Why do people believe in hell?

[DBT]

If faith is a conviction of truth in spite of a lack of evidence to support a justified conviction, to lack conviction when there no evidence to support a conviction takes no faith.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Atheism is the absence of faith, a lack of conviction. A lack of conviction is based on insufficient evidence.

I'm fine with calling atheism a belief, and a worldview.

As a lack of conviction in the existence of a God or gods?

That would be equivalent with saying adults have faith that there is no Santa. Does it take faith to know Santa is not real? Is a child going from one faith position to another when the child stops believing that Santa is real? Is an adult doing the same thing?

 

[DBT]

As a lack of conviction in the existence of a God or gods?

That would be equivalent with saying adults have faith that there is no Santa. Does it take faith to know Santa is not real? Is a child going from one faith position to another when the child stops believing that Santa is real? Is an adult doing the same thing?

Yes, to equivocate the two is absurd.

 

[ruby sparks]

As a lack of conviction in the existence of a God or gods?

That would be equivalent with saying adults have faith that there is no Santa. Does it take faith to know Santa is not real? Is a child going from one faith position to another when the child stops believing that Santa is real? Is an adult doing the same thing?

Do you think santa is not real?

Then you have a belief. A belief is an attitude. It's an attitude, held with at least some confidence, about something, specifically that something is the case (here, that santa does not exist). The having of an attitude without there being a corresponding brain state would seem to be an impossibility. The brain state is or at least correlates to the belief. Therefore when we say 'santa does not exist' it is the expression of a belief (an attitudinal brain-state) that that is the case.

The child is going from one belief state to another, yes.

It may be that the word faith has additional connotations.

 

[southernhybrid]

You have a point, but Its an everyday expression . I just thought to use that phrase and not to sound like a theist idiom idiot, rather than saying instead, "thank my lucky stars..." etc..

Why can't we thank God for His benevolence and providence?
This is a thread where the atheist has no problem blaming God for stuff they dislike (Eternal punishment in hell.)

It's not misattribution to thank God for even the smallest of things.

Very strange, no response. I am skeptical of a response.

Patience my friend.

I made that response (being a tad sarky) in context, to having an underlined biased view while being sceptical at the same time. Obviously it happens on both sides.

You referred to atheist skeptic. Respond on the thread I started, if you feel confident. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death, or Daniel in the lions den may apply. I do love biblical metaphor. They are so colorful and adaptable to any situation. Metaphors for all occasions.

Atheism and skepticism have become quasi-synonymous mostly because so many atheists brag about the supposed connection. But...
View attachment 25747

I guess the best response to that is simply to sigh. I don't think that some or most theists understand that atheists don't choose to reject any god, we simply are unable to believe that such unproven entities exist. I usually give the analogy to garden fairies because I used to be an avid gardener before my arthritis limited my ability to do the work. I loved creating pretty little flower gardens and I adored the concept of garden fairies. I even have a little statue of one in my foyer. But, I know that these little creatures are imaginary, just like all gods are. I simply cannot believe that the countless numbers of imaginary creatures that humans have invented are anything more than figments of our very creative brains.

And, I don't think you really understand the point that we are making when we ask why anyone would believe in eternal hell. Of course, we don't believe such a place exists, but we find it very difficult to understand why anyone can believe that a loving and just god would punish anyone forever, simply because they have a different belief or have done immoral things, which are often defined by this imaginary god.

Think of the 10 commandments. Some of them could probably be called human universals that are commonly found in all cultures, but several of them are merely there to praise this so called loving god. That just seems nutty to me. Of course, to people like me, the entire concept is mythology and mythology is a very powerful part of what humans have created. But, it doesn't take any faith not to literally believe in mythology. It takes faith to believe that mythology is real, and not just metaphorical.

It's just weird to me that some Christians make the claim that it takes faith to be an atheist, when nothing could be further from the truth. It takes faith to believe that invisible entities exist. It takes no faith to simply not be able to believe that these entities exist, be they gods, or garden fairies. I really do wish garden fairies and gargoyles were real. They are so cute and harmless, unlike some of the many mythological gods.

And, as the expression goes.....I just believe in one less god than you do. Get it. You have been able to reject all of the other gods except the one you believe is real. Did it take faith for you to reject all those other gods?

