On Christianity
The purpose of this essay is to argue against the Christian Bible (or just Bible) and to show its falseness.
I have heard from a plurality of reputable sources that the Bible contradicts itself in a variety of issues. It also seems, and I may be wrong about this, that God provided the inspiration to the authors of the Bible’s different books. This is to say that God, with his posse of angels, told the Bible’s various authors what to write. Lastly, we view God to be infallible.
As I have already mentioned, the Bible contradicts itself on numerous issues. Something that is contradictory cannot have been written by or helped written by an entity that is infallible. This is simply because of the very nature of contradictions and infallibility. Basically, a contradiction exhibits fallibility. Consequently, it appears that the Bible is the work of human beings and not God.
To show that the Bible appears to be the work of human being I will compare the Christian Bible to the Torah, which is the Jewish Bible. (For the most part, the Torah is the Christian Bible’s Old Testament.) Both these Bibles contain the Book of Genesis. Within Genesis, there is the story of Adam and Eve. More specifically there is an instance where Adam and Eve are confronted by a serpent. In the Torah version of Genesis, the serpent that seduces Eve into consuming the forbidden fruit is just that, a serpent. However, in the Bible version of Genesis, the serpent takes the form of Satan. I find this to be strikingly funny in part because Christianity was founded by Jews who believed Jesus to be the Messiah. Why did these Jews, after years of following Jewish dogma, feel the need to transform the serpent into Satan? My answer is that they decided to exploit the uncertainty of what occurs after death in order to produce a fear (you will go to hell) in order to gain a following.
The Bible is a false book. It is a book full of contradictions. A contradiction is a characteristic of something that is fallible. Consequently, the Bible could not have been written by God who is by definition infallible. As a result, it appears that human beings, without the aid of God, wrote the Bible.
posted by Rich at 5:25 PM
4 Comments:
I tried to comment on this earlier, but I failed. So, I more or less copied what I was going to say into a post on my blog. The link is as follows:
http://politicswithrichard.blogspot.com/2005/08/my-opinions-on-bible.html
Jolie-
When you say, "the writings these people did by hand in caves that were probably oral traditions before they were ever even written down??"
Doesn't this in fact support my argument against Christianity? In oral traditions, stories tend to, if not all the time, change from one person to the next. So, if an oral tradition begins with Story A, which represents 100% truth, when Story A is passed to the next person, this next person will, and not even in an concious effort, change the story to Story B, which is less truthfull than Story A. This continues to Story C, which is less truthfull than story B, etc.
The result is a story that can be completely different from the original. This reminds me of an exercise I and some classmates did in an English class in high school. There was about 15 of us in this class. We were given a sentance to repeat and we were to see how close to original sentance we came to at the end. We stood in a circle and the teacher picked a person to begin reciting the sentance she picked. From there we went around the circle, with each person trying to repeat the previous person's sentance. The result, when we got back to the originator of the sentance, was a completely different sentance. Now, if this could happen with one sentance, just think how easy this can occur with a story.
Also, it is believed that God spoke to Bible's various authors through a conduit (angel) who then presents what God wants to say through dreams. This is what is believed to have provided the inspiration for the writing of Revelations, which was written by Saint John the Divine. Even if this was true, the infallibility of Man dictates that there would errors in the transcribing process. Just think, how often are you able to recall the exact details of a dream when you wake up? This errors in what is transcribed. Important details are left out while some details are added, which changes God's actual message.
In terms of what you said about God speaking with a booming voice. If the person to who God is speaking is not able to write what God says verbatim, again, wouldn't he then miss out on important details that could effectively change God's message?
Jolie-
"In order to maintain the most authentic account of the human experience of God the "church" got together and tried to identify these documents-thus the Bible was born."
Of course nwo we have to look at the influence of the "church." It's very well possible that the "church" could have destroyed any other authentic writings providing a different account. Looking at the Catholic Church (CC) pre-Protestant Reformation, the CC held prestige in terms of both politics and wealth. Do you think the CC would canonize, or at the very least make public, any authentic writing that would destroy such prestige?
Richard-
"like his apparently flawed creation story, in which he said that the interpretation of the serpent as Satan was utterly rediculous."
Are you sure you want to claim this as being ridiculous? This was actually not my idea, but the thought of a biblical scholar who spoke for a documentary presented by the History Channel.
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