Llwellyn Posted April 4, 2010 Share Posted April 4, 2010 According to Christianity, non-believers are presently suffering a curse that God is inflicting upon us. Our ancient ancestor Adam violated God's law and was punished by being set out of the Garden. Suffering was meted out upon us at that time, and continues to this day. God's vengeance will continue after this life is over and will pursue us. Christianity offers us an alternative: "Justification by faith in Christ's atoning death." But why should we wish to be justified -- why should we wish for the suffering to stop? Through suffering we learn the only things worth knowing -- the Greeks called this "Pathei Mathos." In this world of suffering we find worth and value -- we grow and reform. For Yahweh to curse us after we die is like Brer Fox throwing us into the Briar Patch. We are happy in the World. The World is our home. We do not wish to be saved from it. "I was bred and born in the briar patch, Brer Fox," he called. "Born and bred in the briar patch." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carmen Posted April 5, 2010 Share Posted April 5, 2010 That's the problem with the classic Christian black and white dichitomies. They are convinced that everything is either good or evil, right or wrong, no grey areas. You're right, suffering makes us grow. We aren't human without it. I see a lot of Christians who try very hard to put on a happy face and pretend that everything is great, because to reveal their own suffering would be to reveal their own weakness. Even when I was a Christian, I always had a problem with the absolute good of heaven and the absolute evil of hell. It seemed so cosmically fictional, like something a three-year-old would make up. "Bad people go to a Very Bad Place to burn in flames forever, and good people go to a Very Good Place where they walk on streets of gold, meet dead loved ones, and float around with the angels for all eternity." Very juvenile sounding, isn't it? But the Bible is full of that kind of philosophy. Take the garden of eden, for example. For Adam and Eve to eat the apple and learn the knowledge of good and evil was considered wrong. That in itself is contradictory, because if they didn't know what good and evil was, how would they know that it was wrong to disobey God? Can anyone be truly human without this knowledge? If they didn't know what good and evil were, couldn't they hypothetically commit heinously evil acts and not know that what they were doing was wrong? Psychopaths do not know what good and evil are; they literally have deficiencies in their brains so that they have no conscience. Even if God made Adam and Eve so they could only do good, they would be no more than children, floating blissfully through a magical garden. There would be no emotions except happiness, no depth, no art (because art requires suffering), no reason to grow as a person, no reason to persevere. I'd pick our world over the garden of eden any day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shyone Posted April 5, 2010 Share Posted April 5, 2010 Even when I was a Christian, I always had a problem with the absolute good of heaven and the absolute evil of hell. It seemed so cosmically fictional, like something a three-year-old would make up. "Bad people go to a Very Bad Place to burn in flames forever, and good people go to a Very Good Place where they walk on streets of gold, meet dead loved ones, and float around with the angels for all eternity." Very juvenile sounding, isn't it? That is brilliantly insightful. Thank you for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted April 5, 2010 Author Share Posted April 5, 2010 Another reason to expect that we will find joy in Hell is this: Yahweh thinks that Hell is "bad" -- and we already know that we don't agree with Yahweh about good and bad. Yahweh thinks that retaliation is good: "God's judgment is right. God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you." 2 Thessalonians 1:5-9. Whereas our consciences tell us that it is bad. If His ideas of good are different from ours, what He calls “Heaven” might well be what we should call Hell, and vice versa. This, for all practical (and speculative) purposes sponges God off the slate. We have no motive for obeying Him. Not even fear. Just as Brer Fox would find the Briar Patch to be a "bad" place and Brer Rabbit thinks that it is a "good" place -- so too, when Yahweh casts us in what he calls "hell," we will find that it is what we would call "heaven." Yahweh's "curses" are what I would call "blessings," and his "blessings" are what I would call "curses." True fear must be reserved for those who are truly "Good" as we can understand it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seeking Posted April 5, 2010 Share Posted April 5, 2010 "Bad people go to a Very Bad Place to burn in flames forever, and good people go to a Very Good Place where they walk on streets of gold, meet dead loved ones, and float around with the angels for all eternity." Very juvenile sounding, isn't it? I agree. And I always wondered why an omnipotent God would put such high value on gold. I mean, from God's perspective, shouldn't it just be a chemical element like any other? Joshua 6:19 says, "But all the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron are holy to the LORD." They're HOLY? How bizarre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carmen Posted April 6, 2010 Share Posted April 6, 2010 I agree. And I always wondered why an omnipotent God would put such high value on gold. I mean, from God's perspective, shouldn't it just be a chemical element like any other? Joshua 6:19 says, "But all the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron are holy to the LORD." They're HOLY? How bizarre. God seems to have very strange idea about that is "holy". According the the OT, you're considered holy if you slaughter animals in God's name, don't wear polyester, and stone your kids to death if they get too rebellious. Bronze age much? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Llwellyn Posted April 7, 2010 Author Share Posted April 7, 2010 I don't believe that Yahweh even knows what kinds of experiences would truly make a person like me experience ultimate suffering. He hasn't got a proper knowledge of my value system, and thus doesn't know how to make me feel the depths of grief. All he can do is apply external physical afflictions upon me. He doesn't know how to bring the deepest kind of suffering for a being like me. The one deepest, highest, truest, fittest, most wholesome suffering must be generated in the wicked by a vision, a true sight, more or less adequate, of the hideousness of their lives, of the horror of the wrongs they have done. Compared with inflicting this kind of suffering, inflicting hellfire is amateurish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted April 7, 2010 Share Posted April 7, 2010 I agree. And I always wondered why an omnipotent God would put such high value on gold. I mean, from God's perspective, shouldn't it just be a chemical element like any other? Joshua 6:19 says, "But all the silver and gold and articles of bronze and iron are holy to the LORD." They're HOLY? How bizarre. Very true. And does gold really exist in this separate universe? Is it a universe of the same kind as this one? With the same physical laws? Why? If God is almighty and the heaven-bound people are given eternal lives, why not create a better universe? Who needs gold anyway? And why would God need gold? It all comes from old religious beliefs in astrology, numerology, and alchemy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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