Which God, If Any?

These words about truth, no matter where spoken, or by whom, stand alone as guideposts, markers. Truth, when speaking of worshiping, and believing in any god, must be laden with facts, as stated earlier, for lies have no part in the truth of any god who is said to be the All, the Creator. Any work laden with untruths, lies, contradictions, or lacking in contextual synchronicity are more than suspect and should be questioned vigorously to weed out any untruths.

WHAT WE SHOULD WONDER ABOUT

Christian Fundamentalists proclaim that the bible is the inerrant word of God, that it is factual as such in every way and word, and thereby to be taken literally. As more than hinted at above, we have to ask if we should take the bible as truth and literally, but more, is the God as presented in the bible really God, the creator of all the universe, and us humans with it?

If the bible is God's word, as Fundamentalists (and other believers) say, and the God presented therein is real, then the bible must be fact laden and have no errors, contradictions, falsehoods—even unintended ones—and certainly no lies. Any of these being present nullifies the veracity of the bible, and thus of the God presented therein for "his work is perfect". Also the "foundation" of the bible is suspect and "like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great." So must the bible stand on a solid foundation or fall in the ruin of it's lies, errors, and contadictions.

A BIT OF HISTORY

In the West, where Christianity and Judaism are predominant; and even where Islam is the main religion, just about every time God (Allah) is spoken of, it refers to the God of the bible, of the Jews.

In the West, there have arisen those who are called Fundamentalists, those who believe that the bible—the Old Testament of the Jews and the New Testament of the Christians—is the inerrant (no errors) word of God.

The truth is incontrovertible. Lies are deceitful; so are half truths, and have no place in any truth just as contradictions shouldn't either.

Though the truth of anything is difficult to find, especially about God, verifiable facts are the best path to finding truth as much as that is possible. That, too, is incontrovertible. Where there is a lack of facts, there must then be a deviation from the truth; the more deviation, the less likely hood of it being the truth.

Christian Church doctrine is not quite impossible to trace, but it is difficult even for professional researchers. The Church Fathers of old such as Iraneus, Origen, Tertullian, as well as many others, helped to direct the nascent Christian Church before the time of the Roman Emperor, Constantine, who dictated that there be only one church, and one belief. Those in the Nicene Council at that time made the basic decisions of what was to be doctrine for all. To this day, the idea of Augustine's Original Sin and how it is therefore in all, is still a staple of Christian doctrine that it must be erased through salvation.

During several hundred years after the death of Jesus there were many differing beliefs of just what constituted Christianity, and what the correct way was to not only worship, but also how, as well as what was true about Jesus and God.

This hierarchy that was eventually set up ruled most of Christianity for about a thousand years without any significant challenge. All challenges were met with a heavy hand by the newly established church from Rome, including summarily killing dissenters. It was, and is, a culture that would be the conscience of the West was begun then, and again, with an iron fist, including death to those who tried to dissent Out of that grew those who sought only prestige and power, not to mention enrichment. Consider these items:

What all of this says is that prior to Constantine, Christianity was a hodgepodge of independent churches and believers. It wasn't even commonly accepted by all Christians what constituted scripture and what was spurious. However, the aspirations of some of the Bishops of Rome led them to decide that they should have primacy, or the last word in what was and what wasn't, Christianity. Here are a few examples culled from the Internet:

"Pope Stephen I (254-257 CE) was also active in efforts to promote the power and importance of the bishop of Rome over other bishops in the Christian Churches.He claimed to be the direct successor of Peter "upon whom the foundations of the Church were laid" and he made use of the term cathedra Petri, which means "the chair of Peter" to describe the authority of Rome over all others. This made him many rivals and enemies among other bishops who objected to his interference into what they considered their sphere of authority."

This was pushed to the extreme after Constantine made Christianity the church of the Empire.

"383 AD Priscillian of Avila was executed. He was accused of Manichaeism, but the official reason forburning him was witchcraft."

Further: "Innocent I, Roman Catholic Pope (402 to 417): Helost no opportunity of maintaining and extending the authority of the Roman see as the ultimate resort for the settlement of all disputes..."

"Pope Leo I (440-461): Viewed in conjunction with his voluminous correspondence, the sermons sufficiently explainthe secret of his greatness, which chiefly lay in the extraordinary strength and purity of his convictions as to the primacy of the successors of St. Peter..."

Under the umbrella of being at Constantine's site of power, they exerted their aspirations to being the center of Christianity and that continued after Constantine's death.

397 AD Council of Carthage; final agreement on books to be in the New Testament. This was further ratified in one of the Council's of Trent about 546 AD (this council was held over several years).

What this all meant was that it took centuries for the final "bible" to be agreed upon, and that remained until Martin Luther came along centuries later.

The challenge to how the church was run was made by Martin Luther. His biggest complaint that has come down to us was "indulgences", or the sale of forgiveness of sins by clergy for a "donation". There were many other challenges, but this was the most grievous one. The clergy was enriching itself through these sales.

