Is eternal suffering pointless?

[tonyrey]

Man this has gone way off topic. Is there any way of bringing it back? Ill be back Sunday or Monday. Good luck

It’s right on topic and right down to basics. Why start in the middle?

 

[Bradski]

It had to invoke an immense number of random events far beyond the laws of probability to make it work.

If you want to consider yourself one of the aims of creation, that everything had to be exactly right in all places over billions of years in order that you could sit there and read this, then yeah, it is far beyond the realms of probability. But you’re not, so it isn’t. You’re just a random, nondescript and ultimately irrelevant bit of the universe that has developed self-awareness.

How far back can you go in your family tree? I can go back to the late 18th century on my father’s maternal grandmother’s side. People used to have large families back then. So let’s say 5 siblings per generation and I’m looking at over 150 direct ancestors. And all I know about them (not including my parents and grandparents) is about a dozen names scratched in an old (very old) family bible.

Go back another 5 generations and I have thousands of ancestors about whom there are zero records. I know nothing about them and apart from some of them probably having had children themselves, so maintaining the species, they left no mark. Thousands of people going about their everyday lives, completely and utterly forgotten. In the Grand Scheme of Things, they randomly popped into existence, scratched around for a few years and then disappeared again.

That’s our fate as well, Tony. No-one will remember us in a very short time. We will return from whence we came. As you said:

…the darkness of eternity from whence you have come and to which you will return without having achieved anything whatsoever except in your imagination…

That’s where we’re both headed, mate. So look after yourself. Three score years and ten isn’t much out of a few billion years. You won the Universal Lottery. Smell the roses. Don’t waste the prize.

 

[arte]

How can they feel love if they do not love. Seriously, we are all loved; the Beatific Vision as far as I understand involves participation in love eternal. It is not a taking but a receiving in the giving.

They can easily feel God’s love because it is much more powerful than human love. After actually feeling God’s love everyone will love God in return. It’s as simple as that.

 

[arte]

My apologies.

I think you are operating under some weird misapprehension that something from an online site is representative of Catholic teaching.

You would think that an organisation like “Catholic Parents on Line” was representative of Catholic teaching but I take your point because I cannot trace it back to an official Church source. I will try to contact them about the list.

There is nothing in the magisterium of the Church that gives a list of mortal sins, esp. one that includes “excessive tattoos” and “hypnotism.”

That’s just gaga, lala nonsense.

I completely agree. Some of the supposedly Mortal sins in the list were absolutely ridiculous. I have to be honest, I would have used the list as a typical example of how stupid the argument is for one unconfessed mortal sin to warrant eternal punishment. However, I still believe hell is morally wrong whatever the mortal sin.

But I want to make it clear to the Lurkers that the list is NOT from the Catholic Church.

I had to look up what the word “Lurkers” meant. Very interesting - I didn’t know such people existed.

 

[arte]

Well, I’m glad you believe I have all the others covered.

But I guess by insight you mean as in: ‘Ah, NOW I get it’. As the dictionary definition has it: ‘The ability to discern the true nature of a situation’. Same thing as the light bulb moment.

You can’t have a light bulb moment if you don’t have all the bites of information already in storage. Neither can you have the ability to discern the true nature of a situation if you posses no facts. If you have all the facts (or a good deal of them, enough to be able to fill in any missing information), you still don’t necessarily have a light bulb moment or insight into the situation until all the ducks line up.

You can shuffle the bits in memory about at random, or you can try to discern a pattern. Or you can let the subconscious do the shuffling for you.

Either way, it’s just a simple matter of retrieval. Nothing miraculous about it.

 

[arte]

Well, I’m glad you believe I have all the others covered.

I believe in the big bang and evolution. I also believe in God. I believe God created the universe out of nothing. This would make God an incredibly powerful being - do you agree? Why would a being so powerful need a system of justice that entails torturing His creation, us humans, 24/7 in hell for an eternity? Please bear in mind that this being is going to sentence the overwhelming vast majority of the human race to this eternal torture. Furthermore, the overwhelming vast majority of the human beings sentenced to this eternal torture are not murders etc - they are regular normal people.

