Responsibility for Sin

Sometimes when I am in a discussion with a Christian theist they decide to tell me why it is they think I'm an atheist. You see to some reason is meaningless, faith is everything, so no one could ever have a REASON to reject religion or disbelieve in their particular sky-man. Faith is meant to trump reason, in fact it says so in the Bible.

"We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. " - 2nd Corinthians 10:5-6

So Christians are meant to take captive their thoughts, and demolish any attempt at argument or reasoning with, apparently, blind obedience. Anyway, back to the main point, I've had Christians tell me that I became an atheist to shirk my responsibility to God. The reason I've rejected theistic claims, they tell me, is because I don't want to be held accountable for my actions. Apparently I want to sin so badly that I pretend God doesn't exist so that I can sin behind his back but, according to them, I still believe in this God and indeed "know" he exists. This is a sort of defense mechanism for Christians because they don't want to believe that someone could actually leave the faith and stop believing in God. After all if someone is vulnerable to losing their faith than so are THEY and any amount of doubt in their beliefs is unacceptable. Remember that they have to take every thought captive, if a stray thought or doubt exists it must be "demolished".



I feel that there is massive hypocrisy in these sorts of claims because the entire Christian religion is actually based around losing responsibility for your sins. If I actually wanted to shirk responsibility for my actions I would REMAIN A CHRISTIAN AT ALL COSTS. After all Christians believe that all one needs to do to have ANY deed or sin forgiven (save blaspheming the Holy Spirit) is ask Jesus for forgiveness. The religion is based on Christ, an innocent man, DYING FOR YOUR SINS. Jesus takes your sin from you and many denominations teach that you leave your sins and burdens and pick up the "Cross". A Christian can commit a murder and all they need do for forgiveness is ask Jesus, they don't believe that any actual consequences or judgment from God are in order, once Jesus is accepted and forgiveness is asked for you get a clean slate.

As an atheist, I, on the other hand, understand that I am responsible for my actions in the here and now within society. I know that if I act like a douche chances are people won't like me and that if I do something seriously wrong (like theft, murder, etc) I will go to prison for it. I know that I will be punished here and now in this life for my misdeeds. Now it is important to note that not the entire Christian theology supports irresponsibility for sins, in fact Jesus himself TEACHES RESPONSIBILITY FOR ONE'S OWN ACTIONS. This sort of contradiction should be enough to make your brain explode if you're a Christian and its one of the main reasons that, even when I was a Christian myself, I began to question the truthfulness of the Bible.

Jesus's Teachings:

The foremost example of Jesus teaching about responsibility for your sins is the principle of reaping and sowing. If you do bad things than bad things will happen to you, if you sow good into the world you will reap good back. This makes you responsible for your actions because if you do something bad you will face consequences here and now, not in some far off afterlife. This idea has been compared to Karma in Eastern Philosophy although the two are not entirely alike. Here's another verse where Jesus talks about paying attention to your own sins:

" 1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." - Matthew 7:1-5



So Jesus says do not judge and pay attention to your own flaws, not the flaws in people you see around you. Does this sound like a guy who wants to remove the speck from your eye? Or does it sound like he wants YOU to be responsible for yourself? You see this teaching contradicts what Christianity later became and the ideas that became prevalent within it. How on Earth can I be responsible for my sin AND have it instantly forgiven and avoid punishment? My own hypothesis is that the entire idea of Jesus dying FOR YOUR SINS is a fabrication although it is difficult to tell what is fact and what is fiction in the Jesus story.

The Requirement of Faith:

One of the more insulting aspects of Christianity is the requirement that we believe on Faith alone. Numerous times in the New Testament we are told that salvation is by faith (and through "Grace"). We must "believe" in Jesus. Rather than actually earning Salvation by being a good person Christianity establishes the idea that we're all worthless lousy sinners and that everyone, from Hitler to Gandhi, has to believe in Jesus on Faith alone to be forgiven. Which one do you have a better chance of seeing in Heaven in the Bible is true? If you answered this guy you'd be right:



The requirement of faith is another part of Christian theology that helps remove responsibility for ones own sin. As long as you show some remorse and ask for forgiveness and BELIEVE you will be cleansed of sin, no punishment required. Some Christians still do believe that God punishes you for sinning, perhaps he makes your wife leave you or lets your car break down, any bad circumstances that crop up are often chalked up to God. Even if you're living your life right and have all the faith in the world when bad stuff comes along it can often be claimed that God is "testing you". Remember Job? Apparently God can mess with you even if you've done nothing wrong... God has a habit of blaming those who are not to blame. Adam and Eve in the Garden, the First Born of Egypt killed for the sins of the Pharaoh and now Jesus tortured brutally despite being entirely innocent. That's right, that's how great of a Father God is, he had his own son brutally murdered rather than punishing those who were actually sinning.




Conclusions:

I'm still not entirely sure why some Christians won't accept the idea that I actually left their religion behind but it really grinds my gears when they claim I'm trying to avoid responsibility for my actions. I'm already responsible for my actions and so are you, we're responsible to each other and society at large, no magic man in the sky required.

