Do We Still Need To Believe In "Hell"? Uh...NO!

                                                                                 

                                           Image (13th century artist's depiction ) of"Hell"

In his WSJ Review piece "Do We Still Need To Believe In Hell" yesterday, Fordham professor Scott G. Bruce informs us that:

"Hell lost some of its purchase on humankind in the 19th century, when new scientific theories such as Darwinism eroded the authority of the bible and the tides of sentiment turned against God's wrath in favor of His mercy."

This is correct given Darwin's theory of evolution pertaining to hominids shows humans descended from more primitive ape ancestors in the sort of process shown below:

The disconnection to supernatural fantasies and follies was traumatic for a large portion of humans at the time, and still remains so - as millions remain unable to accept we are risen apes and not "fallen angels".  But they should rejoice, because being the former - in terms of evolution - means there is no purchase whatsoever of supernatural punishments.  As we all know, and can be grown-up enough to say, neither the descendants of apes, or apes themselves possess "souls". There is only a brain, but it is ample to generate consciousness as I already showed in my blog post on  'A Materialist Model of Consciousness'. 

Thus, when a human (or ape) dies, that's it. He is gone and there is nothing left - nothing to "punish" and nothing to go on. This hard fact may be why so many evangelicals and other   über  orthodox Christians refuse to accept evolution: they don't want to accept: a) they have no souls, and b) when they're dead, that's it, finito.  

Aside: I   do, however, leave open the (small) possibility of a nonlocal - quantum based - afterlife - wherein consciousness is enfolded in de Broglie waves.  In such case, death doesn't mean the final termination of consciousness, so much as the end of its localization. If that is so, you cease to be a "person" or an individual identity and instead merge with other dispersed quantum wave forms (I have called them "B-waves" or de Broglie waves) to enter an "oceanic" state.  Some commenters, i.e. Bryon Ehlmann on Quora,  have insisted there is no evidence for this but they are wrong.  The Davisson-Germer experiment revealed wave patterns from which the de Broglie wavelength  could be computed. The experimental set up is shown below *:

Since these "matter waves" are inextricably bound to material particles, e.g. electrons, protons, and these persist after death, it is not a stretch to postulate the continued existence of B-waves or de Broglie waves and embodying a kind of remedial or primitive consciousness.

But I digress. The point is there is no need for "Hell" or to postulate such  - because it has exhausted itself as any kind of useful concept, especially after Darwin's theory of evolution has basically rendered it fanciful along with hobgoblins and the Boogieman.    Where Prof. Bruce is more on target is when he writes:

"At the same time, Hell has become a powerful metaphor for the most extreme suffering and squalor in this world."

To underscore this one can reference horrific spectacles such as beheld when the Nazi concentration camps were liberated, and which embodied the very essence of earthly Hell, e.g.

Photo taken outside the Mauthausen Concentration Camp by Russian soldiers in May, 1945.   Many  soldiers in the company that raided the camp declared they'd never beheld any Hell until seeing the gassed bodies of the Jewish victims.

But having briefly ventured into reality, Prof. Bruce then trundles back outside it to supernatural fairyland when he asks:

"Has Hell outlived its usefulness in modern society? Probably not. The doctrine still serves Christianity as it has for centuries as a frightening deterrent to sinful behavior."

I seriously doubt it. Most every person equipped with basic critical thinking skills and an IQ over room temperature can ascertain in a few minutes that  the Hell doctrine collapses under logical scrutiny alone, e.g.

Brane Space: HELL- An impossible fiction

As for "sin", it is too childish for words. “Sin” is predicated on an exaggerated importance of humans in the universe. Thus, it elevates (albeit in a perverse way) the importance of humans in an otherwise meaningless cosmos. With “sin”,  the overly self-important and morally smug, self-righteous human has at least the potential of offending his deity – thereby getting its attention – as opposed to being relegated to the status of a cosmic “roach”. 

"Sin” then is a catch all, throwaway term for any localized and reactive behavior, e.g. at the personal, individual level, which is perceived as an offense against a deity. In the strict religious idiom, “Sin” impinges on and affects the deity that so many believe in...so if a deity doesn't exist there can be no sin. Take away the deity, and the whole sin fetish, obsession loses its allure and quickly becomes redundant. How can there be “sin” if there is no deity to offend or to notice “sin”? To tote up all the little “black marks” in its “book of future judgment”.  If we are talking of offenses against other humans, say like Brett Kavanaugh's attack on a HS school girl (Christine Blasey Ford) when he was at Georgetown Prep- well that may well be a crime, but we usually don't invoke the religious term "sin."  

Beyond that, no less a stalwart than philosopher Sir Bertrand Russell, in his book Why I Am Not A Christian, precisely identifies ‘religion’s source of terror’ ("Hell")  to account for the hold it has on so many. He notes how fear has been ‘dignified’ by use of this source: the demented hell concept to the point people no longer think it disgraceful[1] . Russell correctly points out that by dignifying fear as a coercive tool to drum people into the fold, religions lose any claim to credibility.  Again, I assert with the content of the preceding link and some critical thought, most intelligent people ought to be able to dispel any "need" to believe in Hell in a very short time. 

Finally at the end of his essay, it is encouraging to see Bruce come to his senses,  grounded in reality again:

"In some distant, better future, the foreclosure of Hell will be an important step in the maturation of human communities that can mete out justice on their own, without supernatural aid."

