DECODING

 

THE

 

HOLY BIBLE:

An enquiry into the Old Testament and Christian belief system.

…………………

Contents

Introduction.

Chapter- 1       Discrepancies in the Biblical creation account.

Chapter-2        God of Abraham.

Chapter-3        The myth of Noah's Flood.

Chapter-4        Moses; the prophet of war and bloodshed

Chapter-5       The laws of Moses.

Chapter-6        Israel during Joshua and thereafter.

Chapter-7       False prophets (Samuel, Elijah & Jonah)

Chapter-8       Controversial biblical stories.

Chapter-9       Contributions made by religions.

Chapter-10     Religious intolerance.

Chapter-10     What happens after death?

Introduction.

Men have the willingness to believe that what they wish for is true. There are several factors, which helps men to nurture and grow their faiths on God- the desire to see again your loved ones who are already death; the fear of the unknown, which is death and the desire to escape death; the desire to have immortality; the desire for bliss and comforts in after life and the fear of eternal fire in hell.  All these ideas and speculations contributed to the establishment and growth of monotheistic religions in the past. Desire and fear can have tremendous impacts on one’s life.

Nothing is certain; these are all speculations, a product of cognitive mind in man but you do not want to risk your next life in chutzpah denouncing the belief system even though you have doubts somehow. In this crucial dilemma, religion enters to play a dominant role reinforcing your mind with its teachings of granting eternal life if you are ready to worship what they worship and believe what they believe. They then teaches you to despise and condemn those who disagrees with what you believe, calling them worshippers of false gods and idols and even demonize them because they reject your belief system. They fail to realize that God does not require organized religion, evangelists, priests, imams, missionaries, mullahs, pundits, monks, rabbi or any person to convey his purpose and plan to you. A true eternal God always speaks directly through a person’s mind personally. What makes you think it is impossible for an omnipotent God to directly communicate with you if not through some transmitter such as your priest or Holy Scripture? What makes you think the God who came down to earth and wrestled with Jacob physically would not involve Himself into such sport with mankind again? What makes you think the God who came down to Mount Sinai and gave the Ten Commandments to Moses three thousand years ago would not reveal himself to humanity again when He is the same God? 

You are continually brainwashed and indoctrinated with religious teachings rigorously through religious services and preaching although nobody exactly understand the hidden truth in any religion. They even teach you to restrain yourself from questioning God's authority no matter how illogical and absurd the belief system may be. They repeatedly lied to you that if you question God's wisdom, you are offending Him because questioning his morality is sacrilege. They prohibited you to learn the truth other than what they believe is true.

All religions are supposed to bring peace, unity and comforts for the humanity but due to selfish nature of man to gain personal desire and glory, they teaches people to hate one another on the basis of religious differences. God never endorsed any prophet to start a new religion but some zealots started them in order to promote and spread their own ideas. There are some common characteristics among the believers of the three greatest monotheistic religions namely, Judaism, Christianity and Islam and to me they are rather amusing, absurd and illogical. Each of these religions asserts supremacy over other religion. They all believed to have legitimacy of God's authority. Each one proclaims they worship and serve the true God and all other gods are false/wrong. The Holy Scripture of each of these religions denounces the teachings of all other faiths and condemns them as heretics and worshippers of false gods. Each one thinks what they believe is the absolute truth and anything besides what they believe is wrong. Muslims and Christians promises salvation and eternal life after death and profess that followers of all other religions are going to hell. 

It is impossible for all these three religions to be right but there is every possibility that all these three can be wrong. In reality, no religion has the monopoly of God's authority but they all claim they are the legitimate followers of the Supreme Creator. None of these faith has the evidence of what they believe is true yet none has the courage to admit that what they believe can also be possibly wrong. The hardest thing for them is to honestly admit" I do not know" but to keep insisting that what they believe is right. The selfish gene comes into play. 

When some ignorant become absolutely confident of themselves without knowing the truth, disasters can happen. The unwillingness to admit, "I do not know" creates problem among the believers of different faiths. Most of them are so sure of themselves that it is impossible for their god to be wrong and therefore they are ready to martyr their life defending their god if necessary, in the hope of receiving rewards in the afterlife. Is not this happening in today's world? This kind of belief system is sheer lunacy; it is utterly madness. A true God requires no human being to shed blood and sacrifice life in His name.

This book mainly deals with the analysis of the Old Testament stories in an attempt to rationalize and examine whether it was God, who revealed the words or the prophets who simply took God’s name in a wrong way. The Old Testament is smeared with wild stories of war, genocide, revenge, crimes and intolerance committed directly under the command of God. It contains numerous purported laws- injustice, inequality, inhuman treatment of conquered subjects promoting hatreds, violence and enmity among humanity makes me to wonder that Yahweh is mercilessly evil and cruel towards his own creations. Despite all these notoriety, who is akin to a worldly evil dictator ruling his subjects with heavy hand, the bible oddly says, "The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love"(psalms 103:8).

The cruelty of Yahweh’s character is depicted from the very beginning itself. The damnation of the entire future human race simply because their ancestors had eaten a tempting fruit stolen from the garden, which they were, warn not to eat. The killings of all mankind by sending global flood because of their disobedience, demanding blood sacrifices from worshippers for atonement of their sins; His punitive actions have no parallel in the history of mankind. It often prompts us to question why at all created them in the first place knowing that they will disappoint him and he would have to destroy them in such a cruel way. Nonetheless, he keeps reminding people of his immeasurable love and compassion for humanity. Could not there be a mistake by attributing all these writings to God? What if God is kind but the bible has wrongly depicted his nature? Are we to believe that each word in the bible truly comes from God and not a single error exist?  We shall see some miracles, which contradicts the laws of nature in particular in the following chapters.

Sometimes I am saddened by the sadistic nature of certain gods particularly the Christian god of the Old Testament. God seemed to take pleasures in inciting his people to commit genocidal acts against those who refused to acknowledge his authority. He has unpleasant character condoning murder, rape, infanticide, invasion, looting, slavery, misogyny and was equally cruel and barbaric towards his own creations. The God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart intended to inflict his people with consecutive plagues on the excuse of his stubbornness. He also murdered all the first-born sons of Egyptian who were innocent because of their hardened king and suggesting his people to loot the riches of their Egyptians' neighbor. This kind of stories makes me cynical about the authenticity of bible. The miraculous intervention of divine power such as parting of the Red Sea enabling his chosen people to cross and drowning the entire army of pharaoh who followed behind speaks inconceivable miraculous display of power working against the laws of nature. Similar miracle was mentioned during the time Joshua by blocking the Jordan River as his people walked across safely. Both Elijah and Elisha too crossed Jordan River by stopping the flow of water as they struck the river with their cloak on separate occasion. We are also amazed by the story of Joshua stopping the sun from going down, (in which case stopping the rotation of earth) to give more time to Joshua for slaughtering the enemy soldiers. Besides, he also moved the shadow ten steps backward (reversing earth s rotation) at the time of Isaiah, as a sign that king Hezakiah would be healed. In fact, twisting the natural laws must have been his favorite trick using supernatural power. He also brought down the wall of Jericho pulverized by the trumpets sound allowing Joshua and his soldiers to massacre and burnt down the whole city. It is amazing to notice that over 2 billion people actually subscribe to these stories as divine wisdom.

. 

I am not sure what plan he has for humanity but as far as I can see, he has not the least interest in solving any of our problems but rather silently watches them in idleness. The earth is just a nasty place ripped apart by diseases, hunger, injustice, poverty; millions dying every day because of these problems. The brutish lifestyle of people engaging themselves in severe conflicts of wars and killings, civil strife, victimization of innocent children, million lives destroyed on daily basis, and yet the merciful God look helpless and refused to lend his helping hand even to the most needy victims. He must be too busy doing other stuff like studying celestial objects and galaxies of the outer universe. Human beings are definitely the most patience creature on earth when it comes to worshipping God.

The hypothesis of blasphemy, which is an offence to God and deserves divine punishment primarily originated on the presumption that God rules his people with heavy hand like a worldly dictatorial king. Under a dictatorial regime, any impertinence or insult to the king by his subjects would amount to disloyalty or betrayal of one's own nation inviting severe punishment or even execution. Basing on this idea, God is portrait as an omnipotent ruler who demands absolute allegiance and loyalty from all people and whoever refuses to acknowledge his authority and worship him shall be punished which in this case is hell in the afterlife. The Ten Commandments reflects the absolute nature of God who wants nothing less than absolute loyalty and obedience to his laws by his people. But how do you know that this is the real nature of God? How do you know that God will punish you if you do not bow down to him; believe in him; praise him or worship him? How do you know that God will be disappointed with you because you do not believe in him and deny his existence? How do you know that God approved your religion while all the rests have been dismissed? How do you know that God is an absolute monarch and not a benevolent democratic or liberal ruler?

Unless the Creator is a petty ruler with insecure power, he should not be concerned with tiny matter such as acknowledging his works with flattery words, exalting his name, praising him, worshipping him, servile submission to his authority, as though he is a worldly king with selfish desire. Our actions can neither diminish nor defend his authority. Just as in the same way, I cannot be offended even if you refused to believe a thing I said, God could not be offended in anyway even if you find difficulty believing in him. Moreover, you cannot be blamed for failing to understand and believe in God from lack of evidence because the burden to prove his existence lies not on you but him. If God finds Himself unable to convince you regarding his nature of existence through sign or manifestation, it is not your fault that you disbelieve in him since you find no sufficient evidence. God should not be bothered at all even if you believe or disbelieve in him, worship him or worship something else, praises him or blasphemy him as long as you have a righteous life: he should be above that standard totally unaffected by whatever we say or do.

The prevalence of absolute monarchy in those days must have greatly influenced the prophets and biblical scholars to conceive a notion that God also rules the people like a worldly dictator king. This is the reason God was portrait as a stern monarch who demands absolute loyalty and allegiance from his subjects prohibiting them to worship any other god except Him. It is absurd to believe that he will punish those who deny his existence even though they are moral and righteous. It is even more ridiculous to believe that God will get jealous if you do not believe his words or refuse to worship him in servitude. A magnanimous God does not require the service of mankind to establish his authority.

Hegel believed that war is to national life what winds were to sea. It showed the omnipotence of state in its individuality. Therefore, war is not an absolute evil rather it is a virtuous activity. Hegel also believed that war helps in the discovery of world spirit because it decides which of the contesting states is its true embodiment. To him, victory demonstrates that the victorious state is truer representative of world spirit. I do not know what he meant by the 'world spirit' but from religiosity viewpoint if he meant that the world has a spirit, I do not agree with his assumption. I am sure most biblical scholars will agree with his philosophy of war since bible particularly the Old Testament condones war in many occasions.

Can we say that the struggle amongst the religions for supremacy and divine legitimacy is an essential feature, which is in accordance with divine purpose? According to the bible, war on religion is necessary, as we have seen on several occasions; God himself directly supervised his people to destroy the nations, which served another god. The God of the Old Testament is a controversial figure who constantly proclaims his love and mercy for his people yet at the same time, he ordered mass killings of people even for petty reasons. It is a debatable subject if a true God would actually command his people to take on another nation even though the purpose was to fight against the prevalence of evils in the society. In my opinion, the Bible is a dangerous book if it is to be used as a moral guidance for humanity. It cannot be denied that it has played an important part in bringing about order and solidarity in the past, but the Bible is also not without defect if we interpret in literal sense and attempt to put its teachings into practice. I cannot expect any rational person to derive any moral guidance from this book despite making tall claims by apologists. One can easily extract any verse from the Bible context and use them as justification for war in pursuance of their own selfish motive.

Chapter- 1

Discrepancies in the biblical creation account.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. Bertrand Russell

According to biblical genesis, there was nothing in the universe but darkness in the beginning; this was about 6000 years ago. God then created heaven and earth on the first day; he separated the light from darkness, calling the light "day" and darkness “night". However, since the sun was created on the fourth day, it becomes apparent that day and night could not be occurring without the presence of sunlight. Moreover, there was no mention of the earth's rotation or its revolution around the sun, without which it is impossible to have day and night. Creationists argued that since God is omnipotent, even without the presence of sun there must had some alternative sources of light, which governs day and night. But this argument is scientifically erroneous because if there was already a source of light other than the sun which gives heat and light, it would not be necessary to create the sun. On the second day, he gathered the water in one place and separated them from dry land naming the water part as 'sea' and dry land as 'continent' respectively. This separation requires no effort; gravity alone could have done this job since water naturally flows from higher surface level to lower surface level collecting itself at a low spot forming oceans and seas. There is discrepancy in the creation of dry land because in the first place when the earth was created, it is said to be formless and empty and the spirit of God hovered above the water. What followed next is that dry land appeared after separating water from it. He created vault and separated the water into two concentrate layers, the above is called ‘sky’ and the below one as ‘earth’. Clearly, the author presumed that the earth is flat and the sky was assumed to be a domed shape holding water and other heavenly bodies above.

He commanded the land to produce vegetation, seed bearing plants and trees to bear fruit with seed in it according to their various kinds and it was so. However, the fact is that primordial earth would lack soil nutrients to nourish the growth of plants because up to this point of time, there was no rain, no sunlight and no top soil. In addition to that, without the presence of solar energy, the global temperature would be icy cold and the earth surface water in extreme frozen state incapable to support the survival of living things. Besides, the surface topography would be rough, dry and barren having no top soil. Under such condition, no vegetation would survive. Moreover, science believed that in the beginning, Earth was molten and lacked atmosphere and oceans. Gradually, the planet cooled and formed a solid crust. As the planet continued to cool, volcanoes released gases, which eventually formed an atmosphere. The early atmosphere contained ammonia, methane, water vapor, and carbon dioxide but only a trace of oxygen. As the atmosphere became denser, clouds formed and rain fell. Water from rain, and perhaps from comets and asteroids that struck Earth eventually formed the oceans. Therefore, it is highly improbable that all vegetation would spontaneously pop out in a single day. This viewpoint of spontaneous creation directly contradicts natural law.

On the fourth day, God made the stars and two great lights—the greater light (sun) to govern the day and the lesser light (moon) to govern the night. God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. In this case, the moon was assumed to have its own light governing the night in the same way the sun gives light governing the day. The sun was also assumed as the only light giving source in the universe not knowing that it is also one of the many stars in the inverse. The author of biblical genesis having limited knowledge about cosmology and science believed that the universe composed only one sun, a moon and the visible stars, which could be seen with our eyes. They had no idea that the universe is a great expanse of unlimited size beyond comprehension. This is the reason; they attributed the creation of all other heavenly bodies on a single day-day four. The universe visible to human eye comprised only 00.1% while 99.99% remain invisible.

He commanded the water to be filled with sea creatures and the sky to be filled with birds that fly above. This was on the fifth day. It is unclear, how million of different species of aquatic and aerial creatures would pop up spontaneously in one day. On the sixth day, he commanded the land to be filled with terrestrial animals and proceeded to make man after his own image. Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food (Genesis 1.29). Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything. (Genesis 9.3)

According to this passage, every plants and animals are supposed to be food for mankind which is a dangerous proposition.  One may surmise every seed and fruit is edible and beneficial for our health because God said so, but there are some toxic plants, which can kill you instantly when ingested or even by simply touching them. Some common ones are,

·        Rosary Pea (Abrus precatorius)

·        Castor bean (Ricinus communis)

·        White Snakeroot (Ageratina altissima)

·        Deadly Nightshade (Atropa belladonna)

·       Water Hemlock (Cicuta maculata).

Like poisonous plants, not all animal that move can be taken as food for human consumption. God would certainly warn us to avoid any plant or animal that is poisonous and unfit to be taken as food. It becomes obvious that the writer of Genesis was simply scribbling his own thoughts not truly knowing God’s mind.

Inconsistency is also visible in the creation of plants because Genesis 1:12 say that on the third day at God's command, the land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. Whereas Genesis 2:5 says before man was created which took place on the sixth day, there was no shrub and no plant yet, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no one to work the ground. Some creationists reasoned that the later verse is speaking in the context of Eden garden alone. But it is clearly stated that no plant had sprung up yet on earth because there was no rain yet.

After God created Adam, he put him in Eden garden to work and take care of it. He then commanded him to freely eat all kind of fruits in the garden but warned him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when he eat from it he would certainly die. Disobeying God's command, both Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit because the serpent assured Eve that they will not die but their eyes would be opened, knowing good and evil and become like God. In fact, the moment they ate it, their eyes were instantly opened realizing that they were naked. They did not die as promised by God but instead they came to know good and evil. They became rational being from total ignorance having the sense of logical judgment. In this case, the serpent seemed to be the one who spoke the truth whereas the culprit is God who has lied that they would die from eating the forbidden fruit. This act of disobedience to God by Adam and Eve is also called as the “original sin”- a supposed sin inherited by entire descendants of the first couple. It is also the first lie spoken by God to deceive humanity to remain in the state of ignorance.

God had formed all animals and birds out of the ground and brought them to Adam to name these animals. Since Adam was also created almost at the same time with animals, it would be impossible for him to have any verbal language. Even if language ability had been supposedly ingrained in him naturally, I wonder what could be that language. Above that, could Adam possibly give names to all creatures all by himself? We all know Adam was created as an adult, but is it possible that he could function normal both physically and mentally without undergoing any training? It is impossible for him to have cognitive ability instantly because human brain and body do not function like that under natural process.

It is said, God caused him to sleep and a rib was taken out from his body and created Eve as a helper.

Genesis 2:23 says the man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

According to this passage, since woman was created from man, they should be united as wife and husband leaving their parents. This appeared absurd to me because marriage is described as universal and natural. However, marriage is a man made institution and not a divine creation. It is also absurd to state that they were naked but unashamed before they have eaten the forbidden fruit. The true nature of human being is that man may realize he is naked but that does not necessarily meant he is also ashamed. Feeling ashamed of being naked is purely an artificial inducement from the cultural perspective of human society. Take a note of this example, tribal people of Sentinelese Island in Indian Ocean are believed to be the direct descendants of the earliest human species on earth. They have not being touched or contacted by the outsider world for so long that even today they lead a primitive lifestyle using bows and arrows made of stones. They do not wear garments but stays naked throughout their lifetime; however, they never seem to care or perhaps feel ashamed from exposing their bodies fully naked. They do not considered nudity as flagrant. Thus, one may conclude that the ‘nudity taboo’ in society is a manmade culture and not because of divine intervention.

As the couple realized they were naked, they sewed the fig leaves together and made covering for themselves hiding among the trees from God. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”  He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” (Genesis 3:9-10)

Now, the omniscient God seemed to be unaware where his children were. Could he be pretending not to know where they were as claimed by creationists? God obviously wanted to know how Adam realized he was naked and therefore asked him who told him he was naked. Adam blamed Eve for sharing the fruit with him and Eve blamed the serpent for deceiving her to have the fruit. The whole incident clearly reflects the mythological nature of this story.

To the serpent, God said, "Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life". This makes us to wonder how serpent used to move before the cursed if it did not crawl on belly. Besides, how a serpent could be so crafty having ability to speak and deceived Eve wickedly is another fabulous mystery. The cursed on the serpent to eat dust throughout their life is another unaccomplished curse because all snakes are carnivorous.

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” Unfortunately, the woman earned the painful labor during childbirth for all generations to come. However, it is not only women who undergo painful labor but all mammals undergo the same painful process. If this burden was inherited from Mother Eve, why should all other animals be punished because of the sin committed by Eve? It is rather illogical for God to award this punishment to other creatures because of human being. In other words, all animals should have painless labor. God also cursed the woman that her desire will be her husband and that he will rule over her. This means God introduced patriarchy directly giving superiority of man over woman through his curse. He then turned to Adam, cursed him to toil painfully in order to survive throughout his life, and banished them from Eden garden.

Discrepancies continue to mount up in almost every chapter in the book of genesis. After the fall, Eve gave birth to Abel and Cain who were both male. Abel was a shepherd who tends sheep whereas Cain worked in the field. This contradicts the history of human civilization because as per historical records, human being did not directly learn the art of agriculture and farming of animals but they lived as hunter-gatherers in the early period of human history. The so-called Paleolithic age when man used crude stone tools as weaponry were never mentioned in the biblical genesis. It is also impossible for mankind to have acquired necessary life skills all at once without undergoing different stages of development. We are also told by the bible that God was not happy with Cain’s offerings who brought fruits being a farmer but gladly approved Abel’s offerings who brought the fat portion of his first born flocks. This gave rise to Cain’s jealousy over Abel and murdered his own brother Abel in the end. One wonders why God preferred meat to fruits, which did not involved killings of animals. God was portrayed as a bloodthirsty deity despite being described as merciful Creator of all creatures.

Out of nowhere, Cain's wife appeared which puts every reader in perplex because at this point of time, there were only three human beings on earth namely- Adam, Eve and Cain (Abel being murdered). Genesis told us that Cain's wife gave birth to Enoch and even at this stage; Cain was already building a city and named after his son Enoch. It is perplexing as to how a city could be built when the population of the world is only four. Again, this contradict the history of human culture because prior to the development of cities, human society evolved from family to forming hamlets and villages, then to town and finally with increase in the number of population, cities came up later. The Biblical Genesis also mentioned that they already had the knowledge of mineral mining from the very beginning itself. Genesis 4:22 says Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron. According to this, instead of using stone tools, they already had iron and bronze tools, which depicts that even the earliest human generation had begun to use advance tools contrary to what history taught us. This would mean human civilization never underwent Stone Age if the biblical genesis is literally taken as true.

Eve later gave birth to another son named Seth who had a son Enoch but nowhere it is mentioned where did Seth’s wife come from. Just like Cain's wife, Seth’s wife also mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. Since women were treated inferior or less important during those days, the writers might have very little concern over recording the names of women.

The life span of people in the bible is even more ridiculous who lived for several centuries before Noah’s flood. Some heavenly beings descended on earth and saw that these young women were beautiful, so they took the ones they liked. (Genesis 6:2). The world became an abode of evils and sinners; people forsake God and pursuing their own ways as they like committing sins and fornication. It becomes intolerable and detestable in the eyes of the lord. As a result, God decided to shorten the life span of human being to 120 years as maximum limit before he sent flood to destroy the whole earth. Genesis 6:3 say, Then the Lord said, "I will not allow people to live forever; they are mortal. From now on they will live no longer than 120 years." One expects that human beings would no longer live beyond 120 years as ordained by the creator. However, even after the deluge, surprisingly people continued to live much longer than the limit put by God. We found that Shem lived for 600 years old; Arpachshad lived 438 years, Eber 464 years, Peleg 239 years, Reu 239 years, Serug 230 years, Nahor 148 years. How could this happen? Was God simply speaking some rubbish out of anger? The supposed holy book is once again stained by another lie.

It will not be a surprise if an uneducated person believes that the earth is 6000 years old but I could not understand those scholars who vehemently reject the idea that the earth is indeed billion years old despite the availability of scientific evidence. This makes me to realize that once religious teaching is indoctrinated into a person, it lingers on despite the realization of impossibility from scientific point of view. I was baffled to hear from a pastor who said, if the bible says 2+2=5, he would accept that although he know that is wrong because he believe bible is the word of God. Such freakish mindset of self-indulgence in perpetuating blind faith in a conscious way is quite unhealthy to society as a whole. They poison the minds of young children with false knowledge about the nature of the universe, science and natural history. Religious teachings are often found to be contradictory with natural science. Besides, religion also inhibits the growth of a child mentality in an independent way by imposing restrictions into enquiring religious dogmas or the nature of divine being. True religion must allow children to learn the facts and reality of natural world rather than brainwashing them with myths and legends in the name of faith.

Creationists claimed that God created everything in the universe 6000 years ago. On the other hand, evolutionary theory suggests that universe came into being 13.8 billion years ago and planet earth is believed to be around 4.5 billion years old. This huge chasm of age differences between the two theories tells us that there can be no common ground of finding agreeable conclusion because of extremity. Creationists (Intelligent Design) states that the universe, the earth, the heavenly bodies, and all creatures on earth including man were created almost simultaneously in a span of 6 days around 6000 years ago.

Age of the universe:  It is an established fact that light travels at a speed of 299,910 km/s in vacuum, which is accepted as the most accurate measurement. A light-year is a measure of distance that light travels in one year. The age of the universe is calculated by the time it takes light to travels from distant stars to our eye. For instance, light takes 8.2 minutes to reach earth from sun. Likewise, light from the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, takes roughly 4.3 years to get here, so that star system is said to be 4.3 light-years away. Now, if the universe is only 6000 years old, astronomers should not be able to see stars and galaxies not farther than 6000 light years away. On the contrary, using powerful telescope they are able to observe the universe which is as far as 13.8 billion light years away from us, confirming that the universe is not 6000 years old but much older indeed. Thus, when astronomers study objects which is light-year away or more, they are seeing, as it existed at the time that light left, not as it would appear if they stood near its surface today. In a sense, everything we see in the distant universe is, literally, history. We are looking at the past. This principle allows astronomers to see how the universe looked like after the Big Bang, which took place about 13.8 billion years ago. It means the light from these farthest galaxies have been travelling across the universe for 13.8 billion years finally reaching our eyes.

For example, creationists believed God created the sun, the stars and Adam almost simultaneously. Do you think Adam would be able to see any star at the time he was created? Not at all, only after 4 years of his creation, Adam would see the nearest star because it takes 4.3 years for light to reach his eye from alpha centaury. One hundred years later, Adam would finally be able to see the nearest 511 stars altogether in the sky. Surely, for Adam, there would not be a starry night twinkling in the sky because the light travelling from distant stars was yet to reach the earth. Therefore, theorizing that God created the universe 6000 years ago is absolutely wrong. Besides, to claim that all heavenly bodies in the universe and living creatures on planet appeared almost simultaneously within 6 days contradicts the laws of nature.

Prior to the 19th century, it was widely believed that the narratives in the bible particularly the book of genesis was originally conceived and written through divine inspiration. However, the excavations in Mesopotamia during the mid 19th century unearthed thousand clay tablets in cuneiform script, when translated revealed to us that most of the biblical stories in genesis were borrowed from the Babylonian epics. They were originally written down in Sumer, translated and modified later in Babylon, and reworked by the Assyrians before they were used by the Hebrew scribes for the versions, which appear in the Bible. It becomes clear that they are all myths however wrongly conceived as divine words by religious sect centuries later. This could be the reason for so many inconsistencies and lack of coherent thoughts in the biblical genesis. For instance, the creation story of man and the universe was taken from the epic" Enuma Elish" the “Babylonian Genesis.” Some similarities are 1. Matter exists when creation begins.  2. Light exists before the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. 3. There is a division of the waters above and below, with a barrier holding back the upper waters. 4. The sequence of creation such as the division of waters, dry land, lights, and humanity, etc.

No wonder the Christians took these stories very seriously and gave them divine status.

Chapter-2

God of Abraham.

Abraham was the first patriarch of the three monotheism- Judaism, Christianity and Islam . He was the son of Terah. When he was 75 years old, God had first spoken to him and made an unusual covenant with him with a promise of giving him a land and through whom a great nation would be raised. God promised to bless those whoever blesses Abraham and curse those whoever curses him therefore, through Abraham God promised to bless the entire humanity. Abraham built such a special relationship with God. The God Abraham worshipped was a personal God who was more or less like a friend to him. Together they walked, talked and dined as though the deity is physically available to answer Abraham. In later stage, the Hebrew were worshiping this deity as a tribal god until Moses took over the leadership and started compelling all other tribes to accept Yahweh as universal God. From the very beginning, the root of Judaism and Christianity sprung up from coercion using violent means to popularize their deity. There is doubt the history of both these religions are stained with martyrs and innocents blood all in the name of god.

Magical beauty of Sarah

Genesis 12:12-15 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live.  Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”  When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarah was a very beautiful woman.  And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace.

Abraham was 75 whereas his wife Sarah was 65 years of age when they moved into Egypt. As they were to enter into Egypt, Abraham instructed his wife Sarah to lie to the Egyptians that she is his sister because Abraham fear that if the Egyptians happen to learn that she is his wife they might killed him and take her away. The Egyptians were indeed could not keep their eyes off from Sarah after seeing her beauty and therefore she was taken to Pharaoh’s palace with the intent of keeping her as Pharaoh’s wife. She must surely be so charming irresistibly beautiful despite old age.

What was the true motive of Abraham to deny Sarah as his wife despite being a prophet of God ? Was it possible that the Egyptians would kill him over the beauty of Sarah? It is hard to imagine that Lot’s Grandma Sarah, who is already 65 years old, could still be so charming and attractive even to the king’s eye. If that was the case, woman must be so rare in Egypt during those days. In the land of Haran, there was severe famine so God told Abraham to move into Egypt. He seemed to have readily presented his wife Sarah to the court by denying her as his wife for financial reason because Genesis 12:16 says in return the king treated Abraham well for her sake, and Abraham acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels. When Pharaoh had taken her to the palace, God was not pleased with him. Therefore, God inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his households. On learning that Sarah was the wife of Abraham, the Pharaoh quickly sent him away along with his wife and everything the king gave him. Then he went to Negev and became a very rich man with lots of livestock, gold and silver. Most probably, he tricked the Pharaoh using his wife Sarah to gain wealth as he was devastated by the famine while in Haran.

Thereafter similar incidence happened again. This time it will be king Abimelek who took Sarah to his palace because He was told, Sarah was Abraham's sister but God warned Abimelek in his dream that Sarah was the wife of Prophet Abraham. Sarah was already 90 years old and yet wherever she went; no kings could resist her beauty. How strange was that? The king was terrified because of god's warning for taking her away and to cover his offence, he gave land and one thousand shekels of silver to Abraham. In return, Abraham prayed to God for Abimelek's wife and slaves to conceive child since they were made childless because of the king’s action for taking Sarah away from Abraham.

