God, Religion and the many flaws I see. Feel free to correct me.

So basically I'm just going to throw out some flaws I see in religion. I strongly dislike the idea that there is such thing as a god but I have read a bible in order to argue such things without looking dumb. I'm only writing this in common sense form. This means I will not be getting scientific or going into fine detail. If you would like me to please point out what part and I will go further into detail.


1. How long did it take man to create the concept of god? How many men after the first man on earth did it take to think of the idea?

Say I were to have a child. Throughout this child's life I make sure that he is never told about a "god" or religion. He asks why we're here and I tell him the history of the universe leading up to humans or I just say because. Suppose he never asks again, never hears a word about a god or religion and dies. If god were real and we were all supposed to follow his rules to get to a happy afterlife, isn't this kid kind of screwed?
The answer is yes in the eyes of many. Because he didn't create the concept of god and religion he must suffer according to religion.

2. Suppose we are living in our current era and a man walks into your work office and starts going on about how god communicates with him and tells him things everyone else needs to know. Better yet, suppose someone spends 40 days in a cave and comes out with what he says are rules, told to him by god, that everyone should follow.

This wouldn't fly in the year 2010. The world would laugh, call them both crazy and probably accuse them of being on drugs. Why is it that it wasn't like so in the past?
The answer is the complexity of the human mind now compared to then. Religion and the idea of god were created in a more simple time, where people didn't have real answers and needed a quick one to give life purpose.

3. The shift from polytheism to monotheism.

Early civilizations believed in many gods rather than just one god. The idea of a single god didn't come around until the early iron age (about 1200bc). This means that the idea of god was something that needed to be perfected. If there were one true creator, why did he wait so long to tell humans? Those other humans worshiped many gods and are now considered wrong by the bible for having other gods before him.

4. The 4 dominant religions today were all formed on thee same continent, in the same small area. This means that while Jesus was walking on water and Moses was being told the commandments, there were still people in South/North America, Australia, and other continents. Neither the old or new testament mentions these guys or what was going on in other places.

5. Dinosaurs.

According to the bible Adam and Eve must be around 6000 years old, if they ever existed. Dinosaurs are 65million+ years old. Why aren't these spoken of in the bible? Or anything at all from eras associated with dinosaurs? Humans and land animals came on the same day (day 6). If this were the case, you think they would have gotten a shout out or something.

6. The miraculous events that supposedly took place such as Mary being a virgin, Moses splitting the sea, Jesus walking on water and coming back to life after 3 days.

These all happened once and never again? NOTHING ever happens only once. Although for the reality of the bibles sake, these miraculous events took place just one time. I guarantee you these will never happen again and I'll tell you why. Because common sense tells us these are all nonsense. Revert back to number 2 for a second and think that if a girl walked up to you today and said she got pregnant without ever having sex (artificial insemination is not to be used). Most would automatically judge them as a crazy liar.

7. The antichrist.

To my knowledge the old testament doesn't have too much to say about an antichrist. Judaism is the leading religion, a man named Jesus Christ comes around claiming he is the messiah. Jesus then took judaism and manipulated it in a way. Many people believed he was the messiah and begin to follow his word instead of traditional, old testament, judaism taught. The jews didn't believe him to be the true messiah and crucified him for it. To show his followers he meant business, he then came back from the dead. Some time after, the new testament is written and speaks of a man who will do exactly what Jesus did to Judaism but this man will be the antichrist. Almost seems like they didn't want anyone to do to them what they did.

I can keep going but I'll leave it at this for now. Feel free to argue, comment or just read.

Interesting points.

I would just like to point out that you seem to be arguing against Christianity as presented via the Bible, or the Abrahamic faiths (Islam, Judaism, Christianity). Remember there are many other religions who do not follow the same basic tenets of these three. In other words, not every religion has a notion of a "god" or an afterlife, etc.

Just an observation. Enjoyed reading your arguments.

