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.
Tags: Barbaric, Bible, Christian, Evil, Faith, God, Hebrew, Infallible, Inspired, Jesus, Man, Men, Primitive, Testament, Word
July 31, 2009 at 11:46 pm |
Well said. If the Bible is the word of the supreme creator of the universe, well, I guess that explains some of the shoddy workmanship observed around this place.
I mean, the Bible? Have you read it? That is the best “He” could be bothered to come up with? Really? That’s the best he could do? You’ve read it, right?
If I had to give it a grade, well, I’d have to go with, you know, F-minus. It’ really is that bad. Total failure. Completely fails to be even remotely convincing as the supposed work of a deity.
August 2, 2009 at 10:22 pm |
lol! clearly you haven’t read it all!
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor. 2:14
August 3, 2009 at 3:28 pm |
Oh, so, it’s a great spiritual book because it says it is. Well, the credentials seem to check out.
Honestly, I would kill for that sort of credibility. “But officer, I’m not robbing the bank. This is all my money. Why else would I be taking it if it wasn’t mine?”
September 11, 2009 at 9:28 am
But you DO have that kind of credibility! “It’s not a great spiritual book, because I say it’s not!”
September 11, 2009 at 10:35 am
Mark, it’s not a great spiritual book, because the main character condones genocide, murder, and rape. Even the supposedly great moral teacher, Jesus, tells people to leave their families and hate their parents.
There’s nothing spectacular about the Bible, morally or spiritually.
September 11, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I’m a disappointed at the cheap shot you take regarding “hate their parents.” Sure, there are some troubling things in the book, but purposely misquoting and misunderstanding something doesn’t make one’s argument look very credible.
The idea to which you’re referring is likely Luke 14.26–33, which reads: “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple … For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? … So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”
Jesus, if he existed, knew the 10 commandments, which require that one honor their parents. Or do we make him both nonexistent AND stupid?
Football coaches what their players to give “110%” and my martial arts teachers wanted us to “hold nothing back.”
But then, maybe the idea of “hyperbole” isn’t part of your content analysis toolbox.
September 11, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Yeah Janus it was a cheap shot, you should know Jesus said you should kill them not hate them.
August 1, 2009 at 3:15 am |
I wonder why faith is such a big and necessary thing for God. Being able to see someone doesn’t make me automatically like them, or automatically dislike them. I’d rather judge that on what they do and how they are as a person. What would be wrong with objectively showing herself permanently so that everyone in the world can see?
Was God worried that she’d be too cute and she’d make guys turn away from their wives? I’m sure God in her omnipotence could do something about that.
August 1, 2009 at 4:25 am |
The rule I live by “Why hate someone for their religion, their sex, the color of their skin or their sexual persuasion when, if you really take the time to get to know a person, there are so many other better things to hate them for.”
Kudos for the repeated use of “Her” when referring to God. Get ready to be attacked by a bunch of Christian wackos! I have to say I can’t believe the God of the Christians would be a Woman, not the way this God advocates the abuse of women. And, like George Carlin says, God would have to be a man, because no woman could or would screw things up as badly as this!
August 1, 2009 at 12:17 pm |
Yeah, I wouldn’t think that if God is a girl, she would have been the Christian God either.
In Leviticus, A Male is worth 50 shekels, The woman is 30 shekels. I think God should have gone in and said something about equality.
August 1, 2009 at 7:12 am |
Well to be honest, God should be referred to as an “it”. >_>
I only refer Him by male terms out of convenience (in other words, advance apologies to all female rights groups. <_<)
August 1, 2009 at 8:59 am |
By definition, to believe in God you must have faith in God. That is because there is no reliable evidence. Faith is what you have left over when you take evidence away.
Unfortunately for the faithful, it is easy to show that faith is usually wrong (which is not surprising given its separation from evidence). All world religions are based largely on faith. No world religion is followed by a majority of the faithful. Therefore, by definition, most faithful believers necessarily must be wrong.
Another reason to mistrust faith is that it is simply inherited from your family and culture. 99 times out of 100, a person “develops” faith in the same religion that their parents hold. Obviously, this is not a coincident, but the logical conclusion is that your faith has more to do with random chance (i.e. where you happen to be born) than with any other factor.
But then again, if we downplay the importance of faith, we are stuck having to make arguments based on evidence. And for the religious, that is a losing proposition. Gotta have faith.
August 1, 2009 at 9:26 am |
Still, tho, faith is very important even in the secular world. Without faith the impetus to make a push to discover, invent and build isn’t there.
The trouble with religion (and also, philosophy) is that it tends to use faith in a destructive manner. Faith is instead used to actively STOP AND DISCOURAGE people from asking the relevant questions. Thus, the process of discovery is stopped in its tracks.
August 1, 2009 at 12:09 pm |
I could almost say that you are claiming that christians are only christian because they are indoctrinated into it. I would say it is more like brainwashing then indoctrination. Those that change religions tend to change when they lose contact with those in their faith and are surrounded by people of their new faith.
August 1, 2009 at 9:23 am |
Gotta have faith? If you take all evidence away, faith is beyond irrational.
August 1, 2009 at 10:04 am |
personally, i prefer aesop’s fables over the bible. the stories are amusing and the morals are universal
August 1, 2009 at 12:56 pm |
Faith is there so that when people question all of it, leaders can look at them and say, “Ahhhh…. but that takes faith!” A great way to make someone feel guilty about their doubting.
August 1, 2009 at 4:28 pm |
How much faith do you think it’ll take to believe that there are flying mile long pink elephants under the crust of Mars, LeavingReligion?
Probably a lot more than it takes to believe in God since I’ve yet been able to convince someone to believe that on FAITH.
August 1, 2009 at 6:49 pm |
.In the interest of public service the top ten ways to identify if you are in a cult is provided for you here.
1. In order to join the group you must give everything you own to the leader of the group including your female children and your wife, who will become his wives while you are to remain celibate to maintain your purity while slaving away in the communal fields to provide food for everyone else.
2. You are required to shave your head (male and female), put on bedsheets, and dance around the airport with those little cymbal things on your fingers and sell incense to passengers as they try to get past you in time to make their flight.
3. Your group leader who maintains that he is Jesus Christ incarnate is afraid of any body of water larger than a wading pool.
4. The communal facility in which you live is surrounded by barbed wire fence with the tops turned inward, and has watchtowers on all four corners manned by people with machine guns while others roam the grounds with vicious guard dogs and the name of the facility is something like “God’s Peaceful Acre”.
5. While reading the group’s emergency evacuation plan for the compound you notice that the leader has a vehicle on hand for his get away while the instructions for the rest of the group include “drink plenty of the kool aid and wait for God to give you further instructions”.
6. While the leader of the group dines on steaks and caviar and drinks imported French wine, the rest of you eat like Ethiopian refugees and the reason given for this is “you have only one body to be concerned with, I must be concerned for all the bodies and souls here and must maintain my strength” (usually spoken in a extremely reverent tone).
7. While attending services at your compound the only mention of God is when the leader is referring to himself and the rest of the time he is ranting about devils, demons, UFOs and Republicans.
8. The religious texts that are used by your group have been translated by your glorious leader from a language only he understands given to him by God just before he turned the power of the universe over to him in order to lead your group to the “Land of Perpetual Bliss” which according to the picture in the text looks like a huge shopping mall.
9. After you have been with the group for about six months and you go into town for some reason and homeless people look at you and give you money.
10. If you are told the Mother Ship is waiting but you must saw off a vital part of your body to obtain a pure essence necessary for passage on the ship.
