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What's so great about the Sermon on the Mount?

2011-09-20T19:35:00.000-07:00

At a first glance, the Sermon on the Mount seems like a beautiful and inspired speech. Certainly, it has provided Christians the world over with comfort in their times of trouble, and hope that after all of their suffering, they will be given sanctuary in heaven. But really, it is just a fluffy, feel-good message without much substance at all in it.

3"Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I guess by "poor in spirit," Jesus meant those who are depressed, unhappy, miserable, etc., because life sucks. But don't worry, you'll get that big bowl of candy someday! Trouble is, you have to die first. What guarantee do you have that there IS a heaven, other than the promises of long-dead writers who never had evidence to back up their assertions?

4"Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted."

Well, yes, usually when we mourn the death of a loved one, there are friends and family around to comfort us. Might as well say "Blessed are those who look at the sky, for it shall be blue."

5"Blessed are the meek,
For they shall inherit the earth."

The meek generally get trampled on and treated like crap. They do not, and will not, "inherit" anything so grand as the entire planet. This is the pipe dream of a poor man who longed to be rich, and could only console himself with the thought that someday, all those rich bastards would get what was coming to them while HE got to be the one with the gold and the jewels and a herd of camels.

6"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For they shall be filled."

Righteousness is simply the quality of being morally right. Doesn't everyone already think they are morally right? Why would you need to search for this quality when, chances are, you already have it?

7"Blessed are the merciful,
For they shall obtain mercy."

Show mercy and kindness to others, and God will be merciful to you when you get to heaven. Since heaven does not exist, this is an empty promise.

8"Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God."

What the heck does "pure in heart" even mean? That you never do anything bad? That you always have good intentions, even when you fuck up? That you belong to the right religion and worship the right deity? The Bible tells us that nobody can see God and live. God does not exist, anyway, so who cares?

9"Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God."

Everyone agrees that striving for peace is a good thing because it enables all of us to get along better as a society. Things run much more smoothly when everyone is at peace with one another. But these are all EARTHLY benefits. What do they have to do with God? Of what benefit is it to be called a "son of God?"

10"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

More religious babble that means nothing. People persecute others all the time, for a million reasons. I cannot see how it is much consolation being offered the promise of an invisible kingdom in the sky when some rotten asshole has his boot heel on your neck right now.

11"Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. 12Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

This sermon is not about being nice to each other right here and now, because everyone will benefit in the long run; no, it is all about that reward in heaven. It is not about how you can be of service to others just because you want them to be happy; it is about scoring points with God so you can get a prettier mansion than the guy sitting next to you in church. It is just another long, rather dull, claim that there is a life after this one--a better, happier, much cooler one--and if you play your cards right, you will get to go there while everyone else gets to suffer. Is this really the best that Jesus could do?

Why the doctrine of hell is immoral

2011-07-01T17:57:00.000-07:00

1.) It is a lie. Nobody has ever proven the existence of such a place. Where is it? What does it look like? Who has been there to tell us what it is like? Since a soul is supposed to be an immaterial something-or-other, it has no nerve endings or brain, so how can it be made to suffer? No believer answers these questions because they can't. They have absolutely not the slightest bit of evidence that hell exists, yet they expect us to be scared of it. Hey, Christians, isn't it about time you outgrew your fear of monsters in the closet?

2.) It is a divisive doctrine, encouraging believers to adopt an us-vs.-them mentality. You know, "God loves us best, so we're going to heaven, but everyone else is evil and going to hell." If you can consign someone to everlasting suffering for no other reason than that you disagree with their beliefs, then it is not hard to treat them as less than human, as not quite as worthy of your love, respect, and kindness as your fellow believers.

3.) You must teach it to your children in order to keep the belief going strong. Imagine telling a child that he will go to hell to burn and scream and melt and scorch for all eternity, all because he was a bad boy and didn't repent of his sins. Don't kids have enough to be fearful of already?

4.) It proposes infinite punishments for finite crimes. No matter how bad a person was in real life, do they really deserve to be punished forever? People who think this simply have no concept of eternity. They aren't thinking about billions of eons from now; in fact, they aren't thinking at all, which is why they believe in hell in the first place.

5.) Why do Christians think they will be happy, carefree, and joyous in heaven if they know that their loved ones are suffering unimaginable pain in hell? Heaven will not be paradise for them, it will be a torment, because they will be fully aware that someone they loved dearly is being burned alive, or experiencing some other form of misery, just because God was angry that they didn't kiss his ass. I tell you, there is NO WAY that anyone could be happy under such conditions.

Now, some of them will say that their memories will be wiped so that they won't be aware of anything outside of heaven. I say that this is just another kind of hell, for who in their right mind would want to forget all the people they once knew and loved? Such a notion is reprehensible to all but the most brainwashed of morons. To teach this cruel, heartless bullshit to children should be considered emotional abuse.

6.) Christians who say they believe in hell are probably lying, to themselves as well as everyone else. If they truly believed in it, they would be far more careful about what they say and do, and we would not see so many Christians in the news practically every day, committing any number of crimes just as if there were no God at all hovering over them, ready to send them to hell at a moment's notice.

Hmmm, just as if there is no God.... Yep, that is EXACTLY how Christians behave.

It's the end of the world as we know it....again....

2011-05-17T22:21:00.001-07:00

Well, Harold Camping has prophesied that the end of the world as we know it will begin on May 21st, so I suppose I should address that shit.

In case you haven't heard this fabulous news, Harold Camping runs a whack-job organization called Family Radio. I probably shouldn't be giving his website more publicity, but what the hell? By his own admission, he, his website, and everything else are soon to be obliterated anyway when God makes a shiny new heaven and Earth. But first, of course, Jesus Christ must return to gather up his followers, who have been awaiting his return for, lo, these 2000 years, like a loyal dog awaiting its dead master's return. It's about fucking time he came back for them! Would be quite nice if they all floated away to their Never-Never Land in the sky so the rest of us could get on with life. They can take the Muslims, too, while they're at it.

That return is scheduled for May 21, four days from now. Camping has plenty of scriptural evidence to back this up, just like every other prophet. You would think that, after all these centuries, Christians would stop believing any old random thing they hear; but no, they fall for these same crazy lies again and again and again. Not a year goes by that some nutjob doesn't offer up completely sound, 100% fail-proof, biblically sanctioned evidence that Jesus Christ is due to return any moment now, and we should all sell our homes, move to a mountaintop, and await the end of the world. EVERY FUCKING TIME, these prophecies fail to happen; and EVERY FUCKING TIME, Christians shrug their shoulders and go tagging along after the next self-proclaimed prophet.

And they can get very serious about it, too. As this article explains, many people have emptied their life's savings, sold their homes, and given up everything to follow the Cult of Idiocy espoused by Harold Camping. Do these people learn nothing from history? Oh, wait, they don't bother to study the history of their own religion because the Bible doesn't tell them to. It is no wonder, then, that they have no clue about the hundreds and hundreds of end-times predictions that have been made throughout history. Here is a partial list, supplied by Valigarmander at Atheist Forums.com (Click on the spoiler button):

Spoiler:

There's been a lot of buzz going around lately about the supposed end of the world set to occur on December 21, 2012. Books on the subject are selling like crazy, people everywhere are preparing for the end. So I decided to do a little research and take a look at some past doomsday predictions and see how well they turned out (just for fun). Here's a few of the religious, cultural, scientific, or miscellaneous predictions that have been made since the first century:

1st century CE
--- Early Christians believed that Jesus would return and that the world would end within one generation, or at most one century, following his ascension. Nothing happened.

2nd century
--- Prophets of the Montanist movement predicted Jesus would return sometime in their lifetime. Nothing happened.

365
--- A bishop known as Hilary of Poitiers proclaimed that the world would end that year. Nothing happened. A student of his, St. Martin of Tours, later claimed the end would occur before the year 400. Nothing happened.

435
--- 2nd century Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi believed the Messiah would appear 365 years after the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem (which occured in the year 70 CE). Nothing happened. 3rd century Rabbi Hanina similarly predicted the Messiah would come 400 years after the Temple's destruction, in the year 470. Nothing happened.

500
--- Early Christians such as Hippolytus of Rome and Sextus Julius Africanus foretold that the world would end around the year 500. Nothing happened.

968
--- A Germanic army interpreted a sudden eclipse as a precursor to the end of the world. Nothing happened.

992
--- The Christian holy days of Good Friday and the Feast of the Annunciation occurred on the same day, which had long been believed the date Armageddon would begin. Nothing happened.

1000
--- Many Christians predicted the world would end this year. Nothing happened.

1005
--- A terrible famine throughout Europe was seen as a sign that the end of the world was nigh. Nothing happened.

1033
--- Some Christians believed Jesus would return to Earth on the 1000th anniversary of his death and resurrection. Nothing happened.

1186
--- Abbot John of Toledo prophesized the end of the world in 1186, based on the alignment of certain planets. Nothing happened.

1205
--- Joachim of Fiore claimed that in 1190 the Antichrist was already in the world, and that the final battle between good and evil would occur before 1205. Nothing happened.

1284
--- Pope Innocent III, leader of Rome during the Fourth Crusades, claimed the word would end in 1284, a date he came to by adding 666 to the year Islam was founded. Nothing happened.

1306
--- In 1147, Gerard of Poehlde declared that the millennium had actually begun in 306 CE, when Constantine I was proclaimed emperor. Therefore, the end of the world was expected to occur in 1306 CE. Nothing happened.

1346-50
--- As the Black Plague spread through Europe, many saw it as a sign that Armageddon was about to occur. Nothing happened.

1496
--- Some clerics believed Jesus would return this year, approximately 1500 years after his birth. Nothing happened.

1524
--- Astrologers predicted a worldwide flood this year. Nothing happened.

1533
--- Anabaptist prophet Melchior Hoffman claimed Jesus would return 1500 years after his execution. Nothing happened.

1669
--- The Old Believers in Russia believed Armageddon would begin this year. Over the next two decades, some 20 thousand allegedly immolated themselves to save themselves from the Antichrist. Nothing happened.

1689
--- Baptist Benjamin Keach predicted the world would end this year. Nothing happened.

1736
--- British theologian and mathematician William Whitson believed a worldwide flood would occur on October 13, 1736. Nothing happened.

1792
--- Certain members of the Shaker movement calculated the end of the world to occur this year. Nothing happened.

1794
--- Charles Wesley, one of the founders of Methodism, thought the world would end this year. Nothing happened.

1829
--- German Christian leader George Rapp prophesized that Christ's reign over the world would begin on September 15, 1829. Nothing happened.

1830
--- Margaret McDonald, a Christian prophetess, claimed that Robert Owen (a Welsh socialist) would be the Antichrist, and that the end was nigh. Nothing happened.

1844
--- William Miller, an American Baptist preacher, predicted the Second Coming of Christ would occur sometime between March 21, 1843, and March 21, 1844. Nothing happened. Admitting his error to his followers, he changed the date to October 22, 1944. Nothing happened.

1850
--- Seven Day Adventist movement founder Ellen White (who had made several failed Doomsday prophesies before) claimed on June 27, 1850 that only a few months remained before the End. Nothing happened.

1878
--- Jehovah's Witness Charles Taze Russell claimed that Christ's Second Coming would begin in 1984, leading to the resurrection of the saints in 1875 and the Rapture in 1878. Nothing happened.

1881
--- Mother Shipton, a 16th century mystic, prophesized the end of the world in the year 1881 or the year 1991. Nothing happened.

1891
--- Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, announced during a February 1835 meeting with church leaders that God had told him Jesus would return within 56 years. Nothing happened.

1914
--- An important estimate of the beginning of Armageddon by Jehovah's Witnesses (based on analysis of the Book of Daniel) pointed to the year 1914. Nothing happened.
--- The Watchtower Society predicted the world would end in 1914. Nothing happened. Later predictions were made for 1915, 1918, 1920, 1925, 1941, 1975, and 1994. Nothing happened.

1918
--- Following the 1917 capture of Jerusalem by Great Britain, a group of well-known preachers produced a London Manifesto warning of an imminent Second Coming of Christ. Nothing happened.

1919
--- Meteorologist Albert Porta predicted that the conjunction of six planets would generate a magnetic current which would cause the sun to explode and engulf the Earth on December 17, 1919. Nothing happened.

1936
--- Herbert W. Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God, predicted the world would end in 1936. Nothing happened. He later estimated the actual year of the end to be sometime in the 1970's. Nothing happened.

1941
--- Leonard Sale-Harrison, an Australian Bible teacher, prophesized in the 1930's that the world would end in 1940 or 1941. Nothing happened.

1953
--- "The Great Pyramid, Its Divine Message", a book by David Davidson, predicted the world would end in August 1953. Nothing happened.

1957
--- Mihran Ask, a Californian pastor quoted in "The Watchtower" magazine, claimed Armageddon would sweep the world sometime between April 16 and 23, 1957. Nothing happened.

1959
--- Florence Houteff, leader of the Branch Davidians, claimed that events described in the book of Revelations pointed towards April 22nd, 1959, as being the end of the world. Many followers sold their possessions and moved to Mount Carmel in Texas, expecting to die and be resurrected in Heaven. Nothing happened.

1960
--- Astronomer and pyramidologist Piazzi Smyth claimed that the Second Coming of Christ would occur before the end of 1960. Nothing happened.

1979
--- Moses David, founder of the Christian group The Children of God, predicted that a comet would strike the earth sometime during the 70's, ending all life. Nothing happened. He later foretold that Armageddon would begin in 1986, with Russia defeating the Western powers and establishing a worldwide Communist dictatorship until the return of Christ in 1993. Nothing happened.

1980
--- Leland Jensen, leader of a Baha'i Faith group, foretold that a nuclear disaster would occur in 1980, followed by two decades of conflict, and ending with the establishment of God's kingdom on Earth. Nothing happened.

1981
--- Arnold Murray of the Shepherd's Chapel prophesized in the 1970's that the Antichrist would appear before 1981, leading to the Apocalypse. Nothing happened. He later predicted that Armageddon would begin in June, 1985. Nothing happened.
--- Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel in Cost Mesa, California, claimed in 1978 that the Rapture would occur in 1981. Nothing happened.
--- Bill Maupin, the pastor of a small Christian sect in Arizona, predicted the Second Coming of Christ would occur on June 28, 1981. He and his followers sold all their belongings and went to a hilltop that day to await the event. Nothing happened.
--- Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, believed that the Kingdom of Heaven would be established in 1981. Nothing happened.

1982
--- Fundamentalist preacher Pat Robertson foretold for several years that the world would end in the fall of 1982. Nothing happened.
--- Scottish esotericist Benjamin Creme claimed "Maitreya", a religious teacher prophesized by many different religions, would make his second coming by announcing his existence to the world via television broadcasts on June 21, 1982. Nothing happened. He later made similar claims that the event would occur in 1997. Nothing happened.
--- Astronomers John Gribben and Stephen Plagemann predicted that when the planets aligned this year, tidal forces would cause immense catastrophes on Earth. Nothing happened.

1988
--- Self-proclaimed prophet Hal Lindsey predicted that the Rapture would occur in 1988, approximately one generation after the creation of the state of Israel. Nothing happened.
--- Psychic Alfred Schmielewsky foretold in 1986 that the world's greatest natural disaster would strike Montreal in 1988. Nothing happened.
--- Former NASA engineer Edgar C. Whisenant wrote the book "88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988", which sold about 4.5 million copies. Nothing happened. He eventually revised this date several times up through 1997. Nothing happened.

1990
--- New Age religious leader Elizabeth Clare Prophet predicted a nuclear war would begin on April 23, 1990. At least 2000 followers traveled to Montana to hide out in the Church's fallout shelters, many of which had quit jobs and run up large debts in anticipation of the End. Nothing happened.
--- Peter Ruckman, after studying the Bible, predicted that the Rapture would occur within a few years of 1990. Nothing happened.

1991
--- C.M. Edwards, who claimed to regularly receive messages from God, reported that God had told him the Second Coming was set to occur in September 1991. Nothing happened.

1992
--- Korean Christian pastor Lee Jang Rim taught that the Rapture would occur on October 28, 1992, at 10:00 AM EST. Nothing happened. Many of his followers allegedly committed suicide afterwards.

1993
--- Benny Hinn, a pastor from Florida, believed the Rapture would come in 1993. Nothing happened.
--- A New Age religious movement in Ukraine predicted the end of the world would occur in November 1993. Nothing happened.

1994
--- Harold Camping, president of Family Radio, predicted on his program that the world would end sometime between September 5 and 27, 1994, based on his analysis of the Bible. Nothing happened.

1995
--- David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidian group in Waco Texas, predicted (before their compound was set ablaze in April 1993) that Armageddon would begin in 1995. Nothing happened.

1996
--- Based on the calculations of 17th century Irish archbishop James Ussher, many Christians since 1658 predicted the world would come to an end exactly 6000 years after the day the world was supposedly created (October 23, 4004 BCE), which would be October 23, 1996. Nothing happened.

1997
--- The Vortex of the Star of David religious sect of Luskville, Quebec, was said to have predicted the end of the world occurring on March 8, 1997. Nothing happened.
--- Biblical astronomers Dan Millar and Bob Wadsworth predicted the arrival of the Antichrist on April 10, 1997, based on astronomical signs. Nothing happened.
--- A group called the Sacerdotal Knights of National Security reported that a space alien captured and interrogated by the CIA had admitted that an extraterrestrial army was set to attack Earth on November 27, 1997. Nothing happened.
--- The July 29, 1997 issue of the "Weekly World News" reported that President Bill Clinton had called a secret meeting with top Bible scholars about a supposed upcoming worldwide cataclysm, with a date for the disaster set for December 31 that year. Nothing happened. The same issue of the magazine featured an article claiming that over 100,000 members of the International Association of Psychics had encountered the same vision predicting an upcoming apocalypse, ending with the complete disappearance of humantiy by the year 2001. Nothing happened.
--- Rulon Jeffs, spokesperson for a Mormon splinter group, allegedly spoke to high school graduates and told them not to attend college because the world would end before they would finish. Nothing happened.
--- "Superdave the Wonderchemist" predicted the arrival of the Antichrist during the year 1997, by adding 666 to the magic number 1331. Nothing happened.

