Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Sep 28, 2022 4:35 pmAnd if we accept that the Bible does, indeed, claim that God will judge (and how can we not?), then we have two options. One is to refuse to believe it, because one is having difficulty understanding how it works...and the assumption has to be, "If I don't (yet) understand, it cannot happen."
Now, is that a reasonable assumption?
There is a wide group of interpretive options, in fact.
One can certainly accept that the Bible, in the Old Testament and in the New, makes a range of claims about judgment. And one can also be certain that claims are made about the prospect, and the asserted reality, of an eternal hell-realm. Yet the option is open to examine those assertions from a different perspective. And one perspective is that a priestly class handles, creates & fabricates, the narrative voice that is given to Yahweh for the purposes of controlling the Hebrew tribe or culture and in keeping them on an established track of destroying the religious cultures of the people around them through what I have termed Hebrew idea imperialism.
In order to investigate the claim I make here requires a more nuanced reading, a more careful reading, of the Torah texts. One
must start there.
That
narrative voice, handled by a priest-class, tells the people of that culture that they are commanded to invade, rape, murder and enslave those people in surrounding lands who worship different gods. The story begins at the point of invasion and conquest and the ideological and theological justification for it. It is a religious ideology that is part of a military strategy and operation. The priest-class says, quite literally and effectively, "You will make no deals with any other people. Those who I command you to destroy and kill you will destroy and kill without exception".
I have presented here one avenue, or one intellectual strategy, for rereading those original texts.
Once one has identified the *real impetus* and the *real function* of a priest-class handling a divine voice, trust me, the entire picture changes. One has access to another interpretive model. At that point the notion of a 'god who judges' is seen in a different light. Why? Because the narrative voice and the *divine voice* is understood to be a manipulation. And really a manipulation at a most essential level. Because the implication (as you make clear with your various quotations) is that if you do not *believe in* this narrative voice that you will suffer the worst sort of suffering possible. The
punishment is (psychologically) absolutely terrifying to someone who is not equipped to oppose it.
One needs to gain proficiency in understanding how these psycho-religious myths actually work. So the focus is on *the wielding of text* and the *wielding of narrative* as well as psycho-cultural manipulation.
Research in this area
dovetails into large issues such as propaganda schemes, the manipulation of thought, the machinations of mind-control, etc.
Now at a metaphysical level to have pointed out what I have pointed out does not deny, necessarily, either the soul's existence nor of the eventuality of consequence for that soul.
What Harry has argued against is one dimension of specific, and limited, belief. But there are numerous other possibilities available. That is, if one were not (as Dubious and Henry seem to be) intent on becoming divested from
any metaphysical view.
But those alternatives, Immanuel, are outside and beyond consideration given your religious fanaticism. Religious fanaticism has you in its grip and you cannot let go. And as I suggest it is here that Hebrew idea imperialism needs to be examined far more closely. It needs to become the topic of conversation
itself.