Category Archives: In God’s name

Amazing Grace’s Problem Page

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Woman2Dear Grace,

Please help. I don’t know if my husband loves me. He says he does. He say he loves more than anything else, but very often the way he treats me makes me wonder. I can’t do anything right. He delights in telling me off and sometimes he hits me. I feel very unloved.

He likes to call me terrible names, like ‘worthless worm’, and says he feels nothing but contempt for me. He says that if I don’t do exactly what he says he’ll make my life a misery. He makes me grovel for his forgiveness and tells me I deserve to be punished for the way my family upset him way back when. I wasn’t even there so this hardly seems logical, let alone loving.

He insists that unless his interests come first in our marriage and in absolutely everything we do, he’ll put me through hell. He doesn’t want me to have life of my own and tells me unless I change to become more like him, he’ll abandon me.

I can’t bear the thought of his not approving of me and am frightened he’ll leave me if I don’t do what he says. So, Grace, can you tell me; does he care for me? Is this really love?

Yours,

Bridie

Grace replies: Of course he loves you, you silly bitch. Do you think I don’t recognise who you’re talking about here? Talk about ingratitude! You owe your husband everything. So what if he treats you like shit? He does everything for you and all he asks in return is you show him a little undying devotion. Quit your whingeing, get down on your knees and give him the adoration he so obviously craves.

On Being An Agnostic Atheist

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GodSo, no evidence offered by Christians – and I know quite a few read this blog – that human beings can, as their religion promises, live forever. No surprise there. Dave did comment, on Facebook, that he knows, because of faith, that he’s promised eternal life, but as I said last time, faith is not evidence.

Moving on. Over at his Northier Than Thou blog, Daniel Walldammit notes how often he comes across apologist sites that say, ‘I don’t believe in atheists.’ I’ve noticed similar statements online and in the hands of street preachers: ‘atheism is a temporary condition’ (quite clever that one, if somewhat overused), ‘atheists are just in rebellion against God‘ and ‘there’s no such thing as an atheist‘.

atheism-1Given that atheism exists whether Christians condescend to believe in it or not, I want to explain how you can be both an atheist and agnostic.

Theism is the belief in a personal god, one that was involved in the creation of the world, has taken an interest in its development and who relates to his principal creation, humankind. This theist god has a personality of his own (they are almost all ‘male’), is hands-on, intimately concerned with people and their behaviour. I see no evidence for this type of god, for reasons I’ve explored here and here. As a result, I am an a-theist, one who denies the existence of such an imaginary being.

‘But,’ say some critics of this argument, ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’ Not so, as Irving Copi demonstrated long ago:

in some circumstances it can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.

Without evidence there is no existence either for my pet dragon nor for the multitude of gods that humans have imagined for themselves throughout history. To claim that ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’ is an appeal to faith and wishful thinking (they’re the same thing). It says in effect that just because I can’t prove my God (or Santa Claus or my dragon) exists, doesn’t mean he doesn’t. But evidence is all: an entity which cannot be demonstrated evidentially does not exist independently from the human imagination that conceives it.

For my part, I’m also an anti-theist, which does not mean, as Christians like to claim it does, that I’m in rebellion against God – just as Christians themselves are not ‘in rebellion’ against Allah, Vishnu or Santa Claus. It isn’t possible to rebel against fictional characters. It is possible, however, to oppose the mumbo-jumbo that has accumulated around them and the irrational belief and unreasonable behaviour which that engenders. This is what it means to be anti-theist.

Deism is the belief in an impersonal god. It is a hypothetical entity that may or may not exist and is entirely unknowable, which is why I use ‘it’ to describe it because it would be impossible to know, if it does exist, whether it is male, female or something else entirely. While there is an absence of evidence for this type of god too, it is more difficult, because of its hypothetical nature, to demonstrate in the same way as for a personal god, that it doesn’t exist. It easier to refute the supposedly known features of a theist god, than it is the unknown qualities of the unknowable. So, I concede this impersonal deity may exist somewhere. I’m almost entirely certain it doesn’t, because absence of evidence is, after all, evidence of absence, but it could and I have to acknowledge that remote possibility. In this minimalist sense I am agnostic. I don’t, I stress, believe in this only remotely possible god; it is so hypothetical and inconsequential it might as well not exist, if it in fact it does. The concession I make that it may have a presence in some distant part of the universe, or possibly out of it, makes no difference to my life, beliefs or behaviour.

