She is, has been…
Thanks for the comments on the last entry. I asked for thoughts about near-death evangelism, and the responses from my friends and regular readers were more-or-less in line with that I’d expected, and with my gut reaction. It’s the standard liberal line about respecting diversity and not forcing one’s own beliefs on others, etc. I quoted a column from an evangelical Christian about how her brother converted his father-in-law to Christianity on his deathbed. The author of the article was clearly very proud of her brother, and offered advice for how other Christians might do the same. I invited readers to share their thoughts. Mandy’s, I think, was somewhat typical:
Dude, I’d be PISSED if I were dying and some self-rightous idiot tried to convert me on my deathbed. If I had wanted to believe in something, I would have done it during my life and not tried to cheaply redeem myself at the last possible second. Someone tried to do this to my stepfather, an atheist, as he lay in a coma during his last days, and when I heard about it I felt violated for him because I knew he couldn’t do anything to stop the person, which he would have if he hadn’t been busy dying. It’s like raping someone with religion.
The opposite viewpoint was represented in notes, too, such as this one, from Vester:
course she’s happy, some of the job has to be sad but if you’re truely a Christian then you’ll do whatever it takes to get another soul into heaven rather then not doing anything to help someone! anytime is a great time to share about Jesus!
Believe it or not, I agree with a lot of what Vester says. Let me explain.
Mandy says she’d be pissed off if someone hoisted religion on her on the deathbed. I’d feel the same way. But I’m not sure that’s the relevant consideration. We liberals need to be careful about over-generalizing the principle that we shouldn’t force our worldview onto others. *Sometimes*, it’s appropriate to force things like moral beliefs onto others. For instance, we should *not* be tolerant of people who like to rape children. If a man likes to rape children, he should be stopped. Liberals will often try to explain away the significance of this obvious fact by claiming that we’re doing something other than using our own moral beliefs to decide policy, and being intolerant of alternative worldviews — but that’s just what we’re doing. And of course, in this case, that is exactly the right thing to do.
How does this relate? Well, consider the point of view of the author of the column I quoted. She believed that when people die, they either spend eternity in torture in hell, or in bliss in heaven. And she also believed that the presense or absense of one particular action — repenting and accepting Jesus — in life is what determines which way we go. I don’t know why she believed this. Lots of smart people believe things like this, and I don’t get it. But set that aside for now. This is a deeply-held belief; it is, perhaps, one of the things that she is subjectively most certain about.
For a person who has this belief, acting as the author of the column suggests starts to look a lot less inappropriate. Suppose, for example, that the belief is true; that evangelical Christianity correctly explains what happens after we die. I’m laying in the hospital, terminally ill, with days or hours left to live. Some relative comes in and trys one last time to convert me to Christianity. Since I’m not already a Christian, presumably, I do not believe in heaven, hell, salvation, etc. Since we’re supposing that that IS the way the world works, that means that I’m just wrong.
So here comes the Christian relative, trying to save me — and yeah, I’m annoyed. I’m pissed. I tell him, you’re not respecting my rational autonomy! You’re not valuing me as an agent who makes his own decisions! I’ve lived my whole life as an athiest, and I have the right to die as an athiest!
But it seems like none of this matters. If Christianity *is* correct, then once I’m dead, if I’m in hell, I’m going to be desperately wishing I’d listened. And if I’m in heaven, I’m going to be very, very grateful for the last-minute saving. I’d remember how upset I’d been at the time, but I’d realize that he was, in fact, acting out of love, and with my best interests at heart. If pestering me on my deathbed is the only way to send me to heaven instead of to hell, then by all means, pester me on my deathbed.
This has all been with the assumption, of course, that evangelical Christianity is *true*. I, and most of my readers, of course, think it’s not. Personally, I believe that death is the end of human existence. I expect to cease to exist when I die. But a person can only act based on his own beliefs. If a person believes that I have a soul, and that he can save me, then he ought to try.
