Why I hate Christianity

I don’t hate Christians; I object to those that blindly follow an ideology and attempt to impose that ideology on others. Ultimately, I feel sorry for them for being duped into believing what is not only a lie, but a poorly constructed one at that. I continuously hope that they can find the strength within themselves to reflect and explore the validity of what they have been told. But I find their persistent ignorance, willingness to be used and the underlying fear that permeates their existence, leading to a narrow, fanatic and often violent dogmatism, appalling.

Christianity is a multi-billion dollar tax-exempt institution that works like a pyramid scheme. Members are encouraged to donate 10% of their income while volunteering countless hours of their time and actively recruit other members. It has created a dogma convincing enough that it can unflinchingly demand its followers to believe and obey everything they are told no matter how unethical, ludicrous or masochistic it is and they will unquestioningly do it. Christianity’s influence in American culture and politics is obvious, profound and entrenched.

Perhaps there is nothing I value more than having the ability to educate myself and make my own decisions regarding my preferences and opinions. I do not have a personality suited for blindly going along with the crowd or agreeing with the masses simply because there are more of them than me. While I realize that I am biased against organizations in general, I especially don’t like when those organizations impose their ideologies on non-members. Groups tend to have the perspective that freedom is found in being able to be free from having to do things such as explore, reflect, trust one’s self and form unique ideas; whereas for individuals, freedom is found in being able to do these things. Many Christians will deny that individual freedom even exists (see Calvinism).

I also do not value knowledge based on tradition. Aristotle’s wrong but influential beliefs regarding physics and medicine prevented those fields from evolving for centuries. Today, religious aversion to anything contrary to its narrow sense of morality stymies the progression of humankind. Interestingly, the figures most influential in how we now conceive God were also greatly influenced by Aristotle. Christians will declare that they “know” Christianity is true because they’ve been a Christian for X number of years. If having believed something for a long time is all that’s required to make something true, that should lighten the workload of Christians trying to convert people that can trace their beliefs back not only years but generations.

Although Christianity comes in many forms and with many interpretations, all Christians I am aware of claim that a fundamental source of knowledge is the Holy Bible. They do not seem to realize that most of the traits which they identify with God have their origins not in the bible, but in St. Augustine, a theologian and philosopher born in 354 AD. He developed metaphysical theories on the nature of a supreme being using philosophical logic and not the scriptures. Almost a century later, Maimonides and then St. Thomas of Aquinas would help to solidify how most now envision the Jewish and Christian God. Christians will claim these are the same god, but it does not take a bible scholar to realize that while both are monotheistic religions, the figurehead of each is portrayed very differently. Metaphysically speaking, every god ever conceived in any religion has an equal chance of existing.

According to the Old Testament (OT), God physically looks like us. He is often found wandering around asking questions and devising tests. Obsessively jealous and controlling, he has an extremely unstable personality; fond of genocide, revenge, tricking his subjects, changing his mind, collecting spoils, manipulating nature, implementing nitpicky rituals and rules regarding everything and, foremost of all, the spilling of blood. Christians ignore almost all of the over 600 OT commands and rituals, including what’s become known as the Fourth Commandment to honor Saturday by not doing anything, which is among the most stressed laws in the OT. Incidentally, the Christian tradition of going to church on Sunday is not mentioned anywhere in the bible at all. These OT laws are not flippant but specific and important, with impressive punishments for ignoring them. Then again, God himself ordered Moses to break the Second Commandment.

Jesus didn’t seem to think obeying the Old Testament laws were very important, and Paul, the main author of the New Testament (NT), blatantly allowed for them to be ignored. This conveniently enabled them to come up with their own set of rules and rituals, most of which stress the importance of being abstemious, which is not surprising considering how much the NT praises suffering.

Christians will dismiss the OT god in favor of the NT one. This god, instead of punishing us when we’re alive, has devised a way to eternally and senselessly torture those who don’t so much as believe in his existence. Instead of the OT promises of wealth and prosperity on earth for the obedient, the NT offers Christians a life of suffering but infinite reward after they’ve died. Whereas sex was a reward in the OT, now it is a sin unless done under very specific conditions. Having lost his taste for blood but not pain, the NT god continues to condone slavery (read the book of Philemon, a letter written by Paul to accompany an escaped slave who he has convinced to return to his master) and treats women very differently than men. In fact, the salvation of women is found through childbirth. They are considered irrational beings incapable of understanding God, so must keep covered, segregated and silent in church. Obviously, Christians generally ignore most of the NT commands as well.

