The silver bullet that defeats Christianity.
I made a similar post several years ago, but this will expand on that and flesh out some details. This is the single greatest flaw of MOST religions today, basically any of them which have an alleged holy book.
A truly wise and powerful deity that can see every human on the planet, and actually wants to communicate with all of them, for whatever purpose, would NEVER utilize the process of divine inspiration to write a book, which would then become the vehicle for spreading the message.
Here's why: When most of the various "holy" texts were first written, humans had many perhaps hundreds of thousands of languages. Over the centuries, languages have died out, and today we only have a little over 7,000 still in use.
So, even today with all the rapid exchange of information and ease of communicating across vast distances, language barriers exist. It can be challenging to communicate effectively with someone even with a live video feed and AI assisted translation.
Imagine how unfathomably difficult it would be to take a book written in Hebrew, or Greek, and travelling the globe, trying to translate and explain the writings into many thousands of languages and across cultural barriers, back in the age of sailing ships, horses and carts, when nobody even knew how many civilizations existed in total.
That would be enough. But there's ANOTHER layer to this problem. You see, all of this requires individuals of extraordinary intellect and ethics. Rigorous work to translate the texts accurately while avoiding any shortcuts. However, that's only half of the problem. The other is the intellect and ethics of the individuals that receive the book and decide to pass it on.
Such a mission, to spread a holy text across the globe, only works IF others are converted and continue the process of converting others and copying the text, etc. Even if the success rate is 100%, the process is simply too slow to reach everyone. But what reason would people have to accept this new holy text in the first place?
So, there are multiple levels where this whole concept collapses. And we have seen the results across the centuries of history as people either did not receive the text until LONG after it began to be dispersed, or they failed to understand it, or multiple versions of the text began to circulate, or translation errors happened, etc.
A deity with great wisdom and knowledge beyond that of humans would instantly recognize these problems and find a better method to share some great truth with an entire globe of humans.
A truly wise and powerful deity that can see every human on the planet, and actually wants to communicate with all of them, for whatever purpose, would NEVER utilize the process of divine inspiration to write a book, which would then become the vehicle for spreading the message.
Here's why: When most of the various "holy" texts were first written, humans had many perhaps hundreds of thousands of languages. Over the centuries, languages have died out, and today we only have a little over 7,000 still in use.
So, even today with all the rapid exchange of information and ease of communicating across vast distances, language barriers exist. It can be challenging to communicate effectively with someone even with a live video feed and AI assisted translation.
Imagine how unfathomably difficult it would be to take a book written in Hebrew, or Greek, and travelling the globe, trying to translate and explain the writings into many thousands of languages and across cultural barriers, back in the age of sailing ships, horses and carts, when nobody even knew how many civilizations existed in total.
That would be enough. But there's ANOTHER layer to this problem. You see, all of this requires individuals of extraordinary intellect and ethics. Rigorous work to translate the texts accurately while avoiding any shortcuts. However, that's only half of the problem. The other is the intellect and ethics of the individuals that receive the book and decide to pass it on.
Such a mission, to spread a holy text across the globe, only works IF others are converted and continue the process of converting others and copying the text, etc. Even if the success rate is 100%, the process is simply too slow to reach everyone. But what reason would people have to accept this new holy text in the first place?
So, there are multiple levels where this whole concept collapses. And we have seen the results across the centuries of history as people either did not receive the text until LONG after it began to be dispersed, or they failed to understand it, or multiple versions of the text began to circulate, or translation errors happened, etc.
A deity with great wisdom and knowledge beyond that of humans would instantly recognize these problems and find a better method to share some great truth with an entire globe of humans.
To completely dismantle this argument, we can break it down into formal syllogisms to expose its structural flaws, logical fallacies, and false premises.
ReplyDeleteHere is exactly where the argument collapses logically:
1. The Fallacy of Inadequate Transmission (The "Router Error")
The argument assumes that a slow or human-dependent transmission system cannot successfully preserve a divine message.
• Premise 1: If a communication method relies on human translation, physical travel, and historical copying over centuries, it is too slow and prone to error to reach everyone accurately.
• Premise 2: God chose a communication method (written scripture) that relies on human translation, physical travel, and historical copying over centuries.
• Conclusion: Therefore, God’s chosen communication method is inadequate and could not have been designed by an all-wise deity.
Where it falls: Premise 1 is false. It commits the Telephone Game Fallacy. Textual criticism demonstrates that the New Testament was preserved via "textual radiation" (thousands of copies sent in all directions simultaneously), creating a self-correcting grid. Today, scholars can reconstruct the original text with over 99% accuracy, proving the transmission method was highly adequate despite being ancient.
2. The Tech-Skepticism Double Standard
The argument implies that a wise God would use a direct, universal, or instantaneous communication method instead of an ancient book.
• Premise 1: A truly wise deity would choose a modern, instantaneous, or undeniable global broadcast method to communicate with everyone at once.
• Premise 2: Instantaneous global broadcast methods (like digital video or mass signs) remove historical delays and language barriers.
• Conclusion: Therefore, a wise deity would choose modern global broadcasting over ancient text.
Where it falls: Premise 1 is false because it ignores human psychology. If God dropped a universal digital broadcast today, modern humans would instantly dismiss it as a CGI hoax, deepfake, AI simulation, or psychological warfare. High-tech delivery does not solve skepticism; it just shifts the skepticism onto technology. An ancient, historically anchored text that survives centuries of rigorous scrutiny actually provides a far more unalterable foundation.
3. The Deistic / Mechanical Misunderstanding
The argument treats the Bible as a standalone "router" or data packet dropped from the sky that has to do 100% of the work on its own.
• Premise 1: If God uses a book to communicate, then the book must be able to convert and teach people entirely on its own merit through mechanical reading.
• Premise 2: A translated book traveling by ship and horse cart cannot convert everyone or resolve all language barriers on its own merit.
• Conclusion: Therefore, the system fails and collapses.
Where it falls: Premise 1 is false. It completely ignores the Historical-Grammatical and theological reality of Christian transmission. God did not just leave behind a data packet; Christ is continually working in people. The transmission was designed to be incarnational and relational, driven by a living Church and the Holy Spirit working through human messengers. The book was never meant to do the work in isolation from the Divine presence.
1. The Fallacy of Inadequate Transmission (The "Router Error")
DeleteYour rebuttal fails on one simple point. We do not have access to the "original texts", and thus cannot compare extant copies to their origination point. Thanks for trying.
2. The Tech-Skepticism Double Standard
Your rebuttal fails because it assumes that people would reject such a universal message. We have no good reason to jump to that assumption. There is no debate that the method would spread the message much more effectively, especially when we can see how ineffective the existing systems are.
3. The Deistic / Mechanical Misunderstanding
Your rebuttal fails based on one simple point: the so-called "living church" has constantly changed and divided into warring sects across history. There is no cohesion within Xianity whatsoever. And you still fail to answer the issue about the speed of travel and difficulty of converting across languages.
Better luck next time.