The Bible Series: Examining the Truth: Part 2

"The Wickedness of Mankind"

Sometimes it amazes me that God could have been so cruel. It is a big contradiction that a supposed very loving God would stoop so low. I do not assume that these articles I am publishing will make me any friends. Quite the opposite actually. I grew up Catholic. As such, I have heard it said a couple times that I do not believe in God because I was raised Catholic. Is that true? I would imagine so. It was the very strict Catholic prayer rituals and various other "rules" that first made me start to ask questions. In addition, the fact that I was inquisitive was frowned upon and that in particular got me more curious. I thought to myself, "why is the fact that I am wondering about these things a problem? Why is gaining more knowledge something that I should not seek?"

There is a lot about God that I will explore during this series of articles. I am not yet sure how far this will go. How many articles will I write and how far into the Bible will they go? Right now I am just playing it all as it comes. The one thing that I have always had a problem with in the Bible is the outright cruelness of God. God has always been touted as a loving God, a forgiving God. So that being the case why should he be so mean?

Noah

"When mankind had spread all over the world, and girls were being born, some of the supernatural beings saw that these girls were beautiful, so they took the ones they liked. Then the Lord said, "I will not allow people to live forever; they are mortal. From now on they will live no longer than 120 years." In those days and even later there were giants on the Earth who were descendants of human women and the supernatural beings. They were the great heroes and famous men of long ago.

When the Lord saw how wicked everyone on earth was and how evil their thoughts were all the time, he was sorry that he ever made them and put them on the earth. He was so filled with regret that he said, "I will wipe out these people I have created, and also the animals and the birds because I am sorry that I made any of them." But the Lord was pleased with Noah.

So.. the entire world, that he created, had turned to evil. God was very displeased with the thoughts of the people. So is this to say that 100% of the people that inhabited the world were evil and deserved to die? The children too? How evil could the children have been? Maybe it was that God knew they would grow to be evil and that there was no chance they would ever be good? I find this very hard to swallow.

What about the rest of it? Before this portion of the story the Bible talks about the descendants of Adam and Eve. It goes on to describe who beget who and how old they were when they died. For anyone who is familiar with the Bible it is no surprise that the people back then lived until about 600-900 years old! Well.. that too is hard to believe. But, I suppose scientifically that could be possible. So I will leave that one alone. However, the supposed supernatural beings that roamed the earth, where did they come from? The Bible never describes where they come from before the point in which it mentions them. Who were these supernatural beings? Why did they decide to take all the beautiful women?

So all of his creations, from the people to the animals and even  the supernatural beings.. they were all so evil that they deserved to die. This hardly seems like the forgiving God that I was told about as a child. I could go on a murderous spree killing hundreds and if I truly repented and asked for forgiveness I would get it. Yet everyone else on earth needed to be wiped from the face of the planet? 

Many of the stories in the Bible seem to me to be written by people who had nothing better to do with their time. I know that is not the case, but it seems like that could have been a feasible answer. I have always said that the Bible, well, religion for that matter, is humanities explanation of where we came from before anybody had a clue about the truth. When a society exists and does not know of it's origins it leaves a big empty hole in the middle of their souls. People need to have some sort of reason for being who they are and they need to believe and understand that reasoning. Hence the Bible and the story of God.

Noah was meant to be our salvation. God loved Noah because in a time of evil he was the one person who deserved to be saved. See this too does not make sense. This is one area where I believe the people who made up the stories of God made a mistake. The world was evil and the people in it did not deserve to live. So God wiped them out. All the animals, the people, the birds and the fish... everything. Everything except Noah and his family. Given that Noah was God's one "good guy" he was instructed to build a boat with which to save his family and the animals so they could reproduce and repopulate the planet.  Again, we are treated to Gods strange ways because he tells Noah to also bring 7 pairs of "ritually clean" animals.

What is a "ritually clean" animal? Well, as far as I can tell these are the animals that are fit for sacrifice. This is another problem that I have always had with religion. Why is it necessary to sacrifice a perfectly good animal to God? What does he get out of it? Seriously. This is yet another example of why the Bible was made up by man. Only humans would think it necessary to sacrifice an animal to a God. This practice goes back eons. People have always thought it a good idea to kill an animal as an offering to their God. Why? I have no idea what significance this plays in a religion. But it seems odd that followers of God would also require it to be done. Even stranger that God himself would ask that it be done. Wouldn't you say?

Noah Makes A Sacrifice

So it is said in the Bible that when the rains stopped Noah prepared an altar and on the altar he burned one of each of the 7 "ritually clean" animals as a sacrifice to God. God was "pleased" with the smell and then decided that he would never again punish the planet or kill everybody because of what man does. So basically God admits to being wrong. How does an all-knowing deity make a mistake and kill billions of people and then say, "oops! Won't do that again."

So now Noah is tasked with repopulating the earth. One family to bring about a new civilization. Seems a bit difficult if you ask me. Think about how this would have to happen if it was true. Not only would Noah have to get his wife pregnant, but also his daughters too. His sons would have to do the same to their sisters and also their mothers. As a matter of fact, there are various places within the Bible in which incest run rampant. It is a pretty much accepted practice back then. So is having multiple wives. Where did all of this come from. Was it God that told people it was ok to live this way? It must have been since God apparently controlled everything. Maybe they were just following what their father Noah had done.

This is yet another example of the people making the Bible fit their way of life. Of course they were not about to write a book or tell a story that would convince people to stop doing things that they enjoyed. So they wrote the various things into that story. They made it acceptable for people to sleep with family members because that is what was happening then. Imagine if that was how we still lived now.. eww.

It is rather strange to me that people can look at the stories held within the Bible, try to model their lives after its teachings, when a good portion of the book is just so nasty. The book is filled with murder, rape, incest, and supernatural beings. Giants roam the planet because they are the offspring of the human females and the supernatural beings. I can only imagine those being angels. What other supernatural beings could have been around then? Either way, in some cases I think people would have a better chance if they modeled their lives after some other story.. say Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief. After all.. both are just made up stories. At least in the latter no one is having sex with their daughter and killing animals on altars all in the name of God.