{"id":8266,"date":"2018-10-06T08:37:02","date_gmt":"2018-10-06T12:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kyroot.com\/?page_id=8266"},"modified":"2021-11-23T09:51:04","modified_gmt":"2021-11-23T14:51:04","slug":"1801-1850","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.kyroot.com\/?page_id=8266","title":{"rendered":"1801-1850"},"content":{"rendered":"

(1801) John\u2019s lie about burial spices<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the Gospel of John, it is told that a huge quantity of spices were placed around Jesus\u2019s dead body before it was wrapped in strips of linen for burial. This is a contradiction not only of the other gospels but also of Jewish burial customs.\u00a0 Here is the scripture from John:<\/p>\n

John 19:38-40<\/p>\n

Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate\u2019s permission, he came and took the body away.\u00a0 He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.\u00a0Taking Jesus\u2019 body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs.<\/p>\n

The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/infidels.org\/library\/modern\/richard_carrier\/resurrection\/2.html#i<\/a><\/p>\n

It is also unlikely spices were even present. Their quantity is ridiculously exaggerated in John, the only one to mention them (19:38-40). In contrast, Mark, the earliest and least fantastic source, leaves no one time to anoint the body (15:42, 16:1), Luke concurs with this, saying that the spices had to be prepared later for application Sunday (23:53-6), and Matthew, like all of them, mentions only a cloth. So John’s lie is exposed by the universal disagreement of his colleagues. Indeed, packing bodies in spices was not a Jewish practice, contrary to John’s assertion that it was–instead, it was Egyptian, and the mention of spices here may be an invention meant to link the burial of Jesus with that of Israel (Jacob) and Joseph (Genesis 50:2, 50:26). To the contrary, Jews\u00a0washed\u00a0corpses and wrapped them in a clean cloth.<\/p>\n

This provides additional evidence that the Gospel of John is a work of fiction designed to satisfy a certain segment of the newly-formed Christian faith.\u00a0 Something so conspicuously made up casts reasonable doubt on the reminder of this <\/a>gospel.<\/p>\n

(1802) American revelation involved unnecessary suffering<\/strong><\/p>\n

The case has been made often that God\u2019s revelation of his son Jesus as a redeemer was done in a way that defies logic, fairness, and efficiency. In fact, it was done in a way that exactly proceeded as if it was strictly a human-generated effort. What is striking is the way that this revelation reached the shores of the Americas- late in time and with an explosion of human suffering. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DebateReligion\/comments\/9lxk5k\/to_christians_if_the_god_of_the_bible_is_the_god\/<\/a><\/p>\n

If the God of the Bible is the God of everyone why did he appear multiple times over different centuries only in a very specific region to only a very specific community of people in the middle east and made the people in the Americas wait more than 1500 years before they could know him and be saved, and people in Australia more than 1900 years before they could know him and be saved? Wouldn’t make more sense to appear also in Australia and America before the white men went there, bible in one hand and sword in the other? People in Europe had the chance to build cathedrals before the first man in America even heard the name Jesus for the first time, everyone could read a printed bible in his own language before the first man in Australia had the chance to know Jesus. .<\/p>\n

Plus, and most importantly, God gave those people no immunity to western diseases (and it was totally in his power), so it was written from the beginning that the only chance those people had to know Jesus, even if the encounter with Europeans was totally peaceful and respectful (which was not, but at least you can blame men being evil on that), was to come in touch with white men and also with their diseases, therefore die in great numbers (millions) because of those. In the end it seems an incredible amount of inefficiency, unnecessary suffering and overall lack of thinking ( and I’m being gentle with words here ) coming from such a perfect being that cares about all men, loves all men and want to give all men the opportunity to be saved.<\/p>\n

It is hard to imagine that this could have been the plan of a perfect deity who wants to give everyone a chance and who has, you would think, no need\u00a0 or desire to inflict gratuitous suffering on innocent people.\u00a0 On the other hand, under that assumption that Christianity and other religions are human creations, then such a scenario makes perfect <\/a>sense.<\/p>\n

(1803) Killing rebellious children<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christianity has a problem that it tries very hard to ignore. It comes in form of a scripture that is clearly not in accordance with modern standards of ethics:<\/p>\n

Deuteronomy 21:18-21<\/p>\n

If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him,\u00a0his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town.\u00a0They shall say to the elders, \u201cThis son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.\u201d\u00a0Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.<\/p>\n

There is no Christian today who would condone this remedy for a rebellious child. However, there are very few Christians who will admit that this scripture was written strictly by a man without inspiration from God. In other words, Christians are boxed in a corner on this issue- they must admit that God ordered this punishment, or else everything in the Old Testament including the Ten Commandments comes under similar suspicion, including all of the alleged prophecies of Jesus.<\/p>\n

So, all that is left for the apologist is to claim that God changed his mind, and after Jesus came, a new covenant was formed that overrode the Jewish Law. So no more stoning is required. This is a semi-plausible explanation, though admittedly making God appear wishy-washy, but it also stirs up another problem- when exactly did this change occur? Was it when Jesus was conceived, when he was born, when he was baptized, when he was crucified, when he was resurrected, or when he sent the Holy Spirit? There is nothing in the gospels where Jesus declared the Law was dead, in fact he emphatically said the opposite. So when did it happen?<\/p>\n

We can conceive a scenario where a rebellious child is stoned, and one hour later another rebellious child is sent to the quarry for execution. But, just in the nick of time, the law for stoning bad children was abolished, and everyone puts down the stones.\u00a0 In other words, the change had to happen at an exact moment in time, but who can agree when and, more importantly, how would they know? There is no command in the Bible stating when or even if this change in the law occurred. The arbitrary applicability of God\u2019s alleged commands renders it very likely that this is simply a product of human and only human <\/a>thought.<\/p>\n

(1804) Jesus\u2019 disciples versus Jim Jones<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jim Jones was a leader of a sect of Christians who migrated with him from California to Guyana to inhabit what was called the \u2018People\u2019s Temple.\u2019 In 1978 Jones came under pressure from the authorities and instigated a mass suicide of 908 of his followers including 304 children.\u00a0 Very few of his followers resisted, showing their undying admiration for and belief in Jones.\u00a0 This is contrasted by the gospel stories of Jesus\u2019s followers when he fell afoul of the law and was captured by Roman soldiers. The following is taken from:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/new.exchristian.net\/2014\/09\/why-did-jesus-disciples-abandon-him-in.html<\/a><\/p>\n

One of my own favorite sticky questions is why did all of\u00a0Jesus\u2019 disciples<\/a>\u00a0abandon him the night before his crucifixion? As far as I can see, this makes no sense at all in view of what they should have known about Jesus by that time.<\/p>\n

Consider that, according to the Gospels, these guys had followed Jesus around for 3 years. They had seen him perform dozens, perhaps hundreds of miracles; healing the sick and crippled with a touch, walking on water, changing water to wine, feeding thousands with a few fishes and loaves of bread, bringing the dead back to life, etc. Pretty amazing stuff, huh? That would have been more than enough to convince me that this guy was god, the son of god, or both.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not all! Three of the apostles witnessed Jesus \u201ctransfiguration\u201d on a mountain top. On the mountain, Jesus begins to shine with bright rays of light. Then the prophets Moses and\u00a0Elijah<\/a>\u00a0appear next to him and he speaks with them. Jesus is then called “Son” by a voice in the sky.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s still not all! According to\u00a0Matthew 10:1<\/a>, when Jesus
\n\u201chad called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against\u00a0unclean spirits<\/a>, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, now the apostles also had miraculous powers. And, Acts 8:5-8 tells us that they actually used these special powers:<\/p>\n

\u201cThen Philip went down to the city of\u00a0Samaria<\/a>, and preached Christ unto them. And the people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them: and many taken with palsies, and that were lame, were healed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why did all of Jesus\u2019 disciples abandon him the night before his crucifixion?Yet, after all this, on the night before his crucifixion, all of Jesus disciples abandoned him, denying they knew him and staying away. Contrast this with the Jim Jones of\u00a0Guyana<\/a>\u00a0story where, according to numerous eyewitnesses, many of his followers willingly drank the Kool-Aid. They obviously believed Jones was a legitimate prophet who was in god\u2019s inner circle. Yet, Jones never showed them any miracles, was never transfigured, and never passed on any special powers to his followers. How much more evidence did the apostles have of Jesus importance to the cosmos? Yet they still abandoned him.<\/p>\n

Is this believable to anyone who has ever given it any real thought? To further confound things, it is claimed that the apostles were staunch supporters and proselytizers for Jesus after his resurrection, some claiming the apostles all died violent deaths rather than recanting their belief in Jesus. Some turnaround, huh?<\/p>\n

So, why would the Gospel authors tell the Jesus story in this way? I suspect that Jesus\u2019 abandonment by the apostles was merely a literary device to increase the readers\u2019 sympathy for Jesus. This left Jesus truly alone in his darkest hour, deserted by even his closest friends. Yet, Jesus keeps faith with god. He becomes an even greater hero through this device; even more deserving of our admiration and worship.<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s my point? Well, my point is that this is one more reason to doubt the Jesus story as told by the Gospels. Given what they knew of Jesus, and their own powers given them by Jesus, there was every reason for them to stand by him in his darkest hour; more reason, by far, than Jim Jones followers had to stand by him. I think the Gospel writers seized on this literary device without thinking it through. By using this device they increased our sympathy for Jesus, yes, but they simultaneously cast a very deep shadow of doubt on the whole story \u2013 for those of us who actually bother to think about what the Bible says.<\/p>\n

This is a subtle inconsistency with the gospel stories, but it points out the high likelihood that they are fictionalized history at best if not complete fabrications.\u00a0 Either his followers would have not abandoned him or else he never performed the miracles purported in the gospels. One or the other has to <\/a>go.<\/p>\n

(1805) Christianity\u2019s crumbling foundation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Whether they like it or not, Christians must acknowledge that the legitimacy of their faith depends directly on the legitimacy of the Jewish faith. The ties are too strong to enable any meaningful separation. In recent years, archaeological investigation has continued to undermine the historical foundation of the Jewish faith to the point where most of the stories in the Old Testament are considered fictional or, at best, highly exaggerated. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.truthbeknown.com\/biblemyth.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

(this was the website of Dorothy Murdoch (Acharaya S) (1960-2015) who was a prolific author and proponent of the theory that Christ was a mythical person. Her site is no longer available)<\/p>\n

Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs’ acts are legendary, the Israelites did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, they did not conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon, nor of the source of belief in the God of Israel. These facts have been known for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and nobody wants to hear about it.<\/p>\n

This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai. Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish people – and who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story – now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people’s emergence are radically different from what that story tells.<\/p>\n

This represents more than a problem for Christianity- it is actually a death blow. The historical accuracy of the Old Testament forms the bedrock of the Christian faith. Without this infrastructure, the authority of the church is devastated.\u00a0 Church leaders are working overtime to keep this information from reaching the <\/a>faithful.<\/p>\n

(1806) Seneca\u2019s silence forged away<\/strong><\/p>\n

Seneca the Younger\u00a0(4 BC \u2013\u00a0AD\u00a065), also known simply as\u00a0Seneca, was a\u00a0Roman<\/a>\u00a0Stoic<\/a>\u00a0philosopher, statesman,\u00a0and dramatist<\/a>.\u00a0 During the AD 50’s, he wrote a series of letters to his friend, Lucillius, about the religious sects in the Roman Empire.\u00a0 However, he failed to mention anything about Jesus or Christianity despite the scripturally-supported conventional knowledge that Christianity was already being practiced by that time in Rome and many other areas of the Roman Empire. Centuries later, this was a source of major embarrassment to Christians. In response to this dilemma, a series of forged letters from Seneca to St. Paul was generated. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.jesusneverexisted.com\/seneca.html<\/a><\/p>\n

The lack of\u00a0any reference to Jesus Christ or Christians\u00a0by Seneca was an embarrassment rectified during the 4th century by a forger familiar with Seneca’s letters to his life-long friend\u00a0Lucilius. What emerged was a correspondence purported to be friendly exchanges between the eminent Roman philosopher \u2013 at the height of his fame and political influence \u2013 and an unknown itinerant preacher we now call\u00a0St Paul.<\/p>\n

The catalyst for the fabrications appear to have been remarks by Tertullian, in the early 3rd century. Tertullian, aware that Seneca had articulated sentiments suited to a “great moral teacher” referred to Seneca as “often our own.” By the time of Constantius II (337-361), Seneca had been taken captive by the Christians, his fidelity to the cause vouched for by a lively exchange of letters (in Latin!) with the Jewish Christian apostle. We are asked to believe that Seneca wrote eight letters to Paul and received six replies.\u00a0As if.<\/p>\n

“The tradition that Gallio sent some of St. Paul’s writings to his brother Seneca is utterly absurd; and indeed at this time (A.D. 54), St. Paul had written nothing except the two Epistles to the Thessalonians.”<\/p>\n

\u2013 Rev. F. W. Farrar.<\/p>\n

(here are examples from the forged letters)<\/p>\n

” Hail, my dearest Paul … so great a man, so beloved in all ways … You are the summit and topmost peak of all people …<\/p>\n

We were much refreshed by the reading of … the many letters which you have addressed to some city or capital of a province .. which inculcate the moral life with admirable precepts…<\/p>\n

Such is the greatness of them … such nobility, that I think whole ages of men could hardly suffice for the instilling and perfecting of them … For it is the holy spirit which is in you and high above you which expresses these exalted and adorable thoughts.<\/p>\n

The Augustus was moved by your views … he could wonder that a man not regularly educated could think thus. I replied that the gods often speak by the mouths of the simple …<\/p>\n

Be but intimately associated with me and my name …<\/p>\n

I am glad as to be counted a second self of yours … For the rank that is mine, I would it were yours, and yours I would were mine.<\/p>\n

Farewell, dearest Paul.”<\/p>\n

Extant copies of the bogus correspondence date from the 9th century, though both Jerome (de Viris Illustribus\u00a012), and Augustine (Epistle 153.4 ad Macedonium) in the late 4th- early 5th century refer to an earlier edition. Jerome had the temerity to list Seneca among the Church “Fathers” and couples the compelled suicide of Seneca with the fabled martyrdom of Peter and Paul about the same time!<\/p>\n

Forgeries were common during this time and, in fact, several known forgeries made it into the canon of the Bible. There is no reason to believe that these kinds of duplicitous activities would have been needed if Jesus was the popular figure described in the gospels and if Christianity was, as alleged, an important emerging religion during the First <\/a>Century.<\/p>\n

(1807) How to recognize God?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Any religion that is true should have a method available so that a sincere searcher can identify the god that is claimed to exist. There must be some method to differentiate the true god from all of the false ones. But when each potential method is examined, specifically now referring to the Christian god, all of them fail. The following is taken from:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/articles.exchristian.net\/2007\/02\/blind-mans-bluff.html<\/a><\/p>\n

How many times in our conversations with theists, have we come across the phrase, \u201cGod is mysterious. Incomprehensible. More than any finite mind could ever conceive or describe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, another blogger posed a\u00a0question<\/a>\u00a0that I found intriguing: \u201cIf I cannot see God and if I cannot understand him, how will I know if I have found him?\u201d<\/p>\n

I have talked before about the concept of God and love. And when we compare what God does to what humans do\u2014well, it doesn\u2019t seem very loving. But when I point that out, I am met with shock\u2014\u201cWho are you to question God? Were you there when he made the foundations of the earth? His love is so much different, so beyond our comprehension (he\u00a0died\u00a0for you!) that it is nothing like it in the natural world.\u201d<\/p>\n

O.K. got it. Check. Can\u2019t recognize God by love.<\/p>\n

Or, when the question of love is brought up, I am informed that I am forgetting that God is just. But what does his justice look like? \u201cJust\u201d means in accordance with a law. What law does God\u00a0have\u00a0to follow? And, when he is merciful, he is deliberately not following the law. In other words, God is not bound by any justice or mercy at all. Since I cannot even see God, talking about some law beyond God (which he does or does not have to follow) that I see even less becomes meaningless.<\/p>\n

O.K. got it. Check. Can\u2019t recognize God by justice or mercy.<\/p>\n

And I am informed that God defines absolute morality. But then I view actions in the Tanakh that go against the moral intuition he allegedly gave me. Things like asking a person to perform human sacrifice to prove their loyalty. Genocides. Hardening hearts. When I ask about those things, that don\u2019t seem very moral to me, I am told I must accept God as moral, and while it doesn\u2019t appear moral, God had to have a moral reason for it.<\/p>\n

O.K. got it. Check. Can\u2019t recognize God by morality.<\/p>\n

I have no way to verify if God is speaking the truth. If God is bound by truth, and I ask, \u201cCan you lie?\u201d he must answer \u201cNo.\u201d But if he is NOT bound by truth, and I ask, \u201cCan you lie?\u201d he can still answer \u201cNo\u201d! Same question. Same answer. Two completely different Gods. No way to verify whether God is telling the truth.<\/p>\n

O.K. got it. Check. Can\u2019t recognize God by truth.<\/p>\n

If I am talking to a young earth creationist, I am informed that God could make the stars\u00a0appear\u00a0to be billions of light years away, and make the earth\u00a0appear\u00a0to be billions of years old, by creating it looking old. But it really is young. And I am told by old earth creationists, that God didn\u2019t mean \u201cday\u201d when he inspired the author of Genesis 1, but rather God meant \u201ca long, long time\u201d and that God created light before he created the sun. Which is completely contrary to science. But God did that because he did not want it to be too easy for us to believe in creationism.<\/p>\n

O.K. got it. Check. Can\u2019t recognize God by science.<\/p>\n

I am told by Christians that Mormon scriptures are not from God and the Qur\u2019an is not from God, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is not from God. That certain books, although esteemed as canonical at one time, like 1 Clement, Epistle of Barnabas and Shepherd of Hermas, are not inspired either. And now, we have questions as to whether the ending of Mark, or the Story of the Adulterous woman is inspired. In fact, the Christians can\u2019t seem to agree on a method by which we can determine a certain string of words is inspired or not.<\/p>\n

All of which doesn\u2019t matter, because even without holy writings, I will still be held responsible.<\/p>\n

O.K. got it. Check. Can\u2019t recognize God by writings.<\/p>\n

The Muslims have miracle stories of their own. So do Hindus. And Catholics have a weekly sighting of Mary, in cooked items or bridge underpasses. Mormons and Seven-Day Adventists have moving stories of personal testimony by which they tell of life-transformations because of their God. But those are the wrong Gods. The humans have it wrong, I am told.<\/p>\n

O.K. got it. Check. Can\u2019t recognize God by testimonies.<\/p>\n

At which point, I wonder, as my blogger friend said: If I can\u2019t recognize a God\u2014how would I know it if I see it?<\/p>\n

The problem with \u201cGod is mysterious\u201d is that the impetus is on us to play this blind man\u2019s bluff game with a ticking bomb, and the theist is puzzled why we have difficulty perceiving God. For the reasons they just explained\u2014he is not like anything we know.<\/p>\n

If your claim of reality is incomprehensible\u2014why be surprised if I don\u2019t comprehend it? I\u2019m just following instructions.<\/p>\n

Because all of these methods\u00a0to recognize god fail, the prospective Christian is left with only one avenue for obtaining assurance that they are \u2018barking up the right tree\u2019- to just have faith. That is, the same method used by members of every other religion, and how do we determine whose faith out of this assembly, if any, is accurately aligned with <\/a>reality?<\/p>\n

(1808) The Clergy Project<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Clergy Project is an international nonprofit organization based in the United States that provides peer support to current and former religious leaders who no longer have faith. The group’s focus is to provide private online forums for its participants,\u00a0and assistance through career transition grants, hardship grants, and free sessions of psychotherapy. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/new.exchristian.net\/2016\/10\/my-thoughts-on-religion.html<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a well-known fact that, people are leaving religion in troves. Ministers are also leaving. The Clergy Project has approximately 800 ministers in their group with many still in the pulpit preaching very Sunday.<\/p>\n

Why did Bob Ripley, who ministered the largest protestant church in Canada come out as an atheist after 45 years as a preacher, Cass Midgely after 20 years, Jerry DeWitt after 25 years, Rich Lyons after 25 years, Dan Barker after 19 years, Teresa MacBain after several years to name a few?<\/p>\n

The reason that this is significant evidence against the Christian religion is that the hundreds of church leaders who have left the faith would positively be the least likely to have done so if Christianity was true. These are the people most invested in the faith, as it supports their livelihood, the most knowledgeable about the scriptures, and whose daily work should have enabled them to witness the countless little miracles working in people\u2019s lives as a result of answered prayer. It is incomprehensible to believe that even a single minister would have abandoned their faith in a world where Christianity was <\/a>true.<\/p>\n

(1809) Answers believers give for tragedies<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is illuminating to see how Christians react to tragedies in an effort to explain why the world does not always seem to comport to their expectations. The following is a good summation of these responses:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/new.exchristian.net\/2016\/10\/my-thoughts-on-religion.html<\/a><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. God has a plan for us all (otherwise known as, \u201cThere\u2019s a reason for everything\u201d).<\/li>\n
  2. God must have had a reason for taking your (relative) so young (a personalized version of No. 1).<\/li>\n
  3. The Lord works in mysterious ways.<\/li>\n
  4. Your (Relative) will be waiting for you in heaven.<\/li>\n
  5. He\u2019s looking down on you and keeping you safe.<\/li>\n
  6. God called him home.<\/li>\n
  7. It was just his time.<\/li>\n
  8. He was too good for this world.<\/li>\n
  9. God must have needed another angel.<\/li>\n
  10. God never gives us more than we can handle.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    No matter what happens, they can use one or more of these \u2018excuses\u2019 for divine inaction or apparent malevolence to protect their image of God as a perfect celestial overlord.\u00a0 Combined with intense indoctrination and social pressure to conform, these niceties lubricate the hard edges of reality so that they can finesse their way to the grave without suffering extreme doubts. Thus, the belief in a god who does nothing, says nothing, and remains invisible can survive in the minds of billions of people who never live to see the unvarnished reality of their <\/a>existence.<\/p>\n

    (1810) Alternate view of what caused resurrection belief<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Within Gerd L\u00fcdemann\u2019s book, The Resurrection of Christ: A Historical Inquiry<\/em> (2004), an interesting theory is presented to explain how belief in Jesus\u2019s resurrection originated. What is important about this theory is that it brings out the highly probable fact that the disciples of Jesus would not have remained in Jerusalem following Jesus\u2019s arrest. They were there on a trip- they did not live there, and to avoid Roman prosecution they most likely returned to their homes in Galilee. \u00a0As such, they would not have been around to observe an empty tomb, assuming that there was one. The gospel of Mark hints at this when it informs the disciples to go to Galilee where the first meeting with the resurrected Jesus was to occur. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/ehrmanblog.org\/gerd-ludemann-on-the-resurrection-of-jesus-for-members\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    When Jesus was arrested and crucified his disciples fled. They did not go into hiding in Jerusalem \u2013 then went back home, to Galilee (where *else* would they go? They went home, to get out of Jerusalem!)<\/p>\n

    Soon after, it was in Galilee (not in Jerusalem) that belief in the resurrection occurred. It occurred because Peter had a vision of Jesus that included auditory features (he thought he saw and heard him).<\/p>\n

    This \u201cvision\u201d was induced by psychological factors. Peter felt terrifically guilty for having denied Jesus, and the \u201cvision\u201d he had brought forgiveness from his deep guilt.<\/p>\n

    This vision was like other visions that people have (all the time): visions of dead loved ones; visions of the Virgin Mary. In these visions, of course the loved ones do not *really* come back to life from the dead, and the Virgin Mary does not *really* show up at Lourdes, etc. These are psychologically induced visions.<\/p>\n

    Still, like other people who have visions, Peter took the vision to be real and assumed that Jesus was alive again, in heaven.<\/p>\n

    Peter brought the other disciples together, and maintained with them that the end time was near, as Jesus had originally preached, and that the kingdom of God was soon to appear. The evidence? The resurrection of the dead had already begun. The evidence? Jesus had been raised. The evidence? He had appeared to Peter. All this is happening in Galilee.<\/p>\n

    The vision was infectious, and the mission got underway.<\/p>\n

    Even Jesus\u2019 brothers were caught up in the excitement and James became a believer in Jesus.<\/p>\n

    The other person who had a genuine vision of Jesus was much later, the apostle Paul, who too experienced a psychologically induced vision of Jesus. In this case, he found Jesus\u2019 teaching of forgiveness and mercy appealing, even as he was violently persecuting the church as an enemy. But forgiveness won out and in a cataclysmic break from his past, Paul had a vision of the living Jesus, convincing him that Peter and the others were right: Jesus was still alive, and therefore had been raised from the dead.<\/p>\n

    Some Christians thought that these visions showed that Jesus was spiritually exalted to heaven \u2013 not that his body had been physically raised from the dead.<\/p>\n

    Others, including Peter and Paul, insisted that in fact Jesus had experienced a physical resurrection of the body, which had been transformed into an immortal body before being exalted to heaven.<\/p>\n

    The implication was that the tomb was emptied before Jesus\u2019 started to make his appearances (other Christians also claimed to see him, but it is hard to establish that any of the others actually had any visions \u2013 they may have simply been building on Peter\u2019s original claim).<\/p>\n

    But by this time it was too late to know whether the tomb was really empty. For several reasons:<\/p>\n

    We don\u2019t know how much after his death the vision to Peter came; Acts suggests that it was fifty days before the preaching began; if so, the body would have decomposed.<\/p>\n

    No one knew where he was buried anyway (the story of Joseph of Arimathea may be a later account, not something that really happened; Jesus may have been buried in a common grave or somewhere no one knew.<\/p>\n

    It is worth pointing out, Ludemann notes, that Christians in Jersualem appear to have placed ZERO emphasis on the location of the tomb. It was not until 326, according to Eusebius, was the alledged site of burial \u201crediscovered\u201d under a temple dedicated to Venus. Life of Constantine 3.26-28.<\/p>\n

    And so, the short story: Chrsitianity started among Jesus\u2019 followers in Galilee, sometime after his death, after Peter had a vision of Jesus that was psychologically induced.<\/p>\n

    So, to be clear, I\u2019m not saying I agree with this entire reconstruction. But it\u2019s very interesting, based on a detailed examination of all the evidence from the NT (and outside) by a skilled interpreter, and worth bearing in mind when trying to figure out what really happened both to Jesus\u2019 body and to the followers of Jesus to make them believe it had been raised from the dead.<\/p>\n

    This scenarios adds another layer to the list of different ways that belief in the resurrection could have originated. \u00a0Each one is remarkable more probable than the miraculous resurrection of a 36+ hour decomposed human <\/a>body.<\/p>\n

    (1811) Humans out-communicate God<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Within the past few decades, human technology has advanced to the point where a message can be delivered to well over half of the earth\u2019s population in a matter of seconds. The message can arrive without any alterations or interpolations, pristinely accurate to the author\u2019s original creation. Although, there can be arguments about the intent or meaning of the message, the exact text is not in dispute.<\/p>\n

    By contrast, when God decided to send a message to mankind, his revelation was limited to an area less than 1% of the earth\u2019s surface and to less than 1% of the earth\u2019s population. The message was then adulterated by centuries of inadvertent and purposeful changes resulting from human interference.<\/p>\n

    When we contrast the two scenarios, it is amazing to see how humans have reached a point where they can out-perform the messaging capability of the Christian god. Some skeptics have questioned why God has not used the internet to deliver an updated message to mankind- to clear up the divisions and differences in theological beliefs. Perhaps he is embarrassed at being <\/a>upstaged?<\/p>\n

    (1812) Two Jesus\u2019s?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus rarely refers to himself, but in the Gospel of John this changes completely and Jesus is primarily focused on himself. This was pointed out by biblical scholar Bart Erhman as follows:<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=124572693<\/a><\/p>\n

    To illustrate the differences between the Gospels, Ehrman offers opposing depictions of Jesus talking about himself. In the book of John, Jesus talks about himself and proclaims who he is, saying “I am the bread of life.” Whereas in Mark, Jesus teaches principally about the coming kingdom and hardly ever mentions himself directly. These differences offer clues into the perspectives of the authors, and the eras in which they wrote their respective Gospels, according to Ehrman.<\/p>\n

    “In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is not interested in teaching about himself. But when you read John’s Gospel, that’s virtually the only thing Jesus talks about is who he is, what his identity is, where he came from,” Ehrman says. “This is completely unlike anything that you find in Mark or in Matthew and Luke. And historically it creates all sorts of problems, because if the historical Jesus actually went around saying that he was God, it’s very hard to believe that Matthew, Mark and Luke left out that part \u2014 you know, as if that part wasn’t important to mention. But in fact, they don’t mention it. And so this view of the divinity of Jesus on his own lips is found only in our latest Gospel, the Gospel of John.”<\/p>\n

    This is a crushing blow to the authenticity of the gospels, at least as a complete unit. At most, there should be just one Jesus, but if the gospels are taken at face value, an objective reviewer would have to conclude there were at least <\/a>two.<\/p>\n

    (1813) Christianity is a failed religion<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Toward the end of World War II, a desperate Adolph Hitler was in a meeting with his generals trying to develop a defensive strategy against the Allied invasion. While doing this, he strategically moved around blocks representing Axis divisions on a map of Europe. What he didn\u2019t realize is that most of those divisions no longer existed.<\/p>\n

    In like manner, many Christians are frantically trying to defend their faith by using their last and fading lines of defense against secularism. What most don\u2019t realize is that Christianity is already a failed religion. This is explained in the following essay:<\/p>\n

    http:\/\/new.exchristian.net\/2014\/04\/christianity-as-failed-religion.html<\/a><\/p>\n

    Christians of the literal Bible-believing kind are so angry. Doesn\u2019t their faith provide any peace and love or uh, \u201cChristian\u201d spirit toward others? Yet they are known for being judgmental. And if an evangelizing Christian doesn\u2019t get a receptive response, there is always a threat about where one will spend eternity, often delivered with a touch of “you’ll get yours” vengefulness.<\/p>\n

    But there are serious problems for a person with Christianity as a framework for living in the modern world. The anger is because it is a failed religion. The reasons for resentment are well below awareness, and taking it out on other people is not appropriate. In general, all sides appear to be rather confused about the hair-trigger emotional reactions to many issues, the rush to defend God and morality, the frequent condemnation, and the strange vitriol.<\/p>\n

    The thing is that Christianity is not just a cognitive set of beliefs. It is a worldview that completely colors reality. It works on a deep level of the mind through metaphors, images, and tacit assumptions. The\u00a0Christian worldview<\/a>\u00a0is a closed, irrational system which is taught to small children who can\u2019t and don\u2019t question. It is transmitted like a virus down through generations and supported in the larger culture.<\/p>\n

    The images present in Christianity can help with understanding its power – not the words but the images, which in the human brain are more connected to emotions than language. Children and adults alike process information and act on it more easily and quickly when using symbols and metaphor rather than language. This becomes unconscious, so an all-encompassing system like Christianity can easily become a lens affecting one\u2019s entire view of life. Picture these images:<\/p>\n

    \u2022 A powerful male god – creator, hater of sin, destroyer with flood and fire, demander of blood sacrifice, final judge \u2013 the symbol of authority and power
    \n\u2022 A kneeling subject, head down, weak, subservient \u2013 the symbol of shame
    \n\u2022 A bloody torture and execution of an innocent man on a cross – the symbol of guilt
    \n\u2022 An evil, dangerous Satan, lurking and stalking with his demons throughout the world \u2013 the symbol of terror
    \n\u2022 The world as a battlefield with a mighty fight between good and evil, the Christian wearing the \u201carmor of God,\u201d and life as war \u2013 the symbol of struggle.
    \n\u2022 A heavenly afterlife with mansions and streets of gold, being with God, where the \u201clion lies down with the lamb\u201d \u2013 the symbol of ultimate contentment
    \n\u2022 Jesus\u2019 return in force, with armies of angels, ready to slaughter and win the\u00a0    Battle of Armageddon<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the symbol of vengeance and justice.
    \n\u2022 Burning hell fire with people screaming in pain, lost for eternity, separated from God \u2013 the symbol of fear.<\/p>\n

    There are other images from the Bible, such as Jesus as the Good Shepherd, Jesus blessing the children, or giving the Sermon on the Mount. But in modern, fundamentalist Christianity, these are not the popular images of Jesus. Much preferred are the muscular ones having to do with his image at the\u00a0Second Coming<\/a>. Especially among young people, by the looks of the Christian T-shirts available for sale, Jesus the King riding on a white horse, is a far better image, almost like a superhero expected to appear in the sky.<\/p>\n

    An example on YouTube is at a revival meeting before a group sings a rousing version of \u201cThe King is Coming.\u201d The minister says that Jesus came the first time as a baby and not many noticed, but next time he\u2019s coming as King of Kings and\u00a0Lord of Lords<\/a>; every eye shall see him, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess, he says.<\/p>\n

    The problem seems to be that it\u2019s not happening. Many years have gone by \u2013 over 2000 \u2013 and he has yet to return like he promised. From outside the belief system, like a visitor from another planet, one can pretty easily read the scripture and notice this pesky problem. It is a tribute to the power of belief, and the nature of passing on unquestioned beliefs to new generations that this issue can slide by. (Right?)<\/p>\n

    But the bald truth is the Christianity is a failure. Some religions have a cyclic concept of time and the religious concepts are largely precepts for living, e.g. Hinduism and Buddhism. But Christianity has a timetable. This is a problem. The god, Jehovah, created the world, the Fall occurred, the Plan of Salvation had to be installed, and then the plan was for Jesus to come back, win a last battle with Satan, have a\u00a0Final Judgment<\/a>, and send everyone to heaven or hell. Telling this story to a potential new believer is difficult if they are an adult, even from this planet. The promise of heaven and the threat of hell aren\u2019t real enough, and there is no sign of Jesus showing up. The \u201csigns\u201d constantly claimed are easily disputed. In fact, to the unbeliever listening to this, using natural disasters and political upheavals as indicators of the End Times sounds more like avoiding responsibility for the world.<\/p>\n

