This is part of an ongoing series that will be posted each Monday. You can read the introduction to this series by clicking here.

Time once again for Monday School – STILL “The Rational Corrective To All That Nonsense They Tried To Teach You On Sunday.”

Today’s Lesson: Ten Things To Ask Christians

Question #1: There are many varieties of Christianity – what makes you think your variety is the right one?

Consider: The Bible gives contradictory accounts of Jesus’s life and mission. The Jesus of the Bible repeatedly contradicts himself (e.g., he urges both love and hate, violence and non-violence, embracing the Law and abandoning the Law, preaching to everyone and preaching just to the Jews). Jesus himself is quoted as saying that he purposely spoke in parables to confuse people. The letters of Paul often contradict the teachings of Jesus. Peter and James in turn seem to have disagreed with Paul.

Exactly what is required for salvation (faith? belief? baptism? works?) is extremely muddled. The history of Christianity is full of vociferous disagreements among Christians themselves on this and other issues. Basic doctrine has repeatedly changed within individual denominations (e.g., the Catholic Church which once ordered wars and executions is now against war and executions).

More than 1500 Christian sects and denominations exist today. Why belong to one rather than another? Why believe the Baptist who says I’m going to Hell rather than the Jehovah’s Witness who says I’m just going to be annihilated? Why believe either instead of those Mormons who say virtually everyone is going to get to heaven eventually? Why not believe the Catholic nun who assured me that I’m going to get into heaven just because I’m such a good person?

In short: Why should we believe that any Christian knows what the hell he or she is talking about when it comes to religion?

Question #2: How can you believe in Christianity when its basic tenets are so illogical and self-contradictory?

Consider just a few of the contradictions most Christians seem to believe in:

—– A perfect God created an imperfect world, imperfect angels such as Satan, and imperfect human beings

—– Adam should have known the difference between right and wrong and acted appropriately before he ate the Forbidden Fruit which allegedly bestowed Knowledge of Right and Wrong

—– An all-knowing, all-powerful God sent a flood to purge the world of evil people even though He must have known doing so would not achieve the result He intended

—– Mary was a sin-free virgin because a sin-free Jesus couldn’t have been born of a sinner – even though sin-free Mary herself was born of a sinner

—– An all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God couldn’t come up with a better solution than to sacrifice Himself to Himself in order to atone for a situation He Himself created in His Perfection

—– Violating the least bit of Law is the same as violating all of the Law, and the desire to commit adultery is the same thing as actually committing adultery

—– Infinite punishment is a just punishment for finite crimes

—– A perfect God expected a very imperfect means (people, language, the Bible) to convey His allegedly perfect message

—– A perfect God who wanted to convey an allegedly all-important message intended for all mankind wisely chose to give that message to one small, ancient group of people when He could have given it to everyone directly

—– The Jews deserve to be harshly condemned for killing Jesus even though the death of Jesus was the greatest good the world has ever known

Summing up the logic of the Christian mindset, Tertullian famously said “I believe because it is absurd.” Centuries later, Martin Luther vigorously attacked reason as Christianity’s mortal enemy. They knew Christianity couldn’t be logically defended. Why in the world should one believe in that which cannot be logically defended? If we’re going to believe in things because they are absurd, why shouldn’t we invent and believe in a religion that’s even more absurd than Christianity?

Question #3: Paul allegedly encountered Jesus in a vision. Other major figures in Christian history have based their beliefs on similar visions (as well as on dreams, voices only they could hear, and other unusual events). Do you believe things such as visions provide a firm enough basis on which to base a life philosophy?

Why? Why would an all-powerful God choose to communicate with us in one of the few ways that can easily be mistaken for madness? On what basis might one believe that the visions of Christians are true but the visions of non-Christians are false or “of the devil”?

Question #4: How can you believe in something for which there is no empirical evidence?

