Not in my church. They talk about the devil and the evils of this world in my church. And that isn’t to scare people - it’s to inform them.
I have never heard a sermon about Hell. People don’t want to hear about it and I also agree it helps keep members coming in the door. The official stance of the Church though is still the same. Lack of preaching about hell does not indicate the Church has changed its teaching on the subject.
That’s a nice and idealistic thought, but it doesn’t really ring true. Confirmation bias is as alive and well today as it was in any period of human history. We just have access to many greater sources of information that we can use to confirm our existing beliefs, though, these days.
Which is a societal / cultural dynamic, not an ecclesiastical one. However, you’re not dealing with the ways in which people continued to believe unpopular or ‘dangerous’ ideas, but simply not express them.
People stop believing in Christianity because its doctrine espouses eternal destinies? That’s interesting. To my experience, people leave their practice of religious faith due to flesh-and-blood reasons – negative personal experiences and the like. Well-thought-out, abstract philosophical considerations tend not to be the driving force in the discussion of “why I don’t go to church anymore” (although, sometimes, poorly-thought-out philosophies play the role of the excuses people use to justify those decisions; after all, it makes one look less shallow to say “I cannot continue believing in the moral dishonesty of eternal punishment” than to admit “I’m bored at Sunday services, and would rather be out playing golf”).
You are right, of course. That is why we STILL have believers. The overwhelming majority of the people are brought up in some religious environment, and most of them never deviate from the basic teachings during their life. So there is your confirmation bias.
Having a saint for a mother helps.
Those people most likely didn’t believe in the first place, or most certainly didn’t spend much time studying scripture. I’m speaking of informed, well educated people who spent time studying the bible and found out, hey, this whole eternal torture thing just makes no sense. And then they start looking at the different translations and find out many discrepancies.That’s a nice and idealistic thought, but it doesn’t really ring true. Confirmation bias is as alive and well today as it was in any period of human history. We just have access to many greater sources of information that we can use to confirm our existing beliefs, though, these days.
Which is a societal / cultural dynamic, not an ecclesiastical one. However, you’re not dealing with the ways in which people continued to believe unpopular or ‘dangerous’ ideas, but simply not express them.
People stop believing in Christianity because its doctrine espouses eternal destinies? That’s interesting. To my experience, people leave their practice of religious faith due to flesh-and-blood reasons – negative personal experiences and the like. Well-thought-out, abstract philosophical considerations tend not to be the driving force in the discussion of “why I don’t go to church anymore” (although, sometimes, poorly-thought-out philosophies play the role of the excuses people use to justify those decisions; after all, it makes one look less shallow to say “I cannot continue believing in the moral dishonesty of eternal punishment” than to admit “I’m bored at Sunday services, and would rather be out playing golf”).
That’s how it works. If you’re a roman you can get away with anything. If you are alive today, you would wind up in hell, as Augustine says. god help you if you were a female.
What an incredibly naive simplistic evaluation containing a significant air of arrogance. You surmise that one camp are ignorant fools, the other are studious thoughtful diligent seekers of enlightenment even achieved that with expositions of Greek and Hebrew for which they generally have no such formal qualifications.Though you do have a third writeoff category that of the fickle.
No discrepancies about Hell though.
I guess it could be taken that way, but I was going by my experience, which I guess is a small sample size. Many Catholics I know just go to church because they were brought up in the church, and do not go regularly. I agree that it was a bit of an assumption, but not one with arrogance.
I humbly and open-mindedly disagree.
I think the saint would readily admit that all he did or wrote that is good merely came through him, not from him. And, all the evil he did, well, he would *confess *he did those things on his own. He wrote so.
My bolding.
The air of arrogance refers to those who think they can just pick up a bible read it without a context use a few resources such as lexicons concordances and dictionaries at the same time ignoring 2000 years of history and tradition and shout eureka I have got the bible to say what I want it to.
Actually, the way I see people protecting the current Hell model take certain scripture passages to make their point. Like the PARABLE of Lazarus and the rich man. It is not speaking about heaven and hell. Also, Jesus speaks of Gehenna (trash fire pit during his time) not “hell” which is a pagan term. Sheol, Hades and Gehenna are not “hell” and should never be translated as such. Most current versions have changed this. Sheol and Hades are the pit or grave, and when used in that context consistently instead of only when the writers wanted to, scripture makes a whole lot more sense.
There are many mistranslations and misinterpretations. One must muddle through the mess to get to the truth.
Actually the embarrassment is that we are still teaching the same method as we taught in the days where is was routine to torture and kill people for basically any reason. The Catholic church burned people at the stake for heresy. Am I necessarily blaming the Church? No, that is what they did in those days. If people were treated on earth that way, it only makes sense to teach that people will be treated that way in the afterlife. However, with proper translation and interpretation, scripture simply does not teach eternal torture. John 3:16 is the perfect example, and really the only verse you need:
The serpent tricked them into sin by disobeying God’s will. Adam and Eve were just created, how would they know who to trust? Their mistake of disobedience makes the whole human race “deserve” to be tortured for eternity? That makes no sense. It’s a scare tactic for the times. Will there be fire? Yes, after the 2nd coming and judgement. The fire will be on earth and all wicked souls and wicked living people at that time will be thrown into it to perish as a final outcome. The righteous will be given life with God.
There may be some like that, but I think most Catholics go to church to hear the word, worship together, and have communion. There are many converts and immigrants in my church.
All you have done is turn two uniquely supernatural entities and transformed them down into a purely physical realm. Then you have made a third supernatural identity to simply disappear.
Supernatural is just another empty concept, without a referent in reality. Just like the Loch Ness monster, or the Easter Bunny or the “honest politician”.
No, I am a total believer in God and the afterlife. I have been many hours studying this. Reading scripture, seeing issues with the translations, studying the world at the time of these teachings, studying the churches, looking and thinking about the nature of God and Jesus, and using what I feel to be common sense. All this points to is the consequences of “hell” being eternal, not the punishing being eternal. Could I be wrong, of course. But for a Church to claim that they cannot be wrong is arrogant teaching and borders on brain washing.
That doesn’t explain why you have chosen to turn two uniquely supernatural entities and transformed them down into a purely physical realm. Then you have made a third supernatural identity to simply disappear.