The Bible: Some of its Logical, Philosophical and Doctrinal Anomalies

Here are just a few of what appear to me as the most dominant anomalies and logical inconsistencies of the biblical text.

How Can One Life Pay For All?

How can just one life (that of Jesus Christ) pay for the salvation of billions? The usual answer is that the life of the pre-existing Christ was worth far more than the total of all human lives that have lived or will ever live. If this be so, where is the sense in sacrificing this single more valuable eternal being for mankind? Why not keep that which is more valuable?

Did Jesus Christ actually pay with his life for the sins of humanity? He was originally an eternal self-existent being. He emptied himself of his eternal self-existence to become a mortal human being. This mortal human being was then sacrificed to pay for the sins of all humanity. After this, he was resurrected as the first-born son of the other eternal being that existed with him from past eternity. He was again an eternal self-existent being.

This is analogous to taking some money into a shop to buy some goods. You give the shopkeeper your money. The shopkeeper gives you the goods. Then the shopkeeper gives you all your money back. You walk out of the shop with both the goods and your money. Jesus Christ gave his eternal life to buy the salvation of humanity. Then he got his eternal life back again. So the ultimate cost of salvation was zero.

As I understand it, the biblical text seems to say the following. He who became Jesus Christ was originally a self-existent being with eternal life. He cast off his eternal self-existence to become a mortal human. He was killed in sacrifice to atone for the sins of all mankind past and future. He was then resurrected to become an eternal being again.

The eternal self-existence he now had was not his original eternal self-existence. It was instead derived from the eternal self-existence of another being known as God the Father, exactly as a human father begets human life to a human son. Consequently, so the text seems to imply, sin was paid for by the destruction of the original eternal self-existence that Jesus Christ had before he became a mortal human.

The flaw in this argument is as follows. He, the original being (the Logos), Jesus Christ the human and Jesus Christ the resurrected son of God the Father are all depicted to be the same person. They are all the same conscious self-aware free-will entity. His original self-existence, his human mortal existence and his resurrected eternal existence are all merely vessels within which the same unique conscious entity was accommodated at different times.

Consequently, the person (the conscious self-aware free-will entity) did not die. He may have ceased to exist for 3 days and 3 nights. Nevertheless, he did not die permanently. He, the very same entity, continues to exist. So what paid for the sins of mankind? All that ceased to exist was his original self-existent life-force, life-source or spiritual body: not him.

The Nature of Sin

The Bible defines sin as the transgression of the law. It also advises that the wages of sin is death. Thus the wages for transgressing the law are death. It is consequently tempting to equate wages with effect and assert that the cause of death is sin or that the effect of sin is death. Some people assert that death (and indeed suffering) are caused by sin. So, if a child suffers with AIDS or cancer and eventually dies in agony, it is because either the child or somebody else sinned. Since it is unlikely that the child had the opportunity to sin yet, it must have been somebody else.

If wages are used as a figure of speech to indicate effect, then rather than actively imposing a penalty for a transgression, God is merely informing mankind about a fundamental law of the universe. Sin is the cause: death is the automatic effect. It is similar to saying that if you jump off a cliff (cause) you will fall to the bottom and be killed (effect). The text seems to be saying the following. If everybody follows a benign cooperative way of behaving towards his neighbour, life will be constructive and good. But if some follow an adversarial way of greed and competition, life will degenerate into war, which will result in death and ultimately in global annihilation.

Notwithstanding, wages do not have any physical cause-and-effect relationship with work. They are what a master gives to a servant in return for service. The relationship between the amount of wage corresponding to a given amount of work is not determined by the laws of physics but by the whim of the master. A servant does not automatically receive any particular amount of wage in return for his service. He may even receive nothing.

Consequently, it must be God who decides that the wages of sin is death. It does not matter whether the sin be a fleeting mischievous thought or the genocide of an entire race of people. It is rewarded with the same wage, namely, death. If this were applied in civil law, a motorist would be hanged for a minor parking offence just as would a psychopathic serial killer for his heinous acts of murder.

What is more, the wages of a sin are not necessarily imposed upon the one who committed it. The text states that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations. The doctrine of Original Sin, expounded in detail by Paul, takes this notion to its ultimate limit. It makes every person (who has ever lived, is living or ever shall live) guilty of the sin the first man Adam committed in the Garden of Delight.

