From: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: The After-life
Reply-To: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
Organization: Minimal.
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 07:32:13 GMT

In article <18267@oasys.dt.navy.mil> lung@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Terence Lung) writes:
>In article <1992Apr7.012115.7172@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>,
>erisande@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Erin Anderson) writes:
>>>	Question...  If there is such a Being as God, or whatever they
>>>call him now, IF he exists, Then how can Hell be pos[s]ible?  My ...
>
>small remark:  Hell is the absence of God.  Life can be hell.

Okay.  If that's the case, then there's no real problem, *provided* that
one can get out of hell (i.e., absence of God) when one wants to.

>In article <1992Apr10.202524.26862@tc.fluke.COM> emery@tc.fluke.COM (John Emery) writes:
>>He doesn't, Eric [Erin].   He wills completely the opposite.  In fact 
>>He has gone to radical extremes to prevent this from happening, even to the
>>point of sending His own eternal Son to pay the penalty due us.
>
>From: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
>>This "God" SET UP THE RULES.  And here you [John Emery] are claiming 
>>that "He has gone to radical extremes to prevent this (people going 
>>to Hell) from happening".
>
>WRONG.  Yes, "God" did set up the rules, BUT so that YOU [everyone]
>get to set up the rules.  

Oh, bull.  If that were the case, we'd be omnipotent.

>Whether you let God into your life is YOUR 
>choice NOT His.  You will always be EMPOWERED to reject Him from your life.  

Which is fine as far as things go.  But if what you say is true, then
why the fancy pyrotechnics?  Why didn't God simply say as much (and
arrange things that way to begin with): "If you want to be with me, I
have no problem with that.  If you don't want to be with me, I have no
problem with that, either".

>IMHO, the day you die, you have no more choices, the window of opportunity 
>has closed, and you will eternally be without Him if you never sought Him.  

And this *flies* in the face of the concept of a "loving" God.  Do you
really think that a truly loving God would INFINITELY penalize someone
for FINITE acts?

And just how do you define "sought" here?  I've questioned the existence
of God, and I've searched for evidence of God.  In a very real sense, I
have "sought" God.  Yet you appear to believe that this is not sufficient,
and thus is not how you define "sought".

>God has been begging you to let Him into your life nevertheless 
>(to radical extremes--see J Emery's note above).  If that's not clear, 
>maybe you do not hear the like of John Emery, who to some extent, 
>are the means by which God now uses to get his messages across.  

Yeah, right.  "You're just not listening hard enough".  Strange how a
God that wants my love and attention so badly (a) has done *nothing*
to make his presence known to me (and obviously has had similar
problems with a *lot* of other people, since there exist so many
*conflicting* religions all claiming to be the One True Way to God),
and (b) sets up all these extra bullshit rules that "must" be followed.

What, is your God a wimp or something?  Is it just that he likes to
play games?  What's the deal?  He created the universe, he can easily
deal with his creations in a *sensible* fashion, i.e. one conducive
to both him *and* his creations.

Yet here you are claiming, in effect, that he *doesn't* do this.  You
claim that one must follow all these arbitrary rules.

>Big miracles just don't seem to work, the compassion of your fellow 
>humans does.  

"Compassion".  Yeah, right.  "Compassion" as in "believe or fry"???

Christians do not seem to be any more compassionate as a group than
any other group I've encountered.  Indeed, they (as a group) seem to
be *less* compassionate than some groups I have encountered.

>The substance lies in the peace in the hearts of those 
>who've stopped rejecting God.  

That's something that I simply cannot evaluate.  I'm not a mindreader.
But I will say this: despite appearances, I'm quite at peace with
myself and the world.  And I know a number of people who are *more*
at peace with themselves and the world NOW THAT THEY HAVE REJECTED
CHRISTIANITY.

Got an explanation for that one???

>From who else will you ever find such 
>abundance of stringless love.  

Hahahahaha!  "Stringless love"?  You mean the love that these people
show in such "abundance" to their homosexual brothers?

