ON THE MEANING OF
LIFE
ESSAY 1 : AN
EXAMINATION OF THE HOUSE OF GOD
At least two-thirds of our miseries spring
from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of
malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of
religious or political ideas. -
Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)
Before embarking on a voyage into these waters I think it is important
to nail one’s colours to the mast. The whiff of Huxley’s “proselytizing zeal”
will always be present and I think it is necessary to let everyone be clear
from the outset where you are coming from.
I had a conventional but low-key Christian upbringing at an Anglican
boys-school. Any orthodox Christian faith remaining from my school days was
demolished at
In summary, my position has become that I am left cold by both theism
and atheism – I find religions’ models for life’s meaning, purpose, and its
perceptions of the Divine primitive – and find atheism’s attempts to explain
all of human behaviour in terms of evolutionary ideology misses entirely an
important part of the human equation – the spiritual. So, what to label my
beliefs? I have a stronger belief in the Divine, special meaning and ultimate
purpose in life than can be adequately described by the word “agnostic”. If a label
must be found to satisfy the pigeon-holers, I like the sound of Christian
pantheist – “Christian” because I believe Jesus brought some crucial Truths to
us (whether he was virgin born etc. or not) and “pantheist” because I believe
everything in this relative universe proceeded from the Absolute – i.e. we, and
everything in the universe(s): animal, vegetable, and mineral – are of the
original energy which converted to matter at the big bang (which original
singularity of energy is what we try to describe when we use the word “God”). However I have an open mind, and like
to think I am searching for the truth – and may change my label for a more
up-to-date one at any time.
I did not start with these beliefs before I began these essays but came
to them as a result. These are essays of the internet, with no intention to set
them in stone by publishing them – they and my beliefs will be constantly
re-written as I discover more in my exploration for the meaning of life.
This particular essay explores the Christian House of God, with which I
am most familiar. But much of what is discussed here is applicable to all
Houses of God – especially those founded on a “B” Book supposedly written by
God. This is specifically an attempt to understand how the Christian House of
God, supposedly founded on the Truths of Jesus (a man who championed ordinary
humanity), has actually failed ordinary humanity to become a refuge for fearful
evangelists and fundamentalists. How it has become an obstacle in humanity’s
path to spiritual evolution rather than an aid, and how the vast majority of the
Western world has been denied the comfort that a belief in a rational special
meaning and ultimate purpose that a credible Divine would allow.
Those are my colours and I nail them to the mast before my voyage. You
are welcome to accompany me and to contribute (through the e-mail link at the
end of the essays).
But before signing on there may be a few questions you might wish to ask
before we leave port:
ISN’T IT PRESUMPTUOUS TO CRITICALLY EXAMINE GOD?
Isn’t it presumptuous to equate God with religion? This essay critically
examines religion, not God, and asks: did God provide the design for the House
of God, and does God dwell within? Many people confuse God and religion, but
religion is in many ways the worst thing that ever happened to God.
WHAT ABOUT JESUS?
I will consider the “T” Truths of Jesus at length in this essay. Suffice
it here to say that it is my intention to examine who really killed Jesus?
WHY EXAMINE THE HOUSE OF GOD IF IT DOES GOOD?
Over the centuries the House of God has offered fellowship to its
members, charity to the needy, hospitals to the sick, aid to poor countries, a
community hub, ceremonies to mark our rites of passage, and a refuge for some in
times of personal crisis in the arms of a protecting father-god. It has also
set standards of moral behaviour valuable to society.
I presume to examine the
House of God because it is failing in the above useful roles. Membership is
crashing – figures from the 2004 National Church Life Survey shows that Roman
Catholics are down 13%; Anglican down 2%; Uniting down 13%; Lutheran down 8%. Importantly,
very few within the percentages identifying themselves as Christian actually
attend church on any significant basis – a study by Monash University,
Australian Catholic University and the Christian Research Association in 2006 found
that just 19% of Generation Y who identify themselves as Christian (48%) were
actively involved in a church, attending services at least once a month (making
a total of 9% of that generation). This has been going on for years and
churches are shutting, being turned into residences and restaurants everywhere
you look. Weddings, births and deaths are increasingly being celebrated in
secular backyard ceremonies. Secular neighbourhood centres, charities and hospitals are taking over former
Church roles.
I also presume to examine
the House of God because it has become meaninglessness’, greatest ally. The
House of God has set up a diminished, “g” god in man’s own image from ancient
tribal imaginings – a fallible god that is, in itself, the strongest argument
for atheism. As education (especially scientific) spread widely through society
from the nineteenth century onwards, more people became aware that the House of
God’s doctrines were incredible. When belief in the religious model for life (a
one-off test of your soul for eternal punishment or reward) was demolished,
then, for most people, belief in any special meaning in life went with it. Thinking
people were driven away in our rational age from the very idea of special
meaning and “T” Truth by the irrational special meaning of life and “t” truths of
the House of God. In this way religion became the handmaiden to meaninglessness
and materialism, leaving us to the charms of post-modernism and its relative
truths and meanings.
This process of religion
serving as meaningless’s chief recruiter is well illustrated by the fact many
of meaninglessness’ most ardent foot soldiers come from religious backgrounds –
Michael
Shermer (atheist, director of the
Skeptics Society, editor of Skeptic
magazine, author of, “Why People Believe Weird Things” and other books) is from
a fundamentalist family; Phillip Adams’ (atheist, sceptic, columnist, radio
commentator, author) father was a religious minister; Bertrand Russell (Why I am not a Christian etc.) had a strict
religious upbringing in the hands of a stern aunt. All of these, and many other
influential atheists are spreading, or have spread, the gospel according to meaninglessness
because of their experiences with the incredibility of religion.
I presume to examine the
House of God also because dangerous fundamentalism is on the rise. There has
been a growth in their numbers in percentage terms. From the above 2004 survey:
Assemblies of God up 20%;
“The blood continued to rise. Millions of
birds flocked into the area and feasted on the remains…and the winepress was
trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the
horse’s bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs.”
“Glorious Appearing: The End of Days” pp.
250, 260.
Fundamentalists of all
stripes – Jewish, Moslem and Christian – cherish the notion that God will come to
reign on Earth following a holocaust where millions suffer – a scenario which many
feel they can, and must, help bring about! As fundamentalist numbers go up (even
in orthodox Churches like the Anglican Church where evangelicals who believe in
the literal truth and inerrancy of the Bible are gaining power) and the number
of thinking people go down, the House of God’s congregation around the world is
being reduced to a bunch of scared, weird, little guys – driven more by hate
and fear than love.
Am I being too harsh? Consider
Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney and intellectual midget (he failed first
year law twice before finding theology more suited to his intellectual
capacity) is a strict Bible-believing evangelical who opposes women and
homosexual clergy solely on the grounds on his belief in the inerrancy of the
Old Testament. This statement from him about why he is prepared to break his
House in two over the issue of homosexuality:
“This dispute is not really about
homosexuality. It’s about authority and who runs the church. To most of the
rest of us, God runs the church through the Bible.”
And this in the same
newspaper about his fear:
“One of the gravest weaknesses of
contemporary Christianity … is the little attention paid to the wrath of God.”
“The Age” (Leading
Humanity is in a precarious
state when our technological evolution is way ahead of our spiritual evolution
– we have atom bombs in the hands of countries (the
I also presume to examine
the House of God because of its murderous and unchristian history. Many, if not
most, of our wars have had religious causes either directly (Crusades – where
the blood of the non-believers was actually up to the horses bridals in
the Holy Land) or indirectly (the brutal Norman invasion of Britain was
sanctioned – barbarities pre-forgiven – by the Christian House of God in return
for 10% of the land) or they had at least some religious antecedents (the
Jewish Holocaust). There were also murderous religious inter-denominational wars
(the Catholic-Huguenots war in
These then are the main
reasons why I presume to examine the House of God: it is failing in its useful
roles; it is meaningless’ greatest ally; its history is murderous; and its
future looks equally bloody. It has been, all in all, a huge hurdle to our spiritual
evolution and the biggest threat to our future physical survival.
HOW ABOUT THE GOOD PEOPLE IN
THE HOUSE OF GOD?
There are still some good
(and educated) people within the House of God who are seeking truth and genuine
spiritual understanding rather than power – the multi-member and largely devout
Jesus Seminar (The Five Gospels) comes
to mind, as does Bishop Spong (Christianity
Must Change or Die, The Sins of Scripture etc.). There are also many biblical
scholars within the House of God seeking truth rather than indigestible
doctrine. But with the growth of fundamentalist
Just as many will also be
asking the question:
WHY BOTHER – WHY DOES THERE
HAVE TO BE A GOD?
There doesn’t “have to be”,
there either just is or isn’t. I argue it is important for us to have a good
look for any evidence of a rational “G” God’s existence – to try and approach
more closely the real nature of any Divine because it is our present primitive
notions of God, and what “He” wants, that is creating most of our present
problems, and is the cause of the previously mentioned dangerous, lop-sidedness
between our technological and spiritual evolutions. To find God would be to
finally comprehend our spiritual unity, because there can be only one God, and
an understanding of our spiritual unity could counterbalance our national, political,
religious and ethnic diversity which has been the cause of all of our conflicts
to date.
