Well it's funny you should say that...
On that count you have. As distinct from respect for beliefs and ideas, you understand (a topic I have written about before). But I am impressed that you met me and continue to do so despite it all. But I must say, it’s starting to take another downward turn.
I'm very happy to hear that you are questioning anything (my motto being "question everything") but I am disturbed to learn that this is even an issue for you. Noah's Ark contradicts everything we know about the world, and everything we know about the world proves that no such event occurred. No trace was left in the rocks. No interesting observation was made with the benefit of divine omniscience. “two of every animal, plus as many of each parasite as they can carry” for example. Population genetics makes the fate of the "saved" species a rather short and sad one, and the geographical distribution of species alone makes the whole tale exceedingly silly.
As it is, no one converts to atheism, so much as they realise that that is what they are. The saddest thing I ever see in such people is the overwhelming sense of betrayal they feel toward those who have lied to them their entire lives. But the most frequent source of tears is when, having lost their blinkers, they discover the wonders of scientific discovery, and weep.
When you know the scientific understanding of the history of humanity, life, the Earth and the universe, no religious myth will ever hold a candle to it again. They are just so small, petty, and painfully human by comparison. Even if you still believe in your god, you will see that it is far grander than the pathetic little sex-obsessed misogynist the fundamentalists and creationist hold it to be.
I did want to hear you answer honestly, so in that sense the answer I wanted. It was also what I was expecting, and by Jove, is it precisely the answer I didn’t want to hear. Not from any one with whom I can stand in solidarity as a fellow human being. You’re not making the earning of that respect very easy on yourself.
All righty. Let’s start at the beginning, with the situation we find ourselves in. Gven what we have learned about the world and our part in it today, this is what you have to believe to be a theist. An Abrahamic theist, Christian at the very least.
The length of time our species has existed is still somewhat disputed by scientists, as is the way of things, though we have the ballpark estimate. Richard Dawkins proposes as much as 200,000 years. Francis Collins, who directed the human genome project and is a Christian in the CS Lewis mould, puts it at 100,000 years since our species of human separated from the previous. I’ll take 100,000 as the conservative estimate, it suits my purposes here quite sufficiently. For one hundred thousand years our species is born, as a primate species, lived in the most abject horror, as do all species in nature. More than half of all children died in birth or a few days afterward, as did many mothers. Infant mortality among those who survived that was extraordinarily high. Women hardly ever experienced periods, they were either pregnant or nursing (or starving), bound to an annual animal cycle of reproduction to which many who call themselves religious today would see them returned. Disease was rife; no one knew what caused it or any of the other horrors which plagued humanity. Fights over land, food, women. Terrifying. For the first few tens of thousands of years life expectancy was perhaps 25-30 years on average.
Through all this, heaven watches with folded arms, indifferent.
Then around 3-4,000 years ago, at last, heaven decides that enough’s enough, it’s time to intervene. But only in the really barbaric and illiterate parts of the Middle-East. Not in China, or Greece, where people can read, can write, can think, no! In the most barbaric and backward parts of the Middle-East it is decided “no, no, this can’t go on for another hundred millennia!” And appears before stupefied, ignorant peasants. And it decides that the best way to do so is through plagues and human sacrifice and mass-murder “and if that doesn’t make them behave morally, we just don’t know what does!” This is the heaven we find ruling over us. This simply cannot be believed by any thinking, moral person. And I’ve only just set the scene!
Here is a god who minds what you eat, minds how often you pray, minds who you love and how, minds who you have sex with and how (this part takes up quite a lot of its attention), minds that and what part of your penis or clitoris you have sawn off (or have sawn off for you), can convict you of thought crime (thought crime!) in your sleep as readily as while you are awake. Who wants this to be true?
This is a god that permits the concept of original sin in the world: sin original to our species. Heritable guilt, passed on from father to son, mother two daughter. No moral person can fail to be disgusted by this very proposition. We are created sick and commanded to be well! That should have you recoiling in revulsion. But there is a cure! The Nazarene, Jesus Christ, meek and mild (with whom the concept of hell is finally introduced to Judean mythology). Jesus Christ, who comes to Earth to spread his word, of which that which is not plagiarized from better thinkers who preceded him is questionable at best, horrible at worst (“take no thought for the morrow.” Fucking hell!). Just let Jesus into your life and you will be saved, for the low low price of your critical faculties. Who wants this to be true?
Sent by god,
is god, according to Christian doctrine, to relieve the original sin of mankind, through the most vile, barbaric, primitive, brutal and roundabout way that the omnipotent creator of the universe could think of.
Vicarious redemption. This is revolting to me, and it should be to everyone. I could pay your debt if I was rich enough. If I loved you enough I could even serve your prison sentence if I was allowed, or even take your place on the gallows as has happened on a few famous occasions. But I cannot take your responsibility from you, I cannot absolve you of the sins you committed and am now paying for, for you. I certainly cannot forgive wrongs that which you did to another, and be very suspicious of anyone who claims that they can. It is immoral, and you have no right to ask it of me, of anyone. It is more than can be promised and more than should be promised. You cannot shed your responsibility or wipe your slate completely clean: the whole basis of morality requires that you face it and take it upon yourself. Nonetheless Christianity offers this repugnant concept of vicarious redemption as its central tenet and promise, celebrating one of the immoral ideas I’ve ever heard as the greatest gift to humanity. I can see it this way, I know others like me who see it this way. To his credit, CS Lewis saw it this way. He was a Protestant, but in this debate he is one of yours. He writes on this very subject in his book,
Mere Christianity:
And of those who cannot believe that Jesus was the son of god or otherwise divine, yet still a great moral teacher, Lewis is properly scornful:
And poor Lewis, he has argued so well up until there, but he never could complete a syllogism.
At least Lewis wasn’t making it easy on himself, but you don’t have to be a regular Wings of Fire to see the gaping hole in that logic.
And I haven’t even touched on the method of the redemption.
Human.
Sacrifice.
I hope that that is perfectly clear to everyone, in no uncertain terms, that this is what this is. Scapegoating. Throwing your sins onto an animal, and then you kill it. This is an old and primitive practice from the Middle-East and it does not deserve the attention of civilized and thoughtful people. Worse than that, it is a
human being, whom we are told went willingly to this fate with the immoral aims I have just discussed in mind. Then we have to be told that this torture and human sacrifice of somebody, of which were any of us present at the time would have been morally obliged to try to prevent (but no sacrifice, no salvation!), which I did not ask for, over which I had no control on account of having occurred (so we are told) thousands of years previously, commits me. And I have no choice in the matter. None. The most disgusting thing we could imagine, and it was done in our name, for our benefit. Who wants this to be true?
So, now what do we do about it? It is “kindly” offered to us. I give all these objections: I don’t want it, I never did, I never will, I do not want to share responsibility for it. I think it’s highly implausible, I don’t believe the story, I didn’t ask for it, I don’t think it does or should absolve me of my sins, particularly since many of then, particularly original sin, I do not agree with. I do not recognize the charges against me. Having considered it, I say, I’d rather carry on living and leading a decent life without it, thanks. But thanks for asking.
“Oh no, sorry, you didn’t hear us right the first time.
It wasn’t an offer. You refuse it on pain of death! Eternal torment and misery!”
…
Excuse me, I won’t be talked to in that tone of voice. I don’t quite know why, there must be something about me, that simply will not tolerate it, and I’m sure I’m not the only one here who shares this response. What was that? I’m not free to decline this offer? You’re making me an offer I literally cannot refuse? You’ve given me free will but no choice?
Is that a threat!? You’re telling me that if I turn down this lamb’s blood in which I’m supposed to be washed saying “sorry, but I don’t think it will clean me”, “well that means an eternity of torture, you know! I hope you’ve taken that into account before you consider our offer of eternal love.”
No, I won’t have it. Who wants this to be true?
But suppose I take this offer. What awaits me then? Well I’ve read Revelation 4 and so on, I know perfectly well what the Christian view of heaven is. Singing praises to god, all day, every day, 24/7 worship at his feet for eternity. Hold on- I thought that by accepting this offer I would
avoid eternal torture and misery? What sort of cosmic horror is this god? Who wants this to be true?
Everlasting praise. Can you imagine? Nobody can, of course, but we can see an approximation of it on Earth today. North Korea.
I’ve resisted using the term up until now, but finally I can. The Christian universe and afterlife is a Celestial North Korea. In North Korea the only duty, job and right of the people is to eternally praise the divine Dear Leader and the dead President-For-Ever, the divine Great Leader. It is a life of constant grovelling and misery and fear and praise and thanks for the tiny handouts that you get. It is impossible to truly describe the nothingness of the life of the North Korean. They are trapped, they cannot get out. The borders are guarded, and they will shoot.
But at least you can
die, and leave North Korea. A small blessing that is not afforded by the Celestial Dear Leader. In this religious totalitarianism of the purest kind there is
no escape. It is absolute, it is complete, it is utter, and it is horrifying. HP Lovecraft has nothing on this. Who wants it to be true?
Who, though? Who wants there to be no privacy anywhere, at home, at work, with the one who love, not even in your own skull? Who wants to be watched and cared for by an infantalising supernatural father, forever, who will never let you grow, never let you free, and never even die? Who wants to live by bizarre rules and laws that rarely even reflect the morality we know innate in all of us, that even the faithful, that even you, here, in this thread, have questioned and found inscrutable and nonsensical? Who wants this? Who wants any of this? Who
could?
I’ll tell you who. A slave. It takes a slave mentality to want this, a willing serf and thrall who can mistake control for love, jealously for protection, wrath for justice. It requires that we be servile, surrender our independence, love one whom we fear, and try as I might, I find it very difficult to respect one who
does. Certainly not this part of them, at least.
No. I say it freely: “Non serviam!” I am not a slave, I don’t want that, I
will. Not. Serve.
How fortunate it is then, how wonderful, that there is no reason to believe that any of it is true whatsoever. None at all. The evidence in its favour remains, as always, nil. Theists still have all their work ahead of them.
Non seviam!