Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived[ Isaac Asimov]
Friends, I know those of you who have followed this blog long enough have read the post I wrote a while back on my journey of faith. I have in the past at different intervals kept a diary/ journal. This has not usually been very consistent. Why am telling you this is because today I found some journal entries I made towards the end of March 2011.
It reads
These are notes of a believer out on journey of truth. A journey that leads to knowing what is true and false about those beliefs that until now has been held and treated as sacrosanct.
It starts with looking to find if indeed the bible is actually the inspired word of god. To find out if Jesus was a special son of god or was as all believers are sons of god?
At the end, the believer wants to find out about god and then find himself. In looking at the bible critically, the believer acknowledges that where god has spoken, this has been clear requiring no interpretations and where it was through a prophet of god, an explanation always followed so that it was always clear in his intentions.
Many times in online debates with theists, many of them have taken the position that the atheist has not sought god sincerely. I don’t know about you, but at this point in time, I had really high hopes about meeting god. I think what I believed about the bible is here quite evident. Any theist who thinks my disbelief is because of a misfortune that befell at some point in the past. No, no, I have lived quite a jolly good life and although the death of mom 5 years prior was a low point, I had always believed that the god I had been taught to believe in was real. Am here now, a non believer for several reasons; I know better, there are no gods and while at it, whatever is meant by god hasn’t been defined to allow me or any rational person to make a judgement on whether such a being could exist.
It is important to add here that I was nudged in this direction by two close Muslim friends of mine who had said there were contradictions in the bible, something I wouldn’t accept. So I took them on their word, bought a notebook and set out to find out if this was really the case. Whatever happened after that, as they say, is now history.
My notes on the same day lists chapters that contradict each other. I will list the verses below and suggest you dust your bible from wherever you keep it and read them for yourself
We have 1 Kings 15:14 and 2 Chronicles 14:3
1 Timothy 6:16 and Exodus 33:11, Genesis 32:30
James 1:13, Deut 32:4 and Jeremiah 18:11
On 28th March 2011
James 5:11 and Joshua 10:11
Isaiah 1:11-13, Jeremiah 6:20 and Exodus 29:36
On 31st March 2011
Mathew 5:16 and Mathew 6:1
Luke 12:4 and John 7:1
I can’t find all the other notes where I wrote them.
Random thoughts 
Mak – If you ever decide you want to expand that list, this should keep you busy for a couple of years —
http://contradictionsinthebible.com/how-the-bible-was-discovered-to-be-a-collection-of-contradictory-texts/
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Thanks for the link mate!
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PS – subscribe to it, and you’ll get a fresh contradiction in your email day!
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Done
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If one should sincerely seek god, and eventually finds him, how do we know that this will be the christian god?
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If you asked me that question back then, I think I would have had an answer for you. As it is, I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it.
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The point is, that every theist believes his version of god is the right one, and ignore all other possible conceptions of god we know of.
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Indeed, at that point I knew Muslims, Protestants & any non catholic were wrong, how they were wrong is a matter of speculation!
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The problem with every contradictory verse is that as far as a believer is concerned they are simply not contradictory and if anyone says they are then they are unable to understand god’s word.
And all the people who deconverted because of such things were never proper Christians in the first place, right?
Of course not.
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I think they just find it hard to imagine that what they have hitherto believed to be inspired word of god is free of error. And they have mind numbing ways to rationalize any contradiction that you or I will identify!
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Denial is part and parcel of fundamentalism. This is why kids are inculcated to make them immune to criticism. After enough time in the company of fanatical religious types they become inured to reason.
However, there is always hope and, like you, something ‘flips the switch’ and once the first question is asked, it isn’t long before the flood gates open.
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Indeed, once the gates open, you can’t tell where the questions will stop
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It’s odd replying to this while in this center where everyone is soooooo heavily Christian. At this moment, one of the them is saying the almost-adage: How do you think you got here? (Talking about, I guess, some non-believer she talked to)
I’m no longer at Johns Hopkins, and I’ve noticed I’ve traded brains and aspiration for beauty and energy. At JHU, there were about four people in the anime club. Here? I haven’t even made a club yet, but the planning of it involves about a dozen people each week, all of their own volition.
