5 Irrefutable Proofs that God Does NOT Exist

As Christian (and other theistic) apologists enjoy giving ‘irrefutable’ proofs for God’s existence, I thought I offer up Proof of a Negative – in this case, that God (or any god) does not exist. Of course, I needn’t do this as anyone asserting a positive statement, such that X does exists, has the burden of proof upon them. Moreover, it is quite possible to prove a negative, contrary to popular belief. (Lookup the Law of Non-Contradiction for starters.) So let’s just get right to it:

 

1)     1-There is no universally accepted definition of ‘God’ – What are God’s attributes; how do we know God is God? Ask 100 theists for their definition of God and you’re likely to get about 100 different answers once you get past the Big Three. There will be some similarity in answers, such that God is anthropomorphic, is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, those last three attribute that when taken collectively cannot possibly be true due to contradictions. (For instance, if God knows the future, the future is preordained, which means God has no free will, which means God is not all powerful.) To know God is God there must be a definition that is testable. We can’t simply resort to “God is these things by definition” if such a definition cannot be observed. Even in the world of mathematics, one is one is not true by definition; we have to observe that is the case to know it is true.

2)    2- God is not testable – Not only is the definition of God not testable, in NO WAY can we sense God on a practical level. We cannot see, touch, taste, smell or hear God forthwith. Seeing or hearing God – when other people cannot – is tantamount to a hallucination. Likewise are mental states or emotional ‘feelings’ that God is present or exists. We know by studying brain scans these states or feeling are dependent on biological changes within the brain and body and do not correlate to any information we retrieve through our five senses. ‘Knowledge’ not derived from our five senses is not actual knowledge. Direct experience is the only way to actually know anything about the world, assuming our senses are not faulty.

3)    3- God cannot be told apart from a sufficiently powerful or knowledgeable alien – Let’s suppose some being came to Earth tomorrow and are from the planet Flobblebot, though they neglected to tell us where they are from. They know everything there is to know about the universe to the point of predicting exactly what will happen next and can perform any seemingly magical trick we ask of them, like teleporting us to the surface of the Sun and back without harm. Furthermore, this creature says they are the god of the Bible. Should we then conclude that this being is in fact God? That may seem reasonable but they really aren’t God since they’re from within the universe and not from outside of it as apologists often postulate. So we can’t know any ‘God’ isn’t lying to us, that they aren’t an alien. Any God could in fact be an alien who happens to have advanced power and knowledge.

4)    4- The existence of evil – Surely a definition of evil would be helpful here, unless we can agree ahead of time that something like the murder of a newborn child is evil. Let’s assume we do agree on that. If God is all-knowing, God knew it was going to happen and in not preventing it, is ultimately responsible for the evil since God is the creator of all things. If God could have chosen to stop this event and did not, God is not all-good. If God had a good reason not to stop the event – perhaps the child faced an unpleasant life if allowed to live – we should conclude God is not powerful enough to have stopped the pregnancy in the first place. We also can’t assume God’s actual reasons for doing anything as God’s mind is unknowable as I’ve so often heard from theists. (And, if it were indeed the case that God had a good reason for allowing the murder, this gives us a reason for allowing abortion.) If an all-powerful God wanted to stop a life of suffering, an all-powerful God could do so at any time but curiously never does – because God does not exist. If an existent God has a good reason for allowing suffering – maybe it creates mental and emotional resiliency – this should be stated in scriptures and continue in the afterlife. Never stop growing, right? (If the whole point of heaven is to live eternally without suffering, then it is reasonable to assume suffering is bad. Doesn’t seem like there is in fact a good reason for it.)

5)     5-Theists are often frightened by the prospect of death – If heaven exists why are theists ever afraid? If they are not sure if they are going to get into heaven, that indicates they are not compelled by the particulars of their faith to follow all the tenants of their faith and secure their heavenly reward: eternal life. A ‘true believer’ wouldn’t be scared by the prospect of the unknown – since they know about heaven – or leaving their family and friends behind knowing they are all going to meet again in the afterlife. A theist cannot be scared by dying as obtaining heaven is the entire point of believing in God. But theists are scared all the time. They have fears about death, they doubt, because subliminally at least they know they have accepted a falsehood. If heaven exists, a theist should not be scared by death or any earthly punishments. But they are scared. Ergo, God does not exist.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed these ‘irrefutable’ proofs, some of which is a little bit tongue-in-cheek on purpose. Surely you’ve spotted an error or two on the level of “The Bible says God exists so God exists.” Have fun picking apart and kindly share your thoughts. Even after doing that it is still the case that no gods exist. Can you prove otherwise?

Oh, Twitter Christians, You Amuse Me

In trying to convince me that the God of the Bible does in fact exist and therefore validates Christianity compared to, say, Zoroastrianism, a Twitter user wrote this to me: “Does Zoroastrianism contain a virgin birth, a Trinity, a created angel/being that became evil, angel human hybrids, God becoming human and dying for our sins, new heavens and new earth?”

 

For some reason, Christians are painfully unaware that virgin births are fairly common in religious mythology. It’s not even a particularly special phenomenon in the animal kingdom, though rare, it can and does happen. Moreover, what is so special about female virgins anyway? The haven’t been tainted by a penis? By that logic any man who has sex with a woman therefore taints her – how rude! Now no god will want to impregnate her! If a religion really wants to impress me, give me a male virgin who impregnates a woman without having sperm taken from him.

 

A trinity? What’s special about a trinity? Lots of things come in threes and stupid tweets are one of them. Why doesn’t God stick to a duality? Or maybe there are four spiritual facets to godhood. What difference does a trinity make? Three is not a special number any more than any other number.

 

A created angel that became evil? Jesus Christ, that’s not even in the Bible. And, as I’ve said many times, any such creation of God had to be known by God to become evil – since the Christian god is omniscient – and this makes God look like a dick; he knew it was going to happen and let it happen anyway! Angelic beings becoming evil also not special in mythology.

 

Angel-human hybrids? Someone has not read ANY mythology other than their own.

 

New heavens and new earth? As I’ve written before, I’m not impressed with believers’ visions of heaven which often sounds a lot like life on earth without having to pay taxes. I get it, though, your life on earth sucks and you need to believe it’ll get better after you die. Yet for some reason, most y’all are scared to die just like anyone else.

 

Comparing one religion to another and pointing out where one is supposedly special whereas the other is not does not validate one’s religion. It just makes you look ignorant. That’s fine for Christians I suppose for in being ignorant and meek they shall allegedly inherit the earth. Mmm, yeah, judging by their work so far, that’s been working out great.

Christians Against Dinosaurs

 A few months ago, I scanned a headline about a group seeking the removal of a dinosaur statue outside a McDonalds in Tucson, AZ. Having lived in Tucson and familiar with the landmark, I was intrigued to the point of actually reading the article.

The group is called ‘Christians Against Dinosaurs’ (aka CAD) which maintains a Facebook page with a dead link to christiansagainstdinosaurs.com (I guess the CAD admins don’t make enough money or haven’t heard about free web hosting). Per the Facebook page, the philosophy – such as it is – maintains: There is no evidence dinosaurs ever existed, that dinosaurs ever existed is based on assumptions, Jurassic Park is not a documentary (I wasn’t aware anyone thought that), dinosaurs in musea(?) are made of plaster, carbon dating is not reliable, and that chickens are not modern dinosaurs. The group admins repeatedly assert they have done the scientific research and have concluded – with no help from their faith – that dinosaurs never existed. Furthermore, to believe in dinosaurs is dangerous because, well, it’s false and naturally leads people away from the Christian god.

 

Of course, I couldn’t help but be tempted to join the group and weigh in on their discussions. I also knew it would be fruitless to change anyone’s mind, so why would I bother? Because insanity doesn’t get a free pass, ever, even when you can’t cure the ill. I’m glad I did join, though, because what I discovered is a potentially dangerous group of people.

 

Let’s begin with their denial of the evidence, of which there is a lot. What I mean is that we’ve recovered fossilized bones (NOT the bones themselves, which CAD members don’t seem to understand) of many exceptionally sized animals that would be classified as lizards. (Lizards being their classification based on anatomy and physiology, and in this case, supposedly their behavior; based on modern lizards). We’ve recovered LOTS of fossils of these lizards and as the evidence mounted, yes, assumptions were made that these fossilized bones belonged to (often large) lizards that we do not see anymore. Because what else could they be?

 

Ah, the ‘fossilized’ bones are either all fakes and/or were put in place by Satan to deceive all of us about there ever being dinosaurs, because the more time you spend obsessing about dinosaurs the less time you spend with God. (The devil couldn’t come up with a better plan than that? That’s disappointing.)

