I guess it depends on how far you want to take it. I talk to people about this stuff all the time, but I'm measured, I'm not always measured in this forum, but when talking with friends, etc. I even went to a church and sat in on a class on faith and reason. I was very careful about what I said, and mostly, offered answers only when asked. However, the person leading the class didn't like that I was there, at least that was my impression. I find that some progress can be made, but I had to watch my attitude. And, I had to be careful not to come across as a know it all. I find that many atheists and agnostics have a very condescending way of talking. I include myself in this mix. My metaphysics, although not religious, is a bit spiritual, so I do have some sympathy for those who appeal to something beyond.

There was an exchange on this earlier. Someone who admires the tyrant shares in the injustice. Someone who feigns admiration is not admirable. — Banno

There was no exchange on this and nothing but a equivocation in the article. How does worship equate to admire?

Your point? — Banno

That if we are trying to critique an individual, we need to understand that individual rather than your preconceived notion of what that person believes. Rather than dwell on your refusal to do so (even after it was pointed out by multiple people), I’ve tried to directly address the Lewis article. What little discussion was had in the post (such as pointing out that worship is a fear response) was not met with your clarification of what “admire” means so-far-as I recall. I’m happy to be corrected, but it seems more straightforward to just address the question in response to this post.

That if we are trying to critique an individual, we need to understand that individual rather than your preconceived notion of what that person believes. — Ennui Elucidator

The trouble is, again, that the view being criticises - eternal damnation - is a part of christianity as understood by christians. Their admiration for the torturer is demonstrated in their devotion.

And again, your part in this conversation is tedious.

And again, your part int his conversation is tedious. — Banno

Please stop doing that.

Fixed. Slight dyslexia, i reverse letters - or in this case a letter and a space.

I wasn’t complaining about your typing skill, but about your habit of what one might call “controlling” or “manipulating” the conversation, rather than participating in it.

Ah. See PM.

t seems the discussion is somehow taboo. The arguments against the OP amount to no more than "Banno, you can't say that!" — Banno

Sacred cows and their defenders... I've been watching with some surprise. Curious that people sniff out 'bigotry' when a perfectly reasonable critique of a doctrine is provided. It's as if there's a need to call it prejudice in order to distract from a psychologically difficult truth.

Moral character of Christians.

Finite offense, infinite punishment: Offense << Punishment

The law is usually such that

Offense > punishment

except in the case of capital punishment or so I'm told.

Allah the merciful

Crucial difference between religious justice and secular justice: Repentance & conversion (infidels).

The legal system has no (known) provision for remorse (either it's legally meaningless or has only minor relevance to the severity of the sentence).

Not so in religion. If you regret your actions, all is forgiven and your slate is wiped clean.

So, the solution to Christian hellfire is child's play. This, in my humble opinion, makes punishment in Christianity one big joke! All you have to do is genuinely repent one's immoral actions. Easier said than done! Can be said but can't be meant!

Yes. left me nonplussed.

What is the reason for this moral pearl-clutching?

What?

What's the point? Why the interest in judging the morality of Christians? Is it just a secular victory lap, mocking the old guard that the last generation killed?

Who cares, if none of this stuff is real anyway?

I need an ulterior motive to discuss a novel philosophical argument on a philosophy forum?

But it's not novel. Surely you know this? Its banality is reason to suspect that there is some other reason you think it warrants discussion.

:meh:

Were you asleep during the entire 2000s and 2010s? How many times have we gone over this?

and others...

So, I'm going to come out and say that I don't think Christians, by and large, actually believe the things they say they believe. I think the simplest explanation for why the things they say make no sense to a secular audience is that they things they say make no sense. I think the simplest explanation for why it seems contradictory for God to commit genocide yet us be repulsed by it is because it is contradictory. The simplest explanation for why the Bible condones stoning adulteresses, but we are sickened by it is because it's just a book, it was written thousands of years ago and isn't relevant to modern sensibilities.

We could raise an objection on private-subjective grounds - only they have access to how they feel. But do they? Have you never found yourselves confused about how you feel, never found you have biases and prejudices that you didn't realise, never caught yourself justifying something post hoc? So it seem our private-subjective access is sketchy at best.

It seems more than a little like special pleading to say that Christians have some incommensurable world-view which makes sense of these contradictions when, in everyday life, we know full well that we personally juggle a half dozen contradictory feelings and urges every day. Why would we assume the Christians have somehow got it all beautifully stitched together when we can't even make a consistent choice between the ease of driving to the shop and the harm of additional greenhouse emissions?

