At a recent talk for the Center for Inquiry Michigan, the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s Dan Barker described Christian beliefs in a pitch-perfect-and-yet-kinda-disturbing sort of way:
Imagine you are strolling down the sidewalk and a man excitedly calls you over to his front porch to share some “great news,” Protestant minister-turned atheist author Dan Barker asked his audience on Wednesday.
The man’s got a gruesome torture chamber in his basement, Barker said, but you don’t have to go down there. Instead, you can come over, hug the man’s son, say you love him and you can all move in together in the attic and tell them how great they are forever.
“Isn’t that great news?” a sarcastic Barker asked the crowd…
Thrilling. And totally creepy.
There was also this insightful nugget:
“I didn’t realize it at the time, but salvation is an attempt to solve a problem of its own making — sin is just a concept from the teaching, like a doctor running around cutting people with a knife in order to sell them a Band Aid.”
Beautifully put 🙂
Dan’s book Godless is full of wisdom like that, as if you needed another reason to pick it up.
