…and this is a 
That holy flail
Category: Religion
Posted on: October 30, 2007 2:05 PM, by PZ Myers
Guilt-ridden Christian: If I don't obey God, he's going to make me suffer for all eternity.
Evil-angelical Christian: I don't make you obey God, I'll be responsible for your eternal suffering.
That link will take you to a despicably manipulative video on GodTube — a dramatized letter from Hell in which a young fellow about to be thrown into the Lake of Fire screams at his still living, Christian friend for not doing enough to save him. It is genuinely vile. It is an attempt to turn a positive social value, friendship, into a rationale for browbeating people into abandoning reason and accepting a superstitious lie.
Christianity is all about death, suffering, fear, guilt, and coercion. It's a damnable doctrine that preys on the good people want to do and turns it into a corrupting servility to a wretched dogma.
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Comments
It's not just an attempt, it seems to me that they've succeeded in making it a rationale.
And of course if he was christian, he wouldn't have drank any beers and wouldn't have ended up in the pit of fire.
Posted by: ilya | October 30, 2007 2:15 PM
"Christianity is all about death, suffering, fear, guilt, and coercion."
There's also a lot of stuff about love, redemption, and salvation, but I guess it doesn't fit your overarching hypothesis that religion is 100% evil.
Posted by: notthedroids | October 30, 2007 2:18 PM
It's not PZ's fault that religion doesn't live up to its hype.
Posted by: dogmeatIB | October 30, 2007 2:20 PM
But guess what? It is possible to have love without death, suffering, fear, guilt and coercion. And we don't need redemption or salvation. But I guess that doesn't fit your overarching hypothesis that religion is worth anything at all.
Posted by: Will E. | October 30, 2007 2:21 PM
Crap fest.
Posted by: Moses | October 30, 2007 2:23 PM
As someone who was raised Catholic, the question of whether or not God existed personally went hand-in-hand with whether or not he was worthy of worship.
It was thoughts of hell that caused me to conclude that he was a monstrous, despicable being whom I would be proud to stand toe-to-toe with and tell off just before being thrown in the lake of fire with all the rest of the good people being punished for the most trivial and capricious reasons.
Thanks, you evangelical fuckers, for again reminding me how much derision, scorn, and disgust your vision of God deserves.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 30, 2007 2:24 PM
People keep using that word, Love. I do not think it means what you think it means.
By no definition of love does anything your sick fucking deity do qualify.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 30, 2007 2:26 PM
I know. I know. Noone ever actually listens. However:
The contention is NOT that Christianity is 100% Evil, and Atheism is 100% good.
The contention is that Good and Evil exist in equal amounts whether you take religion or not.
People are people. Religion doesn't make them any better people.
That's why Atheists trot out horrible acts committed by Christians. The point isn't to show that all Christians are horrible. The point is that _Christians still do horrible things_. Being Christian does not exempt you from being a horrible person.
Posted by: Brendan S | October 30, 2007 2:30 PM
It would be really nice to be able to dismiss this as the work of some isolated nutter. The hundreds of positive comments show that it is a terrifying glimpse into a shared world-view.
My "favorite":
Posted by: Altabin | October 30, 2007 2:31 PM
Please tell me I'm not the only person who found that video horrifying. This is a vision of God as a vindictive despot, one who rules through fear and suffering. How can anyone possibly love a deity that so callously condemns billions of decent human beings to eternal torture when He Himself has been so lackadaisical making sure we know what the rules are?
This is obscene. If this is truly God's mercy, give me Satan.
Posted by: Master Mahan | October 30, 2007 2:35 PM
"The contention is that Good and Evil exist in equal amounts whether you take religion or not."
Not according to PZ. According to PZ, "Christianity is all about death, suffering, fear, guilt, and coercion."
Posted by: notthedroids | October 30, 2007 2:38 PM
Well then, notthedroids, give us the peace, love, and understanding version, if it exists.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 30, 2007 2:40 PM
Please, they're all promises made on the threat of pain and suffering for all eternity.
