Category Archives: The impossibility of faith

Mystic Revelations

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What do the three ‘great’ Abrahamic religions have in common?

They all started with visions, hallucinations, dreams and mystic revelations. They’re not only based on these but owe their very existence to encounters with the supernatural that took place entirely within people’s heads. This of course is if they happened at all; many of these encounters with angels and God’s revelations take place in stories that have all the characteristics of myth or legend. Even so, they reveal much about the primitive state of mind (still around today) that believed God frequently revealed himself to, and in the minds of, chosen individuals.

First, the grand-daddy of the Abrahamic religions, Judaism: 

When Abram was 99 years old, YHWH appeared to him. He said to Abram, “I am El Shadday. Live in my presence with integrity. I will give you my promise, and I will give you very many descendants.” Immediately, Abram bowed with his face touching the ground, and again Elohim spoke to him, My promise is still with you. You will become the father of many nations. So your name will no longer be Abram [Exalted Father] but Abraham [Father of Many] because I have made you a father of many nations. I will give you many descendants. Many nations and kings will come from you. I will make my promise to you and your descendants for generations to come as an everlasting promise. I will be your Elohim and the God of your descendants. (Genesis 17)

Then Moses:

The Angel of YHWH appeared to (Moses) in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed.

Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”

So when YHWH saw that he turned aside to look, Elohim called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3)

Notice how the inner voice goes from being that of ‘the angel of YHWH’ to YHWH himself (or one of his aliases). The entire scenario is preposterous of course, as is the Abraham episode before it. I’ve omitted the other occasions YHWH is said to appear to Abraham, including the infamous Genesis 22, where YHWH instructs Abraham to sacrifice his son. These stories are legends written, created from whole cloth, centuries after Abraham purportedly lived. He, like the later Moses, is almost certainly mythical, a character created to represent the beginnings of the Jewish faith. Even his names are symbolic. In truth, no one knows how Judaism began.

Onto Christianity:

The angel said to (Mary), “Don’t be afraid, Mary; God has shown you his grace. Listen! You will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of King David, his ancestor. He will rule over the people of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1)

Did this happen? If you believe angels exist then possibly, but we know they do not. We also know that this is myth. However, Luke wanted his readers to know that Jesus’ birth was miraculous so invented a story in which Mary encounters a heavenly being. The gospel writer anchors the divinity of Jesus to an implausible event which at best can only be a young woman’s vision (though it most certainly isn’t.)

The same is true of the resurrection appearances. Here’s Matthew 28:1-8:

Now after the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the grave. And behold, a severe earthquake had occurred, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled away the stone and sat upon it. And his appearance was like lightning, and his clothing as white as snow. The guards shook for fear of him and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; for I know that you are looking for Jesus who has been crucified. He is not here, for He has risen, just as He said.”

More angels (they multiply in later gospels); again at best, though still highly improbable, the angel(s), if seen at all, can only be a vision or an hallucination (or mistaken identity.)

Onto the only first hand account of an encounter with the divine that the bible includes, Paul’s:

God was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles… I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1)

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago—whether in the body I do not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows—such a man was caught up to the third heaven. And I know how such a man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows— was caught up into Paradise and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to speak. (2 Corinthians)

This is all there is. This is the extent Paul talks about his heavenly encounters. In Galatians he admits that God revealing whatever it was he revealed was ‘in’ him, that is, in his own head. The bizarre tale he relates in 2 Corinthians reads like an hallucination (Paul says he doesn’t know whether it was in the body or out of it) which is all it could’ve been; there is no paradise or ‘third heaven’.

And finally, there’s Mohammed:

… while I was sleeping last night, the keys of the treasures of the earth were brought to me till they were put in my hand.”… 

The angel came to him and asked him to read. The Prophet replied, “I do not know how to read. The Prophet added, “The angel caught me (forcefully) and pressed me so hard that I could not bear it any more. (Sahih Bukhari 6998)

Encounters with heavenly beings in dreams, ‘revelations’, visions, hallucinations and invented stories: these are central to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The religions would not exist without them. Written as myth long after they supposedly occurred or referred to obliquely by those who claim to have experienced them, they are the products of fevered pre-scientific minds.

