Atheist-Christian Debates

16: Implied assumptions

While not always stated in a clear or obvious or conscious fashion, many atheistic arguments rely on assumptions that are slightly skewed. Many of them will be things that embarass them so much that they don't even want to admit it (like complete ignorance of the bible).

Assumption 1: "Christians are motivated by a fear of hell, nothing else."

No, we are motivated out of love for Jesus, because there is no hell or condemnation for those who have Jesus as their savior. If you repent your sins, ask God for forgiveness, ask Jesus to be your personal Lord and savior, ask him into your life, and stop the sins you know you've been doing, you will be saved. But out of love towards Jesus, because Jesus made salvation so easy, because Jesus cared enough to quench God's anger, to stop God from lowering the boom on you, or standing aroung going "aha!" whenever you make a mistake and giving you the punishment of eternal damnation for it, because Jesus sacrificed himself and stands in the way between I or you and God's wrath, protecting us from God's wrath, when we don't deserve that treatment, because we are all like Hitler, we see that we should love other people the same way, even if we feel those people don't deserve our love. So love motivates us now. You have to experience the love before you can truly love others. God's not so bad.

Assumption 2: "Being Christian = being religious"

Read the sermon section for more on this topic. Atheists automatically assume the Christian faith always has to do with organized religion, even though Christians can practice their religion privately, or with friends, rather than setting foot in a church. Instead of seeing it as a personal faith, they prefer to see it as an impersonal business centrally located in confining buildings, with the emphasis being the offering plate.

Assumption 3: "If I read the bible, it means I have to read the religious texts from other religions, too. It's only fair."

The agnostic or atheist thinks that he or she can squeak by without studying the very religious text they are trying to debunk by arguing that they'd have to read 200+ other religious books at the same exact time. They can find no better excuse for their biblical ignorance than this artificial idea of `fairness' that they are supposedly obligated to give to 200 other religions. It is darned obvious that they will never have time to read the bible if they maintain this artificial ideal.

Assumption 4: "The bible should be read cover to cover."

While this may be ideal to some, there are a lot of chapters in the bible we can live without, some things that even Christians haven't read or properly studied completely. The instructions on how to build the tabernacle, for example, have little practical value. The begats are only useful in determining Jewish ancestry. The book of Esther has little or no mention of God whatsoever. The Song of Solomon(Songs) is also a rather long, seemingly irrelevant book. Basically, in terms of the New Testament, you will find the most important material in Genesis, Exodus and Psalms. Here we get the creation, the commandments, and inspiration for daily living. Other books of the Old Testament are somewhat important, but only to a person who is beyond spiritual infancy (which is not an agnostic or atheist). The next important books are in the New Testament. The four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John give the basic story of Christ, his life, death and his resurrection, his conquering of death. This is good spiritual milk, perfect for an atheist or agnostic who has the unrealistic idea of reading the whole bible in one setting. I fail to understand why they feel they must read the bible cover to cover when devotional groups provide you with selected readings on various verses, which are more interesting and less time consuming to read, and help clarify things better than independent reading.

Assumption 5: "Science has the final say in every area of human life, including religion."

Miracles, by nature, are non-repeatable, so they can't be tested in a lab. You've chosen to believe they don't exist because of that. Of course, there are many other things in life that can't be adequately tested in a lab. Psychology and sociology, for example. You can't really start with a blank slate. People come into those tests with pre-existing life experiences which are poor indicators of how life and other human beings interact with each other. Simply locking them in a room with a clown doll or something is flawed because there's unforseeable factors in the lives of the individuals being tested. And even if you did raise a kid in a lab setting, you would only know how the environmental factors or whatever affect a kid in a lab setting, not anywhere else. So you might as well dismiss that, too. What I'm saying is that science can't be the ultimate judge and jury in these areas. Your average football player has inadequate training to run a nuclear power plant. The average used car dealer has no authority to perform gynecological exams. So why can science be the ultimate judge on the non-nature or nature of God? I've read that while theology is an imperfect interpretation of scripture, science is an imperfect interpretation of the observable world. New paradigms are always being discovered that overturn old paradigms. A lot of times different paradigms come from the scientist's own preconceptions. Science is always changing. Science and theology often conflict, but science and the bible hardly ever.

Assumption 6: "Adam, Eve, Moses and Jesus all lived during the same time period."

