Tag: Christian Apologetics

Campfire and Hellfire: The Comfort of Condemnation

Mark Clark opens Chapter 5 with what he calls “the problem of hell.” It’s a curious way to frame a moral horror that most of us, Christian and non-Christian alike, instinctively reject. Rather than confront this intuitive revulsion, Clark’s goal is to explain hell as reasonable, even necessary, within the Christian worldview. His case begins around a literal campfire — a moment of spiritual reflection that quickly flares into warnings of divine vengeance.

In this post, we’ll analyze the opening tone of Chapter 5 and its first section, “Campfire and Hellfire,” and examine how fear-based belief and authoritarian assumptions undergird Clark’s defense of eternal torment.

A Problem Framed with Certainty

Clark admits, “The doctrine of hell is emotionally and intellectually repulsive to most people,” but insists it’s “not only necessary” but “good news.” Rather than pausing to explore why so many humans recoil from the idea of hell — or whether that revulsion might be evidence against its validity — Clark doubles down. He presents hell as both Jesus’ teaching and a logical consequence of justice.

This is a classic move: start with an emotionally difficult premise, acknowledge its discomfort, then attempt to recast it as a misunderstood good. In rhetoric, this is called “reframing.” In theology, it’s sometimes called gaslighting.

Campfires and Conversion

In the “Campfire and Hellfire” anecdote, Clark recounts a youth retreat where teenagers sat around a fire and shared emotional confessions. Some admitted fear about death or expressed concern for their unsaved friends. Clark writes that the pastor leading the event pivoted to a warning: “If you don’t know Jesus, you’re going to hell.”

Clark then asserts that many of the youth gave their lives to Jesus that night, claiming this as a success story. But let’s pause and ask a deeper question:

What kind of worldview requires a child to fear eternal conscious torment in order to be considered saved?

When fear is the tool of persuasion, consent is undermined. And when that fear is eternal — a never-ending nightmare from which there is no waking — then the moral foundation of the faith is on trial.

The Real Problem of Hell: Not That It’s Unpopular, But That It’s Immoral

Clark sets up hell as a stumbling block for modern people because it’s offensive to our moral intuitions. But instead of asking whether our moral intuitions might be pointing toward a more humane truth, he insists the problem lies with us.

This is the great reversal: rather than the doctrine of hell being scrutinized for cruelty, you are scrutinized for questioning it.

And yet, that very question is central to The God Question:

If an idea is emotionally traumatic, ethically indefensible, and historically weaponized — is it more likely to be true, or human-made?

An Imaginary Solution to an Imaginary Problem

Clark doesn’t prove the existence of hell. He simply asserts it — because Jesus said it, the Bible teaches it, and justice demands it (we’ll explore those claims in later sections). But his foundational assumption is clear: hell must exist because humans are sinful and a holy God must punish sin.

But what if the problem isn’t sin — at least not as defined by ancient tribal codes or authoritarian churches?

What if the real problem is this: we invented a problem (original sin) and then invented a horrifying solution (hell) in order to control behavior, enforce conformity, and keep the faithful afraid?

That’s not divine justice. That’s spiritual abuse.

Final Reflection

The image of teenagers trembling around a campfire, pushed toward belief by the threat of eternal suffering, is not an argument for God — it’s an argument against religious coercion. If the God of Christianity were real, and hell were a place of eternal conscious torment, then nothing about this world — or this gospel — could be called “good news.”

In the next post, we’ll examine Clark’s section titled “Jesus, Teacher of Hell,” and assess the specific claims about what Jesus taught — and what kind of teacher he would be if those teachings were true.

The End

In this post, we conclude our response to Chapter 5 of Mark Clark’s The Problem of God, titled “The End.”  Here Clark brings his discussion of evil and suffering to a sentimental close, appealing to Romans 8:28 (“all things work together for good”) and Romans 8:18 (“the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed”).  It’s an emotional ending—but emotion isn’t evidence.  Let’s take a closer look.

