Contents:
Introduction to Refuting Christianity
This page explains where many of the elements of the Christian faith came from and refutes them. More information about the source of Christianity can be found on the previous page, The Bible. Most the comments on these pages deal with more strict Christian views, but there are many points here relevant to even the most liberal Christian, such as the fallacy of the virgin birth, that should be read.
This is a long page and deals with many of the Christian concepts and stories. Each section is meant as an introduction to the general subject of the refutation, and often I will link to much more in depth pages. In each case I should have made it easy to see how the specific myth is flawed, and how that is important (if not individually fatal) to the Christian mythology.
"The seven day creation is not literal, there are illogical and unscientific errors that would not have been apparent to the authors but which are highlighted on this page and by science. The shape of the Earth is not flat. The Sun does not revolve around the Earth. The creation of light and the sun happened independent of each other, and there were 'days' before the sun was created for the Earth to rotate around. The order in which animals, plants and other elements of life appear in Genesis contradict the order that appears in the fossil record and the order of creation of the stars, the sun, etc, also contradict what we know scientifically. The logic is flawed behind the 'day of rest', an all-powerful God does not need rest. In short, the separation of creation into a seven day period is a useless and outdated creation story riddled with errors.Genesis is written by fallible Human beings, not God, and is proven to be a false record of creation. It also shows many symptoms of being a piecemeal, fragmented myth that has been edited and rewritten over time so that it hardly even makes internal sense. It contains no moral teachings and nothing educational. It is an irredeemable anachronism that we ever teach our children it's pointless myths and retain it as part of Christianity. It should be purged."
"The Genesis 7 day creation account" by Vexen
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Incest
"Due to the non viable offspring that result from incest, the Adam and Eve story cannot be the literal whole truth. When a Christian next time relies on the urban myth of "Christian Family Values" then wander how they would explain to someone the big question of "What happened after the Flood?" The only moral escape route is to admit that the Adam and Eve story is a metaphor. The only biologically correct explanation known is that we evolved slowly from lower animals so that incest was never a problem." |
Morals of the story
"Punishing one person for the actions of another is immoral. If we use the Adam and Eve story to explain evil, suffering and death then we are saying that God is immoral and not a forgiving God. Judging Adam and Eve even when they didn't know the difference between good and evil, when they didn't know it was wrong to disobey and couldn't understand that the serpent tricked them, is also immoral. The Adam and Eve story is not a suitable moral story for children nor is it a valid theodicy to explain evil."
"The Prophecy of the virgin birth appears in Matthew 1:22-23. Matthew wrote this seventy years after Jesus Christ was born (35-40 years after he died). Up until that point no other text mentions Jesus' virgin birth. He quotes Isaiah 7:14 which was written 700 years before Jesus was born - thus claiming it was a sign, a prediction of the Messiah's virgin birth.But there is a serious problem. Matthew states that, due to prophecy, it is true that Jesus was a male line descendant of King David, and presents a geneology at the beginning of his gospel tracing Jesus' lineage through Joseph. Matthew, apparently, like Luke and Paul and the rest of the early Christians, did not believe in a virgin birth. There are two theories that I see explain how this contradictory state of affairs occurred. (1) The first is that a Septuagint mistranslation of the word "virgin" instead of "young woman" caused the discrepancy. This means that the prophecy is not that someone called Immanuel will be born of a virgin, but merely that someone called Immanuel will be born. In the original context of the story, this makes a lot of sense. (2) The second theory is that Matthew, writing for a Roman gentile audience in Greek, included popular myths surrounding sons of gods, who in Roman mythology were frequently said to be born of virgins. In either case, it is clear that Matthew's prophecy of a virgin birth was a mistake, and modern Bible's actually include a footnote in Matthew pointing out that the virgin birth is probably a mistranslation. "
From "Matthew, the fraud (click for complete text)" by Vexen
Luke tells us that Caesar called for a census and Joseph and Mary had to return to their town of origin, Bethlehem, until the census was complete. But at no point did the Romans require people to return to their place of birth for a census. Matthew, the only other gospel including information on this, does not include any of these aspects of Jesus' birth, and merely states that he was born in Bethlehem whilst Herod was king. All of Luke's insertions about singing angels, barns and mangers are not mentioned in Matthew's version.
