Major Representatives of the Three Models
FIRST MODEL
Materialism
MATERIALISM/SCIENTISM/ATHEISM
The first ontological system we will view will be materialism
(others may call this system scientism or even atheism). With
each system we will first state the claim the system makes, next
give the arguments in support of the claim, and last present
some challenges to the claim.
Some people unfortunately get upset whenever their beliefs are
challenged. Well, every system faces challenges...EVERY
system. The question each person has to decide is whether or
not the challenges actually defeat the claims. If the challengers
are defeaters (something only YOU can determine), then you
need to abandon that system and find one whose challengers are
not defeaters.
THE MAJOR CLAIM OF MATERIALISM
The Claim
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, materialists/atheists
make up between 2.4-3.8% of the world's population. According
to materialists, matter and its component parts are all that
essentially exist. This does not claim that matter exists (even
the third model asserts that); rather it claims that matter
including its component parts is the only thing which exists.
Characteristics of MaterialismEthical Systems Produced by
MaterialismAccording to Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre,
the famous French existentialists of the mid 20th century, there
is no absolute standard of right and wrong, therefore, a person
cannot speak of right in any true sense of the word. See also
Richard Rorty (Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) who
claims that right and wrong don’t exist because our brain is only

purely chemical, with the synapses firing off electrical
impulses, thereby providing no real basis for absolute morality.
Survival of the fittest: the strong wins, that is, the development
of the Uebermensch, that is, Superman (Nietzsche). If you take
people out of the equation, you will see that this dominates the
rest of the universe (this will be one of Nietzsche’s arguments
in Beyond Good and Evil). The fittest may be the fittest
intellectually or physically or emotionally/psychologically. But
the fittest or the strongest is going to win and should win.
Modern Versions: Although materialists (secular humanists)
reject the belief that God exists, many materialists today claim
that man is valuable and possesses certain rights, such as right
to health, a decent standard of living, and education. As a
result, ethics should be based upon what is best for society as a
whole. Altruism: showing a disinterested and selfless concern
for the well-being of others; unselfishness.
Epistemological Claim by Some Materialists
Some materialists, especially Richard Dawkins, Christopher
Hitchens, and Bertrand Russell, assert the supremacy of reason
in dealing with knowledge. Coupling reason with an absolute
certain belief in the existence of matter, these have claimed that
God does not exist. They are following in the train of Bertrand
Russell, a prominent British materialist of the 20th century.
More recently, though, materialist philosophers have processed
the epistemological element in materialism more thoroughly. If
all is matter, then there are really no grounds for having
confidence in what you think you know. Your brain is simply a
mass of electrons firing (see Richard Rorty, Philosophy and the
Mirror of Nature). As Stephen Hawking asserts, knowledge is
purely a matter of perspective.The Cry for Freedom
Starting with Friedrich Nietzsche and followed by the great
French existentialists Sartre and Camus, the materialists have
rejected God because of the negative impact of belief in God on
personal freedom. In his debate with William Demski,
Christopher Hitchens likens God to an overbearing father. He
simply asks who would really want such a person in their life

24/7. He makes the plea: "Don't you want to be free?"
According to Hitchens and Sartre, personal freedom can exist
only if God is dead.
ARGUMENT IN SUPPORT OF MATERIALISM
Positive Evidence for Materialism
Notice that here we are presenting the evidence FOR and
challenges TO materialism. Many materialists try to prove their
system by undermining theism, that is, belief in God. The only
problem is that you cannot prove a negative. Materialism like
every other system needs to present positive evidence to support
its claim and defend itself against challenges to its claim. That
is the only fair approach to all the systems.
Materialists claim that for the most part materialism has been
able to explain most of reality. Science has indeed explained
for us much of the universe and its operations. Because of
brilliant scientists like Copernicus and Galileo, we know that
the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa. We
understand the functions of the earth’s core which produces an
electromagnetic field around the earth to protect it from solar
rays. Medical science has so elevated people’s health in the
world. Agricultural science has enabled us to feed 7 billion
people in the world. These are astounding accomplishments
produced by science.
Moreover, science has been able to debunk many of the
religious myths in the past. No longer do we believe that
thunder comes from Thor wielding his hammer or that lightning
comes from Zeus hurling his lightning bolts. Not all diseases
are caused by demons. Polio which was such a devastating
child killer has practically been eradicated by modern science.
Materialists admit that there are some things out in the universe
which they have not been able to explain, for example, the
origin of the universe. Stephen Hawking posits that God is not
necessary to answer these questions. He actually promotes the
Multiverse Theory, that is, that there are multiple universes and
that our universe emerged from one of those universes. The

occurrence of the Big Bang is a one-time, non-duplicable event
in which universes came from absolutely nothing. Materialists
claim that given enough time, one day they will be able to
explain and account for everything from a materialistic
viewpoint.
CHALLENGES TO MATERIALISM
The challenges to materialism include
The Reality Challenge
It is interesting that most of these philosophers did not live
consistently with what they claimed to be true. In other words,
their views about materialism were not REALISTIC. For
example, materialism fails to take into account many aspects of
life, especially cause and effect, the reality that people can
conceive of God, the feeling within us that we SHOULD do the
right thing, and the presence of design in nature. G.K.
Chesterton put it this way: when you remove the mystery of
God from life, everything becomes mysterious; when the
mystery of God is injected into life, everything becomes
understandable.
Richard Rorty, when faced with the categories of ethics,
aesthetics, and transcendentalism, replied that he didn’t resolve
these issues; he rather "dissolved" them, that is, he just simply
acts as if they don’t exist. We would call this cognitive
dissonance. Whereas Rorty is to be commended for thinking
consistently, the question remains whether or not a person can
live consistently with that mindset.
If God does NOT exist, then what is your basis for claiming that
man is valuable and that he has certain rights? If man gives
value and man gives rights, then man can take them both away.
Again, we are forced back to the ethic of survival of the fittest:
“Because I am stronger than you, I can determine your value
and your rights. Once somebody else gets stronger, s/he can
make that determination. This seems to be a very precarious
way to determine value and rights.

Moreover, many today claim that ethics should be based upon
what is best for society. But who is going to determine that?
The majority? If we always went along with the majority, then
we would still have segregation in the South. The smartest? Few
are as smart as C.S. Lewis and William Buckley; yet both were
devout Christians, believers in God. (In fact, the noted atheist
Ayn Rand once complained to William Buckley: "You are much
too intelligent to believe in Gott." Her statement affirmed the
fact that one can be smart and yet still believe in the existence
of God. The strongest..
The Epistemological Challenge
First of all, materialism like transcendence and pantheism is
based on faith. When there is no evidence that nothing can
create universes, then faith is definitely a component of
materialism.
Probably even a greater challenge materialists must respond to
concerns epistemology, the basis and confidence in knowledge.
If materialists are right, then matter is all that exists. The issue
then is if matter is all that exists, then why did matter come up
with such ideas as right and wrong, God, transcendence? If
matter came up with these false ideas and beliefs, then how can
you trust that matter is right when it claims that only matter
exists? Matter has created at the minimum a dubious
environment for knowledge, if not downright hostile one. Either
we live in an congenial environment for knowledge in which we
can trust knowledge, or else we live in one that is hostile
towards knowledge.
Moreover, if matter is all that exists and if matter is not rational
(for example, does anybody believe that a rock thinks
rationally?), then our reason comes out of non-rationality (C.S.
Lewis: Miracles, A Preliminary Study). Can we be confident in
our reason if that is the case? As Chesterton wrote: "Reason is
itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our
thoughts have any relation to reality at all." (Orthodoxy).

The Three Major Challenges from Chesterton
If God does not exist, where does the universe come from?
Although Hawking has no evidence for this, he claims that it
probably comes from another universe (the Multiverse Theory).
Hawking may be right, but he is basing his claim purely upon
faith, making him guilty of the very charge he uses to attack
believers in God.
If God does not exist, where does life come from? This is
especially troublesome since life comes from DNA and a
mechanism which can read DNA. Statistically, it is virtually
impossible that a purely materialistic system could produce one
of these, much less both of these. This is the argument posited
by Sir Antony Flew in 2004. (See also Darwin’s Doubt and the
issue of the Cambian explosion.)
If God does not exist, why man? From all appearances, man is
unique. There are many common features between man and
animals; however, there are some radical distinctions. It is not
that man doesn't paint better than animals; he actually paints to
create beauty. It is not that man talks about animals better than
the animals do; he actually talks about animals and his
relationship to them, whereas animals do not. There is such a
huge qualitative difference between man and the rest of the
animal world that it is mind-boggling.
The Freedom Challenge
Finally regarding freedom, the concept which seems to be the
driving force for materialists. First, regarding sexual freedom,
an element very much at play in our materialists' ethics. Maybe
a case can be made for complete sexual freedom. However,
there may be another way of looking at sex. Suppose it is this
wonderful, precious gift that is meant to be shared only with
that one special person and which is to be presented initially on
that one special night. Engaging in sex before marriage and with
multiple partners may be like a young person who is given an
expensive set of clothes. He takes those clothes and wears them

to sporting events, to play intramural sports with his friends,
eats in them at some pig-out parties. They get worn out and are
no longer special. One day, though, he wants to make an
impression on a young lady. His problem is that the special set
of clothes he had are no longer that special and no longer that
impressive. He has lost a golden opportunity to do something
special for the young lady who is now the great love of his life.
Regarding wanting an overbearing father in one's life: who
could disagree? However, suppose God is not an overbearing
Father but one who loves His family, wants only the best for
them, who is interested in guiding them in a real life, a life of
adventure (not the life many times portrayed in some churches
but a life that has meaning and is adventurous. Dads can be like
that. In fact, some children view their dads as their best friend,
and they can’t get enough of him. If God is like that and not
the kind Hitchens presents, then who wouldn't want Him in their
lives 24/7?
Finally, there is something to be said for the existentialist's
view of freedom: the freedom to do anything one wants without
any restrictions, without anybody telling you what to do, even
the person who wrote the manual on the best way to keep your
car operational. On the other hand, there is something to be said
for another kind of freedom: the kind which comes from
"obeying" the car manual. Those who don't obey the car manual
will still be free but will also be stuck in Corsicana, walking in
order to get from one place to another, whereas the person who
"obeyed" the car manual will have the freedom to drive in his
car around the country and enjoy the wide open road. Which
freedom do you prefer? Maybe the right and wrong which come
from the existence of God are like the owner's manual; they
help us keep running and keep running smoothly so that we can
truly enjoy the open road of life. In other words, there is more
than one way to look at freedom. (P.S. We criticize religion for
being so restrictive; however, note that there was only ONE
command in the Garden of Eden and that there are only TEN
Commandments. Christianity has only one law: love. On the

