So Chris Bolt accuses me of dogmatism. Whether I am actually dogmatic, however, cannot be deduced from the blogpost of mine that Chris references. My blogpost is 116 words long, not counting the link to the Unbelievable? audio stream, so Chris must really, reallywant to believe it contains dogmatism. What I actually wrote about Hell was that I could think of an alternative explanation for believing it was real — alternative, that is, to its actual existence. I did not claim — dogmatically or otherwise — to know that Hell doesn't exist. Chris, on the other hand, does claim to know that Hell exists. He writes:
Hell is incomprehensibly awful. I am deeply troubled by the thought of people going there, but they will, and they do. However, it is the wicked who go to hell, and they deserve the punishment they receive there.
This isn't a suggestion of a possible alternative view, nor is it speculation on different interpretations. It's a claim of knowledge based on nothing but scripture — otherwise known as dogmatism. Go read his piece, then see if this slightly altered version of one of his eight paragraphs (of nearly a thousand words — that's a response ratio approaching ten to one) wouldn't be nearer the truth:
One might question how Chris is so dogmatically certain that hell exists. Of course it does not matter how certain Chris feels he is with regard to the alleged existence of hell if hell doesn't in fact exist. It does not matter how strongly opposed one is to the existence of terminal cancer if one has it. One’s beliefs do not affect such states of affairs. The cancer is going to win out in the end. So also Chris’s opinions about hell do not matter in the end if hell is indeed a fantasy. It would serve Chris well to give more critical thought to how he knows that hell exists.
In short, Chris dogmatically claims that Hell exists, while accusing me of dogmatism for merely suggesting an alternative explanation for belief in it.
A while ago I had occasion to doubt the usefulness of a certain kind of discussion, which I characterised as piffle. Understandably my doubt was challenged, but the challenge didn't change my view on the matter. I chose not to pursue it, as I didn't expect such pursuit to be fruitful.
It's about whether Hell is "eternal conscious punishment" on the one hand, or "annihilation" on the other. Other options are given short shrift, if considered at all. The alternative that occurs most obviously to me is, "Hell doesn't exist — it's a horror story told to children to stop them being naughty."
Here's a Facebook conversation from a few days before Christmas. The thread (of which this is a part) is now buried deep down in the Unbelievable group and therefore probably not worth reviving, but I wanted to record my final comments for the sake of completeness, and to clarify my own thoughts:
Daniel Smith Sam, some Christians argue that language of hell and eternal torment is figurative for cessation of existence; it does not refer to literal conscious torment for eternity. This view is called annihilationism.
Other Christians, like myself, take the imagery of hell (fire and brimstone, etc....) to be symbolic. After all, it is difficult to see how there could be "outer darkness" in a literal furnace, so one of these texts at least must be understood non-literally. if humans were made for relationship with God, then to be separated from God for eternity would be a type of torment, albeit self-inflicted.
And as you guessed others, perhaps most, think that a literal furnace exists where the damned suffer eternally.
Point being, there is a range of views, and the issue is not at all settled, especially between the second and third conceptions of hell.
19 December at 05:07 · Like
Paul Jenkins @Daniel, this is why I find religious language unhelpful. If someone threatens to beat me to a pulp, and I interpret that "figuratively" as nothing more than a threat to scowl disapprovingly at me, at the very least this indicates a failure of communication.
19 December at 09:42 · Like
Daniel Smith Paul,
I think your language is just as unhelpful. Figurative language is not "religious language." It's jut the way humans communicate. I don't say that I find scientific language unhelpful because "the sun rose at 6:53 A.M." is not literally true. Or at the end of a long day of work, "I am dead tired" is not literally true. Or "sometimes my wife has to whip me into shape," is (usually) not literally true. The fact that religious texts use language which all of us use every day is neither a defect in religion nor in religious language.
If someone threatens to beat you to a pulp, you take them literally in that you think they literally will beat you, but not literally "to a pulp." So even this implies a bit of figurative speech which needs to be interpreted. Easy to point the finger at religion, though. Maybe you should acknowledge that things just aren't always as clear as you want them to be.
