Presumptions about Christianity

Just over a year ago, I became a Christian. Prior to this, I'd never been a militant atheist but I'd never given much thought to the possibility that there could be an all-seeing, all-powerful deity that could change my life in any way. I lived as secular a life as an atheist. Just like the vast majority of atheists, I thought that Christians were narrow-minded, bigoted individuals who ignored scientific facts in favour of Biblical 'facts' that have been disproved countless times. I didn't understand how Christians could make these wild claims about the world being only 6000 years old and as a result of this, I didn't once consider following Christianity as a religion.

However, back then I was ignorant and since becoming a Christian, I have learnt that not one of my presumptions about the religion was true. It is naive and wrong to assume that every Christian has the same set of beliefs. Aside from there being almost countless denominations, there are also many different interpretations of Biblical events and claims and also varying 'degrees' of Christianity, from fundamental Americans who storm funerals wielding banners saying 'God Hates Fags' to esteemed scientists who base their beliefs on evidence and reason rather than blind faith or extremism.

Despite the fact that in this day and age it is not difficult to do a little research on something, it seems that recently, the done thing amongst atheists is to belittle and mock Christians as much as possible. Now, in stand up comedy it is one thing. I find it funny when comedians rip into theism because I know that they don't mean it. They are mocking the faith for comedic value, in the same way that they mock everything else. However, it is only when respectable scientists like Richard Dawkins do the same thing that I begin to take offence. If you read a book debating the existence of God written from a theistic perspective, such as The Language of God by Francis S. Collins or The Case For a Creator by Lee Strobel, you will find carefully planned arguments for and against the existence of a deity, backed up by science, leaving an open conclusion for the reader to make. Read a Dawkins book on the other hand, and you will find offensive and belittling arguments, taking beliefs and exaggerating them way out of context, generalising all Christians as one and the same, and padding the debate with jokes and digs at those stupid people who believe in an old man sitting in the sky asking for money.

It should be so easy to understand. If you're an atheist, you believe in nothing. There are not strands of atheism. You just don't believe in a deity, just as if you're a theist, you do. With Christianity however, there are countless mini-religions within the same one. To be defined as a Christian, you must hold the belief that there is a God and that he had a son called Jesus who died for our sins. That is it. Some Christians believe that the Virgin Mary must be prayed to and hailed when we do something wrong. Some believe that it is more Christian to donate money to the Vatican in order for the Pope to have a gold toilet seat than to give it to a charity helping the homeless or starving children. Some Christians believe in contraception, some don't. Some believe that sex before marriage isn't a sin as long as you are not being too promiscuous, others believe that even hand holding before marriage is looked down upon by God. Some Christians believe that it is a sin to be gay, despite the fact that countless scholars have shown that this widely held belief about homosexuality as a sin is a result of mistranslations and misunderstandings relating to the context in which it was said. Some Christians worship the Bible, believing it to be the literal word of God, while others believe it to be the word of man, written with the best intentions and inspired by God, but the word of man nonetheless. The variations in beliefs are endless, and all you have to do to see this is do a little research on different denominations and scholarly theories, or even conspiracy theories such as that of Christianity being nothing more than a plagiarism of ancient Pagan religions, or of Jesus possibly having been married and having a human bloodline.

Now, before this turns into a comprehensive guide of every single belief that every Christian in the world has ever held, ever, I will return to my original argument: not all Christians are idiots and it's rude and inaccurate to portray us in that way. Studies have shown that the majority of scientists and doctors believe in God. I won't cite specific studies because no doubt people will be quick to chime in with comments such as "but that's only American scientists" or "but that study doesn't include social scientists" so I'll let you Google it yourself. From my own research, I've found that it's usually just over 50% of scientists that believe in God in any given study, which should quell the the belief that only primitive and uneducated people are religious.

To be perfectly honest, this blog has been a long time coming. I don't spend my time trying to convert people  to Christianity. The majority of my friends are atheists and all of them are pretty vocal and unswerving about their beliefs. I don't try to change that. The one person I have debated with has been Jake, and that's only down to the fact that he went through a phase of cornering me at house parties and asking me to indulge him in friendly arguments about how God doesn't exist, to which I obliged. I've posted a few blogs on religion, but no more than my blogs on things such as Feminism or whatever's going on in the news that happens to annoy me. In short, I am no Christian missionary. I am not someone who brings God into every conversation and looks down upon people who refuse to believe the same things that I do. In fact, it's only through my blog that most people do know of my religion. My friend Becky only recently said "Oh I read your blog, I didn't realise you were religious" and I spend pretty much every waking moment with the girl!

So why then, when I am not harming anybody, do I have to be subject to being mocked and judged based on what I believe in on a regular basis? Someone I was seeing a few months ago used to regularly say "Oh I forgot, you're a good Catholic girl" whenever I disagreed with anything that was fucking stupid. (I'm not a Catholic anyway, but all the same it's annoying not being able to have an opinion on something without people assuming that it's only because it's what Jesus said). I was once in a debate on Facebook about the welfare state, and as soon as the people I was arguing with realised I was a Christian, their arguments stopped being serious and started being more along the lines of "hahaha, what would Jesus do?" and "ooh, arguing with me, not very Christian are you, you're going to hell hahahahaha".

This presumptuous bullshit is the kind of thing that I used to only associate with religious people. They're the narrow-minded ones, I told myself. They're the intolerant ones. But that's not the case at all. Now don't get me wrong, I don't by any means want to be affiliated with all religious people, because I agree that when religion is taken in it's most fundamental form, it is illogical and often dangerous. However, I want to raise the issue that it isn't fair for somebody to assume that I must fit a certain mould just because I believe in a deity. It's just as offensive as me going up to my lesbian friend and saying "why do you have long hair and wear bodycon, you're not a real lesbian" or having a go at a gay man for not being a fan of Lady Gaga.

If I was going to sink to the condescending, mocking level that a lot of atheists are on, I could shut them up within seconds. Without bringing my ego too much into this, I'm intelligent enough to research something and look at every argument that could possibly cast doubt on my faith before I buy into it. I've looked at all the arguments against God and against Christianity. I've spent months reading countless books and scholarly articles on such issues and don't find any of them to be a challenge. Thus, I could turn around and mock you. I could laugh at you, calling you unintelligent and narrow-minded, but I don't. I don't, because other people's beliefs have nothing to do with me and if you want to be an atheist than by all means be an atheist, just don't spend your time trying to cast doubt on other people's faith or to stigmatise a whole group of people based on the actions of a few.