Oh My God...Christians! Part 3 - Hypocrites!

Apologies to the two people who are actually reading this – I've been a little preoccupied with other matters (housing, work, exams, recordings family shit, etc.) and haven't had time to give this the attention that it needed and deserved. The other thing is, a lot of the information I was looking for for this was very difficult to find, or completely unavailable to me, so there are a few gaps here and there where I didn't have enough evidence to back something I was planing on writing about. Boo Hoo – let's move on.

The outrageous hypocrisy of Christians has been pretty well documented throughout the ages. Even Gandhi noted how “unlike Christ” the Christians were. Through many years of speaking to people about this, I've found that hypocrisy tends to be most Atheist/Agnostic people's first complaint about the religion and let's face it, no-one likes being preached to by people who they consider no better than themselves. I've also heard from a few of the god fearing folk that many of the Christians I would consider to be Hypocrites, Megalomaniacs and just plain full of Shit, they would not consider any more Christian than I. Granted, these are the same people that will try to tell you that Christianity is not a religion, but I do still hear their point. The Problem is, when everyone says they speak for the same god, and have completely different messages, who do you believe? On one hand, we have a whole stack of people saying god is forgiving and kind, and wants us to help each other, regardless of circumstance. The others, are those who believe that God makes no mistakes, only people do. Despite the fact I think most of the later group are uneducated assholes, I tend to sympathise with them a little more than the former. The thing is, at least there is a sort of logic to their interpretation of the bible. God said homosexuality is an abomination, so let's hunt down the fags. God said he would punish those who did wrong in his eyes, so the recent streak of Natural disasters in the Pacific is his way of punishing us for our sins. Reverend Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church have been in the news again lately for shooting their mouths off about exactly that. He describes Australia's bushfires as a punishment for our being a “Fag infested land of Sinners”. I know a lot of Christians who condemn this guy, but the thing is, his argument has total biblical validity. God says kill the homosexuals, so Phelps hunts them down. Being that he can't kill them without being locked up, he just does his best to make their life very uncomfortable. As far as the natural disasters go, In the bible god Rained fire and Brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah for being lands full of sinners, why is it unusual that he would do the same here? This is a big country, and I'm pretty sure there are more sinners here than there were people in those cities. The Tsunamis in Japan? Drowning seems to be one of god's favourite punishments for sin and disobedience – a few choice examples being the Egyptian army in pursuit of Moses and the slaves he freed, and the drowning of the entire fucking population of Earth, bar Noah and family. Earthquakes? In the Bible, god used Earthquakes to herald important events, such as the coming of Jesus, or an impending mass social Change. Perhaps the recent earthquakes are a sign that more shit is going to hit the fan soon? Phelps may be batshit crazy, but I'll be damned if he isn't consistent.

The Other group, put a lot more attention into passages like “judge not lest ye be judged” and “do unto others as you'd have them do unto you”. In this country at least, there are far more who follow this sort of toned down Christianity, using such passages to justify their choice to be peaceful. These are the sort of people you see putting their religious energies more into things like the great commission, and writing songs about how forgiving and perfect god is. We've all met, and dealt with scores of these ones in our life, so let's not linger on this too long. I said a moment ago that I felt more sympathy for the group of violent nut jobs than these guys. Let me clarify this a little. I think that people see this kind of toned down Christianity as an easier path to spirituality. There is less ritual, fewer rules, and it's by far the most socially acceptable sort of spirituality in the western world. In fact, they don't really do anything particularly different from an ordinary Atheist or Agnostic, apart from show up to church once a week, and tell people like me why we're going to hell. All in all, this part of the Christianity is the pop music of religion. Accessible, easy to get into, and nothing you have to strain yourself trying to understand.
The problem is that, though both groups of people represent completely opposing theological ideals (action versus non-action) both of them have biblical justification for their ideals. A recent Conversation with a friend revealed that he thought Phelp's attitude to Christians was wrong, because Jesus Teaches his followers to “Turn the Other Cheek”. And yet, Jesus is very same man who said he was not here to abolish the old laws, but to fulfil it (a sentence I believe is a mistranslation, because “law”, being a noun, has no business being fulfilled). There are various other passages in the new Testament reaffirming the validity of the old testament laws (including one in which Jesus criticises the Jews for not killing their disobedient children in accordance with the Old Testament). This brings me to one of the causes of Christian hypocrisy, and inconsistency; They're trying to align themselves with god.