Love - You'll know God's love if you follow all these crazy rules, including hating your fellow man because he's gay, or likes shrimp, or wears clothes of different fiber types, or picks up sticks on the Sabbath... Actually loving your fellow man, and I don't mean the "love thy neighbor as thyself" stuff that's about treating people decently instead of badly, isn't really that big a thing in the Bible with just 18 passages (depending on how you count them) that cover love, and much of that is loving God, not your fellow man.
If Love was such a big deal, you'd think it'd get more than just 18 passages.
Redemption - Oh my. That's what you get for following the rules. And is, frankly, something you don't need unless you have some arbitrary and capricious over-lord making life terribly f-ing difficult with his byzantine and over-the-top rules. I mean, really, an eternity in hell because you died before your 14-year "boner" sins were forgiven and you got killed on your bike coming home from school? Never mind being born gay or eating shellfish or wearing clothes made of multiple fibers or any of the other crap in the bible.
Salvation - :eyeroll: Only if you buy into the religious crap fest. Otherwise you don't need it or want it. Salvation is like the Mob selling "protection." From whom? From the Mob, of course!
Posted by: Moses | October 30, 2007 2:41 PM
Shouldn't the condemned one be the christian guy who didn't move a finger to save his friend? After all, it wasn't the poor guy's fault if nobody bothered to tell him about god.
What's more likely, I'm thinking too hard about an idiotic piece of crap. When I was watching it, my main thought was "Why isn't the voice-over synchronized with the text?"
Posted by: Luis | October 30, 2007 2:42 PM
Smacks of infighting amongst the Chrischuns to me. They're trying to scare each other now. what kind of a gang is that?
Posted by: Scrofulum | October 30, 2007 2:44 PM
Wow - the god they believe in is a royal asshole. No wonder the fundies love tough guys who torture prisoners - it reminds them of their Savior.
Posted by: NickM | October 30, 2007 2:47 PM
Fine. "Death, suffering, fear, guilt, and coercion are the salient characteristics that distinguish Christianity and similar religions from the secular philosophies whose moral advice they've tended to fraudulently claim credit for. Furthermore, death, suffering, fear, guilt, and coercion are the dominant characteristics found in the Bible and in the worldview and mindset of the majority of Christians. Better?
Fucking hyper-literalists.
Posted by: Azkyroth | October 30, 2007 2:47 PM
Stop it, guys.
We're all waiting with bated breath for notthedroids to do the selective mental gymnastics required to winkle out the love, redemption, and salvation parts of the torture cult called Christianity.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 30, 2007 2:49 PM
"Well then, notthedroids, give us the peace, love, and understanding version, if it exists."
The Beatitudes, 1 Corinthians 13, Mark 12:28-35, I could go on.
Posted by: notthedroids | October 30, 2007 2:50 PM
"It was thoughts of hell that caused me to conclude that he was a monstrous, despicable being whom I would be proud to stand toe-to-toe with and tell off just before being thrown in the lake of fire with all the rest of the good people being punished for the most trivial and capricious reasons."
That and all the genocide he encouraged and all the baby killing, and injuctions to show no mercy. If Christians stuck to the new testament they would be a lot more acceptable as human beings. More of the "judge not" and less of their arrogant and authoritarian "We are the only ones that are good, you lot are evil"
In any case I think that was a perfect creepy halloween movie!
Posted by: sailor | October 30, 2007 2:50 PM
Wow. For further vile stupidity, read the comments.
Half of these idiots actually try and argue that the video wasn't an attempt to scare or guilt you into submission. No, no, no! We're not trying to threaten you with eternal torture, we're trying to motivate you to try and not be sent into eternal torture! There's a big difference!
*Groan*
Posted by: Jon | October 30, 2007 2:53 PM
So, this guy was writing AS the angels were dragging him into Hell? That's some talented scribbling going on. Especially since it wasn't in any way overwrought pablum intended to terrify mouth-breathers into more vigorous evangelism.
Regardless, that guy in Hell is a dick! If he was my friend and I got that letter I'd be like, "Man, you whine SO MUCH. I'm glad you're in Hell."
