Message Discipline

I'm behind the curve on Amy Sullivan on David Kuo, but I thought this was interesting:

"I think the good news here is that people working in the White House think that Pat Robertson is nuts," he said. "They should. Pat Robertson is nuts." It seemed a little off-message--after all, this was a politically embarrassing book for the Bushies, and here O'Donnell was praising them. True, Robertson does regularly spout off truly nutty and dangerous statements (his call for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez; his prayer for the death of liberal Supreme Court justices; his belief that UPC symbols are the Mark of the Beast as foretold in Revelation). But what rankled O'Donnell the most was Robertson's "insane" belief that Jews are going to burn in hell. "

While most of them would put it more delicately than Robertson, it is an article of faith for millions and millions of evangelicals that the only way into heaven is through belief in Jesus Christ. (The good reverend has also said he believes Methodists will burn in hell, but that's not really the point.) By condemning and mocking that doctrine, O'Donnell managed an impressive feat. He took Robertson, a figure widely disliked and discredited throughout the evangelical community, and found a way to criticize him that would also insult and alienate evangelicals. Congratulations, Lawrence O'Donnell--you're the new poster-boy for secular liberal intolerance.

Now Amy's right. It would be useful, for the purposes of electoral politics, for liberals in the media to avoid expressing the view that the belief -- adhered to by millions of Americans -- that failure to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior will result in eternal damnation is daft. On the other hand, the evangelical view of this matter is, in fact, completely absurd. And not just absurd in a virgin birth, water-into-wine, I-believe-an-angel-watches-over-me kind of way. On this view, a person who led an entirely exemplary life in terms of his impact on the world (would an example help? Gandhi, maybe?) but who didn't accept Jesus as his personal savior would be subjected to a life of eternal torment after his death and we're supposed to understand that as a right and just outcome. That, I think, is seriously messed up.

But I shouldn't say so!

UPDATE: Since this post got Atrios'd, let me say that I don't especially think Amy merits a Two Minute Hate here and I agree with her point in the article that what Sam Rosenfeld called "theocracy hype" (for example) is both analytically wrong and tactically misguided. But I think there's a real dilemma here -- some things that are impolitic to say are also true.

Comments

I'm sure that plenty of evangelicals think that denomination-shoppers like Pastor Amy are headed to hell too. Didn't Dante have a circle devoted to the holier-than-thou?

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | October 30, 2006 5:33 PM

That, I think, is seriously messed up.

You just say that because you're going to hell. But this is an interesting issue to bring up, now that Harold Ford is taking flak in Tennessee for having quoted someone saying that while Republicans fear the Lord, Democrats fear and love the Lord. This is being seen as a tremendous insult, but for a non-believer like me, it just shows the difficulties of avoiding landmines in religious speech, which appear to be everywhere.

Posted by RSA | October 30, 2006 5:35 PM

You obviously don't read enough Jack Chick tracts. I'm sure some of them think that Mother Teresa is flaming away as we speak.

And wasn't Gandhi a Christian?

Posted by zoombaba | October 30, 2006 5:39 PM

Precisely. The problem here isn't liberal intolerance, it's that Amy Sullivan, for all her good points, thinks that we liberals need to nod piously when some 'moderate' suggests that Ghandi and Anne Frank are bunking together in a fiery pit even as we speak.

That is crazed. It's absurd, it's asinine. But Sullivan thinks we need to pretend to take it seriously so as not to alienate the spiritual midgets we share the country with, who believe in a genie Yahweh who demands a particular semantic statement before opening the doors of Paradise.

The entire idea that Sullivan thinks there's a virtue in putting Robertson's sentiments more delicately demonstrates, I think, that she's got things terribly, terribly backwards. It's ok to think that Einstein and Feynman are in Hell, just so long as you don't say so too loudly. But it is indelicate to point out the consequences of this, and I do use the term loosely, theology.

Posted by NBarnes | October 30, 2006 5:39 PM

That IS a ridiculous thing that evangelicals think. But they are the right and moral ones and liberals are the insulting ones. Why? Because saying that gays and seculars should be treated equally is so much more offensive and out of the mainstream than saying that Ghandi is rightfully burning in hell.

Because the pundits say so, dammit!

Posted by Tom | October 30, 2006 5:43 PM

Gandhi wasnt a christian! and thanks for spelling the name right its Gandhi NOT GHandi!

Posted by mihir bhatia | October 30, 2006 5:44 PM

Gandhi is not a good example - he was an evil, self-righteous, Jew-hating, piss-drinking mysoginist who led millions to their deaths. At least, that's what the wingnuts tell me whenever they launch their bizarre ad hominem attacks. (You'd think they might notice it's just a pseudonym!)

I think you may be under-estimating these people's ignorance, xenophopia, racism and intolerance.

Posted by gandhi | October 30, 2006 5:46 PM

Fuck, what is it with the Jews? Why can't they lighten up about that whole "you're going to Hell" thing, and get with the program?

Evangelicals' feelings are really important, people! We can't go deriding this belief of theirs that everybody but them is damned! So tone deaf...

Posted by dj moonbat | October 30, 2006 5:46 PM

"And wasn't Gandhi a Christian?"

On the off chance you're not joking, here's what wikipedia says:

"Gandhi was born a Hindu and practised Hinduism all his life, deriving most of his principles from Hinduism. As a common Hindu, he believed all religions to be equal, and rejected all efforts to convert him to a different faith. He was an avid theologian and read extensively about all major religions. ... Later in his life when he was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied: 'Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew.' "

So I wouldn't call Gandhi a Christian for any American political purposes.

Posted by Hamilton Lovecraft | October 30, 2006 5:49 PM

All of which is a good demonstration of why keeping religion out of politics is the best policy, not just for us evil secular liberals, but for the religious people themselves. They're about as interested in my opinion on their beliefs as I am in their opinion about mine - not at all. As long as none of us are burning people or otherwise breaking the law, then what we think about the afterlife or lack of one is really our own business.

Posted by tatere | October 30, 2006 5:49 PM

Well, seems like I got my "bonehead post of the day" out of my system. Actually, I wasn't talking about that Gandi (or Ghandi) ... oh nevermind.

Anyway, yeah, Jack Chick tracts, those are damn funny right?

Posted by zoombaba | October 30, 2006 5:54 PM

I just love Amy's reasoning here: I'm the intolerant one for criticizing people for their presumptive belief that I'm going to hell. Someday they'll just petition the courts to recognize bigots as a suspect class.

Posted by pickabone | October 30, 2006 5:54 PM

Credo quia absurdum

-tertullian

Posted by razib | October 30, 2006 5:57 PM

At a funeral in a Dutch Reformed Church, my Jewish wife and our more-Jewish-than-thou friend heard the pastor pretty much condemning everyone who had not taken Jesus Christ as his or her savior to eternal damnation. Our friend as deeply insulted: "I was a guest there," she said, "and shouldn't have been insulted." But, my wife thought, "It's their house, after all, and it's their belief."

That's how we look at it, I think. Believe what you want in your own house, as crazy as we may think it. We'll respect you in your house. But when you come out and expect to impose your beliefs on others, or even try to intrude into our house, well, then you've gone too far. And, I think, that's where Amy Sullivan goes wrong. She wants to bring all this into the public forum to thrash out. Problem is, it doesn't belong there.

Posted by David in NY | October 30, 2006 5:57 PM

Theres an enormous issue here which some Christians might understand. One kind of conservative Christian is the "revival Christian" who devoutly loves Jesus but never seems to be able control his bad habits for long. Some of the new "prosperity Christians" also allow themselves a whole lot of ethical leeway and repent every Sunday. These people presume on redemtion and forgivness.

A lot of churches have made a dirty deal with these people: "As long as you repent and give money to the church, were not going to pester you. We really wish youd behave, but the flesh is weak. But homosexuality is an abomination, and you have to avoid that. And maybe youre personally weak, but at least you can support political leaders who will make this country a better nation."

So bad guys get a get-out-of-hell-free card as long as they participate in the scapegoating of gays and abortionists.

Ive met the kind of people Im talking about -- its not imaginary. "Im no angel, but there are some things I wont do...."

(Your software read apostrophes as commands, BTW).

Posted by John Emerson | October 30, 2006 5:59 PM

I just love Amy's reasoning here: I'm the intolerant one for criticizing people for their presumptive belief that I'm going to hell.

Yeah, it's a pretty sweet little racket: telling billions of Others that they're Damned to Hell isn't intolerant--it's jes' folks, sticking with their beliefs. Telling those few millions that their beliefs are whack? Now that's "secular liberal intolerance."

God, Sullivan's a tool.

Posted by dj moonbat | October 30, 2006 6:01 PM

Reminds me of the bit in Gibson-Sterling's The Difference Engine where someone is accused of being an "anti-slavery bigot"...

Posted by lemuel pitkin | October 30, 2006 6:06 PM

So let me get this straight. In another day and time, Amy Sullivan would advise the politicians of the party that she supported to not say anything overtly against, say, slavery, since such statements would obviously offend a large number of people.

I think Amy should clearly state that she is not taking any moral position, but a prgamatic one, designed to garner votes. Alas, if she does that, she undermines her own advice in that even the evangelicals would not be swayed by such overt cynical and manipulative stance of any politician.

So where is Ms. Amy Sullivan coming from? She is quite muddled in her thinking I must say.

Posted by gregor | October 30, 2006 6:10 PM

It's fun to challenge the evangelicals on their own ground:

"Yes, the Bible teaches that all who are not believers will be damned. But, as Christians, don't we love our neighbors? Aren't we obliged to pray that God will *not* damn them? That He will forgive them regardless of their unbelief? Shouldn't we pray for Hell to be empty for all eternity?"

(Origen is said to have hoped that even the Devil would one day be saved. That seems the only acceptable hope for a Christian.)

The fun of this -- and it's not just fun, it's what I believe, but it's *also* fun -- is to see how *furious* some people get at the very idea that everyone will be saved. Like, "if everyone gets to Heaven, then I don't want to go!"

(Locus classicus: Flannery O'Connor's story "Revelation.")

Posted by Anderson | October 30, 2006 6:12 PM

The funny thing is that polls have pretty consistently shown that a large majority of Christians, even from evangelical sects that specifically preach the necessity of accepting Jesus as one's personal savior, believe that non Christians who lead moral lives get to go to heaven. It's actually comforting that when dogma bumps up against one's innate sense of fairness and morality, often times the latter wins out.

Posted by Hank Scorpio | October 30, 2006 6:15 PM

Dear God, is that blithering idiot Amy Sullivan still around?

Figures TNR would be employing her. Who else?

Posted by dave™© | October 30, 2006 6:19 PM

Praise for Ricky Santorum and now an effort to get out the Republican base...

Hmmm.

Posted by monkyboy | October 30, 2006 6:22 PM

Precisely. The problem here isn't liberal intolerance, it's that Amy Sullivan, for all her good points, thinks that we liberals need to nod piously when some 'moderate' suggests that Ghandi and Anne Frank are bunking together in a fiery pit even as we speak.

Amy Sullivan? Good points? What good points?

Seriously, her entire body of work reflects and reinforces two simple premises:
1) Bush in particular and all the religious right in general are a group of principled, well-meaning idealists who may be mistaken about some minor issues but really do think they're doing the best things for everyone in the country.
2) Any attempt to challenge the previous premise is morally unfair, abhorrent to the vast majority of Americans, and totally unsupported by facts no matter what we can't hear you LA LA LA!

I admit, I'm too lazy to get that free registration to TNR, so maybe she makes good points that no one ever bothers to blockquote. But based on what I see criticized on blogs and in things she's written elsewhere, those Two Rules sure do seem like her schtick.

So when she starts out as absurd as that, it's clear that her "good points" are as impressive and well-founded as the daily horoscope. And if there were any justice in the world they would be relegated to the same page of the paper.

Posted by Cyrus | October 30, 2006 6:22 PM

Gandhi is not a good example - he was an evil, self-righteous, Jew-hating, piss-drinking mysoginist who led millions to their deaths.

Gandhi drank his own piss? That's so fucking gross, Gandhi was just completely fucked up. And the fucking jews, they're fucked up too.

Posted by E. Costello | October 30, 2006 6:22 PM

The funny thing is that polls have pretty consistently shown that a large majority of Christians, even from evangelical sects that specifically preach the necessity of accepting Jesus as one's personal savior, believe that non Christians who lead moral lives get to go to heaven.

Got a link for that? I'd like to follow up if this is right.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | October 30, 2006 6:24 PM

Righteous heathen who for some reason (like living BC) never had the opportunity to hear the word of God go to limbo, getting to be bored rather than tormented for eternity. If they heard about Christianity and didn't convert, however, it's off to a lower circle of hell for them. At least, that's how I recall Dante explaining it . . .

Posted by rea | October 30, 2006 6:26 PM

So when she starts out as absurd as that, it's clear that her "good points" are as impressive and well-founded as the daily horoscope.

Perhaps even Amy Sullivan will be saved.

--Which is another thing that bugs me. Evangelicals should be *happy* to see their religion mocked, etc. The gospels are pretty clear that the Christians are likely to find themselves in a minority in this world.

But they're infuriated by the suggestion that they're wrong, that their faith is mistaken. This is because evangelicals have an unrealistic idea of "faith" that excludes doubt. You either *totally* believe, or you "don't have enough faith."

Hence their desire to swaddle themselves in a culture that never challenges their fragile "faith."

Contrast the cry of the centurion in the gospel: "Lord, I believe -- help thou my unbelief!"

