Your friend seems to be ignorant of the basic tenets of Christianity, if he thinks it was invented to give people solace. Let’s put ourselves in the position of early man, just beginning to look beyond food, shelter and companionship to consider life’s deeper questions. He feels alone in the universe, with no overarching Being watching over him. One would think he would invent a jolly, grinning, indulgent grandpa in the sky who is an all-embracing, sentimental, near-senile figure of sloppy kisses and big bear hugs, a wish-fulfillment picture suited to mankind in its infancy. Instead, what do have? A stern, lawgiving Taskmaster, One who evicts our first parents from Paradise for infraction of a seemingly arbitrary rule, One who has a bet with the source of all evil over how far he can torture someone before he is pushed over the edge into blasphemy, One who allows a loving father to approach the very edge of filial murder before bringing him back from the brink. To make matters worse, the ‘chosen people’ of this Tyrant are homeless, starving and universally enslaved and reviled. Judaism is exactly the sort of religion one would NOT invent were one seeking solace and comfort from beyond the stars. Then its eventual successor, Christianity, comes along to worsen matters considerably: the Son of the Tyrant is willingly turned over by His Father to suffer ignominious torture and death, and we are told we must love those who hate us, forgive our enemies, and sell all our possessions to follow the way of a homeless, starving rabble! Completely against all natural instinct and desire. If we invented these faiths to comfort ourselves, we made a singularly incompetent job of it.
