WHAT THE HELL?

CONTRADICTIONS IN THE BIBLE

Contradictions in the Bible are impossible, aren’t they? Aren’t they the “revealed Word of God?” And won’t every jot and tittle remain until the end of time? Then why……there are almost too many contradictions in the Bible to count, but it’s roughly 63,779.

Why would an all-knowing God create human beings in His image, and them punish them for sinning? And didn’t he foresee the need to hide the damned tree? Or is it all part of His plan that we should suffer such hardships and if we fail to live up to His standards (which are unclear, but certainly include never eating shellfish), we will suffer eternal damnation? What kind of God is that? And if His people need a place to live, why doesn’t he just create one, instead of wiping out entire civilizations, man, woman, child, cattle and even pets!? This God is puny and vindictive.

If God wanted us to walk around with him in the Garden, he could have arranged that. If He wanted us to know beyond a doubt that He exists, he should have been able to arrange that, too. If He wanted His followers to be good and kind, just and tolerant, He really might have said so. Instead, Judeo-Christian religions are preaching His peculiar, unreasonable – and changeable - commandments so loudly you almost can’t hear the sound of their constant, immoral betrayals. Show me a Christian, a Muslim or a Jew who has never worn clothing made of more than one fiber, has never walked more than 12 steps on a Sabbath, and has never tasted shellfish. That’s all. Leave out the hard ones like “not to covet,” which is vague and hard to prove. Forget about pedophilia, they can’t even do these very simple things; there is no such person. They happily violate their own commandments regularly.

They love it that the End of the World is nigh, and even pray for it to hurry up, and try to make it happen by killing people. But actually, Jesus (in the Holy Bible, the True and Revealed Word of God) said that under no circumstances would the generation who was alive when he lived pass away before the world would end. Deadline missed by a mile.

And how they love to talk about “The Rapture,” an event never mentioned in the Bible itself. It seems to have gotten tangled up with an annunciation of humanity’s judges to the top of Mt. Sinai, where there are a few interesting things to note:
1) Only 12,000 will be taken up, out of all those who have ever lived (approximately 108 billion at the time of this writing; that’s 12,000 out of 108,000,000,000),
2) They will all be Jewish
3) They will all be males
4) They will never have sinned (no mention of forgiveness here),
5) They will all be virgins.
I picture it as a sort of Yiddish Nursery School, and can’t wait to hear their judgements. Nothing about pilots disappearing from the cockpit or drivers from their cars. Even if a few of these 12,000 are alive on that day, probably God could catch them in a quiet, non-emergency moment. If he’s a nice God. But He’s not, is he?

There is no historical evidence of a Jesus, or Jeshu, or Jeshua (as he would have been called in his time and place) ever existed. There were many itinerant preachers roaming the countryside at the time. The fact that someone hit on the brilliant idea of using one’s “message” to get people to cooperate with the Romans instead of fighting them was pure, completely Roman genius; a conversion of brilliant – even blinding - convenience. Such preachers weren’t even noticed by Roman authorities, much less did the Romans consider them worth arresting and killing publicly. And to make a martyr of one would be the height of foolishness. The preacher’s message was a good, peaceful one which had already been making the rounds for generations. The Roman’s had no incentive to quash it. Rather, one of their own moved in to run the thing, very successfully.

The one thing the teachings of Jeshua emphasized above all was that there’s no need for a priesthood – no need for a church. Ironic and deeply sad that more churches have been built on him than on any other man in history, and more people killed by that church in his name than anyone else. If the story weren’t so contradictory as to invalidate itself, I’d find it very moving. His church these days denies he was Jewish, which he clearly was – even being called “rabbi,” and that he was Middle Eastern. If they have so much faith in this man, shouldn’t they at least acknowledge his existence? And as for the “virgin birth” story, that one’s been around as long as human’s have, and people still claim it happens today. The figure of Christ is also a mythos in use since far before “His” time. Saturn - just as one example - is exactly the same god-ish figure.