Comment by padobson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by padobson | Hacker News Reader

Akrasia and Enkrateia remind me of the dual nature of humans that St. Paul describes in Romans:

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Romans 7:14-25

Paul is writing here about the battle between a person's moral ideals and how their desires conflict and often overrun those ideals, admitting that even he is a hypocrite who does things he otherwise condemns.

I like how procrastination is discussed in forums like HN. We can recognize it as something keeping us from our goals, but can also empathize with each other in failing to master it. This is how I see the early church's approach to sin in St. Paul's era, or at least that was the point he was making in Romans.

In the same way, we can combat procrastination as a community by sharing our stories and providing the insight to overcome it. This is my favorite part of community, be it in church or on HN or elsewhere.

The only problem is that I am procrastinating by being on HN, and if I read about combating procrastination here then I can even fool myself into thinking I'm doing something useful.

Yeah, I definitely hear that. It's very easy to fool yourself into believing that something is helpful when it's not.

That said, I've definitely gotten a ton of benefit from reading HN. It's a great resource for discovering new tech, startups, research, and many other things. If you find part of it beneficial, maybe you should work it into your daily plan/schedule/checklist or however you might organize the productive parts of your day. Put it after a high-friction task, something you have trouble starting. Then reading HN is like a reward for completing that high-friction task.

Then you can contribute what you learned to a blog post or comment thread on HN, thus perpetuating the community.

Amen.

It's easy (or at least easier) to be open and honest about our faults and failures when no one is telling us we'll burn in eternal damnation for them.

That's not really a thing in Christianity, Jesus had that whole "let he without sin cast the first stone" thing or whatever it was

It may not have a thing for Jesus, or the Bible, but it's very much a thing for Christianity.

Yet another illustration of the fundamental divergence of that institution from its origins.

> but it's very much a thing for Christianity

I wonder if you might explain what exactly you mean by this, and to what degree you believe it is a thing.

And to be very, very clear: I'm asking this absolutely sincerely. Not in a clever or trolling manner, but rather, I am asking in an epistemological sense.

I grew up in a couple different Christian traditions, and have known and spoken about this question with people with backgrounds, and/or who currently worship in many others. I have friends and family who follow every denomination from Catholic, to Lutheran, to Evangelical, between, and beyond.

The notions of Hell and damnation not uncommon, though certainly not universal, in the practice of Christianity, particularly among the laity.

Doctrinally, it's less overt, especially among the more liberal traditions, but even there (I'm specifically thinking of Episcopalian and Methodist lineages, here), it's not unheard of.

EDIT: ...in my experience.

I think the general theme is going to be ever-present in any Christian religious teachings, but in your experience, do you feel like "heavy emphasis" was put on that particular idea, and especially as a motivating factor for controlling behavior or allegiance....as a tool to manipulate?

And if it isn't confidential, the people you're familiar with, is that restricted to a fairly tight geographical region, or quite spread out? I'm wondering if perhaps it is the case that there are somewhat distinct regional flavors of religious teaching. If this was the case, with a generally more mobile populace, families often tending to live further apart, one would expect this to decrease over time, especially with young people who've moved away from family, although any number of things could cause a change in younger generations.

How overtly employed varies widely, but yes; generally I did and do see it as a tool of control. That the notion is so widespread gives it social proof, so however contrary to doctrine or scripture it might be, it drives our behavior at a far deeper level.

As for your second question, there's a significant subset of my sample population that's moderately geographically bound (Plains and Upper Midwest), but I have people of faith from all over, including internationally, in my social graph, and see some variation on the notion almost across it.

I agree that as people spread out, the phenomenon tends to diminish. Research has shown that a profoundly effective mechanism for combatting insular beliefs is exposure to people who don't share them. Not enough people do that to meaningfully combat the phenomenon, though; something over half of Americans have never left the country, and the median distance adult Americans live from their mother is, IIRC, under 20 miles.

As well, people who move out of places where Hell is more of a thing may lose the belief, some, but many of them are probably leaving because they don't share the belief, to whatever degree, and people who move to those places might already believe it themselves, or may face a group that's selected, positively or negatively (by people leaving) for holding it.

