My Problems with Christianity

[newfangle]

Over the last week, CFC has again seen a rise of religious threads. The battle goes as it always has, the liberal agnostics/atheists combatting the conservative christians. Of course, there are exceptions, such as CG, but for the most part this seems to be the case.

I'd like to offer a completely different take on why I reject religion- notably Christianity. All this time, I have thought it quite odd how many left-leaning people so defiantly stand against religion, while the two groups share the same fundamental ideals. Errr....perhaps that is another thread.

Anyways, here are my principle quams with Christianity. Anyone is free to respond.

1) Universal Love :
This is perhaps the issue that boils me the most. Love, by definition, is perhaps the greatest, most intense connection that two people can share. It is something that is unique to humanity (as far as we know) and represents an extremely powerful force of the human faculties. The idea that love can be unearned as the Christian religion teaches I find reprehensible. Love, by its very nature, *has* to be earned. It does not simply materialize out of nothing. As I said, it represents perhaps the strongest connection two people can share, and when some deity comes along and says "love thy neighbour," that is a complete slap in the face of any man or woman that has truly experienced this beautiful thing. I shall not love my neighbour, nor all men. I will only love those who have earned it, and it will only take place in a mutually beneficial relationship.

2) Self Sacrifice
Self-sacrifice represents a profound irrationality that seems to be found in all religions. Essentially, this means that our lives are poorer in value than the lives of our neighbours, and we should readily accept death before they do. Furthermore, this sort of behaviour is to be expressed to all men, just as Jesus did. I find this reprehensible as well. Just the very thought of surrendering my life for some pitiful display of humanity, such as a criminal, is so very wrong. This whole idea of self-sacrifice is a lie in on itself as well. This completely rejects man and his nature. 99.99% of people WILL NOT accept death for the sake of others (love excluded), and it is considered a sin when they don't. The fact that christianity rejects human nature on the fundamental level severely limits its potential...

Self sacrifice also refers to our supposed relationship to God himself. Apparently, we all *owe* him our worship for he is great and all-powerful. We are all filthy little ant-like sinners, and we all need an omni-whatever being to save us from ourselves. No thanks...

3) Death
This is more of a smaller quam, but a quam nonetheless. Christianity worships death. It is so blatantly visible whenever one visits a church. For crying out loud, there is a wooden image of a man being tortued mercilessly on display at all times. What is this supposed to represent? I went to a Catholic school for over a decade, I apparently know all the symbolism, yadda yadda yadda, but I still have no idea why we are all to pay pilgrimage to such reckless death and pain. I reject this, and I celebrate life (namely mine) as my highest virtue. This is quite antithical to most religions. As an aside, this is why I actually enjoy Christmas (besides being a celebration of capitalism), because its one of the few religious events that celebrates life and its beauty.


These are my three biggest issues, and I thank you all for the listen.

 

[Laughing Gull]

you're going to hell for that.
(joke)

EDIT:

believe what you want to believe. that's why God gave us free will

you'll find out when you die if you're wrong or right... but you'll never really know untill then.

 

[Pirate]

I don't have the time or capacity to respond to everything you posted, but consider this about self-sacrifice as a virtue:

If you as a Christian are willing to endure a little suffering or inconvenience for the sake of helping out a fellow human being, (read: go out of your way to help someone) there is some comfort in the knowledge that there are millions of other Christians willing to go out of their way to help you.

You don't have to be Christian to be a good person, and not all professed Christians are very good at actually going out of their way to help people, but as a general rule and a vision for an ideal society, it's not such a bad thing to promote.

 

[cgannon64]

1. I think you're misunderstanding it a little bit. You're right in saying that love is a mutal feeling between two people. So, I think when Jesus teaches you to 'love your neighbor' it is not in the same sense as you love your wife. I interpret 'love thy neighbor' more as having infinite patience and forgiveness. It is being hurt by someone and saying, "I know you're better than that. I forgive you." no matter how many times you do it. I think the point of loving your neighbor is more that God wants you not to hate them. You don't even have to like them, but you have to try to tolerate them and forgive them. Once you start hating someone you're becoming as bad as they are.

So I think the unearned kind of love a Christian is supposed to give is different than the earned kind of love of a couple. The love of a Christian for his enemy or neighbor is naturally unearned, and it always will be. Once they begin to earn it, it switches to the other kind of love.

2. When you sacrifice yourself for someone else for a good reason, for example to save their life or to forgive their sins, I see nothing irrational there. If a man's wife is about to be executed and the man says, "No, take me instead", I don't see how that is irrational. He loves his wife so much that he is willing to give his own life to extend hers. This means that, yes, he is valuing her life more than his. But there is no in-between in that situation. Either he values his life over hers or he values her life over his.

3. I would say that it worships sacrifice more than death, and death is just incidental; it happens to be the ultimate sacrifice. The central message, I think, of Christianity is to be willing to die, willing to give up your life. To steal a nihilists line , once you are willing to die for something you can truly enjoy life. Christianity does celebrate life (Christmas, Easter) as much as it celebrates death (Good Friday). The reason that the main symbol of Christianity is morbid is because it is showing the greatest thing someone can do - give their life to improve the lives of many others (in Jesus' case, everyone).

Hope that may have cleared anything up, if not you can tell me what you don't get and I'll try to explain it better.

 

[gael]

I don't think religious teachings are supposed to be taken so literally. It should be a personal, well thought thing and not another cliche for this left/right political crap that a lot of people seem to be fixated with and want to idenify themselves with.

Religious institutions arn't the be all and end all of how you should view God or interperate a religion, they're corupted by centuries of political power struggles.

I'm not religious by the way, but if your going to drop it, i'd give it some serious thought. A lot of people will argue against it based on intellectual arrogance, others as a clean cut way of rebeling against what they've been forced to believe as kids.

If your smart enough to question your beliefs do it, but make sure your doing it for the right reasons.
Theres no shame in having religion in some form or other, i wish sometimes I had it.

 

[Akka]

Self-sacrifice is not necessarily about valuating someone's else life above yours. It can also be "I PREFER you to be alive, even if it means my own death".

Self-sacrifice can be emotional (love) or can be ethical (self-sacrifice for a greater cause).

Not being able to understand self-sacrifice, means you're not able to conceive anything greater/more important than yourself. It's seriously narrow-minded, pretentious and egocentric.

 

[Archer 007]

I agree with what CGannon said.

 

[newfangle]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Unfortunately CG and Akka just repeated what I said, except they agree with it.

 

[stratego]

If you don't accept religion as a sacred thing, can you just accept it as a Code of Law. Many of the things that the Bible teaches are applicable to the structure of society. Self-sacrifice, faith in the lord, or even taking up arms are parallel to helping the community, trust your leaders, and raising an army. Don't take the Bible literally, they probably exaggerrated things to show the writers vision of a model society.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

Love

As cgannon said, there are many kinds of love. There's "parental", "brotherly", "friendly", "sexual"... But it's also an unquantifyable feeling. Love can be "earned", but in a more subtle way, so subtle that it's almost indistinguishable from incidental.


Self Sacrifice

On one part, self-sacrifice would be the most irrational thing to do. Imagine, if nobody would do it, there would be no more need for war. But there's the hard part: Would you stand idly by and watch a tyrant take over your country, or get involved, even by risking your life, to make a diference? Not many would, and indeed, not many would sacrifice themseves for an ideal, but those who do shouldn't be reguarded as "idiots".


Death

With this, I agree.

 

[Akka]

Originally posted by newfangle
Thanks for the replies guys.

Unfortunately CG and Akka just repeated what I said, except they agree with it.

Not really.

I'm not "agreeing" with self-sacrifice while you "disagree".
I understand the motives that can lead to self-sacrifice, while you only see irrationnality.

You basically scorn off something that is beyond the scope of your understanding.
"Diminishing what you can't reach" is the expression, I think.

 

[newfangle]

Originally posted by Aphex_Twin
Love

As cgannon said, there are many kinds of love. There's "parental", "brotherly", "friendly", "sexual"... But it's also an unquantifyable feeling. Love can be "earned", but in a more subtle way, so subtle that it's almost indistinguishable from incidental.

I don't believe there can be multiple versions of love, but perhaps it just boils down to semantics. I don't *love* my family perse, but there is still a strong bond there.

But the fact still stands that the bible does not differentiate between them, so I still stand by my original comment.

Originally posted by Aphex_Twin


Self Sacrifice

On one part, self-sacrifice would be the most irrational thing to do. Imagine, if nobody would do it, there would be no more need for war. But there's the hard part: Would you stand idly by and watch a tyrant take over your country, or get involved, even by risking your life, to make a diference? Not many would, and indeed, not many would sacrifice themseves for an ideal, but those who do shouldn't be reguarded as "idiots".

I don't regard self-defense as self-sacrifice. It is in my best interests not to let a tyrant rule me (just like a god *snicker*).

Originally posted by Aphex_Twin


Death

With this, I agree.

Meh, it was bound to happen one day.

 

[newfangle]

Originally posted by stratego
If you don't accept religion as a sacred thing, can you just accept it as a Code of Law. Many of the things that the Bible teaches are applicable to the structure of society. Self-sacrifice, faith in the lord, or even taking up arms are parallel to helping the community, trust your leaders, and raising an army. Don't take the Bible literally, they probably exaggerrated things to show the writers vision of a model society.

I contend that the fundamental morality behind Christianity is fatally flawed, and that IT CANNOT be applied to society.

