Is Gandhi in hell? It’s a question that should puncture religious chauvinism and unsettle fundamentalists of every stripe. But there’s a question that should be asked in turn: Is Tony Soprano really in heaven?
A couple of rhetorical questions posed by Ross Douthat, who does us all the favor of reminding us how certain ideas that would otherwise be too ugly and despicable to be shared among polite society become perfectly respectable under the rubric of religion. (Via Steve Mirsky on the twitters.) In this case, the idea is: certain people are just bad, and the appropriate response is to subject them to torment for all time, without hope of reprieve. Now that’s the kind of morality I want my society to be based on.
The quote is extremely telling. Note that the first question is never actually answered — is Gandhi in hell? And there’s a good reason it’s never answered, because the answer would probably be “yes.” Hell is an imaginary place invented by people who think that eternal torture for people they disapprove of would be a good idea. And it’s the rare religion that says “we approve of all good people, whether or not they share our religious beliefs.” Much more commonly, Hell is brought up to scare people away from deviating from a particular religious path. Here’s the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Jesus often speaks of “Gehenna” of “the unquenchable fire” reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. Jesus solemnly proclaims that he “will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire”, and that he will pronounce the condemnation: “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!”
Do you think that, at the end of his life, Gandhi decided to believe in Jesus and converted?
The second question is equally telling, because even Douthat can’t bring himself to use a non-fictional person as an example of someone who deserves Hell. He’s trying to make the point that “we are defined by the decisions we make,” and if there is no way to make bad decisions then making good decisions is devalued. Which is a fine point to make, and many atheists would be happy to agree. The difference is that we don’t think that people who make bad decisions deserve to be tortured for all of eternity.
This enthusiastic stumping for the reality of Hell betrays not only a shriveled sense of human decency and a repulsive interest in pain inflicted on others, but a deplorable lack of imagination. People have a hard time taking eternity seriously. I don’t know of any theological descriptions of Hell that involve some version of parole hearings at regular intervals. The usual assumption is that it’s an eternal sentence. For all the pious musings about the centrality of human choice, few of Hell’s advocates allow for some version of that choice to persist after death. Seventy years or so on Earth, with unclear instructions and bad advice; infinity years in Hell for making the wrong decisions.
Hell isn’t an essential ingredient in humanity’s freedom of agency; it’s a horrible of invention by despicable people who can’t rise above their own petty bloody-mindedness. The thought of condemning millions of people to an eternity of torment makes Ross Douthat feel good about himself and gives him a chance to indulge in some saucy contrarianism. I tend to take issue with religion on the grounds that it’s factually wrong, not morally reprehensible; but if you want evidence for the latter, here you go.
Well, I guess most people are in fact theologically illiterate… that’s just another article to prove it. Is it so hard to inform oneself before writing?
I’m afraid the author doesn’t understand anything about christianity, hell and gheena (not sure how you write this word in English). For one thing, neither hell nor gheena are places of torture (by others), not as you see it. It’s a state of being brought on by one’s decisions – a self-torture if you will, because loneliness and remorse are torture. Some people who in life were closer to God will feel His presence lovingly in the afterlife. But for those who are far from God, His presence will be painful – as one who knows is guilty perceives the looks others throw him as dire accusations, is shamed and would like to hide one’s shame. But there is no hiding in the afterlife. We are all delivered to ourselves and to the consequences of what we made of ourselves – truth-loving children of God or vain renegades, free people or people enslaved by our passions.
Of course, those who did not have the possibility of knowing Christ will not suffer in the gheena for something that wasn’t their fault. But it appears Gandhi did know of Christ yet did not accept Him as the sole Way and Truth, nor did he know His Church. Therefore he is, one assumes, in hell. His fate however is not for us to judge.
I am not sure about the Roman Catholic theology, but in the Mother Church (Orthodox) this is basically what we know about hell and gheena, it’s not very well defined because not even the Holy Fathers have much information about these things. Concepts like Limbo and Purgatory were never recognized by the Church (they’re Roman Catholic inventions).