My question is: Why wait for some distant future to get our act together?  Why keep exploting supernatural bunkum and boogiemen (demons, Satan)?  Given our ascent to wards mastering AI  and other marvels, there's no reason why supernatural - free justice can't be developed and meted out now. Besides, most people with more than half a brain already know Hell is B.S.  For all the reasons given above.  So I say, let's launch on that "better future" from now, not wait another thousand years!  (Assuming we even have that long, which I frankly doubt.)

------

*  Davisson and Germer heated their nickel crystal  specimen in a high temperature oven, not knowing that this affected the formerly polycrystalline structure of the nickel to form large single crystal areas with crystal planes continuous over the width of the electron beam. To make a long story short, when the experiment re-commenced  the electrons were scattered by atoms which originated from crystal planes inside the nickel crystal, leaving patterns from which the de Broglie wavelength could be calculated according to:

[1] Russel, R.: Why I Am Not A Christian, Touchstone Books, p. 54, 1957.

Religion's "12 Most Dangerous Ideas" and Neutralizing Them (Part 2)

Ancient image of 'Hell' with Lucifer at the forefront and his demons at work incinerating evil humans. Hell is one of the worst ideas and likely a creation of the reptilian brain.

We now continue looking at more of   Valeria Tarico's "most dangerous religious ideas" (in her salon.com piece) and my responses on how they can be neutralized.

7. Blood sacrifice – In the list of religion’s worst ideas, this is the only one that appears to be in its final stages. Only Hindus continue to  ritually hack and slaughter sacrificial animals on a mass scale.

When our ancient ancestors slit the throats on humans and animals or cut out their hearts or sent the smoke of sacrifices heavenward, many believed that they were literally feeding supernatural beings. In time, in most religions, the rationale changed—the gods didn’t need feeding so much as they needed signs of devotion and penance. The residual child sacrifice in the Hebrew Bible (yes it is there) typically has this function.

Christianity’s persistent focus on blood atonement—the notion of Jesus as the be-all-end-all lamb without blemish, the final “propitiation” for human sin—is hopefully the last iteration of humanity’s long fascination with blood sacrifice.

Response:  As noted above most of these primitive acts are on the way out so need not concern us. The blood atonement is the only one that does - the notion that the "pure lamb of God " (Yeshua) had to sacrifice himself for the expiation of humanity's "sin". But as I noted in previous posts, this is only relevant if Yeshua was really a "god-man" and there is no evidence he is, see e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/04/jesus-was-he-really-son-of-god-do.html

In the context of the God-concept, Yeshua is derivative and not primary in any case. In other words he is the "son" of the God-concept which most Christians accept. But again, if all such concepts are relative it doesn't matter in the end if people accept him as "Savior" or not. If it comforts them to do so, then that's fine. But because of the relative nature of the primary concept one can't use the son as a belief cudgel to threaten others who don't accept it.

8. Hell – Whether we are talking about Christianity, Islam or Buddhism, an afterlife filled with demons, monsters, and eternal torture was the worst suffering the Iron Age minds could conceive and medieval minds could elaborate. Invented, perhaps, as a means to satisfy the human desire for justice, the concept of Hell quickly devolved into a tool for coercing behavior and belief.

Response: The point about the limitations of "Iron Age" minds is apropos and fits also with their primitive god-concept of something along the lines of the vengeful, petulant demiurgos. Beaten down by climate upheavals and with tribe members eaten by beasts, these minds could only come up with vicious gods that punish for the smallest offenses, and demons that enforce "justice"

But at some point human brains - especially since the Enlightenment - were able to see through this nonsense, and with the advent of science moved on to more sophisticated God-concepts.  This meant religions had to figure out a new way to integrate "eternal" punishments into their dogmas. They also had to make "Hell" more believable - away from it cartoon fire basis. Dante Alighieri's great contribution lay in using the power of his imagination, in his Inferno, to remake Hell away from its childish, cartoon Hellfire imagery.

Instead of unending "fires" which were impossible and spelled  numerous metaphysical problems, including demon reproduction, Dante invoked and created subtle forms of eternal torments peculiar to the violations of the damned. For example, in the 2nd Circle of Hell we find those condemned for their lust, "the carnal malefactors"- for letting their raw carnal appetites subdue their reason. They're the first ones to be truly punished in Hell. (The First Circle is not truly a punishment level but rather "Limbo" - for all unbaptized infants. Not even Dante could image them being sent to eternal perdition!)

The RC Church, especially, began to invoke similar, more nuanced Hell visions to reinforce  its objective to coerce behavior, i.e. if you have sex before marriage you go to Hell, if you masturbate you go to Hell, if you kill yourself for any reason, you end up in Hell.

But the problem for the Hell mongers is that the concept isn't even logically coherent, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/07/hell-impossible-fiction.html


9. Karma – Like hell, the concept of karma offers a selfish incentive for good behavior—it’ll come back at you later—but it has enormous costs. Chief among these is a tremendous weight of cultural passivity in the face of harm and suffering. Secondarily, the idea of karma sanctifies the broad human practice of blaming the victim. If what goes around comes around, then the disabled child or cancer patient or untouchable poor (or the hungry rabbit or mangy dog) must have done something in either this life or a past one to bring their position on themselves.

Response: There is not much to add to this, other than the 'blame the victim' meme comes to the fore.  Also, it appears none of the karma backers grasps the unending karmic loop engendered, and where it ends. If some bad guy did evil act E1  to Y, and it was Y's "karma" and Y does evil E2 to Z to make it Z's "karma" where does the karmic chain end? One karmic adherent I had a debate with claimed the Jews  that died in the Holocaust were all receiving "karma" for terrible things they'd done in past lives. The absolute abominable subtext of this needs no elaboration but it gets to the bottom (glaringly!) of what is wrong with the karma idea. That last example alone ought to be sufficient to neutralize it.

