The Philosopher Who Questioned Jehovah
on Mar 22 in Philosophy, Religion by T.M. CoalYou, me, and all of us are afloat in a endless cosmos. We are like mites in the ear of a grand dog whose end or beginning is so far from us we will never see them. For 29 years I have been a participant in this life but I have never found contentment in just sitting somewhere and letting reality act on me. I have always taken things apart and challenged, sometimes stupidly, the wisdom and nature of the authorities in my life. I have never stayed in bounds and even though this tendency has caused problems I would not exchange a moment of it for the comfort found in not thinking.
One of the most interesting things about asking why and seeking an understanding is that every answer you find is only a door to 50 more questions. Every answer opens to a staircase that takes you down to a deeper set of questions. This process repeats until you reach a point where you are too limited in scale, duration, or understanding to answer the level of questions that now confront you. When this happens one can either accept their current limits or exercise their curiosity, intellect, and intuition as we would muscles to expand their size, strength, and content in the hope of answering those mysteries.
I once read, “Those who have not asked the question are not ready for the answer” and I think this gets to the heart of it. If we have not asked deep questions we are not ready for deep explanations. Whenever we are born we know nothing and then the meanings and symbols our culture has applied to the material objects around us are taught us. From birth our mind, is “informed”, our inner mind is shaped into the same form as the ideas of those around us. This first set of ideas, and the ideas which we prefer or think most true, become the ruler that measures life and all it holds.
Once the ruler has been formed we evaluate all incoming ideas with that ruler. When they match the rule we accept them as true and when the conflict with it we reject them as false. For example if I were to say, “Adolf Hitler was a good man”, your mind would identify the words “Adolf Hitler” and recall all ideas and information you have regarding this name. However if you were a child that has yet to obtain all the information about Adolf then you will accept the statement that A. Hitler was a good man, it will become base level data, and eventually it will become a part of your inner ruler. This is why a German who was raised inside the Nazi government actually said to his son one day that Adolf was a good man.
Most readers would disagree with this statement due to the part Adolf played in the atrocities committed against the Jews, and others, while World War II raged. However they have more complete information about what happened at that time. The German would have been taught the goodness of Adolf from early child hood and since all the information he received came from German sources the actions of Hitler would have always been cast in a good light. Our German would have only heard information from one source, the only view of reality our young German had was a Nazi one and if the reader could have talked to him about his ideas at that time he would have spoke of their virtue and goodness.
When we allow only once source of information to determine what is truth for us we are getting a very incomplete picture of reality. In fact those who control what information you access control what you think and by controlling what you think they control your mind. This is why Proverbs says that those who ask the opinions of many wise men are safer than those who heed only one wise man (Proverbs 11:14) — those who learn from many wise men get a greater amount of wisdom. When we seek, and as objectively as possible hear, the words of all who profess to speak truth we learn that there is not harmony among the super intellects and sages as to what the truth really is. Most all systems of material or spiritual philosophy tend to divide people into groups where all present think like them. This insulates the members of those groups from any differ ideas that would come from outside the group.
Oftentimes outside information is not just filtered by our group it is put in words that make it appear silly, incorrect, or sickeningly evil by the authorities who teach those in their group . Not only is our view of reality shaped by those of our group but humiliation, shame, and fear are used by people in our group to make our thoughts and actions more acceptable to them. The group rewards the individual for speaking, thinking, and doing things that affirm and align with the groups current ideas and punishes them for speaking, thinking, or doing things that cast doubt on, or show the crookedness of, their current ideas. We become conditioned by the pain to submit our minds to the will of the collective and so truly free thought and inquiry become the things those who are ‘faithful’ and ‘good’ do not do.
We cannot afford to let our minds be ruled by fear, reward, punishment, desiret, or social taboo. If we are to ever know the truth we have to aspire to a level of understanding that aims at pure truth. We cannot accept our cultural ideas of right and wrong as being ultimately true and complete expressions of fact. Those who would have wisdom must first question the validity of everything they have ever been told. By daily testing and correcting our inner perception of the one external reality we daily improve our understanding of truth.
The mechanism that drives this is curiosity and bold inquiry. Truth improves us and it is obtained only by those who think and analyze everything -within or without- deeply.
I have many questions and a fair amount of them are about the view of reality taught to me when I was a child. I was raised and loved by those who practiced a fundamental Protestant Christian faith. I use fundamental not in a mean way but just to express their stance on the literal interpretation, and by consequence practice of, the Bible. There was a time when I was a devout Christian that believed everything exactly the way it reads but as I began to look beyond my own culture and world view I lost the fear of questioning and learned how greatly human minds are influences by the mental and material content of their environments.
Seeing how greatly I have been influenced by the beliefs of those around me, and being free enough mentally to be honest with myself when something sounds confusing or wrong, I decided to trash everything anyone has ever told me about anything. From there I have been trying to relearn only what is true about reality and to dispense with anything false no matter how important that thing may be to the people, or culture, around me. I started out thinking I would come to know everything I wanted to learn rather quickly but instead I have learned that I know very little about much of anything and that I grow daily. In fact the amount of raw knowledge I have gained has not been so grand as the wisdom I have gleaned from the minds of men wiser than myself.
In our day it is not knowledge we lack it is wisdom. We have put people on the moon, split the atom, made a global society, and discovered the secrets of the living and non-living objects of our reality yet we still lie, cheat, steal, harm, hate, push, grasp, exploit, and crave. We have big intellects but shallow understandings. We do not see how all works as one and how each thing depends on every other thing. We are all products of the same Cause, we are all passengers on the same planet, we all share the same nature, and we all desire happiness. There is one reality filled with many things, for every thing there is a truth, and every truth is only a thread in the fabric of the total truth. This thread we all have parts of, and we all experience the same reality in similar and in ways that no other can ever know. It is only when we realize our common origins, reality, and humanity that we are rid of the false divisions that arise because of color, class, or creed.
