Combating Kristianity

Last updated 2004-06-28 by Roedy Green ©1999-2004 Canadian Mind Products.
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Religion is all bunk.
~ Thomas Edison
born 1847 February 11 in Milan, Ohio, USA
died 1931 October 18 in West Orange, New Jersey, USA.

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
~ Albert Einstein
born 1879 March 1 in Ulm, Germany
died 1955 April 18 in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.
~ Voltaire [François Marie Arouet]
born 1694 November 21 in Paris, France
died 1778 May 30 in Paris, France

What Is This Essay Up To

1. To stop the killing based on religious intolerance.
2. To stop economic exploitation based on religious bamboozlement.
3. To discourage superstition.
4. To encourage speculation to be labelled as such. Religion should have to live up to the same standards of truth in advertising as any anything else. It should demonstrate what it claims on the material plane. Otherwise, how are you to tell it from wishful imagining?
5. To stop people from people from tormenting each other in the name of religion.
6. To stop Christians from voting themselves special status above other religions.
7. To keep purely Christian notions from being enacted into law. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion.

1. That you should treat others as you yourself would want to be treated.
2. The importance of love, truth, kindness and non-violence.
3. Ritual. People like music, candles, incense, ceremonies, history, costumes and special foods. Ideally everyone would be permitted to share in the rich traditions of everyone else.
4. Community.
5. Techniques to motivate you to get along with your fellow humans.
6. Hints at how to apprehend the great unspeakable mysteries of life.

1. In John 14:12 Jesus told his followers they would do works even greater than his. He did not put himself on a pedestal. He asked people to look to God, not to him.
2. In Matthew 16:27 he explained that you will be judged on your works, not your faith.
3. Jesus mocked elaborate priestly garb in Matthew 23:5.
4. In Matthew 21:12 Jesus chased those selling doves from the temple.
5. In Matthew 25:40 he warned that the way you treated the least of your brothers would be way you would be judged.

The Puritans left England for America not because they couldn't be Puritans in their mother country, but because they were not allowed to force others to become Puritans; in the New World, of course, they could and did.
~ Gore Vidal

Jesus asks us not to be judgemental, and that includes being judgemental of Kristians. For now, I am going to do my best to be non-judgemental, but I don't yet know a way to write this essay without being judgemental. Somebody has to bell this cat.

There is only one truth and a million falsehoods. The only thing mankind can unify around are the common truths. That means everything else will have to go.

Why Combat Kristianity?

Dear Jesus
Please save me from your followers.
~ anonymous

Jesus said "You are your brothers' keeper." He urged people to live a simple lifestyle that puts minimal stress on the environment. I fully agree. I don't want to promote selfish or Satanic behaviour. Whether we should discourage Kristianity has nothing whatever to do with whether God exists. I tackle that in an essays on god and the real god. The Kristian description of God is bogus. It is a composite of the wishful thinking of a motley collection of old men, with nothing divine about it at all. It is a con, possibly motivated with good intentions, but nevertheless a con. There many unkind things about Kristians in this essay. Obviously these remarks don't apply to Christians, but they do apply to the many Kristians, the ones who meddle in the affairs of non-Kristians. However, all Christians deliberately believe an improbable story, mainly, because doing so makes them feel warm and fuzzy, not because there is much evidence for it. That is not particularly noble.

People are often quite puzzled why I would combat Kristianity. I lead a relatively ethical life. I spend a lot of time writing about ethics. Why would I so vehemently oppose Kristianity?

1. In John I 2:7-12 and again in John II 1:5 Jesus gives the new old commandment: Love everyone unconditionally. Kristians give the Old Testament precedence over Jesus's prime directive.
2. There is a tribe in the Philipines that torture pigs by sticking wooden spears into them. The more the pig squeals supposedly the more spirits enter the pig and bring good fortune on the village. The longer the pig squeals before it dies, supposedly the more good fortune. Why on earth would spirits want to enter a suffering pig? What evidence is there that this sacrificial magic works? What evidence is there than any sacrificial magic works? The only example I can think of is painlessly sacrificing the best seeds to the "gods" to bring benefit. Sacrifice is usually an excuse for sadism. Kristiantity focuses on of pointless sacrifice and pain.
3. Kristianity is an S&M/guilt trip. Christianity is a love trip.
4. Deuteronomy 23:19 and many other places forbid usury -- accepting interest on a loan. This is an unusual commandment to follow in the modern age, though it was strictly adhered to in the middle ages. Only non-Christians could offer interest-style loans. Why is usury so bad? It creates an instability. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Kristians ignore this important commandment.
5. The Bible conflicts with what we know to be true in medicine, astronomy, psychiatry, physics, chemistry, biology, parasitology, criminology, geology... Even if you give the Bible extreme latitude as only metaphorical, it is still wrong. It represented the best thinking of people two millenia ago. Precious little of what it had to say is still relevant. Ironically, a book designed to guide people to a more moral life is now leading them to hatred, intolerance and foolishness. People confuse God and the Bible. God is a truth that lives in your heart. The Bible is just a book to help you find that truth.
6. The central ceremony of Christianity involves ritual cannibalism, It is done very daintily on white linen, but still the idea is barbaric.
7. Catholic and Southern Baptists continue to encourage prejudice against women. They refuse to allow women to take part in the leadership of the church. Women were chattels in Biblical times, and Kristians want to return to those times.
8. Kristians take great pleasure in tormenting gays, treating them as second class citizens. In the past they did the same with blacks, using the bible to justify their petty snobbery. What is so galling is the hypocrisy. They pretend to do this in the name of love and good will. They hate fun, love and kindness. They despise people who enjoy their lives. They want everyone to lead lives as cramped and miserable as theirs. Think of John Ashcroft and his clothing the statues and refusal to dance. Kristian argue that not only should homosexuals be forced to be celibate as punishment for being born gay, but that Kristians should treat gays as second class citizens and make their lives miserable whether they are celibate or not. Yet they hypocritically claim this stance is consistent with the Gandhian notion of hate the sin and love the sinner. They enjoy using gays as scapegoats to vent their petty venality.
9. There may be a God, but the Kristian description of the creator of the universe is not correct. See the two essays The Real God and Is there A God?. Kristians are spreading slander about the creator of the universe. The Old Testament depicts Him as a petty, incompetent buffoon. The Qu'ran has a somewhat better description, but no mere words can possibly do God justice.
10. My essential beef with Kristianity is its dishonesty. It presents as absolute fact statements that are mere speculation backed by nothing more substantial that a deep gut feeling that they must be true. Kristianity bandies the word truth around as if it had an exclusive hold on it, but it is utterly careless about the usual rules of evidence. There is far more evidence for alien abduction than for even the existence of Jesus, much less the claimed resurrection from the dead. if Jesus really were so amazing, how come nobody bothered to write down anything he said while he was alive? If three Kings proclaimed him the Messiah at birth, why was he raised has a humble carpenter? How come his followers did not even bother to protect his birth, death and resurrection places as holy shrines? How come there is no secular record of him? It sounds like the story was ahem, enhanced considerably after his death for better sales appeal. Christians have only the flimsiest evidence for their beliefs, so they bluster and bluff, claiming infallilibily and absolute truth. They have been shown time and time again to be simply wrong. Being wrong is forgivable; claiming exclusive access to absolute truth is delusional.
11. Jesus harped on three themes:
    1. Don't chase wealth.
    2. Look after the poor.
    3. Don't judge or seek revenge.
    Yet consider a Kristian like George W. Bush. He totally ignores Jesus's three biggies, yet considers himself pious man. Exposure to Kristianity seems to make people immune to Jesus's message. They imagine they have already heard and absorbed it, when they are the ones most in need of it.
12. Here is just one example of scientific dishonesty Kristians resort to in order to sell their Bible stories. To demonstrate the feasibility of the story that 7 trumpets brought down the 20 foot thick walls of the city of Jericho, they built a wall of bricks and subjected it to over 20,000 watts of acoustic bombardment. Since the wall had not even set, predictably it collapsed. Of course the containing room of 6 inches of concrete did not. However, the makers of Mysteries of The Bible failed to point that out. Even that level of sound will kill people.

13. Beware the man of one book.
    ~ Roman proverb

    We don't mind an arrogant genius like Pierre Trudeau who won't suffer fools gladly, however, an arrogant twit is insufferable. Fundamentalist Kristians infuriating. Why? They make the assertion that the Bible is the literal word of God. Then they insult everyone's intelligence by offering not a shred of evidence to support such a fantastic claim. As Carl Sagan said: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs." Since they are the ones making such an extraordinary claim, the burden of proof should be on them. Yet fundamentalists think they are exempt from the customary rules of evidence. They don't have even the most rudimentary understanding of what evidence is. They attempt to circularly prove the truth of the Bible by quoting parts of it that proclaim its truth. Even when you show them over and over how the Bible could not possibly the literal word of God, (e.g. my Noah essay), they refuse to see and make up the silliest excuses to hold onto their delusion. They want it to be true so it is true.

14. Reading books everyone died, none became any wise.
    One who reads the word of Love, only becomes wise.
    ~ Kabir

    Fundamentalist Kristians make the assertion that the Bible is the literal word of God. Then they demand others accept that unlikely notion as Absolute Truth, purely on blind faith. That God is the author of the Bible is unlikely because surely God would have written a much better book than the Bible with its factual errors, inconsistencies, vagueness, rambling, psychotic advice and irrelevancy. Labelling it 100% God's work is blasphemy. With the faith non-argument, (just have faith it is the 100% word of God), you could equally well assert that Dr. Seuss's The Cat In The Hat was the literal word of God. In contrast, Islam offers some weak proof that the Qur'an is the literal word of God, namely that the poetry of the Qur'an is the best ever written in Arabic, ostensibly beyond all possible human skill. The Qu'ran too blasphemes Allah. No written words could do otherwise.

15. Kristians such as Jerry Falwell knowingly misrepresent the theory of evolution to the public. Their lies have approximately half the population of the US rejecting the theory. Even after being repeatedly corrected, Falwell continues to assert that evolution is a random process akin to throwing the parts of watch in the air and having them assemble themselves into a watch. Natural selection, the force that does the shaping, is not in the least random. Its mindless, relentless push to perfection is what gives the illusion of a designer. Random mutation just provides raw fodder of the selection process. You could think of the process of the natural selection as like a primitive spell checker a child might use. It points out the mistakes but does not correct them. It is up to the child to randomly try new spellings until they get it right. Out of this process, with sufficient patience, can come perfectly spelt papers, far beyond the powers of an unaided child.
16. Kristians are so utterly sure their particular sect is the very best possible, even though they deliberately shield themselves from exposure to anything else. It is intellectually dishonest to pretend you know more than you really do.
17. Kristians have effectively brainwashed everyone into thinking that almost anything if done with a religious motivation must not be interfered with. This includes child abuse, self mutilation, exposing children to poisonous snakes, brainwashing, disrupting the funerals of homosexuals, and of course income tax evasion (which they have made legal for them alone, not for groups of atheists). Freedom of religion means Kristians have a perfect right to make fools of themselves. However, they should be prevented from harming others, including their children, in the process.
18. The Vatican during WW II lifted not a finger to help the Jews. They could have threatened to excommunicate Catholics who engaged in those murders. After the war, they helped Nazi war criminals to escape. Then they got into the business of laundering money for the Mafia. The Vatican cons poor peasants in the third world to pay for the extravagance and opulence of St. Peter's Basilica.
19. Kristians are obviously aware that not everyone agrees with them and that they can't provide much evidence for their beliefs. In other words, they know they are basing their lives on speculation and gut instinct. Obviously, even Kristians have plenty of experimental evidence that loving your enemies and treating others kindly does work. God's creation speaks to man in a million ways besides books. These are much easier to read that ancient texts. Why do Kristians insist on closing their eyes to God's clearest messages? Why do they refuse to see the awe in Quantum Physics? The physicist at least tries to learn how God thinks. I suspect the reason is the Kristians, too suspect their security blanket is a sham, and want to shore up their belief in its magic by talking others in to believing in it.
20. Childhood brainwashing makes Kristians so dense they cannot for the life of them see the difference between rejecting the divinity and rejecting the Kristian description of the divinity. It never even occurs to them their description is largely wrong.
21. Have you even tried to debate with a Kristian on anything, e.g. software piracy? They have only a very limited repertoire of ancient ideas they use as the answer to any question, like one of those dolls you pull the string on that parrots a pat phrase. Further, like the Church lady, Kristians see evil everywhere. Kristianity destroys the ability to have or appreciate a new idea. Ironically, the people who seem to have an inkling of what Christ was actually trying to say are not even Christians.
22. I went to see a lecture by Dr. Charles Taylor cmt@philo.mcgill.ca the eminent Canadian philosopher and theologian. Even though he was obviously a respected academic, I decided even he was a Kristian. He skirted the issue of science as a factor in the decline of Christianity in his lecture on the rise of secularism over Christianity. He tried to paint scientists as closed minded in comparison with Kristians. Consider the source of radical new ideas over the last hundred years. He attacked a straw man accusing evolutionists of claiming to have a complete handle on the causes of evolution. He has it backwards, Kristians are the ones claiming absolute and complete truth. Science is always provisional -- the best truth so far. He talked of "religious knowledge" when there is no such thing, only religious speculation. If it were knowledge it would be agreed upon fact, not religion. He was willing to jump through hoops to read the Bible in such a way it did not conflict with observed fact, e.g. to conform to Galileo's observation that the earth is not the centre of the universe. He told several stories of people losing their faith. The tragedy was the pain of disillusionment. He seemed to imply that religion was a balm for that pain and that avoiding that pain was what was important. Whether the beliefs were true seemed completely immaterial.
23. The United States is the richest country on earth and the most Christian. How does America help the rest of the world when it comes to the AIDS epidemic? It could save millions of lives by providing sufficient medicine. This would come out to about $5 a citizen. Do they do it? No. Instead they sue the South African government for providing its citizens with low cost generic AIDS drugs. Yet Kristians are almost infinitely smug about their virtue. See Mécedcins Sans Frontières for details. They did not go to the aid of many other countries beset by terrorists, but threatened every country on earth unless they came to America's aid.
24. Kristians don't understand that their values are not universal. They insist that all children, both Kristian and non-Kristian alike be indoctrinated with Kristian values. For example, instead of giving teens factual information about the risks of various activities for passing various sexual diseases and for pregnancy, or the consequences of either, they want to hide this information from them. Instead they want all children inculcated with religious opinions such as "all sex outside marriage, even masturbation, is wicked" and "abstinence and marriage are the only acceptable approaches to preventing venereal diseases". The African experience has proved the futility of this approach, yet the Kristians are slaughtering a generation of children on the altar of Kristian virtue.
25. Kristianity is humbug. It is based on untruths. I oppose all untruth even supposedly harmless ones. I oppose Kristianity on the same grounds that I oppose people who tell me professional wrestling is real, horoscopes can predict the future, that $9.00 a minute TV psychics have access to supernatural information and that the earth is flat. Kristianity makes claims that are demonstrably not true (as well as other outlandish ones that cannot be either proved or disproved). The best known miracle, the loaves and the fishes is a lie. The fishes were added later, to incorporate the fish symbol. The fundamental miracle, Christ rising from the dead, is even contradicted by the Bible, which states that the people seeing the supposed risen Christ did not recognise him. There are more people who claim to have seen the risen Elvis than the risen Christ. Kristianity is built on sand. True religion does not need magic tricks. The Truth is true.

26. Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
    ~ Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694-1778)

    Kristianity encourages intolerance, particularly toward gays and people of other faiths.
27. Kristianity is the number one cause of teenage suicides. Most teen suicides are gays tormented by Kristian lies about homosexuality or tormented by fellow teens egged on by their Kristian inspired intolerance for homosexuals.
28. If an adult tells you about their conversations with an imaginary magic friend, you might tactfully lead them to seek psychiatric treatment. Yet if a Kristian does the same thing, we leave them stew in their delusion. Kristianity masks all manner of mental illness. It is a socially acceptable form of insanity. We look the other way, afraid to deal with the organised wrath of the Kristian delusionals. Kristians mistakenly mistake any random internal voice as the voice of God.
29. Kristianity encourages a careless disregard for the environment. God will clean up after us (or destroy it all soon). Kristians believe there is no need to limit our population growth. According to the Kristians we have "dominion" over all other species -- only man has any value. True Christian consider themselves the good stewards of Planet Earth.
30. Kristians are not only misinformed about science and physics they lie about them and insist on teaching those lies to children. If they will lie about something where they can so easily be caught, how can you trust them with matters you can't check up on? Kristianity is just a synonym for insincerity and hypocrisy. Christ repeatedly asked people to be truthful, yet Kristianity is fundamentally the art of telling beautiful lies, supposedly for the good of others.

    What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.
    ~ Martin Luther

31. Jesus warned people it was unwise to make material goods the center of your life. See Matthew 6:19. However, the Kristian charismatic movement urges centering your life around an expectation of abundant earthly wealth caused by gaining special favour with God. Even Christians are alarmed about this heresy.
32. Kristianity is anti-scientific. It treats gullibility as a virtue. The Bible would have you believe volcanoes are caused by God's wrath, nothing whatever to do with plate tectonics. People still believe this nonsense in the third millenium. There is almost no evidence to back up Kristianity's claims so they make it a virtue to have faith without evidence! There are more people who claim to have been abducted by an alien, to have seen the risen Elvis or to have seen a sasquatch than ever claimed to have seen the risen Jesus. This does not bother the Kristians. Who needs evidence? They want it to be true, so it is true. End of argument. Kristianity is self-deceptive, pathetic, childish, wishful thinking. If Kristians would grow up and get over their fear of death they could let go of these outlandish fairy tales. I find it so disgusting when otherwise sane people furiously try to convince themselves that Santa Claus really does live at the North Pole, despite all evidence to the contrary.
33. Miss America went on TV and says that her "faith" in God is what helped her to persevere -- not God, her "faith" in God. That is no more a demonstration of the existence in God than would her attestation to her faith in a lucky rabbit's foot. Making yourself believe something you don't truly believe is true, in the hopes of some gain, is ignoble.
34. Kristianity is intellectually dishonest. For example, Kristian "scientists" put out a seeming objective scientific documentary on the Shroud Of Turin, trying to make people believe it was the shroud of Christ. However, they left out one key detail -- the cloth was carbon dated to the middle ages. They also claimed the red stains were real blood, not mentioning other scientists concluded they were iron pyrites. These creationists make snake oil salesmen look honest. They are not simply misguided, they are out and out liars. What is worse they have the political power to have their nonsense replace the truth in schools. This is just carrying on the long standing tradition of deception. Saints' bodies "miraculously" did not decay. The church never let on they mummified them.
35. The Kristian church is hypocritical. It preaches poverty while its leaders live in opulence.
36. Kristianity is paternalistic and meddling. Kristians presume they know better than everyone else how others should run their lives. They keep trying to enforce their religious beliefs into law to force everyone to worship in the Kristian way. They suffer under the delusion, that as Kristians, they have some special divine authority to tell everyone else what to do, using force if necessary. Moslem fanatics are even worse in other countries, but in my part of the world, Muslims tend to leave others alone. Further, Kristians think they have the right to choose everyone else's reading material both in print and on the Internet.
37. Kristian fundamentalists don't accept the notion of separation of church and state. They are so sure their particular sect has an exclusive handle on the truth, they want the state to enforce it on everyone else. They want their prayers said in schools. They want their religious rules posted in public buildings. They want their religious restrictions on marriage burned into law. They want tax dollars to go to Christian organisations. There want their illogical religion-based rules on abortion and euthanasia legally enforced on everyone. They argue that historically the church and state were once one, and that is how it should be again.
38. Though Jesus was keen on the rich helping the poor, the Kristian line is that the poor deserve their plight, and to help the flow of wealth from the lazy poor to the industrious already wealthy, taxes should be increased for the poor and decreased for the rich. This is the agenda of the "religious" right.
39. Kristians see no possibility of any difference between their book and God's eternal commandment. If anyone disagrees with them they are obviously disagreeing with God. It never occurs to them that their view of God is mostly wrong, or even that they could be wrong.
40. Kristians can't seem to understand that the only reason they are Kristian is because their parents spoon fed it into them when they were too young to resist, or when some evangelist pushed it into them they were under extreme emotional stress. To people without that experience, Kristianity seems just as silly as the Roman gods. If Kristianity had some inherent truth, appeal or logic, it would not require brainwashing to install it.
41. Sometimes Christian faith exquisitely enhances compassion. Consider Albert Schweitzer and Mother Theresa. However, Kristianity tends to bleed people dry of natural mercy and compassion. Kristians want everyone to live by the same mindless rigid rules agrarian villagers used thousands of years ago. They demand that people die hideous, painful and degrading deaths from terminal illnesses. They self-righteously meddle in other people's lives without understanding. In the name of virtue they demand that the terminally ill have no recourse to physician assisted suicide no matter how unbearable life becomes. It is none of their business. They are not the ones doing the suffering. See the essay on euthanasia for more details and also the essay on medical marijuana. Ironically, Christ railed against this rule-based judgementalness more than any other sin. Still the Kristians block their ears to his words.
42. The religious right are a political force. They are dangerous when given the reigns of government. In an age threatened by global warming and overpopulation, it is folly to entrust handling such problems to people who think the best way to deal with them is wishful thinking (i.e. prayer), pseudoscience (i.e. creationism) and consulting experts who lived thousands of years ago before these problems even surfaced (the Bible). These people are seriously addled by their religious beliefs. The most famous was Interior Secretary (analogous to the Canadian Environment Minister) James Watt of the Reagan era. He said that there was no need to protect the forests because God was going to restore them in a few years anyway. He resigned in 1983. As of today, God still has not magically restored the forests. He will guide us to do the work, but he won't do all our work for us. James Watt cited Genesis as justification for schemes to "subdue" the Grand Canyon and the national forests.
43. Kristians force Kristmas down everyone else's throat. It has degenerated to a festival to celebrate gluttony and greed. Kristians admit this, yet they get huffy when a Jew, atheist or pagan says perhaps public tax money should not be spent setting up Kristmas decorations. They seem to think the state is not supposed to promote any one particular religion over the others, unless that religion is Kristianity. This Kristian assumption of superiority, deserving of special privilege, is so galling to people of other faiths. Kristians can't even see they are doing it. They just assume they are morally superior to everyone else. They never stop to rethink whether that is really true. They think the modern world is anti-Christian when in reality it reeks of Kristianity. Like a bad perfume, you can't get away from it.
44. Church Kristianity distracts people away from becoming true Christians. Christ himself warned against this. A modern Church Kristian prides himself on irrelevancies like church attendance, taking communion, singing in the choir, donating to TV evangelists, believing the doctrines of some sect, affluence and heterosexuality. At the same time he votes to tell his government to make life as comfy as possible for the rich and as miserable as possible for the poor and sick. He spends his time and income only on himself and his family. Like Dana Carvey's Church Lady, he gloats over the sins of others. He forgets the message to the churchgoers in Luke 13:26-27.
45. Kristianity is stuck in the past. Even though most modern Kristians have never even smelled a sheep, Kristians persist in using metaphors designed for illiterate shepherds. Much has changed in the last 5000 years -- cities, medicine, science, international travel, global warming, the WTO, the population explosion, the energy crunch, global pollution... Kristians try to pretend nothing has changed since the fabled days of Moses. They avoid confronting the problems of today by hiding in the past.
46. Judaiism, Christianity, Islam and Bahai are founded on the notion of sacrifice. If somebody does a foolish or wrong-headed thing, by some inexplicable magic, supposedly the effects will be erased by killing a pigeon, destroying some perfectly good food, or by deliberately creating suffering for yourself, e.g. deliberately getting yourself crucified. What sacrifice really means is "doing that which is hard and which helps everyone". Creating misery that helps no one, then labelling it sacrifice is just sado-masochism.
47. Kristian prudery kills. A right wing religious zealot, Bill van der Zaalm gained power in British Columbia in the early 1980s. As premier, he banned all education materials on HIV for both children and adults alike. I, like many others, laboured under the delusion AIDS was just more hysteria -- like the rumoured killer gonorrhea from Viet Nam. I contracted HIV in ignorance as did many other people at that time. Van der Zaalm later called for concentration camps for HIV+ people. The courts blocked him. The churches have consistently blocked teaching safe sex and birth control to the young. I spent many hours of my life trying to convince young people to take safe sex precautions. Without official backup, that was almost an impossible job. The young were convinced they were immortal. Kristian prudery kills kids. Yet these hypocrites consider themselves more moral than everyone else! They gloat when the young contract HIV, claiming it is God's punishment for not remaining virgins. Kristian prudery is cruel. In the name of Kristian virtue, fathers and mothers have disowned their daughters. Kristians are slaughtering a generation of children on the altar of Kristian virtue.
48. Kristians consider themselves more moral than anyone else, yet they meddle in everyone else's affairs that are no concern of theirs. They don't see anything wrong in that behaviour. They imagine they have the right to dictate the reading and viewing material for other fellow adults. They think their religion gives them the right to treat everyone else as children.
49. Kristianity encourages passivity. Instead of doing something about the evils of the world, Kristians sit at home and twiddle their thumbs, all the while imagining they are doing something highly virtuous and useful. They call this inactivity "praying". We heard a Muslim pilot of an airliner in serious trouble idiotically repeating a prayer "I put my fate in God's hands." instead of attending to the problems at hand.
50. Most modern religious music, except for Gospel, is cloying and insincere. It is an insult to offer such drivel to the Creator of the Universe.
51. The celibate priesthood is a medieval idea that should be dropped. It leads to pathologically repressed individuals who take out their sexual and sadistic feelings on helpless children in their care. There has been scandal after scandal in Canada about priests and nuns abusing children both sexually and physically.
52. Whenever there is a death, Kristians swoop down and start feeding their dogma to the bereaved. The bereaved are upset and susceptible to childish stories of false hope. Even my aunt Edith's funeral was turned into a 30 minute informercial for Kristianity, even though my aunt and most of the guests were atheists.
53. Nearly all the hateful email I receive is from nominal Kristians. Non-Kristians simply disagree. Kristianity makes people insanely self-righteous. I years past I received thousands of death threats from Kristians due to my gay lib stance. Some even send Trojans and viruses piggybacked on their email. Some have attempted to censor my newsgroup posts with forged cancels. If Kristianity had a salutary effect on people, should it not be the reverse?

    The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honour you can bestow on him. It means that you recognise his superiority to yourself.
    ~Joseph Sobran

54. Kristianity is silly. Consider the recent agreement between the Catholics and Protestants over the centuries old rift over the definition of "justification ". The crux of the disagreement was Martin Luther's belief that the process of forgiveness of sin came through faith alone, and was an act of God, while the Catholic church taught that justification required Man's cooperation with God. How could anyone tell if God had forgiven? How could anyone even know if God cared if people sinned? Pretending to know, with absolute certainty, such unknowable matters is dishonest. Kristianity is speculation, based on wishful thinking, masquerading as truth.
55. Kristianity is juvenile. Kristians are like children who believe in teddy bear magic to protect them from harm. Continually petitioning the deity for special favours reminds me of a 2-year old pestering his mom for cookies.
56. Kristianity destroys the mind's ability to reason. Kristians are incapable of noticing when they are being illogical. They are so sure in their guts they are right that they will resort to any dishonest tactic to promote their views.
57. Kristians greatly exaggerate the seriousness of consenting sexual activity between teens and adults, even when there is little danger of pregnancy or disease transmission. They will happily hound the older member of the couple to suicide, and do their best to persuade the younger that they have been ruined for life, creating a self-fulfilling prophesy.
58. Kristian prudery and their belief in their divine right to meddle in others' lives, gets in the way of finding workable solutions to the problems of prostitution and drug abuse.
59. A Kristian zealot noticed a 10 year old boy engaging in sex play with his sister. She had the boy hand cuffed and arrested and held without bail, and charged with incest. She cared not a whit that she was permanently traumatising both the boy and girl by convincing them both they had done something unspeakably evil.
60. Kristians are so disgustingly obsequious in their relationship with God. It is as if He were Genghis Khan, and they were afraid to utter any criticism no matter how justified. They dishonestly pretend God is infinitely kind, when it is patently obvious, that the Kristian God is far more cruel and uncaring than any human. The good news is the real God is nothing like the depiction in the Old Testament. God even has a sense of humour.
61. The whole idea of Kristian Triumphalism is that everyone has to believe and follow the same rules for it to "work". Kristianity was thoroughly tried and life under it was utterly horrible. We refer to those times of deep superstition as the "dark ages". In modern times we have Islamic states like Saudi Arabia and Iran. These countries have to pay huge premiums to get skilled workers to go there. Very few people can stomach such repressive regimes. Theocracies are usually anti-democratic. Yet still we have right wing fundamamentalists trying to subvert our modern democracies back in to Kristian dominated theocracies.
62. My complaint is not just with Kristians, but with religious fundamentalists of all stripes. The Muslims and Jews in the Middle East are at each other's throats because each believes they have an exclusive handle on the truth and that all others are worthless infidels. We had a Jewish rabbi offering public prayers to God to destroy all Arabs. It is time everyone learned that their sacred texts are just the best-effort conjecture of dead people. Ancient texts have even less validity than modern day conjecture about the big questions and about how a society should be organised. They are just books to help you find God. The books are not God. If God spoke to you directly, you might be scared silly, thinking you were losing your mind. If you open such a book "at random" and read the message, you are giving God a channel to communicate to you. The channel is limited by what is available in that particular book.
63. Kristians draw others into their delusion, not with argument, but with emotion and wishful thinking. They don't care if their tales are true. They are enamored with how wonderful it would be if they were. Music, ritual and awesome architecture give Kristianity an authority, reverence and solidity that it does not really have. Kristianity is like a cloud. From a distance it looks substantial, but when you get up close, you discover there is nothing to it.
64. What a ludicrous notion, that the world needs still more breeding when it already bursting at the seams and there are unwanted children parked in foster homes!
65. Kristians claim superiority over everyone else. They claim to have the one true religion and the only path to God. This may seem like innocuous boosterism, but it is a dangerous attitude. When someone is utterly convinced that God sanctions all their actions, no matter how much they fly in the face of common sense, they will do some pretty horrendous things, believing the end justifies the means. Kristianity was at the root of Naziism. I am not saying that all Kristians are Nazis, but that the belief in Kristian superiority got out of hand in Nazi Germany, and lead to killing Jews and gays on a massive scale. In a similar way, the KKK is a perverse outgrowth of a belief in Kristian superiority. To this day, Kristians feel perfectly justified in persecuting members of "pagan" religions, because in their eyes they are blasphemous. Kristians have no compunctions about forcing children of other faiths to participate in Kristian festivals at schools, yet they are totally unwilling to let their children experience the festivals and rituals of other faiths.
66. Sado-masochism is a sexual perversion. Kristians have elevated it to the highest virtue. Kristians have a morbid fascination with the gory details of the crucifixion. Perhaps Jesus's suffering helped elicit some compassion, but the suffering in itself was pointless. It helped no one. It just added to the universal load of suffering. Further, all that hand wringing and crying over it helps no one. That too just adds to the load of universal suffering. Weeping over the long dead Jesus just distracts from doing something useful about the suffering going on now. Suffering for the sake of suffering is just masochism.
67. Kristians sometimes encourage people to avoid medical treatment. My young friend Damon is now dead because of his Kristian beliefs. He refused medical treatment trusting that God would heal him. His Kristian friends killed him by lying to him about the efficacy of prayer.
68. Kristians have zero regard for the environment. Not once have I ever heard one preach on the protecting the environment or treating other species well.
69. In Moslem countries, five times a day the call to prayer blares out over loudspeakers. In Christian countries, churches toll their bells monontonously for hours at a time. Neither shows any consideration for those who might not want to hear the cacophony. Their religion is so all-fired important it overrides any normal consideration about annoying others with the noise.
70. On 2000 December 17, I heard a televised sermon by a plump, bespectacled fundamentalist preacher with an accent like Trent Lot's, speaking to an enormous auditorium of followers. He called for:
    • increased discrimination against homosexuals.
    • blocking access to pornography on the Internet. He knew better than other adults what was suitable reading material for them.
    • beating children with sticks to make them fear God. He said that children should be "trained" using the same techniques used for training animals. Perhaps someone should hand him a modern animal training book. Beating does not work. Rewards do.
    • He taught that all rebellion against authority was wrong, and that Hollywood should not encourage it.
    • He said that children need to be brainwashed constantly "over and over and over" to force the "word of God" into their minds for a lifetime.
    • He said that women should attempt to get pregnant, even when they did not like children or when they felt they could not provide a suitable environment to raise the child.
    • He taught that the state should not help the elderly.
    • He explicitly called for the abolishment of the separation of church and state.
    • All the problems in today's schools can be traced to the removal enforced recitation of the Lord's Prayer.
    I find those opinions wrong-headed. We did agree on a few matters, however:
    • Children have an obligation to look after their parents.
    • Principles are more important than making a fast buck.
    • Charles Manson's abusive childhood contributed to his murderous behaviour.
    • The problems of assault with a deadly weapon, rape and drugs facing today's schools are more serious than those of 1948, talking, running in the halls, and gum chewing.
71. What passes for modern Kristianity has nothing whatsoever to do with Christ's message from his Sermon on the Mount. Instead it has been known to preach child beating, laissez faire capitalism, old testament retribution, persecution of homosexuals, abandonment of the poor especially in the third world, pseudoscience, racial stereotyping, overbreeding, religious intolerance, deliberate ignorance, magical beliefs about the causes of prosperity, gun ownership, heavy military spending and morbid preoccupation with other people's sex lives.

1. No other group but Kristians actively attack me or try to deprive me of my civil rights. They are my only personal enemies. They do this simply because the people I fall in love with are usually male.
2. Kristianity is widespread and widely respected. In contrast, only a very few people torture children, and when they do, we soundly condemn them. People don't yet realise that Kristianity is not just misguided and foolish, but also actively evil.

The Core of Jesus's Message

Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.

And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.

And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

Can you see even the vaguest resemblance between this message and modern Christianity?

Why Not Leave Well Enough Alone?

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not entirely absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
~ Bertrand Russell

Mother Theresa did her great works motivated by a desire to please God and the Pope. Martin Luther King found the courage to risk his life in combating racism, under the delusion that God would protect him. Bach wrote the world's most beautiful music inspired by his protestant faith. My friend Joyce Cousins on Quadra Island helped all kinds of people free themselves from alcohol. Her constant inspiration is "What would Jesus do?" There seems to be no cure for alcoholism or drug addiction other than handing the problem over to a higher power. There are religiously motivated charities who pitched in to help out the Kosovo refugees. Maya Angelou would not have her charisma without her deep faith. Christianity must be given credit for taming the Roman brutal life philosophy. The Christian group World Vision ensures North Americans cannot ignore the grinding poverty in other parts of the world, even if they do spend most of the money they collect on things other that food for the children. The Bible is a collection of the best wisdom of a thousand years. It may not be perfect or perfectly relevant, but it still has great value.

You have to judge a religion not only on its ideals, but how it affects most of its adherents. The Old Testament is full of intolerance and hate. The hate it brings into the world spawned acts like the crucifixion of Matthew Shepard. The white supremacist church that Buford Furrow (the man attacked a Jewish community center killing three little boys) belonged to and Westboro Baptist Church would be extreme examples. The Old Testament has acted for centuries as the moral underpinning for both slavery and racism. TV evangelists are the main source of intolerance in the world. They teach smugness. Judaiism and Islam similarly cause their adherents to become narrow-minded and intolerant, even though the Qu'ran itself stresses tolerance. The Old Testament teaches retribution. In other parts of the world, particularly the middle east, Judaiism and Islam cause even more trouble than Christianity, though they behave themselves reasonably well in North America.

24 hours a day there are Kristian infomercials on TV, usually several at any one time. The makers of these commercials make unsubstantiated claims for Kristianity, most commonly that accepting it will cure you of fatal diseases or make you prosperous. If any other product were making such claims, they would be pulled off the air if the advertisers could not prove the claims.

The advertisers solicit funds for "God". This is preposterous. The creator of the universe does not need human money. The money is for the advertisers to spend on earthly goods for themselves and to finance more infomercials. For some reason, Kristianity is excused of the same requirement for truth telling we require of secular broadcasters. Further, these infomercials preach hatred and intolerance of gays. What is really galling is they don't even have to pay income and property taxes the way other hate groups do. They are not required to offer equal time for rebuttal the way a political group would have to do. I as a tax payer unwillingly subsidize their dishonest activities. Non-religious advocacy groups don't get a tax break.

Most Kristians would be shocked to discover they are members of a hate group, not that much better than card carrying Aryan nation or KKK members. The only difference is the KKK teaches hatred of blacks and gays. The Kristian church teaches discrimination against gays and women. Most have dropped their historic anti-black teaching. Most churches will deny they teach hate, it is just that homosexuals are sinners and as such are second class citizens deserving of discrimination and ill treatment. Oddly they don't call for less than full citizenship for adulterers, the greedy, the envious or the slothful. The Kristian churches always are the main force blocking equal civil rights for gays. If you are gay, what's the difference between a Kristian and a member of the KKK? KKK members consider themselves paragons of virtue, just as Kristians do.

Namibia's home affairs minister, Jerry Ekandjo, told police officers on 2000 Oct. 1 to eliminate homosexuals. Speaking to 700 new graduates of the police academy in northern Ondangwa, Ekandjo said: "We must make sure we eliminate them [gays and lesbians] from the face of Namibia. [The] constitution does not guarantee rights for gays and lesbians. Even if gays and lesbians had a gay dog they would murder it," he said. This is irrational. This crazy fear of homosexuals comes from Kristian superstition.

"Homosexuality is forbidden in Islam,"; Abdul Kadir Che Kob, the Kuala Lumpur head of education and research, told Time Asia. "It is a crime worse than murder." Islam too teaches this ridiculous superstition. Rational people don't teach such stupid things to their children.

Nine young men in Saudi Arabia were sentenced to 2,600 lashes followed by six years in prison, simply for having "deviant sexual acts" Deviant for whom? For these young men homosexuality is natural; it is heterosexual acts that would be unnatural. Demanding that gay men enjoy sex with females is much like demanding they enjoy only sex with dogs. It could be done under exceptional circumstances, but it certainly does not not come naturally. In Muslim countries gay men are routinely whipped or castrated. Lesbians are publicly stoned. People will only torment their fellows this way when they are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt they are right. Religion gives people this false conviction.

Our grandparents used the Bible to justify slavery.

Svend Foyn perfected the whale harpoon with a bomb in its head. He received the patent on Christmas Eve and wrote in his journal "Thank thee oh Lord. Thou hast done it all." This invention lead to the extinction or near extinction of most whale species.

In modern day, the Christian Identity Churches make no bones about preaching hate and racism.

Of course there are moral lessons in the Bible, but these are nearly always ignored by modern preachers. They focus on raising money, increasing hate for gays and feeling holier than thou toward sinners particularly adulterers who have been unmasked.

Superstition

• That a black cat walking across your path will bring you bad luck.
• You must avoid the number 13.
• If you arrange to have many 8s in important numbers associated with you, you will become wealthy.
• If someone is sick, you can heal them by praying for them.
• God will answer any prayer asked by two or more people in Jesus's name.
• If you had enough faith, you could fly. (LSD takers jumping off buildings surely had sufficient faith.)

• The problem with relying on sacrifice to right wrongs in that no one tells you when you have sacrificed enough goats.
  ~ Phil Laut

  That you can erase the bad effects of some foolish action by killing an animal or by bringing suffering on yourself. The notion of sacrifice is central to Kristianity. They assert the absurd notion that Christ's suffering on the cross was a good and necessary thing. This superstition grew out of the cave man habit of offering seeds, dead animals or virgin boys and girls to appease the gods. Forgiveness requires no further suffering.
• Holy water will give you special protection.
• Sticking pins in a doll made to look like someone will cause them physical pain.
• A St. Christopher's medal will protect you from harm when travelling.
• Mental illnesses are caused by unclean spirits.
• You can become wealthy by giving away large amounts of money.
• You can become wealthy by thinking wealth thoughts, without doing anything practical to earn the money.
• If the Pope touches you, good fortune is sure to follow.

