Core Belief: Christianity is a Death Cult

♪♫ I sat in science class and I fantasized,
About getting killed because I stood up for Christ
I'd get a new body, a crown and a mansion.
I'd be the most popular angel in Heaven ♪♫ – “Cult” – Candi Carpenter

This is a trigger warning: Stories ahead cover topics that may be triggering for some audiences. [Suicidal Ideation]

There are commonly accepted qualifiers for what might make something a “Death Cult.” I’ve listed some here, as well as my comments:

Qualifiers of a Death Cult

• Extreme Beliefs & Practices: Love god more than your children. “I’ve not come to bring peace, but a sword...”
• Charismatic Leadership: Pastors who gain trust with charm and break it behind closed doors.
• Isolation Tactics: “Do not be yoked with unbelievers.” It’s not just advice—it’s a boundary wall.
• Control Mechanisms: From denying vaccines to demonizing medication, obedience trumps survival.
• Deception: From tithing to rewriting history, the truth is whatever keeps the pews filled.

The progression to fully realizing Christianity is a Death Cult took a long time. “Death Cult.” It’s not something one often hears said in polite conversation, or at least not in the circles I found myself in growing up. Even now, it is a bold claim to make. I do not mean there are not good people out there, but what I am saying is at its heart, Christianity is saturated in blood—and far more than just that of Jesus.

To those who wish to immediately dismiss what I’ve just said, I’m not going to stop you. If you’re feeling that way, you haven’t experienced enough to truly understand this content. I wish you to be happy and healthy.

For the rest of us, I will point to a few historical examples:

-The Crusades

-The Witch Trials (Europe and North America)

-The countless wars fought over religion

-St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre

-Colonizing

-Modern terror attacks committed in the name of god

-Bombings of women’s health centers (e.g., Eric Rudolph, Scott Roeder)
FBI: Eric Rudolph
Wikipedia: Murder of George Tiller

-Michael Page shot and killed six Muslims and wounded four others in Wisconsin’s Sikh Temple
Wikipedia: Wisconsin Sikh Temple shooting

Christianity is a major religion today, and its position was paid for in blood. Many good people attend church, but it in no way should be considered a sanctuary of righteousness & safety. We must remember there are beliefs which many of these people will carry to their graves. I'm going to consider three:

-Abraham was told by god to murder his son. If these people would do the same to their own children, do you trust them with yours? (Genesis 22:1–19)

-“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.” (Psalm 116:15)

-“Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” (1 Samuel 15:3–23)

Let’s look at each of those three bullets.

Abraham & Isaac – SACRIFICE SACRIFICE SACRIFICE

We have Abraham, father of Isaac. His wife Sarah was past childbearing age when god told them he’d give them a baby. God tells him, “Abe, go burn your son Isaac as a burned offering to me.” Did he hesitate? Did he consult his wife who labored with Isaac for hours? He went, and it was going to happen. He made the choice to be obedient, and by the looks of the Bible, blindly obedient. Can you put yourself in his position? Could you look into your child's eyes not as a father, but a believer? Can you imagine the belief winning?

I never asked my parents what they would have done if god ever told them to sacrifice me as a burnt offering. I learned early not to ask questions you don’t want the answers to. Coincidentally, I live near a Mount Moriah, so it was probably best not to push fate too far. My partner, however, did ask their parents what they would have done. My heart broke for them as they retold the story of how their mother instantly said “Yes.” Instantly. Can you imagine? Just like Abraham.

After Abraham was just about to make the dumbest decision of his alleged existence, he’s told to stop! He’d proven himself faithful! Good job, Abrahey—wait a minute. god’s all-knowing; he knew that Abraham would do it if asked. Why did he give Isaac lifelong trauma and trust issues for no reason? He is not worthy of worship, and this should inspire feelings for any believer.

As a parent, to answer that you would choose a god you’ve never seen over the child you’ve held and raised should make you look deeply within yourself and see what stares back.

To Die for Christ Is Gain

The second bullet is a common belief. My father would always paraphrase 1 Corinthians 15:42–54: “The corruptible must put on the incorruptible.” Not this verse exactly, but this belief is what was responsible for me sitting in biology class in my tenth year thinking the deep thoughts. As I’ve mentioned before, I have type 1 diabetes, a chronic autoimmune disorder.

I was sitting in class, thinking of the way science is typically at odds with the church—and how it’d be cool to be a scientist and a Christian. I don’t remember what was said in class that deviated my thoughts to the dark—but the next thing I knew I was daydreaming about what it could be like to “die for Christ.” I would get a body that wouldn’t be attacking itself 24×7. I’d instantly be there, able to see him right away. And I wanted it.

Looking back now, I recognize how much I was focused on “what came after” that I let “what was happening here” slip away. The song I referenced above is one of my recent favorites, and I feel like it was written specifically about me—but like many things in Christianity, mine was not a unique experience.

Christianity taught my brain—my young and developing brain since before I knew original thoughts—that what came after was preferable to what was here. Here was just a place to be until we got to be with him. There were times when I thought, “If I died tonight in my sleep because my sugar goes low, I might wake up in heaven.” Later, I’d think, “If I just took too much insulin tonight, maybe I’d still get into heaven. Because…I believe that Christ died, I believe he’s coming back for me, and nothing could separate you from the love of god once you had it.” Romans 8:38–39 says so! (link to image)

It was fucked. And as I just proposed, others likely experienced this thought train. Perhaps because we are conditioned to want that sweet death. It just begs the question: what are we really teaching our kids in church?

