Selling Christianity

Selling Christianity

You may need to work on your pitch or your product

One evening a missionary’s ship happened upon a desert island with locals that had never been in contact with outsiders.

The missionary decided he needed to spread the “good news” to these new people, who surprisingly spoke the same language as him, so had no real issues communicating.

Perhaps these people were descended from some common ancestors, or perhaps it was a miracle from God, I’ll let you be the judge.

Upon telling this native that he needed to know the truth about God, the native was intrigued, thus far they had only worshipped the sun, but in a general vague sense. They had no sacrificial practices, but more of a vague appreciation to the sun for bringing warmth, and light and helping the plants to grow. Beyond this, they had a general concept of what we would think of as animism, that all things contain a spirit and should be respected, but not necessarily worshipped.

The native man asked the missionary about this “true” religion. Is your religion the oldest, the first to be in existence that all others are derived from and this is why you trust it is the “truth”?

The missionary responded by saying…well no, it branched off of Judaism, our God who formed himself into flesh as a man actually practiced this religion before founding his own. That religion had been around for millennia prior to his birth. He then went on to explain how the god of the Old Testament acted, punishing his followers for disobedience, and contrasted this with the message that came from Jesus in an attempt to lure the native man in.

Appearing deep in thought the native man then asked if Judaism was the original religion. To which the missionary being an honest man replied, “Well no, it actually adopted its god from the Sumerian pantheon which predates it by millennia.”

The native man then asked why this god felt that it was a necessity to be born as a human.

The missionary responded by saying that he did this to be a sacrifice for all the sins of mankind.

The native man then asked who he had to be a sacrifice to. To which the missionary replied, ”To himself…” This seemed to confuse the native man a bit who then asked why he didn’t just forgive the sins if he was all-powerful. The missionary said he didn’t know, and explained we may never know until we get to heaven.

The native man responded by asking why the god-man didn’t come earlier, and what had happened to all of those who came before his arrival if they were afflicted with this “sin”. Did this god-man come for everyone or just his people?

The missionary was perplexed by this question, saying that the god-man came originally just for his own people, but then changed his plan near the end of his time on Earth and told his disciples to go out to all people…and that the people prior to his arrival had a different set of rules, and actually weren’t able to be sent to heaven or hell, they just sort of waited around in a sleep state upon death.

The native then asked the missionary what heaven and hell were, to which the missionary explained in detail.

The native then asked why people would go to hell, to which the missionary explained the taint of sin being upon them and that God cannot look upon it. To this response the native followed up by asking who created this “sin”, it must’ve been some evil force correct?

The missionary then explained that some Christians believe it was caused by man, some by the devil, but that the holy book actually says it was created by God since he created all things.

The native then asked if the book could be trusted, to which the missionary said, “Of course! However, it has been translated hundreds of times, and there are some inconsistencies within it.” Then he explained it’s actually a compilation of many books, some of which do seem to contradict each other a bit due to God’s message changing for mankind.

(at least he was being honest)

The native was confused by this and asked why an all-knowing eternal being would have its message change over time. Why would he create sin and evil and then punish us eternally for that very same thing he had created? Why should he feel that this god-man dying for his sin was a gift when the one who sent him or was him could’ve just as easily forgiven this sin without any effort being that he is all-powerful?

The missionary wasn’t sure how to respond to this question.

The native man then asked the missionary how much of the book was written by this god-man, to which the missionary responded none.

The native man then asked how much of this new set of rules had been written by those who directly witnessed this god-man, to which the missionary responded…”Well, a few…possibly”. He then went on to explain that basically all of them are disputed on who actually wrote them, but are traditionally attributed to his followers, although historical evidence contradicts this.

The native man then asked who wrote the majority of books then, who’s writings are Christian belief’s structure mainly focused upon.

The missionary then told him that the majority are from Paul, a man who had a vision of Jesus after his death and resurrection. He never actually met him in person and many of the beliefs that he claims to have received from this vision directly contradict what Jesus and his disciples taught.

The native man then asked him if their religion believes and adjusts the religion based upon visions that current members of the church receive, to which he said “No, they’re crazy.”

To this, the native man raised an eyebrow and then sat up and decided to try to summarize all he had learned from the missionary, to be sure he got it right.

He said,” So you believe in a religion, that developed from another religion that also essentially came from an even older religion, although none of these newer versions kept the main tenets of the original. Your holy book that you put all of your faith in as containing all the truths you really need to know is actually a compilation of many books, written over millennia, with contradicting lessons for different time periods, and the newest of which, the ones you hold most dear, weren’t even written by the savior who you claim was a living version of God.

In fact, possibly none of the writings were by people who ever even knew him directly, and the one who you cite the most only saw him in some sort of sun-stroke induced vision, and his teachings contradict the savior’s directly in many cases.

Your god’s message changed over time, and from what you’ve told me he seems to contain all the worst traits of humans, and his rules aren’t even eternal since he seems to lack foresight even while claiming to be omniscient. He created evil and then punishes people for it eternally…meanwhile, he commits atrocities that even I as a human and unlearned man would deem unspeakable.

Did I miss anything?”

The missionary glanced around a bit perplexed himself, trying to figure out how to respond to this, and perhaps realizing what he had convinced himself to believe in as well.

The native man seeing this then signaled for the rest of his tribe to come out from the bushes behind him with their bows drawn, arrows at the ready to fly. He then said, “I’d suggest you move along, none of us here want what you’re selling.”