I'm zero percent here to evangelize, cause I'm zero percent religious. Just sharing the theology.
Satan doesn't torture people. Hell is not fire and brimstone. It is the absence of God, which is supposedly the worst torture possible. And it's "fair" because the people in hell chose to not be with god.
Scare quotes because that is a million miles from informed consent. Just sharing the traditional theology.
I'm also not religious now, but this is one interpretation of hell. Many Christians do believe in a literal fire and brimstone hell where people burn for all eternity. Many of them also believe that hell is a punishment from God, not merely his absence. That idea has been adopted by many modern Christians who are trying to figure out how a good God could punish someone eternally, and since there's not a good answer to that question the answer becomes that the person in hell chose it and God simply allowed them to do so
And Satan doesn't torture people in that version either (except for the three dudes he's chewing on), he's at the bottom of it being the most tortured of all.
That thing had more self inserts than a Tumblr fanfic! Every single person Dante admired thought he was the coolest thing in the world.
I don’t know how many of his heroes ended up in heaven - I never made it past Purgatory - but I did like the idea that all the writers and artists of his day were beyond redemption, which is why they were so awesome.
It’s kinda like how people think that Christians think Jesus is white because they’re dumb racists. It’s more like most of the images of Jesus everyone is familiar with that’s been around so long that it’s just the objective representation of him was created in a time when visual art was very important and white washing people was the norm. I think most people are probably reasonable enough to realize Jesus was pretty brown if they were pressed, but that’s not gonna change the image in their head.
Also every region makes an art of a version of Jesus in their image. My dad would visit churches to preach, i've seen Korean Jesus, Japanese Jesus, Black Jesus, etc.
I'm responding to the assertion that "this is one interpretation" by tracing its creation to a poet 1300 years after the fact. The original belief is now just one interpretation based on a poem.
Are you saying hell as a place of torment was invented by Dante? Because that's objectively false. Hell was always seen both as the absence of God AND a place of literal torment. I mean, even some of the punishments in the inferno come from early christian texts, such as murderers being thrown into pits of venomous reptiles or blasphemers hanging by their tongue over a fire. Dante didn't invent that shit.
Many elements that people believe about hell come from dante but not the fire and torment. That's mostly from revelation and some of what Jesus said. Revelation talks about the lake of fire, Jesus talked about the weeping and gnashing of teeth etc.
The fire and punishment isn’t Dante’s invention. He invented specific punishments and the 9 circles of hell (many of which were completely free of fire) and whatnot. A lot of it is fan fiction, but fire and pain is bible canon.
The fire and gnashing of teeth bit which refers to a place translated as “hell” in some Bibles, was actually a real place on Earth. It’s Gehenna or Gehinnom, a valley that exists outside of the old city of Jerusalem. Some scholars believe it could be a place where child fire sacrifice to an idol God took place (which makes it wicked), or a literal trash pit that was perpetually on fire where wild dogs would eat your corpse or your body would be cremated in the fire (something forbidden in Jewish law).
Regardless of its historical origin, it has always been referred to in the Torah as a literal place on Earth. The KJV Bible translated multiple terms into “hell” including Sheol, Tartarus, Hades, Gehenna, etc. This translation was incorrect and serves to illustrate a narrative which is not consistent with the source material.
Every single "God will punish" element in a theology diminishes that God in my view. What kind of small minded God needs to punish, smite, test Jobe? How petty would an all seeing, all powerful God have to be to play at all that?
In my view, that is the God of people who were abused by their parents as children.
The simple answer is maybe He needed to do those things so Jobe would become the person he needed him to be to fulfill his purpose.
A way to look at it is to think of the MCU/Multiverse. In one universe, Mary Jane leaves Peter Parker, which leads him to become a version of Spiderman that was meant to do the things he did. In another, they stay happily married but some sort of awful thing happened as a result of that choice. Maybe the test of Mary Jane wasnt meant to be a test or punishment, it was meant to allow something else to occur that was needed to inspire people. In the case of Religion, to inspire them to be better versions of themselves, or to inspire others to be better.
Obviously its impossible to know "the plan" in this universe, so our choices feel like we have control. But the events we experience shape us to be something for God.
This is why the issue of "Fate" vs "Self Determination". In one way, we have control. In another, God expected/knew how it would end and is guiding each of us.
Basically, seeing all bad things as "punishment" and all good things as "rewards" is a very simple way to look at it. And goes against most Christian theology.
A bit of a rabbit hole, obviously. But the short answer is "its not as simple as reward/punishment".
The amount of things that God "needs" is 0, because he's omnipotent. There's no scenario where God couldn't achieve his objective without allowing Job to be tortured, unless Job being tortured is specifically part of that objective.
You are discounting the idea that he wants/needs us to learn from Him and that there are effective ways to teach us and ineffective ways.
Im sure you could counter with 'well he can just incept these thoughts into our brains" but then He has taken away any amount of free will as well, and that also causes certain 2nd order assertions.
There is an abundance of people saying "if hes just Omnipotent, he can just do XYZ" and not understanding that its not about forcing the world or people to do something specific or be some specific way. Sure, that could be done, but then you would also have to assert that our lives have 0 meaning at all in the face of an omnipotent being. Which would also be true if there is no God, because then it is all truely random and meaningless.
Which leads to the 3rd possibility, that there is a greater meaning. While we may not understand that meaning (as we are not omnipotent) perhaps we don't need to understand it. And I think that the idea of a greater meaning implies a higher power, since true chaos would implicitly mean no guiding principle, God or otherwise.
As I said in my previous post there are thousands of years of Theology around this. And if you are willing to accept that other religions also have similar theology and philosophy behind their religions and that its not all as simple as "hurr just make it so hurr", then I think you will see what i mean.
You are welcome to your opinion, for sure. I have also struggled with the idea of a God before and also said things like this before. But if you look into it and consider what it would mean for a little while I would expect you may change your mind.
Perhaps the purpose of the Job story is precisely to inspire this kind of discourse? Where we are both examining and re-examining it both from a believer and non-believer perspective? hmmm.... ^_^
You are discounting the idea that he wants/needs us to learn from Him and that there are effective ways to teach us and ineffective ways.
And therein you limit your God, supposing that the only way he can teach His lessons is through pain and cruelty.
There are a lot of limited parents in the history of the world, the ones which have had their own lives in order tend to torture their children less. And that rabbit hole leads to spoiled children, another limitation of parents who at least don't torture their children, but lack the time and attention (and caring) to prevent spoilage.
I actually dont think it limiting at all. I think that God also gives us many gifts like hope, love, happiness, etc. as a way to teach us as well. I think a lot of people only focus on the bad things and not on the things that many believers would say are blessings. But the good things have less meaning without the suffering parts. If all we ever had were positive things, I think that youd agree that would create spoiled children as well, and much more easily. Those children would also not understand the weight or take the lessons to heart since "do good thing -> get rewarded" would be a mentality at that point.
"You will find that if you look for the light, you can often find it. But if you look for the dark, that is all you will ever see." springs to mind.
Obviously God isnt limited, at least in to any way we could understand. But that doesnt mean that suffering isnt occasionally the best way to teach something, even if we as humans dont like that as an answer, or would prefer another. Especially as an opposition to the more positive ways He might teach us.
So in a way the suffering, pain, and occasional "cruel" bits are blessing as well. People just dont like to think of them that way.
I was blessed to be divorced, go through tons of pain and annoyance with my ex over kids, etc. because I am now afforded the ability to appreciate my life as it is now. That suffering had purpose, I just couldnt understand or admit it in those moments. I think many people have similar experiences. Every person I have known has prepared me for who I am now, and I like to think that is a better person than I was even only days ago.
In any case, I dont hope to convince you. Just hope that maybe youd consider the possibility that a God who may occasionally does things unfairly (by our arbitrary standards) may also have a purpose.
Just because they believe that part doesnt make it true. Denominations believe different things, ask some questions to a Southern Baptist and a Methodist, and there's disagreements.
Yeah I never said any of it was true and said "many Christians believe" multiple times. I'm well aware that Christians don't all agree. I don't believe any of it is true.
