Noel Byrne ✒ When I started out over thirty years ago, on my journey to try and find ultimate answers, about God, the universe, the meaning of life etc., I read the Bible twice from cover to cover. 

I also studied the Scriptures and over the years have read hundreds of books dealing with biblical criticism, Exegesis, Hermeneutics and Apologetics. However that is a story for another day. Below is a recent note I sent to god about his divinely inspired revelation, to date I have no reply.

Hi God,

We haven’t talked for a long time. I tried talking to you for years but you never got back to me. This time I am writing to you and hoping for a reply. I have read and studied your revelations assiduously over many years and I have a few questions you might help me with regarding:

The Bible

Firstly, how did you reveal yourself to the biblical authors? Did you actually talk to them? Did you dictate to them? Did you inspire them? How do I know these authors were not dreaming or even hallucinating? Maybe they were bipolar or schizophrenic. How do I know they were inspired by you? None of them ever said they were inspired by you or how you imparted the knowledge apart from Paul, and many scholars have serious doubts about his mental state!

Who actually wrote those various books? It appears there were in excess of forty authors involved in the collection of texts called the Bible. Not alone do we not know who wrote the majority of them, neither do we know where they were written or when. We have been striving and endeavoring for centuries to work out the age, provenance and authorship of the various texts in your Bible, and have failed to do so. Surely as someone with your Omnipotent powers you could have done a little bit better by leaving us more evidence of the authorship, age and provenance of the texts and of your part in the authorship of these books.

Scholars today reckon that the whole procedure from Genesis to the Book of Revelation took over fifteen hundred years on three continents. Because the procedure took that length of time it means that during that period nobody had your full revelation. That’s not very fair on those trying to get to heaven during that period. Why, surely with your powers you could have used a more efficient method of revealing your word!

Why are there no originals of any of the books of the Bible? We have no extant original of any book of the Bible. Surely again with your intelligence god, after having gone to the bother of revealing and inspiring these books to mankind, so that we could be saved, you could have at least ensured the originals were preserved and left intact so that we would know precisely what you revealed, and not leave us in the position we are in, whereby it is an now an industry trying to sort out what is genuine in the current Bible from the later errors, insertions, interpolations, omissions, amendments and forgeries.

The texts that do survive are late and contradictory and have evidence of tampering in various ways such as insertions, interpolations, omissions, forgeries etc. Very few seem to realize that the stories of your birth and resurrection are late additions and not in the originals. All scholars whether religious or secular accept there are forgeries and alterations in the Bible.

In the modern age since the printing press was invented there have also been many errors printed accidentally. Why have you not made sure such errors did not occur?

Why did you need so many authors over such a period of time to tell us what you wanted us to know? Why not make your revelation all in one go to one author, as you did to Mohammed for the Muslims or Joseph Smith for the Mormons through the angel Moroni?

One way or the other God you made a hames of the job, because there are now multiple versions, translations and interpretations of your revelations, all different, and I, like so many millions of others have given up trying to sort out what is genuine and what is an interpolation, forgery, or alteration.

Why when you used so many authors are your revelations not consistent? It follows that because so many of the authors contradict each other and are completely inconsistent they cannot all be true. Are any of them true? Like so many I am completely flummoxed.

Why for instance are there so many versions of your Bible? The Catholic version has 73 books, the Protestant version has 66 books, the Coptic version has 81 books, the Byzantine version has 75 books, the Ethiopian has 84 and then there are the Chaldean and Marionite Bibles. In English there are in excess of 50 different translated versions and hundreds of revised versions. Then the Mormons have their version as well as the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I spent more time trying to figure it all out than doing what you possibly wanted me to do. Why did you not make it clear which Bible is the one you want us to emulate? I really can’t understand how or why if it was divinely inspired by you it needs to be constantly updated and amended with different translations and versions when it is supposedly inerrant, unchanging and divinely inspired? Come to that, why is it after two thousand years of study scholars still don’t even understand many sections of the Bible? You could have ensured your revelation was at least capable of being understood. Come on god; give us a break which of the Bibles and which of the versions is the one you actually revealed? I hope you can understand my frustration. In fact I am pissed off having spent years trying to sort it out. How if it is divinely inspired and allegedly infallible can such a mess be made of a supposedly very important project?

Your editing was atrocious. You obviously never followed up on what your chosen authors wrote. You obviously just inspired and then presumed they got it right and we would automatically understand! Had you at least given us more information we could have worked out a lot more of what the various books are actually saying, as in many cases even the best of modern scholars fail to understand much of the texts.

