How Can Christians Enjoy... While Nonbelievers Experience...

[Llwellyn]

How can good little boys enjoy Santa's presents when bad little boys only get lumps of coal?

 

It the common doctrine of COAL were true, I should be ready to resign all hope of any presents, if thereby I could save a single child from the fear of receiving coal.  I would rather get NOTHING for Christmas rather than my worst enemy endure coal.  Unless my whole nature were utterly changed, I can imagine no Christmas which would not be abhorrent to me if it were accompanied with the knowledge that millions and millions and millions of poor suffering children— some of whom I know and love — were writhing in an agony with coal.

 

[mymistake]

How can good Christians in the Western World enjoy their parking spaces and found keys when children in Africa starve?

[milesaway]

How can good xtians continue to be involved with a criminal organization that's brutalized its own and outsiders for ages, while the people they've screwed over suffer in silence and are left to pick up the pieces on their own for the rest of their lives?  

[duderonomy]

Llewellyn,

 

Should the good children have to share their presents with the bad children who wouldn't do what was necessary to earn presents?

Where then would the incentive be to do good and achieve, if one's rewards were to be given to them that would not (I didn't say could not) be good and achieve?

 

Should I, if I receive a gift of more worth than a lump of coal, feel some sort of guilt that others haven't?  Better, perhaps, that I should instruct those with lumps of coal to band together and pool their wealth. One can't recharge all of the "zero emission" and green hybrid automobiles in the world without burning some coal after all.

 

I mean, if they want what I have, they should do what I do, and maybe Santa will reward them next year. 

[Bhim]

How can good Christians in the Western World enjoy their parking spaces and found keys when children in Africa starve?

Well, far be it from me to ever take the side of Christians on anything, but the same argument would suggest that no person in the Western world of any religion should enjoy anything until every African child is fed. You ready to adhere to this standard? In theory I care about starving children more than my personal comforts. In practice though, I enjoy my iPhone, speaker system, etc. while doing almost nothing to help starving Africans. I'm not quite ready, therefore, to level the charge of apathy against evangelicals.

 

Forgive me if I've misunderstood your position.

[mymistake]

 

How can good Christians in the Western World enjoy their parking spaces and found keys when children in Africa starve?

Well, far be it from me to ever take the side of Christians on anything, but the same argument would suggest that no person in the Western world of any religion should enjoy anything until every African child is fed. You ready to adhere to this standard? In theory I care about starving children more than my personal comforts. In practice though, I enjoy my iPhone, speaker system, etc. while doing almost nothing to help starving Africans. I'm not quite ready, therefore, to level the charge of apathy against evangelicals.

 

Forgive me if I've misunderstood your position.

 

 

I don't have an all powerful god as my best friend.  Christians think they do.  And that God answers prayer by finding lost keys and getting Christians a good parking space at the shopping center.  If they really do have unlimited recourses that are just a prayer away then they should be responsible for so much more then those who don't.

[midniterider]

I just enjoy Christmas like all the other non-Christian consumerist heathens.

[midniterider]

 

How can good Christians in the Western World enjoy their parking spaces and found keys when children in Africa starve?

Well, far be it from me to ever take the side of Christians on anything, but the same argument would suggest that no person in the Western world of any religion should enjoy anything until every African child is fed. You ready to adhere to this standard? In theory I care about starving children more than my personal comforts. In practice though, I enjoy my iPhone, speaker system, etc. while doing almost nothing to help starving Africans. I'm not quite ready, therefore, to level the charge of apathy against evangelicals.

 

Forgive me if I've misunderstood your position.

 

 

Let's sell our computers and send the money to Africa!

[Llwellyn]

I had in mind a parody of the doctrine of heaven/hell -- in other words the blessings and curses of Yahweh for conduct.  It compares pretty well to the story of Santa's gifts and coal for child behavior.  It is silly to fear Santa's coal, just as it is silly to fear Yahweh's curse.  I would say that the moral problems with the Christian doctrine of Yahweh's recompense are more extreme than, but comparable to, the story of Santa.  But I do think that the broader issue of a person's ability to experience comfort while others are suffering is a worthwhile thing to talk about and think about.

 

But according to Christianity, all experiences of the non-believer -- whether pleasant or unpleasant -- are the experience of the curse of Yahweh.  Yahweh first cursed us when we were expelled from Eden, and has been cursing us ever since.  The joys that we experience are simply us being fatted for the slaughter.  "God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction."  Romans 9:22.  "I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.  They have no struggles;  their bodies are healthy and strong.  They are free from common human burdens;  they are not plagued by human ills.  This is what the wicked are like— always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.  When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God;  then I understood their final destiny.  Surely you place them on slippery ground;  you cast them down to ruin.  How suddenly are they destroyed."  Psalm 73 (NIV)

 

Inversely, all experiences of the Christian -- whether miserable or happy -- are the experience of the blessing of Yahweh.  He has justified those to who he has give faith.  And all of their suffering is now redemptive.  "Let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator."  1 Pet 4:19.

 

So, in other words, according to Christianity, the issues of divine wrath/blessing and suffering/comfort are really not different issues but the same issues.

[Leo]

This Heaven and Hell business is a lot of my moral problems with Christianity, even when I called myself a Christian. Because, as I often questioned myself as a Christian, if I really believe this, then I really believe most people that I know are destined to an eternal punishment, while people like Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, Carla Fay Tucker, and others who accepted Jesus on Death Row are in heaven now. Presumably while their victims are burning in Hell. None of the apologetic resolved this issue. After all, we take all that we are to either heaven or Hell, hence the need for character development in this life. So Jeffrey Dahmer took his character, such as it wasn't, to heaven when he was killed in prison shortly after his baptism. My friend, a pretty good guy, a bisexual who died in the early 90s of AIDS, is burning in Hell with Dahmer's victims. I hated this. I do believe that subconsciously that is probably why most Christians in evangelical circles try to surround themselves with other Christians. Even though they accuse themselves and one another of having a holier-than-thou attitude towards other outsiders, I secretly thought this whole time, the real reason is most probably that they can't bear the emotional consequences of getting close to people who are in all statistical likelihood going to end up in Hell. This situation is, in my opinion, morally awful. I don't blame the average Christian for having a modern conception of justice and morality, and being pained by trying to retrofit it into a barbaric, bronze-age ideal. It is torture through and through. I work in a field where nearly everyone statistically is headed for Hell. Many didn't know I was Christian, some did, most did not. Because in all other things rational I was, and am, like them. This is a moral outrage, but I am not upset at the average Christians who uphold it. After all, if you dare ask, and the context is right, many will come clean with how uncomfortable it makes them. They have all the same questions. Only they are able for now, to pass it all off as God will somehow make it all better. And, there are those whose circle are mainly Christians, so they are able to 'other' everyone else. I have never really had that luxury, save for a single year when I only was around Christians most of the time. But most people I know, and have known, and most of those who have died that I have known, are in Hell according to Christian teaching. This used to bug me, even when a famous person that I of course didn't know, had died. When Jimmy Smith, the famous jazz organist died. When Richard Wright of Pink Floyd died. When George Harrison or Kurt Kobane died. One day, about 11 years ago, we heard that some head of a company in our industry died. Someone who had done tremendous work in innovation and development in the field i'm involved with. I had to give my lunch to somebody else that day, and I didn't even know the guy; never met him. But there he was, really innovative, and really cared about people, had a great reputation as a human being, now presumably being tormented for all eternity. Christians who are closed off from contact with 'outsiders' won't suffer this. Not unless an 'unsaved' family member dies. But those of us who work in fields where people are statistically likely to not be invested in religion at all, or those who are in the more 'liberal' Christianities, themselves presumably destined for Hell, are really in a hard place. I admit it, I don't hate them. I don't really blame them, although I stay away from the dogma for my own emotional reasons right now. I don't have a rational explanation for why it is that I have figured this stuff out and so many have not, or don't intend to. I've known military people who are not Christians, or not the kind the evangelicals call Christians, don't do the Lord and Savior business. So the evangelical god who was defended by these people. whose seat of power in the United States was upheld by these people, now sentences them to an eternity in Hell while they were in the line of duty? It makes my heart pound and my blood boil to even think about these things anymore! I have to say, I don't care two hoots about car keys and parking spots at WalMart. I didn't even really believe any of that stuff as a Christian, at least not since the two years in my early 20s when I really embraced some of the more fiery aspects of Christianity. And even then, I'm not sure I could have been said to fully believe any of that stuff. But this amoral system where a fifteen-year-old girl I saw in Florida was being tormented when she learned an atheist classmate had died, and she really believed, is burning in Hell. That is systematic child abuse, adult abuse. But I don't think you can hold a pastor accountable directly. The madness runs far deeper: the entire system is completely flawed through and through. I knew people, during the recent debates about homosexuals and marriage, who wanted to grant rights to homosexuals but were afraid of burning in Hell themselves for consenting to "sin". There were Christians in the blogosphere who wrote about the issues, and if they did not expressly write in their articles that the homosexual 'lifestyle' would lead someone to hell, many would say in the comments that that blogger was herself in danger of hell.

I look at Hell as an epidemic. It's a problem, a real problem. Clearly the likes of rob Bell have only served to anger the masses. Read the counterapologetic in the Christianosphere, it's very instructive. Without Hell, Christianity has nothing. I have seen that statement written, and I wholeheartedly agree. Look at groups like The Way Of The Master: First create the problem, then provide the solution. It's inevitable. The perfection fallacy, followed up by a narrow escape, which few there be shall find it. And some of that few, who will take their character to heaven with them, you wouldn't want to meet in a dark alley. Others who are in Hell, have even done things which benefit Christians today, have even been used to spread Christianity. The whole mess is completely outrageous and amoral, in my opinion. But I personally don't see how it's rational to stick it to the average Christians who are still caught in the machine.

There are preachers who leave, people like Jerry DeWitt and John Loftus, who I find very instructive. But it's just awful to live with the notion that 80% of people, Christians and otherwise, won't make it to heaven. That's from most of you conservative evangelical persuasions. And equally so, that minus a few statistical exceptions, most people are going to espouse the faith of their parents. That leaves out most of the world's population by default, through no fault of their own.

