CHRISTIANS – An Atheist Is Seeking Answers. Can You Supply Any?

 CHRISTIANS – An Atheist Is Seeking Answers. Can You Supply Any?

To all who visit this page and attempt to offer an explanation: Thank You. In your comment please refer to which question you are addressing (#). If you wish, most of these questions can be found listed individually under the QUESTIONS FOR GOD AND HIS BELIEVERS category. Also, and this is important, please do not answer with ‘faith’ or by using scripture. Remember, I may have once been a die-hard Christian and may have studied the bible extensively in its many forms, but I am now an Atheist and the bible no longer holds any authority for me. I am merely trying to understand how people still believe the way I once did. How do you personally justify your beliefs, NOT how others justify them for you. If you visit my main page you can get a clearer understanding of where I’m coming from.

• 1) Will the saved in heaven miss their skeptical friends and family who are doomed to eternal torment in hell? The bible says there will be no sorrow. Are you the same age in heaven as you were when you died? Child, old man? Or in your ‘prime’? Who decides? You? Will they have bodily functions? The bible mentions feasts in heaven? If you eat in heaven will the resulting bodily functions occur? Will they always be ‘pleasant’? Is there sex? How will we recognize each other if we don’t have a recognizable form? Will we have wrinkles? Gray hair? Be bald? Fat? Male or female (if no sex then why different sexes? Why genitals at all?)? Teeth (if no eating, no teeth)? Noses (nothing smells, no need)? Will lost appendages be restored? Infirmities erased? What about birth defects? Will a born cripple still be a cripple in heaven? If you’re beautiful in life will you be beautiful in heaven? The same with ugly? In other words, will anybody stand out? Will we all look alike? Same race? If not there will be certain discrimination in heaven as there always is with those that aren’t alike. Luke 22:29, 30 – “And I appoint unto you a kingdom … that ye may eat & drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.”

• 2) God is so zealous in his obsession that man be circumcised that one wonders why he created such a flawed body that requires such an operation in all of mankind in order to be worthy of God’s acceptance. And long before these operations were safe or sanitary. God tells Abraham to circumcise boys at age 8 days but Abraham himself wasn’t circumcised until he was 99 years old. Gen 17:24 Because Moses’ child with a Midianite woman isn’t circumcised, God loses it and nearly kills Moses. Moses is only saved because Moses’ wife chops off the child’s offending foreskin with a sharp stone, casting it at Moses’ feet. In order to purchase Saul’s daughter, Michal, for a wife, David kills 200 Philistines in order to obtain their foreskins to present as a gift to King Saul, and Saul only asked for 100. Why is this wee bit of skin so damn offensive? Could it be that it so closely resembles an ape’s (animal’s) penis and this reality frightens believers?

• 3) It is a statistical fact that the more inteligent, highly educated a person, the less likely they are to belive in a god. In other words, the less educated, or more ignorant a person is, the more likely they are to believe in a god. If it was proven that the less educated, or more ignorant a person was the more likely they were to drive a Ford or wear Addidas sneakers, and you realized you drove a Ford or wore Addidas, wouldn’t you reconsider the car you drove or the sneaker you wore?

• 4) So, say a married man dies (car crash or something) and goes to heaven. His wife remarries and lives a long happy life with her new wonderful husband. Many years later the wife dies but her second husband goes on to live quite a few years longer. When the wife arrives in heaven are the original married couple reunited in bliss? And what happens when the second husband dies and arrives in heaven? In heaven is one marriage more legitimate than the other? Is the first always more legitimate than any marriage that follows? What if the first was miserable (abusive spouse)? Or the second? Or the third? The answer seems to be that arrival in heaven results in an immediate divorce. In Mark 12:25 Jesus states that there will be no marriage in heaven. Husbands and wives will be no longer. So why the requirement for marriage in the first place if it’s just going to be voided upon death? Be fruitful and multiply was the command. God didn’t mention anything about first signing some unrealistic, legally-binding contract and having a silly ceremony. How can a person look forward to arriving in heaven if it means losing the love of their life?

• 5) Why do so few of God’s creation (humanity) believe in him? Isn’t that a terrible failure on God’s part considering that all the non-believers are doomed to burn in eternal hellfire? Why has God allowed so many thousands of gods to be invented and worshiped by his creation? Why aren’t we all naturally inclined to know of and believe in our ‘creator’? How do Christians justify dismissing all gods mankind has invented over countless generations as fictitious and yet, lacking any evidence more legitimate than the worshipers of these other gods had, claim that their god is absolutely, undeniably genuine?

• 6) None of the Gospels claim that more than a few besides the disciples saw Jesus after the resurrection, but in I Cor. 15:6 Paul claims there were 500. Where did this number come from? Why is Paul the only one to report a number anywhere that large? And if that number is accurate, few seemed to be impressed, for at the first meeting after Jesus’ ascension, only 120 people showed up (including the disciples and Jesus’ relatives) Acts 1:15. Why did Jesus’ time on earth, his miracles preformed, his resurrection and ascension into heaven impress so few people. The Jews were longing for the Messiah’s arrival and yet very few followed Jesus. Strange how only after a great many years have passed and the stories can no longer be proven/disproven, that so many now choose to believe. But still not the Jews! Why did God do so little to ensure that his chosen people (the Jews) accepted Jesus as the Messiah? Why did God bother to send Jesus down to earth, have him be born from a virgin, do all that he did, being the self proclaimed Messiah and savior King of the Jews, destined to die for them, be resurrected and rise into heaven, only to be rejected by God’s chosen people (the Jews)? What a waste. But then there is always Jews for Jesus.

• 7) The writers of the bible clearly believed there was more than one god, more than one deity who could grant powers to those who followed/worshiped him just like the Christian god. If God is the only true/real God, then who granted the Pharaoh’s sorcerers the ability to match Moses’ magic with their own special ‘rods’? Ex. 7:11, 12, 22. If you try and suggest it was Satan, then please clarify; are you stating that Satan is a god? Are you saying the Pharaoh and all the others were Satan worshipers? Knowingly or through deception? Are you saying that the writers of the bible didn’t know it was Satan who was standing in for all of these deities? God didn’t think to let them in on this little fact? And, most importantly, what are you basing this opinion on?

•  8 ) How is this not child abuse? It seems that in order for religion to really stick (last a lifetime) it must be introduced (indoctrinated) as a child. A child’s untried mind, peopled with fanciful characters as real as any (Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, etc.) represents just the level of thought processes necessary for acceptance of a religious system so rooted in superstition and mythology. An adult tells the child of Santa Claus and the child believes, whole heartedly that he exists. If that child was protected and isolated from those that would tell him otherwise and surrounded by those that would continue to encourage his belief in Santa, would said child ever stop believing in Santa? How is this different than belief in God (Jesus)? If you believe that the parents who taught their naïve children that David Koresh was in fact the second coming of Christ were doing something wrong, how do you differentiate that from teaching a naïve child about your particular religion and god?

• 9) Rev 17:8 – “And they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world.” Rev 20:15 – “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” Wow! What a Revelation! Where did this ‘book of life’ come from? Why did no one ever mention such an important book before Revelations? And if the names of those that will be allowed into heaven are written in it ‘from the foundation of the world’ then why, according to the bible, aren’t those that were born before Jesus allowed to have everlasting life?

• 10)Why do non-Jews follow the Bible? Specifically the Old Testament? The bible is a book about the Jews, their history, customs, lifestyle, superstitions and religion. Gentiles (non Jews) should have no interest in it. Their treatment by Israelite armies at the direction of their God is so vindictive it should horrify any non Jew. Remember, Jesus called Gentiles (non Jews) “dogs“. Joseph Smith was so put off by how little the bible had to do with his people (Americans) that he actually rewrote it to suit him and started his own religion (Mormonism).

• 11) What happened to thou shalt not kill? “If thy brother … or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying Let us go and serve other gods … Thou shalt surely kill him … and thou shalt stone him with stones that he die.” Deut 13:6, 9, 10. So if someone you love wants to be another religion and asks you to consider joining their religion, you should disobey the Ten Commandments, and righteously kill him, condemning their soul to eternal torment in hell? This is the command of a god you want me to worship and love and dedicate my life to? Really?

• 12) How many children has your god doomed to burn in eternal hellfire? At what age are children judged to be responsible for making their own decisions about religion? They are born sinners according to the bible. If an atheist if guaranteed a place in hell, then how about that atheist’s 5 year old child? How about their 6 month old infant? Do they get a free pass? If so how about a ten year old? What is the cut off age? What about Mormons? According to Christianity, all Mormons are doomed to hell. What about their children? The children of a Mormon are being raised in their religion. They believe what their parents are teaching them (Santa!). They aren’t being given a choice. Will they be punished for innocently believing in their parents teachings by being sent to hell? Are the kids who died in the Waco, Texas compound fire with David Koresh in hell?

