step by step christianity
In order to assist my Christian friends bring more faithful to fold, I thought it would be nice to boil Christianity down to it’s purest, simplest form so that any passers-by who aren’t familiar with the love story of Christianity can instantly understand why it’s such a successful religion.
- There is one creator-of-all superbeing. He is a father figure male deity who knows absolutely everything about the past, present and future, and has the power to do anything.
- This creator superbeing lovingly created humans in complete benevolence but thinks they’re rubbish and very, very bad. He is perfect. In the past, he asked the tiny population of his only favourite people to kill animals to make him feel better about how rubbish they, the favourite people, were.
- The creator superbeing got so annoyed with how rubbish humans are that thousands of years ago he killed all of them apart from one family, who repopulated the planet from scratch with their hopefully not-so-disgusting offspring.
- Unfortunately, the creator superbeing was still really distressed with how awful humans had turned out but had promised not to murder them all ever again, after the first necessary mass drowning genocide. So, he decided he would pop down to Earth in the form of his son, then get himself killed so that no more animals ever needed to be killed for bad behaviour.
- If you believe in the creator superbeing’s son-self and love him with all your heart, when you die you will live in an eternal paradise of love. If you don’t, it’s probable you’ll suffer for all eternity.
If any part of this story sounds plausible or worth following, please seek medical attention.
If any Christians popping by feel I have misrepresented any salient points about the beautiful love story that is their religion, please correct me, providing Bible references.
Can I ask, what is your basis for making any moral judgements about anything ?
It’s safe to say you don’t believe in God, who is the moral law giver, but that is who you are trying to disprove, so What is the question?
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Thanks for your comment and the like! I wasn’t aware I was making any moral judgements there. If there’s anything you feel don’t represent the basics of Christianity, please feel free to correct me.
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You’re use of sarcasm is clear enough.
It’s interesting how you can blatantly violate moral law as you claim it at the same time.
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Are you just hitting keys and typing in tongues?
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@CCT.
You have issues with supposed ”violations of moral laws” yet your god sanctioned slavery?
Go figure, Dickhead.
By the way, how did you ”accept Jesus” as a boy?
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What drives selection? Intelligence?
The Force?
Depac Chopra?
Really?
Just be honest and admit it.
The problem isn’t a lack
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Sorry for the repetitive reply to Arkenaten. It was unintentionally conveyed information with order. Lol.
Not proof of supreme intelligence I’m afraid in this case. Just proof that I’m human.
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I don’t reply to Arkenaten. Had the pleasure of getting to know him years ago. Biggest troll on WP.
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@CCT
The biggest trollof WP. Wow…. an honour! Haven’t you got one of those blog award thingies for me then?
Hey, Dickhead, so afraid to offer up any evidence in case we call you out? lol.
You would not know integrity or honesty if it bit you in the arse. Or morality for that matter.
Maybe you would like a shot at explaining biblical slavery or D.C.T.?
I am sure Violet would willingly entertain a column or two fo diatribe just for the humour angle.
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I rest my case on the Arkansas comments.
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Dang! Auto correct strikescagain!
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I don’t know, that’s quite a catchy name for him …
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Morality comes from a collective of what is seen as beneficial and detrimental to a society. God didn’t teach us not to drink and drive, we figured that out by the societal impacts caused by such an action – as has humanity through its existence. It is a rather imprecise thing.
Biblical laws are a reflection of that. Even in the Old Testament there are laws that are considered ridiculous by Christians today. The Bible is a snapshot (or several) of where morality stood at the time and place with the people who wrote it and their understandings.
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Time plus matter plus chance, naturalism, Darwinian evolution, all have this “survival of the fittest” problem.
“Nature is red in tooth and claw” was Darwin’s biggest problem with his own theory.
Atheist nations like the former Soviet union, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and North Korea, have been and some currently are the cruelest as nd most oppressive regimes in modern history. Darwin was right about that one thing.
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Not to mention the United States. A very outwardly cruel nation, and one that has a fairly tight grasp on Christianity.
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I’m trying to understand your Darwin reference. I’m not suggesting that morality comes by chance, but by connections of actions and results.
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I see.
Darwinian evolution is a theory that the question of Origin is answered by random chance evolution of molecules over a very long period of time.
In this scenario there is no Divine moral law giver. Truth as a category would not exist.
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I find those who claim outright that there is no higher power to be reaching as well. There is an order to the universe, that’s why we are able to study it. How did the order come to be? We’ve got an idea back toward what they call the Big Bang, but where that came from and how is still anyone’s guess.
