What I Learned in Bible School

In very late 2006 or very early 2007 some friends of mine convinced me that I should take a Bible study.  As my wife had within the previous few years took on the mantle of a professing Christian, the friends intimated that my following in her steps would be good for me and for my wife.  Having long been at least agnostic, and leaning very heavily towards atheism, I told them several times that they would probably be wasting theirs and my time.  Well they didn’t listen and they finally wore down my resistance.

I would meet with them once a week for what was supposed to be a 1 hour study. Inevitably that 1 hour stretched into 2 or 3 hours.  There was not one page of their study material that I did not question or have some legitimate objection too.  I was not trying to be difficult or mean to them—they were friends after all—but what they were saying and the stuff from the Bible just made no sense to me.  I was excited because I was finally laying out and writing down what was heretofore just a vague feeling or sense.  I was getting organized and I researched and researched everything, I was learning about the Christian history and its dogma…and it did not bode well for the Christians.  I started this blog in November of 2007 to try to keep some track of what I was learning.

I learned that the earth, sky, waters, animals, plants, and the human race are not roughly 6,000 years old. There is just too much conclusive evidence that this is not true

I learned that there was no Adam and Eve (4000+- BC) as portrayed in the Bible. There are thousands of anatomically modern skeletons and hundreds of thousands of human bones that go back hundreds of thousands of years.  There is no doubt, at all, that modern humanity did NOT begin 6000 years ago.  Then there are the tens of thousands of bones of human type species (Homo-erectus, Homo-habilis, Homo-neanderthal, etc.)  that did not make it through to our times, and they made and used tools and fire and there is some evidence of art.  They walked upright and didn’t live in trees and surely they were our long lost cousins.  I also learned that All of humanity alive today has their ultimate roots in Africa.  The fact that there was no Adam and Eve has tremendous consequences down the road.

I learned that there was never a whole earth covering flood (2350+- BC) that destroyed all of mankind except for a mythical man, his wife and three sons and their wives.  The evidence against the flood has been known since the 1700’s and keeps getting stronger as the years go by.  I learned that people keep searching this one mountain in modern day Turkey for remains of Noah’s Ark in vain and that at least 5 people have perpetrated a hoax on the public by announcing they have found the Ark. One person even doctored some wood planks at home to try to make them look old enough to have come from such a vessel.

I learned that there was never a Tower of Babel scenario (2000+- BC) such as told in Genesis.  We now know beyond a doubt that there were already millions of humans spread ALL over the earth at that time.  The Biblical story is nothing more than a fairy-tale, a crude attempt to try to explain the different languages that were spoken at the time the story was written.

I learned that Moses was probably a fictional character, as we know that the work attributed to him (The first five books of the Bible…the Pentateuch) was written by more than one person (3-4) and was probably written around 600-550 BC as a fictive work passed off as holy to bring the Hebrews tribes together again after the exile in Babylon.

I learned that the Exodus as described in the Bible is just a fairy tale. Archaeologists have been scouring the Sinai for over a hundred years looking for signs of at least a million people passing through and living on the land for 40 years…they have found Nothing!  They did find evidence of much earlier humans visiting and living there, but no Israelite signs from the era supported by the Bible story.  This also means that there was no exodus of Hebrews trodding across the Red/Reed Sea, no burning bush, no water spouting rock, no Ten Commandments carried down Mount Sinai, no golden calf, and no manna from heaven.

I learned that Joshua did NOT fight the battle of Jericho. Extensive archaeological work has determined that most all of the towns he was supposed to have squashed were already empty and in ruins at the time indicated in the Bible—both the 1400’s BC and the 1200’s BC theory. But then he was a fictional character anyway so it doesn’t matter.

I learned that Moses couldn’t have written at least some parts of Genesis because he wrote (probably in the 1400’s BC) that Abraham came from “Ur of the Chaldee’s” but we know from history that the Chaldeans did not control the city until around 600-500 BC.

Also Moses wrote that Abraham rescued Lot from the city of Dan which did not exist under that name at the time of Moses.  300 years later the town of Laish was captured by the tribe of Dan and renamed Dan.

I learned that God cannot defeat Iron Chariots used by us war-like humans.

I learned that God does not answer prayers…at least not of those with limb amputations.  Not once in all of recorded history has God ever restored some poor person’s amputated arms or legs and there have been many, many millions of people who have suffered this. You may even know someone from the armed forces who lost a limb or two in Iraq or Afghanistan…or Viet-Nam. The Bible tells us that Jesus raised the dead and threw out spirits or demons and healed some really bad diseases, and he himself was supposed to have risen from the dead, but no mention of limb re-growth anywhere.

I learned that God was really really mean. One mistake in the garden and He curses Adam and Eve and ALL the billions of their offspring to a miserable life with disease and famine and wars and all manner of horrible torture and deaths.  He orders the tribes of Israel to murder man, woman, and child of innocent villages or towns. He fire-bombs villages, He orders running thru pregnant women with swords, bashing babies skulls against the walls or rocks, beheading hundreds or thousands, tossing live people into the fires and who knows what else. And, the animal cruelty you don’t even want to know about.  All in all, the God as described in the Bible is a horrible figure…not God-like at all.  Of course we know that the entire God ordered killing was just the Hebrews way of conquering territory and booty.  There was no God to order all that murder and mayhem.

-end part 1

Warning: This video has a few cuss words…easily offended–don’t watch.

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Advertisement

Old Biblical Stories…Redux

I spent a lot of time on this reply, it needs to be on the blog front page.

Hi Marianne, Thank you for writing.

You write:”
I am a scientist that is paying attention. I have spent 30 years in biochemistry, which includes cell biology, toxicology, pharmacology, inflammation, biophysics of DNA and RNA, and medical research in general.

Great, I’ve always wanted to talk to someone in the research. If you are comfortable with it, could you tell me where you received your degree, what degree you have, and what particular field you work in today?

You write:
“Most scientists do not have any proof for what you say. It is all just “tradition.” They just assume evolution did this, and evolution did that. There is no proof. What the lay person perceives as proof is just scientific speculation, based on this traditional thinking.”

So are you saying here that you do not agree with or accept evolution?
How old do you think the earth and our universe is?

You write:
“you make several unsubstantiated comments. Like Noah did not exist. Well there are records of him, just like there are records of Julius Caesar. There was a garden of eden, and the description of what happened to it is consistent with the syrian african rift – most of it fell into this pit. The bible knew about this rift before modern science did. And the descriptions of the Garden match up with local areas, if you understand tectonic plate shifts.”

Here is what I actually wrote in my reply to your earlier post:
“Looking around and paying attention and studying the world we find the evidence that there never was a world-wide flood, which means we are not descended from Noah’s 3 sons. We find that real humans have been walking the earth for at least 200,000 years (means that there was no Adam and Eve as the Bible relates), which also means there was no fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, which means there is no Original Sin…which also means there is no need for a redeemer (Jesus) for our (non-existent) original sin .”

I did not say Noah never existed (although I do doubt that he did) I said there is NO evidence of his supposed flood, and you will find the evidence for this fact is all over the internet. You say there are records of him…could you perhaps guide me to them?

Regarding the Garden of Eden, there are many stories and guesses as to where it was. The Discovery and Nat Geo channels have had a few specials  about that, and it has variously been placed in Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, and Kenya. The Great Rift Valley which goes through Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, and goes right by the Afar depression…you know where Lucy and her brethrens bones are found, also the border area between Namibia and South Africa, and probably other places I haven’t heard about.  Yes, I am familiar with plate tectonics

The Largest DNA study on record at this time is the IBM, Nat Geo Genome Project which has over 350,000 DNA samples right now, and they are showing all the existing human bloodlines come from Africa, primarily the Ethiopian, Kenya area and the border area between Namibia and South Africa.

And why would there be a Garden of Eden if Adam and Eve did not exist?

You write:
“I do not accept the Jewish archeologist denying the Exodus or Joshua. I say the opposite. They are uncovering new evidence every day. They have sites where the Red Sea was crossed, and the pharoah’s chariots are still down there, under water. THey also have sites where the Israelites offered sacrifices in the desert, with hebrew symbols. The israelites were instructed to leave markers along their journey, and these markers have been found. “

You do not accept the Archaeological evidence? Do you have other scientific evidence that refutes this? Is this part of your field today? Also it’s not just one archaeologist.

There has never been a discovery of Pharaohs chariots in the Red Sea, or the Reed Sea for that matter, and believe me they have been looked for.  If you insist there is…could you please point me to the evidence, as I have scoured the internet for almost three years now for evidence of this (and other Biblical things) and have had no luck at all.

To the best of my knowledge many, many archaeologists have scoured the Sinai for a hundred years looking for any evidence at all that over a million Hebrews wandered there for 40 years and have found absolutely nothing.  There is even no evidence at Kadesh-Barnea where a million Hebrews supposedly spent the majority of their time during this 40 years.  You know that the evidence of Joshua defeating the town of Jericho and Ai are lacking also, don’t you?  I haven’t heard anything at all about markers.

You write:
“Most modern church and theology seminaries are getting away from the truth, not going toward it. Much is crap. They need the holy spirit to know truth, not a man getting paid a salary. He is just a hireling.”

I guessing here that you are an evangelical fundamentalist and believe in the literal Bible as being inerrant in all matters. Would I be right?  I think a lot of what the modern church and seminaries are doing is trying to keep up with the emerging science that somehow impinges on religion.  This is what’s going on with the Old Testament and Genesis specifically. The circumstantial evidence against Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood, Tower of Babel, Exodus, Joshua, and the subsequent fallout from these stories being false…nothing but myth, is changing our world of religious thought. Denying facts do not make them go away.

You write:
“As far as time on the earth, no data is any better than the tool that measures it. There is no realistic tool that can measure over 500o years. The rest is speculation, and going off the standard curve, which is bad science.”

Have you heard of Potassium Argon dating?  There are also about 20 or 30 radioactive element methods of dating besides the common C-14

Also there are the following:
Absolute dating
Amino acid dating
Astronomical chronology
Biochronology
Datestone
Dendrochronology
Electron spin resonance
Fluorine absorption dating
Ice-Core dating
Iodine-xenon dating
Law of superposition
Obsidian hydration dating
Oxidizable carbon ratio dating
Principle of faunal succession
Relative dating
Thermoluminescence dating

I’m sure I’ve missed one or two…but then you know all this as a scientist.

Dendrochronology can go back 11,000 years now. Not helpful in the Sinai, but useful in other parts of Israel…to sometimes fact check the old stories.

You might want to check out an older post of mine here: https://thewordofme.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/carbon-dating-and-the-bible

In it I reference a Christian writer and scientist who actually works in the age-dating field. I have there a link to a PDF file about age-dating that the man wrote especially for Christians. Also I will post his contact data here: Dr. Roger C. Wiens RCWiens@MSN.Com Dr. Wiens has a PhD in Physics, with a minor in Geology. His PhD thesis was on isotope ratios in meteorites, including surface exposure dating.

He was employed at Caltech’s Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences at the time of writing the first edition. He is presently employed in the Space & Atmospheric Sciences Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

He has published over twenty scientific research papers and has also published articles in Christian magazines. Dr. Wiens became a Christian at a young age, and has been a member of Mennonite Brethren, General Conference Baptist, and Conservative Congregational, and Vineyard denominations.
Whole PDF article can be found at: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

Age Dating in the many ways and methods used by science nowadays works…there is NO real dispute about this…except from YEC’s

You write:
“If you want to know Jesus, he will make himself known to you, in a way that is unique to you.”

