Extremist belief systems can be hazardous to your health (examples from fundamentalist Christianity)

Belief systems (many of which are religious) motivating conversion, worship, and practice based on extreme views on both rewards (prosperity in this life and/or beyond such as heaven) and threatenings of punishment (suffering in this life and/or beyond such as eternal-conscious-torment-in-hell) can be hazardous to your health.

TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES OF MALIGNANT BELIEFS BEG FOR BENIGN ALTERNATIVES

Beliefs can lead to actions, some good and some bad. It is important to scrutinize beliefs and systems of belief. If beliefs can be shown to be likely false, then an important part of seeking truth can also be determining those which are false. A truth movement also needs a falsification movement.

I was formerly a hard core fundamentalist Christian of a certain evangelical, dispensationalist, Zionist flavor. That was my belief system.

I am going to explain some particular beliefs within my former belief system and give two real life examples of how those beliefs led some people to tragic results. I will also suggest a more reasonable belief system that might have helped to prevent such tragedies from occurring. By doing so I am not implying that my proposed alternative is the only alternative belief system, or that it is “the truth.” I am simply suggesting it as a more reasonable alternative belief system that might have helped these people.

In addition this also ends up being a good illustration of the principle of taking certain ideas to an extreme, especially in terms of application, to help reveal the soundness of the ideas. And it would be much better to have this be a simple thought experiment, rather than having it be a real case where people suffered real consequences. Taking ideas to extremes in thought experiments is also useful in science and other disciplines. And the important principle “first, do no harm” from the Hippocratic Oath comes to mind as well. If a belief system seems to be causing harm, it should be scrutinized thoroughly to determine its validity. And also the principle of “by their fruits you will know them” comes to mind.

Three aspects to the flavor of fundamentalist evangelical dispensationalist Zionist Christianity that I was heavily involved in are described to provide the necessary background to understand the two real life examples to follow.

ASPECT 1 OF MY FLAVOR JESUS CHRIST ONLY WAY TO BE SAVED FROM HELL BUT ONCE-SAVED-ALWAYS-SAVED

My flavor was of the “believe in Jesus Christ as your savior who died for your sins in order to be saved from going to hell forever,” and additionally of the “once-saved-always-saved” viewpoint, i.e. there was nothing you could possibly do to lose your salvation, even committing suicide and/or murder would not cause you to lose your eternal salvation, and that God could not even punish you after you die.

ASPECT 2 OF MY FLAVOR MUST REACH AGE OF ACCOUNTABILITY TO BE ELIGIBLE TO GO TO HELL

It was taught and believed that if a child died while young, before reaching the so called age of accountability, they would automatically be saved and go to heaven. It was not clear exactly at what age this was. Apparently intelligence was a factor. The theory was that one who was more intelligent could reach the age of accountability at a younger age. On the other hand, someone who was mentally retarded might never reach the age of accountability, no matter how old they got, so they would automatically be saved and go to heaven. I remember the saying that it would be better to be an idiot and go to heaven than a genius and go to hell.

ASPECT 3 OF MY FLAVOR ONCE YOU ARE SAVED BUT LATER TURN AGAINST GOD AND PERSIST ON THAT PATH THE HARDER IT BECOMES TO RECOVER AND GET BACK ON GOD’S GOOD SIDE DURING YOUR LIFE ON EARTH

This belief relates to God’s discipline or punishment of the believer during this life for failing to follow God’s plan for their life. The idea here is that since God cannot punish the believer once they die, if they fail to follow His plan, God will bring great suffering into that person’s life in order to try to get them to turn around and follow Him, but if that fails, God will eventually take that person out of this life in a most horrible manner of death with maximum suffering. A key factor of God’s discipline of the believer is that the further they have gone down the road of not following God’s plan the harder it becomes for them to turn around and recover. They are actually in a worse condition than if they were an unbeliever. The unbeliever can simply believe in Jesus Christ and that supposedly wipes the slate clean, but for the believer who has strayed from God’s plan, they have to intensively submit to listening to Bible teaching (a form of brainwashing where they must believe everything that is taught in order for it to work) over a long time in order that they might get back on God’s good side. Wiping their slates clean takes a lot of scrubbing over time.

