Cutting off the Last Straw from Religion - Fear of Hell - Two Quick Reasons to let go

[FreethinkingSceptic]

When I was leaving Christianity as a young teen, I recall the last thing holding me back was the fear of hell. The point of this post is to show two quick reasons for those in this in-between state of religion and irreligion (specifically in regard to Christianity/Islam which threatens your eternal afterlife with punishment) and how you can move past this.

1. Fear is not a reason to believe + Belief is not something you can choose

Fear being used to act a certain way, to behave in a specific manner or declare something is not a reason. It is not a logical argument or evidence.

It is a coercion tactic. Think of the action-movie you've seen with the prisoner strapped to the chair being beaten to give secrets. That is what religion does with belief.

One could also say that the threat of prison for committing violent crimes is a coercion tactic as well. Does that mean you would believe there is nothing wrong with violent crime, simply because the state coerces people who commit it?

If the last thing holding you onto religion is the fear of the afterlife (hell), then recall that fear is not a reason. It is a coercion tactic. If all that's left is the coercion, the fear itself, but there is no substance (no evidence to the truth or existence of God/Chrsitianity), then there is no reason to believe.

I'm curious what is stopping you from committing violent crime? If there is no afterlife, and serial killers such as Jeffery Dahmer want to spend their lives harming people, what is stopping them from doing that? Or you, for that matter, if that's what you decide you want to do?

Furthermore, if it is just a deep-seated fear that is left, maybe you are due for a bit more introspection. If there is no other reason, then you simply cannot choose to believe in the existence of god. There is a distinction between choosing to act a certain way versus believing something. You cannot choose what you believe in. You are convinced of it, and so you believe in it. If you somehow believe in something you are not convinced of, you are just lying to yourself, or acting.

2. Giving yourself to a lying religion then causes you to lose this life to it.

If you're afraid of losing an eternal afterlife due to lack of belief, consider the alternative-- you are losing this life to religion if you decide to pursue it and it is a lie. Every minute you spend praying, every hour spent in church, every moment spent studying its scriptures, you are wasting your time on lies. Now, if you want to study Christianity as an intellectual exercise, by no means will that be a waste of time, but the time is wasted when you realize it is all a lie. It is like spending time with a scammer who is buttering you up to steal from you. It is like going on dates with someone who is not interested in you.

Right, but that merely presumes that there isn't an afterlife, or that your actions in this life don't affect lives to come.

I would argue that you don't know there isn't an afterlife, and even if you fall back on insisting that the material world is all that exists, or that existence ceases when your brain stops functioning, those premises can easily be argued against.

For as much fear as you have to losing an afterlife, do not forget the risk you incur of losing this life you're in right now.

Those are just two of the big arguments to fear of hell/pascal's wager that I see less often talked about, and thought was worth a post.

The problem is that even if you disbelieve in Christianity or the Judeo-Christian concept of hell, you still haven't proven that a God or an afterlife, or consequences for your actions in this life don't exist.

Sure, you can insist that they don't, but one could easily argue that this is just being willfully ignorant and that ignoring the possibility of your actions in this life affecting lives to come isn't worth the risk. Wouldn't spending some of your life trying to find out if there is a God or afterlife, rather than just blindly believing that there isn't any, be a smarter choice?