I suppose I should begin by saying that I am not an expert on anything, and I don't claim to be. I am merely a college student who has spent a lot of time pondering somethings. I'm sure very many people will look at what I have written and think of it as ridiculous, but I hope to at least put some thoughts on the table. This does not mean that these thoughts have not already been introduced by somebody, perhaps Hume or some other person brought them up. But, no matter what you think; you can either take what I say, or leave it. That is up to you. I hope to learn some things by telling people what I think and perhaps being shown how wrong I am.

            This has been something of a big thing for me in recent months. The idea of going against the mainstream religion, Christianity, and it's Apologists and it's ethics and teachings, etc. But, in writing this essay, that is precisely what I plan to do.

            I don't agree with the ideals of the Christian faith, or any other religion for that matter, and I also find issue with the arguments of some of the faithful that they are not only morally superior to all that are not faithful, but they also claim superiority over the faithful who have faith that does not line up with the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and/or Jesus the Nazarene (In regards to the research presented by Rene Salm of the existence of Nazareth). 

            The Bible is no longer relevant in my opinion. If you were to examine the Holy Judea-Christian Bible, King James Version, you'll note some of the cooky things that it spouts. We are not sickened by devils, women and homosexuals are not inferior, we were not created from dirt (though the debate continues), different cultures did not come from a tower, donkeys cannot talk, burning bushes can't talk, snakes don't talk, a man can't walk on water, he can't change water to wine, he can't transfigure on a mountain, and any other absurd event that takes place in the Old and New Testaments. In the many books of the Old Testament, God murders and supports slaughter of several people, inevitably violating one of his own sacred commandments: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Why, even if such a God exists, should we honor and worship him if he is such a gross hypocrite? What glory does this omnipotent being have if he can't does not honor the holy laws that he created for man to follow. Many would probably answer, “It is God. His will be done” or “God made the laws for man to follow. It does not say he has to follow them”. Then, if this be the case, God is not all loving and not all wise. He, in fact, quite human and can be jealous, angry, and vengeful. He is no better than any of the other Gods that have been offered to humans throughout the ages. Zeus was profoundly unloyal to his wife, threw his lightning bolt without reason, the God of War, Ares, was known for his unstoppable slaughter, and basically all of the Roman and Greek Gods had their fallible humanistic traits. This, in my opinion, is the same with the Judea-Christian God, the most famous one of them all. The one that has influenced several hundred millions of people, and still does today.

            The mightiest religion comes from dubious activities in Palestine; one that very many people, even in the area at the time, apparently didn't notice or had little interest in, but that can be debated, I'm sure, by Apologists against non-believers of Christianity. I don't know who said it, but, I'll quote, “If you want to know what's wrong with your religion, ask someone of a different religion”. What evidence we have for the existence of a man name “Jesus of Nazareth” is debatable, ergo no answer is readily available. Apologists will tell you, with one hundred percent certainty, that things such as the Resurrection of Christ can be proved historically. But, as I say, this is debatable and has been disputed not just between Atheists and Christians, but even some believers of the faith agree that Jesus rising from the dead is not provable with any real certainty.

            What I intend to do in these essays here (if I can call them that) is not to really prove anything. I will put my disclaimer here: I am not a trained professional of anything, except I do have a knack for writing, hence my desire of becoming an author. I am simply a Freshman college student who wears a bowler hat (or derby), who sits around most days thinking about random things, such as religion, history, and what ever other garbage that entertains me for short while before I move onto the next obsession. Before the real religious analysis, I looked through the events of John Fitzgerald Kennedy's assassination and discovered that Lee Harvey Oswald was in fact the man who shot the president and there was nobody else involved. Of course you may disagree with me on that.

            While I have brought it up, I want to draw a parallel of religious discussion that I found while studying the Kennedy assassination. Around that topic, there are two sides: Those who believe in conspiracy, and those who don't. Conspiracy believers of the Kennedy assassination have to believe some kooky things for their theories to work. For example, some believe that Kennedy's body, carried by a plane to Lovefield, TX, was stolen, mutilated as to fit with the implications of the “magic bullet” (which wasn't so magic, as I came to discover), and then delivered the dead man to the Bethesda hospital, while, accidentally, forgetting to put the brain back in the president's head. This theory is still believed, despite numerous testimony by people who were actually there, such as Dave Powers, who state that no such event could have possibly taken place.

