Does Christianity make sense?

Dave Hitt www

God created two perfect people but told them they’d be punished if they ate some magical fruit that made the smart. Which, of course, they did, so he booted them out into the world where all their kids became sinners.

For some unexplained reason, God demands a ransom sacrifice of blood for blood, but there weren’t any of the required perfect humans around. So his son, who is also him, came to earth and was crucified. Now he, who is also his son, but not really, can now forgive us for doing any of the multitude of things that annoy him.

What could be more sensible?

Eric_PK

Find yourself a copy of Shermer’s “Why people believe weird things” (I think that’s the title). That will be illuminating…

Homo economicus www

The more something requires faith, the chances are the less that thing makes sense.

The issue of the trinity, and Jesus being god, gave way to heresies and persecutions. Denominations exist that deny these things.

brian thomson www

The Councils of Nicaea can be seen as committees, which would mean that Christianity is a religion assembled by a committee. Bodges, compromises, hack jobs… if you have any experience of committees, the results probably won’t surprise you!

Reed Braden www

No, Christianity does not make sense, and there are a multitude of reasons for this. You only cited one of a seemingly innumerable list.

Did you expect better from “Ask The Atheists”?

George Locke

Paradox is at the essence of most religious traditions. If you ask me, it is at the essence of living, given the contradictory nature of the unconscious mind. Religion teaches us to resolve paradox, and in my view this is its greatest value. Resolving paradox enables you to integrate your unconscious desires into your waking life.

But I digress. You are attacking the trinity as an incoherent idea. I agree.

According to (traditional western) Christian doctrine, the Father is God, and Jesus is God but Jesus is not the Father. This could be like my foot is me and so is my hand, but my foot is clearly not my hand. So the three “hypostases” could be understood to be different aspects of one thing.

However, this is not what Christians believe. They claim that the Father is not an aspect of God, but that the Father is identical to God and so is the Son. Yet, they also claim that the Son is not identical to the Father. However identity is transitive, so the claim is logically invalid.

To the faithful, this is merely an indication that God is beyond human understanding. I tend to agree with this: God is essentially beyond human understanding. And yet people claim to know so much about it. It’s very perplexing.