Fundie Claim #5: Christianity is NOT a religion!

2/18/2008 | 4:48 PM | Evolved Rationalist

Fundie (for example, Rick Warren in his born-again piece of evangelical trash that he calls a book): Christianity is not a religion! There are many false religions but Christianity is not one of them because it isn't even a religion.

This stale slogan has been popular in evangelical circles even before Warren's Purpose-Driven Trash Life even blighted the face of the earth. Nevertheless, what Warren claims in his tragedy of a book really enlightens us yet again about how arrogant and demeaning the Christian theistard 'holier-than-thou' attitude really is. When he claims (in Chapter 23), that Christianity (especially his brand of born again evangelical Christianity) is not a religion, what he is really implying is that Christianity is not like other man-made religions. It is the ultimate Truth, with a capital T. Warren (and other Christian fundie theistards) are effectively saying that Yahweh is the only sky-daddy worth drooling over, despite the countless religions that have flourished since the dawn of humankind.

But is Christianity the only religion that has this oft-repeated slogan? The answer is no, and Christians should really get off their high horse and stop repeating this phrase like a broken record. I was recently reading an article where the comparative religion scholar Wilfred Cantwell Smith compiled some similar statements from the other major world religions, which I'll share below:

1. It is hardly possible...to say whether [Hinduism] is indeed a religion or not, in the usual sense of the word. [Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India]
2. The attempt to reduce Judaism to a religion is a betrayal of its true nature. [Milton Steinberg, The Making of the Modern Jew]
3. Islam is not merely a "religion" in the sense in which this term is understood in the West. [Said Ramadan, Islam: Doctrine and Way of Life]
4. Buddhism is not a religion in the sense in which religion is commonly understood. [U Thittila, The Fundamental Principles of Theravada Buddhism]

If Christianity claims itself to be above being classified as just another religion, the claims of the other religions, such as the ones above, should be given equal footing. Christian theistards, being the arrogant hypocrites they are, will obviously never do that as to them Jesus' backside is the only ass worth licking.

Posted in Atheist Refutation of Fundie Claims |