Discussion Flaws in Christian logic and principles

[TAW122]

Note: I am not saying that all Christians are like this, but I am simply exposing the flaw in their logic and beliefs as well as why the tenets of Christianity is simply incompatible for modern day society.

Before I begin, I want to say that I am an atheist and don't believe in God or any organized religion. I go to church for the social aspect, to pick apart the flawed reasoning that Christians use as well as gaining access to a piano (to keep up with my musical skills). I generally don't voice my beliefs to openly because I do not wish to get into conflicts and fights with the congregation, so I generally keep the peace (unless asked and even then I do not escalate things since again, I'd like to keep the peace).

With that said, here are some of the illogical principles that I don't agree with and I'll start off with this example. Consider the forgiveness example, this was a exchange between me and E, someone in the congregation.

#1 Forgive forever
E: You should forgive someone who has done wrong to you.
Me: Yes, but not over and over while allowing yourself to get taken advantage of, or get hurt.
E: Jesus (God) forgave his enemies seventy times seven (70x7 - meaning infinite amount of times)
Me: That doesn't make sense, there comes a point where you just can't allow yourself to get hurt over and over.
E: But that's what Jesus did and the Bible says to do so, thus you have to keep forgiving.

Now, let me say that this does not make any sense and is rather damaging as well as impractical in reality. Yes, there are times where you should forgive people and sometimes, it may even be better. But to blindly forgive people, unconditionally and without limits is simply not only impractical, but also dangerous. When you keep letting someone get away with hurting you, you are enabling them to continue to do damage to you while you do nothing to protect yourself from continual and future harm. Also, there is a limit to how much one can take (nothing is infinite) in this universe. As an aside, 70x7 equals 490, but of course, based on the Bible text, it is interpreted as infinite (don't ask me why 70x7 is considered 'infinite', I don't know.).

Furthermore, there are other Christians who claim that they forgive forever, but I'm skeptical of it because it's either:
A) They have a different definition of forgiveness and they redefined it to fit their views and belief, so they don't 'really' forgive people, yet they call those out who don't forgive and judge them for it. (Hypocrisy)
B) They don't actually forgive people, but preach forgiveness. So on paper, they do, but in reality, they really don't. In other words, living a lie. (Also hypocrisy) For instance they will say that they 'forgive' said person for said transgression, but in practice, they still hold some consequence against the transgressor (person/people who wronged them).

#2 Everything happens for a reason
This is another common claim that Christians make that doesn't make any sense and is usually a cop out response to both positive and negative events. Consider the video by YouTuber DarkMatter2525, The Answer To Everything. This simply makes no logical sense in the modern world. If you think about it, not all answers are correct, but all answers can be wrong. In the video, it shows several scenarios as to what happens in an incident, and in the video, the case where someone is a victim of gun violence (not trying to get political here). It goes through several scenarios, including surviving with no injuries, surviving with many injuries (ending up as a vegetable, but still alive), and of course, dying. The response to all the scenarios is that it's all God's plan. However, from simple logic, that doesn't make sense because if God's plan was that victim was to live, but yet the victim doesn't, then does it mean it wasn't God's plan, or vice versa? Another point to consider is the notion of free will and variables in events. Nobody can predict how an event will play out, there are many variables in which that could always change (where the victim was standing, where the bullet went, which caliber, which angle, etc.), so how could God be correct and incorrect at the same time? It doesn't add up... God simply can't be wrong and right at the same time, he's either wrong or he's right. And if he's right, then there is no free will because everything is already set up the way it is and no one can change destiny. However, if he is wrong (which is the most logical conclusion), then yes, free will does exist and people do affect the outcomes as well as variables in any given event.

#3 When it comes to birth
This one really is a mind twister based on the logic of it. First off, from a biological standpoint, humans (and most animals) reproduce by the biological process. This process entails the sperm (from a male) fertilizing an egg (from a female), and then the egg becoming a fetus. Suppose the individuals did not have sexual intercourse or do anything that would cause reproduction. Then, there would be no logical way that another human being would be conceived and brought into this world. Consider the example of virgin Mary. I don't believe in the fact that the virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus because God planted a seed. It doesn't make any logical sense. In order for that to happen, there has to be a sperm entering Mary's body in order to fertilize her egg (which then became Jesus). To me, extraordinary claims require extraordinary (concrete) evidence in order for it to be plausible. Since most Christians don't question or think about it, the best response they have is that God can do anything, which really is just a cop out response because it doesn't prove anything.

#4 Hell is a place in which God's presence is not there (separation from God)
I get that a lot of people, especially Christians who want to use guilt to get people to believe in their religion, appeal to Hell to scare and guilt people into believing God. However, I am not discussing about why they do it, but rather, I will explore why Hell isn't this bad place as it is made out to be. If Hell is a place where there is no connection to God (not some place where people suffer and burn and writhe in pain), then it couldn't be worse for people who don't believe in God to begin with. I don't believe in either a heaven nor Hell, just that once one dies, it's over, just eternal void, so that line of reasoning is not applicable for me. One question to consider is why would anyone want to serve a God that doesn't allow questioning or free will, and simply go to heaven for being a sycophant (blindly follower without question)?

There are many more other inconsistencies, but these are the more prevalent ones faced. I don't have the time to list every single inconsistency as that would already make a super long post to be even longer, so I will just summarize the ones I have. In conclusion, it seems that when discussing reality and common sense with Christians, they oftenly ignore logic, ignore reality, and more oftenly than not appeal to the Bible for their source, which is erroneous and leads to circular reasoning, which is a flaw in and of itself due to not allowing any other source to check against it (leads to bias as citing itself as it's own source.)

 

[TowerUpright]

I've had. Problem with Christians saying try always forgive as well. Consider 9/11. How many Christians were calling for war?? And we're cheerfully encouraging the destructions of "terrorists", even though those people were never tried?? Even with collateral damage??

Forgiveness, it seems is quaint, and talked about in parlors and pulpits. But, push comes to shove, their behavior doesn't change and a unique "interpretation" of forgiveness is issued. Honest to everyone, I heard a Right-Winger years age (2001??) Justify his protesting of gay weddings and harassment of LGBT people by saying something like "God wants me to love my neighbor. How can I love my neighbor if I allow them to go to hell?? Someone has to show them.' (paraphrase on my part).

Another reason I've lost faith.

I would say that my faith would have went through the roof, if GWB announced after 9/11 that he was bolstering Homeland security, stepped up intelligence, but NOT bomb other countries, because "like my savior, I choose to forgive, even when it is hard."

Unrealistic I know, and I'm not a pacifist either. But my respect for faith would be much higher than it is now.

 

[woxihuanni]

Nah, don't forgive. The fuck would I forgive? But I have no energy to take religion seriously and argue. It's crazy by default.

 

[ish]

He lives in a Catholic country and these issues are no stranger.
Christ's teachings first
for centuries were transmitted orally they were, written down
later. As if that wasn't enough, it was created in the early period
many different factions and trends of this direction. The basis of teaching Jesus was Judaism. Personally I think, to understand science (Jesus) should also know the social, economic, political, etc. conditions of this period, and language. Jesus did not speak of the trinity, but said that he was a son of God (according to his teaching
every man is a child of god). He was talking about a specific condition
mind and consciousness connecting him with God the Father (this state was defined - the Holy Spirit). Christianity is a monotheistic religion,
so one God leads people into temptation, or tempts people with temptations.
Regarding birth and conception, it was immaculate, which literally meant that there was no anal sex in the act of conception.
I also didn't come across anything attributed to him
which would indicate that we should pray to man and to him
Himself (Jesus) not mention of hell.
All flaws in logic result from imperfections in translations and
misunderstood oral communications, and subsequent enrichment.
The influence of hierarchical particular interests is also visible
and secular.
The most reliable source of utterance Jesus
i commend to apocryphal gospels.

