Here’s a taste of what some apparently consider a persuasive argument.
One minute after you die you will be either elated or terrified…and it will be too late to reroute your travel plans. When you slip behind the parted curtain, your life will not be over. Rather, it will be just beginning—in a place of unimaginable bliss or indescribable horror.
— Erwin Lutzer
Ooh, false dichotomy. Also, I have to ask Erwin…how do you know? Have you died (he’s still alive and 84 years old)? Do you have reproducible observations of your two and only two possible afterlives? I think we can dismiss this argument on the basis of its fundamental illogic and its total lack of supporting evidence.
It’s nothing but threats and fear. Sorry, Erwin, you fail. Don’t feel too bad, though, it’s a universal property of all theologians.
Brahma would like to have a word with Erwin Lutzer.
He has just set his path of Reincarnation back by millions of years.
In his next life he could come back as a tapeworm or a spider.
It is not as bad as it sounds though.
Brahma is infinitely merciful.
You get as many kicks at the goal as you need to reach the end.
Theological “wisdom” – Right up there with military intelligence and jumbo shrimp.
Let’s not neglect that choosing the wrong flavor of one of the “two alternatives” is at least as likely to be harmful to one’s afterlife prospects. A hypothetical deity who sets up/tolerates the “hell/heaven” scheme underlying Lutzer’s facile version of Pascal’s Wager is likely to be at least as pissed off — and prone to implementing punitive measures — by worship of the “wrong” deity than of failure to worship a deity at all. Worse, the human agents thereof are still more likely to extend the prospective afterlife consequences into the present; by now, everyone should expect the Spanish Inquisition…
“One minute after you die…” I wonder if Lutzer has ever been in the room when some died unexpectedly in the hospital. Given what I experienced 54 years ago with a patient, I’m not sure when that minute begins.
Religious apologetics — the bluff that keeps on bluffing…
If you have read the “Culture” SF novels by the late Iain Banks you know that for people living in a supercivilisation an artificial afterlife is a real possibility (or threat).
As we do not live in a supercivilization, and since current cryogenic storage techniques are unable to prevent water ice chrystals expand and destroy human cells I do not think we need to worry about a synthetic hell like the one Banks wrote about in wossname title.
How do you know? The beginning of the final stage of my exit from Christianity was when I started to ask my Buddhist friends that question. Because their answer was always the same as mine; that’s what my parents told me. And nothing stronger.
Such professionalism.
somewhat OT:
word of the week: procrustean
/——————————-
procrustean
adjective
Producing or designed to produce strict conformity by ruthless or arbitrary means. Marked by arbitrary often ruthless disregard of individual differences or special circumstances.
(Wictionary)
/——————————-
i found it while proofreading the nuernberg trial transcripts for project gutenberg. i immediately thought of the inquisition.
The older I get the more clearly I recognise what utter bilge all religious people spout. And the more confidence with which they spout it. Erwin is a classic case.
Dude, you need to get on the crypto band wagon before you spend eternity in the Vault of Eternal Destitution!
Considering what we are going through right now in the USA, you could argue that Trump and the GOP are creating a synthetic hell.
I remember that book. I read all of Iain Bank’s Culture novels in the 6 months after my discovery, and unfortunately, right before he died way too young.
It is a good book for anyone who likes speculative fiction and wants to leave planet earth for a few hours.
I left out the title by accident.
It is Surface Detail, published in 2010.
Logically it doesn’t make much sense, but on an emotional level the promise of eternal happiness or eternal suffering depending on whether or not you believe in a religion’s doctrines and follow its teachings is extremely compelling for many people. Promises of rewards and punishments are a very effective psychological tool, and both Christianity and Islam promise infinite reward or punishment. Is it a coincidence that they are the two most popular religions on earth? Maybe, but I think the extreme rewards/punishments have something to do with their enduring popularity.
This again… one of the many things that irritate me about this cargo of bilge is the lack of clear definitions: what are infinite bliss and infinite suffering?