Why do we need all this exegesis, hermeneutics and biblical criticism? Why not just a simple book by one author that can be read and understood by anyone? I’m sure that is within your Omnipotent power.

When was the Canon actually decided upon and why did it take so long? It appears that the Canon was decided by a debate among men over a very long period of time and that it was not you who decided what to include.

Could you not just have sent a simple message saying you had cocked up earlier by not giving an imprimatur and nihil obstsat to the inspired books and telling those who were sorting the canon out what was to be included? There is no evidence that you or your son ever issued a confirmed list of what books were to be included, either for the Old Testament or the New Testament.

I mean they were still fiddling about with the Canon at the Council of Trent in 1545-47. The Eastern Churches reached their compromise on the Canon in 1672. I’m sure those who died prior to those dates and went to hell can’t be too happy, as they did not know what to read or not to read and might have avoided hell had they known. As all the churches have actually revised their Canon over the centuries, I think I am safe in assuming that the canons are really not your selection, as I’m sure you would have been more careful. They are the selection of fallible and capricious human beings.

What was left out of the Canon and why?

There were many more gospels and epistles not included in the canon that were in circulation at the time this issue was being resolved. In fact there were more of the available texts not included than were included. There was also much discussion and argument. You didn’t appear to want to help the situation by letting them know. Why I really don’t understand, after all you are Omnipotent. As well as that God you could at least have ensured when they were sorting out the Canon that they at least put it in chronological order.

Maybe some of the hundreds of books, gospels, manuscripts and epistles that were going around at the time that were not included were inspired? Possibly some of those authors thought they were divinely inspired as they wrote. Could you not have sent a messenger angel, as you did for the Mormons, or a note from Heaven or a little miracle to ensure all the minds deciding on the Canon were of one opinion to sort out your cockup from your various revelations. I mean it took the Church hundreds of years of argument, debate and disputation to decide on a Canon, even then it was far from unanimous - where were you when this was going on? In fact it is quite obvious the Canon is still not sorted out properly as there are so many differing opinions as to what constitutes the genuine canon.

Why are there so many contradictions, anachronisms, absurdities, cruelties, misogyny, rapes, incests, atrocities, inaccurate histories etc. in your revelation? You definitely never corrected the author’s handiwork.

Were the authors stupid, after all you were revealing your saving word to mankind? Something is wrong somewhere. Why did you not pick more reliable authors? These guys, like your apostles, seem a bit thick.

The biblical record is shown and proven to be fallible in many areas of fact: literally, archeologically, historically and scientifically, and as such it can hardly be trusted in the areas where it cannot be tested.

Apologists explain some of the problems with your Bible by saying parts of it are allegorical? If some of it is allegory, perhaps all of it is allegory. Who decides what is allegory as we know so very little about the age, authors or provenance of the Bible as I have said previously? It appears god you forgot to say what was real and what was allegorical. You need to find a new author to do a bit more revealing and sort some of these issues out.

Why is it not historical? It seems strange that some of the supposed historical stories in the Bible are completely wrong when checked by modern scholarship. There is definitely another large problem here. The real mystery is whether you were having the authors on or whether the authors were stupid and didn’t understand your accent or dialect or maybe they wrote the wrong dream or maybe they were just pissed. This is something modern biblical scholars will need to discern.

Why did you give your revelation to Bronze Age goat herders, who were ignorant and illiterate anyway? That seems a bad decision. There were many more sophisticated cultures at the time that might have made a better job of passing your word on. Why were these goat herders your chosen people?

I also have a major problem god with the things you didn’t tell us as you were revealing your word. Germ theory comes to mind almost immediately. Imagine the amount of sickness, ill health and suffering that could have been avoided over the centuries if you had even given us a clue about germs! You could have told us the real story about evolution and not the allegorical version. You could also have been more explicit as to when you would return. Your twelve thick apostles and Paul seemed to think it was to be in their very near future. Maybe your inspired authors forgot those details! Someone got the wrong end of the stick here.

Why are scholars who have spent many years studying the Bible even today, not able to agree after more than two thousand years about so much of the Bible? Surely with your powers you could have made it abundantly clear what ideas you meant to convey.