Posted by Anderson | October 30, 2006 6:27 PM

Matthew:

Here's the article:

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/173/story_17348_1.html

And the poll itself:

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/173/story_17353_1.html

The whole thing is fascinating, but the most germane question is here:

Can a good person who isn't of your religious faith go to heaven or attain salvation, or not?
Yes No Don't know
Evangelical Protestants 68% 22% 10%
Non-Evangelical Protestants 83% 10% 7%
Catholics 91% 3% 6%
Non-Christians 73% 3% 24%
Total 79% 12% 9%

Posted by Hank Scorpio | October 30, 2006 6:28 PM

Y'all need to calm down. So evangelicals think Jews and other non-believers are going to hell. As far as I know, no policy position of theirs follows from that. Lots of people believe crazy things. I'm not sure that bit of their moral system is telling. Don't Catholics believe roughly the same thing? Yet I think of the moral map of the average Catholic as not so different from my own. The same could be true of evangelicals. If it's not, I'm not sure you can point to religious doctrine to explain the difference.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 30, 2006 6:29 PM

Can a good person who isn't of your religious faith go to heaven or attain salvation, or not?

The evangelicals may have thought the poll was talking about Catholics, or even Presbyterians.

N.b. that an evangelical who pauses to think is unlikely to admit that an unbeliever can be a "good person."

I'd like to see the poll with "isn't a Christian" substituted.

Posted by Anderson | October 30, 2006 6:31 PM

I absolutely hate having to point this out--over and over and over and over and over again--but for the record, not all Christians think you're going to burn in hell if you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior. Nor do all evangelicals believe that. Just because the Falwell-Dobson-Robertson cuckoos in control of the GOP want everyone to think you aren't a Christian unless you drink their Kool-Aid, we all know it's not true.

The Christian faith is an amazingly diverse thing, and this constant lumping of all Christians into one pot of belief is very annoying.

Posted by Litz | October 30, 2006 6:32 PM

It's worth noting, as a follow up to those numbers, that Catholic doctrine is quite clear that good people who aren't Catholics / aren't Christians get saved.

Posted by DivGuy | October 30, 2006 6:33 PM

See, I don't believe in Hell, so why should I believe that I'll go there if I don't accept Jesus as my personal whatever?

Posted by Andy | October 30, 2006 6:39 PM

"I don't especially think Amy merits a Two Minute Hate"

Guess you don't know what the Two Minutes of Hate really look like. This is practically a picnic by comparison. Seriously, she's been getting two minutes of Well-Deserved Criticism, and that's about all.

Posted by David in NY | October 30, 2006 6:40 PM

> Y'all need to calm down. So evangelicals
> think Jews and other non-believers are
> going to hell. As far as I know, no policy
> position of theirs follows from that.

We have no real knowledge of how deep the End Times thinking permeates the Bush Administration; based on the evidence I would suspect a lot deeper than even most Radicals would like to admit.

However, we do have one very concrete example: the situation at the Air Force Academy. That is a specific policy decision made, reversed due to public outcry, and quietly reimplemented by the W Administration at the direction of the Dobson crowd.

Not Really

Posted by Not Really | October 30, 2006 6:40 PM

The latest survey I have read (I'm an academic-type in religious studies, though I don't study Christianity) says that just under half of white, evangelical Protestants believe that "many religions will lead to eternal life" and that 75% of all those surveyed believe that. Other surveys may give higher numbers.

Here's the Pew link: http://pewforum.org/publications/surveys/religion.pdf.

Posted by dmp | October 30, 2006 6:45 PM

I'm with Dawkins on this one: it's time to quit playing the stupid social game of "we must respect people's insane ideas and bigotry and pretend to take them seriously because they are cloaked in religiosity."

Insane delusions are intellectually juvenile no matter how much Jeebus they are pre-soaked in to hide the smell. And Amy's insistence that we all pander to them just because they are religion-flavored or be labeled "intolerant" is offensive. Count me out.

Posted by melior | October 30, 2006 6:46 PM

I am not as good a person as you Matt. Amy just said I am going to hell because I am Jewish and that it is bad politics for me to tell her she is a fucktard.

IT IS BAD POLITICS TO MIX POLITICS AND RELIGION.

Amy, if you want to believe I am going to hell, A) fuck you, and B) keep it out of politics.

Posted by jerry | October 30, 2006 6:47 PM

I absolutely hate having to point this out--over and over and over and over and over again--but for the record, not all Christians think you're going to burn in hell if you don't accept Jesus as your personal savior.

Well, that depends. If you mean people who check off the box on their census questionnaires, then yes. Christianity in that sense is quite diverse, and has become especially so over the past few decades/centuries.

If you mean people who take a non-allegorical (not the same as "literal") reading of the Bible and adhere to the religion that was traditionally called "Christianity" for the first several hundred years of its existence, then no. Christians in that sense believe that those who do not place their belief in Christ (not the same thing as formal membership in a religious organization) go to hell and that this is the just position.

That is, simply put, the entire point of the religion. You either accept it or you don't, but if you don't you're not a Christian (in the second sense of the word).

Posted by JP | October 30, 2006 6:48 PM

Dawkins?? That guy is an idiot. Terry Eagleton's take-down was just brilliant:

Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.

Posted by DivGuy | October 30, 2006 6:49 PM

I would also agree with SomeCallMeTim in that this belief system doesn't necessarily map out onto any particular set of political views. Jimmy Carter holds these beliefs, for instance, but that hasn't caused his politics to be objectionable to non-Christians, or at least not as such.

Posted by JP | October 30, 2006 6:51 PM

Amy just said I am going to hell because I am Jewish

Amy said what-now? Do you have a citation?

Posted by DivGuy | October 30, 2006 6:51 PM

Amy has a point, however.

All Christians except a few on the fringe hold that Christianity is the only way to salvation. Most are too polite to express that belief in terms of Jews burning in hell, but it amounts to the same thing.

Given that so many of our fellow citizens hold this belief, it's not helpful in public discourse to label it "insane," whatever you or I might think of it privately. And after all, freedom of religion is not limited to religions you and I agree are not crazy . . .

Posted by rea | October 30, 2006 6:53 PM

Jerry Falwell, March 2006:
"While I am a strong supporter of the State of Israel and dearly love the Jewish people and believe them to be the chosen people of God, I continue to stand on the foundational biblical principle that all people — Baptists, Methodists, Pentecostals, Jews, Muslims, etc. — must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to enter heaven."

http://blog01.kintera.com/christianalliance/archives/2006/03/falwell_sends_t_1.html

Posted by JR | October 30, 2006 6:54 PM

Amy Sullivan represents surrender to the GOP - not just in a moral and ethical sense, as in accepting that their principles are intirinsically superior to our own, and that Christianity is inherently superior to secularism -

but also in the tactical, pragmatic, win-some-elections sense. Voters can smell a pandering faux-religious Democrat from a mile away. John's Kerry's talking about his faith fooled exactly zero of the religious crowd that he took his faith as seriously as GWB. If you're a secular liberal who thinks a religious belief is asinine, it's your dam* right to air your view in public, and in many cases your transparent attempt to fudge your own beliefs is only going to make you look weak as well as secular.

It is also *not* intolerance. Demanding that Christians stop spreading the idea *may* be intolerance, but *mocking* the idea is definitely not intolerance.

I don't like Atrios' style either, but Amy's attempts to promote a blanket of silence on an honest moment of victory is nuts.

The Bushies believing Pat Robertson is nuts is an example of Christianist extremism discrediting both itself and the GOP for sucking up to it. It's an example of the fundmental integrity of the Democratic critique being validated. It's, hallelujah, a victory in the war of ideas, small and petty though it may be.

Amy Sullivan is way off-base to suggest that we shouldn't own it with pride.

Posted by glasnost | October 30, 2006 6:55 PM

And Matt- if you don't accept JC as your personal savior, you cannot by definition live an exemplary life. You are a contrary, contumacious, rebellious, and stiff-necked creature and you have denied the divinity of the Lord. So how dare you claim to have lived an exemplary life? Not to mention that you probably have sex outside of marriage.

Posted by JR | October 30, 2006 6:59 PM

All Christians except a few on the fringe hold that Christianity is the only way to salvation. Most are too polite to express that belief in terms of Jews burning in hell, but it amounts to the same thing.

This is just completely untrue. Not only is it baldly untrue, but it's been shown to be untrue just like 10 posts above yours.

Newsweek-BeliefNet Poll:

Can a good person who isn't of your religious faith go to heaven or attain salvation, or not?
Yes No Don't know
Evangelical Protestants 68% 22% 10%
Non-Evangelical Protestants 83% 10% 7%
Catholics 91% 3% 6%
Non-Christians 73% 3% 24%
Total 79% 12% 9%

The vast majority of religious people do not believe that there is only one way to salvation. Another great line from that Eagleton review applies here:

As far as theology goes, Dawkins has an enormous amount in common with Ian Paisley and American TV evangelists. Both parties agree pretty much on what religion is; it’s just that Dawkins rejects it while Oral Roberts and his unctuous tribe grow fat on it.

The rhetorical move that turns all Christians into Jerry Falwell is not only deeply problematic on both ethical and pragmatic levels, but it's completely wrong on the basic facts.

Posted by DivGuy | October 30, 2006 7:02 PM

I don't like Atrios' style either, but Amy's attempts to promote a blanket of silence on an honest moment of victory is nuts.

My sense is that, in general, Sullivan says, "Try not to be such dicks to evangelicals, and they might vote for you." She's not trying to silence people, particularly, unless it's important to you to be rude to evangelicals. I don't personally want a coalition that depends on evangelicals, as I think the relatively strong support for Bush that they show is essentially anti-American, but I'd be awfully happy if they weren't so motivated to vote against me.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 30, 2006 7:03 PM

On the other hand, the evangelical view of this matter is, in fact, completely absurd..

For those of us who think that belief in heaven and hell is itself absurd, the evangelical view is just one flavor of absurdity among others. I find it difficult to work up a proper sense of injustice over different religious groups' allocation of the human species to two imaginary afterlives.

Posted by blah | October 30, 2006 7:07 PM

Although if I did believe in the afterlife, the version that segregates the good and bad people regardless of religion makes the most sense to me.

Posted by blah | October 30, 2006 7:11 PM

Litz correctly points out this constant lumping of all Christians into one pot of belief is very annoying. I would like to follow up with the observation that it is also hypocritical. It's a pigminded rhetorical device sufficient to impress lazy-minded and theologically unsophisticated readers (i.e., most atheists) that the writer is "onto something." No thought process was involved in the creation of this anti-Christian theorem. Its purpose is to provide a welcoming vacuum for its thought-free followers. Rush Limbaugh used to finish up his rants with, "You don't have to think about this. I've done the thinking for you." Well, what do you know? A crowd of dittoheads here, too.

What is the difference between Yglesias thumping his chest about Christians and Pat Robertson thumping his chest about the Jews? It appears to me that the levels of knowledge are about equal, as are the egoistic "I Am Holier Than Thou" attitudes.
Meanwhile, Christian organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous and Habitat for Humanity are doing what the readers and expounders of the Yglesias Corollary to the Robertson Theorem -- aren't doing. Making the world a better place for everyone.

But, as I like to say, now and then, "You can lead a man to an idea, but you can't make him think." Well, it applies to women, too, but in my experience women have more practice thinking.

mp

Posted by Michael Powe | October 30, 2006 7:12 PM

But of course Matt didn't lump all Christians together, he's talking, as was O'Donnell, about a subset of Christians with a very specific belief system, namely that people like Matt and myself are destined for eternal torment.

Posted by Atrios | October 30, 2006 7:13 PM

So it's not ok to lump all Christians into one pot, but it's ok to do so with atheists?

Posted by blah | October 30, 2006 7:16 PM

But of course Matt didn't lump all Christians together, he's talking, as was O'Donnell, about a subset of Christians with a very specific belief system, namely that people like Matt and myself are destined for eternal torment.

And that group is not the people that Amy Sullivan is talking about. She's talking about evangelicals broadly, and more specifically the leftish evangelicals who could possibly either swing their votes to the Democrats or at least stop voting for the Republicans. As shown by the polls above, it's only a relatively small group of hardliners who believe that Matt and Duncan and me will burn in hell.

There is basically no overlap between the people Sullivan wants to win over and the people whose beliefs Matt judged absurd. (I basically think they're morally reprehensible, and would be very happy to get into a theological debate if one were in the offing, but that's not what's going on here.) The rhetorical link that everyone's drawing between salvation-only-through-Christ and Sullivan's targeted evangelicals does not stand up to empirical, ethical or pragmatic scrutiny.

Posted by DivGuy | October 30, 2006 7:18 PM

Oh, wait... jeez...

Sullivan is actually citing O'Donnell apparently just on the exclusive salvation theology. So there is some reason for hte connection - she's the one drawing it.

I will say that there's a reading of Sullivan that says the issue is not whether people insult the hardliners, but that many moderate evangelicals, even if they don't hold such a fundamentalist theology, feel a strong sympathy for the fundamentalists and don't like to see them mocked, even for theological views with which htey disagree.

But y'all are correct that Sullivan is the one who first drew the rhetorical link between exclusivist soteriology and mainstream evangelicalism. I think the proper critique of Sullivan, then, is not to ramp up the mockery of exclusivist soteriology, but to note that it's not really a widespread belief, and to avoid treating it as a belief which unifies American evangelicals.

Posted by DivGuy | October 30, 2006 7:23 PM

"Seriously, her entire body of work reflects and reinforces two simple premises:
1) Bush in particular and all the religious right in general are a group of principled, well-meaning idealists who may be mistaken about some minor issues but really do think they're doing the best things for everyone in the country.
2) Any attempt to challenge the previous premise is morally unfair, abhorrent to the vast majority of Americans, and totally unsupported by facts no matter what we can't hear you LA LA LA!"

