God hates Everyone!

Leviticus 20:13

¹³ “‘If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

I'm going to skip the whole Leviticus 18, man who lies with man is an abomination because this is what is really at the heart of the matter. In this desert dweller culture, it was permissible for a homesexual to be put to death. 

I'm going to start with some background. Leviticus was constructed when Moses (never historically verified by scholars) went up to Mt. Sinai with God and received all of the commandments for the Israelites. This included everything from the kind of goat or sheep you would sacrifice for what sin to the fact that you are not to come in contact with a woman on her period. The craziness and lunacy, however, culminated at this verse below:

 However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you.  You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land.  You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance.  You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)

When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished.  If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property.  (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB)

Note:Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Duetoronomy are all part of the Moses Saga.

Question 1: Are we supposed to carry on these traditions beating slaves, banishing women, burning protistitues at the stake, and killing disobediant children? No, obviously, the American Christian church for the most part has abandoned Levitical law practices. 

Question 2: Why does the church cling on to hating gay people? 

I can think of one obvious answer. Our country's first amendment promotes the freedom of speech (also freedom of religion/separation of church from state) and the Christian right loves to use this as their way of getting back at evil. 

They can't stone people anymore. They can't burn people at the stake. But you can bet they can judge. You can guarantee that they can point the finger. 

Pat Robertson, who is an easy target, but is a great example of this community. This man should have retired years ago, but he is still at the helm of his 700 club, spewing lies and hate such as claiming the Hurricane Katrina and 9/11 were acts (literally) of God and his judgement because our nation has condoned homosexuality.

Verbal Stones. They cause hate. They plant seeds in the minds of evangelicals. The lies they transmit cause damage and harm.

So to answer the question, why does the church cling to this tradition of hating gays? Because they can. Because they want to. Because they want to hate the "other". Because there is an enemy other than just the devil. It's the liberals. It's the gays. It's the abortionists. It's the ACLU (really?) We are in a war that according to them is not against flesh and blood, but against angels and demons. Guess which ones they think we are? 


Please note for your own reference homophobia was not just an old testament idea. Paul (New Testament Evangelist) also had some atrocious judgements to pass along.

Now I can hear my contemporaries argue that Homosexuality was mentenioned more than just one time in the Bible.

Romans 1:26-27For this reason [idolatry] God gave them up to passions of dishonor; for even their females exchanged the natural use for that which is contrary to nature, and likewise also the males, having left the natural use of the female, were inflamed by their lust for one another, males with males, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was fitting for their error.

1 Corinthians 6-9-10 Do you not know that the unrighteous and the wrongdoers will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived (misled): neither the impure and immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor those who participate in homosexuality"

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In the Beginning

I like to keep my life in balance. When my friend at work forwards me an article from Fox News that says Obama is a terrorist, I promptly find the quickest fact checker site (Snopes) and go to work on whatever new lame news story he has drummed up.

In the same manner, I have watched several scientific and historical documentaries as well as read several books about how the Bible/Christianity/Religion/Etc. is a terrible way to guide your morals. Instead of letting, Dawkins tell me what is true or not, I turned to analyze the Bible myself. 

Now before you click on to some other webpage, hang with me a second. Penn Jillette called the Bible one of the best proofs for atheism an unbeliever could need. So with that in mind, I opened up to book one, verse one and read:

"In the beginning..."

When I attended Sunday school, it was taught that the subsequent passeges are literal. Yes, Literal. Not Mythological, or Allegorical. Literal. Given the fact that I was...5, it made total sense that a supreme being constructed our complex world in 6 days (took day seven off). 

There are a boatload (no pun intended Noah) problems here. So, let's say there is a supreme being who can do whatever they want, then why not create the world in one day?  Also important to keep in mind that this was an oral culture. Most of this stuff did not see paper until much later...Sorry peeps, but this is folklore story telling at its finest and almost every culture possesses one. We just inherited ours from ancient times.

In a nutshell:

Day One: Let there be Light, Seperating day from night 

Day Two: Seperation of land from water, Plants

Day Three: Stars/Solar System (including our sun)

Day Four: Birds/fish

Day Five: Cattle and creeping things (things that walk on 4 legs...)

Day Six: Male and Female

Day Seven: Nap

So I noticed something interesting, it says God created male and female, but then a chapter later it describes how God created the first woman Eve from Adam's (first man) rib. The only clear point (besides that the bible only takes one chapter to contradict itself) is that the writer wants to start out the Bible showing that the man is in charge.

