Not to diss anyones beliefs, I thought this was humorous.
Absurdity in the Bible
If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.--1 Cor.14:38
I find myself having to read for an hour or so before I can fall asleep. And thanks to the Gideons, I've got good material. -- Mitt Romney, New York Times, Oct. 16, 2007
Genesis
1. God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). 1:3-5
2. God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters. 1:6-8
3. Plants are made on the third day before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes (1:14-19). 1:11
4. In an apparent endorsement of astrology, God places the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used "for signs". This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do: read "the signs" in the Zodiac in an effort to predict what will happen on Earth. 1:14
5. "He made the stars also." God spends a day making light (before making the stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes the trillions of stars. 1:16
6. "And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth." 1:17
7. God commands us to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over ... every living thing that moveth upon the earth." 1:28
8. "I have given you every herb ... and every tree ... for meat." 1:29
9. Even God gets tired sometimes. 2:2
10. "The tree of life ... and the tree of knowledge of good and evil." God created two magic trees: the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. Eat from the the first, and you live forever (3:22); eat from the second and you'll die the same day (2:17). (Or that's what God said, anyway. Adam ate from the tree of knowledge and lived for another 930 years or so (5:5). But he never got a change to eat from the tree of life. God prevented him from eating from the tree of life before Adam could eat from the tree, become a god, and live forever.) 2:9
11. God makes the animals and parades them before Adam to see if any would strike his fancy. But none seem to have what it takes to please him. (Although he was tempted to go for the sheep.) After making the animals, God has Adam name them all. The naming of several million species must have kept Adam busy for a while. 2:18-20
12. God's clever, talking serpent. 3:1
13. God walks and talks (to himself?) in the garden, and plays a little hide and seek with Adam and Eve. 3:8-11
14. God curses the serpent. From now on the serpent will crawl on his belly and eat dust. One wonders how he got around before -- by hopping on his tail, perhaps? But snakes don't eat dust, do they? 3:14
15. God curses the ground and causes thorns and thistles to grow. 3:17-18
16. God kills some animals and makes some skin coats for Adam and Eve. 3:21
17. God expels Adam and Eve from the garden before they get a chance to eat from that other tree -- the tree of life. God knows that if they do that, they well become "like one of us" and live forever. 3:22-24
18. Cain is worried after killing Abel and says, "Every one who finds me shall slay me." This is a strange concern since there were only two other humans alive at the time -- his parents! 4:14
19. "And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD." 4:16
20. "And Cain knew his wife." That's nice, but where the hell did she come from? 4:17
21. Lamech kills a man and claims that since Cain's murderer would be punished sevenfold, whoever murders him will be punished seventy-seven fold. That sounds fair. 4:23-24
22. "And to Seth ... was born a son." Where'd he find his wife? 4:26
23. God created a man and a woman, and he "called their name Adam." So the woman's name was Adam, too! 5:2
24. The first men had incredibly long life spans. 5:5, 5:8, 5:11, 5:14, 5:17, 5:20, 5:23, 5:27, 5:31, 9:29
25. Enoch doesn't die he just ascends into heaven. 5:21-24
26. When Lamech was born, nine generations were alive at once. Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech were all alive at the time of Lamech's birth. Adam lived to see his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson. 5:25
27. When Noah was 500 years old, he had three sons. [Three sons in one year? Was that with one (nameless) wife or several?] 5:32
28. The "sons of God" copulated with the "daughters of men," and had sons who became "the mighty men of old, men of renown." 6:2-4
29. "The LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh." God shortened the human lifespan to 120 years because humans are "flesh" and he was tired of fighting with them. 6:3
30. "There were giants in the earth in those days." 6:4
31. God decides to kill all living things because the human imagination is evil. Later (8:21), after he kills everything, he promises never to do it again because the human imagination is evil. Go figure. 6:5
32. God repents. 6:6-7
33. Noah is called a "just man and perfect," but he didn't seem so perfect when he was drunk and naked in front of his sons (9:20-21). 6:9, 7:1
34. God was angry because "the earth was filled with violence." So he killed every living thing to make the world less violent. 6:11-13
35. Noah is told to make an ark that is 450 feet long. 6:14-15
36. God tells Noah to make one small window (18 inches square) in the 450 foot ark for ventilation. 6:16
37. "And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten ... for thee, and for them." 6:21
38. Whether by twos or by sevens, Noah takes male and female representatives from each species of "every thing that creepeth upon the earth." 7:8
39. God opens the "windows of heaven." He does this every time it rains. 7:11
40. All of the animals boarded the ark "in the selfsame day." 7:13-14
41. "And God remembered Noah."
