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>> ZJ: Hi, CriticalQuestion. I watched your video, and you brought up some interesting
points. I'd like to answer those now. Throughout your video, you claimed that the examples
of negative religious behavior I cited were "extreme", "obscure", and gave an inaccurate
impression of what Christianity is. And while I'm glad that you, too, consider these practices
to be undesirable and thus wish to dissociate yourself from them, I have to ask: Which of
these examples were "extreme" and not representative of Christianity? Is it the family conflict
that religious differences can cause? Was Jesus mistaken about how divisive this would
be? While I'm fortunate to have avoided this myself, I've personally heard from plenty
of atheists who have experienced genuine hostility from their families, specifically because
they no longer share their religious views. Is it the religious opposition to abortion
that you consider to be "extreme"? At many clinics, it's gotten to the point where they
need escorts just to protect women from crazy screaming protesters so they can get in and
out of the building safely. Plenty of these clinics require protection by armed guards,
and the doctors who work there need bodyguards. All this at a medical facility, for goodness'
sakes! This is certainly not obscure or abnormal -- it's a fact of life for them. Is it about
the weakening of public education to accommodate religious beliefs? It's true that explicitly
creationist curriculum has been largely eliminated from public schools, but there are still many
school districts -- especially in the South -- which simply neglect to explore the topic
of evolution in any detail because it could conflict with students' religious views. That
isn't doing them any good.
How can like, an African-American person evolve from a white person? We're different skin.
>> ZJ: Likewise, abstinence-only education is directly drawn from a religious ideal of
human *** behavior that just doesn't reflect reality. 95% of people have premarital sex.
Simply telling them not to is completely unrealistic and fails to adequately prepare them to deal
with sex in a safe and responsible manner. And yet this is all that Christianity has
to offer in terms of sex education. Is it the religious resistance to gay rights that
you see as not being part of "popular Christianity"? If so, consider what happened in California
and Maine. In the campaigns for Proposition 8 and Question 1, Catholic and Mormon churchgoers
gave millions of dollars to ban gay marriage. And they did so at the direction of their
leaders. They were not some rogue element; this was an organized movement approved by
the church hierarchy. Are you really going to dismiss Catholics and Mormons as "very
obscure"? According to polls, support for gay marriage decreases as religious attendance
increases. Unfortunately, this *is* representative of Christianity. Is it the religious objection
to the use of condoms for the prevention of AIDS? Because this is an official policy of
the Catholic Church, and in terms of Christianity, Catholicism is hardly at the extremes. Or
is it the hunting of "witches" in Africa? This is actually a widespread social problem
that must be dealt with as such. It can no longer be viewed as merely a coincidental
series of isolated incidents. These literal witch hunts are the direct result of the belief
that witches exist, they have magic powers, and they must be stopped. Where would anyone
get an idea like that? Yet again, it's religion. If you're saying that all of this is "extreme"
as in bizarre, outrageous and totally unacceptable, then I would have to agree. But if you mean
this is "extreme" as in abnormal? Sadly, it just isn't. Now, you also suggested that these
various doctrines were a departure from what you call "normal Christianity". But how do
you decide which version of Christianity is the right one? Is it yours? Because the same
people whose beliefs you dismiss as "extreme" would insist that *their* religion is the
"normal" one, and yours isn't. Of course, the mere fact that you disagree with one another
doesn't mean that both of you are equally wrong or right. The problem is that neither
of you have any useful way to determine who is right. The branches of Christianity have
no shared standard by which to measure whether a particular version of Christianity is, as
you said, "functioning as it should". They all think they're functioning as they should.
That's why Christianity and its myriad denominations fail to converge, consolidate or reach any
kind of doctrinal agreement that allows them to reunify. Instead, the religion simply shatters
into thousands of mutually hostile fragments every time some dispute arises that Christians
can't or won't reconcile. So they go off to start a new church instead. Given this sectarian
tendency, claiming that your preferred version of Christianity is the "normal Christianity"
ultimately means almost nothing. Any Christian would likely say the same thing. You also
brought up a few issues regarding the concept of hell. Most notably, you suggested that
the possibility of hell is not something that believers are especially worried about. Now,
if you're saying that Christians don't consider hell to be a real place, it seems rather obvious
that many if not most of them do. The Catholic Church comprises fully half of all Christians,
and their leader has stated outright that the fires of hell really exist and are eternal.
