Basis Of Belief

Let’s face it, no matter what Christians may say, the source of their belief is the bible, that’s it. without a specific religious book you would either be considered spiritual, deistic or you would make up your own religion. To become a specific denomination the source of your belief structure will be a specific religious text. In light of this I would like to propose a challenge to the Christians out there.

How about instead of wasting your time trying to undermine science and oppress those who don’t believe in the same sky-daddy you do, why don’t you look into the veracity of your book. Surely if your book is incorrect then your belief structure is also incorrect and vice versa. Just to be nice I’ll even give you some advice on how to start:

Firstly do not get your information from someone who has a vested interest in your beliefs (i.e. your pastor or creationist websites), these people have good reason to deceive you and therefore cannot be considered an unbiased source of information.

A good place to start is probably who wrote the bible and when. Were the divinely inspired or would they have had some motivation for what they were writing. I would advise the book “Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible” by Karel Van Der Toorn, this is available through amazon or you can read the majority of the book online via a quick Google scholar search. To give a brief insight it is commonly understood that the original authors of the bible were in fact multiple unknown Jewish scribes who were attempting to document the oral traditions of the time (about 620 BCE).

Once you have learnt more about the origins of the bible it is worthwhile reading about the the first council of Nicea, and how the bible has actually been edited by man since it was originally written. Surely for any creationists out there this should be a traumatic idea…if you believe the bible was inspired by God then surely editing it would be an act of blasphemy! Though your trauma may be reduced when you realise that the council actually removed books from the bible suggesting that Jesus was not in fact the son of God…that’s right, the bible once had contradictions about the divinity of Christ.

If you have gone this far in your research and are not yet convinced then why don’t we take a look at the historical accuracy of the book, surely this would indicate to us whether or not the Bible is in fact divine truth, I would suggest for this that you take a look at the book “The Bible Unearthed” by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. 

When I make the above suggestions I do so honestly, I am not asking you to “make a leap of faith” or instantly dismiss all you believe. I am merely asking you to contemplate that the book you base your life around may not be entirely true. If you dismiss me instantly then, if you do not bother to look then it may suggest that you are afraid of what you will find, in fact it could be suggested that you already know what you will find but don’t want to admit it.