We all have limited understanding about the universe we live in, even the greatest minds that have ever lived on earth did not know every thing — or there may have been a rare few that did but if they did they didn’t tell anyone — regardless we all have room to grow in our understanding about our world, our culture, and the cultures of others. This growth is done through questions and there is no question that is wrong when spoken in a respectful and kind tone for honest ends.
In fact I think we should question things in proportion to their significance. For example if someone tells me the Bulls beat the Hornets in the latest basketball game I will probably nod and continue on because that fact has no significant effect on my life. However when someone comes to me and say they know the truth about the origin and function of humanity then I am going to be very alert and highly analyze their words because they involve the truth and it is ones relationship to truth – - or at least what they understand as truth – - that makes them who they are. Finally, if someone comes to me and says this book is an expression of the Divine Mind that crafted reality then I am going to study those words day and night and look at them under a microscope because the way we believe the Divine to be – - if we believe there is any metaphysical world at all –determines the people we will become and the reality we will build.
In the remaining portion of this writing I am going to express the questions I have about the God of the Bible. Before I do so I want to remind the reader that that to question the validity of a book that professes to have come from the hand of God is not the same as doubting a word that tangibly entered your mind while you stood in the presence of highest God. Throughout all of history the nature of God, and who had the best expression of that nature, has been debated. Everyone thinks themselves right and many are trapped in the ideas of their culture because of fear, sincerity, or laziness. In order to learn the truth we must not fear to doubt what is called truth by those around us. When I question a tenet of a religion, philosophy, or science, I am not attacking those who esteem that tenet to be true, neither am I attacking the tenet, I am only analyzing it so that I might know if the tenet or idea is right. How can we expect anyone to believe something we say without question? If we all did so all of humanity would become the slaves of the one person who realized that the human race was to trusting.
More important than thinking we ought to know the truth, that we now know the truth, or that we cannot know the truth is respecting the freedom of others to think whatever they want — even those who say they do not care. Freedom is the primary thing, it is the point of the matter, and once we have taken away the freedom of choice whatever we are left with is harmful and dying. Those who realize the beauty of personal freedom do not force another to comply with their understanding of freedom. Anytime one uses shame, fear, or force to spread their ideas about truth by those very actions they have demonstrated they know nothing about truth.
Wisdom, kindness, forgiveness, justice, mercy, discipline, knowledge, compassion, and logic are the expressions of truth and those who forsake truth –be they ignorant or evil– will suffer and create harm for themselves and others.
Now that we have talked a bit hopefully you can tell from the tone of my words that I am not embittered against God and that I am not an advocate for lawlessness and immorality. I am asking these questions simply because I do not understand. Just as it is not wrong for a child to ask her parents when she does not understand it is not wrong for us to question the father and mother like authorities in our lives be they secular, spiritual, biological, good , bad, Divine, or otherwise. Even though these questions are exclusively about the truth of the Bible I do not want to let the impression be given that I disrespect the Bible or think that it is the only book one should study. I express these questions because these are the ones I wrestle with the most – this is no doubt because I had the doctrines of the Bible ingrained into me through an education that in retrospect probably was an accidental indoctrination by honest hearted people.
I hope I have not bored you so far but this is a casual conversation about philosophy and the God of Abraham; I am just talking with those who share a passion for these things like myself and since I consider you all friends I have not overly concerned myself with format or brevity, focusing more on the content than the form of the content. Never the less having rambled on long enough I am going to get into my questions about the Bible.
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My Bible Questions
The Justice of Jehovah
THE PUNISHMENT IN THE GARDEN
One of the primary attributes of God according to the Bible is his justice. Over and over again it assures the reader of God’s total fairness and equality. For those who would like to test my claims, which I would encourage, they can go to Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 89:14, Isaiah 45:21, and Revelation 15:3.
The writers of the Bible declare that God is the embodiment of the purest justice imaginable. In Ezekiel 18 this very point is discussed. The people of Israel were saying that they were being punished by God for the sins of their fathers and God said that this was untrue that whoever it is that sins that is the one who will be punished for their iniquity an idea that is echoed in Galatians 6:7.
With the supreme justice of God in mind let us then review some actions taken by God in the Bible that do not seem just to me. I am only judging those actions the Bible says God directly took because I am aware that when a human does evil things it causes innocent people to endure circumstances that they do not deserve. This is pure cause and effect, it is the nature of the universe, and I would not expect anyone, human or divine, to come along and bail us out of the circumstances our evil actions have get us into. When people do this they are usually not helping the one who has done the evil because they never have to take responsibility for their conduct, and until we take total responsibility for ourselves we cannot do any good at all.
The first event that I am going to look at is when Jehovah issued punishments to all the being involved in the eating of the forbidden fruit that he had said not to eat. It is found in Genesis 3 and again I want to encourage all to review the story so they can personally see what I am talking about.
In the account Jehovah had set up a tree that Adam and Eve could not eat from upon pains of death. I do not blame him for the tree being there because without the possibility to do wrong there is no real freedom. My problem is with the sentences pronounced on those involved because they effect the lives of those who had no part to play in the event.
First we have the cursing of the serpent (Genesis 3:13-14). The Bible says that a talking serpent, that the new testament later reveals was being spoken through by Satan (Romans 16:20,Revelation 12:9), was cursed by Jehovah to crawl in the dirt from thence forth. This is my question, why was the snake cursed? If
the snake was being manipulated by an evil spirit why does it deserve to be punished? If I am held at gun point and made to take money from a cash register in a quickie-mart should I lose my freedom for that? It was not me who wanted the money, it is not even my idea to rob the mart, why then should I be punished?
The same principle applies here, why did the snake receive punishment for being manipulated by a being that was once heaven’s more powerful angel? If the animal kingdom has the intelligence, or at one time had the intelligence, to understand and choose good or evil then that makes sense but other wise it does not. Why should the snake be punished because Satan choose to take a serpents form or because Satan forcefully over took its body? It may seem trivial but it smacks of injustice.
