Me, Christianity and other Religions. July 4, 2013 Opinion
Posted by Christopher Blackwell on February 3, 2026, 8:49 pm
Me, Christianity and other Religions.
One reason that I have no reason to hate Christianity is that I have never been Christian. I note that there are a number of exChristian who seem to hold a grudge against Christians, often because someone whom was allegedly Christian caused them harm or a bad experience at the churches they attended. I never had such a misfortune.
First is the belief that because I am not Christian that I am necessarily anti-Christian. No, but I do admit I find some Christian ideas to be rather strange.
One is the strange idea that anyone not Christian is therefore anti-Christian. No, the majority of people in the world are not only not Christian, but most of them will never meet a Christian, so most of them will never need to have any opinion about Christianity.
Christians have never been near as important to other people as Christians feel they are to themselves. Most religions were not so egocentric as Christianity, or Islam. Most religions in the world have not been interested in converting outsiders to their religion for most of their history. Most of the religions were primarily local and for a certain people. Gods started as tribal gods of a given people, thus what is now the Christian god was originally one of the tribal gods of Israel, though later the only one allowed to them. This we learn through archeological evidence found in the last couple of centuries.
As Christians seem sometimes to have a belief that their religion is the only real and good religion, it tends to make some of them assume that all other beliefs and non beliefs are actively anti Christian. Hence we constantly hear about an alleged war on Christianity, when in fact no such war exists, beyond in some countries where Christianity may be a persecuted minority. Such persecutions are evil. Again most of this fear appears to be an certain ego centric aspect of Christianity.
My first religion did not happen until I was well into my adults years and that was Buddhism. In most of Buddhism there is no concept that non Buddhist are some how anti-Buddhist nor that there is any feeling of there is any war against Buddhism. I still have a great respect for Buddhism as it was part of my first religious experience. It was interesting in it did not have a concept of a god and the enlightenment of his founders were avail to hits practitioners. Now as it spread across Asia, it sometimes added the local gods to it, much as Christianity added local Pagan aspects as it spread across Europe.
There is a certain irony that I don't have negatives feeling to Christianity after all I began exploring Paganism during the strange and insane Satanic Child Abuse Scare, where innocent people were accused of crimes never committed, convicted and sent to jail . In fact there are at least two people in Texas who are still in prison for that nonexistent crime. This period of irrationality in both a modern religion in a modern country was rather disturbing, as it was just as irrational as the Witch hunts, past and present, in this world, where the people accused of being witches never actually were. These false accusations were irrational from the beginning.
Now I admit that it did make it a lot more exciting to search our Pagan festivals and other Pagans and it took a few years to locate any as it was rather hidden then. The festivals were in my opinion much more interesting because they were not open to the general public and we didn't have to worry what non- pagans might think of everything. Todays festivals are so politically correct, that we might almost be semi-Christian. You can imagine it like holding a Christian Festival in a Muslim country, even one that would not be unfriendly, with the feeling of need not to shock or upset them.
As Wicca tries to be more accepted it becomes less and less Pagan, even to the point of their being Wiccan Churches. I actually ran into a Wicca Priestess who was proud of how her ceremonies were so church like so that they would not disturb Christian walking nearby in the park.
That probably has the same affect on me as Christians feel about Pagan practices coming into their churches. If my goal was to be Christian-like, then obviously I would instead be Christian. I am not a fan of Homogenizing religions in to a bland sort of religions where all look the same. It is the differences that gives each of us a choice about what we want in a religion.
One of the things I like about Wicca is the lack of a middle man between me and my deities. It becomes a personal and private matter, at least for the solitary such as myself. I don't spend so much of my life worried about what happens after death. I assume my deities will take care of that even as they help us with life. As a result I use religion priorly to help me understand life and to deal with those things that life throws at me. I like the fact that it helps we deal with often the difficult things in life. Death is part of life, as are the other things we may not prefer, such as illness and aging, dying, not to mention the fact that life has rarely worked on any human concept of fairness, often more like a random throw of the dice, much as I experienced in war.
Now in Boot Camp I had my longest experience with Protestant Christianity. Of course military Christianity is rather an odd form of the religion. Nothing I saw there gave me any curiosity to learn. I do know that none of my experiences in war ever gave me any need to try prayer. In fact from what I saw people seemed to lose their religion in war, this included chaplains. The number one subject in war seemed to be sex, not religion.
I certainly never heard a single discussion on religion in the Marine Corps after I left boot camp and then only in chapel. Religion did not mixed with any of the lessons that we were taught. We were not taught that we were a Christian military and our only duty was to protect the Constitution of the United States, not Christianity. Come to think of it my father, was taught the same thing in the Army back in World War II. Religion was not pushed on him either. I have heard otherwise from some of the recent veterans. If true, that is a shame. It was never the purpose of our military to spread Christianity, nor should it be.
I am always somewhat amused by any claim of a person to know the thoughts and desires of gods. After all I tend to take with a large grain of salt anything any human tells me about deities. Humans have their own agendas and often they mix up their agendas conveniently with what they are their god's view. Holy books were written by priestly class and the first thing they did was justify their position and power claiming that they were the only people that really understood the gods. Again, very convenient for them. It took several centuries for even the ordinary Christian was allowed to read the Bible and then the disagreements really began, resulting in thousands of different types of Christianity around the world. Apparently it is impossible to make any religion a case of one view fits all.
I accept deity as a great mystery. I personally do not give it a name or a personality as those our human things and I sincerely doubt that any deity is even vaguely human like. That is just another aspect of human ego is to make the gods human, so in the process make us humans somehow closer to, and more important to, the deities than the rest other creation. I personally find it laughable to think all of creation was somehow created as a stage for us humans to prance around on. Now that idea is very human egocentric in my opinion.
We are part of creation, but I sincerely question that any part of creation is more important than any other or that our little world is in any more important, or even our solar system, or even our galaxy is more important then any other. I also personally believe that creation is not just by deity, but made up of deity, after all the stories do tell us that the deity was all that existed. So everything has a certain amount of sacredness regardless of whether I understand its value, or whether it has any use to me, or even if I like or dislike it.
That is my view, even as you may have your view. I have no interest in pushing this view to convert you, or even to agree with, but also I hold the right to have this view as equal to whatever view that you may hold. I don't hold other religions as any real danger to me, nor is it important how many do or do not believe in my religion. I would continue to practice what has worked for me, if I was the only person that did. I am not impress by numbers, as that only tells me how popular a belief is, not its validity.
