52 Reasons To Doubt Christianity

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(1) Relative Time

It makes no sense that the relatively short life we live on this planet, at most 100 years and perhaps as brief as a few minutes, would be used by a god to determine our ultimate destiny, one  that will last trillions and trillions of years and beyond.  This would be like compensating a baseball player for his entire career based on how he performs in his first major league at bat.  If he hits a home run, he would receive a high salary, but if he strikes out, he will get only minimum wage throughout his career no matter how well he plays thereafter.  The time difference between the trial period and the punishment/reward period is drastically out of sync.

Some Christians say that God will give people another chance after they die to accept his grace, but if that is true, then why be so concerned about the unsaved in this life? And if you get a second chance after you die, you will obviously know that Christianity is true, making the decision to believe not a matter of faith, but of fact.  This makes no sense, and it would render the core theology of Christianity meaningless.

(2) Lack of Gradation

Christianity proposes that only one of two fates awaits humans after they die- an extremely attractive invitation into heaven or a miserable, dreadful sentence to hell.  Given the complexities and varieties of human experience, offering only two judgments is absurd.

People are born into many different circumstances, some with Bible-believing Christian parents, others with Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, or atheistic parents.  Some were born during the Middle Ages when sectarian belief was ubiquitous versus the societies today that are much more secular.  Some lived before the era of Christianity.  Some were born with damaged mental capabilities.  To shoehorn all of these people into a two-tiered judgment system is irrational.

Some Catholics believe in “purgatory” where souls can be purified before they are allowed to enter heaven.  This would seem to alleviate the problem somewhat if it weren’t for the fact that it is completely made up without any basis in the Bible.   However, it would also make the choices you make in this life much less meaningful if you could compensate for any shortcoming s with a visit to purgatory.  No matter how long the layover there, it would be infinitesimally short compared to the eternity that awaits in heaven.

(3) Barbaric Punishment

Jesus mentions Hell or some derivative thereof many times in the gospels and hints that most people will end up suffering there (wide is the path of destruction).  Here are some of the scriptures addressing Hell:

Matthew 5:28, 29:

“But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

Matthew 13:41, 42..

“The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Mark 9:45, 46…

“And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”

A belief in Hell is unavoidable if one is to believe in Jesus.  If Hell doesn’t exist, then why would God have allowed it to be so prominently addressed in the Bible? This brings about an interesting comparison. Hitler sent Jews to the concentration camps and gas chambers for no reason other than their ethnic identity.  This was a temporal punishment; it sometimes lasted only a few days.  God, on the other hand, is prepared to send good, well-accomplished, and generous people to a place of everlasting punishment and torture for the crime of not believing in something for which no credible evidence exists.  The god of the Bible is, in effect, worse than Hitler.

Read the rest. Recommended, more ammunition.