50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God (12 page)

These books and others, various believers claim, are messages
from their gods and, as such, they are invaluable resources for
humankind. According to believers, sacred books may explain our
origin, guide us through daily life, and even tell us what happens to us
when we die. According to believers, their book offers conclusive
proof that their particular god is real. It is important to note, however,
that despite claims that these books are of divine origin not one of
them has ever been able to convince a majority of the world's
believers that it is anything more than a book written by people.

It never takes long for a devout believer to cite their sacred book as
the ultimate authority for some point they are trying to make. In the
minds of many believers, their book can withstand any challenge from
doubters or even scientific discovery. Some believers claim that their
book is perfect, completely free of errors or contradictions, so loaded
with wisdom and correct predictions that it could only have come from a
god. But are any of these books really perfect? More importantly, is there
any book that contains any good evidence for the existence of a god?

No.

No holy book contains anything so special that it cannot be
explained as the work of mere mortals. Believers have tried very hard
for centuries but no one has ever found anything in any book that is
clear evidence of a god. Furthermore, the impact of holy books seems
to have a limited effect on people. No single collection of sacred
words has ever managed to win over most people. This is odd. If one
of these books really is a direct message from a god, then why has it
failed so miserably to convince so many people? The Bible and
Koran, for example, are by far the two most successful holy books
ever, but neither one of them is impressive enough to silence the other
or to convince even half of the world's people that it is the truth.
Although both books have been remarkably successful at impressing
believers, one of them is wrong. They make important claims that are
contradictory and cannot be reconciled. For example, one says Jesus
is a god; the other says Jesus is not a god. This means that, at the very
least, more than a billion believers have been hoodwinked by a book
that is not a message from a real god. The fact that one of these books
must necessarily be false, yet still manages to convince so many
people that it is true, shows how people can be entranced by a book
that is just a book. And if that can be the case for one book, then it
could be the case for all of them. It is possible that all holy books, no
matter how old or popular, are the work of people and not gods.

It is fortunate that we have these holy books that supposedly justify belief because they can be analyzed by anyone to see if they really
do present credible support for the existence of gods. If there is some thing supernatural contained within a sacred book, then believers
would have a strong case for their god. If there is not, however, then
believers may have one less reason to believe.

I have made the effort to read several books that serve as the foundations of popular religions. I was open-minded about finding any hint
of magic within them. But they seemed to me like the words of ancient
believers and nothing more. What I read was just about what one
would expect from people who lived long ago in relatively unenlightened times. The Torah, Bible, and Koran, for example, suggest that
slavery is okay, women are inferior to men, and critical thinking is a
bad thing. After years of hearing about the peace and love that is supposed to be at the core of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, I had not
expected to find so much violence, cruelty, and hatred within the
books that are the foundations of those religions. Overall the Torah,
Bible, and Koran read like instruction manuals for achieving a
divided, angry, and violent world. They do not appear to be a recipe
for peace and love, as many believers claim. Yes, I found beauty in
those books but not enough to forget the disturbing content. I cannot
understand how honest and well-meaning people can pretend the negative and socially destructive content is not there. How can anyone
claim that these books are good and perfect? Have they read them?

Many believers strongly deny that the Torah, Bible, or Koran, for
example, contain any bad advice, errors, or immoral behavior by a
god-until I show it to them. Even then, however, some refuse to
believe it, preferring to think that there must be some explanation for
it that is not easily understood. Most of the world's religious people, I
suspect, do not actually read their holy books or, if they do, they avoid
thinking critically about what they have read. Most Christians, for
example, probably pick around the edges of the Bible, learn a few
verses, but generally skip most of it. Considering what is in it, this
may be for the best. If three billion Christians, Muslims, and Jews read
every word of their books and tried to follow the instructions contained in them to the letter, our world would be even scarier than it is
now. For example, millions of Christians today cite the Bible to justify their prejudice against gay men. Fortunately for gay men, however,
most of these Christians missed the part in the Bible where their god
says we are supposed go well beyond prejudice and actually kill gay
men (see Leviticus 20:13). Obviously the vast majority of Christians
wouldn't do this even if they read it and even if they considered themselves to be Bible literalists. Fortunately they have enough moral
sense to resist murdering a gay person or even condoning it. But this
is a problem for them because it seems to suggest that they think they
know better than their god. Doesn't their refusal to kill gay men
demonstrate that they have higher moral standards than the god they
believe in? By refusing to pick up stones, aren't they admitting that
their sacred book is wrong?

Some Christians claim that the bad stuff in the Bible is limited to
the Old Testament and can be excused as historical content. But,
according to Matthew 5:17, Jesus said that he did not come to abolish
or change any of the old laws. One also can't forget that, according to
the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, Jesus and God the Father are onethe same god who killed children by the thousands in the Old Testament. Even more troubling, how is the idea of Jesus sending everyone
to hell who doesn't believe in him-the majority of humankind-anything but immoral? Does a child born in Agra, India, and raised by
devout Hindu parents deserve to be punished in this way just because
she trusted in what her family and society taught her?

As a nonbeliever I am not obligated or inclined to ignore the ugly
parts of holy books. Some might suspect, however, that I only focus
on the bad to use as ammunition against religion. Not so. For example,
I admire Jesus's call for people to sell their belongings and give the
money to the poor. Imagine how different our world would be if
middle- and upper-class believers did that. There is a line in the Koran
(5:32) that suggests that the taking of a single life is like killing
everyone and saving one life is like saving all. How nice it would be
if everyone embraced that attitude. Yes, there is wisdom and beauty in
the world's holy books. But none so remarkable that it could not have
come from human writers.

