Don’t Blame God! (Part III)

Today we continue in our series based on BEattitude’s post, “Losing my religion. Why I recently walked away from Christianity.”

You can visit his blog by linking along the sidebar under the category “atheism.”

I continue to post comments on his blog, not because his posts are particularly intriguing, but that he has a large following and their are some very interesting commenters there, and I have found some of their points thought provoking. You may or may not feel the same way.

Today we explore his second reason:

The act of throwing people into infinite torture and punishment for not believing a Jewish guy from 2,000 years ago was God’s son, or unknowingly worshiping the wrong god, is extremely cruel and sadistic.

Quite frankly, I would tend to agree. But of course I don’t really believe in hell.  I haven’t made a study of hell in general, across the various religious faiths, both modern and ancient, but I do think the idea of an eternal damnation is somewhat unique.

In Egypt, heaven was eternal, hell was not. Punishment was meted out, but annihilation was the end of the wrongdoer. The Greeks considered those judged wrong were sent to Tartarus, where they were punished. It is not clear how long this lasted. Celtic and Middle Eastern ancient faiths led eventually to annihilation as well.

In the America’s the dead traveled a difficult and adventurous journey. It is unclear if that resulted in anything like eternal punishment. At least the Aztecs believed that there was a “neutral” place one could traverse to. Hindus have no concept of Hell, but do claim that punishments ensue for ”sins”, again not permanent,  and Buddhists teach that there are places of discomfort but that none are permanent, rebirth always is in effect. until one reaches nirvana. 

Muslim belief is more akin to Christianity, but there are levels of “hell” depending on the seriousness of the infractions.

Most important for our discussion is Sheol, or Gehenna, as known in Jewish theology. It was not considered a place of eternal damnation, but rather as a sort of purgatory where depending on one’s misdeeds, one spent some time reflecting on one’s failings and shortcomings. The maximum length was considered to be eleven months. Additionally, it was not thought to be necessarily a physical place but a place of internal reflection.

This is important, because it would be the type of “hell” that Jesus was familiar with. In fact in the NT, three words, all having rather different meanings are used. Tartarus, the Greek, means incarceration. Hades refers most closely to Sheol and has it’s connotation of a limited period. Only Gehenna is the destination of lost souls.

I would conclude from this, that Jesus, when he referred to concepts that we now identify with hell, was referring to the limited location of souls after death, usually for no more than eleven months. He no where as far as I can tell made reference to any different concept he was referring to.

It is undoubtedly true that later Christianity enlarged and in some sense went backward in making hell a place of eternal damnation. For the most part, historically we don’t seem to see that. And indeed, many Christian theologians today would argue that this cannot be, rather than annihilation must follow those found totally unsuitable for heaven.

First it should be understood, that even in Christianity, damnation doesn’t apply to those who are unaware that Jesus is the “only” means of salvation. And indeed, much of the Christian world would not make that assertion, though some sects surely would.

One is never punished with damnation for “unknowingly” worshiping the wrong God, as BEattitude suggests. One must in fact know God to be God and Jesus to be God and actively knowingly reject them.

That of course raises an interesting question. What does “knowing” mean here. Surely a poor peasant in Indonesia presented with the world’s worst evangelizer, should not be subject to hell if he rejects the poor efforts of a illiterate and poor speaking “evangelist.” And no one would condemn anyone who is mentally infirm either.

No, the hell seems to be reserved for those who “know” and then reject. I don’t frankly “know” God exists. I believe he does, and God seems inclined to keep it that way for most of us. I have argued that there is no meaningful journey to companionship with God that is not based on belief rather than knowledge.

If this is so, then it seems to me rather impossible to send anyone to hell. For if that rare person actually speaks directly to God, or in some way is presented with incontrovertible proof of God’s existence, then rejection must be the result of pure madness, and God cannot punish madness can he?

At least that is how it comes down for me. As I ‘ve said before, this drives some people quite mad with anger. They deeply want to take satisfaction in the knowledge that enemies and anyone whom they deem as failing to live up to their standards, will suffer eternally. To me this is making God do as you wish, rather than recognizing that God may see things a whole lot differently. But we do tend to make God in our image as it were.

In any event, I find the second reason advanced to be badly untrue on its face, and short sighted in its analysis. That seems often what we see in those newly atheistic. I don’t mean to pick on this particular blogger for he is but symptomatic of those I have described as “immature, a term this blogger would have every reason to be upset with, no doubt.

But being busy showing us all various contradictions within the bible, is in fact, immature. This is not new news. It’s quite old news. It is not shocking, nor does it suggest to the believer that they have been duped. It means a book is flawed, but many of us know that. It has little to do with faith. Our faith is in God, not in a book, no matter how valuable it might otherwise be.

Next: How to explain the inexplicable?