Review by Dean Bedekar, June 2023

Seth Andrews is a podcaster and sits on the board of American Atheists. The book is available as a premium with a 1-year subscription to American Atheist magazine. He was a devout Christian from Oklahoma for many years before turning to reason. He doesn’t claim that all Christians are idiots, merely that Christians sound like idiots as they try to defend a hopelessly contorted religion.

The Big Con

The Christian Con rests on 5 pillars:

• Faith: You must believe. Do not think. If you love me, keep my commands.
• Jesus, God, Heaven and Hell are real: Because we said so in the Bible.
• You are a sinner: the odd story of Adam and Eve is all the proof you need. Only the men in frocks can save your soul from original sin.
• Jesus is the Son of God and your Savior: Again, because we said so in the Bible.
• Only the true believers will ascend to Heaven at the End of Days: Go read Revelations.
• You must be All In: Deviate and you will be cast into the outer darkness.

A religion that asks you to suspend disbelief is suspect to begin with. Contrary to all laws of nature, we’re expected to believe in the immaculate conception and resurrection of Jesus. Because some obscure monk decided he was the son of God.

No one knows who wrote the Gospels. Probably some monks who knew how to read and write 2,000 years ago. A religion that says newborn babies are sinners can be dismissed as ignorant and hateful. If Jesus could cure the ill and raise Lazarus from the dead, surely that’s a more valuable skill than preaching with an entourage of 12? The less we say about Revelations the better. Only a madman could have written a script worthy of Quentin Tarantino.

The Word of God

Isaac Asimov: “The Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”

There are so many errors, contradictions, miracles, and hateful items in the Bible, that only a fool would believe it as the word of God. The Bible is wrong about geology, astronomy, biology and every other science. You would think that an omniscient power would’ve kept it clear, simple and to the point.

Here are some of the contradictions:

• the Nativity scene is different in each Gospel
• humans are made by an omniscient God but they are broken
• how should men wear their hair? It’s a shame for men to have long hair (1 Cor 11.14); No razor shall touch a man’s hair (Num 6.5); No man with blemishes or crushed testicles shall approach God (Lev 21:16-20); and finally, the Lord looks on a man’s heart, not his appearance (1 Sam 16:7).

Bible Illiterates

Most Christians are Bible illiterates. Their knowledge come from what the televangelists and other men in frocks spout from the pulpit. For example, most don’t know that Adam had a wife named Lilith before Eve came along. Most couldn’t name more than 5 of the 10 Commandments.

Mr. Andrews like to play a game with believers. He’ll quote the most odious passages from the Bible while substituting the names of Allah and Buddha in place of Yahweh. Most Christians are aghast and disbelieving when told of the source.

1.  Allah said that any woman suspected of getting pregnant out of wedlock shall be forced to drink bitter water. If the fetus doesn’t belong to the husband it will be aborted. Christian: OMG, that’s terrible. (Numbers 5)
2.  Buddha commanded his armies to kill children, all livestock and women except virgins. They were to be kidnapped for sex.
Christian: What a barbaric religion! (Numbers 31)
3.  Hinduism says it’s OK to dash children against the rocks.
Christian: Thank God for Christianity. (Psalms 137.9)
4.  Jephthah was a great general. He prayed to Shiva for victory in battle and promised to burn alive anything that walked out his door on his return. It was his daughter.
Christian: I can’t imagine a Christian doing that. (Judges 11)

Sheer Hypocrisy

God always gets a pass. If a church bus is in an accident and everyone on board dies, oh well, there’s a reason for everything. If a young girl is the sole survivor, then it’s time to offer profuse thanks to God for the miracle. If a Bible is found next to the young girl, then we should herald God’s glory for there’s a message there for all of us.

What about the fact that God failed to prevent the Holocaust? That wasn’t God, it was the devil who possessed Hitler.

The Bible approves of slavery, genocide, rape, polygamy and the subjugation of women. Now try and reconcile that with holiness or righteousness.

Creepy and Self-serving Rituals

Of all the Christian rituals, cannibalism in the form of communion is the most abhorrent. You must eat the body and drink the blood of your savior in order to be redeemed. All Christians are buried with their heads pointing east. That’s because Christ will appear in the East during his second coming, and if he can’t see your decaying corpse, you won’t rise to heaven.

Prayer is another useless ritual that all religions are high on. They’re intended to praise a God who already knows how wonderful he is. When someone prays over their food, I ask them if they pray when they shit. Then they would be blessed from beginning to end.

Obsession with Sex

The social religions, Christianity and Islam, are obsessed with sex, more so than other religions.

The sex drive is a powerful one and if you’re going to control the flock, you need to control their sex life. The sex life of women is a matter of particular concern since women are chattel and Eve’s sexual desire was a curse for tempting Adam.

(I went to a Jesuit school for boys. The school principal told us that it took 40 drops of blood to make 1 drop of semen. We were teenagers who got erections at random and waxed our carrots equally at random. The principal warned us that our filthy habits would cause death by blood loss.)

Mr. Andrews advice is simple: keep the men who wear frocks out of your sex life. They can do nothing for you except screw up your life.

Closing Thoughts

Seth Andrews acknowledges that churches do some good in creating communities, feeding the homeless and helping during disasters. The fact remains whether that offsets the nonsense that they preach and the children they harm.

Mr. Andrews mention a conference that caught my eye: the annual Imagine No Religion conference, a 3-day event held in Canada. Please contact me if you have additional information on this event.

While Mr. Andrews does a masterful job of pointing out the idiocies of Christianity, one wishes that he would’ve taken the next step and discussed why religionists are able to amass so much wealth and power while offering such thin gruel, and why education and science have failed to convince the majority of Christians that their beliefs are based on quicksand.