1.  The Emotional Bypass

Clark’s final appeal isn’t an argument—it’s a coping mechanism.  By quoting Paul, he shifts from evidence to reassurance: suffering feels meaningful because one day, somehow, it will be.  But this is not a logical resolution of the problem of evil; it’s a postponement.  The question “Why does a loving, all-powerful God allow needless suffering now?” is replaced with “Maybe someday we’ll understand.”

That’s not philosophy—it’s deferral.  And deferral, however comforting, doesn’t erase the observable fact that billions of sentient beings suffer without purpose, redemption, or relief.

2.  The All-Things Fallacy

Romans 8:28 is often quoted as a promise that every tragedy hides divine intention: “All things work together for good.”  Clark follows that script.  Yet the claim collapses under minimal scrutiny.  All things?  Childhood cancer?  Genocide?  Animal suffering across millions of years before humans existed?

If “good” can encompass these horrors, then “good” has lost meaning.  The verse survives only by stretching “good” so far that it becomes an empty synonym for whatever happens.  That isn’t moral depth—it’s moral surrender.

3.  Suffering as Evidence Against, Not For, God

Clark treats suffering as evidence of God’s empathy (“a God who suffers with us”).  But an empathetic bystander who can prevent agony and doesn’t is not compassionate—he’s complicit.  The Christian claim that God both feels our pain and allows it for a mysterious greater good makes moral sense only if we downgrade compassion to something sentimental and inert.

If we judge by human ethical standards—the same standards we are told God implanted in us—then omnipotent empathy that permits torture is incoherent.  Either God cannot stop suffering (and is not omnipotent) or will not (and is not good).  Clark resolves neither horn of that dilemma; he merely quotes scripture to declare victory.

4.  The Tolkien Illustration and the Narrative Trap

Clark ends with Samwise Gamgee’s reflection from The Two Towers: even darkness is “a passing thing.”  It’s a lovely literary moment—but Tolkien wrote fiction, not metaphysics.  To borrow that line as theological evidence is to mistake emotional catharsis for truth.  Stories comfort us precisely because they end—because meaning is imposed by an author.  The real world, indifferent and ongoing, offers no such narrative guarantee.

5.  The Psychology of Closure

The closing tone of “The End” mirrors a human impulse, not divine revelation: our need for closure.  We dislike unresolved pain, so we craft cosmic closure where none is evident.  In that sense, Clark’s theology is anthropological data—it tells us how the human mind copes, not how the universe works.  Hope is valuable as hope, but to mistake it for knowledge is to blur the line between comfort and truth.

6.  The God Question Reframed

If suffering can exist without purpose, then meaning is ours to make—not handed down.  The more honest response to evil is not “It all works for good,” but “We must decide what good means and act accordingly.”

Presence, empathy, and alleviation—these are human responsibilities, not divine mysteries.

That, perhaps, is the real end: not a verse about glory later, but a choice about compassion now.

📜 Closing Thought:

Christianity’s hope rests on postponed justification.  The God Question’s hope rests on clear sight: that pain needs no permission to matter, and kindness needs no eternity to be sacred.

The Advantage of Disadvantage: When Faith Romanticizes Suffering

This post is part of an ongoing response series to The Problem of God by Mark Clark, an apologetics book that attempts to defend Christian belief against modern critiques. Here at The God Question, we’re not interested in strawman versions of faith or smug atheism. Our goal is simple: examine claims honestly, think critically, and ask what’s real — not just what’s reassuring. Each post follows this core philosophy: Begin with curiosity, not belief. Follow evidence, not emotion. Let reality speak for itself.

Reframing Suffering as Strength?

In the section titled The Advantage of Disadvantage, Mark Clark attempts to reframe suffering and disadvantage not as obstacles, but as secret strengths. The idea is simple — and familiar to anyone steeped in Christian teaching:

“God uses the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”

“Suffering humbles us. Disadvantage deepens our dependence on God.”

“Struggle builds spiritual character.”

Clark cites biblical passages, particularly from the Apostle Paul, who famously wrote that God’s power is “made perfect in weakness.” He suggests that those without worldly status, material comfort, or physical strength are often in a better position to receive God’s grace. In fact, being disadvantaged — socially, economically, physically — may be a blessing in disguise.

