The strength of any system lies at its foundation. If a building has weak foundations it will fail and come crumbling down due to its own failed construction. This applies to philosophical and scholarly ideas as well. Take any intro-level philosophy course and you will quickly learn that there are many systems of thought which have gone out of favor through the centuries due to their being challenged and found wanting by successive generations of philosophers.
Religions too have fallen over time due to inherently poor construction. People start out believing a religion's explanations about the physical universe, or that their god or gods are the only sensible explanation. Over time these people discover that these explanations don't match up to competing ideas or hold up to new evidence, so they move on to another way of thinking and the religion dies.
The Biblical religions are no different, with Christianity being the best example. Christianity started as a small cult within Judaism. Small groups of early Jews branching off on their own were common occurrences, but usually died off, were killed off, or were re-assimilated back into the fold. Christianity, and later, Islam, are glaring exceptions to this.
Due in no small part to the Roman occupation of Judaism's birthplace, Christianity not only survived, but grew, eventually becoming stronger than its parent philosophy. But, soon after its formation Christianity began suffering schisms as well. This early fracturing can be seen in Paul's letters in the Bible.
The early infighting eventually led to a cohesive system of thought based around the beliefs of the strongest group, whom we today know as the Catholic Church. It is this church who chose what was eventually included in the Bible and what beliefs were accepted as true.
As flaws appeared in the Catholic Church's teachings the church began to fracture. Like cracks in any foundation these fractures spread exponentially. What was once a cohesive centralized system of belief has transformed over the last 500 years into a system of at least 41,000 different sects. The last numbers I saw would put this number at 35,000+ in the United States alone.
Though all of these Churches have differing beliefs about which is the one true belief, they, as well as Judaism and Islam, all have the Bible as a foundation. Despite the Bible's being a fractured and crumbling foundation people still build their entire lives upon it. Many people much more literate than I have explained why this is, so I won't go into that here. Instead I will show where these cracks are and how they show the inherent failure of the Bible as a source of anything other than fables and fairy tales.
In order to separate them from other subjects on this blog, I will group this series of posts on the Bible's flaws under the label and heading "Foundations...."
As always I challenge anyone with a differing view to show me the way.
Disagree? Why? Prove it?
Religions too have fallen over time due to inherently poor construction. People start out believing a religion's explanations about the physical universe, or that their god or gods are the only sensible explanation. Over time these people discover that these explanations don't match up to competing ideas or hold up to new evidence, so they move on to another way of thinking and the religion dies.
The Biblical religions are no different, with Christianity being the best example. Christianity started as a small cult within Judaism. Small groups of early Jews branching off on their own were common occurrences, but usually died off, were killed off, or were re-assimilated back into the fold. Christianity, and later, Islam, are glaring exceptions to this.
Due in no small part to the Roman occupation of Judaism's birthplace, Christianity not only survived, but grew, eventually becoming stronger than its parent philosophy. But, soon after its formation Christianity began suffering schisms as well. This early fracturing can be seen in Paul's letters in the Bible.
The early infighting eventually led to a cohesive system of thought based around the beliefs of the strongest group, whom we today know as the Catholic Church. It is this church who chose what was eventually included in the Bible and what beliefs were accepted as true.
As flaws appeared in the Catholic Church's teachings the church began to fracture. Like cracks in any foundation these fractures spread exponentially. What was once a cohesive centralized system of belief has transformed over the last 500 years into a system of at least 41,000 different sects. The last numbers I saw would put this number at 35,000+ in the United States alone.Though all of these Churches have differing beliefs about which is the one true belief, they, as well as Judaism and Islam, all have the Bible as a foundation. Despite the Bible's being a fractured and crumbling foundation people still build their entire lives upon it. Many people much more literate than I have explained why this is, so I won't go into that here. Instead I will show where these cracks are and how they show the inherent failure of the Bible as a source of anything other than fables and fairy tales.
In order to separate them from other subjects on this blog, I will group this series of posts on the Bible's flaws under the label and heading "Foundations...."
As always I challenge anyone with a differing view to show me the way.
Disagree? Why? Prove it?
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