1998
--- Early 20th century psychic Edgar Cayce claimed that during the winter of 1997-8, the Earth would acquire a new pole, leading to massive disruptions in the Earth's oceans and crust. Nothing happened. He also predicted that in 1998, a secret chamber beneath the Great Sphinx would be found containing documents revealing the history of Atlantis, leading to the Second Coming of Christ. Nothing happened.
--- About 150 members of a Taiwanese Christian-Buddhist sect led by Hoh-Ming Chen moved to a suburb of Dallas, Texas, to await the arrival of God, which was expected to occur on March 31, 1998. Nothing happened.
--- Evangelist Marilyn Agee believed the Rapture would occur on Pentecost, 1998, leading to Armageddon. Nothing happened. She later changed it to 1999, then to 2000, and later to 2001. Nothing happened.
--- The House of Yahweh predicted that a doomsday scenario would take place during October 1998, with about 80% of the world's population eventually having been killed as a result of nuclear warfare by mid-2001. Nothing happened.
--- Author Vijay Kumar predicted that World War III would erupt shortly after Middle Eastern countries (led by Iraq) launched a nuclear strike on the U.S. Nothing happened.
--- Noah Hutchings, president of the Southwest Radio Church, predicted in 1995 that the Biblical Tribulation was set to begin in 1998. Nothing happened.
--- Father Sefano Gobbi, a Roman Catholic visionary, foretold in 1989 that the final judgement would occur in 1998. Nothing happened.
--- Author Gary D. Blevins predicted in his book "666: The Final Warning" that Ronald Reagan would be cast into the Lake of Fire, that the Second Coming and the Rapture would occur, and that Satan would be bound in Hell for 1000 years in 1998. Nothing happened, and Reagan lived until 2004.
--- Centro, a religious group from the Philippines, believed the world would end in 1998, recommending that their followers retreat to safe places. Nothing happened.
--- The website "Nostradamus: Prophecies of our century" predicted that in 1998, Russia and several Muslim nations would attack NATO and other European nations in 1998. Nothing happened. Similar prophecies were made regarding the year 1999. Nothing happened.

1999
--- Nostradamus prophesized that a "great King of Terror" would come from the skies in July 1999. Nothing happened. Various modern authors made predictions about the world ending in 1999 based on Nostradamus' prophesies. Nothing happened.
--- Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, leader of the Rajneesh movement, predicted in 1983 several catastrophes such as worldwide floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and nuclear wars that would occur between 1984 and 1999. Nothing happened.
--- Orville T. Gordon, leader of a Texan group called Outer Dimensional Forces, believed UFOs would arrive from outer space and flood the world. Nothing happened.
--- Sukyo Mahikari, a Japanese group, claimed that "mankind might be annihilated by the baptism of fire" sometime before 2000. Nothing happened.
--- Members of the Branch Davidian group believed that various cataclysms would strike the Earth in 1999, and that on August 6, their deceased leader David Koresh would return to the world and judge humanity. Nothing happened.
--- Ed. Dames, president of PsyTech, predicted that solar flares would engulf the Earth during the Easter weekend in 1999, annihilating everyone who wasn't hiding underground. Nothing happened.
--- Several Roman Catholic apocalypticists during the 90's believed the final judgement would begin on April 8, April 15 or May 13, 1999. Nothing happened.
--- Father Alexander McKenna claimed that the Virgin Mary spoke to him and told him that unless people abandoned atheism and sin, that most of the world would be destroyed by the end of 1999 in nuclear and environmental disasters. Nothing happened.
--- God's Salvation Church in Taiwan taught that Jesus would come to Miller, Indiana aboard a spaceship amidst a nuclear war in July 1999 to save the faithful. Nothing happened.
--- The May 27, 1997 issue of "Sun Magazine" claimed the Antichrist would make himself known on August 11, 1999. Nothing happened.
--- TV psychic Jeron Criswell predicted that the world would end on August 18, 1999. Nothing happened.
--- Russian scientist Vladimir Sobolyovhas of the Rerikh Academy believed the Earth's axis was set to tilt about 30 degrees sometime between 1997 and 1999, leading to worldwide catastrophes, based on analysis of various prophesies. He then told that aliens would intervene and lead the world into the fourth dimension. Nothing happened. Sobolyovhas currently believes that the aliens are in fact among us, but are in hiding.
--- Shoko Asahara, leader of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, predicted that the world would end in September 1999. Nothing happened.
--- The Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York fired up their Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider to full power to simulate conditions present immediately following the Big Bang. Several media sources believed the RHIC would destroy the world, or even the entire universe. Nothing happened.

2000
--- The Y2K scare: the date rollover from 1999 to 2000 in computers was predicted to cause major computing issues and possibly result in worldwide electronic failure. Nothing happened.
--- Various Christian groups long believed that Jesus would return in the year 2000, along with other occurences such as the Rapture or Armageddon. Nothing happened.
--- A 16th century Kabbalistic text claimed that in the Jewish year 5760 (September 1999 to September 2000 CE), the entire world (except for the land of Israel) would be swept away in a massive flood. Nothing happened.
--- Roman Catholic Ronald O'Brien predicted that a dark cross would be suspended in the stratosphere between January 19 and January 31, 2000, foreshadowing the beginning of Armageddon by May that year. Nothing happened.
--- Dan Millar predicted that September 6, 2000, seven years after the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords between Israel and Palestine, would be the date the Antichrist revealed himself and the battle of Armageddon would begin. Nothing happened.
--- The Efraim Society, a Dutch Christian group led by a man claiming to be the reincarnation of the Biblical prophet Elijah, predicted the Rapture would occur in September 2000. Nothing happened. He later changed the date to 2001. Nothing happened.
--- Jim Searcy, pastor of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, believed that Prince Charles was the Antichrist, and that the world would end in October 2000. Nothing happened.
--- The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormom polygamist splinter group, predicted that the world would end in late 2000. Hundreds of followers had their children pulled out of school in anticipation. Nothing happened.

2001
--- The October 14, 1997 issue of "Sun Magazine" reported that Noah's Ark had been discovered intact near Mount Ararat in Turkey containing several scrolls that claimed on January 31, 2001, the sun would superheat the Earth, melting both ice caps and flooding the entire world. Nothing happened.
--- The "Weekly World News" claimed that Professor Philippe Garoche, the head of a team studying a recently unearthed scroll in Athens, Greece, predicted that Jesus would return to Earth on July 7, 2001, to everyone at once. Nothing happened. The magazine also reported that the U.S. Federal Government was suppressing information about the end of the world, which was supposed to occur after China and Iraq attack Israel on December 12, 2001. Nothing happened.

2002
--- Monte Kim Miller, founder and prophet of the Concerned Christians group, predicted that the breaking of the seventh seal and the sounding of the seventh trumpet mentioned in the Book of Revelations would occur on February 15, 2002. Nothing happened.

2003
--- According to some Hindu beliefs, an avatar of Krishna was to arrive this year to establish a 108 year reign of righteousness, preceded by four years of cataclysms. Nothing happened.
--- The Pana Wave Laboratory group from Japan (which preaches a blend of Christian, Buddhist and New Age beliefs) believed the world would be destroyed by a variety of disasters on May 15, 2003, caused by another planet moving close to Earth. In early May, followers set up a camp on a mountain road 170 miles west of Tokyo to wear out the cataclysm. Nothing happened.

2004
--- A man by the name of Clay Cantrell claimed that the Rapture would occur on October 17, 2004, a date he computed using the dimensions of Noah's Ark from the Bible. Nothing happened.

2006
--- Glenn Beck, then an anchor for CNN Headline News, predicted an all-out war would take place on August 22, 2006. Nothing happened. He later claimed he was only kidding.
--- Dr. Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda predicted that the Second Coming would occur in Puerto Rico on December 17, 2006. Nothing happened.
--- Michael Drosnin's book "The Bible Code II" claimed that the Bible hinted towards an "atomic holocaust" and "World War" occuring in the year 2006. Nothing happened.

2008
--- The Lord's Witnesses, a British Christian group, concluded based on Biblican analysis that Armageddon would begin on March 21, 2008, followed by three quarters of the world's population being wiped out in the subsequent war. Nothing happened.
--- Russian Pyotr Kuznetsov, leader of the True Orthodox Church, predicted the world would end in May 2008. In November 2007, several of his followers barricaded themselves in a cave 435 miles southeast of Moscow, to wait out the End. Nothing happened. The date was later changed to June 2009. Nothing happened. Kuznetsov, disappointed by his failed prophesies, allegedly attempted suicide.
--- The Lord Our Righteousness Church, led by Michael Travesser, believed that Judgement Day was set to begin on October 31, 2007. Nothing happened.

2009
--- The European Organization for Nuclear Research performed their first major particle collisions with the Large Hadron Collider in November 2009. Several media sources believed the LHC would destroy the world, or even the entire universe. Nothing happened. (Note the similarities to this event and to the use of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider ten years prior.)
--- Fundamentalist preacher Jerry Fallwell predicted in 1999 that the Second Coming would probably occur within ten years. Nothing happened.

And finally, in December 2012, the world is predicted to end based on the predictions of the Mayan Long Count calendar. But, you know, THIS TIME IT'S TOTALLY DIFFERENT.
(I wouldn't worry about it.)

Sources: Valigarmander , Atheist Forums.

www.bible.ca
www.religioustolerance.org
www.wikipedia.org

My favorite example is Hal Lindsey, author of "The Late, Great Planet Earth," which I read back when I was a Christian. This book, written in 1970, predicted that the United States would soon cease to be a world power, because the book of Daniel does not mention the United States in its prophecies. Hal thought that the European Union would eventually have ten members, represented by the ten horns of the dragon in Revelation. These events would begin to play out in the 1970s, and then Jesus would return. (A more thorough review can be found here.)

The EU currently has 27 members, the United States is still very much a world power, and there is no sign of Sweet Jesus in the clouds. Unconcerned about such trivial details, Hal went on to write several more books. "The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon" predicted that the Soviets would destroy America, and the 1980s would be the very last decade that Christians would know because Jesus would return. The 1980s came and went, and no Jesus.

"Planet Earth, 2000 AD" warned Christians not to expect to be around after the year 2000. Eleven years later, they are still pestering us about their worthless, no-show savior. When May 21 comes and goes, and Jesus turns up to be missing in action, as he has been for the past two millennia, I will not feel the least bit sorry for the moron who spent all of his life's savings, all $140,000 worth, on an ad campaign for Jesus; or for the stupid woman who gave up going to medical school because she thinks she'll have no need of an education. These fools, and hundreds more, will be left penniless, homeless, the laughingstocks of their families, and some may even commit suicide in despair. Who cares? They are willing partners in their own downfall, and that deserves no pity.

As for Camping, I wish that he and all of his ilk could be held legally responsible for leading all of those simpletons astray. It is no different than some shyster preying on the elderly, conning them out of their life savings, and then skiving off to Cancun on his ill-gotten gains. On May 22nd, Camping will undoubtedly disappear from view for awhile, then reappear to explain that he may have been just a tad wrong about the date, after all, and the explanation will be long-winded, filled with scriptural references, and completely convincing to the next crop of morons that are bound to come along.

When history repeats itself, it is almost never for the good.

Wheeen you wish upooon a staaarrr....

2011-04-29T19:39:00.000-07:00

Why wish on a star when, to make all your wishes come true, all you have to do is email this glurge to 500 of your best friends? Alas, this beauty wasn't emailed to me; I nabbed it from the Atheist Forums, here, where it was posted by Aroura33. I left it as it was, including the weird spacing issues, which are probably the result of this literary nightmare being forwarded approximately four million times around the world. Click on the "Spoiler" button to make it show up.

Spoiler:

Yikes! Where do I begin?? Well, for starters, I really hate it when people misuse the word "literally." The writer seems to be under the impression that someone might actually hand her a piece of cake if she smiles at them! This is a very odd delusion, I must say.

Next, there are no details given. We do not know who wrote this, when it was written, the name of the professor or the college, or even the city and state in which it allegedly took place. It could have happened recently, or years ago, or decades ago--and that's assuming it ever happened at all. This is typical of glurge, as is the blatantly overdone sappy sweetness of it.

Does she really have to explain why she went to McDonald's? I can think of better places to "share special playtime" with your kid; but then, some people think going to Walmart is a special occasion, too, so maybe I shouldn't judge.

Why did she put "smiling" in single-quotes? OH, right, it's because she's doing this Sociology thing called "Smile," you see, and....ah, fuck it. She then waxes eloquent about the man's eyes. God always sends messages through the homeless, the disabled, and sick children. That is why he refuses to help any of them himself. If HE did all that work, how would we ever learn any lessons about how beautiful it is to buy a cheap fast-food lunch for a couple of miserable bums?

What's with the crying, anyway?? Look, lady, if you're going to uncork the waterworks every time you meet a homeless person, then you had better be hauling a wagon full of Kleenex everywhere you go.

Her delusions get even worse as she suddenly imagines that everyone in the place is completely captivated by the unfolding of her tiny personal drama. Now, I can only conclude that there must be Christians who think this way in real life, because who is the target audience? Why, gullible Christians who think too highly of themselves, of course. People who imagine that, because they believe in God, everyone else must therefore be judging them. The reality, folks, is that, unless you are behaving like a jerk, we don't give a shit what you do or believe. If I were witness to an event like this, I would get bored within ten seconds and start reading the menu board to decide if I'm in the mood for artificial chicken or artificial beef.

I leaned over, began to pat his hand and said, 'I did not do this for you.. God is here working through me to give you hope.'

I don't understand why people say things like this. "It's not me, it's Jesus!" Why can't Christians just do nice things for other people because THEY want to, and not because their religion says they have to? That's not unconditional love and acceptance, that's just following orders. If you are the sort of person who needs God poking you with a sharp stick just to get you to do the right thing, then you are a pretty pathetic individual.

I must point out that she changed NOTHING for these guys. Eating that one meal didn't change their social status in the least. For all she knows, they get free meals every day off of gullible saps like her. Or it might be another month before they get a decent meal at all. Either way, the only thing they have to look forward to is a lifetime on the streets until they die--just like they did before they met her. So what hope did she give them?

Mostly what I notice about this story is its self-centeredness. It is all about HER, and what a wonderful person she is for doing a kind deed that most of us would do without a second thought. She goes on and on about how she touched the lives of EVERY SINGLE PERSON in the store that day. She seems to think that these acts of kindness are so rare that they warrant subjecting everyone to an epic tale of high drama, in which she is the hero who--through the power of God--became a momentary savior to two unfortunate men.

Is this really anything close to a spirit of humility that Jesus--himself homeless and penniless--would have wanted? According to 1 Corinthians 13, "love does not envy, does not boast, is not proud." If you feed a hungry person and brag about it afterward, you are missing some important biblical lessons.

As for all the crap that's tacked onto the end of the story....well, this, too, is a hallmark of your average glurge. Each person who reads it finds it necessary to add their own thoughts to it, and these are usually even dumber than the story, itself. Poems, Bible verses, animated angel pictures, quotes lifted from here, there, and everywhere--you name it, you are likely to find it trailing the end of the glurge like the tail following a comet. And right at the tag-end, you will find the injunction to send it on to everyone in your address book so that good luck, prosperity, miracles, and happy rainbow promises will follow you all the days of your life. And of course, people do so, because people are stupid and will believe any old thing they read. Why else do you think this thing gets forwarded year after year?

How to determine the date for Easter

2011-04-18T16:59:00.000-07:00

You would think that setting a date for a holiday would be easy. You look on the calendar for a day when it seems convenient for everyone to take a day or two off work, and declare that this is when your holiday is going to be held. If you work for the government, you can even declare it a national holiday. All this means is that the government gets to take time off work but you don't, because you're an ordinary yutz with bills to pay.

Not so with Easter. For some reason, the Council of Nicaea decided to make it REALLY FUCKING COMPLICATED. It is so complicated that I'm going to leave it up to my readers to learn all about it here, but I will post a few of the highlights.

First, a word on the Council of Nicaea. This was a group of stodgy old guys in long cloaks, funny hats, and unstylish beards, who convened in the year 325 to determine just what, exactly, all of Christendom was supposed to believe. Like, was Jesus really the son of God, or just some guy? Should they serve fruit hors d'oeurves at communion, or is just the bread and wine okay? What color should their funny hats be? That kind of thing. And one of the things they discussed was the official date for Easter.

They decided it should always fall on a Sunday, and it would be the same Sunday all over the world, even if there was something very important and sports-related happening on the telly on that day. Then they said, "Hey, let's make it the third Sunday in April! Nothing much happens in April, anyway, right?" And that was that.

HAHAHAHAHAA! No, I'm kidding. I said they made it RFC, didn't I? Pay attention! It wasn't enough just to set it on any old random Sunday; no, it HAD to occur on a certain Sunday after a particular full moon that occurred after the vernal equinox! Not only THAT, but it isn't just the normal, everyday full moon that anyone can look at and go, "Oh, look, a full moon!" No, it's the ecclesiastical full moon! This can only be determined by looking at the very complicated flow-charts, tables, diagrams, and Power Point presentations concocted by the stodgy old hat-wearing men and revised later to accommodate the change from the Gregorian to the Julian calendar. Here is the paragraph dealing with it, from the article linked above:

The usual statement, that Easter Day is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs next after the vernal equinox, is not a precise statement of the actual ecclesiastical rules. The full moon involved is not the astronomical Full Moon but an ecclesiastical moon (determined from tables) that keeps, more or less, in step with the astronomical Moon.

The ecclesiastical rules are:

Easter falls on the first Sunday following the first ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or after the day of the vernal equinox;
this particular ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of a tabular lunation (new moon); and
the vernal equinox is fixed as March 21.

resulting in that Easter can never occur before March 22 or later than April 25. The Gregorian dates for the ecclesiastical full moon come from the Gregorian tables. Therefore, the civil date of Easter depends upon which tables - Gregorian or pre-Gregorian - are used. The western (Roman Catholic and Protestant) Christian churches use the Gregorian tables; many eastern (Orthodox) Christian churches use the older tables based on the Julian Calendar.

