Originally Posted by
Grendel
Of all the good anti-theist arguments I've heard, I just don't see why the eternal torture one is such a hangup. As it is, nature itself offers plenty opportunities to prolonged torture to those units who misbehave. If you're a reductive physicalist, if you believe people vanish into eternal nonexistence after death, then from observer's viewpoint, this is indistinguishable from reincarnation with zero transference of memory. If this is the case, chances are you're going to cycle through any number of miserable lives throughout the life of the world. The only information you'd expect would be preserved between spawns is your cartesian ego. Since that ego is such a small piece of information, containing absolutely no data except your "you"ness, but a large portion of identity is formed by subjective memories (physically stored on the brain), you could imagine a single cartesian ego being reused between different spawns not only throughout space, but throughout time - the other person right in front of you could represent a separate spawning of your own ego-unit in another instance in space, but near to you in time. Assuming this is possible, occam's razor, it's more likely that we're all sharing the same ego, than that we each have are own, despite respawning multiple times into different creatures. If no life-memory-data is conserved between spawns, then there's no reason to believe there's any other properties of a life-instance that are not destroyed on its death except the ego, meaning there's no reason to think anything you do in this life will have the slightest effect on whether you respawn as a monarch or a rock - we're all the same person, so no matter what choices you make, you will be everywhere at some point.
If this is the case, your net amount of suffering between spawns is congruent to anyone else's net amount of suffering between spawns, because you-as-you is only data stored upon physical instance.
Assuming this, the only way to reduce your own net suffering would also be to take actions that elevate the net goodness of the world through the long-run and into the distant future - you will reemerge in the same world you helped create. The only determinant to your fate is the possible spawn points of organisms in the world you just left. So, in a sense, you are guaranteed to cycle through "hell" on earth no matter what.
On point of judeo-christianity: The tale of Job deals in no uncertain terms with the problem of suffering in relation to God. God as a domestic servant is a perversion of the idea; Job suffered endless sling and arrow at the hands of his god and yet continued to serve him, despite receiving no respite from torment in exchange for ongoing service. Anyone who has understood this story realizes that the judeo-christian god has no obligation to reward its creations an iota for their devotion; on the contrary, worshiping their god is a behavior that some human beings persist at simply because they cannot help doing so, by their own intrinsic desire. So any lensing of this god as a rewarder is a perversion of the concept, no matter what redactions appeared later.
What's interesting is that this issue is still applicable to a stage where the concept of God has already been done away with, if you substitute "God" with "Your own will to life" - pursuing this is something one does intrinsically, against all adversity. Instead of "worship," it might be pushing one's own limits and building strength despite diminishing returns, or continuing to reduce the net harm present in the world, simply because one cannot help but want to do these things.
moves us away from it.
Cast in this light, "God" is no longer an iron-age tyrant spitefully condemning people to hell; he is simply the condition of existence, and humans may choose whether or not to live in his accord. And if nature is wrought in strife, then nature is no less cruel than God. The only difference is that while God might be denied existence as a rebuttal, Nature cannot be denied, so none of our whining about Nature's cruelty softens its blows. There you go: God. Eternal torture is merely one side of the coin to the state of biotic life.
On point of theists who have not applied this subtlety to their own view, instead believing that a physically human-shaped lord will cast people like rubber balls into a conflagrating pit: On your terms, man is the measure of all things, but on theirs, God is already the measure of all things. If the will of God is far more potent than of man, then might once again becomes right, and god can do whatever he wants to us, our morality be damned. Consider also that this might-makes-right cosmology was the default mode of being for long ages. Suddenly, raging against this unassailable god looks more like an angry toddler throwing his crayons.
Arguments from mundane morality are useless against a god whose own infinite power, thereby perfection, is the default measure of all. Now, I don't personally believe the "god" of this world actually resembles an iron-age patriarch, but if you're up against people who do, enlightenment-era morality that appeared long after his own incidence won't cut it.
The "He damn you hell, boohoo!" rebuttal honestly sounds like something one only ever thinks when they themselves have experienced trauma related to this conception of god. Not an argument.
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