“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
When we have incurred a debt that we can't repay, we become a slave to that debt. And we can end up being thrown in debtor's prison until such time as we repay the debt.
This debt can be described in moral terms as an obligation not to sin, a non-financial obligation we are all born with. All of us fall short of this and incur this debt.
Our sin is a debt to God, our creditor, which we are unable to repay from our own resources. Only by being sinless can we avoid being thrown in debtor's prison and being tortured. The only way to avoid this fate is for the creditor to forgive the debt, or for the debt to be redeemed - for someone else to repay the debt for us.
Yes, that's standard the Evangelical Christianity that screwed my mind. Painting God as an unlovable and loveless combination of Ebenezer Scrooge, Shylock, and some evil PE teacher making you attempt a high jump you cannot do and then beating you for failing. Except this bastard God beats you for ever.
Thank God I discovered that these particular oranges were not the only fruit.
No it is not. It pictures God as a loving saviour, certainly the Evangelical end I belong too. The churches support projects as they can. Until she stopped doing it my last church sponsored a women who worked for an organisation looking after children affected by aids.
So your end of Evangelicalism doesn't believe that the majority of humanity ends up in Hell? Good, you're not the Evangelicals I'm talking about.
Our sin is a debt to God, our creditor, which we are unable to repay from our own resources. Only by being sinless can we avoid being thrown in debtor's prison and being tortured. The only way to avoid this fate is for the creditor to forgive the debt, or for the debt to be redeemed - for someone else to repay the debt for us.
Yes, that's standard the Evangelical Christianity that screwed my mind. Painting God as an unlovable and loveless combination of Ebenezer Scrooge, Shylock, and some evil PE teacher making you attempt a high jump you cannot do and then beating you for failing. Except this bastard God beats you for ever.
Whatever the punishment ends up being for sin, one reason it's eternal is that God, the holder of the debt, is eternal.
However, along similar lines to Hugal, I don't remember any of this being a significant part of the message of Christianity in my part of the Evangelical world. The emphasis was on how God desired and enabled us to live as Christians, rather than the consequences of sin.
Nevertheless, the verses above, and others like them, are all part of the Gospel narrative with which I'm still familiar - all part of Jesus' message about sin, debt and hell, even if this aspect of his message generally stayed in the background. At that time, I don't remember any drums being strongly beaten for universalism. So it's not that we didn't believe in eternal punishment or consequences for sin, more that we didn't believe it mattered as much as God's Love.
If I am correct in my understanding of this, @KarlLB is in the US, like me. One thing that blew my mind is how different evangelicalism is outside of the United States, particularly when it comes to issues dealing with the poor. In the United States, there has been a very strong alliance with the political far right for decades now. And I think a lot less nuance theologically.
Our sin is a debt to God, our creditor, which we are unable to repay from our own resources. Only by being sinless can we avoid being thrown in debtor's prison and being tortured. The only way to avoid this fate is for the creditor to forgive the debt, or for the debt to be redeemed - for someone else to repay the debt for us.
Yes, that's standard the Evangelical Christianity that screwed my mind. Painting God as an unlovable and loveless combination of Ebenezer Scrooge, Shylock, and some evil PE teacher making you attempt a high jump you cannot do and then beating you for failing. Except this bastard God beats you for ever.
Whatever the punishment ends up being for sin, one reason it's eternal is that God, the holder of the debt, is eternal.
However, along similar lines to Hugal, I don't remember any of this being a significant part of the message of Christianity in my part of the Evangelical world. The emphasis was on how God desired and enabled us to live as Christians, rather than the consequences of sin.
Nevertheless, the verses above, and others like them, are all part of the Gospel narrative with which I'm still familiar - all part of Jesus' message about sin, debt and hell, even if this aspect of his message generally stayed in the background. At that time, I don't remember any drums being strongly beaten for universalism. So it's not that we didn't believe in eternal punishment or consequences for sin, more that we didn't believe it mattered as much as God's Love.
"God's Love" is meaningless in the face of people being tortured in Hell. Reminds me of what I hear a lot of non-Christians say - "There's no hate quite like Christian love".
If God is truly infinite, our sins are less than a gnat's bite.
Except that while everyone who sins, sins against God, many of our sins are committed against one another, and in that context are often considerably more than a gnat's bite. In relation to these debts, maybe we are joint creditors with God, or holders of a different debts, or something else. But we are in a position to forgive one other these debts in a way that is recognised by God. The parable of the unforgiving servant finishes: “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
The relationship of our forgiveness of each other, and God's forgiveness of us, is an important part of how sin debt, and the future prospect of hell, together work towards changing society for the better in the here and now. Hannah Arendt said that Jesus was “the discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs”.
Nevertheless, the verses above, and others like them, are all part of the Gospel narrative with which I'm still familiar - all part of Jesus' message about sin, debt and hell, even if this aspect of his message generally stayed in the background. At that time, I don't remember any drums being strongly beaten for universalism. So it's not that we didn't believe in eternal punishment or consequences for sin, more that we didn't believe it mattered as much as God's Love.
"God's Love" is meaningless in the face of people being tortured in Hell. Reminds me of what I hear a lot of non-Christians say - "There's no hate quite like Christian love".
Jesus' message is a message of both God's love and God's justice, in particular for the poor and oppressed. I believe that an integral aspect of that message is that oppressors will be judged and held to account, and that they face being punished for as long as they need to be, for as long as they deserve; that there is no arbitrary cap, no upper limit on that punishment.
