(5201) How critical thinkers lose their faith in God

It is no surprise that people who tend to think analytically rather than intuitively generally have less belief in God or the supernatural in general. The following discusses research in this area:

How Critical Thinkers Lose Their Faith in God | Scientific American

Why are some people more religious than others? Answers to this question often focus on the role of culture or upbringing.  While these influences are important, new research suggests that whether we believe may also have to do with how much we rely on intuition versus analytical thinking. In 2011 Amitai Shenhav, David Rand and Joshua Greene of Harvard University published a paper showing that people who have a tendency to rely on their intuition are more likely to believe in God.  They also showed that encouraging people to think intuitively increased people’s belief in God. Building on these findings, in a recent paper published in Science, Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia found that encouraging people to think analytically reduced their tendency to believe in God. Together these findings suggest that belief may at least partly stem from our thinking styles.

Gervais and Norenzayan’s research is based on the idea that we possess two different ways of thinking that are distinct yet related. Understanding these two ways, which are often referred to as System 1 and System 2, may be important for understanding our tendency towards having religious faith. System 1 thinking relies on shortcuts and other rules-of-thumb while System 2 relies on analytic thinking and tends to be slower and require more effort. Solving logical and analytical problems may require that we override our System 1 thinking processes in order to engage System 2. Psychologists have developed a number of clever techniques that encourage us to do this. Using some of these techniques, Gervais and Norenzayan examined whether engaging System 2 leads people away from believing in God and religion.

For example, they had participants view images of artwork that are associated with reflective thinking (Rodin’s The Thinker) or more neutral images (Discobulus of Myron). Participants who viewed The Thinker reported weaker religious beliefs on a subsequent survey. However, Gervais and Norenzayan wondered if showing people artwork might have made the connection between thinking and religion too obvious. In their next two studies, they created a task that more subtly primed analytic thinking. Participants received sets of five randomly arranged words (e.g. “high winds the flies plane”) and were asked to drop one word and rearrange the others in order to create a more meaningful sentence (e.g. “the plane flies high”). Some of their participants were given scrambled sentences containing words associated with analytic thinking (e.g. “analyze,” “reason”) and other participants were given sentences that featured neutral words (e.g. “hammer,” “shoes”). After unscrambling the sentences, participants filled out a survey about their religious beliefs. In both studies, this subtle reminder of analytic thinking caused participants to express less belief in God and religion. The researchers found no relationship between participants’ prior religious beliefs and their performance in the study. Analytic thinking reduced religious belief regardless of how religious people were to begin with.

In a final study, Gervais and Norenzayan used an even more subtle way of activating analytic thinking: by having participants fill out a survey measuring their religious beliefs that was printed in either clear font or font that was difficult to read. Prior research has shown that difficult-to-read font promotes analytic thinking by forcing participants to slow down and think more carefully about the meaning of what they are reading. The researchers found that participants who filled out a survey that was printed in unclear font expressed less belief as compared to those who filled out the same survey in the clear font.

These studies demonstrate yet another way in which our thinking tendencies, many of which may be innate, have contributed to religious faith. It may also help explain why the vast majority of Americans tend to believe in God. Since System 2 thinking requires a lot of effort, the majority of us tend to rely on our System 1 thinking processes when possible. Evidence suggests that the majority of us are more prone to believing than being skeptical. According to a 2005 poll by Gallup, 3 out of every 4 Americans hold at least one belief in the paranormal. The most popular of these beliefs are extrasensory perception (ESP), haunted houses, and ghosts. In addition, the results help explain why some of us are more prone to believe that others. Previous research has found that people differ in their tendency to see intentions and causes in the world. These differences in thinking styles could help explain why some of us are more likely to become believers.

Why and how might analytic thinking reduce religious belief? Although more research is needed to answer this question, Gervais and Norenzayan speculate on a few possibilities. For example, analytic thinking may inhibit our natural intuition to believe in supernatural agents that influence the world. Alternatively, analytic thinking may simply cause us to override our intuition to believe and pay less attention to it. It’s important to note that across studies, participants ranged widely in their religious affiliation, gender, and race. None of these variables were found to significantly relate to people’s behavior in the studies.

Gervais and Norenzayan point out that analytic thinking is just one reason out of many why people may or may not hold religious beliefs. In addition, these findings do not say anything about the inherent value or truth of religious beliefs—they simply speak to the psychology of when and why we are prone to believe. Most importantly, they provide evidence that rather than being static, our beliefs can change drastically from situation to situation, without us knowing exactly why.

If Christianity was true, the situation would be reversed. Analytical thinkers would be able to access and integrate all of the confirming pieces of evidence (that at this moment are completely missing) pointing to its truth. Intuitive thinkers would tend to be swayed by other faith-based beliefs and therefore have an overall lower rate of belief in Christianity.

(5202) Thirty reasons for being an atheist

There are many reasons why people embrace atheism as their earnestly-held concept of reality. The following lists thirty of them, of which most atheists will be able to identify with twenty or more:

30 Reasons People Choose Atheism – Housely

Becoming an atheist is rarely a decision made lightly. It often stems from a combination of intellectual inquiry, personal experiences, and philosophical considerations. Here are 30 reasons why people reject religious belief, exploring the thought processes, emotional journeys, and societal factors that lead to atheism.

Lack of Evidence

For many atheists, the lack of empirical evidence supporting the existence of a deity is a decisive factor. They argue that belief in a god should meet the same rigorous standards of evidence as scientific claims. Without verifiable data like tangible miracles or undeniable divine interventions—they find no logical reason to accept theistic claims.

The Problem of Evil

The existence of suffering, evil, and injustice in the world poses a challenge to the idea of an all-powerful, benevolent deity. Atheists argue that a loving God would not allow atrocities like wars, genocides, or illnesses. The disconnect between religious teachings of a just God and the harsh realities of life reinforces atheistic perspectives.

Contradictions in Religious Texts

Atheists also often scrutinize religious scriptures and find contradictions, such as conflicting accounts of creation or historical inaccuracies. They also question moral teachings that condone actions like slavery, war, or discrimination. These inconsistencies and ethically problematic passages lead many to view religious texts as human constructs rather than divine revelations.

Scientific Understanding

As science advances, it provides natural explanations for phenomena that were once attributed to gods. The Big Bang theory, evolution, and neuroscience explain the origins of the universe, life, and consciousness without invoking a deity. Atheists often see science as a more reliable, evidence-based framework for understanding the world than religion.

Cultural Relativity of Religion

Religions vary widely based on geography, with different cultures worshiping different gods. Atheists argue that this cultural relativity suggests religion is a human invention rather than a universal truth. If one’s faith depends largely on where they are born, they reason, it undermines claims of absolute truth.

Indoctrination and Fear Tactics

Religions often use indoctrination from a young age and fear-based tactics, such as the threat of eternal damnation, to enforce belief. Atheists reject this as psychological manipulation, arguing that a truly loving God would not rely on fear or coercion to gain followers, further supporting their disbelief.

Moral Independence

Many atheists reject the notion that morality requires religion. They argue that ethical behavior is rooted in empathy, social contracts, and evolutionary biology, not divine commandments. By rejecting religion, they embrace the freedom to create their own moral code, which they see as more adaptable and relevant to modern society.

Negative Personal Experiences

Personal experiences, such as hypocrisy, abuse, or exclusion within religious institutions, often lead to disillusionment. For example, someone hurt by judgmental or corrupt religious leaders may question the validity of the faith they represent. These experiences can spark a deeper investigation into the foundations of religion, culminating in atheism.

The Burden of Proof

Atheists argue that the burden of proof lies with those making extraordinary claims, such as the existence of a deity. Since believers have yet to provide convincing evidence for their claims, atheists see no reason to accept them. They adopt a position of disbelief until presented with sufficient evidence, much like a jury evaluates a case.

Occam’s Razor

Occam’s Razor suggests that the simplest explanation is often the best. For atheists, natural explanations for the universe and life are simpler and more plausible than invoking a supernatural being. They argue that adding the concept of a god complicates the equation without adding explanatory value.

Religious Wars and Conflicts

The long history of violence in the name of religion, such as the Crusades, witch hunts, and modern terrorism, leads many to reject faith. Atheists view religion as a divisive force that promotes intolerance and hostility, contradicting claims that it promotes peace and love.

Equality and Inclusion

Many atheists are troubled by the discriminatory practices and teachings found in some religions, particularly against women, LGBTQ+ individuals, and other marginalized groups. They reject faiths that perpetuate inequality, finding atheism to be a more inclusive worldview that values human dignity over divine authority.

Freethinking Ideals

Atheists often value intellectual freedom and critical thinking above adherence to dogma. They see freethinking as the ability to question, challenge, and evaluate ideas without fear of divine retribution or societal condemnation. For many, religion imposes limitations on inquiry, particularly when it demands blind faith or unquestioning obedience to authority.

Disillusionment with Prayer

For many atheists, the perceived ineffectiveness of prayer plays a pivotal role in their rejection of religion. They notice that prayers often go unanswered or produce outcomes indistinguishable from chance. This leads to skepticism about the existence of a divine being who listens and responds.

 Naturalistic Worldview

Atheists who adopt a naturalistic worldview believe that everything in existence can be explained through natural laws and processes. They argue that invoking supernatural explanations for phenomena adds unnecessary complexity without providing tangible answers.

 Religious Hypocrisy

The gap between religious teachings and the actions of religious leaders and followers often leads to disillusionment. Scandals involving clergy, such as financial corruption, abuse, or moral failings, expose a contradiction between the principles preached and the behavior exhibited.

Desire for Autonomy

Atheists often reject religion because they value personal autonomy and freedom of thought. They resist the idea of external authorities dictating how they should live, think, or believe. Religious doctrines, which often prescribe specific moral codes, rituals, and life choices, can feel restrictive and incompatible with modern values of individualism.

Lack of Personal Revelation

While many religious believers cite personal experiences or revelations as the foundation of their faith, atheists often report an absence of such encounters. Without tangible or transformative experiences to affirm the existence of a deity, they find it difficult to maintain belief.

Philosophical Materialism

Philosophical materialism—the belief that only physical matter exists—aligns closely with atheism. Atheists who adopt this view reject the supernatural entirely, including gods, spirits, and an afterlife. They argue that everything in the universe can be explained through material interactions and scientific principles.

 Disillusionment with Organized Religion

The perceived flaws of organized religion—such as political entanglement, commercialization, and authoritarianism—drive many toward atheism. Atheists often see religious institutions as more concerned with power and wealth than with genuine spiritual guidance.

 Exposure to Diverse Beliefs

Interacting with people from different religious and cultural backgrounds often leads to questions about the exclusivity of any one faith. Atheists may notice that every religion claims to be the ultimate truth, yet they offer contradictory narratives about the divine.

 A Scientific Mindset

Atheists with a scientific mindset often prioritize skepticism, evidence, and falsifiability. They apply these principles to religious claims and find them lacking in empirical support. Religious concepts such as miracles, creation stories, or divine intervention often fail to meet the rigorous standards of scientific inquiry, leading to their rejection.

Lack of Coherence in Theology

Theological arguments often involve abstract concepts that atheists find incoherent or contradictory. For instance, the idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing God raises questions about free will and the nature of evil. Atheists also challenge the idea of infinite punishment for finite sins or the notion of divine omniscience coexisting with human autonomy.

 Religious Exclusivity

The exclusivity of many religions, which claim to be the sole path to truth or salvation, is a significant turn-off for atheists. They question how a just and loving God could condemn billions of people who follow other faiths or no faith at all. This exclusivity often appears arbitrary and unjust, leading atheists to reject the idea of a deity who demands unconditional loyalty to one specific doctrine.

Existential Freedom

Atheists often find freedom in the idea that life’s meaning is not dictated by an external deity but is something individuals create for themselves. This existential perspective allows them to live authentically, pursuing their passions and values without fear of divine judgment.

Cultural Modernization

As societies modernize, traditional religious beliefs and practices often become less relevant to people. Atheists see this secular shift as a natural progression toward reason and equality. In many developed nations, education, technological advancements, and social progress challenge old dogmas, paving the way for a more skeptical and humanistic worldview.

Rejection of Miracles

Atheists often view miracles as events that lack credible evidence or verifiable causes. For them, stories of divine intervention, such as miraculous healings or supernatural occurrences, can usually be explained through coincidence, psychological biases, or scientific phenomena.

Psychological Insights

Psychological research shows that religious belief can originate from cognitive biases like pattern recognition or the need for agency. Atheists often reject faith after recognizing these psychological mechanisms at play. They argue that religion is a byproduct of human evolution and societal needs rather than evidence of divine existence, choosing to trust empirical findings over spiritual interpretations.

Focus on Humanity

Atheists often prioritize human welfare over divine worship, emphasizing compassion, empathy, and progress. They believe that addressing global challenges—such as poverty, climate change, and inequality—requires human action, not divine intervention. This focus on humanity aligns with their belief in self-reliance and collective responsibility rather than waiting for a higher power to intervene.

A Desire for Truth

Above all, many atheists are driven by a commitment to truth. They reject comforting illusions or unproven claims, choosing instead to base their worldview on observable, testable, and verifiable facts. For them, the pursuit of truth is intellectually fulfilling and a moral imperative, even if it leads to uncomfortable or unpopular conclusions.

If there was a 31st reason, it would be that the Bible and other religious texts show no divine influence and seem instead to reflect the ignorance, biases, and brutality of the people who wrote them. But when asked, most atheists will simply respond with ‘lack of evidence’ as their main point of (lack of) belief.

However, as expressed above, there are multiple facets to how a person can internalize their patterns of belief. Atheism is consistent with virtually every piece of evidence available as well as every mode of rational thinking. This suggests strongly that atheism is ‘true’ by any definition.

(5203) Nativity – the ultimate examination

The gospels of Luke and Matthew are wildly inconsistent when presenting details of Jesus’ birth. These two stories cannot be blended without creating insurmountable contradictions. This destroys the concept that the Bible is without error. The following is a comprehensive look at this problem:

The Fabrication of the Christian Nativity Story – Bad News About Christianity

Biblical inconsistencies are smoothed out and covered up so well by theologians that many Christians believe that the Bible tells a reliable and consistent story. Take for example the nativity story that is told each Christmas with the aid of selected gospel passages. Many Christians believe that the four canonical gospels contain consistent versions of the story of Jesus” birth, as re-enacted by millions of school children each year. A summary of it is as follows:

The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and Joseph with the news that Mary, a virgin, is pregnant and will give birth to Jesus. Before the birth Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, Joseph’s home town, for a census and to be taxed. When they get to Bethlehem they can find no room at the inn and are obliged to stay in a stable. There, on 25 th December in AD 0, accompanied by an ox and an ass, Mary gives birth to Jesus. Lacking suitable facilities the new parents use the animals” manger (feeding trough) as a crib for their new-born child. A host of angels appears to shepherds watching over their flocks in fields nearby and directs them to the site of the birth. Meanwhile, a star appears in the sky. This star leads three kings, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar to the site. Mounted on camels they follow the star, taking with them three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh. On the way the three kings let Herod the Great, King of Judea, know the purpose of their journey. Now aware that a King of Israel has been born, Herod orders the murder of all male children under the age of two. Having been warned of this by the angel Gabriel, Joseph and Mary escape to Egypt with their baby, until it is safe to return to Nazareth.

Familiar though this story is, it appears nowhere in the Bible. It is a conflation. Only two of the four canonical gospels give an account of the nativity at all. The two narratives give different and often contradictory accounts of the circumstances of Jesus” birth. Many of the subsidiary details are not mentioned in the gospels at all, nor anywhere else in the New Testament. Taking a few details one by one illustrates these points:

Gabriel According to Matthew the news of Mary’s pregnancy was conveyed to Joseph in a dream (Matthew 1:20). According to Luke the angel Gabriel appeared not to Joseph but to Mary and not in a dream, but in person (Luke 1:26-38).

Mary’s Virginity Both the Matthew and Luke gospels agree about this but, as we have seen (How Mary keeps her Virginity), the Virgin Birth seems to have been introduced as the result of an unsuccessful attempt to match the nativity story with an Old Testament prophecy.

Bethlehem Both authors place the birth in Bethlehem. However, according to Luke, the family originally lived in Nazareth and went to Bethlehem for a census (Luke 2:4-7), whereas according to Matthew the family settled in Nazareth only after their return from Egypt (this is evident from Matthew 2:23).

The Census As we have seen (pages 44 ff), the story of the census is not credible. Apart from contradicting known facts it gives a date for the birth of Jesus that is incompatible with the dates of the reign of Herod the Great.

The Time of Year The date is not mentioned in the Bible. There is no reason to suppose that the birth took place in December. Indeed the fact that sheep were in the fields at the time makes it unlikely. As most Christian scholars now acknowledge the date was selected simply to coincide with the popular festivities that marked the winter solstice. The year of birth is not known either. The year was calculated in the sixth century by a monk, Dionysius Exiguus, who fixed AD 1 as 754 AUC (Anno Urbis Conditae = years after the founding of the city of Rome). It was subsequently realised that Herod the Great had died four years earlier than this, so a recalculation was made and the purported year of birth moved back to 750 AUC, or 4 BC. (There is no year AD 0 or 0 BC: the year preceding AD 1 was 1 BC.)

Kings Neither Matthew nor Luke mentions kings visiting the new-born child. No one does. Matthew mentions an unspecified number of wise men or magi, by which he probably meant Zoroastrian priests. Luke mentions neither kings nor magi. Tertullian was the first to suggest that these magi were kings. The idea seems to have come from unrelated passages in the Old Testament:

Because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto thee. Psalm 68:29

The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him Psalm 72:10-11

The numbers of wise men, or kings, purported to have visited Jesus has varied over time. In early Christian art there were two, four or six. According to Eastern traditions there were 12. Other sources say “many”. The number three seems to have chosen because the Matthew author mentions three gifts. The names Gaspar, Melchior and Balthasar occur nowhere in the Bible , and different Churches give the magi/kings different names: for example according to the Syrian Church they were called Larvandad, Hormisdas and Gushnasaph.

Camels The camels come from another unrelated Old Testament passage (Isaiah 60:3-6):

And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising…..The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the L ord.

Shepherds Luke has an unspecified number of shepherds coming to see the baby. Matthew does not mention them at all.

The Star According to Matthew the magi, having seen a star in the East, went to Jerusalem, which was the wrong place to go. Only after Herod had directed them to Bethlehem did the star reappear to lead them to the right place (Matthew 2:1-9). Stars were common portents in the ancient world, and the births and deaths of kings were frequently marked by such celestial events. Nevertheless, the author of Luke does not mention the star at all.

It is clear that the star story was continuously being exaggerated and embellished over time. For example, the star was soon being described as being miraculously brilliant*, and according to Ignatius of Antioch., all the rest of the stars along with the Sun and Moon gathered around this new star, which nevertheless outshone them all*.

The Inn In the original Greek none of the gospels mentions an inn. The Matthew author refers to mother and child in a house (Matthew 2:11). The Luke author uses the word katalemna meaning a temporary shelter and this was badly translated into English as inn (Luke 2:7). Elsewhere in the Bible katalemna was translated by the word tabernacle (as in 2 Samuel 7:6 for example).

The Manger No manger is mentioned by the Matthew author. The word used in the original Greek by the Luke author is thaten, a word that has a range of meanings, including a baby’s crib and an animal’s feeding trough. Obviously the meaning here is baby’s crib, not manger.

The Stable Neither Matthew nor Luke mentions a stable. The idea that one is involved apparently stems from the erroneous translation of thaten as manger. Other sources, such as the non-canonical Gospel of James, locate the birth in a cave. So do many of the Church Fathers*. The Koran (19:17-22), possibly repeating another ancient tradition, locates the birth by a palm tree in a far off place.

The Ox and Ass Neither Mark nor Luke mentions these animals. Their inclusion in the story is apparently attributable to later Christian scholars who picked up the idea from an unrelated Old Testament passage.

The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib Isaiah 1:3

Significantly in the Septuagint the word corresponding to crib is thaten, the same word translated as manger in the Luke author’s nativity story. The ox and ass in the Christmas story first make their appearance in an apocryphal gospel (pseudo-Matthew) probably dating from the eighth century. St Francis of Assisi apparently set up the first model Christmas crib, with accompanying ox and ass, in the thirteenth century.

Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents The author of Matthew mentions this, but the author of Luke does not. One might have supposed that such a draconian measure would have been recorded elsewhere, as were less significant historical events. The mass murder of the infants has no historical corroboration, and is probably no more than an imaginative way of bringing both Bethlehem and Nazareth into the story. Indeed this massacre cannot have taken place as described, otherwise Jesus” second cousin and contemporary, John the Baptist, would have been killed, yet John survived to reappear later in the story. Once again it looks as though a story has been retrospectively added to the gospel, without thinking through all the consequences.

This sort of story was far from unknown in the ancient world. In the usual myth a king tries to kill a baby who, according to a prophecy, is destined to occupy his own throne. The king fails, though he does not know it, and years later he is supplanted by the child, now an adult, in accordance with prophecy. It is probably best known with some embellishments as the Greek story of Oedipus, but the same basic tale was also familiar in the Middle East. An earlier King of Media (where the magi came from) had ordered the murder of his own grandchild, because of a prophecy that the infant would grow up to overthrow him*. Like the infant Jesus, this child also escaped death to fulfil his destiny.

Matthew could not quote a suitable prophecy about a baby surviving an attempt to kill him, later to become king, because none exists in the Old Testament. Instead, Matthew cited a passage that he must have thought could be stretched to cover a massacre of children:

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the Prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
Matthew 2:17-18, referring to Jeremiah 31:15

As is the case in most of the prophecies cited by Matthew, the connection is tenuous and unconvincing. Wrong people, wrong place, wrong tense, and not a single child death. Matthew neglects to mention that, in the next verse of Jeremiah, God says that these children will return from an enemy country.

The Flight to Egypt Luke does not mention the flight into Egypt at all. Matthew does, apparently, as we have already seen (page 175), so that he can cite another prophecy.

No independent historical records support either Matthew or Luke’s story where they might be expected to: not the need to migrate for a census, nor the appearance of a new star, nor the massacre of the children. What seems to have happened is that both authors have improvised. Matthew has invented a story to fit Old Testament prophecies. Throughout the Matthew gospel references are made to current events fulfilling scriptural prophecies. These references are clearly intended to lend credibility to the stories and to impress readers. The prophecies, like those that we looked at earlier, are generally taken out of context, and in most cases they are not really prophecies at all in the sense that we now understand the term.

Luke has tried to give his story historical background. He seems to have heard, possibly from reports of the Matthew gospel, that Mary was a virgin, that her husband was called Joseph, and that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, though it was widely known that he came from Nazareth. Apart from that there is no agreement at all. The two stories contradict each other on matters such as Joseph’s ancestry, whether or not he came from Nazareth or went there only after Jesus” birth, and the appearances of Gabriel. They disagree about the year, the flight into Egypt, the appearance of the star, the shepherds and the magi.

Neither of these authors mentions three kings (or kings at all, or three of anyone for that matter), nor camels, nor a stable, nor oxen or asses, nor the time of year. As a final indictment, it also seems that the stories were continuously being tampered with for generations. Surviving manuscripts show a range of alterations of varying subtlety and intention. No Father of the Church cites the birth stories exactly as we now know them in the gospels until Irenaeus of Lyons in the last quarter of the second century.

According to an ancient tradition (acknowledged in the Jerusalem Bible ), the original version of the Matthew gospel was written “in the Hebrew tongue”. This version is likely to have been the gospel used by the Ebionites. One of the interesting things known about this Ebionite gospel was that it was shorter than the Greek version. One reason for this was that the opening verses about Jesus” miraculous birth were absent. If this Ebionite gospel was indeed the original version of Matthew, then the nativity story must be a later Greek addition, which is exactly what many scholars independently suspect from other evidence. It is also significant that we know of early versions of the Luke gospel that also lacked the nativity story.

Even the most conservative Christian scholars now regard the stories of Jesus” miraculous birth as being historically unreliable.

If the gospels as a whole are to be taken literally, then the details about Jesus’ allegedly miraculous birth should be consistent. It would be OK if they presented different details or left out some of the details expressed by other gospel authors. But what is not OK is when they conflict in ways that cannot be reconciled- and that is the situation here.

(5204) All other gods are ridiculous

The following essay exposes the way that Christians summarily dismiss the veracity of every other religion, unwittingly based on the same reasons that should, if they are being rational, also cause them to dismiss Christianity:

https://new.exchristian.net/2025/06/all-other-gods-are-ridiculous-except.html

I was once a special kind of True Christian™ believer — bold, confident — who thought ancient religions were laughable nonsense. Hindu gods? Absurd! Norse mythology? A joke! Indigenous cosmologies? Childish fairy tales! And yet… my entire True Christian™ worldview was built on a book where a snake talks, a woman is cloned from a man’s rib (Adam and Steve?), and a cosmic being sends itself to Earth to be tortured to death… by humans… to appease itself.

Even so, is there any doubt that other religions really are just mythology?

Let’s break this down.

It’s silly that Egyptian gods have animal heads? But according to True Christians™, it’s perfectly sane that God turned two cities into smoldering craters because he didn’t like the residents’ bedroom habits. Reincarnation is nonsense, but thinking an invisible war between angels and demons is happening right now, all around us in a war that somehow affects United States presidential elections is rational and reasonable!

The idea of people believing in volcano spirits is laughable, while kneeling before a crucified man-god hybrid who told people to eat his flesh and drink his blood is to be taken very seriously. Meanwhile, the guy meditating under a tree or lighting incense at a shrine is judged to be off his rocker.

And when someone brings up Zeus or Odin or any pantheon with the slightest sense of metaphor, True Christians™ respond with a disapproving frown or a smug chuckle, followed up later with a deep dive into the logistics of Noah’s Ark — how Noah somehow fit two of every living thing (don’t think too hard about the carnivores), shoveled mountains of poop for months, and then repopulated the Earth through a gene pool that wouldn’t pass a junior high biology class.

This isn’t faith. This is delusion protected by cultural majority. True Christians™ inherited a mythology, slapped the word “truth” on it, and now pretend everyone else is gullible for doing the same with their inherited stories. It’s mythological impertinence: “Our ridiculous stories are sacred. Yours are quaint and potentially dangerous.”

How convenient.

You want to talk about primitive? Let’s talk about a god who demands blood sacrifices, commits global genocide, incinerates cities, and gets jealous when people build a tall tower. That’s not divine wisdom — that’s Bronze Age warlord energy with a Marvel Comic vibe.

The truth is, people born in ancient Greece swore by Apollo. People born in Iran are typically praising Allah. True Christians™ were born into a culture that gave them Jesus. That’s it. And instead of being humbled by this fact, this cosmic lottery distribution has somehow convinced True Christians™ that everyone else is not just wrong, but stupid and speeding headlong into eternal perdition.

It’s not faith that leads True Christians™ to dismiss other mythologies. It’s arrogance while wearing a cross necklace.

So, if you’re a True Christian™, maybe, just maybe, before sneering at someone who believes in forest spirits or ancestral souls or elephant-headed gods, ask yourself: What part of a virgin birth, holy angels, talking snakes, global floods, and divine blood rituals sounds like the pinnacle of enlightened, rational thought?

Because to those of us who have escaped their cultural True Christian™ conditioning, it sounds like the same thing you laugh at — just with different branding.

Christianity gets around this problem by inculcating young people at an age before they have developed critical thinking skills. So the nonsense they are taught at an early age becomes entrenched, and it becomes impervious to the analytical skills that normally come into full strength by the teenage years.

(5205) Mark 6 is a playground fantasy

The 6^th chapter of the Gospel of Mark is where the author got carried away and provided stories where, each one in fact, has elements of improbabilities and downright fantasy that clearly came from the colorful imagination of the author. The following was taken from:

https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2025/06/honest-sermons-on-gospel-of-mark.html#more

Devout Christians have always been coached by their clergy to believe—to accept without question—that the gospels tell the true story of Jesus. Apparently this works pretty well, as long as the faithful decline to read the gospels. It seems they’re willing to be deceived. But whenever folks undertake critical reading of the gospels, and carefully compare the gospels that made it into the New Testament—and are willing as well to consider the stories from our modern perspective on how the world works—they can spot the problems and improbabilities right away. The 6th chapter of Mark’s gospel offers plenty of examples. Actually, Mark’s gospel is chock full of examples, as Richard Carrier demonstrates brilliantly in his 30 July 2024 essay, All the Fantastical Things in the Gospel according to Mark.

Mark 6:1-6, Jesus at his home town

We read here that Jesus preached at the local synagogue, and was not well received. People wondered how this home-town boy could presume to be a messenger from god. “Where did this man get all this?” The locals knew the family—the text even mentions the brothers of Jesus by name, James, Joses, Judah, and Simon—and “are not his sisters here with us?” It turns out that Jesus “could do no deed of power there,” although he did manage to cure a few sick people by laying his hands on them. But the punch line comes at the end: “And he was amazed at their unbelief.” The author of Mark had the Jesus cult in mind here: it was a serious error not to believe what the cult leader declared.

This text has also been an embarrassment for the Catholic church, which has indulged in Mary worship for centuries, that is Mary, Queen of Heaven—who remained, so the church claims, a virgin forever. But here is the list of Jesus’ brothers, and his sisters are mentioned as well. How can this be explained, to keep Mary forever pure? Some Catholic apologists have argued that these were actually cousins of Jesus, or even children that Joseph had from a previous marriage. But the earliest gospel writer didn’t have the heavy emotional investment in Mary, so mentioned Jesus’ siblings. When Matthew copied this section of Mark, he included the names of the siblings as well. Of course, scholars ponder the deeper question: where did Mark find this list of brothers? He wrote decades after the life of Jesus, and after the very destructive war that the Jews fought against the Romans, during which Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed. Did any archives survive, where he could find the documentation about Jesus’ family? Mark did not mention his source; we have no reason whatever to credit Mark as a historian. It’s just as likely that this story came from his imagination.

So if Catholic apologists are okay with the Bible getting it wrong, they can breathe a sigh of relief about Mary’s perpetual virginity.

Mark 6:6-13, Jesus sends his disciples out to preach

After being disrespected in his home town, Jesus went to other villages to proclaim his message. But he also instructed his disciples to do the same thing, that is, they were to go out two-by-two in this campaign. Part of this delegation of tasks included the banishment of demons: he “gave them authority over the unclean spirits.” In making the case for the Jesus cult, Mark was confident that his holy hero had high ranking in the spiritual realm. In time, of course, Jesus would be considered part of the Holy Trinity of god. This high ranking included the ability to nullify unclean spirits, which were considered the source of mental illnesses, or even just weird behaviors. We have moved far beyond that concept, which is a relic of ancient superstition. We are entitled to wonder what the author meant when he wrote that Jesus gave them authority over the unclean spirits. Just how would he have done that? There is no hint that the disciples were especially bright—in fact, at so many points, they seem especially dumb. We saw in Mark 5 that Jesus had transferred demons from a man into pigs, with no detailed explanation as to how he did that. So we wonder too exactly how Jesus gave his disciples authority over unclean spirits. Naturally, ancient superstitions don’t yield easily to rational inquiry.

In verses 10 and 11, we find this Jesus-script: “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” However, when Matthew copied this story, he intensified the warning—and the punishment: “If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.” (Matthew 10:14-15)

Sodom and Gomorrah were burned to the ground by god’s wrath (Genesis 19). If any one of us turned away Mormon missionaries who had come knocking at our door, and then heard them yelling back at us that their god would burn our house down, we would probably mutter something like, “Jeez, what a nutjob cult!” It’s hard to resist the same conclusion when we read this alarming Jesus-script. But always keep in mind that the gospel authors were pushing their Jesus-cult, and verse 13 also is meant to prove its power: “They cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”

Mark 6:14-29, The death of John the Baptist

In this section of Mark 6 we read about a banquet that King Herod had given for members of his court and for “the leaders of Galilee.” We are told what Herod said to his daughter after she had danced for the group—and what daughter and mother had said in private conversation. Any curious reader would want to know what Mark’s sources were for this information. Was someone there taking careful notes that somehow ended up in an archive that Mark was able to access decades later? That’s how authentic history is written. It’s worth noting, by the way, that when Matthew decided to use this story when he copied from Mark, he shortened it, leaving out sentences. So which one of them was divinely inspired to write the scene accurately?

Mark 6:30-44, Feeding the five thousand

This section begins with bragging about how popular Jesus was. The holy hero and his disciples “…went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them.” The problem for devout Jesus scholars is that there are no contemporary records of any such wildly popular itinerant preacher. But we’re told that Jesus had compassion on them, and proclaimed his message. When it got late, the disciples suggested that Jesus send them on their way to find something to eat. But this was an opportunity for Jesus to show off his miracle skills. The disciples had five loaves of bread, and two fish—and Jesus turned these meager provisions into enough food for five thousand people. With leftovers even! Twelve baskets of leftovers. Mark left out the details about exactly how Jesus did this trick. Today devout folks cherish this supposed miracle, without wondering how it was done—or showing much concern that it might be a fragment of ancient miracle folklore.

We are entitled to wonder why Jesus doesn’t perform such miracles today. Christians claim that Jesus has a real presence in their lives and in the world—but in the real world, thousands of people starve to death every day. Jesus no longer has the power to do something about that?

Mark 6:45-52, Jesus walks on water

After the busy day with the vast crowd of five thousand people, Jesus put the disciples in a boat, and went up a mountain to pray. Later he noticed them “straining at the oars against an adverse wind.” So he headed back down to the sea, and walked on the water to reach them, although Mark reports that “he intended to pass them by.” But there’s a happy ending: “…they all saw him and were terrified. But immediately he spoke to them and said, ‘Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.’ Then he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded…” Mark gets in a final warning about being aware of basic cult beliefs about their holy hero: “…they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.” And it would not be a good idea to have hardened hearts about Jesus being able to walk on water.

Mark 6:53-56, Healing the sick in Gennesaret

The boat finally arrived on shore, at Gennesaret. “When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was.” And again, magic pulsed through Jesus’ clothing: “…they laid the sick in the marketplaces and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.” Mark was an expert propagandist for the Jesus cult; he possessed superior skill for using his imagination to the full.

I’ll give the final word to ORAXX, who made this comment on the Debunking Christianity Blog on 30 May 2025:

“The gospels were in fact, divinely inspired. What is not generally known however is that God had consumed several barrels of communion wine and was feeling puckish. Being fairly well pickled, he concluded it would be great fun to inspire the gospel writers to produce a confusing and ambiguous document, whereupon he could sit back and watch them fight it out. I made that up, but making stuff up is what we theologians do best.”

Any clear-thinking, un-indoctrinated person reading Mark 6 would easily understand that they are not reading literal history, but rather a series of made-up vignettes at the author’s indulgence. None of this represents anything remotely consistent with history as it is currently understood.

(5206) How Christians approach miracles or the lack thereof

The Bible is full of accounts of spectacular miracles, well beyond anything seen today. This puts Christian apologists in a bind- they must explain why miracles have ceased, or else somehow claim that miracles are still happening. They never consider the more obvious solution- there have never been ANY miracles- the universe doesn’t work that way. The following was taken from:

Why Are There No Miracles Anymore?

Recently, out of curiosity, I Googled, “Why are there no miracles anymore?” I wanted to know how Christian bloggers would handle this question. I found their answers to be all over the map. And everyone is an expert, it seems, since each appeared to be absolutely certain he had the correct answer.

There were some other interesting viewpoints in their responses, as well. For example, one writer claimed the “main miracle [the resurrection] happened and that we have been given enough evidence to believe without a miracle. After we come to grips with the fact that our unbelief is sin whether we’ve seen a miracle with our own eyes or not…”

So, we heathens aren’t just wrong because we don’t believe in the resurrection, we are sinners. Now that’s what I call leading with the fear card. You better believe, or else…

Christian bloggers’ opinions on the miracle question varied from those who agreed there are no miracles in our times to those who believed there are now more miracles than ever.

For example, one blogger wrote, “Contrary to the premise of your question, there are more miracles occurring in the world today than at any other time in history: The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and the dead are raised- stop your doubting and believe!” He gives no further explanation or examples, so I suspect he is thinking about modern medical “miracles,” which, of course, aren’t miracles at all, but applied science. As the Googled question implies, I consider a miracle an event requiring supernatural intervention. I’m not talking about events that are merely rare and amazing.

One very interesting response came from @khanahk.

“I think it’s not the time – it’s the people. I’ve read stories from missionaries in third-world countries of miracles. Those folks have a more religious expectation than we secularized people do.”

Big surprise . . . people who believe in miracles are going to interpret more events as miracles. But he seems to assume that there really ARE more miracles among those missionaries. This reminded me of a statement another confirmed Christian made on the Web,

“A missionary I know watched a bullet headed for him do a RIGHT ANGLE before it got to him.”

Is there anything this guy won’t believe?

Another response was similar:

“I can understand your want to see miracles as they were recorded in the OT. One thing I have learned through experience is Miracles do not produce faith, nor do they convert. Belief and Faith will open your eyes to the miracles which surround you.”

Again, it seems you have to believe in order to see. This is similar to the claim that the Bible will make sense to you only after you believe it’s the word of god. In other words, act like you’re brainwashed and, voila, you will be.

Another take on this angle was the following,

“As much as miracles are great and wonderful, they never have and never will convert the hard, stony heart of man. Only the miracle of the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit will ever perform that miracle.”

I must admit that my first instinct upon seeing a “miracle” would be to attribute it to a magic trick. So, in a sense, maybe you really do have to believe first.

Another blogger wrote,

“A miracle is an extraordinary event caused by the power of God. . . Miracles are a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith is necessary in order for miracles to be manifested”

Is he also saying that you can’t see miracles unless you believe in them? If so, then this would be similar to the common claim that god and the Holy Spirit must exist because one can feel them. So, the proof of reality is in our feelings? That’s weird, isn’t it?

One fellow wrote,

“Miracles still happen. The world is a wicked place, and often these miracles are attributed to science. I see advancements in medicine, science, space exploration, energy, etc. as miracles. Why? Because God inspires man to invent, He gives them ideas and they run with it.”

So, according to him, all the great ideas of science come from god. Apparently, we humans are just pawns in this great cosmic drama.

Now here is a really weird take on miracles from Tim Keller:

“Miracles lead not simply to cognitive belief, but to worship, to awe and wonder. Jesus’ miracles in particular were never magic tricks, designed only to impress and coerce. . . . Instead, he used miraculous power to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and raise the dead. Why? We modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order.”

But, if Jesus wasn’t trying to impress and convince people, but merely to restore the natural order, then why didn’t he just remove disease from the world all at once?

One writer claimed that

“God is still in the business of miracles. I believe that the greatest miracle of all is that of converting a blind sinner to see their sin and to change the human heart … The miracle of human conversion is actually greater than any healing miracle because this brings eternal life in Christ.”

So, apparently, converting to Christianity is the real miracle. Given the extraordinarily sparse evidence for the whole resurrection story, I guess it is practically a miracle that anyone believes it.

At CoffeeHouseTheology.com, one Christian opined,

“Where I grew up, they said: ‘Miracles don’t happen anymore. They ceased with the disciples.’ I believed what they told me. Dozens of personal experiences and medically documented cases have caused me to do a 180 on this. Miracles are REAL.”

The author goes on to tell of numerous “healings” of medical conditions thru prayer. But, imagine my surprise when I saw that there were no prayer-only healings of baldness, cleft palates, amputations, glass eyes, and such.

Let’s close with this blogger’s recommendation:

“There is nothing inappropriate in seeking miracles for the proper purposes for which they are given by God: to confirm the truthfulness of the gospel message, to bring help to those in need, to remove hindrances to people’s ministries, and to bring glory to God. Miracles still happen, and Christians should avoid the two extremes of seeing everything as a miracle and seeing nothing as a miracle.”

Personally, I believe this is a case where Aristotle’s dictum of “all things in moderation,” as this guy is espousing, is all wet. Until just one event is proven by science to have been a miracle, involving supernatural intervention, I think it makes perfect sense to assume there are no miracles and there never have been. The world makes much better sense that way.

That final bold statement is the most sensible answer to the question of miracles. The universe works by the physical laws of nature and these laws have never been violated.

(5207) Number of denominations de-legitimizes Christianity

Christianity now sports over 45,000 denominations world-wide. This begs the question- why would a religion founded and overseen by an omnipotent god allow such a large number of schisms to fracture his church? Wouldn’t such a god have both the desire and ability to keep people aligned properly to the one true theology? The following was taken from:

Why does Christianity have so many denominations? | Live Science

Followers of Jesus span the globe. But the global body of more than 2 billion Christians is separated into thousands of denominations. Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Apostolic, Methodist — the list goes on. Estimations show there are more than 200 Christian denominations in the U.S. and a staggering 45,000 globally, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. So why does Christianity have so many branches?

A cursory look shows that differences in belief, power grabs and corruption all had a part to play.

But on some level, differentiation and variety have been markers of Christianity since the very beginning, according to Diarmaid MacCulloch, professor emeritus of church history at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. “There’s never been a united Christianity,” he told Live Science.

The early church, which spans from the start of Jesus‘ ministry, in A.D. 27, to A.D. 325, was divided primarily based on geography. Worship styles and interpretations of Jesus’ teachings varied based on regional cultures and customs, according to Bruce Gordon, a professor of ecclesiastical history at Yale Divinity School.

