Reply to Brittany

Brittany,

In a comment to my post "In The Middle Of It All," you wrote,

Christian's are NOT perfect. We make mistakes, sometimes, Huge mistakes.

Yet, the beauty in all of those mistakes, in all of that evil, we are offered a way out, we are offered a chance to be forgiven. His name is Jesus Christ. He is the beauty in all of the darkness. He is the only hope for all that is good and right.

Needless to say, there was nothing in my original post that suggested that Christians should be perfect. Both atheists and Christians can agree that humans are imperfect. Both atheists and Christians can agree that one should try to be as perfect as possible, even knowing that perfect attainment of that goal is impossible. Those aren't the issues.

The issue is whether your behavior, Brittany, and that of your fellow Christians, contributes to greater perfection or greater imperfection. I maintain that evangelizing the way Ray does, makes you less perfect, that it makes you immoral.

If you don't evangelize the way that Ray does, then good for you, and thank you for doing at least that much. But there's another issue to be found here, perhaps one just as serious:

We atheists know that, whatever mistakes humans make, we're stuck with them. Once that cookie from the cookie jar is stolen, it can't be unstolen. Once that girl is raped, she can't be unraped. Once that man is murdered, he can't be unmurdered. Once that bomb is exploded, it can't be unexploded. If we commit an immorality, then we can certainly apologize for it, regret it, learn from it, and even use it to become a better person afterwards -- but the damage is done. The man is still dead, the girl still has the life-long scars from her ordeal, and where there once was a city is still a radioactive wasteland.

By contrast, evangelical Christians believe that these mistakes don't matter, that they can be erased through belief in and worship of Jesus. To you, Jesus is like a cosmic reset button, wiping the slate of your soul clean when you press it so that your crimes no longer count against you in the final tally. The man is dead, the girl is raped, but if Jesus forgives you then it doesn't matter, not in the cosmic sense. Moreover, if the man died an atheist, or if the terrible experience of the rape pushes the girl away from religious belief, then they end up in hell, whereas you're not only going to heaven, having been cosmically forgiven, but you won't even have the burden of having sent those people to hell on your conscience -- my understanding of fundamentalist theology is that all that stuff is "burned away" upon entering heaven, leaving only a pure and sinless soul.

I think that's monstrous. I don't see how a moral person can subscribe to that version of metaphysics and see it as a good thing.

You also wrote,

God is loving. He loved us so much that He allowed His son to die for us.

Whatever this hypothetical God wanted to achieve by allowing his son to die, he could have achieved without allowing his son to die, or allowing anyone to die, or even to suffer. (I know what you're going to say, "free will," but the free will defense has been debunked by philosophers -- it's rather technical, but I can try to explain it to you if you wish. If you don't want to know about it, then I won't bother.)

God is also just. I have heard countless times atheist describe God as un-just, yet when He punishes cild molesters and murderers He is still called un-just? I don't get you guys? You want there to be a just God, yet when He punishes the murderers, the sinners you still call Him unjust?

Hitler was a vegetarian, which means that his behavior toward animals was highly ethical -- but this doesn't negate the fact that he was one of the most unethical humans who ever lived. The same would be true with your god, if he existed -- he would be highly unjust, in spite of taking some just actions such as punishing murderers and child molesters. Which, of course, he would only do if the murderers and child molesters neglected to ask his son to forgive them -- if they did that, God would let them off scot-free. Do you honestly believe that that's justice?

If after reading this you're still wondering why I regard evangelical Christians as hatemongering and inhumane, then I can only suggest you take a good, hard look at your closing sentence:

Accept Him while you still can...

Read that sentence again, and again, and again, as many times as it takes for you to get the picture: Christian evangelism is a bullying threat. And I think you are a lesser person for subscribing to it. I think you're a decent person who can do much better.