What is the strongest argument against Christianity that cannot be refuted plausibly by Christians?

Answer 1

Christians have had two thousand years of practice developing their arguments and learning to refute non-Christian arguments in a plausible way. Christianity relies on the difficulty of proving a negative, such as the non-existence of God, and frequently resorts to simplistic statements such as "absence of proof is not proof of absence." Interestingly, in all areas outside religion, and for all religions except the Abrahamic ones, it is considered necessary to prove something or someone exists, not to prove that it does not. It is not necessary to prove that Jesus of Nazareth did not really exist, but that is a definite possibility. Nor should the Bible ever be taken as proof of anything, either for or against the existence of God or miracles performed - it is simply a collection of books written over a period of several centuries, many of them by anonymous authors in spite of the later attributions.

One effective argument looks to the early history of the Hebrew people from the time of their emergence in the Palestinian hinterland around 1200 BCE. The Bible asserts that they were monotheistic, alhough they were occasionally backsliders, but the facts of history and the evidence of archaeology say otherwise. Hundreds of archaeological artefacts show that the national God of Israel and of Judah, Yahweh (Jehovah) was originally worshipped as the storm God. Either the Israelites were correct and God is only a manifestation of the storm god, like the Greek god Zeus, or they were wrong and God therefore does not exist.

Christian faith is based on the gospels but they are not, as usually believed, independent of each other, nor were they based on eyewitness accounts. All the New Testament gospels were originally anonymous and were only attributed to the apostles whose names they now bear later in the second century. New Testament scholars have demonstrated by parallel readings in the original Greek language, that Matthew and Luke were based on Mark, with additional material taken from the hypothetical 'Q' document. John's Gospel, in turn, was based on Luke. So not only do we not have an eyewitness account, we do not even have four separate and independent accounts that, even with the discrepancies typical of witnesses, would support each other's testimony. Each gospel after the first elaborates and adds to the original, to the point that Uta Ranke-Heinemann (Putting Away Childish Things) says a brief look at the texts is enough to classify all the Evangelists as pious tellers of fairy tales. If we took them at their word, each would give the lie to the other three. Each would find the others guilty of falsehood.

Even the original New Testament gospel, that subsequently attributed to Mark, is not literally true and probably contains little or nothing of events that really did occur. We do not know the sources that the author relied on, but they were not from anyone close to an eyewitness to any of the events portrayed. The sophisticated parallel structure (a special form of chiasm) of the gospel is a literary masterpiece but could never represent a genuine biography of a living person:A . John explains the coming of Jesus (Mark 1:1-8)

B .The baptism of Jesus (1:9)

C . The voice of God from heaven, "Thou art my beloved son" (1:11)

D . The forty days in the wilderness as an allusion to Elijah and Moses (1:13)

E . The people were astonished at what Jesus taught (1:22)

F . Jesus casts out an unclean spirit (1:23-26)

G . Pharisees took counsel with the Herodians how they might destroy Jesus (3:6)

H . Demons, whenever they see Jesus, fall down and say that he is the Son of God.

-- Jesus commands that they tell no one of this (3:11-12)

I .. Jesus calls the 12 disciples (3:13-19)

J .. Jesus rejects his own family: he has a new family, his followers (3:31-35)

K . Jesus rebukes the wind (4:36-41)

L . The demoniac, wearing no clothes (5:15), cries out that Jesus not torment him and Jesus sends out the demons (5:1-20)

M . Jesus comes into his own country (6:1)
-- Where he was brought up

N . The people misunderstand Jesus and he can do no mighty work (6:2-6)

O . Jesus sends out the disciples and curses those who will not receive them (6:7-11)
-- in sending the disciples with authority and expecting all to receive them, Jesus is asserting his own authority

P . Herod thinks that Jesus is John the Baptist risen from the dead (6:14)

Q . Herodias and her daughter conspire to kill John the Baptist (6:16-29)

R . Feeding the thousands, and related miracles and discourses (6:33-8:21)

S . Who do people say that I am (8:27)

T . Peter affirms faith in Jesus as the Christ (8:29)

U . Whosoever shall be ashamed of me: of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed (8:38)

V . The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and scribes (8:31a)

W . Be killed and after three days rise again (8:31b)

X . Prophecy of second coming (9:1)- Jesus tells the disciples that some of them would not taste death until they saw the kingdom of God coming with power.

B' .The Transfiguration of Jesus (9:2-3)

C' .The voice of God from heaven, "This is my beloved son" (9:7)

D' . Jesus talks to Elijah and Moses then to the disciples about Elijah (9:4-13)

E' .A great multitude was amazed at Jesus (9:15)

F' .Jesus cast out a dumb spirit (9:17-27)

G' .They shall kill the Son of man and he shall rise on the third day (9:31)

H' .Jesus clarifies his divine status, saying that he is not God: "Why call me good? There is none good but God" (10:18)

I' . Peter says the disciples have left all and followed Jesus (10:28)

J' . Those who have left their family for Jesus have a new family: all Jesus' followers (10:29-30)

K'. Jesus rebukes the 'sons of thunder', James and John (10:35-45 - cf 3:17)

L' .Blind Bartimaeus cries out for mercy and casts off his clothes, then Jesus heals him (10:46-52)

M' .Jesus comes into Jerusalem (11:1-10)
-- Where he will die

N' .Jesus misunderstands the fig tree that can provide no fruit (11:13-14)

O' .Jesus casts out them that sold and bought in the Temple and curses them for making the Temple a den of thieves (11:15-17)
-- Jesus is asserting his authority

P' .Jesus asks whether the baptism of John is from heaven or of men, and the priests, scribes and elders can not answer (11:30-33)

Q' .Parable of husbandmen who conspire to kill the vineyard owner's son (12:1-9)

X' .Prophecy of second coming (chapter 13)

-- on clouds of glory, within the lifetimes of some of those to whom he was speaking

R' .The Last Supper (14:17-25)

S' .Art thou the Christ, Son of God (14:61)

T' .Peter denies Jesus three times (14:66-72a)

U' .And when he thought thereon, Peter wept (14:72b)

V' .The chief priests, elders and scribes delivered Jesus to Pontius Pilate (15:1)

-- Delivering Jesus is a similar concept to rejecting him.
-- Both parts of the pair involve chief priests, elders and scribes

W' .Jesus dies and on the third day rises again (15:37, 16:6)

A' .The young man explains the departure of Jesus(16:6-8)