Hi, I'm a Christian. Help Me Disprove My Religion!

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Hey everyone! I'm sorry it's taken me forever to respond. I'd also like to sincerely thank you all for replying. You have been incredibly helpful. I'll respond to a few of you folks below, but I've gotta say, you've given me plenty of information. I'm not sure I'll be able to respond to it all. Again, thank you all.

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I'm obviously too late to jump in on any serious basis, since others have done an excellent job of laying more than enough to chew and digest, on your intellectual "plate". I won't add too many more "you should consider" elements.

What got me out of religion was being lied to by my church leaders (and the books they handed me, when I inquired about it) about the nature of science, what we know through science about life and the universe, and some of the fundamental social teachings about humanity and our history. I wound up going to school to become a biologist, so if there are questions you wish you ask in the field of Creationism/Evolution, you're welcome to PM me if I don't respond to a question posted, in here or elsewhere.

The only thing I'll leave you to consider is this. You have already been threatened with hellfire (oh, so politely, but nevertheless threats) by the Christians here who responded to your questions. And yet, all the atheists have done is answered questions you asked. At no point will one of us say we'd be upset if you stayed a Christian, nor will we try to tell you there's some reason you must become an atheist. All we want is to see people asking good questions and learning how to rigorously think about those questions using logic (recognizing and avoiding fallacious thinking) and well-sourced information to form their premises (since logic operating on false premises can still reach false conclusions). Our opinion of you will not change based on what you end up deciding for yourself, provided you arrive at your conclusions by honest means, do not blind yourself to uncomfortable facts or those that disagree with your presuppositions, and treat nonbelievers as fairly and kindly as you have done so far.

The majority of atheists on this site went through the process of deconversion (as we call it), and we know how stressful and confusing it can be. Just keep trusting in your own power to reason, and I think you will find that, whatever you choose in the future, adherence to a rational mindset is very emotionally satisfying in the long run. It's more work, true, since you won't have any pre-digested answers, but that's part of what makes it so satisfying.

Good luck in your journey.

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Thank you, RocketSurgeon. Even if all goes well, I'm going to have a lot to relearn, especially in regards to biology and evolution. I might take you up on that later, actually, if you don't mind. I don't expect you to explain all that I don't know to me (and there's so very much!), but if you could point me in the right direction, so that I can start learning what I wasn't taught, that would be fantastic.

Sorry, I'm not sure what to say other than thank you. Your post is incredibly... hopeful. It's nice to know that many of you went through questioning your religion (deconversion), and got out through reason.

I would be glad to talk to you about any question you may have. Even if people don't wind up agreeing with me, I like talking to honest questioners. We get a few of the less-honest types here, but I don't consider it a norm. By the way, I would like to point out to you that my fiancee is both a Christian (Methodist) and a professional evolutionary biologist, and she has no problem with being both. Evolution does not disprove Christianity, per se, but only a literal account of Genesis as the evangelicals/fundamentalists see it. I know that in the United States, where literal Genesis is a majority view, it's easy to forget that we are not the world, and the overwhelming percentage of Christians worldwide have zero issues with science. Many of the things you will learn from us will challenge your faith in God; science should not be one of them, or as I once joked to an undergrad when I was in my first year of grad school, "if science conflicts with your faith, you're doing one of them wrong".

As to questioning your faith, you should consider the advice President Thomas Jefferson gave, in a letter to his nephew:

"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."

Again, I understand that the way I'm going about this is somewhat absurd, trying to disprove what I haven't proven, but the posts from the people here have very much helped in that regard. It's much easier to disbelieve Christianity because I have firm reasons not to believe it, than to disbelieve due to a lack of reasons, even if the latter is a perfectly valid response.

I know you're talking to someone else, but I felt the need to quote this part back to you. The way you're going about it is not absurd. Trying to disprove every single thing you believe, all the time, is the entire basis of rational thinking, as Jefferson pointed out, above. There is nothing you should ever know to a certainty, nothing you should ever be unwilling to question. The moment you do, you have surrendered your reason. As philosopher David Hume said, "In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence."

