that criterion, then annihilation for non-saved and eternal contempt for them is also unjust - not remotely to the same extent, but it's akin to the death penalty for non-saved people, according to the author's argument.

Moreover, much of the rest of the Bible (which the author accepts) includes unjust behavior on the part of Yahweh, as one may assess in the usual way one assesses moral claims, as well as the method proposed by the author.

So, the conclusion would be that Yahweh, if he existed, would be a very unjust person even without infinite Hell, which blocks the argument that he would not engage in infinite torture because that would be unjust, or very unjust. While infinite torture would be much more unjust than the rest, there is no basis for excluding it or considering it improbable on ethical grounds.

It can be claimed that if it is detestable in Yahweh’s sight, the punishment fits the crime. But for that matter, someone might claim that rejecting God is a crime that merits infinite punishment (e.g., William Lane Craig does that), and then claim that Yahweh is God in any of the senses of ‘God’ used in present-day philosophy.

The point remains that the comparison with the US judiciary system would consider many of those punishments cruel and unusual (and that’s one of the basis for comparison given by the author), and also, just making a moral assessment as usual, the punishments are extremely unjust.

Some Christians would argue that.
Some Christians would argue that infinite punishment is fitting for the sin of allegedly infinite gravity consisting in disobeying and/or rejecting God (and claim that Yahweh is God), or that, alternatively, Hell is infinite because the damned continue to sin in Hell, accruing further finite amounts of punishment, but it still never ends (Craig does not support this position, but it’s an open option for some Christians).

For that matter, someone might even argue that stoning a man and a woman to death because they had consensual sex after her father ‘pledged her’ to another man (even against her consent) was just because it was Yahweh’s command.

Perhaps, someone might argue that not punishing rape itself but instead punishing a rapist for having sex with someone’s non-"pledged” daughter (allegedly an offense against the victim’s father, regardless of whether it was rape), forcing the rapist to pay some amount of money to the father and then marry the victim, is just, so is forcing the victim to marry him - though it’s more likely that they would instead engage in some creative interpretation, but who knows. People might argue many things.

But that someone might or would argue that does not make any of that a good argument.

Perhaps so, if one understands that in a way compatible with saying that one of the punishments is very unjust and the other one is even much more so.
I think that that calling it ‘fits the crime more’ would be a misleading statement, since it gives the impression that it remotely fits the crime, or even that there was a crime in the first place, in the moral sense (in a number of cases, the punishments are not only excessive for the behavior in question, but rather, the victim of the punishment does not deserve any punishment).

In any case, as I said before, the conclusion would be that Yahweh, if he existed, would be a very unjust person even without infinite Hell, but that blocks the attempted moral argument in support of an interpretation of finite Hell.

All that aside, the moral arguments start with an assumption that Yahweh exists, and ponder about what he would do, assuming that he is just.

However, that is not a proper approach to understanding the meaning of the biblical text. It would be akin to arguing that there is no infinite Hell in the Quran because Allah is just and infinite Hell would be an injustice. That would not be an adequate way of interpreting the Quran, either.
Granted, Christian might claim that it’s different because they had good independent reasons to believe that the Bible is the word of Yahweh, but not the Quran, etc.; but that’s not true, and in any case, it’s not argued in the site.

(I posted this elsewhere):

Since Yahweh killed everyone in the world except for those on board the Ark, it's clear that that included many young children. But Yahweh flooded everything with massive rains, rather than, say, zapping everyone so that they instantly die. Their deaths, in many cases, would not have been immediate, but would have come after different amounts of suffering, from a little to a lot.
So, some of those children would have seen their parents or siblings suffer and then die, would have tried to breathe and stay afloat only to fail and succumb, etc.; in short, it would have been horrendous for them. Yet, they did not deserve such suffering.
Even if Yahweh had been justified in doing that to the rest of the people who endured his actions, and even if he had been justified in killing those young children (I reckon that neither of the two is true, but leaving that aside), the fact would remain that the suffering he inflicted on young children was completely unnecessary to achieve that goal, and so it's clear that such behavior was immoral.

Yes, granted, some Christians might come up with creative approaches, like saying that young children were just zapped dead or whatever. But that’s not supported by the text at all, and in any event, the Flood is only one example in an ocean of immoral behavior on Yahweh’s part, described in the Old Testament and even assuming that there is no infinite Hell.