Next in the story we have the punishment of Eve (Genesis 3:16). Here Jehovah says her punishment for doing evil will be a increase in sorrow and complications whenever she gave birth. If this is a literal account then that means that the reason women have sorrow in child birth today is because of what Eve roughly 6000+ years ago according to the Bible account. Why does every woman that has ever lived deserve to suffer because Eve committed evil? How many women and children have died due to the complications that arise from child birth? If Jehovah has all knowledge and knows all the future and the past, then he knew that cursing Eve would do this so he is accountable for these events and if he is not accountable then I think that it would not be arrogant or unjust to ask for an explanation.
The final character to receive punishment is Adam (Genesis 3:17-19). The curse for Adam is that from hence forth the ground of the earth would be prickly and work hard and painful. As with Eve so with this, how is it just for every human on earth to have hardship and pain in acquiring what they need to live merely because Adam was an idiot? How much easier would life be for us if the soil was Edenic in nature? Where we could plant and reap with ease? More time could be given to pursuing a relationship with God, bettering our selves, deepening our wisdom, and furthering knowledge. I know that one translation say, “It is for our good” but if there was some evil that would have happened in the human had the ground not been cursed why did not the writer of the book, who was directly inspired by God, include that?
None of these punishments seem to be just, they make the world into which billions of innocent lives will come hard to live, not due to the consequences of our forefathers actions but due to the direct command of God.
THE KING PUNISHED FOR ANOTHER MANS LIE
The next event I am gong to look at happens in Genesis 12:11-20. Abram, later called Abraham, told his wife to lie to the Egyptians about her relationship to him because he feared they would kill him and take her because of her beauty. Because of Abrams lie however Pharaoh, and his family, were plagued. How is this fair? Abram induced his wife to lie, and lied himself, and because of his lies Jehovah punished a man who dealt fairly with Abram and bought the lady he could have just taken by force. There is no mention that Abram was even punished for this he just went on his way while Pharaoh suffered on account of his lies.
How is this justice? How does this at all reflect what Ezekiel said (Ezekiel 18) about the sinner receiving punishment for his sins and the just rewards?
THE DEATH OF EGYPTS CHILDREN
In Exodus 11 tells the story of the final plague that Jehovah sent upon Egypt to convince Pharaoh to let the Israelites go. The Pharaoh had refused nine times to let Israel go and so Jehovah sent Moses to tell him that if he did not let Israel go the angel of death would kill every first born in all of Egypt from the king to the cows in the stable. The king refused to comply and many were killed.
I ask you, what did the lowly servant do to deserve the death of his first born? What did the dumb beasts do to deserve the death of their off spring? It is horribly unfair. Sure had Pharaoh complied they would not have died but it is fair to punish an entire nation for the stupidity and stubbornness of its leader? Is it fair to cause thousands to die and tens of thousands to suffer because one is arrogant? It is not, not in any way. It is clear that Jehovah would not accept the choice of Pharaoh to keep Israel, the kings free will was not being respected, and so why not just float him into the middle of the town square, take over his mind, and cause him to pronounce the freedom of the Israelites? There is no way a being who knows all things and has all wisdom can be cleared of such an action, and if there is then as subjects of an Universal king we have the right to hear it.
MORE PEOPLE WHO DIED FOR A KINGS SIN
Staying with the theme of people who are punished by Jehovah for the sins of their king we now move to 2 Samuel 24. Here David wants to number Israel, something that Jehovah had said not to do, and because of his actions seventy thousand men died. This is numbing to me, how can it be just to kill seventy thousand people because one man disobeys your will? It doesn’t matter if that man is the king or a cook there is no excuse for such action and again if there is an excuse I would love to hear it. This theme of communal punishment for the sins of one occurs over and over though out all of the Bible and it to me totally unfair. How is it that I deserve to die via a direct act of Jehovah because some fool political leader makes a bum decision? This would be like punishing the American people for the Nixon’s lies.
THE MEN KILLED FOR THEIR ANCESTOR
In 2 Samuel 21:1-9 it says that a famine fell upon the land and when David asked Jehovah why he said that it was because of the sins Saul had committed against the Gibeonites. First off, why is a nation forced to endure a famine because a king sinned? But this is only a repeat of issues we already looked at what I want to look at here is the solution to the problem.
So Saul had sinned against this nation and so Israel was suffering famine how was it ended? David sent to the Gibeonites and ask them what he could do to make up for the crimes of Saul so Israel could be blessed. The ambassadors from Gibeon said that if seven descendents of Saul were given to them so they could kill them all would be okay. So, David agrees, finds seven men and later they are all put to death.
My heart wrenches at such hogwash. First Jehovah, who controls the weather remember, says that it is on account of Saul that this is happening. Then the solution to the problem, one that Jehovah or David never protested, was to kill seven men so that the famine will go away. But wait, isn’t Jehovah in control of the weather? So, could not Jehovah cause it to rain without seven innocent people dying? That is not half as disturbing to me as the thought that after these seven innocent people died Jehovah sent the rains back. Seriously, how can this be okay for any being to do? Would you think that it would be just if at the end of world war one seven of Hitler’s cousins were given to the Jewish nation so that they could kill them for the crimes Adolf had committed against them? Whatever else this may be it is not justice and more importantly they are not the actions of a all wise, all loving, all forgiving God.
THE WISDOM OF JEHOVAH
The next thing I want to consider is the wisdom of Jehovah. The Bible says that Jehovah’s wisdom is the very thing that built the universe (Psalm 136:5, Proverbs 3:19). A wisdom of that magnitude surely cannot be questioned but I do not see that level of wisdom in the writings of the book that is supposed to have been inspired by Jehovah. There is wisdom there but nothing anymore impressive than the writings that are found in the sacred books of other cultures. It is not the wisdom that is present however that I have a problem with it is the things that seem unwise and human that concern me.
PEOPLE KILLING PEOPLE
There are all the event mentioned above that seem to lack an impartial and ultimate wisdom but there are some others too that raise red flags. One of these is the fact that all throughout the Old Testament there are instances where Jehovah uses humans as the tools of divine justice. He used the Israelites to kill the people of Canaan and other nations (Numbers 33:51-56, 1 Samuel 15:1-4) and Jehovah used other nations to punish the Israelites (Isaiah 10:5, Ezekiel 28:7). How is this the conduct of an all wise being? The Bible says that Jehovah knows the thoughts of our hearts (1 Chronicles 28:9) and so knows how war brings out the worst of human nature. Why then would a divine being command a human to kill another human so that divine justice could be carried out? I mean of all the ways a being who has all power could end the life of mortal why choose this one? It does not seem wise.
