The Holy Bible Is the Word of God . . . Not

In my last post I argued that Jesus was not part of any godhead, if he was real or not. And I am prepared for all of the counter-arguments that might be offered, e.g. we cannot understand God’s will, our minds are too feeble. Answer: Why would an all-powerful entity create an entire species of sentient creatures which couldn’t understand it, at least on some fundamental level. What they would be worshiping would be a distortion of the actual god. Making a sentient species that could not understand the creator god or its plans is not the behavior of an all-knowing, all-powerful god. This is simply human excuse making.

In this post, I wish to also discredit the dogma that the holy Bible is the explicit word of this god. Let’s unpack that claim.

Since this god is capable of, should it desire to do so, placing the exact words it wants written into the mind of a scribe and then have that scribe write exactly what it wished, meat puppet style? Clearly the capability exists and clearly this did not happen. We know this did not happen because the Bible was written over centuries of time. Since this god is all-knowing, it would know what needed to be written instantly and would have had that done, so when those scriptures were needed by the puny humans, they would be at hand. In addition, we know the Bible had many authors. No, not because we have examined the original manuscripts and noticed all of the different handwritings. (This would be irrelevant if Yahweh were using the meat-puppet technique as I am sure he would use up quite a few scribes in the process. Plus you do know, do you not, that none of the original manuscripts have ever been found, yes? None.) We know that the Bible had many authors because of the styles of writing, the words employed, the sentence structures, etc. Just as you may have favorite authors, because you like their style, story telling techniques, etc. so these authors become fairly easily recognized, should you study them deeply enough.

Well, Yahweh didn’t use the meat-puppet technique then, you claim. Okay, let us say that that was not done, that the exact words were not dictated to the scribes doing the writing. So, those writers must have been “inspired” to write their bits. The word “inspire” means to “breathe in.” So, just as a fiction writer mulls over a story their head and then just starts writing, not quite sure how it will go (often enough the characters guide us, believe it or not). But what about quality control? What if the dividing lines between inspired story lines and scribal/priestly imagination are not all that sharp? That means that some of the words were inspired by Yahweh and some were inspired by the author’s imagination. How are we to tell the difference between scriptures that are truly inspired and scriptures that are merely invented? The simple answer is that we would not be able to.

And then, consequently when copies of documents were made and people, as is their want, forged some new documents, how could we tell? The answer is we cannot. But there is a simple test. Find a list of the 600+ commandments of Yahweh to his chosen people (You really didn’t think there were just ten, did you no?), pick one and ask yourself this question: “Is this something an all-knowing, all-powerful god would be interested in?” For example, there is a commandment to not create clothing in which two different kinds of material were woven together (e.g. linen and wool, Leviticus 19:19). This is obviously not a moral law, but more likely it “protects” the sacredness of the ephod of the high priest which was made of linen and dyed thread (Exodus 28:6–8; 39:4–5). The dyed thread would have been made of wool. The ephod of the high priest was the only garment that could be woven of linen and wool. No one else was allowed to have such a garment. Now, does this sound like something an all-knowing, all-powerful god would be interested in legislating or is this something you think some priest made up? In many, many cases it is clear to see that some priest made up some rule and, to make sure it got followed, it was slipped into “holy scripture.” It is possible that the priests, who saw themselves as political leaders as well as religious leaders made up their stupid rules because that’s what leaders do and later on they became scriptures, which is kind of innocent on their part . . . or they may have inserted their rules into scripture just because they had the power to do so, which is not all that innocent. (I am reminded of the finding of the “document”–probably the book of Leviticus–after the “Return” by the high priest. This was “identified by the High Priest as a very holy book and it was read out loud to the populace of Jerusalem. Seems a bit suspicious to me, especially as it laid out priestly powers and responsibilities.)

How about “You are not to boil a young animal in its mother’s milk” (Exodus 23:19)? Is this something an all-knowing, all-powerful god would be interested in? No? One suggestion for this prohibition was that the local gentiles in the area considered that a delicacy. By prohibiting that, the scribes/priests were trying to create laws to stop Jewish assimilation into those other cultures. It is not that these “commandments” do not have reasons, even some very good reasons, behind them, but are those reasons god sourced? Many, many people say they are. The brains god supposedly gave you say many aren’t.