 

[Bradski]

I believe in the big bang and evolution. I also believe in God. I believe God created the universe out of nothing. This would make God an incredibly powerful being - do you agree? Why would a being so powerful need a system of justice that entails torturing His creation, us humans, 24/7 in hell for an eternity?

Beats me. Makes no sense at all. Even to a believer…

 

[pocaracas]

False! I believe rationality is a fundamental aspect of reality - without which none of your opinions and convulsions would be possible…

Interesting… so rationality doesn’t require a medium, like a brain, from which to operate?
How… how does that work?
How do you couple that with the evidence that a damaged brain leads to an altered reasoning? Or that a simple chemical imbalance leads to warped reasoning?

According to Brad his component parts were formed from the elements that form this planet by sheer chance for no reason or purpose whatsoever.

One can think that it’s all deterministic… so… it all came together as it did, for it was going to do so, since things took off.
Chance is just a name we give to our inability to account for all the variables.
Once all are accounted for, if that ever happens, it’s possible that everything will be seen as deterministic and pre-determined… the future would be knowable.

Purpose… purpose requires an agent. Why would you assign purpose to the existence of the universe?

Brad really believes nothing started something which ended up with everything, but it couldn’t explain anything!

It seems you haven’t learned that nothing is not the same as empty space…

 

[PRmerger]

You would think that an organisation like “Catholic Parents on Line” was representative of Catholic teaching but I take your point because I cannot trace it back to an official Church source. I will try to contact them about the list.

There you go.

And I guarantee you that they will not be able to provide any official Catholic source that says that “excessive tattoos” and some of the other ridiculous things on that list is a mortal sin.

There also will be no official list provided by the Magisterium of mortal sins, save for, perhaps, the Ten Commandments, but even then it’s not a list that can be read without discernment. For example: keep holy the Sabbath day. Does that mean Saturday? Or Sunday? And does that mean one can’t work on the Sabbath? What if there’s no Mass available?

Qualifiers are of great import.

And that’s why, to get back to our original point, there is no list of mortal sins.

 

[PRmerger]

Of my mind, yes… not so sure about anyone else’s… but it’s better to assume that everyone else is similar to me… at least, because they do act the part… well, most of them anyway…

Can we operate under the working assumption that each person possesses a mind?

We could, if you use the paradigm that Catholicism espouses.

Using your paradigm, you can’t assume that each person possesses a mind. You have no certainty of it.

 

[PRmerger]

Now there’s a miracle for you - or is it magic?

Haha! Well played, tony.

There seems to be so many things that poca seems to embrace that are magical (again, like something coming from nothing, the existence of the mind, without a single empirical study which can demonstrate this…).

This is especially egregious coming from someone who has objected to the Christian paradigm as entertaining magic as the explanation for so many of our beliefs.

 

[PRmerger]

Those who repent and accept our Lord Jesus Christ will be saved but you who have rejected our Lord are destined for eternal perdition.

Oh, geez…facepalm

Not even the Catholic Church has taken on that authority to say who’s destined for eternal perdition.

That’s above her paygrade.

And it’s above your paygrade for certain.

 

[PRmerger]

But if people were to **actually feel ** God’s love in the afterlife by experiencing the beatific vision, they would not find God’s love odious.

This is certainly not true.

We have the model of our own world here to prove that your proposal is false.

Here, in our world, we all feel God’s love in so many aspects of our life…yet we choose to sin anyway and turn away from it.

Even when we’ve experienced God’s love.

 

[PRmerger]

I completely agree. Some of the supposedly Mortal sins in the list were absolutely ridiculous. I have to be honest, I would have used the list as a typical example of how stupid the argument is for one unconfessed mortal sin to warrant eternal punishment.

Annnnd that’s exactly why I have such a big problem with that ridiculous list.

Uninformed people are going to think that you have offered an actual valid example of mortal sins.

And from that will flow a lot of false ideas.

However, I still believe hell is morally wrong whatever the mortal sin.

So why did Jesus talk so much about it (that is, Gehenna)?