In the last article I wrote, I discussed a few of the ridiculous inconsistencies in the personality of god. One day he's telling us to smite virtually every living thing on earth, the next he's telling us to be meek and forgiving. What are we supposed to make of that?

It Occurs to me that many Christians have not really read the bible properly - Studies have show the majority of churchgoing Christians still pick up their bible less than once a week, so that would certainly account for a large number of Christians, as well as supporting the argument that many churchgoers are not “real”Christians. However, of those who do read the bible, who can honestly say that they have tried to follow it to the letter?

One of the things I've always found very interesting about Christians is that no matter what they do, they maintain their moral high ground, because everything, in some way or another is condoned or condemned by the bible. For example, In Matthew 7:1-2 god condemns those who Judge others (Judge not less ye be Judged) Whereas in Corinthians 6:2-3, it is said the lord's people will Judge the world. What the fuck? You can't judge and not judge things simultaneously! In the book of Matthew, marriage is condoned as an institution, then, but a few books later It is condemned in Corinthians (yet again). In many of the earlier books of the bible, god is fire totin', drowning and smiting, whist simultaneously telling “His people” to preach what a peaceful and loving god he is, and to love each other likewise, then getting frustrated when they all steal, kill and rape (incidentally, all of these are also biblically condoned and condemned). To me, this comes off as a lot like a parent telling their child to be careful with their toys whilst throwing their plushies into a woodchipper. It seems to me that even if god is real, he's a freaking terrible influence on us. Just as in parenting and teaching, in order to get any result out of his “students” (us) god should have made some attempt to be consistent in speech and action, rather than making life difficult, the fucking off.

In fact, If we look at God's commandments and the so called “seven deadly sins”(contained in Galatians 5:19-21 with a bunch of other sins) we can see that he's broken almost all of his own rules:

• Murder/Wrath – well documented, so I won't bother
• Lust/Adultery – personally I think impregnating another man's wife qualifies far more than some of the more modest forms of “adultery” recognised by some churches.
• Pride/Arrogance/Jealousy – god gloats at every turn about how powerful he is, and how much better he is than the people he supposedly created. Interestingly, despite the common belief In Christianity that there is one god, Yahweh himself acknowledges the existence of other Deities (various passages for this in Genesis, Leviticus, Revelations and Exodus) , but proclaims before them all. Even going as far as to kill people for worshipping other deities, Proclaiming himself a “jealous and angry god” (a passage you rarely hear quoted in discussions with Christians). In fact, If you look at the original ten commandments, the first four fucking commandments are all just about people catering to god's enormous ego!
• Sadness/Low Self Esteem: - Aside from the fact I think it's really fucked that being sad is a sin, god has been there too – proclaiming himself “Dissatisfied” and “mournful” on a number of occasions – the Death of Jesus, the Exile of Adam and Eve, the Flooding of the Earth etc.

the point is that God himself isn't so perfect. He preaches lofty ideals that he as a superhuman deity can't practice, then changes the rules to accommodate for his own inability to be a good role model. So why are Yahweh's actions so human? The answer is one of the many errors in editing found in the bible (seriously, you'd think such a high profile book would be more thoroughly proofread and fact checked). Genesis 1:27(27!) -”So god created man in his own image...”

WRONG!!! It should read

“So Man created God in his image...”

now doesn't the Bible make hell of a lot more sense?

God's bipolar, the spelling errors the “imperfection” in people and all things on earth. The inconsistencies in the teachings of god and his prophets. If it's all the product of men, then it stands to reason that it's not going to be perfect. If it's the product of a meticulous, loving deity, then we're left with a steaming pile of paradoxical nonsense that cause people to act with the irrationality borne of blindly following a philosophical doctrine that can be described as inconsistent and absurd at best. For that matter, regardless of who it's written by it's led Christians in the same direction because of their faith that it is a book worthy of intensive study, and blind faith.