What Are The Big Lies?

On the perfection of Jesus:
Yes, Jesus masturbated, but he didn't come.
~ N. Errantiste 1911-1897

1. I have no idea if there is a God or not, but I do know that God pays no attention to prayer. Even when entire congregations pray for someone's health it has no effect. This has been shown in various experiments, yet still the myth persists that God will somehow set aside the normal laws of the universe if you pray. There are spontaneous healings, but these happen just as often to people who are not prayed over. There may be a few people with the knack, but in general nothing happens.
2. "God is 100% reliable. You can count on God." Given that prayer has no measurable effect, it would seem more truthful to say God is not amenable to human persuasion. If He exists, he clearly prefers not to intervene in the petty troubles of humans, or he has already decided what is best.
3. Christ predicted that the Kingdom of Heaven would come before his generation passed away. It did not. Christ promised to answer any prayer made by two or more people gathered together in his name. Clearly almost none of those prayers are answered, yet still Kristians pretend these high sounding, but hollow, promises are Great Truths.
4. God has no particular fondness for Christians, or any other sect. They are killed just as often in earthquakes and floods as anyone else. They die slowly and painfully of cancer just like anyone else. They die in the same percentages in plane crashes as anyone else. Yet this foolish myth persists that God will specially protect Christians from all harm. That is a lie.
5. Some Fundamentalists claim the entire Bible is God's direct word. It is so inaccurate, self contradictory, and incompetently written it could not possibly be. See my Noah essay for an elaboration of that argument.
6. Kristianity or any fundamentalist religion is an excuse to stop thinking. Any action can be excused as God's will. For example, some Kristian cults will sexually molest children. Others aid and abet the murder of doctors who perform abortions. Kristians routinely torment homosexuals. Obviously not all Kristians are that badly behaved, but Kristianity still stops them from thinking clearly about the morality of what they are doing. The irony is nominal Christians are less likely to behave like Christ than anyone else.
7. Kristians imagine themselves morally superior to everyone else. They are the exact opposite, even by Christ's standard of measure. They are hypocrites who study the motes in the their brothers' eyes. They are the most insufferable people on the planet next to the Muslim fundamentalists in their cloying self-righteousness. Look at the fruit of the modern Kristianity tree -- Jerry Falwell, Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church, Hal Turner, the Pope disrupting the United Nations conference on population control, the endless scandals of the Canadian Mount Cashel Christian brothers sexually and physically abusing the children in their care, the white supremacist movement, the KKK, Robert Schuler and his opulent Crystal Cathedral, the crucifiers of Matthew Shepard, the phony faith healers Ernest Angley, Benny Hinn and Peter Popov and those holy warriors in Ireland and Yugoslavia. On the 700 Club Pat Robertson claimed he raised a dead person but in an interview he stated he couldn't remember where or when. I think Christ would be furious if he saw how his teachings have been twisted. As Ilka Chase put it, "It is usually when men are at their most religious that they behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty." Search google to see what people have to say about these phonies.
8. The Pope recently "updated" the medieval exorcism rituals. Even in this day, he still wants people to believe mental disorders are caused by unclean spirits. It is time to rid the world of superstition.
9. There is no evidence at all that Jesus rose from the dead. Even the Bible says that Jesus's friends did not recognize the person claiming to be the risen Christ. There is no mention of any of his miracles in the historical records. It takes a great leap of gullibility to believe such stories with so little evidence. There is even serious doubt that the historic Jesus ever existed.
10. Kristianity is full of outright con men. The head of the Canadian Kristian TV Network, Dick Dewert, repeatedly claimed that God had mysteriously installed a new gold tooth in his mouth. Skeptics talked with his dentist, Jack Sherman, who said that the story was a crock. He had installed the gold tooth ten years earlier in a perfectly normal way. Kristians seem to have never heard of the proverb "Once bitten, twice shy." Priests were caught faking weeping Virgin Mary statues. The Mother Theresa "miracle" of the photographs where there was not enough light turned out to be nothing more exotic than using a new high speed film. Even after the truth was revealed, believers such as Malcolm Muggeridge kept repeating the lie. Since the "miracles " so frequently turn out to be fraud, it would seem that fraud should be the presumption until definitely shown otherwise.
11. Some Kristian sects say that you can contact the voice of God within. This voice will then be an utterly infallible source of truth on any matter, and will invariably counsel the wisest possible action. Did not the Son of Sam contact this voice and it told him to kill people? People are so willing to deceive themselves. They so wish the Deity would single them out for special conversation. Wishful thinking leads people to completely irrational acts. Psychotic Abraham just about murdered his son Isaac, imagining God had ordered him to do so in Genesis 22:10.
12. Kristianity causes terminal stupidity. Most Kristians cannot understand the difference between:
    1. Rejecting their particular sect of Kristianity.
    2. Rejecting the notion there is God.
    3. Rejecting Christ's teachings.
    4. Rejecting morality.
13. God will protect the earth from harm. We humans can tear down the forests, strip the topsoil, use the oceans as a toilet, and God will fix it for us if it finally breaks. God will not let us perish, even if we are foolish enough to have a nuclear war. If we don't destroy it ourselves, God will soon do it.
14. Humans are God's chosen species. Humans have a Nazi-superior-race right to lord it over all other species and use them for whatever purposes they choose. There are no negative consequences for any of this behaviour, even including complete extinction of other species.
15. I don't like Kristians. Kristianity is clearly wrong and evil. I think their civil rights should be curtailed. Kristians should not be allowed to be teachers. All references to the existence of Kristians should be removed from literature available to children. Kristians should not be allowed to marry. Kristians should not be allowed near children, far less adopt them, since nearly all of them are child molesters. As a precaution, all children should be taken away from Kristian parents. An employer should be free to fire any employee he suspects of being a Kristian. Kristians should not be permitted to talk to any anyone under 21 about Kristianity. Kristians should be forced to do their disgusting Kristian things behind closed doors with no more than two people present. Kristians should be forced to look at surahs from the Qur'an in all public buildings. Kristian children should be forced every morning to chant the Lotus Sutra. Kristians should be forced to swear oaths on the Bagavad Gita in court. Oops. I got it backwards. You might erroneously think from the Christian principle of do unto others, that this is how the Kristians wanted us to treat them.

Child Abuse

I debate religious issues with Kristians. Something very odd happens when you point out to one of these people how their beliefs are not only inconsistent with observed reality but inconsistent with each other. They act like stunned goldfish, gaping. Yet nothing sinks in. They come up with some totally irrelevant statement, usually a personal attack.

As children, their parents brainwashed them. No matter what evidence they receive to the contrary, the childhood fairy stories must be believed at all cost. Bertrand Russell talked about how it was almost impossible to rid oneself of irrational beliefs learned at "nursemaid's knee", even when intellectually you realise they are poppycock.

Children are defenseless against lies burned into them using terror and violence. Even if as adults they intellectually see that the ideas are likely false, they can't discard them, because the child inside is still quaking in terror. Inculcating Kristianity with terror is a form of child abuse. It should be illegal.

Creationism

What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.
~ Martin Luther

Is it not better to place a question mark upon a problem while seeking an answer than to put the label God there and consider the matter closed?
~ Joseph Lewis (1889-1968)

Kristianity appears to behave like a virus that gradually erodes the mind's ability to reason. It is most apparent when you study cases of advanced Kristianity such as creationists and inerrantists. You can see examples of their crazed thinking in some of the emails they sent me.

Freedom of Religion

Consider the myriad ways that Kristians flagrantly violate this. The US Congress has passed a law making it mandatory to display the Christian Ten commandments in schools and public buildings. Here are Nine Reasons why we should not do that.

In court proceedings you are expected to swear an oath to the Christian God on the Christian Bible. Kristians utterly refuse to see this as pushing their religion down others' throats. They see it as combating evil. They claim that Kristianity should enjoy a special historically privileged position. What if the tables were turned and everyone were expected to swear allegiance to Allah on the Qur'an?

