Hello everyone, I’m aware these have been discussed here extensively, but I’m reaching out to the community as part of a project for my studies. What do you ( personally ) consider the three most significant objections that prevent you from believing in Christianity? You don’t have to elaborate too much unless you feel like it, just three main points. Thanks 
I disbelieve in deities for the same reason I disbelieve any claim, because no one making the claim, has ever demonstrated any objective evidence any deity exists or is even possible.
There are also over 45k different sects and denominations labelled Christianity globally, so you will need be a little more specific about what you are actually claiming before anyone can subject your belief to critical scrutiny. Accurately define what you mean by god, and give us the best reason(s) you have for believing it exists, or that it is even possible outside of the human imagination?
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Whether or not God exists is at the top of my list.
If God exists, then where does God come from? If God has always existed, then why not skip a step and just say that the Universe has always existed.
Or, if we decide that God’s origin is an unanswerable question, then let’s save a step and decide the the origin of the Universe is an unanswerable question.
My other objections have to do with the violence, bigotry, and sexism that I associate with most religions (including Christianity). There is the idea that LGBTQ people shouldn’t marry, raise children, or be allowed the same social benefits as other people . . . which is wrong despite what the Bible says.
The idea that we shouldn’t teach evolution in schools is awful, because evolution is a cornerstone of biology, and biology is crucial for understanding disease.
A lot of people throw out Pascal’s Wager, which says that if we believe in God and he exists, then we gain paradise when we die, but if He doesn’t exist, then we lose nothing.
If this is true, then which Christian sect do I choose? Catholics, Jehovah’s Wtnesses, Southern Baptists, and so forth all have in common that their particular sect is the way to Heaven and everyone else rots in hell . . . so if I choose to be piously Christian, the odds are that I’ll choose the wrong sect and go to hell anyway. Atheism is the smart bet under these circumstances.
Besides, if my reasoning is wrong and God does exist, then I would think that God would give me a pass when I die, because God gives us reason and my reasoning shows me that atheism is a logical choice.
If God is unreasonable, then we’re all screwed anyway and religious belief doesn’t make a difference.
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1: The lack of corroborated historicity of the divine Jesus figure as described in the gospels
2: The corruption evident in all the modern churches
3: the inability of any honest scholar to point to the exact definition of a christian accepted by all christians
4: BONUS ANSWER: there is no convincing evidence for any deity.
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Ding ding ding ding, we have a winner…
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@Ruan, I would guess you’re studying apologetics for your religion of choice (RoC). I suspect you want to learn how to counter anything you perceive as an argument by a non-believer of your RoC. As you noted in your OP, others have come here asking similarly.
You say this is for your studies. Let me ask you, do you really want to learn? Or are you here simply to collect quotes for a paper that’s due? To take the money and run, so to speak?
If the former, then why don’t you stick around for a few months and actually learn about the individuals here and what each thinks? We are each different. We each arrived at our conclusions differently.
If the latter, which has so often been the case for those claiming a school project, then you’re treating the people here no differently than a fifth grader studying monkeys at the zoo. Do you care?
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- The evidence for any gods or God is insufficient for belief.
- 45,000 denominations globally Each and everyone professing they are the true Christians and, it is the Church up the street that is following false teachings. (When the world religions get their shit together and come up with a single story, let me know.)
- There are around 10,000 God based religions in the world. Belief is largely a result of geographical location or familial traditions.
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Welcome to the AR Ruan You never really introduced yourself. What are you studying and how will you make use of our answers. But I’ll answer in spite of that.
- I could never join an organization that believes that it is better to take than receive. Where ever Christianity has traveled in this world the people they have met have suffered greatly in the exchange. Give over your resources and you’ll be rewarded in heaven. You Ruan are a small example of that in asking for something but giving nothing of yourself in return.
2 Others have mentioned the plethora of Christian sects. Just take a moment and ponder what that means. To me it means that the foundation of Christianity is so slippery and malleable as to be non-existent. - Christianity has nothing to recommend it as a force for good. Consider two Christian armies coming together to kill and be killed by each other. The pastors on each side leading their troops in prayer and asking god to protect their troops and to reward them with a victory. I’m not saying that god should intervene because their is no proof that he/she/it exists what I’m saying is Christians have so much hate that they’ll kill each other. An example in play right now is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Russian army has been blessed by the Russian Orthodox Church in their endeavor to kill Ukrainians and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has blessed the Ukrainian army to kill Russians. Cmon Ruan where is the good in that.
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As I’m sure you’ve noticed the “No evidence” is a big thing. Not only is there no evidence you’re suspiciously told that accepting something that important with no evidence is a good thing. An all knowing and powerful, not to mention loving god, wouldn’t have to threaten people with dire, horrendous consequences to get them to believe when he could easily give evidence all would understand of his existence.
2. Man has proven himself adept at inventing myths and gods. There are thousands to choose from and they obviously can’t all be right. As fervently as you believe your religion to be correct, there’s someone else thinking the same of theirs.
3. The world looks exactly like it would if there was no god. What religion you are goes largely by geography and culture. There are many versions of the bible and the christian religion, just like you’d expect if no god was overseeing it and wanted us to get it right. The very institutions claiming to speak for god are often rife with corruption and commit some of the worse crimes imaginable.
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The father, the son, and the holy ghost….
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I seem to remember answering earlier versions of this question.
Why do mythology fanboys never perform the due diligence required to see if their questions have been asked here before? Why do they all think they’re the first to hit upon this question or variants thereof?
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I don’t think I can add anything to what’s already been said for the most part, but the amount of suffering in the world proves to me that god either doesn’t exist, or he doesn’t fucking care what happens to his followers.
The world is a very fucked up place at the moment, with 2 different wars raging on that have killed 1000’s of people. Then there’s the issue of the catholic church covering up pedophile priests, convents and schools killing unwed mother’s newborns and the local indigenous children.
Children dying in the hospital from cancer or leukemia, the list is a mile long. If a god/gods does exist, he can go fuck himself, twice.
Now, does that answer your questions?
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well of the top of my head:
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The lies. From lying about what is in the Bible to lying about what God wants, to lying about what they said 5 minutes ago. Some believer seem bound and determined to lie for Jesus and even seem proud of doing it. I’ve known plenty of honest Christian; I’ve never met an honest apologist; and I’ve never met a minister who was honest in-front of their congregation (although I’ve met several who are honest in private).
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The hubris. Like telling me I need to read the Bible (or telling me I read it “wrong”). Telling me they know what the supernatural creator of the universe wants. Like telling me they know God is real.
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The magic. I don’t believe in magic; and yes Christianity (and Islam and Judaism, etc), is a form of magic. Prayer/faith healing doesn’t work, it is bullshit. This is just another version of the “no evidence” complaint that others mentioned.
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Or come back to respond honestly to the answers, this is a debate forum after all. What do they think we must infer from someone holding a belief they don’t want to debate with those who don’t share it?
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Your question made me realise that among the god-botherers I see on the streets and online, there is a certain tendency to ask questions that are somewhat open-ended. So, if I may hypothesise around this in more general terms: They are not asking questions to get answers, but to draw attention in a bait and switch game. When/if they get a suitable response, they start talking about their real topic of interest. In this context, I suspect it is a form of missioning propaganda.
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I’m going to take a slightly different tack:
- There are contradictions within the bible itself. That’s a problem!
- History contradicts the bible. The bible contradicts history. Those are problems!
- Science contradicts the bible. The bible contradicts science. Those are problems!
Fix those problems and Christianity becomes potentially believable. Fail to fix those and it remains unbelievable.
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A decent approach. However, in the eyes of apologists:
- What you percieve as contradictions are just different aspects or angles of god’s message. You need to study better and more to understand them, and when you do, you will find that these passages in fact support and verify each other. So not a problem.
- History does not contradict the bible, and vice versa. What you call history is simply wrong. So not a problem.
- Science does not contradict the bible, and vice versa. Science simply get things wrong. So not a problem.
Or, if you prefer, apologists engage in a theological circle jerk.
Falsifiability is one of the most basic demarcation criteria for distinguishing between statements about the real world that can be tested and those that can not. If such a statement can not be tested, there is no way of knowing whether it reflects an aspect of the real world or not. In other words, if a statement is not falsifiable, there is no way to figure out whether it is true or not.
Therefore, there are two things the theists need to do to come up with believable statements about the existence of their god: First, they need to define their god and its characteristics in a way that is falsifiable. Next, they need to test their ideas of a god empirically using Popperian methodology. Only by passing such a test of rigorous attempts at falsification, they can call their ideas believable. And even then, this is a far cry from giving concrete objective empirical evidence in favor of the existence of a god.
This is of course a very simplified view of the popperian method of falsification. But this is a discussion forum, not a scientific journal, so I’ll stop here.
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Exactly, no one ever asks loudly and publicly why people don’t believe in mermaids, where do these people who don’t believe in mermaids get their morality from? How did the universe or anything “come from nothing” if you don’t believe mermaids are real?
What they are doing, and we see this more and more of late, is attempting to reverse the burden of proof with an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy, often peppered with straw man assumptions like the questions I posted just above.
Bingo.
The first response always is, and always should be, what deity, define it accurately please? This removes a whole plethora of straw men they’re dishonestly lining up. It also more importantly exposes their concept as unfalsifiable, and people only use unfalsifiable concepts to evade the burden of proof their claim entails. The next question should always be can they demonstrate some objective evidence this deity exists, or that it is even possible?
If they won’t even answer those questions then they’re not seeking honest debate, and why should anyone bother with them, we wouldn’t accept such dishonesty for any other claim. If they attempt to answer and it is abundantly clear they can’t accurately define it, and can’t offer any objective evidence it exists outside of the human imagination, then it is epistemologically reasonable to withhold belief from their claim.
When they sulk, and try to label you as biased, explain you apply this standard universally to all claims, whereas they don’t accept the same standard of credulity for other deities, so their belief involves bias for and against, and is therefore the very definition of closed minded.
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Precisely so.
I can only wholeheartedly concur.
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I love your list. My own list would have to include “The Excuses”, even though Ruan only asked for three objections. Christians make excuses for genocide, and the extermination of practically ever living thing on the planet. There’s even a “catch you later” excuse for allowing priest to rape children, apparently as their god watches on.
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