Dennis Ingolfsland: how to use tragedy in the lives of other to more effectively sell Jesus

This is my reply to an article by Dennis Ingolfsland entitled

Massacre in Newtown, Connecticut
Saturday, December 15, 2012

Let’s imagine that God decided, through some form of supernatural coercion, to force human beings against their will to always obey his law.  In other words, imagine that human beings were supernaturally prevented from ever behaving in ways that were violent, immoral, hateful, dishonest, greedy, envious, manipulative, unloving or selfish. Imagine if we were all required to be generous with our money. Imagine if we were required to set aside one day a week to rest and worship God. Imagine if we were supernaturally prevented from ever giving our own comforts, entertainments, pleasures or pastimes a higher priority than God.

 That's not hard to imagine.  You Christians call it "heaven" or "incorruptible resurrection body".  That state of affairs is, according to your own beliefs, an actual reality whereby people authentically love and worship God while yet also lacking the ability to sin.

In such a world there would be no murder, rape, robbery, assault, immorality or dishonesty but in such a world there can be no doubt that most people would view God as a micro-managing tyrannical dictator and would hate him with every fiber of their being. They would only worship him out of compulsion, not love.

 Then you are saying that the people who have previously died and are now in heaven, only worship god out of compulsion, not love, because after getting to heaven, they lost their ability to sin.

So God has taken the alternate approach—probably one of the worst things he could have done to us. He lets us have our way, or in Paul’s words, “God gave them up.”

 Sure, that's in the bible.  But so are stories about God forcing people to sin, then punishing the puppets for their moving in the same sinful direction that God was pulling their strings, see Ezekiel 38:4 ff.  Maybe you can explain to your class why modern day Christians like you never go around using the "hook in your jaws" metaphor to give people a correct notion about the extent to which God claims responsibility for a human being's choices?  Yeah, "hook in your jaws" sort of sounds like the metaphor only a hyper-Calvinist would use, amen?

God gives us the freedom to gossip, lie, cheat, steal, slander, get drunk, take drugs, fornicate, commit adultery, rape, rob and murder.

And if an earthly father gave his teen kids the same degree of freedom, we'd consider him to be a very stupid irresponsible parent.

In other words, he gives us freedom and allows us to suffer the consequences for our sin.

 Right, like the earthly father who allows his 5 year old son to play with a real loaded pistol, then allows him to suffer the consequence of being deprived of his 4 year old brother for the rest of his life.  And then you wonder why non-Christians are bothered when you talk about god as if he were a "father" and was "loving".

Humans then shake their puny fists in God’s face demanding to know why he allows such evil in the world.

Not much different than the 5 year old daughter who is being raped in her dad's presence, and she shakes her puny fist at him and asks why he is allowing this evil.  Then her dad, the godly man that he is, reminds her that it is fallacious to automatically assume that because she cannot currently see the dad's alleged greater purposes, there are no such purposes.

But Christianity teaches that God then did the most amazing thing. He became human himself—a fact celebrated in the Christmas season—and entered the world of suffering that we largely created.

 A bit of theological nonsense that Christians borrowed from earlier pagan motifs about the gods becoming men.  See Acts 14:11 for one example.  And don't forget: this is not compelling to unbelievers who notice that many Christian groups deny that Jesus was God.  Gee, are we intellectually compelled to spend the next 5 years studying the differences between Trinitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses before we can be rationally warranted to make a decision about whose theology is more biblical?

He allowed himself to be mocked, beaten and tortured—all so he could deliver us from the consequences of our own sin.

Which was rather stupid, sadistic and wasteful on his part since other bible verses make it clear that God can get rid of sin with a mere wave of his magic wand, no bloodshed required...like he did so conveniently in the case of King David's death-deserving crimes of adultery and murder:

 11 "Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you from your own household; I will even take your wives before your eyes and give them to your companion, and he will lie with your wives in broad daylight.
 12 'Indeed you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel, and under the sun.'"
 13 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
 14 "However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die." (2 Sam. 12:11-14 NAU)

 There is nothing in the context to indicate the means by which God took away that sin, so we are fully justified to believe that this is the textual case precisely because it was by no means beyond divine fiat that the sins should be taken away (i.e., like a presidential pardon).

Well?  If God can get rid of David's death-deserving sins of adultery and murder by simply declaring that they are, in fact "taken away", God can get rid of the sins of everybody else in the world likewise by mere divine fiat that those sins are now "taken away".  Presto, problem solved.  So if God really did come to earth and allow himself to get beaten and killed in the effort to placate his own wrath against sin, we are forced to conclude that God sometimes forgets about the power he actually possesses to get rid of sin by mere decree.

At a time when atheists demand to know where God was during the tragedy in Connecticut we should note that if atheism is true there will never, ever be justice for the victims and their families.

So what you are saying is that our wish that such people obtain justice, is a rational justification to tell ourselves that surely there must be a great Justice out there in another dimension who will make everything better at the end of time? Count me out.

If atheism is true the parents will never, ever see their children again.

If Christianity is true, a mother-elephant will never see her baby elephant ever again after it gets torn apart by lions.  Did you have a point?

There is no hope. There is no real comfort. There is only unfathomable grief and despair.

I prefer reality to false hope.  If you seriously do find comfort in such hope, I encourage you to keeping believing.  But expect that hope to be dashed if you dare to insult atheists and tell us that our views are "foolish".

The Bible teaches that the gunman will not escape justice,

 Then it should, because it teaches that God was the cause of the gunman's murders (Deut. 32:39, Job 14:5).

and holds out hope that through Christ the parents could see their children again at a time when “our present sufferings are not worth comparing” with the glory God has for us; a time when “the former things will not be remembered” and God will wipe away all tears (Romans 8:18; Isaiah 65:17; 25:8; Revelation 7:17; 21:4).

Then your theology is heterodox at best and heretical at worst:  the bible nowhere expresses or implies that family members on this earth will recognize each other after they get to heaven, despite how wonderfully comforting such hope is.  You are moving beyond the word of the Lord and trying to give your followers more comfort than the bible actually promises.  And under the conservative hermeneutic which says you remain silent where the bible is silent, you either show from the bible that loved ones who make it to heaven will recognize each other there, or remain silent about the subject.

Our hope is that the tragedy in Connecticut will ultimately lead people to turn their hearts to God who is able to re-unite parents with their children and turn temporal tragedy into eternal triumph.

 That's the typical Christian, trying to turn the plight of others into an opportunity to more effectively market your religion.  And maybe that tragedy will cause some people to sign up at Crown College at a discounted tuition rate to listen to your speculations?

FUCK YOU.