Again, this is just me getting tired of giving the same answer over and over again, so I'm trying to collect my thoughts in one place.
Dear Christian,
You must believe that the world is made of green cheese, or else my friend Ted (who totally exists, I swear) will torture you for three days. You don't want to be tortured for three days, do you? Look, I can't decide for you, but you have a choice to make. Either you can decide to believe that the moon is made of green cheese and not be tortured, or you can choose to reject the truth that the moon is made of green cheese and be tortured. The choice is entirely up to you. I can't decide this for you. Ted is coming.
There, did I convince you that the moon is made of green cheese? No? I feel so sorry for you. Why do you want to be tortured by Ted? I'm only trying to help you not be tortured by Ted. I'm so concerned for you!
Still not convinced?
That's because threats don't make things true. You should already know this.
Did the threat of burning in a lake of fire for eternity convince you that Islam is true?
Did the threat of being reborn a poor person or perhaps even an animal convince you that Buddhism or Hinduism are true?
Did the threat of missing out on the really good parties in Valhalla convince you that the Norse religion is true? Every religion that I know of makes some kind of threat about what happens after you die if you fail to follow their teachings. You have already encountered many of these threats from many of these other religions and none of them convinced you that those other religions are true. You must have noticed this by now.
So why did you expect your threats from your religion to convince me that your religion is true? Do you really think you are that much smarter than me that you expected an argument that didn't work on you to work on me? Is it because you think you are particularly smart, or is it because you think I am particularly stupid?
There is no excuse for treating me like an idiot like this. You know damn well that nearly identical arguments from other religions failed to convince you that those other religions are true, so you had no excuse for threatening me with Hell like that. You should know exactly how easily I can dismiss those threats because you dismiss threats like that all the time. Your threats don't make your truth claims sound more plausible, they make you sound more desperate, like something deep inside you already knows that the things you believe aren't true, and so the use of threats is necessary if you want to convince others that your truth claims are in fact true.
All of the different ways you try to use Hell to convince non-Christians just makes you sound desperate. Yes, that includes Pascal's wager. The fact that you think Pascal's wager is clever shows that on some level, you really do think threats make things true, at least if the threats come from your own religion and not some other religion (special pleading fallacy).
The consequences of something being true has nothing to do with whether or not it is true. It doesn't matter if Ted is real, and it doesn't matter if Ted is going to torture you. The threat of torture by Ted doesn't prove that the moon is made of green cheese. This is called an
appeal to consequences fallacy. The consequences of something being true are not relevant to whether or not it is true. In fact this is a particular kind of appeal to consequences fallacy called
argumentum ad baculum: threats don't make things true.
If you are like most Christians I have talked to, you may not even be aware of how much of a role these threats play in why you and other Christians believe what you believe. If this is the case, I can only suggest that you pay extra attention to what your fellow Christians say whenever they talk about Hell.
