"Nice Guy" Jesus: Is the Love of the Biblical God Really Unconditional?

There's a phenomenon being widely discussed right now: The "nice guy". Note the quotation marks. It's someone who presents himself as a gentleman who is respectful to women, but the microsecond after he's rejected, suddenly the mask comes off and the claws come out. He reveals himself as a vicious person who was only feigning kindness while it was useful to him.

Often they also bitterly postulate that women reject them for being so nice because women foolishly chase after exciting "bad boys" who will only mistreat them. It's supposed that these women "deserve what they get" for having chosen wrong. This alleviates the ego injury of rejection by blaming women for it, instead of the "nice guy"s many shortcomings.

Here's an example of one in the wild.

Note how his tone changes abruptly, back and forth, depending on whether he thinks he's been rejected yet. Mask on, mask off, mask on, mask off. Most of us realize how pathological this is, to pretend to be gentle and kind only to attract women, when really all it takes to turn that guy into a savage is an expression of romantic disinterest.

This is not the behavior of a genuinely kind person. Not if that kindness immediately evaporates, replaced by vicious rage if the other party does not reciprocate his feelings. Note also that he blames the girl for "making him go off on her", as if she should feel bad for blowing his cover.

Now, let's try something:

Do you see what I did there? It's the exact same dynamic, isn't it? Love Jesus, go to Heaven, where infinite happiness and pleasure awaits you. Reject Jesus, and go to Hell, an eternal torture pit of untold horrors. Quite the bipolar dichotomy, isn't it? Extreme pleasure or extreme pain, dependent entirely on whether you return Jesus' love.

Is that healthy? Is that what a genuinely loving person does, torturing forever anybody who rejects him? It would make some degree of sense if Hell were reserved only for murderers, rapists and so on. People who were cruel and violent in life. But salvation does not hinge on works. It hinges on belief.

It is said that works are important anyway, by all denominations, but that you ultimately can't get into Heaven unless you're a believing Christian. That's the crux of it all. The important thing in Christianity is not being a good person, it's being Christian. Usually a very specific denomination too, which one depends on who you ask.

Apologetics defending this arrangement often suggest that Yahweh does not send anybody to Hell. Rather, they choose Hell by rejecting his son. But this is identical reasoning to when the guy in the first pic blamed the girl for "making him go off on her". It's like pointing a gun at somebody and saying they are choosing to be shot if they don't give you their wallet.

Likewise, Satan is the equivalent of the exciting "bad boy" in this metaphor, which apostates are imagined to have foolishly chosen over Jesus, the 'nice guy'. It's then supposed that they deserve eternal torture for having chosen wrong.

Is this ethically sound? Does it make sense to pledge your love to somebody who will torture you if you don't? Is that really a healthy relationship, or Stockholm syndrome? Food for thought.

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^{Stay Cozy!}