Dismantling The Four Pillars Of Christianity

[LivingLife]

I have posted on this before but we have a number of new members and I guess some folk still battling with remnants of indoctrination.

 

First off, let us define the four pillars.

 

Genesis' Adam and Eve

The flood

Exodus

Jesus

 

Adam and Eve whether taken literally or figuratively does not work. A single pair of any critter let alone a human can or is able to propagate an entire species. The main reason for this is that the gene pool will result in deformities assuming there was sibling and cousin copulations. While the story tells us the sons went to a nearby city to find wives, some of the apologetic nonsense one hears is that back then, DNA was purer or DNA became corrupt after the fall. All of this is nonsense and spoken by folk that do not even have the slightest notion of how genetics work. This was not even an argument by theists prior to the discovery of DNA (I am old enough to remember). There is no purity factor to DNA and the only thing that can corrupt it (mutation) are external influences like radiation, ingesting bad substances, etc. assuming the exposed survived.

 

Simple proof of this exists in laws where sibling copulation and/or first cousin copulations are banned. Isolated sects like the Amish have genetic issues that if not for modern medical science, they would fail in the rule of survival of the fittest.

 

This on its own is a very complex subject and I have only scratched the surface.

 

The next pillar is the global flood. Of course most folk accept this never happened but here are a few pieces of contra evidence. The biblical timeline for the global flood is somewhere around 2500 BCE. Ignoring the obvious single layer of fossils that should exist, here are the more pertinent geological and botanical arguments against. I encourage you to google these and find corroborating evidence.

 

Lake sediment Varves

 

We have oodles of these globally that are dated back sometimes millions of years.

 

Trees older than 6000 years

 

We have trees that are older than the biblical time line or ~6000 years and in Sweden there is a tree whose root system is ~9000 years old.

 

Antarctic Ice Cores

 

These date between 400k and 730k years old. Landlocked ice would float on water. YEC like to bring up WWII planes from Greenland that are buried very deep and are also on glacial ice; the precipitation there is much higher and the Antarctic is only about 2 inches per year.

 

Various river delta systems

 

None of these indicate any evidence for a global flood. Many of these are now eco systems where even people cohabit the areas.

 

Canyons worldwide

 

Are evidence of a very old earth and are all very similar.

 

The dimensions of the Ark makes that a wooden boat that is unseaworthy by all standards of ship building not to mention it would be too small to hold the entire known species that we know of today.

 

Once again we are confronted with genetic constraints as with the Genesis creation plus it also infers that evolution would have been on steroids to give us what we have currently.

 

Exodus

 

This never happened purely on math alone. Humans require 2 litres of water a day to survive in temperate climates and the bible claims 2-6M folk were in the exodus and in the desert. The orthodox Jews hold to the larger number. Water per day for human consumption would be a convoy of 20 kilo litre trucks parked nose to tail ~ 8.5km long. Miriam's well or the rock of Horeb does not work either as the volume of water dispensed to service the motley crew would be a gusher no one could hold an urn to. You can work out this flow rate by assuming a family of five and a duration of 12 hours daylight to collect water.

 

There is ZERO evidence archaeology-wise that this trek happened. One would expect a few lost trinkets along the way plus burial sites.

 

Jesus

 

His lineage traces back through all the above back to Adam.

 

It is this safe to conclude, if the former did not happen or are myths, nether did Jesus. Of course there are different schools of thought here but the evidence of him being a real person is shaky at best.

 

 

[♦ ficino ♦]

Good stuff, LL.  I recall you've debunked modern miracle claims, too.  Still have that stuff?

[LivingLife]

Good stuff, LL.  I recall you've debunked modern miracle claims, too.  Still have that stuff?

Not sure what you mean here, NDEs and OOBEs? If so, these have been debunked by medical science where blind test revealed that what folk claimed was BS. Both are products of a living brain that creates these experiences.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Stuff like:

someone spoke in tongues and a speaker of language X who was present said the words were language X

a child says stuff that correlates with what only a dead person could know, and relatives say the child is the reincarnation of the dead person

a Hindu swami is pronounced dead and later revives

(I realize 2 and 3 are not orthodox Christian miracle claims)

 

edited to add:

or the "intuitions" described in Timnlia's new Why Didn't I Feel Different thread.

[LivingLife]

Ficino, that was not me. The only "miracles" I have debunked are the NDEs and OOBEs and these are by a simple google search on what tests were done to examine the claims.

 

Generally folk are not that into science so I try and show the fallacy of the claim of the babble as a historical account sprinkled with a tad of science and simple logic.

[Adam5]

..

 

First off, let us define the four pillars.

 

Genesis' Adam and Eve

The flood

Exodus

Jesus

 

Good morning LivingLife.  How are things in South Africa?  It is very rainy and autumnal here in the UK.

 

I like your post. But would not personally put all of these as the pillars.