Why is it your real authentic followers, the Catholics, are not encouraged to read your revelation; - the Bible? This to me is a bit of a dilemma God. If you go to the bother of inspiring these authors and revealing what you think is important to them why does your church not encourage your followers to read your book? If Catholics go to mass every day for the three-year lectionary cycle covering Sundays and holy days they would hear 41% of the New Testament and only 4% of the Old Testament. If we also include the two-year cycle of weekday masses they still would hear only 72% of the New Testament and 14% of the Old Testament. What are you afraid they might find out? Why is it that your church only very selectively picks out what their flock will hear? They seem to keep the nasty bits, the contradictions, inconsistencies, murders, genocides, rapes, incest and illogicalities out of mass goers' ears, and of course some of the nice fluffy allegorical bits that they constantly preach are taken out of context and preached in a different interpretation by each priest without any chance of the sheep querying or questioning the priests interpretation? Nor do your priests ever mention or point out the various contradictions, inaccuracies, and illogicalities in your revelation to their flock. Perhaps that is because they are not aware of them themselves. That is quite possibly true when one considers the number of biblical scholars who actually de-convert as they get more involved and deeper into their biblical studies. I also wonder how many of your priests and hierarchy, with their direct line to you, or so they imply, have actually read your inspired word fully?

Over five hundred and sixty contradictions have been found to date in your Bible as well as many scientific absurdities, historical inaccuracies, misogyny, violence and discrimination against women and homosexuals, genocide, rape, incest and many other moral issues not compatible with an all-loving God. According to your authors you ordered and authorized most of these events, as the Bible is your story. They are definitely blaming you. I think you didn’t supervise your appointed authors very well.

How come so much of the content of the Bible is now being proven on a daily basis to be myth, through archeology, anthropology and of course through biblical analysis and criticism? Some scholars have actually called for an end to biblical studies as they consider it now a pointless exercise. There is no back up evidence for the majority of what is in the Bible. They see it as no different from studying Shakespeare or other old time literature.

Another one of those things that make me wonder about your Bible is why so many of the stories in your Bible are not original. They are actually retellings and versions of ancient stories and myths found in even older pagan literature as scholars are finding out on an almost daily basis.

If your Bible is inspired one would have to accept, coming from an all–knowing god as you are, that it is factually correct in every respect. This is a huge problem because if it is not factually correct in all instances how do we decide what is fact and what is myth, fiction, allegory or metaphor? We are quite aware at this point in time of the many inaccuracies, contradictions, after all if something is true it does not need to be inspired. Inspiration is only required if there is no evidence. Facts don’t require inspiration.

If Adam and Eve are not true characters as evolution shows, then there was no original sin and accordingly you could be just a duality - father and the holy ghost and not a trinity. Without original sin there was really no need for you to create your son Jesus to be incarnated on Earth to be crucified? Big mistake there!

Why do you need apologists or ambassadors to explain all the contradictions, anomalies and unintelligible parts in your inspired and revealed word?

Why after teaching your twelve apostles did you need to have a mental meeting with Paul? Paul seems to have done a better job than your twelve apostles. You either picked twelve thicks or the apostles were not listening to you. That doesn’t say much for your choice or your HR and interview skills.

How do you justify this? It was really Paul who spread your word and not your apostles. They stayed with you for three years and yet failed to pass on your word. Yet one mental meeting with Paul and he converts masses of people! Explain that for me. The apostles appear to have been a bit of a waste of time and energy! Maybe if you had mental meetings with the apostles things might have worked out better.

By the way which version of the Ten Commandments is the correct one is it Exodus 20 or 24 or is it Deuteronomy chapter 5.

Also why did your commandments not include thou shalt not destroy the ecosystem, or mention the immorality of slavery, or that discrimination in any form is wrong, that child abuse is wrong, that the suppression of opinions is wrong and many other things that we now know to be wrong and immoral?

Without going into the hundreds of questions I have for you and which I hope to address in later letters after you have answered this letter, I particularly want to know why children should be punished for the sins of their parents?

Thomas Paine who was a deist and believed in you as the Creator, but did not accept that you interfered in the world after you created it, said in his Age of Reason:

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonorable belief against the Character of the Divinity, the most destructive to morality and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist.

Was Paine right, do you think your revelation was a good thing or a bad thing and if you were starting over would you do it differently again?

How come so many of those who study the Bible seriously and with an open mind no longer believe in you? Serious study of your revelation seems to end up in a disbelief of your inspired word. I think you need a serious, sober, modern writer with a good Dictaphone and word processor and start all over again, because the way things are going God there won’t be too many left reading your current version. I definitely think that after two thousand years, you need to send us a revised version.

And so I have to ask you after all of the above, is the Bible to be taken literally?