Jesus Jumpsuit-Wearing Christ!! What is it with Christians, anyway? They try so hard to convince everyone that their religion has nothing to do with pagan rites, yet here they are, figuring out their spring holy day from the date of a full moon! Doesn't seem like something an omnimax God would really care about. Like, would he smite them a mighty smote if they celebrated Easter on a Tuesday instead of a Sunday? Why would it matter at all?

Easter, of course, IS a pagan holiday, kept since very ancient times as a spring celebration on or after the spring equinox. In the past, long before modern clocks, time zones, calendars, mass crop production, and artificial lighting, people relied on the stars, sun, and moon to tell them when to plant crops, when to move their herds to different pastures, as guides for traveling, and probably a lot more. Equinoxes and solstices were therefore important times of the year for them. The spring equinox was especially important, as it marked the official end of a long, dull, cold, and dangerous winter. Animals could be let out of barns, farmers could plan when to begin sowing seeds, and people could stop freezing to death waiting for the weather to fucking warm up already.

And when I say "freeze to death," I mean it literally. There was no central heating back then; if you didn't have enough firewood to last through the winter, you died. Or you could get snowed in for weeks until you ran out of food. The return of spring was a HUGE deal. Of course people were very particular about honoring the sun and picking just the right day on which to celebrate its triumphant and glorious return--or its resurrection, if you will. Christians care about the precise date for Easter because Jesus is just another sun-based deity, dying in winter and resurrecting in the spring, again and again and again.

Don't worry, he's a god, he can handle it.

The Burial of Jesus

2011-02-27T06:36:00.000-08:00

The events surrounding the burial of Jesus are so filled with contradictions from one gospel to the next, that it was necessary for me to divide them up for ease of understanding.

How many women went to Jesus' tomb, and what were their names?

1.) TWO women: Mary Magdelene, and another woman named Mary.

Matthew 28: 1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

2.) THREE women: Mary Magdelene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome

Mark 16:1 When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.

3.) An unspecified number of women, possibly a large group:

Luke 24:1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

vs. 9-10 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles.

4.) ONE woman:
John 20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

Was the stone rolled away already when she/they arrived?

1.) Yes:

Mark 16:4 ...But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.

Luke 24:2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb....

John 20:1 ...Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.

2.) No:

Matthew 28:2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.

How many men OR angels did the women/woman see?

1.) One angel:

Matthew 28:2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.

2.) One man:

Mark 16:4-5 But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

3.) Two men:

Luke 24:4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.

4.) Two angels:

John20:11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

What other events happened while the women were at the tomb? How did they react?

1.) There was an earthquake, an angel rolled the stone aside, and the Roman guards fainted:

Matthew 28:2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

2.) They entered the tomb, saw the man, and were frightened. They are told to tell the disciples.

Mark 16:5 As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6 “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

3.) They see the stone rolled aside, two men in brilliant clothing appear beside them, they bow low in fright.

Luke 24:4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.

4.) Mary first runs to tell the disciples. After they leave, she sees first the two angels, and then Jesus (who, for no reason in particular, she does not recognize):

John20:11-14 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

Did the women tell anyone immediately?

1.) Yes:

Matt. 28:8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

Luke 24:9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others.

John 20:2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

2.) No:

Mark 16:8 Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

Were Roman guards posted at the tomb?

1.) Yes:

Matt. 27:62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”

65 “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

2.) No:

The other three gospels do not describe, or even hint, at Roman guards being stationed at the tomb in order to prevent any skulduggery on the part of Jesus' followers.

Christians are fond of saying that the gospels are completely in agreement and form a cohesive story, with each gospel backing up the others. A few details may vary--as is to be expected when eyewitnesses write about a shared experience--but by and large, they agree on the important stuff.

Obviously, this is not the case. There is no way that one can form a coherent story with the details listed above. There is too much confusion over who did what with whom, and when. Why do the four writers disagree so much? Were some of them lying? Did some of them embellish the story to make it more exciting? Were the stories changed by other people later on? Whatever the case, we do NOT have a cohesive story, but four separate stories by people who might as well have been writing about four different crucifixions.

Jesus as the scapegoat--a bad idea

2011-02-19T16:26:00.000-08:00

For some reason, Christians think it is a good thing to regard Jesus as a scapegoat, onto whom they can place all of their sins and then forget about them as if they never happened. Let me explain why this is a very wrong idea.

First, a bit of background on the scapegoat idea. You can find this in Leviticus 16, as part of the rituals for the Day of Atonement, which was intended to cleanse both individuals and the nation of all of the previous year's sins. After putting on some magic linen garments and killing a bull and a goat for sin offerings, the priest would put his hands on the head of a live goat, and confess the sins of all the people. Like magic, all the sins they committed would go into the goat, and then the goat would be released into the wilderness to die, taking the nation's sins along with it. Now everyone could enter the new year with a clean, shiny, sin-free slate!

What is sin, exactly? Well, Christians define it as anything that God doesn't like. But this is pretty vague--God has been said to dislike almost everything under the sun--and really, when it comes down to it, sin is just failure: moral, personal, social, ethical. Your faults, imperfections, bad behavior, poor attitude, hurtful words, bad habits that you can't seem to overcome, breaking the law, whatever negative things impact your life and the lives of others around you can be lumped together under the label of "sin."

Once this is made clear, it becomes pretty obvious that no amount of wishing and praying and let's-pretend will ever enable you transfer your sins into an innocent animal. The whole idea of a scapegoat becomes ludicrous. Only YOU can get rid of your sins; they are personal battles that you, alone, must fight and win (or lose). What does a goat have to do with this? How could it possibly take away one sin from one human being, let alone an entire nation?

Well, it is the same way when you substitute a human, a god, or a half-god savior for the goat. That person cannot take away your personal faults and failures, not even if he willingly dies a painful death and claims he is doing it for you. Life doesn't work that way. Becoming a member of a certain religion, or accepting the teachings of a certain holy book, or believing in a certain god...none of these things will make all your bad qualities go away. If there is something about yourself that you don't like, you have to put some effort into changing whatever it is you are doing wrong. You can't expect someone else to take the blame for your failures. That's just wrong.

And even if you do improve yourself and begin to be a nicer person, the bad stuff you did in the past will still be a part of your past. That's right, all those sins don't disappear. You might have to work hard to make up for some of the crap you did, if it was really bad. You might have to ask forgiveness from some people.

Asking forgiveness from God is easy, because you're not talking to him face-to-face, or hearing his voice, or seeing his expression of mistrust and hurt. The guy is imaginary, so naturally you won't feel any particular hardship saying, "God, forgive me," in the darkness of your bedroom before you go to sleep. What's truly hard is asking forgiveness from the people you have hurt, while they are standing before you. Since you will spend your whole life interacting with people, and none at all interacting with God, it is much more important to stay in their good graces than it is his.

But Christians have this wrong, too. They think God's opinions and feelings are more important than those of the human beings with whom they spend every day of their lives. They may think it is very nice that someone died for their sins, but what does that mean in any practical sense? How do you die "for" someone else's faults? How does the death of a goat, a bull, a human, or even a god, make anyone a better person? How does it take away their moral shortcomings? How does it erase their crimes? How does it help them overcome bad habits or be more aware of their negative behavior?

When it is analyzed in this manner, the whole scapegoat mentality--so admired by Christians the world over-- is revealed as completely warped and impossible. Instead of blaming some innocent person for your problems, and expecting him to take them away simply because he died a long, long time ago, take responsibility for them. It's the right thing to do.

Five Bible verses that are touted as "scientific"

2011-01-21T15:06:00.000-08:00

It often happens that Christians will insist the Bible to be scientifically accurate in certain places, and that proves the validity of the Bible because how could those primitive folks have known such truths if not through the agency of God's influence? A few verses keep popping up over and over, and I have posted them here.

Job 26:7 He spreads out the northern skies over empty space;
he suspends the earth over nothing.
8 He wraps up the waters in his clouds,
yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.
9 He covers the face of the full moon,
spreading his clouds over it.
10 He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters
for a boundary between light and darkness.
11 The pillars of the heavens quake,
aghast at his rebuke.

The specific part that is quoted is the second part of verse 27, "He suspends the earth over nothing." Christians like to imagine that this is a reference to a spherical Earth floating in empty space. This interpretation is possible only by taking the verse out of context and ignoring everything around it--and as you can see, this is exactly what has been done. When that portion is placed IN context, the verse clearly takes on a whole new meaning, with no indication of a scientific knowledge at all.

First, we have God spreading out the northern skies. This would make sense only if you lived in a time when the sky was thought to be a huge, solid dome over the earth. (This is why Genesis calls the sky a "firmament"--that word specifically refers to a firm, solid structure, not a gaseous envelope surrounding a spherical planet.) Note verse 11, which speaks of the pillars of heaven. These verses do not give me the impression that the Hebrews had some mystically-derived knowledge of the universe as it really is, but rather that they simply accepted the commonly-understood version of cosmology, which was primitive and completely wrong.

Isaiah 40:22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers.

I don't know why, but for some reason, Christians like to interpret "circle" as "sphere." But the word used in Hebrew means "circle." This is how they viewed the world back then. It was a disk to them, not a sphere, and the sky was a solid object overhead, upheld by giant pillars. A giant reservoir of water existed above the sky; God would open the "windows of heaven" (Gen.7:11) to let the rain water out. There was a world ocean surrounding the land, and beneath the ground were storehouses of the deep, where ground water came from.

Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

This verse is used to "prove" that God gave the writer an understanding of atomic particles, the "unseen" substance of which everything we see is constructed. But this is not the case at all. This is talking about God magically poofing the universe into existence. If I'm not mistaken, this was an age when there were believed to be four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. A fifth element, spirit, was added to describe things of the heavenly realms--God, angels, and whatnot. Various combinations of the four earthly elements made up everything. And that was considered to be sophisticated thinking in those days. The "unseen" referred to God's spirit, not to tiny, invisible-to-the-naked-eye particles.

Genesis 6:14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.

I have heard that this ratio--the length being six times the width--is supposed to be the perfect dimensions for a ship. Quite aside from the fact that you can see boats and ships of all sorts of dimensions, how scientific is it to build a WOODEN boat of such massive dimensions that it would collapse under its own weight, never mind the weight of tons of animals and provisions? No matter what the dimensions were, NOAH'S BOAT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN SEA-WORTHY. It was just a primitive wooden structure with no metal support frame. I could go on for paragraphs about everything that is wrong with this dumb, childish story, but I won't.

Leviticus 15:7 “‘Whoever touches the man who has a discharge must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.

v. 13 “‘When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean.

Occasionally, the Bible gets something sort-of right. Nothing was known about viruses and bacteria back then. Nobody knew how diseases were transmitted, or what caused them. They thought plagues were a curse from God. But they must have had some notion that touching a sick person could result in the disease spreading to others, so washing thoroughly was recommended to remove the bad influence. But this is something that the astute observer can conclude easily enough by studying how people who touch the sick often become ill, themselves; no supernatural agency would have been required. This is not evidence of God giving people information, but simply of smart humans figuring something out on their own.

Also, if you read on, even an emission of semen was considered "unclean," and bathing in water was necessary to remove any impurity. A woman's menstrual blood was scary and unclean, and so was childbirth. The instructions to bathe reached OCD levels in the Old Testament because the Hebrews thought evil could result from not washing away the uncleanness.

In Leviticus 13, we read detailed instructions on how priests are to determine if someone has leprosy in the skin. It may seem very scientific, but sores, rashes, and swellings can be caused by many different ailments, and are not a definitive diagnosis of leprosy. Verse 47 tells us that a GARMENT can have leprosy! Lev. 14:34 explains all about leprosy in a house! We know that these things cannot have a disease; what was probably meant was mildew or mold, but "leprosy" was a catch-all term for any rash-like, spreading disfiguration. (The NIV more correctly calls it a "spreading mold.") We are told that the correct way to deal with mold is to completely seal up the house. Now, I would think that opening it up to let the air dry it out would be the best thing to do, but people back then thought the uncleanness would spread if the doors were left open. Does this seem like science that came from the mind of God, or more like incorrect guesswork on the part of people who didn't understand what mold and mildew were, or what caused them?

There is NO science in the Bible. I don't know why so many Christians insist that there is, but careful examination of any of their claims shows them to be wrong. The Bible was written by people who had no notion of how nature worked. They thought diseases, earthquakes, plagues, floods, and other bad things were caused by an angry God who was punishing them for their misdeeds. There was no such thing as a natural explanation for anything; it was all supernatural because they didn't understand it.

Swedish government cracks down on religious education

2011-01-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

Link to Freethink article

Swedish government – it’s illegal for schools to teach religious doctrine as if it were true

Courtesy of The Guardian:

The Swedish government has announced plans to clamp down hard on religious education. It will soon become illegal even for private faith schools to teach religious doctrines as if they were true. In an interesting twist on the American experience, prayer will remain legal in schools – after all, it has no truth value. But everything that takes place on the curriculum’s time will have to be secular. “Pupils must be protected from every sort of fundamentalism,” said the minister for schools, Jan Björklund.

Creationism and ID are explicitly banned but so is proselytising even in religious education classes. The Qur’an may not be taught as if it is true even in Muslim independent schools, nor may the Bible in Christian schools. The decision looks like a really startling attack on the right of parents to have their children taught what they would like. Of course it does not go so far as the Dawkins policy of prohibiting parents from trying to pass on their doctrines even in their own families – and, if it did, it would certainly run foul of the European convention on human rights. It does not even go as far as Nyamko Sabuni, the minister for integration – herself born in Burundi – would like: she wanted to ban all religious schools altogether. But it is still a pretty drastic measure from an English perspective.

The law is being presented in Sweden as if it mostly concerned fundamentalist Christian sects in the backwoods; but the Christian Democratic party, which represents such people if anyone does, is perfectly happy with the new regulation. There is little doubt that combating Islamic fundamentalism is the underlying aim, especially in conjunction with another new requirement that all independent schools declare all their funding sources. This would allow the inspectors – whose budget is being doubled – to concentrate their efforts on those schools most likely to be paid to break the rules.

It’s good to see a few governments brave enough to take a stand against supernatural thinking being presented as established fact. Theists demand we accept their opinions as fact without feeling compelled to offer any sort of credible evidence to support their claims.

Sweden has issued a challenge with this law; if theists want their beliefs to be taught as fact, provide as much proof as science has for evolution or gravity.

*************************************

Private schools in Sweden are a bit different than private schools in the States. Like public schools, they receive funding from the government, but they also derive a significant portion from private sources, as well. Thus, it makes sense for them to place the same restrictions on both types of schools so as to make sure that the curriculum is standardized across the nation. Here in the States, the government would not get away with such measures.

Their decision was mainly in response to Islamic fundamentalism, which is becoming a huge problem in Sweden. It will, of course, affect Christian schools, as well, but they don't seem to mind, as long as it means restrictions on their arch-nemesis, Islam.

I particularly like the last sentence in the article: "Sweden has issued a challenge with this law; if theists want their beliefs to be taught as fact, provide as much proof as science has for evolution or gravity."

Of course, nobody of ANY religion is able to do this. Just ask any Christian to provide evidence from the various branches of science--archeology, biology, paleontology, etc.--that supports creationism in the same way that it supports evolution, and the best they can do is to exclaim, "Well, just look around you! Proof of God's creation is everywhere!"

No evolutionary biologist would get away with a statement such as, "Just look around you! Proof of evolution is everywhere!" If anyone were to say such a ridiculous claim, Christians would jump all over it, saying that just looking at something will not lead you to the understanding that evolution is true. And they would be correct. One needs EVIDENCE to support anything, not just empty statements of blind faith. But Christians never apply this to their own beliefs. They are perfectly happy with just looking around them and saying "God did it," while at the same time declaring that the rest of us must provide evidence. It is high time they are told that they, too, MUST provide evidence of their claims, or else they will thrown out like so much dirty dish water.

How did King Saul die?

2010-10-30T10:56:00.000-07:00

I am told the Bible is inerrant, but there are four different versions of Saul's death in the Bible. He could only have died one way.

1.) He killed himself:

1 Samuel 31:4 Saul said to his armor-bearer, "Draw your sword and run me through, or these uncircumcised fellows will come and run me through and abuse me." But his armor-bearer was terrified and would not do it; so Saul took his own sword and fell on it.

2.) An Amalekite killed him at his own request:

2 Samuel 1:6-10 "I happened to be on Mount Gilboa," the young man said, "and there was Saul, leaning on his spear, with the chariots and riders almost upon him. When he turned around and saw me, he called out to me, and I said, 'What can I do?'

"He asked me, 'Who are you?'

" 'An Amalekite,' I answered. Then he said to me, 'Stand over me and kill me! I am in the throes of death, but I'm still alive.'

"So I stood over him and killed him, because I knew that after he had fallen he could not survive. And I took the crown that was on his head and the band on his arm and have brought them here to my lord."

3.) The Philistines killed him:

2 Samuel 21:12 he went and took the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan from the citizens of Jabesh Gilead. (They had taken them secretly from the public square at Beth Shan, where the Philistines had hung them after they struck Saul down on Gilboa.)

4.) God killed him:

1 Chronicles 10:13-14 Saul died because he was unfaithful to the LORD; he did not keep the word of the LORD and even consulted a medium for guidance, and did not inquire of the LORD. So the LORD put him to death and turned the kingdom over to David son of Jesse.

Here we have FOUR different versions of King Saul's death! How are these to be reconciled? They can't all be true. I have read a number of apologetics concerning this problem, including that the Amelekite was lying, but none of them work. How could four contradictory accounts of the same event have made it into the Bible without God knowing it? Either God needs to hire better editors, OR...none of it ever happened and it is all made up.

Sex, marriage, and family--Paul hates them, and so should you!

2010-08-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

When it comes to sex, marriage, and family life, Christians have two main sources of information: Paul and Jesus. The problem with this is that it is like going to a vegan for advice on how to cook a steak--you are probably not going to get the advice you are looking for.

Consider:

Paul never had sex.

Paul never had a girlfriend.

Paul was never married.

