Thousands of years ago when the Hebrews first contemplated their god, they did not believe him to be the "one true God", but one of many gods. Like the Greek, Roman, and Norse gods, the Hebrew god was not all-powerful but was constrained by laws of nature; the notion of an omnipotent god was not conceived until much later. The ancient Hebrews believed that their god could be moved by sacrifice. It makes some sort of sense that this god would require a blood sacrifice before he would be willing to forgive a person for his sins. Christianity rests on the notion that this required blood sacrifice was paid by Jesus, God's "only begotten son", for all humans who believe in him.

But the omnipotent god that Christians believe in today is vastly different from the god of the ancient Hebrews as they envisioned him. Since the Christian god is suppose to be omnipotent, he should be able to do anything, including forgiving people, without first demanding sacrifice. There is no reason why an omnipotent god would have to resort to the artifice of having his son sacrificed in order to avoid sending people to hell. This is why the notion that "God gave his only begotten son" is so absurd. Somehow Christians do not realize that their barbaric savior god story is absurd; they never seem to be able to ask themselves "Why did God have to sacrifice his son? Couldn't he just forgive people?".

Is there any evidence that the miraculous stories described in the Gospels are true? Given the fact that we have accounts from many historians writing in this era, one would expect that if the miraculous stories were true that many of the historians would have made some mention of them. Did they? According to McKlintock and Strong's Cyclopędia of Theological Literature, "enough of the writings of [these] authors . . . remain to form a library. Yet in this mass of Jewish and Pagan literature, aside from two forged passages in the works of a Jewish author [Josephus], and two disputed passages in the works of Roman writers [Tacitus and Seutonius], there is to be found no mention of Jesus Christ." A common myth among both Christians and non-Christians is that there is ample evidence showing that there was an historical Jesus. The truth is that there is little or no historical evidence for Jesus that is not contested by serious scholars. (For more information on the historical evidence for Jesus, see Historicitiy of Jesus, Josh McDowell's "Evidence" for Jesus -- Is It Reliable?, and Christ a Fiction.) The point here is not to claim that there was no historical Jesus, but to point out that the historical evidence does not even come close to justifying the Christians' claims of unambiguous proof of an historical Jesus. Of course, it is possible that there was a Jesus on which the character in the Bible is based. If he did nothing extraordinary, it would not be surprising that there is hardly any mention of him in secular histories, but according to the Bible, there were extraordinary events taking place in Jesus' time. For example, Matthew 27:50-54 describes an earthquake at the moment of Jesus' death. If this had actually happened, surely many of the historians would have mentioned it. Yet this event is conspicuously absent from the secular histories. The overwhelming lack of evidence for the events described in the Bible, combined with the fact that there were many historians who would have written about the events had they actually occurred, constitutes strong evidence that the events did not take place as described. (If you think that this is an example of the "absence of proof equals proof of absence" fallacy, you need to read the Lack of Evidence section of Arguments for Atheism.)

Another reason for doubting Christianity comes from a study of older religions. Several religions older than Christianity contain the following features:

• A god comes to the Earth to "save" humanity in one way or another.
  
• The god performs miracles.
• The god is executed and arises from the dead.
  

To summarize, there are at least four arguments against Christianity:

1. Christianity is logically incoherent.
2. There is no evidence for the miraculous events described in the Gospels, even though we have accounts of that time from many historians.
3. The major events of Christianity are copied from older myths.
4. As discussed in Arguments for Atheism, there is substantial evidence that the version of God described by Christians does not exist.

Myth: The USA's founding fathers were all Christians.
Fact: Many of the founding fathers were Deists. Several patriots, such as Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, held Christianity in contempt.

Myth: The fact that US money is stamped with the phrase "In God we trust" and the US pledge of allegiance contains the phrase "under God" is evidence that the founding fathers believed that religion should be endorsed by the state.
Fact: Neither phrase was used until about a century or more after the US was founded. The phrase "In God we trust" first appeared on US coins shortly after the Civil War. It did not appear on paper money until the McCarthy era when pious politicians wanted to distinguish the US from the "Godless Communists". The pledge of allegiance was also adulterated during the McCarthy era; the original pledge did not contain the phrase "under God".

Myth: Christianity spread rapidly during its early years because the evidence for it was convincing.
Fact: Genocide and forced conversion were the primary factors that caused the spread of Christianity. In the early part of the fourth century, the Roman emperor Constantine carried out "holy" wars against pagans; and in 356 CE, a law was passed officially declaring the practice of non-Christian religions to be a crime punishable by death. Before Constantine, Christianity was an insignificant little cult.

Myth: Without Christianity, or a similar religion, morality would be perversely relativistic.
Fact: Christianity, if taken seriously, would lead to the most perverse kind of moral relativism. The Bible is self-contradictory. People who attempt to base their morals solely on the Bible will have morals that depend on what parts of the Bible they choose to believe and what parts they choose to ignore. Fortunately, most Christians ignore the many Bible passages that glorify genocide.

Myth: Christianity inspires its believers to place a higher value on human life than they would otherwise.
Fact: By placing emphasis on a mythical afterlife at the expense of real life, Christianity devalues human life. Many Christians claim that life would have no meaning without God and the hope for an eternal afterlife. This is equivalent to saying that they think that our life here on Earth is worthless. How very sad.

If you are a Christian, there is hope for you. You don't need God to "save" you; you can take responsibility for your own life. All you need to do to start down the path of becoming a freethinker is to open your mind and think! If, like most Christians, you have never read the Bible, that would be a good place to start. Read it starting from Genesis and try to understand what it really says without twisting the meaning into some preconceived notion of what you think it should say. Most Christians would be shocked to learn what is really in their "holy" book.

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my own part, I sincerely detest it, as I detest everything that is cruel." - Thomas Paine

For more information on Christianity, see the Christianity section of our Theism Library.