"Now the owner gives the slave a choice he can turn to him and serve him or he can deny him and condemn himself to torture. He has been given that choice."
As Chaela said, I think we're both saying the exact same thing here. This analogy is spot on and if it were a king or a general or a slave owner or even a parent who was giving someone this 'choice', you would probably be horrified. But you have a blind spot with they word 'holy' stenciled over it, one that says 'the god I believe in can do no harm' even though you are literally saying 'the god I believe in WILL do you harm if you don't believe in him too.' It's double think, plain and simple.
Now, you may say 'Oh, we send ourselves to hell, not god." But where did hell come from? Did your god not create *everything*, including then the place where souls are tortured forever? Why not have a two-tiered heaven, with one area for the majority of the folks who ever lived to exist in comfort and peace, and then another area for his special favorites? Is this beyond the power of an omnipotent being?
Now, I have heard a lot of different angles to christianity--universalism, calvinism, lutheranism, catholicism, baptism, each giving slightly different conditions one must meet to get to the 'happy dead people' place and avoid the 'tortured for eternity for finite offenses' place.
Most of them, however, follow the same pattern you describe: a choice that is not a choice. If someone holds a gun to your head and says 'do X', then yes, technically you could choose to get shot, but most people would assume they had no choice but to do as the gun holder said. Coercion through threat of violence and pain does not allow for freedom of choice, and it is also not the act of a loving being.
For atheists, it is like this. A bunch of people are telling me a guy is holding a gun to my head. I look around and see no one. They say he is invisible. I say that sounds unlikely, and walk away. Yet most of them are still convinced I am going to be shot. That line about the fool's heart is often quoted, but it means nothing. It is just words from an old book, not a timeless truth. But who is more foolish--the person who believes in an invisible gun man or the one who refuses to let fear of unproven assertions rule their lives?
Hi there, I'm a 'she'
