Blog #2: Genesis

I was raised as a Christian. I went to religion classes, got my communion and my confirmation. However, I never really felt like a true Christian. I was never able to believe the stories I read and was told the way that my family and friends could, without seeing proof. Believing, without seeing any evidence, has always been a difficult thing for me to do.

         Genesis speaks of the origins of this world. This includes the creation of Earth, life, and man. The birth of man’s knowledge, as well as his understanding of how the world is going to work, all came from the original “sin”. This sin was simply disobeying God, who seemed to be man just like those who disobeyed him, yet he had all the power. He immediately banished those who disobeyed him, and cursed them and their descendants for all eternity.
         In my opinion, this seems very drastic. The Bible seems to claim that God forgives all sins, so long as we are remorseful. As opposed to showing forgiveness and compassion, God banishes his creations, his first children. That just seems hard to believe, at least for me. The story of Adam and Eve is just a small part of the whole picture that I have trouble seeing. A huge addition to this concept is the story of Noah and the flood. Why would God, the one who forgives, destroy everything and everyone simply because they aren’t what he wants them to be? The Bible claims that God willingly murdered millions of creatures, human and not, just because he didn’t like them. This does not seem realistic at all, and it definitely is not forgiving and accepting, as God is supposed to be.

         In class, we discussed the different ways to approach reading the Bible, and how we can read it critically. In order to critically read the Bible, it needs to be approached with an unbiased, unspoiled mind. Having a belief, whether it is the Bible being true or not, makes it very difficult to read the Bible critically. Being as I have trouble accepting the Bible as true, and in fact see it as a very interesting work of fiction (with plenty of good lessons, of course, but fiction none-the-less), I know that reading this work of literature in the way this class requires is going to be very hard to do.