Christianity Disproved

I like this site Christianity Disproved. There's lots to see and to digest. The problem is that Christianity has been disproved in every generation, especially since the Enlightenment. Christian apologists simply reinvent their faith in every generation to save it from refutation. What we have in subsequent generations is a slightly different form of the inherited branches of Christianity. As generation piles upon generation what we have are different forms of Christianity such that the Christianities of today would have suffered under the Office of the Inquisition they are so far removed. And the Christianities of the future will be just as different as today's forms.

6 comments:

vjack said...

Very good point about Christianity being disproved in each generation. I suppose future generations will have to repeat much of what we're doing now. Still, maybe we can make it easier on them by doing what we can to spread the atheist meme.

J. D. C. said...

I'm a little confused. The language used on this website, often blatant ad hominem or straw man attacks against Christianity by laughing at the silliness of certain fundamentalist Christians, strike me as no more rational than the christian apologists. From a anthropological perspective, religious experience, which ranges from John Wesley's warming of the heart to seeing auras and spirits to the out of body experience, is a natural and enduring part of the human experience. Perhaps the rationalist "defeat" of religion in "every generation" and it's subsequent renewal is a better defense for the function than anything any apologist could ever say.

Don't get me wrong, I find most fundamentalist or institutional religious leaders to be outright offensive, but when I read scripture, it seems that Jesus had the same response. He called them whitewashed tombs, pretty and gilded on the outside but full of death, and a whole litany of other attacks. I guess I'm just confused because your arguments are going to have little effect "convincing" anyone of anything they don't already believe. You seem to get a lot of AMENs from the atheists and probably a lot of argument from the faithful. What is the point of posts like this? What is your endgame?

J. D. C. said...

Also, and maybe I'm beating a dead horse, but do you believe that religious experience, Rudolph Otto's "Mysterium Tremendum et Fascinan," is the delusion, or the bible, or fundamentalist republican Christianity? You seem to keep making these big outlandish claims about Christianity as if it were some single entity or single experience (which is what makes most of your arguments Straw man fallacies).

Much of what I've seen on here is funny, but emotionally charged, much like when I talk about ex-girlfriends. It is just that your claim to authority is your "rationality" and I've seen very few sound logical arguments on this website. Sorry if this is offensive, I just mean it as a good faith critique.

Chuck said...

JDC

From my vantage you are simply providing illustration for John's argument as a means to oppose his premise.

J. D. C. said...

Perhaps the issue is that I'm unsure of his premise then, or you don't have anything more than a cursory background, and only academic, in the experiences I'm discussing.

I often end up an hour into a conversation with a religious person (and I consider the adamant atheist to be religious in his convictions) only to discover that the person isn't working out conclusions from personal experience, but instead from something out of a book or a minister's sermon. This is usually when I start considering the possibility that they are using logic from absurd principles.

My point clarified in analogy: to argue that religious experience is irrational is like saying young people wanting to have sex is irrational. Sure... but the fact that forever we rational folk have been trying to find ways of stopping them is only evidence that it is a natural drive and arguing against it is foolish.

Religious experiences exist, as far as modern psychology can tell, in the right hemisphere of the brain. My question is as honest as if I were reading a blog discussing the irrationality and silliness of art, music, or sexual expression. It just seems a bit foolish.

Chuck said...

Loftus' premise in this post is not to say religious motivations are irrational (although your argument by analogy to horny teenagers to the rationality of religion is weak). He is saying Christians keep their religion alive in the face of evidence through rationalization. Your illustration of tangential theologies we atheists are not aware of is evidence to the practice.