what if the bible was only written to control people

• Similarities to Other Stories
• Unavoidable Contradictions
• The Logical Explanation

Similarities to Other Stories

The similarities between the stories and characters in the Bible and those from previous mythologies are both undeniable and well-documented. This would be obvious if it weren't for early on indoctrination of these beliefs into children, which usually makes them unassailable as adults.

In this short piece I'll endeavour to show extraordinary similarities with regard to two of the most of import Biblical narratives: the Genesis story and the character of Jesus Christ.

The Book of Genesis's Inundation Story Mirrors The Epic Of Gilgamesh From Hundreds Of Years Earlier

Here are a number of elements that both Gilgamesh and the overflowing story in Genesis share:

1. God decided to send a worldwide flood. This would drown men, women, children, babies and infants, also as eliminate all of the land animals and birds.
2. God knew of ane righteous homo, Ut-Napishtim or Noah.
3. God ordered the hero to build a multi-story wooden ark (called a chest or box in the original Hebrew), and the hero initially complained about the assignment to build the boat.
4. The ark would have many compartments, a single door, be sealed with pitch and would firm two of every animal species.
5. A great rain covered the land with h2o.
6. The ark landed on a mountain in the Middle East.
7. The first two birds returned to the ark. The third bird plainly plant dry land because information technology did non render.
8. The hero and his family left the ark, ritually killed an animal, offered information technology as a sacrifice.
9. The Babylonian gods seemed genuinely lamentable for the genocide that they had created. The God of Noah appears to have regretted his deportment every bit well, because he promised never to exercise it again.

Keep in mind the level of detail in these similarities. It's not a matter of merely a flood, simply specific details: three birds sent out, resisting the call to build the ark, and a single man beingness chosen by God to build the ark. And so consider that the first story (Gilgamesh) came from Babylon — hundreds of years before the Bible was even written.

Practise you honestly think, based on the similarities above, that those who wrote the Genesis story had not heard the Gilgamesh story? And if they had heard it, and they were simply rehashing an old, very popular tale, what does that say about the Bible?

Jesus'south Story is an Obvious Rehashing Of Numerous Previous Characters

Perchance fifty-fifty more than compelling is the story of Christ himself. As it turns out it's not even remotely original. It is instead nothing more than a collection of bits and pieces from dozens of other stories that came long before. Hither are some examples.

1. Asklepios healed the sick, raised the expressionless, and was known every bit the savior and redeemer.
2. Hercules was born of a divine father and mortal female parent and was known as the savior of the world.
3. Dionysus was literally the "Son of God", was born of a woman who had not had sex with a man, and was depicted riding a donkey. He was a traveling instructor who performed miracles, and was killed and resurrected, after which time he became immortal.
4. Osiris did the same things. He was born of a virgin, was considered the kickoff true king of the people, and when he died he rose from the grave and went to heaven.
5. Osiris'south son, Horus, was known equally the "low-cal of the earth", "The good shepherd", and "the lamb". He was also referred to every bit, "The way, the truth, and the life." His symbol was a cross-like symbol.
6. Mithra's altogether was celebrated on the 25th of Dec, his nascency was witnessed by local shepherds who brought him gifts, had 12 disciples, and when he was done on world he had a concluding meal before going upwards to heaven. On judgment mean solar day he'll render to laissez passer judgment on the living and the dead. The skilful will go to heaven, and the evil volition die in a behemothic burn down. His holiday is on Sunday (he'south the Sun God). His followers called themselves "brothers", and their leaders "fathers". They had baptism and a meal ritual where symbolic mankind and blood were eaten. Heaven was in the heaven, and hell was below with demons and sinners.
7. Krishna had a miraculous conception that wise men were able to come to because they were guided by a star. Later he was built-in an expanse ruler tried to have him found and killed. His parents were warned by a divine messenger, however, and they escaped and was met by shepherds. The boy grew upwards to be the mediator betwixt God and man.
8. Buddha'due south mother was told by an angel that she'd give nascency to a holy kid destined to exist a savior. As a child he teaches the priests in his temple about religion while his parents await for him. He starts his religious career at roughly 30 years of historic period and is said to have spoken to 12 disciples on his deathbed. One of the disciples is his favorite, and another is a traitor. He and his disciples abstain from wealth and travel around speaking in parables and metaphors. He called himself "the son of man" and was referred to as, "prophet", "main", and "Lord". He healed the ill, cured the blind and deaf, and he walked on h2o. One of his disciples tried to walk on water too merely sunk considering his organized religion wasn't strong enough.
9. Apollonius of Tyana (a contemporary of Jesus) performed countless miracles (healing ill and crippled, restored sight, casted out demons, etc.) His birth was of a virgin, foretold by an angel. He knew scripture actually well as a child. He was crucified, rose from the expressionless and appeared to his disciples to prove his ability before going to heaven to sit down at the right paw of the father. He was known as, "The Son of God".

The problem, of grade, is that these previous narratives existed hundreds to thousands of years before Jesus did.

Unavoidable contradictions

Not only was the Bible taken largely and blatantly from previous stories, just there are contradictions so massive that they defy belief. Hither are only a few of them.

• Noah's Ark: The story of the Ark is that a pair of every animal on globe was put on the send. Forgetting for a 2nd the fact that the story came directly from the Epic of Gilgamesh, keep in mind nosotros're existence asked to believe that two 500-year-quondam people are caring for tens of thousands of animals. And where did they go on the food? How did they continue the poisonous snakes from biting the other animals? And where did they get the polar bears, alligators, and thousands of other animals that that don't alive in the Centre East?

• The Angel's Message: In Matthew 1:twenty it says the Angel spoke to Joseph. In Luke one:28 he spoke to Mary. Which was information technology?

