Official Blog of HIST/REL 492, Christian Apologetics
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Why Not?
What are some of the reasons people reject Christianity? Again, don't limit yourself to "legitimate" intellectual reasons. Take into account emotional/social considerations as well.
There are many people who object to Christianity for a variety of reasons:
First, many of the more intellectual types object to the fact that there is no "proof". They justify creation by the theory of evolution, claim the Bible is just a book of stories, and do not even give consideration to a higher power.
Secondly, one main objection is that Christianity has too many "rules". My sins are forgiven and Christ says by believing in Him I'm "free", yet I can't do what I want? I can't party all the time? I'm supposed to wait to have sex until marriage? What kind of belief system is this?
Lastly, and the one I almost think is the most appalling and frustrating, is plain ignorance. This is the result of God giving us free will. WE can choose to have nothing to do with Him. They want nothing to with God and just carry throughout life on their own. Little do they know that your own power will get you so far. (Trust me, I've tried. I'm a born-again Christian myself and have my own conversion story.)
Many non-believers (as in no belief system whatsoever, not counting those I know that believe other faiths) that I've ran into usually give one of those answers.
I wasn’t raised “in the church,” but while in elementary school I attended Presbyterian Church, Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, and youth groups…the standard stuff. Even though I may have started in the right direction, I can tell you I’ve never been one of the faithful. Coloring pictures of Jesus and sheep, after the pastor called all the youth to the alter to hand them a lollie pop, never convinced/converted me. I’m a horrible cynic when it comes to religion and easily understand why the world is more secular. Religion doesn’t make sense (To me and a growing # of the world’s population), but I love to study it from a historical perspective because it is such a powerful driving force in the world…the most powerful!!
I find that people reject Christianity for a couple of main reasons. The first is that they say that Christianity is "too judgmental" or "too intolerant." They don't mind the part of God/Jesus that loves them, but they don't like the side that calls sins sin or asks them to change their ways. They are happy to have the "fire insurance," but they still want to be able to live their lives any way they want. They take their cues from society, that we should be tolerant of everything and everybody. Being an old fogie (sp?), I have seen a vast shift in society in my lifetime, and it seems like it's hard to stand firm on anything these days without being considered narrow-minded. I also have heard people say many times that Christians are all "a bunch of hypocrites" because they know people who profess to be Christian but do and say things that aren't very Christian. They use the actions of others to give themselves the excuse not to examine the faith for themselves.
People reject Christianity for several of the reasons already mentioned, for personal reasons that no one else could understand, and for religious reasons. It appears I am the only Jew in the class and as such I will do my best to defend my faith, my reasons, and my people.
Many Jews did accept Jesus as the Messiah, heck Jesus was a Jew. The multitudes of Jews that rejected Jesus as the Messiah did so because of several reasons, which will come out in future discussions. The definition for the term messiah means the anointed one and does not imply any supernatural power, only a person being chosen by G*d for a task. The Prophets could be seen as examples of being anointed, as well as King David, and even Cyrus king of Persia who commanded that the Jews be allowed to return and rebuild Jerusalem was anointed, a messiah. But to me the main reason that I do not consider Jesus as the final messiah is because when the messiah comes he will usher in a time of peace – lamb and lion hanging out together – but that has not happened in the last 2000 years.
Even though I am not a Christian, I do not believe any specific religion gives people the keys to the next world, because the righteous of all nations have a place in the world to come.
Assuming that all is well in their lives, most people believe that they are inherently good and find it hard to accept being told they are sinners and must repent.To hear this from someone who is flawed (and we all are) makes it that much harder to humble oneself and submit to Jesus and his teachings. The call to repentance has to be preceded by the Spirit of God, only He can soften hearts and minds to the gospel. I think that's missing from the church, prayer, flawed human beings alone cannot change the hearts and minds of others. ca
It all comes down to bearing the burden of proof, really.
