ON THE MEANING OF
LIFE
ESSAY 1 : AN
EXAMINATION OF THE HOUSE OF GOD
At least two-thirds of our miseries spring
from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of
malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of
religious or political ideas. -
Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963)
Before embarking on a voyage into these waters I think it is important
to nail one’s colours to the mast. The whiff of Huxley’s “proselytizing zeal”
will always be present and I think it is necessary to let everyone be clear
from the outset where you are coming from.
I had a conventional but low-key Christian upbringing at an Anglican
boys-school. Any orthodox Christian faith remaining from my school days was
demolished at
In summary, my position is that I am left cold by both theism and atheism.
I find the religious model of life’s meaning and purpose (and its perceptions
of the Divine) primitive – and find that atheism’s attempts to explain all of
human behaviour in terms of evolutionary ideology ignores entirely an important
factor in the human equation – the spiritual. So, what to label my beliefs? I
have a stronger belief in the Divine, special meaning and ultimate purpose in
life than can be adequately described by the word “agnostic”. If a label must
be found to satisfy the pigeon-holers, I like the sound of Christian pantheist
– “Christian” because I believe Jesus brought some crucial Truths to us (whether
he was virgin born etc. or not) and “pantheist” because I believe everything in
this relative universe proceeded from the Absolute – i.e. we, and everything in
the universe(s): animal, vegetable, and mineral – are of the original energy
which converted to matter at the big bang (the original singularity of energy is
what we try to describe when we use the word “God”). However I have an open mind, and like
to think I am searching for the truth – and may change my label for a more
up-to-date one at any time.
In this essay I attempt to understand how the Christian House of God,
supposedly founded on Jesus – a spiritual man – became an obstacle in
humanity’s path to spiritual evolution rather than an aid. How it became venal
rather than spiritual – consumed with the idea of salvation and bodily survival
– a refuge for fearful evangelists and fundamentalists who would believe
anything to escape death – and how the vast majority of the Western world has
been denied the encouragement that a rational belief in special meaning and
ultimate purpose would allow. This particular essay explores the Christian
House of God, with which I am most familiar, but much of what is discussed here
is applicable to all Houses of God – especially those founded on a “B” Book
supposedly written by God.
I did not start with a belief in special meaning, ultimate purpose, and
a credible Divine before I began these essays, but came to them as a result.
These are essays of the internet, with no intention to set them in stone by
publishing them. They will be constantly reviewed as I discover more in my
exploration for the meaning of life.
Those are my colours and I nail them to the mast before my voyage. You
are welcome to accompany me and to contribute (through the e-mail link at the
end of the essays). But before signing on for the voyage there may be a few
questions you might wish to ask before we leave port:
ISN’T IT PRESUMPTUOUS TO CRITICALLY EXAMINE GOD?
Isn’t it presumptuous to equate God with religion? This essay critically
examines religion, not God, and asks: did God provide the design for the House
of God, and does God dwell within? Many people confuse God and religion, but
religion is in many ways the worst thing that ever happened to God.
WHAT ABOUT JESUS?
I will consider the “T” Truths of Jesus at length in this essay. I will
attempt to find what he really said – his real message – and who really killed him.
WHY EXAMINE THE HOUSE OF GOD IF IT DOES GOOD?
Over the centuries the House of God has offered fellowship to its
members, charity to the needy, hospitals to the sick, aid to poor countries, a
community hub, ceremonies to mark our rites of passage, and a refuge for some in
times of personal crisis in the arms of a protecting father-god. It has also
set standards of moral behaviour valuable to society. I presume to examine
the House of God because it is failing in these useful roles. Membership is
crashing – figures from the 2004 National Church Life Survey show that Roman
Catholics are down 13%; Anglican down 2%; Uniting down 13%; Lutheran down 8%. Importantly,
very few within the percentages identifying themselves as Christian actually
attend church on any significant basis – a study by Monash University,
Australian Catholic University and the Christian Research Association in 2006 found
that just 19% of Generation Y who identify themselves as Christian (48%) were
actively involved in a church, attending services at least once a month (making
an attending total of 9% of that generation). This has been going on for years
and churches are shutting, being turned into residences and restaurants
everywhere you look. Weddings, births and deaths are increasingly being
celebrated in secular backyard ceremonies. Secular neighbourhood centres, charities and hospitals are taking over former
Church roles.
