The following explanation of Christianity was taken from here. Its author is a former high school chemistry and physics teacher in my home state of Pennsylvania.
I'm going to ask the questions this seemingly well-educated man should have been asking before he wrote his thesis here. My comments will be in brackets.
"God created man to be His friend. [First, a simple 'why?' We might want to do a little philosophical analysis here: why would an allegedly perfect being - where perfect means 'being complete, lacking nothing' - create something to be his friend? Indeed, a perfect being wouldn't create anything at all.]
God has other friends. The angels, but angels do not have our free will. [How does he know this? How could he possibly know this?]
The Trinity also make good company, but though They have different jobs, The Trinity think exactly alike. They are, after all, one Being. [If they think exactly alike, then why distinguish between them? Why have a "trinity" at all. Has the author never thought of these questions? And, again, how does he know this?]
This friendship, like any other, requires a conscious effort from both parties. God wants man to accept the hand of friendship freely [How does he know this?], which means he can also refuse it.
In short, He had to give man a free will [Philosophers have dealt with the subject for centuries and the consensus is that, even sitting in your armchair, you can tell that a free will in the sense the author requires is logically impossible. Nietzsche noted that a thought comes when 'it' wants, and not when we want it to. More recently, Sam Harris noted that I, as the subject of my experience, cannot know what I will think next or do next until a thought or intention arises. In other words, we literally have no control over our thoughts and actions - in terms of initiating them - and, therefore, no free will in that sense. And in the past 20 years or so, our understanding of how the human brain works, especially when subject to brain damage that can, in some instances, completely change personality, inhibit any intentions by a person, or even cause people to do things they can't refrain from doing - i.e., against their will - has provided empirical evidence that the mind is the brain, which is a physical organ subject to the laws of physics, and therefore subject to cause and effect, and therefore there can be no 'self' outside that chain of cause and effect that can alter that chain without being altered itself.], our tendency to think ourselves in charge, our human pride.
If we accept it, this friendship lasts for eternity, a condition we call heaven. [So, if we agree to be God's friend and flatter Him, he will reward us, otherwise it's eternal torment? Doesn't seem too fair to me.]
If we refuse this hand of friendship, however, because we are immortal [how does he know? Has someone he knows come back from the dead and told him?], we exist forever in a state of isolation we call hell [Hmmm...he seems to be sugar-coating this a bit. I don't think "isolation" is a good translation of "wailing and gnashing of teeth," or swimming in a "lake of fire," do you?]
God also had to do something to show us how much He wanted that friendship and that this friendship was His doing, not ours [So have we been pre-programmed to want a friendship with God? What about free will?].
That something was the voluntary death on the cross of Jesus, One of the Trinity and part of Himself. [But why would God execute someone who didn't do anything wrong, who wasn't guilty? Should we be doing that in our justice system? If I kill someone, should the authorities execute you in my place? And of course the whole atonement is a farce anyway - presumably Jesus is eternal, immortal, perfect, all-powerful and all-knowing - remember, the Trinity thinks exactly alike - then going through 'death' is like us being bitten by a mosquito, or even less. Now, if God ordered Jesus to be permanently stripped of his divinity, and truly become human - in essence only losing 1/3 of the Trinity - then I would consider that a fairer deal to atone for my 'sins'. Literally sacrificing his divine Son for the billions of humans who will have died by the end of the world - when is that again? - would be a good deal. If I have the prospect of an eternity in hell, then so should Jesus. But Jesus never really had that prospect.]
We commit a lot of sins and cannot atone for most of these. For example, suppose you kill someone. How can you ever atone to that man’s family, let alone the victim? Our acceptance of Jesus’ Atonement pays for this sin and worse in God’s eyes. [See my notes on the above paragraph.]
The payment also puts us in God’s debt, which is precisely where He wants us, because God has important jobs and satisfying relationships for everyone who accepts this hand of friendship. [Again, how does he know this? And why is willingly becoming someone's debtor when you become their friend a good thing? And what does being in His debt have to do with having important jobs and friendships? Is that psychologically healthy?]"
Again and again I encounter the same thing: either a lack of critical thinking, or a lack of an intellectual conscience (a conscience behind the conscience), or critical thinking and the rudiments of an intellectual conscience, but a neurotic clinging to the patently implausible and pervasively unhealthy.
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