Atheists: do you believe Christianity can ever be "exposed" scientifically?

Question

and lead to a complete paradigm shift and certainty so that as the world believes the world is round not flat, the earth spins around the sun, microorganisms not evil cause disease, etc--so christianity and other religions shall be like egyptian or incan gods? To an extent, the survivability of world religions is due to the very existence of the civilizations that hold their beliefs. Thus, short of eradicating the population physically...who much confidence do you have in science that is could accomplish this "eradication"? Project time frame?

Answer 1

Christianity has been "exposed scientifically." It is in the hands of academics, archeologists, and historians, etc. and the information is out there for anyone who wants to do research on it. Christianity is a faith, however. Besides philosophical tenets about the nature of God and morality; it believes that its origins in the Bible are historical (rather than legendary), although this has been scientifically disputed. The claim about history creates tension because it then gets into eschatology and apocalysm (ie, the fate of world, the order of the universe, and being in other people's faces about what do to about it)

Christianity--which became standardized in about 300 CE--is probably at least 2000 years old and an early version of Christianity may go back to the first century BCE or even earlier. (That is, the earliest form of Christianity might predate the advent of the biblical Christ).

In the grand scheme of things, if we look at ancient religions, we see that they probably last about 2000 to 3000 years. They also morph over time. Hinduism is perhaps the oldest surviving religion, but it highly diverse and has changed greatly over the centuries.

It is disturbing to people of faith to accept this, but much lore and especially legends within Judaism and Christianity are adaptations of lore, legends, and rites of earlier cultures, and ideological concepts within Judaism and Christianity can be found in early classical philosophies as well as in marginalized philosophies such as gnosticism and hermeticism. This is not unique to Christianity and Judaism. Trace any religious movement or ideology and you will see that it is incorporates elements that have been adapted from competing or earlier religious or ideological movements while also distinguishing themselves from these other movements.

Who can say when it will be "eradicated." People always will cleave to a religious ideal in one form or another and any one who truly studies it will see that a common idea runs throughout it no matter what form it takes. It is part of being human.

Answer 2

I have little expectation that there could be such a great change in humanity in the near future. Religions have morphed and adopted nearly every scientific discovery. The leaders of the worlds major religions have been smart enough to understand that they can not tilt at windmills too enthusiastically without exposing the religion as misguided and backward.

They have managed to stay just ahead of the doubt curve not willing to make a stand for those ideas that were undefendable. They understand their audience and carefully appease them and feed their inability to accept ambiguity.

Successful religions have always understood that humans have an innate disdain for the unanswered question. The funny thing is that the same motivation that drives science also drives religion.

We want an answer. For some it doesn't matter if the answer is supported by fact or is simply the opinion of someone they view as an authority figure.

Many members of the world's major religions will quickly point out the longevity of their religion as evidence or proof of a variety of things including its validity.

However what is truly behind the longevity is...

First is the fact that they do periodically reinvent themselves by folding facts into the mythology. We see that now with christianity embracing ecology. It was not so long ago that christianity rejected the very notion of ecology because the Earth was not important. It was simply a stopover before you went on to your true life. There is even a slowly creeping movement to fold evolution into christianity. How often have you read in this very forum that people believe god created evolution? In time evolution will likely become doctrine

Second the world's major religions are a distillation of what worked. They were far from the first but they drew from many religions that existed before taking only what worked. They are in a sense an evolution of religious belief.

Answer 3

I disagree that "short of eradicating the population" will end the use of Christianity... Are there no Greeks left in the world? No Romans? No Egyptians?

I think that, given time, Christianity shall die a slow death like all major religions have. That may come at the hands of science, or, more likely, shall come at the hands of some other form of religion that replaces Christianity, as Christianity replaced other forms of worship. I dont think religion will ever be eradicated from earth, because there will always be questions that we do not yet have the answsers to, and that answer will always be "GOD" until that gap can get filled.

Answer 4

Christianity has been exposed by science as a ridiculous fraud many times in many different ways. Problem there's no amount of scientific evidence that's ever going to sway people who are determined to deny reality and embrace myth. The one thing science can't do that religion can do is provide comfort, companionship and a sense of belonging. And some people are always going to value the satisfaction of emotional needs (even if by empty promises and false claims) over cold, stark reality.

Answer 5

It has been.

