Goats Choose To Go To Hell
A few minutes ago, I was co-facilitating a Christian Philosophy reading group. The turnout was good - about ten people, including a Catholic (who seems to be "on the money"), a few non-Christians, at least one Spongian and a big bubbly man with a penchant for C.S.Lewis who arrived in the last few minutes to elviate any angst in the discussion. Not there was much. Thankfully people were considerate.
We were discussing Heaven and Hell. Apparently some people don't like the idea of heaven. They don't like the idea of spending eternity with the most supreme Being. They don't like the idea of doing good for eternity. They don't like the idea of not being able to choose evil for eternity. And some like the wrong choices they make, because it makes them who they are. (A non-christian girl and the Spongian agreed that earth was heaven. Such a view, if I want to be emotional about it, sickens me. Surely it is the sort of view that could only be a product of our luxurious, overfed society in the 21st century West, where suffering is easily transcended and erroniously reflected upon?) Anyway, people detesting the notion of Heaven certainly gives credence to the view that people genuinely choose to go to Hell.
Over three years worth of tutorial discussion yields this observation: Suppose an issue such as ethics is being discussed. When people are debating the issue or questioning the interlocker, they'll be quite assertive and bold. However, when the discussion turns to opinions that people actually hold instead of the opinions they hold for the purposes of the discussion (two quite different things, I've discovered) they will lower their voices, speak briefly and almost dismissively. I don't believe that this is because they are ashamed of their own view. Instead, I think that this behaviour is a function of the greater movement of postmodernity in society. In postmodernity, ones own opinion should not be taken as absoloute truth, since there is no truth. So, you ought not to assert too boldly your own view, since "that's just like your opinion, man."
posted by The Borg @ 5:34 PM
14 comments
14 Comments:
Sounds like it went well. When is the next meeting? Also, does your group have a name?
"since "that's just like your opinion, man"."
I know exactly the voice you said this in and it made me laugh. I miss 'dopey Shiloh voice' (as well as Actual Shiloh ;)
Christian Philosophy Reading Group (CPRG)? No, nothing snazy (corny) yet (ever).
The next meeting is in a fortnight.
Aww, thanks Angus.
That sounds like the kind of group I would have liked to have had a discussion with.
"They don't like the idea of spending eternity with the most supreme Being...Anyway, people detesting the notion of Heaven certainly gives credence to the view that people genuinely choose to go to Hell"
I think a lot of people have trouble with the concept of eternity. If you havent grown up in a Christian family, the idea of spending eternity with God isn't necessarily bad, it's just foreign. I reckon they get mixed up and start to compare it with the idea of eternity on earth, which would get a bit boring after a while...
And I think you'd find they didn't much like the idea of hell either, but disliking hell doesn't mean they're choosing heaven. Any sort of idea about an eternal afterlife can be so hard to grasp or think about in any real sense. It messes with my head a lot.
Surely it's Jeffrey's voice. :)
I think you're being too kind to your softly spoken friends. When people talk about their well thought out opinions they can do so boldly because they're proud of them ("ha ha, look how smart I am!"), but with things they believe "just because" there's always the risk someone will suspect them of being a dopey irrational human - just like everyone else - and that's not allowed. If I give my opinion in a soft, dismissive way then I can communicate it, but you can't challenge it. Its post modern arrogance that says "all truth is relative" in the same breath as "except my irrational beliefs which you can't touch".
Thank you, Benny. I'll give Angus the benifit of the doubt and suppose that he hasn't seen TBL.
Emi, I would love to have you in our group, you would thrive on the discussion and give intelligent input. Alas, circumstances do not allow. :( I agree with you that the idea of eternity is hard to grasp. But I don't think that's the motivation for rejecting heaven. The people in this group were almost saying that heaven sounded boring - I vehmently denied this - how could it be boring to spend eternity with the "infinite creative"? Even so, heaven wasn't appealing to them, I think because, dare I say, there isn't the oppurtunity to sin in heaven (and they would agree with me).
Thank you Luke for the more profound analysis. :)
I had an atheist friend once who said to me "Craig, even if heaven is true I wouldn't want to go there. The thought of spending eternity with Christians is just appalling."
Had to laugh...
I'm not sure I'd do that well in the group Shy, people might find my ideas 'vulgar' ;)
I kind of get the boring thing, I used to think a similar thing (ie. eternity doing the same thing over and over would be boring) until I read a few books recently and got a much better perspective about who I would be spending eternity WITH if I went to heaven.
As for not being able to sin - I think you're right, that'd be the problem a lot of people would have because they see doing something 'naughty' as being the only (or most easily found) form of excitement. I think heaven would be way more exciting than hell :)
I have a christian friend who struiggles with the idea of heaven too. She doesn;t liek the idea of not being able to hagn with her husband as much..
She also struggles with the idea that eveyone will be happy and praising God, when she has such trouble praising him now...
I think this is very humble and human of her to admit.
I guess I love the idea of heaven b/c I like the idea that I will be ABLE to praise God wiuth all ym heart and not be hled back by my sin and procrastination and laziness...
I also like the idea of perfect relationships with people, I like the thought of spending eternity discussing concepts with a greater level of community, understanding and joy...!!!
When I was in the Pentecostal church I had some simply amazing experiences praising God in song - times when your spirit is just soaring. You think to yourself "yeah - I could do this forever".
Doesn't happen quite as often in the conservative church, but myself and other subversives are working on it... ;-)
LOL, Emi. Talking of which, here is a dialouge between my supervisor and me:
S: There's a seminar on at 4 on McDowell and Kant, by a German fellow. He's from Munich.
Me: We had a Kantian guy from Munich at Utas... Stamm?
S: Oh, Stamm! (chuckles) He tried to get a job here... Apparently he is from Bolivia.
So there you go.
I just realised something about this post! I hate the word "co-facilitating" with a fiery passion! Why? Well, what does it mean? I mean, really? It means "I helped run the group", or "I led the group" or "I got discuession started". Co-facilitated. Bah! Crappy language.
Sorry Shiloh - I'm not angry at you. I'm angry at the education system that forces us to avoid plain language. For example, why say "I think the education system is in need of a complete and utter overhaul as it's performance over the last quarter has been unacceptable" when you could say "The education system is stuffed and needs to be fixed." Plain language! Learn it, live it, love it.
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