Why Jac has no (logical) problem with Hell

[Thumpalumpacus]

Thump, your post fundamentally raised three issues

1. Limits on God

Omnipotence is defined as the ability to do anything that can be done. It does not, and never has, meant the ability to do that which is logically impossible.

In googling the definition, the overwhelming majority don't mention that qualification.  Nor did I suggest anything that is logically impossible.

 

To argue this places a "limit" on God is simply ignorance of what Christianity has always taught on the matter. Arguments like "Can God make a rock so big He can't lift it?" come across in exactly the fashion as when someone says, "If evolution is true, where are there still monkeys?"

Of course, I didn't ask such a silly question, nor would insult your intelligence by so doing.

 

If something is logically necessary, that is true even of God. It doesn't limit Him, because something that is logically impossible is, in fact, not a thing, and is thus meaningless. All limits, by definition, are meaningful, so a meaningless limit is no limit. If Hell, then,  is a logically necessary consequence of free moral agency, then God didn't have a logical option not to create Hell if He made free moral agents (that is, us). Which raises the question of . . .

That's a helluva big if when an omnipotent god can merely make us with the will to do right.

2. Human free will

You asked for a verse. To give only one, "But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."(Josh. 24:15, NIV) Choice is impossible if there is no [relatively] free will.

In our debate about pi, you protested that it wasn't mentioned in the verse.  Now, I've asked you to cite a verse which specifically refers to "free will".  I don't see it mentioned here.  Why do you violate your own standards?

Now, free will is all fine and well, but is it free will when one's eternal soul is held hostage?  No.  If a robber points a gun to your head and demands your money, and is subsequently caught, should he be found innocent because you chose to surrender your wallet?

Finally, then . . .

3. Evil acts of God

You charge God of evil on two counts, and if God is evil, then the entire argument goes out the window. First, you said if God created Hell then that would make Him evil. That, however, is the entire point of this thread, and as such, to assert Hell is evil is to simply beg the question. If you would like to consider my original argument as to why Hell is not evil, we can talk about this more.

I'd like to see that argument, not that I expect anything more than standard apologetics.  Also, demonstrating the evil of hell is easy:

1) It is disproportionate to the "sin".  It is eternal torment for a finite "sin".
2) The concept of punishment is meaningless in the absence of the possibility of redemption.  At that point it ceases to be punishment and becomes simple, and tawdry, revenge.

 

Second, then, you argued that God committed evil in killing people, to which I have already responded thoroughly.

And in a thoroughly unsatisfactory manner; you never did explain how an omnipotent god couldnot have devised a more humane punishment.  You never did explain why him meting out the death penalty to everyone for the "sin" of two is just, which means that every death in human history (save, possibly, those two -- an exception I don't hold to be right) every death in human history is a murder.  You never did explain why an almighty god had to resort to killing everyone on the planet because of the sinful nature that he supposedly gave us, when a perfect god might simply have taught the people better.

 

As you noted, it is in another thread, and so I insist that we keep these arguments in their proper places. In any case, for the purposes of this thread, I could simply disavow the biblical God and claim that we are simply working of basic philosophical principles. In other words, if goodness is real and thus exists in an essentially good God, the necessary result is a Hell as I have described.

Not so. You are, first,  assuming your god's goodness, and then asserting that hell isn't evil because your god is good.  I have shown above the evils of your god.  If you choose to close your eyes to those points, culled from your holy book, then so be it.  I refuse to worship an evil god.

On all this, I note that your points are moving further away from my initial post. Would you like to direct your comments toward the actual argument I put forward?

I'm pretty sure I've pointed out the illogic of hell being made by a good ogd.  My posting is pertinent.

You then followed up with another post which I will quote:

First, as the original post made clear, the moral issue regarding eternal torture is only a problem if the torture is externally inflicted as a punishment. I have argued, however, that it is a natural, and logically necessary, consequence. The torture people will feel in Hell is no more morally problematic than the pain people feel when they sprain their ankle or burn their finger.

Yes, I read your argument.  I find it unconvincing.  You haven't shown how eternal torment -- not "punishment", as that requires the possibility of redemption --  is good.

Second, genetics does not produce objective morality. At best, it produces an agreed upon standard of right and wrong.

Perhaps, and perhaps not.  That, too, is another discussion.

If I choose to go against my genetically induced behavior, though, there is nothing wrong with what I have done on your view. I've simply acted in a way that your biology does not prefer. You may as well say that my preference for one ice cream flavor over another is wrong because you, for biological reasons, prefer a different flavor.