When Nietzsche proclaimed:
“God is dead … and we have killed him”
– he was of course referring to the incredible, tribal, biblical “g” god invented
by some desert tribes and enshrined in the Christian House of God. He had not
conducted a rational search for all possible, credible “G” Gods and disposed of
them. Atheists are not interested in having a good look for a rational Divine,
because their comfort is vested in Christianity’s god – it is so fallible therefore
so easily disposed of (I examine more closely the various drivers of atheism in
the Examination of the House of Disbelief
essay). Instead of searching for a more credible Divine, for any Truth, once
Nietzsche proclaimed the old Judeo/Christian god was dead we readily threw off
the yoke of religion, welcomed the new moral freedoms and were not keen to
adopt any boring constraints that might be implied if we found special meaning.
The very question of “why does there have
to be a God” has a certain childish petulance about it – why do I have to do something I don’t want, why
do I have to do/believe something
that could get in the road of a good time? But, along with liberalism, we
readily adopted what is turning out to be a more irksome yoke: that of
materialism. While religion’s history is depressing, a materialistic future
looks just as bleak – with its problems for society (like alcohol and drugs)
and its rapacious unsustainability for our planet.
So, while there doesn’t
“have to be a God” I argue that an honest attempt to find a credible Divine and
special meaning in life is an important counter for meaninglessness,
materialism and their dangers.
So, in an effort to move
towards Truth, let’s examine one place where some proclaim the Divine, special
meaning and ultimate purpose to be enshrined:
Again I state that this essay
is specifically an examination of the Christian House of God because it is the
one with which I am most familiar, but I suspect that what I find here will
apply to all religions in many substantial respects – especially religions of
the “B” Book.
An “H” House, like an “h” house, has a purpose, a design and fabric. Let’s
examine each:
THE PURPOSE OF THE HOUSE OF GOD
The original purpose of the Jesus movement was about
keeping alive the memory of Christ and his radical teachings of the primacy of
love over hate, of forgiveness over revenge, and of doing unto others what you
would like then to do to you (rather than just refraining from not doing what
you didn’t want done to you). These were
radical new teachings, over the old scriptures’ teachings like: “an eye for an
eye”. But over the centuries, as the movement became an “H” House, the purpose of
Christian religion changed. It came to be about comfort, control over God, power
and animal survival.
Comfort in times of stress is a valid role for a
genuine House of God. Life is hard – even when life is good every human lives
with the knowledge of their mortality, their eventual separation from loved
ones, moving from all they “know” into the unknown. Every human who endures
this consciousness is in my mind heroic and deserves a little comfort, but
because of the House of God’s insistence of holding onto the awful, brutal
Judeo/Christian god of the desert tribes, such a fearsome god causes discomfort
in equal measure to comfort. Sin, guilt, fear, the devil and eternal hell are
employed cleverly by the House of God to keep the flock coming – but employed disturbingly
for many. The payback for swallowing the incredible is the ultimate comfort of
paradise for eternity. But the flip-side of the incredible is Disbelief (of any
meaning to life) and all suffer from it to some extent.
Another purpose of the present House of God is control. Control over
life’s dangers and its seeming capriciousness – through an interventionist god.
The House of God offers control over this god to its congregation by claiming
to know what “he” wants: praise, fear, worship. How pathetically human (vain,
jealous, masculine) the religious imagine God to be. How could anything so
fallibly human create this amazing universe?
All Houses of God also have power as a purpose – power over governments,
power over other religions, power over other countries, power over the world
even. Power is achieved by recruiting the most numbers to your banner.
Religions tend to see life as some vast football game to be won at any cost –
any violence approved by the Divine because we are growing “His” one , true, House.
All Houses of God are thus also clubhouses for a “team” – belief systems whose
one-eyed supporters see life as being about victory for your faith, achievable
only by proselytizing and converting the world to your belief. And, as in
sport, self-esteem is available from belonging to a powerful, winning team. The
crimes of Church officers – like paedophilia – have been covered up by all
denominations using the justification that protecting the
As well as a purpose, Houses have a design.
THE DESIGN OF THE HOUSE OF GOD
In its earliest days the design of the Jesus movement
was that of a community of equals. They were actually real communists – their
communities shared money, food and goods for the benefit of all. Unlike more
recent communists, they were motivated by Jesus’ teachings of love for one
another and doing unto others, rather than hate for those better off.
