A New Rule

A little over two years ago I issued my Everlasting Hell Challenge, which asked Protestant Christians who base their theology on the Bible alone to demonstrate convincingly that the traditionalist evangelical view on hell and damnation is a much clearer teaching in Scripture than the idea that hell is not a place of everlasting torment (the traditionalist evangelical view being the idea that salvation is by grace through faith alone, apart from works, and that those who don't put their faith in Jesus for this salvation will suffer forever in hell). Not surprisingly, nobody has completed the challenge. The reason for this is really quite simple though: it just can't be done.

Really, to come to the traditionalist ideas about salvation and hell requires some serious eisegesis. If you want to justify the idea that damnation is everlasting, you can't continue to believe in salvation by grace through faith apart from works and claim to remain consistent, at least not from a biblical perspective, because the only passages that hint at the duration of this judgement being forever (depending on the translation you're using as not all Bible translations do) also point to doing good works and mutilating your body as the means of avoiding this outcome.

In the end, there are only two reasons to believe in everlasting torment in hell for non-Christians. The first reason is because so many of the leaders of the Christian religion have taught it for so long and most people are too afraid or too lazy to question the teachings of these leaders and find it easier to just assume that these leaders know what they're talking about. The second reason is because you simply want it to be true that some people will suffer forever with no chance to escape and are hoping that this is what God will do.

So, in the spirit of one of television's great hosts, I am declaring a New Rule: If you want to continue teaching that non-Christians will suffer in hell for eternity you have to demonstrate your sincerity by cutting off a limb or plucking out an eye (see Mark 9:43-48). If you don't take the Bible seriously enough to take the bodily mutilation part of the damnation passages literally then there's no reason for the rest of us to take the consequences for not doing so literally. If that's too much for you, then you at least have to stop teaching that avoiding hell is based on grace rather than good works and start feeding the hungry and giving drinks to the thirsty and inviting strangers into your home and giving clothes to those who need clothing and visiting those in prison (see Matthew 25:31-46). You can't completely ignore the first half of the passages you're basing your claims on and then expect us to take the rest your theology at all seriously.

Moderate Religion is Still Religion

While it's obvious to most of us that religious fundamentalism and extremism are clearly harmful, many of us tend to overlook the fact that moderate religion will destroy your soul just as easily (be it a moderate form of the Muslim religion, a moderate form of the Christian religion, or any other moderate form of religion). When it comes right down to it, religion is spiritual slavery, and the danger of "moderate religion" is that its followers don't even realize that their minds have been taken captive. What's particularly sad is, not only do most of those ensnared by religion not realize their status as prisoners, they actually fear freedom so much that they would willingly put their chains right back on if they were set free.

As the apostle Paul told the Galatians, it is for freedom that you have been set free, so don't allow anyone to bewitch you back into bondage. No matter how comforting their religious chains might appear, they are ultimately still chains and they are not meant for those of us who have been set free.

And for those of you who are still trapped by religion, the good news is that not only have the chains all already been unlocked, you can walk away from them at any time. Yes, you might be persecuted by your ex-fellow inmates as an infidel or heretic for daring to embrace true freedom, but freedom is a far better thing than slavery any day.

The Evangelical Abortion Inconsistency

If you've read many of my posts, you know by now that one of the most consistent traits of traditionalist Christians is that they're not very consistent in their theological thinking. This is possibly no more obvious than in their views on the subject of abortion. Most evangelicals I know of, for instance, are extremely anti-abortion, and yet when I consider the issue I would think that they should be the most pro-abortion group of people out there.

Why?

Well, most evangelicals, aside from certain Calvinists, believe in a doctrine called "the age of accountability." A child reaches the age of accountability when they are old enough to understand the difference between right and wrong and can be held accountable for their sins. Up until they reach this age, children who die apparently go to heaven (or so the doctrine goes) because they're too young to understand the consequences of, and hence be held responsible for, their actions. However, once someone reaches this age (which supposedly varies from individual to individual) they will end up in hell forever if they happen to pass away without first becoming a Christian.

Now I'd estimate that 90% or more of the human population will go to hell forever, at least according to the traditional view that this is the fate of non-Christians who die in their sins, so if everlasting torment in hell for non-believers past the age of accountability is true then perhaps abortionists should be considered the greatest missionaries there are as they'd probably be responsible for helping more souls avoid hell than all of the missionaries alive today combined. Not only that, shouldn't those traditionalists who have babies be thought of as the greatest monsters there are, seeing as they're willing to risk the eternal souls of their offspring simply to satisfy a desire (either for children, or simply for sex for those who believe that birth control is wrong)? Since there is a greater than 90% chance that your child will end up in hell if they reach the age of accountability (depending on where and when you happen to live the odds might vary, but they're still pretty grim), wouldn't you be much better off killing them before they get that old? If you believe in everlasting hell for those past this age then would not someone like Andrea Yates, who killed her children so they would be sure to avoid such a terrible eternal outcome, be one of the best examples of good motherhood we have? Sure, it might be a sin to commit murder, but sins can always be forgiven while you're still alive and her children are now guaranteed a place in heaven (or so the logic should go if traditionalists are correct).

If a parent allowed their child to participate in any activity where their kid has a 90% or greater chance of dying, or even just getting seriously injured, one would (rightly) consider that parent to be negligent and report that parent to the child protective agencies, and yet how many Christian parents are willing to gamble their children's soul with a fate far worse, and far longer, than simple death or injury?

No matter how horrible this might sound to you, I challenge you to show me where I'm wrong. I've made this challenge before and have yet to have anyone correct my logic, and I don't expect to have it happen anytime soon either.



Just for the record, since I'm a Christian Universalist I obviously don't believe that anyone ends up in hell for eternity so I am not promoting murder here, nor is this a post in favour of, or against, abortion. This post is simply to challenge yet another inconsistency in traditionalist Christian ideology.

Theology is Theory

No matter what theological conclusions you might have come to over your lifetime, one of the most important factors to remember is that theology is just theory.

Whether you believe in biblical literalism and inerrancy or a more figurative method of interpreting Scripture, whether you lean towards a pre-trib/pre-mil rapture or towards an amillennial eschatology, whether you think that God is a triune set of persons or think that He is actually just one being manifesting in different forms, and even whether you are convinced that non-believers will suffer forever in hell or are sure that everyone will eventually make it to heaven, we all have to realize that any of us could be wrong about any of these subjects because in the end there's no way to know with absolute certainty that what we believe is true.

Even if an angel or a being claiming to be God appeared before you telling you that "this particular doctrine is absolutely true," you can't know that this entity is being entirely truthful, and even if said being wasn't lying, you very well might be confused about what it was that you were told actually meant.

It might sound like I'm calling for agnosticism here, and you'd be absolutely right, except that you might be confused here as well because agnosticism is not necessarily what you think it is. To be agnostic doesn't mean that one has to reject all forms of spiritual belief. Rather, to be agnostic about theological claims can simply mean that one is humble enough to admit that one can't know things for certain that can't be proven and recognizing that one might actually be wrong about their metaphysical ideas.

So embrace your faith, but have the humility of the agnostic. Proclaim your doctrinal views, but do so with the understanding that you might have it all wrong and may one day have to admit to everyone that you no longer believe as you once did. I've had to do this more than a few times in my life and it's taught me to be much more careful about just how dogmatic I am when discussing what is ultimately nothing more than theory.

Smoke and Mirrors

If there's one thing I've learned in the last little while, it's that very little is actually what it seems. Often something that seems like a random detail is actually there to distract us from something bigger (or something huge will be staged to create support for something that people would otherwise protest). Of course everyone knows that this happens all the time in politics, but I believe that it happens just as much so in religion (actually the political and religious illusions often seem to distract us from the same things, just using their own unique methods).