 

[ruby sparks]

And, as the expression goes.....I just believe in one less god than you do. Get it. You have been able to reject all of the other gods except the one you believe is real. Did it take faith for you to reject all those other gods?

It's rare that any theist sees that they too are at least 'very atheist' about all the many gods they don't believe in, including for example tree gods (and elves, if we were to do supernatural entities generally).

At the very least, they should surely understand better what atheism (or aelfism) involves.

 

[Politesse]

Imagine... accepting the good parts of a tradition but eschewing the bad things. Who would dream of doing such a sensible thing?

Sensible as in pragmatic? Ok. That's an option. We all need to float our boat as it sails along the mortal coil none of us ever asked to be on.

But it's cherry-picking, and thus, kind of dishonest to call it, for example, Christianity. It would be better and more accurate and properly called something else.

Only if you define Christianity as bound to 20th century interpretations of the Bible in the first place, which I certainly do not.

I'm not offended by your accusation of dishonesty, because we clearly have very different ideas of what honesty consists of in the first place. I don't care what dead tree you worship or don't, when it comes to questions of character. Personally, I define "honesty" as "not lying", and from that context, someone who claims to worship the written word of Scripture inerrantly but in fact sins and shits all over its basic principles on the daily is being very dishonest, whereas someone who simply says "The Bible is a book, and should be read as critically as any other book", and then does so, is being much more honest with themselves and others.

I also don't care if you call me a Christian or not, but if I called myself something else and then admitted to being a regular church-goer, I would of course be accused of ... dishonesty.

 

[ideologyhunter]

And, as the expression goes.....I just believe in one less god than you do. Get it. You have been able to reject all of the other gods except the one you believe is real. Did it take faith for you to reject all those other gods?

It's rare that any theist sees that they too are at least 'very atheist' about all the many gods they don't believe in, including for example tree gods (and elves, if we were to do supernatural entities generally).

At the very least, they should surely understand better what atheism (or aelfism) involves.

Agreed. I remember a family gathering back in the 90s, at a time when I was immersed in reading about Mormonism, when I was going on at some length on some of the weirder aspects of LDS teachings -- especially their insistence on pre-Columbian Jewish settlement of the New World, and the Hebrew ancestry of Native Americans. My audience consisted of cousins, aunts and uncles, who were various stripes of orthodox Christian. I truly enjoyed talking up the weird aspects, and my word choice made it clear how erroneous I considered them. What I left unsaid, although some of them probably knew, was that I didn't follow their religion, either. At some point, as a wrap-up, one of my aunts said, "What you're saying is, the whole thing is completely ridiculous." I most likely replied that this was the subject's attraction to me, that people in a given setting will believe nearly anything, without applying critical thought. I absolutely kept to myself the analogy I had formed conflating BOM belief with Bible faith. (Years later, after my aunt had died, I learned from my cousin that she harbored doubts of her own about the divinity of Jesus -- but found that her church friends were horrified by her brief mention of them. I wonder now if I could have a good, honest talk with her about the Christian world. I'll never know. In those days, I only self-identified as atheist to my parents.)

 

[ruby sparks]

Only if you define Christianity as bound to 20th century interpretations of the Bible in the first place, which I certainly do not.

Given that earlier in the thread while I was taking you seriously, you had trouble acknowledging that it was, effectively, god, or some other supposed magic sky-being (possibly either a personal relative or actually in some weird way god himself while not god himself) acting with his authority, who would do the supposed NT judgement that didn't happen, I'm not honestly very impressed with your 'interpretations' at all. You have, imo, a habit of denying the obvious when it suits you. Cherry-picking denialism on stilts doesn't even start to describe it.

Ditto that hell as eternal torture was early church doctrine. Or maybe you merely meant "what politesse would call 'good' church doctrine". More cherry-picking. Honestly, you're just making up your very own theology.

Yes, the bible is a book that, as you say, should be read as critically as any other book. Exactly and indeed. There is still, for every book, a reasonable limit to making sensible interpretations (the bible is not a book of recipes for banana bread for example) and accepting the good parts but rejecting the bad parts is exceeding that. If we did that with American Psycho, Patrick Bateman would be a lovely man. The book wouldn't be American Psycho though, just as you are not, in fact, doing the NT. As they say, it's good to have an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.

I'll assume it's not wilful dishonesty but just pragmatic and 'sensible' denialism that you may have trouble preventing yourself from engaging in, or that you just like and prefer.

