Why I Am Agnostic
- Brent Wiseman
- Oct 28, 2015
- 45 min read
*Extensively updated 3/11/17
3/11/17 update:
I feel I need to define a few reasons within myself as to why I wish to ‘get to the bottom’ of religion. Why I am constantly tempted to refute claims that are, in my eyes, silly and nonsensical. Why does it bother me so much what other people believe? I’m not even strictly atheist, yet it is damaging to me every time I hear someone claim a sunset is somehow proof of a god. I get infuriated when someone thinks evolution can’t be true in spite of the mountains of evidence because they don’t understand what the word ‘allegory’ means. I am sickeningly nonplussed when parents don’t get their child the medical attention they need because they say “God will take care of it.”. Spoiler alert: the child usually dies. I am quite the connoisseur of obscenities and often none at my disposal seem adequate for the various frustration-headaches these induce in me.
The conception of this writing came recently: God is constantly being accused of being omnipotent. All-powerful. There is literally nothing they can’t do. I tried to make it clear that while I wasn’t refuting God themselves with my rebuttal, the word ‘omnipotent’ was obviously ascribed to them by a person uncomprehending of its full meaning, as omnipotence is impossible by the definitions humans have made. “Can God create a stone so heavy they can’t lift it?”, I asked a believer (YouTube comments; a close second worst behind Facebook). “If they can create a stone that they can’t lift, they are not omnipotent, as constantly claimed. However, if they can lift any stone they could possibly make, that means they can’t make such a stone. Hence, they are still not omnipotent.” The believer literally responded “1+1=1 with God”. That was his answer. I feel they must not understand what logic really is, as they so constantly violate it. Maybe one of my problems is that I am taking offense to their blatant misuse of something I value so highly. It’s like a computer enthusiast watching someone use the best CPU on the market as a basketball: They have no clue the value of what they hold, have no respect for it, aren’t using it correctly or even for the proper functions, and still have the audacity to assert Intel's aren't overpriced.
I love explaining things and getting people to understand them. To be clear, I don’t do so because I “like being right” - I simply enjoy furthering understanding. I would have been a great teacher. A ‘passion for explanation’, as a fortune cookie once told me. I am incessantly pedantic and often over-explain. Right away I know I come across as conceited and narcissistic. Perhaps I am, though even if true, this wouldn’t allay my refutations. I would be tempted to correct even a child with incorrect convictions about the most mundane of topics. I have to rein in my tongue when one speaks even of Santa or the Easter Bunny. It may be a bit sad, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to stop myself. I hate falseness, no matter how innocent or understandable.
I also recognize the inherent danger of religion. Hundreds of millions of people have died over the past few millennia in the name of one god or another; Especially, yes, the Christian god. Even with the numerous messages of compassion included in the Christian bible, they still find the excuses necessary to murder in huge numbers and do so under the guise of divine justification. At the very least, the majority still adopt one or more prejudices gained solely from their religion, be it against gays, blacks, women, other faiths, atheists, etc. Perhaps a precious few who find religion are drawn to a better life in which they individually behave better than they would have if they’d never found a god, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that it appears organized religion cultivates hatred inherently on a large scale against those who don’t believe the same thing. It has undeniably done good in the world in the past and present. People genuinely do sometimes gain some contentment from it. Some happiness. Some meaning in their lives. In my view, however, this doesn’t even touch the negativity that religion exudes.
Maybe part of my problem is I hate standing by while I watch other people get what I perceive to be deceived, no matter the happiness they gain. It’s like watching your high school class tell an unpopular kid that they’ve “won” prom king/queen. The kid might be ecstatic, but the rest of the class is laughing behind their back at the joke they’ve played. My heart tells me that it is, at its core, morally wrong, and it spurs me to action. Maybe that's selfish of me, but my conscience remains clear. Finally, I am a seeker of truth in all things. I am philosophically opposed to allowing myself to willingly spread falseness, and I endeavor only to vitalize truth both in and around myself. There is a phrase for this: “Epistemic responsibility”. It is our duty as humans to seek out the truth and expose lies and falseness for what they are. That is the only army I will ever fight for.
I think with all the negative, judgemental, narcissistic, pompous pricks in the world and especially online today, it is reasonable for the religious to assume those types are targeting them with the single purpose of trolling or arguing. I can’t blame them for that. I can’t blame them for being defensive. I can blame them for destroying the logic they claim to wield. I don’t mind that they believe in a god, but I do mind when they attribute impossibilities to them, like omnipotence or when they claim the bible is 100% true and not allegorical or that miracles are a reasonable substitute for medicine. Religion is only opinion which anyone is free to abuse - But, when you bring logic into it and misuse it, I take issue. And when you bring in prejudice, discrimination, deceit, hate crimes, torture, human rights violations, and war into it, I definitely take issue. The world should as well.
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I doubt this will change anyones mind. Those who believe already I would guess will either find my reasonings dangerous to their belief, hence, offensive, or avoid it completely. Those who already agree with me are likely just as guilty of selective exposure as the religious. Not much progress. However, after I get something written down, the thoughts sometimes finally listen to my internal commands to stop bouncing around in my head. I may as well dub this essay “the sucking of the poison”.
So, I never thought I’d be doing this, as everyone is entitled to their beliefs and my arguments will no doubt do nothing to change yours, but here is an explanation as to why I am agnostic. Warning: Though I intend to only point out my philosophy of religion, there will most likely be a spattering of bashing and frustration-induced outbursts.
The simple answer is that I’m a man of science. Science has never proven (nor will it ever) that God exists. Many people cite that same fact and call themselves atheist but that’s a fallacy. Appeal to ignorance (which, incidentally, is the same fallacy people of faith abuse). Science has not proven a god to exist, but nor has it proven they do not. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as the phrase goes. The bible is LARGELY wrongheaded and often flat-out bullshit (evolution, age of the earth, big bang, witches and demons, misogyny, racism, homophobia, slavery, stoning, etc), but it was written by man, and man likes to talk bullshit.
Briefly, for those who don’t know (as the two are often mistaken to be synonymous), atheists believe God does not exist. Agnostics do not believe God exists. Subtle but important difference. There is actually some disagreement even in the non-believer camp that atheism isn't a belief system - it's essentially worded like "I don't believe you when you say there is a god." I don't agree with that, as that would make it somewhat useless to have 2 different words for atheism and agnostic. The definition that most people use is that atheists believe god does not exist, while a theist believes a god does exist. Agnostics, on the other hand, do not believe either possibility, as they maintain such a thing is impossible to know. They concede that either could be truth. No evidence or observation I have ever made in my life requires the divine to explain. While I am agnostic, I still find it very unlikely a god exists.
As I said, science is the easy answer. The more complicated answer is a hash of ideas - a tangle of threads - so I’ll begin chronologically.
