“…the Christian Church … Breeds Hate and Intolerance and Fear”

Christians Are Brainwash Idiots

And a common assumption emerged everywhere that Christianity is intellectually inferior to other beliefs. As Daniel in San Francisco said:

“Where are these people coming from? Where are we drawing these Christians from? Is it from here? Is it from Missouri? I guess what I’m saying is that the label itself is almost meaningless. Unless we were talking about the average American Christian, which I see as…they’re white people. They’re from the middle of the country. They have not very progressive views. They have probably very regressive views about social and cultural issues. I’d say they’re probably less intellectual, less curious, less affluent. Those are all the things that I think about when I think about the average American Christian.”

Others had similar thoughts:

A female in Boston: The Christians she had “encountered don’t have any education. They’ve gone to high school. They haven’t done any college, so conversion for me is very negative. It means uneducated. It means somebody who is not a deep thinker…. Just a sheep.”

A male in Phoenix: Christians were “Uninformed, uneducated…and not thinking for themselves. They’re just following organized religion instead of thinking for themselves. Going back to the mega churches, all these people can’t think for themselves.”

A female in Austin: “They’re just very brainwashed by it and hypnotized by it, and they don’t necessarily mean to be hateful or intolerant….They’re not as smart as me. I don’t think their religion is. That’s bad and I think a lot of it is just how they were raised and it is a cult thing.”

When it came to making decisions, participants argued that Christians are unable to think for themselves:

A male in San Francisco: “What do you feel internally? I don’t care what this book is telling you to do. What do you actually believe and then go with that. Be true to yourself. Screw this whole other higher power that you think is telling you to do something. I want you to do what you feel is right.”

A female in Phoenix: “They’re [Christians] saying that this is the authority, this is the one in charge. How can that be when ultimately it’s my decision and I’m in charge of my own self, my own choices?”

Another female in Phoenix: “Your conscience is important.”

A male in Phoenix: “A lot of people lean on religion, or Christianity to say, ‘Christianity told me that I can’t commit sins, I shouldn’t adulterize, I shouldn’t murder and I shouldn’t steal,’ and that kind of thing. I don’t feel, for me personally that I need that to tell me, the religion or Christianity to tell me, that I shouldn’t be doing these things.”

A female in Austin: “In Christianity you’re essentially closing off your common sense and closing down your ability to think and you’re worshiping an idea or a book or a thought. Christianity itself is based on the idea that you can’t trust yourself because you are bad. Common sense, your primal feelings, your primal actions, your primal desires can’t be trusted.”

The conversations occasionally dripped academic snobbery, including a male in Boston who said:

“I bet we’re all college educated. I don’t want to say all of us, but some of us have beyond college educations. The average American is not college educated. College education equates to 25 percent of the population. Seventy-five percent have not gone to college. The vast majority are idiots.”