The Evergrowing List of Annoying Christian Clichés

“God works in mysterious ways.”

Since the Bible, especially the commandment parts, is all about demystifying how God works, you have just negated the core message of the Bible. Congratulations!

Pretty much any sentence containing one or more of these words:

God
Jesus
Bible
rapture
sin
Allah
martyr
Qur’an/Koran
Heaven
Hell
afterlife
punishment
reward

That about sums it up.

“s/he is in a better place now”

She is, indeed!  She doesn’t ever have to listen to any more of your Jeebus-babble!

“This could be the end of days.”

Yes, for christians. Nigel Barber in his ebook argues that christians will disappear organically and that atheists will replace them.

The notion that moral relativism equates to amorality.  Without a God given purpose, I have nothing to live for and I may as well kill myself.

Oh, and the “your ego won’t allow you to submit to something greater” (cue The Pale Blue Dot)

Oh Oh, and God of the gaps (cue The Perimeter of Ignorance)

“Every knee shall bend.”

I’ve got a good friend who’s quite religious.  And an above-the-knee amputee.  Think HIS knee’s going to bend?

I stopped genuflecting when I left the Catholics.

My personally most hated: “Most people believe in god. They can’t all be wrong. So what’s wrong with you?”

He’s planning on prayer.  See?  Always one step ahead.

my stock answer for “I will pray for you.” is

“Great! I’ll THINK for YOU!”
Credit to whomever came up with it, it wasn’t me, but I love that line…

Certainty is an emotional state like sadness.  Whether or not something makes me sad is no indicator of its truthfulness.  Ditto for certainty.

“You can’t get something from nothing” in reference to the big bang theory, evolution, etc…

1. Then where did your god come from?
2. Where did your god get the materials to create the universe? One can’ create something from nothing according to your own “rule”. 
3. STFU and go read a science book. 

I used to believe in God, Jesus, and all the other fairy tales
found in the Bible. But since I became an atheist, I’m in a state of rapture knowing
that there is no sin. I do feel sorry for the foolish followers of Allah, who believe they martyr
themselves based on the empty promises of the Koran. They will find no Heaven and no Hell. We
all make our own rewards and our own punishments, before we reach our
non-living afterlife as atoms floating around the Universe.

Whenever a kooky Christian is presented with some logic and they fall back on that whole, “Well, I know I’M going to heaven, nyah, nyah, nyah!  and I’ll pray that you somehow learn to stop viewing reality with a reasonable eye”.  They’re all peace, love and Jeebus until their endless fallacies cause too much brain pain and they start gloating with sinful pride in their heavenly superiority.

Maybe a response could be most people use to believe the earth was flat and they were ALL WRONG!

The whole “free will” argument.

Why does god let these atrocities in the world happen if he/she/it is omnipotent.

I hardly think god gave us ”free will” is a good enough reason for why a supposedly omnipotent being would allow children to die of starvation and leukemia, and allow for genocide to happen and not intervene. 

 My two standard answers are:

1.  Oh yes, they can be wrong.  Most people once believed the world was flat and were wrong.

2.  Most people don’t believe in YOUR god.  So what’s wrong with YOU?

 That’s an easy way to be condescending to someone who just took their own life.  Because according to their trite philosophy, they should have been able to handle it.

However, none of the asshats that I’ve met who say that ever volunteer to do 3 tours in Afghanistan and come back to an empty apartment and divorce papers… and a good case of PTSD and TBI.

An awkward, “erm, thank you,” because the other person was being polite?

So if you are an atheist you don’t believe in anything?

“If I’m wrong and I die I loose nothing, but if you’re wrong and you die you loose everything.”  /facepalm

“God gave you this special angel” in regards to my child with Down syndrome. Yeah, good going god-dude, not only give an innocent child a lifetime of potential health problems and mental challenges, but give her to a woman with mental health issues and a minimum wage job.

“Your disbelief does not make God go away. He’s just as real 

“Why can’t you just believe like everybody else?”  (“Just” is a key word.)

I simply ignore it and don’t make any reply.

“No he didn’t, he died because he was a socialist rabble-rouser that ran afoul of conservative religious fundamentalists! If he came back today YOU GUYS would crucify him!”

Actually, everything they ever tried, they tried without God…

“Do you take it on faith when you get spam that says a Nigerian Prince is going to give you millions or that this pill will make your penis larger? Anyone who asks you to take something on faith is trying to con you. If they weren’t they wouldn’t need you to take it on faith, they would present evidence.”