Suppose I walk down the street and see what appears to be a person lying on the street, covered in blood, writhing in agony. I ought to stop and help him. I should administer first aid if I know how, and I should call for help. Now fill out the story: suppose that the person was only pretending to be gravely injured, and that it was a fun game, and that my attempts to help him disrupted his concentration and ruined his afternoon. I’m not criticizable for trying to help him, since I had the reasonable and false belief that he needed help. In fact, it would be a horrible thing for me to just walk on by. That would be evidence that I don’t care about the suffering of those around me.
It seems to me that an evangelical Christian is like I am in that story. They have false beliefs about what we need, and they try to help us accordingly. The problem is in the belief, not in the action. (Whether the false belief is REASONABLE is another, much harder, question, which I will set aside for now.) I would be hurt if I knew that someone who professed to care about me believed that by talking to me, he might’ve successfully saved me from eternal damnation, and didn’t even try.
Of course, on the other hand, I’d be annoyed if lots of people were always trying to evangelize me. This gets tricky.
Also, in defense of the particular person I started with, it’s not clear that the author of the article in question would have condoned the sort of forced, captive evangelism that Mandy and Emily mention in their notes. She talks about asking and receiving permission to talk about faith.
Time for a quick step back. I was less than totally forthcoming in my last entry. I left out a relevant detail. Anybody wondering why I’m suddenly so interested in this issue, and in that particular column? Why did I bother to transcribe an entire column from a Christian magazine from 1986? Why do I even *have* a Christian magazine from 1986? Why am I so interested in the mindset of an author whose outlook on the world is so very, very different from my own?
Well, one reason is that I know that not all Christians are stupid and evil, and would like to better understand them. Another reason is that the column in question was written by my mother.
My Aunt Marlene (the crying wife of the hero, my Uncle Eric, in the story) gave me this magazine last night. Writing that column was one of the last things my mother did — she died before it was even published. I have almost no memory of my mother (I was four when she died), and now I’m trying to get inside her head.
I don’t get the weird religious beliefs, and I’m not going to try right now. But given that she had them, I don’t know that she had the wrong view about evangelism and dying people. I think that my mother felt about saving non-Christians’ souls the way that I feel about feeding starving people. Likely, more so, because eternity in hell is a lot worse than death by starvation.
The other thing that really stood out to me was the motivation from love. There was no indication, either in the way my Uncle Eric spoke to his father-in-law, or in the way that my mother wrote about it all, that either of them were motivated directly by considerations of duty, or by attempting to comply with God’s desire. Eric tried to save Ed out of love for Ed. And however misguided I may think the whole enterprise is, there is a lot I can respect — and even relate to — in doing difficult things out of love for those in (apparent) need.
I’m starting to feel like I can take pride in my mother’s actions and priorities, if maybe not in her beliefs.EDIT: I’ve posted an adaptation of this entry (minus the personal details) to my public blog. Lots of content overlaps, but I add a little bit of upshot about public policy and some thoughs about the way we liberal athiests ought to respond to evangelicals. Check it out here if you like. More comments are welcome either here or there.
I really like how you place the context for these actions. I don’t have a lot of really strong “Christian moments” these days, but I was definitely discouraged by the amount of outrage voiced in reaction to the article, because I’d always held the exact view you explained. Whether heaven is real or not, if one believes that way, one has a moral obligation in that direction.
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Hmm. 1) I like to think that, if someone I loved came to me on my deathbed and tried to convert me, that I could take that as an expression of love for me and ignore the unpleasant stuff. That I could say, “they really, really mean well and want the best for me, and I should appreciate that.” At the same time, I don’t think I should have to be that forgiving on my deathbed.
