Religion IS Man-Made

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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In the effort to pay some last respects to the man, I took up Hitchens’ God is Not Great the other day. I didn’ t make it too far in mind you. Only through the first chapter. But that was enough, I think, to understand his basic concerns.

Now, his ultimate concern is clearly that religion does not leave room for free thinking. His point is that we are to think for ourselves and that religion stifles this. Fair enough. It strikes me as a gross misrepresentation of Biblical Scripture, which I believe is all about generating the free-thinking capacity of humankind, but I do get where he’s coming from.

He also says something therein that’s been on my mind lately, namely, that “the mildest criticism of religion is also the most radical and the most devastating one. Religion is man-made.”

Now, for those who don’t know, the Bible is my Bible. That is, it’s my book. My resource. My faith. It’s what I turn to and identify with intellectually, religiously, or whatever, whether I understand it or not (which I certainly don’t, at least not in its entirety).

But here’s the thing: I’ve been quite convinced and quite at peace with the fact for a long time now that the Bible is man-made. Not just religion, which is to say the social structures which have the Bible (or some other sacred text) as their apparent foundation, but the Bible itself. I have no doubt and no trouble with the fact that both are man-made.

Now, I get why critics use this as an attack, or why Hitchens can call this “the most radical and devastating” criticism. That is, most faithful do insist upon the God-givenness of Scripture. That it is God’s book and that God is the author.

But where does this idea come from? And why is it so important that God, and not a human being (or human beings), wrote the books of the Bible?

Is it to ensure consistency across texts, as if only one author can ensure this? Is it to give the texts a status of Scripture, as if human beings are unable, by themselves, to write God-revealing texts or texts that are deeply consistent with each other?

I guess my question is, what do we (faithful) lose by getting rid of the idea of God’s authorship of Scripture? What do we gain by keeping it? What might we gain by getting rid of it?

One thing that we might gain by getting rid of it is, indeed, an indication of the power of humankind’s free-thinking. When I say that the Bible is my Bible, I don’t mean that I think it is God-inspired and that I must toe the line, but that I recognize it as an authority (of thought) far greater than me and that I aspire to it. The man-made-ness of the Bible is an inspiration and an incredible source of self-respect (or respect for humankind). One that isn’t inconsistent per se with the idea that God as author, but one that becomes so-much-more apparent when we attribute such works to human hands.

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Supposedly God knows more than humans and He is therefore the ultimate authority on morality, ethics, everything. A book attributed to God carries some weight. A work of fiction produced by a few men an couple of thousand years ago has far less authority. Anything that they wrote may be entirely wrong. A book written since that time is based on more experience and more current experience and could legitimately be called a better guide for living. Why not use ‘The Prince’ as a bible or the works of Nietzsche? Or perhaps sections of the Bible should be rewritten to reflect today’s political correctness.
A Bible written by humans loses stability and authority.

3

It’s true, if God was the source then it would attribute to the Bible a certain undeniable power and inerrancy. These qualities wouldn’t be lost if we attributed the Bible to a human source, but they would be in question, or susceptible to question.

But again, if we can all be on the same page about freedom of thought and fostering human thought, and the Bible, if it valued the same, then wouldn’t it be more in line with these values if these qualities of the Bible were in question?

Wouldn’t it be better if we had to decide for ourselves about the authority of Nietzsche and of the Bible? (Can we recognize and submit to authority in any other way and still respect ourselves?)

I do see the gains you mention in attributing the Bible to God. But I also see gains in not attributing it to God. So given the evidence in favour of a human source and the fact (?) that awe-inspiring authority is possible in the works of human hands, then why persist in the idea that God is the author? Why not do away with this and let the Bible prove itself in the marketplace of human ideas?

It seems to me that’s the only place that it can prove itself, and that persistance in a divine origin is, if anything, more of a hindrance in this rational world than it is a help in furthering the faith.

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I would also add to the list The Gospel of Judas and the Nag-Hammadi texts. I assume that when someone says “Bible” they mean both Testaments together, where The New Testament is comprised of only four, canonical, Gospels…

I wonder how many people would find those “heretical” texts equally or even more fulfilling than those preached in churches… :question:

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So let’s assume that the bible is just a regular book.

