The Bible form of philosophy is indeed dogmatic and rigid with little regard for flexibility of general belief.
However, the Bible can be used to produce a wide range of varying specific beliefs.
For example, Universalists claim that all will get to heaven, Calvinists declare that predestination determines the fate of all, Catholics have their saints, Baptists have their full water immersion rituals, and Preterists claim that Jesus already returned.
Each Christian sect picks the parts of the Bible it likes the sound of and then weaves their own teachings around these selected verses.
It's been said many times that you can invent all sorts of denominations using the Bible as a reference and there are hundreds of Christian denominations, each claiming to have the best interpretation of the Bible centering around a figure called Jesus.
Philosophies or beliefs which don't meet this minimum requirement are considered and declared "false" beliefs.
The New Testament does not encourage differing views on what the universe is or how it was set up.
The patriarchal system of the Bible which starts with a male warrior God becomes a male oriented belief system based on the warrior God's son Jesus, who only appears in the New Testament.
In order for this belief system called Christianity(which declares that it is the only true way to God), to maintain it's position of power, it must discredit other beliefs which don't agree with the New Testament perspective.
This is usually accomplished by advertising that Jesus is predicted in the Old Testament over 600-800 times and that the New Testament must be true because of all the prophecies about Jesus that are found in the Old Testament which came "true"(true because the New Testament says so…i.e. circular logic).
These "prophecies" were almost all creatively manufactured by the New Testament writers by snipping small excerpts from the Old Testament scriptures and claiming they are really about Jesus. There are many good skeptical and Jewish books and websites which expose these "references" to Jesus as being spurious at best.
In other words, Christians like to read Jesus anywhere into the Old Testament that they can.
They then claim that the Bible must be true because there are so many references to Jesus in the Old Testament.
Only by digging deeper into the issue is it revealed that these amazing "references and fulfilled prophecies" require some very wishful thinking.
But in order for Bible believers to assert that they have a monopoly on the "word of God" and that other philosophies are bogus they need to address a few basic questions:
1) When was the modern Bible compiled and who decided what writings were to be included in it?
2) Who and what determine which writings are inspired by "God"?
3) Have any additional "inspired by God writings" been produced in the past 2,000 years?
4) Since the Bible God often changes his mind, what are his latest thoughts on current events?
5) What if God has changed his mind and no longer agrees with some of his previous instructions to humans?
How does a believer know that he has the very latest word from God?
6) Since Bible believers acknowledge the existence of the supernatural, couldn't it be possible that the Bible may have actually been inspired not by "God", but an alien posing as a "God".
How can any believer be sure that the inspired word is from "God" and not another possible higher life form simply posing as a "God"? If humans have limited perception of the universe then there is no real reason to take anything taught by men as being 100% accurate.
If anyone decides to give their praise and worship to something, it would make sense to be very sure exactly what you are worshipping and telling others to worship to be "saved".
Bible believers will assert that they have "faith" in their God but can they really be certain what that God is? Perhaps it's not what they think it is.
Any book which declares that "disbelief" (Mark 16:16, John 3:18, Heb 3:12) and failure to come to a particular conclusion will land a person in hell needs to be looked at very carefully.
Robotic worship and efforts to indoctrinate others through threats of hellfire would seem to be the agenda of a power hungry entity.
Naturally, you can get answers to these questions from believers, but how does an inquiring and rational person evaluate the quality of the answers?
Those of us who question doctrine and long held beliefs are not satisfied with answers such as:
1) "The Bible says it's true and therefore it must be believed."
---or:
2) "God has given us a complete set of instructions and no further holy writings are needed."
---or perhaps the response:
3) "You cannot attempt to question the ways of God, you must have faith and believe."
If the underlying premise of the Bible God being the only true deity to be worshipped is flawed, then the entire theological construct called Christianity only represses thought and investigation of other philosophies.
It's been said that the light of examination shouldn't bother God. To that statement I say, Amen.
Alternate philosophies and beliefs, if nothing else, provide a reference point for the mind and soul of any person.
One must seek, sample and ponder the merits and points made by other beliefs which often conflict with our own.
How can a person know what their true beliefs are if they're too scared to sample other beliefs for fear of angering God?
Perhaps the following excerpt from "Thus spoke Zarathustra"; will resonate with those who desire to explore differing philosophies rather than simply accept that only one is "true" and the "word of God":
"Behold the believers of all beliefs! Whom do they hate most?
The man who breaks up their tables of values, the breaker, the law-breaker- yet he is the creator.
The creator seeks companions, not corpses- and not herds or believers either.
The creator seeks fellow-creators - those who grave new values on new law-tablets.
The creator seeks companions and fellow-reapers: for everything is ripe for the harvest with him."
No comments:
Post a Comment