Why Religion Is Being Held Strictly, Bluntly Accountable

Critical thinking skills have kicked in 

There is perhaps nothing more stunning, more shocking, than clergy who have realized that their religion is false—and decided to tell this truth to the world. There’s the famous cartoon by John Billette depicting a priest getting into costume for worship, and confiding to his assistant: “Every Sunday I’m tempted to tell the congregation that it’s all bullshit, but I’m in too deep now.” John W. Loftus, Dan Barker, and Tim Sledge come to mind: clergy who were in really deep, and found the courage to describe their realization that the Christian religion has far too many flaws. It just doesn’t make sense, and cannot be taken seriously. The three ex-clergy just mentioned have written many books about the shortcoming of their abandoned faiths, but there are others who have published their stories, e.g., Jerry Dewitt, John Compere, Drew Bekius, Kenneth Daniels, Bob Ripley, David Ramsey.  

I describe my own loss of faith in an article I published here last May, How Christianity Disintegrated Right in Front of Me.

 
There are plenty of women as well who have snapped out of it, and told their stories, e.g., Valerie Tarico, Greta Christina, Cassie Fox, Candace Gorham, Carolyn Hyppolite, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Karen Garst, Amber Scorah, Gretta Vosper, Julia Sweeney. 
 
Secular analysts have been hammering away at religious foolishness as well, e.g., Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Guy Harrison. Richard Carrier has brought the full weight of his expertise in ancient literature to expose the fatal flaws in Christian documents of the first century. 
 
On 26 August 2024, John Loftus put up a 13-minute video by sociologist Phil Zuckerman on this blog. Zuckerman is the author of nine books on secularization. I highly recommend watching this video, in which he describes the fallacy of attributing the chaos in societies to lack of belief in god. This is the common claim of religious leaders. Zuckerman notes that the issue is not the value of belief to individuals, who derive meaning and comfort from belief in god. 
 
He makes a distinction between forced secularization, that is, atheist dictatorships that try to suppress religion, and provides examples. He acknowledges that is a nightmare. On the other hand, there is an organic, free version of secularization: thinking people move away from belief in god(s): e.g. Scandinavia, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, South Korea, Uruguay, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan. Religion evaporates naturally. His illustrations include maps of the U.S., highlighting states and counties. Those with the lowest rates of belief in god(s) are doing better. He points out that the claim that society will collapse if we give up on god is clearly falsifiable.

Ten years ago, Zuckerman published an essay on the Psychology Today website, titled, Does Christianity Harm Children? We need to talk more openly about the abusive aspects of Christian theology. In this essay, he describes a family adventure to a Catholic Mission in California, part of a school assignment. 

“And the mission was lovely: beautiful landscaping, old buildings, indigenous flowers, a trickling fountain. And then we walked into a large hall—and that’s when my younger daughter lost it. The space was full of crucified Jesuses. Every wall, from floor to ceiling, was adorned with wooden and plaster sculptures of Jesus on the cross: bloody, cut, and crying in pain. Some were very life-like, others more impressionistic. But all exhibited a tortured man in agony. My daughter had no context to understand it; she had no idea what Christianity was all about and had never been exposed to this most famous killing in history. She just saw what it objectively was: a large torture chamber. And she burst into tears and ran out.

“I followed her outside, and once I had caught up with her in the courtyard, she wanted an explanation. But how does a secular parent explain such gore to a 5-year-old? Um, well, you see … there are millions of people who think that we are all born evil and that there is an all-powerful God who wants to punish us forever in hell—but then he had his only son tortured and killed so that we could be saved from eternal torture. Get it? The whole thing is so totally, horrible, absurdly sadistic and counter-intuitive and wicked. Not to mention baldly untrue.”

He then describes five specific ways in which Christianity is harmful to children. “As a secular parent, I believe that we need to talk more openly about the potential harm Christianity can do to kids—not just the potential good. We mustn’t shy away from such skeptical scrutiny for fear of offending people.”

I thought of this Zuckerman essay a few years ago when I attended a First Communion service at a huge suburban Catholic church. Here were children—the boys in suits, the girls in what looked like wedding dresses—being allowed to eat Jesus for the first time. The place was packed, families eager to witness this important rite of passage for these kids. My impulse—which, of course, I held in check—was to stand up and yell:

“Are you all out of your minds? This is a perfect example of your religion’s embrace of ancient, ghoulish superstitions! Is it really a good idea for your kids to believe in magic potions?”

This would have been a way of holding this religion bluntly accountable for its harmful teachings. But, of course, it was not my place to do so. Reflecting on this experience over the years, I have wondered if organic secularization—as Zuckerman puts it—isn’t given a boost by such revolting ceremonies. There were indeed hundreds of people in attendance, but how many of them fully embraced the ancient superstitions that the priests had elevated to such elaborate ritual? 

Here were people who function pretty well in the modern world: how many of them are they really okay with this bad theology? Many of them, of course, just don’t bother to think about it, since they are themselves the product—the victims—of Catholic catechism. But I suspect that organic secularization happens when some folks do snap out of it; they do perceive the silliness of it all. Nor, by the way, does the Catholic church advance its cause when the child rape/abuse scandals continue to grab headlines around the world.  

There has been a meme floating around on social media for a while, titled, When Atheist Kids Try Church. It shows three girls sitting in a pew: One of them says, “Why is there a dead guy on a stick?” Another, “They are going to drink his blood? What the f**k!” And the third is thinking, “Why the f**k am I even here?” 

Sometimes these thoughts may occur to kids, but I suspect they are far more common among adults. “The Internet is where religion goes to die,” someone has said. Which reflects the fact that atheists are so well represented now on social media. This reality helps people who are determined to hold religion accountable—and it has sped the process of organic secularization.
 
 
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of two books, Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes, the first of which is Guessing About God (2023) and Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also now available. 
 
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
 
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.