The Problem with Christianity: Ten Critical Issues with the World's Most Popular Religion

By: Richard Marshall

Narrated by: Brent Rice

Length: 4 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Richard Marshall lost his faith in Christianity as a child. After returning to the Bible two decades later, while traveling homeless across the US, he finally concluded there were too many problems with the Christian religion for him to be born again.

Unlike the arguments of atheists like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, or Christopher Hitchens, Marshall doesn’t take issue with a belief in a creator. This is not an audiobook arguing for or against atheism. From Richard Marshall’s perspective, it doesn’t matter whether God exists or not - the Jewish god of the Christian Bible, and its Jewish savior, Jesus, are simply not worth following. Upon examination, Christianity dissolves into little more than a death cult obsessed with blood.

Believers who haven’t thoroughly read their Bible will be shocked to discover they’ve been bowing down in fear to a god that amounts to little more than a murderous, bloodthirsty psychopath. Jesus is exposed as an unimpressive absurdity who amounts to little more than a myth. The Christian US is found to be nothing but a nation of warmongering hypocrites who espouse the verses of Paul more than they do their beloved virgin messiah. These issues and more only scratch the surface of the 10 critical issues with the world’s most popular religion.

Whether you are an atheist, agnostic, or a devote Christian, Richard Marshall invites you to explore Christianity with a rational mind and a compassionate heart. In light of Christianity’s allegiance to a Bible that advocates slavery and its support for the genocidal Jewish state of Israel, the future of humanity may well depend upon your awakening to the problem with Christianity.

©2018 Richard Marshall (P)2018 Richard Marshall

We don't need more churches...

My girlfriend and I listened to this one our recent road trip and it caused us to really start noticing all the churches that we could see from the interstate, and we thinking: the world has seriously gone completely crazy. If you listen to this audiobook you'll see what I'm talking about. I had to laugh when he talked about how if Jesus is God, then Jesus was praying to himself and sacrificing himself to himself to pay himself the debt that humans owed him. Maybe Christianity was intended to be a comedy that people ended up taking seriously?

5 stars, and I hope for more from both the author and the narrator.

BRILLIANT! ABSOLUTELY WORTH LISTENING!

I Absolutely 100% agree with the author of this book!
Christianity is a HUGE problem in today's society.
and I highly recommend this Audiobook to anyone interested or questioning religion/Christianity

There's a LOT more problems!

I think Marshall did a great job here, but he could have easily gone even further. I do like that he brought up that the Bible is actually pro-abortion even though Christians are anti-abortion. It really just goes to show how few of them bother to read their own sacred book. This reminds me of how Christians argue against Islam and talk about how Mohammed had a six year old wife, which proves again how little they read their bible. Funny that Christians never bother to look up what the Bible says about age of consent, and ignore the parts about how women are spoils of war, or that a man can sell his daughter into slavery.

Numbers 31 verses 17 - 18 reads, "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children (Hebrew word "TAPH"), that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves (i.e., for sexual purposes of course)." The Hebrew word "taph" specifically means a prepubescent child. There is obviously no other purpose to kill all the males and non-virgin women, yet keep the virgin little girls alive "for yourselves," other than for sexual purposes.

For the record, the closest one can come to an official Biblical pronouncement of the age of consent is 10 - 12 years of age, or when a girl has started puberty (Ezekial 16:7 - 8), however, the above verses from the book of Numbers clearly condones the taking of young prepubescent females as the sexual "spoils of war."

Isaac's wife Rebekah was between the ages of 3 - 10. Genesis 24 verse 16 reads, "And the damsel (Hebrew word NA'ARAH) was very fair to look upon, a virgin, neither had any man known her: and she went down to the well, and filled her pitcher, and came up." The word "na'arah" (sometimes NA'AR) specifically means a prepubescent child.

Rebekah was so young that she was accompanied by a "nurse." Genesis 24 verses 57 - 59 reads, "And they said, We will call the damsel, and enquire at her mouth. And they called Rebekah, and said unto her, Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go. And they sent away Rebekah their sister, and her nurse (Hebrew word YANAQ), and Abraham's servant, and his men." The Hebrew word "yanaq" literally translates to "to suck" and is thus used for "wet nurse." Obviously Rebekah was an extremely young girl who was being watched after by an older female.

King David took Abishag as either a wife or concubine (depending on who you ask). 1 Kings 1 verses 1 through 3 reads, "So they sought for a fair damsel (Hebrew word NA'ARAH) throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king." Under no circumstances would the word "na'arah" be used to describe a child over the age of 12.

Deuteronomy 21 verses 10 - 13 states that if you conquer some godless pagan vermin then you may take any of their females as your wife.

Exodus 21 verses 7 - 11 details the terms by which a man may sell his daughter to another man.

The Problem with Christianity Review

Loved this! Brent Rice really elevated the points with his great narration. Glad I chose this enlightening book.

The End is Near!!!

Great choice of narrator for this book. As for the book itself, I think that Rich is right saying that Christianity is contributing to all kinds of world problems. Basically you have millions upon millions of people who are all sitting around waiting for Jesus to come and save the day, meanwhile the whole world is going to hell in a hand-basket. Great point when he said that when he was homeless thousands of Christians would pass him by. There's actually a verse in the Bible where Jesus says something like "when I was homeless YOU gave me shelter" but just watch how many people walk right by a homeless person who needs help, and realize that the majority of people in the United States identity as Christian. We just don't need Christianity. Exactly what is it good for? When human beings needed Christianity to stop slavery, Christianity was promoting it. Right now the world needs brave men to stand up and do something about all these criminal politicians and scheming bankers, but the Christians are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for Jesus.

I recommend this audiobook because it really starts making you think critically about this idea that Christianity is actually doing the world some good. No! It is not!

Brutal Honesty

A of great points are brought up in this book that you don't often hear in debates about Christianity. I think he's right that too much attention is given to the subject of the existence or non-existence of God. Who cares?! Christianity is so screwed up in so many different ways that it doesn't matter if their god existed or not, no sane person should want to follow or praise such an insane god. Moreover, Christianity has a history of slavery that the author outlines quite nicely at the end of the book. Why the heck would I want to follow a religion that doesn't have one thing to say against slavery in their bible, and in fact repeatedly endorses slavery?

Christianity is just stupid. If you think I'm being too harsh, just listen to this audiobook.

At times not fair in conclusion

I agreed with much of the info that the author points out regarding the bible n many Christian religions. Where i have an issue, is the way he paints many Christian with a broad brush as to their morality and generosity. I also feel he takes a major leap in his portrayal of Jesus. He bases much of the criticism on the fact that if he is part of a Trinity which I don’t think he believes the trinity to be accurate. For example the issue regarding helping the homeless. Many don’t give to individuals standing at the street corner n when they approach u in the parking lot, because many think they will use the money for drugs or that they are part of groups that are not homeless but are scamming. But many of these contribute to organizations, to their churches that tells them money is being used to help poor. They help friends or neighbors or causes that they feel will be of help to others. They also pay taxes of which are being used by government to pay for many of the programs to help homeless. Many churches have programs to help n give food to homeless. The money comes from contributions form individual in the church. Regarding stopping to help someone who’s car has broken down in the middle of nowhere, many are concern that it might be a setup to rob u or worst. At times as read certain sections, I became a little uneasy of his criticism of the Jews n Christian. I felt there was some personal anger issues from the author that were maybe bleeding through into his book. I realize that he is trying to sell books, he needs to make a living. If the book doesn’t do well it makes it that much harder for him to convince the publisher for his next book. So he needs to get attention, he needs to tap into certain groups who have similar feelings towards religion or religious groups. Again many of the issues he brings out regarding the bible, religion, Apostle Pauls, God, the lack of bible knowledge, and hypocrisy that exist in religion is very true. What he does with the info at times is very unfair n not accurate.