This Just In: God Prefers The Weirdoes (Or: Preachers Say The Damnedest Things)

So now it can be told. And it doesn't surprise me a bit.

Bishop T. D. Jakes was preaching as a guest at Joel Osteen church over the weekend and spoke a bit about God's calling.

God was calling Jakes, so he says, and he (Jakes) was running. He was busy "visiting every club, smoking every joint and watching every little nasty, filthy thing."

But God wanted him:

When God wants you, He will find you anywhere. He specializes in weirdos and rejects and freaks and messed-up deranged people. Despite all your inabilities, God has a plan for your life.

The rest of us just tend to just struggle through life on our own.

What the good bishop didn't say, but I will now, is that these folks tend to stay weirdoes and messed-up deranged people.

And people ask me why I don't go to church anymore!

When A Family Member Goes To Hell

It happens. No matter how much preaching is done, how much personal witnessing takes place, how many prayers go up for soul's salvation, people still go on their merry way enjoying the pleasures of sin unto. Sometimes that person is part of a family of believers or close friends with them.

So what happens?

There is a great gulf or chasm fixed between those in Hell and those resting in paradise, or so we are told in Jesus' account of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16). Those wishing to pass from one side to the other are unable to do so. Fellowship, therefore, is forever ended.

Supposedly, at least we are often told, Heaven is a place of total bliss, where after even the passage of 10,000 years (as the hymn Amazing Grace reminds us), "we've no less days to sing God's praise, than we first begun."

At the consummation, we are told in the Book of Revelation:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev 21:1-4, NIV, emphasis mine).

No more mourning? How in the name of sanity, in the name of tender love, can it be thought that eternity can be spent in peaceful bliss with full knowledge of the sufferings of lost friends and loved ones?

It is my considered opinion that no child should be taught the evils of eternal torment in Hell the way I was. (For that matter, I don't think it's healthy for older minds!) I had nightmares over it. I dreamed that I awoke in Hell, with full knowledge that my fate had been sealed for all eternity. No way out! And when I was awake I worried about others I loved going to that awful place.

So what about that idea that Heaven is bliss even as it is known that friends and family are undergoing all the tortures of the damned?

Fortunately that question has been asked and answered by some of God's best minds (ahem!). For purposes of illustration I take the great evangelist and fundamentalist leader Rueben Archer Torrey, Yale graduate, world-wide evangelist, and once dean of what is now known as BIOLA University. In his book Practical and Perplexing Questions Answered, pages 78 and 79 we find the following:

Can a person be happy in heaven if he knows his loved ones are in hell?

Yes, most assuredly, if he is a real Christian. A real Christian's supreme joy is in Jesus Christ (Matthew 10:37). The love that he bears even to the dearest of his earthly loved ones is nothing to that he bears to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ is in heaven. He will satisfy every longing of the heart that really knows Him.

So there you have it in the words of a Christian scholar. A "real Christian" loves Jesus so much more than his family (just as Jesus commanded: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple, Luke 14:26) that it just won't matter in the long run if their loved ones go to Hell.

What a great system of religion!

A Suggested Connection Between Our Recent Natural Disasters And Our Alliance With Israel (Or: Unforgivable Nuttiness)

Editor of the WorldNetDaily Joseph Farah's latest column, Maybe doomsday is near strikes me as a particularly stunning example of idiocy from an educated man. Check this out:

Once again, we've seen the U.S. hit with a series of deadly superstorms following Barack Obama's pledge to return Israel to pre-1967 borders.

Just days after Obama insisted Israel must give up lands it won through military victory with its enemies, some 200 people were killed by a tornado in Joplin, Mo.

There's a pattern here.

We saw it in Katrina, when George Bush forced Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. In fact, as everyone from Israeli rabbis to U.S. senators have noted, it seems to happen every single time the U.S. pressures Israel to divide the land.


Yes, Mr. Farah, there is a pattern here. Every time a major natural disaster strikes we can expect some Bible-thumping nut to proclaim that it was wrought of God in response to some instance of disobedience to His will.

It never seems to occur to these folks that they are making a cosmic putz out of their god for teaching that he punishes the totally innocent for the sins of others, even innocent children and babies who in no way had anything to do with - in this latest example - the call for a return to Israel's 1967 borders.

Perhaps the saddest thing is the fact that ridiculous opinions such as this are rather widely held in our nation.