>(For starters, you will not find an 
>agnostic Mother Teresa or Salvation Army.)  

There are probably others on this newsgroup who can address this point
much better than I can, as I tend not to track who the best "dogooders"
in the world are.  Suffice it to say, however, that I don't buy the
idea that Christians have a monopoly on love, charity, or compassion.
I'm quite sure there are lots of agnostics, atheists, Buddhists, etc.,
that have these attributes in large quantities.

>They have allowed the most
>radically extreme and eternal source of love into their ministries.
>
>Kevin continues,
>>If your "God" set up the rules (defined consequences of things, etc.), he
>>can CHANGE THEM AT WILL.  Yet your "God" DOESN'T EVEN BOTHER.
>
>Maybe He DOESN'T EVEN BOTHER TO CHANGE THE RULES because maybe my lord 
>and "God" seems to think our free will and independence is important.

You don't get it, do you?  God can define the consequences of things
*differently* and do so *without* affecting free will.

You don't believe me?

Then tell me how the following violates free will:

    God arranges things such that there is no eternal punishment for
    anything.  Rather, he arranges for everyone to have eternal life
    automatically, and allows people to come to him or leave him as
    they please.  Free will is preserved because people can still
    choose to come to God or not of their own free will, and even change
    their mind at any time.

    Now *there's* a solution in which *everyone* wins.  "God" wins because
    he maximizes the likelihood that any given person will eventually come
    to him (given an infinite amount of time and a nonzero probability
    that any given individual will come to him, everyone eventually will).
    All the people win because they never die, and have infinite opportunity
    to do whatever pleases them (God can even arrange for people to be able
    to "kill" others, only to resurrect the victim, so that those who take
    pleasure in killing can do so without doing any permanent harm).

Well???

*I* claim that it does a *better* job of giving people free will than
your system does, because your choice is *never* restricted in *any*
way in the above.

>If you want to get fancy, you will find that His RULES ARE DUE TO CHANGE.
>IMHO, you'd better not wait for the new rules.

Why should he have to change the rules at all?  Why doesn't he simply
set things up optimally, much the way I described above, and leave it
at that?

>Kevin goes on,
>>Instead, he makes demands: "Love Me Or Else You Will Be Dead".
>>"Believe In Me Or You Will Roast For Eternity".  Etc., ad nauseum.
>
>Not "Love Me or Else You Will Be Dead" but "I Am the Giver of Life,
>Stop Rejecting Me if You Want to Live."

Sorry, but those are semantically *identical*.

>>So: would you have us believe that your "God" is too *stupid* to come
>>up with the idea I outlined above?  Because if not, then it means that
>>your "God" *deliberately* set things up otherwise (having thought of my
>>idea and *discarded* it), and that makes him either a big asshole (for
>>deliberately setting things up such that people suffer eternally for
>>FINITE acts and decisions) or a wimpy incompetent (for not being *able*
>>to set things up a better way).
>>
>>So, which is it?  Is your "God" malicious or a wimpy incompetent?  Given
>>your beliefs about how things supposedly work, you really haven't got any
>>other choices.
>
>With the current choices, which do you choose?

If I had to believe the same way you do, I'd prefer to believe that God
is a wimpy incompetent.  At least that makes him innocent in some sense.

Fortunately for me, I don't have to believe the way you do.

>BTW, why does the above sound, at present, like a voice of rejection?

Probably because I have a great deal of trouble believing things that
are mutually exclusive.  For some reason, you seem not to have such
trouble.

>Terence

>ps  When you do seek Him, do remember who YOU are relative to 
>who He is.  

Sorry, I've already tried.  All I heard was silence.

>(Note:  My own searches for God were fruitless until 
>I stopped trying to set my own terms and conditions on Him.  I now 
>realize that true foolishness lies in trying to set one's own 
>conditions on the creator of the universe.)

Set my own conditions?  Hardly.  It's not *my* fault I can't believe
two mutually exclusive things simultaneously.  I seem to have been,
if you will pardon the expression, created that way.

		Kevin Brown (kevin@taronga.taronga.com)