The evolution of hell: how rhetoric changes religion

quote:

---

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames. But Abraham said, Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us. (Luke 16:19-26)

---

This was the primary illustration of hell, as it originated in the Christian religion. For 1900 years, that is the hell that people believed--torment, agony, flames, all of it.At the end of the 19th century, something happened. Darwin's theory allowed atheism to become a reasonable thing to believe. And atheists started to get prominent philosophers, authors and speakers to rattle the cages of Christianity. Considered the best orator of his time, the most prominent spokesman for the exclusive cause of anti-religion was Robert Ingersoll, and he took full advantage of the doctrine of hell, the primary weakness of the Christian religion. He wrote, "All the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew, blossomed, and bore fruit in this one word--Hell." He wrote most eloquently in his book, Why I Am an Agnostic:

quote:

---

One Sunday I went with my brother to hear a Free Will Baptist preacher. He was a large man, dressed like a farmer, but he was an orator. He could paint a picture with words.

​

He took for his text the parable of "the rich man and Lazarus." He described Dives, the rich man -- his manner of life, the excesses in which he indulged, his extravagance, his riotous nights, his purple and fine linen, his feasts, his wines, and his beautiful women.

​

Then he described Lazarus, his poverty, his rags and wretchedness, his poor body eaten by disease, the crusts and crumbs he devoured, the dogs that pitied him. He pictured his lonely life, his friendless death.

​

Then, changing his tone of pity to one of triumph -- leaping from tears to the heights of exultation -- from defeat to victory -- he described the glorious company of angels, who with white and outspread wings carried the soul of the despised pauper to Paradise -- to the bosom of Abraham.

​

Then, changing his voice to one of scorn and loathing, he told of the rich man's death. He was in his palace, on his costly couch, the air heavy with perfume, the room filled with servants and physicians. His gold was worthless then. He could not buy another breath. He died, and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torment.

​

Then, assuming a dramatic attitude, putting his right hand to his ear, he whispered, "Hark! I hear the rich man's voice. What does he say? Hark! 'Father Abraham! Father Abraham! I pray thee send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my parched tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.'"

​

"Oh, my hearers, he has been making that request for more than eighteen hundred years. And millions of ages hence that wail will cross the gulf that lies between the saved and lost and still will be heard the cry: 'Father Abraham! Father Abraham! I pray thee send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my parched tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.'"

​

For the first time I understood the dogma of eternal pain -- appreciated "the glad tidings of great joy." For the first time my imagination grasped the height and depth of the Christian horror. Then I said: "It is a lie, and I hate your religion. If it is true, I hate your God."

​

From that day I have had no fear, no doubt. For me, on that day, the flames of hell were quenched. From that day I have passionately hated every orthodox creed. That Sermon did some good.

---

Hell used to be a nightmarish way to gain converts. But, it became a nightmarish weakness in the Christian religion. Christians did not take this sort of criticism lying down. They responded. Some of them changed hell, and it became a destination that sinners could willingly choose. C.S. Lewis wrote in his 1940 book The Problem of Pain:

quote:

---

I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man "wishes" to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.

---

Hell, then, is not so much a place of inflicting torture, but it is a place that the damned souls willingly choose.Though it may strongly contrast to the gospel parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, it is a view that has become predominant among modern Christian evangelists and apologists. Besides the exegesis, it seems to solve the problem. How cruel can it be if the damned actually want it?Peter Kreeft and Ronald Keith Tacelli wrote in Handbook of Christian Apologetics: Hundreds of Answers to Crucial Questions,

quote:

---

If hell is chosen freely, the problem then becomes not one of reconciling hell with God's love, but reconciling hell with human sanity. Who would freely prefer hell to heaven unless they were insane?

​

The answer is that all of us do at one time or another. Every sin reflects that preference. The skeptic objects that if he freely choose hell over heaven, we must be insane; the Christian replies that that is precisely what sin is: insanity, the deliberate refusal of joy and of truth.