Paul advised that it was best for a man never to get married, the only exception being that if he could not control his lusts. Marriage, to him, was merely a lust-control mechanism, and he preferred that everyone be just like him. (1 Cor. 7:1-9)

Paul had a low opinion of women. He commanded that they be silent in church and ask their husbands questions at home. Daring to speak within the hallowed halls of the church--and especially bothering the pastor with your stupid, womany questions--is a grave, horrible, awful, no-good, very bad sin for a woman to commit. (1 Cor. 14:34-35)

Paul said that a woman must not divorce her husband, but if she did, she was to remain unmarried forever. Apparently, divorced women did not experience sexual lusts and so did not need to be married to control them. (1 Cor. 7:10-11)

On the other hand, he believed that young, widowed women were gossipy little busybodies, filled with depravity and lust. God forbid that a young woman, deprived of her husband by his untimely death, should want to remarry again, thus bringing shame to Jesus and the church! But then he admits that they SHOULD marry, have children, and stay at home, because that will keep them from being all evil and shit. (1 Tim. 5:9-15)

He told women to dress modestly, but gave no such fashion tips for men. (1 Tim. 2:9)

Paul's advice on family matters consisted of three instructions: Wives, obey your husbands; children, obey your parents; fathers, don't frustrate your kids. (Eph. 6:1-4) Beyond that, there is nothing. This is because Paul had no family and so could not relate to the concept. He could not even relate to the concept of being married, deeming it inferior to celibacy and a single life. As well, he imagined Christ was coming any second now, and probably figured nobody would need to be married if they were all going to heaven.

Paul, in short, held sex, women, and marriage in very low regard. They were necessary, of course, but more to be tolerated than actively desired. Did his attitude mesh with that of Jesus?

Consider:

Jesus never had sex.

Jesus never had a girlfriend.

Jesus never had a wife.

Jesus gave no advice on family matters.

Jesus, never having been married, and having no use for a family since he was going to die soon, anyway, could not relate to such concepts.

Jesus advised his followers to abandon everything, sell their possessions (Mark 10:21, Luke 12:33) hate their families (Luke 14:26), and then follow him into oblivion. He planned to die and come back to Earth with legions of angels to judge the whole world (Matt. 16:20), so was hardly likely to give them advice on how to deal with family problems. They would not need families in the afterlife, so what was the point?

So these are the two main authorities on whom Christians rely to get their advice about sex. Two guys who never even did it and avoided talking about it. Sex is pleasurable, and anything that gives pleasure is, by definition, evil because it makes one focus on the material world instead of the spiritual. In heaven, there is no sex (or beer), so why should you want it here? Is it any wonder sex is a taboo subject among most Christians? I've seen them get indignant just from people making jokes about it, for cryin' in the sink! Why would God create something that you're not even allowed to make jokes about??

Where is God in the midst of this mess??

2010-06-06T16:51:00.001-07:00

If you haven't heard about the oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico by now, then you've been living on the moon without cable TV. This horrific disaster is resulting in the destruction of thousands of miles of coastland ecosystem, the deaths of millions of animals, the poisoning of the ocean waters, and the ruining of many businesses and families who depended on fishing for their livelihood. Many attempts to stop the spill have failed. The latest attempt involves placing a cap over the hole to slow down the flow of oil, and then drilling relief wells to drain some of it away. However, the cap is still allowing tens of thousands of gallons of oil to leak into the ocean. It is not only floating to the surface, but streaming out into deeper waters, where it will wreak havoc on delicate deep-ocean ecosystems. It is not just individual animals that are dying, but ENTIRE SPECIES may be lost to this spectacular example of human fuckery.

One just has to wonder, "Where the hell is God in all this mess?" Millions of Christians worldwide are praying for God to get off his lazy ass and do something. Well, they're not wording it that way, of course, because they're a bunch of scared little panty-waists who think lightning bolts will zap them from on high if they say anything bad to or about their cranky deity. But they are praying, as this article demonstrates.

Quoting Pastor Jeffries: “Life was so dark, so unfair,” he told the crowd of 100 who gathered in his newly built church Wednesday night. “I was filled with agony and loneliness. But every miracle in the Bible began with someone in a mess. We’re in a mess. It may be dark, the prognosis may not be good, but He’s still a miracle-working God.”

No, Mr. Jeffries, he is not. If he were a miracle-working God, we would have seen a miracle by now. I see no evidence of any god doing anything at all in the Gulf disaster, do you? Or is there something going on that CNN hasn't been telling us? Millions of your fellow sheeple are praying for an end to the spill. They pray, they beg, they plead, they nag, they have loads of faith and they are believing as hard as they can, with their eyes squeezed shut tight and their fingers crossed. Some, I have no doubt, are fasting and holding candlelight vigils and special prayer meetings, and sending out vast numbers of e-mails begging all their friends and relatives to join them in prayer.

Yet, for all that, the oil gushes out at the rate of up to ONE MILLION gallons per day. Try to wrap your head around that, Pastor Jeffries. It's like having a tank that holds a million gallons of water, and each day you drain it and then fill it with another million gallons. It is impossible for the human mind to grasp what one million of anything looks like, let alone that number multiplied over and over again for 49 days.

The relief wells will not be completed for another two months. This could go on until well into autumn. I guarantee everyone that, if it does, Pastor Jeffries and his loyal sheeple, as well as millions of Christians everywhere, will STILL be praying for the oil to stop, and STILL claiming that God does miracles. If there is evidence of a miracle in the Gulf, can someone please point it out to me?

Since this is a Bible Study site, let's take a look at what the Bible has to say about miracles. They were as common as mud back in the day...you know, back when God was supposed to have performed all kinds of amazing magic tricks, such as making the Red Sea part, or killing all the firstborn of Egypt. Ever notice how spectacular events like this happened ONLY in the distant past, and there is no external evidence to support them, so that we have no way of validating whether they actually happened or not? So why should we accept them as evidence of a "miracle-working God"? They are just fables to amuse children and the gullible. If God could part the Red Sea, he would surely have no trouble at all capping a lousy oil well. What we actually see is that, in spite of the faith of millions, God is as impotent as a butterfly. Just what does it take to convince him to ease a little suffering on Earth?

Jesus, himself, seemed to think that one could do anything at all through the power of prayer.

Matthew 18:18-20 "I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. "Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."

Well, there have been a LOT more than two or three coming together to pray for this horror to end, and God hasn't done squat. Jesus lied.

Mark 11:22-25 "Have faith in God," Jesus answered. "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

Another verse where Jesus says you can have anything you want if you believe hard enough. He sets no limits here, and he does not exclude anything. I say this because Christians like to brush this off with, "Oh, he meant that you could get what you want IF it is in keeping with God's will," or "It has to be a completely unselfish request," and other such nonsense. Even if he had set such limitations, how could it not be God's will to stop the oil spill? How could praying for the welfare of other people and the lives of animals be anything but unselfish? Once again, Jesus lied.

John 14:12-14 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it."

This is the clincher right here. Jesus is very clear that you may ask him for ANYTHING in his name, and he will do it. So, why hasn't he done it? Pastor Jeffries has asked Jesus to stop the oil spill. I am sure he asked very nicely, which is much more than I would have done. Jesus made a promise that he would do anything Pastor Jeffries requested, but Jesus has not kept his side of the bargain. For the third time, Jesus lied.

I think Christians are going to have to face one of several ugly truths here. Either God does not exist, or he exists but cannot perform all the miracles that the Bible says he did, or--and this is probably the most painful--God hates Christians.

Why should he care about Christians? They use the name of Christ but don't do much of anything he said to do. They claim to follow the commandments of God, but actually ignore them. They claim to believe what the Bible says, but when it says something they don't like (such as when two or more verses contradict each other), they try to change what the Bible says so it makes more sense. Their entire history over the last 1500 years or more has been one of extraordinary violence, brutality, and hatred. So when some decent Christians do come along--and I have known many--they are overshadowed by all the crap that other Christians have done, and are still doing, in God's name. Maybe God has just thrown up his hands and given up on them. Maybe he never liked them very much to begin with.

At any rate, he is certainly ignoring their desperate pleas for help right now, just as he ignores their cries when they pray for a child to recover from cancer, or any other prayer for that matter. If there is to be any respite in the Gulf of Mexico, it will come from humans, not from God.

The Nativity

2009-12-23T11:21:00.000-08:00

I was going to write something about Christmas, but thought I would post this excellent article about the Nativity and its origins, originally posted by Acharya on the Freethought Examiner.

Every year in the United States, a great furor breaks out around Christmastime, based on the desire of millions of American Christians to see supposed symbols of their faith on public property, such as in schools and government buildings. Secularists and other non-Christians have been objecting and filing lawsuits to prevent what they consider a breach of the "separation of church and state" principle of the U.S. Constitution. The result, of course, is a flurry of news items in all major media decrying the "assault on Christmas." Included in this alleged "assault" are calls for the removal of Christian nativity scenes depicting the birth of Jesus Christ, traditionally said to have occurred at midnight on December 24th, leading to Christmas Day on the 25th. In this regard, for centuries many millions of Christians worldwide have thus believed that December 25th is the birthday of the Lord and Savior Jesus, which is why this day is called "Christmas."

December the month of winter-solstice celebrations

In the modern era, many millions of people have also become increasingly aware that this time of the year is not depicted biblically—contrary to popular belief—as the birthday of Jesus Christ but was in reality an ancient Pagan celebration of the sun, taking place at the winter solstice. These winter-solstice celebrations can be found in many places globally, from Japan to the Americas, dating back thousands of years. Some of them, such as the ancient Greco-Roman celebration of Brumalia or the Roman Saturnalia, lasted for several days preceding the solstice time. In the 2010 calendar, for example, Brumalia begins on November 24th, while December 11th represents the birthday of Bruma, Roman Goddess of Winter. Rather than being confined to a particular day or week, the winter solstice is celebrated throughout the month of December in the northern hemisphere, with other examples such as the birthday of the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu on December 8th, the Roman Festival of Lux Mundi or the "Light of the World" on the 10th, the Amitabha Buddha of Light's birthday on the 12th and the Festival of the Egyptian sun god Sokar on December 22nd. Other sun gods such as Mithra, Sol and Horus were likewise born on December 25th, which represents the end of the three-day period of the winter solstice, the latter word meaning "sun stands still."

The rebirth of the sun

Egyptian baby sun god Sokar in ark
with triple god Ptah-Sokar-Osiris

All around the northern hemisphere, beginning in ancient times and continuing to this day, it has been recognized that the days in December are the shortest of the year, with the culmination of the "sun's dying"—as this natural phenomenon came to be viewed—on the 21st-22nd. The ancients perceived the sun to "stand still" or be "dead in a cave" for three days before being renewed, resurrected or "born again" on December 24th-25th. Hence, in some cultures, such as Egypt, an image of a baby representing the sun, lying in an ark, bark or "manger," was brought out of the temple at this time to be shown to the people, who would celebrate his birth with great joy and festivity, as this time symbolized the return of the healing, savior sun and renewal of life on Earth.

A close look, therefore, at the abundant winter-solstice celebrations in the month of December that essentially represent the birthdays of the sun god will afford us a solution to the problem of the purportedly "Christian" creche and its public display: Return the solstice to its ancient meaning and make the nativity scenes reflect what they truly represent—the birth of the sun. Having thus basically secularized the displays, there will be no conflict with the law and U.S. Constitution.

Sources & Further Reading

Group requests removal of nativity
SC fire department removes nativity display
The 2010 Astrotheology Calendar
Winter Solstice: The REAL Reason for the Season
Jesus Christ as the Sun God throughout History
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection

Christians should read this. They think their religion was dropped from the sky one day, as if by magic, with no influence from any other religion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every symbol that they hold most dear was already in place thousands of years ago; the Christians simply revised it for their own purposes. That Nativity scene on someone's front lawn reenacts the birth of the new sun at the winter solstice, year after year. As such, there is no point complaining about "Christian" symbols being publicly displayed--they are ancient pagan symbols, too. My favorites are the ones with Santa Claus in them. I guess some people want to cover all grounds.

Join me in insulting Islam!

2009-09-22T16:26:00.000-07:00

There are many religions in the world, and some of them are every bit as whacked-out as Christianity. You have Hinduism, with its multitude of weird gods, goddesses, demons, and demi-deities, some with animal heads and/or extra arms. You have Judaism, with its angry, hateful, bad-tempered Yahweh who never seems happy with anything or anyone. (Of course, you can read all about him in the Christian Bible.) You have various nature-oriented religions, such as paganism, Wicca, and witchcraft, heavy on the magic spells, chants, crystals, and beads and as low on actual results as any nun praying to the Virgin Mary. You have Buddhism, which claims not to have any gods, yet certainly looks very religion-like from where I'm standing. Big on meditation and achieving oneness with the universe, it doesn't seem to do much other than make people feel good about themselves, so it's low on the Whack-o-Meter scale. If I had to pick a religion to follow, it would be Buddhism, because you can accomplish nothing by doing nothing and still feel good about life.

But for sheer batshit-craziness, you can't beat Islam. Islam is at the point of its development now that Christianity was a thousand years ago. In other words, they not only think they are number one on God's List of Good Boys and Girls, but they believe that everyone else should be on that list, too--forcibly, if necessary, and if people can't be encouraged, coerced, bullied, threatened, or terrorized into believing in the One, True God and His Only Prophet Muhammad (Penis Be Upon Him), then they must die. It is as simple as that. There is nothing else in life that drives the Muslim, nothing else that they live for, other than worshiping Allah and Muhammad and either scorning or terrorizing those who don't. The nicer Muslims merely scorn; the not-nice ones will gladly bomb your neighborhood if the voice in their heads--a.k.a. Allah--tells them to.

Anyway, the title of this blog comes from this article: Christian hoteliers charged with insulting a Muslim guest. In Great Britain, it is very, very, very, very wrong to make any Muslim feel angry, insulted, or hurt in any way whatsoever, so the Christian hotel owners are now facing a criminal record that will be with them for the rest of their lives, for no other reason than that some random shroud-wearer got her knickers in a twist over the allegation that Muhammad (Pizza Be Upon Him) was a "warlord." You may be wondering why I would support the Christians in this, but when it comes to a choice between Christians or Muslims, the Muslims lose by a mile.

Oh, and she was also offended because one of them said that Muslim dress codes are a form of bondage for female Muslims. Well, when you have to go about looking like one of Death's little helpers in a black sheet, while men are allowed to wear whatever they please, what else are we supposed to believe? You certainly aren't doing it because you're trying to be the next big thing in fashion. In some countries, Muslim women are lucky--they get to wear sheets in different colors, and some are even allowed to--GASP!--show their faces and hands!! Bit daring, isn't it? Next thing you know, the little hussies will be showing off their ankles, and THEN where will we be??

You know, if they must wear all black, maybe they should dress like Darth Vader. At least he got to wear a cool mask. If they all dressed like Darth Vader, that would be pretty awesome. Or ninjas! You would never know which of them is a REAL ninja because they would all look alike! There could be ninjas hiding ANYWHERE, right out in the open, and you would never know it! Of course, they're usually invisible, anyway, but sometimes they might not want to be invisible, you know?

Haha! I kid, I kid! I just can't help it! Islam is, frankly, a stupid religion, based on the teachings of an insane, schizophrenic, epileptic nutcase who today would be locked in a room with rubber wallpaper. Seriously, THAT is the kind of guy these Muslim weirdos adore and worship, and that makes them as crazy as him. Couldn't they have picked someone nicer and without any loose screws? What is it about religious people that makes them attracted to the worst sorts of nutters in history? The nuttier, the better, and the more wild and improbable the claims, the more likely religious-minded people are to believe them. They will literally believe anything, as long as the word "God" is attached to it. And they can be persuaded to do anything, as well, for the same reason. That is what makes them so dangerous.

"But there are decent Muslims, too!" I can hear some of you whining already. What decent person follows a religion whose holy book declares that the infidels must die, that wives should be beaten if they don't obey their husbands, and that women are to be covered head-to-foot in a freaking funeral shroud? So, yeah, kudos to them for not strapping dynamite to their kids and sending them into a church, but I still don't think kindly of their religion. They might be the nicest people ever, but inside I'll be thinking, "What the hell is WRONG with you??"

This Muslim woman who was mortally wounded by someone else's opinion needs to STFU already. The only people who care are her lawyers, who of course will make a killing if they win. And given the way Great Britain is going, they probably will, causing fanatical Muslims--the ones who DO strap dynamite to their kids--to count it as a victory for their idiotic god and his retarded prophet. See, the nice Muslims unwittingly support the fanatics by the simple fact that they are all part of the same religion. The fanatic doesn't care about the nice, decent Muslims who just want to get on with their sheet-wearing lives without killing people; he sees them as being on his side. If he starts thinking that maybe they aren't on his side--well, then, they are added to the ever-growing list of people whom Allalalalalalaalah says must die.

As you can see, I do not care if any Muslims are offended by anything I say about them. I don't care if their feelings are hurt, or they are insulted, or they break down crying like babies so that I have to call the waaaaaaahmbulance to come get them and administer a love enema so they won't be sad anymore. In fact, I am going straight over to the Muhammad Dress-Up Game to have some fun. I dressed him in a pig costume! HA! A pig! Come join me in insulting Islam!

I started a WAR!

2009-05-26T20:00:00.000-07:00

I was waiting for the bus outside of Wal-Mart today. They have these raised planted areas that are surrounded by low concrete walls about 2.5 ft. high. I was sitting on the wall and noticed there are two species of ants living in the planted areas--a tiny, black ant and a larger, reddish ant. I put a few crumbs of Fig Newtons on the mound where the black ants were swarming and of course they were like, "Whoa! The gods have sent us food!" Then this one red ant comes along, grabs a piece of cookie, and trundles back to its own nest a few feet away. Oy, what chutzpa! Within seconds, more red ants were helping themselves to the bounty which the black ants' gods had provided. With tiny cries of "THIS! IS! SPARTAAAAAA!!" or whatever the ant equivalent is, the black ants went into attack mode, swarming on the red ants and biting them furiously, sometimes almost dragging them into their nest. The red ants refused to give up, biting off pieces of cookie and taking them back to their own nest. There was one piece that the black ants succeeded in partly burying in their nest--some removed dirt from underneath it until it sunk down, while others attacked the red ants. I put down more bits of cookie on both nests. Even when the big ants had their own cookies, they STILL wanted the cookies that the smaller ants had! Greedy bastards! But it was fun watching them battle it out. I think the red ants secreted something that repelled the black ones, because sometimes the black ones would quit attacking until reinforcements came from down below and they'd resume swarming and biting. Woohoo, it was an all-out cookie war, baybee! It's fun to be a god!