I also presume to examine
the House of God because it has become meaninglessness’, greatest ally. The
House’s diminished “g” god – in man’s own image from ancient tribal imaginings
– became the strongest argument for atheism, and the House’s naïve meaning for
life (a test for punishment or reward) became the strongest argument for
meaninglessness. As education (especially scientific) spread widely through
society from the nineteenth century onwards, more people became aware that the
House of God’s doctrines were incredible. In a rational age, belief in the
religious model of life declined drastically and, with nothing to replace it, so
did belief in any special meaning or purpose in life - thinking people were
driven away from the very idea of special meaning and “T” Truth by the irrational
special meaning of life and “t” truths of the House of God. In this way religion
became the handmaiden to meaninglessness and materialism, leaving us to the
charms of post-modernism and its relative truths and meanings.
Stern exposure to the
incredibilities of religion often lead to a stern reaction – many of
meaninglessness’ most ardent foot soldiers come from religious backgrounds.
Michael
Shermer (atheist, director of the
Skeptics Society, editor of Skeptic
magazine, author of, “Why People Believe Weird Things” and other books) is from
a fundamentalist family; Phillip Adams’ (atheist, sceptic, columnist, radio
commentator, author) father was a religious minister; Bertrand Russell (Why I am not a Christian etc.) had a strict
religious upbringing in the hands of a stern aunt. All of these, and many other
influential atheists, have spread, the gospel according to meaninglessness
because of their close experiences with the incredibility of religion.
I presume to examine the
House of God also because dangerous fundamentalism is on the rise. There has
been a growth in their numbers in percentage terms. From the above 2004 survey:
Assemblies of God up 20%;
“The blood continued to rise. Millions of
birds flocked into the area and feasted on the remains…and the winepress was
trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, up to the
horse’s bridles, for one thousand six hundred furlongs.”
“Glorious Appearing: The End of Days” pp.
250, 260.
Fundamentalists of all
stripes – Jewish, Moslem and Christian – cherish the notion that God will come
to reign on Earth following a holocaust where millions suffer – a scenario which
many feel they can, and must, help bring about! As fundamentalist numbers go up
(even in orthodox Churches like the Anglican Church where evangelicals who
believe in the literal truth and inerrancy of the Bible are gaining power) and the
number of thinking people go down, the House of God’s congregation around the
world is being reduced to a bunch of scared, weird, little guys – driven more
by hate and fear than love.
Am I being too harsh? Consider
Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney and intellectual midget (he failed first
year law twice before finding theology more suited to his intellectual
capacity) is a strict Bible-believing evangelical who opposes women and
homosexual clergy solely on the grounds on his belief in the inerrancy of the
Old Testament. This statement from him about why he is prepared to break his
House in two over the issue of homosexuality:
“This dispute is not really about
homosexuality. It’s about authority and who runs the church. To most of the
rest of us, God runs the church through the Bible.”
And this in the same
newspaper about his fear of the wrath of his god:
“One of the gravest weaknesses of
contemporary Christianity … is the little attention paid to the wrath of God.”
“The Age” (Leading
I presume to examine
religion because humanity is in a precarious state when our technological
evolution is way ahead of our spiritual evolution. We have atom bombs in the
hands of countries which have violent religions with wrathful, stone-age gods –
religions that consider Armageddon may be God’s will because it says so in the
Bible and Koran. Religions which, while purporting to be the homes of our
spiritual beings, are driven by animal fear and ego – and aspiring to animal
survival. Not aids towards, but the biggest block in the road of our spiritual
evolution.
I also presume to examine
the House of God because of its murderous and unchristian history. Many, if not
most, of our wars have had religious causes either directly (Crusades – where
the blood of the non-believers was actually up to the horse’s bridals)
or indirectly (the brutal Norman invasion of Britain was sanctioned –
barbarities pre-forgiven – by the Christian House of God in return for 10% of
the land), or they had at least some religious antecedents (the Jewish
Holocaust). There were also murderous religious inter-denominational wars (the
Catholic-Huguenots war in
It is failing in its useful
roles; it is meaningless’ greatest ally; its history is murderous; our future
looks equally bloody with it in control; and it is a hurdle in the road to our
spiritual evolution. These are the main reasons why I presume to examine the
House of God.
HOW ABOUT THE GOOD PEOPLE IN
THE HOUSE OF GOD?
There are still some good
(and educated) people within the House of God who are seeking truth and genuine
spiritual understanding rather than power – the multi-member and largely devout
Jesus Seminar (The Five Gospels) comes
to mind, as does Bishop Spong (Christianity
Must Change or Die, The Sins of Scripture etc.). There are also many biblical
scholars within the House of God seeking truth rather than indigestible
doctrine. But with the growth of fundamentalist
Just as many will also be
asking the question:
WHY BOTHER – WHY DOES THERE
HAVE TO BE A GOD?
There doesn’t “have to be”,
there either just is, or isn’t. It remains philosophy’s most important
question. Not because there is some pathetic being out there who needs our
praise and worship, but because to approach more closely the real nature of any
Divine may be to more closely approach our own nature. To find God may be to
finally approach our Selves, the universe, the unity of the All – of which
everybody and thing are a part. An understanding of our unity could
counterbalance our artificial separation – national, political, religious and
ethnic – which has been the main cause of all of our conflicts to date.