other hand, one human law, the Affordable Care Act alone,
passed in 2010 contained 2,000 pages of rules and regulations.)
EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS FOR MATERIALISM
Because materialism cannot prove that matter accounts for all of
reality, its knowledge base is going to be intuition. The
materialist is going to have to intuit that matter is all that
exists. This does not mean that the materialist is wrong; it just
means that intuition plays a more determinative role for him
than he initially claimed.
If you are going to write a 6-page paper supporting Materialism,
you need to use the information below and especially respond to
the challenges listed below. Your paper can contain more
evidence, but it must at least include the material below.
SYSTEM
Materialism
CORE CLAIM
ONLY Matter Exists
EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT CLAIM
The reality of matter; the fact that so much in life has been
explained on the basis of materialism; the negative arguments
against the existence of God
CHALLENGES TO THE CLAIMSIt dismisses so many
categories in life: ethics and confidence in knowledgeThe
epistemological challenge: non-reason is the basis for reason
AND matter then is the source of ideas about God (therefore,
can you trust knowledge from matter) Does materialism
adequately account for the universe, for life, and for humanity?
The freedom challenge.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL/KNOWLEDGE BASIS FOR THE
CLAIMS
Intuition/faith

FOUR CLASSICAL ARGUMENTS
FOR EXISTENCE OF GOD
Ontological Argument (Formulated by Anselm, 1033-1109,
Archbishop of Canterbury, England)
First, If you can have the concept that God exists, then He must
exist; otherwise, you are thinking greater than reality. In that
case, you have undermined rationality; you would then no
longer be able to be confident in what you are actually thinking.
If God doesn't exist, then we have thought greater than reality.
But can we think greater than reality? Probably one of the best
examples of our inability to think greater than reality comes
from the book/movie Contact which is based upon the writing of
Carl Sagan, one of the premier atheists of the 20th century. In
the book/movie, he has Ellie meet up with an alien. When she
does, he looks just like her dad (the aliens had downloaded her
memory so that they could present themselves to her in such a
way that she felt comfortable). This part of the movie was such
a letdown. When asked what an actual alien woudl look like,
Sagan responded: "A squid." Even this great genius could not
get beyond the bounds of reality.
Invariably, whenever this topic arises, some will point to the
unicorn as proof that we can think greater than reality? But have
we thought greater than reality when we speak of the unicorn?
What is a unicorn? A horse with a horn on its head. Well, horses
exist, and so do horns. All we have done is take one part of
reality and mixed it with another part of reality. It is like a bowl
of alphabet soup. If you align the letters up one way, they spell
one word; if you align them another way, you have another
word. All you’ve done is to stir up the letters; you have NOT,
though, gone outside the bowl. That is what happens when we
“create” unicorns, etc. We’ve still not gone outside the “bowl,”
outside the box.
Others, though, will object that there is a difference between
unicorns and concepts such as God. We can trust the part of the

brain that deals with our senses but not the part of the brain that
deals with concepts. Well, the problem here is that the brain
that deals with senses is the same brain that deals with
concepts. If you undermine it in the area of concepts, you’ve
simply undermined it. Period. Now maybe you just simply can’t
trust the brain. Since we do, then I think it is safe to trust it
when it speaks to us about the concept of God.
There is another way to look at this. It is interesting to note that
everybody has a concept of God. Even the materialists/atheists
have a concept of God. When they claim "No God," they are
negating an actual concept, not a word, but a concept. Where
does such a concept come from? If matter is all that exists, then
it came from matter. If it came from matter but God does not
exist, then matter has undermined itself as a trustworthy source
of knowledge.
Second, life teaches you to think in terms of gradation: worse,
worse, bad, neutral, good better, best, perfect. In fact, logically
you won’t have good, better, best, etc. without the existence of
a perfect standard. For example, if you were to tell me that this
“_________” was an inch, but I said, “No! This
‘_________________________’ is an inch.” Well, who would
be right, or who would be CLOSER to being right? We can
argue all day long until finally someone produces a ruler. The
perfect ruler is the one which will determine which was the
BETTER inch and which was the WORSE inch. Without the
perfect standard (ruler), such talk is meaningless. Yet life
forces this kind of talk upon us. Now when you come to the area
of perfection, you have entered into the arena of God.
Cosmological Argument (Thomas Aquinas, 1225–1274,
Dominican scholar/Aristotle, 4th-century BC Greek
philosopher)
This argument is based upon the concept of cause and effect.
Cause and effect works the following way. You are here (the
effect) because your mom and dad came together in a romantic

way (the cause). Your mom and dad are here (effect) because
their parents came together in a romantic way (cause). Their
parents (your grandparents) are here (effect) because their
parents came together in a romantic way (cause). And so on and
so on and so on until finally you come to the First Cause, the
Cause that started it all. This First Cause is “God.”
God then is the First Cause of All Things.
It is interesting that this is called the COSMOlogical argument
because it appears that this is just the way the cosmos
(universe) operates. Stephen Hawking (an avowed atheist) has
to explain the origin of the universe, especially in light of his
belief in the Big Bang Theory. For Hawking the Big Bang
occurred 13.4 billion years ago. Well, when did the substance
come from which was the source of the Big Bang? Hawking’s
answer is that it either came from another universe, the
multiverse theory or just materialized out of nothing (see The
Grand Design). There is zero evidence that this multiverse
system exists, at least if you accept Hawking’s view of ultimate
reality. This is pure faith on his part; the same applies to
everything materializing out of nothing. The belief that God
created the universe has as much right to this discussion as
Hawking’s mutiverse theory; both are based on the
cosmological argument and both to some extent are based on
faith.
Recently, scientists have hailed the discovery of the Higgs
Boson particle, "the God particle," which explains how mass
can be created. Again, the question emerges, "Where does the
Higgs Boson particle come from? It just moves the question
back one step further, but the question remains the same.
Teleological Argument (William Paley, 1743 – 1805, English
Philosopher)
Argument based on design and beauty in the universe. William
Paley stated that if you came upon a watch in a field, you would
rightly conclude that there existed a watchmaker who designed
and made the watch. Watches don’t just appear. There is always

a watchmaker for every watch. In the same way the fact that we
see design and beauty in the universe leads us to believe that a
Grand Designer designed the universe.
It is interesting that one of the leading atheists of the 20th
century, Antony Flew, now believes that God exists. (Flew was
one of C.S. Lewis’ major opponents in the Socratic Debates at
Oxford University.) His reason is similar to that of the
theological argument. He claimed that the existence of the DNA
molecule has convinced him of God’s existence. The reason is
that the DNA molecule, which is basic for life, is too complex
for a godless evolution to produce it. Its irreducible complexity
argues that an unseen hand outside the natural process had to
interfere with the process to create the DNA molecule. [It may
be no coincidence at all that Christopher Hitchens has to admit
in his debate with William Demski that the leading geneticist in
the world happens to believe in the existence of God (in fact, he
is a Christian). There may be a link between his being the
expert in genetics and his belief in the existence of God.]
Just how complex is the DNA molecule, the starting point of
life? I was told that if you took the DNA from a person's body,
it would stretch all the way from the earth to the moon. When I
researched this, I discovered that all the DNA in your body
would actually stretch all the way from the earth to the moon
and back to the earth again FOUR THOUSAND TIMES and to
and from the sun 4 times! That is the starting point of life for
people. That is how complex life is. According to Flew, this
poses serious challenges for those who promote a strictly
materialistic view of the universe.
A godless evolution doesn't seem to be able to account for the
complexity of the universe. In fact, it seems to contradict the
nature of the universe. The Second Law of Thermodynamics
claims that everything moves to entropy, that is, it is in the
process of breaking down, cooling down. One day the sun will
run out of energy; the whole universe will become cold rocks
floating around in space--unless something radically outside the
system changes it.

Moreover, look at the way life actually works. Things don't
seem to progress; rather, they appear to regress unless a higher
hand reaches down to lift us up. Take the dog, "man's best
friend," as an example. Left to his own devices, is a dog man's
best friend? No. He is a scavenger, a plague in the ancient
world because they would rove around in packs and attack the
vulnerable. It takes someone higher to reach down and civilize
or domesticate the dog.
"But we are progressing!" Really? Maybe in technology, but not
anywhere else. We marvel at the benefits gained from nuclear
technology. 75% of France's energy comes from nuclear power
plants. That is wonderful! But place this nuclear technology in
the hands of Ahmadinejad and you have nuclear global
extinction. Scary.
"But we are so much smarter than they were 2000 years ago?"
Really? Alfred North Whitehead claimed that in Western
Philosophy there is Plato...everything else is a footnote.
Have we progressed morally beyond the teachings of Christ to
love one another, to love one's neighbor as oneself?
Have you ever tried to take an 8th grade English exam from the
1800's? You will fail it.
Look at your English language. It is being slowly corrupted.
Many "educated" people go around saying, "Please give the gift
to Nancy and I," thinking saying "I" instead of "me" makes
them sound so sophisticated, whereas saying "I" instead of "me"
makes them sound uneducated.
Compare modern English with Shakespearean English. English
of the 1500's was so much more precise than it is today. It is
constantly being watered down.
Compare modern English with Greek of the 1st century. No
comparison. Modern English is being seriously dumbed down;
Greek is highly tuned, precise, reflective of a very cultured
people.
People will claim, though: "Man started out so simple. He has
truly progressed. Just look at the prehistoric man. He was
ignorant, made grunting sounds, welded a club, and beat women

