Been seeing a bit of Epicurus popping up, so I thought I'd post an old analysis of his classic argument and take on the problem of evil.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent."
No problem, logically speaking, with this part.
"Is he able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent."
This, however, is a logical fallacy. Epicurus assumes that if God does not will to prevent Evil, that God is evil. What Epicurus fails to understand is that there may well be a reason that God allows Evil, and in fact, there are several.
First is that we exist to Love and to be Loved. But Love can only be given freely, it must be chosen by the persons who love. Which means that we must have choice to love God. Evil is merely the other option of that choice. We can choose to be with God, or we can choose to reject God. That is evil, evil is the absence of God. God allows Evil for the greater purpose of allowing us to truly Love, for the purpose of allowing us to be free to follow Him. Malevolent? No.
Second, God does not merely let evil sit and fester on the Earth, He does not leave us to rot in it. God is able to prevent it, and this is part of His omnipotence, as Epicurus pointed out in the first part. But God being omnipotent, He can not only prevent it, but He can in fact create Good from Evil. He can take our sins, and He can bring about such Good from them, that we, who are the source of it, can still be united with Him. In short, God can be Christ, God IS Christ. The Lamb of the World, who even while being tortured, mocked and murdered, still managed to forgive the world, to forgive all of our sins, and to take them upon Himself. So yes, there is evil, and God can prevent it, at the cost of destroying our ability to love Him. Or God can let us have that Love, and God can Himself take up the burden of sin for our sakes, that we might know even MORE Good, that we might know the Good of Christ.
And that, I would argue, is not only NOT malevolent, but is the greatest act of Good imaginable.
"Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?"
Epicurus here engages in another fallacious argument, this time he assumes that evil comes from God. This is false. Evil comes from us, specifically, it comes from our ability to choose something OTHER than God. What God made is the potential for us to Love, and thus the potential for us to not Love, the potential for us to do Good, but with that came the potential for us to do Evil. WE are the ones who choose to do evil, not God, and God is the one who choose to forgive us, redeem us, bring good from evil and right from our wrongs, and even to help us to sin no more.
Remember that, fundamentally, we are Good. We are not evil creatures, even if we do evil, and we should never despair of God's Love for us, He has already shown it, He has already promised it.
"Is He neither able or willing? Then why call Him God?"
Indeed, we'd be wiser to call such a being Epicurus...
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Is Christianity Fake?
The following is a transcription of my response to an atheist who claimed Christianity is fake on a major discussion board. Follow the title link to see the original. He started with a supposed 9 premises that were to demonstrate that Christ was a fictional character. Let's see how he fared!
"1. On Proving the Bible True Or False
"Much, if not most, of the Bible is arguably fiction."
This is an assertion, not a logically founded premise. Your argument has already failed.
"Quit being so intellectually dishonest, Christians!"
This isn't even relevant.
"This is the twenty-first century."
Nor is this.
"That means the burden of proof is on YOU."
Burden of proof is on the asserter. You being the one asserting in this argument, burden of proof rests upon you. Good luck.
"If you make a claim about the universe, it is up to you to prove it, not the other way around."
In this argument, you're the one making assertions. This isn't a reply to anyone. Stop being intellectually dishonest.
"It is not up to us, the rest of the world, to prove that your claims are false; that is not scientific thinking, that is anti-scientific thinking."
Strangely, this has nothing to do with your initial assertion, nor with the Bible...
"Because I am a man of my times, and believe in correcting ignorance, what I am doing here is out of courtesy to YOU, just as if I were to publicly argue that there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster orbiting Venus, preparing to blow up Earth with a death-ray, at least ONE of you would probably, out of simple human decency attempt to correct me and point me towards the truth. This is my way of doing that."
You choose a strangely illogical way of doing so.
"Now, back to the Bible being fiction..."
Yes, one must wonder why you ever left...
"that part's easy."
This will be very funny.
"Find me a snake with vocal chords,"
You've now demonstrated that one part of one book, a part acknowledged by nearly every serious Bible scholar as myth, to be fictional. BTW, most Christians agree, it's a myth, and not history or science.
"water that's dense enough for a human being to walk on,"
I'm curious why you believe that people walked on water due to the water's density?
This doesn't prove anything regarding a miracle. The account is either true, or untrue, and no one has suggested that it was a natural event, but rather a supernatural one. Which means that to DISPROVE it, your stated intention, you need more than a disbelief in the miraculous. If your only opposition is simply that miracles cannot happen because you don't believe they can happen, then I'd have to ask, do you have a real argument, or just further dogmatism?
"or a chemical process that converts complex carbohydrates to fish."
You're joking, yes? You do realize that both loaves and fish were present in the baskets, right? Now, you might ask about a process that converts bread into more bread, or fish into more fish, but then you'd fail to the same problem as in the one above.
"Until then, you're out of luck... the evidence wins, and the evidence sides with me."
You haven't offered any evidence. You've simply claimed that certain stories are not possible empirically. You haven't demonstrated this is true, nor have you even demonstrated why anyone would think they were empirically accomplished.
"Wake up, people - these are invented stories! Fictional dramas meant to impart some moral lesson! THEY ARE NOT REAL!"
Here's some news for you. The Bible? Not a monolithic work of literature. It's seventy some odd books, with multiple authors, intents, literary styles, etc. The book of Genesis alone has 5 authors, and several literary styles, including the epic poetic, mythical and historical narrative. Chapter 27 of Genesis is not the same style or author as chapter 7. Certainly the Bible contains myth, allegory, prophetic writings, poetic writings, parables, etc. But it also contains historical narratives and more biographic information as well. It doesn't discredit the Bible to call a myth a myth, anymore than it does to call a miracle a miracle.
Your first "premise" fails.
And would fail regardless, technically, since Christianity didn't come from the Bible.
"2. On Bible Claims vs. Scientific Claims
From an objective, scrutinizing view, there is no reason to believe one story in the Bible over another. We cannot honestly engage shades of truth here. Either the books in the Bible are historically true or they are not. Since they almost ubiquitously contain material which would make the scientific person skeptical, we can chance to say the same standard applies to the book as a whole; either it happened, or it didn't. Therefore, it is no less plausible to disbelieve the Jesus myth than the myth about Enoch (the nine-hundred year old man) or Adam and Eve (the creation myth wherein God pats the first humans out of clay).
