"God is Just" part 1

Hello, internet, I hope you haven't missed me too much. (If you start to, you can always say hi to me on Twitter @antitheistangie.) While remarking on the problem of pain and the distatestfulness of hell, a Christian Tweeter sent me a 12-paragraph missive on the mercificulness of a hell-creating god.

Random Internet Person, there's something you should know: I'm not going to READ 12 paragraphs of unsupported claims and religious beliefs unless my audience gets to read, and mock, it with me. Otherwise it's just boring. Let's begin in the beginning, because your first three sentences alone contradict each other a few times over.

God is just. What do think Hell is for? People who cause pain and suffering will be tortured viciously and inhumanely for all eternity. However, God does not WANT the rapists to burn in Hell because His love for all mankind is so deep. That's why He's patient and doesn't destroy them right away.

"God is just." This is a claim. I know the rest of your writing is intended to back up that claim, but it's a claim that your audience (well, me and my audience) aren't going to agree with from the get-go, just so you know.

"What do you think Hell is for?" I think hell is an idea (not a place) that exists to give the church more power, control, and money from fearful believers.

"People who cause pain and suffering will be tortured viciously and inhumanely for all eternity." Okay Random Internet Person (RIP from here on out), let's talk about what the word "just" actually means. A punishment or ruling which is "just" is one in which the punishment fits the crime. For reasons we'll get into more later, this is simply not an accurate description of the Bible God's basis for who goes to heaven and hell.

Also, let's look at this phrase you used "tortured viciously and inhumanely for all eternity." That's not justice, RIP. It's vicious inhumanity. You said so yourself. Things which are vicious, inhumane, and last for all eternity don't fall under the realm of things which are "just."

"However, God does not WANT the rapists to burn in hell..." You mean God's plans are constantly being thwarted? God's will is NOT done "on earth as it is in heaven"? And um, why did God invent Hell (and permanent punishment in it) if he didn't want anyone to go there, not even rapists? Also, God seems to be pretty tight with the rapists in the Old Testament, and never changes his mind and declares rape bad at any point in the Bible, one of the many reasons I do NOT consider the Bible to be a book of morals.

"... because His love for all mankind is so deep." So deep, it goes all the way to the fiery depths of hell? So deep his love includes people being "tortured viciously and inhumanely for all eternity"? I seriously hope you don't apply these cracked definitions of love and justice to your dating life or relationships, because if you do, you are going to be mistreated and abused. Love precludes violence, torture, and intentional harm - three things the God of the Bible seems to revel in.

"That's why He's patient and doesn't destroy them right away." I'm thinking "patience" is another word you may want to learn the meaning of before forming any interpersonal relationships. Not killing someone "right away" is a really fucking low bar for any "sinful" earthly human being, but you wanna pretend like it's evidence of how great your god's LOVE is? Shit, that's like me saying of my abusive alchoholic rapist ex-husband "He was patient with me and didn't actually kill me right away." It's STUPID and it's a set-up for abuse.

Further paragraphs on further days, so we don't all tear our hair out in frustration that Christians don't own dictionaries.

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Thoughts on Sunday School

I've started half a dozen posts but I haven't had the hours of dedicated solitude I need for real writing. Thankfully tomorrow I can go register Little Man at the new school & soon he'll be outta my hair.

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Slick Apologetic 2

Hey, Anteaters, readers, and visitors. I hope you all survived the holiday (US readers) and survived the American-centric holiday greetings (everyone else). I skipped the holiday by heading out of town with Boyfriend Dave, and am writing this from the world's most comfortable bed, in the Hilton of Savannah, Georgia.

Let's do another Matt Slick, because, after all, he asks for it. (No, really. If you start a Christian apologetic site, you are asking for counter-apologetics, from both atheists and the non-Christian religious.) Today let's take a look at one of my serious concerns with Christian theology: a god who sends people to hell. Here we go.

Denying it or not liking it doesn't mean it isn't real.

Matt, Matt, Matt. Let's look at this sentence another way, "Affirming it or liking it doesn't mean it IS real." This is what atheists have been saying for milennia. How you feel about the data has no affect on its truth claims.

