If Christianity is man made, why does everything about it go against man’s desires? Does Christianity go against man’s desires? If so, is that evidence for Christianity? I answer this question, discussing the history of Christianity, the cognitive science of religion, Buddhism, Jainism, Islam, and more.
The whole “atheists can’t answer this question” and “atheists can’t explain this” thing is really getting old.
Because Paul was a vulnerable/covert narcissist, which is characterized in part by a focus on shame and unworthiness.
People with this personality talk about themselves significantly more than other people do in their writing.
Paul’s undisputed letters have him talking about himself way more than the other letters, to the point other contemporary people even appear to have commented on it. As he wildly varies from “I’m the least of the apostles” to “I’m not less than the greatest.”
Literally the pre-Pauline attitude in Corinth is “everything is permissible for me” which was in line the with apocryphal attitude that you shouldn’t pray, fast, or give alms and should just be honest and not do the things you hate, and to focus on self-discovery as the religion owes you and not the other way around.
The problem is Paul’s the most influential figure in what survived, including his reversal of “everything is permissible” or his push back on the reluctance to allow religious officials to profiteer, which ultimately led to a religion that looks exactly like what you’d expect from a vulnerable narcissist figurehead.
THANK YOU. I’m glad that I’m not the only person in this world who’ve read the new testament and come up with this conclusion.
This is really interesting, I’d love to read / listen to more about this, do you have any resources?
For every apologist that goes:
If Christianity is a man made religion then why does it go against man’s desires?
There is another that says:
God wrote his morality into our hearts, and since some biblical commandments align with our morality, that means the Bible is true
Make up your minds, folks.
That’s why the belief of the devil is so convenient for a lot of Christians.
Everything deemed good relative to their current social barometer is obviously from God, and everything they think is bad is from Satan.
And if you point out that the concept of Satan effectively arose from a lazy editor rewriting a polytheistic tale under monotheistic reform and that a deity of light having an adversary makes no sense as light’s anti-particle is just itself, you get the quintessentially Christian “well I don’t know about that” or “I’ll have to ask my pastor about that.”
To which the best you can do is offer up Upton Sinclair’s famous quote to fall on deaf ears: “Do not expect a man to understand a thing that his paycheck depends on him not understanding.”
The primary desire, from the people who invented religion, is to control other people.
So, in that regard, it very much is fulfilling mans desires.
Ok, well then what about your average adherents? Yup, them too. They very much want to be able to control what other people do, and since organized religion enables that, of course they’re down with it.
The problem with the question is the asker doesn’t comprehend what the basis of religion and “mans desires” actually is.
Easy. Cuz it doesn’t. You’re promising everlasting happiness if u do what you’re told. That’s exactly in line with mans desires of being rewarded and feeling good about them selves.
Christianity is ONLY the belief that Jesus was a Messiah. That’s it.
“Thou shall not kill” - God
“What!? But that goes against my base desires!” - A “christian”
Most people have no trouble following Christianitys rules, and if you struggle without Sky Daddy watching your every move, maybe your a bad person.
i dunno. the whole glutony thing. the orgies thing. those can be kinda fun until you’re fat and have more STD’s than are known to medical science.
the reality is religion- including Christianity- is a form of social control. the rules were established specifically to control people. men, sure. but women especially.
Christianity specifically was also an amalgamation of a lot of other popular myths and religions of the time, as well as the appropriation of various popular pagan rituals like Saturnalia (Xmas), Samhain (Halloween), and Oestara (Easter). Many of the saints fall under this too.
Social control + wrangling popular myths/legends/etc = the most perfectly profitable control mechanism for roughly 2000 years
Religion has definitely been coopted for control, but the 10 commandments, and most of Jesus teachings are not really controversial or controlling (The arent progressive in todays terms, but for their time I think they are very reasonable).
The layers of bullshit that has been built on top certainly is controlling.
The whole adultery thing isn’t controlling?
Marriage required recognition by a priest. All sex must happen inside the union if a marriage.
They were literally controlling who had kids with whom.
The whole theft thing protected the rich way more than it did the poor.
The “worship none one beside me” was also about keeping people from leaving.
Murder was about maintaining stability. Remember, murder is the unjustified killing of another. Who do you think was better at justifying it with a little bribe?
But all of that is besides the point that religion vastly predates the Ten Commandments. The only reason that they’re not “progressive” was because as a basic moral code, they’ve been around longer than Moses.
Oh, and forget the whole store of the exile from Egypt and stuff. That’s all justification for genociding their neighbors.
Moving beyond the 10 commandments which are far from the only religious law… ancient Judaism was extremely controlling. Off the top of my head:
- men had to get part of their dick removed
- women had to wear long hair, but cover it
- you could only eat certain foods, at certain times, with certain people
- micromanaging rest days to the extreme.
- the kind of fabrics your clothes were made from
There’s a lot more there. And there’s a reason for that. By making it so restrictive, and threatening eternal damnation, it ensures people do what you tell them to do, and there’s plenty of people that- as ardent believers- are terrified and will do all kinds of stupid shit to stay in god’s good graces.