THE CRUDNESS OF OLDTESTAMENT LAW
As one reads though Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy they find all kinds of laws which the punishment for is death. If you are caught in a homosexual action you are to be killed (Leviticus 20:13), if you are caught doing witch craft you are to be killed (Exodus 22:18), if you caught sleeping with a beast you are to be killed (Leviticus 20:15), if you curse your mother or father or hit them you are to be put to death (Exodus 21:15,17), if you break the Sabbath you are to be put to death (Exodus 35:2); there are more than these but these will suffice.
Death was being handed out like candy and why? Deuteronomy 13:6-11 continues on with the death sentence theme except this time it is for mentioning other gods but it also tells the reason why, “Israel shall hear, and fear, and do no more any such wickedness as this is among you.” It is a fear tactic and even though fear of death works what works better is understanding and respect of life. Why did not Jehovah instruct his people to talk with those who do these wrongs and counsel them with wisdom, logic, and mercy so that they might be freed through the truth? If I kill you while you are doing evil then there is no hope of heaven for you if evil is not allowed there. Thus, why kill people as soon as you find them doing evil? How is this an expression of infinite wisdom, mercy, and justice? I understand that a divine being would not want his people to become corrupted in their ideas but you can excommunicate people who are evil and accomplish they same end. It is just so fast and final and without any conversation or attempt to understand the other persons side or rid them of their vice — this is unwise to me.
Another unwise aspect of it is the amount of fear it brings into the mind. A fearful mind cannot reach its full potential and the obedience such a mind renders is shallow and quickly abandoned whenever the thing it fears is removed. These things, combined with the stories of injustice, make it hard for me to believe these books are totally pure expressions of Divine wisdom.
JESUS AS JEHOVAH IN THE FLESH
This leads me to my next question. If Jesus is really Jehovah in the flesh (John 1:1-3), and the Mind who inspired all the Old Testament books (2 Timothy 3:16), why is there such a gap between his teachings and the laws of Jehovah in the Old Testament?
One would think if Jehovah wanted to spread the news of himself all over the world that he would have began in many places along the edge of humanity and worked his way in rather than started with one people group and working his way out. Not only that but why did Jehovah not put a command to spread the beautiful truth of himself to all the nations in the first five books of the Bible, at the very foundation of his nation? It is not until Isaiah, who lived about 750 years after Moses, does the idea of Israel teaching all the nations about Jehovah catch on. If Jesus really inspired all the Old Testament books why not tell the writers from the start that this is a message for all people, nations, kindred, and tongues? If that was God’s will you would think that would be the case.
Also, if Jesus is really Jehovah why wait so long to teach people that an eye for an eye is a bad idea, that divorce is not Jehovah’s will under most circumstances, and all the other spiritual ramifications of the law? Matthew 5,6, and 7 are ahead of the first five books of the Old Testament by light years. Why wait so long to expound the law in such a beautiful way? If this understanding is so important to have why not tell people at the beginning? The pieces just do not fit in my mind and it makes it very hard for me to accept the idea that in the body of Jesus dwelled the mind of the God that directed and commanded the people of Israel in the Old Testament.
This is made even harder for me to believe with the differences in the way wondering members of the flock were to be treated. In the old testament those who went against the ‘church’, the called out group of Jehovah on earth, were put to death on the spot for evil however when the woman is brought to Jesus to be stoned for adultery in John 8 Jesus displays forgiveness and compassion. Why not treat people like this in the early days too? This difference is hard to accept if you have not been raised in a Christian sub-culture and understandably so, it just doesn’t seem to fit.
WHY DOES JEHOVAH NOT ACT
If I was sitting outside of my home and I saw a man forcibly take a young girl into a house while she cried for help without doing anything to stop it would I be free of any blame when the girl was later found dead near the scene? Of course not, if one hears or sees evil and does nothing to prevent it from happening they are still to blame for the evil they could have done but choose not to do.
In James 4:17 it says those who have the opportunity to do good and refrain from doing it are evil, my question then is can we not hold Jehovah to this standard he inspired? It may be true that Jehovah has never committed or created any evil but, since he controls everything, it has been allowed and I cannot understand that. I know all the theories people use to explain the existence of evil that it is about free will, that it is to show the true nature of evil, or that it is to show the true nature of Jehovah but these all fall short.
Firstly the objection of free will. If Jehovah totally respects the free will of everyone then he does not support truly free will. To show what I mean by this suppose that I am a powerful tyrant and by my power I cause men to do evils that make me rich and women to do evils that give me pleasure. I have total control over their life and mind, they do not want this but their free will has been over powered by the strength and influence I have gained. Again, what about the people who are starving to death all around the world and the governments that block the supplies their people need to cure their diseases from getting to them? Those who are starving and those who are sick I am sure do not desire these thing but because of those around them who are stronger than them they must still endure it. Thus, free will is a nice idea but it only exists for about half of the earths population. The wills of the other half have been hijacked by corrupt political and religious institutions. So to say that it is out of respect for free will that all this harm is allowed is a nice sounding cop-out. In a universe where all have complete freedom the strongest will rule the weak and thus freedom becomes an attribute not of truth, and not of virtue, but of power.
Then there are those who say that evil has been allowed to show evils true nature. That makes sense to me because in a universe where evil had never been only Jehovah would know its true nature and if he killed those who did evil right away the rest of the universe could be filled with fear and fear leads to a million woes. However that possibility that evil had to exist for a little while in order to show its true nature breaks down once you have 6,000 or more years worth of data. I think at this point evil is obviously harmful and to use the excuse that Jehovah doesn’t stop things like the 9/11 attacks from happening in order to show bad it is just doesn’t work.
