Ex pastor explains how Christianity is fake

[Anomalocaris]

The number of sincere believers is large.   But there were probably a limited set of supposed occurrences that were instrumental for Christianity gaining critical mass at various stages.  I strongly suspect high percentage of those occurrences were fakes and fabrications, not just the product of genuine wishful thinking.

But it doesn't much matter if the occurrences were genuine, fakes, or wishful thinking.  A belief based on fakes and ponied-up 'miracles' is still a real belief.

Boru

A real belief in intentional fake is worth distinguishing from a real belief resulting purely from confusion.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

But it doesn't much matter if the occurrences were genuine, fakes, or wishful thinking.  A belief based on fakes and ponied-up 'miracles' is still a real belief.

Boru

A real belief in intentional fake is worth distinguishing from a real belief resulting purely from confusion.

Why? In either case, if the belief is real, the religion is real, even if untrue.

Boru

[Fake Messiah]

If you want to argue why it was trashed it's because, as I think we can all agree on, he was deluding himself. That's exactly what it means when you profess to "fake it till you make it". And yes True Christians do call that not being a Christian,

And it never occurred to you that being a Christian means "faking it"?

I mean all you're doing here is ad hominem and no true scotsman fallacies and in that way avoiding what he said, and he said many interesting and obvious things, like:

We had impossible standards that we could not meet so we turned the attention on others so the spotlight wasn’t on our own inadequacies. 

Indeed, Christians are constantly blaming and obsessing about other, non Christian, people. I mean just look at "God's Not Dead" movie.

Or not to mention other everyday stuff that's been happening for years, like Rick Perry’s campaign promise to “end Obama’s war on religion". Or Rick Santorum’s statement during a speech in 2008 that “Satan is attacking the great institutions of America”.

Or Daniel R. Jenky, the bishop of Peoria, Illinois, who made comparison between President Obama, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin during church sermon. Singling out Nazi and Stalinist regimes as antecedents to Obama’s health-care reforms. This bishop also said "And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry."

Or take a book by David Limbaugh "Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity".

Masses of people are being fed with lies, they build their lives on lies. So you can't say that people who believe in these obvious lies told by Christian leaders are not faking it.

And that's just one part of a paragraph that this guy wrote.

[tackattack]

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If you want to argue why it was trashed it's because, as I think we can all agree on, he was deluding himself. That's exactly what it means when you profess to "fake it till you make it". And yes True Christians do call that not being a Christian,

And it never occurred to you that being a Christian means "faking it"?

I mean all you're doing here is ad hominem and no true scotsman fallacies and in that way avoiding what he said, and he said many interesting and obvious things, like:

We had impossible standards that we could not meet so we turned the attention on others so the spotlight wasn’t on our own inadequacies. 

Indeed, Christians are constantly blaming and obsessing about other, non Christian, people. I mean just look at "God's Not Dead" movie.

Or not to mention other everyday stuff that's been happening for years, like Rick Perry’s campaign promise to “end Obama’s war on religion". Or Rick Santorum’s statement during a speech in 2008 that “Satan is attacking the great institutions of America”.

Or Daniel R. Jenky, the bishop of Peoria, Illinois, who made comparison between President Obama, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Stalin during church sermon. Singling out Nazi and Stalinist regimes as antecedents to Obama’s health-care reforms. This bishop also said "And in the power of the resurrection, the Church will survive the hatred of hollywood, the malice of the media, and the mendacious wickedness of the abortion industry."

Or take a book by David Limbaugh "Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity".

Masses of people are being fed with lies, they build their lives on lies. So you can't say that people who believe in these obvious lies told by Christian leaders are not faking it.

And that's just one part of a paragraph that this guy wrote.

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And if I had time or desire to dissect it at work, I would. As to this particular point, as Boru succinctly put it,"A belief based on fakes and ponied-up 'miracles' is still a real belief."
I'm not the one making the universal generalization that Christians are fakers. I most assuredly am sitting around in my kilt because your definition of Christian is fake belief. If you'd like to discuss definitions then I'd be happy to. Christianity is defined by whatever you connote it to mean, but by implicit definition it's Christianity is believing Christianity. When the OP says they fake that belief they're calling themselves out.
To your point addressed:
A. Yes Christianity sets an impossible standard
B. People find all types of ways to not view their own inadequacies. A common one is to turn the attention on others. So yes, Christians can be judgemental. In his case they seemed to have been. It is not a doctrine of Christian faith to judge others though.

[madog]

Mmmm, tell that to gays

[Anomalocaris]

A real belief in intentional fake is worth distinguishing from a real belief resulting purely from confusion.

Why? In either case, if the belief is real, the religion is real, even if untrue.

Boru

Because a real belief resulting purely from confusion has no more to sustain it then confusion.  Where as real belief in intentional fakery will not merely also be sustained, but continually and purposely renewed by ongoing duplicitous malice.

A religion based on confusion will but avoid the truth.  A religion based on fakery will be gunning for the truth.

[Fake Messiah]

I'm not the one making the universal generalization that Christians are fakers.

You're not? But you do admit:

as Boru succinctly put it,"A belief based on fakes and ponied-up 'miracles' is still a real belief.

