Want some sophistication? Damon Linker has some for you. Well not exactly sophistication maybe – more like pseudo-sophistication, or silliness that looks like sophistication when it’s placed next to even sillier silliness.
It’s about hell. Eternal punishment. Suffering as the reward for doing bad things.
So you already know what the sophistication is. No no no no no no no hell is not devils and pitchforks, no no no no no, that’s just silly. It’s [drum roll] Alienation From God.
Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh that’s not a thing. You could accuse me of being alienated from Artemis, if you wanted to, but it would leave me unruffled. It’s the same with god.
But I’ll let him tell it, because he seems to think it’s good and compelling.
[T]he most theologically cogent view of hell found in classical Christianity maintains that it is the state of mind (or soul) of someone who is alienated from God. Living a life that is out of harmony with God is painful, and to die and be confronted so decisively with the error of your ways — to be made to see that you made a wreck of your life by separating yourself from God, and to have to learn to shatter your pride by reforming yourself in his divine presence — is, one imagines, excruciating. But it is intrinsically painful, not externally imposed by torturers in some fire-and-brimstone-filled dungeon.
Or in the words of theologian David Bentley Hart, “What we call hell is nothing but the rage and remorse of the soul that will not yield itself to love.” In refusing to “open itself to the mercy and glory of God, the wrathful soul experiences the transfiguring and deifying fire of love not as bliss but as chastisement and despair.”
This is what hell must be if God is truly good.
I, for one, find this far more plausible than the popular vision of hell as a torture chamber run by sadistic demons. And I suspect that at least some young religious skeptics might, too, if only committed Christians would rise to the challenge of making the case.
Oh blah. If God is truly good, God has a lot of explaining to do. It could start with what definition of “love” it’s working with.
When I wasa kid and forced into bible school the preacher told us that Hell was eternal banishment from the presence of God. This was an evangelical Lutheran church that my mother pretty much forced me to attend.
Greta Christina’s blog post Eternal Fire: What Jesus Says in the Gospels About Hell shows that the Bible is quite specific that Hell is the damn being tormented in lakes of fire. Some examples:
Matthew 5:22: “But I say to you that every one who is angry with the brother shall be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother shall be liable to the council; and whoever says ‘You fool!’ shall be liable to the hell of fire.”
Matthew 25:41: “Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
It’s some o’ that thar sophistimacated theologgie that substitutes remorse over being ignored by Yahweh to Dante’s inferno.
Seems like the kind of god you’d want to be alienated from.
It’s [drum roll] Alienation From God.
So we are already in hell? And that’s why we have to read articles from people like Damon?
“Living a life that is out of harmony with God is painful, and to die and be confronted so decisively with the error of your ways — to be made to see that you made a wreck of your life by separating yourself from God, and to have to learn to shatter your pride by reforming yourself in his divine presence — is, one imagines, excruciating.”
Let’s have some fun with this, shall we?
“Living a life that is out of harmony with Allah is painful, and to die and be confronted so decisively with the error of your ways — to be made to see that you made a wreck of your life by separating yourself from Allah, and to have to learn to shatter your pride by reforming yourself in his divine presence — is, one imagines, excruciating.”
Hmmm…nope. No difference. Not feeling the painful etc.
“Living a life that is out of harmony with Odin is painful, and to die and be confronted so decisively with the error of your ways — to be made to see that you made a wreck of your life by separating yourself from Odin, and to have to learn to shatter your pride by reforming yourself in his divine presence — is, one imagines, excruciating.”
Hmmm…this one’s just a tetch more interesting, as Valhalla actually sounds like a place I might like to go! One more:
“Living a life that is out of harmony with The Tooth Fairy is painful, and to die and be confronted so decisively with the error of your ways — to be made to see that you made a wreck of your life by separating yourself from The Tooth Fairy, and to have to learn to shatter your pride by reforming yourself in his divine presence — is, one imagines, excruciating.”
“Living a life that is out of harmony with Santa Claus is painful, and to die and be confronted so decisively with the error of your ways — to be made to see that you made a wreck of your life by separating yourself from Santa Claus, and to have to learn to shatter your pride by reforming yourself in his divine presence — is, one imagines, excruciating.”
One can only wonder about the state of mind of people who don’t automatically start swapping in other imaginary concepts for fun…
And how can we “separate ourselves” from something that has never given us the slightest indication that it even exists???
This skeptic has heard that before, from a Christian committed enough to commit his life to being an Anglican priest. I didn’t buy it then, and I don’t buy it now. It sounds like special pleading from people who don’t want to admit to worshiping a fire and brimstone god, so they create a “God is Love” god, but that doesn’t work very well, either.
Or am I just a hopeless case?
So most Christians for most of history were wrong in the view of christians today.
I’m still all WTF about this.
“Excruciating”?? So I come face to face with their Big Bogeyman and realize it exists. What’s my reaction?
