Doubts about Hell, suffering. Please Help!

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

What exactly does not need experimental proof? The non-existence of the alpha centaurian lab? Of course not, its existence would need evidence, see below…

the proposition that your senses (needed for evaluating experimental systems and results) are, in fact, reliable.

AnAtheist:

There is a fundamental difference between your belief and mine.

You assert X without evidence, while I dismiss X without evidence.

not true: i have evidence for my beliefs - a great deal of it - it’s just not evidence of the right kind and/or degree for you.

AnAtheist:

I could state, that the Smurfs are running a Cantina of Jupiter. Do you have evidence against it? No? Hurray, the Smurfs are running a Cantina of Jupiter.

you’re not suggesting that’s the way i reason, are you?

the flip side of that is that i could be saying “i need empirical evidence for all my beliefs except for those for which there is no such evidence, in which case i will selectively accept and dismiss them according to my whim”.

 

[AnAtheist]

STJOMO:

Don’t think for a moment that atheism doesn’t require a leap of faith.

No.

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

so. what’s inconsistent about an interventionist deity?

Ok. 3 answers:
1 - philosophical) Why would a diety intervene?
a) To correct or amend something in the world. That is inconsistent with a perfect omniscient creator.
b) To impress the non-believers. That does obviously not work.
c) To impress the faithfull. Those would believe without the miracles anyway.
If b) and/or c) would be God’s intention, then why isn’t the world full of miracles?

2 - practical) There are no miracles. It is useless to assume an hypothetically intervening diety, if there is no intervening.

3 - theological) Let’s assume for a second, there are miracles.
That is evidence for exactly what? That Allah is God, and Muhammed is His prophet? Or, perhaps, that Cromm, the Ruler of Earth and Steel, is a bigger god than yours? Or, that there are flaws in the Matrix? Or, that there are -uhm- miracles.

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

the proposition that your senses (needed for evaluating experimental systems and results) are, in fact, reliable.

If I couldn’t rely on my senses, I could not rely on anything. As my senses are the tools to receive the evidence, they can’t be evidence themselves.

not true: i have evidence for my beliefs - a great deal of it - it’s just not evidence of the right kind and/or degree for you.

Well, then we have another thing in common. I have a great deal of evidence against your belief, it’s just not evidence of the right kind and/or degree for you.

you’re not suggesting that’s the way i reason, are you?

That way of reasoning is quite common on this board, and pardon me, but I got the impression that your arguements pointed in that direction.

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

Ok. 3 answers:
1 - philosophical) Why would a diety intervene?
a) To correct or amend something in the world. That is inconsistent with a perfect omniscient creator.
b) To impress the non-believers. That does obviously not work.
c) To impress the faithfull. Those would believe without the miracles anyway.
If b) and/or c) would be God’s intention, then why isn’t the world full of miracles?

surely you don’t suggest these three to be exhaustively disjunctive of the reasons god might have for intervening.

but even if it was, there are at least two answers to your question:

1. the world isn’t full of miracles because god is not obliged always to intervene, and he doesn’t always want to intervene.
2. the world is full of miracles. we just don’t perceive that they’re caused by the intervention of god.

AnAtheist:

2 - practical) There are no miracles. It is useless to assume an hypothetically intervening diety, if there is no intervening.

but this, again, isn’t an inconsistency in the concept of an intervening deity; this is the claim that the belief is just false. so i don’t understand the relevance of this to the current discussion.

AnAtheist:

3 - theological) Let’s assume for a second, there are miracles.
That is evidence for exactly what? That Allah is God, and Muhammed is His prophet? Or, perhaps, that Cromm, the Ruler of Earth and Steel, is a bigger god than yours? Or, that there are flaws in the Matrix? Or, that there are -uhm- miracles.

the existence of miracles would be consistent with all of those. i don’t understand your point. i mean, how does this demonstrate the inconsistency of a belief in an intervening deity? if miracles are consistent with many hypotheses, one of which involves an intervening deity, then miracles are a fortiori consistent with the hypothesis of an intervening deity.

you understand, i assume, that it is not a part of catholic belief that miracles are consistent only with the existence of god, and then only with the existence of the catholic god. catholicism isn’t in the business of making declarations concerning epistemology.

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

Well, then we have another thing in common. I have a great deal of evidence against your belief, it’s just not evidence of the right kind and/or degree for you.

well i haven’t ever seen your evidence against my beliefs: i have seen only proposed reasons for rejecting the validity of my evidence. which amounts to saying simply “your evidence is at worst bad, and at best insufficient to ground your belief”. which is a far cry from being evidence of the falsity of my beliefs.