 

[Eurus]

Yes,there are SO many flaws.my question is if god created Adam then eve and they had two sons and one son(Cain) kills the other son(able) then Adam and Eve kick Cain out of their home,how does Cain go on to reproduce if there exists only 3 humans on the planet?

 

[TowerUpright]

My favorite is the dimensions of Noah's Arc. Especially if you don't believe in the evolution of new species. And forget that animals need to eat for 40 days.
Also, the response I've gotten from people is that "You're reading the Bible wrong. You have to read the whole book as one big love story.".. (!)

 

[Final Escape]

Christianity, I mean true Christians who live by the values and stuff are actually the most humane people. It's the most humane religion and why the ruling elite want to wipe it out of existence. It is the most persecuted religion in the world because it conflicts with worship of the government or state. In Christianity it is understood that u don't harm others, especially children. You don't violate others property or right to life and liberty.

Governments around the world are importing very violent religions like Islam into countries with Christian style values and in Islamic culture for example pedophilia is acceptable, genital mutilation, child marriage, women are treated very badly in most third world countries. I'm not a Christian but I understand that Christianity has been why there's been any freedom or prosperity in a culture. In many non white countries you will not have women put on a pedestal and given all these privileges like we have here. You're goin to be pumping out like as many kids as u can concieve and be married by age 9 definitely by age 12.

 

[TowerUpright]

I hear what you are saying, and I mostly agree. Just remember, there are, what I call, Christian compounds in the US that do have a lot of questionable behaviors. Marriage for early teens to older men, limiting education for girls (except religious education, of course), and a variety of other disturbing behavior. They take biblical truths, especially old testament ones, a bit to seriously. Sadly, these places rarely get reported. Occasionally, for really extreme behavior, but I know of people first hand who have relatives that joined these "church communities".

Lot down here is the South, and the Midwest, too.

 

[Divine Trinity]

There comes a point in time when you stop caring about myths, people will find senseless meaning to their senseless hardships.

 

[TowerUpright]

There comes a point in time when you stop caring about myths, people will find senseless meaning to their senseless hardships.

I'm not so sure, sadly.

The Christians I know (of the Evangelical subspecies) are all in on Faith and the Christian myths. Also, they aren't in a position to leave. Think about it : Assume someone in a close-knit community here, or say Utah, decides religion is false and hypocritical. Are they prepared to be ostracized from their family, have a difficult time at their job (especially if they work for a religious organization)?? Or do they just go with the flow, slowly deteriorate on the inside, have their depression exasperated, and post messages like mine on SS??? (No names) :)

One other thing: Christians also play the "Heads I win, tails you lose" game. When something tragic happens and they pray en masse, they praise God when a favorable outcome occurs. But, they denied God did anything bad (or was indifferent), when the outcome was poor.

You can win with these people (religious person, not just Christians). They're a cancer in society (that does do good things from time to time).

Ok. I said my peace. Thanks for listening.

 

[TAW122]

@TowerUpright yeah, that is true with a lot of my experiences and encounters with religious people in my life. While they aren't necessarily outright mean and/or throw insults in my face (some are, but most aren't), they do share some passive-aggressive attitude and logical inconsistency with their reasoning. It can be quite infuriating dealing with them so I am trying really hard nowadays to not get into a discussion or debate with them because it doesn't change them, they refuse to see logic, and only really want to push their view on me (or others who don't share their opinion/views on various topics). When called out, they play victim and instead shift around blame, there is no win against these people except to ignore them and never engage (easier said than done since I do have a tendency to want to argue - which I am working on reducing).

 

[Polka]

#1 Forgive forever

Just to address a few points:

Bible says murderers are to be killed not forgiven.

Christian hell is not in the Bible.

 

[Corraled]

Note: I am not saying that all Christians are like this, but I am simply exposing the flaw in their logic and beliefs as well as why the tenets of Christianity is simply incompatible for modern day society.

