1. The Bible’s archaic, arbitrary code of ethics is ineffective in the real world.
There are a few common sense rules in the Bible that are good, but when you take every single rule into account you find vagueness, contradictions, absurdities, immorality idolized and morality demonized. The rules in the Bible are all over the place. To make matters even worse, the determining factor of whether or not you’re forgiven or punished for violating these vague, contradictory, absurd rules is whether or not you believe in a story.
Here’s why that’s bad. Imagine if you were trying to control a class of 6 year old children and you gave them an arbitrary set of rules and told them that the only way to escape punishment for breaking the rules is to believe in a story. What would happen? Chaos would break out.
Children who are raised their entire life on vague, contradictory, arbitrary rules grow up into adults with a warped perception of reality. They often feel guilty for doing innocent, natural things, believe they deserve to go to Hell, believe in magical spirits and powers, distrust science, fear pleasure and celebrate selflessness to a fault. These are not the habits of an enlightened society. They’re irrational, and they contradict reality. If you live your life according to beliefs that contradict reality you’re going to have a bad time.
Also, children who grow up believing the archaic, haphazard morals in the Bible, will grow up and become politicians who often try to pass laws enforcing or favoring those morals.
2. The Bible grants you immunity for your crimes.
If you firmly believe that the threat of the death penalty is strong enough to dissuade people from breaking the law then you had better believe that the promise of unconditional release and immunity is strong enough to entice people to break the law. Christian doctrine creates an environment that encourages, or at least excuses, inhumane behavior by removing the perception of consequence for those who believe.
3. Christianity places subservience as one of its top virtues.
This is great for a nation if you want everyone to be slaves. This is terrible for a nation that wants to progress and grow uniformly strong. If you want a nation to excel, you need to teach your children that genius is the highest virtue. A society raised on that value will create beauty you could never imagine possible, but we’ve chosen not to go down that path. We’ve taught people they’re dogs who deserve to be beaten. We’ve taught them that logic is evil and ignorance is strength. It should come as no surprise that every night on the news are stories about people acting like beaten dogs and tearing each other apart.
4. Christianity places faith as one of its top virtues.
The bible teaches that blind faith is virtuous and doubt is evil. Every atrocity committed in history was done by people with blind faith in an ideology. Blind faith is a recipe for exploitation and oppression.
On the other hand, every advancement we’ve made in science, government, economics, the humanities, etc. were achieved by doubting, questioning and improving on the ideas our ancestors came up with. Curiosity and doubt open the door to truth, clarity and genius. Christianity takes those keys away from individuals and society as a whole.
5. Religion siphons money from the public that could be spent saving the world.
6. Making pleasure taboo is harmful.
The teaching of the Bible inspired countless people to regret and deny their sexuality, adopt an austere lifestyle and even revel in suffering. All of that sacrifice is irrational. There’s no sane reason to deny yourself any pleasure or happiness to honor the creator of the universe. All that accomplishes is making the world a less enjoyable place for you and everyone around you.
7. Christianity has a long tradition of holding back scientific progress.
There have been Christians who have made invaluable scientific breakthroughs. For example, a monk named Gregor Mendel proved the existence of genetically inheritable traits. However, Christianity has a long history of stifling scientific thought.
The Catholic church forced Galileo to withdraw and deny his research that proved the Earth is not the center of the universe. Christians regularly pressure public schools to teach children that the creation story in the book of Genesis is real and humanity’s scientific understanding of the universe if false. Christians have opposed the use of condoms and blocked stem cell research. Children have died because Christian parents had faith that God would save their sick child. I’ve even once heard an elderly Christian say that humans didn’t need psychology since the Bible is all you need to solve any problem in the world. When the majority of a population hates the instruments of progress then it becomes much more difficult for that society to progress.
8. Life sucks for everyone else when Christians rule the world.
The Apostle Paul ordered Christians to spread the Gospel until everyone in the world believed in Christianity. Christian missionaries have a good track record of converting entire societies to the point that Christianity became merged with those society’s governments. It happened in Rome, Germany, The United States of America and many other places. All of those governments created laws that oppressed and punished people who didn’t live by Christianity’s archaic, vague ethical code.
