Christianity is Probably False

Thanks Chest. Rebuttal to C1: It Exists Here Con argues Christianity wouldn’t exist unless Jesus rose from the grave. Con agrees that a religion can exist even when its founder dies, but says with Christianity, it was necessary for Jesus to come back or else it wouldn’t have strived. However, Con’s only justification for this was either from the bible or a bare assertion. Rendering his argument a case of circular reasoning. Even if I were to accept the assertion that Jesus needed to come back in order to for Christianity to survive, I can still account for that without appealing to Christianity. It would be a much more parsimonious to claim a wizard brought Jesus back from the grave because he was a fan of most of his teachings or a type of alien race. Although unlikely, it’s simpler than claiming the entire Christian religion is true. Something slightly more plausible, but unlikely scenario is that Jesus survived. Richard Carrier calculated the odds of this being true and came up with “0.000147363, or 0.015%--roughly 1 chance in 6800” [1]. However, Carrier concludes Even if there were only 1 chance in 68,000 of survival accounting for the evidence, that would still be good enough a chance to discount any miraculous explanation. For who needs to resort to "miracles" to account for what can occur even once in 68,000 times under the same conditions? …..You might as well use a royal flush in a local poker game as proof of God's divine might…I do not mean to compare the events. I compare only the odds of either event being natural rather than miraculous. If survival in all the same circumstances (as far as we can know them) by natural means can happen once in 68,000 tries, yet the odds of a royal flush happening naturally are roughly 1 in 650,000, and we know royal flushes happen without being regarded as miracles, why should we regard something that is over four thousand times more likely as miraculous? [ibid] I think a more likely scenario is Carrier’s spiritual resurrection account. It claims early Christians did not believe in an ontological fleshly resurrection, but a spiritual one. Carrier has compiled many evidences for this [2] and has responded to many critiques of it [3]. Con’s first argument here is refuted. Rebuttal to C2: The Most Moral Religion If I were to accept that Christianity is the most moral religion, that doesn’t mean it’s true. It would be affirming the consequent. If Christianity is true, then maybe it would be the most moral religion, but if it was the most moral religion, that doesn’t mean it is true. For example, if Bill Gates owned Fort Knox, he would be rich. We all know Bill Gates is rich, but this doesn’t mean he owns Fort Knox. There are other ways to be rich than owning Fort Knox and there are other ways for a religion to be moral than it being true. People could simply be attracted to a moral religion, in which the authors of the Bible could have based the religion on that. However, I do not agree that Christianity is the most moral religion. Jesus may have spoke of love and never forced anyone’s hand into Christianity, but he has threatened many with hell [4]. The idea of hell is certainly morally questionable. Since Christianity is also defined as the teachings of the bible, it’s worth point out that God has commanded his followers to kill children and even infants. “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” -1 Samuel 15:3 The most moral thing to do (assuming the men and women deserved to die) is to raise the children. Con could claim that since God commanded this, it is the moral thing to do, but this would render his argument circular. Since he would already be starting out with the view that what Christianity says is moral. This argument has been refuted. Rebuttal to C3: Prophecy Con presents many Old Testament prophecies and claims Jesus fulfilled them. He critiques the idea that the New Testament was written with the OT prophecies in mind because there is no evidence of them. However, Con has not presented any evidence that these actually happened. Occam’s razor suggests we prefer the idea that the New Testament was written to accommodate the OT. Furthermore, Con is attempting to show that Christianity is true, however in this argument he assumes that Jesus really did fulfill these prophecies. That starts out with the assumption that the bible is true in the first place. This argument is another case from circular reasoning. Some Jewish scholars have critiqued the Christian interpretations of the Messianic prophecies. For example, it’s questionable if “virgin” is the correct word to be used in Isaiah 7:14 [5]. Also Jews have pointed out Jesus didn't do a lot of things the prophet would do. Such as, build the Third Temple as stated in Ezekiel 37:26-28, Gather the jews back to Israel as stated in Isaiah 43:5-6. and unite humanity as one as stated in Zechariah 14:9. Many claim Jesus will do this in his second coming, but the Jews state “Jewish sources show that the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies outright; in the Bible no concept of a second coming exists.” [ibid] The second coming response is just an ad hoc special pleading fallacy. Con also brings up attorney Frederick Larson’s movie called “The Star of Bethlehem” as evidence of the astronomical events. This is on the Christian website “Answers in Genesis” as an argument Christians should not use [6]. Christian astronomer Dr. Danny Faulkner wrote a critique of the film saying that Larson’s thesis is fraught with problems. It completely relies upon the late death of Herod, something that few historians have embraced. It has some obvious astrological connections….These astrological connections are related to the so-called gospel in the stars theory, which is without foundation...Though Larson does not date the birth of Jesus to December 25, there is a suspicious clinging to that date that has no real connection to the birth of Jesus. This star doesn’t fit the description of Matthew 2 [7]. Faulkner also correctly claims that this film does nothing for Christians, even if it was true. “The DVD attempts to bolster peoples’ faith by showing that there is a natural explanation for the star of Bethlehem, as if we doubted that it actually happened. But by giving a natural explanation for the Christmas star, this cuts both ways and offers an out to the unbeliever. That is, the skeptic can now claim that an unusual, but perfectly natural, set of astronomical events was folded into the set of myths that we call the Bible.” [ibid] This argument is refuted. Conclusion Con’s arguments fall short. They are mainly based on circular logic and unparsimonious assumptions. Back to Con [1] http://infidels.org... [2] http://infidels.org... [3] http://www.richardcarrier.info... [4] Matt. 23:13–34, Matt. 13:40–43, Matt. 25:41. [5] http://www.aish.com... [6] http://www.answersingenesis.org... [7] http://www.answersingenesis.org...