Also, what's the postage for a letter from Hell these days? I'm betting it's more than 41 cents.
Posted by: anonymouscoworker | October 30, 2007 2:54 PM
Yeah, I always thought that was the dog's bollocks. You had to live your life in fear just incase you commited some trivial sin of which you weren't aware. Imagine my surprise when I found out that my suits were shatnez, which meant I was as revolting as a homosexual, or a person at the Red Lobster all you can eat shrimp bar, to The Lord, Thy God!
Personally I think literalistic Christians need to, from a very young age, follow Matthew 19:12 which says: "There are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven."
I'm all for it. They'll go to heaven and they won't reproduce another generation of jagoffs; allowing my descendants to live unfettered of their bronze age religious whack-doodlery.
Posted by: Moses | October 30, 2007 2:54 PM
Wow, Jesus really is a contemptible little prick, ain't he?
"Worship me or burn in Hell" really is the message of the Gospels.
The people who make these videos should be locked away.
Posted by: MarquisDeSade | October 30, 2007 2:55 PM
By all means, please do continue.
Posted by: Azkyroth | October 30, 2007 2:58 PM
Incidentally, this should not be taken as a literal assertion that notthedroids or any other is presently, or has a habit of, engaging in sexual intercourse.
Posted by: Azkyroth | October 30, 2007 3:00 PM
Wow, nice video. I think I'll bookmark it so next time I start thinking Christianity might have some good in it, I can watch this and realize how evil and disgusting it really is.
Posted by: Gerg | October 30, 2007 3:01 PM
'Wow, Jesus really is a contemptible little prick, ain't he?
"Worship me or burn in Hell" really is the message of the Gospels.
The people who make these videos should be locked away.'
Bertrand Russell would be branded a "concern troll" these days by this rabble.
Posted by: notthedroids | October 30, 2007 3:02 PM
A hideous, theologically unsound video.
The truth is that as a Christian I am neither guilt ridden nor responsible for your salvation, which will happen (or not) in spite of what I do (or don't do) not because of it. I am only asked to present the gospel, not talk you into it, though I would of course be happy to talk to any interested person at great length. I'll have to answer for refusing to present the gospel, but my zealousness or laziness will have no effect on the number saved.
Brownian, OM wrote:
This is, of course, cheap false bravado. An honest atheist would say: there is no hell, so I'll face no judgment and yet speculate that if, to their surprise, they do face judgment and a worst-case hell scenario, they would plead for mercy and cry like a baby rather than proudly doing a full-gainer into the fiery lake. Your words ring false.Posted by: heddle | October 30, 2007 3:04 PM
To someone who doesn't share your warped and (in the original sense of the term) perverted view of human nature, there is nothing obviously false about this statement.
Posted by: Azkyroth | October 30, 2007 3:07 PM
The bible says a lot of things. I bet you don't follow them all. (P.S. Do women talk in your church? Do they wear hats? Pearls? Do you even know if the bible says they should or shouldn't?)
But I'm not going to judge a people by a book. I'm going to judge them by how they act. And Christians commit awful acts all the time. So do not Christians. THAT'S THE POINT. Words in a book don't stop people from shooting abortion doctors. Words in this book don't bring the life back of someone tied behind a pickup truck and dragged cause he was gay. Words in a book don't stop people from dressing all in white and trying to scare other people out.
Religion has failed. It fails to make people act moral. People continue to hate people, kill people, and do whatever they please, basically. And they justify it by some text put together by a group of old men who threw in whatever sounded good.
Plus, take the other side of the argument. Are you saying that you would go out rape, steal, murder, etc. without this book here telling you not too? Are you saying that the only reason you show Love or Compassion to anyone is because of letters on a page? I don't think anyone actually believes this. Plenty of people, many of those here, live perfectly normal, pleasant lives without believing there's someone watching over their shoulder.
The last thing you have to understand is the difference between Religion, Philosophy, and Mythology.
