PAUL THE PRIME EVANGELIST OF THE EARLY CHURCH EXPLOITED CREDULITY

Paul, according to Christianity, was the first witness to the resurrection of Jesus to put his conviction that he saw this risen Jesus into writing and he wrote near enough to the event. These things would make him the only one that deserves a hearing if it were not for some other facts. He claimed to be a very bad man even when he was writing and still he said we should believe him. Anybody who expects that can hardly be trusted.
 
Besides the truth is that Paul didn’t see or say he investigated the empty tomb of Jesus. He just saw visions of Jesus. We have no first hand evidence that the visions said they were of Jesus. Christianity admits that visions alone prove nothing because it rejects the reliability of most apparition stories.
 
There are no first-hand accounts of the resurrection at all.

Paul knew that prayer is communication with God. Yet he said that when you speak in tongues your spirit is praying but your mind is not (1 Corinthians 14).

Paul believed that the gift of tongues was for converting unbelievers (1 Corinthians 14:22). How stupid does he think we are? Babbling nonsense will convert nobody. He realised that himself for he said so then what did he say they were signs for? Probably because practicing the gift was useful for tricking the mind and programming it to believe in Paul’s version of Jesus.

If God really spoke through the prophets of Corinth, Paul would not have needed to lay down rules for order (v14). He thought that God was well-organised when he declared that God doesn’t confuse. Paul’s thinking is incoherent and childish or he wanted ours to be.
 
Paul claimed that muttering gibberish was a miraculous sign from God! He was a complete nutcase if he really believed that.

He was approved by his version of the Church, the largest group in early Christianity, which shows that it was composed of fools.

Paul knew that people who did not believe in free will or who held that sin is hard to commit because there are so few sins could hardly or rarely be sinners yet he said they were (Romans 3).

He accused human beings of being totally sinful and depraved (Romans 3). Obviously, the nearest he could get to learning this would be from observing himself. A creature as vile as that has no business asking people to trust him and his gospel.

Paul stated that when he sins at times it is sin that does it not him (Romans 7:20). What kind of thinking is that?

In Romans 14, Paul hypocritically forbade eating certain foods when it offends other Christians who do not know that God lets his people eat whatever they like. Yet he held that it is wrong to commit certain acts even if not doing them scandalises others like adultery or theft or homosexuality. He wanted people to be gullible.

Paul said that Jesus must have risen from the dead for if he has not then the dead will not rise and our faith is in vain (1 Corinthians 15). That logic would tell you that a person who tells you they are right for they would be wrong if they were not is right.

The mind boggles regarding how a man could have nothing on his conscience and still be a sinner (1 Corinthians 4:4). Paul either had little sense or he knew his listeners had none!

These are the anti-intellectual hints. But Paul went straight for the jugular and forbade thinking when it was not his thinking.

Paul sees symbolism in a Genesis story (Galatians 4:21-31) that is not in the original. The Church says he was not claiming that it was in it but that he could see a parable for what he wanted to say in it. That is a lie for all he had to do was just say what he wanted to say without the fancy interpretation. It would have been handier and he never gave any hint that the Church was right. This proved that when he said in the book of Acts that he never undermined the Law of Moses he was lying for this allegorical interpretation indicates that he wanted it to be possible to make it mean whatever you like.

Paul declared that our faith must not depend on philosophy or wisdom but on God’s power (1 Corinthians 1,2). He commanded blind faith. The Church says he is only against false wisdom. But he said that the death of Jesus proved that the wisdom of the world which says that the Son of God could not save by dying on the cross is wrong and we cannot make sense of the death of Jesus. He is saying that when reason contradicts God, reason must be ignored. To say that God must guide your reason is the same as forbidding reason to speak clearly because the pope tells you that God will guide you to believe that contraception is bad and evangelicals say that God will guide you to believe the opposite!

Paul wrote that all the virtue in the world is useless without love. In other words, you start off with love before you think about virtue. Yet in Colossians which is from him or an adherent of his says that that you start off with patience, compassion and forgiving and you wrap these up in love to complete them (3:14). Love is patience and compassion and forgiving for heaven’s sake!

Paul claimed to be an apostle equal to the twelve apostles and gave no evidence whatsoever for this authority. Not everybody agreed that Paul really was an apostle (1 Corinthians 9:2,3). To these he replied that his success as a missionary was the proof that he really was an apostle in the eyes of God. Some defence! Joseph Smith did better and he was a phoney. Paul was obviously desperate when he used that ridiculous argument and desperation like that shows that he did not care if he was an apostle or not but wanted everyone to think he was one. No evidence is ever given that the other apostles who would naturally have the right to officially declare if anybody was an apostle declared him one. Luke said Paul was an apostle but Luke on his own cannot be proved to be divinely inspired so we can drop him and he was Paul-centred when it would have made more sense for him to dwell more on the original twelve apostles in his writings. Paul often boasted that he was equal to the other apostles and then he got embarrassed and sought to soften this bragging with a declaration that he was very humble. Saying you are very humble is a form of boasting and the most manipulative form there is! To believe in Paul’s writings as a part of scripture is to defy the rule that at least two trustworthy witnesses should be carefully cross-examined and pass the questioning before their claim can be accepted.

This man’s miracle and religious experience stories are unreliable. Some witness to the resurrection! If Jesus had to depend on him to spread Christianity over the empire then Jesus was a fraud for God would not have picked a man that people could not reasonably rely on as a teacher. How do we know it was not the Devil that appeared at Damascus? The Devil would appear exactly as Jesus and teach only holy things if it meant driving an evil man to become a false apostle and lead the Church astray. Satan needs to be subtle.