Oh, wait. There’s also talk of Islam. Seriously, how can one advocate Islam is more tolerant than Christianity (even the heterodox branches)? To this day muslims all over the world are killing people for no other reason than being christians. When did christians kill muslims (or anyone, really) for religious reasons? It was always done in self-defense and for getting back land muslims had conquered in their invasions. Unless you want to go for the white guilt and blame the entire christianity for the (often exaggerated) horrors of colonialism, conveniently glossing over the fact that most european peoples never had colonies and empires and were in fact fighting for independence.
salaamu aleykum Ioana
“To this day muslims all over the world are killing people for no other reason than being christians. ”
no this is simply not true.
Islamic terrorism is an EGT reflex against western meddling and proselytizing.
Christians are not killed in islamic countries simply for being christians. The Generous Quran is clear on this. The excuse that the christians or bah’ai or whatever is always that they were proselytizing in some fashion.
Proselytizing is against shariah law, and shariah is the law of the land in MENA.
Again, Dr. Carroll should not all judge all religions by Ross Douthats version of hell.
Anglo-saxon christianity is a dying religion, and Douthat is exhibiting classic fundamentalist behavior.
I assume you are attempting to speak of gehenna? It means in arabic a pit for the burial of the dead. There is much in Islam of paradise and the sufi concept of faana, but little liturgy on the concept of hell. I think Dr. Carroll was speaking to both the exclusivity of anglo-saxon christianity and the loving dwelling on the horrific detail of the christian concept of Hell.
@shams,
‘ This is nonsense and empirically false. Religions offer a membership in a memetic tribe which is a fitness advantage for survival and reproduction. ‘
If it’s nonsense how can you prove it’s ’empirically false’?
Moreover, if it’s nonsense then how could you have possibly understood what I wrote? And if you haven’t understood my statement then you are not responding to what I said, but speaking to yourself.
I think you are using words, whose meaning and use in context, you do not understand.
These are matters of life and death. You cannot afford to gamble on your life because you only have one.
You speak of things you have read about, I speak of things of which I have seen. You are like a tourist who visits London for a day and tells the world how expert they have become on English history.
I said to you I am not proselytizing, I will also say to you that I am NOT evangelizing.
I am doing something incomparable. Which you do not understand.
Let me give you an illustration because I cannot make you understand: light is different from darkness.
You are either in the light or in the darkness. These are primitive examples because the English language is constrained.
Likewise, when you read your Bible (which I assume you have done) remember that the English language is constrained.
Now, if all you depend on is your ability to understand the meanings of words and your comprehension – you will fail to understand the Christian faith.
Everything that you read in the Bible is like a tutorial for the Christian. Written for learning. As such, the practical stuff is not in the pages, not in the letters.
My friend, you are out of your depth. Humility is your best approach.
For example, Sean knows much more than me about General Relativity. For me to obtain some of his knowledge would require some humility on my part, to take lessons from him. Likewise, you need some Bible lessons.
Make sure you choose carefully who you get your Bible lessons from, there are ‘crackpots’ calling themselves Christian Teachers.
salaams Matthew
“just look at what is going on in such places as Libya and Syria etc etc over the past few months.”
Libya and Syria are muslim grassroots revolutions. Social networking has nothing to do with resisting western proselytization. Both Libya and Syria have franchises of the Muslim Brotherhood supporting the revolutions, and like Egypt, both will be islamic democracies when their revolutions succeed.
“do you think that Islamic terrorists are ‘radical Muslims’ or do you think they are ordinary?”
It is EGT defense-against-proselytization reflex, hardwired in a sense.
I know it is a difficult concept to grasp…but think of it this way.
Proselytizing to christians is an article of faith. It cannot be switched off easily.
Resistance to proselytizing is an article of faith to muslims. It is human nature. Religious tendency is hardwired in humans. Not everyone has an IQ of 180 to overcome religious tendency.
