Of Contradictions, Free Will, and Just Plain Craziness

Today I will present some fallacies from within the bible. Since the “defending science” argument seems ineffective to some, I’ll try a new approach. I had considered discussing biblical contradictions, but that is quite a lengthy topic as there are very many. I didn’t feel like researching all of that as it would take me years. Instead, I would invite anyone interested to view this link: http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/ash-biblecontradictions.shtml Here you will find a list of contradictions from within the bible, compiled by a college student. Examples would be different accounts of the order of creation (Genesis 1 and 2 conflict in the order it happened), Jesus’ genealogy (there are two different accounts of who Joseph’s father was), or the final words of Jesus (again, there are different accounts of what he said). These should prove helpful in showing that the bible is inconsistent and hence not the work of a perfect God. But now on to some of my own observances.

One thing that always stood out to me, in the bible, was that God seemed to take away our free will and condemn us by his own accord. For example, 1 Kings 22:21-23 reads: “Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’ ‘By what means?’ the Lord asked. ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said. ‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it’ ‘So now the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you.’” Here we can see that God intentionally sent a “lying spirit” to deceive prophets. Let’s examine a more popular account now. Romans 9:17-18 says: "For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth." So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires." This is in reference to the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. After God has sent plagues on the Pharaoh for keeping the Israelites in slavery, Pharaoh agreed to let them go. However here’s what happened: Exodus 9:12 “But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, Just as the Lord had said to Moses.” This continues to happen with every plague that God sends on the Egyptians. Pharaoh continues to allow the Israelites to go after the horrors of each plague, but God keeps hardening the heart of Pharaoh so that he changes his mind. This is hardly a fair act on the part of God and most definitely shows that God does not allow free will. Instead he chooses who will and will not follow him. Let’s continue.

I will not quote all of the first book of Job here as it’s a lot of typing I don’t care to do. But for confirmation of the story I’m about to present, you can find it there. Basically some angels were presenting themselves to God and Satan decides to come along too. God asks why Satan came (or from where) and Satan responds by saying that he’s been going around and checking things out on the planet. God asks if Satan saw Job who was pretty damn righteous in the eyes of God. Satan says that it’s no wonder Job is so righteous since God has protected and blessed him. So God says to go ahead and beat the shit out Job, but not kill him. That should show Satan that Job really is righteous because God believes that Job won’t speak out against him despite the torture of Satan. So sure enough Satan throws poverty, disease, pain and death of loved ones at Job who pretty much lives up to what God said by not cursing his name. Afterwards, God rewards Job with even more that he had to start with. So what’s wrong with this picture? Well, we can see that God was actually tempted by Satan to the point where he allowed Satan to torture one of his followers! Hardly free will on the part of Job, and hardly fair on the part of an alleged loving God. I can’t blame God though, if I had that kind of power, I’d be fucking with people too.

I feel that it’s not fair for an omniscient God to judge any of us. If he created us with full knowledge of how we’d turn out, then he has predestined us to hell. He created Satan, and obviously knew from the start that he’d end up as the Prince of Hell. So is that fair to Satan? What about us? He created Adam and Eve knowing that they’d sin and cause the downfall of mankind. Again, if he knew this, why did he do it? Why give us the gift of life only to be condemned to an eternal hell? Obviously we make the choice to sin against God, but it is God who made us and with the knowledge that we would eventually sin. The reality is, God gets a kick out of the conflict or he would never have done it in the first place.

Let’s also consider the council of Nicea. Essentially, there were very many versions of Christianity after the death of Jesus. All of these systems had differing views on things. In fact, many of them actually followed the brother of Jesus, James, as the savior. With all these contradictions and inconsistencies, a world council was called with the head of the differing Christian sects. The goal was to come to a universal agreement of which books were considered correct and alleviate the confusion among the masses. So, a human council decided on our behalf what was legit and what wasn’t. This is what makes up the New Testament as we know it today. The other texts are referred to as the Gnostics. Having read some of them, I can see why they were not included. There’s a lot of really crazy supernatural stuff that happens in them. None the less, that is how the Christian belief of today was decided. Based on this, one must question the accuracy of the new testament since it was man who assembled it amongst confusion. Just because this council decided what was true and what wasn’t, doesn’t make it any truer.

Fun Facts About God/Jesus:

-God likes the smell of burning flesh. Genesis 8:20-21

-God gets jealous of inanimate objects Deuteronomy 32:21

-Jesus is anti-marriage 1 Corinthians 7:7 Matthew 19:10

-Jesus doesn’t care about pigs’ lives Mark 5:13

-Jesus says we have Superman-like powers Mark 11:22