Christopher Hitchens…

December 16, 2011 Leave a comment

He was a hero of mine…I tried to emulate his wit, his intelligence, his brilliant writing, and his composure under fire.  Of course I failed, I doubt that anyone can come close to the multiple talents the man possessed.

The man could see over the horizon and visualize the past and future as one long line of human triumphs and follies.  He fought his personal battle with his immanent death with courage and unfailing determination, and in my eyes died a hero.

I mourn his passing.

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The Civilized God

October 5, 2008 4 Comments

Below, I present for your reading pleasure the “inerrant words of God” as copied from the King James Bible…the most inerrant book on the earth. :0

This is the Word of God
Mark 16:17-18 (King James Version)
 “17And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
If you’re a believer, you can fondle rattlesnakes and drink poison

Thus saith the Lord
Exodus 21:20-21 (King James Version)
 “20And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. 21Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money.”
You may beat them, just don’t kill them.”

Thus saith the Lord God of Israel
Exodus 32:27-28 (King James Version)
 “27And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor. 28And the children of Levi did according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that day about three thousand men.”

The Word of God
Leviticus 26:22 (King James Version)
 “22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.”

Also the Word of God
Leviticus 26:29 (King James Version)
” 29And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat.”

The Lord Harkened
Numbers 21:3 (King James Version)
 “3And the LORD hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and he called the name of the place Hormah.”
Sounds like genocide to me.

A plague from the Lord
Numbers 25:9 (King James Version)
 “9And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.”

Saith the Lord
Numbers 31:17-18, 35 (King James Version)
 “17Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. 18But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.
35And thirty and two thousand persons in all, of women that had not known man by lying with him.”
Yummm…young virgins.

And the Lord our God delivered
Deuteronomy 2:33-34 (King James Version)
 “33And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. 34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:” Genocide again?

God delivers the Og’s
Deuteronomy 3:6 (King James Version)
“ 6And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.”

The Lord thy God: Show no mercy
Deuteronomy 7:2 (King James Version)
“ 2And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:”

The Lord saith: Nothing left that breaths
Deuteronomy 20:16 (King James Version)
 “6 But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:”
Is it just me, or does this sound like a sad excuse for killing people to take their land? The Lord made me do it.

The spoils of war. Saith the Lord
Deuteronomy 21:10-13 (King James Version)
“10When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the LORD thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, 11And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; 12Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; 13And she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife.” This is called rape by civilized peoples.

With the Lords approval
Joshua 6:21-27 (King James Version)
“ 21And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.”

Also with the Lords approval
Joshua 8:23-25 (King James Version)
 23And the king of Ai they took alive, and brought him to Joshua.  24And it came to pass, when Israel had made an end of slaying all the inhabitants of Ai in the field, in the wilderness wherein they chased them, and when they were all fallen on the edge of the sword, until they were consumed, that all the Israelites returned unto Ai, and smote it with the edge of the sword.
25And so it was, that all that fell that day, both of men and women, were twelve thousand, even all the men of Ai.

With the Lords approval
Joshua 10:40 (King James Version)
“40 So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the LORD God of Israel commanded.”
There’s that Genocide thing again.

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Sunday Sermon…The Beginning of God

July 26, 2008 2 Comments

When you are given something…do you expect to go out and kill for it? I wouldn’t.

If God gave the wandering Hebrews the land of Israel (the Promised Land), why should they have to go and kill the original inhabitants of the land?

And what of the people that lived there and were slaughtered? Was God mad at them, or did the Hebrew’s just make that up to justify their evil killing and maiming of innocents?

God sure thought a lot of people were sinning back then, or at least the writers of the Old Testament thought so and wrote about. From what I understand the Hebrews thought people were ‘sinning’ just because they didn’t accept the Hebrew God, or wash their hands before a meal.

There were people all over the world that had religions, and were worshiping different gods. Yet this powerful almighty Hebrew God, liked to involve himself in mundane Jewish affairs and was constantly involving himself and then punishing and then helping, and then punishing, etc., etc., etc.

