I haven't touched the essays in a long time and they both need a lot of work. I want to eventually include new themes and expand upon those already mentioned.
Part 1 is here.
Part 2 is here.
I want to share an expert from part 2. You may need to read both parts in order to fully appreciate the footnote I include at the end of the excerpt.
[...] specific religious beliefs are often “an accident of geography”, i.e. largely (though not entirely) influenced by environment and geographic location. People who grow up in the Middle East are more likely to have Islamic beliefs by no choice of their own; it is a matter of conditioning. They usually do not feel any pull towards Christianity, just as Christians usually do not feel any pull towards Islam. And although some Muslims convert to Christianity (and vice versa), they usually are not swayed by apologists on the other side. We do not choose what we believe, or at least most people do not. Instead, people can choose to perform an investigation, but the result of that investigation is not chosen – the mind involuntarily assents to a particular conclusion based on what strikes the investigator as most reasonable. Whether something appears more reasonable depends on several factors (including neurobiological and cultural).
An agnostic may be “moved” into becoming a Christian, but similarly, a Christian may be reluctantly swayed by atheists. For example, Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman grew up Christian, but “painfully” became an agnostic during his scholarly education. He did not want to lose his Christian faith, but he had no choice. Many atheists are reluctant atheists in the sense that they truly yearn to have a belief in God, but simply cannot produce it (by no fault of their own).
If beliefs are freely chosen, then I could will myself into believing that Bill Clinton is really an alien from Mars. But no matter how hard I try to force myself into believing that claim, I will never believe it apart from convincing evidence (or what I perceive to be convincing evidence).
If God imposes retributive punishment onto people because of their beliefs, then God punishes them for something they cannot control, which means that God would hold them responsible for something they are not actually responsible for. To drive home this point, consider the following scenario. Tim is a father to three children whom he loves dearly. The love Tim has for his children can be described as patient, unfailing, embracing, and something that compels him to do whatever he can to achieve the best interest of his children. As a demonstration of his love for his children, Tim places wonderful gifts beneath the Christmas tree. So far, there is nothing inconsistent about his behavior. However, Tim goes on to tell his children that if they do not believe that he is the person who placed the gifts beneath the tree, then the children will suffer a horrible fate: They will be separated from Tim for the rest of their lives. More than that, the children must acquire the belief by Christmas Eve (Christmas day will be too late). Tim says it will be okay if they acquire the belief by 11:59 PM on Christmas Eve, but no later. If they acquire it a minute later, then it will be “too late”, regardless of how sincere the children are.
Most of us would characterize Tim’s behavior as appalling. We also recognize the sharp contrast between loving and unloving behavior in this scenario. [10] There are people with such split personalities, where one aspect feels love and expresses love, while the other aspect feels rage and expresses it through violence. But surely God is not like that – not if God “is love”, has “love” for all human beings (including “enemies”), and expresses that “love” to them (see chapter 2). Love, when properly defined, is mutually exclusive with the type of behavior exhibited by hypothetical Tim. But it is also incompatible with the idea that God imposes endless misery onto people who fail to acquire certain beliefs before they physically die (see chapter 2 for a more thorough defense of this argument).
A few additional points should be made. It should be pointed out that disbelieving in Jesus’ divinity and resurrection is not the same as outright rejecting Jesus. Before going further, allow me to define my use of “reject”. I am using it in a social sense, e.g. “I asked a girl out to dinner, but she rejected me” (something that cannot occur if the girl does not believe in the existence of the person she is rejecting). Genuine atheists cannot reject Jesus in that sense of the word because they do not believe that Jesus exists to be rejected. People can reject something only if it exists to be rejected (or if they think that the thing exists). Likewise, Muslims do not reject Jesus (in the aforementioned sense of “reject”); they simply have a different set of beliefs about Jesus’ nature and ministry. However, if these same persons were to become convinced of Jesus’ divinity and resurrection, but turned Jesus away, then we could claim that they have rejected Jesus. One cannot knowingly reject a gift unless one believes that the gift exists in the first place. To clarify, I am not denying that some people will/do reject God, but instead I am attempting to demonstrate that Christians should not be so condemning towards those with non-Christian beliefs.
[FOOTNOTE 10: Of course, Tim could still be “just” and demonstrate justice without it violating his love. For example, if Tim’s son (Randy) were to damage his neighbor’s property, then Tim may force Randy to get a job in order to pay off the debt. This is not only just, but also educational. Tim’s love for Randy is consistent with his discipline. Perhaps Tim himself will pay off the debt, but then require Randy to some chores. Again, this is consistent with Tim’s love. But if Tim were to force Randy to do chores for eternity, then the debt will never be paid off. At that point, Tim would simply be punishing Randy for the sake of punishment, rather than for the sake of the person being punished. Moreover, Randy’s siblings (Jamie and Jessie) are fully aware of Randy’s situation and still love him; in fact, they love Randy as much as they love themselves. Not only does this disturb Jessie and Jamie, it also creates tension between them and their father.]
[END OF EXCEPRT]
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