Rational Dreaming

Of all the religious concepts I wrestled with while I was still a Christian, it was the doctrine of salvation that proved to be the decisive factor in my transformation from a believer into an atheist.  No matter how much I tried, I could not find a way to rebut the logical inconsistencies that kept popping up all over the place when I thought long and hard about the issue.

I was born and grew up in Britain, where my family were heavily involved with the Methodist Church—a very liberal denomination by American standards—and I continued to attended church services, if somewhat sporadically, after I left home and well on into my twenties.  Although I have always had moments of doubt about Christianity, I didn’t seriously consider the possibility that it may only be the elaborate invention of the human mind until I was in my early thirties, soon after I had arrived in the States.  (The two events are not entirely coincidental.)

Having made several trips to the U.S. before moving here, I was already aware that the Christian community is divided into two camps when it comes to the doctrine of salvation—one that believes you must ask for and receive personal salvation before you can enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and one that believes personal salvation is not essential and that you can get into Heaven as long as you a lead a reasonably decent and honest life, even if you are not a Christian.

That may sound odd to Americans who are only familiar with the very public face of the Religious Right in the U.S., but there are millions of liberal Christians who balk at the thought of billions of non-Christians being destined for eternal damnation when they die.   Many choose to ignore the issue, but those who do study it often end up minimizing the importance of salvation by claiming that “many ways can lead to God.”   And so they gain comfort in believing that even if you are a Jew, a Muslim, or a non-believer, you can still get into Heaven when you die—unless you’ve been a really bad boy, like those archetypal denizens of Hell, Stalin and Hitler.  Thus salvation becomes little more than an optional extra in their eyes—it’s nice to have, but it’s entirely unnecessary.

Obviously, conservative Christians regard this attitude to be a dangerous copout that results in the damnation of millions of souls that could have been saved.  In a way I tend to agree with them.  If Jesus really said “No one comes to the Father except through me.” and if he was correct, then Christians who seek to minimize the importance of salvation are living on dangerous ground.  But having considered the ramifications of the doctrine of salvation for myself, I also find myself rejecting the notion that any deity worthy of praise would ever impose such an illogical and capricious system of rules upon us.

When believers don’t insist on making salvation an all or nothing thing, it isn’t really an issue worth spending much time debating.  But when the act of “being saved” is made an absolute requirement for all those who want to avoid uncountable trillions of years of unimaginable suffering and torment in Hell, it colors the believer’s worldview so much that the impact of this doctrine is felt well beyond the walls of their house of worship, into the political and cultural realm beyond to the point that families are torn apart and religious dogma replaces good government policy.  That is when others need to sit up and take notice, and that is why I have decided to write a series of blog posts about the issue.

I will be examining the various problems with the doctrine of salvation in more detail in future posts in this series, so please stay tuned.