Of course, this isn't really a "new topic," it's a fresh statement (I hope) on one of the oldest ones . . .
If Hell is mythological, then we can't prove it doesn't exist, right? And if it's a matter of personal opinion, then anybody can claim (usually falsely or illogically) that his opinion is just as good as the rest. With such vague standards, we might expect that the question of Hell is permanently unresolvable.
However, you can prove that everything Christians and their Bible say about Hell is contradicted by something else within the same mythos. Most especially, there is a simple standard by which God and Hell are shown to be totally incompatible:
A SANE, FAIR, AND RESPONSIBLE GOD WOULD NOT CREATE ETERNAL TORMENT AS POTENTIAL PUNISHMENT WITHOUT CLEARLY TELLING HIS FOLLOWERS HOW THEY CAN AVOID IT.
There you have it. It's all you need. True, you could call it just another opinion. Yet nobody is suggesting the converse--that a fair God could create a Hell and Not tell you how you can be saved.
My proposition, as it stands, could be attacked in any number of ways--especially by the faithful, who gave up logic long ago. In particular, the true believer is inclined to think he is "saved" simply because of his state of belief, and no alternative explanations are necessary. It's by such vague and subjective arguments that all religions are able to continue propagating. But the faithful must also ignore all objective and rational arguments that can be drawn from the same material. And that, of course, is where Christianity always comes up short. Consider those three qualifications. God must be SANE: anything we are supposed to believe or undertake on his behalf should have internal consistency and meaning. He must be FAIR: we should not be punished when we've made our true best effort. He must be RESPONSIBLE: his teachings must be made available to all of his supposed audience..
It's that question of communication--largely ignored by the true believer--that anchors this argument. For the faithful, the immense gap between understanding the Bible and the wild variety of statements the Bible actually makes can be filled in as needed by impromptu rationalization. But a perfect God should not have allowed any gaps at all. Temptation, maybe, but not perennial confusion.
[Here, I might add, is the core of all my objections to Christianity: their all-knowing and omnipotent God could have done a better job on every single aspect of their faith.] We know for a fact that God has failed in his self-assigned task of communication. We know that good communications are possible; we rely on them every time we consult the Owner's Manual, or the instructions that came with a new appliance, or a do-it-yourself book, or the rules to a new game. True, as mere humans, we are capable of good and bad communications--some of those instructions are hard to follow the first time through. Yet this God is supposed to be perfect--and in charge of all the variables. If necessary, he could have ensured proper and complete communication by tweaking (so to speak) human intelligence, or the length of the Bible, or the difficulties of translation, or the methods of distribution, or the timing (etc., etc.). IF GOD MEANT MANKIND TO RECEIVE ONE CONSISTENT AND ESSENTIAL MESSAGE, THERE SOULD BE NO EXCUSE FOR HIS FAILURE.
But he failed. This is not an opinion; it's historical fact: the world's Christians have never been able to agree on what the Bible means. Let me emphasize that: the people who have already decided that they want to serve God can't figure out how they're supposed to do it. And if even the faithful can't understand the instruction manual, it can't be their fault. So God hasn't told them clearly how to avoid Hell.
Hell is just something the true believers made up when they'd run out of anything sensible to say.
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@Pope Sinus IV
"We know for a fact that God has failed in his self-assigned task of communication."
What we have here might seem like a failure to communicate, but in fact it's a design feature. If god communicated perfectly, there would be no need for priests, popes, imams, mullahs and all the rest of the parasitic infections that plague religious humanity. People can't understand the babble in the book. They are confused by the contradictions, and they are afraid of doing the the wrong thing. Who you gonna call--god-botherers.
It's an amazing business model for grabbing money and power through the mushroom principle (keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em lots of horseshit). And it's lasted for millennia. That's why the catholics were so opposed to the translation of the bible into English.
Okay, try to stay with me here -
"If Hell is mythological, then we can't prove it doesn't exist, right?"
Said another way carrying exactly the same contextual message, we have -
If Hell doesn't exist, then we can't prove it doesn't exist, right?
Do you see the point? Your question isn't valid.
I do hope you are up on your definitions but just for the sake of brevity let me say that a myth is a story. It's a tall tale and ranks right up there with the Easter Bunny.
Myth -
1.
a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
synonyms: folk tale, folk story, legend, tale, story, fable, saga, mythos, lore, folklore, mythology
"ancient Greek myths"
traditional stories or legends collectively.
"the heroes of Greek myth"
2.
a widely held but false belief or idea.
