100 Reasons to Doubt

RIP Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

I was watching television last night listening to seven buffoons postulate on why they should hold the most powerful position in the world.  Each gave reasons citing God, country, tradition, and war as the virtues they intended to trumpet if they were so lucky as to receive the throne of King of America.

As I listened to Rick Perry and Megyn Kelly fumble their words, Michelle Bachmann rewrite history, Jon Huntsman toss poorly constructed one-liners, Newt and Romney point dirty fingers at one another, I got bored and started browsing my Twitter feed. 

“Oh, no. Christopher Hitchens has died,” said Sun Times movie critic and former television personality, Roger Ebert.

“Shit.”  I audible spoke the words despite the fact that I was alone and immediately felt my shoulders slump in surrender.  I had hoped he’d beat this thing. 

I knew Hitch had gone to Houston to start serious treatment.  I know his friends turned a recent conversation on God into a sort of living memorial (Hitch hadn’t died by then but if you watch the tributes prepared by Sean Penn, Stephen Fry and others you wouldn’t know that).  They seemed to be saying goodbye to him.

I read Hitchens’s contributions to Vanity Fair and Slate every month and his wit and polemics seemed as strong as ever.  If his mind is still good, I thought, then he has much longer to live.  But ironically, Hitch didn’t make it to see Christmas this year.

When I was first introduced to Hitch several years ago, I was in the midst of my own struggle with faith, doubt, and anger over the rise of the fundamentalist movement.  Like fellow “Horseman” Sam Harris, I saw 9/11 as the ultimate event that should end our honeymoon with the virtue of faith.  Movies like M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs were devoid of meaning in a post-9/11 world. 

Faith doesn’t save us.  It flies fucking planes into fucking buildings.

And now the Horseman are missing a rider.  Many of us that champion skepticism would probably fantasize about taking up Hitchens’s “cross” (it is impossible to avoid these comparisons although I know Hitch would not approve).  Where the Palestinian carpenter promoted something he called “The Kingdom”, we would promote reason.

Hitch is dead.  He is not in the great beyond.  He is not sipping tea with Tolstoy and Thomas Paine.  Nor is he in hell acting out Dante’s fantasies of hot pokers prodding at his heels as he screams in agony wishing he had abandoned reason and embraced faith. He has ceased to exist.  Hitchens is as he was in 1948, a year before he was born.  His matter will return to the ground, “dust to dust” and will be used by other creatures to continue the circle of life. 

So then, the challenge for all of us is to be the forth Horseman of the Apocalypse.  Because Hitchens is dead.  His words, however, should live on.  Like Thomas Paine who so elegantly said that all religions are man made institutions to monopolize greed and power, the battle of the skeptic rages on.

Last night pastors (“pastor” (noun): a man with no marketable skills who begs people for donations in exchange for telling them what God thinks) Rick Warren and Lee Strobel declared triumphantly regarding Hitchens’s demise…

“Now he knows the truth.” 

These are the words of God’s men?  Celebrating what they believe to be Hitchens’s entrance into an eternity of suffering and agony by a God who loves us so much he sent his son that whosoever believes what was written about him during a primitive and illiterate time in history will avoid God’s macabre justice.  North Korea with harps.

RIP Hitch

Eve was quite the temptress getting Adam to eat that apple and all her sons to bonk her!  Talk about family values!  This is one of the most fundamental flaws of the bible-leaving stuff out. The bible takes great care on many details and leaves others absent. If it was truly inspired by god, you would think he would have made sure EVERYTHING got written down so we wouldn’t be bothering him with all these nitpicky questions!

Reason #69: Cain’s wife

Creationist use the genealogies presented in the bible as their sole method to date the earth.  If you assume Jesus was born in A.D. 0 and count backwards eventually you can get to Adam and Eve.  

The only problem is the bible makes a massive leap in population in the second generation after Adam and Eve; so we know who the two naked people with the fig leaves are but who comes after them?  Well they had two boys named Cain and Abel, which presents us with the following head scratcher in Genesis 4:

Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch (Genesis 4:17)

Wait a minute…we know Abel was killed by Cain, his brother.  So the current U.S. population stands at THREE: Adam, Eve and Cain.  Who is Cain’s wife?  You don’t mean….Cain had sex with his MOTHER do you?

But then it gets worse.  Cain starts having some sons with names that are almost impossible to pronounce and HIS sons start having kids with more phantom women:

Lamech married two women, one named Adah and the other Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. (Genesis 4:19)

Where did Adah and Zillah come from?  My head hurts.