/shrug
bi la kayfah
Claver
“If it’s nonsense how can you prove it’s ‘empirically false’?”
Upon historical observation.
The Crusades, the War of the Roses, pograms against jews, the Conquistadore mission in South America, all empirical data.
Christianity has some history of proselytizing with the sword.
And yes, you are proselytizing and evangelizing. You are saying your way is best way, only way and you own the only truth. That is the question of Dr. Carrolls post ‘is Ghandi in hell.’ Like Ioana said, to christians Ghandi is in Hell, the Douthat version I guess.
“Sean knows much more than me about General Relativity”
And I know much more about history, Islam, Evolutionary Game Theory, and Evo Theory of Culture than you as well.
ya-haqq!
Namaste shams,
it’s brilliant, actually, what you and I have been writing to each other about can be thought of as just all of these game rules acting out in the world. Perhaps we don’t really have free will but are acting in accordance to these game rules? 🙂 So OBL doing his thing is just game rules acting through Him. All this worship is just people acting out game rules. Bush II reacting to OBL’s bit of performance art is just Him acting out game rules. And so on and so forth.
(but that’s why I think it is imperative that we learn to be able to suss out these rules and learn how we can guide or modify them — I personally think that a believer can still get the benefit/life out their faith life while knowing how their faith works etc etc. In fact, it’ll make them more resistant to being manipulated by people who don’t have their best interests at heart — or even worse, those who do 🙂
So how does Islam spread to non-Islamic countries? Can a religion succeed if it doesn’t grow?
And yes, I commiserate with you about religious tendency being “hard-wired”*…I think of it in terms of how our neurologies are made and how we all process reality — we take reality, which seems to be many-valued, non-verbal, mutable and then we apply symbols to it, making it understandable, static, and verbal. And we put essences into things that don’t have essences by themselves, inner identities, so, and ‘evil’ person actually IS Evil (cue reverb) and a ‘chair’ actually has this essence called Chair in it. Our metaphysics, those fundamental axioms we take on faith to be true, affect how we act and view the world. If something has action, we tend to anthropomorphize it, turning it into an agent.
* though I think that concept is just a result of the fact that everything operates by rules or habits coupled with our neurological structures. It is possible to modify these ‘hard-wired’ things, like the Buddhist monks who can actually STOP the same autonomic reflex arc as when someone burns their hand. Those rules that we aren’t aware of rule us more easily.
Pingback: Hell at Religion and Spirituality in Society
Namaste shams,
So all these things, “Shariah forbids proselytization”
“Freedom of speech legalizes proselytization”
“Therefore freedom of speech is incompatible with shariah law”
“Christians proselytizing”
“symbolically killing crusaders”
“defense-against-proselytization reflex…”
“implanting western style democracy”
“crying at a movie”
“opening a door for a woman”
“calling someone good”
are all GAME RULES that can be studied and understood by the people who follow them. They all involve the practitioner and are not unbreakable laws of reality, there is always a choice (but the problem arises when there are other GAME RULES that tell us not to examine these GAME RULES that are ruling our lives and wrecking each other). And if they are understood, then humanity is more gentled, more humane, less like a raging and unthinking animal. This is how global humanity will survive.
salaams Matthew
yes, all EGT strats. there is a biological basis for all behavior.
but articles of faith are not subject to reason.
So only humans that have sufficient cognitive ability can overcome the wiring of the genome and the environment shaped phenome.
Its like when I started to study qphysics.
I had to rewire my brain.
Not all humans have the raw material to do that.
Namaste shams,
I understand where you are coming from; not everyone can take decades to learn how to know the self and the mind and the spirit like the Dalai Lama has done; he has said as much himself.
But I think we must try and not expect for everyone to ‘take’ to the teachings. After all, it is apparent that not all of Islam have ‘taken’ to the teachings. I think behaviours, etc, more follow a bell-curve distribution than an all-or-nothing distribution.