Finally there is the argument that evil is needed to let us know what good is and on a larger scale the pure and loving nature of Jehovah. Now, this is just stupid. Do I have to eat crap in order to enjoy the flavor of an apple? Do I have to lose an arm in order to appreciate the fact I have arms? It just isn’t an argument. As for Jehovah not stopping evil so all can learn the truth of his love that is non-sense. If you are my child and I see a dog coming at you to bite you will you learn more about my loving nature if I let it bite you and then help or if I kick the snot out of it and save you? Allowing evil to be done to humanity is not a good mechanism for revealing how much you care.
Why Jehovah does not act to prevent the harm and molestation of the innocent here on earth perplexes me and make it hard to believe in the Biblical view of God. This is complicated by the fact that the Bible seemingly indicate that God just kinda gave earth to Satan once Adam sinned and how is that okay? So, because one man did evil all the beings, human or otherwise, that enter earth after that point justly become the prisoners of evil? How does it make any sense to give control of a world to a being of pure evil merely because he suckered its first caretaker? It does not make sense, not in terms of some breach of legal contract or other wise. The thought that billions of beings have suffered and died because of some cosmic red-tape infuriates me. So why does an all-powerful, all-loving, all-wise being allow mountains of injustice and exploitation to occur? Indeed, a point to rock the deepest of faiths.
THE BOOK JEHOVAH WROTE
All the above things make it very hard for me to believe that the Bible is a book wrote by an all wise, all loving, all powerful being but besides this is the absence of any wisdom greater than that found in the writings of other religions and serious philosophers.
It is an obvious fact that the hand of Jehovah did not dip the pen in ink and then scroll Hebrew, or Greek, words across a blank page. Human authors, with human minds, wrote the book and whether of not it was inspired by some super human mind is a matter of faith.
However it is not just the illogical and human elements that are in it at places that make it hard to accept as an uncorrupted expression of the Highest Divine Mind, it is what is not there -the absence of superhuman wisdom – that make it just as hard to believe. If Jehovah is really Highest God then why not include something in every book that prove the author of it had super human connection? Throughout all the bible the ideas it contains are not anything a wise man could not have learned and they certainly do not exhibit any wisdom that is ahead of their day. If Johan had explained the secret to cold-fusion, or if Jesus had wrote down all the information and functions of DNA, of some other grand and deep truth that no other in that time could have known then it would be more believable. As it is however you have nothing but the book of Daniel and a couple other viable prophecies to prove the Bibles divine origin, and even though they are at times impressive when they are smack in the middle of all the above confusions it takes away from their ability to convince.
The main thing that people use to prove the Bible is the Bible and that make me suspect of it from the get go. For example, if there was a pharmacy who said they had a drug that could cure anything and when asked to give proof handed out data from studies they conducted would that not raise some red flags? It is like the cigarette company assuring you that you won’t get cancer or the casino owner assuring you that you will win soon.
The argument that gets me going the most is the one that goes, “66 books, 40 authors, over 1500 years and it all agrees!”. Geese, does no one study history? The Old Testament was canonized between 400 and 200 B.C., that means that a group of Orthodox Jews got together and determined which books would go into the cannon and which books would not. Thus, whatever the Orthodox scholars thought was right went in and what they thought was wrong went out. So the harmony of the Old Testament is not a mystery it came about because it was complied and whatever did not meet their criteria was rejected. Not only that but in a culture where you are killed for mentioning another god or practicing a ’pagan’ religion, I cannot imagine their being a whole lot of spiritually diverse books available. Culture and editing accounts for the harmony among the authors just as well as invoking a supernatural authorship.
The same is true for the New Testament. In 363 A.D. the council of Nicaea canonized the New Testament. Just like the Jews, a group of officials from the Catholic church got together and determined what was holy and what was not, or in other words what agreed with their doctrinal ideas and what did not. Thus the similarity between the books of the New Testament is just as explainable by culture and compilation – and the fact that the Catholic church is well known for manipulating the minds of those who believe in it does not help me to have confidence in their decisions.
Even the similarities between the New and the Old Testament can be explained by Jewish culture because the Christian church was at first a Jewish cult, built from Jewish ideas, by Jewish men. So, the harmony of the Bible is not necessarily as mysterious as the Bible teachers would have us believe and most certainly are not a proof of its divine authorship. Most every line of reasoning that is used to prove the superiority of the Bible as a supernatural source of understanding would also prove the ancient sacred texts of other cultures true if it was applied to their writings.
THE SILENCE OF JEHOVAH
Perhaps the most difficult aspect of Jehovah to accept is the absolute and utter silence. These questions that I have are not easy to answer and are even harder to live with. Most people never read anything about the ideas and understandings of reality held by those outside of their own people group and so I have no one to talk to that can even see things from my perspective much less understand it. If this wasn’t bad enough my questions are of a religious nature which means the people I discuss these things with are either to angered by my questions to consider them or to concerned with saving my soul to hear them.
For this reason, and because I do not want to be responsible for taking away the only system of virtue someone has, I do not make it a point to talk about my questions with people. Instead I have expressed them to the only being that I know of that could answer them in a irrefutable way, Jehovah, but you know why comes back? Nothing, absolute and utter silence. I am not sure that I can express to you the impact that has had on me. More than anything else in this world I want to understand the ultimate nature of reality, to find the truth as it really is, and to that end I have studied book after book after book on every subject from Darwin to Taoism. This open and fearless study has been the most beneficial thing I have done in my entire life and the silence of Jehovah in regard to the questions my study has generate has been the most frustrating thing.
Picture this, a young 10 year old is riding his bike in a nearby field. Not to far away, seated in a rocking chair on the porch, is his father watching him as he explores. Then suddenly there is an epic crash and the child slams into the ground. The boy manages to stagger to his feet and though he cannot walk, and is bleeding from both his knees, he manages to cry out to his father. The father however does not move, does not speak, in fact there is no visible sign that the father even cares. The child is perplexed by this and thinking his father did not hear he calls to him again only to get the same response.