Why This Makes Me Doubt

The creationism account is fraught with problems, it’s incoherent, unscientific and burdened with legendary details.  Using the lineage of Adam and Even to date the earth is as scientific as treating your burst appendix with prayer.  Did anyone even proof read these stories for continuity?

If you buy the idea that Adam and Eve were the first human beings then you must also accept that they lived to be about nine-hundred years old (although Abel seemed to die easy enough), had incestual relationships or even had sex with their children (maybe they WERE Mormons, afterall?).  

I think the bizarre genealogical leaps, including Cain’s wife, are an excellent reason to doubt the literal account of Genesis. 

Reason #70: Talking animals

Do you believe animals can talk?  Do you believe there was a time where a snake could tempt you or that an ass would cry out and pain and ask you to stop beating it?  

It’s not unusual to read a story about a talking donkey or his lovable friend, the ogre named Shrek in popular movies, talking animals are a classic feature of fairy tales.  But how are we supposed to believe the bible as a literal, true, word of God when all the animals can’t stop having conversations with people?

Then the LORD opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?”

Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now.”

The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”

“No,” he said.

And then there’s the ssssnake:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (Genesis 3:1)

According to the story of Genesis, God created the snake about six days before this event occurred.  It didn’t take long for those snakes to develop a devilish a reputation as being ‘crafty’.  

Why This Makes Me Doubt

I find it unbelievable that there are still conscious homo sapiens arguing for a literal exposition of the book of Genesis.  How much do you have to abandon all sorts of basic (basic!) thinking to believe that snakes and donkeys have the mental capacity or the vocal configuration or that they even possess a more rational point of view than human beings.  

There is no place in modern society for anyone who thinks that Balam and his donkey had a philosophical argument or a talking snake brought on the downfall of man and the expulsion from the garden of evil.  C’mon people.

The talking animals of the bible and the central role they play in the unfolding of the events, I believe, is a serious reason to doubt the reliability of the bible.

Reason #71: Jesus pours out his wrath on a fig tree

When was the last time you reached in to your refrigerator for a carton of milk only to find that some inconsiderate person had left the container with only a few drops of ice cold skim milk?  How frustrating, right?  You probably cursed the shameless milk hoarder.

Luckily, Jesus shares your frustration.  

One day while out with the apostles, Matthew describes how Jesus, infected with a serious case of the munchies, came upon a succulent fruit tree only to find it was completely barren of the sweet figgy goodness he so desired.  Jesus, the man who could create bread and fish from nothing, became incensed (at the tree!) and cursed the fig tree causing it to magically wither and die right before the apostles eyes.  

 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered. (Matthew 21:19)

A better trick might have been to grow some fruit on it.  

I imagine Peter must have said something akin to, “Very impressive, boss.  You think maybe you could conjure up some lunch instead of pouring your wrath out on a Granny Smith?”

But seriously, why be angry at…the tree?  Is Jesus telling us that trees sometimes withhold their fruit out of disobedience?  What if the fruit had already been harvested?  What if there simply wasn’t enough water to sustain the fig tree?  

Why This Makes Me Doubt

If Jesus was hungry and, as the story describes, had magical powers, why not use those powers to feed himself and the disciples?  What is the source of frustration here, folks?

Many theologians believe this story is not about Jesus being hungry, but a metaphor for what God will choke out believers who don’t produce fruit.  So rest easy, Jesus loves you and so hopes you’ll find your Best Life Now(TM).  

Producing fruit, essentially, is the practice of bringing people to church and winning converts.  (Which is how churches get paid) Church is a fruit salad.  

Let’s suspend reason and say that story is true.  Jesus, in a moment of anger, used his magical powers to wither a fruit tree.  Wouldn’t that, at least, show Jesus displaying some reckless anger…at nature?  

If you could snap your fingers and make a sweet dessert appear why would you take a bat to the hostess at the Cheesecake Factory if they ran out of cherries jubilee?  The story is incoherent, silly, and is heavy-handed in its efforts to convince us that God is going to choke us if we don’t help grow our local church.

I think the bizarre story of Jesus putting a fig tree into a choke hold is an excellent reason to doubt the coherency of Jesus being a loving and gentle messiah.  

Reason #72: No testicles, no heaven

What are we to do with the Old Testament?  Early church father, Marcion said we should throw it out as rubbage and start Christianity fresh with the life and ministry of Jesus. He was declared a heretic and the early church decided to create a theology that said both books were harmonious revelations.  One of a pre-Christian worldview and one of a post-Christian worldview.

Jesus often quoted from the book of Deuteronomy (Mark 12:28 and others), he was very familiar with the law. He believed the law was sent by God (his father).  I wish someone had asked Jesus to explain the idea that a man who has had his testicles crushed or removed cannot go to Heaven.  Are you listening Lance Armstrong?