on the head." Let's look at prehistoric man:
How do we know all those things we claim about prehistoric
man being ignorant? The reason we know so little about
prehistoric man is that he was PREHISTORIC (thank you for
this insight, Chesterton).
Apparently, the guy was brilliant. He did invent the wheel and
harness the power of fire.
Whatever else was true about prehistoric man is that he was an
artist. The latest finding of cave dwellings from 40000 years
ago (Spanish cave of Cueva de las Monedas) again point to man
as from the very beginning being an artist, someone who
thought in terms of beauty, design...transcendence. He had to
start from scratch, but with his brilliant man, he not only
survived, he also launched us into the path of discovery and
invention.
The difference between man and the ape, even between
PREHISTORIC man and the ape is not that the man paints
better than the ape but that the man paints and the ape does not.
There is such a qualitative distinction between man iand the ape
n the realm of thought that to label him strictly as animal is
preposterous.
We speak about the naïveté of the ancients and yet they
produced the pyramids five thousand years ago. They
transported the huge stones of Stonehenge across miles and
placed them in a position to monitor exactly the winter solstice.
And then there is Babylon. We think we are so brilliant, but we
are building upon the findings of all those who have gone
before us. We are right now perfecting what has been given to
us. Whoever discovered the wheel, now that man was a genius.
Moral Argument (Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804, German
Philosopher)
There exists within each of us the compulsion to do the good. In
order for this compulsion to be logical, we must then be able to
be good. The only problem is that none of us ever attain the
level of goodness we feel we should attain. The reason we don’t

reach that level is that we run out of time. Therefore, in order
for this compulsion to be logical, we need more time. The result
is that each of us then must be immortal; immortality gives us
time to become perfect. God is necessary for immortality to
exist. Therefore, God must exist.
St. Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin claim that there is actually
a faculty God has placed within each and everyone of us so that
we can recognize Him. Alvin Plantinga calls it the A/C Model
(Aquinas/Calvin) or the sensus divinitatus. It explains the
reason that there is an almost universal concept of God within
the human race. Moreover, people having this faculty would
explain the reason people automatically claim that in an out-of-
the-blue experience they have met God. This is first-level
knowledge, as opposed to second-tier/level knowledge produced
by reason.
WEAKNESS AND STRENGTHS OF THE ARGUMENTS
Weakness: They Are Not Conclusive
The fact is that these do not prove 100% that God exists. For
example, David Hume challenges the claim of cause and effect.
Simply because every effect we experience has had a cause does
not, according to Hume, mean that EVERYTHING in the future
will have a cause.
StrengthsSee Peter Kreeft’s introduction to Summa of the
Summa in which he lists numerous other arguments/evidences
for the existence of God.The Classical Arguments Take
Seriously Different Areas in Life
Although the arguments are not conclusive, they nevertheless do
try to take seriously different categories in life which confront
us daily. Can we really live apart from the idea of good, better,
best, morality, design, and cause and effect? If not, then what
accounts for their existence? Either the universe has lied to us,
or else they truly exist. Richard Rorty and David Hume attempt

to dissolve these categories; however, if attempts at dissolving
them fail, then they may actually point us to a Being outside
this world. C.S. Lewis claimed that him Christianity was the
truth because it shed light upon the rest of reality. Ultimate
Reality should meet that criterion. The Arguments Are Based
Upon Reason
It is interesting that many who reject the Classical Arguments
for God’s Existence fail to mention that they are highly logical
and reasonable in their defense. If reason is as important as
many claim it to be, you would think that they would take these
arguments more seriously.
A word of caution. If you maintain that God must be 100%
provable in order for us to believe He exists, then you need to
apply that same standard to any other system. You will discover
that NO system can meet that standard. According to Kurt
Gobel, every system (even the scientific explanation of all
reality) starts out in faith. The question is which theory best
explains all of reality, not just part of it, but all of reality.
(BTW, Kurt Godel was such a brilliant logician that Albert
Einstein would wait until Godel finished lecturing at Princeton
so that he could walk home with him.) The question is not
which explanation is 100% proveable--that does not exist.
Rather, the question is which of the systems has the more
compelling arguments in its favor. Faith will be required
whichever system you adhere to.
Challenges to The Claim that God Exists
Materialists commonly approach a defense of materialism in a
negative way: instead of trying to show that mere matter
explains all of life, they attempt to prove that God does not
exist. If God does not exist, but matter does, then, according to
their stance, materialism is the explanation for ultimate reality.
Two contemporary works which espouse materialism are
Stephen Hawking’s The Grand Design and Christopher
Hitchens’ god is not Great. The arguments for this view will

come primarily from these 2 contemporary works. Also
reference will be made to Bertrand Russell’s arguments found in
Why I Am Not a Christian.The existence of evil in the world
argues against the existence of God. When C.S. Lewis was an
atheist, he claimed that a good, all-powerful, loving God could
not exist in light of the fact that there is so much evil and
suffering in the world. According to this line of reasoning,
either God is not love or God is not powerful, or even better, He
does not exist.
Hitchens in particular rails against not only evil in the world
but also against the evil which religionists have committed in
the name of their religion. In god is not Great, Hitchens points
to the 6 B’s to prove his point: Belfast, Beirut, Belgrade,
Bombay, Bethlehem and Baghdad. All these once great and
beautiful cities have been scenes of great strife and turmoil
because of religious conflicts.
Christianity, according to Hawking, is attached to an
Aristotelian view of the universe which has been widely proved
to be false.
Hitchens claims that all the so-called proofs for God’s existence
are ineffectual at best (in agreement with Bertrand Russell, a
strict empiricist).
Christian ethics lead to deleterious side effects; for example,
Christianity teaches people to be humble. Humility can lead to
the destruction of the humble (this is according to Bertrand
Russell, a strict empiricist).
According to Stephen Hawking, religion is only faith-based,
whereas materialism is based upon reason and hard empirical
data. In the meantime, although not everything can be explained
scientifically, so much has been explained scientifically that it
is only just a matter of time before science is able to explain
EVERYTHING. Hitchens makes this same point in god is not
Great.
Atheists claim: “I have not experienced God.” If God existed,
then surely everybody would experience Him.
According to Hitchens, the documents upon which Christianity

is based (the NT) are not only late in date but also
contradictory.
Materialism is progressive, whereas belief in God is outdated.
Responses to Challenges from Materialism
Before looking at the challenges to materialism, it seems only
fair to respond to the attacks which materialists have launched
against belief in God. Then we will look at the challenges to
materialism.
Response from C.S. Lewis Regarding Evil/Suffering: Argument
from the Existence of Evil is a Self-Defeater
C.S. Lewis, when an atheist, claimed this world is not a good
world because of all the evil and suffering he experienced
during WW1 and also in his own personal life, the early death
of his mother and the untimely death of his best friend;
therefore, he must have a standard of good by which he judges
the world. Since this standard does not come from this world, it
must come from another sphere that is better than our own;
actually it will be perfect. His own argument against God’s
existence actually demonstrates God’s existence. (Because evil
and suffering is a huge topic in philosophy, we will devote a
whole section to it later on in the readings.)
It is interesting is that Hitchens promotes a strictly materialistic
view of reality which cannot support any type of ethic logically.
In god is not Great and in some of his debates, he launches into
some vicious attacks against Mother Teresa and Roman
Catholics because of the "evil" they have perpetrated upon
mankind. Is Hitchens being inconsistent by claiming that matter
is all that exists and then railing against the evils committed by
Roman Catholics?
Responses to the Challenges of Russell/HitchensThe so-called

proofs for God’s existence take reality seriously: cause and
effect, the ability to conceive of God’s existence, etc. Russell
basically dismisses these facts in reality.
Simply because an atrocity is committed in God’s name does
that mean He does not exist. Might the truth be that He exists
and yet people who claim to be Christians are not living genuine
Christian lives? If you turn Hitchens' logic around, should we
reject materialism in light of the tens of millions of people who
were killed by materialistic regimes (Communism in the Soviet
Union, China, Cambodia, and Viet Nam)?
Deleterious side effects to the Christian ethic. There may be bad
side effects on this side of death: we may get used, we may get
run over; however, if Christianity is true, would the pay-off on
the other side of death more than make up for these deleterious
side effects?
Moreover, does the Christian ethic really have deleterious
effects? Humility was frowned upon by Aristotle. Hitchens
doesn’t seem too fond of it either’ yet humility is NOT what
many mischaracterize it to be. Humility is not looking down at
yourself. It’s not looking at yourself at all. It is about putting
others first.
For example, Christ defines humility as having the attitude of a
child. Yes, children are vulnerable, but they are not stupid, and
neither are they gullible. When my son was 7 and my daughter
4, I played a game with them. I told them that I was so smart
that if they picked a number between 1 and 10, I could tell them
exactly which number they had chosen. After they chose their
number, I told them to tell me which number they had chosen
and I would tell them if they were right. TRUSTING me, they
told me their numbers and I informed them that they were right.
After we did that, they looked at each other a little skeptical.
So I told them I would prove to them again how smart I was.
Again, they were to pick a number and I would tell them which
number they had picked. This time when I told them to tell me
their number, they said, “No, Dad, you tell us first.” I then died
laughing. As children they were trusting, but they weren’t

gullible.
Now He is not telling us to be childish but rather child-like. A
child-like attitude is that of a child who keeps his eyes on
somebody he loves. My brother-in-law’s grandson idolized
him. He just couldn’t take his eyes off his granddad. Whatever
the granddad wanted to do, the grandson did also. We need that
kind of attitude in our world today…taking our eyes off
ourselves and placing them on the needs of others.
We normally view heaven and hell as places of great beauty and
eternal fire. Well, maybe heaven and hell aren’t all that
different at the surface level. Maybe both heaven and hell are
huge banquets with the tables decked out with the choicest
foods. Maybe everybody in heaven and hell have the same
limitations: they cannot bend their arms and they must eat with
a 3-foot fork. Because there is only pride in hell, people there
stubbornly try to feed themselves . . . to no avail and
completely frustrated. Because humility reigns in heaven,
people have learned to feed each other. Hell would then be a
place of great anger and frustration…true misery; heaven would
be a place of great joy.
If you don’t believe me, get with a group of friends, and have
each person give themselves their own neck rub. After that, get
your group in a large circle and have each one give a neck rub
to the person on the right, everyone receiving a neck rub at the
same time. See which one works best.
Responses to Camus/Sartre/ Nazism/Nietzsche: InconsistencyIf
there is no right and wrong—and hence no God, then why did
Camus rail against the French occupation of Algeria?
If there is no right and wrong—and hence no God, then why did
Sartre condemn western culture in favor of Stalinism?
If there is no right and wrong—and hence no God, then why did
H.G. Wells (a strict materialist) criticize Nazism?
If there is no right and wrong—and hence no God, then why did
Nietzsche go insane after watching a man beat a horse to death?
He should have rejoiced over the whipping of the horse because