Luther started the Protestant movement, but any person looking at the King James, or Revised Standard Version, or any other version used by other than Catholics, will find that every book in these bibles are in the Catholic versions. The basic canons are the same, thus, to quote George Wallace's famous words when he ran for the presidency of the US, "there's not a nickel's worth of difference" in them—all the basic beliefs are the same—the Old Testament is true, and Jesus is our savior, our redeemer. All believe that if he's not God incarnate, he definitely speaks for God on earth and will return for "the resurrection" wherein the saved will be taken up to heaven with him.

The biggest thing we can come out of this with is the knowledge thatwhat we now consider the bible was swallowed with little, if any, research or question as to its veracity. It was all basically and simply believed as written without question as true save for a little nit-picking here and there (and many of those nit-pickers were soon dispatched to the fires of the stake). Many of the non-canonical books included in the Catholic bible were omitted in the King James version, as well as other bibles following, but all the others are basically the same with few exceptions. It was mostly the "form" of worship and things like indulgences that were questioned.

In all of this, no one had a single original manuscript, and that is true unto this day.

Even much of the form of worship was kept by Lutherans, and later by others, but Luther's "Sola Scriptura" (scripture only) guided later reformers to alter that too, but slowly, thus the true beginning of many Christian denominations. The "word" as we now know it was totally accepted from day one without question of veracity or actual true foundation. Most of those subsequent "churches" retained the rule of burning at the stake for what they considered heretical (unorthodox teachings).

Using the above biblical quotes about the truth as markers showing where not to find truth, but rather lies, deceits, and contradictions, let's consider the bible itself.

A STRANGE PLACE TO FIND SOME TRUTHS

The original Fundamentalist in Christianity is the Catholic Church. History tells us that the Catholic Church was responsible for some very unchristian like deeds, the most famous ones being the Inquisition, the murder of the Cathars, the Crusades, the trial of Galileo, and the burning at the stake while still alive, Giordano Bruno. Yes, there were many other crimes, including the rape of many of the children of Naples and elsewhere by a protected clergyman, Stefano Cherubini (see Fallen Order, by Karen Liebreich), which crimes continued unabated until this day, and in many places (and, unfortunately, by those of many different religious "Christian" faiths).

The reason for starting with The Catholic Church is their bible (they compiled the first of our modern bibles). When the Catholic Church ruled with an iron fist, and quickly and readily condemned those who dissented in any way to being burned at the stake, they did so liberally. What they said that we should believe is what people had to believe, or keep it all secret within their minds lest they also be burned at the stake.

However, in due time, people did begin to question. Martin Luther opened the doors to dissent, and that by saying that only scripture ruled.

Nowadays, or beginning in the 1800s, the bible itself was being questioned. Darwin helped to open that door with his belief and scientific proofs of evolution rather than initial creation of life by the God of the bible (though that specifically may not have been his intention).

Before that a few brave souls used historical criticism, then we graduated to Textual Criticism, and much research of the supposed truths of the bible. Of course the Catholic Church, as well as Fundamentalists of various stripes, refused to accept it, still saying that the bible as it is written is God's truth, period!

Lo and behold, though published, it was not shouted about from the rooftops, the Catholic Church came out with a version of the bible that is chock full of admissions, one of which is the more than tacit admission thatwe have no factual idea who wrote the bible and therefore it is not quite the inerrant word of God. Research has found that it is filled with errors and contradictions; it is admitted that some long held and cherished beliefs about who the authors were is not true.

The bible I'm referring to is titled: The Catholic Family Connections Bible (and perhaps other versions). For example:

Many people still believe that the first five (5) books of the Old Testament (called the Pentateuch) were written by Moses. Just before the book of Genesis, we are given the following in the above mentioned Catholic bible:

"Inspired author: Stories were gathered from the oral tradition of tribal peoples in the period around 1225 to 1000 BC."

In the preface to the books of the bible is a section called Introduction to the Pentateuch, wherein we are told: "The grandeur of the historic sweep is the result of a careful and complexjoining of several historic traditions, or sources. These are primarily four: the so-called Yahwist, Elohist, Priestly and Deuteronomic strands that run through the Pentateuch."

Translation: Have you ever wondered (as I often did) about the two different creation narratives, the first being called—or so it was said when I first wondered about it—the spiritual creation, and the second the physical creation?

The introduction calls this "Asuperficial difference between two of these sources..." (as mentioned above) as being responsible.

Superficial difference. The earth, a formless wasteland according to the first verse was the first creation along with the heavens on the first day, and on the third day the earth was said to bring "forth every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit" on the third day. The sun, from which nothing can grow without, however, is created on the following (fourth) day. That is backward!

That's a heck of a superficial difference, but that's not covered by them, nor the fact that the earth is held in place by the gravitational pull existing between it and the sun, the sun's being the greater pull due to it's size, which keeps the earth, as well as the other planets, in its place, or orbit. No sun, nothing to orbit about since the other stars hadn't been "created" yet either.

