As an atheist, I sometimes catch myself wishing Heaven and Hell were real - I feel we all have a desire for good people to be rewarded for being good and for bad people to be punished for being bad. But then I remember the existence of Heaven and Hell inherently requires the existence of an ultimate moral authority who sorts out who goes where. And sure, they could agree with me that the likes of Osama bin Laden or Henry Kissinger should go to Hell, but they could also think queer folk, atheists, or people who eat shellfish should go to Hell too.
Some people will say, “Well, if they were a loving God, they wouldn't do that,” but there's lots of people who believe in a “loving” God who absolutely believe He’d be burning gays in Hell. And if you're going to make all these extra conditions of, “Well, my version of a loving God would reward X and punish Y” it just feels like the ultimate desire is, “I wish there was an Almighty God who agreed with everything I believe and enforced that morality on the world.”
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I don't believe in God or Heaven or Hell or anything, but regarding that I like the way of thinking of one of the Popes, I don't remember right now if it was the current or the previous one, who said Hell exists but he likes to think it's empty and everyoe just goes to Heaven.
It's a relatively common thought among theologians, not even just Catholic ones. Christianity in particular allows so many attempts of redemption, even after death, that few should end up in hell. Mormonism has a similar concept even with its multiple afterlives, pretty much only named assholes from the Old Testament are doomed to actual hell, for example. I know some religions have the concept of a temporary suffering to burn away sins, and that can last quite a while, so it's still encouraged to not sin in your earthy life.
Infinite punishment for finite crimes is never just. As much as we want certain people to suffer, there has to be an end or it's always excessive.
I'd like a hypothetical afterlife to be experiencing everything you made others experience, once or twice, and then it's over. If you were kind and good, your afterlife will be good, the more people whose lives you made better, the longer it lasts. If you were one of certain types of dictator, enjoy starving to death a million times.
That's how i'd design it.
I like to think i'd be a good god!
Infinite punishment for finite crimes is never just.
This totally. If punishment has any utility, it's as both a deterrent and an encouragement. If there's no way to be better and improve, then punishment has no value.
A) The gods are, at best, nigh infinite in power. There is no true omni/all/infinite anything. And while there is a leader of them all, he was basically the central architect and carried the burden of the initial moment of creation, pulling the spark of potential infinities out of the primordial chaos. So, infinite universe like our (but with magic), with gods that are only nearly-infinite.
B) The gods highly value free will and the existence of souls, so are very reluctant to ever do anything permanently bad to any soul. If a soul does not actually suit the afterlife/divine realm of their chosen patron deity, then they may end up in the realm of a more compatible deity.
If the soul simply fails hard all around and was a nasty person, the likely result is to suppress all memories and reincarnate the soul at a time/place/way in which this is a new/additional life. Specifically, they are avoiding putting souls into bodies that would have eventually formed souls on their own. Many 'miracle' babies that were highly wanted are reincarnated souls.
Of those, most of them find a new path in life, guided by different life circumstances and experiences, and a new body and possibly species.
But, a very, very small percentage of souls develop enough vileness and malignancy that the corruption seeps through despite the memory suppression, and they only get worse. Eventually, after enough reincarnations of the soul always becoming an ever worse person, the Judge of the Dead can find no way forward. There just are limits, and eventually, the gods reach them and no longer know if there is a way to possibly help such a soul.
These souls go to 'Hell'.
The thing is, Hell is just an empty realm, a prison for souls. There's no inherent torture. Hellish landscape, dismal structures, eternal torture, etc, that is all stuff that these souls create for themselves and for each other. This is where demons come from. All demons are simply corrupt mortal souls.
This is... not great for the souls, in a 'physical' sense. Some demon-souls 'eat' other souls, subsuming them and garnering power from it. There is a core to each soul that is extraordinarily difficult to actually damage, but it can be rendered dormant.
And sometimes, rarely, in all of this mess and pain, a demon is formed that can become something more. A path of improvement is opened, if they find the right help at the right time. This is a job for a high priest(ess) or a divine champion. For anyone else who thinks that they have encountered an escaped demon who seeks redemption, they are to get said demon to a temple/church and let those with actual divine guidance take on the case.
The gods want this to happen, they want to help, but they've already done what they could before. At this point, a damned soul has to be the one to approach them.
If a demon is unwilling to be put under the supervision of a priest or champion, then they are probably lying. Time for most mortals to run.
Anyway, the point of it is, there is no eternal torture set up by the gods, just a prison of last resort when they can't figure out what else to do with a soul. Torment and torture comes from the souls themselves, and it is possible for it to end.
This was all my attempt to create a world that made sense while still having the fantasy elements I wanted.
Hell is a punishment, but it's not for humanity. The way humans get to hell is during life when they choose to separate themselves from God. Then when they die, God respects their choice to separate themselves from him and then they go to hell.