• 13) What happens to people who have physical and mental infirmities that prevent them from hearing, or reading, or understanding? Is God a devil who would doom them to eternal hellfire OR is he a tender and merciful God who grants them free access into heaven? And what level of retardation is required to acquire this free pass? Is a person with downs syndrome exempt because they can conceivably make decisions for themselves? What about a person who was once ‘normal’ but as a result of a brain injury became mentally retarded? What if they were an Atheist before the accident? A Scientologist? A Serial Killer? Will they be judged for who they were before or after the accident?

• 14) On the topic of free will; how does your god judge those who don’t have free will? Such as a person suffering from a mental disorder such as schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder? How about someone with a major dependency issue, such as an alcoholic or meth addict? How about someone with some sort of mental retardation? How about a child whose decisions are made for them?

• 15) Are all who are naïve of Jesus’ existence (Amazonian Tribes) doomed to burn in eternal hellfire? If yes, then God is a devil and unworthy of worship by anyone who would call themselves good. HOWEVER, if God is indeed a merciful God, then those that are naïve of Jesus’ existence will not be punished for their innocent ignorance and will be granted entrance into heaven. If the later is the case, however, then wouldn’t the people of the world be better served by missionaries not coming to their lands? One minute the tribesman has a free pass to heaven from a good and merciful God, the next a missionary arrives and tells him to stop worshiping his god and worship Christ. The tribesman, not understanding, or not trusting this pale faced foreigner decides to continue worshiping as he and his people have for countless generations. The next day a jaguar attacks the tribesman and kills him. Fastpass to HELL for the tribesman. The very introduction of the missionary into their tribe dooms them. Thanks God! Thanks do-gooder Christians!

• 16) How does God decide who he is going to have casual conversations with? In Gen. 25:23 Rebekah asks God about her pregnancy symptoms and God apparently isn’t busy so he replies, “Two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels.” Another fine example is in Acts 10 – Peter is fasting on a rooftop and God decides Peter can be done fasting and sends down a sheet full of four-footed beasts and wild beasts and creeping things and foul and speaks to Peter, saying “Rise, kill and eat.” God the Almighty has just preformed a bit of magic and spoken directly with Peter, commanded him really, but does Peter obey his Lord? No, he refuses! Is God so unimpressive? God actually repeats his command three times but still Peter refuses. Finally, God gives up! Don’t these examples strike anyone as odd? And why are such pedestrian conversations unfathomable now? Even a Christian would think someone claiming to have such informal conversations with God is mad or a liar.

• 17) During the God mandated wandering the Jews did before being allowed to enter the Promised Land, God provided manna, which was sweet and like coriander and could be made into cakes (using no other ingredients?). Just what sort of nutritional value could manna have had? What would happen to the human body if forced to eat nothing but manna for forty years? And if you answer with the typical pat, ‘God would make it so they wouldn’t get ill’, then you are required to answer the follow up question as well. If God is going to actively interfere with the bodies of these people, why not just make it so they don’t need to eat at all?

• 18) How many people have died as a result of a single passage in the book of James? “And the prayer of faith shall heal the sick.” James 5:15

• 19) Why do female televangelist clearly defy God’s commands about appearance? I Tim. 2:9 – “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array…”

• 20) What existed outside of the Garden of Eden? God created the Garden of Eden and inhabited it with all the creatures in existence (silly and mathematically impossible) and created a man to name and oversee everything and a woman to serve him. But what existed outside of the boundaries of the Garden? Was it a barren wasteland? Considering how many millions of years old the beautiful natural wonders of the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls and Yosemite are, to name just a few local sites, it seems unlikely. When Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, what were they cast out into? And why were all the animals cast out of paradise as well? Why were they punished for man’s sins? In the Garden the Lion and the Lamb were bros., outside they were the predator and the prey, the eater and the eaten, the fed and the food. And how long would man and animal have needed to remain vegans outside of the Garden? Obviously many generations of animals would have needed to be born before they could be killed for their flesh (and coats), otherwise they would have quickly been rendered extinct. And were blood sacrifices really prudent at this point? And how did all these animals that are currently native only to a few very specific regions of the earth manage to get there? Would you argue that all the continents of the earth were one single land mass just a few thousand years ago? And finally, where the hell is the Garden of Eden now? Where did it go?

• 21) If Public Schools require the teaching of creationism alongside evolution, would you require your Private Christian School or church to teach evolutionary science? If not, why not?

• 22)Do Angels really have wings? Do they really need wings to fly? If not, then why do they have wings?

• 23)Which came first; Dinosaurs or Adam and Eve?

• 24)Do you believe in Jack and the Beanstalk as well? In Num. 13:33 the scouts for the Israelites advise against entering Canaan because they claim to have seen giants there. Giants appear a number of times in the bible, most notably in the tale of David and Goliath. David and his servants slay a number of other giants as well, including one with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. Why is it in the most archeological excavated locations in the world (those mentioned in the bible), that no evidence of these giants have ever been found? Could it be because giants are creatures of Myth, just like Dragons, which are also repeatedly mentioned in the Bible as if they were real? Neither Dragons nor Giants exist. Never have.

• 25)In Luke 24:37 when Jesus rises from the dead and appears to the eleven apostles, they are terrified. Didn’t they know he would be returning? How little faith did they have in their own Messiah? Why so little preparation for his return? Most of Jesus’ followers just went back to life as normal or went into hiding. Lazarus’ return from the dead was met with more enthusiasm. Why do the disciples have such an insignificant reaction to Jesus’ resurrection and ascension? They seem relatively unimpressed by these incredible feats. They don’t tell anyone and aren’t tempted to tell anyone. Nobody gloats to the scribes and Pharisees. Nobody tells Jesus’ mother (!). Nobody celebrates. Nobody says, “I told you so!” They don’t assemble a crowd for the ascension. And if they really believe what Jesus said about his second coming is true and that it will happen in their lifetimes, why weren’t they hotfooting it to try and ‘save’ as many Jews from hell as they can? Don’t they have any friends, family or loved ones they would like to see get into heaven?

• 26)Can God make a rock so heavy he can’t lift it?

• 27) Every religion–Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Mormonism, Scientology, Buddhism, etc. claims to have religious experiences. If EVERY supernatural belief system boasts religious experiences, then doesn’t that pretty well devalue religious experiences as an indicator of actual truth?

• 28)Why won’t any religious person pray that an amputee’s limb grows back? Is it because you know that it is impossible and praying for the impossible is foolish? Why can’t an all powerful god heal an amputee? Why don’t parents who wanted a baby boy but got a baby girl pray for the baby to change genders? Why do Christians so rarely pray for anything that is completely impossible?

• 29)A simple scientific test for the validity of prayer. Gather up the religeous leaders of your particular religion and put them and 200 of their most loyal and feverent followers on an airplane. At 35,000 feet, the pilot and co-pilot will exit the plane via parachute. Autopilot can not be used. At this point every person remaining on board will begin to pray for the plane’s safe landing and every passenger’s survival. If God’s hands guide the aircraft to a safe and smooth landing, prayer’s efficacy will be proven. If the plane crashes, the power of prayer will have been disproven. Would even one of these believers step foot on that plane to participate in this test? Any volunteers?

• 30) Aren’t you an Atheist almost exactly like me? Do you believe in Baal? Do you believe in Ammon Ra? How about Zeus? Or Wotan? Or Poseidon? Or Apollo? Guess what? Me neither! If I made a list of every god ever worshiped by man I bet you would check them all off as being false just like me. The only difference between you and I seems to be the one god you would leave unchecked that I would include with the others. Not much of a difference between us after all is there? You exclude your god from your atheistic beliefs whereas I include him. That’s all.

• 31) Should the church be able to prevent someone from donating a kidney to their dying sister? Does the kidney belong to the person whoes body it resides in? Is it theirs to do with as they please? How about a tumor? A tumor is a living, growing mass of cells. A tumor doesn’t necessarily cause any harm to the human whoes body it is growing in. Does a person have the right to have it removed, even if it’s not currently causing them harm? What about if it might kill them to do so? Does the tumor belong to them? How is a fetus (a living, growing mass of cells) any different? Because it is human? Fine, then is the fetus capable of making the decision? No? Then who should the decision logically fall to? How can it be anyone other than the person whoes body the fetus/tumor/kidney resides in?

• 32)If an ancient Aztec text was discovered and in this text it was reported that their leader commanded an offensive tree to uproot itself and march away into the jungle, would you believe that this actually occurred? If not, why not? There is no evidence that the events depicted in the Bible actually occurred, in fact quite the contrary, so why would you blindly believe those stories but not the one depicted in the Aztec text?

• 33)If a Christian does not spend every waking moment of their lives trying to ‘save’ people in order for those people to go to heaven when they die, can they truly call themselves a real Christian? How can a real Christian just sit idley by knowing that, according to the Bible, of the thousands of people who die every day, the majority of them are going straight to hell?

• 34)Why isn’t knowledge of God a natural part of our existence? Why aren’t we born knowing him? In other words, why if a man is born and left alone, and he never encounters a Christian or reads a bible, he would live his whole life never knowing or believing in God? If God is real and deserving of our love, why has he stacked the deck so highly in favor of mankind eventually finding themselves in hell rather than heaven?

• 35)Did Adam and Eve have sex in the Garden of Eden? If so, did they do it purely for procreation purposes? Who taught them how to have intercourse? God?

• 36)Did pain exist before Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge? If so, why? If part of the punishment for eating the fruit was pain during childbirth, does this mean pain receptors didn’t exist in the female body before this? How else would childbirth have been free from pain?
• 37) If God intended for his religion to be (embraced) for all (not just the Jews) why did he make it so restrictive and exclusive? Invading, attacking, and slaughtering all who weren’t his chosen people hardly seems like an invitation.
• 38)

What Happened To Thou Shalt Not Kill?

 “If thy brother … or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying Let us go and serve other gods … Thou shalt surely kill him … and thou shalt stone him with stones that he die.” Deut 13:6, 9, 10. So if someone you love wants to be another religion and asks you to consider joining their religion, you should disobey the Ten Commandments, and righteously kill him, condemning their soul to eternal torment in hell? This is the command of a god you want me to worship and love and dedicate my life to? Really? I think I’ll pass.

Please visit my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the right hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.

DoubtingThomas

Save Yourself From Religion!

Save Yourself From Religion! 

Robert M. Pirsig: “When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion.”

All gods have been invented by man. Since the earliest days of our existence we have created gods to comfort our fears (mainly death) and explain the unexplainable. It’s absurd to suggest that primitive humans guessed wrongly about everything else, but were spot on regarding the origins of life. Once upon a time it was our god(s) who caused the lightning to strike and the thunder to rumble, same with the windstorms, plagues, tidal waves, floods, and earthquakes. It was our god(s) who lifted the sun into the sky (if the sun itself wasn’t the god) and darkened the moon. How many times has something, especially the origin of something, that was once attributed to a god, had the truth revealed by science? Whenever a new truth is discovered, some religious belief falters. And rarely, if ever, does a new scientific discovery ever support any religious theory. Just how many of the stories of the bible need to be proven fallacies before those who hold its pages in reverence will begin to question their conviction? Let’s face it, there are many who, even with the evidence of a story’s fiction placed right before them, will deny its validity before they even consider denying the absoluteness of their holy book. Is there truly any way to convince such people? Is faith simply a synonym for willful ignorance? How is it that the faithful can so casually dismiss ALL the other gods and religions mankind has invented over the years, acknowledging that they are ALL fallacious man made drivel, ALL, that is, with the exception of THEIR god and their particular religion? Could there be a more perfect example of arrogance and narcissism?

On what do you base your faith? Dogma? The pretty, comforting scripture you repeat over and over like a mantra, carefully avoiding the rest of the biblical passages that are utterly horrifying and/or obviously fiction? Are you simply the faith of your parents? And by parents, I mean original/birth parents. Are you more likely to belong to the faith of those who birthed you or those who raised you? If, at 4 years old, your parents died while taking you on a Christian missionary expedition through the mountains of Afghanistan, and a local family of Muslims found you and raised you as their own, do you really think you wouldn’t grow up a Muslim? Why would God allow a Muslim family to lead one of his children away from the one, true faith? Is it because what religion you belong to is completely arbitrary? And can anything arbitrary ever be taken as an absolute?

The truth WILL set you free. But you will not find it in the pages of the bible or any other religious doctrine. But please do read the bible, and in its ENTIRETY, but do so with open eyes and a clear mind. No one who does so can possibly come away having any desire to glory in the god depicted in its pages. 

Please visit my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the left hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.

The Fallacy of the Flood (Noah’s Ark)

 

The Fallacy of the Flood (Noah’s Ark)   

God so despised (so much for ‘good’) the offspring of the first nine generations of his creation that he decided to not only kill them all but to kill every other living thing upon the face of the earth! No exception was made for children, pregnant women or even babies (not to mention kittens, puppies and flowers). Only Noah, his three sons and their four wives were spared. How convenient that Noah and his sons had such perfect taste in women.

 

Noah was commissioned to construct a ship of such size that no one at the time had ever even conceived of such a vessel (500ft long, 85ft wide, 60ft & 3 stories high or less than half the size of the Titanic or about a ¼ the size of the Queen Mary II).  In fact, the lumber (gopher wood) required to build it would have been extremely expensive and, frankly, nearly impossible to acquire even if they had chopped down every gopher-wood tree in the area (it’s a wasteland, people!). And the tools needed to create such a vessel didn’t even exist. The tools would have had to have been created from scratch. On top of this, Noah had to do this with little to no knowledge of shipbuilding (and let’s face it, only an expert ship builder could hope to construct a vessel never before imagined and hope to make it sea worthy). Oh yeah, and while he was constructing the ship he also was commanded to gather SEVEN of every ‘clean’ beast & two of every ‘unclean’ beast & SEVEN of every fowl of both sexes (14 each), and a male & female of every ‘creeping thing’. He had to do this with the assistance of only seven other people. Even if they didn’t eat, sleep, piss or shit, this would have taken a VERY long time (I ignore the 120 years bible literalists give as it is a completely willful assumption which has no actual biblical support). This begs the question; How many innocents were born in that time and why weren’t they spared? How many dead babies were floating on the waters of God’s tantrum?

How is it neither Noah, his sons, nor their wives were at all concerned about worshiping and blindly obeying a god (really they were obeying Noah as he was the only one in direct communication) who was determined to kill all of their friends and family? Did they all really believe everyone they knew deserved to be murdered? Oh yes, that’s right, in their leisure time (what leisure time!) they were all preaching to the God doomed masses. I guess they really sucked at it as not a single person repented their sins and received an invitation on board. Even on day 39 of the rains they couldn’t bring anyone back to God? Wow?

 So, who stays behind to build the Ark while the others go in search of all the animals (and insects), the VAST majority of which the people of that time had no idea even existed. Let’s say half and half. No, wait! Even better, let’s assume God used his magical powers to influence every animal and insect to make its way to Noah and the Ark, leaving the men to focus on building the ship (ignore the fact that this completely disputes the bible). Even assuming that, however, one must ask how, exactly, did the various species that only exist in certain parts of the world (Koala Bear, Polar Bear, Panda Bear, etc.) manage to reach the Ark? Wait! I know, let’s assume that all the continents were still a single land mass just a few thousand years ago (more like 100 million, but who’s counting?).  Problem solved. Now, one must ask, how long would it take for a Sloth, native to Southern and Central America, to march its way to the Ark? And did we really need to include the Brown Recluse Spider and the Black Mamba? Really?

OK, so the Ark is completed just in time as all the animals and insects arrive and crowd on in. Except they won’t fit. This is understandable as the people who wrote the bible were only familiar with a very, very small percentage of the creatures that dwelled upon the earth so their measurements would have seemed more than adequate. But, of course, in reality they weren’t. The size of vessel that would be required to hold 2-7 of every living thing, including insects and fish, is too absurd to even contemplate. And that doesn’t even take into account all the food and fresh water that would be needed to sustain both man and beast for the 190 days they were on board the Ark (not to mention during the wait). Does this mean even more animals so the carnivores have some fresh meat? And what about after the flood? The whole of the earth would have been covered in rotting corpses and vegetation. There will be nothing edible for a very long time, even if Noah and his clan immediately started planting seeds upon making land. And, again, what about the carnivores? How many generations would have to pass before they could start preying on the offspring of the survivors of the flood? Of course, according to the bible, the slaughter started immediately, as, after the flood, of the few remaining animals left on earth, God tells Noah, “…every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you.” Gen. 9:3 How quickly would each species become extinct if such an occurrence had actually taken place? And what happened to kosher?

And what about all those who witnessed what Noah and his family were up to? No doubt everyone scoffed at Noah’s endeavor, especially when he and his family locked themselves inside the Ark with all the animals. But then it began to rain. And it rained and rained and rained and rained, and the waters began to rise. At what point did the others realize they wanted to be on the Ark as well? Day 20? Day 30? Day 39? How exactly did the Ark survive the panicked mob that assuredly came down upon it once everyone realized they were being murdered by God? Not a one managed to pry open the door impractically placed in its side? And is there a ship designer alive who believes that a vessel constructed at that time with a door in its side could possibly ever be sea worthy?

Oh, and let’s not even consider that the weight of the Ark, filled to capacity with animals, food and supplies, would result in a completely non-buoyant vessel. And think about it; it would have been impossible for Noah, his wife, his three sons and their three wives, (8 people total) to both crew the vessel and care for and feed and clean up after all the animals. And how did Noah keep the birds from eating all the insects? And what about the parasites they (and the other animals) carried? Do those count for the two of each living thing? Probably more like the seven.

