Page Content (OCR)
of a spiritual message? What would be the purpose of such an exercise? What does it say about the omnipotence of the God of the Testaments? If paradise could be lost once and then regained, what is to prevent the scenario repeat- ing ad infinitum? If he, Jehovah, is in reality the only God or the only real God, then why the constant remonstrations about worshipping other gods. What would Jehovah have to fear? Is it the free will of people that is remonstrated against? According to conventional interpretations, does he not banish Satan and human sin- ners to perpetual agony in hell? Satan could not be the creator of hell, for nowhere does it say that he was, and if he was, why would he stay in it? Is Jehovah not the cre- ator of both evil and hell? Nowhere i in n the text does it state the contrary. And if God is is 1 1 1 ei tou wet c awn good, why send any of his creations to everlasting perdition for any reason? Why not just destroy that entity, since, according to Genesis, this is what was done to the first creation. Surely, this would be less misery to the wretch. God condemns eternally and his mortal creations suffer interminably for the slightest moral deviation or infraction? So we ask, who is evil, the one who acts it out, or the one who created the propensity in the first place? Does it not seem strange that the God who promised to take care of all his people and never bring another deluge would be so conspicuously absent during all the subse- quent horrors of history? So it goes on and on throughout the Bible text. No wonder that Pliny the Younger when asked by the Emperor Trajan about Christianity replied that it was a: I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbe- lieve them all. (Thomas Paine) 70 What Goes on in the Bible? And what of the character of Yahweh (Jehovah)? Is there not inconsistency there also? ...degenerate sort of cult taken to extravagant lengths. Atlantis, Alien Visitation, and Genetic Manipulation