Yearly Archives: 2011

God Doesn’t Exist: Christianity Looks Invented

Posted on by

Let me propose this axiom: a human-invented religion will look radically different from the worship of a real god.  That is, human longing for the divine (or human imagination) will cobble together a very poor imitation of the real thing.
Let’s first look at an example in the domain of languages.  Imagine that you’re a linguist and you’re creating a tree of world languages.  Each language should be nearer languages that are related and similar, and it should be farther from those that are dissimilar.  Spanish and Portuguese are next to each other on the tree; add French, Italian, and others and call that the Romance Languages; add other language groups like Germanic, Celtic, and Indic and you get the Indo-European family; and so on.
Here’s your challenge: you have two more languages to fit in.  First, find the spot for English.  It’s pretty easy to see, based on geography, vocabulary, and language structure, that it fits into the Germanic group.  Next, an alien language like a real Klingon or Na’vi.  This one wouldn’t fit in at all and would be unlike every human language.
Now imagine a tree of world religions.  Your challenge is to find the place for Yahweh worship of 1000 BCE.  Is it radically different from all the manmade religions, as unlike manmade religions as the alien language was to human languages?  Or does it fit into the tree comfortably next to the other religions of the Ancient Near East, like English fits nicely into the Germanic group?
You’d expect the worship of the actual creator of the universe to look dramatically different from religions invented by Iron Age tribesmen in Canaan, but religious historians tell us that Yahweh looks similar to other Canaanite deities like Asherah, Baal, Moloch, Astarte, Yam, or Mot.  What could he be but yet another invented god?
Photo credit: Wikipedia
Related posts:

Christian Shenanigans Mar 9/11 Remembrance

Posted on by

Did you hear about the “Miracle Cross”?  It’s a 17-foot-tall piece of rubble found in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.  Out of all that wreckage, it’s not too surprising that the intersection of two beams had broken to make a cross-shaped piece of steel.  It wasn’t even found at the Twin Towers site but rather at 6 World Center, but it has become a religious relic.
The shape could just be a coincidence, or it could be a sign from God.  If the latter, I’m not sure what to make of the fact that the only evidence of God participating was his business card.  In the rubble.  And this evidence of God-not-doing-anything is now highlighted as a holy relic.
Hmm—that it’s just a coincidence is starting to sound a lot better from the standpoint of the Christian.  (But if you want a commemorative two-inch-high statuette of the Miracle Cross, it’s available in handsome pewter for the low, low price of only $12.95.)
Anyway, this cross is now a controversial addition to New York City’s soon-to-be-completed National September 11 Memorial & Museum.
American Atheists and New York City Atheists are suing to have the cross removed.  Their remedy is to return it to St. Peter’s Church, two blocks from Ground Zero, where it had been for the past five years.  Since half of the museum’s financing has been provided by the government, that sounds a lot easier than giving equal time to all the religions that don’t have a cross as their symbol.
There’s another controversy Continue reading →

Creationism Lacks Qualified Spokespeople

Posted on by

David Berlinski, part of the Discovery Institute’s evolution-denial project, recently said about evolution:

That’s not a theory. That’s just a string of wet sponges on a clothesline.

Uh huh.  Here’s (1) a guy who’s not a biologist (2) criticizing a theory in biology (3) that happens to be the scientific consensus.  (4) Overwhelmingly.
Slick packaging and bypassing the scientific process to sow confusion among the public doesn’t change the fact that there’s no argument here.
Wake me up when the scientific consensus changes.  Until then, no layperson has an intellectual warrant for embracing Creationism.

God Doesn’t Exist: Christianity Relies on Indoctrination

Posted on by

What would happen if we categorized Christianity as an adult activity?  It would be like smoking, drinking, voting, driving, sex, and so on—things that you must be mature enough to handle wisely.  This adults-only Christianity would die out within a few generations.
We all have inside us what could be called a “Nonsense Detector”—that common sense that helps us believe as many true things and reject as many false things as possible.  For example, present most American adults with a case for Islam or Hinduism or Sikhism, and they will be extraordinarily unconvinced.
As adults, we’re far better at sifting truth from nonsense than we were as children.  And that’s why Christians must be indoctrinated as children, before their Nonsense Detectors are mature.  This is the idea behind the Jesuit maxim, “Give me a child until the age of seven and I will give you the man.”
I think most Christians would admit this.  Imagine a conversation between the father of a 6-year-old child and the grandmother.

Grandma: “Little Johnny is old enough for me to take to Sunday School now.”

Dad: “You can take him when he’s 18, but I’d prefer he stay out of church until then.”

Grandma: “But 18 is too late!  By then he’ll be set in his ways.  He won’t accept the truth then.”

What kind of “truth” is it that must be taught before people are mature, before their Nonsense Detectors are fully functioning?  Grandma realizes that only before someone’s Nonsense Detector is operating correctly can the beliefs of religion be put into someone’s head.  This is a very poor stand-in for truth.
That Christianity must have access to immature minds to survive is strong evidence that God doesn’t exist.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
Related posts:

God Doesn’t Exist: Historians Reject the Bible Story

Posted on by

You’re probably aware that the person making a claim has the burden of proof.  In the courtroom, for example, the prosecution has the burden of proof.  There are no ties—when neither side makes a convincing case, the side that failed to carry its burden of proof loses.
The same is true for people who claim “God exists”—they have the burden of proof.  That makes it easier for atheists.  But now I want to make a positive claim: that atheism explains reality better than Christianity.
I plan a series of posts making arguments in support of the claim “God doesn’t exist.”  Here’s the first argument: historians reject the Bible story.
You never find the details of the Jesus story in a history book, like you would for Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great.  Why is that?  Why is the Bible not cataloged in the library in the History section?
Christians correctly point out that the historical grounding for the Jesus story has some compelling points.  For example, there are not one but four gospel accounts.  The time gap from original manuscripts to our oldest complete copies is relatively small.  And the number of Bible manuscripts is far greater than those referring to anyone else of that time.
The enormous difficulty, however, is that historians reject miracles—not just in the Bible but consistently in any book that claims to be history.
Remember the story of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon?  The historian Suetonius reported that Julius saw a divine messenger who urged him to cross.  This is the same Suetonius that Christians often point to when citing extra-biblical evidence for the historicity of the Jesus story.
Remember Caesar Augustus, the Roman emperor who reportedly ordered the census that brought Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem?  He was himself divinely conceived, and he ascended into heaven when he died1—or so the stories went.
Everyone knows about  Alexander the Great, but legends about his life grew up in his own time.  Did you hear the one about how the sea bowed in submission during his conquest of the Persian Empire?
Strip away the miracle claims from Julius Caesar or Caesar Augustus or Alexander the Great and you’re left with precisely the story of those leaders that we have in history.  But strip away the miracle claims from the Jesus story, and you have just the story of an ordinary man—a charismatic rabbi, perhaps, but hardly divine.
Christians argue that we should treat the Gospel story like any other biography of the time, and I agree—but I doubt they will like where that takes them.
Photo credit: Wikipedia
1Charles H. Talbert, What is a Gospel? (Mercer University Press, 1985), p. 32.
Other posts in the God Doesn’t Exist series: