{"id":15033,"date":"2022-01-14T08:46:49","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T13:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kyroot.com\/?page_id=15033"},"modified":"2022-03-13T19:59:44","modified_gmt":"2022-03-13T23:59:44","slug":"3401-3450","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.kyroot.com\/?page_id=15033","title":{"rendered":"3401-3450"},"content":{"rendered":"

(3401) Timothy\u2019s delusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

A favorite scripture that Christians throw at atheists in 2 Timothy is nothing short of a boomerang that comes back around and hits them in the head. It is projection at the extreme. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/exchristian\/comments\/s2gid2\/christians_who_quote_2_timothy_423_are_the\/<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had this passage [2 Timothy 4:3-4] quoted to me many times, and I always found it ironic and wanted to vent. For those wondering this is the passage:<\/p>\n

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.<\/p>\n

Turning your ears from the truth and believing in myths. Who does that? Who ignores established science, and instead believes all of humanity was cursed when a talking serpent tricked a naked woman made out of a rib into eating fruit from a magical tree.<\/p>\n

Pesky atheists should stop believing in the myths of science and reasoning, and instead believe the Bible\u2019s clearly \u201csound doctrine\u201d, which at no point makes any unrealistic, immoral, or outright impossible claims. Claims like people living for hundreds of years, 9 foot tall giants, sacrificing your virgin daughter to appease god, fitting 2 of every animal into a wooden box, sending bears to kill 42 children for making fun of a bald man, or people gaining hulk level super strength from uncut hair are all perfectly moral and the definition of sound non mythical doctrine. Also, Christians believe in eternal life from Jesus because it\u2019s true. Not at all because it just suits their own personal desires.<\/p>\n

The Christian campaign against the \u2018wisdom of this world\u2019 is starting to lose its teeth. Science and the information age are like a cancer to religion and just to survive, Christianity must funnel their children into \u2018safe\u2019 Christian schools where they will be shielded from humanly wisdom, like cosmology, evolution, and religious history. Timothy’s taunt is a ‘self-own’ for Christian<\/a>s today.<\/p>\n

(3402) Yahweh\u2019s con game<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just before God was to inflict the final plague on the Egyptians, by murdering all of their first-born children, he set up a grift whereby the Israelites were to go around to their Egyptian neighbors to borrow any gold or silver they could obtain. God softened the hearts of these people to they would be more willing to give away or lend these articles. Of course, God knew that the Israelites would escape their captors the next day so that they wouldn\u2019t have to return or pay back for any of this:<\/p>\n

Exodus 11:1-3<\/p>\n

Then the LORD said to Moses, \u201cI will bring upon Pharaoh and Egypt one more plague. After that, he will allow you to leave this place. And when he lets you go, he will drive you out completely. Now announce to the people that men and women alike should ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the LORD gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, Moses himself was highly regarded in Egypt by Pharaoh\u2019s officials and by the people.<\/p>\n

If someone borrowed your vacuum cleaner and said they\u2019d return it the next day, but the next day you find out that they had moved to another state, what would you think? This is Yahweh in a nutshell. and this is what he thought was appropriate.<\/p>\n

Now, obviously this is a fictional story, but it tells a lot about how the Jewish people saw their God- as someone who was willing to cheat and be unfair to help out his \u2018chosen\u2019 people. Yet, this is the god that Christians are commanded to <\/a>worship.<\/p>\n

(3403) God the dictator<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

An analogy can be made between Yahweh, the Christian god, and a dictator who issues an unfair and brutal edict to his people. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DebateReligion\/comments\/s4lrcn\/sending_a_person_to_hell_if_they_die_in_the_wrong\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Sending a person to hell if they die in the wrong religion\/irreligious, is like a dictator imposing law that every single citizen must be a millionaire by the time they reach 30, or they die.<\/p>\n

Imagine a dictatorship, where the law and the codes are absolute, is being forced to the people living there. in this dystopia lets just say that the dictator create a law that every person must be a millionaire. if they doesn’t reach the target, they will get executed. This apply to everyone no matter their socio-economic condition. Doesn’t care if they’re born into a poor family, an aristocrat, a billionaire, everyone must have the same target. we all know that the one who were born into a rich family would have significant chances of not getting executed later. they could just… INHERIT their parents wealth and be a millionaire.<\/p>\n

But how about the poor? the ones who are born from parents who collect scrap for a living ? they will have a significant chances of failing to meet their target. expecting this poor young kids to become wealthy or die if they didn’t is extremely unrealistic and cruel.<\/p>\n

People are made by their circumstances and upbringing, which is in this case is what kind of family you were born into. it is an undeniable fact that majority of religious people, if they still believe in god by them time that they die, will have the same faith as their family. By god creating literal billions of humans and put them in a circumstances where they will believe the same faith that is of their family, and expecting them to find the correct religion, and send them to hell if they die as infidel, is the most evil thing someone could ever do. At least with the dictator example, he still clearly gives his command directly, unlike god who just plays where’s waldo and expect his creation to find him through an obscure old book.<\/p>\n

It has often been noted that for Christianity to be fair God would have to grade humans \u2018on the curve\u2019 taking into account each individual situation. But Christian scriptures are not geared to that approach, stating unequivocally that acceptance of Jesus is necessary for salvation regardless of any good deeds anyone has performed or how well they lived their life. This arbitrary and unfair \u2018grading system\u2019 is strong evidence that it was not devised by the mind of a <\/a>god.<\/p>\n

(3404) God is inert<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a massive mismatch between how Christians describe their god and what we can observe him doing. This would be like Mr. Olympia impressing us by lifting a one pound weight. If God is so impressive why doesn\u2019t he do ANYTHING? The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/infidels.org\/library\/modern\/richard-carrier-whynotchristian\/#brain<\/a><\/p>\n

The God proposed by the Christian hypothesis is not a disembodied, powerless voice whose only means of achieving his desires is speaking to people, teaching them to do what\u2019s right. The Christian God is an Almighty Creator, capable of creating or destroying anything, capable of suspending or rewriting the laws of nature, capable of anything we can imagine. He can certainly do any and every moral thing you or I can do, and certainly much more than that, being so much bigger and stronger and better than we are in every way. All this follows necessarily from the definition of mere Christianity, and therefore cannot be denied without denying Christianity itself.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a simple fact of direct observation that if I had the means and the power, and could not be harmed for my efforts, I would immediately alleviate all needless suffering in the universe. All guns and bombs would turn to flowers. All garbage dumps would become gardens. There would be adequate resources for everyone. There would be no more children conceived than the community and the environment could support. There would be no need of fatal or debilitating diseases or birth defects, no destructive Acts of God. And whenever men and women seemed near to violence, I would intervene and kindly endeavor to help them peacefully resolve their differences. That\u2019s what any loving person would do. Yet I cannot be more loving, more benevolent than the Christian God. Therefore, the fact that the Christian God does none of these things\u2014in fact, nothing of any sort whatsoever\u2014is proof positive that there is no Christian God.<\/p>\n

If God at least did something, however much we might still argue about what that action meant about his ability, character, and desires, we would at least have evidence (and therefore reason to believe) that a God existed, maybe even the Christian God. And there are many things any god could do. He could make all true bibles indestructible, unalterable, and self-translating. He could make miraculous healing or other supernatural powers so common an attribute of the virtuous believer that they would be scientifically studied and confirmed as surely as any other medicine or technology. He could, as I\u2019ve already explained, speak to all of us in the same voice, saying the same things. He could send angels to appear to us on a regular basis, performing all manner of divine deeds and communications\u2014exactly as the earliest Christians thought he did.<\/p>\n

The possible evidences a God could provide are endless, though none might be sufficient to prove we have the Christian God. To prove that, this evident God would have to act as the Christian hypothesis predicts. For example, only those who believe in the true Christian Gospel would be granted the supernatural powers that could be confirmed by science; only true Christian Bibles would be indestructible, unalterable, and self-translating; and the Divine Voice would consistently convey to everyone the will and desires of the Christian message alone. But God does none of these things\u2014nothing at all.<\/p>\n

If God is all-powerful then he must be stubbornly determined not to use that power. How else on earth can such a mighty deity make it look like he doesn\u2019t exist? Could it be perhaps because he <\/a>doesn\u2019t?<\/p>\n

(3405) Ten reasons for women to exit Christianity<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the following, ten issues are listed as reasons for why women should leave Christianity. What this suggests is that this religion was not created by an all-knowing, all-powerful god but rather by mortal men who believed that they deserved a position of authority over women. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.faithlessfeminist.com\/category\/faithless-feminist\/<\/a><\/p>\n

1) Eve picked for blame<\/h2>\n

Most Christians believe that God is omnipotent which means all powerful. Most also believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God with some going further to state that it is the inerrant word of God with every word being true. Given these assumptions, God had a choice in choosing a woman, Eve, to be the person to eat of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, to be the cause of original sin, and to suffer pain in childbirth. Would an omnipotent God choose half of his creation to be maligned, abused, and subordinated throughout most of human history? Couldn\u2019t he have come up with a better story to talk about making the right choices?<\/p>\n

Or could Eve have been chosen in this story of Genesis because this book is not sacred or the inspired word of a deity, because it was written by men who believed women were their property, and because it was used to suppress the worship of the Canaanite goddess Asherah? A tree or pillar as well as a snake, often represented Asherah, as well as many other goddesses in other religions. Both of these symbols are found in the Biblical story of Eve lending credence to this latter view.<\/p>\n

2) Virginity<\/h2>\n

Deuteronomy 22:21 states the following. If a man married a woman and the \u201ctokens of her virginity\u201d could not be proved, she would be killed. \u201cThen they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father\u2019s house and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones.\u201d<\/p>\n

A woman\u2019s virginity is lost when she has sex with a man. In this story, nothing happens to the male half of this equation. It is thus the law of God to treat women as inferior to men and to blame them solely for an act that it takes two to commit. In the Bible, only in the case of adultery is the man punished in equal measure to the woman. What untold horror has beset women because of this \u201claw of God?\u201d<\/p>\n

3) Barter<\/h3>\n

In Genesis 19:8, Lot offers his two virgin daughters to the mob threatening to rape the two angels he is\u00a0harboring<\/a>. His daughters are used simply as barter.<\/p>\n

Is this the story of parental love that you want your children to read? Wouldn\u2019t you do anything to save the lives of your children? Yet this story resides in a book in church pews across the world. What does it say about a religion whose deities would sacrifice a man\u2019s daughters to save themselves (as the angels did nothing to intervene)?<\/p>\n

4) Women as cause of a plague<\/h3>\n

In Numbers 31:17-18, God tells Moses to \u201cavenge the people of Israel on the Midianites.\u201d After the battle Moses rebukes his soldiers because they let the women live. Because they were the cause of the plague, he orders his soldiers to \u201ckill every woman who has known man by lying with him.\u201d He allows the soldiers to spare the virgins and keep them for themselves.<\/p>\n

How can this be interpreted as anything less than a lack of knowledge about disease and an opportunity for men to rape virgins? Today we know a virus causes the plague. Why wouldn\u2019t an omnipotent God know that? Why would he let women be killed? Why didn\u2019t he stop Moses?<\/p>\n

5) Jephthah\u2019s daughter<\/h3>\n

Jephthah makes a vow to God to give him the first person that comes out of his house if he returns victorious from fighting the Ammonites. He wins and sacrifices his virgin daughter who is the first person to greet him.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t this a vow to God? Couldn\u2019t God have told Jephthah to go and sacrifice a lamb instead like he did in the case of Isaac? Why didn\u2019t God act the same when a daughter was involved instead of a son?<\/p>\n

6) Sacrifice of Isaac<\/h3>\n

Abraham is willing to follow the dictates of God to kill his son. Fortunately, in this case, God intervenes and Abraham is allowed to sacrifice a lamb instead.<\/p>\n

Should any woman or man believe in a deity that would ask a father or mother to sacrifice their children to him? If this is a test, it is a cruel test indeed. And where is Sarah the mother? She is not present, she is not consulted, and she has no say in the matter. This is a book written by men and for men to justify their power over women. Isn\u2019t it interesting how Sarah is barren and God even takes over the power to cause pregnancy?<\/p>\n

7) Harlots and prostitutes<\/h3>\n

If a daughter of a priest \u201cplays the harlot,\u201d the punishment is severe \u2013 \u201cShe shall be burned with fire.\u201d (Leviticus 21:9)<\/p>\n

This concept of blaming the woman for sex outside of marriage still endures today. Prostitution is not legal in most of the United States and prostitutes are regularly arrested. It is the rare case, where the men who frequent prostitutes are arrested and charged with a crime. Isn\u2019t this just another example of men\u2019s power? Is this really something a loving God would condone? Or is it the means by which men maintain control of women?<\/p>\n

8) Mary is a Virgin<\/h3>\n

Matthew states that Jesus was born of a virgin who is called Mary. Matthew explains in Chapter 1:23 that Jesus\u2019 birth fulfills the Old Testament prophesy \u2013 \u201cBehold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.\u201d This virgin birth is a key tenet of Christianity today.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Matthew used a mistranslation of Isaiah 7:14 to compose his text. The word in Isaiah in the original Hebrew means young woman, not virgin. The Revised\u00a0Standard Version of the Bible<\/a>\u00a0now correctly translates Isaiah using the words young woman. Doesn\u2019t this lend credence to the fact that men wrote these gospels? Wouldn\u2019t God have known the correct translation? Why didn\u2019t Jesus write down his own story?<\/p>\n

9) Men Are in Charge of Women<\/h3>\n

1 Corinthians 11:3 states that the \u201chead of every woman is the man.\u201d This passage, as well as many others, has been used to keep women in a subordinate position throughout most of the last 2000 years.<\/p>\n

Do women support this inferiority today? If they do feel they are men\u2019s equals, how can they square that with the teachings of Christianity? While things have moved in a positive direction for women, there\u2019s still a long way to go. Women should reject the place that\u2019s expected by them from Christianity, and always keep positive self-esteem instead in relationships.<\/p>\n

10) Women Should Be Submissive<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In 1 Peter 3:1-2, women are told to be submissive to their husbands.<\/p>\n

Women and men should be equal. Religion and particularly Christianity in the United States has been used throughout this country\u2019s history to subjugate women. Even today, men use the Bible to justify their beliefs on issues such as access to birth control or abortion. It\u2019s time for women to acknowledge that this religion, like most others, was created by man and by man alone.<\/p>\n

If Christianity had come out and advocated sexual equality, given the climate of the era where it originated, it would be evidence for a supernatural influence. But the fact that it simply endorsed the conventional wisdom of its time suggests that it is a product of humans <\/a>exclusively.<\/p>\n

(3406) The Bible is a library of disagreeing books<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is best to see the Bible as 66 separate books compiled under a single binder rather than being just one book. The authors were not collimated by any external influence (god or gods) to align their narratives in any cohesive sense. This argues strongly against the Christian concept of divine inspiration. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DebateAChristian\/comments\/s58mfl\/the_bible_is_written_by_people_who_disagreed_with\/<\/a><\/p>\n

The Bible is an extremely varied library of books, written by people who lived in different times, in different places, in different cultural contexts and with different theological beliefs. I hear this narrative really often that the Bible tells a single coherent and unified story, with all authors being completely in accord and any perceived disagreement being explained away by employing a particular hermeneutic lens and doing some hand waving.<\/p>\n

You can read the Bible this way, I myself used to and it made sense through the theological framework I had at the time. I believed that even though most of these authors didn’t know each other, God guided the writing of each and every text that made it into my 66 book Protestant canon, so there’s no possibility God would have allowed disagreement. But I don’t think this should be the only way you read the Bible. In the Jewish tradition (as I understand it), the other texts produced after the Old Testament mostly consist of commentary on the Torah\/Penatateuch. The rabbis explicitly and openly disagreed with each other, and their opposing views were recorded in the Talmud. Jews can look at any of the interpretations of a given passage and apply which makes the most sense to them in their context, with revisions and clarifications as needed. Debate and disagreement is acknowledged, even celebrated, in Judaism.<\/p>\n

In many ways the Old Testament itself can be viewed as multi-voiced commentary on itself. 1\/2 Chronicles is (partially) a retelling of Samuel\/Kings from the perspective of a post-exilic Israelite author who (among other goals) wanted to further rehabilitate the image of David and Solomon in the wake of the authorization to rebuild the Temple (e.g. all the scandalous details of the affair with Bathsheba are totally absent). As is well known at this point, the consensus of biblical scholars consider the Pentateuch itself to be comprised of three or more sources spliced together across multiple redaction layers. The actual authors behind the text sometimes had very different conceptions of God and very different memories of the same stories.<\/p>\n

The archetypal example of this is the two creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2. In the first, we see a cosmic God who seems fairly impersonal that speaks things into existence and orders creation by separating and filling it. In the second, we see a God (who has a different name) that creates with his hands, forming man out of dust and planting a garden, taking a rib and fashioning it into the first woman, walking in the garden, etc. There are also inconsistencies between the stories, which you can immediately see when you start asking simple questions about the order in which different things were created. Some books are written directly in opposition to another. In the priestly writings of the Torah, there is an emphasis on the sacrifice being absolutely essential for following God, but many of the prophets tell us God desires mercy and charity, not sacrifice. Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) seems to have the view that neither sacrifice nor righteous deeds make any difference at all in the end.<\/p>\n

