Disproving Christianity: and Other Secular Writings

By David G. McAfee

Disproving Christianity and Other Secular Writings compiles popular and lesser-known arguments against the principles established by the Christian canon.

Using a phenomenological approach to build his case based on in-depth study at the University of California, Santa Barbara, McAfee analyzes the Hebrew Scriptures and New Testament doctrine to build a logical and reasonable case against their validity. From contradictions between lived and portrayed religions to factual errors within the texts themselves, no stone is left unturned in this fully updated and expanded refutation of Christianity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hypatia Press
• Release date: Jun 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781839190117

David G. McAfee

David G. McAfee is a journalist, religious studies scholar, and author of Disproving Christianity and other Secular Writings, as well as a contributor to American Atheist magazine. McAfee attended University of California, Santa Barbara, and graduated with a dual-degree in English and Religious Studies with an emphasis on Christianity and Mediterranean religions. He lives in California.

Book preview

DISPROVING CHRISTIANITY  

and other Secular Writings 

DAVID G. MCAFEE 

© Copyright David G. McAfee 2019 

First Published in the USA 2010 by David G. McAfee as  Disproving Christianity: Refuting the World’s Most Followed Religion Second edition published in Great Britain 2011 by Dangerous Little Books Published in the United States of America by Hypatia Press in 2019 

ISBN: 978-1-83919-010-0 

Cover by Claire Wood 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. 

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

What This Means to Me 

Disproving Christianity  is important to me, and not  just  because it was my first book. It also means a lot to me because it was my entrance into the world of atheism and secular activism. 

I had always been an atheist, but I wasn’t really aware of the skeptical communities. I was going to school at UC Santa Barbara and majoring in Religious Studies, and I was still planning on having an academic career in that field. I had never considered becoming an atheist author because I didn’t know such a thing even existed. 

Disproving Christianity  didn’t start out as a book at all. It began as an essay for personal use. I was taking a class on New Testament literature, combining my loves of writing and learning about religion, and I started to take note of the various contradictions and discrepancies between the books of the Bible. I thought if I wrote an essay with demonstrable errors in the Bible, I could convince my grandparents to give up their positions as Biblical literalists. 

I kept writing my personal essay for months, but it continued to evolve beyond what I ever anticipated. Eventually I had about 20 pages of writing, and I started thinking about  other Biblical literalists I could help if I continued. I kept researching and writing and, at the age of 19, I self-published my book through Amazon. It was called,  Disproving Christianity: Refuting the World’ Most Followed Religion. 

I immediately booked a few local speaking events, where I sold some copies of the self-published book, but that was about the extent of my promotional work. Regardless, the book picked up a little bit of steam and I ultimately republished it as  Disproving Christianity and Other Secular Writings with an imprint know as Dangerous Little Books. 

Under the DLB label,  Disproving Christianity  succeeded more than I ever imagined. Perhaps because of the new publisher, or maybe because I gave away more than 40,000 digital copies, positive reviews flooded in. People loved its simplistic style, and the fact that it basically served as a pocket guide for refuting fundamentalist Biblical principles. 

It’s for that reason that, when the DLB contract expired, I opted to republish with Hypatia Press. I didn’t change the content itself – I wanted it to be true to the version people enjoyed – but I thought it deserved a renewed deal and a wider audience. So, feel free to tell all your friends! 

Yours in Reason, 

David G. McAfee

Contents 

Preface i 

PART ONE 

Cultural Christianity 

1

A Brief Introduction to Christianity in America 5

The Principle America was Built Upon 

6 

American Money 

7 

American Laws 

9 

Morality versus Worship 

14

Mainstream Theories of Disproval 

18

Contradictions in Scripture and in Practices 28

Minor Contradictions 

41

Does God Tempt Man? 

41 

Is God Forever Angry? 

42 

Can Man See God? 

43 

Who Was Joseph’s Father? 

43 

The Prophecy Foretold the Messiah would be Named Emmanuel 44 

Does Jesus Bring Peace or a Sword? 

44 

God Decrees that Adam Will Die Upon Consumption of the Fruit 45 

Does God Change His Mind [Repent]? 

46 

How Many Animals Were to be Saved by Noah? 

46 

God’s Flood Did Not Destroy Giants? 

47 

Can Man Be Righteous? 

49 

Does God Deliver the Commandments unto Moses through a Mediator? 49 

Is God All Powerful? 

50 

Atrocities and Absurdities Committed or Condoned by the Lord 53

God Controls Who is Made Blind, Deaf, Etc. 

54 

God Sends Bears to Maul Forty-two Children 55 

Human Beings as Commodities or Property 55 

Moses to His Soldiers 

56 

Lot and Incest 

56 

A Rich Man Shall Hardly Enter Heaven 

58 

Fire and Brimstone from Heaven? 

59 

The Lord Slays the Ethiopians 

60 

Breaking the Sabbath Punishable by Death 61 

The Resurrected Armies of Bones 

62 

Hate thy Father and thy Mother 

63 

The Subservience of Women 

64 

God’s Condemnation of Shrimp and Shellfish 65 

Let Your Women Keep Silence 

66 

Jealous and Furious Lord Causes Natural Disasters 67 

Conclusion 69

PART TWO 

71

There are no Sacrifices for the Omnipotent: The Jesus Contradiction 73

A Glitch in God’s System: The Paradox of Divine Intervention  74

A Letter to the Christian Hypocrites 76

Why Atheists Should Understand the Bible 79

Religion and War: The Chicken and the Egg 82

Two Nations, Under God: The Canadian Charter from an American Perspective 

84

Preface 

The pages that follow will be focused on the fallacies, improbabilities, and contradictions created by the  Christian tradition—not the idea of a God as a whole. Because no one can be  completely certain that there is no higher power or some other, more abstract, 

Creator, it is nearly impossible to ‘disprove’; however, it is entirely possible through analysis and research to find discrepancies within the ancient, organized, religious traditions that support the idea of a  specific god. Each argument and contradiction presented will bring us closer to disproving the main pillars of Christianity using nothing more than logical thinking, statistics, scientific and historical data, and Holy Scriptures. The debates between Christians and non-Christians have raged for thousands of years, and I expect the conflict to continue; but I do hope that these arguments will allow those Christians who may not have questioned biblical fallibility in the past to realize that these texts are man-made, and they represent the ideas of those fallible individuals who created and edited the compilation of texts now considered to be  The Holy Bible. They contain errors, contradictions, and a stagnant moral code which, in many ways, no longer coincides with the morality of  modern  man.  What  I  hope  to  gain  from  presenting  these arguments and little-known biblical passages to the reader is a sense of understanding of scripture which may not be presented in Bible Study or in church—and for good reason. If read with an open mind, I

Reviews for Disproving Christianity

[Maila Brest · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I don't know if it's my phone, but this book is impossible to read, great material but has passages such as "the the do- doc - passage" so I gave up on the (try) reading