The first members of the Jesus movement were also
brave men and women who often died brutal deaths for their beliefs. Jewish
orthodoxy was zealous and introducing new ideas against the received teachings
of the old scriptures was dangerous – as Jesus’ execution and the beatings,
stonings and brutal deaths of many early Christians demonstrated. As well as
going again established religious power, going against the vested interests of
the
But the early, pure design of the Christian House of
God changed into something more calculated. The Roman establishment came to
recognise the political potential of the meek and mild, law-abiding
philosophies of the Christian religion – Christianity exhorted even slaves to
be obedient to their masters and wait for the more important next life for
their (eternal) freedom. Emperor Constantine, cynically (he did not take on
Christianity himself until his death bed) latched onto Christianity as a tool
of state to counter the instability that was in the air after he replaced
Diocletian. Christ’s teachings had already become highly embellished by
doctrinaires like Paul, but this period of Roman institutionalisation is when
the last vestiges of the original design of Christianity became corrupted –
taken on board by the
I examine this process more closely further on when I
discuss the compilation of the New Testament. Here, suffice it to say, the
above is how the Jesus movement became the House of God – its design more
closely that of a big business – instead of overthrowing the money-changer’s
tables it came to be about bigger and better tables.
A House, like a house, also has fabric.
THE FABRIC OF THE HOUSE OF GOD
Surely the House of God has stout fabric: walls of
Christian fellowship and a roof of Christian charity for the less fortunate?
Quite so, but unfortunately the fabric is deeply flawed because its foundations
– the essential part of any house – are unreliable.
The foundation of the House of God is, of course, the
Bible – a “B” Book – supposedly written by God :
“the
Bible is authoritative because of its divine authorship … items of theological
belief must have either explicit or implicit support [from the Bible] or be dismissed.”
- “Systematic Theology – A Pentecostal
Perspective”, P. 42 (Ed. Stanley Horton)
The growing appeal of fundamentalist religions stems
from the certainty they profess in uncertain times – all is certain, written in
black and white by God in the Bible. They are also particularly appealing to
young people going through vulnerable periods in their life and older people
facing death. Other religions of the Book, like the Muslim and Jewish religions
are also becoming dominated by their fundamental elements. There is much
comfort in the idea of a book wherein all the answers are spelt out by God. But
such comfort is only available to those who can suspend rationality
sufficiently to believe that God actually wrote the Bible – an essential task
in the eyes of the fundamentalists :
“Reason
is a good servant of the revelation of God [the Bible], but it is not a good master over that revelation. … human reason that
denies divine revelation has always come under the influence of sin and Satan
ever since Adam’s fall.”
-
ibid. P. 45
So, the Bible is to be digested in its entirety –
Adam and Eve accepted rather than scientific evidence for an entirely different
Genesis? This is just fundamentalists, surely? But even less fundamental
Christian beliefs still hold that the Bible is pivotal in its importance, if
not written by God “every dot and iota”
then it is inspired by God, at the very least. The Oath of Conformity required
of every candidate for ordination in the Episcopal/Anglican Church in the
“I
do believe the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the word of
God and to contain all things necessary to salvation.”
-
The Sins of Scripture, John Shelby Spong, P. 16.
But, back to reality, the Bible did not descend from
the heavens on the wings of a snow-white dove, nor was it written by Jesus (he
never saw the New Testament, of course, which was written between one and two
generations after his death – at the earliest). The various parts of the Bible
were written by man (very little by woman – if any – as is quickly apparent by
reading it) over a very long period. Rather than the word of God through
inspiration, it is very obviously the word of man through perspiration. As well
as written by man, man also selected which of the many gospels and writings were
included in the New Testament – there were many more gospels than the four eventually
selected for the New Testament – some feel, for instance, the gospel of Thomas (uncovered
in the middle of last century) has more authenticity and apostolic authority
than the other four and should be included..
There have also been many disagreements between men
over which were the correct translations from the original Hebrew, Aramaic,
Greek and Latin. Disagreements over the Old Testament have resulted in there
being several different forms of Bible. Some include the Apocrypha and some
don’t, and the size of the Apocrypha may vary. The number of books in the Old
Testament section may vary. The discovery of the
The Bible has, like most
foundations, also felt the pressure of time. Scientific knowledge has eaten
away at the integrity of the Bible. Earth’s central place in the Cosmos has
been revealed as illusory by cosmology and astronomy, the Garden of Eden has
been revealed as myth by biology, and the history of the Old Testament has been
revealed as false by (Jewish) archaeologists. Non-religion based biblical
scholarship has also blossomed, increasing our knowledge of those times and introduced
a non-ideological understanding of Jesus and his real message.