So what does this have to do with the Bible? Well, while I was busy turning the ants' world upside-down, it hit me: this is how the manna story got started in the Old Testament! God was just bored one day and goofing around, so he tossed some cookie crumbs onto the ant hill, so to speak, just to see what would happen. Then he sat back for awhile and watched the mayhem that ensued. The mayhem hasn't stopped, but he got on the bus to go home a long time ago, and the bus doesn't stop here anymore. So, go get your own damn cookies!

WARNING! Revelation is About to be Fulfilled!

2009-05-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

And the Lord of Hostess Ho-Hos is about to come down HARD on your sorry, heathen asses!

What's that? Oh, sorry, it's Lord of Hosts. Eh, whatever. According to this book, he's been letting his wrath build up for a long, LONG time, and when he cuts loose...WATCH OUT! Nobody is safe when God goes on the rampage!
WARNING! REVELATION IS ABOUT TO BE FULFILLED!

That's the title of a book by some guy named Larry W. Wilson, director and founder of "Wake Up, America" seminars--whatever those are. I found the book on a park bench on my way home from the bank one day and grabbed it because I figured it would be good for a laugh. Naturally, I was right, as I always am about such things.

Also, the cover art is kinda cool--here, take a look:

You know, Jesus, with those robes, you really oughta be riding sidesaddle.

Anyway, because YOU, the viewers, forgot you demanded it, I am pleased to present a review of this fine little book. Right off the bat, Chapter 1 ("An Overwhelming Surprise") starts with this disclaimer: "If separated from the larger context of this book, this chapter could make God appear to be very cruel and unfairly harsh--so please read subsequent chapters as soon as possible!"

Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good. How can the God of Love, Peace, and All That Is Good, possibly be made to seem cruel and harsh?? That's like someone saying that Santa Claus loaded his sleigh with bombs and flew it into an orphanage because the kids were being bad. Should we skip this chapter? Nah, sometimes we have to take the bad news with the good.

It goes on to say that just because God punishes evildoers in really nasty, horrible, cruel, and sickening ways, doesn't mean he doesn't love us. He's just responding to our stubborn ways with exactly the kind of retribution we deserve! So, I guess we ought to be glad we're still breathing at all, huh?

According to Mr. Wilson, some prophecies are in the process of fulfillment, while others are only just beginning. Quite a lot of the first chapter has to do with the Seven Strumpets....oh, sorry, that's Trumpets...and how each one announces a different terrifying doom to be brought upon humans because not all of us worship God like we ought. Having a couple billion worshippers is not enough for God, he wants EVERYONE to worship him. This is very important to his sense of well-being, so he sends earthquakes, meteorites, and other unpleasantness to get our attention. I don't know why he couldn't simply rearrange the stars to form the words, "Hi! I'm God and I want you to worship me!" across the night time sky, but I guess that's why he's God and I'm not.

On page 13, we read this: "Because God's judgments will be overwhemingly destructive, world leaders will immediately declare the obvious: "These horrific events are acts of God." Because earthquakes, floods, fires, and meteorites can't possibly have natural causes, especially when they occur all at once. Nope, must be God. But WHICH God?? All the religions of the world form a coaltion to try and deal with the God Problem, but they can't agree on which God they're trying to please, so they get all confused about what to do and that makes God even more angry. Jeez, you just can't please this guy, can you!

There's some stuff about big numbers--1,260; 144,000--and more stuff about judgment and testing and why God gets so darned angry all the time, but I won't bore you with it. Suffice to say that this is the kind of stuff they make disaster movies out of, only I don't think they've ever made one where several different kinds of disaster happen all at once. Like, if they crossed "Towering Inferno" with "Deep Impact," "Volcano," "The Poseidon Adventure," and "Aftershock," that would be a pretty fair idea of what God is going to do to mankind. Except, there won't be Pierce Brosnan or Bruce Willis to lead everyone to safety.

Chapter 2: Pour me a Brewski

Chapter 2 of Larry Wilson's book brings us another disclaimer: "The Bible declares that God is love, but God's love is poorly understood today. (1 John 4:7,8) The meaning of love is so distorted by sin that many people do not understand what love is!" He then goes on to say, essentially, that just because God sends judgments on the Earth that result in war, misery, starvation, natural disasters, and the deaths of millions, including innocent little babies, doesn't mean he doesn't love us, it just means he's trying to strike that perfect balance between love and justice, and sometimes God has to be cruel to be kind and use "tough love" to get people's attention so they will worship him. Being worshipped is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVAR for God, or so I gather from this book. Mr. Wilson fails to explain why God has this overwhelming desire to force everyone to worship him, even to the extent of using terrorism to do it, but I guess that's one of those Mysteries of Life that we aren't meant to solve.

This chapter is called "The Full Cup Principle," which basically means that God sees every person and nation as a cup, which he allows to fill with sin until it gets full, at which point he unleashes horrible violence and destruction in a fit of rage. Never mind that God didn't do anything at all to prevent the "cup" from filling in the first place; it's that tough love thing again, I guess. He's kind of like a parent who, instead of teaching their child to respect other people's property, lets the kid destroy the house and then beats him half to death for doing what he was never taught not to do.

Wilson gives the example of the people in Noah's time, who got so darned evil that God just couldn't stand it anymore and killed them all. Apparently, God made no attempt at talking to people and explaining what he wanted from them--certainly no mention is made of it in Genesis--so how would they have known they were doing anything wrong? What, exactly, were they doing that made them evil? Why did God kill thousands of innocent children and infants who couldn't possibly have committed any sin?

He also lists how the Amorites and the Israelites similarly "filled their cups" with sin and God punished them. He avoids mentioning the Midianites from Numbers chapter 30, however. I guess that even for him, brutally killing the men, women, and boys while keeping the virgin girls as wives and concubines--all because the Midianites were enemies of God's chosen people--was too much. Well, since Mr. Wilson couldn't bring himself to do it, I guess I have to. You are welcome.

Then there's a lot of nonsense about how it's okay for God to kill people by the hundreds and thousands, because it's all in the name of righteousness. God can be patient for only so long, then he has NO CHOICE but lose his temper and fly into a destructive, hellfire-and-brimstone-throwing rage. How strange, that the God of all creation, who is supposed to be able to do anything, gives himself no options when it comes to dealing with humanity.

God requires atonement, Wilson says, and blood is the only way to make atonement because the life of a creature is in its blood. I don't understand the connection. An animal dies if you cut off its head, too, so I could say that the life of a creature is in its brain, but nowhere are brain sacrifices required. The word "brain" isn't even in the Bible. Did the Hebrews know what it was for? The same can be said of the lungs, the heart, the liver...there are many organs without which you WILL die if they are removed. Why are they not considered necessary for atonement?

Chapter 3--The First Four Strumpets!

The beginning of this chapter tells us that "...many of the survivors will refuse to understand God's actions because they have hearts like Pharaoh. (Remember the hardness of Pharaoh's heart? Even after God sent ten plagues upon Egypt, Pharaoh refused to submit to God's authority.)" Let's look at what the Bible says about this:

Exodus 9:12
But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said to Moses.

Notice that it is GOD who hardens Pharoah's heart! God makes people not want to obey him, then punishes them for not obeying him. Are you people SURE there isn't some nicer god you could worship? I could recommend a few....

I'll skip the rest of the introduction and get on with the various dooms God is inflicting upon humanity. To get everyone warmed up, he first causes an earthquake accompanied by noises from the earth and lightning. Pardon me for being unimpressed, but both phenomena have been observed during earthquakes. Oh, right, this one is supposed to be worldwide, which I guess might be possible if all the tectonic plates suddenly started banging against each other all at the same time. For all I know, there might actually be some natural phenomenon that could cause this to happen--and that's the problem, for if it can be explained by natural causes, then who is going to know it's from God?

The first trumpet brings "hail and fire mixed with blood," which Mr. Wilson interprets as meteors. He seems to think the Perseids, Leonids, Geminids, and Lyrids (meteor showers named for their apparent points of origin in the sky) will have something to do with it, proving that he knows pretty much nothing of astronomy.

The second and third trumpets brings a couple of burning mountains crashing to Earth, which Mr. Wilson assumes are gigantic asteroids. Great balls o' fire! While I have no doubt such a thing will probably happen in the future, as it has in the past, there are natural explanations for it. I suppose the idea is that all of these disasters striking at once couldn't possibly be natural. But then, people have been predicting the end of the world in horrible ways for millennia, so why should we believe that this is anything other than just another ho-hum doomsday prophecy?

When the fourth trumpet sounds, the sun, moon, and stars go dark, presumably from dust and ash kicked up by the asteroids. Wilson points out that the fraction 1/3 is used 12 times in the 7 Trumpets prophecies--1/3 of Earth is burned up, 1/3 of sea animals die, 1/3 of the light is blackened, etc. Am I to believe that God is so precise that everything is destroyed EXACTLY in thirds? Apparently so, because Wilson says this is indicative of God's mercy. You see, while he slaughters one-third of everyone and everything, he still leaves two-thirds alive! Isn't that generous of him? Don't you feel better about the millions of Jews, Polish, and others who were murdered by Hitler? I mean, the guy left plenty more alive than what he killed, so cut him some slack!

Chapter 4: The Human Response

This chapter is nothing special. It is quite short and simply outlines how Mr. Wilson imagines the nations will react to all the misery and scary weirdness going on around them. He appears to draw from a number of sources, not least of which are Armageddon and Dante's Peak, perhaps with a bit of Aftershock thrown in. So, if you've seen those movies, and can visualize them all thrown together in a blender turned to "puree," and then imagine every nation and culture in the world fighting over the correct way to worship God and none of them getting it right and God getting more cranky than he usually is, then you already know what the chapter is about.

Chapter 5, Part 1--Misunderstandings about Isaiah 4

I am breaking up chapter 5 into two parts because of Mr. Wilson's blatant ignorance regarding a simple prophecy. He goes to Isaiah 14 to assure us that Satan at one time was Lucifer, who fell from heaven to become the devil. Allow me to show everyone how this is utterly false.

First, it is necessary to put Isaiah 14 in the context of other chapters. Verse 1 of chapter 13 tells us that this is "An oracle concerning Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw." So, we know that anything that follows--unless we are told otherwise--refers to Babylon. You must realize that the Israelites at that time had been taken into captivity numerous times and this was a prophecy concerning those who tormented and enslaved them. God pronounces various terrible things that will happen to Babylon because they dared to lay hands on his Chosen Ones, the Israelites. By chapter 14--and remember, there were no chapter or verse numbers in the original texts, so it would have read as one continuous story--God is still going strong on the doom and destruction schtick. He says that he will have compassion on Israel, grant them victory and peace, and make them the head over all other nations. Christians are fond of saying that unbelievers like me are always taking verses out of context, and that is why we supposedly see errors where none exist. Well, I have just provided for them the context against which the following verses must be applied in order to make sense.

Chapter 14, v. 3 says: "On the day the LORD gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage, 4 you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:" Did you see that? THE KING OF BABYLON! NOT Satan, but the king of Babylon! Every verse thereafter, up to and including verse 23, refers to this king. Satan is NOT mentioned. This is important to remember, because the verses that supposedly refer to Satan are these:

12 How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!

13 You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. [c]

14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."

The words that I put in bold are the troublesome ones. The phrase "morning star" has been translated into the Latin word, "Lucifer" in the KJV. But Lucifer is a LATIN word, not a Hebrew proper name. You will not find "lucifer" in the Hebrew text. The original reading was "light bearer" or "morning star," and was a poetic reference to the planet Venus. It is very bright and highly visible in the morning sky and thus was regarded as very important to ancient people, who regarded it as the herald of dawn, the morning star, the bringer of the sun's light. Once this is understood, the rest of that text makes much more sense. The king exalted himself as though he were Venus, itself--not quite the sun, but almost as important--and God has figuratively cast him back down to Earth, removed his shining splendor, etc. It is not a literal description of some angel falling from the sky, but a poetic description of a king brought low by the power of God. Verse 3 assures us that this is about the king, and there is nothing in the rest of the text suggesting that the focus is changed. Verses 22 and 23 again remind us that this is all about Babylon:

I will rise up against them,"
declares the LORD Almighty.
"I will cut off from Babylon her name and survivors,
her offspring and descendants,"
declares the LORD.
"I will turn her into a place for owls
and into swampland;
I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,"
declares the LORD Almighty.

Afterward, there are prophecies against Assyria and the Philistines.

Anyone can see that there is no way these verses can apply to Satan! Nor could v. 19, "But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch;" or verse 8, "Even the pine trees and the cedars of Lebanon exult over you and say, 'Now that you have been laid low, no woodsman comes to cut us down;'" or verse 11, "All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you." Why would part of this prophecy refer to Satan and the rest to the king of Babylon? Does that make sense to anyone? Would it make sense to God, who is not the author of confusion?

I know somebody is bound to bring up the issue of "dual prophecy," the notion that prophecies can have more than one meaning. Such an idea is nowhere mentioned in the Bible, and it is utterly ridiculous to imagine that one can take any prophecy one wishes and apply as many meanings as one wants to it, so as to turn it into a prophecy about modern times. This is exactly what Wilson and every other Christian does. Isaiah 14 does NOT refer to Satan. If God had meant Satan, I am sure he would have taken the time and effort to say so, unless he is too stupid to say what he means.

Chapter 5, part 2: The Devil Appears in Person

Let's give him a big round of applause, folks! He appears in the sky, all bright and shiny, fooling everyone into thinking he's God! First, there's a warm-up act in the form of the Antichrist. This guy is a fallen angel, too, but disguises himself as a really swell guy with all the answers to Life, the Universe, and Everything. Mr. Wilson diverges briefly to explain how Satan got kicked out of heaven and why God didn't just destroy him right off the bat. As you probably suspect by now, it is because God wuvs us vewy much. Killing Lucifer/Satan and his minions would have sent the message that God is just a big ol' cosmic bully who kills people for no good reason--which of course is NOT how God is at all! No, he just lets Satan live, thereby condemning planet Earth to thousands of years of misery, and then tosses people into everlasting burning torture if they don't worship Sweet Jesus. I know that LOOKS like he's being a big bully, but he's not. What Wilson doesn't address is, why should HUMANS be punished for what Satan did? If God had to banish Satan from heaven, why banish him to Earth instead of, say, one of Saturn's moons or Venus or another galaxy--any place that wasn't inhabited?

Anyway, in Rev. 9, the fifth trumpet sounds, accompanied by Keith Richards on guitar, and an angel opens up the Abyss, from which a swarm of freaky-ass locusts emerges. Wilson insists these aren't REALLY locusts, but merely fallen angels whose numbers are so great that they look like a swarm of bugs. How does he know this? What if they really are intended to be locusts? Whatever. These 'shroom-induced visions of John's are already so damn weird that they could be flying pink unicorns for all I care.

It is interesting that Wilson makes this comment: "The imagery and language used in Revelation 9:1-11 is similar to language used five hundred years earlier in Joel 2:1-ll where the prophet describes the appearing of the Lord and His angels as a great swarm of locusts prepared for battle." There is a particular writing formula called midrash, which simply means that the author takes a familiar story from scripture and changes some of the details to make a new story. We see this in the story of Herod supposedly killing all baby boys of Jerusalem so that Jesus' parents have to flee for their lives. This is a midrash of the story of baby Moses being sought by the Pharoah, who orders all baby boys of the kingdom killed in an attempt to rid himself of this danger to his authority. Moses escapes and becomes the savior of the Hebrews; Jesus escapes and becomes the savior of mankind. There are many examples of this in the Bible, and Rev. 9, I suspect, is one of them. The author obviously borrowed heavily from Joel, Ezekiel, and other prophetic books that were already familiar to him, and possibly to his audience, as well. If God were handing out visions, wouldn't you think he'd be more original?

Note that God doesn't merely allow all this dreadful stuff to happen, he actually encourages it. He lets Satan out of his hidey-hole so that he can deceive even more people and cause even more confusion, chaos, destruction, and misery. Does this seem even remotely loving to anyone? What kind of lesson would we teach our children if, instead of locking up child molesters, we deliberately gave them jobs as teachers and daycare workers? It's bad enough when it happens by accident, but to intentionally let them loose among vulnerable children would be the height of immoral and hateful behavior (Catholic Church, and a lot of Protestant ones, I'm pointin' my finger at you). Yet, this is exactly the sort of thing God is depicted as doing. Instead of locking away the offenders on some faraway planet, or putting them to death so they can no longer harm anyone, he deliberately lets them loose among humans who have no way of defending themselves from the terrifying powers of supernatural beings. Supposedly, this is meant to teach us some kind of lesson about how we should love God. Who can love a being that does such things? Could you love the government that would put rapists in charge of orphanages? Would you love the parent who throws a child into a lion's den and then blames the child for getting mauled? So far, through five chapters of this book, I haven't been able to tell the difference between Satan and God.

Chapter 6: Worship the Beast or Die!

Hmmm, let's see...worship or die, worship or die.....I'll take "worship" for $400, Alex. Hey, I don't wanna die, and if that means being pals with Satan, what's the big deal? Throughout the Bible, it is GOD, not Satan, who brings evil upon the world, kills children, slaughters the infidels, causes disasters. How could Satan be any worse? He never did any of those things.