Why should anyone read this collection of stories? Are christians fans who are politely recommending this book to the rest of the world?
Let’s say someone read it and thought most of the stories were boring and on the whole pointless… why are they told to expect hellfire and damnation?
Say someone, having read the book, thought it was a wonderful collection of stories with allot of good lessons about life and how to live… but didn’t really believe any of the supernatural stuff was real… is that person a christian, or jew or what?

And pretend for a moment that this is just some random book you picked up one day at your local bookstore.
Review it… honestly… like you would any other book and see if it’s really all THAT great.

Here… I’ll start… from the start:

The creation thing with the 7 days and God creating the various parts of the world was boring and not at all creative, but the garden of eden stuff (which if you ask me, should probably be seperate from the rest of the creation myth), was a very poetic and artistic expression. It was a beautiful piece about growing up and becoming aware that it’s not all fun and games. When you’re a child, your parents provide you with everything you need, and you live in a home (paradise) that they created for you… but as you eat from the tree of knowledge (grow up) you learn about the ugly side of the world… worst of all, you become aware of the fact that one day you will die… Naturally your parents try to shield you from this knowledge for as long as they can, but even so… you want to learn and there’s no stopping you. Eventually the the outside world (talking snake) will tempt you to be curious and defiant, either forcing your parents to tell you about the dangers so as to arm you for what is to come, or learning hard lessons on your own. Once you are grown up it’s time to leave home, stand on your own two feet and enter the real world… there are now things expected of you and the world is far less forgiving… paradise is gone.

A poorly thought out and simplistic vision of creation, considering the creative freedom one is given on this topic, coupled with a poorly paced telling of it, starts us off with a dissapointment… but then comes the eden story which makes artistic use of metaphores to describe a very important human experience and wonderfully reflects something basic about the human condition… On the whole, I’m giving this creation myth a C+

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Approach it that way, please do, but I wouldn’t say that it is a regular book. While it is written by human beings I believe that it reveals God.

For any number of reasons. Maybe they’re interested in history or ancient cultures. Maybe they’re looking for answers. Maybe they just like ancient literature.

I don’t know what a Christian is. I would say that part of being a Christian though is recognizing the divinity revealed in Jesus Christ, which is to say in the Bible. This is certainly more than just being a fan though. I’m a fan of Plato, and would recommend reading Plato, but I don’t think Plato’s dialogues reveal God.

What supernatural stuff? The miracles? The resurrection of the dead? I don’t think you can be a Christian without belief in these. To be clear though, I don’t mean belief that such miracles happened, but rather belief in their possibility, that for God all things are possible. (Even resurrection of the dead.) I think that kind of belief is quite necessary.

I have (if not in quite that way). And I can honestly say that it had an impact on me like no other book. In fact, it was probably Genesis 1 that started it off, despite your rather dismissive attitude toward it. No other books have challenged or inspired me the same as that one story, or two stories (to include Genesis 2-3), not to mention the stories that follow.

Could you expand on that? If you compare it to competitive creation myths, like that in the enuma elish, it is quite creative. No, there is no battle, no slaying of the chaos monster, but that’s just what sets it apart. There’s a subdual by word rather than a subdual by force. There is cooperation rather than competition… I think that makes it quite interesting and, well, creative.

You know, I would say that the whole of what follows is contained in that one chapter. Really, Genesis 1 is all you need. It’s the complete story. Imagine that if you could, some thousand pages condensed into one or two, into a quite simple (and I would say lovely) tale.

I’m drawing here on Jacob Taubes, who says something similar of Romans, that the whole of that complex letter is contained in the opening greeting, which is to say in the first few verses. I believe it’s a recurring device in the Bible, containing the whole in the beginning. Containing depths of meaning in single verses.

I’m also drawing on Heidegger, who I believe noted in regards to Parmenides that we used to say more in a few verses of a poem than later philosophers could say in massive tomes. We’ve forgotten, I think, how to appreciate that, let alone to write like that.

