Category Archives: Christian extremists

Christian Love in Action

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CrossI’ve been banned from a ‘Christian’ web-site. From Barbwire, in fact, the extreme mouthpiece of extreme mouthpiece Matt Barber and his chums; Scott Lively, self-confessed ‘father’ of Uganda’s anti-gay movement; Bryan Fischer, bigoted evangelical shock-jock; Laurie Higgins, gay-sex obsessed ‘marriage defender’ and Bradlee Dean, third-rate rockstar-cum-provocatuer, amongst others.

My ban is not because I was abusive. Actually, I’m not sure what prompted it though I’m not alone in having my comments deleted and my name blocked. Others who’ve challenged the bigotry and distortions regularly paraded on Barbwire have been too. Dissent will not be countenanced by ‘Christian’ bullies whose faith is weak and arguments even weaker.

I hope my comments were reasoned and reasonable, even if sometimes flippant; above all, I hope they were challenging. I tried to challenge both those ‘names’ who write for the blog as well as those who comment there, to react and respond as their Saviour commands them to; to treat others as they would want to be treated; to attend to the log in their own eyes before the speck in their neighbours’; not to judge lest they be judged and to show compassion for those with different views.

Have I as a non-believer any right to expect Christians to behave like this? I think so – I think we all have. After all, they’re the ones who’ve bought into Jesus’ demands; the ones who proclaim him as messiah and potential saviour of the world; the ones who feel compelled to tell us about him at every turn. They’re the ones who believe they’re born again as new creatures, filled with the Holy Spirit, who now live transformed lives as Christ-like beings. It’s not unreasonable to expect to see them reflect all of this in how they deal with other people; loving their neighbour, not casting the first stone… and all the rest of it.

So how do they deal with dissenters on Barbwire? They call them ‘morons’, and ‘fools’ and ‘pervs’ and ‘sodomites’ and ‘idiots’. Now, it could well be that I’m all of these things and the good Lord has chosen to reveal it to his gentle people on the site, if not to me. But when you call out these supposed Christians on this less than loving behaviour – pointing out that Jesus says in Matthew 5.22 not to call others fool, let alone all those other things – what happens? You get more abuse, and lots of edging around Jesus’ words (he only meant not to call other Christians fools) and claiming his commands don’t apply to them because he was really only speaking metaphorically – as he always is when they don’t want to do what he says.

And then you, the one on the receiving end of their Christian Love™, are blocked, banned and deleted, while those with the slurs and insults remain, because it’s what Jesus would want, leaving them free to move on to new targets.

ScreenDoes it matter? Not really; as long as for a brief period there are others opposing the bigotry and hatred that spills, in Jesus’ name, from Barbwire and sites like it. Christians such as Matt Barber and, here in the UK, Stephen Green, are relatively powerless individuals, after all. They’re loud bullies who justify their extremism by claiming it is the standard demanded by a mythical being. But all the same, they and their cronies are influential. Witness the sycophantic commenters who commend every scurrilous word these bullies say about non-believers, fellow Christians, gay people, politicians, immigrants and those they imagine ‘persecute’ Christians here and in the States. The articles on Barbwire encourage and reinforce the prejudices, bigotry and small-mindedness of ‘Christians’ like these, helping shape the way they treat people in the real world.

I’d encourage you to take look at Barbwire and to become a commenter yourself, opposing the hatred and bigotry, not to mention the irrationality and stone-throwing, that you’ll find there. If you do, you won’t have to do it for long because, sooner rather than later, you’ll be banned, as the voices of reason and compassion invariably are there.

Then again, there are worse reasons for being thrown out of a sewage plant.

 

Here Be Dragons

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dragonChrist The White does battle with the dragon of Revelation 12

Over on Answers in Genesis, one of Ken Ham’s drones is arguing for the existence of dragons. They are, he or she tells us triumphantly, mentioned in the Bible, so they must really have existed.

As we already know, the Bible has more than its fair share of nonsense, but to insist it provides evidence of mythical creatures is to take its credibility to a new low. Don’t Christians care they do this to their magic book? After all, their faith relies almost entirely on the Bible, alongside their own emotional responses to it (no kiddin’, they say this is ‘the Holy Spirit’.)

Christians spend so much time arguing for the Bible’s daftest excesses – the world being created in six days, Jesus returning soon, homosexuality being just the worst sin ever and now dragons – that they haven’t any time left to read what it has to say about how they should be living their lives.

You mean forgiving others, feeding the hungry, giving everything away, not judging (in case you’re judged in return), being compassionate, going the extra mile, turning the other cheek, giving to all who ask and blessing your enemies is in the Bible? Jeez, I never knew.

