Many Christians Are Retarded

This post originally appeared as a Guest Post at Godless Mom‘s blogsite.

Many Christians are retarded.

Phew!

That’s a contentious start to this article is it not?

Christians (in fact anyone of any religious stripe) are retarded, and I want to be quite clear that I mean that in the truest sense of the word. I’m not being ‘orrible, I’m not a hater, I’m just stating the truth as I see it.

Think about this. Have you ever had to deal with a recalcitrant child? You have? Good. Then you know how circular the arguments can be when trying to explain why they can’t have another ice cream or yes! It IS time for a bath!

And it’s exactly the same thing with Christians, especially the more moronic subset known as creationists.

Take for instance the bible as proof, which it clearly isn’t. I’ve debated with many, many believers over the validity of the bible as evidence. It’s a single book based on a set of collected texts written many years, in some cases hundreds of years after the ‘fact’ that were collated into a single tome by a committee. Some documents made the editorial and some did not.

S’True. Google the Council of Nicea… The first one in 325AD, not the second in 787AD which was more concerned with which images were holy and stuff, and which were heretical and could earn you a one way trip to being the centre piece of a BBQ.

Anyway, the bible is full of contradictions and there are no, and I do mean NO corroborating documents to back up anything said in the bible. That in itself is reason enough to discount it as a valid historical document.

So then, let’s look at it as a source of morality.

Oh dear. You only have to check out a few snippets from the Old Testament to see how Yahweh is far from the paragon of virtue that the church would have you believe. For instance:

1 Samuel 15:3: “This is what the Lord Almighty says … ‘Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’

”Psalm 137: “Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us / He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”

Exodus 22:18: “Do not allow a sorceress to live.”*

This one is actually a mistranslation, the original was “suffer not a poisoner to live.”

And when presented with this sort of information from their own book, what do Christians do? Simple, they claim that you’re cherry picking, quote mining or taking things out of context. Although, how you can take something as lovely as a command to commit genocide out of context, and add your own spin to make it sound bad is beyond me!

Make either of these points to christians, especially on twitter and they will fail to refute them, normally insult you, tell you that you’re ignorant and then block you… Which is the online equivalent of shouting, “You’re so stooooopid!” storming out and slamming the door behind them.

Remind you of anyone? Like perhaps a toddler having a tantrum.

So, we’ve looked at the bible as a source of historical knowledge and morality and found it to be severely wanting in both respects. How does this apply to my original point? Well gather ye round and let me explain by first asking a question.

What’s the purpose of organised religion?

It isn’t to provide spiritual guidance. It isn’t to provide comfort to the needy. It’s all about power, money and control. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how rich all of the religions are, or how many adherents they have, or even how much of a hand they have in political decision making in many countries around the world.

And what’s the best way to keep all of those lovely things? Simple, by keeping the masses in a childlike state, at least in terms of religious ideology. So much easier to control the thoughts, actions and purse strings, if you’ve managed to convince your followers that they need you to do their thinking for them, not to question and certainly not to leave. Especially if you can use the threat of eternal damnation to keep them in line.

The easiest way to do all of this is to catch ‘em while they’re young and emotionally immature… Then keep them there. Over the centuries, the various churches have become adept at brainwashing the masses. You only have to watch Ken Hamm at work on one of his young audiences to see a true expert at work. After all, beliefs instilled during childhood are the hardest to divest yourself of. An indoctrinated population is a lucrative population.

What’s the difference between a Christian and an Atheist?

The Atheist grew up!