If it is then a large amount of explanation is required from you god, due to its many contradictions, absurdities, forgeries, additions, omissions, factual inaccuracies, historical inaccuracies, unintelligible sections, our lack of knowledge of the authors, or of where or when the actual books were written, and the fact that no originals are extant etc. If it not to be taken literally then it needs interpretation. Who is to interpret it and why? Many of those who preach about it, have never read it cover to cover and have made no effort to study it.

One would expect your revelation to be easy to understand and be unchangeable.

All in all god I am very disappointed in your handiwork. It is shoddy. I am also surprised considering you are omniscient and know everything, that you allowed this mess to happen and don’t seem to be doing anything to resolve the issue. You have known since time immemorial that this was going to happen and yet did nothing about it. When I think of all the time I have wasted over the years trying to sort it out, time when I might have been helping others or making the world a better place. Now multiply that by the thousands and millions who have done the same and are still trying. That’s a lot of time wasting that could have been put to better use.

At this point in time there are over 45,000 versions of Christianity. Would you please mind at least telling me which one is correct. Or maybe it was your revelation to Mohammed or Joseph Smith that was correct and not the Christian revelation. If I could just be sure it would make my study and my life so much simpler.

Why by the way did you not write something yourself when you were here on Earth, you were apparently doing nothing for your first thirty years, a time in which you had plenty of time for writing? Why did your Apostles not write down what you said? We have no written words from them either. Strange, when you consider the wonders they saw and heard and particularly as you told them to spread your word?

If you were so keen to reveal your eternal truths, why did you reveal so many inconsistent and different versions to so many different people over such a long period of time? It is also extremely odd that your revelations are so imprecise, inaccurate and in many cases so unpalatable that your church carefully selects the readings for the consumption of your believers, and then we have to deal with the many dreadful atrocities and immoralities which your authors claim you ordered, and authorized.

All in all, after the enormous amount of work and study I have put into over many years trying to understand your revelation, I think you at least owe me a reply.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Noel

⏩ Noel Byrne is a retired Civil Servant and a Humanist, with a principal interest in Philosophy, and a particular interest in Ethics and Morality.

A Letter To God

Noel Byrne ✒ When I started out over thirty years ago, on my journey to try and find ultimate answers, about God, the universe, the meaning of life etc., I read the Bible twice from cover to cover. 

I also studied the Scriptures and over the years have read hundreds of books dealing with biblical criticism, Exegesis, Hermeneutics and Apologetics. However that is a story for another day. Below is a recent note I sent to god about his divinely inspired revelation, to date I have no reply.

Hi God,

We haven’t talked for a long time. I tried talking to you for years but you never got back to me. This time I am writing to you and hoping for a reply. I have read and studied your revelations assiduously over many years and I have a few questions you might help me with regarding:

The Bible

Firstly, how did you reveal yourself to the biblical authors? Did you actually talk to them? Did you dictate to them? Did you inspire them? How do I know these authors were not dreaming or even hallucinating? Maybe they were bipolar or schizophrenic. How do I know they were inspired by you? None of them ever said they were inspired by you or how you imparted the knowledge apart from Paul, and many scholars have serious doubts about his mental state!

Who actually wrote those various books? It appears there were in excess of forty authors involved in the collection of texts called the Bible. Not alone do we not know who wrote the majority of them, neither do we know where they were written or when. We have been striving and endeavoring for centuries to work out the age, provenance and authorship of the various texts in your Bible, and have failed to do so. Surely as someone with your Omnipotent powers you could have done a little bit better by leaving us more evidence of the authorship, age and provenance of the texts and of your part in the authorship of these books.

Scholars today reckon that the whole procedure from Genesis to the Book of Revelation took over fifteen hundred years on three continents. Because the procedure took that length of time it means that during that period nobody had your full revelation. That’s not very fair on those trying to get to heaven during that period. Why, surely with your powers you could have used a more efficient method of revealing your word!

Why are there no originals of any of the books of the Bible? We have no extant original of any book of the Bible. Surely again with your intelligence god, after having gone to the bother of revealing and inspiring these books to mankind, so that we could be saved, you could have at least ensured the originals were preserved and left intact so that we would know precisely what you revealed, and not leave us in the position we are in, whereby it is an now an industry trying to sort out what is genuine in the current Bible from the later errors, insertions, interpolations, omissions, amendments and forgeries.

The texts that do survive are late and contradictory and have evidence of tampering in various ways such as insertions, interpolations, omissions, forgeries etc. Very few seem to realize that the stories of your birth and resurrection are late additions and not in the originals. All scholars whether religious or secular accept there are forgeries and alterations in the Bible.

