Ex-apologist ~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so you got to expect some grammatical error in my writing but i recommend you to concentrate on the message of this story rather than grammatical errors. Also, this is a letter which i wrote to my Christian friend, so i copied it as it is in my laptop and pasted here.
Dear Friend,
I write you this letter in which I offer reasons as to why I no longer believe in the Christian God. I was carrying unanswered questions and doubt for the period of 7 month and after these 7 month I reached the end of my rope and renounced my faith in Jesus. I want to inform you that I did not close the door for Christianity rather I’m willing to reconsider retaining my faith in Jesus. Also I want to inform you that I’m not an atheist (a person who believe that there is no God) rather I am a deist. Deism is a belief that God exist but he hasn't revealed himself to humanity. I will explain later why I hold to this belief of deism. The following reasons are the one which troubled me for the period of 7 month and made me to renounce my faith in Jesus.
NB: This letter has been revised for several times. I started writing this letter in 2013 early December when I denounce my faith in God, up to this day I continue revising it.
INTRODUCTION
I must say that it’s the role of skepticism which brought me to where I am today. It’s all about being open-minded and open-hearted by being allowing the truth to set me free. Different people in life have different world views trying to explain the same entity. In this regard I’m talking about religions of the world. Someone said that there are about 10 thousands religion in the world in every different culture of people. Though most of polytheistic religions died out throughout the centuries, monotheistic religion still continue to flourish. Christians genuinely believe that their God created the universe and Jesus is the only way to salvation and other Goddess of other religion are false, Muslims genuinely believe that Allah is the only God and Muhammad is the only last prophet who humanity ought to believe in. Ravi Zacharia a noted Christian apologist once said that there are about 4 thousands Gods in Hindu religion, and Hindu also genuinely believe that their thousands of Gods are true and Islam and Christianity is false.
Now if you were born a Hindu you would genuinely believe that those thousands of Goddess do exist and they are real. But if you are a Muslim or Christian you will regard those four thousands Gods of Hindu religion as false. One thing religious people forget is that the same way they view other religions as false, that’s the exact same way other people view their religion too. Each religion is claiming that their God is the ultimate reality behind our existence and unfortunately as we grew up we found ourselves being told by our parents that our religion is true and other religion are false. So we carry this believe and the only thing that we do in adulthood is we defend our religion from skeptics because we were indoctrinated when we were young that our religion is true. But is that rational thing to do? Have you ever try to test your religion in order to know if it’s true or not? Or you just believe that it’s true because your pastor or your parent told you so?
In my opinion the best way of testing your religion is by being rational and objective as possible by asking why you believe in what you believe. This is the ultimate way of knowing whether your world view is true or not by being honest to yourself and appreciating the role of skepticism. Skepticism play an important role in finding the truth by listening to skeptics who critic your religious view. There is nothing that shake the truth, the truth will always stand no matter how much attempt to debunk it. So if the truth will always stand then it’s good to put the a world view on test and assess its truth claim concerning reality, if that world view is true then obviously it will stand but if that world view is false, it will fail though it will hurt you at the beginning but later on it will set you free and you will be freed from lies that confined you in your life. However if you are not open to the truth and keep rejecting the role of skepticism then you are deluding yourself and you are wasting your time, money, energy and resources which you spend advocating your world view since you don’t have any reason why you believe in what you believe.
This is what I did as a Christian, I appreciated the role of skepticism and begin to ask myself deepest questions such as why am I a Christian? How do I know that Christianity is true? How do I know that other religions and world views are false? That’s when I begun to assess the truth claims of Christianity as objective as possible. And after 7 mouth of examining my faith, I came to the end of the rope and renounced my faith in Christianity because I believe there are very good reasons for thinking that Christianity is false just like any other religion.
The following are some of the reasons that I have for thinking that Christianity is false. I encourage you to take away the fear of hell-fire as you read this paper and put yourself in the shoes of someone who is assessing the faith as rational as you can by being objective as possible. Don’t be partial on your faith nor on the objections against your faith rather be impartial on both your faith and the objections against your faith. By so doing is the best way of truly assessing the truth claim of your religion. With that said, lest look at the followings reasons that I have for thinking that Christianity is false.
THE MAIN PROBLEM WITH CHRISTIANITY
BIBLICAL INERRENCIES
Noah’s ark
When I grew up I genuinely believe that the event of Noah’s Ark really happened and there was a worldwide flood and Noah took every animal species in his ark. Most Christian believed that this event really happen and it’s a historical event. But I believe any Christian who believe that Noah’s ark was a historical event had not came across with serious objection against Noah’s ark. I also use to believe in Noah’s Ark until when I come across with some serious objections against Noah’s Ark which led me to abandon the belief in Noah’s Ark. One of the argument against Noah’s ark is the number of animal’s species. According to Ernest Mayr American leading taxonomist said that there are over 1 million species of animal in the world and some of these animal’s lives only in specific geographic area and they are not found in any other part of the world. Geographically ancient Hebrew lived in Israel present day (middle-east).
The first question is what happened to animals which are only find in southern of Africa, Australia and Americas ( south and North ) ? Did Noah put on board animals which lived only in South America and Southern Africa? Animals like Kangaroo never lived in Middle East, up to today there is no fossil of Kangaroo in the Middle East, the only continent we can find fossil of Kangaroo is in Australia, now did Noah traveled to Australia to load Kangaroo on his ark also? If yes, where in the Bible is it written? Do we think about this things or we just turn a blind eye on it and ignore it? How could I believe this event as historical while there is no enough evidence to support it and on contrary there are good reasons to falsify it? Do people accept this story on historical basis or on the basis of faith? And if we are to accept this event on the basis of faith, I think that will become even more problematic since the Bible itself claim that this event was factual. Some Christians who are aware of the fact that Noah story is a myth would say that the Christian faith is predicated on the basis of Jesus resurrection not on Noah’s story. While it’s true that the Christian faith is based on Jesus resurrections but it’s also very important to point out that Jesus was a Creationist too. Jesus himself believed in this story of Noah.
I remember in one of my online debate with an theist he brought up the story of Noah’s ark and I tried to get away with it by claiming that Noah’s story is irreverent to the truth of Christian faith but I was stumped when he said that Jesus was a creationist too I couldn't get away with it. Jesus whom Christians predicated their faith on also believed in Noah’s story. Christian such as Young Earth Creationist (Christian who belief that God created the universe in 6 literal days and the universe is less than 10 thousands years old) have attempt to reconcile this errors but failed badly. Even If there is evidence for worldwide flood that doesn't imply that the story of Noah’s Ark is a historical factual event because there is no way Noah’s could have put all land animals and aquatic animals from various geographical area from different part of world in one wooden Ark. There are a lot of animals which are not found in middle-east where Noah’s live so what happened to those animals did Noah’s put those animals in his ark too? What creationist and other Christians who believe in Noah’s ark tend to do is that they ignore the evidence and discovery in the field of science like for modern cosmologist and astrophysics. The big bang theory is accepted in the mainstream science including Christian Scientist as well. In fact William Lane Craig who is regarded by many as the leading Christian defender also accept the Big Bang theory. He uses the big bang in his Kalam Cosmological argument for existence of God.
Should we say that scientist are wrong and that the big bang never actual occurred and that the universe was literal created in 6 days? As far as I know it science an objective and independent field grounded on evidence not on dogma like religion. So to sum up my argument, I would say that if you accept the Noah story, I believe you do so on the basis of faith not evidence but there is a lack evidence to support Noah’s event thus, there are good evidence to demonstrate that Noah story is false.
For more information on why I think Noah story is false, I recommend you to watch this recent debate between a renown Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham and an atheist Bill Nye : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI
THE HISTORICITY OF SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
I grew up without knowing historicity of the synoptic gospels. In my childhood I had an idea that the gospels were authentic and the named associated to the gospels were actual authors of this gospels. I though the gospel of Mark was written by the disciple Mark, Matthew was written by the disciple Matthew, Luke was written by the disciple Luke, and John was written was written by the disciple John. I was very shocked when I found out that Luke, Mathew, Mark and John were not the actual authors of the gospels. In the original manuscripts the heading of these Gospels read as follow “ THE GOSPLE ACCORDING TO MARK, LUKE, MATTHEW OR JOHN” the heading itself implies that the author of the gospel is writing what Mark, Luke, John and Matthew told him or what he heard from these four disciple. That’s why the word “ACCORDING” is appearing in the heading. Now this is universal accepted by all Bible scholars that these four authors attributed to these four gospel actual never wrote the gospels themselves. One of the proof of this is in Gospel of Luke 1:1-2, The author of the gospel of Luke open his gospel with the following statement and it reads:
Now if the Gospel of Luke was written by the Apostle Luke, why is the text saying that many have written up an account of Jesus and handed to us? Luke supposed to be the eye witness of all the life events of Jesus but who are these eye witness who handed down the account of Jesus to him? This is one of the example to show that the authors of these gospel were not the first eye witness. Now after for a while I was troubled with authenticity of this gospels because I understood that the gospels are historical document written in ancient times just like any other historical document so there has to be some errors. I did not pay attention to some contradictions in the gospels because I was concentrating to the person of Jesus which is his miraculous birth, divine claim, the crucifixion and the resurrection.
However though I believed that the gospel provide us with the picture of the historical Jesus I think it’s very important to point out some errors in the gospels. In the gospels of Matthew 22: 52-23 it say that after the resurrection of Jesus the dead saints rose from the dead and they were walking in the street of Jerusalem, the passage read as follows: The tomb broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs and after Jesus’s resurrection they went into the holy city appeared to many people. Now this passage has been universal rejected by scholars including noted Christian scholars and apologist like William Lane Craig and Craig Evens. All scholars agree that the passage is an invention and if the author of Mark invented passage like this what else did he invented? The reason why scholar believe that the passage is an invention is crystal clear that this is a pure apologetic motive invented to persuade first century reader that the resurrection of Jesus was witnessed by all people in Jerusalem and it was accompanied by dead saints. Now, when you read the Pauline letters and books of Acts you will noticed that the disciple were persecuted in Jerusalem, and the Jewish did not believed in the resurrection of Jesus. So if the passage is true, the resurrection of Jesus was accompanied by dead saints then why did the Jews who were in Jerusalem disbelieved in the resurrection of Jesus, if they also witnessed his resurrection and that of the saints?
If you were born in Iraq or Pakistan were about 98% of population are Muslims surely you will be a Muslim by now. Our parental beliefs play an important role in what we belief as we grow. In summary, I would say that though this gospels provide us with a the historical Jesus it’s very important to keep in mind that before the gospels were written in ink they were passed orally for number of years and obviously there would be some addition or missing part in the story which was passed orally for a number of years. Example if the gospel of John was written around 70 AD as scholar speculate then obviously it’s not a reliable document because Jesus died around 33 AD and from 33 AD to 70 AD is a period of 37 years which is a very long period of years. Surely In those period of 37 years there has been some addition or missing information from the story of the gospel of John.
PROBLEM WITH THE CONCEPT OF SALVATION
The doctrine of Christian salvation say that only those who believe and accept Jesus as the son of God would have eternal life. Those who don’t believe in Jesus will go to hell since according to the Christian faith there are only two final places in the afterlife which is hell and heaven. In the gospel of Mark 16:15-16 Jesus said those who don’t believe in him will be damned the passage reads as follow:
Really?
The other problem which I have with the Christian doctrine of salvation is that if hell exist, a large number of people are perishing in hell fire each an everyday. According to the CIA world facts out of the 7 billion people who inhabit the earth 31 percent of them are Christians and the other 69% consist of non-Christians such as Muslims, Hindu, Jewish and atheist. Now if Christianity is true then all that 69% of non-Christian would perish in hell-fire. And this rises the questions as to why would God create the universe in which only a few number of people who would believe in him and let the majority of people to perish in hell fire for eternity just because they disbelieved in Jesus? Though I’m a limited in my human-mind I don’t think this doctrine make sense or rational. This is clearly a human made doctrine. Is that the purpose of humanity? Did God created human being so that at the end of our lives some will have eternal life and some will be condemned in hell-fire for the rest of their lives? Is that it?
Some Christian apologist like Frank Turek the founder of cross examined ministry argued that God created us with freewill therefore it depend on us weather to embrace him or reject. Those who reject God separate themselves from him in eternity and God would not force them against their will to be with him in eternity. Now to be objective as possible I think the interpretation of Christian like Frank Turek make sense to me because if the Christian God does exist then those who reject him do that on their own accountability. However the problem still stand, as to why would God create humanity and out of 100 of human beings only 31 percent of them will believe in him and the rest of 69 percent will burn in hell. Why did God created people whom he knew that they will reject him in life? Why does God allow people to be born to unbeliever while he knew that unbelievers would influence their kids to be an unbeliever as well? In fact you and I if we were born in Pakistan or Iraq today we would be devote Muslims or if we were born in India today we would be devote Hindu who have no idea about Jesus and the gospel. We would see Christianity in the same way we see them. We see them as lost people and their religions are false, but it’s very important to keep in mind that they also see us in the same exact way we see them. Hindu, Muslims and Buddhist see us who believe in Christianity as lost people and have a false believe.
Another problem I have with the Christian doctrine of salvation is up today we don’t know what will happen to people who are mental ill. I remember in church asking the preacher as to what will happen to those people who are born mental ill and never had chance of receiving the gospel. The preacher responded by saying that most of the people who are mental it’s their fault because they messed up with their lives and they ruined their chance of being presented with the gospel. The preacher further said that we should not question things about such nature. Just think about it, are our brothers, sisters, mother and fathers who are mental ill going to hell-fire? Some of these people became mental ill before they reached puberty.
So to sum up I would end with the following questions, Did Yahweh created heaven for only those who will believe in him and hell-fire for those who will not believe in him? Is that the ultimate purpose of humanity? Some to have eternal life and other to burn for eternity? Is that the reason for human existence?
THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING AND THE CHRISTIAN GOD
This is main problem which caused doubt in the belief of a personal God. The attribute of a Christian God is all-loving, all powerful, and all-knowing, all good and all merciful but when you look at the suffering and evil which is happening in the world it’s hard for one to believe that the universe was created by an all-powerful, all loving and all-knowing God. When I was a born-again Christian I tried to seek answer as why do God allow evil and sufferings? I must say that up to this days there is no plausible nor convincing answer from top leading theologian as why an all-powerful, all loving and all-knowing God would allow evil and suffering. Most Christian whom I know said that God is not responsible for the suffering and evil which is happening in the world right now. Before I give reasons why I think suffering and evil disapprove a personal God let me first distinguish two type of suffering which is natural evil (evil which is naturally) and moral evil ( evil which is caused by human beings). I would perhaps agree with a Christian who argue that God is not responsible for moral evil since it’s the act of human beings themselves to rape, kill, torture and steal. I would agree with a Christian that God is not the one who sent a man to rape and I think it would be unfair to blame God for the evil which man does. However when it comes to natural evil such as earth quakes, tornadoes, drought, diseases, and hurricanes and flood surely God is the one to be blame. Each year many people die from natural disasters and diseases.
The environmental News services stated the following:
According to World Health Organization listed the following figures
Now with all this amount of suffering which is happening in the world how could one argue that the world was created by an all loving, all powerful, and all knowing God? There is an apparent contradiction between an all loving God and the amount of suffering going on in the world. There are attempts out there from Christian philosophers and Theologian like William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga. They argued that there is no explicit contradiction between God and evil. Craig argued that God had moral sufficient reason for permitting the evil and suffering which is happening in the world and that God and evil are logically compatible with each other. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwo4Zq-CyFs
On a TV debate between Michael ( an atheist professor ) who is a cognitive scientist at Yale University VS William Lane Craig , the moderator asked Craig as why does a loving God and merciful God allow evil , pain and suffering, Craig responded as follow: “There isn’t a single reason Michael rather there is a multitudes of reason which will be in play here, one would be that God want to create the world of free creatures who can be came responsible moral agents and mature persons and that would require a world that operate according to certain natural laws where the fire that warm you can also burn you, the water that sustain you can also drown you and it will require the ability of this creatures to do certain moral evil acts so creating that sort of arena I think it’s going to allow the possibility of natural suffering and moral evil to occur but God permit this ( suffering and evil ) with an overall goal in mind of bring people freely into a knowledge of himself and to eternal salvation. So we got to get away from the idea that were are God’s pet and his goal is to create a nice little environment for his human pets at least on Christianity that false”. In other words what William Lane Craig is saying here is that God allow the suffering and evil in order to bring people into a loving relationship with him and to eternal life. So if there was no suffering and evil people would not believe in God so God uses suffering and evil as a tool to bring people to believe in him. During the debate Michael attacked the Christian concept of God which is all loving , all knowing and all powerful by saying that the Christian God is incompatible with genuine evil and suffering which is happening in the world. Craig brought up Alvin Plantinga argument by saying the following: “We need to understand what an atheist is arguing here is he arguing that God and suffering are logical incompatible with each other if he is then he need to show us that there are implicit contradiction there because there is no explicit contradiction and I would say no atheist has ever been able sustained that burden of proof”.
This argument is a philosophical argument deliberately developed by Plantinga to stump the objection of evil and suffering but this argument does not offer sufficient reason as to how can a loving God be compatible with genuine suffering and evil.
You can watch a full lecture on problem of evil and suffering by Professor William Lane Craig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q5zQC2BEVY
Many people of different religion and worldview tried to explain the reasons for suffering and evil but none of them offered us any plausible reason as to why there is a genuine evil and suffering in the world. In fact even Jesus himself could not offer a valid reasons as to why God allow evil and suffering, in the gospel of John we read the story when the disciple asked Jesus as to why the man was born blind and Jesus responded by saying that the blindness of that man was engineered by God so that Jesus would perform healing miracle on him. Here is the passage: "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him". But noticed that the question was on suffering and evil in the world. Surely God incarnate could’ve given a more plausible answer to explain why God allow evil and suffering in the world than the answer which Jesus gave. The answer is not satisfying, I think they were expecting answers as to why God allow evil and suffering in the world.
I remember in January of 2014 I had a discussion with my mother who is a Roman Catholic concerning the euthanasia of children in Belgium. She was opposing euthanasia as being inhuman practice but when I asked her as to what is the reason and purpose of little children living a painful live for the rest of their lives? The answer she gave amazed me, she said that those who are suffering they are suffering with Jesus. They are not alone Jesus is with them in their suffering.
Now if God is with us in our suffering should we now say that both humanity and God are mourning and crying in pain? Can a God who created this universe suffer from the pain and suffering which he created? Perhaps God is a bystander who fold his hands and watch humanity as we suffer from genuine evil.
Imagine how depressed and the agony of this man, how could one argue that there is a loving God out there who care for human beings? Does this man look like the product of a loving and merciful God? Or simply a product of chance and randomness?
I remember in my born-again church there was a small boy maybe 16-17 years old of age who was deaf. Whenever we had a church services he had to look for someone to translate for him in sign language what the pastor was preaching. Sometimes we use to have miracles healing programs were the sick would be healed but after every program the boy could not be healed. Everyone in the church knew the condition which the boy had. Now what’s worse is that the boy was a born-again Christian who gave his life to Jesus? He use to attend most of the church services and program but why can’t an all-power and loving God heal that boy so he could listen properly to the Gospel of Jesus? In the gospel of Matthew 7-11 Jesus said that people should ask and they shall receive the passage reads as follows:
How many people do we know in our churches who are mental ill and physical disable but hoping for a miracle which will never occur? How many prayers did we prayed hoping that they would be heal but yet nothing happen some have even given up their hope.
In September of 2013 while I was still a born again Christian, I remember going to visit my brother who is a nurse at the hospital, on my way there I passed through the corridor which separate the mortuary and nurses houses. As I passed near the mortuary I found two mortuary attendance having a conversation blaming the pastors for the death of 3 Christians who belong to the pastor church because they refused to take their ARV (HIV medication) and they believed that the power of God would heal them. Unfortunately for them they died from AIDS. Now as Christian I was confused and I asked myself questions as to how could God allow this to happen. In Gospels we read Jesus saying that ask with faith and you shall receive but in reality we don’t see this.
One of the ten commandment in Exodus 20:12 say that if we are to honor our parents we will have a long-life. Here is the passage: Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. How many good people out there who have respect for their parent but yet they die young? How many evil and wicked people out there who disrespect their parents but yet they do live a long life? Can this commandment come from the God who created the universe?
Now it’s easy for a person who is living a healthy life and having a healthy family to say that God knows why he allow evil and suffering but keep in mind that there are people and families out there who are living in horror. Each and everyday pain and suffering is what they have to deal with their children’s are starving to death because they don’t have food to eat, some children are orphans because their parents died from natural disasters. What strikes me a lot is when I see children under the age of 13 years going through a severe suffering? Children are little people who don’t understand how the world operate and they depend on other people for their survival but when I see a baby born with cancer and by the age of 4 years the cancer will kill the baby, is there any meaning and purpose in the life of that baby? She was born in pain, lived a painful life and died a painful death, is that the purpose of that baby? We live in the world where people are experiencing terrible amount of suffering, innocent people like baby dying from terrible and painful diseases, natural disaster like flood and earthquakes claims hundreds of thousands lives every year, each and everyday people are killing each other. With this high amount of evil and suffering how may one argue that the universe was created by an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God who cares for humanity? If the universe was created by an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all loving God then he is contradicting himself because the world that we live in and what we observe doesn’t seem like a creation of an all-power, all-loving, all-knowing God.