> It may not have a thing for Jesus, or the Bible

It absolutely was, though. For the Bible, at least, including, in the Bible, Jesus specifically (it's not like we have independent contemporaneous authority besides the Bible on what Jesus said or believed.)

It depends on which sect and tradition of Christianity, there's a lot in the south eastern USA that preach about fire and brimstone like that. They don't usually go on about specific people, but people in general so they're skirting the whole without sin thing. I remember in particular a number of Southern Baptist preachers that were like this. I can't say that it's their chosen doctrine since I was never a Southern Baptist nor have I studied anything around it, but they were always prevalent where I grew up (middle of nowhere North Carolina).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_and_brimstone

> Jesus had that whole "let he without sin cast the first stone" thing or whatever it was

That didn't contradict eternal punishment in Hell for unrepentant sinners, it was just one of many ways Jesus conveyed the message of “stop usurping God's role by judging and punishing everyone else's sins—which is a sin itself—and focus on stopping and atoning for yours, because it's the right thing to do and, also, eternal hellfire.”

An eternal hell fire is Greek/Roman mythology, it was only merged with Christianity because of the Roman Catholic Church. The bible never says anywhere people burn forever.

There are numerous statements about death being like sleep, and a second death being permanent and you are just gone, no torture.

One metaphorical story sort of implies one person was burning, so I think that is why people think it's from the bible.

Where in Greek/Roman mythology do you find an eternal hell fire? That sounds very surprising to me...

Dante's Inferno is a good place to start, but I am looking up the Catholic teachings I have read about in the past... (edit: refer to comment above, no need for me to copy/paste it twice)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_(Dante)

How does Dante, who placed all the Greeks and Romans in the first circle of hell (for being non-Christian) lend any plausibility to this idea being present in Greek/Roman mythology? And in fact the article you linked makes no such claim.

> An eternal hell fire is Greek/Roman mythology, it was only merged with Christianity because of the Roman Catholic Church.

No, it's actually (a version of) the Jewish myth of Gehenna [0], and it's incorporated into Christianity because it is referenced directly in the Bible, both the general named myth as a place people are cast for punishment (many times, in all three synoptic Gospels plus James) and the specific equation with it being a place of unquenchable fire (Mark 9:43).

[0] which may at some point and in some details have been influenced by Greco-Roman mythology, but had quite a long history within pre-Christian Judaism, arising out of references to it as a specific physical place where child sacrifice by fire occurred in the Hebrew Bible.

Judaism has no hell, ask any religious Jew. (I know a few and have had this very discussion with them.) Ghenna was a burning trash heap, not a place of torment. Death is a silencing end, not a torturous punishment in the bible, including the teachings used by the Jews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell

Also, christian Churches don't teach Jewish theology, they teach a version of Catholisim, and eternal burning hell fire of punishment is found in the Vatican's own Catechism of the Catholic Church.

"1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."615 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs."

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2O.HTM

This is a purely Catholic teaching, and other branches of Christianity, derive many of their myths from the Greeks:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell#Greek

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_views_on_Hell#Roman_...

The bible is clear that when you die, you are either asleep, like King David was (Jesus referenced his bones) or burned up and gone forever, the lake of fire from Revelations.

> Judaism has no hell, ask any religious Jew.

Not all historical variations of Jewish religious beliefs that existed near the time of the birth of Christianity still exist as Jewish beliefs, but, AFAICT, the Jewish belief of at a minimum something like a Purgatory is still active; the concept of hell/Gehenna explicit in the Gospels as a place of punishment reflected (possibly an evolution from) a then-current (but not at all universal) Jewish religious belief related to the one that remains current in some branches of Judaism.

> Ghenna was a burning trash heap, not a place of torment.

This idea appears to be a medieval Jewish invention. It was, again, specifically in the Hebrew scriptures, a place where children were sacrificed by fire by non-Jews.