In the modern age since the printing press was invented there have also been many errors printed accidentally. Why have you not made sure such errors did not occur?

Why did you need so many authors over such a period of time to tell us what you wanted us to know? Why not make your revelation all in one go to one author, as you did to Mohammed for the Muslims or Joseph Smith for the Mormons through the angel Moroni?

One way or the other God you made a hames of the job, because there are now multiple versions, translations and interpretations of your revelations, all different, and I, like so many millions of others have given up trying to sort out what is genuine and what is an interpolation, forgery, or alteration.

Why when you used so many authors are your revelations not consistent? It follows that because so many of the authors contradict each other and are completely inconsistent they cannot all be true. Are any of them true? Like so many I am completely flummoxed.

Why for instance are there so many versions of your Bible? The Catholic version has 73 books, the Protestant version has 66 books, the Coptic version has 81 books, the Byzantine version has 75 books, the Ethiopian has 84 and then there are the Chaldean and Marionite Bibles. In English there are in excess of 50 different translated versions and hundreds of revised versions. Then the Mormons have their version as well as the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I spent more time trying to figure it all out than doing what you possibly wanted me to do. Why did you not make it clear which Bible is the one you want us to emulate? I really can’t understand how or why if it was divinely inspired by you it needs to be constantly updated and amended with different translations and versions when it is supposedly inerrant, unchanging and divinely inspired? Come to that, why is it after two thousand years of study scholars still don’t even understand many sections of the Bible? You could have ensured your revelation was at least capable of being understood. Come on god; give us a break which of the Bibles and which of the versions is the one you actually revealed? I hope you can understand my frustration. In fact I am pissed off having spent years trying to sort it out. How if it is divinely inspired and allegedly infallible can such a mess be made of a supposedly very important project?

Your editing was atrocious. You obviously never followed up on what your chosen authors wrote. You obviously just inspired and then presumed they got it right and we would automatically understand! Had you at least given us more information we could have worked out a lot more of what the various books are actually saying, as in many cases even the best of modern scholars fail to understand much of the texts.

Why do we need all this exegesis, hermeneutics and biblical criticism? Why not just a simple book by one author that can be read and understood by anyone? I’m sure that is within your Omnipotent power.

When was the Canon actually decided upon and why did it take so long? It appears that the Canon was decided by a debate among men over a very long period of time and that it was not you who decided what to include.

Could you not just have sent a simple message saying you had cocked up earlier by not giving an imprimatur and nihil obstsat to the inspired books and telling those who were sorting the canon out what was to be included? There is no evidence that you or your son ever issued a confirmed list of what books were to be included, either for the Old Testament or the New Testament.

I mean they were still fiddling about with the Canon at the Council of Trent in 1545-47. The Eastern Churches reached their compromise on the Canon in 1672. I’m sure those who died prior to those dates and went to hell can’t be too happy, as they did not know what to read or not to read and might have avoided hell had they known. As all the churches have actually revised their Canon over the centuries, I think I am safe in assuming that the canons are really not your selection, as I’m sure you would have been more careful. They are the selection of fallible and capricious human beings.

What was left out of the Canon and why?

There were many more gospels and epistles not included in the canon that were in circulation at the time this issue was being resolved. In fact there were more of the available texts not included than were included. There was also much discussion and argument. You didn’t appear to want to help the situation by letting them know. Why I really don’t understand, after all you are Omnipotent. As well as that God you could at least have ensured when they were sorting out the Canon that they at least put it in chronological order.

Maybe some of the hundreds of books, gospels, manuscripts and epistles that were going around at the time that were not included were inspired? Possibly some of those authors thought they were divinely inspired as they wrote. Could you not have sent a messenger angel, as you did for the Mormons, or a note from Heaven or a little miracle to ensure all the minds deciding on the Canon were of one opinion to sort out your cockup from your various revelations. I mean it took the Church hundreds of years of argument, debate and disputation to decide on a Canon, even then it was far from unanimous - where were you when this was going on? In fact it is quite obvious the Canon is still not sorted out properly as there are so many differing opinions as to what constitutes the genuine canon.

Why are there so many contradictions, anachronisms, absurdities, cruelties, misogyny, rapes, incests, atrocities, inaccurate histories etc. in your revelation? You definitely never corrected the author’s handiwork.

Were the authors stupid, after all you were revealing your saving word to mankind? Something is wrong somewhere. Why did you not pick more reliable authors? These guys, like your apostles, seem a bit thick.

