The Antichristian Phenomenon

I just saw this Greek post on making a multiple choice test in the Bible that I thought was brilliant and I couldn’t help but repost the translated version.

The following is basically a little test to see if you still remember the Good Book and all the nice values it has provided to you. Use it in case you need to freshen up your memory, to test if you children are paying attention in School and so on.

Try to figure out which are the correct answers and see how close to inspired perfection you stand. One of the following questions has more than one answer. Can you tell which one?

Good Luck!

1. A Few children were making fun of Prophet Elisha as he was going up a mountain, shouting at him “Get up baldie!”. Elisha…

   a) Cut the ears of 42 of them and made them eat them.
   b) Cursed them so that a fire broke out around them, burning 42 of the kids.
   c) Cursed them so that two bears came out of the woods and mauled 42 of them.
   d) Turned 42 of them into pigs.
2. What is the 10th Commandment that God gave to Moses to write on two stone plates in the Mount Sina

   a) Do not put one ox and one mule in the same field.
   b) Do not cook a kid (baby goat) in the milk of it’s mother.
   c) Do not sleep with a deaf-mute so that you don’t turn into a deaf-mute yourself.
   d) Do not open you house’s door to idol worshippers.
3. What is the name of God?

   a) Whiner.
   b) Cheater.
   c) Jealous.
   d) Naughty.
4. How should parents kill their son in case he’s drinking and talking back to them?

   a) Implate him.
   b) Stone him.
   c) Burn him alive.
   d) Decapitate him.
5. What happens if you’re not a (female) virgin on the first night of marriage?

   a) Your father must pay the husband 100 pail.
   b) Your husband whips you and then divorces you.
   c) You’re stoned to death.
   d) The whole village spits on you.
6. What is explicitly allowed to be eaten according to the Holy Writ? (All others are explicitly forbidden)

   a) Fried Oysters.
   b) Rabbit stew.
   c) Lemon Pork.
   d) Grasshoppers with ketchup.
7. According to the Holy Writ, God cannot defeat

   a) Those who have iron chariots.
   b) Those who have iron spears.
   c) Those who have iron swords.
   d) Those who have iron bows.
8. When Jephthah came victorious from battle, what did he burn on the alter as an offerring to God?

   a) His only son.
   b) His only daughter.
   c) His two small grandchildren.
   d) His wife.
9. What did David offer to Kind Saul so that he would get his daughter?

   a) The heads of 200 Phillistines.
   b) The dicks of 200 Phillistines.
   c) The testicles of 200 Phillistines.
   d) The penis skins of 200 Phillistines.
10. For what reason did God torture Job?

    a) Because God was bored and had nothing to do.
    b) Because Satan challenged him to destroy him for no reason.
    c) Because Job ate raw meat.
    d) Because Job forgot to use incense.
11. How does God punish pretentious women?

    a) He makes them bald, and exposes their cunt.
    b) He makes them full of zits, and exposes their tits.
    c) He makes them full of sores, and exposes their thighs.
    d) He makes the grow a beard, and exposes their arse.
12. What is the punishment for the lame?

    a) Do not approach the holy so that they do not desecrate them.
    b) They must pay double the tax as the healthy.
    c) The must burn double the amount of animals during sacrifices.
    d) They are not allowed to eat bread.
13. Which Christmas tradition is forbidden by God?

    a) Sing Christmas carols for money.
    b) Giving gifts.
    c) Decorating a tree.
    d) Eat turkey.
14. What did Jesus suggest people do, if they can tolerate it?

    a) Self-flaggelate
    b) Become a eunuch.
    c) Rip out their eyes.
    d) Stay unmarried.
15. Hare, according to the Holy Writ is:

    a) Marsupial
    b) Reptile
    c) Ruminant
    d) Predatory
16. How do we make animals with dots?

    a) We make them wear tunics with dots which can get discoloured, and leave them in the rain.
    b) We make them look things with dots while they’re drinking water.
    c) We throw them on the coals and take them immediately off them again.
    d) We make them stand under thinly grown Garlands every noon.
17. According to the Holy Writ, feeling come from…

    a) The intestines
    b) The stomach
    c) The liver
    d) The kidneys
18. Which from the following creatures appears in the Holy Writ?

    a) Unicorn
    b) Dragon
    c) Basilisk
    d) Satyr
19. When Jesus dies, which from the following miracles happened?

    a) A rain of blood fell over Jerusalem.
    b) All street of Jerusalem got full of zombies.
    c) All sheep in Jerusalem started baying.
    d) All wines in Jerusalem turned into vinegar.
20. Question 20 omitted because I’m too lazy (and obviously sinful) to translate all that text. Maybe later.

