The Good Book?

Fundamentalist Christians claim that the bible is the inerrant word of their god, but if this were actually true, then either their god’s secretaries here on Earth did a damn poor job of transcribing his/her/it’s words, or gawd has a weird sense of humour. It’s relatively easy for anyone with a critical eye to spot the many contradictions, historical impossibilities and outright lies, not to mention all the cruelty and intolerance, which are the opposite of what a loving god would do or allow. Some of the totally preposterous stories are – the creation of the entire universe in six days some 6,000 years ago; Noah and the flood; (don’t get me started on all the absurdities in that story), the exile in Egypt and subsequent wanderings of a couple of million Isrealites in the wilderness (the Sinai) for 40 years, leaving no trace that archaeologists have found. Some others include people living for hundreds of years; the entire human race descending from one original couple who only had two male children, one of whom killed the other; and the virgin birth of a god in human form. And so on.

When you examine the Old Testament, the stories in it are just what you would expect of a tribe of illiterate, superstitous sheepherders who had absolutely no knowledge of the size and complexity of the Earth outside of their very limited personal experiences, let alone the vastness of the universe, and who adopted myths from earlier civilizations into their own tribal history. They exaggerated the importance of their particular group in the history of the Middle East, and of course believed that their god was far superior to all the others.

If an omnipotent, omniscient god had been the author of Genesis, he would not have made such a ridiculously childish attempt to explain creation to his followers. He would have told them something like the following:- ” From nothing I created the universe, containing myriads of brightly shining stars. Circling these stars I placed many balls of rock and dirt called planets. One of these stars I named Sun, and one of its planets I named Earth, which I caused to rotate, resulting in day and night. On Earth I placed plants, followed by small animals, which after many ages became the various creatures that exist today. And finally, I caused man to come into being, that he may worship me .”

Since it’s obvious that gawd had no hand in writing the bible, then we have to ask how the authors of the first four books of the New Testament could know the exact words and actions of Jesus and his disciples, when these events happened several decades before anyone wrote about them. All these wonderful stories about Jesus must be more legend than truth. These tales, and accompanying dialog, are wishful thinking on the part of the authors.

We also know that several hundred years later, a group of leaders of the early Christian church arbitrarily decided which of the hundreds of writings about Jesus, what he was supposed to have said and done, should be included in the bible. It appears to me that this book is almost entirely a cobbled-together fabrication, containing very few, if any, truths.

Christians believe that their bible is the source of moral law, and that following the teachings of this book will keep one free from sin. Oh yeah? This “Good Book” sanctions slavery, treats women as property, advocates the stoning of adulterers, the killing of disobedient children, and obviously approves of genocide, as Gawd assists his favourites, the Israelites, in the massacre of tribes occupying their ‘promised land’. Today, all of these activities would be considered crimes.

The ‘Good Book’? Hah! The ‘Good for nothing book’!