Christianity makes many claims that have been exposed scientifically as we learn more about our world and our history. Unfortunately, Christianity isn't so easy to pin down because it is not rationally based. It is emotionally based.

In order to cause a paradigm shift, we have to sever the emotional hooks that Christianity and other religions have in people. This is a daunting task because humans have been emotional animals for far longer than rational ones.

One way of severing the emotional crutch is through science. Once people are more knowledgeable about the real world, imaginary ones aren't as appealing. That's why most scientists are atheists. The god fantasy just doesn't fit in with experience.

Answer 6

It is highly doubtful that religion of any kind will be "eradicated". For some reason magical thinking is easier than critical thinking, and superstition spreads faster than fact.

One of the biggest escape hatches that theists have is that their god/gods is "all-powerful". It can do anything it wants with the universe including violate its own rules whenever it suits its fancy. When asked why their god does something one way and not in a possibly more reasonable or efficient way, the convenient (and hollow) reply is "mysterious ways" and how one cannot know "the mind of god".

There are plenty of others, but that's one of the most common. People will continue to believe in "miracles" even if we were able to go back in time to the supposed "miracle" to witness its non-happening firsthand.

Answer 7

It is not the business of science to "eradicate" religion. The purpose of science is to discover the truth about how objective physical reality operates. The purpose of religion is to perpetuate ancient superstitions which were once considered truth, but which have been discredited by the discovery that human perception is not the basis of reality.

All of the ancients and most modern religionists imagine that their own mental experiences are real. (See: Aristotle's Solipsism and Plato's Idealism) This profound philosophical error caused all of Western Civilization, including Christianity and Islam, to get off to a false start. It is easy to erroneously assume that one's own perceptual experiences are real, because they certainly appear to be authentic. The truth was discovered by Galileo and confirmed by Newton -- it is the physical realm which is the actual basis of objective reality. Humanity is currently in the process of undergoing a "complete paradigm shift," which began in 1590, when Galileo discovered simple physical experiments completely disproved Aristotle's unsubstantiated opinions. The "paradigm shift," or scientific revolution, has been slowly gaining momentum for centuries, as truth inevitably triumphs over superstition. Since Maxwell's equations were published in 1865, the changes within human civilization have been truly profound. We now possess technologies that were undreamed of by our recent ancestors. All of it is directly attributable to humanity's realization that the physical realm, and not subjective perception, is actually real.

Each human is a natural born solipsist. Because of the way our minds work, the naive approach of ignorant solipsism seems obviously correct. Unfortunately, to understand how reality actually operates, one must first learn that our minds and everything perceived within them are the mental creations of our own living brains. What we see is really only what we think we see. What we hear is only what we think we hear. Nothing in our mind's eye is ever real. Thanks to the work of early scientists, we now know with mathematical certainty that objective reality simply contains all of the matter and energy in the universe. Our extremely limited five senses allow us to perceive a tiny part of physical reality, which our brains use to create a mental model of what our mind imagines is out there. This is the paradigm shift which is responsible for science having been so profoundly successful at discovering physical truths and using them to meet humanity's needs.

When will human civilization finally be completely revolutionized? ...probably never. Solipsism seems intuitively obvious to the scientifically ignorant and there is a continuing supply of ignorant young people who will happily accept what any charalatan tells them, as long as it's easy to understand. I doubt humanity will ever be able to completely free itself of ignorance and superstition.

Answer 8

I believe that Christianity has already been "exposed" scientifically, but people just don't want to hear it. They will continue their feel-good cult as long as they can possibly ignore evidence about the workings of our world that suggest their beliefs are mere superstition.

God will become the ultimate scientist, I think, and Christianity will be a religion of science eventually.

Answer 9

I don't think that is will. As an example there appears to be a movement to accept the Bible and probably other holy books as metaphorical as opposed to literal. The result is less "stuff" has to have hard evidence, therefore more completely belief based.

It is likely given this that believers will go solely or completely on faith or that they will treat their holy book as a completely spiritual document.

Answer 10

The ekpyrotic scenario in cosmology might point to a universe infinite in duration.

That wouldn't leave much wiggle room for their creator pixie.

The problem is that logically you can't really DISprove things - for example, the lack of any historical records about Jesus make it unlikely that he existed at all, yet nobody is naive enough to think that would make an impact to any christian. They are content with their circular arguments. The bible must be true because it says it is.