I’m not a big football fan, and I didn’t think much of Pat Tillman enlisting, despite all the news it generated. I didn’t even think much of his death (sorry, I’ve got a lot of my own issues to handle). But when his story came out and he was ridiculed for being non-religious on top of all the bullshittery involving the fact that he was killed by friendly fire, I wanted to scream every time I heard someone talking about it.

This one sets me off, both because of people like Pat Tillman, and because of people who die when they obviously didn’t “deserve” it, especially kids.

I’m a fan of the half-snuff/half-crime reporting site Dreamin’ Demon, and I think the webmaster made a good point a while back, rougly paraphrased –

“No, she’s not in heaven. No, she didn’t go to a better place to make up for the hellish abusive existence she lived on earth. No, that baby that was beaten until it was brain-dead didn’t “escape to a wonderful place” when it finally died three months later of pneumonia. Stop fucking using that excuse. They’re not in a better place. They’re dead, and their existence was miserable, and they died a wholely undeserved death, and THAT is why we need to focus on catching the perpetrators of serious abuse/neglect/homicide – not for any sense of retribution, or simply because it’s the law, or because your god tells you to, but because people need to understand that it’s not acceptable to remove another human from this world just because you don’t feel like growing the fuck up and dealing with your emotions like an adult [mentally ill offenders aside].  People need to stop thinking that these kids get some second chance in another world that’s so much better than this one and that we don’t have to do anything to make it that much better. People believe in heaven because they’re too lazy to make this earth a better place for other people. They want to think that they can do nothing but say pointless words to an invisible friend and everything will be ok. Well, it won’t be. These people are dead, and by saying “they’re in a better place”, you imply that you’re ok with the crime occuring to begin with.”

 Or, to put it in short form, “The LORD never gives someone more than they can handle, except for women’s bodies”.

“It’s Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

Most vacuous argument ever. Even if Creationism had any merit whatsoever, this would still be a non-argument.

I was in a long, ongoing forum debate on Neowin with the resident godspammer – JasonC was the username – and he looooooooved that one.  “One day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that he-with-a-capital-H is lord-with-a-capital-L.”  That and “open your eyes, it’s not too late, open your eyes.”  Buddy, if my eyes were open any wider I’d be Malcolm MacDowell.

Finally got fed up and said that if that ever happened, if I was standing on the street and the wave of genuflection was headed my way as all the other bystanders dropped to one knee and repented, I’d eat a bullet as my final act of defiance.

Predictably, he said I’d go to hell.  Perhaps equally predictably, I said it’d be better than an eternity in the company of a mass-murdering, sacrifice-demanding petty tyrant and his charlatan-harlot of a son.

That reminds me of another xian cliche that aggravates the crap out of me – circular arguments.  Not circular logic, not begging the question, but the absolute inability to admit to faults in their lines of reasoning.  The constant revisiting of points that had been settled long ago in the discussion.

I had gotten quite good at covering all my bases when proposing situations or making counterarguments, out of necessity to head this guy off before he could make some bogus claim that was one of his old standby retorts.  Had to anticipate every weasel reply he could make.  It took me and about 7 other forum skeptics to finally shake him into retreating to “do some research.”  Didn’t show up in the forum for a good few months after.

You remember those rubbery, water-filled tube-worm toys you had when you were a kid?  The ones that flop around and are hard to get a firm grip on?  Arguing with christians is like jello-wrestling one of those things.

Their god doesn’t care about removing free will anyway, just look at what he did to that Egyptian Pharaoh.

That’s a brilliant bit of text.

“Have a Blessed Day”.
Shut. Up.

These cliches really don’t bother me at all because these people are fuckin’ delusional.  Why would I care at all what they think.  They don’t think.  I am willing to spend my time and energy to keep them from holding back our progress, but if they just want to be ignorant and stay out of the way – I’ve got better ways to spend my time and so do you.  Let’s stop letting these medieval morons distract us from bigger and better things.

Mark Welch

Well, since God isn’t real, they have. They just don’t want to admit it.

That’s a perfect time to pop out the list of just over 4,000 deities… every one of which people have failed to make real by believing in them

That was mine, too. I understand the sentiment, but the lady at the grocery store with the overly-permed hair, fake pearls, and freshly-manicured nails wishing me a blessed day is just too much by half. I usually ignore it, but if my dander is already up, I’ll typically respond, “no thanks, I’d prefer a day free of religion today.”

People only say to me “I will pray for you” after I’ve so completely dismantled their argument or assertion that even they can see it’s dismantled.  So depending on my mood, my reply ranges from:

That’s nice of you, but not necessary.
How about donating five dollars to the Red Cross instead?
Oh, an imprecatory prayer? Cool!
Really??
Liar.