This is a prime example of the scurrilous slander of Amy that has prevaded this entire thread. Nowhere has Amy SUllivan ever defended George Bush and his ilk; indeed, she's repeatedly excoriated him for his hypocrisy and his exploitive approach to evangelicals. Nor has she ever defended the religious right. She does defend evangelicals, but--amazing at it may seem to you idiots--they're not the same thing. And that's precisely her point. She's not trying to convert you; she only wants you to behave in public. After all, supposedly you're smack in the middle of a campiagn that's a step toward building a new American majority. Yet do you really WANT to be in a majority? Frankly, I doubt it, given the fact that you spend a huge amount of your time trying to drum out people on your own side for insufficient fealty to your own party line. I know you people are really, really self-congratulory about your superiority to the common herd of Americans--but if you act like this you richly deserve to lose. It's fortunate that the politicians in the party are actually more understanding of what the Amy Sullivans are trying to say--namely that there's the potential for an alliance here, if you're willing to set aside *your* prejudices to effect it. But the first step toward doing that is a little humility. Thank God the voters don't hear this garbage.

Posted by David | October 30, 2006 7:25 PM

Y'all need to calm down. So evangelicals think Jews and other non-believers are going to hell. As far as I know, no policy position of theirs follows from that. Lots of people believe crazy things. I'm not sure that bit of their moral system is telling.

I'm sure SCMT will not want me agreeing with him here, but this is exactly right.

Why does anyone here care if some evangelical Christians think you are going to hell? So f'ing what? Why would this bother anyone at all?

Posted by Al | October 30, 2006 7:32 PM

Nowhere has Amy SUllivan ever defended George Bush and his ilk

I want some of what David's smoking.

Posted by melior | October 30, 2006 7:33 PM

On the other hand, the evangelical view of this matter is, in fact, completely absurd. And not just absurd in a virgin birth, water-into-wine, I-believe-an-angel-watches-over-me kind of way. On this view, a person who led an entirely exemplary life in terms of his impact on the world (would an example help? Gandhi, maybe?) but who didn't accept Jesus as his personal savior would be subjected to a life of eternal torment after his death and we're supposed to understand that as a right and just outcome.

Please explain to me the difference between the aburdity of virgin birth, water-into-wine, I-believe-an-angel-watches-over-me and the absurdity of person who doesn't accept Jesus as his personal savior is subjected to a life of eternal torment. Maybe my absurd-o-meter is broken, but to me the former stuff is just as absurd as the latter.

Posted by Al | October 30, 2006 7:35 PM

The essential dynamic of the christianist-secular debate in this country: They can (and loudly do) say we'll suffer eternal torment in Satan's dominion, but we can't say that they're a bit daft, even though we (and certainly our elected Dem politicians) hardly ever actually do.

Sort of the theo parallel of the Coulter-Colmes continuum.

Posted by Alan in SF | October 30, 2006 7:39 PM

Doesn't this remind anyone of the (possibly apocryphal) medieval debates as to how many angels can stand on the head of a pin?

Even Aquinas, on his deathbed, is reported to have said,"It's all straw."

Posted by Kinnison | October 30, 2006 7:41 PM

Better to lose an election than lose the attention of the web?

It don't think that type of behavior will get someone into heaven...no matter what they believe.

Posted by monkyboy | October 30, 2006 7:42 PM

Matt,

1. As the Sullivan article states, evangelicals are used as cover for the raw control desired by this administration. Christians by and large can be trained to respect authority even misused authority. The ideal Christian is meek as a sheep. Misleading this group has always been a quick way to power, but always at great personal cost when the misleading is uncovered.

2. On Jesus
I think you are missing the point. What does accepting Jesus mean?

In traditional Torah if you fall down on the law you see your Levite and you bring your oxen or pigeon or whatever and you sacrifice it to the lord in the courtyard of the temple to be made right again. Jesus was promised as the perfect sacrifice and accepting him as the sacrifice for you, means that his death becomes your salvation, your entire life is made right in the eyes of God by your accepting of that sacrifice.

Does this give you a get out of jail ticket for the rest of the time you are alive? No. Having accepted Jesus you must pick up the cross and following him. Which means living your life as he would have lived it - more than any of us can really handle.

Jesus speaks of a judgement day, as do various prophets before him. At the time of this judgement those who have accepted Jesus as their savior will be saved by him. Can anyone's actions measure to his? No. Can any other take his place? No.

If you believe there is a God, and that this God is the god of the Hebrews, and you have studied the doctrines of the Hebrew faith and believe them and then you have learned of the Christian faith and then studied these accounts; you are then confronted by a stark choice- rejection with the understanding of what that rejection really entails is a devastating self-condemnation. I would strongly advise all those of you reading and posting here to go and study these things as carefully as you have already study world and political affairs before coming to judgment.

You can search my post history here and elsewhere on the internet to determine the value of my testimony on this.

Why do even the most noble actions of Gandhi fall short of Jesus? Gandhi did not heal, did not perform miracles, did not resurrect others, did not go through the spiritual transformations that Jesus went through. Gandhi did not have the power that Jesus has. One of the many remarkable aspects of Jesus is the righteous use of the vast power he possessed, and though it is popular in modern times to scoff at the accounts of this power, these actions are as much a defining part of his life as his philosophical teachings, often one sprang from the other. It is a false proposition to claim equality between Jesus and any other, because no other possesses the divine power and authority possessed by Jesus. How will Gandhi be judged? I don't think anyone living can tell you and its foolish to try.

The "who's going to hell" argument is just a foolish distraction from the real proposition, which is "how can a person be made right with god?"

Do not glibly dismiss the most precious gift any person can be offered.

For a classic example of these assertions and how focusing on the side arguments such as "who's going to hell", lessen the discussion check out this transcript from ironically enough the Phil Donahue show.

http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/Donahue.html

Posted by patience | October 30, 2006 7:43 PM

From a political standpoint, Sullivan's recommendations are probably unsound. Most evangelicals are conservatives, and making a few friendly rhetorical gestures in their direction probably wouldn't change enough minds to matter. However, there might come a day when this is no longer the case. There's a reason why pollsters always break down their data into a subcategory for "white evangelicals." It's because black and other minority evangelicals tend to vote very differently, even though there aren't really any material theological differences between them and their white counterparts. Along those same lines, white evangelicals tend to live in less urban, less coastal, and less diverse areas. However, those white evangelicals who reside in, say, New York City do not exhibit the same levels of political conservatism as their counterparts in Nashville, even if their theological views are more or less the same.

The point is that evangelicalism does correlate with political conservatism, but only up to a point. The political behavior that we've seen over the last few elections is only partly a result of religion as such. It's also influenced by a lot of regional and cultural factors. The support of affluent white Southern conservatives is probably not gettable through a change of rhetoric alone. The support of non-affluent or non-white or non-Southern evangelicals, however, is much closer to that tipping point.

So, Sullivan is right in theory. While evangelicalism does tend to make people somewhat more conservative -- you won't find a lot of evangelical leftists -- it isn't completely at odds with liberalism and an evangelical can be won over as long as he/she isn't also carrying a lot of other regional and cultural baggage that pushes him/her even further in the direction of the right. However, as a matter of fact, most American evangelicals in the present day do carry this regional and cultural baggage, and therefore are not "gettable" even with rhetorical appeals. In the future, this may change, or maybe it won't.

Posted by JP | October 30, 2006 7:44 PM

Everyone already knows that SCMT is an Al sock-puppet.

Rather than going on and on about Jews not going to Hell, which is a purely negative position, I think that we should make a list of people who should go to hell and then hash out an agreement with the Christians. Frankly I'd give them most of Top 40 music right off the bat.

Posted by John Emerson | October 30, 2006 7:44 PM

I'd say that end-time thinking does have policy ramifications.

I hope that Bush really is one of the cynics in the White House, rather than a religious fanatic, but I don't really believe it.

Posted by John Emerson | October 30, 2006 7:46 PM

Can't we all just agree that it is very very difficult for rich people to get into heaven? Why doesn't anybody want to talk about that anymore?

Posted by blah | October 30, 2006 7:49 PM

"some things that are impolitic to say are also true."

So you're advocating sins of omission? Why are you anti-Catholic?

Posted by kevin lyda, co. galway | October 30, 2006 8:06 PM

sullivan can kiss my brown butt! heretic!

Posted by razib | October 30, 2006 8:10 PM

JP: That is, simply put, the entire point of the religion. You either accept it or you don't, but if you don't you're not a Christian (in the second sense of the word).

Rea: All Christians except a few on the fringe hold that Christianity is the only way to salvation.

Are JP and Rea Christians? Because I just love being told whether I'm a Christian or not by non-Christians.

I don't particularly see why the beliefs of people in the year 500 should determine what gets to be "Christianity." Pursued to its logical end, that line of thought gets you Nietzsche's "there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross." Now, I love ol' Nietzsche, named my blog for him, but I am not going to take him as an authority on what Christianity really is. (His diagnosis of Christian pathologies, OTOH, is spot-on.)

Posted by Anderson | October 30, 2006 8:12 PM

It's a pigminded rhetorical device sufficient to impress lazy-minded and theologically unsophisticated readers (i.e., most atheists) that the writer is "onto something."

Seriously, Mike? Fuck you and your sanctimonious bullshit. We're smarter than you seem to want to give us credit for being.

Posted by spencer | October 30, 2006 8:14 PM

I was using it as a defined term, Anderson, as the part you excerpted itself indicates.

Posted by JP | October 30, 2006 8:14 PM

Seriously, why are we having this conversation?

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/atheism.html

Posted by jd | October 30, 2006 8:27 PM

Kudos to DivGuy for admitting his error in blaming Sullivan's opponents for lumping all Christians into the same pile of potatoes. But then...

"I will say that there's a reading of Sullivan that says the issue is not whether people insult the hardliners, but that many moderate evangelicals, even if they don't hold such a fundamentalist theology, feel a strong sympathy for the fundamentalists and don't like to see them mocked, even for theological views with which htey disagree."

We're not talking about an arcane theological dispute about the finer points of religious practice. We're talking about a condemnation of the souls of billions of people by a radical few. Whatever fellowship moderates might feel toward fundamentalists, they should recognize that the belief in exclusive salvation, the vocal public expression thereof, and any attempt to bring such beliefs to bear on politics and public policy represent the more intolerant behavior than the mocking of the same.

Posted by pickabone | October 30, 2006 8:40 PM

Not to harp on the poll findings again, but they pretty clearly show that Sullivan is conflating the views of prominent Evangelical leaders with those of their followers. The takeaway is that while your fundie neighbors may have some wacky ideas about the age of the Earth, the odds are that if they think you're good people, they're not willing to see you sent to hell.

Posted by Hank Scorpio | October 30, 2006 8:42 PM

Folks, say whatever you like. Critcize Christianity as you see fit, in whatever terms you see fit.

But, please: to be consistent, have a word or two to say about Islam. Haven't heard a PEEP outta you folks about THAT.

Wonder why?

Posted by Dave Reese | October 30, 2006 8:50 PM

The actual phrase as I understand it is "...no one comes through the father except through me."

I've since interpreted this to me "because of my ACTIONS people can be saved." The action in this case being the death/resurrection. Thus people who do things like actually care for their neighbor, are fine. You can walk the road without realizing it. I feel that acceptance of the real Jesus as a personal savior is say a faster more direct path, but it works to differing degrees.

Posted by MNPundit | October 30, 2006 8:50 PM

Matthew Yglesias:

On this view, a person who led an entirely exemplary life in terms of his impact on the world (would an example help? Gandhi, maybe?) but who didn't accept Jesus as his personal savior would be subjected to a life of eternal torment after his death and we're supposed to understand that as a right and just outcome.

Apparently you forget the divine command nature of Christian theology. Recall, from the prophet:

Oh God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe says, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No." Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin' you better run"
Well Abe says, "Where do you want this killin' done?"

Or for further explication, for those who think the point in the story of god telling Abraham to murder his son is that god will stay your hand in the end: Read the Book of Job.

Of course most Christians today have a much more liberal view of this. If you need to worship Jesus to get into heaven, then that Jew, Moses, is burning in hell.

But in fairness, every religion is a tacit, if not explicit, rebuke to every other religion. And since religion is about morality, then all true believers think they are morally superior to those of other faiths.

Posted by epistemology | October 30, 2006 8:52 PM

If Amy Sullivan deserves some criticism it is for her recent appearance on Scarborough County when she failed to give a single line refutation of the porn-money lies about Harold Ford.

It would be as simple as, "blahblahblahblah, and by the way, Ford didn't accept money from porn producers, he *rejected* money from porn producers. blahblahblahblah."

Posted by Chuck | October 30, 2006 8:54 PM

Of course all true Catholics believe Gandhi and other virtuous pagans, as well as unbaptized babies, are in LIMBO. (It's not just a party game.) They get into heaven when Jesus comes back to send the Jews to hell. So says the Pope.

Posted by epistemology | October 30, 2006 8:55 PM

Dave Reese:

But, please: to be consistent, have a word or two to say about Islam. Haven't heard a PEEP outta you folks about THAT.
Wonder why?

Do you? Do you think it's because the liberals on this board hate America and side with the Muslim terrorists? And to be REALLY fair, don't you think a few words should be said about Hinduism, Shintoism, and Zoroastrianism? Or does your curiosity (is that too strong a word?) begin and end with the Abrahamic religions?

So a few words about Islam: I think the Meccan suras are stronger than Medinian ones, less angry and political. Shorter too. What do you think Dave Reese? Or weren't you really interested in a conversation? Just trolling?

Posted by epistemology | October 30, 2006 9:08 PM

Actually, the concept of limbo has never been an official part of Catholic teaching, and word is that the current Pope is particularly hostile to the idea.

