Reality Check: What Must Be the Case if Christianity is True?
27) Christianity is a faith that must dismiss the tragedy of death. It does not matter who dies, or how many, or what the circumstances are when people die. It could be the death of a mother whose baby depends upon her for milk. It could be a pandemic like cholera that decimated parts of the world in 1918, or the more than 23,000 children who die every single day from starvation. These deaths could be by suffocation, drowning, a drive-by shooting, or being burned to death. It doesn't matter. God is good. Death doesn't matter. People die all of the time. In order to justify God's goodness Christianity minimizes the value of human life. It is a pro-death faith, plain and simple. Link
7 comments:
That's why our entire faith is based on the resurrection, and upon Christ's victory over death, because we dismiss the tragedy of death?
Lvka, I think this post comesw from John's taking one particular theodicy, the "greater good theodicy" and assuming ti is part and parcel of the Christian faith. It is either indicative of a gross misunderstanding of core Christian doctrines or a gross display of intellectual dishonesty.
Which one is it John? Have you simply not studied this subject or are you intentionally misrepresenting the claims of Christianity?
Yes Luka, you dismiss the tragedy of death because you think "victory" over death is possible.
Wes, I guess you disagree with Paul in Romans 8:28, eh? Sheesh.
Wes said:
... I think this post comesw from John's taking one particular theodicy ...
This is an interesting point, in that you suggest Christians do not dismiss death. In practice, I would tend to agree with you, but in theory, all I hear from Christian theology is about how death doesn't matter, because the dead person is in Heaven, or will be resurrected at Judgment day ... what is all that "sure and certain hope of the resurrection" speech at Christian funerals about? I don't think I've ever observed such an amazing disconnect between professed belief and behavior than at a funeral of that sort, with all the sobbing heartbroken mourners chanting "oh, he's so much better off in Heaven."
But, if I understand you, I (and presumably all those mourners) have the wrong understanding of what Christian theology actually teaches. What does Christianity actually teach?
Also, how may I tell what beliefs held by self-identified Christians are actual Christian tenents as opposed to these widely-held but presumably mistaken ones?
you think "victory" over death is possible.
This doesn't change the fact that death is a tragedy, and deliverance from it came through another tragedy.
I dunno, John. I saw this post on Common Sense Atheism a bit ago and it's presenting somewhat the opposite take, namely that if Christians believed that death didn't matter due to eternity, they would act like it more (LINK.
I agree with some other other posts that Christianity's doctrine has built in a method to un-falsifiably present something that allows others to have hope through the tragedy of death, and if heaven exists then god can be good despite a temporal death.
Whether or not I believe this is another issue. I think as far as we head down the road of heaven being the best possible thing ever and that you need to believe in god to get there then I have an extreme difficulty with why it's been so difficult to establish the validity of Christianity's god. One is left with possibilities and speculation but nothing tangible. Why not allow either the saved or the damned to come back and inform their loved ones? Why not give me an impulsive desire to love him or believe in him just like I have an impulsive desire not to murder and not to eat feces? Theologians seem to put free-will on a pedestal but fail to think about the thousands of subconscious things that drive us all day long that were put there purely by evolution (or god working through evolution) that supposedly don't affect our freewill.
To hide behind heaven or god suffering with us begs the question as to why he wouldn't make this even more accessible, universal, convincing, evidenced, or internally compelling.
Post a Comment