There are so many other passages that need to be mentioned from Genesis, but this is one you can start with and realize right away that the Bible should not be taken literally. So Christian or Atheist, read Genesis 1 and 2 and read it critically. Read it from the point of view of what we know about science and the world around us. Does this seem possible? Forget what the alternatives may or may not be. Just analyze this. Think. Read. Question.

Start there. It's better than just ignoring the truth.

Why are the Forgiven so fucking angry?

A former acquaintance of mine posted the below video on facebook the other day:

Marriage=Biology (Not Bigotry)

Now naturally I was somewhat confused by the link itself because what the hell does science and marriage have to do with anything, anyways?

Moving on, I played this 4 minute clip and realized that this is in fact a nice tightly wrapped propaganda piece for the Fundamental Christian Right to show their flock. It's not that the video was offensive in the fact that it could have said, "God hates Fags!", no, it was worse. It compared homosexuality with those who are pedophiles. But it justified the video's comments by saying it was about biology, not bigotry. 

 I could not believe it. The guy who posted it too was usually a pretty liberal-ish or so I thought Christian and I just wanted to let him know (maybe he didn't notice it when he watched it) that the "facts" the author shows in the video are untrue and disgusting. I also asked where Christ's love is in a video like this? What does a christian really accomplish for themselves except for making others (and most of the times their selves) feel like crap?

The dude wrote me back and unleashed heaven and (mostly) hell on me. He said and I quote, it was "bullshit" and I did not know his heart and ask me if I'd turn my back on God. He also asked me if I really read my bible lately. But I guess my point is the anger....the anger that came out of that was unbelievable  I didn't really anticipate it. I thought I wrote a fairly even headed, non-biased thought-provoking response and he hit me with a crusade.

I really wanted to strike back. Hit him harder and I could have, but no good thing would have come out of it. We probably won't even see each other again anyway, so I just said, this is not productive, I will still believe what I believe and you will still believe what you believe. No point in further discussion. -->unfriend.

I hate the fact that I'm coming from such a community that can get hateful and divisive, especially when a lot of these people I used to care for deeply. Now it seems that when you throwback to spiritual matters they bring up an acceptance clause, but once you get too close, some nerve..they go absolutely nuts. But they say it all in Christ's perfect love, Motherfucker!

Fundamentalists-Why Atheists and Bible Thumpers are in the same boat.

I have recently become a big fan of Frank Schaeffer. This guy used to be a fundamentalist christian in a big, big way. His parents were Francis and Edith Schaeffer, who were pillars in the christian community 70s-90s of no tolerance for anything, but god movement. In fact, my senior year of high school, at my Christian school, we were forced to watch a video series by Francis Schaeffer about the dangers of Post-Modernism in American Society.

In Schaeffer's books he talks about two groups that have a lot in common the: Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, Dinesh D'Souza, Glenn Beck...etc. The Bible thumper/Right wing in disguise and the unholy trinity of the new Atheists: Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris.

The point Schaeffer makes in his book, Patience with God (although it often comes across as somewhat agnostic) is that both groups are dangerous in their own right. Both promote messages of hate that are detrimental to the progress and growth of our society.

Yes, I absolutely believe that organized/delusional religion is dangerous in it's own right, but so can atheism. Any manifesto or any belief and yes atheism is still a belief that throws support behind violence or take over or genocide can take down an entire population.

Extreme Islam does have scary beliefs, but so do extreme christians. Hell, Mormons have weird beliefs, but Republicans are bent on voting in a man who has baptized the dead. Read that last sentence again.

I think we need balance. Religion and atheism (it's extreme) do not provide balance. While I do not believe in a deity or the tenets of organized religion, I do not and will not demean or look down on those who do. My mother would be directionless without it. My father may still be an alcoholic without it. Religion may be a crutch, but sometimes it can be productive.

The new atheists (Harris, Hitchens (dead), Dawkins) think that we would be better off without religion, but I disagree. I think taking religion completely out of society would be like making the Iraqi people accept democracy. It does not fucking work. We are not ready as a nation to totally reject religion. We are not educated enough and many would be lost and directionless without it.

I on the other hand feel like I learned amazing morals from my parents through religion, through myths, through the bible stories, but I think I have grown out of it. I think that the god of the bible is not the one for me. And that is ok.