Think of what the conditions must have been like on board the Ark for 190 days. How is it no viruses or diseases were spread? Realistically, how many of the animals would have died during the voyage? What about after? How many would have refused to mate with the one they were partnered up with? As any zoologist will tell you, a male and female of any species aren’t necessarily compatible as mates and even if they were, there is no guarantee that they could produce an offspring. And in case any believer suggests that at any point God interfered in order to guarantee his plan worked out (i.e. all animals mated and produced offspring, never attacked one another, no sickness on board), I ask why not just snap his almighty fingers and make all the offending humans fall dead? Why all the drama? Why not just snap his almighty fingers and poof there is the Ark and snap all the animals are on board? Did he want to sit and stew in his anger while Noah and his sons attempted to obey his command? If a believer is going to suggest that God used his infinite powers to take part in the great plan, then they must concede that there was no need to kill every living thing, God simply wanted to. There’s simply no denying that the God depicted in the story of Noah and the Ark is nothing but a petulant monster. Lucky for the believer, this story is shown (and proven many times over) to be a complete work of fiction.

This leaves us with one simple question: Knowing that the story of Noah and the Ark is nothing but a fairy tale, how can anyone continue to believe in the legitimacy of the Bible? Do we need to address the story of David and Goliath (and the Beanstalk?)? Or Jonah and the Whale? Do we? Really? —

*** PLEASE visit my Main Page https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/ and check out my many other posts in the various categories listed on the left.

All Gods Are Inventions of Man

The Christian God is no different than Zeus or Horus or any other dismissed god of the past, and Jesus was only one of many crucified saviors. God’s come in very handy. They help explain the unknown, and might help you if you treat them right. And if you want to be important, how better than to make up a supreme being who names you his chosen people and despises everyone else? If you want to control your people, how better than to put a thousand rules into a god’s mouth and have him annihilate anyone who disobeys them? If you want to take other people’s land, how better to justify it than to have your god tell you to do it and leave no one breathing? If you want to be sexist and racist, how better to condone it than by having a sexist, racist god not only approve it but order it? If you are typical of the times and inclined to be cruel, how better to burn, hang, drown, smite, mutilate, and torture than to have your god command you to do it and set the example himself? If you want to kill your neighbor, your friend, and members of your family, and thrust your children through when you’re not beating them black and blue, what better way to get permission than from a god who is an amoral fiend himself? Poor God! We can’t always choose our biographers.

 

Please visit my main page (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the top Right hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.

The Legality of Religious Indoctrination

Should religious indoctrination in children be illegal? Is it the equivalent of child abuse? Should a person not be allowed to choose what god they want to worship until they are an adult? A person most often becomes the religion of their parent for no other reason than that is the person who raised them. There was no conscious choice. There was no careful examination of the various religions and gods currently being worshiped and then whichever one they ‘connect’ with becomes their religion. Consider the following scenarios: A young child of 7 years-old is being raised by Christian parents, and during a camping trip in Utah, both parents are bitten by a poisonous snake and die. The child wonders off into the wilderness and is later found by another family who was also camping. The child is taken in by the family and raised by them. The family is Mormon. Will the child grow up to be a Christian or a Mormon like his ‘adopted’ family? How about if the Christian family is doing missionary work in Afghanistan and their vehicle hits an old landmine and everyone is killed but the child who wonders off into the desert and is found by an Afghani family. The child will grow up and be a Muslim not a Christian. How about if the Christian family is doing missionary work in the depths of the Amazon and is attacked by a Jaguar and the parents are killed. Say a local tribe finds the child and raises him amongst them. That child will grow up worshiping the river god Waesaritu. Why would God allow the innocent child to be misled this way, damning him to eternal hellfire?

Is Heaven Really Hell?

Will the saved in heaven miss their skeptical friends and family who are doomed to eternal torment in hell? The bible says there will be no sorrow. Are you the same age in heaven as you were when you died? Child, old man? Or in your ‘prime’? Who decides? You? Will they have bodily functions? The bible mentions feasts in heaven? If you eat in heaven will the resulting bodily functions occur? Is there sex? How will we recognize each other if we don’t have a recognizable form? Will we have wrinkles? Gray hair? Be bald? Fat? Male or female (if no sex then why different sexes? Why genitals at all?)? Teeth (if no eating, no teeth)? Noses (nothing smells, no need)? Will lost appendages be restored? Infirmities erased? What about birth defects? Will a born cripple still be a cripple in heaven? If you’re beautiful in life will you be beautiful in heaven? The same with ugly? In other words, will anybody stand out? Will we all look alike? Same race? If not there will be certain discrimination in heaven as there always is with those that aren’t alike. Luke 22:29, 30 – “And I appoint unto you a kingdom … that ye may eat & drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel.” *** PLEASE visit my Main Page and check out my many other posts in the various categories listed on the left.

The Origin of Life

This is a comment by Whiteman0o0 (David). I deleted it from my main page to place it here. 

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[[[I have a quick question, really more of a chain of thought that I have been mulling over for a few months and I hope one of the “rational thinkers” here can explain it to me since me being a xian has apparently made me devoid of all rational thought process. Trace the evolutionary tree back, finally you get to the one celled organisms, where did they come from? Protiens, but where did the protiens come from? amino acids, But where did the amino acids come from? The basic question I am asserting here is where did the first life come from? Abiogenesis?, Aliens?, Chuck Norris? someone please give me an answer with your “rational” thought process.

P.S. In case you havent read other posts on this site, I am a Xian and I believe that modern science does not refute God’s existence but rather supports it. I also believe that God created the earth, and still works in it today. !)avid]]]

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I love Whiteman0o0’s question as it is one of the most challenging questions for those who don’t believe in the biblical explanation of how life began. Personally, I think the Chuck Norris option is the most plausible. Kidding, of course, but the reality is this question of how life began is one of the main motivating factor for a large number of the gods mankind has created over the years. Gods help us explain the unexplainable. As our knowledge of our world and our universe expands, we as a species need rely less and less on superstition to illuminate these mysteries. Nevertheless, there are still a great many mysteries left unexplained. Whiteman0o0 believes that science will eventually prove the reality of the Christian god, while I believe it has already proven just the opposite. As for the origin of life; I truly don’t believe any current explanation has it right. But let’s face it, the ALIEN explanation is FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR more believable than ANY explanation supplied by ANY religion, especially Christianity. 

I hope others will do their best to answer Whiteman0o0’s excellent query.

10 Sound Reasons To Abandon the Christian Faith

PLEASE SEE MY MANY OTHER POSTS ON THE SUBJECT OF RELIGION ON MY MAIN PAGE (https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) ALL CATEGORIZED ON THE LEFT

10 sound reasons to abandon the Christian faith.

1. Christianity—in all its obnoxious denominations—is illogical, irrational, unreasonable and, of greatest import, unscientific. From mammalian parthenogenesis to talking non-human animals, from repeated corpse resurrection to impossible human longevity, this particular brand of mythology is unscientific to its core. Various absurdities, found in both the Old and New Testaments, simply cannot be reconciled with science-based reality and natural principles.

2. The Bible, in the not-too-distant past, reasonably has been interpreted to permit—or even condone—“witch” burnings, slavery, torture, female subservience and all manner of detestable horror. True, some passages in the Good Book speak about love, charity, forgiveness and solidarity. But, other passages—equally numerous if not more—prescribe stoning people to death for fictitious offenses such as gathering sticks on the Sabbath. In short, the very same tome that pious people clutch in church on Sundays was in the bloodstained hands of murderous primitives inflicting the thumbscrew on innocents guilty only of non-conformity in a Christofascist, pre-scientific world.

3. James Ussher’s Bible-based dating of Creation—that it took place nightfall before October 23, 4004 BCE—is egregiously, laughably fictitious. As Sam Harris snickers, “This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue.” A 6000-year-old earth is so absurdly in conflict with the evidence as to make the proposition strictly comical and unworthy of scholarly attention. In contrast to the Bible’s small and young (and non-existent) universe, cosmologists have discovered that there are more than one hundred billion (10^11) galaxies in our universe, each featuring hundreds of billions of stars. The sun—the center of our solar system—is merely an ordinary star, in an ordinary galaxy. Our universe is roughly 13.7 billion years old. And, who knows if we might live in some sort of grand cosmic multiverse, of which our universe is merely an insignificant speck.

4. Atheism is the only consistent position with respect to faith-based religious mythology. Christians, for example, are non-believers with respect to every faith except Christianity. Christians are utterly atheistic about every deity (of the infinitely many which could be conceived) except Yahweh. How oddly inconsistent. Muslims, too, reject every world religion save for Islam, which, to them, has a monopoly on absolute Truth. How is it reasonable to reject 10,000 faith-based religions, yet cling to the absolute authority of one? The only reasonable method by which to choose one religion over another would be hard evidence—something that all modern religions lack equally. Absent hard evidence, isn’t faith in Yahweh equal to faith in Enlil (or any other fantastical imagining)?