Here's a hint: humans, like all other complex organisms, reached their present condition by millions of years of natural selection through the self-preservation of certain greedy genes. We can observe this happening today. Anti-biotic resistant bacteria are a good example. Ever have an older relative in the hospital who got a staph infection? Then you know what I'm talking about.
Furthermore, we've mapped the entirety of the human genome - it happened at the school where I earned my Bachelor's Degree, UC Santa Cruz, and some of my very own professors in genetics and chemistry took part in the project. I can say with some authority that we (humans) now know our ancestry beyond a doubt, and it's simian.
Even Pope John Paul II said evolution is a historical fact. People did not come from clay."
This is a pathetic argument. That John Paul II endorsed evolution should have given you a clue that your approach to Biblical hermeneutics was flawed.
You're attempting to treat multiple works of literature as mutually dependent when those works are not even individually dependent. That one section of a book is myth doesn't make the entire compilation mythical. Your entire "premise" here thus fails.
"3. On Correct Argumentation
By definition, intellect, or "reason" is the ability to revise one's beliefs in light of a superior argument. Human beings have reason. It is what sets us apart from lower animals. If you do not use your reason, you are not participating in any kind of human activity."
This is problematic on several accounts. First, by definition "reason" is the ability to form conclusions through facts and inferences, etc. This can involve revising belief, but doesn't necessarily. And your definition lacks the actual substance of reason.
Also, not using one's reason is impossible. Everyone uses it. And human activities are not solely delineated by using reason, indeed, one could argue such a philosophy leads to madness, not humanity. Poetry, for example, is not "rational" as you would say, but it is sublimely human.
"Taking simple, empirical data from the world around you should make it easy to determine that the physical laws of the universe do not change. Measure things. Perform experiments. Find out for yourself."
David Hume adequately demonstrated the flaws in an empirical world view long ago. Empiricism says NOTHING certain about the future, it only tells us that certain things have happened in the past, and are likely to happen in the future. And that's only if one axiomatically accepts it, which is, in itself, an illogical presupposition.
"Miracles, as they appear in the Bible, can only possibly be one of three phenomena. A, that an outside (or "supernatural") force actually interferes with the laws of the universe; B, that someone witnessed a coincidence and hyperbolized it in the reporting; or C, that the event was made up entirely, and is fictional."
I cannot think of a fourth option presently, so I will grant you this.
"Considering the Bible was written in a time when allegory was the most common form of journalistic reporting and most people still believed spitting on a wound was an appropriate way to cure it, it is far more reasonable to assume one of the latter two."
This is a major problem. You haven't proven anything regarding any of these points yet. I could easily rejoin that it was also a time when people were paranoid about false prophets and magicians, and so wouldn't believe any such event lightly.
You've failed to remove the first option, so far.
"Seriously Hoss, let me clue you in on something: things that are impossible to do now - again, such as walking on water, resuscitation after days of true biological death, and wine magically turning into blood - were just as impossible 2,000 years ago. The miracles in the Bible were written in a time when people would actually believe these stories upon hearing them without demanding further proof. Unfortunately today, we have inherited these stories from our parents and must break out of the cycle of our own volition."
This assume materialism to conclude materialism. Circular reasoning.
"Just because you were taught to "believe" something, doesn't make it true. There's a much greater power in the universe than belief; it's called observation."
Just because you observe something doesn't make that observation true. Radical skepticism defeats all.
"4. On Self-Deception and Intellectual Dishonesty In Christians
To believe the stories in the Bible, you must create strange rationalizations that do not hold up to true intellectual scrutiny. This brings us to the issues of self-deception (delusion) and intellectual dishonesty in Christians."
To qualify as delusion, an individual must hold to a false belief in light of invalidating evidence. To prove anyone is delusional, you must prove their belief to be false. Good luck.
"I challenge you to answer, honestly, the following questions:"
Ok.
"Why doesn't God heal amputees? He heals everyone else miraculously, right? But neither you nor I have ever seen an amputee grow back a leg."
No, actually He doesn't heal everyone else. Healings are quite rare. And it's nonsensical to speak of "healing" amputees. Amputation is a medical process designed to save someone's life, not an illness or injury in and of itself. And amputees still alive for us to talk about have already healed, their wounds have closed, and their lives are not in danger. Unless you're suggesting that amputees are somehow less capable of living a long and full life?
"Isn't he supposed to be loving and just? What's with the discrimination? Does he hate amputees - are they one of the "abominations" he forgot to mention in Leviticus?"
He is loving and just. Since amputees are not prevented from living life, or from being happy and fulfilling their telos, there's no issue in regards to either.
"How about Jonah surviving in the belly of that whale? Wouldn't he be partially digested after three days?"
LOL. God gave him a magical forcefield.
"How come nobody wrote about Jesus until forty years later?"
No one actually knows the exact dates of writing of any of the epistles or Gospels. I see you like to take the later dates for your points, but as you cannot demonstrate it, there's no point in continuing.
"How come none of the Gospel authors were people who actually met him?"
You don't actually know this, you do realize that, correct? Why, I expect later on you'll make an argument about how the authors' names aren't in the books, so we don't know they wrote it.
But by the same token, we don't know that they weren't written by people close to Christ, etc. Your own skepticism defeats you.
"5. On Christian Plagiarism Of Earlier Religions
This one is my favorite. There are no less than two dozen pagan gods of the ancient Mediterranean region who predated Jesus, and yet somehow had many of the same traits as him. Early Christian apologist Justin Martyr claimed this was the work of the Devil - that he foresaw Jesus' birth and implanted false gods in history to draw people away from the True Messiah."
Justin Martyr had an excellent underlying point, though few realize it. There's no reason why those figures cannot be archetypes or prefigurations or even deceptions. The only argument you've mustered against it is one of ridicule.
"Makes total sense."
As I said, all you've said against it is an argument from ridicule, a logical fallacy.
"On a more serious note, I can name for you more than twenty gods of that region and period whose mythologies claim they were born of a union between God and a human female, whose birth was heralded by a bright star in the East (Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, for those who don't practice astronomy), who were adored by wise men, who walked on water, who fed the hungry, who resurrected the dead, who were crucified and rose again, or who even had the same birthday as Jesus - December 25th - the pre-Christian Roman holiday of Saturnalia!"
LOL. No, you can't. To start, because Christ's birthdate isn't December 25. And I'll happily go through every single one of those with you, if you'd like.