Let’s be clear: there’s nothing wrong with learning from hardship. But when suffering becomes spiritualized, we need to ask some hard questions. Because what Clark presents here isn’t just personal encouragement — it’s a theological worldview with real consequences.

Romanticizing Suffering, Obscuring Responsibility

Clark’s approach to suffering in this section leans heavily on the trope of the “noble sufferer”: the idea that pain refines us, weakness ennobles us, and those who struggle are somehow closer to the divine.

This might feel comforting in personal moments of hardship — but as a framework for understanding systemic suffering, it’s deeply problematic.

Why?

Because it shifts attention away from the cause of suffering and instead romanticizes the effect.

  • The single mother working three jobs to survive isn’t facing injustice — she’s just in a season of character growth.
  • The chronically ill person without healthcare isn’t a victim of systemic failure — their pain is a spiritual advantage.
  • The marginalized teenager bullied for their identity isn’t being failed by society — they’re being “prepared” by God.

This is not just bad theology. It’s a dangerous justification for inaction. When suffering becomes a divine tool, empathy becomes pity — and justice becomes irrelevant.

The Psychological Cost of “Spiritual Strength”

There’s a darker underside to the “advantage of disadvantage” narrative. For many people, especially those raised in fundamentalist or evangelical traditions, this message conditions them to accept abuse, poverty, or discrimination as holy.

  • “God is using this for your good.”
  • “Don’t complain — God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers.”
  • “This is making you stronger.”

But often, it’s not.

Often, it’s breaking them.

Trauma therapists, mental health professionals, and survivors themselves will tell you: pain doesn’t automatically produce growth. It often produces shame, dissociation, and lifelong psychological harm — especially when the victim has been taught to see their suffering as spiritual training.

Clark’s version of the gospel not only fails to relieve the pain — it risks sanctifying it. That’s not empowerment. It’s gaslighting with a halo.

Flipping the Script: What Is the Advantage of Privilege?

If disadvantage is a secret spiritual weapon, we might reasonably ask: why does the church chase political power, wealth, and influence so relentlessly? Why do the most prominent Christian voices in America — megachurch pastors, celebrity preachers, political operatives — live lives of staggering privilege?

Clark doesn’t address this contradiction.

Instead, he focuses on the individual believer who is disadvantaged — while conveniently ignoring the institutional church that often benefits from and perpetuates that disadvantage.

When the Christian message teaches the poor to embrace their suffering but never teaches the rich to divest their comfort, something’s gone wrong. That’s not faith. That’s a control mechanism dressed up in spiritual language.

There Is an Advantage — But It’s Not What Clark Thinks

There is one thread of truth in Clark’s argument, but he misses the point: suffering can wake us up.

Not to God.

But to the myth of control. To the illusion that life is fair. To the stories we’ve inherited that no longer serve us. And in that awakening, some people do find clarity. Not through divine intervention, but through courage, reflection, therapy, and human connection.

But that’s a far cry from saying God uses suffering to make us stronger. That’s just repackaged prosperity gospel with grittier aesthetics.

Final Thoughts

The idea that suffering gives us an “advantage” sounds noble — until you realize how often it’s used to excuse the pain, not address it.

If there is any moral imperative in suffering, it’s not to reinterpret it as holy. It’s to reduce it. To listen to it. To let it move us toward compassion, justice, and systemic change.

Let’s stop calling pain a gift from God. And let’s start calling it what it is: a reality of life that we can — and must — confront together.

The Real Problem of Evil: Not Evidence for God, But Against One

This post is part of our ongoing series responding to The Problem of God by Mark Clark. We’re moving chapter by chapter, examining Clark’s arguments through the lens of evidence, reason, and what we call The God Question—a philosophy that begins not with belief, but with curiosity. Our goal is not to mock or belittle, but to critically and thoughtfully respond to the claims made, helping readers engage with the deeper issues beneath the surface.

🔍 Clark’s Opening Framing: An Appeal to Emotion

Mark Clark begins Chapter 5 by asserting that “this is the most personal chapter in the book.” That immediately tells us that emotion will drive much of the content that follows. And sure enough, it does.

