Bad Reasons to Abandon Christianity

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I saw this “Top 15 Reasons Why People Are Leaving Christianity” article while surfing the net. Lots could be said about this list; item (1) isn’t quite right since there is the moral argument and the Leibnizian cosmological argument; item (7) claims, “According to the Bible, the world is only 6,000 years old” when the Bible never says how old the world is; item (11) says that contrary to Biblical teaching, people are inherently good when a little reflection shows that we are the depraved; and so on.

I won’t go through the whole list, and some of the items are admittedly understandable (if God never seems to answer your prayers) but some are just plain awful so as to illustrate how blind people can be to bad reasons when such reasons support their cause. To quote the really awful reasons for leaving Christianity (and the numbers associated with them):

3. They see no difference in attitude and behavior between Christians and Non-Christians. Non-Christians are equally capable of living a moral life as Christians.
4. They have had several bad experiences in churches. (i.e. corruption, abuse, coercion, greed, gossip)

8. They realize that all religions claim to be the only true religion, and only one can be right. This causes them to doubt that out of all of the religions in the world, Christianity would be the only way.

12. They see more harm than good being done in the name of Jesus. (i.e. The Crusades)

To illustrate how horrible these reasons are, suppose that some ignorant theist put forth the following, not as a parody, but as a list of sincere reasons for why some people abandon atheism:

3. They see no difference in attitude and behavior between atheists and non-atheists. Non-atheists are equally capable of living a moral life as atheists. This gives them logical grounds to question whether atheism is in fact true.
4. They have had several bad experiences in atheist organizations (i.e. corruption, abuse, coercion, greed, gossip). They quite naturally conclude that maybe God exists after all.

8. They realize that with all propositions about gods that are logically inconsistent with each other (no gods exist, only the Christian God exists, only the Muslim God exists etc.), each such proposition claims to be the only true one, and only one can be right. This causes them to doubt that out of all of such propositions in the world, atheism would be the only true one.

12. They see more harm than good being done in the name of atheism, so they conclude there is reason to doubt the truth of atheism. How can a belief be reasonable to believe when so many of its adherents are great big jerks?

Atheists would immediately see these as lousy reasons to abandon atheism, but some of these very same atheists would also be curiously blind to the lousiness of the reasons-for-leaving-Christianity counterparts. To be fair, sometimes it’s easy to forget things like, “You can’t judge the truth of a belief by its adherents being bastards” when such fallacious thought would support your view. So while the internet atheist may be an admittedly easy target, we should remember that just because our own cherished belief is true, doesn’t mean that every reason given for it will be a good one, and that all of us are capable of overlooking this fact.