Yeah, but it’s all secondary to dragons and damning others. ‘By their fruits shall ye know them,’ says Jesus of his followers in Matthew 7.16-20. Turns out there’s no fruit, just a wide assortment of nuts.

The Most Important Words In The Bible

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EternalLife1Some parts of the Bible are more important than others. A few verses have a prominence far greater than all the other parts of God’s Word™ and are far more authoritative. To obey these few verses alone guarantees one’s status as a true, born-again Christian.

I can announce that today I will be revealing which the verses are that matter more than all the rest.

There are only about three of them, one in the Old Testament, and two in the New. It’s possible there are a couple of others hidden away somewhere but they’re a little more obscure and don’t, as a result, give us the clarity we’ve come to expect from God’s Word™.

More ink has been spilt, or in recent times, more keyboards bashed, to pound out the implications of these verses than almost any others in the Good Book. Check out any Christian blog, any church web-site and the chances are you will find multiple postings and even entire sections dedicated to these three special verses. You could start looking here or here or here or here… There are sermons about them too and even protests and counter-protests, so important are they.

So, you might be wondering, are these the verses that tell us to love our neighbour as ourselves? Are they the ones that say we should turn the other cheek? To attend to the log in our own eye before pointing out the speck in someone else’s?

No, it’s none of these. In fact, The Most Important Words In The Bible are not ones uttered by Jesus who failed, inexplicably, to recognise their importance. Maybe they’re the words of St Paul then, about love being the most important thing or how to gain eternal life? No, it’s not those either. Only modern Christians have been able to recognise fully the significance of The Most Important Words.

And they are – fanfare from the Heavenly Host, please –

Leviticus 18.22 (duplicated in Leviticus 20.13):
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.

Romans 1.26-27
…God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

1 Corinthians 6.9-10 (plagiarised in 1 Timothy 1.9-10)
Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers – none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.

So now you know. The Most Important Words In The Bible are these, the verses condemning gay people. These are what Christians prioritise, write about and rant about more than any others. Not ‘forgive others if you want to be forgiven’, not ‘don’t judge’, not ‘give to all who ask’… but the ‘sin’ of homosexuality.

It’s irrelevant, apparently, that Jesus himself has nothing to say about same-sex relationships; irrelevant that, even in the verses where he touches on homosexuality, Paul lists a whole load of other ‘sins’ that Christians themselves are known to indulge in from time to time. No. The Bible is not, you see, about salvation, not about witnessing to non-believers – it’s about homosexuality and what a dreadful thing it is. Today’s Christians, having isolated these few verses, know this and so have their priorities straight.

Never mind that the Bible isn’t really God’s Word (see my previous two posts); never mind it has other things to say besides a few mentions of homosexuality; never mind that it demands a great deal of Christians themselves, which, naturally, they ignore – today’s believers know what Christianity is really about.EternalLife2

Why would someone choose to be like this?

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KissJesus and friend enjoy a quiet moment of intimacy.

Over at Barbwire, a particularly prickly Christian web-site about guns and how the world is going to hell in a handcart and how Christians are persecuted – persecuted, I tell you! – just because, out of love, they trash homosexuals, they’ve been discussing gay Christians. In a totally fair and balanced way, they’ve concluded you can’t be both because of something or other the Bible says.

What I don’t understand about gay Christians is how anyone would choose – and it is a choice when there’s no evidence they’re born that way – to be something as destructive, unhealthy, degenerate, unproductive and downright icky, as a Christian.

 

 

 

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 25: Unbelievers are going to Hell!

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Spoiler alert: No, they’re not.

 

HellIt’s always nice when the local fellowship keeps in touch.

There’s good news and bad news. First, the good news: Hell doesn’t exist. You can’t go to a place that doesn’t exist.

 

Next, the bad news; you’re not going to survive your death. Sorry to break it to you like this, but there it is: no-one survives death. Once the physical, chemical and electrical processes in your brain cease then so do you, because that’s what you’re made of. That self you have a sense of – your soul if you want to call it that – is entirely dependent on those electro-chemical processes. It doesn’t exist independently from them. You cease to be once the brain dies and begins to deteriorate*. Everyone who has ever lived and died, including true believers down the ages – from Jesus, Peter, Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to Augustine, Bede, Wilberforce and C. S. Lewis – have all ceased to be, dissipated and obliterated forever, along with their physical brains and bodies.

 

And why, dear Christian, would you want to survive death? What makes you think that the bundle of petty concerns, loves and hates, neuroses, reactions and habits that you call ‘you’, merit long-term survival? Because that odd little collection of impulses is what you’re talking about when you say you are going to live forever. You may regard yourself as changed into some sort of reflection of Christ, but it’s your essential self that you desperately, and arrogantly, hope will enjoy eternal life. It won’t – and why should it?