You could even switch to the New Testament and find much of the same thing going on. John’s retelling of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is in many ways a counter narrative to Mark–In public, Mark’s Jesus speaks only in parables and is insistent that no one tell anyone who he is or what he can do, John’s Jesus never misses an opportunity to tell everyone exactly who he is and instruct his listeners to pass it along. Mark’s Jesus died in agony, feeling completely out of control and abandoned. John’s Jesus died at peace, completely in control of the situation and ready to do what he came into the world to do. Luke and Matthew’s birth narratives barely line up at all, and have several apparent contradictions. The book of Revelation looks very much like a direct rebuttal to Paul’s letters, the author rebuking people in churches Paul founded who were abandoning Jewish law.<\/p>\n

My point in all this is, if you read the Bible as a set of books, several of which are in (sometimes adversarial) conversation with one another, you can make sense of all the disagreements without having to jump through hoops and make up (or parrot) implausible harmonizations. It disrespects the biblical authors when church leaders insinuate a given author’s message was completely in harmony with their opponents. And it disrespects skeptical readers of the Bible when we are presented a book filled with contradictions and disagreements, then told that there are no disagreements in it.<\/p>\n

Saying that the Bible is consistent and has no contradictions and is more or less the product of a single entity (God) is tantamount to saying that grass is red. We can clearly see that grass is green so the statement \u2018grass is red\u2019 does not change reality. And the reality of the Bible is that\u00a0 it is a discordant collection of writings by mostly unknown authors describing 66 versions of <\/a>reality.<\/p>\n

(3407) Hebrews keeps Jesus in the sky<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Book of Hebrews, allegedly written by Paul, though most scholars now consider it to be pseudopigraphical, is a problem for theologians who consider Jesus to have been an earth-bound man as he was described in the gospels. This book sees Jesus exclusively in an ethereal realm. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.debunking-christianity.com\/2022\/01\/jesus-of-nazareth-missing-in-action.html<\/a><\/p>\n

As Doherty points out, the Letter to the Hebrews is the second longest epistle in the New Testament (after Romans). Even in antiquity, there were doubts that it was written by Paul, whose name does not appear in the text. At the outset of his essay, Doherty notes: \u201cWho the writer is, where he writes, whom he is addressing remain unknown.\u201d (p. 239) And the ancient writer betrayed no knowledge at all of any stories about Jesus of Nazareth that supposedly were cherished in Christian circles:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Hebrews 9:11 the author says that \u2018Christ has come,\u2019 but is this a reference to his life on Earth? Rather, the context indicates that he is referring to Christ\u2019s \u2018entry\u2019 into the new tent of his heavenly priesthood, the spiritual sanctuary\u2026This Christian writer can speak of Christ\u2019s \u2018coming\u2019 and yet not say a word about any of his works on earth, only of what he did in heaven.\u201d (p. 264)<\/p>\n

Devout scholars have had to deal with this silence about Jesus of Nazareth in the letters of Paul as well. We search in vain in Paul\u2019s letters for mention of Jesus\u2019 birth, his teachings and miracles. Paul doesn\u2019t even mention the empty tomb, and boasted in Galatians that he received no information whatever about Jesus from the people who knew him. He found out about Jesus exclusively from his visions. Word-of-mouth stories didn\u2019t reach him either\u2014or if they did, he ignored them.<\/p>\n

If there was no oral tradition\u2014and we lack any contemporary\u00a0documentation\u00a0to verify the words and deeds of Jesus\u2014then just how did the gospel writers come up with their stories? The opening sentence of Mark\u2019s gospel indicates what we\u2019re dealing with: \u201cThe beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.\u201d The gospel writers were theologians, not historians; their goal was to win converts to the small Christian sect. Careful readers can see how the theologians who copied Mark\u2019s text\u2014Matthew and Luke\u2014wrote from their own theological perspectives. And the author of John was in a world of his own; as I have written elsewhere, he contributed mightily to theological inflation about Jesus.<\/p>\n

The author of Hebrews took this to his own extreme, well illustrated by the opening four verses of his treatise:<\/p>\n

