On Rejecting the Gospel Because of Sin

That's the Christian claim, that non-Christians reject the gospel because we prefer to sin (or do wrong). Let's try to put this canard to rest.

Do you, Christian, reject the Mormon faith merely because of its requirements? Do you reject the Muslim faith, the Buddhist way of life, Jainism, or the Jehovah's Witnesses because of their proscribed religious and moral duties? Some of them have much more strict requirements than your faith does. A Jainist does not eat meat. A Buddhist attempts to achieve a state of consciousness whereby he does not have any desires. A Jehovah's Witness refuses blood transfusions. A good Muslim woman will wear a burka. A Mormon wears magic underwear.

If these religions had sufficient evidence for them no one would reject them merely because of what they require of us. But when it comes to sufficient evidence it must include all of the evidence, and part of that evidence is the moral and religious duties it requires of us if we were believers. If we were considering a militant Muslim faith that called upon us to kill people who didn't believe, this would certainly be relevant to whether such a faith is true. And there are certain things Christians think are required of God that are relevant to whether such a faith is true too, currently but not exclusively, misogyny and heterosexuality. Some Christians do not want to take their children to a doctor. Others are snake handlers. Others do not believe in birth control. Still others think the world is going to end soon and so they don't care about the environment or the possibility of war (and they run our country!) Others defend the Jewish nation no matter what and thereby have helped contribute to world instability. And the history of these requirements are relevant as well. The church believed witches and heretics should be killed and the church did not think slavery or misogyny was evil.

So if sin is defined as certain actions I reject out of hand, then that is a relevant factor to my rejection of Christianity. I am indeed rejecting the gospel (which is embedded in the Bible as a whole) because I do not agree with its requirements as part of the total case against Christianity.

There is more.

There are specific religious duties to each religion and then there are moral duties people have to other people. I see no evidence that non-Christians behave any better or worse than Christians when it comes to moral duties to other people, obeying Jesus' second greatest commandment (if anything, religions cause more harm than good). This tells against Christianity because it is the one religion claiming God, the third person of the trinity, resides in the believer (in some sense) empowering them to be good to others.

When it comes to religious duties like tithing, evangelizing, praying, church attendance, Bible study, and so forth, which makes up Jesus' first greatest commandment, I see no evidence that Christians behave any better or worse than non-Christian religious people when it comes to these duties, once we translate them into comparable acts. This also tells against Christianity because again it is the one religion claiming God, the third person of the trinity, resides in the believer (in some sense) empowering them to obey Jesus' first greatest commandment.

People who do not believe in any religion look at this lack of evidence and conclude religion is man made. We simply dispense with Jesus' first greatest commandment as irrelevant and unnecessary for our lives.

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