Further problems exist in the contrasting Luke/Matthew accounts of Jesus' birth. Luke claims that Jesus was born when Quirinius, a roman official, was the governor of Syria. This happened during or shortly after 6ad. Matthew however, claims that Jesus was born whilst Herod the Great reigned over Judea, and Herod died in 5 or 4 BC. There is a huge 10/11 year gap between these two dates, and either Luke or Matthew were wrong. Given Luke's track record, and that fact that historians accept the date of 4ad for Jesus' birth, it is likely that Luke was (once again) wrong.
The Guiding star
One of Matthew's plotlines is the three visitors from the East who visit the newborn Jesus. They say that a star came up in the East, however no other people in the story appear to notice this. It must have been a relatively unnoticeable event, a fairly faint star, only noticed by people who study the stars. The three visitors are called 'Star Readers' in Matthew 2:1. However no other astrologers across the world at that time document this phenomenon.
King Herod: The killing of every male baby
Matthew 2:16-17 tells us of King Herod's killing of every male child. This should have been mentioned elsewhere, such as in Josephus' detailed accounts of the times. But no-one else mentions it except Luke! Many other myths, including more ancient Roman ones, had an event where all the male children were killed, and the famous Romulus and Remus story is (once again) a good, famous example. Luke, once again, was borrowing and adding pagan myth stories to his account.
Prophecy of the Messiah
The Old Testament predicts that the Messiah was to be called Emmanuel (Isaiah 7:14), and does not mention a Holy Spirit or a virgin birth. Emmanuel means "with God", but Jesus was instead called Yeshua, and was never called Emmanuel until a few decades after his death.
The Messiah, in scripture, will free the Israelites from oppression and secure a land for them to live in in the same generation (Amos 9:14-15, Mark 13:24-30, and Matthew 16:27-28, however that did not happen for a few hundred years and only gradually.
It was also stated that the Messiah has to be a direct male-line descendant of King David - this would not be true if it was the Holy Spirit who impregnated Mary because he would have no ascendants other than God. However despite this, God still inspired two completely useless and contradictory genealogies to be written into his New Testament.
Matthew's gospel starts with a record of Jesus' genealogy that is introduced with the words 'Jesus Christ, a descendant of David, a descendant of Abraham'. The family tree he gives is however, only of Jesus' step father, Joseph. It is Christian mythology that the Holy Spirit can impregnate virgins, however Matthew seems not to know or believe it. He, as we have seen, does not know or write about Jesus' virgin birth, and he gives Joseph's family tree as proof that Jesus was descended from David. Matthew must have believed that Joseph was Jesus' father, not the Holy Spirit (which was not invented until later in Christianities history).
Luke's genealogy is a completely different one, giving 43 generations from David to Joseph (in contrast to Matthew's 28) and using an entirely different set of names. It was tradition only to list family members that are thought important... but surely Matthew and Luke would have at least picked one in common! At the very least there must be 71 generations between them (unless a large amount of incest has been occurring, mixing generations and such).
It seems that Jesus himself, nor Mary, knew of his virgin birth, or even of his supposed divinity. Likewise Jesus never said he was the Messiah. In the Bible there are many Messiah's, and at that point in time they were common occurrences.
The name 'Jesus'
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As can be seen there is nothing extraordinary in Jesus bearing the name Yeshua which was very frequent among the sons of Israel.
Alfred Reynolds, "Jesus versus Christianity" p11
The Son Of Man
This quote is often used to prove that Jesus knew he was the son of a God. However, other writers, Jews, Rabbis and the general populace used this term frequently to refer to anyone who believed. Any Jew was a Son of Man, or the Son of God. The term was not invented, monopolized or specific to the myth we have become used to associating this term with.
