120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[DBT]

Yes it does. The bible clearly states it;


“Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,” - Romans 9:21-23

You call THAT a clear statement that God creates evil, hell-bound babies?

That's what it says. Didn't you read it? God makes some 'vessels' 'unto honour' and others 'unto dishonour,' these being the ''vessels of wrath fitted to destruction''

It couldn't be much clearer than that.

 

[C_Mucius_Scaevola]

Me either.
In fact even I don't think God guarantees eternal happiness. From the abundance of His Grace, He offers it. But we don't deserve it as a guaranteed entitlement.
Eternity is just a series of moments - each with its own meaning. The clock ticks away the seconds, minutes, hours and nobody declares how pointless the last hour was or how absurd it is to wind up the clocks spring mechanism over and over again.

Fascinating. A bit preachy, but fascinating, nonetheless. Also highly imaginative, given the ... shall we say, highly speculative ... nature of the subject. I'm always curious, though, about the sources of people's "knowledge" of things they couldn't possibly know. Is this what your preacher tells you? Or maybe you pulled it out of your own ass? Whatever, it's a nice little wixh-fulfilment fantasy you've got going there.

Talk is cheap for people who say they don't want to live forever. Ask them to designate on which day they want forever to end and the answer will always be 'tomorrow'. (Note that not wanting to live forever is a different proposition than not wanting to be in pain forever.)

"Forever" is at least a day too long, just as life is always at least a day too short. But life is all we have, or at least all we can be certain of having. So yes, I'd like to keep my life as long as I can, because "forever", as far I can tell, will be exactly the same as the long, long aeons before I was born ... I won't be there to experience it. And who wants to not be there?

Interesting.
What if you were a scientist who loved discovering new things and you had an eternity of stuff to discover and learn.
I doubt Carl Sagan would get bored so easily in that other dimension of space/time called the afterlife.

I see now where you're getting this stuff. You're making it up as you go along, aren't you? It's all very nice, this wish-fulfilment fantasy stuff, but ultimately all it does is devalue the life we have by making it subordinate to an imaginary, infinitely better life to come. Although I must say, it's refreshing to see something other than the usual "we get mansions and servants and everything we ever wanted" or "72 virgins, rivers of wine and doe-eyed serving boys" guff.

Some say the Big Bang is/was a singularity. Well what if death is a singularity through which you pass into and even bigger, more meaningful existence than this one?
Did you expect to be born? No.
So what do you expect there to be after you die? Something equally unexpected?

I expect the afterlife to be exactly the same as the beforelife. Nothing. No pleasure, no pain, no nothing. And no "me" to experience it. And I'm fine with that. It means I appreciate the time I have, while I have it.

Hey, that's not fair.
I don't call atheists out when they inadvertently use vestiges of language that imply entity to natural events.
When I say natural selection punishes the week, the lazy, the stupid, the unlucky, I'm not forcing an interpretation of the word punishment which implies deliberation. And I don't think Mother Nature pushes around a great big pram with babies in it Move along. There's no gotcha moment here.

It wasn't supposed to be a gotcha moment. I suppose I should have used a smiley, as sarcasm rarely comes across well in bare text. Never mind.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Theists who think that are mistaken. Obviously a self-centred person can decide what they think the meaning of their life is and ignore the meaning of everything else. Tell them they were created by God and they are free to ask..."so what?"

...But a God that arbitrarily makes some elect and not others for no reason is about as meaningless as it gets.

No argument from me there.
Luckily it's not true.

...Does God like making people writhe in eternal torment in hell?

Is that one of those..."have you stopped beating your wife yet" questions?

Acts 13:48 - And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Predestination is part and parcel of Paul's theology and can be found in other books of the Bible, including Acts.

2 Timothy 1:9 - Who hath saved us, and called [us] with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,...

Yeah baby. some are elect and many are not. Why?

Romans 8
²⁸ And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

²⁹ For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
³⁰ Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Why would a perfectly good God predestine some to election and others not so?

Romans 11
³¹ Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy.
³² For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.

Why does God cause the Jews to not believe in Jesus, and thus be damned, why not make all men beileve and be saved? Since free will is not necessary?