How well did you do? Compare your answers to the holy truth:

1. C (2 Kings 2:23-25)
2. B (Exodus 24:26-28)
3. C (Exodus 34:14)
4. B (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
5. C (Deuteronomy 22:13-21)
6. D (Deuteronomy 14:7-8 and Leviticus 11:1-20)
7. A (Judges 1:19)
8. B (Judges 11:30-40)
9. D (1 Samuel 18:27)
10. B (Job 2:3)
11. A (Isaiah 3:16-17)
12. A (Leviticus 21:16-23)
13. C (Jeremiah 10:2-4)
14. B (Matthew 19:11)
15. A (Leviticus 11:6)
16. B (Genesis 30:37-39)
17. A (Psalms 7:9, 16:7, 26:2, 73:21, Proverbs 23:16)
18. All of the above (Isaiah 34:7, Numbers 23:22; 24:8, Deuteronomy 33:17, Deuteronomy 32:33, Psalms 74:13-14, Isaiah 13:21-22, 34:13-14, Proverbs 23:32)
19. B (Matthew 27:51-53)

In this article a few topics converge to the core of what I would call my quarrel with Christianity, its teachings and more importantly: its followers or rather lack thereof. You might think “a lack of following?” and following that remark present me with an estimate of the vast amount of people who identify themselves as Christians, being a big chunk of the global population pie. And that is exactly my point: these people identify themselves as Christians whereas I am speaking of strict followers of Biblical dogma.

I must start with the Old Testament. Anyone who has ever read even part of it will undoubtedly recognize that this collection of books is mostly concerned with he history of the people of Israel. The god found in the Old Testament presents itself as one only concerned with the Israelites. This god completely lacks any sympathy for any other tribe or people and will not hesitate to wipe out any people, city or tribe that are either a threat to his precious, chosen people or who simply piss him off for various petty reasons. It is an angry, tribal god, a boastful bully who enjoys the reek of burnt animals and requires his followers to cut off a part of their penises. Regarding the Israelites themselves, the Old Testament describes how this people was freed from Egyptian slavery and how they consequently, after many a bloody conquest, they established kingdoms (of Judah and Israel). However, these kingdoms were lost after the Israelites were conquered by other peoples, leading the Israelites into Babylonian exile. Of course, this was all the result of disobedience of that wonderful god. However, because the OT god is such a good guy, all hope was not lost, since through Isaiah it was prophesized a king would come who would would restore the kingdom of Israel, rebuild The Temple and other neat things such as reviving the dead and making the OT god the god of all nations and peoples.

This is a very important clash with Christian belief, which is rooted mainly in the New Testament. Jesus did not revive all the dead, nor does the entire world now serve God (look at me!), nor was death abolished since Jesus’ arrival – nay, Jesus even died himself. As the Moshiach (“the Anointed One” who will bring the Messianic age), Jesus utterly fails. Still, Christians swear by him as the Messiah prophesied in the Israelites’ scriptures, even though the Israelites’ themselves disagree (and for good reason). Leaning on the crutch that is the Old Testament, a new dogma developed with Jesus as the center-point. The gospels from the newly formed scriptures claim this Jesus figure spoke of a god of love for everyone; or rather: some new god as it does not match the pattern of our Old Testament friend. Other important theological additions include the concepts of Satan, heaven and hell. All these modifications and additions strike cacophonous chords with the older scriptures, but such seems the nature of Christianity: Reinventing dogma as it goes along. It is this exactly central characteristic that I often find myself entangled in.

To part from the basic level of scriptural discrepancy and move into the realm of Christian theology, we see the aforementioned central characteristic return. There are numerous Christian denominations with varying interpretations of the scriptures and I will concentrate on the prime example: Catholicism. Catholicism stands out among the denominations not just because of its size, but because of its sheer brutality. Over the centuries the Catholic Church made the Judeo-Christian religion into a political machine. This machine has had a firm grip on many powerful nations in the history of the world, with the pope at its head. This political influence brought about extra dogmatic additions and inventions which lead to “holy” wars (and consequential plunderings, one of the factors in the the amassment of the excessive wealth of the Vatican), the Spanish Inquisition, the selling letters of forgiveness “from god”, and so on. One of their more recent dogmatic inventions is papal inerrancy, which as an effect relieves the pope of any responsibility.

The Catholic Church is of course an extreme example of the reinvention of dogma and I am certainly not arguing that this practice will lead to the monstrosities we find in the history of the Catholic Church. To be fair, I will provide you with another example, and it is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Mormonism. In addition to the original scriptures this church has the book of Mormon, magically revealed to the church’s founder Joseph Smith, Jr. The book was supposedly translated from golden plates having “unknown characters”, given to Joseph Smith by an angel named Moroni. The plates are, of course, now buried somewhere in the hills near Smith’s house. Mormonism hasn’t lead to anything too disturbing, barring occasional polygamy and the wearing of magical underwear.

You average non-catholic, non-Mormon Christian thinks he has not strayed as far from the Biblical path as those silly Mormons, but nothing less is true. Although they have indeed not built an empire or added any extra books to their precious Bible, they are in fact very unbiblical in just about every aspect of their lives. Most of them simply don’t realise it, because they haven’t actually read the Bible. I have no statistics on this, but time and time again I find myself debating a professed Christian who hasn’t even read “the Holy Book”. I am sure anyone who is active in these kinds of debates have had similar experience. These particular Christians tend to forget that there is a reason why we oppose their religion. It is because we have studied it, through experience and inquiry and have found it not to belong in the world we inhabit this day. Hiding gods whose baseless laws and morality they unverifiably passed to men have no place in modern government. Without actually having read the horrific, inhuman laws found in the New Testament or having realised God’s disgust for us as worthless, sinful mortals you as a self-proclaimed Christian have no right to call “their” God just and loving. These “Christians” have a one-sided conception of the Biblical god. In my experience, especially Christians from largely secular countries have this skewed perspective, and in these countries Christianity has once again reivented its dogma, and a new Christian god is born yet again.

There is but a relative handful of Christians who have actually understood the Bible and its god. A lot of them spend their lifetime trying to piece the biblical puzzle together in such a way that their god can be called loving in the face of his vile deeds – spending their lives studying theology. Some of these Christians write Apologetics, doing just that: thinking of excuses why an all-loving god would do such horrible things – and not to mention finding ways how scripture can be interpreted so that it doesn’t collide with scientific discoveries, but this is largely beside the point. There are also those Christians who do not try to understand the actions of God, but take them for face value. These Christians are abhorred by almost all Christians for giving them a bad image. It is the likes of Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church I am speaking of. These Christians show a much better understanding of the Bible and God: God does indeed hate homosexuals, God does hate sinners, and God will punish us for eternity in hell after we have died if we escape the apocalypse. It is ironic that their scriptural knowledge is not applauded by fellow Christians, but rather ignored. Ignored, like Christians have ignored so much else: the maturing of human society, our sobering from our superstitious beliefs and our advancement in the knowledge of the world in which the Bliblical God and Biblical doctrine have no place.

In the previous installment of this series I ended at the destruction of Sodom. The rest of Genesis contains some stories about the descendants of Abraham down to Jacob, father of twelve sons who would later become the fathers of the twelve Israeli tribes living in Egypt that would later find themselves enslaved: Prepair for the book of Exodus.

However, before we enter Moses, I’d like to write out some general conclusions I have made from reading Genesis. These mainly concern the biblical god (“God”). Although Christians often portray him as an altruist, the god I’ve read about is definitely not. He appoints Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as his servants and demands they act like it if they want the Lord to help them. We’ll see the same kind of egoism in Exodus, but that’s for later. The thing I was annoyed with the most in Genesis is that right in the first book it is made clear that one is not to question the Lord. The stories of the Flood and Abraham almost sacrificing his son illustrate this very well. Noach and Abraham never stop to think about the motives of this authority figure. Questioning authority is a cornerstone in skeptical freethinking. I will also note that God will make damn sure that he gets his fix of destruction while still upholding a forgiving and good-willed façade. God: “I will not utterly destroy a city if just ONE of its inhabitants is innocent of crimes I will not disclose! … Quick, Job, get out so I can destroy the city!”

Enter Moses
I’m sure you’ve heard the story. The pharao has commanded all first-borns to be killed, but Moses’ mother hides her baby in a basket along the bank of the Nile. The pharao’s daughter takes little Moses in and so he is able to grow up. After killing an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew he flees to Midian where he is taken in by Reuel/Jethro and is given Zipporah, one of Jethro’s daughters, as his wife. Some time passes before god has satisfied his sadistic needs and decided it’s time to free “his people” – meaning those unlucky enough to have born in one of the Israeli tribes, having to undergo genital mutilation after birth – and Moses is appointed his side-kick. Moses fears he lacks charismatic skills and God agrees and commends Aaron to join his brother Moses. Moses, his wife Zipporah and his children travel to Egypt. Along the way, the famous foreskin incident takes place, in which Moses is saved from God’s wrath by his son’s foreskin.

Exodus 4:24-26
At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met {Moses} and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched {Moses’} feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. So the LORD let him alone.

Magic and God’s sick hunger for death
Instead of sitting down and talking like adults, Moses and Aaron are sent by God to show off some magic in the hopes of impressing the pharaoh. It becomes clear freeing the Israeli slaves is not the main objective for God: He simply feel likes showing of his mad skillz (Exodus 6:3-4). And so the show begins. God starts off with his weak staff-into-snake routine the pharaoh’s sorcerers (yes, that’s what it says!) are able to replicate. The water-into-blood routine was likewise equalled by the pharaoh’s magicians. The same happens for the plague of frogs. Finally God brought something new into his act, and transformed the dust into gnats through his proxies Moses and Aaron. Still, the pharaoh didn’t let the Israeli people go. Flies ensued and boils that plagued men and cattle alike. The pharaoh began to understand he was no match for God, but God made sure he could continue his sadistic act until the very end by preventing the pharaoh let the people go (Exodus 9:12).

And so God enjoyed himself greatly, raining hail down on Egypt. “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD.” God says in Exodus 10:1-2. The heavenly maniac hasn’t performed his biggest act yet, and among the locusts and darkness he makes sure the pharaoh doesn’t spoil it (Exodus 10:20, 10:27, 11:10). Having made sure it would get this far, God now feels it is time to bring out the fireworks, and kills off all the innocent people who happened to have been the first to leave the womb. God breaks his spell of the pharaoh’s mind and the Israelites are free to go.

God had one more trick up his sleeve, however. By making sure the pharaoh decides to hunt after the Israelites (Exodus 14:4), he can perform one more miracle for the world – a last violent encore to add to the slaughter already committed. He made sure the Israelites didn’t choose the shortest path to the promised land; hell, there wouldn’t be a sea to split along that way! And so, even after the Egyptian slaughter, god’s hunger for death was finally stilled when he drowned the Egyptians after making sure the Israelites were able to traverse the Red Sea.

And returning to my opening paragraph, Exodus accounts again for the fact that God is not altruist at all. As if the gratification of his hunger wasn’t enough, the price for freeing the Hebrew slaves from Egypt was high: God demanded all the firstborn male that would see the light of life thereafter, men and cattle alike, to be his property. This means sacrifice, people. But not to worry, God will make sure you’re kids are fine – for the right price, tha tis. “Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.” (Exodus 13:13)

Next up in Reading the Bible Part 3: Commandments and laws

So here it is: The first part to my reading quest. In this article I will comment on Genesis chapters 1-19. All chapters from 11-50 deal with the familiy history of Adam’s direct descendants. Some of these are important characters in biblical mythology, such as Noach and Abraham. Others seem not so much important, and it’s certainly possible that I will jump to the book of Exodus in the next edition of “Reading the Bible”, as the later chapters (for as far as I have read) do not have much interesting to add.

The first chapters of Genesis deal with well-known biblical stories: The creation, the garden of Eden and the tree of knowledge, Noach’s Ark and the flood, Abraham’s deal with God and the destruction of Sodom.

Creation
It was interesting to read the creation story, because it illustrates the pritimive knowledge (or rather: ideas) of the universe the ancient people, among who was the author of Genesis, had. The sky, “heaven”, is portrayed as a half sphere that is placed on top of the earth and which divides the waters of our planet and the waters above the heavens – yes indeed, apparently there is water in space, not a vacuum. In the half sphere that is heaven, God puts up some lamps and among them one big one to rule the day, and a smaller one to rule the night. Not only shows this that the nature of stars wasn’t undestood, but also that there wasn’t a clear distinction between stars and moons. After God has some plants and trees pop up, he creates the animals. In Biblical taxonomy, the main categories are: Birds, fish, wild animals, livestock and creatures that crawl. After all that, God creates man and woman.

In the second book of Genesis, man seems to be created before all flora, and definitely before the wild anmimals and birds. However, I’m not going into every contradiction because I’d never get through the Bible before I turn thirty. I just want to say that I think the accusation that the two creation accounts in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are contradictory is justified.

Eden
Skipping ahead a bit, we’ll get our first share of talking animals: a snake, who seduces Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge. This actually constitutes the first big issue I have with christianity: the negative attitude to knowledge. Incarnations of this meme can be found throughout history, from Galileo Galilei to the modern day creationism crap. God would rather have wanted us to stay ignorant of the world, imprisoned in a garden. Eating from the tree of knowledge constitutes the aspiration to becoming gods – and that’s wrong for some reason. Personally, I encourage this aspiration. When a scientists who was working on genetic manipulation for protein development was asked whether he was playing for god, he answered: “I’m not playing” and it is such an attitude that deserves respect. I can’t wait to go post-human.