Mr. Wilson has this to say on the subject of worshiping God: "When Abel offered the required lamb, he worshiped God. When Cain offered fruit to God, he did not worship God--he offended God because he did not do what God commanded." Okay, I wanna know why God likes bloodshed so much. Why does he prefer the suffering and bleeding of innocent animals over an offering of fruit and grain? Cain is the one who should have been rewarded for being more humane! There ARE commands, elsewhere in the Bible, for the Hebrews to offer up a tenth of the grain of their land, and in most cases, poor people can substitute fine flour for a cow, sheep, or goat; so what was so bad about Cain's offering? Contrary to what Mr. Wilson thinks, the Bible never gives us an explanation. Go ahead, look for one, it isn't there.

Oh, yeah, let's not forget the Mark of the Beast. You know the story, it's been done in books and movies a zillion times--we get the usual spiel that anyone who worships the Beast gets a mark on their foreheads and hands and God will be extra-super-duper mad at them. Yawn. Does this mean he's even madder than when he killed children and pregnant women in the flood, or when he burned people to death in Sodom and Gomorrah?

Then Wilson mentions something about a third angel turning all the water into blood. Didn't we cover that part earlier? I forget. It sounds suspiciously like the author of Revelation stole this imagery straight from the story of Moses and the ten plagues, when all the rivers turned to blood so that nobody could drink the water. Apparently, God likes to recycle his curses. At this time, the 144,000 Chosen Ones go around preaching that God is pissed off because nobody likes him. You know, there are better ways of expressing one's anger than killing people and making them drink blood. Meanwhile, what has Satan done that is so terrible? The worst he has done, so far, is to make people bow down to him. He hasn't sent plagues, hasn't turned water to blood, hasn't rained fire from heaven or thrown meteors at the Earth or killed 1/3 of the world's population. It is GOD who has done all those things, not Satan, so which one of them is more evil? Maybe God just needs to light some candles, relax in a tub full of bubbles, put on a Yanni album, and CHILL THE HELL OUT. Seriously, the guy is a head case.

After that, we get a list of the first four commandments--which Christians never obey--and are told that this is how God wants to be worshiped. It is never explained WHY God wants to be worshiped. He is supposed to be the Creator of All That Is, why would he need or want the adoration of humans? Needs and wants imply a lack of something, and since God lacks nothing, he shouldn't desire anything. Is it just an ego thing? Maybe he just likes being told, a million times a day, what a great guy he is, and if people don't do this, he flies into a rage like a spoiled little child who can't have a toy.

We are told that the Sabbath--the 7th-day one, not Sunday--is made for man. Now, GOD is the one who needed a rest, so how can the Sabbath be for us? Some of us have to WORK for a living. If God wants to take a regular day off, great, but he shouldn't expect the rest of us to pass up an opportunity to pay bills, buy groceries, or go out for a night of fun.

"Satan has effectively led the human race to diminish the importance of the Ten Commandments," sez Larry. Ten? Which ten? There are three different versions of them--Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish--and they don't match up. Moses received 613 commands on the magic mountain, so why attach so much importance to just those ten? Are the others just afterthoughts? God sent Israel into exile again and again for not obeying ALL of his commands, so they must be pretty darn important. I guess Christians are more afraid of the wrath of PETA than the wrath of God, if they start doing animal sacrifices.

Larry also insists that Jesus is God, yet oddly enough he can't seem to find any verses where Jesus actually says, "I am God." He says that he and the Father are one, and you see him you see the Father, but this is not the same thing. It is more likely to mean that he simply saw himself as a representative of God. After all, he PRAYED to God, he called God "my Father" and "my God." Does God worship himself? Does he pray to himself? Did he sacrifice himself to himself to save everyone from his own wrath?

The rest of the chapter is just more blah-blah-blah about how you must show your love for God by obeying him (except, of course, for the 603 that Christians have decided are not important), and if you don't, God will torture and kill you--and that's BEFORE he sends you to hell for some more torture. Satan never sends anybody to hell, it is only God who does this. Yet Satan is supposed to be the bad guy?? I think Christians have got it completely backwards and they are worshiping the wrong deity. They might be better off not worshiping any deity until they find a nicer one.

One more chapter to go!

Chapter 7: A Dramatic Rescue by Jesus (who is not exactly Johnny-on-the-Spot)

Well, there's not much to say about Chapter 7. It's a lot like the previous 6 chapters, emphasizing, for the millionth time, that God gets very, very angry when he doesn't get his way. He may hold back his vengeance for a long time, but when he finally cuts loose, he REALLY cuts loose, smiting one and all with a mighty smote that smiteth mightily. It doesn't seem to matter that the innocent get caught up in his rage along with the guilty. Babies, children, pregnant women, the elderly, the mentally ill, puppies and kittens, it won't matter to God--if they can't run fast enough to escape his Cosmic Fist of Doom, then that's just too bad. There's something about a war, the mark of the Beast, seven bowls, more of God's wrath, and just when all seems lost, Jesus arrives on the scene to send Satan packing and show the world who's really in charge around here. To tell you the truth, I lost interest in this steaming pile of religious offal quite some time ago. My attitude has changed from when I was a Christian and the Book of Revelation was my favorite in the Bible.

You see, there was a time when I would have agreed wholeheartedly with everything in that book. Now, I can scarcely stomach the notion of a higher power that would sweep away everything in its path in a fit of temper, like a child knocking down someone else's blocks. I just don't get why anyone would want to worship and adore someone so obviously out of control. Some of it has to be fear, in the same way kids are afraid of the playground bully and will give him their lunch money or toys to avoid being punched in the face. Or perhaps a dictatorship is a more apt analogy--if your illustrious leader, who has the power to put you in a dungeon or in front of a firing squad, tells you to obey him, you do it. The difference is that the fascist dictator actually exists; you can see him and talk to him (if you're unlucky); but there is no proof for the existence of this BibleGod personage. Why are people afraid of what they can't even prove exists?

Most Christians will say that they don't really fear God, they simply respect him very deeply. This is a God who, it is said, will one day pour out his rage upon an unsuspecting humanity, for no other reason than that they didn't worship him, or else they went about it the wrong way. Rather than find some way of explaining what it is he wants, why he wants it, and how everybody can provide it for him, in a way that everyone will understand and accept--being omnimax, he could do that, you know--God will choose, instead, to rain plagues, fire, war, and misery upon the old and the young, men and women, adults, children, infants, and the unborn, and even upon the animals, trees, and rivers. What, exactly, in that list is designed to make me say, "Hey, this is a really great guy! I respect him for that."? Respect is something you earn, not force upon others who are weaker than you--and that's something you'll never read in any book about BibleGod.

Because God has nothing better to worry about.

2009-03-17T19:12:00.000-07:00

This is a question someone asked at Yahoo Answers awhile ago, and I saved it because it illustrates how stupid people can be when it comes to the worship of Yahweh, the Bible God. (Awful spelling and grammar have been left intact for your amusement.)

Question:

Why are people saying this about pentecostals?

Look Im reading questions about Pentecostals and some of this stuff is RIDICULOUS Pentecostals believe in ONE TRUE GOD the reason Pentecostal Women wear skirts is because in Deuteronomy Chapter 22 verse 5 says this: The woman shall not wear that which pertainith unto a man neither shall put on a womans garmet for all that do so are an ABONINATION unto the Lord thy God. (pants were made for men for mens work clothes and such) the reason the women dont cut thier hair is BECAUSE In the Bible also in 1st Corinthians 11 verse 5 it says But every woman that prayeth or prophesiath wither her HEAD UNCOVERED DISHONORETH Her head ( which in verse 3 says every man Christ and the head of every woman is man and the head of Christ is God) back to verse 5: for all that is even all on as iuf she were unshaven. verse 6: for if the woman not be covered let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven let it be covered.men leave their head short his head isthe Glory of God

My Answer:

Go to a clothing store, look at some women's dress slacks, and tell me if you think they're something a man would wear. Well, he might, if he's a cross-dresser, but generally women's pants look different and are made to fit the female body, so it's not as if they're gender-exchangeable. Honestly, if that's the sort of petty thing your God finds "abominable," then he is a really small-minded God, indeed. There are children dying every day, kids who are abused, raped, locked in closets, starved to death, beaten, drowned in lakes, killed at birth, you name it, and there's not so much as a mention of that anywhere in the Bible. Where is the command that says, "Thou shalt not sexually molest a child"? Don't bother looking, it isn't there. I should think that THAT is something a loving God would truly find abominable--I know I sure as hell do--but do you think there is even the slightest hint of it in all of the 613 laws that he gave to Moses? Of course not, because God was too busy fretting and fuming over men and women wearing each other's clothes, or linen being mixed with wool, or a man trimming his beard the wrong way, or a young girl not being a virgin on her wedding night, or a boy's foreskin being amputated, or a woman having short hair or too much jewelry, or any of a hundred other stupid, pointless minutia that shrink to nothingness compared to the really important problems in life. Maybe you need a religion that knows how to separate what's important from what is trivial. Pentecostalism obviously ain't doing it.

God's Idea of a Righteous Man, part 2

2009-03-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

In part 2, we'll get a look at some more of God's best friends. First up: Jacob.

His story begins in chapter 25 of Genesis. Esau comes home from work one day, famished, and asks for some stew. Jacob refuses to give it to him unless he sells his birthright. Esau is too thick-headed to say, "Screw you! I'll get my own food." Instead, he agrees, and thus Jacob acquires all the rights of the first-born son--a very big deal in those days. Jacob, a favorite of God's, is revealed as a trickster (and Esau as an idiot).

This trait is reinforced in chapter 27, when Isaac is on his deathbed and requests that Esau bring him a meal and receive his blessings. Jacob disguises himself as Esau, and Isaac, who is blind, is fooled; Jacob receives the blessings meant for Esau. The rest of his story relates the various ways in which God blesses Jacob, essentially rewarding him for being a cheating, conniving, duplicitous liar. (I could write a whole blog on this dysfunctional family, and may do so in the future.)

By the time we get down to the Hebrews as a nation, we are faced with people who bitch and moan the whole time they are being rescued from their captors. The more power they gain, the more cruel they become, wreaking destruction and bloodshed upon everyone around them--exactly the sort of behavior one expects from godly people, right? Moses, in Numbers 31, commands the genocide of the entire Midianite race. He commands that all the men, boys, and married women be killed and the virgin girls kept as concubines and wives for the Israelite men. This is the man of whom the Bible says, "Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth." (Num. 12:3) Do humble people generally go around slaughtering children, babies, and pregnant women? If you were a god, and had the power to choose one person upon whom to bestow your blessings, would you choose a man like Moses? No, because you have higher moral standards than the God of the Bible. A guy like Moses you would put in the psych ward of the nearest maximum-security prison.

David is another man held up as an example of someone you'd want your daughter to marry. Christians just can't get enough of him, mainly because Jesus supposedly was descended from him (impossible since the line of David died out in the Babylonian captivity). He is proclaimed to have been a wonderful, great, and righteous man--a reputation he fails to live up to.

2 Samuel 11 relates the famous story of David and Bathsheba. David lusted after this beautiful woman, but she just happened to be married to Uriah. But kings could do as they wished, and so he had Bathsheba brought to him. As the result of their liaison, she became pregnant, at which point David tried his utmost to cover his tracks. He urged Uriah to go home to her, but Uriah refused, preferring to stay with his soldiers on the battlefield. So David did what any decent, upstanding man of God would do--he ordered that Uriah be sent to the front of the battle, where fighting was fiercest; his soldiers were then to withdraw, leaving him exposed so he would be killed. This is exactly what happened, and in such manner David acquired Bathsheba. We are told, in verse 27, that what David had done displeased the Lord. It would have been nice if he had said so before all this went down. BibleGod is not exactly Johnny-on-the-spot, is he? At any rate, chapter 12 relates how God is very cross, indeed, and decides to punish David.... Well, sort of. He punishes David by killing his infant son, while Nathan assures him that "God has put away your sin; you shall not die." Does anyone in their right mind think it is fair to kill a baby for his father's criminal behavior?

Elisha the prophet was another of God's chosen ones. When a group of children made fun of his bald head, he cursed them in the name of God, whereupon two bears came out of the woods and shredded them to bits. (2 Kings 2:23) I'm pretty sure that if someone set their pet bear on a group of children, he'd be put in prison, not praised as a wonderful man of God. As usual, Christians have it all backwards.

All of these stories raise the question of why God is so hopeless when it comes to hand-picking people to carry out his will and be his earthly representatives. Being omniscient and all, he would have known ahead of time that these guys were jerks. Out of all the people in the entire human race, could he not find anyone better than these people? Yet, despite their crimes against humanity, they have been deemed as "righteous men of God" by generations of Christians. I posit that God must not know right from wrong, or good from evil, or he would not have tolerated these men's behavior any more than we would. In fact, the more one compares the behavior of these storybook heroes to the behavior of the god they worshiped, the more it becomes obvious that the god was simply invented by people to look, think, and behave exactly as they did. The only difference between him and them is that he had super powers and they didn't. Too bad he lacked the power to tell good guys from bad guys.

God's Idea of a Righteous Man, part 1

2009-03-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

Whenever someone tells you that the biblical men hand-picked by God were exceedingly righteous, you can show them this blog. We are going to learn that God's idea of righteousness is nothing at all like our idea would be. In fact, it is closer to the definition of mental illness. I was going to do this in one blog, but it turned out to be such a big subject that it needs two parts. Yeah, I keep you coming back for more.

Let's begin with Noah. In chapter 6 of Genesis, we are told that humans had become exceedingly evil in God's sight. "Sons of God"--perhaps angels or some other mythical creature--mated with human women and produced giant people who became great heroes (v. 4). I am not sure why this was a bad thing, but apparently it was, for it was one of the things that grieved Yahweh so that he resolved to kill everyone and everything on the face of the Earth (vs. 5-7). But verse 9 says, "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God."

Most of the story seems to confirm this, for Noah obeyed God, doing exactly as he was instructed. Afterward, though, when the ark came to a rest, whatever righteousness Noah possessed seemed to take a little hiatus. Genesis 9:20 relates that Noah planted a vineyard (having had the foresight to preserve some root cuttings aboard the ark, I guess). Naturally, he had to sample the results of his plantings, and wound up drunk in his tent, naked (v.21).

This is not exactly what I would call righteous behavior by a man of God, but hey, everyone makes mistakes. Unfortunately, Ham walks into the tent, sees his old man nekkid, and runs and tells his two brothers, who make haste to cover Noah with a blanket. (vs.22-23) This is where Noah shows his true colors. He flies into a rage and pronounces a curse--not on Ham, but on Ham's son, Canaan! He declares that Canaan will be the slave of Japheth and Shem. Why Canaan? What did he do to deserve a curse? It's his dad who tattled on Grandpa Noah. And why would seeing your old man naked warrant a curse to be passed down through hundreds of generations? I don't get it. A simple matter of passing out drunk and naked in a tent in the middle of a vineyard after a long ocean voyage (and who HASN'T done that before?) turns into this big deal about curses and blessings and territory.

Well, let's move on to the next charming family, Lot and his wife and daughters. Lot is the only good guy in a city of bad guys. We know this because, in Genesis chapter 18, God informs Abraham that he is going to give the smack-down to Sodom and Gomorrah by utterly destroying both cities. The two of them have a long conversation, with Abraham asking God if he will destroy the city if he finds 50 righteous people in it, then 45, then 20, etc. God finally says that if he can find as few as ten righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, he won't destroy the place. Well, it turns out that he can find only four--Lot, his wife, and his two daughters. You would think that they must be really great folks to warrant being the only survivors of a God-ordained disaster.

This ain't Sunday School, though, so you would be wrong. Lot is a rotten bastard! He kindly takes in the two angels as his guests and the men of the city immediately come pounding on his door, demanding to see them. Some translations imply they wanted to have sex with them, but it may have been a simple matter of them wanting to make sure these two strangers were up to no good, which would have been normal in a time when cities could easily fall prey to invasion by outsiders. At any rate, Lot refuses, and instead offers to give them his two virgin daughters to do with as they will! (Gen. 19:6-8) Are we to believe that God really considered such a man to be righteous? I realize that, in those days, women were property, along with cattle and sheep, and men could pretty much do whatever they wanted with them, but we should surely expect better behavior from God.

Lot flees to the small town of Zoar with his two daughters (his wife having been turned into a lump of table seasoning for the heinous crime of looking back on the destruction of her city), and thence to the mountains. It is at this point that I stop feeling sorry for the daughters. There are no men around to make them pregnant, so they get their father drunk and have sex with him that they may preserve the family line. You'd have to be pretty damned drunk to not know that your own daughters are shagging you. This is one of the most messed-up families in the Bible, and the biblical literalists are hard-pressed to explain why an omnimax God would bother with them.

The fact is that this story has no basis in reality. It is merely a fable to explain where the Moabites and Ammonites--long-time enemies of the ancient Hebrews--came from. That they were the result of incest would have served as great amusement to the story-tellers and their audience. Look, they didn't have cable TV back then, so they had to get their scandals whatever way they could! Making up naughty campfire stories was how they did it.

Abraham is even higher on the List of Righteous Bible Dudes than Noah and Lot. Everyone knows the story of how God called upon him to be the father of a great nation. After the story of Lot, Abraham moves on to greener pastures (Gen. 20). Fearing that King Abimilech will kill him to obtain Sarah, he explains that Sarah is really his sister. What he hoped to accomplish is anyone's guess, for it resulted in the king thinking she was fair game, until God warned him in a dream that he was sleeping with another man's wife. Abraham offers up the lame excuse that he wasn't really lying, since Sarah is his half-sister. So not only was Abe a liar, but he was having sex with his half-sister. Ew. But I guess it worked out okay for Abe, because the king showered him with gifts of animals, money, and slaves, thus proving that God blesses those who lie in his name.

By chapter 21, Sarah has given birth to Isaac. Apparently, the ol' hormones kicked in, because she became suddenly jealous of her slave, Hagar, and insisted that Abraham send her away. Abe has no problem sending his own son and her mother out into the wilderness to fend for themselves. In chapter 22, he also has no problem obeying the voice in his head--er, God--saying to offer his son up as a human sacrifice. Nowadays, people like Abe would be diagnosed as mentally ill and kept under a doctor's supervision for the rest of their lives.

Part 2 next.

Prayer--HUH!--Good God, Y'all...

