I notice that d-C has a “de-conversion wager”:
http://de-conversion.com/
This is supposed to be a clever take-off on Pascal’s wager—as if the reasoning were reversible. Let’s see about that, shall we?
“Whether or not you believe in God, you should live your life with love, kindness, compassion, mercy and tolerance while trying to make the world a better place.”
How does atheism define “better”? What’s the frame of reference?
“If there is no God, you have lost nothing and will have made a positive impact on those around you.”
i) How does atheism define “positive”? What’s the frame of reference?
ii) In the short term, why wouldn’t I have something to lose? Ripping off your fellow man can be very lucrative.
iii) It’s true that, in the long term, an atheist has nothing to lose—since an atheist has nothing to gain. Put another way, since an atheist is already a loser, he has nothing additional to lose. Kinda like trying to rob a nudist of his gold cufflinks.
But, of course, that wager cuts both ways. Even if he ultimately has nothing to lose by being kind, loving, compassionate, merciful, and tolerant, he ultimately has nothing to gain by being loving, compassionate, merciful, and tolerant. Put another way, he ultimately has nothing to lose by being mean, cruel, merciless, and intolerant.
“If there is a benevolent God reviewing your life, you will be judged on your actions and not just on your ability to blindly believe in creeds- when there is a significant lack of evidence on how to define God or if he/she even exists.”
i) There is, not doubt, a significant lack of evidence that she even exists. In that one respect, the de-conversion wager got it half-right. So the de-conversion wager is certainly pertinent to feminist theologians.
ii) If the contributors to d-C define Christian faith as “blindly believing in creeds,” then that would help explain why they became apostates. It’s easy to lose your blind faith in creeds.
iii) How does atheism define “benevolence”? What’s the frame of reference?
iv) How are the contributors privy to the basis on which God, if there is a God, will judge our actions? I don’t quite see how a nonexistent God could tip his hand. And if God is indefinable, then it would be even harder to predict his judicial criteria.
Why is it that people who assure us that they left the Christian faith for intellectual reasons always sound so anti-intellectual?
"Why is it that people who assure us that they left the Christian faith for intellectual reasons always sound so anti-intellectual?"
ReplyDelete(After 5 minutes of awkward classroom silence... raises hand to answer).
"Is it because they are anti-intellectual?"
"If there is a benevolent God reviewing your life, you will be judged on your actions"
ReplyDeleteObviously, this is not the God of the Bible. Put the thrice holy God into the picture and their wager would not be worth much, if at all. Maybe it should read:
"If the God of the Bible exists who reviews your life, you will be judged by your sins and..."
Ooops, that cannot work.
To add to what PuritanReformed said, not only is that not the God of the Bible but it doesn't even make sense on atheistic principles.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, assume that there is a benevolent God that does judge us based on our actions. Isn't it logical to assume such judgement would include the good we could have done yet did not actually do? Isn't that still something that needs to be addressed?
To offer an example, suppose it is a morally virtuous thing to pay for a homeless person's meal. Suppose you have a spare $1,000,000 in your bank account that is not needed for any possible emergencies or anything of that nature.
You buy one homeless person a hamburger off the dollar menu at McDonalds. (Okay that would earn you HellPoints, but just go with the illustration!) Again, suppose this is a righteous act, a good deed.
Is the benevolent God supposed to say, "Hey, you did one good deed when you had the ability to do one million good deeds--good 'nuff for me!"?
In the same way, is God supposed to be impressed that you never shouted at your spouse when you constantly shouted at drivers who cut you off on the road? Even though not shouting at your spouse is generally a good thing (unless, you know, she's about to be run over by a bus and doesn't realize it), you COULD have done a much better job than you did by not yelling at people who cut you off because they weren't speeding as much as you were.
Most people just think of the negative sins--the sins of comission, as it were. Sins of omission are, however, still sins. And when you fail to do that which is good, you are ipso facto evil.