Why I’m Kind Of A Calvinist

Why I’m Kind Of A Calvinist

Weird thing for an atheist to say, but yea

Photo by Juan Martin Lopez on Unsplash

If you want to find the shittiest Christians you can, find the ones who who love John Calvin.

I often say that Christianity is a white supremacy religion. Well, he takes that up several notches.

Most Christians will tell you that you have free will to choose to become a Christian or not. They’ll say it’s all your fault if you don’t become a Christian because of it and that this is why you deserve to go to hell.

But John Calvin throws all of that in the trash. He thinks people go to hell because they’re not special. And that they deserve to suffer for not being loved by God enough.

He thinks that God, despite creating every human being, makes some humans to go to hell for eternity. He purposefully makes people just for them to be tortured forever.

And that he also created Christians, who he calls “the elect.” God made them so they would convert and go to heaven.

In Calvin’s world, no one gets to choose whether they are a Christian or not. God chooses for them and they become whatever God decided that they should be.

Most Christians hate this idea because there’s really no way to defend a God who would create people and gladly torture them for becoming exactly what he made them become.

It’s also very close to racism because it’s the belief that people are born with certain privileges or not. It’s an idea that could easily be used to support bigotry.

I’m not racist, but there’s a way where I am kind of a Calvinist as well. With a twist. A reverse Calvinist, maybe.

I do not believe in a god. So I don’t think that one is being a massive dick and forcing everyone to either be a Christian or not.

But I do think that Christians themselves do this. They as a group decide who should be a Christian and who should not. It’s not necessarily someone’s choice fully whether or not they are Christian, especially the ones who aren’t Christians.

Someone, like me, for example, was never going to be able to stay a Christian. It’s not about how I reason and debate. Or the fact that I’ve read through the Bible. It’s not even about the fact that my Mom abused me using Christianity or that I met so many Christian misogynists. Although those things did push me away from it.

It’s about the fact that I was born LGBTQ+. It’s that I’m bisexual that made it basically guaranteed that I would eventually leave Christianity.

I’ve met a lot of queer people and for the most part, they are not Christians. Christians will say it’s because we gave in to the lust of our flesh and we are evil and blah, blah, blah, blah. That of course we wouldn’t become Christian because it’s in our nature. But it’s really because Christianity as a whole constantly condemns us.

The majority of LGBTQ+ people that I meet have religious trauma because of it. Yes, there’s the constant criticism and being accused of being perverts and told we are demonic and not human, but it often doesn’t stop there.

A large portion of queer people have endured religious physical violence, too. Or sexual assault. Being accused of being demon possessed happens a lot and so does getting beaten and/or raped during an “exorcism.”

Let’s assume God was real and that he loved everyone equally. It would still be impossible for most queer people to join the religion because it’s so dangerous for them to. They’re facing constant rejection and hostility. Plus violence from many Christians they meet.

Christians shun queer people like this to guarantee none of us go to heaven. They need an enemy they feel superior to, so they can be special.

They then bash us for being evil because they threw us out of their own religion. This has nothing to do with our free will, but they use it as an excuse to further condemn LGBTQ+ people, even though we were never actually allowed into the club.

If we weren’t all evil, then why do we keep rejecting their religion? They say.

But it’s because they forced us to.

I’m fine with it because I don’t want to be a part of it any way, but I find them as cruel as most Christians find John Calvin’s God.

Because they guaranteed we would go to hell, according to their religion. They made us this way and they want us to suffer because of it.

It’s disturbing and we’re not the only group they do this to.

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