Freethought Sunday: Raising Children Without God

A while back I posted The Eye In The Sky, concerning my religious upbringing, the four weekly church services my family attended in order to reinforce Christian precepts, the songs we were taught to sing from childhood, etc. Right and wrong were, as my brothers and I were taught, a matter of obeying or disobeying, pleasing or displeasing God. Everything belonged to him as the earth was his footstool (Acts 7:49) and he had created the stars and planets. We belonged to him because he had sent his son Jesus to die and ransom us, thus, as the Apostle Paul put it "ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's (1 Corinthians 6:20)." That is pretty much the Christian moral foundation.

School teacher and pastor's daughter turned freethought lecturer Helen Hamilton Gardener (1853-1925) beautifully dealt with the quandary of how to properly instill moral values into children without the Bible and the God of the Bible. Her response is today's Freethought Sunday mediatation:

After my lecture on Men, Women, and Gods, in Chicago, I was asked how it would be possible to train children to be good without a belief in the divinity of the Bible; how they could be made to know it is wrong to lie and steal and kill.

The belief that the Bible is the originator of these and like moral ideas, or that Christ was their first teacher, is far from the truth; and it is only another evidence of the duplicity or ignorance of the Church that such a belief obtains or that such a falsehood is systematically taught.

It is too easily forgotten that morals are universal, that Christianity is local. Practical moral ideas grow up very early, and develop with the development of a race. They are the response to the needs of a people, and when formulated have in several cases taken the shape of "commandments" from some unseen power. These necessary practical laws are by degrees attached to those of imaginary value, and all alike are held in esteem as of equal moral worth. By this means a ficticious standard of right and wrong becomes established, and a weakening of confidence in the valueless part results in damage to that portion which was originally the result of wise and necessary legislation.

When children (of whatever age) do this or that "because God said so," the precepts taught on this basis, even though they are good, will have no hold upon the man who discovers that their origin was purely human. It is a dangerous experiment, and depends wholly upon ignorance for its success. A firm basis of reason in this world is the only solid foundation of moral training.

And to that I would add a hearty Amen!

Believing Is Seeing?

I was over at CNN's religion blog yesterday checking out their piece on Doomsday leaders. As always I glance though the comments section just to see what the average Joe and Jane have to offer.

While there I noticed a comment from "daniel" that grabbed my attention:

I was a die hard rebel/atheistic/agnostic/skeptic about all things "God" until He knocked me off my "high horse" with the revelation of His Son. I refused to believe until i saw. Now i realize that believing is seeing. I blamed Him for all that is wrong in the world from abuse to natural disasters. Now i realize that what is wrong in the world is about inner deviance in the human race-otherwise known as sin-and NOT about God. Turn to Him and SEE, He is drawing you to do so. He is waiting for you in Forgiveness and Love.

I'm not sure I understand. He was a diehard skeptic concerning God and "refused to believe until [he] saw," but now - because God knocked him of his "high horse" by in some way revealing his Son (Jesus) to him - he has come to the realization that "believing is seeing."

Is it just me or does that commenter contradict himself in his garble?

So "daniel" was on this kick of refusing to believe without evidence - and just what's wrong with that or why it should be considered being on a "high horse" he doesn't bother to explain - when he had a "revelation" of Jesus.

Dramatic language, to be sure - but what does it mean, a revelation?

Was it something like the persecutor of the early Jesus movement Saul of Tarsus had on his way to Damascus? Here is that revelation:

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:

And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?

And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do.

And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. (Acts 9:3-7).

Saul went on to become Paul the apostle. But of course Saul was not a skeptic by any means. He was a religious Jew, a Pharisee, in fact. His "revelation" just turned him towards the person of Jesus and that apocalyptic movement. And truth be told, it was Paul who went on to create the Gentile belief system form of "Christianity" we know today, changing it from the Jewish message it was originally. He retained Jesus' apocalypticism, however.

But I'm digressing here. Back to "daniel." I wish he would have gone into more detail about his experience. But whatever he thinks happened, he declares it was a supernatural intervention.

Now it is enough for me to say that I don't think supernaturalism has a very sound foundation. Too much revelation, speculation, and proclamation. The scientific method just doesn't work on supernaturalistic claims.

Most of us don't get knocked off our high horses. And the overwhelming majority of folks haven't had a divine revelation but, rather, have made the conscious decision to turn off their brains and follow the anecdotal trail of other tellers of tall tales.

It was the "die hard rebel/atheistic/agnostic/skeptic" Bertrand Russell who upon being asked what he would say if he found out upon his death that God really does exist. And Russell replied: "Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence."

John's gospel tells the interesting story of Thomas, who doubted and refused to believe the tales of Jesus' resurrection from the dead unless he saw Jesus and examined the wounds from his crucifixion. This, we are told, he was allowed to do. Then Jesus upbraids him with:

Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed (John 20:29).

I'm with Saul, Russell and Thomas: let me see and then I will believe.

Jesus And Harold

Here is an interesting little discussion Jesus had with his disciple Peter:

Peter began to say unto him, Lo, we have left all, and have followed thee.

Jesus said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or mother, or father, or children, or lands, for my sake, and for the gospel's sake, but he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life (Mark 10:28-30, ASV).

People who renounced earthly material possessions and abandoned their family members in order to assist Jesus in his misguided announcement of the soon coming Kingdom Of God were promised recompense WITH INTEREST in that kingdom which never came.

At this point I'm going to interject the question: Just how does Jesus differ from Harold Camping, except Jesus was slightly less specific on setting an actual date? However, he did falsely promise that the kingdom would be established in the lifetime of his followers:

Now after John was delivered up, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe in the gospel (Mark 1:14,15, ASV).

For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds.

Verily I say unto you, there are some of them that stand here, who shall in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom (Matthew 16:27,28).

Now, my dear reader friends, either this is a clear example of false, failed prophesy, or somewhere on the face of this earth there are some extremely old and no doubt jaded folks still waiting.

Unlike Harold Camping, who had to face the embarrassment of explaining away his prophetic faux pas, Jesus is long gone from the scene. We aren't able to ask him, "what's up with that?"

But Jesus' later followers take the Camping approach and speak of postponements and spiritual fulfillments.

Jesus and Harold Camping: two peas in a pod.

Seeds Of Doubt Or Seeds Of Freedom?

As you probably have figured out by now, I love letters to the editor, the angrier the better. Ah, those little tidbits of distilled "wisdom." Here is one that caught my attention yesterday and is typical of Christianthink. Read the entire letter here.

First, our writer dismisses a previous letter (which I did not see and didn't take the time to search for) "concerning mistranslation/corruption and opposing translations of various Biblical scriptures."

Such things, it is suggested, can be ignored because none of the verses examined "have any bearing on the gospel message." In other words, even if this all important message from God is imbedded within a text full of forgeries, interpolations, and outright mistranslations, its main value as a tool for evangelism is preserved. No doubts should be entertained about trustworthiness.

This principle may be summed up as follows: If you like the text and agree with it, it is from God; if it is patently absurd or obviously wrong, it is a mistranslation or interpolation, or at least needs to be more carefully interpreted (explained away).

Our writer goes on to call attention to the "aggressive and organized atheist movement afoot in the U.S.," such as demonstrated by the controversial atheist billboards. But more dangerous, he suggests, are editorials:

However, planting the seeds of doubt in readers minds through editorials, etc. might be a subtle inroad to the same effect. Just plain old folks of reason and intellect asking, "You don't really believe all those mistranslated, corrupted myths and legends in that old book, do you?" sounds a little like "Did God really say 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden?'"

Christians, know what you believe and why.

Yes, the old serpent in the Garden, that ol' Devil! Go ahead, look at that again and tell me who told the truth there, the serpent or God?

According to that "corrupted myth" or "legend," God told Adam and Eve not eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Gen. 2:17).

The serpent, on the other hand, said this:

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3: 4,5).

So again: who told the truth there?

(Hint: According to Genesis 5:5 Adam lived to the ripe old age of 930 years!)

(Additional hint: Genesis 3:7 goes on to add that after eating the forbidden fruit, "the eyes of them both were opened.")

Now you can accuse folks like myself of "planting seeds of doubt" if you like, but I like to think of it as planting seeds of freedom. Intellectual freedom, if you will.

By all means, Christians, as this writer suggests: know what you believe and why.

The "why" is because you have been and are being brainwashed and mentally abused by those who seek to control you while enriching their own bank accounts without resorting to honest employment.

Dear Christian Friend: Can You Top Jesus?

I hadn't really planned on going off in this direction, but my posts about taking up serpents in the name of Jesus and moving mountains through faith have really opened up a good debate about taking the Bible at face value.