But there were also major breaks, or schisms, over Christian theology during this time. One of the most notable early schisms, the Arian controversy in the early fourth century, divided the church on Jesus’ relationship with God. Arius, a priest from Alexandria, Egypt, claimed that because Jesus was “begotten,” or brought about by God, he was a lesser divinity than God. But Athanasius, an Alexandrian theologian, claimed that Jesus was God incarnate.

“This caused major upheaval in the Roman Empire,” said Christopher West, a doctoral student of ancient Christianity and medieval studies at Yale University. “It split Christians in the Roman Empire in half.” The Council of Nicea — a group of theologians and scholars gathered by Emperor Constantine I in A.D. 325 — ultimately sided against Arius. But despite the church’s official view, Christians continued to be divided on the subject for more than a century.

Then, in 1054, the Eastern Orthodox Christians split from the Western Roman Catholics in what’s known as the Great Schism. The two groups disagreed on the taking of the sacraments — religious symbols believed to transmit divine grace to the believer. Furthermore, the Eastern Orthodox Christians disagreed with the Roman beliefs that priests should remain celibate and that the Roman pope had authority over the head of the Eastern church, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

There was even a temporary schism, known as the Western Schism, within the Catholic Church itself in 1378, when two men, and eventually a third, claimed to be the true papal heir. The division lasted almost 40 years, and by the time it was resolved in 1417, the rivaling popes had significantly damaged the reputation of the papal office.

Despite this handful of schisms, the Catholic Church successfully suppressed other potential Christian offshoots “partly by sustained persecution [including] actual military expeditions against some labelled heretics, but then also a new system of enquiries into people’s beliefs, called inquisitions. With the backing of secular rulers, heretics might be burned at the stake or forced into denying their beliefs,” MacCulloch told Live Science via email.

But after the Protestant Reformation in 1517, the number of denominations really began to multiply.

The Reformation — instigated by a number of events, most notably Martin Luther’s 95 Theses — emphasized a personal faith. This movement was in reaction to the fact that interpretations of the Bible, grace (spontaneously given love and mercy from God), the absolution of sins and entry into heaven were all mediated through priests in Catholicism. Luther and his followers claimed that the Bible, not a church hierarchy, was the ultimate authority over all people, including priests and the pope, and that several ecclesiastical practices, such as granting indulgences (paying the church money to be absolved of sins), were corrupt.

Initially, there were just a few major Protestant groups, but ultimately, the Reformation ushered in more Christian offshoots.

By the 17th century, the contemporary word “denomination” began to be used to describe religious offshoots, Michelle Sanchez, an associate professor of theology at Harvard Divinity School, told Live Science via email. Protestants had used scripture to critique the Roman Catholic Church, claiming that any believer could read scripture and have a personal relationship with God. But then, “the obvious problem emerged: Whose interpretation of scripture was the right one?” Sanchez said in an interview. As believers debated the scriptures and sacraments, churches formed and split based on myriad biblical interpretations, ways of worship and organizational structures. From these debates, denominations such as the Presbyterians, Mennonites, Baptists and Quakers, among others, took root.

Other Protestant denominations were formed out of a play for power, such as when Henry VIII started the Church of England in 1534. “He wanted to establish the political autonomy of England, and one way to do that was religious autonomy from Rome,” West told Live Science. (He also famously wanted a divorce that the church refused to grant.)

Although schisms may be seen as divisive or even lead to violent conflicts between rival denominations, these splits do have an upside. “There’s kind of an anti-corruption mechanism in the fragmentation,” as these splits can offer agency to people in lower social positions, Sanchez said. For instance, after the Reformation challenged papal authority, townspeople could begin to question religious authorities about corrupt or questionable practices.

There’s likely more denominational splitting and forming to come. On judging the differences between them, MacCulloch offered advice from Jesus himself: “Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). That is, you can learn about them “in terms of what they do, their behavior,” MacCulloch explained. “That’s a pretty good test.”

One good test of a religion is to see how well it remains cohesive over time. People are fractious, but God is allegedly of ‘one mind’ and has powers to influence the behaviors of his followers. So any religion with multiple denominations is likely of human origin. A religion founded by a real god should ideally have just one denomination. This doesn’t mean that a single-denomination religion is real, it just points out that it has escaped the problem that shows Christianity to be false.

(5208) Worshiping Yahweh is immoral

Consider the following statement:

IT IS IMMORAL TO WORSHIP A GOD WHO INTENDS TO BRING DEAD PEOPLE BACK TO LIFE FOR NO PURPOSE OTHER THAN TO INFLICT ETERNAL SUFFERING.

Every non-religions person would agree with this point as well as most religious people too. It just seems like common-sense morality to allow someone who has died to remain dead, rather than to re-animate them just so they can be tortured.

So how do Christians handle this issue?

Well, most of them deflect it rather artistically by saying that people in hell are not painfully punished, rather they suffer solely from being separated from God. This gets them through the night- so problem solved, right?

No, the problem remains.

Their own scriptures beg to differ:

Mathew 25:41

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Matthew 25:46

“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

2 Thessalonians 1:8-9

He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.

OK, but let’s be charitable and say that Christians are right about hell. It is only a separation from God that does not include the element of painful torture.

Now- problem solved? NO, IT IS NOT.

Why not?

Because God’s earthly representatives have for centuries preached the horrors of hell- not as just a separation from God- but rather as a painful and endless sentence from the almighty. If this is not true, why would God have allowed his preachers to preach it? Why would God permit the reality of hell to be distorted to this extent- such as to cause the needless mental torment of people afraid of going to hell themselves or else who worry about having their apostate deceased loved ones being tortured there?

In other words, if hell is just a separation from God, why wouldn’t God have ensured that a scripture similar to the following would be included in the Bible?:

The disciples were concerned about what they had heard about hell so they asked Jesus, “What happens to those people who go to hell?”

“Be assured,” Jesus replied, “those people who are not admitted to heaven will indeed enter into hell when they die. Now, you have heard a lot of rumors about what hell is like. I want to make this clear to you and to those who come after you. God is not a demon. He does not relish in the sight of people in the throes of pain. So, in hell, people will exist similarly to how they exist now, except they will be deprived of the sight and love of the Father. No, they will not be tortured, they will not be in pain, they will just have to endure the sorrow of being separated from God.”

Such a scripture would be a world of relief to almost every Christian. But it doesn’t exist.

But let’s assume that the above invented scripture is correct in what it says but for some reason it was left out of the Bible. There is still a problem- let’s put it this way:

(Amendment One) IT IS IMMORAL TO WORSHIP A GOD WHO PERMITS HIS RELIGION TO BE INTERPRETED TO INCLUDE AN INTENTION TO BRING DEAD PEOPLE BACK TO LIFE FOR NO PURPOSE OTHER THAN TO INFLICT ETERNAL SUFFERING.

Now, this puts a new spin on the original quote. This implies that even if hell is not a cauldron of endless torture, that for God to have permitted such a hideous concept to be preached for centuries to the intense mental anguish of billions of his followers is ALSO IMMORAL.

So, how would Christians deal with Amendment One above? I would beg to say that most of them have never even considered it.

This leads us to the following conclusion- If Yahweh is the real god of the universe, then he permitted his scriptures to be interpreted by his followers to include hell as a place of endless torture of his non-followers (even if that is not true). So, whether he exists or not, we can conclude with:

(Amendment Two) IT IS IMMORAL TO WORSHIP YAHWEH.

And obviously, if hell actually is a place where dead people are endlessly tortured, then Amendment Two stands as stated with severe emphasis.

(5209) Lack of evidence is sufficient

Christians often attempt to rattle the minds of atheists by asking them to provide evidence against the existence of their god. But as the following explains, all that needs to be pointed out is that there is a lack of evidence for this god:

Why There Is No God

Debating religion is always a difficult prospect. Religion, by definition, does not operate under the same rules of logic and evidence as science.

In reality, the only necessary argument against believing in God is simply that there is no evidence that any gods exist. As clarified above, an atheist doesn’t need to justify his or her lack of belief further than this; no evidence supporting the existence of any deities exist. This keeps the burden of proof on the side of the claimant where it belongs. The person making a claim has to provide the evidence for its validity. Would you believe in the claim that flying pineapples exist even if there is no evidence showing that they do not exist? Probably not! You would withhold belief until there is evidence to support such a claim.   

All the same, it’s sometimes valuable to point out the fallacies in a claimant’s argument. At the very least, this creates constructive discussion where all points are considered and examined. This can also introduce doubt, causing the other person to reconsider his or her position or consider searching for evidence before accepting a claim.

Can We Say with Certainty That There Is No God?

Atheism exists on a spectrum. Some atheists claim absolute certainty in God’s nonexistence. Others simply remain unconvinced and refuse to believe in a deity without compelling evidence. However, once one has a high enough level of certainty about something, they usually treat it as certain for the sake of practicality.

After all, I cannot say with absolute certainty that my wife is not a professional assassin hired by the People’s Republic of China to exterminate me. But I don’t spend time worrying about the possibility because there is no evidence whatsoever to support it. The same is true for the existence of God, although my wife being an assassin is actually more likely; that scenario, at least, would fall within the known scientific laws without contradicting the prevailing models explaining the universe.

This website presents plenty of evidence against the existence of the Christian god, but as pointed out above, still, the strongest point is that there doesn’t exist sufficient evidence for this god (or any god) to merit a reasonable belief in it. And until and if that evidence becomes available, atheism is a reasonable default position.

(5210) We have a caveman operating system

The following essay explains why modern humans have brains that still operate under the modalities of our ancient ancestors. This creates a tendency to embrace religious concepts even in a reality that is inconsistent with such beliefs.

https://new.exchristian.net/2024/12/why-we-are-still-religious.html

In order to understand why humans have a seemingly instinctual inclination toward religious answers, you have to believe in evolution. If you don’t believe in evolution, stop reading now. You won’t agree with anything I’m about to say.

Here’s a statement that we don’t often consider; we evolved to do four things.

1. 1. 1.  Stay alive
      2. Attract a mate
      3. Procreate
      4. Raise children to the age where they can procreate

That’s all evolution was good for and nothing more. Those are the only things you needed to do to replicate your egotistical DNA.

Our brains did not evolve to show us what is true or to help us be our own person. If you meet someone who believes in fairy tales, or simply follows the tribe, they are not less evolved than you. Rather, they are the template of humanity. People who reject mystical answers have rebelled against many instincts that humans evolved to survive.

Caveman Operating System

Our bodies did not evolve to drive on freeways or work in a cubicle for eight hours. We can do those things because we’re adaptable and we we’re very good at mastering our environment.

But imagine you are a caveman. The year is 80,000 BCE. Agriculture will not be invented for another 70,000 years or so. You live in a small tribe of 18 people who migrates north and south along a peninsula to gather food and hunt for meat. You have 100% reliance upon your tribe to survive. You love them, and you need them to love you.

You have no idea about science. You aren’t aware of sanitation, bacteria, germs, or viruses. You don’t know why it rains, or even what the connection is between plants and rain. Lightning and thunder are scary as shit because you have NO idea what that is. You go to sleep at night full of terror from the mysteries of the world around you.

In spite of how ignorant you are, you are just as smart as the version of yourself that lives in 2024. You ask all the same difficult questions. You have the same mish-mash of complicated emotions that wax and wane every day. But the emotion you feel most is terror. Death is a harsh reality. Your uncle just died last week. You have had two children die. You have a little girl who is wheezing when she breathes, and you have no idea what to do. Last year your niece broke her leg when running downhill and some rocks broke loose and crushed her. You had to watch her suffer in agony for months until her leg mended, but she still can’t walk very well and she is still in constant pain. She can do a little gathering, but the tribe has to see to most of her needs. That means you need to get more food.

That kind of stress and anxiety is enough to drive a person mad. This would make that person less viable as a mate, so their DNA is less likely to replicate. However, if you can figure out a way to keep yourself from going nuts, you might survive and procreate. Hell, you might even thrive.

Here’s where the inclination to find a mystical solution becomes genetically favorable. You get creative. You start to imbue the world around you with something—anything—that will help you make sense of your surroundings. Suddenly you see it … those rocks that rolled down the hill and crushed your niece’s leg? Those aren’t just rocks. That was the earth spirit, and your niece disturbed it by running downhill. So even though she is suffering, there is a lesson for the tribe to learn. That night, around the campfire, you explain your belief to the tribe. They listen in wonder as you explain why everyone needs to be respectful of the earth spirit.

You tell this to your tribe and your tribe is suddenly filled with a deeper understanding of the world around them. Now … that understanding is totally wrong, but it keeps the entire tribe from falling into despair, and helps the whole tribe survive. Everyone believes your story. In addition, after telling this story, one of the females in the tribe wanted to bed with you. You got her pregnant and now your tendency to see mystical machinations in the world around you is passed along to your progeny.

Not only that, the tendency to go along with what your tribe believes is also heritable and advantageous. If your tribe believes in a crow God, it will be advantageous for you to put on the black feathers and dance around the fire saying CAW! CAW! If you scoff at how ridiculous it is, your tribe might reject you. Your DNA will not replicate.

Stories like the ones above happened tens of thousands of times to your ancestors, so the tendency toward mystical explanations became a favored characteristic. Over thousands of generations, an advantageous trait can become quite common among a species. And since it’s only been about 10 or 15 generations since the arrival of science and critical thinking, we all have a brain that compels us to believe things that aren’t true, and we have a tendency to go along with the crazy things that other members of our tribe believe.

We have a caveman operating system.

Modern Applications

I doubt I need to explain this, but we do not live in the same world as your caveman ancestors anymore. The gap between what we know and what we wish we knew has closed significantly. In fact, for the average layperson, that gap is nearly closed. Your caveman ancestor wanted to know what lightning was, what gravity was, what rain was, why his teeth hurt all the time, and what happened to him after he dies. You only ask one of those five questions, but there are a myriad more.

It is my opinion that the trait to assign mystical answers to life’s unanswerable questions is no longer necessary. We won’t be crippled with anxiety because we don’t know what a tornado is. Our brains still behave as if assigning that meteorological event to an angry sky god will give us an advantage—but our brains are wrong. It is no longer an advantageous trait. We know what causes tornadoes. We don’t need to make up answers anymore. In fact, fictional answers give people a disadvantage because they are not mastering their environment as well as a person who understands and believes in scientific principles.

To wit, people who do not believe in science are less attractive as a mate to those who do. Our caveman operating system explains why people are still religious in a day when religion has outlived its usefulness.

Rebel

The correct response to our flawed physiology is education and rebellion. We have to know this flaw about ourselves in order to overcome it.

If our brains were like Spock (a hyper-logical character in the 1960’s TV series Star Trek), it is likely that over 90 percent of us would be atheists. The data, history, and science all converge to suggest strongly that we live in a non-supernatural existence that precludes the existence of gods, angels, or demons. But because our brains are still tied by evolution to our caveman past, religion thrives in our current age of space travel and computers.

(5211) Why I hate Jesus

There are two Jesus’- the flesh and blood Jesus of 2000 years ago (assuming he isn’t a fictional character) and the Jesus that modern people worship. It it the latter Jesus that deserves hatred. The following was taken from:

https://brucegerencser.net/why-i-hate-jesus/

I don’t hate the flesh and blood Jesus who walked the dusty roads of Palestine, nor do I hate the Jesus found in the pages of the Bible. These Jesuses are relics of the past. I’ll leave it to historians to argue and debate whether these Jesuses were real or fiction. Over the centuries, Christians have created many Jesuses in their own image. This is the essence of Christianity, an ever-evolving religion bearing little resemblance to what it was even a century ago.

The Jesus I hate is the modern, Western Jesus, the American Jesus, the Jesus who has been a part of my life for almost fifty-eight years. The Jesuses of bygone eras have no power to harm me, but the modern Jesus – the Jesus of the three hundred thousand Christian churches that populate every community in America – he has the power to affect my life, hurt my family, and destroy my country.  And I, with a vengeance, hate him.

Over the years, I have had a number of people write me about how the modern Jesus was ruining their marriage. In many instances, the married couple started out in life as believers, and somewhere along the road of life one of them stopped believing. The still-believing spouse can’t or won’t understand why the other spouse no longer believes. They make it clear that Jesus is still very important to them and if forced to choose between their spouse and family, they would choose Jesus. Simply put, they love Jesus more than they love their families.

Sadly, these types of marriages usually fail. A husband or a wife simply cannot compete with Jesus. He is the perfect lover and perfect friend, one who is always there for the believing spouse. This Jesus hears the prayers of the believing spouse and answers them. This Jesus is the BFF of the believing spouse. This Jesus says to the believer, you must choose, me or your spouse. It is this Jesus I hate.

This Jesus cares nothing for the poor, the hungry, or the sick. This Jesus has no interest in poor immigrants or unwed mothers. This Jesus cares for Tim Tebow more than he does a starving girl in Ethiopia. He cares more about who wins a Grammy or ACM Award than he does poverty-stricken Africa having food and clean water. It is this Jesus I hate.

This Jesus is on the side of the culture warriors. This Jesus hates homosexuals and demands they be treated as second class citizens. This Jesus, no matter the circumstance, demands that a woman carry her fetus to term. Child of a rapist, afflicted with a serious birth defect, the product of incest or a one night stand?  It matters not. This Jesus is pro-life. Yet, this same Jesus supports the incarceration of poor young men of color, often for no other crime than trying to survive. This Jesus is so pro-life he encourages American presidents and politicians to slaughter innocent men, women, and children. This Jesus demands certain criminals be put to death by the state, even though the state has legally murdered innocent people. It is this Jesus I hate.

This Jesus drives fancy cars, has palaces and cathedrals, and followers who spare no expense to make his house the best mansion in town. This Jesus loves Rolexes, Lear jets, and expensive suits. This Jesus sees the multitude and turns his back on them, only concerned with those who say and believe “the right things.” It is this Jesus I hate.

This Jesus owns condominiums constructed just for those who believe in him. When they die, he gives them the keys. But, for the rest of humanity, billions of people, this Jesus says no keys for you. I have a special Hitler-like plan for you. To the ovens you go, only unlike the Jews, I plan to give you a special body that allows me to torture you with fire and brimstone forever. It is this Jesus I hate.

It is this Jesus who looks at Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Atheists, Agnostics, Deists, Universalists, Secularists, Humanists, and Skeptics, and says to them before you were born I made sure you could never be in the group that gets the condominiums when they die. This Jesus says, and it is your fault, sinner man. It is this Jesus who made sure billions of people were born into cultures that worshiped other Gods. It is this Jesus who then says it is their fault they were born at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Too bad, this Jesus says, burn forever in the Lake of Fire. It is this Jesus I hate.

This Jesus divides families, friends, communities, and nations. This Jesus is the means to an end. This Jesus is all about money, power and control. This Jesus subjugates women, tells widows it’s their fault, and ignores the cry of orphans. Everywhere one looks, this Jesus hurts, afflicts, and kills those we love. It is this Jesus I hate.

What I can’t understand is why anyone loves this Jesus? Like a clown on a parade route, he throws a few candies towards those who worship him, promising them that a huge pile of candy awaits them when they die. He lets his followers hunger, thirst, and die, yet he tells them it is for their good, that he loves them and has a wonderful plan for their life. This Jesus is all talk, promising the moon and delivering a piece of gravel. Why can’t his followers see this?

Fear me, he tells his followers. I have the keys to life and death. I have the power to make you happy and I have the power to destroy your life. I have the power to take your children, health, and livelihood. I can do these things because I am the biggest, baddest Jesus ever. Fear me and oppress women, immigrants, orphans, homosexuals, and atheists. Refuse my demand and I will rain my judgment down upon your head. But, know that I love you and only want is best for you and yours. It is this Jesus I hate.

Perhaps there is a Jesus somewhere that I could respect, a Jesus who might merit my devotion. For now, all I see is a Jesus who is worthy of derision, mockery, and hate. Yes, hate. It is this Jesus I hate. When the Jesus who genuinely loves humanity and cares for the least of these shows up, let me know. In the meantime, I hate Jesus.

The real Jesus, assuming he existed, would frown heavily on how he is now portrayed. And if he was actually supernatural and eternal, he probably would do something to clean up the way he is used in modern society. Which is to say, even if you get over the first hurdle, and confirm that he existed, he falters on the second hurdle of failing to reign in his earthly followers.

(5212) Bible’s flawed condemnation of homosexuality

One of the ways we know that the Bible was written by humans without divine inspiration is how it deals with same-sex attraction. It is clear that the authors of these ‘clobber’ passages had no knowledge of the fluidity of human sexual responses, instead defaulting to a rigid concept of heterosexuality. The following was taken from:

Debunking Christianity: Setting the Bible Straight on Its Flawed Condemnations of Same-Sex Love

It baffles me that devout Christians consider the apostle Paul a source of wisdom and moral guidance. A careful reading of his authentic letters in the New Testament (that is, deemed authentic by scholars) reveal a tortured soul. His Letter to the Romans is considered a foundational document of the Christian faith, yet in Romans 7 he revealed that he was a troubled theologian:

“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.” (Romans 7:14-20)

Sin that dwells within me.

Would Paul have written this if he had known that these words would be read, studied, and analyzed two thousand years later? He had no clue that his writings would become scripture, because he was obsessed with the idea that Jesus would arrive from the sky soon, very soon—as we read in I Thessalonians 4. And he assured his devout Christian converts that he would be there to join them in the clouds when it happened.

The faithful today should step back from their confidence in Paul—and they would if they bothered to read his letters. In Galatians 1:11-12 he assures his readers that he didn’t learn about the gospel he preached from any human sources, but got his information directly from Jesus via his private revelations. Perhaps his readers were impressed by this sign of spiritual superiority. But the depth of his knowledge of Jesus was shallow indeed, since his letters don’t mention the teaching, ministry, miracles performed by his holy hero—as presented in the gospels. It’s not a stretch to say that he was a rogue apostle, indeed the label delusional cult fanatic applies as well.

He fretted about the sin that dwells within me, yet he had worked out a magic spell to escape his torment. In Romans 10:9 he describes this magic spell: “…if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

Now, on to Gay Pride

[Full disclosure here: I am gay. Last month my husband and I celebrated our 47th anniversary. We were able to get legally married in 2008, after we had been together for thirty years.]

I have made these observations about Paul to introduce this essay on gay pride, to make the point that it’s often a mistake to credit his opinions. At the beginning of his Letter to the Romans, Paul suggests that his god’s eternal power and divine nature can be deduced from observing his marvelous creation. There are consequences for those who fail to do so:

“…God gave them over to dishonorable passions. Their females exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the males, giving up natural intercourse with females, were consumed with their passionate desires for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.” (Romans 1:26-28)

His final word in Romans 1 is a list of those who deserve to die, which includes gossips, people who are boastful and haughty, and rebellious children (Romans 1:29-32). There is very little compassion or tolerance here.

And we could add that Paul seemed to have zero understanding about sex. He offers his guidance on marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, including this gem: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” He goes on to offer advice on how husband and wife are supposed to relate—begrudgingly admitting that they should give in to having sex. But this was obviously distasteful to him, and there is a better way: “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.” (I Corinthians 7:8-9)

Say what?! Married people cannot be aflame with passion?

Paul, an adult Jewish male, never married? Right away, we have to wonder what was going on in his head. Was he attracted to men, but could never admit it? It’s not uncommon for men who are alarmed about their attraction to men to lash out in fits of homophobia.

It has often been pointed out that, in all of the Jesus-script in the gospels, there are no references to same-sex love. And here too we find the same curiosity about Jesus as we did with Paul: he never married, again highly usual for an adult Jewish man. The author of John’s gospel introduced a character not found in the other gospels, The Beloved Disciple, with this specific verse in his depiction of the Last Supper: “Lying back on Jesus’ chest was one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.” (John 13:23) It is inappropriate to read too much into this—especially since it’s in John’s gospel, so deficient in history—but it is a curious text nonetheless.

Paul’s verses in Romans 1 are among the famous clobber texts used to condemn homosexuals, but the Old Testament has a few as well, the most famous—and commonly cited—is found in Genesis 19, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. These cities were incinerated by Yahweh—so the homophobes claim—because Sodom was filled with homosexuals.

But the text doesn’t say that. Lot was himself a stranger in Sodom, and he urged two other strangers—sent from Yahweh to investigate Sodom—to stay in his house. The town was suspicious: just who were these intruders? There are three issues to be considered:

(1)  We read that “…the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house…” (v. 4) On the claim that the sin of Sodom was the violation of Yahweh’s laws about same-sex behavior, we have to point out that it is absurd to suggest that ALL the men of the city—to the last man—were homosexuals.

(2)  This is their demand: “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.” (v. 5) The Hebrew word for to know is yada. It was used in the Adam and Eve story as a euphemism for sexual intercourse, but most of the time it means to get to know. A more plausible explanation of this episode is that the crowd of local citizens wanted to find out for sure who the strangers were.

(3)  To appease the crowd, Lot offers them his daughters as compensation for not being allowed to interrogate his guests. If the crowd was all homosexuals, why would be offer them his daughters?

Moreover, in the book of Ezekiel, 16:49-50, we find this explanation for the destruction of Sodom: “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.” Did abominable things could suggest a wide variety of sins and abuses, but there is no hint whatever of attempted homosexual gang rape.

Keep in mind as well that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is folklore, not history. Lot’s wife was turned into a pillar of salt as they fled the burning city, and at the end of the story Lot’s two daughters got him drunk on successive nights, to have sex with him. Two of Israel’s enemies, this bit of folklore claims, the Ammonites and Moabites, are the results of these acts of incest.

Two of the favorite clobber verses in the Old Testament are Leviticus 18:22, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination” and Leviticus 20:13, “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their bloodguilt is upon them.” These provide Ah Ha moments for homophobes: “See, it says so right there in the Bible!” But they fail to appreciate that many ancient laws preserved in the Bible are simply ignored, e.g., the prohibition against tattoos, severe penalties for working on the sabbath (in Numbers 15::32-36, Yahweh orders a man to be stoned for picking up sticks on the sabbath), eating certain kinds of seafood, wearing mixed fabrics.

Is a gay love affair mentioned in the Old Testament? There has been much dispute about the famous friendship of David and Jonathan; were they just good friends, or lovers? In 2 Samuel 1:26, we find this text: “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; you have been a close friend to me. Your love for me was more wonderful than the love of women.”

But why should we pay much attention to so much that we find in ancient scripture? The Bible’s understanding of cosmology, the nature of our planet, the causes of disease, are seriously defective. We can hardly be surprised that some of its ideas about human sexuality are flawed as well. It’s a better idea to do as much study as possible of the findings of medical and psychology professionals about the realities of sexual orientation.

Believe it or not, I’ll close with one of the feel-good quotes found in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13:4-7:

“Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

This is such a contrast to his nasty pronouncements in Romans 1. Maybe Paul’s good mood here was prompted by a few lovely, clandestine days spent with his boyfriend.

A god would know about the range of human sexual responses and would not condemn nor penalize people who are attracted to and love members of their own sex. Therefore a book inspired by such a god would not include the condemnation of same-sex attraction that we find in the Bible.

(5213) Evidence of tampering the Old Testament

Ideally, if God inspired the authors of the Old Testament, their writings should not have been tampered with. But that is not the case. There is plenty of evidence that copiers routinely edited, added, or deleted sections of the originals. The following was taken from:

Christian Authorities – The Old Testament – Bad News About Christianity

For many centuries the mainstream Churches denied that there was any evidence of tampering in God’s divine word, but this position is no longer tenable, and no mainstream Church now seeks to deny it. For example the introduction to the Pentateuch in the Jerusalem Bible concludes with the statement that “Throughout, the hands of the Deuteronomic and Priestly editors are often to be observed, annotating and adapting”.

Sometimes the text has been tampered with in an effort to make sense of it. For example, in 2 Samuel 24:10 David regretted having carried out a census, saying he had “sinned greatly”, even though God had told him to do so. Some 200 years later the story was revised so that it was Satan who instigated the census, but the revisers neglected to revise the original. So it is that a duplicate of the same story appears at 1 Chronicles 21:1, except Satan replaces God.

Sometimes, the disruption of regular patterns betrays the fact that changes have been made either deliberately or accidentally. For example acrostic poems have been broken up, presumably by people who failed to realize that the text formed an acrostic. Psalms 9 and 10 are really a single poem, each verse starting with a Hebrew letter in alphabetical order, but as a note in the Jerusalem Bible puts it “in the present text there are several letters without their strophes”. Again, in Psalm 145 one of the verses (“Nun”) is missing from the Hebrew text and has had to be supplied from Greek texts (see the Jerusalem Bible Psalm 145, note a ).

Another give-away arises from taking a passage and inserting it elsewhere without checking the context. Thus for example 2 Samuel 23:9 says that the Philistines were gathered “there” but gives no indication of where “there” was. Presumably the passage was picked up from another part of the text where the location of the action had already been established. A parallel passage at 1 Chronicles 11:13 identifies the place as Pas Dammim, and this is frequently substituted in translations of 2 Samuel to cover up the error. Again whoever inserted the text saying that God spoke to Moses “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exodus 33:11) apparently failed to check that this was consistent with the main narrative, which at verse 20 has God saying to Moses “Thou canst not see my face”.

If the same fact was stated several times, then a scribe who wanted to tamper with it had to be sure that he changed every incidence. This was often difficult. In the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint, Jacob is credited with having 75 descendants when his family came to Egypt; this is also the number quoted by Acts 7:14. But the Masoretic Text gives the number as 70, and this is the figure that appears in biblical versions of Genesis and Exodus30.

The Ten Commandments provides a series of examples of the dangers of tampering. The first problem is that there are two versions of the Commandments, at Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. The two versions contradict each other by giving different reasons for observing the Sabbath31. As a note to the Jerusalem Bible says at Exodus 20: “This is the Priestly version of the Ten Commandments; another version, the Deuteronomic, is found in Deuteronomy 5, and it is the second which has been adopted by the Church”. But this is only the start, because neither of these versions is the original. The original Ten Commandments, inscribed by Moses at God’s dictation, bear little resemblance to either of them, being concerned mainly with religious festivals and taboos (Exodus 34:14-26). It is this list that is explicitly identified in the text as the “Ten Commandments” and is stated to have been written on the tablets that Moses brought down from mount Sinai (Exodus 34:27-29). But there is yet another problem, because there are more than ten commandments listed here, which means that this list has been tampered with as well32 — quite apart from the fact that the whole collection was overtaken by the current Ten Commandments. Furthermore other sets of laws are listed that contradict each other in many details33.

Footnotes in the Jerusalem Bible demonstrate all sorts of errors and sometimes how they arose:

“…not always consistent” Numbers 22b

“Not an accurate figure” 1 Kings 20b

“The chronological details cannot be harmonised…. ” Esther 1c

“…a “modernisation” by a later hand.” Zechariah 6c

“Different sources have been conflated” Genesis 21b

“…later elaboration…. ” Genesis 32a

“Two narratives are conflated here…. ” Joshua 6a

“…contains several traditions put together by an editor;…. ” Judges 21a

“Editorial comment” Exodus 15a

Two versions of the institution of the monarchy, a key episode in the history of Israel, are to be found alternating in the five chapters from 1 Samuel 8. One is by an anti-royalist author and the other by a royalist34.

Another area particularly subject to both mistakes and deliberate tampering was provided by the numerous genealogies contained in the Old Testament. The New International Version (NIV) identifies dozens of inconsistencies in footnotes, sometimes several in the same genealogy35. As an explanation of why two genealogies differ, the Jerusalem Bible (see 1 Chronicles 2 note b) points out that “Genealogies were often deduced from relationships between clans. This reconstruction of the descendants of Caleb may differ from the list in vv.18-24 because it was made at a date when alliances between clans were different.”

A human product devoid of divine influence will be highly subject to tampering, but that is not what Christians claim. They believe that God authored the Bible through human writers, and therefore would have had a prime interest in maintaining the integrity of the originals. The evidence of scriptural tampering is evidence against divine oversight of the Bible.

(5214) Second coming is a response to ‘disappointment’

When Jesus failed to meet the requirements of the Jewish messiah, most of his followers, especially those who were well-educated observant Jews, dismissed his credentials. But others, likely those of his immediate entourage, refused to let it go- they invented the idea that Jesus would return, and THEN he would complete all of the fulfillments. The following was taken from:

Reasons Judaism rejects Jesus as the Messiah – World History Edu

Jewish eschatology holds that the true Messiah will bring about fundamental changes in the world. These include:

• • Rebuilding the Third Temple (Ezekiel 37:26–28)
  • Gathering all Jews back to Israel (Isaiah 43:5–6)
  • Bringing global peace and ending suffering (Isaiah 2:4)
  • Spreading universal knowledge of God (Zechariah 14:9)

Jesus did not accomplish any of these tasks. Instead of peace and redemption, Jewish history after Jesus’ time included the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Jewish diaspora. Since Jesus did not establish the Messianic Age as prophesied, he is not regarded as the Messiah in Judaism.

Christianity argues that Jesus will fulfill these messianic prophecies in a Second Coming. However, Judaism finds no biblical basis for this idea. The Hebrew Bible describes the Messiah’s arrival as a singular event, not a process requiring a second appearance. If a candidate fails to fulfill the messianic role during their lifetime, they are not considered the Messiah.

Rabbi David Wolpe argues that the Second Coming is a theological response to the disappointment of Jesus’ death. Since Jesus did not fulfill the expected messianic role, early Christians created the idea of a delayed fulfillment. However, Judaism does not accept such a theological adjustment.

Christianity is held together with a patch- the concept of Jesus returning to complete the requirements of a messiah, because he didn’t quite manage to get it done the first time. By any objective calculation, Jesus’ return is 1950 years overdue and we’re still counting.

(5215) Christianity is unworthy of thinking adults

Human evolved as rational beings, and the use of reason has been the engine driving human progress over millennia. But when it comes to Christianity, followers are urged to park their reason on the sidelines and instead rely on naked faith to guide their beliefs. This is not recipe for ascertaining truth. The following was taken from:

https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2018/04/christianity-is-unworthy-of-thinking.html

Case in Point One: Even Christians Agree Faith is Opposed to Reason

According to Paul in Colossians 2:8, “See no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy.” Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.” (Luke 10:21). Paul wrote, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.’ Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? … For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom” (1 Cor. 1:18–25). Tertullian (160–220 CE) asked: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” In words reminiscent of Søren Kierkegaard, Tertullian wrote of the incarnation of Jesus by saying, “Just because it is absurd, it is to be believed . . . it is certain because it is impossible.” Martin Luther said, “Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but more frequently than not struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God. As such, it can do nothing but slander and harm all that God says and does.” Immanuel Kant said that he “found it necessary to deny knowledge of God…in order to find a place for faith.” (Critique of Pure Reason, bxxx). William Lane Craig argued that “reason is a tool to help us better understand our faith. Should faith and reason conflict, it is reason that must submit to faith, not vice versa.” [Craig, Apologetics: An Introduction (Chicago: Moody Press, 1984), p. 21. This quote is left out of the third edition of this book, titled Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2008).]

By contrast see what atheists, agnostics, and skeptics say right here.

There is something wrong with a religious faith that needs to disparage reason like this. It’s admitting Christianity cannot be defended by reason. If that’s what they think, why should we think otherwise? Why should anyone? I see no reason to do so.

Case in Point Two: Why Should We Believe If the Jews Didn’t?

The most plausible estimate of the first-century Jewish population comes from a census of the Roman Empire during the reign of Claudius (48 CE) that counted nearly 7 million Jews. If we add in the Jews outside the Roman Empire in places like Babylon, the total first century Jewish population could have been 8 million. It’s estimated that there may have been as many as 2.5 million Jews in Palestine.

These Jews believed in God. They were beloved by their God. They believed their God did miracles. They hoped for a Messiah. They knew well their Old Testament prophecies. Yet the overwhelming majority of them did not believe Jesus was raised from the dead. Catholic New Testament scholar David C. Sim argued: “Throughout the first century the total number of Jews in the Christian movement probably never exceeded 1,000 and by the end of the century the Christian church was largely Gentile.” LINK.

Since Jews were there and they didn’t believe, why should we? Why should anyone? I see no reason to do so.

The Christian response is that these Jews didn’t want to believe because Jesus was not their kind of Messiah, a king who would throw off Roman rule. But then, where did they get that idea in the first place? They got it from their own Scriptures. And who supposedly inspired them? Their God. This means that even though their God loved them over all others, s/he purposely misled them, thereby condemned them to hell along with centuries of persecution as “Christ killers” for following reason. For there is no prophecy in the Old Testament to be regarded as a prophecy that points exclusively to Jesus as the Messiah. The Psalmist literature therefore doesn’t count! Sure there are passages that describe a hope for a political Messiah, but that doesn’t make them predictions. All a reasonable person needs to do is look in the New Testament for the claims of fulfilled prophecy. Follow them back to the source in the Old Testament, then study the context. The young girl who was to give birth in Isaiah 7 was not a virgin, and it clearly is not speaking of the distant future. The suffering servant passage in Isaiah 53 is speaking of the sufferings of Israel as a nation, not the Messiah (Isaiah 49:3). There is no hint in the OT texts that any “double-fulfillment” is possible. Stretching these and other so-called OT prophecies to Jesus is mishandling the texts based on faith.

Case In Point Three: Not Even Christian Apologists Believe Sufficient Evidence Exists:

Most of the best Christian defenders admit there isn’t sufficient objective evidence to believe, perhaps upwards to 80% of them. Alvin Plantinga has even argued Christian believers do not need objective evidence for their faith.

They argue the evidence alone won’t convince people so they must first effectively show that God exists. They reason like this: “Only if people are brought to first believe in a miracle working god can the available evidence convince them Jesus was raised from the dead.”

Still others came along and were forced to admit there aren’t even any good arguments for the existence of God. Alvin Plantinga: “I don’t know of an argument for Christian belief that seems very likely to convince one who doesn’t already accept its conclusion.” [Warranted Christian Belief, p. 201.] John Feinberg: “I wouldn’t try to prove God’s existence first, if at all, in that I am not convinced that any of the traditional arguments succeeds.” [Can You Believe it’s True: Christian Apologetics in a Modern, Postmodern Era, p. 321]. Richard Swinburne: “I cannot see any force in an argument to the existence of God from the existence of morality.” [The Existence of God 2nd, ed., p. 215.]

Still other Christian defenders argued against the attempt to rationally defend their faith. They insist God must be personally experienced instead. This abandons the rational attempt to show the Christian faith is true. Subjective experiences don’t say anything objective about the objective world.

So a great many Christian theologians don’t think highly of apologetics, the rational defense of the Christian faith, following in the footsteps of the greatest theologian of the last century, Karl Barth. God is his own witness. Only God can reveal God. Revelation from God can only come from God, or as Barth himself said, “the best apologetics is a good dogmatics”. [Table Talk, ed. J. D. Godsey (Edinburgh and London, 1963), p. 62]. In their colleges there is no apologetics department, and in many of them there aren’t any apologetics classes. According to them, such attempts are a failure.

Now what? Did they abandon their attempts to defend Christianity? NO! Christian defenders started presupposing God exists (or even Christianity as a whole), without objective evidence or arguments to the existence of God. Thus begging the whole question.

Some of them now embrace an eclectic or pragmatic means of defending their faith, where the conclusion largely dictates the means. Christianity is the conclusion. Now use whatever means is needed to reach that conclusion.

Christian believers who say their faith is based upon sufficient objective evidence just don’t understand what’s been going on behind the scenes in the hallways of their seminaries. Even most of the best Christian defenders/apologists acknowledge the evidence just isn’t there. Instead of acknowledging this fact they concocted several other bogus ways to defend their faith, ones they would never accept if these same rationalizations came from any other religious sect. Since there are five means to defend Christianity (above) and only one of them advocates objective evidence exists to believe, four of them–or 80% of them–reject evidence as primary. Just consider what would’ve been the case if sufficient objective evidence existed. Then no other means to defend the Christian faith would’ve been proposed, much less adopted by many others.

If Christian defenders don’t think sufficient objective evidence exists, then why should we? Why should anyone? I see no reason to do so.

The evidence for Christianity is lacking to such an extent that it should be considered unworthy of a ‘good’ god to penalize people who don’t accept it. Using the same mental processes that led us to understand the universe, our planet, and our bodies, we can state positively that there is no plausible set of reasons that should compel anyone to believe in the truth of Christianity.

(5216) Religion is a mess

If we assume that there is an omnipotent god who is intent on judging people and rewarding or punishing them based on their belief about ‘it,’ then we should be able to assume that such god would provide a clear path for how each individual can achieve a favorable outcome. This situation does not exist- not even close. The following was taken from:

Why there can be only one true religion, and why not — Karel Donk

I’m sure you’ve heard people say before, or perhaps you’ve thought (and maybe still think), that there is one god and that all religions we know today lead to him. Various paths, all leading to the same destination. But is this true? Can this be right? Is it really possible to have various religions, all leading to the same god?

Before you even look at choosing a religion, you have to believe first that there is such a thing as a god. So for the rest of this post I’m going to assume that we’re convinced of the fact that god exists.

Now, even if you were to assume that it’s possible that all religions lead to the same god, you’d have many other questions to answer, one of which would be: Why would god create all those different religions for people to worship him? And if he did, wasn’t he ever worried that it might cause a lot of confusion, among many other problems? Surely he would have been able to foresee that.

If there would merely be differences between all the religions existing today, it would help in trying to argue for the fact that all religions lead to the same destination. But that is not the case. Not only are there differences, but a lot of these differences are in contradiction with each other. Let me illustrate what I mean with a simple example:

Let’s say we have religion A and B. Religion A says that god has blue eyes and a white beard. Religion B says that god has blue eyes and wears a white robe. In this case, I could say that both religions could be true, since god could have blue eyes, a white beard and wearing a white robe.

But if we had a different situation where religion A said that god has blue eyes and a white beard, and religion B said that god has brown eyes and wearing a white robe, we’d have an issue. Obviously both cannot lead to the same destination, since both of them cannot be true. Religion A says that god has blue eyes, and religion B says that god has brown eyes. Both cannot be true. In this case, they are not merely different, but also contradicting. Which one is saying the right thing about god’s eyes?

And so when we look at the many religions we have today, not only are they different, but all of them have various things which are contradicting in relation with other religions. For example, in Christianity, you’re not allowed to worship objects like statues or pictures, and doing so is a sin. But in Hinduism that’s quite normal! In Islam, every person lives just once on earth and faces judgment after death. But in Hinduism, you have reincarnation. In Christianity, Jesus is the son of god and is of great importance, but in Islam, Jesus is just a prophet.

I could go on and on naming contradictions. And these are just obvious contradictions on the surface. When you look deeper, you’ll find even bigger contradictions. You will even find such black and white contradictions, where one religion says something is a sin, while the other encourages it! I gave an example of this in the previous paragraph.

So just look at that! Anyone having to make a choice between these religions faces an enormous problem. Making a bad choice can indeed be quite devastating for you in the end. It could mean choosing to do the right thing, or choosing to sin. If you make the wrong choice, you’re going to be sinning while you probably think you’re worshiping god the right way. For example, if you become a Hindu, you’ll be using statues and pictures while worshiping god, which is a sin in Christianity. And if it later turned out that Christianity was the true religion, that means that you’ve been sinning all your life, while you thought you were worshiping god!

Based on this very simple argument above, I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I conclude that because of the contradictions, some of which are very serious, there can only be one true religion.

But just when you thought it was over, you find out that it’s not.

You see, once you decide on a religion another surprise awaits you. Many of the big religions have sub-religions as well, each with their own interpretation of things, differences and contradictions. For example, in Christianity you have Catholics, Protestant Christians, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and many more. In Islam you have Sunnis and Shias. You have Orthodox and modern Jews. Even in Hinduism you have groups with their own differences.

How can you ever really know which one to choose? In addition it is impossible to be certain about any choice you make, since many differences are based on interpretation of words in holy books, interpretation of intentions, and sometimes even just belief. It’s impossible to make a choice based on any hard evidence, where things are verifiable and you can be 100% sure about your choice.

And remember that you get to deal with all of this after you’ve made a very important assumption first, namely, that god exists. So you begin with an assumption which cannot be verified in any way and which you just have to believe in based on faith. That already is a very weak beginning. And then, you go on to having to confront all of the issues above.

Isn’t it wonderful? A word of advice, if I may: Before you decide to take on this difficult task, you might want to consult your psychiatrist first. Just in case things get ugly.

The world is a mess, and as it seems, that includes religion.

Religion would not be a mess if there actually existed an omnipotent god, a deity that should by definition be competent enough to provide consistent instructions to everybody. A world absent such a god would almost assuredly exhibit a landscape of multiple and contradictory religions (i.e.-our current situation).

(5217) Transcendent experiences are often misleading

When a person experiences a mind-altering interlude, it can generate a false conviction of the truth of whatever they are imagining at the time. For example, such a phenomenon likely affected Paul in his vision of Jesus. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1laynkl/transcendent_experiences_often_lead_to_an/

Transcendent experiences often lead to an uncritical acceptance of whatever information, good or bad, is associated with that experience.

Thesis: Transcendent experiences often lead to an uncritical acceptance of whatever information–good or bad–is associated with that experience, and may explain people’s acceptance and belief of otherwise unacceptable and unbelievable propositions within various religions.

When I first came across this concept, it seemed relatively intuitive, but I didn’t initially realize the full breadth of its possible explanatory power in relation to why otherwise intelligent people believe illogical things.

The relation between an experience of *awe–*which can happen in countless contexts, not just religious–and the uncritical acceptance of whatever information is packaged with it (or that is presented directly following the experience) is a significant one. Awe presents to the observer a sense of the mysterious, a sense that there is something being experienced that is too vast to be understood within the viewer’s current framework of thought. Because of this, he or she will naturally open up their typical thought boundaries with the express intent of coming to understand a new piece of information, in order to make sense of the mysterious or unknown something that the mind assumes is lurking there.

This actually has incredible value–given the correct context–as there are countless times throughout life where our mind desperately needs an additional true piece of data to add to its working grid of perception and make clearer sense of a particular situation or of the world. However, the complexity comes in when that heightened receptivity of the observer, fueled by the heightened emotion, causes the individual to be more than willing to accept information that is patently untrue–and that, were they in any other state, would’ve likely been rejected out-of-hand for its blatant irrationality.

I recall worship service after worship service where a chorus would repeat, the words would take on nothing short of a chant–packed with the unverifiable metaphysical propositions of the given religion–and the entire place would raise its voices in unison and in intentional agreement with the claims being made. Then, of course, the minister would get up and spend 30-60 minutes telling you what the capital-T truth was, all while that sense of transcendent, ineffable awe is still lingering in your body.

But once a person separates themself from the emotion, from the awe, studies and thinks honestly about the claims that were being made within the song itself, and within the message given after, if they’re internally consistent and self-honest, they’ll start to feel the cognitive dissonance of it all, and the inescapable irrationality of much of it.

Truth is best achieved when emotions are held in check. It is likely that much of what is written in the Bible is a result of emotion-infused feelings or visions that produce beliefs that are grounded firmly in fiction.

(5218) Seven differences between John and the other gospels

There continues to be much discussion trying to explain why the Gospel of John differs so significantly from the other three gospels. Many apologists claim that the author of John was providing true information that for some reason was not available to the other authors, but the following lists differences that would appear to belie this theory:

https://www.bartehrman.com/the-synoptic-gospels/

1. Jesus’ Origin Story

At the beginning of John’s Gospel, the starkest difference compared to the other narratives is that there is no regal tale of Jesus’s birth to be found. There is no mention of Jesus’s parents, their long journey to Bethlehem, or Mary’s immaculate conception. There are no angels, no shepherds, no wise men…nothing!

The Gospel of John puts Jesus’s origins much, much, earlier, and elevates his status as far more significant. Even more significant than being conceived by the Holy Spirit as the Synoptic Gospels assert. According to John, Jesus is alluded to be “the Word” and existed before the universe began (Ch 1:1-4).

While the Synoptic Gospels begin Jesus’s story with a miraculous birth—in John’s Gospel, the story of Jesus begins with Jesus and God the creator of the universe on equal footing. In other words, John’s Gospel wants the reader to know from the get-go that Jesus is the Miracle-Maker himself.

Like Mark’s Gospel, the action of John’s story doesn’t spend time describing Jesus’s unusual first days on the earth. Instead, John pulls the curtain back to reveal Jesus as an adult, discussing what’s what with John the Baptist, and immediately recruiting his disciples for the ministry ahead.

2. Jesus’ Teaching

To say that the Synoptic Gospels and John differ regarding Jesus’s teaching style would be an understatement. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus is hesitant, afraid even, to speak about himself, his intentions, and his deeds, to anyone. He advises those he heals to tell no one what has happened.

In John, however, Jesus not only embraces talk about his divinity, but he also publicly declares it. In the synoptic Gospels, Jesus speaks in parables (code); In John, the parables are absent altogether and in their place is a Jesus who is very direct about who he is and what he has come to do.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke seem to be on the same page about the coming Kingdom of God, but in John, there is no mention of the coming Kingdom. John focuses readers on Jesus as one being sent by God. The use of metaphor and mystical language is rampant in the Gospel of John whereas the Synoptic Gospels tell stories that sound more historical in nature.

Jesus according to John is a cosmic force in the world, sent by God to love, forgive, and empower people through his presence. The other three Gospels leave much more meaning unpacked as readers are plunged into narratives that are anything but explicit.

3. the Miracles

What John lacks in the frequency of the miraculous in his Gospel, is made up for in the potency of each act. In John, Jesus dazzles in spectacular fashion, unveiling his worthiness in magnificent acts like: 

• • turning water into wine (Ch 2)
  • healing of the lame man by the pool of Bethsaida (Ch 5)
  • healing of the man born blind (Ch 9)
  • raising of the three-days dead Lazarus (Ch 11)

In addition to his outward demonstrations of power, John’s Jesus also appears to be omniscient. He knows everything about the woman at the well in John chapter 4 and “sees” Nathaneal under the fig tree in chapter 1.

The other three Gospel writers focus the bulk of Jesus’s demonstrations of power on restoring sight to the blind and exorcising the demonic. But amazingly, Jesus never performs an exorcism in John’s Gospel.

Whereas in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, situations seem to spontaneously follow Jesus or crop up wherever he is.  In John, it is almost as if Jesus expects situations to develop wherever he is so that he can use those opportunities to glorify God and inspire belief in his divinity.

3. Jesus’ Identity

Jesus’s identity in John is dictated early and often, sometimes explicitly—not so in the other three Gospel accounts.

Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus is open and affirming about his interconnectedness with God. He repeats that trust in him is on par with trusting God and those who believe in Jesus and his words inherit eternal life (14:6; 20:30-31). The concept of eternal life is rarely discussed in the Synoptic Gospels but is an ongoing theme in John’s Gospel.

5. The Passion 

In the Synoptic Gospels, multiple chapters reveal the ominous events leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion:

• • the institution of the Lord’s supper
  • the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus prays for the cup to pass from him
  • Jesus’s arrest and trial before the Jewish authorities of the Sanhedrin

Most devout Christians could recite these events by heart—but none of them occur in John’s Gospel. Instead, Jesus spends hundreds of words in spoken prayer captured only by John’s pen. These and other heartfelt and spiritual discourses are unlike anything Jesus says in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

All four Gospels agree that Judas betrayed the Lord.  That said, only in John does Judas bypass the aide of the Sanhedrin bringing “a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees, and they came there with lanterns and torches and weapons.” (John 18:3)

In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus’s primary offense is blasphemy, but in John, there is no such verdict made. The Gospel of John is clear Jesus must suffer and die via the Romans because that was why he was born.  

6. The Dialogue

Another thing unique to John’s Gospel are the intimate vignettes of Jesus’s rambling, detailed, discourses absent in the other Gospels. John’s Gospel is the only place in the New Testament where Jesus allegedly speaks at great length with:

• • Nicodemus (Ch 3)
  • the Samaritan woman (Ch 4)
  • the disciples (Chapters 13-17)
  • Pilate (Chapters 18-19)
  • Mary Magdalene and Thomas (Ch 20)
  • Peter (Ch 21).

7. The Dialogue

The Gospel of John is also adamant about a character in Jesus’s inner circle known as “the beloved disciple.” This disciple is portrayed as the first to believe, and the one closest to Jesus during his earthly life, as demonstrated by Jesus entrusting his mother into their care at the foot of the cross (Ch 19).

A great deal of speculation and theories have circulated over the years as to the identity of this mysteriously titled disciple. Some believe it is none other than John, son of Zebedee, who is also the author of the Gospel itself.

While other scholarship, such as former Episcopal Bishop and author John Shelby Spong in his book “The Fourth Gospel: Tales of A Jewish Mystic, attest that “the beloved disciple” is Lazarus. The man whom Jesus wept for and raised from the dead. No matter who “the beloved disciple” may or may not be, any mention of that character or phrasing cannot be found anywhere in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Conclusion

The potential reasons for these puzzlingly fundamental differences are as vast as the differences themselves. The fantastic and fascinating scholarship of Dr. Bart Ehrman has been a highlight in my ministry and has helped to thoroughly unpack the meaning behind and underneath such confounding ancient documents.

Would Christianity be better off if the Gospel of John had been left out of the New Testament? The answer to this question is a resounding ‘yes.’ The mismatch cannot be explained without determining that either John or the other three gospels are primarily fictional. And, of course, nothing precludes all four of them being so.

(5219) God’s judgment is inconsistent

We would expect a universal god to apply judgment in a consistent manner, but that is not what we observe by analyzing the Bible. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lghc20/gods_judgment_is_inconsistent_and_that_should_be/

If a theist excuses God’s actions by explaining that the people he killed “had it coming” and God was simply exercising his judgment, why don’t we see this happen more often? If God is holy and we’re all sinners, what is the actual variable that determines when God will judge us in life vs when he’ll wait until after we die?

Clearly, God is being selective with how he applies his judgments, at least in this life. Using the apologetic of “God is exercising his judgment” to explain why God killed people is especially strange if the theist in question believes in an afterlife. Isn’t the judgment supposed to come after we die? Why would God pre-emptively judge the living by smiting them? Almost makes it sound like Heaven and Hell were later ideas clumsily tacked on to an earlier mythos.

Let’s look at some inconsistencies:

1. 1. “It’s ok that God unleashed the plagues of Egypt because God exercised his judgments on the Egyptians for enslaving the Israelites.” Ok, then why didn’t God unleash plagues upon the Israelites when they became slavers? Or the Ottomans? Or the Spanish, Portuguese, and Dahomey? Why aren’t there the Plagues of Dixieland?
   2. “It’s ok that God ordered the genocide of the Canaanites because they were sacrificing their children at altars.” I talk about it a lot, the mechanics of it are especially weird if the sacrificed children were going to heaven anyway, but why hasn’t God stopped child sacrifice in other places?

I keep hearing things like “their sin was full” or “he gave them a chance”. What does that mean, though? He clearly didn’t give the children he kills a chance, and those who live and die generations before his plagues or floods or genocides…miss out on the judgment? If God can come and smite someone for sinning, why doesn’t he do it more often?

“Free will” is often used as an excuse for why God doesn’t intervene, but killing someone necessarily ends their free will to continue to make choices. Apparently, God is Ok with occasionally ending some people’s free will, but the sin of rapists’ and mass murderers isn’t full yet?

And this is all without getting into what I see as a larger problem, though maybe not my main point, which is that God doesn’t actually need to kill anyone. Death being the penalty for sin is an arbitrary rule God made up, (he could have made the penalty something else) and if a theist explains that God killing certain people is necessary to keep them from sinning anymore…well, no it isn’t. God isn’t limited like we are, he can put an end to someone’s sin without killing them.

One of the expected attributes of omniscience and omnipotence is consistency. Yahweh, as portrayed in the Bible, is not consistent in the manner in which he judges people, suggesting that he is product of human imagination.

(5220) Religious morality conflicts with natural human morality

There exists a conflict between what humans naturally feel about morality and what is portrayed in religious scripture. The question is why a god would promote certain moral rules that conflict with the natural moral feelings of the people he created. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lhk44q/religious_morality_is_inherently_flawed_because/

I’ve been thinking about a moral contradiction that I never see apologists properly address. In most Abrahamic religions, especially Islam, the belief is that whatever God declares is moral. If God says slavery is moral, it’s moral. If God says child marriage is moral, it’s moral. If the Prophet does it, it must be moral because God approved it.

But here’s the problem: If God is the source of morality, and He created humans — why are humans naturally wired to feel empathy and oppose certain things that this God supposedly declared moral? Why is every normal, decent human being today horrified by things like slavery, child sex, or executing people for leaving a religion — even though these were approved in religious scriptures?

Believers love to say: “It was moral back then, it’s immoral now because God knows what’s best for every era.”

But if something can be moral at one time and immoral at another, then morality isn’t absolute. It’s situational. Which already undermines the whole idea that divine morality is perfect and unchanging.

And if God programmed us with emotions like empathy, reason, and conscience — which tell us that enslaving people or marrying children is wrong — yet punishes us for rejecting those actions when a scripture says it’s fine, then either:

• God created us defectively
• God’s morality is arbitrary and cruel
• Or, morality exists independently of God, driven by empathy, reason, and human evolution

The deeper issue is accountability. Religions like Islam claim that you’ll be judged in the afterlife for not accepting the faith — even though to truly believe, you’re often expected to suppress your natural moral compass, your empathy, and your logical reasoning, and replace it with blind submission to whatever is written.

Why would a just, all-knowing God wire us to feel repulsed by certain things, and then punish us for following that natural repulsion?

And no — the “it was a test of obedience” argument doesn’t work, because if morality is just about obedience and not about reason, empathy, or justice, then what’s the point of having those faculties in the first place? It makes the entire concept of moral accountability meaningless.

You can’t program a fish to need water, then punish it for drowning.

This is one of the biggest reasons I find religious morality incoherent and abusive. If God’s moral system requires you to discard your own humanity, your reasoning, and your empathy — and threatens eternal torture for refusing to do so — then maybe the problem isn’t with you. It’s with the claim.

Some apologists claim that God could only work with the times- that he couldn’t override the consensus views of ancient people, but had to wait until society had matured to accept more advanced moral principles. But a much better explanation is that the moral quality of religious writings improved over time simply because the human race evolved to a higher standard- that is, no god needed to explain anything.

(5221) Evidence against an interventionist god

All it takes to refute the idea that a god exists who hears and answers prayers is to review the recovery rates of people who have debilitating illness or conditions. There seems to be no evidence that any help is coming from any supernatural agency. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lhpvtd/if_a_god_exists_we_should_see_all_serious/

This is an argument I have created for the non-existence of an interventionist God. I would love to hear your thoughts and some constructive criticism.

P1: If an interventionist God exists all diseases and ailments would be known by medical science to sometimes spontaneously remit with statistically significant frequency.

P2: Certain diseases and ailments are not known to spontaneously remit with statistically significant frequency.

Conclusion: Therefore an interventionist God doesn’t exist.

Explanation:

I have in mind the traditional western idea of a personal God, who hears and answers prayers. This God would quite intuitively be willing to heal any illness or ailment, if one prays.

But the problem is, there are many illnesses and ailments that are somewhat prevalent in the society, are highly deadly or debilitating (meaning: one would have a strong incentive to pray) and yet if they remit naturally it’s an astronomically rare occurrence.

For example. There are currently about 30.000 people with ALS in the USA alone. This ailment is extremely debilitating and usually leads to death just a few years after diagnosis. Every year 5000 new people are diagnosed. I believe a substantial number of ALS patients should be praying for themselves and receiving prayers from their family and friends. And it seems to me rather intuitive that a substantial number of those who pray or are being prayed for should be healed by God. And yet spontaneous remission of ALS is virtually unheard of. For example Dr Richard Bedlack claims to have found just 48 cases from all around the world of an ALS reversal. Plus this remission is thought to be tied to genetics.

Other ailments that fit those criteria (severely debilitating or deadly, never going into remission and being fairly common) include: Alzheimer’s disease, AIDS, Down syndrome, amputations, some forms of blindness and so on.

I am not saying that there has never been any spontaneous and complete remission of AIDS or ALS, or that no amputee has ever gotten their limb back. I don’t know that. Maybe there were. All I am saying is that if an interventionist God exists, we would simply expect to see these medical occurrences on a much higher scale than we do.

The frequency of remission of these types of conditions is too low to suggest the existence of the Christian god. Or, if this god does exist, then it can be asserted that his ability to heal people in response to prayer is woefully deficient.

(5222) Christianity devalues women

Unlike most pagan religions that preceded it, Christianity is primarily male dominant. It can be argued that a real deity would not favor either sex, but would simply see everybody as human. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/exchristian/comments/1lirch4/deep_deep_down_women_will_always_feel/

Women in most Christian churches are second class citizens. They’re often barred from leadership, silenced in pulpits, and told their highest calling is submission. They’re meant to be wives and mothers and housekeepers and bring lemon bars to church potlucks.

In Christianity, God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They’re all male-coded identities. The closest thing to a feminine divine figure is Mary, but even she is defined by paradox: virgin and mother, revered but never divine. She’s not a counterpart to God. She’s a vessel. A symbol of obedience. A theological placeholder for femininity that’s acceptable only when it’s passive, silent, and sacredly suffering.

Contrast that with pagan traditions, where goddesses abound. Within different traditions you get Brigid, Freya, Hecate, Demeter, Isis. Each embodies different aspects of life: creation, destruction, love, war, wisdom, magic, fertility, death. The divine feminine isn’t a footnote. It’s central and it’s powerful and it’s not just one thing but a plurality of things. Paganism celebrates female divinity.

So when people say, “Christianity values women,” I want to ask: Which women? In what roles? With what power?

Women have been co-opted into this faith without due process, accepting their relegation willfully without truly thinking about the consequences. Gender equality would be the most likely paradigm promoted by any actually-existing deity.

(5223) Christianity begs for the least likely explanation

Christian theology revolves around a series of alleged miraculous events, accepting their truth while ignoring the much more likely non-supernatural explanations. It is playing a game of reverse probabilities. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAChristian/comments/1li2i09/christianity_argues_for_the_least_likely/

On the basic claims of Christianity Christians argue that one of the LEAST likely things happened, not the MOST likely.

We have a claim that a person died and came back to life 3 days later. We have thousands, if not millions of reliable accounts of people being mistaken about something. It happens all the time. We have zero reliable accounts of people coming back from the dead after 3 days. What’s more likely? The thing we have millions of examples of or the thing we have zero examples of?

We have a claim that Jesus ascended up into the heavens, like a man on an invisible elevator. Up into the sky he went. No strings, no wings, no jets. We have zero reliable accounts of this ever happening. We do have all those accounts of people being wrong about what they saw though. What’s more likely? The thing we have zero reliable examples of? Or the thing that happens every day?

We have a claim that Jesus walked on water. How many examples of someone walking on water do we have? None. How many examples of people being tricked into thinking someone walked on water? We have entire TV shows dedicated to that. What’s more likely? The thing we have zero examples of? Or is it more likely people were mistaken?

We have a claim that Jesus is God. We have zero examples where we can prove this is true. And we have thousands of examples of people claiming to be God that we all reject as silly nonsense. What’s more likely?

Christians like to think that their explanation makes the most sense, and maybe it does make sense to them. But the reality is, they’ve chosen one of the least likely explanations and they have ignored the most likely explanations.

The reality is, for Christianity to be true, people need to totally dismiss and ignore the thing that is more likely than it being true. It is more likely that people were mistaken. It is more likely that those anonymous witnesses were either made up entirely, or the witnesses were mistaken. It’s more likely that, just like every other religion, Christianity is just another superstitious belief system that has tagged along the pattern-seeking, superstitious brains of humans.

When you look at this image,

do you think it’s more likely that your religion is correct, and all the other ones are wrong? You think you got lucky enough to be in the sweet spot and that you just happened to find and believe the correct religion? You think everyone of a different religion who says the same thing about their own religion is most likely wrong, and you’re most likely right?

What’s more likely? People were mistaken about certain events, formed religious beliefs about them, and then taught those beliefs to their children? Or a man rose from the dead?

In every other aspect of life, Christians will gravitate to the most likely explanation for observed events, but when it comes to their faith they default to the least likely. They are playing a game of reverse probability, simply driving out of their minds the much more probable natural ways to explain the origins of their faith.

(5224) Christians worship a divine projection of themselves

Because the attributes of the Christian god are poorly defined, and the fact that this god, if it exists, makes no appearances or pronouncements that would alleviate the unknown aspects of its agenda, every Christian by default must construct a mental model of this god in their own way. This implies that each Christian worships a different god. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1li2dhs/no_two_humans_worship_the_same_god/

Every human being has a unique “self” a distinct psychological, emotional, and experiential identity. Since the concept of God is filtered through that self, each person ends up worshiping a version of God that is uniquely shaped by who they are. Therefore, no two humans worship the same God.

God is understood through interpretation: through reading scripture, hearing stories, prayer, reflection, and emotional response. All of that is filtered through the self.

For example: A person raised in trauma may view God as protector. Someone raised with strict punishment may see God as judge. A philosopher may see God as abstract principle. A child may see God as a magical parental figure.

Even when using the same religious language, each person relates to and imagines God differently, because the self doing the interpreting is different.

God is also the foundation of religious morality, and no two humans share the exact same moral code, not perfectly, not 1 to 1. The moral values we hold are shaped by our unique selves, and in turn, we shape our idea of God to reflect and justify those values. So when each person worships a God who agrees with their morality, what they’re really worshiping is a divine projection of themselves.

If the Christian god, Yahweh, existed, this situation would likely be very different. Yahweh would be able to align peoples’ perception of it to a consistent image- there would be very little variation in how he was perceived. And, of course, this also implies that Christianity would not be divided into thousands of denominations.

(5225) Religiosity breeds self-righteousness

The following essay explains how religious people are trained to value belief over evidence, making them immune to arguments that demonstrate the fallacy of their beliefs:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lksal1/religiosity_breeds_selfrighteousness/

Thesis Statement: Religiosity often fosters self-righteousness because it elevates belief above evidence, and grants moral authority not through ethical behavior, but through adherence to doctrine.

Argument: When a person believes their moral worldview is revealed by a perfect, divine source, doubt is no longer part of the process. Questioning becomes disloyalty. The resulting confidence is not earned through reason or tested against reality. It is assumed to be correct by default, regardless of the evidence.

Many religious doctrines create a binary moral framework: believers are saved, unbelievers are lost. This separation allows someone to view themselves as morally elevated simply for holding a belief, even if their actual behavior is no better or worse than that of nonbelievers. That is not moral integrity. It is belief-based entitlement.

This phenomenon is not limited to any single tradition. It appears wherever faith is treated as a moral good in itself. Once belief is elevated above scrutiny, and disagreement is framed as rebellion, the door to self-righteousness swings wide open. The believer is not just convinced. They are certain, and that certainty is seen as virtue, even when it is shielded from all correction.

In countless debates I have had with theists, this plays out the same way. I present evidence that directly contradicts a claim. Rather than adjust the belief, they retreat into faith. At that point, the belief cannot be falsified, no matter how clearly it fails. It survives not because it withstood scrutiny, but because it was made immune to it.

If your moral worth is defined by what you believe, not by how you reason or how you act, then self-righteousness is not a flaw. It is a logical outcome.

Religion works on a different cognitive system than what controls every other aspect of human knowledge. Evidence is relegated, while blind acceptance and obedience is elevated as the gold standard. This ruse of brainwashing is necessary to keep people in the pews because any exercise in objective reasoning renders the entire religious enterprise a celebration of fantasy.

(5226) Devout should hope Mark was wrong

When it comes to text in the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 7, Christians should hope that the author of this chapter made a mistake and put words in Jesus’ mouth that he did not utter. Otherwise, there is a problem, as explained below:

https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2025/06/honest-sermons-on-gospel-of-mark_27.html#more

If the Judeo-Christian god truly had the welfare of humanity at the center of attention, it’s hard to understand why he/she/it didn’t include a major book in the Bible about health and hygiene. This missing book could have included detailed information about germs, exactly why we get sick, and ways to stay healthy and fit. Was this god satisfied that it would take thousands of years for humans to discover the realities of disease? In the meantime, we suffer, so what? So much of the Bible is useless nonsense: what harm would it have done to include a major book explaining the realities of human biology and contagion?

Wash your hands before eating….or not.

I pose this question because of verses 1-23 in the 7th chapter of Mark, in which we find Jesus and religious authorities in a heated exchange about washing hands before eating. “So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders but eat with defiled hands?’” (v. 5) Jesus responds in verses 14-15: “Then he called the crowd again and said to them, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.’” Later he scolds the disciples for being dense: “So, are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile, since it enters not the heart but the stomach and goes out into the sewer?” (vv. 18-19)

This is not to suggest that the religious authorities had figured out germs and sources of infection, but they may have noticed a connection between eating with dirty hands—and from unwashed dishes—and getting sick. Tim Sledge discusses the problem of the Jesus-script in Mark 7 in a chapter titled, The Germ Warfare Problem, in his book, Four Disturbing Questions with One Simple Answer: Breaking the Spell of Christian Belief:

“Not only did Jesus fail to mention germs, but he steered his listeners in the wrong direction when he told them not to worry about washing their hands.” (p. 41)

We can’t fault the Jesus-script about the sources of moral defilement: “And he said, ‘It is what comes out of a person that defiles. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.’” (vv. 20-23)

Tim Sledge acknowledges this, but presses the point: “Jesus was focused on the importance of inner spiritual change over our religious ceremony. But wouldn’t this have been a great time to explain that they should wash their hands for health purposes, a good time to tell people about germs, a good time to talk about why they should be careful where they get their drinking water, along with a few tips about sewage disposal?” (p. 42)

“God had been watching silently for thousands of years by the time Jesus came along. It was late in the game, but couldn’t the son of God—the one described as a Great Physician—have made a greater contribution to human health than healing a few people while he was on earth?” (p. 46)

We can suspect that Jesus—or rather, Mark the supposedly divinely-inspired creator of the Jesus-script—dropped the ball on this very important issue impacting human health and well-being.

How could an omnipotent, omniscient god have allowed this to happen? To the embarrassment of the faith for the past 400 years (since the time when germs were discovered). Couldn’t a god have seen this coming? Christians are left to explain why Jesus not only didn’t give us information that would have alleviated a major cause of human suffering, but even provided instruction that made things worse than if he had kept his mouth shut.

(5227) Jesus came for the Jews…or everyone?

There exists a fatal contradiction in the New Testament concerning whether Jesus meant to be of service to the Jews alone or, alternately, to the entire world. A good case can be made either way, but this is a problem for Christian theology as any attempt to summarize the scope of Jesus’ ministry is enmeshed in a good measure of uncertainty. The following was taken from:

https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2025/06/honest-sermons-on-gospel-of-mark_27.html#more

In Matthew 10 we find this Jesus-script, instructions addressed to his disciples:

“Do not take a road leading to gentiles, and do not enter a Samaritan town, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’” (vv. 5-7)

Apparently this mindset guided the Jesus-script created by Mark as well. In Mark 7:24-30 we read about Jesus’ encounter with a gentile, a Syrophoenician woman. She sought him out to beg him to cure her daughter, who was possessed by a demon. He couldn’t be bothered. In fact, when Matthew copied this story, his Jesus was more uncaring: “But he did not answer her at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she keeps shouting after us.’ He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’”  (Matthew 15:23-24)

Back to Mark—and Jesus is even nasty: “He said to her, ‘Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ But she answered him, ‘Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.’” (vv. 27-28) This scolding worked: Jesus changed his mind, and assured her that her daughter was no longer possessed by a demon—and as soon as she arrived home she saw that the demon was gone.

How can the devout who read this story be happy with Jesus’ arrogance in responding to this woman? And aren’t we now in the realm of magical thinking, indeed superstition? Demons were an explanation for mental illness or weird behavior. We know better today. Maybe some of the devout are in awe that Jesus had remote control over demons. But most of the devout surely would hope that Mark has made a mistake here; this cannot be an authentic story about their beloved Jesus.

The unknown author who added an ending to Mark’s gospel—we don’t even know who wrote the gospel—overruled the don’t-go-to-the-Gentiles message. This is the Jesus-script found at Mark 16:15: “And he said to them, ‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation.’”

Anyone who reads the gospels carefully, critically, can spot these discrepancies.

The trouble began when the author of the Gospel of Matthew penned the verses cited above. Did he know what Paul had previously written? If so, did he care? The answer to the first question was probably ‘yes.’ So the second question would be ‘no.’ This might indicate that he didn’t think much of Paul, and sought to ‘correct’ the truth of what Jesus preached. Either way, a contradiction of this nature should not exist in the Bible- that is, if God is paying attention.

(5228) Jews rejection is deeply suspicious

The proverbial ‘turd in the soup bowl’ that casts serious doubt on Christianity is that the Jews predominantly rejected Jesus as being their prophecized savior. The very people who should be the most qualified to detect the savior did not see Jesus as being such. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lng1ks/the_rejection_of_jesus_by_most_jews_casts_doubt/

Jesus was a Jew, preaching to Jews, claiming to fulfill Jewish scriptures about the Jewish Messiah. But the overwhelming majority of Jews then and now don’t accept that he was the Messiah.

This raises suspicion on the claims of Christianity. One argument in favor of Christianity is that the Jews were expecting a political savior, not a suffering servant, or that they rejected Jesus just like they rejected the prophets. But here’s the thing: when your own religious community, the one whose texts supposedly foretold you rejects you almost entirely, that’s not just some minor speed bump. That’s deeply suspicious.

This is centuries of consistent rejection by the people who supposedly had the Messianic framework, If anyone should have recognized the Messiah, it should have been the Jews. They’re the ones who preserved the Hebrew Bible. They’re the ones who lived in the cultural and prophetic context. But somehow, they just missed it?

This point cannot be over-emphasized. It would be like a mother seeing a photograph of a boy, and claiming that it is not her son, while another person who never knew either one of them claims that it is. Who are you going to believe?

(5229) Gospel authors believed in Adam and Eve

It is now understood by all except the most brainwashed Christians that the story of Adam and Even in the Book of Genesis is an allegory- it didn’t actually happen. But when we read the gospels, it is clear that the authors believed in a literal, historical Adam and Eve as being the first humans on the planet. This is a problem. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lo8khz/adam_and_eve_wasnt_an_allegory_to_the_gospel/

The New Testament authors treated Adam as a real historical person, not a metaphor, especially in their attempt to link Jesus to him through genealogy. If Jesus’ lineage depends on Adam being real, and Adam never existed, then the foundation of that lineage and a major theological claim falls apart.

Christians often claim that the story of Adam and Eve is just an allegory but the New Testament authors, particularly the writer of the Gospel of Luke, trace Jesus’ lineage all the way back to Adam. Not metaphorically. Not symbolically. Historically. In Luke 3:23–38, there is a genealogy listing Jesus ancestors through David, through Abraham, through Noah, all the way back to Adam.

You don’t trace a literal genealogy through metaphorical ancestors. You don’t say: This is Bob, son of Carl, son of Dave, son of Metaphorical Brian. The entire point of a genealogy is to establish a historical connection. It’s a claim about lineage, bloodline, and history.

The gospel authors weren’t treating Adam and Eve as symbolic. They were treating them as literal people. As ancestors. As the original humans from whom all others descended. You can’t get more literal than that.

Everything we know from evolutionary biology shows that Adam and Eve, as described in Genesis, a single human couple created miraculously from dust and a rib, who birthed all of humanity simply cannot be real. Humanity didn’t start from two people 6,000 years ago in a garden. We evolved gradually from earlier hominids in a population of thousands, over hundreds of thousands of years. There was no historical Adam, and no literal Eve.

How did God allow this to happen? To let the author of the Gospel of Luke write a genealogy such as he did that would later show him to be completely incorrect about the history of human origins. It would seem that an omniscient god would have had a personal incentive to avoid this embarrassment.

(5230) Argument disproves existence of the Christian god

The following reasoning is sufficient to preclude the existence of the Christian god, at least as he is imagined by the majority of Christians:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lotzrc/i_believe_i_have_an_argument_that_completely/

Premise 1: An all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful God would not give commands that are factually false or morally unjust.

Premise 2: The Bible (Deuteronomy 22:13–21) presents a law, said to come from God, that requires execution of women who fail a test of virginity based on bleeding, a test known to be factually false (many women do not bleed during first intercourse).

Premise 3: A law that causes the execution of innocent women due to a false test is morally unjust.

Premise 4: Therefore, the Bible attributes to God a command that is both factually false and morally unjust.

Premise 5: If the Bible attributes factually false and morally unjust commands to God, either: • (a) the Christian God (as traditionally defined) does not exist, or • (b) the Bible is not a reliable witness of that God.

Premise 6: The Bible also teaches that those who disbelieve in this God will be condemned to hell (e.g., John 3:18, Revelation 20:15).

Premise 7: Punishing people eternally for an honest, reasonable, evidence-based conclusion (disbelief due to moral contradiction) is itself morally unjust.

Conclusion: Therefore, the Christian God defined as all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful, as traditionally described in the Bible, cannot exist, because His supposed commands and actions are factually false and morally unjust.

The error described above is understandable if it was written by humans with an imperfect understanding of female biology. But if the Bible is understood as the inspired work of an omnipotent, all-knowing god, there is a big problem. And this was not a trivial error- it resulted in the undeserved punishment and execution of innocent women.

(5231) Healing by touch

It is impossible to miss the rich applications of folklore in the Bible, that, at the time it was written, matched much of what was being written by authors of various pagan religious persuasions. What none of this matched was actual reality. The following was taken from:

https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2025/06/honest-sermons-on-gospel-of-mark_27.html

The final seven verses of Mark 7 depict Jesus’ encounter with a man who was deaf, and “had an impediment in speech.” Those who brought him to Jesus begged that “he lay his hands on him.” Jesus stuck his fingers in the man’s ears, and “spat and touched his tongue.” Does this mean that Jesus put his own spit on the guy’s tongue? His holy spit worked? Mark wanted to assure his readers that their holy hero had a magic touch. Jesus’ fingers could do the trick. The gullible folks back then wanted to believe that this was a true story, and apparently the same applies to far too many gullible people today. They’re sure their wonderful Jesus is present in the world today. If that’s the case, why doesn’t Jesus work this magic for deaf people every day, throughout the world? 

This is another example of Mark indulging in the use of miracle/magic folklore so common at the time. His Jesus had to be as wonderful as other holy heroes of the ancient world.

As we’ve seen in the previous articles in this series, the author of Mark’s gospel does not qualify as a historian. His agenda was to promote the break-away Jewish sect that idolized Jesus. He never mentions his sources, so it’s likely that—writing about forty years after the death of Jesus (assuming that Jesus wasn’t an invented holy hero)—he created stories from his imagination, fueled by the mythologies and folklore of his time.

What is obvious to non-Christians is missed by inculcated Christians who have lost all reasoning and analytical skills when it pertains to their faith. These stories were invented- they do not reflect reality in any shape or form. If what was presented in the last seven verses of Mark, Chapter 7, actually happened, we would be living in a different world today. But we’re not.

(5232) Atoms and void

Christianity demands that people stare at nothing, but profess that they see something. It is a mind-control cult that thrives on childhood inculcation and a manufactured fear of the unknown. It is time for thinking people to move on. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1lqnxxp/there_is_only_atoms_and_void_why_i_left_the/

I left the Catholic Church not in anger, but in recognition.
Recognition that I had spent years talking to myself in a dark room, hoping silence would eventually answer back.

I waited for a voice that never spoke. I looked for signs that never came.

I asked to believe — and nothing answered.

So I stopped pretending.

What pushed me out wasn’t sin. It wasn’t rebellion. It was honesty. And that, I’ve come to understand, is the one thing Catholicism can never fully tolerate. It allows doubt only as a phase — never as a conclusion.

The Church Demands a Closed Loop

In Catholicism, every question must already have an answer.
The answer is always “God,” and the proof is always “mystery.”
It’s a system that punishes thinking by demanding submission, then calls submission “humility.”

But real humility is saying I don’t know.

Real humility is Democritus — admitting the universe doesn’t speak, doesn’t comfort, doesn’t owe you meaning.

The Church claims the opposite: that silence must mean something. That suffering must be shaped. That behind randomness, there is a voice — conveniently one with a liturgical calendar and property in every country.

It isn’t humility. It’s cosmic narcissism.

Faith Isn’t Deep. It’s Fragile.

Catholics speak of faith as depth, but in reality, it’s a brittle script held together by fear.

They say they’ve examined doubts. They haven’t. They’ve contained them.

I spoke clearly, explained why I left — calmly, truthfully. And what did I receive?

Downvotes. Deletion. Deflection. A polite voice telling me I should’ve written it in a diary.

Of course they said that. Because if doubt becomes visible, it becomes contagious.

Faith can’t withstand exposure. It must be guarded like a wound.

It thrives only when you pretend that stories are evidence, feelings are facts, and silence is the voice of God.

An Empire Built on Absence

The Catholic Church has always relied on spectacle and control.

Its power wasn’t built through truth — it was built through monopoly: of salvation, of morality, of meaning.

It gave you a problem you didn’t ask for — sin — and sold you the cure.

It called the questions dangerous, and the answers divine.

Meanwhile, it burned thinkers alive.

It mutilated science, censored books, silenced Galileo, and twisted the bones of Giordano Bruno until they cracked beneath the weight of dogma.

And now, it sells modernity back to us in edited form — pretending it was always there, always evolving.

No. The Church didn’t build Western civilization. It survived it.
It held the reins as long as it could, and when it couldn’t, it rewrote the story to make itself the hero.

God is 42.

I prayed.

And the answer I got was 42 — elegant, empty, and indifferent to the question.

Not a voice. Not a presence. Just an absurd echo in the dark.

That’s the truth behind all this pious certainty:

At the bottom of theology, there’s a punchline.

And most people spend their lives trying not to hear it.

I Didn’t Lose Faith. I Buried It.

I didn’t give up. I gave it everything.

And then I let it go — like you let go of a superstition you outgrew.

Not with rage. With clarity.

And I’ll say this plainly: I left the Church. And I think you should too. Not to be angry. Not to rebel.

But because the path you’re on ends nowhere. Because the finish line is imaginary.

Because the freedom you’re afraid of is the only real thing left.

There is no voice behind the veil.

No plan.

No cosmic parent.

There is only atoms and void.

And that is enough.

Humanity needs to outlive the myths of the past to survive the challenges of the future. Christianity (Catholicism in this case) is a roadblock to that future. It is time to call a spade a spade. It is time to face the fact that, for all intents and purposes, we are alone in the universe.

(5233) Mythmaking in Luke

Of all the gospel authors, Luke makes that most aggressive claim to being a true, objective historian, writing only what he heard from eyewitnesses, or eyewitnesses of eyewitnesses. However, the very text belies that claim. The following was taken from:

https://averagejoeatheist.com/?p=133

Disclaimer: Today we are going to discuss a couple of the events in the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke, like the other three canonical gospels, does not include the name of its author within the text itself. The title “Luke” is based on early church tradition, which attributed the book to Luke the physician, a companion of the Apostle Paul mentioned in a few of his letters. While this attribution has been widely accepted throughout Christian history, it’s important to note that it is not stated directly in the gospel. Most scholars date the Gospel of Luke to around 80 to 90 CE, placing its composition several decades after the life of Jesus. According to the opening verses, the author’s intent was to gather information from earlier sources and eyewitnesses in order to create an “orderly account” for the benefit of believers. To make things easy, we will conceed authorship in this blog.