The problem is, all biblical study can possibly lead these poor Christians to is more confusion. The more inconsistencies they find, the more unsure of right and wrong they become. The more uncertain of their own actions they become. Worst of all, they cease living their lives to their true potential, choosing to do things for god, rather than themselves. I'm fairly sure we all have a friend of two who is immensely talented in some area or another, but squanders time procrastinating over how they can best serve god instead of how they can best serve themselves, or best serve the world. Unfortunately, being that the road to doing this is so paved with biblical contradiction that most end up just doing nothing in the hope that at least they won't do something wrong!
There's another, far more direct kind of Christian Hypocrisy of course. The kind we talk about far more – Selective morality. There are Christians who don't try to biblically justify their actions. People who think they are exempt from the rules of the rest of their religion. Interestingly, It is most often those who preach the hardest and talk the loudest who we find doing this. Divorce, for instance, is considered by the bible the worst kind of adultery, yet we have over a 50% divorce rate in Christian couples. Public Prayer is also Condemned by Jesus himself (“and when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly, I say to you they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret...” - Matthew 6:5-6 RSV). Does this passage possibly suggest that Praying in Church, is a violation of the will of Jesus? Another interesting one is the banning of chanting, or repetitions. Having been in a church but a few weeks ago for a wedding, I realised that all they do is repeat, or agree with other peoples speeches. There is no need for thought, or even any energy to go into being part of a congregation. All you need to be a Christian is the ability to agree. As an aside, the rhythmic chanting is insanely fucking hypnotic. It's not a huge shock they manage to brainwash so many people to the point the are happy to sit and say “Amen” at the right moments.

There are of course dozens of others, some of which I've already mentioned. Here's a few more commonly ignored biblical teachings though.

• Christians cannot oppose Evil - that is for god only.
• Christians can't call any man father – also for god only
• Preparation for anything show lack of faith in god, who has already decided the outcome.
• Tattoos and other bodily markings are forbidden
• a raped virgin must marry her rapist
• All men must give a tithe to the church
• Christian women are supposed to dress modestly.
• Christian men cannot have long hair, or rounded beards.
  

I'd like to close this blog by giving you a little run down on how to pull a Christian up on their own Hypocrisy. I've had this conversation so many times, and it always goes virtually the same way (at least when you're speaking to a Christian who has made some effort to learn about their own religion)– try it the next time you speak to a Christian, It's kind of fun.

When a conversation with a Christian takes a turn to morality, you will inevitably hear them preaching one verse while ignoring another (most likely an old testament verse). Call them up on it. The conversation should play out something like this:

Christian: That's part of the old Testament/Law/Covenant. We don't follow that any more.

You: Aren't the Ten Commandments part of the old Law?

Christian: Well... yes, but Jesus cited them, so they remain valid laws.

You: Actually, Jesus Cited Half of them. Besides, Jesus also condones the keeping, and beating of slaves. Do you think that's valid too?

Christian: Well, I'll have to look that up (If they start to say something else, just interrupt)

You: besides, In Mathew 5:18-19, Jesus says it is easier for all heaven and earth to pass than for one tittle of the law to fail. John 3:4 says that a sin is a transgression of the law, ergo, every time you eat pork, every time you fuck your girlfriend, every time you whisper, for fuck sake... you. Are. Sinning. You sin almost every minute of every day, so get off your high horse.

Christian: unlike you though, my sins will be absolved, because I put my life in the hands of god and Jesus

You: ah yes, god breaks about fifty of his own rules by impregnating another man's wife so that he can torture and kill the offspring, who is all somehow himself. Does that really sound like the kind of god you want to give your life too? Why don't you try Baal, or Ra? At least they didn't have such ridiculously high moral standards.

Christian: maybe because they aren't real? Don't even....

You: That's your opinion. Some day, your god is going to seem equally ridiculous to people. Besides, how do you know they don't exist? Yahweh himself says that there are other gods out there.

Christian: Yahweh?

You: How about we revisit this conversation when you actually understand your own religion, and have some idea of what you're talking about?

Christian: What?! You...

You: have fun playing “count the sins”. Bye-bye now.

Really, though, have fun with this.

Daniel

Oh My God...Christians! Part 2 - God the Sadist

God is a sadist, egotist, and possibly bipolar or schizophrenic 

I'm going to embark on a bit of a hypothetical side trip now, to prove a point that doesn't really need to be proven. Most because I'm a prick, and love shooting figurative corpses. So let's assume for a while that, against all logic, I believe in the Christian god, and believe that the bible is his word, to the letter. ok....getting into mindset....god is good, god is good..god know everything that ever is, was or shall be....alpha, omega, Great I AM....god created heavens and earth....so far so good.... god made paradise on earth....even better....god...created man, then punished him for original sin....Goo...wait a second....

God created man, knowing full well that he was going to sin, then punished him for it... that's interesting... there are a few different conclusions we can draw from this:

• God has no foresight, and was therefore unaware that original sin was going to occur. This is a definite possibility and has further implications than just his lack of foresight. Without foresight, god is capable of fault, because he could not be aware of the consequences of his actions in advance. Gen 6:6 - “And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart”
  Hmm... regret... this doesn't sound to me like the emotions of someone who is all knowing...
• God is not his own master. This one has actually been suggested to me by Christians as well, and is supported by the above verse. He created man, knowing that the shit was going to hit the fan not because he wanted to, but because he was Compelled to do so.
• God is Prick. This one is pretty self explanatory. God created man of his own free will, knowing that he was going to sin. The big question here is what kind of reasonable being would do something like that? The only answer I can come up with is that God thinks of people as unimportant playthings, and has one fucking sick sense of humor.

It's been well documented the punishment for sin is death (Rom 6:23 - "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.") and yet in his “Grace” god decided to give Adam and Eve a second chance at life – this time on their own. Adam and Eve had two children, who each took a wife for themselves...wait what the fuck? The bible is about as comprehensive as books come, and yet I don't remember reading anything at any point in the Torah about there being people in the world other than Adam and Eve at this point in time... oh well, I'll just shrug that one off. Maybe it's a typo, or a mistranslation. Then, When Cain Kills Abel, God allows him to live...wow what a wonderful, and graceful guy. I think. He could just as easily be just be a liar (he either never intended to go through with it, or didn't have the power to do so), a pussy (Like a bad parent, he just couldn't make the punishment he promised stick), or non-fucking-existent. The bible is full of stories like these ones about God's grace, and forgiveness. This proves once and for all that god loves each and every one of us.

The End.

Wait, aren't we forgetting something though? What about the people god did punish? For someone so compassionate, he's got a hell of a lot (no pun intended) of blood on his hands. In Genesis alone, god manages to:

• advocate Ritual animal, and human sacrifice, which is just plain fucked up.
• Drown the entire population of Earth, animals included with the exception of Noah, his family, and “two of every sort of animal”. Two. of EVERY sort. A conservative estimate would have the number of Species on earth at between one and two million, though most estimates are more vague and suggest between three, and thirty million species. This means that in addition to his family, Noah would have had well over two million animals on board his ship. The accepted size of the “Ark” is 300 cubits long, and 50 cubits wide (or in metric 137m x 23m). Granted that is one fucking big wooden ship, but there's not a chance that it was capable of holding more than two million animals, as well as their respective fodder for seven days. Then when they got off, the ark, where were they supposed to get their food from? Everything had been washed out. This is without even going into the improbability that Noah actually had even one of every species available to him. But that's enough about the Implausibility of the bible – that was the last article. My real point here is that although drowning the earth was supposedly a punishment to mankind for being evil are we meant to believe that every last person was so hopeless and horrible that they deserved to die? What about the animals? Imagine you're a bear or something, frolicking around in the woods – a happy brown bear. Eating berries and shit. Suddenly, you're under a few thousand feet of water because some asshole in Babylon doesn't know that no means no. hardly seems “just” that animals should suffer for mankind's sin, does it?
• Blow up Sodom and Gomorrah. God rained fire brimstone on two whole cities for being “evil”. Seriously, are we supposed to believe that every last one of them was evil? On the same day, Job's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, which considering the reputation of Sodom and Gomorrah, has very interesting implications....
• kill two of Judah's Children – one for either masturbating, or refusing to impregnate his brother's wife. The other, who is hilariously named “Er” (I Swear I'm not making this up – I had to read this passage four or five times before I realised that it was supposed to be a person's name and not just the writer hesitating) was killed for, you guessed it, being evil. Interesting that a book that uses the word “Evil” as an excuse for killing people so much doesn't actually define the word evil. Doesn't that really just give god free reign to kill whoever he wants?