5. Historic “heroes” of Christianity are worthy neither of respect nor reverence. Harris writes, “It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews and witches.” Here, once again, we return to severe punishments prescribed for fictitious offenses. The Christofascist societies of centuries past (ruled over by the same Bible one finds at Sunday Services) bear a frightening resemblance to the modern-day Islamofascist Middle East, into which we have butted our collective nose.

6. Yahweh is woefully unworthy of worship. As portrayed in the Old Testament, he is the very embodiment of human frailty: vicious, vengeful, jealous, egotistical, insecure and, most frighteningly, endlessly murderous. Yahweh also seems to have difficulty separating the important from the insignificant, as evidenced by the Ten Commandments. Harris writes, “And what are we to make of the fact that, in bringing his treatise to a close, the creator of our universe could think of no human concerns more pressing and durable than the coveting of servants and livestock?” Yahweh’s special list of ten alternates between self-aggrandizement, statements of the obvious, pronouncements of the silly and declarations of the trivial.

7. No God, the Christian character or otherwise, should be worshipped given the results with which we live. If Yahweh is real, then cancer, smallpox, AIDS, malaria and aphasia are all products of his cloud-enshrouded laboratory. “Acts of God” such as Hurricane Katrina and the devastating tsunami of a few years ago are exactly that—the life-extinguishing playthings of the creator of the cosmos. Then there are starvation, homelessness, birth defects, genetic disease….

8. Piety can directly result in mass death. Harris writes, “Christian missionaries have been known to preach the sinfulness of condom use in villages where no other information about condoms is available. This kind of piety is genocidal.” He continues, in a note, “If you can believe it, the Vatican is currently opposed to condom use even to prevent the spread of HIV from one married partner to another.” This is truly sickening, folks. In the fundamentalist mind, agonizing death is preferable to the imagined sin of sex aided by contraceptive.

9. Virulent Christian anti-Semitism helped create the environment in which the Holocaust took place. Harris writes, “…the anti-Semitism that built the Nazi death camps was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity. For centuries, Christian Europeans had viewed the Jews as the worst species of heretics and attributed every societal ill to their continued presence among the faithful. While the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominantly secular way, its roots were religious, and the explicitly religious demonization of the Jews of Europe continued throughout the period. The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel in its newspapers as late as 1914. And both Catholic and Protestant churches have a shameful record of complicity with the Nazi genocide.”

10. Let us turn, for just for a moment, to David Mills’ Atheist Universe: “The Church angrily denounced the introduction of medicines, antibiotics, anesthesia, surgery, blood transfusions, birth control, transplants, in vitro fertilization and most forms of pain killers. Supposedly, these scientific tools interfered with nature and were therefore against God’s will.” The Church’s modern-day anti-science positions, obviously, should come as no shock. Diminishing human suffering never has been a high-level concern. After all, in a mind deranged by religion, there is another life to which to look forward. The earthly is merely ephemeral and, thus, suffering is a-ok.

–TAKEN FROM MY CASE AGAINST GOD BY DAN FERRISI  

Words of Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens states in God is not Great, “One must state it plainly. Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody—not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms—had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as for comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would like to think—though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one—that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.”

Got Raped? Lucky You! Bible Says You Get A Husband.

Deut. 22:28, 29 – Describes how if a man rapes a woman and is discovered, “…then he shall give unto the damsel’s father 50 shekels of silver and she shall be his wife…” What happens if they are not found during the act? But hey, lucky for the rape victim, right? She gets a husband! Woo Hoo!

Does a Soul Have Nerve Endings?

Another problem for the soul-particularly in relation to Hell-Does the soul have the ability to feel pain. Can a soul be tortured and brutalized? Pain is a particularly bodily phenomenon; it involves nerves, it involves tissue, it involves, most importantly, the brain. Please explain how a ghostly essence, separated from the body, can feel pain.

10 Sound Reasons To Abandon the Christian Faith

10 sound reasons to abandon the Christian faith

–TAKEN FROM MY CASE AGAINST GOD BY DAN FERRISI–

1. Christianity—in all its obnoxious denominations—is illogical, irrational, unreasonable and, of greatest import, unscientific. From mammalian parthenogenesis to talking non-human animals, from repeated corpse resurrection to impossible human longevity, this particular brand of mythology is unscientific to its core. Various absurdities, found in both the Old and New Testaments, simply cannot be reconciled with science-based reality and natural principles.

2. The Bible, in the not-too-distant past, reasonably has been interpreted to permit—or even condone—“witch” burnings, slavery, torture, female subservience and all manner of detestable horror. True, some passages in the Good Book speak about love, charity, forgiveness and solidarity. But, other passages—equally numerous if not more—prescribe stoning people to death for fictitious offenses such as gathering sticks on the Sabbath. In short, the very same tome that pious people clutch in church on Sundays was in the bloodstained hands of murderous primitives inflicting the thumbscrew on innocents guilty only of non-conformity in a Christofascist, pre-scientific world.

3. James Ussher’s Bible-based dating of Creation—that it took place nightfall before October 23, 4004 BCE—is egregiously, laughably fictitious. As Sam Harris snickers, “This is, incidentally, about a thousand years after the Sumerians invented glue.” A 6000-year-old earth is so absurdly in conflict with the evidence as to make the proposition strictly comical and unworthy of scholarly attention. In contrast to the Bible’s small and young (and non-existent) universe, cosmologists have discovered that there are more than one hundred billion (10^11) galaxies in our universe, each featuring hundreds of billions of stars. The sun—the center of our solar system—is merely an ordinary star, in an ordinary galaxy. Our universe is roughly 13.7 billion years old. And, who knows if we might live in some sort of grand cosmic multiverse, of which our universe is merely an insignificant speck.

4. Atheism is the only consistent position with respect to faith-based religious mythology. Christians, for example, are non-believers with respect to every faith except Christianity. Christians are utterly atheistic about every deity (of the infinitely many which could be conceived) except Yahweh. How oddly inconsistent. Muslims, too, reject every world religion save for Islam, which, to them, has a monopoly on absolute Truth. How is it reasonable to reject 10,000 faith-based religions, yet cling to the absolute authority of one? The only reasonable method by which to choose one religion over another would be hard evidence—something that all modern religions lack equally. Absent hard evidence, isn’t faith in Yahweh equal to faith in Enlil (or any other fantastical imagining)?

5. Historic “heroes” of Christianity are worthy neither of respect nor reverence. Harris writes, “It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews and witches.” Here, once again, we return to severe punishments prescribed for fictitious offenses. The Christofascist societies of centuries past (ruled over by the same Bible one finds at Sunday Services) bear a frightening resemblance to the modern-day Islamofascist Middle East, into which we have butted our collective nose.

6. Yahweh is woefully unworthy of worship. As portrayed in the Old Testament, he is the very embodiment of human frailty: vicious, vengeful, jealous, egotistical, insecure and, most frighteningly, endlessly murderous. Yahweh also seems to have difficulty separating the important from the insignificant, as evidenced by the Ten Commandments. Harris writes, “And what are we to make of the fact that, in bringing his treatise to a close, the creator of our universe could think of no human concerns more pressing and durable than the coveting of servants and livestock?” Yahweh’s special list of ten alternates between self-aggrandizement, statements of the obvious, pronouncements of the silly and declarations of the trivial.

7. No God, the Christian character or otherwise, should be worshipped given the results with which we live. If Yahweh is real, then cancer, smallpox, AIDS, malaria and aphasia are all products of his cloud-enshrouded laboratory. “Acts of God” such as Hurricane Katrina and the devastating tsunami of a few years ago are exactly that—the life-extinguishing playthings of the creator of the cosmos. Then there are starvation, homelessness, birth defects, genetic disease….

8. Piety can directly result in mass death. Harris writes, “Christian missionaries have been known to preach the sinfulness of condom use in villages where no other information about condoms is available. This kind of piety is genocidal.” He continues, in a note, “If you can believe it, the Vatican is currently opposed to condom use even to prevent the spread of HIV from one married partner to another.” This is truly sickening, folks. In the fundamentalist mind, agonizing death is preferable to the imagined sin of sex aided by contraceptive.

9. Virulent Christian anti-Semitism helped create the environment in which the Holocaust took place. Harris writes, “…the anti-Semitism that built the Nazi death camps was a direct inheritance from medieval Christianity. For centuries, Christian Europeans had viewed the Jews as the worst species of heretics and attributed every societal ill to their continued presence among the faithful. While the hatred of Jews in Germany expressed itself in a predominantly secular way, its roots were religious, and the explicitly religious demonization of the Jews of Europe continued throughout the period. The Vatican itself perpetuated the blood libel in its newspapers as late as 1914. And both Catholic and Protestant churches have a shameful record of complicity with the Nazi genocide.”

10. Let us turn, for just for a moment, to David Mills’ Atheist Universe: “The Church angrily denounced the introduction of medicines, antibiotics, anesthesia, surgery, blood transfusions, birth control, transplants, in vitro fertilization and most forms of pain killers. Supposedly, these scientific tools interfered with nature and were therefore against God’s will.” The Church’s modern-day anti-science positions, obviously, should come as no shock. Diminishing human suffering never has been a high-level concern. After all, in a mind deranged by religion, there is another life to which to look forward. The earthly is merely ephemeral and, thus, suffering is a-ok.

 

A Perfect Example of the Ugliness of the God of the Bible

Only Lot, his wife and his two daughters are deemed worthy of being sparred God’s wrath. Once again, much like with Noah, it’s conveniently all in the family. AND YET, even though God just moments before had deemed her worthy of living, when Lot’s wife (she never has a name) looks back and witnesses her family and friends being murdered by God, she is no longer worthy and God kills her. As a result, Lot’s two daughters end up having sex with Lot in order to produce an heir. Gen 19:32-36 “Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father.”

The God of the Bible is a Monster

Jephthah promises God to make a burnt offering of the first thing that greets him if God will give him victory in battle. He assumes it will be a dog. The all knowing God knows it won’t be a dog and agrees, giving Jephthah the victory he desires (again, more personal interference from God). Only when Jephthah returns from battle it is his young daughter that rushes out to greet him. No mercy from God. Jephthah burns his daughter to death to keep his promise to God. And God, no doubt, reveled in it. Judges 11:30-39. The only thing you can assume from this story is either God knew it would be his daughter that would run out to greet Jephthah and not the dog and agreed to his bargain anyway OR God himself held the dog back and encouraged the daughter to run out to teach Jephthah a lesson. Either way God is a monster.

Penn Jillette – There Is No God

 There Is No God

by Penn Jillette (comedian/Magician/Genius)

 I believe that there is no God. I’m beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy — you can’t prove a negative, so there’s no work to do. You can’t prove that there isn’t an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word “elephant” includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?

So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.

But, this “This I Believe” thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life’s big picture, some rules to live by. So, I’m saying, “This I believe: I believe there is no God.”

Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I’m not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it’s everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I’m raising now is enough that I don’t need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.

Believing there’s no God means I can’t really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That’s good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.

Believing there’s no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I’m wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don’t travel in circles where people say, “I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith.” That’s just a long-winded religious way to say, “shut up,” or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, “How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do.” So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that’s always fun. It means I’m learning something.

Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.

Please check out my Main Page at https://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/ for more on Atheism & Religion. 

Atheism, Creationism, Genesis, Religion, Faith, God is Dead, God is a Lie, Bible is a Lie, Religion is a Cancer, Religion is a Poison, There is No God, Welcome Atheists, Welcome Skeptics, Welcome agnostics, Questions All Christians MUST answer to continue to call themselves believers, Test Your Faith, Intelligent Design, No God, Freedom From Religion, Free from Religion, Born Again Atheist,

THE POWER & POWERLESSNESS OF GOD

“For me, religion is serious business — a farrago of authoritarian nonsense, misogyny and humble pie, the eternal enemy of human happiness and freedom.” – Katha Pollitt

SEX

“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” – Steven Weinberg

David, God’s favorite monster

In order to purchase Saul’s daughter, Michal, for a wife, David kills 200 Philistines in order to obtain their foreskins to present as a gift to King Saul, and Saul only asked for 100. And Saul’s true intention was for David to die in the effort to fulfill the request. I Sam 18:25-27. Saul will later give his daughter (David’s wife) to another man (I Sam. 25:44).

Why are God’s favorites always such monsters?

II Sam 12:31 – Describes what David did to the Ammonites of Rabbah. “He put them under saws and under harrows of iron and made them pass through the brick kiln.” God does love a good torture session.

See! Jesus ain’t so special

Hebrews 11:5 – Enoch was taken into heaven without suffering death, before Moses was born.

Why do I believe Santa is real? Faith!

It seems that in order for religion to really stick (last a lifetime) it must be introduced as a child. A child’s untried mind, peopled with fanciful characters as real as any (Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, etc.) represents just the level of thought processes necessary for acceptance of a religious system so rooted in superstition and mythology. An adult tells the child of Santa Claus and the child believes, whole heartedly that he exists. If that child was protected and isolated from those that would tell him otherwise and surrounded by those that would continue to encourage his belief in Santa, would said child ever stop believing in Santa? How is this different than belief in God (Jesus)?

Someone needs a lawyer

Christianity is almost a direct rip off of Zoroastrianism, and a number of other religions of Greece, Egypt, Assyrian and other neighboring countries of Israel. They embodied belief that good persons would go to a heaven. At the end of 12,000 years Ahriman (Satan) would be overthrown; then the savior Saoshant would be virgin born and the dead would rise, as hills became molten metal to destroy the wicked. Ahriman and his demons would occupy hell, loved ones would be reunited and the righteous would enjoy eternal bliss in their heavenly home.

Why couldn’t Eve be content with being dumb?

It’s simplicity itself to acknowledge that the hunger for knowledge (eating of the fruit) caused the downfall of the human race. I guess it’s true, ignorance is bliss.

It’s immoral not to believe in the unproven?

Unbelief is the same as Immorality according to the bible.

ACTS: Worst book of the bible EVER

The book of Acts is by far the least credible of all the books of the bible besides Revelations as it repeatedly contradicts the gospels and other parts of the bible and states all rumor as fact. It also never mentions the 500 people Paul claims Jesus saw between the resurrection and ascension.

I change not … except when I do

For as often as God does change, it’s strange that he can still claim – “I am the Lord, I change not.” Mal. 3:6

The Bible is NOT a History Book

The phrase ‘(Un)To This Day” appears throughout the bible (see I Sam. 5:5). This phrase suggests that the events depicted took place long before the author wrote it. So how can it be considered accurate/trustworthy?

Child Abuse Directive

Proverbs 23:13-14 “Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” AND Proverbs 20:30 – “The blueness of a wound cleanseth away evil: so do stripes the inward parts of the belly.”

No record of this atrocity

Matthew is the only book to mention Herod’s decree to kill all children 2 years of age and under. If such a horrendous atrocity actually occurred, all living in the vicinity would have been affected by it or aware of it. But history records no such crime.

Hell/Satan in the Old Testament

On hell, there is very little talk of it in the Old Testament at all and even less of Satan, who is very polite and nobody seems to be trying to chain up.

Human Will vs. God’s Will

Where does human will leave off and God’s will prevail? If A murders B, is it God’s will? What about the builder of the dam, who may have willfully used faulty materials? When the dam breaks, and people die, people who believe in God will no doubt exclaim it was the will of God.

Interpretation = Division

The numerous sects of the Christian religion are the result of the variety of the interpretations of God’s word.

Hey! Not so fast, God!

Another example of God being talked out of a decision. In Ex. 32 God thinks it would be a good idea to appoint Moses the founder of the greatest nation instead of Abraham and Jacob but Moses tells God that this wouldn’t sit well with the Egyptians. God decides Moses is right and changes his mind. God can’t change his mind! Ever! A perfect God would not be influenced by man at any time. This would suggest man being wiser than God. Not acceptable.

Did they see a beanstalk as well?

In Num. 13:33 the scouts for the Israelites advise against entering Canaan because they claim to have seen giants there.

Where did the New Testament come from?

No one can do more than guess as to how the New Testament evolved. It has been suggested that the leaders of the new cult became exercised when one of its factions contemplated the compilation of such a book, and decided that they themselves would collect the various pamphlets, letters, and gospels that were already circulating about what Jesus was purported to have said and done and about how the disciples responded to his teaching and death, for an official Church record of their own. Finally, about 400 years after Jesus’ birth, those who had been named bishops of the growing sect voted to decide what of the material would be designated as canonical. There were 318 of these bishops, each one apparently infallible. The book of Luke made it by only one vote. Without Luke there would be no Jesus in the manger, no swaddling clothes, no abiding in the fields, no shepherds watching their flocks by night, no heavenly host singing Glory to God in the highest.

God forbid

Shudder when people recommend we go back to the teachings of the bible. Suggest they read the Mosaic Laws in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and remember that Jesus said he came to uphold that law by every jot and tittle. Also read Paul’s theology and see how it nullifies our Bill of Rights, opposes science, forbids pleasure, discourages any accomplishments and personal pride, recommends that mouths must be stopped and books burned, that women submit to their husbands totally, and that men not even touch women.

Rejoice in not being a fool amongst the sheep

 Take joy in no longer worshiping a god who declares reason a sin, who will not choose many noble and great and wise things but has chosen the base things of the world, the foolish things, the weak things and the things which are not. A god who can choose his companions in eternity and prefers Jerry Falwell and Tammy Bakker over Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. I am no longer a fool for Christ’s sake. And I have no more desire to be a sheep than to be a fool.

MARY

“The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.” – Abraham Lincoln

The immaculate conception was a lie

Only Matthew and Luke claim that Mary was a virgin when she conceived. The rest of the New Testament ignore that fact and even deny it. Clearly Matthew and Luke were of the belief that anything to do with sex was dirty and couldn’t have the son of God created in this way. There is no explanation as to why or how Matthew & Luke came to this conclusion and no one else even mentions it. Wouldn’t this have been a huge miracle that everyone would have mentioned on a regular basis when defending/supporting Jesus? And Matthew doesn’t mention telling Mary, only Joseph is told, and only as he is considering putting her away privately (whatever that means) for being pregnant before he had had sex with her. But Luke states that an angel pre warns Mary even before God ‘visits’ her.