Before I begin, I want to say that I am an atheist and don't believe in God or any organized religion. I go to church for the social aspect, to pick apart the flawed reasoning that Christians use as well as gaining access to a piano (to keep up with my musical skills). I generally don't voice my beliefs to openly because I do not wish to get into conflicts and fights with the congregation, so I generally keep the peace (unless asked and even then I do not escalate things since again, I'd like to keep the peace).

With that said, here are some of the illogical principles that I don't agree with and I'll start off with this example. Consider the forgiveness example, this was a exchange between me and E, someone in the congregation.

#1 Forgive forever
E: You should forgive someone who has done wrong to you.
Me: Yes, but not over and over while allowing yourself to get taken advantage of, or get hurt.
E: Jesus (God) forgave his enemies seventy times seven (70x7 - meaning infinite amount of times)
Me: That doesn't make sense, there comes a point where you just can't allow yourself to get hurt over and over.
E: But that's what Jesus did and the Bible says to do so, thus you have to keep forgiving.

Now, let me say that this does not make any sense and is rather damaging as well as impractical in reality. Yes, there are times where you should forgive people and sometimes, it may even be better. But to blindly forgive people, unconditionally and without limits is simply not only impractical, but also dangerous. When you keep letting someone get away with hurting you, you are enabling them to continue to do damage to you while you do nothing to protect yourself from continual and future harm. Also, there is a limit to how much one can take (nothing is infinite) in this universe. As an aside, 70x7 equals 490, but of course, based on the Bible text, it is interpreted as infinite (don't ask me why 70x7 is considered 'infinite', I don't know.).

Furthermore, there are other Christians who claim that they forgive forever, but I'm skeptical of it because it's either:
A) They have a different definition of forgiveness and they redefined it to fit their views and belief, so they don't 'really' forgive people, yet they call those out who don't forgive and judge them for it. (Hypocrisy)
B) They don't actually forgive people, but preach forgiveness. So on paper, they do, but in reality, they really don't. In other words, living a lie. (Also hypocrisy) For instance they will say that they 'forgive' said person for said transgression, but in practice, they still hold some consequence against the transgressor (person/people who wronged them).

#2 Everything happens for a reason
This is another common claim that Christians make that doesn't make any sense and is usually a cop out response to both positive and negative events. Consider the video by YouTuber DarkMatter2525, The Answer To Everything. This simply makes no logical sense in the modern world. If you think about it, not all answers are correct, but all answers can be wrong. In the video, it shows several scenarios as to what happens in an incident, and in the video, the case where someone is a victim of gun violence (not trying to get political here). It goes through several scenarios, including surviving with no injuries, surviving with many injuries (ending up as a vegetable, but still alive), and of course, dying. The response to all the scenarios is that it's all God's plan. However, from simple logic, that doesn't make sense because if God's plan was that victim was to live, but yet the victim doesn't, then does it mean it wasn't God's plan, or vice versa? Another point to consider is the notion of free will and variables in events. Nobody can predict how an event will play out, there are many variables in which that could always change (where the victim was standing, where the bullet went, which caliber, which angle, etc.), so how could God be correct and incorrect at the same time? It doesn't add up... God simply can't be wrong and right at the same time, he's either wrong or he's right. And if he's right, then there is no free will because everything is already set up the way it is and no one can change destiny. However, if he is wrong (which is the most logical conclusion), then yes, free will does exist and people do affect the outcomes as well as variables in any given event.

#3 When it comes to birth
This one really is a mind twister based on the logic of it. First off, from a biological standpoint, humans (and most animals) reproduce by the biological process. This process entails the sperm (from a male) fertilizing an egg (from a female), and then the egg becoming a fetus. Suppose the individuals did not have sexual intercourse or do anything that would cause reproduction. Then, there would be no logical way that another human being would be conceived and brought into this world. Consider the example of virgin Mary. I don't believe in the fact that the virgin Mary gave birth to Jesus because God planted a seed. It doesn't make any logical sense. In order for that to happen, there has to be a sperm entering Mary's body in order to fertilize her egg (which then became Jesus). To me, extraordinary claims require extraordinary (concrete) evidence in order for it to be plausible. Since most Christians don't question or think about it, the best response they have is that God can do anything, which really is just a cop out response because it doesn't prove anything.

