Hitchens: Christianity is a fraud if it’s not literally true

[Eric D]

"Full-fledge atheist stance"? What is that exactly?
No. The problem was you were attacking a strawman of atheism and then backed it up with an irrational claim concerning the burden of evidence. Just as you are right now.

Then just forget what what I said before, if you think it's a strawman argument, and stop dwelling on it. Listen to what I'm saying now. I am questioning why Hitchens concludes that the bible is fraudulent if it can't be taken literally. It only means just that. It can't be taken literally.

If the bible says you will burn in a lake of fire for rejecting God, couldn't it be interpreted as you will be in a state of mental anguish without God? Would it then be fraud, or metaphor? Fraud means it's intentional. So basically Hitchens is claiming that whoever wrote the bible is intentionally trying to decieve people. Is there suffiecient evidence to support this claim?

 

[Marduk]

Is there suffiecient evidence to support this claim?

tons and tons and tons, how long do you have ?

 

[Eric D]

tons and tons and tons, how long do you have ?

Obviously I have time now.

I know of the monarchs and other politcal powers who have changed the bible according to their whims. They are frauds. Is there evidence that it is fraudulent before they changed it? Is there a possibillity that some of the people who hand a hand in writing it actually believed what they were writing was true?

 

[Marduk]

Obviously I have time now.

I know of the monarchs and other politcal powers who have changed the bible according to their whims. They are frauds. Is there evidence that it is fraudulent before they changed it? Is there a possibillity that some of the people who hand a hand in writing it actually believed what they were writing was true?

Question for you, which Gospel is attributed to Jesus ?

 

[Snixtor]

If the bible says you will burn in a lake of fire for rejecting God, couldn't it be interpreted as you will be in a state of mental anguish without God? Would it then be fraud, or metaphor? Fraud means it's intentional. So basically Hitchens is claiming that whoever wrote the bible is intentionally trying to decieve people. Is there suffiecient evidence to support this claim?

Eric D, I think you might be falling into strawman argument again here. Hitchens hasn't posited (at least in this statement / appearance) that Christianity or the Bible is fraudulent. He's posited that if it is not literally true, then it is fraudulent. So with regards to "claiming that whoever wrote the bible is intentionally trying to decieve people", he has not made that claim. This is precisely why pastor Douglas Wilson agreed with Hitchens statement, as pastor Wilson clearly believes that the literal interpretation of the bible is accurate.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Another plea for "but it's a metaphor," another quote of a recent well put argument:

But to tackle the other problem too: yes, I know that about half the Christians are Catholics and those have the blanket excuse that they're non-literalists. Except too often that's just an excuse to not have any goalposts at all, much less fixed ones. For most non-priest Catholics you'd be hard pressed to get more than a "yeah, but we're not taking that literally" about most of the Bible. They can't even say what _does_ it mean according to their doctrine.

And when you do get an "it's a metaphor for X", it actually leaves me stumped as to exactly why would god say "black" when apparently it's a metaphor for "white."

E.g., to take Genesis as an example again, but from that angle, I'm told basically that it's one big metaphor for the accretion of Earth, for evolution, etc. And even that when God gives Eve birth pains as punishment for having learned good an evil, what he really means is: a brain big enough for sentience will mean a big head on the baby and it'll hurt like a sonofawitch when it comes out.

But the problem still is that that metaphor gets so many basic things wrong (e.g., birds before reptiles, or advanced trees with seed before a visible sun), that it's really not a metaphor at all. A God who actually knows how that stuff happened, and made it all with his own two hands (ok, ok, with the Logos), can put it oversimplified or use metaphoric language, but has no excuse to get the order wrong or basically to describe something hideously unrelated. There's only so much you can stretch a metaphor before it ceases to be a metaphor entirely.

Basically I'd still want to see _some_ stuff in that Bible that supports those leaps of faith to what it really means. Just going "we're not literalists" only cuts it so far.

Well, unless they want to tell me that God was just taking the piss all along. Fair enough. As a bit of a class clown myself, it would be a bit hypocritical of me to ask God to stay serious

 

[Eric D]

Eric D, I think you might be falling into strawman argument again here. Hitchens hasn't posited (at least in this statement / appearance) that Christianity or the Bible is fraudulent. He's posited that if it is not literally true, then it is fraudulent. So with regards to "claiming that whoever wrote the bible is intentionally trying to decieve people", he has not made that claim. This is precisely why pastor Douglas Wilson agreed with Hitchens statement, as pastor Wilson clearly believes that the literal interpretation of the bible is accurate.

It seems pretty clear to me that Hitchens does not believe the bible can be taken literally (good, neither do I). If this is the case, and it certainly seems to be the case, then he is claiming that the bible is fraudulent. I'm asking how it is fraudulent just because it can't be taken literallly. Fraudulent does not mean false, it means intentionally trying to decieve someone.

 

[Eric D]

Question for you, which Gospel is attributed to Jesus ?

