Comment on Creep. Smdh
bassomitron@lemmy.world 1 week agoDoes the Bible actually say it’s forever? I thought I’ve read a discussion before where it’s implied that one can still repent and be redeemed in the afterlife. I’m not a theologian or an expert in the least bit, so I may be misremembering or it could’ve just been someone from one of the various more modern, progressive religious sects.
Yes, it says it's forever. The Catholic church does have a doctrine of purgatory, but it's for the flawed faithful.
But it also treats it akin to a spouse that has been continuously cheated on; all his gifts twisted, broken, and trashed; finally leaving the house.
Or self-inflicted by humanity, God going: "do you really, really want to stay apart from the source of life and all good? Then have it your way... ☹️"
King James version has lines like “your soul shall surely perish” which doesn’t sound like eternal damnation to me. It does say Lucifer was cast into the lake of fire, but to my knowledge doesn’t suggest this is a place human souls would end up.
Honestly I believe that hell was mostly an invention of religious leaders to gain more worshippers, and therefore more power. I don’t believe in any of it though.
Hell as we picture it is basically just fan fiction.
All of it is fan fiction. Even the Christians who know anything about history admit that most of the books of the bible were written circa 300CE. Jesus likely never existed, and if he did he was one among many self-styled prophets wandering the holy land.
Agreed. And I’m not religious, either. I’m not rigidly atheist, but I am highly skeptical of some omniscient, omnipotent being playing some divine version of RimWorld.
Dammit!
*reinstalling Rimworld
My understanding is that it’s a temporary period of “purification” or redemption, not eternal, but that has been lost in translation. I’m not a theologian though.
I feel like this is the same thing that happened with animal sacrifice. As a society, we realized how fucked up it really is and then the apologists try their hardest to reinterpret the Bible so it’s more in line with our new understanding of morality. Then it happened again with slavery. Society figured out owning and selling people as property is immoral, and the apologists come up with more ways to explain how we’ve been reading the Bible wrong up until now. Like, the Bible can’t simultaneously be perfectly clear and misinterpreted for thousands of years.
salarua@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
The Greek Bible uses the word αιών, which (confusingly) refers to either a duration of time with a beginning and end, or eternity. When the Bible was translated into Latin, αιών was translated as aeternam exclusively. However, that sense may not have been the right one to use. The earliest writings of the church, before the 5th century or so, described Hell as an ultimately temporary place of purification, rather than an eternal destination.
JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 1 week ago
There were many bad translations, and many purposefully bad ones.
Is it easier to exert control over a population with eternal damnation or proportional punishment?