Hold the Presses!

In recent months a group of former Christians (most of them professing to be ex-pastors and ministers) have come together and organized a blog called Debunking Christianity, and almost immediately this ragtag band of atheists got into a tangle with the guys over at Triablogue.

OK, end of history lesson. I've encountered a few of the Debunking Christianity posts myself and have decided to respond to them. I actually have an earlier article, but for now let's deal with a little "joke" post they made as of recent. With that in mind, allow me to postpone my "Dissing the Decalogue" sequel for a while so we can deal with these people. The "jokes" are in blockquotes and bright red.

"Who was Cain afraid would kill him when God put him out of the Garden for killing Abel? There were mom, dad, bro and himself on the whole planet at the time."

You mean Adam and Eve didn't have much in the way of sexual intercourse after 130 years since creation (Seth was born when Adam was 130 years old (Genesis 5:3), and judging by Eve's statement that Seth was the replacement for Abel (Genesis 4:25), it's a pretty easy deduction: Abel was killed right before Seth was born)?? And weren't they evicted from the Garden prior to even siring Cain, Abel and a bunch of other children (which the Bible never enumerates, but only hints at a good number thereof--Genesis 5:4)??

"Why would God stop the whole earth for a day so Israelites could finish a genocide against the enemy?" I mean, I can see stopping it so there is more time to hug, or feed the hungry, or plant the crops, but more time to kill? Dumb story.

This only goes to show that the concept of God's righteous judgment is highly unpopular. See my last post on the Decalogue. Furthermore, one would be hard pressed to discover where the atheist gets justification for his moral authority. Even exbeliever, one of the members of Debunking Christianity, has openly admitted to being an existentialist, which only undermines his whole emphasis on Focault's social power structures as the basis for the justification of morality.

"How come the horses in the Exodus die twice in the Ten Plagues and still survive for Pharoah to mount a final attack against the Israelites, and then die again."

The text just says that "the cattle in the field" died (Exodus 9:3, 19-21). As for the use of "all" in that context, here's what John Calvin had to say on the matter, for example:

As to his saying that "all the cattle died," it is a comprehensive expression, for immediately it will appear that a considerable number of animals still remained. But he means that the herds were everywhere destroyed, and the flocks smitten by the murrain; or, if you prefer it, that the murrain was general in its attack, and that it reduced Egypt to a state of poverty by the destruction of their cattle and other animals. Finally, the universal term merely refers to this plague having been a remarkable proof of God's anger, because the pestilence did not only kill a few animals, as it usually does, but made havoc far and wide of a vast number of herds and flocks. (John Calvin, Harmony of the Law vol. 1, commentary on Exodus 9)

Calvin classified the use of "all the cattle" as synecdoche; that is, there was widespread destruction of livestock in Egypt on account of the plague, without necessarily saying that every single animal died. And that's just ONE possible explanation, since a) the text doesn't assert any kind of timeframe between the plagues. It simply summarizes what happened to Egypt without telling us an exact or approximate timespan within which the events of Exodus 7-13 occurred, and b) the Egyptians could have simply bought or forcibly confiscated extra cattle from the Israelites to partially replenish their livestock and hopefully start anew after the anthrax plague. While this isn't asserted or even implied, it IS still highly probable.

"If Herod killed all the little children under two to get at Jesus, who escaped, can we not say the little children had to die for Jesus before he died for them?"

Argument from outrage. God has the right to take life whenever He so desires. It's not pretty, but then again we don't even deserve to exist. Besides that, since when did Jesus ever declare that He died for everybody? The only person who would reel from this argument is, sadly, an Arminian.

"Why does the Apostle Paul, who writes most of the New Testament, NEVER quote Jesus, tell a story of his life or death, discuss a miracle or teaching?"

Paul wrote epistles that were part doctrinal expositions in nature and part moral-ethical guidelines for the renewed believers who were starting their lives over from square one--and these never contradicted the teachings of Jesus himself, since both affirm the Law and the Prophets as authentic and authoritative Scripture! Only by squaring Paul against Jesus can this joke even be made, and I wonder just where the humor is in that. Besides, he did quote Jesus on several occasions:

"I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive." (Acts 20:35)

"For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." (1 Corinthians 11:23-25)

And let's not forget the two occasions in which he quoted the words of Jesus on the Damascus road vision.

(UPDATE: D'oh! Paul repeatedly recounted the basics of the Gospel several times in his epistles [e.g. "Christ died for us...according to the Scriptures", Rom. 5:8, 1 Cor. 15:3-7; compare with Matt. 20:28, Mk. 10:45 and Jn 10:11] and also claimed that his teachings weren't given to him by men, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ [Gal. 1:12]. How come I didn't see this earlier??)

"Why does neither Mark nor John know anything about Jesus birth, while Matthew and Luke do but tell contradictory stories?" Answer...Because the Gospels are like four people who see a car wreck...

Concerning the car wreck, that's almost precisely what we would answer re: "contradictory stories" since witnesses at different places and angles will often report different aspects of the same story that then need to be harmonized. However, I must note that this is an incomplete analogy, since witnesses to a car crash will almost often rely only on memory, among other details (remember that one of the Holy Spirit's tasks was to remind the apostles about Christ's teachings, which they could in turn pass down to disciples like Luke during interviews--see John 14:26).

As for Mark and John, why wouldn't it be plausible that they would omit certain details about Jesus' life especially if a) people already knew about them from oral retellings and reports and b) they had a target audience and a purpose for writing, which would naturally lead them to streamline? Considering the "contradictory stories" in this light, many alleged contradictions go away. Why biblioskeptics never even seem to allow for harmonization is only due to the fact that they have discounted the Bible as a historical book without giving it the benefit of the doubt.

"Why does Paul only say Jesus was born of a woman like everyone else?"

Context. Galatians 4:1-7 sez: "Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ."

"Did Paul ever spend five minutes with the real human Jesus?"

The only way this comment could even be funny is if you rejected miracles and visions a priori. Furthermore, even if one did reject the fact that the glorified Christ visited Paul, Acts 9 still says he spent time with the disciples at Damascus, which would have received firsthand eyewitness testimonies and reports from the apostles themselves. Then again, why would one who rejects the Bible's reliability accept that either? It's all arbitrary.

"Isn't it strange the man who writes most of the New Testament and tells us all how to live, think and believe about Jesus, never met him, while the Twelve who did, vanish into thin air and write nothing?"

John, Peter and James the younger (who was related to Jude, who himself wrote an epistle) all wrote general epistles; Matthew (a.k.a. Levi the tax collector--Matthew 9:9 and 10:3; Luke 5:27) organized an entire Gospel revolving around sermons and speeches, Mark wrote a gospel on Jesus' works and John recounted Christ's declarations of divinity. Besides, Paul did meet Him at the Damascus road, and apart from that event he had contact with many disciples and even with the apostles themselves at Jerusalem, who would have taught him doctrine they had lerned from the Lord firsthand.

All having been said, this is nothing but barefaced agenda masquerading as "humor". In fact, coming from an alleged former pastor these jokes are so ignorant the whole thing isn't even funny at all. Monty Python would've done a better job.

In fact, I think Paul Manata did a better job at refuting these than I have.