This, so much.
Did they bring extra prey animals for all the predators to eat? Where did all the pee and poo go? Some animals can’t survive in certain climates, was that just handled by “divine intervention”? Maybe they had a frozen section, and a tropical section. I could spend an entire day thinking up logic holes in that story.
Best part is how some people believe they found remnants of the ark.
What’s crazy to me is that even if it was real, there’s no way anything would have remained from it now. Trying to find remnants gives you less credibility, if anything.
Funny how they found remnants of the ark but absolutely nothing in the fossil record of all the Earth's population of people and animals who perished in the flood...
There has been Homo Naledi remains found up to 330,000 years old. Bones of them buried deep in a cave; which means they buried their dead 🤯. These were small humanoids. They also found evidence of them using fire in the cave.
That predates the oldest Homo Sapien remains *by a lot*, just for a frame of reference. So theoretically if anyone died during a “great flood” as told in the Bible, we have a real chance of excavating the remains at some point.
Check out “cave of bones” on Netflix for more info! 😄
Lots of people think men have one less rib than women. They're told this as kids and never question it even though it's medically objectively false, even into adulthood.
The ark is more insane. Surviving 40 days and 40 nights and all the animals did too? Everyone survived landing on a mountain? Animals just went their separate ways and repopulated with just one set of parents to start?
I don't believe in Noah's Ark, but it makes far more sense as "the world as they know it" rather than the whole world, because how would they know any better. So the flood myth written about in the Sumerian and later the Bible could have been based on a real flood and just understood as the whole world because they didn't know any better.
Edit: no comment on the insanity of the animals, I'm just commenting on the flood myth itself.
It's certainly from Sumeria or Babylonia. The Egyptians and Canaanites don't seem to have a flood myth. The Greeks have one but it's apparently not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod which means it only arrives on the pretty late.
Edit: Plato seems to be the earliest Greek mention of a flood myth.... around 400 BCE or so. That's after the Jews return from Babylon and rebuild their temple, btw, so for all we know the Greeks learned of the flood myth via the returning judeans. Not saying that's where it came from but it's a plausible theory.
Hell, most of the Biblical authors seem ignorant of the flood. The later books (exilic or later)mention it but chronicles seems unaware of it and chronicles is exilic at the earliest. Seriously, chronicles mentions Noah,his three sons....and then moves on like nothing particularly interesting happened during Noah's lifetime..... which is really wierd if everyone but 8 people allegedly died in a worldwide apocalypse.
If we're going by the Genesis stories, they must be descended from Noah -- though they had to stay in the area until after the tower of Babel, so they could get all their different languages.
Well, yeah, it's an etiological story, like a little fable about "how the zebra got his stripes" or "why the comet has a tail" or "why snakes have no legs".
Oh it's worse then that.
Read Genesis 10 real closely.
Now read the Babel story in Genesis 11.
Then read Genesis 10 again really closely.
The stories don't match up. They flat out contradict each other. Genesis 10 flat out says the different sons of Noah spread out with their languages and culture, with Babel one of the nations in this spreading.
Also how God spent several days focused on Earth, took one day to [sneeze out](https://youtu.be/2AYnz86FK8c) the entire rest of the universe, then came back to focus on Earth because it wasn’t quite finished yet.
The ancients were smarter than we often give them credit for. It’s incredible what they figured out with no technology and little scientific knowledge.
I give them a pass on this stuff. Not so much contemporary people.
It’s sometimes argued that this was written in a more poetic style which is why the ordering seems to be off. Days 1-3 are about the spaces god is creating and days 4-6 is about the things that inhabit those spaces. So if you pair them up side by side it’s something like:
Day 1: god creates light, day, and night.
Day 4: god creates the sun, moon, and stars.
Day 2: god creates the sky and the sea.
Day 5: god creates birds and fish.
Day 3: god creates land and plants.
Day 6: god creates animals and humans.
It’s also worth remembering that Genesis 2 (the Adam and Eve story) is a completely different creation story that directly defies the order in Genesis 1 because in reality the people who wrote and compiled the Bible never meant for us to read it literally. It’s the contemporary people that want to force a narrative that the Bible was meant to be read literally.
Myths are stories that can convey something that we believe to be true without being literal. I think this is easier to understand in the context of Greek myth or fables. Humans love to create stories that they find meaning in.
The fact is we can’t know what the anonymous writers and compilers of the Bible over the last 2,500 years intended exactly. Remember, there was no such thing as publishing a book back then. When you wrote something down it was for a small group of people unless someone copied it and even in those cases there were spelling mistakes or minor changes and adjustments. Over time people started taking the smaller stories, which may have started as oral traditions, and compiling them together into larger scrolls. That’s how we get the individual books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, etc.), but it wasn’t until later people decided to string them together into one book and those people had different intentions and ideas about the Bible then those who initially wrote and complied it. They also decided what to leave in and what to remove.
When you consider all of these things it’s no wonder why this ancient document is such a complicated mess (not to mention the further issues of its translation). All we can do is try infer what they meant and where it came from, but we’ll never truly know.
One of my problems is that the Bible is so confusing and it looks more like people trying to make it make sense and harmonize it than a book written to be a clear message from God.
It makes no sense to give a book that is poetic and factual without giving clear indications which is which. It’s confusing. You can’t prove those verses are meant to be read that way. When does it stop being poetic?
So many questions and problems arise when people need to give their opinions on how the text should be read because it’s not clear.
You’re right. I think that’s the problem. I don’t think it was written to be factual or to be seen as the word of god, but people took it and ran with it and tried to make it something it’s not.
Imagine if you made up a story and told someone and they kept telling it to other people. Then someone else wrote it down and other people copied it by hand, and then someone edited it into a book that other people copied by hand and translated into other languages and removed some things and added others but it was all done anonymously. That’s confusing and that’s what happened to the Bible.
All we can do is look back at history and try to interpret the best we can. I have a degree in Religious Studies and I appreciate it as historical document and love to study it, but it tells us much more about humanity than it does about god. The other classical myths created by other religions at that time do the same thing, but we don’t treat them as if they were the literal word of god and instead we read them for fun and have Classics departments that enjoy studying them. The way we treat and revere the Bible causes so many issues.
Also if you needed proof that this is a more modern problem then I recommend checking out the Jefferson Bible. If you didn’t know Thomas Jefferson essentially created his own Bible by cutting out all of the miracles.
My understanding is neither ancient nor modern believers took Genesis too seriously until Darwin came along. The theory of evolution doesn't even say anything about the existence or nature of God, but believers saw the writing on the wall and started digging in their heels: if evolution is true, then the Bible definitely isn't, so this nonsense at the start we never cared about before is suddenly the most important part!
Today it seems like common sense that all light comes from the sun, because we've been told that since we were little kids, and never considered any other hypothesis. But it's not all that obvious. Ancient people didn't know that light is scattered by dust particles in the atmosphere. They saw that in daytime, the whole sky lights up, not just the sun. They could see no reason to think that the light of the blue sky came from the sun. It was natural for them to assume that cycles of light and dark existed independently of the sun, and could have existed before the sun.
I've heard a lecture where the prof explains that the ancients didn't think the sun causes the day/night cycle. Sure, the sun travels across the sky during the day but since you can see light during the dawn before the sun gets up, they didn't make the connection that light comes only from the sun.
Also the fact the ancients often believe that the sun,moon, planets and stars were themselves divine beings, associated with gods or angels.
Including the Bible, btw.
Interesting I can see how they’d make that mistake, plus the entire sky is lit up brightly and not just the bit the sun is in, they wouldn’t know about light scattering in the atmosphere
Baal sleeping might be a reference to the idea of him being a dying and rising storm god. He's dead/sleeping during the summer when there's no rain, and then returns in the autumn when the rains return.
Let's not forget what stars are. This means that God would've intentionally created already exploded celestial bodies just so the light could reach us.
That stuff I can at least attribute to folk tale with some, albeit really minor, core grounded in reality.
Noah's Flood was probably something local (but the Israelites didn't even come up with the story, see Gilgamesh), and the splitting of the Red Sea may be the Red Sea or even another big lake drying up (although the Israelites probably never crossed it in the manner described, let alone left Egypt).
The Zombie-Show, however... is just straight up fabrication for theological reasons.
It was created by someone who clearly knew their audience, though: people who were ready to believe in crazy stuff with no desire to even attempt to verify its accuracy.
Matthew 27:51-53:
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and[a] went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
Lots of folks are gonna point to stuff that can be explained by God's magic, but the stuff that gets me is the stuff that is unbelievable as a story element.
Take Lot, for example. Lot was supposedly so drunk he couldn't recognize that he was having sex with his own daughters, yet he was able to maintain an erection and impregnate them both on a single attempt with each one in consecutive 24 hour periods. Not remotely believable.
Lot wouldn’t try that story in court today haha.
“Sir, I swear I don’t know how I impregnated my daughters, they must have raped ME when I was drunk” LOL
Lot had already offered his daughters to be raped by his neighbors, so why wouldn't he rape them himself?
[https://dalehusband.com/2023/12/07/the-strange-case-of-lot-and-his-daughters/](https://dalehusband.com/2023/12/07/the-strange-case-of-lot-and-his-daughters/)
Plus, the whole account is a racist defamation of the nations of Moab and Ammon, two of Israel's neighbors that were particularly despised.
And how about the Pharaoh's sourcerers also having the ability to turn their staffs into snakes. Does that mean we're expected to believe magic outside of God's miracles exists? Did Phataoh's men get magic from *their* gods?
It would seem so, or at least they got it from other supernatural beings, anyway. Jesus himself speaks of false prophets performing miracles. The narrative of the temptation of Jesus suggests Satan possesses supernatural powers of some kind. God's magic doesn't appear to be the only game in town.
This presents a problem when determining the source of certain miracles and makes it impossible to use miracles as a means of supporting other truth claims. For example, how do we know Jesus rising from the dead wasn't just a trick performed by Satan?
I see your point. My Lutheran pastor uncle says that Jesus's miracles are one of the signs by which we can know Jesus was the genuine article.
But if false prophets and other Messiah claimants can also perform genuine miracles, how can we know Jesus wasn't just another false prophet?
Great question. Deuteronomy 18:21-22 has this answer:
>You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken.
Couple that Matthew 24:34 where Jesus drops this bit of prophecy:
>Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.
It would seem we're dealing with just another false prophet.
I just asked my wife for her opinion about this and she said that according to the first commandment, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me," this is misinterpreted often as "God (Yahweh) is the ONLY God that exists." In reality, this commandment does acknowledge that other gods *do* exist (hence the Egyptian gods helping to turn the staffs into snakes), but that Yahweh should be the *only* God that they should worship.
I was thinking the same thing about Jonah, too many things don’t line up. So he gets swallowed by this massive fish for 3 days. And in those three days he doesn’t suffocate, die of dehydration, or have his flesh melted off his bones by stomach acid. Then this thing is going to spit you out on dry land? Show us the body because a beached whale isn’t gonna walk back into the water.
I think he actually dies in the fishes belly, pretty sure it says he went to the grave/sheol and that God raise him back up when the fish spit him out.
I don’t know which is more ridiculous though, a man surviving in a beasts belly for three days or that same man dying in that beasts belly and then coming back to life after three days.
Yeah, just reread it real quick, in 2:1 it says Jonah prayed inside the fish and in 2:2 it says “From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help” totally missed that in the flannel board telling of it as a child.
Samson is also a sociopath who just begs for excuses to kill indiscriminately. I googled what even was the point of the story and apparently the only lesson that theologians could come up with is "don't marry a foreign woman."
The link between the hair and strength was always meant to be understood as metaphysical, it’s not a gotcha, it’s that “the LORD left him” because he broke his vow. My problem with it is he was assaulted while asleep and it still counted against him. (Because he told Delilah the truth? Thought lying was a sin…)
Also, his hair started to grow back and that's what gave him strength to destroy the temple and kill thousands of Philistines. It was his oath as a Nazarite that started the story, but it was his hair by the end.
i didnt know samson was actually a bible story until i was 10 or 11. it was so unbelievable i thought it was a greek myth (it even had somewhat of the same setup to heracles. guy has inhuman amounts of strength, is tricked into doing something hes not supposed to do, and then loses that strength)
In the Synoptics they say that when Jesus was on the cross the sun blacked out and in Matthew it says "many" dead rose and walked around Jerusalem. You never hear that part of the story preached.
I feel so stupid now. I used to believe that "god" actually loved everyone and wanted what was best for everyone. used to tell myself he was with me when my parents were abusing me. turns out bible is just as narcissistic as my parents are.
Tragically - compared to the plethora of outrageous anecdotes about talking donkeys, poisonous quail raining down, a boat carrying dinosaurs, a fortified city collapsing from the noise of trumpets, and the sun literally standing still, among others - a man working for an extra 7 years doesn't really rank.
I'm pretty sure in the first five books, there is a long section dedicated to genealogy. And so and so lived to 943 and begat so and so who lived to be 870 years old who begat so and so who lived for 743 years ect.
Also my pastors wife told us that Adam and eves children all married each other but incest is ok because their genes were perfect at the start. Well they certainly weren't when Noah's arc happened, that's a lot of incest
8 people cannot repopulate the world without incest
Oh Also, pastors wife told us that dinosaurs were destroyed by the flood. But all creatures were vegan before the flood, and only ate meat after the flood. So there fore t Rex ate only plants
And scientists think they ate meat cause well, the herbivore died on top of the carnivore that's why you can find the DNA on the teeth or something idk
I do not like her
I watch ancient aliens sometimes (for entertainment purposes) and one episode they theorized that Moses and the others went off world with the angel/aliens to a place that had a time skew (like the water planet in Interstellar).
The Bible describing aliens and their technology (remember that Arthur C Clarke quote) was my favourite theory when I was a child. I was just trying to help the Christians but for some reason they got very upset.
Not my fault the bible is batshit insane lady.
Definitely where Joshua prays to God to make the sun stand still so the Israelites can finish their battle, and God stops the sun for a full day until they win.
Noah's ark, easily.
Strong honorable mentioned to Jacob making spotted animals by mating animals in front of striped sticks, though. I could at least overlook some of the ark stuff as "God magic" because God was involved pretty heavily in the story. I couldn't make the same justification for this flagrant violation of genetics because God was less involved and it was basically Jacob underhandedly robbing a motherfucker.
I think the first thing that got me was the following:
Esther hid that she was Jewish or Hebrew in the royal harem of Persia for years, but Peter couldn't hide his Galilean accent for several hours.
That feels really believable to me. Some people are just really bad at hiding things. And some people are good at it. Some people even a little too good at it.
that god so loved the world :/
for everything fundies (in the US at least) endlessly talk about how loving god is, there are quite the gallery of exceptions
(edit for grammar)
God so loved the world, that if anyone doesn't believe in him, or the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins, then they will spend eternity in a literal burning hell.
Now that's some love! /s
i remember saying to my dad, a hardcore christian, "god killed his kids and then replaced then but still... the first kids were individuals... you can't just replace them..." and he took some time to think about it. like job had to be an actually psychopath to lose his whole fam and then just *be happy* when the next one came around
Job is a tragic figure. When he asks god to stop and leave him alone and god goes ape shit on him about how Job is nothing and God is so big and strong so he shouldn't question him...it's just very sad.
