I can guarantee that every single goddamn time I write a post criticizing Christianity, there is a comment I will hear ad nauseum. People will insist that the Christianity I am criticizing is not true Christianity — there’s another more sophisticated Christianity out there that I’m missing, and if I really had the, like, decency and sophistication to see that what I was building was a straw man, I would be much more nuanced in my approach. If I really took Christianity seriously, I would either ignore the more pop-culture Christianity I frequently criticize, or take the time to “correct” it so that people would follow real Christianity.
When someone makes this criticism, I feel compelled to reintroduce myself: “Hi. I’m Peter. I’m an Atheist, which means I do not believe in God.”
This means, to spell it out, that I don’t think there is any “true” Christianity. In my view, it’s all bunk.
So it does not really interest me what a roomful of academics in Christianity think of Christianity unless what they think starts impacting culture in a serious way. I mean, to be dead honest, sometimes I think it’s interesting to look at — like a movie or something might be. But when it comes to criticizing Christianity, I don’t think there is a real Christianity, and I’m much more concerned about Christianity as it is practiced than in one that is believed by a minority of scholars who, honestly, often seem more obsessed with making Christianity more aesthetic than anything else.
I’m not interested in “fixing” Christianity. The whole thing is based on a lie, in my view; it’s fundamentally flawed.
So, if I talk about people burning in hell and someone says, “Well, hell isn’t necessarily like that,” my response is: Who the hell cares? Hell doesn’t even exist. It’s all made up imagination. So if a whole bunch of people happen to believe that hell is a burning place of fire, I’ll mention that (and, often, other variations).
I don’t take Christianity seriously in the sense of trying to find out the “right” Christianity — not because I’m trying to be dishonest, but because I genuinely don’t think the “right” Christianity exists.
I take it seriously in the way it is practiced and the effects it has on people’s lives, and I often use scriptures to illustrate those effects. I may sometimes point out contradictions or harmful verses. But I’m not interested in the “true” version of Christianity, because that doesn’t exist; I’m interested in how it’s practiced, because that is very real.
And concerning how it’s practiced, here’s the thing I’ve noticed: Most Christians don’t give a damn about the fine points of theology. They don’t have Ph.D.’s in religious studies and, I would argue, they don’t need to in order to see that what they believe is bunk. It often doesn’t take a genius to come to the conclusion that the story of a godman walking out of a tomb after three days of stone-cold-death is bunk. It just takes, in many circumstances, a bit of courage and some honest thought (in doses many of the most intelligent people I know don’t seem to have).
Now, if you believe something different than what I am saying you believe, we can engage concerning what you believe. But when I’m talking to Christians in general, as opposed to obscure sects or the beliefs of you as an individual, and I don’t address your particular view, that’s not a straw man. That’s not showing ignorance of “true” Christianity. That’s just a criticism of a view of Christianity that many Christians have that you happen not to have.
Seriously. I mean, there are a zillion types of Christianity, and I have yet to find two people who have the same theology, let alone two congregations, let alone two denominations. It’s impossible to cover everyone. But it is possible to cover prominent views and trends, which is what I’m trying to do. There isn’t a true Christianity; there’s just Christianity as it is practiced and experienced. And, in various ways, that’s what I intend to critique.
Here’s another frustrating thing — sometimes I’ll criticize a view of hell, for example, and someone will say, “Well, that’s not the only version of hell out there; you’re naïve” — and then leave with the view of theology I criticized intact. No — the fact that there are other views than the one I criticized does not excuse your view (if I attacked it) from criticism. Again, if I’m attacking what you believe, let’s discuss that, instead of dealing with straw men you don’t really even believe to protect your original belief.
I’m interested in what people on the ground believe; not primarily the finer points of Christianity believed by a minority of scholars, and not primarily the “outsider-friendly” optional versions of Christianity that often protect the far more disturbing beliefs most Christians actually hold. Honestly, sometimes I think people try to craft intricate webs of theology in order to have an excuse to ignore valid criticism of the overall picture based on the charge that it’s “unsophisticated.” You can do this, but I don’t think, to use a figure of speech, that I have to engage intricately in all the theories of invisible thread to take a look at the overall picture and say that the emperor has no clothes.
It doesn’t have to be that complicated; you can make something that is clearly bullshit as intricate as you want — and it can still be bullshit. You can say #notallchristians as much as you want, but you might want to consider that the reason your view is unaddressed may not be because the logic of the person criticizing Christianity is flawed, but because your view of something we atheists clearly think is a lie isn’t prominent enough in our realm of experience for us to address it. If it were, we’d probably talk about it
So, in short — I don’t think Christianity is true, so I tend to criticize it as practiced rather than go on a rabbit’s chase for what the “true” version of the religion is. Which makes sense, seeing as how I’m an atheist and all.
Hopefully that clears some things up.
Thanks for reading.