    Christianity also does not have a track record for coming through on other promises such as answered prayer and changed lives. \u201cJesus Saves\u201d doesn\u2019t seem to mean a lot. Even the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel\u2019s Messiah, while sounding amazing at Christmas, hardly announces the birth of a savior who actually saved the world. Even in terms of the afterlife, from a strict \u201caccept Jesus as your personal savior\u201d point of view, a tiny fraction of humanity gets the benefit of going to heaven, thanking the baby in the manger, while the rest of the globe is headed for hell.\u00a0Fundamentalist Christians<\/a>\u00a0don\u2019t mention this part of their theology when they rail about the \u201cwar on Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Statistically, prayer makes as much difference as anything else when it comes to matters of health. Divorce and domestic violence is actually higher in religious families, and the incidence of sexual abuse is shocking. In general, Christians are known for lagging behind the rest of the culture in terms of progressive values like tolerance, human rights, torture, and war. Over many centuries the\u00a0Christian world<\/a>\u00a0has opposed progress in science, and is currently waging war in public schools against evolution, which is the basis of biology and other sciences. Again, like the Christians at Christmas, the personality profile does not impress.<\/p>\n

    Looking at the state of the world and at life through this lens of Christianity is thus pretty dark. At present, it seems obvious that many people with a Christian worldview are deeply angry and resentful. There is much railing against the morals of society, as though the entire country is endangered. Natural disasters in various places have been attributed to God\u2019s judgment for sin, (which is an Iron Age understanding of nature). In fact, because of the view that this is a fallen world ruled by Satan and very dangerous, there is a constant anxiety that if God becomes fed up with the rampant immorality of our nation, he will withdraw his blessing and his protection, sending us into disaster. Unfortunately for the scared Christian looking around at cultural developments, the direction of change is toward secularism, not piety. After 9-11, many Christians were convinced that America was being taught a lesson and that the proper response was to repent and change our immoral ways. Obama was even criticized for his words at Ground Zero about being strong and rebuilding.<\/p>\n

    Looking at the state of the world and at life through this lens of Christianity is thus pretty dark. Changes are out of control and pretty frightening. The images listed above overshadow all else, including worldly things like interesting developments in the arts, diplomatic achievements, or exciting scientific discoveries. This supernatural frame is radically different from a natural, secular frame on reality. The events of importance are Jesus death of 2000 years ago, and the return of Jesus at some unknown time in the future. Christians constantly hope that this return will be soon and historically have always claimed that the End is imminent. The present is not important, and the earth is not a priority. Physical bodies and pleasure are not important because the spiritual world is what counts.<\/p>\n

    Christianity teaches followers not to be invested in this life. Peace in the Middle East is not a goal because if war in that region were to escalate, it could mean Armageddon and that would herald the Messiah. The passion is not for building a better world but for escape to a different, perfect world. Unfortunately, modern believers do not understand that Jesus, if he did exist, was one of many apocalyptic prophets who was sounding the alarm in his time that the end was nigh. That was why he told his followers to not make any plans for the future and leave everything to follow him.<\/p>\n

    For the present day Christian, raised to never question dogma, Jesus\u2019 promise, \u201cBehold, I come quickly,\u201d is impossible to digest with intellectual honesty. Instead, the deep grief and rage of the abandoned child gets lodged in the psyche and plays out in a plethora of unconscious ways, causing harm to the self and society. Even when spoken, as a Christian defends his faith to a skeptic, the anger is barely concealed. The promise of Jesus\u2019 return sounds more like a threat, like the Terminator: \u201cI\u2019ll be back.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Unfortunately, the best solution is also the most unlikely for hard-core believers: to achieve a level of self-awareness and insight to recognize Christianity as a lost cause and reject it as a framework for living.<\/p>\n

    The pathetic sight of people \u2018riding a dead horse\u2019 while lugging around the mind-numbing weight of Christianity is what most of us see who have exited the faith or who were never indoctrinated in the first place. Its time has come and gone and now it\u2019s time to resign ourselves to address the realities of a natural <\/a>world.<\/p>\n

    (1814) Excluding the event that got Jesus killed<\/strong><\/p>\n

    There are many instances where one or more gospels tell a story that is omitted from the others. Generally, stating that the authors were focused on different aspects of Jesus\u2019 ministry is a plausible apologetic line of defense. But in the following case, it is not.<\/p>\n

    This is the story in John Chapter 11 where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead.\u00a0 This story is not included in the first three gospels that were written- Mark, Matthew, and Luke, and its exclusion in those writings is in off itself a problem considering that this was, if true, Jesus\u2019 greatest miracle. But that isn\u2019t even the biggest problem.\u00a0 As explained in the text of John, this miracle was the catalyst for the Pharisees to capture and kill Jesus- which, in reality, is one-half of the core Christian story (death and resurrection).\u00a0 To leave this out of the story would be like not mentioning slavery when discussing the American Civil War.\u00a0 Here are the relevant verses from John:<\/p>\n

    John 11:43-57<\/p>\n

    When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice,\u00a0\u201cLazarus, come out!\u201d\u00a0 The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face.<\/p>\n

    Jesus said to them,\u00a0\u201cTake off the grave clothes and let him go.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Therefore many of the Jews who had come to visit Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.\u00a0 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.\u00a0 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.<\/p>\n

    \u201cWhat are we accomplishing?\u201d they asked. \u201cHere is this man performing many signs.\u00a0 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, \u201cYou know nothing at all!\u00a0 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.\u201d<\/p>\n

    He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation,\u00a0and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one.\u00a0 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.<\/p>\n

    Therefore Jesus no longer moved about publicly among the people of Judea. Instead he withdrew to a region near the wilderness, to a village called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.<\/p>\n

    When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, many went up from the country to Jerusalem for their ceremonial cleansing before the Passover.\u00a0 They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple courts they asked one another, \u201cWhat do you think? Isn\u2019t he coming to the festival at all?\u201d\u00a0 But the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who found out where Jesus was should report it so that they might arrest him.<\/p>\n

    For Mark, Matthew, and Luke to exclude the seminal event that got Jesus killed is so implausible that it is extraordinarily more likely that John simple made up this story. And all it takes is one made-up story to start to doubt all of the <\/a>rest.<\/p>\n

    (1815) The university professor analogy<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Christianity claims that salvation is possible only for those people who accept the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross:<\/p>\n

    John 14:6<\/p>\n

    Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Whatever criteria God used to judge people in the 100,000+ years from the advent of modern humans up to the time of Jesus we don\u2019t know, but for the past 2000 years, evidently, he now uses Jesus as the acid test to decide the eternal fate of modern humans. OK, he changed his mind, and he is God, so he can do so. Jesus is now required, though access to this knowledge was withheld from most humans for centuries and, effectively, still to this day from those born into other religions. When we apply the same logic to a modern-day example, the absolute absurdity of this scam is revealed:<\/p>\n

    Imagine there is a university professor who has 100 students in his class. He announces that there will be a test during the next class session. As the students are leaving and only 10 students remain in the room, he tells them that if they put the number \u2018457\u2019 at the top of their test sheet, he will give them an \u2018A\u2019 no matter how badly they score. \u00a0Anyone who fails to do this will get an \u2018F\u2019 no matter how well they do on the test questions. These 10 students tell a few of their friends, so when the test is administered 20 student place \u2018457\u2019 on their tests and pass, while the other 80 students, some of whom got almost everything correct, flunk the test.<\/p>\n

    This is precisely what the God of the Bible is seen to do. He gives the secret formula to a few, and no matter how badly they perform, he gives them a passing grade and entrance into heavenly bliss. To the others, most of whom he has purposely withheld from the secret, and no matter how beautiful and productive their efforts, he curses them and sends them to an eternal painful torture.<\/p>\n

    Many Christians today recognize the fact that the gospel message taken at face value is hard to reconcile with a loving god. Hell is no longer torture, but just separation from God.\u00a0 They are trying to finesse a way to follow the faith without having to compromise their principles. But this is simply not possible given the clear message of the gospels. Like the university professor above, the God of the Bible is playing a game so cruel and illogical that it simple cannot be the product of a god that actually exists\u2026that is, unless one is willing to concede that God is cruel and <\/a>illogical.<\/p>\n

    (1816) Multiple witness rule<\/strong><\/p>\n

    There is a general rule that more than one witness of an event is needed to establish an acceptable degree of confidence that an event occurred as asserted.\u00a0 The problem with the Bible it that it is full of single-witness attestations, either directly by the lone witness himself or by a narrator.\u00a0 The following essay fleshes out this concern:<\/p>\n

    http:\/\/new.exchristian.net\/2013\/05\/two-or-three-witness-rule-violations.html<\/a><\/p>\n

    My mother claims that when she was four years old, she floated down a staircase. Astonished by this feat, she ran to the neighborhood children to tell them about her amazing achievement. Some were skeptical, and demanded that she repeat the event in their presence. The crowd gathered in her house as she climbed to the top of the stairs. She stood there trying as hard as she could to launch into the super-human glide that she was certain occurred just minutes beforehand. But nothing happened. As the naysayers began to dispersed, she exclaimed, \u201cYou have to eat a lot of carrots!\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cAt the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the matter be established.\u201d This biblical axiom is scattered through the Old and New Testaments. And why shouldn\u2019t it be? It\u2019s actually not a bad rule. Certainly, in modern courts of law, when more than one witness independently corroborate a story, the story is given credence and becomes believable. In the Bible, this rule is the premise for excommunication, defrocking, and capital punishment. Yet, this foundation for establishing truth is trampled underfoot in almost every occasion related to the most important circumstances in all of scripture \u2013 the interactions between the God and man.<\/p>\n

    No other person heard the voice that told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, then not to kill him, or the argument he had with God about finding a righteous man in Sodom & Gomorrah, or any of the other messages that Abraham received from God or angels. That\u2019s rather damning for the founder of Judaism, Christianity and Islam\u2026<\/p>\n

    No other person heard or saw the burning bush where the voice of God commissioned Moses to become the deliverer of the Israelites from Egypt. No other person heard or saw God deliver the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. No other person saw God pass by Moses while he hid behind a rock.<\/p>\n

    No other person heard God tell Noah to build an ark. No other person actually saw a whale swallow – then subsequently vomit out – Jonah. No other person heard God tell Solomon to ask for anything he desired. Certainly, anytime a prophet communicated with God, it was a one-on-one conversation. Even the angelic messages to Mary and Joseph were delivered individually to each. No one else saw or heard the conversation between Paul and glorified Jesus on the road to Damascus.<\/p>\n

    This observation is not confined to biblical accounts. I can think of no account ever provided by preachers, evangelists, missionaries, apostles, and overly zealous Christians when a message from God was delivered and witnessed by more than one person.<\/p>\n

    No other person heard God tell Oral Roberts that he would die if he didn\u2019t raise 13 million dollars. Whenever Jimmy Swaggart, Ken Copeland, Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell or Ernest Angley started a sentence with, \u201cGod told me\u2026\u201d then it\u2019s a safe bet that no other person heard this conversation. This observation can even be extended to the angel Gabriel delivering the Quran to Mohammed, the angel Moroni giving golden plates to Joseph Smith, or when Mother Mary appeared to 14 year old Bernadette Soubirous near Lourdes, France in 1858. There was no other person present during these events.<\/p>\n

    \u201cAt the mouth of two or three witnesses\u2026\u201d You would have at least thought that something as incredulous as God writing the Ten Commandments in stone with his finger would have been important enough to do in front of a crowd. None of these people are to be believed. I don\u2019t even believe my own mother. If two or three of those neighborhood children would have witnessed my mother float down that staircase, what might have been\u2026<\/p>\n

    Because so much of Judeo-Christian scripture is limited by the witness of a single person, the authenticity of its purported history is highly questionable. This extends to the present day as \u2018messages from God\u2019 always seem to be directed to lone individuals, and, when viewed collectively, they form a\u00a0 hopeless tangle of contradictory <\/a>themes.<\/p>\n

    (1817) The Bible is badly written<\/strong><\/p>\n

    If the Bible is the product of divine influence, we would expect its literary quality to be very good, if not better than anything mere humans have ever produced. But the opposite is true. The Bible shows over and again the markers of human authorship. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/valerietarico.com\/2018\/01\/28\/why-is-the-bible-so-badly-written\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    But why is the Bible\u00a0such\u00a0a mixed bag? Falling short of perfection is one thing, but the Bible has been the subject of thousands of follow-on books by people who were genuinely trying to figure out what it means. Despite best efforts, their conclusions don\u2019t converge, which is one reason Christianity has fragmented into\u00a0over 40,000 denominations and non-denominations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Here are just a few of the reasons for this tangled web of disagreements and the terrible quality of some biblical writing (with notable exceptions) by modern literary standards.<\/p>\n

    Too Many Cooks<\/p>\n

    Far from being a single unified whole, the Bible is actually a collection of texts or text fragments from many authors. We don\u2019t know the number of writers precisely, and\u2014despite the ancient traditions that assigned authorship to famous people such as Moses, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John\u2014we don\u2019t know who most of them were<\/a>. We do know that the men who inscribed the biblical texts had widely different language skills, cultural and technological surroundings, worldviews and supernatural beliefs\u2014along with varying objectives.<\/p>\n

    Scholars estimate that the earliest of the Bible\u2019s writers lived and wrote about 800 years before the Christian era, and the most recent lived and wrote almost a century after any\u00a0historical Jesus<\/a>\u00a0would have lived. They ranged from tribal nomads to subjects of the Roman Empire. To make matters more complicated, some of them\u00a0borrowed fragments<\/a>\u00a0of even\u00a0earlier stories<\/a>\u00a0and songs that had been handed down via oral tradition from Sumerian cultures and religions. For example, flood myths that predate the Noah story can be found across Mesopotamia, with a boat-building hero named Utnapishtim\u00a0 or Ziusudra or Atrahasis.<\/p>\n

    Bible writers\u00a0adapted earlier stories and laws<\/a>\u00a0to their own cultural and religious context, but they couldn\u2019t always reconcile differences among handed-down texts, and often may not have known that alternative versions existed. Later, variants got bundled together. This is why the Bible contains\u00a0two different\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0creation myths<\/a>,\u00a0three sets of Ten Commandments<\/a>, and\u00a0four contradictory versions of the Easter story<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Forgery and Counter-forgery<\/p>\n

    Best-selling Bible scholar Bart Ehrman has written two books about\u00a0forgery in the New Testament<\/a>, texts written under the names of famous men to make the writings more credible. This\u00a0includes<\/a>\u00a0the book of 2 Timothy, the one which claims that \u201call scripture is God-breathed<\/a>.\u201d Pseudonymous writing was so common among early Christians that nearly half of the books of the New Testament make false authorship claims or were assigned famous names after the fact. When texts claiming to be written by one person were actually written by several, each seeking to elevate his own point of view, we shouldn\u2019t be surprised if the writing styles clash or they espouse contradictory attitudes.<\/p>\n

    Awkward Diction<\/p>\n

    The original language of the New Testament was Koine, a form of Greek spread by Alexander\u2019s army that became a utilitarian lingua franca among the conquered. This is just one reason that the books of the New Testament often lack the poetic beauty of the great Greek epics, which were written in classical Greek. But another may be that for some of the writers, Koine was not their native tongue.<\/p>\n

    David Bentley Hart, Orthodox theologian, scholar and polemicist, recently produced a\u00a0New Testament translation<\/a>\u00a0that follows the voices and idiosyncrasies of the original text.\u00a0 Of it, he says, \u201cWhere an author has written bad Greek \u2026 I have written bad English.\u201d After producing his unretouched version of Revelation, Hart opined, \u201cIf judged purely by the normal standards of literary style and good taste, [the Book of Revelation is] almost unremittingly atrocious.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Histories, Poetries, None-of-These<\/p>\n

    Christians may treat the Bible as a unified book of divine guidance, but in reality it is a mix of different genres: ancient myths, songs of worship, rule books, poetry, propaganda, coded political commentary, and mysticism, to name just a few. Translators and church leaders down through the centuries haven\u2019t always known which of these they were reading. Modern comedians sometimes make a living by deliberately garbling genres\u2014for example, by taking statements literally when they are meant figuratively\u2014or distorting things someone else has written or said. Whether they realize it or not, biblical literalists in the pulpit sometimes make a living doing the same thing.<\/p>\n

    Lost in Translation<\/p>\n

    The books of the Bible were originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, though not in the modern versions of these languages. (Think of trying to read Chaucer\u2019s Middle English.) When Roman Catholic Christianity ascended, church leaders embraced the Hebrew Bible and translated it into then-modern Latin. They also translated texts from early Jesus-worshipers and convened committees to determine which should make it into their canon of scripture. These became the New Testament. Ironically, some New Testament writers themselves had already translated Old Testament scriptures in ways that changed their meaning. Dubious translations bolstered key doctrines of the Christian faith, the most famous being the\u00a0Virgin Birth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Most English versions of the Bible have been translated directly from the earliest available manuscripts, but translators have their own biases, some of which were shaped by those early Latin translations and some of which are shaped by more recent theological considerations or cultural trends. After American Evangelicals pivoted away from supporting abortion in the 1980s, some publishers actually\u00a0re-translated<\/a>\u00a0a troublesome Bible verse that treated the death of a fetus differently from the death of a person. The meaning of the Bible passage changed.<\/p>\n

    But even when scholars scrupulously try to avoid biases, an enormous amount of information is simply lost in translation. One challenge is that the meanings of a story, or even a single word, depend on what preceded it in the culture at large or a specific conversation, or both.<\/p>\n

    The Bible does not stand out as being supreme or even equal to many of the greatest novels written by mere mortals. This provides a measure of evidence that it is not a divinely-inspired work, and further that the religion it describes is not a divinely-created <\/a>faith.<\/p>\n

    (1818) Anti-abortion translation<\/strong><\/p>\n

    A good example of how translators play fast and loose with the scriptures is a passage in Exodus 21 that addressed punishment for a person striking a pregnant woman. Throughout the centuries, the verse addressed a situation where the stricken woman lost the child in a miscarriage.\u00a0 But modern-day partisan translators were concerned that the penalty was just a fine, meaning that the fetus was not characterized as being or having the rights of a human being. So they changed miscarriage to premature birth to achieve their political goal.\u00a0 The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

    http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2012\/03\/22\/mischief-follows-in-partisan-bible-translations\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    That brings us to the text I want to highlight here as another example of politicized distortion via translation: Exodus 21:22-25.<\/p>\n

    Here is how Exodus 21:22-25 read in the New American Standard Bible\u2019s 1977 revision of its 1971 original translation:<\/p>\n

    And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is not further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman\u2019s husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.<\/p>\n

    You can see how this fits in the context of the chapter. Here is another category of victim for which another set of punishments for violence is given. If a pregnant woman gets struck \u201cso that she has a miscarriage,\u201d but is not herself injured, then the man who struck her must pay a fine. But if the woman herself is injured, then the same rules and punishments for striking any other (non-slave) person apply \u2014 \u201clife for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

    But here\u2019s the same passage in 1995 in the updated current version of the NASB:<\/p>\n

    If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman\u2019s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.<\/p>\n

    \u201cSo that she has a miscarriage\u201d has been replaced with \u201cso that she gives birth prematurely.\u201d<\/p>\n

    That\u2019s new. That\u2019s not at all how this passage was translated for centuries. Consider, for example, the\u00a0Wycliffe Bible from 1382<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    If men chide, and a man smiteth a woman with child, and soothly he maketh the child dead-born, but the woman liveth over that smiting, he shall be subject to the harm (he shall be subject to a fine), as much as the woman\u2019s husband asketh (for), and as the judges deem (appropriate).<\/p>\n

    Or the\u00a0King James Version from 1611<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman\u2019s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.<\/p>\n

    The same verses from the present-day New International Version are as follows:<\/p>\n

    \u201cIf people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely\u00a0but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman\u2019s husband demands and the court allows.”<\/p>\n

    So it seems that the Bible is still a living document, being changed as necessary to fit the opinions of those in control of the scriptures.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the original translations of this passage were accurate, and if one believes that they were originally written under the guidance of God, then God would have appeared, at least at that time, to have seen the difference between a fetus and an already born <\/a>child.<\/p>\n

    (1819) The New Testament is mired in a pre-scientific world<\/strong><\/p>\n

    One of Christianity\u2019s problems is that it is a product of its time- a time before we understood the earth\u2019s position in the universe, before we understood the mechanics of disease and natural disasters, and before we had a grasp of the process of biological evolution. This comparative ignorance bled into the scriptures a lot of themes that today appear embarrassingly outdated. The following is a quote from New Testament scholar Rudolph Bultmann:<\/p>\n

    \u201cThe cosmology of the N.T. is essentially mythical in character. The world is viewed as a three-storied structure, with the earth in the center, the heaven above, and the underworld beneath. Heaven is the abode of God and of celestial beings\u2014angels. The underworld is hell, the place of torment. Man is not in control of his life. Evil spirits may take possession of him. Satan may inspire him with evil thoughts. It is simply the cosmology of a pre-scientific age. To modern man . . . the mythical view of the world is obsolete. It is no longer possible for anyone seriously to hold the N.T. view of the world. We no longer believe in the three-storied universe. No one who is old enough to think for himself supposes that God lives in a local heaven. There is no longer any heaven in the traditional sense. The same applies to hell in the sense of a mythical underworld beneath our feet. And if this is so . . . we can no longer look for the return of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven. It is impossible to use the electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the N.T. world of spirits and miracles. The same objections apply to the doctrine of the atonement. How can the guilt of one man be expiated by the death of another who is sinless?\u201d [R. Bultmann, in Kerygma & Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. Hans Werner Bartsch (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), pp. 1\u20137.]<\/p>\n

    Christian theology may have made sense in the First Century, but as time has gone by, and science and technology have advanced, it no longer seems to match the realities of the modern world. It becomes an effort for the faithful to force fit the scriptures into the zeitgeist of the present day- with dubious results.\u00a0 Upon reading that Jesus sent demons into pigs that then ran into the sea, for example, has to be digested by adding a lot of salt and closing the <\/a>nostrils.<\/p>\n

    (1820) Religious beliefs lead to depression<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Although previous studies suggested the opposite, a more comprehensive linear study of the relationship between religious or spiritual beliefs and depression suggests that there is a positive correlation, or, at least, that there is no protective value to being religious. This contradicts intuitive logic that connection to a supernatural power should engender contentedness. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk\/dr-raj-persaud\/religion-depression_b_3928675.html<\/a><\/p>\n

    Previously studies appeared to show that religious and spiritual beliefs may be protective for depression, and were associated with better well-being. It was a widely held view amongst psychiatrists (who are not, as a group, particularly religious) that religion and spirituality protected your mood from the vicissitudes of life’s misfortunes.<\/p>\n

    But now, a very large study, which followed up people for a year, has found there is an opposite relationship between religious belief and depression. Religion, and even more, spirituality not tied to formal religion, appears to be unhelpful in terms of protecting you from low mood, and could even be linked with more depression.<\/p>\n

    A key finding of the study, conducted in several different counties, is that a spiritual life view predisposed to major depression, especially significantly in the UK, where spiritual participants were nearly three times more likely to experience an episode of depression than the secular group.<\/p>\n

    The results are startling because previous research found formally religious people had good mental health habits and lifestyle, for example, previous studies established they were less likely to have ever used drugs or to have been hazardous drinkers.<\/p>\n

    Entitled ‘Spiritual and religious beliefs as risk factors for the onset of major depression: an international cohort study’, the relationship with religious and spiritual belief was investigated in depth by researchers led by Professor Michael King from University College London. Over 8,000 people visiting general practices across seven countries were followed up at six and 12 months. The general practices were in the UK, Spain, Slovenia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Portugal and Chile. These general practices covered urban and rural populations with considerable socio-economic variation.<\/p>\n

    The study has just been published in one of the most respected academic psychiatric journals, ‘Psychological Medicine’. It was conducted by researchers at several UK and European universities and Chile.<\/p>\n

    The study defined religion as meaning the practice of a faith, eg going to a temple, mosque, church or synagogue. Being ‘spiritual’ was defined as not formally following a religion, but having spiritual beliefs or experiences. For example, believing that there is some power or force other than yourself, which might in\ufb02uence life.<\/p>\n

    People who held a religious or spiritual understanding of life had a higher incidence of depression than those with a secular life view. However, this \ufb01nding varied by country; in particular, people in the UK who had a spiritual understanding of life were the most vulnerable to the onset of major depression.<\/p>\n

    Regardless of country, the stronger the spiritual or religious belief at the start of the study, the higher the risk of onset of depression.<\/p>\n

    Although the main \ufb01nding of an association between religious life understanding and onset of depression varied by country, there was no evidence that spirituality may protect people, and only weak evidence that a religious life view was possibly protective in two countries (Slovenia and the Netherlands).<\/p>\n

    The incidence of depression over the subsequent 12 months was similar across the di\ufb00erent religious denominations (Catholic 9.8%, Protestant 10.9%, other religions 11.5%, no speci\ufb01c religion 10.8%).<\/p>\n

    Those with the more strongly held religious or spiritual convictions were twice as likely to experience major depression in the subsequent 12 months.<\/p>\n

    Although a religious, spiritual or secular outlook on life seems to be relatively stable in most people, slightly over a quarter of participants in this study changed their life view during the period of the study. And this was with a higher risk of depression for those changing to a more religious path, a lower risk for those moving in a secular direction.<\/p>\n

    Those in the process of developing a common mental disorder, like depression, may become involved in a ‘search for meaning’ for relief from symptoms, and this is one possible reason why previous research may have found a link between a religious or spiritual attitude, and poorer mental health.<\/p>\n

    That this study followed participants over a year, meant it was possible to demonstrate that it was more likely a spiritual and religious outlook which was leading to future lower mood, than the other way around.<\/p>\n

    Previous research had found that religion may have a protective e\ufb00ect during and after the impact of life events but this study did not \ufb01nd evidence of this.<\/p>\n

    The authors conclude that holding a religious or spiritual life perspective, in contrast to a secular outlook, predisposes to the onset of major depression. These beliefs and practice do not act as a bu\ufb00er to adverse life events as had previously been thought.<\/p>\n

    If religion and belief in spiritual realities are just figments of human imagination then it would seem that those who believe in such things may experience depression when the outcome of life\u2019s events do not meet their inflated expectations. On the other hand, if these beliefs had a true basis in reality, it would be very unlikely that a study of this nature would return these <\/a>results.<\/p>\n

    (1821) The Christian god is an idiot<\/strong><\/p>\n

    It probably passes the attention of most Christians, but the manner in which Jesus\/God chose to pass his message to mankind was an unadulterated expression of total incompetence. This cannot possibly be the accomplishment of an omniscient celestial deity. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

    http:\/\/new.exchristian.net\/2015\/06\/the-christian-god-is-incompetent.html<\/a><\/p>\n

    Here’s my first problem with the Christian story; The Christian God is a complete idiot.<\/p>\n

    If you are doing something important and you want people to know about it, there are some definite, reliable ways to making the message known. Let’s see how the Christian God managed to make this most important information known to mankind at large.<\/p>\n

    All we have is the “Gospels” (at least those that were selected 324 years after the alleged events took place by the heads of the winning faction of what had to that point been a completely divided religion). The earliest of these was penned four decades after the death of Jesus by a second generation Christian who was not an eyewitness.<\/p>\n

    Now, let’s be generous and say that this document was simply a matter of recording an oral tradition. OK. I’ll give you that.<\/p>\n

    It’s still idiotic. Not just because the story is idiotic but because of the logistics of the whole thing.<\/p>\n

    We’re talking about God here. Right?<\/p>\n

    I think it’s cruel to portray god as having a sub-par intelligence. Did it not occur to God to have the resurrected Jesus show up to Caiaphas and the other religious leaders and say,”Well, you played your parts well but as you can see, I’m back and everything I told you was true. Now, sit down, shut up, and listen\u2026”?<\/p>\n

    Perhaps it would have made sense to mosey on into Pilate’s office and say, “Chill! I’m not here to bring retribution. You just did what I knew you would. But how about getting some scribes together? I have some things that need to be said and passed down to future generations.”<\/p>\n

    In fact, why bother returning to heaven at all? If a guy comes back to life and is still marred from his execution enough that a person is able to place a hand into his side, that person could go anywhere and do anything and round up humanity pretty nicely. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen? Presumably he couldn’t be killed again.<\/p>\n

    The absolute worst thing, logistically speaking, would be to leave the single most important message from God to mankind in the hands of people who simply started a 4+ decade\u00a0game of Telephone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    The more we understand about ourselves, the more ridiculous I find the whole way this message has been delivered.\u00a0Eyewitness testimony<\/a>\u00a0is the least reliable method of arriving at the facts of a case. One would think that God would understand this.<\/p>\n

    No matter how I look at it, I find it impossible to believe that a god, any god, could be that incompetent.<\/p>\n

    And, let’s be honest here, if he’s going to be that stupid about the most important event in all of human history, is this really a person who can be trusted? Do you really want him mucking about in your personal affairs? I wouldn’t.<\/p>\n

    Isn’t it something of an insult to any actual god who may be out there that we have a higher standard for CPAs (or any other professional) than we have for him?<\/p>\n

    This is one of the reasons that I left Christianity and became an atheist. OK, agnostic maybe. I don’t know if there is a god or not.<\/p>\n

    But I simply don’t have it in me to believe in a stupid god.<\/p>\n

    Isn’t it kinder to believe in no god than to believe in one that is not even as smart as you or me? I means, I’m no astrophysicist or anything and my intelligence level is average at best. I think it’s cruel to portray god as having a sub-par intelligence.<\/p>\n

    Indeed, I find it baffling that Christians can be so cruel as to ascribe such nonsense to their object of worship.<\/p>\n

    Even if a person is inclined to believe the story of Jesus and his resurrection, there should still be a small measure of protest for him having left the evidence of this miraculous event mired in such a murky historical fog. How could this have happened when the manager of this enterprise was the singular creator and controller of the entire universe?\u00a0 No god could be this incompetent and stupid. This story has human hands written all over <\/a>it.<\/p>\n

    (1822) Mark makes the disciples dumb<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The author or Mark had an agenda when he wrote the earliest gospel.\u00a0 One of his goals was to characterize the disciples of Jesus as being uneducated and patently dense, which he did to a fault, and well beyond any measure of believability. It has been theorized that the reason for this was that the early Christian Church was composed mostly of poorly-educated, illiterate people, and by showing that Jesus chose the same sort of people as his disciples, it assured these early followers that they were treasured by God and Jesus, even if not so by the local populace. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

    http:\/\/www.debunking-christianity.com\/2018\/10\/jesus-magician-does-it-again_19.html#more<\/a><\/p>\n

    \u201cAnother clue that Mark is writing historical fiction,\u201d Richard Carrier has noted, \u201cis the way he structures his narrative to suit literary aims rather than historical ones. The ceaseless incomprehension of the disciples, for example, is wholly unrealistic. No real human being would ever be that dense or take so long to understand what Jesus was saying and doing.\u201d (On the Historicity of Jesus: Why We Might Have Reason to Doubt<\/a>, p. 411)<\/p>\n

    One of the best examples of Mark \u2018dumbing down\u2019 the disciples was when Jesus was preparing to feed 4000 people after feeding 5000 the previous day:<\/p>\n

    Mark 8:17-21<\/p>\n

    Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them:\u00a0\u201cWhy are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened?\u00a0Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don\u2019t you remember?\u00a0When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cTwelve,\u201d they replied.<\/p>\n

    \u201cAnd when I broke the seven loaves for the four thousand, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?\u201d<\/p>\n

    They answered, \u201cSeven.\u201d<\/p>\n

    He said to them,\u00a0\u201cDo you still not understand?\u201d<\/p>\n

    This is an example of literary license- that is, when an author inserts unrealistic elements into a story to make a point or to buttress an agenda. In this case, it lets us know that Mark was writing fiction or at least a highly fictional version of what really <\/a>happened.<\/p>\n

    (1823) No time for a god to exist<\/strong><\/p>\n

    The theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book, explained the science that suggests that there existed no time before the Big Bang that happened 13.8 billion years ago, leading the formulation of the universe. The simple logic is that the lack of time means that there was no possibility for a god to exist prior to the Big Bang. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/mach\/science\/stephen-hawking-claims-no-possibility-god-last-book-ncna921806<\/a><\/p>\n

    In life, Hawking was a vocal champion of\u00a0the Big Bang theory<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 the idea that the universe began by exploding suddenly out of an ultradense singularity smaller than an atom. From this speck emerged all the matter, energy and empty space that the universe would ever contain, and all that raw material evolved into the cosmos we perceive today by following a strict set of scientific laws. To Hawking and many like-minded scientists, the combined laws of gravity, relativity, quantum physics and a few other rules\u00a0could explain everything<\/a>\u00a0that ever happened or ever will happen in our known universe.<\/p>\n

    “If you like, you can say the laws are the work of God, but that is more a definition of God than a proof of his existence,” Hawking wrote.<\/p>\n

    With the universe running on a scientifically guided autopilot, the only role for an all-powerful deity might be setting the initial conditions of the universe so that those laws could take shape \u2014 a divine creator who caused the Big Bang to bang, then stepped back to behold His work.<\/p>\n

    “Did God create the quantum laws that allowed the Big Bang to occur?” Hawking wrote. “I have no desire to offend anyone of faith, but I think science has a more compelling explanation than a divine creator.”<\/p>\n

    Hawking’s explanation begins with\u00a0quantum mechanics<\/a>, which explains how subatomic particles behave. In quantum studies, it’s common to see subatomic particles like protons and electrons seemingly\u00a0appear out of nowhere<\/a>, stick around for a while and then disappear again to a completely different location. Because the universe was once the size of a subatomic particle itself, it’s plausible that it behaved similarly during the Big Bang, Hawking wrote.<\/p>\n

    “The universe itself, in all its mind-boggling vastness and complexity, could\u00a0simply have popped into existence<\/a>\u00a0without violating the known laws of nature,” he wrote.<\/p>\n

    That still doesn’t explain away the possibility that God created that proton-size singularity, then flipped the quantum- mechanical switch that allowed it to pop. But Hawking says science has an explanation here, too. To illustrate, he points to the physics of\u00a0black holes<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 collapsed stars that are so dense, nothing, including light, can escape their pull.<\/p>\n

