When people talk about how they have fallen away from christianity, I am usually left wondering how on earth they could have such a poor understanding of their own religion.
1. God is wrathful, jealous, hateful, and kills nations of people like it is a bodily function. He is certainly not just or “holy” in nature.
Actually, the Bible records that man rejected God and chose death. Let me say that again: it’s our choice. If you don’t believe me, look around you today – the world continues to reject even the very basic principles (such as not committing adultery) which we know will lead to a more peaceful society.
2. The act of throwing people into infinite torture and punishment for not believing a Jewish guy from 2,000 years ago was God’s son, or unknowingly worshiping the wrong god, is extremely cruel and sadistic.
Again, this is basic theology. Jesus was not just “some Jewish guy” – he rose from the dead.
There were multiple witnesses to this fact.
But see answer to 1 – man has no excuse, he knows what he should do, but chooses not to. He knows that God exists, but chooses to believe the universe came into existence by itself.
3. The statements, “God works in mysterious ways,” or “It will all make sense in heaven,” are little more than irrational cop outs. This God allows horrible atrocities to be committed against innocent men, women and children every day.
See answer to 1 (again!) God could work directly, and be our sugar daddy, but he’s a lot bigger than we are and knows what we need, and how to get it with a minimum of fuss, in spite of mankind’s rebellion against him.
4. Bloody animal and human sacrifices are illogical demands by a divine god as payment for petty wrong doings. These actions are no different than the rituals of archaic pagan religions. Not to mention the bizarre ritual of symbolically drinking human blood and eating human flesh.
I must have missed the latest christian sacrifice!
I guess if you don’t want to believe in the resurrection then you might find the Lord’s Supper strange. But both Jewish and Christian rituals are symbolic, demonstrating that something else has taken the punishment for our sin. Remember, we rebelled.
5. If God loves us and wants us to know and believe in him, why be so completely invisible? What is the purpose of being so illusive to those who believe and worship him?
But he’s not! We on the other hand tend to be completely apathetic in building our relationship with him.
6. God never manifests himself or performs miracles as he regularly did for the Israelites in Old Testament stories.
I know people who would profess otherwise. I know one person who was unable to walk and was healed for example. He even went so far as to test his ability to walk before he went to the healing meeting (which unlike most, was run according to biblical principles).
I have seen smaller acts of providence regularly.
7. Prayers are never answered. Certainly not in the way Jesus described. Prayer has absolutely no affect on the world around us.
Actually, prayers are always answered, but often the answer is “no”. More often, the answer is more like “that’s actually not what you need”. Suggest you read a book about George Muller’s live, in the light of that man’s life, this claim can only be called laughable.
8. Jesus did not fulfill major Old Testament prophesies or even fulfill his own promises and predictions.
Conveniently, you mention none.
9. The authors of much of the Bible are unknown. And of these unknown authors, the men who wrote the gospels likely never even met Jesus considering they were written 40-70 years after his death. A far cry from reliable testimony.
False, but that’s a whole discussion in and of itself.
10. The Bible is repeatedly contradictory with itself, reality, and the laws of morality. Couldn’t God inspire a less poorly written book?
Many of the percieved problems (such as God being “jealous”) come down to translation errors. Because of this, most reputable bible schools teach the origional languages. “Poorly written” often actually means “written in a style that went out of fasion 2000 years ago.
The Bible doesn’t contradict, but man does change and what God has said to different men has changed over time because of that.
11. The Bible is open to interpretation. Everyone interprets it in the way that suits them best or serves their purposes.
Sadly, there is an element of truth in this. Usually it’s because of (again) the issues in question 1: man rebelled, he is not willing to listen to God, and what he reveals in his word.
12. Throughout history, Christians have justified horrific actions by the Bible and its teaching.
No one argues that rebellious man tries to use God for his own means, and has done on frequent occasions.
13. The Bible promotes hate and persecution against women, homosexuals and those who worship other gods or no god at all.
The Bible contains the biggest message of mercy that has ever been written. Time after time, man has rejected God’s grace to chase after various sins and “gods”, yet God has been prepared to forgive. It is not God who is promoting hate.
14. According to the Bible, nearly 70% percent of the people in the world will burn in hell because they don’t believe Jesus was the son of God.
And according to the Bible, all those that do burn will do so because they decided to reject God. I fail to see how joining them somehow makes any sense.
15. The only reason I was a Christian was because I was indoctrinated into the religion as a child as a result of the culture and region of the world in which I was born.
Glad we cleared that up. It troubles me greatly that people are indoctrinated into Christianity, and think they are christians because of “the culture and region of the world” they live in.
I say this because we are supposed to examine the scriptures and make our own decision to come to a saving faith in Jesus, to start a relationship with God. The Bible is clear that this is an individual decision, being in any given culture makes no difference to your position with God.
16. Christianity has no more rational or factual foundation than any other religion on earth that I openly reject.
I’ve yet to see a rational basis for Athiesm.
17. The Christian church is disjointed and can’t even agree with one another.
Completely, that’s because it’s made of people who were born into sin because of mankind’s rejection to God (seem to be coming back to that point quite often don’t we?)
18. Christians are not at all ethically or morally different from non-Christians.
Yes, non-Christians can be very ethical and Christians can be very un-ethical. The Bible says we should be, but it makes clear that what makes us christians is that we trust in Christ for our salvation.
