Christian deceptions

Liars fear knowledge. It should be that only liars fear knowledge. Unfortunately, acquiring and accepting knowledge often requires change, and so knowledge is also feared by those who fear change. Propaganda is persuasive rhetoric that poses as knowledge, and it is often difficult to differentiate the two. Propaganda is largely successful because either it exploits fear or the fact that people prefer to believe what they want to believe. Our society is saturated with successful propaganda, and that propaganda prevents acceptance of proper knowledge. Religion plays on our fear of the unknown in order to effectively persuade us to believe its answers.

To demonstrate how religious propaganda works, I am going to point out several common logical fallacies and blatant lies heard all the time from Christians and the Christian Church. My intention is not to offend (please forgive when my tone gets snide), but to view Christian assumptions critically. I would love to instigate an intelligent conversation exploiting knowledge and not propaganda to further understanding on any of these topics. Unfortunately, most Christians follow Jesus’ example and, instead of giving thoughtful, intelligent responses to legitimate questions, spout off some meaningless parable, resort to name-calling or find ways to justify their ignorance.


(1) “Since man did not make everything, there must be someone who did.”

This is an illogical conclusion, but because it is drawn from an undeniably true premise, it gives the impression that the conclusion is also undeniable true. It is often easy to recognize the fallacy in a statement about “everything” by breaking it down to something less theoretical and grandiose. For instance, consider this statement: “Since I didn’t turn the milk in my fridge to cottage cheese, there must be someone who did.” The flaw is the assumption that intentional intervention is required for creation or change, a typically arrogant human sentiment.
There are many other similar assertions (such as “Since I can’t control everything, there must be someone who can.”) that claim an anthropomorphized will or intent is a necessity for an object or idea, which we know experientially to be untrue.

In pursuing the question of how things exist, I think it is worthwhile to apply Occam’s Razor. If an explanation can be made for a phenomenon without making the unobservable assumption “an omnipotent being did it,” we should rely on the alternate explanation until it is proven unreliable. I have not yet encountered anything to which “an omnipotent being did it” was necessary for an explanation.


(2) “It cannot be a coincidence that everything is set up in such a precise way that makes our existence possible.”

This is a favorite of the Jehovah Witnesses. Actually this statement is true. What is false is the conclusion drawn from it- that the universe was designed for us. If the universe were not set up so precisely, we simply wouldn’t exist to be having this conversation. The statement only suffices to demonstrate how we can exist, not why we do exist. The fact that we (seem to) exist gives us no reason to assume that we or anything else were intended to exist.


(3) “The existence of god cannot be disproved.”

This is Christianity’s biggest Red Herring. First, it also cannot be disproved that there is a six foot tall invisible rabbit standing next to you right now. That doesn’t mean one is. Proof is only possible with mathematics and other self-defining tautologies. It can’t be proven whether I exist.

Second, whenever Christians refer to the existence of god, they are actually referring to the existence of the Christian God, which is a very different thing. It’s theoretically possible that the god of any religion exists. The implication that the God of Christianity is the only possible god is just subtle enough a deception that even non-Christians make that conceit all the time. Many arguments, including Pascal’s Wager, rely on the unsubstantiated assumption that if there is a god, it is the God of Christianity.


(4) Pascal’s Wager

Okay, here’s how it goes: (a) Either the God of Christianity exists or he doesn’t. (b) If he exists and I believe in him, I will go to heaven. (c) If he exists and I don’t believe in him, I will go to hell. (d) Just to be on the safe side, I’ll believe in him.

This is a cleverly disguised meaningless reductionism. Its meaningless becomes obvious when you apply the same logic to anything else: (a) Either Vahiguru, the god of Sikhism, exists or he doesn’t. (b) If Vahiguru exists and I devote myself to him, I will be united with him. (c) If he exists and I don’t devote myself to him, I will be reincarnated and kept separate from him. (d) Just to be on the safe side, I’ll devote myself to Vahiguru.