For instance, in Egypt, Yahweh inflicted a lot of suffering on Egyptian children, etc., and that’s not to mention the women who were ‘pledged’ by their fathers to be married to men of their fathers' choosing (regardless of what they wanted; their preferences would have been taken into account many times, but not in many others), so they would be subject to repeated rape, and if they were to have sex consensually with some other man, they and their lovers would be stoned to death - but no punishment for the father, the rapist, etc.

If you take a look at the Bible overall, of course it has some good actions on the part of Yahweh, but it has also many immoral ones, and horribly so.

I could go on and on, etc., but while it’s part of the OP argument and this thread, I’m not sure this is the adequate venue. Would you like to start a thread in another subforum?

So, in any case, my point is that finite Hell would not save the character of Yahweh. He would go from moral monster who engages in infinite torture, to moral monster who is much less evil but still comparable to, say, Palpatine.

A bit bad?

I’m not entirely sure you’ve considered the offending passages in any detail, but briefly:

What would you say of a ruler who passes a law according to which if a man ‘pledges’ his daughter to another man against her will, and the other man marries her and rapes her, neither man is punished, but on the other hand, if she has consensual sex with someone else before she’s delivered to the man her father pledged her to, and that man complains that she’s not a virgin (which was part of the contract between him and his father, implicitly or otherwise), she is to be stoned to death?

I would say such a ruler is profoundly unjust. Surely not nearly as unjust as one who engages in infinite torture, but still very much so. And that’s only a small sample of what Yahweh does in the story in the Old Testament (I could post a link to a much more comprehensive moral argument, but I’m not sure it’s allowed in this venue; if you go to my profile you can find it in 2-4 clicks from there depending on where you click, though, but I would suggest starting a thread in another subforum if you want to discuss the matter in any detail - though I think you should be persuaded).

excreationist

I think the point is that in cases where the duration of suffering is ambiguous, the person's point of view about the morality of God could be taken into account.

I think it is persuasive to some kinds of people... e.g. those that find it hard to believe that a just God would eternally torment people.

I find eternal punishment for almost everyone to be evil but otherwise I think at least God isn't particularly sadistic - from what I can remember. I think crucifixion that was used by the Romans is far worse than stoning - though stoning involves some unnecessary suffering.

excreationist

Angra Mainyu:
BTW the main commandment involves loving the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.... the secondary commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. So the main thing is to obey God's whims.

Angra Mainyu

Th moral argument in the essay is not persuasive to me, even though I do find it hard to believe that a just entity would eternally torture humans, but leaving that aside, it shouldn’t persuade a person who finds it hard to believe that a just entity (or a just God; but I’m not sure what you mean by ‘God’ in this context, but leaving that aside) would eternally torment people, because upon reflection, they should not believe that the biblical text under consideration were inspired by a just God, or otherwise reflect the actions of such a just being.

More generally, an assessment of what a just God would do or refrain from doing is not a guide at all to a proper interpretation of the biblical text.

I’m not saying that Yahweh would be maximally evil, but rather, that he would be not just a bit bad, but very evil.
As for the crucifixion vs. stoning or burning people do death, I don’t know for sure. I guess it depends on how it’s done.
But let’s say that crucifixion was a lot worse; even then, stoning or burning was applied to innocent people in some cases, and in others to people who were not innocent but did not deserve anything remotely like that.

Incidentally, and if you do not mind, are you by chance considering becoming a Christian again?
That's what part of the Bible says. But anyway, let’s say so. For that matter, the same could be said by someone who defends infinite Hell. That would not make him any less evil.

For instance, if Yahweh's whim is that a woman shall have sex with the man her father pledges her to, and with no one else, and that she shall be stones if she has sex with someone else but her husband will not be punished for raping her, a primary command to obey Yahweh's whims would not improve anything. He's still evil.

mountainman

See what the Greek philosophers wrote about the "daimon" ... δαίμων

Do you find it ridiculous that Rear Admiral George Stephen Morrison placed this word on his son's tombstone?



Before the NT was fabricated in century X,
after death all humans descended into the
underworld from which there was no return;
there was no Last Judgment, and no hope of
resurrection.




εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman

Religion is regarded by the common people as true,
by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

Platonic philosophy is not a religion and it is not derived, as are all varieties of the Christian religion, from a centralised monotheistic state initiative.



Have you examined the nature of the Origenist controversies?
Did Origen (for example) believe in the eternal soul?

Do you source any of your arguments from the "Early Church Fathers"?
Or are performing an analysis of the bible and if so, in which century do you think the NT was authored?





εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia