Wertbag Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 The Problem of the Satanic Panic The Satanic Panic was at its peak during the 1980's, where preachers around the world jumped on the bandwagon to claim that Satanic cults existed and were inflicting sexual and physical abuse on people as part of Satanic rituals, and that almost every form of pop culture was Satanic and hence evil. Some of these claims developed into anti-elite or anti-government conspiracy theories that exist to this day, including bizarre groups such as Qanon who claim a group of the world's wealthiest people gather to do child sacrifices, sexual abuse and child pornography. It is thought that the start of the Panic was in large part due to the hugely popular movies The Exorcist (1973), Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Omen (1976). When people who claimed to be victims of such cults were tested, the images they commonly referred to were scenes from the movies, leading many experts to believe that people were recording the movie scenes as memories and not just fantasy. During the same time period you had the founding of the Satanic Church (1966) and Charlies Manson's cult which claimed 35 killings with ritualistic features. To make things worse many cases of mental illness were then attributed to demonic possession and people will real illnesses suffered severe abuse and exorcisms which never helped and, in several cases, led to the death of the person. Preachers pointed to rock and roll music as inflaming lust, and the idea that if you played records backwards you could hear Satanic messages had thousands of people scouring every record for perceived voices. Any movie or book which promoted magic was deemed as trying to lead people to the Satanic dark arts, with a famous example being the protests against the Harry Potter books (first released in 1997) and the panic that the tabletop game Dungeons and Dragons (released 1974) would lead people into real life witch covens and demonic magic use. It was finally pushed back in large part due to targeting so much, with people getting more incredulous as the Satanic claims encompassed more and more pop culture. It was to the point where people jokingly said if it was fun, it must be Satanic. This ridicule helped to break the fear and led by new movies showing exorcisms stopping mental illness diagnoses and several lawsuits. Carl Sagan released the book "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark", as well as many experts coming forward to show that false memories could be planted and believed by victims, as well as massive investigations into the claims of cult abuse and Satanic rituals which found no such thing ever occurred barring some drug gangs using such imagery to hide their real reasons for killing. The Satanic Panic did great harm to Christianity's believability, with some followers seeing it being the old stuffy preachers complaining about everything the young kids loved, with many saying the church was unable to separate fiction from reality. When people played D&D and found it to just be a fun bit of make believe, an imaginary story with no real-world consequences, but were being told by people they were meant to trust and believe that this game was terrible and would lead to real world magic, it makes those preachers the laughingstock. Their claims were ridiculous and harmful, driving people away from their churches and away from their teachings. Sadly, some exist to this day trying to sell exorcisms, or label the latest pop culture craze as Satanic, thankfully they aren't taken as seriously as they were 40 years ago. 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator TABA Posted January 15 Moderator Share Posted January 15 13 hours ago, Wertbag said: It is often said that apologetics are not to convince people of the truth of Christianity but are simply there to reinforce the beliefs that you have already been taught. I agree with this. Apologetic arguments can be reassuring to people who WANT to strengthen or shore up their beliefs. Apologists try to apply reason, to argue that belief in Christianity and theism are logically sound. The problem is that what is asserted this way can be debunked by better arguments. Christians wishing to use apologetics to maintain their beliefs must be careful to only listen to arguments in favor. I started out doing this but made the "mistake" of starting to listen to debates between apologists and counter-apologists. Needless to say, I found the reasons for disbelief to be convincing and ended up as an agnostic atheist. The arguments that @Wertbag has made in this topic are both sound and wide-ranging. Any Christian reading them would have extreme difficulty holding on to their faith, unless they were to decide that reason should not apply to religious beliefs, or rather their own religious beliefs. Any person in the process of deconversion will be reassured that they are on the right path. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 The Problem of Christian Families To start with a caveat, the majority of Christian families are happy, loving and good people, the horrific places that reading the bible can take you are thankfully not followed by the majority of Christians, but sadly they are followed by thousands and all of these subjects are common enough that finding victims of Christian love is easy to do. Often the reaction from Christian parents to their children saying, "I'm an atheist", "I'm gay" or "I'm trans" is anger, disowning or ostracizing. This is the opposite of what you find from a secular household, where humanist values hold that people are good and worthy of love regardless of their path. Christianity teaches to not dwell with, talk to or listen to those who are "in their sin", and for fundamentalist or conservative families the very idea that you could turn your back on God means you "hate" God. Many Christians have this view, that atheists just want to sin, or that atheists hate God, so when a family member turns to that conclusion they can be labelled as evil and pushed away. These severe reactions lead to children not wanting to talk to their parents for fear of their reaction. It makes husbands and wives not want to discuss their doubts with each other for the fear of their partner leaving them. It can lead to financial hardship, when you have your marriage broken, kicked from your home and the loss of support from your family. Some studies point to 20-25% of Christians being non-believers but still go to church to please their families and due to tradition. These undercover atheists often are only able to step away from religion once they gain financial independence from their parents, and in some cases that can be a decade or more. More horrific is the bible verses that are used to justify child abuse. Famous quotes such as Proverbs 22:15 - "Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him." or Proverbs 13:24 - "Whoever spares the rod hates his son" point to giving children a beating being a noble and just thing to do, but other verses such as Deuteronomy 21:18-21 "If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death." take it a step further in saying you should kill disobedient children. There are further examples of this such as when Abraham is commanded to sacrifice his son, or when Jephthah sacrifices his daughter, in both cases this killing of children is seen as a good thing as you show you obey God first, ahead of even your love for your own family. Many Christians now turn to home schooling, with the belief that public schools are either wrong or outright evil. For fundamentalists this can be due to schools teaching an old earth, evolution or the big bang, and it is easier to avoid all scientific discussions than to risk your children being led astray. Home schooling in some countries have rules and requirements, child progress tracking and testing that the parents have adequate education training to provide an education that is on par, or better than they could get elsewhere... many countries, including America, do not. This can lead to the uneducated teaching children, with children being given bible studies but lacking real world knowledge, with people teaching any worldview from white supremacy to Jihadism, with no oversight on the quality or content of the teachings. With many apologists building strawman arguments against scientific theories, in a closed home school bubble it is quite possible to believe such claims as you have no understanding of the facts or counter arguments. There is also a severe push for women to be subservient to men, with verses such as Ephesians 5:22-24 "Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything." or 1 Timothy 2:11-14 "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.". These types of verses have led to women being taught to be submissive, to not have a voice or to be allowed to make decisions. For women born into a conservative family this may be taught as the correct and normal way of things, so the women may not know any other way. In our modern Western societies, we see such misogyny as hurtful and evil. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 16 Author Share Posted January 16 The Problem of the Lack of Unity When the claim is being made that Christians are being led by the holy spirit it is contradictory that we find them being led to completely different answers. Christians will pray for guidance, or look to scripture for answers, and yet there is not a single unified message to be found. As far back as history can show, even in the first century mere decades after Jesus was executed and both before and after the gospels were written, there were splinters in the church with numerous different sects, holy books followed, traditions and practices. There was hope that when Emperor Constantine converted that it would lead to a unification of Christianity, but it did not take long for many sects to break away. For example, there were the Ebionites who believed Jesus was the Messiah but wasn't divine, simply chosen by God due to being the most righteous and the Marcionites who believed that God was evil, and Jesus had come to free us from Him and the Montanites who believed there were newer prophets since Jesus, and they carried on his message. There was also an immediate split between sects who believed that Jesus was God in flesh and others who believed that he was the Messiah but not God. Christianity was split from day one into many sects, but this is not unique to Christianity, as the beliefs built on the already existing Jewish beliefs and in a similar fashion the Jews were also split into many sects. The most famous are those mentioned in the bible the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Essenes, and the Zealots, all with different views on which laws were important, which oral teachings were to be followed and which traditions mattered most to God. Of course, we see the same kind of split within Islam as well, with fighting between the Shiite and Sunni branches being common. Perhaps the biggest split came in 1054 where the Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius was excommunicated starting the Great Schism which split the Catholic and Orthodox faiths. In response to the excommunication by Rome, the Orthodox church in turn excommunicated the Roman Pope. The schism was started by numerous disagreements over religious traditions, including what could be used for communion, the exact wording of the Nicene Creed and the belief that priests must remain celibate. This split has never been fixed, and while tensions have eased over the last thousand years, the two sides still do not see eye to eye on many matters. The next sundering of the church was the Protestant Reformation in 1517. This was started when Martin Luther published a document he called "Disputation on the power of indulgences" or "95 Theses". The document was a series of 95 ideas about Christianity that he believed were correct but directly contradicted the Catholic church's teachings. As per the title one of the big arguments was the idea of indulgences, that is a payment to the church to pre-forgive sins that you were going to commit, but other issues such as the wealth of the church, people being dependant on the church for salvation or needing priests to intercede with God on your behalf were all raised. This work was declared as heresy and the Catholic church excommunicated Luther. This made him reject their authority and continue to preach his own message, which grew a large following. From this a further break away occurred in 1534 when the Pope refused the English King Henry VIII a marriage annulment. King Henry seized control of the church in England, renamed it as The Church of England, and preached a hybrid doctrine blending Catholic and Protestant ideals. In 1620 separatist groups broke away from