Tuesday, December 9, 2008

" My Response to 'How to Debunk Christianity' " or "5 Damn Good Reasons Why You Shouldn't Smoke Crack"

Well, I was over at Mike Wrong's Blog, "The Intelligent Zone," and he posted a somewhat amusing guide to debunking Christianity. I figured, since I'm bored and need to take a break from homework, I'd take a crack at it.

Let's take a gander at Step One:

STEP 1:
Ask Christians to explain how it is we are all descendants of Adam and Eve. Christians believe that God created Adam from dust and then created Eve from Adam's rib. According to Christians, the two of them hooked up and had two kids: both male. So, unless Eve was doing it with Cain or Able (or both of them), which breaks at least two commandments, there wasn't any procreatin' going on in the Garden of Eden. Ergo, we are not all descendants of Adam and Eve, and this debunks a central tenet of Christianity

MY RESPONSE:
Wrong right off the bat (no surprise there). Not all Christians believe in a Literal interpretation of the Creation account, not is it necessary to believe in Christianity. Personally, I'm a fan of the Framework Hypothesis myself (Combined with Open Creationism). And like some skeptic noted on the original website, The Bible says that Adam and Eve had many more kids after Cain and Abel. Also, the commandment "Thou Shalt not Play Hide the Salami with Your Relatives" wasn't even around until the time of Moses.
Lastly, the existence of Adam and Eve and whether or not we are descendants of them is far from a central tenet, dare I say that it's irrelevant, to the truth claims of Christianity. Even if the first part of Genesis were to be flushed down the crapper, Christianity and the resurrection still stand. Whether God created everything fiat or used Evolution to do it, and whether the universe is 4000 or 4 Billion years old (I'm open-ended on these issues, personally. Hence why I am Open Creationist), mankind still screwed up, requiring something or someone to bridge the gap between Man and God.

FINAL VERDICT:
I've had nasty cases of "The Turds" do more damage to my Faith in Christianity than this... speaking of which, I've got a Crrrap on Deck that could Choke a Donkay!


Now for Step Two...

STEP 2:

Take a homological approach to debunking Christianity. Homological theory states that related organisms will share similarities. Archaeologists, biologists and genome scientists have all proven that humans share homologous traits with chimpanzees. So yes, we are all descendants of fruit-eating bipeds. Just not Adam and Eve.

MY RESPONSE:
Wowsers... This is arguably one of the most stupid statements anyone could ever make and I doubt anyone with half a brain, regardless of which side of the Cr-Evo debate you're on, would disagree with me. Last I checked, the similarities only conclude that humans and apes have a common ancestor, and any Evolutionist I've encountered cringes whenever someone has said the old saying "Goo to you via the Zoo," and/or agreed with it. Why? Because it's bad science.
And like I said before, belief in a literal creation account is not necessary for someone to believe in Christianity. To add onto what I have said before, I've actually heard of people believing in Christianity after reading the Gospel of John.

FINAL VERDICT:
I'll give it an A+ for Effort, but an F- for results. And that is being generous. VERY generous... seriously, these grades were so Liberal, I've heard that they're building thirty new wings just to accommodate them.

Next up to bat... Step Three!

STEP 3:
Use semantics to debunk Christianity. Merriam-Webster defines "faith" as a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. Ask the Christians you know to prove God exists. When you use semantics to debunk Christianity, don't try to argue that Christ didn't exist. Biblical archaeologists and historians have pretty much sewn that one up. Christ was, it seems, real. But was he the son of God? Does God even exist? Ask your Christian friends to prove either is true. Doing so is empirically impossible.

MY RESPONSE:
Ah, argument from definition... My guess is, Merriam and Webster weren't looking at the original Greek and neither were you. Faith in the NT is from the Greek word pistis (yeah, that's right; the Bible wasn't originally in English), meaning trust based on prior performance (some Greek dictionaries even say "Forensic Evidence"). Sort of like how a man trusts his wife to be loyal based on the fact that she has been loyal since they started seeing each other.
As for whether or not Christ was the Son of God, there's the challenge of whether or not he was a Lunatic, a Liar, or the Lord which I have yet to see a good rebuttal to.
And is empiricism the only way to know something? The answer, of course, is a definite NO. If it were, then I could reasonably conclude that the skeptic who wrote this has no brain since I cannot observe it empirically. While Empiricism is, in fact, a common way to know, is not the only way to know... there's rationalization, intuition, authorities, etc.


FINAL VERDICT:
They were close to aiming at the cornerstone with the statement as to whether or not Christ was the Son of God comment, but in the end, this argument went down like a fat chick on a greased fireball.

After that one leaves the walkway, here comes step Four!

STEP 4:
Play the history card to debunk Christianity. There is ample evidence that many Christian holidays, especially Christmas, began as secular or pagan celebrations of everything from winter solstice to Saturn. The Bible never cites the actual date of Christ's birth. In fact, in the early days of Christianity, Christ's birth wasn't even celebrated. It wasn't until the fourth century that early Christian leaders decided to observe Christ's birth, and they chose December 25 to coincide with the culmination of winter solstice celebrations and the pagan celebration called Saturnalia. December 25 is the arbitrary date of Christ's birth.

MY RESPONSE:
Interesting... the skeptic has resorted to Attacking the Holidays. That sounds... desperate. The holidays are irrelevant, and so is the date of Christ's birth. As for the dates, there are many reasons why they were being observed on pagan holidays. There's two theories that I know of...
-Choosing the same days was a form of Ideological Victory (or a "Hostile Takeover")
-Choosing the same days was so that Christians would not be led astray
Regardless, attacking irrelevant aspects of Christianity like the holidays and the day Christ was supposedly born on seems to be an act of desperation.

FINAL VERDICT:
I wonder if Cheech & Chong are looking for a third guy. The schmuck who wrote these arguments might fit the bill... On second thought, (s)he might be a bit too "out there" even for those grumpy old stoners. Heck, (s)he might even scare them into going sober!

Now for the Grand (?) Finale... Step Five:

STEP 5:
Visit the Debunking Christianity blog to equip yourself with additional means of debunking Christianity. You can lurk and read the current and past posts, or you can jump right in and post to your heart's content.

MY RESPONSE:
I'm not even sure if I should dignify this with a response, as it's either moronic self-promotion or the work of some Doubting John Fanboi (to be honest, if I gambled, my money would be on the latter). How heading to DJ's Blog debunks Christianity is beyond me. I've been over there several times, and I'm still a Christian. He uses asinine stuff like "The Universe is Big, therefore God does not Exist." (He doesn't even explain why God needs a non-expansive or shrinking universe in order to exist...)

FINAL VERDICT:
Debunking Crap does a better job of ripping Christianity to shreds. The funny thing is, that is a satire blog AND it's also shameless self-promotion, since I am a member! :P

Needless to say, another set of dumb arguments (and a promotional gag) bites the dust.
It's kinda sad, really... I didn't even have to check my resources for these.

This is Chaotic Void taking off, eh?!

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