Certainly, nevermind that most adults spend more time at church than on dinosaurs even if they did go through a dinosaur phase as a child. I mean, no one is missing church to go catch the latest Jurassic Park movie. Sheesh. So we can dismiss the Satan Theory as being childish nonsense but to claim all the recoveries are fake? That would be a massive undertaking and human beings aren’t exactly known for keeping their mouths shut the larger a conspiracy becomes. BUT, the fakes are driven by money, prestige and power, leading us to the perpetrators of the conspiracy – Big Paleo. Ooo, scary.

 

I think CAD’s claim about Big Paleo being in it for the money is so ludicrous that it highlights the lack of research group members must avoid. Their assertion is that the field of paleontology makes so much money, that is what drives the industry to lie about what they’ve discovered and what they do. Now, I couldn’t find any estimates on how much money the field of paleontology makes annually, but literally no one thinks of paleontologists first when asked to make a short list of opportunistic careers. (Click here for a list of the most influential – not richest – paleontologists https://paleontologyworld.com/paleontologists-curiosities/12-most-influential-paleontologists ). By comparison, the faith industry in the U.S. alone makes approximately a trillion dollars a year. So, if money is the motivating factor for paleontologists, why aren’t they pastor instead? They’re in the wrong industry! And I won’t even mention the fact that you need at least a Masters degree to make any money in paleontology whereas you don’t need any education to lead a flock astray. So why go through the trouble? By the way, can you can name at least one mega-rich pastor off the top of your head? Who can’t! The lie about Big Paleo is an attempt to cash-in on the hysteria of phrases like Big Pharma and Big Oil which are seen as inherently evil, which in this case is an outright lie. (I know what you’re thinking, why would a Christian lie about something? Perhaps being Christian, they’re already immune to facts. I’m not sure. Actually I do know why but that’s not important right now.)

 

Could it be that Big Paleo is driven by prestige and power? That is possibly more likely since we know spiritual leaders are likely motivated by the same factors; it’s just a human thing to do, pretend you hold special knowledge. So that’s a possible explanation for the ‘lie’ but since that motivation applies to so many people in so many fields, the point is perhaps moot. Except when it comes to fossilized bones there is no special knowledge: We have a bunch of bones that when we compare them can be classified in a certain way and leads us to certain conclusions. As I mentioned the conclusion may be somewhat inexact, but the overall conclusion that really large lizards once roamed the earth is inescapable. (Or at least that’s what Satan wants us to think. I keep mentioning to CAD members that the evidence is there but they just don’t want to hear it; it would be too much mental work for them to draw any conclusions from it.)

 

I also point out that even if we take it as a matter of faith that dinosaurs existed, this is no different than any of them believing in God on faith. Naturally, they always counter this by saying matters of faith are not subject to scientific inquiry as if they’re being clever in avoiding the ‘evidence trap.’ So CAD gets upset that paleontologists tell everyone that dinosaurs existed based on the evidence. What they don’t realize is that, epistemologically speaking, ultimately every belief is a matter of faith, which circles back to my point about just believing in dinosaurs on faith as a non-starter. In other words, they shouldn’t be getting upset if, really, believing dinosaurs existed is a matter of faith since evidence isn’t required for beliefs. CAD doesn’t realize any analysis of their argument in dividing the beliefs undermines that argument. (I’d like to add here that there is evidence for every belief we have, though that evidence may be falsified or be a false claim. No one is born with a belief in God, though it seems human beings are born with an innate ability to believe in the nonsensical or the flimsiest of ‘evidence,’ like a book written by superstitious tribal men.)

 

But aren’t all the dinosaur bones in museums fakes, made of plaster? Many are because fossilized bones which really aren’t ‘bones’ in the way we understand them are very fragile. (This link speaks to the definition and fragility of fossils https://www.amnh.org/dinosaurs/dinosaur-bones#:~:text=The%20%22dinosaur%20bones%22%20that%20you,bones%20are%20turned%20into%20rock. ) Yet many real fossils do appear in museums around the world. Sure, some are plaster replicas made from molds or are guesswork where skeletons have been recovered incomplete, but even forensic scientists do the latter with human bodies. (So I guess we should consider human skeletons that aren’t recovered fully intact fake? I know, that’s a stretch, but it was fun to write.)

 

At this point I’m going to move on to their disdain for (radio)carbon dating which everyone knows can only date organic material back 50,000 years or so. Paleontologists use a different kind of radiometric dating to determine the age of the rock and sediment fossilized bones are found in and that helps estimate the age of a recovery. The most rudimentary research can point this out, so for a group that claims to be scientifically minded they goofed one of their primary talking points. Good grief, CAD’s not doing so well so far.

 

Hold on! You mean chickens aren’t modern dinosaurs? Let’s file this under ‘N’ for No Shit, Sherlock. Chickens aren’t even lizards. Alas, the evidence seems to indicate birds have descended from dinosaurs, because evolution. I won’t get into evolution here because many of its detractors either can’t grasp the basic concepts involved or refuse to believe it on religious grounds. Anyone who says chickens are modern dinosaurs means they are descendants, not that they’re actually dinosaurs. But leave it to CAD not to understand this.

 

Behind all their misleading and outright false drivel is something inevitably more sinister, however. Checking in on them this evening (you gotta keep an eye on these people) sees one CAD member going on a rant because he came across a dinosaur’s face plastered on a case of beer. That’s being a little triggered, wouldn’t you say? CAD members often post such pictures with such pithy captions as, “This is not okay!” or “Dinosaurs never existed!” Similarly, for every new report of a recovery, a CAD member will inevitably remark, “Jesus is really testing us,” making it clear that at least some members really do think dinosaur bones were put in place by Satan.

 

CAD’s desire to see dinosaurs erased from all aspects of culture indicate the worst tendencies of humanity. Among them, the inability to understand science, the declaration of special knowledge, and to be clearly divorced from reality while insisting their religious beliefs have nothing to do with their denial of the evidence. And the group is clearly religiously motivated, which can never be not troubling. Then there’s the fact that they are a group, having consciously sought each other out for the purposes of locking themselves into an echo chamber. Sure, you can try to reason with them, but the echo is too loud and we know by now that reason is not enough to make people abandon false beliefs.

 

Unsurprisingly, member as the group will go out of their way to lie and create memes such as the David Attenborough one here, giving a quote the man never said. Perhaps they missed the commandment (not optional) against bearing false witness? Called out on their lies, they never acknowledge it. Like so many people, their truth is the only truth that matters. Fortunately, science – and courtrooms to a lesser degree – don’t give a fuck about what you think is reality. This raises a question: Should people be allowed to believe their own ‘facts’? Both the far-right and far-left think so, and this is what has made such a cultural and political mess of the United States.

 

What is to be done with CAD, then, leave them to their own device? Ignoring them is more dangerous than fruitlessly trying to reason with them because if we can prevent even one more indoctrination, it’s worth it. Plus, it makes ourselves feel better to insult intentionally stupid people, does it not? It seems to work for them. Interesting that they don’t like it when the shoe’s on the other foot.

All Rights Reserved (C) Theory Parker Dec. 2020

Independence From Religion Day

Christians have apparently forgotten what it is like to be persecuted.

Michigan, Mississippi and a spate of other states already had a similar law in place. Indiana, Virginia and now Arkansas have just passed an anti-gay/pro-discrimination law as well. The

Rallying against hate.

difference, though, is that Indiana and Virginia, for example, doesn’t have any laws that protect LBGT’s as a class. As Addictedinfo.org reports on Virginia (and basically pertains to Indiana also), “The state of Virginia is set to pass a law which would allow anti-LGBT business owners to bar gay people, purely on the basis of their sexuality. The Virginia Bill states that anyone seeking or holding a business license from the state of Virginia in the state can refuse service or entry to gay people, on the grounds it ‘would violate the religious or moral convictions of such person with respect to same-sex marriage or homosexual behavior.’”

Seriously.

It is legalized discrimination meant to protect business owners who are also Judeo-Christian from catering to gays, though we all know that in reality the laws may eventually extend to anyone a business owner doesn’t like (and they will be able to invoke ‘religious objection’ in their defense). To be clear, I do think that a business owner should be able to deny a person service provided there is a good reason, where ‘a good reason’ is one grounded in reality. (That is to say being a religious Jew, Christian, or Muslim is not grounded in reality.) While those of us in the good ol’ U.S. of A. with any semblance of sanity or aren’t insane about inflicting our exclusionary beliefs on others can talk and give lip-service to how terrible these laws are, no one is doing much of anything about it. Sure, there have been street protests and several companies have bailed on planned expansions into Indiana, for example, but I don’t think it is enough. The people creating and passing these laws simply don’t understand how hateful they are being, where being hateful is simply primitive at this point in human history.