There are various sorts of distractions in religion. One major type is "true doctrine," beliefs that aren't allowed to be questioned. Of course they are questioned, and debates occur and new denominations are formed (and heretics are persecuted in various ways). Meanwhile, in all the fighting for doctrinal purity, people miss out on what is really real and actually happening and not bothering to help change the things in the world that need changing.

Along the same lines, religious leaders (and certain scriptures) will often teach conflicting and contradictory beliefs (and often absurd stories and doctrines that logically can't be true) and insist that we must believe all of them. This creates cognitive dissonance in a religion's followers and induces compliance in them. Deep down they realize that what they have been told doesn't seem to make sense, but they trust that their leaders (or the writers of their scriptures) must know what they are talking about and decide that if these things don't make perfect sense then they must not be smart enough to think for themselves and that they'd better just continue blindly doing and believing what they've been told.

Another type of religious distraction is "morality." Religious people are led to believe that God actually cares about things like what sorts of clothing you're wearing or what you're eating or drinking or whether certain synonyms come out of your mouth or whether you've watched a certain TV show or movie or read a certain book or that you've had sex with someone without being married to them (or that you might be the same gender as they are) or viewed images of nude people or whether you're working on a particular day of the week or whether you've attended a particular religious service or participated in a particular religious practice, to name just a few of the many hundreds of examples I could give. Religious "morality" is particularly insidious because it causes those who live (or try to live) "moral" lives to think that they're actually doing a good thing while keeping them distracted from doing and avoiding what really matters.

Ultimately, religion is one of the biggest smoke and mirror games played by the powers that be (human or otherwise). It keeps people so distracted from reality that they end up thinking harmless things are evil and harmful actions are good. It asks people to persecute heretics, apostates and other infidels in the name of their religion or deity (sometimes just in small ways like marginalizing them, but all too often with more violent methods as well), and to ignore (and sometimes even look down upon) those who are hurting and need assistance. I don't believe that any deity who was actually good would ask these things of us, so this means that any religion that asks us to take these illusions seriously is a lie and should be carefully avoided.

Ye Shall Know Them by Their Fruits

I have had people of various religions and denominations try to convince me that their set of doctrines are the truth and that if I don't follow their particular philosophy that I will come to a bad end (or at least not as good an end as I could). With so many different ideologies competing for my allegiance I had to find a way to determine which of them (if any) were likely to be true. Even just within the faith I grew up in, Christianity, there were too many contradictory sets of belief that I was being asked to affirm, nearly all of which could be defended from the Bible. When nearly every competing Christian claim is able be backed by the Bible it makes it very difficult to know which to accept so in the end I decided that I'd judge a doctrine or practice by its fruit.

What does this mean? It means that I look at what believing or practicing a particular theological belief or practice tends to lead to in its followers. When a religious belief causes people outside of that particular orthodoxy to be belittled, insulted, ostracized, persecuted, fired, censored, expelled from their homes and hometowns, beaten, robbed, imprisoned, tortured, raped, or even killed in the name of that religion (all things that do happen with the approval of certain religious leaders and teachings) it makes it pretty easy to determine that this particular viewpoint isn't at all positive and should be avoided. Also, if a religious group doesn't allow people inside that particular orthodoxy to think for themselves, but rather insists that they let their religious leaders determine what is true for them, I know that something is fishy and that I should probably not have much to do with that particular group. If openly questioning (or even disagreeing with) a particular doctrine will get a member of a religious group in trouble then I know that this group is probably not to be trusted. And if a particular denomination insists (or even just asks) someone to do physical harm to them self or somebody else, be it some form of bodily mutilation or even suicide, run as far away from them as possible and never look back.

When it comes down to it, there are two sets of fruit that a theological paradigm tends to lead to. The first is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control. The second is fear, selfishness, peer pressure, intolerance, hostility, anti-intellectualism, arrogance, hypocrisy, and misery. If a doctrine or practice can be demonstrated to lead to the former then it sounds like something that should be embraced. If it has been shown to lead to the latter then I would think that it should be avoided if at all possible.

Stuff

As Tyler Durden put it in Fight Club (possibly the most important movie ever made), we're "chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need." And, even worse, "the things you own end up owning you."

He's right. Very few, if any, of our possessions actually make us happy. On the contrary, they often make us quite miserable. They enslave us to having to maintain them and they trap us in fear of having them damaged, stolen or destroyed. Plus, we just don't need 99% of the stuff we own.

Over the years I've been cutting down more and more on stuff, and you know what? There's little that feels more freeing than getting rid of things I just don't need. I'm also buying a whole lot less. If I don't need it I try not to buy it, and does this ever save a lot of money.

Learning to live with less stuff is the first step on the road to freedom. The funny thing is, while it sounds like it would be difficult to do, at least at first, one quickly learns that it's actually one of the easiest things in the world to do and that the less you have the richer your life becomes (not to mention the richer your bank account becomes, if that's something you care about).

Slavery

I am a slave, and odds are high that you are too. We are slaves to a system that has come to dominate pretty much the entire world. I call this system "transactionalism." It's a way of life in which people will only do something for you if you do something for them, and vice versa. It's a way of life where you can't have even the basic things needed to live, things like food, clothing, shelter, clean water, and health care, unless you have something to trade for them (hence the name "transactionalism"). In times past we traded other objects for the things we wanted or needed, though these days we mostly trade icons made of metal and paper (we call these icons money) that represent an imaginary point system made up by humans long since dead. All but the richest of us trade our time and energy in order to gain the objects or icons needed for these transactions, but all of us trade our souls.

This is a voluntary slavery, however, because transactionalism is completely unnecessary. I believe that we could actually eliminate all forms of commerce and trade and that humanity would not only survive, we would thrive. I would say that well over 90% of the jobs out there would be completely unnecessary if we were to eliminate transactionalism from the equation. The vast majority of jobs exist solely to make money (for owners and employees). Without money, the only work that would be left is that which truly is necessary, work such as that which provides food, clothing, shelter, clean water, and health care to the planet's population. With today's technology, less than 10% of the world's population would have to work in order to provide these necessities, and since most people would get bored without a job, these jobs would never go unfilled, even without the financial "rewards" for doing them.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of humans have given their souls over to transactionalism, and are taught from childhood that it is the only way. In fact every religion is really a form of transactionalism (do certain things and/or avoid certain things and your deity will reward you, or at least not punish you too much). While my dream is a transaction free world, I realize that this is unlikely to happen in my lifetime since humans aren't likely to get over this system anytime soon (if ever).

Dialogue With an Evangelical - Part 2: The Bible

Everlasting torment in hell isn't the only topic I've discussed with "Bob." We've talked about all sorts of other theological and philosophical issues, one of my favorites being when we've talked about his thoughts on the Bible:

Bob: The problem with most Christians today is that they just don't follow the Bible any more. If more Christians read their Bible and actually followed it we'd see real revival in the Church.

Me: Are you telling me that you follow the Bible perfectly?

Bob: Nobody's perfect, but I do my best to practice what the Bible teaches. Not like those liberals who pick and choose and only follow the passages that make them feel good while ignoring all the passages that make them feel uncomfortable.

Me: So someone who picks and chooses which passages to follow and ignores the rest is a liberal Christian?

Bob: If you can call them a Christian at all. I sometimes have a hard time thinking of these cherry pickers as Christians, but I'm nothing if not generous so I try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Me: I'm glad to hear that. Particularly since your generosity might come in handy for you down the road.

Bob: What do you mean?

Me: Well, I'm just not sure that you really do follow the Bible quite as thoroughly as you might think you do.

Bob: What?! How can you say that?

Me: Because of all the Bible verses you completely ignore.

Bob: You've got to be kidding me. Like what?

Me: Well, the Bible teaches that witches should be killed, for instance. Do you kill every Wiccan you come across? It also teaches that shellfish and pigs are an abomination. Do you ever eat shrimp or pork or have pepperoni on your pizza?

