I am sorry to say that when I found the Christmas wrapping paper behind the basement fridge, not only did the belief in Santa Claus slowly dissipate in my eight-year-old head but so did ‘god’ and all that went with him. Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t raised by heinous theist-hating parents. In fact, I was baptized and raised Catholic and attended Catholic school for fourteen years of my life. I have to say it was probably the best decision my parents could have made because I contribute completely my analytic, factual logic, and quick arguing skills solely to defending my ideas in this white-knuckled environment. So, Christians before you try and fight me on this – keep in mind I know all of your arguments like the back of my hand, and I might even know a little bit more than you’re willing to admit to yourself.
So what does the Christian religion look like through the eyes of this atheist?
Pure and simple: evil.
Now I will give Jesus the credit because he is the only character out of the bible that I can admit is a pretty cool guy. According to the stories that were written by people who never met him, he was a very accepting, ethical human being.
I picture him as a BCC hippie who smoked a lot of weed. He accepted the whores off of the street, the lepers, the tax collectors, the backstabbers. He accepted all of the so-called ‘rejects’ of society, and loved them and treated them equally. Who can argue with that motto? Well, apparently Christians can. Does, “God Hates Faggots” ring a bell? Somehow I find it odd that the son of god who was the master of acceptance of all social outcasts is the same god that Christians claim “hates faggots.” Interesting logic, I tell you. Anyways, I’m okay with Jesus: that is, if he existed and if the stories are true (he was a sweet magician if they are).
Besides that, religion is purely used for social control.
The men who wrote the laws and rules and stories were using people’s gullible and insecure natures to their advantage by claiming that a divine being actually spoke the words of their own wanting. If I were to write a book that the whole world would be coerced to listen to and abide by (not that Christians are very good at that), I don’t think I would include anything about stoning impudent women, keeping a full beard or praising a male all-powerful god. To me, that sounds like the egotistical wishes of a dirty bearded man with 15 wives and 55 concubines trying to create a god in the image of himself.
I am going to borrow some of Nietzsche’s brilliant theory. He maintained that Christianity was what he called a “slave morality” while Roman religion was called “master morality.” Put quite simply, Christian morality was formed under Roman rule – thus slaves created their own morality. Their morality rejected anything Roman (their masters). That is where humbleness, meekness and all those passive morals that slaves need to maintain in order to not get killed, come from. Christianity is the sad outcome of a broken people too scared to stand up for themselves, safety in numbers and safety in conformity. Put more clearly: social control.
Religion will continue to thrive until people pull their feet out of the cement of religious conviction and start thinking for themselves. They just need to find that wrapping paper behind the fridge and they will realize how wasteful and sad religion really is.
