Appallingly Stupid Attacks on the Bible

Before I start, let me address a portion of my audience that I am about to lose. Some folks criticize when this blog leaves airplane stories and "wanders off into religion". I am afraid this post was not written for you. 

Sorry. Bye. 

What? Still there?! OK, see, the thing is, all my posts, and the reason for this blog, are to record little stories from my life so that my posterity (I like to imagine my great great great granddaughter) can have a glimpse into who I was. And since I am a devout Roman Catholic, that needs to be a part of this blog. 

There is a very large chance that YOU are not a Roman Catholic. Or, if you do think of yourself as a Roman Catholic, perhaps you are not fully invested in the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. (Did you go to Mass last Sunday?) If you fall into that category and decide to read on, be advised I know that my faith is the correct one and better than all the rest. 

But, you know what? If you think your faith is, in fact, the correct one and better than all the rest, CONGRATULATIONS! You are where you need to be! No need to leave me any snarky comments. I am, in fact, very happy for you.

If you don't think your religion or whatever serves as your religion, is not the best for you, wow! What the hell are you doing?! Get wherever you need to be for heaven's sake!

So anyway, I am a conservative baby boomer who spent his life as a Cold Warrior. Part of that package is living as a devout Roman Catholic in a time when that is considered sheer foolishness by the vast majority of people. 

If people think about it at all, they may wonder why would I, a fellow with three degrees in science, finds it important to pray a rosary every day? Shouldn't a real scientist and enlightened modern man be embarrassed to attend a church that claims the real presence of Christ at Mass? Why would such a man think a crazy book filled with obscure stories could help a person live his life today? 

Read on, dear great great great granddaughter and discover who I was when I lived on Earth during the Cold War.

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Have you seen appallingly stupid attacks on the Bible like these?

   How can I believe in a Bible that says: "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"? That's barbaric!

   Geez, everyone knows the creation story is bogus. Built the world in 7 days? C'mon!

   Who would want to follow Bible teachings? King David was an adulterer and murderer. God wanted Abraham to kill his own son!

Don't these make you cringe at the sheer lack of knowledge of the speaker or writer?

Of course being a reader of my blog, you are a well-educated fellow who knows that the old "eye for an eye" is a plea to stop killing entire families over tribal arguments. I don't have to tell you that, for the times, it was a pretty progressive thought that you would limit your revenge in any way. This charitable thought was brought to full understanding, as so many other Old Testament passages were, in the New Testament. "Love your neighbor and (guess what?) everyone is your neighbor."

And of course I don't have to tell you that the creation story of the Bible is not there to teach physics. If it were, the Bible would start with introductory math. It is there to explain The Fall and why mankind needs salvation. It is one way to say: "Look around you boneheads! You know what you are doing is wrong, yet you do it anyway. What's wrong with you? Well... I'll tell you what's wrong with you. You have Fallen."

Of course David was a cur. That was central to the story. And God wanted to announce something very profound to all of mankind. We know this because he did not kill Abraham's son. 

If you feel you are doing "just fine" without reading and understanding the Bible, it is because the Western Civilization you grew up in is steeped in the Bible and its lessons already. But like air, you can't even see it without looking very very hard at its effects on other things. But too often we don't study and understand what has happened around us through the ages. We're pretty happy to just take one day at a time.

So let's steer over to a little history lesson. The Roman Catholic Church has a core belief that the universe makes sense because God designed and built it. So they encouraged science, universities, and all related matters unconcerned that somehow science might disprove any of their beliefs. Read a scholarly account of the so-called "Dark Ages" to see how the Church formed what we know of today as Western Civilization. Universities, hospitals, banks, hotels... just about any modern institution traces its roots back to the "Dark" Ages and the influence of the Catholic Church and their roots in Judaism, Roman, and Greek culture.  

(Don't leave a comment in this post about Galileo. That has been so thoroughly debunked I am getting tired of responding to it. Find another example please. Hint: You won't find one. But you will find the Galileo myth everywhere because it suits a certain narrative.)