"I'm not going to name all of them, but I will name a few:Mithra of Rome,"
Mithras was not born, he spring out of a rock. He didn't have apostles, nor was he attended by wise men, but three shepherds did pull him out of the rock in a cave, which is where similarity with Christ ends. He didn't die, nor was he resurrected, instead he killed a bull with some zodiac figures. And since his Roman mystery cult forbade the writing down of its secrets, that's about all we know of Roman Mithras.
"Attis of Frigia,"
Not associated at all with Dec. 25, technically is a story about a shepherd boy, and son of the Lydian king who is killed by accident on a hunt. Nothing to do with Christ. The myths that do bear some resemblance POST-date Christianity by some two hundred years. And technically, we know nothing about whether his mother was a virgin or not, nor does he match up with Christ after that.
"Hercules and Dionysis of Greece,"
Neither was born of a virgin, neither was crucified, neither was resurrected, neither had wise men or apostles, etc. No theological similarities, or even superficial similarities here.
"Krishna of India,"
No entity in Hinduism matches Christ, since every thing is merely a dream of Brahma, destined for death when Brahma awakes. But putting that aside, Krishna is just one aspect of Vishnu, and while he has a saving role, he certainly is in no way theologically similar to Christ or Christianity.
"and Horus of Egypt.."
LOL. The worst of the worst. Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis, conceived by Isis after she had sex with Osiris' dead body and a dildo she constructed to replace his dismembered member. Definitely not a virgin. Nor does Horus die, though Set does blind him. He is resurrected, but he does have his sight returned to him (the whole day and night bit, the sun being his eye and all). Etc. etc.
"Surprise!"
Surprise! You've relied almost exclusively on the scholarship of Freke and Gandy, two scholars who are the laughing stock of modern ancient religious study.
"Christians plagiarized earlier religions."
Even in the ones you've posted here, quite a few are the other way around.
"I cannot spell it out any clearer than that. Knowing this, how can one believe anything Christian doctrine teaches?"
Even someone as demonstrably ignorant as yourself should realize that every similarity claimed in these instance is a superficial one. Christian THEOLOGY is vastly different from the beliefs presented by these myths. Thus Christian doctrine is rather different as well. But you, of course, don't know anything about Christian theology, concerned as you are solely with appearances...
"How do you even begin to separate what was invented from what was borrowed? You can't. It's too muddled together. I will expound this point further in the next section."
Actually, it's pretty easy. We analyze the periods, the dates, the myths themselves, and then use proper scholarship.
For example, Mithras? Attis? These were, prior to the Romans, religions with absolutely no similarity to Christ. The references we have to anything at all that could be called, "Christlike" comes after the dawn of Christianity. And even in those cases, these were mystery religions. Mystery religions were called that because their rites and beliefs were only known to the fully inducted, never to initiates and never to be written down. Half the things claimed about them are supposition, the other half bald faced falsehoods.
"7. On Messianic Archetypes
If you are skeptical of the aforementioned information, and you should be, as doubt is the seed of all knowing - feel free to investigate the matter for yourself. One hugely recurring problem I find when debating with Christians is that they either know very little about other religions or are ignorant of their existence entirely."
Try me.
"This seems counter-intuitive to me, as it strikes me as terribly important that one make the most educated decision in choosing a religion, if practicing the "right" religion is important to that person."
For once, we agree.
"For example, you wouldn't want to choose a religion based on plagiarism, would you? Or one that literally absorbed every earlier belief system it encountered through endless politicizing and the diplomacy of the sword?"
Lol, no indeed. Ironically, there's no account of "diplomacy of the sword" from Christianity until well after every religion you've mentioned. And Christianity, interestingly, rejected every syncretic movement that attempted to blend it with other religions, like Manichaeism. Hence all those declaration of anathema and heresy that came out of the early Councils.
"Well, the truth is, that is exactly what happened. Religion is alot like language. The reason languages from the same general regions bear many similarities (such as Portuguese and Spanish, or French and Italian) is because they ARE very similar. Words and ideas are exchanged across national and ethnic borders just as often, if not more so, as material goods, and their impact is often much greater. Yet somehow, people tend to think the ideas they were raised to believe in belong solely to them."
Interesting theory. Proof?
"A good example is American junk food. What is American about hot dogs, pizza, and hamburgers? Literally nothing - all of these foods originated in Europe. Yet Americans have put simple twists on them and patented them as wholly original to the United States. Is it beyond you to think the same couldn't happen to gods?"
It's not beyond reason. In fact, the entire Mediterranean pantheon likely arose in just such a fashion. The problem, of course, being that the Jews and Christians condemned and eschewed all such attempts to make their God just one of the many.
"Well unfortunately for you, it does, and did. The development of the Jesus character is not difficult to trace, even two thousand years after the fact. It would behoove you to research the exchange of Mediterranean deities in that time period... again: see Mithra of Rome, Attis of Frigia, Hercules and Dionysis of Greece, Krishna of India, and Horus of Egypt."
All dealt with. Haven't you got anything new?
"The last should be of particular interest to you, as his mythology is the most similar to Jesus', to a chilling degree. This should come as no surprise to you, as it's written right in the bible that the Hebrews came out of Egypt."
Lol, Horus is almost as far from Jesus as you can get.
"The cold, hard truth is, it was an old story then, and it's an old story now. These messianic archetypes - the man that is god, the man who conquers death - existed long, long before Jesus came around. They were old news when soap was a cutting-edge technology, before written language was even invented. They are ancient fucking history. Jesus was not the antitype of these messianic figures, he was their distillation."
And Jesus was indeed the anti-type, for the ones that actually did pre-date Christianity, which was a scant few.
But most of those aren't "messianic" in any sense, regardless. None of them had anything to do with salvation from sins, for instance.
"8. On Christian Ethics
Western civilization may have been "built" on Judeo-Christian values - at least the "don't kill" and "don't steal" parts - but we have become a modern society and have adopted the scientific way of thinking. These values were purposefully left out of the founding documents of the United States of America, over two centuries ago - and replaced by secular, Enlightenment values!"
Is this seriously your next argument? Your thesis was to demonstrate that Jesus is a fictional character. How is this at all relevant?
"While Christian ethics have indisputable merits, maintaining the dogma in its entirety is no longer necessary, especially when we consider the violence and segregation it has caused throughout the ages."
Claims without evidence bore me.
"Furthermore, philosophically speaking, Christian ethics are severely outdated."