I think the fact that you can recognize the difference between the two types of reasons for/against belief is a very, very good sign. When I was a Christian, I was taught that certainty was the only way to know something ("I have it on Good Authority from God, therefore I know!!!"), and that it was weakness to be uncertain, so it was hard for me to accept that uncertainty is a good thing, and that I should distinguish between withholding judgment on things I cannot prove and the things I can demonstrate to be false or unreasonable. It's why I call myself an "agnostic atheist". I believe that I must withhold judgment, philosophically, on the possibility of supreme being(s), so I am an agnostic, but I specifically disbelieve the god-stories I've heard so far in this world, including the particular one in which I was raised.

To leave you with a final quotation, as I like to do, I'll point you to a famous saying, among us heathens:

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins

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Arcturus - Speaking of questioning that which we believe at all times, and correcting what needs correcting... thank you for that information. It contained a couple of angles I had not previously considered. It doesn't radically shake my previous visualization of how the early church spread out (for instance, I have always assumed there was a church in Jerusalem prior to its destruction, for the reasons you mentioned), but I had not considered the implications of the pace of the writing.

I have always been fascinated by the "increasing godhood/miraculousness" of Jesus, as the telling of the tales moves forward in time, with Mark being in such sharp contrast to what we read in John, especially after reading Ehrman, so your post helps me to internalize that timeline. I will file all of that away in the "compare to other data as it filters in" file, and I offer you my thanks.

[Whateverist]

Good luck to you, OP. There must be at least 50 ways to leave your religion. [Just substitute "religion" for "lover".]


https://youtu.be/298nld4Yfds

[robvalue]

Wishful: Good to see you back! I must say I'm really impressed with your quest to get to the truth, and how you've listened to everyone.

I have one more thought: if the bible is accurate, God is a hideous immoral monster. He can't be trusted, he lies in his own book. I see no reason to worship such a foul being, if he is anything like as written. I could highlight all the reasons I feel this way, if it would help. This is my moral argument about not wanting anything to do with Christianity, regardless of its truth. As it happens, I am as certain as it's sensibly possible to be that the bible is a work of fiction. If the bible is not accurate, we know nothing about God and the idea he would demand our worship is ridiculous.

My general mantra is that if God is good, he will respect me living my life as well as I am able. If he is bad, I don't want to worship him and I can't trust him. No being worthy or worship would ever demand it.

[Aractus]

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Here: http://atheistforums.org/thread-36296.html

All the proof you need.

Or pick one of these topics and I'll explain it to you:

1. God lies to Abraham about the covenant he makes with him. Then he lies to Moses, Joshua, and David too.
2. God is a misogynist: Women are property, only men can get divorced, and adultary means sleeping with a married woman (married men are allowed to sleep with sex slaves, prostitutes, other wives they own, and unmarried women).
3. There is no morality in the Old Testament that isn't reflective of the conventional wisdom of the age.
4. There was no Exodus.
5. There was no conquest of Canaan.
6. The Pentateuch wasn't written until the 7th century BC at the earliest - that's 6-8 centuries after the mythical Exodus.
7. While there's very good evidence that Jesus was crucified, there's almost no evidence for his supposed bodily resurrection and ascension which forms the cornerstone of modern Christianity. Paul never mentions it, James and Jude and Peter never mention it, the author of Hebrews doesn't mention it, and Mark doesn't mention it either. Mark does say that Jesus ascended, and he does say Jesus will appear to people - but that's it - there isn't any mention of a bodily resurrection or an ascension. Matt 28:17 says that "some who saw the resurrected Jesus doubted" - so by the own admission of the gospel writer there were people who saw the supposed resurrected Jesus and said "that's not him". So what makes the people who did believe right and those that didn't wrong? We have no objective way to determine that other than to ask the question "who are the ones that are religiously biased"? So the gospel writer is basing the account on religiously-biased hearsay - that's hardly convincing evidence.
8. God is not faithful to his followers: Jesus is crucified, John the Baptist is beheaded, Judas Iscariot hangs himself, Herod has James the son of Zebedee killed by the sword, Simeon and James the Just are stoned to death, Peter is crucified, Paul is executed by the Romans, Nero persecutes the Christians from 64-68AD, and in 70AD the Jerusalem Church is completely destroyed (along with the rest of Jerusalem) as far as anyone can tell. BUT Jesus promised that the Son of Man would come before they finish going through all the towns of Israel (Matt 10:23).

