From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Subject: Re: Heaven/Hell (was: Re: Perfect Love)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 20:11:28 GMT

In article <2933831057.10.p00168@psilink.com> "James F. Tims" <p00168@psilink.com> writes:
>>DATE:   17 Dec 92 21:00:58 GMT
>>FROM:   Publius <pub@riscee.pko.dec.com>
>>
>>In article <1992Dec16.001353.3965@nmsu.edu> sdoe@nmsu.edu (Stephen Doe) writes:
>>>
>>> ... To me, the words "separation from God" have a neutral connotation--
>>> maybe no pleasure, but no pain either.

>> No pain?  You should talk to some of those little children who are, for
>> one reason or another, separated from their parents.  Ask them if
>> they feel pain in their hearts.  Or, are you one of those who believe
>> only the corporeal punishment causes pain and suffering?

> More than one fallacious argument per phrase.  Not bad.  
> 1. Presumption of ignorance (talking to the children would clear this up)
> 2. Generalizing from the specific (Were some parents molesters?)
> 3. Presumption of Result (The children will say they are suffering.)
> 5. Fallacy of the false question (Child has pain -> Away from god is pain.)
> 6. Fallacy of the false analogy (Child:parents/Adults:God)
> 7. Appeal to misery 
> 8. Fallacy of the straw man (anyone who would believe [x] sucks)
> 9. Argumentum ad hominem (This is your brain on logic, Publius)
>
> There are actually a few more in there.  Anybody else want to play?


Well, I'm not sure whether this is specifically what you intended by your
number 6, but in case it wasn't: the analogy of the child separated from
its parents assumes a definite temporal sequence. For some (sufficiently
long) period of time in the past, the child must have known its parents
intimately and developed an emotional attachment to them, hence the pain
of withdrawal. While Publius may imagine that he has such a relationship
with his God, the general individual and the atheist in particular can
hardly be analogised into the same position.

By way of a swift counterexample, I am an ex-Christian. Thus I have, in the
eyes of Publius if not my own, enjoyed such a relationship and then become
`separated from God'. The pain I feel as a result is, believe me, *minimal*.

I am finding Publius' continued interpretational contortions most fascinating,
not to say faintly scary. He is obviously an intelligent person, as evidenced
by the intellectual effort required to conceive and defend such a convoluted
exegetical position as one in which, for example, `cast into eternal hellfire'
doesn't involve eternal sufferering. The poor unfortunte is not as unfortunte
as a naive reading might indicate, apparently, and can expect to be hauled out
with barely a hair out of place and well before breaking into a sweat.

But then Publius tells us that there *will* nevertheless be eternal suffering!

But it's courtesy of Separation From God, now revealed to be the intended
meaning of `The Eternal Fires Of Hell', rather than The Fires themselves.
But for some reason the fires still exist, and eternally at that, yet not
for the biblically stated purpose of frying the damned, but merely so that
transgressors may suffer a little, by way of a warm-up, before suffering
the *true* meaning of the phrase, which as we now know is Separation From God.

He then offers an appallingly poor analogy in defence of the idea that this
is True Suffering, and one which he must surely expect a person with not even
one tenth of his own IQ to see through like a shot. Reason and logic turned on
and off as though at the flick of a switch, as demanded of its defender by
the agenda which Publius has the misfortune to find himself in bed with.
This is the idea that yes, there *will* be suffering, and yes, it'll be
eternal, and yes, it'll *really* *hurt*, but no, God isn't a nasty vicious
bastard like those who torture others with hellfire, eternal or not. He's a
loving father figure, and if you end up suffering then it's your fault not
His, which dogma is rather blown out of the water by the eternal and
intentional infliction of fiery torment, per the words on the page.

*Whatever* exegesis is required to sustain this position, Publius can be
expected to insist is correct, no matter how idiotic or inconsistent it is,
because he will suspend reason itself if necessary, as it most assuredly is.

Mr. Doe is doing a fine and deadpan job in reply, which is exactly how it
should be done, and I confess he's doing it with far more composure than I
imagine I could muster in the face of such `reason swings'. Both Mr. Doe
and Publius, in very different ways, are providing fine object lessons all
round.

Cheers

Simon
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          "If only his fear were of the eternal flames of hell
             perhaps he would open his mind up to reality."
        -- Dennis Bednarek on talk.religion.misc, 16 Dec 1992