So real belief in fake stuff is not much different than a fake belief because when something is so blatantly fake people are making a huge effort to believe in it. And that effort could be called faking it or deluding.

It is not a doctrine of Christian faith to judge others though.

That's why I and Gass were talking about blaming and diverting attention. Like priests rape kids and then Pope blames it all on gays.

[Acrobat]

The theistic troll response on FB is, He wasn't a real christian.

I don’t know about the authenticity of his Christianity, but the dude seems to have had an affair with someone in his church, which his wife later found out about. Rather than dealing with the backlash, the moral uproar, he left the church and Christianity all together, and found comfort in secular communities, that were more accepting of his infidelity, and his abuse of power.

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I disagree with the thread title.  Christianity is not 'fake'.  It may be 'untrue', but it's as real as a belt in the gob.

And I think the 'ex pastor' is a troll.

Boru

The difference between whether it is justified to call Christianity “fake” rather than just “untrue” would be whether the untruth of Christianity was primarily created and set on course for wider dissemination by those who knew they were untrue, or by those who didn’t know they were untrue.

I think many of those instrumental to Christianity attaining its influence knew it was untrue, so it is justified to say it is fake, not just untrue.

Who knew they were untrue, but set on course for wide dissemination? Why do you assume that they knew their beliefs were false? Rather than sincerely believing them to be true?

Do you also think the meaning of "truth", can be different across cultures and times? That the way in which you might define the term truth, is perhaps different than how people 2000 or so years ago would? Or do you think the meaning here is universal.

[Mister Agenda]

I never said unshake-able faith was a requirement to be a true believer. I never said that questioning your faith means you not a "true Christian". I'm actually on the opposite side of both of those statements so please don't put words in my mouth. My overall point if you'll go back and read was the lack of empathy for this man's trashed life. If you want to argue why it was trashed it's because, as I think we can all agree on, he was deluding himself. That's exactly what it means when you profess to "fake it till you make it". And yes True Christians do call that not being a Christian, so do atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. As for the Anti-thesits in the thread that continuously use any chance they can to correlate Christianity with unreasonable and delusional beliefs and that we're constantly lying and illogical, FFS at least have some compassion for your now fellow atheist. I'll leave off my comment about the morality of the atheists the OP found and those. I'll leave this to to the rant section.

"Or...<enter taylor swift> Cause a fakers gonna fake fake fake fake fake.... since he was in 8th grade." --tackattack

And for the record, I put zero words in your mouth.

[tackattack]

Mmmm, tell that to gays

I do, if it comes up in conversation. People's sex lives usually don't concern me and aren't usually topics I delve into.

Why? In either case, if the belief is real, the religion is real, even if untrue.

Boru

Because a real belief resulting purely from confusion has no more to sustain it then confusion.  Where as real belief in intentional fakery will not merely also be sustained, but continually and purposely renewed by ongoing duplicitous malice.

A religion based on confusion will but avoid the truth.  A religion based on fakery will be gunning for the truth.

I do agree Anomalocaris, that an intentional choice to delude oneself is easier to propagate than one stemming from confusion. So what percentage of Christians do you feel possess this ongoing duplicitous malice t fuel their lies to the public?


@Fake Messiah I personally think you're just tossing the word salad to interject your bias that all Christians are as fake as what they believe in. Belief by definition requires an acceptance, to be held or a conviction. I could "pretend" that I was a 7'5" latino basketball star. It's not true and would require a significant amount of suspension of belief to fully convince myself. But if I stated I believe that I am one, that acceptance is real 100% real, even if is delusional. I admit that someone who claims to believe in Christ is either lying (by casual profession, to themselves or to your face), or believe 100%. You're attacking the object of that belief and insinuating (if not stating) that for the vast majority of Christians it requires "huge effort" to suspend belief in something so blatantly falsifiable. I apologize if I've mischaracterized your intent, but that's how it reads to me. Please clarify if I'm wrong about that.

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I never said unshake-able faith was a requirement to be a true believer. I never said that questioning your faith means you not a "true Christian". I'm actually on the opposite side of both of those statements so please don't put words in my mouth. My overall point if you'll go back and read was the lack of empathy for this man's trashed life. If you want to argue why it was trashed it's because, as I think we can all agree on, he was deluding himself. That's exactly what it means when you profess to "fake it till you make it". And yes True Christians do call that not being a Christian, so do atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, etc.  As for the Anti-thesits in the thread that continuously use any chance they can to correlate Christianity with unreasonable and delusional beliefs and that we're constantly lying and illogical, FFS at least have some compassion for your now fellow atheist. I'll leave off my comment about the morality of the atheists the OP found and those. I'll leave this to to the rant section.

"Or...<enter taylor swift> Cause a fakers gonna fake fake fake fake fake.... since he was in 8th grade." --tackattack

And for the record, I put zero words in your mouth.

You are correct. You never claimed I said those things. You just attested that I jump on the bandwagon of railroading all "fake Christians"
OK and how is my calling out one self-professed admitted faker ..

A)judging someone unfairly?
B)Making biased generalizations about all people in that same group?