Christianity likes to claim it loves everybody, but if you study the history of Christianity you’ll spend an awful lot of time looking at bloody warfare, economic exploitation, the oppression of minorities and slavery. Whenever you have a group who is supposed to be more favored by God than everybody else, and everybody else is so horrible and evil that they deserve to be tortured for eternity, blood will be spilled eventually.
9. Prayer is useless.
Somewhere out there in the world right now someone is praying to God, asking Him to help a starving third world child. Somewhere else out there is a starving child in a third world country praying for some rich, SUV-driving, Starbucks-drinking, Gucci purse –carrying, church-attending Christian to do something about the problems in the world.
Prayer doesn’t work. You know what does work? Work. That’s how every advancement in human history has ever and will ever happen. Prayer keeps that from happening.
10. The Bible teaches people to loathe themselves.
When you tell an entire nation that their righteousness is like filthy rags and they deserve to burn in Hell you’re going to create a nation of self-loathing people. You won’t have the time or motivation to fulfill your potential if you spend your days loathing yourself. And since people tend to treat others the same way they treat themselves, they’re probably going to treat others worse than they deserve.
If you enjoyed this post, you’ll also like these:
The Bible is mythology
- How I became a Christian and then lost my faith
- You need to consider the possibility your religion is mythology
- The mythology test
- A short summary of the Bible
- 10 scriptures that show the Bible is mythology
- 3 Signs the Bible is mythology
- 14 clues Christianity is Roman mythology
- 46 Questions Christians have to struggle with that non-believers can answer in 4 words
- 4 questions every Christian needs to answer about Exodus 21
- A more realistic take on the 10 commandments
- What I think about Satan
- This Was Your Life: The Satanist (Comic)
- This Was Your Life: The Jew (Comic)
- And Old Man From Jersey Explains Religion (Comic)
Christianity is Harmful to Society
- Why you should not respect religious beliefs
- 10 ways the Bible will drive you insane
- 7 ways the Bible will make you an immoral person
- 12 things Christians have to worry about the nonbelievers don’t
- 10 benefits of Christianity you can achieve without believing in mythology
- 3 Reasons Christianity was largely responsible for The Holocaust
- It’s time to stop mutilating baby boys’ genitals
- It’s time to stop celebrating Easter
- It’s time to stop celebrating Christmas
- Never Forget Chick-Fil-A’s Inequality Appreciation Day
- The power of prayer
- The Island of Mana: A Story About Colonialization (Comic)
Preaching, witnessing and arguing with Christians
- 21 reasons it’s impossible to argue with Christians
- 15 mind control techniques both churches and cults use
- Christian billboards I wish Atheists would make
- 10 ways to be a better Christian witness on the internet
Christian Culture
- 10 signs you should stop pretending to be Christian
- Believing in Christianity is always absurd, but more so for certain ethnic groups
- American Christians, you don’t believe or practice what the Bible says about marriage
- Traditional Christian values are neither Christian or traditional
- Christians, you believe in science
- This Was Your Life: A Christian Woman (Comic)
- This Was Your Life: A Christian Man (Comic)
- This Was Your Life: The Puritan (Comic)
- This Was Your Life: Santa (Comic)
My Tweets About Religion
The Wise Sloth 
November 15th, 2017 at 10:46 am
