Hitchens and mortality... - by jtr7
Harvester on 9/8/2010 at 16:08
Quote Posted by DDL
Think of it as analogous to striking for better pay/working conditions. "Your creation is a bit shit, and your rules are fucking stupid. More carrot, less stick. Improve, or I shall continue to reject you, fuckface."
His rules are fucking stupid? Really? When it comes to the rules that Christians today have to follow (i.e. not all the Old Testament laws like stoning prostitutes and not eating certain animals), for the majority of them I can at least see the validity of those rules and recognize that they are good for people. I mean, I can understand someone asking questions like
"Why can't I have sex with my girlfriend until I'm married when we both love each other? What's the harm in that?" but for some atheists (I'm not accusing you or other people in this thread of it, but they exist) it seems to be more something like
"God's rules are stupid because He does not allow me to do some of the things I really want to do, and He does not deserve my worship because He doesn't give me every single thing I want, whenever I want it. I want all of the benefits without any of the obligations, and a God who does not behave exactly like I want Him to is not worth following."DDL on 9/8/2010 at 16:21
I was thinking more along the lines of "punishment == eternity in hell".
I mean, fuck: we save actual life in prison for the most severe crimes, and that's just the rest of your life locked up in a building.
Compare that to fucking BURNING FOREVER for fairly minor infractions....
Epos Nix on 9/8/2010 at 17:30
Quote:
Compare that to fucking BURNING FOREVER for fairly minor infractions
From what I gather (and mind you, I ponder these issues the same way I think about the Dungeons and Dragons' pantheon story lines) God doesn't so much send you to Hell but rather doesn't or can't intervene as your spirit drifts there due to a lack of connection between you and He.
Of course, in other faiths, like Buddhism, Hell isn't even a permanent arrangement. You are there till some part of you "wakes up" to your own misdeeds, at which point you gain just enough positive influence to leave. In both cases though the fault typically falls on the person themselves rather than someone doing the "sending".
DDL on 9/8/2010 at 17:49
Quote Posted by Epos Nix
In both cases though the fault typically falls on the person themselves rather than someone doing the "sending".
....in a system created by an all-powerful being to do exactly that. If you're holding a god responsible for all creation, you have to hold that god responsible for ALL creation. Including the bits where you apparently get tortured to shit 'because it's your fault'.
If god is all powerful, it is clearly possible for it to build a creation where this does not occur. Apparently this occurs, ergo god is an asshole.
Most religions inherently work around some sort of "if you die, and you've been bad, then punishment forever/for a looong time" system, because it keeps people in line very effectively. This doesn't change the fact that if god or gods were real, this would be a shitty thing to do to people.
Brian The Dog on 9/8/2010 at 17:55
Our concept of what is meant by hell is unclear anyway, the word for hell (Gehenna) is the name of the local incinerator in 1st-century Jerusalem, and contemporaries of Jesus would have thought of hell as an event rather than a place. Hell = being cut off from God, and since God gave breath to humans in Genesis, you would be effectively cut off from life. So the thinking goes, anyway.
Meanings of words and concepts get changed with time, the other obvious one being purgatory.
Anyway, good luck to Hitchens, hope he gets better.
Edit - DDL, I'm no expert, but I think in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the world was meant to be made perfect and then the angels rebelled, and took humanity with them (i.e. Adam and Eve) via free will. Creating a world which which had no evil would be easy enough, but would not have the choice for people to mess it up, so you'd have to change how much free will the "people" would have. Of course, you're right - having a religion that says "Believe us or you'll burn in hell!" is a good way of controlling people :)
DDL on 9/8/2010 at 18:38
I thought the fall happened before mankind even really got on the scene, but I could be reading too much Neil Gaiman...
Anyway, "free will, but this is how you do it, or you get the PAIN MONSTER" is a pretty shitty kind of free will, I think we can all agree?
Brian The Dog on 9/8/2010 at 19:45
Possibly, but that's the situation we find ourselves in with or without religion - some things in life we have free will over and they make no difference (vanilla or chocolate ice-cream), but some (stab myself in arm or not stab myself in arm) do cause pain if we choose to do them, either to us, or to others. Sorry to take such stupid examples, but they get the point across. Hmm, religion might be a way of getting people who have negligible empathy (such as the people who do the majority of murders) to understand the pain of their actions.
Judaism has the angels falling on the 3rd or 4th day, so yes, before humanity comes along (can't remember too much from my RE classes), but I was referring to Eve being tempted by the devil in Eden.
DDL on 9/8/2010 at 22:13
Ah, but for SOME things it's the same +/- religion...for other actions, decidedly not so.
Eating pork, for instance, is for me an entirely hellfire-consequence-free (and tasty) action. For devout jews and muslims? Less so.
Sure, a lot of religious texts seem to read like rulebooks for "how to not get dysentery in primitive times", and indeed they are very much that. But if you're viewing them that way, you're already accepting that they're more of a 'suitable method for the time, now desperately outmoded', rather than the timeless ruleset of an all powerful (and a bit weird) god.
Aw shit, this is totally a religion thread now. :erg:
SD on 10/8/2010 at 01:33
Quote Posted by DDL
Aw shit, this is totally a religion thread now. :erg:
It's what Hitch would have wanted :angel:
Also, for me to celebrate Ramadan tomorrow by gorging and drinking myself silly.