This type of argument will pop up from time to time in various forms, like assuming that Adam wasn't the first man, or whatever. A person who cares nothing about Christianity won't bother to study it, and thus be filled with erroneous ideas such as these. Research takes time they don't want to spend. They'd rather make up their own imaginary tale about it and chat with other unbelievers about why the bible is self - contradictory rather than reading it themselves.

Assumption 7: "I don't have any gods. Idol worship (idolatry) means bonking your noggin on a floor mat in front of a statue./A god has to be something more...something spiritual."

Martin Luther once wrote, "Whatever your heart clings to and relies upon is your god." So an idol can be any number of things. You don't need a mat or a statue or prayer or singing or dance or incense to be an idolater. A god or idol can be any "hobby" or activity or thing(s) that you voluntarily devote your existence to. Whatever you devote the most time and money to, voluntarily, when it doesn't involve the Judeo-Christian God, is your God. To clarify further:

• Your self can be an idol. If you don't care about God or other people, only about yourself, that's idolatry.
• While sleeping, eating and breathing consume a lot of time, they are not idols.
• It's not idolatry to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to support a family.
• Spending every waking hour entertaining yourself (pornography, movies, sports, MUCKS, video games, etc.) is idolatry.
• Working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to buy a flashy sports car or fancy furniture or an entertainment system is idolatry.
• Giving up the Judeo-Christian faith in order to impress someone in a different religion, to join their religion, is idolatry.
• If you obsess about a `hobby' enough, it becomes spiritual.

Assumption 11: "A loving God should give us everything we ask, everything required to make us happy, like high paying jobs, expensive homes, yachts and color televisions, and drop down every day to do magic tricks for us. It is evil to deny us these things. A loving God would do that for us."

For a person who believes nothing exists outside of this life, this argument seems to make sense. However, no amount of wealth or material possessions can gurantee happiness. If God wanted spoiled brats, he'd give us everything we ask, no matter how selfish and self centered and conceited it made us. Certainly, a person who takes on a vow of poverty would disagree with the assumption that wealth and material goods mean happiness. Their concept of God would be one that just sits around and pleases them all the time, one that makes them happy, proves Himself to them, and because He doesn't, they don't believe in Him.

Assumption 12: "A loving God would set us up like kings, wealthy, and with servants, and not ask us to do anything."

Such is the idea espoused by people who don't believe in heaven's rewards, or in heaven at all. They want their blessing here and now, like Esau giving up his birthright for a single meal. And, like Esau, God gives them their single meal, but does not set them up like Jacob.

Assumption 13: "Heaven is boring, like church."

Egads. What an awful heaven that would be. Sit, stand, kneel? No, in heaven, worship won't be such a rigid painful thing. We'll get to do what we like to do, as praise to God, forever. Heaven will be the most exciting, wonderful place we've ever been to. It's so great we can't even begin to imagine what it will be like. It certainly won't be like church. I spoke about this topic earlier.

Assumption 14: "A thing can't form itself out of nothing. Something had to have created God!"

You can imagine Cartesian solipsism, where nothing exists except yourself and your senses, but you refuse to even try to imagine a God who has that same power. We don't know for a fact that a thing cannot form itself out of thin air. Atheists like to ask, "who created God?" This question is convenient for them because they already have an answer they want to tell you. "Man did." But it's not that complicated. God doesn't need a creator. Only small minded human beings think He needs one. In this case, the simplest explanation is best. God made himself, out of sheer will. He willed himself into existence. He's a first cause that doesn't need a cause. Sure, this "defies everything we know about causality, quantum physics, science, etc.," but think about it: if God set up all those rules, why couldn't He also break them? I mean, you can't make a good omelette without breaking a few eggs. Who says that what God does has to be understood by the human mind?

Assumption 15: Believing that the Christian vision of the future (judgement day, the resurrection) will never happen, while simultaneously worshipping the idea of a futuristic manmade utopia.

An atheist or agnostic will argue, until they're blue in the face, that Jesus is dead and that the resurrection or judgement day will never happen, even though they have their own `idealistic, fanciful notions.' They will believe in a future world of flying cars, robots that are indistinguishable from human beings, a scientific cure for all the world's poverty and starvation, and the birth of intelligent, talking animals, by either genetic or evolutionary means, where science or philosophy has magically found a way to make all the world's religions work in harmony with each other, with no sign of Christianity anywhere. An anti-utopian arguing for utopia.

Assumption 16: "Like the Qur'an (which I also don't believe in), the bible is supposed to contain the answers to all life's questions and give the answer to every scientific dilemma. Because of this, the bible is unscientific."

Every good book provides more questions than answers, while simultaneously answering vital, important questions. The same problem they have with the current bible they would have with a more scientific bible. There would be unanswered questions remaining. Books are simply too limited to provide an adequate answer for everything you might have a question about. The bible contains information on what's really important in life, the spiritual and moral life. The other things are just incidental, no matter how important or useful or necessary they may seem. As Christians, we can live without the other stuff, but not the bible.

Assumption 17: "God must be completely understandable and/or explainable from a human frame of reference."

Who created the frame of reference that we view God by in the first place? Atheists and agnostics want to `figure everything out.' The idea of a supreme creator who can craft existence itself, with all its physical and scientific laws does not appeal to them because they want to understand what cannot be understood. And since they cannot comprehend the workings of a superior superhuman mind with their inferior, tiny human brains, they dismiss God as nonexistent. They want to be able to imagine God sitting in an office, a desk somewhere, making up the world, even though this inevitably would result in an unnecessary complication - an infinite series of gods creating universes for other gods, all because the agnostic mind cannot comprehend a God who can create the phenomena of the frame of reference as we humanly understand it.

Assumption 18: "Questioning God or God's will is blasphemy punishable by death."

Blasphemy is making frivolous oaths, saying that you are God, cursing or insulting God. Questioning God's will is not blasphemy. Job continually questioned God's will. So did Moses and other biblical figures. They questioned because they were afraid that God's plan wouldn't work. God answered their questions by positive action. Questioning God is a different matter. To question God means to critique what He does. It still isn't blasphemy, but you are seriously unqualified to tell God how to do His business. You will not be punished with physical death for blasphemy, but perhaps spiritual death if you do not repent and ask God for forgiveness.

Assumption 19: "Old stories can't be true/aren't valid."

There are lots of old stories that teach us valuable lessons. The fact they are old says nothing about their validity whatsoever. Like the old story of Hannibal crossing the Alps, or Columbus sailing the ocean. Or an old cautionary tale about someone being poisoned by eating a toadstool or being killed in an old abandoned mine shaft. An old treasure map could possibly lead to treasure. So the age of a story can't totally determine its validity.

Assumption 20: "Agnosticism/atheism doesn't ever say that something is true because they say so."

In actuality, atheists and agnostics like quoting the opinions of other atheists and agnostics (like Carl Sagan for example) without any proof or evidence to support the statement. They seem to think that we'll accept what the agnostic or atheist says merely because they say so.

Assumption 21: "Because it's not fair (or that I don't like it), it must not be true."

Atheists and agnostics will argue that things like hell shouldn't exist because they're somehow `not fair.' They're actually quite fair, in the same way that the laws of gravity are `fair.' We may not want it to hurt or kill us when we fall off a skyscraper, but, regardless of what we consider `fair,' it provides injury nonetheless. If your only argument against the existence of hell is that it somehow `isn't fair,' then you don't have an argument. There's lots of stuff in life that isn't fair, and if you argued against all those things with the same kind of argument, you'd look like a fool. Regardless of what I believe, life will still be arranged like the bible describes it. Although I don't think many things about it are fair or likable, I can't change my beliefs because of the apparent unfairness. The bible says that God chose us, we did not choose God. It's like gravity. I find gravity annoying and unfair. Things are always falling off other things and getting broken or ruined or falling in the toilet. It's not fair, but I can't deny its existence. I can't disbelieve in God any more than I can disbelieve gravity. And just because you don't like gravity doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Assumption 22: "Christmas is a core Christian doctrine."

Actually, we can live without Christmas. Losing the holiday would not destroy the religion of Christianity. Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, or in the winter. The shepherds couldn't watch their flocks if they were standing around in 0 degree weather. There is nothing "core" about it. The crucifixion and the resurrection of Christ have a much more vital importance than the birth of Christ.

Assumption 23: "The birth of Christ is a core Christian doctrine."

The birth of Christ is actually of the least importance to the doctrines of Christianity. At birth, Jesus really didn't actually "do" anything except be born. The only thing of importance during Christ's birth is the fulfillment of prophecies. The birth of Christ is minor in importance compared to his death and resurrection. In fact, the gospels of Mark and John skip the birth of Christ completely and begin at his baptism. So it's not really a `core' doctrine.

Assumption 24: "Baptism, communion, and the exact, explicitly described nature of heaven, are core Christian doctrines."

