‘The Christian resolve to find the world evil and ugly, has made the world evil and ugly.’ Friedrich Nietzsche
If we take out the dogma of Trinity and Original Sin in Christianity then the three Abrahamic faiths become very similar to each other.
The dogma of Trinity and Original Sin are not only bad religion but also bad history. The word Trinity is not even mentioned in the New Testament. It is stated in 1890 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica, “The Trinitarians and the Unitarians continued to confront each other, the latter at the beginning of the third century still forming the large majority.” In The Encyclopedia Americana we read, “Unitarianism as a theological movement began much earlier in history; indeed it antedated Trinitarianism by many decades. Christianity derived from Judaism and Judaism was strictly Unitarian [believing that God is one person]. The Road which led from Jerusalem to the Council of Nicea was scarcely a straight one. Fourth century Trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God; it was, on the contrary, a deviation from this teaching.”
The Messiah, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Qadiani, the Founder of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community said:
“The examples of human actions and their results are all too pervasive in the laws of nature, but we see no example for the Christian concept of atonement. For example, there is hunger and it is relieved by eating, likewise, there is thirst and it is quenched by drinking water. So, we learn that by eating food or drinking water hunger and thirst are taken care of. But, it does not happen that Thomas is hungry and John eats food and hunger of Thomas is relieved. Were there any such examples in the laws of nature then perhaps we could find an excuse for atonement. So, when there is no metaphor or allegory for atonement in the laws of nature and as humans recognize truth by observing metaphors, we find no reason to believe in the Christian concept of atonement. Likewise, we find no metaphor for this in man made laws. It has never been known that Robert commits murder and Mark is hanged for it. In summary, Christian atonement is a strange principle that does not have any metaphor, whatsoever, to demonstrate its reasonability.”
If there was evidence that Jesus ate food and the disciples were satiated then there would be reason to believe in atonement, in lack of such evidence, it is time to give up this futile idea.
Whereas Pope John Paul II had the wisdom to accept the theory of evolution, the Christians have not had the wisdom and courage to give up the false doctrine of ‘Original Sin;’ that among many other prerequisites also requires human history of less than 6000 years. This article reviews the biological and geological data that has shattered the dogma of Original Sin.
Malcolm Muggeridge once said, “only dead fish swim with the current!” My dear Christian brothers and sisters, time to wake up and show that you are alive and well!
The concept of Original Sin is completely incompatible with the fundamental laws of biology including the principles of gene inheritance and the facts supporting the theory of evolution.
THE “FALL OF MAN” AND ANTHROPOLOGY
By Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918)
The Church has somehow survived the fierce blows from the development of science especially the theory of evolution. The fundamental doctrine of ‘Original Sin’ lost all its philosophical footing with the scientific revolution as evidence piled in the fields of geology, archaeology and biology. The Church, however, has been able to successfully ignore the evidence or push it under the rug and away from the consciousness of the masses. The dogmas of Christianity seem to have survived the blows of Darwinian evolution. But they cannot survive the evolution of printing press into internet and websites, as that allows for the skeletons and demons to revisit centuries later and often!
Here, I reproduce a chapter of a book by Andrew Dickson White detailing the geological and biological evidence against the doctrine of the fall of man or Original Sin. He was the founding President of Cornell University and published his book A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, in 1896:
“The idea of atonement is that something needs to be done in order to deal with sins. A sacrifice has to be made that can compensate for the fact that someone has transgressed the divine law. The sacrifice satisfies the just demands of God, whose law has been broken and who requires a penalty. In Paul’s view, Jesus’ death brought about an atonement: it was a sacrifice made for the sake of others so that they would not have to pay for their sins them¬selves. This atonement purchased a right standing before God.The idea of forgiveness is that someone lets you off the hook for something that you’ve done wrong, without any requirement of payment. If you forgive a debt, it means you don’t make the other person pay. That’s quite different from accepting the payment of your debt from someone else (which would be the basic idea of atonement). In Paul’s own way of looking at salvation, Christ had to be sacrificed to pay the debt of others; in Luke’s way of looking at it, God forgives the debt without requiring a sacrifice.Why then, for Luke, did Jesus have to die, if not as a sacrifice for sins? When you read through the speeches in Acts the answer becomes quite clear. It doesn’t matter whether you look at Paul’s speeches or Peter’s, since, if you’ll recall, all these speeches sound pretty much alike (they were, after all, written by Luke). Jesus was wrongly put to death. This was a gross miscarriage of justice. When people realize what they (or their compatriots) did to Jesus, they are overcome by guilt, which leads them to repent and ask for forgiveness. And God forgives them.Thus Jesus’ death, for Luke, is not an atonement for sins; it is an occasion for repentance. It is the repentance that leads to the forgiveness of sins, and thus a restored relationship with God (see, for example, Peter’s first speech in Acts 2:37-39). This is fundamentally different from a doctrine of atonement such as you find in Paul.”[1]
From the time I was capable of conceiving an idea, and acting upon it by reflection, I either doubted the truth of the Christian system, or thought it to be a strange affair; I scarcely knew which it was: but I well remember, when about seven or eight years of age, hearing a sermon read by a relation of mine, who was a great devotee of the church, upon the subject of what is called Redemption by the death of the Son of God. After the sermon was ended, I went into the garden, and as I was going down the garden steps (for I perfectly recollect the spot) I revolted at the recollection of what I had heard, and thought to myself that it was making God Almighty act like a passionate man, that killed his son, when he could not revenge himself any other way; and as I was sure a man would be hanged that did such a thing, I could not see for what purpose they preached such sermons. This was not one of those kind of thoughts that had anything in it of childish levity; it was to me a serious reflection, arising from the idea I had that God was too good to do such an action, and also too almighty to be under any necessity of doing it. I believe in the same manner to this moment; and I moreover believe, that any system of religion that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child, cannot be a true system. (Thomas Paine)
References
- Bart D. Ehrman. Peter, Paul and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend. Oxford University Press, 2006. Page 143-144.
- http://knol.google.com/k/zia-shah/age-of-reason-by-thomas-paine-in-the/1qhnnhcumbuyp/323#
For Christians, To be Born Again in Islam! 