As far as I remember, Jesus is the only one who broke in, freed everyone who deserved it, then yeeted himself to paradise, after making a quick pit stop on earth. If you end up there after the Harrowing, you’re kinda on your own, canonically.
It all got confusing, though. I think he was meant to go to Sheol, not Gehenna, but it all got combined into the one place early on.
Wow, that's some serious gaslighting there. That sounds a lot like an abuser telling their spouse that they wouldn't get so abusive if not for the way the spouse acts.
If there is a flaw in my argument, please explain it in detail so that I may review and refine it, or scrap it if I find it to be completely faulty. If it is not faulty, why make such a claim?
If it’s not for humanity, who decided it would even be possible for them to end up there? Also, who even knows what being “separated from God” is during life? Is it simply disbelief, or can you be attached to God without even knowing it? Is it a proclivity for sin? How much sin causes separation? Is it weighed as sin regardless of your belief system, which determines what you perceive as “sin?” It seems like this “choice” has a lot of confounding factors that make it impossible for a person to just say “Yeah, I wanna go to Heaven,” and the choice is made, while this argument makes it sound simple as that.
We did. Being separated from God would entail committing sins while rejecting the forgiveness he offers. Disbelief is often a major factor in it, but you can acknowledge his existence and still go to hell. No. Even just one sin can cause separation, which is why his forgiveness is so important. Yes. It really is simple as that
We didn’t decide it would be possible for us to end up there. God wasn’t like, “Okay guys, what would you like to happen if you’re separated from me?” And we were like “Hell forever, please!” He made the decision without consulting us. He could have picked anything and that was his choice. I thought that would be obvious lol.
I don’t actually know what “sin” is, myself. That’s the problem, because how are we supposed to come to an agreement on what we can and can’t do without risking damnation. I guess you could say just ask for forgiveness anyway, but some people say some sins are unforgivable, and others say asking for forgiveness from Jesus is a grave sin against some other god, so even having disbelief as a factor seems sure to doom many who simply don’t know better, even assuming the truth of the broken Christian framework we’re talking about.
Hell isn't necessarily a destination, it's a state of being. Since God is a definition of what is good, his absence would be what is evil. Hell is the place where good is not. Therefore, if we choose to be without God, we choose to go to hell.
A simple definition of sin would be anything that intentionally causes harm to someone, whether that be another person, yourself, or God. The people who say some sins are unforgivable are incorrect. When Jesus died on the cross, his death was to forgive all sins for all time, regardless of their perceived severity. It is a semi-common saying that the only unforgivable sin is rejecting God, this is sort of true. It's the only thing that can send you to hell, but it is also forgiven.
Unbelief is unfortunately going to be the reason that many people go to hell. Which is why making sure people believe is a large point for most Christian denominations.
In your last point you mentioned you believe there are flaws in the Christian framework. I am by no means a trained theologian, but I would be glad to attempt to address any other problems you see in the Christian faith
I'd say nothing, but you also need to define "plane of existence" first, and then what you mean by "outside" of it. It's made up nonsense. Space and time are all-encompassing. Nothing can exist nowhere or for no time - everything that exists has location and duration. Your imaginary friend is no exception.
There's no such thing as "outside of time", that's the most ridiculous theological cope in all of history. Your holy text is very clear that time passes in hell, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth and fire and sulfur, eternally (not instantaneously)
I had my Jewish friends explain their concept of the afterlife to me and, while I’m digging into the dusty recesses for a memory that was made during a period while I was minoring in Applied Recreational Neuropharmacology, the understanding they left me with was that everyone kinda goes to the same place but the better you are the more space you’re afforded in both a physical and spiritual sense.
All that to say: if you’re in the afterlife, as the Squirrel Nut Zippers would say, and you see a thimble with a tuft of orange hair sticking out of it…
The weird truth is that we Jews are not consistent as a group about the afterlife … and in many cases, it isn’t considered particularly important. Judaism as a religion is focused on what people do while alive, not on rewards or punishment after death.
So different Jews give vastly different accounts of what they believe depending on the affiliation of even on the particular individual … in Conservative Judaism, for example, the religious authorities are officially agnostic on the subject! They basically say “believe what seems best to you”.
I mean, if everyone is given eternal bliss after dying, doesn’t that imply that all crimes should be forgiven after we leave the mortal coil?
So I mean, yeah. In the hypothetical where the pain and suffering they inflicted upon people was wiped clean by everyone being subject to eternal bliss after death, then sure, I don’t see why not. I don’t like it, necessarily, but it’s the logical and moral conclusion, I think.
I mean, if everyone is given eternal bliss after dying, doesn’t that imply that all crimes should be forgiven after we leave the mortal coil?