Just when did they reveal their amazing secret (lie)?

Clearly neither Mary nor Joseph told anybody about Mary being pregnant before sleeping with Joseph because no one would have believed him and she would have been stoned to death. Just when did they reveal this to others?

Why was the purification ritual necessary for Mary?

If Mary’s conception was indeed ‘immaculate’ and she wasn’t defiled by the act as with regular sex, then why did she have to go through the purification rituals of the law of Moses as stated in Luke 2:22 – “And when the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished…” And also the 40 days of cleaning rituals after Jesus’ birth.

JESUS H CHRIST

“The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not receive this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history.” – Robert Heinlein

Why do Christians have such a high opinion of this guy?

Matt 15:22-28 – Describes an encounter between Jesus and a Gentile woman who begs him to heal her daughter. Jesus ignores the woman. She persists and he finally says to her, “I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. It is not meet to take the children’s (Jews) bread and to cast it to dogs (Gentiles).”  Woman won’t give up and eventually Jesus finally relents and heals the child. Christians want us to worship a God who refused to heal an innocent child until he was pressured into it. Wow.

How conveeeeeeenient

Malachi’s prophecy that told of the arrival of the Messiah clearly states that Elias (Elijah) would return before the Messiah does. When Jesus is confronted with this fact he states that Elias did come … but no one noticed. Matt 17:12. Simple enough! I guess we’ll just have to take his word for it. It’s not like he could have an ulterior motive or anything. He even tries to pass off the identity of Elias onto John the Baptist to help cement him as the Messiah but John denies that he is Elias. John 1:20, 21.

How Conveeeeeeenient II

How convenient that almost (maybe all) all demons cast out of someone by Jesus immediately identify him as the son of God (for the benefit of those witnessing the spectacle). Luke 8, Luke 4:41, Mark 3:11, Mark 1:23 – 28…

Jesus was a bigot

Matt 10:5, 6 – depicts Jesus instructing his workers to go out and spread his word, but only to the Jews. “Go not into the way of the Gentiles … but rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Not really the welcome I was expecting, guys.

In Luke 24:37 when Jesus rises from the dead and appears to the eleven apostles, they are terrified. Didn’t they know he would be returning? How little faith did they have in their own Messiah? Why so little preparation for his return? Most of Jesus’ followers just went back to life as normal or went into hiding. Lazarus’ return from the dead was met with more enthusiasm.

Was Jesus cool with animal sacrifice?

The people Jesus so dramatically drove from the temple were merchants who sold doves for the sacrifices people regularly made there. Yet Jesus never condemns the sacrifices themselves.

What’s with this guy?

Matthew 10:35, 36 – What is Jesus’ deal? “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” These are Jesus’ words.

As with all religions, at its core, it’s all about sex

Matt 25:1-13 – Jesus tells an allegory explaining how everyone must be prepared for his arrival at the end of the world: He tells of ten virgins (of course) awaiting their one bridegroom, but five forget to bring extra oil for the lamps and run out to get some. While they are away, the bridegroom arrives. When the virgins return to a locked door they implore him to open to them. He replies, “Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” This story is creepy not because it reflects the exclusive quality of Christianity, but for its depiction of ten virgins for one bridegroom.

Sorry, I didn’t recognize you Penis, er, I mean, Jesus

What did Jesus wear upon resurrection? He was in his same body but Luke 24:12 clearly says his grave clothes were left behind. Yet when he shows up with the apostles, he makes no mention of clothes nor do they. Is he naked?

Hey, aren’t you that Messiah fella?

If Jesus was so popular, why then did he need to be identified by Judas in the garden of Gethsemane?

Jesus wasn’t even the best Messiah

Considering the number of people claiming to be Messiah back then, it would have been nice if there could have been just a few unbiased witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. After all, one ‘false’ Messiah had 400 followers when he was executed, that’s 280 more than Jesus had.

Jesus is kind of a dick

Luke 9:59-62 – depicts Jesus recruiting his disciples. When one asks if he can bury his recently deceased father, Jesus says, “Let the dead bury the dead.” And when another wishes to say farewell to his family back home, Jesus says, “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.” In Matt 4:21, 22 two other disciples are forced to leave their father to mend the fishing nets by himself.

What happened to Honour thy father and thy mother

John 2: 1-4 – Jesus to his mother, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?”

Please Jesus, chop it off

Matt 19:12 – reminds us that sex with women is unholy and Jesus gives extra commendation to eunuchs, especially those who castrate themselves.

Jesus: Not an Environmentalist

Matt 21:19 & Mark 11:13 – When Jesus gets hungry & finds a fig tree bearing no fruit, the reason being that it’s out of season, he curses it. “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforth forever.” The tree withers away on the spot. No one is with Jesus at the time so we’ll just have to take his word for it.

Jesus, so full of love and kindness

Matt 11:20-23 – Jesus damns whole cities to hell. “Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! … And thou, Capernaum … shalt be brought down to hell.”

Check out the big ego on Jesus

Matt 12:6 – “In this place is one greater than the Temple.” Matt 12:41 – “Behold, a greater than Jonas is here.” Matt 12:42 – “Behold, a greater than Soloman is here.”

Do as I say, not as I do

In Matt 5:22 Jesus says not to call anyone a fool but in Matt 23:17 he says of the Pharisees, “Ye fools and blind.” Matt 23:33 – “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” Matt 12:34 – “O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?”

Fools for taking Jesus at his word

Luke 21:32 – Jesus, speaking of the second coming –“Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.” The Apostles actually believed they would be the first occupants of heaven from the rapture, not as a result of death. How could they have been so wrong?

Not even an original

Every one of Jesus’ so called miracles was preformed by another non Messiah in the bible before and/or after him.

Another odd choice

Why does Jesus choose Peter to be the foundation/cornerstone of the church when Peter earlier famously lies and denies Christ three times and later frightens two early converts to death over the matter of a few coins? And Jesus calls Peter ‘Satan’ at one point. Matt. 16:18, 23, Acts 5, Matt. 26:69-75.

Jesus: Not a member of PETA

Jesus casts a horde of demons out of a couple of protesters (because they must be possessed if they don’t dig the Messiah) and per the demons wishes, casts them into a herd of 2,000 pigs. The pigs then run violently into the sea and die. That herd must have been of great value to he who owned them but Jesus does not compensate this person. Besides, to eat swine they must have been Gentiles, so fuck ‘em! Matt. 8:28-33 and Mark 5:13.

Some of the ridiculous teachings/commands of Jesus

Some of the ridiculous teachings/commands of Jesus: Accumulate no wealth; turn the other cheek; judge no ones behavior; don’t use your mind but be as children; do not question or philosophize; love those who mistreat you; avoid associating with the ‘dogs’ (Gentiles) of this world; sell all your possessions and give it to the poor (now you’re poor! Hoorah!); have no thought for the morrow (make no plans); everything you do and have is probably a sin; take no pleasure in this world; love those who treat you cruelly as much as those that are kind to you; mutilate yourself; be 100% certain Jesus bought your way into heaven through his torturous death; if the sight of someone of the opposite sexually arouses you, pluck out your eye; for special approval with God, become a eunuch; Servants, obey your masters; citizens, obey your rulers unquestioningly; children, obey your parents in all things; love your enemies; abandon your family and be rewarded in heaven; do not assert yourself; do not achieve prominence in this world, for the first shall be the last in heaven; if a criminal robs you of $50.00, give him another $50.00; etc. (By the way, how can love be a command? Love is an emotional response and can not be controlled.)

What light through yonder window breaks?

On the first day God separated the light to rule the day & the lesser light to rule the night, also the stars. Gen 1:16. And yet the sun, moon and stars aren’t set into the formation until the fourth day.

Define Good

God declares everything is ‘good’. Does that mean good = deserts, swamps, frozen wastelands, germs, viruses, bacteria, beasts of prey, leeches, hornets, poisonous snakes & spiders, tsetse flies, fire ants, plague carrying rats, malaria bearing mosquitoes, extreme climates, storms, floods, earthquakes & volcanoes?

How can the innocent sin?

Adam & Eve are deemed the first sinners. How can anyone who doesn’t know right from wrong be expected to practice obedience? How can the innocent sin?

God is NOT a member of PETA

To help Adam & Eve hide their shame (their nakedness) God fashions skins for them to wear. Does he kill the animals he has just created just for their skins (fur)? Does he sew? Does he teach them to sew? What do they use? Bone and pig gut? So God is pro fur then?

