The Antichristian Phenomenon

Just because I write and support the AntiChristian Phenomenon doesn’t mean I’m not aware that there are reasonable Christians out there. There are Christians out there that see this world in the murky grey that we do. Alas, half the ones I wind up talking to see this in only Black in White.They only view things in the blinding “Light” of Biblical verse. This is the primary reason I support and joined the ACP. In a recent discussion I had on a Christian forum I ran into some of these reasonable fellows. I thought it would be interesting to share with everyone here what a fairly reasonable discussion looks like and prove that it can take place every now and again. I’ve also included an unreasonable discussion at the end to show that for some there really is no hope and show that our work is surely not done. I hope you enjoy some of the points that are made in the following. I’ve endeavored to keep everyone anonymous except for myself. I have also adjusted and fixed typos so I can present these conversations in a much more professional fashion.

The beginning of this conversation when I started to explain a little about our group…

X Christian: So, a religious person cannot follow logic or doesn’t know, what experimentation is? I don’t know, where you live, but that’s just untrue. Just like it’s false to say that all irreligious people do follow logic or embraced reality.

Unreasonable: Don’t you just love those antichristian casuistries and sophisms, X?

Me: X, NO, you’re trying to imply a blanket statement to my post and that’s not true at all. I never said Christians couldn’t use logic, nor did I say only irreligious people use logic.

X Christian: Well, you might claim, you didn’t say it. But that’s how I understand your statement as a whole. On the other hand, I might have understood you wrongly (or misunderstood you), since English is not my first language. If your main goal is “the philosophy of explaining the world and universe via logic and experimentation”, then why “anti-Christian” or “anti-religious”? That’s exactly, what makes me feel, that no matter what, you personally consider all the so called “irreligious” superior at all aspects to all the religious (especially Christians).

Me: Ah yes, X, I think I may have come off that way. You are right; I understand where we misunderstood each other. Well, the group started off initially against Christian fundamentalism. Why Christian? Well the group primarily comprised of Europeans and Americans, and this is the majority religion in our lives. I would move to it being more irreligious so it doesn’t seem like we target a single religion (that would be hypocritical in my view). The goal is more to inform people and help them look at the world through actual reality. Remove the religious dogmas and actually LOOK at what’s happening. Study it, understand it, draw conclusions and test them. Jumping to a supernatural explanation is not a good answer, nor is it a foregone conclusion. Don’t get me wrong, irreligious people can be just as uninformed, but that’s the whole point, helping people become informed! But I find it much harder to inform someone if they follow some irrational belief that isn’t founded on anything. Even if it’s some weird form of atheism! The fact is there is no proof that there is no such thing as higher beings, for example, even though the outlook does have its merits.

X Christian: Okay, I get it, your “group” consists of Americans and Europeans mostly, therefore “anti-Christian”. Also I see that you mentioned “fundamentalism”, but isn’t fundamentalism almost exclusively found among protestant Christians, mainly in America. I’m not saying that there are no fundamentalists in Europe, where I live now. But their movements are marginal. Also I think that every single person has her or his own dogmas. Even the most religious persons can actually see what’s happening, they perceive the reality, but the explanation to question “why is this happening?” might differ, as well as the conclusion to question “what shall we do about it?”. It’s like politics. Everybody sees, there’s an economic crisis, nobody denies the reality, but one group says, it’s because capitalism failed, while the other one says it’s because there’s too much socialism (“why is it happening?”). One group wants more state control, the other less (“what shall we do about it?”). Who’s right?

Unreasonable: Cleric, I agree that the vast majority of Christians consists of people not-so-willing-to-learn (or debate). That or it’s just a spotlight fallacy… But if you take a look at most apologists (not creationists maybe), like some early Church Fathers, you’ll notice that they were more educated than any other religious group! They were doctors, philosophers, scientists and all that. And, there isn’t any foundation for anything at all in the whole world. There is no foundation for science, morals, society or anything at all (you know how nihilistic and skeptic I am towards such subjects).

