{"id":9012,"date":"2019-01-25T07:07:22","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T12:07:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kyroot.com\/?page_id=9012"},"modified":"2022-08-27T09:26:22","modified_gmt":"2022-08-27T13:26:22","slug":"2001-2050","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.kyroot.com\/?page_id=9012","title":{"rendered":"2001-2050"},"content":{"rendered":"

(2001) Editing the canon<\/strong><\/p>\n

If God wanted to produce a bible he would have assured that the books that belonged in the bible would have been selected without any hint of controversy. It would have been a seamless process. And because a book included in the Bible is given a divine credential versus other books of merely human origin, this selection is extremely critical. But it didn\u2019t happen like that. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DebateReligion\/comments\/ajp8l3\/christians_protestants_are_missing_books_from\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Around 170 AD, Melito of Sardis gives an Old Testament list which excludes Lamentations, Nehemiah, and Esther (Eusebius’\u00a0Ecclesiastical History<\/a>, Book IV, Chapter 26, Section 14)<\/p>\n

Also dating from around 170 AD, the Muratorian fragment\u00a0gives a New Testament list<\/a>\u00a0which excludes James, 1 & 2 Peter, Hebrews, and 3 John and includes the Book of Wisdom.<\/p>\n

Around 240 AD, Origen gives a New Testament list excluding Revelation (Homilies on Joshua, 7.1<\/a>), and an Old Testament list for the Jews which excludes the 12 minor prophets and includes the Epistle of Jeremiah – part of the book of Baruch (Eusebius’\u00a0Ecclesiastical History<\/a>, Book VI, Chapter 25, Section 1-2).<\/p>\n

Around 350 AD, Cyril of Jerusalem gives a New Testament list excluding Revelation, and an Old Testament list including the book of Baruch (Catechetical Lecture 4<\/a>, sections 35-36).<\/p>\n

Around 367 AD, Hilary of Poitiers gives an Old Testament list which includes the Epistle of Jeremiah – part of the book of Baruch, and notes that some accept Tobit and Judith (Expositions of the Psalms<\/a>, 15).<\/p>\n

Also around 367 AD, Athanasius in a letter gives the first full New Testament list comprising all 27 books. He also gives an Old Testament list, including Baruch and excluding Esther. He says Esther, the book of Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, the Didache, and the Shepherd of Hermes were called non-Canon but profitable for instruction in the word of godliness (Letter 39<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Around 382 AD, the Council of Rome was held which gave the full New Testament list, and gave an Old Testament list including the full Deuterocanon (Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, the Book of Wisdom, etc) (Decretum Gelasianum<\/a>, Damasine List, Section II).<\/p>\n

Around 385 AD, Epiphanius of Salamis gave an Old Testament list which included Baruch. He also noted two more books of disputed canonicity, Sirach and the Book of Wisdom – which he later on called ‘divine writings’ (Panarion viii. 6 and Panarion lxxvi. 5<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Around 390 AD, Gregory of Nazianzus gave a New Testament list excluding Revelation, and an Old Testament list excluding Esther (Concerning the Genuine Books of Divinely Inspired Scripture<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Also around 390 AD, Augustine gave the full New Testament list, and gave an Old Testament list including the full Deuterocanon (Tobit, Judith, 1 & 2 Maccabees, the Book of Wisdom, etc) (On Christian Doctrine, Book II, Chapter 8, Section 13<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Also around 390 AD, Jerome argues the Book of Wisdom, Sirach, Judith, Tobit, and 2 Maccabees should be placed among the Apocryphal writings (Prologue to the Books of the Kings<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Note that Jerome did not explicitly exclude Baruch. Indeed, later Jerome quotes from Baruch as a prophet (Letter 77<\/a>, Section 4). It’s reasonable to assume that Jerome included Baruch as tacked on to the end of Jeremiah, a common practice in that day.<\/p>\n

This list of canonical tweaks is consistent with a project engineered by a cast of human players bereft of guidance from a supernatural agent. This strongly suggests that the Bible is not of divine <\/a>origin.<\/p>\n

(2002) Jesus\u2019s temptation based on pagan tradition<\/strong><\/p>\n

The three synoptic gospels recount a story of Satan leading Jesus up a mountain to tempt him, even though if Jesus was God, it is difficult to understand how he could have been vulnerable to such a scheme.\u00a0 The author of the Gospel of John judiciously left this mythical story out of his account. There are a lot of pagan preludes to this story as discussed below:<\/p>\n