To my mind, "faith" is really just another word for trust. Trust should not be given freely; to do so is ill-considered. Trust should only be given when rapport has been established and the party being trusted has proven themselves worthy. How might worthiness be proven? By consistently meeting certain expectations and demonstrating reliability. What is rapport? A sympathetic relationship, an actual connection. Followers of Christianity state that their god is worthy of devotion because their bible and their priests say that he is—but cannot offer demonstrations of their god's reliability or ability to connect with people. Nor that he even exists. I would suggest that is because he does not, but that isn't the point here. Stating that something is the truth does not necessarily make it so, no matter how many times it is done. Truth requires substantiation. The burden of proof is on the one making the statement, all else is immaterial.
I agree with you Jordan that I need more than just words on a page, written 1000s of years ago, by people who weren't even there. I see your point on wanting substantiation, but most Christians don't need it. They can still find the truth they're looking for without physical form/mass. It doesn't have to make sense to us, just to them.
There are a lot of reasons people reject Christianity. First and foremost is that people as a rule don't like hypocrites and those sadly are not hard to find especially among Christian leaders of prominence.
Another factor relates to my answer on why Christianity is successful. Jesus spoke as someone who had authority. I recently saw a stat about how many people fell away from Christianity when they got to college and it isn't hard to understand why. A fresh faced 18 year-old gets on a college campus, takes a religion class and the professor speaks from a position of authority. The professor has sources to site that are critical of the bible, the teachings of Christ and can present mountains of philosophical arguments about truth and scientific data about the universe on top of it. Even if the student listening to all of that grew up in a Christian home they weren't likely taught how to challenge these claims and so they come to believe that these claims must be true. The professor is well studied and it is hard for a weekly Sunday school class to compare. Also, the professor might sprinkle in a bit of flattery which never hurts. Telling his or her students something like "when you are done with this class you are really going to know what is going on. You're going to be the smart ones unlike all those rubes out there". The fact that flattery can work so well is also one reason why I believe people buy in to conspiracy theories but that's a topic for a different class.
I could bring up other things but will focus on that as it relates well to apologetics.
I think there are a few reasons why Christianity in today's world is being rejected. One major thing and I notice this to is that many Christians are jamming their religion into everyone's face. All over the internet especially people who are saying that if you don't follow this religion, you are bad. With that school systems are also rejecting religion as a whole in the schools.
Another big part in this idea of why people reject Christianity is you notice people all over the world. All they do is pray for something and expect God to just give it to them. And when he doesn't answer their prayer, they just reject him even though in the bible it says he answers prayers but in the way you think.
One last reason is interesting which is a lot of atheists believe. "If Christianity or God is real than why do bad things keep happening in this world"? This question is a troubling one because it puts most horrible things that has happen onto the world to God and people expect Christians to have all the answers.
It does seem that unanswered prayer is a problem for many people, but I think what you say at the end regarding the problem of evil is an even more important factor. The two are somewhat related, of course.
We'll be looking at how different apologists addressed the problem of evil quite often in the course.
There are a few reasons as to why Christianity is being rejected in this day and age.
The first reason is that people are starting to fall away due to bad things that happen. I have seen this many times, even in my own family. Let's say a person you care about gets cancer, and you pray and pray for God to heal them and make them better but they end up passing away. In watching them pass, the person who did the praying will see this as a betrayal from God, and turn away from Christianity altogether.
The second reason has to do with the commandment, "Thou shall not commit adultery". Living in a time where sex is everywhere and seems to be the only thing company's use to sell their products, people will tend to look at it and come to the conclusion that since nobody follows the commandments anymore, they don't have to. This often leads to them not going to church and falling away from the faith.
The third reason is the fact that Christianity condones hitting children. Many people in this day and age do not agree with hitting/beating children, and often turn to other religions that do not condone this practice. One religion that is popular for people to turn to or start looking into is Satanism. This is because one of the eleven commandants that the Church of Satan follows is, "Do not harm young children". This tends to be more agreeable with people since the Satanic Church does not condone hitting/beating children.