Except that tasting doesn't have a moral dimension because it doesn't affect others.  Analogyfail.

1. If morality is objective then God exists
2. Morality is objective
3. Therefore God exists.

As shown earlier, not only have you not shown 2) to be evidenced at all, you have practiced moral relativity by calling an act ordered by your god good which you would deem evil were it ordered by men.  That is the very essence of relativity.  Unless, of course, you deem genocide morally defensible.

[Davin]

Davin,

First, you argued that Sophus' point was not an ad populum. You are mistaken. As you quoted, I stated explicitly, "To argue broad agreement makes it objective would be a logical fallacy called an ad populum fallacy" (Emphasis added). Whether or not Sophus was actually arguing that evolution or societal constructs produce morality, the line of questioning naturally tends in that direction, and if anyone moves on to make the argument based on such broad agreement, then they effectively are making a "because the mob says it is" based argument. AKA, ad populum.

He wasn't arguing on broad agreement though, he argued it as if it was something other than broad agreement like "what if we all evolved the ability to feel pain" not "what if we all evolved to agree on certain things." If you think it's an appeal to majority, then I think you're misunderstanding his point.

Second, you argued that no goal posts have been moved. In the strictest sense, I agree. However, in essence, I disagree. While I am having specific discussion with specific people, and while I fully recognize that there is no such thing as a monolithic atheism, you also must recognize that there is a general consensus concerning things such as Hell. I'm interested in getting to the bottom of ideas, not playing silly rhetorical games. If Asmodean or MTK don't take the traditional "hell is evil" line, then they are free to say so. I will assume, however, that they do. I'm sure that when you meet a theist, you expect them to hold certain positions. If we have to stop and verify every position before we have any discussion, we could never get to any discussion. Now, the purpose of this thread is (supposed to be) to talk about how Hell can be morally justified, or, put different, how Hell is consistent with a moral God. At best, to ask for proof of Hell is off topic. More likely, it's simply moving the goal posts, since the argument normally put forward (by atheists generally) is that Hell is inconsistent with God, not that there is no evidence of His existence. Again, I'm interested in general discussion of this concept, and so I take it that those who take the negative stance on my argument assume the moral inconsistency if God and Hell, and that much more if they are atheists, both of which are clearly the case with Asmodean and MTK.

I never expect anyone to hold any positions, I find this frees me from making assumptions about other people. If they want me know what positions they hold, they'll tell me, otherwise I don't know so I don't assume.

If you only want to argue what you perceive as the argument normally put forward by atheists, then why open a discussion on and open forum? The topic is why you have no logical problem with hell, anything seen that could be a logical problem (like accepting something as true without any evidence to support it), matches the topic of the forum. Moving goal posts is a bad argument tactic that you accused other people of without any reasonable basis, because they didn't.

This interest in only discussing certain kinds of arguments and ignoring the rest seems to be counter to something you said earlier in a different thread: Link "We are to deal with the strongest form of an argument. Picking off a weaker form and declaring victory doesn't float." It very much looks like you're picking off a weaker form of an argument and are only interested in discussing the weaker forms when you say things like "Again, I'm interested in general discussion of this concept[...]" Why only argue what you perceive as the general argument instead what would more likely be a stronger argument when you clearly stated that picking off a weaker form doesn't fly?

It's your choice which arguments you're going to discuss, but accusing someone of using a bad argument tactic when they hadn't is not the way to go, you can just say you're not interested in discussing that in this thread, at this time, at all... etc..

[PoopShoot]

PS, you argued that my sentence "the existence you will be left with will be worse than anything you can imagine as it will be devoid of any possible goodness of absolutely any kind" is both morally repugnant and different from what I argued before.

First, it is exactly what I described before. Reread my original post. I described Hell as a total lack of goodness and further pointed out that even unbelievers experience a level of goodness in this life precisely because human beings are still in the image of God, complete with the Moral Law written on our hearts. All that changes in the resurrection. All the niceness in the atheists you know--and I have agreed repeatedly that many atheists are fine, good, and nice people--will be completely gone, as that basic goodness is merely borrowed capital, so to speak.

You argue two mutually exclusive positions.  If I change, I am not I; if I do not change (and everyone else by extension of that logic), then hell ain't so bad.

Second, the categorical statement of its moral deficiency ignores the entire argument I put forward. Assertions arguments do not make. As I have argued, it would be immoral if it were punitive. It is not, however. It is consequential, and as such, there is no moral dilemma in suffering.

