Religious Absurdity, Part 1

Stolen in full (oops, there's that pesky 8th Commandment) from Spewing Truth in the Face of Lies:

First there is Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Um, how many is god including by saying "us?" More than one god perhaps?

But it gets more interesting when the fall of man occurs.

We'll set up with Genesis 2:9
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

So we've established the trees that exist in the garden that their God set up for them. It will become more clear why I say "their" God as we progress.

Genesis 2:17 is where God lays down the law to Adam

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Above is where God tells a little lie. God conveniently leaves out WHEN thou shalt surely die.

The serpent enters the picture in Genesis 3, telling Eve a whopper.

3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

Genesis 3:16 really gets into the misogyny of Catholic/Christian teachings:

Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

Well, well—there we have it, the original misogynistic quote.

When God finds out what Adam and Eve did he starts the punishment:

3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

That last part, where the man is become one of "us" again. That's that pesky construct, "us".

Genesis 4:16
And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

Yup, there was a land OUTSIDE of Eden. So in essence Christianity, if true, is based on an experiment performed by a God of some sort.

So just going through four chapters of Genesis you see some of the more immediate problems in the Bible.

One is that there is an almost constant reference to "us". Perhaps it's God and the Holy Spirit and the Angels but you'd think enumeration would have cleared it up.

Then of course is Cain in Nod, you know, East of Eden. That means that there are others outside the realm of God's kingdom. Imagine that!

As a friend of mine likes to say, she's one of the "others".

So too am I, I am an atheist, the other.

Don't even get me started on the whole God is omniscient and knows everything riff.  If this god was so all-knowing, why didn't he know that Eve was going to eat of the apple? Or was that the plan from the very beginning? I know from past encounters that pointing this shit out to die-hard believers is like arguing with a wall. The little hard drive light on their foreheads will flash violently for a few seconds and then they'll respond with some bullshit like, "You just need to have FAITH."

Blargh.

I'll definitely be following along with this author as he makes his way through this piece of fiction…