Post-script: I’ve searched in vain for Darwin’s admission that an angel revealed the process of evolution to him. I can only find his collection of evidence, his scientific observations and his careful analysis of his findings. Likewise Mendeleev who calculated the existence of elements that were at the time unknown. Likewise Crick, Watson and Franklin who discovered the structure of DNA. Strangely, none of these people relied on visions, dreams or divine revelations in uncovering truths about reality.

Pest Control

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I used to pride myself on how patient I could be. I’m finding recently however that I’m becoming far less so. Not with everyone, I hasten to add, but with religionists, Evangelical Christians in particular.

As I mentioned last time, they have infested my Facebook feed with their inane Jesus-Loves-You Amen BS and now I find they’ve practically taken over a science page I occasionally read called From Quarks and Quasars, a sometimes sensationalist site that collects together science posts from other legitimate sources. It recently published an item called ‘Earth Was Once Entirely A Water World, New Research Shows’, prompting 5.2k comments. Many of these were from cranks trying to show how the finding verifies the biblical flood story, despite the fact the article makes it clear it is talking about something that occurred 3-4 billion years ago. Certified genius Dennis Mears offers this comment (all grammatical, spelling and punctuation errors in the original):

Of coarse it was !! but we don’t need “ new research “ to know what every culture on earth has talked about in their history for thousands of years . We can simply read genesis and learn about it in detail

while Scotty Johnson wades in (pun intended) with:

It’s called the flood, it’s recorded in Genesis in the Bible, Noah and the Ark, kids have been learning about it in Sunday School for years. Scientists should study the Bible first, maybe they wouldn’t be surprised when they discover something.

It’s down to astute reader Gene Steiner, catching the original article’s reference to 3-4 billion years, to correct it:

(In) Genesis 7:24 the great flood covered the whole earth, even the highest mountains; and the waters remained on the earth for 150 days…. Not billions of years ago, but 4500 or so years ago during the NOAHIC GLOBAL FLOOD! We knew that all the time!

This is the line subsequent commenters take up until we get to Tobie Schalkwyk, who offers the insight that the water-covered Earth is the same as mentioned in Genesis 1:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And on it goes for thousands more comments. The photo at the top of this post was also shoved on somewhere along the line.

It is the purveyors of this sort of crap that I no longer have any patience for. I want to call them out for their tomfoolery. It’s the same with commenters (Arnold and Don on this blog, Marley1312/Aussiestockman on Gary’s, Revival Fires on Bruce’s) who think atheist sites exist only to provide a forum for their brainless theobabble and Bible-bashing. They can’t be argued with, such is the depth of their ignorance and need to inject Jesus into everything. They bring out the worst in me: snark, bad language and name calling (as you can tell from this very post). I don’t want to stoop to this level, nor is it good for my blood pressure, and so feel compelled to leave them to it. I avoid reading comments and sometimes actually abandon sites I like to read because of the infestations of religious gobbledegook.

I know it infuriates some of you too, but what to do? Let the epidemic spread or resist it? What do you advise?

A New Kind Of Christian

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You’ll be overjoyed to hear that Jordan B. Peterson has a new book out. He’s been busy promoting the not at all pretentiously titled We Who Wrestle With God. He was interviewed about it recently in British magazine The Spectator. The interview has to be read to be believed. The introduction can be read here but the rest, alas, is behind a paywall. Don’t worry though, I’ll supply you with the highlights. The article is a goldmine of stupefying statements about God and how Jordan is the only one who really understands the Bible’s stories. They need ‘arranging’, you see, and their underlying ‘hypotheses’ understood:

The Bible presents a series of hypotheses. One is that there’s an underlying unity that brings together all structures of value. The second claim is that there’s a relationship between the human psyche and that unity and each of the main biblical stories casts that unity in a different light, accompanied by the insistence that, despite those differences, what is being pointed to is one animating principle. As far as I can tell, that’s correct.

You got that? As ol’ Jordan humbly admits, this ‘revolutionary realisation’ is his and his alone. Of course, none of this sort of thing is original; the idea that characters, events and stories in the Old Testament prefigure realities in the New is as old as the hills. Typology can be imposed on any set of myths. The gospel writers and Paul did it, seeing Jesus prefigured in Jewish scripture and inventing stories about him so that he complied with these earlier types. There’s nothing ‘revolutionary’ about spotting this, but like so many before him, Peterson gets it back to front and falls, quite literally, for the oldest trick in the Book. Continue reading →

Back by unpopular demand – it’s the New Year Pop Quiz!

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All set? Here we go!

