Nine Problems with Christianity

Note: if you believe that Abraham, Moses, etc were prophets of the one true God I respectfully ask that you do not read the following post.

"Dante and Virgil in Hell" (1850) by W Bouguereau 

In my life I find that Christians are everywhere, especially within my extended family. Though I am not a big fan of belittling other belief systems, because the ways to the truth are many, I have had to really think about and be able to articulate why I don't accept their faith – because I am pretty sure I am not the only one who has had to fend off well-meaning evangelists, I thought I would share some of these reasons:

I. Fear (of hell) lies at the core of Christianity I watched my mother die a protracted death (cancer) and witnessed for myself the way her fear of hell (she was not a Christian, but had been raised in a very devout Christian home) needlessly poisoned her final months – I could never wish to be part of a religion that inspires such a morbid dread of the afterlife.

II. I cannot believe that God, as understood by Christians, is real If the Christian God is so powerful why do horrible things happen again and again and again? To my mind there are only two plausible answers to this question: either because he does not exist in the manner that Christians claim he exists (ie, he may exist but is not nearly as powerful as Christians say; this view is the one I tend to adopt) or he does exist as Christians claim but allows awful things to happen because he is cold and mean and is therefore not worthy of reverence. Cicero put the argument more eloquently:

'Either God wishes to remove evils and cannot, or he can do so and is unwilling, or he has neither the will nor the power, or he has both the will and the power. If he has the will but not the power he is a weakling, and this is not characteristic of God. If he has the power but not the will, he is grudging, and this is a trait equally foreign to God. If he has neither the will nor the power, he is both grudging and weak, and is therefore not divine. If he has both the will and the power (and this is the sole circumstance appropriate to God), what is the source of evils, or why does God not dispel them [Cicero, The Nature of the Gods, 3.65]?'

Contemporary Visions of the Divine

I thought it might be cool to do a contemporary version of a previous post I did that has proved to be pretty popular (Imagining the Gods) - I was super impressed with some of the images I found, especially the ones (below) of Mercury, Faunus, Venus ... actually most of the them are pretty fabulous. I acknowledge that the majority of the images used in this post are sourced from deviantart.com - a very addictive website, which I spend far too much time on:p

Click on images to enlarge

Apollo, God of light and the sun, healing (or disease), music (especially stringed instruments), archery, poetry and prophecy

"Invictus" by ceruleanvii.deviantart.com

Bacchus (Dionysus), God of grapes, fruitfulness, vegetation, wine, ecstasy and madness

"Bacchus" by theloymachine.deviantart.com