In this episode of Drunk Ex-Pastors, Jason, in various forms and sundry ways, suffers abuse and scorn from Christian, his irritable co-host (causing Jason to wonder, for perhaps the first time in his life, whether he is this much of a jerk when he’s in a bad mood, which is quite often). Useless self-reflection aside, the discussion begins with the moral ramifications, if any, of actions committed in a virtual-reality world, and then turns to the abject hatred that President Obama displayed toward Christianity during his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast for the 1% of the time he wasn’t praising Christianity. The DXPs then tackle a couple listeners’ questions about whether true love necessitates free will, causing Christian to moan and complain, not about hell this time, but about heaven and how bored he will be if he ends up there (as if). He then reflects on how biebered he is by the idea of the actions of one believer “stumbling” another, while Jason’s bieber involves the needlessly complex configuration of USB plugs.
Also, did we mention how mean Christian is to Jason in this episode? How angry he is at the world? OK, just checking…
Podcast #256: Prayer, Confession, and Lots o’ Shots
Podcast #367: Near-Sightedness, Boobs, and Existential Crises
Podcast #381: 2021: Depression, Mid-Life Crises, and Impending Death
Podcast #380: 2021: A Look Back
I think the reason why your listeners have issues with time management when leaving voicemails is because they’ve been doing some pre-drinking before listening to the podcast.
That’s weird because we don’t have that problem at all. 😉
I swear it’s like comraderead gets an early release or something. But thankfully I did get around to listening to the latest ep this morning while exercising. Couple things…
1. Oculus Rift is owned by Facebook (purchased for $2B).
2. The newest revision of the USB standard has a type-c connector which would solve Jason’s bieber: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/01/usb-3-1-and-type-c-the-only-stuff-at-ces-that-everyone-is-going-to-use/
3. Next week you guys should place dice (to really piss off conservative nuts) to see who does the shots.
4. There was something else I was going to say but I forget.
I think it’s sort of easy for us to say that the fall and redemption of mankind is a good story because we are 21st century white Americans.
We’ve never had to watch our children starve to death.
We’ve never had our homes burned to the ground and watched our friends and neighbors gunned down by rival religious sects, ethnicities, or political groups.
We’ve never been kidnapped from our homes and herded into a cramped sailing ship and hauled thousands of miles away to be sold, then whipped, beaten, or divided further from whatever family and friends you make or had to watch as your wife and children are sold and taken away.
We’ve never lived in a trench under constant artillery fire, where sticking your head above the trench meant death. Never seen someone claw out their own throat in desperation as poison gas filled their lungs with fluid. Never seen a man sink slowly into the mud over the course of hours to drown, unable to help him lest we be pulled down too. Never had to listen to the cry of a wounded man begging for rescue or death as he lie in an artillery crater full of rancid and toxic water.
We’ve never seen the inside of a functional concentration camp. Never had to huddle with our children in a subway station as bombs fell on our city. Never seen our homes and towns burned to the ground. Never been lost at sea after our ship was sunk, waiting and watching as the sharks took our comrades. We’ve never been at ground zero in an atomic blast.
We’ve never been trafficked for sex with strangers for money. Never had drug cartels kill our family and threaten to kill us unless we join. Never watched women and children beaten to death in a church by our former neighbors. Never lost a brother to a drive by shooting.
I’ve never had (and I pray to God with all my being that I never will) to hold the hand of my dying child.
It’s pretty easy for us to say from our own vantage point that the story of mankind is a good story.
I don’t think it would be as easy for me to say it if I had lived a different life.
Now maybe eternity will be so blissful that all past wounds will be healed and all atrocities will be forgotten. But if that is the case, it makes me want to ask the author of the story why we bothered putting folks through all that in the first place if it was just going to be wiped away and forgotten.
Hi guys, my podcast bffs,
I miss the days when I was behind on the podcasts and could power through 3 or 4 in a day. 90 minutes a week is greatly appreciated. Imagine how ecstatic we’d be if you did more. I’m even in favor of you just making every podcast 2 hours long. So, that’s my vote.
Comrade, I couldn’t agree more. I think we’re brought up (at least I was) thinking that all of history was just object lessons to teach us how to live. All of the atrocities in the Old Testament are sermon illustrations. Etc. When the genocide of a people is explained to you in terms of being something God commanded and then being told what the “spiritual” lesson in your life from it should be, I think it tends to harden your conscience towards these things that happened to real people. As real as any of us.
Hi Susan! Thank you! We definitely want to do something more, and hopefully will be able to soon!
As someone rapidly approaching the twilight of his life (it all goes downhill after 30 right?), I would rather have multiple shorter podcasts than one long podcast or have clearer delineation between the different segments so that I won’t have to rewind because I’ve forgotten what you guys were discussing.
1. The crusades were bad ass. Coolest wars in history besides the second world war. Epic awesomeness.
2. How did apple fall so far behind? Facebook gets occulus. Microsoft has these rad new halo lenses…… Apple comes out with a freakin “iwatch”. Steve Jobs is rolling over in his grave.
3. @ Comerad, the vast majority of Christians in history DID go through all of those things and still thought the story as a whole was “good”. So…. there goes your whole argument in one sentence. How is that for brevity 🙂
4. The agnostics and atheists are loading the dice in the heaven/suffering/hell question. The presupposition that this isn’t the best possible world that God could have actualized with free will and an eternal heaven needs to be shown. You can’t just say “well there just had to be a better way”. How do you know? That Is impossible for anyone to prove. God does not owe creatures veto power in His sovereign plan. Easy peasy.
