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Death is one result of an accident, but you are more likely to spend the rest of your life horribly crippled. Also, your risky drive to Miami might injure or kill someone else, which, though I'm not religious, seems to me might get you banned from Miami altogether..
Most observant believers don't adhere to the religious moral imperative out of belief in the hereafter - Judaism has a pretty vague notion of the afterlife, without much sense of desert, if I'm correct.
Instead, the religious moral code is based on the idea that there is an inherent order to the cosmos that doesn't correspond to the default nature of the human will. Devotional life is the process of retraining one's will -- wrestling it into harmony with the divine order. This applies to all sorts of religious doctrines, regardless of how much speculative carrot-and-stick they involve.
None of us knows how much time is allotted to us for this work, so we tend to guard life and limb about as vigilantly as the rest of y'all (not that I wouldn't like to see the accident mortality survey that you speculate about...).
And I second Matt's assertion that a lot of us 'religious types' don't worry much about the next world.
We're in this one for a reason.
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
One world at a time.
But look at the different things that have to be in place to really yield the kind of Christian that you and Orwell imagine:
1) Total belief in the reward of heaven and corresponding punishment of damnation, or at least enough certainty to think of it as the best bet
2) Precise understanding of the behavior required to attain that reward
3) Comprehensive self-scrutiny and self-awareness
4) The self-discipline required to implement all of #2 in light of #3
I understand your point to be that, given #1, there ought to be no self-discipline required, since the apparent reward is so great. In Orwell's words, "If he really felt that adultery is mortal sin, he would stop committing it."
But the "nuance and backsliding" that Ross is talking about are our failures to attain all four of the above criteria. I don't have to be filled with a cringing self-loathing to view those things as difficult, and I really don't see "meta-atheism" as explaining anything that can't be accounted for by the limits of human discernment, prudence, and will.
1) That there is a God
2) That there is an afterlife (of presumably infinite bliss)
The latter doesn't automatically follow from the former, yet what is revealed by the behaviour described is an unacknowledged scepticism of the prospect of an afterlife (entry to which is presumably based on conforming to certain standards of behaviour) rather than meta-atheism as such. This would tie in with the fact that for believers, existence itself is "proof" of a Creator*, while the afterlife portion must be taken on "faith".
*Note, I don't buy this at all myself, I am a convinced atheist, but it has the same ring of plausibility to many people as the notion that animals are capable of reflective thought.
By your definition, I don't truly believe in eternal reward or punishment. In spite of myself and my religious inclinations, my own belief in the hereafter isn't concrete enough to really influence my behavior in the here and now.
Your vision of the frustrated believer demands that I concoct layers of meta-belief in order to come to terms with my incomplete faith in the hereafter. Instead, I admit that it's not strong enough to dictate my actions.
I think we both draw the same conclusions about the behavior we could predict out of someone who truly and completely believes in eternal reward. After all, plenty of such people provide an example as they blow themselves up in Iraq every week.
The rest of us make do with what we admit to be an incomplete faith in the hereafter. That's not so complicated, but not as simplistic as the red button.
If Salma Hayek was performing a strip tease right next to the red button, I bet a substantial portion of men actually would push it. Because, well, Salma Hayek is really hot, and it takes a lot of willpower to turn her down.
There are all sorts of lesser examples of this sort of behavior-- alcoholics who try to quit and relapse, despite knowing exactly what awaits them if they start drinking again. People who have unprotected sex with strangers despite the knowledge that pregnancy and STD's could result. People who eat too much Thanksgiving dinner despite the knowledge that they'll feel sick afterwards. Girls who keep buying clothes they don't need with credit cards they can't afford to pay off, despite the knowledge that they're destroying their credit and risking bankruptcy.
People simply don't posess the capacity to behave in a way that reflects perfectly consistent intertemporal preferences. Many of the people I cite above know perfectly well the bad fates that await them for their poor choices. It's just that at the time, Salma Hayek's heaving bosom seems more urgent than whatever might happen the following day.
