Study, research, and critical thinking are the key
A long time ago I heard it said of someone, “He’s got a mind like concrete: all mixed up and firmly set.” Perhaps the reference was to a fundamentalist, and it certainly applies. In my article here last week, I discussed Janice Slebie’s book, Divorcing Religion: A Memoir and Survival Handbook. She describes the rigid mindset that she was raised to accept and was expected to obey without question. It took a lot of anguish and family crises for her to realize that she had been severely brainwashed. She made her escape, and has devoted her career to helping others who have experienced religious trauma. Selbie’s book is a welcome addition to the publishing boom by atheist/secular/humanist authors in the last two or three decades. The horror of 9/11, a religiously motivated terrorist attack, was a powerful motivator for non-believers to finally step forward to say, “Enough is Enough!”
I recently finished reading Frank Lerant’s 2021 book, How I Opened My Mind and Let God Out: An Electrician’s Road to Atheism (Kindle, 172 pages). It also is a welcome addition to this publishing boom.
Lerant points out that it was his encounter with a fundamentalist co-worker that gave a major boost to his close study/probing of Christianity, which resulted eventually in the writing of his book. He describes it as “...a culmination of my thoughts based on years of study, argument, and contemplation. I feel a compelling urge to do my part in helping to make religion a thing of the past. It may take generations, but I am confident that if we don’t kill each other off in the name of ‘God,’ it will happen” (p. 8, Kindle).
Study, argument, and contemplation. Surveys have shown how little churchgoers read the Bible, let alone study it. Serious contemplation also is lacking, especially if that includes critical thinking applied to the Bible. Debate and argument are avoided as well. The devout are okay believing that their clergy know what they’re talking about—after all these ordained keepers of the truth have been to seminary: how can they not be god-experts? Hence the brainwashing of children has worked pretty well. Lerant includes a chapter titled, Brainwashing 101, and is precise in detailing the reasons for that churches indulge in this practice: “…the brainwashing must be completed before children develop their logical and critical thinking skills, because these would give them the ability to analyze what they see and hear in a skeptical manner” (p. 14, Kindle).
I cheered especially when I read his chapter, God—the Biggest Failure of All Time. Just look at the world around us, with so much suffering. Take it all in, but please resist the urge to make god look good. “The all-seeing, all-knowing God has gotten a lot of things wrong since day one. He built us a planet with killer earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, and other destructive phenomena” (p. 88, Kindle).
“God created deadly bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells that have devastated mankind forever. Billions of people have suffered and died prematurely from disease, including countless children” (p. 88, Kindle)
This is indeed the Christianity-crushing problem of horrendous suffering, discussed at length in John Loftus’ 2021 anthology, God and Horrendous Suffering (504 pages). This includes 22 essays covering a wide range of issues that render theology helpless (full-disclosure, I contributed two of them). It would certainly help advance the cause of “making religion a thing of the past” —in Lerant’s words—if churchgoers brothered to read it. But since even Bible reading is not on their agenda…
Lerant sums up the implications of horrendous suffering: “If there is a god, he is a failure and chooses not to use his powers to make any corrections. Therefore, he should not be worshiped as a god, or perhaps should be ignored completely. In the meantime, men and women can stop wasting their time worshiping this sham…” (p. 90, Kindle).
In his chapter 12, Side Effects, Lerant briefly mentions patriotism, and makes a very important point:
“Worshiping and blindly following the orders of a secular leader is just as dangerous as doing so for a religious one. Once you are primed as a child to follow the doctrine of religion without facts or proof, you can more easily be brainwashed to do the same with a nation, a political party, or leader of any kind” (p. 105, Kindle)
So is it any surprise that the Trump cult is so closely associated with fanatical Christianity? But I have long regarded patriotism with deep distrust. At the time of World War I, the supposedly Christian nations of Europe, e.g. Germany, France, England, engaged in the most brutal fighting imaginable against each other. These nations got the young fighting men pumped up for battle by an appeal to patriotism: nothing was more important than fanatical loyalty to country. During World War II, Pope Pius XII was deeply distressed that so many Catholics in the various countries at war were killing each other. Yes, patriotism can be just as destructive as unthinking religious devotion.
The ecclesiastical bureaucracy gets away with so much because Bible reading is pushed aside by so many of the devout. Lerant provides brilliant analysis of what’s wrong with Christianity, especially in his chapters titled,
Holy Scriptures—What Good Are They Now?
Plagiarized Paganism
Morality—Is This What the Bible Teaches Us?
Is the New Testament Any Better?
There is so much in the Bible that is disastrously bad, but it goes undiscovered by the lazy devout who prefer to trust their spiritual leaders. For those who decide to read the Bible cover-to-cover, they soon discover that it’s a chore; it’s not a labor of love. It should spark alarm and rebellion; it should be a wake-up call. Lerant states the truth bluntly:
“…the New Testament is cherry-picked by church leaders and educators for its warm and fuzzy parts. The desire to believe and worship can be so powerful that any rational challenge falls on deaf ears and blind eyes. I ask you, should the wish to believe in something be more important than the authenticity and reality of what you believe in? If you do not read the entire book that you claim guides your life, you are misleading yourself. If you read the book and refuse to acknowledge the inaccuracies, malevolence, contradictions, and controlling agenda, then you have your head in the sand. If you do not question tales of supernatural events in your own holy books but reject other religions’ myths, you are a hypocrite” (p. 55, Kindle).
Above all, his chapter, Plagiarized Paganism, can help the devout snap out of it. He shows the many ways in which the Bible authors borrowed extensively from ancient miracle folklore, superstitions, and magical thinking. As Richard Carrier has pointed out in his 2018 essay, Dying-and-Rising Gods: It’s Pagan Guys. Get Over It, there were many other cults that sold the idea of getting to live forever: just follow our god.
Lerant was raised in a Catholic environment, but even at an early age he began to figure out that church teachings didn’t make sense. When he fell into conversations with a fundamentalist co-worker—as mentioned above—his curiosity went into over-drive. What a pity this response is all too rare. He figured out the truth:
“Theology is a powerful tool used for demarcation and is, in many ways, superfluous to the advancement of mankind. Religious divisions have helped to maintain a perpetual state of turmoil worldwide. It has outstayed its welcome. The world would simply be a better place without it. Faith over reason will be the end of us” (p.94, Kindle).
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 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.
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