what they saw as the corrupt Church of England and created the English Separatist Church. They set sail aboard the Mayflower for America, becoming known as the Pilgrims or Puritans. These splits in Christianity weren't just theological, but political and eventually led to brutal warfare. Killing heretics was accepted by all groups, and once one group suffered a massacre, it was only a matter of time before they butchered their opposition in turn. Europe was war torn for centuries, with a lot of the conflicts being Catholic verse Protestant countries and groups. England swung back and forth between the two sides, and each time one gained power it was quickly followed by brutal repression of the other. There is a famous children's nursery rhyme, Goosey Goosey Gander from the 1700's: "Goosey goosey gander, Whither shall I wander? Upstairs and downstairs And in my lady's chamber. There I met an old man Who wouldn't say his prayers, So I took him by his left leg And threw him down the stairs." Left leg was a slang term for Catholics, and during the Protestant King Henry VIII taking power he banned prayer in Latin. So, a priest could be tested by what prayers they were willing to say, and a failure to do so could get them beaten or killed. Some houses built secret areas to hide priests from the Protestants, in scenes reminiscent of the Nazi's hunting Jews door to door. Estimates today on the total number of sects or denominations is challenging. Some groups are under different leadership structures, but hold to the same belief system, while some have distinct ideas and traditions that make them unique or at least different to others with similar names. Some disagreements are so minor as to be insignificant while others are foundational. While there are 40,000 Christian church groups around the world, it is unfair to say that equates to 40,000 different views. Some estimates put it at a more reasonable 300 different distinct religious traditions. Yet even this number is massive for a group claiming to all be led by the one true God to the same conclusion. We should expect to see one church, one holy book and one united message, but instead we see groups on either side of moral issues, on what books should be in the bible or how the bible should be interpreted. Many of these differences are big questions like Unitarian vs Trinitarian views, for which believing the wrong way can get you labelled as a heretic. This has to make you wonder why God hasn't kept His church in line. Why hasn't He explained the right answers, the right version of the bible or clarified the road to salvation. When even the most devout and theologically studied people in the world cannot agree on almost any part of Christianity, this lack of unity makes it look to outsiders like it is all man-made. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 16 Author Share Posted January 16 The Problem of Education Studies have shown that as education increases, religiosity decreases. Apologists have been quick to blame teachers and professors, claiming that those in higher education are pushing atheist agendas and are anti-Christian. Of course, legally this would not be allowed, and while the claim of anti-Christian bias is common, there are few examples or challenges to teachers that support this idea. This claim can be seen in movies like "God's not Dead", now filming its 5th movie in the series, where the evil atheist professor demands the students declare "God is dead". A ridiculous situation which in no way goes to explain the statistics. Sociology professors have looked into the phenomenon and come up with a much more complex and varied answer. Some of the reduction is due to experiencing other people, cultures, religions and views for the first time. Having been raised in a Christian family, with a church focus, it is quite possible to have little to no contact with people with differing views. University is a melting pot of cultures and ideas, and many of those can conflict with pre-held ideas. For example, if you have been taught from birth that atheists are sad, loner types, living in their parent's basement and angry at the world, then when you meet some and find they are happy, friendly and social people with a range of goals and positive outlooks, there is a conflict with what was taught. This in turn can highlight taught bigotry, with pre-held views on gay or trans people being worthy of hell, only to find they are friendly, loving and social people. Suddenly the idea that such nice people should be tortured is highlighted as abhorrent. Other things effecting belief include losing the time to invest in reinforcing the beliefs. If you have study, exams, assignments and in the case of people who live on campus, it may be the first time to sort their own laundry, pay their own bills, cook their own meals and sometimes work part time to help cover costs. This change from having large amounts of free time, to having to schedule your life around education and personal care, takes away the ability to go to church multiple times a week, to attend prayer meetings or bible readings or to get involved in after school church activities. If the religious ideas are not being reinforced on a regular basis, then a person's priorities will often drift towards what is most important to their day-to-day life. Focus is on learning and living, rather than ancient stories and philosophy. There is also the education itself, while not directly anti-Christian, it can be anti-Fundamentalist, in that learning science will show many ways to know the Earth is not young, and that a global flood did not occur. Learning why evolution is deemed a scientific theory rather than the strawman version presented by apologists can show the dishonesty inherent in their rhetoric. Other teaching, such as logic, philosophy, deduction or reasoning, can help people to consider questions to a deeper level than they have before, and can allow them to reconsider their held beliefs in light of how coherent they are and what evidence is available to support them. Understanding a good argument from a poor one, will sometimes highlight that foundational parts of your worldview fall into the latter category. It can also be a case that success and failure at university is due to hard work, time invested and study. Prayer doesn't help, showing that Christian students are not favoured in any supernatural way. When people from other cultures, with different skin colours, different sexes and from different religions have greater success than Christians, it can highlight the very natural world we live in and point out that racist or sexist ideas taught while growing up don't align with the real world. When you are told your in-group is superior, that you are God's chosen and you are following God's will, only to have non-Christian Asian students, female Muslim students or those godless atheists getting better results, it is hard to maintain a superiority complex based on religion when the results show otherwise. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 16 Author Share Posted January 16 The Problem of an Evil God If God was evil, how would we know it? Most of our information about the Christian God comes from the bible, but that is His word, so how trustworthy is an auto-biographical account? As the saying goes "History is written by the victors", so it is hard to say that we can know that God isn't evil based solely on the self-reports and stories that we do have. Certainly, an evil God wouldn't have problems such as divine hiddenness, the problem of evil or concerns for humankind. Even just apathy to our plight fixes many of the problems raised when Christians try to claim God is all-good. Some ancient sects of Christians did believe that God was evil, and it was Jesus coming to save us from Him. They could point to hell as a place no loving God would create and say that Jesus's purpose is to help you avoid the fate that God designed. They have to be at odds when one's goal is to help people avoid the punishment the other made for that purpose. Hell doctrine makes sense for an evil God but is hard to reconcile with an all-loving one. There was the question over what happened with Satan. Having a single negative attribute, pride, he is then labelled by the victor as having all bad attributes possible. Could that be propaganda rather than this being changing from pure goodness to pure evil in the blink of an eye? Others have pointed to Satan's body count being basically none, while God's is in the millions. It was God killing the first born of Egypt, God flooding the world, God setting bears to kill children, God setting the capital punishment laws and God giving the commands to commit genocide. Satan, while being claimed as the worst being ever, is not reported to have given such laws, committed such killings or been in command of nations going to war. Some people have pointed to the snake's discussion with Eve about the fruit, saying they would not die but become like Gods knowing good and evil, and when it was done the snake was shown to be right. Adam and Eve did not die on that day, and even God said “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.", so the snake was correct in them becoming more like God and the reason Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden was so that they wouldn't get to live forever. He purposefully introduced death and suffering. We have animal sacrifice, the butchering of innocent animals because the burning carcass smells pleasing to God. We have God demanding blood to atone for sins, and having Jesus killed in a horrific way to appease His wrath. We have the bible using the term "God fearing" to talk about His followers, who were in constant fear of His wrath, such as Acts 2:5 "Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.", would you really fear a loving God? We have petty crimes being harshly punished, such as the victimless crimes of picking up sticks on the Sabbath, trying to stop the Ark from falling or a massacre for insulting a man's baldness. We have the threats given in Revelation, of end of the world events, mass destruction and war. We have an entire world where the natural ecosystem is built on a predator/prey interaction, resulting in horrific death and pain on a daily basis. With all of these factors running against our morals, it becomes a challenge to try to make a good/loving God fit, when an evil God matches the stories so much better. Some have likened God to a child with an ant farm. The creatures in His care are an amusement to Him, but so far beneath Him as to not be worthy of individual care. If a single ant from a colony of thousands was to die, the child would feel nothing for the loss. There is no empathy when the creatures are so insignificant compared to your own position. This has been suggested as a more likely position for a God to take regarding us. We want to be special, but really God already has angels who are perfectly good, so the only thing He gains from us is worship and amusement. Christians will say our purpose is to love God, but if so that means God created us solely for His own praise. Not caring about our suffering or lives, just making beings to say how great He is and how much they love Him. He already has heaven and angels, so a place exists with no pain and suffering, but He decided that pure goodness was not enough and created a place of short lives, disease and predation. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 17 Author Share Posted January 17 The Problem of the Garden of Eden The story of the Garden of Eden is found in Genesis 2 and tells of the creation of the first man and woman, creation of animals and some magic trees found within. There are three general ways the story can be interpreted, either as complete literal fact, as a true place with real people but changed over time or telling stories about that time that maybe more of a moral story than true events, or those who say the whole story is just a moral story and no such place exists. The majority of Christians hold to one of the first two options, in that the garden really existed, but there is no agreement on which parts are true facts and which are embellished stories. Some will point to the bible's description as a real-world place, Genesis 2:10-13 "A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters. The name of the first is the Pishon... The name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through the entire land of Cush. The name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs along the east side of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.", and yet with this description given and people living within those areas for thousands of years, there has been no location for such a garden found. You would expect a garden defended by a "cherubim and a flaming sword" would stand out from any more mundane locations. Adam is said to have been formed from the dirt, while Eve was made from Adam's rib. This can be a contradiction used by apologists who argue against abiogenesis, where they will often say "life can't come from non-life" while believing exactly that for Adam and Eve. They make special allowance because this was claimed to be magic, so the universal rule being set doesn't apply to their own beliefs. Special pleading where the rule must be followed for non-believers but doesn't have to apply equally for the believer. The main supernatural part of the story revolves around a pair of trees "In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.". According to the story eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will cause you to gain such knowledge. This begs the question how Adam and Eve's brains were thought to work prior to eating this fruit. To be human and yet have no morals of any kind. God gave them the command that they were not to eat of that fruit, but the story says a talking snake convinced Eve to eat the fruit and she in turn shared it with Adam. As many people have pointed out, if they had no previous knowledge of good and evil, then they had no understanding that failing to follow God's order was wrong. It would be akin to punishing a baby for eating a chocolate you left lying beside it. It is not a moral agent as it has no understanding, just as we don't judge lions for murdering zebras, we don't put moral demands on those who cannot comprehend them. But God does, punishing not just the snake for tricking them, or Eve for disobeying God, but Adam for being tricked. While the bible says in Ezekiel 18:20 "The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.", yet in the Eden story punishment is given to all of humanity. Classically the snake in the garden is thought to be Satan, while most scholars will point to their being no indication that a devil or demon was being thought of. Even if you would grant that idea, it then begs the question why God would allow such a creature into His garden? The more straightforward reading is that this is just a snake, but if so, you are left wondering why it can talk and whether talking animals was a common thing. God curses the snake by saying "You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life.". A strange curse considering snakes already crawl on their bellies and none of them literally eat dust. The snake's punishment for destroying God's plan was to live unchanged, bet that really taught him a lesson. Another strange thing about this story, is the first thing that Adam and Eve did once they learned good from evil was to make clothes for themselves, because they realised, they were naked. This is bizarre as you have to ask why is being naked evil? They were the only people on the planet, so their nakedness could not offend anyone else. They were partners, so seeing each other's nakedness shouldn't have been a concern. It seems to be a shame thing, that they were ashamed of their nakedness, but shame is not evil, so should not have been a result of gaining the knowledge claimed. The whole situation had the overarching question of why God set it up and allowed it to happen as claimed. God had no reason to put the tree within reach of the two humans, He didn't need to have a tree at all. If He really did need the tree for some unfathomable reason, then why make it a fruit bearing tree? Or stick it in China, so the two living in the garden would never reach it. So high it was out of reach, maybe over a lake, with a fence built around it, or put the cherubim with a flaming sword into the garden to defend the tree in the first place. God is claimed to be all-knowing, so He would have known the snakes plan and could have stopped it. He would have known the humans would fail His test, so why go through such hoops? He knew exactly what would happen but took no steps to stop it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 18 Author Share Posted January 18 The Problem of the Age of the Earth When science looks at the age of the Earth it is well attested to being an old Earth (4 billion years old), while Fundamentalist Christians will attempt to fight this idea to force a 6000-year-old date. This young Earth idea is primarily due to looking at the genealogies in the bible and by counting back from Jesus to Adam to find a starting date. Generally, the creation of everything is guessed to be ~4000BC, with the global flood occurring ~2500BC. For Christians either age comes with a series of problems and questions. How do we know the age of the Earth is considerably older than 6000 years? Apologists will say carbon dating is unreliable and any time it shows an old time the results are wrong. This ignores the fact that there are 26 different forms of radiometric dating, so one of the first pieces of evidence is to test samples using multiple techniques and confirm that the results agree. Scientists have been calibrating radiometric dating for decades. One way this can be done is finding a source for which the date is known (counting tree rings, looking at the layers in ice core samples or ancient writings that declare when they were created) and making sure that tests done on such samples gives consistent answers that match what we know. Thousands of such tests have been run and the accuracy is not doubted by any experts in the field. One way of confirming an old age is by looking at annual layering. For ice core samples this is seeing the freeze/thaw cycles of each year which leaves distinct bands that can be counted. Some of the ice sheets at the poles are over 2 miles deep and layering from samples taken can show close to a million years of seasonal layers. Other examples include sediment layers, where mud is laid on an area, dries and bakes in the sun, then the next wet season adds another layer on top. Chalk bed layers, where chalk is created by the shells of sea creatures, so to build up the density required to make the White Cliffs of Dover is a straightforward calculation. Or erosion rates, where a river has slowly eaten its way into a valley and, as they speed is known, the depth can tell you how long this process has been ongoing. In a similar fashion the speed that a glacier carves its way through a valley, and then retreats as the temperatures change, can be calculated based on the huge mass of ice being moved. There are 200,000 glaciers in the world, with the largest over 400km long, but even this would pale in comparison to the continent size ice sheets of the last ice age. Or we can look at the speed of the tectonic plate movements and the growth of mountains from the plates impacting. There are so many ways to confirm the age of the Earth that this is not a debated subject amongst scientists. We know a young Earth doesn't work due to major conflicts with the evidence we have. One big issue is the share volume of biomass (all living plants and animals throughout history) that would have to exist in only a few thousand years. There is physically not enough space to fit it all in. There is evidence for many global extinction level events in the world's history, including the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and both the start and finish of the last ice age (let alone evidence for at least 5 different ice ages), but to have such events all in quick succession does not give the planet time to recover from the last. We also have the human population growth rate, where experts say there were 6-7 million people in 4000BC, but the apologist needs to argue that it was only 2. Having millions of people all around the world matches the growth of empires in far flung parts of the world, from South America to China, but trying to go from only 2 people runs into needing to have population growth rates dozens of times faster than the best it's ever been (in a first world nation with modern medical support, verse the stone age people we are talking about) and you have to have people migrating to every distant continent at high speeds to develop their unique histories and heritage. They have to try and figure a way for humans to diversify to all of the distinct races that we see today, and for the numerous ancient human settlements to have been populated thousands of years later than science shows. For example, there is Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, the oldest known human settlement which maybe as much as 10,000 years old, the Mehrgarh ruins in Pakistan believed to be 9000 years old, the Barnenez site in France believed to be from 4800BC, as well as sites in England, Italy, Peru, Iraq, India and Scandanavia that are all in the 3000-4000BC range. These civilizations are so widespread, that to think a single middle eastern family managed to reach all of these areas, with enough manpower to build such structures, is a frankly ridiculous claim. On the other hand, you have Christians who attempt to find a middle ground, old Earth acceptance but still having a creation event. While this can overcome some of the issues mentioned it does introduce new challenges for the believer. Were Adam and Eve not the first people? If not, does that not make the story incorrect in its claims? If they were then you are back to the population problem, as having billions of years before humans were created doesn't fix the problems with the short time since they were. If there were other people in the world, did they not know good and evil having not eaten from the tree? Were these other creation events happening around the world and if so, how can we know when the bible doesn't mention anything about such things? If you are going to add evolution to get to Adam and Eve, then who were their parents and why were they not human? Did they have souls? Is the bible incorrect when it says Adam was made from dirt and Eve from his rid? Where does original sin enter the picture if you move further away from the biblical story? If animals lived for millions of years before humans, then why did God setup evolution, a process with the death of countless creatures at its core, as the process to get there? Why did He include at least 5 extinction level events prior to humans, wiping out 75-80% of all life on Earth multiple times? Genesis 4:17 also says "And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son—Enoch", which begs the question how do you build an entire city when the story says there is only one family in the world? Let alone the fact that the only women available for him to marry and have children with would be his own sister. So, the first family are expected to populate the world via incest, even though we know that such activities lead to genetic problems and eventual sterility. Apologists will often try to overcome this problem by saying those first people had some kind of super, magical DNA that didn't degrade like we know it should. Of course, there is nothing in the text to say any such thing, so at best this idea is pure fantasy being used to bandage over the clear problem with the story, or at worst is an immoral act that is banned throughout the majority of the world. When your worldview puts you in the position of having to argue in favor of incest being a good thing, it really should make you consider the morality of that position. Fundamentalists will say anyone not reading Genesis literally are not reading the bible correctly and will even go as far as saying those who do not, are not real Christians. More moderate Christians will struggle between the options of old earth creation, Genesis being completely metaphor/moral story, some degree of science acceptance but choosing to draw a line at some point to force a magical creation into history. They can see the scientific evidence, so don't want to deny the facts (unlike Fundamentalists who must deny all fields of science to make their position work) but still need to fit God in, when the gap that used to be in our knowledge for Him to fit in has since closed. This can be a divisive split between Christians, and many find the share amount of science denial required to be off putting to this worldview. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 The Problem of Biblical Contradictions As with every subject there is no agreement on how inerrant, that is without error, the bible must be. The hardline apologists will say it is perfect and any errors claimed are either our lack of understanding or passages out of context. Some Christians will try to take a more middle of the road position, believing that the original documents would have been inerrant, but that changes by scribes, translators or later additions may have moved away from the originals in some way. They would usually say the message has been retained, but perhaps some parts should be taken with a grain of salt. The extreme other direction are Christians who say the bible was written by men who were trying to understand things far beyond them, so they gave stories and details about events that fit with how they wished it could be, but none of it was true, only the spirit and moral guidance can be seen as getting us closer to goodness. Because of these various conflicting views, it is impossible to say that errors in the bible will be an issue for all believers, but certainly for Fundamentalist types the idea cannot be tolerated. But even for those who are more liberal with their understanding of how perfect the text is, once errors can be shown and perhaps even accepted, then it has to cast doubt on the teachings, the stories, the characters and really how any of it can be believed. How can we know anything about God or salvation if we cannot trust the book that makes the claims? Some atheist sites have created lists of hundreds of biblical contradictions, but this mass dump of so many claims can work against the goal, because as soon as a believer finds a few of the claimed contradictions as easily explained, then it is possible to hand wave away the entire work as a failure. Although, for a believer with a presupposition of inerrancy, it is likely they will hand wave away all such issues regardless of how clear cut they are. Some are very minor, a single digit of difference, which most Christians will say was a translation issue, but which the Fundamentalists will still fight against as even that level of mistake is unacceptable to them. For example, one such minor contradiction would be how many stalls for horses did King Solomon have? "Forty thousand" in 1 Kings 4:26 or "Four thousand" in 2 chronicles 9:25. A single zero of difference between the numbers, quite likely a small mistake by a scribe. Even this tiny error would have to be rejected by Fundamentalists. A few examples of contradictions: Jesus's last words are recorded differently across the gospels: Mark 15:34 and Matt 27:46 = “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” John 19:30 = “It is finished.” Luke 23:46 = “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” What is written on the cross differs: Matt 27:37 = “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” Mark 15:26 = “The King of the Jews” Luke 23:38 = “This is the King of the Jews” John 19:19 = “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” The bible both says that children will and will not be punished for the sins of the father: Deuteronomy 24:16 “Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin.” and Ezekiel 18:20 “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.” Verse: Deuteronomy 5:9 (repeated in Numbers and Exodus) “I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me”. Jeremiah 32:18 “You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them”. Isaiah 14:21 “Prepare slaughter for his sons because of the guilt of their fathers”. And of course, the famous slaughter of the first born of Egypt was a direct case of punishing the children for the crimes of their parents. The story of Jesus casting demons into pigs is repeated in both Matthew 8:28-33 and Luke 8:26-34, but the stories have significant differences, including changing the region name, one victim verse two and what Jesus says differs. Having doubt cast on the words Jesus spoke is a major problem for Christians, as if it can be shown there are words recorded that he never spoke, or that are incorrect to what was actually said, then that doubt would need to be applied to the rest of the NT. You also have the famous biblical demand for punishments to be even to the crime committed, "an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, life for life" is repeated in multiple places (Matthew 5:38, Deut 19:21, Exodus 21:24) and is greatly lauded by Christians as showing how just and moral God is by setting proportionate punishment as the basis for law. Yet many times this law isn't followed, for example God speaking to Cain after finding he murdered his brother, doesn't kill him as the law says but instead exiles him to the land of Nod, or the children who insulted Elijah for being bald, weren't punished in a like for like fashion but were torn to pieces. The famous example of the old man collecting sticks on the sabbath, a victimless crime that is judged by God to be worthy of the death penalty. How is any of this proportional to the crimes committed? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 19 Author Share Posted January 19 The Problem with the God of the Gaps In ancient times people had many phenomena in the world that they just couldn't explain. What is the sun? Why is there disease? What causes lightning? With no ability to test or investigate these things they had to remain a mystery for thousands of years. It is into these gaps in human knowledge that God was often inserted. If the local townsfolk were looking to an elder or leader for answers, and they had none, they had to find a way to provide a filler for that gap. By claiming it was an invisible being it made the claim unfalsifiable, and hence could be claimed as correct. It is only once we get to our modern era that technology like microscopes, telescopes, computers, electricity and the ability to create objects out of metal, plastic or glass have allowed us to investigate these things and determine the actual causes. In every single case the phenomena have had a natural explanation. Imagine trying to tell a person 2000 years ago about germ theory. There are tiny creatures, so small they are invisible, and they coat everything and everyone. If certain types of these creatures get inside you and start reproducing then you become sick, and then the invisible antibodies and blood cells inside you try to kill the germs. It all sounds so ridiculous, and yet this is now clearly understood and well documented. To the person back then this disease would have appeared out of nowhere, like magic. They may ask "what have I done to deserve this?", which could be explained with evil Gods/spirits or a wrathful God punishing you for some rule you didn't follow. Some of this mis-attributing cause to God can be harmless, but in some cases, such as mental illness, it can lead to horrific outcomes. The Christian churches often performed exorcisms to remove demons from people who were suffering from mental illness. There are court cases where priests were found guilty of killing the person during such rituals, or at best torturing them for extended periods in an attempt to fix what we would now recognise as epilepsy, schizophrenia or similar non-supernatural illnesses. Some apologists try to say that if we can't show something now, with our modern technology, then it obviously cannot be done. For example, saying "With all our modern technology you still can't create life in a lab, this goes to show it can't be done naturally". This is a silly claim, both for the strange idea that our current level of technology is a peak of what we can achieve and because our very ability to investigate questions like where life came from is very new. The first electron microscope was made in the 1930's, home computers weren't a thing until the 1980's, the internet wasn't available for general use until the 1990's and websites that are now taken for granted, are very new, for example YouTube only started in 2005. It has only been in the last decade that computing power has got great enough to allow complex modelling of phenomena such as galactic bodies. Researchers in the field of abiogenesis say there have been more breakthrough tests in the last 30 years, than the previous 3000 put together. God has been pushed out of all of those gaps that existed back in the day. Lightning, seasons, celestial bodies, disease, volcanoes and every other phenomenon in our world has now been looked into and found to have a natural cause with no God needed. These topics are no longer questioned, there aren't people in first world countries still holding onto the idea that Zeus or Thor are creating lightning to throw at people that annoy them. This makes God an ever-receding solution, with the gaps that believers were convinced He filled, slowly being stripped away. At this point there are really only the two extreme edges of our knowledge left for apologists to insert God into, that being the start of the universe and the start of life. The start of the universe is a one-time event, billions of years ago and billions of light years away, due to this it may well just be that there is not enough evidence that can be gathered to come to a final conclusion. The start of life seems more plausible that we will find an answer as to how that can be done, but that answer might be decades or even centuries away. Still looking at sciences 100% success rate on such investigations up to this point, it would be a big claim to say "You may have been right the last ten thousand times, but this time it really is God!" 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
◊ Weezer ◊ Posted January 20 Share Posted January 20 Wertbag, you are doing a lot of work here, and presenting some very good information!! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 20 Author Share Posted January 20 14 hours ago, Weezer said: Wertbag, you are doing a lot of work here, and presenting some very good information!! I thought i was done at 30, then at 40, now I've got a few more in mind so i have no idea when the list will be complete. Perhaps i should collect in all into a book? I enjoy writing but I'm not keen on marketing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 The Problem of Goodness This can be seen as a mirror image to the problem of evil but consideration from a different angle leads us to different questions and to consider different facets of the idea. At its simplest form you can ask why good things happen to bad people. When good people, including the most devout Christians, are suffering, there are people who are horrible but living great lives. A serial killer who is never caught, a drug lord living in wealth and luxury, or a child rapist winning the lottery. Christians have to agree there is no justice in this world and yet the bible talks of Gods many attempts to punish evil, for example destroying Sodom for their bad hospitality. At best we can say such efforts are inconsistent, as places that have terrible abuse going on are at no risk of God doing the same to them today. There are tribes of cannibals who have killed and eaten Christian missionaries, but Gods wrath has never descended upon them, leaving them to live out their lives in peace and happiness. A thing you can try with friends and family is to ask the hypothetical question "if you were God for a day, with unlimited power, what would you do to make the world a better place?" You will get many different answers from the obvious cure cancer, ebola, aids, malaria or numerous other diseases, wiping out parasites like hook worm, Guinea worm or ticks, stopping natural disasters, disabling landmines, giving the world a form of unlimited clean energy, striking dead the worlds serial killers, child rapists or drug lords. The amount of good that could be done is immeasurable. Apologists will say "you want a perfect world", which while that should be within Gods ability, that is not what is being said. We are considering doing good in the world by reducing suffering, its not perfection but it could easily be better than it is. Apologists may also say this world is a test, so not having the good things we can think of is all part of the character building. You would have to ask why an all-knowing God needs a test when He already knows the outcome? It also raises the question as to whether you can grow your character in heaven? If heaven is a place of pure goodness then why have anything else in existence? If you start with perfection then anything else must be worse. The most good that could be done would be creating everyone in heaven, then we skip the test, the suffering and death and just focus on being good forever. Apologists will also ask by what standard are you judging good and evil? If you have no objective standards then anything you deem good or bad is just your subjective opinion. But the standard that can be pointed to is the Apologists own. If we were to ask them whether they find child rape abhorrent or whether they consider serial killers evil, we would expect a universal condemnation of such things. Perhaps we appeal to the "morals written on our hearts" that the bible talks of. If so our subjective opinions should align. Either way we should be able to say certain things would be good and would make the world a better place. An all-good God should want such goodness to come to be, so His failure to do the obvious good that we can see stands in conflict with the claims being made of Him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 23 Author Share Posted January 23 The Problem of Arrogance There is an intrinsic over confidence that comes with religion. The unshakeable belief that I'm right and the majority of the world is wrong. That the creator of the universe loves me specifically, not all those other heretics. That the book I have in hand is the true word of God, and all other holy books are wrong, even the ones I've never looked at. That I'm so convinced that I'm right that nothing could ever convince me to change my mind. If evidence was presented it would be ignored outright because if it doesn't align with my view then it is by default wrong. When you have famous apologists like William Lane Craig saying he would ignore all counter evidence because nothing could convince him over the witness of the holy spirit, you are setting yourself as an untouchable, unfalsifible holder of truth that supersedes proof and logic. This is in stark contrast with the position espoused by most unbelievers who will commonly say they would believe based on compelling evidence. That does not mean unbelievers would worship God, as you'd still need to prove He was worthy of such praise, but accepting you could be wrong and being open to having your mind changed is a much more humble position that the "I'm definitely right" position some believers hold. Another place this can raise its head is in discussions about science, where some believers will fall back on an argument from incredulity, that is saying "If I don't get it, it must be wrong". Putting themselves forward as the standard by which science should be judged. For example "I can't imagine life forming from a chemical interaction, so it must not have happened". When it is pointed out that experts in the related fields, people who have spent their lives researching these subjects, believe that the big bang, abiogenesis or evolution are all perfectly plausible, the believer will hand wave away their input in favour of accepting their own limited understanding as correct. My morals are superior because they are objective. Christians may have argued over the meaning of various bible verses for centuries but luckily I've got it right, its so obvious i don't know why everyone doesn't see it exactly like me. There maybe hundreds of denominations but my one is the correct one. There are some ideas and traditions that have this arrogant, I'm right and everyone else is wrong position. There are humble and respectful Christians as well, but sadly the reasonable voices are often quieter and in some cases looked down on by their fellow believers for not being strong in their faith. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 28 Author Share Posted January 28 The Problem of Evaluating Evidence At its most simplified, the process of evaluating any claim follows a few core components. These are not all that is involved but for illustrative purposes this simple version will help us to view the concept. When a claim is made the two immediate things, we sub-consciously do is to consider the "who" and "what". The "who" is considering the trustworthiness of the source of the claim. Do you believe they are a good source and hence positive to accepting the claim, or a poor source and hence a negative to belief. The "what" is the object of the claim, is it something that you have experience of or understanding of, in which case you may easily take it as a positive that the claim is true, or is it something beyond your current knowledge, in which case it maybe a negative to easy acceptance. For example, your brother comes to you and says he has adopted a dog. The "who" is your brother, a source for which you have a long history and believe he is a trustworthy source, so instantly you are set to believe his claim. The "what" is a dog, a mundane claim as you are aware of millions of people owning such things. With two positive checks you would likely accept this claim with no further evidence required. Example two, your brother comes to you and says he's adopted a dragon. The "who" remains the same, a trustworthy source, but now the "what" is something which in your experience doesn't exist. One positive and one negative leaves you in the middle, with the only way to resolve that being to source additional data to clarify. Perhaps he meant a virtual pet, or a more mundane water dragon. If he insists that it's a winged, fire breathing dragon, then the additional data would need to be in personally viewing the creature. If he couldn't or wouldn't produce the creature, then you would be pushed towards disbelief. In a similar way a bad source with a mundane claim would be put into the "needs confirmation" category, while a bad source with a claim outside of your experience would be considered most likely false until considerable evidence could be put forth to overcome both the sources poor history and the claims unlikely status. This leads us to the second discussion point, that belief is not a yes/no, black and white question. We may hold something as strongly true due to the quantity of evidence, or weakly true as it was heard, considered plausible but with little evidence to confirm it is true. One way (there are many ways, this is just a simple structure to allow us to consider the many variations) is to look at it as a 7-step gradient: Know it is true - Strongly believe it is true - Weakly believe it is true - Do not know - Weakly believe it is false - Strongly believe it is false - Know it is false In this example the term "know" is used in the common usage, that being held beyond reasonable doubt. There are always unfalsifiable fringe claims such as living in a computer simulation, so no knowledge claim is ever given as complete understanding. A weak belief could be something overheard, read but not confirmed, perhaps from an unknown source. Something plausible with no supporting evidence, for example you may have heard you should pee on a jellyfish sting but couldn't name the source for that claim or have any clear idea if it is all types or just some. You may not be surprised to learn that belief was incorrect and would likely change to viewing it otherwise with little counter evidence. A strong belief is something for which you have some quantity of evidence, so are happy to believe in the claim while admitting your data set is incomplete and doubts could exist, but the preponderance of evidence is pointing in one way. You would be open to changing your mind but would need to both counter the evidence already available and provide new evidence to push you in the other direction. Knowing on the other hand, is where the scales are tipped one way and the evidence in opposition has been considered and proven in error. There are no reasonable arguments against the claim and mountains of evidence in favor of it, so there is little to no doubt remaining. For example, we may say we know the Earth is a sphere and not flat. The "who" is the scientific community on one side and internet conspiracy theorists on the other. The evidence is overwhelming in one direction, but only if all of that data is considered. One side has a working map and model, while the other has neither. This should push our belief out to knowing the shape is a sphere. Considering our earlier examples, if your brother claims to have a dog, you may not have seen the dog or any evidence of it, but knowing the source and that the claim is mundane you may well put that straight into a strong belief category. Once you have seen the animal, then it would likely move to a known status. For the examples of a poor source or claim outside of your experience, this should start in the "Do not know" category, as there is equal doubt to likelihood, so until more data is available you can't believe or disbelieve in that claim. With all of that said, it is still a subjective endeavor. Many of the considerations include our upbringing, education, experience, how much trust we put in a source and how much surrounding data we are aware of. Two people may look at the same set of data and come to different conclusions due to these differing starting points. While one person may accept their brother's word, to anyone outside of that family he is just some guy. While a person may be aware of what a giraffe is, for someone who has never heard of one may struggle to believe a building size animal covered in spots exists. One big problem arises when the sources are equal for and against. Experts on both sides of a claim, equally qualified and disagreeing on the conclusion. We are all lay people in the majority of fields, so we need to rely on those who are experts and have studied such questions for decades to reach a clear answer. If such expert disagreements are put before us, we can either evaluate the experts (are they bringing in bias? Are they a vocal fringe or a considerable group? Are their other claims well researched, well received and widely accepted? etc), we can attempt to work through the data ourselves, passing the counter claims back and forth between the sides to try and determine which is making the invalid jumps or is unable to answer follow up questions, or we can put the whole claim into the unknown category until such a time as further data becomes available or the counter arguments clarify the outstanding disagreements. Where does that get us in regard to religious claims? One common saying is "get them while they are young", this is due to us being unable to test the "what" part of a claim prior to us having a clear understanding of what is and isn't in existence. Children under around 7 years old have to rely solely on the "who" part of the determination as there is no list of "what" in their understanding. This means children told from birth that Allah, Vishnu or Odin are true, will move those straight into a strong belief category because the "who" is their parents, elders, peers and authority figures in their lives. They are hardwired to accept the words of those elders as correct, and once the worldview is altered to accept these ideas then all other ideas are viewed against this accepted data, even though it has little or no evidence to support it. Starting with the presupposition that a God exists becomes the base fact that all other facts are compared to, while the base belief itself is not considered against the same pattern as it is already in place. We see this worldwide with religious families teaching their children from birth, and ~90% of them grow up to accept what they were taught is true. Hindu countries keep having new generations of Hindu believers as that is what they are taught to believe before they can evaluate the claim, and the same pattern holds true for Muslim and Christian countries. If children are not taught a religious tradition from birth and instead are only given the claims to evaluate once they are older, then the majority of the time the beliefs won't be accepted. Once the "what" list is built up, then comparing miracles, angels, demons and magic to what is known to exist finds those things being labelled as myth and legend. The "who" category is empty of God experts, as there is no one who can show direct communication or the ability to perform miracles as the holy books say was done in the past. With the "who" being some guy who was taught what to say, they should be in the negative or at best, unknown category. We also come to understand that confidence tricksters are famous for getting you to like them first, then lying once you have accepted them as a trusted source. Once we understand that our "who" list needs to be carefully vetted then we should be accepting claims a lot less readily. However, due to confirmation bias, we begin looking at the "what" first and if that matches what we want to see, then we accept the "who" as positive because they are saying what we want to hear. If you were already holding a belief in God, your "what" category now includes invisible, supernatural, otherworldly and magic beings, so any claim of angels, demons, heaven, hell or miracles is automatically given a positive acceptance, and coming from someone in a position of authority you have a positive "who" as well. All such claims can therefore be accepted as true, but equally so for all of the competing and contradictory religions out there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 28 Author Share Posted January 28 The Problem of Popularity For arguments sake let's grant that every single Christian will be saved, to reach heaven and avoid punishment. That is all of the differing denominations, all differing views, all of the ones that other groups consider heretics or not true Christians, the lot. In that case we have ~2 billion Christians from the total world population of ~8 billion, or the all-powerful God of the universe only able to convince ~25% of people that He is real. Of course, if we attempt to say a certain denomination or tradition is correct, then at best you have ~1 billion Catholics, but if they are idol worshipping heretics as many Protestants believe, then the number must drop even further perhaps to the 200 million Orthodox followers, 200 million Pentecostal followers or one of the 35 million Unitarian believers. Or if we look back at all humans ever, an estimated 100 billion people, then Christianity makes up ~3% of that total. A fairly terrible result for a God we are told wants us to know Him and wants us to be saved. Some apologists have used the line "Do you really think you are smarter than 2 billion Christians? Do you really believe that many people could all be wrong?", but this can be flipped to ask the question "Do you really think you are smarter than the 6 billion non-Christians? Do you really believe that many people could all be wrong?". Christianity is the largest religion ever, but to look to such numbers as a sign that the claims are correct is an appeal to popularity. Having large numbers of people believing in something does not increase the chance of that thing being true. Historically we have plenty of examples of the majority of people believing things that are now known to be false. Disease is caused by your humors being out of balance, the sun orbits the earth or natural disasters are God's wrath. Mass belief is taught belief, so if a lot of people have been taught incorrect ideas, then that will be the general understanding of that phenomenon. It is not until a better answer is known and there is time for the corrected answer to be taught, that mass belief in false ideas can be phased out. You could equally ask why 1.5 billion Muslims is not convincing to you, or the billion Hindu believers. There are massive numbers of people who follow each of these competing religions, and yet the followers of each must believe that the majority of the world is wrong and only they are right. The religious will happily point the finger at those of other religions, and their false teachings, but will not see that the same pattern of mass taught belief accounts for the popularity of their own set of beliefs. We can also look at the growth rate of Christianity as apologists will point to as a sign of its truth. If we do, we are still left with the question as to how fast is fast enough for it to be convincing that it wasn't just natural growth via missionaries and conversions? The Mormon church was only created in 1830 and in less than 200 years has grown its membership to ~17 million members. This would be seen by Christians as a sign that people can be easily convinced of a falsehood, and yet if they wish to say the growth of Christianity is a sign of divine favor, then why would the same explosive growth of Mormonism not be the same sign? In similar fashion the Jehovah's Witnesses were named in 1931 and in less than a century it has grown to over 8 million members. Is that fast enough to be a sign that people are guided by the holy spirit, or would this just be seen as natural growth due to evangelism? If it is natural, then should we really be considering the growth of Christianity as an exception? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 28 Author Share Posted January 28 The Problem of Sex Christianity has a long history of being uptight and sexually repressed. For non-believers' sex is a healthy, normal, natural part of life, we are all here because our parents had sex (as icky as that thought is for many). The term missionary position is believed to have been coined by missionaries who were horrified to find people having sex in other positions, with some seeing doggy style as mating like beasts. Part of their teaching then became the "right" way to have sex. This was not unique, with many Christians of the view that sex was a chore, a test or evil. Something that should be done for procreation but should not be enjoyed as that is given into animal instincts and lust, which would be sin. This has led to numerous religious groups imposing celibacy on its priests, so rather than being a natural human interaction, it becomes something horrible and worth avoiding. Famously John Kellog invented the breakfast cereal cornflakes as a sexual desire suppressant. He followed in the footsteps of the Reverend Sylvester Graham, of graham cracker fame, with the idea that sex and lust was a sin, so one way to reduce that was to eat a plain, dull meal. They had the view that it was preferable to be a eunuch rather than suffer the sin of lust. This was taken from Matthew 19:12 "For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.". Jesus highlights that there are those who removed their genitals to be closer to God. Women were poorly treated throughout most of history, considered lesser than men and given less rights and consideration under law. In the case of sex their consent was not considered, they had a wifely duty, so must have sex at their husband's command, as Genesis 2:16 says "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.". There is a clear double standard promoted by the bible, that a woman must be a virgin but that doesn't apply to men. In Deuteronomy 22:13-22 it talks of a woman being accused of not being a virgin. If she can prove she was by showing the blood-stained marriage sheet, then the husband must pay the father a fine, however if the woman can't prove she was a virgin then she is stoned to death "If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death." Deuteronomy goes on to say that adultery will be punished by death, but in the case of rape the woman may still die if she didn't scream "the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help". Doesn't seem to consider a knife being held on her, a hand over her mouth or the threat of physical assault, if you don't scream then you are brutally killed on top of your rape. But perhaps the most horrific part of these verses is Deuteronomy 22:28-29 "If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives." So, the woman raped is forced to marry her rapist, while the only person given compensation is the father for the damage to his property. The only thing that changes it from an activity worthy of death was whether the woman was pledged to be married, there is no consideration to the harm to the victim. The churches views on sex have resulted in great harm. No sex before marriage has led to numerous teenage marriages, which are often based on lust and teenage hormones rather than a clear understanding of how their values align. Sadly, a high divorce rate and unhappy marriages can result from this. There are also cases of girls having anal sex because that way they do not break their hymen, and hence can technically still claim to be a virgin. Another teaching is that condoms are evil, and this view is promoted throughout the aids ravaged African nations, making the one thing that is cheap and effective at stopping the spread of the deadly disease, banned from use. The other area that Christianity has caused great harm is in gay relationships. For unbelievers what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own home is their business, but for the church that activity is directly against God and hence evil. The bible is clear to kill homosexuals, as stated in Leviticus 20:13 "If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death". This law has led to countless executions, imprisonment and forced castration throughout the centuries. A law directly from God to kill someone for a victimless crime. Another example of an all-loving God being selective with His love. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 28 Author Share Posted January 28 The Problem of God's Mystery God's ways are above ours. It is like an ant trying to understand a human, we just don't have the capacity to know. These and other similar sayings point to God being unknowable, beyond what we can comprehend, while in the next breath the believer will tell you exactly what God is, what He wants and what He doesn't like. He is a mystery when required but is also fully known when laws and commands need to have His stamp of approval. Most Christian traditions hold that some of the teachings are more than secrets, being mystical in nature. They cannot be explained by natural measures, things such as the nature of the Trinity, the virgin birth, and the resurrection. In the Catholic church, the Latin term is "mysterium fidei", "mystery of faith", defined to mean a mystery hidden in God, which can never be known unless revealed by God. This idea of God's mystery is akin to simply saying "I don't know". Why does God allow suffering? God works in mysterious ways, or simply "I don't know". This is also one of the apologists' favorite go to answers to the problem of evil/suffering. "We may not know God's mind, but we can say God must have a morally sufficient reason for allowing such things, we just don't know what that is." This seems to be contradictory, in that if the apologist wishes to claim we have objective morals and such morals are written on our hearts, then we should be able to point to such events as against that moral standard and hence show that God is allowing evil that it is claimed He should not wish to occur. It is the attempt to say, "I don't know... but I do know that He has a reason", both knowing and not in the same breath. There is a category of religions known as "Mystery religions", this term is used for religions where members must be initiated into the group, and only then are the true teachings revealed to them. The religion is a mystery to outsiders, but if you are part of the in-group, then you are given special knowledge. In Christianity's case, early on this was certainly the case, with initiation rites such as baptism, circumcision or declarations of fealty being required. The benefit to the religion is that they can point to outside counter arguments as simply those who don't understand they mystery like we do. Without the revelation that we have, those naysayers are blind to the truth. In modern churches some have relaxed these initiation requirements, but many will still put steps required for full membership, with baptism still being common and, in some cases, even just handing over your bank account details so you can tithe allows you to buy your way into membership. This idea of "I don't know" extends to other claims as well. What is heaven like? The answer should be no one knows, but many will try to tell you exactly what it is like. Same thing for hell, in that we can't visit it, there is debate over what it even is, and while many will say it's an unknown place, they will also go on to tell you what it is like and how it is run. We know nothing of these places, but also here is what we know of them. For many apologists the term "I don't know" is an admission of defeat. If you can't answer, then you are wrong by default. So, they need terms that allow them to say "I don't know" while dancing around the phrase itself. They would rather say "it's a mystery" as that avoids the scary phrase. A non-believer saying "I don't know how the universe began" is seen as a win to an apologist, they have an answer they can assert but the non-believer doesn't and hence victory regardless of proving their claim. If you start mentally changing the word mystery to "I don't know" whenever it is uttered, you will get a much clearer answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted January 31 Author Share Posted January 31 The Problem of the End of the World Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher, that is that he was one of the many preachers who spoke on the end of the world and the coming apocalypse. This is most commonly pointed to in Matthew 24 where Jesus talks of the coming end times, vague statements like "wars and rumors of wars" or "There will be famines and earthquakes in various places". This is topped off by his claim that it was due to happen straight away, Matthew 24:34 "Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened". But of course, that generation did pass away, as has everyone for 2000 years since. Jesus was not alone in thinking the world was going to end, with one of the earliest known being the groups believing the Jewish uprising in 66-70AD was a sign of the end times. We have bishops, several Popes, monks and Christian historians all giving such predictions, over 700 end time prophecies have been made and as we can all see they have all been wrong. This was the founding doctrine of several churches, most famously the Jehovah's Witnesses. Originally publishing that the end times would begin in 1799 and the end of the world would happen in 1914. This was updated to say the end of the world would start in 1914 and finish in 1925. This was again updated in the publication of the book "The Kingdom is at Hand" in 1943. 