Maybe, maybe not. Thats the point of faith. If its true, believers get heaven, and sinners dont. If not, then it doesnt matter, and Christians (not the crazy "your kid goes to gay camp and you cant drink") have tried to live to a higher standard.
Again that’s also not true. Following religion does not equate to higher standard. It’s quite easy to argue that evangelists of religion cause much more chaos than a non believer. The suffering and pain Christianity and its followers have caused humanity should not be understated. But unfortunately because Christian’s believe what they’re doing is right, it’s a lost cause to reason. Sad all around
I mean, not to be a Christian apologist here (the crusades sucked) but that’s historically false.
People when in power try to take away other people’s rights and protect their own. That’s the norm for our entire species, instinct bred into us on an evolutionary level it seems because it happens everywhere, all the time, for everyone.
Christians actually put a stop to a lot of the worst practices of human rights abuses throughout history, disproportionately compared to other faiths and mythos (since the creation of their ideology at least). Yeah, clearly crap tons of them didn’t just like every other group in history, but also, crap tons of them did.
Also, if you’re boiling all of that very broad statement down to a small window in history, referring to American or British politics in the brief two centuries of history in which the USA has existed, it should probably be noted that all but two US presidents and seven Prime ministers have been Christians. Also, most were merely speculated to be agnostic or non-religious due to a lack of any public affiliation with any specific Christian church, and of the few who were openly agnostic or atheist they all describe themselves as valuing Christian morality, just not the religious dogma.
Don’t get me wrong, there are wack-jobs aplenty in history (and currently), but stating that whenever Christians are in power they do everything they can to take people’s rights away is genuinely laughable, considering we are conversing in open discourse criticizing them with rights we only have because of them. Western law and rights are literally founded on Judeo-Christian values and beliefs.
We don’t have to agree with them, but that doesn’t mean we need to villainize them.
Dude...the Christians in the US government are currently trying to: Control womens reproductive health, Ban books they don't agree with, forcing schools to display the 10 commandments, trying to remove anything related to LGBTQ, blurring the line between church and state, banning pornography. The list goes on and on brother, Christians have been trying to take away my rights for the past 30+ years I have been alive. So yeah, I am absolutely going to villainize a group that would view me as an immoral villain in their eyes.
Edit: Aslo this:
Western law and rights are literally founded on Judeo-Christian values and beliefs.
is the same shit people use to justify that the USA is a christian nation. You can say it with me, THE UNITED STATES WAS NOT FOUNDED NOR EVER INTENDED TO BE A CHRISTIAN NATION.
I don't believe that what Christians follow is a higher (implying better) standard.
Most of the "better" standards are inserted interpretations that are adapted humanist ideals.
And I'd wager most of those interpretations were developed from the cognitive dissonance between what people felt were good motives compared to what was actually written in the Bible.
Yeah, no. If your specific denomination is true, your niche number of believers get Heaven while everyone else gets endlessly tortured.
If someone else's denomination, religion, or other theistic belief is true, you get endlessly tortured - and there's an awful lot more denominations and religions than there are of yours. The odds are severely against you.
That's the problem theists never seem to realise: you're not risking Heaven or Nothing, you're risking Heaven or Hell or Hell or Hell or hell or Hell - and somewhere around the millionth Hell you finally get Nothing. That's why that theistic apologetic doesn't work for people considering it rationally.
It's almost like none of it is true when you take the original word and warp it into your own denomination because it doesn't align with your personal bigotry (Southern Baptists for example)
I mean even the Bible was doing that to the Bible.
Jesus doesn't fulfill any of the Messianic prophecies, so both Jesus and the other gospel 'authors' start inserting references to things they call prophecies but were just blunt descriptions of things that already happened.
And say that he fulfilled the prophecy that actually matters by... not even remotely fulfilling the prophecy in the slightest but he super will, you guys, I swear he will. Just you wait.
Then you've got Islam which does the same thing only to Christianity and, well, yeah.
Judaism itself was based on myths from an old air/war god, IIRC.
Honestly religion in general is just sort of a mess of cherry picking and pretending you don't see problems so that it fits what you already wanted to believe.