Me: X, fundamentalism of religion is for anyone who takes something like the Bible as absolute truth (i.e. everything in the Bible is a fact and all things are meant literally). It’s actually a growing problem in my country and a lot of this has to do with deficiency in our education system (most of which is a political issue). For the example you provide about the markets, the answer will never be God. Prayer will not make the market perform better and alleviate the suffering related to it. That’s the whole point of our argument. To come up with real and viable answers religion has NO place in such issues. In fact politics has little to do with it, capitalism and socialism have nothing to do with what happened. Political deals may have been made behind doors to further very powerful people’s control, but in large part the market issue is centered on the general public’s irrationality. It’s a well known factor in economics that large groups gathered together can react irrationally. Now a large group need not be gathered together, you need only to reach this group via the media. The media is frequently doom and gloom and people and markets react to such news. What happened (I believe it started in the U.S.) was that fixed assets started to decrease in value. This triggered a global sell off of these assets. They were then devalued and banks had huge unrealized losses on their books, this caused a panic. Fixed assets perform a very specific function, they’re FIXED. That means that if you expect to receive a dollar, you will receive a dollar. Unfortunately because of trading, the value’s got priced somewhere around 0.7 on the dollar, this amounts to billion dollar losses real fast. But that doesn’t mean you will NOT receive the dollar in the future. Since most loans do not go into default, it’s a safe bet that you will receive nearly 100% of the investment. But the media didn’t spin the crisis like that.

Me to Unreasonable: I must confess that I have almost no idea what you’re talking about. Are you trying to say that religion is the only thing that can ever be founded or something?

X Christian: I know that prayer will not make the market perform better. But a prayer can help me, personally. It gives me strength and encourages me. For example European Christian-democratic parties have real political program. When there’s a crisis, they don’t say “pray and everything will be fine”. No, they offer a solution according to Christian teachings, which in case of (for example) economics means propagation of free market mixed with Christian socialism and social solidarism (at least in case of Catholicism). So yes, religion has a place in such issues. You know, Christianity is not just Bible, but also for example Augustine of Hippo or Thomas Aquinas. And, well I guess thanks for explaining current “crisis”, although that’s not what I thought we were discussing.

Me: yeah, I just threw in the crisis thing… it’s currently my field of work. Anyway, I’m aware Christianity has influenced people like Aquinas and so forth, but that’s not fundamentalism. Fundamentalism would be putting a stop to scientific research and trying to change text books to say that dinosaurs are not millions of years old, but are only 6,000 years old, because that’s what the Bible says. These are the things we’re expressly combating. Using prayer for personal use is no different than meditating and that’s perfectly fine. It’s a personal thing, which is what religion should be. Religion has no place forcing people to live a certain way. For example some human rights issues in Islam should not be continued. Religion has enabled this. Though, I have to say, I don’t know where the Bible teaches about Free Market Economic Theory? But I still say religion has no place with the issues, you can solve them WITHOUT religion. I’m not sure why you think it has a place?

Unreasonable: No, I’m saying that religion/faith is unfounded belief, just like everything else in this world. But thinking inside of our world’s limits (which we set ourselves) if there’s no Creator -as we’ve said before- then there’s no actual meaning in life (therefore any other meaning is willful delusion), no universal and true moral values, nothing at all…

Me: I disagree. I’m not talking about belief here. I’m talking about specific reasons, factual things. If you hold two objects in your hand, you have a total of two objects. This is a fact, it’s a real thing. The sky is blue for very specific reasons. It’s not a “belief”. I’m talking about interpreting the information around you with real observations, not muddying the waters with all this faith explanation that has been 100% wrong so far. And so what if there’s no creator, why does that equate to you can’t have any meaning in your life? Not to mention you have a very exclusionary view of “creator” and it’s not really fair to every other faith out there, what makes yours right/special. Nothing. We’ve also discussed numerous times how moral values are a product of society and have been since the dawn of civilization.

Y Christian: Cleric, I agree with you… every issues can be solved WITHOUT a religion and every life can have a meaning without a Creator because everyone can pursue their dreams or run after their happiness for their own. And many of them will be successful, prosperous and even make history but anything will never be enough because the emptiness behind their achievements will terrify their mind. And from this moment on, these empty people will fall and die slowly in life. That’s when some of them find Christianity. Others just dry until there is no hope or dreams left. Christianity is more than a religion or prayer; it’s the filling up of our hearts, the satisfaction of doing anything for greater reasons without the fear of the fall.

Me: Y, I do understand that, and that’s the primary point of just about every religion conceived by mankind. Doing something beyond this life, etc. And I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to believe in god x or y, that doesn’t matter to me. But defining all things in context of books written thousands of years ago that don’t necessarily apply isn’t helping anyone when they insist theirs is the “way of truth”. However, I have to greatly disagree on your point that people without Christ can’t live full lives. That’s simply not true. I live an extremely full life, in my opinion. For you to say otherwise would be forcing your beliefs on me. I can’t think of a nicer way to say this, but I want to say “who are you to tell me how I feel?” If you know what I mean. If you feel fulfilled in Christ, that’s great, good for you, go off and be merry, but that doesn’t mean I can’t feel just as fulfilled with life as you. Sorry if that came off sounding harsh.

