June 10, 2009

• Pychen & "Could Jesus Be Lying About Hell?"

  
  Intro:

  Recently I commented on Pychen's post that describes how unbiblical he believes universalism is.  Universalism is the idea that everyone will be saved from hell.  I actually agree that the Bible does not teach  universalism and that's one of the many reasons to reject it for the sake of personal moral integrity.  However, I'm not against more humane interpretations of Scripture if they actually work.  It seems to me that the world might be a better place if some Christians lighten up about some of their unfortunate doctrines. 

  You can click on the graphic to the right and see how the argument unfolds.  Red represents the Christian arguments.  Blue represents my arguments.   Orange represents premises that have been taken for granted.  Yellow represents arguments that were never made that should have been made or defended.  Green is for conclusions.  To follow along properly, if you agree with a box, take a green arrow away and if you disagree with a box take a red arrow away.  Please let me know if there are any spelling mistakes or any corrections to the argument path that would be more fair.
  
  
  

  ---

  Pychen wrote in his reposted comments to Anom (link):

  But the problem is that the universal salvation people have a false view that claims that their view of God is better than Jesus' view of his own heavenly father. Jesus says that God is able to kill soul and body in hell. They reject this reality, and tell Jesus that Jesus was wrong.

  ---

  I commented:

  Perhaps Jesus only wanted to encourage people to do better by overstating his position, but doesn't actually have the heart to send anyone to eternal torment?  If God only told us what we needed to hear, how would we know?  Don't parents do that all the time?

  Ben 

  
  

  ---

  Pychen responded:

  @WAR_ON_ERROR -"Perhaps Jesus only wanted to encourage people to do better by overstating his position,..."

  That would make Jesus a liar. And as the bible goes, there are better motives to move people to live a moral life. Believe it or not, the Christian motive to moral living is to know that Jesus fulfilled it for us. That is one argument I fine to be convincing, that is there are so many apparent contradictions (odd as that may sound). Take the given example here. The motivation to live a holy life is to know that Jesus is our holy life for us. Jesus has already given us righteousness, therefore go and live righteously.

  But you see, if what you want to do is to say, here is the whip on your back, go and do it or else. That only lead to disparaging sadness. If we say, it is done already, and go and live in sin as you were (As I think Anom ends up holding to), then that promotes evil. But Jesus died for the guilt of your sins, and lived a perfect life of righteousness for you--in your place. The whip is removed, and guilt is off my back; therefore it gives me motivation to live a righteous life to thank God for all that he as done for me. Grace becomes the motivation, and love moves us to acts of good works; NOT works to earn Heaven; and also NOT fear that drives us to avoidance of Hell.

  Do you see the counter intuitive? There are so many more like it.

  But I could almost bet you, when you talk with atheist, the other two is what they have in mind, and not grace.

  "... but doesn't actually have the heart to send anyone to eternal torment?"

  God is a HOLY God. God would be unjust if he were to let anyone into his Heaven who are sinners against his Majesty. Every sin is a sin against God. Everyone crime is against God's higher law. God would be unjust and un-good to let sinners enter his Heaven, without those sins punished for. We do NOT let a judge to say, "So, you are found guilty of child abduction, molestation, rape and murder, but I am feeling good today. I will let you go with a warning." IF God is holy that means pure from sins, and good that means that he would do what is just, then God would have to punish sin.

  "If God only told us what we needed to hear, how would we know?  Don't parents do that all the time?"

  And again, God would be a liar. In actuality, that is what atheist would like isn't it? A god who would just tell them what they want to hear. Like a parrot that is trained to say "Yu ar beeeuiti-ful." But that is hardly the God of the Bible. God tells us what we need to hear. That is love isn't it? "Don't take that step, if you do, you will fall into a dark pit." It may not be safe to yell fire in a crowded room, but surely it is less safe to let everyone die without warning anyone about the fire. Love and pity requires us to tell the truth, and it is only the truth that sets anyone of us free.

  That is what I think about what you wrote. I am sure you are able to see it, given the Christian point of view. I speak with atheist people on my blog because I am trying to tell them about the fire, and I am calling them to run from it. But what is more, I want to tell them about the Grace of God that is able to save them from their sins and make them right with God, if they would believe in Jesus and trust in him to make them right with God. Then and only then, can they find peace in life and in death, and motivation to live their life to the glory of God.

