Would extra-terrestrial life invalidate Christianity?

Does belief in Christianity preclude belief in life on other planets? Would the existence of extra-terrestrial life invalidate Christianity or bring even more glory to God?

And on the Third Day...

One of the foundational ideas—to some even a proof—of Christianity is that God sent His son to live on Earth for a time so that He could suffer and die, and through His suffering and death relieve humanity of the original sin committed in the Garden of Eden. After His death, goes the story, Jesus rose from death and rejoined God. This works both as a miracle: an apparently mortal man is killed but rises from the dead, as only God can, and as symbolism: people can find a rebirth by killing the sin within them.

If this story is true, it provides powerful evidence that Christians are correct about the nature of God, and belief in its veracity helps many Christian sects focus on an individual relationship with Christ as a route to salvation. Unfortunately, there is no very compelling reason to believe that the resurrection really happened, and at least two reasons to think it did not.

First, no contemporary accounts of the resurrection exist. No Jewish or Pagan accounts of such an historic event survived. Further, no one witnessed the resurrection itself, and we have only second hand accounts of what those who saw Jesus after His death experienced. In Paul’s account, he saw only a light, not a man. Even Mark, the earliest Gospel, did not include the story of Jesus’ appearance to others after His death until it was added later. Only Paul mentions the appearance of Christ to over five hundred people at the same time, and such a historical and widely experienced event should have generated contemporary accounts from other sources—at least within the Bible. That is, it is difficult to believe that an event like the resurrection generated no surviving discussion, nor even a coherent Biblical account.

Establishing the veracity of the resurrection story told in the Bible faces other difficulties. For example, it does not appear to fit the customs of the time. Burial of a crucifixion victim in a tomb would have been an exception to the typical disposition of the bodies of those punished by crucifixion. Jewish law of the time mandated common graves for criminals, and since the Sanhedrin had found Jesus guilty of blasphemy there is no reason to believe that He would have received an honorable burial except for the account told in the Gospels. It is possible that Joseph, a Sanhedrin himself, violated custom and law to give Christ an honorable burial, though this would go against the man’s professed beliefs.

None of this, of course, proves that the corpse of Jesus Christ did not reanimate after three days, and that the resurrected Christ did not appear before His followers. But the historical evidence is thin and contradictory, and all of it was written by those who had a reason to create such a story. No evidence exists to suggest that any non-followers of Jesus noticed the hubbub, nor that the people who crucified Christ worried themselves over the miracle and what it would mean for their own spiritual beliefs—no one tried to disprove the account.

The historical record, then, does not fully support the story of the physical resurrection of Christ. More importantly, I would argue that because such a miracle would prove the nature of God, it would make faith unnecessary, and change the relationship between God and Man. No miracle that can be directly and objectively attributed to God has ever been thoroughly documented outside the Bible—no second resurrection, no re-growth of a severed limb, no violation of the laws of biology or physics as we know them. To be sure, a great many people believe that God has answered prayers with cured disease or renewed prosperity, but no miracle has been fully documented that could only have come from the Hand of God, and admits no other explanation.

The reason for this, I believe, is that the God of Christianity does not want to prove His existence to Man. He wants us to figure it out for ourselves, and He wants the relationship between God and Man to depend on love and faith, not the rational cost-benefit calculation that proof of His existence—and therefore of the existence of Heaven and Hell—would generate. This is why He has caused no miracle under conditions that do not allow for alternative explanation, and the physical resurrection of Jesus and His appearance to others three days after His death would violate this condition.

Forgive me if my knowledge of the relevant historical data is lacking, and I certainly welcome presentation of existing accounts that I missed which deconstruct this argument. But I believe that the Biblical accounts do not adequately support the idea that the resurrection actually took place, and that this is true for good reason: God does not want to prove His existence. If He had ever wished to do so, He could at any time. He does not, and did not, because He does not wish to change His relationship with Man. As I have said before, I do not think this disproves the existence of God Himself—He could exist, even if the resurrection never happened. But it does discount the veracity of one of the central tenets of Christianity that Richard asked about: the resurrection never happened.

Church: The Next Generation

Why do church services not appeal to teenagers? Does it depend on which church? Is the church making God look bad?

An Unbounded God?

Since I declined to accept the truth of Richard’s tenets, I will explain my challenge to each in turn, and then describe my alternate explanation for the persistence of belief in God, religion, and worship.

Richard first asks if an all-knowing, all-loving, omnipresent God exists. I argue no on all three grounds: First, an all-knowing God would know the future, and knowing the future makes God inconsequential. Second, an all-loving God would have no reason to allow random suffering, or to choose a particular people—He would protect and share his love and word with all His children. Finally, an omnipresent God cannot be extra-systemic—and could therefore not have made the universe.

If God knows everything, then He knows the future. But this robs Him—and humans as well—of free will and agency. Nothing even God does can possibly change the future if even one entity already knows what it will be. If God knows everything, He knows the future, and this means the future is fixed—or there would be nothing to know. This of course also means that humans have no agency, and I have no control over whether I go to heaven or hell, because it has in a sense already happened. If God exists and knows everything, then He doesn’t matter.

