What I don't understand is this: If your child disobeyed you but refused to admit they were wrong, would you condemn them to eternal fiery damnation? If your answer is no, because of your imperfect human morals, how could God, a perfect being with perfect morals, ever do something so disproportionate?

[–] bassomitron 11 points 5 days ago (4 children)

Does the Bible actually say it's forever? I thought I've read a discussion before where it's implied that one can still repent and be redeemed in the afterlife. I'm not a theologian or an expert in the least bit, so I may be misremembering or it could've just been someone from one of the various more modern, progressive religious sects.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The Greek Bible uses the word αιών, which (confusingly) refers to either a duration of time with a beginning and end, or eternity. When the Bible was translated into Latin, αιών was translated as aeternam exclusively. However, that sense may not have been the right one to use. The earliest writings of the church, before the 5th century or so, described Hell as an ultimately temporary place of purification, rather than an eternal destination.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago

There were many bad translations, and many purposefully bad ones.

Is it easier to exert control over a population with eternal damnation or proportional punishment?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago

Yes, it says it's forever. The Catholic church does have a doctrine of purgatory, but it's for the flawed faithful.

But it also treats it akin to a spouse that has been continuously cheated on; all his gifts twisted, broken, and trashed; finally leaving the house.

Or self-inflicted by humanity, God going: "do you really, really want to stay apart from the source of life and all good? Then have it your way... ☹️"

[–] MutilationWave 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

King James version has lines like "your soul shall surely perish" which doesn't sound like eternal damnation to me. It does say Lucifer was cast into the lake of fire, but to my knowledge doesn't suggest this is a place human souls would end up.

Honestly I believe that hell was mostly an invention of religious leaders to gain more worshippers, and therefore more power. I don't believe in any of it though.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Hell as we picture it is basically just fan fiction.

[–] MutilationWave 7 points 4 days ago

All of it is fan fiction. Even the Christians who know anything about history admit that most of the books of the bible were written circa 300CE. Jesus likely never existed, and if he did he was one among many self-styled prophets wandering the holy land.

[–] bassomitron 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Agreed. And I'm not religious, either. I'm not rigidly atheist, but I am highly skeptical of some omniscient, omnipotent being playing some divine version of RimWorld.

Damnit, now I feel like playing some RimWorld...

[–] random_character_a 1 points 3 days ago

Dammit!

*reinstalling Rimworld

[–] camr_on 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

My understanding is that it's a temporary period of "purification" or redemption, not eternal, but that has been lost in translation. I'm not a theologian though.

[–] thelasttoot 3 points 5 days ago

I feel like this is the same thing that happened with animal sacrifice. As a society, we realized how fucked up it really is and then the apologists try their hardest to reinterpret the Bible so it's more in line with our new understanding of morality. Then it happened again with slavery. Society figured out owning and selling people as property is immoral, and the apologists come up with more ways to explain how we've been reading the Bible wrong up until now. Like, the Bible can't simultaneously be perfectly clear and misinterpreted for thousands of years.

[–] mhague 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

In the lore they say god is good and make it clear that the god exists within history itself. The unraveling of events is god executing El Plan. So anything that happens is god, and god is goodness itself, so everything must actually be good in the end.

And since the god explicitly gave the humans a mandate on their morality, they can't just emulate the god literally. They have to act in their prescribed way, and trust in El Plan.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

It's not eternal and it's not fiery damnation those are both fanfiction novels you're referring to.

You also have to consider that God is a nth dementional elderich being that exists outside of time.

From my understanding and reading of early Christian texts and judeo texts. If you do end up in hell or some other place, you don't experience the time as linear time. More like everybody shows up at once and then leaves at once to the next place.