Over-dex of Objections
[Minor edits Sept/2023...I hope to keep filling this out over time]
The God of the Bible is not worthy of my respect:
The God who created 'red in tooth and claw' nature is cruel. [predator.html]
God commanded and supported genocide against the Amorites/Canaanites [qamorite.html], and even endorsed the anti-Semitic writings in the New Testament--especially of the apostle John [ajews.html], and the apostle Paul in 1st Thess 2. [moantijew.html]
God is hypocritical in His orders (e.g. child-sacrifice) [qkilisak.html], and in His ethics about honesty. [godlies.html]
The God who created all things must therefore have created evil [qmakevil.html], and He actually states that explicitly [iamwrong1.html]. This means that He must be evil itself. [evilgod.html]
God is apparently insensitive to all the suffering in the world [vincent1.html], even all the natural evil we experience -- some of which is horrific, like hot viruses. [natevl.html]
God is either malevolent, impotent, or just hypocritical--He expects us to intervene in crime situations but He doesn't! [2stds.html]
God must be cruel or insane to set us up for failure from the beginning. [gutripper.html]
God forces people to disobey Him, so He can punish them--both His friends, like King David [hcensus.html and gutripper.html#census], and His enemies like Pharaoh. [hharden.html]
God unfairly condemns people who haven't even heard of Him. [hnohear.html]
And He even unfairly places people in specific cultures which will determine that they have a low chance of becoming a Christian. [culturegod.html]
God condones slavery [qnoslave.html], and devalues women. [femalex.html]
God must not be all that loving, because He executes justice when He could just as easily forgive sins. [whyjust.html]
Plus, He punishes people eternally for non-eternal sins. [way2long.html]
And then His 'solution' to it (punishing an innocent Jesus instead of us guilty parties) is both immoral and illegal! [inmyplace.html]
God is even called "jealous", "vengeful", and "wrathful" by Himself (and by others) in the bible! [madgod.html]
His servants (like Elisha) are cruel and easily provoked to violence even against children [QNU_meanElisha.html]. His servants do His bidding, even to Saul's butchering innocent Amalekite women and children [rbutcher1.html], Moses' butchering of Midianite women and boys [midian.html], and -- of course -- the nationwide execution of firstborn offspring at the Exodus. [killheir.html]
God is obviously a self-centered and insecure glory-hog, since He created an entire universe just to sit around and worship Him. [Letter_1997_08_30_gloryhog.html]
God knew -- with perfect knowledge -- that all this suffering and hell would befall us, but He was heartless/sadistic enough to go ahead with creation and history ANYWAY. [gr5part1.html]
And He then offers me the "free choice" of "love me, or be tortured in hell for ever ... [meorburn.html]
Or so I THOUGHT it was a choice--but instead He predestined me to choose hell ANYWAY… according to St. Paul in Romans 9?! [stealtime.html#romans9 and sh3morals.html)]
And, this predestination was totally arbitrary, as if decided by a random set of dice or a lottery BEFORE I WAS EVEN BORN or CONCEIVED… and with nothing about my character or actions having ANY bearing on it... [nowhim.html]
Besides, God just created us just to meet His own, personal EGO needs--He obviously is not 'healthy' enough without us! [needygod.html]
Actually, it might even be that He needs us to feed him in some way(?), since He gets hungry! [gastricgod.html]
And, if the biblical story is true, and if that 'god' exists, then the Old Testament god YHWH is probably SATAN himself! [Was_YHWH_Satan.html]
Actually, the very concepts of "god" and "souls" are useless:
Humanity probably invented the concept. [hinvent.html]
Science has shown us that humans don't have "souls" anyway. [hmosoul.html]
The concept of God is riddled with incoherence anyway. [hgodrock.html]
Even if He/she/it/they DID exist, our finite language is inadequate to talk about God. [finlang.html]
And God (if he/she/it/they did exist) is so far beyond our knowledge, we could never know God in a personal way. [noknow.html]
The OT/Tanach that tells us about the God is not trustworthy
It makes false claims: it claims to be written by Moses, but it wasn't [qmoses1.html], and Daniel 'pretends' that its telling the future! [qwhendan3x.html]
It is filled with historical errors, like human longevity before the Flood of Noah [sumerq.html], or Abraham having camels before they were domesticated. [qnocamel.html]
Archaeology has disproved the biblical story, especially about Joshua's Conquest narratives. [noai.html]
It is filled with contradictions, like God's approval-disapproval of Jehu's actions [qjehu.html], or Terah being 70 or 130 years old when Abraham was born. [abebirth.html]
There is no extra-biblical data to support its wild claims--like the parting of the sea by Moses, the stopping of the sun by Joshua, the reversal of the sun's course by Isaiah, the miraculous feeding of the 5,000-plus people by Jesus, or the post-crucifixion resurrections in Jerusalem. [5felled.html].
