Those who have read my article for Pink News on how fundamentalist religion caused a serious bout of clinical depression and anxiety in my teens, may be aware that I managed, with some help, to escape from this closed and toxic system.
I studied Philosophy at university, and subsequently taught the Philosophy of Religion for several years.
Fortunately, this places me in quite a strong position when it comes to challenging fundamentalist Christians: particularly when they vocally oppose LGBT rights. As the Theology and Philosophy I have studied relates to the Christian religion, I am unfortunately less able to enter into a detailed analysis and critique of fundamentalist Islam. But fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity have both caused immense suffering throughout human history, and both continue to do so; and insofar as both creeds try to poison human sexuality and propose a God as good who declares himself willing to torture unbelievers in eternal hell fire, much of what I write below is relevant to both fundamentalist religions.
Evangelical, "Bible-believing" Christians would have us believe that they recognise and uphold objective, God-given standards of truth and morality, whereas we non-believers have no objective frame of reference with regard to our own ethical foundations. We might be accused of assuming pre-supposed standards of morality that originally derive from the Christianity we have rejected, or else of simply allowing ourselves to act hedonistically on our basic drives.
Fundamentalist Christians demonstrate great self-confidence when arguing in this way. But they are actually on very thin ice. And whereas those they attack usually counter by referring to pragmatism or basic altruistic instinct, the first prong of attack should really be to expose to the fundamentalist religionist that his system not only presents no objective moral basis for actions, but that it is also positively antithetical to the notion of objective truth and objective morality. Fundamentalist Christianity is nihilistic and represents a system where truth is relative rather than absolute, and where X shifts to being not-X on the sheer basis of pragmatism from the perspective of the fundamentalist Christian.
The way that fundamentalist Christians cherry-pick the Bible and brush the inconvenient parts of it under the carpet is the first example of how "truth" is treated in a pragmatic, relativistic way, rather than an absolute one. The New Testament says that the rich should give away all their excess wealth. Not some of it. All of it. The texts where this injunction appears have been subjected to Evangelical theologians applying the convenient device of "contextualisation", so that, despite the unequivocal instructions for the wealthy to give away their money, we end up with Jesus really having apparently meant something else, based on whatever context the theologians have constructed.
Now, for some strange reason, when it comes to homosexuality, you won't find many Evangelical theologians poring over the text to find a historical or biblical "context" within with the injunctions must be interpreted, or looking at the original Greek or Hebrew to identify what the original words used actually meant.
It is very convenient for Evangelical Christians to believe the Bible does not really regard being wealthy as an impediment to salvation. (Apparently, all that we are being warned about, according to the Evangelical theologians, is that we should not let our relationship with wealth get in the way of our relationship with God.) As Evangelical pastors instruct their flock that the Bible commands a 10% tithe of their income should be paid to the church, it is not really in the interests of these pastors to have a poor congregation that has given its wealth away to the poor. Neither will people be so likely to flock to be born-again Christians if they are expected to give away all their wealth. So it's quite convenient that the Evangelical theologians have found some sophistical and intellectually dishonest way of getting everyone off the hook where wealth is concerned.
The point is that "Bible-based" Christians, if they want to retain some credibility while using a literal interpretation of the Bible to bash gays with, need to stop cherry-picking, and give all their wealth away as well.
I personally don't think anyone should give all their wealth away. But I am not a Christian. And when I read of wealthy Christians condemning homosexuality because of what they have read in the Bible, it makes me think they are very selective and very hypocritical. Not only that, but if what they present as "truth" is based upon a literalistic reading of the Bible, but only when what they read is convenient enough for them to believe, then their ultimate criterion of truth and morality becomes an amalgam of adequately convenient literal prescriptions and proscriptions from the Bible and personal convenience that is proscribed by the Bible when read literally, but is accommodated by a handy re-interpretation of the challenging passage. So already they have lost this so-called objective framework of morality, which has collapsed into materialistic personal convenience.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. -- Matthew 19:23-24, Mark 10:23-25
But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. -- Luke 6:24
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. -- James 5:1
There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. -- Luke 16:19-25
Given that such fundamentalist Christians applying scripture so selectively - a literal interpretation when it comes to condemning gay marriage and homosexuality, and a less-than-literal interpretation when it comes to the sin of retaining wealth in a world of need - the following quotation might apply:
You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matthew, 7:5.)
The Bible is full of inconsistencies and absurdities, and it is also full of atrocities, either threatened or actually carried out by "the God" that fundamentalist Christianity worships: a God who, as Stendhal said, is only excused by the fact that He does not exist.
And where Evangelical Christians insist on an obscure interpretation of a Biblical text, we are justified in offering them a challenge. Given that he was meant to have been the Son of God, one might have thought that Jesus could have been capable of unambiguous speech, especially because of the importance of what he was saying, when he uttered the following, if, as fundamentalists say, he didn't really mean it as it reads:
But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation. -- Luke 6:24
Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. -- James 5:1
For instance, he didn't say:
But woe unto many of you that are rich - but definitely not all of you: perish the thought! - for ye have received your consolation. -- Luke 6:24 (amended)
or
Go to now, ye rich men, or at least lots of you: weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you. But don't lose any sleep about it, as I don't mean all of you. -- James 5:1 (amended)
The injunctions in the New Testament about the sin of retaining wealth are very forceful, and are unqualified.