Our sin is a debt to God, our creditor, which we are unable to repay from our own resources. Only by being sinless can we avoid being thrown in debtor's prison and being tortured.
Since no-one is sinless, the poor and oppressed don't benefit in the slightest from their oppressors being held to account, since they're also in Hell. Everyone is, under this formulation. It's ridiculous.
What actually ends up happening, under SEC (Standard Evangelical Christianity) is the "way out" of the bind is presented as being faith in Christ, the end result of which is our eternal destiny has absolutely feck all to do with our sins or otherwise and absolutely everything to do with our ability to believe a particular theological message. The oppressors can get away Scot free as long as they repent and believe, while their victims, if they don't happen to have the right beliefs, end up in Hell. Hell is no deterrent against sin because people who believe in it have the "right beliefs" to escape it!
This is exactly the theology that has blighted my life, both when I believed it and now as I live in its ghost.
There's nothing scot free about it. The process of being changed from singer to saint can be freaking agonizing even for an ordinary person. Not that I accept the rest of the parody of Christian theology as you present it.
There's nothing scot free about it. The process of being changed from singer to saint can be freaking agonizing even for an ordinary person.
I know this is a typo or autocorrect, but I love it!
Not that I accept the rest of the parody of Christian theology as you present it.
I don’t think @KarlLB was presenting anything as a summary or parody of all Christian theology, but rather of a particular strand of Evangelicalism with which he has experience. I’ve encountered that theology too. I think it’s bad, unscriptural theology, but it’s out there.
Our sin is a debt to God, our creditor, which we are unable to repay from our own resources. Only by being sinless can we avoid being thrown in debtor's prison and being tortured.
Since no-one is sinless, the poor and oppressed don't benefit in the slightest from their oppressors being held to account, since they're also in Hell. Everyone is, under this formulation. It's ridiculous.
However, along similar lines to Hugal, I don't remember any of this being a significant part of the message of Christianity in my part of the Evangelical world. The emphasis was on how God desired and enabled us to live as Christians, rather than the consequences of sin.
Or was this not part of whatever version of the Gospel you heard?
The wealthy are held to particular account for how they treat the poor and oppressed. The poor and oppressed are not similarly held to account for how they treat the wealthy and oppressors. Everyone is held to the same standards of sin (otherwise the system breaks down), but wealth and power bring additional standards of behaviour.
What actually ends up happening, under SEC (Standard Evangelical Christianity) is the "way out" of the bind is presented as being faith in Christ, the end result of which is our eternal destiny has absolutely feck all to do with our sins or otherwise and absolutely everything to do with our ability to believe a particular theological message.
The oppressors can get away Scot free as long as they repent and believe, while their victims, if they don't happen to have the right beliefs, end up in Hell. Hell is no deterrent against sin because people who believe in it have the "right beliefs" to escape it!
Well, yes - this has everything to do with our ability to believe a particular theological message. That's kind of how religion works. The starting point for this particular message was that, despite the apparent success of the wicked on earth, the poor and oppressed would get their reward in paradise, and the wicked would get their just deserts elsewhere.
But the message you heard comes as little surprise to me, given that for many of the last 2000 years, many of those running the Church have had a seriously vested interest in the wealthy and perpetrators of oppression getting off scot free.
To me, the idea that God is bound to honour all deathbed confessions of faith, including those planned years before, seems pretty incompatible with the notions of justice expressed in the rest of Jesus' message.
This is exactly the theology that has blighted my life, both when I believed it and now as I live in its ghost.
What do you think is an appropriate punishment for those responsible for you believing such an abusively oppressive version of the gospel?
There's nothing scot free about it. The process of being changed from singer to saint can be freaking agonizing even for an ordinary person.
I know this is a typo or autocorrect, but I love it!
Not that I accept the rest of the parody of Christian theology as you present it.
I don’t think @KarlLB was presenting anything as a summary or parody of all Christian theology, but rather of a particular strand of Evangelicalism with which he has experience. I’ve encountered that theology too. I think it’s bad, unscriptural theology, but it’s out there.
Heh.
As for the parody of theology, I didn't intend to blame Karl LB for it--rather I was trying to simply identify it AS the parody of Christian theology that it is. And it depresses me to know that some people accept it for the real thing.
Our sin is a debt to God, our creditor, which we are unable to repay from our own resources. Only by being sinless can we avoid being thrown in debtor's prison and being tortured.
Since no-one is sinless, the poor and oppressed don't benefit in the slightest from their oppressors being held to account, since they're also in Hell. Everyone is, under this formulation. It's ridiculous.
However, along similar lines to Hugal, I don't remember any of this being a significant part of the message of Christianity in my part of the Evangelical world. The emphasis was on how God desired and enabled us to live as Christians, rather than the consequences of sin.
Or was this not part of whatever version of the Gospel you heard?
The wealthy are held to particular account for how they treat the poor and oppressed. The poor and oppressed are not similarly held to account for how they treat the wealthy and oppressors. Everyone is held to the same standards of sin (otherwise the system breaks down), but wealth and power bring additional standards of behaviour.
What actually ends up happening, under SEC (Standard Evangelical Christianity) is the "way out" of the bind is presented as being faith in Christ, the end result of which is our eternal destiny has absolutely feck all to do with our sins or otherwise and absolutely everything to do with our ability to believe a particular theological message.
