Thursday 23 April 2009

Persusasion with violence. (Rape and religion?)

Well, I expect that this could be seen as inflammatory... ;-)

Imagine the situation where you have this powerful, charismatic person. He/she is adored by millions around the world and YOU have caught their attention. They want you to love them, to adore them, to fully obey their desires... but you are not interested. They try to persuade you more; you still want to be left alone. Feeling spurned, they get angry and threaten you. Not just mild threats, but threats of the most terrible violence imaginable - and the frightening thing is, you know they really mean it! No-one believes you - after all, you should be honoured but you insulted him/her so it is YOUR fault! You deserve to be treated this way...

Horrible isn't it?
But then I can play the 'analogy game'. ;-)

If that was a real situation, then you would sincerely hope that the perpetrator would be arrested. They are clearly insane, extremely dangerous and devoid of morals.

The point I'm trying to make (before theists accuse me of turning Jesus into a rapist) is that morally, how can you expect someone to give unconditional love, utter faith and devotion when the alternative is such an extreme level of punishment that far outweighs the 'crime'?
Surely the love of a god should be so great so that you could not possibly conceive not to love? Obviously not, since we have such a cruel and unusual punishment. Where is this free will? "Oh but you chose suffering." Yeah, obviously.

Maybe if there wasn't such a choice, I might have been agnostic. But since the bible so clearly personifies god with all these dysfunctional human failings, it makes me wonder if such a being could ever be worthy of my love.

2 comments:

  1. "it makes me wonder if such a being could ever be worthy of my love."

    No.

    Long answer: The perpetrator is an abuser.

    ReplyDelete
  2. neat, i was the answer to a question.

    i never looked at it that way, but you're right. that's exactly what it's like to be an atheist. sometimes i feel crazy when i point out that the threat of hell is just horrifyingly immoral, and the response i get is "god is justice" or "god is mercy".

    wait, what?

    ReplyDelete

Comments are unmoderated (free speech and all that) but I have decided to take off anonymous posting. If I can stick my head over the parapet, then common decency suggests that anyone wishing to debate should at least introduce themselves. :-)
Thanks. And feel free to comment about anything!