But it IS punitive and NOT consequential.  Consequential implies it just simply happens, like dropping a cinderblock on your foot.  God created gravity for a useful purpose and god created pain sensors in your foot for another purpose, the pain you feel from dropping a cinderblock on your foot is consequential to the mechanics of gravity and the biology of nerve sensory.  Conversely, Hell was created specifically to punish people for minor crimes.

You then go on in a later post to argue that morality cannot be objective if it comes from a deity. You state, "The funny thing is that objective morality CAN'T exist from a deity. If god decides what is moral, morality isn't objective, it's subjective to him. I can and do accept objective morality and all that it entails, including circumstances."

This is wrong. God doesn't decide what is moral. Things are moral relative to God's nature.

Meaningless nondistinction.  Also demonstrably false by virtue of the fact that his "laws" changed.

[Reginus]

Jac, is you primary reason for rejecting annihilationism moral or biblical?

Btw, I pretty much completely agree with you with respect to the other things you've said about hell.

[Jac3510]

J,

Your summary is a fair representation of my point. Behavior has no bearing on whether or not we end up in Heaven or Hell. Again, go back to my first point: Hell is not a place where we are punished for sins. Likewise, Heaven is a reward for good behavior.

This, then, is the difference, I think, to answer your concern about the "us vs. them" mentality. We don't view non-Christians (or, we shouldn't, anyway) as "the bad guys" and ourselves as "the good guys." Just the opposite, Christian doctrine states that all of us are the bad guys. We all have a cancer, if you will. That cancer is terminal--eternally terminal. There is Someone who can cure it, though, and His name is Jesus. My job is simply and only to point you to the One who can save you from on otherwise unavoidable fate, just as He did me.

At this point, we start going a bit off topic. I'm not saying that you have to jump through hoops to be saved. Christianity (as I understand it) doesn't require you to live a certain way or keep certain rituals or be really good or anything of the sort. We can open another thread on what the Gospel is and why it is so by nature. For now, let it be sufficient to say that all you are asked to do is to let Jesus save you. To push the analogy, the surgery is free and Jesus is the only one who knows how to do it. He's asking you to let Him take care of it for you. All you have to do is trust Him: "Whoever believes in Me has everlasting life." (John 6:47)

As far as "in Christ," yes, it is a technical term. For simplicity's sake, just think of it in terms of family descent. We are all born "in Adam" in that he was our first father. When we are "born again" we are spiritually reborn "in Christ" in that He becomes our spiritual father (again, I'm being simplistic here: the technical theological terminology would object to some of this, but the point is essentially the same). At the end of time, we will be resurrected in the image of the father whom we are in -- those in Adam will receive Adam's fallen nature for eternity, and those in Christ will receive His glorified nature for all of eternity. Or, to put it in the terms I have been arguing throughout this thread, those in Adam will be severed from any and all goodness, since all goodness is rooted in God and they will be severed from their connection with God. Those in Christ will be perfectly united with Him and thus experience goodness in its fullest measure since they are in perfect fellowship with God. The important thing to remember in all of this is that both states, Heaven and Hell, are consequential, not punitive or meritorious.

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Thump,

1. Concerning omnipotence, you would do better to check theological sources than . To give you but one reference, Aquinas put it this way: "It remains therefore, that God is called omnipotent because He can do all things that are possible absolutely." I would encourage you to read the entire article if you have a minute as it explains the doctrine in great detail.

2. Concerning free will, strictly speaking, the only being with truly free will is God Himself. The only sense that we can say humans have "free will" is that we are free to choose from a set of alternatives. Some of those choices are so obvious, of course, that we would never actually choose the alternative, but the choice remains.

3. Concerning God and free will, because the word "choose" is wholly meaningless unless the will is at least to some degree free, then it is logically impossible to give a being the ability to choose A without necessarily providing a B. In fact, the very possibility of choosing A itself defines, at minimum, a B, even if that B is simply ~A. For instance, let us propose a truly minimalist universe. Suppose that the only thing that exits is your consciousness and God. Suppose there is absolutely nothing else: no space, no time, no anything. Now, suppose that God impressed a knowledge of Himself directly upon your mind so that you were aware of His existence. In such a universe, there seems to be no choices of any kind to make, save one: the choice to love Him more than yourself or to love yourself more than Him. It may be that God could so construct your will that you have no choice but to love Him (although we could then debate if such a disposition on your part could be called love, but I digress), but in such a case, you could in no way be said to have chosen to love God at all. The moment God gives you the ability to choose to love Him, logical necessity dictates that you also have the choice to not love Him, but to love, instead, some other object (in this case, the only other object being yourself).

