6 ms·

It's easy (or at least easier) to be open and honest about our faults and failures when no one is telling us we'll burn in eternal damnation for them.

frockington 8y ago
That's not really a thing in Christianity, Jesus had that whole "let he without sin cast the first stone" thing or whatever it was
- rosser 8y ago
  It may not have a thing for Jesus, or the Bible, but it's very much a thing for Christianity. Yet another illustration of the fundamental divergence of that institution from its origins.
  - mistermann 8y ago
    > but it's very much a thing for Christianity I wonder if you might explain what exactly you mean by this, and to what degree you believe it is a thing. And to be very, very clear: I'm asking this absolutely sincerely. Not in a clever or trolling manner, but rather, I am asking in an epistemological sense.
    - rosser 8y ago
      I grew up in a couple different Christian traditions, and have known and spoken about this question with people with backgrounds, and/or who currently worship in many others. I have friends and family who follow every denomination from Catholic, to Lutheran, to Evangelical, between, and beyond. The notions of Hell and damnation not uncommon, though certainly not universal, in the practice of Christianity, particularly among the laity. Doctrinally, it's less overt, especially among the more liberal traditions, but even there (I'm specifically thinking of Episcopalian and Methodist lineages, here), it's not unheard of. EDIT: ...in my experience.
      - mistermann 8y ago
        I think the general theme is going to be ever-present in any Christian religious teachings, but in your experience, do you feel like "heavy emphasis" was put on that particular idea, and especially as a motivating factor for controlling behavior or allegiance....as a tool to manipulate? And if it isn't confidential, the people you're familiar with, is that restricted to a fairly tight geographical region, or quite spread out? I'm wondering if perhaps it is the case that there are somewhat distinct regional flavors of religious teaching. If this was the case, with a generally more mobile populace, families often tending to live further apart, one would expect this to decrease over time, especially with young people who've moved away from family, although any number of things could cause a change in younger generations.
        rosser 8y ago
        How overtly employed varies widely, but yes; generally I did and do see it as a tool of control. That the notion is so widespread gives it social proof, so however contrary to doctrine or scripture it might be, it drives our behavior at a far deeper level. As for your second question, there's a significant subset of my sample population that's moderately geographically bound (Plains and Upper Midwest), but I have people of faith from all over, including internationally, in my social graph, and see some variation on the notion almost across it. I agree that as people spread out, the phenomenon tends to diminish. Research has shown that a profoundly effective mechanism for combatting insular beliefs is exposure to people who don't share them. Not enough people do that to meaningfully combat the phenomenon, though; something over half of Americans have never left the country, and the median distance adult Americans live from their mother is, IIRC, under 20 miles. As well, people who move out of places where Hell is more of a thing may lose the belief, some, but many of them are probably leaving because they don't share the belief, to whatever degree, and people who move to those places might already believe it themselves, or may face a group that's selected, positively or negatively (by people leaving) for holding it.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > It may not have a thing for Jesus, or the Bible It absolutely was, though. For the Bible, at least, including, in the Bible, Jesus specifically (it's not like we have independent contemporaneous authority besides the Bible on what Jesus said or believed.)
- simcop2387 8y ago
  It depends on which sect and tradition of Christianity, there's a lot in the south eastern USA that preach about fire and brimstone like that. They don't usually go on about specific people, but people in general so they're skirting the whole without sin thing. I remember in particular a number of Southern Baptist preachers that were like this. I can't say that it's their chosen doctrine since I was never a Southern Baptist nor have I studied anything around it, but they were always prevalent where I grew up (middle of nowhere North Carolina). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_brimstone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_brimstone
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Jesus had that whole "let he without sin cast the first stone" thing or whatever it was That didn't contradict eternal punishment in Hell for unrepentant sinners, it was just one of many ways Jesus conveyed the message of “stop usurping God's role by judging and punishing everyone else's sins—which is a sin itself—and focus on stopping and atoning for yours, because it's the right thing to do and, also, eternal hellfire.”
RobertRoberts 8y ago
An eternal hell fire is Greek/Roman mythology, it was only merged with Christianity because of the Roman Catholic Church. The bible never says anywhere people burn forever. There are numerous statements about death being like sleep, and a second death being permanent and you are just gone, no torture. One metaphorical story sort of implies one person was burning, so I think that is why people think it's from the bible.
- svat 8y ago
  Where in Greek/Roman mythology do you find an eternal hell fire? That sounds very surprising to me...
  - RobertRoberts 8y ago
    Dante's Inferno is a good place to start, but I am looking up the Catholic teachings I have read about in the past... (edit: refer to comment above, no need for me to copy/paste it twice) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)
    - svat 8y ago
      How does Dante, who placed all the Greeks and Romans in the first circle of hell (for being non-Christian) lend any plausibility to this idea being present in Greek/Roman mythology? And in fact the article you linked makes no such claim.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > An eternal hell fire is Greek/Roman mythology, it was only merged with Christianity because of the Roman Catholic Church. No, it's actually (a version of) the Jewish myth of Gehenna [0], and it's incorporated into Christianity because it is referenced directly in the Bible, both the general named myth as a place people are cast for punishment (many times, in all three synoptic Gospels plus James) and the specific equation with it being a place of unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43). [0] which may at some point and in some details have been influenced by Greco-Roman mythology, but had quite a long history within pre-Christian Judaism, arising out of references to it as a specific physical place where child sacrifice by fire occurred in the Hebrew Bible.
toyg 8y ago
I despise religions as the next man, but they are as popular as they are for a reason: they usually include collections of practical strategies to achieve your goals in life, which actually work very well for a lot of people. The most skilful ones have accumulated millennia of empirical testing and refinements. There is a lot of top-notch “self-help” advice buried in religious teachings, if you can ignore the superstitious and moralistic aspects. It took me decades to understand it, because I grew up hating secular bureaucracies spawned by religion (which are, more often than not, primarily interested in their own survival and as useful as the next bureaucracy - i.e. not at all). I wish I could find a book doing with the practices of organised religion what Joseph Campbell did with myth and storytelling.
- solipsism 8y ago
  These norms and best practices don't spawn from religion. They come from human civilization. Many happen to be encoded in religions, but they're not "only" encoded in religions. Most (all?) of the useful "self help" is available elsewhere, as common knowledge or encoded into social norms or pushed by other organizations (e.g. sports or boy/girl scouts or whatever). My point is that there's no special knowledge to be found in religions and I'm happy to recommend ignoring them, since they tend to be full of more bad than good.

frockington 8y ago

That's not really a thing in Christianity, Jesus had that whole "let he without sin cast the first stone" thing or whatever it was

rosser 8y ago
It may not have a thing for Jesus, or the Bible, but it's very much a thing for Christianity. Yet another illustration of the fundamental divergence of that institution from its origins.
- mistermann 8y ago
  > but it's very much a thing for Christianity I wonder if you might explain what exactly you mean by this, and to what degree you believe it is a thing. And to be very, very clear: I'm asking this absolutely sincerely. Not in a clever or trolling manner, but rather, I am asking in an epistemological sense.
  - rosser 8y ago
    I grew up in a couple different Christian traditions, and have known and spoken about this question with people with backgrounds, and/or who currently worship in many others. I have friends and family who follow every denomination from Catholic, to Lutheran, to Evangelical, between, and beyond. The notions of Hell and damnation not uncommon, though certainly not universal, in the practice of Christianity, particularly among the laity. Doctrinally, it's less overt, especially among the more liberal traditions, but even there (I'm specifically thinking of Episcopalian and Methodist lineages, here), it's not unheard of. EDIT: ...in my experience.
    - mistermann 8y ago
      I think the general theme is going to be ever-present in any Christian religious teachings, but in your experience, do you feel like "heavy emphasis" was put on that particular idea, and especially as a motivating factor for controlling behavior or allegiance....as a tool to manipulate? And if it isn't confidential, the people you're familiar with, is that restricted to a fairly tight geographical region, or quite spread out? I'm wondering if perhaps it is the case that there are somewhat distinct regional flavors of religious teaching. If this was the case, with a generally more mobile populace, families often tending to live further apart, one would expect this to decrease over time, especially with young people who've moved away from family, although any number of things could cause a change in younger generations.
      - rosser 8y ago
        How overtly employed varies widely, but yes; generally I did and do see it as a tool of control. That the notion is so widespread gives it social proof, so however contrary to doctrine or scripture it might be, it drives our behavior at a far deeper level. As for your second question, there's a significant subset of my sample population that's moderately geographically bound (Plains and Upper Midwest), but I have people of faith from all over, including internationally, in my social graph, and see some variation on the notion almost across it. I agree that as people spread out, the phenomenon tends to diminish. Research has shown that a profoundly effective mechanism for combatting insular beliefs is exposure to people who don't share them. Not enough people do that to meaningfully combat the phenomenon, though; something over half of Americans have never left the country, and the median distance adult Americans live from their mother is, IIRC, under 20 miles. As well, people who move out of places where Hell is more of a thing may lose the belief, some, but many of them are probably leaving because they don't share the belief, to whatever degree, and people who move to those places might already believe it themselves, or may face a group that's selected, positively or negatively (by people leaving) for holding it.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > It may not have a thing for Jesus, or the Bible It absolutely was, though. For the Bible, at least, including, in the Bible, Jesus specifically (it's not like we have independent contemporaneous authority besides the Bible on what Jesus said or believed.)
simcop2387 8y ago
It depends on which sect and tradition of Christianity, there's a lot in the south eastern USA that preach about fire and brimstone like that. They don't usually go on about specific people, but people in general so they're skirting the whole without sin thing. I remember in particular a number of Southern Baptist preachers that were like this. I can't say that it's their chosen doctrine since I was never a Southern Baptist nor have I studied anything around it, but they were always prevalent where I grew up (middle of nowhere North Carolina). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_brimstone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_brimstone
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Jesus had that whole "let he without sin cast the first stone" thing or whatever it was That didn't contradict eternal punishment in Hell for unrepentant sinners, it was just one of many ways Jesus conveyed the message of “stop usurping God's role by judging and punishing everyone else's sins—which is a sin itself—and focus on stopping and atoning for yours, because it's the right thing to do and, also, eternal hellfire.”

