What are your main beefs with Christianity?

Great Debates
61

[QUOTE=Beaucarnea]
Setting aside the Christian habit of forcing natives to cover up their “naughty bits” for now…

Assuming you are a practicing Christian: Which parts of your daily habits and culture are exempt from Christian influence? Your style of dress? Your sex life? Your marriage? Your medical care? Your choice of food? Your marriage and method of child rearing? Are your celebrations, milestones, and holidays free from religious influence?
[/QUOTE]

Your dodging the question. I asked why we should believe that religious proselytization amounts to the complete eradication of one’s native culture. My personal religious beliefs are irrelevant to this discussion.

Moreover, I don’t deny that Christianity plays a large influence in a Christian’s life. You made a much stronger claim, though. You asserted that missionary work results in “erasing all traces of indigenous culture and habits.” Obviously, that goes far beyond merely acknowledging the influence of religion in one’s life.

So again, can you please substantiate that claim? How does missionary work result in the complete destruction of native artwork, or folklore, or literature? How does it eradicate indigenous artwork, or societal customs, or dietary habits? Clearly, asking me to articulate my religious worldview does nothing to answer those questions.

62

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
I also think (and I could be very wrong) that to be Jewish, your mother has to have been (but then how do they handle converts? never mind…). So, the Q’uran is not translated? That would stymie things. But since I believe that all the translations of the Bible have (if anything) muddied the waters, so to speak, no translation is probably a good thing.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t really want to go into the intricacies of what constitutes Jewishness, because i’m not confident I know them well enough. All i’m comfortable saying is that you’re considered Jewish if you’re the offspring of a Jewish mother and if you convert, but possibly for different values of “Jewish”.

As for the Qur’an, it does get translated, but generally I think people would be less confident in handing out flyers that are actually held to be not the real thing. Quotes from the Qur’an are either in Arabic or not true quotes, so the use of them in the same style as Bible quotes (which seem to litter such give-aways) would be trickier.

63

[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]

And if, perhaps, others are less discerning in their beliefs and morality, well, the beliefs and morality they end up with as a result are primarily their fault; others may be partly responsible, but to not nearly the same extent culpable.
[/QUOTE]

The same argument has been used to justify eugenics and slavery. If they are dumber or weaker, they can and should be exploited.
Would you feel more charitable towards the reasoning abilities of children? If a parent convinces her child of the existence of Santa Claus and provides proof in the form of presents and half eaten cookies, do you consider the child stupid, or ignorant and inexperienced?

64

[QUOTE=JThunder]
Your dodging the question. I asked why we should believe that religious proselytization amounts to the complete eradication of one’s native culture. My personal religious beliefs are irrelevant to this discussion.

Moreover, I don’t deny that Christianity plays a large influence in a Christian’s life. You made a much stronger claim, though. You asserted that missionary work results in “erasing all traces of indigenous culture and habits.” Obviously, that goes far beyond merely acknowledging the influence of religion in one’s life.

So again, can you please substantiate that claim? How does missionary work result in the complete destruction of native artwork, or folklore, or literature? How does it eradicate indigenous artwork, or societal customs, or dietary habits? Clearly, asking me to articulate my religious worldview does nothing to answer those questions.
[/QUOTE]

I assumed that your question was hypothetical, as you and I both know that evidence of primitive cultures will not be eradicated completely so long as we continue to preserve it in museums.

How does Christian conversion result in the destruction of native habits? Don’t pray to the mountain gods for rain or fish; your new God is jealous and will smite you. Be sure to name the days of the week, because there will be no farming or passing of Puka shells on Sunday. Don’t put anymore bones in your nose- that is desecrating God’s temple. Also, don’t lick toads and chant. And cover up that evil titty!

I don’t know precisely how many generations are required to pass before native customs are replaced with Christian habits. But there is no need to hand down primitive religious folklore if it is no longer practiced. No need to weave baskets depicting mountain gods once a tribe is properly convinced that there is only One True God. Exposure of breasts: strongly discouraged. Polygamy: forbidden. Indulging in mind-altering food and drink: forbidden. Penis gourds: ditto.

If Biblical law isn’t influencing *every aspect * of a Christian’s life, he isn’t doing it right.

65

[QUOTE=Beaucarnea]
The same argument has been used to justify eugenics and slavery. If they are dumber or weaker, they can and should be exploited.
[/QUOTE]

Eugenics and slavery are immoral on the grounds that they use violence and the threat of physical harm to force people into activities they do not want to engage in. It’s hardly the same as telling someone a story and them believing it of their own accord.

