Has Christianity finally been debunked?

[citizen abuse]

I admit right up front that I don't have a religious bone in my body - OK, I'm an atheist. But I've always respected and accepted people of faith and their right to worship their various faiths. However, in recent years I've become increasingly fed up with the constant onslaught of attacks directed at people like me, and others, by a very vocal segment of the Christian community. Just a few months ago the pope equated all athiests to be evil like Hitler and Stalin.

Recently a friend who was privy to my feelings told me about an explosive new expose that tries - and does a pretty good job of doing so, I might add - to finally debunk the foundations of Christianity. Upon reading it, I was stunned by the piece's validity. I want to point out that it is only for general information that I post the link to it here. I also understand that there's a possibility that some might want to tar and feather me for doing so. To those people I say before you go attacking me, you might want to try to dispute the arguments made in the piece. There's no question that the issues raised are valid and open to mature debate:

The final debunking of Christianity

[clive]

I havn't got much to add to this, but having gone through 10 years of my life in a Roman Catholic school where I was told if you don't believe in God you shouldn't be in the school. I believe in 50 or so years there will be far less religious people, as we wisen up and realise what a crock of shit it all is people will stop setting up barriers between themselves and live in unity.

[Patrick Rue]

good read

delay the only prob with that is that its often religious nuts that have 50 kids

[Legal lies]

No offense, but this article is useless.

"In 2007 alone, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the total number of people who would die around the world that year would be equal to approximately 55,238,376 people. That breaks down to 151,338 a day, 6305 an hour, or 105 people a minute. To keep up with that rate of death God would literally have to cast judgment at a rate of almost two people per second. That would give God just .57 seconds to judge someone before having to move on to the next person. And because people don't stop dying, God would have to maintain that rate around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Is this starting to sound just a wee bit on the absurd side to you?"

Why are the authors trying to apply real world criteria to the otherworldly/spiritual realm? God is constrained by the forces of time? The authors apparently have a radically different conception of God than most Christians/religious people. You can't judge a being who is supposed to be omnipotent (i.e. all powerful) and omniscient by worldly criteria.

[Patrick Rue]

discount the whole thing off that one paragraph

granted its weak but it leads into shit like hundreds of thousands of people dieing at once being judged and sent to hell, as would have happened with the tsunami

Originally Posted by Legal lies

You can't judge a being who is supposed to be omnipotent (i.e. all powerful) and omniscient by worldly criteria.

The guy is judging a story about a god.

[Legal lies]

Originally Posted by Patrick Rue

discount the whole thing off that one paragraph

granted its weak but it leads into shit like hundreds of thousands of people dieing at once being judged and sent to hell, as would have happened with the tsunami

No, I read the majority of it. God, according to most versions of the Christian concept, is an all powerful being who can do ANYTHING. The very concept of God is not susceptible to examples from this world that seem implausible, such as doing trillions of things at once.

The article also ignores that fact that many Christian denominations do not believe in Biblical literalism-that everything in the Bible is literally true. Also, many Christians have beliefs that are different than those officially endorsed by their churches. I know one preacher, for example, who will readily admit that all of the accounts of the Bible were written by men. This doesn't say anything as to whether there is a God, or whether anyone like the Biblical Jesus ever existed or not. Christianity, in this sense, cannot be debunked because no one can ever prove that there isn't a God. That is why it is a matter of faith.

BTW-I am not a Christian. My perspective-I have a degree in religious studies and relevant work in the field of sociology of religion. I guess for the purposes of this discussion you could say that I am an agnostic-it is the only rational, fully defensible position.

[BearsysRevenge]

Legal, why won't God heal amputees?

If he's all powerful that would sure make a bunch more people start believing in him/her/it/them.

[Jimmy Coonan]

Originally Posted by Legal lies

No, I read the majority of it. God, according to most versions of the Christian concept, is an all powerful being who can do ANYTHING. The very concept of God is not susceptible to examples from this world that seem implausible, such as doing trillions of things at once.

The article also ignores that fact that many Christian denominations do not believe in Biblical literalism-that everything in the Bible is literally true. Also, many Christians have beliefs that are different than those officially endorsed by their churches. I know one preacher, for example, who will readily admit that all of the accounts of the Bible were written by men. This doesn't say anything as to whether there is a God, or whether anyone like the Biblical Jesus ever existed or not. Christianity, in this sense, cannot be debunked because no one can ever prove that there isn't a God. That is why it is a matter of faith.

Yeah, I think a large majority of Christians in the US and Europe are not Biblical literalists.

