COMMON FALLACIES ABOUT CHRISTIANS

The press, Hollywodd, and "common knowledge" say many things about "Christians" and "Christianity" that are not true. Here is a list of these fallacies, along with the truth:

1. Fallacy: Christians force their beliefs on others.

   Truth: Christians know that each person must be free to choose for himself.
   But in order for a person to be able to make the choice, that person must know the truth about Christianity. So Christians are required to tell others the truth about Christianity, so those others can make an informed choice.

   Note also that a Christian keeping himself from sinning is not attempting to force Christian beliefs on others. He is only trying to obey God. Others who insist on sinning should also respect this fact. They must not force upon others their own religious beliefs that say there is nothing wrong with a sin.

   This becomes a problem when someone who deliberately sins in public demands equal housing or employment rights that would cause a Christian to sin if he did business with the deliberate sinner. A similar situation exists when a deliberate sinner is above or below a Christian in a military chain of command. In all of these cases, the Christian wants to avoid disobeying God, rather than forcing his religion on others.

   But in all of the cases, if the Christian does not know the deliberate sinner is sinning, then the Christian is not disobeying God if he does business with him or is in a military chain of command with him. This is why "don't ask, don't tell" is necessary.

2. Fallacy: Christians don't believe in killing.

   Truth: Christians don't believe in committing murder.
   Murder is the deliberate killing of another human being who is not at fault. But there are types of killing that are not counted as murder:

   • Killing in self defense, or while defending others from criminals, is not murder.
   • Capital punishment carried out by authorities as punishment for a crime is not murder.
   • Killing in warfare is not murder.
   • Accidental death is not murder.
   • Killing animals is not murder.

3. Fallacy: Christians shouldn't discriminate.

   Truth: Christians must discriminate against sin, not people.
   Christians don't discriminate against people because of race, origin, or sex. But Christians are required to discriminate against the following:

   • Sinful behavior
   • Sexual immorality (including promiscuity, homosexuality, rape, fornication, and bestiality)
   • Unbelief
   • Enticing others into sinful behavior

4. Fallacy: The Bible promotes slavery.

   Truth: The Bible used slavery to satisfy court judgments.
   In all of the cases where the Bible allows slavery, it is either for punishment for a crime, or to work off a debt. And in all cases except prisoners of war, the slavery could not last longer than 6 years.

   This was done because jail cells are not portable. The Israelites were nomadic when the law was given. It is also true that working supports the economy better than idle imprisonment does. Note that even in the United States, we have road gangs and litter crews using this kind of punishment.

   Exodus 21:7-11 creates the concept of the bride price, replacing the old practice of selling a daughter into true slavery.

   In addition, the entire purpose of punishment of a crime is that the crime must not be committed again. Punishment is neither for revenge nor for retribution. If the punishment requires taking a life, it is to prevent that person from ever committing that crime again. It also deters others from committing the same crime.

5. Fallacy: The Bible is full of hypocrisy.
   The great leaders of the Bible did terrible things, including murder, rape, and adultery.

   Truth: The Bible is incredibly candid.
   Yes, the leaders in the Bible did do terrible things. And if you read all of the Bible, you will find out that they were also criticized for their actions when they disobeyed God. I Samuel 15, II Samuel 11-18, and Judges 20-21 are prime examples of the disobedience of leaders, and of the consequences of the sinful acts they committed.

   The Bible is the only historical record that totally records the wrongdoings of the leaders of a country (Israel), as well as their righteous acts. Instead of condoning that wrongdoing, the Bible exposes it for all to see. And the reader who reads the entire account will find either that the wrongdoing was punished, or that the particular leader was a nonbeliever, and was criticized for acting totally outside God's will. Often a nonbelieving leader was assassinated by another nonbeliever.

6. Fallacy: Christianity is not Politically Correct.

   Truth: It certainly is not!  Political Correctness is a different religion.
   Yes, Political Correctness is really a religion. In the 1980s, Democrats plagiarized it from the Baha'i Faith, which is the anti-war religion they love.

   One cannot judge a religion by using the beliefs of a different religion. All religions are violations of other religions - even the ones that claim to be all religions combined into one.