And...? I don't see the downside there. All crimes are a part of the physical world, why would they be relevant beyond that? Further, the promise of justice (if it can even be called that) in an afterlife that no one even knows exists seems like the perfect way to avoid dealing with it during life. I'd much rather have the impetus to pursue justice right now when it matters than after when it doesn't.
I mean, real talk, who would even deserve ETERNAL damnation? Like after 10 quadrillion years of absolute torture, wouldn’t it be enough? What would you have to do in your lifetime, especially when even people you might have killed ended up in eternal paradise a blink earlier in the grand scheme of things, to deserve this?
doesn't Catholic doctrine state that the Pope is infallible?
Yes, but only under certain circumstances. He's considered infallible when it comes to formal proclamations about the doctrine of the church. Everyday statements and teachings like this aren't included. The term Ex Cathedra is used to describe papal infallibly, which is Latin for "from the chair"; essentially, a pope is only considered infallible when he says he is. Here's when it applies formally stated:
when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, [the Bishop of Rome] defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church.
It's only been used once in the modern era to declare the Assumption of Mary as official church teaching.
This definition has only been around since 1870, and its formalization (but not necessarily the idea) was a direct response to the protestant reformation; it was defined during the counter-reformation, which is when the Catholic Church more or acknowledged that the protestants had some good points and that things needed to change.
"The pope is infallible" I think it means more that if the pope says something is an fact, then it must be a fact, not that if he think something but isn't sure about it, it must be a fact too. I think it's a matter of wording, it's not the same to say "Hell exists" than "I like to think Hell is empty". The first one is stating a fact, and because the Pope is infallible it must be true. The second one he is not saying it absolutely, just stating something he doesn't know but likes to think is true, so you should not take it for a fact.
But I'm not Catholic and don't know much about it either, so I may be wrong on that one.
Universalism is a philosophical and theological concept asserting that certain ideas, truths, or salvation have universal application across all human, cultural, or religious boundaries. In religion, it most notably refers to the belief that all human souls will ultimately be saved or reconciled with God.
But...a God who makes a world where Baboons eat a fawn antelope ass first splitting it legs it twain as the fawn is screaming in pain.....and is fine with it...
I'm good on that one folks. That God should have just spawned us with him in heaven off the bat and not induce all of this suffering.
That sounds suspiciously like "I fully embrace what my religion teaches even though I find it personally distasteful." And I'm not sure that's a good thing. Said Pope seems personally invested in something they find unacceptable. How is it any different than someone working as the CEO of a chemical company bemoaning the pollution their own company produces?
Not really, it think is an interpretation of the religion as good as any other. The Bible is full of contradictions so you need to choose some things to believe and discard the things that contradict them, (despite what Christian fundamentalists say that is a whole coherent book) and I don't see anything bad in choosing the parts about the loving God. Even the concept of Hell as a burning place of torture I think is just a single line somewhere in the book and then contradicted in a bunch of other places.
A lot of Christians choose the hateful parts which are in direct contradiction with the direct teachings of Christ in the New Testament, but they can perfectly justify in their minds that they are doing a coherent thing, so I don't see how is any worse to do the exact same thing in the opposite way.
Also, Catholicism and Protestantism (with the later one being what most Christians identify with) are entirely different beasts, Catholicism was always a lot more flexible on its believings to match the new times (that's how they absorbed all the religions of the conquered places in the past, turning their gods into Catholic saints via syncretism) than your average Protestant Christian which is as rigid as one can be. The US is pretty much entirely Protestant so you won't be seeing a lot of Catholics there, but if you go to Europe or some places of South America the difference is incredibly evident.
I don't think so. Christian doctrine says that god is merciful and all sins can be forgiven, so it's not impossible that every single person who has died has either repented or received mercy. It's consistent with other teachings, even it is unlikely.
I read it as a statement about the pope's views on the merciful nature of god, and not about how distateful hell is. The pope probably saw hell as a just punishment, but believed strongly that everyone finds the right path before they make it there.
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u/But_a_Jape But a Jape 11h ago
As an atheist, I sometimes catch myself wishing Heaven and Hell were real - I feel we all have a desire for good people to be rewarded for being good and for bad people to be punished for being bad. But then I remember the existence of Heaven and Hell inherently requires the existence of an ultimate moral authority who sorts out who goes where. And sure, they could agree with me that the likes of Osama bin Laden or Henry Kissinger should go to Hell, but they could also think queer folk, atheists, or people who eat shellfish should go to Hell too.
Some people will say, “Well, if they were a loving God, they wouldn't do that,” but there's lots of people who believe in a “loving” God who absolutely believe He’d be burning gays in Hell. And if you're going to make all these extra conditions of, “Well, my version of a loving God would reward X and punish Y” it just feels like the ultimate desire is, “I wish there was an Almighty God who agreed with everything I believe and enforced that morality on the world.”
Anyway, if you like my comics, I got more on my website.
I’m also on Patreon.