gafpromise
27d ago
I do have to say, I always thought the "noble lie" or using hell as a way to motivate people was just dumb. Whatever happened to intrinsic motivation? Whatever happened to people behaving well because it makes our time on earth more pleasant/civilized etc? But I've always been one of the "good kids" so I have a really hard time getting into the mindset of someone who just always gives in to their vices and doesn't care who they hurt or the damage they cause along the way. But fear of hell was never a motivator for me.
At the end of the day, while I do reject eternal conscious torment, I think I'm more of an annihilationist for a few reasons.
(1) Apeirophobia, fear of eternity. Set aside the hell part for a second. Even as a kid I was absolutely horrified by the idea of heaven, of just ...existing without end. OK, you've done everything you wanted to do, you've indulged all your desires so, now what? I actually couldn't watch the ending of The Good Place (and still haven't) (SPOILERS) because that whole last season was just too psychologically uncomfortable and I could tell where they were going with it. And I couldn't bear it because it validated the notion that an eternal afterlife as ultimately doomed no matter how nice it is.
(2) Honestly just the moral outrage of having to share heaven with Hitler or Charles Manson or a rapist sharing heaven with their victims, etc. I think there is a moral instinct that many people don't "deserve" to go to hell but there are absolutely some people who do. Justice is meaningless, a moral and ethical framework is meaningless if it just all gets washed out in the end.
(3) This is related to (2), but in your essay you've cherry-picked all the verses that support universalism. There is plenty of material that supports just punishment as well. Jesus tells several parables about basically the insiders and the outsiders. Look at the parables of the sheep and the goats or the wedding feast or the weeds.
Matthew 25:31-46 for the sheep and the goats - "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." And it goes on to say that the sheep who did the right things will be welcomed into the kingdom, while the goats will be cast away.
Matthew 13:24-30, the wheat and the weeds - "Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn."
Matthew 22:1-14, the wedding banquet in which not everyone is invited. Verse 14 rather cryptically says, "For many are invited, but few are chosen."
There are many commentaries and discussions about what exactly these and similar passages mean, but it's clear that Jesus's words indicate a distinction, a separation between two groups of people, those in the kingdom and those out of it. These passages coexist with the more universalist passages and if you're going to study the Bible seriously and develop an afterlife theology based on it, then I think you've got to somehow account for all of it. To me, annihilationism does the best job at retaining the balance of justice while not requiring unconscionable eternal torture.
gafpromise
27d ago
You know, everyone trots out Lewis when this topic comes up, and I understand why. The Great Divorce is fine. But I am genuinely curious, is there no one else who has tried to do something similar and actually sketch out a theologically serious imagining of what the afterlife might be like? There have to be others out there but this is always the one that's recommended.
I'm fascinated that you've labeled this as a left/right thing. Is that true? Have there been studies? Am I the only one that was unaware of this dynamic?
Anyway, the whole thing I think requires two components that we see with AI content discourse: (1) a deep distrust in the systems involved and (2) a belief that you have seen behind the curtain and can discern what's actually true. It's not just art, people are very quick to call out writing as AI when it's not. It turns out that actually most people are really not good at telling the difference unless it's particularly egregious. There are many who are alarmed by this state of affairs and are overcompensating by declaring everything AI.
But the thing is, we are right to distrust the systems! As AI imagery and content gets better and better, there will be no reliable way to tell real from fake. Whether it's marketers hyping a product, trolls being troll-y, or political actors spreading messaging and propaganda for whatever reason, it's happening at a scale that's never been seen before due to how easy it is to churn out content. The news publishers and aggregators are no longer gatekeepers and haven't been for a long time. Someone says something is or is not fake and you have no way to verify it or to know whether you can trust this internet rando (if they even are a real person). Eventually what you will probably see is just more motivated reasoning where everything that supports your side is true and everything that goes against it is clearly shitty AI slop from propaganda machines, and the "two screens" phenomenon is just going to accelerate.
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