I do not accept culpability for anybody else's sin. It is as if, when one person is convicted of a crime and is sent to prison for 10 years, the law requires that everybody else go to prison for 10 years also for the same crime. Death, the punishment for sin, is thus expedited upon innocent people who had nothing to do with the corresponding sin and who probably know nothing about it. To my natural conscience, this paints a picture of God as a cold-blooded sadistic psychopath. I unashamedly do not wish to follow such a God.

On the other hand, the text of the message, in its cack-handed way, could simply be stating that the effects of committing a sin can have collateral effects, which spread out in both space and time to cause problems for others who had nothing to do with it. Corporate factories belching out toxic fumes and carbon dioxide cause life-long respiratory diseases and global warming. The suffering many are well separated from the sinning few in both space and time.

The Anomaly of Guilt

It is well evident that the human mind has a built-in bias towards self-interest. Universal interest is an attribute apparent in only a precious few in this present age. The human mind will have to undergo a quantum leap in spiritual evolution before the majority gain such an attribute to any socially workable degree. So I admit, as the text of the biblical message asserts, that I was born with a sinful nature. I am naturally prone to sin. That is the way I'm made. That's the way my brain's wired.

If I sin, therefore, it is natural. I do not choose to sin from a neutral position. There is a natural force built into me as a system. Therefore, how can I be blamed if I sin? Why am I guilty of what results from the way nature has programmed me to behave? Of course, the ultimate effect of sin is death. But it is not my fault that I will die, or that others may be harmed as an unintended collateral consequence. I cannot therefore see any reason why I should be, or feel, guilty.

Furthermore, I cannot see how the act of one self-existent being forfeiting his self-existence and getting it back again by becoming born as a son of another self-existent being can put back what has been caused by my failing to act 100% in the cause of universal interest. I simply hope to gradually gain the strength to improve my adherence, using the 100% target as an attractor.

Following this endeavour, I would like very much, eventually, to be able to acquire the spiritual attribute of universal interest and hard-wire it into my mind. I would also like very much, having acquired that attribute, to be able to become a self-existence being with eternal life. I would, however, describe this as a process of development rather than an act of salvation.

Could there be a misunderstanding of the ancient word that was translated as 'guilt'? I think the words 'guilt' and 'wages' have had a certain spin placed upon them by partisan translators and creative editors to make the message conform to the will of their political masters.

The Act of Judas

This is considered to be the most heinous sin of all time. It was, nevertheless, a systemic necessity for the process of salvation to take place at all. I am referring to the so-called act of betrayal by Judas Iscariot. From the story given in the biblical text, as it comes across to me, I am led to the following conclusion. If Judas had not betrayed Jesus then Jesus Christ would not have died on the cross. If he had not died on the cross, nobody would be saved from sin. All would be consumed by the eternal fire.

Judas's act of betrayal must therefore have been a pre-ordained part of the divine plan of salvation. Consequently, Judas was predestined by powers beyond himself to do what he did. So why is it his fault? Why should he be considered the most heinous sinner that has ever lived? If he had not done it, somebody else would have had to. And then they would be condemned. It seems that Judas was born to be condemned. He must have been the most unlucky human to have ever been born, being pre-ordained for such a destiny.

I think that a God who would put such a burden, with its ultimate and inevitable wages of damnation, upon a hapless human being is callous and sadistic. Jesus ended up with eternal life: what of Judas, without whom none of this great plan would have happened? Perhaps the text has been messed with. Perhaps it didn't happen that way. Especially since it was Jesus who gave Judas the direct instruction to do what he had to do. Something doesn't quite add up.

In the Image of God?

I have no systemic problem with the notion of the human life-form being a physical analogue of the god life-form. However, I do have a problem with the idea of the human family being a physical analogue of the god-family. God-the-Father plus God-the-Son do not form a reasonable spiritual anti-type of the Father + Mother + Child structure of the natural human family. There appears to be no God-the-Mother. Mary (the human mother of Jesus Christ) cannot be the hyper-physical version of a human mother because she was herself entirely human.

Some postulate a Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost as a third person of the god-species. But this cannot be a counterpart of a human mother. In any case, I cannot see the idea of the holy spirit as a person as being consistent with the biblical text. As I read the text, it seems clear that the holy spirit is the god-species counterpart — or the higher reality version — of what imparts consciousness to the human brain.