In any case, God wasn’t amused and felt threatened. To ensure his totalitarian reign, he punished women by making sure childbirth isn’t fun, and that the men will reign over them. He punished men by making sure they’d have to work hard to stay alive. He ban-kicked Adam and Eve out of Eden, and placed Cherubs with flaming swords (cool!) in East Eden to protect the way to the tree of life; making people wouldn’t live forever.

Noach and the flood
People didn’t live forever, that’s for sure, but I’d say 900 years is pretty close considering our current life expectancy. While the descendants of Adam and Eve were populating the earth and fucking like rabbits, God got more and more pissed off. He decreed that people shouldn’t live more than 120 years. God became sorry that he created humankind, because to him all of them were “bad” for reasons unknown. Luckily, he came up with a solution: Fucking kill them all, and with them all the animals: divine global genocide. God liked Noach though, and commanded him to build a boat too small considering its purpose. He told Noach to bring on board one pair of each animal seven pairs of clean animal and one pair of unclean animals and seven pairs of each kind of bird and NOach agreed and brought on board one pair of each animal seven pairs of clean animals and birds and one pair of unclean animals one pair of each animal. And so, after the flood, Noach and his family and the animals on the earth began the task of repopulating the earth.

Abraham’s deal with God
Following the line of first sons from Noach to Abra(ha)m, who is a strange character. He leads an army and kills off the army that sacked Sodom. When the king of Sodom wants to give Abram a reward, he suddenly turns holy and swears by the lord that he will not take anything, because it isn’t his to take – forgetting the lives of those soldiers he killed a moment ago. God, however, is impressed by Abram and appears to him in a vision and tells him he will bless him. Abram sacrifices some nice cattle too God, who loves dead cattle (Ask Cain!). After the birth of Abram’s first son Ismael, God appears to Abram again and asks him to become his little bitch. First of all, God changes Abram’s name to Abraham. God says he will bless Abraham’s descendants with kingship and furthermore offers Abraham and his descendants a big land. In return, God asks Abraham to cut off the end of his and his descendants penis. In this way, God will have a way to recognize who his has to bless, and who his has to curse. Abraham agreed, and showed great courage but sawing off the end of his penis when he was already 99 years old. He mutilated his extramarital son’s genitals that same day, too.

The destruction of Sodom
God tells Abraham of a serious accusation against Sodom. There is never any mentioning of a jury or judge to either confirm or reject this accusation, because God takes matters in his own hands. He tells that he will destroy Sodom and everybody in it. Abraham asks if God would destroy Sodom even if there was one person innocent in the whole city, and God tells Abraham he would leave the city alone if this would be so. Luckily for the people living in Sodom, Abrahams nephew Lot lives in Sodom, and he is quite innocent indeed. You’d guess there’s no need to worry for the city and its inhabitants because of God’s promise. However, God has a trick up his sleeve. He can’t wait to commit another genocide, and sends two angels to Lot. These angels get Lot out of the city, making way for the sickly murderous God to rain fire and sulphur down on the city.

Other general remarks
One thing that I thought was remarkable was the consequent mentioning of animal (and almost human) sacrifice to God. It shows the connection of OT Christianity with other ancient religion in which such sacrifices were the norm – of course, current day Christianity would rather forget this tradition while still hoping they can get away with calling the Bible timeless. Women’s rights are also non-existant. Men used to marry multiple women – even Abraham slept around with his wife’s slave to produce a receptacle for Abraham’s offspring – he’ll be damned to give it to his wife! Another interesting instance of cruelty against women is when the angels enter Lot’s home. The people of Sodom demand Lot to bring the strangers that entered his home, but he offers his virgin daughters instead, saying the Sodomites can do with them whatever they want.

In the coming months, I will be publishing articles that are the direct consequence of my confrontation with the Christian Holy Hardcover I have purchased. I have been playing with the idea for a while and I’ve presented the idea to the ACP community over at last.fm. Yesterday I received that number one best-seller of all times, and I’ll be keeping you up to date with my thoughts about its actual content.

The Art of War
My foremost reason for reading the bible is simply because I am interested about the actual, integral contents of this most famous book. I have been reading some mythology literature as of late, and the Bible adds well to that list. As an opponent of religious doctrine in general and Christianity in particular and remembering Sun Tzu I feel obliged to study its roots.

I will be reading the bible critically, as any book that is considered to hold truth should. However, I will make distinctions (and analyse differently accordingly) between parts presented as matter-of-fact (such as Genesis) and symbolically laden parts (such as Jesus’ parables). I will try to form an image “from the Bible up” of important Biblical characters such as God and Jesus – letting go of previous conceptions.

I will write articles whenever I feel I have enough to talk about. Therefore, I will not guarantee articles to be spaced evenly over time. Any other questions or recommendations are welcome and can be posted in the comment section.

