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Well I'm not sure that the NT does. It makes as much sense if we have two rather different concepts - the one of people being resurrected when Jesus comes on the clouds with angels blowing trumpets and sorts out the ones fit to inhabit the new earth and the others are chucked onto burning heap, like the burning garbage dumps in the valley of Hinnom, and the one where people rise up and actually go to live in God's palace on top of the sky - dome.
Of course Paul and his followers supposed this was all going to happen at once and quite soon, but as time went on, while gravestones still suggested that the incumbent was 'Sleeping' and would awake at the arrival of the cloud & trumpets, the ascending was also supposed to happen instanter as per the Jesus resurrection and the soul of Aunt Abigail would be nodded through the Iridium Portals into the tax -free realm of eternal house-buying programmes or pitchforked into a well -deserved Pit of retribution, depending upon what you thought of her.
You can see there is a sort of two tier system and actually neither of then needs to make the Gospel warnings about being chucked on the scrapheap a reference to heaven and hell as they exist in post 400 AD theology.
I suspect fiery hell came from the very people that are into Eternal Torment. Being locked outside the gates of Heaven seemed to be the fate Jesus talked about, which was less a punishment and more being an outcast. Since the Jews were a "chosen people" being an outcast was enough.
And yet... even within the majority of semi-educated Christian acolytes who should and do know better, the belief in a physical hell and an actual Satan roaming the earth persists. Even when they know it's a later add-on designed to keep the sheeple at bay! Meaning them.
It's just like the cows at the slaughter house knowing exactly what's beyond those stained doors up ahead that their fellow herd-mates are going into, but still doing nothing to try to avoid it all. Hmmmm...
I suppose it's a very useful entity and belief for the higher-up Godly administrators, who have always had a keen eye for any money-making and fear-inducing opportunity. And this certainly was one, handed to them by the pagans of the day! Unfortunately, there's nothing new anymore to add into The Big Story.
Otherwise they typically make it up as they go, attributing God to literally any new stuff that The SM unveils via logic and perseverance. Like the well-established huge change in the age of this earth and how long it took to "make" this planet. 6 days becomes 6 million years in Neo-God-Chronology.
Quite...what's the word? Oh yeah: Convenient.
It still boils Down to a sale.
If I can convince you that unless you join my religion, something bad will happen to you. Something far worse the lifetime of abuse you are going to receive as a member of my congregation. YOU will suffer for all of eternity being physically and mentally tortured ! (Do not dare ask me how you will endure this torture without a body to feel it or senses to comprehend it) Just know that you need to join my religion NOW and pay your tithes, (After all, my BMW does not come cheap) and YOU will spend all eternity in HEAVEN instead!
It is all about the sale.
IF I try to sell Christianity based on it's socially redeeming values, then Rifleman and all the other freedom loving atheists will slap me and say COME ON CAT, WHAT SOCIALLY REDEEMING VALUES? to which I have to admit, there are really very few.
One might point to a few religious sponsored colleges, the ones with sky high tuition and preference for students from within their own movement as one, or perhaps a series of for-profit or maybe not-for -profit hospitals as another, the ones staffed by mostly atheist physicians and attached to medical schools which are staffed and supervised by non-theist researchers and medics. But past that, does the religious abuse and negativity which brings about the detrimental effects on the followers psyche outweigh the few promises of eternal bliss ? I think not, because NONE of it is provable or plausible. Or likely. Or logical.
In the end, the bad of religion outweighs the good. Religion may come across at times as a beautiful ritual, but underneath, there is only pain suffering and negativity.
And the only way to sell that is to convince a person that they need it.
But Religious people, relax. Once your church closes down, you can still take your skills to work selling used cars.
Very interesting thread, and something that should be more well-known to Christians and Jews generally.
Luckily, we have very good information available concerning the evolution of both Satan and Hell. For a very accessible book that is very, VERY worth your time - check out The Birth of Satan: Tracing the Devil's Biblical Roots by T.J. Wray and Gregory Mobley - the latter being one of my favorite authors (New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2005). If anyone wants a link to an ebook of it, send me a message. Apart from that, articles on Satan in various Biblical Dictionaries (such as the Anchor Bible Dictionary, etc.) are very informative.
Mesopotamia: Gilgamesh and Enkidu taking down Humbaba:
The Satan vs Satan
As has already been pointed out, "the satan" was a minor player in the Hebrew Bible who was generally under God's beck and call and unable to really act without his permission. He played the role of prosecuting attorney against sinners and possible sinners, and can sort of be seen as a spy. He was very reminiscent of the Persian concept of the "eyes and ears of the King" - those individuals who insinuated themselves among society to try to find insurgents, rebels and other malcontents. The satan of Job seems to act in both these capacities. Nowhere in the Hebrew Bible, however, is he the dualistic evil force oppose to God of later Judaism and Christianity.
