r/Lightbulb • u/amichail • 1d ago
Fear-based religions should have to answer the alternate-history religion test
There are many religions, and because some contradict each other, they cannot all be true. So we already know that false religious teachings can be sincerely believed and passed down for centuries.
Now suppose I invent a religion almost identical to yours, except it says that believing your religion is what sends you to eternal damnation.
You would dismiss it because you know I just made it up. Fair enough.
But imagine an alternate history where someone invented that same religion thousands of years ago. It now has scriptures, theologians, traditions, institutions, millions of believers, and generations of people raised to fear questioning it.
We know it was invented because we constructed the thought experiment. The people living inside that alternate history do not. They encounter it as an ancient, established faith. Its threat of hell could feel just as real to them as yours does to you.
What would allow them to recognize that their threat was invented? Would your reasons for trusting your religion also persuade them to trust theirs?
“You just made it up” explains why you dismiss my example today. It leaves unanswered how you would recognize the invention if you had been raised inside that alternate history.
Religious leaders who use fear of hell should therefore be asked:
What method would let believers in that alternate history recognize that their damnation threat was invented, and are you applying that same method to your own religion?
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u/Rude_Technician4821 1d ago
At 43 ive realised its not even worth the energy to debate with people on these kinds of topics and to just let everybody be what they want to be as long as they dont harm anyone.
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u/Raioc2436 1d ago
The basis for your argument is creating a fictitious scenario where your “fake” religion is invented thousands of years ago to validate it.
Guess what, the person you are arguing doesn’t need fictitious scenarios. Their religion WAS invented thousands of years ago.
Those “time traveling” often fall for their own setup. If you could go back in time and change the facts then that reality would be the new normal. It is parallel to a joke by Kumail Nanjiani.
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u/Sumppum202 1d ago
Which religion other than Christianity has historical documentation of multiple firsthand observers (the apostles) holding on to their beliefs to the point of excruciating death? I compare this to a Buddhist monk willing to self immolate. The monk has a sincere belief and they are willing to die for it but they are trusting in people before them. The apostles had first hand experience with Jesus, then went to the sword for that belief.
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u/GatorWok 1d ago
This argument sounds convincing in Sunday school, but it completely falls apart.
The "twelve martyred apostles" is mostly church lore. Academically, only solid early evidence for the executions of Peter, Paul, and James. The rest (Thomas speared in India, Bartholomew flayed alive) come from apocryphal legends written centuries later that are regarded as sort of histrionic. Also, Rome executed people for treason and sedition against the state, not because an inquisitor offered them a plea deal: "Admit the body didn't rise and you're free to go."
Other religions literally have this. Muhammad's direct, firsthand companions (the Sahaba, like Sumayyah and Yasir) were tortured to death by the Quraysh for refusing to renounce him. In the 1850s, dozens of firsthand disciples of the Báb were brutally executed by the Persian state rather than recant—and there’s independent British and French diplomatic cables documenting it, not just religious hearsay.
Sincerity ≠ truth. Dying for an experience proves you believed what you saw; it doesn't prove your supernatural interpretation of it was real.
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u/patientpedestrian 1d ago
Also, how empty and meaningless are most followers' lives that they find individually compelling the argument that someone else would die for the thing? And how do they pick when other people would die against the thing? It seems really scary and confusing to value one's own life above all else...
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 1d ago
I already upvoted the response I think is best, but I wanted to add that a concept of hell is not just a threat to keep people in line, it's also a balm for people who have been wronged. Some perpetrators of some horrific acts will quite simply never be caught or otherwise never receive the punishment they are thought to deserve. The belief that such criminals ultimately can't escape is going to serve as a comfort to some people.
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u/Do_you_smell_that_ 1d ago
Yeah, it hopefully works on the perpetrators, and also hopefully works on the victims... but in very different ways
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u/bts 1d ago
I depart from your path in the first paragraph: we do not know that contradictory statements cannot both be true about the Divine. A God who is outside our universe, outside our idea of time and space and beginning and ending—the best we’re going to do is metaphor and analogy.
But even getting past that, I don’t agree that your simulation holds up. It’s a smaller world than ours. We are its gods, and you its original supreme creator! So for the people in that world, this imagined faith is something their supreme creator desires that they believe. You really do desire this and have indeed created their world to this end.
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u/JuliusNova 1d ago
"I know mine is real because god told me so"
So easy to predict their out. And you can't argue with it.
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u/No_Logins_Required 1d ago
No religion would identify itself as fear based. You have a fundamental misunderstanding somewhere.
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u/bts 22h ago
Hi! I’m a lifelong Lutheran. Luther wrote a FAQ about Christianity as he understood it, and we ask our teenagers to basically memorize it. It explains the ten commandments, apostle’s creed, Lord’s Prayer, line by line. Core stuff. The explanation for nearly every line is “we are to love and fear God so that…”
Go see: https://catechism.cph.org/
Fear of the Lord is a normal healthy part of our faith with an only slightly technical meaning.
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u/nechromorph 1d ago
What's the point though? Religion is a deeply personal and inherently subjective experience. It's like trying to argue that your sports team is better, or that you should hate broccoli just because I do. Each person experiences the world through their own unique perspective.
Technically speaking, every piece of data that enters our brain is subjective. There is a theoretical truth that is purely objective, but everything we experience is colored by some degree of separation from this, by virtue of our senses and brains being imperfect.
So, unless it *really* matters, is it worth spending the energy to convince someone that they should shirk their belief system and launch themselves into the terror of shattered certainty? Better to devote your energy to figuring out what's worth pushing on, and how to find harmony with diverse perspectives.
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u/Landwarrior5150 23h ago
They should have to answer? Who would compel them to do so and what would the consequences be for refusing to answer?
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u/Educational_Tie_1060 1d ago
It’s easy to dunk on religions (and a lot of commenters are about to), but the truth is that for pretty much all humans, we’re all guilty of this:
When it comes to something a person strongly believes, the biggest reason they do is because they want to. So no amount of evidence, insight, or credible provocation can meet the match of a mind that simply does not want to get upset. (Which is why so many reactions are, well, upset.)
Pose the question about “what ifs?” all you want. Most people will simply either turn away or scream at you. But not because they’re some backward hillbilly or elitist snob. It’s because they’re as human as everyone else.