Christianity — an Irreverent History

8/11/2019 Christianity an Irreverent History

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Christianity An Irreverent History

Tim DeLaney

There is an omnipotent, omniscient God who has always existed. How do I

know this , you ask? Well, I just do. Your mommy and daddy probably told you

this; who are you to doubt them? Of course, the notion of omnipotence is a bit

strange. Where did we get the idea of a God with infinite power? Why not just a

God with great power, or one with quite a bit more power than we can

imagine? I get the impression that theologians aren't very sm art when it

comes to infinity. It's probably better if you don't think too hard about it.

One day, presum ably after having existed for the eternal past, He decides to

create the universe. Why did He wait so long? For a negative eternity, He jus t

sat there; we can only guess what He was thinking. Maybe He was counting

down the integers, starting with the largest, and when He got down to zero, He

did the creation thing. This seems as good a theory as any. Actually, the stock

answer is that God is not subject to time. Well, maybe, maybe not. But it

seem s like a sus piciously convenient answer that was just made up because

of the awkward ques tion. Like the omnipotence thing, there doesn't seem to

be any particular reason to suppose God exists beyond time.

The concept of a God beyond time is incons istent with the God of the Old

Testament. That God took six days to create the universe; clearly He operated

in time, and experienced the pas sage of time. Virtually everything the Bible

says about God affirms that He experiences time. Indeed, the principle of

cause and effect makes no sense except in the context of the passage of time.

Does this mean that the "First Cause" argument mus t be abandoned? If God

dwells in "eternity" where time doesn't exist, how could He ever cause

anything? Som ebody once observed that time is what prevents everything

from happening all at once. It might be better to just gloss over thisit will just

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confuse you,

As far as can be determined, the Son and the Holy Ghos t were pretty much in

the background at this point. I say this because it's supposed to be an

overview of Chris tianity, and you can't very well have Christianity without Christ,

can you? According to Christian theology, Christ and the Holy Ghost must

have always exis ted. Come to think of it, why do you suppose that the writer(s)

of the old testament never mention either one? Very strange indeed to ignore

2/3 of your God, don't you think? The alternative is to suppose that they beganto exist at some point. The first mention of these two seems to be story that

the Holy Ghost impregnated Mary and that Jesus was the result. Now, you

might think that God the Father would be the one to impregnate Mary. If not,

why is He called "The Father"? Was He already the father of "God the Son"?

This whole Trinity thing appears to have been slapped together pretty hastily

with little thought devoted to logic. More on that later.

Presumably, God created Heaven first, and then the angelselse where

would they live? One of the angels was Lucifer, which means "Bringer of

Light," which would imply that Heaven and the angels were created before He

said "Let there be light." But maybe we shouldn't be too heavily influenced by

etymology. As far as revelation goes, it doesn't establish God as being terribly

interested in lexicography. Of course, there is the quote from John 1: "In the

beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was

God." This seems to indicate an interest in words, don't you think? All we know

for sure about Lucifer is that he was created at som e point in time, and at

som e point in his existence he rebelled against God. This must have

happened before Eve ate the apple, since Lucifer (or Satan, as he was

renamed) is said to be the one who tempted Eve.

Now, you might ask yourself: "Why did God create these angels?" Good

question. Nobody really knows for sure, but angels are generally said to be

God's mess engers or army or, well, Jack-of-all-trades. Since God isomnipotent, He really doesn't need them as mess engers or whatever. With a

twitch of his divine nose, He can send any message, s lay any enemy, repair

screen doors, and so forth. But one thing He cannot do is adore himself.

Hence, He creates angels to perform that important function. Besides , angels

are useful as inspiration for medieval artyou know, all those cute little

babies with wings. You m ight also ask yourself: "When were Heaven and the

angels created?" One view is that heaven and the angels always existed "out

of time," just like God. Another view is that God created time so that heaven

and the angels would have a place and time to exist. But how could God

decide to create time, and heaven and angels, before they exis ted? If you want

to get a splitting headache, then just think about this for an hour or two.

