The burning house/cliff edge analogy

I've often complained as an atheist about Christians telling me about hell because for one it dehumanizes people like me and second; telling me about it in the first place does not seem like a 'live and let live' attitude. They complain how we the atheists are tearing down and disrespecting cherished beliefs with promoting atheism, while at the same time they are knocking on doors and preaching in the street what I would call "bad news".

The response I often get is that they are doing it out of love and that they don't want to see an ugly fate befall us. Then they pull out two analogies: They are doing it either to rescue people from the burning house or warning them that there is a cliff edge straight ahead. Today I want to take those two analogies and play with them some more.

Let's take the burning house analogy. You come in to my apartment screaming fire as I am sitting in my armchair reading a book. I look around and see no smoke, smell no smoke, feel no heat of flames and hear no alarm. This is the analogy of searching for evidence. Then I realize you happen to be the crazy homeless man that sleeps in a box around the corner of my apartment block. Alternatively you could be the mentally ill man everyone is ignoring and labeling him the village idiot or fool. You could also be the annoying child who happens to be a pathological liar crying wolf. This is the analogy of knowing what Christians can be. They can be prosperity gospel televangelists, end date setters like Charles Taze Russel or child molesting Catholic priests.

Now the cliff edge analogy is much easier. Several people tell me there is a cliff edge straight ahead. But one group tells me to take a right turn to safety while another tells me to turn left. This is the analogy for different religions. Personally as I see no cliff edge (or feel any wind for that matter), I just assume you are hallucinating and take my chances by going forward without fear. I could be wrong, but I honestly don't see how I could be. This is the analogy of nobody knowing anything for sure but that lack of knowledge should not make us do things out of fear from what others say without evidence.

 

Well first, it depends on what the theology is, who goes to hell and for what reasons.

If some Christian is telling you will go to hell because you do not believe in Jesus, they have it wrong, or at least they don't have it quite right. The connection (theologically) would be that not believing in Jesus may lead to you doing some other things that would lead to you going to hell.

Secondly, this may be a little overcomplicated to go into here, but there may be at least two different levels of heaven. One would be for overall good people, and the other would be for those who chose to have Jesus as their king.
Likewise, there may be more than one level of hell. The least worse level would be bad because it would be filled with bad people.

You might see this thread for more insight:
a lot of the misunderstandings about Christianity come from a lack of wisdom about human nature

 

Let's go with this analogy. Imagine there's a very heavy fog and you can't see 2 feet in front of you.

One person says there's a cliff edge right in front of you and to turn right.
The other person says there's a cliff edge right in front of you and to turn left.
You may not know whether exactly in that moment to turn right, left, or just keep on going straight. But you should keep a lookout. Maybe try to make some effort to determine if there could be any truth to their warnings.

Like all things in life, you can only do the best you can.

Presumably, can we say, that if there was a just God he would not put you in hell unless you deserved it?
And now can you be honest with yourself and find the wisdom to know whether you are capable, without some outside help, of not making the wrong choices that would cause you to deserve it?

If the fog is so heavy that you are having difficulty seeing, you really need to ask yourself whether you need to rely on some outside help.
This help is not necessarily going to come from an ordinary person.

 

That's true. No one knows anything for sure. But we still go on making life decisions every day. How do we do that?

I suppose it involves some element of faith or belief, would you agree?

 

I like that. I suppose that's why the overwhelming majority of atheists remain open to the existence of a deity, but until we know of its nature, we will not presume to know how to react.

The trouble there is that people have different standards of who deserves punishment. I personally think somebody who plays out fantasies with just himself (violent video games, masturbation) does not deserve to be punished when compared to the person who acts out the fantasies (gang fights, rape) who does deserve to be punished. Others are much more stringent with right and wrong compared to me.

 

If a man dressed in a fireman uniform knocked on the door and claimed there was a gas leak in the adjacent apartment and you needed to evacuate, would you get up out of your chair and go check it out? Or at least evacuate for some period of time?

I think it would be reasonable to suffer at least a degree of inconvenience.

 

Well here's the thing.

The odds are you are getting in some Christians face with your atheism, waving your finger and telling them they are wrong for believing in unicorns.

So of course they are going to respond and I will respond to you in this thread not because I am calling you out but because you are making yourself visible as someone attacking Christianity.

It's like sticking your hand in a cage or rattlesnakes then whining about them biting you....you were the one looking for a confrontation, the snake didn't want your hand in their cage and they probably thought nothing of you until you provoked them.

If you don't want Christians telling you that you are going to burn in hell then simply keep your atheism to yourself and go about your day.

I honestly don't care if you burn in hell, I don't know you and you mean nothing to me and you will simply be another nameless face among the billions of folks going there.

