In my travels, I recently came across a website titled "Debunking Christian Arguments," written by a former evangelical, fundamental Christian. Apparently the author was a die-hard, zealous Christian in his childhood years, but after high school, began looking at Christianity closer and it fell apart. He has since developed a very extensive tome of arguments against Christianity.

In the introduction he states that he wishes to prove four assertions, quoted below:

1. The Bible is not infallible and inerrant. It contains huge internal discrepancies and contradictions, scientific and historical errors, unfulfilled and failed prophecies, atrocities by God and his followers too barbaric and monstrous to be of an all-loving all-wise deity, and other errors that make it obviously the creation of fallible imperfect humans. Even if the people in the Bible did encounter God or a divine deity, at best it only represents their interpretation of God.
2. Christianity’s theology, doctrines, and dogmas evolved over time with the people and society who shaped and influenced it. They were not a direct divine revelation from God that has been the same for all time.
3. The teaching that we are all sinners and going to hell unless we believe that Jesus died for us is a technically false teaching contrived by humans, not by God.
4. The Bible is not the ultimate authority on truth that we must all submit to. It is not the sole representative of God’s word, will and message to mankind. It is not the only way to God or to true wholesome spirituality, and neither is Jesus. [Bold added.]

In this brief blog, I'll focus on the first one, since prophecy is a favorite pro-Christian argument of mine to use.

So, in his prophecies section he spends a page on (a) how "we have no basis to assume that all the events described in the Bible ever occured in actual history," and (b) how easy it is to write your own prophecy and write the fulfilment of it.

He then spends more time on (c) how NT writers use OT scriptures out of context to "fulfill prophecy." For example, Matthew 27:35 says "They divided my garments among themselves and cast lots for my clothing." Matthew offered his editorial comments by connecting this event to Psalm 22:18. Here's what the apostate author has to say about this:

However, just one look at Psalm 22:18 by anybody will show that the writer, David, was merely singing a psalm as a plea of help from God for injustices done to him (David) and not predicting what would happen to the future messiah! That’s a huge discrepancy!

Another example: John 19:23,34,37 describes Jesus' hands and feet being pierced, which may Christians (but John explicitly did not) say is prophecized in Psalm 22:16. But again, in context, this is talking about David's persecution. The author quotes Jim Lipid in "The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah":

This is a psalm of David which gives no indication of being prophetic and which describes the speaker being hunted down and killed rather than being crucified.

The apostate author, seemingly convinced that he has presented an air-tight case against "so-called" Biblical prophecies of Jesus' death, he moves on to Jesus' birth. But I'd like to focus on his arguments against these "so-called" prophecies of Jesus' death a little more.

What is immediately apparent to me is that his explanation falls kilometers short of completeness. Read Psalm 22 yourself. I agree that this is a poem written by David about him being persecuted. That happened a lot in his life (read 1 Samuel 23 and onward for a refresher). But agreement stops here. First of all, psalms are generally poetic and alegorical, so comparisons to narrative will always have a lot of leeway, room to slide. Second of all, Psalm 22 is not about David "being hunted down and killed," for there is no analogy to this in David's life unless one applies extreme hyperbole, which may have been the case, and even then, why would David write that his hands and feet were pierced. This is an odd turn of phrase and not at all normal event for one being hunted down by enemies in his day. The best explanation I can come up with is that David was moved by the Spirit of God to write these things prophetically about his future Son-King-Lord, Jesus.

Also, in his article on prophecy, the omission of any mention of Isaiah 53, the greatest prophecy of Jesus' crucifixion, is glaringly noticeable.

So in conclusion, for all of you on MyChurch, I encourage you not to be swayed by the words of the world, for they have not the knowledge of truth. In the author's mind, Christianity is dead and utterly destroyed by his arguments, but even the briefest cursory of second-glances at his arguments reveals them to be riddled with holes. This goes for the (a) and (b) items I didn't even comment on above. For fun and for practice, find the fallacies in them yourself and share with the rest of us!