I’ve been thinking about the problem of evil objection a bit since we played the clip by that homosexual atheist Stephen Fry (!).
What if “bone cancer in children” (his example) is the result of our modern technology, which shoots our bodies with millions of invisible and probably cancerous rays via cell phone towers, ubiquitous wifi networks, remote controls, and other electronic devices? IOW, what if God didn’t just decide to insert cancer into us, but instead let us run wild with our tech and processed food? What if diabetes and heart disease and cancer are the results of our lifestyles?
How should God fix this problem? Should he just limit our freedom to invent harmful things? Should he limit our access to unhealthy foods? The mayor of NYC tried that with Big Gulps and was vilified for it by conservatives and mocked by liberals.
It seems to me that unless God is going to intervene at every turn and keep us from potentially harming ourselves, then we have to live with the effects of our choices (I realize this isn’t dealing with every evil imaginable, but it’s late). And if God is “greenlit” to keep us from doing things that are harmful, where does it end?
Just some thoughts. I have no clear answers, obviously. Just thinking out loud.
jason,
Right. There are countless possible scenerios where God could have reasons for allowing our suffering. The tech causing cancer theory is a new one to my ears….. but why not? Lol Dr. Craig offers another one
@ Kenneth, no they didn’t. Hey look at that, I can state something as fact without proof and invalidate your argument too. 🙂
@ Jason, I think Jehovah could have probably shown up in the garden right around the same time as Satan and warned his kids that they were about to be hit by a bus if they did what the talking snake told them to do. Instead, he stayed silent and let his kids get run over because you know, he had told them not to do that that one time. 🙂
Comrade,
Do you really mean to say that the Christians in the early centuries and middle ages did not experience the horrors of life? I didn’t think that was a premise that needed proving….
Further, there are christians in this present day that have experienced the many things you cite and still find God to be good. Thinking of those in Africa, South America, the middle east, india, and even many in the Western world. Not everyone is a suburban cupcake (although I am)
Comrade,
PS,
Getting hit by a bus is a tragic accident. The betrayal in the garden was intentional and deliberate rebellion. How about a more fair analogy?
Let’s say that a good and loving master gives his servants the task of caring for his mansion while he is on vacation. When he gets back, everything he left to them is burning and ruined. The servants tossed the masters rules to the side the moment he left and now anarchy rules. They have burned his crops, killed all his animals, and destroyed all of his precious items. From a distance the good master can see that his servants are trapped in his burning mansion and that they will die if he does not intervene. Does he OWE it to each one to rescue them? Is the master obligated to save every single person, lightly chastise them, explain his rules in more detail, and give them all another chance? What if he knew that they would do the same thing again no matter how many chances they were given?
Let’s say the master decides to have mercy on a few in the burning mansion. His favorites. The ones he loves the most. Would that be unfair? I don’t think so. His Favs would get mercy, the rest would get justice. No one can complain.
Kenneth, you sound awfully reformed. Are you sure you’re a Catholic? 😉
No matter what the people did, the “God” who creates billions of people knowing that the majority of them (any of them actually, in my opinion) will end up suffering forever can only be a monster.
Christian,
Just trying to balance out the view a little. The analogy of God as our sky daddy that should only be so lucky to cook everyone blueberry pancakes and love us all unconditionally no matter what we do is just not accurate or realistic.
If God chooses to create a free people to love Him he does not owe veto power to His own creatures. It seems to me that the God you would support would not be perfect because he would not be just. A God that is not perfectly just is no longer a being worthy of worship. God by definition must be the most perfect cocievable being in the universe.
Does that make sense to you? If you got your way….. God wouldn’t be God. He would just be some super creature that was eternally nice.
@Kenneth –
As much as I hate to admit it (due mostly to my contrarian streak), AAPL is absolutely killing it. They just reported the most profitable quarter in history at $18B. That’s $6 billion dollars a month selling iPhones. They’re doing fine. And they’ve got a watch coming out in a few months that will probably also sell by the truckloads not to mention they are apparently working on a car.
And that reminds me of the last point I wanted to make…. In the whole discussion about virtual reality, I’m surprised neither Christian or Jason brought up the holodeck on Star Trek (was it because you guys were both crazy christians when the show was on the air and never watched it?). To me, all of this stuff will be a novelty until we can get to that level of realism.
Another thing I wanted to bring up is that the whole God intervening in our lives would be so difficult is very similar to the broken analogy of equating a nation’s budget to a family’s budget.
Just as no family I know prints their own money (something most governments can do), I don’t know anybody who is omnipotent & omniscient. As christians say themselves, God is everywhere all at once, so it would be trivial for God to intervene to protect us much as we would with small children.
I loved Star Trek, Greg. Totally forgot about the Holodeck. Ha! One step at a time. 🙂
Greg,
Yeah they are doing great currently. But I think that is mostly due to the massive failings of windows 8. Everyone liked windows because it was “easy” and the “same”. Now that they are doing a total makeover, people are taking another hard look at apple. Still, once these lenses come out (which presumably have some kind of patent) it’s a game changer. A watch and a cool car aren’t game changers in that same way. We will see.