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First of all, thanks for giving me all this info in such an orderly manner, and giving me so very much information. I found your blog by using the link in the other thread you created, and there's a huge amount of information there.

I hope you'll understand if I don't respond to it all, as it's going to take quite some time to go through it. Again, thank you for your help.

No probs at all as you see I have plenty of other stuff to respond to as it is in your thread. LOL.

Keep in mind it's difficult for us non-scholars to access academic peer-reviewed scholarship for the NT, believe me I try all the time and to be honest - unless you find scholars who are distributing their own articles on their own websites, there is almost nothing that is open-access in the field, unfortunately. And that's true for a lot of ancient history fields as well. What we can access are academic books, I gave a link to one a few posts back by Larry Hurtado - his book "One God One Lord" is used as a textbook in academic courses on New Testament history and is considered essential reading by many. That book - which I haven't read mind you - isn't going to "disprove" Christianity, but it does explain in no uncertain terms that the first century church didn't have a concept of the Trinity, and explains the origins of Christian beliefs.

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My advice: Read your Bible for yourself. Take the ten commands as an example, the tenth commandment is "thou shalt not covet anything that belongs to thy neighbour" or specifically:

"You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour." (Ex 20:17)

Christians try to claim this means don't think of you neighbour's wife lustfully - however the 7th commandment is "You shall not commit adultery" (even though adultery hasn't even yet been defined - it gets defined in Leviticus 18 for the first time in the Bible) - and Jesus says "'You have heard that it was said, "You shall not commit adultery." But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matt 5:27-28). And that means that "means don't think of you neighbour's wife lustfully" is covered in the seventh commandment not the tenth commandment. And anyway the tenth command ends with "or anything that belongs to your neighbour" - so it's clearly talking about property, and wives are listed as property.

Besides adultery, Exodus does not talk about sexual immorality. There is no mention of sexual immorality other than bestiality until Leviticus. This is one reason why Sodom and Gomorrah can't be guilty of homosexual acts for example - God never said in Genesis that any specific sexual act is wrong.

As mentioned, at no time in Genesis or Exodus does God or anyone else define "adultery". So Moses can't possibly know at that time what the seventh commandment even means. It's not until Leviticus 18 that it gets defined, and if you blink you literally miss it:

Lev 18:19-23: "19 You shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness. 20 You shall not have sexual relations with your kinsman’s wife, and defile yourself with her. 21 You shall not give any of your offspring to sacrifice them to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. 22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. 23 You shall not have sexual relations with any animal and defile yourself with it, nor shall any woman give herself to an animal to have sexual relations with it: it is perversion."

That's a very narrow definition of adultery - it simply means any man who sleeps with another's man's wife. Married men are allowed to sleep with concubines (sex slaves), any wife that they own, unmarried women, and prostitutes. There is no law against any of that - and it happens quite a lot in the Old Testament. Most Christians do not know the correct Biblical definition of adultery and when they look at Matt 5:27-28 they take an erroneous definition of adultery based on the contemporary secular definition and not the ancient Jewish definition that applied in the first century, or the one that can be derived from Leviticus 18 and the rest of the Old Testament. The bible does NOT ever say that "extramarital sex is adultery" - it's only adultery if it is the wife that does it, and both parties are guilty.

Note that even Jesus himself was specific enough to say "a man who looks at a woman with lust" (Matt 5), and he does the same thing when he talks about divorce. Divorce is permitted only for men in ancient Israel (Exodus 23), and when Jesus talks about divorce in Matt 5 & 19 he affirms this: "“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery." (Matt 5:31-32). See, nothing to do with unfaithful men or women who want to divorce their husbands. If he though they should be more progressive like Egypt and give women equal rights then he would have said so.

