When a person claims to have faith in God, they ground that faith in the foundational teachings of the Bible. This has much more to do with faith in ancient Hebrew men than it does faith in a god.
I’m amazed at how many people base their entire lives on the words of men who believed slaves were useful (especially sex slaves – Exodus 21:7-11), women were their subservient possessions, rape victims should be punished, disobedient children should be executed, homosexuals should be killed, genocidal slaughter was okay if it was a command from God, etc. These divinely inspired men also thought the earth was flat, the universe revolved around the earth with heaven above and hell below the ground.
They had a primitive perspective on every aspect of life, but I am to believe they had infallible wisdom about their god’s divine plan and laws? God supposedly inspired these men to write fictional folklore stories, but didn’t bother telling them they shouldn’t have slaves and treat women so terribly.
You can call it faith in God if you want to. I call it faith in man. The foundation for your faith lies in the words of men you would call barbaric by today’s standards. If there is a god responsible for our vast universe, I have to believe he could inspire a less terribly written book to tell his story.
Creationists love to point to the complexity of living creatures as proof of an intelligent designer (a.k.a. their version of a god). But creationists fail to point out the numerous shortcomings of this great designer. Christians try to explain disease and illness as a condition of a broken world due to the fall of man to sin. But Christians never talk about our physical shortcomings as an entire species.
Let’s discuss one minor example: human teeth. The reason I bring up this example is a comment my dentist made a few years ago.
He told me, “weak tooth enamel is the one mistake God made when he created us”.
At the time I was a faithful Christian believer and was very offended by his comment. How dare he criticize God and his creation? God wanted us to have rotten teeth … right? It must be part of his plan.
Most people develop cavities in their teeth before they even turn twenty years old. This is with the aid of toothbrushes, floss, mouthwash and yearly dental checkups. With a life span of 80 years, how did God expect people to chew food?
This is one small example, which leads to a huge number of questions. Why are their genetic birth defects and deformities, genetically passed on diseases and genetic mental disabilities?
If a perfect designer created this human design, he has some explaining to do. And don’t start blaming Adam and Eve. God told Eve she would be punished with painful childbirth, not rotten teeth.
A new right wing movement is attempting to force religion onto the school curriculum in Texas. The state’s education board about to consider recommendations that children be taught that there would be no United States if it had not been for God.
Members of a panel of experts appointed by the board to revise the state’s history curriculum, who include a Christian fundamentalist preacher who says he is fighting a war for America’s moral soul, want lessons to emphasise the part played by Christianity in the founding of the US and that religion is a civic virtue.
One of the panel, David Barton, founder of a Christian heritage group called WallBuilders, argues that the curriculum should reflect the fact that the US Constitution was written with God in mind including that “there is a fixed moral law derived from God and nature”, that “there is a creator” and “government exists primarily to protect God-given rights to every individual”.
Considering Texas ranks 46th in the nation for SAT scores, the Texas education board needs to worry less about Jesus and more about math, science and reading. In a country with freedom of religion, no religion has the right to infiltrate public schools.
Save the church rhetoric and folklore for Sunday morning. Public school is for educating our children, not brainwashing them with silly theology.
“Take away hatred from some people, and you have men without faith.”
— Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind (1955)
“The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.” — Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951)
“To know a person’s religion we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.” — Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind (1955)
“It was the craving to be a one and only people which impelled the ancient Hebrews to invent a one and only God whose one and only people they were to be.” — Eric Hoffer, Dictionary of Quotable Definitions (1970)
“Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.” — Eric Hoffer, Reflections on the Human Condition (1973)
“When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need for something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our lives.” — Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951)
“Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own … Whether it our own meaningless self we are upholding, or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith.” — Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind (1954)
“When we believe ourselves in possession of the only truth, we are likely to be indifferent to common everyday truths.” — Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind (1955)
“It is a talent of the weak to persuade themselves that they suffer for something when they suffer from something; that they are showing the way when they are running away; that they see the light when they feel the heat; that they are chosen when they are shunned.” — Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind (1955)
Here is a video attempting to illustrate the “grace” of God. All it does is effectively show how silly Christian theology is. This grace can be better described as unjust judgment from a very cruel imaginary God.
Christians cannot claim to have the only source of morality. How is it moral to do countless evil things as long as you begin believing in Jesus moments before you die? Apparently heaven is going to be full of hypocrites. Just the kind of people you would want to spend eternity with.
In a post from a few days ago, I discussed the Bible’s teaching on the requirements to get into heaven. Christians will tell you the only verse that matters is John 3:16. Believe in God, believe Jesus was his son, worship them every day and you will earn eternal life.
Let’s look at this teaching from a logical perspective. All of the Bible’s most important laws and teachings are written from the viewpoint of an insecure and narcissistic being.
Important Teaching #1
God: Worship only me. It’s all about me all the time.
Important Teaching #2
God: Never use my name in vain. That would be very upsetting to me.
Important Teaching #3
God:Believe a Jewish guy who lived 2,000 years ago is my son. Even though you’ve never met him and the ancient stories about his life are flawed and unreliable.
Explain to me why this god needs people to validate him all the time? And why is it more important than anything else? He wants us to be good people, but is most concerned about his popularity? I was less insecure when I was in junior high school.
Am I wrong to expect an all-powerful deity to be slightly less vain? I am to believe that this god created an immeasurable universe of galaxies, but his biggest concern is that one species of mammals on one a tiny planet believe in him and worship him every day?
The only thing Christianity achieves is successfully is painting a picture of a very small god.
If only Google Earth was around in biblical times we would have reliable evidence to prove the events actually happened. But ancient textual folklore is almost as good. A group of Australian artists called The Glue Society have created a set of digital pictures representing biblical episodes just as they would have been seen through a satellite.
A few man-made images to represent the man-made Bible stories:
“He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”
Luke 1:32-33
No. Because he was a descendant of Jehoiakim.
“A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham:
…and Josiah the father of Jeconiah (Jehoiakim was actually his father, see 1 Chronicles 3:16) and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon … and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.”
Matthew 1:1-17
“Therefore, this is what the LORD says about Jehoiakim king of Judah: He will have no one to sit on the throne of David; his body will be thrown out and exposed to the heat by day and the frost by night. I will punish him and his children and his attendants for their wickedness; I will bring on them and those living in Jerusalem and the people of Judah every disaster I pronounced against them, because they have not listened.”