  
  

  ---

  I responded:

  @pychen - I figured you would take the "god cannot lie" approach.  That's the most straight forward, but things are a bit more complicated than that it seems.  Apparently God is willing to send "lying spirits" and "strong delusion" to people on occasion.  We still blame people for hiring hit men, right?  Also God did "lie" and tell Abraham that he wanted him to kill his son when in fact he didn't.  He just told Abraham what he needed to hear in order to inspire what many theologians consider the appropriate faith response.  What do you think about that?  Honestly I would be more willing to accept that God is willing to lovingly lie than to "righteously" send anyone to hell.  If someone is going to be a Christian, I'd rather them advocate something else than what they typically defend.  I understand you'll probably disagree.

  Ben

  
  

  ---

  Pychen responded:

  @WAR_ON_ERROR - yup, I would. Here again, you are saying what you like and rather choose, but you are talking in the Christian realm, and as such you have to talk consistently at Christian. Or else, again you are outside and have no ability to even comment. What I am talking about is a matter of prerequisite for being able to talk about the subject of what the Bible teach. In talking about what you like instead. You have left the foundation--the bible.

  Given the Christian approach, there is no acceptance that God would lie. That is just not a possibility. If you say it is, then you are not talking in the same terms as Christianity.

  Now, let us deal with some strong objects you have. Your claim is that God may and does in fact lie. How do you know that? Given that you pointless parts of the Bible. But had you been mistaken about the Bible, or you are imposing into the bible what the Bible does not say, then you are without foundation to say anything of the kind. Your point would be pointless.

  You are saying that by God sending "lying spirits" to the people, and a "strong delusion", that means that God is a liar. But that does not follow. It is one thing to say that God lied and it is another to say that God send lying spirits who lied to people. And don't know if you know it, but from the context, the Lying Spirits where the false prophets who led Israel astray. And God did that as a judgment against his own people. God is responsible, as the judge of all the earth has the right and responsibility to execute just judgment. But it is the false teachers who were the liars.

  God did instructed Abraham to offer Issac to God. And you are wrong, because Abraham did offered Issac to God. It is just that you can't see more than the physical, that is why I think you missed the fact that Abraham was going to plunge the knife into Issac, and kill him. "But he didn't," you say. He did not go through with it physically speaking, because God stopped him, but what you missed was that in the heart of Abraham, Issac was sacrificed to death. Issac no longer occupying the same idolatrous place in old Abraham's heart as he used to. Abraham did sacrificed Issac, though physically rescued; Issac was received back from the dead. (Heb 11) Thus, there was no lie.

  If you want to do a Bible study, you are more than welcome to ask more questions. But keep in mind that you have to put your atheist believes aside and start to put on biblical glasses to be able to see the Bible as it really is. As you can see from above, there are many false assumptions that you have and that you would come to the text and impose your atheistic believes onto it. Unless you are willing to put your atheist glasses off, you would not be able to put the Biblical glasses on, and thus would not be able to appreciate the teachings of the Bible.

  
  

  ---

  I responded:

  @pychen - I disagree with several things you've responded with, but before we move on, I think I should point something out.  It seems you skipped a part, because I already responded to this:

  Pychen:  "It is one thing to say that God lied and it is another to say that God send lying spirits who lied to people."

  with:

  Ben:  "We still blame people for hiring hit men, right?"
  
  So it seems you did not respond to an important part of what I wrote. 

  Ben

  
  

  ---

  Pychen responded:

  @WAR_ON_ERROR - 

  And I did address your point with: "God is responsible, as the judge of all the earth has the right and responsibility to execute just judgment. But it is the false teachers who were the liars."

  ---

  I responded:

  @pychen -  Thanks for clearing that up from your perspective, but I totally disagree that your quote responds to mine.  Is it okay for the President of the United States to tell his Press Secretary to lie for him to the media if it is in the interests of national security?  Maybe, but it is still lying and it is still the President's responsibility.  Basically you are saying that it is perfectly okay for God to get other people to do his dirty work for him and that even though this looks bad, the ends justify the means. 