A fit human being possesses the mental faculty that empowers him truly to assert "I think, therefore I am". Most, but not all, human beings possess the mental faculty that empowers them further to see things from the points of view of others as different from their own. Nevertheless, their core motive is still self-centred. Each uses his ability to see the points of view of others simply as a tool to better achieve his own ends.

From what I gather from the text, a human can receive this holy spirit. It gives him access to an external power that extends his conscious perception and gives him the motivation to love his neighbour as himself. He thus, while remaining an individual, becomes able to perceive and strive for the good of all. But, while he is a physical human being, this holy spirit is still a passive external influence. He can choose to follow or ignore what it gives him the power to see.

The holy spirit is therefore not a god-person. It is the hyper-consciousness possessed by the god-species. This leaves the anomaly of the existence of two separate genders having no apparent counterpart in the higher reality.

Consequently, the fundamental inconsistency remains. The text tells us that a life-form called 'god' created a life-form called 'man' in the same shape and form as itself. But we observe that there are two different forms of human being: male and female. So if god is like human, then god must exist in two genders: male and female. But the general account of the ancient text we call the Bible is of two male gods that promulgate a male-dominated (or machoistic) social structure for humanity. This is not only inconsistent with itself, but with the observed nature of the human species.

An All-Seeing God

The idea of an all-seeing entity that can monitor the thoughts of every human being concurrently is inconsistent with the idea of individual consciousness or personality. It is a logical necessity that a universal consciousness would have no individual personality and hence could not be a separately identifiable being.

On the other hand, postulating an all-seeing God is a very effective way of making people afraid to do — or even think — contrary to an established system of law. It is therefore an excellent invention whereby an elite few can control the vast ignorant masses through fear.

Heaven: What Then?

The final picture I draw from the Biblical text is of a time when practically all who have ever lived will have been resurrected in hyper-physical (or spirit) bodies and living together with the original gods as gods. All will be members of the god-species. It seems that the place where they live is in a hyper-physical city called New Jerusalem (the New City of Peace) on a new Planet Earth. Perhaps the new Earth will be this same physical planet that has been cleansed and renewed. Perhaps it will be a new Planet Earth fashioned from hyper-physical material within higher dimensions of the universe. Which of these it will be is not clear to me.

Whichever the case, what catches my attention as being strange is what the Biblical text says everybody will be doing in this place for the rest of Eternity. Apparently, they will be spending all their time singing and praising God. Presumably, the god that this uncountable hyper-deferential multitude will be praising is the Most High god that pre-existed everybody and everything. I have to admit that, as it is stated, this appears to me to be the most boring and unproductive pursuit imaginable. It also portrays the Most High god as the ultimate and most superlative manifestation of narcissism. Is it for this reason that the vast universe and all within it was created? What is the point? What is the purpose? What's next?

The Personality Paradox

Finally, I have great difficulty understanding what kind of person Jesus Christ really was. He seems to be depicted in different places within the New Testament as being at once both good and bad, appearing compositely to be a loving, benevolent, psychopathic, narcissist. Such a personality isn't merely schizophrenic: it is paradoxical. But was he a person or was he merely a personification of what the Ancient Greek philosophers referred to as the Ο Λόγος [The Logos] of John 1:1-5?

In the beginning was the Word [Ο Λόγος], and the Word [Ο Λόγος] was with God, and the Word [Ο Λόγος] was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." — John 1:1-5

On the one hand, Jesus told his disciples to love each other, their neighbours and also their enemies:

"This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you". — John 15:12. "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;" — Matt 5:43-44

On the other hand, in a parable in which he portrays himself as a young nobleman returning after being in a far country, he commanded:

"Unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him. But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me." — Luke 19:26-27.

So, on his return, he has absolute zero tolerance of ineptness, failure and dissent, and, rather than allow those who choose not to be part with him to 'live and let live' in peaceful coexistence, he exterminates all dissidents. Which ever way you care to dissect this, it exhibits the mind of an intransigent Fascist genocidal maniac, driven by an obdurate spirit of exclusivism.

Indeed, this Christ is explicitly portrayed as a fierce autocratic super-being with an overwhelmingly destructive force, which he knows full well mere humans, however many, could never hope to match. The scenario is that of a global turkey shoot.

