Updating the Bible

Well it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. I guess I can start by saying that I am now a born again Christian, I’ve turned away from atheism due to the overwhelming amount of evidence for God and Jesus….blah ha ha ha, ok obviously I’m kidding. On the contrary I have gained more insight into why lack of belief or being skeptical is the more correct approach but much to my chagrin, I forget or lose all this information in my mind somewhere, it’s annoying.

I guess I could start with a few questions: if god were real or Jesus for that matter, why not send down some archangel or angelic being to write down the Bible 2.0 or an upgraded version or something of the sort. You know something that would improve on the previous one, where it really missed things like: “From now on thou shalt not kill the infants of the nations thou invadest, or their women or their children or their livestock, Amen.” or ” I say unto thee whoever amongst thee rapest another, be it an infant, be it a child, be it a woman or even be it a man, mind thee I must include this because who knows how humanity will be in a thousand years from this writing, if thou harmest one of these in this manner, thou shalt surely spend thy days after death in the fire of Gehenna” or “From now on forth, for God’s sake let homosexuals marry, they’re not touching you, I mean, thee.” Upgrade even to the New Testament which Christians believe brings all the love in the world. “I, thy lord and savior aka Jesus the Christ or Messiah, order thee, my brethren to let women be equal to you, I mean, come on it took 1900 years since I was around for women to be able to vote, seriously and they still can’t make equal pay with men due to discrimination. Get to work and change this.” or “Be known from the lord thy god, that I messed up and should’ve updated the part about slaves being obedient to their masters, I should’ve just been crystal clear and said: owning another human in any way is tantamount to being very sinful and punishable by hell.”

Another thing that the Bible 2.0 could add to its repertoire and really get more adherents to Christianity is actually putting forth more prophecies with actual events that match in the least or at best matches and has actual dates, for example, in the year 2035, there will be an earthquake that’ll kill 2,000, in name your location, unless you evacuate or pray with at least 2 people on the spot to stop it as it begins. I’m pretty sure there are more ideas that could help the Bible 2.0 be legitimate if it included these and other things relevant to the culture of the day and not the cultures of myths as the regular Bible was a part of.

If the word of god were timeless it wouldn’t need special interpreters or the descriptive phrase: “it depends on the context”. If it were not timeless then the changes to morals and behaviors must be made by humans to it continuously as priorities and times change and the parts that are irrelevant discarded, and if we have that type of action then we wouldn’t need the Bible, because we have ethics philosophers to do such a  job.

God’s Help to You

Ok, so I’m going to do a bit of a Q&A scenario between an Atheist (A) and a Theist (T).

The true story behind this Q&A is essentially that the Theist prayed for an Atheist to pass an exam. The Atheist passed with a good score. This Atheist also put in a lot of study time as well, yet feared that they might fail the course.

When the Atheist passed with the highest grade in the class, the Theist, basically stated: “See I believe in my Lord, I knew he would intervene, even though, I know you don’t believe, he never leaves those who believe in him, behind.”

Ok, so obviously this success was due to god’s intervention per the believer. Now granted that the Q&A below are one of many possible paths it can take, the main purpose of it, is the purpose of query, of rational thought, of finding the evidence for the statement above, so that it can be irrefutable if it were true, otherwise it isn’t a solid base or argument.

This is the post hoc ergo proper hoc fallacy.

A: Is what god does perfect?

T: Yes (we know that Theists believe that god’s actions and thoughts are perfection themselves)

A: So we know that a perfect score is 100% and what I received was a 92%, so either god can’t do something perfect or he had nothing to do with this.

T: Even though you received a 92%, that was done perfectly by god.

A: So this actually begs a few more questions. Firstly, human standard which is what god is trying to affect for the benefit of the receiver is 100% and god’s help can only help raise my score up to 92%, a lower standard than human standard.

Can he reach the human standard or just merely, or doesn’t feel like it, doesn’t want to, what does the evidence show? Why 92% & not the passing grade of 82% instead, if it is not going to be the perfect standard?

What if every time the theist prayed, the score would be 100%, would it not signify that there is some divine intervention? Because, by god! It’s happening every time!

Would theists take advantage of a situation like that & point to it as irrefutable proof of divine intervention?
Or would theists argue, God shouldn’t be so obvious & should instead allow people to arrive at faith by just believing? Hence an imperfect 92%.

There usually comes the occasion wherein the fault lies with the human, so the excuse added is: “you need to help yourself first before god helps you.” Well, nah no duh! It is established that the human is working towards their goal; there may be some who do want a free ride. But it would be an insult to the majority who do put an effort.

This just begs the question:

Where do we draw the line between what god does and what our effort is?

