How I Realized Christianity Was Nonsense

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by Michael Runyan

My path out of Christianity began 30 years ago when I realized that evolution was a fact — that we evolved from very simple organisms that lived 4,000,000,000 years ago. I wondered why a god would use such a long, convoluted process to produce the desired human product, a process that included a 160,000,000 year reign of the dinosaurs and the countless suffering of animals that starved to death or were eaten alive.

The way I avoided that conundrum was to suppose that God allowed everything to happen on its own and that only when intelligent beings evolved did he decide to intervene, and that perhaps he did the same on other planets where intelligent life evolved.

For a time, I was satisfied with that, but then I started to have other problems. Modern humans have existed for 100,000 years, so why did God wait 95,000 years before he made contact? And why was that contact made with only a small tribe in the Middle East? The problem was further exacerbated by the question of why God would “choose” a certain people over another in the first place, while ignoring the many vibrant civilizations that existed all over the world at that time? Then it became worse when I realized that God allegedly not only favored the Jews, but he also helped them to fight their neighbors, even to the point of commanding them to kill the adversary’s women and children. Why would a god who had built the entire universe become involved in such cruel and petty absurdity? When looking at the other atrocities ascribed to God in the Old Testament, I also realized that no real god would ever act in that way. I also concluded that the god of the New Testament was very different and could not be the same as the one described in the Old Testament — though, if that is true, then Christianity fails a significant test of authenticity.

I was impressed by this quote from Richard Dawkins:

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”

There are scriptures to back up every adjective in this quote.

Another quote from Mark Twain:

“Our Bible reveals to us the character of our God with minute and remorseless exactness. The portrait is substantially that of a man — if one can imagine a man charged and overcharged with evil impulses far beyond the human limit; a personage whom no one, perhaps, would desire to associate with, now that Nero and Caligula are dead. In the old Testament His acts expose His vindictive, unjust, ungenerous, pitiless and vengeful nature constantly. He is always punishing — punishing trifling misdeeds with thousand-fold severity; punishing innocent children for the misdeeds of their parents; punishing unoffending populations for the misdeeds of their rulers; even descending to wreak bloody vengeance upon harmless calves and lambs and sheep and bullocks, as punishment for inconsequential trespasses committed by their proprietors. It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading, by contrast.”

The story of Noah’s Ark never happened. But it was written as if it were a fact, so it made me wonder what other events in the Bible that, unlike Noah, seem plausibly true but are nonetheless fiction? What is even more telling in my observation is that if the story of Noah is true, as many fundamentalist Christians believe, would a god capable of such vicious cruelty be worthy of worship in the first place?

I also recognized that a real god would not require animals to be sacrificed for his gratification or demand that people who work on the Sabbath be put to death, or that disobedient children should be killed. It seemed obvious to me that men wrote scriptures that reflected the current culture and whatever appealed to them, but they were not in communication with or guided by a supernatural being during this process. Could the real god that made the whole universe be so petty, unjust, and jealous, or be a misogynist or homophobic, or be a racist, or be homicidal, or be so inconsistent and capricious as he is portrayed in the Old Testament? No, but humans certainly could. This god is nothing more than a reflection of the men who wrote the Old Testament, very much a fictional deity grounded in the times and environment of the people who created him.

That the Bible is a product of its times is also revealed by the Ten Commandments. Nowhere in these commandments is there a condemnation of slavery, genocide, child molestation, or cruel treatment of homosexuals or non-human animals, but it does suggest that a wife is the property of the husband (Commandment #10). It is apparent that the morality of modern civilization has surpassed that of the Bible, but if God was the author of these commandments, it begs the question: are we today more moral than God? It takes little effort by anyone to construct a more enlightened set of instructions than what is contained in the Ten Commandments.

I understood that the Bible viewed homosexuality as sin, but concluded that a real god would have understood the causes of homosexuality and would not have condemned what came natural to these people. He would have known that it wasn’t a choice, but rather an integral part of their essence. Such a god would not have condemned these people or their activity. The Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality reveals its man-made origins.

The story of the Jewish exile to Egypt has been disproved based on the absolute lack of evidence either in the Egyptian historical records or corroborating physical evidence. The story of everything associated with this sojourn was apparently a myth that was later written into the books of Genesis and Exodus. Once again, this casts doubt on the authenticity of the Old Testament.

So the next rationalization for me was to completely jettison the Old Testament and consider it apocryphal — just a series of legends that might in some cases have been remotely tethered to real events, and that Jesus came to the earth to correct the errors of Judaism as well as other religions. There were problems with that concept as well because Jesus appeared to be supportive of Old Testament history and law. There seems to be no way to separate Christianity from its Jewish roots without destroying its authenticity.

