The majority of the people in my family (immediate and extended) are evangelical Christians. As in, the sacrifice-your-life-for-others, help-the-helpless kind of Christians. And the majority of them voted for Trump. There's an incredible disconnect on display there, and it bewilders and saddens me. Once set in your religious identity, it appears to be incredibly unintuitive to turn off the "God's in control" or "His truth is my truth" area of your brain and thus make yourself less susceptible to the people who aim to manipulate you.
Being able to observe that in such a demonstrable way last month shook me. And so 2016, in its last shitty hurrah, torpedoed the last burning remnants of my Christian faith.
I began to consider the possible reasons for the cognitive dissonance in my family and religious people in general, and recently had a revelation about why sharing the Gospel is so appealing to so many people. To reach a world beyond hopelessness and death, evangelical Christianity doesn’t mandate that anyone suffer lasting or even meaningful penance.
It only requires someone to say to another person, “you’re right.”
Specifically, “You’re right, every human being is afflicted by an indistinct force called ‘sin’ and is thus undeserving of living in the same realm as their common ancestor’s creator, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent entity made from three separate-but-also-not-separate smaller entities. You’re right, one of those entities did transfuse their essence into a Y chromosome two thousand years ago in the Middle East, assumed the form of a human male, and took the blame for our sin by being a perfect offering akin to the spotless lambs used in ancient Hebrew rituals. You’re right, this individual—100% human and 100% deity—did rise from the dead with no injuries after being crucified (except for a few physical scars where it’d be most poignant) and floated off the ground into outer space, according to the testimony of hundreds, or at least dozens, of people. You’re right, our consciousnesses are in reality immortal spirits, and acknowledging the entity’s sacrifice is the only way for my own spirit to acquire a new physical form and live happily in the entity’s sinless realm without the desire for, or possibility of, conclusion after death.”
The peculiar and convoluted aspects of the belief itself notwithstanding, the path to salvation (i.e., "accepting Jesus into your heart") seems deceptively simple, which in actuality reveals the true hierarchy of objectives for Christianity. It’s far more important in the Christian faith to persuade everyone around you to be like you and think like you and act like you—thereby allowing you to feel less alone and uncertain—than it is to better yourself as an person or to always accept others for who they are.
No one can easily resist that kind of constant and observable social assurance. I lived it; I remember it. You’re right, you’re right, you’re right, look at all these people who say you’re right, listen to the man at the microphone with power and money saying you’re right, absorb the mental gymnastics of others in order to further convince yourself you’re right, surround yourself with people who help you be even more right, fight to your dying breath against the possibility of being wrong.
And the whole time call it humility and sacrifice.
But it doesn’t matter if you donate to that shelter. It doesn’t matter if you cheat on your spouse. Because you’ll wake up tomorrow and, whether you feel good or bad about yourself, you’ll still be RIGHT. So selflessly forgive a painful grievance. Build a well in Africa. Break up the families of immigrants via deportation. Murder another human you’ve trained yourself to think is an “enemy combatant.” It’s all the same. As long as we’re sure Jesus died for us, none of it matters. The odds of death being a lot like how it felt before you were born disappear. Existentialism disappears. Distrust in the nature of your reality disappears. The idea of loved ones being gone forever disappears.
That’s a feeling more powerful, I believe, than any narcotic can offer, and from my perspective, a potentially much more dangerous one. When Paul in Philippians says if Christianity is wrong, a believer is “useless” and to be “pitied more than all men,” how could one possibly remove such a linchpin of one’s wellbeing and stability?
I no longer expect that insidious dependency to waiver anytime soon among the people I'm close to, just like I wouldn’t expect a substance addict to rehabilitate themselves immediately. But I have real faith that someday our descendants will break through the lies and find real hope, and real joy, beyond the rigid and ultimately hollow spiritual concoctions of frightened lifeforms navigating an existence we have no hope of ever comprehending. Even though it'll basically be a hellish Waterworld kind of deal at that point.
Humans apparently need some kind of constant to comfort us. For now I’ve found it in the simplest, and I think healthiest way possible: making the most of the beautiful, short time I have as a conscious being, no matter what that entails.
A lot of us have experiences growing up in similar religious environments to some extent (it's a majority white male forum). Could this be an accurate explanation as to why it's so difficult to persuade certain people away from this particular institution, despite the large role it has played in promoting hatred and blocking progress?
EDIT: Mods, could you change "born-again" in the title to "evangelical?" You don't have to if you don't want to
Being able to observe that in such a demonstrable way last month shook me. And so 2016, in its last shitty hurrah, torpedoed the last burning remnants of my Christian faith.
I began to consider the possible reasons for the cognitive dissonance in my family and religious people in general, and recently had a revelation about why sharing the Gospel is so appealing to so many people. To reach a world beyond hopelessness and death, evangelical Christianity doesn’t mandate that anyone suffer lasting or even meaningful penance.
It only requires someone to say to another person, “you’re right.”
Specifically, “You’re right, every human being is afflicted by an indistinct force called ‘sin’ and is thus undeserving of living in the same realm as their common ancestor’s creator, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent entity made from three separate-but-also-not-separate smaller entities. You’re right, one of those entities did transfuse their essence into a Y chromosome two thousand years ago in the Middle East, assumed the form of a human male, and took the blame for our sin by being a perfect offering akin to the spotless lambs used in ancient Hebrew rituals. You’re right, this individual—100% human and 100% deity—did rise from the dead with no injuries after being crucified (except for a few physical scars where it’d be most poignant) and floated off the ground into outer space, according to the testimony of hundreds, or at least dozens, of people. You’re right, our consciousnesses are in reality immortal spirits, and acknowledging the entity’s sacrifice is the only way for my own spirit to acquire a new physical form and live happily in the entity’s sinless realm without the desire for, or possibility of, conclusion after death.”
The peculiar and convoluted aspects of the belief itself notwithstanding, the path to salvation (i.e., "accepting Jesus into your heart") seems deceptively simple, which in actuality reveals the true hierarchy of objectives for Christianity. It’s far more important in the Christian faith to persuade everyone around you to be like you and think like you and act like you—thereby allowing you to feel less alone and uncertain—than it is to better yourself as an person or to always accept others for who they are.
No one can easily resist that kind of constant and observable social assurance. I lived it; I remember it. You’re right, you’re right, you’re right, look at all these people who say you’re right, listen to the man at the microphone with power and money saying you’re right, absorb the mental gymnastics of others in order to further convince yourself you’re right, surround yourself with people who help you be even more right, fight to your dying breath against the possibility of being wrong.
And the whole time call it humility and sacrifice.
But it doesn’t matter if you donate to that shelter. It doesn’t matter if you cheat on your spouse. Because you’ll wake up tomorrow and, whether you feel good or bad about yourself, you’ll still be RIGHT. So selflessly forgive a painful grievance. Build a well in Africa. Break up the families of immigrants via deportation. Murder another human you’ve trained yourself to think is an “enemy combatant.” It’s all the same. As long as we’re sure Jesus died for us, none of it matters. The odds of death being a lot like how it felt before you were born disappear. Existentialism disappears. Distrust in the nature of your reality disappears. The idea of loved ones being gone forever disappears.
That’s a feeling more powerful, I believe, than any narcotic can offer, and from my perspective, a potentially much more dangerous one. When Paul in Philippians says if Christianity is wrong, a believer is “useless” and to be “pitied more than all men,” how could one possibly remove such a linchpin of one’s wellbeing and stability?
I no longer expect that insidious dependency to waiver anytime soon among the people I'm close to, just like I wouldn’t expect a substance addict to rehabilitate themselves immediately. But I have real faith that someday our descendants will break through the lies and find real hope, and real joy, beyond the rigid and ultimately hollow spiritual concoctions of frightened lifeforms navigating an existence we have no hope of ever comprehending. Even though it'll basically be a hellish Waterworld kind of deal at that point.
Humans apparently need some kind of constant to comfort us. For now I’ve found it in the simplest, and I think healthiest way possible: making the most of the beautiful, short time I have as a conscious being, no matter what that entails.
A lot of us have experiences growing up in similar religious environments to some extent (it's a majority white male forum). Could this be an accurate explanation as to why it's so difficult to persuade certain people away from this particular institution, despite the large role it has played in promoting hatred and blocking progress?
EDIT: Mods, could you change "born-again" in the title to "evangelical?" You don't have to if you don't want to
