It has begun! I have considered my options and, well, decided that it is time to join the ranks of atheist team. #TeamAtheist. It was imminent since it just seems more practical and also makes me warm inside to believe that I control my fate and not some tyrannical being in the air. Albeit, it is true that I have physically experienced spiritual warfare, seen numerous extraordinary answered prayers, been an eyewitness to an injured foot being miraculously healed, and heard of many other stories that confirm there is a true God…I just really believe that I know more “real” knowledge and will not subject myself to silly myths anymore.
Now I can already sense what you Christians are getting all riled up. Just calm down, you can join me on this adventurous bandwagon of Real Truth. There is room. I’ll do us all a favor and give you point-by- point reasons to why atheism is better than your mythical faith. I will address it as if I am being debated by a Christian with a few of their best reasons that prove Christianity is real, and I’ll combat it with my wit and intelligence. Because even though God is forever in age, I still know a thing or two in my own youth. I have a college degree and the Internet at my disposal.
- Christian apologists would say: There are 66 books of the Bible, written over a 1500 year span, with 40 different authors (each with wildly different personalities and social statuses, but wrote with exact unity), and 2300 archeological digs (not one refuting the Bible).
-I will answer to you that you are correct. But there is an American scholar who claims to have recently found ancient evidence that proves that Jesus was made up. I’ll admit that he’s probably very biased and, to the contrary, has likely found nothing to negate 2000 years of your historical evidence. However, he gives me hope. #TeamAtheist
- Christian apologists would say: There are 6000 manuscripts written in the days of Jesus and the early church by random everyday people at the time. We can recreate over 90% of the Bible with those manuscripts alone. There are only 12 ancient manuscripts of Julius Caesar, 10 for Aristotle, and 0 for Socrates. Would you not believe in the latter three either?
-I will answer: Of course I believe Caesar, Socrates, and Aristotle were real people. I’d be foolish to believe otherwise. Still I do not believe Jesus was real. I need more proof.
- Christian apologists would say: So you believe that we came from literally nothing? A dot? In order to create we need time, space, and matter. All three have to commend to existence at the same instance. None of those three entities can create themselves. They need an outside force to do so. How did they come into existence?
-I do not know. But cosmic evolution is still possible. We just need further technological advances to get there. #Atheist4Life
- Christian apologists would say: A star explodes in the galaxy about every 30 years. This occurrence is called a “Super-Nova” and can be spotted afterwards. If the earth is millions of years old, why are there less than 300 Super-Novas found in all the galaxies? Should there not be millions of them around, over time, with your atheistic theory?
-Hmm touche, touché.
- Christian apologists would say: What about the numerous amounts of former intellectually staunch atheists and historians who eventually converted to Christianity during their studies? Do you not think that God wooed them to Himself by allowing them to see truth?
-Ahh, you see those ex-skeptics were weak. C.S. Lewis was weak. I am much more competitive and will not allow myself to fall into the subversive hands of Christianity. I will train myself to have a closed mind and, in turn, eventually work my way up to allow a hardening of my mind to any concept of faith. The wonderful part of that is that as I further train myself, the more biased truth I will psychologically believe. It will get to the point that I will fully believe in any atheistic principal or finding regardless of any evidential merit.
Ok, if you have not guessed it yet, this is all satire. However, I have much more on my chest that has to be released to the atheist community.
I am constantly fearful of you all. This particular blog post is infinitely miniscule to the amount of information out there that points to the validity of scripture and of a triune God. On the other hand, there is also information out there that can lead you to believe the contrary. How else would the “hardening of the heart” be achieved, as in Romans 1:28 and Exodus 9:12. How else would Satan and his powers of darkness put in their two cents to skew the legitimacy of the Gospel, as foretold in Ephesians 6:12 and Revelation 12:9. Be careful intelligent ones. Lawyers, doctors, businesswoman, professors… lest you begin to believe in your own finite abilities. Be careful liberal youth, artists and freethinkers… lest you slip into a culture that deems God as controlling and fake. Our society heightens the beliefs of the 17th century Age of the Enlightenment past its initial purposes. We love ourselves so much that we become territorial animals against anything that will rail against that love for ourselves (i.e. God). Many times I get headaches with the weak arguments brought up by atheists. NONE of which a strong enough to ever stomp Christianity. It takes more faith to believe what you believe.
