Is my Godless Evangelism too Close to Fred Phelps-ism?

It like your comments on whether my Godless Evangelism has gone too far. My weekend activities ended up with a couple of very angry Catholic Priests calling the police.

I’m interested in social psychology, especially when it involves religion. I’m hoping to start an MA in the subject at an online university that may eventually lead to a Ph.D. I’m specifically interested in why religious belief has a free pass in society. My theory is that just as genes are analogous to memes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme as biological and cultural replicators, the biological phenomena known as ‘allelopathy’ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allelopathy, where plants emit toxins that inhibit the growth of other plants, religion emits ‘toxins’ into the cultural system that ‘inhibit the growth’ of reason by making it ‘uncomfortable’ to dismiss or even question the irrational beliefs.

Anyway, I thought I’d do a social experiment where I ‘plant a seed’ of atheism in ‘soil’ where, one would have thought, it had no chance to ‘grow’. That’s outside a Church after Sunday morning worship.

I made up a sign that said “Hello, I’m and Atheist. Do you have any questions for me?” I had it fit over the roof of my car for three reasons. One is that I thought it looked less intimidating than me holding a sign. http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/02/26/atheist-proselytizing-it-leads-to-boobies/boobies/ The second is that I knew I would be around people that were getting into their cars and I wanted to look as much like them as possible. (I also dressed in my ‘Sunday best’.) The third reason was because I wanted to show off my license plate with my phone number. http://friendlyatheist.com/2009/07/01/an-atheist-license-plate-story-with-a-happy-ending/

My criteria for selecting a church were primarily the size and lavishness of the structure and its subsequent popularity. Secondly, finding a location to park my car and display the sign that was both visually accessible to the congregation, and also legal. I knew parking on the church property was defiantly not appropriate. This turned out to be a more difficult task than one would imagine. However, I found a few, The New Covenant Presbyterian Church, and The Pentecostals of Mandeville.

However, I decided to start with the largest Catholic Church in my community Mary Queen of Peace Church. (Also, due to the recent actions of the Pope, I have a special ‘fondness’ for the Catholic religion.)

I sent the following email to the Pastor, Rev. Ronald L. Calkins and copied Msgr. William Bilinsky, http://www.maryqueenofpeace.org/contact.html : -

Pastor Calkins

I’m an atheist. www.godlessevangelist.com. I’d like to give the people that visit your church the opportunity to hear the alternate point of view

I’m planning on standing outside your church after Sunday mass with a sign that says, “Hello, I’m and Atheist. Do you have any questions for me?” I also have some business cards with contact information and tracts to hand out to anyone that would take them.

I’d like to ask your advice on where I can stand and park my car so I’m not seeming too assertive or violating any laws.

If you would like to meet me prior to the event, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Thanks,

Doug

Doug Stewart

Home: (985) 792-7229

Cell: (504) 676-0536

To his credit, he did get back to me: -

Mr. Stewart,

I have received your e-mail. You are not welcome to be on the church property for the purposes of handing out literature or espousing your views.

Father Ronald Calkins

(Maybe I could have worded my email better but I had no intension of standing or parking on church property.)

I parked my car on the side of the road near the exit of the church’s parking lot. I was acknowledged by, I would guess, the majority of people leaving. Some honked their horns; some slowed down to stare at me and did the sign of the cross on their bodies; and some just waved. I didn’t witness any angry behavior… And then the Priests came out.

Two Priests confronted me, Ronald Calkins and William Bilinsky, (I think), together with two church officials in plain clothes. Ronald Calkins said abruptly, “We want you to leave”. My immediate thought was that there were many things that I ‘want’ as well. (Being massaged with exotic oils by the Los Angeles Laker Cheer Leaders sprang to mind, but I didn’t think that reply would have been appropriate – Besides, they never return my calls.) I, as politely as possible, replied with something like, “well, I’m here because I’m concerned about the power of religion in this country”. (Next time, I’ll remember to record any conversations.) With that, Calkins demeanor changed to what I can only explain as extreme anxiety, frustration and even anger. He’d obviously never experienced such outright disobedience. So much so that he seemed to back off in despair. Bilinsky then took over and said that I can’t be where I was because I was “causing an obstruction”. I agreed with him and asked if there was anywhere he could recommend I park my car. His repeated reply, together with that of Calkins was to just “go away”, “why can’t you go away”, “just go away”. They said it so often that I didn’t even have an opportunity to reply.