10. Eternal Life – To our weary and unwashed ancestors, the idea of gem encrusted walls, streets of gold, the fountain of youth, or an eternity of angelic chorus (or sex with virgins) may have seemed like sheer bliss. But it doesn’t take much analysis to realize how quickly eternal paradise would become hellish—an endless repetition of never changing groundhog days (because how could they change if they were perfect).

The real reason that the notion of eternal life is such a bad invention, though, is the degree to which it diminishes and degrades existence on this earthly plane. With eyes lifted heavenward, we can’t see the intricate beauty beneath our feet. Devout believers put their spiritual energy into preparing for a world to come rather than cherishing and stewarding the one wild and precious world we have been given.

Response: The last part is especially cogent and why I personally hate the idea of "eternal life" or "heaven" because it leads directly to the dismissal of Earthly life, environment and living in the here and now. It is no wonder then that those who cling the most to concepts like heaven have the least care about climate change and acting to stop it. "What's the point? Earth is only a way station anyway, heaven is my final destination".

But as I also noted in an earlier (April 14, 2012)post:

"The error of the Heaven confabulators, then, is basically the same as for the Hell inventors, since the two represent opposing poles of the same afterlife fantasy or two sides of the same sanity-raping coin. In any reward-punishment setting, one must offset the other. If you invent Hell to punish the unfaithful or the hardcore sinner who refuses to repent, you must have a Heaven for those who comply."

Thus, heaven falls just like Hell because they are two sides of the same "reward-punishment" God-concept. Since all God-concepts are relative then all afterlife concepts are as well, none is to be preferred to any others. Thus, the Buddhist concept of afterlife nothingness is as justified as the heaven-Hell model.

See also:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/02/myth-of-heaven.html


11.Male Ownership of Female Fertility –  The notion of women as brood mares or children as assets likely didn’t originate with religion, but the idea that women were created for this purpose, that if a woman begets life she must be subjugated is part of many religions.

Response: Again this goes hand in hand with the patriarchal nature of most primitive god-concepts: envisioning "God" as an old white man with a beard,  ruling over everything and everyone- especially women. Of course, the . most expeditious way to eradicate this foolishness is by replacing all personal God-concepts with impersonal ones, i.e. defining the ultimate in terms of energy. Since energy has no gender the male patriarch image becomes redundant.  The nature of a holistic impersonal Being is explicated in my recent book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God.


12. Bibliolatry (aka Book Worship) – Preliterate people handed down their best guesses about gods and goodness by way of oral tradition, and they made objects of stone and wood, idols, to channel their devotion. Their notions of what was good and what was Real and how to live in moral community with each other were free to evolve as culture and technology changed. But the advent of the written word changed that. As our Iron Age ancestors recorded and compiled their ideas into sacred texts, these texts allowed their understanding of gods and goodness to become static. The sacred texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam forbid idol worship, but over time the texts themselves became idols, and many modern believers practice—essentially—book worship, also known as bibliolatry.

Response: This is something I have commented on in previous posts. In terms of the God-concept context, it means that the Jewish concept of Yahweh, the Muslim concept of Allah, the Hindu concept of Brahmin and the Christian concept of the Trinity all stand in the same epistemological relation.  From an informational point of view, none can be selected as “true” to the exclusion of the others.

 This is completely analogous to there being inadequate information to distinguish one religion’s claims as true to the exclusion of all others. In the case of individual religions and religious traditions, the embodiment of the respective truth claim is found in a sacred revelation, or holy book. For example, the Holy Bible for Christianity, the Talmud for Jews, the Koran for Muslims and the Upanishads for Hindus, each proclaims inherent truths. For many of the respective faiths’ followers, these inherent truths are also absolute in the sense they dare not be contradicted. But if God-concepts are all relative and subjective, then all the sacred books on which they are based must be. None can be "true" to the exclusion of the others.

 

The problem is that the early writers for each scripture suffered from the same limitation of comprehension as their modern counterparts. A finite neural capacity means limited intellectual grasp, irrespective of the particular conceptual allegiance.  This then leads to a "holy" document or scripture that itself is limited and subjective, not absolute.

Note, a genuine God putatively doesn’t make mistakes since perfection is surely a fundamental divine attribute. However, a human brain is quite likely to project its flaws onto its concepts and that includes beholding the contrived deity botching assorted events and actions. No one can blame (finite) brains for this propensity, but humans at least need to recognize that they do it!

 

On the other hand, this defect means that worshipping holy books is to avoided at all costs as another form of idolatry.

Insights Into Biblical Contradictions, Hell and the Resurrection

Spiritual Master John Phillips is rightly regarded as a Renaissance Man in Barbados. Author, inventor (of pre-packaged cuccoo- a Barbadian delicacy), expert nutritionist and spiritual scholar, he has perhaps done as much or more theological research as any priest or minister.

For reference, John and I founded The Barbados Philosophical Society in 1974, and have been good friends since, despite my veering to atheism and John retaining an eclectic and open view on all spiritual systems.

In this particular exchange, we discussed the meaning of the Easter story and especially the degree of contradictions in the various accounts, from what the women who arrived at the tomb actually observed, to where the angelic messengers were situated, to whether Christ could be touched after the resurrection, to whether Christ stayed on Earth for a while to whether there was a resurrection at all. Oh, and whether Hell actually has a theological basis.

On the conflicting accounts in the King James Bible :

Most of these controversies arise because of citing the King James Bible. One must understand that this is the simplest of all the bibles, because it was designed to be written with no more than 8,000 different words in total. Obviously, it has more than a million words, but only 8,000 words are used repetitively to make up the one million- no more. So it was dsigned to appeal to the simplest minds possible and to serve the largest population possible.

