Is purposeless torture moral?
Offline Is purposeless torture moral?
Most governments seem to believe that torture is an immoral and evil thing and most do not have what we would call a torture chambers. Let’s ignore Guantanamo Bay and other exceptions please.
Religions do not seem to agree with this because religions promise a place of torture for evil souls and some believers will even drop a church that preaches that there is no hell. It seems that some believers want badly that there be this place of purposeless torture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv_rmQuagpY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baGwwma5VZo&feature=relmfu
Hell is a place of purposeless torture and pain. It is used purely for revenge retribution and cruelty.
Some say we choose hell and some think that God, as our judge, sentences us to it. Some think it is eternal while some think that it and its occupants are eventually dumped into a lake of fire and destroyed. A long period of torture to some and a short term of torture to others.
From a moral standpoint, to even create such a place would not be moral.
Is it moral for God to use or let others choose to use his torture chamber called hell or the lake of fire?
Regards
DL
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For many of the religious, morality is whatever their handlers tell them it is, so torture is fine since God moves in mysterious ways.
The people who invented "hell" were living in "hell" and they wanted their enemy to experience it so they made the shit up to scare people.
There was no hell like we know it today (in christianity) until after jesus came. The jews don't have a hell like it. The chinese don't. The norse didn't... it's all made up shit.
do I hear an echo
is undertaken for the sake of rehabilitation not mindless eternal retribution and is matched, coherently, to the crime it punishes then it has justification.
The crime/justice fulcrum must be to a large extent dependent on a range of subjective mitigating circumstances and contexts. All these need to be taken into account.
Blanket incineration for all crime, but most of all for the morally banal crime of disbelieving the doctrine of a cult, should be seen as a lazy, fallacious appeal to the club.
So yes, mindless torture is morally inconsistent. If torture is wrong, if failure to forgive is wrong, then they are always wrong - wrong behaviour for humans and doubly wrong for the pet god concepts to which they turn their eyes upwards.
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Much worse than that. As I recall, hell was actually made up somewhere between the 1600's and 1800's.
Morals are subjective, so if you asked enough people I'm sure you'd find at least one who thought that any torture was moral.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
The mystery is how believers can fathom the unfathomable and know that God works in mysterious ways in the first place.
Regards
DL
No argument from me here.
Regards
DL
Well put.
Regards
DL
Mostly just the believers will say such because they fear offending their imaginary God.
Regards
DL
I'm thinking it came from a duplicate thread somewhere around here...
That was it...it...it...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
Wow. I did not know that; do you know who or what group influenced the "hell" we know today from the christians? I wonder if this is the same people who coughed up the shit about the "rapture"
Disclaimer: I'm going off more than 5 year old memory, so there's a 70% chance I'm remembering completely or partially incorrectly. Though hopefully the gaps in my memory take up the error ratio.
As I recall, it all started with an American girl, who if born today would have spent much time in a psychiatric institution.
This woman was a christian, had visions, and in a fairly brief time amassed an exceptionally large following.
It was she who first brought promise of eternal fire and brimstone to the masses, who eagerly disseminated the information.
*cringes in preparation of someone who knows what I'm talking about telling me I fucked up the story huge*
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Promise of eternal torment (rationally nonsensical) is recent phenomena, eh? I don't have any problems with that notion.
“A meritocratic society is one in which inequalities of wealth and social position solely reflect the unequal distribution of merit or skills amongst human beings, or are based upon factors beyond human control, for example luck or chance. Such a society is socially just because individuals are judged not by their gender, the colour of their skin or their religion, but according to their talents and willingness to work, or on what Martin Luther King called 'the content of their character'. By extension, social equality is unjust because it treats unequal individuals equally.” "Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood (2003)
Dante wrote the Divine Comedy back in the 14th century which had a representation similar to what christians believe today. So it isn't exactly a new idea. Although one could probably credit Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield for increasing the popularity of the belief by emphasizing the punishments of hell during the great awakening in the mid 1700's.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
http://what-the-hell-is-hell.com/AncientHell.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapture
The duration of the punishments of hell has been a subject of controversy since early Christian times.
The 3rd century Christian writer and theologian Origen and his school taught that the purpose of these punishments was purgatorial, and that they were proportionate to the guilt of the individual.
Origen held that, in time, the purifying effect would be accomplished in all, even devils; that punishment would ultimately cease; and that everyone in hell eventually would be restored to happiness.
This doctrine was condemned by the Second Council of Constantinople in 553, and a belief in the eternity of the punishments in hell became characteristic of both the Orthodox church and the Roman Catholic church.
From Encarta via http://www.angelfire.com/realm/shades/demons/biblic/hell.htm
THE ANATHEMATISMS OF THE EMPEROR JUSTINIAN AGAINST ORIGEN.(1)
IX. If anyone says or thinks that the punishment of demons and of impious men is only temporary, and will one day have an end, and that a restoration (apokatastasis) will take place of demons and of impious men, let him be anathema.
See http://www.catholicbook.com/AgredaCD/Ecumenical_Councils/Constantinople2.htm
and for some for general background on damnation and punishment in various religions:
See http://i-cias.com/e.o/hell.htm
Ugh. If only the christians would speak proper English instead of sounding like a drama class. Gives me a headache.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Bronze
What do you think?
Regards
DL