If all stds were cured, would there still be such a stigma attached to sexual promiscuity? Religion has always suggested getting a sexual disease is gods punishment for debaucherous behaviour.
dunno. probably. It’s not like religion has a monopoly on prudishness- there will always be “not enough” weirdos and the “far too much” weirdos. (and then all the people who are too-normal, also being weirdos. Okay so I think humans are weirdos by default.)
STD and unwanted pregnancy
Sex besides and before marriage and same sex partners are not avoidable desires like killing
As someone who grew up in the bible belt, who had too many questions for the Lutheran church and was asked to leave.
I could not reconcile the Church’s desire to HARM people that weren’t a part of it. Jesus was a love all hippy from THEIR scriptures.
Supply Side Jesus is anathema to actual christian practice.
Hence, I parted from the church, and found my own way. It took more effort than listening to a pontificating asshole to achieve, but I’m comfortable with my beliefs. The struggle, the pain, the blood, the tears. All worth it.
For reference, I am a Hecatean witch because Trivia visited me on three occasions. More than Jebus has done.
It takes some insane levels of mental gymnastics to go from “Love thy neighbour” to “Let them die if they are poor or brown”.
If more people took your path (spending the time to analyse their own beliefs) the world would be in a lot better place. I was never part of a church, so I didnt have to take the same path, but I appreciate it cant have been easy.
I dont know much about Hecatean or Trivia, but it is refreshing the the “Cult” section on wikipedia doesnt end with “and then they all killed themselves” 😄. From a quick skim (which probably over simplifies it), but it seems fairly chill 🙂.
You mean they have no problem following those rules that are not specific to a religion and are (in some form or another) necessary for a civilized society. But the rules that define Christianity are more or less meaningless to someone not following it, and a lot of Christians are pretty loose about them as well. “No idols”? “No other gods”? “Keep the sabbath holy”? “Don’t use god’s name in vain”?
The “trick” about religions is that they are part necessary rules and customs that keep society going, and then they mix in their own, and that conglomerate keeps people bound to a religion and religions around even in “enlightened” times when people should be aware that those rules are not anything divine.
Essentially yes. The general rules are easy to follow, the more esoteric ones that actual Christians often ignore are also very easy to ignore.
No arguments on your second point either, churches absolutely use the baseline values as a gateway to get people in the door, and then begin layering more control one you are in. Eg. Evangelicals, properity gospels, scientology.
It’s funny how every time they say atheist can’t answer certain question it’s actually easy to answer.
That’s 'cause none of them socialize outside their little church group and never get the chance to test out their ideas
Agree on the “getting old”. It is not my job to justify my belief. If you want to change mine, then you need a good set of arguments.
Can I justify my beliefs? Sufficiently for myself, which is all I care to do.
The whole “atheists can’t answer this question” and “atheists can’t explain this” thing is really getting old.
Especially when it’s just an assumption and they don’t actually ask any atheists.
As a naturalist, the thing I’m particularly annoyed about is it took me fifty years to figure out how to not be an asshole. That leaves me less than half my life to work towards a net positive. (And I’m still producing a fuckton of material waste, just by living.)
Then there’s also the thing about facing pollution as a great filter, and if somehow the species survives that one, a dozen or so other great filters stand between us and sustainable colonies on other worlds. If we die off, the universe won’t even blink.
It’s nice to be able to imagine we’re God’s favorite, that our species is special, and even that God has personal interest in me. (This is not consistent with the entire Abrahamic narrative, though it is a major Evangelical selling point, and is believed by millions of Evangelical parishioners.)
We’re not God’s favorite. Even the earth, The aggregate of our joy and suffering is an infinitesimal speck, tiny and lost in an unfeeling universe. No one watches. No one cares. No one will care when the last human perished from famine or the elements.
And crawling on the planet’s face
Some insects called the human race
Lost in time, lost in space
And meaning.So when it comes to grokking bad news, I’m pretty sure naturalism has Christianity beat.
Well, yes an no. We watch, we care, we exist a most importantly, we know to exist. That alone make us quite fking special. We may actually be one the rarest state of matter in the whole universe, “thinking matter”. That’s quite something in my book.
Sure! A lot of atheists find spiritual satisfaction in just having lived, or in finding our connection to stars and to the beginning of the universe. But modern Christianity promises immortality and purpose. Granted, it doesn’t match well with the material world as we understand it, but it’s a comforting myth they need.
(Curiously, it also promises forgiveness, as if the typical Christian has engaged in war profiteering or marketed Fentanyl or let their workers perish in a burning factory. I’ve done shitty things, but nothing that might piss off a reasonable god. I suspect this is the case with most folk, so I’m not sure why so many folk are desperate for forgiveness.)
The whole point of absurdism is coming to terms with our mortality and purposeless, to find our own way, or a satisfactory sense of purpose in an existence that doesn’t bear one out.
Part of the path to naturalism is coming to terms with that insignificance, whether it is to acknowledge it and move on, or decide that some aspect of it is significance enough.
As above I agree up to a point. In the end ideas like “significance” and “purposes” are just humans constructs and can ultimately being find in different aspects of someone life, just like “happiness”. Even without a human-centric universe, or any grain of spirituality, we can still see our existence as an “Happy incident” of casuality, and find our own purpose. In some regards, the grandiose promises made by the religions are even “reductive”, compared to what our potential as species can archive. Or we can simply “be” end enjoy our little vacancy away from the entropy in all his many wonderful aspects.