That is just the first book. The first of sixty six. Shit. Things get even more crazy in Exodus, but don't take my word for it – read it yourself. I assure you it's more violent, and fucked up than every action and horror movie you've ever seen put together. God has also been quoted to say that people should “be Fruitful and Multiply” in Genesis. It seems to me like he just wanted more people around to kill. Or perhaps he was thinking ahead, and decided a few thousand years in advance that he wanted to fuck people up with overpopulation.

Another small piece of madness that people often seem to pass over in the bible is how insanely jealous and egotistical god seems. Of the original ten commandments, Four of them are essentially God trying to affirm that there is only one god to believe in, and that he'll smite you for worshiping anything else (though this is condensed to just two in More contemporary interpretations). There's also numerous passages where he illustrates in great depth how powerful and eternal he is (Most notably Revelation 1:8). There is in fact a likely historical reason for this. The Christian God, Originally called Yahweh, started out as a part of the same pantheon as Ba'al and El (Known as the Levantine, or Canaanite Pantheon). About Two and a half thousand years ago, a small group of Canaanites decided that their patron god, Yahweh, should be Exalted and revered above all other gods as the creator. A similar thing happened years Earlier in both the Norse and the Egyptian religion with Ra and Odin Respectively. Because Monotheism is far simpler than polytheism, People seem to take to it fairly quickly. After that it was just a matter of writing it down for all to see that Yahweh was the only god you were allowed to worship anymore, and If you worshiped Ba'al as well, he was going to smite the shit out of you.

“But Daniel” you're probably thinking right now “most Christians don't study the old testament – not seriously at least.” The bible is either god's word or it isn't. If you don't like the old testament, take it out of the bible, or stop calling the bible “the word of god”. Then you won't have to deal with assholes like me telling you that god is history's greatest serial killer. I've researched this thoroughly enough to understand the reason generally given for not studying the old testament, but in reality, there are more reasons for a Christian to study it than not. In Jesus most famous sermon (Matthew 5) he says “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”

Jesus to obey the old laws and prophets, not “Ignore the old testament because it's fanatical garbage”. I could

Some of the things that God considers “sinful” make perfect sense when put in their original context. Not “committing adultery” in an age where syphilis is rife sounds like a pretty sensible move to me (though thanks to the good ol' condom, that one's obsolete now). Some of them however, seem to be more of an attempt at trying to separate people from animals as much as possible, and make us miserable in the process by making out lives as unnatural, and therefore uncomfortable as possible. Here are some examples of normal, animalistic/human things which are considered sinful, and therefore punishable by death. Some of which, we don't even have control over. You may also be interested to know that these are all from the new testament.

• Fornication
• Evil, or “unrighteousness” - although the bible tells us that we can never be truly righteous in the eyes of god
• Envy
• Murder – Yes, I do believe that it's fairly normal for animals to kill each other. Watch the discover channel for fifteen minutes, and you'll agree. It's more the way people kill each other I personally object to.
• Greed
• Whispering – I swear I'm not making this shit up, It's in there.
• Being Homosexual
• Having malicious, sexual, or otherwise “evil” thoughts
• Boasting
• Disobeying your parents
• Being uneducated
• Being educated
• being deceitful
• killing anything
• Curiosity
• Blasphemy
• A slave attempting escape, refusing it's master, or not taking a beating in good grace.
• refusal of a raped woman to marry the man who has raped her

Is there person, or even animal that has lived since the beginning of time that could live up to that standard of morality? Highly unlikely by my reckoning. In fact, I'm fairly sure that everyone I've ever met in my life Should be dead in the eyes of god. Thankfully though, god did something to save all of us. Something that would very conveniently account for his lack of interaction with the physical world since the beginning of recorded history – The redemption.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” - we've all heard it hundreds of times. The entire religion is based on it. Jesus was crucified, and died for our sins so that we didn't have too. Wait, his only son? I though we were all God's Children... this is really getting confusing...Probably another typo. So let me get this straight. God creates man – a creature that is designed to be free to do and think as we please like everything else on earth. He then imposes rules on man, rules so tough that no one can possibly obey them. Next he makes the punishment for those rules death, so that he has free reign to kill anyone that he wants. God is perhaps worshiped out of fear. Those who are not dead thank god for forgiving them, though they perpetually sin. God feels at some point like he's murdered enough for a while, and decides that it's time to change the dynamic of his relationship with mankind. Then, rather than just saying “OK, I see that you guys aren't going to change, my bad. I'm going to ease up on the killing now, and just let you live your lives the way you want to”, he impregnates another man's wife, then kills the child as some form of sadistic symbolism so that he can forgive us for our sins.