The oppressors can get away Scot free as long as they repent and believe, while their victims, if they don't happen to have the right beliefs, end up in Hell. Hell is no deterrent against sin because people who believe in it have the "right beliefs" to escape it!
Well, yes - this has everything to do with our ability to believe a particular theological message. That's kind of how religion works. The starting point for this particular message was that, despite the apparent success of the wicked on earth, the poor and oppressed would get their reward in paradise, and the wicked would get their just deserts elsewhere.
But the message you heard comes as little surprise to me, given that for many of the last 2000 years, many of those running the Church have had a seriously vested interest in the wealthy and perpetrators of oppression getting off scot free.
To me, the idea that God is bound to honour all deathbed confessions of faith, including those planned years before, seems pretty incompatible with the notions of justice expressed in the rest of Jesus' message.
This is exactly the theology that has blighted my life, both when I believed it and now as I live in its ghost.
What do you think is an appropriate punishment for those responsible for you believing such an abusively oppressive version of the gospel?
I'm not particularly interested in punishment for them. They were only repeating in good faith what they had received. Enough for me they discover they were wrong and realise how unnecessary their and my turmoil was.
Did you see this:
pease wrote: »
However, along similar lines to Hugal, I don't remember any of this being a significant part of the message of Christianity in my part of the Evangelical world. The emphasis was on how God desired and enabled us to live as Christians, rather than the consequences of sin.
Or was this not part of whatever version of the Gospel you heard?
Of course it was, but it really doesn't make any difference to me which bits are said loudly and which bits are kept quieter. If the implication of your theology is that the whole of humanity (save a few who believe the right things) go to Hell, then how much you emphasise or don't emphasise that is irrelevant.
So, we've talked about "the wicked" getting their comeuppance. So what about all the not wicked but not perfect either? Earlier you said the only escape was to be sinless, so we're back to everyone doomed to Hell again, barring whatever religious get out clause you propose.
As for the parody of theology, I didn't intend to blame Karl LB for it--rather I was trying to simply identify it AS the parody of Christian theology that it is. And it depresses me to know that some people accept it for the real thing.
What do you think is an appropriate punishment for those responsible for you believing such an abusively oppressive version of the gospel?
I'm not particularly interested in punishment for them. They were only repeating in good faith what they had received. Enough for me they discover they were wrong and realise how unnecessary their and my turmoil was.
Maybe the whole project should just have been quietly shelved…
Did you see this:
pease wrote: »
However, along similar lines to Hugal, I don't remember any of this being a significant part of the message of Christianity in my part of the Evangelical world. The emphasis was on how God desired and enabled us to live as Christians, rather than the consequences of sin.
Or was this not part of whatever version of the Gospel you heard?
Of course it was, but it really doesn't make any difference to me which bits are said loudly and which bits are kept quieter. If the implication of your theology is that the whole of humanity (save a few who believe the right things) go to Hell, then how much you emphasise or don't emphasise that is irrelevant.
So, we've talked about "the wicked" getting their comeuppance. So what about all the not wicked but not perfect either? Earlier you said the only escape was to be sinless, so we're back to everyone doomed to Hell again, barring whatever religious get out clause you propose.
It's a religious get-out clause because it's a religion. A set of beliefs. If you believe that a set of beliefs can save you, that's what they do. In this particular set of beliefs, there isn't a "not wicked but not perfect" option. This set of beliefs centres around Jesus' message that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the standard required, but that everyone can be saved by believing in him. And rather than being quietly shelved to gather dust along with many of the other religious movements of its time, it turned out to be popular enough to spread throughout the Roman empire and beyond. The question of "not wicked but not perfect" doesn't seem to have been a major issue for much of its history.
Except it's blindingly obvious that "not wicked but not perfect" accurately describes the vast majority of people. A set of religious beliefs that denies the obviously true is obviously false.
I don't know about you, but believing things that are obviously untrue strikes me as absolutely ridiculous. Impossible, indeed.
If you believe that a set of beliefs can save you, that's what they do.
Only it that's actually how it works in reality. There is such a thing as believing something but being wrong
You're also contradicting yourself. Earlier you said God is not bound to accept every death bed conversion; now you're saying that if you believe that will save you then it will.
Hmmm ... I'm not gainsaying your experience @KarlLB but my evangelical background was very similar to yours and even at its most 'full-on' there were always those who entertained private doubts or more nuanced views on these matters.
Heck, one of the more dogmatic leaders in our particular outfit became more universalist towards the end of his life.
There were always gradations and some nuance within charismatic circles I think, probably more so than in straight down the line conservative evangelical churches.
Even there, though, it was possible to find people with a range of views.
@Gamma Gamaliel of course there was variation, but the default assumption was pretty much what you'd find in any Evangelical tract, and as put forward by @pease above
Only by being sinless can we avoid being thrown in debtor's prison and being tortured.
everyone has sinned and fallen short of the standard required, but that everyone can be saved by believing in him [Jesus].
But then they call it
such an abusively oppressive version of the gospel?
so I don't quite know what @pease actually thinks.
Except it's blindingly obvious that "not wicked but not perfect" accurately describes the vast majority of people. A set of religious beliefs that denies the obviously true is obviously false.
I don't know about you, but believing things that are obviously untrue strikes me as absolutely ridiculous. Impossible, indeed.
If you believe that a set of beliefs can save you, that's what they do.