Egypt: Set/h:
Some of the things that helped concretize "the satan" into "Satan" were factors such as the rise of Apocalyptic literature, foreign influence on Judea via conquest and philosophy and the various sects among Judaism at that time. Various nations contributed to the idea of a malevlolent deity - all the way from Mesopotamia (Humbaba of Gilgamesh), Egypt (Set/h), Persia (Ahriman of Zoroastrianism), Greece (Hades, who would also give his name to a version of Hell) and Canaan (Mot - the god of Death, and Habayu the horned and tailed Underworld god). All these figures began contributing to the rise of "Satan", as opposed to "the satan".
Persia: the Dualistic struggle against the evil Ahriman:
The next stage came in the so-called Intertestamental Writings (around 200 BC - 200 AD) - of which there is a large library. It is here that Apocalyptic literature really reached its zenith, with an enormous influence on the Greek New Testament. The old problems of Theodicy were supposedly gone: God was not to blame for the horrible state of the world, it was all some evil diabolic force's fault. People didn't suffer even though they did what was right in God's eyes - people suffered exactly BECAUSE they did what was right in God's eyes. There was just now an evil force punishing the good. But someday that evil force (Satan) would be defeated and a glorious new earth would be instated and blah blah blah. Just ask any Jehovah's Witness about it. They'll give you all the juicy details. They've even gone so far in their May magazine to absolve God of blame for "Acts of God" - natural disasters - funnily enough, and squarely placed the blame on humans. That's right - it's OUR fault that hurricanes kill thousands, and earthquakes many more thousands. But I digress....
Greece: Hades, with Cerberus:
Some of these late works include Chronicles (which changes the blame of David's census from Yahweh to Satan), the Book of Daniel, the Book of Enoch and Jubilees. The Book of Enoch is known for its "Watchers" and the Prince of Demons: Satan, and the book of Jubilees is a retelling of Israel's history. It goes to great pains to point out that anything that Yahweh might have done that could be considered cruel (such as commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, or his attempt on Moses' life on the way back to Egypt) were actually the work of Mastema - basically the Devil. The Dead Sea Scrolls are fully cognizant of a Satan as an evil character. Various names were attributed to this character, but Satan has became the most widely known.
The popular story of Satan having fallen first gets its primitive roots in the Book of Enoch where he is one of the offspring of the Watchers - those angels who had sex with human women. The first instance of the well-known Lucifer-falling-from-Heaven comes from the Life of Adam and Eve from the 1st Century AD. This is the story that the movie The Prophecy has, in which Satan refuses to bow down to the newly created humans. I'm not sure if has that awesome line about how humans got that indentation above their lips ha ha. Oh, those talking monkeys.. they talk too much! SHH! In 2nd Enoch we have the theme of Lucifer waging a war in Heaven.
Well, that's a little background leading up to the New Testament and the evolving role of Satan. It did not have to wait until the Middle Ages, I'm afraid. It's a fascinating evolution - but an evolution nonetheless. References in Ezekiel and Isaiah have been seen in hindsight as referring to this evolved character, even though they were clearly about human rulers overstepping their earthly bounds and Yahweh's chastisement of them - or promised chastisement. They were not references to Satan, for such a concept was not in existence!
(Note from rflmn: I tranposed a sentence out of the following paragraph to try to make some sense of this poster's point of view. Viz: "It's not even about intellect."
Frankly, I'd say you are v. wrong here. Most people who have been expressly pre-conditioned to believe in such hoaxery will carry it through without any adult desire to change, ever. And yet I, being an ex-Christian, did exactly that, and my IQ is nicely above 150, 'nuff said.
One's IQ score is, after all, only a number reflecting how an individual is trained to think, or who has not spent too much time in front of the two-dimensional vid-screen these days. In my case though, my IQ only made it far simpler for me to "suss out" the vaguarities and illiteracy that is so bound up in religion.
This includes claims of being invaded by a mythical Satanic entity. Have you not read the facts behind Satan? He was NOT some evil entity at all. That is NOT what the OT says. Rather, he' a later-day invention, and the timing and source of that invention is well documented in historical literature.
And yet, the church took it upon themselves to not miss a good opportunity to frighten the masses, even, it seems, in your family's case, high IQs or not.