If you are mean-spirited or just plain skeptical, you might ask this question:

"Why would an infinite God desire adoration from a being that He himself

created?" These beings , whether angelic or human, are infinitesimal when

compared to God. Would a human being want a bacterium to worship him? Of

course not; that's ridiculous. Would a human being be offended if a bacterium

didn't believe in humans? I wouldn't be offended, but that's jus t me. Bear in

mind that the difference between Man and God is infinite, while the difference

between Man and a bacterium is large, but finite.


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Let us digress for a moment, though. Put yourself in Lucifer's shoes. God

created you a moment ago. You wake up and open your eyes, and you're in

Heaven. By definition, you couldn't be happier. Eternal bliss! There's this guy

who claims to have created you, and He s eems to be pretty wise and very

powerful, poofing things into existence seemingly at will. Damn! How does He

do that? You have it made in the shade, so to speak. Great weather, three

squares a day, unlimited beer, and no mosquitoes. Your duties are few and

far between, other than bes towing adoration on Him . A dream job.

So, what's your first thought? "Hey, let's rebel agains t this omnipotent God of

the universe"? I'm not asking this question just to be a jerkI'm serious. How

could You ever believe that a rebellion could be successful? You assemble a

bunch of like-minded angels and decide to stage a revolution. It's worth a try,

what have you got to lose? You might ask: "Why didn't Gabriel or Michael join

him in the upris ing?" Don't ask. Maybe they were smarter, or maybe they jus t

didn't feel rebellious that day. We'll never know for sure.

Now, the notion that Lucifer can rebel agains t God necessarily means that

Lucifer has "Free Will." We all understand what is meant by Free Will, don't

we? (Just say yesit'll make things easier.) Now, put yourself in God's s hoes

at the mom ent jus t before You create Lucifer. Oh, wait, Because You exist

beyond time, "the moment before" doesn't make s ense, does it? Still, there

seem to be two events to consider: the decision to create Lucifer, and the

actual creation of Lucifer. Are we saying that these two events are not

separated? See? I told you it wasn't a good idea to think about these things.

Anyway, Put yourself in God's shoes. Being omnis cient, you know that if you

create him Lucifer will rebel against you, and wil l eventually give rise, directly

or indirectly, to all the evil and suffering there ever will be. OK, you know what

Lucifer will do of his own Free Will, because, after all, you are omniscient. You

create Lucifer knowing for certain that he will exercise his Free Will and rebelagainst you. Does this m ake sense? Why would you create a being that you

know for certain will rebel against you? I suppose this is another one of those

things that it's better for you if you don't think about it. (They're piling up, aren't

they?)

You are faced with a momentous decision: what do you do? Do you say "Oh,

what the Hell, let's see what happens"? (OK, Hell didn't exis t yet. It's just a

figure of speech.) Or do you recoil in horror at the almost unbearable thought

of all that pain and suffering? Remember, you are all-merciful. (Did I mention

that?) But hold on there! Being omniscient, you know full well that you are

going to create Lucifer. Therefore, you have no choice. No, no that can't beright; you can do anything you want. After all, you're God. But if you look into the

future and s ee that Lucifer exists, that seems to confirm that you will indeed

create him. I mean, if you don't create him , who wil l? You're the only God in

town. Is it possible for you to look into the future, see that Lucifer exis ts, and

then decide not to create him? Why not just admit that Lucifer was a mistake

and poof him out of existence? Damn, this omniscience is tricky stuff, isn 't it?

Throwing in that timething just makes it all the trickier.

Maybe the answer is a compromise. Suppose you decide to create him, but

endow him with an extra dose of comm on sense. After all, nobody with any


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common sense, not even an angel, would think it a good idea to rebel against

an om nipotent being. That's crazy! After you create Lucifer, you could im press

him with your power by creating a very powerful dragon (or whatever) and then

utterly des troying it before his very eyes to put the fear of Godin him, so to

speak. After a pregnant pause, you say: "Capisce, paisano?" Then, if he

doesn't get the message, your conscience is clear. You have to admit that it's

worth a try in order to avoid an infinity of suffering and agony by billions of the

humans you are planning to create that will end up in Hell. I mean, don't you

want to keep up your "all-merciful" reputation? Well, it's just a suggestion.