 

[abaddon]

Atheism is the absence of faith, a lack of conviction. A lack of conviction is based on insufficient evidence.

I'm fine with calling atheism a belief, and a worldview.

"A  worldview or world-view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge and point of view. A worldview can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics."

What's the philosophy, postulates and/or values of "atheism"? Remember it all needs to add up to a complete worldview.

 

[ruby sparks]

What's the philosophy, postulates and/or values of "atheism"? Remember it all needs to add up to a complete worldview.

Naturalism.

 

[ruby sparks]

Agreed. I remember a family gathering back in the 90s, at a time when I was immersed in reading about Mormonism, when I was going on at some length on some of the weirder aspects of LDS teachings -- especially their insistence on pre-Columbian Jewish settlement of the New World, and the Hebrew ancestry of Native Americans. My audience consisted of cousins, aunts and uncles, who were various stripes of orthodox Christian. I truly enjoyed talking up the weird aspects, and my word choice made it clear how erroneous I considered them. What I left unsaid, although some of them probably knew, was that I didn't follow their religion, either. At some point, as a wrap-up, one of my aunts said, "What you're saying is, the whole thing is completely ridiculous." I most likely replied that this was the subject's attraction to me, that people in a given setting will believe nearly anything, without applying critical thought. I absolutely kept to myself the analogy I had formed conflating BOM belief with Bible faith. (Years later, after my aunt had died, I learned from my cousin that she harbored doubts of her own about the divinity of Jesus -- but found that her church friends were horrified by her brief mention of them. I wonder now if I could have a good, honest talk with her about the Christian world. I'll never know. In those days, I only self-identified as atheist to my parents.)

Cool story.

"What you're saying is, the whole thing is completely ridiculous."

Priceless, and apparently involving a complete lack of perspective.

 

[abaddon]

What's the philosophy, postulates and/or values of "atheism"? Remember it all needs to add up to a complete worldview.

Naturalism.

What about atheists who believe in ghosts? Or atheists who are idealists? Are buddhist nontheists disqualified? Are persons who call themselves atheists also subject to your ideological delimitation of who gets a label, who needs to find another?

The reason it matters to me is theists do this. Some come here and tell atheists what they believe and it always obscures their own point. They want to attack scientism or naturalism or scientific materialism, but they always say "atheists" and "atheism" and thereby 1) fail to be clear which specific "ism" is actually under attack and 2) leave some atheists out of atheism because they're sure it's an ideology.

 

[ruby sparks]

What about atheists who believe in ghosts? Or atheists who are idealists? Are buddhist nontheists disqualified? Are persons who call themselves atheists also subject to your ideological delimitation of who gets a label, who needs to find another?

Well, I suppose there might be exceptions. Are there atheists who believe in ghosts?

But, anyway, I fully take your point and stand corrected. Naturalism may not, does not, cover all forms of atheism. I did think after posting that I was being a bit quick and too brief.

But I'm still tempted to say that if you're an atheist, you have a worldview, whatever it is. How could you not? Perhaps that doesn't, strictly speaking make the atheism your worldview. Perhaps by the same token someone's theism doesn't fully describe their worldview, but only a part of it (they might believe in a god and in, say, ghosts too, and possibly elves)? How about I say that atheism is a part of a worldview?

The reason it matters to me is theists do this. Some come here and tell atheists what they believe and it always obscures their own point. They want to attack scientism or naturalism or scientific materialism, but they always say "atheists" and "atheism" and thereby 1) fail to be clear which specific "ism" is actually under attack and 2) leave some atheists out of atheism because they're sure it's an ideology.

I know it feels like making a concession (I think that's more or less what you're saying, in a way) but....I always think it's best not to try to defend positions that are very difficult to defend in the final analysis. To me, that's the offering of a concession. It's giving my 'opponent' a stick to beat me with. Which is why I don't say my atheism is only a lack of something.

Also, given that I think atheism is or involves a belief, I guess I'd have to say that it's part of a 'belief system'.

Off the top of my head, I think I might even accept that atheism is an ideology, or part of one, but I may need to check the definition of ideology.

 

[Politesse]

Only if you define Christianity as bound to 20th century interpretations of the Bible in the first place, which I certainly do not.