It is likely that Jesus was not the Messiah. He may have been a messiah, one of many, and killed by the Romans like others for disturbing the peace (and hated by the Jews for ignoring Jewish laws of the OT, such as the Sabbath), but even if he did exist his message was not unique (he didn't teach any moral values that were not taught by John the Baptist, for example.).
Verses frequently claimed to be prophecies of Jesus' coming
| Jesus will be: | Verse | Fulfilled in | Vexen Crabtree's notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Born of a virgin | Isaiah 7:14 | Matthew 1:18,24,25 | Read the page on the virgin birth. Isaiah 7:14 does not contain a prophecy of a virgin birth. It is a later mistranslation |
| Descendent of Abraham | Genesis 22:18 | Matthew 1:1 | All of these are contradicted within the Christian scriptures themselves, Matthew states the Yeshua ben Nazaret was not the son of any man, but of the Holy Spirit and that Jesus' father is God, not Joseph, who was his step father. The family trees and genealogies (of which Matthew and Luke give completely different ones) are irrelevant. Jesus can not be a male-line descendant of David AND born from a virgin! Read the text above on the Virgin Birth and Christmas story |
| through Isaac | Genesis 21:12 | Matthew 1:2 | |
| and Jacob | Numbers 24:17 | Matthew 1:2 | |
| of the tribe of Judah | Genesis 49:10 | Matthew 1:2 | |
| of the family of David | Jeremiah 23:5 | Matthew 1:1 | |
| Born in Bethlehem | Micah 5:2 | Matthew 2:1 | Read the bit of the chapter above on Bethlehem |
| Called Immanuel("God with us") | Isaiah 7:14 | Matthew 1:23 | Yeshua (Jesus' Jewish name. "Jesus" is a Greek translation) was not called Immanuel at birth, during his life, or for decades after he died. In fact, he was only called Immanuel even then by Jews who believed he was the Messiah. |
| A prophet | Deuteronomy 18:18 | Matthew 21:11 | This is a somewhat null prediction. "The Messiah will be a prophet" is a tautology, not a prediction! |
| A priest | Psalms 110:4 | Hebrews 5:5,6 | Yep, Yeshua was a Jewish rabbi. |
| A judge | Isaiah 33:22 | John 5:30 | Anyone can fit this criteria. |
| A king | Jeremiah 23:5 | Matthew 27:37 | This is because ALL kings were assumed to rule by divine right, but Jesus was certainly never a king! No matter how great (and that is disputed) a leader he was (of, ooh, 12 people), he wasn't a king. |
| Preceded by a messenger | Isaiah 40:3 | John 1:23 | The author of that particular predictions was no doubt stupid. By writing it, it became true, whether or not Jesus was god. |
| Smitten and spit upon | Isaiah 50:6 | Matthew 26:67 | Jesus was indeed hated by Jews (for constantly attacking them and insulting them in public) and by the Romans (for trying to establish a Jewish theocracy in Roman territory). |
| Killed with thieves | Isaiah 53:12 | Matthew 27:38 | There are three different accounts in the Bible of what happened as Jesus was being crucified. You'd think they could agree (you know, being divinely inspired and everything) over what happened over such a thing. Tut, you'd almost think they were making it up! |
| Buried in a rich man's tomb | Isaiah 53:9 | Matthew 27:57-60 | I am not aware of how some people say this one came true, it seems that it did. |
| Rise from the dead | Psalm 16:10 | Matthew 28:6; Acts 2:31 | The Bible, once again, contains three contradictory stories detailing how Jesus rose from the dead. It is more likely that his body was stolen by his disciples. He specifically told them at the last supper to eat his flesh and drink his blood and Jewish theology contains Zoroastrain elements, where the consuming of the blood of the Messiah, or a great bull killed by the Messiah, will earn you eternal life. |
The second coming of Jesus Christ is a much anticipated event for the Christians. Why did the early Christians believe this would happen? Well, there are many predictions that Jesus didn't fulfil, such as the prediction that Israel would be a peaceful, united country, and that Jews would be free from their oppressors.