At this point my faith was hanging by a thread. I looked at how the universe was constructed and how things worked in my experience of life. Well, the universe did not seem to be anything a god would design, there being too much chaos and asymmetry, with asteroids pounding planets, galaxies colliding, and so forth. The universe is too large for it to have been created just for human earthlings, and it also seems to be farcical that the god that made all of this is a male and looks like a human.

I considered a thought experiment, that I had been raised without any religious instruction or even hearing about religion as I grew up. Would I have concluded from what I experienced that there were supernatural forces at play? Did it seem like a world populated with gods, angels, devils, and demons? The answer was “no.”

The very concept of the Devil and Hell seemed to be a human invention, perhaps to scare and control people, but very unlikely to exist in reality. I understood that if I disbelieved in the Devil that I was also dangerously close to disbelieving in God.

I wondered how God could justify letting so much misery occur when he had the power to stop it. I examined the well-known quote by Epicurus:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

I found it hard to construct a convincing retort to this argument. After seeing people fall victim to Alzheimer’s disease, be eaten alive by flesh-eating bacteria, be drowned in tsunamis, be wracked with agonizing pain, I became weary of using the long-standing rationalization that ‘god works in mysterious ways.’ The amount of suffering in the world is too great to be considered a purposeful plan by a benevolent god. I realized one thing — if God is who most Christians think he is, omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, then he is not compassionate, not sympathetic, and not deserving of admiration or worship.

A corollary to this issue is to ask what would a god do if he sees a very tragic event unfolding or about to happen, would he just watch and let it occur? An example is 9/11, or the great Indonesian or Japanese tsunamis. It seemed to be unusual that an existence overseen by a supernatural god would see such terrible events occur, and happen in a way that appeared to be unrestrained by any governing mechanism. If a person withheld information that could have thwarted the 9/11 attack, he would have been prosecuted as an accessory before the fact. But god gets a pass on this by Christians who seem to rationalize that god thought this event was somehow necessary.

I also evaluated the effectiveness of prayer and concluded that the prayers I had said in my life had not shown any sign of being answered beyond pure coincidence. I wondered why God refused to heal amputees and quadriplegics. I also wondered why Christians and atheists respond the same way when they get sick or wreck their car — that is, it seemed that being a Christian offered no tangible real-world advantage.

I was bothered by the fact that Christians did not pray for anything that would clearly require a supernatural force, such as praying for a dead person to be raised back to life, or an amputee to have a limb restored, or for a polluted lake to be cleaned up. And I had ask myself why this was so, because the Bible seemed to suggest such things should be possible through an all-powerful God. I wondered if it was because Christians know that prayers really do not work and to be safe it is best to use them only in situations where a positive ‘answer’ might result from a natural process.

I also wondered why God would be so secretive and aloof, and allow so many false religions to flourish. Even in the Christian religion, there are hundreds of denominations each with a different philosophy of Christianity. Wouldn’t it make more sense to be upfront with us and let us know exactly what we were supposed to believe, how to behave, and who to worship? Further, why are so many people born into circumstances that make becoming a Christian almost impossible?

I wondered why a god would author the perception that men were in any way superior to women, or had dominion over them. Our society has moved to a paradigm of equality between the sexes. Wouldn’t a god have been similarly enlightened and have promoted this concept from the beginning?

I wondered about the inconsistency of salvation, given that an infant who dies is supposedly given a free pass to heaven, but if he lived to be an adult and did not satisfy God, he could be sent to Hell. This seemed to suggest that dying as an infant was the best thing that could happen, for why risk an eternal reward for a few short years of earthly life?

My read of the Bible also suggested something atrocious — that Ted Bundy, the serial killer of over 30 women, is in heaven, while Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the great humanitarian who devoted his life to alleviating the suffering of impoverished Africans, is in hell. It is consistent to make this argument from the text of the New Testament, which suggests that no man is worthy of heaven without accepting the grace offered by Jesus’ death on the cross and that any person still alive, no matter their history, can have his sins absolved. Bundy did accept Jesus before his execution and Schweitzer did not accept Jesus as being divine. This outlandish scenario caused me to question the morality of the New Testament, but more importantly, the likelihood that a god would use such an injudicious system of reward and punishment.

I wondered why a religion started by the Jews was any different from other religions created by other cultures. In all cases, the gods exclusively favored the group that invented them, so why should I assume that the religion of the Jews was any different?

I considered the miraculous elements of Christianity — the virgin birth, the guiding star, the visitation by nobility, being put to death and resurrecting, and found that all of these elements existed in religions that preceded Christianity. This didn’t disprove these events as described in the Bible, but it did suggest the possibility that elements of previous religions were borrowed by Christianity.

