The Antichristian Phenomenon

I thought , for a change, that it would be better to abandon my own analysis of Christianity, for a while at least, and take a look at opposing views, such as the arguments of Christians.

While I was checking my e-mail one morning, I came across a certain link to a website, with the explanation “Six reasons that lead you to the existence of God”. Curious as I am to view , I accessed the link. I must say that, as I expected, their arguments are more “modern” ones, such as concentrating on the argument from intelligent design- argument which I attacked in this article : on a loving God, on necessity of a personal relationship with God, on Jesus Christ, and on arguments as to why Christianity is the only right path. By and far, distorted images of reality, the bible, and the “god” portrayed in the bible, but also a little bit different from classical christian arguments. I’ll show why.

Anyway, this is the site in question : http://www.everystudent.com. This is the English version. I received the Romanian version on the e-mail. I think they exist in A LOT of languages, but the content is 100% the same.

Now, this site brought me a few laughs, but also a few “revolts”, and somewhat reminded me of why I have such a strong repulsion when i hear the words “god”, “Jesus”, “Christianity”, “religion”.

This will probably be a multi-part article, as there are many aspects I wish to focus on.

The existence of God

Here is the article I spoke about earlier, about those six “convincing” arguments on the existence of god.

First of all, notice how the author of this article prepares the ground for any attack on her “righteous” arguments:

But first consider this. If a person opposes even the possibility of there being a God, then any evidence can be rationalized or explained away. It is like if someone refuses to believe that people have walked on the moon, then no amount of information is going to change their thinking.

This clearly shows that it is the author’s intention to “show” that if her arguments fail to convince someone, is because they are deluded and stubborn in not wanting to see the obvious.

Well, let’s check into this “obvious”, shall we ?

The first argument: “The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today.”

This first argument concentrates on the fact that the Earth is perfect for its inhabitants, it’s the only planet that has a perfect size, a perfect distance from the Sun, and , as such, it was clearly created for our welfare, as it is the only planet with life.

This argument is really not impressive. Worse, it reminds me of Middle Age teachings, when the Earth was presented as the centre of the universe. They proudly present the fact that Earth is the only known planet that can support life. Some would dismiss this, with all the Mars research and explorations going on. However, even if we were to accept something like this, how much of this universe do we know ? An extremely tiny and insignificant portion of it ! It is like I would live only in my house, and observe a few of the neighbouring houses, where nobody seems to live, and conclude by this that my house is some chosen area, of a grand master plan.

Also, as I stated before, I am not an expert in science and biology (and if there is someone on this site more of an expert in this domain, I would appreciate if he/she gives his/her contribution in such arguments), but still, there are basic rules of science, that everyone knows. One such rule is that it is the organism that adapts itself to its environment, rather than the environment being created specially for it. For example, if I would be sent to live in the North Pole, at -50 degrees Celsius, I would most likely have a very hard time adapting myself in the first few months, and can even suffer a thermal shock if I do something wrong there. It is obvious that I will not adapt myself too quickly to the changes, I will not be able to feed myself as I do in my homeland, and I will have a very hard time surviving, without proper equipment. So is it right to say that my current environment was created especially for me ? Or is it my organism, used to live here, and my genes that made me easily adaptable to it ? On a much larger scale, this is what the Christian argument is saying, that this land, along with its climate and resources, was created just for me to live in it.

The second argument: “The human brain’s complexity shows a higher intelligence behind it.”

As you can see, this argument is pointing towards the intelligent design. Again, I point to you the article I wrote days ago. Here, I clearly state my opinion that Christians use false arguments and that these arguments do not help in any way in proving the existence of THEIR god, the god of the bible!

The third argument: “‘Chance’ or ‘natural causes’ are insufficient explanations.”

As you can read there, they claim that natural cause arguments are insufficient and do not fully explain the origin of this world and our race. But here’s the thing that really made me raise an eyebrow:

It is intellectually wanting to observe intricate design and attribute it to luck.

So they point to something and say it is intellectually wanting. Ok, than what do you call believing in some words that some bronze age tribesmen wrote about 3000 years ago, about the creation of the world ? Is it wisdom ? Intellectual superiority ?  Ok, I admit that all scientific theories are insufficient, at the present time at least. But why don’t you check my above mentioned article of what the bible says about creation. So, while everything else is unconvincing, some words written 3000 years ago prove all there is to prove ?

The fourth argument: “To state with certainty that there is no God, a person has to ignore the passion of an enormously vast number of people who are convinced that there is a God.”

Ok, I don’t want to sound arrogant and if I do sound arrogant, I don’t care. Because mass hysteria, paranoia and herds in general have always failed to impress me in any way.

Of course,  no one with common sense will point towards the masses of the medieval period as an example for how many people actually believed in god. Because they were kept in eternal ignorance and terror by the most disgusting institution of all times- the church.

