u/Pandeism

Proposed: Kangaroos are so awesome that any religious text or theological model which takes the time to mention other animals but doesn't acknowledge kangaroos is an inferior religious text or theological model.

Argument: Kangaroos are frickin' awesome. They are one of the most remarkable animals on Earth, and any theological system which seriously claims to describe the nature of reality, creation, or divine purpose should have something about them in its descriptions or discussions involving animals.

They are the largest marsupials on the planet, indeed the paradigm marsupial, with red kangaroos standing up to 6.5 feet tall and weighing over 200 pounds. Their unique hopping locomotion is incredibly energy-efficient, enabling them to travel over 30 mph and leap up to 30 feet in a single bound. Their powerful tails function as a fifth limb for balance, support, and even as a weapon.

Newborn joeys are tiny (jellybean-sized) and must crawl into the pouch to complete their development, highlighting a radically different and endlessly fascinating mammalian strategy.

They are intelligent, able to interact with humans, including being trainable in boxing, and highly adapted to harsh environments, able to survive long periods with little water, and exhibiting complex social behaviors. Kangaroos are, therefore, not marginal creatures. They represent one of Earth's most spectacular examples of biological creativity, resilience, uniqueness, and ecological importance.

Furthermore, kangaroo-like macropods evolved at least 20–30 million years ago, with clear ancestors hopping around Australia long before any human civilization, let alone any Abrahamic scripture, Hindu Vedas, or comparable major religious texts. There is, therefore, zero temporal excuse for excluding them. Any divine entity or revelation claiming to address the fundamental nature of creation had more than enough time to mention, celebrate, or at least acknowledge these magnificent animals.

Thus we come to the core of the Kangaroo Argument: Any purportedly universal or divinely inspired theological system which fails to reference or meaningfully account for something as awesome and wonderful and distinctive and ancient as kangaroos, reveals itself as parochial -- limited by the cultural and geographic horizons of its human authors, instead of being informed by truly divine knowledge and wisdom.

A truly comprehensive revelation from an omniscient creator of all life should reflect awareness of the full breadth of that creation, not simply those animals familiar to ancient Near Eastern or Arabian shepherds. The complete silence on kangaroos (and, really, the entire unique Australian marsupial radiation) strongly evidence that these texts are human products of their time and place, and are inferior to kangaroo-inclusive transcendent accounts of reality.

Proposed: Claims of religions or religious works or accounts being infallible are impossible, because any person evaluating the account will be fallible, and is therefore subject to being mistaken about the infallibility of the thing being examined.

Even the wisest and most intelligent humans make mistakes. They make typos, lose their car keys, miss points on exam questions, forget to buy something they meant to get on a shopping trip. They mishear song lyrics, confuse people's names, leave the coffee cup on the roof of the car, unthinkingly make comments insensitive to a situation. Simply put, we all make mistakes.

And yet, the selfsame people who make these sorts of mistakes think that they cannot be mistaken in evaluating a religion. They think that of themselves, and of countless other mistake-making people evaluating the same religion, and of countless others involved in forming and passing down that religion.

And of course, it is no argument to claim that the recipient may be fallible but the progenitor of the religion was infallible, because it is possible for everybody to be mistaken about the fallibility of the progenitor, and for the progenitor to be mistaken about their own fallibility (and for the recipient to be mistaken in believing the progenitor's claims of their own infallibility).

And the funny thing is you know this!! You know this about yourself, you know you can be mistaken because you've made mistakes before and will again, and the people you've relied on for knowledge, they've made mistakes before and will again.

Now, naturally, there are mistakes that you can correct or, like those wrong answers on a test, learn from and come to know what you got wrong. But there are, as well, mistakes you make that you never know you made. If you call somebody by the wrong name at a party, and that person is silently miffed and avoids you for the rest of your life, you'll never know you made that mistake. If you're in the self-checkout at the grocery store, and you scan an item twice and don't notice, and then you pay the bill without thinking about it, your money is gone forever and you'll never even know that you robbed yourself of it. And if you're mistaken in your beliefs about a religion (or all religions), how is that to be corrected? Unless you come to critically examine yourself more incisively than most ever do, you'll simply wallow in your mistakenness your entire life.

