If you are a Christian you are about to begin a fascinating journey. In the next few minutes of reading it will become clear to you that your belief in God is delusional. The problem is that your delusion, combined with the delusion of billions of other religious people like you, is hurting us as a species. It does not matter if you are a fundamentalist Christian, a moderate Christian, or a casual Christian, your delusion is hurting us.

The goal of this essay is to help you look in the mirror and understand the delusion of Christianity. Once you can see what is going on, the hope is that you will be able to start healing your delusion. With each healing, we make our world a better place.

How Do We Know That Christians Are Delusional?

In this essay we will look at the Mormons, the Muslims and the Christians together, and it will be very easy for you to see the delusion of religion. Let's start with the Mormons. A quick story can help you to understand the kind of delusion that we are talking about.

One night, Joe was sitting in his room praying to God. Suddenly his room became exceedingly bright. An angel appears. The angel tells Joe that there is a set of ancient golden plates buried in the side of a hill in New York. The plates come with two special stones that help Joe to translate them. Once Joe finishes translating, the angel takes the plates and they are never seen again.

The book translated from the plates tells of amazing things: An entire civilization of Jewish people living here in North America 2000 years ago. These people have things like huge cities, and huge wars where millions of soldiers die. And the resurrected Jesus came and visited these people.

This is an amazing story, isn't it? And Joe SWEARS it's absolutely true. Now here's the question: Do you believe Joe's story?

If you are a normal, intelligent person, you do NOT believe this story. Of course you don't. But why not? Why is it so obvious to you that this story is a fairy tale? First of all, you look at the evidence. There were NOT millions of Jewish people living in North America 2000 years ago building cities and waging wars. How do you KNOW that? Because there is absolutely no evidence for it. There are no ruins of the cities. There are no battlefields where millions of people fought and died. It is obvious that the book is lying.

Second, you compare Joe's story to any other fairy tale. This story talks about:

- the magical angel
- the magical golden plates
- the magical seer stones
- the magical disappearance of the plates

These things are all imaginary. As imaginary as Jack's magical beanstalk. The entire story is make-believe and we all know it. Now here is the fascinating thing. Millions of people actually do believe Joe's story. Those millions of people are members of the Mormon Church. Their holy book is the book of Mormon. The book that Joe supposedly translated from the plates.

You see, millions of Mormons live inside a Mormon bubble of delusion, and to them, this story is completely and absolutely true. The dictionary defines delusion as:

de lu' sion : A fixed, false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact.

That definition fits Mormons perfectly. Mormons are delusional. We can all agree on this. But if you ever meet a Mormon and ask him about this story, he can spend hours talking to you about it. He has a thousand rationalizations. He can answer every question you have. To a Mormon this story is totally, absolutely, completely true. What a Mormon sees as indisputable truth, every normal person sees as utter delusion. There is no reason to sugar-coat things. Mormons are entirely delusional and everyone who stands outside the Mormon bubble of delusion knows it.

Now lets look at the Muslim religion. For Muslims the story starts with a man named Mohammed sitting in a cave. He sees a bright flash of light just like Joe did. There is also a talking angel. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The angel speaks to Mohammed for 11 years, and then one day the angel brings Mohammed a magical horse. Mohammed mounts the horse and it takes him to heaven. Then the horse brings Mohammed back to earth. Everything that the angel told Mohammed was recorded by scribes and became the book that we know today as the Koran.

Now here's the question: Do you believe this story? Do you believe that an angel dictated the Koran to Mohammed? Do you believe that Mohammed rode a magical horse to heaven? Of course not. This story is just as delusional as the Mormon story. The Muslim bubble of delusion is exactly like the Mormon bubble. To the people inside the Muslim bubble, this fairy tale story is completely, absolutely, totally true. But for everyone standing outside the Muslim bubble, we see with total clarity that the Muslims are delusional. It is obvious that this is a fairy tale. You and I both know, for example that magical flying horses are just as imaginary as Santa's flying reindeer.

So now we come to the Christian bubble. How do we know that Christians are delusional? Because the Christian story is just like the story of the Mormons and the Muslims. In the Christian fairy tale we have:

- a magical ghost that inseminates a woman named Mary
- she gives birth to a magical son named Jesus
- a magical star leads people to the baby
- Jesus performs many magical miracles which happen to leave behind no evidence whatsoever
- Jesus dies, but three days later he is magically resurrected
- he magically appears to many people to prove his resurrection
- then magically, he ascends into heaven, never to be seen again

All of this magic along with a remarkable lack of evidence makes it obvious. This is a fairy tale, just like the story of Jack's magical beanstalk.

Here is the thing that this essay would like to help you understand: The 4 billion people who are not Christians look at the Christian story in exactly the same way that you look at the Mormon story and the Muslim story. In other words, there are 4 billion people who stand outside the Christian bubble and they can see reality clearly.

The fact is, the Christian story is an imaginary fairy tale. If you are a Christian, you should now be able to see what is happening. As a Christian, you completely reject the Mormon and the Muslim stories. Why? Because they are fairy tales and everyone knows it. You know that every other religion is delusion. Now, simply recognize the obvious: The Christian religion is exactly the same. All the people inside the Christian bubble are just as delusional. Christians are delusional. Every rational person can see that. You should also see that there is only one sane position for any intelligent person to take: By standing outside all of these religious bubbles, you free yourself from delusion.

Why do you need to heal your delusion? Because these religious bubbles harm us as a species. A planet full of delusional people is not healthy. Just look at how Christianity skews your thinking. The delusion of Christianity makes you outrageously superstitious. Chances are you believe in "the power of prayer," even though every valid scientific study shows that prayer has absolutely no effect. The belief in prayer is complete superstition. The delusion of Christianity radically devalues human life. We routinely send soldiers into battle with the message that it is okay to die, because once you die you get to go to heaven. In reality, heaven is completely imaginary.

The belief in heaven is delusional. The delusion of Christianity replaces rational thought with dangerous mythology. For example, 60% of adults in America believe that Jesus will return to destroy our planet. Myths like these grossly skew your thinking about the future of our species. They also slow scientific progress. The list goes on and on. The delusion of Christianity forces you to discard rational thought in many parts of your life. Your irrationality hurts us all.

The goal here is not to criticize you for your religious beliefs, but instead to help you recover from your delusion. The solution is straightforward: Simply think about your delusion and it will fall like a house of cards. Thinking is the solution.

If you will turn on your brain, the depth of your delusion will become obvious to you, and you will be able to start down the path to recovery. You can begin your healing journey right now. For example, ask yourself:

- Why is it that every scientific study shows that prayer is a superstition?
- Why is it that you, as a rational human being, would believe in a completely imaginary place like heaven?
- Why would you believe in a being named "God" for whom there is absolutely no empirical evidence?

Think rationally about your religion and you will quickly see how delusional it is. With luck, the bubble of delusion that surrounds you will burst, and you can become a normal healthy human being.

This essay is actually a transcript of a video that you can view at he following three URLs:

How Do We Know That Christians Are Delusional?
How Do We Know That Christians Are Delusional?
How Do We Know That Christians Are Delusional?

I did not write this, but I was given permission to use it.