Note: This is evidence for the memetic allelopathy of religious belief in culture. Not even the religious leaders themselves know why it exists or how it works; just that society should never confront religion. Why shouldn’t society confront religion? I don’t know, it’s just that society should never confront religion. (Repeat ad infinitum) In the very rare event that religion is confronted, the only defense mechanism is to repeatedly ask that religion not be confronted. (?!?!?!?!)

I was then given the ‘ultimatum’ that if I didn’t “just go away” they would call the police. I agreed. The police car came almost immediately. The officer asked me to stay with my car and spoke to the church officials first. He was with them for about 10 to 15 minutes. Then all the church officials returned to the church and the police officer, who was very congenial and understanding explained to me that even though I wasn’t causing an obstruction, the hard shoulder was reserved for broken down vehicles and I should move, which of course I had no problem with. He even pointed out that if I just pulled forward about 50 feet I could park in the lot of the neighboring business. He also said that he explained to the Priests that I had every right to display a sigh that said just about anything. (Wow! A cop that understands the First Amendment – What a concept!) He took my driving license and returned to his car to run my ID which took what seemed to be nearly half an hour! However, that was a good thing because having a police presence together with a couple of priests and a small crown meant that I had my sign seen by even more people.

My question to you is, am I no better than the Westboro Baptist Church ‘God Hates Fags’ members? I did try to make my sign as civil and unassertive as possible. And I couldn’t have been any more polite. Do you think this is a positive, negative, or neutral reflection on atheism in general? Should I do it again? If so, should I rotate churches and religious denominations? Should I be in a more person-to-person location, like parked in a neighboring lot in order to encourage discussion?

Not meaning to have the arrogance of over exaggerating my actions, but I do believe that there are parallels with the Greensboro Sit-In during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensboro_sit-ins (There are differences in that unlike the Sit-Ins wanted to share the restaurant with white people, I don’t want to ‘share worship’, I want to shine the light of reason on their belief systems to undermine, if not completely irradiate, their supernatural belief.) Note that the four protesters were not heroes to all African Americans. One black woman, a dishwasher behind the counter was heard shouting that they were “stupid, ignorant . . . rabble-rousers, and troublemakers.” (Probably because they risked her loosing her job.) Am I similarly at fault?

P.S. If anyone’s under the impression that evangelizing isn’t imbedded in religious doctrine, I took this picture (see Photo 8) on the exit of a Pentecostal church’s parking lot. I’m thinking of standing next to it with my sign in an attempt to get people to missionize me. Waddya think?

Doug Stewart – “Political Lobbyist”… Eh?

I recently visited Washington DC to attend the ‘Civic Days at the Capital’ event put on by the Center For Inquiry’s Office of Public Policy. The Center for Inquiry advocates for science, reason, freedom of inquiry and humanist values and the Office of Public Policy hosts Civic Days to bring non-believers, secular humanists, and skeptics from across America to Washington DC to engage in citizen lobbying on important issues, and also to have a little fun!

I flew in to DC the afternoon of Saturday April 24^th and met that evening with all the CFI staff over pizza, salad and beer. Matt Sapara, CFI Policy Analyst gave a Welcome to DC presentation, and the Director of Public Policy, Toni Van Pelt gave us an overview of the lobbying we were to be doing the following Tuesday. An added bonus was that a friend I met in New Orleans, Sean Faircloth, the Executive Director of the Secular Coalition for America was in attendance. Sean was the guest of honor at the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association’s 10^th Anniversary Banquet last year.

