The holey book

In this post we will be exploring the following reasons people give for being an atheist:

Reason 24: The religion was inconsistent with itself. (Polled 37 votes)

Reason 25: The scripture was flawed. (Polled 30 votes)

Reason 26: The religion was violent (Polled 5 votes) 

For a book that supposedly must be inerrant because God is invested in the preservation of its inspired truth, even if we accept the groundless claim of inerrancy, God could not have done a must worse job ensuring that the truth of His inspired text is preserved through the clarity of its message. The reality of the division of the church based on interpretive differences, the rampant supposed misinterpretation/misapplication of scripture, and the existence of such texts as “Jesus Interrupted”, by Bart D. Ehrman, detailing the lack of clarity or outright inconsistency of the Holy Bible, make it seem that at best God doesn’t care about the preserving the Holy Bible via clarity and at worst that God intended the Holy Bible to spark confusion, division, and weaponized authoritarianism. 

Additionally, for a text that is supposed to deliver a message of hope unto a world oppressed by suffering and death, God couldn’t have done a much worse job presenting Himself as clearly merciful and loving. The reality that anyone could read the Holy Bible and easily walk away with a conception of God as being drunk with blood, as evidenced by the book “Drunk with Blood: God’s Killings in the Bible”, by Steve Wells, or that they could walk away feeling justified in the slaughter of people via the crusades, or justified in driving and abusing others as slaves, makes it seem that at best the Bible is not inerrant or immune to the corruption of blood thirty rulers looking to justify their wars and at worst that God is a bloodthirsty abuser.  

The inerrancy of the Holy Bible is not something that can be known for certain nor is it something that can be proven, especially given the limited and faulty understanding of readers. 

Archeological findings can support the historical accuracy of the Holy Bible, but that is different from proving its inerrancy. After all, historically accurate fiction is a thing, so just because the details of Ney York City are spot on, it does not mean that Spiderman is any less a work of fiction. 

You can take the Holy Bible’s word for its inerrancy, but then you better be willing to believe any text’s claim to be God-breathed be it the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, or the Quran. All of which makes this claim to be God-breathed, all of which have followers that claim to know for certain their text is God-breathed and all of which do not agree with each other on what the will of God is.

Therefore, inerrancy is not something Christians believe because they can prove its inerrancy to the public, it is something they believe because they both think its inerrancy is essential to the value of Christianity as a religion and vital to defend against abuses of the religion.

From my position inerrancy is no more than a hypothesis, and it is one that I feel no need to hope for. After all, even if the Holy Bible should happen to be inerrant, my interpretation of it is not guaranteed to be, defeating the purpose. Perhaps intense study may yield an objectively correct way to interpret the Holy Bible. I am open to that possibility, however, until I get there I cannot claim that any particular way of interpreting it is objectively correct. In the meantime, while I study and explore with an open mind for correction, I am free to be wrong. 

Additionally, I am under no obligation to assume that any part of the Holy Bible is divinely inspired. Because the divine inspiration of the Holy Bible cannot be proven objectively I have no reason to treat the whole collection of books as being free from any kind of flaws, human agendas, or corruption.

Therefore, there is no reason I shouldn’t hope that certain parts truly represent the will of a hypothetical God while hoping that other parts are not true representations of a hypothetical God’s will, but are instead the attempts of corrupt people to use God as an excuse for their evil deeds.

This then leaves us with the question of if anything worth hoping for can be gleaned from the Holy Bible’s contents. In the next post, we will be examining the understanding I have of the overarching narrative of the Holy Bible which I find worth hopping for. 

Next Post: The hypothesis worth hoping for

Previous Post: Hide and seek losers go to Hell

Questions for my readers:

What are your thoughts about the Holy Bible’s lack of clarity coupled with reader limitations and flaws? Do you think these things undermine the claim for the inerrancy of the Holy Bible?

Do you agree with my claim that the Bible’s inerrancy cannot be proven? If not, what proof do you have? 

Does my rejection of the inerrancy claim seem valid to you?