I have been the bloodied boy for some time and when I think that Jehovah is up there just silently watching me struggle it is all I can do to refrain from losing temper. My questions are deep and I have almost exhausted all of the available schools of spiritual and religious ideas and I am no closer to having any knowledge about God at all. You see the books people write are just books about God and the higher metaphysical plains they are not God or the higher metaphysical plains. It is the difference between reading about apples and eating apples – one gives you information and one give you an experience. So, here I am with questions about God and the only one that can answer them is God but God is not talking, certainly Jehovah is not talking when I ask him the questions that I have stated above.
However when I mention this to people it is always me who is to blame I do not believe enough, I am doing something evil, it is not for me to know, it is not yet time, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. The thing is, I do not care about religious human constructs or metaphysical red tape, if I am a creation of God then I think the one who created me should have some responsibility for providing for the basic needs of my existence, especially the ones that pertain to truth because if I get these wrong there are real bad consequences in store for me no matter what world view it is you hold . We legally require responsibility of men who produce children should we not expect this out of a God who creates conscious self aware life?
Over time however I have realized that there are any number of reasons why God doesn’t talk to me and one of the most obvious, however uncomfortable the idea may at first be, is that God just is not real . Another perspective is that God in the purest form is not Jehovah. I have read widely the works of atheists and considered deeply the scientific evidence for a purely materialistic universe, but even though the do have some marvelous insights and have discovered amazing things I have yet to read anything that has made it clear that there is absolutely nothing beyond this reality. I have however read much, and found much, that makes it very hard for me to believe in a strict literal interpretation of the Bible and so we return to the questions I have asked Jehovah and to the deafening silence that is my reply — and let me tell you the silence is not helping to prove his realness.
I know that I am not the one who experiences this. I recently heard a song by a popular reggae artist named Matisyahu called, “Silence” and it captures the essence of what I feel almost perfectly. So, why is that silence there? If it is so important for everyone to know Jehovah why does Jehovah not introduce himself? All through the Old Testament this happened in spite of the Israelites human frailty (Genesis 17:1, Exodus 3,1 Samuel 3) and then in the New Testament Jesus appeared to Saul while he was on his way to kill Christians (Acts 9:1-18), so why cannot Jehovah just speak to those who have just doubts or hard questions?
The reason why it is so important to me to have Jehovah – or any metaphysical being – speak to me outside of my own head is that then I know it is not just my own psychology messing with me. All people in all faiths have intuitions, feelings, impressions, and voices that talk with them. As long as ones religious experience remains inward like this it is subjective, and anything that is subjective could very well be a mental construct, or the voice of our cultures moral teaches speaking to us through our concepts of perceived right and wrong.
When I read the Bible with calm open heartedness I was changed and had in my mind revelations about myself and others that bettered my life a hundred fold, however this experience repeated itself every time I sat before any work of wisdom with a prayerful, unbiased, and teachable spirit. This makes it hard to know if God speaks through all, if I am speaking to myself, if I am hearing the wisdom of another, or if something altogether different from what I could ever imagine is happening, regardless I will never know if I do not question.
THE TEST OF JEHOVAH
Perhaps the thing that makes the lest since to me is the importance that Jehovah, and all other spiritual teachers or beings for that matter, put on belief. Of all the things one could use to prove the truth of something belief is perhaps the worse thing on earth, and it is just as bad as a condition one must meet in order to receive some benefit.
To demonstrate this I would like to tell you the story of Jim. Jim was taken from his parents at an early age by kidnappers. Finally at the age of 18 however he managed to obtain his freedom and he wanted to return to the town of his birth to see if his family was still alive. He remembered nothing really except the name of the town he lived in and the state it was located in, “Rockford, Ky”.
As Jim was hitchhiking to the city of Rockford he was pick up by some other men who were going there to do some work. Jim told his new friends the reasons he had for going and they all understood and did what they could to solace him. However kind the guys he met were though they were also pranksters and they knew of another town about 60 miles north of the Rockford he was going to and it just so happened that they would be passing right by it. Just for some mean jollies they decided to take Jim there and tell him this was his former home.
They notified Jim where they were just a few miles outside of the false Rockford. Jim’s palms began to sweat a little, it had been so long since he had been home, would anyone remember him he wondered? Once he got into town he was so nervous, his palms were beginning to sweat and his heart was beating hard. He walked around the streets of the city vaguely recognizing some of the buildings he saw, he had been gone so long and so much had change, being home again was too much and Jim broke down and cried.
Looking for while and not finding his old home place Jim began to fear the worst and made his way to the grave yard to see if any of his family was there. He combed every nook and cranny until finally he came across a fairly recent stone that bore the name of his mother but there were no flowers and there was no stone to indicate his father had died; had they divorced, did he leave town after her death? The questions and failure to return in time to see his mother again was too much and the weeping that began earlier broke into a bitter wail.
At this point the men who picked him up no longer thought what they were doing was funny. Seeing Jim weep this badly had taken the joy out of the prank and they told him that this was not his Rockford, that it was still about 60 minutes down the road, and that they would have him there in 45. Jim did not know what to think, he had experienced so many deep emotions and painful thoughts only to find out they were not true. Composing himself Jim got back into the car and silently waited to arrive at Rockford.
Why did Jim have all the feelings he had? Jim thought he was back home again but in reality he wasn’t so why did he have all these intense and deep inner experiences? It was because of his belief. He trusted the words of the men had told him, and he had faith that the town his was standing in was his home, but in the end all was only psychological.
In order for us to experience a thing it does not have to be real we just have to believe that it is real in our minds. How many children have cried when they discovered that Santa Claus was only a myth? How many women have experienced the joys of being proposed to, and all the dreams it brings, only to find later it was a lie to get their sex? How many men have been arrested by undercover police men who they believed were going to deliver some goods to them? In one moment the person is expecting goodness and planning their actions around an anticipated goal and then they next they realize they have been had and all their experiences were built up from lies.
So strong are the effects belief has on the mind that when doctors test new drugs those who take placebos – sugar tablets the patient only believes to be strong medicine – can improve as much as those who take the real medicine, and at times those who take the placebo do even better than those who get the real thing. The power of belief is truly amazing, it energizes the entire body and mind creating experiences the mind would have otherwise never had and prompting people to actions they would not have taken otherwise.