Numbers 5 spends the entire chapter starting from verse 11 on what to do about an "unfaithful wife". There is nothing in Numbers that discusses what to do about an "unfaithful husband" because as far as the Pentateuch is concerned, husbands can't be "unfaithful". They can be guilty of adultery if they sleep with a married woman, but that's not even seen as being "unfaithful".

It is quite funny that Christians today (except for hardcore fundamentalists) believe that their god is not a misogynist.

Exodus 22:18 "You shall not permit a female sorcerer to live."

Funny though that the Magi the "wise men" are the ones to "worship the king of the Jews". Had they been women they likely would have been stoned to death.

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Yes, the Bible is quite sexist. What worries me is that this doesn't disprove Christianity, it just means that if it's true, reality is a crappy place to live for women (and men, and children). When I've talked to people about injustice in the Bible (though I tend to talk more about hell than sexism), so far the answer I've been getting is that God is what determines our morality. This is probably the biggest reason I want to get away from Christianity (to my shame, bigger than the fact that I don't have a good reason to believe it beyond my upbringing). If it's true, then morality means we're all screwed.

"The answer I've been getting is that God is what determines our morality." Exactly.

The fact is that there is no morality in the Bible that is not merely reflective of the conventional wisdom of the ancient age. And even then it was primitive by Egyptian and Roman standards.

Christianity arose in multiple stages: First there was Jesus himself, and he called disciples and had other followers. He didn't seem to have a large following, but nevertheless the Romans executed for reasons we are not sure of in c. 30-31 AD. He died on either a "Wednesday" or a "Friday" (noting that the ancient Jews did not have individual days for each day of the week) and it was around the time of Passover (Secular scholars will even argue whether it was on the 14th, 15th, or 16th). His body was entrusted to a Christian named Joseph of Arimathea - a person we know nothing about other than that he put the body of Jesus in his tomb. At some point his body was moved from the tomb, and it appears that the women went to anoint his body believing he was still laid in the tomb the following "Sunday".

The body was moved for reburial, or for anointing, or embalming, or for some other unknown purpose. This is the key part that is missing from the gospel accounts. We don't know the exact customs that his parents (if they were even alive at the time) and other family members followed. They may have been outraged at the notion that he had been laid in Joseph's tomb without their knowledge. Who knows. Joseph may have gone to the family and said "I have placed his body in my tomb because the Sabbath was fast approaching, but I want you to take him away as soon as it's over".

If the tomb was empty for a supernatural reason then we'd expect that the first people the disciples went to ask was Joseph of Arimathea. Yet they never do. They don't think to ask him - wouldn't you know it? Perhaps over the next couple of years the two or three of the disciples started thinking up explanations. Because here's another key thing: Judas, James, Joseph, and Simon (Jesus's brothers) were not followers. They became Christians later (according to Acts). So I'd hazard a guess that in 30 or 31 AD when Jesus is killed his family feel apathetic towards the disciples and followers.

So his followers thought up explanations for why the tomb was empty. Perhaps they had found the Roman guards sleeping and concluded it must have been divine intervention. The Gospel accounts are religiously-biased, so they don't tell us what really happened. They do tell us what the writers are saying in 60-85 AD whenever they were written.

In 50 AD the Church undergoes massive transformation (Acts 15, Galatians 2). By this time there was already much disagreement about doctrine in the early church. Most importantly of all Acts and Galatians tell us in no uncertain terms that the governing centre of the church is in Jerusalem.

In 70 AD, I would argue, the Jerusalem Church is completely destroyed - along with every still living senior leader of the early church. This hypothesis which I am proposing perfectly explains why we have pseudonymous Epistles and why we have attribution to disciples to the authorship of the four gospels and gnostic gospels. No one could disprove these claims now that the Jerusalem Church was gone, and different sects of early first and second century used their names to defend the authority of their texts.

Jesus being a genuine messiah is not required to explain the expansion of the church.