In fact, the Catholic Church is laying the groundwork for dismissing the concept altogether:

Vatican document on the concept of limbo is still incomplete and the International Theological Commission will continue work for another year in an attempt to further refine the Catholic understanding of what happens to unbaptised babies after death.

While no one can be certain of the fate of unbaptised babies who die, Christians can and should trust that God will welcome those babies into heaven, members of the Vatican's Commission told Catholic News Service at the conclusion of their 2-6 October meeting in Rome.

The commission had met to continue work on a statement explaining why the concept of limbo entered the common teaching of the Church, why it was never officially defined as Catholic doctrine, and why hope for their salvation makes more sense, said commission member Fr Paul McPartlan.

"We cannot say we know with certainty what will happen" to unbaptised babies, Fr McPartlan said, "but we have good grounds to hope that God in his mercy and love looks after these children and brings them to salvation."

Fr McPartlan, a professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington, said the 30 commission members were in agreement on the main thesis of the document, but they had not put the finishing touches on it.

If they vote on the final version by mail, the document could be released in 2007.

http://www.cathnews.com/news/610/39.php

Posted by blah | October 30, 2006 9:22 PM

Epist--what a nasty, defensive response. I ask a simple question, genially phrased, and you respond with a precious bit of pique.

Well, if you wanna get tart: I'd love to see someone in this crowd criticize Islam with the same invective that's generally reserved for orthodox Christianity.

The fact that the overwhelming majority of liberal anti-religious spite is reserved for evangelicalism is certainly telling.

Posted by Dave Reese | October 30, 2006 9:27 PM

Whatever fellowship moderates might feel toward fundamentalists, they should recognize that the belief in exclusive salvation, the vocal public expression thereof, and any attempt to bring such beliefs to bear on politics and public policy represent the more intolerant behavior than the mocking of the same.

"Intolerant" is an unhelpful way of analyzing the issue. Evangelicals have a factual claim about the state of the universe. Either it's true or it isn't. Whether or not one wishes it were true is beside the point.

Just to be perfectly clear, in all of my comments I've been defining "evangelical" as someone who believes in some form of exclusivist soteriology, among other things. DivGuy makes a good factual point about the poll numbers on the ground, so clearly a lot of self-described evangelicals disagree with that definition. Then again, a lot of self-described Republicans think their party is the party of low spending but that doesn't make it so. Of course, that situation's a little different.

Anyway, setting all that to one side, my point earlier was that I don't think there has to be a strong correlation between exclusivist soteriology and political conservatism. There's a strong correlation in the here and now, but mostly because of demographics. Also, I don't know that soteriologgically exclusivist evangelicals are any more likely to be conservative than soteriologically non-exclusivist evangelicals.

Posted by JP | October 30, 2006 9:30 PM

The fact that the overwhelming majority of liberal anti-religious spite is reserved for evangelicalism is certainly telling.

Yeah, it's telling of the fact that the overwhelming majority of American liberals lives in a country that's 80% Christian and 1% Muslim. Go away, dude.

Posted by JP | October 30, 2006 9:34 PM

I'd love to see someone in this crowd criticize Islam with the same invective that's generally reserved for orthodox Christianity

muhammad is a goat-f*cker. muslims are by and large primitive savages.

Posted by razib | October 30, 2006 9:40 PM

Game over. Limbo is done. The idea goes back to Abelard or so but it's whole new millennium. That's the news this month.

http://www.religionnewsblog.com/16159/pope-to-end-doctrine-of-limbo

Who can tell the ways of a "merciful God"? The official Catholic position is now agnostic on the matter.

There are other things you can pin on the pope, but not this one.

Posted by JJF | October 30, 2006 9:43 PM

Karl Rove: [to Matt] The Democrats... will die. As will your friends. Good, I can feel your anger. I am behind in the polls. Take your blog. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete.

Posted by monkyboy | October 30, 2006 9:57 PM

as a proud member of the Landover Baptist Church I can cheerfully state that yes all of you who don't believe as we do that the Bible is the literal WORD OF GOD and is the absolute TRUTH for everything in the entire world then YES you are DAMMED to HELL.

Turn or Burn baby!

.

Posted by Joe Blow | October 30, 2006 10:01 PM

Dave Reese:
You make a non-sequitur call for invective against Islam and call me nasty? Reread my post. Try to excerpt a part that conceivably can be read as nasty?

And then proceed to say why you ask us to criticize Islam in a thread that ultimately references Kuo's book (an evangelical, no?) that tells his fellow faithful that they are being used by the Bush administration for unholy purposes?

But I will answer the question that your anger seems to be preventing you from asking: Why do liberals criticize their own religion, government, etc. more than that of foreigners? Love.

I'm guessing you have no children. Or are you one of those parents who always insist their children are in the right? I criticize my children more than others because I love and care for them more and it hurts me more deeply when they do wrong.

Now explain to me why you see the mote in the eye of others, but not the beam in your own.

Posted by epistemology | October 30, 2006 10:05 PM

As to the Pope's views on Limbo: I think I stand corrected.

He is going to get rid of it, but it doesn't officially exist. And when he gets rid of it we will all forget the name. Thank you.

Posted by epistemology | October 30, 2006 10:09 PM

I should point out that not all evangelicals think Jews are going to Hell. There are some, particularly in the dispensationalist section of evangelicalism, who believe that there's a special loophole for Jews (but not other non-Christians), by which they can get into Heaven by following the Jewish laws, but that the rules are different for gentiles. Or something like that.

Posted by Zzedar | October 30, 2006 11:22 PM

Epist--explain to *me* your odd-but-not-surprising penchant for personalizing a discussion that easily could have remained philosophical. "I'm guessing you have no children." Gimme a break.

Oh, as for the "nasty" part:

Or does your curiosity (is that too strong a word?) begin and end with the Abrahamic religions?

Doubtless a reference to the common liberal trope about evangelicals' lack of intellectual curiosity. I resent the slur; it's been used to slander and browbeat my people for years. A little sensitivity, please!

Now, on to the substance: More than a few strains of Islam are *easily* as socially and doctrinally conservative as the fundamentalist Christianity you folks enjoy beating up on. From doctrinal exclusivity to a stringent sexual ethic, Islam often has the whole package of quirks many people find so offensive about Christianity. I posed a simple question--why do liberals rarely/never employ their anti-religious vitriol against Islam?

You say this question is a non-sequitur. It isn't. It's posed in the middle of a discussion about how liberals can still be tolerant and broadminded while denouncing evangelicalism's truth-claims in very, very! strong language. I simply wished to plumb the depths of your tolerance and broadmindedness: are you equal-opportunity skeptics? Or do you just like to pick on poor white Pentecostal crackers who for some strange reason no longer vote Democratic?

Posted by Dave Reese | October 30, 2006 11:24 PM

Well, I for one lump all christians together. But I don't stop there - I lump in jews, muslims, hindus, rastafarians, people who believe in the face on mars and everything else.

Who the hell made it MY responsibility to remember and categorize the names and clothing styles and dietary preferences and spooky threats and methods of and reasons for evisceration in the untold millions of different delusions experienced by delusional people? One category is all you get - superstition. Delusion. Whatever.

Posted by craig | October 30, 2006 11:32 PM

More than a few strains of Islam are *easily* as socially and doctrinally conservative as the fundamentalist Christianity you folks enjoy beating up on

I don't know why this is so hard: Muslim in the US are a small, small minority, and can do fuck all. Not true of the evangelicals. (After the last four years, Muslims are probably voting for us anyway.)

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 30, 2006 11:33 PM

In fairness to religious conservatives, they may say that people of different religious traditions go to hell, but they don't really believe it. Most people, in fact I would say nearly all people, aren't completely consistent and rational in their belief-systems.

Most people, I think, follow a "By your fruits ye shall know them" approach to choosing belief-systems. And the people who are drawn to religious conservatism observe the lives of religious conservatives, and compare it to the lives of non-religious conservatives, and for some reason they prefer the life of religious conservatism. So they adopt the identity of a religious conservative, and if you ask them whether they believe such and such conservative belief, they will say yes, automatically, even if they really don't, if you look at how they really live their lives.

What's the word for the opposite of hypocrisy? Where people's actual beliefs are better than they're professed beliefs?

Now it's true that if you directly challenge them on the absurdity of a particular belief, they will lash back at you, because they don't perceive it as an attack on on a particular belief, they perceive it as a threat to their whole value system, and their whole way of life.

Paraphrasing Deirdre McLoskey in her primer on how to write, "A man unfamiliar with ideas regards criticism of his ideas as an assault. . .The real professionals, journalists and intellectuals, have learned to take advantage of brutal criticism of their ideas. But the amateurs don't look at it this way. They react to hostile remarks about their ideas the way they react to hostile remarks about their weight. Dammit, that's who I am; lay off, you louse."

Not to say religious conservatism isn't potentially dangerous, or that religious conservatives are wonderful people wrongly slandered by mean old arrogant liberals, just that there's room for sympathy and understanding and tact when dealing with religious conservative, in a way that doesn't betray the interests of people like, say, Atrios.

Posted by roublen | October 30, 2006 11:41 PM

Tim and JP,

I see your point about Muslims in the U.S. being a "small, small minority," and hence it makes less sense for you to criticize American Muslims than it does for you to criticize evangelicals. Two quick points, respectfully offered:

First, true "fundamentalists" are fewer than you'd think, particularly those who are avowedly Dominionist. The country may be 80% "Christian," but of that share only a small minority are the extremists of whom you're so concerned. At least, that's been my experience as a lifelong evangelical.

Second, though Islam has comparatively few American adherents, it's growing rapidly and is already a nascent political force. Don't its truth-claims merit your attention?

Let me add one more thing: as a fundamentalist evangelical, I am deeply concerned with the politicizing of the evangelical movement--as are many other evangelicals. It isn't right, and it draws attention, money, and resources from the other things that Christ has called us to do--like care for the "widows and orphans." I'll bet that if evangelical megachurches were known more for opening schools and health clinics than for get-out-the-vote rallies, there'd be far less vitriol aimed in their direction. Some of the left's response is, quite simply, our fault. If you want an example of an evangelical pastor who's opposed this politicizing trend, look up John MacArthur--particularly his series entitled "A Radical Alternative to Polticial Activism."

That said, I don't think liberals do themselves any favors when they go from criticizing this politicizing trend to making fun of Christianity's core tenets. You know better than I do that powerful moral arguments can be made for the progressive agenda: universal health care, a generous social safety net, etc. I'm a die-hard conservative, of course, but I'm instinctively in sympathy with calls for doing right by "the least of these," and I'm not the only one. If you could refrain from mocking the things we hold most dear, you might win over a lot more evangelicals than you are now.

Posted by Dave Reese | October 30, 2006 11:52 PM

More than a few strains of Islam are *easily* as socially and doctrinally conservative as the fundamentalist Christianity you folks enjoy beating up on.

Yes, and how many of them get in to meet the president on a regular basis?

Posted by Col Bat Guano | October 30, 2006 11:52 PM

Epistemology: Not even the most fervent evangelical would claim that Jews who lived before the time of Christ had to believe in Jesus.

Posted by James Kabala | October 31, 2006 12:00 AM

I'm a very tolerant, broadminded, fellow, but I can see that David Reese is an annoying, nasty, stupid, troll. Also a whiner with a victim mentality, since he apparently believes that the dominant Christian belief system in the U.S. is in danger because it is being "picked on" by a minority of secular liberals. Replying to him in terms that a halfway intelligent person would understand will only encourage him to be nastier. (Actually, he should make us all appreciate the comparative wonderfulness and intelligence of our usual resident troll, Al).

As for the debate: the existence of hell is a serious theological issue and there's a debate over the ways in which it might be allegorical, etc. Taken literally, hell makes God out to be, well, as bad as Hitler (it takes a very sadistic fellow to want to torment his enemies eternally). Hell is different than other religious beliefs that seem scientifically "absurd" because of the sadism involved, and the suspicion of the non-believer that the believer rather relishes the prospect that others will end up in eternal flame while the believer is in heaven. One suspects that people who think that you are going to hell might perhaps be open to speeding up the process a bit by indulging in some sadism against non-believers here on earth. As the Inquisition, etc. actually did.

A literal hell is an important part of the Christian historical tradition. But I find that many, many of my Christian friends don't literally believe in hell (as the stats quoted by Divguy imply). I tend to be somewhat suspicious of people who do seem to believe I am going to hell. Honestly, I think it is somewhat patronizing not to be willing to stand up and disagree with someone's belief that you and all your family are going to burn and suffer forever if you don't happen to agree with their spiritual beliefs. Certainly the most savage of secular liberal American critics of Christianity has never said anything so negative about Christians. They have a right to believe it, you have a right to disagree.

Amy Sullivan used to have some good points to make, but once she made a profession of flogging on those points endlessly at all opportunities and in all contexts she kind of messed herself up intellectually. She's becoming a bad sort of pundit, and a one-note one at that.

Posted by MQ | October 31, 2006 12:00 AM

I do sort of remember that Muslims attacked the World Trade Center. And while I doubt if Muslims will ever be the presence here that they are in Europe, unrestricted immigration means their numbers are increasing.

Posted by James Kabala | October 31, 2006 12:04 AM

P.S. just to be clear: I'm not saying that I don't know and respect Christians who believe in hell...just that they tend to define it more allegorically, e.g. as separation from God and self-chosen. I'm suspicious of people who linger in that literal hellfire roasting the flesh stuff. Seems like projection to me. I would be horrified to think of my neighbors suffering like that, and I hardly consider myself a paragon of Christian love.

