(Yes, this also applies to the “We Follow the Teaching of Jesus but Not the Church” people)
Dear Christian. I completely accept your religion and your current belief system, and I recognize your right to have your beliefs and right to practice your religion. I also completely understand the “we follow the teachings of Jesus and not the church” people that do not support the more hard-liner religious right stuff.
As a devout current atheist, former devout Christian and former person that often said “I follow the teachings of Jesus and not the church” when with certain people, I am going to attempt to explain why this is still problematic for me and other non-believers and the rest of humanity. The reason I used to say that same thing, is that I had already determined that the Old Testament of the Bible and much of what people taught me in my childhood church was not in line with my values and an embarrassment. Especially to my friends and family in the LGBTQ community, immigrants, women, interracial couples, people not raised Christian, like my wife, or any other community I could clearly see affected negatively by my fellow Christian hard line Bible thumpers and the influence they want over everyone’s life.
I was no longer interested in belonging to an organized Christian church, but I still needed an insurance policy that protected me from going to hell in case that part was true. So, I held onto the “I believe in the teachings of Jesus” line so I could take credit for the good parts of what Jesus taught, distance myself from the far right, hopefully not offend any non-Christians, keep my family, and possibly save my soul in the process. I did not even have to attend church anymore; I could just whip out that line and solve most problems with my own mind, most non-Christians, and devout Christians alike. Win all around as far as I could tell.
It was not until much later and after knowing more friends and people of all different religious backgrounds including atheists that I started to first think about what telling people that I am a believer in the teachings of Jesus meant. Same as what phrases like “yes, I am saved”, or “yes, as a Christian, aren’t we truly blessed?”. Especially to people, that already know what Jesus taught and had not chosen that same belief system and never would. “My children are truly the greatest blessing” has a different meaning when said to a non-Christian family struggling with fertility. Does that mean that you believe God cursed us?
I am all for spreading the teachings of Jesus around the immigrant stuff and the helping the needy and loving thy neighbor but that is not all He taught. He also taught me about hell. A lot actually. He vehemently spread an ongoing absolutely logicless fear-bullying message about faith, heaven, and hell to convert non-believers to His extremist cult type movement. According to the Bible at least.
The Bible claims that Jesus taught at length about the rath and suffering that hell will be for all non-believers and about how a singular faith and belief are the singular path to righteousness, salvation, and heaven. These are the same lessons I learned directly from church leaders and relatives growing up and the same messages I hear every time we gather to celebrate or mourn. This is also the same message from that guy with a few screws loose and a bullhorn on the corner in town.
You could spend your life saving old ladies from burning buildings or you could rape old ladies and burn them in a building, and it does not affect your salvation in the eyes of God according to my Christian friends, family, the Bible, and even Jesus Himself. The weirder part for me is that the omnipotent, all-knowing, all-powerful God also already knows, even before He creates a person if they are going to heaven or hell in spite of the fact he also somehow gave them the free will that will ultimately land a lot of mother savers in hell and quite a few mother rapers saved and in heaven. This also makes the “everything happens according to God’s plan”, argument considerably more questionable strictly from an ethics conversation. If you believe that much of what is going on in the world right now is all simply explainable as God’s plan, you may not have a chosen a very just God or justifiable religion in my opinion.
Although these messages had been pumped into my brain on repeat since the time I was born, I knew in my heart and brain and could see with my eyes from the time I was about 14 or 15 that this was mostly logicless subconscious indoctrination aimed at controlling people with fear (especially women by men) and nothing an all knowing, all loving, or remotely logical God I could ever believe in would create. At this point I just created my own God and realistically my own version of Jesus to follow and worship as well. I see others do this as well.
But others much more easily could accept these less moral and less logical parts of the Bible from what was supposed to be the most moral, logical entities in the universe God and His earthly Son Jesus Christ. That and a bunch of unprovable accounts of supernatural events and occurrences that are obvious fables are supposed proof of God’s existence and the fundamental beliefs of Christianity and the source of this ongoing fear-based faith-bullying that I ultimately understood I was perpetuating by telling people I believe in the teachings of Jesus.
This is also explains how in the hell these really morally bankrupt Republicans keeps getting so many evangelical votes and why so many of the same refuse a vote for a woman leader altogether. These fundamental, unchangeable, logicless indoctrinated beliefs fuel Christians to logicless action. If you believe that your belief system alone makes you chosen by God, that belief system can lead you to do all sorts of things you would not otherwise do. Combine that with the fact that many of these same people openly and proudly admit that they do not live for this life but for the next (where only other Christians are around) and a lot of really strange behavior starts to make more sense.