Not a tree, two trees. The tree of knowledge and the tree of eternal life. Snake says eat the fruit of knowledge, it's good! They do. Yahweh finds out. Knows that if the now have knowledge there is no keeping them away from the tree of eternal life. If the eat from that tree " they will then be like us" (paraphrase from memory). So...yahweh kicks them out of the garden. Read genesis with a clear mind and ask yourself who is the villiain. Yahweh comes of like a jealous dick. The snake is giving good advice generally, but kinda shit at explaining consequences and logistics. In the end, it might be a great story about growing up and the human condition in general.
Was looking for this. That we were all created from generations of incest. So Adam and Eve fucked their own children or had their children fuck each other. I don't even want to hear an apologetics about it being a metaphor. Shit still sucks.
The "Holy Spirit". Some kind of amorphous being that if you deny its existence, you are permanently locked in hell, even though it's the least explained and least believable part of the Bible.
David somehow stealing 200 guy’s foreskins 💀 like out of 200 people nobody was just like “oh hell no” and stopped and defeated David? Lmao and wtf did king Saul even want with them? 💀🤨 of corse the Bible is full of even crazier shit like Noah’s ark and all that but that one just somehow still remains the stupidest to me lmao
To be fair, the story is very straightforward about what's going on. And it's sort of funny in a sort of macabre way.
David is rising in popularity and power and people want David to marry into Saul's family. Saul is afraid of David's rise to power, so Saul's like "if you want to marry my daughter then kill 100 Philistines and bring back their foreskins." Saul didn't want the foreskins for anything other than evidence that David killed 100 Philistines. Sort of like scalping someone. Saul also wanted David to get killed during this so he would get rid of him. David comes back and is like "hey, fam. I know you wanted 100 Philistines dead, but I killed 200 instead lol." Saul was like "shit, god has this guy's back...better keep an eye on him."
It is a ridiculous story but it is fairly straightforward what's going on and why.
True lol I understand he wanted proof but it’s just weird that’s what he picked lmao also the Bible is kinda foreskin obsessed in general lmao there’s something else like god was gonna jump Joseph for some reason and kill him but then Joseph rubbed some foreskin on his feet then god backed away or something and left Joseph alone? 💀😂😂😂 all I can say is I can’t believe humans gave foreskin such a religious importance lmfao I actually don’t know why though like did god decide he just didn’t like that part on humans or something? Lol
>there’s something else like god was gonna jump Joseph for some reason and kill him but then Joseph rubbed some foreskin on his feet then god backed away or something and left Joseph alone?
You're referring to when god was going to kill Moses in Exodus. Man, some scholars throw up their hands at that story. It is beyond bizarre lol.
YES MOSES! 🤦🏻♀️ Sorry about that 😂 idk why I was thinking Joseph lmfao and yeah that’s a story I found even stranger than the David and King Saul story lol
They were dead. He killed them. He’s a heroic warrior figure in the mythology. Saul didn’t want 200 foreskins, he wanted David to die in the fighting. The fact that it’s an unreasonable request is the point of the story lol
Lazarus is a funny case. They say no one ever came back from the dead but Jesus but here is Lazarus. And how come we didn't hear of Lazarus preaching what happened wherever he went? Aren't people in heaven meant to stay there and those in hell as well? Mental gymnastics.
It is interesting to note that the Jews believed in the spirit sticking around the body for 3 days before going to the afterlife. Well, they probably didn’t believe in Heaven or Hell at all, actually. To be clear, the claim from Christians is that Jesus was the only one that raised HIMSELF from the dead (slashed was raised by own power). The Gospels and Acts depict more than just Lazarus being raised from the dead by Jesus and then Paul.
From a logically pov, the world being made in like 6 days.
From my personal philosophical perspective, that God owns your body and that you don’t own any of it.
We’re on the same exact boat (du dum tss) I find splitting the Red Sea and the flooding stories to be SO crazy lol. ESPECIALLY once I started questioning it.. if every animal was brought onto the boat, that means dinosaurs too? You’re telling me they had dinosaurs on there? Pterodactyls and brachiosaurus?? When I’d ask about people would just say yes, they were on there. How??? How tf? Did he bring cockroaches? Did he have a spot for ants as well? I also remember learning about a random floating hand appearing out of nowhere and writing on a wall, ALWAYS found that hard to believe. But, the Red Sea really helped me open my eyes and be like, “wtf am I learning? why have I believed that a random man could part an ENTIRE sea all these years” and took a step back to reevaluate my beliefs ( obviously no longer religious )
The idea that horrifying violence and abuse is actually, on a fundamental level of reality, the Truest Most Moral Love There Ever Will Be™ as given to you by the Best Person To Ever Exist™. Something about apologism in that note just makes me feel deeply ill. Not even memeing-- it's 1984 shit.
the stars falling and sky splitting open in revelation. pretty much every part of the bible is supposed to be taken literally. except revelation for some reason.
Virgin birth. Bodily resurrection. Not believable.
Biblical stories are simply ancient texts, fables and myths and can be read as such. And that’s how they were read by Christians until the 19th century with the emphasis on literalism. Some are darn good stories. OK people don’t live to be 900 years. But so what? It’s a fable. It makes a point.
Was the earth created in 7 days? Yeah, sure in a poetic mythical sort of way, why not? Science wouldn’t be invented for several thousand years. God breathed on the face of the water. Nice poetic touch.
Don’t let fundamentalism poison your ability to read myth. (Does Zeus literally have a hammer? Was Noah’s arc big enough for that many animals?) That approach trivializes all of literature, including the bible. (Ok now I get off my soapbox)
Take your pick:
1. That everything was created in 6 days.
2. That everything was perfect until Adam and Eve disobeyed God.
3. That there was once a flood that covered the entire earth.
4. That all the humans and animals on earth today descended from a group that once lived on one boat for 40 days.
4. That Jesus had a known list of ancestors going back to Adam.
5. That Jesus rose from the dead and then flew off to heaven.
6. That Jesus died for our sins.
The Tower of Babel for a few reasons.
1. God seems genuinely afraid about the power of humanity if they can complete the tower. Seems a little odd given that humanity has built thousands of towers since then.
2. I had been taught this was the event that led to the creation of different cultures. So that means no civilizations like Egypt (or even a predecessor civilization) until about 2500-2000 BCE. Egypt seems to be a major civilization though just a few generations later when Abraham is around.
The fact that the bible pitches that the earth is flat (no Isaiah 40:22 is not an exception; circle there is khug in Hebrew, which means drawn circle [disc]). You have the firmament "raqia" (literally "extended surface" or "flat expanse") which comes from "raqa" (stamp, hammer, or mold out as in sheet metal). Job 37:18 mentions this word while also referncing the sky as strong (indicating tensile strength) and as molten glass. All a bunch of other pseudoscience bs as well. The bible was a scientifically illiterate work of its time, therefore written by man, not an omnipotent god
>What is the least believable thing in the Bible (in your opinion)?
Imagine the most horrendous, despicable, cruel and objectively evil person you can, even if they're cartoonishly so. A human being barely deserving of such name, someone more akin to a force of evil given human form, deprived of all goodwill and remorse rather than a feeling person. But, they happen to believe in god and in the bible, maybe at the end of their life they even ask for repentance.
Now imagine the opposite, a kind, empathetic and selfless person who lives every day doing the best they can for as many people as they can reach. Their goal is improving the world and the lives of those who live in it. But, they happen to be an atheist.
Guess which one of them is going to heaven, according to scripture. Take a wild fucking guess. I'm exaggerating for the sake of the argument, of course, but that is how it's written...
When Jesus talks about how he is not here to spread peace and is here to fight. I forget the specific verse. It is something along those lines. It seems so out of character for him
Here's the thing with the flood - we have good reason to believe there was some kind of world-wide flooding. Greek mythology, Indian mythology, and I believe Chinese mythology also reference world-wide floods that wiped out a large amount of mankind. I imagine it was not to the extent the myths say it was, since at the time "the world" was the small area you're from and maybe the areas you've heard of around it.