Hell was originally created for Satan and his angels. In the future it will contain those who join Satan in rejecting God. If you reject God's provision for the forgiveness of your sins, then you will join the Devil who rejected God from the beginning. Is that what you want?

Okay, so god creates hell (thanks for that, sometimes people want to pin it on Satan) with a different original purpose. He could have of course just annihilated or killed Satan and his angels, but instead he creates a home for them, which they are allowed to leave when they come to earth to tempt God's followers. O-kay... So why do people go there? For rejecting God's provision? Hmm, let's think about this and break it down. God requires perfection, and creates laws man is incapable of following. For the crime of being born human, God plans to send *all* of us to hell, and only by believing crazy propositions involving virgin births, zombies, and cannibalistic rituals can we be spared from hell. This isn't really addressing the whole, "I can't believe in a god who would send people to hell" thing, it's just a thinly veiled threat. "Do as god says, or go to the hot place." Basically, God is a tyrant and might makes right, according to Slick's theology.

Could you believe in a God who would become a human, suffer at the hands of humans, and be killed by them, all so that His death could be the payment for their sins? That is extremely loving.

No, that's not loving. That's barbaric needless suffering, which I'm all opposed to. Also, the implication that I'm a sinner who owes god (and the only way he can forgive my debt is to be tortured to death himself) is insulting. And seriously - why would getting people to torture him to death make or allow him to forgive us? Wouldn't that make him more pissed off at people?

God is saving people who deserve to go to Hell - and we all deserve that. Remember that the same God that sends people to Hell also died for them.

I don't deserve it. Little Man doesn't deserve it. Boyfriend Dave doesn't deserve it. Hell, even Carol Balizet my cult-leading baby-killing grandmother doesn't deserve to be tortured for eternity. No one does, not even Hitler. Forever is just way too long. And of course, Matt's not reserving hell just for the Stalins or the world - he says we *all* deserve to go to hell. Is anyone else insulted? And even if we did "deserve" hell, it would only be a result of the crappy system God supposedly set up.

If they reject what God has provided, then what is God left to do? He would have to judge them.

Ah yes, of course, because an infinite, omnipotent God would be contrained in his choices, so of course the *only* course of action he has if we "reject" (disbelieve) the gospel fairy tales is to "judge" us (aka send us to hell for-ev-er.)

Whether you believe in something or not does not change the fact of its existence.

Um, yeah. I know, I just don't think you do. (Pssst, God is imaginary!)

Jesus spoke often of hell (Matt. 25:41-46; Mark 9:47-48; Luke 16:19-31), and warned us so we would not go there. Would you say Jesus didn't know what He was talking about?

Actually, I'd say Jesus was a cult leader. (Narcissistic, claimed to be god, told his followers to reject the world and their families, claimed to do miracles, was kkilled for being a heretical troublemaker... Yup. Cult leader it is.) Also, he didn't just mention hell - he invented it.

Are you implying that it is unjust for God to send people to hell?

Yes! I'm not just implying it, I am saying it explicitly: Sending people to hell is unjust. Torturing anyone forever is wrong. It's immoral and its not loving or good parenting. (It's no surprise when you look at a religion that glorifies Abraham for nearly killing his son, to see such harshness and injustice in its god.)

If so, then you accuse God of injustice.

Yup, kind of my point. A god that would send people to hell is unjust. Got it in one, Matt.

Sin is wrong and it must be punished.

Is sin wrong in and of itself, or is it only wrong because God says so? Also, punishment or discipline can have different goals. One goal would be to correct or train someone not to repeat an undesired action. This isn't the same as being punitive and "making someone pay" which seems to God's goal.

What would you have God do to those who oppose Him and do evil? Do you want Him to ignore that which is wrong? Do you want Him to turn His head and not be holy and righteous?

First, let's clear things up. Not believing something is not evil. It just.. isn't. And you can't knowingly oppose a god you don't believe exists. (I can't oppose Santa, either.) Second, this whole "Do you want him to ignore that which is wrong?" question is so heavily loaded. Remember, Christian theology doesn't just say that the Hitlers and Stalins and Mother Theresas of the world are going to hell. It's that everybody's going (minus some exceptions.) Disbelief gets you a ticket to hell, but disbelief isn't a wrong action that harms others. (In fact, belief in deities does by far the greatest harm.) Third, Yahweh isn't holy or righteous. He's a power-hungry jealous prick who wants to send the vast majority of humanity to be tortured forever. You have to twist yourself in knots to believe that is righteousness or holiness.