 

[OneSheep]

This is certainly not true.

We have the model of our own world here to prove that your proposal is false.

Here, in our world, we all feel God’s love in so many aspects of our life…yet we choose to sin anyway and turn away from it.

Even when we’ve experienced God’s love.

Hi PR,

If you look at the Genesis story, though, we can see how it happens. A&E did not intend to turn away from Love, they wanted to attain something that they saw as good, and were blinded by their desire.

The blindness caused them to doubt what God said, their own idea of right and wrong was compromised. They sought something good.

Therefore, the human would have to see hell as a “good” in order to do such turning away. Given the typical description of hell, the only “good” could be the turning away from God Himself because of resentment toward Him, at least that is all I can think of at the moment. Why do people resent God? Well, life experiences, lots of reasons.

We would think that our loving, all-powerful creator could reveal to the human why all the bad things, that triggered the resentment, had happened. Correct? And then, the human could forgive his creator.

God Bless.

OneSheep

 

[pocaracas]

We could, if you use the paradigm that Catholicism espouses.

Using your paradigm, you can’t assume that each person possesses a mind. You have no certainty of it.

What certainty do we have that the paradigm that Catholicism espouses is valid?

#########

Haha! Well played, tony.

There seems to be so many things that poca seems to embrace that are magical (again, like something coming from nothing, the existence of the mind, without a single empirical study which can demonstrate this…).

This is especially egregious coming from someone who has objected to the Christian paradigm as entertaining magic as the explanation for so many of our beliefs.

Another one that fails to understand the unknown, the unknowable, and how “empty space” and “nothing” are two different things…
Why are you guys like this? Are these difficult concepts?

I don’t posit magic anywhere.
I also don’t posit any god… pick your god, they all have the same “empirical study” to demonstrate them.

 

[PRmerger]

Hi PR,

If you look at the Genesis story, though, we can see how it happens. A&E did not intend to turn away from Love, they wanted to attain something that they saw as good, and were blinded by their desire.

Egg-zactly.

The blindness caused them to doubt what God said, their own idea of right and wrong was compromised. They sought something good.

Therefore, the human would have to see hell as a “good” in order to do such turning away. Given the typical description of hell, the only “good” could be the turning away from God Himself because of resentment toward Him, at least that is all I can think of at the moment. Why do people resent God? Well, life experiences, lots of reasons.

 

[PRmerger]

What certainty do we have that the paradigm that Catholicism espouses is valid?

Ummm…*you’re *the one who demands certainty.

Catholicism asserts that we have firm confidence in the truths professed by those we trust. Not 100% certainty.

We don’t need no stinkin’ certainty.

We just have the moral assurance that God has revealed what we need to know in order to know Him.

We’re not aware of anything that Catholicism professes that’s false, but we’re not thereby acquitted…paraphrasing St. Paul.

 

[PRmerger]

Another one that fails to understand the unknown, the unknowable, and how “empty space” and “nothing” are two different things…

Huh?

Are you confusing me with someone else, poca?

When have I defined the unknown, the unknowable, and how empty space and nothing are 2 different things?

I don’t posit magic anywhere.

LOL!

I also don’t posit any god… pick your god, they all have the same “empirical study” to demonstrate them.

Don’t know what this means. Can you please 'splain?

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Here, in our world, we all feel God’s love in so many aspects of our life.

Wow! We do??? Where and when? If I want to be extremely “lenient”, then I would call God totally “indifferent”. Not even his most devout “servants” can show better health, have happier life, enjoy the good parts of this existence, live longer than the infidels, heathens and heretics. There is no difference.

What are those aspects of THIS life which indicate God’s love for us? The disasters, which strike down the good and the evil ones alike? The existence of the psychopaths and sociopaths, who wreak havoc among the rest of us? The existence of rapists and murderers? Are these the manifestations of God’s love?

God does not heal the sick, or feed the hungry, or comfort and support the weak, or protect them from the “bad guys”. There is absolutely no sign of God’s love… where I am from. You say that I am “mistaken”? Bring on your arguments, show us the evidence for God’s “love” - here and now, in this life.