Food for Thought: A Discourse on Deities

[marrowick]

Originally Posted by Dad_Scaper

You do you, gentle reader, but keep your judgment and your sales pitch to yourself. We are all friends here, but we are not such good friends that we want - with threads like this excepted - to wave politics and religion in each other's faces.

Speaking as someone who falls under this category, I shall attempt to relay why I disagree with you on this.

I understand that you were specifically rebuking what I'll refer to as 'signature proselytizers', for lack of a better term. Nonetheless, I shall start by giving an argument for proselytizing in general, as that in itself can sometimes be seen as offensive, and then build up to your point.

When one believes wholeheartedly in an afterlife where one either suffers eternally or experiences eternal joy, as I do, how much must I hate someone who I believe may be going to hell to not try and tell them what I believe to be the way out of this suffering? To use an example, how much do I have to hate someone to not tell them they are running towards a cliff and are going to fall, regardless of whether they believe me or are even offended by my attempt to tell them.

A well known atheist, Penn Jillette from Penn & Teller, says essentially the same thing in this video.

YouTube

Now that I've made my case for proselytizing in general, I'll get to why I disagree on your point specifically.

I agree with you that, when you look at the black and white of 'signature proselytizing', it can look like I'm slapping you upside the head with the bible. 'Signature proselytizing' can seem like the online equivalent of you asking me how I'm doing and me responding with "the Bible is true and you should be following it", but that's not why I do it. I 'signature proselytize' because it allows me to proselytize, in some form or another, even when I'm not active on the site. For instance, this is my first post on the site in months, but because of my signature I was never, in all that time, not trying to reach people. I admit there are much better ways to proselytize, as most active means would be more potent than any passive means, but I do it not to be rude, but because I love you too much to stop.

I don't want you, or anyone else, to go to hell, and I wish you could understand how much it breaks my heart to think that there are people out there who are going to suffer for eternity. I would love to be able to force people to be saved for the sake of their eternity, but that's not how I believe salvation works.