Seriously, if that isn't the most ridiculously messed up thing I've ever heard.... God had a son, so that he could kill him for dramatic effect. Now personally, I think that's a lot worse than the abortions that Christians are all up in arms about. The entire premise of Christianity is so obviously flawed, that even a child should be able to see it. Just to really drive the point home, let's try applying the same narrative to a human situation.

Dave is mechanic. A good Mechanic. The Best there is. He is also a man of strong Ideals – he's clean, punctual, only drinks on Friday and Saturday nights, Loves AC/DC, Pigging and high powered cars. he strongly believes that women are essentially around to make men's lives easier. One day, Dave get's married and has a Daughter. When she is very young, Dave dotes on her, and showers her with gifts, but as she grows older, she changes. At a young age, she shows a lot of curiosity, and is very intelligent, always trying to solve problems. In her teens, she becomes an Avid feminist, starts experimenting with drugs, attends animals rights protests, joins an experimental jazz group, and refuses to drive because it's bad for the environment. Her and her father argue consistently, and had even come to blows a few times. Dave is depressed, knowing that he had made a mistake in conceiving his daughter, but he has a solution to the problem of their estrangement. He sleeps with his best friend's wife. She quickly falls pregnant with a son. He is born, and raised with surprisingly little complication By The mother, and her husband, both of them knowing openly who the father is, but not telling the child. He is the perfect son that Dave had always wanted. Basically, a mirror to Dave himself, though perhaps a little better at dealing with people When his son is old enough to have fully formed ideology, he brings his two children together, and explains they they are all family, and that though his daughter had been a consistent disappointment to him, he still loved her, and was going to prove it. And he does – he nails his son to the wall in front of his daughter, and says “see how much I love you? This Is why I Fucked Bob's wife all those years ago! So I didn't have to nail you to the fucking wall!"

If you can't see how messed up that is, then there's really no hope for you. Creating something/someone does not give you the right to have control of every facet of it's life for the rest of time. Particularly when you create something with the intelligence to chose it's own path. Face it, God treats us worse than we treat animals. Just to make things a little more insane, Christians also believe that God and Jesus are, in some sense of the word, the same. Does this mean that God Committed Suicide?

Let me lead us all in a new prayer.

Dear God,

I'm sorry that we've all been such a disappointment to you all these years, and that we could not be the perfect children you wanted. Granted you haven't been the best role model, with the killing and all, but we do appreciate everything you've done for us, despite your occasional spat of madness or violence. What we would really appreciate now, is for you to understand that we are all old and wise enough now (and have been for the most part for several thousand years) that we can make our own decisions. We can use our own internal sensibilities to know right from wrong, and if we make a mistake, we'll learn from it. We're to old for your rules, and quite frankly, your idea of right and wrong needs some serious updating anyway. We do wish that you;d pay a visit every now and then though, we haven't seen you in quite a while, and it might be nice to catch up.

A-Fucking-Men.

In the Third, and (most likely) final installment, I will be talking the bizarre dichotomy that appears in the bible, and the warped way that people are reacting to biblical teachings. Tell your friends.

Daniel.

Oh My God...Christians! Part 1 - The leap of Faith

A Few Little Things About Christianity...

I originally was going to throw all of my points into one post, but I decided to break it up a little, both for myself, and the reader.

Why am I writing this?

In short, to share a few of the Ideas I've had of late concerning Christianity and Christians, and to provide some rebuttal for the various arguments for Christianity, and the phenomenal amount of Christian Propaganda in circulation. For those Of Christian Faith, you may find some of the below blashphemous, and you will almost certainly find a lot of it offensive, so take this as your first and final warning – If you are a Christian, you are likely to be offended, so stop reading now.

...Wait, let me offend you just a little before I start. I would just like to point out, that contrary to the way many Christians seem to act about their faith, their religion is not considered by society a fringe cult of loonies, in fact, Christianity accounts for well over half the population of This country, and is still by far the largest religion in the world. Also, despite the “official” claims that we are a secular nation, historically speaking, almost all of our leaders have been of Christian faith, and more than half of them have elected to swear in as PM on a bible (thankfully this excludes our current PM). We are a country that has been run, since it's founding on Christian values, by Christian leaders.