From this we get the idea of the real superficiality of the authors of the books of the bible, as well as the editors. Those editors who actually wrote the bible were centuries after the biblical facts were supposed to be begun; well over a thousand years after Adam's supposed creation, and even after Noah's supposed flood.

In the meantime, we are told of wars, the killing off of many of the Jews, and their unstable lives. Stories were told? Of course, but the fidelity of those stories is very much in question, so much so that different authors of those stories differed substantially as we've seen already.

Returning to admissions of this particular Catholic bible, looking at a section just before the prophet Isaiah, under the heading of "Inspired authors" again, we findit says that it is attributed to "the three Isaiahs or their followers."

Three Isaiahs or their followers? Do any of the main popular bible studies of the churches on Sunday before worship services mention three Isaiahs? Has a Catholic, or other, priest ever mentioned this? I've never heard of one, yet historical criticism is from of old.

Karen Armstrong, a former Catholic Church nun turned research analyst, in her book, The Bible, tells of Abraham ibn Ezra who lived from 1089 to 1164 and who was a poet philosopher from Spain, as being noted to have said that Isaiah couldn't have written the second half of Isaiah because it referred to events that happened long after his death. As well, he said Moses was not the author of the entire Pentateuch.

If all, or any of this is so, why do churches so often recite the verses from Isaiah, 53:5:

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed",

and refer to it as Isaiah's word instead of one of the other Isaiahs?

I've heard this many times in church, but was never told that this wasn't really from the original Isaiah, but from someone else whose writings were appended to an Isaiah scroll.

When we come to the New Testament, there are similar notes before each gospel on the lack of knowledge of the actual authors. Matthew said to be traditionally associated with the Apostle Matthew; Mark as a Gentile Christian, traditionally thought to be a disciple of Peter named John Mark; Luke, a Gentile Christian named Luke, traditionally thought to be a disciple of Paul; and John,a member of a Christian community possibly founded by the Beloved Disciple.

Lots of "traditionally" and "possibly", but obviously all really unknown and only given to us to believe that the names appended to each gospel are the authors of them. This, we're seldom, if ever, told by churches in this day, particularly Fundamentalist churches.

All of these truths just mentioned, strange though they may seem, can be looked at similarly as the CEA marker is looked at for finding if one may have cancer, or if cancer is recurring. They help to point to the truth of the lies and deceptions we have been spoon fed over the centuries that have become as inbred in us and a part of our culture.

The "markers" we find pointing to the lack of truth of the bible are found immediately in Genesis wherein we find not one, but two distinct accounts of creation. The first account is often said to be "spiritual" because of the creation of man that is "created" in chapter 1, verse 26, and described as "...in our image, after our likeness:..." versus the second creation of man account which describes the physical creation of man and woman in chapter 2 beginning in verse 7.

That's two distinct creations and the quick lie some tell of the first creation being spiritual is set at naught by looking at the first chapter again, but in verses 11 and 12. There, it says:

"And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth: and it was so.

"And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: And God saw that it was good."

There's nothing strictly spiritual about the first story of God's creation—it is two distinct accounts by two separate men of the so-called creation story, and definitely not written by God, or exactly directed by God—the second telling not even a bad clarification. Whatever, they are different as are the creations of the first people, but more on them later.

THE EXODUS

Before looking at more "stories", or falsehoods, or lies, let's consider the so-called "Exodus" that is the second book of the bible and an obvious contradiction we'll find.

There aretwo different dates for this occurrence, the most popular one being that it came about in the time of Pharaoh Rameses II (some say the mightiest of the Pharaohs, and some say the second mightiest), approximately 1250 BCE or so. This is attested by several mentions of "the land of Rameses", more specifically in Genesis chapter 47, verse 11 which says:

"And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded."

This though it was supposed to be well over four hundred years before Rameses II was born, he who established the land of Rameses. Jacob is said to live for seventeen years in the land of Egypt, per verse 28 of chapter 47 of Genesis well before there was any Rameses.

The other time that we're told that tells of the Exodus is in I Kings, chapter 6, verse 1:

"...in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign..."

Solomon's reign is said to have begun in 970 BCE, therefore the four hundred and eighty years would begin in 966 BCE. Adding the four hundred and eighty years to that we get 1446 BCE, about two hundred years before the first Exodus date presumed to be given by geographic markers stipulated in the bible as above.

Those are two distinctly different, yet very positively given times by the bible for the Exodus. One is surely wrong—and as we shall further see, both are probably wrong as the Exodus never occurred, but is a fiction that was made up by men, and not any god.

A fiction?

Yes! That is seen by one little thing in the first book of the bible, Genesis, and also in Exodus, and attested by historical fact.

The Philistines are well known by most, probably from the story of David killing the giant, Goliath in one of the books of Samuel. They were well known in David's time and are historically known as well. However, they don't enter into known history until after Rameses II; in fact, not until about 1183 BCE in the time of Rameses III, the son of the mighty Rameses II.