Why I find Christianity dangerous to the human mind

[steve293000]

Your rash and unwarranted embrace of absolute certainty in metaphysical matters has been duly noted.

Oh, is there a list?

 

[steve293000]

I'm saying I haven't noticed anything like that on the forums. Not even close.

Ummm, oooookkaaaaayyy.

 

[CG Didymus]

No, but that is a very different situation. I think you have run off the track a fair bit there. What I said remains true and is taught to most Catholic kids.

I do not think that Muslims or Christians are evil, that was an unfortunate projection on your part. FYI I think most people are lovely. Nor was I generalising - I just gave a breif account of my own experience.

When I was about six, I put my feet up on the pew because I was afraid that the floor might open up and there would be a slide down to hell. And, I don't think Jews are taught how evil and sinful they are. So where did Christians get it from?

So poor Christians, not some, not most, but all of them. Before Jesus, they were lost, empty, spiritually dead in their sins. Now they are alive and have the Holy Spirit living inside them, yet they still sin. They still turn away from the Truth. They are still weak and hopelessly unable to do what's right... Like being kind, loving, humble, caring people. They'd rather tell everybody how evil and wrong they are in their beliefs.

 

[gsa]

Why do you think God owes you the prevention of the consequences of your own choices? That defeats the point of creating beings with moral agency.

Moral agency is only intelligible if the moral actor has sufficient information to make moral decisions. Yet we find that there is a stunning lack of certainty or clarity when we confront true ethical dilemmas. Your God could have chosen any number of ways to clearly communicate the standards, and could have supplied us with appropriate guidance in the bible that would have proved prescient and demonstrated his omnipotence and omniscience. He could have written a moral code into the soil of the moon, for example, or he could have included instructions on euthanasia, same-sex marriage, hell the morality of violence on television!

Yet your omniscient creator God chose to deliver his message through people with a mindset that make the Taliban look morally and scientifically advanced. In your case, also through a thoroughly corrupt institutional church that has a ghastly history of indecency, even using their own asserted moral standards. In light of science and reason, we have no reason to accept the claims of your religion, and every reason to reject them. The case against Christianity and the other revealed religions is simply too strong to ignore.

And we certainly find the world of humanity filled with moral degradation. Is it really misanthropic to acknowledge that there is a side to humanity that's very ugly, and that there's a little bit of that ugliness inside every one of us? I do not assert that humans on the whole are irredeemably corrupt and evil. In fact, quite the opposite. But we must acknowledge the reality of human immorality from the trivial to the horrific.

Yet we lack any evidence that any human tendency towards this "ugliness" (by which I assume you mean a certain level of immorality) is the consequence of decisions made by two progenitors, as opposed to the byproduct of natural selection over millions of years. Indeed, it would appear that our "tendency to sin" is shared by most primates. So what if I acknowledge it? There are entirely naturalistic explanations for it, and there's a tremendous amount of evidence that there was no harmonious period before the supposed "Fall of Man." It is at best a poorly conceived "mythic" parable for premodern peoples who conjured up stories around campfires while they shivered and peered into the dark unknown world they could not explain.

It's important to recognise our relative insignificance, helplessness, and the fact that God doesn't owe us anything.

All of which would be more consistent with deism than theism, much less Christianity.

However, developing a neurotic self-hatred and refusing to see the good in people and the world is contrary to Christian principles. In fact it's arguably sinful. Christianity is a message of hope, that there is an ultimate good in this world and that good loves you and has a plan for your eternal happiness if you choose to accept it.

Followed by a gnashing of teeth in eternal hellfire should you choose to ignore it. The loosey goosey "eternal separation from God re-interpretation doesn't diminish the substantial history of the Christian tradition of "turn or burn."

 

[Augustus]

It is at best a poorly conceived "mythic" parable for premodern peoples who conjured up stories around campfires while they shivered and peered into the dark unknown world they could not explain.

Or it is a mythic allegory outlining a pretty accurate statement about the flawed nature of humanity that is still of relevance to modern humans sitting in their centrally heated houses peering into a dark unknown world they cannot explain.

 

[gsa]

Or it is a mythic allegory outlining a pretty accurate statement about the flawed nature of humanity that is still of relevance to modern humans sitting in their centrally heated houses peering into a dark unknown world they cannot explain.

