skip to main |
skip to sidebar
When I threaten you, I automatically remove reason as an allowable means to accepting my claim. I’ve in effect determined your choice. If you were truly free to exercise reason, I would have to accept its outcome no matter what, even if I considered you gravely mistaken. Punishment for arriving at a wrong conclusion turns reason into a thought-crime.
So when believers like Christians or Muslims contend their faiths are based on reason, one may simply object that this can’t be so because their god in fact doesn’t allow it. Using reason to arrive at any other belief than the correct one will earn you an eternity in hell. Thus, reason is in reality an evil to be avoided....Blind, unquestioning, and unexamined belief is what the theist’s retributive god truly desires, not a belief grounded in reason. Link
13 comments:
Why is wrong belief considered a thought-crime? This is an outdated barbaric notion that all civilized democratically free people have rejected in total. Christians themselves have rejected this notion for they no longer burn witches or heretics, and they no longer kill each other for minor differences in doctrine as they once did.
On this rock Christianity dies!
Don't they kill? I see updates from sources like exchristian.net and anatheist.net that regularly direct to news stories about the blood being shed in places like Africa right now in the name of holiness. Perhaps if its far enough away from our friendly neighborhood churches, it doesn't count?
"Why is wrong belief considered a thought-crime?"
Wrong belief is not the thought crime. The crime is the objective guilt of the law. (transgressing what is cosmically against God's Nature/intent for what is optimal as far as choice goes, etc.
What this line of reasoning is guilty of is "isolating." Let me explain. When you isolate on punishment you miss the REASONS to believe. The fact that God will/must/it is logical for Him to punish sin/(disobedience because of cosmic principle)is NOT the only reason to obey God(and do what is cosmically logical to do).
Christians WANT to obey God because they love God. If you isolate on end result you miss "all of the reasons" that lead TO such end result.
God actually doesn't want obedience just out of fear...that would be isolating on fear. God wants us to obey because we love Him and because we have seen the beauty of His Self-Sacrificing love. But we can not isolate on love either. It is far more complex that this because choice itself can be an eternal danger to us IF we don't know (and want) to always choose correctly.
Once again, we can't isolate on choice either because there is the eternal element of God's eternal protection and spiritual regeneration and living inside us.
What you have to do is look logically at everything collectively. Love (which requires choice), disobedience, how choice is an eternal danger if not dealt with (with knowledge and motive so that you NEVER want to do it),etc etc.
There is FAR more that I can go into...as long as you isolate on punishment and think that this is all just "using fear" - you are not going to "see" this.
Breckmin, you have completely missed the underlying question behind the post: Why do so many people not believe the fundamental claims of christianity? Isolating on negative motives (fear of punishment) for belief vs positive motives (the promise of love, joy, peace, eternal life) for belief is irrelevant if I'm unable to believe the christian message/story to begin with. Since that message/story makes no sense to me, the aforementioned motives don't affect me. Hell could only scare me if I already believed it to be real. Heaven could only comfort me if I already believed it to be real. I could only love God if I already believed that he was real. See what I'm saying? I can no more believe in the god of christianity (as I once did) than I can believe in santa claus (as I also once did). I used to be scared that santa would bring me fewer toys for christmas if I was a bad kid. That fear was a result of my belief not a cause for my belief. I used to be comforted by the idea that I was loved by god and could look forward to an eternity of eternal bliss. But again, that comfort was a result of my belief, not a cause for my belief.
So the question remains: Why are so many people unable to accept the claims of christianity? Why do so many weigh it in the balance of their mind and find it unreasonable? If you're a reformed (calvinist) christian the answer is easy: Because not everyone has been chosen to believe. No one can believe unless god grants them the ability to believe, and he only grants that ability to his chosen. The rest are doomed to(chosen for) hell (Rom 9). If you're arminian, that is, you don't believe in predestination, but rather free will choice, you will probably assert it's not that people can't believe the message, but that they reject the message. The subtle, but amazingly offensive assumption is I do believe the message, but am rejecting it anyway. It's the classic "no one will be in hell who didn't choose to be there" method of justifying a god that would send people to hell for not believing the message. But it's ludicrous to think that being convinced of the claims of christianity, and therefore the supposed benefits thereof (a transformed life of love, joy, peace, plus eternal bliss in heaven) and the supposed consequences thereof (an empty life devoid of real meaning and an eternity of burning in hell) that any reasonable person would willfully and knowingly choose the latter, and yet this is the assumption that many christians make in order to justify the idea of so many of their fellow human beings burning in hell that their christianity imposes on them. They must find some way of imputing extra "deservedness" on those who will burn in order to ease their mind. By that I mean, according to christianity (pelagianism not included), we are all born in sin deserving hell before we do anything "good" or "bad" (eph 2), so in that sense we are all in the same boat, and yet some of us will be saved from hell and many more not. Why?
to me, freewill as far as choosing heaven or hell is basically an illusion. Nobody thinks that burning for all eternity in torment is an attractive proposition, so there really is only one choice, Heaven. But, what if the reasoning of your own mind doesn't allow you to believe in such a place? You justfake it in hopes that god won't see through your fraudelent faith. Anyway, great post!
