So God’s mercy is to perform lobotomies on these guys in order to make them do what He wants? Or is this the liberal idea that education is the solution to every problem and people only do bad things because they don’t know any better?
Frankly I think this is all wrong. I don’t think hell has anything whatsoever to do with justice. And I think what you describe of mercy is an even bigger distortion.
Hell is simply a consequence of sin. It is what any place will become when sin is given free reign – so sin will bring the seeds of hell with you wherever you go. This is why Jesus said you must be perfect even as your heavenly father is perfect. Because hell is what you create and do to yourself when you do not let go of your sins and refuse to change.
Mercy is a modification of justice in order to take into account the fact that making mistakes is how we learn. You have mercy on mistakes in order to help people with the process of learning. But there is point where instead of helping it is making things worse because you are throwing out the rules and telling people they can do whatever they want without consequences. That is not mercy anymore but the indulgence of terrible parents.
Here is what gets me about a loving God and Hell. According to the mainstream Christian view, God knew what would happen with humans before the creation. And yet, God ended up creating a punishing place that’s the absolute worst place imaginable. Something that could only be expected from a hating being. And yet, many Christians hold this contradictory view. God is absolute love and God tortures people in Hell for eternity.
Well, what is “sin”? According to the mainstream Christians, sin is disobedience to God. So if God tells you to kill the Amalekites, and you disobey, then you sin.
According to Jesus, people are like angels so there is no marriage and, presumably, no sex in heaven. Also, in my understanding, the worst offenders have a family history of abuse and violence. So healing their trauma will make everyone live in a better place. Jails are not a place for healing. Btw, I find it strange that God did not create jails. His default punishment in the Old Testament was death and, surprise to be revealed later, eternal suffering.
So God’s mercy is to perform lobotomies on these guys in order to make them do what He wants?
No, of course not. How does anyone engage in removing their own character defects? By suffering the consequences of the defect, internal and external, and by endeavoring to do the opposite. When you have an immortal soul, you have as much time as necessary to work on it. I am no Calvinist to suppose that this is a process that God designed some human souls to be impervious to. “God’s justice is not punitive, it is restorative.”
idea that education is the solution to every problem
No, but knowledge can do a lot for morality. The Aztecs stopped tearing the hearts out of their war captives to make sure the Sun rose because the Spanish suppressed this practice violently, but eventually the Aztecs figured out that hey, it wasn’t actually a requirement. Not for nothing that the homicide rate across the world has been dropping for at least five centuries. Nobody died in the Spanish-Canadian War of 1995 (over fishing rights) or the Slovak-Hungarian War of 1997 (over damming the Danube) because none of the four governments even considered such an act, at least not that anyone knows of. Before World War I there certainly would have been such wars.
you are throwing out the rules and telling people they can do whatever they want without consequences
God’s rules are made by God and God can change them or exempt people from them. The “penitent thief” was saved by Divine word, not because he was baptized or even (as far as we know) actually repentant of his sins. He simply asked God, Let me go with you, and God said Yes.
Besides, judging from God’s works alone we can see that he has never given anyone any reason to suppose that bad acts don’t have bad consequences internal and external.
That is not mercy anymore but the indulgence of terrible parents.
Good parents punish children only (a) to protect them from the world punishing them even more harshly (see above) and (b) as a strategy of last resort. God doesn’t need strategies of last resort, though he may have use for a ward for the theologically insane.
As I have explained above, I believe in hell because I see it in the world but not as something God does but as something which people do. Those who belong in hell are those who create hell where they live.
YES! And I think that is an invention by those who use religion as a tool of power and manipulation according to my rule of thumb that when something is perfectly convenient for a particular usage then that is the most likely origin of it. So, I am a vocal opponent of this understanding of “sin.”
I define sin as self-destructive habits – habits which are destructive of our potential, of our free will, our ability to love and relationships, our awareness and consciousness, and in fact destructive of everything good within us. I would, in fact, insist that if we cannot see the self-destructive nature of something then we ought to doubt that it is a sin except in the fabrications of those using religion for power over others.
Obviously there is much I agree with here even though I am not a universalist. Here are some highlights I particularly agree with (and one I disagree with).
Yes, God is all about helping us not retaliation or controlling us.
Yes, and there are immense improvements across the board: racism, slavery, abuse… Though in one area the improvements are not without bittersweet troubles like the relationships between men and women. Don’t get me wrong… I am as diehard a champion of women’s rights as you can find. So perhaps it is like the troubles that came with the fall of communism in the Soviet union – how a repressive system pushes a lot of troubles beneath to surface so that we haven’t yet confronted them properly.
No. God commands them because they are good, things are not good just because God commands them! The problems caused by sin are not something God can exempt people from – in this you are contradicting yourself on the first point I highlighted above.