7. Fallacy: Admission to heaven depends on weighing good deeds against bad deeds.
   You can't know if you will get in until you die.

   Truth: Admission to Heaven is each person's choice.
   Simply put, if you genuinely accept God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, you gain admission. And you know you have gained admission.

   God also gives special consideration to those who never heard of the plan. But if you are reading this, you just read about it.

8. Fallacy: All religions must be equal. Anything else is unfair.

   Truth: All religions other than Christianity and Judaism are fakes, designed to lead people astray.
   They trick people by telling them what they want to hear. But they don't have the power to save.

   All other religions demand that you do a lot of work to gain acceptance. But in Christianity, God already did all the work.

9. Fallacy: God prohibits sins to keep people from having fun.

   Truth: God prohibits sins because they cause harm to others.
   Every sin has a consequence that causes harm to both the sinner and others. Even though you can't see the harm a sin causes, God can see it. He wants you to avoid the harm to yourself and to others.

   Note that all unilateral sex acts cause harm. Sexual pleasure always requires the consent of more than one person, in addition to God's approval. Anything else is sin.

10. Fallacy: Christians judge others by pointing out what actions are sins.

    Truth: Telling people about sin is not judging. It is teaching the Bible and warning the sinner about God's penalties.
    Judging is saying that the person is guilty of a sin. That's God's job. The Christian's job is to tell people what sin is, so those people can change their own behaviors to avoid sin.

11. Fallacy: Ignore sins, because God forgives sin.

    Truth: God forgives sin when you quit sinning.
    Jesus' words to the adulterous woman He had forgiven in John 8:11 are: "Go now, and sin no more." God forgives those who earnestly turn to Him.

12. Fallacy: Christians should support government social programs.

    Truth: The Bible says to use charitable donations instead.
    The Bible talks about donations and gleanings for the poor, instead of using taxes and tithes for the poor. The Bible says to not reap fields all the way to the edge, nor to glean the fields. It gives land to each person. The tax rate is limited to the tithe (tenth), so that people not be poor due to lack of work. People are urged to donate to the poor. Interest on loans is prohibited. Wages are paid daily. Matthew 19:21 says to sell your treasures and give to the poor.

    The hypocrites in the US government give to the poor out of what is not theirs to give. They steal from others to give their "gifts."

13. Fallacy: Christians are supposed to love all people, no matter what they do.

    Truth: Loving people does not include condoning their wrongdoing.
    Instead, Christians show their love for people by steering them away from the wrongdoing that leads to spiritual death. A Christian who loves you wants to keep you from destroying your life. To do that, he must show you how sin leads to eternal death, and how Jesus is the only way to turn away from death.

14. Fallacy: Christians oppose science.

    Truth: Christians oppose bad science and wrongdoing.
    Bad science:

    • The science used to "prove" evolution is not really proof. Natural Selection has been proved to exist. What has not been proved is that natural selection is solely responsible for creating the entire range of existing species, as the Evolutionists claim. Recently, a serious contradiction has been found in random chance being the origin of life.
    • The scientific community rejects all miracles as "random chance." This is a form of "stacking the deck" in favor of evolution. Under the rules they adopted, any proof of creationism that might be discovered in the future must be counted as a form of random chance. It is thus changed into evidence to support Evolution.
    • In addition, Evolution depends on random chance to be the origin of all species. Thus, it becomes a null hypothesis, which can never be proved to be true. In fact, we can't even prove the existence of truly random chance.
    • Likewise, the "proofs" that homosexuality is hereditary have been shown to be bad science. They used the wrong null hypothesis. Another contradiction appears here: If homosexuality is proved to be hereditary, it disproves Natural Selection. Natural Selection would have eliminated any homosexual trait long ago.
    • The Big Bang Theory is now looking more like the Big Flash Theory. "Let there be light!" (Genesis 1:1)

    Wrongdoing:

    • It doesn't matter what science can prove about abortion and embryonic stem-cell research. God says that the deliberate taking of a human life (without one of the just reasons given above) is murder. God also says that life begins even before conception (Jeremiah 1:5). The convenience of the mother, social programs, hiding marital infidelity, and cures for diseases are not justifiable reasons to kill a human being.
    • Saying that life begins later than conception does not make it so.
    • The fact that science can do something does not provide evidence that it should be done. Cloning is an example of doing something in a way that God never intended.
    • If the Bible says it is wrong, science can not change that fact.
    • The fact that a person "feels compelled" to do something does not making it right to do it. There are people who "feel compelled" to rob banks, commit rape, and kill people.

