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Goodbye Jesus

Hell-Is It's Existence Proved By The Theory Of Justice?


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First, let me just say thank you to all the people who responded to my last post about hell and how to get over it. It was immensely helpful....so thank you. =)   

 

I would like to ask one last question to help get rid of the fear of hell once and for all, as i have stumbled on this one from time to time. Christians have used the subject of justice to not only try and prove why hell should exist, but also to defend the bible god in sending you and I there. Obviously you have heard this one before, you know the hitler argument. How could hitler do what he did, then just die with no punishment in the end. I have also heard from a certain evangelist that humans by nature believe in justice, and that's why we created a system of law, courts, and jails etc. That evangelists argument is that if mere humans believe in justice, why would god not? (keeping in mind he believes in god, while we don't)-Anyways, i was just curious as to what you all think about hell from a justice point of view. 

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Justice is a human construct, and there are many different models. In reality, there is no justice so people like to pretend that justice will somehow happen after we die. Pitiful, really.

 

As Dr. House said, "People don't get what they deserve. They get what they get." 

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Here is a wikipedia article on punishment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punishment

 

The reasons for punishment listed are:

- deterrence

- rehabilitation

- incapacitation and societal protection

- restoration

- education and denunciation

 

How does the Christian heaven/hell fit with justice when you consider that accepting Jesus as your savior does not improve behavior and does not increase remorse over bad behavior?

 

The real world analogy might be if the judge does not punish guilty people who agree to vote for him in the next election and punishes innocent people who refuse to vote for him.

 

I suppose a Christian might argue that hell is simply the natural consequence of imperfection and we become spiritually perfect through accepting the forgiveness of Jesus. But I think this isn't fair unless there are further opportunities and better evidence after death.

 

Anyway, if you look at the history, you can see that Christianity is just another religion that evolved gradually from earlier religions. There is no evidence that God inspired Christianity. In fact the historical Jesus probably didn't claim to be divine IMO.

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The fear of hell continues to be a problem for some who have left the faith. If hell is real, then heaven is real, and if both heaven and hell are real then God is real and if God is real then Jesus is real too.

 

Religion is a packaged deal. IMO, to be a believer a person has to accept all of it or none of it. Leaving the faith, again IMO, requires rejection of all of it's beliefs, teachings, and traditions. I don't see any way to leave the faith but continue to hold on to parts of it, or to be a believer but only believe parts of it.

 

It seems to me either choice requires an "all in or an all out" mindset. If a person believes hell exists than that pretty much mandates a belief that God exists too, so you better get on your knees, repent, and beg for forgiveness.

 

I don't have a problem with people who chose to be religious. If that works for ya, then go for it and hope you are one of the lucky ones on the day of Judgment.

 

Putting faith as a basis for truth aside to look at what historians have discovered about the Christian faith. There is not one single word that has yet been discovered that would even imply the Gospels reflect real historical events, or that any of the people mentioned in them actually existed in the flesh. The same goes for the OT. The authors of the bible are unknown. Nobody knows who wrote the bible. The Jesus story reflects numerous similarities to a host of other pagan demigod stories that existed for hundreds of years before the Jesus story began to circulate.

 

That is why religion requires faith because there simply isn't any evidence that supports any of it's teachings or traditions. And faith, as we all know, is belief without evidence. How convenient.

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Christians have used the subject of justice to not only try and prove why hell should exist, but also to defend the bible god in sending you and I there.

 

Before Christians who believe in Hell can be taken seriously, they must first demonstrate that Hell actually exists. They can't just assert that it exists and claim that humans having their own concept of justice automatically makes their claims true.

 

 

Obviously you have heard this one before, you know the hitler argument. How could hitler do what he did, then just die with no punishment in the end.

 

The problem here is that one must accept that infinite torment to punish someone for a finite crime is just, before accepting the argument as correct. If they do accept this and want to convince others, they have to demonstrate how this is so. If their only defense is, "God says it's just", then we're left with the question: Why does it become just, simply because he says so? If the answer is that he's the most powerful, therefore he is the only one in authority to define "just" and "unjust", then the next question should be: Does might make right? If they try to claim that might does not make right, then they must explain what makes their god right.