I was raised Christian. I went to church about every other Sunday for much of my childhood, attended youth group through my teen years, I’ve been baptized, and went on several church trips. My grandma is a pastor and most of my family is devout. I never really felt this ‘connection’ with God that everyone else claimed to have. Perhaps they believed they truly felt it (and for all I know, they really did), but I later learned how powerful the placebo effect is. All I felt at the time was guilt over apparently not being a good enough Christian to get this connection. I prayed and even read the bible outside of church, and still nothing. Guilt deepened.
I believe I was probably around 13 or 14 when my mind began to actually expand. I stumbled upon one of the largest reasons I am agnostic, though I didn’t realize that effect until much later.
One night I lay awake in bed thinking how ridiculous racism was. There is no planar ‘pay and spray’ that paints you your chosen color before birth. You can’t choose where/how/when you are born. Why should you be judged for anything but your own merits? Fuck racists. I became so angry, lying there silently in my bed, staring at the ceiling. Angry at them for being such assholes, and angry at the human race for still harboring that particular brand of awful. I was embarrassed on behalf of humanity that racism still existed. Then, that thought grew into another:
(I have written about this philosophy and used several of the same examples in another essay as well that goes into much greater depth)
You can’t choose when/where/how you’re born. If you’re born black, you might (in America, almost definitely) receive some sort of prejudice because of your skin. In that case, one would expect you to grow up resentful at white people due to your treatment by white people - even those who were innocent of racism. You’d be wrong to do so, but in all honesty, I wouldn’t be able to blame you for it. It wouldn’t be justified, just understandable.
But then again, if you’re white and born to a trash family and your abusive father teaches you that black people are beneath you and deserve no respect… maybe that’s understandable to? Why should you have the wisdom to know absolute trash when you hear it when your piece of shit father is your main source of wisdom through all your formative years? The folly is easy for me to see. I was lucky enough to grow up in a good family with morals that taught me the meaning of integrity. I found my wisdom, but it was certainly easier for me to find that many other people. I can’t really even take pride in that. I got it easy.
So I taught myself to look deeper into people. They have their motivations, however shitty, for a reason, and where that reason came from is always suspect. I mulled this thought over for a few years. Built on it more and more. Before I go on about my budding philosophy, I hit my first major blow on my Christianity dyke I believe freshman year of high school.
I don’t remember what class it was in, but we were learning about Native American culture. Specifically, our current project was something to do with Native American religion and genesis stories. I can’t say what exactly it was, but something just struck me as oddly similar to Genesis in the bible. The story was built the same way. It was just as melodramatic. It was like reading a fictional fantasy story after Tolkien became so influential and everyone was trying to imitate him. I looked at their religion the same way I look at Christianity now.
It felt made up. I’m a fan of psychology. I like putting myself in other peoples shoes. I like to wonder how other people think. As I studied this unfamiliar religion, I looked at it completely unblinded by previously held beliefs, and it just looked... constructed. It’s similar to the feeling I get when I look at a well photoshopped picture, or a video game with amazing graphics. I may not know exactly what causes it, but I instantly recognize the human hand behind the image. I don’t remember specifics of this Indian theology now, but I think it was the one with the Earth balancing on a turtles back, floating in oblivion. It mentioned exactly how many days something took (even though Sol, which dictates humans definition of day length, didn’t yet exist in the story), something about virgins, I think, yada yada. The crack was formed from that moment. The next year was spent in a furious internal debate on whether my dyke should be shored or left to graciously crumble.
I started questioning things. Whatever the religious equivalent of ‘beer goggles’ is, I had started to sober. I was no longer blinded by a faith I never felt attached to. I no longer blew past things like the fact that evolution obviously exists in contradiction of the bible. I no longer blew past the fact that the bible contradicts itself at times. I realized how similar every creation story was, and how they all sounded like they were conceived by humans. Mostly, male humans, with all the ridiculous misogyny and virgin women and “obviously God is male” talk.
I try and stay away from phrases like these, and I still maintain that I’m agnostic and not atheist, but sometimes I can’t help it. Religion is so fucking stupid. People kill other people because they think their made-up god is better than another made-up god. If you're currently feeling defensive, pick 2 religions you don't believe in who have warred, tortured, murdered, etc. with each other because they didn't believe in the other's god. That's accusation of stupidity against the followers of those religion is probably how I feel about yours too. Either religion could actually be real and true, but logically speaking, it’s unlikely.
Before I forget, one more point: There are an estimated 3000 religions currently being practiced around the world. Doubtless thousands have been lost to time. Most of those religions have other gods and most are mutually exclusive. They cannot coexist with other religions. Every single one of these religions have followers who believe with absolute certainty and faith that they are correct; That their religion is the ONE that is right. This tells us something very important: Having 100% faith in something doesn’t mean shit. Your “100% certain” does not mean more than someone else's “100% certain”. The fact is people just don’t know how to math and/or they exaggerate exuberantly. At least 2999 religions have followers who should never have claimed to be 100% certain. At the very best, almost all of religion is still rubbish. To someone who wasn’t indoctrinated into a religion from childhood, you can see why people aren’t rushing to sign up.
Sometime around the end of high school I had ‘finished’ the initial definitions of my own philosophy, if you can call it that. I don’t think I want to get into it too deeply here as it’s a HUGE topic for me and would likely take the length of this post and half again for me to explain fully, but the gist is this: You can’t choose who you are at birth. Your birth decides who you become, through to the moment you die. Action leads to reaction, which leads to reaction, which leads to reaction, and onward. I used to call it my ‘we are all robots’ philosophy before I learned a few years ago that it’s actually a well established theory already. It’s called ‘determinism’, and it’s exactly like what I spoke of above a few pages with the white trash abusive father and son. Everything everyone does is understandable. Every single thing. Of course Hitler did what he did - he was programmed by his life experiences to do it. It was extremely unjustified and obscene in every way, but you don’t get mad at a gun for shooting a bullet when you pull the trigger, do you? We’ll never know what caused him to turn out the way he did, but the reason he did wasn’t his fault, per say.
A (generic) serial killer is easier to explain. If you’ve ever watched documentaries on these terrible people, they all either have brain tumors or some other physical problem, or have something absolutely traumatic happening to them in, or throughout, their childhoods. Something that wasn’t in the least their fault. You’ll never be able to convince me that if you or I or Ghandi or anyone else were put in their place as children with the same limited guidance they’d received to that point and had the same chemical makeup of their brains and all, that you would have fared any better than they turned out. In fact, you’d end up exactly the same in every way. People like to argue that “No, I’D know that it was wrong because I have morals.” No, you wouldn’t have morals. At least, you'd have no morals that they didn't also have, which obviously wasn't strong enough to sway them to better action. It’s another example of humanities indignant ignorance and self-importance to think otherwise in my completely innocent and humble opinion.
Life is a plinko wall. We bounce around and it looks at every peg like we’re making a choice of which way to go when really it’s just physics guiding us. One thing leads to another and we hit a peg with very slight momentum to one side, so we go to that side, oblivious. The pucks don’t choose where to go. We have no control. There is no control. Our choices are illusions of choice. Of course we choose the way we do, wrongheaded or right. We’re only doing exactly what we’re subliminally programmed to do; Responding the way we think best. As Captain Jack Sparrow says: “They do what’s right by them. Can’t expect more than that.”