For bliss, we hear that a wall-to-wall eternal bonkfest is right out of the question (except maybe for the Muslim version?), so standing there in a white robe chanting osannas is going to get old real quick.
For suffering, what are we going to suffer with if there’s no body, that’s what I’d like to know. Recreation of the physical shell? Gustave Doré portrayed everyone as fine, robust specimens, even in hell: not ethereal at all (the males all look like bodybuilders). Looks quite painterly but also stupid.
As an alternative, some suggest that the suffering is due to the absence of the god from the damned’s existence – as if not having the carping authoritarian fool around would be that much of an inconvenience.
And yet there’s still some idlers droning on about this crap…
Elated to wake up in Heaven? Any sensible person would be horrified. All eternity trapped with a capricious god and his deranged acolytes, and nothing but good, or their version of it, so no books worth reading, no movies worth watching, scarcely anything fun to do and the rest of time in which to do it. Heaven is just Hell with a different coat of paint.
Some claim the 1st-c version of the afterlife was pretty much the same across Eurasia (except for the reincarnation cosmologies): a shadowy and unpleasant underground existence, described by writers from Homer to ancient China as bbbooorrriiinnnggg!!!
Then Jesus, or somebody putting words in his mouth, came up with the “lake of fire” concept to coerce obedience to God’s Word™, and morbid imaginations went wild. (Descriptions of bliss for those who Did It Right also ensued, but with much less variety – people seem to agree on what they don’t like much more than what they do like.) None of this had much apparent influence on actual behavior, judging from the historical record.
It’s both terror and elation: The Great Gig In The Sky.
The second “you” word in that sentence lacks a referent.
Also, the afterlife conceit is by no means universal.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/05/06/beliefs-about-the-afterlife/
springa73 @14,
The salient aspect is that those are the only two religions that apply religious proselytism by coercion, more so than their eschatology. Not coincidental, but not causal either.
@17
I think that Zoroastrianism from Iran had a version of last judgement and reward or punishment in the afterlife. There’s a possibility that this belief influenced certain varieties of Judaism which in turn passed the idea to Christianity.
“One minute after you die you will be either elated or terrified”
No, I’ll be dead. Awareness as we know it will no longer be operational.
Oh, sweet silence without king or queens, no one here has reached your center.
To ask where our consciousness/mind/soul/whatever goes when we die makes as much sense as asking where the little people on the TV screen when you turn it off.
Edit: … where the little people on the TV screen go when you turn it off.
Both Satan and hell came from Zoroastrianism.
Xianity is a syncretic religion that borrowed a lot from other religions. Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Paganism were all contributors.
Re: Akira MacKenzie @25:
I’ve heard theists argue for a “soul antenna”, where the body turns off but the signal remains. Among other problems, that fails to account for the predictable personality-altering effects of specific brain damage. That’s not bad reception or interference from other broadcasts.
Simpler to ask: If you build a LEGO house, then tear it down, where does the house go?
My brain’s in a Star Trek mood, so I’m thinking of all those videos and articles I meet arguing that the Star Trek transporters kill you every time you go through one.
Obviosity: the ‘afterlife’ only begins after death. So, should it not be the ‘afterdeath’?
Raven @26: “Both Satan and hell came from Zoroastrianism.”
I was recently trying to remember the nifty word for the Good vs Evil dualism they got from Zoroastrianism’s opposing gods. “Manichaean” turned out to be anachronistic for my usage, named after prophet Mani in the 3rd century who started yet another religion, Manichaeism.
Hank is going to kick the shit out of him when he leaves town…
Before the spread of Islam, Manichaeanism was briefly the main rival to early Christianity. It was increasingly persecuted both by the Roman state and the nascent Christian church, largely disappearing from Roman lands by the end of the sixth century.
Short for “they annoyed everybody”
stuffin@#23:
Oh, sweet silence without king or queens, no one here has reached your center.