A child is immature in his reasoning abilities. I consider the average adult more reasonable than to be given a free ride on believing things without any evidence. And if he does happen to come to believe things which are wrong, because he reasons in some incorrect manner about the evidence available to him, it’s not the missionary’s fault that the man’s reasoning was incorrect; it’s hardly as though the missionary is deliberately manipulating the evidence available to the man or lying in any other way. No one’s saying “I prayed to Jesus, and he gave me a camera. If you abstain from premarital sex and pray to Jesus, you, too, could get access to this magic.” The missionary is saying what he genuinely believes to be true, the tribesman is genuinely coming to believe it. At worst, the missionary might say “If you sin in such and such a manner, you will receive punishment in the afterlife”, a sincere belief of the missionary’s but one with harmful effects for those who believe it. But no one is forced to believe it; you’re always free to ask “How do you know that? I understand you have picture-boxes and sky-boats and whatnot, but you’ve never claimed to have direct experience of the afterlife. Tell me, how do you know that about the afterlife?” And the missionary, presumably, will not say “Oh, actually, I’ve been to the afterlife, that’s where I got these cameras.” He’ll say something like “There’s this great book”. If the tribesman then accepts the holiness of that book, that’s no different than any native Christian in a traditionally Christian country coming to believe in the holiness of that book. Undesirable, in its way, but not evil, far from it.

Until I see some malicious intent, I can’t call any of this evil, just a reflection of the fact that many humans are inclined to believe things that aren’t true. I can get angry at the missionaries if they hold beliefs which incline them towards immoral activity (e.g., if they hold fervently anti-homosexual beliefs, which they then spread; in this case, I am really just getting angry at the missionaries for holding the beliefs in the first place). I can get angry at the missionaries if they spread misinformation when they really should know better (e.g., inaccurate statements on the effectiveness of condoms; in this case, I am really just getting angry at the missionaries for their extreme and dangerous ignorance). But just for spreading such nebulous but sincerely believed feel-good myths and strictures as make up the majority of the Christian message, well, this is no different then happens in every Christian country, passed on from parent to child, without much uproar. I can’t consider it evil. It’s sad that perhaps some odd hangups about sex or what have you are perpetuated (I feel like I’m really poorly and crudely stereotyping Christianity throughout this thread, but I guess I have to concentrate on what people feel are the ill effects of proselytizing, and this one seems to be mentioned often), but if someone is so inclined to base their life on whatever moral principles someone with fancy magic tells them, a magician who has threatened no violence but merely shared the story of his own culture, well, someone so easily swayed will end up with an odd belief system of one sort or another anyway.

66

Indistinguishable, I am not missing your point. I understand your view that the heartfelt sincerity of the missionary’s intent and actions are inconsistent with deliberately evil actions.

And in spite of agreeing with this specific point, I still feel that the religious conversion of small, isolated tribes is done with full awareness that the natives are easily influenced precisely because of their isolation and ignorance of modern technology.
JTHunder’s stated:
[QUOTE=JThunder]
Missionaries attempt to get people to voluntarily convert to their religious views.
[/QUOTE]

How voluntary is the natives’ conversion when gifts and bribery are offered in exchange for salvation? Missionaries go to the natives’ habitat fully loaded with cookware, shoes, medicine, beads, toys, building materials…

67

[QUOTE=Beaucarnea]
Indistinguishable, I am not missing your point. I understand your view that the heartfelt sincerity of the missionary’s intent and actions are inconsistent with deliberately evil actions.

And in spite of agreeing with this specific point, I still feel that the religious conversion of small, isolated tribes is done with full awareness that the natives are easily influenced precisely because of their isolation and ignorance of modern technology.
[/QUOTE]

Ah, alright. Fair enough. The voluntariness of the tribe’s conversion still makes it hard for me to accept that there is some ethical transgression taking place, but I can see where you’re coming from.

Speaking of which…

Bribery? If your beliefs are for sale, they’re hardly genuine beliefs held with conviction, so far as I see it. I mean, offer me all the riches you want, at most you’ll get me to say the words “The moon is made of cheese”; you’ll never force me to believe it. It’s sortuva “You can lead the horse to water but you can’t make it drink” situation.

At any rate, out-and-out bribery of the form “If you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then we’ll give you this medicine” doesn’t seem to me to be what happens. Rather, I imagine, the missionary sets up shop and gives things out indiscriminately, for the good of the community. In return, the community tolerates his presence, listens to what he has to say, allows him to set up a church and a sort of Sunday School, whatever. Neither part of this seems so bad; the first part is downright helpful, and the second part is no worse than what goes down in every town in your average Christian country.