it showed the stronger exercising power over the weaker; at the
least he should not have cared.
Responses to Other ClaimsScience is unable to prove or
disprove the existence of God because of its limitations.
Science deals only with this universe. If a transcendent God
truly exists, would He by His very nature stand outside this
universe? If so, then would scientific experiments be too limited
to prove or disprove God’s existence? Moreover, Hitchens
undermines his own claim when he admits that because science
has not been able to explain everything, he shows that even
faith is required to claim that materialism is the ultimate answer
to life.
Could our own personal experiences be too limited?
It is a fact that 95% of mankind believes in the existence of
God. Moreover, you must ask yourself the question: “If 95% of
the world believes God exists and if we all have the same data,
then why don’t materialists believe in His existence?”
Atheism is as old as belief in God and therefore is not any more
progressive than belief in God. For example, Psalm 14:1 claims
that the fool has said in his heart that there is no god.
Apparently, at least some people in the day of David, according
to this verse, were strict materialists. David lived 3400 years
ago. Therefore, is discarding God really an advance in human
thought since materialists have been around at least as long as
theists have been around? In fact, the first recognized
philosophers (Thales, Heraclitus, etc.) were strict materialists.
Socrates and especially Plato and Aristotle emphasized the
existence of God. It appears then that belief in God is really the
progressive attitude, whereas materialism is actually regressive.
(Have we actually discarded some thoughts without examining
them to determine whether or not they should have been
discarded in the first place?)
The Hawking Claim about Christianity being based on
Aristotelian view of the universe. The Roman Catholic papacy
of the time of Galileo held to an Aristotelian view of the

universe, not Christianity. In fact during the Middle Ages the
cosmology of Ptolemy (which claimed that the earth was in fact
infinitesimally small compared to other bodies in the universe-
almost like a mathematical point) was taught in the Christian
universities (see The Timeless Writings of C.S. Lewis, pages
349-350).
If the de Medici popes had been in power at the time of Galileo,
he would not have been persecuted. In fact, one of the de
Medici's was his chief sponsor until the Inquisition came after
Galileo.
Finally, whereas many equate Christianity with the "flat earth"
theory, it needs to be mentioned that two of the greatest
Christian monarchs of the Middle Ages (Ferdinand and Isabella
of Spain) financed Columbus' expedition which proved that the
earth indeed was round.
SECOND MODEL
Pantheism
HINDUISM
The second major ontological system we will examine is
Hinduism. As with each system we will first state the claim
Hinduism makes, next give the arguments in support of
Hinduism, and last present some challenges to Hinduism.
THE MAJOR CLAIM OF HINDUISM
Introduction
Hinduism itself is an extremely diverse religion. Scholars have
found it difficult to identify any doctrines with universal
acceptance among all Hindu sects. Getting a handle on
Hinduism would be comparable to sticking your hand into a pale
of water and trying to grasp some of the water. Although your
hand will come up empty, some water will nevertheless cling to
the hand. Just when you think that you have a handle on
Hinduism, you will discover something in Hinduism which
completely contradicts what you earlier believed to be true

about the system. The reason is that the term “Hinduism”
basically represents all the religious systems which have
emerged from the subcontinent of India. Although it is true that
prominent beliefs among the Hindu systems include Dharma
(duties and ethics), Samsra (reincarnation: birth, life, death and
rebirth), Karma (action and reaction), Moksha (freedom from
reincarnation), and the various yogas (paths or practices), also
included within Hinduism are monotheism, polytheism,
panentheism, pantheism, monism and atheism. Another version
of is henotheistic, that is the belief that although many gods
may exist, there is one supreme God. What we want to look at is
the version of Hinduism presented by the Upanishads, some of
the most revered of all Hindu writings. The version of
Hinduism in these writings is pantheistic, the view that
divinizes reality, a version of the second model of reality. In
this view the universe is considered divine; or rather the
essence of all things is divine. God DOES exist; the essential
elements in the universe are divine
Unlike Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Hinduism does not
teach that the body does not define the person. If reincarnation
is true, you may be male one time but female next time. The
body is more of a cage than a true picture of who a person is.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam claim that your body reveals
who you are.
This view of the body in Hinduism has major implications not
only for the here and now but also for the future. According to
Hinduism, a person is basically sexless; according to the third
model which claims that your body will be resurrected, you
don't only have a male or female body but you ARE male or you
ARE female. Next, according to Hinduism, Nirvana is escape
from bodily existence; whereas the third model teaches that you
are stuck with your body in eternity...in a radically transformed
body but nevertheless still YOUR body--without the warts and
wrinkles.
Hinduism contains a vast body of scriptures. Divided as
revealed and remembered and developed over millennia, these

scriptures expound on theology, philosophy and mythology, and
provide spiritual insights and guidance on the practice of
dharma (religious living). In the orthodox view, among such
texts, the Vedas and the Upanishads are the foremost in
authority, importance and antiquity. Other major scriptures
include the Tantras, the sectarian Agamas, the Puras and the
epics Mahrata and Rmyaa. The Bhagavad Gita, a treatise
excerpted from the Mahbhrata, is sometimes called a summary
of the spiritual teachings of the Vedas.
Beliefs
Concepts of God and Man
What, though, are some of the unifying themes in Hinduism?
First, the Upanishads teach that the true "self" or soul of every
person, called the Atman, is eternal. Moreover, this Atman is
ultimately indistinct from Brahman, the supreme spirit.
Brahman is described as "The One Without a Second."
The following then is the essence of Hinduism: The goal of life
according to the Advaita school is to realize that one's atman
(soul) is identical to Brahman, the supreme soul. The
Upanishads state that whoever becomes fully aware of the
Atman as the innermost core of one's own self, realizes his
identity with Brahman and thereby reaches Moksha (liberation
or freedom). The major claim, then, is that Brahman and Atman
are one.
One way to picture this would be to think of your soul as being
a drop of water which evaporated from the ocean (Brahman) and
has fallen upon the earth. The drop, though separated from the
main body of the ocean, is actually the ocean itself, just in
miniature. The goal then would be for that drop to reunite with
the vast body of the ocean. It does this through a certain type
of yoga.
Karma, samsara and moksha
Karma translates literally as action, work or deed and can be
described as the "moral law of cause and effect". According to
the Upanishads, an individual, known as the jiva-atma, develops

sanskaras (impressions) from actions, whether physical or
mental. The "linga sharira", a body more subtle than the
physical one, but less subtle than the soul, retains impressions,
carrying them over into the next life, establishing a unique
trajectory for the individual. Thus, the concept of a universal,
neutral and never-failing karma intrinsically relates to
reincarnation as well as one's personality, characteristics and
family. Karma threads together the notions of free will and
destiny. This cycle of action, reaction, birth, death, and rebirth
is a continuum called Samsara.
The ultimate goal of life, referred to as Moksha, is understood
in several different ways: as the realization of one's union with
God; as realization of one's eternal relationship with God;
realization of the unity of all existence; perfect unselfishness
and knowledge of the Self; attainment of perfect mental peace;
or as detachment from worldly desires. Such a realization
liberates one from Samsara and ends the cycle of rebirth.
From Huston Smith, World Religions Today 4th Ed. (Oxford
Press): "The central idea they introduced is that of samsara, 'the
world,' in which all phenomena are really only secondary
appearances. But blinded by illusion (maya), humans act
foolishly and thereby suffer from samsara's pains and
privations. These last until the realization dawns that the
underlying reality is everywhere the same, and it is the
unchanging spirit (Brahman). The individual soul (atman)
wanders from birth to death again and again until it finds
release from the cycle by realizing that it is nothing other than
Brahman, the ultimate reality of the world, the universal spirit."
Yoga
In whatever way a Hindu defines the goal of life, there are
several methods (yogas) that sages have taught for reaching that
goal. A practitioner of yoga is called a yogi. Texts dedicated to
Yoga include the Bhagavad Gita, the Yoga Sutras, the Hatha
Yoga Pradipika and, as their philosophical and historical basis,
the Upanishads. Paths one can follow to achieve the spiritual

goal of life (moksha, samadhi, or nirvana) include:Bhakti Yoga
(the path of love and devotion),
Karma Yoga (the path of right action),
ja Yoga (the path of meditation) and
na Yoga (the path of wisdom).
An individual may prefer one yoga over others according to his
or her inclination and understanding. For instance some
devotional schools teach that bhakti is the only practical path to
achieve spiritual perfection for most people, based on their
belief that the world is currently in the age of Kali yuga (one of
four epochs part of the Yuga cycle). Practice of one yoga does
not exclude others. Many schools believe that the different
yogas naturally blend into and aid other yogas. For example, the
practice of jnana yoga, is thought to inevitably lead to pure love
(the goal of bhakti yoga), and vice versa. Someone practicing
deep meditation (such as in raja yoga) must embody the core
principles of karma yoga, jnana yoga and bhakti yoga, whether
directly or indirectly. It is easy to see that the Upanishads
would stress ja yoga, the yoga of meditation since it is through
meditation that one would come to realize that Brahman and
Atman are one.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF HINDUISMThe basic
argument FOR Hinduism is that it nearly takes everything into
account. Some philosophies simply do not address ALL of life.
Hinduism does because in Hinduism EVERYTHING or the
essence of EVERYTHING is divine. A system cannot get any
bigger or account for more than that.
Next, Hinduism has a high regard for the concept of death and
resurrection as seen in its belief in reincarnation. Although it
could be claimed that Hinduism has basically transferred the
cycles of the seasons to a person's soul, it may be that Hindus
have intuitively grasped a truth that death and rebirth are
integral parts not only of reality but of ultimate reality. Are

death and resurrection tangential to reality or are they accurate
reflections of ultimate reality?
For example, do we not see death/rebirth in the struggles of
life? How many of us really achieve great things without there
being a real struggle? Some of the people most alive are those
who have struggled the greatest or have experienced the greatest
tragedies. Is that coincidental or is it pointing to the very
nature of ultimate reality?
MAJOR CHALLENGES TO PANTHEISTIC HINDUISM
The main challenge to a pantheistic Hinduism links to its
strength: is it actually too big when it claims the world as we
know it is essentially divine?For example, there is the Moral
Challenge: a major challenge to a pantheistic Hinduism is the
existence of absolute good and evil. For Hinduism reality is
basically “above” the idea of good and evil. In a pantheistic
Hinduism because everything is divine, for all practical
purposes everything is good and perfect. In fact, it is almost
unnecessary even to speak in terms of good and evil in
Hinduism.
As a result of this, there is a certain passive attitude towards
moral issues. A prime example of this can be seen in E.M.
Forster's A Passage to India in the character of Dr. Godbole.
On the other hand, we see a rejection of evil in the third model.
The third model is full of "fighting systems." They are charged
to fight against evil. Unfortunately, many times they have
targeted other people who don't agree with them. Many times,
though, they have targeted the right enemy: social injustice,
ignorance, poverty, physical illnesses. On the other hand, you
see in Hinduism an acceptance of situations which many from
the third model would call “evil.”
Now if good and evil do exist, then as “large” as Hinduism is,
it’s not large enough, it does not take into account a very

important aspect of reality. If you can accept life without the
concept of good and evil in an ultimate sense or claim that from
a certain perspective EVERYTHING is good, then a pantheistic
Hinduism may be an accurate explanation of ultimate reality for
you.
The Epistemological Challenge: if everybody is already divine,
then why don't they know it? Would a divine being understand
that he is divine and not have to be told he was?
The Moksha Challenge: would a god need to be liberated if he
was truly god? According to Hinduism, we are not lesser gods;
we are one with Brahmin, the Supreme Being. Should the
Supreme Being need salvation?
The Challenge of Logic: many from this school of thought and
also from Buddhism are going to assert that Ultimate Reality is
beyond our logic; as a result we should not use our logic to
investigate Ultimate Reality. According to them, UR is beyond
logic. The challenge, though, is that if Hinduism is true, then
the answer to all the logic in the universe is not necessarily
logical. Is the phrase “Beyond logic” just a way to cover up it
being “illogical”? That is a question only you can answer.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL BASIS FOR HINDUISM
Hinduism is not based upon historical evidence or sensory
perception but rather completely upon intuition.
If you are writing the 6-page paper supporting Hinduism, you
need to incorporate the following material in your paper.
SYSTEM
Hinduism
CORE CLAIM
Brahman and Atman are One: The Deification of All Reality
EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT CLAIMThe vastness of the system
(it embraces ALL of reality and not just merely its physical

aspects).Accounts for death/rebirth (resurrection)
CHALLENGES TO THE CLAIMS
1. The epistemological/knowledge challenge: because it
embraces logical contradictions, the explanation for a logical
universe is illogical AND if I am Brahman the Supreme Being,
why don't I automatically know it?
2. The Moksha/liberation challenge
3. The ethical/moral challenge
4. The challenge of logic
EPISTEMOLOGICAL/KNOWLEDGE BASIS FOR THE
CLAIMS
Intuition
BUDDHISM
The third major ontological system we will examine is
Buddhism. As with each system we will first state the claim
Buddhism makes, next give the arguments in support of
Buddhism, and last present some challenges to Buddhism.
THE MAJOR CLAIMS OF BUDDHISM
The major claim of Buddhism is that evil and suffering exist
because of desire. The way to eliminate desire according to
Buddha is to follow the 8-fold path.
Because Gautama claimed that the existence of a perfect God
and the existence of evil and suffering in the world could not be
reconciled; as a result, he claimed that a perfect God did not
exist.
Buddhism basically draws from all 3 models of ultimate reality.
Buddha taps into the first model when he claims God does not
exist.
He taps into the second model when he claims that man can
attain to Nirvana by himself.
He draws from the third model when he claims that right and
wrong actually do exist.

Because Buddhism supports the idea of reincarnation, a
person’s body is not of the real “you.” You may have a male
body, but you may not necessarily be male (the same applies to
femaleness).
Life of Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama was born in Lumbini (a Himalayan town
situated in modern Nepal near the Indian border). Gautama's
father was a chieftain, and Gautama was born a prince, destined
to a life of luxury. It is said that, before being born, Gautama
visited his mother during a vision in the form of a white
elephant. During the birth celebrations, a seer announced that
this baby would either become a great king or a great holy man.
His father, wishing for Gautama to be a great king, shielded his
son from religious teachings or knowledge of human suffering.
As the boy came to marrying age, his father arranged a marriage
to a young woman, Yashodhara, and she gave birth to a son,
Rahula. Although Gautama had everything he could want, he
was dissatisfied.
At the age 29, Gautama was escorted by his attendant Channa
on one of his rare visits outside of the palace. There, he came
across the "four sights": an old crippled man, a diseased man, a
decaying corpse, and finally an ascetic. Gautama realized then
the harsh truth of life -- that death, disease, age, and pain were
inescapable. Thus inspired, Gautama left his home and his
family and chose to become a monk.
Abandoning his inheritance, he dedicated his life to learning
how to overcome suffering. He pursued the path of Yogic
meditation with two Brahmin hermits, and although he achieved
high levels of meditative consciousness, he was not satisfied
with this path.
Gautama then chose the robes of a mendicant monk and headed
to southeastern India. He began training in the ascetic life and
practicing vigorous austere practices. After 6 years, and at the
brink of death, he found that the severe ascetic practices did not

lead to greater understanding. Once discarding them and
concentrating on meditation, he discovered the middle way, a
path of moderation away from the extremes of self-indulgence
and self-mortification. Under a fig tree, now know as the Bodhi
tree, he vowed never to leave the position until he found Truth.
At the age of 35, he attained Enlightenment under the full moon
in May. He was then known as Gautama Buddha, or simply "The
Buddha", which means "the Enlightened one".
The Buddha claimed he had realized complete Enlightenment
and insight into the nature and cause of human suffering, along
with the steps necessary to eliminate it. This understanding
manifested itself in the Four Noble Truths. This supreme
Awakening, possible to any being, is called the state of Bodhi,
and at that moment, he achieved Nirvana.
At this point, the Buddha had to choose whether to be content in
his own salvation, or whether to teach his new understanding to
all people. He considered that the world may not have been
ready for such a deep teaching, but he decided in the end to
travel to Sarnath and give his first sermon in the Deer Park.
This sermon described the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold
Path.
The Buddha emphasized that he was not a God but that the
position of Buddhahood is reserved for the human, in whom
possesses the greatest potential for Enlightenment. Explained by
Gautama Buddha, he also stated that there is no intermediary
between mankind and the divine; distant gods and God are
subjected to karma (sorrow, suffering, angst) themselves in
decaying heavens. The Buddha is solely a guide and teacher for
those sentient beings who must tread the path themselves, attain
spiritual awakening, and see truth and reality as it is. The
Buddhist system of insight, thought and meditation practice was
not divinely-revealed, but rather, the understanding of the true
nature of the human mind which could be discovered by anyone
for themselves.
For the remaining 45 years of his life, he traveled the Gangetic
Plain of central India (region of the Ganges/Ganga river and its

tributaries), teaching his doctrine and discipline to an extremely
diverse range of people, from nobles, street sweepers, outcastes,
and including many adherents of rival philosophies and
religions. He founded the community of Buddhist monks and
nuns (the Sangha) to continue the dispensation after his
Paranirvana or complete Nirvana.
At the age of 80, Gautama Buddha realised that his bodily end
was fast approaching. He told his disciple Ananda to prepare a
bed between two Sal trees in Kushinagar. His last meal was a
mushroom or truffles delicacy which he had received as an
offering from a blacksmith. Just before his passing, a 120 year-
old mendicant monk named Subhadra, walked by. Being earlier
turned away by Ananda, Buddha overheard this and called the
Brahmin to his side. He was admitted to the Sangha (Buddhist
order) and immediately after, Gautama passed away on that full
moon day in May. The Buddha's final words were, "All things
must pass away. Strive for your own salvation with diligence".
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF BUDDHISM
The primary arguments in favor of Buddhism are (1) that it
takes seriously the idea that evil and suffering do exist, an issue
Hinduism basically skirts and (2) that ethics is important in life.
Major Tenets of BuddhismThe Four Noble Truths basically
teach us about the nature of life itself. It basically claims that
life as we know it is one of suffering : that suffering is an
inherent part of existence; that suffering is caused by craving;
that craving can be ceased; and that following the Eightfold
Path will lead to the cessation of craving (and suffering).
The Eight-fold Path is the list of instructions which informs you
how to eliminate suffering from your life: right understanding,
right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right
effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.
In addition to these, there are also: The Law of Dependent
Causation: that events are not predestined, nor are they random,
but that events are caused by the actions that preceded them.

Rejection of the infallibility of accepted scripture: teachings
should not be accepted unless they are borne out by our
experiences.
Annica, that is, life is in constant flux and change: That all
things are impermanent. Enlightenment helps a person escape
from the world of flux and change.
Anatta: That there is no eternal soul, and that the perception of
a constant "self" is an illusion.
Rejection of the Existence of God: Why does Buddha reject
belief in God? Because of suffering. He could not reconcile the
fact of suffering with the belief in God. He claimed that if a
good God existed, then He would not have permitted suffering.
For Buddha the fact that there is suffering in the world proves
that God does not exist. Why then do modern-day Buddhists
believe that Buddha is God since Buddha himself was an
atheist? When Buddhism came into contact with the western
religions (Judaism and C0hristianity) which promote a belief in
a personal God, Buddhism changed. From that point on many
believed that Buddha himself was divine.
CHALLENGES TO BUDDHISM
The major challenge to Buddhism is does it appear to be “big”
enough? For example, when dealing with the issue if God exists
or doesn’t exist, the evidence of evil and suffering is only one
part of this consideration. Buddhism simply doesn’t account for
all the evidence which led philosophers to articulate the 4
classical arguments for God’s existence. Moreover, if Buddha
claims that right and wrong actually do exist, then has he
undermined his contention that God does not exist? The
existence of absolute right and wrong would seem to support
dramatically the claim that God in fact does exist.
The other challenge is that of verification. Buddha claims that
he achieved “enlightenment”; whereas that claim may be true,
can it be verified?
Finally, there is the ontological challenge. According to

Buddha, Nirvana exists? The question, then, is what or who
supports Nirvana? God? Is Nirvana God? Buddha tends to reject
an ontological analysis of ultimate reality; however, that
question still persists for most people.
If you plan on writing the 5-page paper on Buddhism, please
incorporate the following material:
SYSTEM
Buddhism
CORE CLAIM
The Essence of Life is Evil and Suffering Caused by Desire
which can be Eliminated by Following the 8-Fold Path
EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT CLAIM
1. Insight that reality is laced with evil and suffering
2. It takes seriously the area of ethics.
CHALLENGES TO THE CLAIMS
1. The ontological challenge
2. Question: is desire really the source of all evil and suffering
in the world?
3. Is life essentially evil and suffering?
EPISTEMOLOGICAL/KNOWLEDGE BASIS FOR THE
CLAIMS
Intuition
THIRD MODEL
Transcendence
JUDAISM
The fourth major ontological system we will examine is
Judaism. As with each system we will first state the claim
Judaism makes, next give the arguments in support of Judaism,
and last present some challenges to Judaism.