Yeah. He probably said something like, "Isn't Noah the guy who built the ark?" 8:1
42. "The windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained." This happens whenever it stops raining. 8:2
43. Noah sends a dove out to see if there was any dry land. But the dove returns without finding any. Then, just seven days later, the dove goes out again and returns with an olive leaf. But how could an olive tree survive the flood? And if any seeds happened to survive, they certainly wouldn't germinate and grow leaves within a seven day period. 8:8-11
44. Noah kills the "clean beasts" and burns their dead bodies for God. According to 7:8 this would have caused the extinction of all "clean" animals since only two of each were taken onto the ark. "And the Lord smelled a sweet savor." After this God "said in his heart" that he'd never do it again because "man's heart is evil from his youth." So God killed all living things (6:5) because humans are evil, and then promises not to do it again (8:21) because humans are evil. The mind of God is a frightening thing. 8:20-21
45. According to this verse, all animals fear humans. Although it is true that many do, it is also true that some do not. Sharks and grizzly bears, for example, are generally much less afraid of us than we are of them. 9:2
46. "Into your hand are they (the animals) delivered." God gave the animals to humans, and they can do whatever they please with them. This verse has been used by bible believers to justify all kinds of cruelty to animals and environmental destruction. 9:2
47. God is rightly filled with remorse for having killed his creatures. He makes a deal with the animals, promising never to drown them all again. He even puts the rainbow in the sky so that whenever he sees it, it will remind him of his promise so that he won't be tempted to do it again. (Every time God sees the rainbow he says to himself: "Oh, yeah.... That's right. I promised not to drown the animals again. I guess I'll have to find something else to do."). 9:9-13
48. Noah, the drunk and naked. 9:20-21
49. The entire tenth chapter is the first of many boring genealogies (see 1 Chr.1-9, Mt.1:1-17, Lk.3:23-28 for other examples) that we are told to avoid in 1 Tim.1:4 and Tit.3:9 ("Avoid foolish questions and genealogies.") 10:1-32
50. God worries that the people will succeed in building a tower high enough to reach him (them?) in heaven, and that by so doing they will become omnipotent. 11:4-6
Absurdity in the Bible
by darth frosty 32 Replies latest jw friends
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darth frosty
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Galileo
Yeah, you gotta love the Skeptics Annotated Bible. www.skepticsannotatedbible.com
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Alpaca
Thanks for the succinct summary of some of the most ridiculous stuff foisted on humans.
I will acknowledge that I don't want to diss anyone's beliefs either. But, I gotta tell ya' that when you take a giant, logical, mental step back and look at the cold hard empirical facts....
well...lets just say that I am getting out my waders......
and movin' on....
Thanks,
Alex
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Fadeout
I especially like the fact that God used a SWORD to block Adam and Eve's entrance into the Garden of Eden.
There were only two people on Earth at this time... obviously neither of them had ever seen a sword (unless they'd had some really bad marital spats). When the first sword was later made by humans, was it patterned after that strange object Adam had seen all those years ago?
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Tuesday
I love the numerous times various tribes were killed completely off only to re-appear and be killed off again. Or how the livestock in Egypt were killed several times, but the Egyptian army still had horses to chase after the Israelites with. There's alot of funny stuff in there.
