The Bible notion that god(s) created the almost infinite Universe, as we know it, and plonked life on one of the minuscule specks of dust in it, and then had sex with one of the humans on it, to produce a half-god half-man, is about implausible a story as can be made up by our very imaginative species.
Think of the ingredients: a near infinitely sized Universe, humanity existing momentarily on an infinitesimal dot within this Universe and an ego-crazed god demanding adulation from these fearful, fawning, cowering creatures of its own construct. This defies any sane evaluation.
That implausibility gains weight with the creation feat only taking 6 days, with human beings conjured from dust and bone, becoming instant adults with no tapestry of past experiences to guide their future actions. By making one mistake, a human trait, an all powerful, all knowing, all loving god banishes the whole-human species et al to painful existence followed shortly after by death.
The implausibility factor rises further when the god creature, still not happy, drowns every living thing on the planet save a few humans possessing special qualities that god gave them anyway, plus a sample of every plant and life-form on Earth. This was accomplished by cramming them all into an implausible boat, built by people who were hundreds of years old.
As implausible as it was, this god then selected a race of survivors of the flood and lethally pitted himself and them against all other races in the way of his plans. The slaughter to obtain the Promised Land was enormous, immoral and relentless.
Yahweh, this so named god, to retain some credibility, then suddenly changed character from a spiteful, vengeful and violent being into the mythical god-man Jesus the peacemaker. Believe it or not?
To top off the implausibility of it all, the half-god half-man, kills the mortal part of his nature to recompense a wrong inherent in humans for which he was responsible in the first place.
Then, instead of validating the god of the Jews, the god of the Hebrews or the god of the Old Testament, he forms a break-away cult with the only difference between this new Christianity and Judaism being his alleged temporary fleshed lived life.
The implausibility of all this explodes in a crescendo of super-nonsense with the addition of the fact that the rotting flesh part rejoins the god part to live again for an unusually short and vaguely evidenced time. It then disappears and leaves humanity still guilty of the original sin. Expiation is possible and the penalty for all subsequent offences can be off-loaded by uncritical and unreasonable belief in this scapegoat godman.
That millions of people believe this palaver is an example of how effective infant brainwashing can be in distorting the mental capacity of adults.
We recognise the implausibility in the beliefs of other cultures but not in our own.
Our humanity is greatly diminished and its capacity for reasoned thought limited, by not accepting, when pointed out, that we are living in a supernaturally-delusional state of mind that is threatening the survival of us all. Our marvellously inventive imagination is in dire need of self-curtailment.
By David Nicholls