Maybe you have seen through it though. But judging from your rather simplistic reading of Genesis 2-3 I would have to say that you have not. That’s no offense mind you. Genesis 2-3 is a super challenging text. It’s about much more than growing up and becoming aware of the hardness of life. It’s about our vocation as humankind. It’s about our relationship with God. It’s about wisdom and eternal life. It’s about our relationship with animals. It’s about marriage. It’s about yes, hard consequences. The link to these hard consequences however is not a simple “growing up” and the awareness that comes with age.

What creation myth would you give an A?

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So instead of claiming that the bible is the word of God… you’re saying that it’s a book writen by people who knew God so as to reveal him to the rest of us?
I don’t see how that makes much of a difference.

But are you saying I’d be on equal footing with you if I did?

Sure I might not qualify as a christian… because we’ve agreed that “Christianity” is a man made religion with man made rules and doctrines… but I’d be just as “in touch” with God as any christian though… since I read the same stories and had the same God revealed to me… who is to say which of us has the better understanding?

Hey aside from the boring start and the utter waste of paper that was the listing of fathers and sons and the establishing of a family tree… I rather enjoyed Genesis too… clearly not as much as you, but I liked it.

I know a whole host of creation myths but for the most part can’t remember to whom they belong… but one of the ones I recall as being creative and thought provoking was the one where we’re the dream that some immortal entity dreams and that this dream starts off blissful and wonderful but slowly decays into chaos and hatefulness, ending with it becoming so brutal that the immortal one wakes up from it… and the world ends… that is until he falls asleeps again… and it all repeats.

It paints a picture of us being unimportant by-products, ultimatly doomed and that the best we can hope to do is tell a remarkable story to this immortal being with our lives… not necessarily as individuals, but as a whole…

Far more creative than a dude who makes stuff come into being by commanding it… for no apparent reason.

There’s a difference between making something CLEAR trying to communicating an idea… and teasing people to think on what you might have meant, perhaps inspiering creative interpretation and thus provoking thinking and reflection.
I’d say the purpose of poems is not to tell us a story, rather it is to give us words and inspire us to make up a story of our own with them… sometimes the story is to obvious we all come up with the same thing… other times… there are lots of options open.

You read genesis and see a way to learn about God and our place in the world…

I read genesis and read a writen down version of what probably used to be old word-of-mouth stories made up and told by desert people to eachother over a campfire or to children as bedtime stories. Passing on moral and life lessons through colorful metaphores and imagery, back when storytelling was an art form… I have no reason to believe these people knew anything about God or our place in the universe, nor felt any great need to make stuff up and fool eachother into believing it… so I see none of what you are talking about.

Off the top of my head I don’t think I’ve ever read a creation myth that was deserving of an A… but to be fair, we’ve improved and changed much with regard to story-telling since ancient times… There are lots of modern writing that I consider extreamly creative and intricate, worthy of an A… sadly they don’t qualify as creation “myths” we just call them works of fiction.

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A thought provoking post. When I was a fundamentalist II Timothy 3:16 was the guiding principle and it was translated “All Scripture is God-breathed” and applied to the entire protestant Bible [at least in theory]. Belief in Biblical inerrancy produces conformity and order. But it’s a thought stopper. Once one abandons inerrancy, anything goes. Certainty founded on authority is lost. We can discuss what the texts might mean, but there is no way to resolve disputes about hermeneutics. Subjectivity reigns.

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I think it makes a difference. It’s a subtle shift, yes, from the books being authored by God to the books revealing God, but I believe it is an important one. For starters, it bespeaks the power and authority of humankind versus treating humankind as a conduit through whom God speaks. In writing books that reveal God human beings show their potential equality to God, at least in wisdom. It shows us as capable conversants with God. It shows us as capable speakers for God.

It also makes Scripture less susceptible to criticism. It removes the needless vulnerability resulting from the idea that the books are authored by God. It’s kind of hard to believe that God actually wrote these books, I think, versus the idea that human beings are capable of a wisdom befitting God. Furthermore, to suggest that God did write them is kind of a conversation stopper, you know? Again, I think it’s much better for people to come to accept the God-revealing power of Scripture on their own versus being told up front that God wrote this and that they must believe.

Most importantly, perhaps, it puts us in a more questioning frame of mind when approaching Scripture. Indeed, we question it because humans wrote it, because that makes us suspicious of errors, but in questioning it, even for errors, I believe we are in a more proper frame of mind for engaging with the wisdom there. The point is to wrestle with the material, and whether we do this because we’re searching for errors or because we recognize that this is the point, who cares.