So The Book Of Luke opens his gospel with this classy, confident statement:

I’ve carefully investigated everything from the beginning and decided to write an orderly account…”

Ah yes, the ol’ “I did my own research” defense, biblical edition.

Now, Luke doesn’t claim to be an eyewitness, which is refreshingly honest. Instead, he’s basing his story on what the eyewitnesses supposedly handed down. But this is where things get… let’s say, suspiciously cinematic.

Let’s take a walk through two of Luke’s most private scenes, you know, the ones no human being could have possibly witnessed, but which he describes in vivid, dramatic detail anyway. Just normal historian stuff. Totally above board.

Exhibit A: Mary and the Angel Gabriel

Luke 1:26–38 gives us a tender, deeply personal scene between Mary and the Archangel Gabriel. He shows up like a glowing UPS driver from God, drops the immortal line “You will conceive a son,” and peaces out. Mary, to her credit, doesn’t freak out or pepper-spray him. She just nods, says “Let it be,” and becomes the vessel for salvation. Quiet day in Nazareth.

Now pause. Who was there to see this?

No one.
Not Joseph. Not a servant. Not even a stray cat.
Just Mary and an invisible cosmic messenger.

So how did this make it into Luke’s carefully-researched “orderly account”?

What are our options here?

1. 1. Mary told someone later. “Oh yeah, by the way, an angel showed up and got me pregnant with the Holy Spirit. Don’t worry it’s God’s baby.”
   2. Someone made it up to fit the theology.
   3. Luke was secretly psychic and astral-projected into the past.

I’ll let you pick your favorite. Mine’s Option 2, because it smells the least like celestial cologne.

The truth is, Luke wasn’t recording journalism. He was telling a mythic origin story — a theological prequel. Not reporting history, but mythleading readers with something that looks historical but operates like divine fanfiction.

Exhibit B: Jesus and the Devil in the Wilderness

Jump to Luke 4:1–13. Jesus, alone in the desert, freshly baptized and probably hangry, is approached by Satan. They have a theological rap battle involving bread, power, and suicide-by-temple-rooftop. Jesus wins by quoting scripture (a move I do not recommend trying in real-world arguments with manipulative people), and the Devil backs off like a cartoon villain.

Again — who witnessed this?

Was Luke hiding behind a rock?
Was there a desert squirrel who later dictated the transcript to Paul?

Even if Jesus told someone later, this reads less like, “Hey, I had a tough 40 days” and more like allegorical storytelling about resisting temptation. It’s Jesus vs. the Devil, representing good vs. evil, in a setting as isolated as humanly possible. It’s supposed to be a symbol. But Luke doesn’t tell you that — he presents it like a diary entry.

This is where mythleading really shines. Because it’s not just invention — it’s invention disguised as researched history. A beautifully polished theological tale in historical cosplay.

So What’s the Harm?

Well, here’s the thing: if you’re going to claim your story is rooted in eyewitness testimony, you probably shouldn’t fill it with private conversations between humans and angels, or desert duels with Satan. That’s like writing a biography of George Washington and confidently describing his dreams, unless he wrote them down himself (spoiler: Jesus didn’t leave a journal).

The issue isn’t just that these events are miraculous. It’s that no human could have witnessed them, yet they’re sold as part of a reliable account.

Now, some folks will try to patch the hole by saying, “Well, God must have told Luke what happened.” Cute idea, but let’s not skip over the massive leap that requires. The author of Luke doesn’t claim divine revelation anywhere in the entire book — not in the introduction, not mid-gospel, not even when Jesus ascends into the clouds. No dreams, no angelic dictation, no “the Lord spoke to me.” Instead, Luke says he’s writing based on secondhand sources and personal investigation — you know, regular human stuff. So unless God was secretly feeding him transcripts behind the scenes like some kind of ghostwriter from Heaven, that explanation’s not in the text. And if you’re going to assume divine dictation without the author claiming it, then congratulations: you’re now filling in plot holes with fan theories.

So Luke wasn’t lying exactly — but he was certainly mythleading. Telling sacred stories with the tone of a TED Talk and the footnotes of a Tolkien fanfic.

Final Thought

I have no problem with myth. Myth is powerful. Myth inspires. Myth gets people to recycle or fight dragons or stop being jerks to the elderly.

But when myth starts pretending to be history, especially in the name of divine truth, I get twitchy. Because that’s when people stop asking questions and start building doctrines on… well, angel whispers and sand-swept soliloquies with Satan.

So next time someone says, “Luke is based on eyewitness accounts,” just smile, nod, and ask:

Oh cool — which eyewitness was there when the angel visited Mary?”

And if they say “God,” you have my full permission to mythlead them straight to this blog.

Luke is just another example of fantasy literature, common of its time and place. Giving this account the same pedigree as what you might read in a reputable daily newspaper is a travesty of cognition. Yet, Christians do just that. It is pathetic and disheartening.

(5234) Reason to doubt ALL miracle claims

Humans have been inundated with miracle claims from ancient texts to contemporary word-of-mouth attestations. It would be impossible to disprove all of these claims. But what can be done is to observe that every purported miracle that has been closely examined has turned out to be fraudulent. Therefore, by extension, and as a first assumption, it is reasonable to dismiss all miracle claims, past and present. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lqcr5h/with_how_many_pious_frauds_and_mystic_fakers_have/

With how many pious frauds and mystic fakers that have been outed, compared to the number of genuinely verified miracle performers, believing that all miracle claims are false isn’t unsubstantiated – it’s a reasonable inference off pattern recognition.

James Randi burned hundreds of fraudulent careers trying (quite hard – to the tune of betting $1 million on it) to find genuine supernatural abilities in humans.

Zero success stories.

If genuine divine abilities existed or were possible, what would the likelihood of so many consecutive frauds out of a sampling of the world’s miracle claims be, without even a single success?

But nope, just endless faith healers who hate amputees and mind readers with ear pieces.

So if every single spiritual claimant ever investigated turns out to be false, what does that tell us about the ones who are unable to be investigated?

Quite a lot, I think, but I’m interested in hearing people explain otherwise.

We must base our understanding of reality on the data that is available to be examined. For example, if every human in recorded history has died before the age of 125, should we have any reason to believe that a person long ago lived to be 900 years old just because this claim is made in an ancient text? The answer should be ‘no.’ For anyone to have a belief in Christianity’s miracle claims, such belief should be tempered by the fact that we observe no miracles today. Do we assume that a world of miracles has evolved into a world of no miracles? Or that past claims of miracles are false?

(5235) Abrahamic god is self-centered

It would be expected that a real god would be selfless and mostly concerned with the welfare of whatever intelligent beings evolved in his universe. But the Abrahamic god is not like this. He is mostly concerned with his own feelings and pride. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ls8nq9/abrahamic_gods_view_on_most_evil_acts_proves_he/

This is not about morality, its about how we define most evil, unforgivable acts, and how fundamentally different it is with the Abrahamic God’s definition.

P1: Humans view acts like killing/genocide/raping as most evil.

P2: The Abrahamic God defines most evil and unforgivable as association (shirk) or blasphemy but he can forgive anything else.

P3: The Abrahamic God’s definition of the most unforgivable act is not based on harm to other humans, but on how offensive it is against himself.

P4: God condemns humans to eternal damnation for shirk/blasphemy, but can forgive what we consider the most evil things if they just worship him and repent even after committing atrocities.

P5: This fundamental difference shows that the Abrahamic God’s priorities are centered on himself, rather than on human suffering or justice.

C: The Abrahamic God’s complacent view of the most evil acts proves he is just self-centered and evil.

Edited to add sources

Islam: 1) Allah forgives all sins 2) Allah forgives all sins except shirk (association) 3) believers, repent sincerely, and your lord will absolve you of your sins and enter you into heaven. [Q 39:53, 4:48, 66:8]

Christianity: If you confess your sins, he will forgive and purify you from all unrighteousness. But blasphemy against the spirit is unforgivable. [1 John 1:9, Matthew 12:31-32]

This god’s self-centeredness is best exemplified by the first four of the Ten Commandments. They have nothing to do with human welfare and everything to do with this god’s insecurity and jealousy. The people who invented this god were projecting their own fears and self-doubt.

(5236) So much wrong with the Christian faith

Most Christians live with an idealized image of their faith. They are oblivious to the various issues that suggest that Christianity is in a state of flux, division, and is suffering a crisis of authenticity. The following was taken from;

https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2025/07/why-do-christians-keep-on-being.html#more

Of course, there’s something seductive, irresistible, about believing you’re on splendid terms with the creator of the Cosmos. How great it is to be able to communicate—through meditation and prayer—with the force that guides the affairs of the world. But it’s an uphill battle to maintain that this is not delusional. It’s the gimmick that clergy of so many different religions have convinced their followers to embrace. Christianity is especially guilty.

So much wrong, 1: The Jesus Problem: We have no idea who he actually was

The devout Christians who show up for church, regularly or even occasionally, have no clue about the ongoing turmoil in Jesus studies. That is, among scholars—Christian and secular—who make it their business to study the New Testament, especially the gospels. It has proved to be impossible to verify any Jesus quote or event in the gospels. Devout scholars want to believe that the gospel stories are based on eyewitness accounts or on reliable oral tradition, but coming up with actual evidence that this is so has never been done. In fact, it would be dangerous to the faith to claim that many supposed Jesus-quotes are authentic, e.g., Luke 14:26 (you have to hate your family and life itself to be a disciple) and Mark 13:12-13 (the horrors and suffering that will accompany the arrival of the kingdom). There is far too much material in the gospels that reflects very poorly on Jesus. Here’s a list of 292 examples of Jesus-script that qualifies as bad, mediocre, and alarming. Devout scholars, carefully selecting texts that they want to believe are authentic, have come up with many different versions of who Jesus was.

In fact, it’s more complex than that. Perhaps Jesus was a peasant preacher who attracted a following, people who believed in his connections with the divine, and who persisted in this belief after his death because they were convinced that he was resurrected. But dying-and-rising savior gods were popular in the ancient world, as Richard Carrier made clear in his 2018 essay, Dying-and-Rising Gods: It’s Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. Several of these cults pre-date the rise of Christianity. Or as Carrier puts it, “Jesus was late to the party.”

Adding even more to the complexity, quite a few scholars have advanced arguments suggesting that Jesus never existed at all. The devout are likely to ridicule the very idea, yet are unwilling to read/study the case advanced by these scholars. Books by Richard Carrier, Earl Doherty, David Fitzgerald, and Raphael Lataster are powerful introductions to this topic.

So much wrong, 2: Priests and ministers, propagandists and even liars for Jesus

Back in the day when I was in the Methodist ministry, the clergy in town would occasionally arrange for ecumenical services, presumably to make the point that we were all followers of Jesus. So the various clergy participated in the service, but we never actually discussed theology—because we knew there were so many disagreements. So we just put on the show.

But each one of us had been hired by our congregations to speak our denominational truths to our flocks. People respected our knowledge of the Bible, and trusted us to have wisdom derived from our knowledge of god. After all, we had seminary degrees. It never seems to have occurred to the folks in the pews that we were actually paid propagandists. Our role was to perpetuate the beliefs embraced by our denomination. There’s no doubt in my mind, however, that these local clergy were sincere and dedicated.

However, it goes beyond that. There has been a lot of lying going on in the defense of Christian beliefs. Just a few days ago, John Loftus published here a compilation of articles on the theme of lying for Jesus. Indeed, lying has been rampant among apologists who are obsessed with defending the faith. He notes that apologists claim superior knowledge in a wide range of fields: they claim to know more than specialists:

“They always judge which of these scholars are correct based on their previously adopted faith with its sectarian interpretation of an ancient pre-scientific book, written mainly by anonymous people! This is either truly amazing or utterly ignorant! It’s what you get by pretending to know that which you don’t know, rather than practicing the virtue of authenticity. Defending the Christian faith requires special pleading. We already knew that. It’s also an exercise lacking the virtue of authenticity, the antonyms of which are found online, with words like, counterfeit, fake, concocted, deceptive, delusory, disingenuous, inauthentic and misleading. ‘Liars for Jesus’ seems to be a phrase that fits.” (from one of his own articles, titled, Why Do So Many Christian Apologists Act Like Know-It-Alls? October 19, 2017)

There is another reality that is not as offensive as lying for Jesus, but which also causes damage. There are clergy who decline to enlighten the folks in their congregations about the turmoil in Jesus studies. Maybe they even had blinders on when they attended seminary, and didn’t really tune in to the profound disputes about Jesus. They wanted ordination, and careers designed to convince the faithful that Jesus was a living presence in their hearts. But honesty suffered.

So much wrong, 3: Christians have never been able to agree on the basics of their faith

By some estimates there are now 30,000 to 40,000 Christian denominations, divisions, sects, and cults. The splintering began at the very beginning—reflected in the contradictions that are so obvious in the New Testament. Just one example:

How do humans achieve eternal life?

·     By eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus (John 6:53-58)
·     By saying with your lips and believing in your heart that Jesus was resurrected (Romans 10:9)
·    By being very compassionate—if you fail at this, you’ll end up in eternal fire instead of blissful eternal life (Matthew 25:31-46)

Naturally, Jews and Muslims disagree with Christian theology, but the most colossal idiocy is that Christians themselves disagreed on Christianity theology. Hence the endless arguments and splintering for hundreds of years. Sometimes Christian rage—at other Christians—can be lethal. The Thirty-Years War, 1618-1648, based largely on Catholic vs. Protestant strife, claimed four to 8 million lives.

I grew up in a small town in rural northern Indiana, in the middle of the last century. There were only 1,600 people in the town, and yet we had four different Christian denominations: Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Christian—that is, there was a denomination that identified simply as Christian. Folks had no trouble forging strong friendships across these religious divides, but we were all pretty damn sure that the denomination we belonged to was the right one. How did we not see that there was something terribly wrong, terribly inappropriate with this divisiveness?

If Christianity was the religion of a supernatural, omnipotent god, none of these problems would exist- that is unless this god was spectacularly inept, or simply didn’t care that his mission to humanity was being splintered and misrepresented to billions of people.

(5237) The ‘true’ religion should be detectable

Theists often retreat when their religion is under attack by the use of dis-confirming scientific information by claiming that God is somehow above detection from these methods. But this leaves the question: Then how can anyone discern the one, true religion? This is when vacant stares are observed. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ltnqk9/theists_argument_that_science_cannot_explain_god/

Theists’ argument that science cannot explain God doesn’t explain what tools should be used to explain which of the many religions is the true one

My thesis is that theists’ argument that science cannot understand and explain God is just a cheap tactic to shut down debate.

There are two main problems with that argument:

1) Over time, science has debunked many myths which religion claimed could only be explained by religion and which science should not even have studied. From the creation of the world, to the sun rising not because it was carried by a god, to the earth not resting on elephants and turtles, to heliocentrism, etc etc

2) Even if we want to assume that, OK, religion and God are outside the real of science, what, then, should we use to study religion? Theology? Philosophy? Metaphysics? Divine inspiration? Which of these subjects tell us which of the thousands of religions ever worshiped on this planet is the true one? That’s the crucial point; theists can try to shut down the debate saying “science shouldn’t go there”, but cannot explain which subject should go there, which subject can determine which is the true religion, how, or why.

If the Christian god was real, then its interaction with humanity should be detectable by scientific methods. It is disingenuous to deflect this argument by saying that science cannot observe the effects of a miracle-working deity who is intimately involved with humans. That is, there is no reasonable argument that God could be working his magic and answering prayers without this activity being detected by science.

(5238) Children guilty or innocent

The Bible contains a contradiction concerning whether the children of sinful parents should be punished. Consider the following two scriptures:

Ezekiel 18:19-20

“Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The one who sins is the one who will die. 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.

Isaiah14:21-22

Prepare a place to slaughter his children-for the sins of their ancestors; they are not to rise to inherit the land and cover the earth with their cities. “I will rise up against them,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will wipe out Babylon’s name and survivors, her offspring and descendants,”

It would appear that we are dealing with two different gods- one, who is sensible and fair and believes that innocent children should not be murdered, and the other, who feels like doing so is justified in response to their parents doing wicked things. If Yahweh is consistent, then one of these scriptures must be misquoting him. Or better yet, two misaligned people wrote what they think a god who doesn’t exist should do.

(5239) Tragic flood in Texas, USA

A river flood on July 4, 2025 killed more than 120 persons in the state of Texas in the United States. This tragic event claimed the lives of more than 30 children who were attending a Christian bible camp (Camp Mystic):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2025_Central_Texas_floods

The following is not meant to add misery to this occasion, but to simply ask a question of the Christian nation:

Did God see what was happening, had to power to stop it, but decided to let it happen anyway? Almost every Christian will answer these questions with yes, yes, and yes. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1lvd0ir/christianity_is_a_death_cult/

Christianity is a death cult, as 109 confirmed deaths and still over 30 missing from the floods in Camp Mystic.

The camp mystic floods is a tragedy.

The reaction from Christians related to the camp, and online, is to try and instantly fill the void of this tragedy with evangelic Christian stuffing. To the mourning families and victims, their deaths are used as a springboard to speak to the gospel of the Christian message.

The Christian message is one of death and avoiding responsibility. Its central tenet is a human sacrifice, and its symbol is the weapon itself.

This natural disaster likely could have been prevented, too, if it weren’t for the vote of likely the same evangelical Christians. With better funding to the weather agencies responsible, who had been slashed headcounts of 800 people this year with the new Trump administration, needless deaths could have been avoided.

Death is glorified in Christianity. Dying for Christianity is good.

When you narrowly escape death, however, it is considered God watching out for you and protecting you. When a flood kills over 100 people at a summer camp, God is “in the water” and taking them into heaven. It is a test. It is part of his mysterious plan.

One more reason that I am anti-theist.

It is certain that the parents of the children who died at Camp Mystic said prayers to God to protect their children while they were in attendance there. Those prayers were not answered. Consequently, this tragedy should be viewed as circumstantial evidence that the claims of the Christian religion are false. But considering those who are inculcated, it is an example of how they manage to spin everything into a backdoor confirmation of their faith.

(5240) Epistemic humility versus dogmatic conviction

There exists a paradox within religious dogma that holds that people should be humble in their assertions of what is held to be true while simultaneously requiring them to display unfettered conviction of the same. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lv8vwn/the_paradox_of_epistemic_humility_and_dogmatic/

The internal tension between the demand for epistemic humility and the requirement for dogmatic conviction represents a fundamental, and perhaps irreconcilable, paradox within many theistic frameworks, particularly post-Judaic dogmatic religions. This post seeks to dissect this paradox not as an attack, but as a critical examination of its logical structure.

The core tenets are as follows:

1. 1. The Mandate for Epistemic Humility: Most forms of theism posit a transcendent, infinite, and ultimately incomprehensible God. A necessary corollary to this belief is that the human mind, being finite and fallible, is incapable of fully grasping the divine. This theological position necessitates epistemic humility, an acknowledgment of our cognitive limitations in the face of ultimate reality. To claim otherwise would be to commit the sin of hubris or spiritual arrogance.
   2. The Demand for Dogmatic Conviction: Simultaneously, these same religions require adherents to hold absolute faith in a specific set of doctrines (dogma). This is not a matter of preference but of soteriological necessity. Salvation, enlightenment, or right relationship with God is contingent upon accepting certain propositions as objectively and exclusively true (e.g., the nature of God, the path to salvation, the divinity of a specific figure).

The Inherent Contradiction: The paradox emerges when these two principles are held concurrently. How can one genuinely practice epistemic humility while simultaneously professing absolute certainty in a specific dogmatic framework?

• • The moment an individual asserts that their tradition’s interpretation of divine revelation is more correct than another’s, they are making a cognitive judgment. They are implicitly claiming that their human faculty of reason, intuition, or interpretation has more accurately grasped the transcendent truth than someone else’s. This act appears to be in direct opposition to the principle of epistemic humility.
  • To be truly humble, epistemically speaking, would be to concede the non-zero probability that one’s own interpretive framework is flawed, incomplete, or entirely incorrect. However, religious institutions are often built upon the foundation of certainty, not probabilistic assent.