I could never trust a supposedly all-knowing being that is so overwhelmingly inconsistent. It is especially odd that the bible itself seems to indicate that God is unchanging. If he can change his mind, it is impossible to use century old documents to find out what he currently wants from us. In the bible, God does consistently hate being ignored. Why, then, does he choose to be invisible and inert? While it may be true that absolute power corrupts absolutely, few other gods behave as such insecure megalomaniacs as the Christian God. Like the cruelest dictator, he demands to be obeyed and worshipped constantly with extremely excessive punishments for refusing to do so. What does he need us to acknowledge his existence or importance for? Wouldn’t it have been easier to simply invent himself a therapist?

Christians will excuse the errors in the bible by pointing out that it was written by humans. Why didn’t God simply write it himself then? He supposedly wrote the first version of the laws he told Moses on Sinai on the front and back of two stone tablets (which Moses promptly, dramatically and conveniently smashed to pieces), so he is not incapable. What does he have to gain by having his minions write flawed and contrasting versions of his rules for him? According to tradition, Moses wrote the first five books of the OT, which would mean he couldn’t even be consistent as to where his own brother died and was buried.

The chapters and verses that the bible has been broken down to make it extremely easy for some parts of it to be used out of context and the other parts ignored in order to give a very skewed perspective of what it says. In reality, the bible contains contradiction after contradiction and a multitude of errors and discrepancies, despite the fact that it has been continuously edited throughout history, with dozens of books that were once part of the bible having been removed. (As but one example, Martin Luther removed many books from the Scriptures which he translated to German in 1534 but published them separately as what now known as the Apocrypha. See also: anagignoskomena and pseudepigrapha; and ancient texts like the Dead Sea scrolls.)

Jesus of the gospels is considered an incarnation of God. In contrast to the aggressive and warlike OT God, Jesus condones and praises passivity and submission. The four gospels telling of Jesus’ life differ immensely. Many, even in religions other than Christianity, consider Jesus a prophet, but he wasn’t a very good one, as he predicted he’d die and come back to life after three days and three nights, but in reality although the gospels disagree on almost every part of the resurrection story, they do demonstrate that he was in the grave for barely over a day and a half. I cannot understand why Christians are so willing to overlook such glaringly obvious fundamental flaws regarding extremely pertinent events in a supposedly perfect book about a supposedly perfect being.

Christians are really excited about the idea that their god loves them. They do not seem to realize that believing something or wanting it to be true does not make it true. The bible claims God is love, but actions speak louder than words. Unsurprisingly, love is not even written about in the bible very much, except in Song of Songs (which according to modern Christian standards is perverted) and 1 Corinthians 13. Unconditional love is nowhere to be found in the bible. I will never trust any ideology that condones multiple mass genocides for disobedience as being acts of love. Similarly, I will not consider anyone who demands to be loved under penalty of death to be loving or have any idea how love actually behaves.

It is not surprising that for Christians, knowledge is eschewed in favor of faith. Faith is the idea of believing in something even if there is no evidence for believing it. All humans, because they possess finite knowledge, often rely on faith. For rational beings, faith is superseded by facts. By way of analogy, one can have faith that another will never stab them, but once the other has stabbed them, it would be absurd to continue to believe they have never be stabbed. Christians hide behind faith as an excuse for remaining ignorant. They don’t need to explain why the bible has so many mistakes because they can simply assume it is the reader who is mistaken, even concerning passages that require no abstract interpretation whatsoever.