THE MAJOR CLAIM OF JUDAISM
Judaism, like Christianity and Islam, fall within the third model
of reality in which the universe does exist; however, it is not
divine. Rather, unlike the first model (materialism), a perfect
Being (God) does exist but exists outside the universe. All 3
representatives of this model claim that man is NOT God, that a
person’s body is part of who he really is, that ethics is a huge
part of the system, and that one day all people will be
physically resurrected from the dead.
Judaism is a monotheistic religion, that is there is only ONE
GOD, based upon principles and ethics embodied in the Hebrew
Bible, as further explored and explained in the Talmud and
other texts. Unlike the God of Hinduism, this God is separate
from the world. Although His touch can be seen on the world,
the world is totally separate from Him. Historically, Judaism
has considered belief in the divine revelation and acceptance of
the Written and Oral Torah as its fundamental core belief.
Moreover, God has revealed Himself in a dramatic way to the
Jewish people. Nearly 3,000 years ago God revealed Himself to
Abraham, promising to bless him and his SEED if he would
follow God to a place He would lead him to.
According to the Jewish Scriptures Abraham followed God.
God’s blessing (salvation) then falls upon Abraham and his
seed. (The word “seed” here can be either singular—
“descendant”, or plural—“descendants.”)
Genesis 12:1-3
1. Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Depart from your
country, and from your family, and from your father’s house, to
a land that I will show you: 2 And I will make of you a great
nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you
shall be a blessing: 3 And I will bless them that bless you, and
curse him that curses you: and in you shall all families of the
earth be blessed.
Just a casual look at these 3 verses shows us that the key word
here is “bless.” This word is huge not only in Judaism but also

in Christianity which claims to be built upon Judaism. The key
idea here is that God is going to bless Abraham.
Blessing later includes the idea of salvation, peace, prosperity.
The “blessed” person then is truly the “saved” person.
Gen. 17:7
7. I will establish My promise between Me and you and your
seed after you.
The question becomes, just who is this seed? The identity of
this seed determines who actually is “saved.” According to
Judaism the seed refers to Abraham’s second-born son, Isaac,
the father of the Jewish people. If Isaac is that seed, then God
has promised to bless (“save”) the Jews and those who attach
themselves to the Jewish religion. Muslims claim that the
“seed” refers to Ishmael, Abraham’s first-born son, who
fathered the Arab race. Christians claim that the “seed” refers to
Jesus, Abraham’s greatest Son.
Does the Jewish claim have any preference over the other 2?
For example, Ishmael was the first-born son of Abraham,
whereas Isaac was only the second-born son. Yet, Ishamel
according to the documents was actually the son of an Egyptian
servant named Hagar, whereas Isaac was the son of Abraham's
wife Saran. Second, whereas Ishmael was born according to
natural means, Isaac was the result of a miracle.
The story of Abraham in Gen. 22 is pivotal for our
understanding of which claim is preferred. Whom did Abraham
take on top of Mt. Moriah with him: Ishmael or Isaac? We shall
examine this more closely when we come to Islam.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF JUDAISM
Is there any support for Judaism being the true religion? The
major piece of evidence which supports Judaism as being true is
the fact that it has maintained its cultural and religious heritage.
Now that doesn’t seem all impressive until you study the history
of the Jew. Every other culture is based upon land. For example,
what makes you an American? The fact that either you or one of

your parents was born in the USA. If there is no USA, then
there is no American.
In 125 AD the Roman emperor Hadrian drove the Jews away
from the land of Israel because of their constant rebellions
against the Roman Empire. For the next 1823 years the Jew had
no land to call their own. They were noted as the “Wandering
Jew.”
Few if any other races have ever experienced the hardships the
Jewish race has endured. The Holocaust conducted by Nazi
Germany was just the latest in a long line of sufferings the Jews
had to endure. For a more recent movie treatment of the plight
of the Jew, see Fiddler on the Roof.
It is amazing that the Jewish people retained their cultural and
religious identity without their having a country to call their
own. It is so remarkable that Benjamin Disraeli, the great
Jewish prime minister of the late 19th century, said when asked
if he knew of any infallible proof of God's existence, gave a
terse but classic answer, "The Jew, sir, the Jew."
MAJOR CHALLENGES TO JUDAISM
Judaism needs to respond to 3 major challenges.Many claim that
the miracles in OT as fantastical and illogical, for example, the
crossing of the Red Sea and the collapse of the city wall of
Jericho. HOWEVER, these are illogical only if God does not
exist and does not perform miracles. On the other hand, if God
does exist and does do miracles, then these miracles would be
logical. The fact that scholars today primarily try to explain
away the miraculous nature of events such as the crossing of the
Red Sea and the fall of the walls of Jericho means that these
scholars admit that something actually did happen.
If the Jews are God’s chosen people, then why have they
suffered so much during the past 2,000 years? This is an
argument Mohammed leveled against the Jews’ claim to be
God’s chosen people.
If the Jews are God's chosen people, then why (according to

their own documents) did they consistently reject God's
messengers (and hence God)?
If the Jews are God’s chosen people, then why are there so few
of them? It would seem strange for only 14 million people out
of 7 billion will be saved. It would seem unreasonable that out
of 6 billion people, only 14 million would connect with ultimate
reality.
Response to the question about suffering. Judaism along with
Christianity claims that suffering actually serves as a type of
birth pangs. The sufferings are not necessarily negative; they
can be positive like birth pangs. The woman experiencing birth
pangs is actually producing something wonderful, a little baby.
In the same token God uses birth pangs to produce something
wonderful in us—a strong, developed, mature person. Moreover,
according to the great Jewish prophet Isaiah God uses suffering
to produce a new heaven and a new earth.
The third challenge appears more challenging.
If you plan on writing the 5-page paper on Judaism, please use
the following material:
SYSTEM
Judaism
CORE CLAIM
A Transcendent God Has Revealed Himself in a Dramatic Way
to His Chosen People, the Jews
EVIDENCE TO SUPPORT CLAIM
1. The continual existence of the Jew in spite of severe
persecution and the loss of a homeland for over 1800 years
2. It takes seriously the area of ethics.
CHALLENGES TO THE CLAIMS
1. The number of Jews
2. Does the fact that the Jews consistently rejected God mean
that they are no longer God’s chosen people?

3. The suffering challenge
4. The historical/archeological challenge
EPISTEMOLOGICAL/KNOWLEDGE BASIS FOR THE
CLAIMS
Intuition and Sensory Perception
THE CASE FOR CHRISTIANITY
INTRODUCTION
THE CLAIM OF CHRISTIANITY
The Claim: Jesus is God the Son
Whatever else Christianity claims, its ultimate claim is that
2,000 years ago God (the Son) came to the earth to reveal the
Father to us and then to die to save us from our sins (the fact
that we are in a hostile relationship with God). During His
lifetime Jesus claimed to be God the Son. His resurrection from
the dead validated His claims to deity.
Now the title "God the Son" may surprise some because we
normally think of Jesus as being solely "the Son of God."
Although both "Son of God" and "God the Son" mean the same
thing, I use the title "God the Son" because it stresses the deity
of Jesus. Some think that the title "Son of God" makes Jesus
less than God. It does not. For example, a son of man is not less
than man because he is a man's son; on the contrary, because he
is a son of MAN, he actually is going to be man. The same hold
trues for Christ: being Son of God indicates that He is God, not
the Father but the Son.
The Significance of the Resurrection
Before looking at the evidence, we first need to understand
exactly why the resurrection (if true) would validate Jesus’
claims to deity. The reason is that the resurrection is a kind of
event which only God Himself could perform. The resurrection
of Christ was not merely resuscitation from the dead which
happens occasionally during surgery. Rather this resurrection
was the radical transformation of the body of Jesus into such a

glorious state that He will never die again. It is the kind of
event which only God Himself could do. If the Father
resurrected Jesus after Jesus made the claims to deity, then
either one of 2 things is true: Jesus is God the Son like He said,
or else God resurrected and validated a blasphemer (something
God most likely would never do).
Jesus' Claim to DeityJesus accepted the worship people
rendered unto Him. That may not seem all that startling;
however, when you compare Jesus' response to the responses of
others in the NT who received worship, it is startling. Some
examples: Acts 10:26; Rev. 22:9. Or else they accepted the
worship due to God alone and were struck down dead (Acts
12:22-23). When Jesus neither rejects the worship people render
Him nor is He struck down dead. By accepting their worship
(John 9:38-39), He is implying that He is God (the Son).
Jesus claimed to have the authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:1-
12). Now Jesus didn’t just claim to forgive sins people
committed against Himself. He forgave sins which people
committed against OTHERS. That is an activity which only God
can legitimately perform.
What is even more interesting than the charge the Jewish
religious leaders make against Jesus is Jesus' response to the
leaders: He doesn't correct them. He is implying that He agrees
with the charge that they are leveling against Him: He IS
declaring Himself to be God the Son. The only difference
between Jesus and the religious leaders is that He is declaring
that He has not committed blasphemy because He actually is
God the Son! In Exodus 3 we see God appearing to Moses
instructing him to deliver His people from the Egyptians.
Whenever Moses asks God for His name so that the people will
believe him, God replies that His name is “I Am that I Am,”
that is, His name was “I Am.” In one of the most dramatic
scenes in the Gospel of John Jesus applies to Himself the divine
name no less than 3 times (John 8:24, 28, 58). The first 2 times,
the Jews don’t quite get what He is doing. The third time though