 

[Speedo]

This whole idea of self-sacrifice is a lie in on itself as well. This completely rejects man and his nature. 99.99% of people WILL NOT accept death for the sake of others (love excluded), and it is considered a sin when they don't.

Where does it say that it is a sin if you don't die for someone else?

You are incorrect however. Soldiers alone have done more than enough self-sacrifice to destroy your 99.99%. Just because you love being selfish doesn't force everyone else to do it.

 

[Syterion]

I think the main problem with most religions is that they do not like the fundamental nature of man. The most obvious is the sin of sex.

This labeling of sex as a sin makes NO SENSE. Sex is natural, sex is beautiful, and most of all, sex is NECESSARY. Also, most religions demonize women for they are the ones who let man give in to their temptations. Pagans used sex as a means to become closer to god, because they saw the ability of women to give birth as a miracle, and they saw sex as a way to have a communion with this miracle maker. Christianity decided sex wasn't cool when the Church decided to make Jesus a divine figure and they erased all record of him having a wife, and having sex, because things such as these are too ordinary, and it was not fitting of a divine figure. Then they demonized women, because they cause men to give in to temptation. This is sexist.

Sexism is another reason I dislike most world religions. The Church as I have said, demonizes women. Also, they do not allow women priests. Same with most religions, such as Judaism and Islam.

Another is survival. Most religions (notably Christianity) expect you to die for their cause. That is against the fundamental nature of any species, which is to survive. Martyrdom is stupid. Wouldn't it be better, instead of dying, to renounce your cause, and then spend the rest of your life preaching the religion?

Lastly, the reluctant nature of religions to not give any evidence as to why we should believe them. It is the nature of humans to try to find out why and how, but religion denies the answers. Maybe because there is no evidence...

I really do not understand why most religions decide to deviate from what is natural. Paganism seems to make the most sense, yet has almost completely died out. It truly puzzles me why so many people would believe in such things contradictory to themselves. Of course, another fundamental characteristic of most men is the fear of change.

 

[Colonel Kraken]

Yeah, Newfangle, we all know how much you and others hate Christianity. We don't need to hear it again.

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by newfangle
Thanks for the replies guys.

Unfortunately CG and Akka just repeated what I said, except they agree with it.

Not really. In my first post I said that there are many kinds of love, which I think is true. I love my brother much differently than I love my stranger, my friend, my mother, or my wife. And you can't really say that they are different strengths of love, because the way you love a parent is totally different than the way you love a brother, or a stranger in the Christian sense.

The second one I did basically repeat what you said, only I said it wasn't irrational. Like Akka said I think you aren't looking deep enough on this issue.

And as for the third, I don't think I repeated what you said - like I said, you're misplacing the emphasis on death when it should be on sacrifice.

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by Syterion
This labeling of sex as a sin makes NO SENSE. Sex is natural, sex is beautiful, and most of all, sex is NECESSARY. Also, most religions demonize women for they are the ones who let man give in to their temptations. Pagans used sex as a means to become closer to god, because they saw the ability of women to give birth as a miracle, and they saw sex as a way to have a communion with this miracle maker.

Where does Christianity say that sex is bad? It doesn't. It says that sex without meaning, without love, is bad. That's why the church says you shouldn't have sex before you're married, so its not just a meaningless method of getting pleasure.

Christianity decided sex wasn't cool when the Church decided to make Jesus a divine figure and they erased all record of him having a wife, and having sex, because things such as these are too ordinary, and it was not fitting of a divine figure.

Right...what evidence do you have to back this up besides your imagination? Athiests love to point out that the Bible isn't good enough evidence of Jesus' life, but then they say that Jesus had a wife when it wasn't printed ANYWHERE with absolutely NO evidence to back up their statement.

Sexism is another reason I dislike most world religions. The Church as I have said, demonizes women. Also, they do not allow women priests. Same with most religions, such as Judaism and Islam.

Don't blame religion for this. Women couldn't do anything when most religious laws were put into place - they couldn't hold public office, own land, etc. All the world was sexist. Its just natural that religious laws take a little while longer to change than other laws. I wouldn't be surprised if you see women priests within 50 years, especially if a liberal Pope is appointed.

Another is survival. Most religions (notably Christianity) expect you to die for their cause. That is against the fundamental nature of any species, which is to survive. Martyrdom is stupid. Wouldn't it be better, instead of dying, to renounce your cause, and then spend the rest of your life preaching the religion?

First of all, that's hypocritcal. Second of all, you should stop thinking so literally. Sometimes giving your life can result in your message getting spread even farther, because your matyrdom allows your legend to survive. Perfect example is Jesus. Had he not died on the cross and followed your ideas on life, Christianity would just be a short-lived Jewish sect and another prophet whose followers died out relatively quickly.

Lastly, the reluctant nature of religions to not give any evidence as to why we should believe them. It is the nature of humans to try to find out why and how, but religion denies the answers. Maybe because there is no evidence...

Religion is based on faith. Duh. This is a fundamental aspect of religion. If it tried to prove its theories, it would just be an extremely abstract hypothetical science.

Anyway, the point of religion is to answer the question "why". The point of science is to answer "how".

I really do not understand why most religions decide to deviate from what is natural. Paganism seems to make the most sense, yet has almost completely died out. It truly puzzles me why so many people would believe in such things contradictory to themselves. Of course, another fundamental characteristic of most men is the fear of change.

How does paganism make the most sense? Isn't that the worship of trees and animals and rivers and such?

EDIT: Pagan - one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods.

What do you mean, paganism died out? Its probably the number one thing people practice today!

 

[Mescalhead]

Being a former Catholic, but being slightly more objective on religious subjects than our Christian and Atheist psoters(sorry but true), I'll take a swing.

Originally posted by newfangle
1) Universal Love :

First of all, the way you say "earns" sounds as though you have a checklist and as soon as someone meets it, you turn on the love section of your brain. It is nowhere near that conscious or deliberate. People usually cannot control who they love. That is not to say someone will love regardless of the circumstances, but what people find attractive is deeply ingrained psychologically. This would still back your argument.

Second, It is absolutely absurd for people to love on command, and love is such a sublime emotion that it is not well analyzed by the mind. It is not easy to understand where love ends, and envy, lust, or fear begins.

There is no way a Christian knows for certain that he loves God, if they have it in their mind that they need Him for salvation. It is either a matter of true affection or a matter of the necessity to show it to a higher being, regardless if you feel it or not. I know our Christian posters will argue, but they cannot know as I have said. The prospect of immortal salvation cannot be easily put to the side in judging whether one loves the source for it's being or what it can provide.

You may say that since he is providing you with the eternal life, then you must love the selflessness and the heart of the gift-giver. What if he didn't offer salvation, and you just died, and being a disciple of God or Jesus had no benefit? Would you still care for Him the same? I think most would say that they'd still love Him, though VERY few truly would. And don't tell me what you believe you would feel, as you have a better chance of convincing me that Christianity is the true way.

Originally posted by newfangle

2) Self Sacrifice

Though a zealous (not using negatively) Christian would promote self-sacrifice and might pursue it. They would always have reward on their mind.
I think most Christians don't see self-sacrifice as a requirement for God's grace. Though one may be somewhat patronized, I doubt this is a serious matter. A lot of things in the Bible are rarely if ever practiced by most Christians. It's a huge book.

Originally posted by newfangle

3) Death

Uh no. They worship a personification of immortality, and something that, if properly petitioned will grant immortality unto the human follwers. Nothing more.

 

[Syterion]

Where does Christianity say that sex is bad? It doesn't. It says that sex without meaning, without love, is bad. That's why the church says you shouldn't have sex before you're married, so its not just a meaningless method of getting pleasure.

There's something called chastity. Guess who can't do it. Why? Because it is considered a sin.

Right...what evidence do you have to back this up besides your imagination? Athiests love to point out that the Bible isn't good enough evidence of Jesus' life, but then they say that Jesus had a wife when it wasn't printed ANYWHERE with absolutely NO evidence to back up their statement.

The reason you think there is no evidence is because in the 4th century the Church tried to cover that up, and recast Mary Magdalene as a whore. And you want sources, so read these books-

The Templar Revelation
The Goddess in the Gospels
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
Mary Magdalene:Myth and Metaphor

and here's an article I found on the internet, just incase you can't find or haven't read those books. Its of OK quality, but it gets most of the fundamental premise right.

Article

They aren't undeniable proof, but they make very good cases for their argument. You can't completely trust the Bible you know, it was written centuries after Christ lived.

Religion is based on faith. Duh. This is a fundamental aspect of religion.

Exactly. I don't trust things based on faith, besides love. Would you offer your wallet to a stranger and take it on "faith" that he would give it back? Faith cannot be trustworthy, because you must make assumptions that you cannot prove. I fail to see how people defend their religion when there is no evidence for it. Proof denies faith.

EDIT: Pagan - one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods.

There are other definitions for Paganism, such as-

\Pa"gan*ism\ (-[i^]z'm), n. [L. paganismus: cf. F. paganisme. See Pagan, and cf. Painim.] The state of being pagan; pagan characteristics; esp., the worship of idols or false gods, or the system of religious opinions and worship maintained by pagans; heathenism.

n : any of various religions other than Christianity or Judaism or Islam

As you see, there are very broad definitions, but the connotation is usually understood as someone who worships nature, such as the Sun. It makes sense because the Sun is the basis of life.