On Christianity and Antipods

For any interested parties who might wish to read or comment,

My name is Mark.  Among other things, I am a comic enthusiast.  Last week while visiting dummcomics.com (a wonderful collection of web comics by several talented animators) I came across a strip that expressed an anti-Christian sentiment.  Now, I am a Christian.  This site has a comments section, so I commented.  A fellow reader from this site disagreed with me and we began to debate, but since we were getting off topic, the other gentleman suggested that we relocate the conversation to a blog, which is what you’re looking at right now.

He posted an article that he felt provided suitable evidence for an argument against Christianity.  All in all, it was good reading.  I’ll provide a brief surmise of it below, but for those interested in reading the actual article, here’s the address: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth#Early_Christian_Church

The article lists a number of Christian teachers, St. Augustine among them, who felt that there could be no such things as antipods (that is, people living on the other side of the earth) because it would be too widespread a population to have been descended from Adam and Eve.  It also lists a number of amusing explanations as to the actual shape of the Earth.

First let me say that this is interesting reading and it does show where some people, very respected theologians, stuck their foot in their mouth.  That being said, Antipods aren’t a very strong argument when attempting to disprove creationism.  After the tower of Babel fell the inhabitants of the earth scattered in all directions.  The Egyptians in the days of Moses had contact with various civilizations at the far corners of the globe.  It’s even been argued that the ships of Tarshish reached the Americas and there is archeological evidence to that effect scattered all over the country, particularly around the banks of the Mississippi.  People traveled.  By the time St. Augustine came on the scene, the human race would have been around (following a creationist calendar) for more than 4300 years.  To say that the descents of two people couldn’t transverse the earth in more than 4000 years is absurd.

I can’t comment on the other scholars listed, because St. Augustine is the only one I’m familiar with.  I generally make it a rule not to speak of things I know nothing about (I find it saves on embarrassment), but I do know that at the end of his life, St. Augustine began to reexamine a number of his views and even wrote a book called Retractions wherein he corrected a number of opinions he had previously stated.  This book is not reprinted as often as some of his others, and as such I have never read it.  I’ve seen paperbacks on amazom.com occasionally, but I’m personally holding out for a hard back.  (As a rule, any book that might be called on for reference (history, theology, philosophy, ect.) I try to buy in hardback because they hold up so much better upon repeat reading).  As I’ve never read this book, I can’t really comment as to whether or not he retracted his opinion concerning the antipods, however, it does show that he was a reasonable man who was willing to admit he was wrong when confronted with new information.  Were he privy to our knowledge, he probably would have retracted his antipod opinion as well.

I enjoyed this article all the same.  Still, it really does nothing to disprove Christianity and this is why.  The basis for all Christian doctrine is the Bible.  The Bible is (I believe) a group of books that God inspired men to write.  These men did color the language of their books, but the ultimate outcome was something greater than any man could have accomplished.  This is why Scripture is so important to the Christian.  See, men are imperfect.  We say stupid things and we don’t know everything, so when we try to make educated guesses based on incomplete facts we usually end up saying even more stupid things.  Everyone has their own take on life and every Christian has his own take on the faith.  It’s colored by personal experience and their own range of doctrinal knowledge.  Doctrine can be a good thing when taken from scripture.  It can be a  bad thing when people try to twist scripture to fit their own agenda.  But at the end of the day believers always have the scripture to go back to and check with.  This is why the apostles exhorted the early church to study as much as they could, which wasn’t an easy thing considering most of them at that time were outlaws and didn’t have easy access to it.

Even if the article was a hundred times more damning, it would only disprove the words of men and Christianity is not about that.  It’s about the word of God.  I really appreciate the article, but if you’re going to make any headway in terms of convincing me that Christianity is false, you’re going to have to find a suitably convincing argument against the scriptures themselves.  People who study the Bible, good or bad, don’t apply.  The Bible says even the Devils believe and they tremble.  Satan himself quoted Scripture to Jesus.  Those who read the word will do as they will.  Those who believe the word will try to be perfect as he was perfect and ultimately fail.  The only thing worth defending, the only thing that really matters, in the realm of Christian thought is the word.  All else is conjecture.  Only by disproving the word itself can an argument against Christianity stand.

 

To the gentleman for whom this article was written,

I look forward to your next volley.  See you around Dumm.

 

To any interested readers, thank you for checking this out.  Now that I’ve got a blog, I should be posting all kinds of things as they occur to me, and while this blog was intended as a carry over from a previous conversation, I welcome any and all comments and feedback, positive or negative.

Take care everyone.