Not at all, because it assumes a harmonious, non-flawed state (a mythic "Paradise"). We know that state did not exist, and that whatever flaws humanity has are an essential part of being human. Quite the opposite of the Just So story recorded in Genesis.

 

[Willamena]

Based on what I have seen and have experienced, Christianity's main goal is to wound their followers, then blame them for limping, and then offer an option of forgiveness for their weakness.

The wound, the guilt, and the weakness are Christianity, rather than something Christianity does.

 

[gsa]

The wound, the guilt, and the weakness are Christianity, rather than something Christianity does.

I think it is more like a proposed cure in search of an illness. First you describe humanity as mired in a wretched, fallen, sinful state, and then propose to reconcile humanity with God by introducing a sacrificial lamb. I think that it wounds by instilling a sense of "brokenness," along with guilt and weakness. By deception, in other words.

 

[Willamena]

I think it is more like a proposed cure in search of an illness. First you describe humanity as mired in a wretched, fallen, sinful state, and then propose to reconcile humanity with God by introducing a sacrificial lamb. I think that it wounds by instilling a sense of "brokenness," along with guilt and weakness. By deception, in other words.

People don't have Christianity happen to them. It's something they are.

 

[Kolibri]

I think it is more like a proposed cure in search of an illness. First you describe humanity as mired in a wretched, fallen, sinful state, and then propose to reconcile humanity with God by introducing a sacrificial lamb. I think that it wounds by instilling a sense of "brokenness," along with guilt and weakness. By deception, in other words.

the pendulum swings too far to the left, then swings too far to the right. Only when balance sets in do we realize that being Christ-like is a putting to death of our old personality and gaining great freedom of speech with God due to being able to stand before him with a clean conscience.

Where is guilt when we are honestly living as he asked to the best of our ability? If we stumble, we accept correction and get up. No need to wallow in guilt that has lost it's purpose of telling us we need to change. It happens, but we are urged to remember that God's thoughts are higher than our own. It is his view of us personally that matters - when our hearts are being overly punitive or excessively lax.

 

[Thana]

Do you have anything useful to add or are you just trolling. These are actual points being made. I guess since you haven't refuted them that means you can't because they are true.

I did refute them, I countered that we are not weak, that we are sinful and that we have free will. I used examples and analogies to explain, Whereas the only other evidence being presented in this debate is anecdotes. And I'm expected to then be fine with people using anecdotes to condemn the whole of Christianity, the whole of my religion.

I get so tired of people sometimes.

Fine, fine.
Christianity is bad for everyone and we should just get rid of it, I mean I don't have any evidence for this but I'll just create a thread and assert it's factual anyway. Then I'll ignore anyone who disagrees with me and let everyone know I've ignored them and that they should ignore them too, because, you know, I'm mature and stuff.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

I think that's one of the deep things that brought me away from Christianity. When I went to Church I almost felt I should live in the confessional. I think I was sinning more while I was practicing than when I wasn't.

Christianity in general is damaging when some Christians feel the need to save people they feel they know is going to hell. All through history, its been one version of this to another.

If Christianity taught that we don't have a sinful nature, and that developing a relationship with Christ would be like a child would his/her parent, then whatever they do wrong they would want to be forgiven rather than feel guilty they they have not asked.

Some denominations don't believe in the sinful nature thing. I think you mentioned the Jews don't either? Where did that come from? Probably government control?

Based on what I have seen and have experienced, Christianity's main goal is to wound their followers, then blame them for limping, and then offer an option of forgiveness for their weakness.

I would like to start with a quick look into Genesis and original sin. God created all the cosmos, the apple, the nature of Adam and Eve, even the serpent in the garden. He could have done anything to help stop the fall of man but chose not to. Then he decided to hold this against us in order to threaten us with eternal darkness. This is like the police charging targets of a serial killer for protection because it is the potential victim's fault.

Even if we look past original sin, Christianity relies on the idea that humanity is sinful and degraded, that God should not even love us but does anyways, and that human beings cannot stand on their own. There are supernatural forces out there we need defense from, not to mention sin that needs to be forgiven, and weak human beings cannot accomplish anything without God.

