Do I Hate Christians?

Hate is too strong a word to describe my attitude toward true believers. However, some of the many feelings that they do arouse in me are astonishment, concern, annoyance, and even a little fear.

I’m astonished that Christians are able to believe the most improbable stories, just because they are found in the Bible, a book written by ignorant, superstitious members of a tribe of sheep and goat herders thousands of years ago, and full of errors, contradictions, historical and physical impossibilities and terrible acts, such as murder, incest, genocide, slavery, and the degradation of women.

I’m concerned that these naive beliefs are preventing major changes needed almost immediately to prevent serious problems from having severe negative effects on the human race.

The first, of course, is global warming, which is predicted to cause food shortages, flooding of coastal cities, mass extinctions of various animal and plant species, reduced fresh water supplies, deaths due to extreme temperatures in some cities, etc. The followers of some religions believe that God will not allow such things to befall us, while others expect the Rapture will occur, when Jesus returns to judge us. Quite obviously, these believers don’t support the many changes required to limit the damage of global warming.

Overpopulation is another serious problem. The Roman Catholic church is against birth control and encourages believers to have large families. Muslims too, continue to have as many children as possible And of course many Protestants are against abortion for any reason, and in the U.S.A. at least, are trying to have laws enacted by state legislators to make it as difficult as possible for women to terminate a pregnancy. At over 7.5 billion, the world’s population as already too great to feed everyone adequately, unless we Westerners give up meat and use the resultant freed grazing land to grow more edible plants, switching to an essentially vegan diet.

My annoyance with Christians results from their inability to let the rest of us have different belief systems and act accordingly. They persist in trying to convert non-Christians and to force their version of the truth on the entire U.S.A. Many Americans don’t seem to understand the meaning of ‘separation of church and state’ or that it is a fundamental concept of their Constitution. Most seem to believe it is their right to advertise their religion wherever and whenever they wish, and preventing them from doing so impinges on their religious freedom, when, in fact, overt actions by government agencies in support of any religion are forbidden by the Constitution. This includes federal, state, county and city governments, and any branches thereof, such as school boards, police departments, etc.

My fear of the religious in the U.S. stems from my concern that they may succeed in turning the country into a theocracy, with catastrophic results. The teaching of science, and such facts as evolution, will be banned, replaced by the biblical interpretation of how the natural world works. The resulting igorance and lack of scientific knowledge will leave the U.S. vulnerable to more technically advanced countries such as China and Russia.