Why I Distrust Christians But Still Believe in Jesus Christ
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I distrust Christians because…Christians are people. I am a social psychologist by education, and social psychologists are cynical if nothing else. We study the ways that people’s self-serving interests bias their judgments. So when a Christian says “the Bible doesn’t support slavery because the word ‘slavery’ meant something different in the Old Testament culture, so those verses about slavery are really about paid servants” I generally start by assuming they are wrong. I assume that they have a bias that led them to skew the facts of history in their direction.
The knife cuts both ways, though. When an atheist says (and shockingly, they often do say stuff like this), “Christians are the sole reason slavery exists at all,” I generally start by assuming they are wrong. You see, I am an equal-opportunity skeptic.
I don’t trust people to be objective sources of information. I like to find out things for myself, as much as I can. That process is imperfect, because (naturally) I don’t trust myself overly much, either. This is a quandary, because, in case you haven't figured this out, you have no option, if you want to learn anything, but to trust someone in some way. (I have a set of guiding principles in how I do this, which can be found on this link).
So what do I trust? I trust the words of Jesus in the Bible. I trust the Christian Creeds. As this whole website is dedicated to explaining why that is, and the reasons are diverse and not easily captured in a single paragraph, I will here say only enough to appease my conscience for having “… and still believe in Jesus Christ” in the title. (I don’t want you, my beloved reader, to feel cheated.) My reasons for believing the words of Jesus in the Bible could be summed up best by saying: They match my experience of what is good, beautiful, real, complex, and honest in this sad and bitter world. They help me understand some of my most fundamental questions: Why am I here? Why do I suck so bad? Why am I consciously aware that I suck so bad? Why, in spite of the fact that I suck so bad, do I also see good in myself and in others? Why am I made of both ogres and angels?
Christianity does not answer all of my questions (such as “why do mosquitoes exist?” or“why isn't Billy Ray Cyrus considered one of the greatest songwriters ever?” or “why is Michael Bolton considered handsome?”…our best scientists have been unable to explain this last phenomenon). But it answers my most important questions in a way that is better than anything else out there on the intellectual market.
I distrust Christians because…Christians are people. I am a social psychologist by education, and social psychologists are cynical if nothing else. We study the ways that people’s self-serving interests bias their judgments. So when a Christian says “the Bible doesn’t support slavery because the word ‘slavery’ meant something different in the Old Testament culture, so those verses about slavery are really about paid servants” I generally start by assuming they are wrong. I assume that they have a bias that led them to skew the facts of history in their direction.
The knife cuts both ways, though. When an atheist says (and shockingly, they often do say stuff like this), “Christians are the sole reason slavery exists at all,” I generally start by assuming they are wrong. You see, I am an equal-opportunity skeptic.
I don’t trust people to be objective sources of information. I like to find out things for myself, as much as I can. That process is imperfect, because (naturally) I don’t trust myself overly much, either. This is a quandary, because, in case you haven't figured this out, you have no option, if you want to learn anything, but to trust someone in some way. (I have a set of guiding principles in how I do this, which can be found on this link).
So what do I trust? I trust the words of Jesus in the Bible. I trust the Christian Creeds. As this whole website is dedicated to explaining why that is, and the reasons are diverse and not easily captured in a single paragraph, I will here say only enough to appease my conscience for having “… and still believe in Jesus Christ” in the title. (I don’t want you, my beloved reader, to feel cheated.) My reasons for believing the words of Jesus in the Bible could be summed up best by saying: They match my experience of what is good, beautiful, real, complex, and honest in this sad and bitter world. They help me understand some of my most fundamental questions: Why am I here? Why do I suck so bad? Why am I consciously aware that I suck so bad? Why, in spite of the fact that I suck so bad, do I also see good in myself and in others? Why am I made of both ogres and angels?
Christianity does not answer all of my questions (such as “why do mosquitoes exist?” or“why isn't Billy Ray Cyrus considered one of the greatest songwriters ever?” or “why is Michael Bolton considered handsome?”…our best scientists have been unable to explain this last phenomenon). But it answers my most important questions in a way that is better than anything else out there on the intellectual market.