Not at all.
"Since the Enlightenment, the Western World has seen far superior ethicists to Jesus of Nazareth."
Not really.
"Kant and Mill, for example, created life-affirming ethical systems that can be applied to a wider range of people without destroying their culture or beliefs about where the universe came from and what kind of sex they should consider perverse."
One major problem with your analysis. If sex is a matter of morality and ethics, then you've just contradicted their systems as more ethical.
More important than that is that you've changed standards. These men didn't create a more ethical or moral system, they merely changed the standard by which ethics are judged. If you change the standard, no comparison is possible. I cannot say that Churchill was funnier than a dog is hairy.
"Truly, there is no reason to cling to the old way any longer. We have adopted science and reason in every other aspect of our lives... why have we retained the ethics of the Bronze Age?"
This is rhetoric, not reason.
"It makes no sense. Why should we continue to believe it is better to be tribalists than to be humanists?"
Humanists haven't added anything to the Christian moral scheme that wasn't already there, and they've lost something important. The community. I'd rather have a tribe than be alone.
"This mentality is not compatible with a just, egalitarian society."
Define "just" for me. :-)
"Besides, Jesus may tell us to love one another, but he also says we should maintain the Old Testament in its entirety - no cherry-picking - which means we technically must condone rape, incest, slavery, and genocide (!)."
Actually, He said He came to fulfill it. When you understand what that means, your point will not longer apply.
"If we can do away with these parts (and we have), why not do away with the whole thing?"
Actually, in strict point of fact, it was the Church in western Europe that destroyed slavery between 500 and 1500 AD. And it was the Church that battled rape, incest, and genocide.
It wasn't until the "enlightenment" that human chattel in particular became acceptable again, for the supposedly scientific rationalization that Africans couldn't be human.
"9. On Doing Away With Past Fictions And Looking Towards The Future
In the grand scheme of things, it would generally be permissible for one to believe in Christian ethics if it were readily understood that Jesus was not a historical person, that the story is allegory. However, if you are a Christian, you probably do believe that Jesus was a real human being. This is a threat to both the advancement of science and the absolution of religious conflict in the world, two issues that are paramount to our survival as a species as our planet nears carrying capacity and is dangerously on the brink of overheating."
You haven't proven your thesis yet, are you going to attempt to, or waste another "premise" talking about an ethical system you clearly don't understand?
Christianity and science are not mutually exclusive, thank you for the straw man. If what you said was true, Gregor Mendel wouldn't have discovered genetics, LeMaitre wouldn't have discovered the Big Bang, etc.
"Why, you ask? Because believing these stories, of which the Jesus character is the paragon, creates too slippery a slope for other theocratic nonsense to take hold in society. For example, the mindset that human beings can literally survive death. How many soldiers would we send to die if everyone believed this is the only life?"
The slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Try again.
"Or, what about the philosophy that preserving the existence of cell clusters which bear no conceivable human traits is somehow a better aim than alleviating actual human suffering?"
No conceivable human traits aside from a complete set of human DNA, the only thing that determines one's species?
And what's wrong with suffering?
"Or that sex is harmful - but killing, bigotry, and total obedience to clandestine authority are healthy practices?"
Sex isn't harmful. Maybe you should get a clue as to what Christianity actually teaches? Try reading Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body.
"Or that blood sacrifice is a value modern societies should endorse?"
Ironically, Christianity states that sacrifice is not needed at all in modern society.
"But Jesus WAS a real person, you say! There's a plethora of evidence! No, not really, unless you count the Gospels. In which case you are practicing intellectual dishonesty and should revisit section 4."
I've never found that claiming something makes it true. That goes for theists and atheists. Remember your lecture about how believing doesn't equate to truth? Your beliefs here? Don't equate to truth. Put up or shut up, kid.
"The Gosepls are secondary sources at best."
Unknown.
"Here's why: if a historical Jesus really lived between 0 and 33 CE, then we know beyond a doubt that at least forty years passed before the earliest Gospel, the one written by Mark, was scribed. Because the aforementioned gospel discusses the destruction of Solomon's temple, we know it was written in or sometime after 70 CE."
Not only is it not known that Mark's Gospel was written first, it certainly isn't accurate, nor intellectually honest to claim that the writing date is 70 AD. We don't know the writing date, and what's ACTUALLY offered is a range, with 40AD being the low end, and 70 being the high. You're being intentionally deceptive.
"Given the average lifespan of the period, it is most likely the author or authors were infants or young children when Jesus of Nazareth was supposed to have lived and been crucified."
Technically, we don't know the ages of the Apostles, though we do know that John, at least, was a child.
"Moreover, the Gospel writers are not themselves mentioned in the Gospels, and they make no claim to actually having met Jesus."
Bravo sir, you've shot yourself in the foot. The authors don't speak, so from the works themselves, we know nothing of them. Of course, if the books claimed to be written by someone, you'd just argue that anyone can write a book claiming to be written by someone important, and that proves nothing.
Thankfully, Christianity is not a "religion of the Book" a la Islam. We have outside sources and Tradition which guide our understanding of such things, which is where we got the names of the authors.
"None of the apostles who walked with Jesus nor anyone who even met him wrote accounts to that effect."
As I said before, if you don't know who wrote the Gospels, how do you know this is true?
"Granted, there are certain mentions of a "Christ" in the writings of Mediterranean historians from that time - not Justin Martyr or Pontius Pilate, sorry, but those are proven forgeries -"
You're referring to Josephus. Unfortunately, what's proven about Josephus' work is that certain parts are forgeries, not that the whole account is a forgery. Enough remains outside the forgery to substantiate Christ.
"yet if are a serious Christian, you know "the Christ" simply means "the Anointed," a title taken up by many rabbis of that time. In not ONE of these documents is a man named Jesus, or Yeshua of Nazareth mentioned.""
No, the "Christ" refers to the Messiah, a title not taken up by many rabbis of that time, since they knew better. The anointing of a chosen one of God was a mark of Davidic Kingship, the Jewish Kings were always so anointed. Any rabbi taking that title would be proclaiming himself king of the Jews.
And as Jewish rabbis would not likely be calling themselves by the Greek word "Christus" as opposed to their OWN word, "Messiah" your theory has another problem.
"In conclusion, the Gospels which discuss the life of Jesus of Nazareth are at best hearsay, almost certainly hyperbolized, and at worst complete fabrications."