2009-03-13T12:11:00.000-07:00

What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!

Apologies to Edwin Starr. :o)

This blog will explore the concept of prayer. Why do Christians pray? What do they hope it will accomplish? I remember praying, way back when I was a Christian, and trying real hard to believe there was somebody hearing me, somebody who cared and would grant at least a few of my requests if I were really, really humble and asked in Jesus' name. Sometimes, I was able to convince myself that God heard me; most times, my prayers went no higher than the ceiling. This worried me, because other Christians seemed completely convinced that Jesus was right there in the room with them, invisible but present, listening and caring and sending their petitions to God in heaven.

See, Jesus is the middle man in this transaction; you can't go directly to God, any more than you can go directly to the Mafia boss and ask him a favor. So you always ask "in Jesus' name." Those are the magic words that make the spell work properly. Of course, back then I wouldn't have put it in those exact words, but it's pretty much the idea. Oh, and you're also supposed to say "your will be done" at some point, which seems kinda silly since God is going to do his will, anyway. I am not sure why either you or God would need the reminder, but this is Jesus' instruction in Matthew 6:10, and he should know, right?

So, what kind of things does one pray for, and why? All prayers are selfish. Doesn't matter if you pray for world peace or for your bunion to go away, it's mainly about what you want and not what God wants. You see, God has a plan for all of humanity. That's what Christians keep telling us, based on what they read in the Bible. They believe this with all their heart. No matter how bad things get or how many people die from war, famine, and disease, they can always console themselves with the notion that somehow, God is going to make it all work out so that everyone benefits and turns out happy. Well, not those icky sinners who end up in hell, but everyone else.

Yet...they pray for stuff all the time. It may seem like these two issues are unrelated, but there is a connection, for if God has your life all planned out for you, then praying about something means that A.) you believe something has happened that isn't part of that plan and you want to alert God that he needs to get back on track; or B.) you want to alter something that might be part of his plan for you. In the first case, you are admitting that sometimes, God gets caught off-guard, or maybe just overlooks certain things and needs a gentle reminder. He is getting rather old, after all. In the second case, you are nagging him to do something that he probably has no intention of doing. Maybe those chronic migraines are part of his plan to make you humble. Maybe that inoperable tumor is his way of getting you to heaven sooner. Maybe there is some reason why your child got hit by a car that God isn't telling you because it's none of your business. You are the puppet, he pulls the strings, who are you to ask him to do otherwise?

I guess I just don't get the point behind prayer. It seems to me that if God is omniscient, then he knows everything that will ever happen at any time, ever. By the time you get around to praying, God has already decided whether or not he will grant your request. The answer is either "yes" or "no," and no amount of pleading will change his mind. Or will it? Maybe people think they can change the mind of the creator of the entire universe just by saying the right words in the right order with the right attitude. Why else would they ask God for favors, blessings, and healings? It's even more puzzling when they tag-team him by getting a bunch of people from their church to offer up mass prayers, or they get an e-mail prayer chain going, for some noble cause, usually when someone is sick. Is God more likely to pay attention when there are twenty people nagging him at the same time? Isn't that going to just piss him off and make him less likely to answer a prayer?

Then there is the issue of conflicting interests. One person prays for rain for their garden, another guy prays for a sunny day because he wants to go golfing. Both are devout Christians who pray with equal fervency and belief. What ever is a poor, beleaguered god to do? Well, it doesn't matter, because whatever the outcome, both Christians will claim that God heard and answered--except that one will claim God answered with a "no." See, to a Christian, there is no such thing as unanswered prayer--God's answer is either affirmative or negative. For some reason, it never occurs to them that maybe God doesn't give a flying fart about their petty wants and didn't make any reply at all.

Sometimes people pray just so they can thank God for various ordinary things in their lives, such as good health or a great tennis score, as if God has nothing better to do with his time than listen to the boring small talk of several million believers. Or they pray so that they can tell him how great and fantastic he is, as if he needs their non-stop praises to boost his cosmic ego. Who needs a God like that? Your boss might be a really great guy, but you don't stop him in the hall every day to tell him so. He'd start avoiding you, and then he'd get a restraining order. Could be why so many prayers go unanswered--God would just as soon keep his distance.

And speaking of unanswered prayers, why are there so many of them? I know believers like to say that sometimes God answers "no," but it seems like he always answers "no" to the really big matters. I walked past a local cemetery and saw lots of small graves where children were buried. Whatever the causes of their death, I bet their parents prayed for them with tears, anguish, and unshakable faith, only to watch their children die without so much as a whisper of a response from God. Why is it that God can answer your prayers for a new job, or your headache to go away, or some other minor inconvenience, but he can't deal with the big stuff? Why hasn't God ever healed an amputee? Why are there children in cancer wards all over the country with no hope of recovery despite the prayers of everyone in their church?

The bottom line is that there is no evidence for prayer working at all. The number of supposedly answered prayers is about the same as could be accounted for by chance. At best, it has comforting effect on some people, and that can make recovery from sickness easier and faster; after all, it's always nice to know that people care. But the biggest effect is probably on the one doing the praying, and here is why:

Prayer is a way for people to feel like they're doing something without actually doing anything. Their words of praise and requests for help are useless. Either there is no God to hear their prayers, or else God has already made up his mind whether or not to do as they ask. Either way, it is a waste of breath.

Slavery and God

2009-03-12T23:47:00.000-07:00

Slavery is evil! That is the general consensus among civilized folk, at any rate. We hear stories of slavery still existing in some parts of the world, and we express horror that any government could allow it to happen, or that any person would own another person. Christians, professing to worship a God of love, compassion, and concern for human welfare, would naturally assume that their God hates slavery as much as they do, and that he gave commands against it or declared it an abomination.

They are wrong.

The first mention of slavery is in Genesis 9: 24-26. Noah had a fondness for wine and wasted no time making some as soon as he stepped off the ark. He then lay in a drunken stupor in his tent, naked--and since Noah was over 600 years old at the time, that's a mental image that I could do without. His son, Canaan, discovered him and went to tell his brothers, who discreetly covered him up. For some reason, this made Noah angry, so he cursed Canaan, declaring that his descendants would be the slaves of Shem's descendants. This would have been a good time for God to give him the smack-down for even imagining bringing the institution of slavery to the world, but God was napping at the time and missed the entire thing. Too bad.

Later, we find this prophecy from Gen. 15:13-14 (NIV used throughout):

Then the LORD said to him [Abram], "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

If God had anything against slavery, he surely would not have allowed his own chosen and most beloved people to become slaves for 400 years. Evidently, he saw it as an acceptable means of punishment for…whatever it was they were doing wrong. God isn't clear on that matter. Maybe it was just general wrongdoing. At any rate, they become slaves, and you know the story of their magical rescue by the same God who put them there in the first place.

In Exodus 21, God gives Moses instructions regarding slaves and their treatment. The first several verses say that if a Hebrew man is bought as a slave, he may be kept for six years and set free in the seventh. If he has a wife and children when he is enslaved, they can go free with him; if his master gives him a wife and they bear children, only he goes free while the woman and children remain with their master. If he decides to stay with his master permanently--because he owns his wife and kids--he is to have his ear pierced with an awl and become a slave for life. Female slaves were not set free, as the men were; they were often purchased as wives for a man's son. In the event that the son refused to provide for her, she could then be set free. Doesn't all of this sound perfectly reasonable and fair? Of course it does. It came from God, after all.

Verses 20 and 21 read: "If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.

A man is to be punished for killing his slave, but only if the slave dies right away. If he can stagger to his feet after a couple of days, then it's no big deal. Remember, these laws are from the mouth of God, himself, as we can see from all the places that read, "And the Lord said unto Moses...." So we know it wasn't just a bunch of stodgy old priests who got together and made up all these barbaric laws so as to have more power over the nation; no, it was Yahweh Almighty, himself, come down from atop his sky-dome to issue the laws unto Moses, who then relayed them to the people, and now I'm relaying them to you.

For some reason, we have these rather odd commands later on, in verses 26 and 27: "If a man hits a manservant or maidservant in the eye and destroys it, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the eye. And if he knocks out the tooth of a manservant or maidservant, he must let the servant go free to compensate for the tooth." So, a slave could be set free on account of a missing eye or tooth, but not if he was beaten so severely that he lay bedridden for a few days.

In Lev. 25: 44-46, God tells the Israelites that they can buy slaves from foreigners, but not from their own kind. These foreign slaves could be passed on to the kids as an inheritance. Does this sound like God had any objections to slavery? Seems to me like he was peachy-keen with the idea.

Now, many Christians will say that God surely hated slavery because of the numerous verses in which he reminds the Israelites that he rescued them from slavery in Egypt. There are dozens of such verses in Deuteronomy (6:12, 21; 7:8; 8:14; 13:5, 10; 15:15, etc.). However, this does not in the least imply that God abhorred slavery in general—only that he abhorred it for Israel, which was his specially chosen nation and thus under his special protection and care. (Never mind that he had no problem with them being slaves for 400 years.) Naturally, he would show them more favoritism than other nations.

There is one verse in which God actually shows a bit of concern for the welfare of slaves: Deut. 23:15-16 "If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand him over to his master. Let him live among you wherever he likes and in whatever town he chooses. Do not oppress him."

Strange, that God wouldn’t simply ban slavery altogether, and so make it unnecessary for anyone to be compelled to escape their miserable existence and seek shelter elsewhere.

That’s an overview of the attitude of slavery in the Old Testament. The New Testament doesn't fare any better, with Jesus often speaking of slaves in a matter-of-fact way. It was simply an accepted fact of life and he apparently saw no need to change things.

Matt. 10:24-25 A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub,how much more the members of his household!

Jesus likened himself to the master of a household, and his followers to slaves who were to aspire to be like him. Many of Jesus’ other parables also contain slaves (or servants in some versions)--the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matt. 13:24-30), the parable of the king forgiving his servant (Matt.18:23-35), etc. In all of them, Jesus is the figure of power (such as a king or a land owner), and his followers are the slaves. This master-slave relationship is a fundamental part of Christianity, whose members frequently call themselves “slaves of Christ,” as if it is an honor to be in bondage by another. Being a slave means having no will of your own because you do your master’s will, not yours…yet, Christians also claim that they have “free will,” something which is impossible if they are slaves. Not only did Jesus utterly fail to condemn slavery, criticize it, ban it, or forbid his followers from practicing it, but he used the institution of slavery as a teaching tool, comparing his followers favorably to slaves.

What about Paul? Surely the great and mighty Paul, whose teachings are revered by Christians everywhere (even moreso than those of Jesus), would have something negative to say about slavery.

1 Corinthians 7:21-23 & 12:13, and Galatians 3:28 & 5:1 are often used by Christians to prove that all men are equal in God’s eyes, whether slave or free; however, this does not negate the fact that a slave is still the property of another human being. Where, in these verses, is the condemnation of such a practice? If there is one place where Paul had the opportunity to roundly condemn slavery and declare it evil, it is in Ephesians. This is what he had to say about the subject:

Eph. 6: 5-9 "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.

And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him."

Paul viewed slavery to men as equivalent to slavery to Christ, and said that obedience to one proved one’s obedience to the other. Now, I have no doubt that some slaves were well treated, and some even achieved positions of high rank in their households. But it is also a fact that many of them were treated cruelly and lived miserable lives. Paul does not acknowledge these poor wretches nor give them any hope, but simply tells them to accept their lot in life. He even goes one step further and tells them to embrace it as God’s will! True, he tells Christian masters to treat their slaves kindly, but he never once goes that extra step and tells them to cease owning slaves. And God never says a word about the subject; it is all about what Paul thinks.

From cover to cover, the Bible approves of slavery. Christians argue that it was simply an everyday fact of life in ancient times and therefore God could not, or saw no reason to, interfere with it. Well, guess what? Adultery, sodomy, homosexuality, idol worship, lying, murder, and stealing were also everyday facts of life (and still are), yet God never hesitates to call THEM sins or abominations. Why is slavery left out of that list? In all the 613 Mosaic laws, it would be nice to see one that reads:

“Thou shalt not own slaves, nor buy and sell humans as one buys and sells cattle, nor tolerate slavery within thy borders, for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. Remember that you were slaves in the land of Egypt, and do not enslave others as you were enslaved.”

Wouldn’t that be a refreshing change of pace from all the dreadful instructions for endless sacrifices of sheep and cattle, and the injunctions for male authorities to humiliate and mistreat the female population, and the depressing commands for this or that sinner to be burned or stoned? Wouldn’t it be great if that were included in the Ten Commandments, instead of, say, “Honor the Sabbath,” which nobody does, anyway? You won’t find it, because it does not exist. The God of the Bible has no problem with slavery.

The Ben Stein Letter (sort of)

2009-03-12T15:31:00.000-07:00

You know, you guys have got to stop forwarding stuff all over the Internet. Most of it is stupid. The people who go ga-ga over every forwarded piece of junk mail to come down the pike are the same people who, if they found it in their snail-mail box, would toss it into the recycling bin without even opening it, knowing it is something dumb. But if you absolutely MUST forward something because you find it funny or interesting or enlightening and you wish to share it with your friends, follow two rules. Read carefully, because I'm not repeating this for the slow learners in back of the class.

1.) Don't add your own shit to it. First of all, you are ruining someone else's written material, which you are probably distributing without attribution or permission to begin with; and secondly, nobody cares. Nobody wants to read your pithy little one-liners about God, angels, or heaven tacked onto what could have been a decent story if you'd kept your mitts off it.

2.) For the love of pants, VERIFY IT. I am sick to death of researching stuff, only to discover that it has been altered from its original state by people who think they know how to be clever. Worse yet, most of the forwards I have received are outright lies about events that never happened, asking me to put my "signature" on a petition for some cause that doesn't exist. THIS WOULDN'T HAPPEN IF YOU MORONS WOULD QUIT FORWARDING EVERYTHING. Got it? Good. Now, on to the letter.

As you might expect from my ranting, this is another bit of flotsam that landed in my e-mail from who-knows-where. It is so poorly written that I almost flushed it down the e-toilet, then decided it was worth looking into just so I could get pissed off at someone for not doing the research which I ended up doing. The first place I looked was Snopes.com. This is a valuable resource for finding out the truth of stuff you read on the Internet, because unlike the dinkuses who hit the Forward button without utilizing so much as a brain cell, the people at Snopes do their research. If everyone had Snopes.com bookmarked, AND USED IT, there wouldn't be so much trash circulating. Of course, I wouldn't have so much to rant about then, either, so forget I said anything. You probably already did, anyway.

As is often the case with these things, there is some truth and some fiction. Ben Stein wrote part of the letter, but the other half was added in 2006 from a speech by Billy Graham's daughter, Anne. I guarantee you this thing is still circulating in the form you see here, and that not one person in a thousand knows what you now know. Remember that when it comes tumbling into your inbox one fine day. I will use different colors of fonts to differentiate the different parts: Ben's in blue, Anne's in green, mine in black.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees. It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu . If people want a crïeche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I wonder if it would bother him if the local Islamic community wanted some kind of public religious display at that intersection--or the pagans, Wiccans, or atheists.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Who said that America is "an explicitly atheist country"? I would like the evidence that anyone ever said this. I have, however, heard a great many Christians blather on about how this is a Christian nation. Setting aside for a moment that many of our Founding Fathers were deists (they believed in God, but not the biblical God), let's address the fact that you can scarcely turn a corner without bumping into a church. Have you ever seen any atheist meeting halls anywhere? There are gift shops and book stores pedaling merchandise just for Christians. When was the last time you ran into a gift shop just for atheists and agnostics? Christians have Trinity Broadcasting Network all to themselves. Where is the Atheist Broadcasting Network? This notion that Christians are being persecuted, beat up, pushed around, and abused is simply unfounded. According to a recent poll, atheists are the least trusted minority in America. Christians, comprising 75% of the population, are not a minority at all. So where, exactly, is this "pushing around" taking place? When you are in the majority and can worship God however, whenever and wherever you please, you have nothing to complain about; but then, Christians, by and large, seem to enjoy complaining about nothing.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to. [Note that the wording here is changed from Stein's original commentary--see the Snopes link above.]

I've never heard anyone say we should worship celebrities, so I don't know what he's complaining about. It IS human nature to admire, and attempt to emulate, those who are perceived to have power and authority, and celebrities generally fall into that category, however superficial that power might be. What this has to do with the downfall of the America he knew 50 years ago, I haven't a clue. I think he just needs to quit whining about nothing.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Yeah, it gets me to thinking there are a lot of people who need to go visit a poverty-stricken African country and spend some time with people who have REAL problems. "People disagree with me and my feelings are hurt" is not a real problem.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

There is nothing "profound and insightful" about the notion that God lets little children die in horrible, frightening ways because their PARENTS rejected him, or that he kills the innocent along with the guilty in a fit of rage. Thousands of faithful, believing Christians died or lost everything, including family members, in the destruction by Hurricane Katrina. Why would God "calmly back out" from protecting those who put their trust in him?

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Morals have been around since long before the Bible was written. How else did the human race survive for hundreds of thousands of years? Morals are simply codes of behavior that enable us to get along with each other in a social group so that we can cooperate to find food and shelter, protect each other, etc. Prohibitions against stealing, killing, and other anti-social behaviors would have come about very early so that the group could feel secure and united against outside threats. No Bible is necessary for that. How would making children read the Bible help eliminate school violence, anyway? The Bible is replete with tales of violence committed by God against man, or by men against other men at God's command. How will that make children be less violent? Someone explain it to me, because it makes no sense. If you want to pray, what is to stop you from doing it at home? Jesus said not to pray where you can be seen by others, but to do it in private, so that only God will know. Don't believe me? Read Matthew 6:6.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr Spock's son committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

So, who forced you blithering idiots to do what some random guy told you to do? This is proof that Christians will believe any old thing they are told. Frankly, I think Dr. Spock had a point. Surely, if we are to curb violence among children, then the place to start is by not being violent to them? The Bible makes no such suggestion, but instead recommends beating children with a rod to force obedience from them. (Reading the Old Testament, you get the impression that there was little difference in the way that slaves, cattle, and children were treated.) Oh, and the claim that Spock's son committed suicide is false. RESEARCH, people, RESEARCH. A quick search on Google would have put this to rest long ago. What happened to "Thou shalt not lie"? I guess it's okay when you're lying for Jesus.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.
Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

There are multiple reasons for these issues, and attributing it all to "they don't read the Bible enough" is the conclusion of the simple-minded.

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

People who believe everything they read in the paper probably also believe everything they read in the Bible. Those who question the Bible also question everything else. It is all about what your mind-set is. If you don't question everything, you will never learn anything.

Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

I have seen this freakin' e-mail at least three times, and I guarantee that everyone else has, too. I have also had the misfortune of reading a lot of other sentimental Christian claptrap that circulates endlessly on the World Wide Web like rubbish circulating on the ocean currents, picking up more trash as it goes around. Ms. Anne does not get out very much, does she?

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Funny how Christians claim not to read "lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles," yet how else would they know about them? Discussions about God do not belong in schools or the workplace. Schools are for learning USEFUL information ("God did it" not being useful), and the workplace is for getting your work done. There are plenty of other places where you can discuss God to your heart's content, so what is the problem?

Are you laughing yet?

Yep. I'm laughing AT you, not WITH you.

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

I am one of the smart people who did not forward it to anyone. If I forward something, it is because it is truthful and/or funny. This letter is neither. It is sappy, whiny, and dumb. I am 100% certain that this letter will be forwarded to me yet again sometime within the next couple of years, probably with several scriptures, a few flowery quotations, and some sparkly, animated angel gifs attached to it. At the end will be instructions for me to send it to at least ten people in the next ten days and I will receive an unexpected blessing.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

I don't worry about what God thinks because A.) I haven't seen any evidence for the existence of God; and B.) IF he exists, he hasn't complained about me yet--at least, not to my face--so I take that as a sign that I'm doing alright.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

If the world is in bad shape, then there are a multitude of reasons for it, many of them difficult to pinpoint and define. It would take a library to house so much information. The simple-minded gimboids of the world think it can all be boiled down to "God is mad at people for not reading the Bible." They paint the world in black and white, allowing for none of the million or so shades of gray that provide texture and interest to the human race. They cannot even define what they mean by "in bad shape." People have made that complaint for thousands of years, and it's all a matter of perspective. If all you ever look for is misery, then that's all you'll ever find.

Paul's Conversion--Acts vs. Galatians

2009-03-11T21:24:00.000-07:00

The books of Acts and Galatians give two very different stories regarding the conversion and early ministry of the Apostle Paul. Acts was supposedly written by Luke. His story is so different from Paul's own first-hand account that he might have been talking about a different man. To make the comparison easier, I have compiled this table:

Acts	Galatians
Saul/Paul persecuted the church (9:1-3)	Saul/Paul persecuted the church (1:13)
Vision of Jesus makes him blind (vs.4-7)	No vision mentioned
Saul/Paul goes to Ananias to be healed (vs. 7-19)	Ananias not mentioned
Paul spends “several days” with the disciples in Damascus	Paul “did not consult with any man,” nor did he go to Jerusalem to talk with any disciples. (v. 16b-17)
Arabia not mentioned, nor was there time for him to go there, as he began preaching “at once” in the synagogues in Damascus. (vs. 20-22)	Paul went immediately to Arabia and then later to Damascus. (v.17b)
After “many days” had gone by, the Jews conspired to kill him and he had to be sneaked out of the city. (vs. 23-25)	No conspiracy mentioned
Paul is taken to Jerusalem right away. There is no indication of the passage of years. (vs.26-27)	After three years, Paul goes to Jerusalem.
Paul meets the disciples (plural). They reject him until Barnabus convinces them of his conversion.	Paul meets with Peter. (v.18) He is emphatic about not having met with ANY of the other disciples except James, the brother of Jesus (v.19)
Paul preaches in Jerusalem; Grecian Jews try to kill him, so the disciples send him to Caesarea and thence to Tarsus	No mention of going to Caesarea or Tarsus
Syria and Cilicia not mentioned.	Went to Syria and Cilicia (v.21)

There is no way that both of these stories can be true. Either one was lying and the other telling the truth, or else they both lied. Note that, in Galatians, Paul makes no mention of a vision, or of his blindness, or of his healing by Ananias. One can argue that just because he doesn't mention it, doesn't mean it didn't happen, and this is true; but it is such an integral part of his conversion in the book of Acts that it is rather odd that he makes not even a passing reference to it--especially given his tendency to boast about himself rather often.

Of particular note is Paul's insistence that, at the start of his career, his conversion was strictly between him and Jesus; he emphasizes that he consulted with NOBODY except for Peter and James and did not visit ANY disciples in Jerusalem. Luke, however, tells a story of Paul going straight to the other disciples and being rejected by them because they don't trust him. Barnabus finally convinces them of the genuineness of his conversion, and they allow him into their clique. One assumes that Paul did more than just engage in small talk about the weather over tea and crumpets, and that he did, indeed "consult" with the disciples about his conversion, and Jesus, and other things relating to Christianity; otherwise, why seek them out at all? He could have ignored them completely and gone about his business.

According to his own story in Galatians, Paul went "immediately" to Arabia and then to Damascus. In Acts, he is already in Damascus when his vision occurs, so there would have been no way to visit Arabia first. Instead, Luke says that he starts preaching "at once" in the synagogues in Damascus. He makes no mention of Arabia at all.

Luke says that many days go by and the Jews conspire to kill him, at which point he has to be smuggled out of the city and into Jerusalem. There is no sense of many years going by, as in Galatians; in fact, the urgency of the situation would demand that Paul seek refuge quickly in Jerusalem and not dally along the way. Depending on how fast they traveled, it could have been a few weeks to a few months. (I admit my ignorance of any more precise time period, as I am not sure how long it would take to travel from Damascus to Jerusalem by donkey, camel, or however they would have traveled back then.)

Contrary to what Luke says, Paul remarks that he does not go to Jerusalem until after THREE YEARS have passed, which is a good indication that there was no conspiracy to kill him in Damascus or else he wouldn't have hung about, waiting for a knife in the back or poison in his drink. He seems to have taken a leisurely route in his early years.

Back in Acts, Paul is now in Jerusalem preaching, but again the Jews want to kill him and so the disciples send him packing to Caesarea, and then Tarsis. In Galatians, there is no mention of these places. Instead, Paul says he went to Syria and Cilicia--which places are not mentioned in Acts!

In Galatians 1:20, Paul says an interesting thing: "I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie." Why would he need to say this? Could it be that false stories were already circulating about his early career, and he felt the need to set the record straight--stories like the one in the book of Acts? Or is this simply the false assurance of a man who is lying and is trying not to be caught out? What IS the real scoop on Paul the Apostle, anyway? This is one of the best examples of why the Bible is not a book we can trust. We are told that God inspired its writing, but if so, then he has some of the worst editors in the history of publishing. Some will say that it is not a big deal, for what really matters is the message of salvation from Jesus Christ. Yet, if the Bible is wrong on the unimportant things, how can I trust it on something as vital as my eternal fate? How can I trust it to tell me about Jesus when it cannot even tell me about Paul?

God's Moral Standards

2009-03-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

I hear a lot about how God's moral standards are higher than human standards and how we can never measure up to his greatness. Is it true? It is one thing to make such a statement, quite another to prove its veracity. Alas, it is very difficult to find examples of God actually being nice to people out of the kindness of his heart--by which I mean, he does something loving and compassionate without using violence or the threat of violence to force people to worship him. There seems to be a lot of that in the Bible. Here are just a few examples of many.

Example #1: Let's start somewhere at the beginning, in chapter 6 of the book of Genesis. You know the story--God regrets he ever made mankind. (v.6). Right off the bat, we have a "supreme" deity who has regrets about something he did in the past. God makes mistakes? How can that be if he has such high standards? His standards should be so high as to eliminate even the remotest possibility that he will ever do anything he might later regret or be sorry about. If mankind, his ultimate creation, turned bad, it's because there was a flaw in his design somewhere.

Anyway, he decides to correct the mistake. Now, being God, he could have simply snapped his fingers and remade everything in an instant so that humans were perfect and good; but no, his way to solve the problem is with tremendous bloodshed--he destroys the whole world in a great flood. Christians typically think only of all the sinful, evil grown-ups getting what they deserve, but what about the thousands of innocent children and infants? What did they do to deserve being drowned? Is this another example of God's high standards for mankind--kill the innocent along with the guilty?

Example #2: In Genesis 19 we read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and their eventual destruction by the hand of God. It seems that these cities were so evil that God could not find one righteous person in them, except for Lot and his family (and their moral standards leave much to be desired, as well). So he made Lot leave, but killed his wife for daring to look back at the destruction of her homeland. Anyone with a sense of compassion has to wonder how many children, babies, and pregnant women were burned to death in that conflagration, and what those kids did to deserve such a terrifying and painful fate. BibleGod doesn't blink an eye, and never expresses the least regret for their deaths.

Example #3: In Exodus 9:12, we read that "the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart." This was at the time God was pounding Egypt with plagues and death in order to force Pharaoh to let the Israelites free. How fair and just was it for God to make Pharaoh stubborn so that God could visit him with still more destruction? This is a good moral example? In chapter 11, God releases the biggest disaster of all--death of all the first-born children and animals of Egypt. The majority of Egyptians would have had no idea what was happening at the palace between Moses and their king. The children and animals had not even sinned, had done nothing at all to be worthy of death, yet they died one and all, any of them that were first-born, along with any adults who were first-born in their families. That's a lot of people--how many were left alive? Why didn't God simply strike every Egyptian with temporary paralysis and then march the Israelites away from them? By the time they became unparalyzed, the Israelites would have been miles away, and no little children would have had to die. If I, a mere human, can think of a better way of dealing with a problem of this magnitude, why couldn't Yahweh?

Example #4: Numbers 31 is all about Moses taking revenge on the Midianites. It begins with this statement: The LORD said to Moses, "Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people." See, this is GOD ALMIGHTY giving the commands here. Moses was a man of God, he never did anything without God's permission. So Moses does as he is told, and in verse 17 we read this little gem: [Moses speaking] "Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man." Imagine those girls watching their families get brutally murdered, and then they themselves are taken for the sexual pleasure of the barbarians who invaded their land--all with God's permission and approval. This is not the behavior of a god with high moral standards, it is the behavior of a god who is little more than a mass murderer. Our soldiers in Iraq have gotten in deep trouble for molesting Iraqi women. I suspect this happens more often than is reported, but the fact is that most of us are outraged at the thought of women and children being abused or butchered, even in war. Imagine the outcry if they killed every Iraqi male from infancy to old age, every elderly or pregnant woman, and kidnapped the young girls to take as wives or mistresses! That sort of thing doesn't fly nowadays, but BibleGod was perfectly happy with it.

Example #5: Is Yahweh a god of love, as Christians insist? 1 Cor. 13:4-7 describes what love is: patient, kind, not envious, boastful, or self-seeking, keeps no record of wrongs, etc. God, however, is impatient, jealous, and quick to anger; and when he loses his temper, the innocent and the guilty die side-by-side. God boasts of his greatness and glory in nearly every chapter; demands nonstop worship from everyone; and keeps a record of every wrong ever done by every human who has ever lived, and he will bring them up at a mass resurrection in the future and judge everyone according to their deeds.

God's high standards? I think one can see, from just the few examples listed here, that most humans have much higher standards of behavior than the God of the Bible. None of us would demand the deaths of millions to appease our anger, or go on a killing spree at the slightest offense, or set whole cities on fire for the sins of a few. I do not have to kill so much as a fly in order to forgive someone who does me wrong, but BibleGod insisted on the torturing and killing of his own son before he could even think about forgiving humanity.

Shouldn't God be better than us, not worse? Why, then, does he reflect only the most barbaric instincts and desires of some the meanest humans who ever lived, past and present? I think we know the answer to that one. God resembles humans because he was invented by humans. It is as simple as that.

The Bible's Weird Zoo

2009-03-11T00:04:00.000-07:00

If the Bible were a zoo, what kind of animals would be housed in it? You might be thinking of the usual camels, oxen, horses, deer, etc., maybe even crocodiles and hippos of the Nile or elephants imported from Africa. But the Bible has much stranger beasts than these, and you won't find any of them in any zoo in the world. This is because it is impossible for them to exist.

First, dragons. We all know what dragons are, from the modern types seen in role-playing games and fantasy novel cover art, to the Asian versions with serpentine bodies and whiskery faces. We are pretty much all in agreement that they do not exist. There has never been a sighting of a giant, fire-breathing, winged lizard soaring about in the sky, and no fossil evidence exists for such (although fossils of dinosaurs may have been the origin for this and many other imaginary creatures). The Bible, however, is very clear that dragons DO exist! In the KJV, the word "dragon" occurs 19 times in 18 verses, and the plural, "dragons," occurs 16 times in 16 verses. Here are a few:

Job 30:29 I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. Psalm 91:13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet. Isaiah 34:13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls.

Oddly enough, dragons and owls are mentioned together in quite a few verses. The fact that some versions render "dragon" as "serpent" only makes matters worse, as one is left wondering why God couldn't decide what animal this is supposed to be. Given that so many Christians prefer the KJV over any other--no doubt the result of the Holy Spirit's guidance--we must assume that dragons were intended as the true meaning, and the translators really believed such animals existed, because God told them so. Or, hell, maybe all versions are correct--after all, each and every Bible has the word "holy" stamped on it in big letters, so they must all meet his approval.

The word "unicorn" appears 6 times in 6 verses in the KJV; "unicorns" appears 3 times in 3 verses. Not as popular as dragons, but I guess they were on the Ark at some point, because they are mentioned alongside bulls and lions as if they are real creatures. Other versions render it as "ox." How could the KJV translators mistake an ox for a unicorn? Why didn't the Holy Spirit slap them upside the head?

Numbers 23:22 God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn. Psalm 22:21 Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

Yeah, and I bet they were pink, and invisible.

In Greek mythology, satyrs were depicted as small, humanoid creatures with the ears of a horse, cloven hooves, and erections so big you could use them as a coat rack. These creatures are mentioned twice in the KJV--Isa.13:21 and Isa. 34:14. Was this a Freudian slip on the part of the translators, or are we expected to believe such creatures really do exist just because they are mentioned in the Bible? One thing's for sure--you wouldn't take your children to see them!

The cockatrice is another mythical creature. It looks like a reptilian rooster, with bat-like wings, a dragon's tail, and a gaze that can turn one to stone. It is said to be the result of a snake incubating an egg laid by a rooster--utterly fantastic and silly, but there it is in the "inerrant" Bible, in a total of 4 verses.

Isaiah 11:8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.

Isaiah 14:29 Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.

Cockatrice is another word sometimes translated as "serpent" or "viper," as if the translators of the various versions didn't quite know what it really was. We must remember that cockatrices, dragons, etc., were present in King James-era bestiaries; in other words, people in those times believed such creatures to be real. Therefore, when it came time to translate the Bible, it was natural that some of these imaginary animals made it into the final director's cut. That the Holy Spirit didn't bother to correct them, makes one wonder what else was not corrected that should have been.

Balaam's talking donkey certainly counts as a weird zoo animal. I don't recall ever seeing one at a petting farm, but maybe they just weren't feeling talkative that day. In Numbers 22, we can read the rather comical story of Balaam being urged by the Moabites to come and curse Israel for them so that the Moabite army can defeat them. Long story short, Balaam agrees to go, but an angel intervenes to remind him to say only what God tells him to. Balaam is a bit slow on the uptake, though, and ends up having the following conversation with his donkey:

Verse 28 And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times? 29 And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee. 30 And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? and he said, Nay.

Here is a hint: When the animals start talking to the people, and the people talk back as if it is the most common thing in the world, we are being told that this is a fable. It is meant to be a story with a message of some sort, not a literal, historical event. The animals in a Walt Disney movie talk, as well, and they often teach children valuable lessons about love and loyalty and all that hoo-hah, but we don't for a minute believe they are real animals having real conversations.

Job 41 tells us about a creature called the leviathan. Christians have turned somersaults trying to explain how this could be a crocodile, but there is no living creature with the attributes described therein. Verses 19-21 tell us: Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a seething pot or cauldron. His breath kindleth coals, and a flame goeth out of his mouth. Now, any child knows that no living creature has such characteristics. This is not a real animal, but a mythical one, probably based on Babylonian sea monster myths.

Job 40 mentions a giant land creature called the behemoth, and again Christians try to apply the descriptions to all sorts of real animals--hippos, rhinos, elephants, even dinosaurs! That last is the favorite of people who cannot accept that dinosaurs were long extinct by the time humans evolved. But the behemoth is a mythical creature; there is no animal that has the attributes ascribed to it. Just as the sea had its undefeatable monsters, so did the land, and the behemoth was used to personify these mythical animals.

The zoo gets weirder if you include such heavenly monstrosities as cherubim and seraphim. The book of Ezekiel is lousy with cherubim, and the writer gives a description of them here:

Ezek. 19:12 And their whole body, and their backs, and their hands, and their wings, and the wheels, were full of eyes round about, even the wheels that they four had.

v.14 And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle.

v. 21 Every one had four faces apiece, and every one four wings; and the likeness of the hands of a man was under their wings.

That is your friendly neighborhood cherub, as depicted by poet and artist William Blake in 1803/'05--not a cute little winged baby, but a four-winged, four-faced creature covered in eyes. (Come to think of it, those "eyes" might actually be Shoggoths.) For some reason, God squats above it, wearing a dour expression and giving a "Hey, what's up?" wave of the hand. Do people still take this stuff seriously?

As if that isn't goofy enough, Isaiah decided that God's zoo needed something with even more wings, so he described the seraphim in Isa.6:2. It has six wings: it covers its face with two, covers its feet with two more, and flies with the remaining two. This isn't just weird, this is magic-mushrooms weird. It is the piece de lunatic asylum, the very last cage in the very last part of the zoo that you visit, so that you get a sense of the best being saved for last.

Here is your souvenir key chain. Please come back again for our dinosaurs-and-people exhibit. :o)