Having a problem believing in Hell

[Spock]

I am sure it would be nice.
But do not be too certain that has not happened. I am always surprised.
I have found many times that a specific prayer is answered through the words another on this forum writes. Although God may not be the typist, I cannot help thinking God has influenced another to write something that means a great deal to me.

I would not deny it, even though I don’t think so. But life is so wonderfully complicated that sometimes even the most unbelievable claims turn out to be true.

Perhaps I was not clear though.
I have seen several different threads you have participated in.
You are very skilled and clever. I doubt anyone will be able to mount a convincing argument for you. I am thinking action on God’s part would be necessary.

Thank you very much. It is very kind of you to say so, and I deeply appreciate it. I am open to God, at any time he deems is appropriate.

So what exactly do you want from God that would convince you of his existence?
What is the miracle you are after?

Very good question. Let me be vague as a first approximation. Anything and everything would do which proves that there is God. A personal visit would be very nice. Of course I would have a bunch of questions. There is one thing, which I want to emphasize. I am willing to accept anything, except one thing. I cannot accept that I am insane. So if the choice is that God exists or that I am insane, I would have to decide that God exists.

Let me give an example. Suppose that someone came to me and claimed that he can levitate. I would be skeptical of such a claim, after all it looks like a violation of gravity. If he demonstrated, that he can levitate (in front of video cameras and witnesses, especially stage magicians as witnesses), then I would have to make a choice. Either I would have to accept that his claim is true, or I would have to assume that my senses “deceive” me, that I am insane. Based upon the demonstration I would have to accept his claim as true. Does this make sense?

Now, going back to your question. I am not really thinking about specific miracles, though they might be interesting. I am looking for some logical and reasonable explanations, for example concerning the “problem of evil”. I would ask for a specific and verifyable demonstration of omniscience. If you are interested, I can elaborate on this, since that is a very difficult problem. I am a die-hard atheist, for sure. But I can be convinced.

 

[PAboy57]

Sorry, I meant that I am looking for logical and reasonable arguments from the forum posters. I might have misunderstood your previous post.

God has an open invitation from me at any time. If he is shy to come to me personally, maybe he could log on as a user, if he wanted to, and give all of us the fruits of his wisdom. He would not have to go through the process of application, the mods would have no control over his posts, etc… he could just enlighten all of us. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Mr. Spock,

People lived for thousands of years and then finally God sent Jesus to redeem mankind. People saw his miracles and listened to His words and still did not believe. Created for us was the Bible, Sacred Tradition and the Church to guide us to heaven. You have chosen not to believe but open to God giving you a message. That message was delivered 2,000 years ago with some pretty good verbiage to go with it from eye witness and successor’s accounts. He has also sent our Blessed Mother, more recently and several times, all over the world to deliver the message and still so many do not believe.

Your heart and mind are closed and nothing we offer is going to satisfy. I’ll give you credit that you have good mind, maybe too good. Jesus said we have to be like the children and have childlike faith. We are at the point in this world where we believe we are gods with all of our great technology and college learning, etc. Faith is called faith for a reason. You have to believe without the ability to prove.

I wish you find whatever you are seeking. Whether that is perceived knowledge that you are right or something opens your heart and mind to accomodate Jesus Christ. I don’t have anything else to offer you and several people on here have given you plenty to consider.

Take care and best wishes on this subject.

 

[Spock]

Mr. Spock,

People lived for thousands of years and then finally God sent Jesus to redeem mankind. People saw his miracles and listened to His words and still did not believe. Created for us was the Bible, Sacred Tradition and the Church to guide us to heaven. You have chosen not to believe but open to God giving you a message. That message was delivered 2,000 years ago with some pretty good verbiage to go with it from eye witness and successor’s accounts. He has also sent our Blessed Mother, more recently and several times, all over the world to deliver the message and still so many do not believe.

Your heart and mind are closed and nothing we offer is going to satisfy. I’ll give you credit that you have good mind, maybe too good. Jesus said we have to be like the children and have childlike faith. We are at the point in this world where we believe we are gods with all of our great technology and college learning, etc. Faith is called faith for a reason. You have to believe without the ability to prove.