The point to this is simple enough: moral agency requires that man have the ability to choose, for where there is no choice, there is no morality; and yet, choice requires the ability to accept or reject God. This is not a limit on God's omnipotence to say that He cannot create you in such a way that you can be moral and not have the ability to choose Him. It is, rather, a simple fact of the way that reality is and the way it must be. To suggest otherwise is to suggest nonsense. We may as well suggest that God create square circles. Nonsense is nonsense, even when discussed in the context of God's omnipotence. Put differently, "square-circle" is a meaningless combination of words, and it does not suddenly gain meaning just because we prefix the words, "God can make a . . ." to them.

4. Concerning the evil nature of Hell, you assert "It is disproportionate to the "sin". It is eternal torment for a finite "sin"," and I agree. As it stands, however, I have argued that sin and Hell are essentially unrelated. You don't go to Hell for your sin, and therefore, the disproportion has no bearing on this conversation whatsoever. In that case, it doesn't matter whether punishment is meaningless or not, because Hell is not a place in which you are punished for your sins. It is simply the place in which you obtain the necessary consequences of your moral state.

5. Concerning the "goodness" of torture, I've never argued that torture or suffering are good. Quite the opposite, I've argued that there is nothing good in such a thing at all. The suffering in Hell is the presence of absolute evil, but that absolute evil is the natural consequence of separating your own self from the source of goodness. You can, at any moment, trust Him to save you.

As to why you should trust Him, I've presented some evidence that you have found unconvincing during my time here. In this thread, I've offered the nature of goodness and objective morality. You seem to believe that God is really evil. Whether or not He is doesn't matter for the simple reason that if God is really evil, then we are not talking about your personal opinion. I may think a ball is white. Whether or not it is really white is not a matter of opinion. If, then, moral statements can be made such that things really are good or evil apart from your opinion of them, then the only place in which to root such a reality is in a self-existent goodness, which we may only call, in our own language, "God." Since, then, God exists as an absolutely good being, we know by extension that Hell exists as a natural consequence of severing yourself from this source of goodness.

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Davin,

1. Concerning the ad populum, you interpret Sophus as saying that we have evolved so as to feel pain, which I have no problem with. That does not, however, provide a basis for objective morality. You would have to then go on and say, "and we ought not cause others pain," which is a value statement. I have no reason to believe it is true. Why ought we not cause others pain? Absolutely any answer you give me will be rooted in a personal value. As such, you can either appeal to personal value, which makes morality completely subjective, relative, personal, and arbitrary, or you can apply to social agreement, which is the ad populum that I referenced.

2. Concerning goalposts, I understand what you are saying. I don't disagree in the main. We can take your original assertion that the statements prompting the charge were at best irrelevant. If, however, the posters in question actually do hold to the traditional atheist line concerning Hell, then I maintain that the goalposts have been moved by the statements in question. If the Asm. and MTK want to denounce the argument that Hell is evil, I'll drop the charge of moving the goalposts, and we can discuss their question in another thread. If they do hold to the charge, then I ask that we stay the course and discuss the actual charge to which I am responding and not the deflection that was proposed.

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PS,

You appear to be making the same argument HS made. what makes you think that your essence changes in the resurrection? I don't think it does.

Second, Hell is not punitive. I have taken pains to demonstrate that it is not. All goodness is found in God. To any extent we are good, it is because we are related to Him. Hell is the state in which we remove ourselves from His presence forever. A necessary consequence is the removal of ourselves from any goodness. You need to show me how that is punitive to maintain your charge.

Finally, the distinction of God being essentially good and willing accordingly and things being good because God wills them is hardly a meaningless distinction. Stated formally, the two arguments would look this way:

God's nature is good.
What God wills is according to His nature.
Therefore, what God wills is good.

vs.

Something is good because God wills it.
X is something that God wills.
Therefore, X is good.

These arguments are clearly different. Secondly, God's laws did not change. If you wish, we can open a thread on that.

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Reginus,

I reject annihilation primarily for moral reasons. There are biblical passages that imply that the torment is everlasting, but all of those have an interpretive aspect that I don't think allow for any real degree of certainty (see, for instance, Isa. 66:24; Dan. 12:1-3; Rev. 14:10-11). Otherwise, I'm glad we agree on the basic argument put forward. It's a subject I think more Christians would do well to consider critically.

