The first semester of sophomore year, my History professor, relating specifically to Bolshevism, said that ideologies could be valued by their tenets and/or their historical application. This, I think, could be applied to religion as well.
While a friend of mine, a Christian and equally fiery about her beliefs, does not seem to consider human application of Christianity throughout history, while I emphasize history and application a great deal.
We could say that Christianity, before its legitimization in Rome, was not evil. But the moment it was, and the Catholic Church was set up (encompassing, at the time, nearly all of Christianity, the underground sects it proceeded to persecute), it drove on to gain political power and thus became evil.
The point I wish to make is that Christianity, historically, is merely a convenient disguise for political and personal aims. Even now, throughout the United States, Christianity is primarily a political ideology, whose only purpose is to dismantle democracy. Christianity, thus, is merely a means of gaining and using power and authority.
Yet, my friend believes that Christianity, taken by itself, is not evil. Yet she could not explain to me the goal or purpose of Christianity in concrete terms. Why, exactly, should I be compelled to believe in Jesus? How would this belief give me hope when it is those who profess to buy the Golden Rule and how we shouldn't judge each other, betray those beliefs and have turned human society upside-down for the past 2,000 years?
The problem I have with "faith" is a big one. I define faith as "a belief in something that is held without or even contrary to evidence". This could range from Santa Claus to the Tooth Fairy, to Jesus, all the way up to the idea that Jews are the cause of financial difficulty and must be eliminated, or that the German race is superior to all others. Did anyone ask for evidence for any of these beliefs? The minor, harmless beliefs were immune to the burden of proof. Those that demanded proof for Hitler's plan for the fate of European Jews were silenced, and the large majority of Germans put faith in Hitler's rallies.
Back to Christianity, why should I be compelled to believe that a vengeful god (Old Testament) had a change of heart with the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy, and why should I believe in Jesus when the Golden Rule was really originated by Eastern philosophers 400 years before him?
Why is the Bible something I should believe in? Why should I buy the argument that the authors of the Bible were "inspired by God" when we don't even know who half of them are? Why should I believe the Bible when there is a large collection of significant works that were not included in it, meaning, that the Bible isn't even the whole story? Why is the Bible an authority? Does it sound authoritative, does it seem like it was written by intelligent people? Is God a charismatic figure? Is it simply because within its pages, it demands, sometimes under threat of destruction to the reader, belief and allegiance to its cause? Do its pages include an applicable and humanistic, respectable moral structure between the blood and violence? Is it morally useful to believe that Christianity's founder, Jesus "Christ" actually rose from the dead? Should I believe something that was blatantly capitalized upon as a justification for the most heinous human atrocities?
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