The Bible is scripture for myriad religions and sects (even Mormons!) but the word of god? No one would come to that conclusion other than by taking someone else’s word for it. And, really, what do they know?

Addendum So, what would be the behavior of such an entity (all-powerful, all-knowing, all-etc.) at that time? Well, from scripture we know that Yahweh could create stone tablets with writing on them. (Because we know that Moses didn’t create them—Pop Quiz What was Moses’ occupation?) So, let’s say there is a fundamental message that Yahweh wanted to get to all people, maybe “The End is nigh.” In a prominent place (some voted for the Moon, but I think not), say a side of a mountain, a beam of immense power comes from “the Heavens” and slices off a mountainside creating a smooth surface. Then the beam plays back and forth over that surface, spelling out “I am the Lord God, and the End is nigh! Repent!” in immense letters readable from miles away. The beam then winks out. This takes some time, it doesn’t just pop up overnight and its creation is in plain view of many people, who see the words being formed. Miraculously the people reading the message say it is in Hebrew, others say, “No, it is Greek,” and still others say, “But it is Aramaic.” To get full coverage (the news is slower than gossip at this point in time), this action is repeated near every major population center world wide. Now that would be an action unmistakably attributable to an all-powerful, all-knowing god. There would still be skeptics (we are talking about human beings here) but they would be few in number.

A Must-See Documentary

Currently playing on Amazon Prime is a documentary entitled Billions in Change. At first I was thinking quarters, dimes, nickels, etc. but that was not the case (you’ll understand what it stands for below). The documentary is about Manoj Bhargava, the inventor of the 5-Hour Energy drink. As he tells it he had this idea, pursued it, and poof, he was worth over four billion dollars. So, what was he to do with his money, he thought. He started out funding various worthy projects but it felt like throwing sand in the ocean, unlikely to make a difference anywhere. So, build a space rocket to take his friends into space? No, that would be silly. What he did was buy an industrial park and create Innovations Ventures, LLC, in an attempt to solve major problems facing the whole world, especially focused upon the poor.

I won’t provide spoilers regarding the inventions he and his teams have been coming up with, but they are spectacular.

You probably know that I am of the opinion that we do not need billionaires. But if we are to have them, Mr. Bhargava is the kind we should have. Brilliant. Life changing. Watch it! I will watch it again tonight!

That is one of his inventions–a one hour stint on the recumbent bicycle generators produces enough electricity to power a poor household for 24 hours (no fossil fuels, air pollution, etc. involved).

Jesus is God . . . Uh, Not

Nowhere in scripture does Jesus claim to be God. And in many places he points out explicitly that he does not. For example:

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:35-38, Revised Standard Version)

Why would Jesus suggest to his followers that they “pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Is not Jesus Lord? Why would he not say “I will send more laborers into this harvest?” Or “I will call more laborers out into this harvest?” If Jesus was part of the Trinity, would not his thoughts be Yahweh’s thoughts? Would not his need be known immediately to Yahweh? What need is there for prayers?

Over and over and over in the New Testament, the character Jesus deflects praise onto “the Father” rather than accept it for himself. There is no indication in scripture that Jesus foretold that he would be identified as being one with the Godhead in the near future. In fact, there is no need expressed in scripture for his deification or the formation of the Holy Trinity. (Yahweh can appear as being pure spirit, but he also appeared as a whirlwind, a pillar of fire, a burning bush, a human wrestler, etc. Why make any one of his guises into a separate but not separate entity?)

So, his followers go out and godify him, which was fine by the leading Romans at the time as they did that with great regularity. If you listen carefully, you can just hear a low grumbling sound; that’s Jesus rolling over in his grave. Another person betrayed by religion.

The reason this is obvious is that being God doesn’t add to Jesus’s message or make his mission more important or really anything of more value. Actually, it serves to undermine his mission.