Point to ANY suicide.

Assertion decimated.

Honestly, it makes me wonder if anyone who utters such drivel gives any significant thought to it at all.

It boggles my mind how much mental gymnastics some of them go through to try to twist “God hardened Pharoah’s heart” in order for it not to mean what it obviously means.

that’s already 3rd on Christian Piatt’s list.

“He/she is in a better place.” This may or may not be true. Again, we have no real way of knowing. We may believe it, but to speak with such authority about something we don’t actually know is arrogant. Plus, focusing on the passing of a loved one minimizes the grief of the people they left behind.

 Christian Piatt, who came up with this list (including Chris Kilroy’s post) is a progressive Christian.

Christian Piatt has this one at #8 of his follow ups:

It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. This is a little “joke” some Christians use to assert the superiority of opposite-sex unions over same-sex ones. But here’s the thing: if you really believe the first and only two people on the planet at one point were Adam and Eve, who did their kids marry and have babies with? This, my friends, is incest (happened again if you believe Noah’s family members were the only survivors of the great flood). This just demonstrates the selective moral blindness many of us Christian have and seriously compromises our credibility about anything else.

“You shouldn’t try and guess God’s motives.” or “Don’t try and guess the mind of God.” – So, do we just abandon the whole fields of Bible interpretation and Theology then? Because, that’s pretty much what those subjects are.

For the record, I’m fine with that. I have about as much respect for someone who studies Theology for a degree (except as part of a literature course) as I do for someone who studies Klingon (except as part of a modern languages course).

There is no innocent suffering even children will be sinners one day (so get your punishment in first)
there are no good peoplethere are no good people

When my dad’s cancer returned, after just 5 months in remission, someone visiting us said “He must know you’re a fighter”. I had to leave the room. The very idea that all of the unfortunate things that have happened to my family in the last 2 years are because we’re being tested, challenged, or because we’ve proved that we are “fighters” is actually so appalling that I can barely even speak about it without becoming angry.

Wow – gotta remember that.

If it’s a relationship, do you actually communicate with each other – like in a real relationship? Does god ever tell you anything that you didn’t already know?

Re attacking your family, have you ever tried debating the merits of Islam or Hinduism or Buddhism with them? It may be worth seeing whether your family accept the views of another religion, rather than the mad-axe-murderer-heathen-baby-eater-atheist that you so clearly are.

He is quick isn’t he?

Oh, hey, do Muslim ones next!

In a natural disaster or accident etc when people say “Thank God nobody was killed, or only a few people were killed etc.     Well maybe God is one malicious SOB and he is just a poor shot and missed killing you or your friends this time!!!!

 Or, as Homer Simpson once put it, “But, Marge, what if we picked the wrong church? Every week, we’re making God madder and madder!”

Wait, that response was actually “coined”? It took one of your geniuses to figure that out? Oh boy.

 If only.

Martyr complex? 

 One of the respondents in the first list thread had actually said he/she knows their limits and surpassed them because of god, wouldn’t have done things they knew they could not if not for god giving him/her strength.

 That one is annoying. I don’t believe in magical things, I don’t believe I’m a doll in a dollhouse. “But what about beauty?” I do believe in awe, I’m awed that two continents slowly merged to create that mountain billions or millions of years ago. I’m awed that much time has passed and I complain about 10 minutes of traffic or someone on line ahead of me paying with a check, because I recognize how short my life is. “Context” is another one – fuck your biblical “context.” Do you know how vast and how old the universe is? That god would single you out, you know why you think you are a “wretch” to him? Because the universe is huge and you don’t matter, and you know it.

From their point of view –
“Things atheists should never say”: Anything.

“As soon as you leave!”

 A while ago, I started hearing some of these phrases as less theological and more admission that we don’t know what’s going to happen and it’s all up to chance (that some people call “god”). It’s just another way of saying that. But they really believe it is up to a specific (their) god, it’s hard to explain for me, but many of these phrases are not nonsensical to me any more than when I exclaim “oh my god!” or “goddammit” or for example, “god only knows.” People say the latter all the time without being religious, it’s just a common turn of phrase when you don’t know. When I say “goddammit” I’m mad at something outside of my control, aren’t I, strike whatever it is and send it to hell, not really expecting that much. So when I hear things like this, I really hear a person lying to themselves about the source of the mysteries or “motives” or possibly using a turn of phrase.

Because you can’t guess god’s motives, not because there isn’t a god, but worrying about something outside of your control isn’t the best way out of a situation. I guess you could also say, within the scheme of my least favorite “god has a plan” or “everything happens for a reason,” we’re not supposed to question that reason because we’ll realize there is no good motive and realize that god isn’t good, and realize maybe there is no god, that stuff just happens. Which it sounds just like they are acknowledging in the first place.

