> Most Christian theology holds that God is the present age is not going smite people for breaking such oaths.
Or to put it another way. Since it is very obvious that people routinely break oaths, Modern Christians have come up with the rationalization that God chooses not to smite them, rather than accept the more likely explanation that God can't smite them for the same reason Superman couldn't prevent the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack.
While I am not religious myself, it is useful to actually learn about something before mocking it. Beyond the self evident reason for this, a fun is you might be surprised where else it shows up. In Christianity, mankind is taken as inherently sinful (even from the point of birth - hence baby baptismals) and is unable to avoid sinning. The path to 'salvation' is to accept ones own nature as a sinner and inability to not sin, repent for those sins committed, and essentially dedicate oneself to trying to live a life of 'antisinning', in spite of the impossibility of ever truly achieving such.
If the phrasing of 'antisinning' wasn't enough of a tell, you might notice this fits Progressive antiracist rhetoric literally perfectly. And it's not a coincidence. The man who wrote "How to Be an Antiracist" (which is undoubtedly the most influential modern text on such topics) not only spent most of his early education in Christian schools, but is also the son of two Christian ministers. Antiracist rhetoric is literally Christian original sin repackaged with racism replacing sinning. Design patterns show up across all "industries."
People attempting to improve themselves and the world must face the fact that
improvement necessarily requires accepting that one is imperfect, since if one was perfect one could not improve.
> Design patterns show up across all "industries."
Strong agree, and I would argue that even if antiracism philosophy did not come from christianity it would likely arrive at a similar point due to the nature of the problem. Any sort of hill climbing algorithm that does not assume original sin is very unlikely to be effective.
I do think it is worth focusing on what one is doing right as well as what one is doing wrong. Turning a bad behavior (-1) into a good behavior (+1) is a 2 point improvement, whereas just improving a good behavior (+1) is only an increase of 1. However it is often easier psychologically to improve what you do well then to face your weaknesses and biases.
> Modern Christians have come up with the rationalization that God chooses not to smite them, rather than accept the more likely explanation that God can't smite them for the same reason Superman couldn't prevent the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack.
That is too cynical for my taste. People observe the world around them. They see that sometimes people prosper when they do evil. A lot of theology is an attempt to understand why this is the case. Perhaps the Gods fickle? Perhaps there are no Gods? Perhaps the Gods want to preserve human agency?
Any religion that makes it a core tenant of the faith that God will prevent or punish X, and a human being is capable of doing X, will have dilemma when a human being do X and not be punished. So we have a survivorship bias in favor of religions that can bend without breaking. That religion, and human culture in general, is not falsifiable does not mean it is necessarily wrong anymore than ethics not being a science.
> God can't smite them for the same reason Superman couldn't prevent the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack
Because he had traveled to deep space and was busy facing off with Imperiex-Prime, an entity capable of destroying not just the Earth (though that was part of his plan) but large portions of the universe itself?
I'd forgotten just how mediocre the Man of Steel is. This is why my favourite character is Winter Moran. Less caring about humans ("They're only people") and more teleportation :)
Or to put it another way. Since it is very obvious that people routinely break oaths, Modern Christians have come up with the rationalization that God chooses not to smite them, rather than accept the more likely explanation that God can't smite them for the same reason Superman couldn't prevent the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack.