Religious wars are still being fought around the globe. But let’s go back in time…in the early 1600’s in Japan…Christian missionaries arrived in Japan and started converting the Japanese to Christianity.
Because the Powers that Be were fearful of losing the loyalty of the masses and that more people would convert to Christianity…laws were passed banning Christianity. Japanese Christians were given a choice they could recant and deny that Jesus Christ was God or they would be taken to the nearby beach and tied to a cross with rope. Then when the high tide came in, the tide would sweep higher and higher until they drowned.
Many of the Japanese Christians refused to recant and many of the children followed their parents and refused to recant.
As the high tide started coming in they began singing their hymnals. Needless to say they all drowned. Was this Courage and Faith or was it fear.
Did they refused to recant because they feared that they would go to Hell.
Or was it courage because they expected their faith to take them to Heaven.
Not so fast there. It’s the 17th century, before the age of science. You are, once again, projecting your modernist view on people who lived in an entirely different world.
It’s full of logical flaws and baseless assertions that ought to be obvious to some guy from the Stone Age, much less the 17th century. Science isn’t necessary.
So are you saying that in the modern age Jesus Christ has as much relevance as Santa Clause? So, these Japanese-Christians in the 17th Century decided to die because they believed in Santa Claus.
They died because they believed in something as silly or more so as Santa Claus. And because the rulers of the time were bloodthirsty authoritarians, of course.
Except that most people weren’t, and aren’t, trained in logic. Well, those who went to Cro-Magnon U. might have taken a course or two to fulfill their humanities requirement, but that’s a tiny minority.
The flaws in Christianity and other religions are really obvious (including to most religious people themselves - as long as it’s someone else’s religion they are looking at). They didn’t believe in Christianity because of its nonexistent plausibility; they believed in it because they wanted to believe so bad that they willfully deluded themselves. Faith, in other words.
The burden of proof is on you. Give us proof of the average level of knowledge about logic among “Stone Age” people, and then proceed. The facts before us is that the overwhelming majority of such people did not come to a logical conclusion the same as you did, and so the most parsimonious answer is that they could not. But if you have proof of their level of logical skills, bring it.
Historically, some of our most logical and gifted men have been religious. We are talking about a lineage that extends back to St. Augustine to Einstein. Most of the ministers and pastors I know are logical and gifted people.
Let’s assume that the Japanese-Christians were logical. Is there anybody that is willing to say that their act of defiance was courageous.
Exactly. It’s about hope. Hope that there will be a place without cancer, a place where you can see grandpa again… all of that. Seems too good to be true! All I have to do is believe in God? Sure! Anything to be able to be in paradise for eternity!
But wait… my choices are between paradise or eternal suffering? That makes my choice even easier!