 But as we know, being popular doesn't make it correct, nor does it confer absolute truth. As a matter of fact, with such low verbal density or use it would be comical to even suggest the King James Bible (or any other) comes remotely close to truth. What it does, for the masses, is present a cartoon version of reality. Because of this cartoon reality, there are bound to be contradictions and clashes because the writers themselves sought to portray complex real accounts in fictional or exaggerated forms.

It also needs to be emphasized that the King's printers had a monopoly on printing bibles. So,by around 1650, the KJV had driven the rival Geneva Bible totally out of the market. It wasn't because of being more accurate! It was because powerful interests leveraged that the KJV would reign supreme! Another startling historical fact is that what eventually became the "King James Bible" by 1526-30 was not in fact the original, but rather up to 90 percent adopted from William Tyndale's English New Testament, published in 1526. This version was actually published in defiance of then English law - so it is amazing so much of it was then incorporated into the original KJV.

Tyndale's tack was to render Scripture in the common language of his time to make it accessible even to a humble plow boy. By basing his manuscript on Hebrew and Greek texts he'd defied an English law from 1401 that forbade the publication of any English book without Church of England permission. Wise to the dangers, Tyndale conveniently went abroad while he was burned in effigy outside St. Paul's Cathedral in London.  They also consigned hundreds of copies of his New Testament translation to the flames. But, he got the last laugh, when a year after he was strangled for heresy in the Netherlands, King Henry VIII granted a license to a complete "King James Bible" that was more than three-fourths Tyndale's translation from his English New Testament!

Sadly, most of those who obsess over this Bible don't even know this!


But to return to the point again, it is clear most of the contradictions occur because of the haphazard way the KJV especially was assembled. For example, the translators assembled by 1650 were granted wide latitude in how they specifically formed different translations of the text. My point is that it may not have been necessarily that Luke or John disgreed with Matthew at all, but that the later translators so mucked up the original (already bastardized) manuscript of Erasmus that these things were in abundance.

But that's why no one can read it literally. And all those who say you can are fooling themselves!


On the resurrection - whether it really occurred:

From my studies the resurrection was a metaphor. It was how we'd like to have seen Christ rise up after being cruelly crucified but it didn't really happen. In the end, it doesn't matter, the resurrection has become the sine qua non goal of all Christians and that is fine. We or they can emulate Christ and aspire to a similar event though it didn't really take place. My take again, is either the original scribes embellished what actually occurred (likely the body spirited away by disciples) or the later translators did, or at least added more to the story. Say turning the young men originally in the tomb into 'angels'.

Given this, whether Christ as the man spirited away from his tomb was touched or not, is irrelevant. To me it is just one more red herring dredged up on the overall narrative, much like arguing over how many angels can dance on the tip of a pin!


On Hell as any kind of real place of torment:

Hell was never an original teaching of the Church, and the only reason it's so frequently cited now is because the crazy fundamentalists have latched onto it. The most common afterlife teaching - by Clement of Alexandria and Origen of Adamantius-  in the early centuries after Christ’s death was metempsychosis. Unlike reincarnation, which metempsychosis is often confused with, the same soul exists and is resurrected in a succession of different human bodies in an evolutionary process. Ordinary reincarnation, meanwhile, allows for reincarnation into animal bodies, even after a human incarnation, which metempsychosis does not.

The Christian metempsychosis teaching probably endured for at least 500 years before later Church fathers decided at the 2nd Council of Constantinople, that it gave men too much time to seek God. So, a device had to be used to spur on and speed the desire for redemption. The device decided on was “Hell”. Now, recall this was around 400 A.D. and there were no evangelicals skulking around with their KJVs in hand. There was only one Church, one religion: the Catholic one. So anything that later accrued or occurred had to have been copied from these early times, Church teachings, doctrines, dogmas and canons.

So any claims evanglicals make to being "original" in anything - say especially their acceptance of Hell- is purely fantasy and self-delusion. They are merely lying to themselves and their people if they believe they are the first Christians. No! They spun off from the RC Church like all the other Protestants! Including King Henry the Eighth's Anglicans!

The modus operandi for inventing Hell was to simply take certain passages in the then Latin Vulgate that referred to “Gehenna”, which was really a dump for burning offal outside Jerusalem, and convert that earthly burning pit into an everlasting abode for punishment. What better way to punish than by fire, which is about the most painful, as anyone who’s ever touched a red hot frying pan or stove knows! Thus, Gehenna became the putative basis for eternal torment at the Council. All teachings to do with metempsychosis were ordered expunged, and any transgressors were to be listed as heretics. In a firm outline of the properties of Hell, the Council further mandated:

- It become the final abode of eternal punishment for all who rejected the Church's teachings or the Pope's authority


- It include the agency of fire and this fire never be quenched - and further it have the capacity to burn the soul without destroying it permanently (else there'd be no "eternal" aspect)


- Hell was under the governance of "Satan" or Lucifer, with a hierarchy of sub-Devils (Asmodeus, Belial, Pazuzu et al) to administer other punishments


- All non-Catholics, because of they're being outside the state of sanctifying grace, to be destined for Hell


The other job mandated by the Council was to insert the words and references to “Hell” into the scriptures and this duty was charged to various transcribers, translators. At key points also Jesus had to make the odd reference to it, including the threat of punishment for those who refused to believe, specifically “accepting” him as Savior (e.g. the bogus John 3: 16) .

  So, in the end must we accept a personal Savior?