Anyways, some differences.

Yes and no? I think there’s a process of entering into a religious relationship with a text. And absolutely, Plato is powerful enough to inspire that. This process isn’t a “this is God’s word so accept it” but rather it involves a deep thoughtfulness and long rumination. It requires texts that can accomodate great depths of thought. When it comes down to it, I suppose I’ve found Scripture capable of accomodating much deeper thinking than any other text that I’ve engaged. It challenges us to wisdom and life like no other.

To be clear though, I’m not against texts that could equal it (even if I think Plato does not). In fact, I wish such literature was more forthcoming!

I would say it is less about understanding and more about practice. So yes, you may understand, but if you don’t live as belief in the resurrection of the dead would require then no amount of understanding will make you a better Christian. (That’s where I fall short. I strive for understanding but my practice isn’t always so hot. I’m outstripped as a Christian by some who’ve barely cracked the Bible!)

So you’d rather be an unimportant by-product than made in God’s image? Here’s the thing: if there’s “no apparent reason” that could mean two things: 1) there is no reason or 2) we are being motivated to look for the reason. It’s WTF moments like that that are supposed to get us thinking, and that Scripture is rife with for just that purpose. Many would assume 1), or think that an apparent inconsistency is in fact an inconsistency. They don’t see it as a motivation to look deeper and to think harder. They don’t recognize the call to wisdom, and they dismiss the text.

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Sure… but it also raises allot of serious issues… like: How did the writers gain any knowledge about God? Even if they did gain knowledge, did they remain faithful to the task of passing it along, or did they edit here and there to suit their own ends? How can we tell? also given that the bible is man made, to assume that it’s any more “real” than any other made up religious text, of which we have plenty, seems a stretch… and can only be believed if the reader is sufficiently impressed with it… which isn’t guaranteed.

The problem is, one’s justifications for believing anything that’s in the bible becomes so thin as to be untenable.

Christian apologists have long since come up with justifications for all this stuff… the bible is writen by men but their hands were “guided” by God, to ensure it came out perfect… and the reader is not made aware of God via the bible, but rather is moved by the holy ghost to see God… After that people will “recognize” God in the bible and know it to be true… ect

No and that’s the beauty of it… It dosn’t give us what we want and would like to believe… It tries to make us let go of our egos and look at a bigger picture, one in which we are not central.

Why credit the book with anything, if all it does is ask me to make something up on it’s behalf… ?

I can see why, given your beliefs, you would like to invite me to look deeper and closer at the texts in search of meaning and wisdom… but the problem is, whatever I find in that contemplative fashion will be a subtext that I wrote on my own and have very little to do with the book… If I read harry potter believing there was something hidden beneath the surface, some wonderful wisdom… I might find simular depths… but again of my own making.

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I won’t deny issues. But the issues become more in line, I think, with those attendant upon any text that we propose to accept as revealing some kind of truth or wisdom.

But aren’t we rather central? Let’s not fool ourselves. We have power over this world and all of the creatures in it, just as the Bible says, even if we don’t take up our rule in a way that God would approve.

To get more on your side however, what I like about Biblical teaching, at least insofar as I get it, is that it is both centralizing and de-centralizing. Human beings are dust. This is clear from Genesis 2. And from Genesis 3 it would seem that dust is our destiny (although I believe resurrection of the dead and our restoration to life corrects this). Also, not only are we dust but there is no denying that God has a more central role than human beings, and that next to God a certain humility or fear is required (indeed, fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so that the first “step” on the way to wisdom is a decentralizing of our place in the cosmos).

But human beings are also called to image God, which indicates our central place of importance in this scheme… But I think this is a second “step”. The only proper way to ascend to this rulership is through the humility of fearing God, which is to say an acknowledgement that there are greater things than us, great though we are (or could be).

I don’t want you to make something up on the text’s behalf. Yes, think imaginitively, but always come back to the text. If you’re on the right track, the text should bear it. It should scream with correctness.

