Widespread criticism about the movie indirectly points to the core of the issue

The Exodus: Gods and Kings movie triggered an avalanche of criticism due to its supposed lack of accuracy at describing biblical events. The point is that the Bible itself is not historically accurate with regards to the Jews’ enslavement under an Egyptian pharaoh. Evidence for the Red Sea crossing and Exodus myths never happening are here.

As for some claims of chariot wheels being under water in the Red Sea, one problem with that is the wood would have rotted away by now and it wouldn’t last thousands of years, though some metal could still be down there within a few hundred years depending on the type of metal used. So there could have been some transportation occurring in the past few hundred years, I believe. We don’t know if those wheels belonged to any chariots or if there are wheels down there to begin with, and as far as I know, they may not even be wheels but the claim being the result of some distorted story or exaggeration or a misinterpretation of a natural object, which happens often. It could be that some ships carrying horses and chariots were lost at sea in the past few hundred years.

On a side note, this sums up the fallacies in religion in a nutshell; more specifically Judaism and Christianity and the evidence against it.

Ancient book needed, 50 versions, dependent completely on fallible humans to spread it while many people will live and die without a magical being giving them a chance to know, 3000 denominations, contradictions with itself and reality and science; makes claims about things that don’t happen in the real world, open to interpretation, translation errors, logical fallacies, a god that contradicts itself, has traits that contradict themselves, and contradicts what you would expect in reality if a being like that was around. The word of primitive humans who I wouldn’t call reliable sources who were highly prone to misinterpretation of hallucinations, dreams, cause and effect, and natural events as supernatural. It has copied and modified elements from previous myths and was used to control people throughout history and still is. It was and is used to make profit. Fallible humans made the book (humans are open to exaggeration, lying, misinterpretation, falsely remembering stuff, hallucinations, as I said before). Each member of the same religion has contradicting answers and views and understanding, yet each claiming to know and be in contact with the same being (can’t all be right but can all be wrong). Much was used as religious propaganda or allegories There are also countless other religions. This shows it is man made.

Also, the Hindu Vedas is about 60 times larger than the Bible (a library of writings) and much older. Anyway, to blindly trust ancient politicians and desert dwellers prone to mirages and PTSD no doubt putting words in people’s mouths and edited it away and added their own bits around the 4th century is 100 times worse than trusting modern day politicians. At least modern politicians don’t make extraordinary claims about magic that we just don’t see happen anywhere. Not to mention it is known that religion is used to control people, and any religion that uses fear tactics and discourages critical thinking and demands mindless obedience while asking for money is very suspect. Another reason not to go along with it.

It was used as a good way for leaders to control others when normal politics simply weren’t sufficient. Kingdoms long before have done the same thing. They combined it with politics. If a king or leaders can convince a population that a god is on their side, people are far less likely to oppose them. Also let’s not forget the dark ages and look at modern events. Less religious countries do better and all the first world nations are less religious than all the 3rd world, and the US is the most religious, yet we have the highest rate of rape and homicide in the first world while Scandinavian nations are the least religious (mostly atheist or non-affiliated) and do among the best in most ways these days. 1st world nations are secular nations and not theocracies, just as the US is a secular nation, which is why we have capitalism and individualism, which is anti-Christian, by the way, but has worked very well as long as it isn’t the extreme crony versions without a balance of democratic socialism (public property and services). This is a much better time to live than a few hundred years ago in comparison.

These religions make claims of fantastic stuff we never see happen in the real world and completely contradicts reality. There is absolutely no evidence of anything magical at all and no evidence that any gods smite cities, no talking donkeys or possessed talking snakes, no staffs turning into snakes, people living hundreds of years, no magical items or fruits, no mythical creation such as unicorns, dragons, angels, demons, giants, Seraphim, Nephilim, Cherubs. No sign of any of that. But there is evidence that people make up stuff or have disorders causing them to imagine stuff, like people on mushrooms. People who do drugs can hear plants talk, like a bush. Same with Schizos and probably people with dementia as well as epilepsy (which Paul seemed to have). If these events happened and sighting of all these magical creatures happened, we should still be seeing it happen today. We build towers much taller than the mythical tower of Babel, and even go into space, and no god is stopping us. New York City by Jewish and Christian standards is no doubt more sinful than the city in the Sodom and Gomorrah myth, yet no one is smiting it down. There is no sign of a god appearing to huge numbers of people like what supposedly happened. Nowhere to be found at all. Not to mention that we continue to discover natural explanations to events we used to believe were supernatural. The god of the gaps continues to shrink.

Let us not forget that incest with immediate family members isn’t biologically sustainable in humans. That couldn’t work. Also many elements of Judaism were copied and altered versions of Mesopotamian religions, like Sumerian and Canaanite religions and the Epic of Gilgamesh is very similar to some of the stories and is an older different version of the Noah’s Ark myth. There were also many savior myths before the Yeshua or (Jesus) character. The term ‘I am the way, truth, and the light’ was copied from previous savior myths, such as Horus. Horus from 3000BC may have been one of these sons of god and has some similarities to the Jesus (Jewish rabbi Yeshua) story. Dionysus is the Greek god of wine and may have influenced the ‘water to wine’ claim. One way the Greeks and ancients paid people tribute was by attaching divinity to popular people. Hence these myths of sons of gods and demigods. It is possible some of them never lived and were just made up like a mascot to represent an idea or an amalgamation of different myths and people. Hercules as well is a son of a god, or Mithra from the much older religion Zoroastrianism. Christianity is a combination of Judaism, Paganism, Greek religion, Roman religion, Zoroastrianism, etc. Even the Christian hell was ripped off and modified from Hades, which is a word used in the bible, and the term ‘hell’ may have come from the name of the Norse goddess of the underworld ‘Hel’ which is Pagan. Most historians agree with that origin of the word ‘hell’. The Jews didn’t believe in an afterlife, so as a result, many believed in different possibilities after death. But primarily they believed in Sheol, which is an underworld of sorts where people are in a state of borderline nonexistence. Greek influence is when they started believing in ascension and descending. It was a motivator to get people to act accordingly. Of course both Greek religion and Judaism branched off from ancient Mesopotamian religions and no doubt influenced both, so it is possible the idea of ascending and descending is from Zoroastrianism. The idea of a judgment day is of Zoroastrianism origin.

Heck, it talks about Jehovah loving the smell of burnt offerings. This is obviously the words of primitive people comparable to Mayan nonsense. The leprosy cleansing verse is just as crazy and is attached to the sources at the bottom of this article.

You can find the verses online, not to mention a baby killing god who if was true, I would still not go along with it since I also believe in democracy; not bipolar dictatorships and slavery. The Christian heaven is just another hell as far as I’m concerned, and is like being in a lobotomized state forever and a plaything of someone who doesn’t even need you because he is supposed to be all powerful, which means the purpose in life that Christians hold dear is not only objectification of us humans, but is pointless because we are not needed in the first place. Besides, who would want to be surrounded by clones of Pat Roberson forever either and have no diversity and lose all humanity or ability to feel empathy since if you are in a state of pure joy forever, it is like a robot who has been lobotomized, on meds forever, and comes across as being a sociopath since you would feel nothing else. Also without some pain and displeasure, the happy moments and pleasure lose meaning and become stale over time. I like my humanity. If I was altered that much, it wouldn’t be me, thus reinforcing how pointless it would be.

Also if a god is truly unimaginable and all powerful, it would and could send you to countless different afterlives that don’t involve either torture forever or eternal bliss and not be so pointless and simplistic as to set up things so that you either kiss his feet forever or burn.

Even Christmas (formerly Yule) and Easter and the traditions like festivals on those days, a tree, Easter bunny, even Santa, who is a combination of St. Nicholas and the Norse head god Odin are Pagan, and the celebrations of the winter solstice and spring equinox, and spring time was salvation. It is possible that the sons of god myths, Jesus of which is the new kid on the block, could have been a way of anthropomorphism of the sun, solstice, and equinox, as well as constellations.

Of course it is a known fact that people back then especially misinterpreted natural disasters as supernatural, just like their false claims that mental illness is demon possession. We know that is not true and we have modern medicine to treat it. Also mental illness and brain damage can cause people to have religious experiences and so can smoking stuff or breathing in some stuff. Ancient superstitious politicians are not reliable sources when you consider all the evidence against these religions, as I mentioned, as well as humans being prone to misinterpretation or other mental faults, especially back then in a time of ignorance.

I believe if there is a higher power, which there could be, it doesn’t care what you believe and it likely doesn’t get itself involved in petty human affairs. A deist version would be most compatible with reality if there is a god or gods.

On a side note, even though there could be some form of afterlife, the more we learn about the brain, the less likely it is. The fact that if you damage your brain, you lose your mind, can lose all your memories, alter personality, reduce awareness, etc, doesn’t bold well for an afterlife. If the core elements of NDEs are true, then it is the best evidence of an afterlife and what happens to us and indicates that most people regardless of belief have a good experience, which is consistent with a god not caring what we believe, which is consistent with reality and the fact that you believe what you are brought up to believe and a god isn’t taking it upon itself to ensure we all have the chance to believe in the same thing, which means if there is a god, it doesn’t give a rats ass what we believe.

Gary Daniel