In a recent Medium.com post (What Jesus Actually Said by Dan Foster) a listing of what might be construed as Jesus’s commandments shows that modern American Christians are not even close to living a Jesus-led life. So, declaring, in retrospect, Jesus to be God shockingly didn’t improve his clout with his own believers!

Also, any number of Christians will tell you that the Reincarnation is a cornerstone of the reason they believe. If Jesus had been a prophet, or Rabbi, or just another Hebrew Extraordinaire, his resurrection would have been a miracle. But if Jesus is a god, his resurrection is a cheap parlor trick. Jesus pretends to go to the afterworld (Just where is it that he went? Did he just take a nap in that tomb?) and then after a short time reappears, ta da! An easy trick for a god, but something a mortal cannot pull off by himself, without supernatural help anyway.

So, if making Jesus into a god didn’t amplify or improve his message/mission and it makes a mockery out of his reincarnation, why was that done? It could not have been god’s will because the god of the Bible had no problem introducing himself before that and Jesus never introduced himself as god. If he was a manifestation of god, made that claim, and backed it up by miracles, why didn’t he just make all of the Romans disappear (He could make them reappear in Gaul to be kind.) and he would have had the entire Near East eating out of his hand. His message would have spread like wildfire. But, no such thing took place. What is claimed to have happened is not the behavior of an all-powerful, all-knowing god, just not.

So, why was the deification done? The easiest answer is that it was expected by the most important, most powerful audience in the pews: the Romans. You gotta keep the customers happy. So, deifying Jesus, something that would have appalled him, was just a hop, skip, and a jump down the trail from Roman pagan practices, a trail that leads us to modern Christianity, a hopelessly confused theology posing as a religion.

Let There Be . . . Inflation (Cosmic, That Is)

The current state of cosmological theory has some aspects to it that are, at a bare minimum, puzzling. Near the beginning of the Big Expansion, aka the Big Bang, a period of what is called cosmic inflation occurred, this is a label slapped on a period of rapid expansion of space-time. I am reading that some think that a period of cosmic inflation also occurred just before whatever triggered the Big Expansion. And, quite recently, we have learned that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. No explanations for these mysterious expansions has yet been provided, at least with any physical support. As usual, speculation abounds.

I can remember reading in high school a speculation that the universe was expanding, but the dominant force in the universe, gravity, had to slow that expansion and eventually cause the universe to contract. I was enthralled with this speculation, but alas, studies now show that the expansion if the universe is not only not slowing, but is speeding up. (I think I am “oh for whatever” in theories I took a liking to.)

And, why religious apologists haven’t claimed that their god is responsible for these expansions and accelerations of expansions yet (C’mon, God of the Gaps people, pick up the slack!), since we don’t have a physical explanations for these yet, one can still speculate.

So, if the universe can go through phases in which its foot is on the accelerator, could it also not be the case that it could go through phases with its foot on the brakes? Ah, didn’t see that coming, did’ja?

My theory lives! (Bwah, hah, hah!)

So, at some undetermined time in the future, the rate of expansion of the universe slows and gravity re-exerts its place as the dominant force in the universe. Instead of galaxies separating from one another over time, they then began to get closer. Closer and closer they get, until galaxies merge . . . and merge . . . and merge. (I have to wonder if entropy decreases during this phase as it increased during the expansion.) Then stars get so close they merge with other stars and black holes. On and on this goes until the universe is crunched (this phase of the universe’s life cycle was called “the Big Crunch”) into a tiny point. All matter is turned into energy and the tiny universe is immensely hot as well as being immensely small, just like the universe before the Big Expansion we currently observe. Then, Bam!, off it goes again.

This cycle continues over and over and over. Why? Because it can.

This is the likely scenario had no cosmic inflation occurred in the first place, or the rate of expansion of the universe had not accelerated. Since we do not yet have reasons for why those phases occurred, then an equally bewildering contraction seems possible.

Maybe our universe is in a universe growth chamber and the entities running it occasionally tweak the process to make to go in direction of their choice. “Reality” has shown us over and over that it can be weirder than we can imagine.

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?
(Robert Browning)

The Beauty of Nature is Proof of . . .