"I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God [Ο Λόγος]." — Revelation 19:11-13

The sword going 'out of his mouth' suggests to me that he is commanding this wast army of super-human spirit beings in the context of a military operation. The wine-press analogy invokes for me the imagery of the bodies of his human victims being ruthlessly crushed like grapes in a wine press, and that this action is conducted as an extreme venting of anger [wrath].

"And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. He hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords." — Revelation 19:14-16

The following gives me the clear vision of vast multitudes of human beings dying of mortal wounds inflicted by shameless butchery. And suffering as they die as the vultures pick the flesh off the bones of their already dead comrades in arms.

"I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great." — Revelation 19:17-18

The human armies are doubtless fighting to defend what they would most likely perceive as alien beings invading their planet. They would comprise the vast majority of hapless subjects who had no way to know what was going on, having been brainwashed from birth by the propaganda of the kings of the earth with their bestial laws of containment and exploitation of the poor by the rich.

"I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. The beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. The remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth: and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." — Revelation 19:19-21

All this graphic carnage invokes, within my mind, an obvious and poignant humanitarian question: If he has such overwhelming and supreme power, why did he elect to expedite a butcherous military bloodbath of overt suffering rather than use the far more humane police-style methodology of apprehension, containment and correction? What he did makes Guantanamo Bay look like a retirement home. He is not the kind of God I find myself able to respect or condone. Such a mentality seems to me to have a tell-tail human character, particularly that of the elite of this world.

And it would further appear that this Fascist genocidal psychopath is also incredibly narcissistic:

"I beheld a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen." — Revelation 7:9-12

Indeed, this comes across to me as the most superlative possible manifestation of pathological narcissism. It sounds more like the egotistic dreams of Earthly kings and emperors than the fatherly endeavour of a benign creator. And all for what?

So is The Bible Credible?

Religious people are always quick to retort that the Bible never contradicts itself. Syntactically, I agree: there are no statements that directly contradict each other. But semantically, I disagree: the Bible contains plethoras of statements that are mutually inconsistent and incompatible.

I recognise that it must be challenging to translate an ancient text, into a modern language, whose authors lived in an alien social context with an entirely different world-view. It must inevitably lead to misinterpretation, misunderstanding and error. But the inconsistencies and incompatibilities that I see in the Bible suggest to me that it has been further corrupted by deliberate creative editing down through the ages by the rulers of nations in an endeavour to create an effective instrument of social control through fear of the unseeable and unknowable.

Already-committed religious churches and sects start from the premise that the Bible is a message, authored by the supreme creator of the universe, which he sent to mankind via a few specifically chosen human intermediaries. They therefore assume it to be true. Consequently, all they can do is read it and try to parse out, from the Bible text, their church's or sect's particular doctrines. But there are so many different churches and sects, all of which profess to follow the same text, but who each see it as conveying very different doctrines.

So either at least all-but-one of these churches or sects must be very inept readers or the text itself must be an incorrigible confusing mess. To me, the latter would seem to be the more likely case. So I'm forced to ask: Why did this superlative supernatural author not explain the history and doctrines contained in the text clearly and unambiguously, the way a technical writer would? Are we to believe that he was too inept a writer to do this: or is he simply jerking us around?

I have therefore felt compelled to delve deeper than the initial premise of the churches & sects and presume to question the validity of the Bible. I am not trying to be spiteful, heretical or radical: I am simply trying to be honest. And, after many years of study, I find the Bible's content to be inconsistent, mutually incompatible and in many cases unacceptable to my natural conscience.

Despite all the anomalies and logical flaws within the message, as it is presented in the biblical text, there do seem to be some interesting chinks of light visible within the message's confusing syntax. These appear as a slender meandering mycelium of cogent truth woven in throughout its length, which the mistranslation and creative editing of the intervening millennia have not quite managed to expunge. But this truth is practically impossible to unravel. So if a supreme being intends that we should know and follow what is in the Bible, why would he make it so enigmatic, inconsistent and incomprehensible?

Thus the Bible itself seems to be a mixture of a little truth and a lot of error. It is the veritable Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And it, itself, tells us not to 'eat of it'. I wonder why. Perhaps we should be reading a different 'book' in order to see the truth. For me, that 'book' is my direct observation, experience and suffering within my socio-economic environment and the physical universe within which we are all immersed. That cannot lie. And its message cannot be corrupted by man.

Chapter 3: A Vital Key

Footnote: The Bible: Philosophical & Doctrinal Anomalies