In order to believe that Jesus was the Messiah they had to believe that he would return again to fulfil these things, and to complete other things the Messiah was expected to do, such as perform the rapture. And stuff. John the Baptist, Matthew, and a hundred other have been shouting, rather loudly, that Jesus is coming SOON. Well it's been over 2000 years, so Christians, where is your Messiah?
With the virgin birth clearly refuted, doesn't that shed light on a rather sore topic for Christians? That Jesus wasn't the Messiah. Jesus, in fact, has very little support for his very existence. Yeshua ben Nazaret existed, as a Jewish rebel rabbi, who was crucified by the Romans like ten thousand others, the only distinguishing thing about Yeshua is that Paul, a rabid and guilt ridden preacher, decided that Yeshua was the Messiah. Jesus Christ is and doesn't appear to have risen quite as soon as hoped.
The Romans crucified a lot of people, and also other religious myths of the time, that predated Jesus, also contained the idea of a son of a god being crucified, and symbols like the cross were already used by pagan religions. Even if people did actually say they saw Jesus after he died, for example the writers of the Gospels, I don't see much merit in taking their word for it any more than avid fans of Elvis who claimed en masse that Elvis was back! These ultra-fans are the ones who I trust least when it comes to such matters!
The benefits of the crucifixion
"The crucifixion story is mythical. The crucifixion did not empower God as God is omnipotent. It did not aid his understanding of Humanity, as God is omniscient. God did not need to become Human to experience Human suffering: God already knew. God is able to judge us perfectly, because God is perfect, just and all-knowing. The crucifixion of Jesus did not improve God's judgement of us, as God was perfect both before and after the crucifixion. The crucifixion did not aid us, as knowing of Jesus was not the point of the crucifixion: If people such as Moses can know Jesus, and this is good, then God should be able to grant everyone the knowledge of Jesus. Note that Moses lived before Jesus was born. For anyone to know of Jesus before Jesus was born means that the crucifixion was unnecessary in order for people to know Jesus. Condoning god's guilt-ridden public relations scheme is immoral, especially if done for the selfish aim of attaining heaven. Rejecting such a monstrous and emotionally manipulative scheme (even if it results in going to hell) is more moral.""The Crucifixion Facade" By Vexen Crabtree 2002 Sep 19
The historicity of elements of the crucifixion
"Matthew contributed some very unlikely events to the Biblical account of the crucifixion and resurrection. For example, the Guards on the Tomb, the empty Tomb, the Angel, the Earthquake and the 3 hours darkness at Jesus' death are all very likely to be wrong. These side-stories, although not essential to the idea of the resurrection, reinforce the feeling that Matthew was writing anything he could to make Jesus out to have existed, whether such things were true or not.""Matthew, The Fraud" by Vexen Crabtree
"In the Hellenistic world the title 'Son of God' is used to refer to a particularily holy person. It is probably this idea that was referred to by the centurion at the death of Jesus.(Mk 15:39)"
"Christology" by the Christian Theology Trust
Baptism is the immersion of a person in blessed water. Individual Christians and other religions hold widely varying beliefs as to the status of Baptism. Some think it is essential to be Baptised in order to be saved; some think it is just a tradition to show that a person has been born again or has 'officially' converted. Baptism started out as being a confirmation ritual performed on willing adults. The Bible is ambiguous on all areas of Baptism: on its function and necessity .
God is omnipotent
If a God is omnipotent and benevolent, all-powerful and all-good, then he is perfectly able to save people whether or not they have been baptised. God can judge a person fairly and with perfection and he can do this whether or not a person has been baptised. Therefore Baptism cannot be inherently essential; it is only essential if God chooses to make it an issue.
If Baptism is necessary
If Baptism is necessary then there have been billions of people through history, most of all mankind, who have never heard of Baptism; from Native Americans to modern day Chinese & island communities that have not fallen under Christianities influence. If Baptism is necessary then all these people are going to be rejected on a technicality alone; because of something that is entirely not their own fault. This would mean that God is a mere system of laws, and not a moral being, not benevolent.
Baptism is pagan? (I am referring to pagan as in non-Christian, not to Paganism as Pagans themselves see it)
Baptism does not allow God to judge a person more perfectly; as God is capable of this anyway. Baptism does not bestow God with any more power over an individual; Baptism must therefore be for more Earthly reasons.
Baptism may well be performed as a simple tradition, a Human tradition, with the aim of making a public declaration. This is neither good nor bad as most Human behaviour is tradition; you cannot suppress something because it is traditional.
If a person does believe Baptism to be actually important, despite the fact that the omnipotent God they belief in does not benefit from performing baptisms, then that person is effectively trying to perform a magical ritual with the aim of achieving an agenda for himself or his community. Baptism, as effecting a result only in the real world, is purely concerned with materialism and society; and this I would say, is not a spiritual way. If one beliefs in Christ alone (and/or acts/deeds) for salvation, then there is no need for this ritual; no holy water can ever attain a result that sways whether that person beliefs in Christ or not. Baptism is therefore pagan, non-Christian, you can infer that those who practice Baptism are short on faith or are attempting magic.
First of all, there are many religions out there, and there are six billion people on the planet. Out of these people, and out of all the people in the History of Mankind there will have been a lot who have never heard of Jesus Christ and will have never known what The Bible is. All these people will live for eternity without God (in "Hell"), simply because they were not born in a Country or island that supports Christianity.
We can conclude that if God is moral then he does not judge us according to our knowledge or religion as these are frequently beyond our own control. A moral God would not deny heaven to people on account of them unfortunately never having heard of Jesus.
“It is probably safe to say that not one-third of the inhabitants of this world ever heard of the Bible, and not one- tenth ever read it. It is also safe to say that no two persons who ever read it agreed as to its meaning, and it is not likely that even one person has ever understood it. Nothing is more needed at the present time than an inspired translator. Then we shall need an inspired commentator, and the translation and the commentary should be written in an inspired universal language, incapable of change, and then the whole world should be inspired to understand this language precisely the same. Until these things are accomplished, all written revelations from God will fill the world with contending sects, contradictory creeds and opinions.All persons who know anything of constitutions and laws know how impossible it is to use words that will convey the same ideas to all. The best statesmen, the profoundest lawyers, differ as widely about the real meaning of treaties and statutes as do theologians about the Bible. When the differences of lawyers are left to courts, and the courts give written decisions, the lawyers will again differ as to the real meaning of the opinions. Probably no two lawyers in the United States understand our Constitution alike. To allow a few men to tell what the Constitution means, and to hang for treason all who refuse to accept the opinions of these few men, would accomplish in politics what most churches have asked for in religion.”
"Complete Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersol (1900)" by Robert. G. Ingersol4
If good people go to heaven according to their own merits, why is it that Christians and those in-the-know have to abide by the rules in the Bible? Surely, if they are good people, they do not need it anyway. Why be religious if salvation is in being good? It does not make sense to claim that heaven is made accessible through having certain knowledge, nor is it moral.
After death choices
The death by innocence problem - can it be answered if we say that after a person has died God reveals himself to them, and then they get to choose whether to accept him or not?
Given that the amount of suffering in the world is so uneven (3rd world countries), if I was faced with God I surely would not accept him. This is because during my life I have came to the conclusion that if God existed, it would be an immoral being and not a moral one. Siding with God, in my opinion, is to side with an evil absolute and to reject the possibilities of Humankind. My point is this: Many people choose to reject God because their character, upbringing and genotype dictate that they find the idea repulsive.