There is a silly argument that wanders around religious apologist’s circles, namely that the beauty we see in nature is proof of God’s existence. It is called, officially, the Argument from Beauty. The silliness of this claim is pointed out by counter arguments addressing all of the ugliness that can be seen in nature. Is that also proof of some god’s existence?

Interestingly, scientists are not immune to the beauty of nature (Duh!):

“Scientists’ ability to experience wonder, awe and beauty in their work is associated with higher levels of job satisfaction and better mental health, finds an international survey of researchers. Brandon Vaidyanathan, a sociologist at the Catholic University of America in Washington DC, and his colleagues collected responses from more than 3,000 scientists — mainly biologists and physicists — in India, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. They asked participants about their job satisfaction and workplace culture, their experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of aesthetics in science. The answers revealed that, far from the caricature of scientists as exclusively rational and logical beings, “this beauty stuff is really important”, Vaidyanathan says. “It shapes the practice of science and is associated with all kinds of well-being outcomes.’” [Nature, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 3-21-2022]

I have claimed for quite some time that the awe and reverence we have for the beauty to be found in nature (if you look for it) has the simple explanation that: there were once human beings who did not appreciate the beauty of nature, but they were too depressed to pass on their genes.

Addendum I have heard from critics of science that reducing nature to cold, hard numbers drains all of the beauty from nature. This is, again, an uneducated opinion. For example, I enjoy the turning of the leaves during the display of Fall colors in deciduous trees. I not only appreciate the pretty colors, but I happen to also know why those colors change (including the chemicals and processes involved) . . . and that gives my appreciation of the beauty more depth.

A Definition of Spirituality . . . of Sorts

(Can’t let a Sunday go by without posting something religious. S)

When addressing the topic of spirituality, I have often enough asked for it to be defined coherently. So far, I have not gotten anything I would describe as being coherent and often got no definition in response. It is a little like asking people what they mean by “god” and they respond with “You know, God, everybody knows God.”

So here is a definition I ran across this morning:

Spirituality . . . is based upon the acceptance of the existence of something more significant than ourselves. (Cynthia A. Morgan on Medium.com, 2-2-22)

So, significant means . . . (adjective) 1. sufficiently great or important to be worthy of attention; noteworthy, 2. having a particular meaning; indicative of something.

So, we are talking about something greater or more important than ourselves, something that has meaning. Hmm, could be politics, right? Is not our democracy something that fits this definition? Or we could be talking about a family with along history. That would fit, no?

So, why do I tend to think that spirituality is a dodge for not being religious? It seems as if spirituality is something one professes when one is explaining why one is not religious.

What passes for Christianity in the U.S. now is what Dan Foster called “churchianity.” American Christians aren’t following Jesus the Christ, they are following their church. And I will bet that you are thinking of this right now: “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18) Allow me to point out that this is another one of those things put into Jesus’s mouth that would never have come out of it. Ask yourself: what religious institutions were available to the early first century CE Jews? Well, there was the Temple . . . and there were synagogues . . . and . . . and . . . pagan temples, and  . . . yep, there were no “churches,” until later, well after Jesus supposedly died. Well, it was a prophecy, then, no? No. It was a corruption of scripture to bolster the standing of the newly formed Christian churches, clearly the one claiming to be lead by Peter.

And, if you make a list of all of the things “good Christians” think “good Christians” do or should do, you will find next to none of those things in scripture. For example: praying regularly, reading the Bible regularly, attending religious services, serving the church, not losing one’s temper, dressing modestly, and so on. None of this is in the Bible. All of these are part of the control systems created by church officials. If you don’t believe me, there is an experiment you can do. Find a church which is recruiting and find one which says “All you have to do is accept Jesus into your heart and you can join us.” So, tell them you have accepted Jesus into your heart and then show up for your first church services dressed inappropriately. (You don’t have to be dressed like a whore or dungeon master, just wear, say, blue jeans and a tee shirt.) You will quickly find out that you need to do more, a lot more, than accepting Jesus into your heart, to be acceptable to a church. And none of those “requirements” are in the Bible.

