This is a continuation from the previous post entitled Hard Questions about God that I Wished Someone had Asked Me Earlier.
The Bible:* If God’s extensive moral code from the Old Testament is good and if His law is perfect, why does so much of it no longer apply today? Why create a set of rules and commands that change? If the New Testament is the newer revelation that should be followed instead, why are so many parts of it now ignored? Why is it that when we discover contradictory verses or verses that are found to be immoral, disturbing, or scientifically inaccurate –why does the church then decide that they must be a metaphor for something? Why were the first 3 gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) not even written by actual apostles of Jesus, and even worse, why were all four gospels written anonymously? Why was there much dispute by the early church regarding which books were inspired or not inspired by God? Why, for example, was the gospel of Peter and the gospel of Thomas considered abhorrent and uninspired but the other gospels (which often disagree in detail) were considered inspired and inerrant? Why did it take several hundred years (long after the apostles had died) to have all of the books currently found in the New Testament be recognized and accepted? Why would divinely inspired books require intense debate regarding inerrancy by the early church? And why does the Catholic church still disagree with protestants and include 9 additional books (the Apocrypha) which Protestant churches reject as being uninspired and filled with error?
If Jesus was bringing the most important message to humanity it would ever receive, why didn’t he write that message down himself? Why allow it to be passed around in an oral tradition for decades (and we know how reliable that is), before it’s finally written down? Why do we only have late copies of copies of copies of copies that have discrepancies, and which aren’t even written in the language that Jesus and his disciples spoke? And if the words of those books and letters are so important, why didn’t God make sure the original manuscripts survived? Why send us this supposedly vital message in a book that’s so hard to understand and interpret that we have 40,000+ different christian sects, each interpreting the book in a different way?
“Then I began to see that not just the scribal text but the original text itself was a very human book. This stood very much at odds with how I had regarded the text in my late teens as a newly minted “born-again” Christian, convinced that the Bible was the inerrant Word of God and that the biblical words themselves had come to us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
As I realized already in graduate school, even if God had inspired the original words, we don’t have the original words. So the doctrine of inspiration was in a sense irrelevant to the Bible as we have it, since the words God reputedly inspired had been changed and, in some cases, lost.
Moreover, I came to think that my earlier views of inspiration were not only irrelevant, they were probably wrong. For the only reason (I came to think) for God to inspire the Bible would be so that his people would have his actual words; but if he really wanted people to have his actual words, surely he would have miraculously preserved those words, just as he had miraculously inspired them in the first place.
Given the circumstance that he didn’t preserve the words, the conclusion seemed inescapable to me that he hadn’t gone to the trouble of inspiring them.”
— Misquoting Jesus – Bart D. Ehrman, American New Testament scholar, current James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In summary, if the message of the Bible is so important, why couldn’t an omnipotent God have provided it timely, without error, clearly written and without dispute on authorship and free of contradiction? Or is it possible that significant portions (or even a majority) of the Bible is actually myth, legend, or grossly exaggerated accounts from antiquity?
Effectiveness of the Gospel: Why does the Christian gospel sound more like a cycle of abuse rather than truly good news? The Bible declares the doctrine of original sin with eternal damnation as the punishment for man’s evil deeds. Why is it “good news” that humans are put into severe psychological distress by creating the ultimate double bind? The Bible declares man as guilty and responsible, with eternal punishment at stake. Yet you have no real ability to do anything about it. Why is it a good thing that one must conform to a mental test of “believing” in an external, unseen source for salvation, and then maintain that state of belief until death? Since a person cannot ever stop “sinning” altogether and therefore must continue to confess and be forgiven by an invisible being, how is it not a cycle of abuse when all a person can do is hope that they have met the criteria despite complete lack of feedback about whether they will actually make it to heaven? Salvation is supposed to be a gift of love, but for the sincere believer, the result is an unending cycle of shame and pleas to an invisible being who never actually answers. And this is a good thing?
If the gospel of Christ is incredibly powerful and if it’s absolute truth, why do churches make it a point of targeting children with a philosophy of get ’em while they’re young? Could it be that children are just easily indoctrinated with the odd teachings of the Bible because children have already been conditioned to believe whatever adults tell them? Would Christianity be as prominent today if children were “off limits” to religious teaching? If only adults were exposed to the gospel message, would there be a change in the number of people in churches? And if that’s the case, what does that say about the actual power of the gospel message?
If the gospel message of Jesus is truly transformational, why are divorce rates among Christians and unbelievers the same? Or even higher among protestants? And for those who consider pornography a grave sin, why do we see no difference between the secular population vs. the Christian population? In fact, why do we find that protestants are even more likely to view porn even though they cite guilt as an inhibitor? Why do we often find that some of the most judgmental, hateful and intolerant people are those of the Christian faith? If Christianity is transforming and if disbelief in god is evil, why do we find that the prison population of the U.S. is largely absent of those who are atheist or agnostic? In fact, why do those in prison who identify as Catholic and Protestant constitute nearly 75% of the incarcerated while less than 1% are atheists or agnostics?
Competing Faiths: If Christianity is the only message with absolute truth, why do we see an overwhelming pattern of children who believe what they are raised in, regardless of the religion involved? Children of Muslims become Muslims, children of Mormons become Mormons, Hindus raise up new Hindus, etc. If your specific religious faith is primarily a factor of the country you were raised up in, how does that show that it’s truth? Why do we find a long history of mankind having invented various gods? Sun gods, moon gods, war gods, love gods, demigods and immortals. There are gods with names that start with every letter of the alphabet except “W”! Why do we so easily discount and disregard the hundreds of man-made gods that have come before, but Christians know for certain that Yahweh and Jesus are real, even though his promise to return during the lifetime of his early followers failed to happen? How many centuries have passed since his promise of “Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place“?
Prayer: If your daughter suddenly became gravely ill, would it be more important to take her to the doctor, or to pray for her? If you feel that both are important, which is more effective? If you found out that you had breast cancer, would medical treatment be more effective? Or prayer? If your brother or sister suffered a horrific accident that led to the loss of an arm or leg, would prayer ever restore that missing limb? If no, why not? If Jesus promised that prayer could move a mountain, why has an amputee never had their limb restored by prayer? Why have faith healers never cured anyone with a clear physical disability? Is it possible that prayers have no effect and just merely make the believer feel better?
Why do the millions of prayers by mothers in Africa go unanswered as they watch their children die of disease and starvation? Why do over 7 million children die every year from hunger, disease and illness if prayer is effective?
And why does God hate the children of Africa?
Or is it more likely that the god of the Bible is the man-made concoction of earlier tribes in their attempt to explain the world and to also give themselves the license to kill other tribes and take their land?
This series is continued – click for part 3
* (My thanks to ubi dubium at https://boldquestions.wordpress.com/ for his comments to my previous post which I gratefully used in the first section about the Bible).
It’s interesting to ponder these issues from the outside. Before it would have been easy to dismiss these contradictions and issues as the will of God. Now that I am free from the crutches of religion, I no longer bury my head in the sand. Very enlightening post!
Thanks Ally. And I agree – in the past i would have dismissed or run away from those hard questions. I’m glad my head is no longer in the sand too.
The truth Logan G is that it does not do anyone any good to unearth your head from one side of the sand and bury it on another side: running away from hard questions about God is as bad as accepting simplistic erroneous answers. True light comes from truth, and truth sets us free. Are you free?
The pursuit of truth is what set me free. The pursuit of truth, even when it wasn’t what I wanted to hear, is what drove me to embrace reason, reality and logic over myth, fable and legend.
Excellent post. However, consider that religion does not have a monopoly on God. Would you have written your post any differently if you knew for a fact that religion doesn’t have all the answers? For example, what if the god of the Bible is not really even God, but rather man’s attempt to relate to the Absolute? As Voltaire said, “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” How might that change your perspective?
Thanks for reading.