TRAGIC REAL LIFE EXAMPLE 1 SHE KILLED THEM TO SAVE THEM

So the first example I want to give relates to this age of accountability belief. There was a mother of 5 young children who was suffering from postpartum depression and mental illness and she was despairing that her children would likely end up suffering in hell forever, so she decided to kill all of them to make sure that they would go to heaven. She killed them to save them. The extreme belief system she was exposed to programmed her to do this.

I want to offer a more reasonable belief system that could have prevented her from doing what she did. Suppose that God were viewed as both love and justice, that all people would ultimately be saved by God and that no one would go to hell forever. God in justice would punish wrongdoing in this life and beyond for the purpose of correction and ultimate salvation. But God would never give an infinite punishment to a finite creature for a finite sin. That would be as unjust as anything could possibly be. The mother even in her depression and mental illness would not have a reason to despair over her children because she could trust God’s love and justice to eventually save them to Himself no matter how tortuous the path.

TRAGIC REAL LIFE EXAMPLE 2 MURDER SUICIDE MOTIVATED BY DESIRE TO AVOID SUFFERING AND GO STRAIGHT TO HEAVEN

The second example I want to give relates to the once-saved-always-saved belief mentioned earlier, as well as the teaching of how extremely difficult it can be for a believer who has strayed from following God to recover. This was a case of a man who murdered his wife and then committed suicide. I knew of this case based on testimony of someone who knew him and was aware of some of the happening that preceded him shooting his wife and then turning the gun on himself. It occurred in the mid 70’s about the same time that I was becoming a hard core follower of a particular dogmatic Bible teaching fundamentalist. So it just so happened that this man who committed the murder suicide had been a follower of this same Bible teacher, but he had neglected the Bible teaching long enough that he felt that God was punishing him, and apparently he even had a phone call with the Bible teacher before he committed his crimes, and it seems he was motivated by his belief that since his wife and he were both believers in Jesus Christ and therefore saved, he could send his wife directly to heaven by killing her and then do the same for himself. The extreme belief system that this man had bought into programmed him to be susceptible to taking the kind of extreme actions that he did.

I want to offer a more reasonable belief system that could have prevented him from doing what he did. In addition to the things I already described of the alternate belief system in the previous example, suppose that instead of the once-saved-always-saved idea combined with the idea that even God could not possibly punish him once he died, that he viewed God’s justice as truly just and that God could punish someone after death for the purpose of correction and in keeping with the principle of reaping what one sows. With a more balanced and less extreme view of God and His love and justice, he might have realized that he really had nothing to gain from taking the extreme actions that he was contemplating, and that he and his wife would have been much better off if he had instead reaped what he had sown while still alive, with the hope and possibility of recovery and restoration even though it would not be easy. With this viewpoint he could have felt that he still had options in life. But instead, for him, murder suicide became a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

MIND CONTROL OATHS OF ALLEGIENCE / THE GOD VIRUS / DR DARREL RAY / THEOLOGY IS GOD THEORY / KISSING HANK’S ARSE / GEORGE CARLIN ON GOD / JOHN CALVIN HAS MICHAEL SERVETUS BURNED AT THE STAKE

It’s hard for me to think how best to finish this post.

It just goes to show how dangerous and destructive dogmatic belief systems can be. We hear about the concept of how someone could supposedly sell their soul to the devil, entering into an irreversible agreement that cannot be changed. I am not going into the issue of whether the devil is a real “person” or simply the personification of evil. But if someone could convince someone else that they could go through some sort of ritual or process to sell their soul to the devil in exchange for some worldly gains and that to do this would be an irreversible act, and they decided to go ahead and do this, it is easy to imagine the power of entrapment and control this could have on an individual, even if the devil were not real.

