A brief history of Hell

Cypress said:
That's because you have inherited, adopted, and accept the moral standard of Jesus and the New Testament, in which the value of human life, mercy, and universal love are elevated as the ethical bar to aim for.

In the Bronze Age, the flood story and Passover seem perfectly justifiable. The world had become sinful and corrupt, requiring a divine act to reintroduce righteousness in the world.

Freeing Yahweh's people from cruel bondage was perfectly understandable in the Bronze Age as an act of retributive Justice. The killing of Egyptian first born was a last resort, and was payback for Egyptian murder of Israelite first borns.

Religion evolves just like science and art. I think most Reform and Conservative Rabbinic Jews look at the Torah through a 21st century filter, not a Bronze Age filter.
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Religion has always held back human progress.
 
Cypress said:
Religion evolves just like science and art.
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For some reason, this strikes me as open-mindedness gone out of control.

I'm incapable of comparing neurotic superstition with either science or art,
but in fairness, I've never been as wildly open-minded as our man Cypress.
 
BidenPresident said:
Religion has always held back human progress.
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Religion held early civilizations together, but I agree on the Goldilocks Theory of too much and too little in human society. In the scientific era, it's often too much which holds back progress. The Scopes Monkey Trial and Stem Cell research being two examples.
 
Doc Dutch said:
The most fertile areas for crops are in flood zones so it's pretty easy to see why such civilizations would have flood stories over nomadic groups.
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They certainly didn't understand the science of hydrology, so from a Bronze Age perspective, it makes sense that they saw divine purpose behind it
 
NiftyNiblick said:
For some reason, this strikes me as open-mindedness gone out of control.

I'm incapable of comparing neurotic superstition with either science or art,
but in fairness, I've never been as wildly open-minded as our man Cypress.
Click to expand...

Modern Rabbinic Reform Judaism doesn't resemble anything like the religion of the ancient Israelites, so I believe I am on solid ground saying religions evolve.
 
Cypress said:
Modern Rabbinic Reform Judaism doesn't resemble anything like the religion of the ancient Israelites, so I believe I am on solid ground saying religions evolve.
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I totally agree, C.
No argument at all.
They clearly evolve.

The issue is whether or not one might choose to compare
religion to art of science,
since few claim that the latter two disciplines
are artifacts of insanity.
 
BidenPresident said:
Religion has always held back human progress.
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^ More of a slogan, than an actual historical analysis.

I think religion was and is reactionary is some important ways.

In other ways, it was fundamentally essential to the progress of western civilization, from the preservation of literacy, the recovery and preservation of ancient Greek knowledge, the establishment of the first universities. Some people think the Protestant reformation indirectly led to modern capitalism and democracy.
 
Cypress said:
^ More of a slogan, than an actual historical analysis.

I think religion was reactionary is some ways.

In other ways, it was fundamentally essential to the progress of western civilization, from the preservation of literacy, the recovery and preservation of ancient Greek knowledge, the establishment of the first universities. Some people think the Protestant reformation indirectly led to modern capitalism and democracy.
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^troll
 
Cypress said:
They certainly didn't understand the science of hydrology, so from a Bronze Age perspective, it makes sense that they saw divine purpose behind it
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Some people still don't. Boulder, Colorado sits at the end of a canyon waiting for 1,000 year flood, one of which happened in 2013. Same for Californians living on an earthquake fault not understanding plate tectonics.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/configurable/content/journals$002fbams$002f96$002f9$002fbams-d-13-00241.1.xml
During the period of 9–16 September 2013, a large area of heavy rainfall, with local amounts exceeding 450 mm, fell over a broad region of the Colorado Front Range foothills and adjacent plains (Figs. 1, 2). An event timeline shown in Fig. 3 chronicles the sequence of events both leading up to and following the core periods of heavy rainfall and flooding. The most intense, widespread, and persistent rainfall along the Front Range occurred on 11–12 September. While flash flooding from locally heavy rainfall in mountain canyons is not uncommon in this region, many characteristics of the September 2013 floods were exceptional. These characteristics include the protracted duration of heavy rainfall and the widespread spatial extent and prolonged duration of flooding days to weeks following the cessation of rainfall. Not only were flooding impacts felt in narrow mountain canyons, but flooding across the Front Range combined into a large-scale, multistate flood event as tributary waters swelled and flowed down the South Platte River onto the high plains across northeast Colorado and into Nebraska.

full-bams-d-13-00241.1-f1.jpg
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Doc Dutch said:
Some people still don't. Boulder, Colorado sits at the end of a canyon waiting for 1,000 year flood, one of which happened in 2013. Same for Californians living on an earthquake fault not understanding plate tectonics.

https://journals.ametsoc.org/configurable/content/journals$002fbams$002f96$002f9$002fbams-d-13-00241.1.xml
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Hiking in those box canyons in the Southwest is a sketchy proposition.

I don't know any area of the country where one isn't at risk from natural disaster, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, flood.

The thing about the San Andreas is to pick the right location. Earthquakes in and of themselves don't kill. The structures people live in kill.
 
Cypress said:
Hiking in those box canyons in the Southwest is a sketchy proposition.

I don't know any area of the country where one isn't at risk from natural disaster, earthquake, hurricane, tornado, flood.

The thing about the San Andreas is to pick the right location. Earthquakes in and of themselves don't kill. The structures people live in kill.
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True in the US. Not so much in Canada or Europe. LOL

Not an expert, but falling rocks and open crevasses can kill. Usually, you're right, it's structures collapsing.
 