As you can see, there is now a problem of following both gods. As you keep applying the reasoning, it will soon become apparent that to truly ensure a pleasant afterlife, you must follow all gods. But this is impossible, as some gods are notoriously jealous and don’t want you following other ones. I will grant that the God of the Abrahamic religions, including Islam, Judaism, Christianity and the Baha’i faith, is more of an extremist than the gods of most other religions (you can’t get much more extreme than “eternal torment”), and so the risks involved in rejecting them are higher. But that still gives you four incompatible religions from which you must randomly choose. In the end, Pascal’s Wager is completely useless as a method for determining whether or not to follow a religion.

Whereas polytheistic religions can easily accept the possibility of the existence of gods in other religions, monotheism demands a complete rejection of all other religions. This entails an incredible amount of condescension and superciliousness not only towards other religions but the members of other religions. Christians seem to think members of other religions follow them only out of fear and ignorance, and delude themselves into thinking only Christianity presents an active, loving, miraculous and personal savior. In reality, the followers of every religion “experience” the god or gods of their religion.


(5) “The God of Christianity is the only God that can perform miracles.”

This is a part of a whole genre of arrogantly blind claims probably made in every monotheistic religion. Their bold naïveté is simply laughable. I would love for anyone to show me a religion in which a claim of a miraculous event has never been made. The illusion of miracles is part of the human experience. The most common is the miracle of healing, which can almost always be explained by the very real phenomena of the Placebo effect. All unexplainable natural phenomena, like life itself, seems miraculous, and much of the function of all religions is to explain these events and provide a sense of control over them, which in reality is provided by such things as Laws of Probability, coincidence, self-fulfilling prophecy and our amazing capacity to notice when a miracle seemingly occurred and forget when a miracle didn’t occur.

I grew up in a very devoted Christian Church, and never witnessed one miracle. Most Sundays, they had a time where the congregation would testify ways in which God had blessed them, and I never remember hearing one out-of-the-ordinary event. I’ve known non-believers who have, for example, been cured from cancer without chemo or gotten a job right before their bills were due.


(6) “The God of Christianity is omnipotent.”

The God of Christianity is supposed to be all-powerful. He even promises, “If two of you on earth agree about anything and ask for it, it will be done for you….” (Matthew 18:19) I once witnessed an entire Church congregation earnestly pray for a car to be started. It didn’t start. God broke his promise, which means he can break all his promises, including that one about eternity in Paradise. If God can’t even start a car, something a mechanic can accomplish, what can he do? (If the car had started, that wouldn’t have proven anything- I’ve had dead cars randomly start without praying for them.)

There’s a convenient verse Christians use to excuse God from performing miracles on cue- “Do not put the Lord thy God to the test.” But when people like Gideon, Elijah (I find it interesting that Elijah jeered the worshippers of Baal, suggesting their god was asleep, when his all-powerful and therefore tireless God is famous for resting) and Jesus’ disciples tested God’s legitimacy by having him perform a miracle he was able to come through, so just because we’re not supposed to test him, that shouldn’t render him incompetent if tested, should it?

When Christians respond with “Aren’t those Biblical miracles enough?” the answer is obvious- “NO.” The story of some impossible event that supposedly happened thousands of years ago and was retold uncountable times before even being written is hardly convincing. There were some equally believable miracles performed around the same time by the gods of the Aztecs.

Many Christians erroneously assume their God is omni-present. Not only does the Bible never make this claim, it refutes it entirely. The Bible repeatedly claims that God physically looks like man (but not women- that’s why they are supposed to keep their head covered in Church (1 Corinthians 11:7-16)). He sits, stands, turns his head, moves about, etc.; none of these things would make sense if referring to a being that was everywhere at once. The Bible refers to entering God’s presence; if he were omni-present his presence would be inescapable.

God’s omni-present characteristic was introduced by early philosophers attempting to ponder what traits God must have in order for him to be omniscient and omnipotent. Those early philosophers realized it’s pretty hard to imagine an all-powerful being with human physical limitations. God apparently even rests and sleeps; things no omnipotent being would ever have to do. His physical limitations come into play throughout the Old Testament. For example, in order to make his judgment as to whether or not to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, God, along with two angels, has to go visit them on foot (and runs into Abraham along the way) in order to find out for himself if they’re as bad as rumored (so much for omniscience) (Gen. 18:20-21). Most will claim the statement “God created man in his own image,” found through the Bible, refers to our thoughts or sense of logic but “My thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” God’s emotions definitely resemble ours, which is not comforting.