The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation.
~ Treaty of Tripoli (1797) signed by John Adams

In Canada, MP Svend Robinson was demoted to the backbenches for tabling a petition by the Humanist Association of Canada that suggested that the nugatory references to the supremacy of the Christian God over the Canadian constitution be removed. He did not even sign the petition himself. Kristians demanded that the democratic right to petition the government, dating back to the Magna Carta, be abrogated.

Kristians routinely slander the Wiccan religion as witchcraft or Satanic worship. Further, they demand that all practitioners be drummed out of the armed forces. Kristians believe in freedom of religion, but only so long as it is Baptist or Pentacostal.

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

Kristians routinely slander any form of atheism, such as Buddhism. They claim only those who believe in Jesus Christ and the sky god Jehovah could possibly have any moral values. If the behaviour of televangelists is any barometer of Christian moral values, Kristianity does not rank high on any scale but hypocrisy.

Babies and Bathwater

On the other hand it is not hard to find villains who rejected all manner of religion. Stalin springs to mind. Would he have been any gentler if fueled by Christian ardour?

Without Kristianity, you can still be your brother's keeper. You can still ask yourself, "How should I act so that this works out best for all concerned?" You can still work to treat the Samaritans of your society as equals. You can dedicate your life to help those who need it most. You can still work for ruthless inner and outer honesty. You just don't need to feed yourself lies about why you are doing it or about the supernatural magic protection you will enjoy while you do it.

Oh my Lord, if I worship Thee from fear of Hell, send me there;
Oh my Lord, if I worship Thee from desire for Paradise, exclude me thence;
But if I worship Thee for Thine Own sake, hide not from me Thine Eternal Beauty.
~ Rabi'a al-Adawiyya

The real God, if He exists, surely is not as sickenly foolish, petty, vain and hokey as portrayed by Kristianity. Consider instead becoming a servant of the real God or becoming a servant of mankind, the planet or the universe -- something with a firm foundation. You do this because it is the right thing to do, not because you are motivated by a promise of a disproportionate reward. Even pigs will work for rewards.

The universe itself is a miracle, -- the most direct possible message from the creator. If you want to know the Truth, study it, not just the works of man.

How To Rid The World Of Christian Superstition

Minds great as Voltaire have taken a stab at discouraging Kristianity with less than stellar results. However, Kristianity has seen a remarkable decline in Canada and Europe. The USA is still a major holdout. What can you to do help eliminate it?

• Fight any attempts to force Christian school prayer in schools.
• Lobby for teaching all the world major religions in anthropology class. Students will learn they are not the only ones convinced they have an exclusive magic handle on the truth.
• Fight teaching creationism in science classes. It should be taught in anthropology class along with the creation myths of other cultures.
• Don't show false reverence for Kristianity. Try to treat it with the same respect you would have for astrology or 900 psychic numbers. Refer to it as "Kristian superstition".
• Don't concede that the Kristians have an exclusive handle on God. Refer to the "Kristian God" or the "Sky God". The Kristian view of God is warped. Don't insult the real God by confusing the true attributes of God with the Kristian caricature.
• Let Kristians know when they spout nonsense. Most are under the delusion nearly everyone finds them coherent, agrees with them, and respects them. They are used to looking down their noses at everyone else. Put them on the defensive for a change.
• Make it clear you do not condone violence against Kristians or any denial of their civil rights. They deserve the same compassion as any other delusional person. Encourage them to live the values Jesus professed such as the Golden Rule or being their brother's keeper. Realise there are good Christians and sound parts of the Bible. Your complaint is with the superstition, the hate and the ecologically irresponsible parts of the Bible. Reassure them you do not consider Kristianity responsible for all or even most of the evil in the world. You would never guess I too hold that view, reading the rest of this essay. :-)
• Lobby to gradually phase out the various special income and property tax breaks for churches. They should get the same breaks as the equivalent secular institutions. Ulysses S. Grant saw the problem coming when he said: "In 1850, I believe, the church property in the United States, which paid no tax, amounted to $87 million. In 1900, without a check, it is safe to say, this property will reach a sum exceeding $3 billion. I would suggest the taxation of all property equally." The state subsidy for superstition today must be staggering.
• Lobby for truth in advertising. TV Evangelists make all kinds of unsubstantiated claims on TV. The TV psychics are forced to announce they are for entertainment only. Why do we let the Kristians get away with similar lies?
• Ask Kristians to remove the phrases in Leviticus that call for killing gay people and others. If they don't really mean them, they should remove them from the standard distributed texts, keeping them perhaps in a footnote or in special scholarly editions. Jesus repudiated the Old Testament. Why do modern Kristians hold onto to the selected parts of it that give them a license to hate?
• If you are a Kristian yourself, expose yourself deeply to other religions and ruthlessly examine your own beliefs. Discard those that are merely comfortable, but without firm foundation.

Jesus made a special point of discouraging the laying of emphasis on outer observances, and, indeed upon hard-and-fast rules and regulations of every kind. What he insisted upon was a certain spirit in one's conduct, knowing that when the spirit is right, the details will take care of themselves. Yet, in spite of this, the history of orthodox Christianity is largely made up of attempts to enforce all sorts of external observances on people.
~ Emmet Fox, American evangelist.

The Murder

Matvey Terekhov lived in Russia with his cousin Yakov, who ran an inn. Matvey was once extremely religious and ascetic, but left asceticism behind. Yakov, on the other hand, was obsessively religious. During Lent they both fasted eating nothing but boiled potatoes. Yakov discovered that Matvey was secretly pouring some oil on his potatoes. Yakov was horrified. Yakov was overcome with anger and Aglaya, Yakov's wife, hit Matvey over the head with a bottle, and killed him.

That is a great metaphor for what goes wrong when you base your life on endless petty thou-shalt-nots. You lose your sense of proportion.

It is OK To Be Polite to Kristians?

All three groups to this day attempt to suppress the civil rights of non-cult members. Historically all three groups have ritually murdered non-cult members.

Is it right to treat Nazi views with polite respect? Is it right to treat KKK views with polite respect? Is it right to treat Kristian views with polite respect? Do you have a moral duty to show at least some disrespect? Is showing respect just cowardly?

On the other hand, though spitting in a Nazi's face might make abundantly clear what you think of his fruitcake superiority notions, it is unlikely to result in instantaneous conversion to some more benign life philosophy. Deeply satisfying as it may be, there probably exist more effective measures for persuasion.

Is Religious Tolerance A Good Thing?

There are four parts to Kristianity.

1. the mumbo jumbo outrageous unsubstantiated claims, e.g. God will answer prayer, God will not allow the ecosystems of earth to collapse.
2. the erroneous science, e.g. creationism
3. the anti-gay attitudes.
4. the philosophy that you are your brother's keeper.

It comes down to this, should you defend someone's right to lie and make false claims? Do people have an inalienable right to spout whatever nonsense they please and expect all polite people to quietly let it pass unchallenged, just because it is a sacred cow labelled "faith"?

There is so much friction between religions, you might say yes. Just shut up and don't make trouble. But perhaps the better approach is to challenge all these nutty religious beliefs. The friction exists because of the untruth in the various religions. If they were stripped bare to their true essentials, the conflicts would disappear.

If people bring up faith-based ideas in public, they had better be prepared to back them up and be challenged, just as they would if they made statements about global warming. Why should religious beliefs be protected from scrutiny the way other erroneous beliefs are not?

I am not suggesting putting all Kristians in jail, removing their civil rights the way they want done to gays, violence, cruelty or desecrating their churches. I simply suggest challenging Kristian lies or unsubstantiated claims any time they bring them up rather than letting them politely pass. Treat their claims the same objectivity you would treat someone proclaiming the risen Elvis or that aliens were guiding his life.

Further skeptics should counter any evangelistic activities by demanding equal time for rebuttal. Gradually we should make it illegal to advertise a religion/ministry with unsubstantiated promises, using the exact same truth in advertising law you use to counter unsubstantiated claims about any other product for sale on TV.

Hypocrisy

In Matthew 5:29 Jesus counsels cutting off your hand or plucking your eye should it offend you. Alex Kolansky, a Canadian eccentric, on reading this verse cut off his own hand. His hand had offended him by masturbating him. Nearly all Kristians would consider Kolansky deranged.