I wish you find whatever you are seeking. Whether that is perceived knowledge that you are right or something opens your heart and mind to accomodate Jesus Christ. I don’t have anything else to offer you and several people on here have given you plenty to consider.

Take care and best wishes on this subject.

You are very kind, and I thank you for your good wishes.

 

[Pieman333272]

But this does not mean he doesn’t care about you. *If *God exists, as vz71 and Exodus claim, then the patient encouragement and reasoning of people like vz71 and Exodus are in fact concrete instances of God’s care for you. That’s how God works in the Catholic understanding: true love of neighbor is fundamentally a participation/sharing in God’s love and is indissolubly linked to love of God. (If God doesn’t exist, then obviously their caring about you has nothing to do with God; but if He does…)

There have been some good points all around, but can I ask a question on this topic? Why does God need people, or any earthly medium beyond scriptures and revelation, to make people worship him? If he’s omnipotent, why doesn’t he just do it himself?

That’s not my objection, but I’ve heard it and felt I could get some answers by bringing it up here.

 

[vz71]

I am looking for some logical and reasonable explanations, for example concerning the “problem of evil”.

OK, what exactly is the ‘problem of evil’ that you describe?

 

[Betterave]

I’ll give you credit that you have good mind, maybe too good.

Now you are being ‘kind,’ but here’s the rub: a mind is not “too good” by virtue of the fact that it refuses to admit the existence of God, unless it is (intellectually) bad to admit the existence of God. Is that what you think?

Spock paraphrasing it: “The strongest evidence that there is no God is the fact that he never came down and kicked the living daylight out of the apologists for spreading such nonsense about him”.

(Or paraphrasing Chesterton paraphrasing it: “The only real argument against Christianity is Christians.”)

In any case, with due respect to Mr. Spock, I have witnessed several occasions that belie your claim about his mind being “too good.” His arguments have frequently been very bad (from a strictly rational perspective). (Of course there are also plenty of posters on CAF whose arguments are much worse!)

 

[Betterave]

Correct. Obviously I cannot know what my reaction will be in the remaining part of my life. However, it is very unlikely that I would undergo some radical change. I already “died” once, when my heart stopped due to a heart attack, and had to be dragged back, pretty drastically. It made no difference to my attitude. Then I had another heart-attack, and that made no difference either. I was actually joking through the whole process of angioplasty. So, you see, I am on pretty firm ground when I assume that only a direct approach on God’s part would make a difference for me.

You may be on firm ground as far as the heart attack approach goes, but I was referring only to the rational persuasion approach…

The lure of an afterlife is not strong, especially as described. The threat of hell is not frightening enough. The arguments presented by the apologists are I find weak, contrived, contradictory and nonsensical. As a matter of fact, the presented arguments are not just ineffective, they push me further away from belief.

…and apparently you “find” that you are on firm ground here too, but the question remains as to how firm that ground really is, apart from your admittedly fallible “findings”.

I keep remembering the wonderful Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, where Hobbes says: “The strongest evidence that there are other intelligent beings in the Universe is the fact that they never came to visit us”. Paraphrasing it: “The strongest evidence that there is no God is the fact that he never came down and kicked the living daylight out of the apologists for spreading such nonsense about him”.

No doubt about it: God did not create all apologists equal.
None of us knows everything, and some of us might be quite full of **it. But that is all incidental to the matter itself.

Now, there are two possibilities, either the apologists are wrong or they are right. If they are wrong (meaning that God does not wish everyone to be saved) then this whole conversation is just blowing smoke. If they are right, then God does not “wish” my salvation strongly enough, to nudge me in the right direction. Yet, God is supposed to be agape. And agape is to act in someone else’s best interest. It would be definitely in my best interest to be saved. It would cost God nothing. And yet, God does not do anything to achieve it. Nothing, that would be effective. So where does that leave me?