(7) “I know God exists because he saved my life.”

This is an example of noticing a supposed miracle and not the lack thereof. If your prolonged existence demonstrates God’s existence, than all premature deaths demonstrate his non-existence. Death happens eventually, and the unpredictability of the time of it is a fact, not a proof of God.


(8) “I know God exists because I have a personal relationship with him.”

Does he come over for dinner? Does he send you a Christmas card? Is he a prominent part of your photo album? When I was a kid, I had imaginary friends. I talked to them. I literally heard them and even saw them on occasion. They influenced my behavior and emotions. They comforted me. I cared for them. Give me one shred of evidence which differentiates your personal God from an imaginary friend.


(9) "If you have faith, then you will understand."

Although faith is essentially the noun form of the adjective “gullible,” I do not deny its power. As demonstrated by the placebo effect, faith does work. The placebo effect is a clinically demonstrable phenomenon in which a sick person will be healed, on average, about 33% of the time if they simply believe they will be healed. Studies suggest up to 90% of all diseases cam be cured from this phenomenon, but some diseases, such as depression, are more susceptible to being healed by faith alone than others. If you give a person a breath mint and tell them it will cure them and they believe it, there’s a good chance that the mint actually will cure them. That is why so many healers can make so much money doing things like pretending to pull maladies through the skin of gullible people. The self-fulfilling prophecy is another case of faith in action. Faith increases as it proves itself effective, adding fuel to its powers.

Faith can be viewed as an evolutionary survival adaptation. Humans have been wired to believe every optimistic story they hear and convince themselves that life is worthwhile. Without faith, we would likely delve into hopelessness and despair and our species wouldn’t last very long. Having faith in God and seeing the results of that faith demonstrates the powers of faith, not the powers of God.


(10) “If you believe that Jesus was the son of God, you will live forever.”

God is supposedly eternal, and therefore gives us hope that we won’t die. This is an assumption based on nothing more than wishful thinking. Metaphysical ideas (like God) will exist as long as there is thought, but that doesn’t mean anything is eternal, and it certainly doesn’t logically follow that human individuals are.

This whole idea of belief is vague. Jesus promises a lot to those who believe, but what degree of belief is acceptable to reap the rewards? I’ve never met a so-called believer who actually believes they can walk on water. Yet Jesus said if you believe and trust in him you literally can (Matthew 14:27-31 although the other versions leave this part out). Does that mean everyone who does not believe they can walk on water is going to hell? Again, Jesus said, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, Move from here to there” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” I’ve never met anybody who can move a mountain, so apparently nobody has the faith of the smallest seed. Suddenly heaven seems a pretty vacant place. (Read Kierkegaard for more on faith.) One hope is that nobody actually does believe Christianity and everybody’s just too afraid to admit it. But I wouldn’t want anyone to actually be living in fear….

I’m reminded of a modern parable that I heard a lot in high school: A teacher and a student are arguing the existence of God. The exasperated teacher takes an apple (tip-off that this story is untrue) off his desk and states, “If God can do anything, he can make this apple not hit the ground when I drop it.” The student retorts, “Yes, God can do that- but let me pray first.” The teacher happily agrees and the student prays, “Dear God, don’t let the apple hit the ground when he touches it- but more important than that, when the teacher releases the apple, strike him dead as punishment for his unbelief.” Shaken, the teacher carefully puts the apple back on his desk….

The point the teller of this parable always wants to make is the fact that he doesn’t drop the apple demonstrates the teacher’s belief was actually stronger than his unbelief. Well, then, is that as much belief as it takes for the teacher to get into heaven? Besides, this parable actually demonstrates the persuasive effectiveness of scare tactics and Christianity’s reliance upon it. I wish someone would try that with me- there would one smashed apple.


(11) “Jesus died for our sins.”