And given his more recent post I should probably apologize to Mr. Reese. I just couldn't imagine how anyone with the slightest knowledge of modern American life, and liberalism, could seriously ask a question about why we didn't spend any time criticizing fundamentalist Islam, unless he was just wandering in to insult people. Honestly, I also don't understand how or why Christians believe liberals are "anti-Christian" (as opposed to just disagreeing with the faith), but I've seen it often enough that I unfortunately am starting to accept it. It seems that for some you're either with it or against it.

Posted by MQ | October 31, 2006 12:12 AM

Since no one else has brought it up, I guess I will:

AA is not a Christian organization. Members of AA believe in a "Higher Power"; that's not the same as believing in Jesus Christ. All it means is that you believe in a power greater than yourself which in turn assists you in not falling prey to the bottle.

You can believe in God, you can believe in Jesus; heck, you can believe in the Force from Star Wars; if it helps you to stop drinking, that's all that matters.

Posted by Raf | October 31, 2006 12:14 AM

C.S. Lewis had an interesting take on hell in The Great Divorce, the point being that people in hell will choose to be there of their own free will (they're aren't literally "on fire"). Discussed briefly in this article.

Posted by JP | October 31, 2006 12:17 AM

MQ,

No worries. I started it.

Evangelicals tend to think that liberals are anti-Christian because . . . liberals too often aren't content with simply *disagreeing* with the tenets of our faith. Too often our faith is mocked and singled out for ridicule in ways that other faiths aren't. After hearing the hundreth lefty joke about "Landover Baptist Church" and whatnot, are you really surprised if evangelicals aren't interested in your other ideals?

Now, listen--I say this not because I feel persecuted or feel that evangelicals are victims or that all them @#%!# lib'ruls want to throw us Christians to the lions. Evangelicals control a tremendous amount of power and money in this country, and that won't change any time soon. I'm bringing this up more to say that it's in liberals' short-term interest to moderate their ridicule of evangelicalism: you have an opportunity to create a rift in the bedrock of the Republican party, if you'd show a bit more sensitivity to evangelical sensibilities. As I said before, your concern for the "common good" could carry tremendous weight with socially-conscious Christians. Indeed, it once did! But start with the Jesus jokes, and many of us prefer to cast our allegiances elsewhere.

Honestly, it frustrates me to *no end* that you people don't see this. It'd be good for all of us. Just like it'd be good if we evangelicals were a bit less smug.

Posted by Dave Reese | October 31, 2006 12:32 AM

So, Dave, you're asking that we humor you?

Thing is, most of us atheists spend a hell of a lot more time "tolerating" the religious (humoring them) than they do tolerating us. In our day-to-day lives, most of us have to avoid the topic of religion completely, and essentially hide the fact that we are non-believers - sometimes out of fear for our jobs, but mostly just so that we don't have to face a crowd of people demanding that we explain ourselves, that we justify our lack of belief.

Fact is, we generally react the same way when confronted with a 65 year old man talking about God the same way we would react of the 65 year old man came up to us all excited about the quarter he just got from the tooth fairy. We smile politely, make some agreeable "that's nice" kind of noise, and try to change the subject.

It would frustrate US no end that YOU don't see this, but it mostly doesn't because we've long since given up any hope of it.

It's been a few thousand years... just when does this "short term" period of having to shut up and accept being assaulted with religion end?

Posted by craig | October 31, 2006 12:41 AM

Personally, I'm far from Christian, but I read the Bible often, have been greatly moved reading the Sermon on the Mount while I was sitting beside the Sea of Galilee, etc. I have a lot of respect and admiration for Jesus as a historical figure, a thinker, and a spiritual leader (although I also find him to be in certain ways a conflicted and tormented man). I don't think I have much if any personal resentment toward Christians. I think there are many secular people like me. But that is I think connected with the fact that I grew up in a secular household and have been surrounded by secular types my whole life, so I've never felt external pressure on me to convert. I also rarely come in contact with what seem to be some potentially nastier forms of faith.

Those secular people I know who do have a more active frustration with or even hostility toward Christians tend to have been minorities in a heavily Christian environment where all sorts of pressures were brought on them. I think anyone who feels put upon in that way may develop some frustration.

I can see the same frustration mirrored in Christians, but what confuses me is *why* so many Christians in the US feel so put upon and harassed. I just don't see a lot of "ridicule" of Christianity in the American public arena that goes beyond what people in *any* belief system should be expecting in the exchange of ideas across an active and diverse population full of different belief systems. (Certainly no politician would say the things about Christianity or religion that some on the right routinely say about atheists). Now, I also know from experience that nursing a sense of victimization creates resentment and hostility, and I also know that Christians are a substantial majority in my country. So seeing so many Christians with that sense of grievance scares me. On the other hand, I don't feel I should have to give up my basic ability to express my beliefs in order to cater to their sensitivities.

Sometimes I think that the Christian sense of grievance comes from a subterranean sense that this is not a very Christian nation in the good senses -- we honor arrogance and tend to mock gentleness and an attempt to cultivate a loving attitude, we worship aggressive "winners" at the expense of people who cultivate a quiet family life, we commodify sexuality, etc. I don't think that's a left or right wing point, genuinely thoughtful people on both sides of the political fence have valid points to make about it. But I think the right has successfully mobilized many Christians to identify their sense of worry with this almost hysterical fear of and hostility toward secular leftists. People like me.

Posted by MQ | October 31, 2006 1:02 AM

(Origen is said to have hoped that even the Devil would one day be saved. That seems the only acceptable hope for a Christian.)

Was it C. S. Lewis who said something along the lines of "Because I have faith in the Bible, I believe in Hell; but because I have faith in God's mercy, I believe that it is empty"?

Posted by Ray Radlein | October 31, 2006 1:17 AM

I should point out that not all evangelicals think Jews are going to Hell. There are some, particularly in the dispensationalist section of evangelicalism, who believe that there's a special loophole for Jews (but not other non-Christians), by which they can get into Heaven by following the Jewish laws, but that the rules are different for gentiles. Or something like that.

It makes perfect internal sense, actually: After all, God entered into a Covenant with the Jews. They got in on the ground floor, so to speak. To believe that God is going to condemn Jews to Hell is to believe that God would break that Covenant.

That was, after all, the great leap of Paul: to recontextualize Christianity from being a type of Judaism to being a religion for all of the people in the world who weren't Jews.

Obviously, that interpretation is not universal among Christians: Some believe that the Jews at some point broke the Covenant themselves, thereby forfeiting God's favor; others believe that the Covenant was merely a temporal one, for the physical lands of Israel; and others believe that the Covenant was superseded by God's New Improved Covenant™, and that of course all of the Jews should have figured that out at the time (after all, don't most contracts have an out clause for "acts of God"? What force is more majeure than that?). Oh, and some are just anti-Semitic dicks. Like everything else in life, mileage varies.

But yeah, it is perfectly valid within the wide umbra of Christian thought to believe that Jews get in to Heaven without having to depend on accepting Christ.

Posted by Ray Radlein | October 31, 2006 1:35 AM

Following MQ's 1:02 comment, it is very different on my side of the fence. I'm a Protestant in Utah, surrounded by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I and people like me have experienced intolerance based on religion in America, the real kind, not the whiny "War on Christmas" stuff. For example, my relatives have been screened, obliquely but obviously, for their LDS religion or lack thereof in job interviews. At the same time, I recognize the earnest desire of my neighbors to be close to God.

One thing living here has taught me is that there is no dividend in criticizing people based on how wacky you think their beliefs are. As an example of a belief that was foreign to me, roughly, Mormons believe that eternal godhood, eternal family, and eternal procreation await in the best of three heavens for families who are faithful to the church's teachings in their lifetime.

But these beliefs don't seem wacky to them at all: they suffuse the air the Mormons breathe, or if you like, they are shot through the lenses through which Mormons see the world. It all seems very natural to them. If I tried to criticize their belief starting from Protestant premises, my argument would come across as nonsense to them.

And unfortunately, that's the way the post's argument comes across to me.

On the other hand, the evangelical view of this matter is, in fact, completely absurd. ... On this view, a person who led an entirely exemplary life in terms of his impact on the world (would an example help? Gandhi, maybe?) but who didn't accept Jesus as his personal savior would be subjected to a life of eternal torment after his death and we're supposed to understand that as a right and just outcome. That, I think, is seriously messed up.

I bolded the key phrase. You are not supposed to understand. The believers are supposed to understand. Their belief coheres, has its own internal consistency and logic. It all seems absurd to you. It all seems very natural to them.

In fact, this very issue of damnation is taken up early in church history in a notoriously difficult passage in the letter to the Romans (chapters 9 through 11). It takes the view, first, that if God wanted to, he probably could have made a world where some people can not make it to heaven, in order to provide object lessons to the people who can. And, the argument goes, if you think that's unfair, tough, that would just be how it is. "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God?" You criticize what you do not understand. Put another way, given a prior assumption that Christianity is broadly true, your argument is arrogantly presumptive about the way God must work.

The second part of the passage is about what actually happened: God's careful plan, through the history of Israel and the action of Jesus, to instead offer mercy to all: "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all." This is close to my view of the matter. How "mercy on them all" plays out in the real world is an exercise for the reader.

The meaning of hell in Christianity is not cut and dried. It has been controversial and difficult for 2000 years. But it will only be a confused muddle if you come at it from secular assumptions and ethical systems and presume to judge it from the outside.

In fact, it is the same muddle, in reverse, when Christians try to persuade you that you are in danger of hellfire because "the Bible says so". From their point of view, the argument is practically over. From your point of view, it has barely begun.

Posted by Dan Lewis | October 31, 2006 2:42 AM

And considering how the Christians have historically treated us pagans....

Sheesh.

What frosts my shorts is the idea of evangelism AT ALL. The only proselytizing I will accept is "by their fruits, you shall know them." Live a good, moral, decent life, etc. and I'll respect you. I might even be interested in talking to you about your belief system. But the bloody insistance of missionaries that "you must believe in Jesus Christ or you will go to hell" just gets up my nose. It demonstrates a complete lack of respect for me as a human being. It's an attempt to brainwash me into accepting their authority simply by shaking the stick of damnation at me. Sorry, but no go. You haven't proven anything to me, and you bloody well don't deserve my trust.

Posted by tzs | October 31, 2006 3:01 AM

Don't poke the religiosos on the subject of batty dogma. They might just vote Republican!

What kind of world do we want to? What is "impolitic" in the short term might be necessary in the long term. And a culture that gives an automatic pass to Pat Robertson because he calls himself a man of God is something that _really_ needs to be held up to scrutiny.

Posted by RickD | October 31, 2006 3:18 AM

Why do even the most noble actions of Gandhi fall short of Jesus? Gandhi did not heal, did not perform miracles, did not resurrect others, did not go through the spiritual transformations that Jesus went through. Gandhi did not have the power that Jesus has. One of the many remarkable aspects of Jesus is the righteous use of the vast power he possessed, and though it is popular in modern times to scoff at the accounts of this power, these actions are as much a defining part of his life as his philosophical teachings, often one sprang from the other. It is a false proposition to claim equality between Jesus and any other, because no other possesses the divine power and authority possessed by Jesus.

Oh, I am furious now. Yes, yes, your God is the real God because the stories of their miracles are real and true and the stories of other gods' miracles are lies and myths.

Do you have any evidence for this? Of course you don't. Your myths are no less myth-y than other religion's myths. But you, personally, are convinced of them, so convinced that you believe that the rest of us should attribute to your myths some special level of credibility that we withhold from stories of Mohammad and the Buddha.

Fuck. You. I'm just going to say that I follow Gandalf and Yoda and leave it at that. Oh, and I demand tax-exempt status.

Posted by NBarnes | October 31, 2006 3:49 AM

What amazes me is that someone would worship a god they believe is so petty as to condemn a righteous man to eternal damnation just because he didn't worship him. Or why they would worship a god that was so unfair since so many people would have had no opportunity to learn of him.

Posted by esther | October 31, 2006 5:17 AM

Dan Lewis:

I bolded the key phrase. You are not supposed to understand. The believers are supposed to understand. Their belief coheres, has its own internal consistency and logic. It all seems absurd to you. It all seems very natural to them.

Exactly. And that is precisely what is so seriously messed up. This type of Christianity makes it seem natural to believe something that is obviously morally depraved.

Posted by SqueakyRat | October 31, 2006 5:34 AM

Dave Reese: How many muslims are running for American elected office pledging to make their religious beliefs American law?

Posted by Kevin Lyda | October 31, 2006 6:02 AM

> Evangelicals tend to think that liberals are
> anti-Christian because . . . liberals too often
> aren't content with simply *disagreeing* with
> the tenets of our faith. Too often our faith
> is mocked and singled out for ridicule in ways
> that other faiths aren't. After hearing the
> hundreth lefty joke about "Landover Baptist Church"
> and whatnot, are you really surprised if
> evangelicals aren't interested in your other ideals?

This reminds me of nothing so much as the whole Rush Limbaugh schtick: he is a full representative of a political movement that controls vast amounts of money, most of the large corporate employers in the US, holds 2 of the 3 branches of government and is working on the 3rd, and which controls better than half of the news media. So what does Limbaugh talk about most of the time? How oppressed "his kind" are, how "libruls" control everything, how "good solid Americans like us" are put upon, disrepected, and condescended to by the "lefties".

Yeah, right. What IS it with you people? Why do you have this incredible need to feel persecuted when you are not only NOT persecuted but it is YOU who are doing the persecuting? Do you not even recognize the Roman satrap in your own eye?

Not Really

Posted by Not Really | October 31, 2006 7:16 AM

DivGuy: Dawkins?? That guy is an idiot. Terry Eagleton's take-down was just brilliant:

Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology.

I read Eagleton's thing a while back. You know, I myself enjoy science-fiction, so I'm not trying to hate on any fans here, but...

Imagine that a sect with enormous political leverage who profess to believe in the material reality of "Star Trek." (Hey, imagine two sects who have spent generations at each others's throats: the Kirkites, for whom the Klingons were, are and always will be the number one foe of the Good, and the Picardites, who have reconciled themselves with the Klingons to face their common enemy, the Borg.) The Kirkites's mission is to control all private and public policy under the guiding presumption that the Enterprise righteously orbits just past the horizon, scanners on "zoom" and phasers on "stun," around and around, forever and again, amen.

Along comes this noisy Kirkophobe Dawkins, who argues at length that these people's ideas are just plain daft. And your man Eagleton the Kirkite paladin, what is his devastating rejoinder? "Why, for example on page 123 when this ignorant so-and-so Dawkins talks about tricorders, he is clearly unaware of the major differences between the obsolete Mark I tricorder and the 24th century Mark IV tricorder! And yet worse: Dawkins openly admits that he doesn't speak a word of Klingon! Fool! Qapla'!

Well anyway, all I'm saying is I really wasn't as impressed with Eagleton's "takedown" as you were.

Posted by W. Kiernan | October 31, 2006 7:21 AM

Devestating essay over at Digby's:

Sam Rosenfeld and Matt Yglesias are wrong. The movement to establish an American theocracy is serious, relentless, and very, very dangerous.

Need proof? Start by picking up a copy of With Liberty & Justice for All: Christian Politics Made Simple by the Reverend [sic] Joe Morecraft III. You will find there a succinct discussion of the rationales and reasoning behind the modern christianist movement. You will also encounter, in stark language, many ideas, such as "America is a Christian nation" that are currently being mainstreamed.

[...]

Christianists, however, have succeeeded in mainstreaming the notion that religion belongs in politics. It doesn't, not in America, so it's quite a step to have the churches in this country so well organized to push a christianist agenda and even endorse (wink, wink, illegal tho it may be) candidates. It's quite a step to have mainstream national politicians trumpet their piety - as if that is some kind of qualification for running a country - with an intensity that I can't recall in the races of the past thirty or forty years.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

Posted by Not Really | October 31, 2006 7:33 AM

Not Really wrote:

"Yeah, right. What IS it with you people? Why do you have this incredible need to feel persecuted when you are not only NOT persecuted but it is YOU who are doing the persecuting? Do you not even recognize the Roman satrap in your own eye?"

Read the second half of my post.

Also: it's not even a matter of evangelicals feeling "persecuted" by secular lefies, though you're right than many of us have a thoroughgoing persecution complex. It's as simple as evangelicals getting the sense that secular liberals have nothing but contempt for them and the things the hold most dear. Liberals only reinforce that perception when thoughtful criticism evolves into out-and-out mockery.
Aside from being rude, it's against the left's political interests, and actually works to further the conservative agenda by driving heartland voters into the Republican camp.

That's all I'm saying.

Posted by Dave Reese | October 31, 2006 7:40 AM

I agree with Matt, though I suspect that the topic deserves a far more developed discussion than can occur here.

It is inconvenient but true that a majority of the United States believes that those who don't hold to their theological beliefs (circumscribed however narrowly or broadly as the case may be) will burn in Hell. To put it another way, as I believe Jerry Falwell or another televangelist put it, if you are not a Christian, you are a "LOSER." Well, losers get no respect on the playground and get no respect in middle America either. If this is inconvenient, we can either organize an anti-Christian or counter-Christian political or social movement (I'm in) or accept the facts as a given.

You may wish your country were like the Netherlands, but it patently is not. Too bad for you. Too bad for me.

Posted by Bruce | October 31, 2006 8:26 AM

Republicans should be considered an embarrassment to Christianity. They probably turn more people away from Christ than the other way round.

Posted by Jalmari | October 31, 2006 8:35 AM

It is inconvenient but true that a majority of the United States believes that those who don't hold to their theological beliefs (circumscribed however narrowly or broadly as the case may be) will burn in Hell.

But they don't! They think good people get saved! I keep saying this and citing evidence, but it seems that facts can't get in the way of a good smear on the evangelicals.

Posted by DivGuy | October 31, 2006 8:45 AM

I've always found peoples' outraged reactions to this type of pronouncement to be very, very odd. There isn't a religion in the world (that wasn't invented in the last 50 years) that believes that good guys go to heaven or the equivalent. None. Not Jews, not Catholics, not Eastern Christians, not Muslims, nor, as far as I know, any of the eastern religions where you are basically precluded from being a "good guy" if you don't follow that path to salvation, even if they are lighter on dogma.

Why does hell continue to stir up the emotions of so many proclaimed seculars? Why does this pronouncement -- one that, unlike so many others we can attribute to evangelicals, has no bearing on public policy -- make people go up on their haunches? It really is disturbing to read our crazed reaction to this matter of faith -- one that they aren't trying to impose on me in the public sphere.

Let them have their religion. As others have pointed out, we're getting outraged about a belief they share with the vast majority of all religious Americans, and, indeed, with all religious men and women the world over. If you're going to count yourself out of religion, they will too. Why are you so upset?

Posted by Guyon | October 31, 2006 8:48 AM

W.Kiernan -

What Eagleton is pointing out, and what you seem to be missing, is that Dawkins completely elides the question of what "belief in God" or "theology" is. He just assumes, like you, that it's equivalent to a truth-statement, like "Tricorders work in such-and-such a way" or "my dog is green," and so he approaches it from a purely analytic perspective. This has not been the way that Christian theologians have written about God and theology, with the exception of contemporary hard-rightists.

What Dawkins does is take the fundamentalist line that faith is scientific fact, and apply it to all statements of religious belief and practice. It's ludicrous, and even a passing acquaintance with the breadth of Christian theology would disabuse him of that caricature.

Posted by DivGuy | October 31, 2006 8:51 AM

Republicans should be considered an embarrassment to Christianity. They probably turn more people away from Christ than the other way round.

Damn straight. Growing up in Mississippi, it's very, very difficult to move past the equation "Christian = stupid." Because there is *so* much empirical evidence for it.

JP (way upthread): Defining "Christian" in a tendentious manner is useful for ... what, exactly?

Posted by Anderson | October 31, 2006 8:53 AM

There isn't a religion in the world (that wasn't invented in the last 50 years) that believes that good guys go to heaven or the equivalent.

WTF????

Catholic doctrine explicitly holds that good people get saved. So does the doctrine of most mainline protestant churches, and certainly the progressive churches like hte UCC hold that. Most practicing religious people in America - as cited above, twice, believe that theological differences do not map to soteriology.

Posted by DivGuy | October 31, 2006 8:53 AM

There isn't a religion in the world (that wasn't invented in the last 50 years) that believes that good guys go to heaven or the equivalent. None.

Well, of course not. If I can get to heaven just by being good (quite a "just" there), what need do I have of priests? penitence? offerings???

"In pious times, ere priestcraft did begin ...."

Posted by Anderson | October 31, 2006 8:58 AM

> It's as simple as evangelicals getting
> the sense that secular liberals have
> nothing but contempt for them and the
> things the hold most dear

I am sure you realize that there is no way on Earth to make such a person happy. If you talk to them you are "talking down", if you don't talk to them you are being "contemptious". If you leave them alone they come after you on your doorstep and mobilize the community to ostracize you; if you try to enforce the Constitution they claim persecution and victimhood status. You can't do anything and you can't do nothing, because either choice will confirm their victimization and your "disrespect".

So - what you do suggest? Invite James Dobson as the next keynote speaker to the Democratic National Convention? I suppose it would be mockery to suggest that if that occurs I must remember to hide my beagle at home?

Not Really

Posted by Not Really | October 31, 2006 9:48 AM

Jesus said didn't come to save people who were good. He came to save people who were, you know, like me.

It was Paul who said that nobody could actually be good. But Paul was a douche and never met Ghandi. So who knows?

Posted by The Black Monk | October 31, 2006 9:50 AM

"This type of Christianity makes it seem natural to believe something that is obviously morally depraved."—SqueakyRat

I am a bit awed by the implicit moral absolutism in this statement which is implicitly an attack on absolutism. I'm sure most of you don't understand what I'm saying, so I'll walk you through this.

For pretty much exactly the same reason as that you can't exactly measure the diagonal of a square by its side, as a general rule the expectation that the universe will function according to our notions of common sense is childish. We know this is true in its physical laws, we see it in my example in mathematics, and—the point of this discussion—there's no reason why the univere must be morally comprehensible to us, either.

SqeakyRat appeals to a presumed universal moral sense when he declares something "morally depraved". But if there is a universal moral absolutism, there's no more reason that it should make much sense, and especially any common sense at all, any more than all the other characteristics of the universe.

On the other hand, if there is no moral absolute, not even a common moral sense which all people share such that that all humans agree with SqueakyRay in his judgement of depravity (and, I'm sorry to have to be the person to report to SqueakyRat that, no, in fact we can be sure that not all people agree with him on what is obviously "morally depraved"), then we're also stuck with no argument which demonstrates that any human-invented theology must allow all good people to go to Heaven.

If God exists, there's no reason that His rules must be either comprehensible or seem just. If God doesn't exist, then there's not much of a basis upon which to make a claim about how He must have ordered His moral universe.

Yglesias and the rest of you deserve to be ridiculed for this rational error, to the various degrees to which you've committed it, but there's a more serious error at the heart of this "anything other than 'all good people go to Heaven' is irrational and abhorrent" assertion. It's the hubris of common sense and its cousin, the laziness of the expectation that the universe is comfortable. To assert that "the idea of a God which allows the good to be damned is stupid" is exactly equivalent to asserting that "the idea of a universe without a God is stupid". We may both need God, and need God to be just, but that doesn't mean that God must exist, or that God must be just.

Grow up.

(Oh, the anthropic principle is also stupid—but I'm repeating myself.)

Posted by Keith M Ellis | October 31, 2006 10:07 AM

Div guy said : Catholic doctrine explicitly holds that good people get saved.

I had the full-blown Catholic education, and that's not what I remember. Good people who, through no fault of their own, never heard the good news about Jesus, could be saved but would probably wind up in Limbo rather than heaven (Limbo always sounded like a pretty good place to me, btw, you just lives a happy existence without all the praising God stuff).

However, the rub is that if you do hear about Jesus and don't accept it, then you never can be saved. In the modern world of mass communication, it would be hard to argue to St. Peter that you had never heard about Jesus.

This is what I was taught in the 50s-60s. Has something changed?

Posted by Virginia Dutch | October 31, 2006 10:19 AM

>So - what you do suggest? Invite James Dobson as >the next keynote speaker to the Democratic >National Convention? I suppose it would be >mockery to suggest that if that occurs I must >remember to hide my beagle at home?

How about simply not talking about evangelicals in the terms that make so many lefties angry when used by evangelicals to refer to others?

Posted by Dave Reese | October 31, 2006 10:44 AM

Re: Keith M Ellis's comment.

I think there's a key unstated addendum to the attacks on the moral soundness of the idea that good non-Christians are going to hell.

The unstated assumption is that God is worth worshiping for reasons other than strictly selfish reasons. In short, that God is good. Most (but not all) religious advocates I know hold to that belief.

So, someone that holds both the belief that "God is good" and "God dishes out eternal punishment to good people" is being internally inconsitent. And it's perfectly rational to point out that inconsistency, whether or not you hold to either or both assumptions.

Posted by Greg Sanders | October 31, 2006 10:56 AM

There isn't a religion in the world (that wasn't invented in the last 50 years) that believes that good guys go to heaven or the equivalent. None.

The Talmud, about 1500 years ago, stated that 'the righteous of all nations have a share in the-world-to-come'. Admittedly, they think that Jews have a better place in that world, but righteous gentiles go to heaven, not hell (to the extent that hell exists at all in Judaism).

Posted by Larry Lennhoff | October 31, 2006 11:06 AM

DivGuy, I'm beginning to think that some people here are emotionally invested in the idea that the majority of America thinks they're going to burn in hell. Why, I'm not sure.

Posted by Hank Scorpio | October 31, 2006 11:09 AM

This is what I was taught in the 50s-60s. Has something changed?

It hadn't by 1986, the year I forced my parents' hands into ending my Catholic education by getting myself kicked out of a Jesuit high school.

But that was a while back, and I haven't checked in on things since . . .

Posted by spencer | October 31, 2006 11:21 AM

DivGuy,

"To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self- exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."" This is from the Catholic Catechism. Basically grace is required to enter into heaven, and though we won't get into a complicated discussion of this here, grace is not achieved purely through being a "good guy."

I'm not familiar with the Talmud, but what was all that business with the Passover, the Covenant? Chopped liver? Can someone be truly righteous within the Jewish cosmology without subjecting himself to the Torah, the law?

Listen, the theology is beside the point. The real point is that evangelicals aren't calling for the ghetoisation of all the damned. They may be smugly waiting for the Rapture, but let them. Much more important to fight the points where their belief bleeds out into the public square. But it's this discussion of damnation that brings out the crowds. As someone above questioned, why are we so concerned about being damned be belief systems we don't buy into?

Posted by Guyon | October 31, 2006 11:55 AM

W. Kiernan: *applause*

They just have no idea how mad they really are. It's like visiting an insane asylum and listening to the inmates argue about which language the voices speak to them in.

Posted by Dr. Awkward | October 31, 2006 12:02 PM

Keith (10:07): So if God demanded that everyone rape their kids followed by burning their firstborn alive as a sacrifice to Him, then this would just be an example of the inscrutability of the universe? And any questioning would be a provincial belief that our moral codes are universal?

Thanks, but count me out. (And yes, I know the story of Abraham and Isaac, etc.).

To be more clear about it: I think peoples' desire to be religious is actually premised on a belief that God is not, you know, actually the Devil.

