It seems to me that a central principle of Christianity is that those who choose to accept Christ as their personal saviour gain access to Heaven whilst those that choose not to are punished or lose out in some way once their lives are over.
But this is based on a notion of belief which we now know to be false.
Believing a proposition is not a choice you make.
It's something that happens to you, not by you.
If you disagree, consider whether you are able right now, to believe that you have a diamond the size of a fridge buried in your garden. Or that your mother is a secret agent working for ISIS.
You are simply not at liberty to believe this, no matter how much you may want to. The only way your brain would accept the truth of the proposition is if you saw the diamond or caught your mother relaying information back to her ISIS contacts.
Then?....
Then you would have no CHOICE but to believe it.
Presented with compelling evidence we are forced to accept the truth of a claim and in the absence of it, we are unable to do so.
Everything we know about neuroscience supports this idea. There are neurological correlates to belief in a given proposition. And they are not voluntary.
With this in mind, it seems unreasonable for God to punish people who are simply not convinced of the claims of Christianity.
I have an open mind but I just don't find Christianity any more convincing than any other religion. It's not because I hate God, or want to sin or anything like that.
I have heard the claims and simply find myself unconvinced by them in exactly the same way as most people here are unconvinced by the claims of Scientology or Hinduism.
That's not a choice you made. Your brains just didn't buy what they were selling.
Given this understanding of the cognition of belief, what is the moral justification for punishing non-belief?
But this is based on a notion of belief which we now know to be false.
Believing a proposition is not a choice you make.
It's something that happens to you, not by you.
If you disagree, consider whether you are able right now, to believe that you have a diamond the size of a fridge buried in your garden. Or that your mother is a secret agent working for ISIS.
You are simply not at liberty to believe this, no matter how much you may want to. The only way your brain would accept the truth of the proposition is if you saw the diamond or caught your mother relaying information back to her ISIS contacts.
Then?....
Then you would have no CHOICE but to believe it.
Presented with compelling evidence we are forced to accept the truth of a claim and in the absence of it, we are unable to do so.
Everything we know about neuroscience supports this idea. There are neurological correlates to belief in a given proposition. And they are not voluntary.
With this in mind, it seems unreasonable for God to punish people who are simply not convinced of the claims of Christianity.
I have an open mind but I just don't find Christianity any more convincing than any other religion. It's not because I hate God, or want to sin or anything like that.
I have heard the claims and simply find myself unconvinced by them in exactly the same way as most people here are unconvinced by the claims of Scientology or Hinduism.
That's not a choice you made. Your brains just didn't buy what they were selling.
Given this understanding of the cognition of belief, what is the moral justification for punishing non-belief?