1. Which one of these fantasy figures actually exists?

2. For which one of these ideas is there refutable/verifiable, corroborative scientific evidence?

3. Which one of these events is demonstrably historical?

4. Which one of these phenomena is verified and corroborated by psychology?

5. Applying logic and reasoning, which of the following scenarios is most likely to be true:

6. Which of these statements is verifiably true?

Answers:

Question 1. The answer is none of them, though C, Donald Trump, comes closest. 10 points if you put C, none if you plumped for any of the others: despite the volumes written about them there isn’t an iota of  evidence that they exist.

Question 2. Award yourself 10 points for B, though if you’re a True Believer this is the only one you think isn’t true. There is an abundance of refutable/verifiable, corroborative scientific evidence that it is. You can only wish there were for the other three.

Question 3. A is correct – 10 points. There is a considerable amount of evidence that the moon landing occurred on 20th July 1969. There is absolutely none at all that the other three are historical. For the sake of argument, let’s say they’re mythical. Nul points if you think otherwise.

Question 4. The answer is all of them. Oh no, wait… that’s my cognitive dissonance speaking. D is the only one of those listed recognised by psychologists. My bad and 10 points to you.

Question 5. The answer is of course E. Award yourself another 10 points if you thought outside the box on this one. (You can also have 10 points if you said they’re all equally likely, as in ‘not at all’.)

Question 6. 10 points for D. 

Scores: 

If you scored 50 or more, congratulations! If you scored nothing at all, you are confirmation that question 6’s answer – D. Human beings are capable of believing just about anything – is true. Well done.

A happy new year to you all.

 

 

A World When Revelation Was Possible

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Greek and Roman cultures of the ancient world were obsessed with seers, oracles, prophets, muses and the fates. Politicians, priests and ordinary people were desperate to know how to keep on the right side of capricious gods and what the future held. Word from the supernatural realm, channelled through seers and prophets, was sought after and valued. Visions, dreams, portents and auspices that revealed secrets and mysteries were highly prized. It was a world saturated in superstition. Jewish culture, operating within this milieu, was no different.

Jews too revered prophets, dreams, visions and divination. This is apparent in both the Jewish scripture, the Old Testament, and also in the New, the writing of the early Christian cult birthed from Judaism in a Greco-Roman world. There are in the New Testament:

6 instances of god-induced dreams;

11 visions of heaven and heavenly beings;

578 new prophecies;

300 or so supposed fulfilments of earlier ‘prophecies’;

‘An abundance of revelations’ (Paul’s phrase) as well as those of Revelation itself (one long revelation or a series of shorter ones?);

113 visits from supernatural agents (Satan, demons, angels);

Assumptions that dead people can reappear (Jesus mistaken for Elijah and Jeremiah; Elijah and Moses manifesting themselves);

Multiple ‘resurrections’ both before and after Jesus’s.

People believed this kind of stuff! The supernatural, prophecy, ‘revelation’ and resurrection were regarded as entirely plausible, a given in the culture in which early Christians lived. The pagans around them may not have subscribed to the new cult’s reworking of these superstitions, nor accepted that Jesus was the Messiah, but they would not have found anything amiss with the idea and presence of the supernatural, with its attendant revelations, visions and prophecies. These were the currency of the day.

That such manifestations were mistaken or misinterpreted by the new cult would have been the point of disagreement for most people (though its important not to over-estimate how many actually knew of the Jesus cult in its early days), not that it manifested and incorporated them in the first place.

In the first century world, revelations, prophecies, visions and the like were considered to be gifts from the gods. Paul insisted that what he ‘received’ was from the supernatural realm, specifically from the heavenly Christ (Galatians 1:12). Accepting this was a prerequisite for believing what he went on to say about salvation, resurrection and Christ’s descent from the clouds. The supernatural world and its ability to communicate with ordinary mortals had to be accepted as real before anything Paul said could even be considered. Fortunately for him, the culture in which he operated embraced the idea that this was a reality.

If, however, there is no supernatural – and let’s be honest, we know there isn’t – there can’t ever have been revelation, prophecy or God-given visions. With no heavenly realm to transmit revelation, prophecy and visions into the brains of seers, prophets and visionaries, from where did – and do – their revelations, prophecies and visions originate? From brains conditioned in an environment infused with irrational, magical beliefs, whether that of the first-century or one of the many Christian, Bible-soaked bubbles that exist today. ‘Revelation’, ‘prophecy’ and visions emanate entirely from the human brain. It is this which originally created revelations and now sustains ideas like heavenly saviours and supernatural resurrections. These things have no independent existence outside of the human imagination.

 

The Great Eternal Life Scam

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Heathens like me, and you dear reader, are gambling how we’ll spend eternity by rejecting Jesus. We’re turning down everlasting life to live in the mire of our own sin. Or so we’re told by evangelicals and other religious zealots.

So convinced am I that the claims of Christianity are wrong in every respect that I know I’m not gambling anything. Like everyone else who has ever lived, I will not survive my death. This is the nature of death – extinction, obliteration, oblivion. It is absurd to believe it is anything other when we know it is not.

I would not be averse to existence, particularly my own, continuing after death. I’d definitely go for it if that were available; I like being around, all sentient and self-aware and such. This is the sentiment to which Christianity appeals; most people do not want to think their existence is finite and that this often challenging life is really all there is. But life patently does not continue post mortem, except in works of fiction: fantasy, science fiction, the gospels.

Everlasting life is not the only promise Christianity makes, of course. There’s the whole ‘getting right with God’ shtick, forgiveness of sins and Life in all its fullness. Eternal life is the big one though, Christianity’s most miraculous, death-defying special offer.

Those doing the gambling are not atheists or sceptics. It’s Christians themselves doing that, succumbing to the false, utterly worthless promise of life after death. Those fully committed to Christianity spend their lives enslaved to its cultish demands, desperately trying to convince others they should surrender to its preposterous claims.

I value this life too much to squander any more of it on such nonsense. Yes, I did once, but I saw the light and stepped into it. Life is what you make it and needs to be lived before you die. There is zero chance you’ll be able to once it’s over.

Burst the bubble, those of you trapped within it. Your one and only life awaits you here on Earth. The clock is ticking.

Neil’s Second Letter, to the Literalists

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Dear Literalist,

I’m confused. Please help me understand which Jesus you believe in, the one whose spirit dwells within you.

Is it the Jesus of one of the first three gospels? The rabbi who walked in Galilee two thousand years ago? You see, I expect it to be him but then I find you ignore most of what he says. You know, stuff like love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, sell all you have and give to the poor. So I can only conclude this isn’t the Jesus you believe in and commune with.

Is it the Jesus in John’s gospel? The problem with this version, I think you’ll agree, is that he isn’t the same as the Jesuses in the other three gospels. He feels kind of made up. Probably no more so than those Jesuses but, you know, more obviously so.

Or is it the Christ Paul talks about? The one he saw in his visions? Because this Jesus really bears no similarity to the ones in the gospels. Paul doesn’t seem to know those Jesuses. Paul’s version is a heavenly being like other demi-gods of the ancient world: Osiris, Apollo, Mithras, Romulus, even defied Emperors, all of whom mystics claimed to have seen in visions. Is this the Jesus you believe in?

Perhaps you believe in the Jesus some New Testament writers claim sits at the right hand of God the Father ‘interceding’ on behalf of sinners. It’s a mystery how they know this, but they seem sure, so no doubt this Jesus is as legitimate as any other. You’d be perfectly entitled to include him in your internal pantheon.

You may also believe, as Paul did, in the Jesus who’ll be coming back to the Earth real soon to put the world to rights. Except of course Paul thought this was going to happen in his lifetime as did the writers of the synoptic gospels, none of whom refer to Jesus ‘returning’. It’s as if they didn’t believe he’d been here in the first place. Still, nothing to stop you from believing your Jesus will return in your lifetime, like millions of others have done in the past two thousand years.

Possibly though the Jesus you believe in is the one you encountered in your conversion experience (or think you did.) The one who you credit with changing your life and who now ‘walks with you and talks with you along life’s narrow way’. I confess this is probably the Jesus I believed in when I was a Christian, with a few extra details added from all the other Jesuses. Of course, my Jesus wouldn’t have been the same as yours. He was my own unique creation, just as yours is for you.

Perhaps you’ve convinced yourself that your own personal Jesus is actually the spirit or ghost of the original. After all, earthly Jesus appears to say in some of the gospels that his ghost will stick around to ‘comfort’ his followers after he himself returns to the heaven just above the clouds. Is this the Jesus you know and love? Does his spirit-ghost dwell inside you? If so, where exactly does it dwell? In your head? And how do you distinguish the Jesus-ghost from your own thoughts, imagination and conditioning? (Asking for a friend.)

