What is so Bad about Christianity?

Many Christians and non-Christians remain largely unaware of the history of Christianity. This website lays out the facts as clearly as possible. Popular and topical areas are:

• Family Values - showing that traditional Christian teachings are the exact opposite of what are now widely taught as traditional Christian teachings.
• Persecution - the largely imaginary Persecutions of Christians contrasted with the extensive persecution by Christians of "Heathens", Witches, Heretics, Schismatics, Cathars, Jews, Inquisition Victims, Philosophers, Freethinkers, "Blasphemers", Apostates, Humanists, Pantheists, Unitarians, Deists and Atheists
• Attitudes to Sex - including some surprises, on topics such as Celibacy, Sadomasochism & Necrophilia
• The Christian record of Interference in Politics
• The origin of the Priesthood and the Papacy
• Miracles - how they have changed and why they have become so rare
• Traditional Battlegrounds between Christianity and science - with a list of lost battles
• How Mary, the mother of Jesus, keeps her Virginity
• Social Issues - The Church's uncomfortable record on social issues , including Slavery, Racism, Capital Punishment, Penal Reform, Physical Abuse, Treatment of Women, Contraception, Abortion, Divorce, Children, Romanies, The Physically Ill, The Mentally Ill, The Poor, Animals, Ecology
• The question of whether any Christians really follow Biblical teachings as set out in the Old Testament and the New Testament?

For more detail and other topics see below:

An Assessment of Christian Authorities.

How do we know what Christianity teaches? Thousands of Christian Churches teach different things, and all Churches over two hundred years old have changed their teachings during the last two centuries. One reason for disagreement is that different Churches select different sources of authority. Among these sources are various writings, notably the Old Testament and the New Testament. Another source of authority is "traditions" especially "Apostolic Traditions" supposedly passed down from the earliest years of Christianity. Other sources include notable early Christian men - the so-called Church Fathers.

Over the centuries Christian Churches have also accorded supposedly infallible authority to various men. For many centuries the Roman (ie Byzantine) Emperors were held to be infallible - a fact that is now heavily downplayed. Churches also taught that Councils of the whole Church, so called General Church Councils, were also infallible. More recently the Roman Catholic Church has claimed that Popes are also infallible. Each of these authorities is assessed, and the assessments summarised in Conclusions.

Early Christian History.

Christians and others often assume that Jesus believed himself to be divine, one of the three persons of a divine Trinity. There is in fact no evidence at all for this, so a good follow up question is that of what Jesus believed himself to be according to the earliest available documents and in the light of what is known about Palestine two thousand years ago. Another is that if Jesus did not found the Christian religion, then who did found Christianity? And how was doctrine created? And where did Christian ideas and practices come from?

Related to these questions is the concept of Orthodoxy. Given the contradictory and otherwise unsatisfactory nature of the various Christian Authorities how can anyone know what constitutes the "correct" form of Christianity among the thousand of past and present denominations? One particularly thorny issue is the idea of a Christian priesthood, so the origin of the Priesthood is investigated in some detail.

Case Studies

Reviewing the development of Christian doctrines, ideas and practices reveals a number of techniques that have been employed to enable Christianity to develop in the directions that its leaders have wanted to follow. These case studies show how these techniques have been employed to re-brand an Old Testament Sky-God as a more acceptable Jewish and Christian God, to present the many gods identified in the Old Testament as a single God, to maintain, that Mary, the mother of Jesus, kept her Virginity before, during and after the birth of Jesus in the face of every possible sort of contradictory evidence. Further case studies show how the familiar Nativity Story was concocted from a number of unrelated Old Testament passages and how inconvenient texts have been managed to make them acceptable.

Christianity & Science

According to many Christian apologists there cannot be any conflict between Christianity and science, since they deal with different types of knowledge. They occupy different domains which do not overlap and so they cannot ever come into conflict. This view is open to challenge by reviewing traditional battlegrounds, including Early Christian Attitudes to Science, and then specifically Cosmology, Mathematics and Physics, Biology, Earth Science, Chemistry, Pharmacy and Medicine, Philology, Philosophy. In these the battles are now fought and have been decided. There are also a number of modern battlegrounds including Evolution and Genetics, Creation Science, and Origins of Life, some of which have important consequences

Rational Explanations

One explanation for Christianity is that it is the One True religion. But this is not the only possible explanation for the existence of Christianity. There are a number of non-theological explanations for the existence of religion in general and for Christianity in particular. Of particular significance is a universal human tendency to assign divinity to ordinary human beings and a remarkable human proclivity to believe in even the most unlikely religions, including unlikely Christian sects.

Arguments for and Against Christianity

A number of arguments have been advanced in support of Christianity, for example purporting to prove the existence of God. These have been divided into five categories. Popular Arguments are arguments that are commonly put forward by believers. Philosophical Arguments are more sophisticated reasoned arguments that have engaged philosophers in the past. Moral Arguments boil down to variations on a theme that Christians have a demonstrably superior moral code in comparison to non-Christians. Arguments from Miracles, Revelation & Faith rely upon evidence of the supernatural (Miracles such as Stigmata, and miracles worked by relics, saints, healers and other miracle workers, and visionary prophets); Revealed knowledge is knowledge supposedly provided by supernatural agency; and Faith, it is claimed, provides its own proof of the existence of God and the truth of Christianity. Finally some practical Practical Arguments are presented, assessing Christian claims against what would reasonably be expected of a true religion.

The Record of Christianity

In line with the Moral Argument already mentioned, if Christianity was the one true religion, or was divinely inspired, then Christians should be able to demonstrate a superior morality and a superior moral record. Thus Christians would have a better record on Social Issues (such as Slavery, Racism, Capital Punishment, Penal Reform, Physical Abuse, Treatment of Women, Contraception, Abortion, Divorce, Family Values, Children, Romanies, The Physically Ill, The Mentally Ill, The Poor, Animals, and the Environment). Christians would have endured Persecutions of Christians without carrying out Persecutions themselves. Again, Christians would have a good influence on the governance of Christian States (for example creating a constructive Symbiosis between Church & State, not Meddling in National Governments, and exercising a positive influence in politics). Christians would have exercised a sensitive and positive influence over all aspects of Sex, would have promoted research into Science & Medicine, would have a record of opposing Violence & Warfare, and no record of Cultural Vandalism. As Christianity does not always live up to expectations, some Possible Explanations are considered and the evidence Summed up.

Continuing Influence

Although the power of the Christian Church is much reduced in the modern world, it still exercises influence. All countries in the world Discriminate in favour of at least one religion. Many discriminate in favour of Christianity. In particular the Churches still affect modern morality and exercise considerable residual power.