When Nietzsche proclaimed:
“God is dead … and we have killed him”
– he was of course referring to the incredible, tribal, biblical “g” god invented
by some desert tribes and eventually enshrined in the Christian House of God.
He had not conducted a rational search for all possible, credible “G” Gods and
disposed of them. Atheists are not interested in having a good look for a
rational Divine, because their comfort is vested in Christianity’s god – it is
so fallible therefore so easily disposed of (I examine more closely the various
drivers of atheism in the Examination of
the House of Disbelief essay). Instead of searching for a more credible
Divine, for any Truth, once Nietzsche proclaimed the old Judeo/Christian god
was dead we readily threw off the yoke of religion, welcomed the new moral
freedoms, and were not keen to adopt any boring constraints that might be
implied if we found special meaning. The very question of “why does there have to be a God” has a certain
petulance about it – why do I have to
do something I don’t want, why do I have
to do/believe something that could get in the road of a good time? But, along
with 20th century liberalism, we readily adopted what is turning out
to be a more irksome yoke: that of materialism. While religion’s history is
depressing, a materialistic future looks just as bleak – with meaninglessness
and its attendant drug and alcohol problems – and the worship of growth with its
rapacious unsustainability for our planet.
So, while there doesn’t
“have to be a God” I argue that an honest attempt to find a credible Divine and
special meaning in life is an important counter for meaninglessness,
materialism and their dangers. In an effort to find God let’s start by examining
the place where some proclaim the Divine dwells – to see if anyone is at home?
Again I state that this essay
is specifically an examination of the Christian House of God because it is the
one with which I am most familiar, but I suspect that what I find here will
apply to all religions in many substantial respects – especially religions of
the “B” Book.
An “H” House, like an “h” house, has a purpose, a design and fabric. Let’s
examine each:
THE PURPOSE OF THE HOUSE OF
GOD
The original purpose of the Jesus movement was about
keeping alive the memory of Christ and his radical teachings of loving even
your enemies, of forgiveness over revenge, and of doing unto others what you
would like then to do to you. These were radical new ideas compared to the old
scriptures’ teachings like: an eye for an eye, and just refraining from doing
what you didn’t want done to you. But over the centuries the movement became a
religion, an “H” House, and its purpose changed. It came to be about comfort,
control, power, and animal survival.
COMFORT
There is nothing wrong with a little comfort – it is
a valid purpose for a genuine House of God. Life can be hard. Even when the
living is easy, every human lives with the knowledge of their mortality – their
eventual death, the separation from loved ones, the challenge of moving from
all they “know” in life into the unknown of death. These are not insubstantial existential
angsts and humanity is deserving of a little comfort to keep functioning. But
the Christian House of God harbours a wrathful god of an ancient desert tribe –
a brutal god out of a harsh land at a brutal time – a god that gives love
conditionally – a god that causes discomfort in equal measure to any comfort. As
well as this awful god the House of God cleverly uses other discomforting
devices like sin, guilt, the devil, and eternal hell in an effort to keep the
flock coming. And other doctrines keep rational people at bay by their sheer
incredibility – doctrines like salvation, original sin, and Trinity. In this
way the House of God is populated by the credulous and fearful – others denied
the comfort of a credible, loving God and a rational special meaning of life.
CONTROL
Another purpose of the present House of God is control – control over
life’s dangers and its seeming capriciousness. The House of God offers control
through its influence over an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and interventionist
god. A power that comes from claiming to know what “he” wants – animal
sacrifice, praise, fear, and worship. Animal sacrifice was dropped after Jesus,
but the old god who could be controlled by animal sacrifice was tightly woven
into the new “Christian” god through the Gospels when they came to be written.
The Gospels constantly authorised Jesus in Jewish eyes by having him refer to
the old scriptures.