At any rate, you create Lucifer knowing ful l well that it wil l result in an infinity of

pain and s uffering for untold numbers of people you are going to create. See?

I told you so. Then you create Hell as a place to torture Satan (i.e., Lucifer) and

all those people who aren't going to heaven. I mean, they have to go

someplace,don't they? There sure s eems to be a lot of torture going on in a

universe created by an all-merciful all-loving God. "Wow, sorry guys. I just

couldn't help myself." Yeah, right.

For som e reason that you have never bothered to explain, you allow Satan to

prowl about the world s eeking s ouls to torture for all eternity. You are God,

after all, and you cannot just shrug your shoulders at the thought of Satan

luring billions into Hell. You can actually do something about this cosmic

injus tice. But, no, you give mankind Free Will, and then let Satan whisper in

their ear. It's as though you are just looking for an excuse to send people to

Hell. Why not look for excuses to send them to Heaven? Did you ever, even

once, think of that?

Come to think of it, what does Satan get for tempting souls into Hell? Is this

jus t simply schadenfreude? As far as I know, he doesn't get a commission for

every soul. Wouldn't he be better off to jus t apologize to God and hope that

God would turn down the temperature a few degrees? You know, try to play on

God's all-merciful nature? He's gotta realize that he's outgunned. If I wereSatan, I would definitely be looking for ways to cut my losses. He must be

either blind-drunk stupid, or really, really evil. What does that say about God's

angel-creating abili ty? If I were God, I'd be really embarrassed: I created this

guy to adore me, and here he is giving me the (metaphoric) finger? Where did

I go wrong? I bet it's that Free Will s tuff.

So anyway, enough about angels , I'm getting depressed about Satan and this

Hell thing. Fast forward to the point where God creates Adam and Eve. He has

already created everything you can see, plus a lot of stuff you can't see, like

black holes, angels , the far side of the moon, and the ebola virus. God has

taken six days to fashion this creation, then He rested on the seventh. Apartfrom contradicting the omnipotence thing (why would He need to rest?), God

has s et in motion events that He knows will cause untold suffering, wailing,

gnashing of teeth, and so forth. If you find yourself in Hell , it's your own fault.

You committed all those s ins of your own Free Will, which God, in his infinite

mercy, has given to you. Actually, you m ight be better off without Free Will. All i t

does is to cause trouble.

But wait! Being a loving God (I know, I didn't mention this before. Trust me.) He

must surely want to give Adam and Eve every chance at salvation, right?

Welllll... maybe. He gave them Free Will and m aybe, like Lucifer, they will


5/11

disobey him. So He puts a tree in their garden with delicious looking fruit on it.

Then He tells Adam not to eat that fruit. Why? It looks to me like He's just being

an asshole. He doesn't warn either of them that billions and billions of their

descendants wil l suffer if they eat the fruit. Why not? Because it's a double

blind test, and tipping them off might skew the results .

Well, of course God knows what will happenHe's omniscient, right? (I told

you it was tricky.) Not only that, but He has stacked the deck by allowing Satan

(nee Lucifer) free access to this otherwise perfect garden in order to temptthem to eat the forbidden fruit. And to make it even more difficult, He didn't

bother to warn Eve about the lying snake. Hey, it's suppos ed to be a test,

right? But, why put the tree right sm ack in the middle of the garden? Why, He

could have put it in Belgium or Australia or even Hawaii, and we'd have had no

Fall. At least not for a while. I have a sneaking suspicion that God wanted

Adam and Eve to fail the test becaus e it was part of his divine plan. You can't

tell me that God really wanted them to leave that fruit alone. I think He set them

up.

We all know what happened. Moreover, God himself knew it would happen.

After all, He's omnis cient, right? (You gotta keep this in mind, or the whole

shebang collapses. It's a bit like Schroedinger's cat.) Adam and Eve ate the

forbidden fruitdumb, dumb, dumb. But really, when you think about it, what's

the actual harm? It's not as though the tree can't grow more fruit. If this were a

criminal case in upstate New York, You'd probably get a suspended sentence

as long as you paid for the stolen fruit. Even in South Carolina, you'd probably

get off easy. Afghanis tan? I'd steer wel l clear of Afghanistan if I were you.

