The Best Thinks in Life Are Free

Nothing gets me harder than when evangelicals go out of their way to let the scoffers know that Christians aren’t gullible simpletons who believe and do as they’re told. And it doesn’t take much to make them grind on this either. Their deep religious and intellectual insecurities (over believing patently stupid shit like talking snakes and miracles) generally drive them to do so without any instigation on your part.

Your average Christian can’t stand the thought of some god-mocking asshole viewing them as someone who can’t think for himself, and so their faith and intellectual security cave to their overwhelming and all-encompassing need to prove otherwise. It’s like a nervous tic they can’t control.

A godless friend recently posted the following picture on their Facebook page…

It didn’t take but a minute before his Christian friends chimed in to protect their intellect and flex their alleged freethinking muscles.

One of the sheep opined:

“The sad thing about that quote is that, as a Christian, I feel extremely free to think. I just trust God for the things that I don’t understand. Maybe I’ll send that church a box of Bibles.”

I find this to be a fascinating proclivity of Christians. File it under cake-eating. They don’t want anyone to think that they’re mindless robots in spite of the fact that they’re commanded to be dutiful by following a very fairly lengthy and specific list of behaviors that their creator has deemed them too clueless to figure out on their own. Then they declare their trust in god’s plan…but quickly run for cover under the banner of freewill for an out to claim control over their lives. But if they had an ounce of functioning gray matter they’d see the intellectual dishonesty of this position.

Yes, all Christians can most certainly think for themselves. So fucking what? It’s not a terribly impressive talking point. So can baby-eating atheists. Everyone is free to think for himself or herself – irrespective of the potential repercussions or their religious beliefs.

We’re also all free to steal candy from children, drown kittens, and set homeless people on fire, yet virtually everyone doesn’t…including godless bastards.

And so now you must reconcile why.

What Fucking Choice?

I have a close friend who endured three really nasty bouts with cancer spanning over six years. The specifics of what he endured are not terribly important to discuss here other than to say it was all very unpleasant and protracted.

I’ve told (and heard him tell) his story to countless people over the years, and while the following statement is undeniably and obviously true, I’ve personally heard Christian after Christian unwittingly utter the words that marginalize freewill.

When they hear how ugly all the chemo and radiation and surgery (all topped off with a bone marrow transplant) was and that he would have certainly died without it, virtually everyone responds in substantially the same way: “Yeah, but what choice did he have?”

That’s right. What fucking choice did he really have?

Not So Fast, Skippy

I have to chuckle every time I hear freewill used as the rationale for the “I’m free to think for myself…” argument because it doesn’t really get you very far. If the bible tells you how to live your life, and you do as the bible says (out of fear or reward or whatever), then you kind of waive your right to stake claim as a freethinker.

But fine, bask in your technicality. Yes, you have freewill in a technical, literal sense. We all do. Mazel tov. But in the practical and contextual world in which we all live, that freewill is marginalized to an abstract concept. You do not have absolute freewill in any pure intellectually honest sense.

Imagine someone holding a gun to your head and demanding your wallet and car keys. Yeah, sure. You have the freewill to choose not to fork over the goods. Yup. Uh-huh. You keep believing that. I hope you find your profoundly disingenuous rationalizations and cognitive dissonance tasty and filling.

Grow up, you fucking child. If you are coerced by force or threatened with physical violence OR ETERNAL FUCKING PUNISHMENT your freewill is effectively marginalized to a non-option.

For those who believe, god is holding an eternal gun to your head. It takes some very special cognitive dissonance and profound intellectual dishonesty to lump bible-directed acts under the umbrella of freewill choice. No, not with hell waiting. Not even a little.

Yes, you’re a freethinker in a literal sense when you choose diet Coke over iced tea or 30 years fixed over adjustable rate. But when it comes to your place in eternity with the threat of hell hanging over your head every moment of every day of your life, no.

Fuck no.

You do not have freewill in any moment of intellectual honesty. You know it, I know it. (Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.)

Predictable Christian Subterfuge

Wager all your cash that this is where self-applied Pascal’s Wager rears its cowardly head.
 

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