Unless we're actually going to believe religious claims to divine access, it seems far more parsimonious to believe that the mess of contradictions, inconsistencies and post hoc rationalisations we perceive in Christianity are, in fact a mess of contradictions, inconsistencies and post hoc rationalisations. After all, our secular world is similarly constituted.

So what's happening here? Lewis has said something about Christianity, you (referring generically to those critical of @Banno's approach), take him to task, point out where he's gone wrong, where what he says doesn't make sense to you, where you think he's missed an inconsistency, or might be looking at things through an unhelpful frame... it's what we do here, right?

But the original protest, that the Christians have said something which doesn't make sense, something inconsistent, perhaps an unhelpful way of looking at things... That's out of bounds, they are assumed, not to be mistaken, benefiting from our discussion, but rather to be completely self consistent in a flawless, neatly stitched together world-view whose utter perfection we just fail to understand?

It just seems really odd that a group of people who - let's be clear - do take part in the world of discourse, do say things to the secular, do expect to have their beliefs acted upon in our shared world... are given a sort of diplomatic immunity as if merely ambassadors from some other world where their beliefs have only impact on them and not us.

As if the object of faith were irrelevant so long as the "feeling" was right. What twaddle.

Do I have a tin ear? No, I'm pointing to an interesting discord in the melody. — Banno

The object of faith is irrelevant of the feeling is right. The right feeling for the religious is love and compassion. And I think it's fair to say that those who are authentically religious, whether Buddhists, Christians, Hindus or Muslims, believe in compassion and love for others regardless of cultural or religious differences.

You have said that your argument applies only to those who admire God for punishing the unfaithful with eternal torment. In other words you admit it applies only to radical fundamentalists. That you make that concession is in your favour, but I think the title of your OP betrays your real intent, since it generalizes to "Christians" and "religion".

Those who admire God for punishing the faithless I imagine would be a very small percentage of Christians, and much less of a percentage of the religious in general. This thread seems like at best a pointless exercise, and at worst a lead in to anti-religious bigotry.

SO point me to where this topic has been discussed ad nauseam in these fora.

Why would we assume the Christians have somehow got it all beautifully stitched together — Isaac

Yikes, I hope I haven’t given that impression. I pointed out that it’s not unusual for Christians to struggle with or have misgivings about the concept of hell. And it’s not a secret either. There’s lots of writing. There’s lots of public discussion.

After all, our secular world is similarly constituted. — Isaac

That point I like a lot. I think it’s a great idea just to take Christianity as an example of a process of meaning-making that is of a type with what non-Christians do. As you pointed out before, though, the psychology here is almost too easy for you.

There is a real sticking point — which I mentioned before as well:

Unless we're actually going to believe religious claims to divine access — Isaac

What are we supposed to do here? I don’t believe in God, so I don’t believe in revelation either. I don’t seem to have much choice but to say that revelation must be somewhere on a spectrum running from delusion to misinterpretation.

But on the other hand, all I can really say is that I haven’t experienced anything I understand as revelation, and I can recognize that if I had such an experience, I might be exactly on the other side of this argument.

I get the impulse to say, all I can do is judge things by my own standards, rely on my own faculty of reason like some Enlightenment hero — it’s what a lot of people here find exhilarating and liberating about philosophy. If an argument doesn’t convince you, then by god it doesn’t! Aaarrgh!

But I’m not inclined to shrug off my recognition that I could hold different beliefs from the ones I do, could have had different experiences from the ones I’ve had, and possibly understand a great many things quite differently. Maybe it’s just that I’m not all that committed to what I happen to believe at any given moment. However it works, I lean away from being as dismissive of other’s views as I was when I was twenty.

The right feeling for the religious is love and compassion. — Janus

Special pleading. This claim involves wilfully ignoring swaths of christian writing, as well as their actions.

The right feeling for the religious is love and compassion. And I think it's fair to say that those who are authentically religious, whether Buddhists, Christians, Hindus or Muslims, believe in compassion and love for others regardless of cultural or religious differences. — Janus

I can't make sense of this. The right 'feeling' is love and compassion (as if it isn't also for the non-religious!), but later you say they "believe in" it? What would it mean for someone to not "believe in" it? That they don't believe the emotions exist? That they don't believe they'll work (for what)? That they don't believe they're 'right (by what measure)?

Those who admire God for punishing the faithless I imagine would be a very small percentage of Christians, and much less of a percentage of the religious in general. — Janus

You see here you're equivocating (a common theme - it's not just you). When we treat Christian doctrine as it's written we're told that it's not literally what it says, but rather it all hangs perfectly together - if you're a Christian. (see my response to Srap above). Yet here you take eternal damnation literally, as it's written and say that most Christians don't believe it.

