Mocking Christianity

[Ihatepcos]

I am so sick of people thinking it's okay to ridicule Catholicism and Christianity. This is especially apparent on Mumsnet. Every time there's a thread about religion I can't even read the replies because they're so awful.

The same doesn't seem to apply to the Muslim, Jewish, Hindu faiths etc.

If you don't believe in God that is your choice. But purposely mocking someone's faith and calling it a load of bullshit (and worse) is just not acceptable. So many people turn to faith to help them through extremely tough times in life and you are mocking the only thing that is keeping them going.

God may always be listening.
But not always acting on what they listen to.

If I had faith in God, and was brought up to believe that God listens, I would wonder why I wasn't being listened or why God hadn't answered my prayers.

I guess you have heard the parable of the drowning man (not in the Bible)

A storm descends on a small town, and the downpour soon turns into a flood. As the waters rise, the local preacher kneels in prayer on the church porch, surrounded by water. By and by, one of the townsfolk comes up the street in a canoe.
"Better get in, Preacher. The waters are rising fast."
"No," says the preacher. "I have faith in the Lord. He will save me."
Still the waters rise. Now the preacher is up on the balcony, wringing his hands in supplication, when another guy zips up in a motorboat.
"Come on, Preacher. We need to get you out of here. The levee's gonna break any minute."
Once again, the preacher is unmoved. "I shall remain. The Lord will see me through."
After a while the levee breaks, and the flood rushes over the church until only the steeple remains above water. The preacher is up there, clinging to the cross, when a helicopter descends out of the clouds, and a state trooper calls down to him through a megaphone.
"Grab the ladder, Preacher. This is your last chance."
Once again, the preacher insists the Lord will deliver him.
And, predictably, he drowns.
A pious man, the preacher goes to heaven. After a while he gets an interview with God, and he asks the Almighty, "Lord, I had unwavering faith in you. Why didn't you deliver me from that flood?"
God shakes his head. "What did you want from me? I sent you two boats and a helicopter."

@cakeorwine yes I have heard that story. My take on it, is that God delivers in ways that we don't expect, through other people.
And yes, I do wonder, but I mentioned upthread, that things come to light and that can take years, then I realise that my prayer has been listened to and answered. I do believe as well, that when I die, everything will become clear.

Ah the old Adam and Eve story, why would god put a tree in there but tell you not to eat from it, don't put it their in first place if you don't want people to eat from it, proper dick move.

Also you do realise Adam and Eve story didn't actually happen don't you.

@Againstmachine

Seems rely cruel to set your only 'children' a test you know they will fail.

Presumably their failure was part of God’s plan.

And there’s your problem. It’s very difficult to square a belief in free will with the idea of God having a perfect plan.

To my mind the story of the fall shows God as an abusive parent. See also the book of Job - God and the Devil ruining someone's life over a bet.

Yes, Job gets everything back - but his original family are still dead, and anyone who has ever lost a spouse/child will know that pain always remains no matter whether they remarry or have more children. There's nothing benevolent about a deity that does that sort of thing. Might as well go big and worship Moloch.

I think what is now mainstream Christianity pretty much fucked up with the appropriation of the God(s) of the Old Testament. The gnostics had it right with two separate deities between old and New Testament.

But instead they pinned the divinity of Christ on prophetic passages in the Old Testament.However the holes left by this are somewhat glaring.

I always like Yeats’s motto Demon est deus inversus. Satan and God are basically the same. Two sides of the same coin, the temptation from God.

Make no mistake in the Old Testament humans are the play things of the Gods to be fought over and won. Christianity might be part of the same franchise but it’s more a spin off than a sequel

Fought over,manipulated and won

@OMG12

i thought Christianity was exactly the opposite- that the OT was preoccupied with all the wrong stuff, Jesus came along and said you are focusing on the ego, instead be about love.

Christianity, as I was taught, is all about Christ like values that illustrate that OT thinking was preoccupied with the wrong ideas, a literal take on things. Christianity is more about understanding the human within each narrative and focusing on their needs - what we as humans can do to help each other on a basic level of kindness and care and not to overcomplicate this with ideas about ‘Gods’.

Monotheism we took from OT in a sense that forces of nature were personified into Gods with paganism and the idea of one God behind it all is simply what we now consider ecology - the interconnectedness of all tings, cause and effect, etc.