 

Christians by and large from my experience ignore the old testament, especially the horrid bits, evilbible.com, and the mythical bits, like Adam & Eve in the garden of Eden, and the ridiculous flood story.

 

My choice of pillars of Christianity would be:

 

1. God is a trinity

2. Jesus is God's son and died for our sins

3. Belief in Jesus will get you eternal life in heaven

4. Being loved-up (drugged up?) on God and your neighbour.

 

Christians love quoting those pillars.  But as you point out in your last bit, the evidence is lacking on Jesus' life. And of course the evidence is lacking that any all-loving all-powerful prayer-answering God is "up there".

 

Loving your neighbour is fine, but normal people can do that anyway without the need for supernatural agents.

 

What do you think. Cheers, Adam

[LivingLife]

The premise of the 4 pillars I cited, is the foundation of much of christianity according to the babble. All the OT parts are referenced in the NT. You can see it in verses like "as it was in the days of Noah...", the sin of Adam being rectified by jeebus, exodus as far as the laws referenced allegedly by jesus.

 

What ever modern xianity espouses as you alluded to is of course nothing more than reinventing the religion. The whole preamble of jesus points back to original sin and the alleged stories of him find parallels in earlier myths of other demi-god messiah types. The Jesus story is not an original.

[miekko]

Your lines of reasoning seem fairly shallow.

[slave2six]

 

 

A single pair of any critter let alone a human can or is able to propagate an entire species.

 

You lost me here. Did you mean "cannot" and "is not able"?

 

I think one could ditch the flood and exodus without affecting Christianity at all. But you're right; any time the Bible shoves in claims for which there is no physical evidence, it only makes the whole thing look sillier. If they got something as colossal as the flood wrong, how can they be trusted with ethereal claims?

 

Good point about Jesus' lineage tracing back to a mythological person. I hadn't ever considered that before. 

[miekko]

 

Good point about Jesus' lineage tracing back to a mythological person. I hadn't ever considered that before. 

 

But we do know for a fact the existence of several historical people that claimed descent from mythological people. Lots of people have claimed descents that simply are not true, someone claiming descent from a mythical person (whose existence is widely believed in the culture where the claim is made) is no weirder than claiming descent from a real person.

[hereticzero]

I also believe Exodus never happened and Moses never existed. Neither of these things are recorded in any other culture whether Egyptians or their enemies (who would use the Exodus event to their advantage in ancient propaganda or by attacking Egypt since they just had the stuffings kicked out of them by a god!) Egypt certainly would have recorded it and not ignored such a major event. 

[LivingLife]

The whole point of connecting these dots, which is actually what happens in the NT is to show the jesus fella is linked back through multiple myths, the three cited being the most talked about. Of course most do not consider this, as reading the begats are not really verses that make for entertaining reading but are nonetheless there in the inerrant wurd of gawd.

 

You have to take the A&E story literal to make the jesus myth real. This is where the whole premise of the bible falls flat. Prior to the understanding of exactly how genetics work, folk could still accept this although sibling and cousin coupling bans have been around a lot longer; perhaps folk noticed the offspring did not fare as well.

 

To correct the grammar, a single pair of anything cannot propagate a successful species. You can read up on genetic constraints like many species threatened with extinction. One of the American eagles was close to extinction and it took a concerted human intervention to ursurp nature by collecting eggs and incubating and raising chicks is a safe environment devoid of natural predators and then releasing them back into the wild. The claim is that when critters fall below 40 pairs, they will go extinct.

 

The Amish people have genetic issues with inbreeding and they are way above this number of 40. This is why the woos use the argument of DNA having some magical purity factor back then to make genesis plausible and also to try and support idiotic claims of life spans of 600+ years.

[mymistake]

 

 

Good point about Jesus' lineage tracing back to a mythological person. I hadn't ever considered that before. 

 

But we do know for a fact the existence of several historical people that claimed descent from mythological people. Lots of people have claimed descents that simply are not true, someone claiming descent from a mythical person (whose existence is widely believed in the culture where the claim is made) is no weirder than claiming descent from a real person.

 

 

It's a little weird to claim you descended from somebody who never existed.  But it would also be weird to lie and claim you descended from a real person you didn't actually descend from.

 

What we have in the Bible is an anonymous writing that has been heavily edited that makes many wild and crazy claims about some people who are not known to exist and other people who simply could not have existed.

[Ravenstar]

I'm not sure if these are the four PILLARS of christianity... but they are the four widest known stories in the bible, also the four most unlikely (except for that donkey thing  LOL) However, for the sake of argument I will accept your definition.

 

~ Genesis' Adam and Eve

The concept of a literal first man and woman is so ridiculously opposed, without evidence, to what we know about evolution and genetics that it does not deserve to be considered by rational thinkers. Paul’s teaching that links the historical Adam with redemption through Christ. (Rom.5:12-19; 1 Cor.15:20-23; and his speech in Acts 17) shows us that if Adam did not exist then the entire premise for Christ's sacrifice is unfounded.