The doctrine of Trinity?

For the record, I'm not here to be quized. If you have something to say about the doctrine attributed to Jesus and it's relevance, then could you please just come out and say what you're getting at?

 

[Richard Masters]

I agree. The problem when it comes to Christianity is the lack of historical documents leading the original claimed events.

The existing ones are problematic and insufficient, but one might not know that without adopting an agnostic stance first.

Agreed but that is the problem isn't it? The evidence is not consistent to the presented claims.

Sure, but there are so many variations of the claims that it takes time to be thorough and address the more sophisticated arguments and claims.

 

[Red3]

God or no God, Jesus is at best a false prophet. Christianity falls down on so many levels before you even get to the question of his dad existing or not. The only reason anyone believes this nonsense is because they want to, or they've had years and years of indoctrination and don't know any better. The only reason this religion was sold to the world was because of the Romans jumping on the bandwagon and using it for their own ends.

 

[Snixtor]

It seems pretty clear to me that Hitchens does not believe the bible can be taken literally (good, neither do I). If this is the case, and it certainly seems to be the case, then he is claiming that the bible is fraudulent. I'm asking how it is fraudulent just because it can't be taken literallly. Fraudulent does not mean false, it means intentionally trying to decieve someone.

Well to be clear, he's not suggesting that the bible itself would be classified as fraudulent, but that Christianity would be. Christianity being the teaching of the bible as literal truth.

The only alternative to fraud in that case would be "a big mistake". Something akin to the old joke of the missing first page of the bible "all characters are ficticious, and any semblance to persons live or dead is coincidental".

 

[Marduk]

The doctrine of Trinity?

For the record, I'm not here to be quized. If you have something to say about the doctrine attributed to Jesus and it's relevance, then could you please just come out and say what you're getting at?

crapola, so you care nothing for the socratic method

there is no Gospel according to Jesus, thats the point, none of his actual words are in it, just words and acts attributed to him, which in most cases were attributed to earlier deities, everything that Jesus was said to have done had been attributed sometimes thousands of years earlier to someone else,
You have to also ask, if all his divinity is based around the claim that God impregnated his mother and the only person claiming that was the mother herself, then why did anyone believe it. Its totally against the rules of Jewish society for a woman who gets herself knocked up by someone other than her Husband to be allowed to live. Adultery was punished by stoning, a woman claiming God did it wouldn't fool a Rabbi, as they considered all women as less than equal. So that parts fabricated.

There was no Roman census at the time of Jesus birth, that part was redacted later because according to Jewish superstition the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem, it had been foretold. So there was no reason at all for Mary and Joseph to travel there except to fulfill a prophecy.

Then we get to his miraculous death where he took an amazing 3-6 hours to die on the cross, everyone else took days, if you were nailed to a cross for 6 hours and then taken down overnight and allowed to rest in a dry cool cave, it wouldn't be very surprising that you were up and around the next day.

after Jesus alleged death there were other Messiahs, the Messiah according to Jewish superstition was supposed to be a great military leader who would free them from their opressors, Jesus did no such thing, so he isn't even qualified for that title
theres an extensive list here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_messiah_claimants
now ask yourself why it was that the Romans thought having a religion for their unruly subjects which preached pacifism was a good idea.

there are lots of examples like this in the bible that prove that if Jesus ever existed he was not very divine.
there are 101 pages of examples here
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=124603
enjoy

 

[Red3]

The Messiah also had to be descended from David; Joseph was, Jesus wasn't - Joseph wasn't his real father.

 

[Eric D]

Well to be clear, he's not suggesting that the bible itself would be classified as fraudulent, but that Christianity would be. Christianity being the teaching of the bible as literal truth.

The only alternative to fraud in that case would be "a big mistake".

Christianity is not fraudulent if whoever teaching it believes it's the literal truth. Then it would fall into the "big mistake" category. It seems entirely possible to me that many of the authors of the bible thought that God was responsible for everything that happened or will ever happen on Earth. It seems entirely possible that misguided people could think God was talking to them and telling them to write this. It's a natural assumption to someone who doesn't know any better, including modern humans.

 

[quixotecoyote]

Christianity is not fraudulent if whoever teaching it believes it's the literal truth. Then it would fall into the "big mistake" category. It seems entirely possible to me that many of the authors of the bible thought that God was responsible for everything that happened or will ever happen on Earth. It seems entirely possible that misguided people could think God was talking to them and telling them to write this. It's a natural assumption to someone who doesn't know any better, including modern humans.

Bernie Maddoff's School of Investonomics is not fraudulent if whoever teaching it believes it's the literal truth. Then it would fall into the "big mistake" category. It seems entirely possible to me that many of the authors of Bernie Maddoff's School of Investonomics thought that Bernie Maddoff was responsible for everything that happened or will ever happen on their ever increasing stock returns. It seems entirely possible that misguided people could think Bernie Maddoff was talking truth to them and telling them to invest in this. It's a natural assumption to someone who doesn't know any better, including modern humans.