And just so you know, I realize (if you’re still reading), you absolutely despise what I’ve just proposed. Out of the 7 or 8 people I’ve explained this philosophy to, each and every one took issue with it (though none were able to refute it in any way since it's, you know.. true). People don’t like to hear that choice is illusory. They also don’t like the fact that determinism means everything everyone does (even heinous) is understandable. They like their revenge. You have to know that there’s a big difference between understandable and justified. I’m also not saying we shouldn’t hold people accountable. Just because I don’t blame the bullet doesn’t mean I don’t take precautions with the gun. But, I understand. Determinism isn’t for everybody. Of course you don’t agree. :D
So, that was a long explanation just so I could go forward on my thoughts on religion, and here is where I get (even more) pretentious sounding. God and faith and choice really start to break down when you view the world this way. This was the day of demolition for my dyke when I realized this. How could God punish someone for doing what he knew they would from the moment they were born? I’ve previously used the metaphor “that’d be like pushing a kid down a slide and punching them in the face for reaching the bottom.” Every God that is defined always seems to be all-knowing. If I can realize and understand determinism, he, of course, could too, right? Determinism isn’t a religion, but I’m 100% certain of it, but this certainty comes from logic, not blind faith. And if God does exist, his punishment is analogous to a kid with some ants and a magnifying glass. It’s not punishment - it’s cruel enjoyment. He’s rewarding some out of random selection. Faith is a ruse. Religion is a ruse.
If there is a god, I don’t believe hell exists. When I die, if I’m faced with his magnificent beard and trident or whatever he has nowadays (M16, probably, keeping it modern), I believe we’ll lock eyes for a moment. I’ll give a small sheepish chuckle and shrug. He’ll give a small knowing smile and wink. He’d know my thoughts and exactly why I believed them and he couldn’t fault me for doing so, knowing he set me on that path. He’d have known all the variables in my life - each dance of the puck. Then he’ll slap me on the back and lead me into Neverland. It’ll look like a muscular Galdalf (The White, of course) taking his pet hobbit to his birthday party. … in the clouds. Or Grey Havens. Or whatever…
Other thoughts:
I’m part of a Facebook group that talks about theology, philosophy, and the like. One thread began by a woman saying something along the lines of “If you (atheists) are wrong, you spend eternity in hell. But if I’m (a believer) wrong, my spirit will just die when I die. Why wouldn’t you want to take the safer route?” This woman was not the Christian she claimed to be. She reminds me of a movie (I believe The Mummy or a sequel) where a man was being confronted by someone bad (maybe the Scorpion King?) and as he backed into a wall in fear, he began grabbing pendants around his neck one by one and saying a different prayer for each of the several religions represented by the symbols. If God does exist, I doubt he wants people who ‘believe’ in him solely for ‘spiritual insurance’. She is a terrible Christian and her argument is void.
I’m surprised the God of the Gaps theory people haven’t thought about environmental destruction of God's habitat. I feel bad for him. He was in the ocean tides but then we found out what caused those and he had to leave (much to Bill O'Reilly’s dismay). He lived in the clouds a long time but now we’re all over them and he’s fled again, hiding in some nebula somewhere that we’re photographing in sharper and sharper images. And damn Stephen Hawking keeps peering deeper into black holes... I wonder if he’s getting tired of asking the angels for a truck to help him move his bed and couch.
Religion, sex and greed. Probably the three biggest causes of conflict in the world. It’s strange how often they coincide. Especially when you open your eyes to how much damage sex does. It is the most necessary trait about humanity, really. We wouldn’t have survived this long if we weren’t biologically programmed to be the monsters we are. But now that we’ve made it this far and have the brain capacity that we do, it would be great to leave that behind. At least a little of it. I feel like a pervy barbarian fool every time a beautiful woman walks past me. I can definitely see why Tesla cited ‘distraction’ when he explained why he was celibate his whole life. He had shit figured out, but I have no idea how he did it.
“But since you’re not Christian you’ll have no morals and be a terrible person!”
Fuck you, no I won’t. :D
Actually, it's quite the contrary. The dunces who make this ridiculous claim apparently don't realize they are outing themselves as terrible, moral-free people themselves. First, they admit to receiving their morals from a book that orders a woman who has been raped and then refuses to marry her rapist should be stoned to death. Or, if she is raped but didn't scream loud enough for someone to save her (or the rapist, you know, covers her mouth..), stone her to death, still. Deuteronomy 22:24 will get you started. Second, and more importantly, morals come inherently to most people. You admit, when you make this flawed argument, that you had to have a book explain to you that it's not okay to murder or steal or lie. You admit that when you do 'good', you are doing it because of the promised reward for doing so and threats for not doing so. When atheists and agnostics do the right thing, it is solely because of the quality of our hearts. Your foolish argument is an easy thing for most Christians to repeat because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside, but I can't imagine most actually believe it. There are MANY immoral Christians and MANY moral non-Christians. The only proof you need to destroy this stupid argument is a tiny bit of life experience. Bill Gates is atheist and one of the most influential and life-saving philanthropists in the history of Earth. Hitler, Robert Dear Jr., and Timothy McVeigh were all Christian. Since I'm not a moron, I don't paint in black and white in my head. I'm not saying Christians are inherently immoral and non-Christians are - only that the holier-than-thou argument many Christians make is laughably ridiculous. If you want further proof of that fact: Christian priests have been for decades molesting boys because "the bible didn't say they couldn't", essentially. It's very explicit about not touching women, and many of those priests were supposed to be celibate, but forcing a boy to sodomy was a convenient loophole they found. Real morality isn't "I won't do that because I'll be punished or caught", but "I won't do that because it's wrong.".
Penn Jillette explains it best while defending himself from the human tire-fire "Duck Commander". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VLU66mO3k0
Out of all the reports that I can find, Christian inmates account for ~75% of the prison population. Atheist were repeatedly cited around ~0.25%. (I couldn’t find anything on agnostics). This is in spite of the fact that PEW research has shown that as of 2014, 70.6% of Americans are Christian, while roughly 3% of the population is atheist and 5% agnostic. From this information you can see that non-believers are proportionally FAR less likely to commit crimes than those with religion, and Christians are slightly more likely to commit crimes than the rest of the population. A tweet by Ricky Gervais a while ago: “If all the Atheists & Agnostics left America, they'd lose 93% of The National Academy of Sciences & less than 1% of the prison population.”
I think we must take this with a grain of salt, as none of the inmate data seemed to have solid sources, but the fact that roughly the same numbers come up over and over again on multiple, unrelated reports seems to offer it some tentative endorsement.