RobertRoberts 8y ago

An eternal hell fire is Greek/Roman mythology, it was only merged with Christianity because of the Roman Catholic Church. The bible never says anywhere people burn forever. There are numerous statements about death being like sleep, and a second death being permanent and you are just gone, no torture. One metaphorical story sort of implies one person was burning, so I think that is why people think it's from the bible.

svat 8y ago
Where in Greek/Roman mythology do you find an eternal hell fire? That sounds very surprising to me...
- RobertRoberts 8y ago
  Dante's Inferno is a good place to start, but I am looking up the Catholic teachings I have read about in the past... (edit: refer to comment above, no need for me to copy/paste it twice) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)
  - svat 8y ago
    How does Dante, who placed all the Greeks and Romans in the first circle of hell (for being non-Christian) lend any plausibility to this idea being present in Greek/Roman mythology? And in fact the article you linked makes no such claim.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> An eternal hell fire is Greek/Roman mythology, it was only merged with Christianity because of the Roman Catholic Church. No, it's actually (a version of) the Jewish myth of Gehenna [0], and it's incorporated into Christianity because it is referenced directly in the Bible, both the general named myth as a place people are cast for punishment (many times, in all three synoptic Gospels plus James) and the specific equation with it being a place of unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43). [0] which may at some point and in some details have been influenced by Greco-Roman mythology, but had quite a long history within pre-Christian Judaism, arising out of references to it as a specific physical place where child sacrifice by fire occurred in the Hebrew Bible.

toyg 8y ago

I despise religions as the next man, but they are as popular as they are for a reason: they usually include collections of practical strategies to achieve your goals in life, which actually work very well for a lot of people. The most skilful ones have accumulated millennia of empirical testing and refinements. There is a lot of top-notch “self-help” advice buried in religious teachings, if you can ignore the superstitious and moralistic aspects. It took me decades to understand it, because I grew up hating secular bureaucracies spawned by religion (which are, more often than not, primarily interested in their own survival and as useful as the next bureaucracy - i.e. not at all). I wish I could find a book doing with the practices of organised religion what Joseph Campbell did with myth and storytelling.

solipsism 8y ago
These norms and best practices don't spawn from religion. They come from human civilization. Many happen to be encoded in religions, but they're not "only" encoded in religions. Most (all?) of the useful "self help" is available elsewhere, as common knowledge or encoded into social norms or pushed by other organizations (e.g. sports or boy/girl scouts or whatever). My point is that there's no special knowledge to be found in religions and I'm happy to recommend ignoring them, since they tend to be full of more bad than good.