Once an event in The Bible is interpreted as metaphorical then the door is open for all events to be interpreted the same way as they have been in many ancient religious texts such as The Iliad, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and The Egyptian Book of the Dead when at one time they, too, were taken literally before they became myth. The ancient Greeks absolutely believed their gods were real. Not in a vague or symbolic way, but as active beings involved in the world and human life. They treated their gods as real forces, not metaphors. Figures like Zeus, Athena, and Apollo were believed to control natural events (storms, harvests, disease), influence wars and politics, and interact directly with humans.
If a Christian apologist tells me that Jonah and the Fish and the Noah’s Ark scheme are metaphors then why wouldn’t Christ’s miracles and The Resurrection also be metaphors? How do you decide? Or rather, Why do you decide? Is it because a spark of Reason had you question the veracity of the Bible’s supernatural events but you as quickly snuffed it like you did when you first heard that Santa Clause was actually your mother and father and you had a momentary sense of dread–that required immediate snuffing? When you had a question, did someone in or of the church refer to you as a “Doubting Thomas?” Did they tell you that Satan was speaking to you? Is that a metaphor that suggests Reason is Satan? Always or when it’s convenient? Can Reason be parsed? No. It’s a process for logical, rational, and analytical thought, allowing humans to form judgments, draw inferences, and understand the world. For example, if you look out the window in the morning and notice that everything is wet, past experience tells you that when it rains everything gets wet, so you assume it might have rained in the night and conclude that it probably did. However, if you conclude that Satan was talking to you, and if you go out unprepared for rain, you’re probably going to get wet–and then maybe see a psychiatrist who specializes in schizophrenia.
Christianity can’t have it both ways. Either The Bible, The Iliad, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead are literal or they’re not. And they can’t be part literal and part metaphorical according to whim or changed in any way without the express consent of the authors–which were the gods. And then, of course, there are the Christian apologists who try the square-peg-round-hole approach but never quite get there. Many Christians believe the Earth is only 6,000 years old, which is patently ludicrous and many Christians agree but they have to square that with the Bible. Enter Old Earth creationists, such as astrophysicist Hugh Ross, who see each of the six days of creation as being a long, but finite period of time based on the multiple meanings of the Hebrew word yom (day light hours/24 hours/age of time) and other Biblical creation passages. But that’s an outright fabrication: The Hebrew word yom is used 2,301 times in the Old Testament. Outside of Genesis 1, yom plus a number (used 410 times) almost always indicates an ordinary day of 24 hours. So, where did Hugh and Friends' multiple meanings come from? They came from Hugh and Friends who “interpret” yom in one passage in Daniel to mean a long day, but no matter how hard they try, they just can’t quite get to 4.5 billion years, the age of the Earth, or 13.5 billion years, the age of the Universe. Nor can they get there by combining Daniel with 2 Peter 3:8 that says, “With the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” The verse in 2 Peter isn’t actually about creation—it’s about God’s relationship to time and why divine promises (like judgment) may seem delayed. Many scholars (including many Christians) say it’s being applied outside its original context when used to reinterpret Genesis. In other words, “nice try, no cigar.”
And why would an omniscient, omnipotent god make his/her/its word so cryptic? Shouldn’t teachers “clarify?” Apparently not in the Bible. Jesus often spoke in parables and says he does so partly so only those who are receptive will understand. So who are the unreceptive? Were they the Pharisees and Sadducees who opposed Jesus? Perhaps, according to Jesus, they were anyone who wasn’t a Jew: In Matthew 15:24 Jesus states, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel,” but then Paul comes along about thirty years after Jesus’s death via the Damascus Road Vision (Is that a metaphor, too?) and subverts Jesus’s message and invites the gentiles–when, of course, Jesus wasn’t around. Or were the unreceptive people those who had critical thinking skills?
But why oh why do Christians believe any of it? Talking snakes, talking donkeys, virgin birth, parting seas on command, global flood, pairs of millions of terrestrial species (birds, bugs, animals, dinosaurs, and many saltwater fish species that couldn’t survive in a mix of saltwater and freshwater) plus all their food on a boat, the dead coming out of their graves, a talking burning bush, water into wine, five loaves and two fish feeding five thousand people, spirits and angels and demons aplenty, and fantastical visions. Oh, there’s more. Much more. How can people possibly believe these stories? Perhaps it’s because they took hold in their minds, like Santa Clause, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny did when they were most vulnerable to believing fantasy and they just never left. Question is, why did Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny leave and not all the biblical tripe, especially when you just entered the age of Reason? Because Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny didn’t hold you hostage to death and make you afraid. “Oh, come on, I’m not afraid,” says the Christian. Of course not, not right now–nor are you afraid of a gun at this very moment, not until one is pointed at your head.