Z Christian: Cleric, I can totally understand you. Christian believers, in all context are mostly all overconfident. It’s disgusting at some times when I see Christians acting like they are God themselves. People can go through a lifetime without even talking about God, and live a great life. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again. God is sometimes used as an excuse for some ”believers” as a ticket to self-righteousness; if you wish. But Cleric, with ALL respect, saying that the all writings in religion are false, is completely false itself. Some major pioneers, explorers, doctors, scientists, philosophers, and even psychics; have gotten useful information for their studies and observations through the Bible. I’m going to be completely vague with you here, due to I hate it when people bring copied things from texts and paste them straight onto here. But, the Bible did say thousands of years ago, that the Earth spun around the sun and was hanging from nothing. This is completely against what some scientists were saying even hundreds of years ago. People were used to hundreds of theories. Such as the most popular, the Earth being flat, sitting on a turtle, and the turtle on a crocodile. Also, many others thought that the West, as we know it now, was the only land known to man. But, the Bible also helped Christopher Columbus, and others discover land far from the West. Even now, thousands of research and theories have been changed, due to numerous scientists dropping the ”Big Boom” theories completely. They say that there might be something more, due to always missing something in their research. Another thing I would like to point out. The brain shows increased signs of activity when you speak, write or sing. When people sing or speak on tongues, that part of the brain nearly stops working at all, showing little to no signs of activity. Even the government in the United States, the most powerful country in the world, like it or not. Uses psychics to detect attacks and where harmful weapon could be hiding. No joke whatsoever, it was even on the discovery channel. The Bible also said that the world would scorch in heat, and famine would rule the Earth. That money would be a major problem. Not bad for a book that is 100% wrong, also written thousands of years ago, by numerous people who never met, hundreds of years apart in time, yet it still connects. Not bad at all! I’m not telling you to believe in anything, nor to explain yourself, because it’s not a big deal to me. But, saying that there is no proof, or even a minimum, is completely false. There is proof, it’s just that ours doesn’t get shouted out in television. Seriously, who would want to hear about billions of people who followed some hippy, named Jesus, which changed the course of history? For a book that is full of junk, it did a fine job at building countries, people’s careers, businesses and other fine things. Sure is a shame.

Me: Z, I’m not saying you should ignore the Bible outright. It’s actually a very good historical document on some levels. But what I’m pointing out is that, for example, because the Bible says not to eat pigs 3,000 years ago, in no way, has anything to do with it now. Biblical laws in some rights do not allow for technological progress. What I’m really getting to the heart at, is that it’s foolish to use the Bible as your source document for all decisions. If the only response you have to do something is “because God says so”, to me, you haven’t thought that through. Your point about the Bible saying the Earth went around the sun is nothing special. Civilizations that pre-date the Bible knew that too. And explaining it was hanging from nothing isn’t proof; the Bible also said the Earth was on Pillars. So you’re picking and choosing what you want to glean as a fact. Just because science proved one correct doesn’t mean the Bible is divine or have supreme knowledge. Also your point about science being different over a hundred years ago is moot, because the peer review process that is used today was not used then. The Peer Review process cuts down on the admission of any crack pot theory. Christopher Columbus was also looking for someplace completely different. He had no idea there was another land there and his crew was on the verge of mutiny before they struck land. Not to mention the Vikings had already been to the America’s hundreds of years before Columbus, and they were just stupid violent pagans by those eras Christian standards. I’ve done some research on why there’s this huge divide between science today and the past. A major requirement that has changed for public work is peer review. This has only been used since the mid 20th century. It was conceived well over a thousand years before hand, but it was never REQUIRED. And theory versus a Theory are different things in science. Do you mean Big Bang, not Big Boom… because as it stands the Big Bang has not been dropped at all?

Z Christian: I agree with you, some people tend to use the Bible as an excuse, like as if it had all the answers. Well sadly, it doesn’t. But, I know you’re going to hate this part haha, but you’re supposed to turn to God, and not the Bible. I know, it’s what I believe, what more can I say? I live by the sword; therefore, I will die by it. But Cleric, I know that there are simple minded people, and the worst of them are Christians when it comes down to it. But, there’s a lot of truth in that book bud. I don’t believe in the word, I believe in God. Anyways, I totally get your point mate. What can I say? Man has corrupted everything that was once pure, fine & divine.