Only it that's actually how it works in reality. There is such a thing as believing something but being wrong
You're also contradicting yourself. Earlier you said God is not bound to accept every death bed conversion; now you're saying that if you believe that will save you then it will.
This is pretty much a summation of what I think about religion, in particular the kinds of religion that insist believers accept a bunch of statements that essentially look like nonsense to everyone else.
Including, as far as I can tell, even those who share 90-99% of the religion.
The mind boggles at anyone believing that @KarlLB could be American 😳
I think I just thought he was for some reason. Maybe if he said more words that have the letter U in them in British spelling? It’s hard for me to keep track in some cases without hearing voices and accents…
@KarlLB - yes, of course but the very fact that there were/are variations surely says something in and of itself. That even adherents of what we might call the traditional evangelical view see the need to modify or obviate it to some extent.
Except it's blindingly obvious that "not wicked but not perfect" accurately describes the vast majority of people. A set of religious beliefs that denies the obviously true is obviously false.
I don't know about you, but believing things that are obviously untrue strikes me as absolutely ridiculous. Impossible, indeed.
It's harder as an adult, so I try to avoid practising believing impossible things until after I've had a coffee.
If you believe that a set of beliefs can save you, that's what they do.
Only it that's actually how it works in reality. There is such a thing as believing something but being wrong
The belief that one can be wrong (or right) about a religious belief is itself a belief. You believe it can be wrong, I don't (which is to say I don't believe a religious belief can be wrong as an absolute). I believe that a religious belief can be believed or not believed.
You're also contradicting yourself. Earlier you said God is not bound to accept every death bed conversion; now you're saying that if you believe that will save you then it will.
What I said is that “If you believe that a set of beliefs can save you, that's what they do.” More specifically, “can save” is not the same as “will save”.
@Gamma Gamaliel of course there was variation, but the default assumption was pretty much what you'd find in any Evangelical tract, and as put forward by @pease above
Only by being sinless can we avoid being thrown in debtor's prison and being tortured.
everyone has sinned and fallen short of the standard required, but that everyone can be saved by believing in him [Jesus].
But then they call it
such an abusively oppressive version of the gospel?
so I don't quite know what @pease actually thinks.
Well…
I think that the part of the message about sin, oppression and eternal suffering was in there from the beginning, and was an integral part of what made it Good News, as far as many of the listeners were concerned, across the Roman empire and beyond.
I think that many people today hear what is essentially the same message as Bad News, to the extent that a significant number of people consider it to be abusive.
I can think of various reasons for this, and maybe what can be done about it. (I think that the message we hear depends a lot on the messenger, and that's especially true with this message.) But what I don't think is that we can change the message and say it's the same message.
If a particular person dies and goes to Hell, any religious belief that claimed they wouldn't is objectively wrong. I do not understand how you can claim that an religious belief cannot be objectively correct or not. Unless it's all nonsense and we're playing make believe games.
It cannot be empirically verified, or disproved using the scientific method. Consequently, what you believe will depend on your interpretations of religious scripture and tradition - which is likely to be impacted by your personal life experience and psychology.
(For example, if you had a punishing parent, and you frame God as a parental figure, then you are perhaps more likely to believe in a punishing God.)
The functional effect of these circumstances is that religious belief is socially constructed, even if the reality it attempts to describe is not.
People who fundamentally believe God is love, may seem less concerned about whether belief in Hell is valid or not because their primary belief overrides it - they don’t believe a loving God will do something horrific even if they can’t explain exactly how God won’t.
If a particular person dies and goes to Hell, any religious belief that claimed they wouldn't is objectively wrong. I do not understand how you can claim that an religious belief cannot be objectively correct or not. Unless it's all nonsense and we're playing make believe games.
What else is make-believe other than making believe? It's an important part of our childhood development. Maybe religious belief is a grown-up version of make believe - I don't think that makes it nonsense though. In this regard, some of the wikipedia article on make believe seems pertinent.
Learning and knowledge acquisition
Pretend play is not only associated with developing general cognitive abilities and reinforcing existing knowledge, but recent research has been investigating how children learn new knowledge during pretend play. While children do not invent new knowledge on their own, when pretending with others, children make judgements about the generalizability of unknown information introduced by others in the pretend context. These judgements affect the degree to which children believe the information is applicable and reflective of the real world. There are a number of factors known to influence these judgements including the fantastical themes employed in the pretend world as well as the credibility of the other play participants.
If a particular person dies and goes to Hell, any religious belief that claimed they wouldn't is objectively wrong. I do not understand how you can claim that an religious belief cannot be objectively correct or not. Unless it's all nonsense and we're playing make believe games.
From my perspective, it isn't whether something is true/false so much as Belief A leads to Belief B. Sometimes there's an inevitability about the consequences of certain philosophical beliefs which are more practically important than whether they're true or not.
There's also a whole unravelling which can be done to even simple stories which confuse the whole question of what is or isn't true.
For example, a person is stopped in a car by a policeman who issues a speeding ticket.
On the face of it, that's either true or false, one either was driving too fast or one wasn't.
But then there could be deeper questions: what is a speed limit and who has the authority to issue tickets? What even is law and justice anyway?
Maybe he's an official from a government that local people don't recognise. Maybe he's from a government the UN doesn't recognise.
Or on a different level, was that a real policeman? Did he have the authority to write speeding tickets? Maybe his equipment is faulty or he is corrupt.
