I am one of those Christians who underwent a true “born again” experience. Surely the absolute worst kind of Christian. I had a life-changing experience that fundamentally changed the sort of person I was. You’re not going to de-convert me so please stop trying.
I could just jump right in and state my view on hell, but first I’d like to make some remarks that I think have a bearing on my view. I don’t know that it’s particularly possible to change someone’s mind about hell by just talking about hell in isolation.
I think the framework from which one views scripture plays a significant role in interpretation and my framework comes from a lengthy study of bible prophecy. It involved my transition from a belief in a “pre-tribulation rapture” where Jesus is going to return any day now (Dispensationalism) to a position known as Preterism, in which Jesus has already returned. This involved the abandonment of “literal” interpretations of certain key texts (e.g., the moon turning to blood). Not Literal. Jesus returning on a white horse with clothes soaked in blood and a sword coming out of his mouth. Not literal. The New Jerusalem. Not literal. And of course, there’s that (in)famous “lake of fire.” Also not literal.
So in a nutshell. That’s my take on hell.
It’s not a literal physical place with a literal physical flaming lake of fire that people will be tossed into to endure eternal agony.
Of course, the actual reasoning was not that simple. There were other passages that needed to be considered. But those are details.
So. I am not here to rescue you from hell.
In fact, Mung, in your OP you announced your intention to refrain, initially, from characterizing hell:
Those remarks concerned your rejection of literalism, e.g., no “lake of fire.”
Now that you’ve got that off your chest, what we are waiting for is for you to jump right in and state your view on hell.
Now he thinks he’s Roy Batty.
And how did the Buddha refer to that small still voice?
That’s like Thomas Edison defining a light bulb by saying “it’s not a gas lamp.”
OK, so can you say what that evidence was? Or an example of it?
Are you unaware of the evidence that gender identity is not a binary construct? Nor the same as “assigned sex”? Nor that “biological sex” is not binary either? For another thread perhaps, but it seems a singularly inappropriate analogy.
By the way, Gregory, your use people’s full RL names in posts is against the rules for reasons I have given (viz. I do not want people googling member’s real life names and bringing up some scurrilous allegation made about them on this site, e.g. this one). Please do NOT do this.
OK, seems I was unclear 🙂
I’m starting from the (Thomist?) standpoint, that “do not know what God is, only what s/he is not”. Your disagreement with me starts from the standpoint that you know what God is (or is supposed to be) and you know that it isn’t the thing I once called God, and which some others still do, and which I’ve referenced as the “still small voice”.
What I’m saying is that there are many things that people call God and that “still small voice” is one of them. For those people the things that “God is not” includes things that you think God is (or is supposed to be)! The Abrahamic tyrant, for instance, or the Creator of the Universe.
Well, like I said, it’s a fairly orthodox theological approach.
dunno. Despite what Gregory claims, I’m not a buddhist.
I don’t think anyone is lying (and to allege that they are is against the rules of this site). What there is is mutual incomprehension.
I understood your answer to be that “hell” was what Jerusalem already went through in AD 70. Did I get it wrong?
Elizabeth,
OMG. So, let’s get this straight. In order to avoid answering to her woolly quasi-atheist apostasy, Elizabeth instead now scolds me for using her full name (RL) as countless people have done here, including her!!
Let’s do an experiment. Go to the homepage of The Skeptic/Atheist Zone. Click in the Search box and type in the site founder’s (RL) full name (that is, if you know it, wink!). Why doesn’t Lizzie scold all/any of those other users, but only me? Double standard?
One of the most recent uses: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/the-son-of-liddle-gods/
Elizabeth simply doesn’t seem to like to be public about her atheism (yet seems happy to have started The Skeptic/Atheist Zone).
Oh, and to remind ourselves, Quakers (like the founder!) actually do capitalise the divine Name, despite what Lizzie’s atheism has distorted her mind to say.
Elizabeth,
Actually, I don’t know what most theists mean by the word “god”, although they seem to think they do. My objection is that there is no evidence for such a thing and ascribing that referent to an experience without such evidence is unwarranted.
Okay, I do know people who consider that experience to be of the divine, meant as you explain here. That’s one of the problems with the word “god” — it’s very prone to equivocation, both intentional and accidental.
Reciprocating Bill,
“Chordate self.” “Enchanted loom.” Beautiful stuff.
I wish you’d helped me write my book on meditation and the psychology of religion: it would have been a lot better.
Mung, maybe if I ask a few questions, your notion of hell will be clarified a bit for the rest of us here.
Does hell for human beings take place after we die or is it something that “happens to us” while we’re alive?
If hell takes place after we die, are there other people with us there?
Do you think the torment that is hell for humans who sin is eternal? (And if so, what does that mean? Is it like unending temporal unpleasantness or is it an atemporal thing?)
If a person has, e.g., severe Alzheimers at death, will there be sufficient restoration of intellect for him/her to be thrust into hell for eternity (if it IS supposed to be an eternal thing)?
If hell is not an after-death thing, if someone suddenly dies after sinning, how does such a person pay for his/her sins?
Is there there a “king” of hell, like Satan?
Thanks for any input on these.
I can’t claim “Enchanted loom” – that was early neuroscientist Charles Sherrington’s image for the human brain.
“Men and women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and oftener still for a mighty love.”
–George Eliot, Middlemarch
My favorite novel 🙂 (Jointly with Moby Dick)
Gregory: can I ask what you believe? How would you describe your religious beliefs?
Elizabeth,
So, just completely ignore your obviously ridiculous double standard? Say nothing about it. Divert? Or take it back…
Two great ones, for sure. (And I ain’t no freakin’ subjecivist!)
They aren’t double standards, Gregory. I’m sorry I missed other examples.
Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne. 🙂
Lizzie:
Gregory:
Gregory,
I have no idea what your response means, but I am also curious about your religious beliefs, and I’ll bet that others here are as well.
Could you tell us what you believe, and why?
Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace.
“The truth will set you free. But not until it’s finished with you.”
We can try. 🙂
Perhaps metaphorically when we are alive. We can go through hell. Like me posting at TSZ. But after death. No hell.
No hell after death. Hell isn’t a place. There is no there, there. No people to be not there with us. 🙂
No. This is the view of hell I have been denying. It’s neither a temporal nor an eternal place of conscious torment.
Not in my view. In my view there is no eternal everlasting place of torment.
I don’t think people have to “pay for” their sins after death. I don’t see how they could. I’d be very interested in any scripture someone might present about the Christian message involving people paying for their sins. That’s what Christ did.
Satan, if he ever existed as a literal creature, no longer exists. He was cast into the lake of fire. 😉 Along with Death. And Hell. Something keiths probably forgot about.
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
“And when their lies ain’t the same as your lies… I ain’t gonna hurt no woman. But I’m gonna hurt you. Not gentle like before… …but bad.”
Now who am I?
Good for you, NewMung! You actually revealed some of your views on hell.
OldMung pretending to be tough.
So with no hell, what happens to bad people after death?
Thanks, Mung.
Little Bill.
ETA: No Google involved.
Yay! Mung answers a question.
And I thank you as well.
My position is that you either have eternal life or you do not. If you do not have eternal life then the end of your physical life is the end of the only kind of life you’ve ever had or ever will have. I reject the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. (Another reason I reject the traditional doctrine of hell.)
Christianity offers another kind of life. Spiritual life. The kind of life that God has. Only people who have this sort of life have any hope of life after physical death.
Best news of all. It’s free.
LoL.
This is what Elizabeth is referring to concerning language about God:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataphatic_theology
Thanks for the detailed reply. This puts you at odds with most Christians, I think. And the bible also ?
Rich, to Mung:
Yes to both.
I’ll provide more verses later, but for now let me address this statement of Mung’s:
Good job, Mung. You just quotemined the Bible.
Only four verses earlier it says:
Oops.
Mung, do you read the Bible?
Thanks for the question. Contrary to the portrait keiths is attempting to paint, I am not afraid to discuss my beliefs or how I came to have them.
If that is so, then I’m sure keiths will be quick to let us all know. 🙂
Have you noticed that he never set out the case for hell that he’s critical of?
I don’t just read it, I study it.
Is it your position that “the lake of fire” is hell? If so, how is it that hell is thrown into the lake of fire?
Also, I’ve already explained why I don’t think the language is of a literal lake of fire. Your response is that the language should be interpreted literally, but you give no reason at all why anyone should think your interpretation is correct.
There are many Christians that believe what Mung espouses. I am pretty much one. Some have argued that eternal torment actually was a later addition by other Greek and Latin influences. Greg Boyd has a pretty good book exploring the doctrine of hell.
Mung,
You say that Satan no longer exists, if he ever did.
The Bible says that he exists and is being tormented forever.
Who is wrong — you, the Bible, or both?
Hey, thanks! I had no idea.
What about Matthew 7, 1:3?
And that’s the trouble. You might have 100 reasons and yet you still won’t know if any given interpretation is correct.
It seems purposeful because I keep putting voice to the woolly apostasy you demonstrate at TAZ (which is behind why the site exists in the first place!). Again, do you now take back what you said to me as a rule violation since you have used your full name here yourself, as have others, or not? If not, then we should expect you to correct everyone else, even your ‘allies’ at TAZ, next time they do it. (And to be fair, then you should change your ‘About’ page: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/sample-page/ and erase the 885 hits on TAZ with your name in them!)
In regard to my religious beliefs, yes, I have them and have said this specifically before on TAZ. This is a horribly biased place (Mung just jokingly referred to it as a kind of ‘hell’, with which I’d agree) to discuss sincere and heartfelt religious beliefs, i.e. with rabid atheists AND aggressive anti-theists in abundance, e.g. like keiths, OMagain, Richardthughes, hotshoe, walto, Niels Rickert, et al. Forgive me if you think this is a welcome or friendly place for theists (other than Steve Schaffner); it’s not.
Yes, you are quite a different dialogue partner than they are, Lizzie, and I find you much more sensitive, introspective and not angrily anti-theistic. Yet skeptics and cynics; that’s the company you seem to want to keep (or at least, have invited to your ‘side’) in your apostasy. I come here (less and less often lately) mainly because you’ve positioned TAZ well against IDism (e.g. probabilistic rejection of CSI), who we commonly oppose even if for different reasons.
Do you see what I mean, Lizzie? You don’t really seem to know what you believe now in your apostasy. This comes across as rather obvious to a man of faith trained in philosophy. Likewise it seems that you are searching for something meaningful and coherent to replace the Catholic Christianity that you abandoned in recent years (spurred by reading an atheist ‘oracle’ in Daniel Dennett!).
What/who gives reality grace, enchantment and life? Is it just you yourself holding that as a ‘perspective’?
Why do you support ID?
Obviously I believe you are wrong. First, you’re pretending like you are not offering an interpretation, but you are. My interpretation conflicts with yours, and you have no argument for why yours is correct and mine is not other than “the bible sez so.”
Makes me laugh. I do love irony.
Mung,
You say this:
The Bible says this:
Who is wrong — you, the Bible, or both?
I think it’s a great proof-text for people who don’t want to be judged or want to paint Christians as hypocrites if they do judge. 🙂
Don’t you find Jesus’s own language to be quite judgmental?
Jesus judged. Paul judged. There’s far more in the New Testament on judging than what is found in that one verse.
Do you have an argument keiths? Why do you believe your interpretation is correct and mine is wrong?