I would say that in this world where there are bacteria, virus, natural disasters, psychopathic people, thugs, gangsters, jealous, hatred, envy and angers it’s obvious to expect suffering and evil but this is not the product of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God. In life some would be lucky and they would live a long healthy happiness life but some would be unfortunate that they will only live a short span of life full of suffering. We found ourselves in this terrible world where our beloved ones face a terrible suffering and we are broken psychological, physical and emotional. Each one of us is having a burden which we are carrying and we look forward to be relived from our burden.
In conclusion I would say that if the Christian God exist its either he is a bystanders who suffer with us in every tabulation we go through and he cannot do anything to solve the situation or he is a monster who enjoy and fold his hand and watch as humanity suffer from the evil and suffering which inflicted us for thousands of years but we shouldn’t come up with nonsense claiming that we were created by an all loving, all powerful, all good, all knowing , and all merciful God because the world in which we found ourselves don’t look like creation of an all loving God, all merciful, all knowing God
THE INCOHERENT AND INCONSISTENCY OF THE GOD OF THE BIBLE
The third problem I have with Christianity is the concept of God himself as described in the Bible. Trinitarian Christian believe that God consist of three persons namely; Jesus, Holy Spirit and Yahweh. Three persons but one God and the same God who divide himself in three persons.
Now the problem I have with this concept is that the God of the Testament who is supposedly the same God of the New Testament is almost completely different the God from the New Testament. The character of Yahweh is different from that of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament the character of Yahweh is portrayed as angrily, harsh, and genocidal. In the Old Testament Yahweh commanded the stoning of death, the genocidal of Canaanites, the destruction of Egyptian soldiers in the red sea and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire. Now when you look at the God of the New Testament he is completely different from Yahweh, he is peaceful, loving, forgiving and compassionate. In the New Testament we find God amending the stoning of women, forbidding causing pain to others, he encouraged non-violence, he encouraged loving of enemies. I can’t say much about the Holy Spirit since the Holy Spirit is not mentioned a lot in the New Testament but I would say that the Holy Spirit reassembly the character and nature of Jesus.
Now the problem with this is crystal clear, in the Bible we find God who change often, in the Old Testament we find him allowing the stoning of women but in the New Testament we found him forbidding the stoning of women. In the Old Testament we find him commanding people to kill Canaanite including their children but in the New Testament we find him forbidding the killing of anyone.
Now when you read the Bible you found the same God claiming that “He is the same today, tomorrow and forever he never change. Here is the passages: Malachi 3:6 "For I am the LORD, I do not change”; Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
To sum-up how can one reconcile this illogic concept of God? We all know that the God we found in the Old Testament is different from the God we found in the New Testament but yet that same God is one. Though the Christian God claim that he never change we found him changing often in the Bible.
SUMMARY OF MY BELIEF ABOUT GOD
WHERE I STAND NOW
Leaving a religion is the most difficult steps to take in life it’s not easy it require soul searching and deep meditations but the end of my journey is a wonderful ending setting me free. Religion is something which is rooted in ancient times and the ancients were primitives. Each ancient civilization invented their own God as the explanation for their existence or phenomena which they observed. They were trying to explain the natural world but as we progress and evolve intellectual were realized that their explanation of the natural world is either incoherent or implausible. If human evolution did occurred in this planet then it was evolution which led to the advent of religions as our ancestors gained consciousness they begun to explain their existence by inferring Gods as the ultimate reality behind their existence. Now their Gods where characterized by the nature of the society and they were suspicious like human beings. Their Gods have human emotions depending on the behaviors of people in specific community. If people of a specific community were lust their Gods would be lust as well, if people of that community were very violent their Gods would be violent as well. The Gods of ancient Greek were lust and drunk because ancient Greek were lust and drunkards. The Gods of farming community were fertile and green. Unlike to some people who leave religion and instantly become atheist my case is different from them. I’m a deist who believe that God or the first course of the universe never revealed itself in any scriptural writings. I believe the God who created the universe is a very intelligent God but I don’t believe that he is the one who authored these ancients’ scriptures full of absurd doctrines, myth and teachings. Though science tell us about the physical world I don’t think it explain our existence from A to Z. There are a lot of unanswered questions which science can’t answer such as the origin of the universe, why is there something rather than nothing. This are ultimate questions which ought to be answered but yet there are no answer to this questions. As someone who embrace the philosophy of rationalism, I would be ignorant to jump to a conclusion that universe got no cause while I don’t have good and sufficient reasons to back up the claim. I believe in God because the universe exhibit complexity which I find implausible that the complexity of the universe is due to chance. However, as I stated above that I did not say goodbye to Christianity, I’m willing to retain my faith in God again if I will be confronted with a refutation of my objections against the Christian faith. After all there are highly intellectual people out there who believe in God, and I believe they have reasons for why they believe in their Gods, but as for me with these reasons I really find it hard to believe in God though I want to believe in God. I’m still struggling to believe in God again, I often watch YouTube lecture of Christian philosophers and Christian debate and testimony of those who convert to Christianity.
CONCLUSION
I don’t intend to convert you from your faith but I believe if you are an open-minded person my paper will have an impact in your faith. So friend as I said above that there is nothing that shake the truth, the truth will always stand no matter how much attempt to debunk it. So if the truth will always stand then it’s good to put your faith on a test and assess its truth claims concerning reality, and if your religion is true then obviously it will stand but if your religion is false, your conscience will tell you that you believe in crap though it will hurt you at the beginning, later on it will set you free and you will be freed from lies that confined you and which you carried in your life. But if you are overwhelmed with the fear of hell-fire and you are scared to question your religion as objective as you can because you believe that you are sinning for questioning your God then you are doing nothing but deluding yourselves with lies and false hope of resurrections, eternal peace, and enjoying the fruits in paradise .
I welcome a refutation of my objections against the Christian God.
I'm not a native speaker of English, so you got to expect some grammatical error in my writing but i recommend you to concentrate on the message of this story rather than grammatical errors. Also, this is a letter which i wrote to my Christian friend, so i copied it as it is in my laptop and pasted here.
Dear Friend,
NB: This letter has been revised for several times. I started writing this letter in 2013 early December when I denounce my faith in God, up to this day I continue revising it.
INTRODUCTION
I must say that it’s the role of skepticism which brought me to where I am today. It’s all about being open-minded and open-hearted by being allowing the truth to set me free. Different people in life have different world views trying to explain the same entity. In this regard I’m talking about religions of the world. Someone said that there are about 10 thousands religion in the world in every different culture of people. Though most of polytheistic religions died out throughout the centuries, monotheistic religion still continue to flourish. Christians genuinely believe that their God created the universe and Jesus is the only way to salvation and other Goddess of other religion are false, Muslims genuinely believe that Allah is the only God and Muhammad is the only last prophet who humanity ought to believe in. Ravi Zacharia a noted Christian apologist once said that there are about 4 thousands Gods in Hindu religion, and Hindu also genuinely believe that their thousands of Gods are true and Islam and Christianity is false.