Anticipating Common Rebuttals:

1. 1. The “Divine Revelation” Defense: The argument that “this is not my understanding, but God’s revealed truth” fails to resolve the paradox. Divine revelation is not a direct data transfer into the human mind. It is mediated through language, culture, historical events, and personal experience, all of which require human interpretation. The claim to possess the “correct” interpretation of this revelation is still, fundamentally, a human claim about the superiority of one’s own interpretive faculties or tradition. The locus of the problem simply shifts from “my idea” to “my interpretation of God’s idea,” but the assertion of cognitive superiority remains.
   2. The Historical Precedent: The very genesis of many denominations demonstrates this paradox in action. For Christianity to split from Second Temple Judaism, or for Protestantism to break from Catholicism, a group had to declare with immense confidence: “We have now correctly understood God’s will, and you have not.” This is a historical act of profound epistemic confidence, not humility.

Any honest Christian should not profess that they are certain of what they profess to believe but that they think (and hope) that they are on the right track. But that reasonable attitude is discouraged by their priests and pastors who try to drive home the idea that such uncertainty doesn’t really exist. Where uncertainty is seen as weakness instead of humility, problems arise when the resulting dogmatism ultimately breeds division and violence.

(5241) Problems with 1 Thessalonians

Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians reveals a delusional cultish fanaticism that should be seen as a warning sign to any person who is proposing to take it as an inspired work of God. The following was taken from:

https://www.debunking-christianity.com/2025/07/the-best-cure-for-christianity-is.html#more

But if I were to ask churchgoers how Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians has enhanced their understanding of god, how many would have ready answers? How many of them would even recall reading this letter? In recent years I have seen surveys that show a decline in Bible reading among churchgoers, and that appears to have accelerated during the Covid pandemic. But even in the best of times, Paul’s letters probably don’t have a lot of fans.

For a long time I have suggested that the apostle Paul deserves to be labeled a delusional cult fanatic.

Delusional. Like thousands of other religious leaders throughout the centuries, Paul claimed to have inside knowledge about the divine realm—and that’s why gullible people in thousands of religions have fallen for their claims. Paul bragged that he had learned nothing about Jesus from “human sources” (see Galatians 1:11-12)—all that he proclaimed about Jesus came from revelations directly from Jesus in heaven. Why believe Paul’s delusions but dismiss those of so many other religious leaders?

Cult. The early Jesus-movement was a breakaway sect that distanced itself from the Jewish parent. In I Thessalonians, chapters 1 and 2 especially, we read Paul’s babbling about how his followers had accepted the cult:

“We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.” (I Thessalonians 2:13)

He flatters the cult members as well:

“For they [believers in Macedonia and in Achaia] report about us what kind of welcome we had among you and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.” (I Thessalonians 1:9-10)

No surprise at all that Paul boasts about serving his true god who has a son that can save his followers from divine wrath. Total cult propaganda!

Fanatic: One of Paul’s biggest mistakes was his deep certainty—apparently derived from his hallucinations—that Jesus would very soon descend from heaven to bring his kingdom. This weird belief has poisoned Christian theology for centuries. It has been so hard for so many of the devout to accept that Paul was just plain wrong, and thus countless times Christians of various brands have set the date for the arrival of Jesus. They’ve all been wrong. This delusion, this fanaticism, he states explicitly in I Thessalonians 4:

“For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever.” (vv.16-17)

That is, Paul is sure that this will happen when he is still alive, and all devout believers—dead and alive—will join Jesus in the clouds and be with him forever. Even god’s trumpet will provide the musical accompaniment! This has to be one of the most disastrous texts in the New Testament. How can Paul not have been totally off his rocker? Well, by the standards of the ancient world—with so many unevidenced goofy religious ideas in circulation—Paul wasn’t so unusual. But by our standards today, that is, we would like to see religious ideas grounded in evidence, he does qualify as off his rocker. That is, he was a delusional cult fanatic.

Preachers love to quote the occasional feel-good texts that we find in his letters, e.g.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” (I Corinthians 13:4-7)

But this attitude was totally absent when Paul wrote in Romans 1 that gossips, haughty and boastful people, and rebellious children deserve to die. (Romans 1:28-32)

Today we would say he needed therapy. He wrote these tortured words in his letter to the Romans:

“For do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me. For I know that the good does not dwell within me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it but sin that dwells within me.” (Romans 7:15-20)

Devout Christians should also be alarmed by the shocking anti-Semitism found in I Thessalonians 2:14-16. Paul tells his Thessalonian flock that they…

“…became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out; they displease God and oppose everyone by hindering us from speaking to the gentiles so that they may be saved. Thus they have constantly been filling up the measure of their sins, but wrath has overtaken them at last.”

There has been considerable debate among scholars about this text, many arguing that it was a later interpolation. Paul seldom mentions Jesus events and episodes that we find in the gospels—remember that he bragged about not learning anything about Jesus from “human sources.” So why would he here suggest that wrath has overtaken the Jews at last? This text, and others in the New Testament, have fueled the virulent anti-Semitism that has caused so much horrible suffering for centuries.

Modern believers who read I Thessalonians critically and thoughtfully might rightly conclude that it got into the New Testament by mistake.

Any careful, objective study of 1 Thessalonians reveals it to be the work of a fallible man, not the inspired text of an omnipotent god. It’s inclusion in the New Testament is a testament to the specious credentialing decisions of the Bible’s compilers.

(5242) Christianity has one of the lowest retention rates

One indication of a religion that is true is that it would be better able to retain its followers when compared to all of the other ‘false’ religions. By this measure, Christianity is false because it has a low retention rate when compared to other religions. The following was taken from:

https://www.newsweek.com/christianity-religion-research-study-analysis-2093185

Christians, the world’s largest religious group, have one of the lowest global retention rates among major religions, a new report has found.

A Pew Research Center report published last Thursday found that fewer Christians hold on to their religion than Muslims and Hindus.

Why It Matters

The findings carry significant implications for the future of religious demographics and global culture.

Christianity, while still a majority among world religions, is losing members at a faster rate than nearly every other major tradition.

The phenomenon of religious “switching”—adults changing their religious identity from that of their upbringing—has the potential to reshape communities and influence political and social identities worldwide. Notably, most switching is not to another faith, but to religious disaffiliation.

These shifts are most pronounced in high-income, developed countries, raising questions about future patterns of belief and practice in both global and U.S. contexts.

What To Know

Some 83 percent of adults raised Christian are still Christian, according to the analysis, based on surveys from 117 countries and territories covering 92 percent of the 2010 global population.

This trails both Muslims and Hindus, who each retain 99 percent of their adherents from childhood. Only Buddhists recorded a lower retention rate than Christians, at 78 percent worldwide.

Overall, the analysis shows around 10 percent of adults under 55 have switched from their childhood religion, often becoming religiously unaffiliated.

Disaffiliation Drives the Trend

Most people who switch religions do not join another tradition; they leave religion altogether.

Christians and Buddhists are the likeliest to disaffiliate, with 19 percent of those raised Buddhist and 17 percent of those raised Christian reporting no current religious affiliation.

As a result, the category of the religiously unaffiliated—people who are atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular”—registered a net gain of nearly 17 people per 100 raised outside of any religion.

Geography Matters: Switching By Country Development

Religious switching is more common in countries with high Human Development Index (HDI) scores.

In places with an HDI of 0.8 or higher, a median of 18 percent of adults under 55 have switched religious identity, compared to just 3 percent in countries with low HDI (below 0.55).

Laws prohibiting religious switching in certain countries, such as Algeria, Brunei, Egypt, and Malaysia, correspond with very low reported rates of switching.

The U.S. Context

American trends reflect the global pattern. National surveys have shown continued Christian disaffiliation in recent years, although the pace of decline in the U.S. may be stabilizing.

Pew reported that only 46 percent of Americans born after 1990 still identify as Christian. Younger adults are much more likely to claim no religion compared to seniors.

Earlier this year, Newsweek reported on which states are seeing religion disappear the most.

The shifting religious landscape impacts not just spiritual life, but also political and cultural identities worldwide. In the U.S., for instance, religious “nones” are increasing, while Christian affiliation remains higher among older and more conservative demographics.

Pew’s research indicates that changing belief systems among younger generations will continue to shape debates over public policy, social norms, and family structure.

What People Are Saying

Pew Research Center research associate Yunping Tong said in the report: “The decline is largely due to people shedding their religious identity after having been raised in a religion.”

Study co-author Gregory Smith: “It’s striking to have observed this recent period of stability in American religion after that long period of decline.”

What Happens Next

Demographers and religious scholars will continue to monitor how generational change and cultural transformation influence religious identity.

While the immediate future shows a stabilization in the rate of religious switching in some Western countries, long-term projections remain uncertain.

A true religion in a sea of false religions would enjoy much greater success in retaining its membership because it would be offering a more rewarding experience- just like a product that works better than other competing products tends to dominate the retail market. Christianity fails by this measure- it is losing members because it is a false religion. If it was true, it would have the highest retention rate.

(5243) No application of supernatural beings

If supernatural beings existed, they would be a valuable asset for a whole slew of practical applications. The fact that they are not used like this in any sense suggests (or proves?) their non-existence. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1ly3t0l/the_best_argument_against_most_supernatural/

The best argument against most supernatural beings is their lack of any practical application despite being theoretically useful.

So here’s like an example in the Bible there’s a fortune telling demon that is cast out of a woman and it explicitly says this monster had made the woman’s owner lots of money.

If they were really fortune-telling demons they would be an astronomically important economic and Military asset.

Similarly considered ghosts.

If ghosts were real and as described they too would be an amazing military asset they could spy on positions they could get launch codes.

You want to know the Coca-Cola secret formula pay $1 million dollars to the deceased family member of a Coke employee and he can go read it to you.

Being invaded by an Assyrian Warlord just ask God for help and he’ll destroy the Assyrian warlord’s army.

All these things that they were real would have like exploitable properties and the fact that they’re not being exploited is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that these things just don’t exist in the way that they are described as existing if they exist at all.

It would be easy for a nefarious person to befriend a demon who could then be encouraged to destroy the lives of their enemies. Or a mother who could employ an angel who could monitor the safety of her child in a swimming pool or at a church camp. None of this is happening. Why not? Because supernatural beings DO NOT EXIST.

(5244) The most urgent question

When it comes to Christianity, there is a question that must be asked, as explained below:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lwww2z/no_christian_can_explain_this/

Its one of the most honest, urgent questions anyone raised in Christianity eventually confronts if they’re thinking critically: “If my eternal soul hangs on this book, then how can any of it be up for metaphor?” If the stakes are heaven or hell, then clarity should be absolute. But the Bible isn’t always clear, is it? It’s ancient, diverse, written over a thousand years, across cultures, languages, and genres — poetry, law, parable, apocalyptic vision. And you’re told every word is true — but not every word is literal. That contradiction wrecks people. “God’s word is clear, unchanging, and literal.” • But also — “You need the Spirit to interpret it.” • But also – “Well, some parts are metaphor, or poetic, or symbolic.” • But also — “Get it wrong and your soul is in danger.”

I don’t need to bend my brain to force this all to be true.

This exposes a theological problem with Christianity- it proposes the most consequential judgment possible (eternal bliss versus eternal torture) without precisely defining how that judgment is going to be made. And to make matters worse, it delivers contradictory information about that critical issue. To be sure, the gravity of the outcome is not consistent with the quality of the instruction manual.

(5245) Creative metaphysics and the Blue Fairy

The belief in the god of the Bible is grounded no more firmly than the legendary Blue Fairy, and the only reason that one is generally believed to exist while the other is assumed to be imaginary is the result of cultural conditioning. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1lybkkz/the_only_difference_between_god_and_the_blue/

The only difference between god and the blue fairy is that we all agree that one is fake and only some believe the other one is.

I know this might sound as inflammatory, but here me out. From the outside, the only real difference between the God of the Bible and something like the Blue Fairy is cultural familiarity.

Think about it. Both are supernatural beings with magical powers. Both are described as life-giving or life-creating. Both care about morality. Both can answer prayers or wishes. The only reason one of them is taken seriously and the other isn’t is because people were raised to treat one as real and the other as fiction.

Now, I get it. People will say things like “God is a necessary being,” or “God grounds morality,” or “God is the cause of the universe.” But here’s the thing. Those are just layers added after the belief is already there. They are not neutral observations. They are theological and philosophical add-ons that only make sense from within the belief system. If you’re not already assuming that worldview, none of those arguments actually get you to “God” (certainly not to the specific God of Christianity) any more than they would get you to a redefined Blue Fairy.

And yes, I can just as easily define my Blue Fairy as necessary, timeless, and morally perfect. That is part of the point. The arguments work because I am allowed to define my being however I want to make the pieces fit. That is not evidence. That is creative metaphysics.

I understand how far-fetched or ridiculous this might sound. But that is exactly the point. That feeling you might be having: that this is absurd, useless, or silly, it is exactly how apologetic arguments feel to someone who is not already inside the theistic worldview. When you are not starting from the assumption that God is real, the arguments do not look like discoveries. They look like justifications.

The Blue Fairy has the same probability of existence as Yahweh, which is a figure so close to zero that it would impossible to display.

(5246) Problems with the definition of heaven

The binary character of the Christian justice system and the lack of deprivation in heaven is questioned in the following:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1m11kka/the_depravity_paradox_of_heaven_an_obejction_to/

Of all the traditional Christian/Islamic doctrines, the existence of Heaven/Hell is the hardest one to defend philosophically, in my view.

In theory, they tend to be strict binaries* in punishment and reward, going against basically every legal system that punishes people according to the degree of the crime instead of punishing the bread thief equally to the murderer.

That, on top of the impossibility of defending eternal conscious torment leads to a whole can of worms.

Randal Rauser, apologist/theologian/polemicist, made a pretty interesting video (that I currently can’t find) on the Paradox of heaven.

He notes a paradox in most portrayals, heaven is viewed as an absence of deprivation and yet deprivation of something often gives greater long-term pleasure. You could easily extend this to suffering in general, while some suffering is meaningless some suffering is not.

To give two examples, eating your favorite food every day for every meal might be less pleasurable than eating it once every two days.

In the second example is the physical strain and difficulty of getting a basketball into a hoop, which is part of the fun of playing basketball. If it were easy and painless, it wouldn’t be fine.

It’s a major issue if you think that any of the theodicities in the problem of evil succeed.

If the best possible world is one with some suffering, then it seems that heaven is not the best possible world.

So you are forced to either admit that a theodicity fails, modify it in some way, or drop the concept of heaven lacking any deprivation.

Heaven would be hell to many people. The existence of loss and struggle are part of a legitimate human experience. The standard definition of heaven lacks this element of legitimacy.

(5247) One scripture is all that is needed

The following scripture is in the Bible. Nothing more needs to be said:

Titus 2:9-10

Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, and not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive.

But we should say more:

– ‘slaves,’ that right there is a big problem- a god would know that the concept of slavery would not stand the test of time

– ‘be subject to their masters in everything’ – everything would obviously include being subject to abuse

– “try to please them, not talk back to them, and not to steal from them” – this is an emasculating order

– “so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” – doubling down on the idea that God views slavery as a good thing.

This scripture would not exist in a holy book inspired by any real god.

(5248) Religion has no place in a rational world

Religion has outlived its usefulness and should be discarded as a means of understanding reality or the place that humans occupy in the universe. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1m2t749/religion_has_no_place_in_a_rational_world_because/

Religion has no place in a rational world because evidence and history show it contradicts reason and progress.

Throughout history, religion has often stood in opposition to scientific discovery and rational inquiry. Many of the foundational beliefs in religion are based on supernatural claims that lack empirical evidence and cannot be tested or falsified, which is a core requirement of rational thinking. For example, religious explanations for natural phenomena such as the origin of life or the universe have been replaced by scientific theories like evolution and the Big Bang, which are supported by vast amounts of evidence from fields including biology, physics, and cosmology.

Historically, religious institutions have frequently resisted scientific advancements that challenge their doctrines. The persecution of Galileo for supporting heliocentrism, the suppression of evolutionary theory in some societies, and the ongoing denial of scientific consensus on issues like climate change and vaccination in religious communities highlight this conflict. This resistance has delayed human progress and caused unnecessary suffering.

Moreover, religion often relies on faith, which by definition involves belief without or despite evidence, whereas rational thought demands that beliefs be proportional to the evidence available. This fundamental difference means that religion does not provide a reliable method for understanding reality, making it incompatible with the scientific method.

In a world increasingly shaped by technology and science, decision making based on evidence and reason has proven essential for solving complex problems and improving quality of life. While religion may offer community and moral frameworks, its supernatural claims do not withstand rational scrutiny, and relying on them can hinder critical thinking and informed decision making.

Therefore, if our goal is to build a society grounded in knowledge, fairness, and progress, religious beliefs have no place in rational discourse or policy. Reason and evidence must be the foundations on which we base our understanding of the world and guide our actions.

Religion has lost its usefulness and is now an agent in obscuring peoples’ view of reality and frustrating efforts to solve the practical problems of humanity. When the world becomes predominantly populated with atheists, such problems will be solved much more efficiently.

(5249) Abrahamic religions have a poisoned foundation

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam rest on the same poisoned foundation, based on a warlord god who sees nothing wrong with killing or enslaving people or raping women. If Christians cannot see this, they are purposefully disengaging the analytical portion of their minds. The following was taken from:

https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1m3ap6n/all_abrahamic_religions_have_a_poisoned_foundation/

All Abrahamic religions have a poisoned foundation.

If you read the OT, it is overwhelming about a syncretized alleged warlord god commanding one people to commit genocide and enslavement against others.

This alleged God told his people that when on conquest and you come to a city, offer enslavement and if they refuse, they were to kill all the men however:

“you may take for yourselves the women, the children, the cattle, and everything else in the city”

In other instances, is it complete annihilation with no quarter given. The brutality is over the top, but normal fare for a human war like tribe in the bronze/early iron age. Slavery and subjugation of women are a similar story. The rules delineated, of which apologists point to as a god as rule giver, are very similar to those in surround brutal cultures of the time.

Members of the modern-day related religions want everyone to believe this was God. Their foundation is evil, poisoned and malevolent at the core. This is why, even after the moderating effects of centuries of liberalization, they quickly fall back to bronze age mentality given the right circumstances.

I read today about Muslim’s killing ethic Druze in Syria while calling them infidels and worthy of death. I recently saw a video of a Jewish man in an Israeli tank quoting some OT quote about killing Amalekites as he pulled the trigger destroying a building with people in it. Christian Nationalist in the US are stirring up emotions and vilifying “others” as a pretext to the same evil their fellow Christians did in past history.

A militant god breeds militant followers and that is exactly what has transpired for the past twenty centuries- during all of this time the followers of the Abrahamic religions have been the cruelest people on the planet.

(5250) Time to admit that Yahweh is not all good

Christians have been brainwashed to believe that their god, Yahweh, is perfect, all good, and the epitome of benevolence, while at the same time their scriptures are screaming that this is not actually true. The following discusses this mismatch:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/1m4bsgq/the_god_of_the_bible_is_clearly_not_perfectly/

The God of the Bible is clearly not perfectly good. People would be better off just admitting it and stop trying to defend it.

I’ve had a realization I wanted to throw out for debate:

Instead of trying to make excuses for the atrocities of God in the Old Testament—and trying to square them with this modern idea of a perfectly good, just, and loving deity—why don’t more people just admit that God, as portrayed in the Bible, is not perfectly good?

That view would actually be easier to defend. You could say: “Yes, the Bible is a record of the real God, but that God isn’t perfect. He’s powerful, sometimes helpful, sometimes harsh, and deeply flawed.” That fits the text a lot better than modern theology does.

After all, you don’t need someone to be perfect to pray to them. We ask flawed friends and family for help all the time. All that’s really required is that the being is capable and sometimes willing to help.

Meanwhile, trying to retrofit moral perfection onto a being who: • Wipes out cities (children included) • Orders genocides • Punishes descendants for their ancestors’ sins • Hardens hearts to display His power • Sends bears to maul kids for mocking a prophet

…feels like theological gaslighting.

Yes, there are verses that say “God is good,” or “God is just,” but those are easier to explain away (as poetic praise, political propaganda, or nationalistic hope) than the contradictions they try to cover.

And here’s what jumps out most: the God of the Old Testament behaves exactly like a powerful human king—jealous, tribal, emotional, obsessed with loyalty, prone to violence, and constantly demanding tribute. That doesn’t feel like a coincidence. It feels like projection. Like the ancient Israelites imagined the most powerful being they could—and surprise—it looked a lot like the warlords they lived under.

So why can’t people let go of the “perfect God” idea?

Because it would destroy them psychologically. It’s not about logic. It’s about needing to believe the universe is governed by a parent figure who is always loving, always just, always in control. That belief is a security blanket.

But if we’re being honest? The Bible doesn’t describe a perfectly good God. It describes a morally complex God, or maybe just a human-invented one.

Christianity would rest on a firmer foundation if it admitted that Yahweh is not perfect, has personality faults, and can be murderous, but that he also must be respected because of his power and authority over human destinies. This would be analogous with trying to get along at work with a ‘bad boss.’ But the charade that Yahweh is all good should be discarded- the evidence against such an assertion is documented throughout the Bible.

Follow this link to #5251