God Is Not Great discussion

Suppose in the afterlife Hitler has been strapped to a device that will set him on fire for all of eternity. All that is needed to start this torture is the press of a button, and you have been given the task of pressing it. Would you press the button?

If you believe in hell do you believe it will consist of maximum torture for an infinite duration, or will it be something less severe than this?

What if the person strapped to the maximum torture device is a homosexual or an atheist? Would you press the button then?

As an atheist who faces this remote prospect I am curious how many people really believe I should burn forever.

If you're an atheist why would you believe in hell at all?

Thats why I said the prospect was remote. But whether or not people think I should burn forever is obviously something I should care about.

I'm sure there will be a catholic cardinal or two to push the button for you.

Christopher wrote: "Suppose in the afterlife Hitler has been strapped to a device that will set him on fire for all of eternity. All that is needed to start this torture is the press of a button, and you have been giv..."

As far as Hitler is concerned I really dont think anyone should have that kind of choice to make, even if he was a horrible person it still doesn't mean we should be so superior as to pass judgement on him.
I really dont think about heaven and hell becasue being atheist kind of nullifies those notions along with burning homosexuals and atheists.

Lorenzo wrote: "What others think about you burning for eternity does not strike me as an obvious concern. We're not particularly interested in the religious views of Hindus, say, or Zoroastrians. I think Christ..."

Well if the number of people who really believe I should burn in hell is very high then I think I should be concerned. Perhaps my general surgeon believes this and I am simply unaware of it. Personally I would be concerned by this.

The way the question is structured, any rational person cannot rightly say "yes" which makes it an exercise in futility, an effort to prove the superiority of your worldview, if I may be so honest.

To me, I agree with courtland in that it is not for us to decide. Only God decides, and that is at the end of all lifetimes. Whether someone believes you should rot in Hell is completely irrelevant.

i had a similar thought while reading Dante's inferno.
what could anybody do to deserve eternal punchment?
even if you press the button for hilter, ask yourselves, how long can you sit there and watch him tortured?
at some point, if you are mentally healthy, you would thing that it's inhumane.
how come pretty much anyone of us mere humans can have more compassion that the all loving, great, father in heaven?

Hanis wrote: "The way the question is structured, any rational person cannot rightly say "yes" which makes it an exercise in futility, an effort to prove the superiority of your worldview, if I may be so honest."

I will assume you take yourself to be a rational person, meaning you would not press the button of your own free will. Your characterization of this as an "exercise in futility" is somewhat baffling to me. According to you any rational argument would be an exercise in futility, since any rational person would be forced to agree.

Hanis wrote: "To me, I agree with courtland in that it is not for us to decide. Only God decides, and that is at the end of all lifetimes. Whether someone believes you should rot in Hell is completely irrelevant."

To leave this moral decision in the hands of god is dodging the question. Suppose god orders you to press the button. I take it you would obey him but somehow not feel responsible. If I am honest I think this displacement of responsibility is irrational and immoral. In essence you would press the button. And to suggest that your personal belief in this matter is irrelevant is astonishing to me.

OK, I'll try to not make this another of those endless discussions on the Net where people just drown out each other.

Firstly, I wasn't being reductive. I just said the way you structure your question made it clear which way you were leaning. Actually, it wasn't the question, more the follow-up statement about being concerned about knowing that people will knowingly condemn you to eternal damnation. I didn't say this applies to all arguments, rational or otherwise.

Only God can decide because only He knows everything, what you do, what you think. I dodge the question because I believe, in keeping with the major Abrahamic religions, that this situation need not arise. If I am asked, will I obey? Sure, I will. But only because I trust in my God not because the man is Hitler or some similar monster.

Lastly, I'm not sure I understand your last sentence. Do I care if I will rot in Hell? Yes. Does it matter if others think I should rot in Hell? No. On second thoughts, maybe I should have added "else" as in "Whether someone else believes you should rot in Hell is completely irrelevant.". If that was the one that caused confusion, I do apologise.

Hanis wrote: "Do I care if I will rot in Hell? Yes. Does it matter if others think I should rot in Hell? No."

In essence I am simply curious how many people really believe that it is okay for someone to be tortured forever in hell. But it seems to me that there are clear cases where my curiosity should rise to concern, for example if the person who believes this is my doctor, and so on.

Of course there are situations in which I would press the button as well. If god threatened to torture my brother forever unless I pressed the button for Hitler I suppose I would. But I would hate god for making me do it, and I wouldn't believe that Hitler deserved it, whereas you seem to feel that anything god commands is good by definition. You have in essence surrendered all moral responsibility to god. This is where we disagree.

As an Agnostic, I can't really say for sure whether there is a heaven or hell, let alone a 'god', who created them. Personally, I choose to think that there is neither and certainly not some hateful deity that would condemn someone to eternal punishment.

In fact,one of my chief reasons for leaving the church (and faith) behind was that I find no logical reason to worship something that would be so petty.

This moral responsibility issue is still being debated by learned people (religious or atheist) to this day, so you're not wrong to question it. I do not trust myself to be able to fully explain how it works from the religion side of things. All I know is that I'm not sufficiently swayed by what I read in this book. (Hopefully, my willingness to actually read God Is Not Great is somewhat of a plus point)

Christopher wrote: "Suppose in the afterlife Hitler has been strapped to a device that will set him on fire for all of eternity. All that is needed to start this torture is the press of a button, and you have been giv..."

You seem to ask this question a lot.

Wesley wrote: "You seem to ask this question a lot."

I posted it in several books that were tagged theology. I wanted to get a lot of responses to satisfy my curiosity.

Oh my goodness. What a strange question! I most certainly would not press such a button, what would that make me? What kind of a disgusting person would torture another human being for eternity!?

After just a few days of torture he wouldn't remember who he was or what he'd done. It would be like torturing a dog.
Even if you believe in "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" as the bible says, if you added up all the millions of hours the 11 million people who were murdered in the holocaust suffered it still wouldn't add up to eternity.

I can imagine I'd have to stop and think to see if it wouldn't be fair to make him suffer exactly the amount of pain he had caused for exactly that length of time... but that's my emotions talking and not my reason.

Anyway, to torture someone for eternity? That's disgusting.

Even to torture him for a minute would serve absolutely no purpose and help no one.

Not to be boring but surely all moral dilemmas like this can be solved quite simply:

Does it cause harm?
Yes.
Does this harm serve a utilitarian purpose of any sort?
No.

If the answer to both is either yes or no you might have to keep discussing, but if the two answers are opposite as far as I'm concerned it's the end of the discussion.

My first reflex to this question is:
If you push that button - in how far would you be any better than Hitler? At some point in time, you will surpass Hitler (and any other person for that matter) in "torture man-hours" inflicted.

Therefore: Should such a place exist, pushing the button would surely reserve you a special place in this hell.

This post is spam. The exact same post was posted in connection at least one other book, and it has no reference to the content of either one.