Church, state and doing what comes naturally

msbeadsley msbeadsley at yahoo.com
Fri Dec 26 20:50:33 UTC 2003


> > Kathryn Cawte:
> > Well to be fair it's not necessarily ignorance in the case of 
> > trying to force someone to change their mind - depending how 
> > religious you are and which particular brand of any religion you 
> > follow some people strongly believe that anyone not following 
> > that belief is destined to burn in hellfor all eternity (or 
> > whatever your particular religion views as a punishment). <snip>
 
> Laura replies:
> To me, that's a fear reaction.  That kind of stance is adopted by 
> people who feel threatened.  And it often goes hand in hand with 
> extreme social conservatism, hostility to those different than you, 
> anxiety about change and so forth.  The fear comes from having 
> their world view challenged and from living in an environment that 
> they perceive as unstable and unpredictable.  It's a sort of 
> societal Luddite-ism.

But it isn't. Evangelical Christians read scripture to say that 
anyone who isn't converted to believe as they do is damned to eternal 
torment. Those *who have already converted* (the true believers) are 
secure ("fearless") in their salvation, and focus on getting everyone 
else over the hump. (It's especially tricky to deal with family 
members who are convinced that you will not be with them in the 
afterlife unless they convince you to "get saved" (or at least manage 
to drag you in to the church where those who are "filled with the 
Holy Spirit" (IMO, pros who are good with the tricks of the trade--
not to imply they themselves don't believe what they're peddling; I 
think most of them do) can get at you).)

While the doctrine may have *developed* out of fear of "other," now, 
for those who believe, it's more a matter of believing that the world 
*needs* saving, one soul at a time, for the good of each of those 
souls. It is also a way for those who believe they have been saved 
from certain and eternal torment of showing love of God, by bringing 
more souls back to Him.

I hope no one is offended (either for or against). This is the 
religious tradition I was raised in; but personally, while I can 
still be deeply moved by Christian/Evangelical hymns, carols, 
sermons, etc., it strikes me (for many years now) as another noble 
mythology, not so different from Tolkien's. (I've seen RotK twice 
now, and dripped tears through most of it both times.)

> This isn't to say that those people don't sincerely believe in hell 
> and all that stuff.  But I think that a philosophy of that nature 
> originates in fear.  It must not be a very joyful way to live.

But it is. The "belongness" among Evangelicals and the sharing of 
worship often leads to something like an ecstatic mass hysteria. The 
belief that a powerful and perfect being laid down his life so that 
you could be reunited with the supreme powerful perfect being can be 
a real high. If you get good enough at maintaining that belief 
strongly enough, you can walk around most of the time in a state of 
near-euphoria. (And then you have *that* to thank God for as well, 
and "witnessing" seems such a logical way for that to manifest!)

Of course, churches and belief-systems (reference "memes") are self-
perpetuating organisms, and tolerance can sometimes seem contrary to 
their survival mechanism (speaking of *instinct*). And don't we 
humans just delight in being one up on each other: "holier than thou" 
or having something to "lord over" each other? Yet...remember, most 
people just aren't very introspective (and the more faith is 
required, the more introspection is actually discouraged), religious 
or not: to the true believers, their reactions probably seem to them 
to be the hand of God in their lives. (I confess to some envy; it 
felt good to be carried. The beliefs I hold now (as a neo-Pagan) 
require much more from me (including tolerance) in order to achieve 
anything like the same degree of satisfaction.)

Sandy, hoping everyone had/has wonderful gatherings, where applicable





More information about the HPFGU-OTChatter archive