"i Am No Longer A Believer Because..."

[MultifariousBirdLady]

Now I know I am going to hell for that shit - NOT, but I'd much rather be there than in heaven with the God creep - wouldn't you?

 

Well, during the times when the fear that I really might be damned gripped me, I wasn't really sure... I had this idea that willingly going to hell would be a sort of protest, and that I could at least keep my integrity by doing that, but it also scared the shit out of me.

 

That mixture of anger and terror can seriously fuck you over.

[violentlygraceful]

I figured this would be a good introduction to the forum. I typed this up a few days ago, for some on-line friends who I'd known for several years (while I was a fundamentalist), and wanted to know why I no longer believed.

 

 

A thorough reading and understanding of the Bible required that I stop believing. That is the only thing which could have caused someone like me to stop believing. This happened in several stages, as I read the New Testament first, began working by way through the Hebrew Bible, and eventually read the Ugaritic texts.

 

1) The gospel of Matthew is abundantly clear in teaching that believers must keep the entire Torah (Jewish law). This is in tension with other writings in the New Testament, primarily the gospel of John and the writings of Paul, which teach that faith apart from works is necessary for salvation. In fact, Paul goes so far to teach that attempting to keep the Torah will separate you from the grace of God.

 

2) The gospel narratives are constructed in order to create fulfillment of prophecies cited from the Hebrew Bible. The New Testament writers, who wrote in Greek and not Hebrew, used the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, titled the Septuagint. This is important because some of the prophecies created are based upon interpretations of the Greek readings of the Hebrew scriptures, which don't work in the original Hebrew. Without exception, all of the citations of fulfilled prophecy in the New Testament have been manufactured by taking Hebrew scriptures out of their original context, changing and adding words, conflating multiple citations into a single source, and redacting material which would defeat the purpose of using the cited text.

 

3) The New Testament writers believed that Jesus was going to come back during their lifetime. The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) clearly state that all that Jesus had prophesied was to happen during that current generation, and Paul clearly states that he believed that he and others to whom he was writing would not die before this was to occur.

 

4) The Hebrew Bible contains remnants of an originally polytheistic belief system, in which many gods exist, and that Yahweh happened to be the god of Israel. The Ugaritic texts, which detail Canaanite religion, were discovered in the early 20th century and pre-date the Hebrew Bible. These contain textual and etymological evidence, which corroborates archaeological evidence, that the Israelites were originally Canaanites, and originally worshiped the Canaanite pantheon, which included Yahweh, and its high god, El. Indeed, the Ugaritic texts helped elucidate passages which remain in the Hebrew Bible which indicate that El was the original god of the Israelites. The Israelites later adopted Yahweh as their high god (and eventually believed him to be the only god), while the Canaanites later adopted Ba'al as their high god. The transition from El to Ba'al worship can be witnessed in the Ugaritic texts.

 

5) The Hebrew Bible contains no concept of an afterlife, except in two short passages in Isaiah 26 and Daniel 12. For the most part, the Hebrew Bible teaches that humans are corporeal beings only, animated by the breath of God and, upon death, the animating breath returns to God. There is no concept of an eternal soul. There is a concept of an underworld named Sheol, where everyone goes, and there is no thought, work, or worship of God there. It's more of a metaphor for death. The concept of hell arose with the birth of apocalyptic literature such as the book of Daniel, and particularly the non-canonical book of Enoch. These apocalyptic writings began to be written during the period of Hellenization being forced upon the Jews in the second century BCE, and while they were written as encouragement for Jews to maintain their national and religious identity, even to the point of death, concepts of the afterlife were indeed borrowed from Greek mythology. This shows up very clearly in the book of Enoch, which undeniably influenced the views of the afterlife in the New Testament. In fact, the epistle of Jude directly quotes from the book of Enoch, which indicates that the writer of the epistle believed the book to be authoritative. Borrowing from Greek mythology also shows up in later Christian apocalyptic writings, such as the Apocalypse of Peter.

 

6) The writer of the book of Daniel established his own authority by first writing morality tales regarding a character named Daniel, set in the time of the Babylonian exile, in order to encourage Jews during the period of forced Hellenization. After having his authority established, he 'prophesies' by couching events of which he was already aware (related to the contemporary persecutor of the Jews, Antiochus IV Epiphanes) in prophetic language, which his audience would recognize, so that it would appear that this Daniel character had been aware of them hundreds of years earlier. The writer would then use this as a springboard to create his own predictions - none of which occurred. Realizing that this was how the book of Daniel actually worked immediately led to the realization that the apocalyptic sections of the gospels pertaining to the return of Jesus had been written in the same manner, only this time in the context of the Jewish-Roman Wars, and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

 

That's about it...

[Guest I Love Dog]

Christianity has many doctrines, but the two that I, as a human being/humanist, find THE most offensive and disgusting are 1) the teaching that all humans are born as sinners and only god/Jesus can save you, and 2) that there is a heaven and a hell and an imaginary deity decides where each person will end up when they die, with everlasting life in a burning hell reserved for all non-believers or those that don't repent their sins.

 

For a start, how can any reasonably-educated person believe such rubbish? They wouldn't if it hadn't been forced on them through fear.

 

There is no reason to believe that there is a god or gods. If there was a god such as that worshiped by Jews/Islam/Christians, then that god would be self-evident and no one would need to be told, taught or brainwashed into believing that he/she/it existed.

 

As a young, developing, inquisitive, person, I realized at age 12 that Christianity and all other religions were nonsensical and that there is almost 100% certainty that there is no god, given the lack of evidence and detailed records of where the god that Christians worship originated.

 

Even for a believer it must be difficult to decide which Christian sect is teaching the "truth" as there are so many variants.

