Skip to main content

Why?

By WizenedSage (Galen Rose) ~

In a Pew Research poll of 2010, it was found that atheists and agnostics, on average, had a greater knowledge of Christianity than Christians. Apparently, the average Christian doesn’t spend a lot of time reading the Bible or actually thinking about his religion.

This is written to help Christians to examine their religion more closely. Of course most Christians will stop reading at this point, thinking that to question their faith is a sin against god. I contend that to avoid thinking is a very regressive and foolish policy. After all, thinking is what got us out of the caves and into houses, and – if you wish - out of false ancient religions and into modern ones. If god and/or nature gave us brains, then surely we were meant to use them.

Through my own study of Christianity, I have arrived at 5 questions about Jesus that seem to me to present very serious logical problems for Christianity. Surely there are other very good questions, but I think these will serve our purpose as well as any.

I have read quite a lot of Christian apologetics and never found compelling pro-Christian answers to any of these questions. Perhaps the Christian reader can do better? Or, wouldn’t it be interesting to ask your pastor these questions?

These questions might be thought of as the elephants in the room of Christian theology; the elephants that Christians don’t seem to notice – or if they do, don’t want to think about.

1) Why did Jesus wait thousands of years to appear on this earth?

Anthropologists tell us that modern man has been on the earth for roughly 200,000 years. Christian evolution-deniers would counter with 6 to 8 thousand years. Either way, mankind was struggling to survive and understand his purpose in the world for many thousands of years before Jesus arrived. That means man was worshipping false gods, and living by and killing each other over false rituals and moral teachings for thousands of years before Jesus finally came down to set them straight and give direction and purpose to their lives. Essentially then, didn’t Jesus just write off all those generations of humans as not particularly important? Is this what we should expect from a compassionate, loving god?

2) Why did Jesus appear only once, and only to the Jews in Israel?

Why didn’t Jesus also appear to the humans of other parts of the world? Because he didn’t, thousands of older, false religions continued to direct the lives of millions of people, and some still do. Also, Jesus never came back to head off the influence of Mohammed and now there are over a billion zealous followers of Islam in the world – and Islam is growing faster than Christianity. Doesn’t it seem like Jesus made it extremely unlikely that all the world’s people will one day understand that Jesus is the way, the one and only savior?

Some Christians might argue that Muslims have only themselves to blame for not accepting the message of Jesus. But, consider for a moment that nearly all Muslims were born into and grew up in Islamic families and cultures and have heard virtually nothing about Christianity. For most of them, to consider that their religion is false is a sin punishable by a ticket to hell. Moreover, most predominantly Islamic nations punish apostasy (renouncing Islam); in 13 countries, leaving Islam calls for the death penalty. Thus, there are extremely powerful incentives for Muslims to embrace Islam throughout their lives.

3) Why did Jesus repeatedly predict the apocalypse which never happened?

There are at least 5 passages in the New Testament where Jesus clearly prophesizes that the end of the world would come soon (Matt 10:23, Mark 13:30, Mark 9:1, Mark 14:62, Matt. 16:28). Some apologists like to argue that, to a god, 2,000 years could be like a few days to us, but that is irrelevant. The Bible was written for the instruction of man, and no normal man would think that “soon” could mean 2000 years later. Anyone hearing Jesus’ words would obviously interpret “soon” to mean within a few years at most. In fact, this is corroborated by Jesus’ words in Mark 13:30: “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away before all these things take place.” That generation passed away nearly 2,000 years ago now, and still no apocalypse.

All the available evidence suggests that Jesus was just plain wrong and that he had no idea when the world would end. We have all seen cartoons of the white-robed, sandaled, long-haired, bearded young man standing on a soapbox holding up a “The End is Nigh!” sign. Now, was Jesus really any different?

4) Why is Jesus so accepting of hell?

In western prisons, torture is forbidden. You can hold prisoners and keep them away from the rest of society, but you don’t torture these helpless people; that is deemed “cruel and unusual punishment.” Doesn’t it seem like, in this instance at least, western governments are more compassionate than Jesus?Jesus is portrayed in much of the Bible as a forgiving figure of surpassing kindness and sympathy for the human condition. Yet, Jesus seems to have no problem at all accepting that his father (or himself?) created a torture facility meant for the eternal torment of most humans following their earthly death (“…narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. (Matt. 7:143))

Some apologists are fond of arguing that Jesus doesn’t send people to hell, they send themselves to hell. But I’m not talking about who does the sending, I’m talking about the fact that a hell was created in the first place. Obviously, if there’s really a hell, then it was designed with the express purpose of torturing humans. So who was the designer and builder? Interestingly, there is no mention in the Bible that hell was meant for rehabilitation of sinners. No, there is no rehabilitation, just one-size-fits-all eternal punishment. Modern prisons in the western world at least claim to be aimed at rehabilitation of prisoners.

In western prisons, torture is forbidden. You can hold prisoners and keep them away from the rest of society, but you don’t torture these helpless people; that is deemed “cruel and unusual punishment.” Doesn’t it seem like, in this instance at least, western governments are more compassionate than Jesus?

5) Why did Jesus never write anything?

Everything we know or think we know about Jesus comes to us second-hand (or 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc.). This is for the simple reason that Jesus, as far as anyone has ever been able to discover, never wrote anything down. The story of Jesus and his philosophy was written by others, and in most cases we don’t even know who those others were, or anything about their reputations for veracity. And, they freely admit in their writings to having a pro-Jesus agenda.

Doesn’t it seem odd that the most important message ever transmitted to mankind came second-hand? According to New Testament scripture, that Jesus did thus and such, and said this and that, are merely claims by others. Jesus never testified on his own behalf. Thus, everything you have ever heard about Jesus is just hearsay; the kind of evidence that is almost never admitted in court proceedings. Don’t you find that a bit troubling?

According to scripture, Jesus’ followers often called him “Rabbi,” and Rabbis have traditionally been educated, literate men. So, doesn’t it make sense that Jesus was capable of writing if he wished to. And besides, does it make any sense at all that a god could be illiterate?

In part because Jesus never wrote anything, there are many historians and biblical scholars who don’t believe there ever was a real Jesus. They think the whole Jesus story is mere myth, and some have compelling arguments supporting their claims. If there was even a small fragment of writing that could be traced to Jesus, we would at least know that Jesus really existed. As it is, not only his miracles, but even his very existence has come to be questioned among learned men. Doesn’t this seem like a sloppy way to instruct people on the most important matters in their lives?

Conclusion

Perhaps none of these questions is sufficiently damning in itself to cause one to jettison his religion, but, taken together, they clearly make a case that should be considered seriously. Unfortunately, most Christians are careful to avoid any sort of discussion which calls their religion into question. They’ve made up their minds and that’s that.

Some Christians will say that we shouldn’t expect to be able to understand Jesus’ ways. But, if we refuse to think about difficult religious questions, then how are we to judge which religions make sense? The MINIMUM REQUIREMENT for believability of any god should be whether it makes sense to us. How else are we to disqualify the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Ganesh, the Hindu god with the head of an elephant? And, as far as understanding Jesus’ ways, shouldn’t we expect that Jesus could and should make sense to us if he expects us to believe?

Remember, if all a jury ever heard was the prosecution’s arguments, with no defense, then every defendant would be judged guilty. Ignoring the arguments of the other side is not only intellectually dishonest, but can be dangerous to the truth . . . and one’s peace of mind.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

So Just How Dumb Were Jesus’ Disciples? The Resurrection, Part VII.

By Robert Conner ~ T he first mention of Jesus’ resurrection comes from a letter written by Paul of Tarsus. Paul appears to have had no interest whatsoever in the “historical” Jesus: “even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, we know him so no longer.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:16 ) Paul’s surviving letters never once mention any of Jesus’ many exorcisms and healings, the raising of Lazarus, or Jesus’ virgin birth, and barely allude to Jesus’ teaching. For Paul, Jesus only gets interesting after he’s dead, but even here Paul’s attention to detail is sketchy at best. For instance, Paul says Jesus “was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” ( 1 Corinthians 15:4 ), but there are no scriptures that foretell the Jewish Messiah would at long last appear only to die at the hands of Gentiles, much less that the Messiah would then be raised from the dead after three days. After his miraculous conversion on the road to Damascus—an event Paul never mentions in his lette

ACTS OF GOD

By David Andrew Dugle ~   S ettle down now children, here's the story from the Book of David called The Parable of the Bent Cross. In the land Southeast of Eden –  Eden, Minnesota that is – between two rivers called the Big Miami and the Little Miami, in the name of Saint Gertrude there was once built a church. Here next to it was also built a fine parochial school. The congregation thrived and after a multitude of years, a new, bigger church was erected, well made with clean straight lines and a high steeple topped with a tall, thin cross of gold. The faithful felt proud, but now very low was their money. Their Sunday offerings and school fees did not suffice. Anon, they decided to raise money in an unclean way. One fine summer day the faithful erected tents in the chariot lot between the two buildings. In the tents they set up all manner of games – ring toss, bingo, little mechanical racing horses and roulette wheels – then all who lived in the land between the two rivers we

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

Why I left the Canadian Reformed Church

By Chuck Eelhart ~ I was born into a believing family. The denomination is called Canadian Reformed Church . It is a Dutch Calvinistic Christian Church. My parents were Dutch immigrants to Canada in 1951. They had come from two slightly differing factions of the same Reformed faith in the Netherlands . Arriving unmarried in Canada they joined the slightly more conservative of the factions. It was a small group at first. Being far from Holland and strangers in a new country these young families found a strong bonding point in their church. Deutsch: Heidelberger Katechismus, Druck 1563 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I was born in 1955 the third of eventually 9 children. We lived in a small southern Ontario farming community of Fergus. Being young conservative and industrious the community of immigrants prospered. While they did mix and work in the community almost all of the social bonding was within the church group. Being of the first generation born here we had a foot in two

Morality is not a Good Argument for Christianity

By austinrohm ~ I wrote this article as I was deconverting in my own head: I never talked with anyone about it, but it was a letter I wrote as if I was writing to all the Christians in my life who constantly brought up how morality was the best argument for Christianity. No Christian has read this so far, but it is written from the point of view of a frustrated closeted atheist whose only outlet was organizing his thoughts on the keyboard. A common phrase used with non-Christians is: “Well without God, there isn’t a foundation of morality. If God is not real, then you could go around killing and raping.” There are a few things which must be addressed. 1. Show me objective morality. Define it and show me an example. Different Christians have different moral standards depending on how they interpret the Bible. Often times, they will just find what they believe, then go back into scripture and find a way to validate it. Conversely, many feel a particular action is not