• Rooskie91@discuss.online
    3·
    6 days ago

    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@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      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.

      • salarua@sopuli.xyzEnglish
        4·
        6 days ago

        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.

        • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl
          3·
          6 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?

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
        0·
        6 days ago

        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.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
            3·
            6 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@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 days ago

          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…

      • blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io
        11·
        6 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… ☹️”

  • Punkie@lemmy.world
    0·
    6 days ago

    I would argue that as god’s creation, sentences like that made by mortals are the true test of faith: what you know to be true versus what some angry person tells you. I’d like to think if this mythos is real, that those that stayed openly gay, for example, and didn’t hurt anyone were given the gold star upon arrival to heaven like, “You passed! You passed the test of faith! I knew you could do it, I believed in you!” And those that hid their gayness or condemned others, “Aw… sorry buddy. better luck next time, okay?”

    Also, I keep seeing people quoting stuff outside of the bible like biblical truth, like The Rapture, and stuff from Dante’s Inferno which is, at best, Bible fan-fic.