  My argument isn't about calling God a liar.  Your post is about whether or not universalism is justified Biblically, right?  And my suggestion was that maybe Jesus was exaggerating the horrors of hell to get people to do the right thing more often even though that's not really how things would turn out. 
  
  Surely Abraham was under false pretenses in regards to what was supposed to happen to Isaac at the very least.  You can tell me all you want that it happened in his heart for real (I see no reason to disagree there hypothetically), but it wouldn't have happened in his heart if he hadn't believed he was actually going to do it for real.  And he wouldn't have been inclined to do it if God hadn't told him to.  So one does not have to "miss" the spiritual reality in order to understand the earthly falsehood. 

  And to continue to my suggestion, if this kind of thing is okay as far as the Bible goes, then I see no reason why God can't "mislead" everyone with earthly "lies" into "spiritual truths" in much the same way.  I'm sure you will persistently disagree, but I don't see how you can maintain any logical consistency.  My suggestion may not be true, but I don't yet see how you can rule it out. 

  Obviously you are free to believe whatever you want, but hopefully this is food for thought.

  Ben
  

  ---

  Pychen responded:

  @WAR_ON_ERROR - Ben,

  Again, very good questions. but I think there is a point you have to keep in mind. The point of issue is your calling God a liar is clearly rejected by the Bible.

  Numbers 23:19
  God is not a man, that he should lie...

  1 Samuel 15:29
  He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie...

  What you are trying to do is to use a narrative passage to imply something about God, but your claims are soundly rejected by other parts of scripture. Also, nowhere in the passage you referred to claimed that God was lying. It is your own inference. And again, that inference is rejected.

  You talk about the President of the US, but that is also to liken God to a man. God has at times had enemy armies kill many of his people, as he told them he would; God gives the people over to the lying prophets; instructs a person to sacrifice his own son, etc. but every time you think about these things you are thinking in human terms, and you make God out to be a man like you and me.

  God is the creator of everyone, and not a democratic leader. God owns everyone. Isn't that clear that to think of "God" humanistic would be wrong?

  With "false pretenses"? So, Abraham was told to sacrifice his child, and he did. Where is the false pretenses? Just because that sacrifice was not physical? We have a statement from Heb 11, that as if Abraham received his son back from the dead.

  One helpful rule to understanding a narrative event so as not to make quick universal assumptions from it.

  ---

  I responded:

  @pychen - C'mon Peter, you're not being very fair.  With a method like that, you'll never find any Bible contradictions!  haha

  Pychen:  "With 'false pretenses'? So, Abraham was told to sacrifice his child, and he did. Where is the false pretenses? Just because that sacrifice was not physical?"

  Genesis 22: 2 "Then God said, 'Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.'" [emphasis mine]

  You say I'm jumping to conclusions, but I'm only making a suggestion in favor of universalism. 

  I can justify this kind of "lying" about hell in the same way you justify God lying to Abraham.  I can say that no where in the passages about hell does it say God is lying, that there is no contradiction because other parts of the Bible clearly say that God doesn't lie, that we can't compare this kind of lying about hell to earthly human "white lies," that God owns all of our beliefs and therefore we have no right to complain about what he makes us believe, that metaphorically being a bad person really is a hell of our own spiritual creation and it would be that bad forever if God didn't save everyone, and lastly I can ignore all the details contrary to this interpretation of hell just like you ignore the details in Genesis 22:2 that clearly portrays God misleading Abraham.

  So, in my opinion, your entire line of thinking backfires and you don't have as solid a reason as you may have thought you did to reject universalism. 

  Ben

  
  

  ---

  Pychen responded:

  @WAR_ON_ERROR - "I can justify this kind of "lying""

  Well, given your view, I am sure you are able to justify all kinds of lying. The only thing you can't justify, is why not lying? Your worldview has no basis for morality or moral value judgments at all.

  Given if you want to talk in terms of a meaningful interpretation of the text, and talking from the Christian worldview, then I again have to say you are violating the basic rule of not forcing and making a universal claim drawn from a narrative. By the way, that is just a basic method of interpretation. And the other thing was that the Bible does say that God does not lie, and non the less, you want to make God out to be a liar. I don't think even "Anom" wants to have that kind of help.