If you are involved in a religious group of any kind and any of the above conditions seems to be prevalent it would probably be a sound idea to seek fulfillment elsewhere. Bear in mind that if it doesn’t feel right, it probably is not for you. On the other hand if it feels really, really, right, chances are you have found your spiritual home, or the communal wine is spiked.
Hmm… sounds familiar.
August 1, 2009 at 7:02 pm |
THe judeo-christian + islamic beliefs are the most contradicting self righteous bullshit beliefs ever thought of.
[1] Why cannot God, who is perfect and powerful, not be allowed, Himself, to make love, not without the requesite free will, that leads to sin and death for all, for all sin? That is why can’t God create love without creating free will, and thus death? It begs a Hindu karmic restriction on God’s own powers in the material realm.
[2] Why did God, who lacks nothing and is perfect, alone, and doesn’t even need man one iota, as man absolutely needs God, why did this God create love and worship for Himself above all others, which necessitated the creation of death, because of the free will that is karmically inevitably required to produce love for the God limited by His physics?
[3] Similarly, why is the All Powerful God, unable to create souls with 100% yield, like in microchip manufacturing yield sense? That is, in Revelation, God declares souls will be cast into hell to be destroyed. In essence, Perfect Powerful God cannot produce a product with a 100% yield, of souls. Also, God is no better than a human material producer, that has a few defective parts in the end, as God cannot produce things perfectly, and with free will, simultaneously.
[4] Why did God, who is all knowing of Himself, and knows the souls of all his creation, why did this God praise Job’s utter goodness in front of Satan, such that, God freely and “goodly” chose to make a bet on Satan’s suggestion, on Job’s life, that he would survive the inevitable suffering and pain, and not curse God, which is admirable, but sad that God would put Job in this situation, knowing exactly Satan’s heart in response to God’s praise of Job’s perfection, and taking a bet on Job’s life. Job1:7-12, where Satan gets god to curse Job, by God’s good praise, in front of Satan. Is it a Good God that praises someone in order to setup their trial by Satan? Even Chinese and ancient Greeks know better than God, that one should curse beauty, “You are ugly”, or curse wisdom, “You are fool”, in order to not tempt the other gods of the universe to jealousy and tests and suffering, like a Thor or Zeus or Jupiter of wrath.
[5] Why did God, who is all knowing of Himself, and knows the souls of all his creation, why did this God put a perfect Adam and Eve in the Garden, give them a rule to obey, which they did, until Satan, that God allowed in the Garden, to test them to failure? It was not enough that God gave them a rule, but also adds more on to them, than just a simple test of free will between Adam and Eve, unbenouced to them, but heaps on a force to hasten their fall, by letting Satan run free with them, inevitably leading to His own death on the Cross to fix that muck-up of His own. Even without Satan, engineers know that all free will systems with a criteria for failure, will fail, given an eternity of time with free will. An asterod falls, a robot trips, time ends and the system stops worshiping. A Murphy’s Law, that a system that can fail will fail given an eternity, and seeing that Adam and Eve were immortal and on a perfect earth, theirs was an eternal test of thier obedience, neverending, under The Good God’s watchful warden eyes. Time alone, would have tested their fidelity to one criteria, for they would have failed eventually, without adding Satan walking the garden, by God’s permission. And how is that a relatively test, of the obedience criteria, in comparison to 6,000,000 Jews killed in German concentration camps, who grew even closer to God in their trials, compared to the simplistic no-tree-of-knowledge-touch AND throw in Satan, also?
[6] Of other worlds theories, why did God simply not make 60,000,000,000 unmistakable copies of Jesus, with all power, to walk as a father with the approximate 60,000,000,000 humans, roughly estimated from the last 10,000 years, integrating population and generation span, and abortions and miscarriages, throughout time to now? It would have been a personal God, and universal God, and all would have walked carefully, and been with their one true creator for eternity, as the control loop equations would be very close to each person. But apparently, ther is some other hidden karmic Hindu equation of physics that restricts God’s so called infinite power and goodness and love to have reduced cosmic suffering that way, perhaps, because God would get bored, even though God lacks nothing, and is complete within Himself, so says man and the Bible, supposedly.
