Monday 21 May 2012

Why criticise Christianity when there are easier options?

Having had a lot of free time to think (hazily) this weekend, while not feeling 'on top form', something made me realise that the oddities of Christianity are almost as nothing compared with other religions.

I wonder why I spend so much time pointing out the all-too-obvious flaws in Christianity when there are other (even easier) targets.  So many people appear to be readily deluded into believing in other, weirder, things that simply can't be true.

I started to wonder about other candidates and after the obvious threat of Islam, immediately thought about Mormonism.  Mormons might be classed as Christians by some, but any serious study of the subject belies this myth.  I must have heard something about a US presidential candidate while half asleep.  We hear quite a bit about him at the moment!

I should say that I know a Mormon family living here in rural England and they seem nice, completely rational people.  I find it hard to believe that they actually believe in the things that their church preaches.  (I can only imagine that one of them wears the magic underwear!  I prefer not to think about it.)  My daughter has even been to worship with them.  You might ask whether I was happy about that, and to be honest I wasn't really sure at the beginning.  However, I wasn't really worried about her being assimilated as she has always been quite sensible.

I have always known that there is little hope of convincing any Christians of the error of their ways, but the comparison with Mormons makes it all the more obvious.  Just imagine that about 15 million people have been taken in by a much less convincing myth invented by someone called Joseph Smith.  He was a man who had previously made part of his living by predicting where people should go to dig for treasure.  He used to put a magic stone in a hat and then bury his head in the hat to see a vision of the place to dig.

Having spent a little time researching about the Mormons I now realise that the organisation is even stranger than I thought.  With its links to Masonic rituals and symbology, with its rascist and polygamous past, and its secretive culture, how could it fail to be an interesting topic?

I think a series of blog posts on the topic is likely to arise.

1 comment:

krissthesexyatheist said...

Let's critisize all the religions, even Buddhism. The untruths of Christianity, seemingly, are only known to atheist and not the believers themselves. Still, from the writers perspective it's good to branch out and write about different things/religions. I don't hate religion, I hate the bad parts of it. When I research a post about a religion that is not Catholic (I was raised) I find it very fascinating to learn the ins and outs of said religion. hope UR feeling better.

Kriss