Leaving god – Step 2

Once you’ve identified certain texts for which there is flimsy or inadequate defense, now it’s time to ask your friends of the same religion. If you’re Muslim, ask other Muslims the difficult questions like: why is it that I’m allowed to marry up to 4 women, but my wife won’t let me? How come she’s not allowed to marry up to 4 men? Or how about this one: Why is my son going to get more in his inheritance than my daughter? Why are there dress codes for women, but none for men? Women have specific requirements, while men have vague references like “dress modestly”! Modest for one man is not modest for another.

If you’re a Christian, ask other Christians this question: Why are parents allowed to punish their disobedient, drunk sons with death? How about this: Both Mother Teresa and Gandhi worked for peace in India; why is it that Mother Teresa will get into Christian heaven, but Gandhi won’t? Why didn’t Jesus write anything himself? Why did it take over 40 years for anybody to jot something down about Christ? Was he of such little interest that for over 4 decades people just told stories about him without ever writing anything down? What kind of stuff did they leave out during the first Council of Nicea? Clearly they didn’t accept everything; otherwise, there would be no need for a council.

Ask other Muslims: Why didn’t Muhammad write anything down himself? (Common answer is: “He was illiterate, that’s why the Quran must be by god.”) If he was illiterate, why then would god pick an illiterate man to pass his message to? Wouldn’t it make more sense to pick someone who could write the message down? Why didn’t Muhammad manage the recitations himself? Who was responsible for writing things down? Why wasn’t the Quran assembled while he was still alive? Why did Islam fragment virtually the day the prophet died? Why did he marry a 9 year old girl?

If you’re a non-Catholic: Why don’t you believe in the Catholic church – it existed before any Protestant denomination? Why not Greek Orthodox? With virtually hundreds of different man-made versions of the Bible, which one do you believe and why? Which makes one better than the other? Why do they all contain the insane story of Noah? Is it a literal story, or a fictitious story about “starting over”?

If your either Muslim or Christian ask this most important question: Why didn’t god, Muhammad, Moses, Christ, Noah, etc. speak out against slavery? Why was slavery allowed to flourish for thousands of years under religious rule? There is no mention of abolishing slavery – only mention of how to treat your slaves. By not condemning slavery and by giving instructions on how to treat them, these religions allowed the willful theft of men, women and children into forced slave-labor.

You don’t have to come up with an answer for all of these questions, at this stage simply observe your friends and remember their answers. Come home and write them down on an anonymous blog. That’s what I did.