I of all people understand lack of discipline and lapses of prudence. But discipline and prudence tend to improve when the cost of not improving is very very high. If you genuinely believe the cost is infinitely high (and not simply believe that you believe), I simply cannot buy the idea that, because of lack of discipline, foresight, and prudence, this belief might turn out to have only a marginal effect on one's behavior. I think the hypothesis that these people don't really have this belief is a much more persuasive, and much more charitable, explanation than that they are are completely and utterly irrational. If you think incentives matter at all, and that you can understand something about human behavior by understanding incentives, you ought to be eager to avoid the idea that we might systematically fail to heed even massive incentives because of irrationality.
Why do you have to assume that every believer is 100% certain of the afterlife? As I said above - we agree on the kind of behavior that one could predict from someone like that.
If the concept of religious doubt is really all this new to you, those Mormons you grew up with must have really kept their eyes on the prize better than I do.
(As an aside, it's particularly delicious to see a discussion framed around the idea that some method exists to prove one's beliefs and thoughts wrong, and recruit Orwell to support such a thesis.)
As for the rest, I suppose I disagree with the premises:
- I have been to funerals--several, actually--where joyful songs were played, often at the request of the family or the deceased.
- I have also seen people weep and mourn at the airport when their loved ones leave on long trips. Is this, too, irrational, seeing as the probable result will be only a short separation? If not, then why is it irrational to mourn separations that may last years or decades, but not to mourn separations that only last days or weeks?
(One wonders whether statisticians, upon mourning the departure of their spouses on long trips, could be said to have committed treason against their own profession!)
- There is belief in an abstract God, and the resulting foolish behavior that may imply, and there is faith in a rather concrete idea of God, which might include moral strictures against foolish behavior, senses of purpose on this earth, faith that God is the best judge of whether one should continue to live, etc. I fail to see any way that the latter faith is somehow invalid.
- On sin, I suppose someone who has never violated his or her own moral code in a moment of weakness might see such a rationale as plausible. But I think the rest of us, who know just how capable we are of acting irrationally whatever our creed, might be a little more skeptical. Count me among the latter group.
- Finally, I think this essay proves fairly well that economics is no more a universal theory of knowledge than any of the other candidates frequently nominated for the job.
Of course, all of this should be taken with a grain of salt, as I have not independently confirmed my own beliefs.
I would suggest another process of belief: fanboyism.
By coincidence, Star Trek:Enterprise was cancelled this morning. I have a modest interest in ST:E, I watch the show and frequent several fansites. I was always amazed that after watching an hour of some of the worst Sci-Fi ever put on TV, polls on the ST:E fansites that rated the crapfest I just watched would tend to rate every single episode in the A-A+ range.
Like Prof. Rey, I had to believe that, in their heart of hearts, the fanboys rating Enterprise episodes that were just badly acted ripoffs of previous ST shows, were truly bad...but no, they seemed to truly think each episode made Blade Runner and 2001 look like bad cartoons.
The term fanboy comes from fan, which in turn came from the word fanatic...
The point is that the fate of eternal (eternal!) suffering is so horrible that your faith must be very "incomplete" indeed, incomplete to the point of triviality, if it does not prevent you from behaving in ways that, according to the faith, lead to that fate.
The name "Hel" belonged to the Norse goddess of the underworld. Like Yule logs, mistletoe, and bunny eggs, it's now part of the larger, mainstream, Christian cultural tradition.
The afterlife was not, originally, a central point of concern for Christians.
(What is and always was?
Love.
With a capital "L.")
Nor is there, to this day, any ecumenical consensus on what happens to a Christian after death.
Jehovah's Witnesses, and some others who pride themselves on their biblical literalism, believe we all die, full stop. Just stone dead, like an atheist would think.
At some future time, the Lord will return, Heaven and Earth will pass away, and the righteous dead will be raised into new life.
The unrighteous will just stay dead forever.
The Catholics have their "Purgatory," which mitigates their fear of 'damnation.'
The Calvinists think it's all 'predestined' anyhow. And so on....
The passages where Jesus speaks of the Lake of Fire, Sheol, or Gehenna are, like the rest of His parables and aphorisms, not normally regarded as flat statements of plain and simple fact.