The biblical record is shown and proven to be fallible in many areas of fact: literally, archeologically, historically and scientifically, and as such it can hardly be trusted in the areas where it cannot be tested.

Apologists explain some of the problems with your Bible by saying parts of it are allegorical? If some of it is allegory, perhaps all of it is allegory. Who decides what is allegory as we know so very little about the age, authors or provenance of the Bible as I have said previously? It appears god you forgot to say what was real and what was allegorical. You need to find a new author to do a bit more revealing and sort some of these issues out.

Why is it not historical? It seems strange that some of the supposed historical stories in the Bible are completely wrong when checked by modern scholarship. There is definitely another large problem here. The real mystery is whether you were having the authors on or whether the authors were stupid and didn’t understand your accent or dialect or maybe they wrote the wrong dream or maybe they were just pissed. This is something modern biblical scholars will need to discern.

Why did you give your revelation to Bronze Age goat herders, who were ignorant and illiterate anyway? That seems a bad decision. There were many more sophisticated cultures at the time that might have made a better job of passing your word on. Why were these goat herders your chosen people?

I also have a major problem god with the things you didn’t tell us as you were revealing your word. Germ theory comes to mind almost immediately. Imagine the amount of sickness, ill health and suffering that could have been avoided over the centuries if you had even given us a clue about germs! You could have told us the real story about evolution and not the allegorical version. You could also have been more explicit as to when you would return. Your twelve thick apostles and Paul seemed to think it was to be in their very near future. Maybe your inspired authors forgot those details! Someone got the wrong end of the stick here.

Why are scholars who have spent many years studying the Bible even today, not able to agree after more than two thousand years about so much of the Bible? Surely with your powers you could have made it abundantly clear what ideas you meant to convey.

Why is it your real authentic followers, the Catholics, are not encouraged to read your revelation; - the Bible? This to me is a bit of a dilemma God. If you go to the bother of inspiring these authors and revealing what you think is important to them why does your church not encourage your followers to read your book? If Catholics go to mass every day for the three-year lectionary cycle covering Sundays and holy days they would hear 41% of the New Testament and only 4% of the Old Testament. If we also include the two-year cycle of weekday masses they still would hear only 72% of the New Testament and 14% of the Old Testament. What are you afraid they might find out? Why is it that your church only very selectively picks out what their flock will hear? They seem to keep the nasty bits, the contradictions, inconsistencies, murders, genocides, rapes, incest and illogicalities out of mass goers' ears, and of course some of the nice fluffy allegorical bits that they constantly preach are taken out of context and preached in a different interpretation by each priest without any chance of the sheep querying or questioning the priests interpretation? Nor do your priests ever mention or point out the various contradictions, inaccuracies, and illogicalities in your revelation to their flock. Perhaps that is because they are not aware of them themselves. That is quite possibly true when one considers the number of biblical scholars who actually de-convert as they get more involved and deeper into their biblical studies. I also wonder how many of your priests and hierarchy, with their direct line to you, or so they imply, have actually read your inspired word fully?

Over five hundred and sixty contradictions have been found to date in your Bible as well as many scientific absurdities, historical inaccuracies, misogyny, violence and discrimination against women and homosexuals, genocide, rape, incest and many other moral issues not compatible with an all-loving God. According to your authors you ordered and authorized most of these events, as the Bible is your story. They are definitely blaming you. I think you didn’t supervise your appointed authors very well.

How come so much of the content of the Bible is now being proven on a daily basis to be myth, through archeology, anthropology and of course through biblical analysis and criticism? Some scholars have actually called for an end to biblical studies as they consider it now a pointless exercise. There is no back up evidence for the majority of what is in the Bible. They see it as no different from studying Shakespeare or other old time literature.

Another one of those things that make me wonder about your Bible is why so many of the stories in your Bible are not original. They are actually retellings and versions of ancient stories and myths found in even older pagan literature as scholars are finding out on an almost daily basis.

If your Bible is inspired one would have to accept, coming from an all–knowing god as you are, that it is factually correct in every respect. This is a huge problem because if it is not factually correct in all instances how do we decide what is fact and what is myth, fiction, allegory or metaphor? We are quite aware at this point in time of the many inaccuracies, contradictions, after all if something is true it does not need to be inspired. Inspiration is only required if there is no evidence. Facts don’t require inspiration.

If Adam and Eve are not true characters as evolution shows, then there was no original sin and accordingly you could be just a duality - father and the holy ghost and not a trinity. Without original sin there was really no need for you to create your son Jesus to be incarnated on Earth to be crucified? Big mistake there!

