Monday, December 18, 2006
As a young boy I hated my Catholic grade school. Back then, bullies were not punished like they are today. I remember one kid pulling a knife on me in the middle of class and I quickly reported him to the teacher. But after it was all said and done I was the one made a fool out of by the teacher and later the principal; the bully was not even reprimanded.
That school did a great job of teaching us it is best to look the other way and not to get involved. They also instilled other values like: fearing God’s wrath, the rules are more important than the people, how to totally conform and how you should completely abandon your brain and accept blind faith in things, plus many other fascist ideologies which took me years to unlearn.
One of the few things I remember was when we were taught how a story changes while being spread from one person to another. The teacher wrote a couple of sentences on a piece of paper and whispered them to a student, who whispered to another until the entire class of about 20 kids had heard the message.
The final student wrote what was whispered to them and the teacher compared it to what she had originally written. They were not even closely related sentences. I was supposed to learn the dangers of spreading rumors about other people but what I actually learned was something else. This Catholic grade school gave me all the ammunition I needed to prove how fallible the Bible actually could be.
I am constantly befuddled by individuals who believe and worship the Bible literally as it is written, word for word. This is preposterous to me. The Gospels writers did not even know Jesus. They wrote the Gospels generations after Christ was crucified. I don’t think the apostles who followed Jesus ever carried a notepad to write His every word or to document what happened. I think they probably told other people about what happened and the stories were passed around much like in my grade school class. We all know how that turned out.
It is also possible that many things transpired without any of the apostles being around to witness them. Just imagine how many things could have happened to change the course of Christianity but are forever lost because no one was there to witness them. So even if the Bible was recorded as accurately as theologians believe, just think about how many things were accidentally omitted.
In my college years I was quite a hellcat. Every now and then I will meet somebody who remembers me from an event long past and tells me about something they remembered I did. We’ll have a laugh, shake hands and part ways and I am thinking, “What in the hell are they talking about? That did not happen that way, they are way off!” Now they were there and I remember them being there but the events they described did not happen as they remembered.
Later, I would talk with other friends who were there and they tell me they remember it differently from both of us. So who is right? I don’t know. I think it is more important to remember we had a party and everybody had fun. There are stories about me circulating that are not really true or at least not true as I remember them. Not that I mind because it contributes to my legend, but again we see how even eye witness accounts can vary and, in most cases, be very inaccurate.
Let’s get back to the Bible. So now am I to believe, as an intelligent human being, that 2,000 years ago those people could pass around stories by word of mouth while retaining all of the details. We are also expected to believe every word was written as words flowing directly from the mouth of Jesus onto their piece of paper. I think we should all be too intelligent to believe this is even possible.
People are fallible and people make mistakes; even people who wrote about Jesus 2,000 years ago and earlier. Imagine if they accidentally added a mathematical “typo” like 2 + 2 = 5. Today it would be a religious fact that 2 +2 = 5 and you would have theologians ignoring their common sense and writing essays about how 2 + 2 IS equal to 5 as according to God’s law. They would also ponder if the heathen mathematicians should be damned to eternal hell for spreading the heresy of 2 + 2 = 4. I wonder how many “typos” or misrepresentations are actually in the Bible. I also wonder how many of those contributed to a war or to somebody being killed.
It might be possible to accurately document something like this today if the events were recorded with a camera or some other device. The only risk would be someone inserting their bias into the story, which probably also happened back then.
In my opinion, it is more important to understand the big picture and not focus on the details of what Jesus might have said. Because none of us knows what he actually said, we never will.
I used to own fish tanks. When I would clean the tank the fish would sometimes freak out over my hand entering their world. If they had intelligence would their God be this enormous hand? Would they design temples containing statues of a giant hand and then sing praise to this “Hand of all Holiness”? The truth is we are living in a similar fish tank. We have no idea and no clue who God is, where God is, or what God looks like.
Even the God we have made contact with is still a mystery. We believe He is God because He said He is, but there is absolutely no evidence. Well what if the giant hand could talk to the fish and told them it was God. The fish might believe it, but would that make it true. And then, what if the REAL God caught wind of this hand pretending to be God, how pissed would He be?
I honestly really hope the Bible is true because some of the stories are beautiful and it would definitely make death much easier to contemplate. My heart tells me to believe but sometimes my brain tells me I’m just a fish in a tank, worshiping an enormous hand.
I often ask questions such as: “If I were God would I demand everyone worship me or damn them to an eternal hell? Would I exclude people from heaven just because they were different from others or believed something different? Would I damn people to eternal hell who ignorantly worshipped another god? Would I give people a brain but damn them for using it? Would I admit people into heaven who were mean pricks or murders or rapists just because they said they were sorry at the end of their life? Would I write policies which excluded women from important decision making roles within my church? Would I destroy an entire city including the children just because the adults were having consensual sex? Would I “test” the faith of my most devoted worshipers by taking everything from them including their families and then expect them to still love me?” The list goes on and on………………..
Then I seriously doubt a God who answers “Yes” to any of the above questions, because it sounds more like a devil than a God. So either we got the message wrong or the message itself is wrong. I prefer to believe that WE got it wrong.
That school did a great job of teaching us it is best to look the other way and not to get involved. They also instilled other values like: fearing God’s wrath, the rules are more important than the people, how to totally conform and how you should completely abandon your brain and accept blind faith in things, plus many other fascist ideologies which took me years to unlearn.
One of the few things I remember was when we were taught how a story changes while being spread from one person to another. The teacher wrote a couple of sentences on a piece of paper and whispered them to a student, who whispered to another until the entire class of about 20 kids had heard the message.
The final student wrote what was whispered to them and the teacher compared it to what she had originally written. They were not even closely related sentences. I was supposed to learn the dangers of spreading rumors about other people but what I actually learned was something else. This Catholic grade school gave me all the ammunition I needed to prove how fallible the Bible actually could be.
I am constantly befuddled by individuals who believe and worship the Bible literally as it is written, word for word. This is preposterous to me. The Gospels writers did not even know Jesus. They wrote the Gospels generations after Christ was crucified. I don’t think the apostles who followed Jesus ever carried a notepad to write His every word or to document what happened. I think they probably told other people about what happened and the stories were passed around much like in my grade school class. We all know how that turned out.
It is also possible that many things transpired without any of the apostles being around to witness them. Just imagine how many things could have happened to change the course of Christianity but are forever lost because no one was there to witness them. So even if the Bible was recorded as accurately as theologians believe, just think about how many things were accidentally omitted.
In my college years I was quite a hellcat. Every now and then I will meet somebody who remembers me from an event long past and tells me about something they remembered I did. We’ll have a laugh, shake hands and part ways and I am thinking, “What in the hell are they talking about? That did not happen that way, they are way off!” Now they were there and I remember them being there but the events they described did not happen as they remembered.
Later, I would talk with other friends who were there and they tell me they remember it differently from both of us. So who is right? I don’t know. I think it is more important to remember we had a party and everybody had fun. There are stories about me circulating that are not really true or at least not true as I remember them. Not that I mind because it contributes to my legend, but again we see how even eye witness accounts can vary and, in most cases, be very inaccurate.
Let’s get back to the Bible. So now am I to believe, as an intelligent human being, that 2,000 years ago those people could pass around stories by word of mouth while retaining all of the details. We are also expected to believe every word was written as words flowing directly from the mouth of Jesus onto their piece of paper. I think we should all be too intelligent to believe this is even possible.
People are fallible and people make mistakes; even people who wrote about Jesus 2,000 years ago and earlier. Imagine if they accidentally added a mathematical “typo” like 2 + 2 = 5. Today it would be a religious fact that 2 +2 = 5 and you would have theologians ignoring their common sense and writing essays about how 2 + 2 IS equal to 5 as according to God’s law. They would also ponder if the heathen mathematicians should be damned to eternal hell for spreading the heresy of 2 + 2 = 4. I wonder how many “typos” or misrepresentations are actually in the Bible. I also wonder how many of those contributed to a war or to somebody being killed.
It might be possible to accurately document something like this today if the events were recorded with a camera or some other device. The only risk would be someone inserting their bias into the story, which probably also happened back then.
In my opinion, it is more important to understand the big picture and not focus on the details of what Jesus might have said. Because none of us knows what he actually said, we never will.
I used to own fish tanks. When I would clean the tank the fish would sometimes freak out over my hand entering their world. If they had intelligence would their God be this enormous hand? Would they design temples containing statues of a giant hand and then sing praise to this “Hand of all Holiness”? The truth is we are living in a similar fish tank. We have no idea and no clue who God is, where God is, or what God looks like.
Even the God we have made contact with is still a mystery. We believe He is God because He said He is, but there is absolutely no evidence. Well what if the giant hand could talk to the fish and told them it was God. The fish might believe it, but would that make it true. And then, what if the REAL God caught wind of this hand pretending to be God, how pissed would He be?
I honestly really hope the Bible is true because some of the stories are beautiful and it would definitely make death much easier to contemplate. My heart tells me to believe but sometimes my brain tells me I’m just a fish in a tank, worshiping an enormous hand.
I often ask questions such as: “If I were God would I demand everyone worship me or damn them to an eternal hell? Would I exclude people from heaven just because they were different from others or believed something different? Would I damn people to eternal hell who ignorantly worshipped another god? Would I give people a brain but damn them for using it? Would I admit people into heaven who were mean pricks or murders or rapists just because they said they were sorry at the end of their life? Would I write policies which excluded women from important decision making roles within my church? Would I destroy an entire city including the children just because the adults were having consensual sex? Would I “test” the faith of my most devoted worshipers by taking everything from them including their families and then expect them to still love me?” The list goes on and on………………..
