Did John the Baptist Know Jesus Or Not

18 Reasons Why Christianity is Man-Made

The most obvious and yet most damning reason against Religion is that it is man made. Here is a great website that gives 18 reason why Christianity is man made. He makes the case that Christian apologist have arguments against them but they only satisfy the believer. All they need is one bent and barely stable rusty nail to hang onto to be satisfied. I recall buying such things when I was a Christian, but deep down inside, something just told me they really were flimsy defenses and happily for me they won they day. Good-bye cognitive dissonance. It is no wonder so many youtube videos made by Christians block the vote, block leaving a comment or you must wait for their approval. Doesn't that sound like fear? They cannot bear the truth. On the flip side the videos done by atheist allow the free flow of comments. This is all true for blogs as well.

The Evidence For Christianity

As Mark Twain said, "It is easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled."

The 18 arguments showing Christianity is man-made. I had added some of my thoughts here.
1. The flawed Bible
2. Jesus and Paul expected the apocalypse very soon even in that generations lifetime.
3. Converting a local god into a universal god, who heretofore left millions unaware.
4. No evidence to the historicity of Jesus beyond the New Testament.
5. Christian refusal to learn from new evidence and recite old arguments.
6. Prophecies of Jesus retrofitted into the Old Testament and poorly at that. The book of Matthew is quite flawed for me in particular.
7. The flimsy argument the NT was written by eye-witnesses. My favorite is the 500 who were resurrected when Jesus died and they are unnamed but apparently told everyone and yet not even one of them is named or has a book written by them.
8. The flawed argument that people will only give their lives for that which is true. No. They only need to be convinced its true. That doesn't make it true. The 9/11 terrorists flying into the World Trade Center is sufficient to dismiss that.
9. The mumbo jumbo about crowbarring Jesus into divinity where now the one god is three. That wasn't introduced until the late 4th century.
10. Christian apologist practice bait and switch tactics. They argue for the existence of god that could be used by any religion and then supposedly having you convinced they assume that proves their god, which is does not. It could just as easily apply to Thor, Odin, Vishnu or Enki.
11. In order to believe Christianity literally they are forced to believe the world is only 6000 years old and the arguments they use to ignore evidence is astonishing.
12. The obvious human endeavor to determine which books belonged in the Bible. They had to choose out of hundreds of books which one was god inspired. They was a long period of dispute and then once settled the command went out to destroy those books not in the canon. There is nothing awe inspiring about that process. This was done under the Roman Catholic reign, which many Protestants would not be happy about. Interestingly enough the gospels were unnamed for years until someone decided to give them a church leader's name (e.g. apostle) to provide clout. This was typical in ancient times. Additionally in comparing manuscripts of the New Testament there were thousands of errors, omissions and even additions so much so the author of Revelation gave a stern warning against the practice. A perfect god could have been more hands on.
13. The account of the death and resurrection of Jesus, the only thing that matters in Christianity, is contradictory when you read the 4 gospels side by side.
14. It is obvious from the style of writing that the gospel of John & Revelation were not the same authors. Revelations almost didn't make it into the NT (which frankly would have been great to cut down on all the nuts attracted to it), but they made the argument to accept it into the NT because they said it was written by the same author as the gospel of John which actually is not the case.
15. The author of the book of Revelation makes no claim about his cryptic prophecies being way off in the future but meant it to be applicable to his times. Meanwhile, generation after generation of Christians say it is for their time.
16. Christian history and particularly when Christianity is in power they torture and murder those who don't believe as they do. Sounds like a local god, doesn't it? Here in the U.S. they show the same proclivity to oppress others that don't believe as they do (e.g the laws against gays and abortion). A taste of things to come if they continue. Their local god gets pissed at those who don't agree with him, but somehow he is unable to take care of it himself. All-powerful or imaginary?
17. You shall know them by their fruits Jesus said. Yet morally speaking there is no difference between an atheist and a Christian or any other group of people who believe differently. How is it the one nation under god was one of the last to abolish slavery. And then there was and is the continual race hatred. Also, why did the loving Christians wipe out about every Native American populations? Is this the country they want to get us back to? For the answer ask a gay person.
18. Why are there so few details on heaven besides eternity bowing before god. Why is hell easier to understand?

Is There Proof Jesus Was Resurrected?

God Of Paradox

Bible Blunders-Does Jesus Know His Bible?

Bible Blunders-How Did Peter Find Out?

Bible Blunders-Who Is John The Baptist?

Teach The Controversy

Bible Blunders-Who Is Righteous?

Bible Blunders-How Many Gods

Bible Blunders-Where Is Jesus Going?