If God intervened to save you every single time someone shot at you, tried to torture you, or every time an earthquake crushed a city, we would no longer have free will. We would no longer live in a world that was regulated by the laws of nature. Without that kind of world, free actions could not be made. How could I choose to do wrong if that choice would just end up being thwarted infallibly?
Ok, let’s ignore for the moment the idea that god created us with a sense of justice that would never be able to come close to comprehending his sense of “justice” and the questions that would result from that such as, “Why would he play such a mean trick on us?” and assume for the sake of argument that allowing billions upon billions of people to suffer for all eternity in a “lake of fire” (after a shitty life on earth for many of them) is “just,” that only creates an even bigger question in my mind: what kind of monster would create that scenario?
(Yes, that was all one sentence.)
Answer: The most perfect cocievable being.
You might be repulsed or indignant at that response. But repulsion and indignation is not an argument. It’s just an emotional state of mind. People’s emotions and mental states aren’t of interest to me. I’m looking for truth.
Thats part of the reason why agnosticism has never held any attraction to me. I couldn’t get over the idea that my beliefs and worldview wouldnt even have a chance at being “true”. Agnosticism is a state of mind, or admission of ignorance. It might be a lot of things (humble or whatever) but it doesn’t get to be “true”.
OK, setting aside hell for now and dealing just with the trials of this life (which was Fry’s point), does what I said above make any sense to anyone?
If, for God not to be a monster, children cannot get cancer, then does that mean that Nabisco can’t exist? That Verizon can’t exist? That the people who founded those (and other) cancer-causing companies simply should have been unable to think of the ideas for processing food or implementing 4G tech?
What about people who think of other potentially harmful ideas, like lobbying DC on behalf of insurance companies and banks?
If every attempt at an original thought or action was blocked by a God who “was only trying to protect us” (the way people wish he had done in Eden), then wouldn’t he be a “monster” for that reason?
Ok, Kenneth, but I’m not going to buy into something just to have something to buy into. Does Christianity have a “chance at being ‘true’?” Sure. So does Islam, and Buddhism, and Baha’i, etc. Even if Christianity is “true,” that doesn’t mean that you’re going to be right about every single doctrine you believe. Agnosticism may not be right about everything, but it may be right that none of the religions humans believe have any answers, which would make Agnosticism more true than Christianity in that sense.
Also, simply saying “Answer: The most perfect conceivable being” isn’t any better of an argument than a repulsed or indignant response.
@Kenneth – They’ve been killing it since the iPod. Yes, Microsoft has stumbled badly in the Ballmer era but on computers (laptops & desktops), Microsoft is still ahead of Apple, due mostly to the high dollar value of Apple computers. Apple’s has killed their competitors in mobile computing, first BlackBerry then Android. Here’s Apple’s chart for the last six months, if people have been taking a hard look then they’re deciding that Apple is a worthwhile stock: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=AAPL+Interactive#%7B%22range%22%3A%226mo%22%2C%22scale%22%3A%22linear%22%7D
As for these lenses? Google basically killed Google Glass by shifting it into the consumer division of their companies. And cars, you know how many cars were sold last year? Hell, let’s not even talk about total volume because Apple wouldn’t compete against your Civics and lower end models. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, they’re still moving what, hundreds of thousands of car a year? How many oculus rifts or hololens are fb and msft going to sell each year? Or even TVs where Apple has been rumored to go. TVs and cars, these are every day necessities. A fancy little lens isn’t.
But free will is already an illusion since God is omniscient and knows what will happen. Put another way, why do you stop a child from sticking a fork into a socket? Aren’t you denying them their free will?
@Jason –
Cancer has been around for far longer than these technologies so we know that they’re not the cause but I take the point of your argument — but it’s just a fancier version of “we humble humans can’t possibly comprehend God’s Will.”
I come back to my main point: if God was truly all knowing and all powerful then he could come up with a different way for us to have all this cool technology without the supposed downside.
Allow me to provide the protestant mojo this thread is desparately in need of
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSRMiC75Vws&t=2m12s
sing along wiht me, everyone!
But, Andrew, we’re so close to solving the problem of evil!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlwxWzl8eTc
Christian,
Come on, you’re a monty python fan, and agnostic leaning atheist. We all know Nietzsche gets penalized for arguing free will with Confucious.
Easy peasy, Kenneth (Huckleberry Fin)? I’d love to see you win the scoring goal (hole in one).
Darn greeks, well, there’s always next year..
What’s up with your Seahawks, why did they suck so much on the last play of the super bowl? Really?
Take some hints from my SF Giants if you want to figure out how to be a world champion, yo.
This podcast is a hoot. Keep up the good work.
😉
Greg,
Who’s to say he hasn’t? There are plenty of groups out there, whether political or social or environmental, whose visions (if implemented) would drastically reduce cancer. But for some reason, their visions haven’t had a real chance at traction.
Now since I believe in secondary causes, I think that regulating cancer-causing foods or tech has failed due to a political system that is more indebted to donors than to actual everyday people.
But it sounds to me like you think the reason we have more cancer than we need to is simply because God gives people cancer, or, he failed to “come up with a different way” for us to eat Pop-Tarts and use Google Glass.
Is that right? If not, how am I misreading you?
*atheist leaning agnostic
sorry, committed a bieber.
also, the response to my over the top attitude with respect to my baseball team, is to remind me of my football team losing on the last play to your seahawks
http://heavyforthevintage.com/2014/01/19/pot-smoking-homosexuality/
Anyway, I hope this podcast keeps chanelling that particular “some old blog” where “some guy mentioned about how you and Jason are religious figures.” that guy cleared it up in a combox convo, we’ll be seeing you around that old blog, i’m sure.
bottoms up!
We’re not religious figures any more than The Presidents of the United States of America are politicians.
I’d follow up my last comment with a Kanye, but I can’t for the life of me remember what that was.
Peace.
Oh, right, a “kanye.” I forgot about that. Ha ha!
Do you really mean to say that the Christians in the early centuries and middle ages did not experience the horrors of life? I didn’t think that was a premise that needed proving….
How many more walked away from their faith? How many simply went through the motions because to walk away meant persecution and death?
And how many accounts and traditions of early martyrs were factual and how many were simply legend? (http://www.salon.com/2013/02/24/the_myth_of_persecution_early_christians_werent_persecuted/)
The betrayal in the garden was intentional and deliberate rebellion.
From two innocent people who had no knowledge of good and evil. If I were a lawyer, I’d definitely argue that they weren’t really morally culpable of committing treason.
The analogy of God as our sky daddy that should only be so lucky to cook everyone blueberry pancakes and love us all unconditionally no matter what we do is just not accurate or realistic.
Okay, so God is not our Father. Good to know.
Also God is willing to send Jesus to come and get tortured and nailed to a tree, but not willing to speak up after the serpent had his say and give Adam and Eve a head’s up on just how bad things were going to get?
If I were Jesus, I think I’d be angry.
Answer: The most perfect cocievable being.
You’ve already agreed that torture is wrong. A perfect being cannot torture and still be perfect.
And if being perfect and holy means willingly accepting torture for others, then you will have lost a great deal of your humanity and your compassion and whatever remains will be a perversion and an abomination.
If every attempt at an original thought or action was blocked by a God who “was only trying to protect us” (the way people wish he had done in Eden), then wouldn’t he be a “monster” for that reason?
Mind you, I am not asking why God didn’t slap the proverbial apple out of Eve’s hand. I was just wondering why in the story God doesn’t pitch His case to them again? Why not warn the creatures that He loves that they are about to do something that will introduce inconceivable pain and misery upon themselves and their descendants possibly forever?
I truly doubt that any Christian who asks God to make him/her more like Jesus would ever believe that the answer to their prayer would mean they would look upon the intense agony of their damned loved ones with pure bliss and start singing another chorus of Nearer My God to Thee above their family’s screams.
Christian,
Yes, but you can adopt a reasonable position without having exhaustive knowledge of every little jot and tiddle. Cardinal John Henry Newman once said that 10,000 questions don’t add up to a single doubt. It’s a good quote. You can believe that Christianity is imminently reasonable as a worldview and adopt it without having answered every question. Questions of hell and suffering have lasted many thousands of years now. Many men smarter than you or I have found peace with various possible solutions and responses. My point is you can still have adopt a worldview that gets to be “true” even if certain conversations make you squeamish. Even if you don’t have all the answers up front.
Agnosticism as such doesn’t make that claim. At least the version you have put forward. When you both answered my call for an “expose” on your position, Jason asked you if it was a “no on Christ”. You said it was a “probably not” or a “maybe, maybe not” kind of situation. That is all fine and dandy, but it has no possibility of being a “true” worldview. Which would be problematic for me, because I would find it difficult to live consistently if I didn’t have some sort of foundation by which to view reality through. Also, I’m more of an “all-iin” kind of guy. I think that big questions deserve bold answers. I might give a “maybe” on lunch. But I couldnt give a “maybe” on God, abortion, terrorism, etc. For me, its just too big of a question.
Just putting the ball in your court. That actually is the Christian answer to your loaded question. If you think it is a bad one…. I would be really interested to know why, apart from whatever emotional issue you might have with the situation. (the emotions dont get us closer to truth)
Hey that last comment is from me…. computer accidentally logged me in as my wife lol
@Jason –
Actually, since I’m an agnostic like Christian, I don’t think God made more cancer, I think God has no role to play whatsoever. But yes, I would agree with you that if God made more cancer then he certainly could appear in some scientist’s dream with the cure for cancer and make people elect better politicians.
And isn’t that Fry’s larger point? That we could play this sort of game until the cows come home?
We could..
Or we could play golf (don’t give me a “tl;dr”):
I’ve been known to mention a particular four letter word beginning with the letter G when discussing in the comments section of blogs that exist for no other reason than to discuss and debate the differences we find in the very wide and diverse field of study we refer to as Theology. So if you made it through that sentence and are still reading, it’s entirely possible you are asking yourself: What gives? It’s very simple. The renown 20th century theologian Karl Barth is quoted as saying the following:
Ok, admittedly beginning to meander just a tad, but follow me.
Regarding the quote above, just how far do we take it?
