Why I Hate Christianity

There are many reasons why I hate Christianity--and yes, I do literally hate Christianity. Why?--because of the negative doctrines it promotes, and the resulting "moral laxity"--which the Christian philosopher Pelagius pointed out long ago.  Let me explain by offering the following analogy.


The following would be a "life situation" for many, and is analyzed from a Christian perspective:

Christians believe they are born bad, and cannot help but to do bad things because they are "born sinners." (Original sin) Now, a Christian man who says he loves his wife still beats her because she doesn't do as she is told. She forgives him for hurting her every time, because that is what her religion tells her to do. The man beats her because the same religion tells him he has authority over her, and he cannot help but to do bad things, so he does them thinking he can't help himself--but it's ok, because his god will forgive him. Until one fateful day when a beating ends in death, and he kills his wife with his bare hands. 


THIS IS WHY I HATE CHRISTIANITY.  I hate the fact that this religion tells people they are EXPECTED to behave badly.  I hate the fact that there are NO CONSEQUENCES for their bad behavior in this life or the next for believers as long as they sincerely say "sorry" to Jesus.  What about the victims??  What compensation do they get under the Christian system?  None.  There is no justice for victims of Christian crime--unless it is through secular laws.  Therefore, Christianity in and of itself is IMMORAL and UNJUST.  This is the biggest reason why I HATE Christianity.

If people believed they could do the right thing the first time, and took responsibility for their own actions instead of having "Jesus" do that for them, the world would be a much better place to live in.

The Christian Apologist Blogger JW Wartick Offers Fodder for the Case that the Bible Makes No Sense

The Christian apologist blogger JW Wartick, in his  book review on Paul Helm's “Eternal God: A Study of God Without Time,” states that:

"Helm here turns to compatiblism. He freely admits that timeless creation entails determinism (170). Thus, he denies that humans have free will in the libertarian sense. But this, he argues, does not undermine human responsibility. I don’t think I can do justice to the nuances of his argument, but the basic idea is that Helm argues that just because past actions/events determine our actions in the future, that doesn’t mean that we aren’t responsible for what we do. As I said, this is a really, really watered down version of his argument, but I think this is one of the weaker points of his work.

Why? Because the idea of responsibility simply does not make sense on determinism, particularly when it is theistic determinism. For consider the idea proposed here. God has created all of time and space as one bloc. Thus, everything I do or have ever done was created by God once he brought the universe into being. Literally, everything I did, I do because God created the universe such that I would do x. So how could it be that I am responsible for doing x, if I never chose to do x. I simply do x because I have to, I have “already” done it, on the static theory. If I could create a time travel device, I could travel forward in time and see myself doing x, and could not prevent it, because God created the world such that I would do x. But the core of responsibility is that I chose to do x. While we punish people for things they do by accident (vehicular manslaughter, for example, or accidentally breaking a window), these things still resulted from prior choices (playing baseball near breakable window/driving carelessly). I simply do not see how any account of responsibility could make sense unless someone can choose to do what they do."

So, according to Wartick, "... the idea of responsibility simply does not make sense on determinism, particularly when it is theistic determinism." This is exactly right, and as a result, WARTICK HAS ILLUSTRATED THAT THE BIBLE MAKES NO SENSE. First, let me set this out as an argument so that you can see how it works. Secondly, I will show that the bible does espouse responsibility and determinism. Here is the argument:

P1. If there are parts of the bible that espouse the idea of responsibility and determinism then the Bible makes no sense.

P2. The Bible espouses the idea of responsibility and determinism.

C. Therefore, the Bible makes no sense.

Note, P1 is supported by Wartick's claim that "... the idea of responsibility simply does not make sense on determinism, particularly when it is theistic determinism."

Many scholars, including Christian philosophers from Augustine to Pelagius, as well as secular philosophers, have long recognized the conceptual problem of the idea of responsibility and determinism presented in the bible via the roles played by man and Yahweh in the drama of salvation. According to the bible, redemption can come only through the offering of Yahweh of himself, and if a believer is saved, it is ONLY through Yahweh's grace, and it is NOT of themselves. (Ephesians 2:8) On the other hand, the bible also claims that humans chose to sin in the first place, and are FREE to make their own choices, and it must be their own choice to accept Yahweh's salvation, as the bible is also full of admonitions to repent and believe (Acts 3:19) Thus, we have a contradiction in that according to the bible, everything is due to, and determined by Yahweh; and the claim that salvation is the result of the responsibility of man's response to choose freely. As Wartick points out--THAT MAKES NO SENSE!!