A recent comment, got me thinking: What if the supposed Jesus had made an addition to the 10 Commandments? Could there have been one that would fix the Christian teachings and prevent the “interpetation abuse” that followed? I mean, if this son-of-god came down and he saw how the world ended even after his self/daddy gave these ten absolute guidelines, why didn’t he make an absolute statement instead of using vague parables or insane actions.

In my opinion, if he had said something helpful like “Criticise everything before you accept it, including what I say.” it would have made a world of difference.

But of course, I guess that if had said something like that, his religion would have never managed to muster the necessary memetic advantage in order to become the majority religion it is today. Either the Romans would not have embraced it (who wants the slaves to start criticizing), or the clergy would have long ago scrubbed it from their records.

Anyway, my own possible choices for it would be:

• “Thou shalt not blindly follow orders.”
• “Thou shalt not believe without evidence.”
• “Thou shalt not treat people differently regardless of their skin or gender.”
• “Thou shalt make thyself as wise about the world as possible and you shall spread knowledge to others.”

What do you think the 11th Commandment should be?

Recently, a member of the ACP audience has been tenaciously debating with some of the authors, including myself on our most recent author‘s introductory post. During this, quite intense, debate, he has gone on to claim all sorts of stuff. From quoting bible passages, to classic fallacies, to finally claiming that the bible is confirmed by Alien Abductions and…Equidistant letter sequence.

Now, everyone knows that extraordinary claims [1. like Aliens who are really Angels] require extraordinary evidence. But what most do not understand is that the place to present this evidence is not in a random Internet Blog or message board, especially if that place if skeptical of your claims.

Face it, even if you think that your brilliant theory on Equidistant letter sequences will abso-fucking-lutely prove the biblical inerrancy beyond the shadow of a doubt, and even if you’ve worded it in a way that you cannot see any obvious holes, you cannot expect random people on the internet to sit and read a subject that they’re pretty certain is wrong. This is because of two simple reasons.

• Our time is precious and sludging through bible passages or shady pictures is, frankly, a waste of our time.
• Even if we do read through your theory and do find a few holes to poke, it’s certain to escalate into a debate and it is quite possible that even then our opponent will claim a false victory.

For these reasons, it is quite improbable that you will convince a skeptic to take up your challenge to read some random sources online. Even though it can happen that one will take you up the challenge and then post his critique of the source (which will lead to point 2 above anyway).

However this is the wrong way to go about it. If come to discuss an article in a site, you should discuss the article and any errors or inconsistencies your find. If you start posting book links or quoting bible passages to us, we’ll just roll our eyes and ignore you.

If you do have some insightful evidence that you think no one in the last 2000 years has found before you, well, now is your chance to become famous. You see, even though we are skeptics, we are not skeptical of the scientific method or the scientific consensus. You know why? Becuase it has proven it works.

Thus, If you have done some kind of amazing research that really does prove that Aliens are Angels and whatnot, and you’re not just talking out of your arse, then take your research to a peer reviewed journal and see if it’s published. Then, people who are really knowledgeable on your subject (instead of random internet people) will review it and, if you are indeed correct, publish it. You will be instantly changing the world paradigm for not just a small internet message board, but everyone who is a skeptic.

If you’re looking for results, then there is no better place to go. And better yet, you have the knowledge that this can happen even if your research is controversial. I mean, they did accept Quantum Mechanics even though names like Einstein were opposing it.

It is, of course, quite probable that you won’t do this because you know you’re just wishful thinking. It is not surprising that the “New Age” movement has been left outside peer review and they only seem to work through anecdotal evidence. All these grandiose names of UFOlogist or Theologians seem capable of only preaching to the choir and cry persecution because their bad-research papers are not published.

If you are like these people, then please do not be surprised that we will not waste our time and energy to read any random book you have in mind. We know that humans are fallible and one can be convinced on something blatantly false just because of personal beliefs & experiences, we see it happening all the time with the Christians after all. And this is why on subject we do not know about, you will not find us in the middle of the road, so to speak, we will be sided with the scientific consensus by default.

If you wish to change our minds, try and change that.

The Holy Bible. It is without question the work of God himself. Every word, every sentence, every story is the exact word of God. Christianity uses the Bible as the sole foundation on which the philosophy is constructed. The only way to live a good and moral life is to live by the guidelines set out in the Bible. Don’t even think about questioning it’s infinite wisdom, by doing so you’ll be questioning the infinite wisdom of the heavenly father himself. You don’t want to suffer the vengeful wrath of God now do you?

Entire countries, cultures even, have been converted to comply with the exact law of God. God fearing citizens have done their job well, protecting their fellow countrymen from a one-way trip to Hell. By making sure everybody has to comply by law people will be saved, whether they want to or not. Abortion and same sex marriages are evil, women should stay at home and science, oh my, stop those fools from questioning the Lord’s work.