Now about the people who believe in god nowadays, well it’s basically the same thing. They keep themselves in ignorance (of this matter, at least, not necessary in general). You would be surprised to see how many of these “fundamentalists” have never even held a copy of their “holy book” in their hands. But still, they believe in god with all their heart. Of course, there is also the other problem- in which god do they believe ? The god as he is portrayed in the bible, or some distorted image of him ?  Check my article entitled “Nietzschean Musings: God’s suicide”, anyone who wants to know more about what I’m talking about. Also, in another part of these series of articles I will gladly add up  more to this problem.

Anyway, bottom line here: the masses are the worst argument that anyone can bring. It is so easy to manipulate people with the proper tools. Oh, and I guess, if we are to take this argument for granted, that we should all start listening to stuff like Justin Timberlake, Rhianna, Beyonce or Britney Spears. Well, A LOT of people listen to them and think they’re good. So they must be good, RIGHT ? Also, I must check some surveys about the products I use. What if they aren’t that popular among the majority ? That would mean that they are crap.

The fifth argument: “We know God exists because he pursues us. He is constantly initiating and seeking for us to come to him.”

Well, this argument fails even on a rational or logical basis. I guess this site exists because god wanted us to create it, to speak against his existence and against the philosophy of the bible, all this being a subtle way in actually making us believe in him. Right !

Anyway, the personal experience of the author of that article is only that- a personal experience. Atheists (or irreligious people in general) talk about god as they talk about any other subject- that is when the subject is debated or when someone asks their opinion. Die hard Christians actually talk A LOT more than anyone else about this subject- I know this because I happened to have met some.

Personally, I discuss several things on the internet and in real life- music, philosophy, occultism, literature, religion- when I feel like it and because it is good to compare points of view with people who basically have the same opinion as you on a certain matter, or on the contrary, have a different opinion. As long as there exists a certain subject- religion (not god), music, book etc.- there will be debates, either for or against. I discuss music, for example, more often than religion. So does this mean that if I speak against a certain genre of music is because I feel a certain “pull” to actually listen to it and eventually will fall on my knees and admit that I was wrong and that music is actually my life? According to this argument, yes.

The author of that article said:

And like most atheists, the issue of people believing in God bothered me greatly. What is it about atheists that we would spend so much time, attention, and energy refuting something that we don’t believe even exists?!”

I am not bothered if people believe in god if it does not affect me, because I have Christian friends (at least they call themselves such, because they do nearly nothing that the doctrine tells them to). What bothers me is that religion has always affected people outside the sphere of believers. Of course, a lot less nowadays, but it still happens. People still might look down on you if you say you don’t believe in god, faith is still regarded as the highest of all virtues, such as : “He’s a good, Christian man”, or “A good person, god fearing…” or “society is going downwards, a lot of people don’t even believe in god nowadays”. It is not my business (nor anybody else’s) if someone has a PERSONAL belief and respects mine. However, when things leave the personal area, than we’re discussing something else. I don’t feel repulsion if someone says he believes in Jesus. I do, however, have a repulsion when I’m accused about non-believing, when some tells me “you’ll go to hell because you don’t believe. So you better start believing, or else, because this is the only path, regardless if you believe it or not”.

Anyway, bottom line on this argument: Christians show a lot of examples of people “realizing” one night that god exists. But as you can read in that article, the examples given are two subjective experiences, that didn’t even have this ‘revelation” from a concrete source. However, they never give an example of people who, after reading the bible (like myself), rejected this faith as totally non-sense. And there are a lot of examples. Nearly all people I know, who are irreligious, have become like this after reading the “holy book”.

The sixth argument: “Unlike any other revelation of God, Jesus Christ is the clearest, most specific picture of God pursuing us.”

I will not write too much about this, because this is simply based on the argument that “the bible says so”. And by what is this argument sustained, what solid evidence does it bring, in order to show us that the bible is actually the work of their god ? None!  Like I said in a previous article, the bible is inspired by other works of mythology of its time, basically by the Babylonian and Egyptian myths and legends. In all those books there were resurrection, revolts in heaven, miracles, deluges and other ingredients of every mythology. What if I say that Marduk is the only correct path to achieving eternal life ? Why ? Well, it is clear that he created  the stars, our world, and, none the less, us- the human race. How do I know ? Well, it says so in Enuma Elish, look it up !

Finally, a bottom line regarding all these modern Christian arguments, in general. Because that site is only a single example, as I’ve been hearing these arguments countless time, from every Christian. As you can see, not one of these arguments are based on something real. There is not one single part of them that brings some solid evidence  to support the idea that the christian god actually exists. All arguments are based either on speculation, subjective, personal examples, or the words of the bible- which, of course, I reject them as simple myths.

To be continued with part II, in which I will speak about the perception that believers have about the god they believe in.

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Internet, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.