            What does this have to do with religious debates, you may be asking? Well, quite simply, the fact that people who are try to defend religion are, inevitably, trying to defend things that are quite absurd.  Kennedy's body being stolen was just one example of some of the far-fetched stories that sound convincing to the ignorant person, but eventually fall apart when you examine them in detail.  Now, I'm not saying that religion is the result of a conspiracy (though there are people who believe such a thing), but, from my perspective, there are interesting parallels between those arguing for religion, to those who argue that Lee Harvey Oswald was, in fact, innocent of the shooting attributed to him. 

            History got muddled when it came to Jesus. Understandable, considering the susperstitious nature of people in antiquity, the fact that we weren’t there to see it (I’m looking at you, Ken Ham), and the fact that arguments about Christianity’s authenticity have been going on for centuries, further muddling things. But history was also muddled with Lee Harvey Oswald. There, we know that he was a historical figure, but the amount of rumor and legend written about him has made him one of the most famous people in all history. Was he a member of a conspiracy? Was he merely a pasty? Was he the lone nut? C.S. Lewis told us that Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Christ. Lee Harvey Oswald was either a lone nut, a patsy, or a conspirator. Are the Gospels telling the truth when the authors claim to have been eyewitnesses to the events of Jesus? A woman has come out and proclaimed herself to be a witness to the life of Oswald and claims that there was conspiracy. Is she telling the truth? After all why would she (or the Gospel writers) lie? Could it be that she (and the Gospel writers) are simply deluded individuals or misunderstood what happened?

            I sometimes feel that the people in support of the Bible are trying immensely hard to continue the livelyhood of an old book, which a great deal of people, all around the world, do just fine without, and did fine before it existed.  What use do we have for Deuteronomy and list of laws that are of little relevance? What use could we possibly have for a corporal punishment of a man picking up sticks on the Sabbath? What use do we have for a list of codes that are no longer followed by even Christians themselves? Thou Shalt Not Kill is constantly being broken. Jesus' teaching of do unto others as you would unto you, is a rule that absolutely no one follows, though it is one of the wisest words in the Bible (though not exclusive to it).

            To me, there are many places where the religious zealots of today try and confuse and/or coax people into believing what they do by showing rational reasons for doing so. These rational reasons are, at many times, not often actual proof. Many of them are simply fallible human beings trying to use fallible human thinking using logic to decide what happened. Perhaps there was a time where it was reasonable to assume that we were created by a God, but now, with evolution, we realize that that might not be the case. After all, who, with using simple philosophy, would have guessed that, rather than being created by a God, that we evolved from earlier species? Philosophy isn’t the answer to our questions. The First Cause argument might make sense now (if it does) but we might be surprised to find that the universe is a lot more difficult to understand than simply “Something caused the universe, therefore it is logical to assume it was a God, who is exempt from the rules of time and didn’t need to be created.”

            Of course the religious are not certainly wrong, and claiming that they are isn't exactly true.  They, in some circles, may not have much merit to their claims and may be laughed at as amateurs in their arguments; but one must consider a system of truth which can be explained in two examples, one a quote, the other a consideration. This system is, naturally, nothing really new, but I will show it just for the sake of it.

             Alfred Wegner, a meteorologist, was the man who proposed or revolutionized the theory of continental drift. He was not exclusively trained as a geologist and he was laughed out of rooms when he proposed this theory that we now know happens without a shadow of a doubt. Therefore, the religious (and I do mean creationists and the like) are not wrong because they are minorities. To believe that it is true is simply an Ad Populum fallacy, regardless of who is saying it, because experts can always be wrong.

            However, the quote hinders the consideration.

            “The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.” - Carl Sagan

            Now, I have encountered some who say this might be viewed as close-minded when it regards science and that we should treat everyone who proposes something fairly and not ridicule them. However, this is just simply not true for two reasons. If we allowed every person who came up with some “revolutionary” idea, we would be swarmed with incredible theories, some of which most likely would have no place in a science lab or otherwise. But, more importantly, the science community should ask for evidence when the person proposes a new  “revolutionary” idea, and that they must propose a hypothesis of how this will continuously affect the world around us and then test it to make sure that it is actually true. Such, if my understanding is correct, is the scientific method, which will not take unmeasurable notions as something that needs to be tested for validity.

            Basically, my point, and it goes for me and this essay, is: “Be open to those who come to you with new ideas. But be wary, as they may be deluded.”