There's plenty of reasons why Christianity is rejected in the modern world. A big one is the history linked to it, history of slavery, abuse, power, destruction, and violence. Unfortunately, one doesn't have to look very far into the past to see evidence of these very things and it's a big reason why people aren't comfortable with the religion. Another reason why Christianity is rejected today is because of the confusion that comes with it and its followers. Now, what I mean by that is people don't know or understand the theology that goes into being a Christian. Things like what does it actually mean and look like to convert to the faith, why are there so many different churches and why are they different and what does that mean and questions about how they hear people preach love but only see hate and anger. All these different examples are hot topics in discussion about the religion and most people understandably don't have the energy to get through them all. Another thing that is off-putting about Christianity in modern society (and I briefly touched on this in the last paragraph) is the disconnect that comes with what people hear about Christianity and what they actually see. What they hear is that God loves everyone, He created you for a purpose, God is righteous and just, the church is the unified body of believers, etc. Take that and compare it to what most people actually see of Christianity: God hates sinners and if we don't believe then we end up in hell, good things happening to bad people and bad things happening to good people, pain, suffering, anger, misery, etc. They just don't line up at all and when that's all people see about the religion, they have no reason to believe and follow it.
Christianity is an easy target to attack; I believe the main reason is that Christianity or Christians make so many claims. Now claims are not always a bad thing, as claims will help to prove an argument you are trying to defend. However, many Christians today get caught up in circular arguments and do not understand how to get away from them. Circular arguments often want you to make a claim; inside of that claim, many individuals will use a part of their argument to defend their case. For instance, a Christian may argue that Jesus Christ has the power to forgive all of your sins. Then in defense of that claim, the individual may say the reason for this is that Jesus died for your sins. A skeptic would love to pick apart this argument, and part of the problem is this individual started with Jesus and ended with Jesus. This means that this person has already gone back to the original place they began to try and prove their given point.
So if that is the case, how is this a problem, if you are part of faith; should you not believe in it in its entirety anyways? Circular reasoning is a problem because you are giving an individual a look into your faith, but they need the tools to create their faith. For instance, carrying on with the narrative I set above, if you want to teach an individual who Jesus is in Christianity, start with who Jesus is. If you jump to what Jesus did, then it is no use trying to explain because of that the bad things they have done can be washed away. They do not know Jesus is any more real than Santa Clause yet. So instead of trying to get this individual to believe based on more things they can not conceive, you should take a step back and break it down. Start and stop in different places. To get to Jesus's power, you should prove his existence in history using archeology, historical texts, and other evidence. Then give the necessity and reason why we needed Jesus, then finally, land on death and how that created the possibility of forgiveness.
This one thing is one of many things that lead to an inability for people to believe in Christianity. However, It is significant because you cannot use the claims you know to be true over and over and expect a change in an individual. It would help if you used the things outside of the argument that supports your view as evidence. So that an individual knows you are not just following what you have been shown. Instead, there is objective factual evidence that supports your claim. In this day and age, we humans have instantaneous access to knowledge and information. We must know why we believe, or else others can not conceivably believe because likely what they have seen or heard is that your truth is false. In an age with endless information, you need to hold new information to ensure an individual can reexamine an argument already long solved by their information gathering.
What are some of the reasons people reject Christianity? Again, don't limit yourself to "legitimate" intellectual reasons. Take into account emotional/social considerations as well.
I feel like there are just as many reasons that people reject Christianity as to why so many people accept it.
I think it all depends on a persons background. The type of family they grew up in, moral standards, past experiences, etc. These events shape the type of person that comes out in the end.
The most overwhelming reason has to be lack of evidence or proof. You can't believe in something you can't see. Many people, myself included before taking a couple courses, do not see the Bible as a piece of history. Stories and fables can be made up and post down through the generations that they start to seem real.
As previously mentioned, moral standards can have something to do with rejecting Christianity as well. Many people can find conflicts between their own beliefs (social justice, gender equality, LGBTQ+) and what the bible teaches.
There are many people who object to Christianity for a variety of reasons:
ReplyDeleteFirst, many of the more intellectual types object to the fact that there is no "proof". They justify creation by the theory of evolution, claim the Bible is just a book of stories, and do not even give consideration to a higher power.
Secondly, one main objection is that Christianity has too many "rules". My sins are forgiven and Christ says by believing in Him I'm "free", yet I can't do what I want? I can't party all the time? I'm supposed to wait to have sex until marriage? What kind of belief system is this?
Lastly, and the one I almost think is the most appalling and frustrating, is plain ignorance. This is the result of God giving us free will. WE can choose to have nothing to do with Him. They want nothing to with God and just carry throughout life on their own. Little do they know that your own power will get you so far. (Trust me, I've tried. I'm a born-again Christian myself and have my own conversion story.)
Many non-believers (as in no belief system whatsoever, not counting those I know that believe other faiths) that I've ran into usually give one of those answers.
I wasn’t raised “in the church,” but while in elementary school I attended Presbyterian Church, Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, and youth groups…the standard stuff. Even though I may have started in the right direction, I can tell you I’ve never been one of the faithful. Coloring pictures of Jesus and sheep, after the pastor called all the youth to the alter to hand them a lollie pop, never convinced/converted me. I’m a horrible cynic when it comes to religion and easily understand why the world is more secular. Religion doesn’t make sense (To me and a growing # of the world’s population), but I love to study it from a historical perspective because it is such a powerful driving force in the world…the most powerful!!
ReplyDeleteI find that people reject Christianity for a couple of main reasons. The first is that they say that Christianity is "too judgmental" or "too intolerant." They don't mind the part of God/Jesus that loves them, but they don't like the side that calls sins sin or asks them to change their ways. They are happy to have the "fire insurance," but they still want to be able to live their lives any way they want. They take their cues from society, that we should be tolerant of everything and everybody. Being an old fogie (sp?), I have seen a vast shift in society in my lifetime, and it seems like it's hard to stand firm on anything these days without being considered narrow-minded.
ReplyDeleteI also have heard people say many times that Christians are all "a bunch of hypocrites" because they know people who profess to be Christian but do and say things that aren't very Christian. They use the actions of others to give themselves the excuse not to examine the faith for themselves.
People reject Christianity for several of the reasons already mentioned, for personal reasons that no one else could understand, and for religious reasons. It appears I am the only Jew in the class and as such I will do my best to defend my faith, my reasons, and my people.
ReplyDeleteMany Jews did accept Jesus as the Messiah, heck Jesus was a Jew. The multitudes of Jews that rejected Jesus as the Messiah did so because of several reasons, which will come out in future discussions. The definition for the term messiah means the anointed one and does not imply any supernatural power, only a person being chosen by G*d for a task. The Prophets could be seen as examples of being anointed, as well as King David, and even Cyrus king of Persia who commanded that the Jews be allowed to return and rebuild Jerusalem was anointed, a messiah. But to me the main reason that I do not consider Jesus as the final messiah is because when the messiah comes he will usher in a time of peace – lamb and lion hanging out together – but that has not happened in the last 2000 years.
Even though I am not a Christian, I do not believe any specific religion gives people the keys to the next world, because the righteous of all nations have a place in the world to come.
Jerry
Very accepting last sentence after a firm stance on your beliefs, well played fine Sir.
DeleteYou mean you watch the news at night and DON'T see world peace? Lion and Lamb are hanging out together. Iran wants to work with us in Iraq ;-)
Assuming that all is well in their lives, most people believe that they are inherently good and find it hard to accept being told they are sinners and must repent.To hear this from someone who is flawed (and we all are) makes it that much harder to humble oneself and submit to Jesus and his teachings. The call to repentance has to be preceded by the Spirit of God, only He can soften hearts and minds to the gospel. I think that's missing from the church, prayer, flawed human beings alone cannot change the hearts and minds of others.
ReplyDeleteca
It all comes down to bearing the burden of proof, really.