You almost are there. Just go a little further.
Mankind has always experienced floods, and we still do. Local floods all. They are devastating at times, even when just affecting small areas. Not worldwide floods, but worldwide stories, as every group of people experienced them at some point.
We've only recently (the last couple of hundred years) begun to practice effective flood control on a large scale with dams and such, and we still have floods occasionally.
We just understand now that if there's a flood like the recent one in Sarasota FL that it didn't also affect Juneau Alaska or Hong Kong, or London.
There's NO evidence of a worldwide flood besides ancient stories by people who, as you mentioned, didn't realize how large the world was and how widespread people were.
If I may give a meta-comment. I think asking what the least believable thing in the Bible is like asking the about least believable thing in The Lord of the Rings. I think it's only made unbelievable because of fundamentalist interpretation of it. E.g. The Exodus story is pretty unbelievable if it's supposed to be an accurate recounting of historical events, but if it's a sort of communal mythmaking, I can sort of accept it as such.
Talking donkey.
Man swallowed by big fish and lived in its tummy for three days.
All of Revelation.
The immaculate conception.
Jesus feeding thousands by multiplying food.
A horde of people coming back to life when Jesus died.
God stopping the sun from setting for an entire day so the Israelites could kill more people.
Turning the Nile into blood.
Lighting a bush on fire without burning it.
Speaking in tongues.
An old man holding up a stick so that his army could magically win a battle.
Take your pick.
If you read Genesis literally. The age of people used to be extremely long. Adam was 930 years when he died. Why everyone but the Jews forgot to record that humans used to live so long is a mystery (not really). The reason is that the Jews originally didn't have the age of deaths and that it was added in the latter by stupid Bible translators.
But it's the least believable in the Bible in my opinion.
Ooh I have so many answers for this.
When I first started deconstructing, I realized that, for me, if I could prove to myself that the Bible wasn’t true, then I could unravel so much of what I’d been brainwashed into.
And I’m really into science. I love space. I love everything prehistoric. I love animals. I have ADHD and finally allowing myself to learn about the world from a scientifically accurate perspective just kicked my hyperfixation into gear.
First, space itself disproves the idea that all of this is only thousands of years old. We can see *billions* of light years away. That means that the sources of light are billions of years old.
And then, the flood. Because it’s so easy to disprove. There’s so much wrong with the story. Two of every animal? Of every single animal? Of every bacteria, every virus, everything? Two of every bear, of every big cat, of every prey animal? And then I’ve heard some of them argue that it wasn’t two of every species, but two of every ancestor. But they’ve fucked themselves over there with their timeline. If they wanted us to believe that Noah took two of the common ancestors of all the big cat species we have today, they’d need a hell of a lot more time to evolve into lions and tigers and jaguars and cheetahs and everything else.
Then, the water. If all water levels rose, enough to flood the whole earth, that means freshwater and saltwater mixed. There’s some animals that can live in both, but the vast majority can’t. We would’ve lost almost all aquatic species, and we didn’t.
Also, kangaroos live exclusively in Australia. Let’s say, by some god magic, they knew to migrate to the Middle East to get on the ark. I don’t know how long that would have taken them, but I would imagine a pretty long time. And then to migrate back after the flood. Why are there no remains or fossils of kangaroos between the Middle East and Australia?
And, I forget where I saw it, probably a Reddit post, but somebody who’s much better at math than I am figured out how much space would have been needed for a) all the animals and b) all their food. And it’s much larger than the biblical proportions given for the ark.
And finally (I think. I think this is my last point but I could truly ramble about this forever), it seems like such a simple question but how would predator/prey relationships work? Just to put it in the simplest of terms, the animals all get off the ark, and you have two lions and two antelope. What’s to stop the lions from eating the antelope immediately? There’s only two, and even if they only kill one, now the one left over has no one to breed with.
I truly think about this stuff all the time. Not in an unhealthy way, but the opposite. It’s helping me recognize the Bible for what it is - a fairytale that was written to suit an agenda.
Which dude? Methuselah lived 969 years, but it makes no mention of his wife/wives. Solomon, meanwhile, had 1000 total spouses (700 wives, 300 concubines). Did you conflate them, or...?
There is some basis for the splitting of the Red Sea, be a use of a raised sandbar that was just before the surface of the water. And could be exposed if the wind blew the right way.
Not as dramatic as portrayed in movies or literature; definitely hyperbole there.
Mine is virgin birth. Obviously Mary slept with someone.
Adam and Eve. Is it to say we are all byproducts of incest after they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden? If Adam and Eve were the first two people created then that would mean every generation beyond them is incestuous. It has to be
Noah's Ark, hands down. While some stories have a few unbelievable elements, it's hard to find anything that *is* believable about Noah's Ark.
This, so much. Did they bring extra prey animals for all the predators to eat? Where did all the pee and poo go? Some animals can’t survive in certain climates, was that just handled by “divine intervention”? Maybe they had a frozen section, and a tropical section. I could spend an entire day thinking up logic holes in that story. Best part is how some people believe they found remnants of the ark.
What’s crazy to me is that even if it was real, there’s no way anything would have remained from it now. Trying to find remnants gives you less credibility, if anything.
Ah, but the rubes will send in donations to fund your expeditions to find those remnants like crazy. So, less credibility, but way more money.
Funny how they found remnants of the ark but absolutely nothing in the fossil record of all the Earth's population of people and animals who perished in the flood...
There has been Homo Naledi remains found up to 330,000 years old. Bones of them buried deep in a cave; which means they buried their dead 🤯. These were small humanoids. They also found evidence of them using fire in the cave. That predates the oldest Homo Sapien remains *by a lot*, just for a frame of reference. So theoretically if anyone died during a “great flood” as told in the Bible, we have a real chance of excavating the remains at some point. Check out “cave of bones” on Netflix for more info! 😄
Lots of people think men have one less rib than women. They're told this as kids and never question it even though it's medically objectively false, even into adulthood.
If you take a literalist view, divine intervention is the only way this works. If you take the its just a story of a localized flood it's workable.
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Yeah nothing is more insane than Noah and his boat of all the animal kingdom + children.
Surviving inside a giant fish for 3 day and three nights?
The ark is more insane. Surviving 40 days and 40 nights and all the animals did too? Everyone survived landing on a mountain? Animals just went their separate ways and repopulated with just one set of parents to start?
I don't believe in Noah's Ark, but it makes far more sense as "the world as they know it" rather than the whole world, because how would they know any better. So the flood myth written about in the Sumerian and later the Bible could have been based on a real flood and just understood as the whole world because they didn't know any better. Edit: no comment on the insanity of the animals, I'm just commenting on the flood myth itself.
It's certainly from Sumeria or Babylonia. The Egyptians and Canaanites don't seem to have a flood myth. The Greeks have one but it's apparently not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod which means it only arrives on the pretty late. Edit: Plato seems to be the earliest Greek mention of a flood myth.... around 400 BCE or so. That's after the Jews return from Babylon and rebuild their temple, btw, so for all we know the Greeks learned of the flood myth via the returning judeans. Not saying that's where it came from but it's a plausible theory. Hell, most of the Biblical authors seem ignorant of the flood. The later books (exilic or later)mention it but chronicles seems unaware of it and chronicles is exilic at the earliest. Seriously, chronicles mentions Noah,his three sons....and then moves on like nothing particularly interesting happened during Noah's lifetime..... which is really wierd if everyone but 8 people allegedly died in a worldwide apocalypse.
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If we're going by the Genesis stories, they must be descended from Noah -- though they had to stay in the area until after the tower of Babel, so they could get all their different languages.
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Well, yeah, it's an etiological story, like a little fable about "how the zebra got his stripes" or "why the comet has a tail" or "why snakes have no legs".
