arnoldo

Seems you're arguing against YEC, rather than Christianity.

mpb1

Science is just one of the issues here.

A few years back, I spent a good bit of time on TheologyWeb.com, when I was trying to fortify my faith. And I was barraged by atheists trying to set me straight. Then not long ago, I went back to update an old thread on what happened after I seriously looked at the arguments against Christianity (and lost my faith), and I was attacked by a small mob of Christians :)

Here, I was hoping to avoid that same scenario, but no such luck I guess :)

The definition of evidence could definitely be debated, but I'm hoping to compile the best available arguments/evidence proving (to whatever degree something like this can be proven) that Christianity is a farce.

For my life, I don't see how any objective person could read that list and still believe the so-called God of the Bible is the Creator of the universe, and that His eternal heaven awaits (in some other dimension) for all who believe.

The Bible is as finely-tuned as a broken-down Buick, and hardly any more consistent with reality than Greek mythology. And the being who supposedly inspired the book is a real son of a bitch once you look behind the mask.

So my goal is to build a simple, easy-to-understand case against Christianity, using the available 'evidence', to whatever degree such a case can be built.

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dog-on

How Genesis chapter 1 doesn't clue people in, I'll just never know...

Deus Ex

One of the problems in arguing against Christianity is that Christian beliefs are so diverse. Whenever you argue against a specific dogma, another Christian will claim that you are misrepresenting their Christianity and arguing against a strawman.

I feel that science and higher biblical criticism are eroding belief that the bible is the literal Word of a god. Frankly, I don't see why liberal Christians don't just drop the excess baggage and become deists or perhaps pantheists?

semiopen

This is not technically correct.

There are many things in the bible that aren't literally true that don't interfere with it's divine origin.

For example when god is shown human attributes, this is clearly not meant literally. Examples are god being angry, remembering, walking, saying etc.

Whether the creation myth or flood is literally true or not is not, in itself, a reason to reject the bible or religion.

There are other parts of the bible that are probably wrong, like the domesticated caravan camels in Genesis. Some are definitely wrong like the sun orbitting the earth.

funinspace

If you are going to go after the whole of Christianity, then are you not obligated to meet them in all the differing rooms they stand? I agree with Arnoldo, you are arguing against YEC, and their version of Christianity, and then declaring all of the sub-groups false.

From what I read of your original post, it sounds fairly similar to the issues I faced during my tribulation over faith. As I saw my God-breathed construct crumbling before my mind, I tried to hold onto the more liberal versions, but alas it also felt like a house built on shifting sand. In the end, I also arrived at non-faith. Though I don't find any answers in assuming a non God-breathed Bible construct (and YEC et.al.), I do find the liberal UMC, Episcopalian et.al. take to be a more rational, coherent, and defendable faith.

mpb1

Hi funinspace,

Personally, I agree with Dawkins when he basically categorizes liberal/moderate Christians as morons (my word) for 'making their religion up' as they please.

Whatever liberal religion is, it's not 'biblical Christianity,' and that's really all I care about disproving.

Liberal social club churches don't give a rat's ass what the Bible says anyway. They can allegorize or ignore whatever they choose, and make it up as they go... They might as well be Unitarians. They happen to want to associate themselves with Jesus for whatever good it does them, and cherry pick the Bible for whatever seems right to them.

I could care less about disproving feel-good liberal religion. Everybody knows that's bogus anyway.

What I care about is the literal Bible teaching that brainwashed me from age 7 to 32. I fell for it hook, line and sinker, and spent quite a few years of my adult life living more for 'eternity' than for this life. My passion for many years was to reach people with the Gospel, which makes me all the more determined to SIMPLIFY and CONDENSE the three years it took me to 'get over it' so others I have contact with (including family members) can get the picture a lot faster than I did.

If Genesis was written allegorically, you could rightfully interpret it allegorically. But I've read Genesis 1-11 (the part that matters) dozens of times. It's written literally and historically, and is referred to in the rest of the OT and NT as literal and historical. So playing with the text to make it anything but literal and historical - to me - is intellectually dishonest.

I spent a year trying every which way to reconcile the Bible with science, and setup those two sites, www.CreationCrisis.com and www.OriginScience.com, as a result.

If you visit www.BibleGateway.com right now and read Genesis 1-11, I think you'll find it's not an easy task to read it as anything but a literal and historical narrative. Many try to FORCE the text into reading non-literally because they either have to do that OR THROW THE WHOLE BOOK IN THE CAN...

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show_no_mercy

I mean, if Genesis is allegory because reading it literally makes it nonsense, then Jesus' resurrection is allegory because reading it literally makes it nonsense.

funinspace

Ok, that is yours and his choice.

Ok, then why not just say so up front...so then the liberals can ignore your charges...

Have you ever had a lengthy theological conversation with a liberal preacher?

Everybody?...hum....The "liberals" are still the majority of Christian world...

I can understand the anger. I grew up in mainstream Protestantism, and shifted to evangelical due to what I thought I saw as hypocrisy in my "liberal" church. I deconverted over a dozen years ago now...

I didn't say Genesis was written allegorically. I was suggesting that it was more rational to consider much of the OT as allegorical. Is a faith better for taking something literally, even when it is blatantly false (aka age of earth or the Deluge fairy tale)? Or is better to come to a different understanding of it? I guess it can be a toss up at times. How many God-breathed Christians (literalists) believe slavery is ok, that women should truly be silent in church, that they should pluck out their eye due to lust, that a world engulfing flood happened circa 2200-2400BC? How many True Believers spend as much time bashing gluttony and greed as they do homosexuality? All people pick and choose what they like. The evangelicals/conservative Christians have been allowed to pretend that they have the corner on the righteousness market.

Yeah, I struggle with it for several years myself, but it was before the wild wild web had really emerged...

I'm quite familiar with the Bible, thank you.

mpb1

Since you've been down this road and in the church for as many years as you have, you must know liberal churches have been on the decline for decades, while evangelical churches have grown by leaps and bounds.

Admittedly, they're losing converts out the back door, and losing over 75% of their kids when they leave home. But the Christian conservative movement is still a very powerful force.

I believe it's part of the case against Christianity that besides liberals, even (otherwise) conservative Christians are now allegorizing Genesis so they don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. They're bullshitting themselves to salvage their faith. I tried to do it myself.

If Christians are lying to themselves to retain their faith (and they know it), then if they can remove the blinders long enough to look at all the evidence against Christianity objectively, I think the verdict will be pretty obvious.

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