My Drift to Atheism
…and Musings on same
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (1 Corinthians 13:11)
“I would call myself an atheist. I don’t have a good story behind it, I’m just reasonable.”Anthony Jeselnik, comedian
“Come on, dive in, the water’s cold but refreshing.” Richard Dawkins, ‘The God Delusion’
‘You should really dig in on it… and figure out why you’re making excuses for something you can’t demonstrate, can’t prove, have no good reason to believe, don’t interact with and is, in fact, grossly immoral.’ Matt Dillahunty
Preface
This is both a personal memoire and a general recounting of personal research on the fallacies, dichotomies, lies and paradoxes presented in the Bible stories and the absurdity of the Christian Faith, in particular, and ‘Faith’, in general.
Caveat: I’m not a scholar though I’ve tried to be a bit scholarly about this. I was 72 when I started writing this, which, in my mind, provides a fair bit of experience from which to draw. It is the years of giving some thought to this weighty matter on which I depend for the musings and observations herein. I justify my hubris by dint of my age and long attendance in the ‘school of hard knocks’. Think of this work as a memoire with caveats, asides and rationalizations which are intended to fill in the blanks.
All of religion and faith is insane.
All of it.
A vast departure from reality.
Insanity - in even minor forms – is a departure from reality; unsupported by facts, evidence, observation or norms. No matter how one tries to parse the Bible by asserting metaphor or symbology – talking snakes and seven levels of heaven – it comes out as a determined departure from reality.
Take all of the gospels and the epistles and the apocrypha and none of it makes sense. Frankly, most of it serves only to obfuscate the insanity and fallacies of the claims. All of the illogical writhing done by the doctors, leaders and historians of the church (Aquinas, Origen, Paul, Eusebius, et al.) amount to a facile conglomeration of pretzel logic and mental masturbation in the name of an untenable, preposterous premise.
It makes no sense to try to make sense of the senseless. The effort is made, has been made ad nauseum by ‘deep thinkers’ and apologists. None of it is effective on anyone but those who ‘Believe’ and have ‘Faith’. The ‘Faithful’ are only those who have already agreed to the basic premise that god is the answer to it all. Most also accept without thought the notion of blood magic and magical places such as heaven and hell. They also accept with minor conditions that some people have a magical connection with these magical places. Most assert that they have a personal relationship with this magical character they loosely call ‘god’ or more specifically ‘Jesus, Lord’.
What utter rot.
If that disturbs you, dear reader, fine. If that insults you to your core; good. Read on or not; I’ve stated - in part - my contention. The whole, entire assertion that there is a god – of any stripe or characteristic – is a vapid, specious, preposterous notion unsupported by facts, evidence or direct observation. Unfortunately, the norm is that people ‘Believe’ in a god and all the various, miscellaneous fal-de-rol of myth, legend, lies and oxymorons which tentatively prop up this whole magilla.
To off-set that norm, perhaps this book will serve in some small way. It’s not a tome of scholarship or philosophical dissertation a requiring 300-level course in epistemology. What I intend it to be is more conversational and perhaps informal in tone without being too flippant (Although I consider ‘flippant’ as one of my more endearing hallmarks).
We’d best begin with a pat definition of ‘atheist’. An atheist is ‘a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods’. That is a bit over-broad, but it will suit as a starting point. I, myself, lack belief that any god exists as I have never been presented with a decent definition of god, nor have I been presented with sufficient and reasonable evidence that such an entity exists.
I’ve concluded that god and religion are remnants of the long, painful, oft-times bloody and murderous hang-over of an epoch before the enormous expansion of the cerebral cortex in humans. (More on that biological fact later.)
As has been said repeatedly, ‘the road to atheism is paved with discarded, well-read Bibles’. Its corollary is this: ‘Atheists are those who have read the Bible’. It’s a neat summing up but neither truly addresses the situation of the preposterousness of the Bible. The rest of this book should go further. That’s the hope, anyway.
I emphatically contend that the Bible is not a document of truth. It does not convey Truth (with a capital ‘T’) about the cosmos or the origins of the universe. It does not convey Truth about the origins of life on this small planet. It does not convey Truth about the god it centers on; Jehovah, YHWH, El, Jesus, etc. It does not convey Truth about the people it purports to be the history of; the Hebrews, Israelites, the Jews. The Bible is not history. It is not science. It is not philosophy. It does not provide a moral framework for humanity. In short, it is not what it is claimed to be by ‘Believers’.