You've failed utterly in your attempts to demonstrate this.
"What we can determine beyond a doubt is that for at least four decades after his death, everyone in the world, including his sworn followers and students, simply forgot their Messiah existed."
No. False. Completely false, and utter non sequitur.
What we can determine beyond a doubt is that for at MOST four decades after His death, a Gospel was not yet written.
Paul's epistles, however, predate that Gospel, and that's assuming the latest possible date for Mark's Gospel.
And since the epistles and Gospels were written for already existing Christian communities, I'd say they didn't forget anything. Sounds more to me like they were so busy running around the Mediterranean converting people, they didn't take time to write as much down.
Forgetting? Hardly.
"If that doesn't cast upon you a serious shade of doubt, then nothing will, and perhaps I'm not "the fool"."
No, unfortunately you're definitely a fool if you think anything you've written here would cause us doubt. This was not only poorly researched, filled with vague conjecture and non sequitur, it was terribly written as well. You never demonstrated your thesis, you simply assumed it, and used that assumption to try and prove it! Then you abandoned your thesis to talk about completely unrelated nonsense for two sections, then returned to restate the same fallacious crap, and finished without even a proper conclusion.
If you turned this in in a class on religion, I'd fail you.
"1. On Proving the Bible True Or False
"Much, if not most, of the Bible is arguably fiction."
This is an assertion, not a logically founded premise. Your argument has already failed.
"Quit being so intellectually dishonest, Christians!"
This isn't even relevant.
"This is the twenty-first century."
Nor is this.
"That means the burden of proof is on YOU."
Burden of proof is on the asserter. You being the one asserting in this argument, burden of proof rests upon you. Good luck.
"If you make a claim about the universe, it is up to you to prove it, not the other way around."
In this argument, you're the one making assertions. This isn't a reply to anyone. Stop being intellectually dishonest.
"It is not up to us, the rest of the world, to prove that your claims are false; that is not scientific thinking, that is anti-scientific thinking."
Strangely, this has nothing to do with your initial assertion, nor with the Bible...
"Because I am a man of my times, and believe in correcting ignorance, what I am doing here is out of courtesy to YOU, just as if I were to publicly argue that there is a Flying Spaghetti Monster orbiting Venus, preparing to blow up Earth with a death-ray, at least ONE of you would probably, out of simple human decency attempt to correct me and point me towards the truth. This is my way of doing that."
You choose a strangely illogical way of doing so.
"Now, back to the Bible being fiction..."
Yes, one must wonder why you ever left...
"that part's easy."
This will be very funny.
"Find me a snake with vocal chords,"
You've now demonstrated that one part of one book, a part acknowledged by nearly every serious Bible scholar as myth, to be fictional. BTW, most Christians agree, it's a myth, and not history or science.
"water that's dense enough for a human being to walk on,"
I'm curious why you believe that people walked on water due to the water's density?
This doesn't prove anything regarding a miracle. The account is either true, or untrue, and no one has suggested that it was a natural event, but rather a supernatural one. Which means that to DISPROVE it, your stated intention, you need more than a disbelief in the miraculous. If your only opposition is simply that miracles cannot happen because you don't believe they can happen, then I'd have to ask, do you have a real argument, or just further dogmatism?
"or a chemical process that converts complex carbohydrates to fish."
You're joking, yes? You do realize that both loaves and fish were present in the baskets, right? Now, you might ask about a process that converts bread into more bread, or fish into more fish, but then you'd fail to the same problem as in the one above.
"Until then, you're out of luck... the evidence wins, and the evidence sides with me."
You haven't offered any evidence. You've simply claimed that certain stories are not possible empirically. You haven't demonstrated this is true, nor have you even demonstrated why anyone would think they were empirically accomplished.
"Wake up, people - these are invented stories! Fictional dramas meant to impart some moral lesson! THEY ARE NOT REAL!"
Here's some news for you. The Bible? Not a monolithic work of literature. It's seventy some odd books, with multiple authors, intents, literary styles, etc. The book of Genesis alone has 5 authors, and several literary styles, including the epic poetic, mythical and historical narrative. Chapter 27 of Genesis is not the same style or author as chapter 7. Certainly the Bible contains myth, allegory, prophetic writings, poetic writings, parables, etc. But it also contains historical narratives and more biographic information as well. It doesn't discredit the Bible to call a myth a myth, anymore than it does to call a miracle a miracle.
Your first "premise" fails.
And would fail regardless, technically, since Christianity didn't come from the Bible.
"2. On Bible Claims vs. Scientific Claims
From an objective, scrutinizing view, there is no reason to believe one story in the Bible over another. We cannot honestly engage shades of truth here. Either the books in the Bible are historically true or they are not. Since they almost ubiquitously contain material which would make the scientific person skeptical, we can chance to say the same standard applies to the book as a whole; either it happened, or it didn't. Therefore, it is no less plausible to disbelieve the Jesus myth than the myth about Enoch (the nine-hundred year old man) or Adam and Eve (the creation myth wherein God pats the first humans out of clay).
Here's a hint: humans, like all other complex organisms, reached their present condition by millions of years of natural selection through the self-preservation of certain greedy genes. We can observe this happening today. Anti-biotic resistant bacteria are a good example. Ever have an older relative in the hospital who got a staph infection? Then you know what I'm talking about.
Furthermore, we've mapped the entirety of the human genome - it happened at the school where I earned my Bachelor's Degree, UC Santa Cruz, and some of my very own professors in genetics and chemistry took part in the project. I can say with some authority that we (humans) now know our ancestry beyond a doubt, and it's simian.
Even Pope John Paul II said evolution is a historical fact. People did not come from clay."
This is a pathetic argument. That John Paul II endorsed evolution should have given you a clue that your approach to Biblical hermeneutics was flawed.
You're attempting to treat multiple works of literature as mutually dependent when those works are not even individually dependent. That one section of a book is myth doesn't make the entire compilation mythical. Your entire "premise" here thus fails.
"3. On Correct Argumentation
By definition, intellect, or "reason" is the ability to revise one's beliefs in light of a superior argument. Human beings have reason. It is what sets us apart from lower animals. If you do not use your reason, you are not participating in any kind of human activity."
This is problematic on several accounts. First, by definition "reason" is the ability to form conclusions through facts and inferences, etc. This can involve revising belief, but doesn't necessarily. And your definition lacks the actual substance of reason.