Finally, the proof comes in "healing". Jesus heals many people himself, according to the gospels. Then he tells his disciples they can heal "every kind of disease" (Matt 10:1), affirmed by James (James 5:16), Paul (1 Cor 12), and "Luke" (Acts 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 14, 28). In those accounts of Acts - Peter heals a man crippled from birth and then tells the Jewish leaders he did it by the name of Jesus, he heals Aeneas, Ananias heals Paul's sight, Paul also heals a man crippled from birth, the apostles are said to have healed many many people, and they preach to the laity to go out and heal people!

Nowadays this supposed healing has been scaled way back. So as soon as we're able to scientifically verify divine healing it stops completely.

[pocaracas]

Hey, WT. Welcome aboard!

At its base, you do not disprove christianity. You merely watch as the faithful fail time and time again to prove it.

Belief in a tale is no proof of the truthfulness of such tale.
All books in the bible are written by believers... believers in the accounts of others, at best... believers in the made up accounts of themselves, at worst... none were written by actual witnesses of the events... even if some do claim to be.

Thanks for the welcome porcaracas!

Now, I understand that you are in no way obligated to do this, as the burden of proof is on Christians who believe the bible is accurate, not the other way around, but how do you know the books weren't written by the folks that were there (even if they were written a few decades after Christ's death)? Is it that we don't have any evidence that says they did, or that we have evidence that says they didn't? Again, no need to answer this questions if you don't want to.

From what I gather (and this comes mainly from reading Ehrman and the wiki), none of the books is written in the first person and none has an accompanying "written by so-so".
The attribution comes after the fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Matthew:

Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90 CE, with a range of possibility between 70 to 110 CE.[2] A pre-70 date remains a minority view.[3] The anonymous author was probably a male Jew, standing on the margin between traditional and non-traditional Jewish values, and familiar with technical legal aspects of scripture being debated in his time.
[...]
The Gospel of Matthew is anonymous: the author is not named within the text, and the superscription "according to Matthew" was added some time in the second century.[14][15] The tradition that the author was the disciple Matthew begins with the early Christian bishop Papias of Hierapolis[...]
The consensus is that Papias does not describe the Gospel of Matthew as we know it, and it is generally accepted that Matthew was written in Greek, not Aramaic or Hebrew.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Mark:

The Gospel of Mark is anonymous.[5] A persistent tradition which begins in the early 2nd century with bishop Papias (c.AD 125) ascribes it to Mark the Evangelist, a companion and interpreter of the apostle Peter, but most modern scholars do not accept Papias' claim.[6] The book was probably written c.AD 66–70, during Nero's persecution of the Christians in Rome or the Jewish revolt, as suggested by internal references to war in Judea and to persecution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Luke

Luke-Acts does not name an author.[5] According to Church tradition this was the Luke the Evangelist, the companion of Paul,[6] but the majority of scholars reject this identification due to the many contradictions between Acts and the authentic Pauline letters.[7] The most probable date for its composition is around 80-100 CE, and there is evidence that it was still being substantially revised well into the 2nd century,[8] the author taking for his sources the gospel of Mark, the sayings collection called the Q source, and a collection of material called the L (for Luke) source.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_John:

John identifies its author as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." Although the text does not name this disciple, by the beginning of the 2nd century, a tradition had begun to form which identified him with John the Apostle, one of the Twelve (Jesus' innermost circle). Although some notable New Testament scholars affirm traditional Johannine scholarship,[8][9] the majority do not believe that John or one of the Apostles wrote it,[10][11][12][13][14][15] and trace it instead to a "Johannine community" which traced its traditions to John; the gospel itself shows signs of having been composed in three "layers", reaching its final form about 90–100 AD.[16][17] According to Victorinus[18] and Irenaeus,[19] the Bishops of Asia Minor requested John, in his old age, to write a gospel in response to Cerinthus, the Ebionites and other Jewish Christian groups which they deemed heretical.[20][not in citation given] This understanding remained in place until the end of the 18th century.

I'm no scholar, but when the majority of scholars consistently reject the classical author attribution... then they may have a point.