Honestly, (and I’m normally a modest person, I swear) I’m a ‘better’ person that most Christians I’ve met. I have more empathy, I’m more understanding, I’m more giving, I’m less of a bastard in general. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not outstanding. I have flaws for days. Some Christians are MILES ‘better’ than I, just as there are many atheists, Muslims, Hindus, and hundreds of other religions better, but I am a good person.
I suppose it doesn’t help that all I hear about Christians in the media now are things that make me embarrassed to be human again. I try not to be biased, but the bible severely hurts the ‘goodness’ of people at times. It has some good messages, but some are absolute filth. Christians blatantly and without conscience are discriminating against gay people, immigrants, people of other faith, and misogyny is still a thing in modern day America due in no small part to the influence of the bible. That is the antithesis of the teachings of Christ and they should all be ashamed - if not for their religion, for humanity's sake. Republican Christians especially conveniently fail to realize that Jesus was a socialist, and instead demonize socialism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr1I3mBojc0
Religion has nothing to do with morals.
I read a compelling article a while back that attempted to explain why religion was so prevalent throughout history. The thinking was that people needed at least some sort of guide. People felt more grounded with a religion. They wanted a hierarchical structure that told them what to believe because life was too overwhelming without it. They were more at ease when they had an excuse for choices they made. There was no pressure to the weight of them, in that case. It's the fact that humans are drawn towards authoritarianism because it's "safe". That is one reason why the religious are most drawn to Donald Trump - the man most wanting to control people this last election, even though in practice, he exhibits the most ungodly of qualities. A true dark triad case.
They could also placate their fears through god. Not by miracle, but by comforting themselves in lies. It is the exact same psychology as adults telling children "No, we sent Fido to grandmas farm in Idaho to run the fields in sunshine without any pain." Why did your child die in birth? "Because god commanded it." Completely untrue, but it's more comforting to tell yourself than "Life is unfair and you have no control and you will one day die and never wake up."
Their life seemed to mean something more than it actually did because that made them feel big in a world that seemed only to encourage smallness. Why else would thousands of religions exist, independent of each other? It was a common need. They welcomed guidance. They needed it. And if they required a fictional invisible man in the heavens or sun or sea or phallic images, so be it. But we don’t need it anymore. It’s time to grow into the logical critically thinking race we should be. The Vulcan.
I really do wish aliens would attack us. Maybe then we’d unite as a species instead of searching out any reason we can find, no matter how naive and petty, to think we’re better than someone else.
Evidence of an invented god:
I seek only to provide the actual truth not swayed by bias like much of what is included in things like the Zeitgeist documentary on religion (though, obviously, that’s not guaranteed). Also, you must view all of this while picturing the people who wrote and proselytized the religion. Who were the authors and who benefitted from a religion? Even Christians agree that these were normal men, no less fallible than men of today. Wielding that lens, your view of the words they wrote begin to tell a different story.
Odds:
I know, I’m not beginning with the strongest argument. I just want to get you thinking on this first: There are at least 3000 religions currently being practiced in the world, and almost all cannot coexist at the same time as any others. Christians believe their god is the only one, etc. In believing this, they posit 2,999 other religions were obviously made up by man, giving absolute credence to the idea that humans make up bullshit and believe bullshit all the time and have for millennia. I swear I thought of that independently years ago, but recently, Ricky Gervais had a great similar quote to Stephen Colbert: “So, you don’t believe in 2,999 gods, and I don’t believe in just one more.”
Further, there are how many denominations of the Church? A dozen? Two dozen? Why in gods unholy name would any of them pretend confidence in their beliefs? People who read and believe in the same exact book come to different conclusions? They can’t even make the ad hominem attack against each other that they’re ‘evil’ or the devil out to tempt them, like Christians often do to atheists and the like (including myself, before). Christians themselves can’t even decide what they believe, yet most pretend confidence in the exact beliefs that they hold. Ignorance.
Who you worship is extremely weighted by where you are born and what your parents believe. So, Christians think that because Muslims were born to Muslim parents, they will go to hell? Christians think that they got lucky enough to be born into a culture that supports the ‘one real god’, out of 2,999 other (current) fake gods? Do you think god would punish those in India for not being lucky enough to be born to Christian parents who would indoctrinate them into their religion from birth? What about orphans who are never taught to read and never even see a priest? What about the Indians before the English showed up? Sure, they believed in other gods but god had never made himself known to those people. Many Christians believe they were sent to hell as well. Height of arrogance and self-importance, in my eyes.
Logic: If God made man in his image, why did god have an organ that's sole purpose is reproduction? Unless you think god literally banged Mary, he has no use for a dick. I suppose he might need to urinate as well, though that doesn’t really fit the purported idea of an omnipotent god, to me (it would also mean he requires drink). If god exists in the way Christians believe him to, he is asexual. An ‘it’. However, it makes perfect sense for him to be male if you recognize he was invented by a likely misogynistic patriarchal douche like most in his time were, as evidenced by the rest of the bible and similar stories from that era.
If the entire world flooded and was under water, besides the insanity that is all species of earth being represented on an ark built by an unskilled small farming family - a ship better than the best shiprights in England in the 1700’s could create - and that their small group were able to care for all these animals themselves and feed them from a food stock that also wouldn’t have fit on their boat: Where did all the water go? Did it fall off the Earth? This is a good transition to my next point:
The peoples of those times believed the Earth was flat. There are numerous examples in the bible that speak of ‘the four corners of the Earth’ or something similar. https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Four-Corners The site above attempts to say it’s a simple translation issue:
“It is translated “borders” in Numbers 15:38. In Ezekiel 7:2 it is translated “four corners” and again in Isaiah 11:12 “four corners.” Job 37:3 and 38:13 as “ends.”” This, however, doesn’t fix their problem. “Four borders of the earth”, “Four corners of the Earth”, “Four ends of the Earth” - it matters not. It’s still fucking stupid and any instance or related wording is provably false. Though, the authors of the bible could have proved that idea wrong themselves by noting ships on the horizon slowly disappear from the bottom up, they, perhaps, didn’t live by the sea. Understandable, but that is their ignorance showing through.
Another quick one is that god is constantly ‘above’ the earth and looking down to us. Simple one to disprove, but most Christians at least take that one metaphorically.
God is constantly associated with many words. The divine qualities. Notably, he is supposed to be all-powerful and all-knowing - omnipotent and omniscient, respectively. As I said earlier, omnipotence is impossible to attain no matter your power, even godly. Omniscient is certainly possible, but contradictory to what the bible teaches. Every single time the bible claims god is ‘angry’ is a contradiction. Why would god ever get angry if he knew what was going to happen? Why did he not show himself the moment before Eve reached for the apple? Why did he allow the serpent into Eden in the first place? He, afterall, knew she was going to take a bite long before he even created her, if the story is to be believed.