\u201cLong ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets,\u00a0but in these last days he has spoken to us by a son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.\u00a0He is the reflection of God\u2019s glory and the exact imprint of God\u2019s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,\u00a0having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

It would be hard to find a more glowing description of an idealized superhero, but in the whole letter the author makes no attempt to place his holy hero in Galilee or Jerusalem. But this letter does illustrate how ideas and philosophies current at the time shaped this particular brand of Christianity. In\u00a0an article here last month<\/a>, I discussed Derreck Bennett\u2019s essay in this new Loftus\/Price anthology about Christianity in the context of other dying-and-rising savior gods at the time. Doherty discussed the influence of Platonism:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Hebrews provides perhaps the best example in the New Testament of how Christ belief arose spontaneously out of currents and trends of the day, in independent expressions, each taking its own characteristics as a result of local conditions and the people involved. The epistle is what it is because a distinct group formulated their own picture of spiritual realities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey searched scripture for information and insight about the Son of God, under the influence of the wider religious and philosophical atmosphere of the first century, especially Alexandrian Platonism, and this is what they came up with.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0(p. 255)<\/p>\n

They searched scripture. My tattered old RSV\u2014now held together with tape and glue\u2014includes a very handy tool: at the bottom of each page there are footnotes cross-referencing other scripture verses that apply. In the thirteen chapters of Hebrews, there are 98 references to Old Testament texts. This is where the author of Hebrews was sure information about his Jesus could be found.<\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t interested in what went on with Jesus of Nazareth; Doherty makes these points:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Hebrews, there\u00a0are\u00a0no sayings of Jesus quoted; there\u00a0are\u00a0no events of his life as recorded in the Gospels which the writer draws on to explain his interpretation of Jesus as High Priest. Not even the central concept of Jesus\u2019 sacrifice as the establishment of a new covenant has been illuminated by the slightest reference to the Last Supper or to the words Jesus is said to have spoken on that occasion inaugurating such a covenant.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0(p. 256)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sacrifice of Christ in the heavenly realm is laid out in Hebrews 8 and 9. The structure of this thought is thoroughly Platonic, though it mirrors some longstanding Jewish ideas as well.\u201d (p. 256)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2018event\u2019 which the writer constantly focuses on seems not to be Christ\u2019s death itself, but his action of entering the heavenly sanctuary and offering his blood to God.\u201d (p. 258) Doherty refers to this as \u201cthe center of gravity\u201d of Hebrews.<\/p>\n

So here was an ancient theologian who was certain of his own version of Christ, but he seems to have been unaware of the Jesus depicted in the gospels. How could that happen? For one thing,\u00a0there was no quality control, as Doherty notes:<\/p>\n

\u201cHebrews provides strong evidence that independent expressions of belief in the existence of the divine Son and his role in salvation were to be found all over the landscape of the first century, with no central source or authority and little common sharing of doctrine and ritual. Just where the community which produced Hebrews was located, or the year in which this unique document was written, it is impossible to tell, but that it owed its genesis to any historical events in Jerusalem, or anywhere else, is very difficult to support.\u201d (pp. 252-253)<\/p>\n

Given the standard assumption of Christian theology, the Book of Hebrews should not exist. If Jesus was the historical figure of the gospels, then any reference to him should have him grounded in Judea and Galilee, performing miracles, delivering sermons, and enduring a crucifixion. We should not see anyone writing about Jesus strictly as a celestial <\/a>personage.<\/p>\n

(3408) Four moral concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n

The concept of worshiping an all-powerful and all-good god while observing the world as it is leaves a wide gap in expectations- one that is the job of Christian apologists to fill in. But their efforts have been dismal. The following lists four moral concerns about the Christian god:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.debunking-christianity.com\/2022\/01\/christianity-three-strikes-and-youre-out.html#more<\/a><\/p>\n

Moral Concern One<\/b>: Human \u201cfree will\u201d is often used by theologians to get god off the hook\u2014he can\u2019t help it if we behave badly\u2014but, no, god isn\u2019t off the hook at all:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cA perfectly good, all-powerful, all-knowing god could keep us from abusing our freedom by creating us with a stronger propensity to dislike wrongdoing, just like we have an aversion to drinking motor oil. We could still drink it if we wanted to, but it’s nauseating. Such a deity could easily keep a person from molesting a child or raping someone if at the very thought of it the person began to suffer from severe nausea.\u201d (pp. 6-7)<\/p>\n

