Christianity And The Moral Duty To Resist

[Aliix]

What is the moral choice in a particular situation? This is a question that we always ask ourselves and it is comprised of two questions itself. Firstly, what is the situation? And secondly, how should I act based on my knowledge of the situation? This is an essential distinction: morality and reality are separate. Even if we understand a particular situation, the difficulty lies, in many cases, to distinguish the right way of acting based on our understanding. Understanding the situation alone, therefore, is not sufficient to base our actions on. Morality is how we respond to reality.

 

 

How, then, should one act if Christianity is true?

 

 

First, it is important to note that parents have a moral obligation to take care of their children. Part of creating or adopting any sentient being is that it is now the caretaker’s responsibility to sufficiently take care of the being. Much like a mother cannot simply raise a child, abandon it in the middle of a highway, and claim the moral high-ground, so a God cannot create people, abandon them, and then claim moral immunity. It is also incumbent upon the creator of a being not to needlessly cause that being (or beings) suffering and pain.

 

 

Yet, from the beginning, this is precisely how the God acts if we accept Christianity as true. If God is all-knowing he created the Earth in a way that he knew would lead to the fall of mankind and later to the extinction of all of these beings by them being drowned in a flood. God, being all-powerful, could have created the Earth and its inhabitants in a different way to prevent this from happening but did not. Instead, knowing that Adam and Eve will disobey him, he creates them, watches them disobey him, and punishes them for a sin he knew they would commit from the beginning. God, knowing this would happen from the start, sees that the people have become largely corrupt and decides that they all must be killed, including every woman and child, except for one family.

 

 

After the flood occurs, he gives this one family and others a new law and establishes a covenant with them. Throughout the existence of the Israelites there are then periods where they more or less obey the law. Then, because God has seen that people have not been able to satisfactorily obey his law he sends his son to Earth as a sacrifice for the sins of all humankind.

 

 

Jesus, who is also God, dies on the cross and is resurrected the next day, atoning, once and for all, for our violations of the law that God himself created. There is, however, a condition for atonement: belief. One must believe in Jesus as their savior if they are to be saved and be reborn, washed clean of them and able to join God in heaven. Those who do not believe will be punished in the afterlife and will suffer immensely there for all eternity.

 

 

Salvation through belief, however, is an affront to our most basic freedoms: the freedom of thought and conscience.

 

 

Both of these freedoms are the most basic to all people because they are the first freedoms we exercise and, when the rest of our freedoms (such as speech and movement) are taken away, they cannot be. Yet, God wants to punish otherwise good people merely for disagreeing with him and coming to mistaken conclusions. Making mistakes and being wrong are part of the human experience and the ability to disagree with one another without fear of punishment is essential to the advancement of humankind as a whole. Consider, also, those who have been punished in Hell. If only those who believe in Christ and his sacrifice as saved, then the Jewish holocaust victims, after being incinerated in one fire by the Nazis, did not have peace after their deaths but were thrown into a second fire by God himself to be further tortured. Here is a group of morally courageous people who went to their deaths defiantly refusing to give up their religion or denounce their heritage and God is now punishing them for eternity. The same applies for millions of Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, and others.

 

 

What of those believers in Christ who go to Heaven? In Heaven, they will have neither free will nor empathy; but only the ability to worship God. They will have no free will because Heaven is perfect and free will allows for actions which create imperfection. There will be no empathy, a core part of why we care for others, because those in Heaven cannot grieve for the people suffering in Hell otherwise it would nullify the idea of Heaven as paradise. In essence, they will be empathy-less robots who worship and obey God for eternity.

 

 

Of course, that has been what God has wanted all along; for us to glorify and praise Him. In order to accomplish this, He is more than willing to send good people to be tortured for eternity and ignore the most basic and cherished freedoms of all people.

 

 

Our duty as moral people is to resist such a God if He will not change His ways. Will this be useless? Perhaps. Ultimately, however, we must stand up for the good and loving people God has condemned to hell and the freedoms of conscience and thought that are foundational to the human experience. Will Hell be horrible? Yes, but the more one must sacrifice to make the better moral choice, the more morally good that action is.

 

 

If Christianity is true and God will not change His ways, then refusing to worship God and (possibly) going to Hell is the best moral way to act.

[scriptor]

If Christianity is true and God will not change His ways, then refusing to worship God and (possibly) going to Hell is the best moral way to act.

 

I understand what you are trying to say. Unfortunately, I do not accept your line of reasoning.