The Amalekites & god’s Bloodlust

The Amalekites passage is too long for a fair screenshot—please see the full entry here: 1 Samuel 15:3–23 (NIV)

The same god that is all-knowing is also all-powerful. He could have made a reality where the Amalekites didn’t need to die a brutal death. Why didn’t he? Why did he instead create them, knowing what would happen not only in life but in eternity—and the torment implied by being so hated by god?

If you want to talk about that being part of god’s plan, please check out Divine Deflections for other great deflection tactics: Divine Deflections. As for me, it's clearly because he loves blood & slaughter.

Want further food for thought, a fruit from Eden perhaps? When King Saul, the one to whom god told to commit genocide, spared the life of the enemy king and their best livestock. god had a sensible chuckle and Saul was no longer king. Honestly, he got off kind of easy - but the absolute need for there to have been no survivors is the stuff of nightmares.

When I contemplated the war-like god I worshipped as a teenager, I’d spend time thinking on how I reconciled god being loving as well as still being the god we didn’t talk about because it was the Old Testament. I’d respond: “Because Jesus came and told us to love god and to love others as ourselves.” He cleared out all the bad things—god was getting cool as he entered his mid-40s. Liked to hang out on porch swings, maybe smoke a little of the Devil’s Lettuce.

god Does Not Smoke Marijuana, Probably Be a Lot Cooler If he Did

Slowly, I began to look deeper than just the surface. It began with deciding to completely read the Bible and get some answers for myself. They say owning a Bible will make you a Christian; reading one will make you an atheist. It was true in my case.

Until that point in my life, I had planted seeds for the kingdom. That decision planted a seed for myself outside of heaven’s walls.

I read everything. Including Numbers. If there were a hell, mine would be reading Numbers for the span of forever. There would be wailing and gnashing of teeth. I considered quitting because a priest/deacon/pastor/father/bishop/cardinal can just explain things to me. I’m sure many who set out on that journey made the easy choice. I was not one of them.

I got to read about Eden and wondered how humans came to be fruitful and multiply if the only humans were all related; the flood made me wonder how it was possible that all the animals in the world made it to Noah; the workings of Satan against Job—man, you can’t just give someone a new family as a consolation prize for their first one getting corpseified and gross by a cosmic comedy. The more I looked, the more I saw not only writing on the wall but that the words were written in blood.

god has no chill.

I finished the whole Bible for the first time and felt a sense of accomplishment. It has some decent lessons, but they were shadowed by the destruction that dominated the book. I began to notice just how strange it was to wear a crucifix; an instrument of death. Would you wear an electric chair necklace today?

Other things began to get my attention, too. Lent got weird. We would go to Stations of the Cross, and it occurred to me how violent it all was—not in the way I had viewed it before (“Wow! Look what Christ did for me!”), but more like, “This is violent as shit.”

The Eucharist became the strangest realization: “This is my body, take it and eat it, all of you. This is my blood, take it and drink of it, all of you.” We did it in memory of him and his sacrifice. But at the heart of the ritual is the belief that the literal body and blood of Christ are being taken into you—cannibalism. Straight-up cannibalism.

The threads were showing up everywhere. Part of my good Catholic education was knowing the history of the holidays. Let’s take a look at a few and see if we can spot the central theme:

Palm Sunday – Foreshadowed the death of Christ

Holy Thursday – Commemorates the Last Supper (and cannibalism—YUM!)

Good Friday – The day Christ is brutally crucified

Holy Saturday – Reflecting on Jesus’ body being in the tomb

Easter Sunday – Lich King Jesus (link to image)

Ash Wednesday – “You are dust, and to dust you will return”

All Saints’ Day – Honoring the dead, especially martyrs

Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist – It’s not a story about checkers.

Feast of the Holy Innocents – Commemorates Herod’s slaughter of Bethlehem’s infants

In case you needed the path lit, the commonality is death.

This position could be longer—and that is a trifle unsettling. I have learned that there is duality; good exists if you can find it. But for me and the Church, the juice is not worth the squeeze. I want you to know if you are reading this and questioning—please have the courage to continue. What you are doing is not easy. This position is a bold perspective, but one that remains unshakable.

If there is goodness in Christianity, it is despite the system, not because of it. And the system demands blood; it binds and consecrates. From hymns of glory, to the Stations of the Cross, this is not a metaphor, its in the design. It's devotion nailed to a cross and called holy. It's time we called it what it is: A Dogma of Death.

Questions for Consideration

• In what ways do you see themes of sacrifice and suffering influencing modern Christian practices—do these themes encourage life-affirming service, or do they lean toward glorifying martyrdom?
• How do you reconcile the portrayal of a loving deity with scriptural commands or stories that involve violent or deadly actions?
• How do sermons that highlight Hell and eternal punishment contribute to a mindset where death is viewed less as an end and more as a dramatic transition to reward or suffering?

Core Belief Series: Part I
Core Belief Series: Part III