The Bible has a wonderful philosophy. Doing onto others as you want them to do back to you is a great way to live. It's also not exactly an idea unique to Christianity. This doesn't mean I have to believe that there's a spirit out there judging me, or that I must believe in the mythology set out in the Bible.
Posted by: Brendan S | October 30, 2007 3:08 PM
Here's the Jack Chick version, called "The Letter":
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0079/0079_01.asp
Posted by: boojum | October 30, 2007 3:10 PM
Notice that ANGELS are dragging people to the pits of hell? Is this a common interpretation? (Sandman fans notwithstanding?)
Please tell me I'm not the only person who found that video horrifying.
Not horrifying exactly, it was sort of like a lame intro to a metal song. I was expecting at least a Halford-like scream at the end, but apparently Hell sounds like sausages frying.
Posted by: windy | October 30, 2007 3:11 PM
This video is proof that religion does poison everything - young peoples minds being the principal example here.
Posted by: Joel | October 30, 2007 3:13 PM
You know how, regarding Hell, people will ask, "But what if you're wrong?"
I have an answer for that. Every mural of damnation I've ever seen has a line of sinners walking placidly towards the fire where some angel pushes them in. The thing is, ruthlessness and cunning are two things that will probably be over-represented in the population of Hell and, when I find myself in that pit of fire and shadow, I'll probably be in line next to a few pissed-off vikings who were expecting meat and beer, some Persian raiders who were expecting virgins, some angry commandos or generals who are thinking "Comrade don't play dat," and plenty of plain folks who had the misfortune of not hearing about Jesus and his masochism because he decided to make belief in that compulsory and unavailable to them at the same time.
That's when we get our thug on. Gang up on the angel pushing everyone in, get his sword, push him in instead. Everyone in line now has to swear allegiance to my Army of the Damned, or they go in too. Then I start pulling people out of the fire. The swear allegiance, or it's right back in with them. Once I have my Legion of Souls, we're going after Satan. After all, God is a cosmic toddler and Satan can't handle him, so Satan is inept. After he's overthrown and his horned skull adorns the staff of my battle standard, I'll smelt Hell's adamantine gates and reforge them to fashion armor for my demonic horde and set my sights on the New Jerusalem. Our march will be heralded by the rise of a new morning star that blazes with the intensity of ten thousand suns and we will break upon the city and its jewelled gates like a storm surge, razing its temples and slaughtering the righteous.
Then, once the heads of the saints and prophets adorn the pikes outside the city and seated myself atop a throne made of their bones, I'll give the word that ends the universe and begins the world anew... and this time, it'll be run the way it should have been. That's what I'll do if I'm wrong.
Posted by: \m/ Dustin \m/ | October 30, 2007 3:13 PM
"There's also a lot of stuff about love, redemption, and salvation."
As PZ pointed out, those are precisely the aspects of human nature that it preys on and corrupts from within. Instead of giving love it's proper value, it makes it self-serving.
By asserting that redemption and salvation are things to strive for, and that the reason to strive for them even exists, you are sucking all the value and meaning out of the ways to achieve them. Love and compassion are empty if they serve first to keep you out of Hell and second to benefit the recipients.
Posted by: MarquisDeSade | October 30, 2007 3:14 PM
Sacrilicious!
Posted by: Dustin | October 30, 2007 3:15 PM
Is that seriously what passes for thinking among you people? I can't believe you can get to work in the morning without maiming yourself through some incredible act of stupidity. You might as well say Christianity is about donkeys, since the bible refers to them innumerable times.
Maybe you should go on, and tell us how Christianity is about these things, rather than just referring to them in a passage or two.
Furthermore, you've got the weight of all the opposing ideas. If an entity claims to love you five hundred times and then threatens to torture you if you don't aquiesce to its whims even once, the sum idea is that this entity is not showing love. It's attempting to show dominance and control.
Maybe you might be able to pull some comparison to parenting (though loving parents punish their children to prevent future harmful acts, not after the fact as the price of disobedience), but then doesn't one of the quotations you provided say "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things"?
Why don't you people grow the fuck up and take an honest look at the psychopathy you're defending as God?