The retirement to the wilderness may well be an ‘historical fact, but the story of the temptation is an obvious allegory to be understood\u00a0in a spiritual sense,\u00a0though the source of some of the details may be traced. The hoofed god Pan is the prototype of Satan, and there is a pagan legend which relates how the young Jupiter was led by Pan to the top of a mountain from which he could see the countries of the world. This mountain was called the ‘Pillar of Heaven.\u2019 which perhaps explains the introduction of the pinnacle of the temple into the story. Zoroaster, the founder of the Persian religion, went into the wilderness, and was tempted by the Devil; Buddha did likewise, and was tempted; Moses and Elijah had both dwelt in the wilderness, and the former fasted on Sinai forty days, while the latter fasted on\u00a0Horeb\u00a0forty days; Ezekiel had to bear the iniquity of the house of\u00a0Tudah\u00a0for forty days; the destruction of mankind in the Deluge lasted forty clays; there were forty nights of mourning in the mysteries of the pagan Proserpine; there were forty days of sacrifice in the old Persian ‘Salutation of\u00a0Mithra’; and so forth.”\u00a0(The Paganism in Our Christianity, Arthur\u00a0Weigall, p61)<\/p>\n

The story of the temptation was an inadvertent mistake by the\u00a0 gospel authors because they did not realize at that time that Jesus eventually was going to be made into a god. From their perspective, they probably felt that adding a feature familiar to the followers of the pagan faiths would make it easier for them to accept Jesus as a genuine religious <\/a>figure.<\/p>\n

(2003) Tomb burial improbability<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the gospels, Pontius Pilate acquiesces to allow Jesus to be buried honorably in a privately-owned tomb in Jerusalem. This on face value is unusual because crucifixion victims of that time were almost always buried dishonorably in mass grave pits. But there is another good reason to believe that this story is fictional- if the Jesus story is remotely true, then Jesus would have been viewed as a threat to Roman rule of Judea, given that Jesus had proclaimed himself to be the King of the Jews. Most historians believe that Jesus was sentenced to death on account of sedition, not blasphemy. Pilate would not have wanted this burial tomb to become a shrine for a martyred hero, thereby stoking revolutionary motives. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/infidels.org\/library\/modern\/peter_kirby\/tomb\/roman.html<\/a><\/p>\n

There is one final reason to think that Pilate would have ensured that Jesus did not receive an honorable tomb burial. Raymond Brown notes, “There was in this period an increasing Jewish veneration of the tombs of the martyrs and prophets.\u201d Craig agrees, stating, “During Jesus’s time there was an extraordinary interest in the graves of Jewish martyrs and holy men and these were scrupulously cared for and honored.” If Pilate considered the historical Jesus to be an enemy of the state, how much more would Pilate have to fear not only making him a martyr but also establishing a shrine to Jesus right in Jerusalem? It is in Pilate’s best interest to make certain that Jesus would have been buried without honor and in obscurity.<\/p>\n

This is further evidence that the burial narrative in the gospels is likely fictional.\u00a0 This in addition to the lack of (what should have been) a tomb shrine ever being mentioned, venerated, and attended by early <\/a>Christians.<\/p>\n

(2004) The time-symmetric theory of creation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christian apologists often point to the \u2018creation\u2019 of the universe as having an obvious supernatural explanation, one that they infer was the result of their god\u2019s effort.\u00a0 However, science has begun to chip away at the assumption that the creation of the universe required a cause at all. In the following discussion, it is conjectured that the universe began as a duel-sided singularity, one part going in a certain direction of time and the other part going in the opposite direction.\u00a0 Each universe sees its time proceeding into the future while the other universe marches into the past from their point of view. The other universe sees it exactly the same way.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/infidels.org\/library\/modern\/vic_stenger\/otherside.html<\/a><\/p>\n

However, another possibility exists that can lead to a quite significant and permanent result. The fluctuation energy can appear instead as spacetime curvature within this tiny region, which is called a “bubble of false vacuum.” This bubble still contains no matter or radiation, but is no longer a “true vacuum” because of the curvature, as expressed by a non-zero cosmological constant. According to the de Sitter solution, the bubble will expand exponentially in what is called\u00a0inflation.<\/p>\n

The energy density is constant for a brief interval of time. As the volume of the bubble increases exponentially during that interval, the energy contained within also increases exponentially. Although the first law of thermodynamics may seem to be violated, it is not. The pressure is negative and the bubble does work on itself as it expands. By the time it has inflated to the size of a proton, in perhaps 10-42<\/sup> second, the bubble contains sufficient energy to produce all the matter in the visible universe today. Frictional processes (this is all in the equations–see Stenger 1990) bring inflation to a halt, particle production begins, and the familiar Hubble expansion of the big bang takes over.<\/p>\n

We can label as t = 0 the time at which the initial quantum fluctuation takes place. The expansion then proceeds on the positive side of the t-axis, as defined by the increasing entropy on that side. As first suggested by Boltzmann a century ago, the direction of time is by definition the direction in which the entropy of the bubble universe increases.<\/p>\n

Now, what about the negative side of the t-axis, the other half dimension? If we look at Einstein’s equations, nothing forbids an expansion in that direction as well. Physicists usually simply ignore that solution because most share Ross’s prejudice, expressed above, that time “proceeds only and always forward.” But the equations of classical or quantum physics, including those of general relativity, make no fundamental distinction between the two time directions. Where that distinction appears, it is put in by hand as a boundary condition.<\/p>\n

However, a completely time-symmetric solution of Einstein’s equations for the vacuum will give exponential inflation on both sides of the time axis, proceeding away from t = 0 where the initial quantum fluctuation was located. This implies the existence of another part of our universe, separated from our present part along the time axis. From our point of view, that part is in our deep past, exponentially\u00a0deflating\u00a0to the void prior to the quantum fluctuation that then grew to our current universe. However, from the point of view of an observer in the universe at that time, their future is into our past–the direction of increasing entropy on that side of the axis. They would experience a universe expanding into their future, just as we experience one expanding into our future.<\/p>\n

Would these different parts of the universe be identical, kind of mirror images of each other? Not unless physics is completely deterministic, which we do not believe to be the case. The two parts would more likely be two very different worlds, each expanding in its own merry way, filled with all the other random events that lead to the evolution of galaxies, stars, and perhaps some totally different kind of life.<\/p>\n

This scenario also serves to explain why we experience such a large asymmetry in time, while our basic equations do not exhibit an asymmetry at all. Fundamentally, the universe as a whole is time-symmetric, running all the way from minus eternity to plus eternity with no preferred direction, no “arrow” of time. Indeed, the whole notion of beginning is meaningless in a time-symmetric universe.<\/p>\n

This elegant solution solves a lot of difficult issues regarding the fact that there is an asymmetry in the amount of matter and anti-matter in the universe, i.e. it helps to explain why there is something here rather than <\/a>nothing.<\/p>\n

(2005) God\u2019s narcissistic personality disorder<\/strong><\/p>\n

It has been conjectured that when humans created gods, they patterned them after the kings and rulers of their times- i.e. having strong personalities and demanding attention, respect, and, to some extent, worship. So, it is no accident that the god of Christianity shows these same traits. Based on what can be gleaned from the Bible, a psychiatric evaluation of God reveals that he has narcissistic personality disorder. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/new.exchristian.net\/2019\/01\/god-has-narcissistic-personality.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Western religions have made narcissism a virtue through the worship of God, who bears all the markers of a Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Narcissism is a painful condition of low self-esteem masked by a shallow presentation of grandiose confidence. Through their imitation of the Divine Narcissist, the religious suffer, alternating between the crushing narcissistic wounds of superiority in salvation and inferiority in sin.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)<\/a>, \u201cthe essential feature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and lack of empathy\u201d (DSM-IV-TR, 714). Narcissists form a grandiose self-image as a compensatory defense in order to protect themselves from facing the pain of an actual self-image of inadequacy, which is kept out of awareness in the unconscious mind. There is no one more grandiose or egotistical (or insecure) than the biblical God. In his mind, the whole universe exists solely to worship him: \u201cFor from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever!\u201d (Romans 11:36). God\u2019s idea of heaven is a universe centered around his worship: \u201cDay and night they never stop saying: \u2018Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty\u2019\u201d (Revelation 4:8). Yet worship is nothing more than flattery. Flattery is not befitting to spiritual leaders such as God, who should serve and set a positive example by practicing humility.<\/p>\n

Narcissists aggressively devalue or destroy those who threaten their grandiose self-image. God pours out his wrath on his followers whenever they turn their attention away from his worship. God brutally murders in hell those he considers his enemies: all Hindus, Muslims, Jews, atheists, and anyone else who lives for a purpose other than inflating his ego. In the converse of their destructive tendencies, narcissists idealize those who bolster their sense of superiority. Because narcissists\u2019 grandiosity rests on shaky grounds, they look for the ever-elusive sense of perfection or specialness in other people and idealize them in order to identify and fuse with it. In the Bible, God idealizes brutal leaders, like Moses and King David, who, like him, extend their ego-kingdoms through violent enactment of their commands. God idealizes Jesus of Nazareth as perfect and special, even though Jesus had his flaws, like violently condemning his enemies to hell, along with anyone who refuses to worship him in the End Times (Matthew 23-24).<\/p>\n

According to the DSM, narcissists are \u201coften preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love\u201d (714). God titles himself, \u201cKing of Kings and Lord of Lords,\u201d and describes himself as the perfection of all traits: all-powerful (omnipotent), all-loving (omnibenevolent), all-knowing (omniscient), all-present (omnipresent). This massive self-valuation surely corresponds to an equally massive low self-esteem, and a God-sized trauma behind it.<\/p>\n

Why is God so hell-bent on having everyone worship him? Narcissists commonly suffer from an original developmental trauma of feeling unseen. This sense of not being seen is perceived as a threat of annihilation, the feeling that, \u201cI am not seen; therefore, I am not real, I do not exist.\u201d God existed in isolation, with no one to acknowledge his existence or show him empathy for all of eternity-past. What could be more traumatic? God confirms this theory of eternal isolation by telling us humans exist to reflect his glory to himself (2 Corinthians 3:18): in other words, to show him he exists forever. Perhaps all of this colossal mess that\u2019s God\u2019s creation has been one giant attempt at divine self-love.<\/p>\n

There is a big difference between demanding worship and earning respect. The god of Christianity succeeds on the former and fails on the latter. There can be no doubt that he was created by and is a reflection of the humans who\u00a0worship <\/a>him.<\/p>\n

(2006) A grain of sand on the beach<\/strong><\/p>\n

Very few people have a competent grasp of the size of the observable universe, let alone the size of our own solar system and galaxy. But for those who do, the Christian concept of the Earth\u2019s \u2018specialness\u2019 is brought to its knees. One of the best analogies is presented here:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/new.exchristian.net\/2019\/01\/thinking-about-stuff-people-know.html<\/a><\/p>\n

People know the Universe was created by a god, though no one was there to witness when it \u201cbegan.\u201d They know this particular god cares about this planet, what its inhabitants do, think and feel, more than anything else in the Universe. They know he makes living in it challenging by populating this planet with spirits, some of them friendly protectors, others who are deceivers and wish them ill; just like people. The latest estimate for the size of the Universe is two trillion galaxies, each galaxy consisting of billions of stars and planets. With this in mind, think about Earth’s \u201cexclusive\u201d status. Go to any beach and remove one grain of sand, and watch the effect this has on the beach. This is what would happen if their god’s \u201cspecial\u201d planet were removed from the Universe.<\/p>\n

Richard Feynman was once quoted to say in regard to Christianity that \u2018the stage is too big for the drama.\u2019 It made sense when everyone accepted an earth-centered model, but considering today\u2019s understanding of the size of the universe, it seems unlikely that this single \u2018grain of sand on the beach\u2019 is the special focus of a universal <\/a>god.<\/p>\n

(2007) God contradicts Jesus\u2019 parables<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the Bible, Jesus told parables that implied that God was like a shepherd who would go to extremes to find a single lost sheep from his herd, metaphorically meaning that he would do the same for a non-believer who was \u2018lost\u2019 in a spiritual sense. But this is not what is happening in today\u2019s world. The following was taken from:<\/p>\n

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

To explain: the god of the Bible is described as being willing to go to any and all ends to bring just one man to his flock. Luke compares it to someone losing 1 of their ten coins and going to great lengths to find it, a shepherd leaving the 99 sheep to go to great lengths to find the 1, etc.<\/p>\n

This is a god who very much wants everyone to believe in and worship him and one who has himself, in the person of Jesus, expressed that he will go to insane lengths to save people. Even his crucifixion is described as the ultimate possible sacrifice both on his end and on god the father\u2019s end. Literally nothing could be a bigger sacrifice for god.<\/p>\n

Yet, here I am, an atheist. There are many like me. We do not believe because we don\u2019t think there\u2019s enough proof. Most of us, myself included, would be more than willing to believe if there was proof. Personally, if god came down and spoke to me directly, performing a few miracles to show he\u2019s god and talking about things from my life and thoughts that only someone like god would know, I would believe he\u2019s real. Other atheists have similar requirements. It\u2019s nothing too hard for an all-powerful deity, and it\u2019s certainly less of a sacrifice for him than dying on the cross. God also knows that this is what it would take.<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t conflict with our free will. Plenty of people throughout the Bible met and knew god and still had free will. Peter even denied him after having spent years with the human incarnation of god. Surely I could still freely choose if god came in human form and talked with me.<\/p>\n

And yet, here we are. There\u2019s no proof. These things that are simple for god to do and within his prescribed nature to want to do have not been done. If he\u2019s real, I guess he was kind of exaggerating how hard he would really try to find that 1 lost sheep because it sure looks like he\u2019s being lazy. He barely even answers the prayers of those who do worship him, let alone people like me.<\/p>\n

No, I think it\u2019s more likely that he just isn\u2019t real and was made up, like Christians believe of every other single religion that has ever existed or will ever exist.<\/p>\n

To address some critiques I\u2019ve heard before:<\/p>\n