 

 

I have also heard from a certain evangelist that humans by nature believe in justice, and that's why we created a system of law, courts, and jails etc. That evangelists argument is that if mere humans believe in justice, why would god not? (keeping in mind he believes in god, while we don't)-Anyways, i was just curious as to what you all think about hell from a justice point of view. 

 

Unfortunately for this evangelist, the system of law, courts, and jails that exist in modern nations today are hardly the same as "Christian justice" which indicates that genocide and having sex outside of marriage (among other acts considered sinful) are deserving of the same punishment (which is sadistic, eternal torment). Given these differences, such an argument fails. If mere humans have their own concept of justice and it is less barbaric than the justice of "God", then perhaps humans are more moral and he is more cruel?

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 i was just curious as to what you all think about hell from a justice point of view. 

In my experience of fundamentalist Christianity, it's not really about justice but if you don't believe in Jesus (get saved).  That's twisted on many levels.

 

If it was about justice, I'd say you would have to really be bad to deserve eternal punishment in the flames of hell. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, even Hitler. I don't want people to be tortured, that's sick

 

The whole idea of eternal punishment seems extremely masochistic. But I can see how it came from times that had a lot more gore and death.  They'd put you on the rack for committing adultery. I can kind of see how ancient people would come up with an idea like hell.

 

But to grow up in an environment that teaches hell, in this society now, is definitely child abuse. I would talk with a therapist about it. If I knew to do that back when I was deconverting, I would have a lot more progress in my recovery right now.

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well, let me see,,,

 

how do you define hell? lake of fire that burns eternity?

 

how to people avoid hell? by believing in jesus?

 

so if hilter believes in jesus before he was dead, he can avoid hell?

 

a good person like my father who did no evil to others, but don't believe in god goes to hell for eternity?

 

is that justice?

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I have also heard from a certain evangelist that humans by nature believe in justice, and that's why we created a system of law, courts, and jails etc. That evangelists argument is that if mere humans believe in justice, why would god not?

 

As humans, we recognize there's a difference between justice and torture.  We even have laws against cruel and unusual punishment, because it doesn't serve any purpose.  Following his logic, shouldn't god recognize this also?  Apparently he doesn't because we're all born "sinners" and the penalty for all sin regardless of scope or scale is to be brutally and sadistically tortured beyond human comprehension.  Forever.   What's so "just" about that?   Furthermore, what choice did I have as to whether or not I wanted to be born a sinner?   Christianity talks about free will all the time - so how come I didn't get to exercise my free will and not be a sinner?

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Is justice retribution?  Is it rehabilitation?

 

If the former, does it not have to be proportionate?  Why then do Christians expect eternal reward or punishment depending on acts done in time?

 

If the latter, how precisely is eternal torture supposed to rehabilitate the sinner?

 

Christian thought does not validly defend hell on the basis of justice.  It rather (if they are honest about their "logic") defends hell on the basis of assumed unanswerable divine will (i.e. like it or not, that's the way it is) and creates its' concept of justice in accordance with that doctrine.  Christian ideas of justice, it seems to me, are therefore based on their ideas of judgement and hell, not the other way round.

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The very definition of injustice is infinite time for finite crime. And when the crime is as simple as unbelief, the judge is a run of the mill despot.

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First, let me just say thank you to all the people who responded to my last post about hell and how to get over it. It was immensely helpful....so thank you. =)   

 

I would like to ask one last question to help get rid of the fear of hell once and for all, as i have stumbled on this one from time to time. Christians have used the subject of justice to not only try and prove why hell should exist, but also to defend the bible god in sending you and I there. Obviously you have heard this one before, you know the hitler argument. How could hitler do what he did, then just die with no punishment in the end. I have also heard from a certain evangelist that humans by nature believe in justice, and that's why we created a system of law, courts, and jails etc. That evangelists argument is that if mere humans believe in justice, why would god not? (keeping in mind he believes in god, while we don't)-Anyways, i was just curious as to what you all think about hell from a justice point of view. 