A couple of my friends at work who keep up with my blog were especially dumbstruck about the snakes. They both admitted, quite frankly, that they had no such faith. One lady told me she had no idea that was even in the Bible and had never heard her pastor preach a sermon on the topic. I replied that I didn't wonder. Then I asked, on the other hand, how many times had she heard him preach about tithing!

Then when it came to faith moving mountains, the typical response to that was that Jesus was speaking metaphorically - using the word mountain as a metaphor of the daunting trials of life. When I pointed out the broader context of the story - where Jesus had cursed a fig tree because it was not bearing fruit and that it immediately withered and then connected the saying about moving mountains to it - they were nonplussed.

And their ideas were consistent with the comments from my readers.

No one likes broken promises. And to face the matter honestly, the Bible is filled with them. When I as a young man faced this fact squarely, without ducking and dodging behind metaphor and "spiritual" interpretations, I realized that if so much of the Bible was demonstrably false, what grounds were there for believing the rest of it? My faith was lost to the starkness of reality.

There is another interesting passage in the John's gospel where again Jesus speaks about faith and the wonders it can achieve. Everybody seems so bent on the idea that Jesus was a great religious teacher. Unlike some unbelievers who pay lip service to the supposed wonderful morals and character of Jesus, I simply cannot hold the man in such high regard. His teachings, as recorded in the New Testament, are filled with untruths and outright nutty ideas. I've written about this several times, but let me give another passage I don't recall having ever written about here:

Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 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 (John 14:10-14, NIV).

Jesus allegedly accomplished some rather remarkable things during his ministry: walking on water, healing the sick, raising the dead, calming the angry sea, feeding 5,000 souls with five loaves of bread and two fish, turning water into wine, restoring an amputated ear, restoring sight to blind people, etc.

Now honestly, no ducking and dodging: Is it true that Jesus' followers have done "even greater things than these" as Jesus did? And if this saying is demonstrably untrue, how can anyone take seriously his promise just a few verses earlier in that passage when Jesus declares:

In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am (John 14:2,3).

So I have to ask my Christian friends, not in a mean or hateful way, but in a spirit of mutual honesty: How can you take the Bible seriously?

I no longer believe in your religion, even though I was taught it from my youth, I see no evidence that believers in Jesus and his God can top Jesus, can perform the wonderful deeds he did, and even greater ones, and find the explaining away of the clear teachings of Jesus as dishonest and inconsistent with the taking at face value other of his words. Don't speak to me of Heaven and Hell if you can't show me some miracles, as Jesus said that simple faith can produce.

Two Ideas About Faith

Here, together for your consideration, are two views of faith. One from a well-known nontheist, the other from a very well-known theist. Which view do you think better conforms to reality?

Friedrich Nietzsche: The fact that faith, under certain circumstances, may work for blessedness, but that this blessedness produced by an idee fixe [literally: fixed idea] by no means makes the idea itself true, and the fact that faith actually moves no mountains, but instead raises them up where there were none before: all this is made sufficiently clear by a walk through a lunatic asylum.


Jesus: 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.

They Take Up Serpents

I've mentioned many times on my blog that I was raised in a church in the holiness tradition, The Church of God. Growing up in this denomination in the 1960s (up until 1971) I was exposed to many things that might not be considered "normal" to typical Christians - although thanks to television, they are now more mainstream than when I was young.

It was typical in my church to see people supposedly "dancing in the Spirit," speaking in tongues, casting out demons, prophesying as the Spirit of God inspired them, healing sick folks through the prayer of faith, being "slain" in the Spirit (which isn't as deadly as it sounds but merely refers to being rendered unconscious by the ecstasy of receiving an outpouring of the Spirit of God) and other - shall I say as I would consider such now - shenanigans.

But one thing that never took place at my church or in our denomination was the taking up of serpents as a religious ritual and sign of faith.

However, there were some older folks who occasionally worshipped with us and who were snake-handlers from a Church of God offshoot known as The Church of God With Signs Following. They took their cue from Mark 16:15-20:

And he [Jesus] said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues;

They 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.

So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.

And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen.

Some thirty-five or so miles north of Chattanooga, Tennessee, where I grew up, was the rural Grasshopper Valley community and its infamous Dolly Pond Church of God (With Signs Following). They had a tradition of handling serpents and still did in the 60s, and may still do the same today. I don't know. You don't hear as much as about it as you once did.

