When I asked my very religious sister about why the Bible says “and god created man in their own image” at first she was surprised that it said “their” and then offered that “they” were the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. When I asked her how the Son and Holy Ghost could have been involved before they had even appeared she said that they were in God’s plan from the start. So I asked her why did God bother letting everything get so screwed up if he knew he was going to send Jesus to fix it later. Wasn’t he just toying with us? She said that God wanted to let us choose our own way. How would you respond?

It’s the nature of argument that every argument has a counterargument. You could go on bringing up objections of this sort 24 hours a day for the next 4000 years and still not be one inch closer to shaking your sister’s faith. In my personal view, religionists of the Mosaic tradition (Jews, Moslems, Christians of all types) have reconciled themselves to a God of dirty tricks. Thus it makes sense to them that he would deliberately plant discrepancies in his own scriptures (such as the one you note) in order to “test our faith.” Thus it makes sense to them that he would plant (or allow to be planted) in the earth fossils of animals that never existed, giving a false impression of the true age of the earth so as to “test our faith.” I feel that if people care to put their trust in a God capable of such shenanigans, that’s their problem.

DATE: 02 Apr 1998
UPDATE: 19 Apr 1998
ID: 232