Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Seems Like Blackmail...
It almost seems like the "Christian life" is blackmailed (note that I say "seems like," and blackmail in the sense of "the use of threats or the manipulation of someone's feelings to force them to do something" - dictionary definition #2). Not only is the only way to a non-torturous hell-fire eternal life through this one specific faith in Jesus, but also the life lived isn't quite "chosen." I read this book once on finding your destiny in life, and there was an example of a man who didn't choose God's will and went through the majority of his life in regret and despair. Now that to me proposes many problems. What about others in life who don't ever follow "God's will" or aren't aware of it? Or simply don't believe in God, so what is His will to them (in a believer's point of view)? Plenty live life and are content with how it is without all that added pressure to live a certain way. Now in this particular story, the man knew what was God's will and blatantly chose not to follow it. But the fact he's living life feeling guilty doesn't sound "godly" or justly at all. If we don't follow, does the God of the Bible really want us living the rest of our lives feeling that way? I don't think so... but when organized religion pounds on you to where you feel so guiltily convicted of everything you do, that's manipulation and should be rid of. This is almost as bad as my last post about the lady who was living a false life.
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This is, I think, where the contradictory philosophies of Free Will and Predestination come into play.
ReplyDeleteFree Will and Predestination are at constant odds with one another. Free Will indicates that we have the ability to step out into the world on our own recognizance, and have the ability to do as we will do. Our moral center guides us, and we are expected to do the Right Thing. Those who do the Right Thing are considered Good, and those who do not are considered Bad.
Predestination says that God Has A Plan For You, and that everything you do in your life has already been laid out for you by a divinely omniscient entity - You have no control over your life, because God Has A Plan.
These two philosophies are both firmly entrenched into the Judeo-Christian-Islamic triangle. Originally, the concept of Free Will was put on the nature of Man in that when the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was eaten from, Man exercised Free Will and willfully strayed from the Godly Path - and in so doing, stopped doing the Right Thing and became Evil.
Predestination, originally, indicated that God controlled every aspect of Man's Life, and that there was no action that was not already planned in the Eyes of God. Wars? God wanted those. Famines? God's Will. Children dying in their sleep? God was there, too. God was a capricious and temperamental Deity, and did what was done not out of any sort of sense of Fatherly Love, but instead because that was what a God did.
As society, and indeed, religion (specifically the Faiths of Abraham) evolved, so too did the concepts of Free Will and Predestination.
God no longer was seen as an arbitrary force for both good and evil, but now solely for good - with Man remaining Evil.
Now, God had a Plan for YOU, personally, and if you chose not to follow that plan, your life would become miserable and the only way to achieve happiness was to go back to God RIGHT NOW.
If you chose to exercise your Free Will, and live your life according to your own moral code, you were still evil, still forsaken, still cast out of the eyes of God - because even if your moral code told you that helping old folks across the street and stopping crimes and giving food and shelter to the homeless were good things to do... without God? You were still uselessly wasting your days.
I think I've told you that most of the Atheists and Agnostics I know lead more moral, giving, and Do The Right Thing lives than most people I know who proudly proclaim themselves as Christians. The irony is not lost on me.
What it boils down to is control. It boils down to the use of guilt, coercion, and yes, emotional blackmail, to get people to fall in line and let others do their thinking for them.
ReplyDeleteConsider:
Jesus was a political dissident. He was a Rabbi. He frequently spent time with thieves, liars, and the dregs of society. He tended to the sick and spoke out against oppression and the use of coercion to gain loyalty. His message was, supposedly, one of peace, harmony, acceptance, love, and kindness.
So why do so many people who claim to follow his teachings speak and act so violently and callously toward whatever color, creed, or organization that their Church has taken a dislike to?
One might think that perhaps the agenda of those churches is not the same as the agenda of their God.
It all comes down to control and power.