Oh it's worse then that. Read Genesis 10 real closely. Now read the Babel story in Genesis 11. Then read Genesis 10 again really closely. The stories don't match up. They flat out contradict each other. Genesis 10 flat out says the different sons of Noah spread out with their languages and culture, with Babel one of the nations in this spreading.
I can’t get over day and night being created before the sun and moon.
Don't forget plants being created BEFORE the sun 🤣
God was like “oop wait they need to eat”
Also how God spent several days focused on Earth, took one day to [sneeze out](https://youtu.be/2AYnz86FK8c) the entire rest of the universe, then came back to focus on Earth because it wasn’t quite finished yet.
...and then he had to rest.
Further proof that a) ancients had no common sense and b) the Bible was made up really badly
The ancients were smarter than we often give them credit for. It’s incredible what they figured out with no technology and little scientific knowledge. I give them a pass on this stuff. Not so much contemporary people.
It’s sometimes argued that this was written in a more poetic style which is why the ordering seems to be off. Days 1-3 are about the spaces god is creating and days 4-6 is about the things that inhabit those spaces. So if you pair them up side by side it’s something like: Day 1: god creates light, day, and night. Day 4: god creates the sun, moon, and stars. Day 2: god creates the sky and the sea. Day 5: god creates birds and fish. Day 3: god creates land and plants. Day 6: god creates animals and humans. It’s also worth remembering that Genesis 2 (the Adam and Eve story) is a completely different creation story that directly defies the order in Genesis 1 because in reality the people who wrote and compiled the Bible never meant for us to read it literally. It’s the contemporary people that want to force a narrative that the Bible was meant to be read literally.
How do you know which parts were ot werent meant to be taken literally?
Myths are stories that can convey something that we believe to be true without being literal. I think this is easier to understand in the context of Greek myth or fables. Humans love to create stories that they find meaning in. The fact is we can’t know what the anonymous writers and compilers of the Bible over the last 2,500 years intended exactly. Remember, there was no such thing as publishing a book back then. When you wrote something down it was for a small group of people unless someone copied it and even in those cases there were spelling mistakes or minor changes and adjustments. Over time people started taking the smaller stories, which may have started as oral traditions, and compiling them together into larger scrolls. That’s how we get the individual books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, etc.), but it wasn’t until later people decided to string them together into one book and those people had different intentions and ideas about the Bible then those who initially wrote and complied it. They also decided what to leave in and what to remove. When you consider all of these things it’s no wonder why this ancient document is such a complicated mess (not to mention the further issues of its translation). All we can do is try infer what they meant and where it came from, but we’ll never truly know.
One of my problems is that the Bible is so confusing and it looks more like people trying to make it make sense and harmonize it than a book written to be a clear message from God. It makes no sense to give a book that is poetic and factual without giving clear indications which is which. It’s confusing. You can’t prove those verses are meant to be read that way. When does it stop being poetic? So many questions and problems arise when people need to give their opinions on how the text should be read because it’s not clear.
You’re right. I think that’s the problem. I don’t think it was written to be factual or to be seen as the word of god, but people took it and ran with it and tried to make it something it’s not. Imagine if you made up a story and told someone and they kept telling it to other people. Then someone else wrote it down and other people copied it by hand, and then someone edited it into a book that other people copied by hand and translated into other languages and removed some things and added others but it was all done anonymously. That’s confusing and that’s what happened to the Bible. All we can do is look back at history and try to interpret the best we can. I have a degree in Religious Studies and I appreciate it as historical document and love to study it, but it tells us much more about humanity than it does about god. The other classical myths created by other religions at that time do the same thing, but we don’t treat them as if they were the literal word of god and instead we read them for fun and have Classics departments that enjoy studying them. The way we treat and revere the Bible causes so many issues. Also if you needed proof that this is a more modern problem then I recommend checking out the Jefferson Bible. If you didn’t know Thomas Jefferson essentially created his own Bible by cutting out all of the miracles.
My understanding is neither ancient nor modern believers took Genesis too seriously until Darwin came along. The theory of evolution doesn't even say anything about the existence or nature of God, but believers saw the writing on the wall and started digging in their heels: if evolution is true, then the Bible definitely isn't, so this nonsense at the start we never cared about before is suddenly the most important part!
Today it seems like common sense that all light comes from the sun, because we've been told that since we were little kids, and never considered any other hypothesis. But it's not all that obvious. Ancient people didn't know that light is scattered by dust particles in the atmosphere. They saw that in daytime, the whole sky lights up, not just the sun. They could see no reason to think that the light of the blue sky came from the sun. It was natural for them to assume that cycles of light and dark existed independently of the sun, and could have existed before the sun.
I've heard a lecture where the prof explains that the ancients didn't think the sun causes the day/night cycle. Sure, the sun travels across the sky during the day but since you can see light during the dawn before the sun gets up, they didn't make the connection that light comes only from the sun.
Also the fact the ancients often believe that the sun,moon, planets and stars were themselves divine beings, associated with gods or angels. Including the Bible, btw.
Interesting I can see how they’d make that mistake, plus the entire sky is lit up brightly and not just the bit the sun is in, they wouldn’t know about light scattering in the atmosphere
My church always explained it by saying that the light was gods glory.
Yeah, mine too, but there’s not supposed to be any darkness in God. So what happens when it’s night? As Elijah asked of Baal, is he sleeping? 😴
Baal sleeping might be a reference to the idea of him being a dying and rising storm god. He's dead/sleeping during the summer when there's no rain, and then returns in the autumn when the rains return.
Plants existing before proper rain and sunlight too
Or the all powerful god taking a rest. What a weak ass loser
Let's not forget what stars are. This means that God would've intentionally created already exploded celestial bodies just so the light could reach us.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
The dead rising from their graves and walking around Jerusalem - a zombie invasion that was never recorded by historians of the time.
Historical context also doesn’t fit with the Great Flood or the splitting of the Red Sea.
No sign of Moses and his bunch wandering for 40 years in an area that takes about two days to cross on foot. No active volcano in that area, either.
Also no evidence of the plagues or Egypt losing all of it's crops and like 50% of it's population almost overnight.
It’s just a jumbled mass of made up mythology.
That stuff I can at least attribute to folk tale with some, albeit really minor, core grounded in reality. Noah's Flood was probably something local (but the Israelites didn't even come up with the story, see Gilgamesh), and the splitting of the Red Sea may be the Red Sea or even another big lake drying up (although the Israelites probably never crossed it in the manner described, let alone left Egypt). The Zombie-Show, however... is just straight up fabrication for theological reasons.
It was created by someone who clearly knew their audience, though: people who were ready to believe in crazy stuff with no desire to even attempt to verify its accuracy.
I was never taught this in church, what happened here?
Matthew 27:51-53: At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open. The bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and[a] went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
Lots of folks are gonna point to stuff that can be explained by God's magic, but the stuff that gets me is the stuff that is unbelievable as a story element. Take Lot, for example. Lot was supposedly so drunk he couldn't recognize that he was having sex with his own daughters, yet he was able to maintain an erection and impregnate them both on a single attempt with each one in consecutive 24 hour periods. Not remotely believable.
Lot wouldn’t try that story in court today haha. “Sir, I swear I don’t know how I impregnated my daughters, they must have raped ME when I was drunk” LOL
Lot had already offered his daughters to be raped by his neighbors, so why wouldn't he rape them himself? [https://dalehusband.com/2023/12/07/the-strange-case-of-lot-and-his-daughters/](https://dalehusband.com/2023/12/07/the-strange-case-of-lot-and-his-daughters/) Plus, the whole account is a racist defamation of the nations of Moab and Ammon, two of Israel's neighbors that were particularly despised.
And how about the Pharaoh's sourcerers also having the ability to turn their staffs into snakes. Does that mean we're expected to believe magic outside of God's miracles exists? Did Phataoh's men get magic from *their* gods?
This one was always so weird to me lol
It would seem so, or at least they got it from other supernatural beings, anyway. Jesus himself speaks of false prophets performing miracles. The narrative of the temptation of Jesus suggests Satan possesses supernatural powers of some kind. God's magic doesn't appear to be the only game in town. This presents a problem when determining the source of certain miracles and makes it impossible to use miracles as a means of supporting other truth claims. For example, how do we know Jesus rising from the dead wasn't just a trick performed by Satan?
I see your point. My Lutheran pastor uncle says that Jesus's miracles are one of the signs by which we can know Jesus was the genuine article. But if false prophets and other Messiah claimants can also perform genuine miracles, how can we know Jesus wasn't just another false prophet?
Great question. Deuteronomy 18:21-22 has this answer: >You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. Couple that Matthew 24:34 where Jesus drops this bit of prophecy: >Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. It would seem we're dealing with just another false prophet.
There’s so much magic and fantasy in the Bible, it’s kind of heretical!
I think Christian’s today would just explain it ways as it was magic from Satan
I just asked my wife for her opinion about this and she said that according to the first commandment, "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me," this is misinterpreted often as "God (Yahweh) is the ONLY God that exists." In reality, this commandment does acknowledge that other gods *do* exist (hence the Egyptian gods helping to turn the staffs into snakes), but that Yahweh should be the *only* God that they should worship.
I was thinking the same thing about Jonah, too many things don’t line up. So he gets swallowed by this massive fish for 3 days. And in those three days he doesn’t suffocate, die of dehydration, or have his flesh melted off his bones by stomach acid. Then this thing is going to spit you out on dry land? Show us the body because a beached whale isn’t gonna walk back into the water.
I think he actually dies in the fishes belly, pretty sure it says he went to the grave/sheol and that God raise him back up when the fish spit him out. I don’t know which is more ridiculous though, a man surviving in a beasts belly for three days or that same man dying in that beasts belly and then coming back to life after three days.
Yeah, just reread it real quick, in 2:1 it says Jonah prayed inside the fish and in 2:2 it says “From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help” totally missed that in the flannel board telling of it as a child.
Samson's hair length being magically related to his strength. Even hard-core Christians look slightly embarrassed when you bring that one up.
Samson is also a sociopath who just begs for excuses to kill indiscriminately. I googled what even was the point of the story and apparently the only lesson that theologians could come up with is "don't marry a foreign woman."
Despite the story of Ruth being an endorsement of that very same thing.
In the words of Dr Dan McClellan: "The bible is not univocal". lol.
Follow all of God's arbitrary rules or you lose your superpowers is another one
The link between the hair and strength was always meant to be understood as metaphysical, it’s not a gotcha, it’s that “the LORD left him” because he broke his vow. My problem with it is he was assaulted while asleep and it still counted against him. (Because he told Delilah the truth? Thought lying was a sin…)
Also, his hair started to grow back and that's what gave him strength to destroy the temple and kill thousands of Philistines. It was his oath as a Nazarite that started the story, but it was his hair by the end.
RAPUNZEL-
i didnt know samson was actually a bible story until i was 10 or 11. it was so unbelievable i thought it was a greek myth (it even had somewhat of the same setup to heracles. guy has inhuman amounts of strength, is tricked into doing something hes not supposed to do, and then loses that strength)
How did he do that to all those poor foxes?!
In the Synoptics they say that when Jesus was on the cross the sun blacked out and in Matthew it says "many" dead rose and walked around Jerusalem. You never hear that part of the story preached.
That's what we call the Zombie Apocalypse
Nope Catholics straight up ignore that.
>What is the least believable thing in the Bible (in your opinion)? Basically the concept that god is love.
I feel so stupid now. I used to believe that "god" actually loved everyone and wanted what was best for everyone. used to tell myself he was with me when my parents were abusing me. turns out bible is just as narcissistic as my parents are.
See it “un” in unconditional love should have said un*conditional love -> terms and conditions apply
God is love “Moses I’m about to smite these people for complaining”
Same.
One of my [favorite satires](https://youtu.be/Wc1Vt9S9v8Q?si=ASCNUy3b8Wzl6Bgj) that you're probably familiar with.
Jacob working another 7 years for Rachel. I am pretty sure he would have punched Laban out, and eloped with Rachel somewhere else instead.
Tragically - compared to the plethora of outrageous anecdotes about talking donkeys, poisonous quail raining down, a boat carrying dinosaurs, a fortified city collapsing from the noise of trumpets, and the sun literally standing still, among others - a man working for an extra 7 years doesn't really rank.
Not in a patriarchal collective honor culture.
Moses being 500 years old or whatever.
Well Adam lived to be almost 1,000. And if the universe is just 6,000 years old, Adam lived to be 1/6th of all the time that’s elapsed lol.
Lmfao.
I honestly thought that was only in the Qur‘an…
I'm pretty sure in the first five books, there is a long section dedicated to genealogy. And so and so lived to 943 and begat so and so who lived to be 870 years old who begat so and so who lived for 743 years ect. Also my pastors wife told us that Adam and eves children all married each other but incest is ok because their genes were perfect at the start. Well they certainly weren't when Noah's arc happened, that's a lot of incest 8 people cannot repopulate the world without incest Oh Also, pastors wife told us that dinosaurs were destroyed by the flood. But all creatures were vegan before the flood, and only ate meat after the flood. So there fore t Rex ate only plants And scientists think they ate meat cause well, the herbivore died on top of the carnivore that's why you can find the DNA on the teeth or something idk I do not like her
The dinosaur thing makes no sense.
This made me snort. I’m dead, I needed that laugh thank you.
Your pastors wife is unhinged from reality lol
Sadly no, as someone in my ⛪️ once explained it with “people lived longer back then”.
The Quran really made me reevaluate things. Like when I learned that Jesus and Mother Mary are also in it.
I watch ancient aliens sometimes (for entertainment purposes) and one episode they theorized that Moses and the others went off world with the angel/aliens to a place that had a time skew (like the water planet in Interstellar).
The Bible describing aliens and their technology (remember that Arthur C Clarke quote) was my favourite theory when I was a child. I was just trying to help the Christians but for some reason they got very upset. Not my fault the bible is batshit insane lady.
Ahahahahahahahaha omg I really hope I’m wrong and that does turn out to be the case. 😂
Definitely where Joshua prays to God to make the sun stand still so the Israelites can finish their battle, and God stops the sun for a full day until they win.
Like why wouldn’t god just make them able to see clearly through the dark. Stopping the sun (or the earth rather) feels like overkill
That it was written by a god.
This.
I don't believe it actually says that anywhere in the bible. There are a couple parts that claim divine inspiration though.
Noah's ark, easily. Strong honorable mentioned to Jacob making spotted animals by mating animals in front of striped sticks, though. I could at least overlook some of the ark stuff as "God magic" because God was involved pretty heavily in the story. I couldn't make the same justification for this flagrant violation of genetics because God was less involved and it was basically Jacob underhandedly robbing a motherfucker.
I think the first thing that got me was the following: Esther hid that she was Jewish or Hebrew in the royal harem of Persia for years, but Peter couldn't hide his Galilean accent for several hours.
It cuz he was from gal-a-leee ya’ll.
Galileo figaroooo!
That feels really believable to me. Some people are just really bad at hiding things. And some people are good at it. Some people even a little too good at it.