The other divine qualities have problems as well - especially omnibenevolence (only ever does ‘good’ - nothing ‘bad’). The lemmings always justify this contradiction with a quick “Abhorrent human rights violations are fine because god works in mysterious ways”. Imagine if science was viewed that way - giving an unbelievably ignorant and negligent answer any time someone asked something scientists didn’t know. “People die when rubbing old corpses and raw chicken meat on living peoples wounds because nature is mysterious.” *shrug* “No need to bother washing your hands after handling such things because god will take care of everything.”
If god is all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfect, like the bible claims, why did he create the universe in the first place? Was he bored? Contradiction. Did he want to see what would happen? Contradiction. Did he want people to worship him? Contradiction. Did he want people to suffer? Contradiction.
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There are no ‘miracles’ in the bible that are inexplicable by the peoples of those times. As in, people are turned to salt, a man walks on water, water into wine, conjuring bread and fish to feed many, etc. There is never any mention of “And then the people looked up and saw something flying, but with no wings. There was a strange hum in the air. The craft looked to be made of metal!” or even something like “Jesus went to the mount to speak with the Father. Upon his return, he carried a contraption which he said could turn a wheel with no horse through the power of lightning! I see it as further evidence (albeit, admittedly weak) that the bible as an invented work. The sci-fi genre, if you will, didn’t exist back then. The fantasy genre had been going strong since at least Gilgamesh until only a century or two ago, and even now it’s still relatively prevalent. I’m not saying they should have spoke of aliens and spaceships to be more credible; I’m saying most things in the bible were overused fantasy tropes, even for those times.
I’m certainly no authority on fantasy or writing, but if you ever actually try and write a story, especially a fantasy story, you’ll know more what I mean. Put yourself in the author's shoes and imagine that Gilgamesh, Greek and Roman legends of Gods, The Iliad, and The Odyssey are the most celebrated and influential fictional stories of your time. Writings you respect greatly. Then, try and write a story influenced by and imitating them and see if it doesn’t sound vaguely biblical. Then, jump on the ‘invent a religion’ train like thousands and thousands of others before you and see how many people you can convince. L. Ron Hubbard was able to do exactly that even in modern times.
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Deuteronomy 18:10 and other verses speak of the existence of witchcraft, wizards, mediums, spirits, demons, giants, etc. If you take the bible literally, you believe in witches. It’s an adolescent argument I’m going to make, but I move that because you believe in these things, your argument is void and subject to mockery. If nothing else, don’t take the bible literally or people will justifiably (and hopefully) not take you seriously in any context of wit.
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The denial by Christians and other faiths of things with actual scientific evidence severely hinders their cause. They claim evolution is nonsensical to protect their own belief, and in doing so hugely alienate everyone else. They expose themselves to being irrational. Even those who are open to the possibility of a gods existence are forced to conclude that the religious often don’t care about facts and hence, truth. Why would anybody, then, expect the religious to have true beliefs outside of science? They obviously aren’t overly concerned with truth.
Religion is receding because of that, in my opinion. Pew has polls correlating with that conclusion - rising atheism, agnosticism, and the ‘religiously unaffiliated’. Honestly, it might not be a good thing for me to tell the religious of. If they continue being the scientific deniers they have been for millennia in a golden age of science, they will continue loudly pointing observers to their lack of reason, hamstring themselves - something I have no qualms with.
Evolution is real. Those of much faith but little sense always seem to make the argument that there is no proof. Suddenly, they’re interested in proof? Well, technically, no, there is no proof of evolution. It’s impossible to prove at the moment with our short recorded history, just like God and gravity. What we CAN do is gather mountains of evidence, which we’ve done (and no god has ever done).
We have the fossils, we have made predictions and then found the transitional fossils posited by those predictions, we have the DNA testing which is in line with the theory, the various dating methods (such as carbon dating and other radioactive decay) in line with those predictions, we have the Miller-Urey experiment which shows the building blocks for life CAN be created from ‘nothing’ (or, rather, the conditions of the early Earth), and we are constantly witness to micro-evolution in dogs, birds, viruses, etc. Macro-evolution (what ignorant creationists refuse to admit) is nothing more than constant micro-evolution on a large scale of thousands or millions of years. This insurmountable, resounding evidence, however, contradicts the bible; Something with no credible evidence.
The Big Bang is real, the estimated age of the universe is real (in that ballpark, anyway), and the estimated age of the Earth is real (*see previous*). Those numbers would have boggled the mind of the authors of the bible. They went with something they could fathom, instead. Hence, the bible contradicts all of them. With literally zero evidence outside of a book written by unverifiable authors in an age where everyone made up and believed crazy shit all the damn time, many Christians now deny that which has an avalanche of data and experiment and analysis behind it, not to mention logic.
PLEASE don’t take the bible literally, at least. It makes my heart weep for humanity and its darkened future.
Empathy:
This is one that could take up a lot of room, but I’ve already given several examples elsewhere - notably in the ‘But, morals!’ question reply. Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and other books are UTTER trash. Typical American Christians have a habit of calling the Koran barbaric (which it also is much of the time), but don’t realize that the bible tells them to kill non-believers, too. One further point I wanted to make, though: Why is it that Christians are constantly having to defend the morality of the bible's words? They always have some bullshit excuse, but out of the hundreds of examples showing the opposite of empathy, understanding, and compassion in scripture, how likely is it that they’re correct when they always respond “That doesn’t mean what it actually sounds like.”? Who are they trying to fool? Us, or themselves?
Similar Origin Stories:
It is impossible to study multiple religions and not note the similarities. Let’s go over a few. Bible: First woman = Eve. She was given everything she needed in a paradise without evil or suffering, but also told to not eat the fruit of a certain tree. She did, and evil was spread throughout the world because of it.
Greek mythos: First woman = Pandora. She was given everything she needed in a paradise without evil or suffering, but also told to not open the jar (or box) that she was given. She did, and evil was spread throughout the world because of it.
Bible: Genesis 6:4 “There were giants in the earth in those days[the flood]; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.” These offspring were considered “sons of god” and referred to often as “mighty men of old”.
Every other mythology ever: Gods are constantly cavorting with humans - especially in Greek mythology, where their offspring, the demigods, were known as “giants”, “sons of god/s”, and not uncommonly referred to as “mighty men of old”. If these stories you idolize were your inspirations, it’s little wonder the stories you fabricate parallel them so closely.
Possibly the most damning: Gilgamesh’s flood. Let me remind you that this epic was written at least 2000 years before the Christian bible was written in any iteration.
I’m stealing a graphic from this site: http://www.icr.org/article/noah-flood-gilgamesh/
The site I posted, however, believes that they both are accounts of the same event, but the story in Genesis was handed down for over 2000 years, remaining accurate, while the account in Gilgamesh was corrupted. Yeah.. Sure. They’ve obviously never played ‘telephone’ or ‘secret’ or whatever you call it. 2000 years and accurate? Why did the world not know of Christianity before Jesus came, in that case? There should have been a community somewhere praising the one true god and telling his stories while everyone else was praising others, slaying disbelievers and blasphemers, btw. I find it fairly obvious that it was a reimagining of a popular legend of the time.