Bible Blunders-Do As I Say

Bible Blunders-Jesus vs Jesus

Bible Blunders-Penis Cutting

Bible Blunders-Beating a Dead Horse

Bible contradictions - The Nephilim

The Bible is full of contradictions because it is a patchwork of sacred text. Here is one. The people of God encountered the Nephilim (KJV:Giants) before and after the flood. So not every living thing was destroyed by the flood as the Bible says.

Genesis 6:1-8

When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

The LORD saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

This text is well after the flood. The children of Israel are getting ready to enter the promise land but are afraid of the Nephilim.

Numbers 13:32-33

And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

Jesus Is Love And One Mean Bastard

Christians apologist attempt to excuse God from any wrong doing but the Bible paints a different picture. These Christians sanitize god as a god of love which is taking one text while ignoring others. The BuyBull is so contradictory it is understandable. You can literally hold opposite views and have text to validate it. This is why there are over 10k Christian denominations. The God of Love is also the God Of Eternal Hell. Ancients didn't have a problem with this because they saw themselves hopelessly dependent on this god, not much different than Egyptian, Greek and Roman gods. These gods are simply a reflection of who they were as humans, sometimes loving and sometimes real bastards.

The ones who accept this Judeo-Christian god of contradictions say he is a mystery, we cannot understand. I think we can. The punishment should fit the crime. Seventy years of just living a decent life but not believing in Jesus gives you billions upon trillions of years of being in total darkness yet burning alive with unbelievable suffering. The early old testament didn't paint this view but the loving Jesus did. In fact there are so many references to Jesus talking about hell, 70 by one count, we can say it was his key message. As a marketer he needed to show your need and of course he is the only solution, the cause of the problem at the same time being the solution. Prime B.S. Marketing duping billions. Kudos.

1 John 4:16

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.

1 Samuel 2:6

The LORD brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up.

Isaiah 45:7

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

Mark 9:47-48 Jesus talking to his disciples

And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

Prophecies About Jesus - Lies (out of Egypt)

Bible prophecies regarding Jesus are pick this, ignore that. If you read the context of the Old Testament reference you will see they are not clear predictions of Jesus. The author was clearly referencing his time, not a distant future time. Matthew, the first book of the New Testament references a text regarding the people of Israel being called out of Egypt at the time of Moses. Additionally, odd how the NT authors didn't pick up on the text by Moses saying that no Jew should ever go back to Egypt. Let's just ignore that. OK?

Deuteronomy 17:14-17

When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses. He must be from among your own brothers. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not a brother Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the LORD has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.

Matthew 2:13-15

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (from Hosea 11:1)

Now here is the context of Hosea 11 which Matthew unequivocally states is a prophecy of Jesus

Hosea 11:1-2

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.

Did this mean while the baby Jesus was in Egypt he burned incense to false gods and ignored Jehovah? It angers me that Matthew was this deceptive. Illiteracy is one excuse for those believing what they are told, never reading the Bible is another. Many Christians believe the prophecies in the Bible are legitimate. I have yet to see one prophecy not laden down with this and other kinds of B.S.

Merry ChristMithramas.

Jesus Birth Line Is Suspect

Two New Testament authors present the lineage of Jesus. This is all important because the Old Testament has tedious, exhausting genealogies to prove a key point.

The short history of the Jews, they were slaves in Egypt. Moses apparently with God on his side brings them out and then they wander about for 40 years. Then under Joshua they commit mass genocide against the peoples who lived in the land of God's promise. Now this genocide was not a sin because God told them to do it. Well, eventually they stopped believing in God and what they had done to others was now being done to them. Many of them were carried off to Babylon or Assyria and the country was no more. God had punished them enough and again pulled them out of these countries and re-established Israel. With all that going on how could you know you were the seed of Abraham, Isaac (not Ishmael) and Jacob (not Esau)? You had to have your pedigree papers in order. If you could not prove your lineage then you were basically on the out. It was especially important for the priests. You have to be chosen to wait at God's table and provide Him His favorite food, that is blood.

So, we come to the New Testament and you have to prove Jesus is a true blood. Two gospels took a stab at that and apparently didn't compare notes. Immediately they both disagree on who Jesus' grandfather was, one says Jacob the other Heli. Luke, a gentile presents 42 generations from King David to Jesus. Matthew, on the other hand, presents only 27 generations from King David to Jesus. The strict biblical literalist would see that Luke says "the son of" and Matthew going in the opposite order says "the father of".

So how can a fundie resolve this contradiction? They say that Luke being a gentile didn't need to be convinced of the "chosen" lineage didn't mean Joseph but Mary's lineage. So, why does he specifically say Joseph? If Mary was important why is there not even one mention of her in his entire book? But for sake of argument let's say he meant Mary (which is a contradiction), then how could her lineage contain 42 peers to Matthew's 27 generations be right? There would be some really old dudes in Mathew's line to make it work. 15 missing generations would be a flaw. Additionally, Mary does not have a legitimate messianic family because her ancestry is from Nathan and not Solomon (see 2 Sam.7:12-13,1 Chron.17:11-14,22:10,28:4-7).

I have recently argued with a fundie on this topic. I told him he needed to take the Bible literally. Both say Joseph. However to throw him a bone, I pointed out that Jesus was called the son of David when he really wasn't but he was of the lineage. David and Jesus were separated by about 1000 years. I proposed "why couldn't all these generations be like that?". He began to get uncomfortable with taking the Bible literally in this way. And you know why? Because NO WHERE IN THE BIBLE DOES IT SAY HOW OLD THE EARTH IS. The 6000 years is all wrapped up in the biblical genealogies. Some English bishop named James Ussher produces a work based on these genealogies in the 17th century proving the age of the earth was 6000 years old and Christians have been saddled with that ever since. And like the Pope who persecuted Copernicus, rejecting the earth revolved around the sun, we have these Christians still believing in the delusion.

After going back and forth with this fundie I decide I would ask one precise question. I asked him if the heavens and the earth were only 6000 years old and only at that time would sin & destruction enter how can we see exploding stars that are million light years away?

His answer was to change the laws of physics. The speed of light was a gazillion times faster before sin. This is the nature of the myth of religion. If you find anything contrary, you don't take it at face value (literally) but force fit it with the lamest, outlandish argument and go away satisfied. They learned this skill from believing the bible does not contradict itself. So they have spent many years proving that seven equals two.

So the Bible has contradictions and this is a good one. It is easy to see. But to make it fit you have to be willing to believe any kind of crazy thinking. We have Matthew's numerological list and Luke's lengthy list conflicting with each. On one thing they both agree that Jesus' father was Joseph. However, science steps in and says the DNA of Jesus & Joseph don't match. Remember Mary was a virgin. Jesus was his own father. Jesus was the son of Mary and her father (incest). Jesus was only Joseph's father and he defiled his wife. Literally makes sense, right?


Maybe Paul the Apostle was brighter than Matthew and Luke and avoided the problem.

Titus 3:9
But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and arguments and quarrels about the law, because these are unprofitable and useless.

God Is A Liar (a lying spirit)

Last chapter of 1st Kings is yet another decision by God's chosen on whether to go to war. The God of Abraham is one bloody bastard. The King of Aram has some of God's territory, the biblical lebensraum, called Ramoth Gilead. This irks the king of Israel, Ahab, and so he talks to the king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, about going to war against Aram. Jehoshaphat replies we need to seek the counsel of the Lord before we start our killing. So the king of Israel gets 400 prophets and ask them if they should go to war. In total unity they say yes, the Lord says yes. Jehoshaphat needs more. He wants another prophet of the Lord. The king of Israel say there is one but he always predicts bad shit. His name is Micaiah. But he finally takes a chance. Jehoshaphat asks Micaiah, "Shall we go to war?". Micaiah replies "Attack and be victorious for the Lord will give it into the king's hand."

Jehoshaphat cannot believe his ears and presses him more. You always tell me bad news why the change? How many times must I make you swear this is the truth?

Micaiah then tells him the truth that God will send lying spirits to entice him to war saying it will be good but it will not and will send him to his death and dogs will lick up his blood. Gotta give the Lord Almighty credit for grossing it up (AND HE LOVES YOU).

1 Kings 22:19-23

Micaiah continued, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne with all the host of heaven standing around him on his right and on his left. (ed: Ain't that special?) And the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead and going to his death there?’ “One suggested this, and another that. Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD and said, ‘I will entice him.’ “‘By what means?’ the LORD asked. “‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said. “‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the LORD. ‘Go and do it.’ “So now the LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The LORD has decreed disaster for you.”

Again God is do as I say, not as I do. Interesting he needs someone to lie for him. There are internal beliefs in churches that it is OK to lie to cover up the churches sins. I did a post about that a few weeks ago regarding a Jehovah Witness "apostasy" Telling The Truth Is Apostasy For Jehovah Witnesses. They used the story of Rehab in the book of Joshua, but this story of Ahab works just as well.

So if God can lie for the sole purpose of causing lots of bloodshed what can we trust in the Bible? How can you trust such a God? Maybe it is entirely a cosmic joke. Or more likely a bunch of witty men who said how much bullshit can we put out and people still believe it. Apparently quite a lot.