One of the biggest problems I see with the notion that the Bible is “God’s word” is, that Christians have put themselves into a position of trusting a being, they have never before met and that none of us has any experience with. Furthermore this being has certain qualities, that would make it relatively easy for him to just abuse his powers, since he is by definition the most powerful being and therefore not accountable to anyone. My question really is: What if God is just lying to you?
At this point, most Christians immediately interject and cite Hebrews 6: 18 where it says, that God can’t lie. To this I simply say, that this is exactly what a lying, deceitful God would say and that he could just be lying in this passage, in which case all of scripture would be called into question. Any attempt to try to save Christianity from this glaring problem, will necessarily result in circular reasoning and question begging. As a Christian, whether you want to admit or not, you cannot have absolute certainty that God is honest with you, since he could’ve been dishonest in the very verse with which you try to establish his honesty in the first place!
But of course, a 200 word blog post is way too short so I’ll go even further: Based on scripture we have good evidence, that God is in fact dishonest!
The first verses is one of my favorite ones actually: 2 Thessalonians 2: 9-12!
Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Right here God has sent them a delusion, so that they believe a lie. Right here he acts directly deceitful i.e. he lied. How can a Christian be sure, that God didn’t do that to him? Plain and simple, he can’t even if this passage can somehow be reconciled.
another example in which it becomes even more clear is the story of Abraham in Genesis 22. I think everyone should be familiar with it but here is a brief summary:
God wanted to test Abraham’s loyalty to him. He therefore asked Abraham to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to him. Abraham, Isaac and 2 young men then rode out, Abraham excused himself and his son Isaac from the other 2 claiming, that they wanted to pray. Abraham was ready to oblige, ready to kill his son, just before he could go through with this heinous act, an angel sent by God stopped him.
Now aside from the fact, that I find this story to be appalling, Abraham’s blind obedience is flat out disgusting, it becomes very clear, that God lied when he put Abraham to the test and stopped it at the last second. Either that, or God wanted this sacrifice initially but changed his mind at the last second, which in my mind is infinetely worse. There is no third option.
None of us are in any position to know, whether or not a God (if he exists) is truthful and upon this, Christianity and quite frankly all religions rest!
Goodbye from yours truly,
Rene von Boenninghausen @Renevelation
Tarsier Renevelations 
Yes, it’s a point I’ve seen before in other contexts. In essence, how do you know the supernatural being communicating with you isn’t ‘Descartes’ demon?’
Likewise, when arguing about Pascal’s wager, someone asked ‘What if this supposed god is testing you by portraying himself as a monster who will torture people forever, and he will actually reward those who reject this monster, and punish those who are willing to worship such a monster?’
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Ultimately we all have to deal with uncertainty in life. It just annoys me so much that they try to escape this problem when they have no chance to do so.
Ultimately we all can’t know anything about God’s nature (given that he does exist).
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