The rest is , as they say, his tory. Adam and Eve pissed off the omnipotent,

omniscient, beneficent, merciful, loving God of the universe. He might love

them, but there are lim its. So God, in his infinite wisdom, love, mercy, etc.,

banis hes them from the garden. They broke the rules , they gotta pay. But also,

to prove He is a jealous God (Did I tell you about that?), He condemns everyone of their descendants in absentiato an eternity of fire, brimstone and that

lake of fire stuff. It's called original s in, and unles s you get properly

immunized, there will be Hell to pay. Literally. You might question the fairness

of punishing people who have yet to be born for such a trivial offense, but then

again you aren't God, which is probably a good thing because you probably

have lots of other faults.

And God knew all this would happen, even when He was jus t sitting there

counting down the integers. It makes perfect sense. He spends an eternity

planning the universe, then an infinitesimal fraction of eternity watching his

creation play out, then the rest of eternity basking in the adoration of those whopass ed the test. Let's not think about those poor souls in Hell suffering

excruciating pain forever and ever, for all eternity. I'm sure they deserve it. Well,

at least mos t of them.

So anyway, God chas ed them out of the garden. Adam and Eve were told to be

fruitful and multiply, and despite a lack of practice and even without fertility

clinics , they were pretty good at it. The snakes , however, were cursed. God

amputated their legs as punishment for tempting Eve, and as a further

punishment made it impos sible for them to multiply. They were relegated to

being adders . (Get it? Multiply ... adders?) The snakes took to the forest


6/11

looking for fallen trees . Being adders , the only way they could multiply was by

using logs . (Ha, ha, a little Biblical humor there.) One of the curses

mankindwell actually, womankindhad to endure was painful childbirth.

Don't you let those "evilutionists" tell you it was due to bipedalis m.

Anyhow, for some reas on the firs t few generations were very long-lived. Some

of them lived for almost a thousand years. The Bible isn't clear why they lived

so long. My theory is that it was punishment for the fall of Adam and Eve. As

George Gershwin would later say:

Methuselah lived 900 years.

Methuselah lived 900 years.

But who calls that livin'

When no gal w ill give in

To no man what's 900 years?

But I digress.

After a while it came to pass that there were a lot of fruitful people inhabiting

the earth. But in one of the most unlucky coincidences in recorded history,

practically all of them turned out to be evil. How could that be? God made manin his own image, and it turned out that almos t all of them were wicked? It just

goes to show that giving man Free Will might not have been such a good idea.

One would think that a reasonable deity would rethink the original plan, but the

omnipotent, omniscient, beneficent, omnipresent, all-merciful, all-loving God

of the universe had a better idea: He drowned them. I can't say that I blame

him. Fortunately, He spared Noah and his family, or there would be no story.

Way to go, Noah!

You might well wonder about the efficiency of using drowning. Did you know it

takes mil lions of cubic miles of water to cover the highest mountains? It's true;

do the math. Why not use l ightening bolts, or angels with swords, or a

souped-up ebola virus? Better yet, He could have stopped each and every

wicked heart with a twitch of his divine nose, or turned each of them into a

pillar of salt. (The latter would have s ignificant economic advantages as a s ide

benefit, especially if the salt was high purity.) But noooo... He had to drown

them. Well, who am I to question God's plan? He probably had good reasons.

So, the eight survivors of the deluge had to repopulate the earth. For the next

400 years or so they did the "fruitful and multiply" thing. Then along cam e

Abram. For som e reas on, God took a liking to Abram. After considerable

negotiation, God promised Abram that he, Abram, would found a great nation

if he would jus t sacrifice his son, Isaac. What a deal! Abram accepted the

deal. (Who wouldn't?) But at the last minute an angel subs tituted a ram forIsaac. That was a lucky break for Isaac, but not for the ram. It is not recorded if

Isaac was told of his narrow escape. Among other things, Abram als o

received a syllable from God and became known as Abraham. Such divine

generosity; it just goes to prove how loving God is!

