The Case Against Christianity in 15 Minutes or Less

One of my favorite foils in the Christian blog world is JW Wartick, (one of many apologists who have blocked me) so I thought I would take one of the favorite posts on his blog, and have a little fun with it. I find it interesting that Christianity is constantly on the defensive, because if it was a logical, with consistently held belief, it would be easier to defend against skeptics without using Humpty Dumpty semantics and/or ad hoc measures. However, since this is not the case, Christians such as Wartick and others of his ilk are constantly trying to defend their inconsistent and illogical beliefs, so Wartick came up with his, "The Case for Christianity in 15 Minutes (or Less).  Well, we'll see about that....lol.

His first defense is one of WL Craig's favorites, the Kalam Cosmological Argument:

1) Whatever begins to exist has a cause
2) The universe began to exist
3) Therefore, the universe has a cause

This argument is weak, as it "presumes too much." Furthermore, if we assume the universe was caused by a god, that god would not necessarily be the Christian god, or the Islamic god, or the Jewish god--even though they ARE the same god! If this argument was a good argument, it would only prove that some gods and goddesses may have caused the universe. It could apply to Zeus, or Jupiter, or Brahma or any number of the thousands of gods and goddesses created by humanity. Via Ockham's razor, and quantum mechanics however, the BEST plausible explanation in this case would be via science and the H-D method, in which case no gods or goddesses need apply. Wartick then goes on to say that things just don't "pop into existence"--forgetting that his god is said to have done just that--"pop" the universe into existence out of nothing.

His second defense is the moral argument given by WL Craig:

4) If there are objective moral values, then God exists
5) There are objective moral values
6) Therefore, God exists.

“Objective moral values” here means that moral values are true regardless of what anyone thinks. For example, “murder is wrong” would be wrong even if every single human being thought murder was the way to achieve greatest happiness and encouraged it as an extracurricular activity for teenagers. But the only way to hold that objective moral values exist is to grant God’s existence, because objective laws require an objective lawgiver.

This argument commits the fallacy of necessity as it assumes that objective moral values are contingent on a god existing, when this is not necessarily so. No gods or goddesses for that matter are required for morality to exist, as ethics and morals in reality come from Normative Ethical Theories such as Utilitiarianism--which means doing what is right for the overall good.

One can make any wild claim as Dr. Craig does in his argument. Let me make a substitution in Dr. Craig's argument to illustrate:

P1. If humans do not exist, objective moral values and duties would not exist.
P2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
C. Therefore, humans exist.

Just like William Craig's argument, there is no proof for P1. The argument is valid, but whether it is sound or not is questionable. In the case of Craig's argument, as I have already shown, we have another viable option for objective moral values, and that is the use of Normative Ethical Theories.

On another note, my argument is valid, but is contingent on humans existing, so it too commits the fallacy of necessity, as we have no way of knowing whether or not morality and duty is dependent on the existence of humans. Many animals have exhibited moral behaviors, so it is not necessarily so that morality only exists in the realm of humanity.

For the sake of argument, let's assume his argument works. Dr. Craig himself admits that this argument alone does not prove the Christian god. The reason for this is that every non-Christian culture, has/had their own standards and moral guidelines that they follow, and therefore their morals and duties are not contingent on the christian god Yahweh existing. Hindu's have a moral code. Sumerians had a moral code. The Native Americans had moral codes long before the White Christians came along, and many Christian missionaries made note of the fact the Indians had "no sin. " Orthodox Buddhists do not even posit a god, but they too have a moral code/standard etc.

Let's assume however, that Yahweh exists and that we received moral values from this particular god. Let's say for example that a father murders his children because he claims god told him to in order to save them from Satan. Most christians would claim that Yahweh would never tell anyone to do such a heinous thing, and the man who killed his children is just crazy. The reasoning that concludes that it was not Yahweh who told the man to kill his children allows another conclusion to be drawn. This would be a moral test in which the conclusion that was drawn came from our own moral knowledge, and not from what a god said. Yahweh has, after all, according to the bible, spoken through others, ordering them to slaughter the innocents, so it would be inductively valid to assume that Yahweh ordered the man to murder his children. (Hosea 13:16)

Are actions in any case right or wrong then because god says they are; or are they right or wrong because they are right or wrong? The Divine Command theory in ethics states that whatever god says is right is right--in this case the Christian god Yahweh-- which would mean the slaughter of innocent children, pregnant women and their unborn fetuses would be considered right. If this is the case then, there is no standard for good, as murder would be considered "good." Therefore, true objective morality cannot come from such a god.

Two down, two to go.

