2024 Postscript: recently I have had a change of heart regarding Christianity. I explain why in my post called The Protestant Mind Virus.
Note: if you believe
that Abraham, Moses, etc were prophets of the one true God I respectfully ask
that you do not read the following post.
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| "Dante and Virgil in Hell" (1850) by W Bouguereau |
In my life I find that Christians
are everywhere, especially within my extended family. Though I am not a
big fan of belittling other belief systems, because the ways to the truth are
many, I have had to really think about and be able to articulate why
I don't accept their faith – because I am pretty sure I am not the
only one who has had to fend off well-meaning evangelists, I thought I would share
some of these reasons:
I. Fear (of hell) lies at the core of Christianity I watched my mother die a protracted death (cancer) and witnessed for myself the way her fear of hell (she was not a Christian, but had been raised in a very devout Christian home) needlessly poisoned her final months – I could never wish to be part of a religion that inspires such a morbid dread of the afterlife.
I. Fear (of hell) lies at the core of Christianity I watched my mother die a protracted death (cancer) and witnessed for myself the way her fear of hell (she was not a Christian, but had been raised in a very devout Christian home) needlessly poisoned her final months – I could never wish to be part of a religion that inspires such a morbid dread of the afterlife.
II. I cannot believe that God, as understood by Christians,
is real If the Christian God is so powerful why do horrible
things happen again and again and again? To my mind there are only two
plausible answers to this question: either because he does not exist in the manner that Christians claim he exists (ie, he may exist but is not nearly as powerful as Christians say; this view is the one I tend to adopt) or he does
exist as Christians claim but allows awful things to happen because he is cold and mean and is
therefore not worthy of reverence. Cicero put the argument more eloquently:
'Either God wishes to remove evils and cannot, or he can do so and is unwilling, or he has neither the will nor the power, or he has both the will and the power. If he has the will but not the power he is a weakling, and this is not characteristic of God. If he has the power but not the will, he is grudging, and this is a trait equally foreign to God. If he has neither the will nor the power, he is both grudging and weak, and is therefore not divine. If he has both the will and the power (and this is the sole circumstance appropriate to God), what is the source of evils, or why does God not dispel them [Cicero, The Nature of the Gods, 3.65]?'