So aren’t these dogmatic Christian belief systems potentially the other side of the same coin here? You have evangelical Christians using multi level marketing techniques and scare tactics to get people to hastily make a decision to believe and then you teach them that whether they even realized it or not, they have entered into an irreversible agreement with God, that is impossible to ever change, so they had better follow God or else, but once they die, they will still go to heaven.

I am thinking of a book I once read quite a few years ago, but gave my copy away. “The God Virus,” by Dr. Darrel Ray. It would probably be useful for me to get another copy and read it again with my current perspective.

I can really relate to the virus concept for when I became a hard core follower of the dogmatic fundamentalist Bible teacher back in the mid 1970’s. It was kind of like I agreed to allow some software to be installed on the computer of my soul, and the software had at least one virus in it. So I just could not shake loose from the idea that this Bible teacher taught “the truth” and that he was one of a very small group of people in the entire world who taught true Biblical truth. There was no way that I would consider any possibility that anything that this Bible teacher taught could in any way not be the absolute truth from God.

So recently I was searching the web for information about the negative effects that the belief in hell as eternal conscious torment can have on people. I found this quote from Dr. Darrel Ray, author of “The God Virus.”

“Just like it’s hard to unlearn English, it’s hard for people to unlearn the concept of hell.”

So in keeping with the computer virus analogy, I would say that religions, philosophies of life, even including atheism, are all like operating systems for one’s life.

This is another reason why I feel I have to be a pluralist in all of this stuff. And there are different flavors of everything.

There is probably enough diversity in flavors of theism and atheism that these terms in and of themselves without further qualification are not very specific. I was reading recently in a book on religious history that there was a time when Christians were considered atheists because they did not believe in the Roman Gods.

Theologian Dr. David Ray Griffin has even written a book with the title “God Exists, But Gawd Does Not,” where he uses the term Gawd for the widely accepted view of God among many religious fundamentalists where God is viewed as omnipotent, all powerful, among other attributes. So here you have a world famous theologian essentially saying that he is both an atheist and a theist, depending on the definition of God.

I never ever again want to be pressuring or trying to convince someone to follow my particular beliefs and especially not adding threats of unending punishment from God as a motivational factor to convince them to convert. This is nothing more than a monstrous fear based multilevel marketing scheme. The one doing the selling has already been enslaved within a prison of fear due to the soul virus they have been infected with, and the virus has actually programmed the one infected by it to take actions to help spread the virus far and wide to infect as many other souls as possible. (For a satirical parody illustrating this sort of fear based multilevel marketing approach, I recommend that you watch one or more of the “Kissing Hank’s Arse” Youtube videos, the oldest one being around 15 years old, but I only discovered it recently.)

Instead I would want to understand people for who they are and where they have been and where they are at in their lives and if appropriate and they are interested share with them some possible directions that I am aware of that they could take without trying to steer them in some particular direction that I think is right for them, or right for everybody.

Just to illustrate what I am talking about here, suppose an individual had been through a fear based religious system and was seeking to become free of that. If atheism seemed to them to be a path to freedom, I would not attempt to discourage them or sway them away from that at all. Given what they have been through and where they are at in their life, atheism might be the best operating system for them to install on the computer of their soul at that time, and perhaps for the rest of their life.

I might actually have more in common with atheists including those who are atheists because they ended up not being able to accept the over-specified Gawd version of God they were exposed to, than I do with religious people whose faith is still in Gawd, the angry punishing God who loves us as long as we worship Him in precisely the correct way, although believers in this God just can’t seem to agree on what the precisely correct way is, and have even killed each other over disagreements they have had in these areas.

I am reminded of George Carlin’s description of man’s diverse views on God, which I will simply paraphrase. He said that God has been the greatest cause of death in history. Do you believe in God? No. Bam dead. Do you believe in God? Yes. Do you believe in my God? No. Bam dead. My God has a bigger Dick than your God.

