The Atheist Guide To Christianity

[DeistPaladin]

1. God doesn't exist, and we want to believe in him.
2. God does exist, and we don't want to believe in him.

This is a false dilemma as it over simplifies the situation, much like Pascal's Wager.

First of all, how about "God does exist, and is nothing like what Christians imagine".

Zeus, Odin, Ra, Shiva, Ishtar, Quetzalcoatl, these are just a few of the countless gods imagined by humanity over the eons. What if it turned out one of these was the right one? There's just as much proof for any of them as there is for Yahweh (the Judeo-Christian god).

...or how about "God does exist, and is nothing like anything we CAN imagine."

Maybe the reason that evil exists in the universe and suffering happens on this world is simply because it turns out that God isn't spending his/her/its time watching everything on a trillion television sets monitoring all our activity and looking out for our petty concerns. Maybe God has all the ability to relate to our trials and tribulations like we might spend any time thinking about a nearby amoeba. And maybe God is a mind and a lifeform so far advanced from us that we couldn't comprehend it even if it were explained to us.

I'm not saying any of this is true but am just throwing out other possibilities. Your simplistic "either/or" dilemma carries the implicit assumption that "well of course God=Yahweh" and this is the only alternative to a universe devoid of any deity.

Second of all, why do you assume that people who are atheists "don't want to believe in him"?

This is one of the irritating parts of Christian proselytizing, where you assume you understand my true motivations and you don't know me from the proverbial Adam.

Most of the atheists I know locally are ex-Chrsitians. Some of them came from very conservative, fundamentalist brands of Christianity, others from more moderate ones. At one time, they believed. Some of them prayed very hard and really wanted that "personal relationship with God". The story varies, of course, but what they all have in common is a gradual process that led to their loss of faith. None of them have ever told me the story that they "didn't want to believe". All of them told me the story that they just couldn't any longer.

[Phil]

Following on, evidence outside the Bible? Look at the works of Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger, Suetonius...Not trying to bebate with you, just telling you the facts...

Yes, the crack apologist has done the research...

These are the silent 40.

1. Josephus
2. Philo
3. Seneca
4. Pliny the Elder
5. Suetonius
6. Juvenal
7. Martial
8. Persius
9. Plutarch
10. Justus of Tiberias
11. Apollonius
12. Pliny the Younger
13. Tacitus
14. Quintilian
15. Lucanus
16. Epictetus
17. Silius Italicus
18. Statius
19. Ptolemy
20. Valerius Maximus
21. Arrian
22. Petronius
23. Dion Pruseus
24. Paterculus
25. Appian
26. Theon of Smyrna
27. Phlegon
28. Pomponius Mela
29. Quintius Curtius
30. Lucian
31. Pausanias
32. Valerius Flaccus
33. Florus Lucius
34. Favorinius
35. Phaedrus
36. Damis
37. Aulus Gellius
38. Columella
39. Dio Chrysostom
40. Appion of Alexandria

Suetonius and Pliny the Younger do mention Jesus (if they are authentic and not Christian interpolations) but fact is they are both much too late to distinguish between Christ and Christianity.

On Tacitus:

1. There are no quotes of this passage by any of the church fathers.
2. Tertullian was familiar with all the writings of Tactius and if this passage existed it would have been cited as an answer to his arguments (Chapter 5 of Tertullian's Apology and Chapter 21 of the same).
3. In the beginning of the 3rd century Clement of Alexandria compiled a list of all references from Pagan writers to Jesus and Tactius is missing from it.
4. Origen in his arguments with Celsus would have referred to it had it existed.
5. Eusibius in the 4th century did the same as Clement of Alexandria and once again, no mention of Tactius.
6. The first quotation of it by a Christian writer was in the 15th century.
7. At the time of the quotation it was said only one copy of the Annals existed and it was made 600 years after Tactius died.
8. Conveniently, this single existing copy was in the possession of a Christian so insertion of a forged passage would have been extremely easy.
9. The story about the orgies of Nero do not read anything like the writing of Tactius.
10. This story is almost word for word in the writing of Sulpicus Severus who was a Christian in the 5th century but there were no references to Jesus.
11. Suetonius, a Roman historian, who condemned Nero heavily even tells us Nero took care not to sacrifice a human life, not even of a convicted criminal.
12. Tactius even claims at the time of the fire that Nero was not in Rome but in Antium.

These are just a few reasons that scholars see this passage from Annals as nothing to be reckoned with as it most probably is a forgery in the same vein as Josephus' Testimonium and at best it is nothing more than hearsay.

On Josephus:

The Testimonium was not written by Josephus and there are many reasons in the text itself. One example is that in the text Jesus is called the messiah yet Josephus remained an observant Jew and never became a Christian therefore he could not have called Jesus the messiah. Secondly, there are 3 different manuscript of the Testimonium and as expected, the later manuscripts have more details than the earlier ones as if the story evolved with time. Third and EXTREMELY DAMNING is that there were no references to it nor was it even mentioned in any writing until the 4th century when Constantine appointed Eusebius official church historian (Eusebius is the suspected author of the Testimonium) Fourth and a final nail in the Testimonium's coffin is textual analysis of the text with Josephus known writing shows certain phrase and words that were not used by Josephus but were found in the writing of only one church historian by the name of Eusebius.

I would quote WC Fields but I prefer Foghorn Leghorns version so...Ah say go away boy you bother me!

[Epimethean]

A) apologies

B) I've done the research

C) Imaginary gets us nowhere. Freud and Nitzsche had the same idea, saying God is just an illusion of the mind, a self created "father" figure to fill this "hunger" that we have. While these are brilliant theories, you cannot disprove God psychologically. Because you reach this, unproveable conundrum

1. God doesn't exist, and we want to believe in him.
2. God does exist, and we don't want to believe in him.

So the thing is to discover the truth. Does God really exist? For example, If a tree falls in a forest with noone around, does it still make a sound? Of course it does. Due to the true laws of science, a sound is the result of when two objects collide with each other. So according to what is true, it will make a sound, because we know that science works. How to discover the truth of whether God really exists or not, regardless of our psychological circumstance, is the tricky bit I suppose...

You need to study both philosophy and theory of knowledge before you even begin to so summarily proclaim yourself an authority. Based on this post, I have serious doubts that you can be anything but an apologist. Your insistence on capitalizing the name, "god," is another merit badge for a christian.

[Cinjin]

This is a false dilemma as it over simplifies the situation, much like Pascal's Wager.

First of all, how about "God does exist, and is nothing like what Christians imagine".
...or how about "God does exist, and is nothing like anything we CAN imagine."

Your simplistic "either/or" dilemma carries the implicit assumption that "well of course God=Yahweh" and this is the only alternative to a universe devoid of any deity.

Once again DP, you said it all before I could and in a far more eloquent way. You glorious bastard.