 1.  No really it’s not that different at all.  The point is made – Just because a lot of people think something is true, doesn’t automatically mean it is.

2.  So which ones are going to “hell” then?  Isn’t commandment 1 thou shall have no other gods before me?

I’ve never heard them used like that but I hate the idea that they’re making their way into common parlance. I don’t mind “goddammit” as it’s blasphemy (to some) in the first place.

I’ve only ever heard them being used as an apologist argument to explain god’s love of giving children cancer. Also, “God has a plan for us all” and “He never gives you more than you can handle” being used in the same way. It’s just a way of avoiding the difficult questions.

How about, “It’s not a religion, it’s a personal relationship” ?  I don’t see you church discontinuing it’s tax exempt status…

“The Lord never gives someone more than they can handle.”

Tell that to a girl that was sexually abused by her father for 15 years. Or a concentration camp survivor. Or a mother that lost her husband and 4 kids in a tragic car accident.

Ya, a person could handle those but what kind of God would make them happen and say it’s our fault if we can’t deal with it.

Ssshhh…they’re not in the basement.  They’re in the garden.  The roses are going to be beautiful this year.

 He ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father?

 1.  I’m not saying “That’s different.”  I’m saying Christians say “That’s different.” without feeling any obligation to explain why.  They’re right that it is different but not in any way that will help them make their point, and so they won’t go any further with it.

2. When arguing with an atheist, in a believer’s mind, which God is believed in is a very insignificant point compared to whether or not any kind of God is believed in.  All religions become temporary allies against atheism and their differences are overlooked.

 I thought he was both.

The idea that an omniscient being needs to “test” anyone or anything is ludicrous.  Testing is an attempt to learn something unknown.  That is its only purpose.  We test to qualify levels of performance, or to learn the reaction to certain conditions, or just to probe for hidden properties.  We do this because we don’t know what the answer would be, and we want to find out.

Gods should already know what the answer would be.  Gods should know all possible results without ever conducting the test.  Gods should not need to conduct tests to find unknown information.  This is nothing but anthropomorphism.  WE don’t know certain things, testing is how WE find out, so theists extend that behavior to their self-reflective gods, who wouldn’t need it if they actually existed.

It’s partially a way of avoiding the difficult questions, but it’s also trite, meaningless, and a way of avoiding thinking. It’s a way to avoid thinking about the fact that this is a chaotic world and shit happens. I hate these phrases.

Any suggestions?  That got me thinking, but I haven’t had any Muslims try to convert me.  I did have one co-worker who said that the Qu’ran was in such perfect Arabic that it could not be written by a mortal, but that’s it.  My youtube experience with Muslims seems to boil down to the same ideas that Christians come up with, although not the same overuse of ‘catch phrases’ perhaps.

 You really don’t understand, do you? Your understanding of “GOD’s” values are going to be different than your spouses understanding of “GOD’s” values, which are going to be different than your parent’s understanding of “GOD’s” values, ad nauseam. In other words, even if you substitute “GOD” for “MY,” it’s still really “MY” that you’re teaching, not “GOD.”

The only person who can teach someone “GOD’s” values, is “GOD.” Since you are not “GOD,” you can’t teach “GOD’s” values, because you will always be biased with your own values as well. So, let “GOD” teach people his values on his own time (if he even exists and/or can), and leave those people alone.

So what? Some people do the same things for their lover, their parents, their children, their pet, the voices in their head, or their stuffed bear “Ted.” What/who gives a person motivation has nothing to do with whether or not it actually exists. It’s just something for them to focus on when doing it for themselves isn’t quite enough.

 That’s why me and a couple other people have been challenging this person to provide evidence, most of which is accounted for by coincidence and hearsay. The person is so convinced there’s a god, professes to have challenged their own beliefs over and over again and keeps “logically” coming back to no other way could any of that have happened than god. They haven’t refuted my refutation yet, but as it is, I said I wouldn’t believe them in the first place, I doubt my counter-attack will have much effect.

Thats still not the route I would want to take. I have never met a person that thinks they are going to heaven, that I would want to spend five minutes with, much less an eternity.

Isn’t that from “Keeping Mum”? Awesome movie.

Loose Lucy is-a my delight. She come runnin’ & we ball all night.

“What if you are wrong” – I hate that one. I am not scared if I am wrong. I am scared if they are right. If their god is really in charge and that is the shitty job he is doing – very scary.