I’ve just started reading Wilson’s The Creation(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), and I’m enjoying it—my wife read it first and recommends it, too—and I wish it would help. I’m a bit cynical, though, especially since I just mentioned the sad affair of Joel Hunter (certain evangelical Christians refuse to consider any issues beyond the gay and the fetus), and now I caught (via the Friendly Atheist) an episode of This American Life on Carlton Pearson, an evangelical preacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He had a thriving church with tens of thousands of members, when he had an insight: there was no hell. No eternal torment for damned souls. Jesus came to earth to save everyone, not just the few, not just the true believers. He called this the “gospel of inclusion”. You can guess what happened.
The church collapsed. People stopped attending with no hellfire to goad them on.
It’s acutely depressing, if you want to listen.
So far, Wilson is only telling us about the wonders and importance of biodiversity, without one word about being cast into the abyss if you step on an ant, or if you dare to engage in any sexual practices the Cosmic Superbeing dislikes. I wonder if it will resonate with his intended audience.
Approaching this from a psychological perspective:
If everyone is going to be saved, then what separates and distinguishes the community from everyone not in the community? What makes them a tribe, as opposed to just a group of people? Most importantly, if everyone is going to be saved, what makes the tribe right, and better than everyone not in the tribe?
You cannot maintain social institutions founded upon some of the deepest human instincts and desires by contradicting those instincts and desires.
I heard that TAL over the summer, and you’re right; it is depressing. Here this guy is actually preaching a kind of Christianity that has some Christ in it (for chrissake) and he gets completely abandoned and shunned by this Christians. Jesus.
It was a great episode, but Daley, I think you missed the part about him basically being shunned by a church that was previously in the Oral Roberts evangelical mold. So, not really all that surprising. There are many liberal churches who basically preach what he preaches that do very very well for themselves, so it isn’t necessarily the message that’s unpopular, just the particular audience he tried to pitch it to.
It also talks about he IS finding a new religious audience: most notably, gay people. When you stop telling them that THEY specifically will go to hell, they tend to listen more. Crazy gays!
As the atheist son of a Baptist evangelical, I can say that nothing gets the evangelical juices flowing more than the prospect of the unsaved meeting their just rewards in hell. They’ll deny it with a smirk on their faces. But you always know what they’re thinking.
Just watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire last night. (short review – WTF?)
Reminds me of the the newly resurrected Voldemort castigating his minions for not helping out with the resurrection. Then comes to the one minion who actually did the work, “But you didn’t do it out of loyalty, but out of fear.”
Or something like that.
I heard the This American Life segment. While I sort of sympathize with Pearson, he’s still Christ-Psychotic. So he’s not drinking the grade-A Kool Aid; he’s still sucking down some high-fructose pop and not really doing anybody any good.
The evangelicals were right to excommunicate him; at least they are consistent to their twisted dogma.
Who Would Jesus Dump?
That a church would not survive a radical change in the theology of its pastor should be a no-brainer. He might as well have asked his church to convert to Islam or Buddhism. It simply is not going to happen. The congregation will simply move to other churches with the same old beliefs or drop out. The same would go for a liberal church pastor suddenly asking the congregation to become fundamentalists as well. Or imagine if the preacher still believed in Hell, but no longer believed that Jesus was the way to avoid it. The results will be the same.
I might also point out that I have seen people giving testimonials while crying: they failed to witness to someone who then died and thus went to Hell unsaved. Hell causes a lot of distress among fundamentalists. I don’t that vast majority of the fundamentalists want people to go to Hell. In the end fundamentalists are people like everyone else: there are good ones and bad ones. It is the bad ones that wish others to go to Hell.
One might also point out that without Hell, fundamentalist Christianity simply becomes pointless. The whole point of the exercise is that Jesus offers salvation. Without Hell, there is nothing to be saved from (from their point of view).
I agree completely with Mike. This is a no brainer. If the people in this congregation were interested in a message of inclusiveness and forgiveness they would already have been members of the Tulsa UU church.
