Excerpt
Reason 1
Christianity is not the one true religion.
We must begin with truth. If Christianity were true, then the fact that the traditionalist Christian God is cruel and absurd would be irrelevant. We would have to accept him. Fortunately, this Christian God is no more real than Zeus or Apollo. So we can safely reject this cruel and evil concept.
Over the thousands of years of human history, humans have created an untold number of religions, in the millions at a minimum. Almost every tribe or society came up with some story or myth about the beginning of the world, the gods, and what happens after death. From Egyptian sun gods, to the gods of the Greeks and Romans, to the gods of the Native American tribes, to the gods of the Middle East, to the gods of the Far East, millions and millions of religious myths were created. Christianity is one of these millions of myths. There is no more evidence to support Christianity than any of the others. Anyone who has made even a token study of the history of religions knows that almost every little group created its own version of god and religion. If you are a Christian, it is around 99% likely that you were born into a Christian society. Just as it is that if you are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or any of the thousands of other religions that still exist in the world, it is 99% likely that you were born into a society with that particular religion. Most people do not study the thousands of religions and choose the one that they think is the best. They simply accept (often are essentially brainwashed as children into believing) the religion of the society into which they are born.
The overwhelming majority of people in the world are not Christians (approximately 66% of the world is non-Christian), as they werent born into Christian families in Christian societies. They havent studied religion and rejected Christianity. They simply havent studied it at all. And the same is true for virtually all of the one-third of the worlds people that are Christians. They havent studied other religions and rejected them. They just accept whatever their families and societies tell them is true.
It is absurd to think that of the millions of tribes that have created millions of religions, Christianity would be the one true religion. Every tribe thought that about their particular religion. Christianity is just one wild guess about religion among millions of wild guesses.
Most of these religions were made up thousands of years ago, long before science, long before the discovery of America by Europeans. Some of the ancient creeds might have been based on the best thinking of their times, but the thinking of their times held that the earth was flat. They had no knowledge of germs, bacteria, and a zillion other things. Making up new religions is a favorite human pastime. New religions are fashioned every year. Some times they come in waves with similar silly origins like the Cargo Cults. Some, like Scientology, attract a fairly large number of adherents. Some are so minor that only a handful of people ever hear of them, unless they do something bizarre, like commit group suicide (Jonestown and Heavens Gate) or get into a hostage situation (Waco) or commit acts of terrorism and get noticed by the media (such as Islamic terrorist groups in the Middle East and anti-abortion extremists like the so-called Army of God in the United States). Regrettably, even the religions created after the rise of reason and science are often as bad, or even worse than, the ancient religions. All religions have difficulty dealing with reason and science, and so to an extent almost all of them are irrational. But thats another essaythe issue here is Christianity.
One could (and many have) write thousand-page books detailing the absurd nature of specific Christian beliefs. If I went into every Biblical contradiction and every absurd Christian dogma, this essay would have to be called 1,001 Reasons Why No Decent, Intelligent Person Should Be a Christian Literalist. One could attack in detail the ridiculous idea of creating the world in six days, the sexist story of Adam and Eve, the improbable nature of the Virgin Birth, and so forth. However, one could find similarly silly ideas in almost every religion. It is not the purpose of this short essay to attack the lack of truth in Christianity in such detail. Others have already been there and done that. There are recommended readings at the end of this book for those who want more detailed evidence of the false nature of dogmatic Christianity.
But while pointing out how specific parts of Christianity are absurd may be important, the most devastating attack on the validity of Christianity, and on any and all religions, is simply the history of religion itself. The way millions of tribes have created millions of religions to provide them with comfortable explanations for the mysteries of the universe and the way all these different religions have different myths and different answers suggest strongly that they are all wrong. In truth, no one knows the answers to the religious questions, and this is why there are millions upon millions of different wild guesses, speculations, myths and stories. We can admire human creativity (and marvel at human gullibility), which has created millions of possible answers to the mysteries of life without foolishly thinking that any one of those is the one and only true answer to lifes mysteries.
Christians cant even agree among themselves on what is fundamental.
Not only have there been millions of non-Christian religions created over the centuries, but even those people who accept Christianity in general cant agree among themselves. The differences between various Christian sects have them condemning each other to hell. In some places, like Northern Ireland, the different Christian interpretations are actually causing them to kill each other.
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