Sunday, June 22, 2008

"Ten signs you're an unquestioning Christian"

Without making a values judgment on the topic -- I continue to hold membership in a Protestant Christian denomination, and matriculated from an institution sponsored by that denomination -- I found this bit of email circulation a clever and intriguing read. It came to me under the subject line, "Ten signs you're an unquestioning Christian," and I offer it to others in the same condition I found it:

10
You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but you feel outraged when someone denies the existence of your god.

9
You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from lesser life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that your first ancestors were created from dirt.

8
You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Trinity god.

7
You are angered by the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies in Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" -- including women, children and their animals.

6
You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with woman, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who was killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5
You are willing to spend you life looking for loopholes in he scientifically-established age of the Earth (4.55 billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by pre-historic tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that the Earth is a couple of generations old.

4
You believe that the entire population of the planet, with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects -- will spend eternity in an infinite hell of suffering. Yet you considered your religion to be the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3
While modern science, history, geology, biology and physics are insufficient to convince you of facts that are contrary to your beliefs, you find a single person rolling on the floor and "speaking in tongues" to be clear and complete evidence to support those beliefs.

2
You define 0.01 percent as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers, even as evidence that "prayer works." And you believe that the remaining 99.9 percent failure rate of prayer is simply "the will of God."

1
You may know demonstrably less than non-believers and skeptics about the content of the Bible, about Christianity and about the history of your church and denomination, but you call yourself a Christian.

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