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 30, 2007 3:18 PM
notthedroids, what about the 90% of the New Testicles that you didn't list? You know, the part where Jebus drones on and on and on about "all you stupid fucks are gonna burn lessen you bow down and kiss my everglowing ass"?
Posted by: stogoe | October 30, 2007 3:20 PM
Somebody should make a response video to this called "Letter from Nothingness" in which an atheist is chastised by his dead Christian friend for not telling him that religion was a waste of time and guilt in the one finite life he had. Let's see...
Dear Josh,
I died today. Immediately after the car's impact I could feel nothing. I did not feel my soul leaving my body, not anything at all. I can not write here, nor can I talk, nor feel, and I certainly can't feel my heart pounding in my chest because my chest has been cremated and my heart is pounding in the chest of a man from Maplewood, NJ who needed a transplant. I have no idea how I'm writing this letter at all, actually. In any case, there is nothing it is like to be me these days, pretty much like it was before my birth.
I gotta tell you, Josh, if I retained any volition or consciousness--which I don't--I would tell you that I really wish you had told me about atheism when I was alive. The coach mentioned it and you just laughed it off. But, damnit Josh--I would say had I a mind or sensibility--I went to that stupid church ever freakin' week for years. I prayed every night, and now I find out I was talking to myself in bed like an idiot. Why didn't you tell me, Josh?
Your friend, who exists only in your memories of me,
Zach
Posted by: cm | October 30, 2007 3:21 PM
Posts like #34 are the reason I keep nominating Dustin for a Molly every month.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 30, 2007 3:22 PM
Whoa! Dustin! Kewl!
[*looks up*]
Errr...
[*looks down*]
I mean... Bah! More false bravado from the unbeliever!
Posted by: Kseniya | October 30, 2007 3:23 PM
Over billions of years on a planet, life evolves into many species, including primates. The smartest of these can think outside of the box - they (that is, we), can think in abstract terms.
According to the bible, this god thing created man in its own image. So, I wanna know how come this god thing looks like a monkey (okay, pedants, like an ape), if it's supposed to have created the universe. Mebbe that's why it's such an asshole, anyway.
More likely, the god thing's been created in the image of man. As men with power have traditionally been assholes, that'd explain its sadism.
Jeeeeez! That wasn't so difficult, so why can't these religiots see it?
Posted by: Richard Harris | October 30, 2007 3:23 PM
Perhaps you are not truly a Christian but just like to think of yourself as one. I can't imagine anyone feeling anything but mind numbing depression if they actually believed the way you seem to profess.
Because you are of course a predestination type individual. We won't get into the utter vileness of creating a being you know will not choose you and the inherent unfairness of such an idea or that it shatters all illusions of free will.
Posted by: Uber | October 30, 2007 3:29 PM
\m/Dustin\m/: [snip the long but awesome post]
I'm kind of laid-back in meatspace, but if the christian hell ends up existing, I'm willing to be right there with you, singing the song that ends the world. (Even if it was partially inspired by Penny Arcade.)
Posted by: stogoe | October 30, 2007 3:31 PM
Hey, did you forget all those godless scientists you'll find down there? I call dibs on them for my Army of Darkness! (the conquest of Hell might take a bit longer with that bunch, though)
Posted by: windy | October 30, 2007 3:33 PM
The whole concept of Hell is kind of bizzare; how do you torture a non-corporal soul? With no nerve endings being immersed in a lava won't make much of difference. Even if God just gives you a body back just to torture it after a while you'll get used to it. What, do the damn just fake their screams from being burned to give God a good show?
Posted by: Bob L | October 30, 2007 3:33 PM
Oh fuck, Twaddle's back.
Read the first part of the quote, where I mention being raised Catholic, fuckwit. I wasn't an atheist yet then.
You're stupid and you bore me. Please don't respond to my comments, since you lack the modicum of intelligence to understand them.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 30, 2007 3:34 PM
I have always thought this so strange as to give away it's veracity. We feel pain with nerves and brain. Sever the nerves to the legs and they feel nothing. Burn or stab away.
A person takes a blow to the head and the resulting damage can affect the personality. SO in essense in hell a body with no nerves/pain sensors would have to be reanimanted and established JUST so it could feel unrelenting pain. That my friends is, well, doesn't paint a pretty picture of one who would do it and certainly not of a loving creator.
It smacks of people who lived brutally and wrote brutal ideas.
Posted by: Uber | October 30, 2007 3:37 PM
This is why hell and utilitarianism are incompatible.
Posted by: miller | October 30, 2007 3:38 PM
Okay, so you've got these fundie kids listening to this, who are essentially being told that, instead of respecting their friends' religious views, they should be actively selling them some GodTube Brand™ Jesus.
Kind of a friendship killer, no?
But that's the idea--not to bring drunken, frying Josh to Christ, but to isolate the audience. This sort of crap doesn't fly near as well among people who have someone else to compare notes with.
Posted by: Molly, NYC | October 30, 2007 3:40 PM
"An honest atheist would say: there is no hell, so I'll face no judgment and yet speculate that if, to their surprise, they do face judgment and a worst-case hell scenario, they would plead for mercy and cry like a baby rather than proudly doing a full-gainer into the fiery lake. Your words ring false."
Actually, I would speculate that, in the even worse case scenario, I would pee my pants, then plead for mercy and cry like a baby. Or wait no, even worse, I would have a headache on top of all that.
But the thing is, I have no more reason to believe that this case would be true than the glorious conquest of hell laid out by Dustin. So I don't go scaring myself silly over it.
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 30, 2007 3:42 PM
I'm sure most of the victims of Pinochet did too.
Posted by: windy | October 30, 2007 3:48 PM
Man, I hate being told that I'm notwithstanding.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | October 30, 2007 3:49 PM
This is, of course, cheap false bravado. An honest atheist would say: there is no hell, so I'll face no judgment and yet speculate that if, to their surprise, they do face judgment and a worst-case hell scenario, they would plead for mercy and cry like a baby rather than proudly doing a full-gainer into the fiery lake. Your words ring false.
I think you misunderstand. The vision of God presented in this video is little more than a bully. This love is highly conditional love, and resembles nothing so much as child abuse, with lakes of fire taking the place of cigarette burns. I do not believe such a cruel and capricious being exists, but if they did I end up in the lake no matter what, because I could never honestly love that sort of God.
This video truly does scare me, not because I believe it, but because there are people who see the universe as being this petty. These are people who look at the concept of a cosmic parent and see a father who pits his children against one another, treating a small minority to ice cream while the rest are beaten behind the woodshed for all eternity for calling him Pop instead of Dad.
Posted by: Master Mahan | October 30, 2007 3:52 PM
Rey Fox,
I agree with you. Of course it doesn't scare you, since you don't believe in it. It would be silly to fear something we deny. I'm not afraid that I'll wake up in the afterlife to find Mohammed glaring at me and asking why I proclaimed him a false prophet. But if I understand correctly at least you acknowledge, unlike Brownian who has no intellectual honesty (or much intellect, based on his writing), that if the worst case scenario is true you would not swagger up to the lake and leap in.
Windy,
Exactly my point.
Posted by: heddle | October 30, 2007 3:54 PM
if they did I end up in the lake no matter what, because I could never honestly love that sort of God.
Exactly.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 30, 2007 3:55 PM
The inspiration was actually some Marlowe that made its way into "In the Hand of Dante" by Nick Tosches. I didn't mean to slip the PA into it but looking back at that comic now the similarities are clearly there. Oops.
Posted by: Dustin | October 30, 2007 3:57 PM
Suck it up, Blake Stacey! You're notwithstanding out there like a sack of broken toys! You better get your ass in gear and start notwithstanding like a champion, or you're off the team!
Posted by: stogoe | October 30, 2007 4:06 PM
unlike Brownian who has no intellectual honesty (or much intellect, based on his writing)
It would appear that Twaddle, despite his protestations in some earlier post, is not beyond the dozens of the schoolyard. Intellectually honest indeed.