He recounts personal pain—his mother’s cancer and death, his own physical suffering from a degenerative disease, and emotional abuse by his father. These are real, powerful, and humanizing experiences. But Clark attempts to move from the universality of suffering to a very specific conclusion:

Suffering is not evidence against God, but a reason we need Him.

This is the central move of the chapter. And it deserves close examination.

🧠 The Bait-and-Switch of Emotional Authority

Clark’s argument operates like this:

  1. We all suffer.
  2. I’ve suffered too.
  3. So let me tell you what suffering means.

This rhetorical sequence is powerful because it feels honest. But it also risks becoming manipulative. It subtly shuts down the deeper philosophical question—why does suffering exist at all in a universe supposedly governed by a loving, all-powerful God?—by overwhelming the reader with pathos.

The emotional groundwork makes it hard to question the logic without seeming cold or heartless. But we must question it.

❓Is Suffering Really a “Reason We Need God”?

Clark claims that suffering doesn’t negate God’s existence. Instead, it shows our deep need for God. He writes:

“We ask for answers. God doesn’t give us answers. He gives us Himself.”

This is poetic. But it’s also hollow. It assumes that God’s silence in the face of suffering is not a problem, but a feature of divine love. In other words: God doesn’t fix it because His presence is enough.

This, of course, raises a brutal contradiction: If God is powerful and loving, why is His non-intervention framed as an act of compassion?

The better explanation may be far simpler—and far more honest: There is no divine being answering prayers or intervening at all.

🔄 Reframing the Burden of Proof

Clark tries to turn the problem around. He argues that suffering only feels like a problem for the believer—because we expect a good God to do something about it. But for the atheist, he suggests, suffering shouldn’t be a problem at all. It’s just nature playing out—no meaning, no evil, just randomness.

This is a common apologetic move: to claim that atheists “borrow” their moral outrage from Christianity.

But that’s intellectually dishonest.

Non-theistic philosophies—like secular humanism, Buddhism, or Stoicism—have deeply coherent ways of explaining and confronting suffering. These worldviews acknowledge suffering without invoking a morally culpable, invisible deity.

In fact, atheism removes the moral contradiction entirely: in a natural universe, we suffer because of biology, environment, randomness, and human cruelty—not because a benevolent cosmic Father chooses not to intervene.

🔚 Where to Pause for Now

Let’s stop here, just before Clark begins offering the classic Christian responses to suffering (i.e., free will, soul-building theodicies, and Jesus’s suffering as solidarity).

In our next post, we’ll examine those claims in detail.

The True Myth

At The God Question, we critically examine religious truth claims using reason, evidence, and a deep awareness of psychological and cultural conditioning. This ongoing blog series is responding section by section to Mark Clark’s The Problem of God. Clark writes from an evangelical Christian perspective, seeking to answer modern skeptics. We read with both care and scrutiny. In this post, we explore the final portion of Chapter 4, “The Christ Myth,” specifically the concluding section titled The True Myth.

📘 Summary of Clark’s Argument

In this final section, Mark Clark shifts from defensive rebuttal to theological interpretation. He attempts to explain the myth-like structure of Christianity not as a problem—but as its beauty. Drawing on C.S. Lewis’s notion of Christianity as “the true myth,” Clark argues that the Christian story fulfills the deepest longings of humanity found in other myths and belief systems. He quotes Romans 2:14–16 to assert that God has written a moral law on every heart, and he appeals to the inner resonance of the gospel narrative to justify its truth.

In short: myths point to something real. Christianity is the myth that became fact.

🎯 The Core Claim: Myth Doesn’t Undermine Truth—It Reveals It

Clark asks us to consider that mythic parallels between Jesus and earlier pagan gods aren’t evidence that Christianity borrowed or evolved from these stories—but rather, that God “seeded” the world with these myths to prepare the human heart for the gospel. He frames Christianity as the fulfillment of every ancient human story about dying and rising gods, redemption, sacrifice, and divine intervention.

This argument hinges on the assumption that resonance equals reality—that because the story of Jesus feels meaningful and archetypal, it must be grounded in historical fact.

🧠 Critical Response: Resonance Is Not Evidence

From The God Question’s perspective, this is precisely where the shift from thoughtful investigation to theological rationalization occurs.

  • Emotional appeal ≠ objective truth. That a story resonates with our longings—our desire for justice, love, sacrifice, and eternal life—does not mean it is historically or metaphysically true. Fairy tales, legends, and Marvel movies also resonate.
  • The Lewisian move collapses the line between myth and fact. C.S. Lewis argued that Christianity was a myth that happened to be true. But this is not an argument for its truth; it’s a poetic restatement of belief. It’s beautiful theology, but not persuasive evidence.
  • The moral law argument is culturally shallow. Quoting Romans 2 about a “law written on the heart” ignores the enormous diversity of moral systems across cultures and history. Evolutionary psychology and social anthropology offer far better explanations for shared ethics than divine inscription.

🔍 What’s Missing in Clark’s Conclusion?

Clark ends this chapter with what feels good, what sounds grand, and what echoes C.S. Lewis’s literary mysticism. But he does not offer:

  1. Historical evidence for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus (that’s postponed to later chapters).
  2. A rigorous response to the most obvious and natural conclusion of the evidence: Christianity is part of the myth-making human project, not its fulfillment.
  3. Acknowledgment of non-Christian perspectives—the millions who feel deep emotional resonance in Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or even atheism.

In essence, Clark offers a grand “what if?” to close the chapter:

“What if nothing could be more natural in the plan of God than the existence of such stories?”

To which we at The God Question respond:

What if the far more natural explanation is that humans make stories that reflect their fears and longings—and Christianity is simply the most dominant version in the Western world?

🪙 Concluding Thought

Clark’s closing argument reveals a critical shift—from evidence to affirmation. It is not a conclusion grounded in history, philosophy, or science. It is a conclusion rooted in faith seeking literary beauty. And while that beauty is powerful, it is not proof.

This is not the problem of God.

It is the problem of wanting something so badly to be true that we mistake the ache for the answer.

Why the JFK–Lincoln Comparison Doesn’t Rescue the Jesus Story

Featured Quote:

“The parallels are uncanny. But no scholar believes that because of these similarities there is any legitimate connection…” — Mark Clark, The Problem of God

The God Question Response:

In Chapter 4 of The Problem of God, Mark Clark attempts to discredit mythic parallels between Jesus and earlier gods by appealing to a popular list of coincidences between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. It’s an entertaining section—but deeply misleading.

Yes, there are bizarre similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy: both concerned with civil rights, elected 100 years apart, assassinated on a Friday, and so on. But these parallels are purely trivial and incidental—no one claims JFK was a myth modeled after Lincoln. Both men are verifiably historical. The comparison serves no meaningful purpose other than to entertain or surprise.

When it comes to the Jesus story, however, skeptics aren’t pointing out fun coincidences. They’re noting that long before Christianity emerged, there were religious myths with divine sons, miraculous births, sacrificial deaths, and triumphant resurrections. These motifs weren’t trivia—they were sacred narratives embedded in the cultures that predated Christianity.

Clark’s comparison is what logicians call a false analogy. The Lincoln-JFK parallel doesn’t even belong in the same conversation as Horus or Dionysus. You can’t equate popular historical trivia with deeply rooted religious storytelling.

Here’s the real problem: if a new religion today began telling a story that mirrored the life of Jesus—but with only updated details (say, a carpenter from Idaho born of a virgin who dies and rises three days later)—we’d immediately suspect copycat mythology. That’s precisely what critics argue happened in the other direction with Jesus.

To dismiss this with a wink and a trivia list is to avoid the real question altogether.

So we ask again: Is Christianity an original revelation—or a brilliant remix?

Attis and the Resurrection Parallel

Series: The Problem of God – Chapter 4 Response

Post #5

🔍 Clark’s Claim

Mark Clark argues that skeptics overreach when drawing parallels between Jesus and Attis. He claims that:

  • Attis was not born of a virgin.
  • Attis was not crucified to redeem the earth.
  • Attis’s death involved genital mutilation under a tree, not crucifixion.
  • There was no resurrection, only the magical growth of hair and a moving pinky.
  • The entire comparison is a stretch used to “fit a preconceived narrative.”