Is there really a need for Jesus…if there was no Adam and Eve and consequently no “Original Sin”?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Joshua Fought The Battle of Jericho and Other Lies

In 1901, John Rembsburg in his book “The Bible” writes:

“In the 12th chapter of Joshua is given a list of 31 kingdoms which were conquered by Israel. This was in the fifteenth century B.C. From this time forward they are represented as a mighty nation by Bible historians.

Rameses III overran Canaan and conquered it between 1280 and 1260 B.C. The Egyptian records give a list of all the tribes inhabiting it. The children of Israel– the Hebrews– were not there. In the 5th century B.C., when Herodotus, the father of History, was collecting materials for his immortal work, he traversed nearly every portion of Western Asia. He describes all its principal peoples and places; but the Jews and Jerusalem are of too little consequence to merit a line from his pen. Not until 332 B.C. do the Jews appear upon the stage of history, and then only as the submissive vassals of a Grecian king.”

Jerusalem, it seems, was not the glorious capital of an empire. These findings have been accepted by the majority of biblical scholars and archaeologists for many many years.

The stories of the ancient patriarchs were among the first to go when biblical scholars from the last two centuries subjected the scriptures to linguistic, textual, and literary analysis, noting all the inconsistencies, interrupted rhythms, comparing styles, and placing the text within the archaeological, historical and geographical background and found much of it filled with anachronisms.

Exodus, the second book of the Bible, a powerful epic story of human struggle slipped from history to myth when archaeologists could no longer ignore the complete lack of supporting evidence from contemporary Egyptian accounts and the total lack of archaeological evidence of large and long term encampments in the Sinai Peninsula.

The Biblical account of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan is inconsistent with the archaeological evidence.  The famous battle of Jericho, with which the Israelites purportedly launched their campaign of conquest after wandering in the desert for forty years, has been thoroughly debunked: the city of Jericho was mostly deserted at that time and had no standing walls to come tumbling down. Cities supposedly conquered by Joshua in the 14th century BC were destroyed long before he came on the scene. Some, such as Ai and Arad, had been in ruins for as much as 1,000 years before him.

The evidence is now pretty much accepted by all mainstream archaeologists.

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich–Napoleon

see more Lol Celebs

Early Christianity

The holy city of Jerusalem is teeming with pilgrims for the springtime feast of Passover, many of them looking for an earthly king, a messiah who will deliver them from the yoke of Roman oppression.

Jesus of Nazareth walks into this city. His protests against the Romans make him a popular hero. To some, he is the messiah. But to the Romans, he is nothing but political trouble. So they crucify him.

Jerusalem had been the holy city of Judaism for more than 1,000 years, a place that the Romans had occupied since 63 B.C. When the Romans killed Jesus, somewhere around 30-33 AD, scholars say, the Jews were desperately looking for a messiah to free them from Roman oppression, to liberate them and their promised land.  But there was disagreement as to who that messiah might be.  There was no messianic checklist. Some people would have followed Jesus. Others followed John the Baptist. Others followed additional figures.

Jerusalem, with its massive temple, was the holiest site on earth for Jews and its priestly caste; would many have even noticed Jesus, the wandering rabbi from the Galilee?  Who knows whether many Jews in Jerusalem at the time would have even known about the sect of Jewish Christians, people who believed that Jesus was the messiah? He would have looked and dressed the same as everyone else. He probably had some people following behind him.

Jesus was betrayed by his own disciple, Judas. And as Jesus had foretold in the gospels, Peter, had publicly denied him three times.  Only a few women, led by his mother, Mary, stayed at the foot of the cross.  Outside of the women who remained there watching, most of his followers actually ran away and hid, because they were afraid for their own safety.

That should have been the end of the Jesus story and it might have been if not, the gospels tell us, for the women, namely, Mary Magdalene and Mary, mother of Jesus.  Three days after his death, they discovered his empty tomb. As he had promised, Jesus had risen from the dead.

The resurrected Jesus appeared to his disciples. According to the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus told them to stay in Jerusalem, where they would soon get a sign from heaven.  So they sit in a state of anticipation and expectation.

Then on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, 50 days after Jesus died, the sign came suddenly.  From heaven, there came a sound of the rush of a violent wind. It filled the entire house where they were sitting, divided tongues, as of fire appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages.

So that Jews who were in Jerusalem, whether they were from Egypt, Syren, Greece, or even Rome, they would be able to understand this new proclamation in their own dialect.

These earliest followers of Jesus considered themselves to be Jews. They thought that Jesus was the Jewish messiah who had been sent from the Jewish God to the Jewish people in fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures.

They were not, at least in the beginning, interested in starting a new religion. They were interested in preparing the world for its final consummation said by Jesus to be coming before many of the people of that time died.  But that kingdom doesn’t come. That message it seems was false.

Then they get two messengers who could not be more different, Peter, a simple fisherman from Galilee, who was Jesus’ chief apostle, and Paul, a sophisticated Pharisee. Together they will create a religion that would change the world.

People have called Paul the second founder of Christianity.  The religion is about Jesus. It’s a religion founded on Jesus’ death and resurrection. The Old Testament God was gently pushed aside and the light was focused on His Son.  This is kind of confusing, since according to the Trinitarians, God and Jesus, are one and the same. However, now Jesus/God was a mild and gentle deity unlike the killer warrior God of the Old Testament.