AnAtheist:

That way of reasoning is quite common on this board, and pardon me, but I got the impression that your arguements pointed in that direction.

fair enough. i would have thought our exchanges on relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and math would have led you to make more, shall we say, charitable assumptions about me…

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

i don’t understand your point. i mean, how does this demonstrate the inconsistency of a belief in an intervening deity? if miracles are consistent with many hypotheses, one of which involves an intervening deity, then miracles are a fortiori consistent with the hypothesis of an intervening deity.

We did not start talking about a belief in a intervening diety. We started talking about a very certain deity that is supposed to have performed very specific interventions.
That is a general problem of theological discussions. They often switch between general concepts and specific images.
I regard the concept of Christianity as a whole inconsistent, so it is of little use to reduce the discussion to one part, analyse and twist that part so much, that it is by itself consistent and leave the big picture out of it. The old fight between a reductionistic and a holistic approach.
Of course a world where miracles are happening is consistent with a god performing miracles, but we cannot learn anything from that about the Christian God, because that applies for any god(s).
Miracles are a tiny part of the whole inconsistent Weltanschauung. When the claims of Christianity are put to the test, they fail. You now may say, that the tests fail, because God doesn’t want to be tested (how convenient), but the simplest explanation is of course, that the claims are wrong.

 

[AnAtheist]

john doran:

well i haven’t ever seen your evidence against my beliefs:

Yes, you have. We have discussed the (im)possibility of (near)allmighty gods already at length.

fair enough. i would have thought our exchanges on relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and math would have led you to make more, shall we say, charitable assumptions about me…

Rest assured, I do. Honestly.
Please erase my statement from your memory and replace it with my sincere apology. It was really more aimed at good ole friends like Carl, who used to argue that way.

 

[SPOKENWORD]

AnAtheist:

I don’t believe that. I believe, God does not exist, therefore the Bible is not God’s word but all human handiwork. That includes the errors.

To you God does not exist and there is no hell. You are like a smoke detector that has pulled out the battery.I,ve explained to you what the truth is and you choose to stay in darkness rather than come into the light. Thats using your freewill and you still will come before judgement whether you deny it or not. God Bless

 

[Mijoy2]

AnAthiest,

Is there anyone on earth that you love? Possibly a spouse, a parent, a child? If so, I ask you to “prove” it?

I contend you cannot. Yet I still believe you love these people if you tell me you do.

It cannot be proven in a lab. Logic and evidence are not all there is. There is more.

 

[AnAtheist]

Mijoy2:

Is there anyone on earth that you love? Possibly a spouse, a parent, a child? If so, I ask you to “prove” it?

I contend you cannot. Yet I still believe you love these people if you tell me you do.

And why do you believe me? Is it safe to say, because you know out of your own experience, that love exists and people are capable of loving? That is evidence and applying that evidence to a different situation (me instead of you).

Before I forget: Yes, I love my wife. Deeply.

 

[oriel36]

john doran:

well i haven’t ever seen your evidence against my beliefs: i have seen only proposed reasons for rejecting the validity of my evidence. which amounts to saying simply “your evidence is at worst bad, and at best insufficient to ground your belief”. which is a far cry from being evidence of the falsity of my beliefs.

fair enough. i would have thought our exchanges on relativity theory, quantum mechanics, and math would have led you to make more, shall we say, charitable assumptions about me…

The atheist guy is not even a pale imitation of the gnostics and you are pleading for recognition from him as a Christian.You certainly are no Catholic !.

During my stay here I have the right to complain that there is no facility availible to prevent the undermining of simple Christian faith or exquisite Christian thinking by pale neo-gnostic stupidity by which you are framing your points.The Church was once capable of spotting these disruptive tendencies ( there are traces in Galileo’s method) and dealing with them but the Church now is in a very weak position.

There is a vast store of productive material which actually goes somewhere while you celebrate the exotic conceptual excesses of the early 20th century that are driving these secular empiricists crazy and you plead with him !!!.

There are capable Catholics here but they cannot sit on the fence while people of lesser intellectual capabilities like yourself make a mess of things.

BTW, he won’t love you for adhering to Popper’s falsification,that is the particular chestnut that is driving the relativistic/qm guys crazy.That you apply it to faith shows that you are a worse freak than he is.

