I have begun that most dangerous of treks, namely that of a trip through the Old and New Testament. Now for those of you who aren't well read biblically, or moreover for those of you who think you are, I would like to state a few things here and now so that later there may be no mistake about my words, sources of data, or intent. I have in my possession five (5) versions of The Holy Bible. They are: Jewish New Testament, King James, Revised Standard, Phillips Modern English and New English Bible as well as Webster's New World Dictionary and a copy of Sam Harris' book "The End of Faith. Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason." Following quotations come from those sources except when otherwise noted.
If I am going to deconstruct this dangerous mythology, and I am, we must begin with the premise that Judeo/Christian (as well as Muslim) belief is based on the doctrines, the literal accuracy and historicity of The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and that it is the inerrant word of God.
Understand that when I write of Jews, I am not talking about a race of people but a religion. I have a Jewish friend who tries to tell me that "Jews are the only race of people that are also a religion." Of course sometimes she's a Jew, sometimes a Christian and just to cover all bases, now she's a Messianic Jew, kind of a cross (no pun intended) between both Christian and Jew. What she doesn't understand is that the Jews were not really considered a race until a Vatican approved paper was released in 1880 stating, "Oh how wrong and deluded are those who think Judaism is just a religion, like Catholicism, Paganism, Protestantism, and not a race, a people and a nation! For the Jews are not only Jews because of their religion, they are Jews also and especially because of their race!" The Nazis furthered this belief in 1935, because they knew that their own people would have a problem killing Jews that had converted to Christianity. However, as a "race of inferior beings" they could not become something that they were not. They could not stop being Jews any more than Negros could become Aryan. But the fact to this matter is that anyone can become a Jew. Or stop being a Jew. It's a religious choice. What they can not cease to be is Semitic. That is the race and it encompasses what is called the Semito-Hamitic or Afro-Asiatic family of languages, usually divided into eastern (Akkadian), northwestern (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, etc.), and southwestern (Arabic, Ethiopic, etc.) branches. So touting the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of the "Jewish Race" they were able to convince the loyal German nationalists that in order to remain the master race, they had to exterminate the scourge that the Jews and their impure blood lines represented. As long as they lived, there was the threat of mixing the impure Jew blood with that of the pure blooded Aryans. The Aryan supremists also believed that they were not "evolved from monkeys or apes like the other races on this planet", but had in fact come down to Earth from Heaven where they had been preserved in ice from the beginning of time! Ironically, this isn't too distant a philosophy cousin from Mormanism and Scientology.
So let's take a look at some of the things in this "Holy" book, and work on busting the myth. To begin with, many believe that the Bible as well as the Quran is the inerrant and literal word of God. Well, I had some questions about the very beginning, with Genesis and so apparently did the Jews. I say this because the Jews have something called the "Midrash" which are little stories they made up to fill in a few blanks that even they saw as needing to be fixed in the Bible. The first of these (that I caught) was the creation of Man. First the story goes that God created Man and Woman by blowing a divine spark of life into figures made of earth or mud. The story goes on to change and say that God first made Man and then took a rib from the man and from this made Woman. So the Jews, not liking the idea that this holy scripture seemed to be telling two different stories made up their own story to "fill the gap" so to speak. They tell it like this: God made man and woman from the earth, but woman would not be subservient to the man, wanting to be man's equal. So God sent this disobedient woman who's name was Lilith, to the Underworld (Hell) to be a demon. God then set about correcting His original mistake and then created another Woman from Man's rib so as to be a part of Man, but from under the protective arm of Man. To be forever in Man's shadow and in his debt.
The story goes on to tell of a certain tree that God admonishes the couple not to eat from. Unnaturally the story goes on to tell how the Woman is beguiled by a talking serpent into disregarding God's warning of imminent death should she eat the fruit. As it turns out the serpent was telling the truth and God was not, as evidenced by the "fact" that Eve lived to go on and convince Adam to eat the fruit, which he did, also without so much as indigestion.
My first problem with this story is, if the Bible is in fact to be considered the literal word of God, then why aren't we just lumps earth (or dust to be literally correct) animated with that divine spark of life? Why are our bodies such amazing works of intricacy with veins and nerves and on and on? One might answer, "You forget to take into account that the Bible says God made us in His image." Well, that then raises more questions than it answers. I would have to ask, "So you're telling me that God has a physical body? Then Who made that physical body? God made His own physical body? Out of what? Dust? So God is made out of dust? And so on..." Surely if our purpose was just to glorify the name of this terribly insecure and jealous entity, we wouldn't need all this detail. Certainly we wouldn't need our brain, because our "job" isn't to think, but to simply worship, adore and believe in God. We wouldn't need our complex digestive system, in fact we wouldn't need to eat at all. And unless God had planned in advance for the terrible fall we suffered after eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, (and how could He not?) He would not have needed to design us differently in a sexual aspect. Why have reproductive organs if we're not intended to use them? We weren't right? After all, Adam and Eve didn't know that they were naked. This seems like a metaphor for young childhood. Babies up to a certain age don't know there is a difference between the sexes. Eventually someone, usually older, points these differences out and along with that usually comes the teaching of the taboos. "Mustn't look at this, or touch that!" And obviously if we were innocent prior to eating from that tree, God surely couldn't have intended for anything bad to happen to us in His garden paradise, yet, there was that cunning and evil talking serpent placed there by whom? What good and loving father would set his children up to fail, knowing how much was at stake for those children whom he supposedly loved. And let's not bring up the old fail-safe the Christians love to throw around called "Free Will" because it's apparent from the story that free will never entered into the picture. Free Will would have been to let Man and Woman choose to eat from that tree and suffer the consequences knowledge brings rather than the punishment delivered by an emotionally unstable Superman. Free Will would have been to let them continue on to eat from the Tree of Life, and to "become as one of us, living forever." At this point in the story, God begins sounding like someone suffering Multiple Personality Disorder. I know, He could have been talking to His other two thirds of the whole. (We'll cover that mind screw later.) Or to the Angels, whom he created to worship Him, one supposes, actually I'm not sure why something that is all powerful would need "helpers" or lesser beings to worship Him for that matter. I mean how unsatisfying is it to get the praise or worship or even love from someone you can have no respect for because you know them to be inferior? But if you believe this story with all of it's conundrums, it's easy to swallow the rest which becomes even more ludicrous to the critical, thinking mind.
So before you try to tell me why I am sooo missing the mark in this tale, please ask yourself to come up with plausible explanations for the couple of questions I've raised, and don't placate yourself with the age old answer of "Well, God works in ways that are so above our minimal understanding that we just may never know." For once, use your mind and try to rationalize these things and you will realize that without just letting go of reason and rationale you can not. Neither could I.
This brings us to the end of the creation myth, or at least the part of it that needs closer examination if one does indeed consider one's self a rational thinking modern human of the 21st century, and the end of the third chapter of the first book of the Old Testament called Genesis. This terribly important story of our coming into being takes less than the first two pages.
Yes, if you force yourself to think while you're reading this book you will find it quite taxing. I must however for the sake of Humanity try to continue on until we've reached the thrilling conclusion.
We'll resume with page 2, chapter 4. Some highlights: Eve gets pregnant, presumably by Adam but believes it was actually God who put the baby there. After the second time it happens she still hasn't figured it out, but (SPOILER!) if the children are in fact from God, He apparently has bad seed as she gives birth to a MURDERER! We'll see more examples of that "Bad Seed" when we get to the New Testament, but patience. We must take this one step at a time so that this baseless mythology dies the slow agonizing death it deserves.
For now, Respect Always.
XHAUA out
If I am going to deconstruct this dangerous mythology, and I am, we must begin with the premise that Judeo/Christian (as well as Muslim) belief is based on the doctrines, the literal accuracy and historicity of The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, and that it is the inerrant word of God.
Understand that when I write of Jews, I am not talking about a race of people but a religion. I have a Jewish friend who tries to tell me that "Jews are the only race of people that are also a religion." Of course sometimes she's a Jew, sometimes a Christian and just to cover all bases, now she's a Messianic Jew, kind of a cross (no pun intended) between both Christian and Jew. What she doesn't understand is that the Jews were not really considered a race until a Vatican approved paper was released in 1880 stating, "Oh how wrong and deluded are those who think Judaism is just a religion, like Catholicism, Paganism, Protestantism, and not a race, a people and a nation! For the Jews are not only Jews because of their religion, they are Jews also and especially because of their race!" The Nazis furthered this belief in 1935, because they knew that their own people would have a problem killing Jews that had converted to Christianity. However, as a "race of inferior beings" they could not become something that they were not. They could not stop being Jews any more than Negros could become Aryan. But the fact to this matter is that anyone can become a Jew. Or stop being a Jew. It's a religious choice. What they can not cease to be is Semitic. That is the race and it encompasses what is called the Semito-Hamitic or Afro-Asiatic family of languages, usually divided into eastern (Akkadian), northwestern (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, etc.), and southwestern (Arabic, Ethiopic, etc.) branches. So touting the superiority of the Aryan race and the inferiority of the "Jewish Race" they were able to convince the loyal German nationalists that in order to remain the master race, they had to exterminate the scourge that the Jews and their impure blood lines represented. As long as they lived, there was the threat of mixing the impure Jew blood with that of the pure blooded Aryans. The Aryan supremists also believed that they were not "evolved from monkeys or apes like the other races on this planet", but had in fact come down to Earth from Heaven where they had been preserved in ice from the beginning of time! Ironically, this isn't too distant a philosophy cousin from Mormanism and Scientology.