[verklingen]

jesus tried to debunk christianity.

[Legal lies]

Originally Posted by BearsysRevenge

Legal, why won't God heal amputees?

If he's all powerful that would sure make a bunch more people start believing in him/her/it/them.

There are many possible explanations that have been given for why God doesn't heal amputees, cure cancer, etc. I won't give any of these, but let's take a real world example. Let's say that I eliminate the problem of AIDS in Africa. Great, right? What if by doing this, though, it makes the problem of famine and starvation worse? In fact, the new starvation problem might end up being worse than the previous starvation and AIDS problems combined. While in the beginning it looked like I was doing good (from my limited perspective), it turns out things were better the way that they were. Perhaps God has made the world perfect as it is. It doesn't look that way from my perspective, but God can see much more from her perspective. Hard to believe, yes. Impossible, no.


"If he's all powerful that would surely make a bunch more people start believing in him/her/it/them."-Why would an all powerful being be so worried as to what everyone thinks of it? I've always found it really strange that people think that the all powerful, all seeing God lives to see us worshiping him/her/it. Talk about an inferiority complex!

[Legal lies]

Originally Posted by lillarry518

Yeah, I think a large majority of Christians in the US and Europe are not Biblical literalists.

I think you're definitely right. Those that do believe in Biblical Literalism are what we typically call Christian Fundamentalists. They are a minority in the US for sure, but a pesky, well-organized minority. Fundamentalism can be problematic in any religion. Muslim Fundamentalists, Jewish Fundamentalists, and scores of others have all caused problems for the world. The problem is not religion itself, but the fundamentalism, dogmatic belief structures, and literalism of many religious believers.

Verlingen-good comment. Jesus would certainly be opposed to the organized, dogmatic structure of many of the Christian churches in existence today.

[BearsysRevenge]

Originally Posted by Legal lies

There are many possible explanations that have been given for why God doesn't heal amputees, cure cancer, etc. I won't give any of these, but let's take a real world example. Let's say that I eliminate the problem of AIDS in Africa. Great, right? What if by doing this, though, it makes the problem of famine and starvation worse? In fact, the new starvation problem might end up being worse than the previous starvation and AIDS problems combined. While in the beginning it looked like I was doing good (from my limited perspective), it turns out things were better the way that they were. Perhaps God has made the world perfect as it is. It doesn't look that way from my perspective, but God can see much more from her perspective. Hard to believe, yes. Impossible, no.

Perfect would be no pain whatsoever, if god truly was all powerful then they could wipe out AIDS and starvation.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

"If he's all powerful that would surely make a bunch more people start believing in him/her/it/them."-Why would an all powerful being be so worried as to what everyone thinks of it? I've always found it really strange that people think that the all powerful, all seeing God lives to see us worshiping him/her/it. Talk about an inferiority complex!

Talk about an ego is more like it. If we don't worship God we're going to hell, sounds to me like he cares.

[verklingen]

Originally Posted by BearsysRevenge

Perfect would be no pain whatsoever, if god truly was all powerful then they could wipe out AIDS and starvation.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
-Epicurus

so you guys advocate a conception of "god" which would eliminate free will?

Originally Posted by BearsysRevenge

Talk about an ego is more like it. If we don't worship God we're going to hell, sounds to me like he cares.

yeah exactly. it's the ego of humans which projects human judgment upon the prospect of divine judgment.

[gweetar]

People created religion. People create Gods - all of them, in every different religion, however, described, however worshiped - al made up by man. People actually used to worship sedentary idols. They actually used to worship Greek Gods, high on Mount Olympus. A trend? hmmm...becoming more modern just like everything else as man progresses? Man is modernizing his religion, constantly. Then there are Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Muslims, Baptists, SCIENTOLOGISTS, FOR CHRIST'S SAKES, etc. etc. etc. There are a 1000 different relgions, with a 1000 different ways to believe, just like there are a 1000 different types of people, just like...they can't all be right, yet every religion says it's way is THE way. Just can't be true. And, so funny how so many people espouse their faiths and keep to the order of their faith as long as it is convenient for them.

Look at Scientology and Mormonism if you want to know how religions start - men who sit around and decide they want to lead or get rich, so they develop a new religion, a religion that almost always, invariably, teaches through fear and coercion and intolerance and deception, and seperates people. Religion is a huge sham.

[verklingen]

^ man it's not religion itself that's the problem, it's the organized aspect of it. it doesn't take into account the subjective nature of our reality.