Moral Concern Two<\/b>: From the get-go, god could have made the world a less dangerous place. Was it beyond god\u2019s powers to make a planet that isn\u2019t so violent? How dare he put humans and animals in an environment in which hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts, famines, etc. etc. have been so common? A moral deity would certainly have arranged things more carefully. Loftus notes that animal predation is a major part of this moral failure: \u201cThe extent of animal suffering cries out against the existence of a good god. This ubiquitous suffering is perhaps the most difficult problem of all.\u201d (p. 8)<\/p>\n

Moral Concern Three<\/b>: A morally capable, responsible god could have done a much better job designing human bodies! There are thousands of genetic diseases: that \u201cperfect\u201d newborn you hold in your arms may be far from perfect. Why are we so ravaged by disease? Here above all, Christians should be able to intuit that something is wrong; so many of their intercessory prayers are pleas with their god to intervene, to make changes to his basic setup. Loftus notes, as well, one of god\u2019s biggest mistakes:<\/p>\n

\u201cA perfectly good, all-powerful, all-knowing god could have created all human beings with one color of skin. There, that was easy! There has been too much killing and slavery, and there have been too many wars because we don\u2019t all have the same color of skin.\u201d (p. 8)<\/p>\n

Moral Concern Four<\/b>: Why didn\u2019t god set the record straight\u00a0about\u00a0himself\u00a0from the very beginning? Let humans know which religion is the right one! So much strife and anguish could have been avoided. How simple it would have been, as Loftus points out; god<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026 could have made his revelation available to every culture in the same way, with no discrepancies and buttressed by some astounding evidence-based miracles. This deity would provide a general revelation for everyone in the world, or a naturalistic ethic, that excluded all religions that were sexist, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, narcissistic, tribalistic, patriotic, war mongering, and otherwise barbaric.\u201d (pp. 9-10)<\/p>\n

It is probably true that anybody who was gifted the powers allegedly possessed by Yahweh would have done a better job to manage human behaviors, to create a more benign planet and alleviate unnecessary suffering, to better engineer human bodies and reduce genetic defects, and to make a better presentation to humanity of their existence and expectations as a means to reduce religious-based terror. Yahweh falls short on all of these points and, at best, deserves a grade of D-. If there are multiple gods in multiple universes, it is likely that Yahweh is an under-<\/a>performer.<\/p>\n

(3409) Timing of the Great Commission<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is a significant contradiction concerning the timing of when God\/Jesus decided to become the god of everyone instead of just the Jews. If you read the gospels, it happened just before the resurrected Jesus rose up into the sky, but in Acts it happens much later. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/AskTheologists\/comments\/s3goen\/the_great_commision_of_jesus_christ\/<\/a><\/p>\n

In the Synoptic Gospels, after the Lord\u2019s resurrection and right before his ascension, he commissioned his disciples to \u201cGo ye therefore and teach ALL nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost\u201d (Matthew 28:19).<\/p>\n

Again, in the Gospel of Mark, the Lord commanded, \u201cGo ye into ALL the world, and preach the gospel to EVERY CREATURE\u201d (Mark 16:15).<\/p>\n

Finally, in Luke\u2019s Gospel, Christ again commissioned that \u201crepentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among ALL nations\u201d (Luke 24:47).<\/p>\n

Christ, in these verses, made it very clear that the gospel message of salvation and repentance should go forth to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people (Gentiles). Jews are no longer the lone recipient of the Lord\u2019s Gospel; the Israelite-Gentile barrier was finally broken at this very moment, before Christ’s departure from our earthly realm.<\/p>\n

However, we see that in the beginning of the Book of Acts, which took place after the Lord\u2019s departure, the good news about Christ really had only gone to the Jews. Even when the believers were scattered abroad after the stoning of Stephen, the early disciples spoke the word only to Jews. It is not until chapter 10, that we see a change. The apostle Peter receives a vision in which he sees all of the unclean animals, prohibited to Jews by the Law, come down from heaven and a voice telling him to \u201ckill and eat.\u201d Peter interprets this dream as God telling him to extend the message of the gospel outside of Israel, for \u201cthe gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did the apostles suddenly forget about Jesus Great Commission? Why would God have to give Peter a vision about preaching to Gentiles when Jesus already commanded them to do so at the end of each of the Synoptic Gospels? In trying to reason out this small contradiction, I came up with two scenarios:<\/p>\n