My guess is that most Christians are not actual “Believers” but rather Christians-in-name-only. Thirty-percent of Christians attend church on a regular basis, seventy-percent rarely. Roughly fifty-percent of Americans carry life insurance. I’m one of them–but I rarely think about it. I’ve had it for a long time and the premiums aren’t much. But that’s in dollars. The premium for a “Believer” is willful suspension of The Laws of Nature and Reason based on the edicts from a pastor/parson/preacher/priest standing behind a podium who has also suspended the The Laws of Nature and Reason based on the edicts from a pastor/parson/preacher/priest standing behind a podium who has also . . . (You get the picture). Without a scintilla of verifiable evidence: No photos. No videos. No fossils (man inside fish). No biological evidence of a virgin birth. No geological evidence of a global flood. No penguins in Turkey. And the most surprising if not tragic missing evidence: No visual art–paintings, sculptures, mosaics–depicting biblical stories by biblical people at the time. You’re kidding, right? No one at the time bothered to illustrate the stories that are the foundation of The Bible, the foundation of an entire belief system! The Egyptians did, the Greeks did, the Persians did, the Phoenicians did, the Mesopotamians did. True, ancient Hebrews were adamantly opposed to any representation of Yahweh as per the 2nd Commandment, but how does that exclude the “stories” in both the Old and New Testaments where there’s no need to show Yahweh, which is a conundrum when considering that “writing” shows. Writing creates visual images, particularly in Hebrew where letters are highly “pictographic” and when combined according to rules creates a “representation,” not to mention that the word for “graven” in the Second Commandment comes from the Hebrew word pesel (פֶּסֶל) meaning “carved” or “hewn,” which does not prohibit other forms of visual art.
So why am I yammering away at Christendom? I mean who really cares about what others believe?
We all should. A look back at how destructive Christianity has been should be enough to convince most people that it hasn’t been a force for good (although Christians will cite all the missions that go to poor nations and feed and nurse the people. Yeah–so long as they accept Jesus. That’s bribery. These people don’t want Jesus, they want to eat and they’ll do just about anything for a crust of bread).
The Crusades led to large-scale killing in the name of reclaiming the holy land. The Spanish Inquisition targeted heretics, often using torture and execution. Christian Europe didn’t just argue theology—it slaughtered people over it. The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre saw thousands of Protestants butchered in the streets by fellow Christians. During the Thirty Years’ War, entire regions were devastated—look at the Sack of Magdeburg, where a Protestant city was wiped out and some 20,000 people killed, nearly the entire population of 25,000 people. In Ireland, the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland turned into mass killing of Catholics by Protestant forces. And in France, cycles of massacres between Catholics and Protestants went on for decades. This wasn’t fringe behavior—it was mainstream, state-backed, and justified in explicitly Christian terms. So when people say Christianity has only been a force for good, history says otherwise: It has been a powerful engine for division, persecution, and mass violence when tied to authority. All told, Christian wars have caused the deaths of some 170 million men, women, and children. And it didn’t stop there. In 1930s Germany, the majority of the population identified as Christian. When Adolf Hitler came to power, most Christians supported him and went along with his regime. In fact, the Catholic Church signed a treaty with Nazi Germany (the Reichskonkordat) in 1933 to protect its institutions, which critics say lent legitimacy to Hitler early on. “Oh, but I’m not Catholic, I’m Protestant” doesn’t excuse you. You’re all in the same boat, just on different decks, along with the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witness, The People’s Temple (of Jim Jones fame), and the Branch Davidians (of David Koresh fame). It’s easy to slough all this off on the excuse that you weren’t there, you didn’t have a hand in it, and that’s true. It’s not about you. It’s about a religion that you subscribe to, support, and keep alive that has been defined in history by history. Remove the parts of history you don’t like (in your mind), splice in more favorable pieces, and you’re guilty of whitewashing, propagandizing, and, voilà, mythmaking.