It was around this time that God was getting pretty annoyed at the wickedness

of Sodom and Gomorrah. I mean, WTF? All those drownings didn't seem to

have had any deterrent effect. So God sends a few angels to have a look

around. Would you believe it? Two of these angels get propositioned by a

couple of weirdos. Enough is enough! Goodbye Sodom and Gomorrah. God


7/11

tells Lot and his wife to flee and don't look back. Lot's wife, naturally enough,

thought "Don't look back" was just a figure of speech. Boy, was she wrong! So,

God turned her into a pillar of salt. I'd call it an overreaction; why not jus t pluck

her eyes out? But then I don't have God's wisdom, mercy, love, etc. The Bible

doesn't tell us whether she went to Heaven or Hell, but just between you and

me, I have my suspicions.

After Abraham's death, God arranges for the Israeli tes to be sold into s lavery

in Egypt. What about this "great nation" stuff? Well, He didn't say when.Patience, grasshopper, God never said it would be easy. Remem ber the Fall?

God was still a little annoyed about that. The less said about their stay in

Egypt, the better; suffice to say it wasn't pretty. Eventually, God sent Moses to

bring the Israelites out of bondage. It's am azing how he talked Pharaoh into

letting them go. Of course, he had divine helpyou know, the frogs and the

boils and the locusts and all. But after they left, Pharaoh had second thoughts

and decided to give chase. I get the impress ion he wasn't too bright. So when

they got to the Red sea, Moses stretched out his arms and the waters parted.

The Israelites crossed the sea, and it wasn't even a little bit muddy. Pharaoh

followed them with his army. (I told you he wasn't too bright.) Another mass

drowning; I think I'm beginning to see a pattern.

But it's not over 'til it's over. They were lost in the desert without food or water.

But never fear while Moses is here. He caused bread to fall from the skies ,

and water to flow from rocks. He was awesome. But all these miracles came

at a price: Moses brought down from Mount Sinai the (Drum roll ) Ten

Commandm ents. Written in s tone, no less , by the very finger of God himself.

Pretty sacred s tuff going on here. But when Moses saw the Israelites

worshipping a golden calf, he sm ashed the original stone tablets! Talk about

chutzpah! People have been turned into pillars of salt for a lot (no pun

intended) less . So Moses had to reconstruct the stone tablets, and they now

are safely housed in the Ark of the Covenant. Unfortunately, nobody knows

where that is, not even Indiana Jones. It's a shame, too, as it might settle once

and for all the question of God's existence. Then again, it probably wouldn't

have convinced Richard Dawkins or even PZ Myers.

When the Israelites finally reach the Promised Land, they find to their dismay

that there are people already living there. "What's this?" they ask God. Being

all-merciful and all-loving, God tells them to kill every last man, woman and

child. What could be simpler? Then followed a period of wars of conquest,

and the Israelites continued with the "no survivors" policy. (There were a few

exceptions made for virgins .) Let's not dwell on it too much. Suffice to say that

the Israelites kicked ass for a very long time. That is, they kicked ass until the

Romans arrived. Damn! Who invited them? And where is Saint Michael theArchangel when you need him?

At last, in this account of Chris tianity, we get to the main protagonis tJesus

Christ himself. His birth in a humble stable was celebrated with great joy

across the globe by shepherds , angels, and Magi. You'd think that the Magi

would have found a better spot for him than a crumm y stable, but apparently

they didn't even try. Have you ever tried to s leep in a stable, with all that

manure? Yuck! His birth is celebrated even today in every town and hamlet in

the Christian world. But nowhere is it celebrated with more s incerity and piety

than in the boardrooms of Walmart and Toys R Us . But I'm getting ahead of


8/11

myself.