POWER
All Houses of God also have power as a purpose – power over secular
governments, power over other religions, power over other countries. Power is
achieved by recruiting the most numbers to your banner and any violence is
approved by the Divine because we are growing “His” one, true, House. Examples
are the bloody history of the “Christian” religion movement and the present
Islamist movement – all about converting the world to your god through any
means. Some of the worst violence has been that between denominations of the one
House of God – witness the extended murderous wars between the Roman and
Protestant factions of the Christian House of God in
THE DESIGN OF THE HOUSE OF GOD
In its earliest days the design of the Jesus movement
was that of a community of equals regardless of gender. They were also real
communists – their communities shared money, food, shelter and goods for the
benefit of all. In this they were motivated by Jesus’ teachings of love for one
another and doing unto others rather than the more recent communists who were
motivated by hate for those better off. The first members of the Jesus movement
were brave men and women who often died brutal deaths for their beliefs. Jewish
orthodoxy was zealous and introducing new ideas against the received teachings
of the old scriptures was dangerous – as Jesus’ execution and the beatings,
stonings and brutal deaths of many early Christians demonstrated. Going against
the established religious power of the multifarious Roman gods and the vested
interests of the
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY
When it entered the larger arena, the early communistic
design of the Christian House of God changed into something more calculated. The
Roman establishment came to recognise the political potential of the meek and
mild, law-abiding philosophies of the Christian religion – Christianity
exhorted even slaves to be obedient to their masters and wait for the more
important next life for their (eternal) freedom. Emperor Constantine, cynically
(he did not take on Christianity himself until his death bed) latched onto
Christianity as a tool of state to counter the instability that was in the air
after he replaced Diocletian.
Christ’s teachings had already become highly
embellished by doctrinaires like Paul, but this period of Roman
institutionalisation is when the last vestiges of the original Christian
movement became corrupted – taken on board by the
THE FABRIC OF THE HOUSE OF GOD
Surely the House of God has stout fabric: walls of Christian
fellowship and a roof of Christian charity for the less fortunate? Quite so,
but unfortunately the fabric is deeply flawed because its foundation stone –
the Bible – is unreliable.
THE BIBLE
The foundation of the House of God is the Bible – a “B”
Book – supposedly written by God :
“the
Bible is authoritative because of its divine authorship … items of theological
belief must have either explicit or implicit support [from the Bible] or be dismissed.”
- “Systematic Theology – A Pentecostal
Perspective”, P. 42 (Ed. Stanley Horton)
The growing appeal of evangelical/fundamentalist
religions stems from the certainty they profess in uncertain times. All is
certain, written in black and white by God in the Bible. They are also
particularly appealing to young people going through vulnerable periods in
their life – like adolescence – and to older people facing death. Other
religions of the Book, like the Muslim and Jewish religions are also becoming
dominated by their fundamental elements. There is much comfort in the idea of an
instruction manual written by God. But such comfort is only available to those
who can suspend rationality sufficiently to believe that God actually wrote the
Bible – an essential task in the eyes of the fundamentalists :
“Reason
is a good servant of the revelation of God [the Bible], but it is not a good master over that revelation. … human reason that
denies divine revelation has always come under the influence of sin and Satan
ever since Adam’s fall.” – ibid. P.
45
So, the Bible is to be digested in its entirety –
Adam and Eve accepted rather than scientific evidence for an entirely different
Genesis? But surely only fundamentalists believe the Bible to be literally the
word of God? Not so, even less fundamental Christianity holds that the Bible is
pivotal in its importance – the word of God. The Oath of Conformity required of
every candidate for ordination in the
“I
do believe the holy scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the word of
God and to contain all things necessary to salvation.”
-
The Sins of Scripture, John Shelby Spong, P. 16.
But, back to reality, the Bible did not descend from
the heavens on the wings of a snow-white dove. Every part of the Bible was
written by man (none by woman – as is quickly apparent by reading it) over a
long period of time. Jesus did not write, nor see any part of, the New
Testament. The New Testament was not written by Jesus’ disciples, as some
disingenuously claim, but the various gospels were written at various times one
and two generations after his death – at the earliest. The entire Bible, rather
than the word of God through inspiration, it is very obviously the word of man
through perspiration. As well as writing it, man also compiled it – selecting which
of the many Old Testament writings and New Testament gospels were to be included.
There has been controversy and there have been many different forms of the
Bible. Some include the Apocrypha and some don’t; the size of the Apocrypha may
vary; the number of books in the Old Testament section may vary; many feel the
gospel of Thomas (uncovered in the middle of last century) has more
authenticity and apostolic authority than the other four and should be
included. There is also doubt over which of Paul’s letters were actually
written by him. And Revelations is obviously the work of a disturbed human mind
rather than God. All this has resulted in several different forms of Bible and
the discovery of the
There is also much controversy about the many
different translations from the original languages Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and those
it passed through in the hand-copying process – Latin, English etc. Far from it
being the one true word of God, man is still writing the Bible.
The Bible has, like most
foundations, also felt the pressure of time. Scientific knowledge has eaten
away at its claim to be the work of God. The Biblical Earth-centricity of the
Cosmos has been revealed as illusory by the sciences of cosmology and astronomy;
Genesis has been revealed as myth by biology; the history related in the Old
Testament has been revealed as false by (Jewish) archaeology. As for the New
Testament, the developing field of non-religious (i.e. neutral, non-vested
interest) biblical scholarship has increased our knowledge of those times and introduced
non-ideological insights into Jesus and what he really said – as opposed to the
words put in his mouth during the “H” House-building process after his death.