15. Fallacy: Homosexuality can't be a sin, because it is not the result of a choice.

    Truth: Homosexuality is the result of a choice, but it is not choosing whether or not to become homosexual.
    According to the Bible (Romans 1:25-27), the choice that is consciously made is to worship created things, instead of worshiping God the Creator. The Bible says that those who worship created things acquire sinful cravings for the same sex. Our current explosion of homosexual cravings is probably related to worship of government, celebrities, or the environment.

16. Fallacy: Christians should use the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible.

    Truth: Only Christians who understand 17th-century language should use the KJV.
    The English language has changed very much in the 400 years since the KJV translation was done. The KJV Bible student needs to know which word meanings existed in 1610. Word meanings that were coined later can not be used when reading the KJV. So the KJV is only for Bible scholars. It should not be used by non-Christians or beginning Christians.

17. Fallacy: Christianity is just a scam to get your money.

    Truth: Money is not important. Faith is.
    Any church that concentrates on money is not following God's will. Giving money is a result of having a Godly mind, not a way to approach God.

    Some televangelists don't put God first in their lives. Trust the Bible, not TV personalities.

18. Fallacy: Christians commit hate crimes.

    Truth: Many "hate" crimes are intentionally written to make Christian behavior illegal.
    Examples of unconstitutional laws that criminalize Christian activities as hate crimes:

    • Laws making illegal any Bible study of the sins a candidate commits during an election campaign.
    • Laws criminalizing obedience toward God.
    • Laws criminalizing telling others about Christ.
    • Laws criminalizing the teaching of "intolerant" parts of the Bible.
    • Laws requiring obedience of other religions (usually Political Correctness).
    • Laws prohibiting corporal punishment.

19. Fallacy: Christians do evil by committing crimes.

    Truth: Yes, some Christians do commit crimes:
    Be careful to distinguish between two different cases of this:

    Many people who commit crimes while claiming to be Christians are not really Christians.
    Examples:

    • Mentally ill people who commit horrible crimes tend to blame Christ for their actions.
    • Those who are taught Political Correctness by someone who thinks it is Christian belief.
    • Someone pretending to be Christian to impress someone (e.g. a girl he wants to marry).
    • Someone too lazy to read the Bible and find out the real truth.
    • Someone learning Christianity, but who won't give up sin.
    • A person who hates Christianity, and wants to discredit the religion.
    • People who attend a church run by a fake preacher who wants the money.
    • People taught by preachers who studied at certain seminaries controlled by liberals.

    Some real Christians do commit crimes. But this doesn't mean that most Christians intentionally commit crimes.
    Examples:

    • Many of the crimes Christians commit are crimes designed to make the practice of Christianity illegal. These laws are unjust, and should be overturned.
    • Occasionally a Christian will find himself seduced by sin. This is not unusual, because the pressures of the world are so great. satan works as hard as he can to cause people to sin.
    • Sometimes a Christian unintentionally breaks a law he is not aware of.
    • Sometimes a Christian unintentionally breaks a law that is too easy to break by not paying attention to surroundings. Traffic laws are the usual example.
    • Sometimes a real Christian is deceived by a fake preacher into doing wrong.

20. Fallacy: Christians vote conservative by nature.

    Truth: Liberal politicians alienate Christian voters by sinning, and by passing sinful laws.
    Examples:

    • Making taxpayers pay for sinful activities (such as abortion).
    • Criminalizing Christian activities.
    • Enacting Politically Correct or Baha'i religious beliefs into law.
    • Protecting sinful activity from discrimination.
    • Demanding identification numbers.
    • Demanding that public assistance money not be donated to churches.
    • Coveting the money donated to churches.

21. Fallacy: Christians favor senseless wars.

    Truth: Christians don't have the deep abhorrence of war that is part of the Political Correctness religion.
    This loathing of war that is common in liberals is almost pathological. Their irrational fear of war is manifested in the following ways:

    • An irrational fear of the presence of a gun in their vicinity.
    • A belief that guns somehow cause crime.
    • A tendency to give away the rights of others to avoid violence.
    • A willingness to end the existence of a country (especially Israel) to gain peace.
    • The demand that no civilians be harmed by battle (which leads to losing battles).
    • Giving in to terrorists, or agreeing with them, to avoid their threats.
    • Finding someone in our government to blame for war, instead of blaming the actions of the enemy.

    Christians believe in God's afterlife, and so don't believe in the finality of death that the anti-war factions believe in.

22. Fallacy: The Bible is full of errors and inconsistencies.

    Truth: There are some errors in the Bible.
    Many non-Christians read the Bible expecting these items to be known and perfectly accurate.

    But none of the errors affect Christian doctrines. Here is a list of the kind of errors the Bible is known to contain:

    • Copying errors, usually involving numbers.
      • Numbers were recorded with the first 9 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.
      • Since some numbers spelled words, it is hard to tell the number from the word.
      • Scribes not trained in numbers sometimes corrected "spelling errors" that were really supposed to be numbers.
      • Because there was no zero, numbers such as 77, 770, and 707 were often inadvertently copied as each other.
    • The precise meanings of some words were lost during the exile in Babylon. Nobody who had seen these items to be able to identify them was still alive when Judah returned from exile:
      • Animals
      • Trees and other plants
      • Minerals
      • Fabrics
      • Precious stones
      • Geographic locations
    • Several words that are no longer in use are now unknown. Other words had special uses that are now unknown. Most translations footnote such words. They include:
      • Musical and literary terms (e.g. "selah")
      • Instruments used in worship (e.g. thummim)
      • Various tools
      • Some units of measure
      • Job titles and officials
    • Words translated into western equivalents, instead of literally. Examples:
      • Hanging and gallows: This was not a rope on a gallows, but impaling on a sharpened post. Judas impaled himself.
      • Candles: These were oil lamps.
      • The use of a country's local currency in the translation, instead of the actual coins.
      • The use of a country's units of measure in the translation, instead of the actual units.
    • Idioms and customs. Example:
      • "On four" depicts an animal standing on all of its legs, no matter how many legs they have.
      • The rising and setting sun are idioms still used today, even though we know the earth turns.
      • The counting of a time period in days as the number of times the sun is up, rather than the number of hours divided by 24.
      • The counting of daytime hours with the first hour being 6-7 am, the last hour being 5-6 pm.
      • The counting of nighttime hours with the first hour being 6-7 pm, the last hour being 5-6 am.

23. Fallacy: God is a monster, who punishes people for trivial infractions.

    Truth: God punishes sin at the end of life. But He might punish hatred and rebellion toward Him immediately.
    In most cases, God postpones punishment, because he also offers a way for anyone to be pardoned from sin.

    But there are also several misunderstandings about some of the cases in the Bible:

    • In many cases, we aren't told what wrongdoing the person who was severely punished by God committed.
    • The concept of random chance was not known at the time the Scriptures were written. Especially in the Old Testament, the writers often attributed random events to acts of God.
    • Likewise, they thought that God controlled the actions of the animals.
    • In many cases, the Bible candidly records the misbehavior of Israel's leaders and kings. Those who think God is unjust think this misbehavior had His approval.
    • They condemn the driving of an awl into a slave's earlobe as "cruel punishment." But this was just the method used at the time to pierce ears. And it was the way for a slave to voluntarily mark himself as not to be released at the end of the normal 6 years.

    To see a real monster, you need look no farther than government.

24. Fallacy: Christianity is divisive.

    Truth: Sin is divisive. And those who want to be rid of Christian beliefs are divisive.
    Christianity was there before the contemporary factions who wish to sin came into being. Those who wish to sin do not want to coexist with Christians, because Christianity exposes their sinful natures.

In fact, most of the attributes laymen fallaciously think Christians "ought to have" are really attributes of the religion of Political Correctness, not Christianity. And the parts of Christianity that are seen as being "wrong" by laymen are actually violations of the beliefs of Political Correctness.