The following Sunday and Monday were packed full of things to do. With interesting presentations by people such as Maggie Garrett of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, Marissa Brown from the Alliance for Justice, and Dr. Stu Jordan, CFI’s Science Adviser. CFI also had ‘real live politicians’ come speak to us like Doug Crandall, Director of Legislative Affairs for the US Forest Service and now Acting USDA Deputy Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations for the Obama Administration, who told us how Washington really works. (The quote, “There are two things you will never wish to watch: the making of sausage and the making of legislation”, is really true.) Also, the very charismatic, likable, and advocate for church~state separation, Congressman Brian Baird, (D-WA) http://baird.house.gov/ talked about The Importance of Citizen Involvement in Government.

But that was just the half of it. CFI organized a tour at the Smithsonian Museum Hall of Human Origins where I got to meet all my distant cousins, my favorite being ‘Lucy’, otherwise know as Australopithecus Afarensis. It had been about 3.2 million years so we had a lot to catch up on. This was followed by an exhibition in honor of Charles Darwin called The Evolution of Evolution that focused on the significant role that Darwin’s theory has played in explaining and unifying all the biological sciences. The last “museum” I visited was the Creation “Museum” in Kentucky. (I apologize.) Believe me, the science, evidence, reason, and absence of the supernatural in explaining our history was refreshing to say the least.

A very entertaining walking tour was provided by Steve C. Lowe, a Director of the Washington Area Secular Humanists (WASH) on ‘The Great Agnostic’ Robert G. Ingersoll. He was the best-known orator and a political speechmaker of 19th-century America on subjects such as politics, ethics, human freedom, and he spoke against slavery and opposed the Religious Right of his day. Part of the tour involved reciting some of Ingersoll’s quotes. My favorite was “Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If you find any man who believes it, strike his forehead and you will hear an echo. Something is for rent.” Information about the walking tour can be found at http://www.ingersoll.wash.org/.

There was also a guided tour of the Capitol Building, which included both the United States House of Representatives and the Senate. It was quite awe inspiring.

The Monday evening culminated with a formal dinner attended by Dr. R. Elisabeth 'Liz' Cornwell, Executive Director of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. http://richarddawkinsfoundation.%20org/foundation,RDFRSstaff.

Tuesday April 27^th was lobbying day! CFI had previously instructed us on how to set up appointments with the Legislative Offices of our choice. I chose Congressman Steve Scalise, representing the 1^st District of Louisiana, (Northshore, where I live), and Louisiana Senator David Vitter. David Vitter’s office never even acknowledged my emails and voice mails, (hmm?), but I did get an appointment with Scalise’s Legislative Assistant, Caitlin Songy. Assisted by CFI’s Matt Separa we discussed a number of issues, starting with the Louisiana Science Education Act, something dear to my heart, which allows school teachers to teach creationism along side evolution in schools. I tried to point out the national embarrassment that this Bill spotlights on Louisiana. I was told that this was a gubernatorial issue, but I did ask that my impression be conveyed to the Congressman. Other issues ranged from the Faith Based Initiatives to repealing the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy concerning gays in the military. Congressman Scalise has a 100% ‘pro family’ (read ‘pro religion’) voting record, so there is little or no hope of budging his opinion. However, being able to vent my point of view so close to his ear gave me a real sense of achievement.

However, I would say that the highlight of the visit was when I went to the National Archives Building to see the actual Constitution of the United States of America. I approached the Bill of Rights and, leaning over the casing (you’re not allowed to touch the glass), I put on my reading glasses and read out loud, slowly and clearly the complete First Amendment. It bought a tear to my eye. I now have personal proof that it exists! This is in spite of legislation such as that for the engraving of “In God We Trust” at the Capitol Visitor Center. (See Photo 7.) In July 2009, the House and Senate overwhelmingly approved a resolution (Senate by voice vote and in the House by 410-8) to compel the Office of the Architect of the U.S. Capitol to prominently engrave this religious motto at a cost of about $50,000 of tax payers money. In addition to being discriminatory against me, it’s in direct violation of those ten tortured words, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”. Maybe the politicians in Washington should do as I did and read them?