Bob: But those are Old Testament teachings. According to the New Testament we're not under the law any more and don't have to follow those rules.

Me: I know some Seventh Day Adventists who would disagree with you, and Jesus said that He didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, and many Christians still base many of their doctrines on the Old Testament. But okay, let's just focus on the New Testament for now. At your church, do you allow your women to speak?

Bob: We don't have any female pastors or teachers in our church, no.

Me: That's not what I asked though. I asked if you allow your women to speak at all. For instance, after a sermon, do you allow the women to talk out in the foyer about the sermon you all just heard, or even just about life in general?

Bob: Well, sure, once the church service is over.

Me: But in 1st Corinthians 14:34-35 Paul says, "Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church." It doesn't say anything about whether a church service is still going or not, it just says they can't speak in the church. It even says for them to wait until they get home to ask their husband if they have any questions.

Bob: Well, it does, yeah, but we have to consider the context of that passage and interpret it accordingly.

Me: So it's okay to interpret passages of Scripture and not just take them at face value?

Bob: Of course. Not all passages are meant to be taken literally. And not all passages are intended for all people in all times. There's the historical and cultural context to take into consideration.

Me: Ah, I see. So how would you interpret that passage then?

Bob: Well, I don't know. I'm sure it didn't mean that women couldn't speak at all in the church building though. That just doesn't make sense.

Me: But I assume you have some good basis for interpreting away the literal meaning of the passage beyond the fact that it doesn't make sense to you. I don't see anything in the passage that seems to indicate that Paul only meant it for the Corinthians, or that he only meant during the service, or even that he only meant it for Christians in the first century.

Bob: I don't know. But my pastor lets the women speak in our church and I'm sure he wouldn't if that passage was meant to be taken literally.

Me: Are you saying that your pastor is incapable of being wrong?

Bob: You really like that question, don't you?

Me: As long as people fall back on the pastor excuse I'll continue to ask it.

Bob: Touché. But no, I realize he can't always be right about everything. He isn't God, after all. Still, even if he is wrong, there's no way we could tell the women in our church not to talk to each other. That wouldn't go over well at all.

Me: So, in other words, we should ignore a passage because it makes us feel uncomfortable. Doesn't that make one a liberal by your earlier definition?

Bob: I don't know. I'm confused now.

Me: And that was only one New Testament command that you don't follow. I could go on with dozens more that I'll bet you ignore, many of them given by Jesus Himself.

Bob: I'm not sure I'm ready for any more right now.
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I really could have gone on with literally dozens of passages that no Christian takes at all seriously. And yet these same Christians will not hesitate to condemn other Christians for interpreting the passages they do take literally in a manner different from the way they interpret them.

And just for the record, I have no problem with women speaking in church. :)

We Are All Innocent

Those who know me well know that I don't believe in free will, or at least that I think it's the biggest misnomer there is, philosophically and theologically speaking.

Every person alive is a victim of their genetics and past experiences. In other words, every choice we make is predetermined by our nurture and nature. Why do you favour your right hand when I favour my left? Something in our DNA or some factor in our personal development decided that for us. Why do you choose lobster while I choose steak? Because, again, some part of our DNA gives us different taste preferences, and another part, along with other life experiences, causes us to order the food we prefer (or to order the food we don't prefer if some other gene and/or past encounter is causing us to want to try something different at that particular moment).

This lack of belief in free will is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in grace. If you're from an evangelical background like I am, you've probably heard that the definition of grace is "unmerited favour." I prefer to think of grace as simply showing unconditional love and kindness to someone, whether they deserve it or not, and I believe that all humans deserve it. None of us asked to be put here. None of us asked for the genes that shaped us or the life events that made us who we are. Even the Bible agrees that "the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it in hope, that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God." (This is why I lean towards a Universalist form of Calvinism, by the way.)

In the end, whatever the causes of our suffering may be, I take comfort in the fact that, as Our Lady Peace put it, We Are All Innocent, and that maybe this means God will help help us all out in the long run. I can only hope.