Friday, March 19, 2010

WHY DID GOD LIE TO US?

"Religion is The Great Lie that perpetually re-tells itself"
-Saint Brian the Godless

***

Why did God lie to us?

***

This is what we've figured out by ourselves, with our own eyes and brains, using logic and reason, which is to say science:

The Earth is at least 4.5 *billion* years old, if not more.

The Universe is at least 13 billion years old, if not more. Quite possibly much more.

Starlight coming from the very nearest of the stars, traveling at 186,232 miles per second, takes about *four and one half years* to get here from there. A very long way off

The farthest stars are thirteen billion light-years away. The light that we see coming from them is 13 billion years old. How did God make it, if the universe is young? In mid-space traveling to here so we'd think it were old? He thinks of everything, that deceptive, cagey God of ours. What a good liar! Of course He is, He's good at everything.

Dinosaurs died 65 million years ago. But many species became our birds. This is established science now. The birds are the remnants of the dinosaurs, which is easy to see that if you really look at them.

First "people" (Ramipithecus) 10 million years ago or less. They only stood three feet high.

First appearance of homo sapiens (That's us): about 130,000 years ago or more. Which is a lot longer than the bible tells us.

First human civilizations, villages, towns etc.: 130,000 years ago or more

Recorded History: About the last 5000 years or so. This is a very brief period of time when you look at how long we have been here. We've been here 26 times longer than we've written about it. What we know of history is only one twenty-sixth of the story of mankind. I find that amazing.

Christ: If He even lived at all, lived about 2000 years ago.

Christianity, about the same obviously.

One Hundred and Thirty Thousand Years of people being pretty much the same as we are today, sans our technology of course. We really know about only 5000 or so of those, except for archeological digs. Only two thousand years of it under Christianity. And even today, this minute, there are over 600 living religions on this world. Multiply that by two hundred thousand years. That’s an enormous number of religions and belief systems. All of them claimed or still claim to be the one, true religion, too. But we're the right ones. Yeah. We got it right, finally. Sure we did.

One can see how unlikely it is that the Bible is correct. By many, many different yardsticks it doesn't measure up to the easily observable facts. So, it's not literally true. This is a simple answer to a simple question. Logic dictates that it is not true in a literal way.

My original question was, "Why did God lie to us?" By this I mean, if He put things here that point clearly to the Bible truths not being true at all, isn't that a deception? However, if the Bible isn't true, and if He was responsible for the text of the bible, He lied there. So, either way, dishonesty from God.

The only other option possible is that science is right after all, and the Bible is allegorical, which doesn't reduce its beauty or value one whit. But many Christians will accept nothing less than complete victory in this argument. Their way or the highway. Afraid that if the Bible isn't true word-for-word, then their Faith means nothing. That, to me, is the real sin here.

Another point that I can make is that even in the Bible, God has been caught in a lie. It's in there. God hardened the heart of the Pharaoh, which can only mean that if God had not done that, the Pharoah would have been lenient with the Israelites. Hardening someone's heart against something is a deception, pure and simple.

So let's dispose once and for all with this Bible that everyone believes is so infallible in spite of it being rife with logical contradictions and outright hypocrisies, not to mention so much hatred and pride and self-righteousness and all the terrible examples that God the Father gives us as His Children to follow. We're long overdue. We've outgrown it, truly we have. It is only holding us back, keeping our thinking in the bronze age. It retards us, quite literally, and quite intentionally.

Christians = Children scared in a self-imposed darkness.
Science = The Light Switch

Got it now? Good.

Now go forth and multiply. Oh, and divide, subtract, and add as well. Get some education, come back, and then we can have an adult conversation. Tell me why God lied.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

A Question of Feelings

I have a more-or-less simple question here for my Christian readers and Christians in general, regarding feelings:

Can you loving Christians who are commanded by your God Yaweh and His Son Jesus Christ to love others as you love yourselves and to love thy neighbor, admit one thing here?

Imagine if you will one day your child comes home from school and tells you about the neat Islamic prayers they had to say that morning while bowing to Mecca. Oh, it’s a regular thing now. They’ll be doing it every day from now on. Deal with it; it’s the Law. Plus the kids love the bowing.

Just imagine it. I bet you can, because some of you are misinformed enough to actually believe that this kind of thing is what Obama is really secretly all about. So imagine it.

Now can you please admit to me that you can understand that the way you would FEEL if the US Government did that, made it a law that all the schools made your kids say Islamic prayers and had your children bowing towards Mecca every day, or even just taught them to embrace pro-Islamic positions on important political issues that you care about, or even if you forget the Islam thing and they just taught them the many benefits of being an *atheist,* must be and indeed is of course identical to in every way and exactly the same as how I would FEEL if it were the law of the land that my children’s schools made them pray to Jesus every day or taught them your religion’s position on important political issues that I care about?

Can you please admit that much? You kind-of have to, really. I mean, what’s the difference? They’re logical equivalents. Of course I would feel the same. It is the same.

And so then you might as well go on to admit the obvious here. That of course you know this, but you do not care. That you believe your way is the only right way, and so my way is by default wrong and evil and therefore not worthy of your consideration. As bad as it would make me feel, my feelings are irrelevant to you.

You cannot love me enough to give a damn.

Isn’t that it, really?

Hey, just wondering.

***

Oh, and to those that think this is a trick question: Not all questions that require you to admit that you are in error are trick questions. You might actually be in error.

Heaven forbid!