Religion

I was once a hardcore fundamentalist Christian. I thought that homosexuality was wrong, women should submit to their husbands...all of that. Naturally, I wasn't one of those nutcases who picket outside of abortion clinics shouting that they were all going to hell. I just believed every word of the Bible. But then, it stopped.

It started out with my church; I saw lots of hpyocrisy, and people who just didn't care what the Bible said, when it got down to what they wanted. After that, I started looking at other churches, and pretty much saw the same thing. It was long before I started looking at Christianity as a whole; the final stop was when I looked at the Bible itself...I mean really looked at it.

What you have to first realize, is that the decision to become a Christian isn't the least bit an intellectual decision. People criticize Christians for believing in something so absurd, like deserving death for sin from the moment you're born. But the decision isn't made after a process of weighing pros and cons, then looking at the evidence and logical backing for Christianity; the decision is made through a combination of guilt, emotional plowing, and fear. For me, the "fear" came as kid, mostly in the form of my parents forcing me to wake up insanely early to be bored for two hours, then blasting Christian radio as loud as they could, instead of letting me watch cartoons.

Whenever I attended an evangelistic event that my held, the services always followed the same pattern:

1) A song and dance intro, much like a the beginning of a normal church service.
2) Testimonials from former sinners
3) A highly emotional song, skit, play or video presentation, mournfully urging the sinners in the audience to turn from their ways.
4) Just as the song, video or whatever ends, the pastor walks out with a somber face, and gives a gripping sermon on Jesus dying for us.
5) The event ends with a call to the alter from the pastor, with some appropriately emotional music softly playing as he speaks.

None of these evangelistic meetings ever include any logical discussion as to why Christianity was they way. Of course, logic wouldn't work. However, in the last few years, there's been an attempt to incorporate "logic" into evangelism, like though creationism and ID. For reasons most people already know, the "logic" in them fails miserably. But there's been another kind of "logical" aproach to evangelism, being made popular by these guys:





Ray Comfort (left) and Kirk Cameron. Their form of logic usually include a series of questions asked to sinner, which are supposed to lead to the conclusion that they need to become Christians. For example:

Kirk Cameron: Are you a bad person?
Sinner: No, I think I'm pretty decent.
Kirk: Have you ever stolen something?
Sinner: Yes, as a kid.
Kirk: So what does that make you?
Sinner: Human?
Kirk: And what are humans who steal called?
Sinner: I guess in your eyes, a thief.
Kirk: Well in the cop's eyes, you'd be thief.

And I'm sure you can see the point; a series of well-framed questions, to which turning to Jesus Christ is supposed to be the only logical answer. Kirk Cameron (Or Ray Comfort) usually rap up their questions with this gem:

Kirk: So yes or no, have you ever stolen something?
Sinner: Yes.
Kirk: Have you ever lied?
Sinner: Yes.
Kirk: Ever had lustful thoughts?
Sinner: Yes.
Kirk: Jesus said lusting in your heart is adultery. Ever used God's name in vain?
Sinner: Yes.
Kirk: So by your own admission...you're a lying, adulterous, blasphemous thief.

It's at this point that we usually see the sinner blown away by Kirk's magnificent logic. Of course, we have to assume God is real for this line of logic to work, which is why this line of "logic" fails from the get-go. Admittedly, I was once caught up in Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort's "Way Of The Master" series, which features this method of evangelism. But a little honesty (painful as it was at the time for me) let me see Christianity and all religions for what they are: shams to control masses of people.

Even as I type this blog, there are still twinges of guilt deep-down somewhere. Christains reading this might call it the piercing of the Holy Spirit on my conscience; however, it's more likely due to the years of unrelenting fear and indoctrination, drilled into me since I was a small child. All I can say is, I'm glad finally free and saved and loosed from my religious shackles.