I owe the title of this OP to a recent comment on my Is God a utility monster? thread.
It did get me to thinking that we really ought to Disqus, as a group, this particular ubiquitous Christian apologetic (anybody who believes in memetic evolution could see this particular apologetic idea as an example of a meme [that is a part of a wider YHWH-worship memeplex {which I jokingly refer to as a hydra in the land of memeplexes}])…
So… what’s the meme at the heart of this Disqussion?
Why, it’s none other than a way to allow two other memes to mix together… think of it like a detergent… if you have oil and water, they don’t mix – indeed, they tend to do exactly the opposite: they separate. However, when one adds an emulsifier, the two can coexist in some degree of harmony (or, rather, the three can).
So it is with the notion that the people who populate Hell put themselves there by choice…
How do I mean?
Well, it’s perhaps clearer when I identify the oil and water to which this detergent may be applied:
1. God is Love
2. God is going to have most people who’ve ever lived tortured for eternity
These two beliefs, when attempting to fit within the same human cranium, cause a degree of cognitive dissonance… which tension can be removed by a drop of the following ridiculous proposition:
3. The majority of individuals created with free will freely choose an eternity of torture
The proposition is potty on face value, I’d say, but perhaps I’m missing something…
Would a Christian (or Muslim or Mormon, insofar as the Disqussion applies to them) care to explain how on Earth these three propositions describe reality?