Pagan Origins:
There are multiple instances of traditions and ideas from previous religions being stolen for the Christian bible, or, at least established in the minds of Christians.
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Hel: Norse being/goddess of the freezing underworld, since the Norse lived in a cold, unforgiving place. Coldness was the great destructive force, constantly threatening their lives, so Hel’s domain was the ultimate freeze. If you ‘go to Hel’, you have died.
“Hell” or is never actually mentioned in the bible (originally). The closest thing to: “Gehenna”, is a physical place in Jerusalem where kings of Judah sacrificed their children by fire, and later likely any wrongdoers (in their eyes), after which it was said to be cursed. While I would agree your insane parents sacrificing you by fire is a type of ‘hell’, it’s not the one Christians imply. Thus, ‘going to Gehenna/hell’ became where you go to burn and die. For instance, closer to original translation of the sentence in Matthew 5:22: “and whoever shall say, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of the fire of Gehenna.” was later translated in the King James version to this: “but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.”
The other often used Hebrew word is “sheol”, meaning ‘the grave’, and does not distinguish between the grave for good or for bad people. It is where all go when they die. When Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, ‘sheol’ became ‘hades’ - ostensibly the closest translation. Though technically also a realm for all dead (and even the Greek ‘heaven’, Elysium), Hades was historically and is presently mostly thought of as a place of evil. Sheol was not this, but it skewed the perception of it.
However, the idea of the classic ‘hell’ is a valuable one to those who wish to convert more people to their religion. The bible was written and initially flourished in a place where it was instead heat that was the terrible destructive force, threatening lives. At some point after the creation of the Bible, Hel was converted into a place rather than a deity, and made to be the ultimate fire where the ‘bad’ would go for eternity. Christians could then point to their ideas of the afterlife and tell the Norse that Christianity respected their beliefs, making it easier and less full of guilt for the Norse to convert.
Ask yourself what motivation could anyone have for attaching that idea to it. Who stands to gain from it? Why is it STILL taught in Churches everywhere even when anybody can look for themselves on the internet? They can buy a digital copy of the bible, search for the word ‘Hell’ or even “eternal punishment”, and find absolutely nothing, yet the obvious scare tactic still lives on. The idea of hell is no different from encouraging children to not be bad else Santa would give you coal.
http://www.thehypertexts.com/no%20hell%20in%20the%20bible.htm
I hate to link to a page like this, obviously from ‘just some guy’, but he makes fairly good logical arguments, as well as reiterates much of what I’ve just said. I did want to quote one of his paragraphs, however:
“If you believe in a loving, compassionate, wise, just God, you may conclude that "hell" has always been either an error of translation or an outright human fabrication. Why would human beings invent hell? Well, as the ancient Greek philosopher Celsus pointed out to the early Christian father Origen, "hell" was a good way to control the behavior of the unwashed masses, but no wise man believed in it. And "hell" has always been a handy way to increase conversions (perhaps we should call them "coercions"), church attendance and revenues. But what about the emotional, psychological and spiritual wellbeing of little children? Surely their innocent hearts, minds and souls are vastly more important than the head counts and coffers of churches!”
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When you entertain the idea that the bible is fiction, you begin to see typical motivations that you would expect from members of that time period influence the writings. Most people know of Adam and Eve, but who is Lilith? She was a Mesopotamian legend, first mentioned as far back as Gilgamesh 2000 years before Christianity. In the story, she was a winged demon woman who eventually fled to the desert. She is known in ancient writings and lore as a seductive female demon who caused stillbirths and ‘preyed’ on infants (probably thought to cause illnesses in them). She also copulated with men while they were sleeping, causing nocturnal emissions; Something the people of that time couldn’t explain so sought an explanation for. Also, she was allegedly Adam's first wife according to Jewish writings, also created from the Earth.
Upon their creation, her and Adam immediately began arguing. Contrary to Adams wishes that she be subservient, she refused to be on the bottom during intercourse. She saw herself as an equal to Adam since they both were born of the Earth. As expected of an invented fiction of the time, this was to be demonized - literally. She then spoke the name of God and was banished to a desolate place, forever after known as a demon of the night. One of ungodliness, seduction, and chaos. I said “Jewish writings”, though she too is mentioned in the Christian bible.
Isaiah 34:14: [during the apocalypse] “Wildcats shall meet hyenas, / Goat-demons shall greet each other; / There too the lilith shall repose / And find herself a resting place”. The King James version, however, replaces her name with “screech owl” - an animal Lilith was associated with and that was present in many ancient depictions of her. This was likely due to the fact that more modern translators didn’t have confidence that readers would be versed in ancient lore, as the verse doesn’t give further explanation of her (the original authors apparently thought she was well known enough at the time to garner no further information about her).
What a huge coincidence it would be if the temperament, tendencies and “abilities” (Referring to her seduction of men while asleep, jealousy of pregnant women and their infants, winged flight on her demon wings, etc), and her eventual fate (residing in desolate places), and even the name itself of a creature happened to independently exists of each other. It was a rebranding of a (at the time) well known fictional legend, as happens so often in the bible. So, what is a Christian to do? Claim Gilgamesh is a biblical accounting? It was around long before the bible. I wouldn’t doubt at least a few would insist that the mention of Lilith, at least, was biblical, attempting to save face.
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Christmas. A pagan holiday converted to Christianity. If you ask any Christian or most non-Christians in America what significance Christmas has to their religion, they might be stumped on who Santa actually is, why he rides reindeer, the mistletoe, caroling, presents, etc. The only thing they are likely to be sure of is that December 25th is Jesus’ birthday. Only, it’s not. The bible never states what day this actually occurred on. Many Eastern Christians celebrate the birth on January 7th. The point is, the date is uncertain, and it always has been. Celebrating one's day of birth was considered a pagan ritual during the time Jesus is claimed to have existed. If he did exist, none considered the date of any significance. What did have significance around that time of year? Saturnalia was a Roman holiday, happening from December 17th to the 25th. It was one of the most beloved holidays of theirs: intoxication, singing outside neighbors doors naked (precursor to caroling), eating “human shaped biscuits” (ancient versions of gingerbread men), etc. There was also widespread sex and human sacrifice, but you can only get so lucky when you’re stealing traditions.
It wasn’t until the Council of Nicea in the 4th century that the leaders of the Church thought to add Christmas as a Christian holiday to incentivize pagans to join their religion. Since there was nothing ‘Christian’ about Saturnalia or the time of year, they declared December 25th as the day of Jesus’ birth, or at least the day it was to be celebrated. Pagans did, after all, get to keep observing their favorite holiday of Saturnalia - they were now simply required to celebrate it under the guise that the final day was Jesus’ birthday. The recruitment of new followers of the religion was highly successful, it is said. Knowing of the pagan origins, observance of Christmas was even illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681, from what I’ve read.
Christmas is chock full of these thieveries and additions completely unrelated to Christ.