Now, Paul... Paul was not an eyewitness. At best, he witnessed his own conversion... but that means squat in terms of the actual divine Jesus. However, Paul did shape much of what would become the catholic church and they are the compilers of the bible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship...e_epistles:

There is wide consensus, in modern New Testament scholarship, on a core group of authentic Pauline epistles whose authorship is rarely contested: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Several additional letters bearing Paul's name lack academic consensus: Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus. Scholarly opinion is sharply divided on whether the former two epistles are the letters of Paul; however, the latter four - 2 Thessalonians, as well as the three known as the "Pastoral Epistles" - have been labeled pseudepigraphical works by most critical scholars.

Finally
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation

The author names himself in the text as "John", but his precise identity remains a point of academic debate. Second century Christian writers such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Melito the bishop of Sardis, and Clement of Alexandria and the author of the Muratorian fragment identify John the Apostle as the "John" of Revelation.[1] Modern scholarship generally takes a different view,[2] and many consider that nothing can be known about the author except that he was a Christian prophet.[3] Some modern scholars characterise Revelation's author as a putative figure which they call "John of Patmos". The bulk of traditional sources date the book to the reign of the emperor Domitian (AD 81-96), and the evidence tends to confirm this.

Out of the 27 books of the NT, only 7 can be attributed to the alleged author... and this author was not present at the time of Jesus.

PS: those wiki articles have their own sources and you are more than welcome to delve into them, if you want more accurate reasons why scholars reject the classical authorship of the texts.

[Aractus]

Out of the 27 books of the NT, only 7 can be attributed to the alleged author... and this author was not present at the time of Jesus.

There is no doubt that Paul wrote Galatians, 1-2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. He isn't an "alleged author" he is "the" author of those works without doubt.

James and Judas were brothers of Jesus and therefore they were present at the time. They were not however followers of Jesus while he was alive.

From what I gather (and this comes mainly from reading Ehrman and the wiki) none of the books is written in the first person

Incorrect. Acts 13-28 is in the first-person. All the epistles - Paul's, the pseudo-pauline ones, Hebrews, James, Jude, 1,2,3, John, and 1,2 Peter are all written in the first-person.

and none has an accompanying "written by so-so".

Incorrect, Paul claims authorship for all of his epistles. James, Jude, and Peter claim authorship for their epistles (note some are disputed). "John" claims authorship of Revelation.

The wikipedia articles you quoted contain numerous errors:

"The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved."

"Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90 CE, with a range of possibility between 70 to 110 CE."

That sentence is nonsensical.

Have a look at the cited bibliographies - well over half of the material is out of date, and much of it isn't of any academic value.

[The Grand Nudger]

There is no doubt that Paul wrote Galatians, 1-2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, Thessalonians 1, and Philemon. He isn't an "alleged author" he is "the" author of those works without doubt.

Nothing tells us that the author Paul and the character Paul are one in the same.  

Incorrect. Acts 13-28 is in the first-person. All the epistles - Paul's, the pseudo-pauline ones, Hebrews, James, Jude, 1,2,3, John, and 1,2 Peter are all written in the first-person.

-but this hardly matters..you'll find 1st person narratives in Dracula as well.  Nestled within that quoted comment is every reason you need to understand why the narrative POV is irrelevant, both "Paul" and Psuedo-pauline epistles are written in the first person.........clearly this POV is a device that various authors used to lend weight to the narrative.   

Incorrect, Paul claims authorship for all of his epistles. James, Jude, and Peter claim authorship for their epistles (note some are disputed). "John" claims authorship of Revelation.

-and as above, Jonathan Harker (as well as many other characters) claims authorship of some portion of Dracula.  Other portions are claimed -within the narrative- to be the diaries of the characters in question.

