Responses to 50 reasons why religion sucks, pt.5 of 5
Posted by Mathew | May 15, 2009 | 6 Comments
“50 reasons why religion sucks” – Day 5 of 5!
This is the final installment lot of 10 so-called “reasons” as to why religion sucks. This follows the previous part four post of Responses to 50 reasons why religion sucks.
- Part 1 – Responses 1 through to 10
- Part 2 – Responses 11 through to 20
- Part 3 – Responses 21 through to 30
- Part 4 – Responses 31 through to 40
- Part 5 – Responses 41 through to 50
Following are responses to “objections” 41 through to 50.
41) No “miracles” have been documented
Let me see … there’s this compilation of books that seems to refute this claim. I’m having trouble thinking of the name … oh! The Bible!
The Bible certainly looks like documentation to me. It’s full of eye-witness accounts of many miracles performed by Jesus, Moses and a whole host of other Old Testament characters, and the texts are the most critically analysed and attested documents in all of ancient literature. There is no doubting the accuracy of the surviving manuscripts to their originals. Again, Josh McDowell in The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict spends a great portion of his book devoted to the textual criticism and historicism of the biblical texts.
If that’s not documentation, I don’t know what is – and maybe neither do you.
42) Religion does not offer a valid explanation of the world around us
Um, hello? The main reason why I (and many millions more the world over) became a Christian was that Christianity precisely offered a valid explanation for the world around us. Do you switch on the news and hear all the stories of disasters, murders, thefts, deaths, exploitation and greed? Do you look into yourself and – honestly – find things within you (thoughts, past actions or current deeds?) that you know just aren’t good and proper?
The entire Christian message is geared toward providing the best explanation for world events and for providing the solution: salvation through Jesus Christ.
Somehow, secularism doesn’t offer the same hope let alone the same explanation.
43) Religion confuses people
Not more so than this “objection”. Some detail would be nice, such as: how does it confuse people? What do they get confused about? Is it possible that they are confused simply because they haven’t had their issues properly addressed and / or are lambasted by empty objections to their faith?
44) Some religions do not allow its believers to question their faith
Now, this does sound like atheism. The movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, was a documentary on how many in the scientific community are being exiled for simply asserting that the world exists because there is a god, and that there is no one big, cosmic hullabaloo of a chance that life just evolved from mindless processes.
Now isn’t that a case of the pot calling the kettle black?
Christianity, on the other hand, encourages people to fully investigate and find out the truth for themselves about what it claims. See 1Th 5:21.
45) Religion requires blind faith
No, pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey requires blind faith. Christianity is a thinking faith, coming to its conclusions through the processes of sound thinking and solid logic. Prove me otherwise.
46) Religion is not the cause for technological advancements, in fact, it only slows it down
To the contrary, in the period known and Christendom, the Christian world-view can fairly be credited with advancing, or at the least providing the seed-bed for, what we now know as modern scientific practices.
This stems from the Christian world-view that God is a rational God, therefore His creation is likewise rational and set. As man is made in the image of God, with rational minds, we can therefore begin to understand how things of nature work. This approach to science was not prevalent in non-Christian nations at the time – while Christianity certainly didn’t invent science and were not the only civilisations practising science, it was under the Christian world-view that science flourished. Many scientific principles, chiefly the inductive method, were founded by Christian thinkers and scientists from the 16th Century, which were in turn reliant on the teachings of earlier Church thinkers such as Aquinas from the 13th Century.
Modern science, like the Christian faith, is founded on rationality and careful investigation and documentation of observable events. The practising of both do not contradict.
47) Older religions have trouble accounting for new scientific discoveries that directly contradict the religion
This may be so for some religions. You would be hard pressed to find something that contradicted the Christian world-view and the Bible. You may use Galileo as an example, but his story has been well documented as being far too exaggerated by New Atheist thinkers as to be more mythical and factual. I’ve written a little about the Galileo case else where on my blog.
48) God has yet to show up and give us an update on wtf is going on
Firstly, why should He?
Secondly, He already has. Read the Gospel of John. Then Luke. Heck, pick up your Bible and go from there.
I’m sure, however, that God does apologise for not notifying you personally over a coffee, but mass-communication does have its obvious efficiencies.
49) Things such as guardian angels, reincarnation, resurrection have yet to have been proven or witnessed
Have you not read my response to #41? Start there, then read your Bible (I know you have one).
Oh, except, you’re correct about reincarnation. We Christians don’t dig that. One sinful life is more than enough – I’d hate to go through it again.
50) Even the most religious people tend to mourn and fear death, despite the fact that heaven appears to be a very nice place – contradiction?
Um, no.
If your young adult child finally leaves the nest to venture out into the wide, wide world by themselves, do you not feel both grieved and joyful at the same time?
Hardly unnatural. Competing emotions, yes. Contradictory, no.
This was the final post of a five part series addressing 50 some-what very flimsy objections to religion. I trust that you have found these to be insightful and valuable. While not meant to be comprehensive in the rebuttals of the objections, the real intent was mainly to highlight the absurdity and hollowness of objections that some people cling-to when they refuse to consider the claims of those with theistic beliefs.
If you have anything to contribute to any of these 50 items, please feel free to do so – I welcome all constructive comments.
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Tags: Apologetics > atheist > bible > Christianity > Religion
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6 Responses to “Responses to 50 reasons why religion sucks, pt.5 of 5”
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May 15th, 2009 @ 11:21 pm
[...] Part 5 – Responses 41 through to 50 [...]
May 15th, 2009 @ 11:23 pm
[...] Part 5 – Responses 41 through to 50 [...]
May 15th, 2009 @ 10:05 pm
Congratulations! Nice work mate!
Hey, your link to Galileo is broken (and I'd love to read what you've got to say
)
May 15th, 2009 @ 10:26 pm
Thanks for picking up on the broken link, Chucky. It's now fixed.
May 15th, 2009 @ 11:05 pm
Congratulations! Nice work mate!
Hey, your link to Galileo is broken (and I'd love to read what you've got to say
)
May 15th, 2009 @ 11:26 pm
Thanks for picking up on the broken link, Chucky. It's now fixed.