good paper or essay or even book refuting christianity?

[im a model]

does anyone know of any essays or things of that nature that aim simply to disprove christianity? there must be tons but i googled some stuff and there were too many crappy results to wade through.

(im reading god is not great by christopher hitchens, and its so desultory and filled with anecdotes and somewhat arbitrary (albeit interesting) facts. i would like something more purely refuting the claims that believers make about god, jesus, etc.)

[tarheeljks]

you could start w/nietzsche

[almostbusto]

Are you strictly trying to disprove the story of Jesus? or the moral platform that Christianity is built upon?

I am pretty sure you are going to have a hard time attacking the historical story of Jesus since all the forensic evidence has been destroyed.

as for the Christian moral philosophy, its pretty hard to 'disprove' that sort of thing.

[borisp]

The Bible is pretty self contradictory, so yea, umm, I guess, the Bible. (And that is even a book!)

My favorite alternative is anything by Sam Harris.

[Phil153]

Agree with boris. The bible, and it's not close. Read it from start to finish.

[yukoncpa]

Here's a good essay - Why I am not a Christian, by Bertrand Russell.

link (http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html)

[MidGe]

I have to agree with boris and phil here. There could not be a book that is more of an indictment of christianity than the bible. It is really worth reading. Once read, with an open mind, I don't think you could ever be a christian again.

It will give you unbelievable amounts of argument against most flavors of christianity.

[RoundGuy]

Here is an excellent place to start. Tons and tons of essays:

Farrel Till (http://www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/)

[gila]

Hume,

section X. "Of Miracles" , XI. "Of a Particular providence and of a Future State", and XII. "Of the Academical or Skeptical Philosophy" from An enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.

From Wikipedia:

And there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of human testimony, also based on experience. If a) testimonies conflict one another, b) there are a small number of witnesses, c) the speaker has no integrity, d) the speaker is overly hesitant or bold, or e) the speaker is known to have motives for lying, then the epistemologist has reason to be skeptical of their claims. (Hume 1974:390)

There is one final criterion that Hume thinks gives us warrant to doubt any given testimony, and that is f) if the propositions being communicated are miraculous. Hume understands a miracle to be any event which contradicts the laws of nature. He argues that the laws of nature have an overwhelming body of evidence behind them, and are so well demonstrated to everyone's experience, that any deviation from those laws necessarily flies in the face of all evidence. (Hume 1974:391-392)

Moreover, he stresses that talk of the miraculous has no surface validity, for four reasons. First, he explains that in all of history there has never been a miracle which was attested to by a wide body of disinterested experts. Second, he notes that human beings delight in a sense of wonder, and this provides a villain with an opportunity to manipulate others. Third, he thinks that those who hold onto the miraculous have tended towards barbarism. Finally, since testimonies tend to conflict with one another when it comes to the miraculous -- that is, one man's religious miracle may be contradicted by another man's miracle -- any testimony relating to the fantastic is self-denunciating. (Hume 1974:393-398)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enquiry_concerning_Human_Understanding

[surftheiop]

Lol good luck, you already know enough to "refute christianity". If you cant convince yourself now reading a book isnt going to change anything

[Arp220]

The God Delusion by Dawkins is a pretty good read

[IronUnkind]

You'll have to forgive the lame responses. Atheists are used to taking orders from Captain Renault (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114814/)

[benjdm]

Atheism: The Case Against God (http://www.amazon.com/Atheism-Case-Against-Skeptics-Bookshelf/dp/087975124X) by George H. Smith

[nescience]

Is there any particular aspect of Christianity you're trying to refute?

In the 2000 or so year history of the religion, there have been so many disagreements in interpretation that just about the only common claim you can attack is that Jesus is God's son (even the divinity vs. humanity of Jesus Christ is argued amongst Christians).

Since this very basic claim, much like any claim about the existence of God, typically distills into an irrelevant question of belief, any attempt to disprove it seems to be as fallacious as attempts to prove it. There are, however, many arguments that fairly convincingly poke holes in so-called "proofs" of the existence of God. This arguments form the basis of the atheistic viewpoint, which is more concerned with the idea that it is impossible to prove the existence of God than the idea that it is possible to prove the non-existence of God. If you want some historical viewpoints, I would look into the philosophical writings of St. Anselm (and to a lesser extent, Thomas Aquinas), who both attempted to prove the existence of God, and the various criticisms of their arguments (such as from Hume).

I don't know if this helps, but might give you something to consider as you read.