People listened to Paul because he was the perfect man for the job, able to speak to both Jews and Gentiles in their own language. He’s one of the first powerful intellects to convert to Christianity in the first century.  Paul said this is the one who could heal your child, if your child was sick. This is the God who could raise the dead; this is the one who could end the drought, who could end the famine. This is the god who could do miracles, and so this was the only God to be worshiped.

Delivering the Jesus message put Paul and Peter in conflict. Peter thought the resurrection of Jesus was for the Jews only. If you wanted to be a follower of Jesus you needed to convert to Judaism and obey the Jewish laws. Paul was preaching that the Gentiles were welcome without conversion.

Peter wielded considerable power in Jerusalem, power given to him by Jesus.  According to the gospel of Matthew, Jesus says to Peter, “You are Peter — the Greek term for rock, petros — and on this rock, petra, I will build my church.”  Peter became the head of the small Christian church that was centered in Jerusalem itself. So Peter was a key player in early Christianity, and according to tradition, was the one that converted Jews early on to believe that Jesus was the messiah.

There was another critical leader of the early followers of Jesus. His name was James and he seemed to have the ultimate trump card in the new faith as he was Jesus’ earthly brother.  He was raised in prominence among the Christians of Jerusalem and eventually became the leader of the Jerusalem church. James agreed with Peter: Jesus was for the Jews.

Within two decades of the crucifixion of Jesus, Christianity faced a life or death moment. The major dispute in early Christianity was whether followers of Jesus have to become Jewish in order to worship the Jewish god.

Around 48 to 49 CE, the first apostolic council is called in Jerusalem to resolve the issue of Gentile Christians… do they have to convert or not.  Paul argues that the Holy Spirit had descended upon the Gentiles apart from the Law of Moses. Therefore there was no reason to insist that those Gentiles be converted to Judaism in order to be a member of the church.  James, the brother of Jesus, presiding over this Jerusalem council, agrees with Paul.

It was a huge triumph for the new faith, and for Paul, whose arguments had won the day. The message of Jesus was for the whole world, and those who believed in that message could win eternal life.

But the biggest test was yet to come. How will the Jesus message go down in the heart of the pagan Roman Empire?

…Continued…

more animals

Is Christianity Doomed?

Christians nowadays are in a very unstable position although they will deny it strongly.  Arguing philosophy and exegesis of the Bible is pretty much a waste of time now.  The thing that is killing religion in our times is science and the unstoppable uncovering of evidence that disproves most of the foundation of all religions. Judaism, Islam and Christianity are all irrevocably tied to the Bible. All that believers in Yahweh, Elohim, Jehovah, or Allah can do nowadays is say they don’t believe the sciences that contradict their theology.

The believers in God have to deny that we can accurately date tens of thousands of artifacts and human bones and artwork and structures that are scattered all over the earth and give live testimony to our civilizations verrry looong past.  The many evidences we have for our past are real and tangible and their provenance can be scientifically proven…and there is so much of it.  The followers of God and Allah sometimes say that it doesn’t matter what evidence there is, God is outside of the evidence and cannot be proven…or disproven.

Perhaps true.  But, what can be proven beyond a doubt, is that certain things that are described in the infallible ‘Word of God’ inspired Bible are not true and not infallible or factual and that a lot of the stories are not to be trusted as actually happening.  Another thing that stands out is the actual explanation of the supposedly unfolding drama is stupid. The most stupid part is that Satan knows he will fail because it’s part of the drama that God set up…preordained from the very beginning if you will.

If you believe the story of Gods plan you have to accept the fact that God actually created this WHOLE drama from the beginning. He created all Evil, Satan, the Demons, He set up the Fall, giving us Original Sin, He was the playwright, the creator of unimaginable human suffering and death. A loving God creates two humans and actually sets them up for failure and then kicks them out of his care and lets these poor people try to survive with nothing…that part of the story is both scary and a not very bright explanation of a Gods actions.  Wake up Christians…A true humane God would not do these things.

Some things to consider:

1.       We know that the flood described in the Bible never happened.

2.        We know that humans and civilizations were spread all over the earth in the time of the deluge and  Tower of Babel.

3.       We know that Neanderthals were walking the earth for tens of thousands of years before a supposed Adam and Eve were created.

4.       We know that Homo sapiens or ‘modern humans’ were walking the earth tens of thousands of years before the Biblical folklore was even thought of.

5.       We know that Moses did not write the Pentateuch.

6.       We know, although fundamentalists deny it, that there are many, many contradictions and falsehoods in the scripture.

7.       We know that the Hebrews conception of ‘God’ changed mightily over the years. They once had a pantheon of gods and worshiped idols at late as 500BCE.

8.       There is no evidence outside the Bible, in other historic documents or the archeological record, for a mass migration from Egypt involving hundreds of thousands of people.

9.       No evidence for Joshua’s knocking down of Jericho’s walls or destruction of Ai and other cities.

10.   Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or were destroyed by “Sea People”-Philistines, or others.

Just the first 4 things above are enough to prove the Bible false.

Religion is a construct of the human mind…its explanation of creation is a story from a very old tribe
of Sheep/Goat herders, in the language, and with the worldview, of the times it was written in.  The Old and New Testament scriptures are very different views of God, and how he treats and interacts with humans…they are not compatible…and not ‘Gods’ word.

see Sarah Palin pictures

End Times, Armageddon, Second Coming. etc.

Got to thinking about the ‘End Times’ today (this being Sunday and all) and was wandering how close we were to the fabled ‘Battle of Armageddon.’ all the Christians keep talking about and wishing for. Seems there are still a few items from Biblical prophecy that need to happen before the actual ‘End Times’ are upon us.