 

[bilby]

No, I expect God to save those he loves from eternal damnation. Why is that so abhorrent to you?

I hate to break it to you but it IS possible for God to get angry

Don't ignore THAT.

Only in the same way that it's possible for the Incredible Hulk to get angry.

I presume that you are comfortable ignoring THAT.

 

[Lion IRC]

Who is saying the Hulk is real ?
You?
Me?

- neither of us.

 

[bilby]

Who is saying the Hulk is real ?
You?
Me?

- neither of us.

That's right.

And no sensible person is frightened by the anger of a fictional character.

Fear of the Hulk's rage is not a convincing reason to believe he exists.

The same applies to the leading character of your favourite book. God's actions and character as described by a book featuring him are not evidence for his existence, no matter how convincing you find them.

If they were, then you would have to accept the reality of all fictional characters. Which would be insane.

 

[Lion IRC]

Bilby thinks Jesus and the Hulk are both equally fictitious.
Such intellectual dishonesty to place the bible writers in the same category as the the employees of Marvel Comics.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Bilby thinks Jesus and the Hulk are both equally fictitious.
Such intellectual dishonesty to place the bible writers in the same category as the the employees of Marvel Comics.

You're right, the Hulk didn't come back to life after being dead and entombed and then fly off into the sky like the Jesus did.

 

[bilby]

Bilby thinks Jesus and the Hulk are both equally fictitious.
Such intellectual dishonesty to place the bible writers in the same category as the the employees of Marvel Comics.

They are equally fictional.

The only significant difference I can see between the bible writers and those at Marvel Comics is that Marvel's writers, having the advantage of between four and sixteen centuries of progress, are less prone to include scientifically incorrect claims when those claims are not required by the plot.

Perhaps you could elaborate on exactly what you think I am being dishonest about here?

Do you have some evidence that the characters in the bible are not fictional? As a good rule of thumb, all characters with supernatural or superhuman powers are not real. Why should we make an exception for Jesus "the Christ" of Nazareth, but not for Bruce "Hulk" Banner of Dayton?

 

[James Brown]

Here's a new article detailing problems with Christianity. The twist is that these are arguments from centuries ago, meaning that skeptics have been discussing these ideas long before, say, Richard Dawkins was born. My only complaint with the article is that the author doesn't cite his sources.

Little Things Can Make an Atheist

If God really spoke to the world, the world would be in convinced agreement about it. But what we hear is a cacophony of discordant voices from innumerable religious sects. The very disagreements discredit them all. All of them are correct in their accusations against each other, and all of them are wrong in their own claims....

It took only six days for God to make the universe, but God could not save humanity all at once in a week? Thousands of years preceded Jesus and thousands of years have followed Jesus—and still most people have not been saved....

If angels in heaven could sin, as Satan and his rebel angels did, what guarantee do we have that humans won’t sin after they arrive in heaven? Or, if saved humans in heaven will not be able to sin, couldn’t God have made such impeccable humans on earth to begin with?

 

[Atheos]

Bilby thinks Jesus and the Hulk are both equally fictitious.
Such intellectual dishonesty to place the bible writers in the same category as the the employees of Marvel Comics.

Intellectual dishonesty?!? Perhaps you aren't familiar with what the term "atheist" means. It means a person doesn't believe any gods exist. By extension it means that an atheist considers writings about the exploits of gods to be every bit as fictional as writings about the exploits of Superman.

I know from personal experience how difficult it is to accept that people actually consider the bible to be a collection of bullshit of no more importance than the writings of Joseph Smith, Muhammad or the earlier mythology of Egypt, Sumeria, Greek and Rome, but that's just how it is. There was a time when Christians were thought of by most folks as atheists because they didn't believe in the real gods.

 

[Lion IRC]

Yes I know what the word atheist means.

But we aren't taliking about whether atheists believe Clark Kent is Superman.
We are talking about whether the writer of Marvel Comics thinks that. They DONT!
They (Marvel Comics) don't expect readers to believe that a particular person is more powerful than a locomotive and can leap tall buildings in a single bound. You understand this don't you Atheos?