Some of the ancillary fabric of the House of God does
have quite a bit of beauty in the form of architecture, art, and music. But if
your foundations are shot then unstable is the whole edifice. So, it’s
important we look at the foundations of the House of God more closely, to examine
the evidence and test my assertions. Time to examine :
THE HOLY BIBLE
Is the Bible
the word of God, or inspired by God? Because the kneebone of many pivotal Christian
doctrines are connected to the thighbone of ancient Old Testament stories (like
the Christian doctrine of salvation being derived from the Garden of Eden story
of the committing of our original sin) we have to go right back to the start of
the Bible. "In the Beginning” there was the:-
OLD TESTAMENT
In the words of John Rogerson :
“Somehow,
writings as disparate as laws, popular stories, dynastic annals, proverbs,
laments, love stories and psalms came to be regarded as scripture.”
(P. xiii Oxford
History of the Bible)
So the disparate words of man came “somehow” to be
regarded as scripture – the word of God? How did this come about?
The Old Testament is the ancient saga of the Hebrews
– a grouping of Semitic tribes who descended from Abraham and lived a
semi-nomadic existence in the area we now call the
The Bible also contains equally unreliable history.
Jewish archaeologists have found Biblical history to be very dubious at best,
false at worst, and politically inspired all the time:
“The
familiar stories about David and Solomon, based on a few early folk traditions,
are the result of extensive reworking and editorial expansion during the four
centuries that followed David and Solomon’s reigns…they contain little reliable
history.”
“David
and Solomon”, Finkelstein and Silberman. P.17
Contrary to the Bible, this recent archaeology has
found that
How could God get science and history wrong? Not
looking much like the word of God so far – more like the word of man, attributed
to his “g” god to give it authority.
The Old Testament does contain social and moral laws
like the Ten Commandments which were essential for a society growing in size
and evolving away from a tribal and semi-nomadic existence to a more settled, agrarian
one. These commandments are nothing unique, being similar to the moral laws of
other societies preceding the Hebrews who had previously been through a similar
transition.
The Bible is also the Hebrew’s attempt to understand
the meaning of life and to approach the numinous. It often expresses itself
with not a little beauty :
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh …
(Ecclesiastes
3:1-4)
which, as the folk song popular in the 60’s shows,
still resonates with us today – “turn, turn, turn”.
But there is not much beauty in the Bible – it is
vastly outweighed by the divinely-sanctioned slavery, ethnic cleansing, sexism,
and brutality to animals. This from Christopher Hitchens:
“Then
there is the very salient question of what the commandments do not say. Is it too modern to notice that there
is nothing about the protection of children from cruelty, nothing about rape,
nothing about slavery, and nothing about genocide.
“God
is Not Great”, P. 100
While Hitchens is often as fundamentalist as the
religions he criticises and the pages of his book are somewhat spittle-flecked,
he does have a good point. In a little while we will see that the Bible’s god
not only does not proscribe the things on Hitchens’s list, but approves of them
(and murder, and cruelty to animals) so long as they are done by his chosen
tribe – the tribe that invented him.
The Old Testament also contains psalms and songs designed
to influence a fearsome and capricious god. A vain god who could be inveigled
with praise and worship. A primitive god who could be propitiated with animal
sacrifice – a god in man’s image.
Also in the Old Testament scriptures are the
prophecies. Their tone waxes ominous as they try to control the population who
were swelling as a result of easier times in their “promised land”. The Hebrews
were also exposed to the religions of the surrounding peoples and were often swayed
by local nature religions, and gods like Baal. Hebrew prophets raged about hell
in their tussle for the hearts and minds of men and ranted about the dire consequences
of not following the god their ancestors had created. They warned about not
fearing and praising this angry, vain man/being who was murderously jealous and
insecure of these other gods.
Am I being fair in my description of the Old
Testament? Surely a sophisticated reading of it will show that it is not
“wrong” and “incorrect” – as I accuse it of being, but all allegorical and
metaphor for higher, Divine meanings and understandings? Let’s look at it book
by book to see if it resembles the word of God? I will be using the The New International and the New Revised Standard versions of the
Bible.
GENESIS
The beautiful and elaborate creation myths of
pre-scientific desert tribes. For beauty and inventiveness, Genesis is definitely
on a par with all other creation myths – like the Australian Aborigine’s
“Rainbow Serpent”, for example. Everything created by God in six days then a
rest. Earth the centre of the Universe, even the sun revolves around the Earth
– the other planets formed on day 4 to light Earth’s night skies.
We now know, thanks to the discoveries of astronomy
and cosmology, that Genesis is wrong. Even the
As well as misinformation about the Earth and the sun,
Genesis also tells us about the creation of life – the plants and the animals created
in an instant – and the Garden of Eden – the lion and the lamb lying down
together. Science in the shape of biology tells us this is false. Life evolved
over millions of years, and all life has one source. For example, it can be
empirically shown that humans are related to plants (65% similar DNA to bananas)
as well as animals (98% similar DNA to chimpanzees). We know science works, it
is not a construction of the devil, we prove it right by successfully using the
products of its truths – even fundamentalists use the products of biology many
times every day in their foods and medicines. You can’t use science
successfully on the one hand and deny it on the other. The Bible’s primitive
biological myths are – beyond reasonable doubt – wrong.
Those who believe the Bible to be the word of God have
to ask themselves how could God be wrong? And, if the Bible is wrong here, is
it wrong in other places?
Sophisticated residents of the House of God would be
bored by all this, having already accepted Genesis largely as metaphor and
allegory. But the problem lies in the word “largely” – there is a part of the
Garden of Eden story they still must accept as true. The concept of original
sin, allegorised in Adam and Eve’s action of seeking knowledge, is essential to
the Christian Church’s notion of salvation and redemption. Humanity was stained
by Adam and Eve’s original sin (and condemned to mortality and painful
childbirth!). Salvation is a doctrine worked up by Paul and other Christian
House of God founding fathers in the New Testament, and it is pivotal to
present, sophisticated orthodox Christian belief. Humanity is inherently sinful
and “Jesus died so his blood may wash away the stains of our sins” is a phrase
repeated ad infinitum at my orthodox Christian school. But beyond reasonable
doubt, the Bible story of the Garden of Eden is invention – and original sin
with it. We will examine this part of Pauline doctrine further when we get to
the New Testament.
The Serpent’s tree was also called “the tree of
knowledge” and Adam and Eve’s action of eating its fruit is a metaphor for our
original sin – the choosing of knowledge over faith – a very bad choice as far
as religion is concerned. The choosing of knowledge before blind faith after
the Enlightenment was the beginning of the end for religion’s cornerstone position
in Western societies. Religion’s power relies on turning your back on the quest
for knowledge and truth – it depends on blind faith because its doctrine is
incredible.
NOAH’S
Next in Genesis we have Noah’s
No need to go on and, indeed, why mention it at all
because no one with a brain believes this stuff any more, right? Well I had a
scary conversation with four young people who have just graduated from a
secular university the other day who believe all of the Bible, including Noah,
to be true. By way of explaining how Noah was able to cover the world to get
two of every animal before oceanic ships they assured me the world was much
smaller then!? The fear of the slaughtering, hell-casting Old Testament god has
done strange things to their brains. If it was not so tragic it would be a
laughing matter.
BEGATTING
We move on in Genesis to lots of begatting.
Archbishop James Ussher in 1650 added up all the begatting and came up with the
figure of the world’s age – 23rd October 4004 B.C. – about 6000
years old! Now you can forgive Ussher
because science was in its infancy then, but what can we say of the ignorance
of people today who still believe in the inerrancy of the Bible and that this
is the real age of the Universe?
But wait, there’s more. There is the story of
EXODUS
The next Book of the Old Testament. Here we have
Egypt, plagues, Passovers by murderous angels killing all non-Jewish
first-borns, release, pursuit, Red Sea parting, Ten Commandments, social laws cementing
revenge into place (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth) as God sanctioned, God’s
imprimatur for the ownership of other humans called slaves, laws about sexual
relations, altars, Arks (not Noah’s), tabernacles and Sabbaths.
And the Levites killed 3,000 of their fellows and
thus were especially blessed by God :
[Moses] “said to them, “This is what the Lord, the
God of
So, let’s see if we have this right – Moses returns
from the mount with the ten commandments tucked under his arm (surely the most
important of which is “Thou Shalt Not Kill”) and then sets about killing 3,000
of his own brethren? And the Bible, being the word of God, must be right – “this
is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says … each killing his brother and friend
and neighbour”? Right, sure thing – God urging people to kill one another then
making them “blessed” because of their ability to commit pitiless atrocities
against their brothers, friends and neighbours – and all because He was jealous
of the alternate god the people had constructed in Moses absence? Now that’s
just got to be “G” God – hasn’t it – or is “he” just another “g” god invented
by man (constructed brutal and violent to keep the flock in order)?
GOD?
This same strange, violent, murderous, pitiless god
also decreed:
21:4 It is permissible to keep wife and children
of servants (because it is just the same as the natural increase of cattle).
21:7 OK to
sell your daughter to someone as a servant.
21:32 Slaves
are lesser beings (paving the way for the slave trade).
