Judge a tree by its fruit...

 

All my life as I read the Bible and attended church, I kept hearing this verse saying that a tree will be judged by its fruit. Judge a person by their behavior, not the ideas they claim to believe in. Judge those ideas by the behavior of their adherents, not by their claim to morality or compassion or truth.


Well, the fruit of Christianity has always been this:

Moral people who want to do moral things will use it to inspire them to do those things. But they are very much the minority.

Immoral people who want power will use it to manipulate people into blind obedience. And once you have people trained to believe whatever you say because it's you saying it... you can convince them that voting for authoritarians really means voting for freedom. You can convince people that scientists are lying to them but snake oil salesmen are telling the truth. You can convince people that they're being pro-life and protecting babies even as they do things which harm actual babies. You can convince people that their god who told them "He who lives by the sword will die by the sword" ACTUALLY meant "Buy as many guns as you possibly can in case you need to shoot people who disagree with you". You can convince people that the world can be destroyed by a flood if their god wants, but it can't be destroyed by the measurable harm that big corporations are doing. You can convince people that anything Israel does is by necessity good, even if what they do includes bombing civilians. You can convince people that anything liberals do is by necessity bad, even if what they do includes creating and funding programs that ensure no one has to starve in the world's richest country.

And this is the overwhelming majority of what Christianity has actually accomplished. Feeding the hungry, caring for the sick? Living justly, loving mercy, walking humbly? Not so much. The few Christians who do those things (mostly the Christians who actually believe in being good humans more than they believe in the Bible) would be doing them EVEN IF THEY WERE NOT CHRISTIANS. But the Christians doing the opposite, would be more inclined to try and make this world a better place if they hadn't convinced themselves that this world doesn't matter because it's only a practice run for eternity.


The fruit is rotten to the core. Were we supposed to judge Christianity by some imaginary tree's intended fruits? Were we supposed to pretend that Christianity brings compassion and justice and mercy despite the fact that its ACTUAL result is the opposite of all those things? 


That tree is worthless. We need to plant a new tree that has good fruit which brings life and nourishment, not disease and death.



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