I mean, is there some reason that it is objectively desirable for the community visited by the missionary to continue to believe its probably incorrect, kind of kooky but largely harmless traditional religion rather than to (of its own accord, upon exposure) start believing the incorrect, kind of kooky but largely harmless Christian religion?

I guess I feel this way about a lot of things, though, where many people don’t. I see no particular need for preservation of dying languages, for example; one should make sure the resources are available to future generations to decode old works in the dying language, but if people begin (as always, voluntarily) to decide it’s more useful to them to speak English than to know Manx, say, well, I shed no tears over the situation. That’s every speaker’s own choice to make for himself. For most other matters of “cultural takeover”, my view is similar: as long as no one is being forcibly restrained from doing what he wants to do, I’m happy.

68

Some people do blame God when tragedies strike. Good people can have their faith shaken when terrible things, unspeakable things occur. Some people may lose faith altogether.

There are still others who may go through a period of being angry at God. Maybe they’ve been told they have only months to live and one of the natural stages that a person goes through is anger. Some may be angry in general and some may blame God.

There are others who may feel that God is responsible, but cling to the belief that “All things work together for the good.” In that case, they wouldn’t want to “blame” God.

I don’t think that God is a Democrat or a Republican or than he cares about who wins sports events. But I don’t know that. I will be more than happy to credit God for any losses that Alabama has in past and future Iron Bowls.

I married a widower. He lost his young wife quickly to a tragic illness. I am the one who has had the joy of loving her four grandchildren since their births. How am I to perceive her death?

Three of my grandparents were widowed and married the second time before my parents were conceived. Without those specific three deaths, I would not have been born. We all were probably born of grief if we could look back at family history far enough.

When my mother called to tell me that my father had died, the first words that came out of my mouth were Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Now I’m not that devout a person and this was my Daddy that I loved more than anything. But my instinct was, in this time of overwhelming grief, to credit God nomatter, and give thanks.

Maybe it’s the way I was brought up.

I wish you peace and just the right stones to stack.

69

This does not speak to your point, but what evidence do you have that Kimberly Leach was beaten to death with a baseball bat? Would you provide a link to that bit of information?

More directly to your point, I believe those Christians who would condemn the innocent are mistaken. But then, I don’t believe that anyone is condemned to hell.

I have no beef with Christianity. I am impatient with many Christians, including myself.

70

[QUOTE=Beaucarnea]
I assumed that your question was hypothetical, as you and I both know that evidence of primitive cultures will not be eradicated completely so long as we continue to preserve it in museums.
[/QUOTE]

Okay. Let’s assume that people fail to preserve it in museums. How does this mean that religious proselytizing results in the complete destruction fo indigenous cultures?

So you’re saying that missionary work will cause cause some people to voluntarily give up certain native customs. Let’s grant that to be true. How is this logically equivalent to your much grander claim that it is equivalent to “erasing all traces of indigenous culture and habits”?

And if you had merely claimed that missionary work can potentially displace religious folklore, nobody here would dispute that. That wasn’t your claim, though. You specifically said that it erases “all traces of indigenous culture and habits” (emphasis added). Moreover, as I’ve pointed out before, “indigenous culture and habits” go far beyond “religious folklore” and religious beliefs.

But your claim wasn’t merely that missionary work influences a person’s life. Rather, your assertion was that it wipes out native cultures, replacing it with the culture of those evil missionaries. With all due respect, I do not believe that any of your statements sustantiate that claim.

I think I see what’s happening here. I’ve asked you to defend your original claim that “indigenous cultures and habits” are being wiped out, leaving nary a trace. Instead, you instead choose to defend a weaker claim–namely that Christianity has broad influence in a person’s life. Nobody would dispute the latter statement, but it is by no means equivalent to the former.

71

[QUOTE=GuyNblueJeans]
I wish Christianity made more sense. If you ask many Christians about sin being forgiven and frame it in a certain way, they’ll astonish you. For example. If you say to them, What if the crazed serial killer Ted Bundy asked for forgiveness before he was electricuted, they’d say he’s in heaven. And so what about in the case of one of his victims, Kimberly Leach (a 12-year-old he beat to death with a baseball bat)? They’ll say she could well be in hell if she rejected the word of God.
[/QUOTE]

And THAT is why I reject the traditional hardline Evangelical model in favor of
Restorationism/Hopeful Universalism- I uphold Jesus as Lord, Savior & the Only Source of Eternal Life, but I also give Him enough credit to be fair & good enough to give every soul every possible opportunity to turn to Him, in this life or the next. That does not mean that everyone will do so, but they won’t be able to say they never got a fair chance.