The character traits that lead to someone rejecting God are beyond the control of the person themselves - so when God reveals himself to them there are still a large caste of people who will reject him. For example I suspect if Christians found that the real God was not the Christian one, they would likely reject it as a false God, a demon, or a trick, because the Bible says that the Devil is capable of such tricks. If God merely revealed himself then it would solve the problem of the subjective view that people develop during their lives.
To make this work we would have to assume that God reveals himself and then explains to the person enough information to convince them that God is good. In this case there are many people who would be convinced ... but what was the point of their real lives if God is merely going to wait until they die, change their world view, change their opinions, and then judge them? It is obvious that for the Christian theory of sin to work that our sins in our lives must have some consequence!
What would the point of Jesus Christ and his crucifixion be, if after death we are all annealed to God anyway? The only way this would work is if we were all naturally born as Christians and throughout our lives we decided to do evil in the knowledge that God was watching us. Clearly however, people do not have this innate knowledge!
Fairness
More problems with fairness. The Bible clearly condemns many things and
behaviours of Man - those that fit these descriptions will not be accepted by God. However, some of them include hereditary traits such as X, XXY or XYY chromosomes (Turner's syndrome, Klinefelter's syndrome and "super male"), Homosexuality, etc. People are born with a Genetic sin that stops them entering heaven? Surely not, but it's true! Here is a nice taster of some of the things that will stop you entering God's domain:
"No man who has been castrated or whose penis has been cut off may be included among the Lord's people. No one born out of wedlock or any descendant of such a person, even in the tenth generation, may be included among the Lord's people."
[ Deuteronomy 23:1-2 ]
"I bring punishment on those who hate me and on their descendants down to the third and fourth generation. But I show my love to thousands of generations of those who love me and obey my laws."
[ Exodus 20:5-6 & Deuteronomy 5:9-10 ]
"I keep my promise for thousands of generations and forgive evil and sin; but I will not fail to punish children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation for the sins of their parents."People are barred from heaven due not to any act of their own but due to that of their ancestors! This would be fine, just another example of the Bible's intolerance, but it is clearly contradicted in other places in the OT: Ezek 18:20: The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father. and also contradicts Ezekiel 18:14-17. This is just one example of a contradiction in the Bible and also of the highly unfair nature of the selection process used! Of course most people claim that the New Testament overrides this (I don't blame them!) - does this mean God changed His mind - even He thought He had made a mistake! Obviously He did make a mistake, and the Bible is therefore not inerrant, because it clearly contradicts Ezek 18:20
[ Exodus 34:7 ]
Disabilities, genetic illness and death are all caused by the sins of one's parents - which is surely not an equal treatment. The Bible however can escape this problem because it doesn't state that it should be fair. Do we think that a benevolent God has to be fair? Well, if He's not fair, if he accepts one person over another unfairly, then He isn't quite as benevolent as people would make out!
Given that God is good in nature how can we explain the vast quantity of wars that have resulted from the Bible's various interpretations? We can easily say that it is mans fault - that we cannot interpret it correctly. This seems like a good stance as it places the blame for the troubles back onto the shoulders of Human Beings actions, which agrees with the Bible's theories about the nature of evil.
God is also omniscient so surely He knew that these wars would arise as a result of the Bible - so why did He decide to dictate it in Hebrew, one of the most ambiguous languages known to humankind? Surely He would have had a prophet in every country on every planet reproduce a local version in the local language - this would have been more moral and would have caused less bloodshed than allowing us to mistranslate it!
It is surely stupid to present your declaration to Humanity, in Aramaic, a highly inaccurate, ambiguous and purely oral language. At the time, Greek was the most popular world wide language. God obviously, because He knows everything, wanted all these wars, these Holy Wars, to take place! The result is not that we understand it better, but we devise more and more convoluted "metaphors" in order to make it make sense.
