"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that WE are the ones that need help?” ~ Mark Twain
Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important. ~ C.S. Lewis
Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world. ~ Voltaire
What is Christianity and what does it mean to claim to be a Christian? Although there is much diversity among Christians most would argue that there are certain doctrines and creeds that are central to this faith. This would include that Jesus was the Son of God, the Messiah, who taught and then suffered and died on a Roman Crucifixion
cross only to rise from the dead for the salvation of mankind. Thus for many, the resurrection story is foundational although Christians can disagree on other issues. To C.S. Lewis I would reply that if Christianity is not true, there are incredible consequences where Christianity is the major religion in how we live our lives, what laws we pass, and how we interact with others such as gays; it is hardly of no importance if false. Rather, it's just the opposite.
How does one become a Christian? By professing belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and its purpose. I posit that all Christians had to hear about this religion from someone - perhaps a parent, priest, friend or pastor. Has anyone sat down agnostic or atheistic, read the entire bible cover to cover, and then said to themselves “yes that all sounds good; I’m signing on the eternal dotted line”? If so, they must be exceedingly rare. The religion traces back then for many to an acceptance in some form of the claims and assertions to the history of Jesus and his deeds, mainly through trust in a person’s testimony, witness or sermon perhaps. That ultimate source is the Bible in all instances unless one is claiming divine personal revelation, like Paul’s reported conversion. In nearly every case Christianity ultimately rests on the truth claims of the New Testament, which is part of the Bible as a whole.
Since Christianity’s claims rest on its scriptures - the Bible - then the religion rests on the reliability of the Bible. Which Christian Bible is the true Bible is another potential problem since few Christians have actually read their entire Bible let alone studied it, and fewer still know that there are actually at least four different Bibles used by Christians around the world today. The NT canon is set but isn’t the entire collection of books claimed to be “The Holy Bible”? My assertion is basically that Christianity is not true because the Bible contains so many errors, changes, contradictions and immoral narratives about God that it can’t stand as a credible source of history and reality and can’t be trusted, including it’s claims about Jesus. Those are the four areas I will address. Trying to use figurative literature interpretations so the Bible in many places is not so absurd just leads to more and more diluting scriptures to just mythology - which is of course the case I will be making: mythology and poetic literature mixed with some historical context.
My assertion is basically that Christianity is not true because the Bible contains so many errors, changes, contradictions and immoral narratives about God that it can’t stand as a credible source to history and reality and can’t be trusted, including it’s claims about Jesus.
Those four parts are what I detail in the following writings. I won’t discuss that God appears to remain hidden and apologists write about this, nor that miracles don’t really happen and that the one miracle that would prove His answering prayers never occurs - regrowing an amputated limb, even though other animals can do it. It’s not that miracles and the supernatural can’t be true. It’s that they don’t occur and they should be there if miracles and the supernatural were actually part of our reality. Although certainly not complete, the examples I list were numerous enough for me to abandon my faith because my former faith was never grounded in reason and true history.
"Crutches only are hung on the walls of the miraculous grottoes (of Lourdes); never a wooden leg". ~ Dr. Maurice de Fleury
We are more than justified in dismissing the Bible as a reliable source of information, especially its major claims including the divinity of Jesus. Just like in a court of law, if the witness is demonstrably very unreliable, the testimony must be dismissed. What about all the apologetic books and writings claiming the truth of Christianity? Lee Strobel? What about the Bible claims itself? What indeed. In this section I will discuss and itemize some of the issues I discovered when I first put the Bible to the test of credibility and then also some of the apologist explanations. Examine both sides, but do it by getting the best scholars from both sides of the controversy. For me, it became crystal clear which interpretation of the Bible’s claims and origins were true and why. And this answer has incredible consequences for how we live our lives and treat others, our hopes, and our epistemology (the nature and methods of knowledge and its validity).
Although my journey out of religion applies to Christianity because that is the culture I was raised in, other religions like Islam and Hinduism would also fail this critical examination of their faith claims. A non personal deistic God that doesn’t answer prayers or interact with our world could still conceivably exist, but that impersonal god who got things started and then left is not the God the vast majority of people confess for their beliefs. A theistic God who is personal and interacts with his creation can’t exist in my opinion because too many claims are made about it by its followers or their sources that are falsifiable. In addition, explanations put forward to explain problems (scientific, historical, philosophical) by apologists in the various scriptures often turn out to be unbelievable or even absurd.
𝐖𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞...
• Not one word written by Jesus
• Not one word about Jesus from any witness
• Not one word about Jesus written in the time of Jesus
• Not even one credibly sourced reference to Jesus
• No inscriptions to Jesus from the time of Jesus
• No monuments to Jesus from the time of Jesus
• No artifacts for Jesus from the time of Jesus