Let me attempt to make sense of this: The original humans sinned. (Sinning is doing something God doesn’t want you to do.) As punishment for sin, the original humans and their offspring have to eat food to sustain life and eventually die, and women, as an extra bonus punishment for sinning first, have to bear the pains of childbirth and be submissive to man. As the children of sinners, we bear the burden of their sins and have to attempt to not sin ourselves. As restitution for our sins and the sins of our ancestors and to prove our resolve to be obedient (not sin), God commanded us to sacrifice many animals in various ways, and promised to forgive and reward us with prosperity if we did so. But then, when the time was right, God impregnated Mary and she birthed a hybrid God/man child. (Wouldn’t you have loved to see what his DNA looked like? Luckily for Joseph they didn’t have DNA tests back then. But I’m sure he and Mary would have NEVER have had sex out of wedlock and tried to have covered it up by claiming an immaculate conception….) Being God’s son, Jesus was responsible for 50% less sin (Mary’s) than the rest of us (nobody’s ever explained that part). And he managed to do what no one had done before- he lived his entire life without sinning. Therefore he didn’t have to die! But (probably realizing the burden of having to spend eternity on Earth without sinning) he chose to give himself instead as a perfect human sacrifice, absolving future generations from having to perform the animal sacrifice stuff. Now all anyone has to do is accept Jesus’ gift in order to receive God’s forgiveness. Jesus also revealed that everyone will life forever in another existence after death, either in the happiness of heaven if we believe that Jesus is God’s son or the torture of hell if we don’t. (Too bad God didn’t have a God/daughter child who didn’t have to die but instead chose to do so under the excruciating pain of childbirth in order to save future generations of women from having to go through it.)

I will grant that the basic metaphysical premise of Christianity is plausible, except for the Christian claim that Jesus is 100% man and 100% God since that is an absurd statement in opposition to the laws of mathematics. But it is no more plausible than any other religion and much less plausible than there being no supernatural being intervening to, among other things, grant us eternal life after we die. Conjecture on the metaphysical (things that happen in an existence other than ours) must forever remain conjecture. In this regard, religion is much like a movie. In order to find enjoyment and make judgments about a movie, first you must accept the basic premise of the movie, even if that premise does not exist in our reality. It is only fair to grant the metaphysical assumptions of the movie’s reality.

Christianity, like anything, can only be demonstrably plausible in relation to its physical claims, logical consistency and hypocrisy. In other words, the ways in which any religion fails to follow Laws of physics and nature, logically contradicts itself or promotes behavior in opposition to it teachings generate skepticism regarding its validity. Since the supernatural, by definition, is not subject to the constraints of the Laws of physics and nature, supernatural claims made in religions are excused from having to follow these Laws. However, religion has no grounds for excusing itself from being logically consistent or sincere.


(12) “The Bible must be true because all of its prophecies were fulfilled or will be fulfilled.”

What other options have you left? “Will be fulfilled” is an optimistic way of saying “haven’t been fulfilled.” Said another way, the fact that the phrase is a tautology is made clear: “Either all of the Bible’s prophecies have been fulfilled or they haven’t.”

Using the Bible to prove its own stories, such as the stories of prophecies being fulfilled, is circular. It’s akin to using A. Conan Doyle’s books to prove that all of Sherlock Holmes’ deductions were correct. Of course Holmes always solved the mystery- the author wrote it that way!


(13) “The Bible must be true because its stories are verified by the historical record.”

Christians will claim “proofs” in archeological digs, such as finding collapsed walls surrounding the city of Jericho. One function of all religions is to explain our environment. It should not be surprising that there was a city with collapsed walls when the book was written; the story was most likely created as a means to explain how the walls had fallen. They wouldn’t have written about Jericho having collapsed walls if it didn’t have collapsed walls because that wouldn’t have made any sense. In the same way, there would not be a Biblical explanation for the existence of rainbows if rainbows did not existence. The existence of rainbows does not verify the story of the Great Flood any more than the existence of the sun verifies the story of the Phoenix.

Hypocritically, Christians deny the legitimacy of all archeological evidence which contradicts it. Of course, according to the Bible, the universe is approximately six-thousand years old, so they have to ignore a lot of archeological evidence. Most Biblical claims are not verified by the historical record.


(14) “The God of Christianity is Just.”

Consider the Christian claim that God will reward those who believe in him and punish those who don’t. Punishment is too light a word, for God will supposedly torture for eternity all with the audacity to do something as minor as refuse to believe Jesus was his son. In order to be just, the punishment for breaking any law must be fair, or appropriately balanced with the infraction.