There’s no evidence that any God exists; that the Christian God exists; that heaven or hell exist; that the soul exists; that an afterlife of any kind exists; that angels exist; that dead people rise from the dead; that anyone ever walked on water; that any ancient demigod was ever born of a virgin; that what we believe matters in the least to any God; etc. etc. etc. Why believe in any of this stuff without a shred of proof or supporting evidence? Why believe in the Christian version of this stuff rather than the Jewish version, the Islamic version, or the Hindu version? Why not just make up anything we want and believe that’s the truth instead?

Question #5: How can you believe in something that empirical evidence refutes?

The Bible quotes Jesus as saying repeatedly and in a variety of ways that he’d be back “soon.” Well, “soon” ended about 1900 years ago. The Bible quotes Jesus as saying that those who believe in him can drink any poisonous thing without harm. They can’t. He’s quoted as saying that his followers will get anything they pray for (Mark 11:23-24). They don’t. He said that his followers shouldn’t worry about the morrow – that God would surely take care of them and their needs as surely as He takes care of the needs of the much less important lilies of the field. Alas, even the most ardent believers in Jesus who take no thought of the morrow starve to death while those lilies of the field endure. Given these conclusive disproofs of what Jesus said about things we can test, why should we believe anything he had to say about things we can’t test? Given modern disproofs of the creation story, the flood story, the Tower of Babel story and many others in the Old Testament, why should we believe anything the Bible says just because the Bible says it?

Question #6: Why do you believe Christianity came from God when virtually everything associated with it existed long before Jesus was ever born?

Claims of virgin births were common in the ancient world. So were tales of a man whose father was a god and whose mother was a mortal woman. Many of these men allegedly worked miracles. Some were considered saviors capable of bestowing eternal life on those who believed in them. Why should we believe anything as derivative as Christianity to be uniquely true? Why accept Christianity but reject the very similar belief systems which predated it?

Question #7: Do you believe Christians are more moral than other people? Why?

Research shows that Christians are no more likely to be good than are non-Christians. Some research indicates that they’re actually less likely to be good. If Christianity is true or the best religion, how can this be?

Question #8: Christianity has repeatedly inspired great evil over the course of the last 2000 years. Why do you choose to embrace such a demonstrably dangerous belief system?

Historians like William Manchester have described Christianity as one of the bloodiest, most violent-prone religions in all of human history. He and others have pointed out that Christians themselves have killed more Christians in one day than the Romans killed over the course of hundreds of years. Even if modern Christianity is relatively peaceful, what makes you think it will stay that way? Given its detachment from empirical evidence and logic, what is there to keep Christians from launching whatever new Crusades, Inquisitions, and witch hunts they want and then justifying them with the same arguments used by prior Christians?

The Bible quotes Jesus as saying that good trees cannot give bad fruit and that bad trees ought to be rejected and destroyed (Matthew 7:16-20). Christianity has produced some of the worst fruit in all of human history – shouldn’t it be rejected as bad according to the standards of its own founder? Why do you embrace, fertilize, protect, propagate, and rest in the shade of such a terrible tree instead?

Question #9: Most varieties of Christianity teach that people are inherently evil, that this world is evil, and that Doomsday will be a good thing. Do you really think this view of things is helpful rather than dangerous?

If we believe others are inherently evil and will remain evil no matter what they do, what incentive do they have not to be bad? If we believe this world is evil, beyond hope, and merely a stepping stone to a better afterlife, what incentive do we have to respect, cherish, and work to improve this world? If Doomsday is such a good thing, why should anyone work to prevent it? Why shouldn’t we work instead to bring it about? Many devout Jews and Christians are. Doesn’t that scare you? If not, why not?

Question #10: Christianity places more value on subjective feelings/revelations, faith, dogma, and theocracy than it places on objective scientific knowledge, reason, doubt, and democracy. Do you really believe that’s a good thing??

Given the many bad things that have sprung from the former and the many good things that have sprung from the latter, please thoroughly explain any “Yes” answer.