Evidence would change my perspective. And if I may take a stab at a variation of your question, “Do I believe there could be a creator or supreme being?” If that was the question, I’d answer yes, it’s possible, but doubtful. I am convinced that Yahweh is fictional. That’s one of the most selfish, petty, capricious, jealous and vindictive characters that man has thought up.
I’m okay with the notion that there could be a creative force behind the universe, but if there was, it has had no ongoing interest in the misery and suffering that most of the creatures on the planet have gone through, or continue to go through.
Thanks for the reply. Yes, Yahweh is a fiction with respect to him being God. However, I believe that a facsimile of Yahweh existed historically, at least in the beginning, and that the creation story of the Bible is loosely based on that history. As to why a God would have “no ongoing interest in the misery and suffering”, I believe that that question is asked from the wrong perspective. After all, this is a free will universe, isn’t it? We either have free will or we’re some sort of A.I. I vote for free will. How about you?
I’m certainly on board with the idea of free will. The alternative thought that we’re puppets, or in The Matrix etc., is unpleasant but more so, it doesn’t fit with what we know so far about our universe. And if there’s a deity who was responsible for our creation (a facsimile of Yahweh), we would still have to conclude that this deity created evil and has little or no concern for misery and suffering. We live on a planet that is routinely trying to kill us (i.e., disease, parasites, pestilence, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, radiation… the list goes on and on). We also know that the creation account of the Bible is grossly inaccurate and even contradictory within Genesis, and we have been assuming that our universe was created but it’s quite possible, based on the latest and current science, that the universe didn’t have a start.
Yes, it is a free will universe. By definition. then, we (individually and collectively) have to take personal responsible for our actions and stop blaming Bubba (my nickname for a Creator) for the world’s problems. Besides, if we truly have free will, a Creator would not interfere. If there is a God, he is, as the Pascal Wager states, infinitely incomprehensible. So religion’s view of God is irrelevant and, by the way, totally ridiculous.
Yes, the creation account of Genesis is a fiction. Some historians feel that it was based on Sumerian texts,The Seven Tablets of Creation to be exact. While some will write the Sumerian texts off as mythology, I think there is a strong case to be made that it is real history. There is plenty of corroborating evidence/texts to support some parts of it.
Of course, that still leaves open the questions about God that you raised in the first place. The answer to your questions actually has less to do with a Creator than it does with our concept of a Creator, which is totally flawed. Obviously, we can’t look to religion to tell us what a Creator looks like (just try and find a description of him in the Bible) or why he created the universe or where evil comes from. Myself, I believe that evil is a necessity of Creation. That is, how would you ever know what good is, unless there was evil? As Neale Donald Walsch so aptly put it, “In the absence of that which is not, that which is, is not.”
I’m sincere when I express gratitude for you taking the time to share. You are making me ponder and stretch, and I appreciate that.
I agree that humanity should stop blaming “Bubba” for the world’s problems. I’m of the mind that it’s unlikely there is a god, and thus we are absolutely responsible for our future. A better world is up to us. I’m also of the mind that fundamentalist religion (of all sorts) has been far more of a cause for bad than good.
I’m not sure I follow the reference to, or validity of, Pascal’s Wager? I wouldn’t want to define or base my belief in a god from Mr. Pascal, and I think sensibility of his wager has been well rebutted. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Pascal's_wager#Criticism
But I’m curious… you mention the ancient Sumerian texts… even if the creation story is regurgitated from Babylonian / Sumerian texts, why should we give any of that any respect? Should we assume that a creator-god gave divine inspiration to an ancient people in the stone age who then carved it into stone? Or is it more likely, that any ancient text that describes or defines a god is man-made? In the case of the 7 tablets, the Babylonians wanted to show that their god Marduk was over the other Mesopotamian gods, and why would we want to give any credence to that?
The reference to Pascal’s Wager was only to give credence to my belief that man could never know God and that religion, therefore, is a fool’s folly. The Sumerian texts, and other similar ancient texts and wisdom, are not about a creator god but rather about an advanced race of extraterrestrials that came to this planet and altered man’s DNA. It’s a very long story that we don’t have time for here but perhaps you might be interested enough to look into further. There’s plenty of literature written on it over the last 100+ years as well asYouTube videos.
