Christianity the biggest scam ever!!!

by William Penwell 54 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  flower

  Flower,
  

  Are you an atheist now? Just interested to know how you have progressed on your exit path.

  Jack

  I dont accept labels anymore . I dont believe in the reality of the God in the bible if thats what you are askin. Even if I believed the bible to be inspired by a divine being, I do not find the Biblical God fit for worship. The God depicted in the Bible violates my idea of a moral being. I could give a 10 page report on why but its late so I'll just give you one tonight or maybe two that really bother me. Some of these thoughts are paraphrased from other people or web sites that I have read that simply sum up my thoughts much better than I can. The fact that I spent the better part of my life believing a huge lie (not just the jw one) angers me sometime so I apologize if I sound bitter.
  
  HELL
  
  Most of us, especially those of us with children have experienced what its like to have unconditional pure love for someone. There is nothing I wouldn't do for my son and my love for him is constant and unchanging regardless of how annoying he is at times. There is nothing he could do that would take away that love. He could curse me, slander me, hate me and yet I would never wish harm on him. If God is Love, infinitely more loving than I could ever be, why would he create a place more cruel and much worse than the Nazi concentration camps to punish us for something as menial as lack of faith.
  
  Any true loving being would never condemn his own children to everlasting torment, especially one that proclaims himself to having the very essence of forgiveness.
  
  Doesn't the concept of 'an eye for an eye' come from the bible? From the same God that punishes someone for something as petty as theft with eternally damnation.
  
  The funniest part is that according to the bible you don't even have to be a 'bad' person to go to hell. You don't have to hurt anyone. All you have to do according to scripture is know about Jesus and not accept him as your savior. You can be a charitable, virtuous, giving person who makes other peoples lives better but none of that matters.
  
  Christians have given me the argument that its not right to blame God when people go to hell, people chose to go to Hell when they die because God gave us the "free will" to make that choice. I despise the words 'free will'. Free will? Are you kidding me? That is the equivalent of putting a gun to your head and saying "You have the free will NOT to give me your wallet but if you don't I'm going to blow your head off". Not much of a choice, but theists hang on to this concept as if it makes perfect sense.
  
  God is omniscient and omnipotent. The alpha and the omega
  This in my opinion is one of the major flaws in the bible, which when it was brought to my attention the veil of deception (Christianity) started to lift just like when I realized the jw religion was nothing more than another harmful high control group.
  
  omnipotent (One having unlimited power and authority)
  omniscient (One having total knowledge, knowing everything)
  
  The bible calling God the Alpha and the Omega means that he is the beginning and the end, the all knowing.
  
  The problem with this concept is that if God knew ahead of time that someday he would send millions? billions? of people to hell, what was the purpose in him creating those people in the first place?
  
  Also what was Gods purpose in creating Evil? (I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7).
  
  Hmmm. And yet the theists I have debated this subject with have always told me that God is sinless and incapable of evil. Maybe that scripture is in that part of the bible that they conveniently dismiss.
  
  Take Satan for example. They try to tell me that Satan was created perfect and good and nice. However God is Omniscient, so he knew when he created the angel that it would eventually become Satan and wreak havoc on his wonderful children causing them to become evil and wicked.
  
  And yet with this knowledge in hand, he decided for some strange reason to create said being anyway.
  
  If the bible is to be believed, God is the source and creator of evil since he created a being with the knowledge that it would be evil.
  
  If I create a machine or a robot with the ability to destroy and kill and then turn it on and let it loose and it kills someone, I am responsible..not the robot.
  
  And yet somehow Christians manage to obsolve God of any responsibility and claim that we humans brought evil upon ourselves. And somehow (even more shocking to me ) they manage to convince themselves that it makes perfect sense for a starving child, a sickly baby, a young mother losing a battle to cancer all deserve what they are getting because six thousand years ago their forefathers sinned. The arguments that 'God has a plan that we mere humans just cant understand....'who are we to question God' ...ect ect...just dont fly with me.
• 

  ThiChi

  It is a fair question to ask for proof of the non existence of Jesus. How else can we examine the reasons for your claims?

  If that is not the case, then you have to use more faith than I.

  Your Fairy analogy fails on this account. Show us the reasons why you believe in Fairies, and we will go from there.....

