Strong Evidence Against Christianity
This page is dedicated to evidence against Christianity. I cannot stress enough that evidence does not prove anything, but it builds a case for something. When the evidence tips in favor of one side to the other, it's generally more plausible that the side with greater evidence is the valid truth. This page is devoted only to strong evidence as seems logical to me. No single piece stands on its own to prove anything, but when examined together it may produce a stronger argument.
Age of The Earth and The Obviousness of God's Handiwork
- 9550-Year-Old Trees
- The world is purported to be 6000 years old according to much of Christianity. I can agree that God would have made things "adults" when he created them, but it seems over the top to assume he created trees at 3550 years old and that they survived the flood at the age of 5550.
- 680,000 Layers of Ice
- I will grant that each layer does not have to equate to a year. It's quite possible that the sun can melt snow even in frozen conditions and that a new falling of snow could potentially create new layers. It's also possible that God simply created the layers, but I cannot see the point if the goal is to be clear that God exists given our surroundings. If the world were 6000 years old, there would have to have been 113.33 new layers created each year on average which is about a new layer every day for 1/3 of the year. I'm not ready to conclude that the weather was that extremely regular in changing from sunny to snowy for the past 6000 years.
- Locations of Animals
- Some animals only exist in certain areas. Australia, especially, has many animals unique to its continent including Koalas, Red Kangaroos, Platypuses, Tasmanian Devils, and so on. Of the multitude of animals that exist only in Australia (or unique to any particular area of the world), it's hard to imagine that every single one came from Noah's Ark which landed in the Middle East. If Pangaea was split to create the flood, then the animals would have had no method of traversing to the Americas except what man later brought across. The great distance would require that all animals born during the travel would also travel to that isolated location. I would sooner expect that the greatest variety of creatures must exist in the Middle East where they landed. God, of course, could have made them go to their particular locations, gave them safe travels, land bridges, and the ability to survive all climates as they went. But supposedly God is obvious in what we see around us so much so that we can be held accountable to it so I can't imagine God would have planted evidence contradictory to the course of what occurred. The animals look like they evolved where they are rather than having traveled there and thus it is a more obvious conclusion.
- Number of Species
- Christian science will, and must, allow for micro-evolution or survival of the fittest among animals of their particular kinds. Noah took only two dogs on the ark (since they were 'unclean' animals) thus all future breeds of dogs must have come from those two. What's unnerving about this is the sheer number of dog breeds (or any other creature on the planet) that we have. In only 4000 years, we're supposed to accept that every breed of every unclean animal came from only two of their kind and every breed of every clean animal came from seven of theirs. When was the last time breeding two Labrador Retrievers yielded a Poodle? And yet, we've come to hundreds of breeds from only 1 (or at max 2) breeds in 4000 years through micro-evolution (not simply selective breeding). Unless Noah had every breed of every animal on board (or at least the common denominators of all breeds in existence), it's simply not viable to think they all came from only two or seven. Bill Nye estimated that it would require eleven new species to be created every day since the Ark. Of course, God could have simply made it happen. In fact, he could have preserved them all like he must have had for plant-life or recreated them all from scratch by saying a word in the same manner he originally created them. If God's existence is to be clear enough to hold us accountable, I can't see God having made this look like it occurred over billions of years.
- Radiometric Dating
- Knowing the rate of decay of certain elements can tell us an idea of how long it took to get where it is currently and thus give an age of, at least, that element. This has a limitation, again, in knowing that God could have started the element at anywhere in its life-cycle. Thus it does not conclude that there had to be time prior to 6000 years. However, since we do have fossilized remains that go beyond the 3.5 billion-year mark (let alone the 6000-year mark) we can conclude that the creatures existed at least since that time. Unless, of course, the rate of decay was much quicker 6000 years ago. But we have no evidence to support the decay rate decreasing over time and especially at such a significant rate that we would calculate something that is only 6000 years old as being 3.5 billion years old. Radiometric dating tells us that animals existed way longer than 6000 years ago. God could have made the creatures 3.49 billions years old when he created them, of course, but this seems rather absurd and again goes against the obviousness of God's existence. Further, we have many animals in between the ranges of dates we find and thus, despite the overall decay rate, the relativity of ages (and the layers of rock in which they're found) give a strong indication of billions of years. We can speculate about what "could" be, but the only evidence we have currently states billions of years.
- Dinosaurs
- Unless God placed fossilized remains of dinosaurs in the ground to trick us, again going against the idea that his existence is obvious, then I believe we would have much more history regarding them in the past 6000 years while they yet lived. There are only a few myths and very few accounts of large animals that could potentially be considered as dinosaurs such as Behemoth and Leviathan as recorded in the Bible. If the earth is 6000 years old, then these dinosaurs must have existed simultaneously with mankind. And yet we can find no evidence of this. The extent of their existence should have been recorded and there should be fossilized remains near human remains. Further, the fossilized remains tell a story of mass extinction at the same time period. And not due to a flood, mind you. Scientists can calculate the required size of an asteroid that would be required to wipe dinosaurs from the planet and the size of the crater that it would leave. Such a crater has been found and gives strong evidence that this occurred prior to the 6000-year mark when man was supposedly created. Such a crater would otherwise have killed mankind as well.
- Craters
- In order for it to be clear that God created the earth with his craftsmanship, he would have had to nix the craters. The multitude of craters indicate many collisions with the earth that would have been devastating to mankind. One such crater would have obliterated all mankind everywhere without some kind of fallout shelter which they did not have. This crater is known for being responsible for wiping out the dinosaurs. God should not have included such craters if he expects the evidence of creation to speak for itself. The evidence speaks of billions of years in the making. He either planted the crater there in creation thus deceiving mankind into believing it was hit by an asteroid or else it was indeed hit by an asteroid. If it was indeed hit, it had to be prior to 4000 BC. If it was not hit, then God (or someone else?) planted the evidence.
Scriptural Blunders
- 2 Samuel 24:1
- [ David Enrolls the Fighting Men ] Again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go and take a census of Israel and Judah.”
- 1 Chronicles 21:1
- [ David Counts the Fighting Men ] Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel.
- Synoptics versus John: http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=635812#635812
Qualities of God Not Matching Love
- Commanding genocide, raping, slavery, and pillaging
- Exodus 21:20-21 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be punished; for the slave is his money."
Other Notes
- Even if God is obvious, what makes your definition better than mine? http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=640893#640893