The ancillary fabric of the House of God does have
quite a bit of beauty in the form of architecture, art, and music – but flawed
the Biblical foundations of the House of God remain.
Time to look at the foundations more closely – to see
if there is any evidence to back my assertions. Time to examine :
THE HOLY BIBLE
Because the
kneebone of many pivotal Christian doctrines are connected to the thighbone of ancient
Old Testament stories (like the Christian doctrine of salvation being based on the
Garden of Eden story of the committing of our original sin) we have to go right
back to the start of the Bible. "In the Beginning” there was the:-
OLD TESTAMENT
In the words of John Rogerson :
“Somehow,
writings as disparate as laws, popular stories, dynastic annals, proverbs,
laments, love stories and psalms came to be regarded as scripture.”
(P. xiii Oxford
History of the Bible)
The disparate words of man came “somehow” to be
regarded as scripture – the word of God?
The Old Testament should be admired for what it is.
It is the ancient saga of a great people who went on to make a grander
contribution to civilisation and the achievements of humanity that their numbers
should dictate. It is one ancient peoples’ take on how the world came to exist,
attempted without the understandings of our sciences and their modern tools. It
is also an attempt to understand the meaning of life and an explanation of the
numinous and expresses itself with not a little beauty :
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh …
(Ecclesiastes
3:1-4)
Ideas which still resonate with us today – “turn,
turn, turn” – as the popular song of the 60’s based on this bit of scripture would
have it.
As well as containing beauty, the Old Testament
contains social and moral laws like the Ten Commandments, essential for a
society growing in size and evolving away from a tribal and semi-nomadic existence
to a more settled, agrarian one. These commandments are similar to the moral
laws of other societies preceding the Hebrews who previously went through such
a transition. But the Ten Commandments turn a blind eye to much that is
patently evil – this from Christopher Hitchens:
“Then
there is the very salient question of what the commandments do not say. Is it too modern to notice that there
is nothing about the protection of children from cruelty, nothing about rape,
nothing about slavery, and nothing about genocide.
“God
is Not Great”, P. 100
While Hitchens is often as fundamentalist as the
religions he criticises and the pages of his book somewhat spittle-flecked, he
does have a good point. In a little while we will see that the Bible’s god not
only does not proscribe the things on Hitchen’s list, but approves of them (and
murder, and cruelty to animals) so long as they are done by his chosen tribe –
the Israelites.
The Old Testament also contains much history. But it,
however, is another thing. Jewish archaeologists have found this history to be
very dubious at best, false at worst, and politically inspired all the time:
“The
familiar stories about David and Solomon, based on a few early folk traditions,
are the result of extensive reworking and editorial expansion during the four
centuries that followed David and Solomon’s reigns…they contain little reliable
history.”
“David
and Solomon”, Finkelstein and Silberman. P.17
Contrary to the Bible, it has been found by
archaeology that
As Well as primitive creation myths, useful laws and dubious
political history the Old Testament contains psalms designed to influence a
powerful and capricious god – a fearsome god capable of tormenting “his”
creations or rewarding them. A god who could be propitiated with animal
sacrifice and inveigled with praise – a god in man’s image.
Also in the Old Testament scriptures are the
prophecies. Their tone waxes ominous as they try to control the swelling
population who became exposed to competing religions from the surrounding peoples
after the settlement of the “promised” land. The Hebrews came into contact with
and were swayed by local nature gods like Baal. Hebrew prophets raged about
hell in their tussle for the hearts and minds of men and ranted about the dire
consequences of not following the god their ancestors had created. They warned
about not fearing and praising this angry, vain man/being who was murderously
jealous of these other gods and was so insecure as to need constant
worshipping.
Am I being fair in my description of the Old
Testament? Let’s look at it book by book to see if it resembles the word of
God? I will be using the version of the Bible I have (The New International – The New International Bible Society,
Copyright 1973).
GENESIS
The beautiful and elaborate creation myths of
pre-scientific desert tribes. Definitely on a par with other creation myths
like the Australian Aborigine’s “Rainbow Serpent”, for example. Everything
created by God in six days then a rest. Earth the centre of the Universe, even
the sun revolves around the Earth.
We now know, thanks to astronomy and cosmology, that
Genesis is wrong. Those who believe the Bible to be the word of God have to ask
themselves how could God be wrong? Even the
If the Bible can be wrong, is it wrong in other
places?