“Huh. Okay, so you exist. If you’d wanted something from me, you could have let me know. Since you established and maintained absolute silence throughout my entire life, especially during those years I actually SOUGHT you out, and you never made the slightest contact, it shouldn’t surprise you that I don’t feel at all guilty. My life certainly was no wreck! Sheesh! It was YOUR mistake in not contacting me, so, well, we both can see where the blame lies, can’t we? Hmmm…?”
And then I’d give him an atomic wedgie 😛
“What we call hell is nothing but the rage and remorse of the soul that will not yield itself to love.”
Oh barf.
“What we call hell is nothing but the fact that we can’t give this crap away unless people are willing to yield themselves to self-delusion and insanity.”
Fixed.
C.S.Lewis “rose to the challenge” about 70 years ago, so it’s hardly a novel concept.
…OK, strictly speaking I guess it *was* a novel (or at least, a novella — it’s not a long book) concept ;-).
[T]he most theologically cogent view of hell found in classical Christianity maintains that it is the state of mind (or soul) of someone who is alienated from God.
Dunno just when “classic Christianity” began or ended, but clearly it had no overlap with the lives of Augustine or Aquinas, or anyone in between. Ditto for the likes of John Calvin and Jonathan Edwards.
Maybe it happened in parallel with Coke Classic?
So Hell is a god-free space? (kinda like the entirety of the known universe…) Shouldn’t that be impossible for an omnipresent being? If god is the “ground of all being” (whatever the fuck that means), then how could a Hell exist if god isn’t there? Isn’t the Numinous Nobody supposed to be the basis for all that is (that is when he hasn’t morphed into Bearded Dude in the Sky when he has to actually show up to affect change in the world like granting victories to pious high school football teams)? NN is everywhere but can’t penetrate a few thick atheist skulls so that we can recognize his existence?
Sounds like a reversion to their Jewish roots. In person, I’ve had a number of people describe the Jewish afterlife as either a closeness or separation from YHWH, depending on how devout you were. Some quick googling reveals it’s more complicated than I was led to believe.
Eamon Knight beat me to the punch on The Great Divorce. Yeah, not new. Also, has a bit of a gloss at the ending, where it’s noted that the souls that don’t finally give up the city of gray freedom for the land of glorious servitude will ultimately be swallowed up by eternal darkness, unmade and obliterated.
Because, you see, God’s a busy fellow and doesn’t have eternity to wait for… oh. Huh.
Who is this clown? I hadn’t heard of him until Jerry Coyne started citing him recently. Some cursory Googling suggests that he writes for the decidedly mediocre site The Week.
This is how Mephistopheles describes hell in Marlowe’s Dr Faustus, so its not even novel to C S Lewis.
Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God,
And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,
In being depriv’d of everlasting bliss?
Le me see, alienation from a fictional Perfect Parent Figure …. yeah, nice try. Pity about the fictional aspect, which kind of defeats the purpose.
At least Marlowe puts it in beautiful language in a fine bit of tragedy (suspending the obvious impossibility to enjoy the fiction, of course). Milton does a lovely job of it too:
The rest of these idiots trying to make a serious case for their fantasy are just wasting ink (or pixels).
“Living a life that is out of harmony with God is painful, and to die and be confronted so decisively with the error of your ways,,,” No sign of this at all. I’m quite happy and no pain to be felt. So we seem to have one more theist who wants to lie about his religion in order to scare people into it.
“I, for one, find this far more plausible than the popular vision of hell as a torture chamber run by sadistic demons.” So angels are not “plausible” too? This seems to be nothing more than a theist find that it’s just too silly sounding for his religion to have such utterly stupid sadism, but who wants to imagine a similarly ridiculous reward for himself.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-GThCSrXDdeM/U1u-tW7yDxI/AAAAAAAAF4s/wTPNN8sSgSg/w468-h562-no/SPOON.JPEG
Not new at all. I’ve seen this version of “hell” a hundred times or more. Usually floated by more-liberal churches, which are uncomfortable with the whole fire-and-brimstone approach.
What this is is pure jealousy. They see where atheists do not consider themselves bound by the rigid behavior mandates of their religion, and they’re mad about it.
Thing is, if you compared the average atheist’s behavior against that of the average theist — I think the biggest difference you’d see is how each spend their Sunday mornings (if that, given the fact that the majority of theists don’t attend church regularly).
Theists don’t see that they’re wasting their lives, groveling on their knees in front of an empty altar. Or maybe they do see it in their darkest moments but they’re too afraid to come into the light.
Sometimes, I feel sorry for them. All bound up in knots over monsters under the bed. It’s truly pathetic.
@17
Linker is yet another troll who is making some kind of living by writing “provocative” shit that generates clicks, the kind of guy who gloatingly refers to his own columns as “controversial.” A few years ago he wrote a book called “The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege” but has now apparently found that bashing atheists and concern-trolling gays is more lucrative.
The first time I heard about him was a few months ago when he argued that gay people really have Christianity to thank for the increasing acceptance and legality of same-sex marriage. I instantly wrote him off.
The most fundamentalist Southern Baptist churches I attended while growing up also described Hell as being separation from God, and the lake of fire and whatnot just a metaphor for how terrible that will be.