The Fissures Burst

     So, what were the fissures that finally broke the back of my belief in Christianity and religion in general (with apologies to his Pastafarian Holiness)? 
     To give some quick background on the cracks that had developed as far as religious belief was concerned, they were the standard ones of "How can God allow so much suffering?", "Will most of humanity spend eternity in Hell in horrific suffering?", "This Evolutionary Theory sure has some impressive adherents and is the basis for biological science....", "Why don't I feel any emotion with regards to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit?".  The last one may not resonate with some of the readers and I understand but I tend to have a little more of the "Spock Gene" than many folks besides I was Lutheran, duh. 
     But one apparent fact that bolstered the biblical case was a statement that I thought rang true: "Archaeology always proves the biblical accounts to be true."  When I was a kid I was fascinated by archaeology and had copies of Halley's Bible Handbook (two volumes I believe) which had biblical facts (yes, pick me for your biblical trivial pursuit game) and archaeological "facts" as well.  To be fair, it was originally published in 1961 and much of the digging around in Palestine had been done with the assumption that the bible was correct and the standard practices of the time did lack accurate dating techniques that we now have.  Also, Israeli archaeologists did not get into some of the "sweet spots" of the bible until after 1967 and 1973 although many of them were eager to confirm the Old Testament accounts as proof that Israel deserved to exist.  However, the second generation of Israeli archaeologists as well as other have come up with many startling discoveries that have turned biblical archaeology upon its head. 
        So the first fissure to burst was the discoveries concerning the town of Ai (what and where the hell is that?)  I had a subscription to Biblical Archaeological Review, a magazine that discussed any discoveries from Turkey to Iran and from Egypt to Saudi Arabia.  It had an interesting article on Ai.  This city was supposedly burned by Joshua and his posse as the Israelites swarmed across the Jordan and began conquering Canaan.  So imagine my jaw dropping as I perused the article on Ai:  
"Despite extensive excavation, no evidence of a Late Bronze Age (1500-1200 B. C.) Canaanite city was found. In short, there was no Canaanite city here for Joshua to conquer (Biblical Archaeology Review, "Joseph A. Callaway: 1920-1988," November/December 1988, p. 24, emphasis added)." (Skeptical Review Online)
     "Archaeology has wiped out the historical credibility of the conquest of Ai as reported in Joshua 7-8. The Joint Expedition to Ai worked nine seasons between 1964 and 1976... only to eliminate the historical underpinning of the Ai account in the Bible (Ibid., p. 24)." (BAR)
       Alarm bells were going off in my head as I was trying to reconcile this fact with the assertion I had assumed was true concerning the validating qualities of archaeology in the Middle East.  This led me to examine more recent archaeological evidence which I won't go into more detail but will simply mention.
        EXODUS WAS F'ING MADE UP!  Ben Hur was not the only fictional religious character Charlton Heston played.  Now that I was actually investigating research findings this memo finally crossed my proverbial desk.  Got to hand it to the author of Exodus who wrote during the time of King Josiah that he conjured up a great yarn.  Today he would be a pony-tailed Hollywood screenwriter working for George Lucas- maybe Tarentino.....
        By the way, this is a new one for me and I am digressing a bit, but the present-day town of Nazareth is NOT the village of 2000 years ago.  In fact, it was the site of Roman tombs and there is no way a Jewish village would have been there.  Frankly, the authors of the Gospels were using worked over and fishy material to re-create/create the story.  Check out www.nazarethmyth.info 
      The last battering ram employed was simply reading The Origin of Species and commentaries on evolution to swat away the remote possibility that a god had employed this process to create life.  Here I recommend The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins as a book to enhance one's understanding of this point.     
      So these were the spanners that were tossed into the faith machinery that I had been inculcated with as a child and these findings freed me from framing reality based on myths and legends rather than a firm grounding in the truth.