And the extra-biblical data that does exist shows that it is merely a rip-off of earlier ANE literature! [gilgymess.html]
It was corrupted in transmission to us. [qmomoz.html]
And, what is even WORSE, the god "YHWH" in it, claiming to be the source of the OT was actually SATAN, presenting himself as Israel's God YHWH! [Was_YHWH_satan_in_OT.html]
I have no affirmative reason to believe such a God exists
God should give us concrete proof--but He doesn't [adam01.html], and the Christian interpretation of the "evidence" has no compelling support for it. [sh1college.html]
We don't have any evidence of God's existence. [tqwhygod.html]
We don’t have any reasons to believe in spirits or a 'supernatural dimension' anyway. [Rewrite planned]
Christianity cannot be true, since it needs so much defending? And God doesn't make it very clear or obvious to everyone? [2many1.html]
The complexity in the universe doesn't need a 'God' to explain it--complexity arises from simplicity all the time… [notuphill.html]
The supernatural elements in the gospels are not 'evidence' (LOL), since the ancient world was teeming with fraudulent claims, aimed for the credulous masses. [mqfx.html]
Jesus didn't actually exist himself:
There are no extra-biblical records of Jesus. [jesusref.html]
He was probably just an amalgam of other savior myths. [copycat.html]
He (and the bible itself) was probably concocted for power reasons, to control the populace. [controlm.html]
The Jesus of the New Testament is not worthy of my respect (much less, worship or trust):
He was a hate-monger [hhate.html], and even anti-family. [hfamval.html]
He was dishonest--telling lies and deceiving people often -- and was even sacrilegious in using the flesh-eating and blood-drinking imagery. [hnoblood2.html]
He used mean and insulting language to his opponents, his audiences, and even his students [ralphtrail.html#badlist and ralphtrail.html#badvss], -- but why even to humble supplicants like the Canaanite woman? [qcrude.html]
He prayed to the pagan god EL on the Cross (and not YHWH?) [elwho.html]
He was mistaken about His return [qaim.html], and the Church had to re-spin Him into something else! [spinmequick1.html]
Even His death contradicted the Law of God about human sacrifice. [sacra.html]
And He even tried to do away with (annul) the eternal, unchangeable Mosaic law! [finaltorah.html]
The New Testament that tells us about this Jesus is not trustworthy:
The whole story about "Jesus the Messiah" cannot be true, because the Jews were not expecting a Messiah at all. [messiah.html]
Instead, the early Christians twisted the OT into saying something it didn't, (even the Psalm 22 thing! [ps22cheat.html]) and they 'read Jesus back into' the OT. [baduseot.html]
But even then, Jesus didn't fulfill those messianic prophecies [fabprof0.html], he was a failure as a messiah to His people [qjesus1.html], and he didn't even fulfill the prophecies he was supposed to (so we would KNOW he was the messiah). [falsechrist.html]
The NT itself was probably a hoax [hnoblood2.html], written by people biased to the point of untruthfulness [nuhbias.html], perhaps victims of a group hallucination [hallucn.html].
And we know that some of the letters of the NT were frauds--written by someone 'borrowing' the name of a famous person to win their case [pseudox.html] ...especially the so-called letters of Peter. [ynotpeter1.html]
These NT authors somehow felt it was okay to invent places like Nazareth [NoNazareth.html], and invent events like the raising of Lazarus from the dead [qlazirun.html], inflate numbers like Matthew did [diplopia.html], make up speeches/settings for Jesus to make Jesus look like 'Moses on the Mountain' [qnomount.html], or plagiarizing ancient Essene prayers [qdssmnt.html].
They probably just ripped-off stories from the Hebrew bible and ascribed them to Jesus, [qotripoff.html], and even borrowed freely from pagan religions! [copycat2.html]
With all the problems associated with memory and memory recall [loftus.html], it is no wonder that, after the long, slow, hodge-podge collection, by warring factions within the early church, of oral traditions about Jesus [stilltoc.html], we find the NT accounts filled with contradictions about major events, including: The Resurrection [ordorise.html]; Infancy events [infancyoff.html]; and the Ascension. [qascend.html and q150v500.html]
And not just contradictions on the MAJOR events, but countless other small details as well:
Two people or One?
[2or1.html];
On the third day or AFTER 3 days?
[q3rdday.html and q3daze.html];
Take a staff or not?
[nostaff.html]
Even the best historian in the NT (Luke) makes major, glaring historical errors --
like the stories of Theudas
[qtheudy.html],
and of Quirinius' census.
[qr1.html]
So, why should I trust the other writers, like the peasant John
[qjohngrk.html]
who was anti-Semitic
[ajews.html],
or Paul who completely mutates Jesus' religion into something totally different!
[muslix.html]
The evangelists/disciples even invented the miracles stories of Jesus, to "sell Him" to others, didn't they? [mqx.html]
This whole myth construction was done so rapidly, and gained power so quickly, that those that knew the truth did not have time to speak up in time [qiwitnes.html and qiwitne2.html], and the Christians somehow simply outlived those that knew the truth. [qconspr.html]
Thanks to the old Jesus Seminar and the earliest gospel (the Gospel of Thomas) [gthomas.html], we know that the message of Jesus was 'embellished' by the early Christian communities [stilltoc.html], and the 'official version' of the NT we have today (and the doctrines of the Church) were not the original ones of the true original Christians--the Nazarenes and Ebionites. [qnazonly.html]
The early church was so fragmented that they could not tell between 'authentic' books and 'inauthentic' books [dumbdad2.html], and the process they used for deciding on what were 'official books' was corrupt and politically motivated. [canonout.html]
And, by the time we get to Rome making Christianity the "state religion", it totally distorted the NT documents for political purposes [rome.html], increasing the number of textual errors (further undermining our confidence in the NT). [texterrs.html]
And we even have reason to believe that the earliest church suppressed the truth and deceived people for reasons of power. [qbadmark.html]
And even if it were all true:
How could I decide between all the competing world religions, all claiming to be true? [decide0.html]
How would I know whether I had the right kind of faith or not? [ qisfaith.html]
How would I know how to deal with "faith vs. knowledge" issues? [hnoblood1.html]
[objedex.html]