If a particular person dies and goes to Hell, any religious belief that claimed they wouldn't is objectively wrong. I do not understand how you can claim that an religious belief cannot be objectively correct or not. Unless it's all nonsense and we're playing make believe games.
From my perspective, it isn't whether something is true/false so much as Belief A leads to Belief B. Sometimes there's an inevitability about the consequences of certain philosophical beliefs which are more practically important than whether they're true or not.
There's also a whole unravelling which can be done to even simple stories which confuse the whole question of what is or isn't true.
For example, a person is stopped in a car by a policeman who issues a speeding ticket.
On the face of it, that's either true or false, one either was driving too fast or one wasn't.
But then there could be deeper questions: what is a speed limit and who has the authority to issue tickets? What even is law and justice anyway?
Maybe he's an official from a government that local people don't recognise. Maybe he's from a government the UN doesn't recognise.
Or on a different level, was that a real policeman? Did he have the authority to write speeding tickets? Maybe his equipment is faulty or he is corrupt.
What even is truth?
One of the most annoying parts of the gospels is when Pilate asks Jesus "What is truth?" but we never hear Jesus' reply - the attention shifts to another scene.
If a particular person dies and goes to Hell, any religious belief that claimed they wouldn't is objectively wrong. I do not understand how you can claim that an religious belief cannot be objectively correct or not. Unless it's all nonsense and we're playing make believe games.
From my perspective, it isn't whether something is true/false so much as Belief A leads to Belief B. Sometimes there's an inevitability about the consequences of certain philosophical beliefs which are more practically important than whether they're true or not.
There's also a whole unravelling which can be done to even simple stories which confuse the whole question of what is or isn't true.
For example, a person is stopped in a car by a policeman who issues a speeding ticket.
On the face of it, that's either true or false, one either was driving too fast or one wasn't.
But then there could be deeper questions: what is a speed limit and who has the authority to issue tickets? What even is law and justice anyway?
Maybe he's an official from a government that local people don't recognise. Maybe he's from a government the UN doesn't recognise.
Or on a different level, was that a real policeman? Did he have the authority to write speeding tickets? Maybe his equipment is faulty or he is corrupt.
What even is truth?
One of the most annoying parts of the gospels is when Pilate asks Jesus "What is truth?" but we never hear Jesus' reply - the attention shifts to another scene.
I always assume John expects us to remember that he’s already recorded Jesus as answering the question that same evening: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”
If a particular person dies and goes to Hell, any religious belief that claimed they wouldn't is objectively wrong. I do not understand how you can claim that an religious belief cannot be objectively correct or not. Unless it's all nonsense and we're playing make believe games.
From my perspective, it isn't whether something is true/false so much as Belief A leads to Belief B. Sometimes there's an inevitability about the consequences of certain philosophical beliefs which are more practically important than whether they're true or not.
There's also a whole unravelling which can be done to even simple stories which confuse the whole question of what is or isn't true.
For example, a person is stopped in a car by a policeman who issues a speeding ticket.
On the face of it, that's either true or false, one either was driving too fast or one wasn't.
But then there could be deeper questions: what is a speed limit and who has the authority to issue tickets? What even is law and justice anyway?
Maybe he's an official from a government that local people don't recognise. Maybe he's from a government the UN doesn't recognise.
Or on a different level, was that a real policeman? Did he have the authority to write speeding tickets? Maybe his equipment is faulty or he is corrupt.
What even is truth?
One of the most annoying parts of the gospels is when Pilate asks Jesus "What is truth?" but we never hear Jesus' reply - the attention shifts to another scene.
Doesn't look like Pilate stuck around for an answer. Yes, very annoying, though I suspect Jesus's answer would have been "I am the truth" and made Pilate even more convinced he was a harmless nutcase.
If a particular person dies and goes to Hell, any religious belief that claimed they wouldn't is objectively wrong. I do not understand how you can claim that an religious belief cannot be objectively correct or not. Unless it's all nonsense and we're playing make believe games.
From my perspective, it isn't whether something is true/false so much as Belief A leads to Belief B. Sometimes there's an inevitability about the consequences of certain philosophical beliefs which are more practically important than whether they're true or not.
There's also a whole unravelling which can be done to even simple stories which confuse the whole question of what is or isn't true.
For example, a person is stopped in a car by a policeman who issues a speeding ticket.
On the face of it, that's either true or false, one either was driving too fast or one wasn't.
But then there could be deeper questions: what is a speed limit and who has the authority to issue tickets? What even is law and justice anyway?
Maybe he's an official from a government that local people don't recognise. Maybe he's from a government the UN doesn't recognise.
Or on a different level, was that a real policeman? Did he have the authority to write speeding tickets? Maybe his equipment is faulty or he is corrupt.
What even is truth?
One of the most annoying parts of the gospels is when Pilate asks Jesus "What is truth?" but we never hear Jesus' reply - the attention shifts to another scene.
Doesn't look like Pilate stuck around for an answer. Yes, very annoying, though I suspect Jesus's answer would have been "I am the truth" and made Pilate even more convinced he was a harmless nutcase.
This is arguing from silence. John leaves the question open, though I think the reader of the Gospel can make inferences.
In my theological imagination, the feast to come consists of... rice and beans. Maybe some veg. More than enough for everybody!
The poor rejoice. "Awesome! There's more than enough for everybody and we won't run out!"