In any case, moving right along...

The Leap of Faith

People have been saying to me for years that they feel that “they know there must be something out there” or that they “can't accept that there isn't more to life than what we see”. As far as this matter is concerned, I can strongly sympathise. Humanity has a long history of proclaiming itself loudly, and people (particularly scholastic people) have a tenancy to think they know everything, and yet time makes fools out of all of them. A case example of this is the fact that you only have to go back five hundred or so years, and the science of Alchemy was seen as, not only valid, but of the utmost importance. Only a few hundred years before that, Physics was seen as a Ludicrous, and blasphemous area of study. in another few hundred years, who knows? Maybe we'll see organ transplants as barbaric, and people will be focusing their attentions on a new area of study – something that we can't ever perceive now, that will seem so obvious to the people of the future that they will scorn the people of the past for not understanding it.

Another thought I've had to back up this idea is based on sense. The only means of perception people are our senses – Sight, Sound, Smell, Taste and Touch. There are many things that can only be detected by one of the five (e.g light can only be seen, air can only be smelled). There are animals who possess senses to perceive outside of what we can, For instance, some fish and sharks possess a sense known as “electroperception” which allows them to detect other animals electric field. many species of migratory animal have a sense known as “Magnetoception” which allows them to orient themselves based on the earth's magnetic fields. It seems quite possible to me, that like other senses there are thing that can be detected by these non- human senses – things we couldn't even begin to understand because we haven't the senses to perceive them with.

So, as far as their being more out there that people can understand, I'm completely with you.

The problem I'm having is understanding how you move from “there must be something” to “there's an intelligent, eternal god who created the world and man in six days, nothing came before him, he is the origin of everything, and is present with everyone every moment of their lives, and this book I have here chronicles his doings since the beginning of time if you'd like to read it?”

We all take small leaps of faith every day – crossing the road with faith you won't be hit by a car, going to sleep with faith that you'll wake up, but you're asking me, without basis, to take a very large leap of faith. A very, VERY large leap of faith, based on what a very old book has to say on the subject of philosophy. Interestingly, the age of the bible seems to validate it's authenticity in the minds of many modern day Christians. In other field, taking the advice of a book over two thousand years old would be laughable – Imagine if doctors were still using two thousand year old medical techniques – you'd probably be dead before your tenth birthday! In addition to this, If we do take age to be a mark of authenticity, then It's worth mentioning that there are numerous philosophical texts which predate the Bible by thousands of years (e.g. The Tibetan book of the dead, the Indian Veedas).

I really think that it's absolutely amazing that, considering we are taught (in the first world at least) the value of cynicism and critical thinking from a very young age, that people are still willing to follow the teachings of any book so blindly – let alone one with as little credibility as the bible

I am aware that archaeologists have found some of the bible is truth, but I'd like to point out that some of Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy is true as well. England is Definitely a place on Earth, and Quite likely there is a man named Arthur Dent, not to mention houses, pubs, Bulldozers, towels and the like. I don't think you'd find many people who would dispute this. However, that does not mean that the whole book is an historical recount - I'm quite sure (unless I was gone for a while) that the earth was not destroyed by Vogons, and Arthur Dent didn't go on a great journey through time and space to recover the earth, discovering in the process that the earth was an experiment designed my mice, who are in fact the most intelligent creatures in the universe. It is, and has been commonplace for literature to have a real-world base since long before the bible was written, dating back to the very first great literary work, The Epic of Gilgamesh - As an interesting aside, this pre-dates the Old Testament by around 2250 years, which is almost exactly the same amount as the old testament Pre-dates the works of Douglas Adams.

While We're on the subject of the epic if Gilgamesh....