There's two ways or points of view when it comes to looking at Christianity. You can say it is riduiculous, none of this stuff could have ever happened and maybe that would be logical. or you can say that anything is possible through God the creator and believe all that is written. I am a Christian and I can understand why many people don't believe. But it is the unexplained, the impossible that makes us believers. God has done things in our lives that couldn't possiby have come about other than from God. He shows us he is real, he makes himself known through the impossible. Things happen that have no logical explaination.

Here is one example of many, I would be thinking something in my mind, talking to God and then go down to get my mail and the anwer to my question would be in the mailbox, not expecting it to be there of course. I received three exact duplicate invoices from the same company. To make his point, he usually gives the same answer in three different forms that way we know it is from him. He communicates to us through signs in this way. It happens too many times to debunk it, in my case every other day.

reply to post by prophecywatcher


That is an answer I can respect but I must point something out. If I were to pray for a job for a month and then go out and apply to a hundred places odds are I'm going to get a job. The fact that I involved prayer doesn't mean it was prayer that got me the job or that god answered with employment. It seems to me that people who say prayer works only pray for realistic problems that will most likely see a positive outcome. This can be compared to saying please let this be my lucky day while walking out the door and receiving the good news I've been waiting for.

reply to post by smyleegrl


Yeah I made sure to mention something about the major religions in one of the given points. I chose to leave a lot of other religions out of this for many reasons, the main being that not many people know about them in detail. And these religions here are the ones responsible for a lot of the wrong I see in the world. Instead of attacking the events religion has caused, like most others do, I chose to point out logical flaws.

Also I go to school for math and physics so my punctuation is not perfect.

[edit on 27-7-2010 by seangkt]

[edit on 27-7-2010 by seangkt]

reply to post by seangkt


Here is another example:

Say you were at the gas station and you needed $50.00 by tomarrow morning or something very bad would happen (concerning a bill) and you didn't know where it would come from. Say you prayed about it, went inside and bought a scratch ticket. you realized you won and it was exactly $50.00. It really happened to me and it's hard for me to say that, that was a coincidence.

Just making another point about why we believe.

reply to post by prophecywatcher


When I buy a scratcher I usually use the last of the change or 1 dollar bills in my car or pocket and always hope to win. The fact that I hoped to win isn't what did it for me. That all falls into the category of luck and has nothing to do with prayer. I knew a drug addict who won a million dollars on a scratcher and 275k the next year and blew it all on drugs. I don't think a higher power meant for that to happen even though he needed it. Luck meant for it to happen. Gambling is luck not higher powers playing a part. It's not like you needed the 50 bucks and it showed up on your door step. You went in and bought a scratcher hoping to win which is what the entire world does. And to be honest 50 dollars doesn't seem like the biggest problem. Had you of not won you could have sat outside and asked and eventually got your 50. You could have asked the church but I doubt they would ever lend a hand in a financial area to any good member of the church.

Prayers are only "answered" when they are asking for simple help to simple problems. The church mentioned they would pray for a dying lady who died the next week. Prayer had no effect. Many say that's not how prayer works but I think that is exactly what it is supposed to do. I can solve small problems like the one presented by myself by doing a number of things. It's the big problems prayer doesn't fix and those problems are the ones that are actually considered problems and really need fixing.

[edit on 27-7-2010 by seangkt]

[edit on 27-7-2010 by seangkt]

reply to post by prophecywatcher


It seems that prayer is used more as a security blanket than anything, especially when used in defense to someone attacking it......9

I'm not going to address most of what you ask, aside from the bit below, but one thing that I would note to support prophecywatcher is that if you don't look for God, you are very unlikely to find any sign of him. If you have blocked out the idea of God, instances like the ones she cites will go unnoticed, or you will write them off as coincidence. If you needed money, and, while standing in the park, someone unknown to you came up and gave you $100 out of the blue, I would see the work of the spirit, you would see something else.

Rare is the Christian (perhaps other religious persons, as well, I don't know) who would say that they have never felt the spirit in them (such as having an impulse to call someone, and when they pick up the phone, you find them in a bad way and in need of support) or seen the spirit work through others for them.

Originally posted by seangkt
6. The miraculous events that supposedly took place such as Mary being a virgin, Moses splitting the sea, Jesus walking on water and coming back to life after 3 days.