As many atheists have recommended: read your holy book. It'll deconvert (or 'deconstruct') you faster than any atheist could possibly dream of.
That said it was hilarious learning that Seminary actually has therapist-priests trained and on-hand whose job is to comfort, reassure, and convince would-be ministers who read the Bible and start deconverting to remain in the faith. I feel like if learning your religious text causes you to lose your faith with such regularity that you need a dedicated pair of employees to handle it that's probably a good sign as to the veracity of your religion.
My main gripe is that if God is all knowing, beginning and end then he created hell, sin, and knew every person that would end up in hell before Adam and Eve sinned. The people who end up in hell do it on no fault of their own. Free will cannot exist with the presence of an all knowing creator. He is either all knowing, all powerful, and not all good - or he is not all powerful and therefore not a god I care to worship. Either way evil god or weak god are not one that I care to align with
I’ll offer a very condensed view from a Wesleyan perspective. Hell can be understood as ultimately being separated from God, while grace is God’s undeserved love and action toward us. His grace comes first, drawing and enabling us to respond to Him; this is called “prevenient grace.” We can accept or resist that grace, so God does not coerce us into a relationship with Him. Turning away from God and acting contrary to His will is sin. God’s knowing our choices beforehand doesn’t necessarily mean He causes those choices; foreknowledge is not the same as coercion.
I wouldn't need prevenient grace form an all powerful and all knowing God who is just and fair because he wouldn't have created sin in the first place. "God doesn't force anyone into a relationship with Him." Before God creates you, he knows every action and thought you will ever make before you are concieved, therefore freewill cannot exist meaning he DOES force you into a relationship with him. If this isn't true then he is not all knowing. "God's knowing our choices beforehand doesn't necessarily mean he causes those choices." That is an oxymoron since he creates the person who creates the choices, and in his minds eye created that person before Adam and Eve. God would have known before Adam that child rape and genocide would come from it. It was a direct cause and affect that he chose to go through with.
It cannot be chosen if it is already known. If it is written in ink then how can I as a person erase it as if it were pencil and rewrite the will and foreknowledge of God
If you were going to create a sentient being, and you knew that this sentient being was going to choose to spend eternity in anguish, would you still create it? I wouldn't. No rational, moral being would
The Wesleyan distinction is that knowing someone’s choice is not the same as causing or desiring that choice. It’s also important not to assume that “eternity in anguish” is a settled description of Hell. Scripture and Christian traditions describe judgment and separation from God, but the precise nature and experience of that separation are debated. Are we talking about conscious, eternal anguish, or the soul’s separation from its Creator and how that impacts the soul? We don’t know that simply from saying someone is “separated from God.” So the argument assumes a particular understanding of Hell that isn’t necessarily established by the Wesleyan position.
Right but I never said God caused the choice. I'm saying it doesn't matter if he made me choose it. If he knew I would choose it he's just as culpable for whatever pain that causes me. I know some believe that at any time someone in "hell" or separated from God can change their mind and be welcomed by God, even after they're dead. I also know many believe that eventually all things will be redeemed as Paul said.
If that's the case I can see God creating us knowing the pain would eventually end and eternal bliss would follow, that is different but I still question the ethics of creating a being that's going to be in pain if it chooses to leave, but still giving it the option to leave
Eternity even in heaven would be the worst torture I can imagine for a sentient being. I imagine itll be cool for a few hundred years what about 1000, gonna be bored in 20,000 years? Yeah try 200,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000²⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰⁰ in paradise? And that's only a blink on an eye if we are talking about infinite time
That’s where I think we start getting into mystery, which is also accepted in Wesleyan theology. We can try to reason through it and understand how God’s foreknowledge, human freedom, grace, and judgment fit together, but ultimately none of us knows the exact workings of our Creator. We can explore what Scripture and theology have to say about these things, but there are limits to what we can confidently claim to understand about how they ultimately fit together.
Nobody knows if those choosing separation from God means they’ll be in eternal conscious pain or anguish. Some interpret “Eternal punishment” as an eternal consequence rather than an eternity of experiencing punishment. Jesus uses the language of people who “perish” rather than receiving eternal life, and Matthew 10:28 speaks of God being able to “destroy both soul and body in hell.” Paul likewise describes the consequence as “eternal destruction” in 2 Thessalonians. That could support the understanding that separation from God ultimately means the end of existence rather than eternal conscious torment.
