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Debunking
the Arguments of Christian Fundamentalists and Apologists
Debunking the main arguments
Here are the most popular
reasons that Christians give to try to prove the validity of their religion and
Bible. They were formulated by apologists, evangelists, and writers to
defend the believers’ faith and try to provide reasons for a solid foundation
for it. On the surface, to someone with little or only a cursory
knowledge of Christianity, they may sound like they make sense. However,
to those who know the full uncensored version of history and Christianity, they
just don’t hold water at all. They are very easy to debunk, unless your
mind is captive to fanaticism and doctrine. All you need are a broad
perspective, good reasoning skills, common sense, and knowledge of the
facts.
Ok let’s begin now. For
reference sake, I will number each of the arguments I critique and
refute. Also, when I quote Bible verses, they will mostly be from the
King James Version, unless the passage is not very readable, in which case I
may use another version such as the New International Version.
Argument # 1: The
Bible is the infallible word of God.
This is the first and most
fundamental claim that Christians make when Evangelizing. It is just
taken for granted that it is true, but if you analyze the weight of the evidence
for this doctrine, you find that it is in actuality both weak and nearly
non-existent. First of all, the first sentence of this argument, that the
“Bible is the word of God” implies that the text in the Bible books are God’s
words verbatim. However, we all know, including the Christians, that
humans wrote those books. The only difference is that Christians believe
that the humans (the identity of many of them are unknown) who wrote the Bible
were guided by God the Holy Spirit, and therefore, they are God’s words
verbatim and without flaw. The question then becomes, were they?
Furthermore, they argue that since we would assume that God would protect his
own word, that the Bible has remain unchanged.
Now these are huge
assumptions for one thing. It would take A LOT to prove or even
demonstrate such outlandish claims literally. However, not only do
Christian Evangelists make these assumptions, but they just assume it to be
true as well without any real basis. In general, the issue is not
questioned or analyzed in the church as to whether the Bible is God’s word or
not. It is simply ASSUMED to be so. It’s a GIVEN. And it
rests on a very shaky foundation, much more so than they could imagine. What
most Christians don't realize and never think about is that God himself never
actually told them directly that the Bible was his word. Fallible
imperfect human beings did!
To demonstrate this, here's
an interesting and simple test that you can try. Go to a church,
and ask ten people the question "How do you know that the Bible is
God's word?" From most of them you'll get a look of confusion or
puzzlement, and some of them will just say "Because it says so."
offering no other reason. Of course, a few more knowledgeable ones will
use some of the arguments in this article that I refute. But what you can
learn from this experiment is that most Christians don't know why they should
believe that the Bible is God's word. You see, they've been socially and
psychologically engineered to assume that it's a given fact that it is.
They've been unconsciously taught that it's a simple fact just like the sky is
blue and the grass is green. That's why in their normal line of thinking
they would never question why they should believe that the Bible is God's word.
You may wonder why Christians
never questioned the inspiration of the Bible upon first being introduced to
it. Well I think that one of the main reasons they don't question the
Bible's divine inspiration upon their initial conversion into Christianity is
due to the incredible promise of eternal life that they are promised upon
conversion. They are so overjoyed and amazed at the offer of eternal life
in heaven, offered to them for free just for believing, that their left brain
never stops to analyze what they've been preached. Another reason is that
preachers and evangelists often use sentiment, emotion and touching stories to
convert people, rather than reason. Or if they were raised by Christian
families, then of course as a child they wouldn't initially question their
religious theology, since children generally assume that what their parents
tell them is true.
Now, here’s the big
shocker. What followers of Christian fundamentalists don’t know and never
realize is: NOWHERE in the Bible does it claim to be God’s
word. And NOWHERE in the Bible does it claim to be infallible. The
doctrine of Biblical inspiration and infallibility was made up by Christian
fundamentalists to create an artificial foundation for their faith.