It turns out, the response I would give to Barth were we sitting at the bar and he said that, would actually be a tempered, “Well, OK, buddy. But here, think about this“:
Getting to the point (I promise), I believe to even make the statement, The best theology would need no advocates; it would prove itself, is to admit the very thing this statement seeks to suppress. For why else would such a statement be made, other than to prove we don’t even need to debate theology with others who disagree with a given point of view we have (for who knows what reason). But we DO need to debate theology. Why exactly? Well, before that, first consider these words from the Book of Job in Scripture:
You see, reader of a theology blog, there truly is a A time to mourn and a time to dance..A time for war, and a time for peace.
There is a time for speaking up for the deeply held convictions, and a time to listen to those who are sharing the same. So far, so good.
As it turns out, however, Barth is right, that the best theology would indeed need no advocates. For when we discuss theology, we are discussing matters pertaining to the divine, and in truth, some things we simply are not meant to know, for God speaking in the Scriptures says:
Ah, so there it is. The point at last: God is above our debating of theology, online or elsewhere. Wouldn’t that be funny if even if one of us is right, and the other wrong, in such a hypothetical debate on a theological topic, such a person is in fact right, but for all the wrong reasons? God, it may end up in the end, does have a sense of humor.
My friend, thank you for visiting my blog, reading these pieced together pieces of God’s Word (for indeed Scripture doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God). May you be blessed in your reading here. Before you go, I desire to leave you with words from the constitution of my church:
Oh wait. Lastly, this is somewhat interesting stuff, right? But truly, this blog post was a wicked slice, and you just witnessed it, friend. I mean, think about it: what exactly am I trying to acheive in writing this? You shouldn’t think about that too hard, just like you shouldn’t consider too long what exactly is the sound of one hand clapping? In conclusion, it’s now your turn up to the tee. What say you? If you can out drive me and my wicked banana slice of a shot, I’d love to see you try by posting a comment, or we’ll see each other on another blog out here discussing theology, and I look forward to that occasion. If you clicked on the first link in this post and watched, I achieved my goal of planting the seed in your mind that golf may be just as fun as I tend to hold out that it is. You never know, we may find ourselves together on a golf course someday..
Ok, I have a comment stuck in puragtory, just like Kenneth’s wife the martini mom was, because I posted too many links.
But after I pass moderation (if I do), this will make sense:
“My friend, thank you for visiting my blog, reading these pieced together pieces of God’s Word”
should read:
“My friend, thank you for reading these pieced together pieces of God’s Word”
Greg,
I could ask you,
As an agnostic,
What do you mean by “God”?
That question is raised by an agnostic, asked of an OPC elder:
http://drunkexpastors.com/podcast-28-yoga-pants-gay-husbands-and-incest/#comment-797
I mentioned before on the comment thread of another post how I defined agnosticism:
There may or may not have been a creator that we call God (therefore allowing for “intelligent design”) but any such being does not play a role in our lives active or inactive.
“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” – Mark Twain (though a bunch of people said a variant of this. Andrew, I will get to your long post eventually but I’m currently reading Bart Ehrman’s book “Misquoting Jesus”.
Comrade,
How many more walked away from their faith? How many simply went through the motions because to walk away meant persecution and death?
And how many accounts and traditions of early martyrs were factual and how many were legend?
None of these questions have anything to do with your original assertion. You claimed that the Christian answer was “easy” and convenient because christians had not suffered numerous forms of agony and suffering. This is demonstrably false in nearly every generation.
Okay, so God is not our Father. Good to know.
That is one analogous image of God. But it is not the only one. The master/slave, potter/clay concept is often used too. I think that your definition and image of God is lacking.
Also God is willing to send Jesus to come and get tortured and nailed to a tree, but not willing to speak up after the serpent had his say and give Adam and Eve a head’s up on just how bad things were going to get?
Again, indignation is not an argument.
You’ve already agreed that torture is wrong. A perfect being cannot torture and still be perfect.
I also agreed that it is wrong to kill someone or allow someone to be killed if you could stop it. However, there might be certain circumstances I’m which this would not be wrong. For example if it’s Osama bin Laden or Hitler or some lunatic with a bomb. There very well could be information that you are not privy to that justifies an eternal damnation. So long as this is even possible, it is not a logical contradiction for God to punish those who reject Him with hell. Those who are in heaven might be privy to this information, and so will not be guilty of losing their humanity and compassion.
Also, my understanding of hell is not that it is God actively “torturing” people. It is a place where He is not. A place that the inhabitants of hell chose for themselves by rejecting God’s love.
Mind you, I am not asking why God didn’t slap the proverbial apple out of Eve’s hand. I was just wondering why in the story God doesn’t pitch His case to them again? Why not warn the creatures that He loves that they are about to do something that will introduce inconceivable pain and misery upon themselves and their descendants possibly forever?
Why should He? God does not owe creatures an explanation. He gave them a command and they rebelled. They doubted God’s sincerity and honesty. What would have stopped them from just continuing to doubt Him no matter the explanation? Also, who is to say this world would have been better off with the explanation? Perhaps God stopping Eve from eating the apple would have just kicked the can down to some future generation. Perhaps then that world would be worse than the current one with even more people rebelling and ending up in hell. This is all info that you are not privy to. But it is info that God might have. So long as that is even possible, there is no contradiction.
Greg, the long comment is worth skipping.
Interesting about what you are reading. Me? Reading the Bible.
Peace.
ISIS just burned 45 people alive.