I really like that.
Nougat or cherry fondant we will leave to our ultramarines.
Re: Recursive Rabbit @28:
Behind the Bastards did a wild series on the Zizians who got obsessed with Roko’s Basilisk punishing future duplicates of themselves. The broader ‘rationalist’ subculture comes out looking frightening, too.
BtB – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4. (~1hr each)
PZ posted Rebecca Watson’s 16-minute video, mostly recapping the murder spree.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/02/07/zizians/[moxie, its etymology is what’s interesting for me. Like lilliputian or serendipitous]
These Christian nationalists refuse to convert to Islam because they want to continue sinning. Allah will punish them.
The only Hell that exists is the one that religion insists on building for us, here and now.
@ ^ rx808 : Nah, There’s a few Hells that definitely exist – one is in Norway, FWIW, where it does freeze over and snow regularly :
(Huh, thought helvete was a font..Oh wait, that’s Helvetica.. )
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Norway
Also Hell is a creek in Jordan – er, Jordan, Montana and a few other USoA states actually, confusingly not Jordan, Jordan..
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Creek_Formation
Plus there’s the Lunar crater Hell named for a Jesuit astronomer priest :
Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_(crater)
Hell was also a demolished ghost town in California too apparently. Paradise BTW is a not particularly blisfull suburb of Adelaide, South Oz.
Of c, the mythological supernatural versions are, well mythological in nature.
History of Christian thinking – short verison:
Theology – (Ancient Jewish) – For in death you shall know nothing, receive nothing, be rewarded nothing. Heck, its a dark, dreary and boring place. It would be far better for you to be a nice person in life, and thus be remembered.
Good people – Err… I have noticed a distressing tendency of bad people to pay other people to white wash their history and actions, build monuments to them, and make most of the population believe they where great men, heroes, etc. I don’t think this works…
Theology – Right, so… we are going to ignore that, and instead there was this guy, who had himself killed, and now as long as you believe in him real hard you are forgiven for everything bad you ever did, and uh, there is no this paradise you can expect for a reward for your belief in him. Isn’t that great?
Good people – What? No, that is now worse! Horrible people are already lining up to buy their way into this so called paradise and the church is the one now doing the most of the white washing of their legacy, by declaring any idiot that claims to believe to have been “saved”.
Theology – Huh, how about we scare people with a bad place too? Like, if you don’t also follow the rules, or believe, because the believing part is way more important, then they get sent to this bad place!
Good people – What!? No, that is worse. Now the bad people can just scare otherwise good people into doing what ever they are told, in the fear that the bad ones are right, and apposing them, or the church, will get them sent to the bad place!
Theology – Oh, just shut up already!!!
Ah yes, the flip side of the Divine Protection Racket: Jesus is your BFF if you want him to be — but your worst nightmare if you don’t. Or maybe Abusive Big Brother would be a better metaphor.
I have a theory (though it would require historical research beyond my scope to confirm it) that the the concept of Hell as the state of post-mortem ultimate torment started as a revenge fantasy by early Christians, in response to persecution by the Roman state. “You’re shitting on us now — but just you wait and you’ll get what’s coming to you!!!”
Not a scholar by any means, but I would not be surprised, steve. One thing I recall is apparently some Old Testament kings got that treatment, where they’d write a passage in false praise before predicting their downfall engineered by God. One of those passages got its context ripped off to paint Satan/Lucifer as a rebellious angel, rather than a contemporary political diatribe and revenge fic against a specific named human king.
Dude failed to account for my ornery dad. If there is or was anything left of him to have an afterlife, he’d be spitting in the face of god.
@33 – Marcus Ranum
I’m more conservative, Boston Creme for me.
As for not being able to tell one place from the other, look for S1.E28, A Nice Place to Visit, coming soon to a Twilight Zone marathon near you.