So let's take a look at some of the things in this "Holy" book, and work on busting the myth. To begin with, many believe that the Bible as well as the Quran is the inerrant and literal word of God. Well, I had some questions about the very beginning, with Genesis and so apparently did the Jews. I say this because the Jews have something called the "Midrash" which are little stories they made up to fill in a few blanks that even they saw as needing to be fixed in the Bible. The first of these (that I caught) was the creation of Man. First the story goes that God created Man and Woman by blowing a divine spark of life into figures made of earth or mud. The story goes on to change and say that God first made Man and then took a rib from the man and from this made Woman. So the Jews, not liking the idea that this holy scripture seemed to be telling two different stories made up their own story to "fill the gap" so to speak. They tell it like this: God made man and woman from the earth, but woman would not be subservient to the man, wanting to be man's equal. So God sent this disobedient woman who's name was Lilith, to the Underworld (Hell) to be a demon. God then set about correcting His original mistake and then created another Woman from Man's rib so as to be a part of Man, but from under the protective arm of Man. To be forever in Man's shadow and in his debt.
The story goes on to tell of a certain tree that God admonishes the couple not to eat from. Unnaturally the story goes on to tell how the Woman is beguiled by a talking serpent into disregarding God's warning of imminent death should she eat the fruit. As it turns out the serpent was telling the truth and God was not, as evidenced by the "fact" that Eve lived to go on and convince Adam to eat the fruit, which he did, also without so much as indigestion.
My first problem with this story is, if the Bible is in fact to be considered the literal word of God, then why aren't we just lumps earth (or dust to be literally correct) animated with that divine spark of life? Why are our bodies such amazing works of intricacy with veins and nerves and on and on? One might answer, "You forget to take into account that the Bible says God made us in His image." Well, that then raises more questions than it answers. I would have to ask, "So you're telling me that God has a physical body? Then Who made that physical body? God made His own physical body? Out of what? Dust? So God is made out of dust? And so on..." Surely if our purpose was just to glorify the name of this terribly insecure and jealous entity, we wouldn't need all this detail. Certainly we wouldn't need our brain, because our "job" isn't to think, but to simply worship, adore and believe in God. We wouldn't need our complex digestive system, in fact we wouldn't need to eat at all. And unless God had planned in advance for the terrible fall we suffered after eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, (and how could He not?) He would not have needed to design us differently in a sexual aspect. Why have reproductive organs if we're not intended to use them? We weren't right? After all, Adam and Eve didn't know that they were naked. This seems like a metaphor for young childhood. Babies up to a certain age don't know there is a difference between the sexes. Eventually someone, usually older, points these differences out and along with that usually comes the teaching of the taboos. "Mustn't look at this, or touch that!" And obviously if we were innocent prior to eating from that tree, God surely couldn't have intended for anything bad to happen to us in His garden paradise, yet, there was that cunning and evil talking serpent placed there by whom? What good and loving father would set his children up to fail, knowing how much was at stake for those children whom he supposedly loved. And let's not bring up the old fail-safe the Christians love to throw around called "Free Will" because it's apparent from the story that free will never entered into the picture. Free Will would have been to let Man and Woman choose to eat from that tree and suffer the consequences knowledge brings rather than the punishment delivered by an emotionally unstable Superman. Free Will would have been to let them continue on to eat from the Tree of Life, and to "become as one of us, living forever." At this point in the story, God begins sounding like someone suffering Multiple Personality Disorder. I know, He could have been talking to His other two thirds of the whole. (We'll cover that mind screw later.) Or to the Angels, whom he created to worship Him, one supposes, actually I'm not sure why something that is all powerful would need "helpers" or lesser beings to worship Him for that matter. I mean how unsatisfying is it to get the praise or worship or even love from someone you can have no respect for because you know them to be inferior? But if you believe this story with all of it's conundrums, it's easy to swallow the rest which becomes even more ludicrous to the critical, thinking mind.
So before you try to tell me why I am sooo missing the mark in this tale, please ask yourself to come up with plausible explanations for the couple of questions I've raised, and don't placate yourself with the age old answer of "Well, God works in ways that are so above our minimal understanding that we just may never know." For once, use your mind and try to rationalize these things and you will realize that without just letting go of reason and rationale you can not. Neither could I.
This brings us to the end of the creation myth, or at least the part of it that needs closer examination if one does indeed consider one's self a rational thinking modern human of the 21st century, and the end of the third chapter of the first book of the Old Testament called Genesis. This terribly important story of our coming into being takes less than the first two pages.
Yes, if you force yourself to think while you're reading this book you will find it quite taxing. I must however for the sake of Humanity try to continue on until we've reached the thrilling conclusion.
We'll resume with page 2, chapter 4. Some highlights: Eve gets pregnant, presumably by Adam but believes it was actually God who put the baby there. After the second time it happens she still hasn't figured it out, but (SPOILER!) if the children are in fact from God, He apparently has bad seed as she gives birth to a MURDERER! We'll see more examples of that "Bad Seed" when we get to the New Testament, but patience. We must take this one step at a time so that this baseless mythology dies the slow agonizing death it deserves.
For now, Respect Always.
XHAUA out
