Look at human justice. The time it takes to commit a crime is not the deciding factor in most cases. It may take days of planning to rob a store, but only seconds to shoot someone dead. The murder is punished more severely, even though it took less time, because murder is a greater danger than robbery.

Here we are dealing with rebellion against the creator of the universe. What is the appropriate punishment for rebellion? Either annihilation or banishment can be argued, but banishment preserves the dignity of the rebels by allowing them to try things on their own. Enter hell, the place where the rebels who don't return can live as they chose to -- free to do anything they want but separated from the power to do anything they need.

The answer is that 'deterrent' is not the main point. The main point of punishment is...*drum roll*...punishment. Deterrent is a secondary consideration, as punishment for laws like littering or speeding aren't designed to be so severe that people will make an extra effort not to break them, but rather the punishment is made for when those laws are broken and the consequences made equal to the crime.

Similarly even though God is never threatened by anything we do, Hell is equal punishment/banishment for sin. The notion of the sin only occured for a second only shows a lack of understanding of what sin is and how it works, as it regulates 'sin' to mere acts.

*snort* While he is generally wrong about what Hell is and what will happen to those who are there (it may not be a Dante-esque torture chamber, but it certainly won't preserve any dignity in any form to those who go there), you are also mistaken. A 5 year old can very much rebel and disobey his parent. However that a 5 year old can disobey doesn't mean any disobedience on his part will threaten the parent. The just and loving parent will simply send the child to a corner as punishment for it's behavior, i.e. Hell.

And speaking of coherency, you're going to have to make more of an effort to do so with these questions and your point. Punishment is the point of punishment, or at least the most important one.

And like I said, if 'motivation' was so important or even the main point, giving the death penalty to those who broke such laws would really motivate people not to break them. You can't escape this fact.

And in light of those with masochistic tendencies I have to laugh at your tautological statement of punishment being pain.

Sin isn't merely an act we do. It's a state in which we are born into. Thus the whole notion of 'it's unfair to punish someone forever (I refuse to say 'eternity') because he only sinned for a second' is absurd.

Well, this simply ignores the point.  God is not a human parent, and we are not children who need to rely on the judgment and experience of mature people in order to make it to adulthood.

It's an analogy. Maybe you missed the lecture on them in linguistics. Though given the sorry state the world is in and personal experience from learning that maturity isn't dependent on age, I think 'children' is a very apt description for many 'adults'.

Hell, has been conceived of by Christians as a genuine torture chamber for centuries.  It is only recently that you get all kinds of different ideas about it, because modern Christians realize that the old concept of hell was unfair, if not downright goofy.

While I'm sure many took to Dante's rather imaginative medieval style ideas (and this is not exclusive to Christians), what Hell is believed to be 'recently' has more to do with the fact that there is no Biblical justification for what Dante concieved of, in contrast to how Hell is described by the Bible, as the Bible does give some rather clear indications of what Hell is like.

So now we get Christians who try to come up with a more humane concept that will not leave them with a God who seems so unworthy of worship.  Some claim that nobody goes to hell, because everybody is saved.  Some claim that the "unsaved" are just denied everlasting life.  Others claim that hell doesn't involve physical torture, but just separation and possibly eternal mental anguish of some kind.  But to what end? 

Some atheists claim atheism makes no positive statements, and others say it does. But to what end?

For starters I would say any who think everyone is saved isn't really a Christian to begin with, as it misses a very important point about Christianity.

The original idea was to use god-belief to scare people into good behavior.  Now that such bullying behavior is seen as socially unacceptable, Christians must struggle to reconcile the literal stories in the Bible with our changed sense of how an ideal being of the sort we imagine God to be would behave.  Hell is an embarrassment for modern theologians.

*snort* Such generalizations seem to show an embarrasment in this discussion alright. Especially given the fact that you seem to encourage 'motivation' for behavior above with the law then turn around and condemn it in this case. Sad Cop. Truly sad.

But it all goes back to your question 'to what end?' The end being is to show that there is a consequence to rejecting Christ. There are always consequences to our choices and actions. Going to Hell is the consequence for sin and not accepting God's way out. As such those who go there do so of there own free will, more than any behavior on God's part.

It's the fact that such minor crimes aren't given the death penalty that escapes you. Like I said if 'motivation' was so important or even the main point we'd have the death penalty as the punishment for every crime. The fact that we don't should tell you something.

Huh?  Where does masochism come into this?  If most people were masochists, then punishment would be an inducement, not a deterrent.

It's the fact that some people like pain that defeats your flawed tautology of punishment being pain, that comes into this. Or inversely if pleasure were reward then rape wouldn't be such a hideous crime if the victim orgasamed. It goes back to such things being 'soulish' things rather than 'physical' things we've talked about before. The body can feel the same physical effect, but you don't have a clue whether a person likes it or not unless you're told so.

