God, the Devil and You

god, satan, devil, good, evil, christian, christianity, jesus, bible, religion, morality,
Daniel Florien at unreasonable faith wrote an interesting post on how christianity hinders maturity. That post inspired me to write on a topic that has long bothered me about christianity- and when I say "long", I mean since I could tell you how old I was using my fingers.

The point of Mr. Florien's post is that christianity externalizes morality. There is no goodness for goodness' sake- all morality comes from god, and without god no one is moral. Hence this frightening episode:

For example, one time I was talking with a pastor about atheism. He said, “Let me tell you something. If I wasn’t a Christian, I’d have no reason to be good. Live up life! If someone offended me, I’d kill them. If was attracted to a girl, I’d rape her. Why would I care? Without God, there is no morality.”

“Surely you’re exaggerating simply to make a point,” I replied. “I don’t think you’re capable of such a thing.”

He looked me in the eye and said, “I’m not exaggerating.”

What disturbs me is that not only does christianity externalize morality, it externalizes good and evil. (Just to avoid the inevitable "Ah-ha! I've got you! You really do believe in god!" comment, I am using "good" and "evil" in the generally accepted sense of the words. Everyone who speaks English knows exactly what I mean, and I'm not here to reinvent the wheel.) Every bad thing is the work of Satan, every good thing is the work of God. In case you're not familiar with the way fundys view Satan as a clear and present danger in our lives, review this poem. (If you're interested in poetry, go someplace else.)

I understand the urge to externalize evil. It isn't easy to look at oneself and say, "yes, that is who I am. I am capable of terrible things. In fact, I have done terrible things, because I wanted to." It is far easier to say, "I was weak and fell for the devil's ploys. That wasn't me, though. All I did was let the devil use me to further his plans."

The problem with this is that we cannot conquer evil unless each and every one of us admits that we are the evil. It is inside us all. It is our responsibility and ours alone. Christians make this impossible. They are like a small child who breaks a vase while alone in a room and then says, "ummmm . . . Timmy did it!"

The converse of "the devil made me do it" is "god made me do it"- the externalization of good. It is the natural byproduct of externalizing evil. Christians cannot look in the mirror and say, "I am the good. It is me. I do good things because I choose to and I can choose to do them every day." This, too, makes it difficult to conquer evil in our world. Christians simply shrug at this and say, "Well, if god wants good things to happen, they'll happen. If not, bad things will happen."

To the christian, humans are like living puppets, null states of morality, stuck in neutral until some greater force- god, satan- intervenes. Like any puppet, we are powerless to effectuate change, powerless to choose, forever condemned to being pulled this way or that as something else twitches our strings.

This view of humanity is so bleak, I wonder at those who choose it. Is personal responsibility really so frightening that trading it away is also worth giving up hope? My only possible conclusion is that the concept that we choose the good and the evil and that our choices change the world is too much for them. It is too much responsibility. It is frightening. What offers the atheist hope offers the christian only fear.

Where do we go from here?