Reasons for Not Being a Christian
One. Life seemed fuller, richer before you knew about hell. I always thought of this after reading Alfred North Whitehead's Religion in the Making when he wrote: “Religion is by no means necessarily good. It may be very evil. The fact of evil, interwoven with the texture of the world, shows that in the nature of things there remains effectiveness for degradation. In your religious experience the God with whom you have made terms may be the God of destruction, the God who leaves in his wake the loss of the greater reality.”
So you don't trust the Christian God as you experienced him in 1979. You see him as an evil God that diminished the greater reality you enjoyed before you knew about hell, as described in Alfred North Whitehead’s Religion in the Making.
Two. Theodicy and the doctrine of hell are tough sells. For example, as discussed by many, including Christopher Hitchens, the Christian God watched the Jews burn in ovens before putting them in eternal ovens, or to be more general, the doctrine of eternal damnation is odious.
Three. There is evidence, made most salient in the books of Bart Ehrman, that the holy books are man-made and fraudulent.
Four. You feel you’ve been brain-raped by a cult and think of that man at the gym in 1979 who said, “Don’t let them suck you in.”
Five. You can’t love the Christian God in truth (like you can love Julia Sweeney or Louis C.K. or whomever) if you’re bowing down to an abusive god in what is an abusive relationship.
Six. The Christian god, it could be argued, disapproves of your remarriage as perpetual adultery and wants you to leave your wife and children.
Reasons to be a Christian
One. You’re afraid of God’s eternal hell in the Christian context, not the Muslim one. In other words you want hell insurance.
Two. You find the story of Jesus and the warning of loving the Darkness more than the Light (in Gospel of John) compelling.
Three. You have a psychological profile similar to Paul’s in Romans.
Four. You want to be less selfish and materialistic and more loving.
Five. You had a Pascal experience of God’s presence when you were 17 sitting in your literature class during reading time. As Peter Kreeft would say, you’re “God-haunted.”
Six. You’ve read that religious people are generally happier than nonreligious people and you are a depressive.
Seven. It would be nice to give your challenges, sins, past mistakes, etc., over to a higher power, be forgiven for your wrongs, and have a second chance on life. Perhaps this can be done in the secular sense, but I see it as a positive Christian narrative.
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