"Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important."

[Jumpin]

Peh said:

Jumpin said:

Saying you can prove something like the religion of Christianity as false is as nonsensical as saying you can prove the language of English as false. Or proving Biology is false.

Do you mean proving God false? Because not all Christians believe in God (Christian Atheists), and there're a number of different ideas that Christians have about the nature of God - there are official Church doctrines, but then there are many who follow those Churches who believe in something completely different than the church they follow: for example, Catholicism is officially a trinitarian theology, but many Catholics still believe there is just one form of God, and don't quite understand trinitarianism; "God the Father" is a completely unknowable portion of God (basically, trinitarianism in a nutshell: God the Father exists outside of time and space, God the Son is his Word - the DNA/Code that makes up the nature/laws of the universe - and God the Holy Spirit is the physics or "breath/pneuma" that carries the word - The prophets are inhabited by the Word in order to preach doctrine; Jesus is the Word made flesh/Logos Incarnate). In short - there's no consensus as to what God is among Christians, trinitarianism isn't the core of Christianity, it is the doctrine Catholics accepted in the 4th century AD - you can somehow prove that wrong, but it won't make much difference.

You can potentially prove that Jesus never lived - but all that means is that churches will be forced to adapt their doctrines to focus on Jesus as a symbolic/allegorical figure, which isn't that big of a step for most churches today. Most churches don't really focus on biblical scripture as a historical documentary, but rather as inspirational or enlightening passages. Pure Christian literalism is actually fairly fringe, and I honestly don't think I have actually come across a Christian who is a pure literalist in my entire life... I have read about them "Westboro Baptist Church" (What is a "boro" anyway? Do they just spell Borough wrong?) but have never met any of them.

Basically, trying to prove Christianity as false is like trying to prove a fashion trend as false, or a language, or any other kind of cultural movement. You can prove elements about certain churches to be false, But even proving creationism false didn't end all religions that have a creation myth within them - and this isn't a recent occurrence either, even many religious people as far back as the Roman Empire didn't believe in creationism - St. Augustine, the most prominent non-biblical writer in Christian history, didn't believe in literalist interpretation of Genesis or creationism.

I suppose they mean by proving christianity false as in the New Testament and everything what comes with it is build on a lie.

 

But the world by today shows us that facts, evidence and proofs can all be labeled as fake news in front of their eyes. Those People don't listen to reason. Hence the flat earth movement. 

The issue is, that most of the ridiculous believes are being hold by stupid people. And you can't argue with stupid.

More or less a person could say present evidence that the Gospel story didn't happen, that they are a complete fiction but it wouldn't disprove Christianity. 

So, you could have a Christian who believes "God is a man in the sky. He will grant wishes that you pray to him. If you are good, you become an angel and go to heaven, which exists in the sky. If you are naughty or a non-believer, he will send you to a fiery hell, which is beneath the Earth's crust." - This is kind of Christianity for dummies (not in the sense that these are the basics of it, but in the sense that this is the form that dummies believe in; like the Simpsons characters). This is also more of a recent interpretation, this is not the description that any writers before the last couple hundred years describe Christianity; it's mostly a comedic interpretation. In Roman times, the idea of a man in the sky is something Christians found ridiculous as well, which is why they made fun of Pagans for it. There is medieval art and such of Jesus looking up, but that is mostly metaphorical because 

Reading actual Christian theologians and scholarly works, the above description is not really what they believe in. You have St. Augustine over 1500 years ago writing about how God the Father exists outside of time and space, while the holy spirit permeates all things. Even the Big Bang theory was essentially conceptualized as a scientific presentation of the creation with all the sacredness, metaphor, and spirituality taken out of the equation. Relativity and the dilation of spacetime is consistent with the trinitarian view that God the Father somehow exists beyond the universe, but "his" unchanging nature exists before, during, and after time - a massless object moving at the speed of light can hit the other side of the universe instantly (relative to its own point of reference) while the rest of the universe moves forward over a period of trillions of years.

If people want to be Christian, they will figure out a way to make the religion consistent with what we know is true today... and there will always be the dummies who reject a progress of knowledge and will still believe in the man in the sky anyway. But, I don't think there's a such thing as disproving Christianity. It's too huge of a thing. As long as it is appealing, there will be Christians. It is less appealing now because of globalization and people find church boring and a waste of time; those people drop off - but there are those that actually like it, and more Christians join simply due to this cultural appeal.

 

Some things in Christianity, very core systems, can't really be disproven. They are ideological concepts.

1. It is hypocrisy to judge people - this was the main message of Jesus, a group called the Pharisees were judging all sorts of people for breaking the Law (as in the biblical Law), and that they deserved punishment because they were doing something that would prevent them from getting into heaven. Jesus thought this was ridiculously stupid: they said "So you don't think these laws will get you into heaven" and he said "They will most certainly get you into heaven, I am not disputing that. What I am saying is that you're an asshole for judging people who don't follow the laws, and a hypocrite because you don't follow them either." The Pharisees were insulted at the suggestion, so Jesus said "Yeah dude, if you interpret adultery as even feeling lust for another that is not your wife, you are all sinners! So fuck you!" He didn't drop the F-bombs, but the intent was there. So Jesus essentially said, "All of those laws and commandments are really just aiming to get people to do two things - Love everyone and everything. And if you are beating and stoning people for not following the Laws, then you're a sinner yourself... and an asshole hypocrite."

2. Give to the needy - he said wealthy people are at a disadvantage because they have more to give up. Jesus effectively set up a commune for his followers. The irony is that a lot of the self-described staunch Christians are very anti-communism... despite the fact that Communism has been a common practice among Christian societies (monasteries, nuns, etc...) since the beginning of the faith. It just goes to show that Christianity means very different things to different people.

3. A person who rejects temptation has more freedom.

4. The metaphor for walking on water - it's not meant to be that "Whoah! It's a miracle! This guy can walk on water!" In the context, the story is about defying your pre-existing knowledge of the world and challenge yourself into exploring new knowledge without confines. It's the same as a psychedelic trip - one of the reasons why some people believe early Christians practiced psychedelic drug usage.

But anyway, I'm rambling, what I am trying to say is that these are all ideas and concepts. And the full body of work can really be applied to different understandings as to the origins of the Gospel. If Jesus didn't actually do any of this stuff, someone still wrote it, and that person had the stories in his/her head (yeah, it's possible that multiple books in the bible were written by women; particularly the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament)