The following is adapted from a blog posting I made on Christmas. It was entitled, "10 Reasons For Apostasy on Christmas Day." Hope you enjoy it!

Having finished Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, I have moved on to his second work, Letter to a Christian Nation. The book only is about 100 pages, so I am already about halfway through. Although he, once again, sinks deep into the morality morass, he nevertheless presents a tremendously strong argument for apostasy from the Christian mythology. So, it seemed to me that Christmas Day [a holiday with pagan roots just as significant as its biblical ones] would be the ideal occasion to present 10 reasons to leave the Christian faith. This list is inspired by Mr. Harris’ book, and items on the list often will be direct quotes from Harris. After my brief rundown, I will share five choice Bible passages, which should make apostasy a bit easier. Enjoy!

1. Christianity, in all denominations from sea to shining sea, is illogical, irrational, unreasonable and, most importantly, unscientific. From virgin birth to talking non-human animals, and from corpse resurrection to immaterial souls, this particular brand of mythology is unscientific to its core. Various absurdities, found in both the Old and New Testaments, simply cannot be reconciled with scientific reality.

2. The Bible, in the not-too-distant past, has reasonably been interpreted to permit—or even condone—“witch” burnings, slavery, torture, female subservience and all manner of detestable horror. True, some passages in the Good Book speak about love, charity, forgiveness and brotherhood. But, other passages—equally numerous—prescribe stoning people to death for fictitious offenses.

3. The Bible’s dating of the earth’s age—that it was created in 4004 BC—is ludicrously incorrect. As Harris observes, “This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue.” A 6000-year-old earth is so absurdly in conflict with the evidence as to make the proposition completely laughable and unworthy of serious attention.

4. Atheism is the only consistent position with respect to religion. Christians, for example, are atheistic with respect to every religion except Christianity. How oddly inconsistent. Muslims, too, reject every world religion save for Islam, which has a monopoly on absolute Truth. How is it reasonable to reject, quite literally, thousands of religions, yet cling to the absolute authority of one?

5. Historic “heroes” of Christianity are worthy neither of respect nor reverence. Harris writes, “It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews and witches.” Here we return, once again, to severe punishments prescribed for fictitious offenses.

6. Yahweh is woefully unworthy of worship. As portrayed in the Old Testament, he is the very embodiment of human frailty: vicious, vengeful, jealous, egotistical, insecure and, most frighteningly, endlessly murderous. Yahweh also seems to have difficulty separating the important from the trivial, as evidenced in the Ten Commandments. Harris writes, “And what are we to make of the fact that, in bringing his treatise to a close, the creator of our universe could think of no human concerns more pressing and durable than the coveting of servants and livestock?” Indeed, why do cursing and working on Sunday make the list, anyway?

7. No God, whether the Christian conception or not, should be worshipped given the results with which we live. If Yahweh is real, then cancer, smallpox, AIDS, malaria and polio all are the products of his cloud-enshrouded laboratory. “Acts of God” such as Hurricane Katrina and the devastating tsunami of a few years ago are exactly that—the life-extinguishing playthings of the Creator. Then there is starvation, homelessness, birth defects, genetic disease….

8. Piety can result in mass death. Harris writes, “Christian missionaries have been known to preach the sinfulness of condom use in villages where no other information about condoms is available. This kind of piety is genocidal.” He continues, in a note, “If you can believe it, the Vatican is currently opposed to condom use even to prevent the spread of HIV from one married partner to another.” Truly sickening, folks.

9. Virulent Christian anti-Semitism helped create the environment in which the Holocaust took place. Harris writes, “…the anti-Semitism that built the Nazi death camps was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity. For centuries, Christian Europeans had viewed the Jews as the worst species of heretics and attributed every societal ill to their continued presence among the faithful. While the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominantly secular way, its roots were religious, and the explicitly religious demonization of the Jews of Europe continued throughout the period. The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel in its newspapers as late as 1914. And both Catholic and Protestant churches have a shameful record of complicity with the Nazi genocide.”

10. Turning, just for a moment, to David Mills’ Atheist Universe: “The Church angrily denounced the introduction of medicines, antibiotics, anesthesia, surgery, blood transfusions, birth control, transplants, in vitro fertilization and most forms of pain killers. Supposedly, these scientific tools interfered with nature and were therefore against God’s will.” The Church’s modern-day anti-science positions, obviously, should be no shock. Human suffering never has been a high-level concern.

Five Classic Bible Passages – a special bonus:

So Moses said, "This is what the LORD says: 'About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.
Exodus 11:4-6

" 'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property.
Leviticus 25:44-45

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.
Ephesians 6:5

If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.
Deuteronomy 13:6-11

And he said to them: "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'
Mark 7:9-10

Season's greetings!

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