There is a typical Christian defense that the punishment is so high simply because the command is so easy to follow. First, the claim of simplicity is not true. As evidence of our belief the God of Christianity demands that we give our entire existence, aka everything we have, over to him. Second, the logic is absurd as far as any application of justice is concerned. If anyone were to demand that we do something simple, for example sign a blank piece of paper, and we refused, would it be just for him to torture us, and claim that the torture is justified because what he has asked of us was so simple?

Suppose there were a ruler who hid in a castle and never allowed himself to be seen by anyone. He surreptitiously gave his orders to messengers who had full power to enforce those commands. Now, if one of those orders was to torture all who didn’t believe the ruler had a son, would anyone call that just? Why should anybody be expected to believe in something for which there was, at best, circumstantial evidence, let alone be punished for not doing so? For example, would it be just for anybody, no matter how omniscient they were, to torture all who do not believe in evolution? What benefit is it for the ruler to remain in hiding, when he is perfectly capable of physically revealing himself?

On top of that, can any dictatorship, for that is what God’s supposed method of command is, ever be just? To control everybody’s fate without ever giving any subjects any voice in that fate other than whether we live to serve him and be rewarded or not and be tortured is surely unjust.


(15) “Natural disasters occur because if there were no bad things, we wouldn’t appreciate good things.”

This is problematic on my levels. First, it is a great example of an illusory answer which is in fact a claim unrelated to the problem. Second, the claim itself is contrary to Biblical teachings. Personally, I do not concede that good and bad even exist, but I will refrain from positing this point of view, as it is irrelevant for my rebuttal, and resist the temptation of putting the words in quotation marks.

This claim that bad things exist so that good things can be appreciated does in no way necessitate natural disasters. There are an infinite number of other ways in which humans can realize the concepts of better and worse. Many people have never been in a natural disaster, and I am sure they frequently encounter relatively good and bad experiences. The claim would only be applicable as an explanation for natural disasters if natural disasters were the only bad things that happened.

Second, the Bible makes it very clear that natural disasters occur as punishments or tests for us from God. Although disaster usually befalls the wicked, God sometimes sees the necessity for his punishments to be inflicted upon innocent bystanders. As an example (not natural disaster related), when Achan kept some loot from the battle of Jericho (in which they killed every living thing except Rahab and her family (Judges 6:21, 25)) instead of putting it in God’s treasury, God allowed thirty-six Israelites to be killed in a failed attack on the city of Ai as punishment. (They then stoned Achan, ambushed Ai, burned it to the ground, killed all twelve thousand men and women, took the livestock and plundered the goods.) (Judges 6:24, 7-8:29) According to the Bible, evil comes from man (I grant that natural disasters caused by human pollution could Biblically be considered evil), and God is only good. All of God’s punishments and tests are good for us because it rids the world of wickedness and we learn from them (although it’s too late for the victims of course).

Third, since there is no bad in the eternal paradise set aside for the righteous, by the criteria of the claim, they won’t be able to appreciate its goodness. Heaven will be mediocre, I guess. Perhaps that’s unfair, as the splendor of heaven will be obvious in relation to their lives on earth, but it seems after a few hundred-thousand years the 90 or so years on this earth and its tribulations will be forgotten.


(16) “The God of Christianity is a God of Love.”

Christians have a great way of defining terms so that they can create a tautology- a self-defining redundancy. One of the most used is as follows: “God is love; therefore everything God does is out of love.” Case closed. What of our concept of love? According to Christians, that is irrelevant, because only God, being love, truly understands what love is.

If we cannot trust our own idea of love, we are left to follow God’s example, since everything he does must be out of love since he is love. Let’s view his actions, shall we? He destroyed every living thing except what could fit on an Ark once. He advocates genocide of all but the Jews on many occasions and completely wipes out several races because they follow opposing religions or occupy land that he arbitrarily and unjustifiably gives to the Israelites. He’s perfectly willing to rain sulfer on cities for being immoral. He’s happy to let Satan (since Satan has no power except what God gives him, Satan is really God’s hit-man) completely ruin one man’s life (including killing his wife and children) just to show off that the idiot will continue to follow him in spite of it. His policy is to reward only those “children” who obey him and punish the descendants up to seven generations of those who don’t. Did I already mention the whole torture for eternity thing?

