"I tell the truth about Christianity"

[Alex]

Got this from [e-mail] , so true:

"I was invited, more than a year ago, to impersonate Mark Twain at a neighboring UU fellowship Sunday morning.  That gig makes the point that Jesus opposed marriage, family and responsible parenthood.  And "Prince of Peace" Jesus demanded that when someone refused to be led by him, that man should be killed.  And Jesus ignored his real family, and instead called his followers his "family," which is a common cult practice.  Jesus even suggested that, to be sure of heaven, a man should cut off his own testicles.  Jesus endorsed chattel slavery.  All these are in the New Testament.  After the speech, I took questions and one man said I should not ridicule Christianity.  I replied, what I do is far worse: I tell the truth about Christianity.

"It seems to me that as people actually read the Bible and learn what Jesus, Paul and others said, they will find it all repugnant, vicious and reprehensible.  But that is a disconcerting discovery, and people try to reinterpret what they read according to modern concepts of justice, kindness and compassion."  --Joel

[Alex]

Conservative Christians often fight for "family value" with their anti-gay, anti-divorse, anti-premarital sex, anti-abortion agenda.

They might have mistaken that Christianity is pro-family.

No.  The founder of Christianity, Jesus, is not pro-family.

Pro-family and family value are external to Christianity.  They are modern urban middle-class values, with the aim of social stability.  

[Alex]

More from Joel:

Besides Jesus and Paul saying so many things that are offensive, repugnant and vicious, most of the "principles" espoused by Christianity are fraudulent.  For instance, I don't buy this "soul" concept.  Some people think they have souls; I have never seen any evidence that I or anyone else has a soul.  If I did have, what would it be like?  What would it do?  Would it make any difference if I did have one?  And prayer -- what a lot of malarky!  You can't put money in the bank merely by asking some guy with long white hair for it.  A simple experiment will show this concept is false.  If you want to consider an experiment on a scale larger than you can conduct as a single prayer-maker, consider the Holocaust:  god's own chosen people surely uttered at last 6,000,000 prayers for help.  Didn't do any good.  Not a bit.  Are the Christians saying that god heard each of these 6,000,000 prayers and decided "NO!" on each one?  If so, the prayer concept is surely defective.  If no one heard these prayers -- which were surely the most urgent, most deserving and of greatest importance -- then the very idea of prayer is phony.  And that raises the question of god.  Most of us these days reject the image of god given in the old testament, vindictive, given to genocide, ignorant of the most basic issues of justice.  Another great majority also rejects the image of god given in the new testament.  Who really wants to worship a god which impregnates a young, unmarried woman? We generally condemn males who do this.  Who wants to worship any god who sires a young man, then condemns him to death by torture?  In our society, child abusers are punished, not worshiped.  Then there are the saints, people so lacking in memorable character that no one can remember them without a program in hand.  And priests: well, their crimes are sufficient to cause a serious decline in their numbers throughout the world.  Why doesn't their god protect the little kids who are enslaved by priests for sexual amusement?  The amount of pleasure the priests get from sexually abusing children is pretty minimal compared to the injuries imposed upon the children.  Now, let's take a look at Christianity's opposition to abortion--no, no.  There is no point in reciting the injuries and deaths caused by forcing women to self-abort.

Hey, I've got an idea: let's drop Christianity altogether.  Who needs it?

-- Joel