But I think you’ve missed the point: You say “God does not “wish” my salvation strongly enough, to nudge me in the right direction.” But if “nudging you in the right direction” is in fact what God is continuing to do through the witness and arguments of the posters here, then you are just begging the question: if the apologists are right, then in fact God is continuing to nudge you in the right direction.

 

[Spock]

OK, what exactly is the ‘problem of evil’ that you describe?

It is pretty simple, and I am sure you know what I mean. But it can be useful for both of us to put it into clear terms. According to the christian concept God has several attributes, among others there is “omnipotence”, “omniscience” and “omnibenevolence”. This last one means that God is “good”, in other words wants the best for everyone. No one likes pain or suffering. Our biological disposition is to avoid pain as much as we can. Not even masochists want pain, theu want simulated, make-believe pain.

Which means that a good God would never allow pain and suffering for anyone, unless there is a very good reason for it, in other words if that said pain and suffering has such a positive outcome that will justify the temporary pain, suffering or discomfort. Yet, as we all know there is a lot of pain and suffering, which do not seem to have a good reason them.

The problem is how to reconcile the existence of seemingly gratuitous pain with God’s benevolence. There are several attempted answers to this question. We don’t need to go into them here (unless you want to), since there are many threads dealing with this problem. I do not find any of the answers satisfactory. (Here is a link which summarizes some of the attempted answers: here…) Now, obviously God would have a satisfactory answer, if there is one. I would ask him to explain to me.

 

[Betterave]

Why does God need people, or any earthly medium beyond scriptures and revelation, to make people worship him? If he’s omnipotent, why doesn’t he just do it himself?

Spock is quite right to note that God doesn’t need to use people (or scriptures, for that matter) to “make people worship him” (and I think you might mean: “to make himself known to people” - ?). He is omnipotent, but what does that imply about the best use of that omnipotence? Not an easy question, but some thoughts:

We believe that we can know about God’s power by observing created powers. What God creates is a kind of participation in God’s being, insofar as God is the source of all being. Spiritual/intellectual beings share in God’s being (God’s ‘image’) in a special way, by knowing and loving. We also share in God’s creative nature by ‘procreating’, which is not just biological reproduction of the species, but is a knowing and loving participation in the coming to be of new persons, who will also come to know and love through our ‘procreative’ influence. (This includes the influence of rational persuasion - think Socratic midwifery.) This sets us apart from animals and constitutes our special dignity among biological beings. This special dignity is good and beautiful, and that fact itself is reason for God to have ordained things to be in that way - not from necessity, but from a free creative outpouring of God’s own divine goodness.

 

[Spock]

No doubt about it: God did not create all apologists equal.
None of us knows everything, and some of us might be quite full of **it. But that is all incidental to the matter itself.

But I think you’ve missed the point: You say “God does not “wish” my salvation strongly enough, to nudge me in the right direction.” But if “nudging you in the right direction” is in fact what God is continuing to do through the witness and arguments of the posters here, then you are just begging the question: if the apologists are right, then in fact God is continuing to nudge you in the right direction.

OK, I accept your analysis. If that is the preferred way of “nudging” used by God, I don’t find it effective. I think that God has better weapons in his “arsenal”, because if this is the best he can do… As you said, and I agree that not all apologists are created equal (sad to say but some give me the shivers). I would really like to meet someone who can do better than the “nudging” I have experienced so far.

Mind you, I have met quite a few very bright and knowledgable people during the many years I have been around (when I first joined the board, there was no “philosophy” section - so you can see that it was a very long time ago). We had lots of good conversations and sometimes we could agree on some minor points, but otherwise we had to agree to disagree. Which is fine.

I see a few start-up problems. It seems that we cannot even agree on the meaning of many words, so quite frequently we talk past each other. I started threads in the past, where I invited others to come together and iron out the mutually agreeable meanings of some words, so we can have a common starting ground. All those threads fizzled out, due to lack of interest. But, as you see, I am still hoping. What say you?