So, it is possible to be an agnostic atheist; to deny the existence of personal gods like Yahweh and Allah on the grounds that there is no evidence for them, while admitting to not knowing whether an unknowable god exists.

Even though it doesn’t.

 

 

Where was God?

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GodGod

While they were communing with God, gunman Dylann Roof sat among them for forty-five minutes. Then he opened fire and killed nine of them. That’s forty-five minutes during which time God could have warned the Christians who believed he was listening to them that something terrible was about to happen. But he didn’t. The communication was all one way. They talked to him but he didn’t talk to them. He didn’t even listen. Why not? Because either he doesn’t care what happens to his people, despite what Jesus promised, or he isn’t there.

After the massacre, Christians across America resorted to pleading with this negligent God to comfort the bereaved and to help police find the killer. We can be sure God didn’t do any such thing because if he cared at all, he wouldn’t have let the massacre happen in the first place. 

Presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee declared that if only some of those at the prayer meeting had been ‘pistol-packing’ themselves, they could have taken out Roof before he did too much damage. And he’s right – absurd as it sounds, one of them could have done. So why didn’t the God who never forsakes his people prompt one of them to take a gun to church? Perhaps because, unreasonably, he thinks it’s better to turn the other cheek. Either way, mark God down for another fail.

Fellow crank, the ‘reverend’ E. W. Jackson, blamed the shootings on liberals, gays and Obama. So, God – pissed with those who don’t support ‘Christian values’ –  allowed a gunman to mow down nine of his own. Makes sense.   

Debbie Dills, meanwhile, spotted the killer’s car on the freeway and informed the police. She later claimed this was God’s doing; the very God incapable of warning his loved ones they were about to be murdered. This God, who allowed his people to be massacred, directed Debbie Mills, who cannot see that she was just happened to be in the right place at the right time, to notice the killer’s vehicle and report his whereabouts.

Let’s get real: a God who can’t prevent the murder of nine of his children but then behaves like a third-rate Jessica Fletcher is no God at all. He is an impotent creation, a being of trivial pursuits, who fails to materialise when he’s really needed; a mythical figure who keeps his super-powers to himself, except in the most insignificant and coincidental of occurrences; a figment of believers’ imaginations.

Show us he’s not, Christians, why don’t you. Show us how he loves you, never forsakes you and protects even the hairs on your heads. Where is he? Where’s the evidence he exists, outside your inconsistent, fallacious scriptures and your own wishful thinking? Where in this real world? The people of Charleston really need to know.

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 34: Atheism is a Religion

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NoGodChristians like to claim atheism is a religion. It’s their way of saying, ‘look – atheists are as daft as we are. They believe in bullshit just like we do, except, of course, they’re wrong and we’re right.’ You can see them saying just this here and here and here.

But atheism isn’t a religion, any more than not collecting stamps is a hobby, as Penn Jillette puts it. It isn’t a religion because it is the absence of belief – primarily in a god, but also in any other kind of supernatural being. The atheist knows there are no saviours, angels, devils, demons, ethereal saints or eternal prophets, and no heaven and hell to house them either. Atheism is devoid of any sort of worship of imagined supernatural beings; nor does it address them, commune with them or otherwise revere them. It does not recognise the authority of ‘holy’ books nor that of self-appointed spiritual authorities, including popes, pastors, preachers, imams, mullahs and rabbis. It doesn’t regard anything as sacred, including its own experts; neither Darwin nor the so-called New Atheists are above criticism. (Try that with those who think they represent God’s Truth™!)

Where religionists build their belief systems on the insubstantial foundation of faith, atheists accept nothing on trust. Instead, they look for evidence to support their knowledge and value reason, not dogma – things that are anathema to religion.

Given, then, that atheism is the antithesis of religion and that atheists don’t do what religion demands, it is intellectual dishonesty to insist that atheism is a religion. Those who do so are false witnesses; mistaken at best, liars for sure.

Jesus: The Dark Side

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SacrificeDo not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10.34).

Well, isn’t that a comfort. Jesus, who said ‘blessed are the peacemakers’ and for whom Christians like to claim the title ‘Prince of Peace’, declares himself to be anything but.

Of course, it’s possible these words were put into Jesus’ mouth once belief in him had indeed started splitting families and communities; between those who subscribed to his cult and those who saw it for what it was. Maybe though he really did advocate armed rebellion – against the Roman and Jewish authorities – rather more than later believers care to admit. Even as they’ve come down to us, the gospels retain references to taking up arms in the cause of God’s Kingdom. For example:

  • Jesus didn’t see the transition from the existing system to the Kingdom as a peaceful one:

Matthew 11.12: From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has been coming violently and the violent take it by force.

