I've been thinking lately about Christianity, and wondering why people are so turned off to it. Here are some reasons I think people don't like Christians. (Keep in mind, these are all generalizations, but these are generalizations that I think all Christians are responsible for.)
1. Christians are judgemental. Christians live their lives according to strict do and don't guidelines and expect other people to do the same. Christians say that people who do not live in fear of this strict laundry list of sins will burn in Hell.
2. Christians are unforgiving. Christians preach about Christ who died on the cross for our sins, but maintain that Christ only forgives Christians for their sins. He does not forgive non-Christians for anything. Instead, Christ remembers every sin a non-Christian has ever committed and judges non-Christians for the same sins Christians are forgiven for.
3. Christians are hypocritical. Christians sin a lot. Christians slap silver Jesus fish on the backs of their cars, and then cut people off, swear and honk their horns and flip people off. If you offend a Christian's religion, he or she will respond in anger often yelling at you for disrespecting God, and will frequently remind you that he or she is going to Heaven.
4. Christians assume that you are going to Hell. Non-Christians see evangelism in three ways: Pastors standing on a box downtown reading from the Bible telling people that they are going to Hell, Christians passing people at the gas station with a glib statement such as "I want you to know that Jesus loves you and wants you to ask him into your heart." or the handing out of tracts (poorly written, poorly illustrated, shallow comics that reduce all humanity into the two categories of bad people who are going to hell, and Christians.)
5. Christians are stubborn and stupid. Christians think (in spite of everything that science tells us) that the Universe is only about 10,000 years old, and that Dinosaurs never actually roamed the earth. Either that, or they think that Dinosaurs walked around with people and during the flood their bones were the first to settle because they were heaviest.
6. Christians worry about stupid things that don't bother anyone else, and assume that other people care about their petty fights. Is it sinful to baptize a baby? Should we sprinkle a baby when we baptize him or her? If you were sprinkled during your baptism were you really baptized? Christians shouldn't drink. Christians should only vote for republicans. Women shouldn't be ministers in a church. Electric guitars are not appropriate for worship. Christians should hate homosexuals. There is no such thing as evolution. It should say "In God we trust." on our money. Mary was sinless. People who don't speak in tongues are not Christians.
7. Christians hate people groups that disagree with them. Christians do not want homosexuals to be legally married in the United States because they think homosexuality is wrong. Rather than prohibiting homosexual marriages in the Church, they want to prohibit homosexual marriage all together. They claim that this is out of fear that homosexual marraige will undermine the sanctity of marriage. Meanwhile, some Christians refuse to grant divorces to abused women, and over half of all the other Christians get divorced in under ten years.
8. Christians are more concerned about numbers than they are about Jesus. Christian churches are becoming huge complexes where the sole goal is to bring more people in the door. Christians say that this is motivated out of a desire to bring more people to Christ, but rather than giving money raised from increased attendants to charities and missionaries, most churches use these funds to buy sound systems, high quality cameras and for increasing the salary of the head pastor.
9. Christians take themselves too seriously. Christians live in constant fear of sin. When they are not afraid of sinning, they are committing sins. After they commit sins, they spend an unbelievable amount of time feeling guilty for their sins. This process develops Christians into self-absorbed people who focus more on what they are not doing than on what they are doing. As a result, they are afraid to do things that the rest of the world finds enjoyable. Such as, going to a bar, watching an R rated movie, or smoking a cigarette.
10. Christians have no sense of humor about their own religion. If you tell a Christian about the things that seem strange about their religion, or about the practice of their religion, they will respond in either anger or disassociation. Either they will begin a long argument about why God loves them more, or they will tell you that they are not like most other Christians.
