This is from Week 2, Day 1 of my Questioning Faith journal. Several people have asked me for specific biblical contradictions that made me question Christianity. This post contained a couple of specific bible issues, so I’m sharing it – NOT to d
Week 2, Day 1
Week 2 of my “conscious uncoupling” from Christianity. Can there be a conscious uncoupling from a nonexistent entity? That feels a little too philosophical for morning writing on little caffeine.
Charlie and I had a date night Saturday night. Nearly our entire dinner conversation centered around my de-conversion.
Every time we talk about it, I become more aware of how scripture is the cause of my realization that christianity isn’t true.
Take, for example, David’s census – which is recorded in 2 Samuel 24 and 1 Chronicles 21. Many biblical apologists have written thousands of words explaining away the blatant contradiction in these passages. In the first, “the Lord” moves David to take a census of Israel. In the second, “satan” does. Um, you kinda can’t get around the fact that “the Lord” and “satan” are, for Christians, polar opposites and not the same entity. Those are two separate entities. Period. If an all-knowing, all-powerful god breathed upon the writers of scripture and whispered to them the words to write, this error wouldn’t exist. No one would need to explain away the discrepancy because perfect beings shouldn’t have discrepancies.
So, anyway, David takes a census…and god is so angered by this that he kills the 70,000 people counted in the census. About a gagillion humans have pointed out that, even setting aside the inaccuracy of who prompted David to do this vile, horrendous thing (a census! The horror!), perhaps god should kill the one who did it, not the poor souls that submitted to their king and got counted.
This is a recurring theme, though, with the god of the bible.
He kills with no notice, for the slightest indiscretion, and often doesn’t kill the one who actually committed the sin (e.g. David and Bathsheba’s baby, created as a result of their affair, bears the brunt of god’s punishment while David goes on to be the ancestor of Jesus – and we thought Hilary Clinton got favoritism?!). (Also, how is this pro-life?!)
Biblical apologists explain away the slaughtering of these 70,000 by noting that there is no record they paid the half shekel that was commanded by god through Moses several generations prior to this incident. Remember, disobedience equals death for the biblical god.
The plaguing of the Israelites is exactly what one would have expected, knowing what God said in Exodus 30:12-13. The Israelites should have known these verses and they should have complied with them. The feeling that one gets from reading the accounts of David’s census is that the command to pay half a shekel ransom had been completely forgotten and neglected during the intervening years between Moses and David. The people died for their disobedience to God’s command.
ApologeticsPress.org
To be clear, it wasn’t “plaguing” – it was killing. Pure, nothing but, killing. Read the writer’s last sentence again, “The people died for their disobedience to God’s command.”
Because of this and the numerous other examples of god killing someone for disobedience, I’m puzzled by modern-day Christians’ complete lack of fear of their god.
When I bring it up, I’m told that all of this changed when Jesus hit the scene. He ushered in grace and mercy and now no one needs to fear god so long as they’re in relationship with Jesus. He covers them with his blood (grace) and now god’s anger won’t be kindled against them.
First, that pretty much sucks for all those god worshipers who lived before Jesus, doesn’t it? How does one explain this while still maintaining a belief in god as loving of humans?
Second, if the rules changed with the appearance of Jesus, then who’s to say they can’t just change again? Maybe Muhammed was the next usher of a new era. Or Joseph Smith. Or some other being? Why are Christians so set on the notion that (a) Jesus changed the ENTIRE CHARACTER OF GOD RELATIVE TO HUMANS and (b) that no one else would have been “sent” since? That feels intellectually dumb and lazy.
Christians will say that god is the same yesterday, today, and forever. They get this from Hebrews 13:8. They fail to note that Hebrews 13:8 says JESUS (not god) is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Now I suppose that since Jesus IS god (along with the holy spirit – it’s a threesome), that everything that is said of Jesus is also true of god the father and is also true of the holy spirit. They’re supposed to be one being, unchanging, all-knowing.
Which means the notion that things changed once Jesus came on the scene – that now the god who slaughtered people all over the Old Testament is all sunshine and roses because Jesus says so – is bull.
Either there is a triune god (father, son, holy spirit) and they are consistent and unchanging or there isn’t.
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