Blind Faith is not really faith at all.

Faith is, or should be, trusting in something that you know to be true, or at least have substantial evidence to base your belief on. If you are trusting in something that you have no way of knowing that it is the truth or at least have some good amount of evidence that it is truth, then you could really be deceived. Real faith is trusting in something you know to be true, not in something that you take for granted. Believing in something that you just take for granted is the best way to be deceived, and worst of all not even realizing it.

Most people today trust in what they have been told by the people in their pulpits or something that they have been taught by someone, holding some title, diploma or whatnot, who they believe to know what they are telling them is true. The problem is that people today haven’t researched for themselves to see if something is true. If you don’t know it for yourself, you could be, and more than likely are deceived. But It’s really hard to blame them though since there are thousands of people in every corner of the earth with their own version of the truth or what they consider to be the correct interpretation of something assumed to be true.

The bible is not absolute truth nor infallible

As far as the bible goes, which is supposed to be the absolute standard from which to base everything, is not so absolute. In fact, it is full of contradictions, inconsistencies, forgeries, and has undergone surgery to remove parts that church men have considered not viable with the doctrines of the church of the day.

What’s worse is that to go back to find out what the original works actually said is imposible since there is none in existance — the original documents have been destroyed or lost. The most recent codexes of the bible go back only to the 4th or 5th centuries, several hundred years removed from the departure of the main figures of Christianty the writings of the which could have lead us to the actual truths that they taught.

There are hundreds of these manuscripts and not only are there differences in the translations, but there are complete passages in some that are missing in others and visa-versa. Either those passages were added in at a later date (forgery) or they were already there and taken out by someone who thought they were in disagreement with certain doctines. Either way, these are corruptions that occured many years after the originals were written and these later alterations were incorporporated into our bible that is presumed to be the “inerrant Word of God”.

Real and serious contradictions in the bible

What we have to begin with, are the writings of Paul that directly contradicted the teachings of Jesus and his original disciples. Then it is suspected that there are actual insertions into his original writings by the orthodox church at a much later date. On top of that there are other epistles that were attributed to Paul but not actually written by him at all, according to some scholars. Then we have the three gospels that were pieced together from other earlier gospels that no longer exist plus the pieces that they borrowed from one another, all named after famous men that had nothing or little to do with writing those gospels.

Besides the three synoptic gospels, there is the gospel of John, written most likely last of all and you guessed it: not at all written by it’s namesake. Because of the style of the writing and the philosophy in John, absent in the rest of the gospels, it is most obviously the writing of a greek scholar having only learned about the life of Jesus though his studies in theology and mixing in Greek philosophy.

Because of it’s great diffence in philosophy, doctrine and style it was almost not included in the canonical New Testament. It is said that there was much disagreement as to whether it should be included or not. Seeing that pauline doctrine and the doctrine of the church in Rome finally became the winners in the doctrinal struggles, it becomes obvious why the Gospel of John was finally accepted into the collection of writings that was to make up the offical bible of Constantine and his new religion.

Apologists will say, is that there are no contradictions in the bible and that the bible is the inerrant Word of God. They say that the contradictions are actually only appearant contraditions and that there is a valid explanation for everything. What they end up doing most of the time is basing their assuptions on the premise that the bible is inerrant and that it is wholly inspired by God or other doctrines that are assumed to be sound truths which are not necessarily so. Then they have to bend over backwards to make up extremely ridiculous and many times incredulous explanations using their false assumptions as “proof” in an attempt to resolve the contradictions that are brought out.

All truth should be able to stand up to the test of logic

The very contradictions and inconsistencies that exist in the bible actually shed some light into the what some of the actual truths that were taught by Jesus. One way to test a contradiction is by who authored it. For example, if there is a contradiction between what Paul taught and what Jesus taught, who would you think was actually teaching the real truth? Paul or Jesus? Who do you believe?

Sometimes a contradiction is just a copy error by some scribe or the difference caused by that they term “oral tradition”. Every time a story is told it gets told a little different and after so many years a story can be completely different than the same one written down by a different person. However, many contradictions are usually not that significant. Such as this one: “when did the cock crow, after Peter denied Jesus once or three times?” Or “how did Judas kill himself by hanging or did he fall headlong on his sword?” Or “how many days was Jesus in the grave, one and a half days or three days?” These contradictions do show that the bible is not inerrant, but there is no real serious doctrinal issues here.

Any passage in question should have all the evidence examined and taken in the context of which it was written. For example, the so-called prophecy that says: “Out of Egypt have I called my son“. This passage is supposedly about the Jesus’ return from Egypt. There are 73 verses in the Old Testament that contain the phrase “out of Egypt“. This verse, which is not even a prophesy, in Hos 11:1, is about Israel, who God referred to as his “son” and when they were idolatrous. This is in no way a prophecy that could be applied to Jesus. This is a forgery that could not have been in the original and was added in at a later date.

Any passage in question should be logically sound. In the case where it is said that the bible proves Jesus is God because he was born of a virgin, this contradicts the belief that Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus could only be the Messiah if he were the biological son of Joseph. If he were the Messiah then he couldn’t be God, that is if he had no Earthly father. This can only be a forgery that was added in at a later date, not only because it is completely illogical but also because this doctrine is not found in other earlier manuscripts nor are they found in two of the other gospels nor Acts or any of the epistles.

Seek out the real truth

So if you really want to know the real truth, you have to seek out the truth for yourself, and not rely on others. You have to test whether something is truth or not taking into consideration all the evidence in its original context. All truth should be able to pass the test of logic. You can’t take anything on just face value or accept it because so-and-so said so, even well-meaning people can be deceived. What’s more, you never know what people’s motives are. Many will use doctrine to control and manipulate you and your wallet; and to gain power and prestige. Beware.

Just because something is stated in the bible doesn’t mean that it’s the complete unadulterated truth. The bible has undergone 2,000 years of copying, “correcting”, translating, mistranslating, forgeries, addition of things that were not original, etc. There are no original manuscripts to check to see if those things are actually true, the originals have been either “lost” or destroyed. Above all, pray and ask God to show you what the real truth really is… just like He has for me.