Matthew 3.10: Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

  • He instructed the disciples to arm themselves:

Luke 22. 36-38: He said to them… ‘the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, “And he was counted among the lawless”; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.’ They said, ‘Lord, look, here are two swords.’ He replied, ‘It is enough.’

  • And evidently they did:

Luke 22.48-49: Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, is it with a kiss that you are betraying the Son of Man?’ When those who were around him saw what was coming, they asked, ‘Lord, should we strike with the sword?’ Then one of them struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his right ear. (Jesus promptly heals the slave and then says, sanctimoniously, that ‘those who live by the sword will die by it’, as if swords weren’t his idea in the first place!)

  • More than this, when, as he clearly believed he would be, Jesus is appointed King in God’s new Kingdom, he hints he will be happy to see all of his opponents put to death:

Luke 19.27: “But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.”

  • Jesus was executed by the Romans as a revolutionary. Crucifixion made an example of those who actively opposed Roman rule. The charge against Jesus was that he was an intended usurper of power; two fellow ‘rebels’ are executed with him:*

Mark 15.26-27: The inscription of the charge against him read, ‘The King of the Jews.’ And with him they crucified two rebels, one on his right and one on his left.

So much for ‘love your enemies’ and ‘turn the other cheek’. So much for the Jesus who does nothing but preach love and forgiveness. So much too for Paul’s mystical Christ. There is a very dark side to Jesus that expresses itself in vengefulness and megalomania. That anyone so disturbed could be considered an emissary from God, let alone God the Son, beggars belief.

 

* Since writing this post I’ve read Marcus J. Borg’s Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary. Borg makes precisely the same point about the charges against Jesus (though he sees him as a non-violent revolutionary). He explains that the Greek word used to describe the two killed with him – rendered as ‘rebels’ above – ‘is the term more commonly used for those engaged in armed resistance against Rome – “terrorists” or “freedom fighters”, depending on one’s point of view (p265).

Always and Forever

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nurseGod is trustworthy and true. He always keeps his promises. We know this because Christians, either in person or on web-sites, like to tell us so.

Let’s take a look at some of the promises God made back when he only liked Jewish people. How well do they hold up?

As part of his promise (covenant) with Jewish patriarch, Abraham, that he would look after his descendants in perpetuity, Yahweh came up with a particularly gross way for them to sign up:

I will always keep the promise I have made to you and your descendants, because I am your God and their God… Abraham, you and all future members of your family must promise to obey me. As the sign that you are keeping this promise, you must circumcise every man and boy in your family. This will be a sign that my promise to you will last forever. Any man who isn’t circumcised hasn’t kept his promise to me and can’t be one of my people… The promise I am making to you and your family will be for (your son) and his descendants forever (Genesis 17.7, 9-13, 21; my emphases).

‘Always’ and ‘forever’ obviously meant only until God changed his mind – which he did when he came up with the new ‘covenant’. You know the one: ‘believe in Jesus to be saved, no primitive surgery required.’ Of course, Jews still feel the original promise is in force and so keep up the old slicing’n’dicing membership requirement. So who’s right? Jewish people who feel that a promise is a promise? Or Christians who insist God eventually lost interest in mutilating penises? It’s hard to tell, but if it’s the Christians, then God, being omniscient and all, must have known he would change his mind eventually. So why tell ol’ Abe the agreement with him was ‘always’ and ‘forever’?

Then there’s the one where God promises there’ll be a descendant of King David’s on the throne forever:

I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel’ (1 Kings 9.5).

Oops. David’s line ceased ruling over Israel when the Assyrians defeated it in 586BCE. Since then there has been no king of the Davidic line ruling over Israel. Why didn’t God see this coming? And if he did, why’d he make a promise, with ‘forever’ and ‘never fail’, that he knew he wasn’t going to keep? Yes, I know Christians like to claim that Jesus took over the kingship when he came along, but he didn’t, not really. His descent from David is highly questionable and there’s still that awfully long gap between 586BCE and Jesus’ time that blows a hole in ‘never fail’ and ‘forever’. In any case, Jews, by definition, have never seen Jesus as their king and they’ve got a point: it’s difficult to see how someone dead and/or totally invisible can be king of anything.

Never mind, let’s try another. This time God’s promise that everything’s going to work out okay:

(The Lord) will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore (Isaiah 2.4).

Safe to say this didn’t happen either. Not while people were still using swords and spears anyway.

Finally, what about the promise that’s trotted out every Christmas? –

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever (Isaiah 9:6-7).

Whatever Christians might claim for these verses, they’re not about Jesus. At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll repeat myself: Jesus did not and does not reign on David’s throne. He said he would, it’s true, believing himself to be the fulfilment of ‘prophecies’ like this, but he was wrong, as events went on to demonstrate. He didn’t, in any case, fit the description of whoever it is who’s being spoken of here; an earthly ruler who – yes, you guessed it – has still to show up. We’d have spotted him if he had. Some Jewish scholars think they might have done, pointing to King Hezekiah who ruled Israel in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, for almost 30 years. That’s hardly ‘forever’ though, is it. Yet more evidence that ‘prophecy’ doesn’t ever work, principally because it’s impossible to know the future.

God’s promises are like those of politicians: you just can’t trust them. There has to come a time when those who believe in them must face up to the fact they’re not promises at all, just ancient wishful thinking.

For God So Loves The World

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NepalFor God so loves the world he let an earthquake and its many aftershocks kill up to 10,000 people in Nepal.

For God so loves the world he stood by while up 100,000 more people lost everything, including their homes, because of the same earthquake.

For God so loves the world he drowned 900 refugees fleeing the terrors of war in their own countries.

For God so loves the world he allowed 250 individuals to be killed by a rogue pilot who flew the plane they were on into the side of a mountain.

But wait! One particular Christian preacher knows why this kind of thing happens. He can explain how these catastrophes, particularly the devastation caused by the earthquake, are compatible with a God of love. Here’s what it’s really all about:
Tweet

That’s right. God only allowed these terrible things to happen so that more people – excluding the ones he murdered, obviously – would have the chance to turn to Christ. Isn’t that marvellous? And Tony Miano, who is the same lunatic street preacher arrested in London in 2013 for sharing God’s ‘love’ for LGBT people, is not alone. German pastor Wolfgang Wegert said much the same thing of those who died on Germanwings Flight 9525: ‘A plane crash is a reminder of our own mortality. By that, God wants to make people repent, so that we (can) be saved by Jesus.’

And, do you know, they’re right. No, really, they are. There is no other response available to the Christian who wants to explain events that involve the terrible loss of life. That’s because the Christian God, the one who purports to love us so much, as well as all the other versions, is conspicuous by his absence. He’s always absent, always powerless to prevent such disasters, too remote to want to. Which might just suggest he doesn’t exist (which of course he doesn’t) leaving those who feel the need to cling to belief in him to explain his actions or, rather, the lack of them. So they supply him with an ulterior motive. And why not? A fabricated being needs a fabricated excuse. But this being the real world, the options are limited. So what we get is this; God is only trying to draw people to him. How truly loving. The equivalent of a human father murdering several of his children so that those he spares might love him more. A monstrous and preposterous idea for a monstrous and preposterous God.

And so it falls to human beings of all persuasions to show compassion and to help the survivors of earthquakes, the relatives of plane crashes, the misplaced and grieving refugees. We might be flawed, fallible and – according to the self-righteous – ‘sinful’, but we can at our best, demonstrate the love so lacking in their absent deities. And unlike the many meaningless gods, from Yahweh and Jesus to Allah and Vishnu, we can be present too, because we are real.

 

You can donate to the Nepal earthquake appeal here.

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 32: Jesus Is God

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Res2Test your Bible knowledge and see if you can work out when it was Jesus became God:

Was it:

a) After he died?
Paul thought this was when God decided to adopt Jesus. The Almighty noticed what a good man Jesus was and decided to resurrect him. In so doing, he made him his Son:

his Son… was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead. (Romans 1. 3-4, my emphasis)

Paul doesn’t say Jesus was God. In fact, he strongly suggests he wasn’t, both in the phrase ‘descended from David’ and in his assertion that he became God’s Son – not God – only at the resurrection. So, Jesus wasn’t God when Paul wrote Romans, round about 57CE. If, as Bart Ehrman suggests in How Jesus Became God (p224), Paul is quoting an earlier creed, it’s not what the first Christians believed either.* Paul does edge closer to a divine Jesus in other letters – Philippians 2, for example – but that’s not what ‘God revealed’ to him originally.

b) When he was baptised?
In the earliest gospel, Mark says it was when he was baptised that Jesus became God’s son:

(Jesus) saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ (Mark 1.10-11)

So in Mark, God adopts Jesus earlier in his career than in Paul’s Romans scenario. All the same, while he gets to be God’s beloved son, this doesn’t make him divine; God has many sons in the Bible and a Son of God, with or without capitals, is not the same as ‘God the Son’. Jesus himself makes this clear in Mark 10.18, where he actually denies he’s God.

c) When he was born?
Well, this is more like it. According to Matthew, Jesus is the Messiah from the time he was born. We’ve got even further back now – from Paul’s post-mortem elevation of Jesus, to his baptism, to his birth. Of course all of these can’t right. If Jesus was divine from birth – or even before – there’d be no need for him to be promoted after his death. But Matthew doesn’t actually say he’s divine; he suggests that Jesus fulfils all the prophecies of the Messiah (of course he doesn’t, but that’s what Matthew wants us to believe.) However, the Messiah, according to the very ‘prophecies’ Matthew quotes, is not divine; he’s a human warrior king. Oops.

d) When he was conceived?
Luke is determined to push it back further still. For Luke, it’s when God magically makes Mary pregnant that Jesus becomes truly and literally God’s son (Luke 1.35). Except, of course, Mary appears to have no recollection of this event later in the gospel narratives when she can’t work out why her son behaves in bizarre ways. Could Luke have made up the entire conception story? You bet.

e) Back at the beginning of time?
John’s gospel appears to say so:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1.1-5)

Or does it? John says the Word (Logos) has always existed and is part of God – but does this mean Jesus? This question vexed the church for the best part of it first four hundred years. Was the Logos the same as God and was Jesus the Logos? The council of Nicaea in 325 attempted to clear the matter up but not all bishops agreed with its conclusion – that the Son was ‘begotten not made’ (whatever that means) – and the controversy raged for another few decades.

f) When the church decided he was?
Yup, this is it. A different group of bishops decided, finally, that Jesus was God at the Council of Constantinople in 381. They re-jigged the statement made at Nicaea fifty-six years earlier, which then became the ‘Nicene creed’ that’s still said in some churches today.

So, Jesus didn’t become wholly and officially divine until 381, a mere 350 years after he lived and 300 after Paul and the gospel writers. How scriptural is that?

Jesus wasn’t divine, wasn’t God incarnate, wasn’t the Son of God with capital letters, wasn’t the Messiah, wasn’t and isn’t the saviour of the world. He was a first-century preacher and prophet whose prophecies were a disaster, whose mission to bring the Kingdom of God to Earth failed and who died and was buried. He was resurrected only in the ideas of other men, who tried and eventually succeeded in making him into something he wasn’t.

 

* I’ve not referred extensively to Ehrman’s writing in this post but undoubtedly his many books, especially How Jesus Became God, have influenced me, as has Barrie Wilson’s How Jesus Became Christian. Jonathan Hill’s Christianity: The First 400 Years, published by Christian company, Lion, was also useful.

 

It only encourages them

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HealDear Believer,

Let us be direct. We have to tell you, out of love, that we can never serve you in our restaurants, never teach you in our colleges, never supply you with goods we make, never sell you items from our shops. Why? Because of your fake faith.

Your belief in a mythical figure and in eternal life is a sin against the intellect. More than this, it causes you to act in mean-spirited, unloving ways. We cannot endorse such abhorrent, evil practices.

So if you come into our restaurants, classrooms, shops or offices wearing a cross or talking about your faith or praying, you will be turned away. We do this only because it breaks our hearts to see you lost in your delusion and to witness the damage you do to other people as a result of your beliefs.

It is our fervent wish, dear “Christian” friend, that by doing this we can lead you to abandon the illusory path you have chosen so that you may reclaim both your intelligence and humanity.

We hope you understand that all we say and all we intend to do, we do out of love and in the spirit of truth.

faithlessly,

The Freethinkers

What do you think? Too judgemental? Too much of a generalisation? Tars all Christians with the same brush? Unforgiving? Moralistic?

You’re right…

The original version of this letter is a long-winded, sanctimonious diatribe by right-wing Christian, Matt Barber. You can find the full thing at this link, but here are the highlights:

Dear homosexual,

…Let us be direct. According to the unequivocal moral precepts of biblical Christianity, explicit throughout both the Old and New Testaments, your homosexual behavior is sin. Sin is evil. Homosexual behavior is the central, defining characteristic of your counterfeit “gay marriage.” Therefore, “gay marriage” is evil. Christians are obligated to avoid sin – to “do no evil”…

It really is that simple. This is why, as faithful Christians (apostate “Christians” notwithstanding), we will never have anything whatsoever to do with your pagan, sin-based “same-sex wedding” rituals.

