There is a scene in the Man in the High Castle where a Nazi commander, Obergruppenführer John Smith, realizes that his son is suffering from an illness. Since the Nazis kill any sick or crippled people, the debilitating illness means his son will have to be killed. For anyone watching this heart wrenching subplot play out, welcome to the face of your religion.
I have often wondered how in the hell it is that Christians can be so accepting of an idea like hell. Unlike Obergruppenführer John Smith, who is confronted with the painful realization that his son will have to die because he is not physically perfect, Christians never seem to notice that their own belief in hell means they could reach the pearly gates just in time to see their own children sent to hell (or purgatory, which is a kinder, gentler hell for good Catholics) for similarly failing to be spiritually perfect.
That Christians never seem to give such an idea even a single thought means they are either perfectly fine with watching their own children being dragged off, kicking and screaming, by angelic henchmen to be tortured incessantly for all of eternity without any hope of escape, or they are perfectly fine with having the idea of their own children being so tortured completely erased from their minds, so that they can enjoy the bliss of heaven.
Such parents will simply take the blue pill offered by Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix, it appears, thank you very much! and pretend they never knew anything about their child in the first place. Either that, or "out of sight, out of mind," as when the characters in the movie The Beach, decided that one of their members who had survived a shark attack, who was killing their fun by moaning about their pain, should be dragged far enough into the woods, where they would be left to die, so that others could no longer hear their cries. And that, in a nutshell, is ultimately the Christian view of Heaven.
Or to put it more simply, it is to believe that a person who expects to enjoy a never ending party in the attic of a house, will be bothered not at all by the prospect that their own children might be being endlessly burned alive in the basement. This is true even if the heat from the fires below is what is being used to keep guests attending the party above quite comfortable indeed. In fact, many a Christians might very well relish the idea of being allowed to stoke the fires.
In either situation, the Christian is quite contend to accept whatever fate may befall their own children, as long as they are blissfully ignorant of whatever demons may be savagely tearing that poor child limb from limb for all eternity, as long as they as nestled quite comfortably in the bosom of the loving God who created that unending torture chamber along with all of the ghastly ghouls that inhabit it.
It is just hard for any atheist on this planet or any other to imagine that such people, who are so willingly to either accept or turn a blind eye to the endless suffering of their own children, could ever be worthy of an eternal reward in paradise for having the ability to do so.
Indeed, only someone with the hubris to believe they were ever deserving of an eternal reward in heaven could ever be perfectly happy with the idea that others deserve to suffer the most cruel tortures imaginable for all eternity in hell. For the atheist, however, it is only the former that the Christian religion claims are the most deserving of the latter.
I have often wondered how in the hell it is that Christians can be so accepting of an idea like hell. Unlike Obergruppenführer John Smith, who is confronted with the painful realization that his son will have to die because he is not physically perfect, Christians never seem to notice that their own belief in hell means they could reach the pearly gates just in time to see their own children sent to hell (or purgatory, which is a kinder, gentler hell for good Catholics) for similarly failing to be spiritually perfect.
That Christians never seem to give such an idea even a single thought means they are either perfectly fine with watching their own children being dragged off, kicking and screaming, by angelic henchmen to be tortured incessantly for all of eternity without any hope of escape, or they are perfectly fine with having the idea of their own children being so tortured completely erased from their minds, so that they can enjoy the bliss of heaven.
Such parents will simply take the blue pill offered by Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix, it appears, thank you very much! and pretend they never knew anything about their child in the first place. Either that, or "out of sight, out of mind," as when the characters in the movie The Beach, decided that one of their members who had survived a shark attack, who was killing their fun by moaning about their pain, should be dragged far enough into the woods, where they would be left to die, so that others could no longer hear their cries. And that, in a nutshell, is ultimately the Christian view of Heaven.
Or to put it more simply, it is to believe that a person who expects to enjoy a never ending party in the attic of a house, will be bothered not at all by the prospect that their own children might be being endlessly burned alive in the basement. This is true even if the heat from the fires below is what is being used to keep guests attending the party above quite comfortable indeed. In fact, many a Christians might very well relish the idea of being allowed to stoke the fires.
In either situation, the Christian is quite contend to accept whatever fate may befall their own children, as long as they are blissfully ignorant of whatever demons may be savagely tearing that poor child limb from limb for all eternity, as long as they as nestled quite comfortably in the bosom of the loving God who created that unending torture chamber along with all of the ghastly ghouls that inhabit it.
It is just hard for any atheist on this planet or any other to imagine that such people, who are so willingly to either accept or turn a blind eye to the endless suffering of their own children, could ever be worthy of an eternal reward in paradise for having the ability to do so.
Indeed, only someone with the hubris to believe they were ever deserving of an eternal reward in heaven could ever be perfectly happy with the idea that others deserve to suffer the most cruel tortures imaginable for all eternity in hell. For the atheist, however, it is only the former that the Christian religion claims are the most deserving of the latter.
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