But yes, even when it does so we can’t be so sure. We need to review. Find pieces that don’t fit. Let those pieces challenge our understanding. Down to single words. But anyways, sure, I suppose when it comes down to it, yes, you do have to “make it up”. But it’s not so straightforward as that. More a deepening back and forth between text and imagination. I’m sure you’ve encountered such a process before. And hopefully you can agree that the end result isn’t just “of your own making” as you put it.

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There is a separation between God and religion. I think most understand that.

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Yes, but what does the man-made-ness of religion mean? My point is that it is an evidence and an affirmation of the wisdom potential of humankind. That God didn’t author the Bible is not a bad thing, but a good thing. A good news not just about God, since it is about God, but about humankind, who is able to write about God, or to reveal God through its writings. This says a lot about us and is in fact very positive, or creates warm feelings about being a human. It is finding our meaning so to speak.

Of course, this also requires a deep love of the Bible, a being taken by it and committed to it, just as if one was taken by and commit to Socrates or Buddha on some deep existential-intellectual-spiritual level. That the Bible is God-revealing is something that, while I do declare, I could never prove, but which must instead be proven by our own encounter with it, not by what others say. Each must discover Job, Socrates, Buddha, etc, on their own. Each must discover how these (texts) reveal God, or if they do.

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Well said, alyoshka. =D>

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I have a pet peeve about “man-made” excuses, especially about “religion is Man made”. Well, besides our sensations (unless a metaphysical solipsist), everything would be man made. Science is man made, which in turn means that scientific theories are man-made, and math is man-made, morality is man-made, and literature is man-made. So what isn’t man-made, besides sensations? That is how bad Hitchens statement is.

But don’t worry. He’s with God now! :open_mouth:

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and since it could be argued by religious people that they are basing their religion on sensations - hearing God’s voice, feeling the presence, and so on - this idea does nothing to help the debate. And our sensations are at least in part man-made.

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I can agree with you about sensations, in part, being man made. This is, I would have to say, qualified that sensations have no concepts applied to them like a baby doesn’t (i assume) apply concepts to its sensations. Once you apply the concepts to sensations, those sensations (with the qualification) are man made. :-k

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I would say there are concepts in there. From a scientific point of view based on the experiences of that baby’s ancestors. Concept might be a misleading word - since it implies some sort of verbal hypothesis - but an inbuilt bias and one that could be translated into words - like Piaget did and words that would not apply in many cases for other animals who have other biases based on their histories.

A baby is not simply taking in the world. It is actively constructing its world by focusing here and not there and along the lines built into its particular senses and needs. Let alone what is happening once that kid has words and has been bombarded with them effectively for a while.

My perspective goes beyond the scientific one and I think we bring in stuff from past lives - at the risk of losing your respect in one sentence - and a lot of this is rather conceptual, but that’s all another story.

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Okay, here is what I’m taking away, in some sense, from what you’re saying. We can have some sort of a priori knowledge. This seems to be implied in some sense. I see this as a possibility. So yes, I can see what you mean by this.

And another point you seem to be making is about concentrating on something. Now in this point, I have one point. I can walk through a library isle. I’m having these visual sensations. But I’m not concentrating on every single thing in that sensation, like “Moby Dick” is on the shelf in the upper-right hand corner of the shelf on the right hand side of me. I’m concentrating on certain things in the visual field. Think of it like a painting. You have the whole painting there, but you are only concentrating on the naked lady in the left hand side of the painting, but are not paying attention to the cat licking it’s belly. It’s still int he visual field, just not being concentrated on. And I also think you can be saying that our minds are actively constructing things, which become our visual field. I think this is all acceptable.

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I would include more than sensation int the category of what isn’t man-made. For instance, there is the earth. There is the sea. There are other people. To limit oneself to sensation is to deny these things, no?

God made all of these things that we see, not just our sensations.

As for Hitchens I can say one thing: the man was clearly an affirmer of the power and potential of humankind. He wanted to look beyond doctrine to a more free-thinking approach, and this I believe is divine. Or a revelation of God insofar as it goes. It’s too bad he was also stuck in his own (man-made) doctrines that didn’t exactly fulfill their potential as divine creations called to image God (of attaining to the iconic, like the Bible, or the Koran, or Homer).