Because, if we take what you have written right now as true, then this is what will have to happen (one of these):
1) Nothing changes. People will still die, women will still get murdered, violence will still happen.
2) Islam takes over the whole world, so then there are no challenges to its game rules. This is problematical (as you say, one of the game rules is ‘no proselytizing’) and not very good.
3) Islam is destroyed in some way. This is problematical and not very good.
4) Those faithful who cannot break free of their game rules are ‘voted off the island’ and cared for in special preserves so that they can’t hurt people any more.
5) We endeavor to teach people everywhere how to recognize their own game rules. Those who can’t, and this will be a minority, won’t be franchised in the society and will be cared for.
It seems apparent that Islam has its own game rules (like religious faith) that are made to keep people from being aware of game rules, to preserve ‘Islam’. A docile population is an easily-controlled one and I understand its attraction. I see the same thing happening in such places as the UK, the USA and Canada.
These teachings, I think, don’t just involve rationality (and I believe in the notion that rationality is mostly unconscious and NEEDS emotions); meditation and things like Yoga are just learning the language of the body and the mind, to be AWARE and MINDFUL. These things are, I think, intuitional as well.
So, for Islam to survive*, I think Islam must do some form of this teaching. As the environment changes, so must the organism. It was the past’s geographical isolation that enabled these faith systems to develop as they did…now they can’t anymore.
Our G_ds are pretty schmart and tricky; it’s a kind of test, now, to see if and how well we all can get along 🙂
* heck, for us all to survive. Humanity can’t live on autopilot anymore and we can’t live in the dangerous world that cranky Imam’s or violent Presidents create for us, so it is up to us, ordinary people, to help the world.
salaamu aleykum Matthew
im sry, but your statement is so wrong it hurts my head.
Islam is surviving….even thriving. In 20 years one out of 4 humans will be muslim.
Defense against proselytization is the most successful ESS on the planet right now.
anglosaxon christianity is dying.
In the old days, dominon, individualism, exclusivity and proselytizing were the dominant successful EGT strats.
Now because of social media and globalization the new successful strats for religious ESSs will be inclusivity and universalism and resistance to proselytizing.
Because even our G_ds evolve.
And like I said, the Next Religion will be the one where Dr. Carroll is a priest and i am an acolyte.
Where physics and metaphysics become one.
😉
Namaste shams,
Yes, that pain is probably your game rules preventing you from seeing something else 😉
How does Islam grow?
And I agree on the ‘next religion’…where the G_d will be humanity and universe as one…with no stoning of blasphemers or apostates…where any violence will be consensual…where people will be free to practice their worldviews and have any sort of marriage…
Shams,
You play with words nicely and write in an elegant style. But you would have a better chance of convincing people of the correctness of your outlook (to the extent there really is a coherent outlook), if you could speak simply and clearly and address the following two conjectures:
1. Mainstream Islamic culture has exhibited a major moral failure. It seems to struggle even to find the language and the conceptual framework genuinely to oppose the crimes that are committed in its name. Large numbers of peaceful Muslims find themselves in effect condoning mass murder, and painfully few can bring themselves to side with the victims who exercise their right of self defence. Nevertheless it is not the tenets of Islam that have caused the present violence. This is a political evil we are facing, not a religious one. And it is a modern evil, not an ancient one.
2. Mainstream Western culture has also exhibited a major moral failure: a refusal to distinguish between right and wrong. The unique glories of our civilisation — self-criticism, tolerance, openness to change and to ideas from other cultures — have in many people’s minds decayed, under this moral failure, into self-hatred, appeasement, and moral relativism.
— THIS SPACE FOR RENT —
“Mainstream Islamic culture has exhibited a major moral failure.”
/yawn
islamic terrorism is a defense against proselytization REFLEX.
Stop proselytizing and meddling in MENA and the islamic terrorists will go away.
“Mainstream Western culture has also exhibited a major moral failure: a refusal to distinguish between right and wrong.”