What you have is a grotesque montage that church leaders, academic theologians, apologists, and run-of-the-mill Christians have been frantically trying to cobble together for centuries and it still can’t escape contradictions, fictions, and outright lies–and the quicksand struggle against modern communications (e.g. the internet) only gets Christianity in deeper. For those of us who eschew “willful ignorance,” we can research/fact-check at the touch of a few keys. For example, was Mary a virgin? According to the original Hebrew, no. She was a young maiden. In Isaiah 7:14, the Hebrew word ‘almah means “young woman,” not “virgin”: הִנֵּה הָעַלְמָה הָרָה hinneh (behold) ha-‘almah (the young woman) harah (will conceive). Betula in Hebrew בְּתוּלָה means “virgin.” However, three to five hundred years later the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek and “young woman” was translated to “virgin,” so the “virgin birth prophecy” depends on a Greek translation “choice,” not the original Hebrew wording. Matthew quotes the Septuagint version, not the Hebrew: “Behold, the virgin (parthenos) shall conceive. . . .” That’s where the virgin birth as a “fulfilled prophecy” comes from. If Matthew had quoted the Hebrew directly, it would read “young woman,” and the argument would look very different indeed. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that most Christians would give up the virgin birth scheme because it’s just too ingrained in their minds–like most Biblical tripe.
Eighty-percent of Evangelical Christians voted for Trump, a man convicted on thirty-four felony counts, and at least twenty-eight women have publicly accused him of various acts of sexual misconduct, including rape, sex with minors, sexual assault, physical abuse, kissing and groping without consent, looking under women's skirts, and walking in on naked pageant contestants. But don’t just take their words for it, here’s Trump in his own words on October 7, 2016, one month before the United States presidential election that year: "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything." In 2023, a federal jury in New York found Trump liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll, awarding her $5 million in damages. The presiding judge later clarified that the jury’s finding of sexual abuse met the common definition of rape. In a subsequent 2024 trial, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll an additional $83.3 million for further defamatory statements.
But, hey, as far as Christians are concerned they’re off the hook for any malfeasance–but “only” according to Paul who preached “not by works but by faith.” Jesus on the other hand was explicit about behavior being central to salvation: Matthew 7:21: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven," a warning from Jesus that mere verbal profession of faith is insufficient for salvation. True discipleship requires active obedience to God's will, not just religious activity like going to church, singing in the choir, attending potlucks, and occasionally witnessing. And again in Matthew 25: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’” It’s likely, however, that your pastor/parson/preacher/priest will side with and preach Paul because just “faith” is attractive, easy, and fills the pews (and the plate). “That’s it? That’s all I have to do? I’ve been saved and I can vote for Trump and not be accountable?” “Yep,” according to Paul, but not Jesus. Which one are you supposed to worship? Who do you pray to?
And what do you really know about the Bible other than what others have told you (alarm!)? When I was a Christian, I read the King James Bible front to back and the New Testament once again in the Living Bible, a modern version, and, of course, swallowed it all hook line and sinker. And then, gradually, Reason had me question, and thanks to technology that wasn’t available when I “converted” (early 70s) I was able to do some research and over time learned from biblical scholars, highly educated people (Ph.Ds) who objectively research and “deeply” examine the languages, origins, and history of the Bible–as distinct from pastors/parsons/preachers/priests who went to Bible school and learned to parrot what they were told by other pastors/parsons/preachers/priests who went to Bible school and learned to parrot . . . . You get the point. You cannot prove the veracity of a text from the text itself. That’s called circular reasoning: It’s true because I said it’s true. So are flying broom races on the Quidditch Pitch in Harry Potter real because the book said so? Christians, by and large, believe that there was a mass exodus out of Egypt but there’s no archaeological evidence in support. One would think that hundreds of thousands of people would have left concrete evidence, e.g. material remains over the two hundred mile route–but there is none. Nor are there any records of an exodus from the Egyptians who were meticulous and obsessive record keepers. What is more, settlement patterns in Canaan suggest a gradual Hebrew internal development, not a sudden invasion. In fact, The Merneptah Stele (c. 1208 BCE) mentions “Israel” as a people already living in Canaan which tells us that a group called Israel existed by that time. But it says nothing about them coming from Egypt or escaping slavery. Most Christians believe that their god created Adam and Eve who in turn gave birth to all of humanity because the Bible says so, never mind that one man and one woman giving birth to all humanity would be from the outset a case of gross incest and inbreeding and the resulting genetic disorders (Do you hear dueling banjos?) would have ended humanity in just a few generations. Or perhaps apologists can claim the Exodus and Creation are metaphors. Jeesh! What’s left that’s not metaphor?