 

The existence of an actual place cannot be proven by a philosophical concept.

 

But I still have faith that there may be a Pastafarian Stripper Factory...

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We may like the idea of justice. That does not meant that justice is necessary. It doesn't even mean that justice is, in any objective sense, right. It just means that justice is something we like. And even if justice were in some sense objectively better than injustice, that wouldn't mean that justice would necessarily prevail. I think that it would be better if nobody died from hunger, but nevertheless people continue to starve. Similarly, even if it could be shown that justice is better than injustice, it would not necessarily follow that justice will win the day. Ergo, there would still be no reason to think that hell actually exists. Whether we like it or not, shit happens.

 

Also, as Vigile pointed out, infinite punishment for finite crimes is by definition unjust. Hell cannot be established by an appeal to our sense of justice, because the very notion of hell is unjust. It turns out that the only reason to think that hell exists is because some people (who are, by all indications, just as clueless as we are) have told us that hell exists. I'm not buying it.

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Personally, the idea that Hitler and Pol Pot and Jeffrey Dahmer are just gone is more comforting to me than the idea that they are still hanging around somewhere in a giant furnace.

 

I agree with what others have said above, particularly that justice is not something that has its own existence, but rather is a human concept. Also that God is more like a judge who lets you off the hook if you vote for him and punishes you if you don't. Lots of Christians believe Jeffrey Dahmer is in heaven because he "accepted Christ" in prison, but good atheists go to hell. How is that justice?

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The large majority of people aren't Hitlers or Stalins.  The majority of us are just average schmucks doing the best we can with what we have to work with.  So if divine justice calls for Hitler to suffer rather than simply cease to be, how can that same punishment be applied to the rest of us and still be called "justice"?

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What is Justice?  Sounds like the beginning of a Socratic dialogue, right?  Lots of people go through life, get an education, raise children without ever developing a satisfying answer to that question.  I personally do not think a perfect, and universally agreeable answer exists.  Justice as an abstract idea does not exist.  I think that "justice" is best understood as an explanation for the satisfaction of our group feelings.  When the village population stands around and watches the village psychopathic murderer being executed, the village population feels satisfied because they like to see wrong come to grief, and they like to feel like dangerous elements are being removed from the community.  They call it "justice" -- and as they call it, so it is.

 

When the mob later feels shame and guilt for what they did -- and also the fear that they may be the next object  of mob justice, their feelings drive them to the next evolution of justice:  ordered judicial punishment, with due process and protection of fundamental rights.  Oliver Wendell Holmes said that even judicial punishment must include satisfaction of VENGEANCE!:  "If people would gratify the passion of revenge outside of the law, if the law did not help them, the law has no choice but to satisfy the craving itself, and thus avoid the greater evil of private retribution."  Holmes was an atheist, a Darwinian, and a US Supreme Court Justice.

 

A very interesting extended meditation on Justice, from the perspective of someone leaving Calvinism, but who had a Platonic mindset, is the Sermon "Justice" by George MacDonald.  I certainly cannot agree with all of what he says, but this is probably the most though-provoking piece of writing I have ever read.  "Love is justice—is the fulfilling of the law, for God as well as for his children. This is the reason of punishment; this is why justice requires that the wicked shall not go unpunished—that they, through the eye-opening power of pain, may come to see and do justice, may be brought to desire and make all possible amends, and so become just. Such punishment concerns justice in the deepest degree."

 

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/macdonald/unspoken3.viii.html

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Torturedbychrist:

Here's where I've come with the idea of alleged divine justice.

The biblegod's idea of divine justice can't possibly be justice. It is a zero-tolerance policy which allows the adjudicator - the judge - to abducate his responsibility to actually adjudicate the situation. It is a distinction without a difference. Ted Bundy, after killing that 12-year-old girl and many others, is by many Christian accounts in heaven. Susan Atkins, one of the Manson family, praised by CBN, is now by their accounts in heaven while her victim Sharon Tate and others are statistically likely to be in hell.

What is a distinction without a difference?

In short, if I tell you by default everyone gets a million dollars, but for those who work hard they get an extra thousand, that is largely a distinction without a difference. The situation is so profound that whatever minor variations in that situation are inconceivable.

So the god will judge all? Except if everyone is sent to a lake of fire to be tortured forever and ever, and, in the words of Jonathan Edwards, kept 'lively' or conscious of this torment's eternity, then where is the actual justice? Hitler gets the same punishment as the skeptic who simply finds the idea of Biblegod to be implausible.

Second, the idea of divine justice is a sloppy way for us human beings to not take care of situations as they arise. "God's gonna get 'im," means "I don't need to do anything about that situation now." Means go ahead and cover up what he's doing, go ahead and be a coward, don't turn him in to the police. Go ahead and turn the other cheek, go ahead and refrain from physically defending the weak provided they're not rich. Because God's gonna get 'im in the next life. This is not a vengeful attitude. It's a lazy attitude not befitting anyone who considers themselves of a noble heritage or to have a sense of honor.

The idea that God cannot look on sin, or cannot be in the presence of sin, fails miserably also. From a design perspective. Every model ever designed, the model first existed in the mind of the designer. Evil was then in the mind of God, as Isaiah states "I created good and I created evil. I am the Lord." You cannot create something that is impossible for you to be in the pre3sence of. I used to, as a Christian, use the matter / anti-matter construct to describe this. But again, fail, huge ginormous fail, on basic design principle.

So in short, real judges do not have distinctions without meaningful differences. Real designers either have bugs in their design, or understand and live with the consequences of their design, and don't punish the product for turning out as designed. Who would you hold responsible for some buggy software, or an artificial intelligence run amok? The software / AI, or its creator(s)? None of Biblegod makes any rational sense at all, and Hell serves to put a nail in the coffin of the whole thing.

All that being said, many of us can understand how the fear of Hell can really attack you emotionally, in dreams, etc.

What I find helpful is to reflec on people I know who have died, people I was reasonably sure as a Christian, had ended up in Hell. I reflect on the fact these people are not now being tormented forever, something that used to sicken me whenever Hell came up in churches. The more people you've known who died and weren't Christians, the more real this gets. But they're not being tormented. So that is a huge relief, a relief beyond words, to be honest.

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Hello tbc.

 

You may find this thread helpful to you, in your consideration of God's 'justice'.

 

http://www.ex-christian.net/topic/64305-gods-secret-law-in-eden/#.VGpwhfmsUuk

 

Thanks,

 

BAA.

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I remember a  sermon one time in which the pastor asked rhetorically: " What if there were no hell? That would mean that Hitler would get off free after having been responsible for the death of millions of people. Well that's not fair." I thought at the time, is this guy really that stupid? Does he really think it's okay to send virtually the entire human race to eternal torture because of a few monsters were guilty of genocide? Even though god could have prevented it by the blink of an eye? God was just as guilty as Hitler. Rip

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People also love to say God is not mocked.

Another thought experiment for any adult full grown honorable human being:

Can you be insulted by a mentally challenged person?

Can you be insulted to point of outrage by a little child? To the point you would torture them forever?

Can you be insulted by a mouse skittering across the floor? Does that little mouse mock you? Are you prepared to exact your wrath upon that mouse and torture it forever and ever?

Does the sugar ant mock you? How could a sugar ant possibly self-efface before you? How could that sugar ant meaningfully bow down to you, and in any meaningful fashion profess the obvious that you are far greater than it is?

And yet, the god allegedly is far greater in distance from us than we are from the sugar ant. Are you outraged that the ant does not praise you? Would you sit down and pull its legs off, and terrorize it for all eternity? Only the mentally disturbed do this. It is sick.

Judges tasked with adjudicating crimes do not do this. They are not sitting on thrones judging sugar ants.

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