X Christian: Yeah, Christian fundamentalism is different. But like I said, it’s very exclusive to the US. Christianity and free market are actually kind of interconnected, although free market theories were designed mainly by Protestants, especially by those from the United Kingdom or the Netherlands. After all, God gave us freedom, that’s something many people don’t get, be it Christian fundamentalists or atheists. When it comes to Islam and human rights, first of all, human rights is a western concept, therefore it has no universal meaning and should not be forced upon every country. But I admit, that Islamic countries are just hmm… aggressive(?). After all, that’s why we (my family) left Iran for Europe. Christians don’t have easy life in Islamic countries, if they live at all. Christian democracy has place in politics, but it’s just one of the many political ideologies. Some time ago even someone from the Communist party (!!!) quoted the Pope to support his policy proposal.

Me: Only an idiot during Biblical times wouldn’t write about how money would rule the Earth. That’s not prophetic, that’s telling the story of every civilizations concept. And money is only a problem for people who don’t want to engage the society on that level and dislike the economic divide between rich and poor. Even if we had no money, that would still be an issue, because then it would be strong vs. weak. It did a terrible job at building countries. Look at the history of Scandinavia. People were slaughtered for this religion! It’s the reason some of the most atrocious acts were committed in history, so despite all these glorious careers developed in the 20th/21st century, its historical involvement of careers like creating inquisitors is just immoral. It really is a shame that mankind had to be held back by the, would be, word of God, because some power maniacs used it to torture the population for hundreds of years.

Z, that’s a good point. I’m not saying it’s all false, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t believe in it! And in my book a simpleton is a simpleton, whether he believes in God or not. They are equal. As for corruption… I think that has a lot to do with societal changes. The only thing I know for sure is corrupt is business and politics… and boy do they make terrible bedfellows haha!

X, I’ve actually given some thought to the free will proclaimed by Christians and others. I think that’s a bit of an illusion, or at least a temporary one. For the Bible teaches everyone will be judged by God and be sent to heaven or hell. Thus if I don’t want to go to either place, I’m screwed, because I have no free choice. At least that’s how I’ve been looking at the teaching as of late. As for Christian democracy, I’m going back to my stance that it doesn’t belong, nor does any other form of Theocracy. You absolutely exclude people if you run a government by a single religious belief, you should know that better than anyone originally being from Iran. You can claim relativism on the Islamic issue, but I still say things like beating your wife and raping people is something the average person shouldn’t have to deal with.

Z Christian: Hah, too true. Religion doesn’t make us different at all, I agree with you 100%. It’s what you do as a man on earth, as an independent soul. So many things fall into place when you think about what kind of attributes are needed for a man to be considered, how could I say this… To be a totally functional brain, with a purpose. Although, religion plays such a little role in it. It’s everything you do in your life, you leave a piece of you behind, and you move on to make progress. You don’t need a Bible in your hand to show people you can make it in this world, obviously. I know what you mean, and I agree with you 100%.

And that is basically where that discussion ended. The next discussion took place on a different discussion board, where “Unreasonable” also happened to post. This starts off somewhere when we were discussion God’s tendency to ask for people’s deaths.

Unreasonable: There weren’t many deaths of firstborn sons in history…

ACP 1: Again, then, tell me. Why did your benevolent god do such a thing? Not to mention the Jews could kill them themselves without the help of angels

Me: There weren’t “Unreasonable”? Proof please. Peer reviewed archaeological studies. I want time frames of 4,500 B.C. to 1900 AD to support this claim you have made. (PS: Why am I asking for this? Because I already know it’s false. Child death was very common.)

Unreasonable: I don’t see how killing them would do any harm, since they could be saved when Jesus went down in Hades?

ACP 2: You don’t see how killing people would do any harm? You are one scary dude.

ACP 1: You what?

Unreasonable: People can only kill the body, this borrowed shell of mortality. That means that I was talking about their souls, which is what really matters.

ACP 1: So god and his followers can go killing however many children they like, is that it?

ACP 2: I fear “Unreasonable’s” moral compass is broken. I have to ask though: Whatever happened to “life is sacred”?

ACP 3: Congratulations “Unreasonable”. You’ve managed to undermine every single argument you’ve ever made for morality with a single sentence. I don’t think I could manage to pull off such a trick.

Me: Well “Unreasonable”, I’m glad that your universal morality will allow for the rape and murder of children without having to worry about it too much. At least your God can kill on a whim with a clear conscience!

Unreasonable: Nope, I never said that Christians can go kill or anything, His Word says we shouldn’t after all. But when God kills someone then He sure can take care of him, He knows what to do. Some will say that ‘all the people that died before Christ’s arrival didn’t get a chance to strive for Heaven’. Indeed, but they got one when Jesus preached to the dead in Hades. I never said that it’s okay to kill people, it’s just isn’t as important as harming one’s soul (i.e.: Salvation).

Me: Well, I’m glad you were able to perform the mental gymnastics to find moral cause for thrusting billions of innocent people in Hades for thousands of years, simply because the selfish whims of your God’s prophecy had not yet come into fruition. Of course you will say this is a trifle in comparison to your “salvation”… but it really does beg the question. Imagine if people actually tried to live like this God of yours! What kinds of great atrocities could be justified for such an unconscionable and immoral deity!? Thus far the most humorous part of these conversations is how the Anti-Christians talk MORE about morality and have a problem with killing Children far more than the Christians do. Now who is the greatest moral teacher of all time? Hmm… I have to wonder about that…

A Christian: Cleric, don’t give “Unreasonable” such a hard time for not quoting verses. You know very well that what he says should be seen in the context of Matthew 10:28…39.

Unreasonable: I thought you didn’t believe in “correct moral values”. But how come, are you a theist?

ACP 2: I’m going to righteously suffocate a few children. Don’t worry, God told me it was okay.

Me: Unreasonable, where did I say I didn’t believe in “correct moral values”? And what the hell does that have to do with being a theist? And A, it’s comforting to see that your God supports breaking up the family for his own selfish needs. Awesome, morality at it’s peak! But I guess that’s only okay in context, my mom doesn’t really read the Bible, so I’m going to disown her based on the verse you just quoted and follow Jesus. I want to try to live a moral life, I, perhaps, in context of that alone, should kill children that were born out of wedlock, as they are an abomination of the Lord. Thank you A.

Unreasonable: ACP 2, God doesn’t approve murder. Please, present a verse where God agrees with your idea. So, you believe in universal and correct moral values, Cleric? And you’re an atheist?

ACP 2: Yes, sure. “Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor!” ~ God. What are you going to tell me next, God loves us? Hahaha.

ACP 3: So, you think being an atheist means one cannot believe that a form of morality exists? Did you just magically forget the debates on this topic from the past… how many months?

Me: Wow “Unreasonable”… it’s like trying to talk to someone who can’t read or remember anything, ever. Why do you think atheism means “no morals”?
A Christian: Cleric, nice to see that you read the whole passage in Matthew 10 to know the context. Try to see it this way: if God would save one of your family, it would cause division in your family in a way that it is in view in Matthew 10.

Unreasonable: ACP2, that was nothing but a case/an exception, not a universal and general command. Cleric and ACP3, no. I’m just saying that since life has no apparent meaning (except the one you give it, a man-made meaning) an atheist’s moral values are based on nothing at all (of course, killing and such are not included).

ACP 1: 1. It was not an exception, such things appear often. And even if it was, so, if I kill a few people, can I tell the judge, “oh, that was a one-time thing, I won’t do it again – besides, it doesn’t matter I killed them, there’s afterlife.”? 2. Funny, you said that was one case/an exception, and in your very next shout, 4 (!!) minutes after, you say “those he killed during the flood!!!” (I took the liberty of fixing your syntax mistake). 3. I don’t know about others, but I’m just saying that morals are man-made, and therefore cannot be universal, or “correct”. They are still very real and apply to a human society, but could change drastically in the course of time, as they already have in the past.

Me: ACP1, your perception on how I am perceiving morals is quite correct. Which we have explained to “Unreasonable” numerous times, but as if he never read a word of what we said, he still has no clue as to what we are talking about. Along with his moral compass being broken… his reading compass appears to have been irreparably damaged as well. Quite sad.

ACP3: Actually a great deal of our “man-made” morals are firmly rooted in evolution. Altruism and working towards group goals, for example… the universal anger at injustice, crime… resentment towards those who take what belongs to others to benefit themselves, or make their welfare simply by leeching off others. Most of our “core morals” can be seen in other animals and globally. Where things start getting fuzzy is when we get flavors of these core values or we see counter-intuitive “artificial” versions in other cultures which may not appear to benefit the society or an individual. A standard atheist’s moral values are primarily based on two things: his biology and his culture. Neither of those is “nothing”. But we’ve told you all of this before, you just seem to have developed amnesia.

Unreasonable: Nope, I remember everything we said about sociobiology (Lea is a good teacher). Morality has become a pseudoscience nowadays. And it has nothing to do with atheism, which is nothing but an non-belief. Each atheist may have his own morals, no matter if they’re close to Bakunin or LaVey. And my compass isn’t broken, there was just a magnet stuck on it. 1) They may appear often, but they’re not the universal morals set by God. If He tells you to provoke a war, then I can’t do anything about it (well, provided I believe you first…), go on. There’s afterlife for those children indeed, but we can’t let you keep stopping us from our test (life, that is). 2) Funny, yes, I’m still laughing (I’m a stand-up comedian, you know). Next time you better not “edit” my words.

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