The Bible, is it true?

To be honest I sincerely doubt the veracity of the bible, I doubt the veracity of the stories of God or Jesus.

What I do believe, however, is that the peoples of the old and new testaments had an overly inflated sense of morality and were compelled by their narcissism to impose those morals on others. In the OT days this meant death of everything that breathed, men,women, children, babies, cattle, sheep, camels, anyone, anything.

In NT times, this meant going into the highways and byways and compelling them to come to Jesus. This meant going to all nations and making ‘disciples’ because other peoples morals were wrong therefore they were sinners and thus wicked. Sure the mass murders stopped, but the threat of death was still there because the wages of sin is death  and you either believe in Jesus or you perish.

Two thousand years later millions of christians have the same sense of overly inflated morality and are still compelled by their narcissism to foist their beliefs on others, Christian ‘missionaries’ are all over the world working diligently to ‘make disciples, of all men. Notions of a punitive god run strong and deep. The wages of sin are still death, and the belief that you either believe in Jesus or perish is still prevalent.

For me, the veracity of the bible is irrelevant. Millions of ‘born-again’ people espouse a sense of higher morality and the need to “lead others to Christ.” Some even claim one cannot have morals w/o a belief in and acceptance of, God(Jesus) as their Lord and Savior. Millions still believe in Hell and in the eternal conscious torment of billions of people that “reject” Christ, in other words, if you reject Christian morality and beliefs you’re going to hell.

In conclusion, the bible doesn’t have to be true, millions of people believe it to be true and for them that is all that matters. For them this is their reality. It is what fuels their narcissism, it is what compels them to arrogantly proclaim that their way is the one and only true way. It has not changed in almost 6000 years and I doubt it will change in the next 6000 years.

Let's Talk About Sin.

Let’s talk about sin, According to the bible all of us have sinned.In fact, the bible leads us to believe that we are born into to sin because of Adams transgression and are therefore in need of a saviour.

The Apostle Paul seems to believe that we were not even aware of the concept of sin, nor accused of sin, until the Law of Moses was introduced. Laws given to him by God. In fact, we would not even be aware of the concept of good and evil had it not been for God introducing the concept via a tree and pointing it out to Adam and telling him not to eat of the fruit of the tree.It is interesting to note that Adam has barely been formed and God is already using death as a means of motivating Adam to obey him.

Why put the tree in Eden to begin with? Why even create the tree period? What motivated God to make Adam aware of the tree? Yet he did and he made sure Adam was aware of it.

Frankly this feels like a set up to me, in a manner of speaking it was entrapment. God allowed the serpent to not only enter the garden but to trick Eve in to doing something she might have not even considered doing at all.

According to an article at Christianty.com: God knows all things past, present, and future. There is no limit to His knowledge, for God knows everything completely before it even happens .

God can do all things and accomplish all things. Nothing is too difficult for Him, and He orchestrates and determines everything that is going to happen in your life, in my life, in America, and throughout the world. Whatever He wants to do in the universe, He does, for nothing is impossible with Him

Thus it seems that God knew Man would fall, he knew the serpent would trick them, he knew man would become aware of good and evil. In fact according to that same article, God is in control of all things and rules over all things. He has power and authority over nature, earthly kings, history, angels, and demons. Even Satan himself has to ask God’s permission before he can act.

He made it possible for them to fall. He did nothing to prevent the fall, he stood by and watched, listened as the serpent deceived, tricked, and beguiled Eve into eating of the tree. Then, in a fit of pique, kicked them out of Eden, cursed the serpent, cursed Eve(and thus all women) and made Adam responsible for the downfall of all humankind. In fact some believe that “God has thought fit to allow evil to exist in order that he may have a platform for showing his mercy, grace, and compassion” ( See The Fall)

So now every human is automatically a ‘sinner’ (See Original Sin , Total Depravity) we don’t have a choice in the matter. God decided to make sure we needed to be ‘saved’, just so He could show us how wonderful and great he was. He has set up so that, by default, we have to be ‘reconciled’ to him or die.

To me that is like being born with blue eyes, then getting arrested, because blue eyes are illegal, and given the ‘option’ to have your eye color changed or be put to death. Really?? I didn’t choose to have blue eyes so why am I being threatened with death because of what some blue eyed malcontent did thousands of years ago?

In conclusion,,according to the bible, God chose to introduce “sin” and the concept of good and evil to the human race.God created Adam, God created the serpent, God created Eden, God created the tree of knowledge, God put everything and everyone in just the right place at just the right time all to serve his own purpose and design. God is the ultimate narcissist, he simply was not content with his daily fellowship with his creation so he allowed Satan via the serpent to corrupt that creation so He(God) could swoop in and rescue us from a situation of his own make and design.

Therefore if any person is [ingrafted] in Christ (the Messiah) he is a new creation (a new creature altogether); the old [previous moral and spiritual condition] has passed away. Behold, the fresh and new has come!(2 Corinthians 5:17 AMP)

I was raised to believe that this passage describes  what happens when we ‘believe in our heart and confess with our mouth that Christ is lord’ commonly known as repentance., an 180 degree turn from our pre-salvation state.

In my youth and young adult days, I made this confession. I sincerely believed that I had repented and was living a christian life. Yet here I am a middle aged adult rejecting the very notion of sin and the need of salvation.

How is this possible?

According to Paul: We know that our old (unrenewed) self was nailed to the cross with Him in order that [our] body [which is the instrument] of sin might be made ineffective and inactive for evil, that we might no longer be the slaves of sin.

7 For when a man dies, he is freed (loosed, delivered) from [the power of] sin [among men](Rom. 6:11 &12)

Yet I am living proof that this is not always the case. And I promise you I am not alone. This text is one of many that I took at face value. I believed it, I taught it, I preached it. Yet the test of time and tangible evidence has shown me that the veracity of this passage(the whole bible for that matter) is to be called into question.

It just has not panned out. Supposedly, Paul, before his conversion, was a zealot. it is said He zealously sought out christians for the sole purpose of persecuting them. After his conversion, did he cease being a zealot? No, his zeal was simply redirected.

As I mentioned in my bio, I have witnessed and been subjected to great evil at the hands of an alleged ‘born again christian’ if this is what he was after his ‘conversion’ I am grateful I did not know him before his conversion.

In conclusion, I find that the whole notion of salvation to be suspect (more about this in my next post). The idea that we become a new person after salvation is also suspect. There are thousands of people who have overcome major faults(drug abuse, anger management, etc.) without ever believing or accepting Christ as their ‘saviour’ and there are thousands, nay millions, more living decent, wholesome lives without the need of ‘redemption’.

The Bible, is it true?

To be honest I sincerely doubt the veracity of the bible, I doubt the veracity of the stories of God or Jesus.

What I do believe, however, is that the peoples of the old and new testaments had an overly inflated sense of morality and were compelled by their narcissism to impose those morals on others. In the OT days this meant death of everything that breathed, men,women, children, babies, cattle, sheep, camels, anyone, anything.

In NT times, this meant going into the highways and byways and compelling them to come to Jesus. This meant going to all nations and making ‘disciples’ because other peoples morals were wrong therefore they were sinners and thus wicked. Sure the mass murders stopped, but the threat of death was still there because the wages of sin is death  and you either believe in Jesus or you perish.

Two thousand years later millions of Christians have the same sense of overly inflated morality and are still compelled by their narcissism to foist their beliefs on others, Christian ‘missionaries’ are all over the world working diligently to ‘make disciples, of all men. Notions of a punitive god run strong and deep. The wages of sin are still death, and the belief that you either believe in Jesus or perish is still prevalent.

For me, the veracity of the bible is irrelevant. Millions of ‘born-again’ people espouse a sense of higher morality and the need to “lead others to Christ.” Some even claim one cannot have morals w/o a belief in and acceptance of, God(Jesus) as their Lord and Savior. Millions still believe in Hell and in the eternal conscious torment of billions of people that “reject” Christ, in other words, if you reject Christian morality and beliefs you’re going to hell.

In conclusion, the bible doesn’t have to be true, millions of people believe it to be true and for them that is all that matters. For them this is their reality. It is what fuels their narcissism, it is what compels them to arrogantly proclaim that their way is the one and only true way. It has not changed in almost 6000 years and I doubt it will change in the next 6000 years.