As a lapsed Catholic, I respect the right of anyone to believe whatever religion they want, while reflecting that most of the religious tenets were written down (Bible, Old and New Testaments, Q’uran, Torah Etc) as a guide on how to behave in a Civilised Society - one that the writers at the time were trying to encourage in a largely uncivilised time.
Now some of those instructions were for health (hence why the Jews and the Muslims don’t eat pork, for example), some were for behaviour and health ( i.e. promiscuity = some potentially fatal STD’s, or teaching that killing people willy-nilly isn’t great for keeping the peace)
However, and this is where I think that religion isn’t relevant:
It isn’t necessary in today’s educated world, to regularly get together to chant about your beliefs in order to live by them
It is not the business of the Church (any) to impose rules on anyone (wearing of specific clothing, expectation of relationships and children being born only into “approved“ relationships, no Abortions allowed, Sex outside marriage frowned upon Etc.)
It is absolutely possible to live a blameless and rewarding life without incorporating religion into it
Meanwhile, I have met huge numbers of people who, bolstered by their superiority about being an active religion member, are thoroughly more nasty about those who aren’t, because those atheists don’t adhere to the three points (there are many more) that I’ve outlined above.
So when I declare I’m not following a religion, it’s really the intolerance of many religions that I refuse to live my life by.

I highly suspect that those calling BS on religion, are those who have been called names by the intolerant faction, which is, sadly, present in most religions (Sikhism and Buddhism seem to be some of the few exceptions here)

Im not entirely sure most Christians would entirely agree there - with the exceptions of some early Christian sects it is the same God OT and New. The New Testament represents the New Covenant between God and his people. It’s a new relationship not a new God. Basically God agrees to be a bit nicer if people agree to worship through his son Jesus. Some of the old rules got taken away- the main new rule was to love your neighbour as yourself as you say.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." ~ John 14:6

i think your last paragraph is somewhat misguided in the context of Christianity. The basis of God can’t just be replaced with a scientific concept. This might work sociologically and even psychologically but not within religion.

Whilst as a non conformist I can see merit in that thought process and indeed many practices related to religion seem to have what we would now see as psychological and physiological benefits, I think it does religion and more widely spirituality a huge disservice to try and equate scientific explanations with religious experiences, I know scientists and rationalists would like them to be the same but they really aren’t

I've been told many times throughout my life that I'm going to hell due to non-belief, always by religious types.

As someone who lives their life for others, volunteers, donates, treats others kindly, never intentionally hurt anyone etc, that sticks in my craw.

However if I say that I don't think any religion is real (there's been over 4,000 gods worshipped, they LITERALLY can't all be right) and that in my view it denotes a certain weakness of character to tie your self worth to a deity that can't be seen, heard, or affect the world in any way, somehow that's worse than wishing damnation upon my 'immortal soul'? 🤔

I agree with many of your points. Unfortunately many religions have a superiority complex snd othering built into them. The idea of an organised religion is to get as many people in your tribe as possible (hence many don’t advocate birth control). You want a bigger tribe so you have a better chance of beating another tribe. Throughout history religion has been inseparable from politics in whatever form those politics take, it is tied to power and land- with few notable exceptions religions thAt haven’t been so tied have failed to thrive.

Thst being said, do we need religion now? Well it depends what we mean by religion. I believe humans need a god , something bigger than them- does that god need to be supernatural- I don’t think so, but people like a unifying banner for their tribe that needs to exist independently of the tribes members and needs to be superior to them. It provides a shortcut to set out beliefs and these beliefs form a bonding force. It helps if these are seen as being set from something bigger or you end up with party politics - the enemy and usual slayer of religions.

Many of the practices associated with religion have great social and personal benefits. Yes these could be replicated, but become disjointed and piecemeal. Human brains work well with meanings, stories snd correspondences which is a real strength of religion.

The bible also advises against eating pork (wild hog) and shellfish. Oddly most people think this is only a Muslim or Jewish constraint.

Many PPs have referenced the atrocities committed/sanctioned by the church as a reason for mocking religion.
And many have reference the hypocrisy of so-called believers as a reason for mocking them.
Those PPs are espousing Christian values.

