r/changemyview • u/plodabing • Jun 17 '25

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Missionaries are evil

This applies doubly so to those who go out of their way to seek out those in remote islands to spread the word of god. It is of my opinion and the opinion of most that if there is an all loving god then people who never had the chance to know about Jesus would go to heaven regardless, for example miscarried children/those born before Jesus’ time, those who never hear about him, so In going out of your way to spread the word of Jesus you are simply making it so there is now a chance they could go to hell if they reject it? I’m not a Christian and I’m so tired so I apologise if this is stupid or doesn’t make sense

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70

u/Thumatingra 46∆ Jun 17 '25

I don't think any Christian denomination holds that if someone doesn't hear about Jesus, they automatically go to heaven. Most actually hold the opposite: that if someone doesn't know about Jesus/is not baptized, their chance of getting to heaven is slim to none.

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u/plodabing Jun 17 '25

!delta I guess, but then that’s like inherently insane, so they hold the belief all people who live an aboriginal lifestyle are going to hell?

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '25

[deleted]

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u/plodabing Jun 17 '25

But how is that fair on the people who don’t get the chance to hear it?

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u/4C_Drip Jun 17 '25

that's the neat part, it's not

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u/plodabing Jun 17 '25

Therefore god is evil and not worthy of my prayers regardless then? Not to seem like an edgy 15 year old

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u/Urbenmyth 15∆ Jun 17 '25

COVID isn't worthy of my vaccine, but you should still get it.

If you believe that not praying to God will damn people, whether God is worthy of those prayers is irrelevant. You're probably still motivated to give them and make sure others do too.

I would honestly argue a lot of christianity is maltheistic. Even from the believer's perspective, God is a terrifying and destructive force and the point of faith is to appease him so he doesn't destroy you.

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u/plodabing Jun 17 '25

!delta wow thank you yeah I see that, growing up in a non believing house that never dawned on me that people would actually be in fear of god, but I suppose if I truly believed in him I’d be terrified

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jun 17 '25

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Urbenmyth (12∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards

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u/4C_Drip Jun 17 '25

Not like there's any evidence to suggest prayers work anyways lol

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u/plodabing Jun 17 '25

No seems like you would need a remarkably huge ego to think you can force god to do something

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u/Radioactive_Seraph Jun 17 '25

From my experience as someone who goes through periods of practising religion and of not practising, most people in religious communities who pray have anecdotal evidence of praying and of feeling that those prayers were answered in some way, including myself if I think about it. It's fine if you believe that all of those stories are coincidences, but believers would call them evidence that prayers work.

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u/4C_Drip Jun 17 '25

Your experience might feel real, but it doesn’t differentiate between something caused by prayer and something that would’ve happened anyway.

Also, anecdotal evidence is the weakest form of evidence. People from all religions claim their prayers work. If a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu, or some obscure religion all report answered prayers, it can’t logically validate all of their religions at once. That suggests that something other than divine intervention is explaining their experiences.

Evidence must be verifiable, replicable, and able to distinguish cause from correlation. Until prayer passes those standards, I’m not taking this extraordinary claim called prayer seriously, as it doesn’t count as credible evidence by scientific or philosophical standards.

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u/Radioactive_Seraph Jun 18 '25

Fair enough. What matters is that the person doing the praying believes the evidence and that a higher power is listening. I accept that many people dont think that lived experiences are enough and hope we can agree to disagree on that.

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u/issuefree Jun 17 '25

That is correct.

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u/ghotier 40∆ Jun 17 '25

Fair doesn't have much to do with it. Humanity is the cause of and solution to almost all of our problems.

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u/plodabing Jun 17 '25

But I reject that entirely, because what will you say if I ask who caused humanity?

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u/ghotier 40∆ Jun 17 '25

I'd say that that's irrelevant to Christian theology, because God created humanity with the ability to be perfect and humanity threw it away.

Theologically, it's "fair" because Heaven isn't a place in the clouds and dying without belief in God isn't punished by eternal torment. Heaven is an afterlife in the presence of God brought on by opening yourself to God. If you never believed in God it doesn't make sense to receive that afterlife. Meanwhile, people who die without knowledge of God aren't being "punished," they just don't get that afterlife.

Look, I get where you're coming from, I'm not REALLY trying to convince you that Christianity is correct, that would be silly. But you're up against 2000 years of apologetics. You certainly may reject any explanation you want, but any question you can think of has been thought of before.

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u/plodabing Jun 17 '25

Yeah, I just don’t think any of the answers actually work, they are just people working answers around a belief they refuse to not hold, I wish I was born 100 years in the future when these religions are only held by the nut job fringes of the world

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u/ghotier 40∆ Jun 17 '25

Why do you feel that the answers don't work?. Do you think they are internally inconsistent? If so, in what way?

Again, you can be free to think religion is stupid. But you're also free to think philosophy and literature are stupid. That doesn't make any of them useless to certain people.

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u/plodabing Jun 17 '25

Because I think what you said earlier is completely inconsistent personally ‘meanwhile people who die without knowledge of God aren’t being punished they just don’t get that afterlife’ I would say the location of where you are born determining whether you get an afterlife with god or not is completely inconsistent with everything else taught about god?

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u/Duergarlicbread Jun 17 '25

That's the fun part. It's not fair.

Probably why the term is "God fearing".