What is the appropriate degree of (un)certainty to have regarding the state of somebody's soul

[loinburger]

Please explain the social-control utility of threatening torture in the afterlife in an era when authority figures routinely and with impunity tortured criminals, suspected criminals, or just people who said things they didn't like.

I think that the threat of an eternity of torture would have more impact with people who have actually witnessed torture, e.g.

"If you don't do what we say then you'll have your fingernails pulled out for all eternity"
"That doesn't sound so bad..."
"Oh yeah? Here's somebody who was accused of felching a goat, and as punishment we're going to pull out his fingernails"
"Hmm, that does seem a lot less pleasant than I'd imagined"

[Elok]

On the contrary, if I routinely see traitors hanged, drawn and quartered, the threat of a hell nobody ever sees is by contrast rather feeble as a disincentive to naughty behavior.

[Elok]

The rich don't need hell so long as they have the power to inflict it themselves. C0ckney, fine fellow though he is, has hell backwards; it's there for the comfort of the poor, not the power of the rich. The first person to be envisioned in hell was not a rebel or a petty thief but a rich man, "clothed in linen and purple," who neglected his Jewish duty to the poor (tzedekah, the Hebrew word sometimes translated as "charity," more literally means "justice," the duty to equalize). Even in Judaism, God was a judge who could not be bribed, ignored, tricked or overruled. Pharisees, scribes, priests, monks, bishops, princes and kings could land in Hell--and the little people they robbed, raped, cheated, tortured or killed could be in heaven. Which is why the idea of it was perpetuated for three centuries by a powerless pariah class.

I guess you could argue that this acts as a kind of safety valve, but I have a hard time buying it.

[DaShi]

Elok has a good point, re: hell. Religion in general has historically been used to manipulate or pacify the poor and uneducated. In fact, it's hard to imagine any other purpose for it.

[Alexander's Horse]

except for just retribution. I find it easy to think of Hitler or Stalin or Mao in a place called hell.

And once again Ben the neophyte completely misrepresents catholic teaching and tradition.

The key phrase is in the Latin vulgate, when the dead are prayed for it says "whose fate is known to You alone".

[Ben Kenobi]

And once again Ben the neophyte completely misrepresents catholic teaching and tradition.

And where precisely have I stated that we can be aware of the state of another person's soul? All I stated is that if one has committed a mortal unconfessed sin that one will be condemned to hell.

[Aeson]

If you admit you are unaware of the state of other people's souls, then you wouldn't be able to say how rare/common it would be to get into heaven. Because to assess how rare/common it is to get into heaven you must be making an assessment of the state of other people's souls.

[dannubis]

Guys, guys, ... Epicurus was right.

[C0ckney]

Please explain the social-control utility of threatening torture in the afterlife in an era when authority figures routinely and with impunity tortured criminals, suspected criminals, or just people who said things they didn't like.

interestingly, when it comes to deterrence, it's not really the severity of punishment that matters but rather the likelihood of getting caught. governments could decide that people be punished for internet piracy by hanging, drawing and quartering, but if no one, or almost no one, were actually caught or prosecuted, then people would go on merrily downloading music and films just as before. there's always a chance of escaping human justice, whereas nothing can be hidden from an all-seeing, all-knowing deity. but none of that is really what i mean by social control.

there is an immense amount of social control that one has just by having the authority to tell people that a certain action is forbidden by (the) god(s). as we see from the bible, though every religion has this in some form or other, these can range from the reasonable (forbidding murder, theft, etc.) to the arbitrary and bizarre (forbidding homosexuality and mixing meat and dairy, obliging circumcision, etc.); but the point is that they exist at all, with eternal rewards and punishments for obeying or disobeying. it's not really important whether wearing mixed fibres is forbidden, but the fact that one can say that it is - and be taken seriously - is very important; and of course by setting these kind of rules, one then has the power to do so for all other situations that aren't covered by them, either through interpretation or pure invention. and while people surely ask themselves 'shall i really go to hell for watching a certain television programme?' (as my wife was told when she was a child), and many will of course ignore it, the fact that it's something to be disobeyed, to weigh upon one's conscience, shows its power in shaping behaviour.

in post 18, i think we agree on the facts but disagree on the interpretation. i would say that the power of the rich and the comfort of the poor go hand in glove. exhorting the poor and downtrodden to show patience and forbearance with their situation for greater reward in the afterlife has been the stock-in-trade of religion since its invention. 'the rich man may have it good now but the poor man will go to heaven' is a very useful idea if one wishes to preserve the existing social order.

[Elok]

Don't have time to spare on involved response, but please note that neither heaven nor hell, strictly speaking, exists in Judaism. You will find no mention of either in the OT. There's a vague belief current today that there's probably some sort of happy afterlife, but it's not something they stress or even have any kind of firm doctrine about.

[Elok]

Further note (sorry, dashing stuff off in spare moments before I go to work): I believe you are grossly overestimating the influence/effectiveness of religious teaching. Every society inculcates its members with values, but barring extreme "education" (e.g. North Korea), there's really no way to ensure that they'll believe it. You can discourage them from questioning it openly, but there is nothing about religious belief to magically prevent peons from perceiving hypocrisy or their own self-interest. Of course we have no means of accurately assessing the mental state of long-dead people from another culture, but I suspect that then, as now, people's behavior was driven primarily by what they thought they could profit from and/or get away with. Chances of peasants succeeding in open rebellion: effectively zero. Chances of rebellion going undetected: literally zero. And, again: hanging, drawing, and quartering. Who needs heaven, or hell?

[Jon Miller]

It was never the peasants that rebelled against religion (although they did against religious authority) but rather the bourgeois or the wealthy against religious restrictions on their lives (marriage, values, behaviour towards the rest of society).

JM
(both rebelled against authority, but that is because that is the way that religion behaves as a state)

[dannubis]

Yes.

You keep them poor, I keep them stupid.

[Ben Kenobi]

If you admit you are unaware of the state of other people's souls, then you wouldn't be able to say how rare/common it would be to get into heaven. Because to assess how rare/common it is to get into heaven you must be making an assessment of the state of other people's souls.

Narrow is the road to salvation and few find it... Broad is the path to destruction.

[Ben Kenobi]

Of course we have no means of accurately assessing the mental state of long-dead people from another culture, but I suspect that then, as now, people's behavior was driven primarily by what they thought they could profit from and/or get away with.

And people wonder why I argue that few find heaven. They argue that because they believe that what they do here doesn't matter in the end.