“Megiddo was a site of great importance in the ancient world, as it guarded the western branch of a narrow pass and an ancient trade route which connected the lands of Egypt and Assyria. Because of its strategic location at the crossroads of several major routes, Megiddo and its environs have witnessed several major battles throughout history. The site was inhabited from 7000 BC to 500 BC.” From Wikipedia, go: HERE

This little fact about Megiddo’s being occupied 3000 years ( Jericho is even older) before God supposedly created Adam & Eve, makes one wonder, and maybe think that the writers of the Bible were just making up stuff.

“After the destruction of the Beast at the Second Coming of Jesus, the promised Kingdom is set up, in which Jesus and the Saints will rule for a thousand years. Satan is then loosed **”for a season” and goes out to deceive the nations, specifically, Gog and Magog. The army mentioned attacks the Saints in the New Jerusalem, they are defeated by a judgment of fire coming down from Heaven, and then comes the Great White Throne judgment, which includes all of those through the ages and these are cast into the Lake of Fire, which event is also known as the “second death” or Hell.” See Wikipedia HERE

Premillennialism is a doctrine very popular among Evangelical Fundamentalist Protestants in North America. Other premillennial groups include Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists. Premillennialists believe the Second Coming of Christ will be the start of the ‘Millennium’ (the 1000 year period when Jesus (God for you Trinitarians) rules the world). Before this period will come a time of destruction, war and disaster on earth, called the ‘Tribulation’, which will be ended by God defeating evil (Those pesky Russkies maybe, or politicians?) at the battle of Armageddon.

During the ‘Tribulation’ the Antichrist (Satan’s emissary…probably a politician) will torture humanity, and God will go to war against him. The tribulation will end in seven years when God defeats the Antichrist and we will enter the ‘Millennium. One thing to wonder about…why would a omnipotent God take seven years to defeat evil? Another thing that is troubling to me is that some Christians think they will be caught up in a ‘Rapture’ and miss all the Tribulation. Just like the Trinity, the Rapture doesn’t seem to be mentioned in the Bible…and some Christians build a whole church/sect on these things.

Hard core Premillennialists also don’t see much point in Christians trying to improve the world, since God is about to destroy much of it…and then remake it…again…think Noah’s Flood. I could kinda’ see their point here, but since all this is just very weird and wishful thinking, and old myth’s, they really aren’t very good world citizens…and kind of downers to be around socially.

**Whats up with letting Satan loose again…does God have no mercy?

********************

Many fundamentalist Christians believe that the building of the Third Temple is one of the prerequisites for the second coming of Christ. Some Christian fundamentalists in the United States support arms sales and military aid to Israel in the belief that these actions will help Israel rebuild its Temple and thus bring about the End Times. Critics say the actions of fundamentalist Christians in Israel and Palestine, which includes providing material support for Jewish settlers in what was formerly Palestinian lands, is building dangerous tension in the area. However the Temple Mount is now controlled by Muslim’s, and is considered its most sacred (Dome of the Rock) site, so its unlikely that the Jews will attempt to build a new Temple there for a very long time…if ever.

Well, I think we can count out the fulfilling of this Temple³ prophecy for the immediate future. I don’t think the Muslim’s will give up the site and Israel so far looks like they don’t want to start WWIII.

All this sounds pretty scary, but since there is already lots of doubt about the stories I don’t think I’m going to worry about these Biblical myths very much. And people openly and loudly wishing for the end of the world need to go suck eggs. 🙂

Actually the Battle of Armageddon was fought in 1918, British Christianity…against the Ottoman Empire. We won.

more animals

Real Truths About Religion and God

People have responded to many of my posts about religion by asking me where my proofs come from. I suspect these people are just religious believers who want to convert me, and others, who write about non-belief.

There is information on any subject you can imagine on the Internet (as I’m sure you all know), including original research papers on subjects relating to Biblical truth. The popular science-type magazines all have a web presence. And contrary to some Christians beliefs, they are not part of an evil cabal out to satanize all who view them.

I have a blogroll type list of websites I use to gather information from, on the right side of my site…if you’re reading this…you will see it as you scroll down. These are legit sites and they have reliable, mainstream, real world information. If Christians were to ever actually seriously research their Biblical beliefs they would soon see how much they have been misinformed, and how wrong the Bible is.

I am a realist however, and I just put the stuff out there with the hope that it will strike a chord with someone who is searching for the truth, and maybe cause them to go to real world proofs, instead of Hebrew myths, that are a waste of precious time and energy.

The famous site listed below has all the answers to flood myth lined up and they are checkable. Other parts of the site have some of the best general information about scientific origins of the earth, universe, humans, etc. They have been around since the early nineties. If you take time to explore it thoroughly you will find links to original research and real world explanations of our earth, and all who live on, and in it. The people who write there are experts-who happen to not have a Doctorate of Divinity.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

If the Noachian Flood can be disproven (and it has been), then other parts of the Bible are also suspect of being wrong. And there are many other disproven Biblical assertions. Many Christians just don’t accept the truth. They cling very hard to a 2800 year old Hebrew myth, a view of a childish God, that people of the time didn’t have enough knowledge, or intellectual sense of the world, to question.

That the Christian faith has survived this long is not an indicator of its being true. To the contrary, it is an indicator of how easily the church adjusts its theology to conform as much as possible to currant social conventions (think slavery, polygamy, prostitution, kings killing on a whim, etc.). The church is known to burn papers (and people) that disagree with currant theological thought.

Think about the currant ‘state of the religion.’ Now, about 2008 years since the birth of Jesus (?) Roughly 1700 years since Christianity got the official ‘okey-dokey’ from secular rulers, and its still in a state of disrepair. There are maybe thousands of sects and they all differ. Muslims believe in the same God…so they say, and they are out to kill us…for heresy. Catholics believe Protestants practice heresy, and vice-versa. Mormons…who knows what they believe. There is either one that is right…or none is right. There is not two of them who are right…or three, or four…

Through manipulation of human thought and incorrect reasoning, physical threats, actual physical harm, and burning at the stake, or as little as social/societal ostracism, Christians have spread their evil plot to take over the world and control humans…every actions and thought…for more than two thousand years. Think about it for a while; think about the whole long history of Jews and Christians and what they have always wanted from us.

