Do you think it's reasonable to claim the knowledge that Christianity is false? If so, why?
It is not only reasonable to claim to know that Christianity is false, it is demonstrable and tenable. One can ground this knowledge in facts and evidence, both of which are entirely ignored by Christians. Christians will either claim to have a body of evidence that when scrutinized proves to be anything but or they’ll move the goalposts and change the standard of evidence, so as to qualify what they call evidence and disqualify what opponents call evidence. Some Christians don’t even consider evidence and think of evidence as something diametrically opposed to faith.
Christianity is false for two primary reasons: a) Christianity has no credible evidence of its own b) the evidence against Christianity is insurmountable. I talk about this at length in my book. Some Christians will tout apologetic arguments as evidence. They’ll mention the Kalam Cosmological Argument, The Argument from Fine-Tuning, The Moral Argument, and a number of others. Others will claim, against actual evidence, that creationism or ID are the case. Some will dishonestly claim that modern science confirms Christian revelations and disregard that these revelations have been made to fit their narrative and this, after the fact; this is therefore an ad hoc explanation. “Let there be light” is not talking about the Big Bang at all; one has to wonder why these so-called revelations weren’t made absolutely clear before the advent of modern science. The science doesn’t fit the revelation; the revelation is forced into the keyhole.
When you consider the full gamut of human knowledge, historical, anthropological, scientific, mathematical, and philosophical, the conclusion is inescapable: Christianity is hopelessly false on all fronts. Christianity talks about an afterlife. Given the intimate relation between consciousness and our brains and physical bodies, such a continuation of consciousness is not possible. Add a philosophical discussion on identity or the dubious essentialism which attempts to ground the static picture most have of the self, and the waters become even murkier for Christianity.
For instance, if heaven is real and we enter this place in a new body and lacking memories of relatives and friends who didn’t enter and, in addition to such memories, lacking traumatic memories, is it safe to say that the you that enters heaven is the you that lived on Earth for x amount of years? A large percentage of philosophers will answer that question with a resounding no and this because we understand that memories help mold us into who we are or think we are. Memories are the foundation of our egos. If you remove some, it is likely that you change an individual at a fundamental level and it is even likelier that they aren’t who they were.
The same with this new body business. Yes, there’s talk of uploading a consciousness into a computer, which is essentially giving that consciousness a new abode. Yet there’s widespread discussion about whether that consciousness retains its identity in such a transfer. This definitely applies to the new body resurrection view. If we receive new bodies upon entering heaven and on some accounts, receive a new body when entering hell, is that consciousness the same one that currently exists? As you can see, Christianity’s view of a person is already mired by a number of issues, all of which are answered with philosophically dubious views and obscure metaphysics.
This same thinking applies to the notion of god becoming man. Muslim and Jewish philosophers starting in the 10th century assaulted this aspect of Christianity. The notion of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being becoming flesh is outrageous. Leave it to a C.S. Lewis admirer to say that this absurdity is precisely what makes it true, a claim which is in itself absurd. This aspect of Christianity hasn’t been revealed at all because no Christian, neither past nor modern, can explain exactly how god became man or, at the very least, explain how such an idea is coherent.
I’ve focused a lot on the philosophical aspects of Christianity. If I were to discuss anthropology, science, and history, this reply will be much longer. Suffice it to say that Christianity is even less tenable on those grounds. History and anthropology render Christianity defenseless, especially with regards to the incongruity between portraits of the historical Jesus and the portrait offered in the Gospels, a portrait that is neither here nor there and one that has led to a number of theological conundrums, e.g., just consider the Christology controversy, a controversy Christians are good at downplaying.
Christianity is false. I say that with full certainty and not even a scintilla of doubt. The amateurs on Tumblr have tried to convince me of otherwise and have failed. I traced their insights to thinkers far more capable than them and have remained unconvinced. The harsh reality is that we will someday die and there’s no way out of that. There’s no afterlife, no new body, no scapegoat that can make us new or “complete the work in us.” The hard truth is that we have to improve our own circumstances, improve our own psychology, carry our own weight, and deal with our own baggage. There is no cross upon which we can cast our doubts, misgivings, misfortunes, and shortcomings. That picture may seem hopeless, but the atheistic view, though nihilistic to some, offers two great insights.
For one, we are fully accountable for who we are, who we become, and the life we lead. This is much more moral. We don’t have this pretense that we can literally get away with murder so long as we repent. The second insight is that we provide our own lives with meaning and purpose, and we are free to choose how to go about it. We can achieve whatever is within our capacities without the aide of a selectively available god–one that will give the capitalistic Christian a new car or new home and completely ignore the cries of a child being passed around in a sex trafficking ring or the hunger of a child who is impoverished. This was Sartre’s conclusion.
One may bring up that it’s all for nothing because of the “heat death” of the universe or some other fancy and bleak picture Christians like to paint. My response is that a thing isn’t more preferable because it persists longer than other things. Precisely what makes this life beautiful and worth living is that it’s the only life you know you’ll live, the only life you ever consciously accessed, and it’s temporary. You, your relatives, and all that merits your affection and gaze will someday cease to exist and that is why we should cherish and appreciate who and what we have. If we were eternal and everything was everlasting, we would never appreciate anything, for we would procrastinate on being good parents, good spouses, good partners, good friends, and so on. We would continuously indulge our propensity to leave things undone, leave it for tomorrow. Some day your daughter will go off to college, your son will move out and get married, your pet will pass away, your grandparent will die in their sleep; what better time than now to show them what they mean to you. In a world that never perishes, that time may never come.
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