How can an omniscient being be benevolent, when He "inspires" such a cause of war? Where is God's home page, in English? We all know Him "in our hearts", but we choose to reject Him. Why then, does He not clear up the confusion and say, "I Exist. I think I will kill everyone in the lake of fire if they are a descendant of a whore, for 10 generations". God clearly is not benevolent, or consistent, or even intelligent!
What "inerrant" implies
"God Breathed Scripture" is a statement that asserts that the Bible in one of its forms is the unaltered, unedited and inerrant Living Word of God. Christians and theologians interpret this in different ways.
The refutations
Well, it is easy to dispense with interpretations one and two because there are many parts of the Bible that contradict each other, frequently within the same book (supposedly by the same author). There are many good sites that deal very comprehensively with errors and contradictions in the Bible.
The third one requires a bit more work to refute. We start by pointing out that at no point has the Bible existed in a single inerrant form. The New Testament canon was wrote by many authors over a long period of time and we have literally thousands of old versions of current books in the Bible, including many hundreds of versions that were not included. The way in which the books of the Bible have been constantly rewritten, edited, destroyed and created means that in no point in history have all of them existed in a single inerrant format.
The main weak spot of this interpretation is that it is easy to see that if such an inerrant version ever existed it would have been highly valuable and revered, yet there are no texts or authors who claim to have seen or heard of it. I.e., it only exists in the minds of those who find themselves backed into a corner.
The Errors
There are countless contradictions, deletions and errors in the Bible. Jesus Himself appears at times not to know what was in the Old Testament, and misquotes scriptures. Mark misquotes Jewish law and makes more mistakes. The Bible is God's Word, considered untouchable. Surely God would have known how many legs a grasshopper has, yet he got it wrong...
If some of it is wrong, then it is not infallible, and therefore other bits could be wrong too. These pages contain information about various contradictions and errors, check out the Links page for some comprehensive lists of them, such as:
On a more intellectual note here are two pages by the same person dealing with one of the New Testament's contradictions that is textual, conceptual and theological in its severity:
Here are some sites that deal with cataloguing, analysing and studying the errors and contradictions that we find in the Bible:
When we combine the knowledge of the blatant contradictions in the Bible with the knowledge of the amount of transcription errors and verbal traditions through which some stories were passed for 40 years, we realize that the actual message of the Bible is not only inconsistent now, but it has never been consistent.
The very fact that pseudepigraphic books were included in the texts tell us that the original writers were merely writing chapters of a myth, a falsehood, and developing it and editing previous texts as they saw fit. A very good example of the way in which this works is to study Matthew's alterations of Mark.
It is well known that the authors themselves did not know that their material was going to be used for such grand reasons (for example Paul's open letters to the heads of some churches were included - but Paul himself would never have guessed that would happen!). Jesus Christ Himself, even, did not claim to be the Son of God, neither did he talk of the Holy Trinity, only of "The Father In Heaven" of whom himself and every other good-doing Christian was a son. The gospels and epistles did not know they were "divinely" inspired, they were merely writing as they saw fit, to benefit themselves, and using myths and stories that were already present in their own times.
Reporter Bias
If a document is produced about a religious cult, and it was written by one of the members of the [small] cult, it is recognized by all to be a biased document.
We find that everything in the Bible is written by the supporters and followers of Jesus, whose aim it is to both glorify him and to convert people. All the actions of Jesus that we know of are those that his followers wanted us to know, and as we find from studying the actual texts, there are many things that Jesus clearly didn't do - such as ride into Jerusalem on TWO animals simultaneously. Do we ask Bill Gates how good Windows is? Do we ask a gospel-writer what Jesus did? It is in boths interest to promote their object as much as possible.
When this bias is taken through generations by word of mouth before making it on to text, and then edited for a thousand years, we find that we don't actually have any valid information at all.