I don’t buy the theory of randomness, and I don’t buy the theory of specific creation. I suspect the truth is somewhere in between.
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maybe you need to spend a little time reading on evolution. It deals with, unless am wrong, how life has progressed from simple to complex organisms but not the origin of life. That is a question that is yet to be answered and I would love to know the answer too.
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There is no credible scenario with a Divine moral law giver; why single out evolution?
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I see.
Darwinian evolution is a theory that the question of Origin is answered by random chance evolution of molecules over a very long period of time.
In some cultures people love their neighbors, in other cultures they eat them. Right and wrong would be simply relative.
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Some Divine law givers are real assholes, some are homicidal maniacs, while others still appear to have no morals at all, essentially the case with your god, where no matter what it says, it’s automatically moral . . . slavery, raping virgins, human sacrifice, etc. etc.
Again, what’s your point?
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If you believe that evolution is based upon random chance then you don’t know what evolution is.
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Shh! . . . don’t help him sound smart!
Oh, well, the cat is out of the proverbial bag now . . . for them who want to actually learn something:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_01
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Help him sound smart?
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By pointing out obvious stuff to him . . . never mind; just making a joke.
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If Darwin’s theory is the origin basis then its random chance.
If not then its Intelligent Design and intentional.
DNA is information with order.
Proof of Intelligence.
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Still don’t get it, huh? Here’s the deal: you think that evolution is all about random bumping and grinding with mutations, but it has this little peculiar bit called selection. Feel free to tell me selection is random.
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What drives selection? Intelligence?
The Force?
Depac Chopra?
Really?
Just be honest and admit it.
The problem isn’t a lack evidence the DNA or the first 3 seconds of the Big Bang don’t prove intentional definition by highest intelligence.
People just don’t want there to be a God.
The problem is therefore a moral choice.
Science gives mathematically irrefutable evidence of a transcendent intelligence that intentionally orchestrated DNA and the Big Bang.
I get it.
But its not a mind issue.
Its a heart issue.
The heart will comprise the integrity of the intellect for the sake of what it does not want to be true.
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You define God to be self-driven and unquestionable. Perhaps if your heart was in it, you might put a little inquiry into your belief and recognize that defining a thoroughly complicated concept as self supporting makes it weak. Your heartfelt need for a first mover taints your interpretation of you see. What drives selection? The environment. It’s pretty cool how easily that works in terms of explaining observations and making predictions about biodiversity. It works so well that shoving a god into the mix is extraneous. All you can say is that we don’t know how, exactly, the original genetic material came to be, but you make the claim that it was most certainly made by a god, and quite specifically your God.
Meanwhile, your claim to evidence is that your heart tells you so. Good for you. Unfortunately, heart things are imprecisely expressed by metaphors. It provides delights such as poetry and art, which are subject to interpretation, and aren’t ideas reliably transferred by a recognizable and repeatable language. You look at gaps in our knowledge and you fill them up with an idea that makes your heart flutter. This hardly comprises a reliable method of achieving and exchanging knowledge.
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Ignostic Dave,
The heart can grasp things that defie intellectual description when it comes to God.
But reason is not contradicted in the process. Reason AND science are affirmed in the process that leads not to contradictions, but to transcendence of what can be explained by reason and science.
That is the science I have shared of Origin, (Big Bang, not evolution).
That is the science I’ve shared on Origin, (Intelligent Design, DNA, ordered information mathematically impossible within the 21 billion year life of the universe).
BTW The math, (odds of 10 to the 40,000th power against time plus matter plus chance), came from a scientist other than Hoyle.
The theory came from Hoyle.
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It seems like if your heartfelt feelings don’t contradict reason and science, then you could do a bit better than simply stating that it doesn’t and repeating tired old tropes about how gaps in our knowledge are so clearly filled by your God, and more importantly, how gaps in your own knowledge are so clearly filled by your God. Sure, there are some things that aren’t known, but your ignorance of evolutionary concepts is simply inexcusable.
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You have been taught to forego the scientific method of reasoning and go straight to insults in communications with Christian people.
Yet your chief complaint with the Christian religion is that it is unreasonable and unscientific???
The leaders of your approach, Hitchens and Dawkins have done themselves and all who use their adolescent means of argument a great disservice.
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No, you misunderstand: my chief complaint is with you, not your religion. There are plenty of Christians who realize that evolution is not a random process, and that the environment shapes the species it contains. However, you describe evolution to be random, and that our genetic code, if random, is so unlikely that it is impossible to consider. Yes, that is correct, if evolution were random, but it is not. Nobody says it is but you, and you say it because it works for your argument. This mischaracterization is what is called a straw man argument.