No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the LORD (Deut 23:1)

Remember, Jews knew nothing of what we would call “Heaven”—their usage of the word always described the literal sky above their heads—this verse means they were forbidden from Jewish worship in the temple.  Not participating in worship and sin atonement would certainly not give them favor with God.  Let’s be clear: no testicles, you are an enemy of God.

Now, I know you’re already thinking about the eunich who was saved by Philip (Acts 8:36).  Yes, after Jesus, it was definitely OK to have no testicles.  In fact, Paul almost seems to RECOMMEND living like this as he prescribes himself as one with no sexual proclivities (1 Corinthians 7:7).  It is no surprise, with passages like these, that the bible and Christianity is so deeply terrified of sexuality.

Why This Makes Me Doubt

The mutilation of the genitals of children, as author Christopher Hitchens often notes, is an entirely RELIGIOUS practice.  People are forced to do such strange things to their bodies because God supposedly ordered them to do it.  And if you don’t do the right thing for the right reason then THAT act alone might have been enough to get you thrown into hell. 

This teaching is so dramatically contradictory to the teachings of Jesus that it’s unbelievable that the two are considered to be part of one faith.  Could the bible be more incoherent?  If you’re still not convinced, listen to Jesus himself on this very topic:

For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it. (Matthew 19:12)

A non-religious person would NEVER castrate themselves for hoping to please God and would find themselves exactly in the middle of the most reasonable position.  Only a true believer, such as a Heaven’s Gate cult member, would mutilate their bodies in hopes it would please the sky.

I think the prerequisite of having testicles and the simultaneous support of asexuality is a serious reason to doubt the coherency of the bible and the claim that it is divinely inspired.

Reason #73: The angel and the healing pool

The Gospel of John has some of the most interesting and simultaneously bizarre accounts of Jesus’s life.  One of the more questionable events is recorded in John 5:4.  Don’t bother checking your bible for it, later bible scholars removed the verse (most bibles skip from 3 to 5).  

From time to time an angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters. The first one into the pool after each such disturbance would be cured of whatever disease they had. (John 5:4)

I’m not sure what’s weirder, the fact that an angel is healing people or the fact that said angel is doing it through the magic of rippling water.  The man Jesus heals (the story takes on a whole different meaning without the above verse) complains he can’t get into the water fast enough before the ripples stop.  Why ripples?  Jesus heals the man forgoing the miracle jacuzzi. 

Without John 5:4, the pool of Bethesda is just a soaking pit where the lame and disabled can sit and woe their aching bones. But put the verse back, now we have a spring of magical powers where the sick are running to get in, perhaps trampling over each other.  Nevermind the fact that there is a real life ANGEL sitting there, it’s the water we’re interested in, man!

I searched through some bible commentaries to help explain why modern bibles have omitted this verse and claimed it to be spurious.  Here is one laughable explantion from Barnes’s commentary:

One difficulty has been that no such place as this spring is mentioned by Josephus

Since when did we start caring about what Josephus says?  After all, Josephus barely mentions Jesus at all and never mentions the disciples.  If this is our standard, let’s throw out the whole book, shall we?

Why This Makes Me Doubt

The editors of the bible worked hard to keep pagan influences from creeping into their text but some fragments still remain.  The healing pool of Bethesda and its magical rippling waters is such a head scratcher the conclusion finally became, “Just take the verse out!”  

This has been the default approach to studying the bible for hundreds of years.  When Thomas Jefferson couldn’t accept the miracles of Christ he removed them, creating the Jefferson Bible preserving what, he thought, was the true story of Christ.  But how can we trust a single word of this text?  It is not historical, it is overtly pagan and mystical and not written by an objective historian.  

I think the angel and healing pool story (and it’s omission) is a serious reason to doubt the bible as the literal, historical word of God.  

Thank you for the kind note!  

Reason #74: Who exactly was at the tomb?

The crux of the Christian faith lies in whether or not Jesus really proved to be the son of God by rising from the dead proving that he had dominion over heaven and hell.  No event could be more important in the pages of the New Testament than the testimony of those who saw Jesus alive again.  

