The Insanity Machine (and the Notion of God)

[MultipleTentacles]

1. It sounds like you're suggesting Judaism and Islam have no leverage. Only Christianity has a punishment for not serving God, and therefore it must be man-made (I'd like an explanation for that leap). You would then proceed to provide other, unrelated reasons why Judaism and Islam are man-made--making the criteria for insanity different for each religion.
2. Have you met many of this kind of Christian, or are you projecting popular culture? All of the Christians I know would never use hell to frighten. They use it because they believe its the truth. If a tidal wave is coming to wipe out New York and you knew about it, wouldn't you tell every New Yorker you find?
3. All (Biblically) well-read Christians should know that the threat of destruction does not save, a heart open to God's forgiveness saves. The Bible makes it clear that one must have faith to escape hell. The people who watched Noah build the ark were warned of the coming Flood, but the warning accomplished nothing without faith in the God who would send the Flood. Faith saves, threats do not. It is not logical for anyone to fabricate a religion that has to use false doctrine to scare people into joining.

Undeceived, I agree with everything you say here. Let me clarify and explain a bit:

Leverage is worldly. It is dialectic, involving a self, and an other. This is the definition of dialectic, and the basis of all things worldly and not divine. Thus the fact that any religion has any leverage at all is proof that that particular religion is defiling the Name of God.

Muslims do have leverage. They are conquerers; historically, they conquer nations and establish rulership. They use their military and economic might as leverage to establish Islam. But they do emphatically NOT use the philosophical tenets of Islam itself as leverage. They don't try to frighten people into joining their religion. Historically speaking, they would conquer a nation, establish rulership, and then allow the people who were living there first basically to go about their business without bothering them, because that's what the Quran instructs them to do. Case in point: most of India.

I honestly haven't studied Judaism all that much, but one thing I know about the religion would seem to basically undercut any attempt to use God as leverage in any way: They are AGNOSTIC about God. They have FAITH that God exists, but they emphatically and repeatedly insist that they cannot know God. God hides His face from the world so as not to destroy it; this is what they believe, and that is why they can't use God as leverage.

Jews, obviously, have a lot of leverage. They are highly intellectual, and in America anyway, they have a lot of money. But I think you would be hard-pressed to find a Jew who believes that their philosophical propositions and their money is in fact the Word of God. So no, again, Jews do not have religious leverage over people.

How does a real religion convert people, as opposed to a cowardly religion? A real religion will convert people by being nice, beautiful, wonderful people with warm hearts and kind words for everyone. Then, naturally, people will want to know their religious beliefs, and then follow them. A cowardly religion will convert people by focusing mainly on the fear of hell as a philosophical tenet, and then bully people into adopting the religion using fear of hell.

What Christian uses fear of hell as leverage? I've given evidence that Christians use fear of hell as leverage, in my response to Drich. In the current state of things, ANY Christian who doesn't believe that they are using hell as leverage is, I think, being intellectually dishonest about being a Christian. It is a demon in the back of their skull—the insanity machine—created by Church doctrines, forcing them around and making decisions for them. No, Christians are not evil. No, they do not want to hurt people, usually. But this demon in the back of their skull forces them to do it.

Want to save The Church? Work to ditch the demon.

Here is the evidence I've spoken of:

You want historical? How about the faith-destroying Saint Augustine, the father of the Latin church?

"God shall send them strong delusion, that they should
believe a lie, that they nil might be damned who believed not the
truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." Some people might
think it unjust that the Omnipotent should first deceive them,
and then punish them for being deceived; but to St. Augustine
this seems quite in order. "Being condemned, they are seduced,
and, being seduced, condemned. But their seducement is by the
secret judgment of God, justly secret, and secretly just; even His
that hath judged continually, ever since the world began."

From Bertrand Russel's History of Western Philosophy. St. Augustine: The first Calvinist.

Look at that statement, directly quoted from the original St. Augustine: "Being condemned, they are seduced, and, being seduced, condemned. But their seducement is by the secret judgment of God, justly secret, and secretly just...."

Translation:

"Because God says so, and if you don't believe in God you're going to hell for all eternity and you have no hope for anything. It doesn't matter if you know it's the right God because God has preordained that you will go to heaven or hell whether you know or not. Therefore you'd better know, or else you'll suffer in infinite burning pain for all eternity roasting and frying away in writhing agony forever."

Recent history, you ask?

Well aside from the obvious perfect harmony with the Calvinists, who are still quite powerful, let's look at "recent" history.

The "young earth Creationists" believe that "When the Bible and science disagree, they consider science to be pseudoscience—no matter how many learned men espouse it. They believe that this maxim applies: 'They have rejected the word of the Lord. Are they so wise after all?'" (Explore Your Faith by Ed Strauss) In other words:

"You can't argue with God. Everything I say has the authority of God and everything you say is from the devil. So adopt what I say or go to hell."

And how about this, from the same book:

By not preaching the gospel, Christians are, in effect, hiding it from those who are perishing. ... Some Christians suggest that those who've never heard the Gospel in this life will be given an opportunity to hear it in the next. ... This answer seems reasonable but doesn't find strong support in scripture. Indeed, the Bible seems to exclude it, saying that "each person is destined to die once and after that comes judgment."

Meaning that the Insanity Machine has the absolute right to say what is truth and what is fiction, whereas you have no such right, because obviously you haven't heard the true Word from a true Christian yet, and you will go to hell forever and ever for no reason.

From the same book:

He (Jesus) didn't answer that only very good people entered heaven. He said it was impossible for anyone to do so. ... However, Jesus added that with God all things are possible.

Meaning, of course:

Human: "Where do you get your authority?"

Insanity Machine: "From God."

Human: "How do I know it's the right God?"

Insanity Machine: "Because God says so, and if you don't believe in God you're going to hell for all eternity and you have no hope for anything. It doesn't matter if you know it's the right God because God has preordained that you will go to heaven or hell whether you know or not. Therefore you'd better know, or else you'll suffer in infinite burning pain for all eternity roasting and frying away in writhing agony forever."

Now don't try to tell me that this is just an isolated occurrence, or that "Not All Christians Think Like That." My original argument was that it can be generalized across Christianity. "You just got your sources from one book lol!" One book which I picked up in the Christian book section of a grocery store, with an intended audience, obviously, of everybody. Tell me, mr. marginalized and demonized Christian, exactly how many Christian sources do I have cite before my argument becomes valid?

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I have to say a few more words...

Do many Christians try to use hell to frighten? Actually, I have known Sunday School teachers who did exactly this.

However, it really doesn't matter, as long as the demon exists. The point is not what Christians are doing, but what the demon is doing. And to examine what the demon is doing, we can't simply examine what Christians do, but why they become Christians in the first place. Why do new people convert to Christianity? I'd bet that the fear of hell has a lot to do with it.