Hellish Pronouncements...and Biblical Comfort for Voting Day

Thanks to my friend Arni Zachariassen giving me the heads-up on these matters, I've learned that as a philosopher I'm uniquely vulnerable to eternal damnation, and that as someone with a propensity to vote Democratic I'm pretty much doomed to the writhing agonies hell (primarily, it seems, because of the Democratic Party's growing support for same-sex marriage).

Actually, the article about philosophers and hell is a clever little piece by a pair of atheist philosophers--Scott Aikin and Robert Talisse--that aims to be a kind of reductio ad absurdum argument against anything like the traditional doctrine of hell.

Tragically, it appears that the article about Democratic voters going to hell, written by a guy named Dennis Marcellino, is not a satirical Onion piece but is meant in all seriousness--a kind of scare-you-to-vote-my-way article which, while it isn't likely to sway Democratic-leaning voters to rush out and vote for Romney, might actually inspire some of them to stay home on election day (operating on a better-safe-than-sorry mentality).

I think a philosophical refutation of Marcellino's absurd argument is actually laid out in the clever little piece by Aikin and Talisse. I defy you to find someone who chooses to vote Democratic (or Republican for that matter) because they correctly believe that the party they are voting for is the party of satanic evil bent on defying God and undermining all that is good and true--and so, out of a love for evil and mayhem, they vote for the party they judge to be most evil. And can eternal damnation really be warranted if a vote is cast out of a sincere belief that in an imperfect world, forced to choose between imperfect political parties (or not vote at all), the party one is voting for is perhaps a little bit more on track? If not, then your eternal fate isn't likely to rest on what you do on voting day.

But such philosophical arguments won't impact those who look to the Bible for all their answers. And Marcellino's case for the damnation of Democratic voters rests on a Biblical argument (albeit a very bad one that makes huge, utterly unwarranted interpretive leaps at every single step).

So, for those biblicists who suddenly find themselves hesitant to vote Democratic out of fear that Marcellino might be right, I offer the following words of comfort: At least according to what Paul says in the Bible, you won't be eternally damned for voting how you do. And why do I think that? Well, consider these statements made by Paul:

"Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (Romans 5:18-19).

"For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he many have mercy on them all" (Romans 11:32).

"For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive" (1 Corinthians 15:22).

"For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (Colossians 1:19-20). 

I've italicized the relevant "alls" here in order to make it obvious that Paul clearly thinks everyone is going to be saved--regardless of how they vote--on account of Christ's reconciling and justifying work on our behalf. So go vote as your conscience sees fit, without fear that God will smite you for it.

(Yeah, yeah, I know this is proof-texting, and that my proof texts can be interpreted in slightly different ways than what I offer here...but if Marcellino can claim that Democratic voters are all damned based on a few biblical texts taken out of context and then lavishly interpreted to force them to say what he wants them to, then I can take a series of biblical texts and assert that what they clearly seem to be saying is what they really are saying).