As well as misinformation about the Earth and the sun
Genesis also tells us about the creation of life and the Garden of Eden – the
plants and the animals – the lion and the lamb lying down together. Science in
the shape of botany, zoology, biology tells us this is false – life evolved
over millions of years. All life has one source, for example it can be
empirically shown that humans have 65% similar DNA to bananas, 98% similar DNA
to chimpanzees. We know science works, it is not a construction of the devil,
we prove it right every day by using the products from its truths – even
fundamentalists use the products of science many times every day in their cars
and their houses, computers etc. You can’t use it successfully on the one hand and
deny it on the other. So, beyond reasonable doubt, the Bible’s primitive
biological myths are wrong.
Sophisticated residents of the House of God would be
bored by all this, having already accepted Genesis largely as metaphor and
allegory. But the problem lies in the word “largely” – there is a part of the
Garden of Eden story they still cherish. The concept of original sin,
allegorised in Adam and Eve’s action of seeking knowledge, is essential to the
notion of salvation. Salvation is pivotal to present orthodox Christian belief
: we are inherently sinful; “Jesus died so his blood may wash away the stains
of our sins” is a phrase repeated ad infinitum at my orthodox Christian school.
But beyond reasonable doubt, the Bible story of the Garden of Eden is invention
– and original sin with it. We will see what this does to Christian doctrine
when we get to the New Testament.
The Serpent’s tree was also called “the tree of
knowledge” and Adam and Eve’s action of eating its fruit is a metaphor for our
original sin – the choosing of knowledge over faith – a very bad choice as far
as religion is concerned. The choosing of knowledge before blind faith after
the Enlightenment was the beginning of the end for religion’s cornerstone position
in Western societies. Religion’s power relies on turning your back on knowledge
and any quest for Truth, it relies on blind faith because its doctrine is
incredible.
Next in Genesis we have Noah’s
No need to go on and, indeed, why mention it at all
because no one with a brain believes this stuff any more, right? Well I had a
scary conversation with four young people who have just graduated from a
secular university the other day who believe all of the Bible, including Noah,
to be true. By way of explaining how Noah was able to cover the world to get
two of every animal before oceanic ships they assured me the world was much
smaller then!? The fear of the slaughtering, hell-casting Old Testament god has
done strange things to their brains. If it was not so tragic it would be a
laughing matter.
We move on in Genesis to lots of begatting.
Archbishop James Ussher in 1650 added up all the begatting and came up with the
figure of the world’s age : 23rd
October 4004 BC. – about 6000 years old!
Now you can forgive Ussher because science was in its infancy then, but
what can we say of the ignorance of people today who still believe in the
inerrancy of the Bible and that this is the real age of the Universe?
But wait, there’s more. There is the story of
Then we move into
“Its
[archaeology’s] finds have
revolutionised the study of early
- (Finkelstein
and Silberman, “The Bible Unearthed”. P.3)
More of the false history later, for now most
non-fundamentalist religious people accept that the Bible starts out mythical
and allegorical. But if it starts out as myths then segues into false history
when does it become true? Will someone ring a bell when we get to the true
bits? We’ll see – there must be some true bits written by God here somewhere?
EXODUS
Egypt, plagues, Passovers by murderous angels killing
all non-Jewish first-borns, release, pursuit, Red Sea parting, Ten
Commandments, social laws concreting revenge into place (an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth), God’s imprimatur for the ownership of other humans called slaves,
sexual relations, altars, Arks (not Noah’s), tabernacles and Sabbaths.
The Levites killed 3,000 of their fellows and were
especially blessed by God :
[Moses] “said to them, “This is what the Lord, the
God of
So, let’s see if I have this right – Moses returns
from the mount with the ten commandments tucked under his arm, the most
important of which is “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, and then sets about killing 3,000
of his own brethren? And the Bible, being the word of God must be right. “This
is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says … each killing his brother and friend
and neighbour” – right, sure thing – God urging people to kill one another then
making them “blessed” because of their ability to commit pitiless atrocities
against their brothers, friends and neighbours – and all because He was jealous
of the alternate god the people had constructed in Moses absence? Now that’s
just got to be “G” God – hasn’t it – or is “he” just another “g” god invented
by man (and made out to be brutal and violent to keep the flock in order)?
This same strange, violent, murderous, pitiless god
also decreed:
21:4 Permissible to keep wife and children of
servants (described as just like the natural increase of cattle).
21:7 Can sell
daughter as a servant.
21:32 Slaves
are lesser beings (paving the way for the slave trade).
