presenting christ to terminally ill atheist

"presenting christ to terminally ill atheist" was one of the search strings used to arrive at this blog recently. I tried that search, and it retrieves my post about prayer not being effective. So not really satisfying the searcher, and probably wasn't read....  but now I'm curious.  Why would someone want to do this?"

How many atheists in Europe or the Americas haven't heard of Christianity?

My mother was hospitalized in a religious hospital some time ago.  It's the only hospital around, and the one that her Medicare will allow her to go to.  (Is that Constitutional?)   They didn't push religion at all, until the resident social worker came by to talk about where mom would go after being released.  She offered to lead us in prayer.  My brother, mother, and I got very squeamish.   Even if we believed anymore, we wouldn't have appreciated an un-ordained random lay stranger making shit up for God's ears in our name.  We grew up Episcopalian.  It was a very awkward moment, and she took the hint. 

My town in Texas had only one hospital, a Seventh-Day Adventist one.  (They stayed open on Saturdays, though)  I went to the E.R. a couple of times and had to have an X-Ray once, so I was subjected to some bland Christian-themed posters.  I would never have denied myself health care because of where it was located, but it still pissed me off.  Hindus and Muslims are a real presence in our medical schools.  Atheists too, though not obviously so of course.  How many of these hospitals are losing out on the top talent because of their religious affiliation?  If I were a Hindu I wouldn't want to go to work every day in an institution that promoted Christianity.

Christians are proud of their history of having hospitals.  Should it really be a point of pride?  If they use them for conversion it's the lowest form of deception.  (a BIG complaint against Mother Teresa) And it's not like other religions haven't done the same.

This letter-to-the-editor brought this up for me. The title is "Christians build hospitals; why don't atheists?" but the writer is objecting to a lawsuit involving a church and the local school system.  In typical Christian fascism, oops fashion, the writer deflects from the legitimate issue of whether their local government was un-constitutionally promoting a single religion to whethr her religion had done good things.  Who could complain about forcing such a noble religion on children?  This ignorant writer probably has no idea what the Constitution says or how it's been applied over the past 200+ years.

She probably also doesn't consider the long history of Jewish hospitals or those of other religions, either. 

Of course, healing people is a good thing, so arguing against religious hospitals is a losing proposition.  "It might help, and couldn't hurt" is the default position on prayer.  Suggesting that prayer and religion could be harmful is politically incorrect.  Of course, by claiming innocuous motives and results, they defeat their own position.  If it's so innocuous isn't that the same was worthless?

Then there's the issue of quality control...   Just like pedophile priests, a religious organization controls decisions about incompetent or misbehaving believers.  They can address the problem, ignore it, hide it, and those are the same choices as non-religious organizations, of course.  The one choice they have and seem to use when it's convenient is that they can rationalize cruelty if conversion is the outcome.  Did Mother Teresa abuse her patients?    Who cares?  She's on her way to sainthood.

http://www.atheists.org/The_Question_of_Atheists_Hospitals

Immorality of Christianity

Christians love to claim that they are more moral because of being Christian, which of course is debatable.  The U.S. is a "Christian nation" and yet it has a higher murder rate than Japan, where Christianity is a tiny minority.  When you point out to them that once you've accepted Christ as your "savior" there's no reason not to sin, they cite Jesus' teachings about how to live, but there is no punishment for not following those teachings.  You're supposed to do those things because you want to once you've been "saved."  But good works can't get you into heaven; only believing in Christ can, supposedly.  So Gandhi is in Hell and Hitler is in Heaven.  How is that moral?

If I were to suddenly believe in an immortal soul and decided to align myself with a religion to protect its future, Christianity would be the least appealing choice for these reasons:

Scapegoating.  Instead of individual repsonsibility for bad actions, Christ was "sacrificed" in our place.  If you are Catholic, you have a shot at going to Hell anyway if you commit a "mortal sin," but in general you get off scot-free.

Eternal reward / punishment.  Eternity is a very, very, very long time.  And you have at most 100 or so years to get it right here on earth.  Why should someone be rewarded or punished with eternity for a finite life's decisions?

"Grace."  Being a Christian isn't necessarily a matter of choice.  A lot of evangelicals believe their religiosity is a gift from God.  So not only do they get off scot free for eternity for being believers, they didn't even make the right choice on their own and yet they get the credit for it.

Predestination.  In Calvinistic Christiantiy God is believed to to have chosen who gets the gift of "grace" in advance.  Curiously, he seems to grace only people who were brought up in Calvinistic churches.  Very convenient.  Even non-Calvinists believe in some predestination if they consider the prophecy claims of Jesus to be true.  In that case, Pontius Pilate and the Jews who demanded Christ's crucifixion were merely carrying out God's will.

Demented ideas of "parenthood."  God the good "father" has decided all humans deserve to die for eternity because of Eve's sin, but then he changes his mind and sacrifices his one good child in exchange for all of them... oops some of them, depending on if they accept the whole redemption story.  Before that, he wipes out thousands of innocents along with the sinners in his genocidal rampages.  You can inflict any amount of physical harm to your children that you want as long as you don't kill them.  Is that any way to treat your "children?"

Justice denied.  If you sin, then you are forgiven because you believe you have been forgiven, your victim receives no redress for what you did to him/her at all.  If the sin can be wiped clean, why not the harm done by that sin?  There's nothing in the New Testament that shows any concern for the victim of a sin.  If you murder someone then "accept Jesus as Lord and Savior (hallelujah)" their family still suffers that loss.

Problem of Evil.  "Evil" in the theo-philosophical sense of pain, misery, death, destruction, or basically anything you don't like happening seemingly at random.  God (and Jesus) can perform miracles but seems more interested in sending disaster to the world.  Sure, it's a miracle for you if you survive a tornado, but what about the person next door who died?  Weren't they also praying to be spared?  It seems so random.  heh heh oh right.... it is!   Fortunately the power of rationalization gives God a pass on things like this.  If he spares you it's because he has plans for your life.  If he lets a tornado kill a 6-year-old it's because he wants her to "be with the angels."  Either way, it's not based on whether you're a good person or not.

If Christianity were to start as a cult today, it would be so thoroughly laughed at and discredited it wouldn't stand a chance.  It only survives today because of childhood indoctrination and a long tradition of rationalization (oops that's called "apologetics").  If there had never been any religion before today and you suddenly had to pick from among the ten or so biggest religions, choosing Christianity would be selfish and amoral.  There's nothing noble in being a Christian.