The rich are pissed. "What is this? No caviar, no foie gras? A feast of rice and beans is no feast at all."
A person's capacity to rejoice with their neighbours that there is a good but humble feast, with plenty for all, to me is an indicator of spiritual maturity.
(Those who would bitch about the lack of their preferred all-caps food or beverage, are the same ones who would have bitched about the meal of bread and fish. Jesus just can't please them.)
The belief that one can be wrong (or right) about a religious belief is itself a belief. You believe it can be wrong, I don't (which is to say I don't believe a religious belief can be wrong as an absolute). I believe that a religious belief can be believed or not believed.
Well, no. There must, logically, be a single set of religious beliefs that are actually, objectively, TRUE (which could, of course, be atheism - or even something no human has yet believed).
It follows that all other beliefs must be wrong. We just don’t know which ones they are. Yet. When we make it to the afterlife, we’ll know for sure - and if the truth isn’t some form of universalism*, a lot of people are going to be very unhappy for a very long time.
.
*= or atheism, but in a weird way that is itself a form of universalism, given that if it turns out to be true then nobody will suffer eternal torment.
The belief that one can be wrong (or right) about a religious belief is itself a belief. You believe it can be wrong, I don't (which is to say I don't believe a religious belief can be wrong as an absolute). I believe that a religious belief can be believed or not believed.
Well, no. There must, logically, be a single set of religious beliefs that are actually, objectively, TRUE (which could, of course, be atheism - or even something no human has yet believed).
It follows that all other beliefs must be wrong. We just don’t know which ones they are. Yet. When we make it to the afterlife, we’ll know for sure - and if the truth isn’t some form of universalism*, a lot of people are going to be very unhappy for a very long time.
.
*= or atheism, but in a weird way that is itself a form of universalism, given that if it turns out to be true then nobody will suffer eternal torment.
Well that's not true, unless there's a person somewhere who believes in every possible combination of beliefs about the world/universe. Which in itself is highly unlikely if the "objective truth" is so complicated and weird that no human mind would ever come up with it.
This matter of holding beliefs for reasons other than thinking that they're true makes me think of Harry Frankfurt's distinction between lying and bullshit: one is lying when one knows what one's saying is wrong and wishes to implant wrong beliefs in one's audience; one is bullshitting when one doesn't care whether what one's saying is true or false.
Recommending beliefs on grounds other than thinking them true looks a lot like deliberately endorsing bullshit.
The belief that one can be wrong (or right) about a religious belief is itself a belief. You believe it can be wrong, I don't (which is to say I don't believe a religious belief can be wrong as an absolute). I believe that a religious belief can be believed or not believed.
Well, no. There must, logically, be a single set of religious beliefs that are actually, objectively, TRUE (which could, of course, be atheism - or even something no human has yet believed).
No. This is defining atheism as a religious belief so that it can then be said that religious belief encompasses all possibilities. But this seems to be stretching the definition more than a little. I would say that atheism is the rejection of religious beliefs about God. And if "atheism" as a term didn't exist, I don't find it difficult to imagine a cosmos in which no religious beliefs are true.
I specifically said that the actual objective truth could be something no human has ever believed. You’re not disagreeing with me.
I think I'll be the judge of that. A potential religious belief that nobody believes is, in my opinion, not within the set of human beliefs.
I think you are confusing objective “religious reality” with religious belief, I think what what Marvin is saying is that there could exist an objective reality no one has ever imagined (and therefore never believed). And this matters, be cause what is objectively true matters - especially if the consequence of that reality is that because you never imagined and therefore never believed in and worshipped the 19 headed sun god manifested in the souls of photons you are going to burn in hell for the rest of time.
I specifically said that the actual objective truth could be something no human has ever believed. You’re not disagreeing with me.
I think I'll be the judge of that. A potential religious belief that nobody believes is, in my opinion, not within the set of human beliefs.
I think you are confusing objective “religious reality” with religious belief, I think what what Marvin is saying is that there could exist an objective reality no one has ever imagined (and therefore never believed). And this matters, be cause what is objectively true matters - especially if the consequence of that reality is that because you never imagined and therefore never believed in and worshipped the 19 headed sun god manifested in the souls of photons you are going to burn in hell for the rest of time.
Or arguably it doesn't matter because of the religious explanations we know entirely fail to explain things.
Either reality is far bigger and more complex than the religions or maybe they're all wrong. In a sense, it makes no difference.
The belief that one can be wrong (or right) about a religious belief is itself a belief. You believe it can be wrong, I don't (which is to say I don't believe a religious belief can be wrong as an absolute). I believe that a religious belief can be believed or not believed.
Well, no. There must, logically, be a single set of religious beliefs that are actually, objectively, TRUE (which could, of course, be atheism - or even something no human has yet believed).
No. This is defining atheism as a religious belief so that it can then be said that religious belief encompasses all possibilities. But this seems to be stretching the definition more than a little. I would say that atheism is the rejection of religious beliefs about God. And if "atheism" as a term didn't exist, I don't find it difficult to imagine a cosmos in which no religious beliefs are true.
And again there exist a large number of atheists who are potentially persuadable that there is some kind of deity if there was good evidence of it. The thing they're largely not believing is the version of a personal deity that religion typically insists is the only possible option. Because for many people for many reasons that makes absolutely no sense.
Maybe there's something else out there that's far beyond our ken. That's a whole other thing, which by definition we can't comprehend.
