Fundamental Arrogance in Christianity

[Redoubtable]

I'm genuinely mystified by what you've written here.  I've been a Christian for 36 years, and a serious one, of sorts, for the last 20, and much of what you've said that Christians believe is completely foreign to me.  In re-reading it, I think I can make some tenuous connection to it, but it's been so twisted and re-stated to make Christians seem far more arrogant and militant than they or their beliefs would actually make them in reality.

Please keep in mind I'm not talking about attitudes of arrogance in individual Christians, I'm talking about the system in general.

First, yes, it is reasonable to have faith.  Second, yes, you are morally obliged to put your faith in God.  However, your moral obligation is not to me and not to the Christian religion.  Your moral obligation is to God, and Him alone.  Everyone is morally obliged to obey their Creator.  In fact, if the God of the Bible actually exists, then this would seem to be a pretty uncontroversial claim, would it not?

I agree with most of what you say here (I do believe in a God) but I have reservations about the Christian belief system in particular. The issue I have is that we are told we have a moral obligation to adhere to the true religion (and reject false ones), not controversial at this point, but the problem to me is that arriving at this conclusion demands an intellectual leap that goes beyond the evidence. If this course is not outright unreasonable then it is at the very least a gamble and an often imprudent gamble in my opinion. Muslims and people of other religions make similar claims, that at some point, even if things don't make sense we have to take a leap of faith and accept their faith as true. So what makes a leap of faith a reliable method of arriving at particular beliefs?

So from my point of view it is unfair for the God of Christianity to threaten his own creations with eternal suffering for not coming to the conclusion that Christian beliefs are true. The arrogance to me lies in the fact that someone's inability to come to the conclusion that Christianity is true is reckoned to be a moral failure on their part, and such a moral failure in the Christian God's eyes that it merits the fires of Hell. To me that's like having a teacher not stating or not stating clearly what the requirements for an assignment were and then punishing the students who did a poor job, calling them lazy slackers who deserve an F for being unable to make the leap to assume what the requirements were.

Anyone of us would view that teacher as an arrogant sociopath, and yet it seems to me that the case of people approaching Christianity is far more difficult than the classroom situation in my analogy. So many people haven't even heard of Christianity to begin with, and from my former practice and study of it there are enough reasonable doubts about it (even if it was true) that any good, just, or merciful God (if he is indeed good, just, or merciful) would be inclined to not condemn his creations to eternal torment for not being able to come to the conclusion that it is true.