The foul, the dud, and the well (The fall, the flood, and hell)
Is there anything else one needs in order to realize what a nonsense christian doctrine is? Let's examine these three parts of the cult's dogma in more detail.
I trust every reader knows the story of the fall. Supposedly, the christian god made a human pair (the infamous Adam and Eve) and placed them in that idyllic garden of Eden. They were allowed to do pretty much everything except eating the fruit of two trees (the legendary trees of life, and of knowledge of good and evil). Alas, Mr Bad Guy (sing along with me now: Saaa-taaan) told Eve that eating those fruits would be a good idea, and she got seduced by the talking snake that really was Saaa-taaan. She also gave Adam that fruit, and the consequence was the banishment of the two of them from the garden – as well as, or so the dogmatists tell everyone, the sudden coming-into-being of evil.
Now wait a moment. What the fuck?
If evil didn't exist prior to the fall, what was a “tree of knowledge of good and not-yet-existing-evil” doing in the garden?
God supposedly told his human slaves that “you
will surely die” if they eat from those trees. Saaa-taaan said
“No, you won't”. Now get out your bible and read the story. Did
the two of them die, or didn't they?
Oops. Looks like there was
indeed a liar back then in the garten... and it was not
Saaa-taaan.
Of course the
numbnuts will now reply that it was all about spiritual
death. Really? Hey preacher, care to present the bible verse that
makes that clear? If you can't find such a verse without a nice bit
of interpretation on your part, don't you dare to claim that “the
bible says”. Your interpretation
of the bible says that, maybe. Well, my interpretation is that it's
all bovine fecal matter. Feel free to prove that yours is correct
and mine isn't. If you can.
Just as a sidenote,
the fundies also commonly claim that there was no death before the
fall at all. Well, I guess that answers the question which is
sometimes asked about the skin color of the first humans.
They
were green. After all, photosynthesis is the only way to nourish
yourself without in someway killing and consuming something else on
this earth, and chlorophyll, the substance that makes photosynthesis
possible, is green. If those fundies had ever seen a classroom from
the inside, they'd even know that plants are alive too, so
eating a plant means that you kill it. Preach against that,
fundie brats.
And finally, what
was it again the fundies boldly claim about their god? He is
supposed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. Does the
fall story make any sense if you assume such a god?
Being
omniscient, he'd have known in advance that Eve would succumb to
Saaa-taaan's temptation.
Being omnipotent, he'd have had more
than enough options to prevent this.
Being omnibenevolent, he
would have prevented it.
So, fundies, what is it? Is your god not omniscient and thus didn't know what would happen? Is he not omnipotent, having no way of preventing the oh-so-horrible deed? Or is he not omnibenevolent and thus didn't care? Maybe he's even a sadist and was looking forward to punishing those poor little humans, hmmm? Actually, we'll see that if the christian god really exists then he must be a sadist, but we'll get to that.
So... the “fall”, eh? Well, I call “foul”.
Next, the
flood. Babblical
legend has it that some day god got so pissed seeing what his
creations did (never mind that an omniscient god would have known
that in advance et cetera and... oh well... see above, in the “foul”
part). Therefore he “justly” killed all life on earth except for
one faithful slave believer, his family, and one
pair of each animal in the world.
Justly, eh? So, let's assume that men did indeed sin so much that this god couldn't stand it any more. The just thing to do would have been to kick the arses of those sinners. Yet what does this monster, so the legend tells us, do? It kills all life on earth. Ever stopped to imagine that? Newborn children - killed. All those animals, those cute young puppies for example - drowned. The fields of beautiful flowers - dead and gone. Justice? Humans have a word for such a behavior indeed. It's called “sadism”. Let alone that this god must have been an idiot extraordinaire for creating all that with the knowledge (remember the “omniscience” claim?) how it would end.
I will not start to get into details about just how absurd the whole flood concept is anyway. The whole of the internet is filled to bursting with sites dissecting the myriad claims about how the flood was possible, and tearing them all apart as a load of nonsense. Just to mention one site presenting the sad (to the fundies) truth, let me refer you to the talk.origins archive – see my links page.
Well you believers... “flood” you call it? Sorry. It's a dud. Even if you happen to like kissing the arse of a sadist.
Last, that place the christians call “hell”. Supposedly this is the place of punishment where the evil ones go after death, to be tormented for all eternity (of course, the christian hell is just a cheap and mutilated copy of an older heathen concept, as is everything else about this cult... but I digress). How anyone can claim with a straight face that a deity creating and using such a locale can be “loving” boggles my mind.
Let's see, what amount of punishment for any transgression is “just”? Our lifes on this earth are, obviously, of limited duration. Let's assume that some really dastardly evil person starts committing every possible sin from the moment of his birth, and keeps sinning as best he can until he bites the dust. Let's assume that this person somehow manages to live for 120 years – quite long by any standard measure. How much torture would be justified as a punishment for this?
Whatever you reply now, if you got any brains in your skull you will not say “eternity”. Punishment has to fit the crime. No amount of transgression in a finite amount of time merits an eternity of torture.
But wait a moment, the fundies will say. As all parents know, sometimes you have to hurt your children to educate them, when they just don't get the message any other way. This is why hell exists, they will say.
You lose. Education sometimes is in need of punishment indeed, but one is punished so that he won't make the same mistake the next time. Too bad, for the fundies, that according to their dogma there is no next time. At least the catholic idea of purgatory has some logic in it – the more evil you have been, the longer you roast, but eventually you get out. In that case one can at least start considering to call it “punishment”.
In other words, not only is it the ultimate sadism to punish anyone for any crime for an eternity, the whole “punishment” idea in and of itself is bullshit as long as – supposedly – there is never any way out of hell and back to this world (or are we to assume that in heaven one can sin too, and thus we need to be properly educated before we get there?). The only “miracle” in all that bullcrap is that the fundies don't even blush while they are lying through their teeth about their “loving” monster deity.
This “hell” is much more like a deep “well”. A well of abominable cruelty.