I have addressed the reasons for my being an atheist multiple times (which are, basically, that there is no evidence to prove the existence of any sort of deity, much less an omnimax god), but I don’t believe I’ve written any “why I am not a Christian” posts yet. I think right now is the best time to do so, because besides the simple fact that I don’t believe in any gods (which pretty much rules out nearly all religions all by itself), the Easter story (the central event in Christian mythology) makes no goddamned sense.

I’ll address just a few of the most obvious problems with the whole Jesus thing.

1. Why do Matthew and Luke take such great pains to establish Jesus’ descent from David through Joseph?

   The guy’s not Jesus’ father! That’s kind of an important part of this whole story!

   Wikipedia tries to explain this contradiction by saying:

   At the time legal kinship was generally considered more important than biological descent, and thus by demonstrating that Joseph was a member of the House of David, even an adopted son would be legally considered part of the same dynasty.

   Okay, but why is this even necessary? 2 Samuel 7:14 allegedly promises that the Messiah will be a son of David. So why didn’t God choose Jesus’ mother from one of David’s female descendants? In other words, wherefore Mary and not, perhaps, Josephine? God (all-powerful, remember?) could have made Joseph a girl instead of a boy and impregnated her, thus producing an actual son of David. Why settle for an adopted one? (No offense intended to adoptees — it’s just that the justification that “oh, he’s an adopted son of David, that counts” is kind of lame.)

2. Why has Christendom spent 2000 years persecuting the Jews for Christ’s death when he was supposed to die?

   Supposedly, Jesus was sent to Earth for one purpose: To die for our sins. If he’s going to die for our sins, that means somebody has to kill him. It doesn’t make any sense to get mad at the poor sap who has to do it, because he was just fulfilling God’s plan! The same goes for the Romans/Pontius Pilate and Judas Iscariot. They were only doing God’s work — why vilify them?

3. And the Big One: If Jesus was supposed to be sacrificed for our sins, why was he resurrected three days later?

   Merriam-Webster defines sacrifice like this:

   1 : to offer as a sacrifice
   2 : to suffer loss of, give up, renounce, injure, or destroy especially for an ideal, belief, or end

   So, to sacrifice something, you have to give it up. You have to lose it, permanently. Otherwise, you didn’t sacrifice it. If you still have it, it can’t have been sacrificed!

   So, if Jesus gives up his life for our sins, and then gets it back three days later (actually, more like one-and-a-half, but I’m throwing you a bone here), what has he actually sacrificed?

   It’s always been my opinion that this problem results from Christians trying to fulfill two different prophecies from the same event: (1) Jesus’ promise to spend “three days and three nights in the heart of the earth” (Matthew 12:40), or, if you prefer, to allow the Romans to “destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), thus demonstrating that he is the Messiah, and (2) the doctrine that Jesus sacrificed himself to “save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21) or, in other words (all together, now!) “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

   In other words, Christians are trying to have their Jesus and sacrifice him for our sins, too. You can’t have it both ways! Either he died so he could be resurrected or he died for our sins. And, if the latter, for it to actually mean anything, he has to stay dead. Why should an immortal being care about taking a little dirt nap if he gets to go right back to being immortal afterwards?