Why create the damned?

[dockeen]

I started a thread on this in the old forum, but it was not taken up. Being stupid, I will try again.

Many Xtians would tell you that there are the elect, and everybody else. The everybody else are doomed to suffer eternal damnation.
Now, here is my question. It the damned are here for a purpose, to serve an important role in the salvation of the elect, then why
use "real" souls to fulfill the role of the damned creatures. Use avatars, agents, whatever you want to call them to play out the
right role. Now, you no longer have the elect and the damned, but the elect and disposable props, that do not require eternal
damnation?

 

[jonJ]

I think 'NPCs' might be the term you are looking for here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-player_character

 

[DBT]

Doesn't the Bible say that the damned were, basically, created by God in order to 'make His power known' and to 'Glorify the 'elect,' the 'vessels of mercy?

“Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,” - Romans 9:21-23

 

[dockeen]

Doesn't the Bible say that the damned were, basically, created by God in order to 'make His power known' and to 'Glorify the 'elect,' the 'vessels of mercy?

“Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,” - Romans 9:21-23

i.e. there is a role in the grand play. There is no reason that I can see why there has to be a "real" person in that role.

 

[rousseau]

Because hell was created as an instrument of fear to prop up the church and had absolutely no real logic behind it.

 

[dockeen]

There seems to be a theme in those xtians that I can get to address this question that goes like this:

You can only have real winners, if you have real losers.

 

[James Brown]

Another oft-given answer is that Earth is a sort of training ground, intended to weed out those not truly committed to a life of ease in Paradise. If God pre-selected who's going to Heaven and gave only them a soul, then there's nothing to test. If you've made it this far and you have a soul--and nearly everyone feels that they do--then you're in. No more worrying about your eternal fate; thus, no more incentive to live a moral life.

No answer that I've seen from any Christian can seem to improve on what would be the ideal solution with the least amount of suffering--God should just create the people he wants in Heaven with him to begin with, and forget all these intermediate stages that result in some percentage of living people suffering and dying. That's what an omnipotent and benevolent God would do.

 

[dockeen]

Note that there is a definite difference between a training ground, and a testing ground. If life is a training ground, then it definitely seems that real souls playing the roles of the damned are unnecessary.

If it is a testing ground, and god needs for the wheat to sort itself from the chaff, then that has very definitive implications for omniscience, and, arguably, omni-benevolence.

ETA: If god does not know in advance who the winners and losers are, then god does not know for example whether all will be losers, and require eternal torment. Now, if this sort of "shot in the dark" creation does not bother one, well...

 

[Keith&Co.]

Maybe GOD is omniscient, but Satan isn't, and God is forced to play all this out so that Satan will see God was right, 151,600 times per day.

Oh. Wait. 'Forced.' That has implications for omnipotence, doesn't it?

Nasty snarl....

 

[dockeen]

Maybe GOD is omniscient, but Satan isn't, and God is forced to play all this out so that Satan will see God was right, 151,600 times per day.

Oh. Wait. 'Forced.' That has implications for omnipotence, doesn't it?

Nasty snarl....

Does make one wonder who is working for whom.

 

[credoconsolans]

I started a thread on this in the old forum, but it was not taken up. Being stupid, I will try again.

Many Xtians would tell you that there are the elect, and everybody else. The everybody else are doomed to suffer eternal damnation.
Now, here is my question. It the damned are here for a purpose, to serve an important role in the salvation of the elect, then why
use "real" souls to fulfill the role of the damned creatures. Use avatars, agents, whatever you want to call them to play out the
right role. Now, you no longer have the elect and the damned, but the elect and disposable props, that do not require eternal
damnation?

Some religious people do think that those who are not 'with them' are soulless.

We don't want to encourage that kind of thinking. You see what many of them already do to their fellow humans even when they DO think they have a soul.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Because hell was created as an instrument of fear to prop up the church and had absolutely no real logic behind it.

It's religion evolving. People will hold onto what works. Whodda thunk a dead guy nailed to boards would have caught on? But it came along with not having to kill animals anymore or venerate countless other gods. Cleaned things up nicely and made religious life simpler.

The hell part is still being hashed out.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I started a thread on this in the old forum, but it was not taken up. Being stupid, I will try again.

Many Xtians would tell you that there are the elect, and everybody else. The everybody else are doomed to suffer eternal damnation.
Now, here is my question. It the damned are here for a purpose, to serve an important role in the salvation of the elect, then why
use "real" souls to fulfill the role of the damned creatures. Use avatars, agents, whatever you want to call them to play out the
right role. Now, you no longer have the elect and the damned, but the elect and disposable props, that do not require eternal
damnation?

The weird part of the Christian NT theology is that God decides who is elect and who is reprobate and damned with admittedly no reason for his choice. Why not make all elect? This theology in the end is incoherent and senseless. Islam is just as bad. Why create Jane elect and John not elect, Jane good and John evil from the beginning of time? I know of no theologian that has an answer. Nor can Christians deal with this in any adequate way. The best they can do is point to divine command or God's incomprehensibility. But both answers reject God as essentially good, not merciful, compassionate fair and so on. That is not good.

It appears to me that the entire concept of God is incoherent, and the Bible writers simply dug themselves over time, a deep hole. There is so much wrong with the God concept in this manner it is hard to even list all the impossible problems.

This God in the end is bad tempered, childish, peevish and evil. We are no better than toys for his idiosyncratic games. It dismays me that few seem to recognize all of this for the illogical farce it is.Hell makes no sense since God decides who will do evil from the beginning, predestining all that happens. Why not predestining all are to be good and be elect and saved? To impress us? Makes no sense. After all, from the beginning he decides who will be impressed and who won't.

In the end theology posits this is all a surreal dadaist Universe created by a bad tempered, foolish God.

 

[dockeen]

As I (and others) have noted, many xtians react with visceral hatred to any suggestion that the paradise of heaven does not have a partner that features eternal torment. You can't have winners if you don't have losers.

 

[DBT]

So, if I have this right, Lucifer and His crew (one third of the host of Heaven), were created to be Heavenly Beings residing in Heaven. Yet these 'Heavenly Creatures' rebelled while still residing in Paradise and consequently were Damned Eternally by their Omniscient Creator. Which places Authorship of Damnation firmly at the feet of......

 

[dockeen]

Lucifer!

Xtians Axiom: No matter how it looks, it is NEVER god's fault, or "god's bad". If god creates a being that goes rogue (and even if god knew in advance it would do so), any damage that being does is the being's fault, with none of the blame on god.

If the result is god, glory to god. If it's bad, it's someone else's fault. What a leader!

 

[ideologyhunter]

I suspect hell is there to provide clerical work for the saved. Like the meticulous record-keeping that went on in the Nazi extermination camps.

 

[James Brown]

So, if I have this right, Lucifer and His crew (one third of the host of Heaven), were created to be Heavenly Beings residing in Heaven. Yet these 'Heavenly Creatures' rebelled while still residing in Paradise and consequently were Damned Eternally by their Omniscient Creator. Which places Authorship of Damnation firmly at the feet of......

Yes. Twice (Pre-creation heaven and the Garden of Eden) God has created a paradise peopled with free-willed beings, and in both cases the experiment was a failure. But if you act fast, I can guarantee you a spot in the third instance of a paradise peopled with free-willed beings, and this time there won't be any foul-ups.

Honest!

 

[Kharakov]

I personally guarantee it's not God trolling to trick us into learning various things.

 

[DBT]

I have to ask...how can you possibly guarantee that?