  So, back to Abraham. Did I say that he was NOT told to sacrifice his own son? Read back to what I wrote: "So, Abraham was told to sacrifice his child, and he did. Where is the false pretenses?"

  So, it is your opinion, and I can't change that, but I would have to say, if you were really having the Bible as the final authority instead of your atheism, you would no be so bold as to call God a liar when the Bible clearly say that he is not, and it is ONLY your own personal subjective inference that wants to come to that conclusion. But that only brings us back to where I told you that you are an outsider to the conversation. You don't even believe that there is a God, nor do you believe the Bible to be the final authority. I think your opinion as an outsider is interesting, but I sure don't expect you to accept the teaching based on the authority of the Bible when you are happy making up ideas in your own head of what you want the Bible to say, though rejected.

  Thus you wrote: "It seems to me that the world might be a better place if some Christians lighten up about some of their unfortunate doctrines."

  Why do you think that? On what basis do you make that claim? You are not really trying to look at the Bible from the Bible's perspective, it is really your own assumed ideas that you are having faith in.

  So, the problem is, if you are really going to talk about the Christian world view, then you must take on the full Christian worldview. You have to hold on to it more consistently; but then again, you are making up your own mind about the matter based on your atheism and not basing it on the teaching of the Bible, what is why you are trying to make God out to be a liar, when it turns out, it is your who is inconsistent.

  
  

  ---

  I responded:

  @pychen - I'm sorry, I don't see what the authority of atheism has to do with any of this.  It was crystal clear that I was using the authority of the Bible to defend my universalism suggestion and it clearly says that God told Abraham to offer Isaac up as a burnt offering even though that's not what God actually wanted.  I don't see how you can keep ignoring that. 

  Ben

  ---

  Pychen responded:

  @WAR_ON_ERROR - Ben,

  Again, in your own words: "It seems to me that the world might be a better place if some Christians lighten up about some of their unfortunate doctrines."

  IF your starting point was the Bible, would you really call the Bible's teachings to be "unfortunate"? That is like your own hand slapping that same hand. If you take time to honestly look at it, given what the Bible says, in rejection of your false inference, and yet you did not addressed the verses, but with a mere, that is not fair. I really don't think you are being fair to your self, nor to the subject at hand, as if you can really look at it from the Biblical perspective when you are already a committed to your atheistic assumptions. And that is what I said already, that you are an outsider without the same commitments.

  Peter

  
  

  ---

  I responded:

  @pychen -  I also said in the sentence directly before that: "However, I'm not against more humane interpretations of Scripture if they actually work."  Why didn't you quote that as well?
  

  To my knowledge, I have not attacked your apriori commitments to the Bible, so I don't see why you need to attack my motives. 
  

  Ben

  ---

  Pychen responded:

  @WAR_ON_ERROR - Ben,

  I am not attacking you, nor are you attacking me (right?). I have been consistent in telling you the very thing that I don't think you are able to be able to see the issue from the Biblical point of view. I quoted that one sentence because you made the point I was stating that you had your own master that you serve, and that is not the teachings of God found in the Bible. I am only stating a fact to which I don't think your last comments rejects. (Do you reject what I pointed out to be a commitment to something else other than the Christian world view in your criticism?) It only sound like you don't want me to say it.

  There is no hard feeling, I assure you. I only said that you have your already accepted views, and thus your inability to take on the teachings of the Bible consistently.

  Peter

  ---

  I responded:

  @pychen - Right.  So please, don't take the following the wrong way.  If these are not helpful observations, then please ignore this.  I'm not trying to cause trouble.  I would like you to know though that it comes off as an ad hominem attack when the topic strays from the actual arguments and into accusations of being a slave to one's bias.  This is especially true given that the conclusion to this discussion doesn't impact my worldview significantly.  You could win the argument and it would still make sense for me to be an atheist. 

  Why would you suppose that I don't have what I think are justifiable reasons for disagreements not currently being discussed (like other Christian doctrines)?  You think it's just atheists who reject the doctrine of hell?  You don't think there have been lots of conservative Christians who honestly struggled with those issues long before the "new atheists" came on the scene?  Not all bias is created equal and to be portrayed as having a "master" is inappropriate in my opinion when we simply disagree about a conclusion.  If you wouldn't like to see me jump all over you as a hopeless Bible fanboy every time we disagree then perhaps you should avoid the amoral slave of atheism talk much more often than not.  Can you imagine any situation where such "facts" from your perspective reap a positive response?  I can't.  Please name at least one time when an atheist online responded well to such comments from you so I can understand the wisdom and virtue of your position.

