MSA2 Final

The podcast discusses Christianity's role in allowing people to have clear consciences while making immoral decisions. The Bible is highlighted for its open interpretation, which can be manipulated by pastors to push personal agendas. Homosexuality is a major point of contention within Christianity, with conflicting verses on the topic. The idea of free will is debated, with the argument that it cannot be given and taken away within one's lifetime. Free will is seen as essential for decision-making and societal cohesion. Examples of poor morals and bad decision-making within Christianity are provided, including a pastor who stole money from his congregation and claimed God told him to do it. There are also allegations of child harassment and sexual abuse by religious officials. While Christianity itself is not deemed inherently evil, it can be used as a tool by evil individuals, and it is crucial to hold them accountable. Welcome to Triple C's podcast. I'm your host, Calyx Carpenter. Today's episode, we will be talking about Christianity and more specifically Christianity's role in allowing people to remain guilt-free and have clear consciences all while having ill morals and bad decision-making in their lives. One thing I'll be focusing on is the Bible. The Bible is literature written around the first century AD. It consists of between 66 and 73 books depending on which branch of Christianity you look at. I want to focus on the Bible because of its ability to be interpreted freely and more importantly the uses of it within the church. For 18 years of my life, I was a Christian. I went to church every Sunday. I went to youth group every Wednesday. I went to Bible study every Thursday. And during my time, my Sunday sermons consisted of a lot of singing and one message during the time. The message consisted of the pastor speaking of typically three excerpts from the Bible. And he would read these three things and then go on and talk about how you should live your life depending on what the three lines that he chose for the time were. The lines from the Bible were often very open-ended and very loose and direct meaning. However, they tied in slightly with the message that he would try to push. The problem with this is there are so many things that can be used in different ways that it's very easy for pastors, for example, to use these lines from the Bible or scripture as they call it to push agendas for themselves. One main point of emphasis for Christians is homosexuality. A lot of Christians claim that homosexuality is seen as a sin within the Bible. A main Bible verse that I see battling this is Genesis 2 24, which states, Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Christians take this as a way to battle homosexuality because it states a man and a wife, meaning not a man or a man or a woman and a woman. However, when asked how this contradicts one of the Ten Commandments, which is one shall love thy neighbor as thyself, well, many Christians come up short in giving an answer because they know it's contradictory. This is just one of the main problems I find with scripture and interpreting scripture. The Bible is very contradictory of itself because it often talks of loving everybody. However, it discriminates against people who aren't of Christian values or ones who follow other religions. I believe this directly ties in with the idea of free will, which is the next point I want to bring up. I'm going to start here with a clip from a podcast which is named Alex O'Connor vs. Ben Shapiro. Is religion good for society? If it's something inside of yourself somewhere, then all you do is push the problem back and you ask the question again. Is that thing determined or is it indeterminate? So indeterminate, it's random determined. You keep going back until you either terminate in something outside of the self, something or I suppose something undetermined and therefore therefore random, either of which you are completely out of control. In this clip, it is Alex O'Connor talking to Ben Shapiro, who are both very controversial but very prominent figures in their beliefs. Alex O'Connor is a very prominent atheist and he is talking about the idea of free will and in plain terms, he is saying that free will, if given, is remained through the entire time. Because for Christians, for example, when they try to pawn off their behaviors to some outside source like God, they are implying that they gave up their free will for that motion, that event that occurred. But in saying that, in saying that they gave up their free will for this single event, they are saying that they gave up their free will for their entire lives. Because free will cannot be given and then taken away in the same lifetime. Because you're either born with free will or you're born without free will. There is no switching in the same life. It is either you have it or you don't. And on the same wavelength of free will, free will is the glue that holds society together. If people themselves believed that their decisions held no weight in their lives, then at the end of the day, no one would make a decision for themselves. And this can be backed in the same podcast with this clip here. If they were informed since the time they were small that their decision-making process does not exist, that there is no decision to be made, whatever is going to happen is going to happen. Those decisions have no moral weight in the universe because the universe has no moral weight. There is no way to create a functional society on the basis of these premises. It is also important to me to include some examples of these things that I bring up, such as poor morals and bad decision-making. Because right now I'm just throwing out loose allegations. However, with no facts and no events to back this up, my argument would hold no moral weight. The next clip I'm going to play is a pastor talking of a crime he was charged of. I will just let the clip play here. So, the charges are that Caitlin and I pocketed 1.3 million dollars. And I just want to come out and say that those charges are true. So there's been 1.3 million dollars that's been taken out of, I think it was a total of 3.4 million. But out of that 1.3, half a million dollars went to the IRS, and a few hundred thousand dollars went to a home remodel that the Lord told us to steal. Right, a lot of senior is a pastor based out of Denver, Colorado. And was recently charged with the crime of stealing 1.3 million dollars from his congregation through a crypto scam. However, his only defense was that the Lord told him to do it and that the Lord would provide for these people. And then followed it up with claiming that over a hundred thousand dollars were put into a home remodel for himself. It's quite ironic, isn't it? How the blessings of these people only seem to bless the person telling them to do these things. It almost seems like a power struggle, or better yet, an abuse of power. This can also be seen in the child harassment accusations on the Pope and many, many religious officials. It's a lot more common nowadays for people to speak out about their child harassment and sexual harassment as a child from these religious officials, which is ultimately an abuse of power. It sucks there's a stigma around these things. However, it is important that we recognize that these monsters found deep within these Christian views are using Christianity as a cover-up for their true intentions of touching children, because these people should be held accountable for things such like that. So at the end of the day, Christianity isn't a terrible thing. However, it is a tool that can be used to do very terrible things. And I believe it's incredibly important that we see this as a society and we're able to keep these things in check. Because a lot of religious officials are left unchecked because of their such high rankings within their respective religions. So that's why I believe that Christianity is inherently an evil tool used by evil people.