Published on August 27, 2025 11:05 AM GMT
By and large, I expect that we as a community are somewhere south of a 3 on the Dawkins scale.
So considering that from our point of view, we inhabit a godless universe, It's very hard for us to see things the same way as an Evangelical Christian ( If any Evangelical Christians are reading this, no hate to you). Consider how the world would look like for you if you believed that:
- A god who both created, presides over and interferes with the universe exists.This same god has a preferred way of being worshipped and demands obedience with tenants he set forth. All other methods aren't agreeable to him.
He will grant eternal life to you should you obey him. If you do not obey him, he will either: (a) Punish you forever, (b) Simply let your consciousness cease to be once you die.
I think that for all intents and purposes, the answer to the question in the title changes dramatically depending on whether we live in world (a) or (b). Let's imagine the following scenario:
One day, you sit at home idly scrolling through Lesswrong ( or Reddit ) and you hear the most beautiful choir ever. After ensuring that you weren't hallucinating you head outside and see a cohort of beings that could only be described as angels descending from the sky. The cohort is headed by a swarthy bearded man with long hair clad in a white robe and a crown of thorns. He speaks for days on end, his inital words are lost to time but soon the news vans roll in and he's recorded as the world watches with bated breath... no one understands him, because very few people actually understand Aramaic. But the experts are summoned and the experts convene and the experts agree that the Evangelical Christians were right. Unprecedented levels of debate, both academic and popular follow. You and hordes of people from around the world watch close and listen intently. You hear every argument and counter argument until you've decided with p(99%), that Christianity is and always has been true. It is now as clear to you as the fact that 2+2=4. It's not just you either, the fact that Christianity is the most accurate way to explain reality becomes apparent to everyone else as well.
Of course, you know that you could be persuaded otherwise (that perhaps the creatures you saw were aliens or constructs created by a superintelligent time travelling AI), though for now at least, it seems reasonable to suppose with a high probability that the Evangelical Christians were right. Now what?
For the wages of sin is death
Let us consider that there will be no sinner-filled lake of fire awaiting you once you die. Your death will simply be the cessation of your conscious experience. If you were an atheist before the second coming, then your beliefs in this area have not really shifted much. This life will still be the only one you experience. Yet, what if there was a way you could truly attain immortality? And not through cryonics or gene therapy or by losing your mouth and gaining a deep desire to scream but merely by accepting that the swarthy man in white from earlier allowed himself to be tortured and killed to pay the price for your sins which his father ( who is also him) could have simply chosen to forgive. Sounds simple doesn't it?
Not so. For you see, he may disagree with you on what should be considered a sin. You may agree with him that it is deeply wrong to kill people or unjustly deceive others but you may not agree that fornication with a consenting partner is a sin. Or that being gay or trans is an affront to god. If you're gay and/or enjoy fornication, you must renounce these desires to be eligible for eternal life. If you're a fulfilled trans woman you must accept that you have been on a doomed path this whole time if you wish to outlive the earth.
But would atheists despair at this knowledge... or rejoice? During their transitional period into atheism (assuming they previously believed in an afterlife), many people begin to lament the loss of an afterlife, or rather their belief in one. I myself began to wish that I'd either never been born or been born into an atheist household where I'd have grown up not believing in an afterlife. I'd compare this to being born into an old money family, expecting to inherit incalculable wealth and-oh no, 2nd cousin Wilhemina just squandered the family fortune. Now you're in the poor-house. Contrast this to having been born in the poor house, knowing damn well that you will have to swim upstream, dodging bears of debt.
So, if you were told that while you would miss out on a reward, you wouldn't be slapped with any additional penalty... how would you feel? Would you go happily to your end, now knowing that the only consequences for imbibing in copious amounts of worldly pleasures are worldly? Or will this knowledge be bittersweet, for you will doubtlessly see friends giving everything that made them themselves up just because they don't want their worlds to end? Will you be among them? Would you do such things?
Would you sell your soul to save it?
For the wages of sin is hell
And what if we consider that there will be a great penalty imposed upon you when you die? That you will burn forever in a great pit of fire that even Dante was far too charitable in his depictions of? That you will rub shoulders with both Hitler and the scores of children who did not believe in the divinity of the white-clad man. Let us assume this was made apparent when the angelic choir descended, and you believe with p(>80%) that eternal torture will await you should you die unrepentant. What would happen to the world? will we see mass conversion camps and endless cults? What would you do? Would you live harder? knowing that your rebellion will end in failure? Or would you give up everything you are to survive? Will you willingly live an eternity in denial simply because you (understandbly) do not wish to live in fire?
Would you sell your soul to save it?
Discuss