Like I said, It was Written more than 2300 years before then bible, and is said by almost all historians to be the beginnings of written narrative. Despite this, there are some interesting comparisons that can be made between this, and the bible; Both speak of a great flood which wiped out most of humanity (which, again, Is common to a lot of religious texts). Both Stories contain a martyr who is half god, half man and looks out for people, both stories have the relationship between man and god as a core theme, both explore man's Hubris.... the list goes on and on – I could easily use up several pages just listing the similarities between the two stories. My point is that the ideas that are presented in the bible are at least as old as writing itself, probably older. Both the core Ideals and the narrative are recycled from a much older source. There were also several other recreations of this story in Mesopotamia, India and the far east in the period between Gilgamesh and the Bible which apparently resemble the new testament Quite closely, but I can't really comment on them because I haven't read any of them. There Is also historical evidence (census and economic records) to show that Gilgamesh was a real person, and in fact the king of Uruk. Similarly There is Historical evidence to show that Jesus was a real person, and Heir to throne of Israel. However, there is NOT historical evidence to support that either of them were capable of superhuman feats, or even that they were decent people, not to mention of course, claims of divinity. Again this is something that people have been doing for the length of recorded history as a political ploy, right up to the present day (George Bush being a prime example of this). What I'm getting at, is that it's quite a bit more likely that the bible (the new testament at least) was written as a piece of political propaganda that has been taken way out of context. Having spoken to a scholar of ancient languages about this, one who has in fact had the pleasure of personally reading over a few of the original biblical manuscripts, and the dead sea scrolls, I found that there is quite a big difference between the version of the bible that we read and the bible that was passed between the gnostic schools in the few hundred years after the death of Jesus. The latter of the two apparently tells not only of the "miracles" that Jesus performed, but how he performed them with the help of his followers. Evidently, Jesus' miracles were illusions; he was no more magical than Chris Angel. Certainly the difference between the modern day translation and the original text coupled with the obvious plagiarism of the new testament are enough to shatter the bible's credibility?

It's also noteworthy that, due to god's noticeable absence since the beginning of recorded history the bible was written by men, not God. This is important for a couple of reasons – firstly because it means that the author/s of the bible are human, and subject to the same flaws as you and I. By and large this seems to be overlooked, and when it is mentioned in relation to the new testament, the fact that the twelve witnesses of Jesus' Divinity are his disciples seems to be treated as if it meant they could tell no lies. Let's say, hypothetically, I was to sit down with twelve of my best friends and write a story about myself which included isolated accounts of miracles I performed, and a brazen claim that I was the son of god. Throughout this story, I've also pushed my own lofty socio-political ideals on the reader, and told them quite brazenly that if they do not believe my teachings, then they will be unhappy in this life, and will be sent to hell in the next, whilst my followers will come with me to paradise. Whether I genuinely believed it or not, if I started preaching this to people, I'd be locked up as either a nutcase, or a public menace. However, this seems to more or less be the case with the bible. A few of Jesus' buddies wrote a fantastical account of his life, a few people added to the narrative after his death and we have the new testament. I think this is probably why not a lot of attention was paid to Christianity in its first few hundred years – the story was too recent to be feasible to most sane people. Laugh at Scientologists all you want Christians, but you've been doing the same thing as them for a hell of a lot longer.

Add all of this stuff together, and essentially what you have a being that you cannot prove the existence of, and a text which is neither old nor young, poorly translated, Plagiarized, likely subject to strong social Bias, and could have been written by anyone. That is what Christians base their lives on. Without even going in to the specifics of the gospels or the meaning behind them, the entire basis for the religion is ludicrous. Sorry, guys, but that's one leap of faith I will not be taking with you.

Next time, I'm going to be writing about why I think that, if we take the bible to be truth, God is sadist.

Daniel

Ho Hum. Another fucking blog...

That's Right - I'm writing a blog. granted it's not going to be your typical "Facebook but with more painstaking detail blog" but a blog nonetheless. I plan on packing this space with my musings about the various things that arouse my interest - Life, Death, Music, Politics, literature and so on.

that's right, I found a way to make blogger even more boring.

also, if you're easily offended, it's probably best you stop right here, because I will inevitably offend you, and I don't want time wasting arguments about the moral implications of the word "fuck", or whether I spent too much time talking about the size of Ron Jeremy Dick, or what right I have to write what I'm writing. I've recently made the discovery that I'm completely amoral, so you're just wasting your time.

Know that though a lot of what I write is researched, and thought out, plenty of it is opinion or speculation as well. I've tried to make it obvious enough where the facts end and my ideas begin, but if you're unsure, feel free to ask. I also don't mind sharing my sources of information with anyone who is interested enough to ask.

Enjoy,

Daniel