Another Approach to Rebut the Resurrection Story

No doubt you’ve been given the endless drivel of reasons why the resurrection of Jesus Christ was true, the Bible no doubt? Well there’s a book with the credibility of a used car salesman with a crack addiction.

I was recently corresponding with a theologian on the subject and decided on another approach. This is my email. What do you think?

To [Theologian]

I won’t bore you with the multitudes of Biblical contradictions about the resurrection (and everything else for that matter). Just Google, “contradictions in the bible - resurrection” and reach out to your intellectual honesty.

I’d like to approach your belief from the angle of what’s going on in your head. The relatively new subject called the Cognitive Science of Religion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science_of_religion, had identified naturally evolved thought processes, (Note: By the way, if you don’t accept evolution, I’m afraid we’re a non starter), that religion has hijacked. This coupled with the transfer mechanism of ‘memes’, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme, shows that we’re pre-programmed to believe.

The HIV virus is
exquisitely evolved with receptors, chemical signals, physical structure, etc, to invade cells, specifically those of the human immune system. How did it get to do this I hear you ask? It evolved to do it. All the other viruses that morphed to have different infection techniques that weren’t as good as HIV, simply didn’t survive. Similarly, the memetic virus known as the story of someone that died unjustly 2000 years ago and, because he came back to life, he took away all the responsibility for all the bad deeds, not just done by you, but for all of humanity, has exquisitely evolved ‘receptors’, pleasing ‘signals’, and ‘physical evidence – the Bible' (in your mind anyway), that this story is actually true.

For example, if I told you 1.) there was a tree in my back yard, you’d say, “so?” If I told you 2.) there was a tree in my back yard that turned invisible every second Wednesday, you’d say, “Doug, go and get some therapy.” However, if I told you 3.) there was a tree in my back yard that, due to it being next to the pond, and the sound of the fountain, and the pleasant greenery of Louisiana, etc., etc., if you sit down underneath it and watch the ducks gently swimming about their own business, you can maybe feel the weight of the world lift from your shoulders. Occasionally you can even hear the breeze blow through the trees branches and, if you listen carefully, sometimes they speak to you and provide ideas and direction that can aid you and your loved ones in the future.

Now, ‘meme’ 1.) is boring. Enough said. Meme 2. is stupid. Enough said. But meme 3.) is what’s called ‘minimally counter intuitive’. It’s initially believable in that who on this planet doesn’t have problems, concerns, and worries? Furthermore, who wouldn’t appreciate a beautiful scene with a pond, a fountain, ducks, greenery, etc.? But then it slides very slightly and slowly into the supernatural, but that’s okay because you get something out of it. You get your psychological stress relieved and what’s more, you get answers for the future. Also, using the words ‘occasionally’, 'sometimes' and ‘maybe’ implies that even if it doesn't happen all the time, it doesn't mean that it's not true. This is exactly the same as the resurrection story.

To the New Orleans Theological Baptist Seminary’s credit, they had a theologian, Dr. Michael Murray come speak about this very subject. http://www.epsapologetics.com/sessions/sessions.asp?mode=detail&sid=17. Of course, he ended the lecture by saying “it’s all God’s will”, but up to that point, his presentation was excellent.

I don’t know if you have an interest in social psychology, and more specifically, cognitive evolution, but that’s where the answers to religious belief are.

Doug

Extreme Makeover - Home Edition is Immoral

What are we told to do when we see a panhandler in the street? The official answer is point them in the direction of a charity aided center and then go home and make a donation to that charity.

What does the ABC show, Extreme Makeover effectively do? They scour the country for the most pathetic family in America that are in genuine need of help, and turn them into a Barnum and Bailey emotional side show. Let me ask you another question. What about the ‘second’ most pathetic family? O the third? Or the fourth? They get nothing, and they’re still out there in the real world.