Fundamentalists love to cite 2 Timothy 3:16; however, the “Scriptures” referred
to in that verse refer to the Old Testament, and the term “inspiration” does
not mean “word of God” either. (i.e. if a tree inspires me to write a poem
about it, is that poem my words or the tree’s words?) In any case, NOWHERE
in the Bible does it claim that all 66 books in it are infallible.
Nowhere. Period. That’s something Christians say, not the Bible or
God. In fact, many of the authors of the Bible had no idea that their
books would be canonized into an “infallible word of God” book. Even in
Paul’s epistles, he made it clear that he was writing personal letters, not
dictating whatever God was telling him to write down. He even says
literally in three verses in his epistles that these are his words, and not
God’s! (see below examples) Furthermore, even if the Bible did claim to be
God’s word or infallible, that wouldn’t make it so either. I could take
any of the millions of books in the world, and write in somewhere, “This book
is the word of God. It is infallible.” But would that make it so?
There are two vague verses
though, that Christians use to attempt to prove that the Bible is God’s
word. These two verses though, pose problems and raise more questions
that preachers don’t address, cause they can’t. Let’s look at them
now. Here’s the first one.
2
Timothy 3:16
"All
scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."
First of all, the term "All Scripture" could
easily and logically refer to the Old Testament or the Ten Commandments because
a) Jesus used the word scripture many times to refer to the Old Testament
canons, so to be consistent we must assume that here as well, and b) at the
time this verse was written, the New Testament as we have it today was not even
put together yet! Now, since modern Evangelical Christian theology is
based mainly on the teachings of the New Testament of course, that means that
this verse doesn’t really support the core Christian theological teachings of
today!
Second, just because someone was “inspired” by
something to write does not mean that that which caused the inspiration wrote
it directly verbatim. That’s not what the word “inspiration” even
means. For example, if a beautiful sunset inspired me to write a poem,
that doesn't mean that the sunset itself wrote the poem, only that the sunset
motivated me to write it. The definition of the word “inspire” obviously
is not that the “inspirer” is dictating their words verbatim as if it were
their own. Here is the definition of “inspire” from the American Heritage
Dictionary:
1. To affect, guide, or arouse by divine influence.
2. To fill with enlivening or exalting emotion: hymns that inspire
the congregation; an artist who was inspired by Impressionism.
3a. To stimulate to action; motivate: a sales force that was inspired
by the prospect of a bonus. b. To affect or touch: The falling
leaves inspired her with sadness.
4. To draw forth; elicit or arouse: a teacher who inspired admiration
and respect.
5. To be the cause or source of; bring about: an invention that
inspired many imitations.
6. To draw in (air) by inhaling.
7. Archaic a. To breathe on. b. To breathe life
into.
Third, no matter what this verse referred to, one
verse out of over 33,000 Bible verses does not make all the verses divinely
inspired, especially the verses of the other books of the Bible which don’t always
even agree with each other. So the idea of one verse out of one book
proving divinity in all 66 books is completely absurd and non-sensical.
And as we know, words are just that - words. They don’t create reality or
fact. Therefore, just because a verse like this implies that the Bible is
the word of God doesn’t make the whole Bible the word of God. In fact,
the majority of the books of the Bible do not even claim to be the word of
God. Not even Paul claimed that his letters and epistles were the word of
God. But nevertheless, even if hundreds or thousands of verses in the
Bible said that they were the word of God, that still wouldn’t make it so
either. I could take any book in the world, and pen in them somewhere the
words, “All words in this book are given by inspiration of God…..” but would
that make them God’s infallible word?!
Although the
Bible claims to contain the words of God when it says "The Lord
spoke" or "Thus sayeth the Lord", even if God really did say
those things, that doesn't mean that when Paul said "I say" this and
that, that it is the same thing. Nor does it mean that all the verses
where God speaks directly reflect what he actually said either.
Now, here’s the other verse
they use to claim divine inspiration of the Bible.
2
Peter 1: 20-21
“Knowing
this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private
interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man:
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
Again, it obviously is
referring to the prophecies of Old Testament prophets and perhaps scriptures,
not to the whole Bible. Therefore, the three problems above apply to this
verse as well. And as mentioned, Christian theology and teaching is based
primarily on the Church’s interpretation of the New Testament.