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DNA.
Information with order.
Enzymes.
10 to the forty thousandth power against.
Hoyle.
Google these.
You can’t argue with math.
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Let’s assume, just for a moment, that asking people to google stuff is not a valid point of argument, and not ever do that again.
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@ CCT
With all due respect, Senor Dipshit, Hoyle also believed that the AIDs virus came from outer space.
Brilliant he may have been in many areas but that is way out on the fringe.
Also, his steady state theory has been shown the door by most scientists.
Oh, and so what if his theory cited 10 to 40,000? That is a number.
What else you got for the source of morality? Don’t tell us … Jesus in his Yahweh disguise lecturing Adam in the Garden of Eden and later, making Moses chisel out the Ten Commandments?
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What would make you come to the conclusion that god, your god, is the law giver? Are you a follower of WLC with his Divine Command Hypothesis?
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Hi CCT, I was wondering if you’d be up to responding to some crazy claims Ark is making over on his site. He’s usually wrong about the historical stuff, but I don’t know enough about it to challenge him:
http://attaleuntold.wordpress.com/2014/10/25/once-upon-a-time-why-the-bible-story-is-nonsense
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Such a beautiful love story. Makes complete sense as long as one doesn’t think about it.
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I’m glad you can appreciate the beauty! 🙂
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The when you die thing…
You haven’t been reading my blog, or not all of it. http://clareflourish.wordpress.com/2014/10/13/improper-story/ We are to build the Kingdom of Heaven here.
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Noah, and all. The Genesis writer Judaized the Babylonian myth of Utnapishtim. Christians are allowed to make these text criticism judgments. It’s what you do in Divinity courses.
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Okay, so you don’t think that happened? But is the all-knowing god God happy with the humans he created? Why did he want the Jews to slaughter animals to make him happy?
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“I desire mercy, not sacrifice”.
The different Biblical writers have different views about God, sometimes within the same book.
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Are you suggesting it’s wisest to cherry pick the bits that sound most plausible? 😉
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Well, everyone does that; but I find it better to seek the value in the passage, knowing that another contradicts it.
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I listened to an interesting podcast this morning that covered part of the morality issue . . .
It’s Episode 12 of “Living After Faith”:
[audio src="http://www.livingafterfaith.com/laf00012HankFox.mp3" /]
It got me thinking . . . why do theists bother debating us lifelong atheists, only to then pull the “you wouldn’t understand” card?
They should ask ex-theists, people who used to think exactly like them.
Another good episode of the same podcast is this one:
[audio src="http://www.livingafterfaith.com/LAF00001WhyLAF.mp3" /]
But, for them who don’t want to listen to an ex-preacher, here’s a link to his words about his ‘fall from grace’:
http://livingafterfaith.blogspot.com/2010/11/i-didnt-fall-from-grace.html
But, most of all, for them theists that are all god-fired-up to defend their faith, I suggest this:
http://www.atheist-experience.com/
You can call in!! That’s right!
You can try to reconvert ex-christians who now field calls from believers.
Honest, if you are a believer with even half a brain, call in . . . you see, the typical christian who calls in can’t think themselves out of an open paper bag.
Your team, christians, needs someone with at least half a working brain to mount a credible challenge on these heathens, because I gots to tell you . . . any time atheists want to confirm the limited thinking capability of believers, they just have to watch (or listen) a few of these shows (they are on YouTube).
A bit about the most well-known host:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Dillahunty
Worthy reads:
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Sermon_on_the_Mount
http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Common_objections_to_atheism_and_counter-apologetics
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Thanks for posting all the links. I hope someone’s got time to check them all out. You seem to have a rather low opinion of believers. I don’t think they have a limited thinking capability, they just have a different lens.
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Cutting, I love it!
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Thank you. I wasn’t really aware it was cutting, I was just trying to sketch out the basics … (ahem)
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You used the word Rubbish. I love the word, Rubbish! It’s that next step up from Nonsense.
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Hey, did you see my conversation with Insanity and Col? Col dodged the question like a dancing fire-bean, but after much prodding I got Insanity to admit she would disobey the voices she hears in her head if they told her to murder.
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No, I’ve missed all that. Well done getting a straight answer from Insanity. Interesting she would disobey the voices, given that 1. she says she wants to kill some people and 2. on reading the Bible it’s perfectly possible to imagine the god God could issue such a command. Her evolutionary-driven sense of empathy overrides her religious programming! Or maybe she’s just afraid of going to jail.
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Ex preacher huh?
So why did you want to preach in the first place?