Good read, really highlights alot of the unknown passages of the Bible with just the chart. If others would see the affliction and bloodshed where missionaries have travelled or just the middle east alone they would think a little more about their faith, coming from a Christian background I read the Bible and most people have no idea about it’s true doctrine. Just two examples: remember Jesus used examples. How were Africans deposited into slavery and what religion did they rely on once then? When did south America become a part of slavery: after Spanish missionaries converted indigenous people and yes there are still African descendents in South America and the Caribbean, believers enslaved these people and converted them. What other religion does this and claims it is righteous? Read your Bible people and awake
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November 14th, 2017 at 4:45 am
hOPE YOU WILL COME TO YOUR SENSES AND TRY TO SEE YOUR EXISTENCE AND LIFE, EVEN SEEING THE VAST UNIVERSE AND THE GALAXIES, CAN YOU NOT THINK DEEP AND PROFOUNDLY WHO MADE THEM. WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS REALLY BLASPHEMING THE HOLY SPIRIT – A SIN THAT IS UNPARDONABLE THAT WHOEVER DO SO WILL RUN STRAIGHT TO HELL. YOU HAVE GRIEVED THE HOLY SPIRIT (EPHESIANS 4:30) HE IS THE POWER THAT ENABLE MEN TO WRITE THIS WORD OF GOD, THE BIBLE. THAT EVEN THEY LIVE 500 YEARS APART YET THEIR WRITING EXACTLY COLLABORATE AND CONNECTED TO EACH OTHER – FROM ITS PROPHECY TO ITS END-TIME FULFILLMENT. BECAUSE THEY THE BIBLE WITH THE INSPIRATION OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, MOVED BY THE POWER OF GOD (2TIMOTHY 3:16). WE OUGHT TO BE HUMBLE AND NOT ARROGANT OF OUR LIVES BECAUSE WE ARE ONLY HIS CREATION. AND HE IS GOD (EPHESIANS 4:18). YOU SHALL REPENT. EMPTY YOUR MIND TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS WORLD BECAUSE THIS WORLD IS EVIL AND ONE DAY GOD WILL BURN THIS EARTH TO ESTABLISH HIS ETERNAL KINGDOM WITH ALL HIS PEOPLE – THOSE WHO BELIEVD AND WORSHIPPED HIM.
LET ME GIVE YOU AN EXAMPLE HOW THE BIBLE COME TO BE THE WORD OF GOD. READ REVELATION 6 AND TRY OPENING YOUTUBE BY FINDING “PALE HORSE IN EGYPT” AND TRY TO RELATE THAT CHAPTER OF THE BIBLE WITH THE RECENT EVENT OF THE WORLD (2TIMOTHY 3:1-4). DO IT THAT YOU MAY HAVE TIME TO RENEW YOUR MIND AND ASK GOD FORGIVENESS. IF YOU WILL NOT, YOU CAN NEVER STAND A CHANCE AND IT MIGHT BE TOO LATE. READ JOHN 3:16 AND ROMANS 1:16. WHEN YOU READ THIS 2 VERSES THINK OF EVERYTHING THAT COMES TO YOUR LIFE (HEBREWS 9:27). gOD IS LOVE AND HE IS MORE THAN WILLING TO ACCEPT YOU WHEN YOU COME WITH A PURE HUMBLE HEART AND A CONTRITE SPIRIT OF SUBMISSION AND REPENTANCE. hE DIED ON THE CROSS FOR YOUR SALVATION, SHEDDING HIS OWN BLOOD TO CLEANSE US FROM ALL OUR SINS AND UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. THINK OF IT MAN BEFORE ITS TOO LATE. PERHAPS THIS IS THE DAY GIVEN FOR YOU A CHANCE FOR YOUR SALVATION (MATTHEW 11:28/REVELATION 22:12).
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June 6th, 2017 at 7:02 am
Yeah, If only the church paid taxes. It would pay for food stamps of all the people who shouldn’t have had kids anyway.
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October 7th, 2016 at 2:35 pm
Love love love this article!!! So much like my thinking that I thought I had written it myself.
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August 10th, 2016 at 3:11 pm
Christianity still produces healthier societies than it’s bastard rip-off Islam.
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January 30th, 2016 at 1:51 am
Of course there are truths and knowledge in this writing but there is also some exaggeration and a dogmatic style. I feel when I read this,that I am being hit on the head with propaganda in the same way that some Christians do. Christianity has a bleak history but that is not necessarily proof that modern Christianity is destructive. I think there’s room for shades of grey and a question of emphasis when it comes to Christian behavioural tendencies. It’s hard to say whether self centered secular people are any better than self denying christians. You get bad examples of humanity across the board I think.