Clearly, when a person believes this sort of thing, they think that there is no consensus in Christianity. They fail to see the greater commonalities between the denominations. They prefer to think of them as separate religions with `nothing in common.' Just because we may not be able to completely agree about what baptism means or what communion means doesn't mean that we don't disagree that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus died for our sins, that the bible is true, etc. And just because we have no idea about such imponderables as the exact or scientific nature of what heaven is, or where it is, doesn't mean that the religion is false.

Assumption 25: "Mormonism is a denomination/part of Christianity."

When atheists and agnostics talk about Christianity `breaking into separate religions,' they simultaneously refer to both cults and denominations without realizing their error. If you lump Mormonism with Christianity, it makes regular Christianity look dysfunctional and faulty. Mormonism is a cult, not a denomination. Mormons say that God was just a man. But this contradicts the bible. Read John 4:24, Luke 24:39, Hosea 11:9, Numbers 23:19, Romans 1:22-23, John 1:18, Colossians 1:15, 1 Timothy 1:17. God did not progress from man to God. James 1:17, Psalm 90:2. God is eternal.

Assumption 26: "Atheists and agnostics don't take anything on faith."

What about all those various unproven theories about the formation of the earth and life on this planet? What about Quantum Mechanics or String Theory? Is there any proof for that? As far as I can tell, it's mostly speculation - but atheists and agnostics still take these theories as dogma! And furthermore, if nothing else I'm saying here is true, agnostics and atheists all adhere to the dogmatic idea of `scientific naturalism,' i.e., automatically dismissing God and all religious issues as false and irrelevant in any and all areas of scientific study!

Assumption 27: "Religious leaders are supposed to be infallible."

Atheists and agnostics will often poke an accusing finger at Jesus, assuming he has something to hide, `since all the other guys do.' But Jesus is the only perfect, infallible religious figure in the whole bible. Everyone else sinned. The Judeo-Christian faith is intended for sinners. Perfect people wouldn't need to study law books, give sacrifices or worship Jesus. So, they assume infallability when we never made that claim. Why else would we have verses like this one? "All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness(2 Timothy 3:16)." This applies to both the `teachers' and the `students' of Christianity. The people who make stuff like that sign that says, "Here is where so and so went into hell" or "God hates fags," those are extremely fallible people. "Repent, sinner," would be much more appropriate for a true Christian.

Assumption 28: "When reading devotionals, you don't have to look up the bible passages. It's okay to just comment on the devotional proper."

The agnostic I sent devotionals to called them `sermonettes,' and he never bothered to read the verses listed on them. If the devotional was confusing, `nuts to it,' because he wasn't going to bother to get a clarification about what I was talking about by actually reading the text I was citing from. At least two or three times, the agnostic guy could have answered his own question about the devotional by merely reading what the bible says about it, but, no, he preferred to quibble over what I personally wrote concerning those passages, no matter how incorrect it was. There are boring parts that are difficult to understand. Devotionals provide explanations for those passages. That's why there's bible verses at the top of devotionals, which you read in addition to the exegesis of the devotional itself. To read the devotional and not the verses listed on it is like eating cake mix instead of eating cake. This kind of attitude is an example of why scholarly articles often cite sources that the authors haven't actually read.

Assumption 29: "Moses wasn't allowed into heaven, the promised land."

The promised land was a location on earth. It wasn't heaven. In fact, the Israelites didn't have a very good time there. But Moses still got to go to heaven, because he believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Assumption 30: "The separation of church and state is to support religious freedom for all people."

If atheists are for religious freedom, why do they protest buildings and objects and printed materials trying to stamp out traces of religion out of everything? Clearly, it's not a separation of church and state, but rather a protest against religion, and they are only helping to promote the `freedom' to be an atheist, not any other religions.

Assumption 31: "God is supposed to strike people with lightning whenever they say something bad. Because He doesn't, it means He doesn't exist."

In this extremely limited image of God, you can't make a peep, or a slip of the tongue without getting struck by lightning. One false move and you get smote. Obviously, as anyone who has tried it will tell you, nothing seems to happen when you speak bad about God. No lightning, even when you lie and misrepresent the bible. If you believe that's how God operates, then it seems like God isn't there. But if you understand forgiveness, and the afterlife, you'd realize how simplistic your thinking is. First, God wants you to repent of your wrong, so He's letting you live so you can repent and be forgiven. Secondly, if you don't repent, you won't be zapped now, but judgement day is what you're going to have to deal with. Psalm 103:10.