As a result of this nonsense, as I mentioned above, Christian philosophers have battled over this issue for centuries, and to this day we have multiple denominations and groups in which some believe in determinism, and some believe in free will, and some believe both!. The battle has been raging for a long time, as the early Christian philosophers such as Augustine and Pelagius disagreed concerning the issue of determinism and free will, and the disagreements continued throughout history, as noted theologians such as Jacobus Arminius espoused the idea of free will, whereas John Calvin and Martin Luther were on the side of determinism.   All this disagreement is due to the fact that the bible is inconsistent and contradictory on the subject of free will and determinism.

According to Arminius, there is such a thing as prevenient grace, which is divine grace that precedes human decision. It exists prior to and without reference to anything humans may have done. As humans are corrupted by the effects of sin, prevenient grace allows persons to engage their God-given free will to choose the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ or to reject that salvific offer. Whereas Augustine held that prevenient grace cannot be resisted, and if it cannot be resisted, then the person has no free will on this matter.  Wesleyan Arminians believe that it enables, but does not ensure, personal acceptance of the gift of salvation. According to John Calvin, humans are in a state of total depravity, and there is no free will at all due to Divine Sovereignty.


This table, taken from Wikipedia, summarizes the classical views of three different Protestant beliefs about salvation.

All these inconsistent and contradictory views are based on the bible. The bible espouses the idea of responsibility and determinism via the passages mentioned above, as well as my favorite passage from (Proverbs 16:33),  "...EVERY decision is from the Lord." These, and other passages such as Ephesians 1:11; Lamentations 3:37-38; James 4:13-15; Psalm 139:16 and Matt 10:29-30 support the case for determinism.  For more information and arguments for the case on biblical determinism, see Calvinism.

As Wartick pointed out: "... the idea of responsibility simply does not make sense on determinism, particularly when it is theistic determinism." If there are parts of the bible that espouse the idea of responsibility and determinism then the Bible makes no sense. As I have shown, that is exactly what the Bible espouses--the Bible espouses the idea of responsibility and determinism. THEREFORE, THE BIBLE MAKES NO SENSE!!

On The Question Of Yahweh And The Slaughter of The Canaanite Unborn Fetuses: Dear Anonymous - Part One. My Response to a Recent Commenter on This Blog

 

This is part one of my response to a recent commenter on my blog. His/her comments went into a great deal of detail. As to respond in a scholarly fashion, I have chosen to write a series of blog posts in order to give a more thorough response. This is part 1. Enjoy.

Dear Anonymous,

If you have read my blog at all, you will notice that I have allowed many people who oppose my views to post comments--as long as they stick to the arguments, and do not fall prey to ad hominem, red herrings, etc. I also made it through your entire letter, which has prompted me to write this post (more will follow), as a few lines in a typical response would not do justice to what you had written.

You asked me if I thought all of the Canaanites that were slaughtered were innocent. (Deuteronomy 7:1-2) According to many Christians, the unborn are "sinless"--they are not yet born--so even if one pregnant mother, and one unborn fetus was innocent, your god would be unjust in causing its death.  On the other hand, many Christians also follow Augustine's concept of original sin.  This is the teaching that all people who are born, inherit the sinful state into which Adam and Eve passed due to their sin within the Garden of Eden.  Some argue that this happens at conception.  As a result of being born/conceived in sin, all humans are depraved and have a corrupted nature. I will go into more detail and present arguments against Augustine's concept of original sin in another blog post.  Like Pelagius did, I will show that Augustine's concept of original sin is inconsistent with the Bible and that it is a false doctrine. Furthermore, Augustine's concept of original sin is inconsistent with the notion of free will. Ethically speaking, it would be morally unjust for the Christian god to punish anyone for a deed they did not commit.

According to Christianity, the Christian god is all knowing.  Thus, the Christian god knows if a fetus will grow into an evil monster, so perhaps, just as you say about the Canaanite slaughter, i.e. those children could grow to be evil monsters if they were allowed to live; those fetuses that are aborted could also have grown into evil people, and your god is orchestrating their termination because as you say, he knows best "in the larger sense." Just like the Canaanite children could grow to be evil monsters if they were allowed to live, so could the aborted fetuses have grown to be evil monsters, so your god did not allow them to be born. Furthermore, the question then arises as to why your god allowed "evil monsters" such as Hitler to be born in the first place, who then went on to kill more than 6 million of his "chosen people." It makes no logical sense that an all-good, all knowing, and all powerful god would kill an entire group of "potentially evil" people, but fail to eliminate the fetus of one of the worst mass murderers in human history--the murderer of his own so-called "chosen" people!!  As you say in regards to the slaughtered Canaanite children:

"...those who still had a chance to love him were in danger of either being affected by this hate or destroyed by it. What if this being knew that the Canaanite children who were innocent at that time would have grown into a culture so predisposed against God that they too never would have had a chance to know him for who he really is and all of them would have chosen other than god. Is it possible that God actually spared their eternal lives by removing them from their temporal ones?"