It is no longer acceptable. But you cannot reason with the kind of people who support these laws, the kind of people who, say, claim to be Christians but don’t act anything like Jesus. Take the Indiana Gov. Mike Pence for instance, who complained in an interview of, "an avalanche of intolerance that has been poured on our state" but seemed not to understand that what he’s done is allow the government to sanction just that, intolerance. You can only make such people understand by demonstrating what it is they are doing to people when they deny a person basic human rights. You can only hope to make them understand by putting them through the very thing they insist on doing to other people. That being the case, I am calling for a national day of protest, a day in which Christians are denied services by non-Christians based, of course, on ‘moral objections.’ Without getting into the particulars of my system of ethics, let’s just say I find the morality of Judeo-Christians quite disturbing. Why shouldn’t I, or anyone else with a different system of ethics – one based on science since science is apparently a religion to the Christian right-wing – deny Christians service based on a ‘moral objection’?

Unfortunately, Easter is too close to raise awareness of and organize such a protest. My solution is to make July 4, 2015 in the U.S., America’s Independence Day, Independence From Religion Day* by being intolerant of the religiously inclined and invoking a ‘moral objection’ as the reason for denying certain people services. On a day that is only allowed to be celebrated by straight Judeo-Christian patriots – since you’re not a patriot if you’re not a straight Judeo-Christian – I say we hold what is the social equivalent of the Boston Tea Party; the rest of us are going to take the rights straight Judeo-Christians take for granted and throw them overboard. Extremist straight Judeo-Christians need to be shown that freedom from religion in just as important as the freedom of religion.

[Sorry, can’t think of a catchier title at the moment.]

This was a lifetime ago! And today?

I will admit that this seems like a rather extreme measure to take but ‘extreme’ is the only thing extremist straight Judeo-Christians understand. There is only a shred of hope that the people who wish to legally discriminate can come to see that Independence Day really should be called ‘Interdependence Day;’ America has long suffered from a fractured psyche (in no small part due to the Reagan Years) and it is time to re-establish a national identity. These discriminatory laws cannot accomplish that. Making bullies understand what they are doing by showing them how it feels is the only possible hope in putting the U.S. back on the road to unity. Okay, okay, not that the U.S. was ever really unified – some group somewhere was always getting the shaft – but few will argue that the U.S.’s current national identity isn’t like Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde at best. The sane among us cannot stand idly by and let religious lawmakers create laws in their favor. And so the sane among us have no good recourse but to deny their kind service.

Certainly there will be practical difficulties. For instance, it is not always immediately clear who is and who isn’t a religious wing-nut. In cases where it is known, servicing a religious person should be politely declined and the reason for denying service given; “I’m sorry Mr. White, but I morally object to the nature of your ethics and therefore cannot in good conscience serve you today.” There is also the matter of whether to deny service to religious people who are not dicks, which in actuality would be most religious people (in my experience). Should those people be denied service? For the sake of consistency, I would have to say ‘yes’ as doing so would result in the situation being recanted to the denied party’s family and friends who are also likely to be religious. While I don’t like the idea of there being ‘collateral damage,’ no good revolution has come about without some innocent ‘blood’ getting spilled.

The year is 2015. Americans are not dirt-snorting, cave-dwelling misogynist towelheads that like to behead people for petty reasons. Some people should stop acting like that’s what they want to be, or if they want to, be that person somewhere else. The U.S. is no longer the place for you.

The Balk of Genesis

For this blog, what I’d like us to do is take account of the Bible from a new perspective. What we’re going to do – as a thought experiment – is read the Book of Genesis from the perspective of a person who has never been told anything whatsoever about the Bible or the god therein. We’re going to pretend that as a reasonably conscious adult, we’ve been given this book and told that we should read it because it is the word of God, with no further guidance or instruction. Why pursue this perspective? To illustrate that the Bible being the word of God brings with it a need to suspend disbelief, if not morality. I’m going to show that if the Bible were truly the word of a deity, we might not be so interested in what this god has to say.

For the purpose of this venture, we’re going to use the King James Version of the Bible. I know…version? Yes, remarkably there are different versions of God’s infallible word, not that we know that God is infallible because we’re supposing we haven’t read the Bible yet. But we’re going to open this book to its first chapter, Genesis, and focus our attention there. Remember that we have no preconceived notions about what we’re about to read.

Chapter 1 verse 1 reads: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.”

For the next 23 verses the Bible laments about how God is forming the earth over a period of 5 ½ days. Now, we might suppose that this is very incredible. God is forming our planet over the course of days, which happens to fly in the face of everything scientists have figured out about planet formation. Now perhaps the scientists are wrong. After all, earth was formed by God, a supernatural being…we think. Unfortunately the Bible is not very clear about who or what ‘God’ is, which would seem like a likely place the author should start considering everything we’re about to read. Heck, we’re not even given a reason why God created the earth. We may be mistaken about how long a day is anyway. Truth be told, the Bible was written well before the establishment of 24 hour days and 7 day weeks. Perhaps then we should forgive this oversight. There’s more trouble afoot.

