The Logical Atheist

  If you want to know what a leading Israeli archaeologist has to say about the stories told in the Hebrew Bible, you can make a good start by listing to a 26-part conversation with Israel Finkelstein, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. These half-hour conversations, conducted by Matthew J. Adams of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, are directed at interested laymen, and I highly recommend them. Finkelstein's book, The Bible Unearthed:  Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts , written with Neil Asher Silberman, is a thoroughly enjoyable read. You already realize that the biblical stories are fiction (with a smattering of historical references), but these conversations will fill out your understanding in eye-opening ways. The important matters -- such as the patriarchs, the Exodus from Egypt, the conquest o...

I'm inclined to cut the people who lived before what we call the Common Era some slack. You try living with a calendar that runs backward. You’d be voting on the first Tuesday after the first Wednesday of November. Did the clocks do that too? Imagine your cable guy promising to be there between 12 noon and 8 a.m. on Wednesday!

...that Yahweh is a fiction.

The Hebrew Bible is a record of one atrocity after another. Mass murder commanded by Yahweh abounds. Quentin Tarantino couldn't do it justice. And yet the pain inflicted on one man, Job, stands out as especially monstrous. On a bet, Yahweh ruins the innocent Job's life, destroying everything and everyone he loves. And when Job asks why, this all-loving, all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing god says, in effect. "Who the f*** are you to ask me? Can you do even one of the awesome things I can do without breaking a sweat?"  According to the Good Book, Yahweh opens his long megalomaniacal response by saying, "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Believe in this impossible thing if you wish. But don't preach that it is worthy of adoration and worship.

"Skepticism is the beginning of faith." --Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray .

If Yahweh knows every detail of the infinite future with perfect certainty, then he knows perfectly everything thing he will do forever. He knew this from day one. But then how could Yahweh have free will?  Further question: if Yahweh has no free will and thus is not an agent, how can he be good or evil?

Why does Yahweh want or need to be served? Isn't that selfish?