  It seems as though you are saying that it is an absolute requirement that everyone be inexorably stricken with their own brand of bias.  Am I correct?  Can't there be anyone who is committed to going with the best argument in any situation regardless of what their prior conclusions may have been?  Are there simply no degrees of objectivity in your worldview?  Is no one correctable ever at any level?  I don't understand how you can support such a view.  If that's not really what you believe, you might try tempering your language in the future. 

  All I was arguing for was the possibility of a consistent Biblical interpretation with universalism in the event the doctrine of hell was, as I said, "unfortunate."  The "white lie" hypothesis of divine providence could just as easily apply to other Biblical situations in the event I was mistaken about hell.  You believe I'm completely twisting the account of Abraham to do this and I don't think your evaluation of that is reasonable.  Obviously we disagree.  Why can't we just leave it at that?  As it is, I think we've killed the issue and are just repeating ourselves.  We can move on to talk about other things if you want. 

  Ben 

  ---

  Pychen responded:

  @WAR_ON_ERROR -

  Ben, I think you are taking it personally.

  Many of what you said, was not what I said. I reject your accusations of me, but I don't want to continue in that line of talking.

  What I pointed out is NOT an attack on you at all. It is a simple fact that you do not come from the Christian worldview. IF you have changed, then please say so.

  I still do not read you to refute what I said about your already accepted view, and your inconsistent trying to force your inference on to the Bible, which the Bible rejects.

  Your point has been refuted on Christian grounds (the Bible), but yet you are not willing to accept it due to your other commitment. Your inference is rejected by clear Bible passages, and you are yet not willing to back down from your claims. Why? What Biblical basis do you have persisting.  I am guessing that you would agree that it is not a Biblical/Christian basis, but your own personal atheistic authority you put over the Bible. Again, that is why I have said from the beginning that you do not have the same basis to interact about the subject on the same grounds.

  You and I both know that you do not care to claim to be a Christian, and you claim to be an atheist. Given your self claim, and your rejection of Christianity, it is no surprise to me that you would not be looking at the subject consistent from the view of the Bible.

  If you accuse that as an ad hominem, then you and I also do not agree on the meaning of what is an ad hominem.

  
  

  ---

  I responded:

  @pychen - I'm not offended.  I'm just trying to help you understand why some of your statements are inflammatory even if you do not intend them to be.  Hopefully I can explain.

  Pychen:  "Many of what you said, was not what I said."

  The topic of my second paragraph was based on the following quote of yours.  Pychen:  "I quoted that one sentence because you made the point I was stating that you had your own master that you serve, and that is not the teachings of God found in the Bible."  If I am just "serving a master" then that necessarily means I can't have good arguments for my positions on issues not directly being addressed.  Should I assume you accept the authority of the Bible for bad reasons just because we disagree on the current issue?  I don't think you'd appreciate that. 

  If someone has a master, then they are a slave and so by saying I have a master, you are necessarily saying I am a slave.  My third paragraph elaborates on the idea that you blow things out of proportion using that kind of rhetoric and that apparently everyone must be really biased and there's no such thing as not being a slave to your bias.  If that's not what you mean, then I'd like to see where you allow for less biased people when you disagree with them.  Merely disagreeing with someone is not a good enough justification for calling someone a slave to their bias, in my opinion. 

  The topic of my first paragraph was your willingness to take things here at all.  If you were just trying to say that I'm an atheist, then why even bring it up?  How is that relevant?  Can you just not believe that I agree with my argument here for the very reasons I state that I agree with my argument?  As I said, even if I did have prior commitments to atheism I could easily have conceded the argument in this post because it wouldn't have affected anything significant.  Can't the character of God not be lying to Abraham in the story, but atheism still be true?  So why would having a master even matter?   You said in your last comment:  "I am guessing that you would agree that it is not a Biblical/Christian basis, but your own personal atheistic authority you put over the Bible. "  What does "atheistic authority" even mean?  Critical thinking?  Isn't that supposed to be part of your worldview as well?  As far as I'm concerned, I've addressed this issue in hypothetical terms on the same Biblical basis as you.  Just because you disagree with my conclusion, doesn't mean bringing up the issue of bias is justified.  If I said you disagreed with me just because you are biased in favor of your version of Christianity and not because you believed in your argument, wouldn't that be inflammatory to you?  Derek Timothy did accuse you of that (link) in my comments section, but I don't think I did.  To be fair to him, I happen to agree, but I don't think that's helpful in communicating with you. 