 

Is that entirely logical though? Do you always need to know of the exact existence of something to know that you should react?
How well do you have to know it and how much certainty do you have to have to be able to react to it?

You seem to be assuming you need fully convincing proof of God to modify your behavior.
Obviously that's not true, would you agree?

Since you don't have that fully convincing proof, there are four logical possibilities:
1. God does not exist
2. God does not care about you
3. You do not need to have absolute proof of the existence of God for the right thing to be done
4. Additional proof would not actually really help you change, even though you think it would

 

As if Christians could do that. Three words: door to door.

 

In both analogies the theist is telling you something that they BELIEVE to be what MIGHT happen to you but is NOT something that they can actually KNOW will happen.

They are really no different to the sleazy insurance salesperson who is conjuring up all kinds of imaginary doom and gloom scenarios in order to get you to hand over your hard earned money. To be fair to the insurance salesperson they might even give you some of your money back if one of those things do happen like your house burning down.

The theist is more like the sleazy salesperson selling a death benefit policy. You won't be around to know if they do or don't actually pay out and you will have no recourse either if they don't.

Fear mongering in order to sell a product is using negativity. Very few theists ever try to sell the positive because there really isn't any significant difference between being a good person who is a theist and a good person who is an atheist. The only significant difference stems from the motivation where the theist is doing it for some imaginary "afterlife reward" whereas the atheist is doing it because it is the right thing to do and expects no reward at all.

 

I wasn't the one making a thread in the religious forums calling out atheists so yes we can.

In fact, if you scan all the threads in this forum I'd say that 99% of them are started by people who don't believe in God and are griping about something.

We Christians are not the ones pushing anything, you guys are.

And there is your proof.

If I don't believe in something I don't bother myself with going to forums where people do and telling them they are wrong, I simply just walk away.

 

So you have to use logic, wisdom, and reason to determine if that message should alter your behavior.

I would even go so far as to say the basic message you may hear from most Christians may not be enough to logically make you decide to do things any differently. But that does not necessarily mean there is not some Christian message out there that should logically cause you to change.

 

Can we agree that fear mongering is not necessarily a sign of whether the message is true or untrue?

You don't think it's possible for a religious person to do something not because he expects any reward?
The effect of religion on decisions isn't all about expected reward.

 

I disagree.

Altruism does not exist outside of a theory on paper.

It's impossible in reality.

 

We don't actually know what heaven or hell will be like.

Many postulate that hell is simply the separation from God but what form that takes is unknown to us.

God never told us.

It's why Revelations is so convoluted, because He didn't want us to know what exactly it is going to be.

I have heard from many people that there may be different levels of Heaven also, the better the Christian the closer you get to God.

We simply don't know much other than the fact that one side has benefits and the other experiences some sort of pain.

 

Forgive me for continuing this analogy but I'm having fun! I have done as the fireman asked. I went to church and Sunday school. I listened to the men and women in flowing robes and suits and floral ties. Today I go around telling others to not let the uniform fool them.

Few other religions tell me what to believe. I've never had a Muslim with a beard and skull cap invite me to a Qur'an study or to go to the Mosque to pray and listen to the Imam. I've only seen Christians distribute such invitations.

 

If you genuinely investigated the message and could not find logical reason to have it alter anything you do, then I do not think a just God would expect you to go along with it.

As long as you are being intellectually honest with yourself.

 

We can see little microcosms of both here on earth.

What if the only reason things on earth have not descended into a state of absolute hell is that God is actively involved without people seeing it?
Don't we just assume that everything is naturally the way it is? What if that's not actually really the case?
With all the problems in this world it's kind of an amazing thing just in itself that things don't fall apart.

 

When my father announced he was divorcing my mother back in 2012, my late grandmother told him he is going to hell. My father never asked for her opinion.

 

The key I have noted when dealing with Christians....Don't. Unless you simply want someone to debate with, they tend to be easily upset and closed minded....not pleasant to engage. The replies to this comment will probably solidify my point as I will have just attacked someone or their God and Religion.

 

Wrong!

The OP is a RESPONSE to Christians getting in his face on his own doorstep. He never invited them to come. They rang his doorbell and demanded that he listen to their imaginary "warnings".

 

I disagree. If it were impossible to care about other people then it would be illogical for us to post in this forum, wouldn't it?

 

Well, divorcing a woman could traditionally be a very bad thing.
I don't know if it's always, in every situation, the type of thing that's going to send you to hell though.

 

As someone who memorized bible passages as a child it is extremely doubtful that there is any "message" that exists that would convince me to abandon logic and rationality short of a physical reproducible evidence that your deity actually exists.

 

Yes, the motivation of theists for doing good can stem from FEAR of being PUNISHED for failing to do good.