22:18 We should kill witches – “Do not allow a
sorceress to live” (paving the way for
I particularly like this bit :
“ ‘If
a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct
result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up
after a day or two, since the slave is his property.’ ”(21:20-21)
So firstly, slavery is OK to God and, secondly, it
was OK to beat them so badly that they were unconscious for a day or two!?
Obviously if the slave was able to get up after a couple of days the beating
can’t have been too severe?! What sort of people would regard this as the
truth, the word of God?
And this bit:
“ ‘If
a bull gores a man or a woman to death, the bull must be stoned to death, and
its meat will not be eaten. But the owner of the bull will not be held
responsible.’ ” (21:28)
Can you imagine the senseless cruelty involved in
stoning a bull to death? Bear in mind these are the actual quoted words
of God as recounted by Moses?
Let’s have a look at the next Book.
LEVITICUS
Laws and rules on such things as offerings,
sacrifices, priests, clean and unclean food, skin diseases, mildew, unlawful
sex, capital punishment. We learn here God will like us more if we kill animals
and burn them on an altar as sacrifices to him.
Animal sacrifices – what sort of primitive tribal god
are we dealing with here? The sort that regards menstruating women as unclean :
“A
woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremonially
unclean for seven days, just as she is unclean during her monthly period.”
But “If she gives birth to a daughter,
for two weeks the woman will be unclean.” (12:2&5)
Dirty things these women – especially if they give
birth to another woman! The word of God? Got to be if it’s in the Bible!
And slavery again :
“Your
male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you
may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among
you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your
property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make
them slaves for life.” (25:44-46).
Don’t know what all the fuss about slavery is – God
says it’s OK!?
NUMBERS
More wanderings, god-sanctioned murder and
destruction.
More sexism: (5:11) – A man can test(?!) a wife just
because he feels jealous.
And violence: (15:32) – Sabbath-breaker stoned to
death with god’s approval.
And god-sanctioned ethnic cleansing :
“The
Lord listened to
And more brutal jealousy of other gods. When the
Israelites bowed to the gods of the Moabites :
“the anger of the Lord was kindled against
And slaughter of children and women, and the rape of
the maidens :
[Of the Midanites] “Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,
but save for yourself every girl who has never slept with a man.” (31:15)
Moslem terrorists at least have to wait for heaven to
get their virgins! If this is not ethnic cleansing what is it – apart from
infanticide of course? No wonder fundamentalists are scared witless of such a
god.
Obviously, so far, the Biblical “g” god has nothing
to say about “G” God. But if you disagree and this god is your God what does it
say about you? Somewhere here must be the real God? Let’s try:
DEUTERONOMY
Taking over
More divinely sanctioned war crimes and ethnic
cleansing – all men, women and children of Heshbon (2:34) and
Divine laws about breaking the neck of a heifer belonging
to the nearest village to atone for any unsolved murder in the area: (21:3).
And its OK to murder a rebellious son (was there ever
any other sort?).
“If
a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother
… his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at
the gate of the town. They shall say to the elders, ‘This son of ours is
stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is profligate and a drunkard.’
Then all the men of the town will stone him to death.” (21:18-21)
How about this bit – anyone wounded in the genitals
could not worship God :
“No
one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of
the Lord.” (23:1)
If these are the words of God then it is a very strange
god.
For those who think it is ridiculous to take the Old
Testament literally it is worth remembering that the writers of the New
Testament Gospels did – and they put the words of these scriptures into the
mouth of Jesus constantly in an effort to prove the authority of Jesus. So if
they were capable of mistaking this for the truth how do we know they were not
mistaken in what they believed to be true when they wrote the New Testament
from second- and third-hand anecdotes of Jesus’ words and deeds?
JOSHUA
After wandering about in the desert for 40 years the
Hebrew tribes cross the
“They
devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in
it – men and women, young and old, cattle sheep and donkeys.” (6:21)
What “devotion” – that would have pleased the “Lord”
– every man, woman, child and donkey? Then they “devoted” more murderous ethnic
cleansing to the Lord :
8:25 Women of Ai murdered.
10:12
God showed his pleasure by stopping the sun from going down for a day so
that Joshua could see to slaughter his enemies at Gibeon (or what was left of
them after God had slaughtered most of them himself with hailstones).
10:28 Everyone in Makkedah, Libnah,
By now “the Lord” would be wading in gore, but he
goes for a nice finishing touch at 11:9 when the horses are ham-strung. Now all
you animal-lovers, do you have any idea what terror and pain those horses
suffered and for how long, after being left lying on the ground ham-strung?
Their suffering would have made Christ’s end seem positively humane.
Seen your God yet?
Maybe in the next Book?
1 SAMUEL
“The Almighty says … ‘Now go, attack
the Amalekites … Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and
infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” (15:2-3).