Jesus hated organised religion, which sought to keep people under control and he hated hypocrites, and openly mocked them. He also loved irony.
St Paul (who was a big fan of Jesus), writing to the newly established church, which within a generation of Jesus' teaching quickly started to create hierarchies and yet more rules, wished that the religious bullies would just go and chop their own dicks off. (Galatians 5:12, if you're unfamiliar).
Christian values are precisely anti-religion and anti-people who try to control and put down others.

Some of the best (and funniest) critiques of organised Christianity come from Christians themselves.

But that is very different to what I think the OP is getting at. It's tiresome when well-meaning people who are enjoying a conversation, or seeking support, are interrupted by the New Atheist brigade, who think they're so much cleverer and more enlightened, that they cannot help but display this to the world with a phrase they heard from Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens. You don't have to derail any thread that mentions faith with your "sky fairies" and your Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's not the 1990s and we've heard it a million times already. Frankly, it's not the Gotcha you think it is, and you just look like a twat. At least, it's never made me stop loving Jesus and everything he stands for.

The bible also advises against eating pork (wild hog) and shellfish

...And rabbit and hare and ostrich and...

And trimming the corners of your beard.

And reaping your crop up to the edges of the field or picking up grain that has fallen to the ground: you're supposed to leave that for the poor.

Funnily, although I have heard priests rail against exposing nakedness and lying with, I have never heard one berate landowners for defying the Bible's word on reaping & gleaning. You might almost think their interest in the Law of Moses was entirely prurient...

Well, the pork and shellfish prohibitions made sense in an era where we didn't have modern medicine. A lot of the other things - not so much. Especially the bit in Deuteronomy where a woman who has had a boy is considered unclean for 30 days, but if she has had a girl it's 60 days. Noooo, not misogynist at all.

One might argue that Hindu values are also anti religion. There's really nothing particularly Christian about being against hypocrisy. The only thing that is particularly Christian is believing in Jesus.

Excellent post! I guess the most relevant part is

“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).

what does that mean? The Church ran off down the organised religion route.

personally I read it as - “Simon Peter gather the people around you who believe in the divinity man (elsewhere it talks about spreading the word and anointing with the holy spirit) it will be built on mortal men but the assembly of believers will be strong such that death of those individual believers will not prevent my legacy living on another carrying on if you do this you will see the face of god” probably best summed up by Bill and Ted “be excellent to each other” not a dickybird about organised religion (even as a child Jesus knew more than those running organised religion - couple that with the whole suffer little children- and it’s acting like a child, innocent full of kindness etc, the meek shall inherit the earth - because hierarchies meant nothing to Jesus. I suspect Jesus would have been hurried what the church he mentioned had become it was never meant to be an organised religion.

Sorry even more typos than my usual efforts😀

@Lentilweaver Yes. But there's nothing ironic in a criticism of Christianity being Hinduistic in nature is there?

I feel you have missed my point, which is that keyboard warriors attacking well-meaning individuals for the failings of an organisation they have no influence over, and possibly no affiliation to, often for things that happened over 1,000 years ago, is mean. And it's ironic that they think they are attacking the god who himself would (and did) do precisely what they are in fact doing (bashing organised religion).

I think @pointythings has explained well that we are attacking religion, not individuals.

@ArDi but the individuals are not powerless. If they stood up against the organisation and the hierarchy and said: 'No! No more! No more oppressing women, no more persecuting LGBT people, no more othering, no more condemnation, and if there is no change we will leave your church. You will not have our tithes, you will not have our time, you will not have us spreading the word!' - how quickly would the organisations either change or crumble? But too many individuals are not doing that.

But you don't know who those individuals are. You make assumptions that any Christian believer is aligned with one of the churches who do the things you set out above, and derail their threads, attack them, and call them idiots for believing at all. Plenty of churches are not the way you describe. They are welcoming, diverse, loving, open communities.

@ArDi actually you are now making assumptions about me...

I've already said I do not attack individual believers. I also do not attack churches which are loving and inclusive, because I know that they exist. Their existence gives me hope.

None of that takes away my right to mock those religious organisations, no matter on what scale, who are misogynist, homophobic and hypocritical.

I have never attacked an individual for believing - I have however been attacked on MN for not believing. Only about a week ago, a believer who really thought of herself as a good and true Christian accused me of being possessed by a Jezebel spirit, and implied not very subtly that I was going to Hell. So in my case, the pot isn't black, but the kettle most certainly is.