Christianity is a monotheistic religion. That means that it relies on a single god figure who is all-knowing (omniscient) and all-powerful (omnipotent). We are introduced to the god figure right at the beginning of the pentateuch (the first five books of the bible). For more information about the start of the story see: Christianity – in the beginning? (a page on this site).

How could god come into existence?

The immediate problem with the Christian god comes about by asking how such a character could exist? Christians hand-wave the question away and state “god is eternal” – which explains nothing. That dismissive answer will never be updated because there is nothing in the source material (the bible) to help with the question. Every single thing that creationists currently know about origins is all that they will ever know.

The same people are not so eager to allow the same hand-waving when they ask atheists how everything could exist without a creator. But think about it carefully. At best, scientists are considering how fundamental particles came into existence, for example the splitting of matter and antimatter (the matter-antimatter asymmetry, or baryon asymmetry). For more details see Baryon asymmetry (a link to Wikipedia). That initial split is believed to have formed the fundamental particles: quarks, leptons, and their antimatter counterparts, along with high-energy photons – all in less than one microsecond of the beginning of the universe. Research into that issue is ongoing and new discoveries are regularly being made.

No one is claiming that those fundamental particles are omniscient or omnipotent. The “dumb” particles took billions of years to transform into modern-day humans (and everything else we can observe). On the other hand, the Christian god is claimed to be omniscient and omnipotent, and therefore (by the very reasoning of Christians) must have had a designer. There is also the problem for Christians about where the matter originated that god used to form everything, however that is also hand-waved away by religious folk.

To be sure, scientists cannot (currently) explain every detail of the very beginning of the known universe, however theories are chipping away at the problem (see the above link for more details). There is also the theory that the universe is cyclical and therefore our universe formed from one or more previous universes. Of course, that leads to the question about the origins of the previous universe(s), however the theory does completely remove the need for a god to have created our universe. As the cyclical theory gains more support, the question therefore gets pushed back on the religious folk as to why their god would have first created a previous universe (or many previous universes) so that ours could originate from them? For more details about a cyclic universe, see Cyclic model (a link to Wikipedia).

Who decided that one god was enough? How was it decided which entity would become god? Anyone who has actually read the bible will acknowledge that god shows human traits and foibles in many places. How was it decided that god would have those particular traits and foibles? Would a different starting character have exhibited different traits? To be blunt, as soon as god does something or opens his mouth to speak, limitations and weaknesses emerge, and that challenges the claimed all-knowing aspect of a creator. The guys who wrote the bible made huge mistakes in having their god get involved in everyday events. This page will investigate many of those mistakes, but keep in mind that even one mistake should not arise from an omniscient being.

The mistakes stem from the fact that god was invented by superstitious and ignorant iron-age men. As a result, they had no choice except to limit their god figure to the knowledge they had at the time – which was very little. They also made a mistake in having their god figure interact with people and events, and therefore force him to make questionable moral choices. Finally, they made a mistake by using their god figure as a device to assert control over other people, for example by exhibiting favoritism – a ludicrous concept for an omniscient creator of the universe. Those authors were at least partially successful in that they are still asserting control over people, e.g. the fundies of today.

god was adapted from earlier fables

The Christian god wasn’t so much invented as he was adapted from earlier mythology. That is something that the average fundie will never acknowledge because it strikes at the very heart of the we-were-here-first mentality that is so important when absolutes are being considered. Regardless, it is undeniable that the guys who wrote the bible absolutely used earlier myths and stories and adapted them to produce a god figure that suited their requirements. They also did that for many of the other characters and events in the bible.

The first five books of the bible : genesis, exodus, leviticus, numbers and deuteronomy (the pentateuch) were thought to have been written and compiled between about 800-550 BCE (and likely finalized around 350 BCE). Think about that, because it’s something that would shock the average fundie who has been fooled into thinking that their “sacred” text fell fully formed from “heaven” as the word of their god (as it is packaged and presented today). Nothing could be further from the truth. It took hundreds of years to be compiled.

It gets worse because we have no idea of what was in the original texts, and that’s because not a single word of the originals survive. Here’s the best we have for each of the five books (the links are to pages on this web site that analyse each book in great detail):

• genesis. Fragments found in the Dead Sea Scrolls (in the Qumran caves) date to the 1st century BCE.
• exodus. Portions, including the Nash Payrus, date to the 2nd century BCE. Other significant fragments are found in the Dead See Scrolls, circa 250 BCE.
• leviticus. Several manuscripts are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, circa 250 BCE.
• numbers. Fragments found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, circa 1st century BCE.
• deuteronomy. Fragments found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, circa 2nd or 1st century BCE.

And that leads to a huge problem for those wanting to believe in a god: namely, how could the omniscient creator of the universe (the one who supposedly created two trillion galaxies) put into action a plan to leave his “sacred” word for his beloved creation … and lose the originals? That’s bumbling incompetence. The same god who (supposedly) created the cosmos could have made thousands of copies of the entire (original) bible and have stored them around the planet for safekeeping. Egyptian outdoor monuments (created by mankind) have preserved their inscribed messages for over 3,000 years, so why didn’t god do likewise?

By the way, we know for a fact that moses was not the author of the five books of the pentateuch. Not only is moses a fictional character, but he also managed to die before the end of book five. The variations in the writing styles in the texts strongly indicate that multiple (unknown) authors were involved. There’s also the niggly little problem of moses supposedly having been involved in the “exodus” (circa 1,350 BCE) and having written the works about them 800 or 900 years later (circa 500 BCE).

However the real problems start when more is understood about the origins of the Christian god – who was also known as “yahweh”. The guys who invented yahweh (and we don’t know who a single one of those was) were heavily influenced by earlier near-Eastern, Canaanite, and Mesopotamian mythologies. Those guys decided to merge existing polytheistic ideas (multiple gods) into a new and developing monotheistic (single god) framework.

It’s clear that the authors of the texts believed that yahweh was originally not the supreme creator god, but one of many deities who eventually absorbed the roles of others. Two of those others were “el“, the patriarchal Canaanite god of wisdom and divinity, and “baal“, the Canaanite storm and warrior god. The image of god as an elderly, wise king seated on a throne in heaven stems from earlier portrayals of the Canaanite deity el. The Christian god came to display characteristics of both el and baal.

The biblical texts describe yahweh in human terms – walking in the garden, having a physical body (feet, limbs), visiting people, and being a localized, warring deity, which is closer to the pagan gods of the ancient Near East.

The opening chapters of Genesis share structural, thematic, and linguistic similarities with Babylonian creation epics which predate the Hebrew bible. The Enuma Elish is the Babylonian creation story and tells of a god creating the world from a divided sea (genesis 1:6, anyone?). The story of Noah’s Ark is remarkably similar to the Babylonian flood story in the earlier Epic of Gilgamesh.

Fundies will “explain” the plagiarism and adaptation by suggesting that all religions are merely describing the same events … with their religion getting it right, of course. It’s strange how they never have an explanation for why their religion was always second (or later) when it came to documenting things! What is much more plausible is the explanation that the authors of the bible were keen to kick-start their own religion however they were clever enough not to stray too far from the stories from the past that the masses already knew.

god is moody and vindictive

There’s no denying that the Christian god is a moody god who often acts on impulse and in ways that are eerily similar to a petulant spoiled child. That behavior is of course ridiculous for a character who is supposed to be omniscient and who supposedly made a visible universe that is 90 billion light years across and contains about two trillion galaxies. Don’t believe that your god is moody, emotional, rash, vengeful, impulsive and unpredictable? Well…

• genesis, chapter 3: upon adam and eve being detected trying to better themselves (as advised to do by the first talking snake they met), god declares that from then on, all women will have painful births. That’s about 50 billion (and counting) affected women in the subsequent 6,000 years – for something that they had no part in (eating a piece of forbidden fruit).
• genesis, chapter 6: god declares that noah (and his immediate family) are the only ones worth saving out of an entire planet-worth of people. Solution: kill hundreds of millions (at least) via a flood, and that includes babies (who couldn’t possibly have “sinned” yet).
• genesis, chapter 19: god’s decision to annihilate the entire city (sodom) and its population, including innocent children and animals, is depicted as a sudden and extreme reaction to the pervasive “sin” and lack of hospitality within the city. Whatever the people were doing there must have been found in other cities because god found time to create a whole set of rules to counter the “offensive” behavior. Wiping out one particular city was an overreaction done for literary effect.
• exodus, chapter 4: as moses and his family were returning to Egypt, god shows up and tries to kill moses for failing to circumcise his son.
• exodus, chapter 32: following the construction of a golden statue and some dancing around it, god states his “wrath may wax hot against them” and “I may consume them“. No discussion; straight to anger and murder. How is it possible for a being who knows everything (omniscient) to get angry?
• numbers, chapter 11: naturally there was bound to be some complaining due to having to wander aimlessly in the desert, however upon hearing the “exodus” people complain, god’s anger burned, and he started a fire that consumed the outskirts of the camp (thus killing people for being hungry and upset).
• 1 Samuel 6: god strikes down 50,000 people in beth shemesh for looking into the ark of the covenant.
• 2 samuel, chapter 6: when the ark of the covenant began to tip, uzzah reached out to stabilize it, preventing it from hitting the ground. For that well-intentioned act, god immediately struck him dead (just for touching the ark). No warning; just dead.
• 2 kings, chapter 2: when a group of youths mock elisha for being bald, elisha curses them and god immediately sends two bears from the woods to maul (slaughter) 42 of the youths.

Naturally these are just a tiny number of the examples of bizarre behavior (from the omniscient creator of the universe) that can be found in the bible. Do they sound like the actions of a sane character who is claimed to be infinitely wise, loving and tolerant?

god changes his mind

Not only is god moody, but he often changes his mind after someone talks him out of a course of action. There are many examples; here are some:

• genesis 18: abraham cottons onto god’s plan to destroy the city of sodom (and everyone in it) and asks “wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked“? That’s a good question that is always hand-waved away by fundies when it comes to retribution in the bible. In this case, there follows an episode of haggling during which abraham asks the lord if he would still destroy a place if there were a certain number of righteous people, e.g. 50? The lord admits that he would not. Note that god didn’t consider that question before abraham asked (as god just wanted to destroy sodom outright). We then get to go through the argument with a decreasing number of righteous people: 45, 40, 30, 20, and finally 10. Yep, the lord agreed that a place should not be destroyed if 10 righteous people be found there. So what is the number god? Why isn’t one righteous person enough? How is it possible to haggle with an omniscient being? Why couldn’t god have figured out that argument prior to a human raising it? BTW, there likely was at least 10 new-born babies in sodom who therefore had not sinned.
• numbers 11: moses prayed to god to stop the fire that he (god) had started as a device to murder people following complaints about having to wander in the desert. So god thought it was a good idea to stop murdering people because a human appealed to him to stop? Shouldn’t an omniscient being have known when to stop murdering people?
• numbers 16: following a mini revolt by 253 dudes, god intended to kill all of the Israelites (that’s about 2 million people, including women, children and elderly). For some reason, god relented when moses and aaron pointed out the flaw in the plan to kill everyone. Can you spot the flaw in the plan to kill about two million people? Well, god couldn’t before being told.
• exodus, chapter 4: It’s not explained why, but as moses and his family passed an inn (as they were travelling back to Egypt), the lord turned up and tried to kill moses. Not to worry because moses’ wife (zipporah) whipped out a sharp stone, circumcised one of their sons, rubbed the foreskin on moses’ feet and declared that because her husband was a “bloody husband” the lord should leave them alone. This must have appeased the lord because he let them go. So why would the omniscient creator of the universe fail to kill a mere mortal upon first trying, and why would such a being be talked out of an action by another of his creation, and what does some blood on someone’s feet indicate about the character of that person that wasn’t present in the few moments before the blood was forcibly placed there?
• exodus, chapter 32: following the worshiping of the golden calf, god said that he wanted to consume the people. Luckily for the Israelites, moses pointed out to god that it wouldn’t look too good for the Egyptians to find out that god had killed everyone that he’d rescued (during the earlier “exodus”). So the omniscient creator of the universe couldn’t think one step ahead in a plan and had to be reminded about consequences by a human mortal?

The more you read the bible, the more you realize that god is an anthropomorphized character who was brought along for the ride by ignorant and superstitious iron-age men.

god is an anthropomorphised character

Sometimes god appears as a pillar of cloud or fire, however he does materialize into a human form when the mood takes. There are many examples, but the following is a description of one occasion that leads to some interesting questions.

Chapter 18 of genesis starts with god turning up with two mates to visit abraham at his tent in the plains of mamre. For once, abraham didn’t fall on his face; instead, he offered to get water so that god et. al. could have their feet washed while sitting under a nearby tree. Not forgetting the nutritional requirements of his visiting deity, abraham fetched bread – well, ordered sarah to start cooking. While that was happening, abraham fetched a calf, killed and cooked it (we assume) and served it with butter and milk. And they did eat.

Okay, have a careful think about all that. At that point it was over 2,000 years after an eternal being created two trillion galaxies in the observable universe (according to YEC), and yet he made a journey to visit one of his creation outside of his tent? From where did that journey start? A little way off in the plains? From the other side of a distant mountain? Did he walk from heaven? And it was a journey that caused him to benefit from having his feet washed? So he gets dirty? And that eternal being (with that sort of creation ability) is willing to sit under a tree for hours while bread is baked and a calf is caught, killed, drained of blood, butchered and cooked? And that eternal being can digest food? By the way, that means that god poops (think about that). The text doesn’t say if the calf was without blemish so apparently it’s okay to offer up any beast when the lord is hungry. Does he have to replenish his cells via nutrition? And why was the lord waiting under a tree? Does he overheat in the sun?

Instead of believing that the omniscient creator of the universe had to adopt a human-like form, isn’t it more likely that the author(s) of the bible simply couldn’t figure out what sort of form a supreme being would adopt and therefore caved and had to make god adopt a human-like form (with human weaknesses) for the abraham story to work?

There are many other questions that arise from god assuming his human form. Since we were told that we have been made in god’s form, we therefore know that, when god assumes his human form, he doesn’t have the best sense of eyesight, smell, hearing, touch, or taste in the animal kingdom. For example, his human-like eyeballs had far worse eyesight than an eagle that might have been flying overhead while he was breaking beef with abraham. Human eyes are simply not as good as those of some other animals, and by his own admission, he had the same eyes as humans (since we were made in his form).

In fact, god would have suffered from many of the sub-optimal aspects that he (supposedly) designed into the human form (as copied from his own form). For a list of these, see “The human body isn’t perfect – part 1” and “The human body isn’t perfect – part 2” (pages on this web site).

god takes sides

One of the worst aspects of god is his propensity to treat things as black and white and therefore to take sides when it comes to his “beloved creation”. If there’s one thing that screams more than any other that the Christian god is an invention of tribal iron-age men, it’s the side-taking. Here are some examples:

• god commands the Israelites to destroy the midianites, allowing the soldiers to keep virgins as spoils of war.
• god favors jacob over his older brother esau, and that’s before they were even born!
• god takes the side of the Israelites over the Egyptians.
• god takes the side of the Israelites over the: Hittites, girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, perizzites, hivites, and jebusites.

There’s simply no way that an omniscient being would take sides, e.g. by acting as if all people on one side were beyond redemption and must be wiped out – including women and children.

god sometimes doesn’t know things

For some reason god also displays episodes of being clueless. here are some examples:

• genesis 3: god looks for adam and eve in the garden of eden and calls out “Where are you?“.
• genesis 4: after cain kills his brother abel, god asks “where is abel your brother?“
• genesis 18: god states that he will go down to see if the reports of sodom and gomorrah are true, and adds “and if not, I will know“.
• isaiah 5: god expresses surprise that the vineyard (Israel) did not bring forth better grapes.

How can there be some things that an omniscient being cannot know?

This point leads to the conclusion that god isn’t perfect (a link to a page on this site).

god is a jerk

There are many examples of god’s unfairness and brutality, however there are also examples of god just being a jerk on a personal scale. Here are some:

The story of job (job 1-2): god allows satan to destroy job’s wealth, kill his children, and afflict him with physical pain, not because job did anything wrong, but to win a bet with satan about job’s loyalty.

The death of onan (genesis 38:9-10): god strikes down onan for refusing to impregnate his deceased brother’s wife, which is interpreted as god taking the side of a rigid societal tradition, resulting in a disproportionate punishment (death) for onan’s refusal.

The killing of david’s child (2 samuel 12): After david commits adultery with bathsheba and has her husband killed in battle, god kills the child born from that affair rather than punishing david directly, which is viewed as punishing an innocent party for the sins of the parent.

uzzah and the ark of the Covenant (2 samuel 6): uzzah is killed instantly by god for touching the ark of the covenant to prevent it from falling off a cart. This is seen as an unjust, overly harsh reaction to an act intended to protect the sacred object.

The omniscient creator of the universe wouldn’t take these silly (but brutal) actions.

god is cruel and violent

This one goes without saying and betrays the sentiment that god is all-loving or all-forgiving, etc. The number of examples of violence in the Christian bible is enormous, with most either perpetrated by god or sanctioned by him. There are far too many to list here, however the following is a link to an external site that has documented over 1,400 examples of Cruelty & Violence in the bible.

Conclusion

One point that is undoubtedly going to be made by fundies is that the examples on this page come from the old testament and therefore don’t really count. Oh really? If the old testament doesn’t count, then there goes the ten commandments. Also, the old testament definitely counted when jesus declared that he had come to fulfill the laws of the old testament.

Sorry fundies, you don’t get to pick and choose the bits that prove that your god is an absolute horror. One example is enough to prove the case that your god is not omniscient and all-loving, and the bible itself gives us a huge number of examples.

Luckily for all, the simple fact is that the god of the Christian bible is a fictional character who was adapted from previous gods specifically to fulfill the purpose of manipulating and controlling the masses. It’s a pity to still be falling for that grift today.