Given that earlier in the thread while I was taking you seriously, you had trouble acknowledging that it was, effectively, god, or some other supposed magic sky-being (possibly either a personal relative or actually in some weird way god himself while not god himself) acting with his authority, who would do the supposed NT judgement that didn't happen, I'm not honestly very impressed with your 'interpretations' at all. You have, imo, a habit of denying the obvious when it suits you. Cherry-picking denialism on stilts doesn't even start to describe it.

Ditto that hell as eternal torture was early church doctrine. Or maybe you merely meant "what politesse would call 'good' church doctrine". More cherry-picking. Honestly, you're just making up your very own theology.

Yes, the bible is a book that, as you say, should be read as critically as any other book. Exactly and indeed. There is still, for every book, a reasonable limit to making sensible interpretations (the bible is not a book of recipes for banana bread for example) and accepting the good parts but rejecting the bad parts is exceeding that. If we did that with American Psycho, Patrick Bateman would be a lovely man. The book wouldn't be American Psycho though, just as you are not, in fact, doing the NT. As they say, it's good to have an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out.

I'll assume it's not wilful dishonesty but just pragmatic and 'sensible' denialism that you may have trouble preventing yourself from engaging in, or that you just like and prefer.

I'm increasingly convinced that you didn't understand the conversation in the first place, perhaps because you came in partway through. We were discussing when (not whether) the doctrine of Hell came into being, and in connection with that, we were talking about a section in Matthew that appears to describe an apocalyptic judgement scene. Since the passage could just as easily be explained by a Gnostic framework as an Orthodox one, it's definitely worth noting that the "son of man" in the text is not named as God, nor are the Son of Man and God are ever conflated as the same person in that work. Which means it does not count as proof that the orthodox view existed yet circa the time of Matthew being written, as the passage could be taken multiple ways depending on your assumptions as reader.

We should absolutely hold interpretations to a logical standard. Unserstanding where the text stops and interpretation begins is pretty important to that process. If we're going to chat about the Bible we should be talking what's actually present in the text, before exploring your assumptions about the text and where they come from.

 

[steve_bank]

The reason it matters to me is theists do this. Some come here and tell atheists what they believe and it always obscures their own point. They want to attack scientism or naturalism or scientific materialism, but they always say "atheists" and "atheism" and thereby 1) fail to be clear which specific "ism" is actually under attack and 2) leave some atheists out of atheism because they're sure it's an ideology.

You can hear that from FOX commentators. Atheist conspiracies', science is out to get rid of religion and so on. The word and image of atheist is made into a convenient Christian bogyman. Circle the wagons, atheists are on the attack.

 

[southernhybrid]

Not that Politesse needs me to defend him, but I've never really understood it when atheists are critical of progressive versions of Christianity or versions that are different from the literalist point of view. There are so many different Christian sects and interpretations, and the more progressive versions are not all that different from secular humanism. That is why I've always enjoyed the concept of Unitarianism. You take a group of liberal believers, each with their own personal mythology and they combine to form a community dedicate to social justice. Even secular humanism is a bit mythical imo, because it's idealism is not realistic. This is why I've called myself a cherry picking humanist at times. I like most of the philosophy, but much of it is too idealistic, to be more than a myth, plus it doesn't address the other animals that share our habitat with us. I often feel like I love dogs more than I love humans, so there are things about humanism that don't exactly fit with me.

I see it this way. Mythology is a powerful part of human existence. Choose your mythology wisely. Embrace myths that influence you to be a better person, that help you feel unified with others, and that help you experience joy. In believing this way, I have no problem with a person who identifies as both an atheist and a Christian. Christianity is a large part of American culture. It can be seen in many different ways. One can cherry pick the worst elements, like believing that others are going to hell for eternity, or one can cherry pick the nicer parts, like helping the poor and welcoming the stranger. I would think that accepting both of these things would lead to cognitive dissonance in people, if they give it serious thought. It gave me severe cognitive dissonance by the time I was 18.

Unfortunately, these days, it appears as if the majority of white evangelicals have chosen the most rigid, harmful elements of the Christian belief system, while disregarding the rest.