These all happened once and never again? NOTHING ever happens only once. Although for the reality of the bibles sake, these miraculous events took place just one time. I guarantee you these will never happen again and I'll tell you why. Because common sense tells us these are all nonsense. Revert back to number 2 for a second and think that if a girl walked up to you today and said she got pregnant without ever having sex (artificial insemination is not to be used). Most would automatically judge them as a crazy liar.

Miracles are miracles, not common events. They happen for a reason. I presume that you understand why Jesus' resurrection happened, so I'm surprised that you expect it to happen over and over. One Christ, one resurrection, one salvation. That's all that was needed, that's all that there will be.

Given your supposition that Christianity was all made up, consider this.

Christianity began within the Jewish community, and geographically in the core of the Jewish nation, Judea. But it had a problem. Its basic claim was that Jesus was the Son of God, the Christ (Messiah) and that he was, in fact, God. Virgin birth, no original sin, performed miracles, all that "stuff" that you discount, testified to the Jews that Jesus was the real deal.

The problem was that saying you were God, healing people on the Sabbath, forgiving one's sins, these were blasphemy in the worst degree! Even if you were just joking, your punishment was death, by stoning. Christ wasn't killed for doing anything, even Pilate noted that he'd done nothing wrong, he was killed for making this outlandish and blaspheming claim.

If Christ was not God, then he got what he deserved. He was a Jew, he was under Jewish law, and his claim to be God when he was not meant that he was under a death sentence. Do you agree that Christ got what he deserved?

Now, moving beyond that, you had the 12 disciples, the Apostles. Good men, Godly Jews, they knew the law, they knew what it meant to make these sorts of claims. They did it anyway. With one exception, John, the Apostles were all put to death for proclaiming that Christ had, in fact died and been resurrected. That Christ was, in fact, God as man. They continued the "blasphemy", and they weren't preaching to the Romans, they were preaching to the very Jews who believed it was a sin just to listen to such talk, much less speak it. The first martyr, Stephen, died of stoning, continuing to proclaim his faith that Jesus was God as the stones hit him.

If the Apostles didn't believe their own story, if they had hidden the body of Jesus, or they otherwise knew that he had not been resurrected, what motivation might they have had for willingly dying for something that they not only realized wasn't true, but the act of furthering the lie damned them as well? The Peter depicted in Acts is much different than the Peter we see before the Crucifixion, what might account for that change in character?

There are those who will say that the whole thing was imagined, and that, without more evidence, it's all dismissible. That's where faith comes in, I suppose, but then I consider those twelve apostles, again, and what they managed to do. By the time we have datable documentary evidence, the Pauline Letters, the Church is a fairly sizable thing, and remember that it's still mostly Jewish. So these illiterate fishermen, tax collectors and other "sinners" have managed to convert an awful lot of people, for whom the very notion of Christianity was blasphemy.

Unless it was true.

Mankind is intrinsically somewhat curious by nature, but at the same time afraid of emptiness.

So we create more or less informed fairytales to satisfy the curiousity, and the gaps of emptiness we fill out with wild speculations. Resulting in religions (and other explanatory models of existence) which partly contains some sense and partly are fabulations.

But as a certain percentage of humanity also have a drive for power, these incomplete 'reality'models have been used as tools for social engineering, and the stone-age belief-systems have gained 'respectability' through sheer brainwashing over the centuries.

I have noticed something interesting. Topics as this one is a US phenomenon. We europeans seldom start on it, and if we do, it's rather more sophisticated than the sandbox-level of raging around pro-contra christian scripture.

Christian doctrine has developed into simplistic faith-based ideas. You take it or not (and if the christians have political power and you don't take it, they start on the flaming sword stunt very quickly).

There ARE religions which actually aspire, in deed and doctrine, to extend evaluations beyond faith alone. What planet DO you US citizens live on?