In any case, there are some sacrifices to be made, and I don’t like how people don’t think that you haven’t weighed all the options. Especially when they don’t apply that to other religions- like Islam, for example. Why can’t you apply the same logic for how you treat other religions, but are so easy to say I didn’t try hard enough and am taking the easy way out? How come you blame my disillusion with god as quitting on him, and not disbelief based on multiple lines of replicable evidence- personal and empirical- as you do with Islam?
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Here at home, if you throw a stone, you are most definitely going to hit a believer in a deity so there is never any point in saying very christian or religious, it is the basic assumption. A few days ago I had this close friend ask me where I get my morals or where did we come from if I say there are no gods.
I was asked why I didn’t even become muslim. Atheist, no, that is taking it too far! It is a proposition that many people don’t want to even consider.
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Here is 1 Kings 15:14: “The high places did not disappear; yet Asa’s heart was entirely with the Lord as long as he lived.”
Here is 2 Chronicles 14:3: “He (Asa) commanded Judah to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, and to observe the law and its commands.”
How do those verses contradict each other?
Here is James 1:13: “Nobody, when he finds himself tempted, should say, I am being tempted by God. God may threaten us with evil, but he does not himself tempt anyone.”
Here is Deuteronomy 32:4: “the God who shelters us, how perfect is all he does, how right are all his dealings! God, faithful and unerring, God, holy and just!”
Here is Jeremiah 18:11: “Be this, then, thy message from the Lord to Juda’s folk, to the citizens of Jerusalem: Ill days I have in store for you; all my plans are laid; time that each one of you should return from the false path, shape aims and thoughts anew.”
How do those verses contradict each other?
I suppose anybody can argue anything but it looks as though you drank the atheist Kool Aid at one of their trash websites and then came here and did a cut and paste job hoping no one would actually check the Bible verses.
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Oh it is you! Let us do this systematically, shall we?
1 Kings 15:13-14 He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen mother, because she had made a horrid image as an Asherah; and Asa cut down her horrid image and burned it at the brook Kidron. 14But the high places were not taken away; nevertheless the heart of Asa was wholly devoted to the LORD all his days.
and
2 Chronicles 14: 2-3 Asa did good and right in the sight of the LORD his God, for he removed the foreign altars and high places, tore down the sacred pillars, cut down the Asherim
so tell me, did Asa remove high places or were they left in place? for these verses are talking about the same person and the same incident. Either the high places were taken away or they were kept but not both you idiot!
Next we have
James 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;
Deut 32:4 He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he. and
Jeremiah 18: 11 “Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the LORD says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’
So tell me, which is that your god does? Does he tempt people and have evil plans against them or not? Do I have to teach comprehension as well?
I don’t know if you are naturally stupid and obnoxious or your have your head up your ass! Well, if you read the post, I wrote the timeline when these notes were written. Your idiocy prevents you from seeing the obvious. And if it will help you, I checked those verses, all of them before I wrote them here and I didn’t copy paste if that is what you think. Besides, if I didn’t write, I should have mentioned that the contradictions are subtle and can be explained but contradictions all the same.
Having said that, this is your last comment on this blog. You can, if you want rant about it anywhere, but am not in the business of entertaining idiots such as you! I allow any comment from anyone as long as they can keep their insults to themselves!
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Usually I allow anyone to disagree with me and even correct me where am wrong. I have seen you comment on several blogs and your responses apart from being uncivil are insult after insult and I honestly don’t have the time to warn about this or that. So I will exercise that discretion and disallow your comments. Thanks for taking time to read and comment but you are not welcome here.
I have seen your response to mine where you claim we are desperate. Something must be really wrong with you. I said those journal entries were in 2011. If you read the entry itself, there is no indication whatsoever that I was an atheist or even close to being one. Then you say my passages and yours are different, I don’t edit bibles, I don’t have the time to do so.Besides last I checked I was informed there are as many as 800 plus translations of the good book, there is a hell lot of choice, don’t you agree?
There is nowhere in that post where am arguing for atheism. I have just copied a journal entry with a small commentary and it appears to you as a defense for atheism, something it isn’t!
Adios silence of mind!
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I went back to your link of an earlier post. Yes, I had read and commented.
Your journal entries in this post are from March 2011. You write that “at this point in time, I had really high hopes about meeting god.” It seems that it has not been that long ago that you gave up on finding god. And that of course matters not! It only matters that you realized the hide and seek was over. I just was under the impression with all your writings that it had been a much longer time.
Just a worthless observation. 😦
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Haha :-P. Not a worthless observation my friend! It is reading what others who went ahead of me that has in many cases inspired my writing. And knowing wonderful people like you have also been a positive influence on my way to naturalism!
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… And then your path brought you to this gem:
http://bibviz.com/
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I think I bookmarked it someplace.
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Why aren’t my comments showing up?
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They are.
I have changed the comment setting so the comments are not threaded. I will see how it goes. If I don’t like it, I will go back to the threaded comment setting.
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I can’t see them. Eeeek!
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That’s interesting since I see all your comments unless there are others you have written and have not shown up here
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…And then your path brought you to this gem:
http://bibviz.com/
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In the environment I grew up in Germany, people taking the bible literally were absent. I know it from the generation of my great-grandfather, but after that, people took the bible only allegorically, if they took it at all. People who take it literally are regarded as fundamentalists, belonging to (possibly dangerous and suspicious) sects, and such people are small minorities. I think about half the people here are atheists and among the theists, many are some kind of free thinkers.
After the reformation, the Catholic Church lost its grip and Christianity split up into countless sects.
Historically, after the 30 years’ war in the 17th century, which was a very bloody war between Catholics and Protestants, a peace treaty was made with the principle of “eius regio cuius religio”, meaning that the ruler of a country determines the religion. So there was either Catholic or protestant, in most cases Lutheran, state religion. Minority groups emigrated, normally to America. As a result, the US got all kinds of groups that Europeans would regard as strange, suspicious and dangerous sects. Later, the power of the churches diminished during the late 18th and the 19th century (due to the French Revolution, the Napoleonic reforms, the spread of constitutionalism, the industrial revolution, modern science, urbanization, the rise of literacy etc.). Some Churches adapted by becoming less dogmatic. Many people left the churches or turned into atheists. The society secularized. Many people probably also lost faith during World War I and World War II, due to the terrible things that happened.
The form of Christianity that was introduced by the Missionaries into Africa is a form that you might find in the US but hardly in Europe itself. It was already on retreat in the 19th and early 20th centuries when it was spread in the colonies. It seems medieval to me. African cultures were destroyed and replaced by a severely restricted, reduced and shrunken form of European civilization that had been surpassed already in Europe by enlightenment, secularization and pluralism. I see this more or less fundamentalist interpretation of religion that is so wide spread in Africa as one of the main hindrances to development in Africa.
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Thank you nannus for such an insightful comment. The missionaries destroyed rich African traditions and in many ways the growth and spread of christianity has become a major hindrance to freeing up Africa from bigotry, hate and other problems associated with religion.
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Another awesome post, friend! I’m unable to reference the discrepancies as to the bible, I don’t have one! However, I trust your determination (and I’m too busy/lazy to check them online). Nice job!
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There is a link in the comments by John Z that gives the many contradictions. It would take you ages to go through them all and then what? Take a walk in the park, go to the nude beach and count the birds, that’s more fun that looking at the ol’ book of fairy tales
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So true! I trust your judgment in these matters! Much love and naked hugs!
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One of my favorite pastimes is reading old notebooks and journal entries! Our paths look strikingly similar and perhaps I will share mine one day. Anyway, I’m glad you were honest and open enough to begin the journey, because many are not… but I don’t need to tell you that.
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I have over the years at different intervals jotted things down. I have a diary I kept I think sometime between 2008 and 09 which has quite a lot of religious stuff.
Am glad I did start the journey and I like it.
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John Zande – interesting link you gave up there with the arcing bubble plot. I’m going to look more on that.
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I am glad you opened your diary (as I suggested you) and that you found it interesting enough to dedicate a post about it. It’s always nice to remember what our thoughts were at the time and how we have evolved.
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Oh yes, I like your diary entries and I thought this was quite interesting. I have other journal entries written at a time I was searching for god, a time, the word atheist had never become part of my vocabulary! Maybe someday I could share a few more.
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Looking forward to it. 🙂
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Great post Mak and what a journey that was. Thanks for sharing. 😀
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