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I don’t like it, because it indicates a profound lack of empathy — this person is dying. They are living their last few living moments. No one knows what that’s really like until it happens to them, but we all know it must be unlike anything else. And to spend those moments not talking about the past or making vows or saying all the things you never said, but talking about theology
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sounds like you’re just putting aside what it means to die, the importance of the moment. I know it sounds like I missed the point — that in their eyes, they have to evangelize because it’s their last chance to do it — but, I dunno, it still seems willfully egocentric, even if it’s done in a spirit of pure love.
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2) The analogy of euthanasia might be a little better. Your friend wants to kill himself. Do you try to stop him? Isn’t that forcing your belief (that he should live) upon him? After all, one could argue that the reason we don’t like child rapists is that they violate other’s rights — they don’t stay out of other people’s way. 3) I think the crucial point (god, this is gonna take another 5 notes
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) is that we can say “people’s actions are more excusable/understandable if they’re motivated by deeply held beliefs”, but then we have to look at the beliefs. Which beliefs are okay to hold? Are there some beliefs that are so far removed from universal human experience that they should be condemned? I think evangelical Christianity comes awful close. People have to be tolerant of other people’s
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*sigh* I know heaps of Christians and most of them are really special, lovely people. And I KNOW it comes from a good place inside their hearts. I just… well, I get so *annoyed* when there’s a knock on my door at 8am on a Saturday and some fresh-faced person is trying to tell me about salvation. But I guess caring for/praying for someone is always a good thing.
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beliefs, because that’s the way the world works. People are capable of understanding that skepticism is rooted in an empirical understanding of the world — were I religious, I’d still be able to understand why atheists don’t believe in God. I’d think that they were ignoring parts of the world, but I’d also see that those parts can be easy to ignore. People know this stuff.
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I interrupted you, Dan. Sorry!
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And people oughta know when to push and when not to, simply by living in the world and interacting with other people. People they care about, at least.
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Well put. I wonder about Dan’s notes. Is respecting others’ rights more important than saving them from what you believe to be an unendurably horrible fate? Does it depend on what evidence you have to believe in that fate? I’d have to think about that.
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I could see it being like in Pascal’s wager, where you weigh the certainty of a finite amount of temporal inconvenience (going to church, regular prayers, sacrificing pigeons, etc.) against the fifty-fifty probability of an infinite amount of eternal suffering in hell if you don’t. Dan says that Christians should at least be able to understand why atheists don’t believe in God, with…
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… the implication that one should consider one’s unsaved loved one’s decision as rational and adult and therefore allow it to pass unhindered– much like my parents ought to accept my decision of whom to marry even if they disagree, because I’m a rational adult. But suppose you step back, rationally and objectively, from your Christian beliefs, and view the world in terms of Pascal’s wager.
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I actually read this Christian novel one time where this girl, Holly, was witnessing to her cousin, Sunny, who almost died without Jesus, and she was telling her that if she’d died she would have gone to hell. And Sunny’s teetering on the brink of praying the Jesus Prayer, and she suddenly asks, “What if you’re wrong?” and Holly answers serenely, “Then I have nothing to lose. I’ll just…
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…die, and if there’s nothing after that, then it doesn’t make any difference what I believed. But if I’m right, Sunny, then you have everything to lose.” I just remembered that. So according to that, as a deathbead-witnesser, you’re not just asking your loved one to subscribe to your belief system, you’re asking him or her to play the odds, as you see them.
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Cause on the deathbed, they literally have NOTHING to lose. They won’t even have the mild temporal inconvenience of going to church and whatnot. It’s all gain from here on out.
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excellent, EXCELLENT titling on the previous entry and this one.
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Okay, so you seem to read everyone I do, and then I came here and they’ve all said incredibly insightful things before I’ve had a chance. So I’ll be flip! I think if someone tried to convert me on my deathbed, I’d probably – if I had enough energy – just hit them with my cane or oxygen stand or something over the head and tell them not to be daft. And let that be that.