Not at all. Christ as Savior for Gentiles never had been intended in the original scriptures. He was instead designated as a Messiah for the Jews!  It was Paul of Tarsus that sought to make Jesus'  (intended) localized religion worldwide. In fact, Jesus would have been appalled at that!

Besides that, Jesus was among a host of God-men fabricated through time, including Horus and Mithra. The evidence shows Jesus to be a much later creation by copyists who used the earlier Mithra legends. Almost everything in the original Mithra template, from the birth date (December 25th, identified with the winter solstice), to being born of a virgin, working miracles and dying on a cross then ascending. Christians copied the Mithra mythology because it fit in perfectly with their own narrative. However, in order to make this work they had to destroy all the Mithra texts - as they did when they burned down the library at Alexandria - to make it appear their narrative was the original.

Once the great ancient pagan library was reduced to ashes, the later Christian copyists could set to work!

By then,  over a century had passed since the days of Jesus and the Church- which had NO role to play during his life- had become institutionalized. It thereby became an entity to serve no other purpose than to perpetuate the teaching of Jesus in an indefinitely postponed “Parousia”.  This in turn, led to the impetus to add to, as well as further embellish and reinforce the Savior –Redeemer myth. The easiest way to do so was to copy legendary tales from earlier pagan sources and insert them into later translations. This mightily helped church leaders in their constant exhortations to the faithful to not lose sight of the goal.

The idea of "saving" or "salvation" itself is off because it inflates humans' self-importance. It is the same way with sin. That also inflates human self-importance. I mean, if a puny human can offend the Almighty God, imagine! The human must have vast powers indeed to affect an infinite Being.

Beyond that, humans are already 'saved' if that is the term. If we are all one energy of one Being then that Being can't be divided against itself. Also, if there is indeed a God and It is infinite there is simply no place for Hell to fit in, so in many respects, we all are one and no one can be abandoned. Even atheists!

Universal Salvation Belief a One Way Trip to “Hell”? HELL NO!

Sign from a Fundie's blog warning any who accept universal salvation to watch out! Their final destination is HELL!

According to Wikipedia, Universal Reconciliation or Salvation is:


“the doctrine that all sinful and alienated human souls—because of divine love and mercy—will ultimately be reconciled to God.

Universal salvation may be related to the perception of a problem of Hell,, standing opposed to ideas such as endless conscious torment in Hell, but may also include a period of finite punishment similar to a state of purgatory.Believers in universal reconciliation may support the view that while there may be a real "Hell" of some kind, it is neither a place of endless suffering nor a place where the spirits of human beings are ultimately 'annihilated' after enduring the just amount of divine retribution”

I first became acquainted with universal salvation while debating an Anglican Priest in Barbados in 1982. At one point I mocked the concept of “Hell” as infantile, and basically “apartheid theology” based on gloating over the suffering of those unlike you, who don’t subscribe to your special beliefs- but whom you condemn to everlasting perdition. I also mocked the notion that the presumption of Hell meant every sect or Christian denomination could, in effect, pass judgment on every other sect or denomination. Fundies could hell bind Catholics, Catholics could hell bind Fundies, both could also consign Jews and Muslims to the everlasting pits as the Muslims could return the favor to Christians! It was an afterlife MUTUAL ANNIHILATION PACT!


The priest laughed and conceded the point, and I won the debate – scored by objective observers – based on that line of attack. After the debate, however, the priest confided to me that in the upper echelons of the Anglican hierarchy (recall here that King James, of King James Bible fame was an Anglican too) no one took Hell seriously and there was no doctrine of Hell or of exceptional salvation for the few. Instead all Anglican seminaries taught Universal Reconciliation – Salvation. The priest told me he didn’t teach it himself nor did any other Anglican padres he knew. They had to instead teach Heaven or Hell because that is what their parishioners expected. He told me that if they attempted to teach the actual doctrine of universal salvation most of the faithful would leave that Church because their skewed sense of moral right and wrong dictated the “evil” receive the ultimate punishment. But he said this dichotomy troubled him no end!


Well, no wonder! It had to be mentally pathological to know what your religion’s actual doctrine is on the one hand but not be able to openly teach it on the other. Schizoid personality disorder anyone?

But he has a point. Because most believers function at the level of children, and need a cosmic daddy to “take the rod” to the bad boys or girls, they cannot accept the conceptual notion of an afterlife wherein everyone is brought together. Even many Christian leaders who ought to know better buy into this codswallop. In a memorable final Phil Donahue show on MSNBC in 2002(still have it on videotape), he included people from five major religions, including the head of the Southern Baptists, and a leading Rabbi. When Donahue brought up the thorny issue (which most evangelicals prefer to sweep under the rug) of what happens to the Jews when ”Armageddon” is all over and the "Antichrist" (sic) is defeated, the Southern Baptist fundie didn’t mince words:

“Most will be bound for the fires of Hell, because it is appointed that only 144,000  Jews shall be saved. “

Donahue’s eyes rolled twice over then nearly popped out, as did the Rabbi’s who then entered into a furious exchange with this bigot, prefaced by the words:

“How DARE you! How dare you decide to dispatch Jews into afterlife fires when over six million have already been roasted in Hitler’s crematoria!”

The Southern Baptist didn’t blink, merely responding mechanically:

“I don’t decide that. It’s the word of the bible, not mine. Unless a man be born again and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ he cannot enter the gates of Heaven. Since nearly all Jews reject Jesus as Savior, they can’t enter the heavenly kingdom”.