Clark ends with the line: “Call me crazy, but I think it’s safe to say that this is not a parallel with the resurrection of Jesus.”

🧠 A Critical Analysis Using The God Question’s Core Philosophy

1. The Strawman of Literal Equivalence

Clark once again leans heavily on hyper-literal readings of pagan myths to dismiss any parallels. But scholars drawing comparisons aren’t typically claiming identical narratives — they’re tracing thematic and mythological patterns:

  • Attis is a dying and “resurrecting” god, tied to seasonal cycles, particularly vegetation gods who “die” in winter and “rise” in spring.
  • These motifs are symbolic. No one claims Attis literally rose from a grave in 30 CE Judea. That’s not the point.
  • The real question: Why do so many ancient myths include death and return motifs? And why does Christianity mirror those?

Clark refuses to engage with these thematic layers. Instead, he debunks a cartoon version of the myth — a clear misrepresentation of the scholarly argument.

2. Ignoring the Evolution of Religious Stories

Religions borrow. Stories evolve. Attis, like many figures in ancient religions, existed long before Jesus, and his worship included:

  • A March festival with ritual mourning and celebration of return.
  • Sacred pine trees.
  • Bloodletting rites and themes of regeneration.

By the 1st century BCE, Roman cults to Attis included language of rebirth and immortality. That Christianity appeared in the same cultural soup, with similar motifs, is not mere coincidence. It’s cultural osmosis.

To ignore that is to ignore the entire field of comparative mythology.

3. A Question of Selective Skepticism

Clark is skeptical of Attis’s connections to Jesus, yet entirely uncritical of Christianity’s own borrowing. Consider:

  • Jesus dies on a “tree” (cross), just like Attis under the pine.
  • Jesus’s resurrection is not historically verifiable — like Attis’s.
  • Both myths feature blood, sacrifice, symbolic rebirth, and religious ritual.

If we’re to demand literal virginity, exact crucifixion, or precise bodily resurrection as standards for a “valid” parallel, then all mythological comparison collapses — including parallels Christians make with Old Testament “types” and prophecies.

Why accept typology in one direction and reject it in another?

💬 Final Thoughts

Attis is not identical to Jesus — no myth is. But that’s not the point.

The point is that Jesus doesn’t stand alone in history as a dying and rising god. Attis is one of many figures who predate Christianity and feature death-rebirth motifs deeply symbolic in human storytelling.

To argue that Christianity arose in a vacuum — completely uninfluenced by the surrounding mythological environment — is intellectually dishonest.

The story of Jesus, as told by the gospels, fits into a pattern of ancient religious archetypes, not because it’s false because of that, but because it reflects the same human longings, anxieties, and symbolic systems as the rest.

That’s not myth-busting. That’s myth-understanding.

Dionysus: Dismembered Gods and Recycled Myths

This post is part of The God Question, an ongoing response series to Mark Clark’s apologetic book The Problem of God. Each post critically examines a section of the book using reason, evidence, and The God Question’s Core Philosophy: Begin with curiosity, not belief. Today we’re responding to Clark’s section on Dionysus in Chapter 4, “The Problem of the Christ Myth.”

🍷 Who Was Dionysus?

Dionysus was the Greek god of wine, ecstasy, ritual madness, and rebirth. His cult was popular across the ancient world and deeply symbolic—touching on life, death, and transformation.

If you’re looking for echoes of Christian motifs in earlier mythology, Dionysus is an unmistakable candidate. But Clark wants to dismiss all parallels as superficial, weak, or downright false.

Let’s examine the three he targets.

1️⃣ Born of a Virgin? Depends on Your Definition

Clark mocks the claim that Dionysus was born of a virgin. He recounts the myth of Semele, a mortal woman impregnated by Zeus (via lightning), and says, “This is not a virgin birth.”

But that depends on whether you’re looking for biology or mythology.

In many traditions, Dionysus is twice-born—first through Semele, then through his father Zeus, who either swallows his heart or carries him to term. These are not natural births. They are mythic signals that Dionysus is divine, destined, and otherworldly.

Like Jesus, he is set apart from the beginning. That’s the common thread—not whether their mothers had intact hymens.