[i_am_i]

We are all born "in Adam" in that he was our first father. When we are "born again" we are spiritually reborn "in Christ" in that He becomes our spiritual father (again, I'm being simplistic here: the technical theological terminology would object to some of this, but the point is essentially the same). At the end of time, we will be resurrected in the image of the father whom we are in -- those in Adam will receive Adam's fallen nature for eternity, and those in Christ will receive His glorified nature for all of eternity.

Is Adam dwelling in Hell right now as we speak?

[PoopShoot]

You appear to be making the same argument HS made. what makes you think that your essence changes in the resurrection? I don't think it does.

Either I will be who I am (we will be who we are) and Hell isn't so bad, or we will all suddenly become terrible, horrible people.  Which is it?

You need to show me how that is punitive to maintain your charge.

It's not natural consequences and it's not rehabilitative.  As stated before, if I drop something heavy on my foot, the pain isn't a punishment for doing so, it's incidental to the laws of gravity and the electrical sensory in my foot.  If I rape women, the natural consequences of that include the potential to rape someone with an STD, and angering my victims' families/society.  Jail, me being murdered because I pissed someone off, etc. are NOT natural consequences, they are punitive.  Hell is not a natural consequence of anything, it is aneternal prison made by god in order to send people there AFTER HE JUDGES THEM.

Finally, the distinction of God being essentially good and willing accordingly and things being good because God wills them is hardly a meaningless distinction. Stated formally, the two arguments would look this way:

Then what defines good/evil?

[Davin]

Davin,

1. Concerning the ad populum, you interpret Sophus as saying that we have evolved so as to feel pain, which I have no problem with. That does not, however, provide a basis for objective morality. You would have to then go on and say, "and we ought not cause others pain," which is a value statement. I have no reason to believe it is true. Why ought we not cause others pain? Absolutely any answer you give me will be rooted in a personal value. As such, you can either appeal to personal value, which makes morality completely subjective, relative, personal, and arbitrary, or you can apply to social agreement, which is the ad populum that I referenced.

Yet again another misunderstanding, did you notice the qualification I made before that statement about evolving the ability to feel pain? I said the statement was like saying "what if we all evolved the ability to feel pain." Re-evaluate the argumentum ad populum, it's based off of saying that the majority is right, not saying that people all have something. Saying what Sophus said is an appeal to majority is like saying that the following statement is an appeal to authority, "what if people can think." You can argue about how it would still be subjective morality, but the question posed was not an appeal to majority. Also Sophus asked a question, not asserting that he was correct, as such, there was no appeal to anything, let alone that the question invoked no majority consensus.

2. Concerning goalposts, I understand what you are saying. I don't disagree in the main. We can take your original assertion that the statements prompting the charge were at best irrelevant. If, however, the posters in question actually do hold to the traditional atheist line concerning Hell, then I maintain that the goalposts have been moved by the statements in question. If the Asm. and MTK want to denounce the argument that Hell is evil, I'll drop the charge of moving the goalposts, and we can discuss their question in another thread. If they do hold to the charge, then I ask that we stay the course and discuss the actual charge to which I am responding and not the deflection that was proposed.

So you're arguing against the general reasons why people don't accept that general concept of hell, by using a different concept of hell? Well then it would appear, by your reasoning, that you are equal of the same "goal post moving" that you're accusing others of. Let's just say that neither you or anyone else posting something other than general concepts, are not moving goal posts. Also let's reserve to accusing others of using bad argument tactics to when they're using bad argument tactics.

[Thumpalumpacus]

[notself]

For instance, let us propose a truly minimalist universe. Suppose that the only thing that exits is your consciousness and God. Suppose there is absolutely nothing else: no space, no time, no anything. Now, suppose that God impressed a knowledge of Himself directly upon your mind so that you were aware of His existence. In such a universe, there seems to be no choices of any kind to make, save one: the choice to love Him more than yourself or to love yourself more than Him.

There is a third alternative.  In the minimalist universe, one could love god as much as one loves oneself. There doesn't have to be a "shortage" position of loving god more or less than oneself.

[Davin]

Jac3510,

It seems that what you're saying and with agreeing with J's summary, is that the only way to avoid hell, is to believe in god, is that right?

If so, does it have to be the belief in a specific god or will the belief in any god do?

[Jac3510]

J,

There is no direct biblical statement on whether or not Adam is in heaven or hell. I would be inclined to the former based on Gen. 3:20 (the name given to her presumes that Adam believed God's promise in Gen. 3:15, which seems to indicate saving faith). If I may ask, why do you ask?

