I forgot to say something: what I'm comparing to the mafia isn't *evangelism*. The person extorting protection money in my analogy is God, not you.
And, since I claimed my slander isn't baseless, I suppose I'd better justify it. Christianity (in the version that, AFAICT, you espouse) says that sin is soooo serious that it requires those who commit it to burn eternally in hell; not even omnipotence can (without compromising justice) simply set that punishment (or "consequence", as you may prefer to call it, ignoring e.g. Jesus's admonishment to "fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell") aside; but, on the other hand, that the on-the-face-of-it-irrelevant action of Turning To Christ can entirely, or almost entirely, get rid of that "consequence".
Let's turn that around: sin is so trifling that one can (without compromising justice) entirely escape its consequences provided one sincerely Turns To Christ (despite, e.g., continuing to sin at more or less the same rate as before), and yet God leaves everyone else (insert here the usual, no doubt perfectly sincere, pious platitudes to the effect that of course we don't know the will of God and he may in his infinite grace choose to save more people than we imagine; but heaven forfend that choices not have consequences) to burn.
Which, I submit, is not so very different from your classic protection racket. There's a threat (shame if something happened to that nice soul of yours such as, say, eternal damnation). It's a very big threat. There's nothing remotely resembling a decent justification for it (please feel free to demonstrate that I'm wrong, but I'll take quite some convincing). There's a way out, which curiously has rather little to do with the actual threat (e.g., it doesn't involve, you know, actually not sinning any more). The fact that this way out is available suffices to show that God does, in fact, have a choice in the matter, so you don't get to claim that eternal damnation is just some kind of inevitable "consequence" of sin that God couldn't prevent.
I'm sorry that you don't like the comparison. But, unfortunately, if you hold beliefs that entail that God is a monster then every now and then people are going to be tactless enough to point it out.
no subject
And, since I claimed my slander isn't baseless, I suppose I'd better justify it. Christianity (in the version that, AFAICT, you espouse) says that sin is soooo serious that it requires those who commit it to burn eternally in hell; not even omnipotence can (without compromising justice) simply set that punishment (or "consequence", as you may prefer to call it, ignoring e.g. Jesus's admonishment to "fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell") aside; but, on the other hand, that the on-the-face-of-it-irrelevant action of Turning To Christ can entirely, or almost entirely, get rid of that "consequence".
Let's turn that around: sin is so trifling that one can (without compromising justice) entirely escape its consequences provided one sincerely Turns To Christ (despite, e.g., continuing to sin at more or less the same rate as before), and yet God leaves everyone else (insert here the usual, no doubt perfectly sincere, pious platitudes to the effect that of course we don't know the will of God and he may in his infinite grace choose to save more people than we imagine; but heaven forfend that choices not have consequences) to burn.
Which, I submit, is not so very different from your classic protection racket. There's a threat (shame if something happened to that nice soul of yours such as, say, eternal damnation). It's a very big threat. There's nothing remotely resembling a decent justification for it (please feel free to demonstrate that I'm wrong, but I'll take quite some convincing). There's a way out, which curiously has rather little to do with the actual threat (e.g., it doesn't involve, you know, actually not sinning any more). The fact that this way out is available suffices to show that God does, in fact, have a choice in the matter, so you don't get to claim that eternal damnation is just some kind of inevitable "consequence" of sin that God couldn't prevent.
I'm sorry that you don't like the comparison. But, unfortunately, if you hold beliefs that entail that God is a monster then every now and then people are going to be tactless enough to point it out.