Contrary to the christian fundamentalists, contrary to the new atheists, we do have freedom of religion (any). That means, let people worship who they want, when they want, but do not force your beliefs on me. Do not make up history (Christian Nation?!!) to fit your manifesto and do not make others feel like shit if they want to still believe in fairy tales.

Note: Dawkins gives an atheist scale. 1-7, 7 being the highest. At this point in my life, I guess you could put me at a 5. I definitely believe that their is no deity, but their is no way to prove it (agnostic), but I also believe you should respect religious beliefs....and to that point the new atheists make some great points in their books and are worth listening to, but it is important to maintain balance and realize that everyone is just trying to make it through life as best they can. Some need god, some don't.

OT vs. NT. Does god really change his tune?

<sup>Romans 9:22-23


22</sup> What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? ²³ What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory—

I would like to start off by putting this text in context. Otherwise I am just as guilty as a fundamentalist who takes one or two verses and makes them and entire theological dogma.

So... with that said, the above verses Romans comes from a letter from the Apostle Paul. Paul was not a disciple of Jesus, but was actually a well known oppressor of the converted. Over some kind of psychedelic experience, Paul (originally Saul-changed name after conversion) decided to change over to Christianity. After this Paul was one of the most dedicated leaders of the early Christian church. Having come from a strict, Pharisaical, Jewish background, it is not a surprise that Paul is known for his stern letters of correction to the surrounding churches throughout the area. 

Delving into the actual meaning of the passage, Paul is speaking of the Jewish people and about his god's favoritism toward "the chosen", but he is also making some interesting choices in explaining how god does his work. Does this Jewish god really play favorites?

So it's true and in future blogs I'll go over this, the Old Testament is definitely written from a Jewish set of authors. Over and over again, we do see references to the chosen, but does the Old Testament god really change his tune much? He seems to keep a similar theme, but this time because his one and only son (the atonement factor) died for all, he can play new favorites. That's right, according to this verse, the god of the new testament has people he can torch (objects of wrath) and people that are his pets (objects of mercy).

So there's a couple of ideas to take away here. One, Paul is still writing from his own slanted perspective of being one of the chosen (the elect) and is definitely not inspired by any kind of word of god. Two, a lot of christians will tell you that this verse just adds to the complexity of god, but I disagree, I think it gives further evidence that the god of the (not-so) Holy Bible, is consistent. He's just more anti-semitic in the second half.

On Vacation

The last couple weeks I have essentially felt, on vacation, from belief if you will. It's not that I have missed them or look forward to being shackled by the snares of guilt and religion, but it is inevitable that at some point I will indeed wallow back to the Throne of my maker who does not see me as the highly evolved species that I am.

You see at the current moment, I've been enjoying a rather lavish trip, through Sam Harris' End of Faith (Haunted House) to Chris Hitchens God is not Great (Celebrity Roast?) it almost feels like danger, like I am in a sense biting into the forbidden fruit.

While both stances, I agree with, Harris- End of Faith and Hitchens- God is Not Great., the only book that seem to encourage me through about 20 hours of audiobooks was Sam Harris Letter's to a Christian Nation. It was shorter and got to the point. Plus it was the book that got the strip started in general.

These authors have a common theme that seems to get misunderstood, it's not that they necessarily hate religion or hate religious people, but the institution the mixture of religion and religious people can be a scary combination. This is hard to disagree with giving multiple genecide citings, (although atheism isn't entirely without fault), but all in all Religion has this numbing effect on a person. It's a tool that people can use to wipe their guilt slate clean and also focus their abilities into doing either good or atrocious things.

I would argue that mammals in general are prone to violence, but when manipulated by a specific dogma can be lethal in an unmistakeable way (KONY, India-Muslims vs. Hindus, Nazis...) So there's the institutional problem posed. Religions typically have violent pasts. They also are full of imagination that reasonable adults should not even both with.

My Biggest Gripe with Religion is with the afterlife: several religions have one and also Hell is  just a scare/manipulative tactic used by leaders to gain a larger following and hence more money.

It must be known before I conclude my introductory blog that I was a Christian and a very strong one at that. from ages 1-25, my family and then my wife and I faithfully attended our churches. Sometimes once a week sometimes twice, sometimes 3 or 4, but the big truth was after all these years after sifting through a lot of the spiritual hype, it wasn't about me and God. It was about a community. Before Tithing, before worship, before praying in tounges, before fasting, before prophecy, before hearing the word, it was all about gathering with each other and enjoying each other's company.