Wait, that's it?? Just questions of, "Gee, how else could God handle sin?" Well, let me answer that then. God could make sinners annihilated at death, so that they simply stopped existing (what I and a lot of other atheists think happens). God could universally forgive people, without making that forgiveness contingent on belief in the face of conflicting evidence. God could create a third realm, neither heaven nor hell, where those who lived good lives but did not believe in him would reside for eternity (like the Mormons believe in, right Seth?) There are many ways to deal with inappropriate or undesirable behavior: eternal torture isn't a righteous one. It's inhumane, it's barbaric, and it's centered on substitutionary atonement.

This was almost disappointingly easy. Nothing is said to actually excuse God for creating hell or banishing the majority of humanity to it. The question of God's morality has been left unanswered and untouched. Here I thought you were a top apologist, Slick. What's up with that?

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I watched Daniel Dennet's presentation at TED recently, and was struck when he mentioned that "Every time you read it or say it, you make another copy in your brain".

This can be very useful when studying. In college I would carry a single small notebook in my purse, and jot down practically every single word one of my professors would say. Once I got home, I'd recopy these notes into separate notebooks for each course. Each weekend, I'd review the notes for each course, and as exams approached, I'd go over them once again. For classes which required a lot of memorization of specific facts or definitions, I'd also make flash cards, and keep these in my back pocket to review while standing in line or between classes or at red lights in traffic. I made repeated copies of the information in my brain, so that I could recall it with ease in the high-pressure setting of an exam. I would know the right answers, because I had drilled myself on them so many times.

I got to thinking about what this meant in terms of religious practice. As a child, prayer was woven into the fabric of everyday life. We prayed over meals, in the mornings before traveling, and at night before going to bed. We went to church every week, at least once a week, and sang the same songs over and over every year. We made copy after copy after copy of these ideas in our brains. Perhaps this is exactly why so many religions emphasize the importance of daily devotions, bible studies, offices of prayer, and weekly church attendance. Each of these activities acts as a form of memorization, embedding the ideas more and more thoroughly into our minds, so that they occur to as the "right" answers, much as the notes I studied before exams.

I quit attending church services regularly after my son was born. For one thing, I was tired all the time. He was sickly as a young child, and I was nursing him, which was difficult when the church wanted me to leave him in the nursery, where he wouldn't be a distraction during the service. I also didn't fit very well in my "Sunday best" anymore with the addition of baby weight, and happened to break my ankle when my son was only a few weeks old. The combination left me at home a lot of Sunday mornings. As time went on and I could reasonably have begun attending services regularly again, I had begun to appreciate the heathen thrill of sleeping in, or lounging around in my pajamas, on a Sunday morning. I didn't quit attending church because I didn't believe in God, but as I failed to go to church, my belief waned. I'm not sure it would have been as easy for me to disbelieve as it was, if I'd been hearing the counter-message "God is true, God is real, God is here, God loves you, God cares inordinately about your sex life" every single weekend.

Many former believers I know talk about still having fears of hell, or dreams about church attendance, long after they leave their faith behind. I think this concept of "making another copy in your brain" may be the root of it. There are some things I learned in college I doubt I'll ever forget, like the principals involved in the "Corrupt Bargain of 1824" (when John Quincy Adams stole the election from Andrew Jackson). In the same way, I don't know that I'll ever forget the words and sign language to "Jesus Loves the Little Children" which I must have sung a thousand times in my early years of life. So when thoughts of God or Christian songs pop into my head, I don't need to give them any more credibility than the memories that they are. I was taught a myth as truth for over 20 years; it seems reasonable to believe, it may take some time before these ideas fade. In the meanwhile, I can study and drill and read and write over and over again the things I know ascertain to be true - the universe is a weird and wonderful place, no more designed for me than for the influenza virus. And I'm going to enjoy every guilt-free moment of the brief life I have in it.

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