The Christmas Tree - Stolen tradition from pagans. The Asheira cult was a pagan group who worshiped trees, and during the winter solstice they would decorate them. The presents under the tree were an old tradition of the nobility, requiring their followers to present them with gifts. Eventually, the general population took up the tradition.
Santa Claus/Krampus/Father Christmas/Kris Kringle/St. Nicholas - Nicholas was a Catholic priest born in 270 AD who played a huge part in the first council of Nicea. In the 1800’s, the Church made him a saint. After, a group who idolized him moved his bones to a sanctuary where they replaced those of another deity: “The Grandmother”, or “Pasqua Epiphania”, who, legend had it, filled children's stockings with gifts. Thus, Saint Nick was born (the Dutch name of which is “Santa Claus”).
Portions of Santa's lore comes from the germanic mythos, with some claiming he is a depiction or offshoot of Odin himself, with his white beard, hat, and riding his horse through the heavens one evening in Autumn (which changed to fit Christian ideals, recruiting more ‘pagans’ to Christianity). Most have even heard the celebration referred to as Yuletide, the germanic celebration of winter solstice.
It wasn’t until 1822 that he was given reindeer in a poem by Clement Moore and went down chimneys. None other than the Coca-Cola company, in 1931, wishing to depict Santa drinking a coke, decided his fur coat should be Coke red, finalizing his image for modern times. Rather than the traditional ‘St. Nick gives good children presents and Krampus gives bad children punishment’, they have morphed into one legend in modern times.
The Mistletoe is a Nordic druidic tradition and crossover from Saturnalia. The mistletoe is what they would use to poison their human sacrifices, apparently. The Katering Show taught me that it caused diarrhea - I didn’t realize it was full blown poison.
The origins of Christmas are actually intrinsically anti-semitic, and thousands of Jews have suffered by its celebration. Nicea branded Jews ‘children of the devil’ or some such, even though Jesus himself was a Jew. Luckily, not nearly as much over the past many decades, but the history is there if you wish to look into it. I think there is plenty of value in the holiday, with its modern messages of caring and compassion and being with those you love, shunning greed, etc. However, it is not a Christian holiday and never was. It was stolen like so many facets of the religion in order to convert more people to Christianity. The cross itself has its origins in paganism - probably a Babylonian religion from what I understand - predating Christianity. Though, perhaps this one would be more understandable if they both existed independent of one another?
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Easter. This is a bit more enigmatic, but there are plenty of pagan origins in this one as well. It is often claimed that the name comes from ‘Ishtar’ or ‘Astarte’, a Babylonian goddess of fertility whose symbol was often the hare. While I have found no credible mention of the hare in direct relation to her, rabbits have long been known in pagan histories as a symbol of fertility, and their painted eggs likely were part of their rituals.
Other sources think Easter actually has its origins in a Teutonic goddess of fertility: Eostre. In an 8th century writing by Bede, he recounts that an April feast was held by pagan anglo-saxons which he notes was replaced before his time by Christian celebrations. It is said that connections can be made to Eostre and the germanic tradition of hares and eggs, though again, no credible source has been found for that. Why is the easter bunny attached to a Christian holiday? Ancient people were known for their promiscuity. Sex and phallic idolization and imagery and virgin idolization and imagery and such were all the rage in those days. Obsession with sex by various religions and cultures seems incredibly primitive and barbaric to me. Though, I think it gives plenty of insight into the minds of those who wrote the bible, as well as a suitable explanation to some of the more tasteless contents therein.
The few Christians who will even admit these correlations will often use the word ‘contextualize’ as an excuse for why so many pagan traditions are present in Christianity: The leaders of the religion trying to get the pagans to understand and worship in a way that suited them. It wasn’t contextualizing - it was recruiting, plain and simple. The idea of Christmas, in its entirety, has nothing to do with Christianity. The only real connection to it - that Jesus was born on that day - is a well-established lie. The audacity of those people floors me.
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Anyway, the thought I’m trying to get across is that even if you are a Christian, you must admit it has been changed and altered by people attempting to recruit. To build up their religion. What motive could anyone have to do such a thing? Religion is great at controlling people, and leaders of the time knew it. People have been anthropomorphizing the passage of time in many, if not most, religions since we grew an imagination capable of doing so, thousands of years ago. Winter was often about birth (as the ancients knew the days finally begin getting longer after the solstice), spring was life (being ‘reborn’, fertility, growth, etc), summer is opportunity and potential, and autumn, rest and finally death.
If you accept the obvious - that the bible has been changed to fit the needs of its leaders over time, multiple times - how do you decide which parts to trust? If you know parts are false or altered, you cannot rationally believe any individual part. You can believe that there is a god - though inherently detached from rationality, I wouldn’t chide you for that, itself - but to believe each individual tenet of the bible to me is lunacy. Idiocy. At the very best - the most sympathetic to the Christian cause - the first council of Nicea poisoned hundreds of the thousand cups they give to their believers to drink. Those who ignore that fact and claim they can drink of all without getting sick are fooling themselves, and fools, themselves. Nicea conclusively proved the manipulation and tricking of followers of a religion is perfectly doable - how does anyone justify the claim that this hasn’t happened to the majority of the bible? The entire thing? Even if you want to claim (without evidence) that the bible was accurate when first written, you can’t ignore that extremely plausible possibility while remaining a rational, thinking human being.
Those leaders used religion as a tool, just as a large portion of people do today. Feeling down about yourself? Hate someone else! Comes only with a small fee of suspending rationality. I find much of the world's discrimination has its roots solely in religion. It is a human tendency to look down on others to make themselves feel better, but religion has set that desire on fire. The justification for owning slaves in the South was that slavery was endorsed by the bible. The justification for the burning of suspected witches was that it was endorsed by the bible. The justification that women should be subservient to men was that it was endorsed by the bible. The justification for the discrimination and hate-crimes against gay people was and is that it’s justified in the bible. Perhaps the most unfortunate thing about this is that they aren’t wrong - they really are endorsed by the bible, not misconstrued.
So, why do these things not invalidate the entire hateful document? Hate is a useful tool for those with low self-esteem, which I believe to be why it’s so wildly popular. Even if you’re Christian, who’s to say those words in the bible weren’t also inventions of unknown revisers? A different Council or even the same one? What proof have you? A relevant quote a very intelligent friend of mine told me: “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out he hates all the same people you do.” - Anne Lamott. Though, I believe Anne was taking it in a slightly different direction, as I believe she is Christian, herself.
Contradictions Within the Bible:
I’ve already spoke on several, but figured I should dedicate a bit more to it, as big of a topic as it is. Honestly, there are too many to count or speak on. Time to be lazy to show a few: http://bibviz.com/
Found on this site is also a very helpful video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB3g6mXLEKk
The contradictions are numerous and often egregious. Saying anything further on the subject after giving so many examples previously seems like overkill, so I'll just try and finish up.