You buy into the Genesis creation myth, and you somehow think that it all made sense, even in light of God's omniscience.  To many moderns, that old myth comes off as absurd, and that is why many less conservative Christians have come to treat it as a kind of folkloric metaphor.

Actually it has more to do with being able to see cruelty and bad behavior in children at an early age without needing to be taught, that I draw such a conclusion from. The fact that any child will have flawed behavior no matter how simple or easily understandable the rules are only shows that human beings have a flaw to begin with.

What I find most objectionable is that aspect of the doctrine that assumed children could be held responsible for the alleged transgressions of their ancestors--the doctrine of collective guilt.  Genesis quite clearly subscribed to that flawed logic, but our modern culture largely rejects it.  What you seem to be saying here is that it is absurd not to buy into it.  We strongly disagree.

Ignoring your usual flawed historical view, appeal to ad popullum, and the fact that time of an idea has no barring on the idea itself (seeing how relativism and sciences worshipping of 'things' are attitudes that can be traced back to Biblical times I'd say 'modern culture' isn't all that 'modern'), the only thing worth commenting on is the notion of people being held responsible for the transgressions of past ancestors...

...The Bible doesn't teach that notion in any form. It says 'All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.' The Bible is clear that each and everyone of us sins and thus we are each personally accountable for our own transgressions.

However 'sin' is not regulated to just actions or thoughts but is also like (using an analogy here Cop. so don't be confused), a genetic disease that is passed down from parent to child. No one says 'it's my parent's disease so why should I have it?'

Oh, I think I understand analogy and metaphor a little more deeply than you do, since it is central to cognitive linguistic theory.

If you have to make such asinine rebuttals like 'God isn't a human parent' what else can I conclude?

The problem here is that you are once again assigning secondary considerations to 'punishment' and missing the main point. Especially given the fact that 'no matter what they do' shows you to be overlooking the simple matter that they are sent because they did do something: they rejected God.

...You lack any sense of history, if you think that there was no scriptural justification for hell in the minds of Christians over the many centuries preceding this one.

Obviously not as you've failed to sight any scriptural justification but just appeal to a guy who took the same view as another guy. It makes your arguement seem more like that telephone game you accuse the gospels of being. The only one I've ever heard comming close to being used is Revelations where Antichrist, False Prophet, and Satan will be tortured, but that is easily resolved as it clearly specifies those individuals rather than everyone.

I'm asking what possible goal suffering, whether physical or mental, could serve for God.  I can see where such manipulative behavior serves the needs of humans, but God doesn't need to resort to such pettiness, does he?  To what end?

You'd do well to read the book of Job that dealt specifically with the concept that bad things happening doesn't inherrently mean one is being punished. In fact, in John 9 Christ personally addressed the misconception that suffering is the same as punishment for wrong doing.

I have said that punishment makes perfect sense in the context of human behavior, because humans have neither omnipotence nor omniscience.  Given the properties that you ascribe to a perfect being, it makes no sense whatsoever.  But you can't seem to grasp that point.

Actually I can seem to grasp it, as you've quite clearly advocated that regulating human behavior is such an important goal for the law and punishment, while turning around and condemning the same act as a 'scare tactic' in this case. Or are you now trying to argue the promise of going to Hell isn't an attempt to get people to fall in line?

And we're right back where we started.  I can understand the point of making a child stand in a corner and justifying such punishment with the reasoning that you give here.  We expect the child to learn from such behavior and modify its behavior in the future.  But hell serves no such remedial purpose.  You haven't begun to explain why God would find the concept of eternal condemnation necessary or desirable for his misbehaving minions.

Because they misbehaved and remedial purposes isn't the main point. Otherwise why do anything to the kid at all. If the purpose is to teach the kid why not just bribe him and simply not give him a reward when he does something wrong? That would be trying to teach a child and never having to punish him, but then you'd find out the child would be willing to do whatever he wanted so long as he was willing to not have a reward.

Frankly it's the fact that we have a chance to get out of that fate now, that can be seen as a warning. You don't take the warning seriously then your going to pay the consequences for your choice. I should know. I just got a warning for driving with one of my headlights out. If I don't take the warning seriously I'd have no excuse for getting a ticket. In which case the ticket would be for violating the law, rather than to teach me a lesson.

We have our shot to get out of Hell. That you willingly don't take it, is more a reflection on you than God.

The question of proportionality is not the issue here, but the purpose of punishment is.  More severe crimes draw more severe penalties in order to provide a stronger incentive not to engage in banned behavior.  So what? 

That doesn't make it illegitimate to ask why God would use such a crude system to deter people from engaging in sin.  For centuries, the vast majority of Christendom bought off on the idea of endless torture for unrepented sins.

A being that would behave in that way would be seen as evil and tyrannical by today's standards, so the idea of hell has been deprecated for some, but not all, Christians.  Otherwise, God would not appear to be worthy of worship.

