I have read and
reread at least twice, all the books of the Bible. I have read the Koran twice and will likely go back to it at some time in
the future. Since I will be sharing some of my opinions on these texts, in
future blogs, I think that this would be a good time to present some of my
general thoughts concerning these books.
It goes without
saying that almost everything in the Bible and the Koran is of enormous
significance. Much of it is brilliant literature. Many of the ideas invented
and presented on its pages have played a vital part in the development of human
ideas and philosophy. These works are a cornerstone in the great palace of
human thinking. Both books are filled with wonderful, as well as terrible ideas.
Any person, who wants to understand the world, would do well to read and to
attempt to understand what is contained here.
However, as a
source of truth about the physical world, I barley believe a single word
contained in these works. While Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, etc. were likely real persons;
their depictions in these books were fictional. These were interesting, compelling
and magnificent characters; but they are essentially products of someone’s
imagination.
I am essentially
an atheist. Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion has a fun little scale where a person
can compare their beliefs on the existence of Deities. The scale runs from 1 to
7, with a sore of 1 representing the view that one is 100% certain that God
exists and a score of 7 being 100% certain that she does not. I come out as a 5 or 6 on the scale of 7.
Dawkins would classify me as leaning towards being a de facto atheist.
If there is a God,
there is not doubt that he, she or it, is not the very small and petty Divinity
described in most of the world’s holy books. The more one learns about the
natural world, Biology, Physics, Astronomy, Cosmology, etc., the more trivial
and less important the God that man created in these fictional works appears to
be. In the unlikely event that a supreme being exists, it is a God of Math and
Physics. He is a creator of Black Holes, Quantum Physics and the double helix.
She is not likely to be helping people to walk on water or build wooden arks
and she is certainly not getting angry if people do not believe in her or draw
pictures of her “prophet”.
I also find it
difficult to use these writings as any kind of a moral compass. There are
superbly great ideas contained here, but there are just as many terrible ones.
It has become almost a cliché to say now, but it is true, that Yahweh of the
Old Testament was more often then not, a petty, vain, frivolous, yet often very
entertaining monster. The Koran espouses some very good things, such as
toleration for Christians and Jews, almost as often as it advocates horrendous
things, such as intolerance for many other belief systems or the enslavement of
women. The God of the New Testament is certainly more beneficent that either
Yahweh or Allah, but he is has similar moral issues such as threatening punishment
for dissenting opinions as well as the tendency to support slavery.
I also find it
impossible to view the Bible (or the Koran if we look at the Islamic text as a
“Sequel” of sorts) as a coherent work. The God of the Old Testament is
obviously not the same character as described in the Gospels. The God of Saint
Paul, for that matter is very different from Jesus or his father as depicted in
the Gospels. The philosophy of Ecclesiastes seems to be incompatible with just
about everything else found in either the Old or New Testament. Allah of the
Koran is different still.
Analyzing these
Holy Books as literature, philosophy, and diverse works of cultural importance,
and not as absolute truth, or as a single philosophy, is the only rational and
coherent way to explore them. Examining these enormously significant works as such
is vitally important, if one is to gain a minimum level of understanding of the
world.