"he wants to dispel the myth that sea kayaking is too risky or too strenuous"
hell is no myth, according to jesus who spoke about evil and hell more then any other subject in the new testament, there is a real place called hell.Jesus really lived, we have not one gospel but 4 about his life`s actions .all within generations of his presence on earth.
skeptical christian,
Four Gospels that contradict one another! Four Gospels that represent doctrinal points of view for different communities, doctrine molded into fictional narratives that contradict one another. As for real evidence, there is not enough to conclusively say that Jesus ever existed, even as a man, although certain models of Jesus-the-man would have fit in with those times. Plausible but not an historical fact.
"all within generations of his presence on earth."
You mean the 2000+ denominations of christinsainity that argue among each other constantly? Yes, that is the PERFECT thing to use as evidence. No issues whatsoever with that logic.
@skeptical
"there is a real place called hell."
You're right. And there isn't just one but many. They're in catholic orphanages in Ireland with mass graves in the backyard containing the bodies of hundreds of children who died of abuse and neglect. They're in schools run by YOUR catholic church all over the world, where innocent children have been tortured, enslaved and abused by priests, brothers and nuns. If Jesus was real, he'd be weeping about how the church founded in his name has created hell on earth for innocents.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/796-irish-orphans-buried-in-mass-grave-near...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/nov/28/christian-brothers-ireland...
Let me append an introduction to my small essay . . .
The fear of eternity in the "Christian" Hell is so prevalent in our society that even some atheists--posts I've read at this website--are worried about it. But there is no need to believe in this Hell. The logical, evidence-based argument posted here demonstrates that Hell is the least justifiable mytheme within the whole Christian tradition. So it's one of the first that can be dismissed when you're considering the path toward atheism--or defending it.
It is still possible to worry about other hells, just as it's possible to worry about Invaders from Mars. But we have better things to do.
Looks pretty solid to me. I find it laughable that an "infinitely" powerful, wise, and benign being would be obsessed with torturing his insignificant subjects for ever and ever! This is so reflective of vengeful, limited, human thinking where infinities get tossed around like straw.
Consider also that the Christian hell is an evolved product! Did God get it wrong the first or second time around?
To even get to hell, you have to go through "God." But there is no rational path to the supernatural. Good reasoning does not lead to God as I showed in my "Science Gives God The Bump!" post (08/07/2016 18:47).
Yep! Hell is a myth.
Well done Pope Sinus IV. Hell is usually just the beginning. When they find out what you are really afraid of it becomes your own personal hell. It's the same appeal to emotion that people here are still trying to propagate, even as you explain you aren't falling for it.
"...above us, only sky"
John6IXBreezy: Do your fingers get stained red from all your cherry picking?
Mathew 25 :35-46
"35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?
38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?
39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Same old story. Promises/threats of an ultimate carrot/stick. Reminds me of Moses the raven from Animal Farm and his promises of "Sugarcandy Mountain" to the animals who slaved for whomever currently ran the farm.
What a twisted up version of Pascals' wager we have here :
1: End life in a way that most atheists would agree. Your dead, no one home to contemplate the nature of deadness. Not even oblivion, as oblivion is a state that can be imagined. This is comforting to me. Comforting now. I don't mean then. No one home you know!
2: Be granted eternal life and end up singing "Rock of Ages" forever in a choir with a bunch of Presbyterians and Baptists. Forever, and ever, and ever. Damn!
What do I have to do to sign up for option 1?
Do good works towards my fellow human all my life, deny my twisted tyrant of a maker, send donations to the ACLU? Sign me up!
"2: Be granted eternal life and end up singing "Rock of Ages" forever in a choir with a bunch of Presbyterians and Baptists. Forever, and ever, and ever. Damn!"
You've ruined my whole day by putting that thought into my head.
Sorry , Algebe! Collateral damage! Did you ever put an obnoxious song in someones head? This is Karma!
LoL
Let's get real the Hell Jesus sighted was the dump in the valley south of Jerusalem. If one studies Hell one will find that it has changed through the centuries. Simply put the modern version of Christian Hell is a constantly evolving myth. The modern concept of Hell is based on paradise lost and Dantes inferno.the modern concept of Hell and the devil is not found in the bible. You have nailed it to a tree!!
Let's get real the Hell Jesus sighted was the dump in the valley south of Jerusalem. If one studies Hell one will find that it has changed through the centuries. Simply put the modern version of Christian Hell is a constantly evolving myth. The modern concept of Hell is based on paradise lost and Dantes inferno.the modern concept of Hell and the devil is not found in the bible. You have nailed it to a tree!!
Let's get real the Hell Jesus sighted was the dump in the valley south of Jerusalem. If one studies Hell one will find that it has changed through the centuries. Simply put the modern version of Christian Hell is a constantly evolving myth. The modern concept of Hell is based on paradise lost and Dantes inferno.the modern concept of Hell and the devil is not found in the bible. You have nailed it to a tree!!