Three verses that say the
Bible ISN’T God’s word!
Now, here’s the kicker.
There are THREE verses in the New Testament that claim that the Bible is NOT
the exact word of God! Here let me show you!
1 Corinthians
7:12
"But
to the rest speak I, not the Lord: If any brother hath a wife that
believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her
away."
The Apostle Paul clearly says
here in the first sentence "speak I, NOT the Lord". He is
saying that these words he is about to say are from him and not God! It’s
in plain language. This alone technically invalidates the fundamentalist
doctrine that every word in the Bible is uttered directly by God. It
alone shatters this absolute claim of theirs. There is no defense.
However, there are two more similar verses like it to shatter the doctrine even
further beyond what’s necessary. Later on in the same chapter, Paul says:
1
Corinthians 7:25
"Now
concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my
judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful."
You see here how Paul is
saying that he is using his best personal judgment, and that what he's saying
is not directly from God? He is telling you that he is writing his own
opinion. Then, in Paul’s next letter to the Corinthians, he says:
2
Corinthians 11:17
"That
which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly,
in this confidence of boasting."
Again, the same claim by
Paul.
Christian apologists, when
countered with these verses, usually respond by claiming either that 1) Paul
was adding to Jesus' commands, or 2) Paul was being inspired without himself
knowing it. Now those are very bizarre explanations indeed, which don’t even
address this issue. Either way, even if those two explanations are true,
they still shatter the doctrine of Biblical infallibility. And
furthermore, in regards to the second explanation, why would God
"inspire" Paul to say that his words were NOT from God?!
Now add up the score.
ONE verse versus THREE! This extreme doctrine is shattered three times
over. It’s been disproven by 300 percent! Game over.
In addition, all one has to
do is to take a look at the opening line of the epistles in the New Testament
by Paul and other writers, and you will easily notice that the author is
addressing his “letter” to a specific church or group of people at the
time. This means that it is obvious in clear language that they were
writing a letter for certain people or congregations, to either instruct them
or give them encouragement, and not writing some infallible scriptures to be
placed in a Bible to represent God’s word verbatim to all mankind!
What is odd is that while the
Evangelists and Apologists emphasize this doctrine of Biblical infallibility so
strongly and obsessively as if it were the central issue, the Bible itself
doesn’t even do that. In fact, these Apologists only have two vague
verses they use to justify this core doctrine of theirs. If this doctrine
of Biblical infallibility was so central and core to Christianity as they
claim, then why are there only two vague verses about it, out of over
33,000?
As mentioned before, the
doctrine of Biblical infallibility was not a central tenet of Christianity
until early in the 20th century when the theory of evolution began
to be taught as fact in classrooms. It was then that the Christians
countered with this doctrine. Not only did it protect Christian tenets
from the danger of Darwinist teachings, but it served other purposes as
well. You see, without the doctrine that the Bible is infallible and that
every word of it is of God, it would put question marks on every verse.
Anyone could then pick and choose which parts of it they wanted to be God’s
word and which they didn’t, and that would greatly undermine the authority of
it. So this doctrine is necessary to keep the religion intact.
Otherwise, Christians themselves would not be able to feel secure and confident
that every verse in the Bible could be trusted.
For an eloquent rant about
the Bible that brings up many good points, read the essay About
the Holy Bible (1894) by Robert Ingersoll, a religious critic from the 19th
century.
Also from Ingersoll is an
extensive article that lists discrepancies and absurdities in the books of
Moses. It is a very amusing read as it is both eloquent and humorous at
the same time. Some
Mistakes Of Moses (1879) By Robert Ingersoll
But even before Ingersoll’s
time, Thomas Paine, a great eloquent religious critic, already debunked the
Bible and Christian theology in his treatise The
Age of Reason
Also check out The Argument from the Bible (1996) by Theodore Drange
For a site similar to this
one and nicely packaged, see The Rejection of
Pascal’s Wager: A Skeptic’s Guide to Christianity
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