Reductio ad Absurdum

(also known as: reduce to absurdity)

—If everyone lived exactly like Jesus, the world would be a perfect place

Reductio ad absurdum is a technique to expose fallacious statements like the one above. Taken at face value we will assume it is true. In such a case, we would have 8 billion people on this earth roaming from town to town, living off the charity of others, preaching about God (with nobody listening). Without anyone creating wealth, there would be nobody to get charity from—there would just be 8 billion people all trying to tell each other about God.  After a few weeks, everyone would eventually starve and die.  This world might be a beautiful place for the vultures and maggots feeding on all the Jesus-like people, but far from a beautiful world from a human perspective.  Since the world cannot be both a perfect place and a horrible place, the proposition is false.

Fortunately for the rest of us, no christians actually live like jesus anyway. The talk is heavy in contradiction and the rituals mean absolutely nothing. And, internet christians being true to form, are as absent in practice as their god is in reality. How can one actually follow something that never existed in the first place? It is my duty to make the world a beautiful place by refusing to live like Jesus and embrace all our varieties and talents. Less religion, more humanity. Less hate, more love. Less conjecture, more truth. Less faith, more personal responsibility.

If everyone lived with grace by faith, the world would be a horrible place of reckless deferred responsibility. Reductio ad Absurdum that one!