Christians tend to arrogantly think theirs is the only religion where there can be found a sense of peace and miracles. On the contrary, EVERY religion promises and delivers these things. The community, perceived security, hope and explanations religions provide are great ways of pacifying people. Miracles, derived from things such as laws of probability, self-fulfilling prophecies and selective attention, occur all the time, which makes them not that miraculous after all. Non-Christians win the lottery, too! The New Testament promises God will do anything a group of believers ask of him, which we all know is a flat-out lie. People find comfort in thinking that anything perceived as positive or beneficially yet unlikely is proof that God loves them. By the same logic, wouldn’t it mean that every supposed miracle that doesn’t occur means God hates them? On the contrary, Christians see this as proof that God knows more than we do. Christians have a justification for everything, and it is usually illogical, one-dimensional, short-sighted or a self-proving paradox that is a skillfully twisted play on words.

Just because something makes you feel happy and fulfilled, that in no way makes it true. It also doesn’t mean it will have the same effect on others. Many Christians will assume non-Christians are miserable. Often they will lament how miserable they were before turning to Christianity. This idea that everybody but them is miserable would be simply laughable except that Christians think it is their duty to “save” everyone from this assumed misery. They themselves have bought into hyperbolic stories about prodigal sons that scare them from imagining life possibilities other than the one they are familiar with. They are experts at the art of the guilt-trip. Until you believe exactly what they do, you are unequivocally wrong and should change your ways, which they have deemed sinful, whether you want to or not. They literally think they are doing others a favor by destroying their lives. It seems the true goal of Christianity is to make everybody who does not agree with them miserable.

Christians are very good at regurgitating clichés and embracing any evidence that supports what they already believe while simultaneously grasping at every perceived flaw in every view that is not theirs. Christians will tend to immediately disregard any opinion contrary to theirs as wrong without giving it any consideration, research or allowance for further explanation. They assume all contrary opinions are impulsive while theirs are divine. According to their rhetoric, while their motives for converting those who don’t agree with them are from love and compassion, the motives for pointing out the flaws in Christianity can only be anger and bitterness. Somehow heathens are the bad guys despite the fact that Christianity is the religion that promises eternal torture.

Because they think their religion has all the answers, most Christians are impossible to debate with. This is probably the most aggravating thing for me, a person who loves intelligent conversation. Christianity cleverly dissuades Christians from questioning their assumptions, as the suggestion of doubt is uncomfortably near to the all-important sin of unbelief. This fear is somewhat unfounded however, as the bible does allow for its god to be questioned, and the OT god prides himself in being tested.

It can be determined that the bible has too many mistakes to be reliable. By its own standards, one mistake is too much. Since flaws in it can be readily pointed out, it follows that any or all of it could be similarly flawed. This means Christians have absolutely no means for justifying their beliefs. They simply believe a bunch of random stuff random people told them and choose to interpret events that could happen in any religion or absence thereof as being the work of God. It logically follows that if Christians wish to justify their beliefs, they must first either explain why the bible is so full of holes or demonstrate that their views are correct without the use of the bible to justify their claims. Otherwise, it can only be assumed that their beliefs are completely unfounded. It then follows that they should, at the very least, refrain from forcing others into being subjected to their views.

If any Christian reads this and realizes I have valid points yet are unwilling to admit or debate them, you are nothing but a pathetic coward. If anyone notices anything demonstrably inaccurate in what I have presented, pleased be specific in letting me know what that might be.

Love’s Been Good to Me

I have been a rover
I have walked alone
Hiked a hundred highways
Never found a home
Still in all I'm happy
The reason is, you see
Once in a while along the way
Love's been good to me

There was a girl in Denver
Before the summer storm
Oh, her eyes were tender
Oh, her arms were warm
And she could smile away the thunder
Kiss away the rain
Even though she's gone away
You won't hear me complain

I have been a rover
I have walked alone
Hiked a hundred highways
Never found a home
Still in all I'm happy
The reason is, you see
Once in a while along the way
Love's been good to me

There was a girl in Portland
Before the winter chill
We used to go a-courtin'
Along October hill
And she could laugh away the dark clouds
Cry away the snow
It seems like only yesterday
As down the road I go

I've been a rover
I have walked alone
Hiked a hundred highways
Never found a home
Still in all I'm happy
The reason is, you see
Once in a while along the way
Love's been good to me

-Johnny Cash (Lyrics are actually by Rod McKuen)