19 December at 19:24 · Like
Paul Jenkins Daniel,
I acknowledge that things aren't always as clear as I'd like, and that there is a difference between being "beaten to a pulp" in the figurative sense and being beaten to a pulp in an electric blender. Both the figurative sense and the literal sense, however, would involve blood and mangled flesh rather than, say, superficial bruising. Therefore I maintain that my figurative use of "beaten to a pulp" is a legitimate use of language that conveys my intended meaning with a degree of accuracy.
This cannot be said of the difference between "literal conscious torment" in the "fire and brimstone" of a literal furnace on the one hand, and "cessation of existence" on the other. The two are not remotely comparable. The claim that one is a symbolic expression of the other contributes more to obfuscation than clarity.
20 December at 00:31 · Like
Daniel Smith Therefore you maintain that your use of language, while not literally correct, is correct enough in the context you're using it and for the audience you're communicating with.
I agree with you that annihilationism does not seem to be what passages about fire and brimstone teach. That view is based on other passages. Nevertheless you've conceded the most important thing: that figurative language is constantly is use. This makes it difficult to criticize the Bible on the basis that there are debates about what some passages contained therein really mean to say. I mean, we have the same debates in America about the constitution. This must prove that political language is totally worthless and imprecise, right?
20 December at 22:21 · Like
I do concede that figurative language is in constant use — it's part of what makes conversation interesting and expressive, and it certainly doesn't make political language worthless (although it can adversely affect its precision). But if "fire and brimstone" is figurative or symbolic language, and annihilationism is "based on other passages", at least one of these must be wrong, and in either case the language used to justify them is, indeed, unhelpful.
The flames of hell, the lake of fire, eternal torment, unremitting agony - it sounds tough, and sufficiently off-putting to deter any potential sinner.
"But it's not like that," say the religious moderates. "That's an outmoded view of Hell," they say. "Hell," they say, "is separation from God."
Oh really. Well in that case, as an atheist I'm here to tell you - it's not so bad.
When I was very young I asked my mother about the Holy Trinity. I wanted to know how three persons, beings, entities, whatever, could all be one single thing, and at the same time three separate things. "There are some things we're not meant to understand," she said. To a little child, that's tantamount to saying, "Don't worry about it. That's just the way it is."
Only in later life have I reflected on the effect such pronouncements may have had. Vivid in my memory is the story of Abraham almost sacrificing his son, Isaac, only for God to call it off at the last moment. Thinking back now, I remember feeling distinctly uneasy about the story. This is a loving God? But it's in the Bible, and I'd been told the Bible was true. A small child, however, doesn't dwell long on such matters, and I had other things claiming my attention.
But a child's mind is a clean slate; what is first written thereon is likely to endure, colouring the worldview taking shape in that putative personality. Even seemingly insignificant snippets of inculcation can have profound effect. How much greater effect, then, if you immerse a young child in an alternative reality, to the exclusion of everything else?
I've held off writing about the recent Channel 4Cutting Edge TV documentary Baby Bible Bashers until it was available to view uninterrupted. You can see it as a series of short clips on YouTube, but now BitTorrent-enabled users can find the whole thing here:
There's been plenty of discussion over at RD.net, but I particularly want to mention that the film made a point about the manipulation of these kids by their parents. Whether or not the film's slant accentuated this, it can't be denied that all three of these young 'preachers' have been influenced (to put it mildly) by their parents, who appear to believe that their god-filled worldview is real. The children, however, had no choice in the matter.
The three families, overly fundamentalist, are by no means typical - otherwise film-makers would not want to document them. But recent polls have shown that there are vast numbers of people who, though less extreme, have similar values, and are raising a similarly skewed generation of faith-head offspring.
It's clear that seven-year-old Samuel lives in fear of going to Hell - his responses direct to camera contained references to descending into Hell and being eaten by worms. This idea came from his father, who admitted telling his son (then only three) about eternal damnation. Samuel's only option, apparently, was to be baptised and have his sins washed away. At that point he began his 'ministry', preaching his first sermon in church, standing on an upturned plastic crate, still aged only three. (Samuel's fire-and-brimstone performance was captured on home video.)
This film pressed a lot of buttons. It was sad, and enraging. Watch it.
Paul S. Jenkins, writer, podcaster and tech-enthusiast (and atheist and skeptic) lives and works in Hampshire, UK. Notes from an Evil Burnee is his blog about things skeptical.
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