Interesting. So I’m confused then as to what you might personally believe? I’m assuming you believe in a creator-god? Do you believe in extraterrestrials who came to our planet and altered our DNA? Is there a post on your site that you can point me to that might share or summarize your beliefs?
I don’t have a specific post that summarizes all of my beliefs (that would take a book, which I am writing). I did a series (five posts) about Secrets of the Universe back in September and October of 2011. For you, I would recommend checking those out. I believe in a Creator god who created all life – in our universe and all other universes and in other dimensions as well. This Creator god, however, cannot be found in any holy book. I also believe that extraterrestrials came to this planet and altered the intelligent life forms that were already here. Those visits resulted in mythology and, in large part, religion.
Great post! A fascinating follow-up discussion, too. It brings to mind a paragraph I read last night in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They *know* it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”
I’m not saying he’s speaking, ahem, gospel truth. Just a quote from a book. Still, it has merit, I think.
Thanks, and that’s an interesting quote! I bought that book (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance) but regrettably I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. My oldest son has told me too, “ya gotta read it!”. I find that my list of “must read books” grows at a faster pace than my available time to read them. 🙁 But hopefully soon! Are you enjoying it?
Why indeed?
Excellent post, Logan.
Enjoyed very, very much, Logan!
It is interesting that everyone is congratulating you on your post, Logan G. However, I want to confront you with reality rather than encouraging you on the road to destruction. It is obvious that your aversion for the religion of your parents stems from the miseducation you receive.
I myself did not grow up in a Christian household. My parents were people who just believe in education. So they tried their best to send us to the best school their money could buy, and we made it. In fact, I am the only Christian in my family of origin. I now have my own family, and my wife and I try to educate our children right.
We taught them who God is, but we also taught them to think right. They studied logic at a very young age (we could do that since my wife, despite her degree in business administration, homeschools). In fact, our oldest, at seventeen, is a junior at Emory University in Atlanta, and our second oldest, at sixteen, is a sophomore at the same university.
I believe faith is what is lacking in you. Let us reason together. If a politician gives a speech, we hold him or her accountable for every word he or she speaks. In preparing that speech, that politician had to use the help of a professional speechwriter, and then his staff of advisers had to review it to ensure each word was properly investigated and he would be able to respond to every argument that may arise from that speech. Words have power.
Somehow, people come across the Bible, and they call it a book of myths. Now we are talking about the book that the Creator of the universe is supposed to have written. If a politician speech can require such work and scrutiny, why then is the Bible so devalued and despised? It defies logic. Could not such a powerful God be able to defend His own writing? Should He not write something more powerful than a politician’s speech? Would not each word matter more than in any other work?
Take for instance the first few words of the Bible: “In the beginning, God created…”
You see, these words speak volume to me. They are saying that there was no beginning until God began creation, which also means that God, in enabling the beginning, is evidently without beginning. I get from that that He is eternal. And since the beginning started with creation, it means that everything that exists has been created. That also tells me that God supersedes creation and is in control of it.
Sir, you and I are created in His image. That is a great honor. Do not reject that great honor in exchange for a lesser one. God is in the business of redeeming his creation. You can be redeemed. You do not have to de defined by the religion of your parents when you can communicate directly with your creator. That is what Jesus provided. You can go to God yourself and ask Him to show you the truth. He will.
Be well.
Dear IRonMan,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. You might have me confused with someone else as I did not reject the religion of my parents. I grew up in a secular home but as a teen, I embraced Christianity whole heartedly and I got very involved in my church. I later attended Bible college and received a degree in theology and I spent many years in active service in the Christian faith, in roles as a teacher, musician, worship leader and occasional preacher. My faith was sincere and I was a Christian for over 30 years. If you want to read my full store, it’s here: https://lifeafter40.net//2014/04/20/45/
In regard to the Bible, I know it quite well. I didn’t just read it, I studied it. I prayed over it. In regard to how I enjoyed spending my spare time, I didn’t read fiction books or magazines. I preferred books about the Christian faith and theology.
