Sunday Sermon: On Conversion

One of the scariest things for any Christian, is to question their faith. The absolute scariest thing for any Christian, is to reject it and walk away from it. As with most religions, the vast majority of Christianity's adherents were introduced to the religion virtually from birth, and grew up believing that it is true. As a result, to question it is to admit that you are uncertain about some of your most core beliefs about how the world works, and to reject it is to admit that the most fundamental part of your worldview - something that you have based your life on for years - is simply incorrect.

This is naturally, very frightening, especially considering that most Christians believe that they are putting themselves in danger of eternal torment if they reject Christianity and their god, and are wrong. As a result, it should be no surprise that many Christians who choose to critically examine their faith end up jettisoning their church (which they hold to be teaching something that is either not in line with the Bible, or not in line with what they believe to be true of their god) rather than jettison their deity. Similarly, it is not at all uncommon for Christians to jettison certain biblical teachings (i.e. the idea that slavery is ok, that homosexuality is sinful, or that Yhwh literally flooded the earth) in order to preserve their faith in their deity.

While doing so may alienate some segment of a given Christian's social circle, it is very easy to turn it into a show of devotion to their deity and so it is not nearly so scary to redact or revise Christianity to make it meet what a given Christian thinks that "god really meant". (In the interest of full disclosure, I have also been guilty of redacting Christianity to make it fit what I thought that Yhwh meant… as the poor souls who had to peer-review my English 102 papers can probably attest.)

That said, for the remainder of our time together today, I'd like to raise some of the reasons that are typically raised (and some that I actually raised myself, once upon a time) to help make the idea of questioning, or outright rejecting Christianity less frightening for a Christian.

For starters let's go with the obvious concern "But what if I'm wrong about their being no god?! I can't risk going to Hell!" Obviously this is very similar to Pascal's Wager, and as such it is susceptible to the same objections.

• The most obvious refutation is that this argument is highly dishonest. Using Pascal's Wager ( or believing in the hope of avoiding hell, or receiving an eternal reward in heaven) is not making a decision based on what you actually believe to be true, but is allowing greed and narrow-minded self-interest to guide your hand. Further, using Pascal's Wager is essentially saying that you don't think that an all-seeing, all-knowing god can see through a simple probability calculus, and wouldn't recognize you as a charlatan. Consider this alternative: If Yhwh exists, could it not be simply that he desires honesty more than blind or dishonest faith? Imagine that he is up there at the Pearly Gates saying "Well sure you openly stated that you didn't believe that I was real, but at least you were honest, instead of lying to yourself and to me by saying that I exist just to avoid punishment. Come on in!" Is this any less believable than the doctrine of blind faith being rewarded? If my alternative is no less believable, than there is no reason to continue believing in Christianity just to avoid punishment. As Thomas Jefferson once put it: "Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
• The second objection is that Pascal's Wager is flawed in that it assumes that belief in Yhwh, or Atheism are the only options available, and that people should believe in Yhwh in order to avoid Hell and obtain Heaven. Consider for a moment this list of 4,985 gods, goddesses, and lesser spirits. Each of these gods and goddesses was once (and perhaps still is) worshipped with just as much fervor as Yhwh. As such, does it not follow that there may be some 4,985 heavens that you might not be rewarded with, and some 4,985 hells that you might be condemned to for failing to believe in any of these gods or goddesses? (As that great philosopher, Homer J. Simpson once said, "Suppose we've chosen the wrong god. Every time we go to church we're just making him madder and madder!") Yet I feel safe in saying that no one reading this has ever sat down and given serious thought to the notion that you could be condemned to hell for failing to believe in Zeus, Odin, Ishtar, or any of the other deities. Frankly, there is no reason to suppose that the underworlds of these other religions are any more real than Christianity's "Hell", and so there is no good reason to believe in Christianity out of fear of hell.
• (For additional reading, consider "Pascal's Mugging".)

For our next concern, let's consider "How can my life have any meaning if Christianity isn't true, and so Yhwh didn't create me with a specific purpose.

• Choosing to believe in Christianity simply so you can have a preassigned purpose is what the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre would've called living in "bad faith". In short, you're refusing to examine your own life and determine what you want your own life to be about; and instead you're choosing to passively accept whatever fate happens to befall you, and assume that that was your purpose all along. This is akin to just sitting in a chair all day and saying "well if god wants me to be millionaire he'll make sure it happens." Conversely, if - as a christian - you think that you need to examine your life and determine what god wants you to do with your life, if you are honest with yourself, it should become obvious that you're trying to attribute your own desires for your life to a deity. As such your purpose in life will be the same whether you attribute your desires to a deity, or accept that they're your own desires.
• As an aside: The idea that "god helps those who help themselves" is not found anywhere in the Bible. It actually comes from Aesop's fables. As such, it is not an appropriate "christian" rebuttal.

As a third concern let's consider the worry that there could be no morality without a deity to give it to us.

• First of all, the idea is quite frankly insulting. The idea (following the narrative of the book of Exodus) that the Hebrew people made it all the way from Egypt to Mount Sinai under the impression that murder, theft, and perjury were all perfect permissible, only to then be told that these things are all forbidden, seems both nonsensical, and insulting to any thinking person.
• Of course, simply being insulting proves nothing by itself, so let me present a viable alternative: Suppose that the first humans - upon evolving to the point where they were distinct from our primate ancestors - had no moral code at all. Suppose that, in the absence of any moral code, every person simply did what they were genetically predisposed to do. Over time the "lone wolves" get killed by wild animals, those who are prone to wanton murder are themselves wantonly murdered, those who are able to empathize with others and band together are able to repel the wild animals, to contrive ways to get out of the elements, and to generally help each other survive. As time progresses, they realize that a world in which they don't live in constant fear of death, and where they have a reasonable belief that their basic needs will be taken care of, is better than a world in which this is not the case. They similarly realized that the best way to ensure that they had these basic protections was to guarantee all other people these same protections. (Of course, initially, the term "people" was narrowly defined. As time has gone on many cultures have realized that people are people, even if they have different skin colors, different reproductive organs, and/or speak different languages.) As we can see, morality can easily arise without a deity.
• As a final pont, I have previously noted that such verses as Numbers 15:32-35, Hosea 13:16, and my previous post "Where Does Morality Come From?" show us that Yhwh's sense of morality is absolutely horrendous. As such, one can hardly hang on to a deity by claiming that there could be no morality without it, when the deity's own morality is so disgustingly immoral.

For our last concern for this post, lets consider a less common, but potentially very emotionally charged concern: "I read a story by guy who tried to be an atheist for a week and he was miserable without god and ran back at the end of the week!" I've actually read articles like this, mostly written by pastors. Whether these pastors actually tried to go a week (or whatever period of time it may be) without god, or whether they simply wanted to write a scare piece to keep the pews full doesn't really concern me. For the sake of this post, I will assume that these pastors actually did try giving up god.

• The biggest objection is quite simply that the authors of these posts were never atheists, they were only estranged christians. That is, they never stopped believing that Yhwh was real, they never tried to understand the natural explanations of how the universe works, etc. During that time, they still honestly believed that Yhwh was the sole source of morality and a purposeful life. Therefore, when they chose to pretend that they no longer believed in Yhwh, what they essentially did was assume that they were living an utterly worthless life. That is not being an atheist, that is just being miserable.
• As noted above, it does follow that you were not created with a specific, preordained purpose. However, all that means is that you are free to decide what you want your life to be about, and to pursue your own purpose! You don't need to wonder if you're doing what you are "meant" to do, if you are doing something that you find meaningful, then by definition you are doing what you are meant to do. You don't need a god for that.

In short, while suspecting (or even admitting) that you've invested your time and energy in a lie can be scary, there is no reason to think that you are putting yourself in any sort of spiritual danger or invalidating your own existence, either by critically examining or outright rejecting suspect religious beliefs. There is no reason why you are obligated to continue to invest yourself in that same lie. And there is no reason why you should be afraid of seeking truth outside of religion if you find religion to be inadequate.

This has been your Sunday Sermon, go without god.