Hell or High Water

On July 7, 2020 The Centreplace presented one of their historical-theological lectures by John Hamer, The Invention of Hell

I added this to the live chat.
Good lecture, John. It helps put things in their place. I have some thoughts. Hell is a fiction used to control people by the threat of punishment. So who is telling us about hell and why? It might be parents controlling children, or a patriarch controlling an unruly tribe, or a monarch keeping citizens in line, or the church exerting authority over the members. It is a way of subordinating individual interest to collective interest, or the interest of the powerless to that of the powerful. It has no place in a mature civilization where mutual fairness and altruism are valued and the rule of law regulates antisocial behaviour. To take it further, justice should be more restorative and less punitive as individuals are able to respond. If we are still talking about hell as if it were real, it is because we haven't internalized self-control or because we want control over others and threats are cheap.

This morning someone replied with a dismissive comment.
don't kid yourself smart guy . your type think you're real scientific and enlightened but really you know nothing . hell is very real and full of dummies who thought it wasn't .

My response.
We can finish this chat when we get there.

On third thought, that was me being smart, exactly the fault of which I was being accused. He says that I know nothing. He isn't quite right, but he has a point. He goes on to say that hell is very real and implies that's where I am headed because I think hell isn't real. In other words he is the smart one, which I am guessing isn't quite right. According to him, hell is something nasty that happens after you die to pay you back for trying to understand how the real world works.  However, he seems to think he can get out of hell free by disrespecting anyone who doesn't believe in it. When he and I get to hell, I will point out that we dummies have something in common, a fuzzy idea of what hell is and how we might avoid it.

Now I have to confess that I treat Climate Change the same way he treats Hell. Both threats arouse us to action, but we don't really know what to do. So we start yelling at people who see things differently. Sorry. Come hell or high water, the acute stress response is not the right response. Chronic threats demand more of us than fear and anger. We need to investigate, plan, act, evaluate outcomes and keep it up indefinitely. Otherwise we will end up where we most fear and we won't be finishing this chat when we get there. 

So we actually need to put some effort into understanding climate change and what we can do about it. Dorothy and I have joined the Climate Change Colloquy sponsored by the Pacific Northwest USA Mission Centre of Community of Christ. The latest session was on January 9, 2022, Systemic Solutions: Glasgow and Climate Policies presented by Randy Litzenberger.  This is a recording of a Zoom session. You may bypass preliminaries and cue the presentation by moving along the timeline to 5:35. Happily, it includes some actual math, and gives reason for hope. Even though a green transition is going slowly at present, we are in the early stages. Experience shows that such changes progress rapidly once they get started. 

Look for Dorothy and I in one of the little Zoom boxes. I am the geezer with his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open. There is a special place in Zoom hell for those who fall asleep during the presentation. They get to watch themselves drool forever in the recording. 

The Colloquy has a schedule of future events. You must register in advance to get the Zoom link. Register from a tab at the top of the Climate Colloquy home page.

If you join in, to avoid Zoom hell, stay alert or turn off the camera. For real.