This is why I am skeptical when belief is the primary means of a relationship with Jehovah – or any other spiritual being. If I read a book that tells me there is an ultra powerful superhuman being that loves me, who wants to give me a second chance in life, and who wants to empower me to live eternally, and I believe that to be as true as the law of gravity, then I will have amazing events happen in my mind as I mentally interact with this unseen truth. However, am I really experiencing something wonderful or am I just experiencing my belief? As long as Jehovah remains unseen, silent, and only acts in ways that ride the line between maybe supernatural and maybe not, the experience is subjective and could very well be totally in my head.
Belief on a individual scale can give amazing experiences but when a group of people come together who believe the same thing then an environment is created where a large number of people behave as though the belief is true and so it takes on a limited type of realness. The group supports me in my mental experience when what I tell them matches their views and when what I say does not match the groups views then I am shamed, counseled, encouraged, or reminded by the collective. Thus, my entire life begins to revolve around my beliefs, my mind begins to interpret the things it sees according to my beliefs, and so my belief becomes my reality. If any doubts the ability of isolation inside a group and set of ideas to create a false view of reality in the mind of an individual all they have to do is to consider the events of Jones Town, the Manson Family, or the extremists Muslims who create suicide bombers. When isolation from contrary ideas and outside sources is coupled with indoctrination by people the individual trusts the mind can be made to believe, and do, anything.
Now think about not only the Hebrew and Jewish religions but all religions. They all have groups of people, they all encourage a type of separation from the ‘world’, they all have deep and powerful ideas that give the mind wondrous experiences, and to this they add music. Music by itself can give one tremendous experiences and move one to dance but when it is coupled with the religious groups and ideas it further validates the beliefs of the individual because of the intense sensations and deep ideas it inspires in the mind.
So you see why I question belief, or personal experience, as any form of evidence for the working of something supernatural. Almost all religions make assertions about reality and use some sort of book to prove it and appeal to belief as a means of entering into the experience of it. Paper will lie still and let you write anything on it, the events an old document says happened cannot be proven even if the places are found, and we have seen what belief, groups, and music can do — once you subtracted all these things what is left to prove the working of Jehovah or any divine being? Merely because the world is complex does not mean that Jesus or Jehovah are ruling on a throne in some unseen reality and merely because you cannot explain a thing, or it is a rare occurrence, does not mean there is a supernatural agent involved. In the end, once you subtract all these elements one is left with only cool reasoning and the external world. And when I reasonably ask the Jehovah -or any other Divine being- to do something in the objective reality that cannot be denied as a direct supernatural intervention — like making iron float (2 Kings 6:1-7), fire fall from heaven (2 Kings 1:1-15), or a pitcher pour endless amounts of oil (1 Kings 17:8-16) — nothing happens.
Whenever I say this to religious people however I am quoted verses like James 1:5-7 where it is said those who do not believe will get nothing from Jehovah when they ask, Matthew 13:58 where Jesus could not do many miracles in a certain town because of their unbelief, or Matthew 9:29 where it says the size of your miracle is equal to the size of your faith. That is all good and well but belief is the very thing I am skeptical of because of the way it effects your mind, and my doubt is why I am asking for an objective, undeniably supernatural thing to happen, so that I can ‘know’ and not merely believe. I want to make sure that what I am giving my whole life to is not merely a Jewish cult or a cultural tradition.
When Isaac Newton wanted to prove gravity was real he demonstrated for every its effects on material objects and thus his invisible and universal force was validated. When one wants to know if magnetism, another invisible force, is real all they have to do is buy some magnets and toy with them awhile before its existence can no longer be denied. However when it comes to existence of God, the most important thing they could that anyone could perhaps ever consider, one does not have objective and consistent evidence only subjective personal experiences and ancient assertions.
If supernatural being exists and our relationship to them is a matter of eternal life and eternal death why are they not manifesting themselves to us in such away that there existence cannot be doubted? The answer I have gotten before is that, “Jehovah never removes the ability to doubt.” Really? So Moses who stood atop a flaming mountain talking to Jehovah and received stone tablets he carved on stone did not have the ability to doubt the supernatural world taken from him (Exodus 19:17-20)? What about Elijah at whose word fire fell from heave and consumed the sacrifice, the stones it was on , and the trench of water that surrounded them to prove Jehovah’s superiority to the false gods (1 Kings 18:29-39)? Or what about Thomas, the disciple whom placed his hand in the wound of a resurrected Jesus appeared that appeared to him in order to cure the doubt in his heart(John 20:25-27)? There has been many times the ability to doubt a supernatural reality has been taken from characters in the holy books of earth so this objection is without merit.
To make blind trust in the words of man the key to unlocking the reality of Jehovah is irrational and hard to accept. One may say that Jehovah does not want people to think they can obtain heaven through their intellect but to those who suggest this I ask is ignorance and foolishness then the way into heaven? If so those of intellect are going to be lost merely because the entrance was hidden beneath a blanket of ridiculousness and irrationality.
Image if you would for a moment that you have traveled into town and there in the middle of town there is someone dressed in a flowered robe crying out that Jehovah has told them the city is soon going to be flash frozen and all those do not repent will become dead ice. Would you be inclined to believe them? They have no evidence, they stand before you with only their certain sounding tone of voice, and honest hearted appeals to accept Jehovah. When you ask them for proof they say they do not have to present any because the feeling you get inside when you hear them speak is proof enough. You are not a bad person, you esteem virtue and wisdom above all else in life, it just seem illogical to you and so you walk away. Later that day however the flash freeze happens and you are turned to a human-pop. Is that a fair test? Is that a just warning?
I wonder how close the above account is to what happened in the days of Noah? It had never rained before and there is no mention of any miracles occurring during the 150 years that Noah preached to prove that what he was saying is true, were the people wrong to be skeptical of an old man preaching the end of the world by rain, an event they had never seen happen in their life? The account tells the events that transpired over a course of 150 years in three chapters so we do not know; thus is revealed the problem of using a book to convey a very important piece of information; what is left out is forever left out and what is put is forever locked in the language, time, culture, and perspective of the author. This problem is what lies at the root of my last question.