  Another inflammatory statement of yours addressed in my second paragraph was from several comments ago: "Well, given your view, I am sure you are able to justify all kinds of lying.  The only thing you can't justify, is why not lying? Your worldview has no basis for morality or moral value judgments at all."  So this would be calling me an amoral atheist without regard for the context of my statement.  Just because I can justify a proposition in your worldview (where I think God clearly misleads Abraham), doesn't mean I can necessarily justify it in mine.  From my point of view, the ends in that case did not justify the means.  When is telling someone to murder their son (but you don't really mean it) a good idea?  Can you imagine the emotional trauma that boy must have went through when his dad was standing over him with the knife?  But you just assumed I must just lie all the time and you jumped to this conclusion by quote mining me.  I ignored it at first because I wanted to focus on the argument, but now that you've accused me of making stuff up, I have to point it out.  You believe that atheists don't have any reason to be moral even if they persistently are.  That ideological disagreement doesn't mean atheists are any more prone to lie than theists.  That amounts to attacking me personally with atheist stereotyping.  I don't think you'd appreciate me applying unfavorable Christian stereotypes to you any chance I get. 

  I guess you just don't know what your words mean, Peter.  I don't know what to say.  You claimed that you didn't say much of what I said you did, and yet I can show you exactly what I was referring to every step of the way.  Apparently if I'm understanding you correctly, you mean to take the path I alluded to earlier, "If that's not really what you believe, you might try tempering your language in the future."  However, even when trying to apologize for what you are saying, you still roll out the master/slave rhetoric.  That's still inflammatory and you don't seem to notice.  I don't understand that.

  You say I am probably taking this personally, but obviously I'm not.  I can only assume you are being honest when you don't think you are making ad hominem attacks or saying anything inflammatory.  I see no reason to dispute that you believe that.  I'm trying to delicately point these things out to you so that other atheists who may not be as patient as I am won't have the chance to take similar statements of yours personally if that's not really what you mean to say.  I'm done talking about Abraham and universalism, but since these kinds of comments from you are bound to come up again and again in the future, I thought I'd take the time to carefully point out how they sound to atheist ears.  Is that fair?  Don't you want feedback on that kind of thing?  Or am I just annoying you?  If so, I apologize.  I'm trying to help you improve your presentation and relations with other atheist bloggers. 

  Ben

  ---

  Pychen responded:

  @WAR_ON_ERROR - Ben,

  It is late, and I don't want to drag it long.

  on "your own master"

  You do have your master, as I do. Your master is your worldview, you don't have the ability to leave your worldview as if a hat to be toss so easy. Likewise for me. It is another way to say that you are bias, as am I. You have your bias, and I have mine. I did not say anything about your ability to have good arguments. And if you read back. I did not say anything about your argument as much as your inability to accept the whole of the Christian worldview so as to honestly interact with the teachings of the Bible. What you did was to try Christianity on for a short part of the talk, but then your own inference took over, instead of going with what the Bible teach. Then is when I pointed out your prier commitment to your own worldview. It is your unwillingness to have the whole Christian worldview, and instead you make your own personal inference, unstated by the text, to be the authority over the Bible. As I told you in the first place you do not have the foundational commitments necessary for the conversation. What you told me was that you think you would be able to see it from the Christian worldview, and follow the subject. Then I said you would be welcome to read along and join in on the talk. But as, I pointed out, I was right to say what I did in the first place. And again, you do not reject the fact of what I said, that you have your own worldview, that is not the Christian worldview, and that your other commitment is why you have not been willing to accept the fact that the Bible clearly rejects your inference. IF you think I am wrong about this, then please explain.