The fact that the apostles believed in something enough to die for it has nothing to do with it being true. If one isn't prepared to die by his beliefs than how can he ever be taken serious? Conforming happens...
Hitler ran one of the most unforgiving offices ever, yet half of his office plotted to kill him behind his back and were all put to death. I'm not saying that I'm alright with Hitler but I'd like to show that people change even if it means going to the complete opposite side and being ready to die for it right away. I bet if you went over to the ufo forum and put a gun to some of those guys head they would still say aliens/ets were real.

Jesus was not the jewish messiah because he only fulfilled half of what the old testament said the jewish messiah would do. These prophecies were already written and not to be changed or worked around. Were someone today to make such a claim and weave in and out of what the bible says to make it work they would be the antichrist.

And as far as miracles go.......For such a small group to witness them all seems like made up stories to get people to believe that much more. It is IMPOSSIBLE for a woman to never encounter sperm and become pregnant. It is impossible to walk on water or split a sea as well.
These aren't even "miracles." A miracle is a group of Ugandan children who have been forced to become slaves being freed and given the chance to learn about the world the way it's supposed to. A miracle is a kidnapped child getting home safe.
A miracle is something that should be experienced by the masses and for the masses.
Some bee ess stunt shouldn't be considered a miracle and the fact that these are considered miracles is absolutely sick.

A miracle is that anybody believed a penis didn't slip inside of the virgin mary while no one was looking. What was there to prove that she was a virgin? What was there to prove Jesus walked on water? First person accounts that are supposed to be considered true by faith?

Too much blind faith.......

I'd also like to state that my big problem with religion is everyone uses it for themselves and those they know.

The fact that Christians aren't to judge but are the most uptight judging people on the planet is a joke. When a homosexual walks in the room christians point to the door marked hell and say get out or try to change their beliefs.

Mormons believe the Garden of Eden is in Missouri and that god lives on a planet by the sun.

Muslims believe that 40 virgins are waiting for them after an attack on non muslims.

Rastafarians can kill anyone and ask for forgiveness and they are forgiven.

Catholics are running one of the most corrupt places on the planet.

None of these are what I would call "godly" or are something I would enjoy being a part of. They are either crazy or corrupt and in a powerful position. They are people who segregate themselves based off of their morals and how they feel the world should be. Religion is nothing but a tradition that has been around for far too long and won't go away.

reply to post by bogomil


This seemed like more of an attack towards americans. The fact you are european only adds to the stereotype of how cocky you guys are. Europeans may not start religious debates but they certainly attack people from the US as if THEY WERE LITTLE KIDS ON A PLAYGROUND.

The reason I have such a big deal with this is not because I'm from the US. It's because I see people in my life going crazy over religion. Some have ran to it because life hasn't been well. It's pathetic..

And for you to come and try to make this a debate on nationality stereotypes is even more pathetic.

Originally posted by seangkt
The fact that the apostles believed in something enough to die for it has nothing to do with it being true. If one isn't prepared to die by his beliefs than how can he ever be taken serious? Conforming happens...

I would suggest that you go back and reread what I wrote. It wasn't a matter of dying for a belief, they had fact, they had proof. If Jesus was not God, was not resurrected, they knew that, for a fact. What possible motivation would twelve men (and many more) have for sacrificing themselves for something they knew, absolutely, was false, and that the faith that they'd had all their lives viewed as blasphemy.

I agree with you, by the way, that the misuse of faith is a critical problem of organized religion, but if you think that bigotry, hatred, evil and cruelty would vanish in the absence of religion, or even diminish in a meaningful amount, your view of human nature is a bit too Pollyanna.

Hi seangkt,

sorry if I offended you as an american in the national sense, but as US culture is saturated by the-christian-right attitudes, it's difficult to see the difference for the rest of us outside US.

Practically everything US exports, from wars to entertainment and debate forums, reeks of the influence from noisy christianity.

But please, there may be elements inside US counteracting this, which are invisible to non-americans. So I will gladly stand corrected, if you point such out for me, and I will retract my stereotypes to the extent I find reasonable.

The OP points out flaws in religion, but actually, these are flaws only in exclusionist religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc.).

Funny thing is, the majority of the world are much more tolerant Buddhists, that don't claim one is damned simply for not believing as they do.

