Do Evangelicals Want Me to Suffer?
When Bad Things are Wished on Good People
In my last post, I described the scariest period of my life — a time when any existing gods who really wanted a personal relationship with me would have swooped in to 1) demonstrate that they exist and 2) help me through it in some tangible way. That didn’t happen, and today I can reasonably conclude from that experience that if I didn’t need any gods’ help to make it through that, then I don’t need it for anything.
Naturally, the story got evangelistic responses. I figured it would; secularist content creators expect some amount of preaching in response to what we publish. Let’s be honest: writing anything on the internet opens one up to pushback.
Most of the replies’ content was standard fare, putting blame on me and my expectations rather than the Christian beliefs: maybe God did intervene but I wasn’t listening (nope, I honestly heard nothing), or I didn’t like the answer (you can’t dislike an answer you don’t hear). Maybe God did indeed do nothing but only because I didn’t ask for help — a strategy that backfired since, as I said, I know now that I can face my worst struggles without divine assistance.
I expected the blame-shifting. I was not prepared, however, for how one commenter ended their reply:
“I don’t wish you harm, but I do wish you circumstances that bring you to your knees.”
My first thought: that’s harm. That is literally wishing me harm. Full stop.
When I read the commenter’s statement, what I heard was:
“I want you to suffer psychologically, even worse than what you’ve already been through, since that experience didn’t ‘do the job.’”
It’s awful enough to wish any sort of bad thing on a person. But for me personally, any conceivable scenario dire enough to “bring me to my knees” would involve some form of physical or emotional harm toward me or a loved one. That is what the commenter wished on me, whether they realize it or not. Anything less (like losing my job, my home, etc.) would be fully manageable, if not still terribly stressful.
For any believers who happen upon this post, let me tell you that wishing bad things on those you’re trying to reach is an a terrible approach, for two reasons:
It is not loving or kind to wish traumatic events on someone, for any reason.
It’s just not.
Think about what those ill-wishes are really saying: you are actively rooting for either 1) a stranger to commit sin by mistreating his neighbor, or 2) the god whom you say controls everything (and is all-good) to send a natural disaster specifically to harm someone.
It doesn’t matter if the wishes are based on a “greater good” — in this case, probably wishing this as a means of someone avoiding Hell later on. In fact, consider how that sounds to an atheist like me, who disbelieves in Hell for good reasons. From my perspective, the effect is to wish pain on me for absolutely nothing. It doesn’t matter that you believe Hell is real. I don’t.
It raises doubt about how strong your position really is.
A religion that claims to represent objective truth should not have to hope that people hit their lowest, most emotionally vulnerable point in order to convert them. If the facts are on that religion’s side, then people should convert based on the facts instead of manipulation.
When someone uses emotional tactics like this (or just direct threats of Hell, such as Pascal’s Wager), that signals to me that they have no real case for proving that their beliefs are true — and they know it — with their only remaining argument being “Believe it, or else.”
Going forward, I am perfectly comfortable cutting off strangers who wish bad things upon me. Maybe that’s what they prefer; maybe my walking away counts as “persecution” that they need to feel validated in their own faith (which, of course, is in the Bible). But if the result that they actually care about is bringing me into their way of thinking, then they seriously need to come up with a new game plan.
In the end, the commenter who wished me “to my knees” reminded me exactly why I began writing in the first place. Religious beliefs are too often used to justify poor treatment (far worse than what I went through) of other human beings — beliefs that are harmful, or demonstrably untrue, or both.
I strongly believe that more people today are willing to critically analyze the narratives that they were given at childhood, to ask significant questions about their legitimacy, and to reject them altogether if the evidence doesn’t fit. I joined Recovering From Religion because this is a historical trend in the making, and I wish to help it along.
If I may turn the phrase: I don’t wish the Christian religion harm, but I do wish that more people stop believing it.