Wouldn’t it be great if all the corporations, companies, and people donated to organizations that helped ALL families in need, not just the most photogenically pitiable? This approach may be accused of being “socialist”, (shhhhh! – who said that word?), but the blatantly capitalistic approach of ‘winner takes all” is immoral.

What the programs fail to tell their audience is that the ‘lucky’ recipient’s home mortgages are adjusted based on the lavish new property, which has resulted in several of the families not being able to keep up with the payments. As a result, many are now facing foreclosure.

This has many parallels with organized religion and the Faith Based Initiatives. They take all the credit for charitable giving, but of course as long as you’re not homosexual, a woman in need of certain legal medical help, (contraception, abortion), or simply don’t believe in the same invisible man in the sky that they do, or don’t believe in ANY invisible man in the sky for that matter, then everything’s fine! Isn’t this more a display of the failure by our secular government than the ‘success’ of religions?

I was in Washington DC recently and went to the National Archives Building and read the 1^st Amendment out loud. It said, “Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion”. It didn’t say, “Congress shall make no law respecting and establishment of religion unless Congress can’t be bothered to help its people – then its okay”.

What is Religion?

My personal observation is that religion is ‘the terrible feeling that someone somewhere is happy’.

But the experts in the field of psychology called the Cognitive Science of Religion, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science_of_religion, such as Pascal Boyer, David Sloan Wilson, Justine Barrette, Jesse Baring, Scott Atran, Stewart Guthrie, and many more are debating the whether religion is either: -

An evolutionary adaptation ~ vs. ~ A byproduct or ‘spandrel’

However, people such as Richard Dawkins, (Evolutionary Biologist), Daniel Dennett, (Philosopher and Evolutionist), and J. Anderson Thompson, (Psychiatrist), and Darrel Ray, (Psychiatrist), believe that religion is a cultural parasite that has hijacked normal cognitive mechanisms for it’s own ends, which, like any viral infection is to survive and multiply. To me, this sounds just like religion, so I’m going with it.

As purely an academic exercise, it made me think of trying to group the human thought processes that contribute to religious belief into the adaptation or byproduct categories. Even though the religious mental pathogen infects all of them, this is what I came up with.

Religion’s Cognitive Mechanisms that are primarily an adaptation:

Minimally Counter Intuitive (MCI)

Hyperactive Agency Detection Device (HADD)

Theory of Mind

Decoupled Cognition

Cognitive Dissidence

Altruism

Reciprocal Altruism

Altruistic Punishment

Childhood Credulity

Deference to Authority

Attachment Systems

Love

Sex

Relationship Transference

Kin Psychology

Morality

Mirror Neurons

Empathy

Sympathy

Guilt

Shame

Debt

Ego

Religion’s Cognitive Mechanisms that are primarily a byproduct:

Anthropomorphism

Dealing with Death

Dualism (Soul)

Intuitive Reasoning

Motivated Reasoning

Bias

Confirmation Bias

Familiarity Bias

Memetic Replication (Transfer)

Memetic Allelopathy

Contagion Interference Systems

Flawed Recollection

Perception of Design

Quest for Purpose

Need for Explanation

Causal Determinacy

Intuitive Reasoning

Motivated Reasoning

Confirmation Bias

Familiarity

Belief in Belief

Attitude Inoculation

Reactance Theory

Elaboration Likelihood Model (Peripheral route)

Costly Signals of Commitment

Mere Messenger Strategy

Naïve Group Psychology

In Group/Out Group Psychology

What do you think?

Daniel Dennett & Percy Sledge?

Daniel Dennett, when interviewed by BeliefNet, http://www.beliefnet.com was asked:

You write that loyalty to religion is a bit like falling in love, and that's why people take such great offense when you try to counter their views. How are they similar?

