Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News Editorials & Other Articles General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

NeoGreen

(4,033 posts)
Tue Jul 18, 2017, 07:23 AM Jul 2017

Little Things Can Make An Atheist

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/humanistplus/2017/07/little-things-can-make-atheist/




Little Things Can Make An Atheist
July 15, 2017 by J. H. McKenna, Ph.D.

As I read deeper in a trove of literature on unbelief and freethought from the past several centuries, it is interesting to see little things given as reasons for rejecting Christianity and God.

Here’s a sampling paraphrased from multiple authors from a hundred years ago and more:

If God ‘reveals’ vital information to only a few people and keeps that information concealed from the wide world, this shows an unjust partiality in God. If God had a saving message for humanity, why didn’t God make the message accessible to all at the same moment?

No information can be called ‘revealed’ that was not formerly ‘concealed.’ But purportedly revealed information was already extant in the world for hundreds or thousands of years and found all over the globe. Moses’ moral commands were in no way a ‘revelation’ inasmuch as every tribe on the planet had arrived at the same moral rules millennia earlier.

If God really spoke to the world, wouldn’t the world would be in convinced agreement about it? But what we see is a cacophony of discordant voices from innumerable religious sects. The very disagreements discredit them all.

To say that God has ‘mercy’ on humanity can only mean that God’s laws are either defectively harsh to begin with and required mercy to moderate them, or that God is defectively lenient in not applying his original punishments for infractions to his just laws. Either way ‘mercy’ indicates defect.

The divine sonship of Jesus is just as suspect as all other ancient ‘sons of God’ whose mothers were impregnated by a God. This was common in the era Christianity emerged in, and Christianity simply adopted the god-man motif.

(snip)

1 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Little Things Can Make An Atheist (Original Post) NeoGreen Jul 2017 OP
marking to return to rurallib Jul 2017 #1
Latest Discussions»Alliance Forums»Atheists & Agnostics»Little Things Can Make An...