The bible writers on the other hand DO want to be believed. They know it is a sin to lie and they are making sincere fact claims - not writing comic book fiction. Their characters are not MEANT to be read as fictitious.

But bilby comes along and says the bible and Marvel Comics should both be taken as equally fictitious.

That would be like me saying that because I personally don't believe a news story in the New York Times then that publication should be counted as fiction along with Marvel Comics. Or that if I think NASA scientists are lying about global warming then climate change is no more real than kryptonite.

bilby seems deliberately to ignore this distinction of authorial intent/sincerity.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But bilby comes along and says the bible and Marvel Comics should both be taken as equally fictitious.

How would the intentions of the writers change whether or not a character is fictitious?

bilby seems deliberately to ignore this distinction of authorial intent/sincerity.

If a character does not exist, it doesn't matter if the author is sincere or not. It doesn't matter if he's deluded or mistaken or if he's just gullible and repeating a story someone else made up. Characters that don't exist are fictitious characters no matter how sincere the author of his story is.

Unless you can show that sincerity somehow makes a non-existing character start to exist at least a tiny bit...?

 

[Atheos]

You seem to know an awful lot about people you never met; people whose names you don't even know with any degree of certainty; people who lived hundreds of years ago in a very different culture; people who lie about who they are in order to get people to accept and read what they wrote.

I know my wife better than I know any person on this planet. Yet I cannot always speak with certainty as to her motivations, nor do I know for sure if she's always being completely honest or holding back on the truth. Yet you seem to have this Vulcan Mind Meld with these people who lived upwards of 2000 years ago on the other side of the planet. Fascinating.

Here's what we do know: Mythology was around a long time before the people came along to write their myths about this Jesus character. Mythology has been around ever since that time as well. We can be every bit as certain that the mythology of the anonymous persons who fabricated the stories about Jesus the Magic Jew is as without evidential support as Joseph Smith's magical hidden cave in which he found the golden plates and translated the book of Mormon from Reformed Egyptian.

As a skeptic I'm no more inclined to believe the likes of Paul and his claims of channeling the disembodied voice of a heavenly person named Jesus than I am of believing Joseph Smith's claims that he was taking dictation directly from god with the help of his magic seer's stone.

It is entirely possible that the original tales of Jesus the Magic Jew were told around campfires for purely entertainment purposes. It is entirely possible that Paul was as deluded (or intentionally dishonest) as Joseph Smith or Muhammad. I don't know what his motivations were, and lack any means to find out what they were. It's interesting that you seem to have this magic knowledge.

 

[Lion IRC]

It's amazing to me to see so many people here insisting that historical fact claims should be viewed no differently than deliberate fiction presented in a historical setting.

It's like you don't care whether it was written by Rudyard Kipling or Arthur Schlesinger.
Either writer could be just as true or false as the other depending entirely on the 'evidence' for what they wrote.

It's like you think Marvel Comics are telling lies about the existence of a person named Clark Kent because there's "no evidence" he is real.

Marvel Comics don't claim Superman is real. And Rudyard Kipling isn't lying about what Mowgli did. But that doesn't stop the atheists here accusing them of peddling the exact same type of lies as they think are in the bible.

That's what you're doing by lumping ALL deliberate fiction into the same category as historical fact claims you personally find unbelievable.

Should I do the same with multiverse theory? Should I dismiss the idea of dark energy as superstitious myth or deliberate lie or deluded rant? Surely I must lump these in with Star Wars Jedi mind control and DeLorean time machines.

Come to think of it, I've never seen a melting polar ice cap. Oh sure, there are plenty of fake, photo shopped images floating around. But they are EXACTLY THE SAME as showing me a picture of Superman flying.

 

[DBT]

It's amazing to me to see so many people here insisting that historical fact claims should be viewed no differently than deliberate fiction presented in a historical setting.

The places, cultures, cities, rulers, etc, may be factual, as far as we can determine...the problems arise when supernatural entities and events are claimed to be equally factual as the places in which they are set.

That there was city called Jerusalem and ruler named a Herod, a Roman governor by the name Pilate doesn't make the Jesus narrative true and factual.

