Q&Atheist: Questions from believers answered by an Atheist. I don’t speak for all Atheists, nor for Atheism as a whole. Just me. 

Q: How do you explain the emergence of Christianity?

Question from: Pastor David Holt, Living Hope Church, Athens Georgia 

A: I am not a historian by any means. I’m sure an entire doctoral thesis (if not multiple theses) could be written in attempt to answer this question. That being said, I do think that there were a few pivotal themes and moments in documented history that had some large effect on the emergence and spread of the Christian faith.

Christianity’s doctrines of the afterlife are a big factor in my mind. If you believe that leaving or not believing in a specific religion could result in eternal torture in Hell, you have a motivation to stay in, as well as to pass that belief on to people you care about (to save them from that fiery fate as well). This means teaching your children from an early age about the religion. When ideas like this are ingrained into people at a young age, and continually reinforced as they grow up by the authority figures in their lives, it makes those ideas hard to shed. For some, even if they wanted to shed them, it is near impossible.

I also think events like the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition had an effect on spreading the Christianity. If the alternative to professing Christianity was being persecuted or killed by Christians, then converting to Christianity might have seemed appealing. Also, we can’t deny the massive boost that Christianity got when the Roman Emperor Constantine ended the persecution of Christianity (and other religions’)  within the (historically pagan) Roman Empire and purportedly converted to Christianity himself. Holidays and feasts were amalgamated, and the new customs were given more freedom to spread. The history on some of those (like Christmas) is quite fascinating.

But, this is where I have to stop answering the question proper. Like I said, I’m not a historian. Going too much further into those topics would have me trying to fill gaps in the story which are fuzzy in my memory if not completely beyond my own knowledge base. What I find more interesting and to the point is that I get the feeling from the question itself as though there is some sort of inherent credit to be bestowed on Christianity for spreading as far and wide as it has. The question seems to place a burden of proof on the answerer to show how something “not true” could have spread so far. And, I have to reject that concept completely.

One of the best summations of my thoughts on this come from Tim Minchin’s song “White wine in the sun”:

“I don’t believe just ‘cos ideas are tenacious it means they’re worthy.”

At its base, the quote is a reference to a logical fallacy known as argumentum ad populum. This fallacy concludes that a proposition is true based on the fact that many or even most people believe it. This type of argument can be shown demonstrably to be false. For instance, most of the world used to believe that the world was flat, or that the sun revolved around the earth. But no matter how geographically widespread those beliefs were, the percentage of the populous who held the beliefs, nor the strength of their conviction had any bearing on the actual truthfulness of their respective claims. Argumentum ad populum doesn’t prove the claim itself false, only that the line of reasoning which says that it’s true is insufficient evidence by itself.

Such is the case with Christianity. It doesn’t matter how far it has spread. It doesn’t matter how many people believe it to be true. Christianity (like all other religions and literally every other positive claim in existence) still has a burden of proof to demonstrate that it’s true before it can honestly claim to be. But, whether or not Christianity is actually true is neither here nor there. For the purposes of this particular post it only matters that the emergence and spread of Christianity, vast though it is, says absolutely nothing about the validity of Christianity.

For a long time I’ve been wanting to do a series of Q&A (in the spirit of this blog’s name), answering questions from Christian believers who are curious about how an Atheist might view Christianity. Of course, I don’t speak for all Atheists, nor for Atheism as a whole. Just me. This is the first entry in my Q&Atheist series.

Q: What do you like and/or dislike about the message of the Bible?

Question from: Pastor David Holt, Living Hope Church, Athens Georgia

A: Since there are so many stories and ideas contained within the old and the new testaments of the Bible, there is a lot that we could cover here.

Let me start by saying that I do find a lot of good things in the Bible. As literature, there are some beautiful passages and worthwhile metaphors, as well as some stories that seem to have an earnest and loving message that, if taken to heart, can help guide people to live a kind and moral life. Conversely, I also see a multitude of stories that have either a morally ambiguous message or even a downright awful one. I think this is where the greatest shortcoming of the Bible exists, and definitely one of my largest issues with the Bible (and Christianity as a whole). Oddly enough, my biggest issue has less to do with the actual writings of the Bible itself, and more to do with the way that Christians revere it.

The Bible is regarded by much of Christianity as the inerrant word of God. Some would say the “inspired word of God,” but that doesn’t necessarily resolve the issue. Many biblical tales have more than one possible interpretation, leaving followers to choose the meaning and lesson that they prefer. These meanings can have vastly different effects on their personal views and actions. Regardless of what verse I’m talking about, it leaves Christianity with the claim that the perfect message from God can be taken to mean different things with no way to ensure which claim is accurate in terms of “what God meant.” This is a problem.

Then we get into the issue of some of the less than good stories. Here’s one example where God commands his people to commit genocide. Look at 1 Samuel 15:2-3 (NIV)

² This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. ³ Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.

Is this a morally good message? I don’t think so. I don’t think anything commanding the slaughter of children and infants to be a positive aspect of a leader. Oddly enough, I’ve heard many Christians try to justify this passage and what God commanded in it, and unfortunately, I’ve never heard a truly convincing argument for it. I’ve heard things like, “God knew this was the best way” or, “The Amalekites were a bad, sinful people and their children would have grown up to become just like their parents.”  I know it’s hard to come up with a scenario where “Put to death… children and infants” (i.e. “go kill those babies”) is a moral statement consistent with a benevolent deity, much less an action that should inform our behavior. But, I would think that a supreme deity could come up with a better solution than this. I mean, he is supposed to be all-powerful. All things should be possible, including a better solution (i.e. perhaps one that doesn’t condone infanticide)… and yet, according to the Bible, this is what he chose.

Worrisome passages like this can be found scattered throughout the Bible. And, even if someone can find a way to justify some of the troubling verses it still leaves us with a book meant to spread the message of God where the message itself is definitively unclear. If we are to take the Bible as a message from God meant to be applicable throughout human existence, then a textual writing is simply not an effective way to communicate that knowledge. Languages die out, transcription/translation errors occur, and the end result is a message whose meaning will vastly change as time goes on.

I have no problem with the Bible when viewed as a collection of books describing the culture and beliefs of the writers of the time it was written. Like I said, some of it is quite good. However, when imbued with the qualities that Christianity of today does, I find it insufficient in satisfying the claims that it is the timeless message of a supreme and morally perfect being. The good parts are wonderful. The ambiguous parts are problematic. The bad parts are awful. And, the fact that all three of those areas are up to some level of personal interpretation is a recipe for disaster.