Greetings, and welcome to Christ-Inanity.

Why Christ-Inanity? Well, first off I love the fact that all you need to do is insert one letter and Christianity becomes what it truly is. Secondly, it encapsulates a basic truth. Christianity is inane. It is an affront to thinking, rational people everywhere. It, like most dogmatic religions has created a self-contained logic completely disconnected from rational thought. If you go swimming in their logic stream without a floatation device (your mind) things seem to make a certain kind of sense. Once you accept the basic premises, everything else follows. Unfortunately these premises aren't grounded in anything but faith, faith without evidence, and faith without evidence is the antithesis to real thought. I'll get into that in more detail in future posts.

Let me first tell you a little bit about myself and how this blog came to be. I was born Jewish, and while I still enjoy some of Judaism's cultural and symbolic elements, spiritually I am an atheist. I am not an agnostic. Although I recognize that no one can ultimately know whether god exists, I am firmly convinced that he doesn't. Granted this is a leap of faith. However, it's a faith solidly grounded in rational thought. I believe it because all the available evidence points to it. Not just because it's printed in a book that someone told me is true.

Here's the crux. There was one extra stop on my road to Atheism. For a couple of years in college I was a born-again Christian. I mean a full-tilt, tongue-speaking, witnessing-for-the-lord, evangelical Christian. It was my life. I destroyed my secular music collection, started talking to family members about hell and damnation, and spent a lot of time thinking about the rapture. This lasted about two and a half years. I was completely engulfed.

But something never quite felt right. I never felt completely comfortable. The more I thought about it I realized that my spiritual desires were at odds with my intellect. I couldn't get past many of the doctrines accepted as Christian dogma. Ultimately none of it really made sense. My doubt got stronger until eventually I was able to release myself from the bondage I'd put myself in. I began to take a new look at Christianity and I realized that Christians on the whole have done far more damage to the world then they've done it good.

Okay, back to the point of this posting. Of course faith is a basic element of all religions. And while having faith does often dictate a cessation of rational thought, Christianity is more insidious for a number of reasons. First and foremost, one of its basic tenets is that it is the only True religion, or more specifically that it is the only way man can actually reach the kingdom of god. This eliminates any meaningful dialogue between itself and other belief systems.

Secondly, especially in the evangelical segments of Christendom, it is commonly held that the Bible is the true, unalterable word of god. And generally this causes a literal interpretation of its contents. Since a good bit of the Bible, especially the "historical" sections are mythology, this leads to some pretty silly world-views.

Finally, Christianity has a rigid concept of sin. There are certain things god approves of, and a much larger list of things he doesn't. Do anything on list number two and you become a sinner, damned to an eternity of suffering. This concept of sin leads to two things, horrible guilt on the part of believers and often an association of the sinner with the sin. It causes a scenario which is very un-Christlike (if you accept that Jesus was just a noble guy with a good philosophy.) God teaches us to hate sin. Associate the sinner with the sin and believers begin to hate the sinner. We see this all the time. Look at the way most Christians view homosexuals (or course I think its ridiculous that god would care who you choose to rub crotches with, but that's a subject for another post.)

Take all three of these and you see the genesis for the worst chapters in Christian history. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, etc. 1.), You, non-believer, are a sinner. How do we know that? 2.) Our book tells us so, and it can't be wrong. 3.) Only we can help you. 4.) But you're a sinner, and god hates sinners. When Christians burned witches, they thought they were helping them...

Ultimately, taking a literal interpretation of Christian scripture is inane. I'm not saying that Jesus the teacher was a bad guy. He had some really valid points and lived a very noble life. If most Christians actually followed a "What Would Jesus Do?" lifestyle instead of worrying about sin, hell and redemption, Christianity might actually have something useful to contribute. But the majority of Christians don't. And this blog is about casting them out.