Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Christianity and the Creation of Human Suffering

Since I have this video and a post by Francois Tremblay, I thought I would combine them to ask a question...uh, no, no questions!



Is it wrong (not ethical, immoral) to bring children into the world? Francois has written on this before, but in the post I link to below, he relates the issue to Christianity and Christians. If there's a reasonable chance you'll cause eternal suffering, shouldn't you refrain from procreation? At least atheists believe it all ends at death.


Antinatalism is therefore nothing more than the extension of basic principles of ethics and justice to the realm of the creation of human lives. There is nothing innately difficult or complicated about it; all that’s really needed to understand to become an antinatalist is that creating harm for others is wrong, and that creating human lives necessarily entails the creation of harm for others, especially, and most importantly, for the life that is created.

It seems to me, therefore, that antinatalism entails a strong condemnation of Christianity, more than any other ideology. If one is a Christian, believes in the existence of Hell, and that one cannot be guaranteed of not going to Hell (for even if one believes in Jesus today and believes that this is all one needs to do to go to Heaven, one can never be guaranteed that he will steadfast in that belief for the rest of his life), then it seems that the probability of any given new human life going to Hell is more than trivial.

And now, for the kicker: since Hell is an eternal, that is to say infinite, punishment, and any proportion of an infinite term must necessarily be infinite as well, we must conclude that the Christian breeder who creates a new life is guilty of bringing about infinite suffering into the world!

Why is no one noting this? It is a titanic ethical issue. Combined with the fact that Catholicism and other Christian sects have taken radically pro-reproduction stances throughout history and still today, we have on our hands an evil that is so incalculably vast that it cannot even be imagined. Either every single Christian breeder doesn’t really believe in Hell, or every single one of them has more guilt in bringing about suffering than all serial killers, dictators and rapists put together, for no finite amount can be compared to any infinite!


Antinatalism as a challenge against Christianity.

2 comments:

  1. I think this is a gross misrepresentation of Christianity. Besides Christianity being what I consider to be the religious equivalent of anarchy (the New Testament is the oldest written document which demonizes large government), there is a severe problem in seeing Christianity as a singular entity (though this must be common practice for anarchists, who see government as continuous and singular entities).

    There have been Christian groups who even espouse the ideas presented here, more or less. Most recently, the Shakers refrained from all sex and only formed families through adoption.

    All and all, a lot of ignorantly broad-sweeping generalizations here.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nick, you (and Francois Tremblay) are basically correct. This is a titanic ethical issue. I'd only add that it applies equally to Hell-believers from Islam or other faiths, while there are certain sections of Christianity who do not believe in it.

    ReplyDelete

If the post you are commenting on is more than 30 days old, your comment will have to await approval before being published. Rest assured, however, that as long as it is not spam, it will be published in due time.

Related Posts with Thumbnails