Posted by MQ | October 31, 2006 12:03 PM

"The unstated assumption is that God is worth worshiping for reasons other than strictly selfish reasons. In short, that God is good."

Who defines "good"? If there is a god, then God gets to define it. People will naturally hope that their intuitive sense of "good" will correspond with God's, but that doesn't mean that it must.

More important for this particular debate, the simple truth of the matter is that pretty much every religious that has existed has aknowledged that "good" may be something very different when viewed from a perspective beyond that of the individual person. The judao-christian tradition which believes in an all-powerful creator, and who is "good", is forced to posit a God's-eye view of "good" that doesn't correspond to the human view simply because pain and suffering exist.

Furthermore, one formulation of this non-intuitive version of "good" is built upon the altruism you are using in your argument: it may be necessary for the best for everyone to adhere to a "good" that conflicts with one's own personal instinct for "good". Including the idea that all good people should go to Heaven. Well, maybe it's for the greater "good" that they can't.

In Christian theology, this larger problem is known as the Problem of Evil. You don't have to be an American fundamentalist who believes that Jews are necessarily damned to discover that your faith hsa this fundamental problem. Pain and suffering exist. God is all-powerful and good. Ergo, our instincts about what is "good" are unreliable. I don't know why it is that I, a lifelong atheist, would be more familiar with this concept than many here, but there it is.

"So if God demanded that everyone rape their kids followed by burning their firstborn alive as a sacrifice to Him, then this would just be an example of the inscrutability of the universe? And any questioning would be a provincial belief that our moral codes are universal?

Thanks, but count me out. (And yes, I know the story of Abraham and Isaac, etc.).

To be more clear about it: I think peoples' desire to be religious is actually premised on a belief that God is not, you know, actually the Devil."

Yes, but where "God" ends and the "Devil" begins is a matter of controversy. For some reason, many of the people posting here seem to think that damning some good people is the magic line where a version of God becomes the Devil.

Okay, fine, everyone has a right to decide where that line is. But my argument isn't that "any questioning would be a provincial belief that our moral codes are universal", it's the assertion that this can't be true, or the assertion that anyone who thinks this is true is a moral imbecile, that I find provincial.

I'm drawing the line somewhere, too. For me it happens to disallow most any version of a God I've heard of—though drawing that line is moot because I disbelieve on an evidentiary basis in the first place.

But what I'm objecting to in this thread is the arrogance (not to mention the provincialism and the ignorance) of picking this place to draw the line and to assert that it's self-evident and that all right-thinking people would or should agree. It's really an astonishing example of the sort of unreflective, simplistic reasoning that the very same folks find so amusing to ridicule evangelicals for.

There are all sorts of good arguments why good people might still necessarily be damned. I guess I'd be more sympathetic to folks who find this novel or confusing if they weren't familiar—as most of us surely are—with the basic judao-christian formulation of an omnipotent and benign god. The obvious horror of human existence itself is a much larger and more convincing argument for the absurdity of such a god than the niggling idea of good people going to Hell. This problem is immediately apparent to anyone who takes any time to think about it. The history of theology in the western world is consumed with dealing with problem. And thus how anyone can presume to write on this topic, have strong opinions on this topic, ridicule others on this topic, throw about simplistic notions of "good" on this topic is beyond me. It's an embarassment.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | October 31, 2006 1:00 PM

Keith M. Ellis,

"It's really an astonishing example of the sort of unreflective, simplistic reasoning that the very same folks find so amusing to ridicule evangelicals for."

And an example of the same hateful, dismissive language that, when used by evangelicals, is held up as "verbal violence," or some such. Would that the tolerant and broad-minded were less inclined to attacks of the vapors!

Posted by Dave Reese | October 31, 2006 1:14 PM

Dave Reese:

Sorry to be so long between posts. I think we got off on the wrong foot. In a time when there is rising discrimination and invective against Muslims in this country, I read your first question as a call to further invective, and my response displayed annoyance at that. You do understand that millions of good Muslims feel under attack in the US don't you? I'm sure you don't want to be a part of that, just as I don't want to be seen as implying Christians are less bright than atheists or anyone else.

As to the issue at hand. If you are a good person, kind and generous, I find no moral error in you. But, correct me if I'm wrong, even if I am also a good person, kind and generous, you think that if I don't believe in your god I am somehow morally inferior to you and will likely burn in hell for all eternity. Is this correct?

It is not intolerance on my part to find fault with a reasoning that asymmetrically ascribes moral deficiency to me for my faith when I don't ascribe moral deficiency to you because of yours, except where it is demonstrably offensive to universal human dignity.

If I am a good person, am I morally inferior for not believing in Jesus? Am I more likely damned by this fact alone?

Posted by epistemology | October 31, 2006 3:21 PM

well, see you in hell, yglesias! :/devilsign:

Posted by travy | October 31, 2006 3:52 PM

I think most Evangelicals would except the golden rule as a core part of the morality propagated by God. They may not except that it can be arrived at via rationality, but I think that's a belief that most liberals share.

Or, to get away from good, Christianity regularly asserts that God loves everyone. This love is described as applying at an individual basis rather than simply collectively.

Arbitrarily sending people to eternal torture clearly violates both of these principles. We aren't saying that's where you have to draw the line, just that it's so far over the line that it's a really easy call. Most explanations of the "problem of evil" tend to involve free choice. But free choice isn't an issue here, as described in Christianity, damning or not is totally up to God's judgment.

Yes, divine command theory can be used as an excuse for God doing all sorts of golden rule violations, or as you put it:
Who defines "good"? If there is a god, then God gets to define it.

(I doubt anyone that is arguing the contradiction buys divine command theory. I certainly don't. But I don't need to concede it. Considering the polling results, it seems like many Evangelicals don't systematically accept it either.)

That doesn't change the fact that:
1) The eternal torture of good people is obviously in contradiction to many of the rules Evangelicals think God defined.
2) Morality aside, you don't eternally torture the ones you love.

The reasoning is simple and straight forward. In essence, we're saying that reason should still apply in religious matters. In general, assuming that one's opponents are rational is a critical first step prior to engaging them. If being willing to assume my opponents are rational makes me irrational, unreflective, or simplistic, so be it.

Now, as to your bright line point. Nobody is arguing that the bright line is arbitrarily sending people to hell. Instead, the argument is that such a policy is obviously well over the bright line. You're free to argue that many other things are too, but that doesn't refute this point.

Posted by Greg Sanders | October 31, 2006 4:20 PM

I said this:
I bolded the key phrase. You are not supposed to understand. The believers are supposed to understand. Their belief coheres, has its own internal consistency and logic. It all seems absurd to you. It all seems very natural to them.

SqueakyRat said this:
Exactly. And that is precisely what is so seriously messed up. This type of Christianity makes it seem natural to believe something that is obviously morally depraved.

Keith M Ellis put it slightly differently than I would have (although I get what he's saying), so let me repeat. This version of Christianity where Gandhi could go to hell looks absurd to you because this Gandhi-fact has been sawed out of its original context and transplanted onto your worldview. Your instinct is to reject the limb.

More important, all the ridicule and rejection apply in reverse. This is a clue that something is wrong with the argument form. "Atheism, that's so absurd. Who could believe in a universe where every good thing humans can do is practically guaranteed to come to nothing by death, extinction, erosion, and the decay of the sun?" I don't really agree with the sentiments behind that sentence, but notice how neatly it fails to engage, and dismisses, an entire belief system. And if you could reject Christianity just on the prospective basis of Gandhi going to hell, you could probably reject atheism just on the prospective basis of the final extinction of all humanity.

My point is that this kind of argument about religion, where people come to the table with their own belief system at stake, seize on facts isolated from context, then talk past each other, is not going anywhere.

Moral depravity is not obvious, as you say. Moral depravity is not a given, above the line of dispute, that you agree on with the Christians who think Gandhi is going to hell. In fact, moral depravity is the crux of the dispute here.

I suggest that the way to go about this kind of reasoning is to come over onto the Christian's ground and give them arguments why Gandhi wouldn't go to hell that make sense from their point of view, not yours. If they're a Bible literalist, point out that the climax of Paul's entire argument in Romans is that God offers mercy and salvation to all, then ask how that jibes with their theory. If they buy the idea that hell is a choice, ask them how they know Gandhi would choose hell. If they buy the idea that God judges differently than people do (e.g., we see the outside, but God looks at the heart), ask them how they're qualified to judge Gandhi. And so on.

Posted by Dan Lewis | October 31, 2006 4:25 PM

Arbitrarily sending people to eternal torture clearly violates both of these principles. We aren't saying that's where you have to draw the line, just that it's so far over the line that it's a really easy call. Most explanations of the "problem of evil" tend to involve free choice. But free choice isn't an issue here, as described in Christianity, damning or not is totally up to God's judgment.

Ummm... the religion you're describing is a sect of Christianity: Calvinism. For the record, there is no rule that says you have to be Calvinist to be a Christian. But if you were a Calvinist, you might well believe that Paul's hypothetical in Romans 9 was literally true, and that some people are objects of mercy and others are objects of wrath. Hardcore "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated" kind of religion. If this religion is actually true, the objects of God's love are the saved. So like I said earlier, the hardcore Calvinist might respond by saying, God's love and God's goodness are God's to do with as God pleases, and where do you get off criticizing the only robot maker in the universe anyway?

Not what I happen to believe, but the reasons this argument is wrong are not as obvious as you say.

Goodness and love are not obvious "I know it when I see it" concepts in Christianity. Hell is not obvious. Self-damnation by free choice is not obvious.

Damnation and salvation have long been seen (various heresies like Pelagianism aside) as a strange connection between the offer of mercy by God and the acceptance or rejection of mercy by the person. So no, I don't buy your argument that Christianity means necessarily that God is merely arbitrary and the choice of the person for or against God is irrelevant.

It's not for show that Jesus says things like "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened."

I do not find the concept "arbitrarily sending people to eternal torture" in my religion, and I'm basically a traditional Protestant. So try again.

Posted by Dan Lewis | October 31, 2006 4:57 PM

epistemology asks: "If I am a good person, am I morally inferior for not believing in Jesus? Am I more likely damned by this fact alone?"

The standard answer (out of Romans again) is that your premise is wrong. "Good persons" do not exist in Christian theology. Christians are not good. Non-Christians are not good. Instead, you might see Christianity as an answer to the question, "I want to be a good person, but I fail to follow these moral principles as I know I should. Am I screwed?" Christianity takes as its starting point the premise that as far as morality goes, we are failures. And because we are inertial creatures, we need outside forces to get moving in the right direction again. Enter Jesus from stage right as the outside force, and so on. There are some boundary cases on this issue as on all others in Christian theology, but this is the main idea.

I prefer to not judge the state of people's souls at all. I know I lack the necessary background. But I will say that the older I get, the more I doubt these pro forma requirements to return to God. Instead, I trust that God will not let one good thing be wasted, whether the good thing is a Muslim or atheist or a kind word. Like the sheep and goats parable says, loving others is all of a step away from loving Jesus anyway, even if you don't recognize it at the time.

Posted by Dan Lewis | October 31, 2006 5:00 PM

Dan Lewis:
Pretty evasion. Probably my fault for a poorly worded question. Let me try again:

Why bother with Jesus at all? How is your life better, and mine worse, for not believing in Jesus' divinity? Would I be closer to god if I believed? Am I further from god for not believing? Am I further from the good for not believing, all other things being equal?

Posted by epistemology | October 31, 2006 5:15 PM

People who are not Christian can still get to Heaven. Look up "Baptism by Desire" at: http://happycatholic.blogspot.com/2006/04/back-to-basics-three-forms-of-baptism.html
or in the "Catechism of the Catholic Church." So perhaps Gandhi made it!

Posted by Anonymous | October 31, 2006 10:41 PM

Greg Sanders, you use the word arbitrary a number of times and you oughtn't.

Posted by Keith M Ellis | October 31, 2006 10:51 PM

I don't think I was being evasive. However, I do think you are still asking questions with built-in assumptions.

Yes, Christians believe that faith in Jesus Christ is likely to change you, and for the better. But like I said, faith is not confined to pro forma things like acceding intellectually to the Athanasian Creed's version of the Trinity or attending a weekly social club in a building with "Church" painted somewhere on the sign. Instead, faith is (in the definition I will be using) a realignment of oneself to God and to the world, to the people you love and to all that you hold dear.

Christianity is not about a list of Thou shalts and Thou shalt nots. Zoroastrians, little kids, tennis players on a regimen focus on these lists, along with the vast majority of the world's religions (the 8-fold path, the 5 pillars of wisdom, the Torah, self-help, etc.). Instead, Christianity is a call to die, in a way, and live a new life (of discipleship, as Bonhoeffer put it so eloquently and meatily in this book).

Christianity doesn't command you to improve yourself to the limit of your abilities. Christians do not perform better on the sin-tests encapsulated in the idea of "being a good person." Christians think that this project is doomed to fail, and instead turn to God for repentance and forgiveness. In turn, God forgives people for their errors, and accepts their promise of allegiance.

Thereafter, even though they're bound to screw up, Christians are on the right side of their struggle to be good: recognizing in humility their personal inability to achieve, but for the first time living not without morality, but beyond moralism. In a sense, Christianity is about living for the first time beyond good and evil. The identity of Jesus and the consequences of his actions circa 30 AD play a central role in our ability to receive this new life.

On this view, you are asking the wrong questions. Your desire for morality and your desire for correct belief are not the only things implicated in the new life of faith. As I suggested, right belief and right moral structure are not nearly the most important things about faith. All of your questions are just about believing, not changing. Like Keats said, "Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it."

So let's do an experiment. Suppose I answered you this way:

Why bother with Jesus at all?
You don't know what you're missing.