22:18 We should kill witches – “Do not allow a sorceress
to live” (paving the way for
I particularly like this bit :
“ ‘If
a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct
result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up
after a day or two, since the slave is his property.’ ”(21:20-21)
So here we have, firstly, slavery is OK to God and,
secondly, it was OK to beat them so badly that they were unconscious for a day
or two!? Obviously if the slave was able to get up after a couple of days the
beating can’t have been too severe?! What sort of people would regard this as
the truth, the word of God?
And this bit:
“ ‘If
a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and
its meat will not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held
responsible.’ ” (21:28)
Can you imagine the senseless cruelty involved in
stoning a bull to death? Bear in mind these are the actual quoted words
of God as recounted by Moses?
LEVITICUS
Laws and rules on such things as offerings,
sacrifices, priests, clean and unclean food, skin diseases, mildew, unlawful
sex, capital punishment. We learn here God will like us more if we kill animals
and burn them on an altar as sacrifices to “him”. Animal sacrifices – what sort
of primitive tribal god are we dealing with here?
The sort that regards menstruating women as unclean :
“A
woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially
unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period.”
But “If she gives birth to a daughter,
for two weeks the woman will be unclean.” (12:2&5)
Dirty things these women – especially if they give
birth to another woman! The word of God? Got to be if it’s in the Bible!
And slavery again :
“Your
male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you
may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among
you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your
property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make
them slaves for life.” (25:44-46).
Don’t know what all the fuss about slavery is – God
says it’s OK!?
NUMBERS
More wanderings, god-sanctioned murder and
destruction.
More sexism: (5:11) – A man can test(?!) a wife just
because he feels jealous.
More violence: (15:32) – Sabbath-breaker stoned to
death with god’s approval.
And god-sanctioned ethnic cleansing :
“The
Lord listened to
And more brutal jealousy of other gods. When the
Israelites bowed to the gods of the Moabites :
“the anger of the Lord was kindled against
And slaughter of children and women, and the rape of
the maidens :
[Of the Midanites] “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,
but save for yourself every girl who has never slept with a man.” (31:15)
Moslem terrorists at least have to wait for heaven to
get their virgins! If this is not ethnic cleansing what is it – apart from
infanticide of course? No wonder the fundamentalists are scared witless of such
a god.
If this is your god what does it say about you? It
obviously says nothing about “G” God.
DEUTERONOMY
Taking over
More divinely sanctioned war crimes and ethnic
cleansing:
All men, women and children of Heshbon (2:34) and
A strange and brutal god decrees the breaking of the
neck of a heifer belonging to the nearest village to atone for any unsolved murder
in the area : (21:3).
And its OK to murder a rebellious son (was there ever
any other sort?).
“If
a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother
… his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at
the gate of the town. They shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is
stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is profligate and a drunkard.’
Then all the men of the town will stone him to death.” (21:18-21)
Is the Bible the Truth yet? If not yet then when? And
remember that the New Testament writers believed it to be true in its entirety.
So if they were capable of mistaking this for the truth how do we know they
were not mistaken in what they believed to be true when they wrote the New Testament
from second- and third-hand anecdotes?
How about this bit – anyone wounded in the genitals
could not worship God :
“No
one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of
the Lord.” (23:1)
If these are the words of God then it is a very
strange god.
JOSHUA
After wandering about in the desert for 40 years the
Hebrew tribes cross the
“They
devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in
it – men and women, young and old, cattle sheep and donkeys.” (6:21)
What “devotion” – that would have pleased the “Lord”
– every man, woman, child and donkey. And they “devoted” more murderous ethnic
cleansing to the Lord :
8:25 Women of Ai murdered.
10:12
God stopped the sun from going down for a day so that Joshua could see
to slaughter his enemies at
10:28 Everyone in Makkedah, Libnah,
By now “the Lord” would be wading in gore. At 11:9
This blood-crazed god reaches “his” apogee when the horses are ham-strung. Now
all you animal-lovers, do you have any idea what terror and pain those horses
suffered and for how long, after being left lying on the ground ham-strung?
Their suffering would have made Christ’s end seem positively humane. Seen your
God yet?
So is the Bible true? Not yet perhaps? How will we
know when it starts being true? – I know, this bit must be true:
1 SAMUEL
“The Almighty says … ‘Now go, attack
the Amalekites … Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and
infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” (15:2-3).
Is that your god speaking? If so, it says nothing
about God but plenty about you.
And on and on we go through Saul, David, 2 Samuel
(hamstringing more horses 8:4), Solomon (700 wives and 300 concubines). More
battles, bloodbaths.
Judges, Kings, Chronicles dance their way across the bloody
Old Testament stage with more divinely sanctioned murder, rape and pillage.
