The horrors of the Christian church

[Wertbag]

While reading on the horrors that Christians have committed over the centuries I've come across an often-repeating pattern.  Christians will cry "Oh woe, we are persecuted!" only to come into power and instantly start doing the exact same things to others.  The Catholics declared Protestants as heretics and hence the inquisition could execute them if they failed to repent, but then with a change of monarch the Protestants gained power and instantly declared Catholics as heretics and began murdering them in turn.

 

Some of the things done in the name of God and His church:

Witch burnings - It is estimated between 1500-1800 there were 40,000-50,000 people executed (commonly hung, drowned or burnt) for being witches.  This Christian tradition has continued with a person burnt to death as recently as 2021 for being a witch.  Famously they carried this tradition over to America, where ~20 witches were killed, mostly by hanging.

 

Child abuse - My grandfather told me the stories of being beaten unconscious by my great grandfather, while he read bible verses to him. "Spare the rod and spoil the child" he would quote, while thrashing him for some minor mistake.  But there are more horrible cases such as the mother who drowned her children because the church had convinced her that they would go to heaven if she did, and of course the numerous cases of child sex abuse in both Catholic and Protestant churches.  Not just the horror that such crimes occurred, but also that the churches work to protect the priests, even setting them up in the Vatican so they can avoid justice.

 

The inquisition - The most famous and brutal inquisition was the Spanish one, which interrogated ~150,000 people and executed around 5000 of them.  Sometimes the horror of the Portuguese inquisition is included, as the two crossed over a great deal, and the estimated 40,000 killed there dwarfs their more famous Spanish neighbors.  Less famously there were 50 killed in India and 1200 killed in Italy, as well as branches in Germany, England and France.  One of the biggest purges from this was against the Christian sect known as the Cathars, who the Catholic authorities committed genocide against.  Cathars believed in two Gods, an evil god of the OT and a good god of the NT who would overthrow the evil god.  This conflicted with the Catholic belief in a single God and hence they launched the Albigensian Crusade.  This led to the deaths of an estimated 200,000 people.

 

The crusades and wars - While some of the crusades started with goals of fighting against the Muslim's, and a more military minded purpose, there were numerous Christian on Christian crusades as well.  Wars against the Dutch, Hungarians, English rebels, in Italy and France amongst many others.  Perhaps the biggest war was the 30-year war (1618-1648) which ravaged Europe, costing an estimated 4-8 million lives due to battle, disease and famine, with the main reason being the Catholic/Protestant conflict.  This is considered the second greatest loss of life as a percentage of the world's population at the time, only surpassed by WW2.

 

Intolerance - Women shall be quiet, you shall not allow a woman to teach.  They should be meek, humble and obey their husbands.  They are the first sinners, cursed by Eve and easily drawn to sin and lust.  Such things have been the foundation of Christianity for a thousand years, with sexism written into the bible, including rules for sex slaves and the treatment of rape victims.  Loss of virginity was seen as a shame, in some cases so bad as to be worthy of death.  But it wasn't just sexism that was common, but a hatred of gays (including burning or hanging for such a crime) justified by biblical verses and preached from many churches.  Antisemitism was rife, with Jews considered heretics, Jesus' killers and often targeted by Christians in power with mass execution.  And of course, a hatred of other religions and a death penalty for unbelievers in many cases.  While the West Boro Baptist Church is the modern version of these extreme hatred groups, they are by no means unique and through much of history their hate filled rhetoric was the norm.  We've also had abortion clinic bombings and shootings, where Christians will straight up murder doctors and workers.  Thou shalt not kill appears to be a very situational commandment.

 

Fear - While that list includes plenty of reasons to fear Christian groups of various times, there is also fear that is taught to adherents.  Many churches teach of hell as a place of fire, pain and eternal torment, with saying like "the path to salvation is narrow" leaving many unsure if they will avoid the fate, they have been taught to believe in.  There is fear in doubts and in making the wrong choice, with a lack of faith being seen by many as all that is required to send you to hell.  But beyond that you have Satan and demons who it is claimed are active in our world.  Some say they can possess people, others that they cause diseases or accidents, with some seeing demons being behind almost every negative thing in their lives and in the world.  You then have people believing in the Satanic Panic, where almost everything in pop culture was labelled evil, from rock music to D&D, to Harry Potter.  It's no longer just make-believe fictional stories, but demon led attempts to steal our souls.

 

Terrible teachings - Condoms are evil and should be avoided, a current teaching of the Catholic church to aids ravaged African nations.  A teaching that is directly killing people and increasing suffering, all to protect sperm.  Or perhaps we should look at the fundamentalist teachings of a young earth, a global flood and a massed heaping of science denial.  Or consider that the majority of flat earthers are Christians who will quote bible passages as part of their proof of the shape of the world.  But even the non-fundamental churches teach anti-science positions to different degrees.  Some just say you can't trust science, others go full extreme conspiracy theory, saying scientists are actively working to hide the truth, or even are demon led to lie to us.  When you grow up hearing constant stories of supernatural miracles being real, and science being flawed, wrong or anti-Christian, then the science denial we see today is quite understandable.  For example, much of the young earth beliefs rely on denying science, incredulity and God of the gaps. 