I also hold that truly reborn Christians who had committed horrible crimes before will
in their entrance into Christ’s Glory also taste a bit of what He suffered for their sins,
and that will be the most terrible & yet most redeeming experience of their Christian
life.

72

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
) only know the cure for your own spiritual woe (and most people don’t even know that). Not picking on you, Thunder–this is just a perfect example (and** FriarTed’s**) of the arrogance I posted about.

[/QUOTE]

Don’t forget Jesus’s arrogance- He’s the one who got the whole ball rolling.

73

My main beef with Christianity is the same as with most other big religions: it’s that they treat their beliefs as ‘untouchable’, as assumed to be automatically right. Somehow, of all the personal beliefs in the world, religion managed to make their personal beliefs out of bounds. In fact, a lot of times merely suggesting that they might be wrong is grounds for anger and hatred, not a discussion.

People don’t want me talking to kids about not believing in god, cuz ‘they’re still learning and it could hurt them’. But it’s perfectly ok to fill their heads with invisible people up in the sky who love you and will send you to burn forever if you do anything on this list here. People who quite happily quote the good parts of the bible to me in defense of their beliefs don’t want to hear it when I quote the bad parts back to them. I can’t count the number of times I hear ‘Well thats just what I believe’, and somehow that means that the dicussion is over and they win. It’s astounding how much slack religious belief is given in American society.

74

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
And there is that smug arrogance–right there. How does anyone KNOW the cure for spiritual woe?
[/QUOTE]
That’s a good question, but it’s irrelevant. Let’s say that these missionaries are mistaken… that they don’t really know what the spiritual cure is. At worst, this would make them mistaken or foolish. It doesn’t mean that their actions are inherently eveil.

Are you saying that these missionaries are mistaken in their approach?

This assumes that one can only know the spiritual cure for one’s own condition. I see no reason to accept that claim unconditionally.

Moreover, why is it arrogance to claim to know the truth? A great many atheists – including many atheists on this forum – maintain that the world would be better off without religious proselytizing. Some even say that we’d be better off without religion altogether. They claim to know what’s best, not only for themselves, but for the world at large. What an arrogant claim to make!

75

[QUOTE=JThunder]
Moreover, why is it arrogance to claim to know the truth? A great many atheists – including many atheists on this forum – maintain that the world would be better off without religious proselytizing. Some even say that we’d be better off without religion altogether. They claim to know what’s best, not only for themselves, but for the world at large. What an arrogant claim to make!
[/QUOTE]

But how often do we go to isolated cultures and tell them our opinion as if it were truth?

76

[QUOTE=hotflungwok]
My main beef with Christianity is the same as with most other big religions: it’s that they treat their beliefs as ‘untouchable’, as assumed to be automatically right.
[/QUOTE]

What do you mean by “automatically right”? Most Christians that I know claim to offer reasons why they hold their beliefs, just as atheists purport to do. That doesn’t sound like people who believe they are “automatically right.”

77

[QUOTE=hotflungwok]
But how often do we go to isolated cultures and tell them our opinion as if it were truth?
[/QUOTE]
I don’t see how that’s relevant. The atheists here certainly have no problem going on a public forum and declaring that theists are wrong. I don’t see why being an “isolated culture” or not is at all relevant.

Why is it “arrogant” to convey such statements to an “isolated culture,” but not to the world at large? If there’s a logical connection here, I sure don’t see it.

Moreover, the vast majority of missionaries do NOT go to isolated cultures. The overwhelming majority go to nations that have already have substantial contact with other cultures (e.g. India, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan). At best, your objection – if it were reasonable – would only apply to a tiny majority of Christian missionaries, and an infinitesimal minority of Christians in general.

78

I don’t have a problem with God, it’s His followers that scare me!

79

Did you ever see that movie “Off Limits?” Dix says it better than I could: You’re floatin’ in a big sea of shit and instead of just stayin’ in the boat, no, you reach out and you pick up this one little turd and you say “This turd, well THIS turd pisses me off. I’m gonna do somethin’ about THIS turd!”

I mean, after you mention all the killing done in the name of Christianity, why bother discussing all the other turds?

80

[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
At any rate, out-and-out bribery of the form “If you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, then we’ll give you this medicine” doesn’t seem to me to be what happens. Rather, I imagine, the missionary sets up shop and gives things out indiscriminately, for the good of the community. In return, the community tolerates his presence, listens to what he has to say, allows him to set up a church and a sort of Sunday School, whatever. Neither part of this seems so bad; the first part is downright helpful, and the second part is no worse than what goes down in every town in your average Christian country.