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Homerovah the Almighty
You would almost think the bible was written 2, 3 maybe even 4 thousand years ago
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Casper
I especially like the fact that God used a SWORD to block Adam and Eve's entrance into the Garden of Eden.
There were only two people on Earth at this time... obviously neither of them had ever seen a sword (unless they'd had some really bad marital spats). When the first sword was later made by humans, was it patterned after that strange object Adam had seen all those years ago
I love reading things like this... but, then it make me wonder...Why did I not "EVER" notice any of these things... amazing...!!
Cas
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OBVES
First thing , not everybody can understand the Bible and if you have doubts about the verses of the Bible simply admit in your heart you don't understand but there might be some people already in the world who understand them. The Bible is the reflection of the infinite mind of God and it is difficult to understand and it may take years or even centuries to understand some of its verses.
The fact there is so much division or confusion on the matter of existence of hell- whether it is or not - should already send shock waves through our bodies and cause us to pause and think how complicated the Bible can be.This is not an ordinary book and it should be so as it originated with the Creator of the endless universe we live in .
The book of Genesis 1 should not be understood the way most people do ! They make a horrible mistake not knowing it is a description of the vision God Yahweh gave to Moses in 7 days from 40 days Moses spent on the Mount Sinai.
The days given in Genesis 1 are the days from Moses' time when he lived and stayed on the Mount Sinai ! God Yahweh did not create the universe in literal 6 days ! The vision of creation lasted 6 days !
So ,what we see here is a total reversal of human understanding on the creation ! For centuries mankind was in denial ! People had no slightest idea that Genesis 1 is a description of what Moses saw in 6 days .
The literal creation based on my calculations using the Bible is over 15 billion years ! The scientists can tell you almost the same !
6 days x 7000 years as one day with God x 360 days in a prophetic year x 1000 years for each prophetic year = over 15 billion years !
God Yahweh continues His creation of the universe as new stars are being created so He cannot rest ! The rest given in Genesis 2.2 cannot be then a literal rest you think of ! It was symbolic and it was shown only in a vision ( like in a movie ) to Moses for a purpose.God Yahweh never rested and rests and will never rest as He upholds the whole universe every second and continues His creation of the universe.It is an on-going eternal process with no end !
Who are you to criticize the Bible ?! You may not have understood the Bible completely what does it say !
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Rapunzel
The ancient Greeks distinguished between two fundamentally different "ways of knowing-" mythos and logos. The events narrated in Genesis fall definitely within the category of mythos.
Mythos has ancient roots; this way of knowing relies on superstition, intuition and other non-rational ways of knowing. The language of mythos is symbolic and aesthetic. The Genesis account is not - and never was - intended to be scientific. It is, essetially, poetry. As such it cannot be judged or evaluated according to rational or scientific criteria, nor more so than can be the poetic phrase - "My love is a rose." It does no good to assert: "How can you establish a link between an emotion and a flower? That's absurd!" Poets often use simile and/or metaphor to connect an abstraction with something concrete and tangible. Of course, poets' language should be understood as figurative and not literal. It is the same with the Genesis account. As I interpret it, I think that the author(s) of the Genesis narrative was (were) making a distinction between another ancient Greek dichotomy - that of chaos as opposed to cosmos. The author was trying to point out that, in the act of creation, the Creator achieved victory over the forces of chaos by imposing cosmos, or a heavenly-mandated order.
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journey-on
1. God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). 1:3-5
In the book, "The Science of God" by Gerald Schroeder, the above description is about the creation of the universe; light separating from dark and occurred about 15,750,000,000 years ago. Science would call it "The Big Bang" where light literally broke free as electrons bond to atomic nuclei and galaxies start to form. Day One actually ended about 7,750,000,000 years ago and that's when Day Two began where the heavenly firmament forms. Science would say the disk of Milky Way forms and Sun, a main sequence star, forms.
Read this book....it will give you a whole new perspective on using modern language and scientific data to "explain" a lot of what sounds "silly" to most people in the scriptures.