Either Christian doctrine is written in a special allegorical language that non-Christians have no access to, or it's written in the same language we all use and the secular critique thereof is fair. In the former case, there necessarily need be no crossover between the Christian world and the secular one. We'd have to each have our own reservations with independent government (where have I heard that idea before?). In the latter, if it is written that those who do not worship God will be cast into eternal damnation, then that's a proposition we (the secular) can take on it's face and critique the implications of.

I think it's extremely disingenuous for us to have pages and pages of dispute about the nature of belief, the meaning of truth, the morality of veganism, the solutions to overpopulation, the morality of certain presidents, the value of autonomy...and quite heated ones at that... all based on the very simple premise that when an expression is used, it's used to mean what it appears to mean and responded to as such. Yet when religious statements are made, we're implored to assume they make sense and it's us, the secular, who merely don't understand.

The religious are somehow thereby immunised from making the same mistakes of inconsistency, incoherency as are the bread and butter of the discussion we have here.

I pointed out that it’s not unusual for Christians to struggle with or have misgivings about the concept of hell. And it’s not a secret either. There’s lots of writing. There’s lots of public discussion. — Srap Tasmaner

Oh absolutely. But here I find these struggles are presented as segregated from ours. We can't understand theirs, they can't understand ours. The point I was making was that since we seem to all be in the same boat (and they hardly seem to have it all worked out), a more parsimonious approach (and dare I say possibly even a better one for all) would be to assume, for starters, that we're not so incommensurable after all. That, if the Christian is struggling with the concept of hell, Lewis might actually be able to help - just in the same way as your (sometimes quite pointed) critiques of my positions have helped me. It's what we do. Put our positions into the crucible of public debate to have the edges taken off, the loose ends picked at. We do this by sharing a language.

If we (the secular) aren't 'getting' what the Christians are saying, then we need to try harder. All of us. So that the baffled secular and the agonised Christian can help each other sort out the painful contradictions. Simply saying that the Christians issues are not within our understanding, by fiat, seems a bit of a cop out.

Lewis has raised a concern about what Christian doctrine says. His argument (as I read it) is basically "Isn't is a moral danger to allow people to worship a torturer whose punishments are out of proportion to the crime?". That's a legitimate concern on it's face. There's lots of evil in the world to account for. Much of it is religiously motivated or carried out by the religious (or those raised in a religion). So pointing out a potential cause seems to be well within the wheel-house of normal conversation.

If Lewis has made a mistake, then that mistake can be pointed out in specific terms. What I find odd is the implication that Lewis most likely has made a mistake. That Christians most likely don't really believe that. That it most likely isn't a problem. That it most likely is not responsible for much of the evil we still see. That @Banno probably ought to back off. Where are we getting all these 'most likely's from?

What are we supposed to do here? I don’t believe in God, so I don’t believe in revelation either. I don’t seem to have much choice but to say that revelation must be somewhere on a spectrum running from delusion to misinterpretation. — Srap Tasmaner

We could discuss that which is revealed. We don't necessarily have to get into the method by which it was arrived at, do we? Kind of like I was saying about God being the creator of the universe having no implications at all for whether we worship him. A thing being divinely revealed doesn't have any necessary implication for whether one follows it. If I said that it's been divinely revealed to me that I should jump off a cliff, I'd rather hope you'd have the courage to say "I still think you didn't ought to do that"

I’m not inclined to shrug off my recognition that I could hold different beliefs from the ones I do, could have had different experiences from the ones I’ve had, and possibly understand a great many things quite differently. — Srap Tasmaner

Yeah, I agree entirely. (I mean such an assumption is literally my life's work, so...) but...

I lean away from being as dismissive of other’s views as I was when I was twenty. — Srap Tasmaner

I think this is good, but needs a guide (which I think is what's missing here). You thought @Banno made a point which was wrong in some way (and here I mean 'wrong' in the broadest sense, maybe missing something, an unhelpful frame, an inconsistency...not necessarily empirically wrong). You pointed that out and we proceeded to discuss it (quite robustly!). All of this took place in normal language with expressions we all assumed the other would understand without having to literally stand in our shoes.

Should we beat each other over the heads for our incommensurable beliefs? No probably not. But no-one's advocating Christian-beatings here. We're just saying they're wrong, using their own words as written (or spoken).

Do I need to stand in your shoes to fully understand why you believe the things you believe? Almost certainly, yes. Do I need to stand in your shoes to even critique the things you believe? I hope not, that would rather render the whole forum (not to mention the whole of consensus-building politics) pointless.