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April 23rd, 2015 at 12:58 pm
You make many excellent points! Before my self styled de-programming from the fundamentalist type of Christianity, I couldn’t ‘see’ some of these things. But once the meme’s and mental manipulation tactics were revealed to me through much study and my own experiences, I ‘see’ it very plainly. That’s why the other commentator was telling you that you read the bible with a biased mind, when in reality it is he who ‘reads the bible with a biased mind’. And that is a form of Projection into you from him. He is presuming that you ‘don’t know your bible’ or whatever and it happens to me too even though I also had spent a decade and a half in bible study, apologetics, got a degree in theology and so on. It was when I really studied the bible as it is (and not with the mental gymnastics to ‘make” it make sense, which soo many “believers” have to do), that it was right there in black and white (with words of Christ in red letter, of course :).
Not to mention, as you do in Point #5, the churches, being exempt, hold up the many ‘good works’ they claim to do with your donations. They themselves are NOT LEGALLY even churches! They are CORPORATIONS. Look up 501C3 churches and how they must operate to keep that tax free status. A good place to start is http://www.hushmoney.com.
They will preach how you’re not be “part of the world” and it’s system, yet they are more than happy to have sold themselves out to be part of the world and it’s system. In a word, hypocrisy. But that’s religion and that’s why it’s time to move on from it.
I appreciate your unique and straight-forward style on your posts. Keep up the good work! 🙂
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February 22nd, 2015 at 5:50 am
Pure intelligence. I highly respect this article. I encourage you to keep writing about this.
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December 7th, 2014 at 12:05 am
Love you!!! You are brilliant and articulate.
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October 18th, 2013 at 2:42 am
Pray doesn’t work? What about the man whose leg grew back after a revival. What about the a women in my church who was scientifically proven she couldn’t have children then did. I saw these things with my own eyes. There are things science can’t explain but the bible does. Your ideas are based off opinion and a biased mind. Not off fact. Christians are not the reason for bad things. Evil,corruption, and persuaded people are. You can’t blame the whole Christian religion off an opinion and a few sinners. Besides Christians are only human. We struggle to the same as anyone else. You also can’t talk about the bible saying it says those bad things because you read them with a biased mind therefore you interpreted it the way you wanted too not how it really was.
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October 18th, 2013 at 11:47 pm
Jesus is myth and Christianity is a complete farce. The sooner humans realize this the better.
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November 8th, 2014 at 1:25 pm
You posted this a year ago so I’m guessing you won’t get this message, but we heathens have something called “citations” that we use to point to evidence that the things we mentioned actually happened in the physical world. A newspaper article from an unbiased agency describing the miraculous regrowth of a completely amputated leg, for instance. The top result for a Google search for “leg cut off grew back prayer” comes back with a page titled “Chapter 5 – Why won’t God heal amputees?”[1][2]. All of the other people with missing arms and legs must not be praying hard enough.
[1] Google.com, (2014). leg cut off grew back prayer – Google Search. [online] Available at: https://www.google.com/search?q=leg&gws_rd=ssl cut off grew back prayer [Accessed 8 Nov. 2014].
[2] Whywontgodhealamputees.com, (2014). Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?. [online] Available at: http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god5.htm [Accessed 8 Nov. 2014].
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December 7th, 2014 at 12:04 am
nope YOU are biased. this man is BRILLIANT!!!!
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December 7th, 2014 at 12:06 am
but of course YOU know what the bible means…right?
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September 18th, 2013 at 5:40 am
You are amazing! I love reading everything you write and share it with everyone I can. Please…never stop writing.
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September 29th, 2016 at 3:18 pm
“in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 2 Corinthians 4:4
Pray that God opens your blinded mind. I was there for very long time and I thank God for opening my mind. It was all by grace.
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