Now if you were born a Hindu you would genuinely believe that those thousands of Goddess do exist and they are real. But if you are a Muslim or Christian you will regard those four thousands Gods of Hindu religion as false. One thing religious people forget is that the same way they view other religions as false, that’s the exact same way other people view their religion too. Each religion is claiming that their God is the ultimate reality behind our existence and unfortunately as we grew up we found ourselves being told by our parents that our religion is true and other religion are false. So we carry this believe and the only thing that we do in adulthood is we defend our religion from skeptics because we were indoctrinated when we were young that our religion is true. But is that rational thing to do? Have you ever try to test your religion in order to know if it’s true or not? Or you just believe that it’s true because your pastor or your parent told you so?
In my opinion the best way of testing your religion is by being rational and objective as possible by asking why you believe in what you believe. This is the ultimate way of knowing whether your world view is true or not by being honest to yourself and appreciating the role of skepticism. Skepticism play an important role in finding the truth by listening to skeptics who critic your religious view. There is nothing that shake the truth, the truth will always stand no matter how much attempt to debunk it. So if the truth will always stand then it’s good to put the a world view on test and assess its truth claim concerning reality, if that world view is true then obviously it will stand but if that world view is false, it will fail though it will hurt you at the beginning but later on it will set you free and you will be freed from lies that confined you in your life. However if you are not open to the truth and keep rejecting the role of skepticism then you are deluding yourself and you are wasting your time, money, energy and resources which you spend advocating your world view since you don’t have any reason why you believe in what you believe.
This is what I did as a Christian, I appreciated the role of skepticism and begin to ask myself deepest questions such as why am I a Christian? How do I know that Christianity is true? How do I know that other religions and world views are false? That’s when I begun to assess the truth claims of Christianity as objective as possible. And after 7 mouth of examining my faith, I came to the end of the rope and renounced my faith in Christianity because I believe there are very good reasons for thinking that Christianity is false just like any other religion.
The following are some of the reasons that I have for thinking that Christianity is false. I encourage you to take away the fear of hell-fire as you read this paper and put yourself in the shoes of someone who is assessing the faith as rational as you can by being objective as possible. Don’t be partial on your faith nor on the objections against your faith rather be impartial on both your faith and the objections against your faith. By so doing is the best way of truly assessing the truth claim of your religion. With that said, lest look at the followings reasons that I have for thinking that Christianity is false.
THE MAIN PROBLEM WITH CHRISTIANITY
BIBLICAL INERRENCIES
Noah’s ark
When I grew up I genuinely believe that the event of Noah’s Ark really happened and there was a worldwide flood and Noah took every animal species in his ark. Most Christian believed that this event really happen and it’s a historical event. But I believe any Christian who believe that Noah’s ark was a historical event had not came across with serious objection against Noah’s ark. I also use to believe in Noah’s Ark until when I come across with some serious objections against Noah’s Ark which led me to abandon the belief in Noah’s Ark. One of the argument against Noah’s ark is the number of animal’s species. According to Ernest Mayr American leading taxonomist said that there are over 1 million species of animal in the world and some of these animal’s lives only in specific geographic area and they are not found in any other part of the world. Geographically ancient Hebrew lived in Israel present day (middle-east).
The first question is what happened to animals which are only find in southern of Africa, Australia and Americas ( south and North ) ? Did Noah put on board animals which lived only in South America and Southern Africa? Animals like Kangaroo never lived in Middle East, up to today there is no fossil of Kangaroo in the Middle East, the only continent we can find fossil of Kangaroo is in Australia, now did Noah traveled to Australia to load Kangaroo on his ark also? If yes, where in the Bible is it written? Do we think about this things or we just turn a blind eye on it and ignore it? How could I believe this event as historical while there is no enough evidence to support it and on contrary there are good reasons to falsify it? Do people accept this story on historical basis or on the basis of faith? And if we are to accept this event on the basis of faith, I think that will become even more problematic since the Bible itself claim that this event was factual. Some Christians who are aware of the fact that Noah story is a myth would say that the Christian faith is predicated on the basis of Jesus resurrection not on Noah’s story. While it’s true that the Christian faith is based on Jesus resurrections but it’s also very important to point out that Jesus was a Creationist too. Jesus himself believed in this story of Noah.
I remember in one of my online debate with an theist he brought up the story of Noah’s ark and I tried to get away with it by claiming that Noah’s story is irreverent to the truth of Christian faith but I was stumped when he said that Jesus was a creationist too I couldn't get away with it. Jesus whom Christians predicated their faith on also believed in Noah’s story. Christian such as Young Earth Creationist (Christian who belief that God created the universe in 6 literal days and the universe is less than 10 thousands years old) have attempt to reconcile this errors but failed badly. Even If there is evidence for worldwide flood that doesn't imply that the story of Noah’s Ark is a historical factual event because there is no way Noah’s could have put all land animals and aquatic animals from various geographical area from different part of world in one wooden Ark. There are a lot of animals which are not found in middle-east where Noah’s live so what happened to those animals did Noah’s put those animals in his ark too? What creationist and other Christians who believe in Noah’s ark tend to do is that they ignore the evidence and discovery in the field of science like for modern cosmologist and astrophysics. The big bang theory is accepted in the mainstream science including Christian Scientist as well. In fact William Lane Craig who is regarded by many as the leading Christian defender also accept the Big Bang theory. He uses the big bang in his Kalam Cosmological argument for existence of God.
Should we say that scientist are wrong and that the big bang never actual occurred and that the universe was literal created in 6 days? As far as I know it science an objective and independent field grounded on evidence not on dogma like religion. So to sum up my argument, I would say that if you accept the Noah story, I believe you do so on the basis of faith not evidence but there is a lack evidence to support Noah’s event thus, there are good evidence to demonstrate that Noah story is false.
For more information on why I think Noah story is false, I recommend you to watch this recent debate between a renown Young Earth Creationist Ken Ham and an atheist Bill Nye : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6kgvhG3AkI
THE HISTORICITY OF SYNOPTIC GOSPELS
I grew up without knowing historicity of the synoptic gospels. In my childhood I had an idea that the gospels were authentic and the named associated to the gospels were actual authors of this gospels. I though the gospel of Mark was written by the disciple Mark, Matthew was written by the disciple Matthew, Luke was written by the disciple Luke, and John was written was written by the disciple John. I was very shocked when I found out that Luke, Mathew, Mark and John were not the actual authors of the gospels. In the original manuscripts the heading of these Gospels read as follow “ THE GOSPLE ACCORDING TO MARK, LUKE, MATTHEW OR JOHN” the heading itself implies that the author of the gospel is writing what Mark, Luke, John and Matthew told him or what he heard from these four disciple. That’s why the word “ACCORDING” is appearing in the heading. Now this is universal accepted by all Bible scholars that these four authors attributed to these four gospel actual never wrote the gospels themselves. One of the proof of this is in Gospel of Luke 1:1-2, The author of the gospel of Luke open his gospel with the following statement and it reads:
“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of this things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first eye were witness”.