Comments
Also we were left to decide how much we gave to the church. It wasn’t forced upon us.
So your end of Evangelicalism doesn't believe that the majority of humanity ends up in Hell? Good, you're not the Evangelicals I'm talking about.
However, along similar lines to Hugal, I don't remember any of this being a significant part of the message of Christianity in my part of the Evangelical world. The emphasis was on how God desired and enabled us to live as Christians, rather than the consequences of sin.
Nevertheless, the verses above, and others like them, are all part of the Gospel narrative with which I'm still familiar - all part of Jesus' message about sin, debt and hell, even if this aspect of his message generally stayed in the background. At that time, I don't remember any drums being strongly beaten for universalism. So it's not that we didn't believe in eternal punishment or consequences for sin, more that we didn't believe it mattered as much as God's Love.
"God's Love" is meaningless in the face of people being tortured in Hell. Reminds me of what I hear a lot of non-Christians say - "There's no hate quite like Christian love".
The relationship of our forgiveness of each other, and God's forgiveness of us, is an important part of how sin debt, and the future prospect of hell, together work towards changing society for the better in the here and now. Hannah Arendt said that Jesus was “the discoverer of the role of forgiveness in the realm of human affairs”.
Jesus' message is a message of both God's love and God's justice, in particular for the poor and oppressed. I believe that an integral aspect of that message is that oppressors will be judged and held to account, and that they face being punished for as long as they need to be, for as long as they deserve; that there is no arbitrary cap, no upper limit on that punishment.
Since no-one is sinless, the poor and oppressed don't benefit in the slightest from their oppressors being held to account, since they're also in Hell. Everyone is, under this formulation. It's ridiculous.
What actually ends up happening, under SEC (Standard Evangelical Christianity) is the "way out" of the bind is presented as being faith in Christ, the end result of which is our eternal destiny has absolutely feck all to do with our sins or otherwise and absolutely everything to do with our ability to believe a particular theological message. The oppressors can get away Scot free as long as they repent and believe, while their victims, if they don't happen to have the right beliefs, end up in Hell. Hell is no deterrent against sin because people who believe in it have the "right beliefs" to escape it!
This is exactly the theology that has blighted my life, both when I believed it and now as I live in its ghost.
I don’t think @KarlLB was presenting anything as a summary or parody of all Christian theology, but rather of a particular strand of Evangelicalism with which he has experience. I’ve encountered that theology too. I think it’s bad, unscriptural theology, but it’s out there.
The wealthy are held to particular account for how they treat the poor and oppressed. The poor and oppressed are not similarly held to account for how they treat the wealthy and oppressors. Everyone is held to the same standards of sin (otherwise the system breaks down), but wealth and power bring additional standards of behaviour.
Well, yes - this has everything to do with our ability to believe a particular theological message. That's kind of how religion works. The starting point for this particular message was that, despite the apparent success of the wicked on earth, the poor and oppressed would get their reward in paradise, and the wicked would get their just deserts elsewhere.
But the message you heard comes as little surprise to me, given that for many of the last 2000 years, many of those running the Church have had a seriously vested interest in the wealthy and perpetrators of oppression getting off scot free.
To me, the idea that God is bound to honour all deathbed confessions of faith, including those planned years before, seems pretty incompatible with the notions of justice expressed in the rest of Jesus' message.
What do you think is an appropriate punishment for those responsible for you believing such an abusively oppressive version of the gospel?
Heh.
As for the parody of theology, I didn't intend to blame Karl LB for it--rather I was trying to simply identify it AS the parody of Christian theology that it is. And it depresses me to know that some people accept it for the real thing.
I'm not particularly interested in punishment for them. They were only repeating in good faith what they had received. Enough for me they discover they were wrong and realise how unnecessary their and my turmoil was.
As regards this:
Of course it was, but it really doesn't make any difference to me which bits are said loudly and which bits are kept quieter. If the implication of your theology is that the whole of humanity (save a few who believe the right things) go to Hell, then how much you emphasise or don't emphasise that is irrelevant.
So, we've talked about "the wicked" getting their comeuppance. So what about all the not wicked but not perfect either? Earlier you said the only escape was to be sinless, so we're back to everyone doomed to Hell again, barring whatever religious get out clause you propose.
It's like punishing someone for stealing a loaf of bread by extinguishing all the oxygen molecules in the universe.
It's a religious get-out clause because it's a religion. A set of beliefs. If you believe that a set of beliefs can save you, that's what they do. In this particular set of beliefs, there isn't a "not wicked but not perfect" option. This set of beliefs centres around Jesus' message that everyone has sinned and fallen short of the standard required, but that everyone can be saved by believing in him. And rather than being quietly shelved to gather dust along with many of the other religious movements of its time, it turned out to be popular enough to spread throughout the Roman empire and beyond. The question of "not wicked but not perfect" doesn't seem to have been a major issue for much of its history.
I don't know about you, but believing things that are obviously untrue strikes me as absolutely ridiculous. Impossible, indeed.
Only it that's actually how it works in reality. There is such a thing as believing something but being wrong
You're also contradicting yourself. Earlier you said God is not bound to accept every death bed conversion; now you're saying that if you believe that will save you then it will.
Heck, one of the more dogmatic leaders in our particular outfit became more universalist towards the end of his life.
There were always gradations and some nuance within charismatic circles I think, probably more so than in straight down the line conservative evangelical churches.