> Also, christian Churches don't teach Jewish theology

No, they teach Christian theology, but Christian theology didn't, as whole, arise ex nihilo with the formation of Christianity as a distinct religious community, it evolved, in many specifics, from Jewish theology that existed where and when Christianity emerged.

> they teach a version of Catholisim,

Well, no. It's true that most (but not all) now-existing branches of Christianity diverged at some point from the Church that was institutionalized in Rome in the same way that Christianity itself diverged from Judaism; to claim, then, that they teach “a version of Catholicism” is true only in the exact same way as saying that they teach a version of Judaism is.

> and eternal burning hell fire of punishment is found in the Vatican's own Catechism of the Catholic Church.

It's found in the Gospel of Mark (9:43); from the KJV:

“And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched”

And also in Revelation (20:10):

“And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

I'm pretty sure the authors of the Gospel and the Revelation weren't inspired by theological developments that would occur after the institutionalization of Roman Catholicism.

> The bible is clear that when you die, you are either asleep, like King David was (Jesus referenced his bones) or burned up and gone forever, the lake of fire from Revelations

This is phenomenally wrong: the Bible uses lots of different and superficially conflicting images of afterlife states, and the lake of fire of Revelation is explicitly one of eternal torment at least for some.

>Mark (9:43) ...into the fire that never shall be quenched"

It doesn't say they will still be alive, just burned to death. Many other scriptures confirm a permanent death, none say everlasting torment.

>Revelation (20:10): “And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

It says the "devil" and the beast and the false prophet will tormented, but no one else is listed here.

In Rev 22:18,19 and Deut 4:2 have strict warnings about adding to or taking away words from the bible.

I would completely support a statement that these scriptures "strongly imply" or even "seem to imply", but they certainly do not state plainly that people will go to the classical hell taught by many today.

where their worm shall never die..

"Worm", not person/soul (or whatever word for human).

As much as I feel it would have ended many religious debates if the bible had been written more clearly, there are some things that just aren't there.

> It says the "devil" and the beast and the false prophet will tormented, but no one else is listed here.

The mentioned devil and beast may or may not be, but the false prophet is a person so this:

> I would completely support a statement that these scriptures "strongly imply" or even "seem to imply", but they certainly do not state plainly that people will go to the classical hell taught by many today.

Is only correct in the sense that the classical hell is an amalgam of images of Sheol/Hades, Gehenna, the Revelations lake of fire, Tartarus, and definitely other places/outcomes that don't have proper names mentioned in parables, etc., and not directly tied to one single image in the Bible, and the Bible never explicitly says all of these are the same place. But it's absolutely the case that the Bible explicitly and literally says that people in some number n where n ≥ 1 will be punished in everlasting fire, which is the point that was in dispute.

It doesn't explicitly state that the "false prophet" will "burn forever", only the fire itself burns forever.

There are many verses worded is ways that are non-specific, and if you take other scriptures into account as well, it's plain no human is condemned to eternal torment. For example the idea of a mass resurrection, it's contradictory to be both resurrected to life and be in hell forever. (or to be in heaven and resurrected back to earth)

If you want to make an exception for this one person (false prophet), I would easily give in and willing to admit it's possible (what do I know accept what is written?).

Then the elephant in the room is metaphor. If we are going to be literal with every verse, then even the ones where Jesus says "this is a parable" must be questioned. (lots of contradictions come from this)

If we are going to accept there is metaphor, now we get to arguing which verses are metaphors and which aren't, now it's pure opinion (or educated opinion). And then what is the point of discussing any further?

I ascribe to "educate on facts, debate on opinion", the second of which I feel is almost never useful.

> It doesn't explicitly state that the "false prophet" will "burn forever", only the fire itself burns forever.

No, it says the devil and the beast and the false prophet will be “tormented forever and ever” in the lake of fire. Explicitly, the punishment is eternal, not just the fire itself.

> There are many verses worded is ways that are non-specific, and if you take other scriptures into account as well, it's plain no human is condemned to eternal torment.

That's...far from plain. It's certainly a possible conclusion that, while not without problems, isn't particularly less tenable as a resolution of some of the surface contradictions as others.