I have a rather flexible world view. I try to be a good, non judgmental person above all else. I am highly skeptical of the concept of free will, as I think we are all products of our genetic heritage as well as our environmental influences. We can't change the genetic component, ( at least not yet ) but sometimes we can influence the environmental aspects. Rejecting the concept of free will allows me to be less judgmental. Those are all parts of my worldview, but not all atheists have the same worldview. The same goes for Christians or any other religious group of people.

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm increasingly convinced that you didn't understand the conversation in the first place, perhaps because you came in partway through. We were discussing when (not whether) the doctrine of Hell came into being, and in connection with that, we were talking about a section in Matthew that appears to describe an apocalyptic judgement scene. Since the passage could just as easily be explained by a Gnostic framework as an Orthodox one, it's definitely worth noting that the "son of man" in the text is not named as God, nor are the Son of Man and God are ever conflated as the same person in that work. Which means it does not count as proof that the orthodox view existed yet circa the time of Matthew being written, as the passage could be taken multiple ways depending on your assumptions as reader.

We should absolutely hold interpretations to a logical standard. Unserstanding where the text stops and interpretation begins is pretty important to that process. If we're going to chat about the Bible we should be talking what's actually present in the text, before exploring your assumptions about the text and where they come from.

Now you're just making stuff up about the thread as well as the NT.

Very early in the thread, on page 3 (post 24) you plainly and explicitly asserted that the NT does not credit God as the source of suffering. That has nothing to do with a discussion of when the concept of hell came in, other than in your fertile and slippery imagination:

Why is eternal torment even in the new testament? Especially given its own descriptions of a God of Love...which creates a contradiction.

The New Testament, if you restrict yourself to its pages and not later interpretations thereof, talks quite a bit about suffering but does not credit God as its source.

Maybe, on the day of judgement, god was going to be away on holiday? In bed with a nasty cold? Just 'not in the mood'? And obviously, there's no way he would send his son to do it.


Catch yourself on, ffs. It's embarrassing to watch.

 

[abaddon]

Learner. I simply don't understand the attraction to your specific beliefs.

Like the mistaken idea of identfying-with - which is not the method (for lack better words) for many believers to take the faith because of the "attraction of good parts" which can also apply to anyone ... but rather ... its the realization (as we come to see it), that the scriptures are true! Even parts we may not yet understand which can also trouble us as theists, and because we have no choice in the matter.

I think the attraction is getting a pre-made view of the whole cosmos. That cures the existential angst of wondering "what's really true?"

The problem then becomes the doubt of hell. Doubt threatens the whole house of cards. It's then not a matter of what's attractive so much as how doubt is unattractive and must be warded off. "I believe in hell because doubting could make me doubt the bible and if I doubt the bible then I'll doubt if Jesus saved me and then I'd feel lost and sinful like I once did and I don't want to suffer that again".

Dennis Ford, in The Search for Meaning, describes the mythological answer as the one that doesn't need reasoning your way into. He writes: "We are liberated from the existential burden of knowing what to do and who we are by identifying our actions and desires with the characters of myth. We know, not by knowing about myth, but by living mythically". (Note: Ford intends that and his further comments as simply descriptive and not as negative criticism. I make this note because, probably, any description that doesn't include a veneration of evidence-based knowing must sound negative to those of us he describes in his other chapters about "Science and Meaning" and "Naturalism and Meaning").

So (a bit more critically, by me) it's like asking a fish "Why are you in that fishbowl?" when he doesn't know, or he doesn't remember, the view from outside it. The answer is "After waking up in this reality I came to realize this is reality, that's why!" See Learner's "its the realization (as we come to see it), that the scriptures are true!" statement for an example of this circularity. After coming to believe them, the scriptures are "realized" as true (made real to the one who's "living mythically").

"The fishbowl's round shape requires that I swim in circles" isn't there in the mythological mind. The walls of that reality reflect that reality back on itself.

Note that theists describe their atheist days in a way that few if any atheists would describe them - in terms of wanting to be a godless hedonist. That's because even their memories of before the fishbowl are now reshaped by the fishbowl. They feel they have something much better now and wouldn't want to lose it. The god-filled world they're seeing and calling "obvious" is shaped by "living mythically". So the "attraction of" hell is simply that it's a feature of that landscape.

 

[DBT]

The OT God and the NT God is supposed to be one and the same God, so if the OT tells us that God creates evil, it obviously includes both....except that orthodox Judaism doesn't accept Christian theology and Christians don't like some of the things the OT says about their God.....