 

I've lived a very long and successful life without Christianity and a belief in a god and I'm sure that I've have a long and peaceful non-life when I die.

[Overcame Faith]

I figured this would be a good introduction to the forum. I typed this up a few days ago, for some on-line friends who I'd known for several years (while I was a fundamentalist), and wanted to know why I no longer believed.

 

 

A thorough reading and understanding of the Bible required that I stop believing. That is the only thing which could have caused someone like me to stop believing. This happened in several stages, as I read the New Testament first, began working by way through the Hebrew Bible, and eventually read the Ugaritic texts.

 

1) The gospel of Matthew is abundantly clear in teaching that believers must keep the entire Torah (Jewish law). This is in tension with other writings in the New Testament, primarily the gospel of John and the writings of Paul, which teach that faith apart from works is necessary for salvation. In fact, Paul goes so far to teach that attempting to keep the Torah will separate you from the grace of God.

 

2) The gospel narratives are constructed in order to create fulfillment of prophecies cited from the Hebrew Bible. The New Testament writers, who wrote in Greek and not Hebrew, used the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, titled the Septuagint. This is important because some of the prophecies created are based upon interpretations of the Greek readings of the Hebrew scriptures, which don't work in the original Hebrew. Without exception, all of the citations of fulfilled prophecy in the New Testament have been manufactured by taking Hebrew scriptures out of their original context, changing and adding words, conflating multiple citations into a single source, and redacting material which would defeat the purpose of using the cited text.

 

3) The New Testament writers believed that Jesus was going to come back during their lifetime. The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) clearly state that all that Jesus had prophesied was to happen during that current generation, and Paul clearly states that he believed that he and others to whom he was writing would not die before this was to occur.

 

4) The Hebrew Bible contains remnants of an originally polytheistic belief system, in which many gods exist, and that Yahweh happened to be the god of Israel. The Ugaritic texts, which detail Canaanite religion, were discovered in the early 20th century and pre-date the Hebrew Bible. These contain textual and etymological evidence, which corroborates archaeological evidence, that the Israelites were originally Canaanites, and originally worshiped the Canaanite pantheon, which included Yahweh, and its high god, El. Indeed, the Ugaritic texts helped elucidate passages which remain in the Hebrew Bible which indicate that El was the original god of the Israelites. The Israelites later adopted Yahweh as their high god (and eventually believed him to be the only god), while the Canaanites later adopted Ba'al as their high god. The transition from El to Ba'al worship can be witnessed in the Ugaritic texts.

 

5) The Hebrew Bible contains no concept of an afterlife, except in two short passages in Isaiah 26 and Daniel 12. For the most part, the Hebrew Bible teaches that humans are corporeal beings only, animated by the breath of God and, upon death, the animating breath returns to God. There is no concept of an eternal soul. There is a concept of an underworld named Sheol, where everyone goes, and there is no thought, work, or worship of God there. It's more of a metaphor for death. The concept of hell arose with the birth of apocalyptic literature such as the book of Daniel, and particularly the non-canonical book of Enoch. These apocalyptic writings began to be written during the period of Hellenization being forced upon the Jews in the second century BCE, and while they were written as encouragement for Jews to maintain their national and religious identity, even to the point of death, concepts of the afterlife were indeed borrowed from Greek mythology. This shows up very clearly in the book of Enoch, which undeniably influenced the views of the afterlife in the New Testament. In fact, the epistle of Jude directly quotes from the book of Enoch, which indicates that the writer of the epistle believed the book to be authoritative. Borrowing from Greek mythology also shows up in later Christian apocalyptic writings, such as the Apocalypse of Peter.

 

6) The writer of the book of Daniel established his own authority by first writing morality tales regarding a character named Daniel, set in the time of the Babylonian exile, in order to encourage Jews during the period of forced Hellenization. After having his authority established, he 'prophesies' by couching events of which he was already aware (related to the contemporary persecutor of the Jews, Antiochus IV Epiphanes) in prophetic language, which his audience would recognize, so that it would appear that this Daniel character had been aware of them hundreds of years earlier. The writer would then use this as a springboard to create his own predictions - none of which occurred. Realizing that this was how the book of Daniel actually worked immediately led to the realization that the apocalyptic sections of the gospels pertaining to the return of Jesus had been written in the same manner, only this time in the context of the Jewish-Roman Wars, and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

 

That's about it...

 

Very nicely done. Your post contains some some new information I have never heard of. Most particularly, I had never heard of the Ugaritic Texts. I think I'll look into it. Thanks, and welcome to ExC.

[violentlygraceful]

Very nicely done. Your post contains some some new information I have never heard of. Most particularly, I had never heard of the Ugaritic Texts. I think I'll look into it. Thanks, and welcome to ExC.

Thank you. For a good translation of the Ugaritic texts into English, with many help annotations and parallels in the Hebrew Bible, I recommend the book Canaanite Myths and Legends by John C.L. Gibson.

[MultifariousBirdLady]

Very nicely done. Your post contains some some new information I have never heard of. Most particularly, I had never heard of the Ugaritic Texts. I think I'll look into it. Thanks, and welcome to ExC.

Thank you. For a good translation of the Ugaritic texts into English, with many help annotations and parallels in the Hebrew Bible, I recommend the book Canaanite Myths and Legends by John C.L. Gibson.

Thank you for this.

[Hungrydingo]

..BECAUSE looking at the world around us it's very apparent there is no all powerful loving being watching over us. I am at peace with things now, but let's all be honest about one thing. Most people on this planet live in an existence us comfortable computer using americans/europeans/canadians/whatever you are could never settle for. Kind of hard to believe god loves the children so much he lets them die agonizing deaths by starvation.