---

Christians are divided about whether to interpret the fires of hell literally or metaphorically. Metaphorical fires are often preferred because it is difficult to imagine why even an insane person would choose the prolonged pain of fire.In the widely-popular apologetic book, A Case for Faith by Lee Strobel, the theologian J. P. Moreland is quoted as saying,

quote:

---

Make no mistake. Hell is punishment--but it's not a punishing. It's not torture. The punishment of hell is separation from God, bringing shame, anguish, and regret. And because we will have both body and soul in the resurrected state, the misery experienced can be both mental and physical. But the pain that's suffered will be due to the sorrow from the final, ultimate, unending banishment from God, his kingdom, and the good life for which we were created in the first place. People in hell will deeply grieve all they've lost.

---

To Moreland, the fires of hell are merely metaphorical. He objects: how does it make sense for hell to be fiery and dark at the same time? So, many Christians have thrown away the old hell and adopted a new hell that is suitable for the rhetorical battles against secularism.Of course, not all conservative Christians have jumped on this bandwagon. Matt Slick, of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, wrote:

quote:

---

Hell is a real place. It is not mere unconsciousness. It is not temporal. It is eternal torment. Perhaps that is why Jesus spoke more of hell than heaven and spent so much time warning people not to go there. After all, if people just stopped existing, why warn them? If it was temporal, they'd get out in a while. But if it were eternal and conscious, then the warning is strong.

---

Christian apologists fight against other Christian apologists about such problems more than against those on the outside. From the perspective of an opponent of Christianity, the rhetorical point of the problem of hell serves a good purpose. If the proponents of the orthodox hell win the debate, then Christianity is significantly weakened. The world will have more Robert Ingersolls. If the proponents of the choose-your-own-afterlife doctrine win the debate, then hell is less of a fearsome nightmarish thing used to manipulate children and frightened people into adherence. The world will have fewer Christian evangelists who employ the villainy of hell.And that is why rhetoric matters.

Thread copied here from the The evolution of hell: how rhetoric changes religion thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

For the purpose of discussion, all reference to Hell must of necessity be metaphorical and hypothetical. I personally believe that if such a place existed, humans would never be sent there. They would end up there by rejecting what is by definition not there. (Or by accepting the absence of same) An alcoholic willingly chooses alcohol even though they know intellectually that it is destroying them. Perhaps our question is whether the choice was made with a sane mind. Which then brings up the question of what would cause anyone to prefer separation? The answer is that some cherish their right to freely choose more than they do acceptance of an authority that takes away their freedom to choose.
\

The idea that non-believers choose hell really is a robust belief. Many times, I have observed atheists say that they would rather be in hell than be a slave to God for all eternity, though of course all of those times could have been hyperbole--with the orthodox view of hell, that conviction would be hard to imagine. To me, hell is a doctrinal element of a religion, which either helps the religion or hurts it, and that is how I make the best sense of it. Phat, do you have any thoughts about how rhetoric against hell affects the Christian doctrines of hell? I wrote this thread to show that rhetoric against religion really does matter.

IMHO, hell, like heaven and any other repository of the hypothetical "soul," is nothing more than a human invention, from imagination with as much validity as the "6 day creation" & the "global flood," that is, none.

---

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

While I don't want to argue against your main point, that enlightened rhetoric has changed the statistical emphasis of popular preaching, I feel compelled to point out that higher theology and literature have always understood the conception Ingersoll may have helped to overthrow to be a simple misinterpretation.One need look no further than Dante or Milton to be confronted with the fact that the gates of hell stand open. In Paradise Lost the key is held by Sin, who, once letting them gape wide, finds she has no power to pull them shut again, and proceeds with her son Death to build a vast bridge to earth. In the Inferno this opening is attributed to the Son, in the course of the Harrowing.This opens up yet another point. Theologically, hell may have once represented a place which was free of God, the dreary Sheol of Hebrew myth, but this is no longer the case. With the nature of God being eternal, having become human he has always been human, having died he has become eternal Death -- "the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world" -- and having visited hell he resides there eternally.God is the fire.

You quoted Lewis in the OP. His book "The Great Divorce" fleshes out the statement that you quoted.Another image that he used was in the last book of the Narnia series - "The Last Battle".In that book he talked about the dwarfs whose mantra was "the dwarfs are for the dwarfs".At the end they go through the stable into the new creation. The new world is a place that is beautiful beyond belief but the dwarfs, even though they are there, are unable to perceive this beautiful world around them and are only able to perceive their previous existence as they go on muttering that the dwarfs are for the dwarfs.I don't see it so much as choosing between heaven and hell as choosing whether we are to live a life that is self focused or a life that is God focused. I would add, that to understand what I mean by God focused I suggest reading Matthew 25 when Christ said that when we visit those in prison, when we feed the hungry, house the homeless etc that we are doing it for Him.