Slowly we start to emerge out of dubious religious pre-history into orthodox
history, and the confirmed historical figures of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes
strut the stage. The Jewish people get liberated by the Persians then
JOB
Job now offers us this conundrum : why do bad things
happen to good people? When faced with a similar conundrum many loose faith in
the idea of God and along with it the possibility of any special meaning in
life. This of course is a problem of religion’s own making. By selling humanity
the idea of an omnipotent and interventionist god who can be influenced by
worship and prayer, religion creates a problem when that god does not intervene
positively for righteous people.
Even further – if God is interfering and omnipotent
and “evil” happens to babies, small children and good people – is God then evil?
I will examine this in more depth in the essay – Examination of the House of
Disbelief .
But Job did admit that he was not naturally good but,
like a lot of religious people, only good because :
“I
dreaded destruction from God and for fear of his splendor I could not do such
things” (31:23).
The Bible dodges the deeper philosophical question of
what is real goodness. Surely a person who does not believe in God, but is good
naturally, is better than Job who was only good “for fear”? Religion has always been about conditional goodness –
being good to avoid hell or to gain the benefit of immortality – physical
resurrection. In the New Testament, as we shall see, Paul dabbles with the idea
of true goodness but comes down on the side of believing incredible doctrine
(faith) is better than good deeds!?
The next section of the Old Testament turns praise of
a needy god into an art form.
PSALMS
Psalms lards the Old Testament with poems, songs and
prayers to a violent and needy god, trying to curry favour through praise. How
vain and needy do we imagine God to be that “he” wants our praise and worship,
how stupid does humanity imagine God to be that we feel God could possibly be
satisfied or fooled by it? All the professions of love in this part of the Old
Testament are what we now recognise as the “Stockholm Syndrome” – where
captives fall in “love” with their violent captors, who have the power of life
or death over them – as a way of survival by propitiating them.
I went to a Christian school and my religious studies
teacher answered my (11 years-old) question about why we existed with: “To
worship God.” Even my 11 year-old mind could work out that this was not even
close to the meaning of life. Could a Divine who knows everything really be so
dumb as to believe our flattery driven by self-interest? Could “He” be so
desperately needy of praise that he actually created life and us to meet these
pathetic needs?
As well as praise the Psalms express anger, despair,
sadness, guilt and doubt. They also manage to wish that God’s wrath will be
brought forth upon the wicked – generally defined as anyone not of your
beliefs.
There is some beauty in the words :
“By the rivers of
when we remembered
There on the poplars
we hung our
harps …
But not for long – revenge wins the day:
“O Daughter of
happy is he
who repays you
for what you
have done to us –
he who seizes your infants
and dashes
them against the rocks.”
(Psalm
137: 8-9)
A good one for the kiddies at Sunday School?
PROVERBS
Fear is the beginning of knowledge? :
“The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and
discipline.” (1:7)
But the funk that fear produces is invariably the end
of knowledge. Fear is why fundamentalists believe in Adam and Eve, Noah, the
whole box and dice.
ECCLESIASTES
Ancient existentialism – meaninglessness rules OK? :
“ ‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’
says the Teacher.
‘ Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.’ ” (1:2)
There is more – wisdom is meaningless, pleasure is
meaningless, toil is meaningless. The bad sometimes prosper and the good
sometimes suffer. All aspects of life – wealth, position, professional success,
and pleasure are futile because we must die in the end. I guess we all have
days like that, but luckily very few of us get into print.
The author of Ecclesiastes finds meaning in fearing
his primitive god:
“Life
has no meaning but to Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole
duty of man.” (12:13-14)
But some beautiful words about the human condition (mentioned
earlier) which still strike a chord with us today :
“a
time to weep and a time to laugh …”(3:1-4).
SONG OF SONGS
We now get pop songs about love and sex :
“Awake,
north wind,
and come, south wind!
Blow on my garden,
that its fragrance may spread abroad.
Let my lover come into this garden
And taste its choice fruits.
-
Song of Songs (4:16)
And some ghastly sexism:
ISAIAH
“The Lord will wash away the filth of the
women of
Definitely the word of God! How could anybody deny
it? Inspiring – kind of makes me proud to be a man – filthy things these women!
JEREMIAH
More of the same. Judgement and punishment from a
vain, jealous and capricious god. Also irrational : God gets jealous because
the Jews worship other gods and he sends them to
LAMENTATIONS
Well named.
EZEKIEL
Quotes the very words of God :
“Again the word of the Lord came to me: ‘Son of man, when the people o