Then there is the god “escape clause”: so essentially if the test taker were to have failed this exam then, the fault would be due to her or his lack of faith or because it’s an endeavor that’s not “god’s plan” so it couldn’t go into fruition.

A farther yet related question is:

If everything that happens is god’s will , then why try anything? Afterall that would be god’s will too.

Resurrection

One question that I’ve given some thought over the years, is the thought of the resurrection. A book in the old testament states how the resurrection of one’s earthly cadaver is to take place; aside from that there are the resurrection references in the gospels as well as a few other books in the old & new testament.

Jesus, supposedly or historically as christians like to put it, rose in his original body but it was also another more glorious body not limited by space and time. Making his human body not corruptible.

Psalm 16:9 “Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; my flesh also shall rest in hope.”

Psalm 49:15 “But God will redeem my soul; from the power of the grave he will raise me up”

Ezekiel 37:1-14 This one goes into detail on how many christians see how the resurrection may take place.

So my question is basic and simple in a normal world, but with this added “mystical” element, it makes it easy to make up whatever you want at a whim.

I want to know how the bodies of ancient peoples will rise from the dead. We know that these cadavers have decayed and become dust, by becoming dust, these dust particles have dispersed over many and sparse areas. We even have knowledge that many a times dust can come from across continents.

In addition to that, before complete decay, beasts and small creatures may very likely have feasted on these rotting corpses. These creatures then have either had offspring, defecated or become prey to other creatures. By having offspring the proteins and molecules they consumed now are used, to be passed on to a new generation and so on. Through defecation they have helped fertilize in one way or another the ground which may have given rise to edible or non edible plants and further the down line. By becoming prey to another creature, their acquired proteins and molecules are now part of the predatory creature and so on and so forth down the line.

Through that process, some human or more may have consumed edible plants or an animal that have had these proteins passed down the line. This human then procreates and has offspring with the necessary proteins and molecules for life.

Therein, you can see the question, when the resurrection takes place, because it must first take place with the totality of the human body, which is then enveloped in the “glorious body”, from whence will the flesh realign?

I can already see answers being made up to cover this discrepancy, again without any real shred of proof, only more talk, or by adding some magic element, that is also not closely replicated or implied in the Bible.

Abraham and his son Isaac

The story of Abraham and his sacrifice of Isaac told in Genesis 22:1-19 is illustrative of how religious people should hold their faith, how they should behave with regards to faith, namely by not questioning a single word of “god”. Even if it means killing their own blood, their own kith and kin.

However, we know that that isn’t how believers would behave, because one, of the times we live in and two the evolution our mind set has gone through since that time. This demonstrates how this story and the grotesque act detailed therein would be unacceptable in this day and age, a change that goes against the tenets that the bible or torah is the word of god, because for it to be the word of god, it makes sense and indeed believers state that it is the word, that it must stand for all times.

As we can see, not so. Which mother (who is sane) in this day and age would allow her child to be slaughtered? Which father (again who is sane) would stab his own son with a knife because god said so? If you heard a voice telling you to sacrifice your child wouldn’t you think it’s the devil instead (if you’re religious)? Wouldn’t you think it might be some sort of hallucinatory experience? Wouldn’t you look around to make sure it wasn’t some sort of sick joke or trick by someone?

I’m pretty sure that in and around 2300 – 1000 BCE, such an act would have constituted the highest piety. In our day it would constitute a criminal act, from a deranged human being. And therefore for the most part this act would be questioned even if a disembodied voice requested it.

Therefore based on these behavioral differences from Bronze age to modern era, we can state that the scriptures on faith are basically being ignored. Believers today have essentially broken their connection to this act of faith, but have rewired it so they only have to refer to the piety of Abraham. It is essentially putting blinders on.

The act of Abraham of tying his son up, placing him (his son had asked about the sacrificial lamb) on the altar, and then raising the knife over his helpless body, if analyzed within psychology, this would no doubt have been confirmed to have caused some sort of mental and emotional trauma on Isaac. So even if there is no direct physical harm, there surely was the aforementioned which tends to eventually affect the physical.

Then comes one of the more ridiculous lines with regards to this matter. Genesis 22:12 “Do not lay your hand on the boy, neither shall you harm him: for now I know that you are a man who reveres God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”

God had to prove to himself that Abraham was faithful to him. What type of god is this? He’s been said to be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, why does he state to just know this (making a story up, is not acceptable)? Another question that can arise is, was this really the JudeoChristian god of love, or the god who knows when even one hair falls from your head? Maybe it’s just the Judeo god, but that distinction isn’t allowed dogmatically.

See, what can be seen in these texts is how god himself evolves, based on the writers perception of how god is or was. In the old testament, he hates everybody, hates Israel too, every once in a while. It shows how he loves the smell of blood from women, children and even animals from other cultures. In the new testament, he is just a loving and condemning god.