Previous
Page
Back
to
Table of Contents
Next
Page
Debunking Christian Circular Arguments and Assumptions
Christian
Fundamentalist Theology and Beliefs
Most of you reading
this are probably
already familiar with the precepts of this faith and belief system that
I am
critiquing. For those of you who are not so familiar, here
are
the basic
precepts of it. Don't worry,
it is an
easy to
understand religion because it was designed to appeal to the masses and
lowest
common denominator. After all, what sells well has to be
easily
understood as well. First, here is their version of life,
history, and
the world. Keep in mind though, that this does not represent
the
official
or secular view of history, only the Evangelical Christians version.
The Christian
view of
world history
In the beginning
God created
the Earth and the Universe. After creating the stars and
planets,
he
created the first two humans - Adam and Eve, along with the animals and
all
other life here. Since God didn't want these humans to be
robots,
he gave
them free will so that they could choose to obey him. In
accordance, as a
test of their obedience he put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and
Evil in
the Garden of Eden. They were allowed to eat from all other
trees
but
were strictly told never to eat from that particular tree.
However, Satan
(a fallen archangel) disguised himself as a Serpent and deceived Eve
into
eating from that tree, who in turned persuaded Adam to do so as
well. As
a result, their eyes were opened and they knew both good and evil from
then
on. And as a consequence, sin entered the world and became an
integral
part of human nature. When God confronted them about it, he
declared that
their paradise was over, and that they were now destined to live with
pain and
death. Mankind had fallen both spiritually and physically
with
the loss
of immortality. This Fall of Man brought death, disease, and
pain
into
the world which originally was devoid of them. To make things
even worse,
this "Fall of Man" also brought spiritual death, which meant
separation from God in the afterlife as well. (Such drastic
consequences for
eating a piece of fruit off the wrong tree, wouldn't you
say?)
The system of
salvation set in place at that time were
rituals of animal
sacrifice and
sacraments designed to "wash away sin." Some period of
historical time after Adam and Eve, and the generations of their
descendants
(the length of which has been debated by scholars),
the world became populated by people who were wicked and sinful with no
love of
God. As a result, God decided to destroy the population of
the
world with
a global flood, leaving the only righteous God-fearing man Noah and his
family
alive. So he commanded them to build a great
After this Great
Flood wiped
out the population of Earth, Noah and his family settled down and again
the
human lineage continued. Some generations later though, again
the
world
became populated by wicked and rebellious people against God.
This time,
God chose a righteous man named Abraham to be the father of a nation of
descendants who would be called the “Israelites”,
his
chosen people. This
nation of
The rest of the Old
Testament
Bible deals with the history of
When the period of
the New
Testament began, about 400 years after the last book of the Old
Testament,
When he was 30,
Jesus began a
ministry of about 3 years, during which he preached love, forgiveness,
and
God’s commandments. However, his teachings angered
the
Jewish leaders at
the time, the Scribes and Pharisees, which represented the
establishment,
because his ideas and influence was a threat on their
authority.
Somehow,
the role of the Messiah completely changed in the New
Testament.
The Jews
were looking for a Messiah who could rule and bring political power to
At the end of his
ministry,
he was betrayed by one of his disciples and handed over to the Jewish
leaders
who had him arrested. The Romans tried him, the Jews
convicted
him, and
he was crucified on the cross. After Jesus’ death,
he arose
three days
later on a Sunday and appeared to his followers. This
miraculous
event is
known as “The Resurrection”. He told them
to go out
to witness and preach
the good news of the Gospel to the world, which is that by believing in
Jesus,
all can have Salvation, eternal life, and reunification with
God.
And he
also promised to return one day to take all the believers to heaven,
cast
judgment on the secular world and destroying it and all non-believers
with
it. Then Jesus ascended into heaven.
His followers went
out and
lived their faith, preaching it to others as well. At first,
they
were
heavily persecuted. Many died for their
convictions.
Eventually,
Christianity spread like wildfire in
Within the First
Century, the
New Testament began to be written by a series of authors (the identity
of whom
is unclear and the source of much debate) which were supposedly
inspired by
God’s Holy Spirit to write down the “Word of
God”. Their writings
included the four Gospels, teachings of Paul, other letters and books
by various
authors, and the Revelation of St. John. These writings are
now
seen by
Evangelical Christians and fundamentalists as representing the exact
will and
testament of God to mankind, and therefore infallible and
inerrant. After
several hundred years, during the 4th
Century, the Church
put
together a Council to vote on which books of the Bible would be
officially
canonized and which would be tossed out. That began the
process
of
forming the Bible we have today. For believers, the Bible was
the
ultimate authority, and represented God’s will and testament
to
mankind.
The Catholic Church at first would not let its followers read the
Bible,
thereby making the Church itself as the infallible authority.
However,
when the Protestant Churches began, its followers began to be allowed
to read
the Bible for themselves. Eventually, the Bible was
translated
into
English by 1611 by scribes under the direction of King James of
Ever since the
first
Christians, the way of life for them has been to 1) Accept Jesus Christ
as
their Lord and Savior, believing that he died on the cross for their
sins,
asking forgiveness and inviting him into their heart, 2) Surrender
their lives
to Jesus and following his teachings, 3) Witness and evangelize
non-Christians
about their faith and the Gospel of Jesus, urging them to repent and
become
saved too. 4) Await Jesus’ second coming when the
world
ends, so they can
be taken up into heaven to live in paradise forever. By then,
the
world
will be destroyed and all non-believers will be judged as sinners and
thrown
into hell forever. Hence the urgency for believers to
evangelize
non-Christians.
Christians from the
1st
Century until now have awaited a future 2nd
coming of Jesus,
with
each generation of Christians thinking that this would take place in
their own
lifetime, since the Gospels said that Jesus implied repeatedly that he
was
coming soon and probably in their own lifetimes. They believe
that once
this 2nd
coming happens, the world will be destroyed, and
the true
Christian believers will be taken into heaven to live with God in
eternal
paradise, while all unbelievers will be thrown into hell with Satan and
his
demons to be tormented forever.
Now keep in mind
that all
this is not just some story or abstract concept to
Christians.
This is
LITERAL HISTORICAL FACT!
You can read a
mini-nutshell
version of their view of history at this online picturesque tract:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0005/0005_01.asp
Christian
Fundamentalist doctrines and precepts
Therefore, as a
result of
this version of history, basic Fundamentalist Christian theology can be
broken
down like this. You can find a similar outline to this in
most
Gospel
tracts and preaching material:
It’s as
simple as that.
These precepts of Fundamentalist Christianity are not only very
extreme, but
completely circular in nature, and contain numerous flaws as well,
which we
will get into later.
One big problem
with
Evangelical Christianity in general is that it makes VERY EXTREME
CLAIMS,
especially the one about all non-Christians who don’t believe
in
its gospel
will spend an eternity in hell in everlasting torment.. To go
around
proclaiming such a thing to others, threatening them with a literal
eternal neverending
state of torment is
perhaps the most extreme
claim in the world. Of course, such a claim is going to
result in
severe
counterattacks, backlash and controversy from those who
disagree!
What do
these Evangelists expect? The problem is that they expect
rational
intelligent sane people to believe such extreme claims just because
they point
to some verses in the Bible that say so, which is absurd to anyone
except
them! What they fail to understand and realize is
that JUST
BECAUSE THE BIBLE SAYS SOMETHING DOESN’T MEAN IT’S
TRUE! That
is the BOTTOM LINE. Showing people Bible verses to support
their
assumptions is not proof or evidence. Text and words printed
in a
book do
not constitute proof. Now and throughout history, millions of
books have
been written, but that doesn’t mean that everything in them
is
true! They
know that, but the problem is they don’t apply it to their
own
beliefs too.
Though they
fervently believe
that all non-Christians are going to hell, they simply CAN’T
PROVE OR
DEMONSTRATE IT. They present zero evidence that there is a
Judgment Day
that everyone who ever lived will stand before, where those who
accepted Christ
will enter into heaven while those who didn’t will be thrown
in
hell. All
they present are words and text in a book. Yet they expect
people
to
believe it, take it seriously, and change their lives for it!
In
effect,
this extreme claim is in the “out there” realm
which can
neither be proven nor disproven.
Pointing to text in a book is no kind of
evidence, though they think otherwise. The problem is, they
expect
rational sane people to simply believe it, because “the Bible
says so”.
That is totally unrealistic. If you expect people to change
their
lives
for this claim just in case it might be true, because what about all
the other
extreme claims out there? Should everyone change their lives
for
them
too, just in case they “might” be true?
Previous
Page
Back
to
Table of Contents
Next
Page