For what it's worth: I, as a Christian, have faith that God created me, God will kill me whenever He pleases, and I'm happy for God to save whatever aspects of me are worth saving, destroy the rest, and send whatever subsequently constitutes "me" wherever He sees fit, seeing as how He has a better handle on what's best than I do.
So I just don't worry my pretty little head about the afterworld.
At the risk of belittling some of my more fervently pious co-religionists, I'd agree that people who claim to believe in eternal damnation, yet don't act like it, are either lying to you, lying to themselves, or just fucking bat-shit crazy.
People fail to act in accordance with their belief in an afterlife in the exact same way as they fail to act in accordance with their belief that, say, reckless driving may result in death - we're not very good at evaluating less-than-immediate risks.
A better place to start than Will's traffic accidents :)
I don't, others do.
I am not afraid of death or any part of the world to come. But I do place an extremely high value on life--and not only my own. Because my god instructs me, "choose life." Since he's so cool, I place a high value on his pleasure. I understand that he derives pleasure from my obedience. So I choose life.
I have chosen not to skydive (although that would be SUPER cool) because my value of the loss suffered by my family should something go wrong so high. Am I afraid? Am I irrational? Am I deceiving myself?
I am likewise not cavilier about this incredible gift of life.
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As for the question of autocide, opinions vary almost at the individual level. (I have read disagreements within Jewish and Christian denominations--my limited area of knowlege.) Almost all consider madness-induced suicide to be tragic but not of moral consequence. Otherwise, all agree it is a great sin, but most tend to agree that it is not unpardonable.
If you are familiar with the predestination/free will issue, then you can understand that some believe that autocide reveals that you were never "saved" or "elect" in the first place.
Jesus was quite plain about there being degrees of reward and punishment. All Christians who receive this agree that autocide is a bad thing, and there will be reprocussions, barring the above.
All night on the beach till the break of dawn
Welcome to Miami
'Buenvenidos a Miami'
Bouncin in the club where the heat is on
All night on the beach till the break of dawn
I’m goin to Miami
'Welcome to Miami'"
I mean, I can't put it any plainer. Saying a Christian can go to Hell for any particular sin's not the best theology, and it's absolute anethema to the generic Born Again.
Regardless of the mildly bizzare assertion that people can't act against their best interest, the central thesis here seems, to me, to be 100% wrong.
I sin daily (at least) and though I've been dissappointed in myself, I've never once imagined God was warming up the coals.
When we believe God about our future it doesn't have to be a magical experience, but it should be real. Do you believe that by dying on the cross, Jesus made a payment for the penalty of sins? Does that make you a believer?
The mourning a believer does for a loved one who dies isn't because of a lack of belief that they're "in a better place." It is because we are separated from them and will miss them between now and heaven/the new earth.
It isn't because we don't believe they're with God, or doubt that their pain is resolved. It is that we miss them. We're sad they're not with us. That a relationship has been (temporarily) lost.
Death is not a natural state. God didn't intend for us to die. So it is a wierd, uncomfortable, painful thing to go through. The comfort is in the belief that we'll live again in the ideal state, with Him, in the new earth.
I'm happy you've put a lot of thought into this, but your argument that we're sad because we "don't really believe our beliefs" starts from a false premise.
You have unwittingly stumbled upon something that many Christians do not like to admit: that we do exactly what we don't want to do. We do what we hate doing. This is something that we recognize in ourselves, that no matter how long we are here in this life, we still do evil, no matter how much we wish not to.
This is what we call "simul iustus et peccator": simultaneously a sinner and saint. Two forces working in one man simultaneously. Saint Paul described the phenomenon: "The good that I wish to do, I do not do. The evil I wish not to do, that I do."
There IS a resolution to this tension. I do not wish to lapse into theology here, but suffice it to say, your understanding of the matter is very shallow at best. You may as well be describing what it is like to be black when you are white, or a women, when you are a man. You THINK you know, but you really cannot know, because you are not one.
It sounds more like atheism as defined by meta-beliefs.
In any case, the prefix "meta" should probably not be used with words that it isn't typically used with, unless there's some major unpacking that follows.