ReplyDeleteTo my mind, "faith" is really just another word for trust. Trust should not be given freely; to do so is ill-considered. Trust should only be given when rapport has been established and the party being trusted has proven themselves worthy. How might worthiness be proven? By consistently meeting certain expectations and demonstrating reliability. What is rapport? A sympathetic relationship, an actual connection. Followers of Christianity state that their god is worthy of devotion because their bible and their priests say that he is—but cannot offer demonstrations of their god's reliability or ability to connect with people. Nor that he even exists. I would suggest that is because he does not, but that isn't the point here.
Stating that something is the truth does not necessarily make it so, no matter how many times it is done. Truth requires substantiation. The burden of proof is on the one making the statement, all else is immaterial.
I agree with you Jordan that I need more than just words on a page, written 1000s of years ago, by people who weren't even there. I see your point on wanting substantiation, but most Christians don't need it. They can still find the truth they're looking for without physical form/mass. It doesn't have to make sense to us, just to them.
DeleteThere are a lot of reasons people reject Christianity. First and foremost is that people as a rule don't like hypocrites and those sadly are not hard to find especially among Christian leaders of prominence.
ReplyDeleteAnother factor relates to my answer on why Christianity is successful. Jesus spoke as someone who had authority. I recently saw a stat about how many people fell away from Christianity when they got to college and it isn't hard to understand why. A fresh faced 18 year-old gets on a college campus, takes a religion class and the professor speaks from a position of authority. The professor has sources to site that are critical of the bible, the teachings of Christ and can present mountains of philosophical arguments about truth and scientific data about the universe on top of it. Even if the student listening to all of that grew up in a Christian home they weren't likely taught how to challenge these claims and so they come to believe that these claims must be true. The professor is well studied and it is hard for a weekly Sunday school class to compare. Also, the professor might sprinkle in a bit of flattery which never hurts. Telling his or her students something like "when you are done with this class you are really going to know what is going on. You're going to be the smart ones unlike all those rubes out there". The fact that flattery can work so well is also one reason why I believe people buy in to conspiracy theories but that's a topic for a different class.
I could bring up other things but will focus on that as it relates well to apologetics.
The previous comment about students falling away when they hit college was from Casey T.
DeleteI think there are a few reasons why Christianity in today's world is being rejected. One major thing and I notice this to is that many Christians are jamming their religion into everyone's face. All over the internet especially people who are saying that if you don't follow this religion, you are bad. With that school systems are also rejecting religion as a whole in the schools.
ReplyDeleteAnother big part in this idea of why people reject Christianity is you notice people all over the world. All they do is pray for something and expect God to just give it to them. And when he doesn't answer their prayer, they just reject him even though in the bible it says he answers prayers but in the way you think.
One last reason is interesting which is a lot of atheists believe. "If Christianity or God is real than why do bad things keep happening in this world"? This question is a troubling one because it puts most horrible things that has happen onto the world to God and people expect Christians to have all the answers.
It does seem that unanswered prayer is a problem for many people, but I think what you say at the end regarding the problem of evil is an even more important factor. The two are somewhat related, of course.
ReplyDeleteWe'll be looking at how different apologists addressed the problem of evil quite often in the course.
There are a few reasons as to why Christianity is being rejected in this day and age.
ReplyDeleteThe first reason is that people are starting to fall away due to bad things that happen. I have seen this many times, even in my own family. Let's say a person you care about gets cancer, and you pray and pray for God to heal them and make them better but they end up passing away. In watching them pass, the person who did the praying will see this as a betrayal from God, and turn away from Christianity altogether.
The second reason has to do with the commandment, "Thou shall not commit adultery". Living in a time where sex is everywhere and seems to be the only thing company's use to sell their products, people will tend to look at it and come to the conclusion that since nobody follows the commandments anymore, they don't have to. This often leads to them not going to church and falling away from the faith.
The third reason is the fact that Christianity condones hitting children. Many people in this day and age do not agree with hitting/beating children, and often turn to other religions that do not condone this practice. One religion that is popular for people to turn to or start looking into is Satanism. This is because one of the eleven commandants that the Church of Satan follows is, "Do not harm young children". This tends to be more agreeable with people since the Satanic Church does not condone hitting/beating children.