1975 was suggested as 6000 since the creation of Adam. 1986 was the UN year of peace which some believed to be a sign. And while they have been wrong over and over, they can continue putting out new dates and hand waving away previously confident predictions as not that meaningful. The most famous end of the world was the year 2000, with many religious people saying it was the end. The reasons were many, whether it be a planetary alignment, Jesus's coming, or Satan taking over the world. With the computer Y2K issue seen as a sign, and a Hollywood movie to cash in on the paranoia, it had some people in a complete panic, fleeing to the hills and building underground bunkers. This end of the world went the same way as all the others, only to be rapidly followed by 2012, where the Mayan calendar ended, which again inspired the same panic and another Hollywood movie. When it comes to people looking for signs, it really doesn't take much. "Wars and rumors of wars" has allowed Christians to point to almost every major conflict as a sign, while "famines and earthquakes" are so common that it would be more surprising if we weren't seeing such things. It is estimated that the world has around 20,000 earthquakes a year, so as far as signs go this one is just ridiculous. Many Christians point to "the mark of the beast" as a sign of the end times, but no one seems to agree on what this will be. Some scholars believe the mark of the beast was referring to Roman currency, where the face of the emperor would be printed and only those using the official coins could trade. This idea would mean this wasn't a prophecy but was reporting an already passed event, so many preachers rejected that in favor of other monetary systems. Perhaps the mark of the beast was eftpos, Visa, chip cards or virtual currency. Maybe the mark was a chip to be installed, or Covid injections or mobile phone payment systems. It is easy to cherry pick small parts of the text and attempt to paste them over advancing technology, but this is just another sign of the taught paranoia that has been going on for thousands of years. It is almost every generation of Christians who believe they are in the end times. They look at the horrors in the world and say, "this is it". They have been praying for Jesus to come quickly, and nothing has happened. Even after the list of failures can fill books, people still look to the next one as "maybe this time it's true". More recently we have claims of a planet called Nibiru that would destroy Earth, a super-volcano would erupt, an asteroid would hit Earth or just numerous dates for the rapture. How many times do these prophets have to be wrong before people finally catch on that it's all nonsense? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted February 1 Author Share Posted February 1 The Problem of Univocality Univocality, literally "one voice", is the idea that the bible has a single author or at least acting as though that is the case. It is quite a natural effect to get caught up in, after all the bible is presented as a single book, while we often treat the books within as chapters rather than as separate books with different authors. It is believed the bible had around 40 different authors, written over a thousand years and in several languages (mostly believed to be Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic), however we only see it in its complete, single language version, so those differences are less obvious to modern readers. Some Christians believe the bible is inspired by God, that is that the authors were thinking about God, and it is their view on what He would be like, written in their own words. Others believe that God either influenced them to write what He wanted, or even that He wrote it Himself. The view that it was a single voice doesn't match the data, as we see different writing styles, different genres, different influences and different literacy skills, rather than any kind of single source for all of the various books. One example of where this can be an issue is with the famous "I am" line, first said about God in Exodus 3:14, then centuries later written in John 8:58 about Jesus. With a view of univocality the first saying becomes a prophecy or confirmation of the later due to the intentionality of Jesus's statement. However, with consideration of two separate authors the writer of Exodus would have had no thought that his naming of God would have any influence on later people or writings. The writer of John on the other hand would have had a copy of Exodus in hand, so would have been quite capable of writing his story to match the earlier one, rather than having to be supernaturally influenced to describe it as he did. Another example would be the birth narrative of Jesus as told in Matthew and Luke (the other two gospels do not mention the birth). Many Christians are shocked to hear that the classic story that we all know; Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem due to a census, give birth to Jesus in a manger, visited by shepherds and three wise men follow a star to find them, then give gifts, then the family flee to Egypt, isn't in any single gospel. Luke's gospel starts with an angel visiting Mary and telling her that she will be pregnant and will name the child Jesus. While Matthew's gospel starts with the angel instead visiting Joseph and telling him that his wife is pregnant from the holy spirit and tells him to name the child Jesus. Matthew then skips the birth and jumps straight to the 3 wise men following the star to find Jesus, while Luke doesn't mention the wise men, gifts or the star, instead adding in the census as the reason they travel to Bethlehem and is the only story to mention the manger or the group of shepherds who are visited by angels and go to worship the baby. Luke then ends his story with the parents taking Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to be purified, with no mention of King Herod massacring babies or the family fleeing to Egypt after being visited by another angel as found in Matthew. Matthew then has the family returning years later, after the death of King Herod. The stories told are vastly different, with major events not mentioned in each other. Due to univocality, Christians will take the two accounts and mash them together into one story which is classically known as the nativity story. We do not know for sure which gospel was written first, or what knowledge of the others they had. There is suggestion of another book, the mystery Q source, which they both may have referred to but of which no copies are known. Really the entire birth story is only able to be put together by blending the two accounts by presupposing that they align in their telling. This is unlikely to have been the intent of the first gospel written, and as neither are eyewitness accounts to the story they are telling, it is hard to believe that the authors would be reporting the exact words spoken by the angels, by King Herod or by Joseph and Mary. It seems highly likely that aspects are added solely to align with earlier prophecies, including the Messiah being born in Bethlehem and born to a virgin. With these being written after the case, it is hard not to think the authors wrote the story with that intent rather than a true retelling. Certainly, the census makes little sense for any other purpose, as demanding Joseph return to Bethlehem because he is from the house of David, when David lived around 900 years prior, is a bizarre claim to make. The use of univocality is where many of the modern claims of prophecy come from. The famous suffering servant of Isaiah 53 was understood by the Jews and most likely by the author to refer to Israel. It is only centuries later that those writing of the crucifixion note similarities between the accounts. For a scholar this would point to potential copying or even just pure coincidence, but for those with the single source view it turns a passage which was never listed as prophecy into something that is now fulfilled. It allows the apologist to reinterpret the earlier texts and by claiming a linked narrative they can force prophecy in where it was never intended. When you are writing to specifically tick the box of prophecy, then you aren't writing historical fact or having your prime goal being accurate reporting. The bible doesn't claim to be inerrant, that is an idea forced on it by more modern Christians. If you believe in univocality then you need it to be inerrant, as it is God written and hence can't be in conflict with itself. For those who have a more open view to translation errors, scribal errors or just that the authors weren't all-knowing, perfect beings, then it is possible to accept the many contradictions as changes over time. If you try to say it has a single voice and that God has protected that single message so that we can know that it is all true as written, then you cannot allow a single letter to be out of place. Every contradiction must be fought against, with ad hoc excuses required to patch the holes, while everyone else can simply say we are only human. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted February 2 Author Share Posted February 2 The Problem of Change Over Time The bible tells us that God is unchanging. Malachi 3:6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed” and Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." or Numbers 23:19 "God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind.". Yet we see great change within the bible and within the church. Examples such as breaking the Sabbath being worthy of the death penalty, while now no Christian bats an eye lid to someone working on the weekend, or slavery being codified by God but now the church only want to promote that the abolitionists were Christian and that was their idea all along. What we actually see is Christianity bending to accommodate the changes in science and the changes in societies moral standards, then via reinterpreting or hand waving away passages that stand counter to their new position they are able to claim that what society now sees as good was based on their ideals. There are examples of this from the churches refusal to accept the ideas of Galileo and Copernicus. Martin Luther was quoted as saying "There is talk of a new astrologer [Nicolaus Copernicus] who wants to prove that the earth moves and goes around instead of the sky, the sun, the moon, just as if somebody were moving in a carriage or ship might hold that he was sitting still and at rest while the earth and the trees walked and moved. But that is how things are nowadays: when a man wishes to be clever, he must invent something special, and the way he does it must needs be the best! The fool wants to turn the whole art of astronomy upside-down. However, as Holy Scripture tells us, so did Joshua bid the sun to stand still and not the earth.". This geo-centric view of the world was considered the norm for a large period of our history and the bible was pointed to as supporting this position. The matter was investigated by the Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was foolish, absurd, and heretical since it contradicted biblical creationism. It was said the bible got the science right; it must be true as only God would know the true shape of the world. That is, until it wasn't. When our understanding of the world changed, religion had to change with it. Of course, nowadays all Christians accept the helio-centric model of our solar system and it's not a subject of debate. It is a major problem for Christianity to both claim God is unchanging, with objective moral standards, while in the next breath saying every law He gave in the OT should be ignored. Exodus 22 gives us "Do not allow a witch to live", "Anyone who has sex with an animal is to be put to death", "Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord must be destroyed", and "Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless... My anger will be aroused, and I will kill you with the sword", and yet none of these things are deemed worthy of the death penalty today. God's unchanging moral standards fail to align with what we now believe to be good, so Christianity cast aside those verses which would be abhorrent to our modern sensibilities to say unchanging God has changed His mind. Apologists will try to justify the genocide in the bible, saying that the Caninities were sacrificing babies and were so evil they had to be destroyed. Of course, this doesn't explain why the babies they were so worried about saving were ordered to be killed when the city was taken, and really any time you have a worldview where you find yourself having to defend genocide as a good thing, it should make you deeply consider if you are on the right side. Any non-believer can say genocide is evil, no ifs, buts or maybes. Only Christians have this strange position of having to argue that massacres of entire cities is actually a good thing. Back in ancient times, when these verses were written, it was considered normal for a God to strike down