People choose to go to hell?

In response to the evangelical Christian suggestion that people choose to reject God’s offer of love and thus have made a choice to go to hell:
This belief is held as though the Christian God has made the truth of his existence and his character easily and readily available, extending an obvious hand to everyone, and [...]

August 27, 2009

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In response to the evangelical Christian suggestion that people choose to reject God’s offer of love and thus have made a choice to go to hell:

This belief is held as though the Christian God has made the truth of his existence and his character easily and readily available, extending an obvious hand to everyone, and that people – in the full knowledge of God and who he is – are choosing to reject it. That is evangelical poppycock.

The reality is that people are rejecting not the revealed but the unrevealed, not objective knowledge discerned by reasoning but subjective beliefs of faith, which there are some very valid reasons to doubt. They are not rejecting what they believe to be the truth of God, they are rejecting – quite soundly – the very hypothesis that there is a God (or a God with these attributes).

I believe in a God myself, but not one who hides himself as to make his very existence ambiguous and then sees to it that those who fail to deny their God-given powers of reasoning in order to claim certainty in something that is uncertain are tortured for all eternity for doing so. It is difficult to think of a more cruel proposition.

Despite the claims ascribed to it by the faithful, the proposition delivers neither love nor justice.

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3 Comments

  1. Robb on October 29, 2009 | Permalink

    Religion and faith are such sticky wickets. It is difficult for me to believe in a God that offers no real proof of existence. That does not however, mean that God does not exist. It just means that we will truly never know if God exists in the dimension and parameters set forth by the Bible.

    Ambrose Bierce wrote in the early 1900’s that “FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.” That about sums it up for me. For those who believe in God via the Bible, your faith lies in man’s ability to correctly register the happenings attributed to God. When it says “God said…” in the Bible, who heard it? Was it heard or was there a “sign” given that was interpreted as the “word” of God?

    I too believe in a supreme being. I believe that I’ve been given faculties and reason to interpret the actions and events around me, and make decisions accordingly. I believe that if God exists, that my path in life will be pleasing to Him. If however God does not exist, my path in life pleases me. It’s a win-win to me.

    I believe that we should do what we can to help our fellow man. If we do this by choice our life is complete.

  2. John on October 29, 2009 | Permalink

    Okay Robb, but who is to say what God values? Protestants say God values belief. Believe in him, they say – perhaps denying your powers of reasoning while doing so (“faith”) – and you will be saved. Okay, but what if I JUST DON’T believe? Can I force myself to do so? And what’s so important about belief anyway? What makes us think God values belief above anything else? Do we care what a colony of ants believe, on the other side of the hill? Why do we imagine God cares whether we believe in his existence or not?

    Maybe he values basic goodness. Catholics believe God values good work, and confessions, and kissing statues, and saying formula prayers. Muslims believe God values kneeling down at certain times of day. Hindus believe God values cows.

    What I’m really arguing above is that God values nothing SO ARBITRARY by human standards of reasoning that he would exact eternal torment on those who fail to guess accurately what it is. Maybe there is no heaven and hell, saved and damned. Maybe it’s just very convenient to us to have such an ‘objective’ system in place to control human behavior.

    It occurs to me that if there is a God and an afterlife, then it matters not an iota what we believe about it.

  3. Robb on December 15, 2009 | Permalink

    You’re right John… I don’t believe I refer to specifically what God would value though. Don’t read what I don’t write :-)

    At any rate, values are subjective. They pre-suppose a moral baseline of sorts that allow us to navigate within our own lives. Religions are based on control. Whether it is designed to control people or just one’s self. If someone needs an imaginary deity overlooking their every move so that they make the correct choice, then so be it!

    The religions of the world are about subjective morality and not objective morality. For instance, lust is a sin, but without it, mankind would almost certainly go away. It is a driving force in procreation. It’s just sad that people make attempts to arbitrarily decide what natural human emotions should be kept in check and which ones are “okay.” All based on some visions of what “God” would want us to do. I often tweak people that the bible calls anything without fins unclean (lobster, clams, crabs, shrimp etc) in two books and then in Acts, there’s a vision that God calls these things clean and voila! No need to avoid eating your favorite seafood! Isn’t that great! Again, if the imaginary deity overlooking our every move is pleased (by whatever standards in which each person believes) then everything is good. If it takes that, then good. I don’t need it.

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