Actually, I had correctly identified what comment you were replying to. And, I repeat, "my choices should not have consequences" is not the same as "it is unreasonable for *these* choices to have *those* consequences", especially not when *these* choices are ones everyone makes and *those* consequences include eternal torment. You may repeat the same retort as often as you please, but that won't make it any more reasonable.
I agree that "given how bad hell is, better not to be able to make those choices" is an odd way of putting it; I think Paul has been briefly suckered by the all-too-common Christian move of representing eternal damnation as something God simply has no choice about. Much better than hell-and-no-choices would be choices-and-no-hell, I expect. "How *good* Heaven is" seems to me to strengthen Paul's argument that the choices aren't real choices; the bigger the carrot and stick offered to encourage choice A over choice B, the less meaningful it is to say that you get to choose freely between A and B. (The reality is that the choice between A and B is not clearly offered; those allegedly inseparable consequences are not clearly enough indicated to make those who choose one way or another responsible for those consequences.)
I was comparing (some versions of) Christianity to the mafia, actually, which is somewhat worse than most unscrupulous insurance sales. And it's not a baseless slander; evangelical Christianity really does represent God as offering that sort of choice. It's not *my* fault that your religion has such nasty bits in it :-). I've no idea how you get from there to "you don't think sin is serious"; that really *is* a baseless slander, since I've not suggested in the least that sin isn't serious. We do, perhaps, disagree over just how serious, and over what an omnipotent and perfectly good being might be expected to do about it. As for what you can say that will change my mind: well, you could always try rational argument. But if you prefer to think that because I made an analogy you don't like I'm impervious to reason, go ahead.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2008-05-28 11:21 pm (UTC)I agree that "given how bad hell is, better not to be able to make those choices" is an odd way of putting it; I think Paul has been briefly suckered by the all-too-common Christian move of representing eternal damnation as something God simply has no choice about. Much better than hell-and-no-choices would be choices-and-no-hell, I expect. "How *good* Heaven is" seems to me to strengthen Paul's argument that the choices aren't real choices; the bigger the carrot and stick offered to encourage choice A over choice B, the less meaningful it is to say that you get to choose freely between A and B. (The reality is that the choice between A and B is not clearly offered; those allegedly inseparable consequences are not clearly enough indicated to make those who choose one way or another responsible for those consequences.)
I was comparing (some versions of) Christianity to the mafia, actually, which is somewhat worse than most unscrupulous insurance sales. And it's not a baseless slander; evangelical Christianity really does represent God as offering that sort of choice. It's not *my* fault that your religion has such nasty bits in it :-). I've no idea how you get from there to "you don't think sin is serious"; that really *is* a baseless slander, since I've not suggested in the least that sin isn't serious. We do, perhaps, disagree over just how serious, and over what an omnipotent and perfectly good being might be expected to do about it. As for what you can say that will change my mind: well, you could always try rational argument. But if you prefer to think that because I made an analogy you don't like I'm impervious to reason, go ahead.