 

[Lion IRC]

Pontius Pilate ?
Who is Pontius Pilate?
Some imaginary character I suppose. Just like Harry Potter and Rumplestiltskin.

 

[Lion IRC]

Can you prove Pontius Pilate existed?
What about Quirinius? That sounds like a fake name too!
I don't 'believe' they were REAL people.
Their names are in the bible. What more proof do you need that they are invented characters?

 

[Keith&Co.]

It's amazing to me to see so many people here insisting that historical fact claims should be viewed no differently than deliberate fiction presented in a historical setting.

Still doesn't answer the question.

An early biographer of George Washington once wrote an anecdote about a young GW cutting down a cherry tree. GW's integrity was shown in this anecdote. It was quite popular. People repeated the story in all sorts of places, including history textbooks. After a while, historians went to track down this story, to bolster it with the sort of corroboration that historians look for.
They couldn't find anything to support the story. No one's diary or letters referred to it. No contemporary accounts surfaced. They also found that this particular biographer was in the habit of plagiarizing cute little anecdotes from other people's works, from obscure storybooks that might escape the notice of his readers.

They had to conclude that the story is apocryphal. It never happened. So it's fiction, right?

Even though very sincere historians had repeated the story in history books and history textbooks and Bugs Bunny cartoons and all sorts of follow-on places, thinking that THEY were doing history, they were repeating a fictional story.

That's what you're doing by lumping ALL deliberate fiction into the same category as historical fact claims you personally find unbelievable.

I really don't think so. But puff yourself up if that makes you think you're doing something positive for your Lord.
The fact remains, if a story does not originate in an historical event, it's at least partially fictional. The intentions or motives or goals of the people who wrote the story down a few decades after the fact does not make it any less fictional, even if they're really intent on writing the Truth as they Know it.

Should I do the same with multiverse theory?

Why would anyone care if you did, if it's clear you're only doing it to play tit for tat?

 

[Atheos]

Proof is for math. When it comes to piecing together what happened in the past it's always a little bit grey. Not all murders get solved but a forensic investigator does not begin with the premise that it is equally possible god smote the victim as it is that a human did.

Mythology traditionally blurs the line between reality and fantasy in much the same way Marvel or DC comics do. In the movie Superman II, Superman repairs damage done to the White House by super villains while making a promise to the President of the United States that he will never again disappear like he did when they needed him most. The fact that there's a Washington DC, a White House and a POTUS doesn't mean there's a Superman.

The same thing can be observed in ancient mythology from Egyptian, Greek, Roman, etc., sources. Actual cities and known people are often interwoven into the exploits of gods and demigods to create fantastic stories of things that never happened.

When I read the mythology of Jesus I see the same type of thing. The character lives in real places and encounters real people, but the events are fantastic and some of them that we can check on turn out to have never happened. Herod never issued a general order of execution of all male children under age 2 "throughout the coasts." Quirinius never issued an order for a census that required people to relocate to the city where their ancestor lived. What an idiotic concept requirement anyway. Never happened.

So these anonymous writers are already exposed as fabricators of fiction in details that aren't even germane to the story they're repeating. Why should I believe them when they tell me of a magic Jew who could walk on water, turn water into wine, heal all manner of neuropathic illnesses with a mere touch, then float up into the air and disappear into the clouds never to be seen again? Apart from these anonymous tales there is not a shred of physical evidence any of this stuff ever happened. If a miracle worker made such a splash that rulers such as Herod were talking about him you'd expect some secular person unaffiliated with that person to write something about him. There may have been a "Jesus" who served as the inspiration for these tall tales. But there may also have been a lumberjack named Paul Bunyan for that matter. Separating what is feasible from what is not is the core of responsible study of history. And everyone does it until it bumps up against their favorite fairy tale.

Historical analysis is more often than not a matter of opinion and judgment calls rather than science or proof. Some folks are perfectly comfortable accepting that a bunch of fantastic claims are a genuine part of the historical record. I'm not one of those people and for that I'm not going to apologize. The Jesus myth is just like the Santa Claus myth: You don't get the goodies unless you believe impossible claims.