August 3, 2009 at 12:33 pm |
“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.”
And yet, millions believe. You can complain about the Bible as irrational (as if that matters) but it is harder to doubt its effectiveness in getting the message out.
How many people have read Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity? How many understand it? How many are ready to die to distribute it if it were to be banned?
August 3, 2009 at 12:35 pm |
Yes, because people are gullible and motivated by fear tactics, the Bible is effective. Nothing motivates people more than fear of eternal punishment. However it in no way makes any of it truth.
August 3, 2009 at 1:13 pm |
You have made a good point here Paul M. I agree with you most people don’t understand the bible any better then they can understand Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Just because a large number of people believe something is true doesn’t mean a thing. You can look though history and find plenty of examples of how what people believed was wrong.
August 3, 2009 at 7:37 pm |
Anton Svandor LaVey, famous late American Satanist, had made a very good point about how the image of a being encourages trust amongst believers:
Of course, God is a very Jungian construct. He was created by small men to serve their needs, according to their needs. Then, after the limited minds of millions of stupidos acknowledged Him, the god-damn dummies pretended it was the other way round. They insisted that God created man in His own image, but could never extend the similarity beyond that.Not wanting to portray God as a monster, they presented Him as a patriarch in a long white robe with go-aheads and a long white beard. That way they can make a stern father figure out of him, to set an example for His children. If Daddy says its ok to act like an unthinking asshole, then it behooves His followers to act accordingly.
- from Satan Speaks.
How different might things be if Satan was the one portrayed as a wise-man with the beard or God as a monster with horns and a trident?
August 3, 2009 at 8:15 pm |
There’s one big difference.
IIRC Einstien did NOT condemn people for not accepting his theory of relativity. (The man had a very healthy respect for God and probably would not dare to >_>)
God and his servants, as has been demonstrated many times on this blog, are more than willing to condemn people for questioning the book.
August 4, 2009 at 1:08 am |
It is hard to measure how effective the Bible is in getting the message out to individuals who are not already disposed to believe it as a result of some other experience or communication. We know that millions believe but I doubt that a significant number of those believers were strangers to the Bible when they first read it and I think that nearly all were already steeped in the main stories before they were even capable of reading it, especially the translations that use archaic English. [Do speakers of other languages also use archaic translations?] In this environment, the Bible is not getting the message out: it is filling in the salient points for those who already know the general outline and it is refreshing the memory of those who have read it before.
Such a predisposition tends to reduce critical examination of the details and attention to internal consistency. In addition, I think the Bible tends to be read in small bits; the reader is not really expecting today’s bit to mesh with yesterday’s — not in the way each chapter of a novel or non-fiction volume is expected to work with those before and after to express a consistent whole. Even taken as a collection of short stories and essays, the book has problems, as this blog so often points out. But these are problems only for readers who are expecting to evaluate what they read, not for readers who accept the text as an old friend which may remind them of a useful idea and who are willing to overlook that old friend’s occasional embarrassing outmoded prejudice. It is especially not a problem for the reader who considers the Bible to be communications from the supreme and perfect leader; that reader, despite voluminous detailed knowledge of the text, is the least critical of all.
Religion is a closed thought system: each part reinforces the others.
August 24, 2009 at 12:28 pm |
I don’t like religion, it’s mans (pathetic) way to God. On the other hand I’m so thankful that God has shown Himself to me by way of the Holy Spirit. He has made it known to me that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, not by any book, not by any man, but through His Holy Spirit. I have no proof other than how He spoke to my heart and demonstrated His supernatural power to me. His love overwhelmed and changed me forever. That’s not religion…that’s a relationship.
