You Might be a fundamnetalist Christian if...
Submitted by lukeprog on Fri, 06/22/2007 - 09:49
Tags:
- You don't want people sharing non-Christian ideas with you or your children, but you want to share Christian ideas with non-Christians and their children.
- You deny stories of ancient literature about Zeus and Thor because there's no evidence for them and they disagree with science, but you defend stories of ancient literature about virgin birth and talking snakes even though there's no evidence for them and they disagree with science.
- You claim that a few answered prayers are evidence of God, but far more unanswered prayers are not evidence against God.
- You defend your own supernatural experiences as accurate and claim billions of contradictory supernatural experiences are false.
- You are apalled by ritual human sacrifice and religious terrorism in the modern world, but not when these things happen in the Bible.
- You firmly deny the existence of all other gods but are threatened when someone doubts the existence of Yahweh.
- You interpret Bible verses that support your theology as literal and timelessly relevant, and you ignore verses that contradict your theology, or claim they must be interpreted metaphorically or are no longer relevant.
- You celebrate scientific facts that agree with your theology, and ignore or deny scientific facts that contradict it.
- You claim that what we don't understand is due to supernatural activity. When we come to understand a phenomena, you nevertheless insist that everything we STILL don't understand is due to supernatural activity.
- You believe it is better to firmly trust ideas for which there is no solid evidence than to tentatively trust ideas for which there is strong, observed, repeatable evidence.
- You believe that since we cannot know everything, we should believe in Yahweh but not other gods who are equally impossible to disprove.
- You defend fetuses on the grounds that life is sacred, but don't even wince at the thought that according to Genesis, God drowned the entire earth, including innocent children and fetuses.
- You believe that God and Christianity are loving and tolerant, even though God supposedly sends millions of people to hell forever because nobody mentioned Jesus to them.
- You quote the Old Testament when arguing against homosexuality, but ignore hundreds of its other prohibitions.
- You believe Christianity is morally superior, even though Christians have higher crime and divorce rates than non-theists and your scriptures depict God killing innocents and commanding murder and rape.
- You think atheists are immoral, but when Christians are immoral you change your tune to "Everybody sins."
- You consider Jesus the absolute moral teacher, and then ignore most of his teachings.
- You believe Jews are God's chosen people, yet they are going to hell.
- You are less familiar with your scriptures than many non-Christians, which is why you are surprised to hear that according to your scriptures God commited ehtnic cleansing and commanded lying, murder, and rape.
- You claim that atheists presume to know everything and you are comfortable with mystery, but you also claim to understand human origins, what God is thinking, how the world will end, and who is in hell, while atheists simply say "I don't know" when they don't have evidence for how something works.
- You do not realize how much these beliefs and habits inhibit living in truth because you've been repeatedly told they are actually VIRTUES!
Author Comments:
Many taken from other lists. I've tried only to use the ones that seem a fair critique of the majority of Christians. Please criticize my list.
I wish somebody would've shown me a list like this when I was 15.
No comments? Anybody think these are not descriptive of most Christians? Anybody think they are unfair?
I'm curious as to which scriptures support your assertion that God commanded "lying, murder, and rape."
Sure! Thanks for your interest. I'll give just a few examples.
To say nothing of the millions of innocents that Yahweh killed according ancient Jewish literature, he is also claimed to have commanded murder. In Deuteronomy 3:1-7, Yahweh commands the Israelites to kill everyone in 60 cities, including women and children. This is also a main theme of the bloody book of Joshua, for example see Joshua 6.
In Judges 21, the tribe of Benjamin complains of a wife-shortage, so Yahweh commands the Israelites to kill everyone (including children) at Jabesh Gilead, except for virgins, who are to be forcibly raped and married. When they keep complaining, they are told to hide along the road and surprise attack women from Shiloh, forcibly raping and marrying them, too. Yahweh commands more rape in Numbers 31:7-18 and Deuteronomy 20:10-14, and promises to assist the Israelites in more rape according to Zechariah 14:1-2. 2 Samuel 12:11-14 is particularly charming; here Yahweh actually brings women to their rapist and then kills an innocent child.
Yahweh commands or rewards lying in Exodus 3:18, 1:15-20, and 1 Samuel 16:2.
Yahweh also gives commands regarding slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave in certain circumstances (Exodus 21:1-11).
That's just a tiny sampling of the moral repugnance of the Bible, outlined by Bishop John Shelby Spong in The Sins of Scripture and many (understandably) disgusted web authors like Chris Thiefe of Evil Bible.
These types of things are morally repugnant to modern people, but religious moderns tend to find excuses for God based not on the moral content of an actions (killing millions of innocent children in a flood, dismembering children for name-calling, etc.) but on divine command theory (whatever God does is good by definition, even if he rapes 12-year-olds).
This was certainly the finding of Israeli psychologist George Tamarin who showed a passage from Joshua to 1000+ Israeli schoolchildren, in which God commands the Israelites to kill everyone in a city and loot it. When asked if Joshua acted morally, 66% responded with total approval. When Tamarin showed the same passage to other Israeli schoolchildren but replaced "Joshua" with "General Lin" and "Israel" with "a Chinese kingdom 3,000 years ago", 75% responded with total disapproval!
The point is that the things Yahweh does in the Bible are morally repugnant to almost everyone today, including Jews and Christians. Don't you think so?
What I find repugnant is people who turn their backs on God to follow false teachers like Bishop Spong, who have the arrogance to judge God, who alone is perfectly holy and sinless. How can anyone who is not perfect in wisdom, knowledge, and holiness question the Almighty God, who is right in all His judgments?
In order for God to be perfectly loving, He must also be perfectly just.
You are misusing every one of the verses you selected.
I am ignorant and I hardly ever study the Bible, but I will give you my understanding of the passages you cite.
There is a difference between killing and murder. Murder is unlawful killing. Executions are not murder. It was in the absence of a "justice system," that is, when "Israel had no king; everyone did as they saw fit," when people took the law into their own hands and took retribution or tried to do justice, but it is not right to infer that, because it is in the Bible, God commanded it. You are forgetting that God did not commit the evils you cite, but the people were doing these things. This is what happens when nations forget God.
In the time of Noah, "The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time."
Things are almost exactly like the days of Noah today, but God, in His mercy, has changed strategies in dealing with mankind. Now He delays judgment, because we have His written Word, and His Holy Spirit, and we can know right from wrong. Although some judgment takes place in our lifetimes, most wicked folks will not be judged until after death.
What makes you think that the statements made in Ex 3.18, 1.15-20, and I Sam 16.2 were lies? Even so, don't "moderns" believe it is permissable to lie, if it is to save a life?
As I read the rules God made regarding slavery, it seems to me that they were for the protection of the slaves. He required the men to treat their females as wives or give them the "rights of a daughter." Otherwise, they had to return them to their families for free. I think God was dealing with primitive people there, who did not have the full revelation of His word, nor the Holy Spirit, and therefore not the "highly evolved" specimens we "moderns" are today, so He made His laws accordingly.
As for why God commanded Israel to wipe out the citizens of the land of Canaan, I can think of several "excuses." First, God knows everything, and I know nothing, so I give Him the benefit of the doubt. Second, I believe those lands were populated with incorrigibly wicked idolators who were guilty of great evil. Third, God promised the land to Abraham, so those folks were trespassing. Fourth, God made very specific promises and covenants with Israel as a vehicle whereby He might demonstrate His holy nature, His power and glorify Himself among the nations. As Israel is famously and miraculously preserved and promoted as a nation, that is evidence of God fulfilling His promises.
You have forgotten that God is worthy of all of our worship. If you repent, you can be restored.
Psalm 145
A psalm of praise. Of David.
1 [a] I will exalt you, my God the King;
I will praise your name for ever and ever.
2 Every day I will praise you
and extol your name for ever and ever.
3 Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise;
his greatness no one can fathom.
4 One generation will commend your works to another;
they will tell of your mighty acts.
5 They will speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty,
and I will meditate on your wonderful works. [b]
6 They will tell of the power of your awesome works,
and I will proclaim your great deeds.
7 They will celebrate your abundant goodness
and joyfully sing of your righteousness.