I pointed out that it’s not unusual for Christians to struggle with or have misgivings about the concept of hell. And it’s not a secret either. There’s lots of writing. There’s lots of public discussion.
— Srap Tasmaner

Oh absolutely. But here I find these struggles are presented as segregated from ours. — Isaac

This is the problem with the thread. It purports to be a criticism of the doctrine of eternal punishment, but the title is"The moral character of Christians" as though no Christian has ever had the moral fibre to even consider the problem. The separation thus has to be maintained even as the difficulty is denied and puzzlement expressed at the feeble and off topic objections. and this from one who is won't to complain of the low quality of philosophy of religion on the site.

title is"The moral character of Christians" as though no Christian has ever had the moral fibre to even consider the problem. — unenlightened

I don't get that from it. I don't see anything in the presentation of the problem that excludes Christians from joining in the dissection of it. On the contrary, the view of some Christians in this would be very interesting - so long as that view isn't "you wouldn't/couldn't understand" that's the response (albeit by proxy) that I'm objecting to.

If, rather, you're merely saying something like "obviously the Christians themselves will have already thought of this", then I think that's an excessively reverent special pleading. We secular folk are constantly starting discussions about moral claims, they're never shut down with "well, I expect the people concerned have already thought about that"

This is the problem with the thread. It purports to be a criticism of the doctrine of eternal punishment, but the title is"The moral character of Christians" as though no Christian has ever had the moral fibre to even consider the problem. The separation thus has to be maintained even as the difficulty is denied and puzzlement expressed at the feeble and off topic objections. and this from one who is won't to complain of the low quality of philosophy of religion on the site. — unenlightened

The 'I worship an evil God' -> 'I am evil' connection comes out more in the paper. Section 'Can we admire the believers?'. It would've been nice if more people in thread engaged with the argument. I think the difficulty and puzzlement of Christians with the faith is actually a decent point of attack on the article - not what they're puzzled about, the fact that it is a puzzle for them.

The article seems to require that believers have a 'clear headed' conception of their God's atrocities to be simultaneous with their worship in order to transfer that veneration to the atrocities of God and tarnish the believer's character.

The final paragraph references nonbelievers being understanding of believers due to lack of a clear/ unified conception of God the Benevolent and God the Eternal Punisher - salvation through cognitive dissonance or avoided thought.

I wonder whether it is even possible to worship the God of the bible in such a 'clear headed' fashion? It seems to me to have faith is to have your mind distorted around the object, rituals, practices, values, developmental environments and communities of faith. That would block the force of the argument: God forgive them, they know not what they believe. And they cannot know.

the view of some Christians in this would be very interesting — Isaac

I cited an article describing the current pope's view, in the very first response to the op. It was dismissed thus:

is your point that good catholics, the pope included, do not actually believe the doctrine they espouse? That would indeed be a good thing. Would that they did not then feel obligated to pretend that they do, when dealing with events in the world. — Banno

Bish bash bosh, Christians not actively evil are merely hypocrites.

Anyway, I'll leave you all to it; I'm getting depressed.

wonder whether it is even possible to worship the God of the bible in such a 'clear headed' fashion? — fdrake

I wonder if it's even possible to do something with Marxism that doesn't end up catastrophic.

Early Christian church fathers didn't take the Bible literally. Fundamentalism came later. Yes, it's fucked up. Can you judge the moral character of christians by virtue of that?

Why does this even need to be asked? Of course not.

taboo — Banno

Noticed that as well. Has it become politically incorrect to criticize assent to neverending damnation? :brow: Lewis' note is fairly specific (sometimes excruciatingly); wouldn't you expect responses to be on-target?

I concede that the neglected argument doesn’t apply against deism. — Divine Evil

Most Christians follow a version of the religion that is committed to divine evil, evil perpetrated by God. Most, therefore, fall afoul of the neglected argument. Perhaps some do not. Perhaps some are inclined to accept the universalist fantasy I have just outlined. Can that count as a genuine style of Christianity? I shall leave that for the theologians to decide. — Divine Evil

But none of this means that Christians should be burned at the stake of course. :wink:

I don't think Christians, by and large, actually believe the things they say they believe. I think the simplest explanation for why the things they say make no sense to a secular audience is that they things they say make no sense. — Isaac

:up:

There could be dissonance involved. (After all, the Bible also tells tales of supernaturally feeding 5000 and 4000 people with a handful of food, which continues to be preached to children.)

Allah the merciful — Agent Smith

There is some ambiguity, though it seems eternal torment is the most common belief among Muslims. The Quran displays the usual contrast between (their versions of) heaven and hell.

Quran 4:13-14, 4:56-57 :fire: (graphic violence), 4:93, 4:122, 4:137, 4:168-169, 5:37, 5:72-73, 7:179, 18:105-106, 67:7 :fire:, ...