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Man, you don’t have a good grasp of the language, do you? I’m not an ex-preacher. I stopped believing at around eight years of age; never lacking scruples, I never had any inkling of fleecing the flock. (I have friends that often urge me to become a preacher, start a religion, even, gathering onto me credulous believers – I’ve been tempted a few times, but them dang scruples held me back)
The people in those podcasts and blogs are both people who believed hard, and in the process of attaining their life-long goal of becoming ministers they actually read the bible, studied it even.
They say the best way to turn a christian from the faith is to have them actually read the bible. I wouldn’t know, but you could ask them . . .
. . . except it’s obvious you clicked on none of the links and read none of the content, opting instead to wrap yourself in the comforting cocoon of willful ignorance.
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Wow.I thought Christians were suposed to have the corner on being self righteous and judgmental.
Times are a changing
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You don’t have to be defensive. It’s OK that our faith is criticized and our character called into question, we don’t need to defend it. Atheists have legitimate concerns and straight out challenging them without truly acknowledging that they are legitimate is invalidating. I know this from experience because I was atheist/agnostic before I reconverted to Christianity.
Try to understand their concerns, and when you explain something you think is true and get an insulting response, absorb it. Remember Christ said Father forgive them. I don’t mean to get all preachy, I’m just need to tell you what I think is good and right because I’ve been involved in this community for a while now.
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I like how you’re involved in this community, absorbing all the insults and forgiving us all. Another beautiful story. 😉
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Well, in all seriousness, I don’t want to imply that absolutely everyone at all times is hurling insults. But, at the same time there are significant ones out there. And, it’s difficult to not start a internet flame war. It’s a temptation that does just go away, I actually have to consciously tell myself just leave it be and forgive. Of course, I can point to times when that hasn’t happened on my part! But, I think not letting things get to us and staying civil is a worthy goal for all of us, believer and nonbeliever.
Also, I am pleased that you are a defender of the civil conversation. Don’t think that goes unnoticed!
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Yes you frakking DO have to defend it , you dipshit, simply because you lot cannot keep it to yourselves and many of you want to evangelize the entire world. You want it in schools. You want to poison children. And this is just your screwed up religion, and there are plenty more religions.
So yes, Brandon, you better start defending it. And defend it with truth, honesty, and evidence and not the level of ankle -cowshit you normally tout.
And you can start by proving evidence the man god you genuflect to, you sanctimonious hypocrite.
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I’m glad he’s learned to ignore you. Do you actually get anything out of these ranty, insulting comments? Do you have a cheeky wee grin on your face or exploding red veins down your neck? 🙂
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Morning dear heart. How’s Kiltland aujourd hui?
I just wonder how much of a saccharin grin your buddy Brandon is wearing when after all his apparent ”reasonableness” (barf) he posts a comment like this.
No need to defend. Lol .. what a plonker.
I wonder if you will wake up one day?
This is like invasion of the body snatchers using religion. And I am very interested to see where Pascal is going too.
Oooh, it’s just started raining over here.
Lunch time.
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It’s chilly here but pleasant and sunny for a change. What do you expect me to wake up to? Brandon brings another opinion here, which I’m grateful for. It’s occasionally interesting to discuss that with him. It usually goes nowhere because, like us, he’s sure he’s right, but it’s never worth throwing round nasty words and attempting a childlike character assassination. I know you’re just taking out all that anti-religious frustration that you have to suppress with your nearest and dearest, and practising alternative characters to your clearly bumbling-cheerful-old-man natural self. 🙂
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Who you calling cheerful?
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You inspired me to go looking for PeW, but no activity. I wonder if he gave up altogether or became a new identity. Send him a message and see if you can flush him out – go on! He had a soft spot for your rants.
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I have enough ”fans” thank you very much – including the dingbats that visit you.
Although if you wish to expend the energy you can say I miss him. lol..
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So, CCT . . . are you saying you did click on the links and read any of it?
See, it’s not called judgmental when it’s fact.
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I don’t think Violet was a preacher. She was Christian at one point though.
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Oh, crap . . . another one.
Look boys, I’m assuming you are both boys, it’s been fun, but I have about 50 years of listening to holier christinas than you guys, so these conversations get me tired mighty quick.
I just read through all the comments again, looking for one of them there scintillas that might hint at something beyond the same all tired stuff, but all I found wuz stuff I damn near got memorized . . . intellectually un-stimulating if not downright boring, it is.
I’ll be unsubscribing from these here comments now, and I’ll go read stuff that will scrub my brain from the stink of ignorance and maybe offer up something that will challenge me more than this here conversation. Maybe some comics.