Of course he never showed himself, he was just written about. Scribes would write all this stuff down after the fact and explain God’s motives. You know what; if you just read this stuff as a mythological campfire tale…it makes sense. If one tries to make believe that these people were writing about things we should care about, it’s nonsense. And it’s just Jewish myth.

I kind of care that old Abraham was tricked into almost killing his son. How evil is that anyway. Think of someone pulling a practical joke like that on you. I venture you would try to kill the jokester.

The story of Job is what really disturbs me though. I can’t conceive of a ‘loving God’ allowing the macabre torture of this poor man just to settle a dispute with his own (gods) evil creation. Job had no concept of what was going on, he was a human pawn that was viciously maneuvered and lost most of his life’s accomplishments. This was an abysmal attack on a total innocent, that could not conceive of god doing this to him…or anybody, for that matter. Kind of like the 9-11 attack on the twin towers, this was pure evil, godly terrorism.

The constant line in the Old Testament seems to be death and destruction to all those who try to f__k with the Hebrews. They are establishing their place on earth by hook or by crook. It seems everything is written to make it seem that they are supreme because they have a god they can call on to inflict mayhem on their adversaries.

It’s myth, just old made-up stories that have no relevance to anything but themselves. The Hebrew’s were describing their personal cultural super-heroes. They were making up stories to give them standing in the world, cultural pride, and to maybe help themselves forget that they slaughtered innocents to achieve a homeland. We’ve gone full circle it seems.

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Should Religions be Allowed to Kill?

July 13, 2008 Leave a comment

Warning: one cussword

A few weeks ago I was surfing the web and came across a blog from India. The subject, the murder of a young _______ boy, caught my attention so I read the whole thing.

Seems a young man who’s family was _______, which is fairly uncommon in India, was flirting with a ******* girl. The town this happened in was predominately ****** and they watch their young women quite closely.  There were lots of murmurings and whispers from those who watched the young man and his demeanor with the girl. This went on for a few days and apparently his parents, and others, warned him to stay away from the girl.  One evening he met up with the girl on the road and started talking with her, unaware that a group of men were watching nearby.

They men rushed up to the couple and grabbed the boy and started beating him, as the girl ran away.  Later that evening the boy’s dead body was found lying beside the road…he had been beaten to death.

The police were called and they investigated for a few days, but ultimately said they had no evidence against anybody, and there was nothing they could do.  This was despite there being several eyewitnesses to the beating.  They said they couldn’t see who had done it. The blog writer managed to convey an impression that the police weren’t really doing their job.

The person writing this blog was related, and heartbroken by the death, and was pouring out her sorrow in the blog. I was stricken by the story and thought about the waste that happened here, not only for the loss of an apparently honorable and upright young man, but the loss of an opportunity for two cultures, in however small a way, to approach each other in peace and show humanity to each other. A small rapprochement if you will, that could lead to more friendships and peace between rivals.

Feeling as I do about religious arrogance and the stupidity they show in many matters, I was moved to write a reply to the woman, where I kind of got carried away and called the people involved in the killing some pretty bad names.  Now I did sink my teeth into the *******’s, because its known that ******’s think it’s OK to kill ________ if they cross a very fine line…try to convert a ******* to _______ and its open season on your hide…literally.  ****** in this case really condones murder.  Pretty much the same outlook applies to a _______ man trying to get too friendly with a young ******* woman.

I don’t care what kind of logic or reason you try to apply in making this OK in the light of your religion…it is totally wrong.  There is no real God anywhere who would allow this to be the norm.

Anyway, it took about three days for the woman who wrote the blog to answer back.  I forget the actual words (I deleted her reply), but the gist of it was, I was talking ‘hate speech’ and she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, put my reply on her blog. For a split second I was mad, but then I got to thinking that the rules for public speech and writing were not the same in India, and my bad reply could/would put her in harms way if she published it.  So I tried to dismiss the matter from my mind.  But it wouldn’t go away.  I didn’t dwell on it, but my subconscious chewed on it for days and days.