But sadly, the bible seems to fumble this story as it does the details of so many other events in the bible.  I ask, why this story?  Why not get your facts straight, folks?  You may be aware of the differences in the empty tomb story accounts, but here is a quick summary for you of how each Gospel records the event:

MATTHEW

Visitors: Mary Magdalene and “other” Mary

Reason for visit: to look at the tomb

Time: Sunday morning

Extra: Violent earthquake

Tomb: An angel of the Lord rolled the stone and sat on it, Jesus then appears, women drop to their knees and worship him

MARK

Visitors: Mary (mother of James), Mary Magdalene, Salome

Time: Sunday morning

Reason for visit: continue Jewish burial rituals

Tomb: Saw a young man in a white robe, women ran away in fear

LUKE

Visitors: “the women”

Time: Sunday morning

Reason for visit: continue Jewish burial rituals

Tomb: stone rolled away, two men appear and ask “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

JOHN

Visitors: Mary Magdalene 

Time: Sunday morning (while it was still dark)

Tomb: empty, stone rolled away

Extra: runs to Simon Peter and John, whom Jesus loved, and cries “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb.”  They return to see the empty tomb.  Later, while Mary weeps, who angels appear seated where Jesus’s body had been.  She turned and saw Jesus standing there.

Why This Makes Me Doubt

As you may be aware, Matthew and Luke both share source material taken from the book of Mark. This is called the “Synoptic Problem.”  So it is no surprise to find that these accounts harmonize much more than the multiple events reported by the Gospel of John (they don’t see anything, they go, they come back, they weep, they see Jesus).

Notice the different responses to seeing Jesus.  In Matthew, they worship him while in Mark, the women run away afraid.  What a difference, no?  It’s like the difference between seeing President Obama or a werewolf.  Are you awed or are you afraid?  

The writers of Mark were concerned about this difference as well, so they decided to write a new ending to the book which is found in our bible today.  According to Dr. Bart Ehrman, our oldest manuscripts conclude with the account of the women running in terror.  But if you open your bible today, you will see a small addendum, added centuries later, intended to give the story a better ending:

   9 When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. 10 She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. 11 When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

   12 Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. 13 These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.

   14 Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

   15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 16 Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

   19 After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. 20 Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it.  (Mark 16:9-20)

Much better, the writers of Mark must have said to themselves as they reviewed their happier, more purposeful ending.  Now the women not only don’t end the story in terror, but we get Jesus and the instruction of the Great Commission as well.  It’s a win-win for everyone! 

The resurrection account is the linchpin of Christianity. The apostle Paul says that if Christ is not raised then there is no life beyond death:

And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith  (1 Cor 15:14)

So why couldn’t the apostles (and Luke and Mark) get their stories straight?  If we were to glean the agreeable facts from each of the stories to try and come to the truth our result would be this:

“some people claimed the tomb was empty and said they saw some angels”

That is the basis of the entire Christian faith, this ONE claim testified by non eyewitness accounts in four gospels.  But isn’t this the exact claim of EVERY monotheistic religion from Islam to Mormonism to Branch Davidians to the Heaven’s Gate cult?  People have made claims of seeing angels and receiving revelation (in private of course) many times!  Certainly we don’t take every claim as if it were true, do we?  The claims of Christianity have no more historical or provable evidence than the accounts of Mohammad or Joseph Smith.  It may be unpleasant to believe, but it is the truth!  

The empty tomb stories are, maybe, one of the strongest reasons to doubt.

Reason #75: The Nephilim

After the fall of man, the bible seems to indicate that God was getting very frustrated with his creation.  Maybe God wondered why He had made a mistake in creating anything at all.  

But then something happened that really upset God, something he never could have expected.  The angels started having sex with humans, and from their illicit affair came a monstrous human/angel hybrid called, the “Nephilim.” 

…the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. (Gen 6:2,4)

You’re probably wondering what a child of an angel and a human might look like.  Well, apparently the Nephilim were incredibly large:

But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (Numbers 13:31-32)

Why This Makes Me Doubt

The conventional wisdom regarding angels has always been that they are spiritual beings, not physical ones (hence the reason we never see them).  But the Nephilim are physical offspring of angels which seems to contradict Jesus’s own teaching that angels don’t reproduce or have sex:

At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven (Matthew 22:30)

The story of the Nephilim is a head scratcher, which is why it is rarely mentioned in churches today.  A more likely explanation that does not require jumping through logical hoops is that the story of angels fornicating with human beings has its roots in the pagan polytheism that predated Judaism.  

The story of hell, Satan and his fallen angels is a literary trainwreck.  There is no consistent narrative on who the Horned Fellow might be, what happened to those demons Jesus cast into a pig (Matthew 8:32), or why Satan (just a lowly angel himself) was able to offer Jesus (God in Flesh) the whole world (Luke 4:6).  

Angels having sex with human beings and producing a mutated offspring of giant beasts, I think is a serious reason to doubt the inerrancy of the bible.