Also, not using one's reason is impossible. Everyone uses it. And human activities are not solely delineated by using reason, indeed, one could argue such a philosophy leads to madness, not humanity. Poetry, for example, is not "rational" as you would say, but it is sublimely human.
"Taking simple, empirical data from the world around you should make it easy to determine that the physical laws of the universe do not change. Measure things. Perform experiments. Find out for yourself."
David Hume adequately demonstrated the flaws in an empirical world view long ago. Empiricism says NOTHING certain about the future, it only tells us that certain things have happened in the past, and are likely to happen in the future. And that's only if one axiomatically accepts it, which is, in itself, an illogical presupposition.
"Miracles, as they appear in the Bible, can only possibly be one of three phenomena. A, that an outside (or "supernatural") force actually interferes with the laws of the universe; B, that someone witnessed a coincidence and hyperbolized it in the reporting; or C, that the event was made up entirely, and is fictional."
I cannot think of a fourth option presently, so I will grant you this.
"Considering the Bible was written in a time when allegory was the most common form of journalistic reporting and most people still believed spitting on a wound was an appropriate way to cure it, it is far more reasonable to assume one of the latter two."
This is a major problem. You haven't proven anything regarding any of these points yet. I could easily rejoin that it was also a time when people were paranoid about false prophets and magicians, and so wouldn't believe any such event lightly.
You've failed to remove the first option, so far.
"Seriously Hoss, let me clue you in on something: things that are impossible to do now - again, such as walking on water, resuscitation after days of true biological death, and wine magically turning into blood - were just as impossible 2,000 years ago. The miracles in the Bible were written in a time when people would actually believe these stories upon hearing them without demanding further proof. Unfortunately today, we have inherited these stories from our parents and must break out of the cycle of our own volition."
This assume materialism to conclude materialism. Circular reasoning.
"Just because you were taught to "believe" something, doesn't make it true. There's a much greater power in the universe than belief; it's called observation."
Just because you observe something doesn't make that observation true. Radical skepticism defeats all.
"4. On Self-Deception and Intellectual Dishonesty In Christians
To believe the stories in the Bible, you must create strange rationalizations that do not hold up to true intellectual scrutiny. This brings us to the issues of self-deception (delusion) and intellectual dishonesty in Christians."
To qualify as delusion, an individual must hold to a false belief in light of invalidating evidence. To prove anyone is delusional, you must prove their belief to be false. Good luck.
"I challenge you to answer, honestly, the following questions:"
Ok.
"Why doesn't God heal amputees? He heals everyone else miraculously, right? But neither you nor I have ever seen an amputee grow back a leg."
No, actually He doesn't heal everyone else. Healings are quite rare. And it's nonsensical to speak of "healing" amputees. Amputation is a medical process designed to save someone's life, not an illness or injury in and of itself. And amputees still alive for us to talk about have already healed, their wounds have closed, and their lives are not in danger. Unless you're suggesting that amputees are somehow less capable of living a long and full life?
"Isn't he supposed to be loving and just? What's with the discrimination? Does he hate amputees - are they one of the "abominations" he forgot to mention in Leviticus?"
He is loving and just. Since amputees are not prevented from living life, or from being happy and fulfilling their telos, there's no issue in regards to either.
"How about Jonah surviving in the belly of that whale? Wouldn't he be partially digested after three days?"
LOL. God gave him a magical forcefield.
"How come nobody wrote about Jesus until forty years later?"
No one actually knows the exact dates of writing of any of the epistles or Gospels. I see you like to take the later dates for your points, but as you cannot demonstrate it, there's no point in continuing.
"How come none of the Gospel authors were people who actually met him?"
You don't actually know this, you do realize that, correct? Why, I expect later on you'll make an argument about how the authors' names aren't in the books, so we don't know they wrote it.
But by the same token, we don't know that they weren't written by people close to Christ, etc. Your own skepticism defeats you.
"5. On Christian Plagiarism Of Earlier Religions
This one is my favorite. There are no less than two dozen pagan gods of the ancient Mediterranean region who predated Jesus, and yet somehow had many of the same traits as him. Early Christian apologist Justin Martyr claimed this was the work of the Devil - that he foresaw Jesus' birth and implanted false gods in history to draw people away from the True Messiah."
Justin Martyr had an excellent underlying point, though few realize it. There's no reason why those figures cannot be archetypes or prefigurations or even deceptions. The only argument you've mustered against it is one of ridicule.
"Makes total sense."
As I said, all you've said against it is an argument from ridicule, a logical fallacy.
"On a more serious note, I can name for you more than twenty gods of that region and period whose mythologies claim they were born of a union between God and a human female, whose birth was heralded by a bright star in the East (Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, for those who don't practice astronomy), who were adored by wise men, who walked on water, who fed the hungry, who resurrected the dead, who were crucified and rose again, or who even had the same birthday as Jesus - December 25th - the pre-Christian Roman holiday of Saturnalia!"
LOL. No, you can't. To start, because Christ's birthdate isn't December 25. And I'll happily go through every single one of those with you, if you'd like.
"I'm not going to name all of them, but I will name a few:Mithra of Rome,"
Mithras was not born, he spring out of a rock. He didn't have apostles, nor was he attended by wise men, but three shepherds did pull him out of the rock in a cave, which is where similarity with Christ ends. He didn't die, nor was he resurrected, instead he killed a bull with some zodiac figures. And since his Roman mystery cult forbade the writing down of its secrets, that's about all we know of Roman Mithras.
"Attis of Frigia,"
Not associated at all with Dec. 25, technically is a story about a shepherd boy, and son of the Lydian king who is killed by accident on a hunt. Nothing to do with Christ. The myths that do bear some resemblance POST-date Christianity by some two hundred years. And technically, we know nothing about whether his mother was a virgin or not, nor does he match up with Christ after that.
"Hercules and Dionysis of Greece,"
Neither was born of a virgin, neither was crucified, neither was resurrected, neither had wise men or apostles, etc. No theological similarities, or even superficial similarities here.
"Krishna of India,"
No entity in Hinduism matches Christ, since every thing is merely a dream of Brahma, destined for death when Brahma awakes. But putting that aside, Krishna is just one aspect of Vishnu, and while he has a saving role, he certainly is in no way theologically similar to Christ or Christianity.
"and Horus of Egypt.."