Perhaps God knows the future but can change it. This of course means that it is not fixed, and God cannot really know the future. He is not all-knowing. This is not the God I believe Richard refers to in his question, but it would at least explain God’s desire to place dreams and visions in people’s heads that they will interpret as a prophecy. It makes a difference if God speaks to people and offers them His word. God knows what will happen if He does not intervene, or He knows how His actions will change the future, and he sends the desired message. This also helps explain things like prayer—perhaps God first checks to make sure that a particular blessing or healing or other miracle will bring the future God desires. This God matters—but He is not omniscient.

An all-loving and universally benevolent God could not create the world we live in. He could, to be sure, place temptation in front of us, and give us the free will to leave his love unrequited. He could visit suffering upon us, to guide our interpretation of his word and meaning in our lives. But He would have no reason to create an environment where natural disasters visit random suffering with no agency and no lesson. This would not be a loving act, as it has no purpose.

Perhaps God uses natural disasters in his interaction with us. This gives them purpose, and means that God has not brought suffering at random. This gives meaning to pain, at least. But why use physical pain and emotional suffering to make his point? He could just as easily create a universe where the only suffering came of separation from God. For His own reasons, he structured the world as he did, with meaningless hate, killing, disaster, and suffering. When He had the power to avoid it, He placed us in a universe that harms us. This means that his plans, his goals, his ambition for the universe are more important than his love for us. He is not all-loving.

Moreover, God withholds his love from some of His people. Many never have a chance to know Him. Billions of human souls have known life without knowing God. Indeed, it seems that God makes humans partially responsible for spreading His word—which means that he has decided that some of us get to know Him before others. He shows His love to all—eventually. He is loving, but not all-loving.

Finally, an omnipresent God must be part of the systemic arrangement that governs the universe. If God is part of the universe—part of the systemic arrangement that governs the interaction of matter and energy—then He could not have created it—God could not have created Himself. Further, if He is part of the systemic arrangement—the physical rules that govern the interaction of matter and energy—then He cannot break or change these rules. Once set, they constrain God as they constrain the rest of nature.

But if God exists somehow outside the universe—if He is extra-systemic—then He is not omnipresent. For God to be everywhere, He must inhabit our universe with us.

All of this suggests bounds to God’s knowledge, love, and presence. If something limits these characteristics of God, then Richard’s first tenet fails. God cannot know everything, or He becomes unnecessary. He must not love all, or He would behave differently. And He cannot be everywhere, or He would have had to create Himself.

If there is no God, what are those people doing?

Stan's post regarding man creating God, etc. might be better served in a separate post on a subject that has bothered me for years:

If there is no God, what are those people doing?

I am lucky enough to have been a part of a couple of churches that included many smart, vibrant, committed Christians who were a great representation of their faith. I have also been a part of church groups that were the opposite.

In the former, glib pastors wax eloquently and passionately, the young music director leads hymns and choruses with his eyes closed and his hands raised high in worship and about 1 out of 10 of the congregation also raise at least one hand to the sky with their eyes also closed. Here and there a tear is shed.

The pastor then engages the congregation to drive home a new idea that will serve as spiritual manna for the next week, when the process is repeated.

To borrow a phrase from my old friend: "Wait a freakin' minute!"

What are those people doing?

The Facts of Life

First, let me thank Richard, my dear old friend, for inviting me to contribute to this discussion. I have him to thank for much of my religious training, since he introduced me to evangelical Christianity at the Woodlawn Baptist Church, about a thousand years ago. I still vividly remember the day I approached the front of this church and accepted Jesus Christ into my heart as my personal savior. My subsequent baptism also remains a very powerful memory.

Today, however, I remain a "Christian" only in the sense that I share much of his philosophy. One might as accurately describe me as "Hamiltonian." As an historical figure and philosopher Jesus has a lot to tell us--but I do not worship him.

I come to my understanding of the world through several different churches, twenty years of military service, two marriages, and a graduate social science degree. I daresay that few other contributors here will share my perspective. Moreover, I am skeptical about the exercise generally, since debates about the fundamental tenets of Christianity can all too quickly turn into questions of whether "He said it, I believe it, and that settles it" makes more sense than "you can't prove it." But my old friend asked.

So here is my answer: There is no God who is all knowing and all loving and everywhere. Jesus is not God, and was not sent to save mankind from itself. Jesus lived, and may have been crucified, but he did not rise from the dead. The Bible is not the inerrant word of God. And accepting Jesus' sacrifice will not bring eternal salvation, because there is no such thing.

Of course, as always, I could be wrong. Or Jim Norman could be wrong. Without question, one of us is. God either exists or He does not. Whether humans believe it, or can prove it, or just don't care--there either is or is not a God.

I am looking forward to exploring the questions Richard raises, and reading the thoughtful responses of others. Whatever the true state of affairs with regard to the actual existence of a single creator of the universe, the faith human beings have in whatever they find greater than themselves gives meaning to many lives, and certainly influences human existence in ways good and bad. We may not be able to answer the questions--but we should be thinking about them.

Hell or No

Does anyone truly believe in Hell as the place that humans go to burn for eternity for rejecting Christ?

Christianity: True or False?

More than 3/4 of U.S. citizens believe in God and most of those believers are Christian. Far fewer Europeans believe in God. Please post your heart-felt views, no matter what you believe. Let's have an open and fair debate on the major tenets of Christianity:

1. There is a God who is all-knowing, all-loving and everywhere.
2. Jesus is God and was sent to save humankind from itself.
3. Jesus was a true historic figure who was crucified and then rose from the dead.
4. The Bible is the Word of God to us.
5. Humans must accept Jesus' sacrifice to gain eternal salvation.