Even there, though, it was possible to find people with a range of views.
The mileage varied.
@Gamma Gamaliel of course there was variation, but the default assumption was pretty much what you'd find in any Evangelical tract, and as put forward by @pease above
But then they call it so I don't quite know what @pease actually thinks.
This is pretty much a summation of what I think about religion, in particular the kinds of religion that insist believers accept a bunch of statements that essentially look like nonsense to everyone else.
Including, as far as I can tell, even those who share 90-99% of the religion.
I think I just thought he was for some reason. Maybe if he said more words that have the letter U in them in British spelling? It’s hard for me to keep track in some cases without hearing voices and accents…
I'm not gainsaying your overall argument.
What I said is that “If you believe that a set of beliefs can save you, that's what they do.” More specifically, “can save” is not the same as “will save”.
Run runaway (hey!)
Well…
I think that the part of the message about sin, oppression and eternal suffering was in there from the beginning, and was an integral part of what made it Good News, as far as many of the listeners were concerned, across the Roman empire and beyond.
I think that many people today hear what is essentially the same message as Bad News, to the extent that a significant number of people consider it to be abusive.
I can think of various reasons for this, and maybe what can be done about it. (I think that the message we hear depends a lot on the messenger, and that's especially true with this message.) But what I don't think is that we can change the message and say it's the same message.
(For example, if you had a punishing parent, and you frame God as a parental figure, then you are perhaps more likely to believe in a punishing God.)
The functional effect of these circumstances is that religious belief is socially constructed, even if the reality it attempts to describe is not.
People who fundamentally believe God is love, may seem less concerned about whether belief in Hell is valid or not because their primary belief overrides it - they don’t believe a loving God will do something horrific even if they can’t explain exactly how God won’t.
From my perspective, it isn't whether something is true/false so much as Belief A leads to Belief B. Sometimes there's an inevitability about the consequences of certain philosophical beliefs which are more practically important than whether they're true or not.
There's also a whole unravelling which can be done to even simple stories which confuse the whole question of what is or isn't true.
For example, a person is stopped in a car by a policeman who issues a speeding ticket.
On the face of it, that's either true or false, one either was driving too fast or one wasn't.
But then there could be deeper questions: what is a speed limit and who has the authority to issue tickets? What even is law and justice anyway?
Maybe he's an official from a government that local people don't recognise. Maybe he's from a government the UN doesn't recognise.
Or on a different level, was that a real policeman? Did he have the authority to write speeding tickets? Maybe his equipment is faulty or he is corrupt.
What even is truth?
One of the most annoying parts of the gospels is when Pilate asks Jesus "What is truth?" but we never hear Jesus' reply - the attention shifts to another scene.
Doesn't look like Pilate stuck around for an answer. Yes, very annoying, though I suspect Jesus's answer would have been "I am the truth" and made Pilate even more convinced he was a harmless nutcase.
This is arguing from silence. John leaves the question open, though I think the reader of the Gospel can make inferences.
If so why have the Ship (or at least Purgatory) at all?
Treasure the Questions does not mean you stop looking for answers. It just means you're out of them for now.
The poor rejoice. "Awesome! There's more than enough for everybody and we won't run out!"
The rich are pissed. "What is this? No caviar, no foie gras? A feast of rice and beans is no feast at all."
A person's capacity to rejoice with their neighbours that there is a good but humble feast, with plenty for all, to me is an indicator of spiritual maturity.
(Those who would bitch about the lack of their preferred all-caps food or beverage, are the same ones who would have bitched about the meal of bread and fish. Jesus just can't please them.)
Well, no. There must, logically, be a single set of religious beliefs that are actually, objectively, TRUE (which could, of course, be atheism - or even something no human has yet believed).
It follows that all other beliefs must be wrong. We just don’t know which ones they are. Yet. When we make it to the afterlife, we’ll know for sure - and if the truth isn’t some form of universalism*, a lot of people are going to be very unhappy for a very long time.
.
*= or atheism, but in a weird way that is itself a form of universalism, given that if it turns out to be true then nobody will suffer eternal torment.
Well that's not true, unless there's a person somewhere who believes in every possible combination of beliefs about the world/universe. Which in itself is highly unlikely if the "objective truth" is so complicated and weird that no human mind would ever come up with it.
I think I'll be the judge of that. A potential religious belief that nobody believes is, in my opinion, not within the set of human beliefs.
Recommending beliefs on grounds other than thinking them true looks a lot like deliberately endorsing bullshit.
I think you are confusing objective “religious reality” with religious belief, I think what what Marvin is saying is that there could exist an objective reality no one has ever imagined (and therefore never believed). And this matters, be cause what is objectively true matters - especially if the consequence of that reality is that because you never imagined and therefore never believed in and worshipped the 19 headed sun god manifested in the souls of photons you are going to burn in hell for the rest of time.
Or arguably it doesn't matter because of the religious explanations we know entirely fail to explain things.
Either reality is far bigger and more complex than the religions or maybe they're all wrong. In a sense, it makes no difference.
And again there exist a large number of atheists who are potentially persuadable that there is some kind of deity if there was good evidence of it. The thing they're largely not believing is the version of a personal deity that religion typically insists is the only possible option. Because for many people for many reasons that makes absolutely no sense.
Maybe there's something else out there that's far beyond our ken. That's a whole other thing, which by definition we can't comprehend.