Would I be closer to god if I believed?
Yes

Am I further from god for not believing?
Yes

Am I further from the good for not believing, all other things being equal?
Yes

What would you do with this information? I bet you'd pounce and say Aha! All that BS about not judging the state of people's souls and the pro forma understanding blah blah blah, you were lying. Then you accuse me of arrogance and tribalism and closed-mindedness. I'm judging you, and I'm judging all non-Christians. In fact, answers like that give you a perfect excuse to write me off (or, at least the glib imaginary person).

Unless I'm way off base, what you wouldn't do is take a personal moment and say Hmmm. You know, I think he's right. Time to explore believing in Christ and living a different kind of life.

The truth, according to me, is much more complicated than that. It does not boil down to platitudes. It does not boil down to pennants with "Presbyterian" and "Roman Catholic" in college font and pictures of Mohammed and Buddha as dart boards. It does not boil down to being orthodox, or being able to recall the Westminster Confession or the Roman Catechism. And as you asked originally, it does not boil down to moral inferiority, or damnation for not having an intellectual belief in a certain truth-claim. Call that evasive if you want.

Obviously, I do believe living as a Christian is better than not. I live out that choice every day; if I didn't believe anymore, I would stop. I believe that if people did choose to live as disciples of Jesus, to live the forgiven life, that they would be better off for that choice. But I don't consider my life to be better than anyone else's or comparable in some measurement of morality. There is no such measurement.

Am I worse off for believing in Christianity? Does Christianity offend universal human dignity? Are you morally superior to me?

Posted by Dan Lewis | November 1, 2006 12:57 AM

As if atheism does not present an agenda? A key component of some of the most powerful political parties in the world, it has been pushed before. Lenin, Trotksy, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc. come to mind. (Communism of course did not have to be atheistic, but in the form it took in the past two centuries...as an expression of dialectical materialism... it was.)

And the results, when it was the official position, were Gulags, Brainwashing Camps, and "re-education" centers.

So at first glance, your criticisms of some of the figures you mention seems congent, then I remember what the other side has been up to.

Posted by Grady | November 1, 2006 5:58 AM

Um . . . what Dan Lewis said.

Posted by Dave Reese | November 1, 2006 7:33 AM

Dan Lewis:

Unless I'm way off base, what you wouldn't do is take a personal moment and say Hmmm. You know, I think he's right. Time to explore believing in Christ and living a different kind of life.

You are way off base. You apparently are referring to some previous interlocutor. I am actually confused as to what to believe. I was raised without any religion at all. I do believe that non-religious people take certain factual and even spiritual and moral precepts on faith.

I think that the difference between my assumptions about the world, and yours, are that mine are much more succinct. Occam's razor is a guiding principle. If I can explain the universe, factually and morally, without reference to god, and can come to all the same conclusions as you do with god, then your god literally offers me nothing.

You make the assumption that if I believed in Jesus that I would start "living a different kind of life." Really? You had me until this. But this point is the crux of the matter. I try to be a good person, work hard, try to be kind and generous.

I daily give away my services at work for free (I'm self-employed). I consider myself fortunate to be a middle class American in the early 21th century. I take other parents' troubled teens into my house (hi Jessica, Mark, Pat, Justin...) and try to set them on the right path. I have had a 6 figure a year income for decades and am in debt. I don't believe that private property is an absolute right (I think the Catholic Magisterium is in agreement with me on this) but must bend to the moral exigencies of human care. I don't preach it, cooking meat for the kids that want it, but I am troubled eating animals, so haven't for the better part of two decades. I am exhausted and stressed by the end of most days but constantly find fault in myself for not being patient enough, or for getting angry with someone.

I return to my original question. How, exactly, would I be a better person if I prayed to Jesus every day in addition to whatever else I do? And couldn't I achieve the same end without praying to Jesus. Are you exceptional in some way just because of your faith in Jesus, or, like our modern epistemology, is god morally irrelevant? Every good can be done without reference to god, and every evil can be done in the name of god, just the same as if there were no god?

I don't call myself an atheist. I don't think the question of whether there is a "god" to be well formed, or relevant, morally or epistemologically. How is it otherwise is my question? How would I be a better person if I accepted Jesus in my life?

I think that most of the purposes religion fills for you, are filled for me by art. Both are explanatory fictions that help to justify god's ways to man. Do I really need religion to be a good person? Does it matter if I believe in one god or many or none? Either it matters or it doesn't. You tell me. But have the courage of your convictions. I have few.

Posted by epistemology | November 1, 2006 2:30 PM

Dan Lewis:

Am I worse off for believing in Christianity? Does Christianity offend universal human dignity? Are you morally superior to me?

Not that I can tell.

My main quibbles are the endorsement of slavery and the subjugation of women found in the Bible.

I am certainly not morally superior to anybody.

Posted by epistemology | November 1, 2006 2:50 PM

Dan Lewis and Keith Ellis:

You were right, I was wrong to use the term arbitrary. We aren't talking about Calvinism after all.

What I was trying to get at was that when bad things happen to us in the world, there's not a strong moral claim against God. Shit happens, much of it can easily be blamed on free choice, so be it.

Damnation does not fall in that category. It is not arbitrary (like I said, I was wrong), under the described theory God is making a choice based on whether someone has accepted Christ has their personal savior. However, this is God's rule. No one forced him to made it or to apply it. For those that think of the alternative of heaven as nothingness or the absence of God, there's no real big moral problem. He made an offer, he was turned down, so be it. But punishing people for torture for being imperfect, even when you offer them a free out, is wrong.

Posted by Greg Sanders | November 1, 2006 5:27 PM

Greg, I do think that the alternative to heaven is the absence of God. I and many Christians think that the absence of God would really really suck. In Dante's version of Hell, people are living the way they've chosen to live, even if they're on fire or living in feces or trapped in ice eating someone's brains for all eternity. But is that God torturing people, or people torturing themselves? I submit that it's the latter, and that's why this particular objection doesn't stick for me.

"under the described theory God is making a choice based on whether someone has accepted Christ has their personal savior. However, this is God's rule. No one forced him to made it or to apply it. For those that think of the alternative of heaven as nothingness or the absence of God, there's no real big moral problem. He made an offer, he was turned down, so be it. But punishing people for torture for being imperfect, even when you offer them a free out, is wrong." [I added the emphasis]

I think Judgment is about whether or not people desire to be with God. It is not about whether they spoke some pro forma prayer at a tent meeting when they were six. Some Christians would disagree, and for them, your criticism is well-aimed. But I am not one of them. Judgment is about some very personal things, about what you want your ultimate relationship with God to be. I don't think all "Christians" go to heaven just as I don't think all "non-Christians" go to hell.

God doesn't punish people for being imperfect, I think. In fact, the foundational premise of Christianity is that people are imperfect.

So I see this eternal torment business in a very different light. God didn't give us freedom to choose him, only to coerce us later or punish us against our will. Instead, freedom provides real choices with real consequences, and eternal choices have eternal consequences. In this light, wanting to avoid hell and wanting to avoid God are mutually exclusive options.

Posted by Dan Lewis | November 1, 2006 6:05 PM

But is god really trying to do all he can to get us out of hell. Couldn't he set a date of metrics to be met with consequences for measuring them.

Sorry, if he can't get us out in the next six months I am inclined to go with his opponent in the next election.

Posted by epistemology | November 1, 2006 6:59 PM

Dan: I'm pretty sure I follow what you're saying.

We have different views on the specifics, but I certainly don't think your views are deplorable.

To be clear, I was agreeing with the original post, which said that the belief that all Jews are justly going to hell for being Jewish (or all non-believers in general). I think there are a wide range of alternate interpretations of the New Testement, yours being one of them, that are far more consistent with simple (and perhaps simplistic) golden rule morality.

I don't think this is something Democratic politicians should seek to pick fights on, there's too much room for confusion. That and partisanship and theology don't mix well.

But I don't think it's arrogant to condemn something Pat Robertson says so long as we differentiate between him and the range of other believers. I take great comfort in the pollings that show many evangelicals don't hold the extreme beliefs the original post critiqued.

Posted by Greg Sanders | November 1, 2006 10:17 PM

epistemology, that's funny. I suppose I'd say that God is trying as hard as he can, and it might take longer than 6 months to get people out of hell; maybe more like decades, in fact. Decades! But God has a bit longer term in office yet than that. We're stuck with him even if he is a lame duck.

Yes, I see what you're saying. The first time I responded to the original post, I tried to say two things: first, that Yglesias was critiquing Christianity with the wrong sort of attitude (and using the wrong criteria), and second, that salvation and damnation are far more complex in the Protestant, and even evangelical tradition than his capsule summary let on.

And of course, Yglesias did lump evangelicals in with Robertson instead of differentiating them: "the belief -- adhered to by millions of Americans -- that failure to accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior will result in eternal damnation is daft."

I find this particular Jews-to-hell interpretation funny because there are very explicit passages in the New Testament about how God will save the Jews. Romans 10 for instance.

Posted by Dan Lewis | November 1, 2006 11:09 PM

Dan Lewis:
I agree that it takes a tortured reading of the Bible to acknowledge that god made a covenant with the Jews and then broke it.

However, the need for the explanatory power of religions in general, and the need for Jesus morally, I am uncertain of.

Science explains the world without the need for religion and its certainty. And my fundamental personal moral inadequacy needs to be acknowledged and addressed, but I can do this without the help of Jesus, don't you think?

Posted by epistemology | November 2, 2006 12:05 AM

Dan: Understood, I hadn't gone back and checked your first comment, so I hadn't picked up on that distinction. Yglesias did actually later comment with interest on the polling data, although he hasn't further followed up on it. But it's a busy time and this isn't really one of his core topics, so I'm not that surprised.

But your point is fair, I think there are definite holes in this statement:
While most of them would put it more delicately than Robertson, it is an article of faith for millions and millions of evangelicals that the only way into heaven is through belief in Jesus Christ. (The good reverend has also said he believes Methodists will burn in hell, but that's not really the point.)

However, that statement came from Amy Sullivan, not from Matt Yglesias or O'Donnell. In fact, the if many Evangelical's don't have an exclusionist hellfire view, then Yglesias' point is strengthened, not weakened. It's fairly easy to criticize a nasty view if it only held by a fringe rather than a substantial group of believers.

So, I'd say Yglesias's overall point, that O'Donnell didn't do anything wrong, is spot on.

Posted by Greg Sanders | November 2, 2006 9:45 AM

"However, the need for the explanatory power of religions in general, and the need for Jesus morally, I am uncertain of.

Science explains the world without the need for religion and its certainty. And my fundamental personal moral inadequacy needs to be acknowledged and addressed, but I can do this without the help of Jesus, don't you think?"

Well, science is a discipline that can't really be directed outside of itself. It depends on quantification for the most part. At the bare minimum it requires categories that it can produce statistical patterns from. The kinds of answers science produces depend on the inputs it's given. What do you get when you add science and science? More science. I'm a computer scientist, and I work all day long with machines that take sequences of 1s and 0s and change them into other long sequences of 1s and 0s. The interpretation, the meaning of the bit strings, must be imposed from the outside.

Religion is about meaning. Science is about results. Science cannot tell you why to do science, or what science means. Only religion, or some other outside belief system, could do that.

If you're talking about religion as explainer-of-the-universe, I agree to some extent. Science observes and reports the universe to us, through the mediation of sense data, calculations, theories. But it doesn't tell you what to do with the universe.

If you're talking about science as a proof for hard biological determinism, I'll just say I don't find this line of argument very convincing. Further, I don't think it's possible to live as if we are not free creatures, without choices. Once we worry about good and evil, we are already beyond the limits of what science can explain.

One major thing that I can't explain by science is the events surrounding Jesus' death. Supposedly, he was executed and buried, his followers discredited and scattered. Then a month later, those same followers, monotheists all, start preaching forcefully that he was not dead, but alive, and was in some way to be identified with Yahweh, the one God. I haven't found a convincing naturalistic explanation for what happened there, and I don't think it exists. I mention this because it is a place where science/history and religion intersect for me. Something like "If Jesus came back from the dead," (science/history) "it's a whole new ballgame." (religion)

As for part two of your question, I'd say that Christianity exists to, among other things, explode the myth that you can address your morality on your own. Here's a funny thing about the saints. They wanted to be right with God so badly, they wanted to be good so much. They wanted to sacrifice everything separating them from God and be perfectly, ecstatically united to the one they loved. If anyone had a shot at it, they did. And what they found is that the more moral clarity and peace with God they felt, the more they felt inadequate to the task of being good. The closer they examined themselves, the more they felt that being good was impossible.

Someone once suggested an experiment. Write out the list of mores in your personal moral code on a piece of paper. Some people might be more specific, others might be more general about what exactly they write. Basically, you are describing the person you want to be, so try to be thorough. It would be cheating to put down things you know you can do and leave off goals that you think are hard.

Then, for four weeks, follow the instructions on the paper. Before you go to bed every night, read the list and see how you did on each item.

How would you do? I would guess that you would fail, and that's nothing personal. It's a comment on humanity. And most of the belief systems in the world would not be able to help you. They would just hand you a slightly different sheet and tell you to keep it up. You could spend a lot of months trying to work your way through all those rules, and have nothing to show for it.

If you see what I'm saying, let me point out that I'm just repeating something the Christians got to the heart of about 2000 years ago. This was the starting point of all Jesus had to say: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Jesus said this to the people the society of his day called righteous because they followed a stricter moral code than the norm, and I doubt he was implying that they had nothing to worry about.

Posted by Dan Lewis | November 2, 2006 6:17 PM

All Drug Laws suck. Even for Rush. Rights for all my friends or rights for nobody. WBR LeoP

Posted by Pharmacy | March 8, 2007 8:54 PM