Excerpt #85 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
Many scholars believe that Jesus never existed.
No first-century writer confirms the Jesus story.
The New Testament story is filled with miracles and other outrageous claims.
The Jesus story, consisting mostly of material borrowed from pagan religions, appears to be cut from the same fabric as all other myths and fables.
The Christian religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any reasonable person without one. – David Hume
Out of all of the sects in the world, we notice an uncanny coincidence: the overwhelming majority just happen to choose the one that their parents belong to. Not the sect that has the best evidence in its favor, the best miracles, the best moral code, the best cathedral, the best stained glass, the best music: when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of heredity. This is an unmistakable fact; nobody could seriously deny it. Yet people with full knowledge of the arbitrary nature of this heredity, somehow manage to go on believing in their religion, often with such fanaticism that they are prepared to murder people who follow a different one. – Richard Dawkins, the first Charles Simonyi professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University
The second coming of Jesus Christ has been predicted many times over the past two millennia.
There is strong evidence that this person never even existed.
When in this Communication and Information Age, it becomes apparent to the masses that the New Testament story is largely a fabrication built upon elements of earlier fictitious stories, there will be an escalating, impassioned, and deserved backlash.
When people discover that they have been taken for a ride—lied to—it’s not going to be pretty.
It is likely that “the greatest story ever told” is, in truth, the greatest story ever sold.