The Doctrine of a Literal Hell

The Doctrine of a Literal Fiery Hell

There are a great deal of modern day Christians who reject the doctrine we are going to discuss today. Most Christians do not believe that Hell is a literal place of fiery torment where little satyr pan-demons poke you with a fork. The cartoonish depictions often ascribed to Hell come, mainly, from Greek ideas of the Underworld.

You might have noticed that Hell doesn't get mentioned much in the Old Testament, only a few very loosely interpreted scriptures even make reference to such a place. It isn't until the New Testament, much of which was transcribed by Greeks, that Hell becomes the Lake of Fire we all know and love. This borrowed from Hades, the Greek Underworld guarded by another thing we all know and love, the three headed hellhound Cerberus.

But the Doctrine of the literal ETERNAL hellfire is one of the hallmarks of fundamentalist literalist Christianity and it will be the subject of today's tirade.

By far the idea of Hell is one of the most frustratingly stupid scare tactics ever fabricated by religion. The idea that a God can both love you unconditionally and be willing to punish you continuously for eternity is as paradoxical as can be. When I was a Christian I didn't see that big of a deal about it, mainly because I was afraid to voice the gnawing concern that the idea of Hell was bullshit - because I didn't want to go there.

Why would a loving God send you to eternal Hell for some simple sins?

Apologists will say things like:

Because sin must be separate from God

or

You have freewill, he's given you the right to choose him or Hell.

Well what kind of a God gives you freewill and sends you into a world crammed full of sin and populated by dozens of other religions and expects you to navigate that minefield in one lifetime or else you get an eternity of flesh-melting teeth-gnashing blood-boiling Hellfire? So God has granted us freewill but he demands, under penalty of eternal hellfire, that we exercise that freewill by accepting Jesus and serving him. How is that freedom of choice? There are only two choices in that system, obey or burn.

Another reason for Hell that is brought up by Christians is the idea that God is Just and must punish sin. The idea is that God cannot simply forgive all the sin in the world, someone needs to be punished for it. Who do CHRISTians think carried their sin? The hint is in the name.

So God impregnates a virgin with one third of himself who is also his own son. This Son-God in a human body then dies for the sins of the world. But wait, SIN is meant to carry an ETERNAL punishment - it doesn't just carry a death sentence (although the wages of sin IS Death) it also carries an eternal after-life sentence. So does Jesus's death really cover the sin? And how is it Justice to send an innocent man to die on my behalf? That wouldn't hold up in any court of law. It's the equivalent of a murderer getting acquitted even after he confesses and the judge sending his own son to be punished on the murderer's behalf. Christians seem to love this idea, the idea that they are scum who don't deserve God's love or Jesus's sacrifice. That's how Christianity works, it destroys the self-esteem and self-reliance of the individual and replaces it with the desperate need for this imaginary friend (Jesus).

And what's worse is that the whole Jesus ordeal shows once again how bad of a Father Yahweh truly is. Rather than find another, more effective way, to forgive sins Yahweh decides to sacrifice his own Son. Everyone knows John 3:16 starts

God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son....

This is the same planet he had FLOODED, the same people he had DROWNED are now more valuable to him than his own child (Jesus).

Revelation 21:8 is probably my favorite verse for illustrating the bullshit of the doctrine of Hell. It records all of the sorts of people who will get tossed in with the devil and his angels to endure eternal torment.



The truth is that a being, in order to punish anyone for all eternity, would HAVE to be evil or at the very least be capable of evil. Even I, as a flawed human being, could never think of an offense for which an eternity of punishment was deserved. Even Hitler, for all his evil, might only deserve eleven million lifetimes worth of punishment, one lifetime for each person he sent to their death in the Holocaust. Even Hitler, for all his evil, does not deserve infinite punishment. Infinite punishment for a finite list of sins can never justice, especially when that punishment isn't merely rotting in a prison cell, but is being tortured in a Lake of Fire continuously.



An All-Powerful being, in order to allow something to happen, must also WANT that something to happen. For instance if I watch someone get hit by a car and do not act in time to push them out of the way there are numerous reasons why I might have failed to save them. But an all-powerful being stands aside and allows tragedy to happen purposefully. If an all-powerful being exists nothing, not even measly human freewill, could ever trump the power and divine Will of THE GOD of the UNIVERSE.



So why would any being ever be sent to Hell? Once again Yahweh fails miserably, his best laid plan, to send Jesus, will fail. According to Revelations only 144,000 will make it into Heaven and if you look at how simple some of the sins that God can damn you for are it starts to make sense why the Heavenly City will be such an exclusive club.

The Doctrine of Hell is one of the most morally disturbing ideas in religion and I feel that even most believers understand that. That, of course, does not stop them from using the threat of hell as a scare tactic to keep you in the pew feeding from the mouth of madness.

I leave you with a verse from 2nd Peter Chapter 3 verse 9

"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

If God doesn't want anyone to perish. If he doesn't want anyone in Hell. Than why is he willing to send them there at all? And why is the best plan he could come up with to send Jesus, leave no evidence behind and demand we be gullible enough to believe in Christ sans any evidence at all? Doesn't God know that his plan isn't working?

The best laid plans of Yahweh and Yeshua...