Meanwhile, why don’t you boys work out a story you can both agree on.
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I second the assertion: “They say the best way to turn a christian from the faith is to have them actually read the bible.”
My own story is similar to those of the folks you’ve mentioned. I believed for nearly 30 years of my life, but I was done in by those damn graduate theology instructors requiring us to actually read the Bible. Like I always say, the Bible is its own worst enemy. Not to mention, there’s that small detail about how the historical and scientific records clearly indicate the only reason deities exist is because humans created them.
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” the Bible is its own worst enemy” – it seems so obvious once you’re out, but it’s curious how many otherwise intelligent people can find ways to convince themselves there is justification for all the nonsense.
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Absolutely. I mean, I convinced myself for years that the contradictions, inaccuracies, prejudices, and violence were justifiable or able to be rationalized. But now that I’ve stopped grasping at straws, reality is much clearer.
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Can you prove God does not exist?
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Sorry to interrupt, but can you prove the invisible spirit goblin in my trouser pocket does not exist? I’m afraid there’s no difference in terms of availability of the evidence against the existence of either.
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I hate to interrupt this beautiful conversation, but if you may indulge me, what god do you mean and what evidence have you lined for its existence?
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Can you prove God exists? The impetus for proof lies on you, the believer.
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“There is one creator-of-all superbeing. He is a father figure male deity who knows absolutely everything about the past, present and future, and has the power to do anything.”
The one thing I would challenge in your post is the father figure male deity. You asked me to provide a biblical reference. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Christ is also described as a mother in scripture later in the New Testament (Matthew 23:37).
“Them” is created in the image of God. In my interpretation God transcends gender. In the patriarchal context of human history he presented himself (interesting that I did not write herself – – one is seldom aware of his biases) as a father. Many people have no father (beyond gamete donation) or a bad father. That is a true stumbling block.
Why challenge this? Of all of the wrong done in the name of faith, dishonoring women must be counted high on the list. If God created humans, whether literally through the Genesis myth or through the mechanism of evolution, then all humans have value. According to evolutionary biology, we started isogamous (male/female) and gender came later.
I enjoy your blog – – I need to know how unbelievers think in order to challenge and refine my own beliefs.
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I kind of see your point, and I think the Genesis verse is almost admissible, but the Matthew verse is beyond tenuous. Comparing mere actions to that of a hen protecting chicks, does not suggest a being is female. I know other Christians who see the god God as genderless but it really is grasping at straws given that the Bible describes the god as male, Father, son – and Jesus (the man and part of the godhead) makes constant references to his father.
I’m glad you’re enjoying the blog. I hope you continue to visit with your thoughtful comments.
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I am and I will. You’re right — I should have stuck with Genesis 🙂
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Allow me to interrupt, Pascal. I notice you have chosen Genesis 1 as your evidence for god that transcends gender. Have you considered the possibility that the god speaking in Genesis 1 is both male and female? That the story in Genesis 1 is part of the tradition prevalent at the time of god being both male and female while the author of Genesis 2 where god creates man and then woman from man describes the stage in our evolution where there was competition between the male and female deities and in this case the male has triumphed and become the giver of life?
What am trying to say with the above long comment is that Violet is most likely right when she says the god is male.
Non believers are not one monolithic group, it would be hard to just know how we think by reading a few blogs but it isn’t a bad start.
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Your interruption is most welcome. You’re very right. Skepticism, even evangelicalism is not monolithic. A formative book in my life is titled “Scandal of the Evangelical Mind”.
The best way for me to know how someone thinks is to ask her, if I can be trusted to ask an honest question not designed to entrap. The only way I can be trusted is to be honest myself and to demonstrate myself trustworthy.
Do I think God is male? I believe that is how he is personified in the Bible and how I picture him when I pray, but to be consistent with my belief that he created all, then I believe he is above, even outside of gender. Is my quotation of Genesis 1 evidence? I think your interpretation is just as valid and must be balanced against mine. The truth is that I don’t know.
I do feel that as a man and as a Christian, I need to acknowledge much misogyny in the past and present and do my level best to prevent it in the future – – first of all in my own heart.
Thanks for letting me ramble — your comments got me thinking.
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can an all powerful god change the past?
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I don’t expect this was directed to me, but my understanding of time as a believer was that time is not linear as we experience it. Is that not kind of scientific as well? At least that it may not be.
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well, I was hoping some believer would help me with this. And time being non-linear wouldn’t help it I think or whichever way you conceive time. Let us for example say someone hit me, would god change that to me being un-hit?
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Probably been done already! Think of all the pain you’ve been saved from 🙂
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