[/QUOTE]

Why do you feel that injecting modern technology into a primitive society is “for the good of the community?” Indigenous cultures live, hunt, sleep, and multiply without modern technology. They thrive in the absence of guns, modern medicine, and underpants. The objects carried in by the missionaries force dependence on modern culture. The objects carried are selected specifically to persuade the natives to interact with the missionaries. Until the arrival of missionaries and the enforcement of Genesis 3:7, the natives were not naked. Prior to the arrival of missionaries and their virus, there was no need for immunizations and vaccines. Each indigenous tribe had a lively, colorful culture before Christian ceremony and mythology displaced it.

[QUOTE=Zoe]

There are others who may feel that God is responsible, but cling to the belief that “All things work together for the good.” In that case, they wouldn’t want to “blame” God.

[/QUOTE]

Oh, Zoe- I don’t feel lost at all. I am at ease with this world including both suffering and its victories. I have no problem applying natural law to childhood cancers, heinous crimes, natural disasters, etc. I don’t need a devil to shake my fist at, or to rail against when a loved one falls ill. But I could no more credit God with the beauty of a rainbow than I could blame him for the flood that preceded it.

I understand how a sense of a divine benevolent presence comforts Christians. What I don’t understand is how God is routinely glorified for triumphs even while losses are allowed to slide. Most of the time it appears to me that the Lord is a fair weather friend. Same ol’ argument- I’ve said nothing original here. And I wouldn’t dare ask someone on shaky religious ground to justify their faith- I only brought up the point here because I know that there are Christians like you who are so well-seated in their faith that they (you) can offer me some clarity. I respect your input, and even while I am certain that many live at peace in the absence of religion; I appreciate the peace you have found through worship. Thank you for providing your experience.

[QUOTE=JThunder]

So you’re saying that missionary work will cause cause some people to voluntarily give up certain native customs. Let’s grant that to be true. How is this logically equivalent to your much grander claim that it is equivalent to “erasing all traces of indigenous culture and habits”?
And if you had merely claimed that missionary work can potentially displace religious folklore, nobody here would dispute that. That wasn’t your claim, though. You specifically said that it erases “all traces of indigenous culture and habits” (emphasis added). Moreover, as I’ve pointed out before, “indigenous culture and habits” go far beyond “religious folklore” and religious beliefs.

[/QUOTE]

That is such a smug and dismissive tone to take: “certain native customs”. What missionaries insist on disposing of is native culture. (I won’t insult you by providing a dictionary link to the definition of “culture”) Artwork depicting other gods is merely *native custom * to you because due to your beliefs “other gods” = idolatry. JThunder you are dismissing a people’s Religion. Forcing them to restrict their habits on the one day each week that Christians have designated as holy can impact their livelihood. Native social habits are replaced with Christian ceremony. In spite of Eve’s apple munching, native nudity does not equal sin and sex- clothing is restrictive, hot, and unnecessary to a tribe who lives in a tropical climate. For hundreds of years natives determined that a penis gourd was sufficient protection from the elements but missionaries insisted that a Dukes of Hazard t-shirt will better please the Lord. Native culture is entirely displaced by modern Christian culture save its historical artifacts, and many of those are destroyed in the interest of removing false idols.

I haven’t changed my position one bit. Your own words (though patronizing and condescending with respect to native religious practice) are admission that native culture is displaced with Christian culture. You appear to be in agreement with me, even while taking that dismissive tone with regards to the importance of “certain native customs”.

[QUOTE=JThunder]
I don’t see how that’s relevant. The atheists here certainly have no problem going on a public forum and declaring that theists are wrong. I don’t see why being an “isolated culture” or not is at all relevant.

Why is it “arrogant” to convey such statements to an “isolated culture,” but not to the world at large? If there’s a logical connection here, I sure don’t see it.

Moreover, the vast majority of missionaries do NOT go to isolated cultures. The overwhelming majority go to nations that have already have substantial contact with other cultures (e.g. India, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Sudan). At best, your objection – if it were reasonable – would only apply to a tiny majority of Christian missionaries, and an infinitesimal minority of Christians in general.
[/QUOTE]

Well, have at it. Back that up. If you are concerned with souls, specifically, then why save your proselytizing for indigenous people or other countries? There are members on this board who practice Judaism, members who follow the teachings of the Buddha, and members who practice Wicca. Are their souls worth less than that of the natives who practice (your words) religious folklore? Then why not set your cap to convert them? Go ahead- disrespect their belief systems, their upbringing, their culture, and their intelligence, and convert them. No need to collect money for plane tickets or risk malaria- if you believe so strongly that mission work is divinely commanded in Matthew 28:19, apply it right now to your intellectual peers. Why discriminate against the modern and educated? Aren’t all equally in need of conversion and salvation?