What has been, and is, their ultimate goal? It’s to take over control of all humanity and tell us how to think and act…they actually have that kind of control of a significant portion of the US population…think Bible belt and the Deep South. Churches are the social center and source of information, on how to conform…of many hundreds of thousands or millions of Evangelical Fundamentalist type people. I think those people are afraid that if they don’t belong to a church, they’ll automatically go out and start sinning in the worst possible way.

There is some evolving news about change in the Catholic position on humanity. They are actually starting to accept that humans have a looong history. Go to the site below and check it out. Notice in the upper right hand corner where the paper comes from. That old fossil…the Catholic Church…might have some life and intellect left after all. http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/zim/zim_251adamandeve.html

Below is a quote from the article mentioned above.

“The Catholic position on this is clear. St. Thomas says that “one should not try to defend the Christian faith with arguments that are so patently opposed to reason that the faith is made to look ridiculous.” It is simply nonsense to say that the world is only 6,000 years old (Catechesis, Creation and Evolution, Zenit News, Dec. 19, 2005).” My emphasis.

The Catholics are leading the pack in the changing of theological thought to match what is known to be true nowadays, although their present thought is a little dopey. I look forward to following this change. I also look forward to how the Evangelical Fundamentalists will continue to deny In-Your-Face truth.

Some suggested Google search terms that I have followed: Religion, God, Jesus, El, Elohim, Yahweh, Jehovah, biblical tribes, Scripture, Noah’s flood, Ur of the Chaldeans, city of Dan, city of Laish, sea people, Babylon, age of earth, Hebrews, Christian myth, Sumerians, Akkadians, Mesopotamia, Jericho, Chaldea or Chaldeans, Assyria, Indus valley civilization, ancient Egypt, Hammurabi, Gilgamesh, flood stories, flood myths, Myths, ancient native Americans, Solutrian, Clovis points, cave paintings, Adam and Eve, African civilization(s), Bronze age, iron age, ancient Briton, ancient Europe, Neanderthal, Hebron, Abraham, Lot, biology, Midrash, Torah, Jewish myths, ancient languages, archaeological dating, carbon dating, dating methods, Dendrocronology, stratigraphy, oil geology, Permian, Paleontology, DNA, rNA, genetics, human history, human pre-history, ancient India, ancient Iran, Stonehenge, henges, pyramids, stelas, Rosetta stone, cuneiform writing, hieroglyphs, Euphrates river, Tigris river, Geology, life sciences, and on and on….

The above terms represent maybe one twentieth of the search terms (sorry they aren’t alphabetized) I have used in following the paths of Christian religion. I have been doing this for about two years now, in my spare time. If the site is religious sect sponsored, they will often try to deny real world science by any means they can, including, but not limited to, lying and misdirection. There are a few exceptions that are starting to tackle the problem head on though, and the Catholic Church, as mentioned above, is one of them.

There is not one or two sites that can disprove all things religious untrue, though talkorigins.com comes close. I find you have to visit and really absorb many, many different viewpoints and disciplines and slowly let them simmer in your head. Good hunting.

For latest post go: Here

Angry God

In the Old Testament, God is mostly depicted as an angry, disagreeable deity.

He delivers His people from slavery in Egypt, He *”gives” them the Promised Land for eternity, only to find them ungrateful and sinful. * They really had to kill for it.

Time after time they run after foreign gods…so God punishes them by letting their enemies capture and rule over them…and they cry for God to help them…God accepts their contrition…He gives them a righteous leader who leads them to victory over their enemy, and then after a while they start sinning again, on and on.

What kind of god would put up with that? I don’t find much of anything in the Old Testament that makes “Godly” sense. The only thing the Jewish people in the OT seem good at is bitching and spinning tall tales. They don’t appear to be in the least bit special, and their line of ‘heroes’, as listed in the Bible, are just as sinful as the rest of humanity at the time. Think David killing his lover’s husband; Solomon having a thousand wives.

The people don’t seem to deserve any special consideration. Their story seems more like a wandering peoples trying to justify their killing off of an already establish bunch of landowners, to take the land for themselves.

In fact, as I read about all the wars and mass killings listed in the OT Bible I get the feeling these are just wars to redistribute the wealth of the one group over another. The one excuse listed more than any other for the Jews to go to war and commit genocide against their neighbors is sinfulness. Those darn people of Jericho, and Ai are just really bad sinners…let go kill them all and take this land for our own. They go to war at the drop of a bagel…but only because God said it was OK.

They have a God that follows them all over the country and directs them to kill and take peoples land. How conveeenient.

God tells the Jews their people will be like the sands on the beach…uncountable.

God tells David his line and throne will last forever.

Yet modern history, also tells us these two things didn’t happen.

Archaeology also tells us many things in the Bible didn’t happen.

Jesus is said to have descended from David…two different stories about that in Bible.

The more you research…everything…connected with the Christian religion, the more uncertainties, and factual problems you encounter. The more I research, the more I get the feeling this religion is just a fairy tale of the Jewish people. It wouldn’t be so bad if some of the stories had some actual facts backing them up. Most of them don’t, and Christians go around doing back-flips trying to explain them, rather than just admitting they are moral illustrations and allegory meant to make a point. Nooo…the Bible is literal line for line truth.

For latest post go: Here

more cat pictures

To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. Cardinal Bellarmine, during the trial of Galileo Galileo, 1615

Genesis, Babel, Flood, Christians, Jews, etc.