You can never know it all because mystery is a prerequisite for faith; and without faith it is impossible to please God. Hebrews 11. There will never be enough false information created or debates that will eliminate our faith. Christianity is booming in China, Africa, Korea, etc. Do not be deceived by what you may see in your few seconds here on earth, or on your small radii of where you live. There are things at hand of which you cannot see. God’s kingdom will steadily build. Proof of his reality will steadily be seen (Romans 1:20). Luckily for us all, God in his infinitely loving grace is welcoming you and I to join Him. He loved us enough to die – even for those that do not believe. If you have a tingling desire of that invitation, then seek it out. Seek the truth. It is eternally worth it.
A Fun & Outgoing Introvert 
One of the primary doctrines of Christianity is human freedom.
It is this fundamental doctrine that has propelled Western Civilization to such unparalleled heights.
So the Christian understands that the human being is free to choose his own fate.
And that means you became an atheist for the wrong reason.
Honestly, it’s amusing that Christians now start funny infighting, because they have problems reading more than the headlines, so that the whole concept of irony escapes them…
Anyway… “human freedom”? Like in “do what I say or I smite you and torture you in hell for all eternity”? Sure.
Atomic,
You are doing what atheists usually do:
1. Insult the intelligence of your opponents.
2. Redefine your opposition because you don’t have the capacity to accept your opposition on their own terms.
The bottom line is that atheism, as demonstrated by you, is nothing more than mental masturbation.
Get off your high horse and meet your opposition on the ground of equality. That is the first step to effective argumentation.
No, I am amusing myself because you didn’t get the gag by assuming that the headline would tell you everything. Nothing more. You could have proven a sense of self-irony, but no… it had to be the old “boo-hoo, I am such a victim here”-ploy. How boring.
There are no archaeological digs that give legitimacy to the bible stories and you must know this. If you don’t maybe you could start by reading the Bible Unearthed.
Socrates did not write, but we get his dialogues through his disciples like Plato unless of course you want to tell us Plato also didn’t exist. There is, however, nothing similar other than the bible stories for Jesus.
On the question of origin of life, evolution only explains how life has progressed following what we observe in nature. To propose that a disembodied spirit is responsible would be irresponsible and illogical to say the least.
Simply because some of the super novae leave no trace and or overlap- that is what I think. We could ask an astrophysicist
And people converting doesn’t translate to a particular belief being true. There are muslims who become christian, christians who become Hindu and so on. It only means human beings can believe anything without examining them. And there is no hardening of heart or whatever people harden. Your beliefs should conform to the evidence you have.
It is also absurd to believe that an all powerful god had to die to himself to save mankind from himself!
I respect where you are coming from. Yet, I have to ask, you read information supporting your view. Have you read anything denying your view? For example, there are sources that do legitimize the “bible stories” as you call them. Also, an idea pops into my head. If it is ok to affirm the writings of Socrates based on them being copied down by Plato, why then do the Gospels and such become mere fiction and story? Because in honesty, its the exact same thing. And to answer my own first question, yes I have read many a source that dictate my faith is false.
If it matters, I was brought up religious and for a long time I believed god had spoken through his prophets. Life is short and there are many things to do, am not going to spend that duration reading books by people like C.S Lewis or Strobel just to know what the other side is saying simply because if the existence of the god they talk about was obvious, there would be no need for apologists.
And on your other question. The disciples of Socrates were not anons. You nor anyone else knows the identities of who wrote the gospels or many books of the bible. The names given the books are arbitrary.
Sorry, I forgot to put information on here. I posted the comment above.
How can we state that the disciples who wrote the Gospels are arbitrary yet deem the disciples of Socrates as leget?
I simply ask the question about have you read other sources, because I am curious as to why you would recommend someone read a source supporting your view when you don’t take the time to read sources supporting the other. I think it is important as people to be well informed, and I am informed about what Bible Unearthed as well as many other sources state, but find the evidence supporting Christianity to be correct.
You don’t have to read all of the sources. Scholarly peer reviewed sources weed out the vast amount of inaccuracies. If you notice the sources you site are not among them.