Then I seriously doubt a God who answers “Yes” to any of the above questions, because it sounds more like a devil than a God. So either we got the message wrong or the message itself is wrong. I prefer to believe that WE got it wrong.
Labels: Religion
posted by DarthImmortal at 9:24 AM
2 Comments:
How about, "If you were God would you be able to make sure the bible was written exactly like you wanted it?" That's a good question worth asking too.
You have uncovered one of the many of the many logical flaws with the Bible. I have thought about that but it is a flawed question. If God wanted to make sure the Bible was accurately depicted then why not just give us copy already written by Him? Wouldn’t that seem more logical than the alternative?
There so are many other important logical flaws within the Bible which are too easily dismissed by fundamentalists. These logical breakdowns are irrefutable evidence the Bible was not written by God but by man because God would not have made such obvious mistakes. At the very least we should believe that He probably gave us better explanations and reasons at the time which have long since been lost through man’s translations and storytelling. Since man did not have or most likely lost those logical explanations provided by God, we embellished, which might have seemed logical at the time but today most of those embellishments are almost laughable.
There are actually people who believe in the Old Testament that Noah actually gathered two of every animal in the world and loaded them onto his arc. By today’s standards imagine doing that? It would probably take you a lifetime just to gather up half of all the animals and this is if you had modern technology like planes and trucks to assist.
Another example, after Jesus rose from the dead why not go back to Pontius Pilate and the other crucifiers. Walk right up to him in front of all of his men and say, “Look at me, I was crucified but I am not dead.” If that would have happened there would be absolutely no questions by any doubters. Jesus should have shown everybody His resurrected body but why did He show only a few believers? That does not make sense to me at all. If you are proclaiming yourself as a God who can defy death and forgive century old sins, then show everybody. There should be no mystery or questions at all; just, “I am God and here I am, period.”
Another logical inaccuracy is the crucifixion. Why did He have to be crucified to forgive our sins? Why not just forgive them? After all, He is God so He could have done that without going through the whole torture and death sequence. It doesn’t make logical sense to me. Now if He would have used the crucifixion to proclaim He defeated death and to prove He was God in front of millions of people and the leaders at the time, like I stated in the paragraph above, then it makes sense. Otherwise, we are left with illogical reasoning which does not make much sense at all. Why be tortured and crucified, then rise from the dead and NOT show yourself to the people who killed you? It doesn’t make sense.
The whole book of Revelations also seems very flawed. It was written by The Prophet John during his exile on Patmos. It has been written that he was nearing madness during this period of his life. So why would God choose an exiled man near madness to deliver these important messages? Don’t you think He would have chosen someone more credible? Let’s put that decision in perspective in today’s world. It would be almost like God choosing David Koresh (or insert any other cultist whacko here) to deliver a similar message.
There are so many more hundreds of logical flaws within the Bible but the most compelling argument in my favor is the more than 2,000 years of silence. With all the turmoil and all of the radical splits the Church has endured why not make another appearance to clear up these mistakes.
There is more we DON’T know about God than we do know, so enlighten us. If He is telling us that we are going to be punished with eternal damnation if we do not believe in Him, then at least give us the courtesy of a follow up visit every millennium or so. Especially since we are intelligent beings and our theories in science are becoming better; that seems the least He could do. Or are we to believe He is just sitting up there in heaven watching us screw up time and time again without any leadership, knowledge or advice?
These faults within the Bible simply cannot be dismissed; they must be dealt with using the brain-power God gave us. All of these logical flaws point to human misquotes and misinterpretations of events. As intelligence beings, we must evaluate things using logic and common sense and then determine our beliefs and conclusions. These laws of logic are one of the primary ways law enforcement detects lies while questioning a suspect or a judge uses in court while listening to testimony. There are other ways too but if the laws of logic are broken then we are left with inaccuracies and falsehoods.
I do not claim to have all of the answers but I don’t think the correct questions are being asked by theologians either. They are the ones with the knowledge of the Bible but they are in too deep to answer any of these questions because they have already accepted these flaws and are able to look beyond them. I’m not a theologian but just a man trying to solve the mysteries of life, while asking what I believe to be the correct and proper questions to these theologians, who assume the Bible is 100% accurate regardless of what common sense, logic and science dictates.
Unfortunately many of the theologians are also the fundamentalists which I have written about many times in this blog. Fundamentalists only see “black and white” and can never see any “grey areas”. In their minds the whole thing must be correct or the whole thing is wrong. Since they have already placed a high emotional value on the Bible being 100% correct, they cannot emotionally deal with these questions being asked, much less being able to have an intelligent conversation about them.
Tragically, many people have been tortured, killed and imprisoned through the years because of the Bible’s literal meanings or quotes supposedly flowing from the tongue of God. Fundamentalists are now trying to take over our Country and dictate rules based upon these writings. This is wrong.
If you question common sense, logic and science then I would have to say to you, why would God gives us this brain with these abilities and expect us not to use it?
Thanks for your comment.
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