- Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel.
These problems aren't confined to the Old Testament. What ultimately destroyed my faith in Christianity was when I read the New Testament without the rose colored glasses of Mormonism. I was appalled by what Christ allegedly said in the New Testament (as opposed to how he has been reinvented by Mormonism and liberal Christianity).
Here are just a few of Christ's teachings from Matthew. Are these the words of a loving, compassionate God?
- Matt. 3:10 "every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire"
- Matt. 3:12 "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire"
- Matt. 8:12 "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
- Matt. 10:14-15 "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.
- Matt. 10:33-37 "But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
10:35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
10:36 And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
10:37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."
- Matt. 10:23 "And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day."
- Matt. 13:49-50 "So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
13:50 And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
- Matt. 25:41 "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"
- Matt. 25:46 "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment"
In my opinion, the New Testament is a monotonous tale of sin, guilt, hell, blind obedience, and credulity.
As the honorary LDS apostle, C.S. Lewis, observed: "a recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity. Christ takes it for granted that men are bad. Until we really feel this assumption ... we are not part of the audience to whom His words are addressed.”
The New Testament is founded on guilt. It must convince men that they need salvation, that there is something to be "saved from." It has nothing to offer the happy man (see, e.g., James' Varieties of Religious Experience - Christianity is a religion of the "sick soul" rather than the "healthy mind"). Just as it must destroy reason before it can introduce faith, it must also destroy happiness before it can introduce salvation. I remember doing this on my mission, and I am not proud of it. I had to convince happy people that they weren't saved, that they wouldn't see their family members again, so that I could sell the smut I was peddling.
The New Testament is very effective in inculcating guilt in connection with pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure, when accompanied by guilt, becomes a means of perpetuating chronic guilt, and this serves to reinforce one’s dependence on God. It is not accidental that the Bible regards pride as a major sin. A man with self-esteem is an unlikely candidate for the master-slave relationship that Christ offers him.
I never noticed all of Christ's references to "hell fire" until I read the New Testament with new eyes. Too often, I think Christians skip over these verses or nuance them out of existence. In my opinion, hell is a constant reminder of the essence of Christ's morality: God is to be obeyed because he is bigger and stronger than we are and incomparably more vicious. If the scriptures are to be believed, there is no greater mass murderer than Jehovah. But his vindictiveness doesn't even end with death. It is unconscionable that the New Testament teaches infinite punishment for finite crimes committed by people who have never directly seen or heard from the lawgiver.
When Jesus says believe, he means obey. And when Jesus praises men of great faith, he is praising men who will obey unquestioningly any command they believe to come from God. See, e.g., Abraham. All you have to do is read Under the Banner of Heaven or watch Frailty to see the danger of this. People like Abraham should be locked up for the sociopaths they are, not praised for their "faith."
To be moral, according to Jesus, man must shackle his reason. Less criticism leads to more faith. Indeed, "unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:3). Children, after all, will believe almost anything.
The whole moral foundation of Christ's teachings can be summed up as follows: obey and be rewarded, disobey and burn in hell. And we praise him today as a great "moral" teacher? A morality based on a threat of force or promise of reward is bankrupt. Personally, I find much more spirituality in the teachings of the Dalai Lama than in the New Testament.
What about Christ's references to love? What about his compassionate statement: "let he who is without sin cast the first stone ... neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." I agree that this is a moral highpoint of the New Testament. The problem is that Christ probably never said it. Most scholars agree that this passage is was added centuries later.
In the end, in assessing the ethical significance of Jesus, it is illuminating to contrast him with the ancient Greek and Eastern philosophers who preceded him by hundreds of years. The differences are so striking that it is difficult to place Jesus on the same level as such intellectual giants as Plato, Aristotle, the Buddha, and Laozi.
Whether one agrees with these philosophers or not, they at least argue for their claims. Jesus, on the other hand, issues proclamations backed by the threat of force from his dad.
According to C.S. Lewis' "tricotomy," Jesus was either lunitic, liar, or lord. If "liar" includes a pious fraud--one of the lowest forms of life in my opinion--I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. The damage done by centries of people claiming to speak for God, or even to be God, is incalculable. Why rational, spiritually-minded people have chosen to diefy the lunatics and pious frauds of the past (e.g., Abraham, Jesus, and Joseph Smith) is beyond me.