/scratches head
This makes no sense. Mainstream western culture glorifies tribalism and ingroup values. I guess you can say MW culture refuses to distinguish between ingroup wrong and outgroup right. Truth should be truth, whether one is a white american christian or a brown afghani muslim.
Masha’allah, Matthew.
Islam is changing and growing right now.
al-Islam is a process.
bi la kayfah
(it is understood)
#138 Karl: “This is a political evil we are facing, not a religious one. And it is a modern evil, not an ancient one.”
When did the political evil start?
Namaste shams,
I respect your beliefs. I am curious and a seeker and someone who is trying to understand the various game rules that we all follow; especially mine 😉
So how does Islam grow? I’m trying to parse the game rule of ‘defense against proselytization’ and Islam growing because that seems like a paradox there.
Shams,
Pretty much what I expected as your answer. Terrorism justified because of someones so-called “proselytizing and meddling”? Such a terrible crime, such a genuine grievance. Very sad, because this is nothing other than condoning mass murder. And, interestingly, it’s a clear example of the first conjecture: your fundamental inability to find the language and the conceptual framework genuinely to oppose the crimes that are committed in the name of Islam.
Matthew,
You “respect” these beliefs? Unless your being sarcastic, this is a perfect example of refusing to distinguish between right and wrong. And is, as it turns out, a clear example of the second conjecture: openness to change and to ideas from other cultures has decayed into appeasement and moral relativism.
Gentleman, you’ll get the last word here, because I know a hopeless situation when I see one. I have no doubt that unless Sean cuts this off — you two could go on like this no end.
Karl,
I don’t have enough data to say either way, that is why I am collecting data still; not all of us are at the same stage of knowing, hmm? 🙂
I’m not trying to convince anyone of anything, but I am exploring. Riffing. For me, it isn’t about already knowing the answers when trying to find them out, it is about exploring to find ‘more questions’. There will be the time when my ideas are ossified to the point of dogma, when my intelligence dies, but before then, I intend to listen to people’s viewpoints and learn as much as possible.
And what if this goes on to no end? I don’t think any resources are expended in this? You don’t have to read any of this. And this is under a thread that is ‘religious’, so contained from the rest of this lovely journal of Sean’s (and yes, it is his and he gets to do anything with it he wants to).
So since I am still finding things out, when did this political evil thing start?
Pingback: The Question of Hell | James Russell Ament
I have “issues” with religion. Many issues.
For instance, religion is supposed to address eternal truths about the universe and our place in it. Yet it is filled with almost endless variations, beliefs, shades, meanings, interpretations. Even amongst the great faiths that are supposedly unified and cohesive, schisms long ago fractured their communities and belief structures.
Is Hell a literal destination for unbelievers and the evil? Is it a metaphor for a psychological state? Can Hell be experienced by the living or merely the dead? Seems like an important question and yet the faithful are all over the place on the matter.
Therefore when I read comments like (loosely parapharasing a prior comment, can’t find it now) “no one in religion X has said that for 100 years”, I think, ‘what about believers who lived prior to 100 years ago’? They were WRONG? You’re telling me they went to their graves with an incorrect belief or beliefs?
My understanding of most religious philosophers on these matters is that it all boils down to the fallibility and incompleteness of man. The mind of God is unknowable and we struggle towards enlightenment. Well, that seems like a bit of a cop-out, actually. Hell is a fairly simple mental construct in certain aspects. It either exists or it does not. It is either a literal place or it is a metaphor. Which is it?
When I step back I find it difficult to pick winners and losers amongst the faithful. I mean there are many religions and many faithful. Yet nearly all of them (yes I know there are exceptions. Not many though) claim that only they got it right and all the rest of religions are false. False religions with false gods.
If those religions are right about that, then all the other believers from all the other faiths are going to Hell. Whether literal or metaphorical. So I ask you, which is the One True Faith that will deliver salvation? Because that Hell place, it doesn’t sound nice. Oddly enough that’s one of the meta-beliefs that nearly all religions agree on; even the ones that don’t believe in Hell.
# 145 Brian Too: Yeah, pretty nuts, ennit? 🙂
Just like there are people in the world who would go goggle eyed at you if you eat dead animal flesh, or ride in a metal contraption that stinks, or sleeps in a bed with someone else, or alone, or not on the floor, or who drinks rotten fruit juice, or who thinks that they are separate from their environment, or who thinks in terms of subject-object, or or or…
There is so much variety out there, so many worldviews to sample, so much bizarreness 🙂
Karl.
no.
I am saying defense against proselytization is a REFLEX. It is an article of faith.
it is not “reasonable” or “justifiable”.
it would be great if al-Islam allowed freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
But right now it cannot be done.
Defense against proselytization is in the Quran, and it is obviously still in mutawatir as long America has 100k missionaries with guns trying to spread westernstyle democracy in A-stan.
Shariah forbids proselytization. Freedom of speech legalizes proselytization. Therefore shariah and freedom of speech are incompatible. And if you want empirical proof, look at Iraq and A-stan and the other epic fails of the US to spread/standup/implant/install/impose westernstyle democracy in majority muslim states.
It cannot be done. 10 years, a trillion dollars and 7,000 dead american soldiers later Iraq has shariah in their constitution and is putting a boot in America’s ass in December, and the Taliban are stronger than ever in Afghanistan.
Brian Too.
No, the concept of Hell has evolved and is evolving.
It is not static, it is in flux. The point of Dr. Carrolls post is that the anglosaxon christian concept of hell is exclusive and rather extreme compared to other religions.
But then, Douthat is a fundamentalist in a dying ESS.
@Matthews, unfortunately, it seems shams is sugarcoating largely misleading statements with nice sounding “facts”.
For example, the growth of Islam is entirely due to faster population growth (according to wiki, 1.8 fertility rate vs. 1.12 for other religions), which has almost every thing to do with the high levels of poverty in many highly populated islamic nations.
Additionally, the high growth rate of Islam in places with low Islamic populations (e.g. Europe) has everything to do with migration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_population_growth
It has little to do with how much more evolved Islam is as a religion.
Additionally, most of the concepts being pointed to by shams are merely theoretical anachronisms from an era when the Muslim world was the most knowledgeable and scientifically literate part of the world (a consequence of being at the center of trade routes between the East and the West). The mass muslim population barely hears about them. Besides, sufis forms an extremely minuscule part of the Islamic population.
#148 addicted: Thank you 🙂
shams is making sense to me — a lot of what we do is unconscious (even what we call rational thought, as the research shows — or the research I pay attention to :)). So here we all are, at the behest of our unconscious. Kind of like robots 😉
There are reasons that things happen, and one thing I am gleaning from shams is that:
1) Islam can’t change in certain ways right now, but he holds out the possibility.
2) He thinks that a major stressor is the ‘West’ being in MENA, which is causing some
pretty harsh game rules to trigger.
Another thing I’m curious about, if anyone can answer, is about the Al-Aqsa Mosque: who is allowed to go in there? Is it a general public area where people can just wander about? Who can preach? Is there a vetting process? I just don’t know 🙂
/yawn
“It has little to do with how much more evolved Islam is as a religion.”
Yet EGT defense against proselytization strategy has everything to with the epic failure of COIN and the Bush Doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan.
10 years and trillion dollars later Iraq has shariah law in a constitution paid for with American tax dollars, and Afghanistan will have the same when we leave.
” The mass muslim population barely hears about them.”
Yet the mass muslim population is very involved in the Arab Spring, even Iraq and AfPak.
Western media is just not covering that part. Justice Party leader Imran Khan staged a youth led closure of the NATO supply routes in Peshawar last month. Mosul erupts in riots every friday.
For some reason we dont see much coverage of the Arab Spring style protests in Iraq and AfPak.
Is it because after the Arab Spring comes the American Fall?
lol@Matthew
I’m a girl. Shams can be either a boys name or a girls name in arabic.
It means “the sun”.