This is the fourth in a series on how the free will belief that our world’s top thinkers, Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein each considered completely mistaken, provides a foundation for conservatism’s discriminatory policies against gays, the poor, criminals, the mentally ill and other disenfranchised groups, and how we progressives can pull that foundation out from under the GOP by exposing the free will myth. For a more detailed presentation of this strategy, read the series’ first post: How to dismantle the GOP by debunking the belief in free will.
First, I want to say that this isn’t about bashing Christianity or religion, which have actually also done the world a great deal of good in many ways. But when Christianity gets into the hands of hate-filled people, as history has too often shown, few of us are safe. This is a very serious topic, but because the truth that we humans don’t have a free will isn’t the easiest thing for even progressives to understand and accept, the video I’ve posted uses humor to both explain why we don’t have a free will, and how the GOP uses the belief to threaten and abuse children.
If we’re to succeed with exposing the free will myth in order to deny the GOP this foundation for their hateful discriminatory policies and programs, we progressives must first understand why free will is an illusion. This video should help:
Imagine yourself a seven year-old child attending Sunday school after services. The teacher tells you that because God gave you a free will, if you don’t believe Jesus is your savior, when you die, you will spend the rest of eternity being tormented in the fires of Hell. This threat is not only cruel; it very clearly amounts to child abuse. Fundamentalist Christians and the Republican Party are completely fine with this form of psychological blackmail and coercion.
How important is it for us progressives to expose free will as a myth? Without first getting children and their parents to believe that God gave us a free will – that everything we do is totally up to us in a way that makes us fundamentally, and completely, morally responsible – Fundamentalist Christians and the GOP could not cruelly abuse our children in this way, keeping many of them afraid for the rest of their lives of ending up in this torturous Hell.
The view that free will belief is harmless could not be further from the truth. The reality is that it keeps us all in conflict and fear – including our very young children. The GOP uses the myth to ensure that too many people remain sheeple to the Church, unable to think for, or defend, themselves against the Republican blame machine.
Telling very young kids that because God gave them a free will, if they don’t fall in line, they will forever burn in Hell IS FUCKED UP!
Let’s put an end to this shit already.