I’d really like to know which of these Jesuses is your Jesus. Perhaps he’s an amalgam of them all, a confection of best bits. Please let me know in the comments.

But, if you don’t mind me saying so, almost all of these Jesuses are entirely made up. They’re the product of the human imagination, making themselves known in visions and dreams; they’re the result of subjective emotional experiences, or composites made from different sources.

So your best option is to say you’re committed to the ‘real’ Jesus of the gospels. But as we’ve established, you don’t really believe in him or you’d do as he commanded. In any case, there are several different, often incompatible Jesuses in the gospels. Some of them have to be made up. Oh, wait. They all are. The real Jesus is nowhere to be seen. If he ever existed he’s lost to us, replaced by the heavenly being seen in visions and the metaphorical stories invented about him.

What a quandary! Let me know how I can help.

Yours,

The Apostle Neil

Dying For A Lie, part 94

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Over on Gary Marston’s Escaping Christian Fundamentalism, he has been arguing, along with some of you, about the resurrection with Joel Edmund Anderson, self-professed expert on all things Biblical. Joel – he has a PhD in Biblical Studies, don’t you know – has twice said in the discussion that the disciples would not have died for a lie, meaning they wouldn’t have let themselves be martyred if they hadn’t really seen Jesus alive again in the flesh.

I’ve addressed the assertion that they wouldn’t have died for a lie several times already on this blog: here, here and here for example, though some of my thinking about the Jesus phenomenon has changed since then. Nonetheless, I added my penny’s worth to Gary’s discussion (it’s difficult to get involved in real time because of the time differences between the US and UK):

And there it is again: ‘they wouldn’t suffer death and persecution for what they knew to be a lie.’

While you (Joel) mention the execution of James there is no evidence even in your hallowed text that this was because he believed in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

The later legends of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul are just that: legends. (And Paul wasn’t even a disciple! Moreover, he is clear in Galatians that his experience of the risen Jesus was ‘in’ his head.) There is no evidence, none at all, for your claim that ‘the disciples’ (all of them?) died or were even persecuted because of their belief in a bodily resurrection.

If some were put to death, it could equally have been because of their abandonment of conventional Jewish beliefs; their provocation of religious authorities (there’s plenty evidence of this in the gospels); their replacement of emperor worship with a deified itinerant preacher or for political reasons. We simply do not know.

That said, there are zealots today prepared to die for lies (think 9/11, Islamist terrorists) so there is no reason to think it didn’t also happen 2,000 years ago.

This line of argument, as ‘proof’ of the resurrection is exceedingly weak, Joel, yet it appears to be all you’ve got.

Joel did not respond. I feel sure he will make the claim again at some point in the future because it’s what he, like many other Christians, want to believe, which is really what ‘faith’ is all about.

Scripture Explained

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In truth, when the Lord said, ‘love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,’ he meant by taking his gospel to them and speaking the truth unto them in love. This, after all, is the highest form of love: sharing the Good News of Jesus. For surely there is no way we can really love someone who opposes us. Therefore this cannot be what the saviour meant when he commanded us to love our enemies. Evidently, he made use of hyperbole to encourage us in our daily journey with him by making salvation known to those whose sin will only lead them unto Hell. There comes a point nonetheless when we must recognise that there are many enemies who will not accept the Word. These we must oppose, denigrate and condemn as the Holy Spirit directs. Does not scripture itself expect as much?   

When the saviour declared that we can’t serve God and money, he again spoke metaphorically. He did not mean the wealthy cannot enter the Kingdom of God. No, what he refers to is priorities. It is perfectly possible to be wealthy and a follower of Jesus so long as we put Jesus first. Where in the world would we be if we had to give away our money and possessions?

When the saviour commanded us to sell all we have to provide for the poor, he did not mean in this world which stands already condemned. Rather, he speaks in metaphor and refers to the emptying of our very selves to better follow him.

When the saviour said we must take up our crosses to follow him even unto death, he likewise spake metaphorically. He loves each according to that which he is able to bear and seeks to bless those who loves him. He speaks here therefore of our dedication to him. He encourages us to ‘die’ to our selves so that we might allow him to transform us into new creations worthy of himself.

When the Scriptures says we become new creations, it does not mean literally nor that it will happen in the twinkling of an eye. No, rather it refers to our being a ‘work in progress’. The Lord of miracle and all creation does not wish to impose on our free will by transforming us instantly. Instead, he seeks to test and purify us in a long almost imperceptible process. Only in heaven will we attain perfection.

When the saviour promised that the End of the Age was nigh for those who stood before him, he did not mean it was nigh for those who stood before him. No, for this was a secret message, a mystery, for those who would worship him in what would be, for those who stood before him, the distant future. What he meant was that when the time was right, when diverse conditions had been met – some of which would only be made known after our Lord’s time on Earth – the Son of Man would descend from the heavens to inaugurate the final judgement and the Kingdom of God.

When the scriptures declare that the Kingdom of God is intended for here on Earth, it speaks only metaphorically, for God promises those who have been saved by the power of Jesus’s blood that they will live forever with him in Heaven itself. This is a mystery known only to those who exegete the Bible correctly and ignore the plain and literal meaning of what it says.

So this, brethren, is how to deal with scripture. You need only apply one simple rule as you read it: if it appears to make demands of you, it is not actually doing so. It is either metaphor, hyperbole or both and must not be taken literally. On the other hand, when scripture is not making demands of you, everything, however unlikely it seems, is real, true and factual.

He who has ears, let him hear.

Ramifications

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I started writing this blog as a way of working out just what it was I’d believed prior to my realisation there was no God. While this ‘revelation’ caused the whole Christian edifice to collapse, I still had a lot of conditioning to deal with. I had been taught over the years that, like every other human being, I was worthless without God/Jesus. I needed first to regain some self-worth.

I had hang-ups too about how I spent my time and money. The cult had assured me that God was obsessively interested in how I used both. Did my use of my time and money further his kingdom? Was I using my time wisely? Tithing? Giving my money to alleviate suffering? I knew buying CDs and comic books didn’t really fit the bill, but I sinfully persisted in spending my hard-earned cash on them, when I had any to spare after taking care of my family and giving to the church and charity. Then the guilt! How could I be so thoughtless, so selfish? I had let God down badly (specially if I’d bought some of the devil’s music.)

The guilt was self-induced of course. I think I have a personality type that is prone to feeling guilty – it’s been the predominant emotion of my life – but the Christianity I encountered exacerbated it. I still struggle with guilt, not over any great ‘sin’ but in terms of how much I help others and whether my use of my money is self-indulgent and wasteful.

Despite now having no truck with the idea of sin (which is a worthless religious concept) I do sometimes catch myself worrying that I’ll be made to suffer in the next life (which doesn’t exist either) for who I am and my ‘lifestyle’ in this world. Completely irrational, I know, but the conditioning runs deep. It hasn’t been fully rooted out yet.

On the plus side, I can now see the Bible for what it is: a collection of stories, those in the so-called New Testament designed, as they declare quite openly, to promote the beliefs of the ancient Jesus-cult.

I realised that in an ocean of myth, legend and invention I had been taught to regard the gospels as an island of historical fact. Yet two of them are prefaced with patent fantasy – the incompatible nativity stories – and conclude with equally incompatible resurrection and ascension narratives. Yet I was expected to trust that everything in between these make-believe beginnings and endings – the miracles, the visions, the speeches, the fulfilled prophecy, the false promises and unlikely new prophecies – were all somehow factual and true.

No longer gullible, I came to see this as a preposterous expectation. Sandwiched between fantasy and illusion the gospels are all myth and legend. It’s pointless to argue, as apologists do – and quite a few sceptical scholars too – that we can discern the real Jesus among the invention:

that we can make something worth considering out of the discrepant resurrection appearances;

that because one or two historical figures are written into the story it must therefore be historical throughout;

that we can sift the factual wheat from the metaphorical chaff;

that there is a kernel to the tales that can be teased out from the fantastical accretions;

that contradictions can be explained (away) and by sleight of hand made compatible;

that somehow believing all of this fantasy material can ensure eternal life.

None of these things can be done, any more than they can with the legendary tales of Romulus, Buddha and King Arthur. Legends, are legends are legends. Stories are stories are stories.

Would I have been happier never to have been a Christian, never to have committed my life to Jesus? Almost certainly. But we are all where we are. Christianity and I have a history. It’s probably left me scarred, and perhaps you too. At least I escaped it to live my life as I needed to, even if I am still working my way through its legacy.