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PS,

1. I still don't see why you think your essence will change in Hell. You will certainly be "who you are," but the goodness you experience is accidental to your essence (to return to strict philosophical language again). You are still you if you get "better" or "worse." That's easily shown enough by two examples. First, consider the man who lives a particularly immoral lifestyle (define that however you will) but as he gets older he realizes that he is on the wrong road and changes soas to become a better man. If the new goodness in him renders him a different person, then we cannot say that he ever did any of those things in his past, and if that were true, then the man could have well have been a serial murderer and could not be charged if caught in his later years, since he wasn't really "the one" who did it. The second example is just the opposite. Imagine a good man who falls into an evil lifestyle. It is clear that the same man who is now evil is the same man who was once good, for both the good actions of his past and the evil actions of his present can equally and rightly be attributed to him. I see no reason, then, to suppose that just because in Hell you lose access to the goodness you now exercise (or, more technically, that losing the goodness you now exercise is the state we call Hell) you therefore are not you, anymore than if you lose your hair, your arm, or your sight you would cease to be you.

2. Your rape example is a very good picture as to why Hell is exactly consequential. If I rape someone with AIDS, and I get AIDS, while we may speak figuratively of my getting sick being a punishment for my crime, more literally, my sickness and ultimate death is a natural consequence of what I did. Just the same is true of Hell. God is the source of goodness. If you reject God, by the same token, you reject the source of goodness. To use another example, if you choose to eat only candy your entire life you will effectively cut off yourself from all real nutrition, and the consequence will be that your life will not be very long. The same holds true with your relationship to God and ultimate fate in Hell.

Concerning the judgment, I have already argued that God does not sentence a man to Hell as a judgment for His sins. In fact, the primary passage of Scripture that actually describes people being thrown into the eternal Hell, the Great White Thrown Judgment, doesn't mention sin at all, but expressly says the reason for the condemnation is not being found in the book of life (which is to say, not having been born again in Christ).

3. Good and evil are, ontologically speaking, defined relative to God's nature. That which is good is that which is consistent with the nature of God. That which is evil is that which is inconsistent with the nature of God. Relationally speaking (which is valid, since good and evil only exist relative to others, and this even within the Godhead), good is defined as that which is in harmony with the intended state of human affairs, and evil is defined as that which is in discord with the intended state of human affairs. The intended state is a reflection of the presently existing state of affairs found within the Godhead. The upshot to all of this is that good and evil, while objectively grounded in the essential goodness of the unity of God, is extremely pragmatic in statements such as, "It is wrong to be cruel" and "It is right to be kind."

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Davin,

1. Strictly speaking, "What if everyone evolved to feel pain" isn't any kind of argument whatsoever. However, in certain contexts, questions pose naturally as arguments, as Sophus' question was clearly doing. For instance, suppose you said to me, "We should take a different route. There was an accident on the street we always take, so we will be late if we go that way," to which I reply, "But what if it has already been cleaned up?" You can certainly be very technical and isolate the question so that it is not an argument, but that would obviously miss the point. In light of this, consider the conversation between Sophus and myself on this matter:

1. If morality is objective, God exists
2. Morality is objective
3. Therefore, God exists

I disagree with the first two. Well, actually all three. Googled it as well and found nothing on the matter. I did, however, find quite a few definitions and articles that supported just the view I have supposed here. I will, then, proceed on the well established notion that omnipotence is the ability to do anything logically possible until you prove otherwise.

2. Concerning the impossibility of goodness without eternal torment, I have explained this, but I will do so again in briefer terms if it helps clarify things for you.

Where there is good, there is the potential for evil by definition (because evil = ~good). It is logically impossible, then, to have goodness without the logical possibility of evil. Whether or not such a possibility is actualized is a matter of personal agency.

It is therefore impossible to give human beings moral choice without giving them the ability to choose between both good and evil, for the ability to choose good necessitates the ability to choose evil.

If God gives people the ability to choose to accept Him, this requires by definition that people have the ability to choose to reject Him.

Since God is the root of all goodness, it necessarily follows that to reject God is to reject the source of all goodness.