Look, if God exists, and is indeed the asshole Christians claim he is, then somebody needs to stand up and tell him to go fuck himself. (In fact, didn't one Angel do exactly that and get rewarded with the majority of human souls for his disobedience?)
Besides, if hell is indeed so scary as to be beyond comprehension, then it cannot be any more terrifying than any other death already envisioned by living people. Since we have accounts of people heading to their tortuous, painful deaths with heads proudly held high, how is it so impossible to believe that an individual wouldn't be able to do the same whilst facing the Lake of Fire? (Especially if the very existence of the Lake of Fire is proof that God deserves neither respect nor worship?)
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 30, 2007 4:09 PM
Not denying, not seeing any evidence there for even remote attempt at denial.
Honestly heddle are you the person who should be making comments about peoples intellectual honesty the way you make arguments a cling to such irrational notions?
How can a person like yourself question anyone's intellect based on the garbage you spew here and elsewhere?
Not saying you can't or aren't welcome but it just seems to make you a hypocrite many times over. Perhaps you should work on your own honestly and intellect before casting stones. Brownian(who I don't know) is at least seemingly intelligent and consistent.
Also seems like he actually has a heart for his fellow man, something you abjectly always seem to lack.
Posted by: JimC | October 30, 2007 4:10 PM
Don't feel bad, I enjoy Penny Arcade. I'm sure the guys at PA were drawing on similar sources, or at least drawing on people who were drawing on similar sources.
Anyways, +1 Molly vote for Dustin.
Posted by: stogoe | October 30, 2007 4:11 PM
Very good paragraph and an excellent point. I think heddle perhaps is (revealing maybe) letting us see how he reacts and is not capable of getting past his own fear.
Not every man is cowardly. Many people have gone to certain and painful deaths for what they believed to be true. This fanciful scenario is much like those.
I don't see any intellectual dishonesty here. Perhaps it would be for a person like heddle(I don't mean that as an insult)who would cry and beg for mercy and not for an individual like Brownian.
Takes all types.
Posted by: Uber | October 30, 2007 4:15 PM
Very insightful comment, there, Master Mahan (#54). I share your point of view, though I was stuck on more of an abusive-relationship analogy. The abusive parent analogy is far more apt, of course. Duh. I guess I'm just not very sharp today. %-o
Posted by: Kseniya | October 30, 2007 4:15 PM
Yeah, I just didn't realize I was being that derivative. I'm going to retire from jokes for the day while I look up a table in the CRC book so I can integrate myself.
Posted by: Dustin | October 30, 2007 4:17 PM
Thanks for sticking up for me, JimC, but in fairness, my response to Twaddle in comment #47 was an overreaction.
These goddamn torture-obsessed fundies just get my knickers all a-knotted, which really hurts when you're as hirsute as I am.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | October 30, 2007 4:18 PM
Nice to see:
http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=386
I dream of a day when religion becomes irrelevant. And every generation, it becomes more so. Five percent in my parents generation, eleven percent in mine, nineteen percent in my daughters'.
And while religion will continue to plague us for centuries to come, the religious population will, eventually, become too low to have a serious deleterious impact on our world.
Posted by: Moses | October 30, 2007 4:23 PM
This video is a wonderful recruiting tool... for atheists.
This is the reason why belief in the existence of Hell is always considerably lower than belief in God (even in the US). The more Christians push this type of stuff on their kids, the more they will reject the faith of their fathers. It's already happening, and this type of thing will only accelerate the process.
Curiously, I have been working on a short story with a similar theme--a young person gets killed in a car crash and finds himself suffering almost indescribable torments in the Lake of Fire. The reveal at the end of the story is that he, and all the others around him are children barely beyond the "age of accountability" and are only guilty of things that a real parent would forgive in a heartbeat. Of course, it also turns out that Stalin repented on his deathbed (or maybe Hitler, I haven't decided yet) and is enjoying an eternity in Heaven while the kids all languish in torment.
Such is the logic of fundamentalist Christianity.