Right. So we have a deity that owes us nothing, sees us as slaves, plans on committing what to every human sense of morality and justice is a truly despicable and heinous atrocity, that we are to worship because there is a slim hope that He must have a very good reason for it all that He hasn’t bothered to tell anyone, but we’ll find out when we die?
I think I’d rather take my chance with Cthulhu than your Jehovah. At least Cthulhu has no pretenses about being ‘good’.
Of course, being his slaves, he might not even bother telling us why he’s torturing our loved ones and friends, and will simply order us to ‘get over it’ and get on with the singing.
@Andrew – you took the time to properly format it so I want to honor the time that you took to do that but it’s just so long!
@comraderead – exactly. that so much of it depends on “God’s will” is just something I have a difficult time accepting.
Greg, thanks again for the interaction.
I simply picked up on your expressing the futility of it all, that long comment about golf was something I had written in such a time of feeling things futile in these blog discussions as well. You be the judge of what is a good use of your time, we all do that, in determining what we should read, making best use of the time (or being a Xtian, being a good steward of the time God has given us).
I like Mark Twain, when I interacted with the atheists of ohnopodcast.com, Ross told me it was blaise pascal, not twain (I would link to it, but more than one link sends me to purgatory, I’m protestant, we don’t believe in that):
I imagine Twain and Pascal were hinting at the same thing.
Or, since I am posting, and it’s all about me and my proclovities, we could stick with the Bible:
With that, I bow out. I could go on and on about the Xtian books I am reading, the book I got recommended to me by the atheists of ohno is called Mistakes were Made, but not by me, why we justify bad decisions, or something like that. I enjoy talking with atheists, agnostics, etc. So again, the interaction is appreciated.
I would have written less here, friend, had I had the time.
Peace.
No, I claimed that it was rather easy for us as 21st Century American males to say that the story of mankind is a good one and that it would be much more difficult for us to say that if we had lived through some of the atrocities of the last 200 years or seen them with our own eyes.
You mentioned that Christians have suffered through those things and came out with their faith intact, I replied with snark and then mentioned that others came out with their faith shattered and questioned the validity of the persecution narratives we’re all familiar with.
That was all of a sideshow that I allowed myself to get distracted by. My initial point, I think, stands. It’s all very easy for us to say that all of the evils of the world make for a better redemption story when we’ve never had to live through those things. It would be more difficult and show far more faith for someone who has been through them to say that ultimately all of the pain and horror they’ve experienced will be worth it.
Comrade,
The hope is not slim if there is good reason to believe that:
1.God is perfectly just, good, and holy. The most perfect cocievable being.
2. Hell exists.
If both premises are true then some solution, like the one I have offered, must be true. There must be some morally just reason for people to be in hell.
It seems to me that you don’t have any good argument against either premise except “I don’t like it”. Which of course, is not even an argument.
There is no evidence that hell exists. Really, for that matter, there is no physical evidence that God exists.
So we can’t have a factual discussion about purely theological things.
I’ve explained why I do not believe in hell:
1. The idea violates our God-given sense of justice. The punishment must fit the crime to be just. We cannot sentence a man to a lifetime of torture if he jaywalks. Eternal severe punishment for temporal crimes is unjust by any notion of justice humanity has.
2. The idea violates our sense of morality as I’ve repeatedly discussed.
3. The idea violates the love, compassion, fatherhood and character of God. A good father punishes misbehavior with the purpose of correction and reconciliation, not vengeance. And if we reference the bible, then God wishes all men to be saved. I do not see the Father from the story of the Prodigal Son, or the shepherd searching for the lost sheep, or the woman searching for her coin ever giving up, or else His love and compassion are not limitless.
4. The idea would destroy our basic humanity as the church. We would cease to be human, concerned with our brothers and filled with empathy and compassion and we would be either sadistic monsters or fearful collaborators. Heaven cannot exist if hell exists as a place of divine torment. I would never give up on my son or daughter. And if they were damned and I were saved, I would not give up on them then either. If I did, as I said, I would have been made less than human and a mere puppet as devoid of free will as people say we would have been had God not provided an opportunity to sin in the fictitious Garden.
God cannot be the most perfect conceivable being if hell exists as traditionally taught because He is no longer perfect in love, compassion, empathy, or justice.
Now I will concede that God could be perfectly just and loving and hell could exist, if hell is:
1. Self-imposed: Like the elder son in the prodigal story. Rather than join the party, the sinner remains outside, angry, alone, full of bitterness and unforgiveness and seeming deaf to the entreaties of his father and brothers.
2. A matter of perspective: the fire of God’s spirit and his all-consuming love and holiness warms the hearts and spirits of the redeemed, but also burns at the consciences and minds of the sinners. What is life and light to us is blinding radiance (darkness) and pain to them.
3. A fixed duration and Christ the ultimate victor: like purgatory or as mentioned by Origen and the Apocalypse of Peter. God repays every man according to his deeds and words, but in the end, all men will be reconciled to God and God defeats both death and hell.
What a mood role reversal in this one… 😉 Enjoyed it, per usual.
Comrade,
Sure we can. There is evidence from scripture, tradition/the early church, and the authoritative teachings of the Church in the present day. All of those lines of evidence are unanimously and overwhelmingly stacked against you. To narrow the convo a bit we could simply consider:
1. Jesus was God
2. Jesus taught that hell exists
3. Therefore hell exists
Boom. Evidence of hell. Also, I find it bizzar that you don’t think people can have “factual” discussions about theological things. As if science is the only legitimate form of acquiring facts.