 

It seems to me that what a Christian means by “morally right” and what you mean by “morally right” are two very different things.

 

If Christianity is true, then there exists an all-powerful, all-knowing, supernatural God who created the universe and everything in it. Furthermore, this God is good.

 

It is important to note that when a Christian says “God is good”, she does not mean that God’s characteristics and actions are what a human would think of as “good”; she means that God is the standard against which all goodness is measured. God is how she defines “good”. So, rather than having an idea of what is good and what is bad and then ascribing the good attributes to God, the Christian looks at the attributes of God and says “that is what good is”.

 

In this way, under the Christian worldview, an action is morally right if and only if it is an action that is sanctioned by God. All those actions which are not sanctioned by God are necessarily wrong, because God sanctions all those actions which are morally right. But it trivially follows that if Christianity is true then the best moral way for a person to behave is however God wants him to behave. And, since according to Christianity God wants us all to worship Him, it cannot be the case that Christianity is true and it is morally right to not worship God.

 

What this means is that at least one of the following statements must be false:

 

a) Christianity is true

 

or

 

It is morally right to not worship the Christian God.

 

How fortunate it is, then, that Christianity is false!

[Aliix]

There are various ways of looking at it.

 

First, one can simply accept the message of salvation, be a Christian, and also reject God's morality. Accepting salvation for "sins" does not necessarily include supporting God. If God is the source of morality, that is another issue altogether. Nowhere in the Bible does the Bible say that you must accept all of it as true in order to be Christian; that is a later doctrine. Also, I would be curious to see whether the Bible states that God is actually the source of morality.

 

Additionally, think about this, even if God is the source of morality, he can change his moral standards and yet he has positioned them in such a way in which he tortures millions of otherwise good people.

 

If Christianity was correct and the rapture occurred, I would still refuse to worship God because he would be extremely immoral. Yet, here is the paradox, I would also be saved because I obviously would accept that Jesus had died on the cross and risen for my sins because it only makes sense to accept something which is obviously true. Yet, given this, I would not think that God is worthy in any way of my, nor anyone else's, worship.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second, if we follow your line of reasoning than another interesting consequence emerges, any action declared good by God is good and thus we have moral chaos.

 

I really think this depends on the vairous ideas surrounding Christianity

[Aliix]

I meant to delete those last two lines, sorry.

[scriptor]

Once again, I think ultimately we agree, to worship the Christian God is not the best moral choice. I suppose I did go straight from "Christian" to "Fundamentalist Christian" in my argument, so let's assume for the moment then that in order to be a Christian all one must do is accept the message of salvation.

 

As I see it, the message of salvation is that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), but its all okay, because Jesus died and rose again. His blood will cover our sin, if we will only believe. If that is not, more or less, what you mean by the "message of salvation", then let me know.

 

It seems to me that in order for an action to be called "moral" or "immoral", we must have a standard against which we measure morality. We must have some notion of which actions are good, and which actions are bad and why before we can call anything moral or immoral without it being a meaningless statement. For example: if a father assaults his child, I say it is an immoral action because he has a duty to protect his child, and in assaulting his child he is ignoring that duty. Furthermore, he is causing his child unnecessary pain. But my statement that this is an immoral action is subject to the question "From whence comes his duty to protect his child? Why should he not cause her pain?" If I do not have a clear notion of why an action is immoral, then it is meaningless for me to call it immoral.

 

Please do not misunderstand me here. I am not saying that the only way to construct a valid moral code is to appeal to a divine authority. It is possible, for example, that we can construct a moral code that has its basis in the notion that any action which causes harm to a human being is wrong. However, such a moral code can only apply to humans. For example, if a human being wilfully kills another human being, we call it murder and we say that it is wrong. But if a lion kills a person, it is not murder, and it is not wrong. Furthermore, if a human kills a pig it is not murder, and it is not wrong (at least according to most people).

 

What I am trying to say here is that if we construct a moral code that does not have God as its basis, then we cannot apply this moral code to God. Calling God immoral according to our moral code because we don't like how he behaves towards humans would be roughly the equivalent of a pig calling humans immoral for killing and eating pigs. It is not a relevant statement.

 

If the Christian God exists then His ways are not our ways. Furthermore, the notion that we need salvation in the first place only makes sense if God is holding us accountable to a moral code that has its basis above and beyond humanity. Sin is wrong because God says so. Not worshipping God is wrong because God says so. That is the Christian message. Therefore, if Christianity is true, then God has his own moral code to which he holds us accountable irrespective of what we choose to identify as right and wrong choices.

