On living forever

A thoughtful post from the Maverick here.

The problem is not that our lives are short; the problem is that we are in time at all. No matter how long a life extends it is still a life in time, a life in which the past is no longer, the future not yet, and the present a passing away. This problem, the problem of the transitoriness of life, cannot be solved by life extension even if, per impossibile, physical immortality were possible. This problem of the transitoriness and vanity of life is one that religion addresses.

I'm sure he knows the bit where Wittgenstein asks rhetorically (at the end of the Tractatus, I don’t have the reference with me) whether any problem is solved by the idea of my living forever.

Is it cruel to believe in Hell?

Is the belief cruel? You might say that God is cruel. But is the person who believes this of God also cruel? Why? If God does not exist, no one has or will be punished, and so no one is hurt. If God exists, but does not intend to punish souls in this way, the same applies. Cruelty can only exist when there is an object of cruelty.

But if God exists and does intend punish souls in this way, then that is the fact of the matter. There is nothing that the believer can do to prevent the suffering.

David Hume had the interesting theory that all professed believers are really atheists. He says that all Catholics condemn the St Bartholomew's massacre as cruel and inhumane. Yet these are the same people, he says, who condemn non-Catholics to eternal torment 'without scruple'.

Currently being discussed at the Quodlibet forum.

Overheard in a bar

'I worked with him a few years ago and he was always trying to convert me to Islam. It would drive me mad. Finally, I said "So you believe that when I die, I will go to hell and suffer eternal punishment, and so will my wife, and so will my two beautiful daughters". He thought about this for a bit then said "Yeah. But let's not let that get between us as mates"'.


A similar thought, isn't it, to this "The Roman Catholicks are certainly the most zealous of any sect in the Christian world; and yet you will find few among the more sensible people of that communion who do not blame the Gunpowder-treason, and the massacre of St. Bartholomew, as cruel and barbarous, though projected or executed against those very people, whom without any scruple they condemn to eternal and infinite punishments. All we can say in excuse for this inconsistency is, that they really do not believe what they affirm concerning a future state; nor is there any better proof of it than the very inconsistency." (Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, I. iii. 9).

Truth in Hell

What on earth is going on here? and particularly here? Fr. Alexis Bugnolo, a Franciscan who is developing an internet library of Scholastic Theology and Philosophy (and good luck to him, I say – this material has lain buried and neglected for too long) is incensed by what he calls a sodomitic slur against St. Anselm in an article in the internet encyclopedia, Wikipedia. The original article, now locked down, is here, and the talk page, which gives a full background to the dispute is here.

Bognolo stirs up a number of demons, which I won't discuss here. It is what he says about truth that interests me. He says 'Wikipedia is not much different that the real lower regions, where demons wittle the hours of their impending ultimate damnation on the Day of Judgement, idling wailing and complaining and arguing among themselves against the pittible [sic], little truth that their darkened intellects can still behold. … Suffice it to say, that at Wikipedia, they are obsessed with a false definition of truth. For them truth is something neutral, between the medium of two personal opinions. They wrongly believe that falsehood does not exist. Now of course such a definition of truth only prevails in Hell, and that is why those who accept the Wikipedia system end up with the sensibilities of devils, who cannot endure anything at all being said that is true, lest someone arrive at the truth.'

Now there are some real problems at Wikipedia - mainly because professional researchers and academics have no incentive to contribute to it, whereas cranks have every incentive. But I don’t think they have a 'false definition of the truth'. Truth is not something neutral. Of two contrary opinions, at least one must be false, and of two contradictory opinions at least one must be true. Wikipedians would not claim otherwise.

But, when the truth is difficult to determine, Wikipedians say that different opinions about the truth must be given, and (in controversial cases like this) the opinions supported by evidence (or references to that evidence). What is wrong with that?