Our good friend has again likened his god's torture of everyone for thought crimes to preventative human laws against harmful actions.
http://raycomfortfood.blogspot.com/2008/11/atheists-honest-question.html
I thought I'd change a few things about his analogy to make it more accurate:
Lets say you were adopted: you don't know who your real father is.
Despite this, over the course of your lifetime, you have met several people claiming to know your father. Each one claims that your father loves you, but that he chose not to come to meet you in person. Despite your asking, they can't provide any evidence that your father is the individual that they know, and even admit that they have never met the individual they claim to know.
Now, one of these people claiming to know your father warn you he doesn't like it when people drink alcohol. Now, you only drink rarely and in moderation, but they tell you that it's all the same in his eyes, and that he must punish you by locking you in the basement and torturing you.
You don't really think these people know what they're talking about, so you continue to drink sensibly, and never cause anyone any harm by it.
Suddenly, you are arrested, and dragged off to court. In the judges seat is the guy one of these people told was your father. You're shocked: you had no idea your father was still alive, let alone that he was the same guy these specific people claimed to know but had never met.
He tells you that he paid your fine for you, but that you didn't accept it, and now have to be tortured. Not having any idea what he's talking about, but desperately wanting to avoid being tortured, you ask whether you can accept it now.
He says no, and that you have to be tortured for your crime because you didn't accept his payment of your fine before you were arrested, and that this saddens him greatly.
As the shock wears off, you begin to get angy. "Hold on a second: you're the one who's sending me to be tortured! Plus, what crime am I guilty of?"
He explains that you are guilty of alcohol abuse, and that despite his love for you, which is so great that he even paid your fine in full, he still has to subject you to torture because of this.
You point out that you've always drunk in moderation, and never caused any harm by it, but he doesn't care: that's just as bad in his eyes.
You also point out that he's still the one sending you off to be tortured: it is by his choise that this is happening, and he says that this is simply what he has to do because it is justice in his eyes.
You tell him that paying a fine isn't the same as being tortured, either.
Finally, you point out that if he had truly wanted to pay the fine for you, he could still do so and you'll happily forgo alcohol for the rest of time, but he says that it's just too late: you've already been arrested.
At this point you give up, run up there, and beat the living crap out of the freaking wanker until one of his guards tasers you and you get dragged away.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I have an analogy.
ReplyDeleteGo have kids.
When one of them commits a 'sin', pour gas over their head and set fire to them if they do not say they are sorry.
No? Why not? That's what xians worship.
In all honesty. Let say you were pretty sure god existed (like over 70%).
ReplyDeleteWould you repent and give up sin? Or continue?
In all honesty. If you were pretty sure there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (like over 51%). Would you set off looking?
ReplyDelete[In all honesty. If you were pretty sure there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (like over 51%). Would you set off looking?]
ReplyDeleteHmmm.
If I was pretty sure no-one else could get to it first i would head out. 51% is a bit low though
MFT-
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that God exists, but I'm far more sure that there is no valid evidence that should cause me think that God is the anthropomorphized caricature that Ray Comfort and the bible would have us believe him to be.
No bullshit lake of fire, and no bullshit eternal damnation, no matter how really, really, really much Ray Comfort, or anyone else believes there is.
These legal fine analogies are really pointless and I wish they'd stop. He's comparing apples to ethereal oranges that you can't prove exist.
ReplyDeleteAll the fundies over there chirp about the fact that we "choose to sin" while simultaneously saying that we're all born with sin. That's akin to me saying I chose to have brown eyes.
MrFree wrote:
ReplyDeleteIn all honesty. Let say you were pretty sure god existed (like over 70%).
Would you repent and give up sin? Or continue?
You really should be more specific, MFT.
By this did you mean "Let say you were pretty sure a god existed"? In which case, no: I would not "repent", because I would have no way to know if the entity I was fairly sure existed wanted me to do that or not, or if it could or would do anything about it or not. For all I know repenting might anger said entity.
Or do you perhaps mean "Let say you were pretty sure your god, YHWH, the Judeo-Christian Capital-Gee-od of the bible, existed"? In which case: yes, I would. Or at least, I would make my best attempt to, although there seems to be some debate amongst believers as to what 'repent' actually means.
I'm not really sure how you can be 70% sure that YHWH exists, though... seems like an all or nothing belief.
Here's what I've put:
ReplyDeleteThis 'analogy' is toe-curlingly pathetic, Ray.
1) If the responsibility for the crash is actually the daughter's (see 4), a truly loving and moral father would accept the punishment meeted out to his offspring and let them take it, no matter how much it hurt his feelings.
2) Nothing is a "massive sacrifice" for your deity, since he is omnipotent, so the idea that the father has done something noteworthy is nonsense. At best, the father is a masochist, deliberately allowing himself to be hurt when he doesn't have to. Isn't masochism a sin, by the way?
3) You appear to confuse law and justice. Your truly loving father apparently believes that by paying the fine of the guilty child, everything is hunky dory. The law may have been appeased, but the owners of the cars run off the road and the friends injured have not received justice. Far from it, and they would be justified in being aggrieved.
4) If any sin is as bad as the most serious possible sin, and I am unable to not sin, I have no free will. If I have no free will, I cannot be held responsible for my actions. It's about as sensible designing gravity, making everything subject to it and then declaring it evil and then punishing rain for falling downwards. If this is the case, your diety is a petty, immoral and vindictive scumbag for trying to pass off responsibility for his design and moral flaws onto his creation.
5) The rest of it is total assertation with no evidence supplied to convince anyone it should be taken seriously.
You'll never get anywhere with this. The fundie's last refuge is two-pronged: "You can't, with your puny human brain, understand God's hugely humongous awesomeness" and "It's God's universe; who are you to tell him what to do?" It'll always end up being one or both of these.
ReplyDeletePlus, of course, the obligatory, "You wouldn't stop sinning even if you knew he existed", hence MrFreeThinker's question, a variation on, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead" - one of the biggest bullshit rationalizations in the Bible.
I tore his analogy to pieces too.
ReplyDeleteHere's a little rundown, in case it doesn't get published.
1) Before the courts, you can pay the fine or go to prison. The judge doesn't care, and you come out equally blameless either way. By his analogy, Christians could atone without Jesus' 'imputed' righteousness: his death would be irrelevant.
2) As pointed out by Quasar, the judge would actually be the drunk driver's father, and as such would pay that fine to himself. On the one hand, it makes no sense, and on the other, it would be a woeful breach of the right to a fair trial with defendant and judge being related.
3) The defendant's father could no go over his head to pay the fine. It's ultimately the defendant's choice to go to prison. Proclaiming that Jesus died for us whether we like it or not is like arguing for extraterritorial laws. For example, we can't be convicted for slandering the Thai King outside of Thailand because it's not a crime outside of Thailand. I wouldn't go to Thailand after doing it, but would you become a Christian after, say, calling Jesus a turd?
4) To be strictly accurate, the defendant would find himself before the judge for even thinking of drunk driving. You can't even be guilty for attempting to drunk drive, let alone thinking about it.
It's totally and utter lunacy! Ugh! This man is infuriating.
There's another aspect, as well, that fundies never get - in the OT, blood sacrifice was prescribed only for a small category of sins. Also, blood isn't specified as the only means; repentance is described as being superior.
ReplyDeletePeople like Ray have bought into the substitutionary atonement argument first put forth by Augustine, then expanded upon by Anselm. It jibes with their self-loathing and pathologically low self-esteem.