I recently got into a bout of fisticuffs over a discussion that had been brought up. I am not normally confrontational unless it has to do with knowledge and someone not having the logic to receive it properly. Case in point I was talking to a fellow one night stand (a wonderful man addicted to meth and who claimed to have an IQ higher than myself) and he told me that he had faith in the bible because it was pure truth. Now me being high at the time probably didn’t help my standing much but I did have an absurd amount of energy to pursue this statement.
I asked him how did he see it as pure truth when the meaning keeps changing with our own society’s moral zeitgeist? He claimed that the bible as we know it now is the true interpretation, which I countered with the idea that how could the previous ones been wrong when that was their truth? We’re not talking about this book as if it’s all fact here.
Wait… Yes he was? According to him Noah’s flood happened (despite the fact that God ordered Noah to sacrifice all the animals on the arc right after reaching land) and Sodom and Gomorrah was actually visited by hell stone.
As frustrating as this is it’s even more astounding that many people in the USA think this way who aren’t all smacked out on crystal. I could easily take this man’s attitude as someone who is coming down and needs an imaginary friend but there are plenty of sober people who get defensive when you ask why was it necessary for Jesus to die on the cross when God is super magical and could of just saved us without killing himself in the process?
I suppose I have the heart of a scientist because I want to know how things work. I believe that by finding out these things we can make it better for the rest of us. This man however has the old style thought (from scripture) that we should not meddle with God’s work. I brought up the fact that Galileo was tortured by the church for saying that we revolved around the sun. He told me that we need not have known that to live a happy live. I had to correct him by saying that without that special man then we would either not have cell phones now or would have had them later than we already do.
Unnecessary, he said. When asked how he would have called his dealer he scoffed and said that he could quit anytime.
That is beside the point though.
Back to the idea that this book and it’s subject is infallible we have to examine a few key points of what it is to be all knowing and perfect.
1: God knows the future yet we have free will – This one plagued me since I was about ten years old. I can never get a good answer from anyone about this one. Apparently God gave us a free will so that we could love him without ever being forced to. God wants us to love him because we do instead of it being his will.
God also knows what lies in store for us.
Wait a bit? If he already knows that we are going to be bad then why allow us to go that way? Isn’t he supposed to be all loving and all knowing? Where do you figure that we are born with his love when he knows even before conception that we are going to hell? Doesn’t that imply something of a thought that we are born destined for suffering and he is the one who created us?
Even the whole concept of hell brings us to question his love. By simply allowing Satan to exist (I’ve been told that he made him but did not know he was going to be bad, yet he knows the future) he is punishing people for things they did not know was even a sin yet. There is no other explanation for Satan other than he wants someone to argue with, at our expense.
Does this sound logical? He wants us all to go to heaven yet he demands that we repent verbally (sometimes psychically) to him. Would God really need our approval if he was perfect? Wouldn’t his self-esteem be inhuman to begin with? Apparently not.
This brings me to another contradiction that boggles my mind to no end.
2: God is not human – Being God should set him to a higher standard than we as humans could ever achieve, yet he is angry most of the time, sad others, and just completely irrational the rest of the time. A good example would be Noah’s flood (I swear I have more examples but this is just one of the more appalling stories when you think of it) because he lays waste to all of humanity and animals sans what is on that boat.
God doesn’t make mistakes yet he tells humanity (a small family which we are to believe repopulated the Earth within the span of a few hundred years) that he would never again flood the Earth in fury. If he has to make a statement like that would it mean that he felt bad about what he did? When we feel bad it’s because we know we did something wrong. How could God of been wrong if he is perfect?
Everything in the bible seems to point to the fact that God appears to be learning from his mistakes. Learning anything means you are far from perfect. Everything has a learning curve whether or not it’s alive.
Take physics for example. The universe after the big bang was chaotic but with time it fell into place. I know this isn’t exactly learning but I believe that in the sense that it was trial and error for many, many eons until the things fit is part of what I’m saying. I just like romanticizing words so get over it.
But that brings me to another point entirely
3: If God is not human, then why do we think of him as having human characteristics? – I know that one may argue that we are made in his image and all, but that would still not make much sense if you wanted to believe he was beyond all of our petty emotions. More than once I was told that he has a plan and that he is understanding and ya-da-da. If he was then why did he start so many wars in the bible? You don’t start a fight unless you are mad. Again I come back to the thought that it is impossible to get truly angry at another village if you knew when creating them that you would want to rip their heads off in a little while.
The only way I can view God at all is that I think of him as a scientist. He by nature cannot be simple, what simpleton can set the laws of gravity up and give us a nervous system that works well? No, he has to be constantly testing the waters to see what works. That is the only way his actions can even start to make sense to us. Again this nullifies his perfectness.
But the bible tells us to try and not understand him. This is a contradiction because many of the books in that thing tell us to do exactly that. It constantly mentions his emotions in order for us to think his actions were justified.
I think the big giveaway about heaven is the fact that when we go we should be beyond our humanly wants and needs. Then why is it appealing to us Earthlings in the first place? Sure the bible says we’ll be happy but the descriptions are very materialistic in nature. Why have streets of gold when that is a human want? Shouldn’t we be beyond that in heaven?
Or is heaven what we want to believe in? I honestly think it’s the latter because the spiritual fulfillment is but a small part of what we know about it. Everyone wants to live forever so why not believe that we do? Better yet, put it in a book that no one would ever question because we are afraid of God getting angry at us. After all, we know that if we make him angry then he could possibly make all of humanity suffer, again which makes sense if you are a drunken mentally handicapped frat boy seeking revenge on anything that moves because your girl broke up with you.
I will give the bible a point for not mentioning that envy is a sin. That didn’t come until the fourth century when a monk decided to make up reasons for us to go to hell. But it’s the fact that we hold onto these additions that makes a nonsensical book even more so. Thou shalt worship no other Gods but God makes it sound like God gets pretty jealous at us looking at other dudes and duddettes. The contradiction here is that he is God, therefore he’s allowed to sin but we aren’t. Should he be setting an example?
Thou shalt not kill is another gem. Never mind that it refers to the fact that when it was written it was meant to be “thou shalt not kill other Jews” but it’s the very cold truth that anyone takes it literally to begin with.
Our morals certainly do not come from God do they? If they did then we’d have been screwed a long time ago. Why do we look at God and the Bible and praise the good parts while totally ignoring the bad? I think that it’s because if we did then we’d be a lot less impressed with God than we want to be. We want him to be perfect and infallible because it makes us feel like something is in control. I believe the basis of fear is the lack of control. And if we feel he has it then we can make sense of the world.
Then again, wouldn’t that be like trying to understand him in a small way?
Ugh… My head hurts. As I said things that make no sense shouldn’t be viewed as truth. Plus he seems no better than anyone else so why should I look up to him?
We lived millions of years without him, why start now?
Maybe if I take more drugs God will make sense.
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