So why revisit this thoroughly refuted ancient apologetic? When Voltaire
first posited his rebuttal to Pascal’s wager, Christianity was divided into
several major sects or denominations. Christianity had mostly existed for
the first 1000 years of its history as one church known as the Catholic or
Universal Church. There were dissenting groups, but they were branded as
heretical and non-christian. In 1054 of the Common Era (CE), Christianity
split into a Western and Eastern church in what was known as the Great
Schism. The 16th century then brought on the Protestant Reformation and
by the time of Voltaire there were Catholics, Methodists, Baptists,
Presbyterians, Anglicans and a few more.
Fast forward to today and Christianity has exploded into an estimated
41,000 denominations! Are YHWH’s communication skills directly
responsible for this explosion in religious denominations? A quick look at the
reason for this divergence, and how it got started in the first place, has
significant implications on the lack of clarity in the Bible, which begs for a
modern update to Voltaire’s famous counter to Pascal’s wager.
The Spark Behind the Explosion
Interestingly enough, Islam has largely existed in only two main sects since
the death of Muhammad, the Shi’a and Sunni, some 90% of Muslims being
Sunni. A third sect was founded in 1889 known as Ahmadiyya, which later
split into two groups known as Qadiani and Lahore. That’s it. Comparing
Islam to the number of Christian denominations, are Allah and Muhammad
just better communicators in the Koran than YHWH and Jesus in the Bible?
Seriously though, why the huge divergence in Christianity? Even Judaism
exists today in the free West in only three major movements: Orthodox,
Conservative, and Reform. Why did the Protestant Reformation give birth to
modern Christian denominationalism?
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