 

[vz71]

It is pretty simple, and I am sure you know what I mean. But it can be useful for both of us to put it into clear terms. According to the christian concept God has several attributes, among others there is “omnipotence”, “omniscience” and “omnibenevolence”. This last one means that God is “good”, in other words wants the best for everyone. No one likes pain or suffering. Our biological disposition is to avoid pain as much as we can. Not even masochists want pain, theu want simulated, make-believe pain.

Which means that a good God would never allow pain and suffering for anyone, unless there is a very good reason for it, in other words if that said pain and suffering has such a positive outcome that will justify the temporary pain, suffering or discomfort. Yet, as we all know there is a lot of pain and suffering, which do not seem to have a good reason them.

The problem is how to reconcile the existence of seemingly gratuitous pain with God’s benevolence. There are several attempted answers to this question. We don’t need to go into them here (unless you want to), since there are many threads dealing with this problem. I do not find any of the answers satisfactory. (Here is a link which summarizes some of the attempted answers: here…) Now, obviously God would have a satisfactory answer, if there is one. I would ask him to explain to me.

I am sure you realize that the article you link to is a straw man…right?
Of course, I am ahead of myself.
Do you have a problem with the pain experienced in this life or the pain experienced in the hereafter? Or is it both?

And which should we examine first?

People have been trying to answer for the horrors in this life for as long as people have been around to think about it. One answer I have found comfort in is the fact that I do not perceive everything that is there.
Our reality is but a small part of a much greater whole that we do not necessarily understand or comprehend.
The baby does not know that the shot he is given will help him stay healthy, he only comprehends the pain.
The animal with a broken leg does not comprehend the help people give to help it heal, it only sees the pain and fear.

Now I certainly would not say we are animals, but it is our understanding of it all that compares.
I suppose this takes a great deal of faith.
I do not envy you your position.

Now hell…
That is another matter completely.
Those that are in hell are in a torture of their own design.
They actively choose not to embrace God, and the active refusal is a cause of pain.
Their own pride and stubborness keeps them attached to their sin and continually refusing God.
It is the ultimate feedback loop.
Their actions in this life lead to refusal of God (hell), which leads them into deeper sin, which leads them to a refusal of God, which leads to deeper sin, etc…And on to infinity.

 

[PAboy57]

Now you are being ‘kind,’ but here’s the rub: a mind is not “too good” by virtue of the fact that it refuses to admit the existence of God, unless it is (intellectually) bad to admit the existence of God. Is that what you think?

Spock paraphrasing it: “The strongest evidence that there is no God is the fact that he never came down and kicked the living daylight out of the apologists for spreading such nonsense about him”.

(Or paraphrasing Chesterton paraphrasing it: “The only real argument against Christianity is Christians.”)

In any case, with due respect to Mr. Spock, I have witnessed several occasions that belie your claim about his mind being “too good.” His arguments have frequently been very bad (from a strictly rational perspective). (Of course there are also plenty of posters on CAF whose arguments are much worse!)

My point is that Spock is wrapped up in all the fantastic technology we have today. We do wonderful things through medicine, we peer into the universe, we now have bionics, basically man now believes he doesn’t need God or he doesn’t exist. Man blames God for everything. Spock thinks God, if He really exists, should whisper to each person and tell them He has their back. If he really existed he wouldn’t let Fido suffer. God allowed His chosen people to be slaves to the Egyptians for 400 years because THEY turned their back on Him. So he let nature take its course and they got hit by the biggest 2 X 4 ever made. 400 years making bricks – talk about the good life. But God finally heard their cry and sent Moses to bail them out. They they still made a golden animal to worship on the way home – so God sent them on the scenic route until each of the evil minded dumb butts were dead. They didn’t deserve the prize.

Man watches too many super hero movies and thus thinks God should be flying around with a cape saving those in trouble. He should be wiping out the bad guys and providing restitution for the inflicted.

Spock and others with his views are the same as that newspaper editor in Spiderman. No matter how many wonderous acts Spiderman does to save the people, he just refuses to believe Spiderman as good. He has too much PRIDE to admit he is wrong about Spiderman and says Spider is just putting on an act to lure us in for the kill.