Why do you need apologists or ambassadors to explain all the contradictions, anomalies and unintelligible parts in your inspired and revealed word?

Why after teaching your twelve apostles did you need to have a mental meeting with Paul? Paul seems to have done a better job than your twelve apostles. You either picked twelve thicks or the apostles were not listening to you. That doesn’t say much for your choice or your HR and interview skills.

How do you justify this? It was really Paul who spread your word and not your apostles. They stayed with you for three years and yet failed to pass on your word. Yet one mental meeting with Paul and he converts masses of people! Explain that for me. The apostles appear to have been a bit of a waste of time and energy! Maybe if you had mental meetings with the apostles things might have worked out better.

By the way which version of the Ten Commandments is the correct one is it Exodus 20 or 24 or is it Deuteronomy chapter 5.

Also why did your commandments not include thou shalt not destroy the ecosystem, or mention the immorality of slavery, or that discrimination in any form is wrong, that child abuse is wrong, that the suppression of opinions is wrong and many other things that we now know to be wrong and immoral?

Without going into the hundreds of questions I have for you and which I hope to address in later letters after you have answered this letter, I particularly want to know why children should be punished for the sins of their parents?

Thomas Paine who was a deist and believed in you as the Creator, but did not accept that you interfered in the world after you created it, said in his Age of Reason:

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonorable belief against the Character of the Divinity, the most destructive to morality and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist.

Was Paine right, do you think your revelation was a good thing or a bad thing and if you were starting over would you do it differently again?

How come so many of those who study the Bible seriously and with an open mind no longer believe in you? Serious study of your revelation seems to end up in a disbelief of your inspired word. I think you need a serious, sober, modern writer with a good Dictaphone and word processor and start all over again, because the way things are going God there won’t be too many left reading your current version. I definitely think that after two thousand years, you need to send us a revised version.

And so I have to ask you after all of the above, is the Bible to be taken literally?

If it is then a large amount of explanation is required from you god, due to its many contradictions, absurdities, forgeries, additions, omissions, factual inaccuracies, historical inaccuracies, unintelligible sections, our lack of knowledge of the authors, or of where or when the actual books were written, and the fact that no originals are extant etc. If it not to be taken literally then it needs interpretation. Who is to interpret it and why? Many of those who preach about it, have never read it cover to cover and have made no effort to study it.

One would expect your revelation to be easy to understand and be unchangeable.

All in all god I am very disappointed in your handiwork. It is shoddy. I am also surprised considering you are omniscient and know everything, that you allowed this mess to happen and don’t seem to be doing anything to resolve the issue. You have known since time immemorial that this was going to happen and yet did nothing about it. When I think of all the time I have wasted over the years trying to sort it out, time when I might have been helping others or making the world a better place. Now multiply that by the thousands and millions who have done the same and are still trying. That’s a lot of time wasting that could have been put to better use.

At this point in time there are over 45,000 versions of Christianity. Would you please mind at least telling me which one is correct. Or maybe it was your revelation to Mohammed or Joseph Smith that was correct and not the Christian revelation. If I could just be sure it would make my study and my life so much simpler.

Why by the way did you not write something yourself when you were here on Earth, you were apparently doing nothing for your first thirty years, a time in which you had plenty of time for writing? Why did your Apostles not write down what you said? We have no written words from them either. Strange, when you consider the wonders they saw and heard and particularly as you told them to spread your word?

If you were so keen to reveal your eternal truths, why did you reveal so many inconsistent and different versions to so many different people over such a long period of time? It is also extremely odd that your revelations are so imprecise, inaccurate and in many cases so unpalatable that your church carefully selects the readings for the consumption of your believers, and then we have to deal with the many dreadful atrocities and immoralities which your authors claim you ordered, and authorized.

All in all, after the enormous amount of work and study I have put into over many years trying to understand your revelation, I think you at least owe me a reply.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Noel

⏩ Noel Byrne is a retired Civil Servant and a Humanist, with a principal interest in Philosophy, and a particular interest in Ethics and Morality.

12 comments:

  1. Just a question Noel, why ask "God" these questions regarding a work of Man? (The Bible/Torah/Koran or whatever) What is a "God"? would be far more basic a question to ask I would have thought? And one to further questions?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I know more about Calvinism than I do about Freud - was never drawn to his work. But if both are about the need for people to suppress their dark side one seems a secular version of the religious other. I think posing the question the way I tend to forces me to make a call rather than obfuscate it. Rape was always wrong - it was never right. For that statement to be challenged it would require somebody to stand up and take a different view. But the rules of today's public discourse very much militate against that happening. Yet, if the matter is to be more roundly intellectually explored we need to be able to have the alternative argument heard. I have always found Holloway good.

