The “What if you’re wrong” phase

I’ll admit it, I went through a “what if I’m wrong” phase. It’s that time when you logically know that the Christian god doesn’t exist, yet you’re still a little scared of Hell. Once I realized that it was Hell I was worried about, the phase was pretty easy to get through. Although I still fall back in to that occasionally.

But how about this? I’ve known for a while the psychology of Christianity preying upon human doubts and needs. But to put it this blatantly.

This church is hoping that you’ve never heard of Pascal’s Wager. Basically it goes like this. If a Christian is wrong and there isn’t a god then they’re dead and they’ve lived a good life. If an atheist is wrong and there is a god then they are going to Hell. With that argument, doesn’t it make sense to play it safe and believe in God?

And I found myself using that argument on myself during my stay in Christianity. Problem is that it’s absurd. It’s questioning “what if there is a god” under the assumption that there’s only one. What if Islam is true and you’ve been praying to Yahweh?

Genesis 2 – “Adam and Eve show up”

Quick wrap of of Genesis 2 – God is satisfied with what He’s created so he takes a little break and then makes some rivers and Adam and Eve.

1 – Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2 – And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3 – And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

4 – These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

5 – And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

6 – But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

I do not understand, and I didn’t understand it when I was Christian, why God needed to rest. Sure, if he created the entire universe in a week He probably deserved a rest. But if He’s supposed to be perfect then why couldn’t He just keep going?

The commentary on BibleGateway that I linked to above mentions that God did not rest as one that was weary, but as one that was pleased. Wouldn’t that fall under pride? He took a break because he was pleased of His work. Pride is one of the “big 7″ sins, and yet God seems to be able to have the sin of pride without issue.

Every time I’ve heard Jesus’s perfection mentioned it is in line with the fact that He was without sin. Two problems here. One, Jesus and God are supposed to be one according to the theory of the Trinity. So if God sinned the sin of pride then so did Jesus. And if God sinned ruining the definition of perfection then Jesus cannot be perfect, also under the theory of the Trinity.

And I’ve seen what happens to my grass without rain. How did the plants grow before rain?

7 – And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

This is the second time that God has created Man, the first being Gen 1:27. The first time Man was created in God’s image, the second Man was created of dust of the ground (I’ve also heard clay). Which is it? Are we in God’s image or are we mud?

Maybe He didn’t like the first draft of Man and Woman. Maybe He created two different tribes. It’s possible that having separate tribes is what allowed Adam and Eve’s children to find wives when there was no mention of other families. Or maybe it’s two separate myths, which is the explanation that seems most sensible to me.

8 – And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

9 – And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

10 – And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

11 – The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

12 – And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.

13 – And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.

14 – And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

15 – And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

16 – And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17 – But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

If you look at the country of Ethiopia today, and especially during the 80s, it is certainly not a land blessed of God. Famine, disease, and death are all very prevalent.

It is also very convenient that all of the areas mentioned in this verse are in the same part of the world that civilization began. Yes, from a Christian point of view I could see that it would make sense because God put civilization there and it would fit in with that world view. But it also fits, and this is what I believe, that civilization began and God was formed to explain how it came to be.  It’s a chicken and egg type problem that could be argued without end.
I have a real problem with verse 17. God created the world and then put Adam in it to be a caretaker. But he also set Man up for failure by putting the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden. It is the eating of the fruit that caused sin. God could have easily avoided the whole problem of sin by leaving the tree out, but allowed it anyway. For now I’ll stop there, but I’m sure I’ll have more issues when I get to the chapter where they eat from the tree.

18 – And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.

19 – And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

20 – And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.

The animals were also created in Gen 1. This leads me back to my thoughts of two separate creation myths merging in to 1 from the previous post.

21 – And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;

22 – And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

23 – And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24 – Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

25 – And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

And Woman is created for the second time, this time from Adam’s rib. I’ve had high school aged children who honestly believed that men had one less rib than women because of this story. Check the x-rays, men don’t. But that says something about how literally some people take the Bible.

Genesis 1 – “In the beginning”

Genesis 1

1 – In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

So God existed before the “beginning”. How does that work? I understand that God is supposed to be without time, but there had to be a beginning. God had to be created at some point.

2 – And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 – And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 – And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

5 – And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

I’ve had problems with this section going back to when I was a Christian. Several places in the Bible “light” is used to describe good while “dark” is used to describe evil. Looking at this verse from a non literalist point of view I think maybe the separation of light and dark is the separation of the good people from the bad. Good people of course would be those that are writing the Bible, bad would be those that don’t follow it. But good and evil are relative terms. What’s good to me may be evil to you.

Following on the same non literal point of view then God didn’t create light and dark, but was only used as a method to separate the “good” from the “bad”.

5 – And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

6 – And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

7 – And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

8 – And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Like verse 1, God had to be somewhere. If He didn’t create Heaven until the second day then where is He while creating everything?

27 – So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

We are created “in his own image” but obviously not with the same mentality. Why else would Christians always use the mysterious ways argument?

And how come He creates a female here, but also creates a companion out of Adam’s rib later? When were females created? Or is this man different than Adam? It would certainly explain where the women that Adam and Eve’s children married came from.

28 – And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

It is a dangerous place to live when people think that it is God’s will for them to subdue others. Think of all the wars that have been waged, and are still being waged, because of the assumption of God’s will. Apparently Bush knows that God wanted him to attack Iraq and depose Sadam Hussain, but we can never know God’s will on why children get sick.

Why is this version of a creation myth any more valid than the hundreds, if not thousands, of other creation myths that are dismissed as fictional? Why should I take this one as fact? And a heads up for anyone answering this, “because it’s in the Bible” is not a valid argument here. As soon as humans became literate creation myths were written down. If you’re planning on using the Bible as historical fact then you better be ready to explain why it’s more valid than any other book.

It almost seems, and this goes back to creating females here and later out of the rib, that two creation stories were merged.

The project

Several times during my deconversion process I’ve been accused of not knowing the Bible. Sometimes it has been a blatant accusation, some times it’s been a matter of “if you would read this verse you’d understand”, and sometimes it’s just “you need to read the Bible to understand”. Personally, I’m tired of it. I know that I know more of the Bible now as an agnostic than I did as a Baptist. I think I probably know more about the Bible than many so-called Christians.

But I want to make sure I do know it, both for myself so that I’ve given Christianity its fair shake, and so that I can tell Christians that I do know the Bible.

So, the plan is to read through the Bilbe and blog it here. Whether I complete this project has yet to be seen, but that’s the goal.

Richard Dawkins Interview on YouTube

What would it take to convince you of God?

“What would it take to convince you of God?”

I get this question a lot, or at least something similar. The problem is that they always leave out one word – Christian. The question really being asked is “what would it take to convince you of the Christian God”. For some reason those “of faith” always seem to forget that their God is not the only god. Allah is a god, fairly close to the Chrisian God but not quite. Zeus is a god, or should I say was because there really isn’t any type of organized group that still believes Zeus is anything but a myth.

So, to any Christian that stumbles upon my little corner of the web, let me rephrase the question and get your answer. What would it take to convince you of Allah, Zeus, Odin, or any of the thousands of other gods that have been worshipped throughout history, and many of which are still being worshipped? How can you so easily dismiss the Egyptian myths as myths but cannot see that Yahweh is the same?

And I’ll end with a quote from Stephen F Roberts that I’ve written about before.

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”