Chapter 1 verse 26: “And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness, etc, etc. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female He created them.”

Forgive me if this verse seems a bit peculiar. God clearly says the words ‘in our image.’ Our. So, is it reasonable to assume, without anyone else’s input, that there are other gods besides the creator? The verse also states that we were created in His image yet it is clear that God is male. Perhaps he modeled a female upon one of His peers though perhaps He was just being creative. We don’t know. Maybe the next chapter will clear things up.

Chapter 2 gives us a separate account of the creation of man and woman, again for no apparent reason, except to clarify that the woman was created from the rib of the man. This is perhaps to infer that women are inferior to men because man came first and/or that man was needed first in order to create women. But there is no direct implication that women are unequal to men, yet. Meanwhile, chapter 2 goes on to tell us where Eden is – the land in which this Adam and Eve live – and that in this land or Garden of Eden, there exists two unique trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. At this point we’re not sure what the point of God setting up things like this is but as we’ll see in the next chapter, this scenario will play out as being a sort of set-up.

Chapter 3 begins with a serpent, another of God’s creatures, talking with the woman, Eve. Eve tells the serpent about the fruit from the unique trees and that God has forbidden the couple from eating the fruit from these trees or else they will die. The serpent (which keep in mind is just a serpent because nothing here tells us otherwise) lies to the woman and says that she will not die if she eats the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. The serpent does however tell the truth that if she eats the fruit she will have knowledge of good and evil. Verse 6 says, “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave unto her husband with her and he did eat.”

Adam and Eve now know the difference between good and evil. They have become like gods yet hide from God the next time He comes around because they now know they are naked. Thus we conclude being naked is a bad thing, though, if that were true why had God not clothed them from the beginning? Just a question. So, in His anger, God smites the serpent for lying (about dying), making him crawl on his belly forevermore, intensifies the pain of labor for the woman and subjugates her to the husband, while the man gets off relatively easy having to now work the land in order to eat. God finally forces the couple from the Garden of Eden, “least (man) put forth his hand and take from the Tree of Life, and eat and live forever.”

Let’s think about this a minute. Before eating the fruit Eve has no knowledge of good and evil. She has no reason to suspect the serpent is lying much less know that lying is bad because she has no knowledge of such things before she eats the fruit. This may have led her to become conflicted with what God said, not to eat of that particular tree. Still, she cannot fully understand the undesirable consequences of her actions until after she eats the fruit regardless of God’s warning. It may be that Eve understood something – that knowledge is desirable, though it seems God would prefer that mankind be ignorant. Perhaps the acquisition of knowledge outweighed the possibility of punishment in Eve’s mind. Her dilemma may have been this: Is it better to live comfortably though remain ignorant or be wise and potentially know uncomfortable truths? You can ask yourself that question too but remember, there’s no guarantee that ignorance leads to a life of bliss.

Closing the door on Chapter 3, what conclusions might we draw from the first three books of the Bible? We have learned that God made the heavens and the earth but not why. We see that God made the earth in 6 days and needed to rest when he was done; an indication that God is not all-powerful. We know of course that a literal six day creation of the Earth doesn’t mesh with what science currently understands, raising the question of how long a day is in the Bible. [Btw, the 24 hour day did not come into use until 4000 years ago, courtesy of the Egyptians and Babylonians. And that is younger than the 6000 years old Bible literalists say the earth is. We’re not supposed to know that at this point in our reading of the Bible, but let’s say we intended on doing some research.]

We have learned as well that there are other gods besides God, though it was a particular god who created us. We are unable to conclude whether of not this god is good or evil when we consider the circumstances in which his creations fail Him by eating forbidden fruit. After all, God if nothing else set the stage for this failure in numerous ways, least of all by creating a serpent that not only talks, but lies to people as well. We cannot conclude that God is perfect. His creations are imperfect. Adam and Eve disobey their creator. Do perfect creations disobey their creator? Also, if we are curious enough to cross reference other mythologies, we’ll see that the first few lines of the Bible are strikingly similar to Babylonian, Sumerian, and even African creation myths. These regions are (by no coincidence one would think) directly related to the areas in which texts of the Bible were written. Odd?

The least we learn from these first three chapters is that God frowns upon the acquisition of knowledge. He doesn’t want you to know as much as he does. He’d rather you prance around the Garden of Eden naked as a jay bird. That’s very disturbing in light of the fact that there is no compelling reason given why having knowledge of good and evil is so bad other than to spare God’s ego.

Moving on to Chapter 4 is the story of Cain and Able, the first two children of Adam and Eve. We read and discover that Cain kills Abel in a fit of jealousy because Cain’s ritual offering to God is not as pleasing to God as is Abel’s offering. We can conclude that God is vain being that he requires or at least does not refuse worship and offerings. We also see that knowledge of good and evil and the consequences thereof do not stop Cain from slaying Abel. When God comes along He asks Cain where his brother is, to which Cain replies, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Until Abel’s blood calls out to God in the next verse, God doesn’t know where Abel is which is in contradiction to God saying that he knows all things elsewhere in the Bible (although we haven’t gotten there yet, but we must assume we would). So, we’re not sure if God is all-knowing or not. Having learned of Abel’s murder, God sends Cain away with a mark upon his head so that anyone who runs into Cain will know not to take vengeance upon him, because...? Where these other people would come from is not clear being that until now, only four people have been named in the Bible. I guess Adam and Eve were actually made more in the likeness of rabbits.

The moral of the story is threefold. Work hard to please the Lord, do not be jealous of your brother, and moreover do not commit to murder. That’s all well and good I suppose, but as an author, this God whoever He is, is remarkably unclear in important places. While it’s not entirely unreasonable to go searching through the Bible for clarity, it does make it remarkably difficult to understand exactly what’s going on at times. Though, I suppose there’s no reason our creator (according to the Bible) should make understanding easy for us. Especially if they’re a dick.

Moving onto Chapter 5 we read with a fair amount of skepticism that men routinely live in excess of 900 years. It’s just that as far as modern records have shown, at best humans can only live to about 120. Hmm, just keep that in mind for now. Chapter 6 Verse 3 goes on to say, for no reason other than men being made of flesh, that their days shall now be limited to 120 years. But if we are to read as far as Psalms, that chapter says the days of men are limited to 70 years. Furthermore, many people in the Bible live to exceed these limits, least of all right here in the Book of Genesis following this announcement. Well c’mon now, which is it? God keeps changing his mind. Here’s a god who is really on top of things. Further on in this chapter we read that there were giants back in these days. Strangely enough, the fossilized bones of giants have never been found. I don’t know about you but I’m starting not to believe any of this.

Also in Verse 5 God suddenly turns on mankind immediately after speaking of ‘men of renown.’ Okay, sure. In fact God repents (that is regrets) having made men upon the earth. This is important, for it shows God to be awfully human; in a word, fallible. Forgive me if I expect any god of mine to refrain from making such mistakes.

For the rest of Chapter 6 and continuing in Chapter 7 we savor the story of Noah and his arc. Because we’re fair minded people we’re going to gloss over what could be considered some absurdities. A 450 foot long boat that houses two of every animal on earth? Sure, why not. All the animals boarding the boat in one day (7:13-14)? Why naturally. A worldwide flood that at one point lasts 40 days while a few verses later it lasts 150 days? I’m a believer. How about you?

On a side note, let me ask my readers a question. Do you like the smell of burning animals? No? I didn’t think so. But God sure does, for at the end of Chapter 8 Noah makes an offering that is quite pleasing to God’s nose. It smells so sweet God revisits his sense of regret, this time for flooding the earth. Oh creator thou art very confused and primitive. Make a decision and stand by it, please.

In Chapter 9 Verse 20-21 there are some peculiar family affairs afoot. “And Noah began to be a husband-man and he planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered in his tent.” Noah, God’s perfect and righteous man as previously described, is a drunkard. Well, Noah’s son Ham sees his father passes out and naked, tells his older brothers about it, who then go in (being careful not to see their father naked) and cover Noah up. Upon wakening, Noah curses his son Ham’s son Canaan to be a servant unto Shem and Japheth’s sons, for nothing more than Ham happening to see his father naked! Perhaps it would be one thing if Ham had intentions of seeing his father naked, but that is not made clear here or even implied. There certainly seems to be a code of justice in the Bible that frankly I’m glad we do not currently live by. Also please note that at the end of Chapter 9 Noah is said to have lived until he was 950 years old. But I thought…

Skipping ahead to Chapter 11 is the story of the Tower of Babel. In this story, God is worried that mankind may be capable of too much. As the story goes, men are erecting a building to reach the heavens and if they succeed, nothing will be able to stop them from any further accomplishments. Well God can’t have that. To thwart mankind, God confuses their language so they cannot understand each other and then spreads these men around the globe. To me, this is as if a parent were trying to thwart the achievements of their own child. It’s as if you as a parent were to intentional confuse your child so that they’ll never be as smart or as accomplished as you. If I didn’t already, I’d say I were starting not to like this god.

Believe it or not, the word of God, this Bible here, gets more outrageous. You see, Chapter 12 tells the story of Abram, a man God is sending off into the world and upon whom God will bestow a great nation…for absolutely no reason we know of. In his travels, Abram enters Egypt and lies to the locals that his wife is in fact his sister. Abram fears he would be killed because his wife is so beautiful the Egyptians would eliminate him to take her for themselves. Soon thereafter, Abram’s wife is taken into Pharaoh’s court. The Pharaoh compensates Abram by giving him sheep, oxen, camels, even servants, for the sake of his new concubine. God responds in Abrams favor by reigning plagues on the Pharaoh’s house. Mind you, the Pharaoh didn’t know Sarai was Abram’s wife. As Pharaoh’s house is stricken, he learns of the deception and wisely sends Abram and his wife away. Amazingly all of this is perfectly okay with God. He sided with the liar. Exactly who is the bad guy in this story? We don’t know. We don’t know what wisdom this story is meant to impart. One thing we can be sure of, the morality of God is dubious.

In Chapter 17 God changes Abram’s name to Abraham and establishes a certain painful covenant; again for reasons we’re not privy to. In Chapter 18-19 we witness the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, cities whose sins are not made clear so we today might avoid their mistakes and avoid all that fire and brimstone that will inevitably reign down from the heavens. Perhaps Sodom and Gomorrah could’ve helped themselves had it been a little more clear what is and what is not a sin. Here we are reading the word of God, the Bible that up to this point has been remarkably unclear on the issue. Although we can be sure, thanks to Chapter 19, that offering your virgin daughters (who aren’t really virgins read the story) to an angry mob for the protection of angels is not offensive to God.

In Chapter 22 God tests Abraham by telling him to offer up his only son as a sacrifice to his Lord. Abraham prepares to do so only to have God rescind the order at the last moment. I suppose the lesson here is never to question God and you’ll be rewarded. Yet what if God hadn’t rescinded the order? Couldn’t God find a less morbid way to test his faithful servant? What kind of twisted deity are we dealing with here ladies and gentlemen?

Now folks, I’m not even going to mention the incestuous story of Lot and his daughters that God seemingly has no problem with. Nor am I going to mention the fable in which Jacob blackmails his brother Esau into giving up his birthright; also okay with God. And I can’t even begin to mention the rape of Dinah in Chapter 34, in which God allows the slaughter and slavery of an entire city as retribution for one man’s crime.

Now here we are having read the Book of Genesis. What conclusions can we come to on our own so far? What can we infer being reasonable people with no preconceived notions about what we read? After all, we don’t need anyone else’s input on the matter. The word of God should be able to speak for itself.

From the first chapter to the last we have read about a god that is at times thoughtless, careless, confused, jealous, primitive and savage. On the other hand God is powerful enough to have created us, the heavens and the earth. According to the Bible we should be thankful for as much and worship God, though, does that necessarily mean we should care? God comes off as being something of a shallow, capricious character. Is that worth honoring? While God may show favor towards those who do worship him, we might be inclined to think there are other gods worth worshipping. Remember that nowhere in Genesis does God ever claim to be the only god.

We’ve read some fantastic stories and most of those stories do not cast God in a positive light. Genesis has a bias against women. Whereas few women are mentioned, even the most trivial male is called by name. You would think that women, being the vessels of life, would play a more savory role. Only, the most savory female role in Genesis goes to Lot’s wife, who gets turned into a pillar of salt for her disobedience.

Being of reasonable mind, I don’t see the point of reading any further. Thus far, we’ve read many a tale that any sensible person alive today would consider immoral, that’s if you can get past the wholesale absurdities lurking around every corner. Yet the Bible has survived 1700 years and is a sacred text to millions of people today. I don’t know what’s more frightening, how silly this book is or the fact that so many people take it seriously.

That concludes today’s look at the Bible. Please, remember never to simply take my word for it. Read Genesis objectively and draw your own conclusions. Have a nice day. And God less.