Your argument is getting unnecessarily convoluted here, and, quite frankly, bizarre.  Most people are not masochists, and I suspect a clever god would figure out an appropriate punishment to mete out, if that were an issue. Maybe the masochist would be denied pain.

The question here is how Christians reconcile the concept of a perfect, merciful deity with the concept of hell.  The two concepts don't seem to fit together very well.

Let me get this straight.  You believe that we were intelligently designed, that the designer was perfect, but that we have flaws.  God was simply incapable of producing beings that would willfully want to do good things.

Now, the role of human parents is limited by their circumstances.  Unlike God, they are ignorant of the child's behavior when they are not with the child, nor are they always able to undo bad things that happen to the child.  The whole purpose of parenting is to bring the child to a state where he or she can compete and contribute successfully in adult society.  This makes perfect sense for parents, but they are not gods. 

Why would a god need us to be well-behaved social beings?

This analogy breaks down in so many ways, yet you cling to it as if it made perfect sense that an invulnerable being would have human vulnerabilities.  It seems that God exists to serve our needs, not vice versa.

Actually, the only thing I said was that the Genesis story promoted the doctrine of collective responsibility.  If you think that there is an "ad populum" fallacy in that claim, then you don't know what that fallacy is. 

The very idea of scapegoating incorporates that notion, and Jesus was the ultimate scapegoat.  You can deny this all you want, but I think we both know that the point is irrefutable.

In Genesis, the first man and woman were banned from paradise, and their children were condemned to live mortal lives on Earth because of what those two ancestors had done.  That is why Genesis is often cited as a textbook case of the collective responsibility doctrine.  Collective responsibility is completely compatible with the concept of individual responsibility, so pointing out that the Bible also teaches individual responsibility in no way contradicts my point.

You keep confusing the words "regulate" and "relegate".  That is one of the things that makes this argument sound ungrammatical and barely coherent.

And the idea that 'sin' can be inherited just makes my point.  There is no logic to that.  People do not inherit responsibility for the bad behavior of their ancestors, no matter how often the Bible or you assert that it does.  If you believe that God was condemning people for the sins of their ancestors before Jesus died, then you have bought into the false doctrine of collective responsibility that the Bible teaches.

Well, you could conclude that analogy is a type of fallacy.  It can be used to explain and illuminate concepts, but it cannot be used to prove a claim.

What you fail to take into account here is that all analogies break down.  You keep thinking of God as a kind of super parent, but it is the vulnerabilities that human parents have, and God lacks, that cause the analogy to break down.  Parents punish children to help them grow into better adults.  Does God punish sinners?  To what end?  After they die, the punishment would seem to have no point, since they are no longer capable of doing bad things.  Punishment that has no point is simple cruelty, but God is not supposed to be cruel.  Do you see the logical dilemma that you are caught in?

Perhaps we are making a little progress here.  You seemed to be saying earlier that the point of punishment was punishment itself, which is a vacuous statement.  Now you may be coming to acknowledge the point--that the threat of punishment is meant to deter people from "rejecting" God.  You pooh-poohed deterrence by calling it a "secondary consideration", but you are forced to come back to it every time.

At this point, I would ask you to think about what it means to "reject God", because that could mean a variety of things in human affairs.  We might reject the authority of others.  We might reject them by refusing to reciprocate affection. We might reject them by refusing to acknowledge their existence.  It strikes me as ludicrous that any of those acts merit eternal punishment. 

People do not merit punishment for being skeptical of an undetectable being's existence, nor should they be faulted for acknowledging authority that they had no means of validating, nor should they be condemned for failing to return the affection of an unperceived being.  (And what's up with that anyway?  Why is God so needy that he resents not being loved?)

I'm not going to play "battling Bible quotes" with you, but you have put yourself in the very lame position of claiming that Christians have been mistaken for centuries in their belief in hell.

It is quite easy to show that Christians have promoted that belief as part of doctrine, even though you may think that their interpretation of scripture is wrong.  Since you require some evidence that Christians try to ground their concept of hell in scripture, I will simply direct you to the Catholic Church, which is the majority denomination of Christianity.  You can find scriptural references to hell at ScriptureCatholic.com.  Argue with them, if you disagree.  I have no interest in attacking or defending their interpretation of scripture.

There you go again--off track.  I was speaking about "suffering" in the context of hell, not life.  Hell is about punishment.  The trials and tribulations of life should not be confused with hell.

No, you still don't get it.  Society has a legitimate right to use punishment as a tool to serve its own needs.

The question here--and the one that you cannot or will not answer--is what need punishment fulfills for God.  Why would a perfect being punish its creations for their flaws?  Is it anger?  Vengeance?  Frustration?

If God created us in the full knowledge not just that we would sin, but exactly what sins we would commit, why would he feel the need to punish us for perfectly predictable behavior?