    Black holes, like the universe before the Big Bang,\u00a0condense into a singularity<\/a>. In this ultra-packed point of mass, gravity is so strong that it distorts time as well as light and space. Simply put, in the depths of a black hole, time does not exist.<\/p>\n

    Because the universe also began as a singularity, time itself could not have existed before the Big Bang. Hawking’s answer, then, to\u00a0what happened before the Big Bang<\/a>\u00a0is, “there was no time\u00a0before\u00a0the Big Bang.”<\/p>\n

    “We have finally found something that doesn\u2019t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in,” Hawking wrote. “For me this means that\u00a0there is no possibility of a creator<\/a>, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in.”<\/p>\n

    Scientific progress is continually shrinking the space that a god can fit in, reducing the number of things we need him to do, and making his existence more and more irrelevant.\u00a0 Existence requires time. So the answer to the question of what happened before the Big Bang is <\/a>\u2018nothing.\u2019<\/p>\n

    (1824) Four-count knockout of Christianity<\/strong><\/p>\n

    People who have left Christianity are often challenged by Christian family and friends to state the reasons why. Without going into detail, there is an easy and effective way to explain why Christianity is definitely not true. It is done in four simple steps, that, taken together, deliver a knockout blow:<\/p>\n

    Demons<\/strong>–\u00a0if Christianity is true, then demons must exist. After all, dealing with demons was a big part of Jesus\u2019s ministry. They should be an important and indisputable part of our lives, and, like mosquitoes, a pesky irritant if not a real threat. They should be causing many of our diseases and speaking back in our native language when challenged. There should be a branch of science that studies them. Nope, nada, none of this is true.<\/p>\n

    Angels<\/strong>–\u00a0if Christianity is true, then angels must exist. We should be encountering them often, seeing them as they take human form and as they make important pronouncements. They can even kill us if they so desire and they can brandish burning swords to keep us out of prohibited zones. Nope, nada, none of this is true.<\/p>\n

    Miracles<\/strong>–\u00a0if Christianity is true, then miracles should be a major part of our lives. We should see dead people coming back to life, paralyzed people getting up and walking, amputees having their limbs restored, and blind people suddenly seeing. Nope, nada, none of this is happening.<\/p>\n

    Prayer<\/strong>–\u00a0If Christianity is true, then prayer must be effective. This is a direct promise from Jesus of the scriptures, and it is an acid test of Christianity\u2019s authenticity. We should see prayers for even sub-miraculous things being answered unambiguously at rates well above normal statistical odds. Prayer therapy should be an important part of every hospital ward. Nope, nada, none of this is happening.<\/p>\n

    Demons, angels, miracles, and prayer- Christianity goes 0 for 4, a miserable failing grade. And this only touches the surface of exposing Christianity for what it is- a medieval concoction of pre-scientific superstition dressed up with faux historical stories based on <\/a>hearsay.<\/p>\n

    (1825) The burden of defending\u00a0Christianity<\/strong><\/p>\n

    It is easier for those deeply involved in Christianity to keep thoughts about their faith from becoming anything deeper than superficial, because otherwise, those thoughts would encounter significant headwinds. John Loftus neatly summarizes how burdensome it is to defend the Christian faith:<\/p>\n

    http:\/\/articles.exchristian.net\/2007\/10\/heres-what-evangelical-christian-must.html<\/a><\/p>\n

    He or she needs to defend the existence of the social Trinitarian God (versus an anti-social Trinitarian God) of the Bible (which had a long process of formation and of borrowing material from others) who never began to exist and will never cease to exist (even though everything we experience has a beginning and an end), who never learned any new truths, who does not think (for thinking demands weighing temporal alternatives), who is not free with respect to deciding his own nature, who revealed himself through a poor medium (history) in a poor era (ancient times), who condemns all of humanity for the sins of the first human pair, who commanded genocide, who allows intense suffering in this world (yet does not follow the same moral code he commands believers to follow), whose Son (the 2nd person of the trinity) became incarnate in Jesus (even though no one has ever made sense of a person who is 100% man and 100% divine) to be punished for our sins (even though there is no correlation between punishment and forgiveness) who subsequently bodily arose from the dead (even though the believer in miracles has an almost impossible double-burden of proof here) and now lives embodied forever in a \u201cspiritual\u201d human body to return in the future (even though the NT is clear that the end of all kingdoms and the establishment of God’s kingdom was to be in their generation), who sent the 3rd person of the trinity to lead his followers into “all truth” (yet fails in every generation to do this), who will also judge us based upon what conclusions we reach about the existence of this God and what he has done (paralleling the ancient barbaric thought police), and who will reward believers by taking away their freedom and punish the dammed by letting them retain their freedom?<\/p>\n

    Any idea that cannot be defended by simple, logical, scientifically-accurate arguments should be discarded. Defending Christianity requires so much mental gymnastics that the best approach is to simply declare \u2018it\u2019s all magic, just have faith.\u2019 Any appeal to a reasoned approach is doomed to failure and <\/a>derision.<\/p>\n

    (1826) The author of confusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

    In 1 Corinthians 14:33, Paul tells us \u201cFor God is not\u00a0the author\u00a0of confusion but of peace,\u00a0as in all the churches of the saints.\u201d\u00a0 All it takes is one good example to prove that this assertion is false. If, as Christians must assume, that Revelation Chapter 20, which addresses the end-times, was breathed into scripture by God, then God is a master creator of confusion. The following explains how Christians interpret this scripture in many different ways:<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Christian_eschatological_views<\/a><\/p>\n

    Comparison of Christian millennial interpretations<\/p>\n

    Premillennialism<\/a>:\u00a0Christ<\/a>‘s\u00a0Second coming<\/a>\u00a0before a literal one thousand-year period, known by some as a thousand-year sabbath, is preceded by a gradual deterioration of human society and behavior, and the expansion of evil through an endtime government or kingdom. This school of thought can be divided into three main interpretations:\u00a0Dispensational<\/a>, Mid-tribulation<\/a>\/Prewrath and Historic\u00a0Premillennialism<\/a>\u00a0or Post-Tribulation viewpoint.<\/p>\n

    Pre-tribulation\u00a0Premillennialism<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Dispensationalist<\/a>View: The\u00a0rapture<\/a>\u00a0of the church occurs just prior to the seven-year tribulation, where Christ returns for his saints to meet them in the air. This is followed by the tribulation, the rise of the\u00a0Antichrist<\/a>\u00a0to world-rule, the return of Christ to the Mount of Olives, and\u00a0Armageddon<\/a>, resulting in a literal 1000-year millennial reign of the Messiah, centered in restored Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

    Prewrath<\/a>\/Mid-tribulation View: The\u00a0rapture<\/a>\u00a0of the church occurs in the midst of the seven-year period. Mid-tribulation view holds that the rapture occurs halfway through;\u00a0Prewrath<\/a>holds that the rapture occurs some time in the midst of the tribulation in the latter 3.5 years, but before God’s wrath is poured out upon the nations.<\/p>\n

    Historic Premillennialism<\/a>\u00a0or Post-Tribulation View: The\u00a0rapture<\/a>\u00a0of the church (the body of true believers) happens after a period of great\u00a0tribulation<\/a>, with the church being caught up to meet Christ in the air and will accompany him to earth to share in his (literal or figurative) thousand year rule.<\/p>\n

    Postmillennialism<\/a>:\u00a0Christ<\/a>‘s\u00a0Second coming<\/a>\u00a0is seen as occurring after the one-thousand years, which many in this school of thought believe is ushered in by the church. This view is also divided into two sub-schools of interpretation:<\/p>\n

    Revivalist Postmillennialism: the millennium represents an unknown period of time marked by a gradual Christian revival, followed by widespread successful evangelism. After these efforts is the return of Christ foreseen.<\/p>\n

    Reconstructionist Postmillennialism: the Church increases its influence through successful evangelism and expansion, finally establishing a theocratic kingdom of 1,000 years duration (literal or figurative) followed by the return of Christ.<\/p>\n

    Amillennialism<\/a>: Non-literal\u00a0“thousand years”\u00a0or long age between Christ’s first and\u00a0second comings<\/a>; the millennial reign of Christ as pictured in the book of Revelation is viewed as Christ reigning at the right hand of the Father. Therefore, another name for it is “realized millennialism”, because it emphasizes an inaugurated future in the first coming of Christ and the outpouring of the Spirit in the Pentecost. It is the view held by the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches as well as by a number of the older Protestant denominations, such as the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anglicans.<\/p>\n

    It can be safely assumed that if God intended to inform his followers of what to expect as the world comes to an end, he would have either written\/dictated a clearer account of the apocalypse or else he would have guided his flock into a single, correct interpretation of the otherwise garbled text.\u00a0 Neither of these things happened, so it is very safe to assume that Revelation 20 was nothing more than the delusional product of a psychotic <\/a>man.<\/p>\n

    (1827) God worshiping a fallen angel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    When you have an evolving theology, inevitably problems will crop up as later interpretations conflict with earlier ones. This is the case in the Gospel of Matthew where an account is presented of Jesus being tempted by Satan. In the following exchange, Satan is asking Jesus to worship him:<\/p>\n

    Matthew\u00a0 4: 8-11<\/p>\n

    Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.\u00a0\u201cAll this I will give you,\u201d he said, \u201cif you will bow down and worship me.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Jesus said to him,\u00a0\u201cAway from me, Satan! For it is written: \u2018Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n

    Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.<\/p>\n

    Where this runs into trouble is that several decades after this gospel was written, Jesus was promoted to being God himself, rendering ridiculous the idea that a god could worship a fallen angel. If we could retroactively modify this scripture to make it consistent with the subsequent Jesus=God formula, it might look like this:<\/p>\n

    Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.\u00a0\u201cAll this I will give you,\u201d he said, \u201cif you will bow down and worship me.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Jesus said to him,\u00a0\u201cAway from me, Satan! God does not worship but can only be worshiped, and it was because you failed to worship me that you now endure disgrace and lamentations.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Clearly, in the existing scripture, it is implied that Jesus worships God, meaning that he does not view himself as being\u00a0 God, or 1\/3 of God. Theology that evolves well after the prophet leaves the scene makes for a religion that cannot be trusted to be <\/a>authentic.<\/p>\n

    (1828) List of mistakes made by God<\/strong><\/p>\n

    For a god purported to be infinitely intelligent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent, God has made a lot of mistakes. The following lists some of them:<\/p>\n

    https:\/\/rationalwiki.org\/wiki\/List_of_mistakes_made_by_God<\/a><\/p>\n

    God’s mistakes in roughly chronological order<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Creating female counterparts for all the males of each (two-gendered) species, yet forgetting to make a female\u00a0human<\/a>\u00a0until at least a day later.<\/p>\n

    Creating\u00a0Eve<\/a>\u00a0out of\u00a0Adam<\/a>‘s rib, rather than out of thin air like his\u00a0omnipotent<\/a>\u00a0self. First, the poor guy’s missing a rib for the rest of his life. Second, Eve was then made out of Adam, so all love from then on out was reduced to narcissism and all sex reduced to\u00a0incest<\/a>\u00a0or self-gratification (i.e. sin).<\/p>\n

    Letting\u00a0sin<\/a>\u00a0exist<\/p>\n

    Letting things on\u00a0Earth<\/a>\u00a0get so out of hand that he had to\u00a0wipe the slate<\/a>\u00a0and start over.<\/p>\n

    While he’s wiping the slate, He simply refuses to wipe the slate totally clean. He has to save\u00a0Noah<\/a>\u00a0and family for the next round of\u00a0inbreeding<\/a>, instead of re-creating humanity from scratch. This leads to the next round of wiping the slate known as the\u00a0Great Tribulation<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Yawm ad-Din<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Going nuts because of the\u00a0Tower of Babel<\/a>, but doing nothing about Burj Khalifa, topping at 2,722 feet.<\/p>\n

    Forgetting to smite\u00a0Abraham<\/a>\u00a0for his incestuous marriage to his half-sister Sarah.<\/p>\n

    Leading his people out of\u00a0slavery<\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0Egypt<\/a>\u00a0only to settle down in the only part of the Middle East where there’s no\u00a0oil<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Fathering\u00a0a son<\/a>\u00a0through an\u00a0engaged virgin<\/a>\u00a0(secretly, and without any prior notice to\u00a0her fianc\u00e9<\/a>)\u00a0in open defiance to the laws<\/a>\u00a0he himself set<\/a>\u00a0back in\u00a0Deuteronomy\u00a022:25<\/a>, and expecting her to be honored.<\/p>\n

    Writing the\u00a0Old Testament<\/a>\u00a0and then having\u00a0to send his Only Begotten Son down to\u00a0Paul and some anonymous latecomers<\/a>\u00a0revise it, leaving everyone thoroughly confused.<\/p>\n

    Forgetting to smite\u00a0Himself<\/a>\/Jesus<\/a>\u00a0for working on the\u00a0Sabbath<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Still failing to get his message across properly even after his\u00a0Only Begotten Son<\/a>\u00a0had come and gone,\u00a0meaning that a few hundred years later he had to get some messenger called Gabriel to dictate Version 3.0<\/a>\u00a0to some bloke called\u00a0Mohammed<\/a>. And possibly another\u00a0version 3.0<\/a>\u00a0to some bloke named\u00a0Joseph Smith<\/a>\u00a0about 1000 years later.<\/p>\n

    Telling us (through clergies) that we will be judged on how we decide to act in life, while designing the world around the idea that how we decide to act has been\u00a0predetermined<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Allowing the\u00a0Holocaust<\/a>\u00a0to happen, along with\u00a0Stalin<\/a>‘s Purges,\u00a0Mao<\/a>‘s Culture War,\u00a0Pol Pot<\/a>‘s Killing Fields, and\u00a09\/11<\/a>\u00a0along with countless other atrocities.<\/p>\n

    Letting\u00a0ISIS<\/a>\u00a0exist<\/p>\n

    Worldbuilding fail<\/p>\n

    Bangladesh<\/a>. A large patch of extremely rich, low-lying, well-watered soil, at a relatively low latitude and with a warm climate, suitable for year-round cultivation: I’m down with that kind of intelligent design. Mad props to\u00a0Allah<\/a>. But, really \u2014 to put it in hurricane country, all within a few metres of sea level, at the tip of a triangular funnel of ocean that does for hurricane storm surges what the Bay of Fundy does for the tide, and at the top of a long, gently inclining seabed that’s just about perfectly shaped to maximize wave heights?\u00a0That\u00a0sounds more like mean-drunk design to me. Dubbed as “God’s practical joke” by\u00a0Our Dumb World, written by the good folks of\u00a0The Onion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    California<\/a>. The day will come when we’ll all be swimming in\u00a0Arizona<\/a>\u00a0Bay.<\/p>\n

    The\u00a0Sun<\/a>. Our sole source of light, heat, and (indirectly) food, under which a large portion of His children spend most of their time, gives us (especially white folks)\u00a0cancer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    The polders of the Netherlands. So soggy we had to finish it for him.<\/p>\n

    Failure to use intelligent design protocols when creating humans[edit<\/a>]<\/p>\n

    See the main article on this topic:\u00a0Intelligent design<\/a><\/p>\n

    Not designing the human body the way he wants it by having all human males born\u00a0circumcised<\/a>\u00a0like Shem.<\/p>\n

    Physical birth defects.<\/p>\n

    Making our adrenal glands too big.<\/p>\n

    Aging<\/a>, which is quite literally caused by a biological error in\u00a0cells<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Placement of the\u00a0male<\/a>\u00a0external genitalia<\/a>\u00a0in a rather\u00a0easy to attack\u00a0position (unless it was deliberate to allow women easy retaliation).<\/p>\n

    And on the subject of genitalia\u2026 why are the same members that are used for body waste excretion also used for what is widely considered to be\u00a0one of the most fun and interesting activities that humans can engage in<\/a>? And why is a man’s\u00a0G spot<\/a>\u00a0in his\u00a0anus<\/a>\u00a0if\u00a0anal sex<\/a>\u00a0is forbidden by God?<\/p>\n

    Having the prostate wrap around the urethra like a donut, so when it becomes enlarged (which happens to most men as they get older) it blocks the flow of urine.<\/p>\n

    Not being able to correctly calculate the number of teeth necessary to fill the average adult human mouth.<\/p>\n

    Use of a particularly inefficient system when making the vertebrate\u00a0eye<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Error in testosterone management system which consequently makes many men go bald.<\/p>\n

    Giving humans\u00a0appendixes<\/a>, which occasionally swell up and try to kill their owners and don’t really need to be there because we don’t eat grass. Why don’t they all just leave our bodies and go and live in the backs of books?<\/p>\n

    The provision of a really bad, sometimes lethal, system of giving birth. (Though it may not have been so bad at first \u2014 He deliberately made it more painful to cruelly\u00a0punish<\/a>\u00a0all women for the\u00a0original sin<\/a>\u00a0thing.)<\/p>\n

    Failure to provide a system to synthesize vitamin C (or the failure in design that humans need vitamin C to begin with).<\/p>\n

    Drinking and laughing at the same time \u2014 makes the drink come out of the person’s nose. Or potentially choke the victim of such a lousy design.<\/p>\n

    Human back \u2014 seems to cause a disproportionate number of problems which is usually followed by\u00a0Vicodin<\/a>\u00a0addiction.<\/p>\n

    Spinal cord injuries being (at this point) unfixable<\/p>\n

    Auto-immune disorders \u2014 because we all know we are our own worst enemy.<\/p>\n

    The inability to operate at anything like an adequate efficiency without regular and lengthy periods of\u00a0sleep<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Hangnails<\/p>\n

    Referred pain<\/a>\u2014 You might actually be having a potentially fatal heart attack. Unfortunately your body is telling you have pain in your shoulder, neck or left arm.<\/p>\n

    Cancer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Oncogenes \u2014 genes that exist solely to give us cancer.<\/p>\n

    Memory<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 or, why you\u00a0imagine you remember<\/a>\u00a0exactly where you were on\u00a09\/11<\/a>, but know you can’t remember where you laid down your keys five minutes ago?<\/p>\n

    The ulnar nerve \u2014 a.k.a., “funny bone” \u2014 is located on the outside of the elbow joint. Thanks to this placement, if you bang your elbow against a hard surface, you will feel like you were stabbed in the elbow. Bang this nerve hard enough and you may lose the use of your fingers.<\/p>\n

    Humans will pass out at 12 Gs, and will die at 18 Gs. Cockroaches can survive 120 Gs! How come those creepy crawlers are harder to kill than us!<\/p>\n

    And while we’re at it, why can’t we rotate our heads more than 180\u00b0? An owl can twist its head almost 360\u00b0! It’s not like an owl needs to back up a\u00a0car<\/a>\u00a0or keep track of high-spirited children!<\/p>\n

    Other primates have nostrils that face forward, making it impossible for them to swim face down. Human nostrils point down, so we can swim. So why don’t we come with a persistent and innate ability to swim rather than just a primitive reflex that we quickly lose? Or at least tread water? Does God like to see His children drown?<\/p>\n

    Intoxicants: Pleasurable (good); addictive, DTs, can diminish your inhibitions to the point you might harm yourself and\/or others, potentially harmful to your health, possibly lethal (bad). So, (a) why create them in the first place; and (b) why make them so pleasurable and addictive?<\/p>\n

    And what the hell is up with OCD, bipolar disorder,\u00a0schizophrenia<\/a>, dyslexia,\u00a0aphasia<\/a>,\u00a0depression, anxiety etc.?<\/p>\n

    Homosexuality<\/a>\u00a0(if you view it from a\u00a0fundamentalist viewpoint<\/a>). If it’s so wrong, why does the almighty allow it to exist?<\/p>\n

    Giving Humans the same passage to swallow food and breathe, a major choking hazard.<\/p>\n

    Creating\u00a0psychopaths<\/a>, which is pointless because you can only get into\u00a0Heaven<\/a>\u00a0by loving God, so why would he create people who are incapable of love? And who are at a very high risk factor of making life quite miserable for other people? Is he just a\u00a0sadist<\/a>?<\/p>\n

    Fetuses<\/a>\u00a0can get cancer<\/p>\n

    Allergies (like rhinitis) from mundane things like peanuts, grass, dust, pollen, fur, feathers, and many, many more. Sometimes, they get so bad, they interfere with sleeping and use up plenty of tissue wads in the process.<\/p>\n

    Failure to use intelligent design protocols when creating other animals.<\/p>\n

    Not having all male animals born circumcised.<\/p>\n

    Not giving whales or\u00a0dolphins<\/a>\u00a0gills, so they have to surface in order to breathe.<\/p>\n

    Not killing the dolphins and\u00a0bonobos<\/a>\u00a0for their many sex sins.<\/p>\n

    The emu’s wing is a spectacularly\u00a0unnecessary appendage<\/a>. Ditto the ostrich, kiwi, and the extinct terror birds.<\/p>\n

    The extinct moas had no wings at all, which means He toyed with the idea but backpedaled.<\/p>\n

    Giving bats solid bones, which are difficult to fly with, and giving emus hollow bones, which are easier to fly with, now that is opposite of what is required.<\/p>\n

    Giving mammals a nerve that runs from the brain to the larynx via the aortic arch \u2014 which doesn’t seem like\u00a0too much\u00a0of an out-of-the-way trip until you look at a giraffe. There is good reason to believe that the same recurrent laryngeal nerve would have been shared by\u00a0dinosaurs<\/a>\u00a0which would include the sauropod dinosaurs. In Supersaurus it could have been longer than 28 meters (92 feet).<\/p>\n

    Various tragedies towards males in copulation, such as the\u00a0testicular explosion and death of male honey bees<\/a>,\u00a0the\u00a0sexual cannibalism among praying mantises<\/a>,\u00a0and certain species of anglerfish, in which the male anglerfish permanently fuses with the female then withers away until nothing but his testes remain.<\/p>\n

    Rabbits have to eat some of their own feces (called cecotropes) in order to fully digest their meals. Yum!<\/p>\n

    Gay animals (from a fundamentalist perspective)<\/p>\n

    Creating sea cucumbers that allow some species of pearlfish to live inside their asses and even eat their gonads.<\/p>\n

    Allowing some species of fish (like hamlet fish,\u00a0Hypoplectrus\u00a0spp., and clownfish, Amphiprioninae subfamily) to change their sex freely and even let them choose if they can mate as a male or as a female.<\/p>\n

    Alternatively, not giving humans this capacity.<\/p>\n

    Letting\u00a0birds<\/a>\u00a0get fooled by parasitic birds like cuckoos and cowbirds.<\/p>\n

    Christians need to give up on the idea that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and infinitely intelligent because in doing so they are making him out to be an incompetent fool when observing the facts of his creation. Of course all of these facts fit precisely and neatly in a godless <\/a>world.<\/p>\n

    (1829) Moral laws<\/strong><\/p>\n

    It is instructive to observe whether moral laws governing human behavior have followed a theistic or an atheistic prediction, which can be stated as follows:<\/p>\n

    Atheism:<\/p>\n