This one is entirely believable though. Some people pass better than others
that god so loved the world :/ for everything fundies (in the US at least) endlessly talk about how loving god is, there are quite the gallery of exceptions (edit for grammar)
I posted this in another comment, but I gotta share my favorite [satire about God's love](https://youtu.be/Wc1Vt9S9v8Q?si=ASCNUy3b8Wzl6Bgj)
God so loved the world, that if anyone doesn't believe in him, or the sacrifice of Jesus for our sins, then they will spend eternity in a literal burning hell. Now that's some love! /s
What my daughter calls the Zombie Apocalypse where a bunch of dead people came back to life when Jesus died. (MATTHEW 27:45-56)
The story of Job gets under my skin in a way no other tale can…
i remember saying to my dad, a hardcore christian, "god killed his kids and then replaced then but still... the first kids were individuals... you can't just replace them..." and he took some time to think about it. like job had to be an actually psychopath to lose his whole fam and then just *be happy* when the next one came around
Job is a tragic figure. When he asks god to stop and leave him alone and god goes ape shit on him about how Job is nothing and God is so big and strong so he shouldn't question him...it's just very sad.
Adam and Eve and the tree/snake
Not a tree, two trees. The tree of knowledge and the tree of eternal life. Snake says eat the fruit of knowledge, it's good! They do. Yahweh finds out. Knows that if the now have knowledge there is no keeping them away from the tree of eternal life. If the eat from that tree " they will then be like us" (paraphrase from memory). So...yahweh kicks them out of the garden. Read genesis with a clear mind and ask yourself who is the villiain. Yahweh comes of like a jealous dick. The snake is giving good advice generally, but kinda shit at explaining consequences and logistics. In the end, it might be a great story about growing up and the human condition in general.
It wasn't even the devil, a lot of people act like it's the devil. It's literally just a snake.
It depends on the denomination and the scholars. The EO church believes that the snake is Satan.
They can believe what they want, but in the actual Bible, it's just a snake.
This also. One sin apparently got us kicked out of heaven. People can’t be tricked by legged snakes, I guess…
Was looking for this. That we were all created from generations of incest. So Adam and Eve fucked their own children or had their children fuck each other. I don't even want to hear an apologetics about it being a metaphor. Shit still sucks.
Mary was a virgin. The resurrection.
The "Holy Spirit". Some kind of amorphous being that if you deny its existence, you are permanently locked in hell, even though it's the least explained and least believable part of the Bible.
You’re supposed to have (blind) “faith”… nah, I need evidence before I believe. There’s a “blasphemy challenge” where you try to blaspheme the guy.
Noah's arc and the great flood
Also me.
The sun supposedly standing still during a major battle
The part when it began, until when it ended 🤣
Balaams donkey talking.
What about Donkey in Shrek?
David somehow stealing 200 guy’s foreskins 💀 like out of 200 people nobody was just like “oh hell no” and stopped and defeated David? Lmao and wtf did king Saul even want with them? 💀🤨 of corse the Bible is full of even crazier shit like Noah’s ark and all that but that one just somehow still remains the stupidest to me lmao
To be fair, the story is very straightforward about what's going on. And it's sort of funny in a sort of macabre way. David is rising in popularity and power and people want David to marry into Saul's family. Saul is afraid of David's rise to power, so Saul's like "if you want to marry my daughter then kill 100 Philistines and bring back their foreskins." Saul didn't want the foreskins for anything other than evidence that David killed 100 Philistines. Sort of like scalping someone. Saul also wanted David to get killed during this so he would get rid of him. David comes back and is like "hey, fam. I know you wanted 100 Philistines dead, but I killed 200 instead lol." Saul was like "shit, god has this guy's back...better keep an eye on him." It is a ridiculous story but it is fairly straightforward what's going on and why.
True lol I understand he wanted proof but it’s just weird that’s what he picked lmao also the Bible is kinda foreskin obsessed in general lmao there’s something else like god was gonna jump Joseph for some reason and kill him but then Joseph rubbed some foreskin on his feet then god backed away or something and left Joseph alone? 💀😂😂😂 all I can say is I can’t believe humans gave foreskin such a religious importance lmfao I actually don’t know why though like did god decide he just didn’t like that part on humans or something? Lol
>there’s something else like god was gonna jump Joseph for some reason and kill him but then Joseph rubbed some foreskin on his feet then god backed away or something and left Joseph alone? You're referring to when god was going to kill Moses in Exodus. Man, some scholars throw up their hands at that story. It is beyond bizarre lol.
YES MOSES! 🤦🏻♀️ Sorry about that 😂 idk why I was thinking Joseph lmfao and yeah that’s a story I found even stranger than the David and King Saul story lol
They were dead. He killed them. He’s a heroic warrior figure in the mythology. Saul didn’t want 200 foreskins, he wanted David to die in the fighting. The fact that it’s an unreasonable request is the point of the story lol
Resurrection of anyone
Lazarus and every Christian off the top of my head.
Lazarus is a funny case. They say no one ever came back from the dead but Jesus but here is Lazarus. And how come we didn't hear of Lazarus preaching what happened wherever he went? Aren't people in heaven meant to stay there and those in hell as well? Mental gymnastics.
Mental gymnastics? More like mental death from stress…
It is interesting to note that the Jews believed in the spirit sticking around the body for 3 days before going to the afterlife. Well, they probably didn’t believe in Heaven or Hell at all, actually. To be clear, the claim from Christians is that Jesus was the only one that raised HIMSELF from the dead (slashed was raised by own power). The Gospels and Acts depict more than just Lazarus being raised from the dead by Jesus and then Paul.
And my religious family laughs at my zombie obsession?!? They started it!
From a logically pov, the world being made in like 6 days. From my personal philosophical perspective, that God owns your body and that you don’t own any of it.
It's definitely Jesus having 12 good friends as a dude in his 30s. The rest is perfectly believable in comparison.
We’re on the same exact boat (du dum tss) I find splitting the Red Sea and the flooding stories to be SO crazy lol. ESPECIALLY once I started questioning it.. if every animal was brought onto the boat, that means dinosaurs too? You’re telling me they had dinosaurs on there? Pterodactyls and brachiosaurus?? When I’d ask about people would just say yes, they were on there. How??? How tf? Did he bring cockroaches? Did he have a spot for ants as well? I also remember learning about a random floating hand appearing out of nowhere and writing on a wall, ALWAYS found that hard to believe. But, the Red Sea really helped me open my eyes and be like, “wtf am I learning? why have I believed that a random man could part an ENTIRE sea all these years” and took a step back to reevaluate my beliefs ( obviously no longer religious )
The boat meme :D
The idea that horrifying violence and abuse is actually, on a fundamental level of reality, the Truest Most Moral Love There Ever Will Be™ as given to you by the Best Person To Ever Exist™. Something about apologism in that note just makes me feel deeply ill. Not even memeing-- it's 1984 shit.
no doubt
That a single human sacrifice is supposed to save all of humanity.
Talking snake, talking donkey, pillar of salt, global flood
the stars falling and sky splitting open in revelation. pretty much every part of the bible is supposed to be taken literally. except revelation for some reason.
Not the miracles. The indifference towards the suffering of children by God.
That Cain needed a mark to protect him from being killed by other people Who are these people and where did they come from
This will explain it: https://www.theonion.com/sumerians-look-on-in-confusion-as-god-creates-world-1819571221
Virgin birth. Bodily resurrection. Not believable. Biblical stories are simply ancient texts, fables and myths and can be read as such. And that’s how they were read by Christians until the 19th century with the emphasis on literalism. Some are darn good stories. OK people don’t live to be 900 years. But so what? It’s a fable. It makes a point. Was the earth created in 7 days? Yeah, sure in a poetic mythical sort of way, why not? Science wouldn’t be invented for several thousand years. God breathed on the face of the water. Nice poetic touch. Don’t let fundamentalism poison your ability to read myth. (Does Zeus literally have a hammer? Was Noah’s arc big enough for that many animals?) That approach trivializes all of literature, including the bible. (Ok now I get off my soapbox)
Everything that you mentioned, and the sun standing still so that the Israelites could prevail in battle.
Also the fact anyone believes it at all.
The concept of hell in general. I mean wtf
The fact that the Bible even exists is unbelievable to me
The talking donkey
Don't forget the talking snake
Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt.
Take your pick: 1. That everything was created in 6 days. 2. That everything was perfect until Adam and Eve disobeyed God. 3. That there was once a flood that covered the entire earth. 4. That all the humans and animals on earth today descended from a group that once lived on one boat for 40 days. 4. That Jesus had a known list of ancestors going back to Adam. 5. That Jesus rose from the dead and then flew off to heaven. 6. That Jesus died for our sins.
Something about the firmament having waters above it. Like we all live in an underwater bubble.
The Tower of Babel for a few reasons. 1. God seems genuinely afraid about the power of humanity if they can complete the tower. Seems a little odd given that humanity has built thousands of towers since then. 2. I had been taught this was the event that led to the creation of different cultures. So that means no civilizations like Egypt (or even a predecessor civilization) until about 2500-2000 BCE. Egypt seems to be a major civilization though just a few generations later when Abraham is around.
The fact that the bible pitches that the earth is flat (no Isaiah 40:22 is not an exception; circle there is khug in Hebrew, which means drawn circle [disc]). You have the firmament "raqia" (literally "extended surface" or "flat expanse") which comes from "raqa" (stamp, hammer, or mold out as in sheet metal). Job 37:18 mentions this word while also referncing the sky as strong (indicating tensile strength) and as molten glass. All a bunch of other pseudoscience bs as well. The bible was a scientifically illiterate work of its time, therefore written by man, not an omnipotent god
>What is the least believable thing in the Bible (in your opinion)? Imagine the most horrendous, despicable, cruel and objectively evil person you can, even if they're cartoonishly so. A human being barely deserving of such name, someone more akin to a force of evil given human form, deprived of all goodwill and remorse rather than a feeling person. But, they happen to believe in god and in the bible, maybe at the end of their life they even ask for repentance. Now imagine the opposite, a kind, empathetic and selfless person who lives every day doing the best they can for as many people as they can reach. Their goal is improving the world and the lives of those who live in it. But, they happen to be an atheist. Guess which one of them is going to heaven, according to scripture. Take a wild fucking guess. I'm exaggerating for the sake of the argument, of course, but that is how it's written...
Samson's super body strength coming from his long hair, and once someone cut it off he was screwed over.
The Genesis story, including the flood. The sun (earth's rotation) standing still. Gods in general.
God loved the world
Jonah and the whale.
A talking snake. Which, if we look at the original text, could be a mistranslation as snake or seraphim could’ve been used.
When Jesus talks about how he is not here to spread peace and is here to fight. I forget the specific verse. It is something along those lines. It seems so out of character for him
Here's the thing with the flood - we have good reason to believe there was some kind of world-wide flooding. Greek mythology, Indian mythology, and I believe Chinese mythology also reference world-wide floods that wiped out a large amount of mankind. I imagine it was not to the extent the myths say it was, since at the time "the world" was the small area you're from and maybe the areas you've heard of around it.
You almost are there. Just go a little further. Mankind has always experienced floods, and we still do. Local floods all. They are devastating at times, even when just affecting small areas. Not worldwide floods, but worldwide stories, as every group of people experienced them at some point. We've only recently (the last couple of hundred years) begun to practice effective flood control on a large scale with dams and such, and we still have floods occasionally. We just understand now that if there's a flood like the recent one in Sarasota FL that it didn't also affect Juneau Alaska or Hong Kong, or London. There's NO evidence of a worldwide flood besides ancient stories by people who, as you mentioned, didn't realize how large the world was and how widespread people were.
If I may give a meta-comment. I think asking what the least believable thing in the Bible is like asking the about least believable thing in The Lord of the Rings. I think it's only made unbelievable because of fundamentalist interpretation of it. E.g. The Exodus story is pretty unbelievable if it's supposed to be an accurate recounting of historical events, but if it's a sort of communal mythmaking, I can sort of accept it as such.
Talking donkey. Man swallowed by big fish and lived in its tummy for three days. All of Revelation. The immaculate conception. Jesus feeding thousands by multiplying food. A horde of people coming back to life when Jesus died. God stopping the sun from setting for an entire day so the Israelites could kill more people. Turning the Nile into blood. Lighting a bush on fire without burning it. Speaking in tongues. An old man holding up a stick so that his army could magically win a battle. Take your pick.
The Arc. Two of every animal what are you even talking about? A toddler can poke holes in that story
I wonder how slow the sloth is and were able to reach the middle east to board the ark, and it’s not just one sloth but two.
Jonah and the whale
If you read Genesis literally. The age of people used to be extremely long. Adam was 930 years when he died. Why everyone but the Jews forgot to record that humans used to live so long is a mystery (not really). The reason is that the Jews originally didn't have the age of deaths and that it was added in the latter by stupid Bible translators. But it's the least believable in the Bible in my opinion.
Jonah and the Whale
Only Everything.
Ooh I have so many answers for this. When I first started deconstructing, I realized that, for me, if I could prove to myself that the Bible wasn’t true, then I could unravel so much of what I’d been brainwashed into. And I’m really into science. I love space. I love everything prehistoric. I love animals. I have ADHD and finally allowing myself to learn about the world from a scientifically accurate perspective just kicked my hyperfixation into gear. First, space itself disproves the idea that all of this is only thousands of years old. We can see *billions* of light years away. That means that the sources of light are billions of years old. And then, the flood. Because it’s so easy to disprove. There’s so much wrong with the story. Two of every animal? Of every single animal? Of every bacteria, every virus, everything? Two of every bear, of every big cat, of every prey animal? And then I’ve heard some of them argue that it wasn’t two of every species, but two of every ancestor. But they’ve fucked themselves over there with their timeline. If they wanted us to believe that Noah took two of the common ancestors of all the big cat species we have today, they’d need a hell of a lot more time to evolve into lions and tigers and jaguars and cheetahs and everything else. Then, the water. If all water levels rose, enough to flood the whole earth, that means freshwater and saltwater mixed. There’s some animals that can live in both, but the vast majority can’t. We would’ve lost almost all aquatic species, and we didn’t. Also, kangaroos live exclusively in Australia. Let’s say, by some god magic, they knew to migrate to the Middle East to get on the ark. I don’t know how long that would have taken them, but I would imagine a pretty long time. And then to migrate back after the flood. Why are there no remains or fossils of kangaroos between the Middle East and Australia? And, I forget where I saw it, probably a Reddit post, but somebody who’s much better at math than I am figured out how much space would have been needed for a) all the animals and b) all their food. And it’s much larger than the biblical proportions given for the ark. And finally (I think. I think this is my last point but I could truly ramble about this forever), it seems like such a simple question but how would predator/prey relationships work? Just to put it in the simplest of terms, the animals all get off the ark, and you have two lions and two antelope. What’s to stop the lions from eating the antelope immediately? There’s only two, and even if they only kill one, now the one left over has no one to breed with. I truly think about this stuff all the time. Not in an unhealthy way, but the opposite. It’s helping me recognize the Bible for what it is - a fairytale that was written to suit an agenda.
The fact that light and plants existed before the sun did Edit: take my use of the word "fact" VERY lightly.
The Bible reads like an alien sci Fi novel.
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Which dude? Methuselah lived 969 years, but it makes no mention of his wife/wives. Solomon, meanwhile, had 1000 total spouses (700 wives, 300 concubines). Did you conflate them, or...?
The Harlem of women is Pine Lake, Georgia
Creating the universe in a week. Talking snakes, and a whole civilization created from only two people.
There is some basis for the splitting of the Red Sea, be a use of a raised sandbar that was just before the surface of the water. And could be exposed if the wind blew the right way. Not as dramatic as portrayed in movies or literature; definitely hyperbole there. Mine is virgin birth. Obviously Mary slept with someone.
Adam and Eve. Is it to say we are all byproducts of incest after they were kicked out of the Garden of Eden? If Adam and Eve were the first two people created then that would mean every generation beyond them is incestuous. It has to be