This pompous display of assholinity prompted Phil D. to quip:

“Yeah, but it’s all fine and dandy that Israel be used as the setting for Armageddon in the Valley of Megiddo. Once Israel fulfills its biblical prophecies, then I guess it’s perfectly okay to send all the Jews to Hell…..oh, except for the special 144,000. And by the way, what’s so special about them? Why do they get a heavenly pass and not the others?”


The Southern Baptist  (Albert Mohler) was speechless. Or rather, perhaps so dumbfounded he wasn’t able to respond. Just as well, as the Rabbi was about to lacerate him verbally!

Now, just so we are clear, as an atheist I lean toward the probability that when you’re dead, you’re dead. I am not dogmatic or absolutist about it, but that's my take. (And no, I've seen no convincing evidence for 'near death experiences' which in any case, have nada to do with actual death!) That’s it! Finito! However, in previous blogs I have left a minuscule probability that human consciousness can survive death but in a nonlocal form, embodied in quantum wave energy. See, e.g. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/has-stuart-hameroff-explicated-way-out.html

However, for the sake of this blog, let’s argue from the believers’ perspective that there is a conscious personal afterlife and a putative deity to preside over it. We assume the form of this deity is in line with the attribute most often declared by deity worshippers, i.e. "infinite".

IF God as infinite is taken literally, this can only mean there is no place where he isn't. Either he is infinite or not infinite. If he is infinite, and HELL also exists, then Hell must be part of the same infinity. It cannot be isolated from it or else we have a condition where Hell is apart from God's being. If this be so, then there exists a domain ("Hell") where God isn't, so he can't be infinite! In other words, God is actually a limited being.

Another way to put this is that something (Hell)  exists in addition to God's being  hence that being must be de facto delimited. If delimited it can't be infinite.

So, we have these ineffable logical conclusions:

1) EITHER - Hell exists but GOD is not infinite.

OR

2) GOD is infinite, and Hell must exist WITHIN God. (But Heaven does also)


Up to now, no fundie or evangelical  has been clever enough to resolve the Hell-God=infinite paradox. There could be two reasons: 1) none of them is smart enough to do it, or 2) they know deep down in their little atavistic pea -brains that the paradox is logically insoluble because their assumptions are in error. (Or, just as bad, they allow the blatherings in an ancient book to trump the importance of examining the assumptions.)

Thus, if they want to preserve their "Hell" they will have to admit their God isn't infinite. If they demand God to be infinite, they will have to jettison their "Hell'.

Beyond this, if modern quantum mechanics is taken seriously, then reality is one universal whole (called “nonlocal” in QM terminology) and there are no separates or localities – say wherein something can occur that doesn’t affect the rest of reality. Hence, concepts such as David Bohm’s Holomovement come front and center and these impersonal concepts can supersede that of an angry old white man in the skies that hurls unbelievers and do-badders into perdition.

In effect, it appears those sects and denominations that accept the Universalist perspective are more likely to be au fait with at least the basic underlying theme of the wholeness and unity of reality, as demonstrated for example in the Aspect experiment (1982). That set up is depicted below:

A1 ( ) <--------->( )A2


The idea being that twin photons appear interconnected (via their polarization detection) at the analyzers A1 and A2. Some have misconstrued this as violating Einsteinian relativity (e.g. fast than light signal propagation) but the superior interpretation by physicist David Bohm holds that the two photons were always connected in a higher dimensional reality, which he has called the “implicate order”.

If there is an implicate order, which is also holographic, then it very well means the Universalists have been right all along ….assuming there is a God inhabiting this implicate order, of course! Maybe the fundies and their ilk need to take more seriously the words of Philosopher Alan Watts ('Behold the Spirit', p. 244):

"Taken literally as a doctrine of everlasting torture, 'Hell' amounts to blasphemy itself- for if it were in the power of human freedom-choice to produce a consequence of this kind there must be something radically diabolical in the order created by God, and in God himself. Such an interpretation may vindicate human freedom but at the cost of demonizing God."

Even IF Hell Did Exist - It's Nothing to Worry about!

Image from a Christian fundie's blog showing an atheist burning up in "hell". A nice cartoon rendition, but hardly plausible!


All right, let's concede (though I already showed its logical improbability and incoherence), e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/03/hell-has-been-disproven-get-over-it.html

that the fundies are half right, and some kind of "hell" awaits all those terrible unbelievers that refuse to be saved. Do we have anything to worry about, even if this "hell" is somehow around in the after life?

I argue here, NO! And for emphatic rational reasons, which can be traced to the believers' own bible! (Including the KJV)

First, even if it does exist there can't be any "fires" such as depicted in the image above from a fundie's blog, showing an atheist burning up. Fire constitutes a physical, thermodynamic plasma which cannot exist in any supernatural realm. Yes, some plasmas can reach nearly one trillion degrees, but they can't exist in any supernatural realm or in terms of a putatively surviving consciousness even IF the afterlife realm is supra-physical and not supernatural. If supra-physical only quantum waves would prevail, and these couldn't support anything as macroscopically extensive as "fire" or "burning". Indeed, even if one were to put his pinky finger into the Sun's 2 million K corona, he'd not be burned because the corona is essentially a vacuum with almost no density. Plasma must be sufficiently dense to impart a burn! This would be reinforced in a post-death quantal energy realm.

Thus, we may emphatically rule out any kind of "burning", though I do concede it makes for a colorful form of scare mongering. (Note: some fundies insist the fires are "supernatural" as is the "burning" but they've never explained precisely how this manifests, nor even proven a "soul" for it to manifest can exist!)

Second, the believers' own good Book discloses that if it does exist, it cannot be "everlasting" or eternal. So, worst case scenario, we're there just for a bit - which makes it more analogous to the Catholics' purgatory.