I looked at the New Testament and found two disturbing problems, the first being the Roman census that was supposedly conducted during the time of Jesus’ birth (BC 4). There is no record of this in Roman history (the only census that took place in this time frame was in AD 6-7 according to the Romans meticulous records and did not include the areas of Nazareth and Bethlehem) and it never made sense anyway. The Romans would not have required people to journey to their birth city. This would involve cases where families would have been split, going to different cities, but more significantly, the Romans would want to know how many people were living currently in each area rather than how many were born in a certain city. I also realized why this was written into the Bible — Jesus was a Nazarene, but the scriptures said that the savior was to be born in Bethlehem, so some device was needed to convince followers that Jesus was not born in Nazareth as everyone had assumed, but rather he had the appropriate credentials of the savior.

Read more at ChurchandState.org

About Post Author

Professor Mike

Professor Mike is a left-leaning, dog loving, political junkie. He has written dozens of articles for Substack, Medium, Simily, and Tribel. Professor Mike has been published at Smerconish.com, among others. He is a strong proponent of the environment, and a passionate protector of animals. In addition he is a fierce anti-Trumper. Take a moment and share his work.
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Paul
4 years ago

The truth is hidden in mythology to preserve free will. If God had encoded the Koran or the Bible in our DNA, you would then accuse him of being big brother or a fascist.

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6 years ago

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Wayne
7 years ago

God took all this trouble, (billions of years and this vast Universe), to create humans who live on a tiny planet in one tiny corner just so they will bow, prostrate, praise and worship Him and yet don’t bother to show Himself to everyone, and when He did to only one person, Moses, He hid behind a burning bush.

And when He wanted to give mankind a definitive revelation, He was too busy, (with what?), or couldn’t be bothered to do it Himself. He sent an angel called Gabriel to meet a camel trader, Muhammad. With all His super powers, couldn’t He just incorporate the whole Koran into the DNA of every human so that everyone knows the Truth rather than having them kill each over whose Truth is more true?

BTW, if He hates homosexuals and pigs that much why even bother to create them and then tell His humans to despise them?

7 years ago

Congratulations on thinking your way out of religion. The journey out is different for each of us, but it’s well worth the trek.

Shamsud
7 years ago

I believe science and religion are two eyes of knowledge given by God. Science is acquired knowledge and religion is revealed knowledge.
Science is a good thing but if used without proper guidance it will cause chaos, on the other hand if only practice religion without looking around the world and utilizing the things God has made for us will lead to other kind of corruption.
Every child is born in submission to God. Its only surrounding and society that let him astray.
Universe and all the things in it is a concept but God is a percept. U can only feel God but cannot create a concept of God. That is the reason no one can prove God existence scientifically.
Don’t judge on what people say about Islam just read Quran to know the truth.

7 years ago

In an ever growing digital world with more access to facts and information online, more and more people are turning away from religion. However I feel it still has a strong power to give people hope through hard times, a thing thats facts cannot always do.
Our company is neutral in regards to religion, we respect each persons individual right to their own beliefs. I personally am a beliver in science and always have been but I’ve found your journey away from religion an interesting read!

Glenn R. Geist
7 years ago

“but the scriptures said that the savior was to be born in Bethlehem,”

Exposing every fabrication seems to expose another layer of fabrication: more stories made up to support more stories.

I believe the bit of Isiah supposed to predict Jesus simply predicted an heir to Ahaz would be born of some young woman. The word Almah doesn’t mean Virgin and an heir to Ahaz certainly doesn’t mean someone was going to save anything as unjewish as an immortal soul from the eternal punishment for an original sin. None of these things were Jewish ideas then or now. Layers of fraud and fabrication and fantasy and ancient myth — it’s like geology.

Glenn R. Geist
7 years ago

I’m afraid the idea of reading any mythology out of context with its sources or with history isn’t going to get you anywhere and of course, by “without any bias” means without any information that might cause questions – questions such as why so many of the stories came from other non-muslim sources and were used to teach other things about other gods and men. Like any religion it’s a pastiche, a crazy quilt of Mesopotamian mythology with roots in pre-history and without knowing where it came from you’re not likely to be able to ask any important questions.

Being a pastiche, written by many people with many viewpoints, Islam, like all the Abrahamic religions can be used to support almost anything and to attack almost anything and the Quir’an is only as authoritative as the man who tells you what it means.

Shamsud
7 years ago

Every answer is in the Quran just read without any bias. And I am sure If you read it to know the truth, you will come to truth.

Don’t look todays majority muslim. Most muslim don’t even know what is written in there scriptures.

Bill Formby
7 years ago

It is all so difficult to follow Mike. Well written. But, as I have said before, if this belief helps people get through whatever goes bump in the night, then that is their right. Just leave me out of it and goes ye merry way. The most offensive part of any religion is that when insist that everyone else must believe as they believe.

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