LOL. The worst of the worst. Horus was the son of Osiris and Isis, conceived by Isis after she had sex with Osiris' dead body and a dildo she constructed to replace his dismembered member. Definitely not a virgin. Nor does Horus die, though Set does blind him. He is resurrected, but he does have his sight returned to him (the whole day and night bit, the sun being his eye and all). Etc. etc.
"Surprise!"
Surprise! You've relied almost exclusively on the scholarship of Freke and Gandy, two scholars who are the laughing stock of modern ancient religious study.
"Christians plagiarized earlier religions."
Even in the ones you've posted here, quite a few are the other way around.
"I cannot spell it out any clearer than that. Knowing this, how can one believe anything Christian doctrine teaches?"
Even someone as demonstrably ignorant as yourself should realize that every similarity claimed in these instance is a superficial one. Christian THEOLOGY is vastly different from the beliefs presented by these myths. Thus Christian doctrine is rather different as well. But you, of course, don't know anything about Christian theology, concerned as you are solely with appearances...
"How do you even begin to separate what was invented from what was borrowed? You can't. It's too muddled together. I will expound this point further in the next section."
Actually, it's pretty easy. We analyze the periods, the dates, the myths themselves, and then use proper scholarship.
For example, Mithras? Attis? These were, prior to the Romans, religions with absolutely no similarity to Christ. The references we have to anything at all that could be called, "Christlike" comes after the dawn of Christianity. And even in those cases, these were mystery religions. Mystery religions were called that because their rites and beliefs were only known to the fully inducted, never to initiates and never to be written down. Half the things claimed about them are supposition, the other half bald faced falsehoods.
"7. On Messianic Archetypes
If you are skeptical of the aforementioned information, and you should be, as doubt is the seed of all knowing - feel free to investigate the matter for yourself. One hugely recurring problem I find when debating with Christians is that they either know very little about other religions or are ignorant of their existence entirely."
Try me.
"This seems counter-intuitive to me, as it strikes me as terribly important that one make the most educated decision in choosing a religion, if practicing the "right" religion is important to that person."
For once, we agree.
"For example, you wouldn't want to choose a religion based on plagiarism, would you? Or one that literally absorbed every earlier belief system it encountered through endless politicizing and the diplomacy of the sword?"
Lol, no indeed. Ironically, there's no account of "diplomacy of the sword" from Christianity until well after every religion you've mentioned. And Christianity, interestingly, rejected every syncretic movement that attempted to blend it with other religions, like Manichaeism. Hence all those declaration of anathema and heresy that came out of the early Councils.
"Well, the truth is, that is exactly what happened. Religion is alot like language. The reason languages from the same general regions bear many similarities (such as Portuguese and Spanish, or French and Italian) is because they ARE very similar. Words and ideas are exchanged across national and ethnic borders just as often, if not more so, as material goods, and their impact is often much greater. Yet somehow, people tend to think the ideas they were raised to believe in belong solely to them."
Interesting theory. Proof?
"A good example is American junk food. What is American about hot dogs, pizza, and hamburgers? Literally nothing - all of these foods originated in Europe. Yet Americans have put simple twists on them and patented them as wholly original to the United States. Is it beyond you to think the same couldn't happen to gods?"
It's not beyond reason. In fact, the entire Mediterranean pantheon likely arose in just such a fashion. The problem, of course, being that the Jews and Christians condemned and eschewed all such attempts to make their God just one of the many.
"Well unfortunately for you, it does, and did. The development of the Jesus character is not difficult to trace, even two thousand years after the fact. It would behoove you to research the exchange of Mediterranean deities in that time period... again: see Mithra of Rome, Attis of Frigia, Hercules and Dionysis of Greece, Krishna of India, and Horus of Egypt."
All dealt with. Haven't you got anything new?
"The last should be of particular interest to you, as his mythology is the most similar to Jesus', to a chilling degree. This should come as no surprise to you, as it's written right in the bible that the Hebrews came out of Egypt."
Lol, Horus is almost as far from Jesus as you can get.
"The cold, hard truth is, it was an old story then, and it's an old story now. These messianic archetypes - the man that is god, the man who conquers death - existed long, long before Jesus came around. They were old news when soap was a cutting-edge technology, before written language was even invented. They are ancient fucking history. Jesus was not the antitype of these messianic figures, he was their distillation."
And Jesus was indeed the anti-type, for the ones that actually did pre-date Christianity, which was a scant few.
But most of those aren't "messianic" in any sense, regardless. None of them had anything to do with salvation from sins, for instance.
"8. On Christian Ethics
Western civilization may have been "built" on Judeo-Christian values - at least the "don't kill" and "don't steal" parts - but we have become a modern society and have adopted the scientific way of thinking. These values were purposefully left out of the founding documents of the United States of America, over two centuries ago - and replaced by secular, Enlightenment values!"
Is this seriously your next argument? Your thesis was to demonstrate that Jesus is a fictional character. How is this at all relevant?
"While Christian ethics have indisputable merits, maintaining the dogma in its entirety is no longer necessary, especially when we consider the violence and segregation it has caused throughout the ages."
Claims without evidence bore me.
"Furthermore, philosophically speaking, Christian ethics are severely outdated."
Not at all.
"Since the Enlightenment, the Western World has seen far superior ethicists to Jesus of Nazareth."
Not really.
"Kant and Mill, for example, created life-affirming ethical systems that can be applied to a wider range of people without destroying their culture or beliefs about where the universe came from and what kind of sex they should consider perverse."
One major problem with your analysis. If sex is a matter of morality and ethics, then you've just contradicted their systems as more ethical.
More important than that is that you've changed standards. These men didn't create a more ethical or moral system, they merely changed the standard by which ethics are judged. If you change the standard, no comparison is possible. I cannot say that Churchill was funnier than a dog is hairy.
"Truly, there is no reason to cling to the old way any longer. We have adopted science and reason in every other aspect of our lives... why have we retained the ethics of the Bronze Age?"
This is rhetoric, not reason.
"It makes no sense. Why should we continue to believe it is better to be tribalists than to be humanists?"
Humanists haven't added anything to the Christian moral scheme that wasn't already there, and they've lost something important. The community. I'd rather have a tribe than be alone.
"This mentality is not compatible with a just, egalitarian society."
Define "just" for me. :-)
"Besides, Jesus may tell us to love one another, but he also says we should maintain the Old Testament in its entirety - no cherry-picking - which means we technically must condone rape, incest, slavery, and genocide (!)."
Actually, He said He came to fulfill it. When you understand what that means, your point will not longer apply.
"If we can do away with these parts (and we have), why not do away with the whole thing?"
Actually, in strict point of fact, it was the Church in western Europe that destroyed slavery between 500 and 1500 AD. And it was the Church that battled rape, incest, and genocide.
It wasn't until the "enlightenment" that human chattel in particular became acceptable again, for the supposedly scientific rationalization that Africans couldn't be human.
"9. On Doing Away With Past Fictions And Looking Towards The Future
In the grand scheme of things, it would generally be permissible for one to believe in Christian ethics if it were readily understood that Jesus was not a historical person, that the story is allegory. However, if you are a Christian, you probably do believe that Jesus was a real human being. This is a threat to both the advancement of science and the absolution of religious conflict in the world, two issues that are paramount to our survival as a species as our planet nears carrying capacity and is dangerously on the brink of overheating."
You haven't proven your thesis yet, are you going to attempt to, or waste another "premise" talking about an ethical system you clearly don't understand?
Christianity and science are not mutually exclusive, thank you for the straw man. If what you said was true, Gregor Mendel wouldn't have discovered genetics, LeMaitre wouldn't have discovered the Big Bang, etc.
"Why, you ask? Because believing these stories, of which the Jesus character is the paragon, creates too slippery a slope for other theocratic nonsense to take hold in society. For example, the mindset that human beings can literally survive death. How many soldiers would we send to die if everyone believed this is the only life?"
The slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Try again.
"Or, what about the philosophy that preserving the existence of cell clusters which bear no conceivable human traits is somehow a better aim than alleviating actual human suffering?"
No conceivable human traits aside from a complete set of human DNA, the only thing that determines one's species?
And what's wrong with suffering?
"Or that sex is harmful - but killing, bigotry, and total obedience to clandestine authority are healthy practices?"
Sex isn't harmful. Maybe you should get a clue as to what Christianity actually teaches? Try reading Pope John Paul II's Theology of the Body.
"Or that blood sacrifice is a value modern societies should endorse?"
Ironically, Christianity states that sacrifice is not needed at all in modern society.
"But Jesus WAS a real person, you say! There's a plethora of evidence! No, not really, unless you count the Gospels. In which case you are practicing intellectual dishonesty and should revisit section 4."
I've never found that claiming something makes it true. That goes for theists and atheists. Remember your lecture about how believing doesn't equate to truth? Your beliefs here? Don't equate to truth. Put up or shut up, kid.
"The Gosepls are secondary sources at best."
Unknown.
"Here's why: if a historical Jesus really lived between 0 and 33 CE, then we know beyond a doubt that at least forty years passed before the earliest Gospel, the one written by Mark, was scribed. Because the aforementioned gospel discusses the destruction of Solomon's temple, we know it was written in or sometime after 70 CE."
Not only is it not known that Mark's Gospel was written first, it certainly isn't accurate, nor intellectually honest to claim that the writing date is 70 AD. We don't know the writing date, and what's ACTUALLY offered is a range, with 40AD being the low end, and 70 being the high. You're being intentionally deceptive.
"Given the average lifespan of the period, it is most likely the author or authors were infants or young children when Jesus of Nazareth was supposed to have lived and been crucified."
Technically, we don't know the ages of the Apostles, though we do know that John, at least, was a child.
"Moreover, the Gospel writers are not themselves mentioned in the Gospels, and they make no claim to actually having met Jesus."
Bravo sir, you've shot yourself in the foot. The authors don't speak, so from the works themselves, we know nothing of them. Of course, if the books claimed to be written by someone, you'd just argue that anyone can write a book claiming to be written by someone important, and that proves nothing.
Thankfully, Christianity is not a "religion of the Book" a la Islam. We have outside sources and Tradition which guide our understanding of such things, which is where we got the names of the authors.
"None of the apostles who walked with Jesus nor anyone who even met him wrote accounts to that effect."
As I said before, if you don't know who wrote the Gospels, how do you know this is true?
"Granted, there are certain mentions of a "Christ" in the writings of Mediterranean historians from that time - not Justin Martyr or Pontius Pilate, sorry, but those are proven forgeries -"
You're referring to Josephus. Unfortunately, what's proven about Josephus' work is that certain parts are forgeries, not that the whole account is a forgery. Enough remains outside the forgery to substantiate Christ.
"yet if are a serious Christian, you know "the Christ" simply means "the Anointed," a title taken up by many rabbis of that time. In not ONE of these documents is a man named Jesus, or Yeshua of Nazareth mentioned.""
No, the "Christ" refers to the Messiah, a title not taken up by many rabbis of that time, since they knew better. The anointing of a chosen one of God was a mark of Davidic Kingship, the Jewish Kings were always so anointed. Any rabbi taking that title would be proclaiming himself king of the Jews.
And as Jewish rabbis would not likely be calling themselves by the Greek word "Christus" as opposed to their OWN word, "Messiah" your theory has another problem.
"In conclusion, the Gospels which discuss the life of Jesus of Nazareth are at best hearsay, almost certainly hyperbolized, and at worst complete fabrications."
You've failed utterly in your attempts to demonstrate this.
"What we can determine beyond a doubt is that for at least four decades after his death, everyone in the world, including his sworn followers and students, simply forgot their Messiah existed."
No. False. Completely false, and utter non sequitur.
What we can determine beyond a doubt is that for at MOST four decades after His death, a Gospel was not yet written.
Paul's epistles, however, predate that Gospel, and that's assuming the latest possible date for Mark's Gospel.
And since the epistles and Gospels were written for already existing Christian communities, I'd say they didn't forget anything. Sounds more to me like they were so busy running around the Mediterranean converting people, they didn't take time to write as much down.
Forgetting? Hardly.
"If that doesn't cast upon you a serious shade of doubt, then nothing will, and perhaps I'm not "the fool"."
No, unfortunately you're definitely a fool if you think anything you've written here would cause us doubt. This was not only poorly researched, filled with vague conjecture and non sequitur, it was terribly written as well. You never demonstrated your thesis, you simply assumed it, and used that assumption to try and prove it! Then you abandoned your thesis to talk about completely unrelated nonsense for two sections, then returned to restate the same fallacious crap, and finished without even a proper conclusion.
If you turned this in in a class on religion, I'd fail you.
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