I wasn't going to discuss any further what I thought was tasteless on
this reflector. But I found the responses to my post rather interesting.
First, I found it interesting how strongly some have defended the
statements. That is indeed unfortunate. Most of the posters have
invoked Pascal's wager to defend the original statement, but they missed
the purpose of my response. The purpose was to show how incredibly poor
taste it is to claim someone is going to hell for their views, just as it
nothing more than a threat to claim that your life would be a complete
waste of time if you're wrong. It isn't a question of Pascal's wager,
it's a question of poor taste and threatening someone.
This is actually the reason Provine happily claims he'll go to hell if
there is a god. By doing so, it takes away the ability for an
"opponent" to threaten him with hell. It's disarming to simply agree.
Indeed, this type of threating is overwhelmingly common today. I can
spend a day watching TBN or some other Christian station and marvel at
how many times this argument is used - not only against atheists, but
other Christians! I think in one hour, I found out according to one
preacher, that virtually every christian denomination is going to hell.
One touring preacher visited the univeristy here and said that all
christians, other than his own sect, of course, was going to hell because
they were following a false savior.
It's nothing more than a threat.
This leads into Pascal's wager. The problem I've always had with
invoking Pascal's wager is that you're assuming that the God you believe
in is the correct god. If you're wrong, you are in the exact same boat
as the atheist.
Now, to make my final point, if all you can do when discussing with an
atheist or anyone who disagrees with you is bring up hell, then your
religion isn't really worth much. Indeed, that's a quick way to make an
atheist or only make the believers only believe out of fear. I really
don't think that's what Christianity is supposed to be about.
I've said my peace concerning what was said earlier, so I won't continue
this thread any further.
Tom