On the way to hell

Several of my Christian friends are quite concerned for me, I am an atheist. I do not believe in any kind of god, and I do not believe any of the stuff Christians claim about Jesus: that he was the son of God, that he was the Jews' promised Messiah, that he gave his life to atone for the sins of humanity.

Specifically, I don't believe that it does any good to "accept" Jesus as my personal savior. I see no reason to do so. So I don't. (I think it makes more sense to rely on my Fairy Godmother.)

And that means - according to my "born-again" friends - that I am going to hell. I will burn forever in the lake of fire and brimstone, tormented beyond imagination, for all eternity, for ever and ever. What a beautiful and joyful religion!

If one were going to believe in an afterlife, where good people are rewarded and evil people are punished, I can see where that would make some sense. And, as I read the Bible, that seems to be what many passages in the Bible say: we will be judged by what we have done, whether it was good or evil. At least that makes sense, and seems to be the sort of thing a "just" god would use as his standard of judging.

But no, that isn't the way it works, say my friends. Everything depends on whether you "accept Christ." I have asked them, just to make sure I did not misunderstand, "So you are saying that a man who has lived an evil life, committing all kinds of crimes, murders and other evils, who repents and decides to believe in Christ just a week before he is excecuted, will go to heaven?" "Yes, if he truly repents and truly believes."

"But an atheist like me, who has lived his entire life as a good person, helping the needy, obeying the laws, loving his fellow man, and generally contributing to the betterment of humanity, but who sincerely thinks the whole Christ thing is absurd, will suffer eternal torment?" "Yes. It may not seem fair, but that's the way God works, and who are we to question God?"

I will admit that other Christian friends are much kinder, and assure me that somehow God will find a place for atheists in his heaven. I don't think they have read their Bible or listened to the sermons at church, though.

Some of my Christian friends assure me that they are praying for me to see the light and come to Jesus. It doesn't seem to be working. But it doesn't seem to change their belief in the power of prayer.

What Good is Faith?

Religious faith can be a dangerous thing. Not always, of course, but all too often. It was religious faith that motivated the slaughter of the Crusades and the cruelties of the Inquisition. Religious faith was what led the men to hijack the airliners and fly them into the Twin Towers. In more subtle ways, it is religious faith which often binds people to false ideas, false hopes, and confining creeds.

I see two benefits (and only two) from religious faith.

For some, faith gives a glimmer of hope (even if unjustified) that there is something better than the world in which we find ourselves, an indifferent and sometimes threatening world, with which many of us are unable to cope if left entirely to ourselves and our fellow humans. It is very comforting, I am sure, to tell yourself that some supernatural, all-powerful being (who naturally has your best interests at heart) is watching over everything and directing it for your benefit. And that if you ask him (or her, or it) nicely enough, and pleadingly enough, and if you are very, very good and faithful, the laws of nature, of cause-and-effect, will be temporarily suspended for you. And even if your pleading does not get the result you desire, it must be a comfort to know that the creator and CEO of the entire universe at least considered your request. And to know that it was probably your own fault that your request was not granted.

But many believers do indeed find this comfort, and I do not begrudge them that. The only slight annoyance I feel is that as a result the believers generally think that we non-believers are poor, miserable, frightened, and sorry souls, joyless and pointless. Nothing could be further from the truth, based on my personal acquaintance with hundreds of atheists, agnostics, secularists and humanists. Almost all are happy, well-adjusted, accepting of the limitations of what we can accomplish in the world, but willing to assume the responsibilities of doing what we CAN do, with human (and only human) effort, rather than looking to the heavens for help while we sit on our praying hands.

The second benefit of religious faith was expressed well to me by a Christian friend. He assured me that before he "found Christ" he was a wife-beating, cheating, alcoholic son-of-a-bitch who did not care about anybody but himself. "You would not want to have known me then!" he told me. He went on to say that the only thing that kept him even half-way decent was his religious faith that God did not want him to do all those bad things.

I realized then the great value religious faith has for society, since it keeps people like my friend from being an annoyance and danger to the rest of us. I have had other believers (mostly Christians) assure me that if it weren't for their religious faith, they would be seducing the neighbor's wife, robbing convenience stores, kicking the dog, and grabbing old ladies' purses. "Thank God you believe!" I tell them. "You make life better for the rest of us" (who do not need the threat of divine punishment in order to avoid robbing a bank or raping a cheerleader).

So religious faith is what protects us from those Christians.

But that's it. That's all I can see as benefits of faith. And there are so many drawbacks, if you can possibly do without it.