UNHOLY WRIT:: AN INFIDEL'S CRITIQUE OF THE BIBLE

During our brief and perilous journey ex irritum ad irritum, how are we to find, what the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (Sein und Zeit) would call, the true approach to being? How do we answer the question posed by the Apostle Thomas when he asked “how can we know the way” (Jn. 14:5)? In other words, how should we fill that “parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity,” which James Joyce (Ulysses) maintained, demarcates each of our lives? The Bible has often been put forth as a supposedly infallible guidebook charting the correct path to an authentic existence (e.g. 2 Tim. 3:16-17). According to its proponents, Scripture is an absolutely dependable life-manual because it is the word of God (Summa Theologica, First Part, Q. 1, Art. 10). However, close inspection of the Bible calls into question its divine authorship; and, thus, its reliability as an accurate roadmap for the soul. In fact, under close examination it proves to be nothing more than a mundane and cobbled together collection of archaic superstitions beginning with the outlandish speculations of Moses concerning the creation of the world and ending with the maniacal ravings of John regarding its destruction. Exposing the true nature of Holy Writ was the main purpose for writing Unholy Writ. The modus operandi for this exposé involved a thoroughgoing critical analysis of Scripture. The results from such a careful consideration of its contents clearly demonstrated that any claim that the Bible is some sort of sacrosanct ethical vade mecum is completely invalid. Specifically, the multiple contradictions and absurdities contained in the Bible confer an unreliability upon it that undermines its function as a guide for anything, let alone as some sort of moral map for the journey through life. Furthermore, many of the ideas that are promoted in Holy Writ are actually spiritually harmful. In addition, unless the condoned misogyny, violence, intolerance, injustice, and cruelty can be removed, then it is difficult to view the Scriptures as anything like an unwavering celestial beacon that clearly lights the way through the moral fog that at times engulfs our lives. Moreover, the many errors that it contains, including those about the natural world, undermine the pivotal claim that the Bible is divinely inspired. In the course of using the verses themselves in discussing such topics as biblical errancy, bible-based morality, the character of the biblical god, the features of a religion based on the Bible, and the biblical stance on science, nature and truth, it was shown in the present work that any belief in Scripture as either divinely inspired or a trustworthy guide to right living is not only misguided but delusional. The iconoclastic claims made by this author concerning the Bible and matters relating to it have ample support. By way of corroboration, the considered opinions of many acclaimed thinkers from Aquinas to Zeno, from pre-Socratic philosophers to 21st century cosmologists, were presented within the pages of Unholy Writ. These intellectuals included, but were not be limited to, such atheists and agnostics as Holbach, Ingersoll, Mencken, and Meslier; such theologians as Aquinas, Augustine, Luther, Strauss, and Tertullian; such scientists as Darwin, Einstein, Freud, Galileo, Hawking, and Newton; such historians as Gibbon, Herodotus, Tacitus, and Thucydides; such poets as Chaucer, Emerson, Goethe, Heine, Milton, Poe, Shakespeare, Shelley and Whitman; such playwrights as Euripides, O’Neill, Williams, and Wilde; such novelists as Camus, Dostoyevsky, Hemingway, Hesse, Joyce, Mann, Maugham, Melville, Nabokov and Sinclair; such philosophers as Aristotle, Descartes, Feuerbach, Fichte, Hegel, Heidegger, Hobbes, Hume, Kant, Kaufmann, Kierkegaard, Locke, Lucretius, Marx, Nietzsche, Paine, Pascal, Plato, Russell, Sartre, Schopenhauer, Socrates, Spencer, Spinoza, and Wittgenstein; and such other literati as Jefferson, Montaigne, Thoreau and Twain. Their insights served to illuminate the true essence of the Bible, that it is a far more profane than sacred book, a far more hollow than holy one. With their contributions, Unholy Writ can be viewed as an Atheist/Agnostic manifesto, as a rational response to the specious metaphysics underlying the Bible in particular and all forms of revealed religion in general. As such, the present tome can be viewed as a challenge to those Christian believers, whether they be fundamentalists, evangelicals, moderates or liberals of any sect or denomination, who ground their belief system on the Bible and who wish to follow the Apostle Peter’s directive that they should be ready to answer for their faith (1 Pet. 3:15). It is also directed to unbelievers who may wish to arm themselves with arguments against the rantings of the seemingly ubiquitous bible thumpers. And finally, it is meant for anyone interested in religious matters in general and the Bible in particular.

UNHOLY WRIT:: AN INFIDEL'S CRITIQUE OF THE BIBLE

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