why?

I noticed that quite a lot of people refer to the bible as ‘the good book’, without actually having read it cover to cover. In my opinion, the bible is very much like the Magna Carta. People think they know what is in it, but do not bother to actually find out and when confronted with the actual content, are flabbergasted. As for the christians who bothered to read the novel, they tend to read it with such prejudice, the real content seems to escape them.

To give an example. To a lot of people, Jesus is a really cool guy. He died a horrible death, voluntarily, so that you can enter heaven. Isn’t that mighty nice of him? Best present evah! Quite frankly, I could find no fault with that reasoning for quite some time, then my prefrontal cortex became fully developed and the story stopped making sense. Do you see the fallacy?

Lend me your ear! You see, the reason the heavenly portals were closed (no, there is no heaven, but we will tackle that later, just play along for the time being) is because some all-powerful deity failed at playing SIMS-universe. He created a set of people, one male and one female and then gave them free will. When they exercised their free wills, the omnipotent being became very angry and he kicked them out of his garden patch. He then held a grudge for a couple of centuries until he decided to kiss and make up with humanity. Now, since he is the dude who creates the rule, he could have asked for an apology and say water under the bridge, let’s be friends again. Better even, he could have simply forgiven everyone, since the people alive at that time were not even the same folks who ate the apple. But no, he decided nothing would please him better than a bloody sacrifice. True, at least he killed his own son and did not simply slaughter a couple of hundred people because it felt right (see Old Testament, apparently, that tactic gets old after a while), but it is still a pretty sick idea.

Now, why is this utter immorality so difficult to spot? Why do people simply not see this when they read the story? I say tunnel vision. People only see what they are told they should see. When you are told from a very young age that the story is a good story and that Jesus is a good guy and that god is love and goodness, these biblical stories are read from this perspective. People become blind to the truth.

Hopefully this project will enable people to get to know the bible from a different perspective. Hopefully, your reaction is: Is that in there? Go and find out for yourself, open your eyes and read with a critical mind.

As you will see, the rules you live by, or your church / pastor / parents / friends tell you to live by, are products of an exercise I affectionally refer to as pick and choose. So….. you do think it is a bad idea to turn a knob / eat pork / work on Sundays / advocate gay marriage but you are allowed to neglect the other rules and punishment in that same book? Who does the picking and the choosing and which criteria were used? Why are some rules important and is it okay to neglect the others? Are the rules you live by really in the book? Where? And are they interpreted correctly?

I hope to provide you with food for thought. And if you are (already) an atheist, perhaps I am able to entertain you.