John Calvin is considered by many Christians to be a great Christian leader and theologian, and a form of Christian theology (think of theology as God theory) is even named after him, Calvinism. He actually had a lot to do with getting fellow Christian believer and theologian Michael Servetus put to death (burned at the stake) because his God theory was different than Calvin’s.

Fundamentalist Christians will often refer to the Bible saying that Satan appears as an angel of light and deceives many. What if extremist Christian teachers of the same stripe as Calvin are actually distorting the true God, slandering the true God, and in so doing are actually operating under the spirit of Satan rather than of God?

Christian Testimony of Timothy Mark Hightower aka T Mark Hightower

In May 2017 I wrote up my Christian testimony and shared it with a few people, and was thinking about how I might eventually share it with a wider audience. I thought about posting it on the web but I was not sure exactly how to best go about doing that. So I procrastinated. Then about a week ago I felt so strongly about conclusions and views I was coming to on the flat earth theory versus the spherical earth theory controversy that I felt I had to move forward and get something on the web, so I started this Blog in the easiest way I could find, using Google’s Blogger app. So I no longer have an excuse to procrastinate in getting my testimony out on the web.

The only thing I think I would add for clarification at this point, is that I feel that I am definitely a religious pluralist. Both of the books that I recently read by Dr. Boyd Purcell, “Spiritual Terrorism” and “Christianity Without Insanity,” helped me to conclude that I have to be a religious pluralist, even though it is a concept that is worthy of much further study and deeper understanding. I simply do not feel that it is my goal to attempt to persuade those of other faiths or agnostics or atheists to believe as I do. I would rather love them, come to know them, learn from them, share with them, and appreciate them for who they are and how they have come to where they are in their life’s journey.

Dr. Purcell has written and posted on his web site (ChristianityWithoutInsanity.com) a truly liberating message of Good News from God. The first 5 lines which make up the title I have pasted below for reference.

Evangelism Booklet

Five Liberating Truths—Religions in a Nutshell

SALTED WITH FIRE

The Good News of God’s

Eternal Love/Amazing Grace/Infinite Mercy/Perfect Justice

Just because God will ultimately save all, this is not an excuse to live unrighteously. The Biblical principle is that people reap what they sow in this life and/or the life to come. The principle of Karma from eastern religions is a very similar concept.

Also, in this brief introduction to the posting of my testimony on this Blog, I want to confess my sin of having given the gospel of Jesus Christ to many people in a spiritually terrorizing manner by threatening with hell (unending punishment aka eternal torments) to those who do not believe. So if there are people out there who end up reading this who I gave the “turn or burn gospel” to I humbly ask for your forgiveness and I hope and pray that your life can be healed from any trauma that this caused.

So my testimony document from May 2017 follows.

A Brief Testimony to my Christian faith

By Timothy Mark Hightower, also known as Mark Hightower or T. Mark Hightower

Born 1956

San Jose, CA

Email: tmhightower@prodigy.net

I started working on this document on May 9, 2017 and I wanted to complete it in one sitting, but something pulled me away, so I am back today to complete it on May 24, 2017, on my third sitting.

INTRODUCTION

I have prayed to God for guidance as I write this brief testimony and witness to my faith in Jesus Christ. Over the last three and a half years both of my parents passed away due to failing health, the last being my dad in February 2016. This was a very difficult time for me. Over the last 5 years or so God has granted me repentance toward the things of God and over the last couple of years God has rescued me from a most horrible situation I got myself into of relapsing into anxiety and depression due to abusing alcohol as a means of coping with the family stresses related to my father’s failing health and his care. I was raised in a Bible believing Christian family and when I was a senior in high school in 1974 with a troubled life and seeking answers I was introduced by a friend’s mother to the ministry of a particularly dogmatic Bible teacher and pastor who had a tape ministry, where people would listen to his teachings on reel-to-reel audio tape. I became a hard core follower of him, I swallowed everything he taught hook line and sinker, and felt that I then knew “the truth.” This pastor was of the same educational background as the pastor of the church where I was raised, both being graduates of Dallas Theological Seminary where a form of Christian theology known as Dispensationalism is taught, but he was super dogmatic in his approach to teaching. I eventually left this teaching after quite a few years for less dogmatic forms of Christianity and spirituality. I went through a skeptical phase where I explored agnosticism and atheism, but found it difficult to fully embrace atheism. Perhaps it would be possible for me to write a whole book about my life, but that is not my intent here. I want to keep this relatively short.