  I hope that is more clear.

  Peter

  ---

  I responded:
  

  @pychen - I get it, Peter.  It's just unnecessary to bring up and bestowing the same title on yourself does not make it any more accurate.  Not everyone is a slave to the presuppositions of their worldview and saying so is still inflammatory.  Since I'm just repeating myself, I'm going to let this go. 

  Take care,

  Ben

  
  

  ---

  Pychen responded:

  @WAR_ON_ERROR -

  Ben,

  [Not everyone is a slave to the presuppositions of their worldview and saying so is still inflammatory.]

  I did not say that everyone is, and unwilling to totally take on the other person's worldview. I think I do that when talking with atheist. But the issue is you did not do so, that is what I was saying wasn't it? I did say that it was not easy to do, and that you come from a different worldview and thus would not be able to hold to the Christian worldview consistently.

  I do hope you take time to think more about the Christian worldview. It could only help to see what the other person you are talking with believes and what are the foundation of his believes. I think it would also help you to become more consistent with your own worldview as well.

  [It's just unnecessary to bring up and bestowing the same title on yourself does not make it any more accurate.]

  It is not at all the title or name one once to give for himself. Many claim to be Christians but are not. Many claim to have the authority of the Bible as their final authority, but is not. (as I think is the problem of "Anom.") But what I have been holding you to is the Christian worldview, the consistent Christian worldview. Not every "Christian" is consistently a Christian. What set you apart is that you do not even claim the Title. Given that case, it maybe more honest then some Christian fakers, but it makes you clearly/admittedly in the out side.

  Again. I give you kudos for being able to talk with clarity and without much verbal abuse. There is not many atheist online who is able to talk that way. They are hard to come by. As you can see from my other interactions. It is great to be able to interact that way.

  If that was your saying goodbye, then I hope we could keep talking on another subject.

  ---

  I responded:
  

  @pychen - I agree, I'd much rather a friendly xanga experience especially if I'm going to be chatting off and on with the same people I disagree with for long periods of time.  Makes no sense not to make friends. 

  BTW, if there's one thing I never thought I'd be accused of, it's not taking enough"time to think more about the Christian worldview."  haha  I guess I'll have to assume you meant not taking the time to think correctly about the Christian worldview. 

  Ben

  
  

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  [note:  There are further comments over on Pychen's blog, but they don't relate strongly to the main issue.  The next comment archive picks up where this one left off (link).]

  
  

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  Outro:

  In one fell swoop everything about the doctrine of hell can be quarantined doctrinally as almost immorally inert and a semi-justifiable reason can be given why things might turn out differently than we might otherwise expect from Scripture on Judgment Day.  That's more than I can say than most of the bizarre scripture twisting and moral concept mangling that comes out of the evangelical fundamentalist world in defense of annihilationism, what you typically get from universalism, or the endless variant justifications for the good ole fashion eternal spiritual roast.

  Basically I see the need to take an argument like this seriously from my perspective in regards to responsibly exploring all the possibilities for the argument from evil.  The doctrine of hell is a significant moral stumbling block to accepting the Christian worldview (link) and many of the Biblical arguments from evil are directly tied to it in some way or another (link).  I've seen endless lame excuses for it that just don't work and the reason I rejected them as lame excuses is because they just don't work.  What if one little white lie on Jesus' part unravels the entire thing (or a lot of it) and I can plausibly justify more sense on a deity's management skills than I previously thought?  Who knows.  Failing to have as evil of doctrines doesn't make those doctrines any more true, but as I said, I'd much rather Christians advocate the most humane version of their worldview.  That's better for everyone regardless of what you believe. 

  Most Christians may be too timid to even consider such a thought that God is willing to "improve the truth" a little for us wee mortals, but as I've shown, clearly there is at least some Biblical precedent that can't be avoided.  I had this idea in my head for a while and I thought I'd see if Pychen could come up with something to take it down, but it doesn't seem as though he could.  I'm wondering what other objections there may be from other theologians and apologists.  I guess that perhaps only an atheist can make this argument from the outside if God still intends everyone to be perpetually on their way to sacrificing Isaac in that spiritual metaphorical sense.  *shrug*

  Ben
  
  

  • 11:22 am
  • 28 Comments