  Quite simply, one must ignore a great deal of evidence, and treat what evidence is left most unfairly, in order to deny that Jesus existed. Greco-Roman historian Michael Grant, who certainly has no theological axe to grind, indicates that there is more evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for a large number of famous pagan personages - yet no one would dare to argue their non-existence. Meier [Meie.MarJ, 23] notes that what we know about Alexander the Great could fit on only a few sheets of paper; yet no one doubts that Alexander existed. Charlesworth has written that "Jesus did exist; and we know more about him than about almost any Palestinian Jew before 70 C.E." [Chars.JesJud, 168-9] Sanders [Sand.HistF, xiv] echoes Grant, saying that "We know a lot about Jesus, vastly more than about John the Baptist, Theudas, Judas the Galilean, or any of the other figures whose names we have from approximately the same date and place." On the Crucifixion, Harvey writes: "It would be no exaggeration to say that this event is better attested, and supported by a more impressive array of evidence, than any other event of comparable importance of which we have knowledge from the ancient world." [Harv.JesC, 11] Dunn [Dunn.EvJ, 29] provides an anecdote similar to the one above regarding Shakespeare. Referring to Wells' thesis, he writes:

  The alternative thesis is that within thirty years there had evolved such a coherent and consistent complex of traditions about a non-existent figure such as we have in the sources of the Gospels is just too implausible. It involves too many complex and speculative hypotheses, in contrast to the much simpler explanation that there was a Jesus who said and did more or less what the first three Gospels attribute to him. The fact of Christianity's beginnings and the character of its earliest tradition is such that we could only deny the existence of Jesus by hypothesizing the existence of some other figure who was a sufficient cause of Chrstianity's beginnings - another figure who on careful reflection would probably come out very like Jesus!

  A final consideration is that we have very little information from first-century sources to begin with. Not much has survived the test of time from A.D. 1 to today. Blaiklock has cataloged the non-Christian writings of the Roman Empire (other than those of Philo) which have survived from the first century and do not mention Jesus. These items are:

  • An amateurish history of Rome by Vellius Paterculus, a retired army officer of Tiberius. It was published in 30 A.D., just when Jesus was getting started in His ministry.
  • An inscription that mentions Pilate.
  • Fables written by Phaedrus, a Macedonian freedman, in the 40s A.D.
  • From the 50s and 60s A.D., Blaiklock tells us: "Bookends set a foot apart on this desk where I write would enclose the works from these significant years." Included are philosophical works and letters by Seneca; a poem by his nephew Lucan; a book on agriculture by Columella, a retired soldier; fragments of the novel Satyricon by Gaius Petronius; a few lines from a Roman satirist, Persius; Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis; fragments of a commentary on Cicero by Asconius Pedianus, and finally, a history of Alexander the Great by Quinus Curtius.

    Of all these writers, only Seneca may have conceivably had reason to refer to Jesus. But considering his personal troubles with Nero, it is doubtful that he would have had the interest or the time to do any work on the subject.

  • From the 70s and 80s A.D., we have some poems and epigrams by Martial, and works by Tacitus (a minor work on oratory) and Josephus (Against Apion, Wars of the Jews). None of these would have offered occasion to mention Jesus.
  • From the 90s, we have a poetic work by Statius; twelve books by Quintillian on oratory; Tacitus' biography of his father-in-law Agricola, and his work on Germany. [Blaik.MM, 13-16]

  To this Meier adds [ibid., 23] that in general, knowledge of the vast majority of ancient peoples is "simply not accessible to us today by historical research and never will be." It is just as was said in his earlier comment on Alexander the Great: What we know of most ancient people as individuals could fit on just a few pieces of paper. Thus it is misguided for the skeptic to complain that we know so little about the historical Jesus, and have so little recorded about Him in ancient pagan sources. Compared to most ancient people, we know quite a lot about Jesus, and have quite a lot recorded about Him!
• 

  FreePeace

  For me, it all boils down to my inability to reconcile a God of Love with the outcries of humanity. This is the reason I am agnostic. I spent far too much of my life lobbying a "God" who is/was silent and deaf.

  When I left the dubs five years ago, I told god (lower case intentional) that when he decided to answer some questions, then I would reconsider believing in him again. Until then, he could f**k off. I still haven't heard anything from him, not even a bolt of lightening, which would have been okay too since it would have at least proven he exists (albeit for a brief instant!).

  It can be said that Religion has done some good for some people, but the bulk of it has also retarded human growth throughout our exisitence. This goes for most all religion, christian and otherwise.

  I am done codependently looking to a mysterious supernatural power to take care of my problems or those of humanity. I am now trying to do my part in helping humanity step up to the next level of existence. I've done far more to leave the world a better place in the past five years than in 40 years of knocking on doors.

  Just my thoughts.

  FP
• 

  donkey

  WOW Flower - I am impressed. I remember when you first came to the site and you were "struggling" as you were exiting. I apologise if I seemed harsh at the time when I questioned what you were sayng. You have grown so much and your thought processes are impressive and the clarity is fabulous.

  Congratulations on learning to think for youself ( I can see you do that now vs being controlled by that horrible belief system we once shared) - you are a credit to yourself and to thinkers everywhere

  Jack
• 

  ThiChi

  Free Peace:

  Free will has a price. And we need the Christ to get us out of the mess we caused. Or, would you rather just be a "People Pet" by God, well fed and cared for like a house Cat?

  Regarding Hell: this is not a correct teaching, the JWs got it right on this one....
• 

  funkyderek

  Free will has a price. And we need the Christ to get us out of the mess we caused.

  I caused no mess. I doubt you did either, not having been born when Jesus "died". Surely my free will is restricted rather than enhanced by being given a choice of "accept Jesus or die".
• 

  FreePeace

  ThiChi, with all due respect to you and your beliefs, there are way too many moral problems with the whole Adam/Eve, Tree of Knowledge thing, etc. to support the concept of Universal Soverignty and how God needs to settle a legal precident, etc.

  I agree wholeheartedly with funkyderek (as usual)... These issues surrounding "Christ dying for us" have nothing to do with us... it is not our "stuff." It's Adam, Eve, God and Satan's "stuff." I had nothing to do with "sin" in Eden. Neither did you. Of course, I no longer believe in any of that, but even when I did, I couldn't cope with the punishing of innocent people (children) due to the "sins" of others (parents).

  I didn't and don't want to get started in any kind of debate on this, because I just don't care enough to discuss it at length. Besides, I've already debated it too many times. It always comes down to belief systems, which is fine. I only wanted to share my brief thoughts.

  I am much happier without religion than I ever was with it. But I respect those who feel the need to pursue it.

  FP
• 

  ThiChi

  I understand your points. However, I believe a pure secular approach is not the answer. There must be an "ultimate sense of Justice" or everything is subjective. I cannot allow myself to subscribe to this proposition.
• 

  Satanus

  I believe very little of the christian theology, but there is value in the positive image of jesus. People who worship/praise/are guided by the jesus that loves everyone, healed the sick, cursed the oppressors, fed the hungry, etc and use him as a focus in spiritual rituals/meditations/protection are benefitted. Whether or not jesus exists/existed is immaterial to the above.

  SS
• 

  czarofmischief

  Define "scam", will you?

  If you are disappointed that Christianity isn't "real" in the sense that Christ may have been mythologized beyond the reality - well, then you have missed the point of Christianity.

  How can you argue with the Christian ethic of charity, tolerance, rejection of meaningless rituals, and forgiveness? The concept that there is an omnipotent God is not a new one - but the idea that he knows each one of us and loves us enough to die for us, to forgive us our trespasses... well, that was new. And it continues to be new, in that it refreshes those who stop to think on it, and helps us to be better persons.

  People will argue over the "reality" of Christ until we die, just as we argue over the "fulfillment" of prophecies, etc. But the thing about Christ was that he himself said that his words were the important thing, not his miracles. He said happy were those who didn't see the miracles and yet believed the words of Love of God and Neighbor. I think he meant that the miracles weren't strictly necessary, or even required faith to see. either they happened or they didn't. It was the words that, wherever they came from, that are the important things.

  So it isn't a scam in the sense that it defrauds people. The Christianity in the Bible promised a better ethic for life on earth and a better life in the next world. And it takes nothing to acquire that, so how is it a scam?

  CZAR