Category Archives: Christian proselytising

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum

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So I’m saved now.

Saved? From what?

My sins.

Your sins. Right. How’d this happen then?

My friend Marcus told me about a new Saviour.

And how did Marcus know about a new Saviour?

Gaius told him.

And Gaius?

His neighbour Livia told him.

And where’d she hear it?

She said she was told it by a travelling preacher.

Well, travelling preachers are always reliable, so sure.

Paûlos I think she said he was called. Anyway, Livia heard him talking about the new Saviour in the forum and she told Gaius, Gaius told Marcus and he told me.

Right. So what did this Paûlos say?

That he’d had a vision or something and had seen this new Saviour in his vision. I think he said he was called Iesous. Something like that.

So a Jewish Saviour then. I take it this Paûlos was Jewish?

I don’t think Livia said.

So what’s a Jewish Saviour to you? Or Livia and Gaius and Marcus for that matter?

Well, that’s the great thing. Marcus said that Gaius said that Livia said that Paûlos said that this particular Jewish Saviour is for everyone, not just Jews.

And Paûlos worked this out from his vision, did he?

Yes. Iesous told him all about it.

In his vision.

Yeah. He told Paûlos that anyone who wanted to could ask him to save them from their sins. So Livia did, and then when she told Gaius, he did too, and then Marcus.

So, Paûlos. He ever meet this Iesous? In the flesh, I mean.

Oh, I don’t think so. Paûlos didn’t need to, you see. Iesous talked to him from Heaven. He didn’t need to meet him.

He say whether he’d met anyone who had actually met him?

No. He knew of some fellas who’d seen Iesous same as him, in marvellous visions, but he said he didn’t need to meet them either. Like I said, Iesous the Saviour spoke to Paûlos direct. You don’t need any more than that. I’m hoping he’ll speak direct to me before long.

So, how’d you know this Iesous existed if nobody knows anyone who’s seen him in the flesh?

I told you, Paûlos saw him right there in his head and Iesous told him all he needed to know. The Saviour said that when he comes down from the sky, which he will real soon, those of us he’s saved will live with him forever, right here on Earth.

Live forever, you say?

Sure. And there’s free wine while we wait.

Free wine? Why didn’t you say? Where do I sign up?

 

Just Like Jesus

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Some parts of this post have appeared before.

Early in the first letter of John, we read,

By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked. (1 John 2: 3-6)

Isn’t that interesting? John, whoever he was, says that Christians can know they’re saved because they keep Jesus’ commands and ‘walk’ as he walked. Likewise, others should be able to see these traits too because, as Jesus is (later) made to say, cult members can be recognised by their ‘fruits’ (Matthew 7:16).

Just what are Jesus’ commands that converts can’t help but demonstrate? Here’s a few:

  • Cutting themselves off from family – hating their parents, in fact – just to follow him (Luke 14.26);
  • Deny everything about themselves (Matthew 16.24-27);
  • Forsaking home, job, wealth, status, credibility and comfort to help bring about God’s Kingdom on Earth (Mark 10.29-31 etc);
  • Slaving tirelessly in the service of others (Mark 10.43-44; Matthew 23.11 etc);
  • Selling their possessions so that they can give the proceeds to the poor (Matthew 19.21; Luke 14.33);
  • Turning the other cheek, repeatedly going the extra mile and giving away the shirt and coat from off their backs– if they’ve still got them after giving everything away – (Matthew 5.38-40);
  • Welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and visiting those in prison (Matthew 25.35-40);
  • Forgiving again and again and again (Matthew 18.21-22);
  • Avoiding judging others so that they won’t  be judged in turn (Matthew 7.1-3);
  • Loving their enemies (Matthew 5.44);
  • Regarding persecution and injustices as blessings (Matthew 5.11);
  • Doing miracles even more impressive than Jesus’ own (Mark 16.17-18; John 14.12);
  • Healing the sick, raising the dead and casting out demons (Matthew 10.7-8);
  • Asking for anything in prayer, which will be given to them (Mark 11.24; Matthew 21.22);
  • Telling others that the world is about to end (in the first century) and that only Jesus can save them from God’s wrath (Matthew 28.29-34; Matthew 28.16-20).

How many of these things do we see Christians doing? How many of these commandments are Christians compelled to ‘keep’, as letter writer John puts it? Some, it’s true, make attempts with the last (if only they wouldn’t) and a very limited few have a go at a couple of the others. But as far as most Christians are concerned, these commandments may as well not exist. They don’t see Jesus’ instructions as applying to them. I know from experience that they have ready made excuses for not obeying them, let alone feeling an inner compulsion to realise them in their own lives.

Their excuses necessitate them reinterpreting Jesus’ words. They’re metaphorical, they say. ‘He didn’t really mean give everything away because where would that leave us?’ – or they insist his commands have been taken out of context, or have only a spiritual meaning…

Which is to say, nothing Jesus said is to be taken literally, even though the most straight forward reading of his pronouncements is that this is how he meant them. It’s how his early followers, the people who preserved or created his words in the gospels, understood them. Why record them otherwise?

But Jesus’ moralising is inconvenient, impractical, exacting, extreme; ridiculous, in fact, and Christians know this. Still his commands must be dealt with somehow. So the Righteous™ work round them or ignore them completely, replacing his priorities with ones of their own: worshipping him; defending his reputation; striving for power; complaining about secular society; whining about the media;  promoting aggression; acquiring wealth (there should be no such thing as a millionaire Christian); claiming persecution; equating faith with guns; trying to control others’ behaviour; interfering in their sex lives; suppressing LGBT people; arguing that religious rights trump those of minorities; opposing abortion.

None of these figured in Jesus’ agenda. Some are even in direct opposition to what he’s made to say in the gospels.

When we see Christians doing the things Jesus tells them they should be doing – what God’s love perfected in them compels them to do – maybe then we’ll listen to what they have to say. When they demonstrate credibility rather than hypocrisy, maybe they’ll have earned the right to be heard. But as there’s not much chance of that happening any time soon, it’s way past time we ignored them, and their superstition, in much the same way they ignore their Lord and Savior™.

Where’s The Harm?

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So what does it matter if people believe in make-believe? It does no harm and might even do some good, right? I mean, if they want to believe in ghosts or horoscopes and that helps them make sense of life, then why not?

But with Christianity and other theistic religions it’s a different story. While they might provide their adherents with some coherence to their lives, they also equip them with a distorted and unhealthy view of other people. This is what compels local street preacher, Dale McAlpine, to pick up his megaphone and stand yelling at passers-bye in my local town centre. I took the picture above of him yesterday, when he invited me, like an evangelical Hannibal Lecter, to come closer. I declined.

Dale’s theme this time was, predictably, that evolution is a Satanic hoax, everyone is a wicked sinner and God requires a blood sacrifice for them to be saved. He no doubt had a swipe at LGBT folk too; he usually does. Dennis and I didn’t stop to listen to him but, along with everyone else, were lambasted with his ignorant BS as we passed. Such nasty stuff needs to be opposed and in the absence of my own megaphone, this is my way of doing it.

Those who believe planets millions of miles away control their lives don’t, as a rule, set themselves up on a soap box in the centre of town and threaten people with hell. Ultimately, though, there is no substantial difference between the baseless wishful thinking of astrology and Christianity. Today’s version of the faith owes its existence to Paul’s ‘revelation’ of an imaginary celestial being that sacrificed itself to restore our standing with an imaginary God. This makes as much sense as believing that the planets ‘in conjunction’ shape our destinies.

Would I, if it were in my power, ban the likes of Dale from spouting his ignorant, ugly version of Christianity? Probably not, as I’m a liberal at heart and cancel culture concerns me. I would, however, be pleased if he came to senses and of his own volition stopped spouting publicly his brand of theo-babble. I’d rather he spent his time tending to the sick, homeless, naked and imprisoned as his Saviour tells him to. I fear though that that kind of Christianity is too hard for the likes of Dale.

The Trouble With Atheists: A Christian Sets Us Straight

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My friend Bruce Gerencser was good enough to repost my previous post on his blog. It prompted a comment from someone calling himself James Thompson, who Bruce says used a fake email address and quite possibly a false name. (These Christians; so fearless and honest in all their doings!) Here’s what ‘James’ had to say:

It’s because that’s what you live to do argue the truth. You’re not “atheists”. Antitheists yes. Agnosticism yes. A true atheist would not give a rip about the discussion on this blasphemous blog.

And atheists don’t go out seeking to remove Mickey Mouse from everything.

Or Buddha or Mohammed.

But they do Jesus Christ because Satan knows he is the only one who can bring salvation

I did respond to James on Bruce’s blog but wanted to address his garbled points, such as they are, more fully here. They’re typical of the low level thinking Christians and others use to defend their beliefs.

It’s because that’s what you live to do argue the truth.

Amazingly James has an uncanny insight into the minds of atheists; we live only to argue the truth, by which he means, presumably, critiquing his pet deity and magical saviour. Most of the time, most atheists barely give these two mythical beings a second thought; neither do I when I’m not blogging. I live for entirely different things.

You’re not “atheists”. Antitheists yes. Agnosticism yes.

But wait! People who don’t believe in his God aren’t, according to the omniscient James, atheists; they’re anti-theists. Okay, I concede; I am opposed to the notion that there’s a loving God somewhere out there who is interested in us and has made it possible for us to know him by, according to James and other deluded souls, making his only son a blood sacrifice. I dispute this silly idea, which has no evidence to support it, and is, as Jesus is made to say in Matthew 11.25, irrational and illogical. So yes, I’m an anti-theist. I’m also anti-theist because of what believers in the one true God (in his various guises) do terrible things to each other and to non-believers. And when they’re not doing that, they’re parading their ignorance, propagating their book of myths and spells, denying evolution, dumbing down children’s education, suppressing LGBT+ people and threatening everyone who doesn’t subscribe to their superstition with eternal damnation. I mean, what’s not to like?

 A true atheist would not give a rip about the discussion on this blasphemous blog.

And then James returns to his mind reading act. How does he know what a ‘true atheist’ might think of Bruce’s blog? There are plenty of atheists who comment there; whether they are ‘true’ atheists apparently only James knows.

And atheists don’t go out seeking to remove Mickey Mouse from everything.

It is true atheists (which we’re not, according to James) don’t seek to remove Mickey Mouse from everything, whatever this means. But then Mickey Mouse doesn’t start wars, condemn everyone as wicked sinners or try to control their sex lives. Disneyworld would quickly go out of business if he did. (That Donald Duck is a different kettle of fish however.)

Or Buddha or Mohammed.

James then scrapes the bottom of the cliché barrel: ‘You wouldn’t dare criticise the revered characters of other religions’. Yes, we would. As I said in my post, which evidently James didn’t read, there is no supernatural. All gods, ghosts, spirits, angels, demons, heaven and hells, from whichever religion or superstition they emanate, are figments of the imagination.

But they do Jesus Christ because Satan knows he is the only one who can bring salvation

These two as well. The Christ and his evil doppelganger, Satan, are human inventions. As fantasy figures they are open to as much ridicule and ‘removal’ as any other imaginary being. Perhaps more, given the damage they’ve caused and continue to cause.

James has been sold salvation snake-oil and thinks that because he’s been duped, everyone else should be too. Or at the very least should respect his delusion. Ain’t gonna happen, Jimmy boy. You need to grow up a little. And maybe also learn some grammar.

So Long, Jesus – the new book is here!

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My new book, marking a final farewell to Jesus and his cult, is available now from all Amazon outlets. So Long, Jesus and Other Lessons From Life collects together the religiously-themed posts that have appeared on this blog over the past three years. A great Christmas present for those of your friends who might be considering saying their own farewell to Christian mumbo jumbo. This is the book you’ve been waiting for! 

So Long, Jesus and Other Lessons From Life – get it before the rapture!

All Along The Watchtower III

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Jim has shaken the dust from his sandals. As he says, and as I knew, he wasn’t really looking for a discussion. He was looking to draw me, and the others who received his letter, into his cult. When it was obvious I wasn’t going to be, he lost interest. Plus, I mentioned Jesus’s non-return. I don’t think he liked that.

Hi Neil, 

Thanks again for your response. I think we’ll have to agree to disagree. We aren’t here to debate over things but we do respect your beliefs and thank you for taking the time to talk to us. 

We find what we read in the Bible answers many of life’s big questions and there is much archaeological evidence today to back up Bible accounts which adds to the accuracy of the Bible. So we want to share the truths and hope we have found with others, but we do respect everyone’s beliefs. 

Take care, 

Jim and Sandra 

All Along The Watchtower

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One post in and already a diversion from my planned ’12 Rules’ series. This is because I was fortunate enough to receive a letter in the post recently from my ‘neighbours’, Jim and Sandra. You can see it above. I’ve no idea who Jim and Sandra are – I’ve changed their names here to protect the guilty – but they tell me they’re Jehovah’s Witnesses. They want to convince me of their God, first by pointing out that we are, everyone of us, created by him. They then proceed to demonstrate their God’s existence with rather weak versions of the weak ‘argument from design’, with a spot of the so-called ‘argument from incredulity’ thrown in. Having ‘proved’ God, they conclude with a lovely non-sequitur, that God = purpose.

As they had gone to a lot of trouble to do this, I felt Jim and Sandra deserved a reply, specially as they were kind enough to include their email address. So here it is.  

Hi Jim and Sandra,

I was interested to get your letter recently. I notice you ask the question, ‘was life created?’ Of course it was! You’ll get no argument from me there. Nature and the processes of natural selection and evolution created life as we know it today. You of course want to draw God into these processes, but actually he’s not needed to explain them. 

Your ‘argument from design’ doesn’t work at all, because if God created all the wonderful, intricate things you talk about, he also created viruses, including covid-19, cancer and parasites. You can’t say he created everything and then discount all the nasty things as the product of natural processes or man’s sin or whatever. Either everything was made by God or everything is the result of natural processes – you don’t get to pick and choose. 

You say that only (your) God could make all the complexities of life, as complexity necessitates a creator. But that creator must, by definition, be more complex than his creation – yet you don’t think he had a creator, do you. But he must have done – because according to you, complexity has to have a creator. This principle doesn’t grind to a halt with God just because you or your church or holy book says it does. 

The intricacies and complexity of life that we see are the result of organisms, including ourselves and all other life & non-life, like viruses, adapting to their environments over billions of years. That’s it – no need to add another layer of complication, like a god, to this explanation (you may have heard of Occam’s razor, which is what I’m applying here). If something complex has existed for eons it is far more likely that it is something we know for sure exists – nature – rather than something we don’t. 

Life has in fact many purposes; one doesn’t need a God who doesn’t exist to discover them. I’d be happy to share some of these with you, though I imagine you are already quite set in your beliefs. That’s a shame.

Best wishes,

Neil 

Stories

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  • Many Christians believe that God himself impregnated Mary and that her son, Jesus, was God Incarnate. Yet they don’t accept that numerous others, including Perseus, Buddha and Vishnu, who were all fathered by gods, are in any way divine. Why not?
  • Evangelicals and other Christians believe that Jesus performed many miracles. However, they dismiss other miracle workers as frauds or mythical beings. As John Oakes puts it on the Evidence for Christianity website, ‘religious figures (such) as Osiris, Empedocles or Krishna almost certainly were not real people, making stories of supposed miracles they worked irrelevant’. Why?
  • Christians believe Jesus fed 5,000 people with 5 fish and 2 loaves. They don’t believe the Qur’an’s story that Muhammed did much the same thing. Why not?
  • Christians believe Jesus was visited by the long dead Moses and Elijah. They believe Paul saw Jesus after he died. Yet they dismiss the Mormon claim that Joseph Smith saw Jesus and God himself. Why?
  • Christians believe Jesus came back to life a day and a half after he was killed. However, they regard the resurrection stories of Dionysus, Osiris and Attis as counterfeit. Why?
  • Christians believe Jesus rose into the sky to take up his place in heaven. Yet they think it preposterous that Muhammed went there on a flying horse. Why?

When it comes to their own stories Christians are adamant that they are reliable accounts of events that really happened. Jesus really was God’s son. He really did do magic; really did feed 5,000 people with a few scraps; really did rise from the dead and really did beam up to heaven. Paul really met him on the road to Damascus.

Even liberal Christians like Joel Anderson, while acknowledging there is much that is suspect in the Jesus story, argue with all the cognitive dissonance they can muster, that the gospels are nevertheless ‘historically reliable’. This really won’t do. Evidentially, the gospels are as ‘historically reliable’ as the tall tales involving Osiris, Buddha, Vishnu, Muhammed and Joseph Smith. Gods only make visits to the Earth in stories, individuals only rise from the dead in stories, magic and miracles only occur in stories. The Christian examples of these tropes are as imaginary as all the others. The heroes of such stories – be it Empedocles, Perseus, Mithras, Buddha, Krishna or Jesus – are fabrications too.

If it’s constructed like a story, has all the components of a story and reads like a story then that’s exactly what it is. 

The Mask of the Beast

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Blog413

Know which fights to pick. Making an issue out of wearing a face mask isn’t one of them.

I don’t want to wear a mask. They’re an incovenience; stuffy and uncomfortable. They hide the face, making communication difficult. An internet meme I saw recently said requiring a face mask four months into a pandemic is like requiring a condom at a baby shower.

Nevertheless, I will be wearing one when they become mandatory in UK shops next week. Wearing a mask isn’t about the wearer. It’s about protecting others from your respiratory effusions that may harbour the virus. That seems a good enough reason to put one on in shops. That and the threatened £100 fine for not doing so (unenforceable in practice, I’d have thought.)

So why are so many Christians opposed to protecting the neighbours they’re supposed to love? Wonder no longer. Here is DeAnna Lorraine to explain:

Biblically, God does not want us wearing masks. Masks are a symbol of hiding yourself, of doing bad deeds, inappropriate deeds, or malicious things that you need to hide from. And it is also a symbol of stripping us of our unique identity because [when] we’re wearing a mask, we’re not unique anymore, we’re all the same. And God doesn’t see us that way.

He also sees us as being good, and anyone who is doing good deeds should not be living and hiding in the shadows behind a mask. A mask is a symbol of fear. You’re living in fear. If you have a mask on, it means you actually don’t trust God. You don’t have faith. You’re living in fear instead of faith. And of course, the Marxist globalist Satanists that are pushing all this, they are trying to invert reality and pervert God and Christians, and they want to isolate us from God, isolate us from other humans, and deprive us of that faith so that we rely on the government, the media, telling us what to do and telling us whether to be fearful or not instead of God.

It’s simple, you see: ‘Biblically’, God doesn’t want us to wear masks. It’s right there in Revelation: God just doesn’t recognise his Chosen Ones if they’ve got a mask on. Just as you or I wouldn’t recognise Hal Jordan or a ninja turtle once they donned their masks, so God is totally flummoxed when we ‘strip ourselves of our identities’ by the simple expedient of covering our mouths and noses.

Instead, according to the insecure, self-obsessed Lorraine, we should trust this enfeebled deity to keep us, and our neighbours – towards whom we evidently have no obligation – safe.

Like this has worked in churches that have flouted lockdown and social distancing rules! The God who doesn’t recognise us in a mask has proven himself incapable of protecting a single one of his followers from Covid-19; not entirely unexpectedly, admittedly, when he’s no more than a figment of their imagination. (This is the same God, incapable even of protecting them from the common cold, whom they think is going to rescue them from death.)

So no, resisting the wearing of masks and other covid precautions is not the fight Christians should be taking on. Nor is raving about the erosion of ‘religious liberty’ (read, ‘Christian privilege’) and the supposed decline in morality. I mentioned last time a number of causes with which they might consider engaging. We might add campaigning to end poverty and the deaths of 15,000 children a day through hunger. ‘Biblically’, God would want them to do that (Matthew 25.31-40).

Failing this, they might put their neighbour above themselves, wear a face mask and shut the f**k up.

A special rendering of ‘One’ Corinthians 13. You’re welcome.

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Blog410a

If I obsess about religious liberty but do not have love, I am no more than a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

If I judge and denigrate others and do my utmost to suppress them then I have not love.

If I claim I am persecuted while persecuting others, if I try to supplant their morality with my own and have not love, then I am nothing.

If I condemn others to hell because they do not subscribe to my beliefs, but have not love, then likewise I am nothing.

If I give nothing at all to the poor and say it is their own fault anyway, then I am without love.

If I say it is not up to me to fight for social justice and make defending Christian dogma my priority above everything else but do not have love, I am nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

If what I have, what I espouse, what I use to beat you with is none of these things then it is not love and I am a hypocrite unworthy of your attention.

 

The current line-up of The Clanging Cymbals is Scott Lively on Resounding Gong, Tony Perkins on Empty Vessel, Franklin Graham on Smug Tone, Pat Robertson on the Befuddlement, Robert Jeffress blowing his own trumpet and Steven Anderson contributing Heavy Flatulence.

Other members of the band are available for Self promotion, Church socials and Bar Mitzvahs. Pride events are excluded.