Always the innocent suffer

After the devil deceives Eve, God, in all his infinite wisdom, punishes the serpent that the devil disguised himself as. God’s punishment is to have it crawl upon its belly from that day forward. Are we to believe a serpent was a legged animal before this point? Just how many legs would be required for a snake to get along? Are there any records of any mammal or reptile (non insect) ever with more than four legs?

A bloodthirsty God

Clearly God is not a vegetarian. His disdain for the ‘fruit of the ground’ resulted in the first murder, by the first offspring, by his very first creation. Didn’t he judge all his creation ‘good’? What kind of being could only be appeased by blood shed? Why did an innocent animal have to be slaughtered to satisfy God’s bloodthirst? How many lives, both animal and human, were lost in order to appease God’s need for bloodshed?

You can’t blame the parents

What kind of parents were Adam and Eve if their first son becomes a killer? Could they really be expected to have done any better? Cast out by a thoughtless, heartless, vengeful, evil God for being too innocent to see through the deceptions of a being almost as powerful as God himself, left to fend for themselves with little or no guidance from their creator (we didn’t ask to be created, you know!), it’s no surprise they did such a piss poor job.

Who were these companions of God?

As revealed in Gen 1:26 & Gen 3:22 God had companions in the ‘nowhere’ he existed in before he created everything. If not angels, who were they?

I see you! No you don’t!

Ex 33:20 –“Thou canst not see my face, for there shall be no man see me and live.” AND John 6:46 – “Not that any man hath seen the Father.” Jesus is speaking. BUT THEN Ex 33:11 – “The Lord spake unto Moses face to face.” And Jacob claimed, “For I have seen God face to face & my life is preserved.” Gen 32:30. AND DON’T FORGET Deut 34:10 – “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.”

Who and How Many?

John 10:30 – “I and my Father are one.” (Jesus’s words). John 14:9 – “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” John 17:22 – “…even as we are one.” (Jesus’s words). AND THEN – John 14:28 – “My Father is greater than I.” (Jesus’s words). Luke 18:19 – “And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that is, God.”

Jesus can’t be the Messiah

If Jesus is the son of God and Joseph’s seed had nothing to do with his creation (Mary was a virgin after all), then he isn’t Joseph’s son and is not of the line of David which is a requirement of being the Messiah.

Stop confusing the two

Luke is the only book to mention the angel of the Lord visiting any shepherds to tell them of Jesus’ birth. And only Matthew mentions the ‘wise men’. There is absolutely no evidence that the shepherds and the wise men are the same people.

Why can’t anyone agree on such an amazing event?

Matthew, Mark and Luke mention the following events at the crucifixion: the veil of the temple being rent and it becoming dark from the sixth to the ninth hour, however only Matthew mentions that there was an earthquake, and the graves opened and bodies of the saints arose and went into Jerusalem, appearing to many (so beating Jesus to the resurrection). Only John speaks of Jesus’ side being pierced.

Jesus, such an inapropriately shy guy

Only Matthew mentions that the Jews asked Pilate for a guard to prevent the body of Jesus from being stolen by the disciples, and for the tomb to be sealed. No wonder the Jews don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah. Considering Jesus made no appearances to any who wasn’t already a believer after his ‘resurrection’, the Jews who believed the disciples would try and steal the body must have believed that is exactly what occurred.

An Inconsistant Resurrection

Matthew says that there was an earthquake at Jesus’ tomb and an angel came down, rolled back the stone and sat upon it, then spoke to Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of Jesus. Then Jesus appears and they go to tell the disciples. Mark says that the women who visited the tomb found the stone rolled away, entered the tomb and saw an angel sitting on the right side. The angel speaks to them and Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene. Luke says the women found the stone rolled away and entered the tomb. Two angels appeared to them. John says Mary Magdalene found the stone rolled away and told Peter and John, who went to the tomb and entered it. Mary stooped down and looked into the tomb, sees two angels, one at the head and one at the feet. They spoke to her. Jesus then appeared to her, but she fails to recognize him at first!

Does any of this make a lick of sense to anyone?

Whom Jesus appeared to after the resurrection once again differs depending on the book. Matthew says an angel at the tomb told the two Marys, and that Jesus also told them, to tell the disciples to meet him in Galilee (thank God they were there). The disciples then went to a mountain previously agreed upon, and met Jesus there. This would be Jesus’ only appearance, except to the two Marys. Matthew devotes only five verses to this visit with the disciples. Mark says that Jesus walked with two of the disciples in the country, and that they told the rest of the disciples, who refused to believe. Later he appeared to the eleven disciples at mealtime. Luke says two followers went, the same day that Jesus rose from the dead, to Emmaus, a village eight miles from Jerusalem, and there Jesus joined them but was unrecognized. It wasn’t until later, while eating a meal together that they recognize Jesus, who then promptly disappears. Returning with impossible haste back to Jerusalem, they told the disciples their experience, and suddenly Jesus appeared among them, frightening them. Jesus then eats and preaches to them. John says Jesus appeared to the disciples the evening of the day he arose, in Jerusalem, where they were hiding. He breathed the Holy Ghost upon them (?), but Thomas was not present and refused to believe. Eight days later Jesus joined the disciples again at the same place, and this time he convinced Thomas. Once more Jesus made an appearance to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias but again was not recognized. After telling them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat, Jesus becomes known to them and prepares bread and fish for them. They all eat together as they converse.

I’m sorry but you’re not on the list

Both Paul and Peter claim that none who lived between Moses and Christ are eligible for everlasting life AND YET, Jesus says, “When ye shall see Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob and all the prophets, in the Kingdom of God…” Luke 13:28.

Why the big hurry?

Mark 16:19 – In Mark, Jesus rises from the dead, gets everything done and ascends into heaven all in ONE day. Why the big hurry? And why is Mark the only book to depict such a short timeline?

Why are there armys of God at all?

II Kings 19:35 – Why does God need men to die fighting his battles at all if he can send an angel, who in one night, kills 185,000 Assyrians who are threatening Jerusalem?

We may need a judge’s ruling on this one

Lev 19:15 God says, “In righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor.” But in Matt 7:1 Jesus says, “…judge not that ye be not judged.”

Yes, but it doesn’t say impossible!

Prov 18:11 “The rich man’s wealth is his strongest city.” But in Mark 10:25 Jesus teaches, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.”

Here forever, gone tomorrow

Eccles. 1:4 – “The earth abideth forever.”  But in II Peter 3:10 – “The earth … and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”

Keep it holy, unless the game’s on

Ex 20:8 – “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” But in Romans 14:5 Paul equivocates: “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.”

Don’t forget to turn the other cheek before you pluck out his eye

Ex 21:24 – “An eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But in Matt 5:38, 39 Jesus says to turn the other cheek.

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Ex 20:13 – “Thou shalt not kill.” Relayed by Moses, a murderer. He would also mastermind the slaughter of thousands during the long march to reach Palestine. And not long after laying down this holy law, in Ex 32:27 Moses ordered: “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.” And in Luke 22:36 even Jesus said, “… and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” What is a sword for but to kill another?

Should a sinner never procreate then?

Ez 18:20 – “The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father…” But God told Moses in Ex 20:5: “…for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation…”

God is Love … Unless you piss him off!

Jer 17:4 – “…for ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn for ever.” These are God’s words. But in I John 4:16 “God is love.”

Mercy, mercy me

I Sam 15:2, 3 – “Thus saith the Lord … Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” AND Ex 12:29 – “And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.” Oh, but James 5:11 – “…that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.” People who abhor the killing of babies sing praises to this author of wholesale bloodshed against them.

It’s all about the bloodshed, baby

In Romans 15:33 Paul speaks of “…the god of Peace.” And Christians refer to Jesus as the Prince of Peace. But Jesus himself said in Matt 10:34 – “…I came not to send peace, but a sword.” And in the Old Ex 15:3, God is described thusly, “The Lord is a man of war”

It was the Aliens I tell ya!

Both Elijah (II Kings 2:11) and Enoch (Gen 5:24) were taken bodily into heaven but Jesus claims this distinction only for himself in John 3:13 – “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”

Depends on who you ask, I guess

Matthew 5:32 states that a man may divorce his wife for ‘fornication’. But in Luke and Mark Jesus says divorce is not permitted for any reason and, “Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery; and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.” Luke 16:18.

Vampirism

The Old Testament God made a covenant with Noah and Abraham that the eating of blood would not be part of the Jewish diet, but Jesus offers his blood symbolically to be drunk by the disciples during the Last Supper. The Catholics actually believe the ceremonial wine they drink ‘becomes’ the blood of Jesus upon consumption.

Make room for the Gentile ‘dogs’

The bible makes it very clear that only the Jews are the chosen people, Jesus even calls Gentiles “dogs”. But in Romans 2:10 it says God will give “glory, honor and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.” So the Gentile is welcome, but needs to know their place (beneath the Jew).

Paul: Writer of his own rules

According to Paul, “Where there is no law (before Moses) there is no transgression.” Romans 4:15. So God killed all those people for nothing then? Certainly Adam and Eve were punished before any law was laid down.