Why God didn’t directly advised Abraham to honestly tell them that Sarah was his wife in the first place? Abraham was clearly gaining material prosperity out of his wife's magical beauty. If the story is to be true then what type of Prophet was Abraham?

Controversial incest.

In the Biblical narrative, Sarah is the wife of Abraham. In two places in the narrative he says Sarah is his sister (Genesis 12:10 through 13:1, in the encounter with Pharaoh, and Genesis 20, in the encounter with Abimelech). In the second, he says that Sarah is the daughter of his father, but not his mother. Thus, by blood Sarah is the sister of Abraham although their mother is different yet they become husband and wife and that does not really matter to God. Instead, God blesses Sarah with Isaac even at her old age fulfilling his promised.

But we found that marriage between brother and sister is condemned in many verses of the bible.

“Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of this mother” -Deuteronomy 27:22. Leviticus 20:17 also says that it is a wicked thing for a man to marry his sister, the daughter of his father or mother.

Now confusion arise whether marrying own sister is wicked and curse or a blessing as seen in Abraham and Sarah case.

Promised Land.

It was strange that God repeatedly made promises and covenants with Abraham. He promised to make his descendants as numerous as there are stars in the sky. He also promised to provide him a legal heir. Abraham was also commanded to make animal sacrifice as offering to make sure that the Promised Land would be given to him. Besides, he also promised to give the land of Canaan to his descendants forever.

Genesis 15:18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

It was odd for any god to make such covenant with man, which was explicitly illegal and unjust. Abraham must be hallucinating, we can only wonder that the Promised Land legally belongs to the native inhabitants yet God's intention was to drive them out so that Abraham and his descendants would have it. The lord from the very beginning sowed the seed of discord and hostility between the Jewish tribe and the neighboring nations. Could there be a God who commands his people to invade somebody's land?

Covenant of circumcision.

When Abraham was 99 years old, God made a covenant of circumcision with him and his descendants with God's promised to make Abraham the ancestor of many nations and bless him with many descendants. This covenant was meant to be everlasting covenant. Every male child born in the family including slaves and foreigners bought must undergo circumcision when he is eight days old. Abraham and Ishmael both were circumcised on the same day. Circumcision was a physical sign that God made an everlasting covenant with them and uncircumcised male would not be considered as God's people. Besides, God had renamed him as Abraham and his wife as Sarah, formerly Abram and Sarai respectively.

But in Galatians chapter 5, circumcision is out rightly denounced. Galatians 5:2 says, Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. He go on to  declare that every man who lets himself be circumcised and are trying to be justified by the law, have been alienated from Christ and fallen away from grace. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. From the above account, one can only conclude that either Abraham or Paul was wrong because God would not give contradictory laws.

The reason for which God wanted compulsory circumcision is still shrouded in mystery although some claimed it is mainly done to suppress sexual arousal in man. However, since Abraham was circumcised when he was 99 years old, the reason given above for circumcision does not fully support this theory since at such old age, Abraham's sexuality would not be as active as young people would. In this ritual, the prepuce of the genitalia is cut off with a flint knife and in order to avoid infections, mohel usually suck out the blood with their mouth. This is carried out often without anesthesia. Even in modern day world, it is highly controversial due to negative effect on health and psychological trauma of the victim. Besides, evidence shows that circumcision also causes infection such as herpes on the victim. It would be insane for God to order his people to undergo genital mutilation in order to be accepted as God's children.

Freedom from adultery.

Genesis chapter 16:4 says, He (Abraham) slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Sarah, wife of Abraham being sterile and unable to produce progeny, asked her husband Abraham to sleep with their slave Hagar to conceive an heir. Abraham did sleep with Hagar and she gave birth to a son, Ismael. Abraham had surely committed adultery for having sexual intercourse with his servant, Hagar. Unfortunately, nowhere in the bible, Abraham is mentioned to have committed sin.

One of the Ten Commandments clearly states, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Now if adultery is a sin in the eyes of God, Abraham, the faithful servant of God and a father figure of Jews, Muslims and Christians had committed sin by having sexual relationship with his servant.

According to some Biblical scholars' argument, tradition holds that it is obliged for a barren wife to furnish her husband with sons through a servant girl who shall have inheritance rights. I am not sure if such customary law existed before Abraham impregnated his slave Hagar or it was made into law because of Abraham’s action. But one thing is certain, laws of God are universal, unchanging and unbiased. If it is right for Abraham to sleep with his slave girl because his wife was barren in those days, then certainly God cannot forbid such unhealthy relationships even today. However, one must understand that customs and traditions, does not change the ways of the Supreme Being. He cannot be influenced, fooled or lured into doing something, which you wanted Him to be.

The birth of Isaac.

( Genesis 21:1-7) Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him.  Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore him. When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him.  Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.  Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”  And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Well, Sarah was of course right, who would have believed the couple would have children since she was already 90 plus. But, is it possible that God would allowed Sarah to bear child at such old age which is ethically controversial even today due to the risk involved during pregnancy? God will not do anything, which is unnatural, unethical, or endanger Sarah's life.

Three angels visited Abraham.

In the middle of one hot day, the lord appeared to Abraham in the form of three visitors. They ate the food prepared by Sarah, Abraham's wife. One of them said that Sarah would have a son by the same season of next year and when she overheard this conversation, she was secretly laughing to herself because she was nearly 90 years old. To clear any doubt, the lord assured Abraham that nothing is too hard for him to make things happen.

Who were the people whom Abraham respectfully owes allegiance to them as Lord? One definitive answer is they cannot be angel or god because they eat and drink as normal people do. Besides, they also communicate with Abraham and Sarah by normal conversation just like us. If they were spiritual beings, milk, curd or meat would not necessarily be their diets. Could they be some kind of pilgrims or prophets who came from another part of the world but mistaken them as divine being? Could they be aliens from another planet visiting earth? Supporters of ancient astronaut theory will say these so-called angels were astronauts from another planet. The Jews and Christians have no doubt firmly believed that they were divine beings from heaven but I do not think angels or god would interact with us in physical manifestation as depicted here in the bible. There are possibilities that they could even be none other than prophets from another part of the world however mistakenly considered as lord and angels out of ignorance.

We are unable to determine if the three guests of Abraham were angels, gods or simply men because sometime they are referred as men and at other times referred as lords. However, they are described as heavenly beings who obviously came down to investigate the terrible accusations of the people of Sodom for their sins and crimes in great scale.

Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Genesis 18:20-21. Then the Lord said to Abraham, "There are terrible accusations against Sodom and Gomorrah, and their sin is very great. I must go down to find out whether or not the accusations, which I have heard, are true.

If these beings represented God, apparently they have no supernatural power because they required to see firsthand about the accusations in person indicating that they are not omniscient. After the two of them left for Sodom, Abraham had a lengthy verbal conversation with the lord regarding the punishment for Sodom.

Genesis 18:31 Abraham said, "Please forgive my boldness in continuing to speak to you, Lord. Suppose that only twenty are found?" He said, "I will not destroy the city if I find twenty.

Abraham asked God if the city of Sodom and Gomorrah would be destroyed when there are some few innocents. God gave assurance that for the sake of some few innocents, the city would be spared. However, the next day the whole city of Sodom and Gomorrah were completely annihilated leaving no survivor except Lot and his two daughters who escaped the rain of fire. This tells us that God did not even bother to keep his words. Would Abraham continue to put his trust on God despite failing to keep the assurances?

This is one disturbing account of mass destruction carried out by God without making any distinction between innocent children, handicapped or the elderly people. There is no rational explanation from scientific viewpoint as to what exactly happened to these two cities because the bible simply says God showers down sulphur of rain and destroy the entire inhabitants. It is possible that volcanic eruption could have destroyed the city because it is mentioned earlier that in the battle that took place in siddim, the valley was full of tar pits. This was mention when Abraham went to fight the battle in order to rescue Lot. When the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah tried to run away from the battle, they fell into the pits; but the other three kings escaped to the mountains. The four kings took everything in Sodom and Gomorrah, including Lot, who was living in Sodom.

Sarah mistreated Hagar.

Genesis 21:9- 10 But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.

Sarah first suggested Abraham to sleep with her slave Hagar so that Abraham shall have heir since Sarah was barren. Hagar gave birth to Ishmael fathered by Abraham. In later years, Sarah was able to bear child as promised by God and gave birth to Isaac. After Isaac was born, Sarah started despising Hagar and suggested Abraham to let Hagar and her son Ishmael move out of the house, which greatly distressed Abraham. However, God told Abraham to listen what Sarah said and therefore he set them off into the desert. One can feel how miserable Hagar must had been since she was kick out when she was no longer needed on the advice of Sarah. This appeared to me Hagar had suffered gross injustice yet even God supported Sarah's action of forcing her servant Hagar and Ishmael out into the desert.

Genesis 21:17-18 God heard the boy crying and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

Hagar and Ishmael were sent off into the desert. When they run out of water, Hagar obviously left her son under bush and decided to walk away as she could not bear to see him dying. But hearing the boy crying God called her back to lift up the boy promising her to make him into a great nation. The manner of the story presented here is that Ishmael is depicted as an infant however; Ishmael was already a teenager of 14 years old boy.

God tested Abraham’s faith.

Genesis 22:11-12 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”

This is one of the most disturbing and sinister act of god, a widely known story of human sacrifice in the bible. God ordered Abraham to slay his Isaac and offer him as burnt sacrifice on the mount Moriah.

Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac asked his father where the lamb was for the burnt offering. Abraham answered; God would provide them on reaching the spot. Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood ready to be slayed. When he reaches his knife to slay his son, God called out and told him not to slay the boy. Abraham look around and found a ram caught in the thicket by its horn. In place of his son, the ram was killed and offered as burnt sacrifice to god.

It is said in the bible that all this was done to test Abraham whether he fear God.

Genesis 22:15-18

As a reward for Abraham's faith God said, “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.”

Chapter-3

The myth of Noah's Flood.

Oxford dictionary defined myth as a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. An unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution.

According to biblical Genesis, a yearlong catastrophe in the form of global flood was caused by God during the time of Noah destroying every wicked person on earth sparing only eight righteous people, and representatives of every kind of land animal. This story has been one of the most controversial subjects discussed among both scholars and laymen in modern day world owing to lack of scientific evidence on one hand and the belief of God’s miracle on the other.

Why would God destroyed his own creations?

In the book of genesis, it is mentioned that men becomes corrupt, evil and wicked and because of these sins God decided to destroy  everything including  man,  beast, all creeping thing and  fowls of the air that live on the surface of the earth. If the book of Enoch is to be taken into account, God was infuriated because the angels descended the earth and on seeing the daughter of men fair and beautiful, had lusted with them, took them as wives and defiled themselves. The women had borne giants, and the whole earth had been filled with blood and unrighteousness. Besides, these fallen angels taught all kinds of unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets of heaven, which men were not supposed to learn. Therefore, God told Noah to build an Ark in order to save himself and his family since God was about to send flood to wipe out all creatures on the earth’s surface.

It is rather inexplicable as to why God must flood the whole planet when there are better ways to annihilate those sinners who went astray from him. Simply because human beings becomes wicked and corrupt, without giving them any chance to repent, imposing penalty of extermination rather abruptly was unthinkable especially when he is God, the merciful creator. Even Hitler and Stalin whom we considered the most evil dictators, would hesitate to carry out such notorious mission. We are also prompt to question, should all other living creatures undergo the same ordeal of mass destruction because of men’s fornications and sins? Surely, some better option, indeed more intelligent and wiser steps are available in order to deal with this problem but God has anyway chosen the extreme method of mass destruction. Thus, the value of human life has been reduced into a mere object during Noah’s time because of the creator's uncontrollable rage upon his creations.

Size of the ark.

The actual size of Noah’s Ark is given in Genesis 6:14. It is believed to have been 450 feet long (equal to 135 m or 300 cubits). The Ark was 75 feet wide (22.5 m or 50 cubits). The vessel was 45 feet tall. The ark was to be built with gopher wood and have three stories. To build such a massive size boat without using steel and iron is simply beyond comprehension. This would require at least over 3000 tonnes of woods. Besides, Noah has to build the ark along with his family members alone since people didn’t believe that such cataclysmic event would actually occur and therefore, they were mocking Noah. Considering that there was no modern machinery and equipment, it would be impossible for Noah to gather all the materials required to build such a strong stable boat which could withstand violent storm. Many modern engineers and architectures have debunked this tale on the premise that such a huge boat could not be built when there is hardly any building equipment and tool during those days. It is even unimaginable to cut down all trees and collect the required quantity of woods in time when the ark was to be constructed in middle east where trees are rarely available for ship building purposes.

Boarding and accommodating animals.

Besides Noah and his family, every living thing of all flesh in pair were to bring into the ark, to keep them alive. This is ridiculous even to imagine considering that, Noah is supposedly responsible to know every species of animals living on earth from tiny insects to biggest animal such as elephants. How was he supposed to bring them onboard when all animal lives in different region according to their own habitat due to different climatic condition? Besides, many animals will not survive if their habitat is change instantly. Noah has to travel to Australia to collect pairs of kangaroos and marsupials, then move to North Pole for polar bear, penguins, seals and again proceed to South America for anaconda, then travel back to Africa for African bush elephants, etc.

Imagine Noah attempting to catch a pair of lion in the wild without tranquilizer but only using a net. The task of capturing all fierce animals such as tiger, leopard, bear, elephants, crocodiles, dinosaurs, using either a net or stick must had been fantastically hilarious. Still creationists argued all animals were brought into the ark by divine power. I think now I understand what that means. A pair of kangaroos flying across the ocean for several hours from Australia to Middle East using divine power or a pair of anaconda from Amazon rain forest swimming across the Atlantic Ocean at lightning speed to get into the ark makes sense I suppose.

Now knowing that it takes years for a traveler to cross-ocean by sailing ship it will take thousand years for Noah to bring together all animals, a suicidal mission to undertake such task. Even after bringing all species together, numbering millions of animals standing in queue to get inside the boat within seven days, the burden is overwhelmingly hilarious. It would take decades to get all animals onboard.

Suppose Noah manages to bring all animals onboard, more problems would crop up in accommodating these animals. Million gallons of water, thousand tonnes of food for animals, and the task of catering them become sheer impossibility. Remember carnivores need constant supply of meat, several prey animals must also be loaded to keep the meat eaters alive. Once inside the ark, being wild animals, carnivores would attack herbivores creating commotions and recklessness. Noah's boat would required thousand rooms to keep the pairs of predators and preys separate without that the wooden boat won't stand a chance to contain mighty and big animals from reckless destruction if threaten by predators and  thus the ark would eventually break into pieces before the flood even begin.

To arrange supply and provisions for one year for all animals is no ordinary task. It would occupy large area, even greater than the space used for shelter. Noah would require several extra same size boat used as shelter in order to store food and water for all animals that would last 360 days. If at all, the story is true, then God surely must be crazy.

Hygiene inside the boat.

The stench inside Noah's boat would be the most unbearable thing in the whole wide world. The amount of urines and excreta collected in a single day alone would weight several tonnes. Who do you expect to clean these shits regularly? Keeping aside all other activities inside the boat, it would be impossible for eight people to remove the wastes alone even if they work full time. Due to unhealthy condition, epidemic is imminent which would endanger the lives of not only animals but to the entire crew. To put it plainly, such plan is suicidal.

After flood domino effect on animals.

Being submerged under water for almost one year, the green vegetation from the entire planet would have been destroyed barely leaving some water resistant plants alive in their roots. The leafy green parts of all plants suitable for animal's feed would disappear from decaying. Where would Noah find fodder to feed the herbivorous animals? Most animals would die from starvation due to shortages of food. The impact of global flood for such a long period would be unimaginably devastating beyond comprehension. We have seen that even a regional tsunami or riverbanks flood for a short period always leave the land barren unsuitable for the habitation of any land animal. Not even a blade of grass would remain when the land is flooded for yearlong. One can logically conclude that such global flood is practically improbable.

Since only pairs of both prey and predators are saved on the logic that they may co exist together without eating each other after flood, the whole fantastic plan of saving a male and female of all animals for future reproduction collapse because their food chain is disturbed and unbalanced. The predator-prey relationship does not exist any longer. For instance, carnivores like lions or tigers would kill pair of zebras, antelope, buffalos or any other herbivores before they start reproducing offspring and thereby most of the herbivorous animals will get extinct instantaneously.  Thus, many species of predators either will extinct from shortages of food or will survive upon feeding prey species bringing to their ultimate extinctions. In this case, the plan devised by God to save animals from flood for future reproduction utterly fails the test of logic.

The writer of Genesis might have believed that when it comes to fish surviving in water, all fish are identical. Going by that reasoning, any fish should be able to survive in any type of water. However, fresh water fish cannot survive in ocean and vice versa. As a result, if global flood take place intermixing fresh water with salt water, many fresh water aquatic living organisms will disappear forever.

Is global flood possible?

According to bible, after seven days passed the waters of the flood were upon the earth and on the same day all the fountains underground were broken up and the windows of heaven were opened and it rain for forty days and forty nights. The truth is that there is not enough water available to create such massive flood. Even if the whole body of water on earth including, oceans, seas, lakes, rivers, springs, ice, and underground water is drained up into the atmosphere and pour down for forty days and forty nights, there is no way the whole planet will be flooded up to the point of submerging even the highest altitude point on earth. Some biblical scholars argued that, marine fossils are found today on high altitudes region such as the Himalaya which is a proof that global flood did really take place.

Once upon a time, an extensive sea known as Tethys stretched along the latitudinal area presently occupied by the Himalayas. Around 200 million years ago, the super continent Pangea began to gradually split into different landmasses and move apart in different directions. As a result, rivers from both the northern Eurasian land mass (called Angara) and the southern Indian land mass (called Gondwana) started depositing large amounts of sediments into the shallow sea that was the Tethys. There were marine animals called ammonites living in the sea at the time. The two landmasses, the Eurasian and the Indian sub-continent, moved closer and closer. Indian plate was moving north about at the rate of about 15 cm per year. The initial mountain building process started about seventy million years ago when the two landmasses began to collide with each other. As a result, the already shallow seabed rapidly folded and was raised into longitudinal ridges and valleys. Thus, the marine fossils deposited on this mountain were not the result of global flood but simply remnants of Tethys Sea.

If such a massive floods were to have taken place as a result of continuous torrential rainfall, flooding the entire planet, it will take millions of years for earth to become a suitable planet that can support human life again. In addition to that, extreme climatic change would occur automatically making impossible for many species to survive. For that matter, global flooding such as the great deluge mentioned in the bible could never had taken place.

Noah’s ark was believed to have landed on Mt. Ararat, which is in Turkey after the flood receded.  It is ironical that even today, many enthusiastic scholars hunt for the lost ark but so far, no luck prevails.

Creation of rainbow as sign of covenant.

(Genesis 9:13-15)I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life.

Does this meant rainbow never formed before the flood? Without the presence of clouds also, we all know rainbow can be formed. The colors of a rainbow are produced by the reflection and dispersion of light through water droplets present in the atmosphere. The person who wrote the supposed covenant of God and mankind with rainbow as a symbol doesn't seem to have any knowledge about the scientific principles of light and its laws but rather wrote the passage on the premised that rainbow is a miracle creation of God. One can see through their writing that God is not actually communicating with them but the writer is simply fantasizing things driven by his own imagination.

How did Noah deal with extra space required?

Did Noah reserve any empty space in his boat while loading the animals? Did any animal give birth inside the boat? Of course, unless God sterilized them or prevented them from sexual intercourse? Imagine, how many offspring a pair of pigs, dogs, goats, sheep or any other animal will produced during 360 days? Within a year, the animal populations say, ten thousand would increase to thirty thousand easily. The boat will become impossibly uninhabitable from congestion over a period of time because of reproduction even though the boat seemed to fit all animals in the beginning.

In addition to that, the feeds for each animal to keep them survive for 360 days would need 10 times of its own body weight or even more. Imagine how Noah is going to store provisions for all the animals such as meat, grass, fruits, cereals, water, etc. There is no way a wooden boat no matter how big the size is would hold all these things. Not even a modern aircraft carrier would be able to accommodate all animals in pairs along with their provisions of food and water to keep them alive for one year.

How did the flooded water disappear?

The passage is extracted from creation.com here goes the concluding lines,

"So, it was mountains rising and valleys sinking that caused the floodwater to drain at the end of Noah’s Flood. The water moved toward the low spots on the planet and the rising land was exposed. As a result of vertical movements in the earth’s crust, the continents and mountains rose at the same time as the valleys and ocean floors sank. The mountains were first to rise above the water, which explains why the Ark grounded on the “mountains of Ararat” (Genesis 8:4). If the Genesis Flood was a local event, the Ark would have been carried downstream. Assuming it didn’t sink, it would have landed on a flood plain or been washed into the ocean. Scripture is strikingly consistent in declaring the Genesis Flood as a global event, and the features on the surface of the earth are in full agreement".

Here the author is attempting to explain how the water disappeared after submerging the entire planet. These kinds of illogical theories commonly persist in the mind of Christian scholars especially when they are fanatically religious.
The entire planet was flooded submerging even the mountainous region of Himalaya. To truly understand the impossibility of such flood, let us first visualize the scenario. As you stand on a beach, you see a wall of flood stretching 8850 metres into the atmosphere above you. Imagine the water sea level being raised upto over 8 kms right above your head globally. Not even helicopters can escape but surely drown from the flood because it cannot reach that level of altitude due to thin air. So, where the hell all this globally flooded water go and some believed it simply seeps beneath the ground.

First, the crust is just a thin layer covering the earth's surface, impossible to absorb the entire amount of floodwater as mentioned in the bible. Besides the earth s materials such as soil, rock does not act like a sponge. In other words, they have very little water absorbent capacity.

Second, plate tectonic movements does not take place abruptly, it takes million years.

Third, below the crust lies the upper mantle where hot molten layer of lava dominate the entire continent, which is also the source of volcanic lava. If water manages to sink through and encountered this hot layer, it will create violent explosion in the form of gigantic geysers destroying the planet.

Copied  version from Babylonian epics.

The biblical story of Noah flood most probably originated from the episodes in two Babylonian epics- Atrahasis and Gilgamesh, which predates much earlier than the book Genesis. Both Atrahasis and Gilgamesh epic bears resembling story, though Atrahasis is believed to be written earlier.

The epic of Gilgamesh begins in the city of Shurruppak on the banks of river Euphrates where Utnapishtim(Noah parallel) tells a secret story to Gilgamesh. The "great gods" Anu, Enlil, Ninurta, Ennugi, and Ea were sworn to secrecy about their plan to cause the flood to decimate the disproportionate increased in population of human race. But the god Ea (Sumerian god Enki) revealed the plan to Utnapishtim through a reed wall in a reed house because Utnapishtim was a kind and faithful servant of God Ea. Ea commanded Utnapishtim to demolish his house and build a boat, regardless of the cost, to save living beings from the flood. The boat must have equal dimensions with corresponding width and length and be covered over like Apsu(a fresh water marsh near the temple of Ea/Enki at the city of Eridu) boats. Utnapishtim promised to do what Ea commanded. He asked Ea what he should say to the city elders and the population. Ea tells him to say that Enlil has rejected him and he can no longer reside in the city or set foot in Enlil's territory. He should also say that he will go down to the Apsu "to live with his lord Ea." Ea will provide abundant rain, a profusion of fowl and fish, and a wealthy harvest of wheat and bread.

Construction of the boat.

Utnapishtim employed Carpenters, reed workers, and other people and began construction. Five days later, Utnapishtim laid out the exterior walls of the boat of 120 cubits. The sides of the superstructure had equal lengths of 120 cubits. He also made a drawing of the interior structure. The boat had six decks, divided into seven layers and nine compartments. Water plugs were driven into the middle part. Punting poles and other necessary things were laid in. Three times 3,600 units of raw bitumen were melted in a kiln and three times 3,600 units of oil were used in addition to two times 3,600 units of oil that were stored in the boat. Oxen and sheep were slaughtered and ale, beer, oil, and wine were distributed to the workmen, like at a new year's festival. When the boat was finished, the launching was very difficult. A runway of poles was used to slide the boat into the water. Two-thirds of the boat was in the water. Utnapishtim loaded his silver and gold into the boat. He loaded "all the living beings that he had."His relatives and craftsmen, and "all the beasts and animals of the field" boarded the boat. The time arrived, as stated by the god Shamash, to seal the entry door.

The storm

Early in the morning at dawn a black cloud arose from the horizon.The weather was frightful. Utnapishtim boarded the boat and entrusted the boat and its contents to his boatmaster Puzurammurri who sealed the entry. The thunder god Adad rumbled in the cloud and storm gods Shullar and Hanish went over mountains and land. Erragal pulled out the mooring poles and the dikes overflowed. The Annunnaki gods lit up the land with their lightning. There was stunned shock at Adad's deeds, which turned everything to blackness. The land was shattered like a pot. All day long, the south wind blew rapidly and the water overwhelmed the people like an attack. No one could see his fellows. They could not recognize each other in the torrent. The gods were frightened by the flood, and retreated up to the Anu heaven. They cowered like dogs lying by the outer wall. Ishtar shrieked like a woman in childbirth. The other gods were weeping and sat sobbing with grief, their lips burning, parched with thirst. The flood and wind lasted six days and six nights, flattening the land.On the seventh day, the storm was pounding like a woman in labor.

Calm after the storm

The sea calmed and the whirlwind and flood stopped. All day long, there was quiet. All humans had turned to clay. The terrain was as flat as a rooftop. Utnapishtim opened a window and felt fresh air on his face. He fell to his knees and sat weeping, tears streaming down his face. He looked for coastlines at the horizon and saw a region of land. The boat lodged firmly on mount Nimush which held the boat for several days, allowing no swaying. On the seventh day, he released a dove which flew away, but came back to him. He released a swallow, but it also came back to him. He released a raven, which was able to eat and scratch, and did not circle back to the boat.

He then sent his livestock out in various directions.

The sacrifice

He sacrificed a sheep and offered incense at a mountainous ziggurat where he placed 14 sacrificial vessels and poured reeds, cedar, and myrtle into the fire. The gods smelled the sweet odor of the sacrificial animal and gathered like flies over the sacrifice.

It is no wonder that the tale of Noah flood was not originally written through God's revelation but copied from older epics after making some changes.

Highly exaggerated tale.

One cannot totally discredit every parts of the story as far as Noah story is concerned because when billion people over the world believe it, one ought to seriously examine this paranoia even deeper. Observing different comments and discussions regarding Noah flood and his mythical ark, I have come to a conclusion believing that following events might had taken place but misinterpreted either due to exaggeration or sheer ignorance.

The flood must have had taken place during Noah's time, however it could neither have global occurrence nor wipe out the entire population on planet barring Noah s family. A major tsunami must have taken place coincidentally with the down pouring of incessant torrential rainfall flooding large area of land in some specific region. One must understand that this was the period, when superstitions are flourishing luxuriantly embedded with ignorance lacking articulate reasoning. All natural disasters and major catastrophes which humanity faces were directly attributed to God's punishment or disapproval. It is not hard to comprehend that these tale of cataclysmic events were highly exaggerated to make an impact upon the listener's mind reminding them God's authority and his power. One such example is that when they did not even have the slightest idea of the total number of population on earth or the existence of human civilization in another continent, they concluded that the whole population was wipe out on the premises that entire earth's population is concentrated in one region. They could not possibly know the whole earth was flooded when they did not know how large the earth’s circumference or how high the highest altitude point is on earth.

Another possibility is that Noah could have constructed a wooden ark but not as large as the size mentioned in the bible. It would be of moderate size with sufficient space, enough to bring in his family members and all his domestic animals. The writer must have exaggerated the story by including the task of saving all animal species in pairs for future reproduction.

Since there is no enough evidence to support the biblical story of Noah's flood, it is imperative to regard it as partially true. However, in no way this is to be taken as undermining God's authority or God's word because very often believer take the view that whenever people raise their opinions against the words written in bible, they wrongly accuse them as anti God or anti religion. It is a question of our belief system;  one person believe that everything written in the bible are God's words whereas another person believe that they are not all God's word but composed by  people themselves. As on my part, I belong to the latter category.

Therefore, I would conclude that the story of Noah's flood is not entirely false, but if it is to be considered that there was no exaggeration and that the story is entirely true, then to me it is just a myth.

Chapter-4

Moses; the prophet of war and bloodshed

It was a wondrous accomplishment for the Israelite as to how they have convinced the world to accept the idea that the Jewish tribal people are God's chosen people from the very beginning. They were ordinary gypsies of Arabian Desert who waged endless war with their neighboring tribes throughout the entire episode of exodus from Egypt to Canaan led by Moses. Unlike other civilizations of their contemporaries such as Egyptian Pharaohs and Babylonian monarchs who built magnificent pyramids and hanging garden, the Hebrew were nomadic shepherds who wanders in no man's land struggling for survival. Just like any modern day nomadic tribe, the Hebrews led a simple ordinary life, living in tent shelters, migrating from place to place mostly unknown to the outside world. It is odd that God would pick this tribe and adopt them as His chosen people while ignoring the vast majority of other races and condemning them as his enemies. A remarkable feat of achievement is that through these wanderers, the supposed laws of God, which was meant for the entire humanity, would be divinely revealed. The people of the outside world have reasons to be skeptical about this claim of establishing special relationship with the Supreme Being, revealing his laws exclusively to them in such a peculiar manner. During this migratory process lasting 40 years, all those laws, myths and legends in the book of Old Testament were brought out by their prophet Moses. It an ingenious plans to inspire his weary people by instilling them a sense of courage and faith in God; it did work out miraculously.