I had a friend who used to speak all the time about how he was a disgusting and unloveable abomination, that we all were, and that there was no reason for even God to love us. We are like weak and blind children who need a helping hand around every corner, yada yada yada. It was two years before I realized he was a pastor and didn't have clinical depression! It has been discussed here before about the psychological harm caused by Christianity, and I certainly think there is a lot to it. If a regular parent taught their kid that they are inherently evil and don't deserve love, child protective services would take the child away. Yet when it comes to the parent / child relationship of Christianity teaching otherwise is the wrong thing to do.

 

[Augustus]

Not at all, because it assumes a harmonious, non-flawed state (a mythic "Paradise"). We know that state did not exist, and that whatever flaws humanity has are an essential part of being human. Quite the opposite of the Just So story recorded in Genesis.

No, as an allegory, it is tells you that humanity is fundamentally flawed and that we cannot overcome these limitations. A simple cautionary tale that many have forgotten throughout history to great societal harm. Still can't see what is wrong with it as an allegory.

 

[Sirona]

Have you heard about ecclesiogenic neuroses? That's the term for mental problems caused by the church.

http://www.researchgate.net/publica..._communities_between_tradition_and_pleuralism

I may still learn something, but the only proven correlation between mental illness and Christianity I am aware of is an Australian study on Jehovah’s Witnesses. How representative they are for Christianity is in the eye of the beholder.

British journal of psychiatry 1975 Jun;126:556-9.

The mental health of Jehovah's Witnesses.
Spencer, J.

... The present study of 50 Jehovah's Witnesses admitted to the Mental Health Service facilities of Western Australia suggests that members of this section of the community are more likely to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital than the general population ....

The mental health of Jehovah's Witnesses. - PubMed - NCBI

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

It is not a Christian practice to teach your child anything about god other than He loves and you and to show them cute cartoon movies about noah's ark and let them colour in a picture of Jesus walking a donkey. No one tells their kids that they're weak and disgusting except bad parents.

And yet God himself, supposedly the greatest FATHER (read parent) of all time supposedly inspired the ideas and texts supporting the ideas that His children ARE weak and disgusting. Didn't you say something about "bad parents"?

By the way, God, where's my picture of Jesus walking the donkey?! I've got a brand new set of crayons I have just been itching to break open...

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I'm predicting that the response will include something about not being able to compare or liken God to an actual "parent". That His ways are sometimes mysterious at times, or some such, and that He's always acting for the greater good, so to try and make sense of Him in mortal/human terms is ridiculous.

Except that Christians use the whole comparison to "parent" (yes, comparisons to human parent(s)) for God ALL THE TIME. I guess it is only applicable when the comparison is to the positive aspects of His parenting skills for some reason. Part of the "mystery", I suppose.

 

[Smart_Guy]

Um, did you by any chance mean "human kind" instead of "mind"?

 

[paarsurrey]

Based on what I have seen and have experienced, Christianity's main goal is to wound their followers, then blame them for limping, and then offer an option of forgiveness for their weakness.

I would like to start with a quick look into Genesis and original sin. God created all the cosmos, the apple, the nature of Adam and Eve, even the serpent in the garden. He could have done anything to help stop the fall of man but chose not to. Then he decided to hold this against us in order to threaten us with eternal darkness. This is like the police charging targets of a serial killer for protection because it is the potential victim's fault.

Even if we look past original sin, Christianity relies on the idea that humanity is sinful and degraded, that God should not even love us but does anyways, and that human beings cannot stand on their own. There are supernatural forces out there we need defense from, not to mention sin that needs to be forgiven, and weak human beings cannot accomplish anything without God.

I had a friend who used to speak all the time about how he was a disgusting and unloveable abomination, that we all were, and that there was no reason for even God to love us. We are like weak and blind children who need a helping hand around every corner, yada yada yada. It was two years before I realized he was a pastor and didn't have clinical depression! It has been discussed here before about the psychological harm caused by Christianity, and I certainly think there is a lot to it. If a regular parent taught their kid that they are inherently evil and don't deserve love, child protective services would take the child away. Yet when it comes to the parent / child relationship of Christianity teaching otherwise is the wrong thing to do.

The above is true about Paul's Christianity.
It has nothing to do with Jesus who never believed these tenets.

Regards