Atheists will die, except the majority that convert at the last minute from shear fear, with the sin of PRIDE as they think they know more than anyone else. No words are convincing enough to have them say on this forum – Thank you Lord for having so much patience with a sinner like me.

Us, the believers, spend a serious amount of time trying to save 1 soul at a time on this forum. We go round after round but our words are never quite good enough to convince the atheist filled with PRIDE. Pride ruined Adam & Eve and they talked to God everyday. The best we can hope for is to plant a seed and then the atheist will have an unsettling feeling eating at them and begin to search for God with an open mind and heart. That different approach will make all the difference and some time in the future they will have their - AH HA moment and understand there is a God and He isn’t Batman but He is much better and can have a relationship with each one of us through prayer and the sacraments.

We could be mean spirited and pray that each atheist get exactly what they deserve. That wouldn’t be Christian on such a large scale. So we continue to pray – God, please open the hearts and minds of those outside the Church so they may find peace and salvation. But on ocassion I’m sure there is somebody that probably deserves the first prayer. Then stand back and wait for that 2 X 4 to slam them like Mark McQuire was swinging it. But unless the mind and heart are open they just get the whooping. Maybe some of them deserve that??? I don’t know.

That’s pretty much how I see it. Just my 2 cents worth. May God bless you all.

 

[Spock]

I am sure you realize that the article you link to is a straw man…right?

I think it hits the nail right on the head. The presentation is rather explicit, but the arguments it describes are all over the place, with different wording, obviously. Your argument below is exactly what the fifth officer says:

People have been trying to answer for the horrors in this life for as long as people have been around to think about it. One answer I have found comfort in is the fact that I do not perceive everything that is there.
Our reality is but a small part of a much greater whole that we do not necessarily understand or comprehend.
The baby does not know that the shot he is given will help him stay healthy, he only comprehends the pain.
The animal with a broken leg does not comprehend the help people give to help it heal, it only sees the pain and fear.

Now I certainly would not say we are animals, but it is our understanding of it all that compares.

“Look, there’s really no point in my trying to explain the details to you,” said the fifth officer, who we had nicknamed ‘Brainiac’ because he had an encyclopedic knowledge of literally everything and an IQ way off the charts. “There’s an excellent reason for why I did not intervene, but it’s just way too complicated for you to understand, so I’m not even going to bother trying. I mean, you admit you are nowhere near as knowledgeable as I am, so what right do you have to judge? Just so there’s no misunderstanding, though, let me point out that no one could care about Ms. K. more than I did, and that I am, in fact, a very good person. That settles that.”

Now hell…
That is another matter completely.
Those that are in hell are in a torture of their own design.
They actively choose not to embrace God, and the active refusal is a cause of pain.
Their own pride and stubborness keeps them attached to their sin and continually refusing God.
It is the ultimate feedback loop.
Their actions in this life lead to refusal of God (hell), which leads them into deeper sin, which leads them to a refusal of God, which leads to deeper sin, etc…And on to infinity.

This sounds like the argument that the prisons are all made by the ciminals, who “choose” to go there on their own volition. No one “chooses” to be tortured forever. No one bangs of the gates of hell, demanding admittance.

 

[You]

…
The problem is how to reconcile the existence of seemingly gratuitous pain with God’s benevolence. There are several attempted answers to this question. We don’t need to go into them here (unless you want to), since there are many threads dealing with this problem. I do not find any of the answers satisfactory. (Here is a link which summarizes some of the attempted answers: here…) Now, obviously God would have a satisfactory answer, if there is one. I would ask him to explain to me.

Are you that former priest Spock?
The immediate problem I see with your ‘twelve officers’ is that God would have to shoot everyone, - as no person, including Spock, is without sin.
Spock, your solution to the problem of evil in the world is to ‘shoot them all’, but the problem then is that you, Spock, are not innocent and must be shot also. Gods solution to the problem of evil in the world is to forgive and love your enemy. This way people can actually be saved intact; “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Something about the wheat and the weeds…

1803 "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."62

 

[paduard]

Quoting Spock:-

“The lure of an afterlife is not strong, especially as described. The threat of hell is not frightening enough. The arguments presented by the apologists are I find weak, contrived, contradictory and nonsensical. As a matter of fact, the presented arguments are not just ineffective, they push me further away from belief.”"

I find this observation to be the most significant one made within this topic. Well thought out (or rather internally discerned) and one that, I find for myself, as standing apart from the many views and digressions read here.

So obviously I agree with Spock inasmuch as it respresents a cry against what he in effect describes as ‘week apologists’. No surprises there as the intellectual discussions by the hierarchy on Limbo so proved; a jolt herein perhaps but nonetheless a bit beside the point.

The difficulty really lies in the imagination - especially where metaphysical thinking crosses over towards mystical theology. Perhaps members would contribute a little along those lines.

 

[Spock]

Are you that former priest Spock?

What priest? I never mentioned any priest?

The immediate problem I see with your ‘twelve officers’ is that God would have to shoot everyone, - as no person, including Spock, is without sin.

I did not talk about what God “should do”. I simply point out how ridiculous the attempted rationalizations are concerning why God “allows” these events. I am not criticizing God, I criticize the apologists for being naive. I would like to use a stronger word, but it would not be “charitable”.

 

[You]

What priest? I never mentioned any priest?

I did not talk about what God “should do”. I simply point out how ridiculous the attempted rationalizations are concerning why God “allows” these events. I am not criticizing God, I criticize the apologists for being naive. I would like to use a stronger word, but it would not be “charitable”.

I am responding to the link you provided in your post - it was written by a former priest, so it says.
In that link an imaginary crime is committed and 12 types of God are put on trial for allowing it.

I am telling you both the victim and the criminal would both be extinguished for some crime at some time or other in their lives if you think that allowing crime was a problem for God.

Presenting an argument which says ‘why didn’t God do something’ as a proof against the reality of hell is, in fact, an argument for the reality of hell. Insomuch as if every person was judged and sentenced and executed upon committing a first crime there would in fact be no humans left on earth.
Evil, crime, sin, pain are all endured by God as necessary evils if any people at all are to come through life and avoid hell.

 

[vz71]

No one “chooses” to be tortured forever. No one bangs of the gates of hell, demanding admittance.

Consider for a moment the number of chritians there are in the world.
They all believe in hell. They all know sin will eventually send them there.
And yet there are a number of them that continue to sin every day.

Day by day, sin by sin, they choose hell.

I believe it would be more accurate if you stated “I would not choose to be tortured forever.”
For others do.

 

[vz71]

I think it hits the nail right on the head. The presentation is rather explicit, but the arguments it describes are all over the place, with different wording, obviously.

But they all start from a faulty premise.

 

[Spock]

Consider for a moment the number of chritians there are in the world.
They all believe in hell. They all know sin will eventually send them there.

It is a nice, poetic language, and as such it is imprecise. They all believe (not know!) that if they don’t repent, then they will be “sent” there. “Sin” is not an entity or a person, which can “send” anyone anywhere.

You could say that God, either personally, or through Satan, by proxy will grab their neck and put them there. (Outsourcing seems to have started a long time ago.) That would be precise. I am always wondering why don’t you call a “spade a spade”. Why all this roundabout, flowery expression like “sin will send one to hell”, or people “choose hell”. Just be explicit, and say it: “God will punish those who do not worship him”.

And yet there are a number of them that continue to sin every day.
Day by day, sin by sin, they choose hell.

No, they do not. None of them explicitly thinks that “I will do this sinful act, because I want to go to hell”. I risk to say that I know what they do not think.

I believe it would be more accurate if you stated “I would not choose to be tortured forever.”
For others do.

I don’t believe you. We all abhor pain. No one takes a hammer and beats his own thumb, just to experience pain. I guess, there might be a few insane people who do something like that. Those, who ask to be crucified to emulate the pain Jesus allegedly suffered. But those people all know that their pain will be temporary.

But they all start from a faulty premise.

Please elaborate. What faulty premise are you talking about?