The Bible portrays God's moral judgments and punishments in many instances as arbitrary and inconsistent, holding people accountable for rules they may not be aware of. The Bible's treatment of incest is only one example of the Scripture's inconsistent moral judgments. Gay Christians and every other demographic should eschew wasting time reconciling their ideas about morality to such an arbitrary and inconsistent standard.
Christians today denounce atrocities committed by their religious forebears during the Inquisition and Crusades. President Bush calls Islam a "religion of peace," despite the murder of American innocents on 9/11 in the name of Allah. Violence in the name of religion is often portrayed as the purview of psychopaths who twist the divine word of God to suit their own destructive purposes. But is religious violence a problem of people, or a problem of scripture?
Whenever I critique the inherent, ubiquitous, and incessant relationship between Abrahamic monotheism and senseless violence, I inevitably receive defiant rejoinders not only from Christian rigorists but from misinformed moderates and secularists as well. Such people offer Hitler and Nazism as verification of humanity's purely secular propensity toward excessive bloodshed. But contrary to popular opinion, Adolf Hitler was not an atheist.
In the rural backwaters and isolated tribal hamlets of countries like India, missionaries routinely peddle the fruits of generosity--food and medicine--as "inducements" for conversion to Christianity. When these allurements fail, more-aggressive means may be employed, not barring fraud and intimidation. As we shall see below, in India at least, "harvesting" souls has become an end that justifies almost any means.
Considering humankind's technological developments, war now has the potential to totally destroy life on our planet. Historically, Christianity has had three broad attitudes on war: pacifism, the just-war, and the crusade. Does present-day Christianity provide a viable system of guidelines for war and peace?
This is a powerful and penetrating chronicle of the author's experiences in an abusive, fundamentalist Christian home. Using scripture from both the Old and New Testament as an indictment of the biblical God, Archer demonstrates at the same time that Christian dogma can be harmful to children, to families, and to society as a whole.
How can we know that Christianity, and particularly the alleged Resurrection, are true if Craig and other Christian apologists cannot show that they are true? For anyone to ask us to accept such on faith would be like a vacuum-cleaner salesman demonstrating his product in your living room: when the machine fails to suck up any dust, he asks you not to think ill of the vacuum; it's just that he, the salesman, can't get straight how to operate it properly--but he tells you that you ought to buy it anyway!
In recent years skeptics have often applied Richard Dawkins' "memes" idea to religion. This does go some of the way towards providing a naturalistic explanation for religion but I think it over-emphasizes the importance of belief at the expense of narrative. Religions, I suggest, mostly begin with narrative; belief arises later and is, in a sense, a secondary development. It is probably our Christian heritage that leads us to attach undue importance to the role of belief. Narrative depends largely on language, and there are important similarities between religions and language in the way in which they are acquired. This way of looking at religion suggests an explanation for its seeming ubiquity in human culture and also for its persistence in our modern society.
At the core of Christian dogma is the faith-based belief that God exists. This faith-based belief and the foundation on which it stands constitute a cornerstone of the religion. This essay discusses the implications of belief in God, looks at whether this belief is logical or illogical, and analyzes how that determination affects Christian dogma and Christians who believe and obey it.
Secularists may soon have to fight a two-front war against Bible-thumping Christians on the right and self-styled promoters of Eastern Religions on the left. Denver's "Peacefulness Ordinance," Initiative 101, would require the city to help ensure public safety by increasing "peacefulness" through the use of techniques typically associated with Buddhist, Taoist and Hindu religions.
Capitalism has certainly been kind to fundamentalist Christianity in America. Profits from Christian product sales have run well into the billions of dollars, yet Jesus is said to have taught that one cannot serve both God and Mammon. Should Jesus take a cue from FOX News and their attempt to sue Al Franken? Perhaps he should.
He does not believe in any of the supernatural events depicted in the Bible, yet John Shelby Spong will not be labeled "an atheist." He considers himself a Christian through and through, a Christian who sees a need for a new Reformation and whose church is leading the way into the future--even at the risk of alienating half its members. Spong believes that Christianity must change or die. Braverman believes that if the Christians are to be brought into the twenty-first century, it can only be done by an insider like Bishop Spong.
The author presents the view that the Church of England--far from being a defender of faith--acts as a necessary and effective protective against the more virulent forms of faith.
Depending on whether you are or are not a Christian, everything you might (not) want to know about the non-Christian origins of one of the most important Christian holidays.
St. Paul was perhaps one of the greatest enemies the cause of freedom ever had. He told Christians that they had a moral duty to bow down to tyrants and to accept tyranny as the natural order ordained by God.
Christian theology as expressed by Paul maintains that it is essentially impossible to love a sexual partner and God at the same time. How, then, did celibate nuns and priests come to permit the celebration of a holiday which was dedicated to sexual love?
Practically every Christian denomination has a different, even contradictory description of God. Christians seem nevertheless unfazed by the implications. Somehow Christians are so engaged in affirming the correctness of what they believe that it never occurs to them that their own multiple descriptions of God preclude belief in a singular God who is the one and only God.
It is long overdue that people who do not believe in any god are elected to significant political office. Atheists must start electing some of their own, and Eddie Tabash, the only admitted atheist to run for political office in 2000, describes what is necessary for this to happen, and how we need to overcome crippling assumptions and prejudices and start getting politically savvy, just as the Christian Right has done.
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