Why I Am Not a Christian by Richard Carrier
As a fellow freethinker, John Ransom engaged me to write a concise statement of why I am not a Christian. I should summarize my case, he said, simply and clearly so everyone could understand where I was coming from. John was especially frustrated that Christians routinely come up with implausible excuses to defend their faith that they don't really examine—as if defending the faith with any excuse mattered more than having a genuinely good reason to believe in the first place. Discussing our experiences, John and I realized we had both encountered many Christians like this, who color their entire perception of reality with the assumption that they have to be right, and therefore the evidence must somehow fit. So they could make anything up on the spur of the moment and be "sure" it was true.This is the exact opposite of what we do, which is to start with the evidence and then figure out what the best explanation of all of it really is, regardless of where this quest for truth takes us.
John and I also observed that when their dogmatism meets our empiricism, slander is not far behind. I myself have increasingly encountered Christians who accuse me to my face of being a liar, of being wicked, of not wanting to talk to God, of willfully ignoring evidence—because that is the only way they can explain my existence.
I cannot be an honest, well-informed pursuer of the truth who came to a fair and reasonable decision after a thorough examination of the evidence, because no such person can exist in the Christian worldview, who does not come to Christ. Therefore, I must be a wicked liar, I must be so deluded by sin that I am all but clinically insane, an irrational madman suffering some evil psychosis.
There is nothing I can do for such people. Nothing I ever show or say to them will ever convince them otherwise—it can't, because they start with the assumption that their belief in Christ has to be true, therefore right from the start everything I say or do is always going to be a lie or the product of some delusion. They don't need any evidence of this, because to their thinking it must be true. Such people are trapped in their own hall of mirrors, and for them there is no escape. They will never know they are wrong even if they are. No evidence, no logic, no reason will ever get through to them. When we combine this troubling fact with the observation that their religion, like every other, appears tailor-made to justify their own culture-bound desires and personal vanities—as if every God is made in man's image, not the other way around—then we already have grounds for suspicion. The fact that even the Christian idea of God has constantly changed to suit our cultural and historical circumstances, and is often constructed to be impervious to logic or doubt, is reason enough to step back and ask ourselves whether we're on the wrong track with the Christian worldview.
This essay will never convince Christians who have locked themselves inside a box of blind faith. But if there are any other Christians out there who actually have an open mind, and since all seekers or questioners typically already do, a good summary of my reasons for rejecting Christianity will help show at least to them why I am not a deluded liar, but an honest and reasonable man coming to an honest and reasonable decision. What follows is not meant to be a thorough exploration of every nuance and problem, nor an exhaustive account of all the arguments and evidence, but a mere summary of the four most important reasons I am not a Christian. It is the beginning of the story, not the whole of it.
This is what John asked for: a simple but well-written explanation of Why I Am Not a Christian.
rest of the story ...
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