Re: Does God enjoy people's cupboard love?

Kendall K Down wrote:

"Our lives are still precious even if we do not treat them as such.
Like the value of pearls thrown to pigs!"

Oh, I do beg your pardon; you merely said that people like me
are *like* pigs.

Claire didn't even say that! If you fail to recognise a well-known
saying because she used "pigs" instead of "swine" that is hardly
Claire's fault.

Er, of course I recognized the saying.

So, if Claire wasn't at all saying that people like me are piglike,
I suggest that you explain what she was contributing to the discussion
by throwing in that reference. Because if there wasn't some suggestion
of piglikeness that goes beyond the (undisputed) fact that pigs aren't
good judges of pearls, then it seems like everything Claire was saying
had already been said before she made the reference.

If I warn you that "rolling stones gather no moss" I am not calling
you either a stone or moss; I am making a particular point about
behaviour.

You don't say.

In other words: *I* must be separated from God because it
is necessary that *evil* be separated from God. And: when
*evil* is separated from *good*, guess which side of that
chasm you're putting me on? (Hint: if it isn't the "evil"
side, you can't possibly have given a justification for
hell.)

It astonishes me that you are so sensitve about the idea that God (in
Whom you don't believe) might sentence you to hell (in which you don't
believe).

I'm not. I'm sensitive about the fact that lots of otherwise
decent people believe that, and think it's reasonable.

Given your loudly trumpeted acquaintance with Christianity,
is it really news to you that Christians might hold that opinion?

That's "loudly trumpeted" in the sense that when people make
a big deal about how ignorant of Christianity I obviously am,
I point out that they're wrong. "Cet animal est tres mechant, /
Quand on l'attaque il se defend."

And: no, it isn't news to me that many Christians think it's
right and proper for me to be eternally tormented in hell.
Do you think that only news is worth commenting on?

You don't happen to have a residual fear of hell, do you?

None at all, so far as I can tell. (Of course it's always possible
that there's something of the sort deeply buried in my unconscious,
but I'll trust my introspection ahead of your random guesses.)

The odd thing is that I am fully aware that most Muslims believe I
will end up in Jehunnam, Hindus are convinced I will be reborn as a
louse or something equally unpleasant, Tibetan Buddhists expect that I
will spend an eternity in a frozen pond or similar - and I am not in
the least perturbed by any of these.

I don't think reincarnation is morally unreasonable in the same
way as hell is. I don't know what Tibetan Buddhists expect to
happen to you (I'd have thought they'd expect reincarnation,
but I'm no expert). My attitude to the Islamic version of hell
is much the same as my attitude to the Christian version, but
I much more often encounter Christians talking about hell than
Muslims talking about Jahannam.

The reason for my unconcern is
that I really, truly, genuinely, do not believe any of them.

Yet you get all uptight about the prospect of going to hell?

No, I get "all uptight" (read: mildly annoyed) at many Christians'
equanimity at the thought that billions of their fellow-humans are
going to go to hell.

How genuine is your unbelief?

So far as I can tell, as genuine as my unbelief in ghosts or
phlogiston.

--
Gareth McCaughan
sig under construc


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Relevant Pages

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