 

~ The flood

 

Geology has tons of evidence that a worldwide flood not only didn't happen, physics tells us it COULD not have happened.

        a good place to focus on just even the physical problems of the flood is here: 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html#flood

 

~ Exodus

 

There are so many problems with this story - just the sheer numbers of people reported to have been wandering the desert is untenable. Archaeology does not support this story.

http://www.bibleorigins.net/ExodusProblems.html

 

~ Jesus"

 

"Jesus" as a problem is a bit vague... or I would have stated some of the actual issues with Jesus. A man named Jesus could have existed around the right time... Yeshua wasn't an uncommon name - he even could have been a reformer, political dissident, or madman - or a combination of different people, as well as an almagamation of local rumour and culturally accepted concepts about a 'saviour' deity (a dying god is not an uncommon theme) There is no way to support or dismiss it. It is an unknown.

 

Jesus as the son of god, who performed miracles, raised the dead, walked on water and healed people... who died and then was resurrected... This character does not even fit with the Torah's definition of a jewish messiah... read that again.. their own character does not fit the description of a jewish messiah. 

 

The story of the virgin birth is a rehash of much older tales that 'quantify' Jesus's demigod status. The ridiculous story of the census to bring this person to Bethlehem to fulfill scriptural requirements is forced and wrong from what we know of Roman census taking. There is no record outside of the Bible for it. King Herod died before the supposed birth of this child. 

 

There is no evidence outside of the gospels for this character.

 

Why is human sacrifice required? How does the death of an innocent resolve the responsibility of another for his guilt? Or is this an extrapolation of animal sacrifice practiced by the Hebrews which was a substitute for the very real human (child/firstborn) sacrifices that were practiced at the beginning of the Bible. (read carefully, it's there)

 

Jesus himself said he was not god, that the father was greater.. whence comes the concept that Jesus IS god? Was he praying to himself that night before his demise? Who recorded this action?

 

The bible itself is contradictory as to this resurrection from the dead, and how that manifests. It is allegory? Is it a metaphor? If not, how does it work? Was he reanimated and then floated to heaven (sky?). How exactly does one go to heaven physically? Why was he not recognized at first? Why did he say, "Touch me not?". Where is heaven? Why were women the first 'witnesses', even in a Hebrew court their word would have held little sway as women did not have the same legal rights or influence as men (it took two women to bear witness in the Hebrew system to one man) - why such questionable 'proof' for arguably the most important event in man's history?... where were his disciples?

 

Then there are Paul's assertions, a man who never even met the 'real' Jesus yet seems to know exactly what his teachings meant and has no problem interpreting them for the very infant christian sect. His words however, contradict other scripture, even the ones attributed to Jesus. Paul's christianity has a much different tone than the gospels do.

 

The Jesus story is rife with problems, I have touched on a few here.

[miekko]

 

 

 

Good point about Jesus' lineage tracing back to a mythological person. I hadn't ever considered that before. 

 

But we do know for a fact the existence of several historical people that claimed descent from mythological people. Lots of people have claimed descents that simply are not true, someone claiming descent from a mythical person (whose existence is widely believed in the culture where the claim is made) is no weirder than claiming descent from a real person.

 

 

It's a little weird to claim you descended from somebody who never existed.  But it would also be weird to lie and claim you descended from a real person you didn't actually descend from.

 

What we have in the Bible is an anonymous writing that has been heavily edited that makes many wild and crazy claims about some people who are not known to exist and other people who simply could not have existed.

 

 

It's not that weird - in many cultures, there's prestige related to descent. So there's a simple and obvious motive for lying about that. In many cultures as well, belief in ahistorical persons as historical is common - and then, how's it any weirder to claim you descend from ancient dude A who did exist and imparts prestige or ancient dude B who didn't but also imparts prestige? To the person making such claims up, there was no reason nor any way to verify whether dude B or A existed.

[LivingLife]

I would revise this slightly and say that the four pillars that   Jesus and Christianity created rests on are: Adam and Eve, Abraham, moses, and David

Exodus by inference includes the moses myth. Abraham to a lesser extent other than teachings that suggest he was the pattern of things to come. As a patriarch, he plays a role but not as radical as the first three pillars I referred to. Science can neither prove nor disprove the existence of Abraham. The three I alluded to demand evidence for which we now know there is none.

 

The ark of the covenant is nowhere to be found and this is a huge artefact that disappeared. Of course the bible claims it is now conveniently back in the heavenlies (Revelation). The laws were received at mount Sinai which is in the exodus event and the laws are alluded to often in the NT.

 

There are many ways to skin a cat but this approach is a simplified one for folk to chew on and hopefully make them dig deeper for themselves.