I state this un-categorically. I am not a historian, a philosopher or a scholar; however, I base my contentions on the findings of true scholars, historians and philosophers; Dr. Richard Dawkins, Dr. Daniel Dennett, Dr. Richard Carrier and Dr. Bart Ehrman amongst others (all of whom will be referenced in this work).
Apologies, but some terms need to be discussed before proceeding.
There will be a quiz later!
Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus asserting an underlying unity and allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths. (Think ‘respectable plagiarism’.)
Euhemerism is defined as the theory of the Greek writer, Euhemerus, that the Greek gods were created from real stories about humans and historical events. An example of euhemerism is imagining that characteristics of Zeus are based on the actions of a real person. (Imagine Spiderman/Peter Parker being spoken of as a ‘real guy’; if you’ve ever to a Comic-Con, you’ll know what ‘euhemerism’ is.)
While writing this, I was constantly taken aback by the sheer insipidity of the nonsense of the Bible. Any respectable fantasy-fiction writer would have spewed chunks at the inconsistencies, the non-sequiturs and transparent twaddle foisted on the reader/Believer of the Holy Writ. World of Warcraft players would recoil and throw down their game controllers in disgust if confronted with the gaping holes in the narrative of this fantasy world of the Bible. Tolkien fans would recoil; appalled at the ineptitude of the story-tellers and the blatant, whole-sale plagiarism of other myths and legends evident in the Holy Scriptures.
Such is the ‘inerrant Word of god’ in my estimation.
Again, for emphasis, I contend that the Bible is a work of fiction; a rather poorly composed and poorly edited work of fiction, at that, and yet one which is and has been extremely influential in western culture. As a work of fiction, it does reference real, actual places, times and events as any decent historical fiction would do for a sense of authenticity. There was, without doubt, a Temple in the factual city of Jerusalem. There were, undeniably, the empires of Rome, Egypt, Babylon and Persia. Canaan and Judea are historical, verified territories. Just as historic figures and places are referenced in works of fiction such as ‘The Sun Also Rises’, ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and so forth. There are actual facts held within the Bible. Most assuredly. However, for the most part, the Bible is a hodge-podge of mythical fiction. That contention will be more fully justified within this work as well.
Since we’re on the subject: one major, glaring fault with the Bible is that it was edited, re-edited, redacted, composed anonymously and compiled by authoritarian fiat by countless numbers of people over the course of hundreds and thousands of years. Yet another huge fault in the Bible’s historicity is that the main characters of the Bible, Moses, Jesus, Noah, the Prophets and the Evangelists, are fictionalized amalgams at best and - according to serious scholarship - most likely, total fabrications. Further, the syncretization (there’s that word again) of stories and myths from Persian Zoroastrianism, the Roman, Egyptian, Babylonian and Minoan pantheons and other belief systems causes the Bible to be a hodge-podge, rife with contradictions, broken story-lines and faulty references. (A dog’s breakfast, actually.) However, the Bible, itself, is less at fault than are those ‘Believers’ who claim that the Bible is historical, factual and unerring.
The Bible will be dealt with more extensively in its own section as it has played such an important part in Western culture, thought and history.
Each of the chapters presented here could be used as a jumping off point for deeper inquiry. (I am reminded of what a professor told me about Grout’s History of Music, though I claim no comparison to that scholarly work.) Each chapter of this modest offering can be seen as crude wordings of more sophisticated treatises; volumes have been written by those far more intelligent and knowledgeable than I (e.g. Dawkins, Hitchens, Asimov, Dennett, Krause, to name only a few.)
This modest volume might be thought of as a primer to breaking free of god and religion; a primer for Believers as well as for fence-sitters who are inclined to delve more deeply into the mess that is ‘Faith’. It must be noted that the skein of deception from which the Christian faith is woven is a tangled mess. The rabbit trails crisscross in a maddening manner; they dead-end and double back on themselves. Consequently, the reader will find information restated and reiterated. Best to just chalk it up to the nature of the web of mistruths being informally addressed here.
To say again:
Throughout, one will find reiteration and restatement on certain topics. Since this topic contains many sub-topics which must be addressed, redundancy is nearly unavoidable and done, hopefully, without sacrificing readability. Much of this reiteration and redundancy happened serendipitously; disconnected, yet supportive thoughts on subjects previously dealt with were added later. These addenda were retained in situ to avoid wearying diatribe and lengthy pontification. Much needed to be said but, I determined, much didn’t need be said all at one go. Hence, the dispersion of observations on certain matters were retained as a courtesy to you, dear reader.
(Ain’t I the considerate one?)
Lastly, editorial comments interspersed within the restatement of known and familiar narratives are parenthetical and italicized.
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