As another example, I was attending an art exhibition (secular art, not religious art) in a church and a church lady asked me to remove my hat because it was disrespectful. Interestingly, the Hebrew Bible has hat wearing as mandatory while in such places. The Hebrew Bible is what Christians call the “Old Testament.”

So, spirituality . . . actually is a vague feeling that all there is may not be all there is. (Imagine Peggy Lee singing “Is That All There Is?” in the background.) For people unhappy with their lot in life, this is called wishful thinking, wishing there were options not available normally. Even more massive wishful thinking is having a spiritual big brother who is going to the kick the asses of those who have made you miserable.

Actually, those who claim to be spiritual are just as deluded as those claiming to be Christians. To quote one of my favorite authors on this topic:

Listen to any sermon, Christian sales pitch, or read any Christian literature; their messages share the common themes of: We’re all born evil (despite God creating us this way and chooses not to change it), God loves us (yet will punish us and send us to hell if we don’t love him back) and he died for our sins (even though we never asked him to, also, how can God actually die if he’s God, by committing suicide?), and there’s no way out of this universal scenario because we’re incapable, without purpose, empty of significance, need saving, and can do nothing without God (all of which is by his perfect design). Finally, the only solution to this inescapable ordeal is converting to Christianity. Honestly, how deranged must one be to believe all of this? . . . The embarrassing part about this is that nothing literally changes after a person converts to Christianity. God never grants them the power to become anything more. His preference is to be the sole winner among his losers. (Jubei Raziel)

So, as far as I can tell, spirituality is a dodge against not being religious. The Pew survey now has a category for it that people can use to label themselves: spiritual but not religious.

Why Do So Many Kids Hate to Read?

There are, and have always been, people who do not like to read. From things I have read it seems that their numbers are increasing as a fraction of all of us.

There is a societal aspect to this. There are parents who read to their children all of the time and then acquire them “pablum” books to read themselves. There are also parents who have next to no books in their houses and do not read to their children. I presume this has an effect upon children raised in such households.

Sadly, many kids learn to hate reading for the simple fact that they were never given anything interesting to read. Most school books are painful to read and have been so mangled by reading level sweeps and censorship sweeps, as to be incoherent. (They may be “New” but they certainly aren’t “Improved.”)

I think another major factor is imagination. Before TV and video and the Internet, people told stores and, later read stories. As the words tumbled by our imaginations gave life to the dragons, and knights in shining armor, and brave princesses.

Most of you do not remember life before TV, but I was born in 1946 and we got our first TV in 1953, So, I was part of a household that listened to the radio. It was similar to being read to or a story being told and our imaginations did the heavy lifting. (Going to “the movies” was an infrequent thing at the time.) But soon came TV/video/Internet and our imaginations were required less and less.

My guess is that children raised with “handheld devices” constantly available will find reading laborious and somewhat colorless, compared to the whiz-bang visual extravaganzas available to them in vast quantities.

For those who eschew reading, a connection with the past is lost. You can read a writer’s thoughts directly and there is little translation. If you have to wait for the movie or mini-series to come out, you will be getting a treatment one or more steps removed from the original. (Anyone who loved J.R.R. Tolkien’s books was not entirely happy with the movie adaptations.) It is somewhat like reading something translated from another language. Some nuances will be lost. Scholars wishing to seriously study historical documents, for example, learn the languages they were written in so that such translating problems are minimized.

If you have a child who despises reading, a last gasp attempt to show the value to him/her may be as simple as when your child expresses a love for any topic (and I mean any) give them a gift of a good, easy to read book on that topic. It may encourage further explorations.

If Only It Were So

I am working my way through “The Dawn of Everything” which is a real eye opener. I haven’t read much that is new, but when you put them together, boy, are the facts different from what I thought they were.

For example, the idea of land as property. You are probably aware that many early peoples didn’t think that they “owned” the land, but tribes had certain feelings about their hunting range rights and whatnot. Disputes were often settled with battles, so there has always been something “there” with regard to land.