Here, we can assume that if Yahweh exists, he would know, and since he knows, why would he not get rid of someone like Hitler? We can also apply what you say to the aborted fetuses. By what you say then, it would be possible that your God is sparing their eternal lives by removing them from their temporal ones. And since the bible tells us that "...EVERY decision is from the Lord" (Proverbs 16:33) this would be his will--according to what the bible tells us. Everything is determined by your god--including abortion, which you claim is the murder of the innocents.

You speak about me hating god--but I cannot hate something that has not been shown to exist--that would be like hating Santa Claus. What I do hate however, are the consequences of a belief system that encourages "moral laxity" as it promotes the idea that someone else (Jesus) pays for the mistakes of others. While there may be no god, there are many religious people, and  as the Christian philosopher Pelagius pointed out long ago, when people do not have to take moral responsibility for their actions, and are told they are "born sinners" and cannot help but to do bad things--and will be forgiven for any indiscretion as long as they repent (well--except blasphemy!)--this leads to moral laxity. It leads to a society full of people who believe they cannot help but to commit adultery, rape, murder, etc.--because they believe they were born bad--but it's ok because Jesus takes the consequences for their actions on the cross. When there is no personal responsibility, and no consequences--we have a society in chaos--which is exactly the case. There is also no justice for the victims of Christian crimes in this life. Furthermore, religious people of all faiths have caused the death and torture of millions of innocent people. From Chinese foot binding, to the cutting off of the clitoris of women in Africa, to the Christian murders of the so-called "witches" and the slaughter of innocent South and North American Indians, and Africans--my goal is to prevent future atrocities, and "moral laxity." To repeat, what I hate are the consequences of a belief that encourages "moral laxity," and unnecessary pain and suffering.

As for allowing small hurts to, as you say, prevent bigger hurts (as in slaughtering babies to prevent them from growing into evil monsters) --any kind of "hurting" would be unnecessary for an all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful god. If god is all-knowing, all-good and all-powerful, there should be no evil. ie., no "hurts." A possibility, that Descartes pointed out, is that Christians ought give up one of these attributes in order to avoid the problem of evil.

Of course, if one gives up the attribute that Yahweh is all good, it points to what might be the best explanation--Yahweh is a sadist. It would appear, via the writings of the bible, that one explanation could be that Yahweh is a sadist, and gets off on causing undo pain and suffering. According to the bible, if your god was real, he orchestrates a great deal of unnecessary suffering. We can say this because if Yahweh were all-powerful, he could just snap his almighty fingers to prevent any type of hurt--and if he were all-knowing, he would know how to prevent any type of pain and suffering--but he does not. Furthermore, the bible tells us that "...EVERY decision is from the Lord," therefore, he is responsible for the pain and suffering, resulting in the problem of evil.

Life is not something that as you said, is something to be "deserved." We are all born into life, which we know is limited--making it all the more precious. We must also co-exist, which is why societies form moral and ethical guidelines--no gods required. We have families, we love, we learn, and we live. This is life as many of us know it, but for others, life is nothing but a struggle for survival. Due only to the circumstances of their birth, many starve, or are dying of curable diseases. Yes, children that pray to your god every day, suffer and die needlessly, and I could never worship a god who is "bountiful" to men such as Benny Hinn (who was outed as fraud on "The Fifth Estate"--a Canadian news program) yet does nothing for the weak and suffering children in Africa and around the world. How bizarre that your god is given thanks when a quarterback throws the winning touchdown, but nothing is said of his responsibility when the innocent are allowed to suffer. If there was such a thing as an eternity with a god, I certainly would not want to spend it worshiping the god the bible describes as being narcissistic, egotistical, angry, vengeful and jealous. I prefer the idea of doing what is right in this life, via Normative Ethical Theories, as we do not require a god for objective morality-- and leaving that legacy for those that follow. That to me, would be a form of "eternal life."

Part 2 will be written in the coming days. Again, thank you for your comments--they have provided me with great fodder for the blog.