Faith and Analysis

A major claim within Christianity is that Jesus was the only begotten son of God. My response to that is simple. An omnipotent entity can beget any number of sons, and any number of daughters. To claim that Jesus was the only son of God is to fail to recognize what God is. If some rake can father a hundred children, then how many more can the creator of the universe? There is no limit on what an omnipotent entity can create or beget; and to claim that an omnipotent entity would have only one begotten son is to not understand the meaning of the word omnipotent.

As far as the suffering of Jesus is concerned, I see no point in glorifying it. If Jesus was God, then nothing that mere mortals could do to him could seriously hurt him, and there's no more point in glorifying his suffering than there is in glorifying a mosquito bite on my arm. And if he was not God but claimed to be God, then many people died more horrible deaths for lesser transgressions. If the prize was to not only save the world, but become everyone's Lord, by spending six hours on the cross, then there would be millions of people around the world competing for the honor. And there have been many people who have died far more horrible deaths and endured far worse suffering for the benefit of other people, including people from whom they had nothing to expect in return. In either case it makes more sense to glorify the deaths and the lives of mortals who lived and died heroically than it is to glorify the crucifixion of an immortal being.

The angle that is frequently not discussed concerns the purpose of the crucifixion. One person refers to it as: "God sacrifices Jesus to himself to appease himself." Once again, an omnipotent entity does not need anyone's sacrifice. He can save or damn anybody he wills; he is God! So is it realistic to say that Jesus was God's only begotten son, whom God sacrificed to himself, or is it more reasonable to say that Jesus made a choice - maybe a good choice, maybe a bad choice - to appropriate for himself the role of an intermediary between man and God?

There are other statements in the Bible that very much contradict the Biblical portrayal of what God is. A creator would know the nature of his creation and would not be constantly expressing dissatisfaction in it. If man is made in God's image then man is by nature a creator rather than an obeyer; and it would be against his nature to obey and in his nature to create. Another is the portrayal of Jewish people as stiff-necked and stubborn. That's not a bug; that's a feature. One would have to be stiff-necked and stubborn in order to be the people of God for any length of time; and anyone who is not that way would not remain people of God for long and would assimilate into whatever it is around them. If I can understand these things, with merely human intelligence, then how much more so the omniscient creator? So I can only come to a conclusion that such statements could not have come from an omniscient creator and are a work of fallible human beings.

Does me saying these things mean that I hate Jesus or God? Absolutely not. What it means is that I'm reasonably skeptical of a number of Biblical claims, and I have listed my reasons for taking that stance. I hope more people give thought to these kinds of matters. Then, if they choose to keep Christian faith, it would be a more solid faith; and if they choose something else, then it would be a choice made in an informed manner.