Assumption 32: "The fact that there are different translations of the bible, with a few scattered translational errors, makes it untrue."

There are very few translational errors in our NIV, KJV and RSV bibles, due to the large amount of scholarship that has gone into them. Very rarely does one find a mistake. And even if one does find a mistake, it's not normally anything that significant. For example, the `mighty God' in Isaiah 9:6 might actually be translated `God of might,' because the Hebrew word for `mighty,' as seen in Psalm 99, is different. It's not a major translational problem because the idea is identical. What atheists and agnostics fail to realize is that all our bibles come from one source, the Septuagint, the oldest existing translation of the Hebrew bible. The New Testament comes from a later source, Greek scrolls. Because few of us speak Hebrew or Greek, it was necessary to translate it into English, German, Japanese, etc. You certainly can't fault the bible in its totality for something a Korean version of the bible has messed up on. The Hebrew and Greek bible is available for study and comparison, and if something is wrong with a translation, you check back with the original source. It doesn't invalidate the bible at all. It just means it got mistranslated in a few spots.

Assumption 33: "People in the bible were such idiots that they thought everything was caused by gods and devils, no matter how mundane the true cause was. The simple fact is that they knew nothing about the natural order of things."

If the science of that era were as bad as you say, Jesus' father would not have considered rejecting Mary when she became pregnant. C.S. Lewis wrote that Joseph would not have even considered the idea that she'd been sleeping around. He knew enough about the laws of nature to realize that the birth of Jesus was a suspension of them. The disciples also wouldn't have been frightened when Jesus was walking on water. If they didn't understand the normal order of nature, they wouldn't have recognized the abnormal(The Challenge of the Cults, Rhodes, 246-7).

Assumption 34: "Satan is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient, i.e. God and Satan are equals, and the fight is pitted equally."

This is dualism, and it's not scriptural. Satan can't read minds or be everywhere. He might be strong, but his power is limited in comparison to God. He also has a short time on earth. He's far from the eternal being they seem to hint at. If Satan was so powerful, he wouldn't have been kicked out of heaven. God created Satan. While Satan can easily overtake the average, unchurched human, he's no match for God.

Assumption 35: "Because Revelation and Daniel and other prophetic books are metaphorical or symbolic, the whole bible is metaphorical, and therefore not real."

This is the fallacy of the beard, based on a lack of biblical readership and a denial of all archeological evidence. I cannot bear to think of the miracle at the wedding at Cana as being a mere metaphor. Nor can I ever accept that the resurrection of Christ was a metaphor. Truth, fact, legend or lie, the events are not metaphors.

Assumption 36: "The actions of human beings cause chain reactions which change the balance of the universe."

This is borderline New Age spirituality in the guise of Quantum Physics. How do we know that there's a causality that we humans cause? How do we know it is we who make the temporal chain reactions? What if it's not because of us?

Assumption 37: "Worship of God isn't fun. You can only serve God in a few, limited ways, by singing, praying, and putting money in the coffer."

These people have no passion for God because they don't realize that what God wants them to do is right up their alley. If you limit service to God to the humdrum ordinary stuff, like what most people do in churches on Sunday, singing and praying, then you won't see the opportunities God has given you to praise Him in special and unique ways. You can praise God with art, or electronics, or anything else you find exciting and fun to do. It takes some creative thinking, but that's good. That's using the brain God gave you. There are ways to praise God, even with science. Service and praise to God will seem boring until you recognize that it's not limited to small and uninteresting forms of expression.

Assumption 38: "If you don't go to church every Sunday, you are condemned to hell."

Absolutely not! First of all, the traditional Jewish Sabbath is Saturday. Sunday is the Christian `Sabbath,' but it's not meant to be as strict or limiting. Jesus himself condemned the pharisees who would be so busy going to synogogue that they'd leave poor, beaten men dying by the roadside(Luke 10:29-37). Jesus broke this human interpretation of the Sabbath commandment by healing on the Sabbath, and eating grain on the sabbath(Matthew 12). After all, people rescue their livestock from peril on the Sabbath.

Assumption 39: "Religious fundamentalism is bad./Fanaticism is the path to Hell./When worship and belief turn public, it can result in fanatics who believe they were `already dead' so they have nothing to lose and so are free to do anything they believe God wants."