We will not bake your fake wedding cake.
We will not arrange your fake wedding flowers.
We will not take your fake wedding pictures.
We will not host your fake wedding reception.

We will not do these things because to do these things is to disobey God. It is to aid you in your sin, to cause you to stumble, which, in and of itself, is to layer sin upon sin…

We’re telling you no because we love you with the love of Christ. But understand this: As we are so commanded, we must, and do, hate the evil conduct by which you define your identity… what you do is wrong. Period. Full stop….

Dear “gay” friend, you will one day realize, hopefully before it becomes too late, that you are not only on the wrong side of history, you are on the wrong side of eternity.

It breaks our hearts to see you there.

And so we refuse to help send you.

Sincerely,

The Christians

Yes, definitely unforgiving and judgemental. Presumptuous too: Matt Barber speaks for all Christians? He writes and signs his letter in your name. Who appointed him to do that?

Arrogant in deciding we’re all sinners, gay people more than any. The whole sin thing is a specifically Christian mindset which – surprise, surprise – not all of us subscribe to, not least because it has little purchase in the real world.

Hypocritical that he condemns everyone, gay people more than any, but conveniently ignores the parts of his saviour’s teaching that says ‘don’t judge unless you want to be judged’ (Matthew 7.1). What does it feel like, Christians, when the tables are turned? Those of you, like Barber, who sit in judgement of others merit judgement in return. This is a sound Biblical principle, every bit as much as, or even more than, the ‘principles’ you use to condemn your ‘gay friends’ as ‘evil’. JC himself said so.

Ignorant too, of the scriptures that say ‘give to all who ask’ (JC again, in Luke 6.30-36). They don’t say, anywhere, ‘refuse to do anything for a group of people you don’t approve of.’ As Christians you’re not given that option, no matter how much you twist unrelated verses to endorse the position you’ve already chosen to take.

No, Christians like Barber who stand on ‘principles’ like these, who think they know the mind of Jesus while ignoring the very words he said are unchristian, unforgiving, unbiblical, arrogant and, whatever they may claim to the contrary, unloving. How attractive they make their faith seem.

What Jesus should have said…

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KnockLists are the thing, aren’t they. It’s time we had some on this here blog thingy.

List 1. 10 things Christians pretend Jesus didn’t say:

1. Treat others as you like to be treated (Matthew 7.12)

2. Forgive so that you’ll be forgiven (Matthew 6.14)

3. Don’t judge unless you want to be judged (Matthew 7.1)

4. Sell all you have and give it to the poor (Mark 10.21)

5. Turn the other cheek (Luke 6.29)

6. Go the extra mile (Matthew 5.41)

7. Give to all who ask and lend without expecting anything back (Luke 6.30 & 35)

8. Love your neighbour as much as yourself (Matthew 22.39)

9. Love your enemies (Luke 6.27)

10. Don’t worry about the future (Matthew 6.34)

If Christians followed these injunctions, what a very different world it would be. Instead, what do we get..?

List 2. 10 things Christians think Jesus should have said, but didn’t (with a few examples):

1. Show love for others by telling them what sinners they are (1, 2)

2. Stand on principle as much as you can (1, 2, 3).

3. Take easy offence (1, 2)

4. See persecution everywhere (1, 2, 3, 4)

5. Sue those who upset you (1, 2)

6. Demonise those who don’t share your world view (1, 2, 3, 4)

7. Hate homosexuals and oppose same-sex marriage (1, 2, 3)

8. Set yourself up as defender of God’s standards (1, 2)

9. Argue endlessly about points of doctrine (1, 2)

10. Obsess about the future and the state of the world (1, 2, 3)

This is the Christianity we’ve got. Well done, o righteous ones, for perverting Jesus’ radical (and yes, ridiculously impossible) message into this unsavoury concoction of mean-spirited self-centredness. It’s what he wouldn’t have wanted.

 

Why_Christians_Don't_Cover_for_KindleMy book Why Christians Don’t do What Jesus Tells Them To …And What They Believe Instead looks at how Christians ignore most of what Jesus says in favour of a Christianity of their own making. You can find it here in the UK, here in the US and on Kindle. Go on. You know you want it.