In Matthew 5:40 Jesus counsels giving your cloak to someone who takes your coat. What modern Christian would help a burglar load up the van with his possessions, or lend money to anyone who asked? That is clearly impractical.

Jesus was crazy as a loon. Anyone behaving as he did today, would be quickly diagnosed as psychotic. Yet Kristians insist on claiming he was sane while simultaneously ignoring him as a nutcase who did not mean what he said.

Other Religions

• Alcoholics Anonymous.
• Animism.
• Anti Baptist.
• Atheism.
• Australian Aboriginy.
• Bahai.
• Baptist.
• Buddhism.
• Catholicism
• Christianity.
• Christian Identity.
• CCism.
• Confucianism.
• A Course In Miracles.
• Davism.
• Druidism.
• Ancient Egyptian.
• Eckankar
• Emissaries of the Divine Light.
• Female circumcision.
• Ferengiism. The belief that you must do whatever makes you the most money no matter what the short or long term consequences to yourself or others. It is the state corporate religion.
• Ancient Greek.
• The Green Man.
• Hawaiian.
• Heaven's Gate.
• Hinduism.
• Islam.
• Jainism.
• Judaism.
• Landmark Forum née EST.
• Landover Baptist Church fundamentalist raving lunatics, and they are proud of it.
• Lifespring.
• Living Love.
• Church of the Latter Day Saints (Mormonism).
• Muggletonians (flat earthers).
• Native American.
• Natranism.
• Naziism.
• Ancient Norse.
• The People's Temple.
• Ramtha's School of Enlightenment.
• Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
• Rastafarianism.
• Ancient Roman.
• Sahaja Yoga.
• Sai Baba.
• Satanism.
• Scientology.
• Shintoism.
• Sikhism.
• Taoism.
• Tibetan Buddhism.
• Transcendental Meditation.
• Unitarian Universalist Association.
• Virtual Church Of The Blind Chihuahua.
• Voudou.
• Westboro Baptist Church: homophobia².
• White Supremacy
• Wicca

Why Believe?

Another computer noted that humans nearly always take on the beliefs of their parents. Another chimed in that humans take great care to shield their young from even knowing of the existence of competing religions and philosophies, and teach their young that it is exceedingly wicked and even dangerous to even investigate them. This is the main mechanism for persistence through the generations. Another computer noted that humans will super-revere some object or book. Over the generations the degree of reverence builds and builds. It becomes almost unthinkable to reject it, even though it has relatively little objective merit.

Another noted that the religion with the scariest story wins out, e.g. Christianity is scarier than Buddhism, and Islam is scarier than Christianity. Another pointed out that the religion with the juiciest heaven promise wins out, e.g. Buddhism offers yet another life slightly better than this one. Christianity offers freedom from toil. Islam offers both male and female houris to have sex with. Humans don't choose a religion based on likelihood of truth, but to avoid the worst case punishment.

Yet another computer mused what would happen when humans made contact with missionaries from another part of the galaxy, with a high tech religion complete with holodecks to terrify the living daylights out of potential converts. How long would it take to wipe out all the earth religions? One possible defense would be to create a heaven on earth better than any promised in any of the religions. Another possible defense would be to educate people to select religions based on merit, probable truth and utility, not just on how terrifying the threats and promises. People should be encouraged to try various religions and philosophies out for a while before committing to them.

Your Brother's Keeper

Every time a man changes jobs, it gives the insurance companies a chance to refuse insurance in case he has health problems. So many people go without medical care. It is a disgrace that the USA is so far down on the list of countries in terms of longevity, infant mortality and adequate medical care, and all because of greed.

Nobody seems to notice the unfairness of American workers earning $20 and hour where people in China doing the same work earn only 20 cents. We base all our decisions on economics. We do whatever makes the most money, especially in corporate decisions which have the biggest global impact. This leads us to rape the environment, and use our upper hand to push the poor in other countries even deeper into poverty. Trusting economics as the sole method of making decisions leads to insane behaviour.

Modern Kristianity never speaks out on these gross injustices. In South America it even encourages the oppressed to accept their oppression. It cozily co-exists with consumerism, accepting pledges by MasterCard.

Chickens are tortured by wiring their feet to the bottoms of their cages. We eat the eggs produced this way rather than free range eggs because they are a dollar cheaper. What kind of person are you that you want animals tortured to save you a buck? Have you ever heard a Kristian sermon on your moral duty to be kind other species?

Kristianity gives unction to people's consciences. They can sleep walk through life imagining they are leading a virtuous life, where in actuality they are indirectly hurting animals, starving people in the third world, and raping the environment.

A churchman in a recent letter to the editor made the point that Christians have no real responsibility to seek ways to alleviate poverty. All that is required of us is to practice a little charity as we have opportunity. Is that what Jesus taught: just a little pocket change when we feel the urge?

The Kristian church is irrelevant to this age. All it can see are the sins that were important to people 5000 years ago.

Ask Dr. Laura

Dear Dr. Laura

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's law. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Leviticus 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? I also know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Leviticus 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Now I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself? Then, Exodus 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not Canadians. Can you clarify?

A friend of mine also feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Leviticus 11:10.), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this? And Leviticus 22:22 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

The Counter Argument

What harm would it do, if a man told a good strong lie for the sake of the good and for the Christian church... a lie out of necessity, a useful lie, a helpful lie, such lies would not be against God, he would accept them.
~ Martin Luther

In my essay on euthanasia I tell the story of being present at David Lewis's suicide. David was very frightened about his impending death. I told him all the after death myths I knew of, every culture, even ancient Egyptian. This seemed to calm him. When a child's dog dies, it seem natural to reassure him that the dog is not really dead, but has moved on to some wonderful dog heaven, where he will soon be reunited. These are beautiful lies, but lies none the less. Perhaps reality is too difficult for humans to make it through unaided without a crutch of lies and wishful speculation. However, this still does not make the stories true.

There are obviously many strange things in this universe that are undreampt in our philosophy and science. I have written about some of my own baffling experiences. Among the most interesting are out of body experiences and near death experiences. Yet these experiences typically do not correspond with official Kristian dogma. Yet, on the other hand, they are influenced by religious beliefs. They do not confirm any particular dogma. They merely show how much we have yet to learn.

Racism

Links

• Is there a god?.
• suicide.
• The Nature of the Real God.
• Quantum Miracles
• Gay Civil Rights and Christianity
• Non Believer's Page.
• The Ten Commandments.
• Quotes About Atheism.
• Rent the movie Hawaii with Julie Andrews and Max Von Sydow.
• The Quote Pile.
• Atheists.net, Darwin Bedford's irreverent blasts at religion.
• American Atheists.
• Positive Atheism.
• Center For The Study Of Atheism.
• The Secular Web.
• atheists.com.
• Thank You For Thinking.
• The American Atheist, a journal of atheist news and thought.
• Evolution vs. Creationism.
• Introduction to Biology, a condensed, dense introduction to biology and evolution, complete with a little math.
• The Wild and Wacky World of Creationism.
• The Origin Of The Universe according to physicist Stephen W. Hawking.
• The King James Version of the Bible.
• Biblical Inerrancy. The manifesto of those who deliberately blind themselves to reality.
• Logical Fallacies: a catalog of dirty tricks commonly used in debate to bamboozle. When your opponent in defending humbug he has his back against the wall and pretty well has to cheat.
• Landover Baptist for some comic relief.
• Religious Tolerance site
• Steve Wells has annotated the entire Bible from a skeptic's point of view, pointing our errors and inconsistencies.
• Hypnotist Dick Sutphen has written an article on brain washing techniques used in religious conversion.
• Canadian Atheist Magazine
• About.com all sorts of links on atheism.
• Evolve Fish evolve and Darwin fish pins.
• Tennessee Law Book: If the Religious Right gained power, how the laws of Tennessee would be worded.
• A Bible Study Guide: The parts of the Bible the churches don't want you to notice.
• Noah and the Oopsies: Why It is Unlikely God Wrote the Entire Bible.
• Christian Apology: The apology I would like Pope Jean Paul II to read on behalf of all Christians.
• The Rise of Charismatic Christianity
• Faith Healing
• reader feedback on this essay.

Rings

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