The objection equivocates between every sin which we commit and all the sins which we commit. We can agree that every individual sin which a person commits deserves only a finite punishment. But it doesn’t follow from this that all of a person’s sins taken together as a whole deserve only a finite punishment. If a person commits an infinite number of sins, then the sum total of all such sins deserves infinite punishment. Now, of course, nobody commits an infinite number of sins in the earthly life. But what about in the afterlife? Insofar as the inhabitants of hell continue to hate God and reject Him, they continue to sin and so accrue to themselves more guilt and more punishment. In a real sense, then, hell is self-perpetuating. In such a case, every sin has a finite punishment, but because sinning goes on forever, so does the punishment.
Only if you presume that God has no morally sufficient reason to permit an everlasting hell. Which is exactly what you are doing. Begging the question.
This once again presumes that God does not have morally acceptable reasons for permitting people to sin and go to hell. This is a contention that you could not even begin to put a probability on as a finite creature. It could very well be that once you are shown the big picture,(the glory of God, the evil of the deprived, etc) you have an understanding that would satisfy your sorrow.
Also, I find it amusing that you keep referring to hell as “the idea” instead of “the clear and obvious teaching of Christ, his apostles, sacred Scripture, Tradition, and the Church. Hell is not just some “idea” the popped into someones head. It is a Sacred truth handed on by Christ and the apostles themselves that has been protected and promulgated through the centuries. You have no argument against any of these realities, and so just continue to lob objections, couched in emotional language, about how it just seems “unfair” to you. Or that you just cant believe that God would have a morally sufficient reason. This line of argument ultimately boils down to propaganda and consumerism. Don’t like the teachings of Christ? That’s OK, just make up your own thing. I think its more respectable and consistent to just reject the religion altogether.
For this to be true you would need to show that it is impossible for God to have morally sufficient reasons to permit people to sin and go to hell as punishment. If you can’t show this then your argument fails. The burden of proof is on you. I dont think you have made a case outside of emotional appeals.
Comrade,
I think that both 1 and 2 are quite possible actually! So its encouraging to see that you are open to at least some viable alternatives
It is amusing that you have accused me of making assumptions, when your logic puzzle assumes automatically that Jesus is God and that the recorded statements He makes in the gospels are His teachings and not the words of the author or the words attributed to Him by a fallible author, and that his concept of what Hell was is the same as your own.
You cannot have factual discussions with certainty about God or things like hell, because we cannot see them, study them, or prove/disprove one another. We can only cite various holy books, commentaries, and the opinions of other men as to what it all means. We may deal with logical arguments on occasion. If we focused on the historicity of Jesus, then we could deal with factual assertions and evidence. But as we remain in the more esoteric concepts, we rely on logic and opinion and assertions.
You accuse me of presumption. I return the accusation. You find the idea of eternal torture morally repellent and unjust on its face, so you must make an assumption that the damned continue committing sins to justify it.
Likewise when clearly our moral sense, ideals of justice, and our compassion and brotherhood tell you that the idea of eternal hell is wrong, you presume a reason exists that would justify the evil. There is no evidence of this.
As I said, you make a presumption that a 1st century Rabbi’s usage of the word Gehenna matches your own ideas of hell. In many rabbinic interpretations of Judaism, Gehenna is more akin to Purgatory and for some the maximum length of time a soul could be held there was one year. The literal place was a place where garbage was burned. One could easily make the interpretation for annihilation as the destiny of the wicked with the everlasting imagery used merely emphatic comment for the utter and complete destruction of the wicked. I’ll be happy to post you some links to other folks interpreting these passages on hell when I have more time.
I must do the impossible and prove a negative. And once I have miraculously done that, no doubt you will find another negative which I must prove. Because something must be done to justify what appears to us as a grave evil.
I have appealed to reason on the basis of our sense of justice, morality, familial bonds, and the character of Jesus Christ, Himself a victim of torture who had only compassion for his tormentors. And now I appeal to Judaism and will appeal to the bible once I am at home and not on a lunch break.
You have appealed to a presumption regarding the existence of a very good reason that God would have to do something monstrous that violates our sense of justice.
And neither of the three cases presumes an eternal duration or that redemption for the damned is impossible, but they do remove the agency of punishment from God to the sinner himself.
You told me earlier that you were a christian theist so I didn’t think that you would have a problem with that premise. If you do, we can certainly go into it, but that talk would get us far from the ranch. In any case, those premises do not need to be assumed. They can be shown to be true through various lines of evidence.
We can study them by scripture, tradition, and the teachings of the Church. We can also prove/disprove them by highlighting internal inconsistencies, contradictions, etc.
From a Catholic perspective I would say that you are assuming that all men are equally fallible and prone to error when discussing faith and morals….. and obviously Catholics don’t believe that. But again, that talk will get us far from the ranch.
I am showing that it is a possibility. So long as it is a possibility, there is no logical contradiction between Gods goodness and the existence of hell. That’s the point.
As I have already explained so long as
1. God is the most perfect conceivable being
and
2. Hell exists
are both true, then there is strong evidence to suggest that God has some morally right reason for creating hell.
I do not consider those interpretations valid. They do not align with the teachings of the Church.