> For example the idea of a mass resurrection, it's contradictory to be both resurrected to life and be in hell forever.

It's not contradictory to be resurrected and then thrown into Hell, which is exactly what happens in the second resurrection in Revelation. (Equating the lake of fire with Hell, of course.)

Now, unlike the devil, beast, and false prophet, we aren't explicitly told that those in the second resurrection are “tormented forever and ever”, only that they are thrown into the lake of fire, after which the narrative shifts to other topics. So, sure, the text, read literally, admits the possibility that they get only a finite experience of torment, but that's not the natural interpretation, especially in light of the parallel of the two resurrections in Revelation to the two eternal outcomes foretold in Daniel.

But, in any case, my point isn't that the proper interpretation of the Bible involves any particular prevalence of eternal punishment, but merely that the upthread claim that the idea of eternal punishment in a lake of fire in Christianity comes from Greco-Roman mythology by way of Catholic theology and not from the text of the Bible is not correct; the idea is—whether or not it is the best interpretation when viewing the Bible holistically—grounded directly in descriptions in the Bible, including quite literal ones.

>No, it says the devil and the beast and the false prophet will be “tormented forever and ever” in the lake of fire. Explicitly, the punishment is eternal, not just the fire itself.

Yes, death "forever", never to come back from it. It doesn't say "screaming forever in pain". The contrast to this is death where people come back from it at some point. (see Jesus resurrection, Laserus, the dry bones valley, Paul's defence in the courts, etc...)

There is no "torture forever" in the bible for people, their punishment is "death forever".

-"And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [are], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever."

The subject is "the devil", who is cast into the lake of fire. The location is described as "where the beast and the false prophet [are]". But the word "are" isn't in the verse, it's "implied". And then finally "shall be tormented." Who is tormented? The devil.

The beast and false prophet are not the subject, and it doesn't say they are "alive in the lake" it says where they were already thrown. It doesn't say they are being tormented, it says the devil is.

I know you can read that sentence in a different way, but if you do, you must conclude there's no such thing as a resurrection, and believe there is an immortal soul and various other things that contradict.

Here's a comparison of many translations, they don't all agree. And this is the one single verse in the entire bible that people can use to say there is an ever burning hell, and it's vague and not consistently translated.

https://www.blueletterbible.org/nasb/rev/20/10/p0/t_bibles_1...

King David "slept" (didn't go to heaven or a burning hell) (1 Kings 2:10) and this confirmed in Act 2:29-

-"...the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day."

Then later of King David, called "a man after God's own heart" did not go to heaven, Act 2:34-

-"For it was not David who ascended into heaven..."

There is no immortal soul, anyone thrown in the lake of fire (besides the devil I guess) dies, eternally, never to be resurrected.

Matt 10:28 "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

Eternal death of the body and soul is what hell/gehenna is, not torment forever, simple death. Just like no one has gone to live in heaven (accept Jesus of course), no one has gone to live in hell. When people die, they turn back into the dirt, and are asleep just like King David, waiting for the resurrection. (at least that is what is written)

I despise religions as the next man, but they are as popular as they are for a reason: they usually include collections of practical strategies to achieve your goals in life, which actually work very well for a lot of people. The most skilful ones have accumulated millennia of empirical testing and refinements.

There is a lot of top-notch “self-help” advice buried in religious teachings, if you can ignore the superstitious and moralistic aspects. It took me decades to understand it, because I grew up hating secular bureaucracies spawned by religion (which are, more often than not, primarily interested in their own survival and as useful as the next bureaucracy - i.e. not at all).

I wish I could find a book doing with the practices of organised religion what Joseph Campbell did with myth and storytelling.

These norms and best practices don't spawn from religion. They come from human civilization. Many happen to be encoded in religions, but they're not "only" encoded in religions.

Most (all?) of the useful "self help" is available elsewhere, as common knowledge or encoded into social norms or pushed by other organizations (e.g. sports or boy/girl scouts or whatever).

My point is that there's no special knowledge to be found in religions and I'm happy to recommend ignoring them, since they tend to be full of more bad than good.

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