THE IMPOSSIBLE GOD? Part Three.

Ben Elves
Ben Elves
Jul 22, 2017 · 7 min read

3- Hints of truth in Scripture

There is no denying it; Genesis is partly correct. Everything is in the right order. Science agrees, and one has to ask “Who figured that out way back then?”

I for one have always believed that all religious stories contain an element of truth, upon which religions are based: not just the current ones, but the ones that have died and become covered in layers of dust and are now called “Myths and Legends” or “Folklore”; or have sadly been forgotten. Some, like Grimm’s fairytales, are pure fiction but are stories used to illustrate a point or teach a lesson. They contain their own truth.

No matter how wonderful you are, everyone has a weakness. That’s the moral in the story of Achilles. If only he had been a motorcyclist, he would have had decent boots.

If we draw the conclusion that Holy writings contain an element of truth, we have to accept that what is left is untrue- the difficulty has proved to be, the best way to intelligently filter this stuff out. This is where arguments start.

In the “Do’s and Do Nots” of the Bible, there are things which seem reasonable, and things which are absurd. Unfortunately different groups have different opinions regarding which is which- and this has ultimately led to persecution and slaughter- which misses the very point altogether.

Generally speaking, all religions teach that we should be tolerant of each other, be the best we can, and not go around smiting one another. All religions agree; we should live in harmony. And yet history shows us that the most religious of us are the most likely to kill and persecute, or urge others to do it for them. It is all to do with the clauses and sub-clauses that have been added to religious texts over the millennia by people who claim that “God commands it”.

As discussed earlier, good and bad are a reflection of the morality of the period in which they were defined, so should we abandon all these writings, and rewrite the “Do’s and Do Nots” list in favour of one that suits the morality of today? If we do, it has to be done democratically and globally. I for one do not wish to see a commandment that says “Thou shalt not kill unless there is profit in it such as oil or mineral resources”. The problem here of course, is that everyone will have a different agenda, see things from a different perspective due to their culture, and argue for millennia without ever coming to an agreement. We are trying- the UN has been attempting this for years, but whilst fear and greed drive mankind’s behaviour they can never fully succeed.

Many wars have been fought in the name of God, but none have been fought in the name of Atheism. Not every Atheist is a murderer, rapist or thief. This shows that even the Godless have their own moral compass, so is it really essential that we obey “God’s Laws” at all? Atheists prove that you do not need God to be a decent person.

“Man’s Laws” could be far more moral, but then one has to remember that “God’s Laws” were written down by men too.

Every sane thinking person is aware that it was people, not God that wrote the Holy writings of the world, and some stories have twisted over the thousands of years that they have been around. A tale in the New Testament speaks of Jesus raising a man from the dead; a man named Lazarus. Is it a coincidence that hundreds of years before, the Egyptians tell of their God, Horus, raising a man from the dead too? His name was El Azarus.

The stories endure, no matter who they are attributed to, and some put mythical stories to what may have been actual historical events.

The Old Testament tells of God destroying the twin city of Sodom and Gemorrah, where poor Lot’s wife was turned to a pillar of salt. This is a story of a catastrophe which happened around 3,000 years ago, so we should look at it not in a literal sense, but with an attempt to see it through the eyes of the people of that era. We must bear in mind their understanding of the world. So what really happened?

A city was destroyed in one moment by something so mind-numbing to those who witnessed it, that it could have only been an act of a deity as it was beyond the experience of anyone alive at the time. And it is not just mentioned in the Bible.

The accounts of the war between Krishna and the evil god Rak tells of a great battle fought around a great twin city in the west. (That is; to the west of what is now India.)

Rak arrived on the battlefield with a great army of mortals, and Krishna attacked him with his secret weapon. There was a blinding flash and tremendous heat; the army was wiped out instantly, and Rak was left with his sight destroyed. For many years there were tales from the area of illness; livestock with skin deseases, children born with mutations. That sounds very much like the after effects of a nuclear explosion.

Thinking of Lot’s wife, was she turned into a pillar of salt? Or is this a description of somebody who was incinerated and calcified by an atomic heat flash?