There are numerous anecdotes about the life of Jesuslots of miracles,

great sermons, and other cool stuff. But the most intriguing story, IMHO, is the

account of the three temptations of Christ in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark,

and Luke. Why not John? Well, John was som ething of a loose canon. (Ha,

ha. A little Bible pun there.) But three out of four isn't bad. Well, anyway, the

story is that Satan presented Chris t with these temptations, and Christ

resis ted them. Well, duuuuh! Jesus Christ was God, after all, and Satan washis sworn enemy. It's a wonder Jesus didn't kick Satan's sorry ass back into

Hell; I sure would have. But you must admire Satan for giving it a try. In all of

recorded his tory, only Moses had more chutzpah; I still can't believe he broke

those tablets.

Of course, the real s tory is the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

People s till talk about it to this very day; they make a really big deal about it.

The empty tomb on Easter morning was the grand finale, and it gave us the

holiest day in all of Christendomnot to mention the Easter bunny, chocolate

eggs, and the Easter parade.

Still, you must admit that there were some puzzling aspects to it. First of all,

since Jesus was presumably God, he couldn't reallydie. OK, the body he was

temporarily animating might stop functioning, but what does that prove? Since

he was God, he could reanimate it any time he pleas ed. No big deal. It's like

turning your computer off; you can turn it back on anytime you wanted to.

Second, how can we say that he suffered? Remember, he was God. (Sorry if I

keep pointing out the obvious .) Maybe the body he was animating suffered the

pain, but pain is a neural phenomenon, and God doesn't have neurons. No

neurons , no pain, end of story. Myself, I think it was just a scam.

Well, let's give the Bible the benefit of the doubt and as sume that Jesus was

really a human being and God at the same time. Consider it a miracle; withGod all things are poss ible, right? He wasn't just animating his human body;

in som e sens e that we cannot fathom, he wasthat human body. Hey, if you

can believe in transubs tantiation what's the problem with this? I call this the

easy problem of the crucifixion, death, and resurrection. But there is a hard

problem.

Why is it that the crucifixion, death, and resurrection redeemedus? What

blood-lust on the part of God is s atisfied by this adm ittedly dramatic

spectacle? How could God look down on this event and say to hims elf: "Good

job, Jesus. That makes up for all the s ins every man has ever committed, or

ever will comm it." Now remember that Jesus was God. So God sacrificedhims elf in order to appease his own desire for vengeance. Sounds

mas ochistic to me, but in a perverse way it makes s ense. He condemns us

all on the bas is of one lousy piece of pilfered fruit (OK, maybe two), but then

washes away all that guilt on the basis of a few hours of (poss ibly faked)

agony. So why didn't God jus t skip the agony and say: "OK mankind, I've had a

change of heart. All your sins are was hed away as of today." That would have

been easier, don't you think? True, it would have lacked drama, but it would

have been a lot more logical. Well, that's just my opinion.

But if we think about it, we can see the wisdom of God's divine plan.


9/11

Remember how He stacked the deck against Adam and Eve? Had they not

eaten the forbidden fruit, God wouldn't have had the opportunity for this great

spectacleyou know, the crucifixion and all. Mankind might never realize how

much He loved them. (See John 3:16) Also, maybe He had the foresight to

realize that He would need a good logo. (More about that later.)

I don't know about you, but it all seems like a put-up job to me. This does n't

strike me as the work of an omniscient, omnipotent, merciful, loving God. But I

must admit one thing: the crucifixion seems to have vastly improved God'stemper problem. He hasn't turned anybody into a pillar of salt lately, and mass

drownings seem to be a thing of the past if you don't count the Titanic or the

2004 tsunami, and such.

If you're going to found a relig ion, then you have to come up with an idea that's

distinct. Remember Dianetics? L. Ron Hubbard was no dummy, you have to

admit. So, the followers of Christ had to find some way to distinguish

themselves from the rabble. Calling themselves Christians was a start, but

they needed s omething more original. They had the original Yahweh, who had

a son, but what can you make of that? God and son? Sounds like a roofing

company or a law firm. They toyed with the idea of adding a woman to the

team, but that brought up sexual issues. The early Christians were not huge

fans of sex; they probably would have died out if it weren't for the converts.