If you are reading this and saying, “I am Christian and don’t believe all non-Christian believers are going to hell!” Great, I think that clarification will make our relationship easier and makes me think you are smarter and sane. But I hope you understand you are not a Christian by definition and you are most certainly not a believer in the Biblical teachings of Jesus Christ either. That is a good thing for me and my wife because at least you do not think we are going to hell the entire time we are sharing a glass of wine. But I hope many realize they are giving power to Christians that do not share their open-mindedness and for many, quite a bit of money to advance a MAGA agenda too. That is regardless of how open-minded or liberal your particular organized Christian church falls.
So regardless of what any Christian or follower of Jesus tells me about how much they love me and my wife unconditionally and how they want us to also love them unconditionally the same as Christ did, the Christian absolutely does have one large condition for the non-Christian.
As a non-believer, I must be able to accept the fact that the Christian friend or relative believes, without doubt, that my core religious beliefs alone are the ultimate sin and will result in me and my wife going to hell when we die while their different and possibly less moral belief is the ultimate virtue that will result in them going to heaven where they will never have the burden of having to think about or mourn sinners like us suffering eternally in hell again.
Regardless of what I know or believe personally, the fact that this does make sense to so many people will always remain a hard pill to swallow about evangelical Christians and especially close family members demanding unconditionally love but not showing too much in return. I am certainly not the one that adopted an open and proud faith in a religion that insists that most of humanity is going to hell and demanding acceptance for that belief. What if I came out to my family and informed them that I joined a new religion founded by some theologians who uncovered some new scriptures and that we now believe that God says all believers in Jesus Christ are going to suffer eternally in hell and only non-believers of Jesus are going to heaven. But do not worry, like Christians we do not judge others, and we are having a big party to celebrate our newfound belief in being saved from the Sin of Christianity. All are welcome even people still lost in Christianity! You should stop by; we will also be serving exclusively food you cannot ethically eat because of your beliefs! Would this get me the same unconditional love and friendship that my openly Christian friends and family expect from me for the exact same? Same as for Christians that read this for that matter. I am not saying anyone is going to hell only condemning others for doing that to me. I will receive unconditional support and non-judgement from Christian friends and family over writing this, right?
Although not necessarily out formally as an atheist, I am certain many friends and family know and many more do not care which is all right with me too. Only time will say about the amount of overall acceptance I receive, as I more formally step out of the shadow of secrecy about my fundamental belief system and what is a big part of who I am as a person same as most of my family. I do know that the religion and specifically evangelical Christianity from my youth and my journey out is the source of a tremendous amount of emotional trauma in my life. Trauma that, as you can hopefully see, I am still working through today and hoping to help others avoid. But as they say, I can see the light and understand my way forward spiritually now better than I ever have in my life.
I am trying to be more accepting of devout and open Christians and was for quite a while, but I am mostly failing miserably these days and seeing more and more how the business of Evangelical Christianity and most other religions are much more of our country’s world’s problem than any individual that associates with the religion or any other factor at all. It is easier to see how these problems play out with other religions and in other places in the world but harder to see and accept when it is your own lifelong religion and friends, and family caught in the powerful cult mentality.
There are so many good Christians right now, collectively doing so many awful things and they really do not know why because they are living under a cult. Religious leaders in this country cannot even condemn the Republican political reprehensible daily rhetoric for fear that church pews will be empty the next week. Women in this country that cannot vote for a man they consider to be reprehensible, also cannot vote for any women due to these generational fixed religious beliefs. Women are getting forced out and fired from jobs for standing up to MAGA inspired policies that Christian men are implementing with impunity. This is mob and cult behavior. And things are about to get a whole lot crazier in the country regarding the separation of church and state for all non-Christians.
I am not saying that Christians and even Christians churches are not collectively doing good things like charitable work as I certainly recognize they do. I fully admit they do but so do plenty of non-Christians groups and organizations. To me this is not a discussion about how much good out weighs bad. The issue is that, reality is a thing. Or at least it should be.
For those saying, I cannot change my lifelong beliefs or what I know is true because Jesus said it in the Bible. Yes, you can, and you should. If you cannot that is OK too. I can accept that, but please stop telling me that you love non-believers unconditionally and please stop asking for me to respect your religious beliefs. I can respect you without respecting the parts of your belief system that are not respectable.
For those asking, “how can you not believe in God?”. The answer is simple. I don’t believe in your God in the exact same way you don’t believe in the other 3000 different gods that are worshiped by different people. The statistical difference between what religions an atheist believes and what religions a religious person believes is about 0.0003.
Most religion is immoral and illogical to most everyone not in a religion and for me that includes all fundamentalist religions. I have mostly kept my mouth shut for the last twenty years for fear of losing friends and family. But the emergence of the MAGA evangelical religious takeover of the Republican party in the United States clearly tells me, that I have lost most of my Christian friends and family anyway, and it is time to act to try to change the world while we still have one to change.