The New Road

Immune To Christianity

I found this funny evangelical video this morning while perusing my usual atheist and evolution blogs. Just a few minutes into it I realized that I'm probably immune to preaching. Let me give you a little backstory on me so that you can understand why.

When I was twelve my mother took me to the University Of Pennsylvania Children's Hospital for an extended set of IQ tests. You see, my teachers were perplexed, I was a bright kid, but I was always getting F grades. Turns out, I was, indeed, very bright kid, but I had dyslexia starting at a very young age. So all of the framework that's built in preschool, kindergarten and the early grades I didn't have. That framework gives people a structure where they can keep and hold facts and information in a rote manner. I don't have that (I have a fairly shoddy one I built myself) so rote memorization is just not possible for me. Which is why I hate tests and I fail. I'm very good at practical things because I can use reference materials and such on the fly and get things done.

So how does this apply to Christianity? When I listen to this preacher I realized, for the millionth time, that Christianity is all about rote memorization. You sit, you listen, statements are repeated over and over, you repeat the statements, then you recall the statements later. I completely fail at that type of teaching and testing. So those words and phrases just pass right through me like a sieve, and I retain nothing. While other people can hear a sermon and repeat it word for word right after. This is why religion just doesn't work on me.

Now to this video. How is this at all an answer to critics? The Bible is infallible, therefor anything that proves it's wrong must be wrong, because the Bible is infallible. Huh? The only 'critics' that answers are Christians who believe in the Bible but have small qualms with it. What about those of us who don't believe in the Bible at all?

I suppose the deeper question is, why has God chosen only one mechanism, a book, to transfer his design for humanity? We know that people learn in different ways, shouldn't there be more ways (that are originated by God) to learn about grace? And shouldn't there be something more fundamental than a book? Some universal stepping stone to understanding? And if you say that's Jesus, then isn't every generation owed a Jesus?

By the way, if you want to comment and say; "All you need to know is that Jesus is your saviour." Please just don't. I'm owed a complete understanding of God just like anyone else, I don't need need a "dumbed down version". And if all that defines a complete understanding is a retention of a cloud of miscellaneous factoids, then it's all the more reason for me to doubt the inerrancy of the message.