12 reasons
(biblical references at end of page)
1. Conditional love
Promotes belief in a god that, even though that god may still claim to love me, will send me to hell if I don’t believe in and worship him. This lack of compassion immediately puts a question mark on his underlying character.
2. Values belief in god over human actions
Whether one behaves like Donald Trump or lives a life of service like Gandhi, belief in god is more important than how one behaves and treats others. Those who simply believe (as Trump claims), will enter heaven and Gandhi will be sent to hell.
3. Ideological concept of repentance
Hitler could very well be in heaven through the simple act of repentance. Only god knows if Hitler was sincere, but according to the teaching, if Hitler truly was repentant, he will be in heaven.
4. Elevates one ethnicity over the other as his “chosen” people
Rather than promoting the concept that all humans are equal, in return for following the 10 commandments and living a life of “superior morality”, god elevated the Jewish people to his “special” people, agreeing to protect them, give them prosperity and give them valuable land (ancient Palestine). This Old Testament story goes against the concept of all humans being equal, and has been the source of multiple wars and arguably more human suffering that any other teaching.
5. Took 1500 years to spread his teaching beyond the confines of Europe
Essentially ignoring millions of other indigenous people around the world including the Aboriginal people of Australia, who science has proven have existed for tens of thousands of years.
6. God’s omnipotence
God is all powerful (“omnipotent”) and in total control of what happens on earth, yet allows horrendous suffering, including starvation, war and disease. Making it worse is that he has allowed it to happen to infants and children despite being too young to know him. Giving his subjects the choice to accept or reject him (“free will”) is not a good enough justification.
7. Lack of gradation of sin
“Don’t judge because we are all sinners”. According to that teaching, we are all in the same league as Hitler, Stalin and Putin. As is Bill Gates who has donated hundreds of millions of dollars in the name of improving third world health.
8. Has condoned human behaviour that does not stand up to critical thought
e.g. endorsement of rape and murder; owning slaves, and that a woman should be subservient to her man.
9. Prohibits human behaviour, again that does not stand up to critical thought
Loving someone (intimately) of the same gender; marrying a divorced woman (akin to committing adultery). Doing so, unless combined with true repentance, will result in being sent to hell.
10. Contradicts unequivocally established scientific knowledge
e..g. the narrative of creation in 6 days and the story of Noah’s ark. On the basis of well established science, these events were simply not possible.
11. End of the world concept
Promotes the concept of the impending end of the world, a concept that is a major problem because It legitimises ignoring the major problems facing the world today, and the world’s continued existence including life itself e.g. climate change and nuclear war.
12. Lack of evidence for the existence of any god
There is absolutely no evidence for the existence of its god.
References
1. Thessalonians 1:8-9: “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.”
2. Ephesians 2:8-9: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
3. John 1:9: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
4. Exodus 19:5-6: “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
5. Australian missionaries. First missionaries arrived in Australia in 1788 (AD).
6. Matthew 19:26: Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
7. Matthew 7:1-2: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
8.
- Endorsement of rape and murder: Numbers 31:17-18: In this passage, Moses instructs the Israelites after they defeat the Midianites: “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.”
- Slavery: Deuteronomy 15:12-14: “If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells themselves to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let them go free.
- Wives: Ephesians 5:22-24: “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”
9. Homosexuality: Leviticus 20:13: “If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”
Divorce: Matthew 5:32: “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
10.
- Creation in Six Days: Genesis 1:1-31: The biblical account of creation describes the universe, Earth, and all life forms being created in six days. Modern science, based on evidence from geology, cosmology, and biology, supports a vastly longer timeline with the universe forming about 13.8 billion years ago and Earth about 4.5 billion years ago, with life evolving gradually over billions of years.
- The Global Flood and Noah’s Ark: Genesis 6-9: The story of Noah’s Ark, in which the entire earth is flooded to destroy all living creatures except for those saved by Noah in the Ark, conflicts with geological and archaeological evidence. There is no scientific evidence of a global flood that covered all continents simultaneously, and the logistics of containing pairs of all Earth’s animal species on a single ark are not feasible according to biodiversity studies and genetics.
11. Matthew 24:3-44: In this chapter, Jesus speaks to his disciples about the signs of the end times, including wars, famines, earthquakes, and widespread deception.
12. No reference available to support the existence of any god.