THE WILL OF JEHOVAH
When I kneel down beneath the infinite expanse of heaven and say, “Jehovah, I love you and want to be in harmony with you, what is your will?” there is a big gap between the question, the being I am directing to, and the answer I get. If I say this in a forest there is not a sudden light from heaven, no soft audible whisper that reveals to me the ultimate truth, no indication of anything supernatural at all. However if I say this in the presence of a religious person, or with an inclination to a certain religion, then the culture around me presents me with the writings they believe to have come from highest Divinity. The problem with this of course is that these writings are rarely the same and usually have a completely different set of rites and rules where by the individual approaches God. This creates deep divisions and bad relationships between those of different religion and perhaps the funniest aspect of it all is that everyone sets out to “fix” the beliefs that others have.
If Jehovah – or any other divine being – wanted us to all live in harmony why not enter all points in time and all minds and reveal to all of us his absolute undeniable will? It is very frustrating to me to think that God is somewhere up in heaven watching all of us dispute, fight, and even kill each other over religious traditions without taking an active role in fixing the problem that he has at least allowed to happen. This is the problem I have with any being who appears in a corner and reveals a special secret to their special people, it automatically creates an “us” and a “them” . Not only that but it seems an awful narrow and limited way for a universal divine being that has unconditional compassion for all creatures equally to express themselves.
Then there is the book problem. Books are limited in the capacity to express anything. If the author leaves out something they didn’t think was important but really was then two thousand years later you have people of faith arguing with people of doubt because there is not enough information in the writing to prove one side or the other. Beyond this there is the fact that books do not address the exact problem the individual is having at that moment in words that they can understand. There are problems that all people have in common and the ancient books address these but often times one has to read something, abstract it, and try to find a moral or a principle they can apply in their situation to fix it. How much better would it be if Jehovah came to us and gave the exact answer that we needed? Certainly it is not beyond his means because he is infinite in power (Isaiah 40:28-29)and attended by innumerable angels (Psalms 68:17) is he not?
Conclusions and Clarifications
For ten years now I have sought Jehovah, God, Truth, Reality, or whatever other name you want to apply to the Unnamable and I am tired. Those who sit inside of their cultural world view box cannot understand the experience that is my life. I have made it my purpose to know – not believe – the ultimate objective truth of reality and all its parts. This is hard and it results in me getting rocks thrown at me from all sides. Everyone wants to evaluate other people by the things they themselves know and have been taught and this is certainly true of me.
I do not expect anyone to like me, like what I say, or even read it. I am not in this reality to make you happy and you are not here to make me happy, the things that the external world does let it do and I will do my things. I write this to express myself, to voice my conundrums because maybe someone has answers deeper than I could imagine or is having the same questions and I can somehow solace them with the knowledge that they are not alone.
More than anything else I want to know the truth and if God, in whatever form God is, is the truth then I want to know God. When people who want to doubt have these questions they give up and sit satisfied that there doubts and questions are somehow answers and to me this is lazy and small. Likewise, when people who want to believe have these questions they dispense with them by saying they cannot understand the mind of Jehovah -or whatever form of God, that parts are missing -and indeed they could be, or that I have been taken by some brazen evil and now set about to ruin the faith of the true children. However when someone who has no agenda, no preference, has these questions they seek the answers. When answers are they dig, and when no one has a valid and satisfactory answer they study, hypothesize, and test until they find them.
I am tired but I will not quit. I refuse to bow my will and accept narrow and empty views of truth, God, and reality merely because people around me do not like my questions or it is a cultural taboo to ask them. I just want to know God, to hear God, and to think that there is some metaphysical being up there watching me bleed, read, pray, weep, rage, laugh, grow apathetic and then cycle through them again as I try to find them is infuriating. Why not just say hi? Why not just tell me you are real? Why not just show you care? It makes me angry but I cannot let my anger blur my quest. Maybe there is the best and most understandable reason on earth the God doesn’t speak to me and if I get mad and close myself to the idea of God then I may miss out on the best thing ever. However, maybe God just isn’t there or has already given us all we need to accomplish all that we ever need to do. Who knows, but I know I cannot quit.
I do not have enough data to cast away even the most seeming absurd views of God because maybe the problem is not in the view of God, maybe it is in the viewer. Conversely, I do not have enough data to cast away the possibility that God is not there and if I close myself off to that possibly I could end up stuck forever in nothing more than a cultural superstition — and believe me they are out there.
This writing is not an attack on the Bible and those who use it as such do so out of context. This writing is a philosophers questions about the God of the Bible and nothing more. Sure they are hard questions, and they look at things that people would prefer not to look at or consider but they are not disrespectful only brave. In the Bible Jacob wrestled with Jehovah and because of it had his named changed from one who steals to one who has power with God and men(Genesis 32:28). Likewise Jehovah did not curse Job for asking his questions about the experiences he had nor did he get angry because he adamantly sought an audience to (Job 40-42), neither did Jesus chide Thomas for doubting (John 20:24-29).
The problem is that most people are lazy, careless, fearful, or lost in their own ideas of things and they just don’t want anyone to rock the boat. Yet, the boat needs to have the hell rocked out it because we are all asleep and comfortable with ourselves, our level of understanding, and with having other people think for us. Let me tell you dear reader that if you do not find the truth someone will give you their version of it and you will become their puppets and if you refuse to be a puppet their puppets will come and kill you for not dancing on your strings like you should all you have to do is read history.
Blessings to all who have made it this far and blessings to all who go father. Any thoughts – dissenting or otherwise – would be appreciated. May you escape all illusions and forever dwell in fields of unconditioned and unlimited freedom.
Micah, we have something in common: A willingness to question anything, and an unwillingness to have blind faith. But our searching has lead us in very different directions. Give me a call sometime. 870-223-2375. Leave a message if I don’t answer. I will return your call. None of your questions seem wicked to me. I have asked most of them myself. Would be happy to share what I have found.