Besides , they already had the virgin Mary as a token female. (See? A virgin. I

told you they weren't huge fans of sex.) Then som ebody suggested a silent

partner. Perfect! They settled on the name "Holy Ghost," because it sounded

mysterious. This was changed much later to "Holy Spirit," probably to avoid

negative associations with "Ghostbusters."

However, a new iss ue arose. People were accustomed to the idea of

monotheism, and having three Gods, while distinctive, was a significant

departure from Judaism. You can't just go around m ultiplying gods at will. The

ingenious solution was to just say it was one God. Hey, it was their religion;they get to define it, right? Three persons, one God? No problem; just call it a

mystery of the faith. They needed a catchword to gloss over the obvious logical

problem , and "Trinity" came readily to mind. Chris tianity was born! They now

had the makings of a really good religion. They also had a wonderful logo: the

cross. It's more widely recognized today than even the golden arches. They

never really found a good job for the Holy Ghost, but nobody seemed to care. If

I were them, I'd have put the Holy Ghost in charge of Asia or something. Also,

I'd have given him a few lines . It's hard to get worked up over a god-person

who never says a word. I mean, everybody knows Groucho, and most people

know Chico, but who remembers Harpo?

In spite of frequent martyrdom (or perhaps because of it), Christianity

flourished during the first few centuries. At first the Romans used Christians

as l ion food, but when that didn't diminish their numbers the emperor

Cons tantine paved the way to make Chris tianity the official state religion. If you

can't beat them, join them. Eventually the barbarians overran Rome, but they

stopped at the gates of the Vatican. Why? Maybe it was the cros s on the gate.

See how valuable a good logo can be? It also works against vampires and

zombies , by the way. Really good mojo.

The Roman Empire fell, but thanks to the Church, the hegemony (I've always


10/11

wanted to use that word) of Rome continued, only this time the known world

was ruled by the Pope. The following millennium was marked by incess ant

wars, cruel oppress ion, rampant disease, abysm al ignorance, and

widespread hunger. The common people, in their abysmal ignorance, looked

to the church as their only source of consolation. It didn't dawn on them that

the church might be the source of their misery. It also could well be that they

jus t weren't praying hard enough. The one great accomplishment of this

period was the liberation of the Holy Land by the Crusades. This ushered in

an era of peace, prosperity, and mutual admiration by Christians and Muslimsthat has lasted to this very day. It's true that there are a few malcontents and

sore losers in that area, but you can't please everybody.

Eventually the renaissance came towards the end of this period, and not a

moment too soon. By the beginning of the 16th century (That's the 1500'sI

have trouble keeping this straight), it had spread to all of Europe. The

Reformation came in the 16th century, partly sparked by the Renaissance. It

stimulated the economy of Europe by initiating a church building-boom. The

discovery of America also contributed to this by initiating a shipbuilding boom.

The Spanish Inquisition also started around this time, but didn't seem to be a

huge economic success . The Spaniards had a good time though, at least theones that weren't broken on the rack or burned at the stake.

Since the Reformation, it's been a bit difficult to keep track of Chris tianity, what

with so many sects springing up. You have everything from the traditional

Roman Catholics to snake handlers, Mormons (do they qualify as Christians?

I dunno), and pious folks like David Koresh, Oral Roberts, Jim Jones and

George W. Bush. But one good thing emerged from the reformationa

decline in theocracy. Of course, this is just my personal opinion; other

authorities in this area think it's a good idea for the government to tell you what

to believeand to behead you if you don't go along. There are all kinds of

theories about this, and I wouldn't want the reader to think of me as a bigot.

Well, that pretty much brings us up to date. Oh, I forgot to mention the m ost

important outgrowth of Christianityatheism. It's pretty much conceded by

mos t modern philosophers that atheism wouldn't stand a chance if

Christianity hadn't adopted so many silly beliefs, such as the timething, Free

Will, rebelling angels , an otherwise perfect garden with a lying snake in it, and

a supposedly all-merciful God who seems to enjoy inflicting the mos t hideous

forms of torture imaginable. In my sleep I could have come up with a more

credible religion. Hmmmm , maybe...

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Published: 3/12/2011

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Christianity — an Irreverent History

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