Since people actually do reject God, He is left with only two logical choices concerning them: 1. To override their choice and force Himself upon them in one degree or another for all of eternity, or 2. To accept their choice and remove His presence from them for all of eternity. The necessary conclusion of the latter is the state I have described and call Hell. The former would be immoral and could be labeled "divine rape," and thus, is logically impossible to an essentially good God. Therefore, given the nature of goodness itself, eternal torment is the logically necessary conclusion of those who reject God. He is incapable of doing anything other than letting you live with only yourself for all of eternity, which would be Hell as I have described it.

3. Concerning free will, no one is held hostage to anything, because we are dealing with the necessary nature of reality itself. Were God to create an arbitrary set of rules that ended up with Him sentencing people to Hell for unbelief, you would have a point. Since these "rules" are of necessity, however, then God is just as much a "hostage" to your choice as you are.

The rest of your questions assume a punitive view of Hell, which I reject, and are therefore irrelevant to the discussion at hand. My argument hinges on Hell being a logically necessary result of these two facts: 1. The essential goodness of God, and 2. The moral agency of man.

(2) is experientially obvious, and (1) absolutely must be assumed, because if it is rejected, all moral arguments against Hell are invalid anyway. That is, if God is not good, then there is no reason to suppose that He wouldn't throw people into Hell willy-nilly just to watch them burn anyway. The problem we are wrestling with is how to reconcile a good God with Hell. I have argued that, given a good God and the free moral agency of man, not only are God and Hell reconciled, but Hell turns out to be a logically necessary corollary to these basic facts.

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Notself,

Loving something "as much as" yourself is not a valid alternative. The reason is simple enough. If you find yourself in such a situation as that you cannot logically do what is best for both yourself and the other, then you have no logical alternative other than to choose one over the other. In doing so, you demonstrate which you love more.

Now, admittedly, in our minimalistic universe, such a situation wouldn't arise, but that would only be because there is no other reality that could interfere in such a way as to force the demonstration. Just because demonstration is not possible, however, it does not follow that the thing itself does not exist. In such a case, one would eternally love God or the self more than the other, and we could simply not demonstrate which to be the case. Saying "I love God as much as I love myself" could not practically be demonstrated false, but the logic, as shown above (possible world language, and all) would force one to state forthrightly which is the case.

I, then, maintain that it is impossible to love two beings in precisely the same way. One will be loved more than the other at any given moment, and while that may often not be demonstrated, occasionally, reality is so constituted that the disparity becomes plain to see.

[PoopShoot]

Jac:

1.  If I am still me, I will still choose to behave in a manner that benefits myself as well as society.  Others I know who are not "in Christ" will behave the same.  Some will not.  For that reason, hell will be nothing more than the world as it is now.  I'm ok with that.  The terrible place you describe requires the actual change of a person's essence wherein they will no longer have the capacity to benefit themselves and others around them on purely logical grounds.

2.  Neither AIDS nor malnutrition are a place created to put rapists and people with a poor diet.

3.  Your definition is theological, not ontological.  I KNOW that there are things that benefit myself and my species.  This is how I define "good".

[Thumpalumpacus]

[Davin]

Davin,

[spoiler:1e9ixjal]

1. Strictly speaking, "What if everyone evolved to feel pain" isn't any kind of argument whatsoever. However, in certain contexts, questions pose naturally as arguments, as Sophus' question was clearly doing. For instance, suppose you said to me, "We should take a different route. There was an accident on the street we always take, so we will be late if we go that way," to which I reply, "But what if it has already been cleaned up?" You can certainly be very technical and isolate the question so that it is not an argument, but that would obviously miss the point. In light of this, consider the conversation between Sophus and myself on this matter:

1. If morality is objective, God exists
2. Morality is objective
3. Therefore, God exists

I disagree with the first two. Well, actually all three.

1. Why should we assume such a thing? Why couldn't it mean we all evolved an objective sense of morality?
2. Morality is very very subjective, and depends upon numerous things, both within factors of "nature and nurture".

With regard to the first, I've already given a brief explanation here as well as a detailed explanation in the thread on Pascal's Wager. If morality is evolved, it is still completely subjective, because whatever value system it is based upon is still absolutely personal. It wouldn't matter if everyone agreed on it or not, the value system would still necessarily be personal. To argue broad agreement makes it objective would be a logical fallacy called an ad populum fallacy.

Thus, Sophus' objection in (1) above is either completely subjective, since it is the personal (albeit evolved) opinion of each individual, or it is an appeal to the masses, since it bases its argument in the fact that all people agree on this evolved morality.

