Highlights from Penn and Teller:


- 4/5ths of American homes own a Bible.

- The bible is supposidly the best selling book of all time, but it never seems to crack Amazons top 100.

- Bible nuts pride themselves on believing things that are hard to believe in. God awards them for that.

- Genesis chap 1&2: There are two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORIES on Adam and Eve. In the first chapter, God creates Adam and Eve AT THE SAME TIME. In the second chapter, he creates Adam, starts creating animals and plants on the Earth, THEN creates Eve out of Adams rib. Which one happened?

- Genesis 6:11-13, Noas Ark. I don't really have to go into this, it's impossible. 10 billion species on a boat, give me a break. It wasn't meant to be taken literally, in fact, to take the story literally is MISSING THE COMPLETE POINT OF THE STORY. It's about renewal, and an account of an ACTUAL FLOOD that science has prove happened on the Euphrates river, around 2900 BC. It sure as hell didn't flood the world.

- Moses and the Red Sea: Thousands of Jews enslaved by the Egyptian Pharaoh? Never happened, in countless artifacts we have from ancients Egypt, not one account.

- There's no evidence that Moses even existed.

- There's no evidence that Jesus Existed. (i actually disagree w/ this one)

- The shroud of tourin has been proven to be a fake! But yet the Catholic church still recognizes it as a possibility. It's been dated over 1000 years after Jesus.

- An ancient historian named Josephis, wrote about Jesus and their followers. Later a first centry Roman historian also wrote about him. Multiple sources about a guy named Jesus, only written hundreds and a thousand years later.

- Jesus was not the only Messiah at the time. There were lots of them. Apollonius of Tayana was one of these written about in the first centry, NOW SWALLOW THIS:

-- Apollonius healed the sick.
-- Apollonius raised the dead.
-- Apollonius could walk through walls.
-- Apollonius was persecuted for his Religious beleifs.
-- Apollonius was brought to trial. By the local Roman courts.
-- Apollonius was crucified.
-- Apollonius ascended to heaven afterwards.
-- Apollonius came back from the dead where his followers saw him.


This is not the Jesus story, but is it? There are many stories like this! Jesus just happened to make the Bible!


- There are books that were a part of the original Bible that "didn't make the final cut".

- Conservative Christians pick and choose passeges from the Bible based on current moral conviction. A man shall not lay with another man, FINE, but what about all the others? For example:

-- You should stone to death disobedient children.

-- Exodus 21:7: It's ok to sell your daughter into slavery.

-- Exodus 35:2: Anyone working on the Sabbath, should be put to death.

-- Corithians 11:14: Men with long hair should be shameful. WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PRETTY PICTURES OF JESUS YOU WORSHIP?????!!!

-- Corithians 11:19-24: A man shall not go near a woman while she is on her period. Common sense says yes, but try to enforce THAT.

There are so many more, but if you believe God to be infallible, then you can't throw out some of the rules, then keep the ones that are most conveiniant.


THE BIBLE WAS A HUMAN EDITED, SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED BOOK, OVER MANY, MANY CENTURIES. It promotes prejudice, cruelty, superstition - even murder.

Now -- in your defense, I don't base my entire life philosophy on an episode of Penn & Teller. But the Penn and Teller episode was just an example, and simple to swallow for simple people. Excuse me if I don't base my entire philosophy on a book created by fools that lived 2000 years ago. I'll take actual fact and HEAVILY researched data. Not from a source that thinks ghosts are real and the world is flat. Just doesn't cut reality to me.

There are plenty of other problems. For instance, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is eventually crucified for raising Lazarus from the dead, arguably his greatest miracle. Yet its an event mentioned NOWHERE ELSE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT! Why? Simple. John made it up. We know now that the last chunk of the Gospel of Mark (handling serpents, drinking poison, all that jazz) didn't exist in the original manuscripts, yet its included in the scripture still. Remember, this is the perfect, inspired "Word of God" here. You do not get the right of picking and choosing which parts are credible and which aren't.

Some of the other "moral dilemmas" referenced being from P&T aren't really, from a Christian perspective. They're Old Testament vs New Testament. However, most of the "hero stories" of Genesis are based on Babylonian mythos. On the flip side, there's very little doubt from a historical perspective that Jesus was real. Did he really do all those great things or was he just a visionary philosopher that ended up exaggerated to make headlines? Most likely the latter.