August 24, 2009 at 12:36 pm |
Except you would have no concept of Jesus if not for men or the Bible. Your idea of God is exactly what is in the Bible, a book written by men. The concept of the Messiah, the Holy Spirit, all of it, that’s from the Bible.
It’s funny how people seem to confuse “this is the predominant religion of my culture” with “I found it entirely on my own.”
August 24, 2009 at 1:03 pm |
I’m happy for you that your version of Christianity has given you peace. That doesn’t however prove it is real. As Janus pointed out, the only way you know the name Jesus and the term “Holy Spirit” is because Christianity is the predominant religion in your culture. Otherwise you would be thanking Allah or some other god for overwhelming you.
A relationship isn’t a warm feeling in your chest. A relationship is when two parties personally know and communicate with each other. I’ve felt the same thing you feel. I’ve been overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit many times. Because I really wanted to believe it was real. But a warm feeling in your chest and a feeling of peace does not equate to a relationship. People get that same feeling in every religion.
August 24, 2009 at 3:20 pm |
God speaks to me through His Holy Spirit and when I pray alone I pray and sing in other languages. It has to be from God, I’m not that smart.
August 24, 2009 at 3:47 pm |
How do you know you’re speaking in other languages if you don’t actually speak the language? I’ve witnessed people speaking in tongues. It’s not a language, it’s called gibberish.
Have you had someone attempt to translate this language like the Apostle Paul said you should? (1 Corinthians 12:10) Although if the person is Pentecostal, they’ll be convinced they know what you’re saying. Like George Costanza said, “it’s not a lie if you believe it”.
August 24, 2009 at 3:28 pm |
I agree with jimmygfat, I will give you my testimony, a very quick version. I had turned away from the god of man, from who they explained him to be. He was love but lived very far away, in heaven, and was only wanting to correct me or discipline me or tell me I couldn’t do this or that, and if I did, well I was going to hell. I lived my life far away from God, and the bible, who cared, not me. In 1997 my body completely quit and I was hospitalized and was given a bad diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis which would ultimately leave me bound to a wheel chair for the rest of my life, I won’t even go into all the details of daily life and the many years of my muscles in EVERY part of my body rebelling against my brain. Instead I will speed up to 2004 I was getting ready to take my life because I felt I was no longer a good wife or a good mother to my two children, just didn’t know how to accomplish it. While I was thinking on it again, I spoke out loud “I need my life to be over”. Here is what I heard God say, not an audible voice that I know of, but He definantely spoke audibly loud enough for me, “I can’t take your life, for I love you and I have a plan and a purpose for you.” That completely freaked me out, so you see He wasn’t the God that I had read about in the Bible because I hadn’t read the Bible, nor was He the God that I had heard about in church because the church I attended in my younger years was very fear oriented and everyone hell bound unless you do it a certain way. To get back to my story, I from that moment on had an ongoing relationship with God, Him talking to me and me talking back to Him, and Him answering many questions that I had. After about a month of this relationship between He and I, and yes I did start reading my Bible
August 24, 2009 at 3:38 pm |
But all of this led to November 13, 2004 when while I had close friends of mine that were Christians pray over me, and yet while I was still diagnosed and very ill, God healed my body, I felt His pure, unblemished love and every part of my illness was gone. For the first time in my life I actually knew Who and what true love felt like, and I’ve got to tell you God is LOVE. He is not about rules and regulations, He is TRUE LOVE. There is absolutely nothing that in His love that even looks upon your sins, Jesus Christ said It is finished, and He took YOUR sins upon Him. It’s not about wrong or right and NO other God can heal except JESUS CHRIST. I’ve lived it, I’ve felt it, I’ve experienced Him daily, and all He is about is LOVE. Not man’s love, or even trying to love. There is NOTHING you can do to get God to love you more or there is nothing you can do to get God to love you less. He loves you whether you believe in Him or whether you don’t. You can believe me or you don’t have to believe me, that is your choice, I know Who I turned away from but I know Who loved me back into relationship. And now I love, because I am loved. I don’t care who you are, what you do, or even your race, or religion, I love you because I HONESTLY had love pulsate completely throughout my body and it’s all about God who is LOVE.