And beyond that, there are certainly plenty of Protestant denominations that share this
view. If you're suggesting that they don't actually believe this particular tenet of
their faith, then all this indicates is a disconnect between what Christians profess
to believe, and what they truly believe. Some might describe that as dishonesty. Of course,
maybe that wasn't what you meant. Perhaps you do believe that hell is a real and unpleasant
place -- you just think this isn't something to worry about. If that's the case, I would
have to ask if you've ever spoken with any former Christians for whom this was seriously
distressing during their time as believers. I'd also suggest talking to some agnostics
who are afraid to openly admit they don't believe in God because of the persistent fear
of what might happen to them. Really, if you're going to tell people that hell exists and
they might end up there, how can you be surprised when they actually believe you? Are we supposed
to implicitly recognize that this is nothing but an elaborate role-playing game? The idea
that you can truly believe in hell, while not being concerned about it in the slightest,
is genuinely puzzling to me. You said that you don't worry because you're "assured of
salvation". But when it comes to something like hell, just how "assured" are you? Let's
make sure that I've understood this correctly. First: There is a place called hell where
people are tortured forever. Second: It is possible that you could end up there. Third:
Some of the possible reasons that you could be sent there range from things like ***
and ***, all the way down to trivial lies by omission and even just thinking the wrong
thoughts. You really believe all of this, and yet you're not even worried about it?
I really don't mean to question your honesty, but I find it difficult to believe that you've
genuinely incorporated hell into your mental model of the real world. The reason I say
this is because your attitude does not seem to reflect an actual belief in hell as a real
place. Imagine if hell was real and existed in reality, rather than just a concept in
the minds of Christians with no evidentiary support. Suppose that every time you sinned,
which encompasses even thoughts, you had 30 minutes to acknowledge that you did something
wrong and make a sincere expression of apology and regret for that. Otherwise, you would
immediately be dragged screaming into another dimension by an unearthly vortex of flames.
And you would burn forever. Now, if this was a real, credible threat, if this was something
that could actually happen, that did happen, that you had seen happen to other people...
would you really be so "assured of your salvation"? Would you still be so unconcerned, because
you're sure it won't happen to you? You're not even worried about the possibility? You
might think this is a faulty comparison, considering that according to Christian doctrine, hell
doesn't take effect until after you die. And you have the rest of your life to make sure
you're "right with God". But how long is the rest of your life? You could just as easily
die of a bus crash, or an aneurysm, or a meteorite impact -- in the next 30 seconds! And then
what would happen? Do you really think there's not even a small chance that you might end
up in hell for some reason or another, especially given the vast array of wildly varying Christian
beliefs? But, who knows? Maybe you truly do feel completely certain that you can avoid
hell. And really, this just reveals another remarkable perversity of religion, one which
I failed to adequately explain in my initial video. Your religion has given you license
to confabulate the most fantastical nightmares out of absolutely nothing, and pretend that
they're actually real, and then just as easily banish them on nothing more than a whim. Since
when does something as significant as eternal torture hinge on something so comparatively
trivial as your own mental state? Your religion tells you to believe that this is how the
world actually works, when all it's really doing is drawing you away from reality and
into a fantasy where magical thinking suddenly becomes effective. You know what this reminds
me of? There's a television show about people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and this
guy was one of their subjects.
The whole El Camino thing started because one day in the car, an El Camino drove by
us, and my buddy Russ was like, you gotta wipe that off. And I was like, what? And he's
like, wipe off the El Camino or something bad'll happen.
>> ZJ: So, what does he do when he sees an El Camino?
HOLY ****! There's one right there! Mother ******!
Holy ****.
>> ZJ: And he just keeps wiping his hands for 10 hours straight, or else something bad
will happen. Now, what is the difference between these two scenarios? Something bad is going
to happen because there's an El Camino, but it's okay, all you have to do is wipe your
hands for 10 hours. Or: Something bad is going to happen because there's a hell and you're
going to burn there forever, but it's okay, all you have to do is believe that a man was
crucified and died 2,000 years ago. From the perspective of someone who doesn't share your
beliefs, these situations are isomorphic. They are totally inane, obviously imaginary,
and just plain bizarre. The only difference is that a person with OCD understands on a
rational level that this makes no sense at all. Their problem is that they're compelled
to do it anyway. Yet for religious people, this is apparently voluntary. They've consciously
opted into a belief system that treats this absurd scenario as something that's real.
So, you might think there is a hell. And you might also think you're completely invulnerable
to it. But to the rest of us, looking at this from the outside, you're just wiping off the
El Camino.