We have gotten from there to “land is the only true wealth” (aka now), but something got lost along the way. The something was what might be called “stewardship” of the land. If the land was associated with you, your family, your tribe, there were certain obligations regarding maintaining the health of the land. The land was not yours to do as you wish, but to use until it was turned over to someone else.

I was aware of this loss but Graeber encapsulated it quite nicely. Read this:

What makes the Roman Law conception of property – the basis of almost all legal systems today – unique is that the responsibility to care and share is reduced to a minimum, or even eliminated entirely. In Roman Law there are three basic rights relating to possession: usus (the right to use), fructus (the right to enjoy the products of a property, for instance the fruit of a tree), and abusus (the right to damage or destroy). If one has only the first two rights this is referred to as usufruct, and is not considered true possession under the law. The defining feature of true legal property, then, is that one has the option of not taking care of it, or even destroying it at will. (Graeber, David. The Dawn of Everything, p. 161—all emphases mine SR)

So, the modern ideas of land as property, I am thinking of Western U.S. landholders who claim the land is theirs and they can do anything they want with or to it, date back to the Romans.

Once again, civilization is over rated. Clearly the more primitive, uncivilized people had the better ideas.

Can you imagine what the world would be like if the stewardship aspect of land “ownership” had been kept? It would be a vastly different world.

WTF? Entitlement?!

I saw a comment on the Internet in which the commenter argued that, well, “people are entitled to be anonymous if they want to be.”

Methinks entitlement has gone too far.

In this country (the U.S. of A.) there is no such entitlement. For example, you have to be known by the Social Security Administration just to get a job. You have to be known by some Department of Motor Vehicles just to be able to drive on public roads, etc. You cannot own a home or other property without showing up in public records. The only person I knew who tried seriously to become anonymous was doing so so that she could avoid paying taxes.

So, since the “entitlement claim” is referring to identifying who is “speaking” on the Internet, let us limit the discussion to that. Do people have the “right” to communicate anonymously on the Internet?

No. Simply because not being identifiable is incredibility difficult on the Internet. There are tracing tools and whatnot that allow people to be “located.” Search engines exist to search just for people. The very act of typing something and posting it leaves a trail of digital bread crumbs that can be followed. And if someone goes to that trouble and “outs you,” as in “AssKicker 831 is Joel Nerdly of Omaha, Nebraska,” what do you think the penalty is for doing that?

Right. <cricket, cricket, cricket>

What you do have is the right to try to be anonymous. There is no guarantee you will be successful.

I can think of only a handful of situations in which anonymity is appropriate (spousal abuse reporting, whistle blowing, voting, etc.) so I consider the use of monikers/pseudonyms/avatars, etc. to be suspicious. To communicate anonymously without a substantial reason is an attempt to avoid the societal pushback that causes us to think before we speak. Before the anonymity provided by the Internet, racist comments were disappearing from public discourse. Conversations held out in the open, at work, etc. were self-policed to avoid the approbation that one would get if one made racist comments. That is one of the few mechanisms by which a culture polices itself. But as soon as people learned they could communicate anonymously on the Internet, and hook up with other like-minded individuals, observable public racism made a big comeback in this country.

If some politicians decided to write a bill promoting the “entitlement to be anonymous” I would oppose it because it undermines our society.

Holy Moley!

Our political disputes have become what the Founders feared most, a religious war. With the forces of “good” pitted against the forces of “evil.” And all because we let evangelical Chrsitians play politics. Thanks Republicans, for taking their ideas seriously (albeit just to feather your nests)!

What is most alarming is the underlying ideology that leads so many on the right to consider Democratic victories invalid – even if they concede there was nothing technically wrong with how the election was conducted. It has become a core tenet of the Republican worldview to consider the Democratic party as not simply a political opponent, but an enemy pursuing an “un-American” project of turning what is supposed to be a white Christian patriarchal nation into a land of godless multiracial pluralism. Conversely, Republicans see themselves as the sole proponents of “real” America, defending the country from the forces of radical leftism, liberalism and wokeism. (The Real – And Far Scarier – Reason Republicans Think Biden Is Illegitimate by Thomas Zimmer, The Guardian, 3-21-22)

Good, but scary, reading.