The emotional passion with which people declare their love for their religion should be taken very seriously. Whenever there is a love object, whether it is another person, or a nation or a religious creed or the Boston Red Sox, there is a built-in, outraged response to anything that threatens or demeans or is even skeptical [of that love object]. If you start saying something skeptical of my loved one, my dukes are up. That's a response which I'm quite sure is genetically favored in our species, in the same way it's favored in mammals in general to protect their young.

This reminded me of the song by Percy Sledge, ‘When a Man Loves a Woman”. Read through the lyrics and replace “woman” with “Jesus”, and, ‘voila!’, you have a religious fundamentalist.

When a man loves a woman Jesus
Can't keep his mind on nothing else
He'll trade the world
For the good thing he's found
If she's bad he can't see it
She can do no wrong
Turn his back on his best friend
If he put her him down

When a man loves a woman Jesus
Spend his very last dime
Tryin' to hold on to what he needs
He'd give up all his comfort
Sleep out in the rain
If she said that's the way it ought to be

Well, this man loves a woman Jesus
I gave you everything I had
Tryin' to hold on to your precious love
Baby, Jesus, please don't treat me bad

When a man loves a woman Jesus
Down deep in his soul
She can bring him such misery
If she plays him for a fool
He's the last one to know
Lovin' eyes can't ever see

When a man loves a woman Jesus
He can do no wrong
He can never own some other girl God
Yes when a man loves a woman Jesus
I know exactly how he feels
'Cause baby, baby, baby, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus you're my world

When a man loves a woman Jesus.....

Don't you think the expressions “Love is Blind” and “Blind Faith” go together?

Christian Indictment

A friend of mine, Jim Dugan, a PhD Student and part time lecturer in Anthropology at Tulane University, and a fellow atheist on the panel at the UNO dialog wrote this article. It thought it was a great summing up of religions, or more specifically Christianity’s failings.

Christianity: An Indictment

There's plenty of evil in the world, some of it done by members of one religion, some by members of another, and some by people with no religion at all. Neither religion nor its absence is any guarantee of good behavior, peace and justice, or civil orderliness. The question before us is not whether believers behave better than non-believers, or vice-versa, but why people do the things they do. Which stance, which world-view, causes more or less sociable behavior.

I will approach this in terms of the religion best known to me, Christianity. But many of these remarks apply equally to other religions, at least to those that believe they have an exclusive claim on ultimate truth. I am not claiming that Christians do bad things, or that non-Christians behave better. I am saying that Christian doctrine leads people, actively gives them impetus, to do evil things. I realize there are differences from denomination to denomination, but all of the problems I'll mention here are widely distributed throughout Christian institutions.

•

The belief in absolute and exclusive truth is incredibly divisive. The endless splitting of schisms, heresies, and denominations, often over obscure doctrinal details, would be an amusing oddity to the outsider if it didn't spill out of the churches and into civil society. Too often these trivial differences are used by one group to denigrate another, to oppress or subordinate another. In extreme cases, these differences are used to market or justify violence, including witch hunts, inquisitions, and crusades. These happen less often today, not because churches have gotten better behaved, but because civil society has wisely limited the power of religious institutions.

•

Christianity too often resists normal and positive social change in favor of the status quo. Who's in charge and how things are run have changed often over the last 2,000 years, but too often with the churches mounting fierce resistance, slowing the process down, and adding to the associate levels of violence.

Christianity has been there to resist every major expansion of civil liberties in the history of Europe and its former colonies. Churches have supported the right of the Pope to make and unmake kings, the divine right of kings to rule, the colonization of Africa and the Americas, have supported the scripturally approved institution of slavery, and have resisted the secularization of governments around the world.

•

The entire mindset of Christianity seems designed to prevent human beings from solving real human problems in the here and now. It encourages people to focus on an imaginary afterlife instead of the world they and their children actually live in. It reserves to an imaginary god the right to structure and order society, convincing most people not even to try. It detours, misdirects and misguides those who would take action by channeling them into prayer and Bible reading instead. Whether its conservation of natural resources, economic justice, or political equality, the churches are there to tell people to accept their lot in life uncritically.