“Infants, cattle, sheep, camels, and donkeys”! Just
got to be God, hasn’t it?
And on and on we go through
2 SAMUEL
Hamstringing more horses 8:4), Solomon (700 wives and
300 concubines). More battles, bloodbaths.
And this god was fickle in his support – the angels
saved the Hebrews from the Assyrians but they could not save them from
Nebuchadnezzar who carts the whole box and dice off to
JUDGES; KINGS; CHRONICLES
Judges, Kings, Chronicles dance their way across the bloody
Old Testament stage with more divinely sanctioned murder, rape and pillage. The
historical figures of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes strut the stage. The Jewish
people get liberated by the Persians then
EZRA and NEHEMIAH come along. ESTER marries Xerxes.
JOB
Job now offers us this conundrum : why do bad things
happen to good people? When faced with a similar conundrum many loose faith in
the idea of God and along with it the possibility of any special meaning in
life. This of course is a problem of religion’s own making. By selling humanity
the idea of an omnipotent and interventionist god who can be influenced by
worship and prayer, religion creates a problem when that god does not intervene
positively for righteous people and/or negatively for bad people.
Even further – if God is interfering and omnipotent
and “evil” happens to babies, small children and good people – is God then,
perhaps, evil? I will examine this in more depth in the essay – Examination of
the House of Disbelief .
But Job did admit that he was not naturally good but,
like a lot of religious people, only good because :
“I
dreaded destruction from God and for fear of his splendor I could not do such
things” (31:23).
The Bible dodges the deeper philosophical question of
what is real goodness. Surely a person who does not believe in God, but is good
naturally, is better than Job who was only good “for fear”? Religion has always been about conditional goodness –
being good to avoid hell or to gain the benefit of immortality – physical
resurrection in heaven. In the New Testament, as we shall see, Paul dabbles
with the idea of true goodness but comes down on the side of believing
incredible doctrine (faith) is better than good deeds!?
And now we arrive at the next section of the Old
Testament, which turns praise of a needy god into an art form.
PSALMS
Psalms lards the Old Testament with poems, songs and
prayers to a violent and needy god – trying to curry favour through praise. How
vain and needy do we imagine God to be that “He” wants our praise and worship,
how stupid does humanity imagine God to be that we feel God could possibly be
satisfied or fooled by it? All the professions of love in this part of the Old
Testament are what we now recognise as the “Stockholm Syndrome” – where
captives fall in “love” with violent captors who have the power of life or
death over them – a way of survival by propitiation.
I remember asking my religious studies teacher at
primary school why we existed, and he answered my question with: “To worship
God.” Even my 11 year-old mind could work out that this was not even close to
the meaning of life. Could a Divine who knows everything believe our flattery
driven by self-interest? Could “He” be so desperately needy of praise that he
actually created us to meet these pathetic needs?
As well as praise the Psalms express anger, despair,
sadness, guilt and doubt. They also manage to wish that God’s wrath will be
brought forth upon the wicked – generally defined as anyone not of your
beliefs.
But there is some beauty in the words :
“By the rivers of
when we
remembered
There on the poplars
we hung our
harps …
But not for long – revenge wins the day:
“O Daughter of
happy is he
who repays you
for what you
have done to us –
he who seizes your infants
and dashes
them against the rocks.”
(Psalm
137: 8-9)
A good one for the kiddies at Sunday School perhaps?
PROVERBS
Fear is the beginning of knowledge? :
“The
fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and
discipline.” (1:7)
But the funk that fear produces is invariably the end
of knowledge. Fear is why fundamentalists believe in Adam and Eve, Noah, the
whole box and dice.
ECCLESIASTES
Ancient existentialism – meaninglessness rules OK? :
“ ‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’
says the Teacher.
‘ Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.’ ” (1:2)
There is more – wisdom is meaningless, pleasure is meaningless,
toil is meaningless. The bad sometimes prosper and the good sometimes suffer.
All aspects of life – wealth, position, professional success, and pleasure are
futile because we must die in the end.
I guess we all have days like that, but luckily very
few of us get into print.
The author of Ecclesiastes finds meaning in fearing
his primitive god:
“Life
has no meaning but to Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole
duty of man.” (12:13-14)
But some beautiful words about the human condition (mentioned
earlier) which still strike a chord with us today :
“a
time to weep and a time to laugh …”(3:1-4).
SONG OF SONGS
We now get pop songs about love and sex :
“Awake,
north wind,
and come, south wind!
Blow on my garden,
that its fragrance may spread abroad.
Let my lover come into this garden
And taste its choice fruits.
-
Song of Songs (4:16)
And some ghastly sexism:
ISAIAH
“The Lord will wash away the filth of the
women of