 

[Richard Masters]

I would say the main difference between the belief in god and other woo claims is that religious doctrines can be seen as metaphor. If you claim to see an alien space craft, you're saying you literally saw a flying machine built and occupied by extraterrestrials. Things like "burning in a lake of fire" could actually just mean you're suffering, in whatever way. If someone was to say "I'm up to my ass in bills" it doesn't literally mean they are wading ass-deep in paper bills, but it also doesn't mean what they are saying is fraudulent.

Some claims are not very precise, and religious "authorities" tend to make their claims unfalsifiable by arguing either from faith or from ambiguity; I think that this is by design, even if unconscious. For example, people (in general) "move the goalposts" a lot when arguing, but they generally don't realize it.

Moving the goalposts seems like a useful tactic - say the verses in the Bible are metaphor, or make your claims ambiguous enough that you can claim different things at different times, or say that God doesn't want us to know.

 

[Snixtor]

Christianity is not fraudulent if whoever teaching it believes it's the literal truth.

No, it would only mean that the teacher is not being fraudulent. The doctrine itself is still open to classification as fraud under that condition.

I've already conceded that it could be a "big mistake". And I imagine Hitchens would also accept that as an outside possibility. But considering how many mistakes you've made (intentional or otherwise) regarding his position, in trying to form some sort of argument against his position, I think it would be reasonable that you consider when he says "would be fraudulent", he means "would almost certainly beyond any reasonable doubt be fraudulent".

 

[Hux]

Really no evidence? None at all? Not even a growing understanding of the conditions under which life began on Earth and a growing understanding of the conditions and history of distant planets? Not even that? Really? Are you sure?

As much as I would wish it, I would be extremely cautious of calling that evidence. All it really describes is how life, on this planet, can survive in areas we never once thought possible.

 

[Maia]

Some claims are not very precise, and religious "authorities" tend to make their claims unfalsifiable by arguing either from faith or from ambiguity; I think that this is by design, even if unconscious. For example, people (in general) "move the goalposts" a lot when arguing, but they generally don't realize it.

Moving the goalposts seems like a useful tactic - say the verses in the Bible are metaphor, or make your claims ambiguous enough that you can claim different things at different times, or say that God doesn't want us to know.

Well, that's certainly a good example of why literal inerrancy and spiritual inerrancy will both get you into the same kind of trouble as biblical interpretation techniques, sooner or later. ("The Pope/church/minister/Archbishop is the only one who can interpret it all" does have the virtue of a certain logical consistency, anyway.) I kind of like the Jesus Seminar technique, where all the theologians got together and voted on which words ascribed to Jesus were actually said. It seems more rational than anything else. But when you get right down to it, there's only one way of reading the Bible that makes any sense: scribes recorded the selected experiences of a bunch of different people and cultures, and church councils picked the ones that would make it into the final book. At best, people were expressing their own opinions about God and their own experiences relating to the divine (which people? who? how was it edited? what didn't make it in? what was the context?) And the final result is the basis of the Christian religion.

So is the institution of Christianity a fraud if "it" (the teachings of the Bible) are not literally true? Here's one definition of fraud:

A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.

Does everyone who preaches, teaches, or administrates a Christian church, school, or organization of any kind know that the Bible is not literally true? If anyone does know, does that mean the entire thing is a deliberate deception? I don't think that question can really be answered, and I don't know how it would be decided in a court of law. But if we're talking about the institution of Christianity itself, I think we need to look at a wider definition of "fraud". Whether anyone should have known at some earlier point in time that the Bible is not literally inerrant, is that reasonable knowledge to expect now?The only logical answer is yes. So I think that somehow, in some way, we could say that Christianity as it's been practiced in the past has got to be a fraud if it's continued on in the present, because people now have the information they need to know that the Bible is not inerrant.

 

[Wolfman]

Show me where I said anything is possible.

Very simple. When you argue that you must have proof that god does not exist in order to conclude that there is no god, because "there's so much about the universe left unexplained", then you are arguing that I must consider that the existence of absolutely anything and everything is possible (since it is impossible for me to prove that anything does not exist).

Like those giant farting space dragons.

And by the way...I hope you appreciate the irony...

Some long-winded diatribe about how if I don't disbelieve god, I also have to give the same credence to farting dragons? If you guys are going to write essays peppered with childish insults to my intelligence (yeah, yeah, I know. "what intelligence?") you can't expect me to read them. Keept it to the point.

There were no insults in my 'diatribe' (nor was it particularly long); I was simply using a suitably ridiculous example to demonstrate how ridiculous your whole "you can't prove god exists, or doesn't exist, so atheists are wrong to conclude there is not god" argument. I don't see the existence of a god as being any more likely or realistic than the existence of giant farting space dragons.

However, you have already been censured several times for blatant (and yes, childish) personal attacks in this thread. I'm afraid you are very much coming out on the losing side of this particular debate.