 

You say it would be immoral for us to worship the Christian God even if he exists. I do not see how this can be the case. You might say it is immoral. But He would disagree. And, in the case that Christianity is true, he is God. What he says goes. So if he says it is immoral for you not to worship Him, then it is whether you like it or not.

 

Furthermore, even if you attempt to construct a moral code which identifies wrong actions as those actions which harm human beings, and you contend that your moral code supersedes God's, it would still be immoral for you to choose not to worship God. Making that choice would get you thrown into hell, which would constitute harming a human being, and would therefore be immoral.

 

If you wish to continue saying that it would be immoral to worship the Christian God even if Christianity is true, then I must ask, what do you mean by "immoral"?

 

The good news is, however, that Christianity is not true.

[Aliix]

I understand where you are coming from, definitely, I'm simply asking a different philosophical question entirely. Within Christian belief, can resistance to God be justified?

 

Certainly, God would be good if Christianity is true, but here is the problem with that: there is no other standard of good to measure God against and so literally anything in this sense, then, can be good. Killing women and children, rape, slaughter, and numerous other actions which harm innumerable people can all be justified simply because of the words of one authority.

 

I'm wondering, then, if refusing to worship God, then, would be an act of rebellion against a system in which there is no critical thought and in which any action can automatically be good. In a sense, it would be a protest of moral chaos and a stand for the well-being of all people.

 

 

Also, you say that getting thrown into hell is immoral, but heaven is clearly not great either since there is no free will nor empathy in heaven. One could argue that Hell is actually better in this case because, though you are suffering, at least you still have those two things. Going to Hell, also, in my system, would be one of the ultimate selfless acts against a tyrannical God.

[scriptor]

Certainly, God would be good if Christianity is true, but here is the problem with that: there is no other standard of good to measure God against and so literally anything in this sense, then, can be good. Killing women and children, rape, slaughter, and numerous other actions which harm innumerable people can all be justified simply because of the words of one authority.

 

This is true. And indeed, if you look at the old testament we see God commanding his chosen people to do literally all of the horrendous things that you listed. This is one of the major issues I have with religion in general: if God is on your side, then you can justify absolutely anything. So, we need to ask ourselves, "how can we possibly know for sure that God is on our side?" Even when I was a Christian I felt strongly that the God that I "knew" would not have commanded the atrocities of the Old Testament. But that led me to the undeniable conclusion that the Bible is not inerrant, which in turn led me to question some of the other claims that it makes.

 

I'm wondering, then, if refusing to worship God, then, would be an act of rebellion against a system in which there is no critical thought and in which any action can automatically be good. In a sense, it would be a protest of moral chaos and a stand for the well-being of all people.

 

Indeed, it would be an act of rebellion against a flawed system. What I'm saying is that the reason the system is flawed is because the whole thing doesn't hold water. The moral chaos that arises if Christianity is true is in fact an argument against the veracity of Christianity. So my answer to your original question is still "no". I don't think that within Christian belief we can justify resistance to God. We can certainly justify resistance to God, but I think that we can only do this because Christianity is false. Of course, if you mean "can we justify resistance to God to ourselves?", then of course you can. You can justify whatever you like to yourself. But you will not be able to justify it to God, which is what really matters under the Christian world-view.

 

Also, you say that getting thrown into hell is immoral, but heaven is clearly not great either since there is no free will nor empathy in heaven. One could argue that Hell is actually better in this case because, though you are suffering, at least you still have those two things. Going to Hell, also, in my system, would be one of the ultimate selfless acts against a tyrannical God.

 

The question of whether or not there is free will in the Christian heaven is a difficult one. I know some Christians who maintain that there will be free will, and that anyone will be able to choose to leave and go to hell at any time, but that there would be no coming back. You are correct, if there is no free will in heaven then entering heaven would also be immoral from a humanistic perspective. And indeed, choosing to go to hell seems like a selfless act against a tyrannical God. But why would you choose to go to hell? You seem to be saying that you would choose hell so that you could keep your free will and empathy. But if you are choosing hell so that you can keep these things, then it is not a selfless act. You are doing it for yourself.

[Margee]

I always love to listen to these arguments....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etYe1KwnYCk

[riddick]

I always love to listen to these arguments....

 

I also enjoy listening to these type of arguments, and as far as the caller in that video, seemed like he was misinformed (like most Christians).

 

I enjoy listening to Matt, he's so passionate and he has vast knowledge on religion, science etc...

 

Thanks for posting that margee.