But I also spent most of my adult life being intentionally ignorant about the world, especially if it contradicted the Bible. I spent a lot of time “compartmentalizing” all of the things in the Bible that were deeply troubling. I rationalized away many things.
One day, you might begin asking yourself some hard questions like those in my post above. But usually, fear keeps us from “thinking”. You rightly noted, “come now, let us reason together”. And that’s what I did.
Is it reasonable to believe that the Bible is inerrant given the way it was compiled and its questionable authorship, and given its many contradictions and errors? Is it reasonable to believe the illogical and contradictory verses of Genesis about creation that you referred to, which science has clearly shown to be demonstrably false? Is it reasonable to believe in a book that endorses the slaughter of other tribes, along with the sexual slavery of virgin girls? Is it reasonable to believe that a God would ask his servant to murder his son (Isaac) as a way to demonstrate faith? And if you find that reasonable, why would it not be reasonable for someone to do so today?
My list could go on and on, and my last two posts on my blog contain real and sincere questions that an honest person should consider as they examine the beliefs they find themselves wrapped up in. As Mark Twain said, “The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”
But if you still dismiss me as just another poor soul who has now been captured by the devil (a fictitious being, I might add), ask yourself: why would god create all of mankind… billions and billions of souls, knowing that the vast majority would be sent into eternal torment…. why would a god of such intelligence and power do such a thing? Why is merely “not believing” such a profound crime? Why are petty crimes worthy of hell? And finally, why would a loving God who is omniscient (all-knowing) create human beings that He knows will reject Him, and let them suffer in a lake of fire, forever and ever? Can you think of any circumstance in which you as a father of two, would want to see your children be in torment forever?
Dear Logan,
First I must apologize if I confused your story with someone else’s. However, I do hear your heart, and I presume from the many questions you asked in your reply to my previous comment that you are very pragmatic, and that is a good trait. That is where faith comes in. Realistically speaking, the God that is described in the Bible appears to be harsh in His judgment and one might even ask why God who is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and benevolent would make man to sin, would not save dying children and would send his creatures to hell for the littlest sin possible.
Faith allows us to believe God for who He says He is and for Him to do what He says He can do. We should not let people’s opinions of us or their behavior affect our faith in our Creator.
The Bible is indeed inerrant (in its original language and not in the translations). If we believe God, then here is the story of Human beings.
According to the Bible,
1. God created us for His glory (Isaiah 43:7) – We should live to glorify Him.
2. We are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27) – We should emulate God’s perfection in our living.
3. To emulate God, we needed to remain attached to Him (John 15:4-5).
4. Unfortunately, sin has separated us from God (Isaiah 59:2).
5. We all have sinned and fallen short of His glory (Romans 3:23) – from Adam and Eve on, sin has reached every soul.
6. God reconciled us onto Himself through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18; Romans 5:10-11; Colossians 1:20, 22)
7. We receive that act of reconciliation by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9) – since there is nothing else we can do anyway, believing becomes an act that shows our agreement with God’s act of salvation.
8. Reconciliation with God brings about salvation and takes away condemnation (Romans 28:1; 1 John 5:11-12) – otherwise, we would be separated from God forever (a pretty bad deal considering that God is eternal and all source of good is in Him)
Eternal separation is mankind’s final punishment. Hell (the lake of fire) was not created for human beings. It was prepared for Satan (not a fictitious character) and his angels (Matthew 25:41). However, because disobeying God is made under compulsion from the devil, people will be thrown in the lake of fire.
God gives his children the choice to come to Him freely and willingly, and He is patient waiting for them to come back if they strayed. Our faith or lack thereof lends us in Heaven or in Hell (real places) and eventually onto the new heaven and the new earth (real places also).
My dear friend, if you ask God personally, He will answer you. If you ask for forgiveness and repent, He will receive you back.