Ergo, I'm willing to bet that, if I could have a one-on-one honest, Robert's Rules of Order debate with your father, my point-form statements and requests for simple Yes/No answers would have your family, with their laudable IQs, eventually agreeing with me. Either that or they'd be lying to themselves, which is NOT a healthy position to ever take!
My grandfather (a high school principal with an above average IQ for what it's worth) has had personal experience with demonic possession both with a friend and in his own life as has my grandmother and my own mother with a friend of hers. My uncle, who was inducted into mensa based on his SAT scores alone who graduated summa *** laude from university (never got anything less than an A in his life) and had a near perfect score on the MCAT has as well including personal experience with outer body experiences as have I (and I also have an above average IQ btw) but those aren't topics I'm willing to get into on this forum. When you experience some things, it's enough to open your mind so I won't judge people who have said they've had these experiences.
Quote:
Hmm... You do seem a bit obsessed with IQ as some sort of confirmational component. Not really. Doesn't wash, except that, in all modern surveys, those with IQs above 135 are statistically far more likely to be atheists, and the higher the IQ,the more likely this will be the case. So... what can we conclude from that on wonders.
It's meant for them and if they choose to share it, so be it. Others interpret through their own lens.
You mean the lens of logic and factual evidence? To what degree do you and your family believe in an inerrant and literally interpreted bible? Simple enough question, I'd say.
Thanks Whopps. I was going to suggest a discussion on the evolution of the idea of Hell and the development of the opponent of YHWH to someone who could be blamed for all the stuff that God had done and which took a bit of explaining away.
It interests me that Set/Seth seems to have been the totemic animal of the Hyksos under their rule in the Delta and thus has a bit part as the enemy of 'God' in Egyptian religion.
You mean the lens of logic and factual evidence? To what degree do you and your family believe in an inerrant and literally interpreted bible? Simple enough question, I'd say.
You can take it through any lens you like. lol It's a true story but it's one of those things that can't be "proven" beyond personal experience with it. Then you go, "Ohh...so it is real..." lol So you're welcome to put it by the wayside.
I don't exactly interpret the bible literally. You mean like, taking the book of revelations literally or something else?
The reason I mentioned intellect had to do with thrillobyte's statement: "I'd be willing to bet, Royalite, that if you asked any Christian on this board or in your Church, provided they had an IQ greater than 50 and weren't a certifiable lunatic, if they'd ever had any actual encounter with a demon or satan or a devil or a fallen angel they'd tell you "No"."
So it was to highlight that even those with high IQs can have encounters with "supernatural" beings or whatever people want to call them and there just isn't science to back it up right now. Doesn't mean they aren't trying to learn more about it or even that these events don't exist. It's just right now they haven't been able to understand it or prove it.
But spiritual experiences aren't limited to those with high IQ and though there may be statistical evidence that those with higher IQ are atheist, there are those who deviate from that and not every individual who believes in God is "religious" or believes in Him because a religion says so. In fact, I'm willing to wager that some atheists are fools just as some Christians are geniuses. Much the same way some atheists have this strong passionate desire to de-convert everyone the same way some christians long to convert others. So it isn't that black and white.
I think the really smart ones know what it means to co-exist and are smart enough to interact with people from all walks of life.
The concept of Hell seems to predate 400AD. Otherwise why would Jesus warn of it???
Jesus never used the word "hell". That's a perfect example of the huge problems with translating ancient texts into languages like English that they were never meant to be translated into.
Last edited by thrillobyte; 07-01-2013 at 11:50 AM..
I agree with your closing statement, Royalite. The point about IQ is that, usually, and given that the holder of such IQs may have created additional opportunities in their formative years to be able to read more, thinking things out more, thoroughly and thereby utilizing their "God-given" cognitive powers.
It is certainly not a force field or barrier that excludes any particular philosophy, except perhaps creating some new religion based loosely on Teddy Bears as Their Supreme Ursine Being.
But given a high-IQ brainload of common sense alongside the ability to undo any mental tangles associated with Christianity's various entwined contradictions and obviously implausible & technically impossible events (like the global fludd and Noah's silly Ark, plus only two of all the necessary species of animals AND plants, fungi, mosses, bacterium, undersea sludges and corals, et al<cue the major yawnfest...>, one has to have some modicum of hope that the owner of such cognitive abilities will indeed sort it all out.
With truth as the hoped-for outcome. And that, me boy, fully precludes an inerrant and literal belief in the Holy (but multi-translated.,..) biblical version.
My intellectual best wishes to your father and his father, and whomever else is gifted in your lineage, all of it passed down via the" miracle of DNA replication and mutation, i.e.: Evolution as a proven paradigm.)
Ta-Tah!
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Translated, this means....