That’s the Minority Report problem: arresting someone for a crime they didn’t actually commit. Is it just to not give that being a choice even if you know they’re going to pick the wrong one?
Then what about the beings that do choose eternal joy instead? One could say it would be injustice to allow one and not the other. It would be a fundamental imbalance that makes the whole exercise of free will pointless.
Framed another way, you could say that not even allowing the existence of the being that makes the wrong choice is a pre-punishment for the choice they don’t even get to make. That would be unjust
The exercise of free will IS pointless given the choices. Turn or burn is not free will. If I put a gun to your head and tell you to give me all your money, is that me giving you free will?
That’s not how that works. Just because the end result of 2 choices are desirable vs undesirable doesn’t mean that you still don’t have a choice. You have the choice to jump off a cliff or not. Just because you prefer one option doesn’t stop it from being a choice.
And yes, your mugging situation is still a choice.
“Choice” doesn’t mean your options are equally desirable…it just means you can pick one.
In a world of spontaneity and verifiable quantum mechanics, free will does indeed exist. Even in the presence of an "all knowing god." There is no reason to believe everything is predetermined just because there is a higher power. Free will and possibilities are the only reason "good" and "bad" can exist in the first place. But there is no all-seeing judge in the clouds. God is simply universal conciousness living in everything and everyone. Love thy neighbor as you love thyself. We are water droplets, God is the ocean. Real sin is harming yourself or others.
But foreknowledge IS coercion if this god creates every human being. Creating a person while already knowing that this person will reject this particular (or any) god means this god creates people he KNOWS will go to hell. Does he have the power to create the person differently? He must, if he's all-powerful. So why doesn't he? If I write a book and create characters for it, and know everything about these characters, including every decision they will ever make in their lives, could I change what they do on page 6? Page 85? Page 340? Of course I could. Can those characters choose to do something I don't want them to? Of course not.
An author doesn’t merely know what fictional characters will do, the author determines everything they do, and the characters have no independent will. That’s fundamentally different from foreknowledge. God knowing what a person will freely choose doesn’t mean He determines that choice. Free-will means the choice comes from the person’s own reasons and desires, not that God has to be ignorant of it beforehand. So “God created me knowing what I’d do” doesn’t establish “God made me do it” and even creating someone while knowing exactly how they’ll choose isn’t coercion. Coercion means forcing someone to act against their will. The harder question is why God would create someone He knows will reject Him or suffer the consequences, but that concerns God’s reasons for creating them, not whether He coerced their choices.
I'm not particularly religious, but my interpretation has always been that free will is God placing an intentional limit on Himself. Meaning He may know every decision you could make, possibly even the one you will most likely make, but chooses to guarantee you the true freedom to make it yourself.
Of course, there are plenty of Christian sects that believe in predestined paths though. You still have to walk the path yourself, but God would know every step you would chose to take from the moment of creation.
Also keep in mind, some physicists and such believe there is no free will for broadly similar reasons. That every event that would happen in the universe happens because of physical laws that with perfect knowledge could be calculated from the beginning to the end of time (with some probabalistic wiggle room depending on how exactly quantum mechanics truly works).
I believe that many Christians believe that, but it is not what their churches generally teach. It's a fair point that there is a distinction between dogma and individual belief, and both are meaningful.
Like, for another example, I've known many Christians who believe that God reveals himself to everyone before death, so that they have good reason to believe in God and accept grace. And there are some churches that back this belief, but it's uncommon. Personally I find it pretty weird for someone to belong to an organized religion but also feel comfortable making up their own theology, but I guess whatever helps you sleep at night.
I'm not sure where you're from, but I'm from the southern United States and this is a very common theology taught in churches here. Not all of them, but still plenty. My dad is a pastor and I grew up in southern Baptist churches. I'm also pretty familiar with assembly of God beliefs. I eventually got a degree in theology myself before leaving the church. Southern Baptist and assembly of God churches make up a huge portion of the churches in the areas I grew up in, and most of them teach that the fire is real and people burn forever.