Life of Moses.

Moses was born at a time when the Israelites, an enslaved minority, were increasing in numbers in great proportion. The Egyptian Pharaoh was worried that the Israelite might ally themselves with Egypt's enemies and therefore ordered the slaughter of all newborn Hebrew boys. His mother, Jochebed in order to save him hid him on the bank of the river Nile, later discovered by Pharaoh’s daughter who brought him up in the Egyptian royal family. One day, he killed an Egyptian slave master because the slave master was smiting a Hebrew and fearing for his life fled to Midian. There he encountered with the Lord, speaking to him from within a burning bush on Mount Horeb ordering him to go back to Egypt to demand the release of all Israelites from slavery at the hands of the Egyptian’s Pharaoh. Moses admitted he was not eloquent, so God allowed Aaron, his brother, to become his spokesperson. After the Ten Plagues, Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt, crossing the Red Sea, after which they based at Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. Wandered 40 years in the desert, died within sight of the Promised Land on Mount Nebo. His laws are often harsh, merciless and forceful. His teachings influenced the religions of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. He was regarded as a God's chosen prophet, founder and leader of Israelite nation, revered by millions and is considered as one of the most influential persons on earth.

Ungodly character.

The God of Moses was seemingly like a mundane dictatorial king who oppressed and subjected his people to terror, forced them to submit and worship him often unwillingly. Inflictions of severe punishment upon the people who refused to serve him stands contrary to the very nature of a loving Divine God. He was known to be the self-admitted God of jealousy whose anger razes against his own people whenever they forsake him. Notoriously famous for cruelty of war, the Old Testament God is also characterized as the most sadistic God demanding animal sacrifices from his worshippers.

A capricious god.

Moses was to tell the Israelite that it is the God of Abraham, Jacob and Isaac, the God of Israel who had sent him to liberate them from Egyptian slavery and lead them into Canaan. He was to perform before Pharaoh all the wonders God has given him the power to do to convince Pharaoh but at the same time, God himself will harden Pharaoh's heart repeatedly so that he will not be persuaded to let the people of Israel go. In this way, God would punish the Egyptians with dreadful plagues on the pretext of Pharaoh's refusal to free the Israelites. Both Israelites and the Egyptians underwent severe hardships and sufferings losing million lives due to deadlock in negotiation between Moses and Pharaoh as intended by God. It is ironical that God played both sides to inflict pains and torture them for his own amusement.

We all thought Moses was an obedient and a faithful servant but not upto God’s expectation.  At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said.(Exodus 4:24-25)

God must have been offended because Moses failed to circumcise his son in time, which was supposed to be done on the eight days since birth. Moses knew that no child could be admitted to Israelite community without circumcision, nor be entitled to the blessings of God’s covenant with Abraham’s seed yet Moses knowingly neglected it. It is hard to understand the wrath of this God as we have seen; had not his wife quickly reacted and cut off her son’s foreskin, Moses could have been killed. This God is apparently psychopathic, mentally deranged and blood thirsty as you can see, even Moses nearly lost his life for a petty reason such as delayment in circumcision of his son.

Manna from heaven.

On the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt, the whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai. In the desert, the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron that they have brought them out into the desert to starve the entire assembly to death.

Hearing the groan, the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions"(Exodus 16:4)

That evening quails came and covered the camp, and in the morning, there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’ The Israelites ate manna for forty years until they reached the border of Canaan.

We have similar cases even in modern world; one such incident was during Second World War, when people mistook airplanes, which drop supplies of food for soldiers, wrongly assumed to be as blessings from god in the island of Vanuatu. A religion that worships aircraft was started by this group of people who saw their first plane fly over Vanuatu, a remote island in the South Pacific of Australia, during the Second World War.

After the planes delivered food and supplies to the islanders, the group began to believe that God would bring cargo to them. Consequently, whenever they saw a plane fly overhead they would build a replica - in the hope of more bounty. The islanders did not know where the objects were coming from; which led them to believe that the objects derived food from God. The religion was first discovered in 1946 by Australian government patrols, and there are a few but diverse number of cargo religions left.

It is not hard to conclude such miracle has nothing to do with God since God does not rain down food from heaven. The question is who were these Gods dropping manna from above?

God descends from heaven.

Exodus 19:16-19 On the morning of the third day, there was a loud thunder and lightning flashed, then a dense cloud came down on the mountain. There was a long, loud blast from a ram’s horn, and all the people trembled. Moses led them out from the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain.  All of Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a brick kiln, and the whole mountain shook violently.  As the blast of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God thundered his reply.  The Lord came down on the top of Mount Sinai and called Moses to the top of the mountain. So Moses climbed the mountain.

If this is how God would come down to earth from heaven to meet his people, I wonder what kind of God could that be. The above verses depict the picture like that of a rocket launching satellite into space. The roaring thunder, the lightning flash, the dense smoke rolling downward, the violent shaking of the mountain, all these makes sense of a landing spaceship. However, the incident occurred over 3300 years ago when man has no such kind of advancement in science and technological capability. So could they be some kind of extra terrestrial creatures who were already advanced enough to make journey from one planet to another?

Of course, here on planet earth, our space shuttle does not land as the one mentioned in the Bible since they need runway. However, if our space shuttle is designed to land straight down vertically without the use of a runway, similar situation as described in the Bible will take place.

Moses changed God's mind.

While Moses was still in the mountain with the lord, his followers engaged themselves dancing naked and worshipping an idol in the form of calf, melted down from gold. God could not believe how quickly they turned away from him even though he brought them out from the land of Egypt. He got ferocious and decided to destroy them all for their stubborn and rebellious attitude.

Exodus 32: 10.  Now leave me alone so my fierce anger can blaze against them, and I will destroy them. Then I will make you, Moses, into a great nation.” 11.  But Moses tried to pacify the Lord his God. “O Lord!” he said. “Why are you so angry with your own people whom you brought from the land of Egypt with such great power and such a strong hand?

Moses managed to pacify the lord by reminding him that Egyptians say their God rescued them with the evil intention of slaughtering them in the mountains and wiping them from the face of the earth. Moses also reminds God's past promises to make the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as numerous as the stars of heavens and advice him to control his anger. It works; God realized his mistakes. So the Lord changed his mind about the terrible disaster he had threatened to bring on his people. Exodus 32:14.

Moses wisely brought down the lord’s anger under control. Without his intervention, the entire community could have perished. But as a human being, can we change God’s mind when he has already made a choice? Numbers 23:19 say God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

God composed a song for the Israelites.

Deuteronomy 31:19-22“Now write down this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it may be a witness for me against them. When I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, the land I promised on oath to their ancestors, and when they eat their fill and thrive, they will turn to other gods and worship them, rejecting me and breaking my covenant. And when many disasters and calamities come on them, this song will testify against them, because it will not be forgotten by their descendants. I know what they are disposed to do, even before I bring them into the land I promised them on oath.”  So Moses wrote down this song that day and taught it to the Israelites.

One of the biggest worries that constantly upset the God of Israel was that his people might forget him one day despite all his efforts in delivering them from the Egyptians' slavery. He was always worried that in future, his people might turn to other gods and rejects him, thereby forcing him to send disasters upon them. It is best his words are composed into songs, which will testify against them in times of trouble. So the lord commanded Moses to write down. The lyrics of the song goes like this…

I will sing to the Lord, for He is highly exalted; the horse and its rider He has hurled into the sea.

The Lord is my strength and song, He has become my salvation; This is my God, I will praise Him.

The Lord is a warrior, the Lord is His Name.

Your right hand, O Lord, is majestic in power

Who is like You among the gods, O Lord?

Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?

In your loving kindness You have led the people whom You have redeemed;

in your strength You have guided them to your holy habitation.

Now surely, the people will remember better that God is not only the majestic warrior but also a good song composer. God could have won Grammy awards for this if it were today.

Death sentence for complains against God.

The migration of the enslaved Israelites under the leadership of Moses and Aaron from Egypt to Canaan has been a stupendous journey lasting 40 years in wilderness. The untold hardships and miseries people faced on this epic exodus have been clearly reflected in the bible with no food to eat or water to drink at times. It is natural for any person to murmur or complain their leaders when faced with such difficult situation. Uncertain of what lie ahead, any migrant would questions the responsible authority for the safety of their sons, daughters or spouse. Let us see the penalties for complaining its authority during this harsh trial.

·                     While in the wilderness people began to complain about the hardship. This enraged Lord and so he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some of the people in the outskirts of the camp. (Numbers 11:1-2.)

·                     Since manna has  been the only source of diet for so long, people get fed up and some started fantasizing about the delicious food they enjoyed once when they were in Egypt. So they demanded meat which the lord promised to provide them not for days or but for month. Then the lord sent wind that brought many quail from the sea dropping into their camps but while they were gorging themselves on the meat while it was still in their mouths, the anger of the Lord blazed against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague. So that place was called Kibroth-hattaavah (which means “graves of gluttony”) because there they buried the people who had craved meat from Egypt.

(Numbers 11:33) And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.

·                     When Miriam and Aaron spoke ills against Moses for marrying a cushite woman, God was infuriated for saying bad things against Moses, so Miriam was inflicted with leprosy. Luckily, she survived God's wrath.

(Numbers 12:9-10)The anger of the Lord burned against them, and he left them. When the cloud lifted from above the tent, Miriam’s skin was leprous[a]—it became as white as snow. Aaron turned toward her and saw that she had a defiling skin disease.

·                     The twelve scouts after exploring the land of Canaan returned with the reports that the land is good but the enemy are far too strong, cities well fortified and there are even giants among the dwellers and cannot be conquered.  Hearing this, people panicked, they grumbled and complained for bringing them out of Egypt to be killed in wilderness and protest against the leaders. The lord was displeased and in anger he said they will all die and rot in wilderness because they complained against him, everyone  who is twenty years old or older and was included in the registration will die and will not enter the land he swore to give them. The only exceptions will be Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun. The scouts who brought discouraging news were also killed by plague.

(Numbers 14:36-37) And the men, which Moses sent to search the land, who returned, and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, . Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the LORD.

·                     Korah along with 250 of his supporters were put to death for starting a rebellion against the authority of Moses and Aaron. Next day whole community complains and opposed against Moses and Aaron for the death of korah and his supporters then the lord sent plague and killed 14700 people.(Numbers 16:49) But 14,700 people died from the plague, in addition to those who had died because of Korah.

·                     Aaron too will die and never see the promised land for complaining God. Numbers 20:24 “The time has come for Aaron to join his ancestors in death. He will not enter the land I am giving the people of Israel, because the two of you rebelled against my instructions concerning the water at Meribah. Aaron will die there and join his ancestors in hell .

·                     After Aaron's death, even Moses will die in wilderness owing to showing signs of rebellion to the lord while in Zin. Numbers 27:13-14. After you have seen it, you will die like your brother, Aaron,  for you both rebelled against my instructions in the wilderness of Zin. When the people of Israel rebelled, you failed to demonstrate my holiness to them at the waters.” (These are the waters of Meribah at Kadesh[c] in the wilderness of Zin.)

·                     Numbers 21:4-7. The Israelites traveled from Mount Hor along the way to the Red Sea. They wanted to go around Edom. But they grew tired on the way.  So they spoke against God and against Moses. They said, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt? Do you want us to die here in the desert? We don’t have any bread! We don’t have any water! And we hate this awful food! So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died.

Lesson they learnt- Never complain but obey God no matter what or death sentence awaits for all the people of God.

Death sentence for Worshiping other Gods

Deuteronomy 13.

·                     If any preacher or prophet attempt to convert your faith or incite you to worship any God other than the Jealous God(God of Israel), he must be put to death.

·                     If your very own brother, son or daughter, wife, or your closest friend secretly entices you to worship other gods which neither you nor your ancestors have known,  show them no pity, spare them or shield them but must be stoned to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people.

·                     Any troublemakers arisen among you try to lead the people of the town astray, and worship other gods” (gods you have not known), then you must inquire, probe and investigate it thoroughly and if found to be true, you must certainly put to the sword all who live in that town. You must destroy it, both its people and its livestock and gather all the plunder of the town into the middle of the public square and completely burn the town and all its plunder as a whole burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town is to remain a ruin forever, never to be rebuilt, and none of the condemned things are to be found in your hands. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger, will show you mercy, and will have compassion on you.

Could there be any teaching more gloomy and evil than this? These are purely satanic inducement laws written in the form of Gods words. These words can act as a catalyst and plunge the entire nation into eternal doom.

Death sentence for blasphemy.

A young man, whose mother was an Israelite and father an Egyptian, went out among the Israelites and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. The son of the Israelite woman blasphemed the name of the Lord with a curse, so they brought him to Moses and put him in custody waiting for the Lord’s verdict.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. (Leviticus 24:13-12). So the entire assembly stoned him to death.

Rules of marriage.

• If a man takes a wife and speaks ills of her after sleeping with her on the accusations that she is not virgin, the girl's parent shall take the matter to the town elders for decision. when they successfully prove that their daughter was indeed virgin, by displaying the blood stain bed cloth, confirming that the man falsely accused his wife, the man should be penalized and pay 100 shekels of silver to the girl's father for giving bad name to an Israelite virgin. Moreover, he shall not divorce her  and remains his wife forever .
• If a man happens to meet a virgin who is already pledged to be married and yet he sleeps with her, then both of them should be stoned to death. The young virgin is guilty for she did not scream for help, and the man violated another man’s wife. Thus, both deserve death penalty.
• If a man rape a woman who is already engaged for marriage, the rapist should be put to death.
• If a man rapes a young virgin who is not yet pledge to be married, he should pay fifty shekels of silver to the girl's father as penalty. Moreover, He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.
• A man is not to marry his father’s wife; he must not dishonor his father’s bed.
• These set of rules were to regulate the morality of people in the society by describing detail penalty for breach of moral laws

Rules for exclusion from Assembly of God

• According to Deuteronomy 23:1-8, following category of people are forbidden to enter the assembly of the lord,
• A person whose testicles are crushed and pennies are cut off.
• A bastard upto tenth generation of his descendents.
• A person from Ammonite or Moabite upto tenth generation and even forever because of their inhospitality shown towards Israelite when they were coming out from Egypt and also for hiring Balaam to curse them. No friendship or treaty with them forever.
• However, they shall not abhor Edonite and Egyptian from entering the assembly. Children born to them upto the third generation may enter the assembly of the Lord.

Rules for war camp.

Deuteronomy 23:9-14 deals with rules for war camp. The lord always travels with them so that enemies may be handed over to you and save you. Therefore, camp must be clean and holy because the lord will turn away if he sees any indecency in the camp.

Any individual in the camp becomes polluted due to nighttime emission; he must go outside and wash water and return to camp when the sun sets.

Latrines must be outside the camp.

·         Dig a hole with shovel, relieve yourself and cover your excrement.

I could not stop wondering why these kinds of silly regimental rules have to be included in the bible in the first place yet I realized that there are between two and three millions in migration and since not everyone is the same as far as cleanliness is concern, God taught them how to do it.

Curses for Disobedience.

You will be an object of horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. Your corpses will be food for all the scavenging birds and wild animals, and no one will be there to chase them away.

You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will sleep with her. You will build a house, but someone else will live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you will never enjoy its fruit.

Your ox will be butchered before your eyes, but you will not eat a single bite of the meat. Your donkey will be taken from you, never to be returned. Your sheep and goats will be given to your enemies, and no one will be there to help you.

You will watch as your sons and daughters are taken away as slaves. Your heart will break for them, but you won’t be able to help them.

The siege and terrible distress of the enemy’s attack will be so severe that you will eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God has given you.

The most tender-hearted man among you will have no compassion for his own brother, his beloved wife, and his surviving children.

He will refuse to share with them the flesh he is devouring—the flesh of one of his own children—because he has nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.

The most tender and delicate woman among you—so delicate she would not so much as touch the ground with her foot—will be selfish toward the husband she loves and toward her own son or daughter. She will hide from them the afterbirth and the new baby she has borne, so that she herself can secretly eat them. She will have nothing else to eat during the siege and terrible distress that your enemy will inflict on all your towns.

Moses was indeed a brilliant and forceful leader, a skilful architect of instilling an ever-growing fear of God into the minds of his followers. Using God's name and proclaiming His authority he even outmaneuvered the Pharaoh using brilliant diplomatic tactics. He was using God as a source of threats indirectly and at the same time demanding absolute loyalty from his people

Improper touching.

“When men fight with one another, and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him, and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts, then you shall cut off her hand.”  Deuteronomy 25:11-12

This is a disturbing passage, which I could not understand properly. But there is no agreement of interpretation even among biblical scholars.

God's instructions for the Israelites.

In Deuteronomy 7, God has given the following instructions the Israelites must carry out when they crossed the Jordan and enter into the Promised Land.

They must drives out and possess these nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.

Once you defeated them, you must destroy the entire population completely.

Make no treaty with them,

Show them no mercy(7:2)

No intermarriage with them.(7:3)why? Because they will turn your children away from worshipping god of Israel and serve other gods, thereby the lord's anger will burn against them and quickly destroy them.

Breakdown their altars, burnt their idols, smash their sacred stones. Why? Because you people are holy+god's chosen.

Destroy all the people and never look them with pity. Why? Because that will be a snare to you.(7:16)
Deuteronomy (9:5 )It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the LORD your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

If you are a believer that bible is the word of God, you must be finding these words absolutely acceptable and nothing may seems odd but I find them unpalatable, the moment I came across these verses. What will be the consequences if you put all these God's order into practice?

The massacre of all first born Egyptians.

The final dead blow to the Egyptian Pharaoh was when the Lord killed every first born of all livestock and men from Pharaoh to prisoner in dungeon not sparing even the son of the king. This last plague convinced the hardened Egyptian Pharaoh that this crazy God of Israel was never going to stop unless his demands were given, thereby he told Moses and Aaron to leave Egypt at the soonest with his people along with their livestock and possessions.

Exodus 12:29 At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well.

According to Steve Wells, author of the book" Drunk with blood; God's killings in the bible" an estimate number of 500,000 Egyptians firstborns were killed.

God has to carry out this massacre to show that he is the lord and that there is none like him in all the earth. He also wanted his name to be declared all over the world so that the children and grandchildren tell his stories. Surely, an ambitious and merciless God whose motives are to let history remembered him as a blood thirsty God.

God suggested Israelite to loot Egyptians.

God has to inflict severe suffering and pains to the people of Egypt through a series of ten devastating plagues before the Egyptians’ Pharaoh finally relented and allowed to free the Israelites. Yet before leaving, God had a sinister design for the Israelite so that they can plunder the riches of their Egyptian neighbors such as jewellery gold, silver etc.

Exodus 11:2-1 Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbour, and every woman of her neighbour, jewels of silver and jewels of gold. And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians. Moreover, the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh's servants, and in the sight of the people.

In later part of their journey, when Moses didn't returned for 40 days after going to Mt. Sinai to meet God, his people would melt these looted gold and make an idol to worship, which Aaron thought, was a good idea. This enraged God and more brutal consequences were to follow. We shall come to that later.

Three thousands Israelites slained.

As Moses delayed to return from the mountain, people requested Aaron to make a God so that they may worship. Aaron made a molten calf from the gold they had looted from the Egyptians and people begin to worship, making sacrifices to the idol. Moses came down and was enraged to see his people worshipping the calf and dancing naked in revelry. He smashed the tablets of covenants into the ground in anger, breaking the tablets into pieces. Then he took the calf, ground it into powder, mixed it with water and made the Israelites drink it.

Exodus 32: 19-20. And it came to pass, as soon as he came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount. And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strawed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it.

He was not done yet, standing at the gate, he called out whoever is on the lord side to come unto him and the sons of Levi did gathered around him. He then ordered them to slay all idolaters be it their sons, brother, sisters, or neighbors. About three thousand Israelites were massacred. The next day Moses went up to the mountain again to make atonement with God for their sins.

Victory over Sihon and Og Numbers 21:21-35.

The Israelites sent ambassadors to King Sihon of the Amorites with a request to allow them to cross through their lands. The king Sihon refused obviously, because he cannot trust this nomadic people of Israel who has swallowed everything on their path wherever they go. Instead, he mobilized his entire army and attacked Israel in the wilderness, engaging them in battle at Jahaz.  Nevertheless, the Israelites slaughtered them with their swords and occupied their land from the Arnon River to the Jabbok River. They went only as far as the Ammonite border because the boundary of the Ammonites was fortified.

Therefore, Israel captured all the towns of the Amorites and settled in them, including the city of Heshbon and its surrounding villages. As per God's command, they also slaughtered the king of Heshbon, Og, his sons and all his subjects and occupied their land. All survivors were killed.

Basham destroyed.

Deuteronomy 3: 6. We completely destroyed the kingdom of Bashan, just as we had destroyed King Sihon of Heshbon. We destroyed all the people in every town we conquered—men, women, and children alike. 7. But we kept all the livestock for ourselves and took plunder from all the towns.

Just like Sihon and Heshbon, Moses army once again destroyed the kingdom of Bashan. Not even women and children were spared. Thereafter, they proceed to plunder the city and took everything including livestock. Now, the people are beginning to realize how great their lord is, for no god in heaven or earth can perform such mighty deeds. Truly, deed of unforgiveable sin, a deed of ethnic cleansing, a deed of unbelievable cruelty towards innocent people, which no God would allowed.

Conquest and massacred of the Midianites.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “On behalf of the people of Israel, take revenge on the Midianites for leading them into idolatry. After that, you will die and join your ancestors.”

So Moses said to the people, “Choose some men, and arm them to fight the Lord’s war of revenge against Midian.  From each tribe of Israel, send 1,000 men into battle.” So they chose 1,000 men from each tribe of Israel, a total of 12,000 men armed for battle. Then Moses sent them out, 1,000 men from each tribe, and Phinehas son of Eleazar the priest led them into battle. They carried along the holy objects of the sanctuary and the trumpets for sounding the charge.  They attacked Midian as the Lord had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men.  All five of the Midianite kings—Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba—died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword.

Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder.  They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived.  After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.  Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp.  But Moses was furious with all the generals and captains who had returned from the battle.

“Why have you let all the women live?” he demanded.  “These are the very ones who followed Balaam’s advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the Lord at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the Lord’s people.  So kill all the boys and all the women who have had intercourse with a man.  Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.  And all of you who have killed anyone or touched a dead body must stay outside the camp for seven days. You must purify yourselves and your captives on the third and seventh days. Purify all your clothing, too, and everything made of leather, goat hair, or wood.”

Then Eleazar the priest said to the men who were in the battle, “The Lord has given Moses this legal requirement: Anything made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, or lead—  that is, all metals that do not burn—must be passed through fire in order to be made ceremonially pure. These metal objects must then be further purified with the water of purification. But everything that burns must be purified by the water alone.  On the seventh day you must wash your clothes and be purified. Then you may return to the camp.”

Division of the Plunder.

And the Lord said to Moses, “You and Eleazar the priest and the family leaders of each tribe are to make a list of all the plunder taken in the battle, including the people and animals.  Then divide the plunder into two parts, and give half to the men who fought the battle and half to the rest of the people. From the army’s portion, first give the Lord his share of the plunder—one of every 500 of the prisoners and of the cattle, donkeys, sheep, and goats.  Give this share of the army’s half to Eleazar the priest as an offering to the Lord.  From the half that belongs to the people of Israel, take one of every fifty of the prisoners and of the cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats, and other animals. Give this share to the Levites, who are in charge of maintaining the Lord’s Tabernacle.” So Moses and Eleazar the priest did as the Lord commanded Moses.

The plunder remaining from everything the fighting men had taken totaled 675,000 sheep and goats, 72,000 cattle, 61,000 donkeys, and 32,000 virgin girls.

Half of the plunder was given to the fighting men. It totaled 337,500 sheep and goats, of which 675 were the Lord’s share;  36,000 cattle, of which 72 were the Lord’s share;  30,500 donkeys, of which 61 were the Lord’s share;  and 16,000 virgin girls, of whom 32 were the Lord’s share. Moses gave all the Lord’s share to Eleazar the priest, just as the Lord had directed him.

Half of the plunder belonged to the people of Israel, and Moses separated it from the half belonging to the fighting men.  It totaled 337,500 sheep and goats, 36,000 cattle, 30,500 donkeys, and 16,000 virgin girls. From the half-share given to the people, Moses took one of every fifty prisoners and animals and gave them to the Levites, who maintained the Lord’s Tabernacle. All this was done as the Lord had commanded Moses.

Then all the generals and captains came to Moses and said, “We, your servants, have accounted for all the men who went out to battle under our command; not one of us is missing! So we are presenting the items of gold we captured as an offering to the Lord from our share of the plunder—armbands, bracelets, rings, earrings, and necklaces. This will purify our lives before the Lord and make us right with him.”

So Moses and Eleazar the priest received the gold from all the military commanders—all kinds of jewelry and crafted objects.  In all, the gold that the generals and captains presented as a gift to the Lord weighed about 420 pounds. All the fighting men had taken some of the plunder for themselves.  So Moses and Eleazar the priest accepted the gifts from the generals and captains and brought the gold to the Tabernacle as a reminder to the Lord that the people of Israel belong to him.

Retrospection.

What kind of God would encourage and instigate his people to take revenge on others? The Midianites are to be blamed for leading them into idolatry. Really? wtf is wrong with is this god? It is like shifting blames onto someone for your own sins. Moses had to carry out this last command before he join his ancestors in hell.

This is not actually a war between two nations but an invasion, to plunder the Midianites on the pretext of taking revenge for leading the Israelite into idolatry. The above story is self-explanatory about the cruelty and brutality of treating the conquered subjects.  All kings were killed, all men were killed, all houses in towns and villages were burnt, children and women taken as prisoners, all their wealth, cattle and flock were plundered yet Moses was not inspired at all for not killing the women for they followed Balaam's advice and brought plaque to them.

How embarrassing and defiling of their womanhood it could be for the 32000 virgin girls who were captured by the Israelites as plunder or booty? To separate the virgins from non-virgins, their privacies were probed after stripping them naked by the Israelites, then all women whose hymens were ruptured were sent off into the gallows and the lives of virgin women were spared. These Midianite women would never be expecting that they were to undergo such humiliation and inhuman treatment from the hand of these barbaric victors prior to their captivity. The Israelite divided these virgin women among themselves; some to be sold as sex slave, some to be kept for themselves to satisfy their lusts. The lord too received his share of 32 virgin women. I wonder what this god was planning to do with these virgins.

No peace treaty, no negotiation, no surrender, no mercy but total annihilation, total ethnic cleansing. One is not sure whether god or a devil is commanding the people of Israelite. They divided the plunder as the lord has told them.

The cult of Moses is not about pleasing God through righteous path, rather it is about hunting resources and bounty of other people using God's name. All they want is glorifying God from the massacre of innocent people who do not worship their god. Plundering wealth was the main objective in all of Moses battles. We cannot be sure yet one thing is certainly clear, his guide master cannot be a God, because no god will ever tolerate his actions. We know for sure this God has evil intentions of creating war and enmity between nations.

I could not wholly understand those Christian preachers who shamelessly teach their congregations justifying these kinds of war crimes and atrocities even to this day. Is it justifiable for someone to massacre a group of people because they follow different faith? It must be noted that all the people whom Moses and his fighting forces had destroyed were living in this land since the time of their ancestors. They were not illegal migrants like the Israelites, who suddenly arrived in-group like a swarm of locusts and destroy every living creature on their path. We cannot justify Moses actions who keep on going killing the entire population using the name of God.

This God of Israel is indeed a bizarre powerful figure who performed one dreadful miracle after another in order to bring out his people from Egyptians slavery into the land of milk and honey. To liberate the people of Israel as well as to prove to the Egyptian's Pharaoh that he is lord, he has even murdered millions of Egyptians through ten consecutive deadly plagues. Even a hardened king could no longer keeps the Israelite as slave at his kingdom thereby he finally allowed Moses to leave Egypt with his people.

One could not wholly understand why this God of Israel has full of hates against humanity particularly the Egyptians. Why couldn't he directly communicate with the Pharaoh and advised the king not to mistreat his people instead of sending a reluctant messenger who readily admitted in the first place that he was not eloquent and perhaps doubted Pharaoh would listen him?

To my degree of understanding, this biased God, with full of racist attitude, having no remorse at all; specialized in genocidal killings could not be the one I worship. But what choice do the Israelites have? One never knew whether these poor people of Israel worshipped Him out of fear or adornment because they have seen the fate of Egyptians who worshipped another god.

The exodus of Israelites from Egypt to the Promised Land was such a tragic adventure misguided by their prophet Moses because after forty years of wandering, the entire generation of Israelites who were delivered from slavery perished during wilderness and never sees the Promised Land except Joshua and Caleb. Only the children who were born during the wilderness years would manage to get there. A journey which was supposed to be covered within days took them 40 years led by their prophet Moses under the direction and guidance of their so called God. This is one of the most perplexing cases of human migration ever undertaken in the history of mankind. Million innocent lives were already lost in brutal plagues even before the adventure begins while trying to convince the Pharaoh to liberate the Israelites yet even more brutal accounts of ethnic cleansing would followed in later years when they enter into the land of Canaan.

Moses was the most successful beguiler of all time. The murderous prophet, who claimed to have talked with God face to face. His sole motive was to plunder and ransack other nations on the pretext of receiving commands from God to drive them out for worshipping false deity. How strange and awkward it is that many people still believes him to be a genuine prophet even to this day? He successfully deceived the entire world with his imaginary laws giving them divine status which were later adopted by superstitious Christians, Jews and Muslims alike as God's given law. Although treacherous, ill tempered and blood thirsty, he was hailed as one of the most influential figures in the history of mankind.