By the way, concerning contradictions, there is none if you understand the Bible. As a matter of fact, science in now getting closer to the Bible. Read about “String theory.” This is the latest scientific theory of the universe – the so-called theory of everything. It is very controversial and is being hotly debated in the scientific community, but it is very fascinating. It has finally reconciled all the previous theories of Einstein’s general relativity and quantum mechanics.
It stipulates that tiny vibrating strings constitute the fundamental make up of everything in the universe. What is fascinating to me is that they behave like sound waves. After all, the Bible is clear that light and everything else came from a sound wave – God’s voice, and it also tells us that with faith we can gain understanding (Hebrews 11:3). What is more fascinating is that this theory is being propagated by people who DO NOT BELIEVE THE BIBLE. That’s awesome!!!!
You may want to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV_X2B5OK1I
Faith is an interesting word, is it not? Without resorting to Hebrews 11 or any other Bible verse, would you have a definition of faith? Here’s mine: it is belief in something without evidence. When there’s solid evidence, there’s no need for faith and thus faith is belief without evidence. Sometimes faith is also pretending to know things that we don’t know. For example, a man might have faith that he can fly an airplane but if he’s had no education or training in avionics, blind faith can get a lot of people killed.
I was a man of faith for a long time, and I understand the desire to reach me with Bible verses, etc., but please do understand I know the message of the Bible quite well. My college education was focused on the Bible. But that collection of books and letters is now utterly broken to me. Like many, I used to rationalize away the contradictions and deeply disturbing things in the Bible. But when I was finally honest enough with myself to further explore and understand how the Bible was put together (along with the study of textual criticisms), it ceased to be an inerrant book for me. I stopped being pursuaded by fear of eternal torment, which is a man-made doctrine of “control”.
Have you ever asked yourself, would you still be a Christian if you’d been born in Egypt, India or China? Are you a Chrisian because that’s what you were taught early on? Religions have evolved because as a primitive species, we looked for answers behind every sudden sound, flash of light, or other unexplained phenomenon. As we came to understand our world through science, we no longer had to blame an invisible ghost for the things we didn’t understand. And just like others before us who once believed in Zeus or Apollo, they eventually put away their beliefs in their man-made gods.
The Bible is a repulsive book written by tribal people which gave them license to kill other tribes. It gave them license to kill: everyone who did not believe in their god; to kill anyone who cursed father or mother; to stone everyone who committed adultery; and to kill anyone who happened to be Homosexual. The Bible is also a book that: endorsed slavery (including the beating of slaves); endorsed genocide; endorsed sexism, and self-mutilation (Matt 18:7-9). The Bible is a repulsive book that no longer has a place in a modern civilized society.
The Bible starts with Adam & Eve and how sin entered the world. As you mentioned, the problem of “sin” is a central theme, and the Bible attempts to conclude the story with the god-man being killed on a cross to solve the “sin” problem. The gist of the story would be that God, who is omniscient, says: “I told you not to eat from the tree. You didn’t do what I told you to do even though I knew you were not going to. So now, take my son and kill him so that I can save you from what I will do to you for doing what I already knew you were going to do.” Or put in a simpler way, God sacrificed himself, to himself, to save us from himself.
As far as Biblical contradictions go, there are a lot. Many are quite minor while some are more significant and it helps explain why we have so many competing Christian sects.
Interestingly I came across one of the most powerful arguments against the truth of the Gospel on a Christian web site based on the arguments of a dedicated Christian who is a Young Earth Creationist. In his argument against the Old Earth Creation/Evolution view of moderates he says:
I did think about it. I thought to myself, you just provided proof against the Gospel! The evidence for an old earth and evolution is so overwhelming that to ignore it is akin to saying the earth is flat. But then again that is what religious folk insisted in the past, just ask Galileo.
I definitely felt that way while a YEC. If evolution were true, the whole Bible message crumbles. So my coming to grips with the overwhelming evidence that supports an old earth along with the theory of natural selection — it was a major blow to my Christian understanding. It surprises me to hear the Pope acknowledge evolution given the implications of it all.