There are many reasons to reject the Bible.
For me, one of the most compelling comes from a quote by Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion:
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
The Bible is not a work of literature to take literally, as fundamentalists do, nor is it in any way an example of good moral behavior of individuals or societies. Another gem from The God Delusion:
God ordered Abraham to make a burnt offering of his longed-for son. Abraham built an altar, put firewood upon it, and trussed Isaac up on top of the wood. His murdering knife was already in his hand when an angel dramatically intervened with the news of a last-minute change of plan: God was only joking after all, 'tempting' Abraham, and testing his faith.
A modern moralist cannot help but wonder how a child could ever recover from such a psychological trauma. By the standards of modern morality, this disgraceful story is an example simultaneously of child abuse, bullying in two asymmetrical power relationships, and the first recorded use of the Nuremberg defence: 'I was only obeying orders.' Yet the legend is one of the great foundational myths of all three monotheistic religions.
Once again, modern theologians will protest that the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac should not be taken as literal fact. And, once again, the appropriate response is twofold. First, many many people, even to this day, do take the whole of their scripture to be literal fact, and they have a great deal of political power over the rest of us, especially in the United States and in the Islamic world. Second, if not as literal fact, how should we take the story? As an allegory? Then an allegory for what? Surely nothing praiseworthy. {243} As a moral lesson? But what kind of morals could one derive from this appalling story? Remember, all I am trying to establish for the moment is that we do not, as a matter of fact, derive our morals from scripture. Or, if we do, we pick and choose among the scriptures for the nice bits and reject the nasty. But then we must have some independent criterion for deciding which are the moral bits: a criterion which, wherever it comes from, cannot come from scripture itself and is presumably available to all of us whether we are religious or not.
First of all, the person Jesus of the Bible probably did not even exist, but was a mythological pagan representation for the sun diety as man, like many other representations prior. The Roman Empire merely capitalized on the growing cult for their political advantage, and boy did they ever!
The Christian Empire and it's schisms (including Islam) are stronger than they could have ever imagined, thanks to capitalism, a global economy, and mass surveillance. (China is the antithesis of a theocracy, only as a false choice option. It is the cult-of-personality totalitarian-statism capitalism that disguises itself as communism, yet resembles communism hardly at all anymore. One way or another, Empire will seek to dominate and control the masses; the means matter less than the ends.)
The character was invented and historicized by the Roman Empire by plagiarizing the Gnostic mystery cult. They did this so that they could bring their subjects under a single belief system where they could be controlled and manipulated through centralized dogma and doctrine.
There is nothing new or unique about the Bible. In fact, the Bible is an outright plagiarism of many other mythologies predating it.
Again, this is nothing new. Mithraism and Sol Invictus were very similar and already dominant within Empire. Christianity was merely a way of synthesizing and institutionalizing many myths so that people could be controlled and manipulated by a central authority.
It was smart of Empire, though tragic for the freedom of people everywhere, to incorporate pagan beliefs as well.
Jesus is merely the Roman's politically developed and historicized solar deity of the Gnostic mystic sect. Similar hero mythological archetypes are abundant throughout history.
SPOILER ALERT: You are your own hero. You are someone else's hero. Someone else is your hero secret hero. Your community is made of interdependent heroes. When we take religion literally and too seriously, we miss the point entirely and kill the message.
The Roman Empire was merely being shrewd when they decided to stop torturing and killing these radical anti-authoritarian Jews (mythological Gnostic cult followers), and instead adopt this belief as the Empire's officially sanctioned belief under Constantine "the Great" and then Theodosius I. They fully institutionalized this state religion with the Nicene Creed.
The institutionalized religion was then divorced from the disparate mysticisms from which it was birthed. Dogma and doctrine always kills the message of spiritual truths from various esoteric traditions.
And thus began the Church's 1700-year war to dominate, subjugate, and exploit the minds and resources of their own people and foreigners alike.
The list of wikipedia articles could go on and on. At this point, you are either aware of the religious-capitalist Empire all around us or you are willfully ignorant; and you are either against Empire or you are complicit in its guilt.
To be clear, this is not an indictment on most people of the Abrahamic faiths. For the most part, most people are indoctrinated into their parents' belief system without question, or at least with considerable cultural coercion. I hope this practice changes.
I am against: blind faith, dogma, doctrine, patriarchy, authoritarianism*, and the ideologies of Empire.
* which differs from voluntarily choosing, supporting, and following authority
I am against: religious fundamentalism, religious indoctrination of children, religious segregation, prosperity theology, megachurches,
I am against: circumcision, female genital mutilation, Christian right, gay conversion therapy, forced religious conversion, and religious violence.
I am against: Zionism, Israel lobby in the United States, Christian nationalism, Islamic states, and other theocracies.
It seems to me, given the course of history, that the Tanakh, the Bible, and the Koran tend to encourage these things above which I am against. It is probably the submission to religious authority which is so easily corrupted and exploited. Therefore, I cannot support the Abrahamic religions.
However, I am also against: anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and other religious discrimination.
I am for: Anti-Defamation League**, Arab League, freedom of religion, Reform Judaism, Christian left, liberal and progressive Islam, other faiths based on tolerance and love, interfaith dialogue, secularization, atheism, the interplay of science and mysticism, and the myriad of ways to build healthy, free, thriving communities with purpose and meaning.
** only ADL's anti-Semitism and anti-hate work, but not their support for Zionism, Israeli war crimes, human rights in Israel, and Mossad operations including assassinations.
It is ideological systems of domination and control that I oppose, especially those ideological systems of domination and control that spread by violent conquest (physical, emotional, sexual, spiritual, wars, genocide, or coercive threats thereof), insidious memes (such as institutional religion, cults like QAnon, and political movements like Moral Majority, Alt-Right, and Trumpism), or economic oppression (such as chattel slavery and capitalism--wage slavery, sweat shops, child labor, monopolies, cartels, transnational corporations, environmental destruction, etc), otherwise known as Empire.
It is domination and control that I oppose--excepting democratic policing, as local as possible, and negotiated BDSM as consensual play for those who desire (all relationships are play of various degrees of elaboration and structure)--and in particular as domination and control spreads as Empire. It just seems to me, in examining the evidence of the present and history, that the Abrahamic religions, just like capitalism, are highly correlated to Empire; whether they are particularly well adapted to imperialism or whether Empire happens to find these ideologies well suited to its thirst for evermore concentrated power matters not to me. It may be that Abrahamic religions and capitalism are more easily corrupted by those who seek to dominate and control.
The same has been demonstrated of Marxism in many of the few examples where states have experimented with it. However, a few points. First, capitalist countries, especially the United States of America, have sought since the beginning to ensure that Marxism not succeed by economic and diplomatic pressure, military threat, and often illegal regime changes. It is somewhat understandable why the first examples of this new economic system would react under such conditions toward totalitarianism and oligarchy, as unfortunate as that is. I wonder how well they would succeed without the wars against Marxism, or better yet, with support for.Second, Marxism is, in the scope of human history, a rather new invention. Therefore, early failures are understandable. Two institutions, married to Marxism, would likely greatly improve upon Marxism and guard against totalitarianism and oligarchy. They are workers cooperatives and democracy.The state is not nimble enough to manage all resources efficiently at the local level. Conversely, capitalism is not fair in the management of resources, exploiting the poor up and siphoning wealth up to the rich. But workers cooperatives would put ownership and control of enterprises at the local level. For larger enterprises and public works, unions of nationalized corporations might be more appropriate.Socialism functions as a continuum, just as capitalism does. Nordic countries are Social Democracies, regulating their capitalism for the common good. Democratic Socialism, on the other hand, is even less capitalistic, and is more of a confluence of libertarianism and socialism. I think Democratic Socialism (and related, most Green Parties) is probably the best political-economic system. Libertarianism ensures decentralized access to power and resources; socialism ensures fair access to power and resources. Together they balance each other well. Libertarianism critiques the state while supporting democracy, and socialism critiques unfairness while supporting equality.
We create our own community and belonging, purpose and meaning, whatever culture we find ourselves in. Do not be fooled or misled by anyone.
For further reading:
Christ Myth
Palestine
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