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| "Thou shalt not steal" |
In lieu of Links for the Sabbath, I thought I would do a write-up post today (don't worry, I'll post a few links tomorrow, I've just
really been itching to write this). I've been thinking quite a bit about the moral system of Christianity since this month's Faith Forum. As Lucas Hewitt was generous enough to point out in the comments section of the other day's
Common Ground post, many Christians believe that every human being (except Jesus) *deserves* Hell, but that it is the nonchristians who are actually going there.
If everyone deserves Hell, but Christians will be spared of what they deserve because of a vicarious redemption, then they get off without taking responsibility for their actions.
What, then, is Christianity if not a lapse in justice, a loophole in the system? In this post, I want to expand a little further on how this makes the Christian religion immoral within its own framework: specifically, I will delve into the authoritarian and perverse ideals of morality inherent within theism. Then I want to detail how the system of vicarious redemption in general is immoral. Finally, I will reemphasize the contradiction within Christianity that is brought to light by these concepts.
To begin, we have to examine the concept of sin and sin nature. No matter how you spin it, the God of Abraham has some very specific and very difficult laws that must be obeyed in order to be worthy of a reward of any kind (read: in order to avoid the most terrible punishment imaginable). Indeed, most Christians will tell you that it is
impossible to achieve this standard, and that it's
supposed to be this way, that God invented this system knowing that we could not do it. For example, Jesus says that even thinking about an individual (he specifies woman, but I assume the concept transfers) in a lustful way is the same as committing adultery with that individual. This is literally thought-crime! Let's ignore the general absurdity of this revelation, and instead use it as an example of how the Christian God's morality is
impossible to live up to, on purpose!
Many Christians freely admit this, and they chalk it up to God's infinite justice: he is so just, he has to punish even the least-evil person (the "innocent" child, great moral teachers such as Martin Luther King Jr, etc) in the same degree as the most despicable, evil people in human history. But is this really justice? For the sake of length, I will refer you to a
previous post of mine concerning the idea of infinite punishment for finite crimes; the main idea is that over-punishment is not justice. (For example, stealing is wrong, and thieves should be punished, but a thief should not be put to death; the punishment does not fit the crime.) There is no crime that could be committed by any person that would warrant infinite punishment, because people and their crimes are finite by nature.
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But that's not the point, we are informed. Haven't we heard the
good news? We are told that Jesus died for our sins
so that we don't have to go to Hell (Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord"). There are two problems with this: first, it is yet another example of the filicide that is celebrated throughout the Old Testament: Abraham and Isaac, Jephthah and his daughter, Yahweh and Jesus. I won't expa
nd upon this here, but I thought it was worth mentioning. Second, and much more seriously, this sacrifice offers a vicarious redemption: it is nothing if not scapegoating at the macro level:
I can pay your debt, my love, if you have been imprudent, and if I were a hero like Sidney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities I could even serve your term in prison or take your place on the scaffold. Greater love hath no man. But I cannot absolve you of your responsibilities. It would be immoral of me to offer, and immoral of you to accept. And if the same offer is made from another time and another world, through the mediation of middlemen and accompanied by inducements, it loses all its grandeur and becomes debased into wish-thinking or, worse, a combination of blackmailing with bribery. -Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great
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Additionally, this raises the unanswerable question of why God bothered to create this tricky little loophole to begin with: if the law is too stringent (and it seems perfectly clear that this can be the only possible need for such a loophole), why can't he just change it? The whole system becomes even more jaded when we discover that only
some people will make it through the tricky loophole in the ridiculously strict law. This concept at the heart of Christianity constitutes nothing less than a selective and permissive shirking of responsibility to God's outrageous laws.
Thus, Christianity is immoral in its own terms: it renders the good and just idea of responsibility for one's own actions meaningless. If they want to believe that what makes one a good person is adherence to an impossible set of ideals, that is fine. If they want to believe the sad corollary conclusion that all of humanity is depraved naturally, that is fine as well. But the Christian system depends on a litigious trick within its own system. Suddenly, Jesus Christ is Johnny Cochran, and he's getting a few people off God's hook on a technicality. 'Let's bypass the whole morality thing; you can never be moral, but as long as another injustice is done (the sacrifice of another autonomous individual
who actually is moral) to balance the scale, you can still get into heaven and be with the almighty Big Brother."
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So there you have it, and I will conclude this long-winded post with a recap: in these paragraphs, I have examined the impossible moral system of the Abrahamic God, which is unjust in and of itself. If, however, we are to put on our Christianity caps and pretend that this system is just, we are confronted with the vicarious redemption of billions of people through the brutal sacrifice of the only innocent to ever walk the face of the Earth. Such scapegoating is an insult to the name of justice, especially if such justice makes any claims at all to being eternal or infinite. The sacrifice of Christ is an insult to justice in general, and the justice of the Abrahamic God in particular. It can thus be said that
Christianity is unjust in its own terms, as well as the secular terms mentioned earlier (infinite punishment for finite crimes).
In short, the moral system of Christianity is an utter failure: it is nothing less than an elaborate display of inanity and contradiction.
Mark Cahill is simultaneously the nuttiest and most sane and rational Christian I have ever met. He has completely ridiculous views on many issues and he has even more ridiculous "evidence" to support them, mostly stemming from a borrowing of pop apologetics (Paley, C.S. Lewis, etc). I have been fortunate enough to acquire both of his books, let me know if you would like to borrow one and read it for yourself. He is not above quote-mining scientists, and he is rather open (at least in conversation) about his acceptance of Kent Hovind's ridiculous Creation "Science" ideas. Kent's videos are embarrassingly stupid, especially from someone who has the nerve to call himself a science teacher. Here is one of my favorite responses to Kent Hovind's creationism videos. It's one of a series of videos by youtube user Thunderf00t, and it's called "Why do people laugh at creationists?"