#4 Hell is a place in which God's presence is not there (separation from God)
I get that a lot of people, especially Christians who want to use guilt to get people to believe in their religion, appeal to Hell to scare and guilt people into believing God. However, I am not discussing about why they do it, but rather, I will explore why Hell isn't this bad place as it is made out to be. If Hell is a place where there is no connection to God (not some place where people suffer and burn and writhe in pain), then it couldn't be worse for people who don't believe in God to begin with. I don't believe in either a heaven nor Hell, just that once one dies, it's over, just eternal void, so that line of reasoning is not applicable for me. One question to consider is why would anyone want to serve a God that doesn't allow questioning or free will, and simply go to heaven for being a sycophant (blindly follower without question)?

There are many more other inconsistencies, but these are the more prevalent ones faced. I don't have the time to list every single inconsistency as that would already make a super long post to be even longer, so I will just summarize the ones I have. In conclusion, it seems that when discussing reality and common sense with Christians, they oftenly ignore logic, ignore reality, and more oftenly than not appeal to the Bible for their source, which is erroneous and leads to circular reasoning, which is a flaw in and of itself due to not allowing any other source to check against it (leads to bias as citing itself as it's own source.)

I fail to see where are the "flaws" in logic or principles. God is supposed to be all powerful and knows everything. The virgin Mary? Lol. If you are willing to accept that god created the world from nothing, it should not be hard to also believe that he can spontaneously put a baby in someone's belly. The baby just magically appeared inside, because of magic because god has magical powers. Sure its a fairy tale but theres nothing inconsistent about it.

I thought you were going to point out supposed inconsistencies within christian logic, but you simply dislike it.

 

[Polka]

I thought you were going to point out supposed inconsistencies within christian logic, but you simply dislike it.

So many hate God.

 

[TakeHold]

The problem with christianity is not in its basic principles, like forgiveness, altruism, kindness and such - mainly because these are fundamental human principles existing across various cultures, and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem with christianity, as well as with other abrahamistic religions, is outdated, obsolete and destructive rules for ordinary human life - and breaking of these rules, "sins". Fear of being sinful and false cultural messages derived from this fear are so deeply rooted that almost nobody is aware of how it almost universally affects all people in abrahamistic religion societies. Western christianity made some attempts to address to that (e.g. christianity in western countries now tolerate LGBT people, maybe accepting euthanasia, considers animals as creatures with feelings and soul, not just soulless machines etc), but it's still long road to address all abrahamistic flaws. I think christianity will naturally die out before it evolves into something without such flaws.

 

[Polka]

The problem with christianity

Is that it hates what the Bible actually says.

 

[Crushed_Innocence]

Hi. I am newly deconverting out of the religion of Christianity after 20+ years of trying to get help for a problem teligion can't solve, yet blamed me for: The impact of years of trauma on my mind, psyche, personality. After all.I been through to be told I am a worthless sinner who needs to give up my life & heart to a God that won't help me on earth in this life, but tells me to pray, help others, suck it up and I will get my reward in heaven. It was the psycological abuse cycle all over again. I am commanded to love my abuser with al my mind, heart and soul. How the fuck do you make love a requirement? How can I accept the so called "free gift" of salvation when its attached to the most gruesome concept of being tormented for eternity if I don't? Its insanity.

 

[Corraled]

Religion is meant to help with social cohesion in religious communities. All the disappointments from religion stem from not actually living in religious communities, not actually following the religion and expecting from it what it is not meant to offer (like health or wealth). All these arguments about god not existing or contradiction in the bible are irrelevant for those not living religious lives in religious communities. Might as well point out contradictions in Harry Potter.

 

[Polka]

Bible condemns religion.