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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2748 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for August 13, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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What’s not obvious is why a thinking atheist should care about such things

It is equally not obvious why a thinking Christian theist should care about any earthly affairs and do not concentrate only on saving souls from eternal fire. In theistic universe, all worldly things will soon perish with no consequence, while hell is eternal.

It is equally not obvious why a thinking Christian theist should care about any earthly affairs and do not concentrate only on saving souls from eternal fire.

Christians do not have the power to save souls from eternal hellfire. Each person chooses whether or not they want to accept salvation, and by far the best influence you can have on their decision is to be genuinely involved in their lives. If they are concerned with earthly affairs, being involved in their lives is going to require you to be at least a little concerned with earthly affairs as well. Being a Christian does involve putting a hard cap on how concerned one is with earthly affairs, though.

Being a Christian does involve putting a hard cap on how concerned one is with earthly affairs, though.

Well, how many Christians' concern with worldly life crosses the line (and by a lot). It seems the case of overwhelming majority of them.

Well, how many Christians' concern with worldly life crosses the line (and by a lot). It seems the case of overwhelming majority of them.

Perhaps, or perhaps not. Certainly caring more about earthly affairs is an error I'm prone to, which I must constantly try to resist, and a lot of people calling themselves Christians don't seem to be on the right side of the line. On the other hand, I'm not confident that either of us can rigorously identify where the line between "making a good-faith effort" and "only pretending to try" is, and I'm certainly not confident that most non-Christians even understand what Christians are aiming for.

A thinking Christian would consult the Gospel as a guide, where he would find that God actually wants us to celebrate and be happy in honor of his glory, as well as to reduce the suffering of others. But a more general point can be made. Can we devise a teleology where purpose and motivation are maximized? Such that a person dwelling on the purpose of things and the nature of life can actually be motivated toward bettering the world, and not say to himself “well I will be dead so who cares”? Yes, we can. The easiest way is to believe in a loving judge, something shared broadly among theistic religions. Another would be a reward or punishment cycle based on deeds, which is the karmic wheel.

In the theist worldview, while the material world is fleeting, human action is immensely important — every action will be accounted for. Therefore there is motivation to behave according to a standard.

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