seeds wrote: ↑Sat Sep 14, 2019 8:35 pmIf such is the case, then shouldn’t the title of your thread be:
Can the Catholic God do evil?
Do you mean to frame it as a God who “always” does good, or a God who “only” does good?
However, either way, when it comes to the Catholic God, then I would suggest that any Being who would create and then send a defenseless soul into a context of everlasting (eternal) torture in a dimension of reality called hell,...
...takes the definition of evilness to a whole new level.
First of all, I answer it by saying that the whole concept of hell is total nonsense.
Secondly...
(and just for the sake of addressing your question from the perspective of a horrifying thought experiment)
...I’d say that if the choice between heaven and hell is one that is truly up to the individual, then to be fair, the Catholic God should give that individual an actual glimpse of heaven first.
Then after allowing them to see the beauty of heaven, the Catholic God should then attach a chain to their feet and then dip them for 5 minutes into a vat of molten steel...
...(while making sure that they do not die, and that their sense of pain remains intact throughout the ordeal).
Now of course, I am being melodramatic about this, but in the highly doubtful instance that they weren’t driven completely insane during that 5 minute sampling of hell, what do you suppose their choice would be?
Thirdly, you seem to have missed the point about the absurdity of attributing any semblance of goodness to a Being (such as the Catholic God) who is capable and willing to inflict everlasting torture upon billions of defenseless souls.
It is literally infinitely worse, but assigning the quality of “goodness” to such a God is like saying that a serial murderer who savagely and sadistically tortures his victims before strangling them, is a good person because he treats his pet snake with kindness, or paints lovely landscape murals.
And lastly, but not leastly, if hell does indeed exist, then consider what a brazen lie it would be for the humans who made it to heaven to think that God and heaven represent the locus and source of “goodness” when, in fact,...
(and assuming they are not functioning at some bovine level of consciousness, plopping down heavenly cow pies in heavenly pastures)
...they have no choice but to conclude that all of the billions of humans being tortured in hell are actually their own mothers, and fathers, and sisters, and brothers, and wives, and husbands, and children, etc., etc.
I mean, would you not at this very moment attempt to move heaven and earth to save a loved one from some madman’s torture chamber?
So what happens to the heaven dwellers’ sense of outrage and disgust for someone who tortures others?
Again, this whole business of hell and punishment after death is total nonsense.
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