There is really only one way to respond when a believer claims
that a sacred book such as the Bible is so special that it is proof of their
god's existence. I encourage them to read it. If they have, and still
think it is perfect, morally pure, and convincing evidence for their god,
I encourage them to read it again. But this time I tell them to try to
imagine themselves as one of the babies their god drowned in a flood
or as one of the people who will be punished forever for the crime of
having been born into the wrong religious family.

Believers may be negligent about reading their own holy books but
they are even more so about reading the books that are important to
other religions. Very few people investigate even the handful of more
popular religions today. I have lived my life in societies that are dominated by Christians and I am repeatedly shocked by how many bright
people I encounter who know little or nothing about Islam, Buddhism,
Hinduism, Judaism, and animism. Those belief systems account for
more than half the people on earth yet they are a virtual blank for most
of the Christians I meet. To many, Hinduism has something to do with
cows; Buddhism has something to with meditation; and Islam has
something to with Osama bin Laden. It really is that bad. Believers
should know that this lack of general knowledge about popular religions means they can't possibly make informed decisions about which
belief system makes more sense or which one is morally superior. How
can anyone be confident that they believe in the real god and worship
that god in the correct way when they know so little about the many
alternative gods and rituals that billions of other people are equally
confident in?

Another problem with holy books is that they lure many believers
into a bizarre loop of circular reasoning. Here is how it goes:

(1) How do I know my god is real?

(2) Because the Book of the Dead/Bhagavad Gita/Torah/
Bible/Koran/Book of Mormon, and so forth says my god is real.

(3) How do I know my holy book is true?

(4) Because its words were inspired by my god.

(5) How do I know my holy book contains the inspired word of
my god?

(6) Because it says it does.

Obviously this proves nothing. If this line of thinking made any sense,
then Christians would have to believe that the Koran is the word of the
real god and Muslims would have to believe that the Bible is the word
of the real god because both groups rely on this circular reasoning to
support their claims. If it works for one holy book, then it would have
to work for all of them. But, of course, it never does. Typical believers
see right through this nonsense whenever a rival believer attempts to
use it on them. It seems that in most cases one has to first believe the
god is real before that god's holy book can make an impression.

Many believers claim that their holy book contains details of
future events and scientific facts that could not possibly have been
known by people when they were written. This, they say, is proof that
their book comes straight from a god. It's the Nostradamus approach
to proving a god is real. Although many of these claims are made,
none of them hold up under scrutiny. "The Bible code" or "Torah
code" is a good example of this. According to some believers, the
Bible is filled with hidden messages from their god that reveal startling information about important events. Michael Drosnin's book,
The Bible Code, became a best seller in the 1990s and gave believers
one more thing to cite as proof for their god. Some nonbelievers may
be surprised by how popular the Bible code is. Although finding
"secret messages" in the Bible is nothing new, it warrants attention
because believers bring it up often and it doesn't seem to be going
away any time soon.

Bible code skeptics have demonstrated that one can find just about
anything in any large collection of letters simply by tweaking an
extraction formula. For example, code skeptics have "discovered" fascinating predictions within the novel War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.
With a little work I am sure that they could find "Oswald killed
Kennedy" or "Giants win the Super Bowl" in this book.

Skeptic David E. Thomas writes:

Some believe that these "messages" in the Hebrew Bible are not just
coincidence-they were put there deliberately by God. But if
someone finds a hidden message in a book, a song played backwards, funny-looking Martian mesas, or some other object or thing,
does that prove someone else put the message there intentionally?
Or might the message exist only in the eyes of the beholder (and in
those of his or her followers)? Does perception of meaning prove the
message was deliberately created? (Thomas 1997)

To be consistent, Christians who insist on believing in the Bible code
must consider the "Koran code." Yes, there is a Koran code. And some
Muslims say it is the only true code that reveals messages from a god.
There probably are others. What is important to know is that no holy
code comes close to providing convincing evidence for the existence of
a god. These are just cases of religion hijacking numerology's gig.

I once asked a Muslim why he is confident that the Koran is the
word of a real god. He replied that it contains many facts that have
only recently been discovered by science. This, he said, was proof that
the Koran is the only book inspired by a god. I have learned over the
years that it is not wise to allow a believer to swamp you with a long
list of prophecies, "facts," and "revelations" found in their holy book.
What happens is that they end up feeling that they have proven their
case simply because they talked a lot, as if truth somehow correlates
with the number of words spoken. The way around this that allows one
to avoid being rude while wasting as little time as possible is to simply
ask for the best evidence. Ask for the single most astonishing and
detailed prediction that has come true or the most amazing fact that
can be found in their book. My Muslim friend offered this: "The
Koran describes a very young embryo as looking like a chewed up
piece of gum. This is exactly what it really looks like but there is no
way anyone could have known that when the Koran was written."

Do not think that his example was an aberration. Citing the
embryo is a common "proof' many Muslims go to when challenged by a nonbeliever. Many thousands of non-Muslim biologists, medical
doctors, and embryologists remain unconvinced, however. Christians
usually answer the best-evidence challenge with Jesus or Israel. Jesus,
they say, was predicted and then he came. But this doesn't work very
well because the prediction and the fulfillment of the prediction both
occur in the same book. That's just not good enough. They also like
the prophecy that a new nation of Israel would be established. The big
problem, of course, is that it was people who created the modern state
of Israel. There is absolutely no indication that any magic, miracles, or
gods were involved. It was the work of mere mortals that made Israel
a nation in 1948. Harry Truman and David Ben-Gurion were not gods.
Since people created every other nation on earth too, I hardly see how
Israel qualifies as proof for a god's existence. What about the people
who created the United States? That country is bigger than Israel.
Does that mean John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the other
founding fathers were more powerful than the Jewish god? The fact
that so many believers cite the creation of Israel as the best proof of
the Bible's validity says a lot.