The simple challenge
This isn’t a challenge to all theists. Indeed, I suspect that a subtle variant of this challenge could be posed to theists, by theists.
Not all theists are monotheists, and I don’t extend this challenge to the polytheists, although perhaps I could.
Not all theists want to subvert or subsume the separation of Church and State, and while some of those that do may fit the bill for my challenge, mostly I think not. I’m letting the secular friendly off the hook (in perpetuity most likely).
Not all theists are proselytes, and while I could extend the challenge to those running the God-club membership drive, I don’t care to.
This challenge is to those who base their self-worth on how others see their religion. To those who seem to think that the numinous they see due to the electrical storm in their skull is in any way relevant to how others behave. To those who parse random occurrence the same way a pigeon does (no wonder gambling is a sin – rather sensibly protecting the interests of those in the fold).
This challenge is to those who can express triumphalism, rather than regret, at the threat of another going to hell.
The challenge is simple. If being closer to your God makes you a better person (as you keep telling us), why am I saner than you?
Maybe it’s a plot. Maybe The Devil made me saner than you, or at least corrupted me less than you to make you and your religion incredulous. But that would make the devil a better healer than any God.
Maybe you don’t believe in The Devil (i.e. there is hope for you yet).
Maybe God is less offended by my atheism than the sheer arrogance of your certainty and has decided to bless me. Let’s face it. With something as numinous as your alleged God, claims of certainty are arrogant. But that would mean that you are worshipping the wrong God.
Maybe your God is real, but chooses to make me sane and you mad, because the other way around your God wouldn’t get the same cruel satisfaction as when you come back willing for more. Maybe your God is real, is uninterested in me and is laughing at you. Maybe God will be true to form and let you burn in hell while letting the non-believers into heaven just to spite you. But that would make your God a sadist.
I know I wouldn’t wish that on you. But then in addition to being saner, I suspect that I’m a better person. No hubris in that. The bar is set rather low after all.
Maybe, just maybe, neither God nor Devil caused your madness, but your madness caused your God and your Devil. Or at least someone else’s madness did and you got caught along the way, your unoriginal testimony to something you’ve never seen, touched, heard, smelt or felt being a symptom.
You rant and you rave about non-believers (atheists, different religions, different denominations) who have never done any harm to you, only ever merely objecting to you attempting to impose your will upon them at most. You rant and rave about how they supposedly think they are better than you, how they are smarter than you, when really what you really mean is that when it comes to the things in a person that matter to you, the attributes you desire, you know they are better and you don’t like it.
Why does your God allow the non-believers to be better than you?
This challenge is issued to those sufficiently insane to be offended by it.
~ Bruce
This is interesting, Bruce, because that is my own criterion for statements about God. I argue that if something attributed to God strikes me as being insane or abhorrent, I should believe–or hope at least–that the fault must lie in the statement about God, who is, one hopes, saner and brighter than I am– if you will forgive such a dreadful anthropomorphism. I have even said this out loud in church during services, to general approbation…
In Zoroastrian tradition, there is a heaven and a hell, but IF at the end of time the forces of light win against the dark (and that depends on the integral of human goodness/evil over time), the blessed in heaven look down in pity at those in hell, know there is no benefit to be gained by their continued suffering, and plead with the deity to end the torment, effectively granting a universal “Get out of Hell Free” card.
That’s better than regret, merely saying sorry, that’s action to alleviate suffering!
The assumption is of course, that if you are good, you necessarily empathise and have pity. If you are pitiless, then you should go to hell anyway.
Neil: I have even said this out loud in church during services, to general approbation…
Which provides further evidence?
Dave: …but IF at the end of time the forces of light win against the dark (and that depends on the integral of human goodness/evil over time), the blessed in heaven look down in pity at those in hell, know there is no benefit to be gained by their continued suffering, and plead with the deity to end the torment, effectively granting a universal “Get out of Hell Free” card.
I wonder if any Zooastrians would qualify for my challenge in the first place.
Bruce: Nope, no Zoroastrians (or Parsees as they are known in India) would qualify for your challenge. (They don’t actively proselytize either, the “commandments” are of the positive form ["Tell the truth" rather than "Do not lie"] and even include environmental imperatives like “plant trees”.)
I made the point because most atheists will assume that all Hell-believing monotheistic religions will have nutters who like the idea of us virtuous unbelievers getting pitchforks up the bum for eternity.
Zoroastrianism also “invented” heaven and hell, which the Jews assimilated when in exile in Babylon, moving from the previous Sheol where ALL souls went.
Thus, your challenge is VERY old, and could be rephrased “Is your pitilessness for tormented souls theological recidivism?”
Perhaps Cyrus the Great didn’t so much allow the Jews to return to Palestine from Babylon as say “Get out of here you pitiless bastards”.
The Islamic view is interesting, because Allah knows in advance who well end up in Hell, but is compassionate enough to feel sorry for them. I don’t know if Islamic theology includes the everyone-get-out-of-hell-free card concept, but as an offshoot of the Abhrahamic tradition it probably doesn’t.
Dave,
Care to tell us what the difference is between “eternity” and “the end of time”?
No assumption necessary, I see that claim made all the time. Try reading Pat Condell’s incoming, sometime.
Also, you appear to have missed Bruce’s qualification in the post: “Not all theists are proselytes, and while I could extend the challenge to those running the God-club membership drive, I don’t care to.” So, no challenge to the Zarathustrans.