The Invention of God: The Rise of the Abrahamic Traditions

No religious triumvirate has ever exerted a more powerful, more sinister, more corrupt, more bellicose, more destabilizing, more global, more encompassing reach than the emergence of three religious movements that have made an undeniable impact in the history of Western Civilization in particular and World History in general than the rise of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

All three religions share a common denominator, that Moses received the commandments of God in a mountain in what is today Palestine. They also rose from a region that was essentially rural, arid and agricultural.All three are rooted around a set of sacred text, each based on the earlier religion.

Judaism is the earliest of the Abrahamic traditions and is based on the Torah. The first five books of the Christian Bible. The Torah was written in Ancient Hebrew and were written by various authors, known by some Biblical scholars only by their one lettered initials "J," "E," "P," and "D."

Because of these multiplicity of authors, the Torah is actually replete with contradictions, inconsistencies and plain impossibilities.

For example, the common authorship of the Bible is by Rabbinical tradition attributed to Moses, but chapter 34 of Deuteronomy describes the death of Moses in the third person. Of course, some would say that the last chapter could not have been written by Moses, all other books though of the Pentateuch were his work. Still others would say that chapter 34 was written by one of Moses' disciples.

Another glaring  proof that the Torah could not have been written by Moses is the account of the world's creation presented in chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis. In chapter 1, god created the world in seven days beginning with (I am using the Good News Bible by the Philippine Bible Society):

First day: light
Second day: sky (which is a dome which separated the water above and the water below)
Third day: land (earth) (by commanding the water below the dome to come in one place) and plants
Fourth day: stars (actually lights which appear at night and light which appear during the day)
Fifth day: sea animals and birds
Sixth day: land animals, humans (both male and female at the same time)
Seventh day: god rested (if he is omnipotent, he does not need rest and he could have created everything just by willing it).

However, in chapter 2 of Genesis, the order of creation seems to have been re-arranged, with god creating man first (yes, without the woman), remember in chapter 1 he created man both female and male at the same time. Here, the patriarchal bent of the early Jews were letting themselves be known.

Second to be created: fruit bearing trees
Third to be created: animals and birds
Fourth to be created: woman

If Genesis were even remotely written by one author, in this case purportedly by Moses, then how the heck could he present two conflicting accounts of the same event in succeeding chapters. At least if the second account were five chapters apart, I could say Moses might have forgotten what he earlier wrote. Then again, how could he have forgotten if he were inspired by god while writing the account in the first place. Clearly this is mere rehashing of "facts."


Christianity emerged from the town of Bethlehem with the birth of Jesus. A Jew who was born to humble parents (at least that's what the Bible account says he is). He is reputed to have died at 33 years old. He was born to a virgin mother (not much different from the myth making by the North Korean regime about the sacred birth of Kim Jong-il). Not much is known about his father, Joseph, who is only mentioned in passing.

The books of the New Testament were written at least 100 years after the death of Christ. And like the old testament, is not much consistent. It seems that contradictions is the rule among the books of the Bible. This is evident, as pointed out by Christopher Hitchens in his book, God is not Great, that Matthew and Luke contradict each other on the Virgin birth or the genealogy of Jesus and their account of the "Flight to Egypt." If these were the works of men inspired by god, it seems to be either god made a mistake or the "inspired men" were at best sleepy when the supposed inspirations were being made.


Islam is probably the most militant and radical of the three religious traditions. It was founded by Mohammad, an illiterate shepherd who lived in Arabia and denied in 632 AD (using the Gregorian calendar). According to Muslims, Mohammad received the word of god as contained in the Koran verbatim, although it is known that the Koran is another plagiarism of certain Jewish and Christian works like the Torah and the Bible. As Hitchens pointed out, he was inspired to write the words of God which were already written by no less than two earlier religions. How crazy is that? To top it all, Mohammad's supposed words, known as hadiths, were written exactly hundreds of years after his demise. In fact, the first accounts of Mohammad's life were only written 120 years after his death. And the written Arabic which is now used to present the Koran was only standardized in the late 9th century. Not much needs to be said therefore as to its supposed "truths." The Koran, of all religious texts of the Abrahamic traditions, clearly is the least credible. Notwithstanding the claims it has attributed to itself, it is simply preposterous to be generous about it.