“Oh how ridiculous!” I hear you scream, “Is he really suggesting Atomic warfare 3,000 years ago?”

Well no I am not, for you see there is another example; it has happened again since. On June 30th 1908, there was a massive airburst explosion in Tunguska, Siberia. An asteroid exploded somewhere between 3 and 6 miles above ground with all the hallmarks of the detonation of a 15 Megaton Atomic weapon. Trees were flattened in an area in excess of 800 square miles.

Luckily Tunguska is in the middle of nowhere, but what would have been the cultural effect had this happened over Rome in 33 AD? Or Jerusalem 500 hundred years before that? Or Mecca in the mid 6th century? Is the tale of Sodom and Gemorrah and the tale of the great battle between Krishna and Rak two accounts of the same story?

Is the tale of Sodom and Gemorrah actually a factual account of a truly unearthly event that people just did not understand? Could it have been an Asteroid? It seems quite likely- or at least, quite possible.

There is a school of thought that attributes Holy events to ancient aliens, which almost seems to be becoming a religion in its own right, and although there is evidence around the world which may hint at this, many giant leaps of faith have to be taken to fully believe it.

Some could say the evidence of ancient aliens is just as strong; or just as tenuous, as the evidence for the existence of God, and they may have a point. There are some quite compelling arguments for both points of view. There are eminent thinkers and eccentric crackpots in both camps. And both schools of thought are very eager to discredit each other.

It is very easy to subscribe to any one school of thought and off-handedly dismiss any other, but this is surely dangerous. It leads to ignorance and intolerance, and sadly it prevents one from learning something new and potentially astounding. It is no coincidence that the Office of the Holy Inquisition was responsible for education in Catholic schools until the latter half of the 20th century. Minds have been moulded from a very early age to think a certain way; dismissing the credibility of the alternative possibilities.

This is indoctrination.

Indoctrination and dogma is the one thing everyone should avoid when it comes to religion, science and politics; for all three are inextricably intertwined.

Dogma is the tool used to indoctrinate, and taking the literal meaning of Holy writings instead of reading between the lines with informed and independent thinking leads one away from what may be the ultimate truth. This, like several others will be discussed in a later chapter.

I firmly believe the Bible is well worth reading; if only as a collection of texts to make one wonder what it is they really allude to. Equally worth reading are the Koran and the Talmud. But one should never believe that anything is exactly as it looks; especially when it is a story written in the Bronze Age, about events starting in the Stone Age, having been handed down verbally through countless generations by people with an agenda.

Recent geological evidence backs the story of the great flood; an event accounted for in just about every religion on Earth. Studies carried out in caves adjacent to the Black Sea have concluded that between 7 and 9 thousand years ago, rainfall in the area suddenly increased to a level almost one thousand times greater than average.

One theory for the cause of this is that a large comet crashed into the sun; increasing solar radiation by a huge amount and causing a sudden but fairly short lived increase in the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere. The result of this was a massive increase in the rate of evaporation of water from the Oceans, and the resultant torrential rainfall. Of course this coincides with the ending of the last Ice Age, so meltwater and rainwater may well have combined.

It is known that the Black Sea was once a freshwater lake but the Mediterranean overflowed into it, flooding the area and devastating the local population; thought to be part of the first advanced civilization in Europe and predating the Minoans. It would be doubtful that everyone was killed, and surely it is the survivors of such an event who passed this story on.

Of course, such a massive global event would have an effect upon many peoples around the world, and many peoples tell of it; from Native American Indians to India itself, and on into the Orient.

Back to Genesis, and the original question though. How did people really know what order our solar system and Earth developed in? The idea that it all happened in 6 days is plainly absurd, but a very good metaphor.

There are 3 main theories:

1. God told us.

2. Man worked it all out for himself.

3. Aliens told us.

I think this is a question we should try and work out for ourselves.

In Genesis, the second act of God was to say “Let there be light”, and so there was. This is the biggest hint; right at the start of the Bible, as to the first idea of who God really is. But we shall get to that later.

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