People often quote a Bible passage to me, implying that the Bible is the ultimate authority on the subject (morals, geology, science, history, philosophy).
I see absolutely no reason why I should pay much attention to what the Bible says, and certainly no reason to consider it to be the "word of God." In fact, I can think of quite a few good reasons NOT to consider it as anything more than a collection of the myths, legends and beliefs of a very primitive and superstitious people. The fear of death is something that the priests have drilled into us in order to allow them to have power over us. They are simply insurance salesmen, and they have to make you are afraid of something before you will buy their insurance against it.
I have not only read the Bible very carefully, but I have also spent considerable time studying it. It was my reading of the Bible that first convinced me that there was nothing holy or inspired about it, since it so full of contradictions, errors, absurdities and even condonation of evil. The mere fact that there are so many thousands of Jewish and Christian sects, all with differing doctrines, all claiming the Bible as the basis of their doctrines, proves how unreliable it is.
My extensive notes run to 64 pages fine print.
I have - encouraged by Christian friends - read the works of many Christian apologists: C. S. Lewis, John Warwick Montgomery, Ron Rhodes, Norman Geisler, Josh McDowell, Lee Strobel, Simon Greenleaf, Alfred Edersheim, (and others), and I find them consistently illogical and unable to deal satisfactorily with the obvious Bible problems. I also find that my Christian friends are usually unwilling to read any of the books which I recommend to them about the Bible and Christianity.
The Jesus that most Christians worship is certainly not anyone who lived in Palestine two thousand years ago, but is an artificial (mythical) construct of people who never even knew Jesus or the people whom he supposedly taught. The history of early Christianity is a forgery constructed by the Roman church, as is becoming ever more clear with the discovery of long-suppressed Christian writings which contradict traditional Christian doctrine. To put it bluntly: the New Testament is a pious fraud.
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And please don't suggest that one must read the Bible "in the proper Spirit" unless you can define what you mean as something other than simply "being willing to accept whatever it says as the Word of God."
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Easter - The Ancient (Pre-Christian) Festival
Happy Easter to All!
As at Christmas, when we are urged to bring back the "true meaning" of the holiday, so at Easter are we urged to do so, especially by letters to the editor and columns on the religious page of the newspaper.
Of course, we all have the right to use any reason we like for celebrating any holiday. But the implication that your Easter celebration is authentic only if you do it with the Christian resurrection in mind betrays an ignorance of religious history.
This holiday has been celebrated every spring all over the world in an unbroken tradition going back to many centuries before Jesus was even born, and thus cannot have had any original connection to him.
Easter was originally (and still is) a celebration of the fertility of the earth, renewed each springtime. The egg, the chick, the rabbit, the flowers, are all fertility symbols (and much older than the Christian symbol of the resurrected god). Its celebration has often been marked by sexual exuberance, as is still prominent in the pre-Lenten Carneval and Mardi Gras festivals and the phallic symbolism of the May pole and the cross.
Long before Jesus, many peoples associated this festival with the coming back to life of the god of fertility (Tammuz - see Ezek 8:14, Adonis, Osiris, Perseus, Orpheus), who had been dead in the underworld during the winter. Even the name by which Christians still celebrate the festival is a corruption of the name of the ancient fertility goddess Ishtar or Ashtoreth (whose name also survives in the name of one of the books of the Old Testament, the only Bible book that contains no reference to God - the Book of Esther).
The Christian church, because it could not eradicate the celebration of this popular festival, reinterpreted it and assigned to it a new meaning, but was unable to erase completely its original significance. Undoubtedly current attempts by Christians will have no more success. The egg and the rabbit, the phallic pole or cross (the real symbols of the festival) will continue to be loved and celebrated as long as we can marvel at the new life which the spring brings.
As at Christmas, when we are urged to bring back the "true meaning" of the holiday, so at Easter are we urged to do so, especially by letters to the editor and columns on the religious page of the newspaper.
Of course, we all have the right to use any reason we like for celebrating any holiday. But the implication that your Easter celebration is authentic only if you do it with the Christian resurrection in mind betrays an ignorance of religious history.
This holiday has been celebrated every spring all over the world in an unbroken tradition going back to many centuries before Jesus was even born, and thus cannot have had any original connection to him.
Easter was originally (and still is) a celebration of the fertility of the earth, renewed each springtime. The egg, the chick, the rabbit, the flowers, are all fertility symbols (and much older than the Christian symbol of the resurrected god). Its celebration has often been marked by sexual exuberance, as is still prominent in the pre-Lenten Carneval and Mardi Gras festivals and the phallic symbolism of the May pole and the cross.
Long before Jesus, many peoples associated this festival with the coming back to life of the god of fertility (Tammuz - see Ezek 8:14, Adonis, Osiris, Perseus, Orpheus), who had been dead in the underworld during the winter. Even the name by which Christians still celebrate the festival is a corruption of the name of the ancient fertility goddess Ishtar or Ashtoreth (whose name also survives in the name of one of the books of the Old Testament, the only Bible book that contains no reference to God - the Book of Esther).
The Christian church, because it could not eradicate the celebration of this popular festival, reinterpreted it and assigned to it a new meaning, but was unable to erase completely its original significance. Undoubtedly current attempts by Christians will have no more success. The egg and the rabbit, the phallic pole or cross (the real symbols of the festival) will continue to be loved and celebrated as long as we can marvel at the new life which the spring brings.
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