There is no doctrine of the Church that is in opposition to science. Miracles? Miracles can only be miracles if they break the rules. So therefore, rules.

Don't get me wrong, being a human-run institution, there were, and are, plenty of things to criticize the Church about. But anti-science is not one of them. You like today's life? Thank Western Civilization and thank the Roman Catholic Church for their role in creating it. Give them their due, even if they are a bunch of Fallen sinners.

Back to science, it is simply a fact that there are more laws of nature than those discussed in what used to be known as natural philosophy but is now known as science. There are also the rules as described in the Bible. And like physical rules, they have consequences if broken. Try to break the law of gravity and "ouch"! Similarly, try to break the law against murder and you will never be the same person. 

The rules as laid out in the Bible are a bit hard to understand as they are not described in mathematical terms, but in stories. I think this is because God want everyone to be able to understand His message. And some people just don't get math. Others can't read. But we can all tell stories.

So, here's the point I really wanted to get to in this blog, what would you do if you were God and the funny little clay things you built and pampered decided to throw it all away? Just like a parent, you would try your best not to give up on them. But those headstrong, silly little guys just keep getting themselves into more trouble. 

People share a lot of funny little quirks. If they meet someone new who has a different skin color and that person behaves terribly, well then, we conclude that everyone with that skin color probably behaves that way. They love to indulge in things that feel really good like lots of unhealthy food with no concerns about how that might hurt them in the future, and then do it again after it does. And again. They don't notice so much when someone else feels attacked, but they sure notice it when they are. It is important to them to "get even" if they have been wronged. They certainly hate being told something they've done is wrong. Lying or cheating seems like a good choice. And it is so much easier for us to talk about these things if we say "they" so that it doesn't sound so much like "I" might be doing all these things as well. But we do. We are such goofy little beings.

Go ahead. Try really, really hard to be good every day. You can't do it. You can just barely imagine it. Us humans are really a piece of work.

So if you were God, You are pretty sure those humans are not going to "get it" on their own. Perhaps You could inject Yourself into their history? Perhaps the stories they told about those times they noticed Your influence would start to lead them in the right direction?

And here's the important part. What would that look like? 

It would start out as a oral tradition about people who were not very "good" people (because we are all sinners) but all did one very special thing, they followed God's directions as best they could. And in each story, no matter how shady the character (Gideon, Jonah, and David come immediately to mind. But Moses, Noah, and Abraham and the others had their issues too) somehow everything works out better when God is involved. 

Then, You would weave in little things in your interactions with the silly little goofs, like the sacrifice of Abraham's son, or the tradition of the Jewish scapegoat, that start to point to the upcoming most important turning point in history, the birth of Christ and the salvation of Fallen Man. 

And the Bible? At the point where Jesus had lived, died, resurrected, and ascended into heaven, the fledgling Church had these stories available to them in both oral and written tradition. They also were able to select the best accounts of recent events to add to this book. They understood all of the stories much better than you or me, and were not shy about pointing out the many connections between the predictions from the Old Testament and the actions of Jesus.

So, yeah, it all pretty much makes sense to me. It seems to have all taken place just the way I would have done it, had I been God faced with this problem.

Sacred scriptures appear almost as a by-product of God's attempts to influence us. Revered traditions of your church exist because lots of smart folks before you struggled to understand and remember what happened in their lifetimes.

Can you "prove" scriptures and traditions are sacred and worthy of following?

Try this. Invest some time in reading your Bible. Discuss what the passages are all about with your church experts. Listen to your church's traditions. Do this for an entire year, and then compare your life now with what it was before. 

Wait! That almost sounds scientific. 

Not really. It is not an experiment. It is your life. But it is a logical plan. And it is a good place to start.

And I will give you a great tip. The religion that does scriptures and traditions the best is the Roman Catholic Church.  So little great great great granddaughter, why don't you go check it out?

If you do, then next week I'll get you an airplane story.