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Author Topic:   Christianity is Morally Bankrupt
Rahvin
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Posts: 4024
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 8.8


(1)
Message 104 of 652 (694838)
03-29-2013 12:07 PM
Reply to: Message 103 by Phat
03-29-2013 11:48 AM


Re: Still missing the point
It is our choice...the actor merely set the parameters.
If I put a cake baked with shards of broken glass and a juicy steak on a table and leave the choice of which to eat up to you, am I responsible if you decide to eat the broken-glass-cake and die in horrific pain? I merely set the parameters, after all.
We certainly make the real world the way it is, at least so far as society contains its own ills (clearly we bear no responsibility for an asteroid colliding with the Earth or other such disasters).
But this isn't man's torture of man that we're talking about when we discuss hell. Hell is an artificial construct created for the express purpose of eternal torture through burning in unquenching fire forever fully conscious and aware. Apologetically comparing the Christian concept of hell to self-torture through deep guilt or masochism or self-destructive behavior or even torturing others from a mortal perspective simply doesn't come close. It's like comparing a candle flame to the Sun - they bear a resemblance only to an ignorant child.
It's not a matter of "why we cant have our cake and eat it too?" Not at all. A measured and reasonable punishment for moral failings in life would not be terribly immoral itself. If "hell" was actually more akin to an eye for an eye, experiencing all of the pain and all of the joy that resulted from your living actions, we wouldn't be having this discussion. If "hell" was actually a place where those who behaved wickedly were helped to realize the error of their ways and atone and be forgiven and reintegrated into society in "heaven," we'd be applauding that aspect of Christian morality.
But the "hell" concept doesn't look anything remotely like those. Even Hitler wouldn't deserve eternal punishment. At some point, after he had been burning alive for 1000 years for each and every person who died in WWII, even the most evil horror-movie sadist would have to say "Okay, he's probably had as much as he deserves, let him go."
Of course, the hilarity of it all is that the other aspects of Christianity allow even Hitler to simply "believe" in something and his sins are washed away by the human sacrifice/scapegoat of Jesus. That is having your cake and eating it too. Except the cake turns into human flesh, I suppose.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 103 by Phat, posted 03-29-2013 11:48 AM Phat has not replied

  
Rahvin
Member
Posts: 4024
Joined: 07-01-2005
Member Rating: 8.8


(1)
Message 108 of 652 (694855)
03-29-2013 7:05 PM
Reply to: Message 107 by GDR
03-29-2013 6:44 PM


Re: Missing the point
I don't want to butt in on your conversation but I thought that maybe CS Lewis might be able to add something to this. Here is a CS Lewis quote from the book the great divorce.
quote:
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.
CS Lewis was very good at communicating his apologetics...but his logic was still terrible.
The situation remains a false dichotomy. God is the one who created hell, and he's the one who makes heaven/hell the only two choices. Even Lewis' quote simply screams "do what god says or he''' burn you forever."
It's nothing more than blaming the victim with some absurd rationalization to make the speaker feel good about what is, at its very nature, a reprehensible moral act.
If I am an interrogator, and I tell my victim to answer my questions or else I'll cause him immense pain, it is not my victim's fault when I commit atrocities against him. He may have chosen not to speak, but the moral culpability still rests with me...because I have the option to let him go, or to try an interrogation technique that actually works.
Your deity is no better. He could choose for there to be no hell. Instead, he creates a place of eternal torment when, as an all-powerful being, he could choose literally anything else.
The choices of the damned are meaningless; the moral culpability remains tied to the one who set up such a system. Because there are no choices that any mortal person could ever make int heir lives, even if they spent every breath murdering and raping and hurting others, that would justify an eternity of torture as punishment.

The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. - Francis Bacon
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." - John Rogers
A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But, on the other hand, in a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity. — Albert Camus
"...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the outcome is merely a larger than average pile of shit." - Barash, David 1995.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 107 by GDR, posted 03-29-2013 6:44 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 111 by GDR, posted 03-29-2013 9:07 PM Rahvin has not replied

  
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