• Mary'southward Virginity: The Hebrew discussion 'Almah', which people took to mean virgin, actually means 'young woman of marriage age'. And at that place are plenty of indications that Jesus had brothers and sisters.

• The Census: The authors of the Bible are trying so hard to get Jesus born in Bethlehem that they arts and crafts a story about a demography. They say that Joseph had to travel dorsum to his father's homeland in order to register for it. Can you seriously imagine—in any menstruation let alone then—asking the entire state to travel dorsum their father's hometown to register for a census? It's completely impossible. The author of the story put it in there because they needed Jesus born in that city. Plus, historians notation that the Romans kept extraordinary records, and in that location wasn't even a census at that time. Information technology's completely fabricated, and for obvious reasons.

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• Jesus and the Family: The Bible says honor your father and mother, yet Jesus says you must hate your father, female parent, wife, children, and fifty-fifty your own life to be a disciple, and says to call no man on world your male parent. (MT x:35-37, LK 12:51-53, 14:26, MT 23:ix)

• God and Murder: God says killing is wrong, still he advocates genocide. (EX 34:11-14, LV 26:7-ix)

• God and Slavery: We all know slavery to be wrong, nevertheless God openly advocates it. (GN 17:12, EX 12:43, EX: 21:1, EX 21:xx, EX 21:32, LV 22:10, LV 25:44, LK 7:ii, CL 3:22)

• Jesus'south Heritage: There are two unlike genealogies for Jesus given in the Bible, and they don't lucifer. 1 is curiously given through Joseph, which is strange since he's non Jesus'due south father. Why give a genealogy through someone who isn't related to y'all?

• The Passover: It's widely understood that God is supposed to be all-seeing and all-knowing. If that'south true, and so why did he need people to mark their houses with claret in order to continue from killing their babies inside?

• Impale Your Son to Prove You Love Me: God told Abraham to kill his son to prove that he loved God. Abraham raised the knife to him, about to do information technology, and God called it off—pleased that he would have done it. Does that sound like a moral God to you?

This is merely a tiny sample of the inconsistencies and moral issues with the Bible. There are far more linked in the notes. Just don't have my discussion for any of this. Go to the passages. Read the cloth. It's all at that place.

Nagging questions

1. How is Jesus'due south crucifixion the ultimate sacrifice if he isn't expressionless? He has been immortal since the offset of time, and he'southward still alive and immortal today, so where'due south the cede?
2. If Jesus removed our sins with his (encounter above) "sacrifice", and so how come up we still take to avoid sin and accept him every bit our savior to avoid an eternity in hell? What did it accomplish?
3. Why does the Bible talk constantly almost how to manage slaves, how to kill one's enemies, and how to avoid making God aroused, but there's non much focus at all on seemingly obvious things like, "K Shalt Not Harm a Child"?
4. I know the Ark was supposed to exist big, but the world currently has an estimated 8,700,000 species of life class. And yous needed two of each
5. Forgetting just the numbers problem, how did the species that only exist (and still exist) in Southward America, and Antartica, and Australia, etc., all go far to the Ark?
6. What's the direct, non-mitt-waving explanation for the suffering and death of roughly nine million children per year in a world supposedly ruled by a kind and loving God?
7. When Wikipedia can be updated by a random human, for billions of people in mere seconds, why has God left his book filled with stories of slavery, rape, and genocide from thousands of years agone?

The logical conclusion

Many are familiar with Occam's Razor, which states that, all things beingness equal, one should not seek complex explanations when more simple ones are available. Few dispute that these other stories predate the Judeo-Christian Bible, or that the Bible is full of massive contradictions, so we really have two chief explanations:

1. God created all these stories and characters thousands of years before the Bible in order to play a trick on people, and and then created new stories and characters that were nigh exactly the aforementioned. But the version that went into the Bible—even with all the contradictions and immoral teachings—is the bodily discussion of God. …OR…
2. The Bible was created during a fourth dimension where stories were orally passed down over thousands of years. Stories constantly morphed and changed over time, and the Bible is a collection of these. This is why it has the about identical flood story from Gilgamesh, and why Jesus has the same characteristics as Dionysus, Osiris, Horus, Mithra, and Krishna. The contradictions and immorality in the stories are non evidence that God is flawed or evil, simply rather that humans invented him, just like the thousands of other gods that we used to but no longer believe in.

If you hadn't been taught Christianity since you were a young child, which of these two explanations would make the most sense to y'all?

Notes

1. The goal of this page is not to say God is evil or bad. The signal is to show that he is imaginary, created by humans, and to employ the blatant reproductions, inconsistencies, and immoral teachings of the Bible to show that the Bible is false, and was written by homo. God is not at fault here; at that place is no reason to believe anything like God exists at all. We simply made it all up because ane) we are agape of death and, two) we tin utilise such beliefs to control people.
2. Jesus: Original or Fake? http://www.bandoli.no/nooriginaljesus.htm
3. Here is a list of far more contradictions and problems with the Bible
4. Comparison of Babylonian and Noahic Flood Stories: http://www.religioustolerance.org/noah_com.htm
5. This website is a astounding resource for showing how immoral the teachings of the Bible truly are
6. An Easter Blessing: http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/blessing.html
7. [ November 2015 ] A number of the facts listed higher up about mythical beings that pre-dated Jesus are upward for fence. Dorsum when I wrote this I took the content to exist factual (I was less careful then), but the truth is that there is much discussion around these details. The important matter to capture from that section is that there were popular concepts that predated Jesus by hundreds of years that ended up in his stories as well. Y'all can research the details more deeply if you want; I have removed a couple of points already, and will be cleaning information technology upwardly more as I accept time. I'd currently give that section an 85% accuracy rating.

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Source: https://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-bible-is-fiction-a-collection-of-evidence/

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