August 24, 2009 at 4:22 pm |
You were cured of MS. Let me put it simply… Bullshit!
You are lying.
I would believe what you say if and only if you provide me with permission to access your medical records, tell me where they are, allow me to interview the MD’s who diagnosed you, let me double check the diagnosis (MRIs, physical report) myself, check your prescription records for the past years, and then (assuming a Dx of MS was agreed) we’ll need a thorough checkup to ascertain that it is gone.
THEN I will accept your “testimony” as such (rather than as a “testiphony”).
August 24, 2009 at 4:34 pm |
Why do you have problems believing this, I lived it and I know what I know. I truly have nothing to prove, when it happened I was so overjoyed but I received practically your reaction by others and I was surprised. I guess I was so happy that I thought others would be happy that knew me and saw me in the condition that I was in and the change that came upon me physically. What I would ask you is how much do you know about MS and who are you for me to send any records to? Help me know you before I give out any personal information.
August 24, 2009 at 5:47 pm |
Why did you bring it up if you have nothing to prove? I am with Leo on this, unless you can prove the claim you have made, it is no more reliable then me saying that all cats are magically endowed to suck the breath from babies. I think you do have something to prove but not to us but to yourself.
August 25, 2009 at 9:07 am |
I know a fair deal about MS. I create educational materials to teach doctors, nurses, and pharmaceutical professionals about diseases and treatments. I’ve made several slide sets, animations, e-learning courses, booklets, etc about MS. I was a biomed researcher for 20 years before I started the writing career.
And all of that is why I flat out do not believe you. MS relapses and remits, at least the RR type does. I can believe that you have undergone a remission with good recovery. But to document a real and complete healing would require a complete work up including MRI, physical exam, etc.
If you really do have MS (as opposed to CIS or some such), and if you really have had a recovery/remission, then time will tell. Of course there have always been cases of long-term (even apparently permanent) remissions. They are uncommon; less then 10% of RR cases. You may be such a case, and if you are, I’m happy for you and your family. And you are free to attribute this “healing” to an invisible, imaginary, magic fellow.
That does leave you with an awfully capricious deity though. One who “heals” at random, based on no known reasons, and not reliably. And of course you get to face the complete lack of “assurance” that such a capricious, incomprehensible being may “decide” to let you have your “thorn in the flesh” back at any random time.
And of course you’ll have to face other MS patients with your capricious deity idea and tell them how much he loves you, while they are in a wheelchair and getting worse.
Sorry, but your “loving” deity looks exactly like random chance. I can’t see any reason to worship that.
August 24, 2009 at 7:16 pm |
I can definantely see your point, and I wasn’t trying to offend or get into a disagreement with anyone. My thought in writing my first statement was that so many “christians” try to say God is about these rules or those rules or He’ll send you to hell over this or that and my heart was really trying to point out His Love is Amazing and this is coming from someone who never knew how to love or be loved before, but that’s another story. People can definantely try to give God in a way that isn’t so and I can understand your point of view on God more than you know. Therefore, once again I truly apologize if I came across brash or harsh, that wasn’t my heart at all, I guess typing is different than speaking, it can come out sounding different than who I am and regarding proving something to myself, all I can go on is something that can’t always be put into words, they just don’t suffice.
August 24, 2009 at 7:29 pm |
I’m sorry that people might think praying in the tounges is gibberish, it sounds kind of silly sometimes, I’ll admit, but I believe it one of the most important things I do life. So many times I don’t know what to pray, but the Spirit intercedes through me with groanings and utterences I can’t understand. I only pray this way by myself. I just thought I would share something God has shared with me to maybe help others understand how great God is to me. I wish you well and I hope you discover what you are looking for.