Cypress said:
That's because you have inherited, adopted, and accepted the moral standard of Jesus and the New Testament, in which the value of human life, mercy, and universal love are elevated as the ethical bar to aim for.
Click to expand...
Jesus is God. Are you saying Jesus/God changed his mind about what is/isn't moral?
In the Bronze Age, the flood story and Passover would seem perfectly justifiable. The world had become sinful and corrupt, requiring a divine act to reintroduce righteousness in the world.
Click to expand...
Passover would seem perfectly moral to imperfect, iron age men who also thought it ok to kill their children to appease their gods. If we know that is wrong today, it would be literally impossible for God to not know something immoral now wasn't immoral then.
Freeing Yahweh's people from cruel bondage was perfectly understandable in the Bronze Age as an act of retributive Justice. The killing of Egyptian first born was a last resort, and was payback for Egyptian murder of Israelite first borns.
Click to expand...
He's God. He could have just "moved" them as he pleased or done any number of completely moral things to accomplish the same goal. Or he could have known, as an all-knowing being would, that his people were going to be enslaved and stopped it before it happened.
Religion evolves just like science and art. I think most Reform and Conservative Rabbinic Jews look at God and the Torah through a 21st century filter, not a Bronze Age filter.
Click to expand...
Many religions have evolved as religious behavior become untenable by MAN'S standards.
 
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ZenMode said:
Jesus is God. Are you saying Jesus/God changed his mind about what is/isn't moral? Passover would seem perfectly moral to imperfect, iron age men who also thought it ok to kill their children to appease their gods. If we know that is wrong today, it would be literally impossible for God to not know something immoral now wasn't immoral then. He's God. He could have just "moved" them as he pleased or done any number of completely moral things to accomplish the same goal. Or he could have as an all-knowing being would, that his people were going to be enslaved and stopped it.
Many religions have evolved as last religious behavior become untenable by MAN'S standards.
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QED on the militant atheist who is actually not an atheist but just angry for God making him the way he is. :)
 
Cypress said:
A brief history of hell

Hell is mentioned sparingly in the Bible, with many references being either ambiguous or mistranslations. Each era since has refashioned hell in its own image, for better and for worse.

Given its prominence in imagery and storytelling, it is surprising that hell doesn’t appear much in the Bible. In fact, most of its references to Satan’s scorching domain are the result of later translators mapping their views onto older, and quite distinct, concepts of the afterlife. This means hell as we understand it today is an afterlife the biblical writers had no real conception of.

In the Old Testament, Sheol is a far cry from hell. Rather than a realm designed to punish sinners, Sheol is a place where all souls congregate and exist in listless nothingness. There is no pain or suffering, but neither is there joy or celebration.

Even in the New Testament, references to hell are sparse. Jesus, Christianity’s central figure, and Saint Paul, its founding missionary, did preach about existential comeuppance. But in our earliest Christian writings — Paul’s epistles and the Gospels of Mark and Matthew — neither warned of a hellfire awaiting sinners.

The fate befalling those who turned their backs on God wouldn’t be an eternal sentence. They would simply be annihilated. Many of Jesus’ parables warn of this.

This appears to have been the teaching of both Paul and Jesus. But it was eventually changed by later Christians, who came to affirm not only eternal joy for the saints but eternal torment for the sinners, creating the irony that throughout the ages most Christians have believed in a hell that did not exist for either of the founders of Christianity,”
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You do not know The Bible, boy. What does Jesus say about those that would lure the little ones away from him?
 
ZenMode said:
I'm an atheist. That doesn't mean I can't talk about the Bible/God/Jesus.
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You can talk about Santa Claus too, but if you ran around blaming Santa Claus for giving coal to certain kids, it'd be evidence you believe in Santa Claus.
 
Cypress said:
A brief history of hell

Hell is mentioned sparingly in the Bible, with many references being either ambiguous or mistranslations. Each era since has refashioned hell in its own image, for better and for worse.

Given its prominence in imagery and storytelling, it is surprising that hell doesn’t appear much in the Bible. In fact, most of its references to Satan’s scorching domain are the result of later translators mapping their views onto older, and quite distinct, concepts of the afterlife. This means hell as we understand it today is an afterlife the biblical writers had no real conception of.

In the Old Testament, Sheol is a far cry from hell. Rather than a realm designed to punish sinners, Sheol is a place where all souls congregate and exist in listless nothingness. There is no pain or suffering, but neither is there joy or celebration.

Even in the New Testament, references to hell are sparse. Jesus, Christianity’s central figure, and Saint Paul, its founding missionary, did preach about existential comeuppance. But in our earliest Christian writings — Paul’s epistles and the Gospels of Mark and Matthew — neither warned of a hellfire awaiting sinners.

The fate befalling those who turned their backs on God wouldn’t be an eternal sentence. They would simply be annihilated. Many of Jesus’ parables warn of this.

This appears to have been the teaching of both Paul and Jesus. But it was eventually changed by later Christians, who came to affirm not only eternal joy for the saints but eternal torment for the sinners, creating the irony that throughout the ages most Christians have believed in a hell that did not exist for either of the founders of Christianity,”
Click to expand...

You discuss the metaphysical eternity hell from hope, faith charity promising better tomorrows each rotation of the planet, but I dare you to describe the physical one that has existed since the dawn of civilization?
 
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