So, whereas there was a time many years ago when I thought I knew “the truth” and found a teacher who taught “the truth,” I now realize that there is much that I am uncertain about, and I am OK with that, and I still have my faith in God and Jesus Christ. So please realize when I give my testimony here of my faith in God and Jesus Christ I am speaking as a fallible human being based upon what I have come to know and believe in my life.

SEEK AND YOU SHALL FIND

I encourage people to seek religious and philosophical truth, and I even include atheism and agnosticism within the scope of this. If one becomes enthralled by a particular teacher thinking that everything from them is the truth, I urge caution, as this can become a trap that is difficult to escape from as I learned the hard way in my life. But I would encourage people to seek out multiple and opposing viewpoints to the extent that they are comfortable doing this, and to seek God’s help and guidance in their spiritual journeys.

THE GOSPEL

So my Christian witness is going to be pretty brief. Based upon my Christian upbringing, my experiences in life, and what I feel that God has revealed to me through the Bible, I am convinced that I am a sinner, imperfect and subject to much failure before a perfect God, my creator. The promised coming savior of the Old Testament, the seed of the woman of Genesis 3:15, was fulfilled in the birth and life of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as revealed in the New Testament. Jesus Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world, was buried and rose again, and has thereby provided restoration of sinful man to a perfect holy God. Man’s only response is to accept what God has done through faith.

Once accepted, God opens up the possibility for one to live a life pleasing to God, victorious over sin, where God is there to help you through difficulties in life, with peace in your soul even through hardships, and where beyond your life on this earth you will live with God and all other saved creatures forever in happiness.

The fact that Jesus Christ has died for the sins of the world providing salvation is known as the gospel, which means good news.

COMING INTO CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM OVER THE LAST TEN YEARS

The way I originally learned the gospel was that if one did not believe in Jesus Christ during their life on this earth, that they would go to hell forever, a place of never ending punishment from God. It took me a long time (approximately the last 10 years) and much study to eventually come to believe that all will ultimately be saved through Jesus Christ, even those who don’t come to faith in Him until after their life on this earth ends. What this means is that punishment beyond this life in a place commonly referred to as hell, is a place of punishment for the purpose of correction and ultimate salvation with God. Many Christians will say that it is heresy to believe that all will ultimately be saved through Jesus Christ. I have even had some tell me I am going to hell because I believe this way. The best I can do in this short testimony is to share some highlights so that those interested can pursue their own further research.

The term I like the best for the viewpoint that all will ultimately be saved through Jesus Christ is Christian Universalism. There are a few other terms, but if you search for this one you will find the others. I had no idea there was such a viewpoint as Christian Universalism until I first became aware of it about 10 years ago. Since then I have read many books and web sites on this subject, of which there are many. I have learned that Christian Universalism is not some New Age belief system that was formulated in recent history, but that instead it can be traced back to some of the earliest Church Fathers.

I am not going to try to prove rigorously that Christian Universalism is true, but I am going to try to show that as a Biblically based viewpoint it should be considered at least on an equal comparative basis with two other commonly accepted Christian viewpoints.

I first learned the following logical analysis from the work of Thomas Talbott as presented in a couple of books, one where he was the sole author and one where he was one of several contributing authors. I will express it in my own words so if you want to see the exact words Talbott used, please consult his work.

The Three Propositions. There are three propositions where all three cannot be logically true at the same time. Any two of the three can be true forcing the remaining one to be logically false. First I will state the propositions.

One

It is God’s will that all will be ultimately saved.

Two

God is able to accomplish all that He wills.