You are commenting on the literary convention of Paul, Epistles are the work of the literary convention of Paul...and this is what is rarely disputed.  Tell me, is "Paul" in Tacitus, Pliny or Josephus?  Could we get some contemporaneous rabbinical tracts denouncing this wayward star pupil?  If I wrote -myself- into a book...would you refer to the character Rhythm and the author Rhythm interchangeably?  What if I claimed it to be autobiographical, and it mostly was...but I smoothed over a few details here and there?  Say, in my book I won every argument, convinced everyone set before me mass-production style, and chit-chatted with kings, queens and potentates from the corners of my known world?  If we're talking about narratives, considerations of narrative style, form, and purpose ought to have a -bit- more weight.  "Paul", whomever he was...writes to convince, not record.  "Paul", as an author..whomever he was, -if- he was at all, and the character of Paul as expressed in the narratives are different animals entirely.  Even the character of Paul is a different beast from one narrative to the next.  This doesn't seem to be a problem for the narrative, at least as far as the compilers and current followers are concerned...they include all of the different Pauls.  It's only a problem for a historical Paul, set aside the literary convention of Paul.  These narratives are informative with regards to the convention, but not with regards to historicity....because they are narratives - not historical documents.  The subject here is narrative, not history.

[Aractus]

Nothing tells us that the author Paul and the character Paul are one in the same. 

Yes it does - modern scholarship tells you that. Just like Luke-Acts is written by the one author.

-but this hardly matters..you'll find 1st person narratives in Dracula as well.  Nestled within that quoted comment is every reason you need to understand why the narrative POV is irrelevant, both "Paul" and Psuedo-pauline epistles are written in the first person.........clearly this POV is a device that various authors used to lend weight to the narrative.

Rhythm you have a clear lack of textual criticism knowledge. The POV is not a "device" for anything, it's what scholars determine when asking whether a narrative is contemporary or historic and has more to do with whether it's written in the first-person-narrative or the third-person-narrative.

Tell me, is "Paul" in Tacitus, Pliny or Josephus?

Why would they write about Paul? The only undisputed part of Josephus where he mentions Jesus is where he uses him to clarrify which James he's talking about, and he has almost nothing to say about James. He has nothing to say about Peter or Barnabas either Rhythm, so why would he mention Paul when he only mentions one of the early Christian leaders?

Even the character of Paul is a different beast from one narrative to the next.

So what? I already said that. Historians have little idea about the character of Shakespeare you know, but that doesn't mean he didn't write plays. Historians have different opinions on how to characterise Hitler's character, but they don't doubt the actions that he took or the political ideology that he belonged to.

And by the way you don't even know what you're talking about, because we do get a consistent character from his writings. But he isn't writing about himself.

[pocaracas]

Out of the 27 books of the NT, only 7 can be attributed to the alleged author... and this author was not present at the time of Jesus.

There is no doubt that Paul wrote Galatians, 1-2 Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. He isn't an "alleged author" he is "the" author of those works without doubt.

James and Judas were brothers of Jesus and therefore they were present at the time. They were not however followers of Jesus while he was alive.

All authors are "alleged authors". Of all, only 7 are considered to have actually been written by the "alleged authors".

From what I gather (and this comes mainly from reading Ehrman and the wiki) none of the books is written in the first person

Incorrect. Acts 13-28 is in the first-person. All the epistles - Paul's, the pseudo-pauline ones, Hebrews, James, Jude, 1,2,3, John, and 1,2 Peter are all written in the first-person.

and none has an accompanying "written by so-so".

Incorrect, Paul claims authorship for all of his epistles. James, Jude, and Peter claim authorship for their epistles (note some are disputed). "John" claims authorship of Revelation.

You're right... I exaggerated on some things I wrote...
It's what happens when I write from whatever is in my mind, instead of looking things through beforehand.

The wikipedia articles you quoted contain numerous errors:

"The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved."

"Most scholars believe the Gospel of Matthew was composed between 80 and 90 CE, with a range of possibility between 70 to 110 CE."

That sentence is nonsensical.

Have a look at the cited bibliographies - well over half of the material is out of date, and much of it isn't of any academic value.

Are you saying that the "most scholars" they mention have changed their minds, since?
I was drawing attention to that detail... and the sentence you mention seems to me like a value with some error bars on top. I agree that it's not a normal way of putting things, but... oh well, it's the wiki... a starting point for those who want to go further.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

The wikipedia articles you quoted contain numerous errors:

"The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved."

I'm not saying I disagree with you, Aractus, but pretty much every article on Christianity on Wiki is "disputed", because every Christian that sees anything that doesn't agree with their dogma will report it as disputed.