Bear with me.

The Greek for "everlasting punishment" in Matthew 25:46 is "kolasin aionion." Kolasin is a noun in the accusative form, singular voice, feminine gender and means "punishment, chastening, correction, to cut-off as in pruning a tree to bear more fruit." Meanwhile, "Aionion" is the adjective form of "aion," in the singular form and means "pertaining to an eon or age, an indeterminate period of time..

Critical examination discloses the Bible speaks of five "aions"(minimum) and perhaps many more. If there were "aions" in the past, it must logically mean that each one of them has ended! When one uses terms such as "past", "present" or "future" he's no longer referring to anything that's everlasting because the latter concept admits of no temporal distinctions!

The New Testament writers spoke of "the present wicked aion" which ended during that very generation.

Obviously then it was followed by another "aion"-e.g. the "aion" in which we presently live, which will be followed by a future aion.The point? If there are "aions"past, present and to come, it must mean that aions don't last and the one we live in will also end. Thus, these "aions" are in no way never-ending or everlasting.

There are also verses describing "the consummation of the aions" (from which eons is derived) showing that each "aion" (nee, eon) ends, hence again can't be eternal!

Other notable examples:

-"the coming eon" (Matt.10:30, Luke 18:30)

-"the present wicked eon" (Gal.1:4)

-"the oncoming eons" (future) (Eph.2:7)

-"the conclusion of the eon " (present) (Mt.13:39,40)

-"the secret concealed from the eons" (past) (Eph.3:9)

Obviously, the Greek word "aion" transliterated "eon" cannot mean "eternal." A study into the Greek of the Biblical period and before will bear this out. Thus, Matthew 25:46 which embodies the Greek, "kolasin aionion", cannot mean "eternal punishment" but rather a "temporary punishment" or "temporary chastening.

Thus, even IF Matthew 25:46 does refer to a real, putatively active "Hell" it can't be "everlasting, only temporary only. Since "Aionion" is the adjective of the noun "aion", then this argument applies to ALL forms, passages, words that contain these words, no exception.

Hence, we must conclude that either: a) Matthew 25:46 is a bogus later addition, or b) Matthew 25:46 represents the deliberate, fraudulent alteration of an original text in which the Greek forms were changed to reflect an "eternal" as opposed to non-eternal duress or punishment.In either case, the hellfire fundies are either liars or ignorant, take your pick.

What form might the "chastening" take if any? I suspect from exegetical analysis it could take different forms according to WHO is chastened, and it may not be all one-sided. That is, the assumption that only atheists are to be chastised and not Christian bible bangers.

For example, I believe a Christian Fundie bible banger will face chastisement if he cops to a belief in "being saved" purely to save his hide. The Power that Be, assuming it exists, would likely reincarnate this fundie as a poor, starving African and make him live out an extra existence in rank poverty and in a different religion (Islam, or some African tribal cult) to learn religious humility and dump the exceptionalism.

The mirror chastisement might apply for a head strong or belligerent atheist. He might be born again as a Christian fundie who is also forced to learn all their bollocks and blather, including biblical inerrancy. By the time he's exhausted that life, he's mastered at least some respect for what the captive fundies have to endure.

I also note that rebirth into a temporary new life that is more humbling, chastening and deprivating compared to what one had, is a kind of ideal "aion-ic" punishment which would likely meet the temporal requirements implied in Matthew 25:46.

My point is, even if some punishment awaits humans, it won't be anywhere as horrific as the crazed fundies claim, nor will it last forever!

Has Rob Bell "saved" God?

On reading the feature article in the recent 'TIME' (Is Hell Dead?, Apr. 25) on Pastor Rob Bell's influence in re-thinking the Hell concept, it brought back memories of my last debate with a churchman, in January of 1983 in Barbados. My opponent was an ordained Anglican priest and after a full one hour of heady debate, we finally reached the bugabear notion of Hell. I went first, marshalling a furious defense of atheism and a withering attack on the fact Christians had to resort to playing the fear card to get anyone on board. For the coup'de grace I introduced famed philosopher Bertrand Russell's words from his marvelous book, Why I am Not A Christian
:
"Hell is Religion's source of terror, and in dignifying it Religion has institutionalized fear"

I then awaited the reply of the Anglican cleric, which almost knocked me for six, to use the Bajan expression:

"But we don't do that! In our essential theology - that of the Anglican Church and Anglican Union- all people eventually are enfolded in the Divine Being. We call this teaching 'Universalism'.

It took me several minutes to collect my senses since, of course, I'd never heard of it before. We had to wait until after the debate, which concluded in the next ten minutes, for me to sort it out using probing questions. A number of those in attendance remained behind in the small Anglican church to hear the discussion.

My first question to him was an obvious one: if this was an official doctrine of the Anglican church then why wasn't it more widely known?

He responded that it could have been but the common lay people didn't want to hear it. They preferred the easier to comprehend version of "heaven and hell" which satisfied their human prejudice and longing for "justice". So, he replied: "We have to give them what they want, wrong though it is, because otherwise they'd join the fundamentalists who do teach this!"

My second question was more personal, I asked him how he felt about having to conceal the actual teaching doctrine of his church to instead feed his parishioners the 'heaven-hell' codswallop. His answer again was somewhat surprising:

"I humbly accept that as part of my duty and hope that some day, one day, ordinary people will be developed enough mentally and spiritually to accept the more profound truth. But as we know, even Christ Jesus had two sets of teachings, those in simple parables for the ordinary folk of his day. And the secret teachings intended only for the select few disciples."

My last question was why did he think Universalism as a doctrine was so critical. He replied:

"That's the easiest! Without it, God is a failure! His whole creation, especially of humans, was all for naught if most are damned or even a significant percentage. He could as well have not created anything and preserved perfect nothingness."

The last part has formed an ongoing philosophical project and question of mine ever since. One which any intelligent or inquiring mind must ask, just as Leibniz first did
:
"WHY must there be something as opposed to nothing?"

Think about this: If "nothing" be the simpler state, in which an invisible deity could still exist as "spirit" then why create a universe at all? Why go through the effort? Especially one which would be fraught with violence, despair, "sin" and all the rest. Also, one which an ominiscient deity would have to know (IF it was judgmental) that it would have to condemn billions before he even created them.

This itself makes the act of creation an act of violence against those created, who would not be able (for whatever reason, including where they were born) to live up to its standards, or gain 'saving' knowledge, say for a poor Hindu in Delhi. Thus, we would have to question on an a fortiori basis any judgmental deity that created the cosmos. It could not have good will at its core, since it would know its act would condemn billions before its creation even began. Hence, it would be a pre-meditative sadist!

Leibniz himself used two premises: 1) the principle of sufficient reason, and 2) an a priori argument from simplicity for the presupposition that - spontaneously - the universe feature nothing contingent at all, because the Null universe (nothingness) is the most natural of all.

As he put it
:

"the great principle of sufficient reason holds that nothing takes place without sufficient reason...a reason (or condition) to determine why it is thus and not otherwise"

But again, why would a sufficient reason be to simply create something which He already knew would have to be destroyed, as in most of humanity dispatched to eternal perdition? It made no sense! Well let me rephrase that: it would make eminent sense to a cosseted, parochial-minded religious zealot who embraced spiritual apartheid and the conviction that salvation's path must be narrow and exclusive, never broad. But then if an infinite love is postulated to be part of the Divinity, how or why would it be so petulant and inferior-minded to let a little paltry unbelief serve as a conviction yardstick? Obviously, such a petulant being was man-made, not divine!

Let us also bear in mind that if an all perfect Being already existed, it would have no need to create at all. It would ALREADY be complete, perfect, self-sufficient and non-contingent. In effect, by creating it really adds something (universe) to itself - so it cannot be "infinite" in the true sense, unless it and the universe are one and the same. Worse, it adds imperfection to itself so it is no longer perfect. (If one argues the universe is a separate creation from the deity, then one is saying the deity is not infinite, since an extra additive exists to delimit it.)

Thus, Leibniz solved his conundrum by reverting to the Null hypothesis: that there ought to be nothing rather than something. But the external evidence points to something, and hence this 'something' is unexpected from the Principle of sufficient reason. Therefore, the actual existence of this something cries out for an explanation.

Hence, it is the job of the deity believer to explain why there is this actual existence in addition to positing his God. This also underscores his principle of sufficient reason to account for why we have something rather than nothing. Or to put it another way
:

Why wasn't `nothing' (no creation- ab initio perfect "Being") good enough for the creative force or deity?

Why perform an act of creation that renders it imperfect?(Since if "omniscient" or assigned such attribute, it would have had to know before all time that it would create those it would later have to destroy?

Obviously, the Anglican cleric and his church thought carefully about these issues which was why they arrived at the doctrine of Universalism. Obviously also, others like former Episcopal Bishop Shelby Sponge and Pastor Rob Bell have also thought of them. Bell's take is more interesting, since as the 'TIME' piece observes, it has been crafted out of a background replete with Elmer Gantry -style Hell mongers: the Fundamentalist Christian extreme right. So how or why did Bell risk all by trying to expand the umbrella of Divine love for salvation though he had to know he'd be crucified by his lesser-minded and less intelligent cohort for it?

I can only conclude he did it on the same basis as the Anglican cleric: If it was true that all but a few humans would be damned for eternity, then for all practical purposes the Divine creation project was an abject failure. Worse, the failure signified not a perfect, or omniscient Being but a very defective one. Maybe not even a real God at all! I mean, even a lousy architect that cuts corners with his building project (say in exchanging quality materials for cheaper ones, like quality drywall for the Chinese imitation laden with lead, etc.) HAS to know there will be adverse consequences! It is stupid to claim he won't or that he isn't responsible! Of course he is! He chose to go on with a project he knew was a failure

How much more then, the accountability for a "Supreme" Being presumed to be OMNISCIENT or knowing everything that will transpire before it even happens! This character doesn't even have the limited knowledge excuse (for absolute fact of outcome) of the crappy architect! In fact, he's a billion times worse than the architect for even allowing his "project" to get off the ground when he knew the failure rate (or "non-salvation" rate in fundie parlance) would be next to 99.99999%. THAT is failure by any definition!

Rob Bell, as an obviously intelligent pastor saw this problem - I've no doubt he did- and understood that sooner or later many intelligent lay people would see it as well. (Mayhap even from reading this blog, whose hits average is now approaching 10,000 /month). Thus, Bell used the fundamental precept of Divine love to attempt to extend the Divine "arms" beyond the tiny limits proposed by his fellow fundies. For that, he merits kudos and congratulations. Not because he's opposing stupid beliefs that have no logical basis (see my earlier logical disproofs of Hell) but because he has the courage to think for himself, see a serious theological problem and attempt to resolve it, instead of being a passive, unthinking and uncritical sheep. In this sense, Rob Bell may have "saved" God for any remaining faithful. Not from any any foolish hell, but from being consigned as a permanently useless concept devoid of even basic rationality or sense.