Some Christians just say the darnest things.

I'm sure everyone is familiar with the whole host of stereotypical phrases religious people use to either defend their beliefs or persuade you to accept them. I want to propose that we just take a moment to stop and reflect on them for a minute. I know, I know, "Don't be such an asshole, Jay." Well, my parents said I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up. I became an asshole. So there.


Oh, I'm sorry your friend/relative died, but it was all part of God's Plan.

That's right, God has a unique master plan for each and every one of the 6 billion people on the planet. But wait, I should also note the alternative: The Lord just works in mysterious ways! These types of saying belong to that category of confusions Christians seem to have on whether or not events that happen in human existence are the cause of God's plan or the cause of human free will. People like to say this when they pretend that random and destructive events are somehow under the control of some intelligent being to give comfort to the victims of said event. One reason why the saying is so idiotic is because you can justify absolutely any event that ever happens with this. The next time someone says this phrase to me, I'll kick them in the balls. I hope they don't get upset with me, it's part of God's plan after all.


Let's thank God for all our successes.

Wait a minute, I think something fishy is going on here. Whenever people do evil to each other, Christians justify this by appealing to the fact that we have "free will" (more on this later.) But whenever we accomplish something positive, it's always because of the grace of God! You don't exactly have to be a police dog to recognize the stench of special pleading. Do we have free will or not? If we do, then why should I be obligated to thank anyone but myself when I achieve something? If we don't, then doesn't that make God responsible for all the tragedies that happen to us too? This brings me to another point...

God gave us the free will to disobey him. He won't force unbelievers to love him!

So, If I don't believe in God I get to burn in hell for all eternity? Oh, I see. It's a simple enough "choice," believe in him or BURN FOREVER. That doesn't sound like we have a wide range of choices, in fact I can exercise my free will to a greater extent scanning McDonald's dollar menu. But my real complaint is this absolutely perverse notion of so called freedom. Let's say a man with a gun came up to you and said "Here's the deal. Give me all your money right now or I'll blow your brains out." Oh, what a loving man, he gave us the free will to disobey him! That's a death threat, not a "loving choice." How come God can't give us irrefutable evidence that he exists and then make us choose to "obey" him or not? The Christian might say "Oh, but there is so much proof look around you! You're just choosing to disbelieve!" Cut the bullshit, no reasonable person could doubt the existence of a wooden chair in front of them whether they wanted to or not. Why can't we have evidence like that?

The best evidence for God's existence is the smile on a baby's face.

I'd like to take this time to note that if you actually say this to me in person, I will head-butt you in the fucking mouth. This is something a Christian says when he has no actual evidence for his position. So instead of thinking of some, he resorts to subjective, metaphorical, or emotional nonsense like this. By the way, does it follow that the best evidence for his nonexistence are babies that are born dead or with some severe birth defect explainable only by the parents' genes? No, of course not, when this happens it's only one of God's perverted little TESTS. All you have to do to learn about one of these is to read the story of Job, which God finally resolves by replacing all of Job's children He murdered with more new children. See, just as good!

I'll pray for you.

Thanks, I appreciate the sentiment but to tell you the truth, I'm afraid it will count for diddly-shit. On the other hand, if you'd like to help me in some physically discernible way that would be just great. Prayer is a silly ritual and a spectacular waste of time. Doesn't God already know my thoughts anyway? Why would I have to whisper them out loud in English while clasping my hands together? Furthermore, why does an all-loving good God have to be petitioned to do things that are already good? Would he not have done them otherwise? Do the amount of people who pray for something increase the likelihood that divine intervention will act upon the thing being prayed for? If God is so good, why does his system of intervention operate based at least partially on democratic appeal? What use is praying if God already has a plan? Maybe it's just not in the universe's best interests for God to lower those gas prices. (Yes, some complete nutters are organizing prayers to lower gas prices.) And even if it was, God should already know that so many people want to lower gas prices. Does he only act when he's being explicitly called out? Why do people expect God to help settle their petty problems? Will he magically impregnate your mind with the divine wisdom necessary to reason the problem out? If so, how can you tell when you've thought a problem out yourself or when you've been magically given the solution? Isn't it funny that the people who claim to have their prayers answered only observe things that can already happen by themselves? Notice how God never answers someone's prayer and regenerates a lost limb. I could go on but this is just tiresome. Anyway, this is usually the last thing a Christian says to you after he no longer has any arguments.

I've been born again!
Yeah, I think the more accurate label to highlight your credulity would be "born yesterday."

The Bible is the literal Word of God!
The people who peddle this kind of nonsense just give me a headache. Here are the type of bozo Republicans who hypocritically want their nonsense fantasies about "creation" inserted into high school biology classes to further strengthen America's position as having one of the most science/math illiterate education systems in the industrialized world. I say that they want this hypocritically because Republicans are typically against financial welfare. But as their feud with science proves, they aren't against intellectual welfare. You see, their ideas are too stupid to survive in the "free market" system of ideas that all other scientific theories have to prove themselves under. They want the government to help legislate their pseudoscience.



But the silliest thing about Biblical literalists is that they only take some parts of the Bible literally. Curiously, some of the only verses they take literally in books like Leviticus and Deuteronomy are ones that condemn homosexuality. But if they take those literally, why not the verses in the same books that instruct you on how to sell your daughters into sexual slavery? Or to stone adulterers? Or murder your children? Or to not to let disabled people (and men with deformed genitals-Sorry Lance Armstrong) into church? Well the answer to that is right below...

You're taking the Bible out of context!

Ah, of course. Here's a convenient little nugget Christians will invariably try to spring on you every single time you show them an objectionable Bible verse. That's right folks, there isn't a single questionable verse in the entire biblical canon. Not one. In fact, the morality and world views of Bronze Aged goat herders is PERFECTLY compatible with the 20th century's! So the evidence for creationism or "Intelligent Design" isn't looking so hot these days? No problem, just say The Bible isn't a science book! Did that petulant unbeliever quote large sections of a verse to show you an objectionable point about the Bible? Well, clearly they are taking this out of context from that particular book as a whole. Wait, so they are attacking a whole coherent story like Job and objecting to it? Simple, they just aren't taking the WHOLE Bible into account, so it's out of context too! Yep, even different books written in different time periods and with different intents for different audiences by different authors with no knowledge of each other have to be interpreted by averaging all their beliefs together, you see?



I guess what's really ironic is that many positive verses about Jesus or God that Christians say all the time are actually stripped of their historical context. But more on that some other time.