But, right out of the gate, the argument is doomed to failure, as one cannot refute faith with logic.

Personally, I like to feel as if there is some guiding force present in the Universe...though I do not agree with man's tendency to label everything and wrap it up in a lot of dogma and ritual. I don't think any one religion has got it all right...but I do believe that all of them have at least SOME things right...and those things are the general ideas of what is good, what is sinful, and the idea of striving to be a better person.

Originally posted by adjensen

I agree with you, by the way, that the misuse of faith is a critical problem of organized religion, but if you think that bigotry, hatred, evil and cruelty would vanish in the absence of religion, or even diminish in a meaningful amount, your view of human nature is a bit too Pollyanna.

For bigotry, hatred, evil and cruelty to disappear from this world would mean the extinction of man. That or this would be the first true miracle I would get to witness.

And I understood, quite clearly, what you wrote the first time. They saw these events and died by them. But the only proof to this is the written word of the bible. I have read the bible and don't consider much of it to be true so yes, in my eyes they died for their beliefs and nothing more.

[edit on 28-7-2010 by seangkt]

[edit on 28-7-2010 by seangkt]

reply to post by bogomil


I would like to apologize then. I don't mind being called on a stereo type but had you of put it the way you did the second time around we would have had an agreement. I personally believe the birth of Christianity was the birth of corrupt politics as well. It almost seems to be any member of the US senate or such that you must follow Christian beliefs.

Being a physicist, I believe science will answer my questions and don't mind what everyone does to find their answers. The thing about religious people, mainly Christians, is that they place so much faith in something they can never truly say occurred without faith and they try to force it on masses. I have one Christian friend who just became the pastor, or whatever it is that speaks on stage, but he is the only person I know willing to admit religion is crap and that had Jesus seen what it's become he would laugh and tell the followers to kick rocks. The man has all the faith in the world but understands it's warped.

I would never choose to believe in such a thing but I don't mind the idea of a god in the world I just don't like how it's presented and wish for nothing more than to see religion cease to exist in my lifetime.

Respect, conquest,, ending. Six, quest, fake, trigle, pend, best

:shk: none ot fhe above.

Re: Seangkt

Thanks for your gracious words, and original sin (hmmm..) was mine for a badly chosen formulation. Anyway I'm not for national pride myself. We europeans have misused our social systems (wellfare and such), so we've become rather indolent and spoiled.

Anyway, it's interesting to hear, that you're a physicist. I'm much into physics myself, at a relatively well-informed lay-level, and I have tried to combine it with my more academic background in social sciences and my primary hobbyhorse, epistemology.

Personally I'm neither an atheist nor a religionist, and while I do consider reductionist empirical science as a quite good 'map' concerning the territory it actually covers, it's just as bad as religion, when it transgresses its own system parameters.

This said, and adding that I find the christian hijacking of science, producing the pseudo-scientific and abominable concept: 'Intelligent design' a propaganda trick, I nonetheless still find the idea of an organised macro-cosmos very attractive. To avoid getting into one of the interminable semantic traps abramic religions set for the unwary, I usually refer to it as 'intent', without further labelling or doctrine. OK, it's some 5 years ago I read up on my chaos-theory, but I have serious questions concerning the possibilty of randomness being able to produce a system as interconnected as the cosmic blueprint.

(Admittedly this is a inductive conclusion, deduction being completely useless here).

And the usual counterargument, the 'trousers of time', I'm personally very critical of. Recently I communicated with a zero-point physicist, who became rather reductionistic, denying the need of a grand unified theory on grounds of it 'all happening at the zero-point level'. My objection is, that the macro-cosmic blueprint functions through having polarized 'holes' left after matter/energy pops 'out', and when when it (matter/energy) pops 'in' it will polarize itself to suit such a 'hole'.

A kind of counsin to the also misused and infamous 'observer created' cosmos, where my opinion is, that only human stupidity has twisted this idea into 'us' observing 'it', while the truth probably is, that there are no specific observer or observed. All the 'parts' of the universe are both object and subject, keeping things relatively static (at least as to parallel universes popping up).

Too much cottage industry physics?