“Albeit, it is true that I have physically experienced spiritual warfare, seen numerous extraordinary answered prayers, been an eyewitness to an injured foot being miraculously healed”
Really fascinating, that none of these stories has ever held up to real checking. One could almost assume that people are unreliable witnesses and full of personal bias…
This whole debate is pointless. When it is all said and done none of you were alive 10 thousand years ago much less 10 billion. All of your scientific data and your archeological research is flawed. I say this because whether you are a Christian or an atheist a creationist or an evolutionist your data (whether is scientific, historic, or religious) is influenced by the person or persons gleaning it. That goes for both sides of this story. Human nature is inherently flawed. We are evil vile people if left unchecked capable of doing great amounts of harm to nature and our fellow man. Regardless of your personal beliefs on the matter. The bible has a great capacity for good. I know you will counter with well your “God” demanded slaughter of thousands if not millions of innocent lives. I can understand how those particular things will be seen in a negative light. I do not claim to understand the reasoning behind those particular acts. I can however say that when it is all said and done regardless of your religious beliefs or not most of you follow the bible in someway or another. The bible has dictated what has been considered socially acceptable for well over the last 400 years. I have gotten off topic. The point I am trying to make is that scientific data doesn’t account for one thing. The views and beliefs of the scientist performing the tests. You can manipulate data in anyway you want to make just about anything you believe appear to be true. That goes for both Creationist and Evolutionist Christians and Atheist.
Postmodern movement is alive and well
The part about the bible being historically accurate is false, and intellectually dishonest. For example, there is zero evidence for a world wide flood, or jewish enslavement in Egypt. The list can go on and on.
Also, it doesn’t matter one bit if Socrates existed. His writings are the only thing that matter. Him existing/not existing doesn’t change the point of his work. Unlike the bible.
A world-wide flood would be tough to scientifically record would it not? But to attempt address it, one thing you can do is study Carbon Dating (and it’s subsequent proven flaws). Original scientists had a critical “assumption” in their process. It was assumed that the ratio of 14C to 12C in the atmosphere has always been the same as it is today (that it had reached an equilibrium). If this assumption is not true, then the method will give incorrect dates. And it does give random results, just results that are large enough to back macro-evolution. But his reasoning was based on a belief in evolution, which assumes the earth must be billions of years old. This is why carbon dating gives random results to this day.
(There is much more to it, but for time sake) When taking the flood into account, the timeline from the Bible matches smoothly with the results.
Another thing to look into with the flood is Polystrate Fossils. That is BIG there.
But in the end it is faith. Like I said in the blog, “You can never know it all because mystery is a prerequisite for faith; and without faith it is impossible to please God. ”
I want to get into your Socrates comment because it doesn’t seem fair for that subjective thought of yours to be said. No offense, but it seems kinda hypocritical. But then I’d have to explain and that would be lengthy. So I’ll pass. haha.
Thanks for commenting buddy!
Yes c14 does change. We are able to adjust for these varying amounts in c14 by using tree rings and ice cores as a reference. This renders the effect to a very small level. I don’t know of carbon dating giving “random” results.
The only case of when radiometric dating will provide inaccurate results is when the incorrect method is used for the age of what is being tested.
To think that the earth is young you have to reject:
rates of coral growth
star light
the lineage of the human y chromosome
DNA in ancient fossils
crystal growth
the depth of permafrost
all of the evidence for radioactive decay
tree ring dating
There are many many more methods which I am not immediately familiar with.
I don’t understand the point you are triyng to make with Polystrate Fossils. This is well understood.
Lucas,
Does the fact that there is still Carbon 14 in coal and diamonds contradict the foundation which the assumption of carbon dating sits on? We should be in equilibrium by now. That is, if the earth is billions of years old.
Radio carbon is still forming faster than it is still decaying. Again, Radio carbon is still forming faster than it is decaying. This is a problem for carbon dating. This is also a problem for the theory of carbon dating that apparently has to be ignored by dating the earth a different way. You’re trying to scratch the itch by
There have been living creatures that were carbon dated as thousands of years old. A Russian scientist dated a dinosaur bone at less that 30 years old. It has been noted that they get random data and “select” the yielded data that sounds more reasonable to them. A bias. I can win almost any argument in favor of Kobe Bryant by using biased facts or camouflaging subjective reasoning with objective reasoning. The smarter you are on the subject the easier it is to defend your position…to a certain extent of course. But intelligence can go a long way. Such a long way that it can blind us. History tells us this. But what we learn from history is that we repeatedly do not learn from history.