There's plenty of reasons why Christianity is rejected in the modern world. A big one is the history linked to it, history of slavery, abuse, power, destruction, and violence. Unfortunately, one doesn't have to look very far into the past to see evidence of these very things and it's a big reason why people aren't comfortable with the religion.
ReplyDeleteAnother reason why Christianity is rejected today is because of the confusion that comes with it and its followers. Now, what I mean by that is people don't know or understand the theology that goes into being a Christian. Things like what does it actually mean and look like to convert to the faith, why are there so many different churches and why are they different and what does that mean and questions about how they hear people preach love but only see hate and anger. All these different examples are hot topics in discussion about the religion and most people understandably don't have the energy to get through them all.
Another thing that is off-putting about Christianity in modern society (and I briefly touched on this in the last paragraph) is the disconnect that comes with what people hear about Christianity and what they actually see. What they hear is that God loves everyone, He created you for a purpose, God is righteous and just, the church is the unified body of believers, etc. Take that and compare it to what most people actually see of Christianity: God hates sinners and if we don't believe then we end up in hell, good things happening to bad people and bad things happening to good people, pain, suffering, anger, misery, etc. They just don't line up at all and when that's all people see about the religion, they have no reason to believe and follow it.
Christianity is an easy target to attack; I believe the main reason is that Christianity or Christians make so many claims. Now claims are not always a bad thing, as claims will help to prove an argument you are trying to defend. However, many Christians today get caught up in circular arguments and do not understand how to get away from them. Circular arguments often want you to make a claim; inside of that claim, many individuals will use a part of their argument to defend their case. For instance, a Christian may argue that Jesus Christ has the power to forgive all of your sins. Then in defense of that claim, the individual may say the reason for this is that Jesus died for your sins. A skeptic would love to pick apart this argument, and part of the problem is this individual started with Jesus and ended with Jesus. This means that this person has already gone back to the original place they began to try and prove their given point.
ReplyDeleteSo if that is the case, how is this a problem, if you are part of faith; should you not believe in it in its entirety anyways? Circular reasoning is a problem because you are giving an individual a look into your faith, but they need the tools to create their faith. For instance, carrying on with the narrative I set above, if you want to teach an individual who Jesus is in Christianity, start with who Jesus is. If you jump to what Jesus did, then it is no use trying to explain because of that the bad things they have done can be washed away. They do not know Jesus is any more real than Santa Clause yet. So instead of trying to get this individual to believe based on more things they can not conceive, you should take a step back and break it down. Start and stop in different places. To get to Jesus's power, you should prove his existence in history using archeology, historical texts, and other evidence. Then give the necessity and reason why we needed Jesus, then finally, land on death and how that created the possibility of forgiveness.
This one thing is one of many things that lead to an inability for people to believe in Christianity. However, It is significant because you cannot use the claims you know to be true over and over and expect a change in an individual. It would help if you used the things outside of the argument that supports your view as evidence. So that an individual knows you are not just following what you have been shown. Instead, there is objective factual evidence that supports your claim. In this day and age, we humans have instantaneous access to knowledge and information. We must know why we believe, or else others can not conceivably believe because likely what they have seen or heard is that your truth is false. In an age with endless information, you need to hold new information to ensure an individual can reexamine an argument already long solved by their information gathering.
Tanner Simon
What are some of the reasons people reject Christianity? Again, don't limit yourself to "legitimate" intellectual reasons. Take into account emotional/social considerations as well.
ReplyDeleteI feel like there are just as many reasons that people reject Christianity as to why so many people accept it.
I think it all depends on a persons background. The type of family they grew up in, moral standards, past experiences, etc. These events shape the type of person that comes out in the end.
The most overwhelming reason has to be lack of evidence or proof. You can't believe in something you can't see. Many people, myself included before taking a couple courses, do not see the Bible as a piece of history. Stories and fables can be made up and post down through the generations that they start to seem real.
As previously mentioned, moral standards can have something to do with rejecting Christianity as well. Many people can find conflicts between their own beliefs (social justice, gender equality, LGBTQ+) and what the bible teaches.