Saturday, March 28, 2020

The Kindness Of Christians: A Red Herring To Apologetics

One of the most common goals of Christians who emphasize gratuitous acts of kindness is a sort of "relational evangelism" where they aim to win people over to Christianity by their loving actions.  Though this might be very appealing to some people on both sides of the kind deeds, it has no place in evaluating the probabilistic evidence for a worldview as multifaceted as Christianity (in that it has components that thoroughly overlap with historical or scientific inquiries).  Indeed, the actions of any person are not evidence for their worldview, much less logical confirmation of it.

Whoever becomes a Christian after being impressed with the kindness of those who identify as Christians, short of a total reevaluation of their worldview at a later point, builds their spiritual identify on an irrelevant factor.  Not only is the behavior of Christians (whether they are professing or genuine) a total red herring to the veracity of any theological idea, but it is also something that could change at any moment.  There is no way to prove that anyone's actions will remain consistent in the future, after all.

The inevitable conclusion is that if the Christians around such a person shifted their actions, the person in question would likely abandon their worldview--because someone else subjectively offended them!  Only a fool who treats their worldview lightly would ever accept a demonstrably true ideology because they are treated kindly by those who claim that ideology.  Behavior is of no value when it comes to evaluating epistemology, metaphysics, and morality.

Of course, kindness is irrelevant to much of Biblical ethics in the first place!  The Bible demands that the church be just, for every individual is obligated to not mistreat those around them.  However, it does not prescribe any particular set of kind acts outside of those that involve the mere honoring of the rights of a human or animal.  While some of the acts prescribed by Mosaic Law or the New Testament might come across as kind, something is never Biblically obligatory merely because it is kind.

Committing to Christianity because one is pleased with the behaviors of some or all Christians is one of the most asinine reasons a person could ever become a Christian.  To commit to something with such extensive ramifications for one's life, or any "smaller" philosophical idea, because one feels welcomed by its adherents is a sign of immense unintelligence and a lack of concern for truth.  If this is someone's basis for being a Christian, it should come as no surprise that they might very well renounce Christianity when a more subjectively appealing group of people comes along.

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