I was a very religious and studious Presbyterian child with a penchant for reading everything and asking a lot of questions about it. While I doubt my Sunday School educators intended to be cruel, a scholarly kid is easily affected adversely by illustrated fairy tales told by an authority figure. In more cases than not, these adults turned out to not actually know all that much about the faith they were promoting.
So way back when, we good little children were assigned “scripture lessons.” I not only read and memorized the assigned words, I kept going. This led to multitudes of questions, to which I received unsatisfactory answers from those entrusted with my spiritual development (see Introduction to the Appendices). After college, I began my own research into the Christian and Jewish source material, a process that expanded and accelerated over the years.
Combined with my observations about the human condition – especially the horrendous suffering that is a large part of humanity’s lot – my belief in the Old Testament god evaporated rather quickly. As my faith dissolved, the inconsistency and hypocrisy of Christianity became more and more evident. I am not alone in this belief (or lack thereof). At the most fundamental level, I question why the creator of the universe needs millions of middle managers on the payroll to explain and administrate his/her/its message. The sad truth is that few people understand what they are reading in the Bible, who wrote it or what their motives were.
In case I have not been clear: I do not believe in the Bronze Age god of the Old Testament, who is also the Christian god and ultimately, the god of Islam (see Appendix C), any more than I believe in the Hindu elephant-header god or Viracocha, Lord Instructor of the Inca World. If you detect some anger, you are correct. I join hundreds of millions of former religionists who feel betrayed by the stories we were told as children, when we were unable to discern the greater context.
And yet I continue to love those stories and find endless fascination with their origins and context, even while understanding that no god wrote them. I remain amazed at how little most Christians know about the book that theoretically informs their belief system.
That is why I write these books. The hope is that this modest document will provide a fresh context for readers across the spectrum of belief.
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