It is not impossible to prove a negative. It is only impossible to prove a universal negative. For example, I can prove that there are no additional planets in our solar system. Or that I do not have 3 legs. You could disprove that God exists by showing that His definition is internally contradictory, etc. Unfortunately for your argument, the reason why you can not show that God does not have sufficient reasons for permitting hell is that there are so many possible reasons why he might.
Further discussion is rather pointless then.
Agreed. We have reached a point of eternal disagreement. If we were to keep on, there would be much weeping and gnashing of teeth
Well, I was going to hell already being a Protestant and all, so I guess being a squishy liberal is just icing on the cake. 🙂
I say again:
NOW I’m out 😎
The Dude wrote a check for $.69 not .$79 !!!!!!!
“Young trophy wife. . . in the parlance of our times. . . .”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLR_TDO0FTg
Best scene ever.
Jason, the reformed world misses you.
Come to some old blog any time, I’ll be your wingman, yo.
Peace out homeslice. Almost finished Season one of the wire, it’s my first trip though it. I have only one word:
Wow.
Tam staples just wrote a blog post (coincidently?) answering a lot of the same objections to hell that we have seen here. It’s a great read.
http://www.catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/what-is-hell
I’m sure it will be nothing I’ve ever heard before and I will be convinced. 😉
Oh, Christian, ye of little faith. 😀
I read it, Kenneth, and I didn’t agree with hardly any of it, even if I put my “Christian” glasses on and try to look at it from a biblical point of view.
Christian,
Lol I intended that link more for comrade than for you. But it’s cool that your read it! I’ve been wondering if someone at Catholic Answers has been keeping up with Jason. There have been more than a couple of times where the topics were freakishly in sync.
If I was gonna recommend something for you it would probably be this….
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=e-HoVLCFFsKlNq6rgogH&url=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DoJdlO6esWr8&ved=0CBwQtwIwAA&usg=AFQjCNFS9xf98aC0jtzkGPXgDIuTo7r5cA
The best Christian atheist debate on hell of all time…… but then again, you would probably just think the atheist guy won lol
Take care.
This is the text version that is more clear.
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/can-a-loving-god-send-people-to-hell-the-craig-bradley-debate
Btw, how do I set myself up as a person funding DXPs? I’ve heard you talk about it before…. you can donate per episode right?
Here guys, if Kenneth’s stuff is too long, I’ll boil down Xtianty real quick:
Kenneth,
See the Patreon link above, and thank you!
Yeah, that article didn’t really address anything other than the how could Christians be happy in heaven while their relatives are in hell and the answer he gives presupposes that the punishment of eternal torture is just and presents a false dilemma where the only possible alternative to eternal torture is letting the guilty off without punishment.
The difference between the two of our arguments is:
1. God is perfectly loving and just.
2. Hell as described in my English bible seems to be pretty immoral, unjust, and inconsistent with the nature and character of God as described in the bible.
My conclusion is: Therefore, I must be wrong about what hell is whether that involves its nature, its duration, or its existence.
Your conclusion is: God must have a reason why premise 2 is false that He has yet to communicate to us.
I’d rather not rehash the last 10 posts we’ve each written, so I think folks can decide on their own whether your conclusion or mine is the best one.
Amen, Comradedread, or as I would say it as Jason would say it as a nihilist, “Fuckin A.”
Kenneth, it’s actually above and to the right, and yes, thank you. http://www.patreon.com/drunkexpastors. I will assume you’re supporting Jason’s endeavors and not mine. 😉
“Since I can theoretically work anywhere, I must work everywhere.” – The Luddite, DXP # 30.
This is so fucking true. I have complete autonomy over my schedule, my location, how much vacation I take, all of it. There are no rules governing when I show up or whether I do anything productive. I can work wherever I want, whenever I want, no questions asked. I am therefore expected to be available everywhere, all the time, no questions asked. I can get on any computer any where, and if I log in to the firm’s system, I see my own personal computer’s desktop and local files, exactly as they exist on my physical computer (yes, this means the firm makes a copy of every single thing on my computer and stores it in the cloud), not to mention all of the shared resources on servers that I don’t need to load onto my computer. According to the firm, I’m absolutely free from my desk and absolutely chained to my job.
Lots of people try to be successful, but this is too easy. I’m all about the sweet spot where I’ve maximized my success and minimized my responsiveness.
I completely agree, Aaron. I was talking with Jason about this last night. I’ve both worked for myself and for another company and I’m torn between the two. With the other company, I get PTO during which they leave me completely alone, I forget my work once I leave the office, etc. When I work for myself, I can do whatever I want schedule-wise, but I’m always on the clock. If I go on vacation, I take my laptop with me because I’m responsible for everything, etc. Tough choice.
A great book that I highly recommend from Frank Partnoy called “Wait” discusses this phenomenon a bit. And it is exactly as you both describe it, when we work for a regular job, we often think just how great and wonderful it might be to work for ourselves but once on the other side of the fence, we no longer think oh, that hour we didn’t work is a free hour but rather an hour that we could have billed.
And if you have people who work for you, the pressure mounts even more. I used to have several employees and the pressure to find more work because not just these people but their families are all counting on me to bring in work to support them. It’s a lot of pressure and frankly not recommended for most. Even myself I’ve really scaled back and only have sub-contractors who I call on an as-needed basis.