Now if the Gospel of Luke was written by the Apostle Luke, why is the text saying that many have written up an account of Jesus and handed to us? Luke supposed to be the eye witness of all the life events of Jesus but who are these eye witness who handed down the account of Jesus to him? This is one of the example to show that the authors of these gospel were not the first eye witness. Now after for a while I was troubled with authenticity of this gospels because I understood that the gospels are historical document written in ancient times just like any other historical document so there has to be some errors. I did not pay attention to some contradictions in the gospels because I was concentrating to the person of Jesus which is his miraculous birth, divine claim, the crucifixion and the resurrection.
However though I believed that the gospel provide us with the picture of the historical Jesus I think it’s very important to point out some errors in the gospels. In the gospels of Matthew 22: 52-23 it say that after the resurrection of Jesus the dead saints rose from the dead and they were walking in the street of Jerusalem, the passage read as follows: The tomb broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs and after Jesus’s resurrection they went into the holy city appeared to many people. Now this passage has been universal rejected by scholars including noted Christian scholars and apologist like William Lane Craig and Craig Evens. All scholars agree that the passage is an invention and if the author of Mark invented passage like this what else did he invented? The reason why scholar believe that the passage is an invention is crystal clear that this is a pure apologetic motive invented to persuade first century reader that the resurrection of Jesus was witnessed by all people in Jerusalem and it was accompanied by dead saints. Now, when you read the Pauline letters and books of Acts you will noticed that the disciple were persecuted in Jerusalem, and the Jewish did not believed in the resurrection of Jesus. So if the passage is true, the resurrection of Jesus was accompanied by dead saints then why did the Jews who were in Jerusalem disbelieved in the resurrection of Jesus, if they also witnessed his resurrection and that of the saints?
If you were born in Iraq or Pakistan were about 98% of population are Muslims surely you will be a Muslim by now. Our parental beliefs play an important role in what we belief as we grow. In summary, I would say that though this gospels provide us with a the historical Jesus it’s very important to keep in mind that before the gospels were written in ink they were passed orally for number of years and obviously there would be some addition or missing part in the story which was passed orally for a number of years. Example if the gospel of John was written around 70 AD as scholar speculate then obviously it’s not a reliable document because Jesus died around 33 AD and from 33 AD to 70 AD is a period of 37 years which is a very long period of years. Surely In those period of 37 years there has been some addition or missing information from the story of the gospel of John.
PROBLEM WITH THE CONCEPT OF SALVATION
The doctrine of Christian salvation say that only those who believe and accept Jesus as the son of God would have eternal life. Those who don’t believe in Jesus will go to hell since according to the Christian faith there are only two final places in the afterlife which is hell and heaven. In the gospel of Mark 16:15-16 Jesus said those who don’t believe in him will be damned the passage reads as follow:
"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned".Now everyday hundreds of thousands of babies are being born by non-believer parents such as atheist parents, Hindu parents and Muslims parent and their parental believes will have an influence in the beliefs of their babies as they becomes adults. Now you are a Christian because you were born in a Christian country, Christian community and by Christian parents. If you were born in Iraq or Pakistan were about 98% of population are Muslims surely you will be a Muslim by now. Our parental beliefs play an important role in what we belief as we grow. It’s very unusual for Bill graham son to become an atheist and it’s very unusual for Richard Dawkins son to become a Christian. Now the most difficult question arises which is what happen to 10 and 13 years old babies who die while they are being raised by their parents who are unbelievers? Do they go to hell fire or they go to heaven? Now if they go to hell, is it their fault to be born by parents who are non-believer? Why would God sent them to hell as if it was their choice to be born by parents who are un-believer? In addition to this, in history there are some good people who live a peaceful life and had contributed to world peace. Let’s take a good example of people like Gandhi who spend his entire life fighting a peaceful struggle for the freedom of his people. Gandhi, rejected alcohol, violent, left his riches behind and lived in a very poor house with other poor people, stopped wearing expensive clothes to wore very simple clothes, eat simple food, later in life abstained himself from sexual intercourse from his own wife. Now according to the Christian doctrine of salvation people like Gandhi are in hell fire burning simply because they rejected the Christian God while on earth they lived a peaceful life. While a murder, rapist, or a tyrant who ask for salvation while in his deathbed would allowed to enter heaven.
Really?
The other problem which I have with the Christian doctrine of salvation is that if hell exist, a large number of people are perishing in hell fire each an everyday. According to the CIA world facts out of the 7 billion people who inhabit the earth 31 percent of them are Christians and the other 69% consist of non-Christians such as Muslims, Hindu, Jewish and atheist. Now if Christianity is true then all that 69% of non-Christian would perish in hell-fire. And this rises the questions as to why would God create the universe in which only a few number of people who would believe in him and let the majority of people to perish in hell fire for eternity just because they disbelieved in Jesus? Though I’m a limited in my human-mind I don’t think this doctrine make sense or rational. This is clearly a human made doctrine. Is that the purpose of humanity? Did God created human being so that at the end of our lives some will have eternal life and some will be condemned in hell-fire for the rest of their lives? Is that it?
Some Christian apologist like Frank Turek the founder of cross examined ministry argued that God created us with freewill therefore it depend on us weather to embrace him or reject. Those who reject God separate themselves from him in eternity and God would not force them against their will to be with him in eternity. Now to be objective as possible I think the interpretation of Christian like Frank Turek make sense to me because if the Christian God does exist then those who reject him do that on their own accountability. However the problem still stand, as to why would God create humanity and out of 100 of human beings only 31 percent of them will believe in him and the rest of 69 percent will burn in hell. Why did God created people whom he knew that they will reject him in life? Why does God allow people to be born to unbeliever while he knew that unbelievers would influence their kids to be an unbeliever as well? In fact you and I if we were born in Pakistan or Iraq today we would be devote Muslims or if we were born in India today we would be devote Hindu who have no idea about Jesus and the gospel. We would see Christianity in the same way we see them. We see them as lost people and their religions are false, but it’s very important to keep in mind that they also see us in the same exact way we see them. Hindu, Muslims and Buddhist see us who believe in Christianity as lost people and have a false believe.
Another problem I have with the Christian doctrine of salvation is up today we don’t know what will happen to people who are mental ill. I remember in church asking the preacher as to what will happen to those people who are born mental ill and never had chance of receiving the gospel. The preacher responded by saying that most of the people who are mental it’s their fault because they messed up with their lives and they ruined their chance of being presented with the gospel. The preacher further said that we should not question things about such nature. Just think about it, are our brothers, sisters, mother and fathers who are mental ill going to hell-fire? Some of these people became mental ill before they reached puberty.
So to sum up I would end with the following questions, Did Yahweh created heaven for only those who will believe in him and hell-fire for those who will not believe in him? Is that the ultimate purpose of humanity? Some to have eternal life and other to burn for eternity? Is that the reason for human existence?
THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING AND THE CHRISTIAN GOD
This is main problem which caused doubt in the belief of a personal God. The attribute of a Christian God is all-loving, all powerful, and all-knowing, all good and all merciful but when you look at the suffering and evil which is happening in the world it’s hard for one to believe that the universe was created by an all-powerful, all loving and all-knowing God. When I was a born-again Christian I tried to seek answer as why do God allow evil and sufferings? I must say that up to this days there is no plausible nor convincing answer from top leading theologian as why an all-powerful, all loving and all-knowing God would allow evil and suffering. Most Christian whom I know said that God is not responsible for the suffering and evil which is happening in the world right now. Before I give reasons why I think suffering and evil disapprove a personal God let me first distinguish two type of suffering which is natural evil (evil which is naturally) and moral evil ( evil which is caused by human beings). I would perhaps agree with a Christian who argue that God is not responsible for moral evil since it’s the act of human beings themselves to rape, kill, torture and steal. I would agree with a Christian that God is not the one who sent a man to rape and I think it would be unfair to blame God for the evil which man does. However when it comes to natural evil such as earth quakes, tornadoes, drought, diseases, and hurricanes and flood surely God is the one to be blame. Each year many people die from natural disasters and diseases.
The environmental News services stated the following:
- Just in 2011 alone natural disaster claimed over 295 thousands live worldwide.
- 950 natural disaster were recorded
- The average losses was estimated around US$ 130 billion
- The most devastating earth quake was Haiti earth quake which claimed over 220 thousand of live
- Pakistan flood affected over 20 million people and most of them lost their possession.
According to World Health Organization listed the following figures
- 33.3 millions of people are living with HIV/AIDS
- 2.7 million new infection of HIV/AIDS
- 2 million death from HIV/AIDS
- 1.7 million death from TB
- 9.4 million new infections each year
- 1.6 million die from pneumococcal disease each year
- Each year 7.6 million people die from cancer
- More than a half of pneumococcal disease victims are children
Now with all this amount of suffering which is happening in the world how could one argue that the world was created by an all loving, all powerful, and all knowing God? There is an apparent contradiction between an all loving God and the amount of suffering going on in the world. There are attempts out there from Christian philosophers and Theologian like William Lane Craig and Alvin Plantinga. They argued that there is no explicit contradiction between God and evil. Craig argued that God had moral sufficient reason for permitting the evil and suffering which is happening in the world and that God and evil are logically compatible with each other. Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwo4Zq-CyFs
On a TV debate between Michael ( an atheist professor ) who is a cognitive scientist at Yale University VS William Lane Craig , the moderator asked Craig as why does a loving God and merciful God allow evil , pain and suffering, Craig responded as follow: “There isn’t a single reason Michael rather there is a multitudes of reason which will be in play here, one would be that God want to create the world of free creatures who can be came responsible moral agents and mature persons and that would require a world that operate according to certain natural laws where the fire that warm you can also burn you, the water that sustain you can also drown you and it will require the ability of this creatures to do certain moral evil acts so creating that sort of arena I think it’s going to allow the possibility of natural suffering and moral evil to occur but God permit this ( suffering and evil ) with an overall goal in mind of bring people freely into a knowledge of himself and to eternal salvation. So we got to get away from the idea that were are God’s pet and his goal is to create a nice little environment for his human pets at least on Christianity that false”. In other words what William Lane Craig is saying here is that God allow the suffering and evil in order to bring people into a loving relationship with him and to eternal life. So if there was no suffering and evil people would not believe in God so God uses suffering and evil as a tool to bring people to believe in him. During the debate Michael attacked the Christian concept of God which is all loving , all knowing and all powerful by saying that the Christian God is incompatible with genuine evil and suffering which is happening in the world. Craig brought up Alvin Plantinga argument by saying the following: “We need to understand what an atheist is arguing here is he arguing that God and suffering are logical incompatible with each other if he is then he need to show us that there are implicit contradiction there because there is no explicit contradiction and I would say no atheist has ever been able sustained that burden of proof”.
This argument is a philosophical argument deliberately developed by Plantinga to stump the objection of evil and suffering but this argument does not offer sufficient reason as to how can a loving God be compatible with genuine suffering and evil.
You can watch a full lecture on problem of evil and suffering by Professor William Lane Craig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q5zQC2BEVY
Many people of different religion and worldview tried to explain the reasons for suffering and evil but none of them offered us any plausible reason as to why there is a genuine evil and suffering in the world. In fact even Jesus himself could not offer a valid reasons as to why God allow evil and suffering, in the gospel of John we read the story when the disciple asked Jesus as to why the man was born blind and Jesus responded by saying that the blindness of that man was engineered by God so that Jesus would perform healing miracle on him. Here is the passage: "And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered, neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him". But noticed that the question was on suffering and evil in the world. Surely God incarnate could’ve given a more plausible answer to explain why God allow evil and suffering in the world than the answer which Jesus gave. The answer is not satisfying, I think they were expecting answers as to why God allow evil and suffering in the world.
I remember in January of 2014 I had a discussion with my mother who is a Roman Catholic concerning the euthanasia of children in Belgium. She was opposing euthanasia as being inhuman practice but when I asked her as to what is the reason and purpose of little children living a painful live for the rest of their lives? The answer she gave amazed me, she said that those who are suffering they are suffering with Jesus. They are not alone Jesus is with them in their suffering.
Now if God is with us in our suffering should we now say that both humanity and God are mourning and crying in pain? Can a God who created this universe suffer from the pain and suffering which he created? Perhaps God is a bystander who fold his hands and watch humanity as we suffer from genuine evil.
Imagine how depressed and the agony of this man, how could one argue that there is a loving God out there who care for human beings? Does this man look like the product of a loving and merciful God? Or simply a product of chance and randomness?
I remember in my born-again church there was a small boy maybe 16-17 years old of age who was deaf. Whenever we had a church services he had to look for someone to translate for him in sign language what the pastor was preaching. Sometimes we use to have miracles healing programs were the sick would be healed but after every program the boy could not be healed. Everyone in the church knew the condition which the boy had. Now what’s worse is that the boy was a born-again Christian who gave his life to Jesus? He use to attend most of the church services and program but why can’t an all-power and loving God heal that boy so he could listen properly to the Gospel of Jesus? In the gospel of Matthew 7-11 Jesus said that people should ask and they shall receive the passage reads as follows:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
How many people do we know in our churches who are mental ill and physical disable but hoping for a miracle which will never occur? How many prayers did we prayed hoping that they would be heal but yet nothing happen some have even given up their hope.
In September of 2013 while I was still a born again Christian, I remember going to visit my brother who is a nurse at the hospital, on my way there I passed through the corridor which separate the mortuary and nurses houses. As I passed near the mortuary I found two mortuary attendance having a conversation blaming the pastors for the death of 3 Christians who belong to the pastor church because they refused to take their ARV (HIV medication) and they believed that the power of God would heal them. Unfortunately for them they died from AIDS. Now as Christian I was confused and I asked myself questions as to how could God allow this to happen. In Gospels we read Jesus saying that ask with faith and you shall receive but in reality we don’t see this.
One of the ten commandment in Exodus 20:12 say that if we are to honor our parents we will have a long-life. Here is the passage: Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. How many good people out there who have respect for their parent but yet they die young? How many evil and wicked people out there who disrespect their parents but yet they do live a long life? Can this commandment come from the God who created the universe?
