Questing Beast Posted February 22, 2013 Author Posted February 22, 2013 (edited) Heaven and hell is a convenient dichotomy for defining good and bad. Using a religious context for defining and reinforcing the concept is not a bad idea.But in most religions "heaven and hell" are asserted to be literal outcomes and even "places" in the afterlife, as real as the earth to mortals is. "Heaven and hell" as allegory or parable works to illustrate the justice of "comeupance" for deeds and desires that are in conflict. Using religion to "enforce" the ideas as facts is fundamentally not a good idea, imho, because acquiring a disbelief in the religion can cause a sense of being free from the teachings of the religion. The religious context only seems to be a "good idea" for those that never disbelieve. "Unbelievers" or at least the unconvinced/unconcerned are many times more numerous than the believers are. Yet most unbelievers are good people to judge by their actions. If most of those who don't believe behaved badly the world of humans would self-destruct.... Edited February 22, 2013 by Questing Beast
ERayR Posted February 22, 2013 Posted February 22, 2013 But in most religions "heaven and hell" are asserted to be literal outcomes and even "places" in the afterlife, as real as the earth to mortals is. "Heaven and hell" as allegory or parable works to illustrate the justice of "comeupance" for deeds and desires that are in conflict. Using religion to "enforce" the ideas as facts is fundamentally not a good idea, imho, because acquiring a disbelief in the religion can cause a sense of being free from the teachings of the religion. The religious context only seems to be a "good idea" for those that never disbelieve. "Unbelievers" or at least the unconvinced/unconcerned are many times more numerous than the believers are. Yet most unbelievers are good people to judge by their actions. If most of those who don't believe behaved badly the world of humans would self-destruct....You misunderstand me. I didn't say that I thought they were allegorical I just said they were useful for defining good and bad.
Questing Beast Posted February 23, 2013 Author Posted February 23, 2013 I am saying they are allegorical, and they are useful for defining good and bad, AND losing faith in a literal "heaven and hell" causes some people to ditch "good" because they wanted to be "bad" in the first place, and they use their loss of faith as an excuse. If "heaven and hell" are taught allegorically, to illustrate the reality of "what goes around comes around", that is a good and useful thing. Getting all dogmatic about it is unnecessary, imho....
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