But what you can't do, in good conscience, is assert a certainty that exceeds the possibility that you are mistaken, and the possibility that others you've relied upon have been mistaken, and the possibility of those you think infallible could actually have been very confidently mistaken.

Thesis:

Suicide being deemed a "sin" is immoral, since there would be no opportunity to repent.

Argument:

Consider the person who lives a pious life and is observant of their religion or whichever religion happens to be the truest one, but then comes A moment of despair and weakness. Perhaps they find themselves losing everybody they loved in some tragic accident, and whilst looking down from a bridge or a cliff, they are suddenly unable to resist the urge to step off into the void. Perhaps they're a prisoner, falsely convicted, on death row with no hope of reprieve, choosing to move up their decreed date of death by a few hours. Perhaps they've simply gotten so old that their body is decrepit, their mind is diminished, they are in a distressing mental fog and in pain all the time, and they just happened to have next to them a bottle of pills that if they take a few extra, the fog and the pain fade into darkness forever.

Conventional accounts of "sin" in would have these final acts be condemnatory, putting their committer forever into the worst possible afterlife. But deeming this one, and one which obviously cannot be repented of or asked forgiveness for, or even reflected upon after the fact, weighs one act over an entire lifetime preceding it, and makes this one act the only one which matters.

Moreover, suicide should hardly be considered a "sin" at all, since it is one's own exercise of bodily autonomy. Soldiers who accept a suicide mission are not considered morally in the wrong for it, but technically ought to be considered suicides. The feeble elderly person already on the door of death might just be advancing that event by a few days anyway. Sure, families might grieve due to the loss, but the loss (and the grief) were inevitable, it was only the start date for these which has changed, perhaps for the better, even, as recovery from grief will begin sooner anyway. And much the same for the wrongfully convicted death row prisoner.

It might be argued that the life of the person will be judged as a whole, but even so, in many instances suicide being the final act should not be judged at all.

Thesis: Approving of eternal torment may itself be the infinite moral wrong which would justify receiving such a punishment. The doctrine would then function less as a punishment for ordinary human failings and more as a test in itself, a filter for revealing who deserves it.

Traditional doctrines of an afterlife of eternal conscious torment create a profound moral problem for their approvers. Eternal torment is an infinite punishment, as it by definition has no end. No matter how few or how many wrongs (or "sins") a person commits in a finite life, or how serious those sins are, they remain finite. Infinite punishment for finite guilt is universally disproportionate, and moreso if the guilt is minor, for example whatever is the least amount of guilt needed.

Approving of infinite torment is, thusly, itself a moral failing, and since the consequence is infinite, it is an infinite moral failing. To genuinely believe that it is good and just for finite creatures to suffer without end, to feel no moral horror at the idea, and instead defend it, requires a moral character endorsing infinite suffering. This is not a minor failing or a understandable theological mistake, but a profound defect: willingness to approve of endless agony being inflicted on others. Approving of eternal torment thusly becomes the very thing, perhaps the only thing, which could justly merit eternal torment.

A perfectly good and just deity would not need to send people to Hell primarily for doubt, or failing to believe the right doctrines, or for earthly activities like masturbation, abortion, or disobedience to parental authority. Instead, the doctrine itself becomes the test: Who will look at the idea of eternal torment and feel "Yes, this is good. This is deserved.”

Those who pass the test (by rejecting the moral legitimacy of eternal torment) demonstrate basic moral decency and empathy. Those who fail it (especially those who become vocal defenders of endless torture) reveal a character which aligns with infinite wrong. The punishment would then no longer be disproportionate. It would self-selected to those who approve it existing at all.