Chapter-5

The laws of Moses.

The Old Testament contains 39 books while the New Testament contains 27 books. Different authors spanning over 1600 years wrote them yet nobody knows for sure who wrote them. Numerous opinions, ideas and speculations abound however; there is no clear evidence of the authorship of many of these books. Whenever the question is raised regarding the authorship of the bible, some people confidently response that God wrote the bible. I do not know if there could be any person stupider than those people. It is no wonder that they firmly believes these are genuinely the words of God when various scholars could not even possibly ascertain the human author of these books.

The book of Old Testament alone can turn your faith upside down overnight, if you are a keen reader with inquisitive mind. There is no way a rational person who relies on science and logic to understand the principle of all underlying knowledge would come into agreement with the narrative stories mentioned in the Old Testament. I for one no longer believe them to be literally true after examining each part of the story. By now, I am strongly convinced that they are merely collection of writings from different authors who had wild imaginations if not hallucinations. The innumerable inconsistencies coupled with incredible and unpalatable stories of fables, folklore, miracles and legends portrayed in the Old Testament are sufficient reasons for any average person, unless suffering from deficiency of mental reasoning ability, to be jettisoned as mythological work. The myth of the creation of universe and humankind, the myth of devastating Noah's flood, the separation of people and languages from the construction of the  tower of Babel and the miraculous exodus of Moses and his fellow Israelite; it all reminds us of the ancient world how superstitions and inexplicable natural phenomena played convincing role in the foundation of building religion. I am often baffled whenever I come across some scholars especially Christian apologists who vigorously defend the bible as God’s word despite the findings of numerous fallacies and inconsistencies in several passages. I do not blame the illiterate and ignorant followers for seriously believing in it and accepting them as God's word but it shocked me when even modern Christian scholars and intellectuals proclaimed the bible is free from error and that they are truly God's word. I have no word to describe as to who is more imbecilic - the editors or the Christian scholars?

In this chapter, our focus shall concentrate on the Mosaic laws in particular, examine each one, and find out whether they are indeed a revelation from God. Since God is omniscient and his divine wisdom is unquestionable, we shall presume that his words and given laws are unmistakable, just, rational and eternal. Therefore, any deviation from the above presumptions shall be treated as heresy or 'not from God'.

Remember, Yahweh supposedly reveals all these laws to the Israelite through Prophet Moses and they are meant for the Jews only at one point of time. In case you find any of the law incompatible or seem illogical, you have to decide yourself whether God really said so or Moses was simply lying or the authors had scribbled their own imaginations because no evidence is available to solve any controversy.

Is it necessary that God must made laws for every minute matter even to the point of separating a person who has skin disease from the community? It appeared to me, the Jews were so ignorantly childish that their God was compelled to teach them even how to defecate and cover their excreta or how to clean themselves after their monthly period. The priests undoubtedly carry a huge burden, as they have to examine every sickness and pronounce whether it is clean or unclean. Couldn’t it be Moses himself who gave all these laws? Do you believe that God almighty would teach you even how to shit?

It is awkward that God would insanely order the priest to perform ritual cleansing and blood sacrifices as mentioned in Leviticus. One such ritual for skin disease is that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop must be brought for the person to be cleansed. One of the birds must be killed over fresh water in a clay pot and then take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. Seven times, he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the defiling disease, and then pronounce them clean. I am quite skeptical that this ritual would have any effect on the person with skin disease.

After that, he is to release the live bird in the open fields. The person cleansed must wash their clothes, shave off all their hair and bathe with water; then they will be ceremonially clean. On the seventh day, he must shave off all hair again, head, beard, eyebrow, pubic hair and then wash clothes and bathe. On the eighth day, two male lambs and one ewe lamb a year old, each without defect, must be brought and slaughter them and sacrifice to god as guilt offering. Yahweh himself to the Jews through Moses allegedly directed these bloody rituals and sacrifices. Why did the Christians give up these offerings practices if you believe this is your God when he never said you should stop these barbaric rituals?

A woman whose menstrual bleeding becomes irregular with abnormal discharges, she is declared ceremoniously unclean for seven days. On the eight day, she must bring two doves or pigeons to be sacrificed and become clean. One bird is killed as sin offering and another is killed as burnt offering to God. In this way, she receives atonement.

Can you believe that God would lay down rules for a person as to how he should approach God while making offering? Indeed, God revealed a clear guideline for Aaron; failing to comply these rules, Aaron shall be put to death. The procedure for Aaron to enter holy place is ridiculously cumbersome, boring and lengthy just to make sure that God will not kill him in the same way his two sons were killed unceremoniously for burning the wrong censers to God.

This is how Aaron is to enter the Most Holy Place: He must first bring a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He is to put on the sacred linen tunic, with linen undergarments next to his body; he is to tie the linen sash around him and put on the linen turban. These are sacred garments; so he must bathe himself with water before he puts them on. From the Israelite community he is to take two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. “Aaron is to offer the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household. Then he is to take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the entrance to the tent of meeting. He is to cast lots for the two goats—one lot for the LORD and the other for the scapegoat. Aaron shall bring the goat whose lot falls to the LORD and sacrifice it for a sin offering. But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD to be used for making atonement by sending it into the wilderness as a scapegoat. “Aaron shall bring the bull for his own sin offering to make atonement for himself and his household, and he is to slaughter the bull for his own sin offering. He is to take a censer full of burning coals from the altar before the LORD and two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense and take them behind the curtain.  He is to put the incense on the fire before the LORD, and the smoke of the incense will conceal the atonement cover above the tablets of the covenant law, so that he will not die. He is to take some of the bull’s blood and with his finger sprinkle it on the front of the atonement cover; then he shall sprinkle some of it with his finger seven times before the atonement cover. “He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull’s blood: He shall sprinkle it on the atonement cover and in front of it. In this way, he will make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelite, whatever their sins have been. He is to do the same for the tent of meeting, which is among them in the midst of their uncleanness. No one is to be in the tent of meeting from the time Aaron goes in to make atonement in the Most Holy Place until he comes out, having made atonement for himself, his household and the whole community of Israel.  “Then he shall come out to the altar that is before the LORD and make atonement for it. He shall take some of the bull’s blood and some of the goat’s blood and put it on all the horns of the altar.  He shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times to cleanse it and to consecrate it from the uncleanness of the Israelite. “When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelite—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness. “Then Aaron is to go into the tent of meeting and take off the linen garments he put on before he entered the Most Holy Place, and he is to leave them there. He shall bathe himself with water in the sanctuary area and put on his regular garments. Then he shall come out and sacrifice the burnt offering for himself and the burnt offering for the people, to make atonement for himself and for the people. He shall also burn the fat of the sin offering on the altar. “The man who releases the goat as a scapegoat must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water; afterward he may come into the camp. The bull and the goat for the sin offerings, whose blood was brought into the Most Holy Place to make atonement, must be taken outside the camp; their hides, flesh and intestines are to be burned up. The man who burns them must wash his clothes and bathe himself with water; afterward he may come into the camp. “This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work—whether native-born or a foreigner residing among you—  because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the LORD, you will be clean from all your sins. It is a day of Sabbath rest, and you must deny yourselves; it is a lasting ordinance. The priest who is anointed and ordained to succeed his father as high priest is to make atonement. He is to put on the sacred linen garments and make atonement for the Most Holy Place, for the tent of meeting and the altar, and for the priests and all the members of the community. “This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: Atonement is to be made once a year for all the sins of the Israelites.”

So particular about his chosen people that the Lord provides detailed instructions for them so that they may stay holy. Not all guidelines can be covered here but some few laws are mentioned which I finds them necessarily important for the believers of Yahweh because they are seldom followed in today's world. One must remember that these laws revealed to the Jews though archaic yet they are divine.

God taught them how and when to eat during offering so that they shall not desecrate what is holy to God; he even taught them how to reap their harvest or gleans their harvest, he even provide laws as to how they should pick the fallen grapes in their vineyards. The lord had also prohibited them to mate different kinds of animals or wear clothing woven from two different kinds of materials; he even instructed them not to plant two kinds of seeds in their fields. Yahweh himself best knows the reason for prohibition.

Also, it was forbidden to eat the fruit of a tree that they had planted within three years because it is unclean, within four years they are not to eat because it is holy and belong to God as offering but finally on the fifth year, they may eat the fruit. You may be wondering its absurd, but these laws are meant to be followed so that harvest shall increase. Sounds logical!

You must have heard North Korean Dictator Kim Jonghyun is considered eccentric for passing laws regarding how citizens should cut their hair but he is not alone in enforcing this kind of freakish rules. The God of Israel "Yahweh" did have the same bizarre thoughts for he said, “Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard". Although quite opposite in style because Kim Jonghyun encouraged keeping short hair in the sides of head whereas God did not like his people to keep short hair in the sides.

Remember, you have no right to reason or question why God made laws even for unimportant matter because he best knows the reason alone. Weird or not; who are you to question Yahweh when he said so. As I glance through his laws, I could not stop wondering why most of all laws given by Yahweh are analogous to that of worldly dictatorial king. I have no answer of my own. I think the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims ought to thank Moses for introducing this Yahweh to their people and examine themselves deeper whether they are obeying His laws.

These are the revealed laws of crimes and punishments for committing sins.

Any person who sacrifices children to Molek (deity), he must be killed. If the community fails to put him to death, the lord himself will set his face against him and his family and cut them off from people. People who curse their parents are also to be killed. Death penalty for anyone who commits adultery; both adulterers must be put to death. If a man has sexual relationship with his father’s wife or with his daughters in law, both of them should be put to death. Homosexuals must also be killed. If a man marries a woman and daughter, both, all three must be burnt to death. Man or woman who has sex with animals must be killed including animals. If a man has sexual relationship with his aunt, they shall be childless. Besides, man who marries his brother’s wife shall also be childless. A man or woman who practices medium must be stoned to death.

Rules for the priests.

God has ordained the descendants of Aaron to be priests and so these rules are specifically directed to Aaron and his descendants. They are not to make themselves ceremonially unclean for his people who die. They must not shave their hair, beards or cut their bodies. They must marry only the virgins. If a priest daughter becomes a prostitute, she must be burnt to death. The priest must not let his hair unkempt or tear his clothes. He cannot enter any place where there is death body. Besides a priest who has any defect must not approach near God to offer food; a blind, lame, deformed, hunchback, crippled in foot or hand, damaged testicles, a dwarf etc. Strange indeed, the creator who created them with inborn defects does not want them to come near him. I see no godly nature in this Yahweh.

Just like a person with defect must not approach near God, the same applies to all animals which are to be sacrifice. Any animal, which has the slighted defect, even a blemish must not be offered to God. Yahweh is truly disgusted with deform creatures therefore, offering animals must be perfectly healthy, clean and without any blemish.

Rewards and curses from Yahweh.

Yahweh truly hates idols and so his people must not worship images or carved stone but observe his Sabbaths and bow before the lord. In this way, he will bless them and reward them.

If his decrees are carefully, observe and obey his commands, the lord will sends rain in time and the lands will yield crops fruitfully and they will eat all the food they want and live in safety. God will grant peace, remove wild beasts and hostility will not arise. They will defeat their enemies, five of them will chase a hundred, a hundred of them will chase ten thousand, and enemies will fall by the sword before them. The lord will look on them with favor, make them fruitful, and increase their numbers, and he will keep his covenant with them. Their harvests will last longer and he will dwell among them and will not abhor them. They will be his people and no longer serve as slaves to the Egyptians but enable them to walk with head held high.

But if they reject his decree and fail to carry out his commands and violate his covenants then he will bring terror, diseases and destroy them. Enemies will defeat them and rule over them. The lord will punish for their sins seven times over, their soil will be infertile and crops will bear no fruits. The lord himself will avenge them, send plagues, and deliver them into the hand of enemies if they break his covenant. They will eat the flesh of their sons and daughters. He will destroy high places, cut down incense altars and pile dead bodies on the lifeless forms of their idols, and he will abhor them.

The lord will turn their cities into ruins and lay waste their sanctuaries, and no more shall the lord take delight in the pleasing aroma of their offerings. The lord says "I myself will lay waste the land, so that enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter them among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. The land will be laid waste, and your cities will lie in ruins".

The lord will make their hearts so fearful in the lands of their enemies that the sound of a windblown leaf will put them to flight. They will run as though fleeing from the sword, and they will fall, even though no one is pursuing them. They will stumble over one another as though fleeing from the sword, even though no one is pursuing them. So they will not be able to stand before your enemies but perish among the nations; the land of their enemies will devour them. Those of them who are left will waste away in the lands of their enemies because of their sins; also because of their ancestors’ sins, they will waste away.

These are the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the LORD established at Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelite through Moses.

Yahweh’s scale of values for a person who make special vows to dedicate someone to the lord.

A man between the ages of twenty and sixty is valued at fifty shekels of silver, as measured by the sanctuary shekel. A woman of that age is valued at thirty shekels of silver. A boy between the ages of five and twenty is valued at twenty shekels of silver; a girl of that age is valued at ten shekels of silver.  A boy between the ages of one month and five years is valued at five shekels of silver; a girl of that age is valued at three shekels of silver. A man older than sixty is valued at fifteen shekels of silver; a woman of that age is valued at ten shekels of silver.

S.no	Category	Age(in between)	Value in silver.
1	Man	20-60	50 shekels
2	Woman	20-60	30 shekels
3	Boy	05-20	25 shekels
4	Girl	05-20	10 shekels
4	Boy	1 month-05 years	5 shekels
5	Girl	1 month-05 years	3 shekels
6	Old man	Above 60 years	15 shekels
7	Old woman	Above 60 years	10 shekels.

Can you imagine God would categorize human being in terms of silver values as though they are some sorts of commodity? I could not understand how people actually have full faith in this crazy God.

God's law on Crime and Punishment.

Summing up all the laws of Yahweh, let us briefly review them and ask ourselves if a divine God would endorse these commands.

Death penalty. A person can be put to death for the following crimes:

Murder, striking or cursing a parent, witchcraft, sex with animals(bestiality), sacrifice to another god, adultery, sex with your father's wife, sex with your daughter-in-law, homosexuals, refusing to obey a priest or judge, false prophecy, and failure to seek the Lord.

People who must be stoned to death include: sabbath breakers, parents who sacrifice their children to Molech, wizards, people with familiar spirits, blasphemers, family and friends who try to convince you to worship another god, people who worship another god, stubborn and rebellious sons, non virgins women on their wedding night, and women who are raped in the city and don't cry out loud for help (along with the rapist).

People who must be burned to death include: daughters of priests who play the whore, people who take the accursed thing (along with their families), and a man who marries his wife and her mother (burn all three).

Following people are to be "cut off" from the society: uncircumcised male, eating leavened bread during the Passover, making God's special perfume for your own purposes, eating blood, touching an unclean thing, eating leftover animal sacrifices,  having sex with a menstruating woman.

Other punishments: Judges can have wicked people beat with forty lashes, there are various punishments for refusing to obey a king or the commandments, and a woman must have her hand cut off (without pity) if she touches the "secrets" of a man when trying to assist her husband in a fight.

There are also punishments for animals. Animals that have sex with people must be killed. And an ox that gores a person must be stoned to death.

If someone accidentally kills another person, the killer must be killed by the "revenger of blood" (the victim's nearest relative) -- unless the accidental killer can get to a city of refuge first. If so, he is safe, at least until the high priest dies.

God can put you to death for spilling your semen during intercourse, for burning wrong incense during offering, for complaining against him, for looking at the ark of covenant and many more.

Principles of Biblical justice: "an eye for an eye" and "thine eye shall not pity."

Strangely evil enough yet they claimed and firmly uphold their stance that these are the divine laws revealed to mankind through Moses, the prophet of bloodshed. By putting these laws into practice, Moses could have been charged under death penalty section for false prophecy. Some people claimed these laws are not harsh, cruel or unsympathetic because we never put them into practice in today's world.

The Test for an Unfaithful Wife (Moses method supervised by Yahweh)

If a man's wife is suspected of having sexual relations with another man but has no evidence, then the husband is to take his wife to the priest for test. He must bring an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour on her behalf as grain offering for jealousy, a reminder offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.

The priest shall put some dust from tabernacle floor into clay jar containing holy water. The priest shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say "may this bitter water that brings curse not harm you if you have not gone astray but if you have gone astray may this brings you curse so that your womb miscarriages and your abdomen swell." Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.

The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the LORD and bring it to the altar then take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. This is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and makes herself impure while married to her husband or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin, if in case the ritual has any efficacy at all.

Could God really reveal this law to Moses? Frankly, my ancestors too had similar sorcery rituals once practised before the advent of Christianity. The only difference is they did not dishonestly attribute the rituals to be divine revelation as Moses did. If you read between the lines regarding Moses law, you will find that almost every day Yahweh spoke to him not in vision but face to face which is so peculiar for any prophet. It is intriguing how people actually take these nonsense rituals as divine laws for the whole humanity.

Conclusion.

It is not my responsibility to judge others faith or attempt to convince anyone to stop believing in this God of Israel, also called as "Yahweh" or to ridicule any god. It must be noted here that I am simply expressing my point of views after reading the Mosaic laws, which appears, to me illogical and absurd. Considering that the supremacy of God's wisdom is timeless, unquestionable, unambiguous, unmistakable, logically conclusive and universally applicable to all humanity, the alleged word of God as mentioned in the Old Testament is outrageously rubbish, tainted with superstition and false dogmas, which is an insult to the 'Supreme Being'.  God is supposed to be loving, peaceful, forgiving, magnanimous and merciful; instead, we find that 'Yahweh' is full of jealousy and wrath, vengeful, sadistic, vindictive and oppressive towards those who goes astray from his teaching. I do not imagine a true God would be so hateful, disillusion, instigate his people to massacre, and shed the innocents' blood as his vengeance. I do not believe a true God would declare a certain tribal group of people as his chosen people, while at the same time ignored all other races, and command them to invade the land of other nations and loot their wealth and property after total annihilation of all men, women and children. It is impossible for any rational being to believe and imbibe the idea that God himself would promote crimes, enmity, war and display extreme cruelty towards any of his own creation under any circumstance.

Yahweh's character mentioned in the Old Testament is contradictory to what a loving God should be in all respect. I must say that the so-called prophets who claimed to have encountered divine revelation, which gives legitimacy to their views as God’s law, had committed the biggest forgery of wisdom ever known in the history of mankind. It was through such spurious wisdom that the entire generations of God's believers had been manipulated and convinced them into adopting false faith, promoting hatred and war among various nations of the world. Bigotry and mutual hatreds among different religions and cultures of the world since time immemorial, is a direct consequences of such false doctrines which comes out from the mouth of false prophets.

Christian faith is built upon the two books- Old Testament and New testament; also known as the holy bible. If you do not believe them to be the word of God, you are calumniating the churches and its adherents; if you believe in them, you are simply making fools of yourself. It is always a dilemma for someone like me because our society is still hideously conservative and nobody would wants to be stigmatized for upholding a different view. The truth is, the bible lacks originality in many aspects; the mythological stories were mainly derived from the epics of earlier civilization such as Sumerian and reinforced it to be God's word after making some changes. It also contains both good and bad moral stories; some of them are fables; some obscenity and some glorify the brutality of God's wrath. As man progress in the field of knowledge, thankfully today, many Christians no longer subscribe to the laws mentioned in the Old Testament except some few orthodox members, otherwise the world would have been in bloody mess if such laws are implemented.

Chapter-6

Israel during Joshua and thereafter.

After Moses died, Joshua succeeded him and he would lead the Jews into the Promised Land crossing the Jordan River. Yahweh never stopped reminding them about the land he had promised to give them since the time Abraham. He once again promised Joshua that wherever he set his foot, the land would belong to them, the same old promised since the time of Abraham, to Moses and Joshua. Yahweh encouraged Joshua to be strong, and obey all his law because he would lead his people to inherit the land that Yahweh had promised to his ancestors. Throughout their wilderness, Yahweh perform miracle after miracle displaying his magnificent supernatural power to the Israelites that would continued to baffle the future generations ever to come upon this planet.

They were to pass over the waters of the Jordan as miraculously as their fathers had passed through the waves of the Red Sea. On the tenth day of Nissan, the river was full to overflowing. The priests advanced with the Holy Ark, and as the soles of their feet touched the waters of the Jordan, the waters at that point halted in their course, piling up into a wall, while the rest flowed down. Thus, the riverbed became dry, and the whole nation passed over. The people gazed with reverential awe upon Joshua, and they feared him as they had feared Moses. Twelve men, one from each tribe, then carried twelve stones from the bed of the Jordan to a spot on the shore, where they erected a monument to commemorate the historic and miraculous event. The people settled in Gilgal on the western shore of the Jordan, where they set up the Tabernacle which stayed there for fourteen years, until the land of Canaan was conquered and divided.

Fall of Jericho wall,

Before crossing Jordan, Joshua sent two spies to study the feasibility of taking over Jericho. The king of Jericho heard that two Israelite spies were within his city and so he ordered his soldiers to search them and bring to him. Rahab, a prostitute protected them by hiding them on the roof of her house when they came looking for the Israelite spies. She told the spies that the citizens of Jericho have been in fearful state ever since they have heard how the Lord has dried up the Red Sea and helped them out of Egypt and how the two Amorites king were completely destroyed. She agreed to help them escape, if she and her family were spared in the upcoming battle. The spies agreed to her request.  So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall. She told them to go to the hills, hide three days until the soldiers’ return, so the pursuers will not find them. They safely escaped the city, returned to Joshua and reported that the "whole land was melting with fear."

Oath of agreement with Rahab.

Joshua 2:17 Now the men had said to her, “This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us 18 unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house. 19 If any of them go outside your house into the street, their blood will be on their own heads; we will not be responsible. As for those who are in the house with you, their blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on them. 20 But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released from the oath you made us swear.”21 “Agreed,” she replied. “Let it be as you say.”So she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.

Joshua chapter 6:12-20

Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets kept sounding. So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.

On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times. The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city. The city and all that is in it are to be devoted  to the Lord. Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent. But keep away from the devoted things, so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise, you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble on it.  All the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron are sacred to the Lord and must go into his treasury.” When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed; so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.

Well, supernatural force comes into play again; the wall was knocked down by the sound of trumpets and the roaring sounds of soldiers. But the idea that a wall came crushing down by the sounds of trumpets is preposterous and as far as logical explanation is concern, it remains unsatisfactory to many of the readers.

Here is what Derrick De Kerckhove, Retired Faculty (French University of Toronto) has to say about the fall of Jericho wall.

The combination of three kinds of sounds was necessary to bring the walls down: the blast from the ram’s horn, the sound of the trumpets and the people’s great shout. Whatever you make of the prescription, it points to a belief in the ability of sound to pulverize the hardest obstacle, a fact proven by dentistry when it uses sonar teeth cleansing instruments. Indeed, the Berlin Wall could be said to have fallen in part because of music, as when it fell, several rock music concerts had been allowed first on the western side of the wall. Later, on 19 July 1988, 16 months before the Wall came down, Bruce Springteen and the E-Street Ban, played Rocking the Wall, a live concert in East-Berlin, attended by 300,000 in person, and broadcasted on television, a fact that could have been critical in encouraging the people east and west of the wall to bring it down. Springsteen spoke to the crowd in German, saying: “I’m not here for or against any government. I’ve come to play rock ‘n’ roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.

I was quite amused reading this ridiculed item. What else can any rational scholar say if it is the miracle of God?

There are different theories about the breakdown of Jericho wall. But I find one verse quite intriguing and suspicious when two spies had struck a deal with Rahab, a prostitiute, whose house was part of the Jericho wall.

Joshua 2:15  So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall. And then in

Joshua 2:18. Unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house.

It was highly probable that some soldiers of Joshua were already inside Jericho town before the plan to attack begins. In the same way, Rahab has sent down the two Israelite spies from her house, some soldiers could have climbed up and stationed at her house as we found in Joshua 2:18, she was obliged to tie the scarlet cord in the window in the same way she let the two spies down. This was meant for the soldiers to climb up to Rahab’s window so that they could open the gate for Joshua and his troops once the trumpets sound. Since, Rahab has already established a trust worthy relationship with the Israelis; she is willing to take any risk in order to save her parents and family members. It would not be a difficult task for her to give shelter to Joshua’s army at her house as she had done earlier.

Therefore, the mystery of the fall of Jericho wall could not be due to pulverization of walls from the sounds of the priests’ trumpets or of the knocking down by heaven’s hand but a well successful espionage mission by spies who opened the gate from within.

Shifting the blame of defeat.

After capturing Jericho, Joshua sent some men to spy Ai, a small settlement of Amorites. The men returned and reported Joshua that since few people lives in, entire army will not be necessary to capture Ai. Therefore, they sent 3000 soldiers to capture Ai but things did not turn out as expected, the Israelites were chased down and humiliated by the soldiers of Ai losing 36 men. Joshua was deeply troubled questioning the lord why he brought them across the Jordan River if they were to be destroyed by Amorites. The lord has his own excuse.

He told Joshua that some Israelites have violated his covenants, which he has commanded to keep. They have stolen some devoted things and keep as their possession and unless they are destroyed, Israel cannot stand its enemies.

So early the next morning, Joshua summoned Israel to come tribe by tribe, then clan by clan and single out Achan, son of Zerah, Judah tribe and the man admitted his guilt saying he has indeed taken a babyloanian  rope, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels.

Joshua 7:24-25

Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor. Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The LORD will bring trouble on you today.” Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them.

It is ironic that Achan paid the price ostensibly for Israelites defeat at the hands of Ai. Joshua's army plundered Jericho and burnt down every house. There would surely be other soldiers too, just like Achan who looted the wealth and kept it as personal possession. It will not be one man alone. But Achan must have some faith on this weird God and therefore paid the price with the live of his family members unfortunately. Although the defeat of Israelite has nothing to do with him because sending 3000 men to capture Ai was a poor military plan which was doom to fail.

In the next mission, Joshua sent 30000 men to attack Ai, and the city fell. Killed all twelve thousand men and women, plundered their wealth and livestock, captured king of Ai alive and brought before Joshua. He impaled the body of the king of Ai on a pole and left it there until evening. At sunset, Joshua ordered them to take the body from the pole and throw it down at the entrance of the city gate. And they raised a large pile of rocks over it, which remains to this day.

The legacy of Moses' tactic of brutality and carnage in the name of God was passed down to Joshua who will utilize it to the extreme level to glorify their sadistic god.

Joshua stopped the sun.

Soon after Joshua and the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they waged battle against five armies, which laid siege to the Gibeonites. Joshua had promised to protect the Gibeonites, so he led an army and defeated the five kings. Joshua prayed that God help the Israelites in their battle by stopping the sun and the awful incident occurred.

Joshua 10

12 On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and you, moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.

This mysterious God has even stopped the sun from going down about a full day so that Joshua and his armies could avenge the enemies. How ridiculous it is, even to invent such story that the sun would stop in the middle of the sky so that they could kill more people? This implies that the earth stops rotating since in those days, people thought the sun revolves around the earth and not vice versa. Anyway, the Sun appears to stop moving which is because  the earth stop rotating around the sun. It was in stationary position. Many preachers’ even gives full support to this myth saying if God can makes the earth revolve; it will not be a problem for him to stop. I have no words to say to define these hypocrites who blindly preach without giving a rational thought. Blind faith will blind them and lead them into hell.

What will happen if the earth stops rotation?

Assuming that the earth stops suddenly,  here is what would happen

1. If the earth stops spinning suddenly, the atmosphere will continue to spin. This means the wind will blow at a very high-speed i.e., approximately 1,670 Km/hr which is earth’s rotational velocity causing tremendous devastation to the whole planet. The wind will also cause erosion to the earth’s crust. Everything will be uprooted from the surface of the earth.

2. A sudden stop of the spin will have a similar effect to when you press brakes on a moving car. Every object on earth will fly with the speed of earth’s rotational velocity, around 1,670 km/hr.  At this velocity, you will be thrown out into the atmosphere.

3. The earth will become a perfect sphere because the bulge in the earth is due to its rotation. If there is no bulge and the earth is a perfect sphere, the oceans will redistribute resulting in one massive supercontinent that circles the equator and the north and south poles will become oceans.

So in this case, for the sake of Joshua to carry out killing spree, God would not possibly stop the earth from spinning even though he may have the power to do so, because far reaching consequences will follow. It is more important for the world to be in balance than for Joshua to avenge his enemies by stopping the sun or earth from moving.

After hearing the news that Joshua had conquered Gideon and destroyed everything, the Gibeonite sent an envoy before Joshua enter into their land and practically surrendered to Israelite. Although, they deceived Joshua that they were from far away land, it was a wise plan of survival. So they became woodcutters and water carriers for Joshua and his army.

Northern alliance

In the north, several petty kingdoms joined together as an alliance army to confront Joshua. They formed a huge army consisting of horses and chariots. As per the Lord's command, Joshua hamstring the horses and burn the chariots. He defeated them and pursued the escapists and killed everyone leaving no survivor. He completely destroyed everything that breathes and plundered their cities and carried away all their flock. It was the lord himself who deliberately hardened their hearts to wage war against the Israelite and consequently faced extermination. Joshua took over their land as inheritance to Israel and divided them among the tribes of Israel.

Achievements of Joshua.