Three

Some will be ultimately lost, i.e. unsaved.

If Two and Three are both true then One must be logically false. This is the Christian theological viewpoint commonly known as Augustinianism or Calvinism. Basically this viewpoint says that it is God’s will that some go to hell forever, i.e. that God predestines some to hell.

If One and Three are both true then Two must be logically false. This is the Christian theological viewpoint commonly known as Arminianism. Basically this viewpoint says that although it is God’s will that all be saved, God is not able to accomplish all that He wills because man’s will supersedes God’s will in this case.

If One and Two are both true then Three must be logically false. This is the Christian theological viewpoint not so commonly known as Christian Universalism. It basically says that it is God’s will that all be saved, and He is able to accomplish all that He wills, and therefore none will be ultimately lost, i.e. unsaved.

You can find scriptures in the Bible which support Augustinianism (Calvinism). You can find scriptures in the Bible which support Arminianism. You can find scriptures in the Bible which support Christian Universalism. In each of these three viewpoints, advocates will seek to harmonize with their viewpoint the scriptures that do not seem to agree with their viewpoint.

I cannot say that I am completely sure which of the three viewpoints is true. I am a fallible human being subject to error. But I can say that Christian Universalism makes the most sense to me and is the most convincing to me, so I can no longer in clear conscience give the gospel by threatening people with never ending punishment in hell if they do not believe in Jesus Christ in this life.

What I can say is encourage them to research the gospel and seek God’s will for their lives and if convinced believe in Jesus Christ for all the benefits that come from this, the sooner the better. But I don’t want to try to rush people into making a hasty decision. This ends up being witnessing for Jesus Christ in a way that resembles “multi-level marketing with Bibles,” a concept I believe I read and/or heard from author and skeptic Michael Shermer many years ago.

From my own experiences in life, I have certainly experienced hell in this life on more than one occasion, and I certainly played a major role in bringing these sufferings upon myself, but God used these things to draw me to Himself, to rescue me in spite of myself, and to bring me to repentance toward the things of God. So this is why I encourage people to seek out God, the sooner the better, but know that God ultimately will draw you to Himself, even if it ends up being after you die. But it is much better to come to know Jesus Christ before you die. And the sooner the better so as to avoid the possibility of having to suffer those hells on earth that can be such horrible experiences.

I am able to read books from many viewpoints, whether within Christianity, or religion in general, or philosophy, or other areas, and I feel I am able to benefit without feeling like I have to agree with everything any particular author says or that I have to know for sure what is true about any or all issues. In many cases I might find myself unable to determine for sure what the truth is on an issue. I am OK with this.

FINISHING COMMENTS

I want to finish my testimony by offering one argument for Christian Universalism based on love, as well as citing some scriptures that are important to me.

The gospel is supposed to be good news. That is what the word gospel means. But is the typical gospel presentation, where one is threatened with never ending torture beyond this life if they don’t believe in Jesus Christ, really good news?

Does God approach man and say, I love you and I want the very best for you, but if you don’t believe in my Son Jesus Christ during your life on this earth, then I am going to put you in a place of never ending suffering? As a man suppose I approached a woman who I was falling in love with and told her of my love and that if she would not return my love I would lock her up and keep her alive and torture her as long as she lived. Would not such a man be considered one of the greatest monsters to ever inhabit this earth? How could God really be like this?

I learned this verse as a child.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16

I also memorized the Christmas story from the gospel of Luke, three verses of which I will quote below.

And the Angel of the Lord came unto them, and the glory of the Lord shown round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the Angel said unto them, do not be afraid, for I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you this day is born in the city of David, a savior, which is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:9-11

How could this be good tidings of great joy for all people if most people are going to ultimately end up in never ending suffering in hell?

One of my favorite verses that supports Christian Universalism.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 1 Cor 15:22

If the first “all” is not the same as the second “all” in this verse, then the verse becomes totally meaningless.

Finally a verse of God’s assurance of overcoming anxiety.

Do not be anxious for anything but in everything through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7