[qadeshet]

If Christians thought logically, they wouldn't be Christians. There is no sadness, sorrow. or Free Will in Heaven. Nor is there any food, drink, sex, or marriage. As Mark Twain once said: "Choose Heaven for the climate, choose Hell for the company."

[Ellinas]

If I understand the views of my Christian acquaintances correctly, they believe that heaven will be never ending chanting of praise to god concerning Christ, whilst gazing raptly at their "beautiful" lord.

 

Leaving aside the question of how they can possibly enjoy anything knowing that billions are screaming in hell - how on earth can they expect to actually enjoy an eternity of such mind boggling boredom anyway?

[Llwellyn]

Should the good children have to share their presents with the bad children who wouldn't do what was necessary to earn presents?

Where then would the incentive be to do good and achieve, if one's rewards were to be given to them that would not (I didn't say could not) be good and achieve?

 

If the "nice" child were really that nice, then he would (out of sympathy, and without greed) exchange his gift for the lump of coal.  He would find ways that he could enjoy the lump of coal.  Maybe he would study it and make it the first specimen of his rock collection -- or use it as an inspiration to become a geologist, chemist, or engineer.  The most effective way to teach kids is to treat them the way we want them to treat others: with compassion and understanding. When we punish and humiliate kids learn to become numb to the feelings of others.  "Carrots" and "Sticks" only work to change behavior -- not the person inside.

[Leo]

The latest I've heard from Christians is that they don't believe they'll be bored, because there will be endless possibilities of activities for them to do in Heaven. Work, in other words.

What few of us stop to ponder is, how would we ever survive eternity anywhere? No matter what, experiences will all come to an end. Eventually, everything you could possibly live for, explore, experience, would start repeating. And repeating, and repeating, enough times that it would become painfully boring after awhile. Consider how, when we're young, a single summer lasts an eternity. No school, maybe some chores but no homework. Swimming in  the local swimming hole or pond, an eternity of a vacation off to go fishing, swimming, maybe be asked to gather firewood, small pittance of a request given the enormity of the good time being had by all. Then we grow up, have had our first loves, things move on. People and events sort of begin repeating. And time begins to appear to us like it's speeding up. Then it seems odd when a year just flies by. Then five years go by and it just feels a bit strange how quickly it went. Then when decades seem at times to fly by, we ask ourselves where the time went. And the kids grow up, while it seems in some way like yesterday they were just small. Because, we have fewer and fewer really novel events going on in our lives. I don't mean no new things, but really brand-new introductions into forms of reality. If you haven't had kids, you might watch someone else's and see. I'll never forget how amazed my one-year-old daughter was that she could climb onto and off of a rock all by herself. She was amused for about half an hour, just doing that. To us, it's just an ordinary rock; to some of us, granite, basalt, or some other rock we recognize. But in the end, it's just a boulder to us.

Now imagine you've entered this city forever and ever and ever. For awhile, it might be quite amazing how you're walking around on gold -- a substance you spent most your life on earth chasing, figuratively if not literally. You might be amazed at other late bronze- early iron-age sites as described in the Bible. Sites we don't experience in the 21st century. And you might be amazed at being caught up with old acquaintances. But for how long? Eternity, forever and ever and ever yawns before you. This is not a cruise, not a vacation from your job or school. This is it. And no marriage, no intimate personal relationships. You could catch up with the grandparents on your life, and find out what they did for the past decades up here. But then? After awhile, even the most glamorous sites look mundane. You would only experience them as new, when new arrivals came and exclaimed how wonderful they were. If you take your mind, will and emotions with you, if you take your character with you, you might start wondering if there is an after-afterlife. Meanwhile, eternity yawns before you. Even the most devout, those who love the longest church services, who are the most prolific in praise and worship, would get bored after awhile. We've all seen them do it, even on earth.

Unless you were altered beyond all possible recognition, meaning you were no longer you, there's just no rational way any eternal existence would be anything other than painfully boring given enough time.

I have to say, I really am not frightened by the prospect of going out of existence forever. And if there were an eternal being, with a mind similar to ours, that eternal being would necessarily become bored, even with its own creations, after awhile. Even if it created new ones, new models -- Humanity 2.0, Humanity 3.0, or some other forms. I've been in the software business for around 20 years. What was once new and exciting is now rather mundane, and a way to make a living. Oh sure, there is the occasional spark of excitement here or there, but I don't have the youthful enthusiasm I see in the 20-year-old interns. A god would get that way, with enough time, if its mind has any of the capacities of ours. If it can feel emotions at all.

Perhaps there's something I don't know, but I've thought about this outside the bounds of the Christian or theistic mindset for quite a while now. Unless you were altered beyond all recognition, you would get numb or delirious to the pains of Hell after awhile, and you would get numb, dutifully appreciative but painfully bored, in heaven after awhile. Perhaps a long while in the latter case. But where eternity, a mathematically very iffy concept to begin with, yawns before you, you would feel like a thousand years was just a blip. And a thousand thousand experiences would cease to have any meaning.