2️⃣ Born on December 25? So What?

Clark again debunks the claim that Dionysus—or Jesus—was born on December 25. But this is largely a red herring.

Nobody seriously argues Jesus was born in late December. The point is that Christianity adopted a pagan holiday, slapped a new name on it, and made it Christian.

It’s not about who was born when. It’s about how Christianity assimilated earlier religious ideas, imagery, and calendar slots to appeal to Roman audiences already steeped in myth.

3️⃣ Death, Dismemberment, and Resurrection

Here’s the most compelling thread.

Dionysus, in one version of the myth, is torn to pieces by Titans, who eat everything but his heart. Zeus saves the heart and resurrects him—a death-and-rebirth cycle.

Clark scoffs: “A man rising after crucifixion and a god restored from a heart aren’t the same thing.”

Of course they’re not.

But they’re not supposed to be.

These are variations on a universal theme—death and rebirth. It’s what Joseph Campbell called the monomyth, the Hero’s Journey, the dying-and-rising god archetype that spans cultures and centuries.

Christianity didn’t invent this theme.

It just anchored it in time, gave it a name, and called it exclusive.

🧭 Final Thought: Dismissal Isn’t Disproof

Clark’s method here is to dismiss anything that isn’t a carbon copy of the Gospels. But myth doesn’t work that way.

Myth evolves. It flows. It adapts.

Dionysus doesn’t need to be Jesus to make the point. He just needs to show that the idea of divine death and resurrection was already well in circulation long before Christianity made it “history.”

Mithras and the Messiah: Who’s Borrowing from Whom?”

This post is part of The God Question, an ongoing response series to Mark Clark’s apologetic book The Problem of God. Each post critically examines a section of the book using reason, evidence, and the lens of The God Question’s Core Philosophy: Begin with curiosity, not belief. Today’s focus: Clark’s handling of Mithras in Chapter 4, “The Problem of the Christ Myth.”

🧱 The Core Claim

Christianity, we’re told, is utterly unique. It didn’t borrow from other religions. And when someone points to parallels with pagan gods like Mithras, it’s all just “copycat conspiracy” nonsense—so says Mark Clark.

But let’s be honest.

If you were inventing a religion in the Roman Empire in the first few centuries AD, and needed it to feel familiar yet new, would you:

  • Invent every symbol from scratch?
  • Or lean on recognizable mythological themes like miraculous birth, divine meal-sharing, and resurrection?

Clark accuses critics of the Christ Myth theory of sloppiness—but then turns around and dismisses symbolic and ritual parallels as irrelevant or reversed. Let’s look closer.

🪨 Born of a Rock Isn’t Virgin Enough?

Clark begins by mocking the claim that Mithras was “born of a virgin.” Why? Because the myth says he emerged from a rock.

But the point of the comparison is not human biology. It’s mythic symbolism.

Just as Jesus is born of a virgin without sex, Mithras is born without sexual union—fully formed, weapon in hand. It’s miraculous. It’s non-sexual. It’s symbolic. That’s what matters.

If Clark thinks this isn’t “virgin” enough, then by that logic, Jesus’ birth isn’t “miraculous” enough unless someone saw Gabriel hand Mary a DNA kit.

🐑 Shepherds at the Birth of a God

Clark concedes that shepherds were present in the Mithras myth—then shrugs it off as coincidence. But ask yourself: in a world of countless gods, why do both Mithras and Jesus have shepherds at their miraculous births?

This kind of overlap in imagery—especially when tied to humility, countryside, and innocence—should raise questions. But Clark doesn’t explore them. He dismisses them. Because if Christianity is a “revealed” religion, such borrowing must be impossible.

🔟 The Myth of the Twelve

Clark claims Mithras had no twelve disciples—citing that in one version he had one, in another two. He fails to mention the dozens of Mithraic images showing Mithras surrounded by twelve figures, often understood to be the twelve signs of the zodiac.

Were they literal men? No. Were they twelve symbolic companions? Yes. And that’s all you need when tracing mythological influence—not historical one-to-one matches, but adapted storytelling archetypes.

⚰️ The Resurrection That Wasn’t?