His enemies and make His wrath known. It showed His power, it showed He wouldn't stand for any to go against His objective unchanging morals, and it showed His morals included massacres of those He deemed against Him. In modern days the image of God has changed to be one of peace, love and pure goodness, so an ancient war God conflicts with the more modern peaceful followers. Rather than pointing to God as a brutal killer of His foes, they have changed the narrative to God being an all-loving, all-good, "turn the other cheek" character. It is this change from when Israel was at war and needed a hero figure, to the current day where western society doesn't have to train its population to be ready for attack at any moment, that apologists need to change the story and refocus on the parts of the bible that now match with how we see the world. In modern days Christians will try to insist God loves everyone equally, but in the OT God appears as a tribal war God of the Israelites and shows no compassion or mercy to the other tribes in the way of His chosen people. Women are given less rights and are considered less than men, while slavery is common and accepted. Scholars believe that originally God was seen as the savior to the one tribe of Jews, and filled the roll of guardian, father and law giver of that group. It wasn't until centuries later that Christianity began to grow beyond the bounds of that single tribe, that they needed to expand God's care to include all of the new converts who weren't Israelites. There were many debates within Christianity on how these non-Jewish followers could be brought into the faith. It was hard to demand circumcision, as needing to cut off parts of you to join a religion made it unpopular, so this requirement was dropped. Christians began using the line "we are all made in God's image, we are all children of God" to be inclusive of people from around the world, while ignoring the slaughter and genocide of other groups that God had ordered in the past. We see in the western world that all countries have now adopted forms of democratic government systems, moving away from the monarchies of the past. The bible only talks of monarchies, of lords and kings, not suggesting the system designed around equal rights. God Himself is the "king of kings", a lord above all others. It was the Greeks who invented the idea of voting, with their ideas being used as the basis for all of our political systems to this day. Apologists have now begun claiming the western world is based on Christian values, trying to change once more to see themselves as the group from which all good ideas arise. Democracy is not found in the bible, neither is equality between races, between classes, between sexes or between religions. The apologists will change their view, after the world improves without them, to retroactively claim it was theirs all along. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderator TABA Posted February 2 Moderator Share Posted February 2 @Wertbag,merely clicking the Like button doesn’t come close to expressing my appreciation and admiration for what you have been doing here these past few weeks. I don’t think I have ever come across a more comprehensive, more readable and more convincing dismantling of Christian theology than what you have produced. There are many in this world who would avert their eyes from what you have written, so damning is it to their beliefs, beliefs that they could not even contemplate being mistaken. But after eight years on this site and elsewhere, reading the testimonies of the many for whom Christianity was a burden and even a torment, and whose lives have been transformed by seeing and acknowledging the problems and by giving themselves permission to no longer believe, by having their minds cleansed once and for all of the tangle of theology, dogma and brain-dead morality, I can say that what you have done here has the potential to do enormous good. We will never know how many have read it, and in whom the first seeds of their liberation have been sown, or for whom the logjam of cognitive dissonance or fear has been broken once and for all. This material deserves the widest possible audience and I would love to see it somehow collected, published and distributed widely. It has been said that lies can make it half way around the world before the truth can get its pants on. The lies of theistic religions have prospered for far too long, capturing, even warping, the minds of countless generations. All who speak out and shine light in the darkness deserve the highest praise and respect. Thank you, sir, for all you have done here. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted February 3 Author Share Posted February 3 13 hours ago, TABA said: @Wertbag,merely clicking the Like button doesn’t come close to expressing my appreciation and admiration for what you have been doing here these past few weeks. I don’t think I have ever come across a more comprehensive, more readable and more convincing dismantling of Christian theology than what you have produced. There are many in this world who would avert their eyes from what you have written, so damning is it to their beliefs, beliefs that they could not even contemplate being mistaken. But after eight years on this site and elsewhere, reading the testimonies of the many for whom Christianity was a burden and even a torment, and whose lives have been transformed by seeing and acknowledging the problems and by giving themselves permission to no longer believe, by having their minds cleansed once and for all of the tangle of theology, dogma and brain-dead morality, I can say that what you have done here has the potential to do enormous good. We will never know how many have read it, and in whom the first seeds of their liberation have been sown, or for whom the logjam of cognitive dissonance or fear has been broken once and for all. This material deserves the widest possible audience and I would love to see it somehow collected, published and distributed widely. It has been said that lies can make it half way around the world before the truth can get its pants on. The lies of theistic religions have prospered for far too long, capturing, even warping, the minds of countless generations. All who speak out and shine light in the darkness deserve the highest praise and respect. Thank you, sir, for all you have done here. Thanks, it's been a fun mental exercise. I think I'm pretty much done now, barring adding a conclusion section to summarise the biggest points. I do need to edit some sections, looking back there is more clarity I could give to points and a few bible quotes where I haven't noted the verse number. I've extracted all of it to a document, I'll expand and tidy it up and see about making it into a book. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
◊ Weezer ◊ Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 15 hours ago, TABA said: @Wertbag,merely clicking the Like button doesn’t come close to expressing my appreciation and admiration for what you have been doing here these past few weeks. I don’t think I have ever come across a more comprehensive, more readable and more convincing dismantling of Christian theology than what you have produced. There are many in this world who would avert their eyes from what you have written, so damning is it to their beliefs, beliefs that they could not even contemplate being mistaken. But after eight years on this site and elsewhere, reading the testimonies of the many for whom Christianity was a burden and even a torment, and whose lives have been transformed by seeing and acknowledging the problems and by giving themselves permission to no longer believe, by having their minds cleansed once and for all of the tangle of theology, dogma and brain-dead morality, I can say that what you have done here has the potential to do enormous good. We will never know how many have read it, and in whom the first seeds of their liberation have been sown, or for whom the logjam of cognitive dissonance or fear has been broken once and for all. This material deserves the widest possible audience and I would love to see it somehow collected, published and distributed widely. It has been said that lies can make it half way around the world before the truth can get its pants on. The lies of theistic religions have prospered for far too long, capturing, even warping, the minds of countless generations. All who speak out and shine light in the darkness deserve the highest praise and respect. Thank you, sir, for all you have done here. The same as what TABA said!! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wertbag Posted February 3 Author Share Posted February 3 Conclusion Christianity is the religion following Jesus Christ, a figure for who we know nothing about the majority of his life. With no body, no writings by him, no tomb, nothing even owned by him, and the only source of information being the bible. As the bibles authors report the words of private conversations they were not present for, we can't even be sure that any of words attributed to Jesus ever left his mouth. The bible itself is a collection of books for which there is no agreement on which books should be included. Between versions of the bible there are over a dozen books included in some but not others. The authors are anonymous, the works are undated, and we have no copies of any of the original documents. There is no agreement amongst Christians as to how it should be interpreted, which parts are literal truth verse moral stories. None of the stories of Jesus are firsthand, eyewitness accounts and it is hotly debated as to whether any of the names on the gospels had anything to do with them. The bible is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to disagreements amongst those claiming to be led by the holy spirit. There is no agreement on what God is like, what heaven or hell is like, how salvation is earned, whether Jesus was God, whether the world is young or old and every other moral question that has ever been asked. Believers will claim there are objective moral standards and that those morals are written on our hearts, and yet even amongst devout Christians there is no agreement on any moral issue. Moral issues being highlighted by the horrors of the Old Testament, where we find laws, claimed to be from God, where the death penalty is applied for victimless crimes, where children are killed for the sins of their parents, where slavery is codified and the beating of slaves accepted as legal. Where women are second class citizens with less rights and for who consent was a term never considered. Where the victimless crime of being homosexual is given the death penalty and where we find the all-good God ordering the massacre of entire cities including the children and even animals. Thankfully modern Christians have dropped the laws that come from God's unchanging, objective moral standard. No one is calling for the death penalty for people working on the weekend, or burning witches at the stake as was so popular only a few hundred years ago. Now they are onboard with saying slavery is wrong, that women should have equal rights and genocide is evil. We can all be thankful they have adopted modern moral standards rather than biblical ones. Apologists have a world view which puts them in a position of having to justify slavery, to justify genocide and to justify the evil and suffering we see in the world. When it is claimed God is all-loving and all-powerful, and yet He has not managed to save children from dying bleeding from the eyes as ebola ravages their systems, the results conflict with the attributes being claimed of Him. We have thousands of people who have sought God and failed to find Him. We have prayers unanswered and no sign of Him protecting His most devout followers. He is the world hide and seek champion, and yet it is claimed Jesus taught he would return within a generation. One of the numerous end of the world prophecies which never came true. If any of this was God's plan, then He has failed to convince the majority of the human race that He exists. While Christianity is the largest religion in the world, it still only accounts for quarter of the people in the world. It is claimed God wants us to know Him, and wants a relationship with us and yet the all-powerful God has only managed to convince a minority of the world that any of this is true. We can be moral without God. We can be happy and successful without God. We can explain the universe and everything within it without God. There is no problem of evil or suffering without God. For non-believers the entire endeavor just appears completely man-made, and a natural explanation provides a much clearer and scientifically robust answer. 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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