Christians are an interesting group of people. The entire Christian religion is based around the words of Jesus of Nazareth, a loving and peaceful man who spent the majority of his time with the undesirables and often criticized the establishment. He was selfless and compassionate, even to those who wished him great harm. Above all, he ranks rather high in the list of great pacifists of the world, next to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. There was that outburst in the temple with the money changers, but hey, who doesn’t yell at those guys?
So, if Christianity is based entirely around this guy and his practices, why are Christians about the biggest bunch of hypocritical, violent, and hateful people you’ll ever meet? Please note: I’m not talking about every single Christian ever here. I’m using the view of Christianity that most non-Christians have. So any condemnation I dole out in this post is aimed at the vocal but false Christians who preach their bigotry as the real deal. Please, don’t get all pissy at me because you think I’m some militant atheist who’s out to destroy religion. If you honestly think that’s me, you haven’t read the post. Just FYI.
I’ve met a lot of Christians. Most are good Christians. They follow what Jesus said. They don’t wish anyone ill, they don’t condemn people based on their lifestyle choices, they don’t boycott movies because an atheist wrote the book the movies were based around. There are also the bad Christians. The ones who hold signs saying “Repent or burn in hell!” or claim that homosexuals are evil. It’s easy to spot the difference: good Christians lead by example; bad Christians lead by threats. In other words, a good Christian can show you his faith simply by being who he is. A bad Christian resorts to telling you you’ll go to hell for being gay/black/Jewish or daring to watch anything on TV that’s not Lifetime (or Hallmark, so long as M*A*S*H isn’t on) and then backing it up with Bible verses taken out of context. A bumper sticker I saw today summed it up nicely: “When Jesus said to love your enemies, he probably didn’t mean kill them.”
Strictly speaking, I’m not a Christian at all. I’m not even especially religious. Does this make me an atheist? Not necessarily. I won’t bother going into my religious beliefs as they are complex and completely irrelevant. What matters is that I used to be a Christian, so I know what I’m talking about. Heck, I’ve found I know more about the finer things in Christianity than some church-going Christians, which might be part of the problem. If you don’t know your chosen religion that well, how can you practice it properly? Perhaps if people paid attention to what Jesus actually said and not what they think he meant, life would be a lot nicer. We wouldn’t have to deal with those crackpots over at Westboro Baptist Church, for one thing. They’re still stuck using verses from the Old Testament. Christians should pay more attention to the teachings in the New Testament, leaving the Old Testament for history. WBC must not have gotten the memo.
I like to think that keeping my distance from Christianity has given me a more even view at the issues within it. Other people like to think that it makes me despise religion entirely. Don’t be like those people. Oversimplifying religion is one of the biggest problems here. You may happen to disagree with everything I’ve said here, and that’s fine. This blog is about my opinions, after all. I’m not expecting anyone to like them.
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Your opinions are right it is about the lifestyle.. no Christian should condemn anyone, period. Steering away from evils is one thing, things like homosexuality are no different then other sins of body, no different then lusting,adultry, premarital sex, and anyother sin. That however shouldnt steer you away if you at one time felt that it was truth… after all anything man gets ahold of is corrupted since man is corrupted. That means Christianity or anything else. Men are the single cause of evil on this planet and therefore cannot be trusted, which is why God inspired men to write the Bible, including the Old Testiment(Jesus said hes not here to destroy or replace the law but to fulfill it). Im curious on why you fell away from the church if you dont mind sharing.
Welcome to Mad Rants, brooks, and to the blogging community as a whole. Thanks for the comment.
To be brutally honest, I abandoned Christianity because I found it to be somewhat lacking in the proof department. As with any big religion, Christianity is based on faith, but I’ve never been someone to take faith in something with no evidence. For much of my life, I believed, but when I finally decided to look deeper, I didn’t find much. It could have been that I was looking for the wrong thing or that anyone who tried to help me didn’t quite know how to help, but I lost my faith quite quickly during high school, when I first started questioning and examining Christianity with a more critical eye than I ever had before. I didn’t much like what I saw and it seemed that I had been told lies when I was younger, so I became an agnostic.
I didn’t bounce about to any other religions, though. I knew quite a bit about the big ones–Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, to name a few–but all of them relied on some kind of faith, as well. I couldn’t find anything that I felt to really be true and right, so I stayed an arm’s length away from all of them. I still do, really, though I’m not as atheistic as I used to be (when I abandoned Christianity, I abandoned Christianity’s version of God, though I’ve come to realize that the Christian God isn’t necessarily the God that exists). I believe in God, though I believe that it’s not necessary to align myself with an organized religion to serve him well.
Basically, religion requires faith and obedience. I can somewhat manage faith now (considering I’m more active in my belief in God than I used to be), but I’m still quite a bit of a rebel, so organized religion still seems unappealing for me. I’ve prayed for guidance on this issue, but I’ve never gotten a really strong answer, so I’ve just stuck with being more spiritual than religious. I have a feeling that’s what’s more important to God, but I have no way to know for sure.
The really sad thing is that the Christian faith is not only responsible for such hypocrisies. Every other religion has done harm in the name of their religion. I think it has a lot to do with just how the leaders that be in each major religion don’t do enough to promote coexistence. It is clear that you can’t force your religion on someone especially to someone who is already devout. The world just needs to learn some humility and love the neighbors for who they are not what they are.
Thanks for the welcome.
I think a lot of kids turn away from their faith in high school no matter what faith it is. Usually due in part to various new idea’s their exposed to, new friends, and a realization that things are not such as they appear to be when your younger. As far as the historical basis to Christianity, you might be surprised on the historical foundation that Christianity is based around. For example, scholars accept what we know about Alexander the Great as fact, yet his biographies where not written down until 400yrs later by Arrian and Plutarch. Where as you have the earliest gospel being copied down within 20yrs of Jesus’ death. Which means eyewitnesses would have still been alive and could have countered the gospels. Then in 125AD you have a writing by Papias confirming the careful authorship of Mark, and then in 180AD from Irenaeus confirming the authorship of the gospel of Mark.( which scholarly is regarded the first gospel to be written). Scholars consistantly use the Old and New testiments to locate various lost ruins, such as the cities of Sodom and Gomorah, and the original site to the city of Jericho. These are just a few examples of scholarly backing. As far as being religious, God desires two things (after repentance from sins thru Jesus) and that is your mind and your heart, not just going to church for your weekly God experience or how much money is in the offering plate. Prayers are answered in the oddest ways sometimes as well in ways you may not even expect, so pray on friend and I’ll pray for you as well.
Ren: I agree. Every religion has it’s hypocrites. I focus on Christianity because it’s the religion I’m most familiar with.
Brooks: The historical basis of Christianity isn’t what I’m doubting. I took a very interesting religions class in high school that went over a lot of what I didn’t know about Christianity. I learned quite a lot in that class. However, it’s the spiritual truth I doubt in Christianity (or any religion for that matter). Historical facts can be backed up, but what about things like heaven and hell? The only source for spiritual truths in Christianity is the Bible, but there’s no proof the Bible was divinely inspired, so it’s not useful as a source for someone looking for proof. That’s where the problem has always been for me.