Ever the fan of emotive assertions, Dan Barker struck again during his Feb. 12th debate with Kyle Butt (reviewed here):
A threat of violence, which is what Hell is; it’s a threat of eternal torture, any system of thought that has that thought in it, that scares the minds of children, who go to bed at night wondering if they’re gonna go to Hell, it is a morally bankrupt system.1
I do not know whether to think that Dan Barker is one of the most misinformed celebrity atheists when it comes to the Bible’s contents, if he knows better but manipulates it the most, or some combination of these and other factors. Fortunately, it is not my task to discern his thoughts or motivation but it is my task to consider his statements and parse the truth from fallacy. I have decided to combine a response to the above quote with a response to similar statements made by Prof. Richard Dawkins.
Let us make one thing clear: the Greek word odunao is translated both as torment and torture. Torture denotes the infliction of physical pain, while torment denotes mental anguish. Thus, let us be absolutely clear in understanding that nowhere in the whole Bible is it even hinted at that hell is to be pictured as a Gulag’s torture chamber. Neither is it even hinted at that there will be people, or demons, whose job is to inflict physical pain. Neither is satan ever pictured as some sort of king of hell. Rather, he is pictured as one who suffers like the rest, and indeed more so, for it was for him and the fallen angels for whom hell was created (Matthew 25:41). Dan Barker appears glean his understanding of hell from creepy medieval paintings or fallacious fire and brimstone preachers and not from the Bible.
One example of the concept of hell ought suffice:
From the safety and comfort of countries whose societies are based on Christian principles Richard Dawkins made the following narrowly prejudicial statement,
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.2
Now, let us imagine that after dying Richard Dawkins finds out that this God is the one true God. Richard Dawkins has spent a lifetime expressing his hatred of this God. Thus, if God where to force Richard Dawkins into heaven this would be hell for him as he would have to spend eternity with a being whom he finds repulsive in virtually every imaginable way. Thus, God has created a place to which people can go, if he so choose, in order to be done with Him forever.
Richard Dawkins has made the point that religion’s real child abuse is its theology. He mentions that a particular woman was fondled by her parish priest and felt that it was “yuchy.” Yet, what really tormented her was the doctrine of hell which tormented “many a night.” Richard Dawkins tells that he, as a young Anglican, was “fondled by the Latin master” which he found to be a “disagreeable sensation…a mixture of embarrassment and skin-crawling revulsion.” He states that “As soon as I could wriggle off his knee, I ran to tell my friends and we had a good laugh, our fellowship enhanced by the shared experience of the same sad pedophile.” Moreover, he states, “I do not believe that I, or they, suffered lasting, or even temporary damage from this disagreeable physical abuse of power.”
He also makes various odd statements regarding power abusing pedophiles such as:
But reports of child abuse cover a multitude of sins, from mild fondling to violent buggery…just because some pedophile assaults are violent and painful, it doesn’t mean that all are. A child too young to notice what is happening at the hands of a gentle pedophile will have no difficulty at all in noticing the pain inflicted by a violent one. Phrases like ‘predatory monster’ are not discriminating enough, and are framed in the light of adult hang-ups.
Perhaps the Freudians of olden days would be better suited to comment on Richard Dawkins’ odd statements regarding pedophilia. What we are interested in addressing here is his virtual dismissal of sexual abuse and aggrandizement of doctrinal abuse as he states:
An extreme threat of violence and pain is precisely what the doctrine of hell is. And there is no doubt at all that many children sincerely believe it, often continuing right through adulthood and old age until death finally releases them.
Do take a moment to note that according to atheism death is the great salvation from all of life’s wows. Death is the driving force behind all of life’s advancements, it is the god of Darwinian-Dawkinsian evolution. As Richard Dawkins has stated, “In nature, the usual selecting agent is direct, stark and simple. It is the grim reaper.”3
Certainly some have taken the doctrine of hell far and away from the Bible and have accentuated particular aspects of the symbolic language that is used to describe it such as “fire” and “torture.” I have written on various misconceptions of hell in my essay On Hell and Why Would Your Lord Send You To Hell? and, for that matter, with regards to fallacious and dangerous celibacy in The Celibate Priesthood – God’s Will and Human Nature.
Thus, to the point, as Richard Dawkins states it:
Only a minority of priests abuse the bodies of the children in their care. But how many priests abuse their minds?…The threat of eternal hell is an extreme example of mental abuse.
At this point we ought to note that according to Dawkinsian style logic, evils done in the name of “religion” (whatever “religion” may mean) discredit religion but good done in its name do not accredit it. The Dawkinsian tactic, and that of many others such as Sam Harris, is to claim that evil done in the name of religion discredits the religion. Thus, they tirelessly point out these evils. How they determine what is “evil” is another matter entirely. Upon it being pointed out that they are only looking at one side of the issue by not mentioning the enumerable acts of charity done in the name of religion they simply retort with words to the effect of, “Good people would have done that anyway but religion is what causes good people to do evil” (whatever “good” and “evil” may be). Thus, their comments are logically fallacious on many levels.
Now, getting to the main point which is that torment of the mental/psychological nature are not unique to religious upbringing. This mere fact discredits Dan Barker’s and Prof. Richard Dawkins’ assertion that a religion that preaches hell is therefore discredited.
Presuppositionally, I would state that the doctrine of hell is about as abusive as a doctor telling you that you have a terminal disease that will eat away at your body for decades on end and cause chronic and intolerable pain-unless, that is, you simply take a medicine that is guaranteed to cure you. Bother Dan Barker and Richard Dawkins do make some valid points and preachers of hell ought to handle the subject with accuracy and love and we should certainly empathize with those who have been needlessly tormented.
I wish to end this essay by what prompted me to write it in the first place and that is by sharing an anecdote. I must admit that I too have similar experiences of being raise in sheer terror. I was raised in a 100% secular household by an atheist and an agnostic and I believed that when I died I would simply disappear, just altogether cease to be. This though was so terrifying that from my earliest childhood memory I recall crying to myself in utter despair.
This belief also made me horribly sad when, for example, my mother had to do something as menial as going to the market, what if she died before getting back home? I wanted my mommy.
It was horrific I assure you and, by the way, my older brother, in typical older brother style, played upon my fears and tormented me by doing things such as looking out of the window and saying things like, “Look! Mom is laying dead on the sidewalk!” I became so afraid of the dark that I used to tie a string around the light switch, then get in bed under my covers and finally pull the string in order to switch the lights off. I recall that when I was 18 years old I was at work and had to run into the bathroom to lock myself in the toilet stall because I was so consumed with despair. Imagine, a man crying to himself like a little child.
This is just my sad story of being mentally abused and psychologically scarred by being raised a secular environment.
Ultimately, I suppose that the argument from terror fails since it can be applied to theism and atheist as I can, sadly, attest.
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Incidentally, in case you are unempathetic and unsympathetic enough to attempt to turn this true story against be, as a theist, and make some sort of claim about my becoming a theist due to fear of death or some such thing allow me to note that I ended up becoming 100% comfortable with death and not in the least bit afraid of it long before I came to believe what I now believe.
I did, by the way, come literally within six inches of being decapitated once-but that is another story.