 

The cost - This is the one that changed my mind from Christianity being an even mix of good and bad, to something I now see as a net harm to humanity.  The cost of religion is astronomical; both in financial terms (every church, priest, cathedral, printed book, apologists' salary), in lost hours (billions of hours of people in churches, listening to sermons, reading holy books, teaching and being taught), and in lost productivity (imagine the builders and architects of the cathedrals spending those decades of work focused on public infrastructure, hospitals, aqueducts or other works to help society).  We now have tax exempt status throughout most of the Western world, so preachers like the world's richest Kenneth Copeland (~$300m wealth) can live on his massive estate with multiple private jets and pay no tax, the JW's can have an estimated $100b wealth which surely pales in comparison to the Vatican, but they keep all numbers tightly hidden.

The cost in lives, the cost in resources, the cost in human misery from the list above.  Religion is a black mark that stains human history back to the earliest days.  As the famous saying goes "Good people do good things, evil people do evil things, but for good people to do evil things requires religion." 

 

This is already possibly the longest post I've made, and I haven't touched on the many genocides, the terrible popes, the horrific dictators (Ivan the Terrible was a devout Orthodox Christian for example), the churches support of fascists, of hiding mafia money, of suppressing scientists like the famous Galileo trial, of the support of the slave trade and ownership, of the IRA and Irish conflict, of Christian support of the Nazi's, of preachers blaming gays, unbelievers or other religions for natural disasters, of death cults or the numerous other things the Catholic church have issued apologies for.

 

I now consider myself an anti-theist, in that I believe that religion and churches are more harmful than beneficial and should be fought against.  I'm not silly enough to think we of a secular mindset should repeat such history and physically impose any change, but that knowledge and understanding will eventually win out over ancient superstition, and as we see the most prosperous countries on earth are the least religious ones.  As the trend continues and religion declines, I believe we will see positive progress to the world becoming a more friendly, open, tolerant and less fearful place.  It will be slow going, but it is a fight that we can all take part in via our own minor input by discussion, debate and community.

[Casualfanboy16]

Honestly though. As someone who's grown up in the Christian faith since birth, there's so much wrong in that religion. I'm genuinely unable to take it. Like, I used to be "Christianity is a mix of good and bad" too; but after putting more and more thought into it, it's pretty shitty honestly. Especially considering my sexuality being a hot-button issue amongst Christianity right now. The Satanic panic shit is even being directed at the LGBT community as of late and I'm so done. Christianity is doing so much damage to the world. So sick of the persecution complex that many Christians are holding. I mean, yeah, sure in some parts of the world, there is genuine persecution of Christians, but I'm sick of Christians in the U.S. crying persecution while they get all of these benefits and power in government and all this shit. Where's my gay tax exemption, huh?? Lol.

 

Really though, it bothers me so much. I spent years of my life in essentially hell on earth just to try and conform to Christian sexuality norms and caused myself so much suffering because I believed I would go to Hell for being gay. I wasted so much time that I could've spent loving and accepting myself basically doing the exact opposite of that. Christians, especially now, really bother me. I don't want to harbor any resentment towards them, but right now it's all I can do. I'm genuinely angry. I'm proud of that. That I can even admit that in the first place makes me feel a bit better. I'm sure with time I can heal from this, but man. Christianity pisses me off so much. Fundamentalist or not, I can't stand it. I've reached a limit honestly. After everything that's happened to me, after reading this post, after seeing YouTube video after YouTube video of all the shit Christianity has done... it's just so infuriating. I'm glad I'm angry right now because most Christian teachings try to paint anger as this awful emotion, but it's so freeing to be angry. I love it. Christianity has ruined me, ruined others, ruined a whole lot of normal human things. I'm done. I'm sure later I'll get better with this, but right now, Christianity just pisses me off. And I'm glad I can say that.

 

Edit: Found the video I watched a while ago on the LGBT Satanic Panic shit. I love GMS and his content. He's my favorite atheist YouTuber to watch and I want to be like this man, honestly. He's well-spoken, articulate, presents topics in a rather calm manner. I desire to be more like him. (Linked below)

 

Edit 2: Religion, specifically Christianity, has been such a blight upon humanity. All the awful shit that's been done in the name of their God makes me feel so ill. Hearing of the decline, despite me not being alive long enough to even notice it, makes me feel a bit better. Hopefully we can start going in a more secular direction and future generations can be spared of the horrors done by this religion, and religion as a whole.