On Psalm 109 and Faith

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Morrigoon

There's no honor to being good if you never had the option to be bad. Prisoners in solitary confinement are chaste, but we don't admire their commitment to chastity the way we do nuns.

Conversely, there's no honor in being good if you are only good because you fear the punishment if you're not. So either you can fool god by being good when you're really not and reap the rewards (in which case god is a bit of a fool) or god can separate the truly good from the not in which case the thread of eternal punishment is unnecessary (and god is just petty). (This is one thing I like from Jehovah's Witness theology: hell is simply eternal death. No painful punishment, just eternal non-existence. There was a very interesting This American Life story a couple years ago about a prominent megachurch evangelical preacher who removed hell from his theology and the rejection he faced for doing so.)

Say "you can do whatever you want without fear of punishment" then see who is good. In this regard, one could argue that me not being a murderer is more impressive than scaeagles not being a murderer. I have no fear of eternal damnation and still don't do it (we both face the same earthly justice system).