Questions of faith I am dying to have answered

by Philip Yaffe

To try to pre-empt people from misreading between the lines, let me clearly declare that the purpose of this article is in no way to challenge anyone's faith, but rather to better define my own.

I am now approaching the proverbial three score and ten, which means that I am probably fairly close to meeting my maker. I grew up in a quasi-religious family, meaning that my parents observed certain religious rituals and rites of passage, but not others. I never joined them.

Why? Because as I understood the meaning of the word "God" at that time, I could not see why He would require such rituals and rites. Besides, different religions had such very different rituals and rites of passage, claiming theirs to be the only truly correct ones, that I was left perplexed and unable to decide.

I have long since dismissed these ceremonies as superficial and unworthy of Him. My real concerns are about fundamentals. There are things about the Bible that I just don't understand.

I recognize that some people consider the Bible to be allegorical, such that inconsistencies in certain biblical accounts are irrelevant. What is important is the moral lesson. Other people consider the Bible to be the literal word of God, such that it must be taken exactly as written.

I have problems with both of these camps.

First, the literalists. I have a few questions about Genesis, the absolute foundation of the Bible. Please bear in mind that these are honest questions asked in hopes of receiving an honest answer.

According to Genesis, the Lord created Adam and Eve, and we are all descended from them. But the question is, how? Adam and Eve presumably had sexual relations to produce their children. But then what? If they children then had sexual relations with each other, or with the parents, to produce the next generation, and so on, wouldn't that have been incest? And isn't incest morally repugnant?

According to Genesis, Cain killed Abel and was banished by God to the land of Nod, where he met his wife. But how did she get there? Was she his sister?

The Bible is full of factual discrepancies like these. However, since I have serious doubts about the literal truth of the Bible, these do not concern me very much. Nevertheless, I must admit my constant surprise at people who do consider themselves literalists and have never, ever considered such discrepancies. They are surprised that anyone even inquires about them. This must take a massive amount of mental gymnastics or incredible insouciance.

More to the point, here are a few questions for literalists and allegorists alike. I have always been told that the Bible teaches morality. Would someone then kindly explain to me the following?

If God is the father of all mankind (whether you believe in Adam and Eve or not), then:

1. Why did he put the "tree of knowledge" in the Garden of Eden, knowing full well the danger it posed for them? Purposely putting temptation -- with unimaginable consequences -- before one's children does not seem a very a fatherly thing to do.

1. When Adam and Eve ate the apple, why did God punish not only them, but their children, their children's, their children's children's children, etc., down through the ages? Again, this does not seem to be a very fatherly thing to do.

1. Why did God designate the Israelites as his "chosen people," discriminating against all his other children? Once again, hardly a fatherly thing to do.

1. When God sent Moses to tell the Pharaoh "Let my people go!" Pharaoh refused. Instead of punishing Pharaoh, he punished all of Egypt, including sending famine, pestilence, and even slaughtering newborn infants. What kind of moral lesson are we to learn from this?

The fact is, the Bible is replete with examples of God, the Father, wreaking unspeakable havoc on the innocent, either directly or through his minions (the Chosen People). Where is the morality in all of this?

But the real kicker is the concept of Heaven and Hell. Heaven makes a certain amount of sense, rewarding children for being good. But Hell has no justification. This is not a punishment for misbehaving. It is an eternal punishment. Keep that word in mind. Eternal. Never-ending. Forever.

This means that He consigns his children unspeakable torment, with no hope of release. Ever. It is hard to imagine a less loving, less fatherly thing to do.

Yes, it can be argued that they were warned, and therefore the punishment is their own responsibility. However, this argument does not stand up to inspection.

Let's suppose that God has clearly established laws for the moral comportment of Man. Equally, let's suppose that He has clearly announced that failure to obey these laws will result in eternal damnation. Accepting these two ideas means that the concepts of sin and punishment become nonsense. Why? Because they are logically contradictory.

In view of the terrible consequences, who in his or her right mind would fail to obey? There would seem to be only two possible explanations:

• The "sinner", for whatever reasons, simply does not believe that he or she is disobeying.
• The "sinner" is not in his or her right mind. Who with properly functioning synapses would choose temporal gratification at the cost of eternal grief?

For God to cast such people into hell would not be punishing sin, but rather ignorance or mental illness. This is a hard concept to swallow.

Also bear in mind that the human life span compared to eternity is like the blink eye. Thus, a lapse that is virtually un-measurable on the time scale of eternity is avenged by punishment on a time scale beyond measure. Can anything anyone does in the nanosecond that represents our time on earth be so heinous as to deserve such bestial, unending retribution? Whatever happened to "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"?

The Bible is rife with such stories, not only in the Old Testament but also the New Testament, which proclaims the Apocalypse and the Final Judgment.

Here is a final question, not quite on the same cosmic scale as the forgoing, but nevertheless pertinent. Why are things such as avalanches, earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, blizzards, droughts, and other blindly destructive events referred to as an "act of God"?

It is often argued that the perfection of the universe (the movement of the planets and stars in the sky, the rising and setting of the sun, the change of seasons, etc.) are proof that God exists and is keeping watch over his creation. Does the occurrence of these other phenomena mean that the universe is not perfect, i.e. there are certain things over which God does not have control? Or worse, that God periodically unleashes these devastatingly destructive forces for no apparent reason?

I find no answer to any of these things in the Bible, in any other holy book, or in conversations with purported learned and holy men. I have therefore long believed that I will get answers (if there are answers to be gotten) only after I pass on, but certainly not here and now. If there are answers to be had before that inevitable event, would someone please enlighten me as soon as possible? Having reached my 67th birthday, I can't help but feel that time is rapidly running out.

Philip Yaffe is a former reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal and a marketing communication consultant. He currently teaches a course in good writing and good speaking in Brussels, Belgium. His recently published book In the “I” of the Storm: the Simple Secrets of Writing & Speaking (Almost) like a Professional is available from Story Publishers in Ghent, Belgium (storypublishers.be) and Amazon (amazon.com).

For further information, contact:

Philip Yaffe
Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 (0)2 660 0405
phil.yaffe@yahoo.com,phil.yaffe@gmail.com