      Delete
  2. You are definitely for Hell now, Noel. You can't question the Heavenly Hitler in such fashion!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. As meaning making machines humans can't but attempt to create meaning. If, in their vain attempts to do that they create magical and mystical narratives, surely then that's not too difficult to understand?

    Development of cohesiveness in primitive tribes & societies most likely relied upon the formation of 'god narratives'. And even with more advanced civil law systems, how better to consolidate compliance than to underpin civil laws with moralism & religion?

    There's much to be said for Nietzsche's position; no moral events, merely moral interpretation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. HJ,

      The weird thing is Humans are above all curiosity driven, so creating any sort of premise that requires suspension of reason and inquisition is counter to our nature. It's hard to reconcile that our species boogied out of Africa around 100BCE and kept this false pretence for so long. On the flipside Neitzsche , Freud et al were pretty bonkers from STD's in the main or off their tits on cocoa extract so maybe their opinions should be received guardedly.

      Delete
    2. Nietzsche always gave me more to think about than Freud. There are always moral interpretations of the event that have much more going for them in terms of ethics, rigour, logic than other ones. Rape, torture, slavery for example,

      Delete
    3. Rape, torture & slavery are criminal matters. And where evidence exists, offenders ought always be prosecuted.
      Societies and states who fail to implement agreed covenants and laws will eventually reap that which they've sown.

      Delete
    4. That invites the question of how criminal events differ from moral events - is there any criminal event or just interpretation of an event as criminal? For much if not most of human history these things were not outlawed. I still think we can say that at every point in history they were ethically wrong even if they were not criminal offences.

      Delete
    5. Agreed, the spoils of war, including rape and slave taking were the norm and for eons were broadly accepted as such.
      This to me suggests that moral positioning is more subject to social development inputs rather than being an innate human trait.

      We cannot fully comprehend history if we insist on viewing it through current values lens. Nor, I would add can we fully understand ourselves as human animals. To paraphrase Freud, all of our neurotises are grounded in repression, the repression of our lustful and murderous intent. Better that they be corralled by law and statute rather than moralisations,

      Delete
    6. Richard Holloway wrote what I consider to be a very illuminating book on morality and its evolution. He was the bishop of Edinburgh but became an atheist or after-religionist as he termed it.
      Moral positioning is pretty much as you described it but I am reluctant to go as far as to say it is just interpretation from without and that there are no fixed moral positions. There is certainly nothing transcendental spiritual to it). The science of morality (itself a contentious topic) holds that people can reason their way to what is ethically right and wrong. I always ask myself when considering this type of matter, at what point in human history was rape ever right? And that question is prompted by the golden rule of humanism. Freud. as you depict him, sounds not much different from Calvinism. But I do think Martin Luther King was onto something when he said the law cannot make a man love him but it might stop a man lynching him.

      Delete
    7. For me, Freud's position is the antithesis of Calvinism. It's about what Jung described as the integration of the shadow. In my experience the most wholesome humans are those who can own their darker drives. (but as we're reminded on the bottom of every page on TPQ, becoming whole is inevitably painful).

      At what stage was the praxis of rape ever right?
      I think framing the question in that way limits potential for
      understanding, of accessing deeper and greater truths.

      The brutalised will tend to brutalise.
      Those who endured long campaigns which included fight to
      the death close combat experiences benefitted from the accepted norms of their time; pillage and rape all went with
      the turf.

      (I've heard you recommend Holloway before, must find time to check him out. Love his self-description as after-religionist. Linguistically and observationally, atheism describes something else).

      Delete
  4. Agreed Steve, Freud, Nietzsche et al may have been experiencing a different neurosis, different to that pertaining amongst the herd of their time. Yet I'd contend their experiences, observations and interpretations added greatly to our understanding of the human condition.

    Yes, all opinions ought be guardedly received. However on critical appraisal, Freud's understanding of the human condition, later exemplified and utilised to immense effect by his nephew Edward Bernays in the PR, propaganda and marketing domains, influenced and shaped our current collective lived world experience more than that of any of history's great religious, political or military leaders; perhaps even greater than all of them put together; leaving a world wide society of mindless consumers rather than one of discerning citizens?

    ReplyDelete