Now it’s easy for a person who is living a healthy life and having a healthy family to say that God knows why he allow evil and suffering but keep in mind that there are people and families out there who are living in horror. Each and everyday pain and suffering is what they have to deal with their children’s are starving to death because they don’t have food to eat, some children are orphans because their parents died from natural disasters. What strikes me a lot is when I see children under the age of 13 years going through a severe suffering? Children are little people who don’t understand how the world operate and they depend on other people for their survival but when I see a baby born with cancer and by the age of 4 years the cancer will kill the baby, is there any meaning and purpose in the life of that baby? She was born in pain, lived a painful life and died a painful death, is that the purpose of that baby? We live in the world where people are experiencing terrible amount of suffering, innocent people like baby dying from terrible and painful diseases, natural disaster like flood and earthquakes claims hundreds of thousands lives every year, each and everyday people are killing each other. With this high amount of evil and suffering how may one argue that the universe was created by an all-loving, all-knowing, all-powerful God who cares for humanity? If the universe was created by an all-knowing, all-powerful, and all loving God then he is contradicting himself because the world that we live in and what we observe doesn’t seem like a creation of an all-power, all-loving, all-knowing God.
I would say that in this world where there are bacteria, virus, natural disasters, psychopathic people, thugs, gangsters, jealous, hatred, envy and angers it’s obvious to expect suffering and evil but this is not the product of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving God. In life some would be lucky and they would live a long healthy happiness life but some would be unfortunate that they will only live a short span of life full of suffering. We found ourselves in this terrible world where our beloved ones face a terrible suffering and we are broken psychological, physical and emotional. Each one of us is having a burden which we are carrying and we look forward to be relived from our burden.
In conclusion I would say that if the Christian God exist its either he is a bystanders who suffer with us in every tabulation we go through and he cannot do anything to solve the situation or he is a monster who enjoy and fold his hand and watch as humanity suffer from the evil and suffering which inflicted us for thousands of years but we shouldn’t come up with nonsense claiming that we were created by an all loving, all powerful, all good, all knowing , and all merciful God because the world in which we found ourselves don’t look like creation of an all loving God, all merciful, all knowing God
THE INCOHERENT AND INCONSISTENCY OF THE GOD OF THE BIBLE
The third problem I have with Christianity is the concept of God himself as described in the Bible. Trinitarian Christian believe that God consist of three persons namely; Jesus, Holy Spirit and Yahweh. Three persons but one God and the same God who divide himself in three persons.
Now the problem I have with this concept is that the God of the Testament who is supposedly the same God of the New Testament is almost completely different the God from the New Testament. The character of Yahweh is different from that of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament the character of Yahweh is portrayed as angrily, harsh, and genocidal. In the Old Testament Yahweh commanded the stoning of death, the genocidal of Canaanites, the destruction of Egyptian soldiers in the red sea and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah by fire. Now when you look at the God of the New Testament he is completely different from Yahweh, he is peaceful, loving, forgiving and compassionate. In the New Testament we find God amending the stoning of women, forbidding causing pain to others, he encouraged non-violence, he encouraged loving of enemies. I can’t say much about the Holy Spirit since the Holy Spirit is not mentioned a lot in the New Testament but I would say that the Holy Spirit reassembly the character and nature of Jesus.
Now the problem with this is crystal clear, in the Bible we find God who change often, in the Old Testament we find him allowing the stoning of women but in the New Testament we found him forbidding the stoning of women. In the Old Testament we find him commanding people to kill Canaanite including their children but in the New Testament we find him forbidding the killing of anyone.
Now when you read the Bible you found the same God claiming that “He is the same today, tomorrow and forever he never change. Here is the passages: Malachi 3:6 "For I am the LORD, I do not change”; Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
To sum-up how can one reconcile this illogic concept of God? We all know that the God we found in the Old Testament is different from the God we found in the New Testament but yet that same God is one. Though the Christian God claim that he never change we found him changing often in the Bible.
SUMMARY OF MY BELIEF ABOUT GOD
- He does not answer prayer
- He gave us reason not scriptures
- If he intervene with humanity, he operate with nature
- He gave us morality and we are born with it.
WHERE I STAND NOW
Leaving a religion is the most difficult steps to take in life it’s not easy it require soul searching and deep meditations but the end of my journey is a wonderful ending setting me free. Religion is something which is rooted in ancient times and the ancients were primitives. Each ancient civilization invented their own God as the explanation for their existence or phenomena which they observed. They were trying to explain the natural world but as we progress and evolve intellectual were realized that their explanation of the natural world is either incoherent or implausible. If human evolution did occurred in this planet then it was evolution which led to the advent of religions as our ancestors gained consciousness they begun to explain their existence by inferring Gods as the ultimate reality behind their existence. Now their Gods where characterized by the nature of the society and they were suspicious like human beings. Their Gods have human emotions depending on the behaviors of people in specific community. If people of a specific community were lust their Gods would be lust as well, if people of that community were very violent their Gods would be violent as well. The Gods of ancient Greek were lust and drunk because ancient Greek were lust and drunkards. The Gods of farming community were fertile and green. Unlike to some people who leave religion and instantly become atheist my case is different from them. I’m a deist who believe that God or the first course of the universe never revealed itself in any scriptural writings. I believe the God who created the universe is a very intelligent God but I don’t believe that he is the one who authored these ancients’ scriptures full of absurd doctrines, myth and teachings. Though science tell us about the physical world I don’t think it explain our existence from A to Z. There are a lot of unanswered questions which science can’t answer such as the origin of the universe, why is there something rather than nothing. This are ultimate questions which ought to be answered but yet there are no answer to this questions. As someone who embrace the philosophy of rationalism, I would be ignorant to jump to a conclusion that universe got no cause while I don’t have good and sufficient reasons to back up the claim. I believe in God because the universe exhibit complexity which I find implausible that the complexity of the universe is due to chance. However, as I stated above that I did not say goodbye to Christianity, I’m willing to retain my faith in God again if I will be confronted with a refutation of my objections against the Christian faith. After all there are highly intellectual people out there who believe in God, and I believe they have reasons for why they believe in their Gods, but as for me with these reasons I really find it hard to believe in God though I want to believe in God. I’m still struggling to believe in God again, I often watch YouTube lecture of Christian philosophers and Christian debate and testimony of those who convert to Christianity.
CONCLUSION
I don’t intend to convert you from your faith but I believe if you are an open-minded person my paper will have an impact in your faith. So friend as I said above that there is nothing that shake the truth, the truth will always stand no matter how much attempt to debunk it. So if the truth will always stand then it’s good to put your faith on a test and assess its truth claims concerning reality, and if your religion is true then obviously it will stand but if your religion is false, your conscience will tell you that you believe in crap though it will hurt you at the beginning, later on it will set you free and you will be freed from lies that confined you and which you carried in your life. But if you are overwhelmed with the fear of hell-fire and you are scared to question your religion as objective as you can because you believe that you are sinning for questioning your God then you are doing nothing but deluding yourselves with lies and false hope of resurrections, eternal peace, and enjoying the fruits in paradise .
I welcome a refutation of my objections against the Christian God.
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