Top Ten Annoying Types of Christians

1.      The OCD Bible Thumper type

This is the sort of Christian who is bound and determined to throw every Bible verse they can at you, regardless of whether or not it makes sense, and moreover, they are bound and determined to out quote you in the process.

2.      The Pete and Repeat were sitting in a boat but Pete fell out type

This is the type of Christian which will argue you in circle and keep on driving the same points home, or relying on the same fallacies, and even though their arguments crumble under scrutiny they don’t give you an inch edgewise and then prematurely declare that they have bettered you in the debate, even when you didn’t know you were actually having one.

3.      The Put a Fallacy in my back pocket for good measure type

These Christians rely on inept fallacy driven arguments to make their case for them (e.g., Paley’s Watch, Pascal’s Wager, William Lane Craig’s Kalam Cosmological argument, and so on). Yet if you do engage them, once they have run through their list of arguments, all they have is a pile of scrambled up fallacies which, contrary to what they believe, only make their case harder to prove.

4.      The (Sunday) Schooled myself with complete and utter ignorance type

This is the sort of person who is, either by life circumstances or pure apathy, so ignorant, so totally naïve, that they simply never know what they are talking about—but low and behold, feel obliged to share it with you none-the-less (e.g., think Ray Comfort).

5.      The Apologist Wannabe Rambler type

I have lots of friends in this category. Usually they are of an evangelical streak, and they want to win you over to Christ, although reminding them that you were once a Christian and are happy to finally be free of that reason stifling dead end called religion, they continue to hound you with rambling, often disorganized, questions which try to get you to think about “spiritual” concerns. Typically they like to respond to your answers with a set of rehearsed phrases, like, “Did you know there are more original fragments and copies of the Bible than any other ancient text—even more than the Iliad?!” They may even throw in some numbers and statistics (most of them erroneous) just to sound more authentic. They also will quote facts which are untrue—like, “Darwinism was the cause for Hitler’s atheism, and so clearly atheists can’t be moral.” Then they pretend that everything in that sentence was related and made perfect sense and put the burden on you to account for it—even as you are desperately pleading with them that whatever book they’re getting these twice-baked apologetics from, they need to put it down and pick up a real history book written by real scholars and historians.

6.      The Theologian who holds it against you for not knowing any theology type

Obviously, this irritating bunch consists of the Theologians who often criticize religious critics who openly inveigh against religion as being unsophisticated, or in the dark, for not knowing any of the “deeper” more “complex” theological considerations, as if religious believers everywhere did, and then say they won’t take the skeptics and critics serious until they brush up on their theology.

7.      Jesus Freak Liars for Christ type

These are the shallow Christians who continually talks about all the good works Jesus does in their lives and loves to share it with you, hoping their anecdotes will be moving enough to emotionally nudge your from your realist, rational, common-sense mindset, even though A) they’re probably just attributing or mistaking normal happenstance as good blessings from God because they’re so saturated with God-talk as if it were a non-stop 24 hour radio station beaming straight into their heads, and B) their imaginary friend is nowhere to be seen even though they’re sure he’s everywhere all at once, all the time. On top of all this, they get so worked up about it they will often spread falsities about things they know little about just to make their cause look all the more appealing. I once had such a Christian brand me as a pedophile on an entire web forum because I defended the private use of pornography. Then he said Christ could heal my perversion, as if I was actually someone who was addicted to child pornography (which I’m not). Worse still, their uncritical, unquestioning, attitudes coupled with their credulity lead them to believe it, even though it was libelous slander and constituted a felony. But never mind, because they saw evidence for their convictions in the form of Mother Mary of baby Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich.

8.      The Judgmental Hypocrite type

These are Christians who use fear tactics, such as fire and brimstone lectures about your inherent “original” sin, and will claim you’re going to hell, often stipulating that you’re a no good, heathenish, materialistic, God-denying, rebellious, humanist/atheist and that you deserve to burn, but because God loves you he sent his only son—blah blah blah. After having condemned you to an eternal suffering of their own imagining they instantly begin trying to save you from it. At the same time, the derogatory or unflattering labels they give to everyone else as they unjustly judge others rings hypocritical, especially when they have the gull to claim it is you who are immoral. What the hell? Indeed.

9.      The Scientifically Ignorant type

Usually these are the creationists who graduated high school with apparently never having had a single biology, chemistry, physics, or physiology/anatomy class. Which explains why they don’t believe in the Darwinian theory of evolution but are certain the universe is designed and finely tuned just, as it turns out, so they could share the “Good News” about Jesus’ death and resurrection and burning love for you.

10.   Mormons

Although missionaries in general annoy me, something bothers me about the politeness of Mormons. These guys actually come to your house and politely ask to invade your privacy just to pester you, as if being super extra polite about it would make it that much easier to listen to their tall tales, personal anecdotes about how the Lord works in their lives, and their obviously rehearsed apologetics. I guess it bugs me because they are so nice, which makes you feel obliged to be nice back, and makes you feel like a cretin whenever you fail to bite your tongue. Let me just say, you're fine to believe whatever you want, but don't come knocking on my door to proclaim it. I don’t like to go out of my way to be nice to a bunch of self serving crazies—it’s just wrong on so many levels.

There are many more types I could name, and many of these areas are overlapping, but these are just the types of Christians which bother me (personally) to no end. I should know—I used to be one.

(*UPDATE*)

11.  Let 'em Have Their Faith Well Wishers

These folks get a special place on the list, because ever since I have published this list, this type of Christian pops up quite frequently. They are the, "who are you to judge these people's faith? Let them have their faith. They haven't done anything to you. Just leave them alone and let them believe what they want" accomodationalist well-wishers. Needless to say, this person misses the point entirely about varieties of faith, not to mention quality and such. And for being so annoying, this very *special type of Christian gets onto my list of only ten, because in actuality,  these defenders of the unthinking pious deserve the number one spot on the list.