Posted by: tacitus | October 30, 2007 4:26 PM
This is true. But the fundies have reduced Xianity down to anti-gay, anti-abortion, and pro overthrowing the government and setting up a theocratic hell on earth. They've tossed all the uplifting, benign aspects of the religion out the window.
Death cults are a corrosive acid that will do some long term damage to the religion. We are already seeing it in the present backlash.
Posted by: raven | October 30, 2007 4:27 PM
But you see, it's still only a "worst case scenario", which, as I demonstrated, is kind of impossible since you can always add to it. It's really only based on the notion that Hell would overwhelm the resolve of even the strongest man, due to it being like, infinitely bad. I could just as easily say that if it were merely a lake of fire, I could still curse God all the way down, and it'd be even easier since at that point, I would have nothing to lose (and would be cognizant of the identity of the bloke who is ultimately responsible for the whole fire and brimstone).
What I'm trying to say is that discussions of hell are utterly meaningless. Utterly.
Posted by: Rey Fox | October 30, 2007 4:34 PM
They should re-shoot that video and make it a christian standing in front of Cthulhu. Let him whine about how nobody warned him right before the shoggoths devour his body and put his still living brain in a jar.
Posted by: Boosterz | October 30, 2007 4:41 PM
Posted by: Dave | October 30, 2007 4:41 PM
Unless you randomly define Christian as "person who can do no wrong", like some alleged 'Christians' (try wading through the comments; I didn't bother to respond after a while).
Posted by: Skemono | October 30, 2007 4:46 PM
And don't forget what it all comes down to:
CALVINIST ARGUMENT, aka TERTULLIAN'S ARGUMENT
(1) If God exists, then he will let me watch you be tortured forever.
(2) I rather like that idea.
(3) Therefore, God exists.
I don't know for certain that I would be strong and brave in the face of eternal pain inflicted by a cruel tyrant. But I can for damn sure hope I would be.
Posted by: Owlmirror | October 30, 2007 4:46 PM
# 28 :
"An honest atheist would say: there is no hell, so I'll face no judgment and yet speculate that if, to their surprise, they do face judgment and a worst-case hell scenario, they would plead for mercy and cry like a baby..."
Well, i'm indian so when you say, 'if, to their surprise...' it sounds to me a bit like 'if, to their surprise...died and met Yama -- the god of death -- sitting on his mighty bison!!' might sound to you.
Get the drift?
Posted by: klien4g | October 30, 2007 4:55 PM
I've just watched it... i laughed my head off. superb!
Posted by: Tom | October 30, 2007 4:56 PM
Funny video!
I might even be tempted to ask the guy who sent the letter if he was really sure that he was really in Hell ? How does he know that he is in hell ? Because that's what the bible says, might he reply.
Then I'll ask, did you actually read the whole book, in it's original language ? Well, no, he'll reply. So then I'll ask : do you know what it actually says in there ?
As any educated Christian theologian will tell you, the only clear message from the bible is that hell is the Tumb. And the promise of God is resurection from the tumb into a new body for those who followed the true gospel, when Christ returns.
And then he might learn something from an agnostic.
Posted by: negentropyeater | October 30, 2007 4:56 PM
Jesus does make specific references to Gehenna, which is commonly thought of as hell, but was actually a ravine used as a trash pit outside of Jerusalem where trash was burned. Because of this, Christians can't even agree on what hell actually is. Some Christians believe that souls are destroyed there, some that they're kept alive and burned forever. The bible isn't even clear on this. Also, is the lake of fire in the book of Revelation the Gehenna Jesus talks about? It isn't clear from any context that it is, or what happens in either case when someone is thrown in. It isn't even clear that Jesus wasn't talking about sins in a metaphorical sense, that is, something like, "these sins and those who commit them belong in the trash pit". It also isn't clear from the book of Revelation what is meant when it says that the devil and his followers will be cast into a lake of fire, since it also makes mention of sinners wandering around outside the new Jerusalem.
It's such a self-contradicting threat that I can't believe they fall for it.
Posted by: Dustin | October 30, 2007 5:08 PM
That's so totally inappropriate I don't even know where to start. On top of that