Joshua and the people of Israel defeated all the kings in the territory west of the Jordan, from Baalgad in the valley of Lebanon to Mount Halak in the south near Edom. Joshua divided this land among the tribes and gave it to them as a permanent possession.  This portion included the hill country, the western foothills, the Jordan Valley and its foothills, the eastern slopes, and the dry country in the south. This land had been the home of the Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

The people of Israel defeated the kings of the following cities: Jericho, Ai (near Bethel), Jerusalem, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, Eglon, Gezer,  Debir, Geder, Hormah, Arad, Libnah, Adullam, Makkedah, Bethel, Tappuah, Hepher, Aphek, Lasharon, Madon, Hazor, Shimron Meron, Achshaph, Taanach, Megiddo, Kedesh, Jokneam (in Carmel), Dor (on the coast), Goiim (in Galilee ), and Tirzah.

Altogether, Joshua under the Lord's command defeated thirty-one kings. It was a common practice that the Israelites do not keep prisoners of war, thus the entire population is usually exterminated. According to bible, we saw only very few survivors such as the Gibeonites who surrendered and Rahab and her family for helping their spies. All defeated kings are instantly executed in Moses style including the entire army, then they will proceed to kill every inhabitants, the elderly, women and children. When the entire race is slaughtered, they plundered all their land, wealth and possession, cattles and flock, destroy all immovable property, and churned down every house. They attributed all their conquests to God, under whose command they attained victory.

God's involvement in war crimes.

What could be more justifying and fulfilling contentment for a man to kill every people under the direct command of your lord because the lord said, they are evil and should be annihilated? They deserve to die because they worship a god, which is different from the one you worship.  For one reason you shall derives absolute satisfaction because you are doing a hell of favor to your God as atonement to your past sins. If God demands your service, why should you bother asking ethical questions whether it is right or wrong, for God cannot make mistake. Since ages, one civilization after another, people murdered and killed each other, fought wars and battles in the name of faith, proclaiming themselves as the Lord's army, yet the Lord never seemed to bother of making appearance before his soldiers even on one single occasion to address his people especially to those who shed blood in His name. How arrogant is that? Despite killing thousand people even at the risk of losing one's own life, for the sake of your God, He still ignores you utterly.

It cannot be explained in a simplistic manner as to what extend a man's mind can be manipulated and convert a person into a mechanical robot using religious doctrines in a false way. There is no limit to what a hypnotist can do to you, transforming your speech, your movement, your behavior as long as you are willing and ready to accept and undergo what the hypnotist tells you. You obviously become a completely different person without even realizing by yourself. In this same way, faith can change a person to become what he wants to be. It is not an extraordinary deed or miraculous achievement of a particular religion alone, it simply happens to every willing mind irrespective of religion, faith, God or without God. Your mind departs from your true self when you stops using your reasoning ability and convict yourself absolutely into believing something, which is also called ‘FAITH’. That is how true soldiers of God are born.

The soldiers of Joshua would not be so brave and efficient if there was no mind manipulation involved by changing them into men of strong faith in God. The suicide bombers of Al Qaeda or ISIS would surely hesitate to carry out the task assigned to them if their mind has not been manipulated. The belief of doing special favor for their God by killing the innocents has been a common phenomenon in all warfare carried out in the name of God. In any of the above cases, if their minds have not been manipulated and false doctrines were not implanted into their minds by the use of faith, a natural rational person shall have no such intense feelings of hate against their own fellow beings. False doctrines of faith beget war and killings beget more killings.

Joshua 13:1. Joshua was now very old. The Lord said to him, "You are very old, but there is still much land to be taken:

This God is rapacious dying from land hunger. The Israelites have now enough land after defeating and capturing the lands of the native people of several kingdoms. Almost 60,000 people from the enemies side were massacred during the time of Joshua's adventure alone according to Steve Wells, author of the book, 'Drunk with Blood', but still the God of israel is not satisfied yet. He wants more land however, Joshua is too old now to go to war. He reminds Joshua the territory which needs to be annexed in the days to come perhaps so that Joshua might pass down the Lord's ambitious plan to the next successor. These territories  are, all the territory of Philistia and Geshur, as well as all the territory of the Avvim to the south. (The land from the stream Shihor, at the Egyptian border, as far north as the border of Ekron was considered Canaanite; the kings of the Philistines lived at Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron.)  The remaining Canaanite country, and Mearah (which belonged to the Sidonians), as far as Aphek, at the Amorite border;  the land of the Gebalites; all of Lebanon to the east, from Baalgad, which is south of Mount Hermon, to Hamath Pass. This includes all the territory of the Sidonians, who live in the hill country between the Lebanon Mountains and Misrephoth Maim.

The Lord is going to make sure he drive all these peoples out as the people of Israel advance. Several wars would follow in later part of this era.

The angel at Bokim

In judges chapter 2 opening verse, to whom the angel of the lord was speaking in particular we are not sure though he was referring to Israelite people, however he affirmed that he will never break his covenant with the people of Israel and Israel should never make a covenant with people of the remaining Canaanites.

This God of Israel must be deeply in love with Israel so he just could not bear to see them mingling with others, living side by side sharing the loves they have. He did admitted repeatedly he was a jealous God who would not tolerate anything which goes against his wishes. It is not the people of Israel who make enemies with others but the lord himself who instigates and prepares them for war.

Yahweh could have destroyed every enemy of the Israelite as usual, however these new generation of the sons of Israelite has no previous battle experience. Therefore, in order to hone their skills in warfare, Yahweh left the five rulers of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites living in the Lebanon mountains from Mount Baal Hermon to Lebo Hamath for the Israelites to learn warfare by fighting against these nations. This was meant to test the Israelites to see whether they would obey the LORD’s commands, which he had given their ancestors through Moses. Strangely as it seemed, these neighbouring nations were simply experimental subjects in God's laboratory for the Israelites to learn warfare.

The angel of the Lord was so angry with the people of Israel for not destroying their altars, which is a violation of the covenant. Therefore, as a punishment and as a test he is not going to destroy or drive out those people(Canaanites, Amorites, etc.) for them this time.(Judges 2:23) In other words, the people of Israel got a chance to co-exist with their fellow neighbors for the first time ever since they moved out of Egypt. The Israelites were now living among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites by inter marrying each other and worshipping even their Gods. (Judges 3:5-6). Unfortunately, the God of Israel did not like this idea of peaceful co-existence with these people because in his eyes this is evil.

Joshua died at the age of hundred and ten and buried at Timnath Heres, Ephraim. According to God, after Joshua new generation emerged who knew neither what the lord had done for Israel nor have any interest in invading their neighboring nations as their ancestors did. This greatly enraged the lord for they are forsaking him. For the first time in history, these new generations are beginning to enjoy liberty of worshipping what they like including Baals. This make the lord even more envious and therefore, the lord in anger gave them into the hands of the raiders who plundered them.(Judges 2:14)

The anger of the Lord burned against Israel so he sold them into the hands of Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram Naharaim, to whom the Israelites were subject for eight years. (Judges 3:8). We are not sure what the price was.  But when they cried out to the Lord, he raised up for them a deliverer, Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother, who saved them. The Spirit of the Lord came on him, so that he became Israel’s judge and when he started the war again, the LORD gave Cushan-Rishathaim king of Aram into the hands of Othniel as a token of appreciation.  This God really love war and so the land had peace for forty years after defeating them, until Othniel, son of Kenaz died.

Ehud

(Judges 3:12-30)

Once again, the Israelites did evil, so the lord gave Eglon king of Moab to subjugate them for eighteen years. Then they cried out to the lord again, so the lord gave them a deliverer—Ehud, a left-handed man, the son of Gera, the Benjamite. The Israelites sent him with tribute to Eglon king of Moab who was a very fat man. After Ehud had presented the tribute, he sent on their way those who had carried it and he himself went back to Eglon and said, “Your Majesty, I have a secret message for you.” The king ordered his attendants to leave; Ehud then approached him ^and said, “I have a message from God for you.” As the king rose from his seat, Ehud drew the sword from his right thigh and plunged it into the king’s belly.  Then Ehud went out to the porch, he shut the doors of the upper room behind him and locked them. After he had gone, the servants came and found the doors of the upper room locked. They said, “He must be relieving himself in the inner room of the palace.”, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead.

While they waited, Ehud escaped to Seirah. There, he blew a trumpet in the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites went down with him from the hills, with him leading them and took possession of the fords of the Jordan that led to Moab; they allowed no one to cross over. At that time, they struck down about ten thousand Moabites, all vigorous and strong; not one escaped. That day Moab was made subject to Israel, and the land had peace for eighty years.

Judges 3:31 After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath, who struck down six hundred Philistines with an oxgoad. He too saved Israel.

Some stories in the bible are ridiculously hilarious and difficult to swallow as God's word due to its illogical nature. One such tale is the story of Shamgar, son of Anath who singlehandedly slew six hundred philistines with an oxgoad. Did such a mighty and powerful Jew ever existed? I wonder what relevancy does this kind of super hero story has anyway? Neither a kid nor a fool will believe that a man could kill 600 men with an oxgoad unless he hijack an airplane and fly into a tower such as 9/11. Yet even biblical scholars enthusiastically preach and worship this kind of hero in the bible.

Gideon.

Every time the Israelites faced oppression, it is because they did evil in the eyes of the lord. So for seven years, Midiniates had oppressed them, destroying their crops, brought their livestock and ravaged their land. Israelites were impoverished and therefore they cried out for help again.

One day Gideon was threshing wheat in a winepress to keep it away from the Midianites.

The lord appeared before Gideon and introduced himself as Lord but Gideon was doubtful so he asked if the Lord was with them why they have been undergoing all the sufferings at the hands of the Midians. When the lord told him that he would be the one to save Israel, he could hardly believe the idea being from the weakest tribe, the Manasseh but the lord assured him that he would be with him striking down every Midiniates leaving no one alive. Gideon wanted proof if he was indeed the real Lord, so

Then the angel of the LORD touched the meat and the unleavened bread with the tip of the staff that was in his hand. Fire flared from the rock, consuming the meat and the bread. And the angel of the LORD disappeared.

Gideon must be a man of little faith; still unconvinced he wanted to test God again, so Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have promised— look, I will place a wool fleece on the threshing floor. If there is dew only on the fleece and all the ground is dry, then I will know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you said.” And that is what happened. Gideon rose early the next day; he squeezed the fleece and wrung out the dew—a bowlful of water.

Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

Gideon defeated the Midiniates.

Early in the morning, Gideon and all his men camped at the spring of Harod opposite to the camp of Midian who were in the valley near the hill of Moreh, north of them. Now this Lord of Israel too wants the credit to his name once the battle is won. So, in order to prove his might and battle skills, he must reduce the size of his army. Firstly, he ordered Gideon to send back all men who trembles with fear in battle, then secondly, he orderd Gideon to choose only those soldiers who have etiquette and mannerism by observing his soldiers as they drank water. Only three hundred soldiers who drank water-using hands were chosen and the Lord assured Gideon that he would give Midiniates into his hands. During one night, the lord wake up Gideon and suggested him to go down to their enemy camp with servant Purah and spy them should Gideon be afraid to attack. Gideon went down and on hearing the narration of the enemy soldier’s dream, which was interpreted by a fellow soldier as a sign, God has already given the Midiniates and the whole camp to Gideon. This emboldened Gideon spirit and returned with confidence. He arranged his army into three companies with each soldier holding a trumpet and empty jar with torch inside.

It is said, The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern peoples had settled in the valley, thick as locusts. Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore. (Judges 7:12)

Quite a large number to be defeated by the sound of the trumpets alone.

After getting to the edge of the camp, the whole three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars and they shouted, “A sword for the LORD and for Gideon!” all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled.

When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the LORD caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords. The army fled to Beth Shittah toward Zererah as far as the border of Abel Meholah near Tabbath. Israelites from Naphtali, Asher and all Manasseh were called out, and they pursued the Midianites. Gideon sent messengers throughout the hill country of Ephraim, saying, “Come down against the Midianites and seize the waters of the Jordan ahead of them as far as Beth Barah.” So all the men of Ephraim were called out and they seized the waters of the Jordan as far as Beth Barah. They also captured two of the Midianite leaders, Oreb and Zeeb. They killed Oreb at the rock of Oreb, and Zeeb at the winepress of Zeeb. They pursued the Midianites and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon, who was by the Jordan.

Ephraimites were not happy for treating them this way for they too should be informed beforehand so that they can also participated in this battle but Gideon replied them that what he achieved was nothing comparing to them since God gave the Midiniate leaders into their hands. This subsided the resentment of the Ephraim.

Though exhausted Gideon and his men continued the pursuit, crossed the Jordan and asked the Sukkoth officials for bread, as they were hungry, yet denied and went up to Peniel request the same yet they too denied their request.  Gideon replied them that after victory, he would tear the flesh of Sukkoth with desert thorns and briers and for Peniel, he would tear down their tower.

Now Zebah and Zalmunna were in Karkor with a force of about fifteen thousand men, all that were left of the armies of the eastern peoples, a hundred and twenty thousand swordsmen had fallen.

Gideon went up and attacked the unsuspecting army, the two kings of Midian, fled, but he pursued them and captured them, routing their entire army.

Gideon returned from the battle by the Pass of Heres and now it is time for a lesson for those who refused to help him. He caught a young man of Sukkoth and questioned him, and the young man wrote down for him the names of the seventy-seven officials of Sukkoth, the elders of the town. He took the elders of the town and taught the men of Sukkoth a lesson by punishing them with desert thorns and briers. He also pulled down the tower of Peniel and killed the men of the town.

Gideon killed Zebah and Zalmunna himself and took the ornaments off their camels’ necks.

Gideon denied the request of the Israelite to rule over them. Died at a good old age and was buried in the tomb of his father Joash in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

Jephthah’s daughter sacrificed as burnt offering to the Lord.

The Israelites were once again plunged into bitter rivalry with the Amorites over land dispute and war became imminent.  The people of Israel chose Jephthah to lead them into battle on the condition that after victory, Jephthah should become the head.

Before going into battle, Jephthah made a vow to the Lord that if he helps him victorious over the Ammonites, Jephthah would sacrifice ‘whatever comes out of his door first to meet him’ as a burnt offering to the Lord. Eventually, they defeated the Ammonites, destroyed twenty of their towns and subdued them. On his return home, his only daughter happened to come out dancing to the sound of timbrels and met him. Jephthah was devastated, as she was his only child yet he had made a solemn vow to the lord to sacrifice anything that first meet him in his door and now he could not break it. The child on hearing her father’s grief requested him to give her two months, so that she could roam and weep with her friends on the hills, as she will never marry. Her father did grant her last request and after two months, she was sacrificed to the lord. She died as a virgin and from this comes the Israelite tradition that each year young women of Israel go out for four days to commemorate the daughter of Jephthah. (Judges 11:30-40)

What a misgiving tragedy? Its mind boggling as to how one could burn his own daughter as offering to the Lord. Sacrificing human beings to God has been the long-standing tradition of the Jews practiced from one generation after another since the time of Abraham. We learnt that Abraham is commanded by God to offer his only son Isaac as a sacrifice, and nearly does so.  The Bible tells us nothing about Abraham’s internal struggle or horrified misgivings about the act, or the terror and trauma experiences by Isaac. This could be one of the most barbaric rituals in any part of the world. There are several instances that the Lord of Israel demands from people to offer him all first born as sacrifice but for now we shall leave that part and discuss in another topic however, ask yourself can God Almighty accepts human sacrifice?

Samsom, the Nazirite.

The birth of Samson was foretold by the angel to Manoah’s wife although she was sterile. The angel told the woman to avoid all kinds of wine, fermented drink and unclean food since she is about to be impregnated with a Nazirite son which means ‘dedicated to God from womb’. She gave birth to a son and named him Samson, who shall deliver the people of Israelite from Philistines in the days to come.

Samson is said to have killed thirty men simply because they answered his riddles by fraud.

Judges 14:19 Then the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him. He went down to Ashkelon, struck down thirty of their men, stripped them of everything and gave their clothes to those who had explained the riddle. Burning with anger, he returned to his father’s home.  And Samson’s wife was given to one of his companions who had attended him at the feast.

During the time of wheat harvest, he returned to meet his wife but her father refused and instead offered him the younger sister. Out of anger, Samson caught three hundred foxes, tied their tail together, fastened a torch to every pair of tails, lit it, set them loose, and thereby burnt the standing grains, vineyards and olive groves, which belong to the Philistines. In repercussions, the philistines burnt his wife and father in law to death. So he counter attack and slaughtered many of the Philistines and escape. People of Judah being living under the Philistines authority delivered Samson to them.

Judges 15:14-15

As he approached Lehi, the Philistines came toward him shouting. The Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon him. The ropes on his arms became like charred flax, and the bindings dropped from his hands. Finding a fresh jawbone of a donkey, he grabbed it and struck down a thousand men.

This clearly indicates that no matter what crime Samson has already committed, the Lord is still in his favor.  It is very strange that this Lord of Israel could endow a convict and a murderer with such unusual super human power so that he would slaughter thousand men with a donkey jawbone.

In later life, Samson fell in love with Delilah, a Philistines woman again. The Philistines’ rulers have lured Delilah to ask the secret of Samson’s power promising her that each of them would give her eleven hundred shekels of silver. Samson was deceived into revealing his secrets to Delilah and brought the Philistines’ into the house. They shaved off the seven plaits of Samson’s hair, seized him, gouged out his eyes, took him to Gaza and imprisoned him. He was powerless. Now the rulers of the Philistines assembled to offer a great sacrifice to their god and to celebrate the captured of Samson. They brought him out and tied him on two central pillars of the temple to entertain them. The lord would once again answer Samson’s prayer and gave him back the power. With all his might, Samson pushed down the pillars and bought down the entire building killing everyone inside.

Chapter-7

False prophets.

Samuel.

God rejects Saul for not destroying everything.

(1 Samuel 15:2-3) This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.  Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

The Lord of Israel had not forgotten what the Amakelites did to Israel while they were coming out of Egypt. Deuteronomy 25:17-18 fills out the story: "Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary; and he did not fear God."

Quite disturbing to me that the God who teaches his people to forgive others is at the same time ordering the Israelite to avenge their enemy. Leviticus 19:18 says, ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. Besides, Matthew 5:44 also says, "But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you". If you find no contradiction reading the above verses as mentioned in the bible, I would be surprised with your lack of honesty in interpreting the bible instead of being a devout Christian.

The order which supposedly come from Yahweh through Samuel to attack the Amalekites and to utterly destroy everything including children is another disturbing event which I find quite uncomfortable to digest it. Many biblical scholars normally conclude that the people were leading a sinful and wicked life and deserve God's destruction. However, do children deserve annihilation because their parents were evil? Do God categorized even innocent children as evil and vile because of their parent's wickedness? Shouldn't the children be given a chance to survive and see their future? Well, I got different response regarding the justification for the killings of these poor children. Some opined that the sword of the Israelite slew them; however, they shall live in heaven thus receiving eternal peace. Others opined that these children should also die because when they grow up, they will contaminate the Israelites with their sinful nature. Either way, they received eternal salvation. I am appalled by this justification on the presumption that these children were saved from becoming evil like their parents through mass annihilation at the God's command. How far is this murderous action reasonable and acceptable by God?

Imagine, a group of religious fanatics who claimed to have received God's order suddenly arrived and attack your locality, murdering all the innocent children in the name of their God and when you asked why?: the response was that their souls are saved in God's kingdom. Would that justify their treacherous killings because the fanatics believed they killed under God's command? This is one of the most controversial natures of the Old Testament God. Many Christians find these killings quite reasonable and justifiable because it was done by Gods order. They usually lost their patience over this argument and in the end, they conclude saying, “who are we to judge God"? This kind of barbaric atrocity carried out under the command of God was a common phenomenon during the time of Old Testament. I am always skeptical that God would allow any nation to wipe out another entire ethnic community because they worshipped different gods or because they were evil and wicked. By no means, a just God would involve in crimes against humanity. Therefore, the only possible explanation would be of man's evil design for ethnic cleansing purportedly carried out under God's command. It was their leader who misled his people into war by convincing the gullible ignorant into believing that God gave his command. For that reason, I will not be hesitant to out rightly point out that some parts of the bible are not God's word as claimed by the Christian community rather they misrepresent God due to evil nature of mankind who manipulated divine words to justify their deeds while attempting to satisfy their own worldly greed.

Colossians 3:13 says "Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you". I'm not sure whether the lord is vengeful or forgiving. He also says in Matthew 6:14-15 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Could this mean the lord is not bound by his own teachings?

The Amakelites simply refused to die.

Now you probably have been wondering that the entire generation of Amalekites was exterminated since Saul gave a crushing defeat, killing everyone including their King Agag. No wonder this race would not simply disappear and their population keep spreading like virus. The Israelites army has exterminated them several times not even sparing infants and livestock some few years back, but as you can see in 1 Samuel 30:1, the Amakelites had yet again raided Negev and Ziklag.

(1 Samuel 30:1-2) David and his men reached Ziklag on the third day. Now the Amalekites had raided the Negev and Ziklag. They had attacked Ziklag and burned it,  and had taken captive the women and everyone else in it, both young and old. They killed none of them, but carried them off as they went on their way.

They burnt the cities, captured everyone, both young, old and all the women including the two wives of David and carried them away.

David and his army fought back, from dusk till evening, this time killed everyone except the lucky 400 young men who escaped riding off their camels. Last time, the entire Amalekites race exterminated and this time four hundred escaped. David recovered everything the Amalekites had taken that includes every person taken as prisoner.

The deadly evil Ark of God.

1 Samuel 6:19

But God struck down some of the men of Beth Shemesh, putting seventy (fifty thousand seventy, KJV) of them to death because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. The people mourned because of the heavy blow the Lord had dealt them.

2 Samuel 6:6-7

When they came to the threshing floor of Nakon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled.  The LORD’s anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore, God struck him down, and he died there beside the ark of God.

What is this Ark of God that kills people when they look at it?

It is a gold plated wooden chest[box] containing the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. It also contained Aaron's rod and a pot of manna.

The bible says, God gets angry and kills whoever looks or touches it. Uzzah was killed for touching it, 70-person death from looking at it, (in KJV), the figure is even more horrifying, it says 50070 people died because they looked at the ark.

Rules are, - Do not look or touch the Ark of God for it is highly lethal.

This makes me even more curious what this killer box truly contains because tablets of covenants, Aaron staff or manna jar cannot kill people like that. If the story is to be true than the ark is not sacred but possessed by deadly evil spirits because we all know sacred objects do not kill people.

During the time of Moses whenever Israelites goes to battle, the bearer of the ark of God always march 800 metres ahead of the soldiers in formation. They have good reasons to carry the ark forward in battle since it is also a kind of deadly weapon. I wonder, why sent soldiers, let alone the ark be seen by the enemies and get killed.

Did this god put some lethal substances such as nerve gas or biological germs inside the box that whoever touches  or open it are infected which kills them instantly? The mystery of the ark of god remains unsolved.

Two hundred Philistines’ foreskin as dowry.

This is the most hilarious and cruelest comedy ever created by Saul and David in the Old Testament. King Saul attempted twice to let David marry one of his daughters, but David refused both offers. This time some irresistible offers came from Saul. The king wanted nothing from David except Philistines’ foreskin numbering hundred. Of course, to collect a hundred foreskins, a hundred Philistines must die.

1 Samuel 18:26-27

When the attendants told David these things, he was pleased to become the king’s son-in-law. So before the allotted time elapsed, David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.

David did great; he managed to collect 200 foreskins beyond expectation. Clearly, the Lord was in his favor again. So in exchange of two hundred Philistines’ foreskin, David got the king's daughter. You must be wondering why King Saul made such awful demand. Moses law requires every Hebrew child to be circumcised whereas the Philistines do not undergo circumcision. Therefore, they consider Philistine as unfaithful and disloyal to God. It must be on the ground of this differential circumcision laws practiced by the two nations that Saul decided to circumcise the Philistine by demanding their foreskin.

Whether this was done in accordance to God's advice or he himself took the decision, we are not sure however, God must be happy with his action as usual.

Is God, the Ark of Covenant?

(2 Samuel 7: 5-6) “Go and tell my servant David, ‘This is what the LORD says: Are you the one to build me a house to dwell in? I have not dwelt in a house from the day I brought the Israelites up out of Egypt to this day. I have been moving from place to place with a tent as my dwelling in.

When David mentioned that he lived in a cedar house while the Ark of God remains in tent, he obviously meant that ark of covenant should be kept inside proper house. In response, the lord speaks the above words to Nathan. This implies that the ark of covenant itself is the god.

(2 Samuel 7:12-13) When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.

This mischievous God declares again the Kingdom of David's offspring would be established forever; another impossible statement made by god. We all know that never happens because earthly kingdom cannot remain forever.

It is self evident from His words that this God of Israel is treacherous and deceitful with full of false promises. For several generations, Abraham descendants have been deceived into worshipping this sadistic God, who apparently constitutes all evil features in Him.

Tragedy for taking Census.

Another bizarre tragedy hits Israel again. God himself incites David to take census of Israel and Judah, so David ordered Joab and his commanders to enroll the fighting men of the whole Israel tribe. Joab reported that in Israel there were eight hundred thousand able-bodied men who could handle a sword, and in Judah five hundred thousand. Then suddenly David started begging Lord to forgive him for his sins.

We are not quite sure why taking a census is a very foolish thing as admitted by David or why it is a sin to count people but the Lord was indeed displeased and decided to punish him giving him three choice through his servant Gad.

(2 Samuel 24:13) So Gad went to David and said to him, “Shall there come on you three years of famine in your land? Or three months of fleeing from your enemies while they pursue you? Or three days of plague in your land? Now then, think it over and decide how I should answer the one who sent me.”

Of course, David does not want to fall into enemy hands

(2 Samuel 24:15-17) So the LORD sent a plague on Israel from that morning until the end of the time designated, and seventy thousand of the people from Dan to Beersheba died. When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, the LORD relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was afflicting the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The angel of the LORD was then at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. When David saw the angel who was striking down the people, he said to the LORD, “I have sinned; I, the shepherd, have done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? Let your hand fall on me and my family.”

Quite puzzling indeed observing this Lord's character, however, David appeased the Lord by building an altar, sacrificed burnt offerings, and fellowship offerings and the plague on Israel was stopped.

Jonah

God called to Jonah one day and told him to go and preach to Nineveh because the people were very wicked. Jonah hated this idea because Nineveh was one of Israel's greatest enemies and Jonah wanted nothing to do with preaching to them.

Jonah tried to run away from God in the opposite direction of Nineveh and headed by boat to Tarsish. God sent a great storm upon the ship and the men decided Jonah was to blame so they threw him overboard. As soon as they tossed Jonah in the water, the storm stopped.

God sent a big fish, some call it a whale, to swallow Jonah and to save him from drowning. While in the belly of the big fish (whale), Jonah prayed to God for help, repented, and praised God. For three days Jonah sat in the belly of the fish. Then, God had the big fish throw up Jonah onto the shores of Nineveh.

Jonah preached to Nineveh and warned them to repent before the city is destroyed in 40 days. The people believed Jonah, turned from their wickedness, and God had mercy on them. Jonah now became angry and bitter because God did not destroy the Ninevites who were Israels enemy! When Jonah sat to rest God provided a vine to give him shade. The next day, God sent a worm to eat the vine. Jonah now sat in the hot sun complaining and wanting to die. God called out to Jonah and scolded him for being so concerned and worried about just a plant while God was concerned with the heart condition and lives of 120,000 people who lived in the city of Nineveh.

From the story we understand that during these days people were extremely fearful of God's wrath since superstitions dominate their day to day life. We also learned that people practiced polytheism as far as their faith was concerned. Jonah 1:5 says All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6) The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us so that we will not perish.”

As the storm grew more violent, everyone started praying to their own god to save them but unfortunately Jonah was calmly sleeping in the deck below. Superstitious belief is also depicted clearly when sailors onboard decided to cast lot to catch the culprit for bringing the misfortune. Apparently the lot fell on Jonah and he was to be blamed for all troubles putting everyone's life in danger. It appears that they blindly put the blame on Jonah by the outcome of casting lot even though Jonah too had wronged, running away from God. However, Jonah did not object against the decision, and instead he allowed them to throw him into the sea so that others might be saved from storm. You may be wondering Jonah did the right thing for voluntarily giving up his life. Yet I found that Jonah had suicidal behaviour throughout his life. Up to this point of time, nobody had the proof that Jonah was responsible for the storm since he was blamed by observing  the outcome of casting lot among them. There are possibilities that anyone could be the victim besides Jonah.

The moment he was thrown overboard, it is said god sent a huge fish to swallow him alive and he was inside the fish belly for three nights and three days. During this whole time, Jonah was ceaselessly praying to god for another chance and found grace before god. The fish vomitted  him out in dry land. It is scientifically impossible for a person to survive inside the fish belly for that long because there is no sufficient oxygen. Within minute, he will suffocate and die once inside the stomach. Although, the power of God's miracle is often mentioned to support the story, it is naive even to consider the story as real. It is simply an allegory.

Jonah obeying God's  word went to Nineveh and proclaim the message of God to the people. People believed him and asked for God's  forgiveness and prevented disasters which was to fall upon the city. Jonah was obviously not happy with God for showing mercy to the people of Nineveh and ask god to take his life. His suicidal behaviour is once again portrayed in Jonah 4.3 Now, LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

I can only presumed that Jonah was somehow delusional having tendency to commit suicide. He was portrayed as a boring, leading a dull life without any enthusiasm to go on living.

The story is more of a mythology instead of being a revelation from God. As he sat down on the east of the city   the LORD God provided a leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. But the next day when the leaves were chewed up by worm and the hot sun blazed above his head, he wanted to die again.

He was truly a suicidal prophet.

Elijah

One can not make a clear distinction whether Elijah was a God's prophet or merely a cunning magician who fooled the people with his tricks and proclaimed them as miracle. In those days, people were extremely superstitious due to ignorancy and they often willingly believes what the prophets speaks. Under such condition, a skilful magician would be able to successfully convince the crowd with a simple trick as if he had divine power. The prediction of severe drought made by Elijah could had been nothing more than a coincidence. It must be noted here that Elijah had prophesied many future events that are to come, however only the events which he had correctly predicted were recorded while all the wrong predictions were discarded or not put into writting. This generates greater impact upon the mind of the readers to believe that supernatural forces were indeed directing the whole situation through Elijah. We are told that God commanded Elijah to turn eastward and hide himself in the Wadi Chorath east of the Jordan and during this whole time he was being fed by a raven. Honestly, I don't think a raven could be able to bring bread and flesh in the morning and in the evening everyday to feed Elijah. Moreover, raven is a nasty bird unlike other creatures.

The miraculous reappearance of food and oil in the woman's jar could be explained as the handiwork of Elijah himself, who secretly filled the jars when nobody could see him. Why would Elijah demand food from a poor widow at the time of famine if not to convince her to believe that he was a prophet? Knowing that the widow was in need of help, Elijah had been filling her jars with oil secretly and attributed this miracle to be from god. It is ridiculous to believe that God would perform such miracle in the form of physical metamorphosis or material manifestation.

The resurrection of the widow's son by Elijah would be nothing other than lies or an exaggerated folklore. Elijah could have hypnotized the boy into the state of unconsciousness and brought him back as if he had risen the dead boy. The poor ignorant widow would have no other rational explanation except to believe that he was a true prophet and put her faith in God.

The calling of fire from heaven to consume the sacrifice on the altar was a demonstration of perfect magic trick instead of divine intervention. Any modern day magician can easily perform this trick and convince the gullible ignorants that he have some sort of supernatural power. In any case, God would be insane to prove himself to Baal worshippers through such ridiculous circus of power display as mentioned in the bible. Elijah ordered the slaughter of all Baal prophets which enraged Jeezebal to hunt him down. A man of God ordering the massacre of Baal worshippers could not be justified and it appears to me strangely unusual.  Fearing for his life, he had to flee into the wilderness alone. A prophet who had the supernatural ability to control weather; who had the power to call down fire to consume the sacrificial meat and to raise the dead was now in fear of a woman. Why couldn't Elijah call down fire to consume Jeezebal instead of fleeing from her?

Like the suicidal Jonah, Elijah too wanted to die and prayed to God for death. He  obviously decided to starve himself to death laying in the wild but God had repeatedly made the food appeared right beside him every time he wake up. This kept him alive in wilderness. To believe that Elijah always found food beside him every time he wake up is utterly nonsense. Even miracle has a limit yet the biblical miracles usually exceeds its limit beyond belief and usually turn the readers into skeptics. Except for the ignorant minds, this kind of miraculous events won't convince a rational soul to believe in God.

We are told that when Ahaziah sent three group of soldiers to arrest Elijah, the fire was called upon to consume the first two groups while the third group leader plead for forgiveness and their lives were spared. Elijah was also said to have prophesied the death of King Ahaziah and Jezeebal correctly. The story sounds more like a

fairy tale to me. Elishah became his successor after he disappeared.

If we analyse the narrative carefully, Elijah's character was more or less like that of a magician rather than a God's prophet. Before his disappearance, it was probable that he had passed down the knowledge of all his magic tricks to Elishah to carry on the legacy of magic. In the ending part of the story, it is said, a chariot of fire and horses of fire appear and Elijah is lifted up in a whirlwind. As Elijah is lifted up, his mantle falls to the ground and Elisha picks it up.

How can we confirm that Elijah was taken up to heaven by God? What does it mean, chariot of fire and horses of fire? What does it mean lifted up in a whirlwind?

This looks like a violent disappearance of Elijah rather than being taken up by divine gentle hand. It was possible that he disappeared into a violent cyclone or tornado on a stormy day with flashing of lightning all around him. The chariot and horses on fire doesn't make sense unless they were lightning flashes. Similarly, the whirlwind couldn't carry up a man unless it was a strong tornado. His body was never recovered because a strong tornado could had thrown him into far distant place.

I don't see any extraordinary special power from this prophet. Elijah was merely a clever magician and a successful mind reader who executed his trick perfectly convincing his followers to believe that he was a genuine prophet.

God never predestined our life.

Nobody should be able to know your future including God because your present actions will determine your future. If you do positive thing now, the future will be fine and if you do negative thing, your future may not be so pleasant. Your present action is going to have a huge impact on your future. The biblical saying "as you sow, so shall you reap" speaks the truth. You should be responsible for your own life, your future and not otherwise. Thus, to believe that your future is already sealed in advance is antithetical to our common understanding of life.

It is wrong to presume that by the time a child is born, God has already predestined his profession, marriage, death, etc. If that is true, what free will does he have? Absolutely nothing. No matter how hard he works, he will become a barber as predestined by God. If your lifespan is already being fixed, what is the point of taking care of your health to live longer.

Keep your mind open, keeping aside all religious point of views and scripture sayings for a while and join me to explore some unknown region of human mind and discover if God really knows our destiny. We shall attempt to find the most logical answer in a non-arbitrary, non-bias manner.

Does God Knows from the beginning when you will die?

To live or to die is under your own power and authority despite the claims that your life is in God’s hand. You control your life. For instance, you have the power to terminate your life if you want to, i.e Suicide. You cannot blame God for a person's suicide on the assumption that God holds our destiny and so God should prevent the person from committing suicide. Neither God nor anybody can stop you from taking such action. Your life, your responsibility, you have absolute authority over your life. This is the undeniable truth. The only part God involves is that he gave you a terminal life; you must surely die one day no matter how much you care about your life. Even though so, God never set time period for you to live but authorize you to control the longevity of your life within that specified period of terminal life. To die immaturely or to die at old age depends on your choice and the circumstance you come across in life.  You are authorized to exercise this power and control your own destiny unless you happened to face death by circumstance- untimely death caused by accident or by someone.

Hypothetically, a child is born today; God already knows how long he will live since God predestined him to get married at 30 years old, to have three children and to die at 80 years old by exercising his omnipotent and omniscient authority. However, contrary to God's fixed plan, the child grew up to become a criminal, imprisoned at 20 and committed suicide at 25 and the whole life’s plan of the person fixed by God went wrong. In this case, can we say, God did foreknow everything. In reality, God never predestined your life, your future; not everything that is to happen in future except that he had planned you not to live forever.

The outcome of life in future is determined by the kind of work you do at this moment. Your death is never predestined but under your control. If you take care of your health, you live longer. You can even shorten your lifespan in different ways at your own free will. Whether you live for 20 years, 50 years or 100 years, it has nothing to do with God, because, you own your destiny, which is never predestined.

For example, a person is killed in a car accident from rash drive. Would you say God has predestined him to die like that? Of course not. If only he was a little more careful and cautious, his premature death could have been prevented. The fault is upon his rash driving. God did not plan him to die that way, thus God never knew that was to be his fate otherwise, misfortune could have been avoided.

Similarly, even our future career or professions, nothing is destined in advance. Nobody knows what you will become in future when you were born, I said, not even God because God has not plan anything for your future yet but giving you free will to choose what you want. Your labor and perseverance will lead you to become who you want to be; nothing is pre planned. Whether you failed or succeed, God has nothing to do with it; you are rewarded in accordance to your labor. Many people quote bible verses to explain that God predestined every life on earth, which is completely illogical and absurd. To argue fairly, neither success nor failure should be attributed to God because the result or the outcomes are your own handiwork. Everyone has a tendency to attribute success to God while blames all failures to the incumbent particularly in a religious society. This bias judgment is because your mind is still clogged with some amount of superstitious ingredients. Wherever faith is strong, superstitious belief also thrives because without it, faith may never even exist.

"By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death". The above statement is from Calvinism sect of belief system. Either God has already preordained you to be burnt in hell for eternity or you were already being chosen for everlasting life. You are already destined no matter what good deeds or evil deeds you do. If this is true then, God has committed gross injustices to those who strives everyday to become a better person. There is no point of pursuing good and noble life when your fate is sealed to burn in hell. This whole idea of Calvin’s "predestined to life or death" is based on biblical theology and facts.

To believe that God exercises and control everything has some valid points but to believe that God has unchangeably preordained everything including our future is senseless. If that is to be taken as true, the entire activities and business of human being on earth becomes purposeless. No reward for your hard labor or no punishment for your wrong deeds but a lifeless life destined to reach its destiny as planned by God. Your life is nothing but simply like an arrow already shot and is flying to reach the target.  Moreover, your today's actions cannot be held accountable for tomorrow's outcome since the result has been already set. It is like; a student will fail despite hard labor because he is already destined to fail regardless of his laborious work. In the same way, a student who is predestined to succeed shall be so even though he did not study and know nothing. This Calvinism concept of predestination is irrational, unjust, and fails to acknowledge the genuine labor of a person.

Since the future is not destined by God but depends upon your present work and  investment, it is equally safe to conclude that nobody can see our future including the prophets. So how do they speak about the future when even God is not in control? The answer is simple. God never spoke to them or the prophets never knew God's mind but they make prediction by taking into consideration various assumptions. Neither Moses nor Elijah spoke with God but they conveyed their own minds and attributed their sayings to be of divine origin. They were not different from today's mind readers, psychics, magicians etc who cleverly manipulate people by taking advantage of peoples trust on them. Therefore, to prophesy the future is simply to predict it not really knowing what is in store.

Does a medium really talks to the dead?

Have you ever come across someone who claims to have the ability to communicate with the dead world? Do you at any point of time believe the living can connect with spirit world? In case if you do believe mediums to be genuine, then you are throwing part of your belief in bible. In Luke 16:19–31, Jesus spoke a parable of the rich man who went to hell and a beggar Lazarus who was by the side of Abraham in heaven. In agony, the rich man begged Abraham to send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, to which Abraham replied that he had received all the good things in lifetime and besides all this, between them a great chasm has been set in place, which nobody could cross over.

The rich man again begged to let him warn his five brothers so that they will not be tormented in hell like him but Abraham replied, they have Moses and the Prophets; whom they can listen. He further said, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. So, if you believe the bible, it appears to me you have no reason to believe that the dead spirits are able to communicate with the living. It clearly reveals the impossibility of communication between the dead and the living, be it your parents, relatives or friends just like the rich man.

The major problem with our belief system is the willingness to believe what we wish for despite lack of evidence and rationality. The human mind is a like a complex machine extremely susceptible to believe anything either ordinary or extraordinary. Without this susceptible instinct of willful belief and obedience, there won't be no established faith because faith is built upon believing onto something without evidence. In most cultures of the world whether educated or uneducated society, majority people believes in spirit world.

A new peculiar trend of business emerged in the modern western world concerning with the passing of information from the spirits of the dead world to relatives of the living ones through professional mediums. Some claims to be psychic, others called themselves spiritualist; but they all believes they have the ability or gift to talk with the dead. These mediums convey messages they received from the dead to their loved ones in a series of asking several questions which is termed as "cold reading". UK may be a developed nation with 100% literacy rate, yet the people are extraordinarily superstitious, obsessed with mediums, clairvoyant and psychics. It is estimated that the psychic industry alone generates £40 million annually according to sun investigation. All over the country mediums charge between £30 and £200 for a one hour session. I don't have to go into details how they trick and exploit people especially who are emotionally vulnerable desiring to meet their love ones who passed but it's despicable even to watch those self acclaimed mediums shamelessly exploiting them on the pretext of speaking to the dead. We are fortunate that such evils are not found in our society. I realized that the desire to meet their dead relatives draws people to psychics hoping to find how they are doing in the dead world. To me the greatest fraudulent profession in the world today is "being a medium".

One must understand that if the dead do wants to talk to you why it should has to be through some spurious medium. If their spirits do exist and need to tell you something, they will speak directly to you, although I doubt very much that the dead can still remembers the living. No matter how painful or hard to let someone go; one must be realistic and embrace the truth that death is inevitable which everyone must face eventually. If believing in after life gives you more comfort with the hope that you shall meet your love one again after death, keep it that way but the wisest thing to do is to accept the truth and embrace death. If you believe in natural laws, then death is just a part of natural law; it is the end of life and there is no such after. It should not be a painful thing, with death you will return into a state as you were before birth. It will be neither terrifying nor blissful as man perceives but a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness.

Chapter-8

Controversial biblical stories.

Sexual immorality.

If there is one thing that makes Christians feels uncomfortable regarding the holy bible, it should be the tales of rape, fornication and sexual immorality committed by the prophets and kings. Many Christians draws their moral standards from the bible by seeking its guidance and even sarcastically criticize atheists as to how they are supposed to have any morality without believing in the word of God.  However, sadly, the bible contains numerous unethical conducts involving rape and immoral sex, which are rather disgusting and appalling to many people, and if one is to follow the examples set forth by the past prophets, the moral standard of the present generation would be a laughing stock. The bible is a two-sided book even though it is claimed to be from God. For instance, one verse will say adultery is prohibited; another verse will speak about adulterous prophets and kings who were God’s favorites. Therefore, it would be foolish for any person to expect that one can learn some set of moral laws reading the bible. Some odd stories extracted from the Old Testament are summarized below which clearly depicts the poor moral code of the bible.

Does it make sense to you when the bible speaks about the angels descending down to earth, make love with earthly women, and impregnated them? Strange that even God's angels could not resist sexual lust and pleasure, which is considered sinful behavior, and yet you expect them to guide you and protect you from falling into such temptation. If the biblical story of angels mating with human being is literally true, I can assure you that some angels will even attempt to rape your sons and daughters one-day just like they did in the time of Noah. However, paradoxically it cannot be untrue because they are God’s words and you cannot expect Him to be lying. According to biblical genesis, God sent the great flood to wipe out these half breed children whose wickedness becomes so great and intolerable barring Noah and his family. Nephilim were believed to be the descendants of half-breed of fallen angels and humankind.

Similarly, two angels arrived at Sodom one evening and upon Lot’s insistence to stay at his house, the angels decided to spend the night there. Lot prepared a meal for the two angels with bread without yeast and they ate. However, before they went to bed, all men, both young and old, from Sodom surrounded the house and asked Lot to bring out the guests (angels) outside so that they may had sex with them. This reveals to us that in those days people actually believed sexual relationship between angels and mankind is possible because in this case the people of Sodom were trying to rape these angels. Ironically, Lot pleads with them to take his two virgin daughters in place of his guests but they refused and attempted to forcefully get inside. Therefore, the men inside pulled in Lot and struck those who were near the door with blindness disenabling them to find the door. The angels asked Lot to leave the city with his near and dear ones as the city is going to be destroyed. Lot spoke with his to be son-in-laws in the near future but they did not believe him. As dawn approached, the angels urged Lot to take his family members away from the city hurriedly, which Lot refused. Then, the two angels grasped their hands leading them to safety and order Lot to flee beyond the mountain and never look back. Since Lot and his family cannot make to the mountain, he pleads with the angels not to destroy a nearby town called Zoar so that their lives will be spared. The angels approved his request but told Lot to flee quickly and make it to the mountain. By the time, lot and his family reached Zoar, the sun has risen and the lord rained down burning sulphur on Sodom and Gommorah destroying every living creature in the cities. Despite the angel’s warning not to look back, Lot’s wife did and turned into a pillar of salt. Lot and his two daughters left Zoar and they were living in cave in the mountains, for he was afraid to stay in Zoar. His two daughters devised a plan to intoxicate him to have sexual affairs with their father so that they may bear child since there were no man around. One after another, the daughters slept with Lot and became pregnant. The old daughter gave birth to a son name Moab and the younger daughter gave birth to Ben-Ammi.

In a similar situation, a Levite was returning with his run away concubine from Bethlehem when one evening an old man who lives in Gibeah, the inhabitants of Benjamites invited them to stay at his place for the night. While they were enjoying themselves, some wicked men came pounding the door demanding the man to be brought so that they can have sex with him. The host requested them not to do outrageous thing and so he offered his virgin daughter and his concubine instead but they would not listen. So the Levite sent his concubine outside and they gang raped her, abused her and release her at dawn. At daybreak as the master came out, found his concubine unconscious or almost death, as she did not response to his call anymore. So he put her on his donkey and on reaching home cut his concubine body into twelve parts and sent them to into all areas of Israel.

The people of Israel were enraged with this and on inquiring who had done such awful thing, the Levite, husband of the murdered concubine narrate the whole incident that had happened at Gibeah. Now all Israelites came together united and demanded the Benjamites to hand over the culprits of Gibeah for punishment but the Benjamites refused. They instead mobilized twenty six thousand swordsmen from their towns and seven hundred young able men from Gibeah readied for war. For several days, they engaged in a brutal conflict and the combined army of Israelite defeated the Benjamites at last. They killed everyone, men, women, including animals and set all towns in fire.

At Mizpah, they took an oath not to give their daughter in marriage to any Benjamite. Although Benjamite is also one of the tribe of Israel, it has been cut off now from Israel.  The next day, they built an altar and presented burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. The tribes made a solemn oath that anyone who failed to assemble before the lord at Mizpah was to be put to death. It was later discovered that the no one from Jabesh Gilead attend the assembly, so they sent twelve thousand fighting men to kill every male and female who is not virgin. They brought back four hundred young women and took them to the camp at Shiloh in Canaan. Then the assembly sent offer peace to the Benjamite and the women of Jabesh Gilead were given to them. Since the almost all Benjamite women were slaughtered, in order to prevent extinction of this tribe, the assembly instructed them to kidnap women who arrived to attend the annual festival at Shiloh.

(Judges 21:19-21)But look, there is the annual festival of the LORD in Shiloh, which lies north of Bethel, east of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem, and south of Lebonah.” So they instructed the Benjamites, saying, “Go and hide in the vineyards and watch. When the young women of Shiloh come out to join in the dancing, rush from the vineyards and each of you seize one of them to be your wife. Then return to the land of Benjamin.

This involves all the grimmest crimes and atrocities prevalent in the society. Besides, giving legitimate rights to soldiers to murder innocent civilians, the assembly also endorsed the Benjamites to kidnap the daughters of some parents whose heart would be broken learning the bad news, yet the community as a whole seems to find nothing wrong or unusual  with this evil policy. It is hard to accept and believe that a God's chosen nation would be legalizing kidnapping and human trafficking in an attempt to populate a particular tribe. Though a long lists of laws are available, allegedly revealed to Prophet Mosses by God, they remain useless up to this point of time. It was a nation of lawlessness , brutish and morally primitive despite claiming their religious supremacy over other religions.

Through this forceful policy of kidnapping young women, the Benjamite tribe returned to their inheritance, rebuilt the towns, and settled in.

In Genesis chapter 34, we are told that Sheshem, a Canaanites raped Dinah, daughter of Jacob and since she was defiled, Hamoh, sheshem's father pleaded with Jacob to give her daughter to his son for marriage. Jacob's son deceived them to undergo circumcision for the marriage to happen. Accordingly all men in the city were circumcised and while they were in pain and unaware, the sons of Jacob attacked them and killed Hamor,his son Shechem and all the male in the city and brought back their sister. They also looted all their wealth including flock, herds, their women and children. It was obvious that they were not enemies except for the rape incident; even then, they wanted to establish good relationship with Jacob's family through intermarriage. However Simeon and Levi deceptively told them to undergo circumcision and seeing the opportunity that all men were in pain, they slain every people in the city and plundered their riches. It was horrendous on the part of Jacob family to commit such barbaric crime, yet we found that it never bothered God and seemed to completely ignore the incident.

Is it necessary that the supposed words of God should contain all these nonsense stories of rape and immoral sexual behavior? Can you claim that every of this word is endorsed by God to be read by humanity and learn morality from these sources?

Genesis chapter 16:4 also says, “Abraham slept with Hagar, and she conceived Ishmael. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress”. Sarah, wife of Abraham being sterile and unable to produce progeny, asked her husband Abraham to sleep with their slave Hagar to conceive an heir. Abraham did sleep with his slave Hagar and she gave birth to a son, Ishmael. Abraham had surely committed adultery for having sexual intercourse with his servant, Hagar.

Besides, one of the Ten Commandments clearly states, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14). Now if adultery is a sin in the eyes of God, Abraham, the faithful servant of God and a father figure of Jews, Muslims and Christians had committed sin by having sexual relationship with his servant.

"If a man commits adultery with another man's wife--with the wife of his neighbor--both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.  (Leviticus 20:10)". If God's law were to be implemented fairly, both Abraham and Hagar should have been put to death.  However, even in olden days God’s laws didn’t really work in practice.

According to some Biblical scholars' argument, tradition holds that it is obliged for a barren wife to furnish her husband with sons through a servant girl who shall have inheritance rights. I am not sure if such customary law existed before Abraham impregnated his slave Hagar or it was made into law because of Abraham’s action. But one thing is certain, laws of God are universal, unchanging and unbiased. If it is right for Abraham to sleep with his slave girl because his wife was barren in those days, then certainly God cannot forbid such unhealthy relationships even today. However, one must understand that customs and traditions, rituals, cults and religious dogmas does not change the ways of the Supreme Being. He cannot be influenced, fooled or lured into doing something, which you wanted Him to be.

In the Biblical narrative, Sarah is the wife of Abraham. In two places in the narrative he says Sarah is his sister (Genesis 12:10 through 13:1, in the encounter with Pharaoh, and Genesis 20, in the encounter with Abimelech). In the second, he says that Sarah is the daughter of his father, but not his mother. Thus, by blood Sarah is the sister of Abraham although their mother is different yet they become husband and wife and that does not really matter to God. Instead, God blesses Sarah with Isaac even at her old age fulfilling his promised.

But we found that marriage between brother and sister is condemned in many verses of the bible. “Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of this mother” -Deuteronomy 27:22. Leviticus 20:17 also says that it is a wicked thing for a man to marry his sister, the daughter of his father or mother. Now confusion arise whether marrying own sister is wicked and curse or a blessing as seen in Abraham and Sarah case.

Leviticus 20:21 If a man marries his brother's wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonored his brother. They will be childless. This clearly states that marrying a brother's wife is unlawful and they will remain childless but again God wants Onan to impregnate his brother's wife, Tamar.

Genesis 38:8 And Judah said to Onan, “Go in to your brother’s wife and marry her, and raise up an heir to your brother.'9 But Onan knew that the heir would not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in to his brother’s wife, that he emitted on the ground, lest he should give an heir to his brother. 10 And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; therefore He killed him also.

Customary law of Israelite requires that if a man died without heir, another brother must marry the widow and produce an heir for his dead brother. Deuteronomy 25:5 also says

If brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, his widow must not marry outside the family. Her husband's brother shall take her and marry her and fulfill the duty of a brother-in-law to her. But Onan was not willing to have a child with Tamar, who is his brother's wife since the child would not be his own heir. So whenever he had intercourse with her, he spilled the semen on the ground. This prevented her from having a child who would belong to his brother.  But the Lord considered it evil for Onan to deny a child to his dead brother. So the Lord took Onan’s life, too.

The story of Tamar even gets wilder later as Judah is portrayed viewing Tamar to be cursed and therefore as being reluctant to give her his remaining and youngest son Shelah. After Shelah had grown up, Judah became a widower. After Judah mourned the death of his wife, he planned on going to Timnath to shear his sheep. Upon hearing this news, Tamar disguised herself as a prostitute and immediately went to Timnath, which was en route to Judah's destination. Upon arriving at a place near Timnath, where two roads met, Judah saw the woman but did not recognize her as Tamar because of the veil she wore over her face. Thinking she was a prostitute, he requested her services. Tamar's plan was to become pregnant by this ruse so that she might bear a child in Judah's line, since Judah had not given her to his son Shelah. So she played the part of a prostitute and struck a bargain with Judah for a goat, secured by his staff, seal, and cord. When Judah was able to have a goat sent to Timnath, in order to collect his staff and seal, the woman was nowhere to be found and no one knew of any prostitute in Timnath. (Genesis 38:12–23)

Three months later, Tamar was accused of prostitution on account of her pregnancy. Upon hearing this news, Judah ordered that she be burned to death. Tamar sent the staff, seal, and cord to Judah with a message declaring that the owner of these items was the man who had made her pregnant. Upon recognizing these items as his security, Judah released Tamar from her sentence. Tamar, having thus secured her place in the family as well as Judah's posterity, gave birth to twins, Perez and Zerah. Their birth is reminiscent of the birth of Rebekah's twin sons. The midwife marks Zerah's hand with a scarlet cord when he emerges first from the womb, though Perez is born first. Perez is identified in the Book of Ruth as the ancestor of King David. (Ruth 4:18–22) The Genesis narrative also makes a note that Judah did not have further sexual relations with Tamar. (Genesis 38:24–30)

GOD declared that David was a man of his own heart. He was a sample of perfect human being. However, besides adultery, King David was also guilty of the murder of Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, in an attempt to cover up their sin of adultery.

Can God almighty actually describe a murderer and an adulterer as the man of his own heart? One day as king David is relaxing and walking on the palace roof he sees a beautiful woman bathing on her roof. David was immediately drawn to her and sent messengers to find out who she was. The messengers returned and told David that her name was Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah. Despite David knowing that she was married, he sent for her and slept with her. Bathsheba later send word to David that she was pregnant.

David was nervous that his sin of adultery would now be found out. The King called for Uriah to come home so that could spend a night with his wife, Bathsheba and cover up the sin that Bathsheba was pregnant with David's child. However, Uriah refused to sleep with his wife while his fellow men were off fighting. David was filled with anger that his plan did not work. When Uriah went back to war, King David sent a note to the army commander with instructions to have Uriah put at the frontline and to withdraw so thhat he would die.  Bathsheba mourned her husbands death and was then brought to King David to be his wife.

The prophet Nathan visited King David and told him of the Lord's disapproval and displeasure with David. Even though David repented of his sin, Nathan told David that the son Bathsheba was expecting would die.

The Tower of Babel.

Genesis 11:1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.

Genesis 11:7-8 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.” So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

It is said there was only one language in the whole wide world before the construction of the tower of Babel which was around 2242 BC (figures not be taken as specifically correct). However, there are several languages, which were already in existence as early as 5000 BC such as Tamil, Sanskrit, Egypt, etc. which pre dates the creation of Adam and Eve. This reminds us that the early scholars who wrote the book of Genesis were probably ignorant enough for dismissing all civilizations, which existed in other part of the world having their own distinct languages and cultures. When we look at ancient civilizations by 2242 BC, contemporary of Babel Tower Architects, such as Mesopotamian civilization, the Indus valley civilization, the Chinese civilization, the Egyptian civilization etc., these people were highly cultured with well-developed trade relationships established from one end to other ends of the world. They used multiple languages for communications and in trade dealing purposes. However, we found that the creationist version of the story of human civilization is often contradictory to all such contemporary cultures and becomes quite unreliable. Our instinct of reasoning simply refused to accept it. Could this be because these people lived in a tight environment of enclosed society with no interactions at all with the outside world?

To argue that different languages of the world originated due to divine intervention is completely a preposterous suggestion. Genesis 11:7 -8 says that God did not like the pride and arrogance in the hearts of the people. So he caused the people to suddenly speak different languages, thereafter, they could not communicate and work together to build the tower. This caused the people to scatter across the land speaking different languages. Today we understand that languages originates as a result of the interaction of two or more communities (tribes) having distinct culture and speeches over a period of time. Language is not something, which is discovered or invented by an individual, but in general, it slowly evolves from close contact of different cultures around the world.

For instance, Urdu language was born as a result of the first contact between the Muslims and the Hindus after the conquest of Punjab and Sindh by Mahmud Ghaznavi.  During the period of over 170 years when Ghaznavi rulers were in occupation of Punjab, a number of Persian, Turkish and Afghans came there and settled down in Punjab. As a result of this close contact bet­ween the Punjabi speaking people and the Persian speaking people, the two languages mingled up and resulted in the evolution of a new language known today as 'Urdu'.Thus, Urdu grew out of contact between Punjabi and Sindhi on the one hand and Persian on the other hand. In this same way, every major language around the world evolved because of the synthesis of different races of people and culture.

Another weak reason mentioned in the bible is regarding the non-completion of Babel Tower as a result of speaking different languages and their inability to communicate with one another. It should be noted here that speaking different languages would not in any way hamper the work progress of the project. For instance, Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world (828 m), was constructed by over 4500 laborers consisting of migrant workers from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, and locals (United Arabs Emirates) who all speak different languages. Even though so, differing in languages did not deter them from completion of the building. The fact is that language is not the only means to communicate with one another. Besides human beings, even animals and insects are found to work effectively in cooperation despite lack of languages for communication. The ants are perfect example of working together without the use of speech or language. Likewise, beavers, wild dogs, lions, dolphins, etc. they all work cooperatively without any hindrance even though they lack language. Therefore, confusing their languages to stop the construction of Babel tower would not be a deterrent whatsoever.

It is intriguing to explain why history was manipulated in such away dismissing all necessary facts in order to build a faith of monotheism. One is not sure, whether the creation story was written out of sheer stupidity and ignorance or had been deliberately written in an attempt to change the face of history. But it fails miserably to convince any reasonable reader.

Slavery

Many apologists claimed that slaves under the Mosaic Law were different from the harshly treated slaves of other societies; they were more like servants or bondservants. I wonder how many types of different slaves are mentioned in the bible. When the bible itself clearly mentioned 'slaves', what else can be your argument to deny the fact, which is written in the bible. It is not the atheists who misinterpret the word of God as alleged but the apologists themselves who manipulate the stories through their wrong interpretation of bible on the assumption that they have authority over bible knowledge. They believed atheists have no moral rights even to question what is written in the bible. In this way, biblical debates over some contradictory topics between theists and atheists often become redundant with no logical conclusion. To argue with an atheist using biblical passage to support their claim as evidence by theist is absurd because when the atheist does not believe what is written in the bible, deriving support statement from bible passage becomes irrelevant. Selling and buying of human beings as slaves are repeatedly mentioned in the bible which no honest scholar can deny it. The forms of treatment to slaves may be harsh or mild, that does not make any difference because by any means, slavery was justified during those days. Our focus should concentrate on the subject whether God permits or prohibits the practice of slavery.