Exactly! The other half of this is that good parents do not isolate their children from the consequences of their actions – not unless the consequences are excessive and even then not without limits. For example, what if you visit a place where there are nothing protecting children from electrical sockets? The parent is certainly not going to let them see for themselves how sticking a fork in them can make them dead, right? On the other hand, you have to let go when they learn how to ride a bike even if it means they might fall down and probably will. And even with the electrical sockets you have to reach a point where you trust them not to do such stupid things anymore.
The New Testament says that Hell was created, presumably by God. It’s one place that God created that has not been corrupted by human sin.
Also, I have a difficult time accepting that people belong in eternal hell, without a chance of correcting their behavior. Hell seems so needlessly final.
Ok, but death penalty for gathering sticks on a Saturday (numbers 15) seems destructive of our potential. But that was Gods will for the Israelites.
Really? Where does it say that? Either I never noticed it or have forgotten it.
Ha! Hell’s not corrupted by human sin. That’s kind of like a garbage heap that isn’t corrupted by the garbage in it, isn’t it?
Purgatory is where behavior gets corrected. Hell is for the hard-core resisters.
I realize that there are folks who think what God wanted from Israelites is what He wants from everybody now, but I don’t think so. Moreover, if you were to hang around some Orthodox (with a capital “O”) Jews, you’d discover that what they think the consequences of failures to meet God’s standards today are substantially different from what some (i.e. not all) Christians think the consequences are now. And it’s kind of interesting to me that the Orthodox Jews have a rather liberal view, IMO, of what they think God wants from non-Jews.
Does not. The closest it comes to that is Matthew 25:41, where it talks about an eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Not the same thing at all. And then there is the misuse of scriptures saying God created everything… usually leaving out something contextual like “in the beginning.” Obviously there are a huge amount of things God did not create and no theist thinks God created them.
If they are the ones creating the hell in which they exist then I don’t understand how this is applicable. Or do you mean that you don’t see why God would not interfere and force them to do things His way because that is the way you would run things?
LOL I am reminded of a billion times I have heard children say, “if I do that my parents will kill me.” Sometimes we use that sort of language to make it clear how serious we are about it. You see… I cannot ever remember there being a time when Jews or Christians had a practice of putting people to death for picking up sticks on Sabbath day.
I meant the Dante’s Inferno Hell experience seems needlessly final. If people create their own hell, then it would seem that a loving God would sympathize with their suffering and offer a solution to the misery, no?
Well, according to the Numbers 15 this is exactly what happened to one man. Perhaps that story is not true, and I hope it’s not, but the story is there in Gods word, for all to read and understand.
Sorry, as @mitchellmckain pointed out, Matthew 25:41 talks about hell being “prepared”. Presumably this also means it was created, unless we assume the existence of an eternal hell alongside an eternal God
Exactly!
Now, purgatory sounds tolerable. But where is that in the Bible?
Protestants, as a rule, don’t believe in it. Personally, I do. It’s primarily a Catholic “thing”.
Where in the Bible?
2 Maccabees 12:41–46. 41 So they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous judge, who reveals the things that are hidden; 42 and they turned to supplication, praying that the sin that had been committed might be wholly blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen with their own eyes what had happened as the result of the sin of those who had fallen. 43 He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin-offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. 44 For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. 45 But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin.
Matthew 12:32. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
1 Corinthians 3:11–15. 11 For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—13 the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. 14 If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. 15 If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.
Hebrews 12:29. “…for indeed our God is a consuming fire.”
Well now! As a matter of fact … now that you mention it … Christians do know of something (somebody) who did exactly that! Hang around here and you can get brought up to speed on what happened about 2000 years ago!
That’s an observation of reality … the very problem you are acknowledging: the way to destruction is broad and many are those who trod that road. Jesus offers us himself. And just as before - leaves us free to respond in love, or not, as we will. Unlike what you and so many others insist on thinking: God’s hand is not a heavy, coercive one. If I insist on acting in destructive ways and continue suffering worse and worse consequences, while a sympathetic beneficiary invites me to try the better way of living they have on offer - it is unfair of me to think of my beneficiary as making my life worse just because I won’t take them up on their offer. If I continue to bash my head against bricks, my headache isn’t the fault of the person who keeps exhorting me to stop doing that.
I judge Gods hand by the results that are produced. You have fundamentalists believing in Dante’s Inferno hell. You have Universalists. Also guided by Scripture. So, perhaps there is no guidance and every believer is left to their own devices to figure out exactly where Gods hand is guiding?
I don’t believe we are left orphaned and bereft of guidance. Generally - in how to do right by my neighbor, I’m given all the guidance I need. Dante and all the fundamentalists or all those who feel they need to analyze God rather than simply come to God can fend for themselves for as long as those games animate them.
Well, for me it’s not a matter of belief but of evidence. Plenty of people who believe they are guided by God and yet coming up to different conclusions about what God wants them to do or even about the nature of this God. And the nature of his punishment for the wicked.
