The HOLY BIBLE

A recent discussion with a dear friend is the inspiration for this page.

My friend’s reluctance to believe in science, but acceptance of the scriptures as infallible, prompted me to compare some of the religious writings with the scientific knowledge that is widely accepted as fact today.

I think the Bible is a wonderful book. As a child, I studied it with my mother, who also accepted it as TRUTH. I was taught that in ancient times, things like raising from the dead were commonplace, even though they are not at all possible today.

How was the bible created?

A group of scholars translated some ancient writings, and chose or discarded them as knowledge that is widely accepted as fact today by Christians. There are numerous versions of the Bible necessitated to satisfy different beliefs.

This is what the ancient writings looked like;

History-writing is never objective, but involves the selection of data and the construction of a narrative using preconceived ideas of the meaning of the past

The fact that history is never neutral or objective raises questions about the accuracy of any historical account.

The "minimalist" cautioned that the literary form of the biblical history books is so apparent and the authors' intentions so obvious that scholars should be extremely cautious in taking them at face value. Even if the Bible does preserve some accurate information, researchers lack the means to sift that information from the inventions with which it may have been mixed.

I love Wikipedia. It is compiled references which are considered to be defining.This comes from Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus . Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically, although the quest for the historical Jesus has yielded some uncertainty on the historical reliability of the Gospels and on how closely the Jesus portrayed in the Bible reflects the historical Jesus,

as the only records of Jesus' life are contained in the Gospels.

This is not where I wanted to start. I want to start at the very beginning where it says, “In the beginning………”

“In the beginning………”

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Genesis 1:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. ⁴ God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

The manuscript which contains these words dates the earth as being less than 10,000 years old.

It took God 6 days to fiddle with the earth, and he rested on the 7^th. How long did he rest? How long did it take to create the rest of the universe? That’s a lot of stuff! Did he create the sun before or after he divided light from darkness???? There is no mention of the sun!

There aren’t many people that DO NOT believe there were dinosaurs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles of the clade Dinosauria. They first appeared during the Triassic period, between 243 and 233.23 million years ago, ...

Below are images of sedimentary rock formations. They are composed of sediments, laid down in the bodies of water of antiquity. The first two were uplifted by tectonic activity, before man appeared.

Scientists study these layers to determine what took place during different periods of time. There is evidence of the catastrophic earth strike which caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, and countless other species. After dating specimens from all around the earth, this evidence can be observed in every sedimentary deposit, everywhere. Most people that disbelieve the observations, simply don’t understand the science, and is an indication of ignorance.

These formations show evidence of the unimaginable forces which are in the process of shaping the earth every day.

“Let there be light,”

The manuscript which contains these words was written by someone who thought the earth is flat, and thought that the sun rotated around the flat earth!

This was the accepted belief of the church, and people were put to death for contradicting this belief.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei Galileo's championing of heliocentrism and Copernicanism met with opposition from within the Catholic Church and from some astronomers. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture".

This 6^th century BC map shows the flat earth.

This is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth talking about modern flat earthers.

Conspiracy theory

Members of the Flat Earth Society and other flat-Earthers claim that NASA and other government agencies conspire to delude the public into believing the Earth is spherical.

I did some study of modern day flat earthers, and found them, for the most part, to be either very religious, or very ignorant of science, or both!
This seems to be the case with most conspiracy theorists, regardless of the subject. It is extremely frustrating to have a discussion with someone who is uneducated by choice.

I won’t try to attach a quote from the bible for any of the following stories.

The next story: God created man, and with man’s rib he created woman.

If that were the case, every human on earth is the product of incest. Without evolution, ethnicity becomes very difficult to explain. Why do some of Eve’s descendants have black skin and curly hair, and some are pink skinned with blond hair?

This is Australopithecus- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus

Australopithecus is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. This is “Lucy”, thought to be one of the first early humans. The earliest known member of the genus, A. anamensis, existed in eastern Africa around 4.2 million years ago. There were other variations of hominids during this period, which could explain the delightful variety of humans today.

Eating from the tree of “knowledge of good and evil” got Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden of Eden.

Skipping over Caine and Abel, the next significant story is Noah and his ark.

There is evidence of catastrophic floods, but there is no scientific evidence that the entire globe was EVER covered in water. If it was, where did it recede to after the rains stopped. Where did the dove rest before he handed the olive branch. He/she was gone all day, flying? When it went the second time, it didn’t come back. I’ll bet it’s mate was bummed!

God promised it would never happen again, with a rainbow. The rainbow has nothing to do with the optical effects of sunlight on water droplets. 😊

Were there fish on the ark? Where did the salt water fishes go when the earth was covered with rain water? Remember, there is no evolution! And, who let them damned mosquitos on the boat? There was only one earthworm though. They screw themselves to make babies. All the earthworms on the planet are descendants of that one worm. Noah wasn’t required to collect bacteria. It hitched a ride on all the critters.

Were there snakes on the ark?

If Noah had to take two of every kind of animal on board the ark, he not only had to take two snakes on board, but two kinds of every snake. He not only had to take two cobras, two pythons, two boas, two rattlesnakes, etc., but he had to take two of every kind of cobra, python, boa, rattlesnake, etc.

It is getting crowded and we haven’t done lizards yet. How many “cubits” did you say this was?

In ancient times, if 20 square miles was covered in water, the ancients believed it was the WHOLE earth.

The doves must have found each other.

If Noah had sent the raven, everybody would still be there.

Let us move on!

Moses and the burning bush:

God gave Moses stone tablets with a list of 10 commandments.

None of the commandments forbid “sodomy”, yet, God destroyed 2 cities (Sodom and Gomorrah) because the inhabitants were enjoying SEX too much. He punctuated the destruction by turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt.

Gay men of today don’t have a problem with sodomy, and neither do I. It just isn’t my thing! Many gay men are Christian, and believe in the Bible, at least, parts of it. That prompts this question. What parts DO you believe, and how do you choose? This smacks of “TUNNEL VISION”.

God certainly seems angry to me. Being angry is a common human failing. Is it a failing if God gets angry? God is going to punish some of us (me, most of all) for all of eternity. That is a really long time!!!!! Is this the”merciful God” of which we speak?

It says that God created man in his image. I have a hunch, just a hunch, mind you, that man created God in man’s image.

I don’t deny the existence of a higher power, but I believe the creators of GOD could have done a better job.

God gave Job boils, and told Abraham to kill his son.

Thou shalt not kill takes on new meaning. (sauce for the goose, and all that)

Go ahead and google (sauce for the goose) it says Definition of what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. —used to say that one person or situation should be treated the same way that another person or situation is treated.

This stuff is from the OLD TESTAMENT. Here’s some stuff from the new!

The New Testament

There were 4 gospels written. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It is not entirely certain that these 4 men ever met Jesus. They write about his birth to a virgin. How likely is that? God created Adam from nothing. Isn’t a virgin birth a little dramatic? Most Christians worship Jesus, but the majority, which are catholic, worship Jesus’ mother, Mary. That kinda went sideways! 😊

Then, Jesus disappeared and was not heard from again until he was in his 30s. He really put on a show, walking on water, turning water to wine, and raising people from the dead. He fed a multitude with a few fishes and a few loaves of bread.

I have a problem with these stories. The guys that wrote them didn’t actually do the writing until 50 years after His death. Each version is embellished in different ways. The manuscript shown above was written in 300 AD. Did the author know Jesus?

One of my favorite sayings (alleged) is “LET HE WHO IS WITHOUT FAULT CAST THE FIRST STONE.” Jesus, allegedly. said a lot of really cool things, and as civilized beings, we have adopted many of these beliefs to guide us in every day life.

The crucifixion

There were unimaginable cruelties perpetrated during the time of Christ. 2 other men were crucified, one on either side of Jesus. This was common during this period. As for arising from the dead, if you were to claim that today, you would be the subject of ridicule. That is my biggest problem with the Bible. The “MAGIC” that took place in ancient times is not considered to be possible today. What year did “MAGIC” become obsolete? If the same God still exists, it would behoove him to whip a little more magic on heathens, such as myself. Then I could truly believe, and wouldn’t have to rely on “FAITH”. I do have faith! I am quite certain that I will die someday. I do not have the faith required to believe the fairy tales told in the Bible.

The end

The bible explains how the world will end. The book of revelation explains how Jesus will return and swoop all of his people to heaven. I have “FAITH” that the world will end some day, but I don’t believe there will be any humans around to witness it. By then we will all have died from covid-19, or something new and improved.

There is no doubt that global warming is a very real thing. It’s not certain if humans are the cause, but we are certainly making a mess of what used to be a pristine planet. There is detectable pollution at both poles, plastic in the oceans, and a loss of polar Ice. Staying alive becomes more challenging every day. If it gives you comfort to Believe in the Bible, and worship God, make no mistake. I advocate comfort in any form!

This is dedicated to my friend, Wayburn! I love you, man!

Before I close, I must add this. My face aches from smiling!

My partner, Denise, asked me, “Didja tellum ‘bout Jonah and the fish?”

The Bible says Jonah was swallowed by a whale or a fish. ( It’s too stupid to look up!) He spent three days, (I think. Still too stupid to look up), inside this aquatic creature, before he was expelled onto dry land. Those folks didn’t bathe much! Probably tasted like crap!!

The end

I would like to add some family information that you may find interesting.

Nearly everyone on my father’s side of the family is devout Lutheran, my father included. He presented my brother and me with a new testament before we were able to read. We were in Okinawa, and the year is 1951.

As far back as our family history is recorded, there were “MINISTERS” of Lutheranism.

Ref; http://www.petesmemories.com/erling and http://www.petesmemories.com/hist.html

You can “wiki” Lutheranism to get an accurate description, but, very briefly, my understanding is that Martin Luther didn’t agree with many Catholic teachings, and decided to form his own church.

An excerpt;

Why Lutherans don't pray to saints?

“Furthermore, even if the saints do pray for the Church, that does not mean they should be invoked." Unlike Catholics, Lutherans do not believe it is proper or scriptural to offer prayers to saints or to view Mary as in any sense a "mediator" between God and human beings.

On the other side of the family, my grandfather was a bootlegger during prohibition. (my kinda guy 😊)

My grandmother was one of the first followers of the (2 by 2s)

Ref; http://www.tellingthetruth.info/home/

When my mother married my father, she was not affiliated with any organization. In 1953, when my sister was born, my mother chose to follow her mother’s beliefs, and from that moment on, there was no longer peace in our home. Us kids were caught in the middle, and we became “pawns” in an elaborate game of religious chess. If we went to church with dad, we were psycologically punished by mom. Dad wasn’t nearly as vindictive, but he called mom’s church “a cult”, which it actually is, according to definition. They heaped indignities upon one another until they both passed away, but, amazingly, they stayed together.

Religious differences are the cause of 99.9% of the problems on this earth. My friend is offended by this statement, and he claims that “lust” is responsible for all earthly problems.

We shall continue to agree to disagree!