1 kings 9:20 There were still people left from the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites (these peoples were not Israelites). 21 Solomon conscripted the descendants of all these peoples remaining in the land—whom the Israelites could not exterminate —to serve as slave labor, as it is to this day.

Apologists claimed that the Bible does not give an endorsement of slave traders but just the opposite (1 Timothy 1:10) but the slave trade mentioned in the book of exodus is different. These biblical scholars   twist and lied in one way or the other to justify their claims that no contradictory verse exist in the bible.

Exodus chapter 21 set laws for Hebrew slaves. A Hebrew slave once sold should serve the master for six years without any remuneration and earn freedom on the seventh year. If the master finds him a wife and have children during serving years, he can leave his master alone after completion of six years. His wife and children cannot go with him because they are the property of his master. However, he can remain a permanent slave of his master if he does not want to leave his children and wife. If a man sold his daughter to someone, she is not to go free like male servant. She has no choice but to remain slave forever and when her master is not pleased with her, he must let her be redeemed. They are considered as a kind of property like any other domestic animals.

There are several verses in the bible which mentioned the actual practices of slavery and we finds that though slavery was not explicitly permitted yet it was not prohibited either. In Genesis chapter 20, it is said that Sarah allowed Abraham to sleep with her slave Hagar with the intention of conceiving a heir. In this case, Hagar did not have free will to refuse because she was a slave who was considered as a mere property of Sarah. If she has free will, would she agreed to bear a child to some couple? Apologists must ask themselves whether any woman would do that in our society  today unless being compelled? We also come across some laws regarding treatment of slaves. Exodus 20:20-21 says Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result,  but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.

Does this sound like a mild slavery and is therefore justifiable? Selling and buying of human being is the worst kind of crimes prevalent in human society throughout the history of mankind. These apologists firmly support human trafficking because it is mention in the bible. If slave trade seems permissible in some ways, why did the modern world condemned such barbaric activity and brought to the abolition of slavery? Because it is harmful for human society. Rather than condoning slave trade, twisting the bible passage to justify their ends is indeed a devious attempt to corrupt modern society. These double standard preachers have no place in the society to teach morality or the gospel of truth to the world. They will poison the minds of the innocents and bring back all the evil practices of the ancient world alive to be enforced in today's world. The evil does not reside in the minds of the atheist but in the minds of those who falsely promote this kind of doctrine.

Jews enslavement in Egypt.

We are told in the first chapter of exodus that the people of Israelite have been enslaved and ruthlessly oppressed by the Egyptians slave masters. Life became so harsh for the Hebrews as they were forced to work in brick and mortar factories besides taking care of their fields. In order to deliver the oppressed Israelites from the Egyptian slavery Moses was instructed to go back to Egypt and talk with the Pharaoh for the releasement of his people. Despite biblical record about the slavery of Jews at the hands of the Egyptians, yet historians found no records of Jews enslavement either from the Egyptian sources or from any other historical source. Thus, it remains a mystery even up to this day. However, when we examine some passages such as Exodus 16:3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

It reveals that life in Egypt would not be as harsh as mentioned in the bible because when they faced difficulty during wilderness, they began to fantasize the comforts and luxury once enjoyed while in Egypt. They complained Moses for leading them out into wilderness only to starve them to death. It could be possible that many of them were reluctant to leave Egypt however they must had been convinced  by Moses as God's command to fulfill his promise. Though racial discrimination existed in the society, yet it might not be as a kind of harsh and oppressing slavery in reality.

Is Jesus God?

If the answer is yes, then Christianity can no longer be considered as monotheism. However, the doctrine of the Trinity implies that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Stated differently, God is one in essence and three in person. These definitions express three crucial truths: (1) the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God.

It is rather perplexing to logically understand except for the supporters of trinity doctrine because, it says, Father is God, Jesus Christ is God and the Holy Spirit is also God yet in essence, they argued they are one.

Mathematically speaking,

1(father)+1(son)+1(holy spirit)=1(God). Moreover, each one is fully God. I.e.

1(father)=God, 1(son)=God, 1(holy spirit)=God.

Isn't that absurd? Many verses in the bible have been misinterpreted in an attempt to support this theory yet we will not be going into that now.

How did the doctrine of Trinity emerge?

After the death of Jesus Christ, various ideas sprang up as to His exact nature.

For many years, there had been much opposition on Biblical grounds to the developing idea that Jesus was God. To try to solve the dispute, Roman emperor Constantine summoned all bishops to Nicaea. After two months of furious religious debate, the pagan politician intervened and decided in favor of those who said that Jesus was God.

Constantine himself was not a religious person who cares about the doctrine but he understands that religious division would post a threat to his empire and therefore he wanted to solidify his domain.

Originally, the idea of trinity emerged from Ancient Babylon with Nimrod - Tammuz - and Semiramis. Semiramis demanded worship for her husband, her son as well as herself. She claimed that her son was both the father and the son. Yes, he was “god the father” and “god the son”

Likewise, the Catholic Church has also adopted the doctrine of trinity. However Jesus Christ himself never propagates this doctrine nor does any bible verse mentioned that Jesus Christ is in three forms, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Even today, Christian debate over this issue however there is no consensus opinion about the doctrine.

Martin Luther who was the German priest who initiated the Protestant Reformation said, “It is indeed true that the name 'Trinity' is nowhere to be found in the Holy Scriptures, but has been conceived and invented by man.” — (reproduced in The Sermons of Martin Luther, John Lenker, editor, Vol. 3, 1988, p. 406)

Did the exodus really happen?

The exodus of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan led by Moses has been a subject of debate even today among various scholars. The problem was that no evidence has been found regarding the enslavement of Jews in Egypt, no evidence of the mass migration of million Jews in either historical writing or archaeological finding except the bible. It was estimated that there were 6,00000 able men who can take arms as per the version of the bible, therefore, the entire children, women and old age people altogether would be over two million. If there were two million Jews who have been forcefully enslaved by the Egyptians against their will, how comes there is no such historical record about the Jewish slaves from the Egyptian source or from any other records? Besides, having such a massive number of populations, the Jewish people could have rebel against their enslavement and overthrow the government without any difficulty. It is highly unreasonable that 600000 fighting men should be cooperatively accepting the harsh enslavement of their people unless their bodies and minds are designed by God to remain a slave.

Another controversial matter is the migration process. How comes no archaeological evidence, or parts of any remnant were discovered in their supposedly journey path when over two millions were moving as one group? Shouldn't we discover at least some skeletons remain of these people, since all these migrants died on their way except two persons? If two million Jews started their migration from Egypt, within forty years in wilderness, population would likely increases to over three millions or even more and yet not a bone of human remains could be found on the path out three million dead people. Perhaps, it is simply a wild exaggeration of Moses story as usual.

Crossing the Red Sea.

Exodus 14:26 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” 27 Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea.

The greatest miracle ever recorded in the bible is the parting of the red sea enabling the Israelites to cross over when they have nowhere else to run with the soldiers of Pharaoh right behind them and the mountain cliff fully surrounded them. Many scholars argued over the exact location where the Israelites made a crossing however, no definite conclusion can be drawn. Some believe it is not the red sea but the sea of reed, others opined it must be on the Nile delta. There is no reason the Israelites should cross the red sea while moving from Egypt to Canaan because geographically the red sea is far south of the supposed migration path. Lake Tanin is the most likely place of the crossing which is has lot of reeds yet contrary to the bible version it is a shallow lake. If the crossing took place on the Nile delta, there is a good chance that the Israelites made their crossing while the tide is low and few hours later, high tide return before the Egyptians make their crossing. However, in that case, it is impossible for all Pharaoh Soldiers to be drowned in the delta. One can deduce from here that the narratives provided were exceedingly exaggerated far beyond  reality. This kind of miraculous incidences will in one way strengthen their faith on God and remember that how difficult and impossible the situation appears, God always deliver his people through miracle because without the existence of such miracles, faith will automatically collapse.

Rules of invasion

Deuteronomy 20:10-17 If the enemy accept peace offer and surrender, all the people shall become slave labors and work for you. If the enemy refused peace offer and fight against you, you shall put every man to death but you shall take the women, children and livestock as plunder for yourself. However, in case of the cities the lord delivers to you as inheritance, kill everything that breathes. Completely destroy these cities—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the lord has commanded you because they worship different gods detestable in the Lord's eyes.

Luke 6:27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

I am extremely baffled that some people do not see any differences between the teachings of Old Testament and New Testament; the former one speaks of extreme cruelty and complete destruction of everything that breathes, and the later one speaks of loving the enemies who hate you and to bless those who curse you. Is it possible that both these contrasting verses come from God? How can any reasonable being justify that both verses speak the same meaning having no contradictions? Apologists must gather courage and learn to express their feeling in full honesty instead of falsely clinging to the same old dogma.

Chapter-9

Contributions made by religions.

At one point of time, religion has helped the tribal people through social cohesion and cooperation maintaining peaceful relationship between the people within its community. This helps them to unite and defends their territory as one force by repelling aggressive forces, which comes from the outside world. Without believing in such divine authority, which demands absolute allegiance from people, it would be impossible for any ruling authority to keep the rebels or recalcitrant people under control. Thus, in ancient society religion was no doubt a positive force in safeguarding life and contributed to the growth of human civilization.

However, it should also be noted that superstition is the foundation of all religions. "Superstition" means excessively credulous belief in and reverence for the supernatural. It is also synonymous with unfounded belief, delusion and illusion. It arose from our lack of understanding the reality which are inexplicable in nature; which are beyond our mental capacity to explain rationally. This inability of human mind to understand some natural phenomena gave rise to superstitious belief, which was then, translated into believing supernatural being who supposedly control all these complexities in the universe. Religion therefore came into existence not out of divine revelation but out of superstitious nature in man. With the passage of time, humanity shall progress in the field of science and technology enabling us to explore the territory previously unknown to humankind. This will change our perception and widen the horizon of our thoughts and intellects, understanding the mysteries, which will ultimately debunk all irrational belief system thereby, dwindle the existing faiths.

Columbus discovered America. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. Isaac Newton discovered gravity. Benjamin Franklin discovered Electricity. Wright Brothers invented Airplane. James Watt invented Steam Engine. Alessandro Volta invented Electric Cell.  Rudolf Diesel invented Compression Ignition Engine. Tim Berners-Lee invented World Wide Web. Charles Babbage invented Computer. Marie Curie invented Radioactivity. Wilhelm Conrad Rontgen invented X-rays. Joseph John Thomson invented Mass Spectrograph.

The list is not exhaustive. Throughout history, there have been countless scientists whose contributions, both large and small, have been important to humankind, and in the years to come, we can definitely expect many more names to follow. Humanity owes them much credit because of their brilliant imagination and innovation. Can you imagine life without these scientists and discoverers? Surely, without them, life would still be in the Hobbes state of nature.

Opposing to all luxurious lifestyle and comforts, there are certain kinds of people who constantly mock this materialistic world while at the same time enjoying the benefits of their services on daily basis rather consciously. They are the religious hypocrites who believe their life priority is to religiously worship God and that this life is meant to prepare for the next life and so on. But what positive contribution has religion brought to the world for the sake of humanity? I can hardly remember one except false dogmas, superstitions, bigotry, crusades, terrorism, cults, and what not else. Thanks to Abraham and Moses who established monotheism and introduced killings everyone whoever refused to accept what they believed in the name of Yahweh. So was Jesus who founded Christianity and intended to spread the message of love among all mankind, yet his followers instead brought crusades and war in his name-quite the opposite. The world should also thank Mohammad for bringing Islam into the world because of which jihad and war on terrorism engulf the entire world today. Are not all these religions great? Million people already perished fighting to defend their religion by branding it as holy war and still many wars are to follow even in the days to come. It is not about nationalism; it is not about patriotism either; it is a bloody fanaticism. Every day I ask myself, what good is religion anyway? The more I read each one of them, the better I realized that they are inherently evil invented by bigots and fanatics in the past. When it comes to examining religion, negativity of ideas naturally flows through my mind which will definitely offends many people when freely express without reservation. Nevertheless, I finds irresistible not to condemn them when they purposefully deluded people with wild fantasies and imagination.

Many people opined that religion is the source and guardian of morality. However, I do not share the same opinion with those who claim morality is impossible without religion because morality is not the product of religion rather it is an intrinsic value ingrained in us naturally. To consider that religion guides and control our morality undermines the humanistic nature of men who have the ability to differentiate between right and wrong. Unlike other creatures, all men are born with certain level of intelligence and this instinct of ethical judgment tells us to accept what is right and reject what is wrong. Even without religion, depending upon the environment, a child will understand the moral values taught to him and practice them in life. Naturally, man is a moral being having the quality of compassion and love, which drives him to pursue what is morally right and acceptable in society unless he is being misguided and his mind distorted by indoctrination of false teachings.

Similarly, morality is not determined by the belief in the existence of God. Some psychologist opined that in the society of atheists, incidence of crimes and corruptions are likely to be more than in the society of God believers. This statement is absolutely false and has no basis in actuality because theists are also found to be corruptible as any other when it comes to upholding of moral laws. Contrary to this, for example, some pious saints such as Buddhist monks are found to be morally incorruptible although their religion never taught them to believe in the existence of God. Therefore, morality is preserved not out of fear in God but it is innately ingrained within us.

I also do not believe the viewpoint that religiosity promotes charitable contribution. All these claims are biased lacking independent and impartial survey. Kindness, generosity, empathy, charity, and compassion- these values are independent of religiosity and hence they are inculcated into life from the rationality of understanding the moral principle of helping the needy. To argue that charity is the product of religion would meant "helping one another is not human nature" when even animals do have the instinct to help one another in spite of the absence of religion.

It is wrong to assume that the world will be a dark and gloomy place without religion or theists. The communist nations are not inferior to any other Christian or Muslim nations in the field of upholding moral values; instead the most corrupted nations are often the one, so religious in nature.

Let us examine this groundbreaking research done by Gregory S Paul (a Christian) with respect to religious belief vis-a-vis crimes and anti-social related activities in 18 prosperous democratic countries.

Japan is the least crime prone country. It also has the lowest rate of teenage pregnancy. Is Japan a religious country? Not at all. Over 90% of the population does not believe in the existence of God. Over 80% accept the theory of evolution (in other words, they do not believe in creationism). Next comes, Norwegians, Britain, German and Dutch, with homicides rate as low as 1-2 out of 100,000 people in a year. Teenage pregnancy rate is 40 out of 1000 girls a year. At least 60% of the population believes evolution is a fact whereas one third believes in creationism.

On the other hand, the U.S has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy and homicide rates are at least five times greater than in Europe and ten times higher than in Japan. Over 50 percent of Americans believe in God, and only 40 percent accept some form of evolution I.e. 60% believes God created Adam and Eve,(creationism). The author discovers that religious belief does more harm than good to civil society. Secular societies have much lower crimes rate than religious ones. Religion preaches non-violence and sexual restraints but in practice, it is not reducing anti social elements.

Why is this so? Faith tends to weaken rather than strengthen people’s ability to participate in society. That makes it less likely they will respect social customs and laws. Believers hold God responsible for their action, which absolves them of all other responsibilities. So called born-again have less respect for others who do not acknowledge their faith. They are convinced that only the Bible offers "truth", they lose their intellectual curiosity and their ability to reason. Their priority becomes not the world they live in but themselves. Faith encourages ignorance rather than responsible behavior. It fails to recognize that young people have the right to make their own choices and helps them make decisions that benefit society as a whole. Faith discourages unprejudiced analysis. Reasoning is subverted to rationalization that supports their belief rather than question assumptions. The result is a self-contained system that maintains an internal logic, no matter how absurd to outside observers.

The study clearly shows that believing in God do not make you a better person. It is hard to believe yet other than this research, there are enough evidences that God is not helping much to keep the world better. Buddhists and Jains who does not acknowledge the existence of God are the most peaceful people on earth. Besides, they are the most contented people. The most devoted followers such as Islamist fanatics are the most violent ones. Faith is a strange thing, so difficult to unlock the mysteries hidden in it.

There are many religions in the world today but not all religion acknowledges the existence of God. However, by no means this makes one religion superior or inferior to another religion. To claim that God does exist is as ignorant as someone who claim God does not exist. Both claims amount to falsifying of statement, which you do not know because until proven truth it is still false (presumably). There is nothing wrong when you say, "I believe God exist". Likewise, it is alright to say, “I believe God doesn't exist". But when you say, you are absolutely certain that God is there or God is not there, that is hypocrisy. Such certainty claim of the unknown generally comes from the mouth of an ignorant.

Any man who thinks what he do not know cannot exist is wearing the crown of ignorance. Any man who thinks what he believes cannot be wrong is also wearing the crown of ignorance. Both belong to the same category of willful ignorance. Therefore, the purpose of both science and spiritual teachings should focus on discovering new knowledge by constantly seeking the ultimate reality. It is alright to have faith because it gives consolation to mind but faith alone cannot lead you into finding the truth. In the realms of both science and religion, whatever knowledge we have so far gathered, is still insufficient to give unambiguous conclusion if God exists. Only a non-serious research scholar would said with conviction that what he believes is the absolute truth and not otherwise.

In nutshell, humanity has not acquired enough knowledge yet to determine the existence of God. Whoever thinks what he believes is the absolute truth is wearing the crown of ignorance.

Christians, Muslims and the Jews believes in the existence of one supreme creator who oversees everything in the universe. They subscribe to Intelligent Design theory. Most of them are creationists and they reject Darwin theory of evolution because they said it is not a scientific proven fact. The Jews and Christians  believe God created man, animal and all creatures on the planet in six days. The belief in the existence of soul and life after death is central to the teachings of these three monotheistic  religion. They also believe there is such a thing as heaven for believers and hell for tormenting sinners based on the scripture of holy books, which is often taken as evidential proof for the existence of God. However, the fact is that all these ideas resulted from speculation of human mind and not based on scientific fact or evidence. No scientific research or serious studies have ever been undertaken in this field- enquiry into the existence of soul, heaven or hell. One cannot ascertain whether this belief system is correct or simply a product of man's wishful imagination. It is naive to sincerely believe everything written in the bible when there is not even a slightest clue about the authorship of these books. Despite all these shortcomings and lack of authenticity, the adherents' sincerity of absolute faith and unshakable belief in the bible clearly reflects the indoctrination of religious dogma into their life subconsciously.

It will not surprise me if an uneducated person believes that the earth is 6000 years old but I could not understand those scholars who vehemently reject the idea that the earth is indeed billion years old despite the availability of scientific evidence. This makes me to realize that once religious teaching is indoctrinated into a person's mind, it lingers on despite the realization of impossibility from scientific point of view. I was baffled to hear from a pastor who said, if the bible says 2+2=5, he would accept that although he know that is wrong because he believe bible is the word of God. Such freakish mind-set of self-indulgence in perpetuating blind faith in a conscious way is quite unhealthy to society as a whole. They poison the minds of young children with false knowledge about the nature of the universe, science and natural history. It is a matter of fact that religious teachings are often found to be contradictory with natural science. Besides, religion also inhibits the growth of a child mentality in an independent way by imposing restrictions into enquiring religious dogmas or the nature of divine being. True religion must allow children to learn the facts and reality of natural world rather than brainwashing them with myths and legends in the name of faith.

Creationists believe God created everything in the universe 6000 years ago. On the other hand, evolutionary theory suggests that universe came into being 13.8 billion years ago whereas planet earth is believe to be around 4.5 billion years old. This huge chasm of age differences between the two theories tells us that there can be no common ground of finding agreeable conclusion because of extremity.

Let us look into the creationist version (Intelligent Design) as per Christians and Jews , which states that the universe, the earth, the heavenly bodies, and all creatures on earth including man were created almost simultaneously in a span of 6 days around 6000 years ago.

Age of the universe:  It is an established fact that light travels at a speed of 299,910 km/s in vacuum, which is accepted as the most accurate measurement. A light-year is a measure of distance that light travels in one year. The age of the universe is calculated by the time it takes light to travels from distant stars to our eye. For instance, light takes 8.2 minutes to reach earth from sun. Likewise, light from the nearest star system, Alpha Centauri, takes roughly 4.3 years to get here, so that star system is said to be 4.3 light-years away. Now, if the universe is only 6000 years old, astronomers should not be able to see stars and galaxies not farther than 6000 light years away. On the contrary, using powerful telescope they are able to observe the universe which is as far as 13.8 billion light years away from us, confirming that the universe is not 6000 years old but much older indeed. Thus, when astronomers study objects which is light-year away or more, they are seeing as it existed at the time that light left, not as it would appear if they stood near its surface today. In a sense, everything we see in the distant universe is, literally, history. We are looking at the past. This principle allows astronomers to see how the universe looked like after the Big Bang, which took place about 13.8 billion years ago. It means the light from these farthest galaxies have been travelling across the universe for 13.8 billion years finally reaching our eyes.

For example, creationists believed God created the sun, the stars and Adam almost simultaneously. Do you think Adam would be able to see any star at the time he was created? Not at all, only after 4 years of his creation, Adam would see the nearest star because it takes 4.3 years for light to reach his eye from alpha centaury. One hundred years later, Adam would finally be able to see the nearest 511 stars altogether in the sky. Surely, for Adam, there would not be a starry night twinkling in the sky because the light travelling from distant stars were yet to reach the earth. Therefore, theorizing that God created the universe 6000 years ago is absolutely wrong. Besides, to claim that all heavenly bodies in the universe and living creatures on planet appeared almost simultaneously within 6 days contradicts the laws of nature. Would you believe a farmer when he said all mangoes in his garden ripen simultaneously in one day? I hope not because Natural laws do not work like that.

Rather than making effort into seeking for the truth, religious teaching has subverted scientific findings, which stands contrary to their religious texts. This harm the young generation in many ways by indoctrinating religious teachings and false dogmas to their mind preventing them to learn facts proven by science.


I came across an article written by United States Institute of Peace(USIP) about the contribution made by religion across the world and this is what it says "The cases described in the following sections illustrate the creative contributions that religion can make to peace in places like Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Macedonia, Nigeria, and Sudan. As these cases illustrate, religious approaches to peace-making do not provide a panacea, but can complement secular peace-making productively. This Peace works is meant both to demonstrate the value of religious contributions to peace-making, and to extract lessons about what is and is not effective." I could not stop wondering seeing the narrow perception of these people who make tall brazen claims without even realizing the menaces religion has brought into the world. They seem to have forgotten that religion is the root cause of all these problems. It has the ability to promote violence but unable to contain its own handiwork- that is religion. Many scholars surmised if Palestinian nation is created with its own sovereignty, the conflict between Israel and Palestine would be resolved and peace prevails. However, the unfortunate reality is that it is not a political issue: the root cause of the problem is deeply seated in the religious teachings of bigotry and hates against one another. Even today, many Islamic religious leaders believe the enmity between Jews and Muslim is an eternal strife and so long Israel exist as a nation, war shall continue because they believe Allah said so. This kind of problems persists among the believers because of false dogmas preached and indoctrinated by religious texts. It is entirely false and baseless for any reasonable scholar to conclude that religion is contributing peace and harmony on Israeli-Palestinian conflict because the entire problems are the handiwork of religion itself.


The same is true with all these problematic nations- Iraq, Macedonia, Nigeria, and Sudan. They are religious sectarian violence, ethnic conflicts or terrorism problems incited by religious teachings. In fact, the Shia-Sunni problem in Iraq is a sectarian conflict, a matter of religious problem; the extremist’s propaganda of boko haram, a terrorist organization in Nigeria is also the handiwork of Islamic religious teachings. Besides, the ethnic conflicts, both in Macedonia and Sudan are inspired and caused by opposing faiths. No wonder, now religious organization proudly claims they are containing violence and conflict through peaceful inter faith dialogue. Had there been no religion, none of these conflicts would occur because all these unwanted problems are brought about by religion alone. How comes the USIP failed to realize the real situation here? Religion is not helping anymore in making the world more peaceful, rather it is the opposite. It has already plunged the world into endless wars and major conflicts among humanity through its narrow false teachings. Throughout the entire human history, from the time of Moses to present day world, most of the major wars are inspired by religious doctrines. Whoever fails to comprehend this fact should study more about their own religious background and its history and learn the inherent evil hidden in the scripture.

Various studies have also found that, on average, belief in God is associated with lower scores on IQ tests. “It is well established that religiosity correlates inversely with intelligence,” note Richard Daws and Adam Hampshire at Imperial College London, in a new paper published in Frontiers in Psychology, which seeks to explore why. The overall lower IQ test results could be explained perhaps by relying more on intuition by religious people. So, rather than having impaired general intelligence, they might be comparatively poor only on tasks in which intuition and logic come into conflict – and this might explain the lower overall IQ test results.

Daws and Hampshire surveyed more than 63,000 people online, and had them complete a 30-minute set of 12 cognitive tasks that measured planning, reasoning, attention and working memory. The participants also indicated whether they were religious, agnostic or atheist. The test showed that the atheists performed better overall than the religious participants, even after controlling for demographic factors like age and education. Agnostics tended to place between atheists and believers on all tasks. In fact, strength of religious conviction correlated with poorer cognitive performance. However, while the religious respondents performed worse overall on tasks that required reasoning, there were only very small differences in working memory. Also, some of the reasoning tasks, such as an extra-hard version of the Stroop Task known as “colour-word remapping”, had been designed to create maximum conflict between an intuitive response and a logical one, and the biggest group differences emerged on these tasks, consistent with the idea that religious people rely more on their intuition. In contrast, for a complex reasoning task – “deductive reasoning” – for which there were no obviously intuitive answers, there was much less of a group difference.

Daws and Hampshire concluded: “These findings provide evidence in support of the hypothesis that the religiosity effect relates to conflict [between reasoning and intuition] as opposed to reasoning ability or intelligence more generally.” If, as this work suggests, religious belief predisposes people to rely more heavily on intuition in decision-making – and the stronger their belief, the more pronounced the impact – how much of a difference does this make to actual achievement in the real world? At the moment, there’s no data on this. But in theory, perhaps cognitive training could allow religious people to maintain their beliefs without over-relying on intuition when it conflicts with logic in day to day decision-making. (Excerpt from their research study).

Summing up all aspects, religion is just a necessity for weary people as a means to console their miseries, pains and sufferings. Its impact upon the world weights more on negative aspects instead of reducing the evil problems, which persists in civil society.

Chapter-10

Religious intolerance.

All religions arose in the past only in order to help the civil society keep the perverse and recalcitrant people under control by placing before them the terror of divine punishment. This prevents people from committing crimes and supplement the state in tackling law and order situation. There is no such thing as sacrosanct about religion but merely a product of social phenomenon. God never endorsed any saint to establish religious institution. In the interest of unity and peace of civil society, mankind set up religious institutions, however with the emergence of different sect of religions, conflicting teachings were introduced and destroy its own purpose. Each religion has independent status; each asserting supremacy having its own holy book allegedly written by saints and prophets  through divine revelations.

The most interesting feature of all major religions in the world today is the believe of having moral obligation to convert people of others faith and introducing  them into worshipping the one and only true God. There's a sense of competition among these faiths to bring more and more people into the fold of their religion because their holy scripture openly endorses them. At times, confrontation becomes imminent between opposite parties because of pursuing conversion activity, which is a major concern in many nations of the world.

Religion can no doubt be regarded as one of the many evil elements prevalent in civil society especially when it teaches people to condemn other faith. It gives rise to bigotry and bitter fanaticism from indoctrination of people's mind with false ideology. We must realize that one particular religion is in no way superior or inferior to another. Bigotry and intolerance is responsible for the disorder, chaos and disunity prevailing in any society. The presence of multiple religions having equal powers each trying to assert its supremacy over others is the persistent cause of discord and strife.  The followers of true faith always works for the greater whole, for the preservation of world peace while acknowledging the liberty of practicing any faith without hindrance.

Muslims insists that Islam is a religion of peace and it is the ultimate solution to world problems. However, the quran preaches hatreds, bigotry and intolerance towards all other faiths and yet it is the fastest growing religion in the world today. The conversion movements are gradually spreading its evil tentacles to every corner of the world which are often funded, supported and sponsored by famous Islamic organizations. For instance, Quran 2:191 says,"Kill disbelievers wherever you find them. If they attack you, then kill them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. Even going beyond that it specifically mentions Jews and Christians (who believe in only part of the scripture )in Quran 2:85 that they will suffer in this life and go to hell after death. To claim that Islam is a religion of peace is preposterous. The originating source of many communal hatreds prevailing in different parts of today's world is from the Quran. The text is filled with extreme painful consequences portrayed vividly for disbelievers in Allah, intended to instill fear into people's mind to adopt Islam. For example Quran 3:21 says,"Those who disbelieve, promise them a painful doom". It also says in (Quran 4:56) "Unbelievers will be tormented forever with fire. When their skin is burned off, a fresh skin will be provided." These are only few examples of extraordinary teachings endorsed by Mohamed in their holy Quran. It shouldn't surprise anyone whenever they come across a Muslim who shows extreme hates or antagonistic towards the people of other faith because that is the way of Allah. Besides, it also endorsed his followers to kill and crucify any person who wage war against Allah, in addition to eternal doom in afterlife.