was the charm. Jesus is making such claims for Himself that the
Jews claim that He is making Himself more important that
Abraham, the father of the Jewish race and the friend of God.
To show you how much more important Jesus said He was than
Abraham, Jesus says: “‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My
day, and he saw it and was glad.’ The Jews therefore answered
and said to Him, ‘You are not yet 50 years old, and have You
seen Abraham?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Truly, truly,
I say to you, before Abraham was born I AM!’” At this point the
lights click on; the Jews finally realize that Jesus is claiming to
be no one less than God Himself. At this point they pick up
stones to stone Him because they believe that He has committed
blasphemy (see John 8:12-59). Now what is interesting is not
only the response of the Jews but the response of Jesus Himself.
If Jesus was not claiming to be God, then all He would have had
to do to clear the matter up was to correct their
misunderstanding. The truth though is that not once did He ever
say they misunderstood Him. The gospels claim that they did
get the drift of His meaning; it’s just that they didn’t like it.
THE EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION
When it is all said and done, if the resurrection occurred, then
Jesus is truly God the Son; if the resurrection did not occur,
then He is NOT God the Son.
The Empty Tomb
Now an empty tomb does not prove that Jesus rose from the
dead; HOWEVER, if Jesus was resurrected in the way that NT
claims He was, then the tomb when He was buried must be
empty. Well, the tomb is empty and no body has been produced
to show that He did not rise from the dead. In fact, the claims of
Jesus' early opponents show that the tomb is empty. For
example, Jesus' opponents claimed that His disciples actually
stole the body from the tomb after overwhelming the Roman
guard which had been sent to protect that body from being

stolen by His disciples (Matt. 27:13-15). When Jesus' opponents
made this claim after Easter Sunday morning, what are they
admitting? They are admitting that the tomb is empty! Now the
reader has to decide for himself which account for the empty
tomb is more believable: a group of cowardly disciples
attacking the Roman guard so that they could saw Jesus rose
from the dead so that they could be persecuted terribly for their
claim OR Jesus actually was resurrected from the dead. To deny
the resurrection may be harder to swallow than to claim the
resurrection really did occur.
Eyewitnesses
Many people from the time of Jesus claim that Jesus not only
died and rose again but that they also saw Him die on the cross
and then met Him after He rose from the dead. (See John 19:35;
20:30; 21:24; Acts 1:1, 2; 10:39-41; 2 Pet. 1:16). Paul actually
claims in 1 Cor. 15:1-8 that at least 500 people saw the
resurrected Jesus at the same time. Whereas 500 people can be
guilty of mass hysteria, they will not be guilty of mass
hallucination. (What is so important about 1 Cor. 15 is that NT
scholarship has universally declared Paul to be its author.
Whereas NT scholarship may doubt Pauline authorship of 9 of
his letters, 1 Corinthians along with 2 Corinthians, Romans, and
Galatians are universally believed to have come from the hand
of Paul; these are called the "indisputable letters"--see Markus
Barth in his Commentary on Ephesians.)
So, are these witnesses credible? Evidence: These
"eyewitnesses" backed up their claims by suffering terribly for
those claims. Paul lists in 2 Cor. 11 all the terrible ordeals he
went through because he claimed that Jesus had not only risen
from the dead but that he himself had seen the risen Jesus: "23 .
. . in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times
without number, often in danger of death. 24 Five times I
received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I was
beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was
shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. 26 I

have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers
from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the
Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers
on the sea, dangers among false brethren ; 27 I have been in
labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger
and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 Apart
from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of
concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak without my being
weak ? Who is led into sin without my intense concern ?" Paul
goes on to say that if Christ has not risen from the dead, then
Christians are of all people most to be pitied because they are
suffering for a lie (1 Cor. 15:19).
Moreover, There is no evidence at all that any of those who
claimed to witness the resurrection ever broke ranks and
claimed that they had made it all up. If at least some of the 500
had claimed it was all fabricated, serious doubts about Jesus’
resurrection would be legitimate. None did though, even though
it cost many of them their lives. To die for a lie when you think
it is true is one thing; to die for a lie when you know it is a lie
is quite a different matter. They had nothing to gain and
everything to lose if they were propagating a lie. That seems
highly unlikely and totally illogical.The fact that the first
witnesses were Jews supports the claim that they were credible.
Few people realize that the last people on earth to make up the
claim that God would come to earth and die and rise again
would be the Jews. Now if the first Christians had been
Egyptians, Romans, or Greeks, etc., no one would have blinked
an eye at their claim that Jesus was God the Son. HOWEVER,
from the very beginning they were taught that God was so
transcendent that in no way would He ever become a man in
order to die and rise again. For this reason, when you read the
Gospels, the disciples are almost like Laurel (from Laurel and
Hardy), always having a dumb look on their faces while
scratching the top of their heads. They didn't "get it" according
to the apostles until AFTER they had seen the resurrected Jesus.
Only then did they understand the OT predictions that Jesus

would die and rise from the dead (John 12:16; 20:9).
The Jews believing Christ would become a man and die and rise
again would be like 2 men who had never seen the sun. The first
man claimed that the sun was blue, while the second claimed
that the sun was yellow. Now if both came in one day and both
said that they had just seen the sun and that it was indeed
yellow, who would you more likely believe, the one who had
said all along it was yellow or the one who changed his mind
after he claimed he saw the sun? Definitely the latter. In the
same manner the fact that the Jews unlike the other pagans
claimed that God would never come as a man to die and rise
again are the very ones who claimed He did.Now what is
interesting about Paul’s list in 1 Cor. 15 is that it does not
include the women who were actually the first witnesses of the
resurrection. Their story is found in the Gospels. Why in the
Gospels though and not in 1 Cor. 15? The reason is that whereas
1 Cor. 15 serves as a type of legal document which could hold
up in a first-century court of law, the Gospels are historical
narratives. In the first century, women were not considered
credible witnesses; as a result, Paul would not have listed them.
On the other hand, the Gospels are dealing with history. The
authors of the Gospels actually faced a crisis as they wrote the
Gospels. If they included the women as witnesses, they were
going to hurt their credibility. If they deleted the women, then
they didn’t tell the truth. They opted to tell the truth even
though it might hurt their credibility. This just affirms more and
more their claims. The authors of the Gospels would have never
included women if the women had not been eye-witnesses. The
presence of the women in the Gospel accounts adds further
convincing evidence for the truth of the resurrection stories.
Paul and his radical conversion. Let's suppose that Christ
actually has not risen from the dead. Then how do you explain
Paul? Probably more than any other human being, Paul is
responsible for the spread and triumph of Christianity. What is
interesting about Paul is that before his conversion, he was on
the fast track to become one of the most important rabbis

Judaism had ever seen (Gal. 1:13-14). So what changed him? He
claimed it was the resurrected Christ. If the resurrected Christ
did not change Paul, then who or what did?
Miracles/Spectacular Feats
Evidence that He did miracles supports His claim to be divine.
(None in the first century claimed He did NOT do miracles
because so many of these miracles were done before too many
people for them to be denied. His opponents merely claimed
that He got His power from Satan.) Look at the nature of Jesus’
miracles though. Jesus healed the eyes of the blind man; Satan
would blind the eyes of a healthy man. Jesus raised the dead;
Satan would kill a man. Jesus fed 5,000; Satan would starve
them. The very nature of Jesus’ miracles demonstrates that He
got His power from God and not from Satan. If Jesus was not
God the Son but was only a demon from hell, then God affirmed
the ravings of a demon when He worked miracles through Jesus,
something a perfect God would not do.
MAJOR CHALLENGES TO CHRISTIANITY: SUFFERING,
MYTHOLOGY, AND DOCUMENTATION
Doubts About the Existence of Christ
This challenge is a more recent challenge to Christianity.
Hitchens throws out this challenge but doesn't really develop it
in god Is Not Great. Hitchens, though, has the luxury in making
this claim that the early opponents of Christianity apparently
did not enjoy. If a person today claims that Jesus existed 2,000
years ago, Hitchens could counter: "You don't know; you
weren't there."
Moreover, according to many who reject Christianity, there are
no sources outside the NT which claim that Christ ever existed.
Hitchens is 100% correct in that counter-attack. There are some
problems, though, with Hitchens' claim. Why didn't the early
opponents of Jesus ever come up with this counter-charge? It
would have been so easy just to show that Jesus had never

existed in order discredit Christianity once and for all. Yet this
is one approach they never took. Why didn't they make this
charge? If Jesus truly existed and they made this charge, then
they would have been made to look foolish since according to
the earliest Christian documents, Jesus did so much of His
ministry in the wide-open public. That probably explains best
why Christianity's earliest opponents never made this charge.
The earliest opponents of Christianity claimed that Jesus
actually was a sorcerer whose powers were derived from Satan
(see the Babylonian Talmud). When Christianity's opponents
charged this against Christianity, it is establishing 2 pieces of
valuable evidence: (1) Jesus did exist and (2) He performed
some kind of "magic."
These charges actually date back to the ministry of Christ
according to the earliest documents (Matt. 13). His opponents
apparently couldn't deny the supernatural aspect of His ministry
but claimed Satan was the source of His ministry. Jesus, though,
according to the documents dispelled those attacks by pointing
to the nature of the "miracles" themselves: He healed the blind
and raised the dead, miracles beyond the scope of Satan's
power. Satan could blind a man or kill him but never heal or
raise from the dead since these are life-giving miracles.
Moreover, according to the documents many of these miracles
could not have been faked since Jesus supposedly performed
healing miracles upon people who have been certifiably ill,
demon-possessed, or dead (John 5, 11).Finally, if Jesus never
existed, then the early Jewish followers of Jesus created a
"Jesus" who just doesn't make sense. They claim that He is God
the Son and yet They make Him appear weak at times: He
actually sweats drops like that of blood in the Garden of
Gethsemane because He is under so much stress.
He cries out: My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?
He weeps at the tomb of His friend, Lazarus.
He dies on a cross, an act of infamy in the eyes of any Jew
(Deut. 23:23--"cursed is anyone who hangs on a cross").
Finally, look at the way the challenge goes: "There are no extra-