Wartick argues that Christianity is "unique," and many religions have contradictory truth claims:

"Some forms of Buddhism say: There is no God; Christianity argues: There is a God; Hinduism states: there are many gods, etc. and the Law of Noncontradiction shows us that therefore, these religions cannot all be true. "

He tries to state that Christianity is unique in that its central religious claim is a historical one, in that the person Jesus Christ died and rose again from the dead, and he claims Jesus' resurrection is a historical event--however this so-called "resurrection" does not meet the standards for historicity and is not considered "history" by almost everyone except Christians. To meet the standards for historicity, this so-called event must be corroborated by outside sources--which it is NOT. The interpolations within Josephus' writings, and the writings of those that lived generations after the supposed events took place do not count as corroborative historical sources. Furthermore, if the resurrection of Jesus can be claimed as being historical via the Bible, then we can also say that Krishna is real via the Bhagavad Gita, as Prince Arjuna witnessed his "unique" accomplishments and wrote about them. Hinduism, therefore, is just as "unique" as Christianity is. So is Buddhism, and many other religions for that matter.

Wartick goes on to claim that Jesus is God and that the gospels are reliable. But I proved via Wartick's own words that Jesus could not be a god!  I did this in another one of Wartick's posts, "Atheists and Unicorns, an Emotional Appeal." In the course of our discussion in the comments section, I illustrated to him via his own words that Jesus could not be God.

In one of his comments, Wartick asked:

"Show me manuscript evidence that states that Brahman transcends the world and is not the world itself, etc, etc." 

Which I did. I showed him the passage which states that Krisha, as stated in the Bhagavad Gita, is the “infallible one” (18:73), and is perfect.

Wartick then made the statement that:

"The cosmological argument (of the Leibnizian variety) could only support a necessarily existent deity. Anyone who does any kind of research about gods of the past would know many would not be ontologically necessary (they could be killed, for example)

I countered with the following:

 "The other gods I mentioned (Dionysus, Quetzalcoatl, Krishna) died and were resurrected. According to the bible and Christianity, Jesus DIED on the cross. Either he was dead or he was NOT dead. If Jesus could be killed, then according to what you wrote, he could not be a god. If he could not be killed, and he did not die on the cross, then his pretend "death" would have been meaningless."

My last comments, which he did not post, are below:

"I gather that you know that I set your argument out correctly and showed how ridiculous your claims are, which is why you did not post my last response, which I have repeated below. You want your readers to think that you are correct, instead of just "manning up" and admitting your mistake. Your intellectual dishonesty is pathetic. If you want to redeem yourself, post this, and answer to it. Your best answer would be to admit that you made a mistake. At any rate, I will be writing a post related to our conversation (yes, I take pictures of everything--even the things I write that you do not post out of fear--and for no other reason!) I am making reference to your claim about the cosmological argument and your claim that if someone dies, they cannot be god.

The other gods I mentioned (Dionysus, Quetzalcoatl, Krishna) died and were resurrected. According to the Bible and Christianity, Jesus DIED on the cross. Either he was dead or he was NOT dead. If Jesus could be killed, then according to what you wrote, he could not be a god. If he could not be killed, and he did not die on the cross, then his pretend "death" would have been meaningless. If you do not think that Jesus' death meant his nonexistence, what makes you think the death of Krishna, Dionysus and Quetzalcoatl means their nonexistence?--oh yes, that's right, your religious prejudice. "
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We can further illustrate that Jesus is not God via the Bible itself. Christians claim that Jesus made "divine" claims when he said that, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). However, the Bible also states the man and woman "become one" in marriage.(Mark 10:8) Therefore, the best explanation for the statement that 'I and the father are one'  is that it is allegorical, and similar to man and woman becoming one in marriage, or that I and my grandmother are one, in that we share the same philosophy in the "loose and popular sense of same, and not in the "strict' sense of same in that we are one and the same being. It is a better explanation because the "strict" sense of same is how Christians view God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost as being "one"--which is entirely illogical. I illustrated this in this post.

If Jesus were a mere man and not a god, it would also explain various passages in the Bible which make little sense if his parents and family were aware of his divinity. For example, if his parents were aware of his divinity, then they would not have questioned him as to his whereabouts when they found him in the temple after he had gone missing for three days during their Passover trip to Jerusalem when he was twelve years old. If they had known he was divine when they found him in the temple, they would not have questioned him as to why he was there, and they would have understood fully what he was talking about--he was the "son of god" after all. But they had no idea what he was talking about, as the passages below illustrate:

“Why were you searching for me?” he (Jesus) asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house? But they did not understand what he was saying to them. " Luke 2:49-50

So there you go. How to Debunk Christianity and Defend Atheism in 15-20(?) minutes or less....;)  Have a great weekend everyone!

_________________

Cathy Cooper