Hi Jason, thank you for taking the time to write to me.
I’m putting your reply, and my reply to it, on a regular post because of better formatting options.

You quote me and write”
“Genesis hints that the man/earth is 6,000 years old-not true.”
“Actually, Genesis does not hint at any such thing. At least not in it’s original language which is Hebrew. The word that has been translated as “day” in genesis actually means “an unspecified amount of time”. The problem is a translational error that is common when going from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to Greek to English which is the typical path for most English translations.”

Yes, I know that. A number of Christian sects are beginning to realize this, but some still vehemently deny the long time periods. The people at Answersingenesis come to mind immediately. I have noticed also that a lot of Baptist, Pentecostal, general fundamentalists, and evangelicals go for the short time. The Catholics started the 6,000-year thing long ago, and most sects inherited it in the Protestant Reformation.

You write:
“Science, on the other hand, actually agrees, at least partially, with the “standard” reading of Genesis. The Big Bang theory states simply that in the begining of our universe all matter was condenced into a single point. There was an explosion and that sent matter flying out in all directions from the point of origin. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity tells us that he further matter moved away from the point of origin, the slower time got. In other words, it could have been six literal days (24 hours) at the point of origin, but 4 billion years on Earth.”

Yes I’m aware that The Big Bang Theory is very close to the “Let there be light, etc.,” from the bible. That is one very real possibility that I readily accept. However, in my version a creator does his thing and walks (or drifts) away. The silly melodrama that Jews and Christians have come up with to try and explain creation and subsequent evolution is myth of the first order. I don’t claim to speak for any gods, but my image of God or gods just doesn’t involve the childishness that Jews and Christians attribute to their God. (Muslims also).

You quote me and write”
“Genesis says there was a world wide flood-not true.”
Actually, there are mountains (no pun intended) of evidence that suggest there really was a world wide flood. The primary evidence is both anthropological and geological.”

Actually there is mountains of evidence (intended) 😉 that there was not a universal flood. The geological evidence has been amassing since the early 1700’s, when naturalists of the time started noticing the stratigraphic evidence did not agree with the story of Noah. There has never been found any geological evidence of a worldwide flood…that is not me talking…this is from all reputable scientists that study the record in all of it’s many parts. Yes you will find some “scientists” who will argue the points, but when they come upon a real expert in the field they are expounding on, their stories fall flat in the face of overwhelming actual real evidence.

You write:
“Anthropological evidence: Every single civilization on earth has a flood story. These stories are still passed down from their ancestors to modern people today. There are also tons of ancient pictographs, cave paintings, and writings that detail this flood. If you take out all the various religious symbology, every one of them is virtually identical. Even with the religious symbology there is scarcely 25% difference between the two furthest apart.”

Yes, there are flood stories all over the globe and that is due to large segments of the earth’s populations always being settled near sources of water, and those sources do tend to flood occasionally; even oceans. You won’t find flood stories among mountain tribes or highland civilizations. One thing of note is that the flood of Gilgamesh has over 20 points of similarity with the Noachian flood, but was written about a time that was about 500 to a 1,000 years before Noah. There is evidence of prehistoric floods all over the face of the earth, but they do not coincide in time…floods are common. This information can be found all over the Internet…in very reputable science journals and university-sponsored research.

You write:
“Geological evidence: The Grand Canyon is a perfect example. It used to be though that the GC was formed over millions of years by wind and water. When you have soil that dates as 10 million years old on top of soil that dates 2 million years old, something is seriously wrong. Scientific experiments designed to simulate the way the GC was thought to have formed have failed to reproduce similar effects.”

Here I believe you are using information from the following book” Whitcomb, John C. & Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Philadelphia, PA, 1961) The myths put forth in this old book have been thoroughly discredited by modern research. Actually at the time they wrote this book they probably knew they were wrong.

I’m going to quote a short piece from a very long article from talkorigins.org:
“There is a perfectly satisfactory gradual explanation for the formation of the Grand Canyon that avoids all these problems. Sediments deposited about two billion years ago were metamorphosed and intruded by granite to become today’s basement layers. Other sediments were deposited in the late Proterozoic and were subsequently folded, faulted, and eroded. More sediments were deposited in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic, with a period of erosion in between. The Colorado Plateau started rising gradually about seventy million years ago. As it rose, existing rivers deepened, carving through the previous sediments (Harris and Kiver 1985, 273-282).” Talkorigins.org-retrieved 4-09-08
If you follow the link and go to the talk.origins site, you will be into a very lengthy post about common questions that religious fundamentalists have about sciences rejection of a worldwide flood. These people know what they’re talking about…they are not cranks.

You quote me and write:
“Genesis says that man’s different languages originated at Babel-not true.”
“There is anthropological (FYI: Anthropology is a science) evidence that states otherwise. It is possible to trace back each ancient language (modern derivatives and polyglots such as English do not count) to a relatively small area on the planet. While it is not known (at this time) exactly where the Towel of Babel stood, this area is in the general vacinity.”

The time is about 2350 to 2370 BC. After Noah, his wife, his sons and their wife’s and Canaan left the ark, the spread to the four corners of the world each with their own land and language Quotes from KJV follow:

Genesis 10:5 KJV By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.

Genesis 10:20 KJV These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

Genesis 10:31,32 KJV These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. 32These are the families of the sons of Noah, after their generations, in their nations: and by these were the nations divided in the earth after the flood.