It follows then, if we are to love as God has loved us, we should act according to his examples. Suddenly mass murderers who claim to be acting on behalf of God seem pretty sane. It seems the greatest conquerors in human history are the most loving. Our ideas of love granting unconditional acceptance and being fair, forgiving and understanding are apparently completely wrong.

Perhaps the most deceitful of Christianity’s teachings is that we are incapable of understanding love! Even a cursory understanding of the word should reveal God knows little of it. Although the Bible rarely explicates the attributes of love, certainly passages that do, such as 1 Corinthians 13, condemn God’s actions as unloving. Instead of eternally torturing those who disobey him, a loving God should simply forgive us unconditionally (1 Cor. 13:5). Any reading of the scriptures, no matter how liberal an interpretation, exhibits God as an all-insecure psychopath who on the first day should have created himself a therapist.

Many Christians claim to follow Christianity because their God is so kind and loving. That is really bizarre to me. I would never promote any religion nor grant that any god can be truly loving in light of god’s lack of intervention in times of crisis, but if you want to follow a loving monotheistic god you should probably look into Sikhism.


(17) “Forget all that Old Testament stuff; follow the teachings of Jesus instead.”

Christians claim their belief in Jesus frees them from having to follow the Old Testament laws and instead follow a whole new set of rules and regulations that the early Apostles came up with and recorded in the New Testament. This does not seem consistent, and there is no acceptable explanation for God changing his laws. Doesn’t it make more sense to follow the commands and mimic the behavior of God himself than some human claiming to be his son or his followers? Did Jesus come to reveal that God had decided to turn over a new leaf and start behaving more justly and lovingly? No, because “God is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Jesus himself said he came to fulfill the Scriptures, not rewrite them.

Jesus’ teachings are generally a bunch of empty promises giving the oppressed false hope that everything’s going to work out in their favor in the end. For him, the greatest command is to love God and the second is to love everybody else. That seems to justify God’s tendency to love himself first and humans (or Jews in the Old Testament) second. Jesus was fond of tedious parables, which allow him to express his sense of justice without committing to or guaranteeing anything.

Jesus is violent toward hypocrisy and his version of hell is a ferocious addition that doesn’t really appear in the Old Testament. His assumption that humans are often being controlled by demons is certainly not in the Old Testament. I will never get why Jesus insists that sex, except heterosexual monogamous sex, is a bad thing. (Polygamy was okay according to the Old Testament.) What could possibly be intrinsically bad about consensual sex? Although this is a personal opinion and in no way a solid argument since objectivity is impossible for humans, it’s hard to trust the omniscience of a being whose sense of morality seems arbitrary and not objective. (Old Testament law forbids such things as eating pigs, wearing clothes made of mixed fibers and men being around women during their period.)

The teachings of the apostles are also a bunch of hogwash. Paul was the foremost instigator of Christianity. I honestly don’t get how people can read his stuff and not be offended. His letters usually spew false hope, demand faith (aka gullibility) and perseverance (aka stubborn ignorance), promote love (Christianity talks about love all the time- but that doesn’t make the religion a loving one), extol the virtues of celibacy (e.g. 1 Thessalonians) and celebrate submissiveness, especially in regard to women and slaves (e.g. Titus).

Paul’s first of two highly boastful and propaganda-filled letters to Timothy gives a brief but typical overview of his teachings. In it, he personally claims to have handed others to Satan for punishment (1 Tim. 1), reminds to submit to authority (1 Tim. 2), explicates how women, being inferior, should behave, saying their only virtue is childbearing, and explains why (1 Tim. 2), gives savvy political advice regarding Church leaders (1 Timothy 3), exhibits dubious generosity (1 Tim. 5), advocates heterosexual monogamy if only because it deters from “sensual desires (1 Tim 5), advocates slavery (1 Tim. 6) (but not the salve trade (1 Tim. 1)), encourages the rich to be generous (presumably to the Church)(1 Tim. 6) and dismisses all who disagree with anything Paul says as being a conceited idiot (1 Tim. 6).