biblical sources which mention Jesus. There are extra-biblical
sources which do mention Jesus, but they are counterfeit;
therefore, Jesus did not exist." The fact is that there are several
extra-biblical sources which do mention Jesus and the
persecution of the early Christians. Whereas I would agree that
some of them seem a little fishy, the fact is that some of them
do NOT seem fishy (the Tacitus Annals, the testimony of
Suetonius (who actually seems hostile to Christianity), and the
Josephus' reference to James the half-brother of Christ.
Moreover, the fact remains that there are extra-biblical
references to Christ: the question is whether or not they are
legitimate. The answer to that last question is a matter of
opinion. Like Hitchens would say, "None of us were there," not
only those who defend the claim nor those who throw out the
challenge.
None of these are logical if the early Jewish followers of Jesus
made up these stories about Him, especially in light of the fact
that they claimed He is God the Son.
Evil and Suffering
According to Christianity, God is love. If that is true, then how
can Christians account for all the evil and suffering in the
world? Because this topic is HUGE and has been used not only
against the third model of reality but specifically against
Christianity, we will devote an entire study just on this one
topic. For right now, it is sufficient to say that whereas
Christianity acknowledges the harshness of suffering, it also
claims that God uses it to accomplish wonderful things in our
lives.
The Nature of the Documents
Intro
It is interesting that in attacking Christianity that Christopher
Hitchens first acknowledges the impact that C.S. Lewis has
made upon the defense for Christianity. He basically

acknowledges that Lewis is the primary defender of Christianity
and that anybody who attacks Christianity today really has to
deal with Lewis.
Hitchens goes on though to try to minimize Lewis by claiming
that Lewis' main problem is that Lewis trusted the documents
(the NT) upon which Christianity is based. Hitchens paints
Lewis as naive since Lewis apparently embraces unquestionably
the NT as being a reliable document; the truth though is that
Lewis was an expert in ancient documents--he graduated with a
first in his second degree, Greats (philosophy and ancient
history). Hitchens then goes on to show how absurd the NT is.
Contradictions in the Gospels
I am not going to provide a counterpoint for each argument
Hitchens presents. First, some of his attacks are dubious. When
he claims that the accounts of the resurrection from the 4
Gospels contradict each other, he provides no evidence for that
attack. He just states his claim and leaves it as is. The truth is
that if all 4 accounts were identical, then Hitchens would use
their similarity to undermine their claim that the resurrection
occurred. If the accounts of the resurrection come from
different people, then you would expect some differences (not
contradictions) just like you would expect different accounts of
a football game from different fans who went to the game.
Also, briefly consider his argument that the birth narratives in
Matthew and Luke contradict each other: Luke has the baby
Jesus going to the Temple after His birth in order to be
consecrated to the Lord, whereas Matthew has Joseph fleeing
with his family to Egypt. A simple analysis of the Greek text
shows there are no contradictions. Luke is dealing with the
immediate events after the birth. Matthew may be claiming that
Jesus actually lived for up to 2 years in Bethlehem after His
birth (He is called "a child," not a "baby" in Matt. 2:11 which
indicates Jesus could be up to 2 years in age--hence Herod's
decision to have all the Bethlehem babies 2 years of age and
under killed; moreover by this time, Jesus is living in a house
and not a barn). It may be that Joseph wanted Jesus to be raised

in the hometown of His great ancestor, David-—a reasonable
explanation of the events. If the two gospels were exactly
identical as Hitchens wants them to be, then one of them would
be unnecessary.
Are the Documents Reliable?
A bigger issue, though, needs to be addressed. On the whole,
are the NT documents reliable? From the early 19th century
until the 20th century, it became fashionable to claim that the
NT documents were written actually 150-200 years after teh
supposed events occurred (the F.C. Baur school from Tubingen
University, Germany). Now Paul naturally wrote Romans, 1/2
Corinthians, and Galatians, but probably nothing else. Of the
Gospels, Mark was written first and John last.
This claim was totally undermined in the early 20th century. In
the sands of Egypt was found a fragment of the Gospel of John
dated to the year 120 A.D. Taking into account the fact that it
took time to copy the Gospel (no one believes this is the
original document since it most likely was composed by John in
the city of Ephesus in modern-day Turkey) and that it took time
to disseminate the document, scholars of all persuasion claimed
that the Gospel of John itself was probably composed NO
LATER THAN 80 A.D.! (Even one of the most radical NT
scholars of the 20th century admitted this--Rudolf Bultmann.)
This find upended all the claims that the NT was written 150
years after the event. If John was the last book written in the
NT with the exception of Revelation, then all the other NT
documents were written within 50 years of the Christ event.
Paul himself composed 1/2 Corinthians within 20 years of the
event. This account is confirmed by the fact that whenever
legitimate scholars on the History Channel who disagree with
traditional Christianity discuss the NT documents, they now
claim that they are not really credible because they were written
decades after the events supposedly occurred. Why is that
important? Because they have admitted that the NT documents
were not written 150 years after the event which would
seriously undermine their historical credibility, but now only

decades afterwards.
Why were the Gospels written later than the letters of Paul?
Doesn't their later writing hurt their credibility? First, Paul
wrote continuously because he was addressing immediate
concerns the churches were facing. He didn't have the luxury of
waiting 40 - 50 years to write to the churches because their
concerns were immediate and desperate. On the other hand, the
Gospels were not needed to be composed because the
eyewitnesses were available themselves to communicate the
stories to the people. It was only when the eyewitnesses started
dying that the church realized that if it did not put down their
stories into written form, then they would lose those stories
forever. As a result, it is easy to see the reason the Gospels
would have been composed later.
But can you trust documents that were written 50 years after the
event? (Remember that the LAST Gospel was written 50 years
after the event; the others could have been written a whole lot
earlier.) Can you trust your memory 50 years after an event has
occurred? Well, it depends upon the event. There are many
things I cannot remember from 50 years ago. In another 2 1/2
years, though, I will be able to tell you exactly where I was and
what I was doing to the day 50 years earlier. I was sitting at my
desk at Samuel B. Chase Elementary School near Temple Hills,
Maryland, looking at the speaker which was located just to the
upper lefthand side of the door which exited out into the hall--
the hall where we would occasionally have drills in case of a
nuclear attack (we would squat down and place our head
between our knees to keep the nuclear explosion from killing
us!).
Why do I remember this? Because that afternoon, a voice came
over the loud speaker system announcing that President
Kennedy had been shot in Dallas, TX. Not only this event, but
several other happenings are etched permanently into my
memory because of his assassination: looking at TV and seeing
Lee Harvey Oswald exiting the police station being shot by Jack
Ruby; seeing the lines of people marching past the casket of

John Kennedy, lying in state in the rotunda of the Capitol
Building in Washington, D.C.; seeing the body transported
down the mall for burial at Arlington Cemetery and seeing his
little son salute his dad as the casket was rolled past him and
his mom and sister. I will never forgot those events.
Some people can remember even way back further than that.
Ask those in their 80's where they were when they heard that
Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Ask them where they were when
they heard the announcement that President Franklin Roosevelt
had died, the only president many of them had ever known. You
don't forget those kinds of events, ever.
As important and dramatic as these events were, just think about
how more dramatic and emotionally wrenching the crucifixion
and resurrection of Christ would have been. If I will be able to
remember the assassination of JFK 50 years ago, how much
more would the disciples have remembered the events of the
crucifixion and resurrection. (Moreover, also remember that
there is no reason in the world why the disciples didn't jot down
their memories a lot earlier than 50 years after the event. They
might have organized all their memoirs into Gospels later;
however, that would not have prevented them from jotting down
notes or memoirs of what they had seen while Christ was here.)
But These Documents were Written by Believers!
So, how does that make a difference? Very few, if any, books
based on history are completely unbiased. Nobody seriously
questions Thucydides' account of the struggle between the
Athenians and Spartans in his The Peloponnesian War although
he had been a general in the Athenian army. Yes, there may be
some coloring involved; however, does anyone doubt the war
occurred and which side won? We don't throw out Winston
Churchill's History of the English Speaking People because he
is pro-Anglo/American. We accept that the events he describes
actually occurred, even though he is biased.
Finally, there is one person who wrote some of the original
documents who was actually violently opposed to Christianity,
Paul. Moreover, according to the documents, unflattering in a

way, one of Jesus' half-brothers (James) originally didn't
believe in Christ but later converted because he supposedly had
a visit from the resurrected Jesus.
Christianity and Its Resemblance to Mythology
In the past one hundred years, Christianity has been attacked
because of the numerous similarities between the story of
Christianity and other mythologies, especially the myth of the
dying and rising God. In fact, C.S. Lewis initially rejected
Christianity even after he came to believe in God because he
claimed that Jesus was no more than another dying and rising
corn king like all the other dying and rising corn kings found in
other ancient religions. J.R.R. Tolkien was the one who showed
him the crucial difference between the "Christ myth" and the
other ancient myths of the dying and rising gods. According to
Tolkien, the difference was that the "Christ myth" was an
historical event which had historical verification, whereas these
other myths occurred in some mythological past unverifiable in
history.
But why would there be similarities between Christianity and
pagan myths if Christianity was supposed to be true? First of
all, make sure that the myths are based upon sound
documentation. (For example, some have tried to make Jesus a
"Christian" counterpart of the Egyptian god Horus (see
http://creativecounterpart.wordpress.com/2008/01/10/ending-
the-myths-of-horus-jesus/). Lewis has 2 responsess to such a
challenge:
"Nowadays it seems to be so forgotten that people think they
have somehow discredited Our Lord if they can show that some
pre-Christian document (or what they take to be pre-Christian)
such as the Dead Sea Scrolls has ‘anticipated’ Him. As if we
supposed Him to be a cheapjack, like Nietzsche, inventing a
new ethic! Every good teacher, within Judaism as without, has
anticipated Him. The whole religious history of the pre-
Christian world, on its better side, anticipates Him. It could not
be otherwise. The Light which has lightened every man from the