This is quite interesting...
First, to anyone who says this isn't a real concern, they're wrong. John's post on someone writing to him who was afraid to go to hell illustrates that. I post on Catholic Answers Forum and just last week a poster's status listed as 'struggling Catholic' prompted me to inquire. He stated that he didn't really believe any of it but was afraid to go to hell.
The fear or eternal punishment really has an impact on people!
I also just started 'What's So Great About Christianity' but D'Souza last night and could not believe that this was in his forward, specifically to unbelievers:
"How long do you intend to continue this joyless search for joy?... No doubt you, like the believer, know that every breath you take fends of death. Clearly this is something for which you should prepare, but have you?... You must choose God or reject Him, for when you die all abstentations are counted as "no" votes... I hope you will read [this book] as if your life depended on it, because, in a way, it might."
I almost stopped reading the book before I was out of the roman numerals! I literally could not believe that D'Souza would appeal to a hell punishment masked threat in his foreward.
Anyway... I agree and have found it so odd that my decision to 'step outside the bubble' has been met with such opposition by my believing community and even my wife. I doubted and wondered, so I decided to challenge, shake things up a little, and to the best of my ability discover the surest truth I could stand on for the rest of my life. This is looked at as heresy for a Catholic and I have been chided for not going about things in the 'recommended way' by at least a couple.
How is anyone supposed to discover the One Truth (tm) when almost every single religion has their built-in free-thinking prevention mechanism?
John W.,
This is a great series, and you've just hit another one out of the park.
Thanks for reinforcing my arsenal.
Brickmin,
Aw, isn't that quaint. God want's to be loved, not for his brawn or his ability to torment and torture, but for himself. He's so misunderstood. You have the outline for a Fox Channel sitcom here.
Breckmin,
I apologize for the Freudian slip in misspelling your name.
"When I threaten you, I automatically remove reason as an allowable means to accepting my claim. I’ve in effect determined your choice"
Yeah the fear/hell bit is like some schoolyard bully tatic...Bully says ->"Now you know its the best idea! to pick me! as your leader besides you know im loving, but look ive warned im gonna have to burn the hell outa ya if you dont anyway!!. :(
Some choice huh? ..Oh yeah i love God because hes so loving,honest he is.And im just so "drawn" to loving him cause he`s so loving too
When i hear faithful people like Marcus and Harvey reciting the old school yard type threats of ..>And where-eee will-lll you be-eee at judgment day-yyy?
Im thinking ahhh and i bet these preachers also even probably get all wound up over school bullying at schools in their areas .They be saying shit like ...Its the evil-llll of the world-ddd and the devil-llls work.
It would never cross these faithful folks mind that their faith threats are really little different than these bullys ..They would never ask themselves where these attitudes might have originally stemmed from....Infact they even have a way of making the fire-eee of Hell-llll somehow even seem worse than getting beaten with a school bullies bat.After being beaten with a bat you soon become unconcious ...No such thing in hell ..no folks of faith make sure to paint hell like some place of "eternal torture" where "burning" and "screaming" etc goes on forever.
The ultimate bullys..Legal too! :)
Remember all those stories about folks who supposedly seen hell...Even more effective than threats of the school yard bully
Gods image has been created by "man" in the image of the most meanest most nasty torture inclined school yard bully, their minds could think of likely ever existing.
He`s loving because he loves folks to love him,but mean and nasty enough so there just isnt really any choice.
Its a cunning plan thats worked to keep coins plunking in the sunday collection plate and the Christian gangs coffers full, for thousands of years now.
Very well put, but I think a Christian would simply respond that no atheist ever becomes an atheist due to reason -- he comes because, in Craig's words, "he loves darkness rather than light."
A problematic notion, as several people have pointed out, but one that Christians can ultimately resort to to explain this problem away if they're that desperate.
David John.
An atheist loves darkness rather then light??????????
So would that go for all non-believers including members of other religions who feel THEY have found the light and condemn all others?
Atheist by the way, is someone who just isn''t convinced of any religions truthfulness.....I can assure you it has very much to do with reason!
Also, one of the "reasons" I walked away from my faith in christianity, was because of the emotional, and mental anguish it caused me!
The fear of not enduring till the end, the fear of my loved one's not believing as I did.....etc....
I must say, my christian walk was one of fear and deep grief it was more darkness then anything else I have felt!
David John.
Sorry as I now realize you were not arguing for christianity.....nontheless your right, I have encountered that kind of reasoning before!
Post a Comment