It’s all the more peculiar, if not hypocritical, now that whenever I ask an evangelical I’m arguing with that, should I refuse to be swayed by their moronic argument, will they then tell me that God is going to reject me and subject me to eternal damnation simply because I don’t want to agree with them.
THen it’s as if that person never existed.
I must say I think the pastor is on the right side of this. I have often wondered why if Jesus did die for the sins of the world you must believe it happened to make it true. He either removed the sins or he didn’t. To ask someone to believe it seems to make it a non event.
How can you know your place in the universe if you don’t know who’s beneath you?
I would like to think that if the pastor at my in-laws’ megachurch suddenly started preaching this message of universal salvation, they would give up their soul-crushing certainty that their son, daughter-in-law and grandsons are all bound for Hell and we could all move along as one happy family.
But realistically, I know they’d do just as Pearson’s parishioners did. They’d decide ol’ Pastor Dan had gone off the deep end and find a new, suitably fire-breathing church to join. Grandkids be damned; we’ve got a Devil to fight.
That’s a really interesting teaching, the “gospel of inclusion.” It sounds a lot like Buddhism. Some Buddhists actually accept Jesus as a bodhisattva.
I can’t stop laughing at this. So Christianity is nothing more than an overglorified three-minute hate for a bunch of rejects who just can’t get over that this life is all they have? Not only are they hatemongers and hypocrites, they’re all assholes as well (if that wasn’t already implied).
I found the radio story of Carlton Pearson downright inspiring.
Just goes to show that people can change and grow.
Isn’t that what Unitarians believe? But I guess the sort of people that go to evangelical churches probably aren’t interested in Unitarianism…
Actually, to get technical,the doctrine of universal salvation is Universalism (the other, and sadly often neglected, strand that went into the merged Unitarian Universalist denomination.)
Since my last comment I downloaded the program and listened to it on a walk around the neighborhood.
The preacher has for all practical purposes created a new religion. People came to his church for Christianity and all of a sudden they got something else. I really don’t blame them for leaving. If I join an organization and all of sudden its leader pulls a 180 and advocates something previously contrary to the goals I believed in then I would in all likelihood leave too. The exception would be if he was able to convince me.
Of course that this guy is preaching that his church really does not matter does not help either. In any event his church is pretty much dead. Of course there is a very tiny chance that his new religion might find its own “Paul” and begin to spread.
Anybody who promotes the ideas of the Sermon on the Mount will be denounced as a heretic. As practiced in the United States, Christianity is just a form of paganism whose idol happens to be named Jesus.
I was a little disappointed that the TAL segment focussed on the reaction of the other churches rather than what this new church believed. I would love, no sarcasm at all, to hear Christists develop a justification for doing good that doesn’t involve fear of hell.
I admire Mr. Pearson’s honesty in admitting that he misses the status in his former position. That doesn’t stop me from casting a jaundiced eye on his motivations for preaching. Hmm, spreading the word of god or looking for adulation?
Not hardly. He merely shifted sects. Instead of being a hard core penetacostal, he’s now a Unitarian or a rather lively Presbyterian. What he’s preaching now is exactly what I learned in the rural Presbyterian church of my hometown. Still, your point is well taken, it’s no surprise his congregation for the most part wasn’t interested in change.
I can’t resist saying (all in good fun) that it would be like PZ suddenly talking more like Ed Brayton. Just like the Rev Pearson lost 95% of his congregation when he stopped telling about Hell, if PZ stopped calling people idiots a whole bunch of the mighty keyboard warriors here on Pharyngula would never come back — but some of us would keep reading.
Universalism is a valid branch of Christian doctrine and can be supported biblically as well. He gave them a version that is a legit as any other and much more peaceful actually and morally coherent.
And your wrong Andy S, PZ writes so well and advocates his position so forcefully his readership would remain.
This is one of the things I see wrong with religion, as compared to science. Religions fragment. They diverge. The smallest difference among a congregation may be reason to split into two new sects, and the members of each sect may find that small difference reason enough to kill each other (think Sunni Muslims vs. Shiite Muslims).
Compare this to the sciences, where diverse fields such as chemistry, physics, geology and astronomy — VERY different initially — find common ground, cross-connections and mutual evidential support.
In addition to the fields themselves, in the human realm of the practitioners of science, a biologist in Germany has a LOT in common with a biologist in the U.S. – who may share credit for a paper with a biologist in Brazil, who corresponds with a biologist in Australia, who co-directs a research project with a biologist in Japan. And while they might argue vigorously over aspects of their work, they don’t end those arguments by going out and establishing competing fields of biology buttressed by murder of their rivals.
Religions diverge; the sciences converge.
How many religions are there? Thousands? I know of several minor ones and one semi-major one (Scientology) that have come along (to my disinterested attention, anyway) in my lifetime alone. And news of the past year or two has carried a number of stories of sectarian splits over hot-button issues such as gay marriage, or the ordination of gay priests.
How many sciences? Isn’t it really only one? When you really look at them, apparent walls dissolve and biology becomes chemistry, chemistry becomes physics. A paleontologist seeks help from a nuclear chemist, and he receives not just some grudging general agreement about his field, but solid evidence for his scientific conclusions, which then also bolsters the study of the local geology, which reflects data back into evolutionary biology.
The sciences converge. Walls fall down and create an ever more powerful, cross-connected, wide-open field of knowledge. Because science depends on FACTS, which are so obvious in the light of supportive evidence that they come to be accepted by the vast majority of those in (and outside) each field.
Religions diverge. New walls are built up, seemingly daily, creating ever more confusion and uncertainty. Because religion depends on FIZZ – ancient myths, unsupported assertions, fantastic claims, fuzzy-minded opinions, hopeful guesswork, repetitive slogans, and no small amount of predatory lies – so much so that even close family members can disagree violently about what a single passage in their culture’s own holy book means.
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To a certain extent the episode of TAL was depressing: my heart sank as I listened to yet another tale of friendships ended and shunnings due to a theological difference.
Yet even as an atheist, I finished listening with a sense of optimism. Pearson may still be an evangelical, and he did not tackle the next logical step: why his God would have created a world with so much suffering as to render the Christian concept of eternal damnation obsolete. However, such a change of belief in the face of his upbringing and career required thought and compassion. He’s on the right road.
I doubt it. I am actually more with Brayton than with PZ on that issue. I will agree with GH: that PZ writes well is one reason he has a following. Of course PZ does not have an organization asking for money either.
I think a better analogy might be Richard Dawkins suddenly converted to theism and was shocked that his foundation suddenly lost most of its old supporters. Or maybe if ESPN was surprised that its ratings went down when they replaced Monday Night Football with a chess tournament.
A lot of bloggers write well. PZ distinquishes himself in two areas: volume of posts and in the angry, arrogant atheist attitude. My guess is that without the AAAA readership would drop off considerably as it would for PowerLine, LGF, and dKos if they toned down the rhetoric in their respective areas.
I sure hope some Christians buy this book and realize that Ed Wilson means no harm. It really is a shame that some of these folks need to be told that less biodiversity is less desireable, or that we really do need to stop polluting the air we breathe. However, having known quite a few evangelicals myself has given me an appreciation for the task. So weird and baffling!! I guess when one really hates one’s enemies, one hates everything they stand for; environmentalism included.
“My guess is that without the AAAA readership would drop off considerably as it would for PowerLine, LGF, and dKos if they toned down the rhetoric in their respective areas.”
Yeah, and if the local grocery started offering only vanilla ice cream, I’d stop buying ice cream.
Heh. If “Reality has a well-known liberal bias,” then actual reason must have a well-known “arrogant, angry atheist attitude.”
Interesting. The idea that there is no hell is actually what Jehovah’s Witnesses believe, their reasoning being that the word used throughout early translations of the new testament that later became the word “hell” – “sheol”, if I remember correctly – more accurately translates as simply “grave”. So, the Witnesses conclude, there is no hell. In my short time with the Witnesses in my youth, I found that part to be nice. They’re loaded with hypocrisies and fallacies like any other faith, eventually leading to my atheism, but that part was nice.