Paul’s short letter to Philemon is shocking. It discusses the future of Onesimus, who is Philemon’s slave that apparently ran away from Philemon and then joined Paul. Onesimus has apparently been a large help to Paul, and Paul himself would prefer to keep Onesimus, but it is time for him to face his wrongdoing and return to Philemon. Paul asks Philemon, as a favor, to be nice to Onesimus and accept him as his slave again. (Paul euphemistically prefers not to think of Onesimus as a slave but a “brother,” and hopes Philemon will do the same, as if that matters.) Paul is generously willing to make recompense for any and all wrongs Onesimus’ has done Philemon, but then Paul reminds Philemon that actually Philemon owes him money, and pressures him to pay it back, even going so far as threatening Philemon with a personal visit. (Old Testament law forbids loans.) I prefer to believe that, as in Cervantes’ Don Quixote, upon Onesimus’ return to Philemon, Philemon beat him to death.


(18) “That verse is no longer applicable.”

The Bible itself says “All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training….” Of course this verse lacks credibility, because the often used tactic of using what the Bible says to prove that the Bible is true is circular logic, aka illogical. But Christians generally find it acceptable to throw out verses they no longer feel are relevant, such as the New Testament insistence that women are inferior and meant to serve men (1 Cor. 11:7-16, 1 Tim. 2:9-15, Eph 5:22-33, Col. 3:18, Titus 2:3-5, 1 Peter 3:1-7, etc.), and I dare say many Christians have thrown most of them out. If the Bible is unreliable, what does Christianity have to rely on?


(19) “You’re misinterpreting that verse because this verse says….”

That one verse is in opposition with another does not cancel out whichever is inconvenient, but demonstrates inconsistencies still present in verses which went through hundreds of years of editing (the Dead Sea Scrolls are irrefutable proof of this). All Christians claim the Bible doesn’t contradict itself, which makes me wonder whether any of them have actually read any of it. For instance, the first four books of the New Testament all deal will the same topic- the life of Jesus. I challenge anybody to try and create one consistent chronology for Jesus which precisely follows the events of all four books. I’ve tried it- it can’t be done because there are far too many contradictions between the books. I could compile a more thorough list of contradictions in the Bible, including topics such as freedom, knowledge, criteria for salvation and forgiveness, but that seems unnecessarily tedious. After all, doesn’t there only need to be one in order for the Bible to lose credibility? Besides, in an earlier blog I listed inconsistencies between the Old and New Testaments. And need I again mention the endless hypocrisy in the Bible, in which what it teaches vastly differs from the behavior it applauds?

In my opinion the whole point of breaking the Bible up into chapters and verses is to make it easier to highlight certain verses and ignore others. It provides a convenient method of being able to edit according to contemporary opinion. It also allows verses to be taken conveniently out of context. Also, it is common practice, for instance when trying to convert a non-believer, to mention verses from many different books which all relate and seemingly refer to each other, giving the false impression that the Bible is consistent while highlighting the positive and neglecting to mention verses which might prove “problematic.”

The Bible contains a lot of poorly written and worse organized books. The only detailed accounts of God’s laws are Leviticus and Deuteronomy in the Old Testament (and the most extensive accounts of New Testament teachings are Romans and 1 Corinthians), which should make them the most important books in the Bible. The rest is chronology, history, stories of God’s people, hastily scribbled letters from believers and rants from Kings and prophets. Most of these act to contextualize and legitimize why God’s laws should be followed, praise God and demonstrate God’s powers. Others will laud the Bible’s consistency despite the fact that it was written by many authors in three languages over thousands of years. Don’t buy their excuses! Why couldn’t a supposedly omniscient God figure out how to efficiently deliver an accurate account of history and consistent set of rules to “his people” in an easy-to-read and understand fashion? The many Christian denominations would not exist if the Bible were clear, consistent and succinct.


(20) “I don’t have all the answers- but God does.”

I have never met a Jehovah’s Witness who did not use this one. They will also mention that “The Elders” would be better fit to answer my questions. Of course, the so-called elders are never available for house calls. (I would love for all who find my questions legitimate, compelling or infuriating to forward them to any religious leaders.) Believe me, I’ve never asked for all the answers. In fact, the statement always comes after I have just provided them with a plausible answer that they are simply unwilling to accept. I empathize with their options of admitting everything they believe is a lie or excusing their own ignorance; I’ve been there myself.