There are always unknowns in science because its impossible for us to know every single thing that ever was.
If God can create the universe. He can surely easily satisfy your list of needed rejections if the earth is young. Surely history will show you that there are still many things that we do not know. Things that we currently thing we do know but in another 50 years will be mocked for thinking a certain way. I would contend that there are far more things that you must reject in order to believe that the earth is billions of years old.
Somehow we have evolved a conscience. But have no accounting of the conscience.
“Every cause has an effect”, says science. There cannot be an infinite regress of finite causes. Therefore, there must be an uncaused cause, i.e. God. There is observable order or design in the world that cannot be attributed to the object itself; this observable order argues for an intelligent being who established this order; i.e God.
We all desire perfection. Tom Brady desires perfection in football. Brad Pitt in acting. Therefore “perfection” must exist. We cannot invent something rooted out of nothing if it doesn’t exist. Therefore a perfect being exists.
The fact that c14 exists in coal and diamonds is evidence of heavy ion radioactivity. I’ll admit I do not have a background to explain this process clearly in the confines of a comment section. But check it out. Yes radiocarbon is decaying faster, but the evidence says that this is not a constact icreasing rate. Like i said earlier, we are able to adjust for this effect by referencing tree rings.
When we date older objects we use K-Ar dating. So this effect wouldn’t even matter.
I don’t know of anything I have to reject to think the earth is billions of years old. I think that because that’s what the evidence points to.
About cause and effect. Even if what you want to call “God” was just a first cause, this only represents the very slightest of deistic view. To get from that point to at theistic personal god is quite a jump.
I know you get into the ontological arguement at the end. We can imagine in number of perfect versions of things that do not exist. We could prove almost any mythological being this way. We could also debate on what would make a being great. I mean, we could certainly imagine a better version of the christian god. One not so jealous, wrath filled, genocidial, deceitful, and racst. I mean he supposedly lays out a clear definition of love in 1st Corinthians, then the rest of the bible exhibits none of these traits.
I would even go further to say a being that would be truly perfect, would not create.
Some of the points may seem jumbled. At work
The basis of carbon dating assumes that enough time has placed on earth so that we have reached equilibrium. Surely after a billion years we should have reached equilibrium. The fact that we haven’t should raise a giant flag. However, instead of doing so, they keep the old earth assumption try to alter their measuring method with tree rings. But still with the same presupposition.
(The following sentence is a subjective opinion, but can be backed with facts) “They will do whatever needs to be done to get results that favor.” A scientific Freudian Slip from their end. And possible scientific confirmation bias from the reader’s end, depending on the reader’s viewpoint. Christianity, atheism, aliens..whatever…Anti-evolution scientists/results will not get funding from universities or other suppliers. Liberalism (right or wrong) has affected every domain of society, including science/research. Seems like one of us has a “societal” advantage on the topic. We see this for/against global warming, etc. Another example in my own life is when I see any stat-line or video for Peyton manning and against Tom Brady. But neither do I have enough knowledge on the subject. I’m sure someone in this field, who is unbiased, can feed flaws in both our points.
There a more things left unexplained by not believing in a deity. You have to speculate semi-reasonable ways to attain meaning, objectivity, ultimate cause & effect, a conscience, fine tuning, etc….. and then throw out any teleological order and act as if it doesn’t exist.
Later on you said, “We could prove almost any mythological being this way.” Yes we possibly can. That does not discredit the True God. Look at the structure of that reasoning. It reasons from the existence of counterfeits to a denial of the genuine article. That’s not fair. We can use that AND other things to come to the conclusion that the God of the Bible is the real one and not Zeus or anyone else.
Lastly, you said “I mean, we could certainly imagine a better version of the christian god. One not so jealous, wrath filled, genocidal, deceitful, and racist.” Well if you postulate a belief in God and say that if he were there…..then there’s a good explanation with what he’s doing. If you step into this hypothetical worldview then you must step fully in that world, not partly. When it is fully, you see he’s sovereign, controls evil, and everything in the end works out for good. If you only step in for a few seconds of a Harry Potter movie then you may think it is a movie about snakes or Christmas.
I should have known that the comments would get out of control once people started playing the blame game. It is so sad what Enlightenment-age debates have been perverted into.