Finally a few days ago the thoughts burst forth, fully formed in my mind.

Yes, I had written some bad things about a religious group and called it and the men who hid murder behind it some bad things, and yes by today’s standard of PC’ness, I was wrong…totally wrong.

I ask you though, who was more hateful and did more to upset the public order and well being of the citizenry?  Was it me, who called the men and their religion out for what they are…a murderous bunch of half-wits and imbeciles, and the religious mandate they think they were working under barbaric and hideous in its teachings?

Or, were the men who ganged up on, and murdered a young innocent boy in cold blood… the more hateful.  If I see or hear someone doing a totally wrong thing to a fellow human being, I will not say nice things about them. And I will not stand silently by knowing a particular religion seems to give some men the moral authority to kill the innocent. This is not right no matter what you say.  If the men and religion they practice that empowers them is not lashed out against, they will keep doing it…over and over.

In a “civilized” 🙂 world, one does not allow the citizenry, or a religious representative, to go around and kill people by their whim for religious reasons. Any Religion that allows this should be banned.  There is no room in today’s world for such a thing.

Do you think we should stand idly by and let such things happen without speaking out against them?  We know that the ******* religion allows murder of innocents.  Should we not speak against this?  Should we speak nicely about matters such as this…or should we rip them a new asshole?

Continuously give in and be nice to that kind of behavior and we all know who wins the game of life.

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Trinity, Evil, Sin, Death

May 13, 2008 11 Comments

Hi Robaigh, Thank you for you’re input, and good to hear from you again.
For some reason I can’t get my reply panel to work properly, so you are also on main post window.

Robaigh, I am always confused 🙂
Really though, I just cannot seem to understand a lot of things in Christianity. And I find a lot of different interpretations of the same events. In my posts I am trying to draw out peoples viewpoints and their vision of the faith. I try not to sound too caustic, but I’m sure I am occasionally.

>>The Trinity (Father, Son & Spirit; perpetual “begotten-ness” of the Son; procession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son)<<

I really don’t understand this trinity thing, and from all of my investigating it sure seems to be a made-up-by-man thing. More than a few have tried to clue me in, but have failed. It may be crystal clear to them, but to me it is mud. I think I have heard all the standard explanations.

>>Salvation history – Jesus incarnated among the Jews as fulfillment of God’s promise to redeem the world via the Chosen People<<

I understand that Jesus was of Jewish/Hebrew origin, but where did the promise come from and why do we need redeeming…are you talking of Paul’s Original Sin Hypothesis? Wasn’t Jesus preaching that the ‘Kingdom of God was coming soon and for people to be good Jews?

>>the “problem” of death<<

>>the “problem” of evil (and the origins thereof)<<

I don’t see a problem with death. We’re born, we live, and we die. Most of the more complicated pagan gods promised life after death…I don’t think it’s a realistic promise or a realistic expectation. What’s the point?

Since God created the whole shebang, so to speak, I would assume he is also responsible for evil. People have told me nothing exists in this world, except by God. If in fact He is all knowing He would surely know right away that his creation of Satan was wrong…in point of fact, an all knowing God would have realized it immediately. He should have corrected it then, not allowed the melodrama to start. And why would a God be concerned with little human problems? Which we wouldn’t have had if He had left us alone and kept Satan out of Eden. The story is very lacking in logic.

From what I can see, it was the old Jewish men of the period around 1000 to 400 BCE who decided what was evil or sinful. We all have human traits, and yes, something’s are bad and we need to control them. But, I don’t think many of them are necessarily sins.

I also don’t think that humans need a biblical source to tell them what is evil. I think the ‘Golden Rule’ just about sums up all we need to be good/not evil.

>>>Are you actually confused (meaning: do you really want to discuss these things) or are you just “ranting” as your tags suggests?<<<

I think I have used the rant tag on all my posts. 🙂

I always enjoy your replies Robaigh…thanks for your time.

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