On Faith, Fear and Selfishness
 |
| One of my many minerals illuminated with 242nm light. Why use it here? I was lazy. |
One of my greatest criticisms of Christianity, and of many other religions, is the threat of eternal damnation. I'll explain in detail my thoughts on this a little later on in this post, but I first want to preface this blog post with some important background information about me.
I am an atheist and I have been such since about age 17 (23 years ago). My parents rediscovered their faith when I was 5 years old and at that point my father began reading the bible to my sister and me. Even though my parents and my spiritual leaders did not strongly emphasize eternal damnation much, the passages in the bible that alluded to or outrightly detailed such had instilled an underlying fear in me. That fear was, "step wrong and burn in hell for eternity." It didn't really need to be talked about much amongst peers and family to become instilled in me. I was told that god's word is law and the bible carries the word of God. So, even brief mention of eternal damnation in the bible was enough to make me be preoccupied with "doing the right thing for fear of being cast down to hell." It took me many years to truly rid myself of that underlying fear.
At the age of 13, I went from being a practicing Christian to being non-practicing. By 16 I was agnostic and sometime between 17 and 18 years of age I was fairly confident that I was an atheist. But it wasn't until my late 20s that I began to realize that I was no longer concerned about "being wrong" and landing my ass in hell.
Christianity brought fear of the unknown into my life for nearly 25 years and, as a result, the desire to be a good person came out of a purely selfish approach to score enough points to ensure that -- just in case I was wrong -- I would not have to suffer eternal torment. And, in all reality, I wasn't a very good person until years after I rid myself of that underlying fear. And this is my greatest criticism of Christianity and similar "good vs evil" religions.
[Updated: 2018-10-01 - largely rewritten]
I have a great many criticisms of religion, though. I used to debate people of faith, regarding their religion, and quite often at that. I began to lose interest in debating religion altogether, though. By my mid-20s I learned that, much like politics, faith is never truly up for debate. Faith is not rational and that's the whole point. When you take something on faith, you're trusting that the outcome will align with your belief, even if there's no explicable reason that others can perceive that would suggest such. Many people will tell you that they're open-minded and that may suggest that there's room to debate their faith, but it's a rare person who is truly open to questioning the nature of their faith or the religion that their faith resides within the confines of. For most people, once they are convinced there is an almighty governing force that is responsible for creation and life, this becomes a foundational element of their life. There is something greater to live for beyond even death, giving their life a much stronger sense of purpose and something to pursue despite the inevitable outcome of mortality. For most people, calling into question the nature of their faith or even questioning seemingly minuscule aspects of their religion can be threatening to this foundation. It's a rare person who can look at their religion and feel comfortable questioning and/or criticizing it without getting defensive or fearing that perhaps a great deal of their life's decisions were made along a false ideology. And this is the case with pretty much any belief, not just religious beliefs.
[Updated: 2018-10-01 - reworded]
Vin and Sori are a rare couple. They are openly-Christian YouTuber's whom I think are open to questioning many aspects of their religion and who don't take themselves too seriously. I discovered them very recently, perhaps about 4 months ago. They often do reaction/review videos of metal songs. Vin is not afraid to question and criticize his own religion. I have seen him do in many of his videos. His faith is unshaken, yet there are a great many aspects of Christianity that he is critical of. This is important. If you can call into question many elements of the religion you belong to, but still have your faith unshaken, then you can possibly contribute to changing that religion for the better. The only way that Christianity can be made better is by Christians seeing its flaws and then doing something to correct them. I don't want to steer people away from their religions, but it would be nice if they fixed the major problems that stem from their religions, especially since Christianity is so widespread that its problems have a wide-ranging impact on the world. Additionally, Vin and Sori are very analytical deep thinkers who are pretty open-minded overall.
[Updated 2018-10-01 - added]
Note: It's not lost on me that it is important for someone like myself to question the approach of atheists and call out abusers and check myself. People like Richard Dawkins often do more damage and push people away. And I need to ensure that my message is not doing damage either.
So, I decided I would go ahead and listen in on the most recent Vin and Sori fireside live chat and see what they talked about. The way they do the fireside chat is they live stream on YouTube and they open up Skype for incoming calls from their audience.
I listened in for about an hour and a half and there were a couple of callers who came on and talked about feminism and their perspectives on the subject. Then another caller came on and talked with Vin and Sori about satanism in music and modern culture. He mentioned that he was not religious and didn't really know what to believe, but he voiced concern about whether or not he was a good enough person to make it into heaven should heaven and hell actually exist. I have heard the same concern voiced by many others over the years. Back when I used to debate with Christians, once I'd whittle down the anecdotal arguments, almost every argument ended with my opponent saying something along the lines of, "well, I'd rather be on the safe side and avoid hell."
Again, this is my greatest criticism of Christianity. It doesn't matter how people sugar coat the messaging of the Holy Bible, there is always this underlying fear of eternal suffering that motivates a subject's faith. If your motivation for worshipping a god is selfish, ask yourself this, "am I worthy of entry into heaven if my faith in god is selfish?"
So, when this caller dropped off, I called in and conveyed my thoughts on the subject.
If you're focusing on the reward vs punishment of your actions in life (i.e. a place in heaven vs eternal damnation), then your actions in "being a good person" are selfishly motivated. That is a key point I wanted to make. I wish that Christianity and other religions would put more emphasis on this and, when people ask about whether or not they will have a place in heaven or how to ensure they get into heaven, their spiritual leaders should point this out. It's not about keeping score, right?
I feel that this is an important lesson for people to learn even outside of religion, but religion has such a strong emphasis on light vs dark and reward vs punishment that people become preoccupied with the "have I been good enough to avoid eternal suffering" question.
[Updated 2018-10-01 - added]
We all have a lot of work to do. No one is without blame, really. Anyone who is "doing good" so as to get some personal reward or to evade punishment is going to blind themselves to the suffering of the world. This shouldn't be a piety contest (not to be confused with a pie eating contest, which is equally bad). We should be working toward a future where everyone has the opportunity to thrive and be healthy. Why? Because we all benefit as a community.
Go check out the full video or just watch through the portion where I am on (both are linked above) if you want to see more details on this subject and what message I was conveying.
Comments
Post a Comment