Now you're talking!  For the first time, you seem to be thinking this through.  Different parents use different techniques.  Sometimes punishment isn't the answer, and physical punishment may actually do more harm than good, because it humiliates.  Certainly, rewards are another form of manipulating behavior, and what is heaven if not a glorious bribe?   

You still want to deny that the primary purpose of punishment is deterrence, but you just can't escape the fact that that is really the only justification for it in human affairs.

God, being a somewhat archetypical human, uses the same techniques that humans do, but he cannot, by his very nature, have the same motivations.  As an omnipotent, omniscient being, he doesn't appear to have a legitimate excuse for punishing humans.  By attributing a need for punishment to him, you reduce him to the very kind of flawed being that Christians claim he is not.

If the government had the power, it could fix your headlight without needing to give you a ticket.  So I would say that ticketing you for that infraction makes perfect sense.

How are God's needs served by punishment in hell?  The government could, of course, make equipment failure on your car a capital crime.  You might consider that kind of penalty to be excessive.

Is not hell an excessive penalty when it comes to God's needs?  How does it harm him if someone simply rejects belief in his existence or fails to obey his rules?

It is a reflection on the absurdity of your argument.  Why should we get just one chance?  You make life sound like some kind of bingo game.  What possible purpose could it serve God to set things up in this way?  It just doesn't make sense.

Absolutely, but that isn't the point that I argued.  Free will is just the freedom to do what you want, but you cannot choose what you want. 

Apparently, your God cannot create beings that don't wish to do evil.  If God is the creator of everything, then he is also necessarily the creator of everything evil.  If it is beyond his control to create beings that do not wish to do evil, then he is not really omnipotent, is he?  If he can, then he has no claim to condemn his creations for flaws that he knowingly built into them.

I don't know about that, but some responsibility must fall to anyone who knows an outcome, has the power to block it, and permits it anyway.

But this ignores the point of my argument, which was that you cannot equate an omnipotent, omniscient creator with a human parent.  The former is supposed to know all outcomes, whereas the latter can only guess at outcomes.

Punishment of children is only justified as a means of getting them to modify their own behavior in the future that is unknowable and out of control of the parents.  God's punishment of souls in the afterlife cannot be justified, illuminated, or explained by your analogy.

The difference between a need and a want is one of scale, and it doesn't change my point.  Why would God want us to love him any more than you want an ant or a bee to love you?

A king might appreciate the loyalty and love of his subjects, because it is that very loyalty and love from which he derives his kingly powers.  He gets something from that attitude.  God derives nothing at all from us, because he needs nothing.

Again, you have painted yourself into a logical corner by attributing properties to God that make him virtually impossible.  Such wants and desires have a purpose in human society that doesn't make sense for an omnipotent, omniscient being.

Obviously, we disagree that the argument has been debunked, and your "mindless puppet" remark is just silly.  The Bible records many interventions by God, but we have not become mindless puppets as a result.

Worse yet, your belief is that we should believe in God's existence and obey his wishes or suffer the consequences.  How is that free will, but certain knowledge of his existence is not?  Your position is inherently self-contradictory.

Don't be silly.  Preventing the victimization of innocents and saving people from natural disasters would in no way block or violate free will.  Your argument simply isn't credible. 

So what's the point of allowing them to carry out their evil desires?  Just ship them off to hell and be done with it.

You were the one who offered the analogy in the first place.  You can withdraw it, if you think it inadequate.  I'm only pointing out some of its obvious inadequacies.

I can imagine where that reasoning might hold true for sadists, but not for normal people.  The only rational excuse for punishment is the hope of its corrective effect on future behavior.

Love and loyalty only make sense in the context of social bonding, but God is not a social creature.

Our loved ones nurture and protect us, because that enhances our ability to survive hardships.  In unity there is strength.  God has no need of strength, since he is omnipotent, and it makes no sense to impute such instincts to him.  We, on the other hand, derive an obvious benefit from a social alliance with an all-powerful being.  So it is easy to see why people might imagine gods.  Theism provides worshipers with a delusion of power.

  I have pointed out that punishment in human affairs always has the purpose of deterrence, and the legal system is a perfect example of that. You have tried to argue that punishment can exist for its own sake, but you have failed to elaborate on what that seemingly vacuous claim means, let alone support it with reasoning.

I don't reject Christ or God.  I believe both entities to be mythical, imaginary beings.  (It is possible that a real historical Jesus existed, but we have no way to verify that or any of the stories surrounding his legend.)

You seem to think of hell in very mild terms--not quite the "lake of fire" mentioned in scripture--yet you claim there is no scriptural basis for belief in hell.  To the extent that the concept has meaning, it is clearly a form of punishment that is meant to deter "rejection" of Christ.  For all your denials, you cannot escape that conclusion.