There’s one big problem with this blindly following of a piece of literature. This book is written by dozens of people over a period of approximately one thousand six hundred years! There’s no way to ask the original authors about their intentions with it. Maybe the Bible as we know today is just a collection of fairy tales and folklore with a common topic. It’s not illogical for a librarian in ancient Greece to have combined some of the similar works into one, just like we combine the contemporary Grimm fairy tales into a single book. There’s no way of knowing for sure (some of) the original authors were actually serious about this guy-in-the-sky concept. A mighty and totalitarian god sending down his only son to earth, just to be sacrificed by his own creation, which is in turn mislead by the devil, an ex-employee of his, sounds like one hell of a concept for a Hollywood block buster. Maybe it’s intended that way, too. The moral guidelines found in the Bible are maybe just a byproduct. You’ll find plenty of examples of modern morality in contemporary novels. That does not necessarily mean the novelist’s goal is to teach about morality. Often references like those spice up the story, make it more lively. Imagine writing a romantic novel about the ER at a local hospital. The doctor has a steamy relationship with the head nurse, who in turn regularly exchanges bodily fluids with the football stud cancer patient. The doctor is his former coach and finds his nurse in the stud’s room in a natural but unwanted position, after speeding to his room because of a mysterious spike in his heart rhythm. Now imagine having to write this novel without using any reference to morality. It’s impossible, right? You’ll probably end up writing this using the morals you encounter in your daily life. Why wouldn’t the original authors of the Bible have done the same thing? And if so, why would you copy those ancient morals and apply them to your own life in the modern world, while the author was just writing for your amusement?

What if. What if The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were written two thousand years ago. What if the Greek librarian decided to put this combined work on display. We couldn’t ask Tolkien about the intentions of his work, neither could we know for sure his books were purely fictional. With the current course of events in mind it’s quite plausible our world would have looked quite a bit different.

Every boy from the age of twelve or so would have served in the military. We would have accused our adversaries of alliance with the forces of Mordor. Old men with staffs and beards would be screaming their lungs out on the tops of their own towers. We would march out with the full might of combined armies to meet the forces of Mordor at every volcanic eruption. Everybody would have been talking about Smaug without actually ever having seen it. We would have eye witnesses claiming to have heard dwarves singing while exploring caves in eastern France. Without boring you with endless hilarious possibilities, the message should be clear by now. Blindly following a moral extract from a work of fiction as your only guide in life isn’t just foolish, it’s dangerous too.

There is a kind of argument theists will use constantly in a debate. It appears in various forms, but the basics are all the same. In my many debates with christians I have recently had to endure another barrage of this argument, so I thought it was about time I adressed this in a more formal way – this article.

So what is the argument I’m talking about? I’ve come to calling it the “true christian” argument, but I’m sure it’s valid for any kind of theist. You’ve probably encountered it before. The christian or theist will say: “But that’s not what the Bible says” or “Those people aren’t real christians” or “You didn’t get the message from that verse/chapter/book”. It can all be placed in the same umbrella: The accusation that your or somebody else’s interpretation of some verse, or the bible integrally, is incorrect. I’ve had christians tell me that the bible is not open to interpretation, but I have also had christians tell me I mustn’t take it too literally. Both think their view of the bible and its message is correct and they will use that assumption as the “true christian” argument in a debate.

The former argues that the Bible is the actual and literal word of god, not to be interpreted subjectively. This creates some clashes not only with our current understanding of the world and its workings, but also internally the bible contradicts itself [1. Contradictions in the bible (Skeptic's Annotated Bible)]. The latter usually pops up when you swing a random “blood-’n-guts” type verse in their face and ask them to explain  where the loving god went and they tell you it is not to be taken literally. This creates a diversity of problems ranging from the questions which parts of the bible are to be taken literally and which not, to the possibility of different interpretation and the loss of original meaning (if there was one).

The fact is that the last issue I put forward is what has been happening for thousands of years. The bible is a collection of books written over a span of many years – not a technical specification for a device called “life”. Upon reading the bible it is unavoidable that you interpret it in a certain way while you are trying to uncover what it means. It doesn’t matter whether you read it as an important literary work or as the word of your god – in both cases you are going to make up your mind about the bible’s content. A well-known part of the bible is the Exodus [2. The Exodus (BibleGateway.com)]: Moses, the ten plagues, the Pharaoh and the enslaved Jewish people. From it one could conclude that God takes care of his people, which would put him in a good light. One could also conclude that God, while all-powerful, still deemed it necessary to kill many innocent first-borns in order to grant freedom to a people. Both conclusions can be defended  (and have been).