I'm sure how common this is depends on where you are, but where I am it's still very common
Not a Christian, but to add to this, the Orthodox believe that we all return to God upon death. For the righteous, this is blissful. For the wicked, it feels like hell.
I like this interpretation because it preserves the "free will" Christians like to talk about, while also preventing God from being a vengeful entity who sentences people to eternal torment.
How would that be an issue in the first place though? People who use their “free will” to do evil are then punished accordingly. The framing implies that having someone face the consequences of their choice is somehow bad, so the judge that sentences the criminal is wrong.
If evil goes unpunished then it wouldn’t be just for good to get rewarded either. Each must have distinct consequences or there would be no distinction between righteousness and wickedness in the first place.
Most Christian groups teach that we deserve hell for being less than gods perfection. Basically if I steal a candy bar, I'm now deserving of burning in hell for eternity. You're calling that justice? If God were punishing each person according to their particular sin, and that punishment ended with reconciliation, then I might agree with you, and there are Christians who believe that will happen, but otherwise I don't know how you can call that kind of severity justice.
Does being evil just stop at stealing a candy bar? If you do evil everyday (eternity) do you not expect the consequences to also be eternal? That’s the rub at the end of the day.
The issue is by choosing evil you choose not to reconcile with God. God gives man the choice to choose to accept his grace to cover his sins or choose to keep on embracing sin. It’s the latter that ends with Hell.
You’re simply given a choice before final judgement: choose good for eternity or choose to stay in darkness for eternity.
If one chooses the latter then they face the consequences of that choice
You've clearly had too much of the kool aid to see how illogical your position is.
I can't steal a candy bar every day for eternity because I'll be in hell for the vast majority of it. Even if I stole a candy bar every day for the 85 years I'm on this earth, should that result in an eternal punishment? You're making no sense and you know it, but the defense mechanism to not question your beliefs keeps you going.
It's not my religion, and I personally doubt there is a God.
I don't have a problem with punishment or consequences, but eternity is a pretty brutal price for 70-90 years of evil behavior.
Most religious traditions at least attempt to balance justice and mercy, but this belief in an eternal hell & separation from God throws mercy completely out the window. I don't think it's justice either, because the punishment doesn't fit the crime.
Humans are temporal, ignorant creatures. Eternity as reward/punishment shouldn't even be in discussion from my pov.
The Great White Throne judgment, detailed in the Book of Revelation, serves as the final courtroom scene of human history where all the spiritually dead stand before God to face eternal accountability. The somber reality of this verdict is vividly illuminated by Jesus’s stark warnings in the Gospels, which use the unforgettable imagery of unquenchable fire, an undying worm, and outer darkness to convey absolute ruin and separation from God. Together, these elements form a unified biblical picture of final judgment, where those whose names are absent from the Book of Life experience the ultimate anguish, deep regret, and sorrow represented by the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
While many absolutely believe that, there is a difference between theology and beliefs at play here. Believes are just that. Theology is studying those believes, generally by making some a priori assumptions about the supernatural, and then logically working from there to incorporates all those assumptions as best as possible into a workable model.
What you're describing is systematic theology, but I don't really understand what that has to do with what I said. Webster defines theology as a study of religion, or a set of religious beliefs.
Regardless, plenty of modern day churches have literal torment in hell as part of their systematic theology. For an example you can read the Baptist faith and message.
When you consider that perfection is the standard for eternity with God, you quickly realize the answer to the question you mentioned. Everyone fails the test.
Sorry, I probably wasn't clear enough. I didn't mean that it was a modern invention, just that many modern Christians are now adopting it when that wasn't the norm 50 years ago. At least not where I live
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u/onioning 7h ago
I'm zero percent here to evangelize, cause I'm zero percent religious. Just sharing the theology.
Satan doesn't torture people. Hell is not fire and brimstone. It is the absence of God, which is supposedly the worst torture possible. And it's "fair" because the people in hell chose to not be with god.
Scare quotes because that is a million miles from informed consent. Just sharing the traditional theology.