---

Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

ApostateAbe writes:

quote:

---

At the end of the 19th century, something happened. Darwin's theory allowed atheism to become a reasonable thing to believe.

---

Huh? What on earth does evolution have to do with atheism. You make it seem like there were no atheists before Darwin.What nonsense. Evolution did not lead to any rise of atheism.

quote:

---

And that is why rhetoric matters.

---

Indeed. And inflammatory rhetoric doesn't help.

---

Rrhain

---

Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

---

Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Thanks Rrhain, you beat me to the punch. I fully agree.

---

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

I would prefer not to dispute the point with Rrhain (I have argued with him vainly in the past), but I would be willing to do so with you. I have been puzzled by such an opinion, and I would love to get the reasons for such a perspective. Atheists did exist before Darwin, but they were not nearly as many, not nearly as well known, and not nearly as influential as until after Darwin. With the theory of evolution, there was no scientific reason left to believe in God, and biology was formerly a very big scientific reason. When Darwin's theory became established at the end of the 19th century as the only theory besides God to explain life, 100 years after Lyell had already explained the planet Earth without God, that is when we see a big historical shift toward atheism--Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, Ingersoll--and each of them influenced a helluva lot of people with antipathy toward religion. That time is when we see the coining of the phrase, "agnostic," by a protege of Darwin. The philosopher Daniel Dennett wrote a book on the subject titled, Darwin's Dangerous Idea. It really was a dangerous idea to religion. If you underestimate the influence of Darwin's theory on religion and philosophy, then I suggest that you find another way to explain the rise of atheism.

I don't think there were any less than then now % wise, but like homosexuals in the 1950s, most Atheists back in Darwin's time were in the "Closet."

---

There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other WT Young, 2002Who gave anyone the authority to call me an authority on anything. WT Young, 1969Since Evolution is only ~90% correct it should be thrown out and replaced by Creation which has even a lower % of correctness. W T Young, 2008

That's possible, of course. I try to go with the proposition that has the highest probability. Given that the theory of evolution provided a very scientifically evidenced and very scientifically authoritative reason to dismiss God as an explanation for the existence of life and humanity, it seems very probable that the theory of evolution increased the actual percentage of atheists rather than just bring them out of the closet.A few years ago, a member of the Eagle Scouts was kicked out of the club because he did not believe in God. He explained in an interview what motivated his disbelief. He said that in high school he learned about the theory of evolution, and that removed reason to believe in God.Is it more likely that he was simply in the closet until the theory of evolution gave him an excuse? I figure that, if it makes perfect sense to take people at their words, then it is better to do so.There seems to be an activist motivation to separate the theory of evolution from atheism, because that would help to make the theory acceptable to a religiously diverse population. Well, OK, but I would draw the line on infringing on the actual reality. Yes, even if we have to agree at least in part with the daily political propaganda of creationists, which claims that the theory of evolution and atheism are intimately intertwined, it is better to be honest and reasonable--atheism as we know it really was allowed its place on the table by the theory of evolution.Edited by ApostateAbe, : typo

Before the theory of evolution, there was already no scientific reason to believe in God.Scientists tend to be skeptical. Those that believed in a God, mostly took a deistic like view of God - roughly, deism + Jesus. And they were probably full of doubt about the miracles.The reason there there are more biologists than other scientists who become atheists, seems to be that biologists see first hand the cruelty of nature and find it difficult to square that with the Christian idea of a loving God.

---

Jesus was a liberal hippie

Absolutely. Deism, or belief in God without belief in religion, was at least seemingly close to the predominant belief among philosophers and scientists. Where is deism, now? It was replaced by atheism, because there was no more reason left to believe in any sort of God at all.

For most people, there aren't many important differences between deism and atheism. But I doubt that evolution was important for that. I suspect that it has more to do other changes which have lead to a reduction in the social pressure against atheism.

---

Jesus was a liberal hippie