If you’re willing to admit you don’t know what you’re talking about, then why are you going around to houses trying to convince others of things you don’t know about? Millions of people expend a lot of energy trying to convince or force others that Christianity is the one true religion without having any knowledge of it outside of a few catch phrases. The religion continues to spread like wildfire. Why is critical thought so difficult for human beings and conformity so easy?


(21) “The God of Christianity is the only God that came to earth as a human being.”

First, in most religions, the god or gods come visit earth in human or animal form. At the moment, I can’t think of a religion where this hasn’t occurred, so the claim is completely ignorant.

Second, Jesus can hardly be considered human. He certainly didn’t have a typical human experience. I would be a pretty happy-go-lucky guy if, whenever I needed money, I could pull it out of the mouth of a fish, turn water into wine or feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish. This guy is more of a super-hero out of a comic book than a human, yet we’re supposed to be eternally indebted to him just because he has to undergo a couple hours of torture. There are thousands of people who have undergone years of torture and have gotten no respect. Upon realizing even he can’t save himself from death, Jesus realizes everything he has believed has been a lie and openly admits his so-called father has betrayed him. I would love for anyone who thinks any believer can perform any of Jesus’ miracles to go into the deep ocean to demonstrate his walking-on-water trick for me.


(22) “Jesus is the only person/God that rose from the dead.”

Resurrection has been a recurrent religious theme for millennia, and accounts of people/deities rising from the dead can be found in ancient Egyptian (for example Osiris), Babylonian and Canaanite religions, all of which influenced Judaism. As humans, we encounter many examples of death and rebirth on daily and yearly cycles in nature, so to say that the idea of a person rising from the dead is not original or clever is an understatement.

In college, I encounterd this guy who insisted Jesus’ resurrection must be true because too many people witnessed it for to it have been a lie. He could not conceive an incentive for so many to have lied about it. All four accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, including the names and numbers of witnesses, vary drastically, which is reason enough not to believe it. In all accounts, Mary Magdalene is the first or among the first to discover the empty tomb (in Matthew she’s with another Mary, in Mark there are three women, in Luke it’s the two Marys “and others” and in John Mary Magdalene is alone). The women had an incentive to persuade the men that Jesus had risen from the dead- they were all moping around. In Matthew (but not the other versions), a guard or guards (it can’t even be consistent for 5 verses) prevent anyone from stealing the body. Even if Mary Magdalene was alone she had a very obvious method of persuading some guys to help move the rock away from the entrance and then not talk about it; she was a prostitute after all. The versions differ vastly in how the disciples see Jesus, but in all versions he is unrecognizable at least to some. It seems confusing that they can’t recognize someone they’ve been hanging out with for years- he wouldn’t have decomposed that much in three days and it’s counter-productive (but not inconsistent for God) to appear in an unrecognizable form to demonstrate his existence. Certainly Mary Magdalene could have “hired” a look-alike to hang around for a few days and pretend to be Jesus. Obviously these guys are gullible, since they’ve been following Jesus around doing his bidding. Perhaps his unrecognizability is why Jesus passes on a great opportunity to march back to Pontius Pilate or whoever and say “ta da!” Two of the four books have no explanation for what happened to Jesus after he rose from the dead.


(23) “You will not be happy unless you are a Christian.”

All humans, Christians and non-Christians, struggle with finding the idea that we call “happiness.” Many humans, Christians and non-Christians, find happiness. Others don’t. That’s life. I will grant that the delusions provided by Christianity, including a sense of assurance and the teaching that suffering is a good thing, contribute toward human happiness. After all, happiness is unattainable without delusion. Christianity also offers a sense of community which is very lacking elsewhere in American society.

I will admit to being suckered by the Prodigal son bit as a teenager- that if you desert your “father” you’ll be miserable and eventually return, begging for forgiveness. This is simply another Christian scare tactic. I cannot testify (as they say) enough how much happier my life has been since those days, although obviously I’m far from the only American who was a miserable teenager (and therefore don’t solely blame Christianity for any unhappiness).


By the way, no bolt of lightning is going to strike anybody down for blasphemy either. (Zap!)