It is quite disturbing how these kinds of teachings will promote world peace in a slightest way; still then, it is a religion of peace, they said. The major problem of conflicts and tensions in modern Islamic world lies not only with the peoples' mindset but also with the faulty teachings drawn from the Quran. The terrorist attacks of important offices, the suicide bombing of populated areas, the beheading of people from other faith, all the so called acts of jihad draws inspiration directly from the teachings of Quran. There's every reason for anyone to be islamophobic if the person is a devout Islam because of their intolerance nature. It's an irony that most of the Muslim preachers wants to convert people to adopt this faith believing that being Muslim is the best thing in life and thereafter. The modern Islamic world has become insane by sticking their nose into the barbaric medieval teachings of Quran  believing that they are divine revelation.

In comparison with other religion, Islam is extremely intolerance to criticism of its faith and the prophet. There's always a sense of insecurity among the adherents which often leads them to staunchly defends their faith even in a violent manner. The reason for hypersensitivity of the followers of this faith can probably be attributed to their extreme love for their religion which is an outcome of rigorous indoctrination with its teachings. Unlike other religion, Muslims are more prompt to display violence when it comes to Allah's cause; they are the product of brainwashed zealots by its teachings. They are also intolerant for apostasy, which is considered a religious crime with severe penalty even to the extend of death in some Islamic nations. Islam is one religion which permits limited freedom not only to women but also to individuals regardless of religion. Islamist extremists are the product of quranic teachings. In 2008, Al Qaida claimed responsibility for the suicide attack against Denmark's Embassy in Pakistan that left six people dead. The reason was mainly because of reprinting in Danish papers of a cartoon of Islam's Prophet Muhammad which they believed was an insult to their prophet. Again, the world was shock when two Islamist militants stormed Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices, killing 12 of its journalists, including some of its top editors and cartoonists on Jan. 7, 2015. Al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, claimed responsibility for the attack, punishing the newspaper for its mocking depiction of Muhammad, images of whom are considered blasphemous in Islam. These kinds of religious fanaticism are frequents among the Muslims community due to narrow perspectives of Islamic faith which promotes bigotry and intolerance.

Christian history is also filled with full of murderous intolerance particularly in the old testament that has the tendency to promote hatred and violence. The mosaic law practically condone religious war, misogyny and homophobia which is why the old testament has become obsolete and irrelevant to the modern world.

Moses was undoubtedly a religious fanatic who constantly led his people to wars on account of those nations worshipping a different deity other than Yahwe, which he believed were ordained by God. He certainly promotes bigotry, religious i intolerance and fanaticism throughout his life. Unless his laws are interpreted in allegorical form, if we interpret them strictly in literal sense, the outcome would be worser than the administration of present day ISIS terrorist organization. Despite the cruelty laws and barbaric nature of Old Testament, fundamentalists argued there's nothing wrong with it, which in my opinion they are delusional.

The passages such as the conquest of the territory of Canaan by the Israelites, or the war against the Amalekites supposedly carried out under God's command can never be justified no matter what the causes might be. Besides, on several occasions, Yahweh himself struck down not only his enemies but also of the innocents for no reason at all. We are told that on the midnight as the Jews were prepared to move out of Egypt, he struck down all the first born child of the Egyptian including the Pharoah's son. It is inconceivable that a merciful lord could commit such harrowing crime because of their king's refusal to free his people. He also taught his people to adjudged justice on the principle of "an eye for an eye".

When Korah rebels along with 250 men against Moses and Aaron obviously for demanding priesthood. The lord made the earth open up and swallowed korah, Dathan and Abirah along with their wives, children and all their possessions as they stood at the entrances to their tents. They perished forever. He then sent down fire and consumed all the 250 followers of Korah while they were offering incense. The next day the Israelite community grumbled against Moses in opposition for killing the people which further enraged the lord and he sent plague killing 4700 people until Aaron made an incense offering for  their atonement. He also sent plague among his people which killed 24000 people for indulging in sexual immorality with moabite women. He struck down some of the men of Beth-shemesh because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. He struck down of all the people, 50,070 men, and the people mourned because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter. He also struck down uzzah when he reached out and took hold of the ark from falling down as the oxen stumble. He died instantly right beside the ark of God. Very strange indeed, for any one who looked and touched his ark were all killed. This look psychopathic to me.

In the battle against jerobboam of Israel and abijah of Judah, Yahwe took the side of Judah because they were sincerely worshipping him accordingly. As the priests of Judah blew the trumpets and the soldiers gave a loud shout, Yahwe delivered Israel into their hands by slaying down 500000 Israelites. Yahweh struck down their king jeroboam later. It was a pretty rough lesson for the children of Israel for forsaking the lord and resisting against the kingdom of the lord. Following this, Judah fought against the cushite during king Asa, who was very much liked by Yahwe for destroying foreign altars, smashing their sacred stones and cutting down Asherah poles. The lord struck down 1000000 Egyptians and they plundered all villages, herders and took away all their goats, camels, and goats. Yahweh was not even relying on soldiers, he himself engaged in the war and smote them with great slaughter. Can you imagine that?

Religion, which teaches its followers to spread its gospel by invoking them a sense of moral responsibility to convert others, is the major problem of today's world. Conflict is bound to occur when two opposing faiths come into contact with each other with such mindset. For instance, Christianity urge its followers to spread the teachings of Christ and make disciples in all nations.(Matthew 28:19). This is to be done with gentleness and respect for others. However, in the Old Testament there are several instances when the lord ordered the Israelites to kill and plunder all non-believers. There is no denying the fact that the God of Old Testament was extremely harsh and brutal when it comes to dealing with other tribes who served different god. Killing was justified when they worship other gods besides Yahweh, without even giving them a chance to repent and change their faith. The teachings of Prophet Mohammed also justified killing the so-called infidels for worshipping anything other than Allah although, the approach is somehow different.  Islam teaches its followers to convert others even to the extent of using force by instilling terror into their hearts.(8:12).

It does not make any difference whether conversion is to be done peacefully or by the use of threat. As long as one believes it is his moral duty to convert others, animosity is always imminent. People who dedicate their life spreading the gospels with the aim of converting others to adopt their faith are the real problems in any civilized society. These brainwashed soldiers of God convinced themselves to be doing a great service in favor of God. They truly believe that it is the divine will to bring more and more people into their faith. It is no exaggeration to say but many of them are willing to sacrifice their life on this kind of divine mission. In other words, they are ready for martyrdom in the name of religion hoping that they shall be rewarded in the afterlife.  Faith gives them courage and the zeal to propagate their religion to reach all part of the world.

A devout Christian believes it is right to propagate his religion and convert anyone into Christianity because he believe it is the only religion, which worship the true god. He believes that out of kindness and sympathy; he is trying his best to convince people to accept Christianity so that they shall not perish in hell. Similarly, a devout Muslim is also trying his best to convert people to come into the fold of Islam faith because Allah is the only one and true God without whom they shall be thrown into hell for eternity. Both devotees truly believe they worship the true God and their religion is the only way to salvation. Under this kind of situation, confrontation certainly occurs because both believe they are right and moreover they will not relent or backslide in their faith. So the problem of religious hatred is deeply rooted in their faith itself yet they failed to realize this because in some way, that would be an offence to their God. Thus, the mission to save souls becomes the priority of these religious zealots not knowing the true nature of God which often ends in acrimony with negative outcome.

The inherent weakness of both Christian and Islam saints is the plethora of their spiritual knowledge. They know too much about God and this becomes an impediment for laymen to understand the reality. They represent God in the community of theists. I am appalled by some saints who boldly claim to have the knowledge about the true nature of God, the existence of hell and heaven, life after death, etc. They know they are not speaking the truth; and we all know they have never been there. However, most of them will say God speaks to them and when we ask them how God communicate with people; their answer is God is speaking to all of us through the holy book (bible, Koran).

If you examine in details the causes of sluggish growth of advancement in the field of science and technology, the main problem lies with religious doctrines especially which opposes modernity and liberty of thought and expression. We concentrate too much of our energy and time in an effort to please God by abiding his laws irrespective of relevancy with the modern world while at the same time condemn philosophers and scientists who discovers new knowledge which stands  contrary to religious beliefs and allege them as a challenge to God's authority. Haven't we learnt enough to outrightly declare that all religious texts were written by people like you and me to keep its people in obedience and to control them more easily? Mankind won't progress much by following the superstitious code of conducts and rules which were meant for people living in the primitive society some two or three thousand years ago. I want to cite one example how religious institutions inhibits the growth and advancement of scientific knowledge by imposing unnecessary restriction to great thinkers and intellectuals on the condition that their ideas contradicts religious books. The church write,“We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo… have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world. We order that by a public edict the book of Dialogues of Galileo Galilei be prohibited, and We condemn thee to the prison of this Holy Office during Our will and pleasure; and as a salutary penance We enjoin on thee that for the space of three years thou shalt recite once a week the Seven Penitential Psalms.” That was the order given by the inquisition on June 22, 1633.

Galileo was compelled not to teach the heresy anymore and was placed under house arrest until his death in 1642. It was only 350 years later that the church admitted their guilt for the wrong imprisonment of Galileo. The pope realized that Galileo was indeed right that the earth moves around the sun and not vice versa. This ignorant attitude still persists among the Christian scholars even to this day and they continually uphold their belief in inerrant bible. They staunchly opposed those who said the creation story mentioned in biblical genesis can't be scientifically true. I always wonder 'why didn't God at least whisper into the Pope's ear not to punish Galileo for he was right'? Being omniscient, he should have revealed his wisdom to the church beforehand and save themselves from encountering such embarrassment. It appeared to me God doesn't have any willingness to impart the true knowledge to mankind but prefer them to continually serve him in ignorance. May be seeking wisdom and knowledge from God through prayer is futile since no scientific breakthrough in any field has ever been achieved by scientist  through divine intervention. Revealing impending disaster ahead or doom future to mankind through the so called prophets is not adequately essential to be omniscient. Moreover such revelations aren't necessarily important for mankind to be rejoicing in his name.

Islam too opposes modernity and considered people who embraced modern ways of living as harem and infidels who went astray from God. In the field of  academic studies, topic such as evolution, sex education, secularism,etc. are vehemently opposed especially by religious leaders and Imams on the ground that they are either immoral or Allah prohibits. Even modern day Islamic scholar like Dr. Zakir Naik held Quran as the source of all knowledge including science and mathematics; proclaiming it be scientifically error free, despite written 1400 years ago which to him is a proof that they are divine revelation through prophet Mohammed.

If you look at the Islamic world more closely, it is not the ignorant illiterates but the Islamic scholars and imams who are doing more harms to their society by propagating false ideology promoting hatreds, bigotry, intolerance and prevents people from using independent minds and thoughts. To them, western civilization is the root of all evils. They also convinced people that believers of Allah are superior to Jews and Christians and even encourage children to hate by calling them as pigs and apes. It's a tragic world for brainwashing young generations with intolerance teachings. Even more tragic is the prohibition of individual liberty such as singing, dancing, partying, gender intermingling in public places, schools or worshipping places, etc. which according to them are against the will of Allah. Until, some social reformists emerge from the Arab world to promote liberty, equality, secularism, tolerance, etc, and open their skulls with therapeutic treatment, there's very little hope that they will catch up with others in this era of competitive world. Religious fanaticism and intolerance is a suicidal approach to solve human problem.

If you believe your religion is true and all other religions are fake; I want to know whether you picked your religion out of your own freewill through reasoning deduction or religion has picked you since birth. How sure are you that the faith you follow is legitimately ordained by God? Ask yourself whether you have been indoctrinated with religious teachings by someone or you chose your own religion because you think it is rational and worth believing.  Suppose you are a Christian, and you genuinely believe your God is the true God and all other religions worship false god; I want to ask you what will be your faith if you were born in Saudi Arabia? Simple, you would become a Muslim if that's the case and yet still swearing the same thing that Islam is the only true religion. Put yourself into the shoes of an Islamic kid who was brought up in a Muslim family, then you too would definitely be a Muslim. You have no choice except to believe what you are told to believe. Now you probably realize no religion is either completely idiotic or perfectly divine but shares in common the same strengths and weaknesses like any other. This alone proved that you have been indoctrinated during childhood stage and you have wrongly believed that your religion is the only one worshipping true god for a very long time. Do not be deluded with false hope but search for the truth because once you believe, means you have made your conclusion and that's the end whether it is right or wrong. Faith put a full stop into your inbox knowledge preventing you to seek the reality. You suddenly feel enlightened discovering your true god; you now understand everything happens because of god- a short cut to gain knowledge driven by delusional fantasy; this makes your brain idle and mentality power slowly degenerates. Let us hope your God reveals which religion is the ultimate truth very soon because he has kept humanity in the dark for so long by concealing the real truth. This will solve all religious conflicts and mankind will follow that universal religion hereafter.

Karl Marx has rightly pointed out "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people". Unless people comes to self realization that all religions are man-made contrary to what many perceives to be divine creation, society shall remain ignorant and superstitious under the cloak of religious institutions. One practical function of religion is working as an opiate dose to numb the worldly pains of sufferings with illusive promises of blissful life which awaits them in the next life. This gives immediate relief to the sufferers but it also harms them negatively in the long run because it blindfold people and prevents them from knowing the reality. Therefore, all kinds of orthodoxy religious teachings which inhibits the growth of human reasoning capacity to fully become an independent rational being should be opposed and done away with. I have full respect for those religions which adopt liberal approach, allowing mankind to undertake all kinds of scientific or religious studies and to broaden our horizon of knowledge for the sake of humanity because without liberal attitude, it is impossible to progress intellectually. The modern Arab world is a fine example of stagnation and retardation in the field of education, particularly in scientific learning owing to rigorous implementation of religious laws, prohibiting people to question anything which contradicts Quran. The Arab world has rarely produced any scientist or intellectual, worth receiving noble prizes in physics, medicine, chemistry , etc.for over a century since the establishment of noble prize foundation in 1901. This is partly because of their faith which hinders development of an independent and free mind. They are far behind the Jews or Christians in the field of learning which is evidently the result of upholding orthodoxy Islamic views unwittingly. Sarcastically , people says Muslims are flooding into heaven but sadly degenerating in temporal life.

Therefore, religious institutions should gives free hand to all people to make enquiry, questions and study any subject matter including their holy texts to discover the truth rather being satisfied with illusive hope. Questioning faith or belief system is not an offence to God.

Into some distant future as civilization progress and the reasoning capacity of human enlarge, all irrational fears of some invisible being watching over us or the fear of receiving punishment for disbelieving in him shall become a subject of laughable talks even among youngsters. Religion may not necessarily disappear, but the belief system shall undergo tremendous changes focussing more on rationality and logical reasoning. With the improvement of reasoning power coupled with scientific discoveries and inventions, man shall no longer pursue blind faith which will lead them into eradication of all irrational fears and superstitious beliefs. Religion based on rational speculation with its practical usage of knowledge to suit the needs of time shall be born one day to counter the old dogmas of fear and superstition. Its teachings shall be timeless, ever seeking the knowledge of truth having universal application cutting across all nations and diverse culture of the world. It will teach the concept of equality, peace, tolerance and promote universal spirit of oneness among the people. The idea of soul in the afterlife and lack of salvation for non-believers such as Christian and Muslim propagate shall be a farce. Any religion with such narrow concept and belief are bound to lose its prominence in the future world, as a result of the improved mentality of human being, evolve over a period of time. Religious philosophies, which cannot stand the test of logic with empirical evidence, are doomed to wither and decay. Man will realize the truth that God cannot be illogical, biased, unscientific and cruel.  When the general populace reaches that stage of rational thinking based on scientific truth, the existing present religious dogmas and superstitious beliefs, which stain the world today, shall eventually vanish for good. Miracles, astrology, prophesy or supernatural powers shall occupy the lesser position in deciding our future.

Faith is the foundation of all religions today, but when it is shaken due to irrationality, the belief system shall collapse. For any religion to survive in that future world of refined human reasoning, it must adapt itself to the changing world either through amendment or through discarding the old false dogmas written in the holy books. It will be impossible for a priest to fool and misguide the people, when humanity reaches a certain higher level of rational thoughts in the distant future. In each millennium, at least one or more new major religion came into existence, which played tremendous roles, transforming the world throughout the course of history. The primitive belief of animalism to paganism, from polytheism to monotheism; all religions underwent changes. In this same way, a new religion, which seeks the ultimate truth, having its universal application to guide humanity into higher realm of peace and perfection, shall emerge one day and lead the world into another era of a new religious order.

Chapter-10

What happens after death?

Death is perhaps the greatest mystery ever known to mankind. There are two possibilities, which can happen when we die.

1. A state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness.

2. Consciousness exist in the form of soul which is immortal.

In the first scenario, you shall once again return to a state as you were before birth. No consciousness, no memory, no remembrance, empty filled with nothingness. If there is no consciousness but remains like a sleep undisturbed even by dream according to Socrates, death would be an unspeakable gain and therefore, he said he would wish to die again and again. In this case, death will be neither terrifying nor blissful, as man perceives. Your body decays and turns into soil or rock and becomes part of dust. You have no spirit, no soul, no consciousness; you are nothing special but equally same as a dead rock without consciousness.

On the other hand, if life goes on after physical death; this opens numerous possibilities that after life may or may not be so pleasant at all, because now the question arise: will you be in hell? Heaven? Or reincarnate into another physical form? Or will you get lost in that dead world as some mediums believes? Whatever happens after death, these are all speculations only; the product of human curiosity. No man has ever possessed the true knowledge of death to confirm to the living people what we become when we die. Therefore, to claim that there is after life or there is no after life with absolute belief and confidence is nothing more than deceiving one's own mind with wrong possible conclusion. However, for our purpose now, let us assume that there is afterlife and this life is provided with two options- heaven and hell.

Christian believes that Christianity is exclusively the religion of truth worshiping the one and ultimate God. Jesus himself confirmed that.  Considering that there are over seven billion people in the world today; out of which 2.2 billion are Christians and since not all Christians are eligible for heavenly kingdom, more than 5 billion people are going to hell because of their wrong faith and also because of not being good Christian. What a tragedy?

Let us take an example say, north Korea- there are no Christian in NK because the government strictly prohibits the practice of religion. There could possibly be certain kinds of people who would love to become Christian and dedicate their entire life to work for Christ given that freedom of religion is permitted in their country. However, the governmental policy totally restricts propagation of religious teachings and for that reason, most of them never heard the gospel of Christ during their lifetime. As a result, most of them are atheists not by their own choice but because of state's policy. And even if there are some few who are good nature people with loving heart, compassionate towards others, righteous and upright and their ways are as good as any true Christian they cannot get into heaven for not accepting Christ in their life; and since other than heaven, there is only one more place left for them, which is "hell", sadly they will torment there forever. Is it justifiable for God to throw all those souls into hell? Couldn't there be another parameter to judge those non-Christian good souls? And how does God pass his judgment to the souls of little innocent children? Is there any mentioned criterion in the bible for those children to be saved?

It has been clarified to me that before Jesus there were Abraham, Moses, etc. who preached the same gospel as Christ and so whoever believed them, salvation was theirs. Fair enough for those who heard them but refused to accept the teachings and for which they were thrown into hell. But what about those people who never heard of Abraham, Moses or Jesus? Whose fault was it that these teachings never penetrated their land? I am not being critical here but I want you to imagine on the wider perspective beyond what your faith teaches. I do believe God can never be illogical in his judgment as such; justice shall be done to all humanity whether or not they heard Christ's teachings but the question bothering me constantly is how? If children are spared from throwing into hell even though they are non-Christian. What would be the cut off age? Below 10, 12, 15?

There are still certain groups of tribal people who devote their whole life into worshiping the spirits of their ancestors. Christian missionaries never set foot in their land such as those living in the Amazon rain forest, or wild Kalahari Desert or in polar region. What type of judgment waits for them after death? Will they all be treated as sinners for worshiping wrong god?

Since bible is the true word of God, any deviation from its teachings goes against the will of God and so the answer for salvation should unchangeably be as what it is written in it. 'Salvation' I meant by here is "eternal life in heaven". In John 14:16, Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me". Again John 3:36 says, "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him." From our understanding here, even a person who does not read much about the bible can deduce that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. As I ponder over this passage, it is intriguing to me as to why God has provided only a narrow scope for his people to enter into heaven if there is enough space to accommodate all. I'm quite aware, sinners are forbidden to get there yet being a merciful God, would He gain any pleasure by throwing a person into hell simply because he refused to believe in God regardless of his deeds during his lifetime? I'm also fully aware that no matter whatever arguments I put forward, it cannot change the laws of God, however, I want to express my thoughts in the capacity of an earthly being who neither have any knowledge about heaven nor after life except to reason from the view points of an ignorant mortal being.

Concerning forgiveness on the earthly side, I have a story worth contemplating to make a comparison with God's forgiveness if I may. In a certain town, there live a widower who was evil, rude, hateful and always shows intolerance towards those who preach the gospel of Christ. Five years ago, one Saturday night, three armed criminals broke into the house, tied his hands behind, blindfolded him and brutally raped his wife. They then stabbed her in the chest with knife and she died instantly. His two sons whose ages were 3 and 5 years old respectively were asleep soundly unaware of any danger. They got into their room and bludgeoned them to death. They had beaten the father mercilessly, looted some cash and left him to die but his neighbor found him the next morning and sent him to hospital. He was in comma in hospital for two weeks. Miraculously he survived only to learn that his wife and the two sons were killed on that very night itself. His wrath and anger reached a zenith point; his blood boiling with madness. He swore to find those bastards and tear them into pieces. The pain of losing all his love ones combined with his vengeful thought have been driving him insane for days.

Five years later, the local community apprehended all the three culprits who had committed this horrible crime to his family. The people wanted to know his opinion as to how the culprits should be punished. At last, he was able to look directly into their eyes and teach them what pain and agony looks like in life. Never a day has gone by without remembering the painful memory of his loved ones killed ever since the unfortunate incident. The murderers have nothing to say except a simple sorry for destroying his life. They are ready to accept whatever consequence they may face realizing their own heinous crime. The widower was to pronounce on the next day as to what should be their punishment as per customary law. That night he pondered over again and again, asking himself what benefit would come if they are being tortured or being killed in the same way his family members were murdered. He was neither a kindhearted person nor a believer in God. Yet, he realized that he will gain nothing from revenge, nor his loses will ever be restored. Therefore, on the next day, to everyone's surprise, he gave his solemn statement saying he forgives them and that he harbors no ill feeling or hatred against them anymore but advice them to live a happy and meaningful life although he himself was denied of such life.

It's incredibly amazing how even a person who was considered evil and hateful by his fellow neighbors has the heart to forgive such inhuman atrocity done to him. This reminds us the innate compassionate nature and the spirit of forgiveness in man even for someone like the widower who is full of wrath. If such a person who is considered evil can extend forgiveness up to that stretch of length, can the lord who is proclaimed and worship as loving, forgiving, slow to anger unhesitatingly throw someone into hell simply because they disbelieved in him? Is he not more kind and merciful than any man who forgives another person?

Before the advent of Christianity into our land, people owed allegiance to animism; the concept of hell and heaven were never known. By the second half of the twentieth century, people started to adopt this new faith because of the promise of salvation and eternal life they would receive through Jesus Christ. Since in animistic belief, the existence of soul in the afterlife is acknowledged, it becomes apparent to the natives that the new ideology of salvation and everlasting life preached  by the Christian missionaries allured them so much so that mass conversion had taken place and become a Christian society. It is evidently clear that with the coming of Christianity, the primitive lifestyle of the native people changed dramatically, modern educational system were introduced, the living standard of the people greatly improved, the old dogmas of superstitions and irrational rituals such as witchcraft, sorcery, etc. were abandoned. In fact, Christianity was a blessing to our society in so many great ways as far as temporal life is concern.

The concept of hell and heaven in the afterlife is the core belief and teaching of Christianity. It guarantees eternal life for those who believe in Christ and follows his teachings in sincerity while at the same time; it denounces every person who does not accept Christ as savior, condemning them into hell for eternity. The dilemma arise for those who passed away not getting the opportunity to know Christ when they were alive. Would they also be condemned into hell although it was not their fault of not knowing Christ? If only through Jesus, salvation is possible, then I am certainly sure all my ancestors who left the earth before Christianity arrived are burning in hell and for which I am disillusioned by this narrow philosophical idea. Besides my ancestors, there are millions where the gospel of Christ has never penetrated their society. What would be their judgment? To condemn all of them into the lake of fire for eternity is akin to mass murdering of the innocents.

Philosophers invented Hell.

Augustine was probably the first person who incorporated the concept of hell into the bible. He wrote that “hell, which also is called a lake of fire and brimstone, will be material fire, and will torment the bodies of the damned.” He also wrote “those everlasting pains which are to follow the final judgment" (City of God 21.10, 13)

The idea of hell first originated not from divine teaching but from the mouth of philosophers. In the first-century-B.C.E. Roman poet, Vigil in his epic poem Aeneid, the hero, Aeneas, took tour to the hell. Virgil’s graphic depiction of the dismal and macabre place profoundly influenced later artists and writers. The concept of hell as a place of torment predates Virgil as well.

The first-century-B.C.E. Greek geographer and philosopher Strabo discussed the value of such myths, noting that “the states and the lawgivers had sanctioned them as a useful expedient.” He went on to explain that people “are deterred from evil courses when, either through descriptions or through typical representations of objects unseen, they learn of divine punishments, terrors, and threats.” In dealing with the unruly, reason or exhortation alone is not enough, wrote Strabo; “there is need of religious fear also, and this cannot be aroused without myths and marvels. The founders of states gave their sanction to these things as bugbears wherewith to scare the simple-minded” (Geography 1.2.8). Strabo remarked on a group of Eastern philosophers who “weave in myths, like Plato, about the immortality of the soul and the judgments in Hades and other things of this kind”

With the rise of Western philosophy at the hands of Socrates and his intellectual heirs Plato and Aristotle, concepts of life, death and the hereafter took on new dimensions.

Plato became a key figure in the development of these ideas. Though Augustine by no means endorsed all of Plato’s ideas, he did hold a number of his philosophical opinions in high regard—“opinions sometimes favorable to the true religion, which our faith takes up and defends” (City of God 8.4).

The result has been of immense importance to traditional Christianity. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which describes Augustine as a “Christian Neoplatonist,” remarks “One of the decisive developments in the western philosophical tradition was the eventually widespread merging of the Greek philosophical tradition and the Judeo-Christian religious and scriptural traditions. Augustine is one of the main figures by whom this merging was accomplished.”

One of the key tenets of Neoplatonic thought adopted by Augustine was that humans possess an immortal soul. This was a critical step in his developing the idea that unbelievers could be made to endure eternal torment in hell. Pagan cultures and philosophies have contributed greatly to modern concepts of hell.

What does the Bible itself say on the subject?

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word often translated as “hell” is sheol, though it actually means “the grave.” The Bible teaches that when we die, we simply go to the grave (see Psalm 49:10–11 and Ecclesiastes 3:19–20).

In the New Testament, we find that there are three Greek words translated as “hell.” The one most often used in the Gospels is gehenna, referring to the Gehenna Valley, or the Valley of Hinnom. Just outside the walls of Jerusalem, in Jesus’ day it was where the local population dumped and burned trash.

Another New Testament Greek word translated as “hell” is Hades: the place of the departed, the grave, like sheol in the Old Testament. For example, in Matthew 11:23 Jesus says: “And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades.

One other word is translated as “hell” in the New Testament: tartaroo. Only the apostle Peter used it, and only once, when he wrote of the holding place where wicked spirits will eventually be restrained (2 Peter 2:4). Like gehenna and hades, it has nothing to do with man suffering forever in an ever-burning hell.

In the fourth century AD, Augustine played a key role in the development of the Christian doctrine of an ever-burning hell for sinners. On finding the successful implementation of the concept of hell to attract its flock and to keep the believers together by the Christian church, Prophet Mohammad too introduced this concept of eternal flame into Islam 600 years later. Thus, nearly half of the world population today literally believes that hell exist in the afterlife to torment the souls of those hardened hearts of non-believers.

Faith in the future world.

Religion based on rational speculation with its practical usage of knowledge to suit the needs of time shall be born one day to counter the old dogmas of fear and superstition. Its teachings shall be timeless, ever seeking the knowledge of truth having universal application cutting across all nations and diverse culture of the world. It will teach the concept of equality, peace, tolerance and promote universal spirit of oneness among the people. The idea of soul in the afterlife and lack of salvation for non-believers such as Christian and Muslim propagate shall be a farce. Any religion with such narrow concept and belief are bound to lose its prominence in the future world, as a result of the improved mentality of human being, evolve over a period of time. Religious philosophies, which cannot stand the test of logic with empirical evidence, are doomed to wither and decay. Man will realize the truth that God cannot be illogical, biased, unscientific and cruel.  When the general populace reaches that stage of rational thinking based on scientific truth, the existing present religious dogmas and superstitious beliefs, which stain the world today, shall eventually vanish for good. Miracles, astrology, prophesy or supernatural powers shall occupy the lesser position in deciding our future.

Faith is the foundation of all religions today, but when it is shaken due to irrationality, the belief system shall collapse. For any religion to survive in that future world of refined human reasoning, it must adapt itself to the changing world either through amendment or through discarding the old false dogmas written in the holy books. It will be impossible for a priest to fool and misguide the people, when humanity reaches a certain higher level of rational thoughts in the distant future. In each millennium, at least one or more new major religion came into existence, which played tremendous roles, transforming the world throughout the course of history. The primitive belief of animalism to pagan, from worshipping multiple gods to monotheism; all religions underwent changes. In this same way, a new religion, which seeks the ultimate truth, having its universal application to guide humanity into higher realm of peace and perfection, shall emerge one day and lead the world into another era of a new religious order.