The Tower of Babel is generally agreed to be where Babylon stands today. The tower of Babel incident that the Bible reports is about 110-120 years after the Noachian flood. In the Biblical Tower of Babel story they fail to take into account (or even comprehend) that humans were spread all over the earth, not in just a small Middle Eastern land. Population of earth, at the time of Babel is estimated at anywhere from 10 to 50 million souls. Do you think they were all grunting at each other? Many civilizations lived right through the Biblical time of the flood and tower of Babel without a recorded hiccup…Egypt shows no sign of and does not record a gigantic flood at all, and they lived right next door, and they were building, or had built the pyramids. The Bronze Age was in full swing at the flood time, and requires fairly intensive infrastructure to produce all those chariots and war weapons…no sign of interruption.

You quote me and write”
“The walls of Jericho were probably already flat by the time Joshua got there. 300 years earlier”
“History says otherwise. Writings of the time, by both Jews and Gentiles, tell a far different picture. The geographical clues given in the Bible help to identify the time period that Yehoshua was there. There are writings that were made by other peoples that document Yehoshua and the army destroying the walls.

Jericho is one of the most ancient cities in the world. Archaeological data suggests it was inhabited back to the eighth millennium BC. Evidence for a destruction of the walls date to about 2300 BC, but the inhabitants rebuilt the town and erected new walls. Jericho appears to have been thoroughly destroyed by fire during the 1600 century BC, and, at best, only sparsely inhabited thereafter. Before 1300 BC the walls had already been destroyed leaving none to tumble before Joshua. At the time that the Bible sets the story. The city had been abandoned for 200-300 years. Google the name: Kathryn Kenyon, and follow her story about the excavations she led.

You write:
“Science and the Bible agree in many more areas than you think. In fact, science has not proven a single aspect of the Bible wrong.
And for the record, I’m not a Christian either. I’m a Jew.”

Yes, there are some areas of agreement, but mostly they disagree. Before science got really good at what they do, mostly in the last 60 or so years, religious leaders had a good ol’ time fooling the serfs that they kept under their thumb…The evidence and proofs for what the scientists were saying was hard to come by. Now the PC and Internet have opened up the halls of knowledge to all people on earth. I have yet to run into problems researching any subject I have come up with.

Science has proven the worldwide flood never happened…people of religion reject the proof…that doesn’t mean it’s not right. Evolution has been gathering steam for over 150 years now…it’s not getting weaker as some would have you believe…It’s getting stronger. The real, researchable proofs keep growing, despite childish and wrongly researched attacks by Creationist’s and fundamentalists.

I myself am a human.

Kinda interesting that all the DNA and blood evidence is pointing to Africa as the birthplace of humanity

Go Here for latest posting

God of Love? God of Torture and Death?

Do you feel the love emanating from the Bible? No? Maybe this is why.

2 Chronicles 25:12. “And the other ten thousand left alive
did the children of Judah carry away captive, and brought
them unto the top of the rock, and cast them down from the
top of the rock, that they were all broken in pieces.“

Deuteronomy 14:21. “Ye shall not eat of any thing that dieth
of itself: thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy
gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien:
for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God. Thou
shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.”

2 Samuel 8:4. “And David took from him a thousand
chariots, and seven hundred horsemen, and twenty
thousand footmen: and David houghed [humstrung] all the
chariot horses, but reserved of them for an hundred
chariots.”

2 Samuel 12:31. “And he brought forth the people that were
therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of
iron, and under axes of iron, and made them pass through
the brick kiln: and thus did he unto all the cities of the
children of Ammon. So David and all the people returned
unto Jerusalem.”

2 Kings 2:23-24. “23. And he went up from thence unto
Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth
little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto
him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. 24. And
he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the
name of the Lord. And there came forth two she bears out of
the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.”

Exodus 21:7. “And if a man sell his daughter to be a
maidservant, she shall not go out as the menservants do.”

Samuel 15:3. “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly
destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both
man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel
and ass.”

2 Samuel 4:12. “And David commanded his young men, and
they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and
hanged them up over the pool in Hebron. But they took the
head of Ishbosheth, and buried it in the sepulchre of Abner
in Hebron.”

Num. 5:12-21. “12. Speak unto the children of Israel, and
say unto them, If any man’s wife go aside, and commit a
trespass against him, 13. And a man lie with her carnally,
and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and be kept
close, and she be defiled, and there be no witness against
her, neither she be taken with the manner; 14. And the spirit
of jealousy come upon him, and he be jealous of his wife,
and she be defiled: or if the spirit of jealousy come upon
him, and he be jealous of his wife, and she be not defiled:
15. Then shall the man bring his wife unto the priest,
and…18. And the priest shall set the woman before the
Lord, and uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering
of memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and
the priest shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth
the curse: 19. And the priest shall charge her by an oath,
and say unto the woman, if no man have lain with thee, and
if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness with another
instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter water
that causeth the curse: 20. But if thou hast gone aside to
another instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and
some man have lain with thee beside thine husband: 21.
Then the priest shall charge the woman with an oath of
cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, the Lord
make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the
Lord doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell.”

Num. 25:3-4. “3. And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor:
and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. 4. And
the Lord said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people,
and hang them up before the Lord against the sun, that the
fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel.”

Exod. 21:20-21. “20. And if a man smite his servant, or his
maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be
surely punished. 21. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or
two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.”

Num. 31:15-18. “15. And Moses said unto them, Have ye
saved all the women alive? 16. Behold, these caused the
children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit
trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there
was a plague among the congregation of the Lord.17. Now
therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every
woman that hath known man by lying with him.18. But all the
women children, that have not known a man by lying with
him, keep alive for yourselves.”

Exodus 21:2-6. “2. If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years
he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for
nothing… 5. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my
master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: 6.
Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall
also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his
master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall
serve him for ever.”

Deuteronomy 25:11-12. “11. When men strive together one
with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to
deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him,
and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:
12.Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity
her.”

Go Here for latest posting