The problem with Jesus is that there is no other source of information than that which we get from his supporters. He didn't make enough of an impact during his generation to warrant any drawings of him, any writings about him, etc. There is the infamous Testimonium Flavianum - there is doubt whether Jesus existed at all (i.e., whether the gospel-writers simply made up all the whole incident): A HIGHLY RECOMMENDED page: The Historical Basis of the Jesus legend.
The Christian God and The Bible deny the existence of Free Will
List pages on Free Will by Vexen
Yeshua could have had delusions of grandeur - even if he did say "I am the way, the light", then he would merely be reflecting the same statement of many other messiah's and prophets of that period. Yeshua preached pretty much the same message as many other Jewish rabbis. John the Baptist taught most of the things that Jesus' "revolutionary" teachings contained.
There is no reason to believe that the people who contributed to the New Testament texts thought that they were telling the truth. The assumed pseudepigraphic nature of the gospels show that they were not even attempting to write accurate documents, but mere fables which in good fashion of the times, were exaggerated, altered and spectacularized.
Asking whether Jesus was real is like asking whether Hercules, Odysseus, Helen of Troy, or Odin actually existed. Perhaps based on a real person, these myths give no indication of what that real person was like as they have been made into grand stories, by the story teller, in order to make it a good story. All legends use real times, places or events but insert mythological characters and events. Oral traditions in particular are succumb to this over time, and the stories that Paul preached about Jesus remained oral for twenty or thirty years (between the death of Yeshua and the appearance of Mark's first written texts on the subject).
There are many parts of the Bible that have been missed out or added, over time, not including translations and mistranslations.
Most Christian faiths believe in both the OT and NT and many believe that the New Testament overrides the Old in the places where they contradict each other. Generally the two parts are rather mismatched and the behaviour of the God of the OT is completely different than in the NT. They should have never been put together in the first place. The modern Bible preacher selectively chooses which in the Old Testament he thinks is valid and which is not. He is unlikely to quote the things which are ridiculous - and if you point them out he will state that it is irrelevant because we are no longer under Old Testament law.
Links
Many intelligent sites: The Skeptical theism website list from the American Humanist Association.
A HIGHLY RECOMMENDED page: Universalism and the first 500 years of Christianity
A HIGHLY RECOMMENDED page: The Historical Basis of the Jesus legend.
101 contradictions of the Bible by Donald Morgan.
Large list of textual contradictions in the Bible.
An introduction to the problems of the Bible, includes a little on the pseudo-authorship of the Bible's source material.
OCRT: A breakdown of the types of errors in the Bible.
The bloodthirsty God
A site with lots of pages on The Bad Bible
Why Jesus - the non-existent moral teachings of Jesus
Mistakes of Jesus by William Floyd.
ReligiousTolerance.org: Parallels between the Gospels and Pagan mythology
www.talkorigins.org - debating creation science and an all round good site.
The large library infamous www.infidels.org, debaters and philosophers for atheism.
The Ex-Christian site by Paul Murray.
A standard list of biblical contradictions
Testimonium Flavianum - possible reconstruction of the fraud.
A examination of contradictions
Notes on the Creation Research Society's Creed from TalkOrigins.
Anti religious historian and writer
Major themes in evolution, plus examples of evolution
An FAQ on evolution - good for theists
From Humanism.net: Humanists POV on Theistic Religions
60 questions for Christians
The scientific knowledge in the Qu'raan is greater than the Bible
The deception of Bible Prophecy
Reasons against Fundamentalism and Christianity in general.
Infediles.Org errancy.html
Some humorous yet serious conversations with theists and what to do.
God(s) may exist but as for their inspired texts
Some parts of the Bible Including MONSTERS such as Dragons!
Shows the incredible changes of fairytales through history
This page explains some of the variation through history of the Bible.
Sources:
Reynolds, Alfred
"Jesus Versus Christianity" 1988. Quotes from the "completely revised and extended edition" of 1993, Cambridge International Publishers.
Notes:
Most text written during late 1998, 1999 and 2000 by Vexen. Some sections have been updated since then.
Vexen Crabtree 1998 Sep 20