Better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick

[kerravonsen]

Y'know, the next time I hear that patronizing lie that "people turn to religion because they want the comfort of not having to worry what comes after death", I'm very tempted to rejoin with "people turn to atheism because they want the comfort of not having to worry about paying for the wrong they do".

(sigh)

Comments

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

Hmm. There's a difference between believing something is true and wanting it to be true. I'd just as soon death was the end; I just don't believe that it is.

What annoys me is people who think God is wrong for wanting to punish evil.

[kerravonsen]

There's a difference between believing something is true and wanting it to be true.

But from the PoV of the patronizing comment, they start from the premise that "religion is false, therefore nobody could believe it is true, therefore they just want it to be true".

What annoys me is people who think God is wrong for wanting to punish evil.

It isn't that they think God is wrong for wanting to punish evil, they think God is wrong for wanting to punish people for "minor" evils; I don't think any of those people would be unhappy at murderers and rapists etc going to hell, they just don't want adulterers, blasphemers, liars and thieves to go to hell...

[mistraltoes.livejournal.com]

No, I've known people who think God should just forgive everybody. Period. Otherwise, he must be selfish and abusive. The argument runs along the lines of, 'If God is able to forgive sins because Christ died for them, then why should Christ have had to die at all, since God made the rules in the first place?' -- I tend to think that people nowadays think mercy must trump justice every single time, which makes mercy and justice both meaningless.

[kerravonsen]

which makes mercy and justice both meaningless

Yep.

[labingi.livejournal.com]

I should probably butt out, but I'm going to butt in anyway...

My personal feeling about justice, mercy, etc.--whether on a mundane or absolute level--is that they do not make sense (to me) as ends but as means. What are justice and mercy good for? Ultimately, they seem to me to be good for creating better people. Mercy breeds mercy/kindness/empathy, and justice teaches responsibility. The natural standard for applying justice and mercy, then, it would seem to me, is how to optimize the good effect they have on someone. For one person, absolute forgiveness of all their crimes may be exactly what they need to regain faith in the universe and strive to be a good person again. For another, being strongly called to task for their crimes may be what they need to stop making excuses. But the end, it seems to me, should be the creation of a better, more upstanding, more conscientious person/soul. I personally don't see how eternal hell can figure into that process because it rejects the possibility of betterment. Purgatory might well figure.

Another thought: in ultimate terms, I have a hunch that justice and mercy are the same thing. For example, say I've committed a crime that gnaws at my conscience. The greatest mercy for me may be to be held accountable for that crime because then, someday, I can truly say, "I have paid for it." Of course, this depends on everyone's having a conscience, which on a mundane level isn't the case. But in an ultimate, philosophical, nature-of-the-human-soul's-potential sense, I don't see why every soul shouldn't have the potential for conscience even if it's been temporarily hidden.

In short, my views are rather more Eastern than Western. But that's my contribution anyway. Sorry for the butting in!

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

*reads this, after having posted my response*

OK, I think you may have put some of that a bit better than I did. :)

[labingi.livejournal.com]

Thanks :) I think you were responding to the discussion in a different way--like, you were actually responding to the discussion, whereas I was basically babbling off my own random thoughts.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

But from the PoV of the patronizing comment, they start from the premise that "religion is false, therefore nobody could believe it is true, therefore they just want it to be true".

Well, that's a dumb argument. People are really, really good at believing things that aren't true. :) (In fairness, though, I don't think I've ever seen any atheists making that exact dumb argument.)

I don't think any of those people would be unhappy at murderers and rapists etc going to hell

You think wrong there, though. There are people who find the whole idea of hell repugnant, regardless of who ends up there.

[kerravonsen]

You think wrong there, though. There are people who find the whole idea of hell repugnant, regardless of who ends up there.

Ah.

Do they find the idea of justice repugnant? No, I know you can't answer that, because you aren't in the group of "those people".

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am very definitely in the group of "those people." And I think the following things:

A) "Justice" is a concept that ultimately doesn't have a simple, objective meaning. I don't actually believe that there is, or should be absolute justice in the universe. It's a good thing when good actions are rewarded, but you don't deserve a reward for being good. Being good is a good thing in and of itself. As for the notion that the bad should be punished, that's little more than a useful (and often abused) social convention for ensuring that people stick to the mores of their social group; it also plays into the human emotional desire for revenge on those we view as having wronged us (which desire itself probably evolved in part because of its social utility). The question, IMHO, is not what people deserve, but what helps. What makes them better people? What helps prevent them from harming others? "Punishment" is not usually a very good answer to those questions, even if there are situations in which it's the best one we fallible humans in our fallible society can come up with.

B) It is, in my belief, better and more moral to be merciful than to be just, even if it's not always practical or easy. Compassion is a more becoming motivation than vengeance. Attempting to understanding the person who has wronged you and understanding why they did what they did is better than striking out at them. If the best thing you can come up with is to hurt someone in order to keep them from hurting others, that's not a good thing, that's a sad thing. And two wrongs don't make a right. Just because someone hurts other people, doesn't automatically make it moral to hurt them.

C) Even if we go with the overly simplistic concept of "justice" that doesn't address points A and B, there is IMO no action whatsoever for which eternal torment with no possibility of reprieve is a just punishment. I am opposed to the idea of torture, regardless of whether God, George Bush, or anyone else insists to me that it's necessary or that the victims deserve it.

I will perhaps also add, apropos of your earlier point: D) The whole heaven/hell thing seems to suggest a mindset in which "justice" is a completely binary thing. Either you deserve eternal bliss or you deserve eternal torment. Geez, even the US justice system has different sentences for different crimes, and entertains the possibilities of rehabilitation and parole.

[labingi.livejournal.com]

I think you express this all very well. Your point C reminds me a little of Ivan Karamazov (see icon) and his complaints against God's allowing the suffering of children.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

I really must read that book sometime. It's on my wishlist, but, then again, so is half the library of congress. :)

And I could continue this discussion, but kerravonsen clearly isn't interested, so I shall back off gracefully now. :)

[communicator.livejournal.com]

I don't think any of those people would be unhappy at murderers and rapists etc going to hell

Astonishing. Are there any people who would be happy that murderers and rapists would be tortured eternally? What kind of person could be happy to know that a fellow human being, no matter what he or she did, is being tortured day after day after day, and this will go on for billions of years? And to worship the torturer?

[kerravonsen]

Look, it's 39 degrees outside, I'm not up for a big theological debate, you can have that with someone more qualified than me.

I don't give a stuff about hell, really. Because I'm more interested in looking forward to Heaven, and sad, really sad, that anyone would choose to miss out on it.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

I really shouldn't be even dropping into this discussion, I'm sure (I rarely seem to be able to get all of my thoughts in the proper order in forums like this...), but....

An online acquaintence emailed me once, demanding (as politely as one can demand such a thing) if I, as a Christian, believed that he, as an athiest, would go to hell when he died.

My response went something like this: I don't believe that God sends anyone to hell. We do that to ourselves. And I am not trying to split hairs; hell is nothing more than eternal seperation from God. He has given us free will, and if we use that free will to reject Him over and over and over, we wind up with our minds and hearts turned permanently away from Him. And that isolation, both before and after death, is eternal torment.

I am quite content to worship a God who came and lived as a human being, in all the pain and suffering we cause each other and endure in this life, just to try and get more of us to see the light.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

And similarly I don't want to cause any stress to kerravonsen or anyone else. But I do not feel that anything a person can do in this life could separate them from god. The real god if such an entity exists. And certainly not having the 'wrong' religion, or not believing in conventional religion, or being an atheist, or indeed being an evil scumbag rapist. I find it very distressing.