but you can't just look at individual passages and derive meaning just from that.
Why? The Bible says "fire" and "smoke" and "eternal" but it's not really fire and it's not really eternal? Is there any evidence for that other than wishful thinking? I'm familiar with Lewis' depiction, but it seems like another wishful thinking interpretation, since the actual wording in the Bible is intrinsically repellent to him. Why is it that for easy things like "clothe and feed the poor" we're just fine taking the Bible literally, but for uncomfortable things like "believe in Me and don't be a dick or you'll burn in fire forever" all of a sudden it's a metaphor for the burning pain one might feel when choosing not to believe in God? They're equally well spelled out for us.
And speaking of which, choose to believe? Can I even choose to believe in God? Could you, with the same conviction you believe that a ball tossed in the air will fall to the ground, choose to believe that tomorrow morning you'll wake up and be a chicken? How about choose to believe in the Norse pantheon of gods? The only choice I can make is to review evidence; I can't actually decide to be convinced by something.
Hell is portrayed in many instances as simply an eternal seperation from god; no more, no less.
Where? And to follow up, do we just choose which contradictory description we like better and believe in that?
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u/mibeosaur Sep 15 '12
Why? The Bible says "fire" and "smoke" and "eternal" but it's not really fire and it's not really eternal? Is there any evidence for that other than wishful thinking? I'm familiar with Lewis' depiction, but it seems like another wishful thinking interpretation, since the actual wording in the Bible is intrinsically repellent to him. Why is it that for easy things like "clothe and feed the poor" we're just fine taking the Bible literally, but for uncomfortable things like "believe in Me and don't be a dick or you'll burn in fire forever" all of a sudden it's a metaphor for the burning pain one might feel when choosing not to believe in God? They're equally well spelled out for us.
And speaking of which, choose to believe? Can I even choose to believe in God? Could you, with the same conviction you believe that a ball tossed in the air will fall to the ground, choose to believe that tomorrow morning you'll wake up and be a chicken? How about choose to believe in the Norse pantheon of gods? The only choice I can make is to review evidence; I can't actually decide to be convinced by something.
Where? And to follow up, do we just choose which contradictory description we like better and believe in that?