You show know that many Christians make this very mistake. They argue that since everyone agrees that this or that is wrong, then it really must be wrong, and that is proof the both the moral law and of the Moral Law Giver. But you cannot go from everyone's agreement on a thing to the thing actually existing. A thing exists or not regardless of what people think about it. Common agreement means nothing on these matters. If, then, God did create a moral law that everyone is aware of, or if we all have evolved a moral law, we cannot know whether or not such laws exist (and if they do, if they do objectively so) by measuring how many people believe it. To do so is an appeal to the masses, which is just what Sophus' original counterargument runs the risk of doing. As I myself noted, he could, of course, make an appeal to personal belief, but then, such a morality is not objective after all, and therefore, his counterargument fails.

[/spoiler:1e9ixjal]It now appears that you're intentionally missing the point: it would be equivalent to all humans being able to see and agree on the objective things they see like that the sky is blue. What if that were the way things worked, that we all had some kind way to sense objective morality? Not an argumentum ad populum, more like "what if we all could see that the sky was blue?"

[spoiler:1e9ixjal]

2. Of course I am "arguing against the general reasons why people don't accept that general concept of hell, by using a different concept of hell?" That, however, is not moving any goalposts, unless, of course, I have changed my view on Hell and why we ought to believe it or not. What I have done is to concede that you are fundamentally right in your assessment that the traditional view of Hell is evil. I am presenting, then, a different view. The goal of disproving the traditional view of Hell has not been moved. It has been, I think, successfully reached. Disproving that view, however, is not the same as disproving all views. If it did, you would not believe in evolution since Lamarckism was long ago refuted.

Returning to the basic charge I laid, however, I have asserted that Hell is fundamentally consistent with a good God, if not believable, in the view I have presented. Having met the traditional argument, though, without acknowledging it at all, both posts went on to argue that I first have to even proof that Hell or God are real in the first place. Now, that could be viewed, as you noted, as irrelevant at best, or, as I noted, as moving the goalposts at worst. It is certainly the former, and perhaps only so if neither holds to the moral argument against the traditional view of Hell. If they do hold to that argument, however, I still consider it a textbook example of bad tactic.

[/spoiler:1e9ixjal]"That, however, is not moving any goalposts, unless, of course, I have changed my view on Hell and why we ought to believe it or not." That is the same thing for Asmodean and MartinTK, unless they changed their views, which they didn't in one post.

It's a text book example of a bad tactic to treat different concepts differently? You make very little sense, it's no where near "moving goal posts" for some one to treat that different argument differently from the other argument. You brought in a different argument, then called people that treated that different argument differently than they treated the other argument, "goal post movers?" Going around and accusing people of doing bad things they're not doing is a very bad argument tactic.

[spoiler:1e9ixjal]

Finally, in a later post you said:

It seems that what you're saying and with agreeing with J's summary, is that the only way to avoid hell, is to believe in god, is that right?

If so, does it have to be the belief in a specific god or will the belief in any god do?

I think we are reading J's summary differently. Here are his exact words:

People who don't die "in Christ," no matter how wonderful, loving, caring, creative they were, no matter how much joy they brought to themselves and others, no matter how much they loved their family as their family loved them, no matter what those people did to help others and selflessly work to improve others' lives, those people will be ressurected in what you call hell and all their goodness will be negated.

I don't see anything here about avoiding Hell by believing in God. I see something here about avoiding Hell by dying in Christ, which is just what I believe. You are an astute reader, though, and certainly careful in your details, so perhaps I have missed something in his words here or somewhere else (in the summary, of course) that imply that mere theism is enough to avoid Hell. If so, would you be so kind as to point them out, because I obviously do not believe that a generic belief in God saves. What saves is trusting in Jesus Christ for eternal life (John 6:47 - "Whoever believes in Me has eternal life").

[/spoiler:1e9ixjal]What is missing is the common knowledge premises that Jesus Christ has as much (really as little) evidence as Muhammad, Thor, Ra, Kirshnu, Lord Xenu, Unicorns, Dragons, Dancing Waffles... etc. so it's only fair to keep them on the same level of reality (not accepted as real).

So when there is insufficient evidence to believe in this Christ as the one true god/savior/half-ling/whatever, then we must suffer for it? That seems very much like a bad plan, like beating children and not telling them what they did wrong, because they should have already known what they did wrong. Why punish people for not believing in something they cannot be sure is accurate and as close to reality as possible?

Before you go onto a tangent about it not really being god punishing the people, remember he created everything. Even if it was a consequence beyond the power of god to prevent the suffering the people he created caused upon themselves: not ever existing is much better than eternal torture.