Re: stevewatson @40:
Revelation has dead martyrs clamoring for vengeance, which starts Jesus on a killing spree. (Rev 6:9-11, Rev 14:14-20)
Apocalyptic literature was a popular genre at the time among post-exile Jewish and early Christian groups.
I think I heard this from Bart Ehrman long ago. Apocalyptic authors would write as if they were someone in the past, so they could ‘foretell’ recent events with eerie accuracy, to build readers’ trust for when the story reached the author’s present day and just made stuff up thereafter (suddenly less accurate). Fantasizing about terrible things that would befall all the people they dislike.
The way Christians present is, there’s only two flavors of Hell. The one where you consciously suffer from various torments for all eternity and the one where you become a mindless automaton spending the rest of eternity praising God. I find neither alternative particularly appealing.
AugustusVerger, this?
https://biblehub.com/revelation/4-8.htm
(What John saw when taken up to heaven)
@45
I would suggest double checking this, and a lot he has said, for factuality. It was recently, through a detailed look at his supposed sources, or lack their of, that way too much of his, “scholarship”, seems to have been, “I really like this idea, and think its true, so I am going to write a book about it, tell a lot of people about it, and see if they buy it/into it.” But, heh, maybe this is accurate…
@47 – also as a kind of, “Direct consequence of both passages describing what god ‘wants’ of those that believe in him, and bits of descriptions from various other parts of the Bible, describing likely attributes of the after life, which could imply anything from literal oblivion, to what ever the spiritual equivalent of being backed up on a hard drive, then stored on a shelf, like some sort of souvenir, unable to even think any more, etc., all could be valid interpretations.” A book with, of course, absolutely zero contradictions. lol
Well, for almost a millennium (https://www.britannica.com/topic/limbo-Roman-Catholic-theology) belief in limbo was customary. Then, in 2007, it was deprecated by the Church, in that it was set aside by being reclassified as only a ‘possible theological hypothesis’ rather than dogma. (https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html).
Re: Kagehi @48:
Did you have a particular review in mind? I haven’t kept up with him. I only watched one of Ehrman’s lecture series overviewing the development of NT canon like 20 years ago. Wasn’t interested in his hobby horse arguing Jesus was a real guy and which things he really said. That subject sells books but mired him in noise from evangelicals and mythicists.
I casually found a StackExchange rando saying he’d been taught that as well. (Their teaching environment wasn’t stated.)
And an article by Bible scholar L. Michael White accompanying PBS Frontline’s documentary on apocalypticism through history.
Jaws: Yeah, Pascal’s Wager is bullshit. I much prefer what I like to call the Aurelian Wager, because it was attributed to Marcus Aurelius:
Be a good person and do the most good you can in the time you have. If the Gods are just, they will reward you for your goodness. If the Gods are unjust, well, at least you did your best and held up your end (and compromising your virtue to appease unjust gods is a bad bet anyway). And if there are no Gods and no afterlife, then you still would have led the best life you had.
I find it interesting that the people who want me to believe in the existence of Hell can’t offer a genuine escape from it, except possibly through reaching Heaven so God can nerve-staple my soul so that I’m not me anymore. It’s oblivion, but with extra unnecessary steps. And it leaves behind a soul zombie with my face.
Joke’s on him. We know that life after death consists of a cocktail party that lasts only 6 to 8 weeks.
https://youtu.be/rt8xzl4YUUM?si=M7qO_KPCyUhS9seg&t=123
That’s always been one of the more hilariously ridiculous parts of the Christian ultimatum: Guess cosmology correctly or be tortured in fire forever.
And it would be absurd to even ask this today, when we have a decent amount of knowledge, but something like a reassessment of the consistency of Type IA supernovas can upend 27 years of underlying assumptions; they laid out this threat back before heliocentrism, when the average person couldn’t read. didn’t know where the sun went at night, and would have been wowed by the advent of the wheelbarrow.
One of the more obvious “tells” to the Bible’s entirely human origins.