But I get it–because I did it. No matter what anyone said, no matter how factual and evidential, I automatically snapped my mind shut to any information that even remotely countermanded Christianity–out of fear of death, not the normal fear of death that comes with the survival mechanism, but a fear of death made irrational (religious scrupulosity) by the constant reminder, overt or covert, that comes with an organization that focuses on judgement and an “afterlife.” On death. It’s no surprise then that religion began with burial rites, one of the earliest archaeological indicators of religious thought, suggesting a belief in an afterlife or a sacred connection to the deceased. Evidence of intentional, ritualistic burials dates back as far as 100,000 years, with Neanderthals often using grave goods, suggesting early concepts of survival after death or emotional investment. And the ability to imagine alternatives to death and project backward/forward in time (around 40,000 years ago) allowed for the creation of ancestral spirits that eventually morphed into, you guessed it–gods. All gods. All 18,000 (Hindu traditions mention 330 million!) and the Christian god Yahweh didn’t show up until around 4,000 years ago along with Baal, Chemosh, Dagon, Moloch, and Asherah who are portrayed in the Bible as false gods by the Yahweh group because . . . because . . . the Yahweh group said so, which sounds a lot like Trump’s “Because I said so” policy. Seems the Hebrew leaders shot themselves in the foot by mentioning other gods. It doesn’t matter that they’re deemed false by the Hebrews, other people believed in them and worshiped them as heartily as the Hebrews believed in and worshiped Yahweh. Try as I might, I just can’t “objectively” determine how Baal, Chemosh, Dagon, Moloch, and Asherah are false and Yahweh is true–in terms of the Bible, which is myth.
I find it exceedingly hypocritical if not utterly comical how Christians will eschew, if not condemn, the science that challenges their beliefs, e.g. evolution, age of the Earth/Universe, population genetics (Adam and Eve), global flood, miracles v natural laws, et. al., and yet fully embrace the science that gives them convenience (electricity, computers, the internet, smartphones), health (vaccines, antibiotics, imaging, anesthesia, surgical techniques), security/safety (engineering, food safety, warning systems), entertainment (TVs, movies, streaming services, digital music), and so much more. Think of it this way: How would your life be, how would you like it–if the plug were pulled, if all the aforementioned products of science were gone? Would your faith comfort you? Do your best to be honest, but it’s doubtful because it’s just not a reality and imagination has limits unless you’re willing to stretch.
I’m curious about how Christians have managed to suspend the Laws of Nature. For example, gravity, buoyancy, and surface tension tells us that we cannot walk on water, and you know that if you’ve ever tried it. My question is, at what point did you decide those laws weren’t true? If a friend or neighbor told you that they could “actually” walk on water, would you believe them? Likely not. But then, for example, why would you believe that a man named Jesus, and only that man, walked on water 2,000 years ago? Yeah, I know where you’ll go now. You’ll claim that Jesus was the son of a god and that he could do anything. Yeah, okay, but how do you know that? Because the Bible told you so (circular reasoning)? How about this from The Iliad: Book 3:
Menelaus had seized him by the helmet
and was dragging him toward the Achaean lines,
straining to win glory and kill his foe.
And now Paris would have been destroyed there,
had not Aphrodite, daughter of Zeus,
quickly perceived it.
She snapped the strap of the helmet—
and the horsehair helmet came away in Menelaus’ hand.
Menelaus, whirling around,
threw it to his companions among the Greeks.
But Aphrodite, goddess of love,
snatched Paris up in a thick mist,
and carried him away from death.
Then she set him down in his fragrant chamber in Troy.
Aphrodite–goddess of love, beauty, passion, and pleasure–rescues Paris from a fight he’s about to lose by wrapping him in a thick mist and teleporting him to his bedroom. I can almost hear the Christian response: “Why that’s just silly. Tee-hee, tee-hee.” And I agree, but it’s no sillier than a man walking on water, a man parting the sea, a man living inside a fish for three days, or a man rising from the dead. How can you suspend the Laws of Nature for your story and not others? Well, you can as a “personal” choice but personal is not universal. Not everyone likes brussel sprouts or cowboy hats.
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