 

So, there’s no you to survive and no Hell, or Heaven, for you to go to. The Bible doesn’t offer Heaven – see my previous posts here and here – but it does talk about Hell. It’s the place the Unrighteous go when the Righteous™ take over the earth (albeit it in the first century). According to Jesus in Mark 7.20-23, the Unrighteous are people like murderers, thieves and the proud, while Paul includes other ‘undesirables’ like homosexuals (1 Corinthians 6.9). This isn’t nearly enough for today’s Christians though**. They want everyone except themselves to be sent to Hell. So if you’re not ‘saved’ according to their magic formula, then you’re certain to go there. Never mind if you’re not a murderer or proud or gay. That’s where the God of Love is going to send you, to be tormented forever.

 

And where is Hell? Jesus seems to think it’s in the heart of the Earth (Matthew 12.40) and invariably those threatened with Hell go ‘down’ to it. The wingnut who wrote Revelation also implies it’s in the Earth (9.2). You’d think, that being the case, we would have found it by now. But we haven’t because, of course, it doesn’t exist. And you’re not going. And there won’t be a ‘you’ to go in any case.

 

So don’t waste any time worrying about it or letting Christians persuade you Hell is a real place. Live your one and only life in the here and now as best you can. Enjoy it. It’s not a rehearsal for a better place, and certainly not for a far worse one.

 

Notes:

* In The Lazarus Effect, Dr Sam Parnia relates instances of people being revived up to an hour after death, but only in specific circumstances, when the brain remains undamaged. Any longer than an hour and it’s not possible. Such revivals are extreme forms of the rebooting your brain does every morning after sleep; the brain itself and all its neuro-connections must still be capable of functioning for you to be you again after sleep or even apparent death.

 

** Yes, I acknowledge some Christians don’t accept Hell. American pastor, Rob Bell, suggests in Love Wins that Hell doesn’t make ‘a very good story’, and that God will save everybody. All Hell was let loose in the resulting backlash from true, Bible-believing Christians; a response that was extreme, brutal and frequently sanctimonious. How dare Bell contradict God’s Word, Holy Scripture? Surely he deserves to go to Hell for that.

 

Christians in denial

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Trial

Deny yourself, deny your parents, deny your family. That’s what Jesus tells his followers they’ve to do. Today’s Christians can do better than that though! They’re in complete denial about everything, especially stuff for which there’s tons of evidence. Believing loads of made-up stuff is more their thing.

So, they deny climate change because God wouldn’t allow it (or something).

They deny that human beings contribute in any way to climate change because it’s not part of God’s plan.

They deny evolution because God created everything (in six days).

They deny how unpleasant, wasteful and cruel evolution is in order to believe that God used it to develop life here on Earth.

They deny that death existed before humans evolved because the Bible says it didn’t.

They want to deny gay people equality because the Bible says marriage is for one man and one woman (it doesn’t).

They seek to deny others their rights, often slanderously and viciously, but expect their ‘right’ to do so to be protected.

They deny that morality has anything to do with the way we treat other people and is really only about sex.

They deny that anyone can be moral or rational without believing in their God.

They deny that for most of us things are better than they’ve ever been and insist instead that things have only got steadily worse.

They deny the humanity of fellow human beings but believe in fantasy creatures like angels, spirits and demons.

They deny their own humanity, with its corresponding needs and limitations, and insist instead we’re designed to be spiritual creatures.

They deny most of what Jesus taught but tell everyone else they’re sinners.

They deny that Jesus said he’d be back in his disciples’ lifetime, and believe instead he’s still on his way.

They deny death and imagine they’re going to live forever in Heaven instead.

 

Christianity is a religion of negativity. Truth, reality and other people are the casualties of its life-denying efforts at self-preservation.

 

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 21: Jesus Keeps His Promises

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Promises

Jesus keeps his promises? Let’s see…

‘I’ll be back while my disciples are still alive’.

For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels… I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom. (Matthew 16:27-28)

Oops. He got that wrong. Two thousand years later and his followers are still waiting. Despite what today’s believers claim, he didn’t say he’d reappear over two thousand years into his future. Safe to assume he’s not going to make it at this late date

‘Anything you ask for will be yours… whatever you ask.’

Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. (John 16.23)

Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea”, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11.24; also Matthew 21.21-22)

Christians hedge round this one by saying God answers prayers in his own time and in his own way. His answer might be ‘no, you can’t have that’. But that’s not what Jesus says. He says ‘Whatever you ask… anything… will be yours.’ What is this if not a false promise?

‘My followers will do even greater miracles than I have.’

Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. (John 14.12-14)

Believers regularly walk on water, turn water into wine, and – slightly less frivolously – raise the dead. Except… no they don’t. It doesn’t happen. They should be doing even more startling things than this too – Jesus promises ‘greater works’ than his – but again, two thousand years on and they haven’t even mastered basic mountain throwing. What a let down. What hokum.

‘You’ll be able to do the impossible.’ 

These signs will accompany those who believe:…. they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. (Mark 16.17)

Which is why, I guess, we have no need of hospitals, because Christians can heal everyone; why members of those fanatical snake-handling churches in America, who take Jesus at his word… erm… regularly die from snake bites. And not even these true believers are crazy enough to drink poison. There’s a limit to how much faith even gullible Christians have in Jesus’ empty words.

‘Don’t bother working or earning a living. God will provide.’

Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6.25-7.1)

Yeah, right. His followers recognise how useless this one is too; they do strive to make a living and provide for their families. None of them wait for God to provide because they’d be dead before he got round to it.

‘God will look after your hair (because you’re worth it).’

But even the hairs of your head are all counted… You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. (Luke 12.7 &  21.12-19)

Oh, come on. Now he’s just being silly.

And that’s only a few of them… Jesus’ promises. All as worthless as the proverbial chocolate fire-guard. Christians, of course, know this well. They neither trust in his promises nor demonstrate them in their lives. As it is, how they live is indistinguishable from everyone else; completely devoid of miracles and lacking in any supernatural provision. They tell themselves (and us) that Jesus is special but then disregard most of what he said – and who can blame them from that? Anyone else who made the sort of ludicrous promises Jesus did would be dismissed as a fool and a charlatan. It’s way past time we recognised Jesus as just that.

Stephen Green is Gay

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Green2

Stephen always got his inspiration from the Lord…

Stephen Green of Christian Voice is unhappy. Gay Marriage, he insists, is a Very Bad Thing.

Green has had a lot to say about gay relationships and gay sex over the last few years. In fact, he’s obsessed with the subject. His latest ejaculation, called ‘Gay Marriage is a Farce’, helpfully informs us:

‘Gay’ relationships (are) built on perversion.

Homosexual desires are described as vile affections in the Bible.

‘Gay marriage’ is a massive step towards the social economy of Sodom.

We don’t say homosexuals are perverts because of what they are, but because of what they do.

Homosexual activity… is either dirty or abusive or both.

Homosexuals, frustrated by their inability to engage in true sexual intercourse, have to resort to activities which are abusive or dirty.

Homosexual acts fall a long way short of the God-ordained conjugal act.

Personally, I now use the word gay mostly in its modern sense of substandard (as in, ‘that coat’s gay’).

Never self-identify as ‘gay’. Never let someone else identify you as ‘gay’.

Green is himself ‘gay’. In the ‘modern sense’, of course. He preaches that marriage is between one man and one woman for life, yet is divorced and now with his second wife-for-life. He trashes charities that help young LGBT people and makes unwarranted personal attacks on gay celebrities, recently suggesting that Stephen Fry has a ‘porcine ancestor… not that we do evolution here’ and adding derisory inverted commas around the ‘Sir’ in Ian McKellen’s name. How big and clever is that?

Even though Jesus has more to say about poverty and homelessness than homosexuality (about which he says precisely nothing), Green never mentions them. He consistently avoids talking about his saviour’s commands to turn the other cheek, go the extra mile and avoid judging others. These, it would seem, don’t matter.

While he occasionally rants about evolution and complains Christians are persecuted, it is to homosexuality he constantly returns. Always with inverted commas around ‘gay’, to ward off the voodoo.

But Green is insecure in his beliefs and faith; he rarely publishes comments that dissent from his ‘biblical’ position and when he does, responds to those who make them with an uncharitable smugness that borders on abuse. There is no sense of any Christian charity in either his comments or on his site as a whole.

Worst of all, he washes his hands, Pontius Pilate like, of the harm his negative, destructive comments cause LGBT people. The real bullies, he says, are not Christians with poisonous views like his but rather:

homosexual activists who persuade young boys and girls that adolescent same-sex attraction indicates a permanent ‘orientation’ and who go around talking homosexuality up and giving bullies a weapon to use against shy boys and tomboyish girls. People like ‘Sir’ Ian McKellen, Elly Barnes, Jake Dyos and the rest of the low-life at ‘School’s Out’.

So now you know. Stephen Green, who calls ‘gay’ people perverts with ‘vile affections’, whose relationships and love-making are, he says, founded on dirt, disease and abuse, is in no way a bully whose views contribute to any ill-feeling towards gay people.

No, the vilification to be found on Christian Voice is actually Christian love™. The gospel according to Stephen Green: it’s so substandard.

Which Christians won’t be resurrected after they die?

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Robertson

All of these well-known Christians are unworthy of the Kingdom of God and won’t live again after they’ve died. See if you can work out why:

Billy Graham, Justin Welby (Archbishop of Canterbury), Desmond Tutu, Pat Boone, Mel Gibson, John Sentamu (Archbishop of York), Stephen Green (Christian Voice), Bono, Her Majesty the Queen, Sarah Palin (politician), Pat Robertson (700 Club), Joyce Meyer (evangelist), Bryan Fischer (outspoken radio broadcaster), Rick Warren (pastor of US mega-church), Rob Bell (ditto), George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Cherie Blair (barrister), Graham Kendrick (songwriter), Tony Perkins (anti-gay preacher), Scott Lively (ditto), Matt Barber (ditto), Peter LaBarbera (ditto), Tom Wright (theologian), Fred Phelps (late of Westboro church), Joni Eareckson Tada (writer), Mike Ratcliff (minister and blogger), Kirk Cameron (actor)… and, in all probability, your local pastor  – and maybe even you yourself, Christian reader.

They’re not worthy of God’s Kingdom nor are they likely to be resurrected because they’re married. And who says this makes them unworthy? Not me… Jesus:

those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age (of God’s Kingdom on Earth) and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage (Luke 20.34-35).

So next time one of these famous Christians or some other married believer tells you you’re not saved, tell them that they’re not either. Jesus says so.

They won’t care, of course, because they pick and choose the bits of the Bible they believe. They’re more than happy to pretend this tricky bit doesn’t exist or doesn’t apply to them. Obviously, or they wouldn’t be married. Naturally this doesn’t stop them going on about about God’s plan for marriage™ even though it’s one they’ve made up themselves that flies in the face of what Jesus says.

Which means these same believers also have to ignore Jesus when he says, ‘Why do you call me “Lord, Lord”, and do not do what I tell you?’, which is a very good question.

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 19: We’re living in the End Times

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Chicken licken

The belief that things are worse now than they’ve ever been before, is, ironically, a conviction that has been around for a very long time. Every generation, it seems, has held the view that it was all so much better back in some ill-defined time in the past and the likes of today’s wickedness and degeneration has never before been seen. With things as bad as they are, it can only mean one thing: God is going to intervene pretty soon to put things right.

This is how religions start. It’s what Jesus thought (Mark 8.38 and 13) and Paul (Roman 13) and most of the other New Testament writers (e.g. Ephesians 5; 2 Timothy 3). Many of today’s Christians believe it too:

There is no doubt whatsoever, that the signs of the end of the world in the Bible are pointing to our generation. Anyone can see the great moral degeneration that has happened over the past 50+ years. The moral depravation of this world has reached such a point that we are now like Sodom and Gomorrha just before God destroyed that city with fire … 2 Peter 2:6 …’And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto those that after should live ungodly.’

But really, things today are no worse than they were back in the primitive past and in many ways they’re a great deal better. In general terms, we live longer, healthier lives and more of us are literate and educated. Many of us enjoy a very comfortable existence. There are fewer wars and violence is decreasing. Equality and opportunity exist in many parts of the world for all kinds of people; we are more welcoming of difference and by and large we treat each other better. Of course there are problems, but there always have been. Life in the first century, when Jesus lived and died, was short, brutish and insanitary. The culture he found himself in was paternalistic, maintained by slavery and ruled over by invaders who were cruel and violent. Who can blame him for thinking it couldn’t get any worse? It did, of course, mainly thanks to his legacy, but it also got better. Either way, God did not intervene.

What’s more, he won’t be doing any time soon, no matter the strength of conviction of those who feel he will or should.

He’s prevented from doing so chiefly by the fact he doesn’t exist (quite an impediment, I’d have thought) but also because for those in the affluent west – who are usually those who shout most about how dreadful things are – everything is pretty damn good.

As Jesus discovered (or was it Chicken Licken? I get confused) portents of doom do not bring about the end of the world. We might, one day, actually manage to destroy ourselves and this beautiful planet we live on, but if we do, it won’t be because our morals have changed for the better nor because we’re teaching evolution in schools (another sign of the end, apparently). And it certainly won’t have anything to do with a vengeful God.

If you stop thinking the world is going to hell in a hand-cart, you’ll very soon see that it isn’t.