If God wants them to do charity, you shouldn't complain. Not at all. A Christian fundamentalist is just a person who believes that parts of the bible are literally true, non - metaphorical. You wouldn't be a very good Christian if you didn't have that kind of fundamentalism. The problem most agnostics and atheists have is that they confuse fundamentalist Islam with fundamentalist Christianity. Fundamentalist Islamic people might go on a jihad, but fundamentalist Christians would rather go on a hugging rampage, or do a widespread food drive instead. A Christian `fanatic,' if truly Christian, behaves compassionately, and definitely goes to heaven.

Assumption 40: "Only insubstantial ghosts go to heaven."

There are three biblical accounts of people going into heaven bodily, without dying. Enoch, Elijah and Jesus. When we see stories about ghosts, we imagine the souls of dead people to be non-solid, only entering an environment of solidity in heaven. And if dead people's souls can become solid in heaven, Jesus and others would already be solid, which would make things really confusing. Who's dead and who isn't? In the afterlife, it wouldn't matter much anyway. People are either raised to a new eternal life, or raised to a death whose permanence is eternal. If you're saved, you'll be alive, forever. A new life. You would not be dead, nor a mere ghost, but alive.

Assumption 41: "The Creatures of Light and Darkness have nearly unlimited time."

To the contrary, "The Devil knows his time is short." Of course, you did say `nearly unlimited.'

Assumption 42: "God can only focus on one thing at a time, or screw something up."

"God can't juggle," they say. We try to comprehend God with our tiny human brains, and it seems impossible that God could simultaneously handle every individual human being while simultaneously taking care of the life of a single common wood termite, and simultaneously handle all the big cosmological events in the galaxy.

Assumption 43: "Jesus died for the world. That means nothing to me."

Jesus died specifically for you, even if you were the only person on earth, Jesus would have died for you. Jesus died for you. For God so loved you that he gave his only son to die for you, so that if you believe in him, you will not perish but have everlasting life.

Assumption 44: "Ghosts are the same thing as souls. Souls haunt houses."

If not the `Holy Ghost' then it is demonic in nature. Souls, on the other hand, do not hang around in old houses and buildings, but rather they travel in time to the future, to judgement day, where they are judged and put in their eternal place. Or perhaps the soul is judged immediately, right then and there, eliminating the need for a line at the `pearly gates.'

Assumption 45: "Angels are pretty things with wings. Demons are ugly horned things with goat hooves."

Too many people get this mixed up and suffer for it. Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. He looks just like any other angel. Demons are merely fallen angels, so they are more than likely beautiful looking. And this is the problem. Lots of New Age spiritualists tell stories about encounters with beautiful angels and `angelic beings,' but they are actually being deceived by demons. Our idea of Satan and/or demons being ugly things with goat hooves is based on the corruption of the god Pan from Greek mythology. The idea has very little to do with Christianity.

Assumption 46: "Heaven is smaller than a broom closet."

The agnostic said, "by not believing, I will be doing my bit to provide more room in Heaven, and my not requiring lodgings, will help keep it a `buyer's market', keeping rents down. Just practical (real world) economics." This is an ad ignorantum fallacy based on their interpretation of `reality.'

Assumption 47: "Not loving God is the one unpardonable sin - straight to Hell (so I'm toast!)."

Not believing in God is the unpardonable sin. Hating God, that's a sin when you act on that hate verbally or physically. But you can be pardoned for that. Life is about growing gradually more and more perfect. You and I have fallen for the fallacy of the "100% God" that J.B. Phillips talks about in Your God is Too Small. It explains the problem a lot better.

Assumption 48: "Limbo is in the bible."

There is no material anywhere in the bible describing purgatory. In all my years of studying the bible, I would have found it. I challenge anyone to point out a single verse that actually talks about purgatory.

Assumption 49: "The bible says `do not put the Lord your God to the test' because He's unable to withstand scientific or intellectual inquiry."

It's not because God is frail or unable to stand the test. It's because God doesn't feel like proving himself, he doesn't feel like being tested. He doesn't want to be put in a test tube, and He prevents himself from being put in a test tube. He's God. He can do what he wants.

Assumption 50: "Churches are God's house. Because of that, the fact they are often in disrepair means there isn't a God."