According to Clark, Mithras was never buried, never resurrected, never rose after three days. But again, he’s reading myth like history. In Mithraic initiation rituals, the initiate underwent symbolic death and rebirth. That’s resurrection. That’s transformation.

The Christian ritual of baptism (death to sin, raised to new life) mirrors this. The Eucharist (eating the god) mirrors similar pagan feasts. But instead of exploring these parallels, Clark invokes church fathers who accused the pagans of copying them.

So which is it?

Did Christianity invent these motifs? Or did the pagans have them first and “mimic” the Christians afterward—even when Mithraic rituals predate the New Testament?

This is chronological cherry-picking at best—and apologetics in reverse at worst.

🔄 Copying or Converging?

Clark argues that Mithraic traditions came later than the Gospels. But the Mithraic cult’s roots go back to Persia centuries earlier, and its Roman expressions were flourishing when Christianity was still underground.

Even if textual evidence for Mithras post-dates the Gospels, the rituals, symbols, and iconography were well-known in the Roman world.

It’s not about who wrote it down first—it’s about shared mythological DNA. And the evidence suggests Christianity didn’t invent its key motifs. It absorbed them—then canonized them as history.

🧭 Final Thought: Start With Curiosity

You don’t need to believe Jesus is a repackaged pagan god. But you do need to admit this:

Christianity arose in a sea of myths. And the water it swam in was full of gods born without sex, gods who rose again, and gods who shared holy meals.

Dismissing this isn’t curiosity. It’s fear.

And The God Question starts by letting go of fear—and asking, what’s really behind the story we’ve been told?

Did Jesus Exist? What the Sources Really Say

Did Jesus of Nazareth really exist? In Chapter 4 of The Problem of God, Mark Clark says yes — and claims we have reliable, non-Christian sources that confirm it. But a closer look at those sources — and the logic behind Clark’s argument — tells a different story.

The Tacitus Reference: Echoes, Not Eyewitnesses

Clark quotes Tacitus to show that a Roman historian confirmed Jesus was executed by Pontius Pilate. But Tacitus was writing almost a century after Jesus’ supposed death, and there’s no evidence he had access to Roman archives. More likely, he was reporting what Christians already believed, not what Rome officially recorded. That’s not historical confirmation — it’s hearsay written down late.

The Josephus Passage: A Tampered Text

Clark also cites Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian. The problem? The passage he quotes contains clear Christian interpolations — later edits inserted by Christian scribes. Phrases like “He was the Christ” and “on the third day he appeared” would have been blasphemous to Josephus, a loyal Jew. Even many conservative scholars admit the original text was doctored. It’s shaky ground for historical claims.

“They Died for What They Saw!” — Or Did They?

One of Clark’s boldest claims is that the disciples died because they had personally seen Jesus rise from the dead — and no one dies for a lie. But this assumes far too much:

  • We have no firsthand records from any disciple describing what they saw.
  • Most martyrdom stories come decades or centuries later, often with legendary embellishments.
  • And people across history have died for all kinds of religious ideas — Islam, Hinduism, Heaven’s Gate, even Jonestown.

Dying for a belief doesn’t make it true. It only proves how strongly that belief was held.

The Spread of Christianity: A Miracle?

Clark says Christianity’s explosive growth proves it must be true. But other religions — including Islam and Mormonism — also spread rapidly. Movements grow when they offer compelling stories, eternal rewards, and a sense of belonging. Christianity had all three, plus Roman roads, missionary zeal, and, eventually, imperial support.

Rapid growth explains popularity, not truth.

Conclusion: Yes, There May Have Been a Jesus — But We Know Almost Nothing About Him

Most secular scholars today agree that some man named Jesus probably existed — a wandering apocalyptic preacher in Galilee who got himself executed. But the “Christ” we meet in the Gospels — the miracle worker, the resurrected Son of God — is the result of decades of oral tradition, theological reflection, and myth-making.

The question isn’t just “Did Jesus exist?”

It’s: Who created the Christ we now know?

And the answer to that isn’t in Tacitus, Josephus, or the tales of martyrdom — it’s in the minds and hopes of the early church.