•

Christianity interferes with the full equality of women in civil society. The role of women inside any particular denomination is, of course, its own internal affair. But denominations don't keep their backwardness internal, trying instead to inflict it on the broader society around them. Christianity stands for the limitation of women to roles defined by tradition rather than reason. Respecting the full legal and ethical rights doesn't stop with voting rights, equal opportunity and equal pay. It includes every woman's right to control if, when, how, and by whom she becomes pregnant, and whether or not she remains pregnant.

•

Similarly, Christianity interferes with the full equality of gays, lesbians, and other sexual minorities in civil society. Again, they fail to keep their backwardness contained within their own institutions, trying instead to drag the rest of society down to their level. Whether or not any individual or denomination considers one or another kind of sexual behavior to be a sin is not a relevant factor determining the equality of individuals in civil society. Churches try to interfere with protections of sexual minorities from hate crimes, equal opportunity in employment and housing, and access to civil marriage. This is divisive and evil.

•

Christianity interferes with the advancement of science. This is understandable, since the expansion of scientific knowledge leaves less and less room for belief in a miraculous and intervening deity. But its not excusable. Whether threatening

Galileo with torture for teaching that the earth goes around the sun, continuing to argue about Evolution a hundred years longer than any logic or reason could permit, or actively resisting stem cell research, religion constantly tries to make a stumbling block of itself.

•

Missionizing outside of one's own immediate society is an unspeakable evil. Peoples everywhere have their own cultures, histories, social orders, ethics, and religions, and white, middle-class; North American Christians are arrogantly disrespectful of all of it. It's understandable if some groups want to help a community in a developing country to build a hospital or a road, but the price missionaries ask is far too high: stop being you and become one of us.

•

Christianity is bent on making people feel guilty about sex. There is no logical reason for this obsession with normal, healthy, bodily and social functions, so I agree with Darrell Ray that this is a very self-serving game. The church sets itself up both as the instigator of guilty feelings and the only institution that can expiate that guilt, guaranteeing a revolving door of sinner-patrons.

•

Christianity is a morally bankrupt religion. It's obsession with sex reduces the question of morality to whether somebody's zipper is up or down instead of whether there's justice or suffering in the world. You can be the CEO of a corporation that strip mines Brazilian rain forests or pays Vietnamese children 15 cents a day to make somebody's sneakers, but as long as you keep your pants on and pay your tithe nobody's going to criticize you. Christianity claims the moral high ground, but can do so only when it gets to define morality, circularly, as Christian belief itself, rather than the sociability of rationally determined action.

Does Christianity do enough good in the world to cancel out the negatives? Certainly not!

It might be argued that fear of hell deters some from committing horrendous acts, and that might occasionally be true. But for the most part well socialized individuals behave well and poorly socialized individuals behave badly, regardless of their religions or the lack thereof. Religious proponents like to raise the specter of social chaos, which they claim will arise without morality, which they also claim can only come from religion. More realistically, we now have, and have always had, good systems of secular ethics. Every system of ethics we've ever had was invented by human beings, since it is mythology to claim that some god wrote the rules on stone tablets, or an angel whispered them into some prophet’s ear. The difference is that when we admit that our ethical systems are human inventions, we can take responsibility for them, we can adapt them according to the real-world sufferings and injustices we can observe. And when we deny the humanity of our ethical systems, we reduce them to arbitrary, non-adaptive platitudes, obeying them because they're old, or because some people say they are divine, rather than because they make sense.

Christianity is still hopelessly trapped in the Middle Ages, while the rest of the world marches on. As a personal matter, every individual is entitled to his or her beliefs, and churches can assert whatever truths the wish to claim. But the tendency of religious institutions to interfere with social progress, to slow down scientific advancement, and to justify intolerance is a problem for our entire society. net-net, Christianity does a great deal more harm than good.

Version of 16 April 2010, by Jim Dugan