19. Today, powerful church leaders steal, lie and molest young children. The church repeatedly attempts to cover up these atrocities, only to reluctantly apologize as a last resort.
There have been a great many instances of this, havn’t there? That’s actually (perversly) consistent with scripture, where people in positions of responsiblity attract greater challanges.
But what you see “today” is nothing compared to the state of the church
Read the Wikipedia article on Billy Graham. He had no such issues, because he kept a high standard of behaviour. But the world mocked him for that. So you can’t win.
20. It is absolutely irrational to continue to believe archaic teaching with the amount of knowledge we’ve gained through science and technology. The Bible reads like a book of primitive folklore, not divinely inspired insight into our true reason for existence.
The more I know about science and technology, the more I believe there has to be a God.
Science, because we are beginning to understand exactly how complex our world is.
Technology, because we understand just how hard it is to build something as complex as life.
Apparently you are an expert on primitive folklore. I heard a speaker a few weeks back who met someone who became a christian because he was exactly that. He opened the ancient Greek Bible and discovered that the stories he read were actually not folklore at all, but were written as historical, factual accounts.
If the world was created, there must have been a God. If the Bible was written as a factual document, we must consider it’s claims seriously. It’s written in ancient languages, and styles, for people who are now dead, and over many years for different audiences. Yet for all that, my increasing experience is that it is absolutely relevant for today.
Well, that’s a few points in answer anyway. I note that many of your reasons for rebelling against God is because you fail to understand that man rebelled against God – ironic, isn’t it?
Comments on: "Reasons to Reject Christianity?" (8)
Wow, you are willfully blind and ignorant.
As a starter…
You miss the point… the point is not that Jesus was “just some Jewish guy”, the point is that God/Jesus, as described in the Bible (esp. end of Matthew ch. 25) is extremely cruel and sadistic. That is, every human you or I know is better, and less cruel than Jesus/God, as described in the Bible.
You’re better than Jesus. Everybody you know is better than Jesus. Jesus is terrible, worse, infinitely worse even than Hitler. At least Hitler allowed his victims death.
Um, no that’s not missing the point.
Jesus is the son of God. Man rebelled against God, but Jesus represents man’s last opportunity to avoid judgment.
Hitler had no reason outside his own imagination to persecute the Jews.
God has every right to condemn mankind to judgment, since we have rejected Jesus – his son.
This judgment isn’t something that got dreamed up as some sort of sadistic joke, it was on the cards from the beginning of creation. Warning have been given throughout history, but mankind fails to heed them.
As to you. So why the big complaint?
Hint: further comments will need to keep it more polite than scaryreasoner.
On #10, there are real contradictions in the Bible like Romans 3:11 and Acts 17:27. Paul of Romans says we can’t seek God. Paul of Acts says God made us specifically to seek God. Paul can’t agree with Paul.
Also, Jesus says (John 5:29) those who have “done good” will be resurrected to eternal life and those who have “done evil” will be resurrected to eternal damnation, which clearly means JUDGMENT BASE ON WORKS (as also in Revelation 20:12 “and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works”) but Paul says we are justified by faith (alone). Yet, even Paul contradicts himself and says in 2nd Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” and in Romans 2:6-11 “the righteous judgment of God; Who will render to every man according to his deeds: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, Tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: For there is no respect of persons with God.”
The safe thing to do is listen to Jesus on this one, and to Paul where he gets it right and says judgment is based on works, and ignore Paul where he says its faith (alone). After all, how can doing good ever hurt you? “Against such there is no law” right?
Galatians 5:22-24 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. {24} And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”
Quit trusting in the putrid stupidity of the Protestant “Faith Alone” garbage. You are protesting GOD and JESUS, not Rome! Repent, be baptized, and live a good life: do good! That’s what Jesus taught. because The Judgment is based on WORKS.
See Romans 6:1 – Paul make it very clear that while we are not saved by works, that does not give license to sin.
It is clear from reading the whole of scripture that man *may* earn the right to enter the kingdom of heaven. However, in our fallen state this is impossible, and we must rely on Jesus to make up the balance.
I suspect a closer study of these books will find that the different audience reflects on the different focuses – no one would preach the same message to such different groups as Jews, Greeks and Romans, with all starting from such different places theologically etc. That does not mean that the underlying message is different, just that to obtain the same picture different aspects must be focused on.
BTW, “Rome” has nothing to do with this. The New Testament cannon was set down long before Rome dominated Christendom, and the early Christians clearly did not see any conflict whatsoever between Paul and Christ.
Romans 3:11 and Acts 17:27 don’t contradict.
Romans quotes an older saying which includes the phrase “There is none who seeks after God” while in Acts Paul is making fundamental statements about creation – that it was made so that man might seek God.
The fact that God wants men to seek him, but none (i.e. few) do is not a contradiction. It’s a reflection of man’s rebellion (again!) that he knows what he must do but refuses to do it.
[Deleted - this thread is not about the rights or wrongs of an obscure interpretation of history.]
“Romans 3:11 and Acts 17:27 don’t contradict.
Romans quotes an older saying which includes the phrase “There is none who seeks after God” while in Acts Paul is making fundamental statements about creation – that it was made so that man might seek God.”
Romans 3:11 misquotes a Psalm out of context to universalize something that may or may not have even been true locally at the time the Psalmist wrote it.
The quote is a translation of a translation, not a missquote.