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

We did not start talking about a belief in a intervening diety. We started talking about a very certain deity that is supposed to have performed very specific interventions.
That is a general problem of theological discussions. They often switch between general concepts and specific images.

true enough. but that makes your argument even harder to make, since you need to demonstrate that there is an inconsistency with a specific deity with a specific set of putative personal characteristics intervening with the world; i would have assumed that the easier case to make - notionally, anyway - would have been against the idea of theistic intervention simpliciter.

at any rate, please understand that i was not unknowingly eliding the ideas of specific and general divine intervention…

and you have yet to demonstrate that either kind of inconsistency exists.

AnAtheist:

I regard the concept of Christianity as a whole inconsistent, so it is of little use to reduce the discussion to one part, analyse and twist that part so much, that it is by itself consistent and leave the big picture out of it. The old fight between a reductionistic and a holistic approach.

that’s fair. but your original claim was that certain specific doctrines were inconsistent, and you gave miracles as an example.

but what does it mean for a set of doctrines or beliefs to be “holistically” inconsistent? i can understand that only as pointing to propositions both of which cannot be true, but both of which are assumed to be true.

AnAtheist:

Of course a world where miracles are happening is consistent with a god performing miracles, but we cannot learn anything from that about the Christian God, because that applies for any god(s).

i agree. but your original claim was only that the idea of miracles was inconsistent. period.

i also agree that, without more, miracles can’t tell us anything conclusive about the god doing the intervening, but i’m not sure what that has to do with anything. as i have pointed out, that sort of necessary evidential relation forms no part of catholic teaching.

AnAtheist:

Miracles are a tiny part of the whole inconsistent Weltanschauung. When the claims of Christianity are put to the test, they fail. You now may say, that the tests fail, because God doesn’t want to be tested (how convenient), but the simplest explanation is of course, that the claims are wrong.

what test? you lost me.

i suspect, though, that i am going to ask you why christianity needs to pass the particular tests you set in order to qualify for epistemic respectability. or why **any **belief needs to pass those particular tests…

 

[john_doran]

AnAtheist:

Yes, you have. We have discussed the (im)possibility of (near)allmighty gods already at length.

touché.

but, perhaps unsurprisingly, i had thought that my responses to your objections were decisive. as i recall, you at least didn’t offer any objections to the last few posts i made concerning transfinite math and maximal power as it relates to the christian god.

AnAtheist:

Rest assured, I do. Honestly.
Please erase my statement from your memory and replace it with my sincere apology. It was really more aimed at good ole friends like Carl, who used to argue that way.

hey, man - no apology needed. it’s no big deal at all, and i certainly took not even the slightest offense. i was just saying, is all.

 

[Mijoy2]

AnAtheist:

And why do you believe me? Is it safe to say, because you know out of your own experience, that love exists and people are capable of loving? That is evidence and applying that evidence to a different situation (me instead of you).

Before I forget: Yes, I love my wife. Deeply.

Great!

I believe you because I know what it is like to experience love and I see no reason why you would be dishonest with me in this regard.

You believe my love is a culmination of life experience. Yet you have not ( and I suspect) cannot, define love. You imply you can tell me why I love but you cannot tell me what love is. It would seem this scientific method of yours breaks down here, even by your very own criteria. If I told you I could prove an electrical current is flowing in a conductor but could not define what electrical curent was I’d pretty quickly lose credibility with you wouldn’t I?

The difference between the way you look at love and the Christian, AnAtheist, is that you believe your love resides only in the grey matter of your brain. There is very little good scientific reason for this. Why would we evolve to love? Seems poiintless. Therefore your belief is that the love you feel for others is temporal and finite. The Christian believes love eminates from God who is love.

Love is reason to believe in God. Proof, if I were to pursue it aggressively, would begin with the idea that I cannot begin to rationalize why we love. Yet it’s beauty, wonder and magnificence is beyond my capability to understand, to encapsulate. I’m simply greatful for it. God is love.

Have you read any of Pope John Pauls encyclicals? Or other writings? Have you ever tried to put down the hachett for a time. Ever tried to accept what you cannot explain and never will be able to as possibly being of something beyond your ability to understand or explain?

 

[john_doran]

oriel36:

The atheist guy is not even a pale imitation of the gnostics and you are pleading for recognition from him as a Christian.You certainly are no Catholic !.

i’m not pleading for anything. i am having a conversation with him. quite a good one, too, i think (he may disagree. or she - having a wife isn’t as definitive a piece of evidence for gender as it once was… ).

as for not being catholic, i assume you mean i am not a good catholic, which is no doubt true. but since i was baptised catholic and believe the entirety of the moral and theological pandect of the catholic church, i am catholic.

oriel36:

During my stay here I have the right to complain that there is no facility availible to prevent the undermining of simple Christian faith or exquisite Christian thinking by pale neo-gnostic stupidity by which you are framing your points.The Church was once capable of spotting these disruptive tendencies ( there are traces in Galileo’s method) and dealing with them but the Church now is in a very weak position.

There is a vast store of productive material which actually goes somewhere while you celebrate the exotic conceptual excesses of the early 20th century that are driving these secular empiricists crazy and you plead with him !!!.

again, i am not pleading with anyone.

look, if you want to have a productive exchange with someone, you both need to speak the same language. which is what i am doing with AnAtheist.

oriel36:

There are capable Catholics here but they cannot sit on the fence while people of lesser intellectual capabilities like yourself make a mess of things.

well, they’re welcome to enter the fray any time they see fit.

oriel36:

BTW, he won’t love you for adhering to Popper’s falsification,that is the particular chestnut that is driving the relativistic/qm guys crazy.That you apply it to faith shows that you are a worse freak than he is.

actually, the principle of falsification has yet to rear it’s ugly head…

when and if it does, i will keep this thought of yours in mind.

 

[oriel36]

john doran:

well, they’re (capable Catholics ) welcome to enter the fray any time they see fit.

.

It is not a fray,it is an empirical slaughter where you exist as nothing but a stool pidgeon no better or worse than creationists.You probably imagine that they gauge you as a worthy opponent (hence your appeal) but from my seat these guys have painted themselves into the homocentric conceptual corner they deserve and hate themselves and everyone else.

The great Johaninne community was absorbed into the Apostolic Church because it could not survive the infiltration by gnostic freaks.

usccb.org/nab/bible/2john/2john.htm

Newton as the originator of the empirical tradition denied the Trinity and as a pale form of neo-gnosticism I take the lead and wisdom of the Johaninne author in not even speaking on Christian matters with empiricists.The Newtonian/relativistic numbskulls can’t even converse on technical matters in their chosen disciplines so why would I wish to contend with their thinking on the exquisite Christian thinking or matters of faith.

The atheist is fine,it is people like you that Christianity needs to be protected from.

 

[reen12]

Dear clarkal,

“When I was a Catholic, Hell was so real to me that it drove me to insanity, and I had a nice little stay at the psychiatry ward.”
quote, clarkal

---

I’ve had enough. I’ve turned to Judaism. To do good
works [mizvot] for the love of God, seen as a priviledge.
Little emphasis on the afterlife.

Please know that there is at least one person
reading this thread who knows what you’re saying.
For one who has made several round trips to
“hell” [psychologically], the Christian depiction of
hell as “eternal fire” is…well, I don’t want to get
suspended.

I woke up one morning and said to myself:
This is* nuts *!

Be well, clarkal,
reen12

 

[reen12]

Dear clarkal,

Bingo !!! [your post #8] I hear you.

I’ve had enough. I’ve turned to Judaism. Good works
[mizvot] done for the love of God, seen as a priviledge.
Little emphasis on the afterlife.

In terms of hell, I woke up one morning and said:
“This is nuts !”

There’s an Hassidic tale about a revered rabbi,
who wept as he approached death. Others
assured him that he would have a share in the
world to come, so why was he weeping?
His response: Because I won’t be able to show
my love of God any longer through the mizvot."

If I do get to the world to come, I hope I can sit
by him.

best,
reen12

 

[john_doran]

oriel36:

It is not a fray,it is an empirical slaughter where you exist as nothing but a stool pidgeon no better or worse than creationists.You probably imagine that they gauge you as a worthy opponent (hence your appeal) but from my seat these guys have painted themselves into the homocentric conceptual corner they deserve and hate themselves and everyone else.

The great Johaninne community was absorbed into the Apostolic Church because it could not survive the infiltration by gnostic freaks.

usccb.org/nab/bible/2john/2john.htm

Newton as the originator of the empirical tradition denied the Trinity and as a pale form of neo-gnosticism I take the lead and wisdom of the Johaninne author in not even speaking on Christian matters with empiricists.The Newtonian/relativistic numbskulls can’t even converse on technical matters in their chosen disciplines so why would I wish to contend with their thinking on the exquisite Christian thinking or matters of faith.

The atheist is fine,it is people like you that Christianity needs to be protected from.

yikes.