Step right up folks and view the “arrogant, angry, atheist, attitude” for free, absolutely free, as free as the air. yes-sir-ree don’t go looking for the naked ladies on the tubes of the internet, no-sir-ree, I mean naked ladies you can see anywhere, even in art galleries and museums but this, ladies and gentlemen is the one, the only place where you can view the “arrogant, angry, atheist in all its naturalistic splendour.
/snark
Why is religion so rarely seen as being arrogant. The mind boggles; “I have the truth, the one and only truth, and if you don’t say you believe my truth I will kill you, your family and perhaps even everyone else who also does not believe the same as me”
Anger is sometimes justified.
Most Christians, including conservative ones, already have one. Which they use to in turn justify the existence of hell.
Sure, conservative Christians use the fear of hell more than any ethical argument when cautioning you against sin, but they’re not sociopaths–they just think everyone else is.
Exactly. The complete lack of undeserved “respect” towards absurd ideas is why I like this blog. PZ has the incredible rudeness to call idiocy “idiocy”. Of course, any application of reason on religion is going to be interpreded as rude by the faithful. If religion wasn’t intellectually indefensible, we’d obviously see a lot less of this complaining about manners.
Hector Avalos, the author of Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence came to speak at the October meeting of Minnesota Atheists and outlined his “scarce resource” theory of religion; in essence, religion creates a “false scarcity” by making salvation a need and then denying that “need” to certain (other) groups of people, thus reaffirming both salvation’s value for and its uniqueness to the so-called chosen. If your religion does not create this scarcity, then in most people’s minds it is not a religion at all and has no value. (For example, why is gold more valuable than fresh, clean air?) I’m with Caledonian; religion cannot counter its own purpose by appealing to a modern, universalist sensibility when it has its roots in one’s need to be superior to others.
And while it’s true that Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in hell per se, they do believe that the chosen will get to live their lives over again on a perfect earth in which tigers and lambs also play peaceably together. The wicked person (everybody, everybody who is not a JW) goes to the grave and that’s it. They’re still pretty unpleasant at funerals if the person wasn’t a JW.
It is also interesting to note that Paul, who was supposed to take jesus’ words to all of the gentiles of the then-known world, never mentions that hell was part of the deal.
So, apparently, he didn’t think much about that consept. Or, since he never met jesus, it looks like he basically hijacked christianity from jesus.
To quote Matt Groening from his ‘Life in Hell’ strip:
“We’re not holier than thou. We’re just holier than you”
The complete lack of undeserved “respect” towards absurd ideas is why I like this blog.
It’s also just such a perfectly sane attitude. Meta-conversation:
‘Ye must respect my idiotic notion! I hold it very dear to my heart, y’know!’
‘Yeeeahhh… you might want to get over that, hon.’
I also read Butterflies and Wheels, for much the same reason. One mildly interesting difference: Ms. Ophelia Benson over there tends to talk explicitly about why it is those ideas deserve so little respect (and so very much less than they like to claim for themselves), tends to explicitly dissect the rather frequent conceit expressed in the popular press that they should have some sorta special protection…
Whereas PZ just writes the way that analysis would suggest is only sane. Raspberries blown where warranted.
I sorta see them as framework and instantiation for a badly underrepresented and much needed approach to certain lunacies…
Which would be: call them lunacies. As counterintuitive as that sounds.
Which, for some people, are actually the same thing.
Sounds exactly like the doctrines of an ancient English theologian named Pelagius (d. ~420 CE). Pelagius reasoned that an act of human sacrifice some four centuries before his time had removed the curse of Original Sin in all ways – a generous interpretation that got him excommunicated and his ideas dubbed forever after as “the Pelagian heresy.”
PZ notes:
It figures, quoth I disgustedly. Far too many self-proclaimed “Christians” haven’t a clue where the evangelion – literally the Good News – is concerned. Sad to say, a lot of it is deliberate. The very thought of associating with “those people” scares the crap out of them.
PZ again:
Step on an ant? If Wilson were going to cast anyone into the abyss for anything, I should think that would be it. =grin=
But in all seriousness, I admire Wilson for taking on the issue, and I wonder how much of the religionist side will even bother to take a look.
Jim Harrison says:
You got that mostly right. I figured out a long time ago that Fundamentalism is basically a form of idolatry – Bibliolatry, Jesusolatry, pastorolatry, and now in many cases, televangelistolatry and penisolatry. (Recently I saw a video clip in which a well-known televangelist said in so many words that God is represented by all things that are “in the shape of a penis.” Bleccchhhhh. I’m not making this up; you can’t make up crap like this.)
OTOH, not all Christians are like that. My family and I have been hanging out with the heretics all our lives. (A pastor I know has a sign on his door: HERETIC-IN-RESIDENCE.) We don’t yell as loud as the Fundies and there aren’t as many of us, but as the Whos said in Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who:
“We are here! We are here! we are here!”
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Hank Fox says:
Amen to that. One of my brothers is a hardcore Fundy. We have an unspoken understanding: we never, ever talk about religion.
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Anton Mates says:
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “Christists,” but I grew up with a few justifications:
Where I come from, those didn’t come with any “fear of hell attached”; they just make sense. They make the world a better place to live. If there was any “fear of hell” involved, it was fear of the living hell on earth that would result if we didn’t follow those instructions.
Kristine says:
Interesting concept. I’d never thought of that in so many words. but I can understand completely where Avalos is coming from. Far too many people treat religion as a commodity. The ones who harp on “giving” and convince the flock to send in huge amounts of money are doing exactly that.
Some of the most blatant offenders come right out and say to the gullible that they can “buy” their way not only to salvation but to earthly wealth and happiness. It has a name: the Prosperity Gospel. Whatever you give is supposed to come back to you tenfold or so. The other side of that coin is the “name it and claim it” crap; if you pray hard enough for something, you’ll eventually get it. Look at the pastor; he’s the holiest guy around, and just like that other Fundy favorite, “Hookt on Fonnix,” it shoor werkt fur him!
Not only is it abominable theology, it preys disproportionally on poor people, who get into it in hopes of bettering their financial situation and who tend to be the biggest percentage givers in the first place, at least in part because they look at the actual dollar amount and feel a bit guilty that they can’t give more. Remember the Widow’s Mite? The rich were thinking, “Wotthehell, it’s only money,” and the poor woman put in what was probably her food money for the next week.
Hmmmmmmm……….. Take from the needy and give to the greedy. why am I suddenly thinking of Reaganomics?
As for the Jehovah’s Witlesses, who needs ’em? Half of my dad’s family are JW’s. Weird bunch. One of my cousins bled to death after a car accident because my aunt and uncle wouldn’t authorize blood transfusions. The same aunt and uncle cut off all contact with another of my cousins who left for a different church.
The Christianity I’ve known all my life doesn’t. Jesus said flat-out to two disciples who were squabbling over just that: “Whoever would be greatest among you must be the servant of all.” At the Last Supper, he did the slave’s job of washing the disciples’ feet (over vehement objections from good old hardheaded Peter).
It’s human selfishness that makes people act otherwise. I suppose it’s a leftover animal instinct; we all want to claw our way up the food chain and be the alpha wolf. Too bad so many of us forget that other animal instinct: altruism.
Aw, c’mon, what an attention-grabber – please, name a name!
Despite strenuous efforts in evangelism, I never have been able to convert various girlfriends to that particular form of worship (at least, for much longer than a weekend).
Twasn’t me, actually, I was just quoting an earlier post and screwed up the formatting.
My Christian childhood acquaintances tended to have a very un-hell-based morality; in fact, most of them didn’t believe in hell except as a sort of temporary rehab station for folks like Hitler. But then, I grew up in Berkeley.