To me, I see the purpose of Christianity (and all religion, for that matter), as a sense of pride and ego to those who knowingly invented it and watched it spread - the exact same reason most fake news, most email forwards, and most memes exist. People like watching that which they've created spread, even if it's dog shit.
It's a convenient form of control to those who have manipulated it. A tool, same as those who work in politics employ. Scare tactics, threats, promises, etc. It's a worthy, compassionate document to a precious few fools who are too blind or too unwilling to recognize the horror inside the book. They genuinely believe it and try to live their lives by the few tenets they cherry-pick out of it, pretending the rest don't exist. But to most who believe in the bible, I don't think any of these things matter. The only thing that does is Pascal's Wager. Even considering that most of the population has been (and maybe still is) authoritarians, too scared to take responsibility for their actions, I think religious would have mostly died out long ago were it not for Pascal's Wager. The idea goes like this:
Either:
God is real and you don't believe = Eternal Punishment
God is real and you believe = No punishment
God is not real and you don't believe = No punishment
Got is not real and you believe = No punishment
I mentioned this idea quite far above this when I spoke of the woman asking atheists why they don't take the safe route and believe anyway. The "safe" option is to believe, so they say. I don't think god would take kindly to you claiming to believe in him just because you're scarred of the possibility you could go to Hell otherwise. He's supposed to be omniscient, after all. You can't lie to him and you can't lie to yourself. I think that is exactly what most Christians are subliminally doing. If Atheists are correct, there is no punishment or reward for believing or not believing - being a Christian is your 'soul-insurance'. Cowards. Fools.
To combat this foolish subliminal philosophy, an 'Atheists Wager' was made. The thinking is that living a good, moral life is preferable to living an evil one, regardless of religious belief. If you live a good life and there isn't a god, you've still left a positive legacy in the wold that you will be remembered for. If you believe in god, he exists, and yet still live an evil life like the WBC, Trump, Hitler, etc, you're still going to hell, you piece of shit. Take the "safe" route: Live a moral life. :D
I think most Christians are - in fact - Pascal Christians, as I will call them, as evidenced by the fact that most I have ever spoken to know less of the bible than I do. They refuse to believe something distinctly disgusting and morally reprehensible came from the bible, and when I prove them wrong by looking up the line, they make excuses for it while immediately trying to extricate themselves from the situation. To be gone from me and my ideas that challenge their already loosely held "beliefs". I honestly do respect the few Christians I meet with actual convictions. I don't agree with their views, obviously, but the moment a Christian becomes defensive is the moment they show their beliefs as fake and justifiably lose all respect from myself. Most get defensive immediately after I tell them I'm not Christian, let alone bring up something like Leviticus. If nothing else, I wish more were genuine. As I've said before, that's a rarity in any demographic.
*February, 2017 addition*
“Humans are similar in their behavior, reasoning errors, and scandals; thus, it has been inevitable that their gods, prophets, leaders, creeds, religions, and foolishness are all similar as well.”
Abdullah Al-Qusaimi
Similarities between most religions:
Same writing styles of scriptures, following the popular fantasy fiction of their times
Same zealotry, self-importance, insulation, and behavior of followers
Followers of numerous religions claim 100% certainty that theirs is the correct one
Followers of numerous religions claim their certainty due to ‘feeling’ gods presence
Religions strive to make humans feel special, being gods ‘chosen’ and loved inherently
Followers usually come from same geographical area as previous followers
Followers usually look at legends from different religions with a “how could they possibly believe something so nonsensical” mindset, ignoring their own religions impossibilities
Religion is like when parents tell their children the dog went to the farm to live out its days. It is deluding yourself to believe something more comforting than your view of reality.
Think of it this way: There is literally no more evidence for the Christian god than there is for the Hindu’s. Or Egyptian. Or Greek. Or for the flying spaghetti monster. Or Cthulhu. That’s what faith means: belief in the absence of evidence. It is not uncommon for Christians or followers of different religions to claim “I feel their presence. That is my evidence”. If every religion claims that same thing and only one can be correct, then it is not evidence. It means nothing. Alternately, they claim the bible as their evidence. Other religions have holy books, too. Some other religions have writings and depictions far older. It means nothing. Some claim that the bible is infallible because the bible says it is infallible. That is a fallacy known as ‘begging the question’, where your conclusion is assumed in the premise. “The bible is trustworthy because it says it is trustworthy.” Why can you trust it when it says it is trustworthy? You can’t. Rationally, at least. My ultimate goal of writings like this isn’t to discourage belief in a god/s, but rather to break away from dogma. Perhaps there is a god, but there is no justifiable reason to believe the one you were taught at a young age is THE one. There is no justifiable reason to believe one denomination got it right while the others didn’t. There is no justifiable reason to believe ANY holy book or the words inside them which were written by man. And most relevant to my thinking, there is no justifiable reason to believe you are without doubt correct in your beliefs and those that disagree with you are laughably misguided - they are thinking the same of you. Religion is like an accent. If you have or have heard one and then refuse the premise that you could have arbitrarily received your religion in the same fashion, you are deluding yourself.
Good vs evil is a natural extension of part of the human condition. What we want vs what we get/ Us vs the world/ our wishes vs what we can achieve. This condition evolved into “My wishes would be good. Thus, my wishes ARE good. Thus, *I* am good. Those who oppose me must be not good. They must be evil. My fight is good vs evil."
Everyone has a different view of this battle. A good quote I’ve heard: “People aren’t against you - They are FOR themselves” People only ever do what makes them feel good. Seeking happiness. Even masochism makes the person ‘happy’, in a way. If they are willing to hurt themselves, they must get something out of it. They wouldn’t do it if they didn’t truly want to do so more than they didn’t want to. It’s a simple scale. Whatever you end up doing = what you wanted to do most.
Vilifying and demonizing those opposed to your ideals or who get in the way of what you want is natural human behavior. Good and evil is the ultimate relative words, I think. Everyone is the protagonist in their own stories. Humans instinctively seek to ascribe these traits in their lives. It makes them feel more confident in their actions and thoughts. It makes them less guilty being the self-absorbed species we are. Something the majority of all religions have in common? Good vs evil. This tells us that humans have been inventing further reasons to bring up this topic Perhaps they wanted even more validation for their arrogance. Why do devils and other mythical evil creatures exist in so many religions? Personification. Anthropomorphising our insecurity. Why are stories similar to David and Goliath so prevalent? People have been fascinated with the ‘good vs evil’ story for millennia. Even today, it is everywhere. Every story must have a protagonist and antagonist.
My point: As I've reiterated many times, a maximum of one religion out of over 3000 is correct, meaning the rest are false. Almost all of them are extremely similar, certainly including the bible. I find it somewhat of a giveaway that the bible is full of the same ideals that humans have been fervently idolizing for most of our existence. The same morals. Many of literally the same stories. If we know for a fact through countless examples exactly what fictional religions look like, how the hell can you pretend that your religion that is shaped almost exactly the same as the rest has any credibility? The stories change - the structure does not.
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