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Although I have to comment on Pascal’s Wager… I find that to be a particuarly, well, odious way to think about belief. Choosing to believe based not on what you feel in your core to be right, emotionally or logically, but based on what you’ll gain from it? No, thank you. My morality contains no bet-hedging.
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Morality? Who said anything about morality? I’m talking about a belief as to whether there is an, and if so, what happens in, the afterlife. What on earth does that have to do with right and wrong?
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I think [Furthermore] (who I guess is named Dan) has some good points in his notes. I guess all I have to say is that just because you want to do something for someone out of love doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best thing to do. As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Not that I’m implying that your mom is in hell or anything due to her good intentions, obviously…
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…I don’t believe in it. But I think an essential part of love is respect, and attempted deathbed salvation just doesn’t seem like a respectful thing to do. Also, even though morality wasn’t in question, I do agree with [veracious jess] in that my beliefs don’t include any bet-hedging. If I thought there was a significant chance that I was wrong I’d probably be a Christian.
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Mandy, I’m confused. You say that “my beliefs don’t include any bet-hedging”, and in so doing align yourself with Jess, who doesn’t like the idea of Pascal’s Wager. But then you go on to say: “If I thought there was a significant chance that I was wrong I’d probably be a Christian.” Now it sounds like you’re *endorsing* the idea behind Pascal’s Wager. Clarify?
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Oh no, I think Pascal’s Wager is crap. I’d never do it. But if I really thought that there were a heaven or hell that I would go to, why would I be an atheist? It wouldn’t be beneficial. Since I don’t believe in heaven or hell, or even in the chance that they exist, the whole religion thing is moot.
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I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you think that there is a heaven or hell to go to, then you’ve pretty much endorsed a religion and you might as well go all the way with it, but not necessarily for the simple reason of saving yourself come eternity.
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Ah, I see. Presumably, though, for most versions of Christianity, it takes more to get to heaven than just believing that there might be a heaven. That is, there *are* some people who accept the possibility of heaven and hell, and who are nevertheless not Christians. I’m such a person. I recognize that I might be wrong about all this. I might go to hell. That’d suck.
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Pascal’s wager doesn’t presuppose that there is a heaven and a hell. That wouldn’t be a wager at all. It presupposes the POSSIBILITY of such places. And I think that one would have to be at least a little bit dogmatist in order to deny the mere possibility.
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ryn: I feel an intense moral dedication to truth – indeed, it’s the only even remotely religion-like thing I espouse. So in that respect, my lack of a belief in the truth or validity of an afterlife is very much a moral issue to me. It would (I feel) be morally wrong of me to try to mold belief where none existed. Anyway, I’m not convinced that any all-knowing creator would be at all fooled. 😉
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(Also, I really was being flip above. If someone did come to my deathbed and try to convert me, I know that it would likely be motivated out of that intense desire to help me, and I think I would be respectful of that. But… if someone knew me well enough to visit me in the hospital, I would hope that they would know me well enough to realize I wouldn’t appreciate their efforts.
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It’s similar to, like… okay: I believe that organ donation is the moral thing to do when one is dead. However, if a family member died who I knew was against organ donation for religious reasons (say they felt it was morally wrong; I know some people do), I would under no circumstances donate their organs – even if I felt it was the morally right thing for a person to do.
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I wouldn’t make that decision for them. And similarly, I hope they’d respect my desire to be an organ donator (well, if I hadn’t already specified that on my driver’s license, which I have – this is all theoretical, afterall). It’s kind of a similar situation.
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I think it’s good that you’ve made a distinction between your mother’s motivations and her actions.
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“Anyway, I’m not convinced that any all-knowing creator would be at all fooled. ;)” By: [veracious jess] That is the thing I have with Pascal’s Wager. Worshipping because the pay off is with you if God does indeed exist. I find that cheap and I am quite sure the All God will not buy it…but thanks for playing…
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N.B. – I’m not actually endorsing either Pascal’s Wager or evangelical Christianity. I’m presenting a possible way of looking at things.
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