A church is God's tent, not his house. God is everywhere. He doesn't have to be worshipped in a building. In fact, that's rather limiting. But God is "one"/`echad, and Christians like me believe that it means that God can appear in many different forms, and so he can both simultaneously sit on a throne in heaven, be everywhere in the universe, and inhabit a church or synogogue. But haven't you heard that song? "I am the church?" "I am the church, you are the church, we are the church together, I will follow Jesus all around the world, yes we're the church together...A church is not a building, a church is not a steeple. A church is not a resting place, a church is a people."

Assumption 51: "Martyrs are forgotten."

It depends on who's remembering and who's forgetting. In God's book, they aren't forgotten. If you don't believe in God, then certainly, in human terms, they are forgotten. What good is being remembered by humans to the dead person? No good at all! No, the only true reward is heavenly, not the pages of a yellowing history text.

Assumption 52: "God doesn't give the unbeliever a chance to avoid hell, to turn around and have a change of heart."

I think God gives everyone an ample amount of time to avoid going to Hell. Even people like Hitler, because they're human beings. In God's book, I'm just as bad, so that's fine. I feel I'm forgiven by God, and it's permanent. If I reject God, he still gives me a fair chance to turn back and be forgiven.

Assumption 53: "Miracles aren't subtle."

To the contrary, they have always been subtle. Many atheists will tell you that all the miracles in the bible have alternate explanations. I don't agree with them, but it proves their subtlety. In one book I read, it said you create miracles all the time. When you stop a glass while it is falling, preventing it from smashing on the floor, you've just negated gravity, a miracle. But you don't buy that sort of thing. You want the flashy stuff they showed in the bible movies or something. Well, the miracles of Exodus were subtle. Even these can be explained away by science. Sagan wrote that historical accounts described a volcanic eruption that happened near Egypt during the time of Moses. It could have put darkness over the whole land, and created weather disturbances that could have possibly made it rain frogs and hail. It depends on what you call "subtle." Most of the books of the bible are literal historical accounts. Jesus fed the five thousand. I've read modern news reports of people feeding hundreds of people with an insufficient quantity of rice. You could possibly think of alternate explanations for these things. Miracles ARE subtle, even in the bible. But maybe there haven't been that many miracles as of late. After all, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign; but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale, so will the Son of man(Jesus) be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth(Matthew 12:39-40)."

Assumption 54: "Satan rules hell."

He doesn't. God only has the power to run judgement. I think Satan isn't even in Hell at this moment, he's wandering around the earth, until Judgement Day. He doesn't go in and out of hell like the movies show. That's what the bible basically says. There's not supposed to be any real challenge to God's power. Otherwise you have dualism. According to Christianity, God "let's" Satan or other angels(demons are just fallen angels) do whatever, and sometimes it works for God, like in the book of Job. Satan is a tempter. But I think he also incurs God's wrath, so he will be punished at Judgement Day.

Assumption 55: "Judaism and Christianity are two separate religions."

There is no difference in the commandments of the Old and New Testaments. Jesus gave the ritual sacrifice once and for all, so that's taken care of, but basically, the whole thing is Jewish. There is no difference between Judaism and Christianity aside from the belief in Jesus as the messiah. They follow the commandments. I follow the commandments. They're the same commandments.

Assumption 56: "You're not allowed to have those doubtful thoughts or theories not based on scripture, because you're supposed to believe only what the bible says."

I disagree. I see the bible as like a newspaper. It can contain a description of an event, but not the event itself, and only the important details are there. There's no commandment that says I have to believe that what's written in the bible is all there is to it. Especially when it describes such a complex thing as creation. God made Adam out of mud. But what kind of mud? Could it be a pool of proteins that only "look" like mud? I mean, sure, I believe that God literally created the world and the universe. But HOW he did it, that I'm allowed to speculate about. I believe what's written is as close as I'll get to the true story(what I consider true), but I also believe that God didn't tell Moses everything about how the world was created. He just told Moses He did it.

Assumption 57: "Communion and baptism are core Christian doctrines."

Christ as the Son of God, the trinity, Christ's death and ressurection, the salvation of Christ are all core doctrines. The stuff you're talking about really isn't. God didn't tell us to rope off a section of carpet when the communion wafer fell on the floor, neither did he tell us not to. It wasn't an important part of His letter.

Assumption 58: "The DaVinci Code presents accurate information."

Although few atheists own up to it, Dan Brown's DaVinci code is the atheist bible. To my chagrin, I have lately discovered that a great deal of arguments the atheist has given me has stemmed directly from the DaVinci code book, material that is innaccurate to say the least.