8 The LORD is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.
9 The LORD is good to all;
he has compassion on all he has made.
10 All you have made will praise you, O LORD;
your saints will extol you.
11 They will tell of the glory of your kingdom
and speak of your might,
12 so that all men may know of your mighty acts
and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
and your dominion endures through all generations.
The LORD is faithful to all his promises
and loving toward all he has made. [c]
14 The LORD upholds all those who fall
and lifts up all who are bowed down.
15 The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.
16 You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing.
17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways
and loving toward all he has made.
18 The LORD is near to all who call on him,
to all who call on him in truth.
19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him;
he hears their cry and saves them.
20 The LORD watches over all who love him,
but all the wicked he will destroy.
21 My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever.
Notice that you are not using the evidence you have (ancient Hebrew writings) to investigate the properties of the Hebrew God, but rather that you are presupposing certain qualities of God in order to interpret the evidence. This is a bit like assuming the earth is at the center of the universe and interpreting your evidence from that perspective even as Copernicus shows you evidence that the earth is not at the center of the universe.
You say that Yahweh does not murder because murder is unlawful killing. The problem with this distinction is that it does not show the difference in absolute moral terms as you aspire. What is unlawful is completely relative to a culture. In ancient Hebrew culture it was lawful to kill the women and children of neighboring tribes, so you don't call it "murder." Emperor Nero blamed Christians for fires he started and then fed them to lions, but because he was emperor and he made the law, you don't call it "murder." Yahweh supposedly drowned millions of innocent children in a worldwide flood, but since you say he makes the ultimate law, you don't call it "murder." The Mayans believed in ritual sacrifice to their God, and so stabbing young virgin girls to death was not considered "murder." Thus Bush kills thousands in Iraq but pretends Sadaam has weapons of mass destruction and connections to Al Qaeda, so you don't call it "murder."
The point is that the action being performed (violent death being forced on another human) is not different, but merely the culturally-specific lens through which that action is viewed. If your lens says that raping 12-year-old girls and that killing millions of innocent children are okay as long as God does it or God commands it, I can't persuade you.
The examples I gave do not say, "Everyone did as they saw fit, and God disapproved." No, they say, "God commanded..." If you want evils that Yahweh committed directly, I can give you hundreds. But you asked specifically about evils that Yahweh commanded. People did these things not because they forgot God, but because God commanded them.
Lying. In this case I do not mean to argue that God's commands to lie contradict modern morality, but that they contradict Christian morality (i.e. Yahweh's own morality). If you read Exodus 3, you will notice that God is tells Moses to lie to Pharoah. The midwives in Exodus 1 clearly lie to Pharoah, and God rewards them immediately. If you read all of 1 Samuel 16, you will notice that God instructs Samuel to lie to Saul.
Yahweh's laws regarding slavery do indeed protect slaves, but they also reinforce the practice of slavery itself. Why would a good God give laws that uphold activity he despises? This seems antithetical to what Christians believe: that God always reveals his good and perfect ways. You seem to be claiming that sometimes God commands people to do things he hates (continue practicing slavery) and sometimes to do things he likes (the revolutionary ideas of Jesus).
Again, you're not investigating the evidence to see whether your God makes any more sense than Apollo or Baal or Allah or the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but rather you're presupposing certain qualities of Yahweh, presupposing that all other Gods are absurd and unreal, and then imposing those presuppositions on your evaluation of the evidence.
Regarding the God's ethnic cleansing of Canaanites and other groups. You say the Canaanites were wicked, so God destroyed them. Were all the 3-month babies wicked, too? Were the powerless women who had no choice to participate or not in wickedness evil? I suspect if you were a 10-year-old female Canaanite, your view on Yahweh's morality would be reversed. You also note God's promises. Are you saying the virtue of keeping a promise is higher than the virtue of not killing innocent people? If I promise to kill everyone in my home town, is it then morally acceptable for me to do so because that would be keeping my promise, which is of more value than not killing innocent people?
Your view seems not to be based on reason and evidence, but on blind faith. The problem with that is that blind faith cannot tell you which worldview you should surrender to in blind faith. What makes your blind faith in a late-20th-century picture of Yahweh superior to a mid-17th-century picture of Yahweh or a 200 B.C. picture of Yahweh or a 800 A.D. picture of Allah or Apollo or Odin or Amun or any of the other deities mankind has worshiped?
Lukeprog, I agree totally with your views. Religion is a joke.
There must have been sdomething to start it all off but it most probably doesn't have rules and all that.
I don't think there's an afterlife and Christanity is as likely to be true as the Roman belief that there is more than one God.
Thank you Lukeprog.
I agree that religion as it is usually believed and practiced is absurd. But there are very rational and honest philosopher/theologians out there. I would not dismiss Christianity or other religions without investigating their claims seriously just as I would not want Christians rejecting atheism without investigating their claims seriously.
We all have limited time, but I encourage you to seriously and openly consider the Christian writings of Alister McGrath, Alvin Plantinga, William Lane Craig, and others, just as you might read the works of atheist thinkers like Bertrand Russell.
Alright, I'll bite:
Most of these can be explained by, "well, that's just how the religion is". "You don't want people sharing non-Christian ideas with you or your children, but you want to share Christian ideas with non-Christians and their children." Don't you expect the same from anyone who supports a political candidate? If you don't like people telling you about Christianity, you have the right to ignore them.
"You deny stories of ancient literature about Zeus and Thor because there's no evidence for them and they disagree with science, but you defend stories of ancient literature about virgin birth and talking snakes even though there's no evidence for them and they disagree with science."
Science has nothing to do with it. They believe (or disbelieve) these things because of their religion.
"You claim that a few answered prayers are evidence of God, but far more unanswered prayers are not evidence against God."
This is just ridiculous. How could God possibly answer every prayer, especially when most people pray for God for riches or other things they don't need? If God answered every prayer, the world would probably end immediately. If I have a wishing well and throw a penny in it 100 times, wishing to be able to fly, and on the 100th time I could, would you deny the power of the well, saying, "well the other 99 times it didn't work..."??
"You defend your own supernatural experiences as accurate and claim billions of contradictory supernatural experiences are false."
You can only know if something really happened if you indeed experienced it. I don't think many Christians claim other supernatural experiences are false. Exactly which ones are "contradictory"?
Then a few that could be debated for miles...
"You claim that what we don't understand is due to supernatural activity. When we come to understand a phenomena, you nevertheless insist that everything we STILL don't understand is due to supernatural activity."
Well, once you understand the experiments of Charles Tart, or some of our own government's experiments with LSD, or Bell's theorem, maybe you'll feel the same. They are scientific tests or theorems with some fairly supernatural results.
"You believe it is better to firmly trust ideas for which there is no solid evidence than to tentatively trust ideas for which there is strong, observed, repeatable evidence."
Probably just could have right out said evolution here. Christians don't believe the evidence is strong or repeatable, so it's not just them being hypocrites.
"You defend fetuses on the grounds that life is sacred, but don't even wince at the thought that according to Genesis, God drowned the entire earth, including innocent children and fetuses."
They also say that God's judgement transcends ours. My boss is allowed to take off early and wear casual clothes on Fridays - should I do the same because he's my superior? If God says that killing is wrong, then it's wrong, but if he kills himself, that's his jurisdiction. Maybe it's only wrong for US to kill people - who knows what happens when God kills them?
"You believe Christianity is morally superior, even though Christians have higher crime and divorce rates than non-theists and your scriptures depict God killing innocents and commanding murder and rape."
Yeah, and theoretically, communism is the most fair economic system. But in practice it didn't work, so the idea is complete junk? Why would you judge a religion by its followers, who God himself is often critical of?
"You think atheists are immoral, but when Christians are immoral you change your tune to "Everybody sins.""
Pretty sure Christians aren't constantly defending the shitty things they do. They're not saying Christians who sin AREN'T immoral, are they?
Beautiful list! I read the other one by Saintly too, and it seems to be just about the same. I don't know which one of you made the list, but thanks for the fantastic laugh. I was almost on the ground half of the time! To think I used to sound this ludicrous...
Thank you so much, I'm sending this to my psychology teacher (who has a Ph.D in psych and teaches it at our high school), I cannot wait to go from a B to a D LOL!