Even if the Evangelicals were right about Jesus taking a much less punitive line on wealth than the Bible indicates as it reads, Jesus still, even on the most liberal reading possible, makes it abundantly clear in the NT that being rich is a serious obstacle to getting into heaven. One might have thought that the Christian churches would have prioritised the importance of achieving salvation over the importance of protecting personal wealth, and said that because it is so difficult to get into heaven as a wealthy person, and because Jesus spoke in very forceful terms about wealth, it is best to give wealth away, just to be on the safe side. But oh no. The vast majority of Christians do not want to do that at all. So instead they have bent over backwards to search for spurious and sophistical arguments and scriptural references that they think could be stretched to justify being wealthy. At the same time, they are very happy to quote other verses from the Bible without any similar effort to look into context and overall compatibility with the faith, such as those condemning homosexuality.
And, as I have mentioned already above, I am sure that those pastors collecting 10% tithes from their congregations would much rather have 10% from a rich person than 10% from a poor person. No wonder they want to downplay the sin of retaining wealth.
So it is established that, far from having an objective verbal framework in the Bible that provides objective guidance as to revealed truth and morality, fundamentalist Christians have an internally contradictory text that can only be true if "X" and "not-X" can be true at the same time for the same universe. As these inconsistent propositions cannot both be true at the same time for the same universe, the only way they can both be presented as true is where the person presenting them has abandoned the idea of objective truth and moved into the domain of relativism: something of which fundamentalist Christians frequently like to accuse non-believers. (If you would like evidence of the contradictions in the Bible, which according to fundamentalist Christians must all be true at the same time, have a look at this link to the excellent Sceptic's Annotated Bible.)
A person who asserts that truth and morality depend on pragmatism and convenience, has abandoned the common idea of objective, absolute truth and morality, and is not only a relativist, but is a nihilist. Fundamentalist Christians are therefore relativists and nihilists, while declaring themselves to be the only people attuned to an objective framework of truth and morality. Such an irony.
Even if there were no blatant contradictions in the Bible that we were commanded to believe, it is still very far-fetched to claim that God is all-knowing (omniscient), all-powerful (omnipotent) and all-loving (omnibenevolent), and that, because He is perfect, His will must be synonymous with morally good actions. The belief that God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent is something we are asked to believe as a matter of faith. There is no more empirical evidence that God has these attributes and is the fount of morality, than there is empirical evidence that we should be guided by our conscience, and that objective morality reveals itself to us via our conscience rather than via a self-contradictory book.
Furthermore, if God is omnipotent, then he surely could have made a better job of revealing Himself to us via the Bible. There are so many things in it that are contradictory and that have explicitly caused terrible human suffering: such as people being burnt at the stake, and being stoned to death. Perhaps a little prescient verse or two warning people not to carry out Crusades or the Holy Inquisition might have been welcome. And if God is omnibenevolent, then why does the Bible depict him in places as one of the worst kinds of psychopath imaginable? Here is the Sceptic's Annotated Bible again, with evidence of divinely-condoned cruelty and violence in the Bible.
I have written more about the evil that the teaching of hell as a literal place of eternal torment has brought into the world here.
Thomas Paine said, “Attempting to debate with a person who has abandoned reason is like giving medicine to the dead.” Once people have bought into fundamentalist religion of any kind, it is a very similar experience to being brainwashed by a cult. The ability to think rationally is sacrificed on the alter of their ego that they perceive as being so holy, superior and elite. Such people's knee-jerk response of hair-splitting, obfuscation and distraction feels much like the tripping of a fuse box every time the light it turned on. The believer is plunged back into darkness, because the light is unbearable and threatening.
Although the Bible says (in one place) that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven, Evangelical Christians say that, because all things are possible with God, and because they think that the implication is that it is “difficult” rather than impossible, they don’t see a serious problem with wealthy Christians retaining their wealth.
That speaks volumes for the vast majority of evangelical Christians. They claim to believe that they have the promise of paradise for eternity. There are dire warnings in the Bible, that they claim is the inspired word of God, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven. However, they are so attached to their material goods and money that they would rather take the risk of jeopardising their bliss in heaven for eternity than give away their wealth to the needy, and thereby sacrifice their material comfort on earth for a few decades. And they are willing to accept that the consequence of their decision is that many people who could have been fed, given medicine, clothes, shelter, and kept alive, will instead die.
That just goes to prove how hypocritical, dishonest and immoral the Evangelical Christian movement is. They can contort and convolute words as much as they like to try to justify this very selective approach to Scripture and Biblical teachings, picking out verses that contradict the inconvenient (which only goes to show what a bag of inconsistencies and contradictions the Bible is), but anyone outside their closed and self-serving system will see it for the irrational, materialistic, life-denying sham that it is.
The Bible is a bag of contradictions which is why fundamentalist Bible-based Christianity is such a nonsense. And what evangelical Christians do is to jump from one verse to its contradictory counterpart whenever difficult questions are raised. In my book that is nothing less than nihilism: relativism in the service of selfish pragmatism. Evangelical Christians clearly have little regard for the value of absolute and objective truth.
Fundamentalist Christianity is a nihilistic belief system that dispenses with the concept of objective truth and objective morality, while denying that it does so. A relativistic system such as fundamentalist Christianity can claim that any proposition represents truth, and that any proposition represents moral goodness: however, by eschewing objective standards, as fundamentalist Christianity does (whilst claiming it does not), this belief system no longer uses the words "truth", "falsehood", "morality" and "immorality" according to their normal meanings, and so the use by them of such words becomes meaningless.
So there is another hypocrisy to add to the list when fundamentalist Christians rail against the so-called "post-modernism", "moral relativism" and "nihilism" of liberal secular society. They need to take the plank out of their own eye before complaining about an ostensible speck in other people's.
