MIRACLES AND "EXPLAINING" SCRIPTURE PROBLEMS

 
The Christians claim that the Bible is the Word of God. They say that as God is its ultimate author it cannot contradict itself or err for God makes no mistakes.
 
They accept the Bible claim that some events such as Jesus rising from the dead are not naturally possible. They say the explanation is that the supernatural did them.
 
If miracles and a mystery God who does things even the brightest can’t understand are admitted into one’s world-view, one’s creed, however absurd, is placed far beyond the grasp of rational examination. It becomes irrefutable.
 
If Genesis said that Abraham had ten wives and Isaiah said he had only two then the believer could argue that, “Maybe God did a miracle to make it look like a contradiction in order to try our faith. Both statements can be true if God miraculous made it so that each wife is five persons in one just like he is three in one.”
 
Or one can simply assume that there is so much in religion that seems incoherent and which isn’t really that this problem is to be included among the mysteries.
 
The Bible views the world as a flat disk though it was in water that had four corners. The true Christian would say that it has been remoulded into a sphere since.
 
The Bible says that David killed Goliath the giant. If it said that somebody else – and it says Elhanan – did it, it would be argued that Goliath came back to life and was killed again or that Goliath was cloned by God.
 
What about when Jesus said that God’s statement, “I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” (Mark 12:26), proved the resurrection though it did not. You could say that it does prove it though nobody can see how it does and that the cause of this blindness is miraculous.
 
All miracles are silly or look silly. For example, if God raised Jesus from the dead instead of doing something greater then he is strange indeed. In Genesis 1, God did not create all things at once but in pieces. This was odd when he could have made it all at the one time. Why do a number of miracles where one would suffice especially when there is nobody about to be converted into faith by seeing them? Mysterious miracles make the whole situation go from bad to worse. Unfettered, the theologian can paper over any scriptural blunder or contradiction.
 
We see then that for anybody to argue that the Bible does not authorise bizarre and tortured attempts to solve its discrepancies is wrong. God could have let the sea dry up naturally instead of parting it leaving a path through it with a wall of water on each side when the Exodus of Israel was in progress. When the Bible says that God is good enough though there is no possible way to explain why he lets us suffer, it is authorising foolishness as a way to solve the problems.
 
Even if you read the gospels as history and close your mind to the supernatural elements, there is much in them that is implausible on natural grounds. For example, would you really agree with Matthew that the Jews derided Jesus on the cross saying he saved others and couldn't save himself and that he must come down from the cross that they might believe? The Jews would not have said Jesus saved others for it would have made them look evil in the eyes of their society. They would have said he was a fraud or something. They would not risk mocking a crucified man who had supernatural powers unless they thought he had no such powers. There are many strange behaviours recorded in the gospels both from Jesus and the people he met. Lots of bizarre and cryptic and useless things were said. The gospels look like something men wrote under the influence of drink.
 
Miracles leave you that if you are in a religion and it is wrong you won’t be able to see if it is true or not. That is playing right into the hands of the charlatans and the deluded. It is enabling even worse delusion. Delusion leads to more delusion like lies lead to more lies. Obviously, the only reasonable way to deal with prophets is to shut your ears against their consecrated hogwash and to look away from their miracles. Why? Because if you say one Bible should be believed you are eliminating the rest for nothing. You are arbitrarily rejecting other Bibles like the Koran or the Book of Mormon. And if you believe all Bibles you are insane. You are saying that though Jesus was infallible the Koran is right to deny what he said in the Christian Bible. One Bible, implicitly at least, condemns and contradicts the other.
 
There is no end to the contradictions that can be “resolved” with miracles. Miracles are used to solve the contradiction between Jesus being killed and showing up again afterwards. The concept of miracle is a godsend to the person who is determined or disposed to believe something no matter what. And the only kind of faith that person will have is blind faith which is evil. It is evil to make sacrifices for what you blindly believe in. It is reckless and exalts faith over prudence. It is dogmatism and arrogance at their worst.
 
Miracles must only be believed as a last resort for they are such a big threat to reason and reality. Therefore, since every book in the Bible could have been discreetly altered for copies were made by hand and were not supervised until the books grew in importance and attained scriptural status the accounts of miracles could have been inserted. Often it only takes a few minor changes to make a book speak of a miracle where it did not and only meant a strange natural event.
 
Religionists will protest that there is no evidence of interpolations. So, they say if there is no evidence against miracles they are true. You can’t believe in a miracle just because there is no evidence against it for then anybody could say that when they did something bad that it was a demon pretending to be them and who made them invisible at the same time who did it. The miracles in the Bible plus the fact that it could have been tampered with prove that the Bible is not from God. However, amazing it may be it speaks only of the astonishing craftiness of men. To say that there is no evidence for tampering and therefore the Bible is true is scandalous for that does not prove there is evidence that it was not tampered with. Nobody knows. And when the Bible says people by nature don’t like God it is as good as saying they would have been delighted to tamper.