The important thing about these various, possibly opposing interpretations is that they can all be defended using the bible. I have often expressed my view of god as an oppressive, fascistic dictator who I would oppose if he existed. I didn’t make that view up; it is my interpretation of god as I have read about him in the bible. But not only non-christians like me have read (parts of) the bible and made up their minds about its contents; people who call themselves christians have too. Siding the plethora of denominations, there are also the non-denominational christians who have their own brand of Christianity. Denominations can disagree on pretty important issues too. During history, schisms and off-branching of christian denominations has occurred in plentitude [3. Historical schism Schemes of Christian theology (Wikipedia).]. Simply consider the fact that there are denominations in christianity that are a response to another denomination, as is the case with Protestantism (versus Roman Catholicism). Also consider the “shunning” of a christian denomination by many other christian denominations, such as is the case with Mormonism (for their “blasphemous” Book of Mormon) and the Westboro Baptist Church (known for their “Thank god for dead soldiers” funeral protests and “God Hates Fags” website [4. GodHatesFags]) – even though their views, mine and the pope’s can be defended succesfully using the same book.

Interpretations of the bible has led to people who do not identify themselves as christians, to denominational christians and to non-denominational christians. The last two often clash between them and also internally to what the true christian message is – if there even is one. Deriving a message from the bible is taken very seriously for no apparent reason other than faith that there should be a message in it.  The so-called professional experts (theologians) can’t seem to agree – even though there exists the general consensus that they are trying to uncover the same message. Using the argument “<You/They> clearly didn’t understand <that part of the bible>” in the light of the previous conclusion is therefore pompous and far from a legitimate argument, and I would like to invite theists to come up with something better.

As of late, I have been watching lots of documentaries and videos on the internet concerning religion. I have found that some atheistic groups have defined their own ten commandments. Some googling will result in many different variations on this moral code. I think christian claim that you need religion to have a sense of morality has sparked the postulation of these “atheist’s ten commandments”. Of course, this is a misconception, but to define your own Ten Moral Biggies is the wrong approach to sort this mess out.

Let’s first sidetrack a little and have a look at what the christians are on about. They often refer to the bible as the book of absolute truth and thus also absolute moral code. And exactly with the “absolute”, they’re quite wrong. As much as they like to think so, the bible is not very consistent about its ideas of morality. For moral guidance, most christians will only refer to the ten commandments. Does it not strike you as odd that the only morals in a book written over hundreds of years, would only have ten lines concerning morality? Can these ten commandments be applied to every situation and supply an answer as to what is the right thing to do? No. The ten commandments are only a fraction of what can be found in the bible. What about these guidelines?

The book of Deuteronomy is very clear about dealing with people who served or wish to serve another deity.

Deuteronomy 12:2-3: Ye shall surely destroy all the places wherein the nations that ye shall dispossess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree: And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.
Deuteronomy 13:9: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people.

And how does the bible prescribe us to deal with one who blasphemes against the name of the christian god?

Leviticus 24:14: Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.

There are numerous examples of the death penalty in the bible, as well as selling your daugther and the shame of long hair on a man. You can’t be cherry picking what moral rules to adhere by and which not, if you insist on your holy book being one of absolute truth.

What I am trying to say is that morality can not be absolute. “The moral thing to do” depends on many factors like culture, situation and even your own personality. It is very hard to define a certain moral rule that is universally applicable, because you need not have much imagination to come up with a situation in which the moral thing not to act according to the moral rule. And if you do succeed, why would you insist that everyone should take it into comtemplation? Of course, there are some concepts (like not allowing the taking of another life) that are quite universal, but this does not mean they are absolute truth! Good and bad are mere concepts by human minds. These concepts are used in legislation to keep an eye on the public and prevent chaos. This is not a matter of divine righteousness, but a matter of governing people.

So why are there the ten commandments, and why are there exactly ten? Do you not think that people are perfectly able to decide for themselves what is wrong and what is right? Would you not allow even this freedom of thought? Why are there not nine commandments, two, or fifty-seven? It is silly to think there is a limited number of moral rules. Again, I urge you to always make up your own mind. There is absolutely no need to write down a moral code. You have this nifty little thing called a brain that is always at the ready for any query. In every situation that calls for a moral decision, balance all things on the scales of reason and make your decision. It’s a silly idea that you would need to contemplate a writing and see what rules apply in this precise case.

Alright, let’s sum this all up. Morality is not absolute, not christians’, nor atheists’. It is a matter for you to consider every single time it passes you on your way. Remember, morality is part of philosophy, wherein lie no answers, but only a few options and a huge stage for you to play your own act.