So while I have only read about this phenomenon and seen documentaries on it, I was aware of this strange practice from childhood. I was aware that those verses of Scripture were there in the Bible. I was taught that, yes, such things are true, but only if you accidentally encountered snakes or poisons along the way of preaching the gospel, and not just because one wants to perform feats of faith in the church. (It was only when I got older and started looking into my religious belief system for myself that I discovered that these verses aren't authentic and not even in the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament.)

Also I was aware even as a child that these snake-handling rituals were illegal. Tennessee had passed an ordinance that forbade the handling of poisonous snakes in a manner that might endanger others. This legislation was written and passed as a direct result of the Dolly Pond Church of God and its activities.

One rather well known incident was the snake bite death of Dolly Pond's lay preacher Lewis Ford in September 1945. (That was him in action in the photo to the left.) He was preaching during a revival when the snake he scooped up bit him. He continued to preach a few minutes longer before, taken ill, he had his Christian friends come pray for him. He was taken to an aunt's house where he died a short time later. His snake handling funeral (yes, they actually held the snakes, including the one that killed him, above his coffin and even passed some to his widow) can be read about here, as originally reported in the September 9, 1945 edition of St. Petersburg Times.

That Dolly Pond Church of God was later torn down and another built in its place. But among Pentecostals in this area, this is a well known part of the lore.

A relatively few Christians still do take up serpents in assumed obedience to Mark's gospel. As I mentioned, I knew some of these folks personally when I was a child. They are long gone now. They were eccentric, to say the least. But my impression was that they were totally sold out to their religious convictions, as you would suspect they would have to be in order to attempt such things.

There is a surprisingly rich amount of writing about this topic. One book I would highly recommend is Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia by Dennis Covington. Of course it was an enjoyable read for me because it deals with local history, Sand Mountain being just an hour or so down the road from me. A trip to your local library can put you in touch with some fascinating reading concerning these very interesting and sincerely deluded folks.

Freethought Sunday: Nature

Although largely forgotten among freethinkers today, fortunately Lemuel K. Washburn left us in his writings a little of his genius. The selection I have chosen for a meditation today comes from his book Is The Bible Worth Reading? and is under the heading Nature:

Some people are afraid of the word Nature. They cross themselves when they hear it pronounced. It has a sound like "Old Nick" [The Devil] in their ears. To these pious souls the word Nature banishes God from the universe. This is looked upon by many as the highest offence of language. It has been the custom for several centuries to abuse Nature, to call it bad names, and associate it with depravity and everything evil. Theology has condemned the word, and the pulpit has touched it only with the tips of its fingers. To speak of Nature as anything good is regarded as throwing dirt in the eyes of God.

Nothing clings to the world like a superstition. Start a fear in the human breast, and it will make every heart quake before it can be driven out. Let a bad habit become fixed, and it will be as hard to dislodge it as it is to plant a good habit.

But men are getting over their fright somewhat. The natural is found to be the true, not the false; the right, not the wrong; the good, not the bad. Nature has been slandered, lied about. It was once thought necessary to assassinate this word in order to preserve the Orthodox religion. The necessity still remains, but orthodoxy is dying.

Nature is a large word. It means about all there is. If there is a God, he is natural.

The Christian's Blessed Hope (Or, Why The Second Coming?)

For the grace of God hath appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us, to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world; looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a people for his own possession, zealous of good works (Titus 2:11-14, American Standard Version).

Yesterday after work, as is my custom on Fridays, I went and did my banking and then stopped at the store to buy groceries for the upcoming week before coming home to rest after a long work week and celebrate the weekend. No doubt I will need to eat next week, even if Harold Camping is right and the rapture takes place. I'll be here whether he is right or wrong, because I am, after all, an unbeliever - no, a disbeliever in the Christian religion.

All the time I'm treated to the speculations of my Christian friends about the "signs" of the second coming of Jesus. Wacky weather and natural phenomena seem to be among the most popular of the current indicators. God is warning us, telling those who "have their ears on" that his patience has about reached its end, the grapes of his wrath are just about ripe, and the time is at hand.

They blurt out only what they have heard. The same tired old line that has been repeated for the better part of two millennia. Their studies have all been biased. There is one question I never hear them getting around to answering honestly. The only answer they can give is that mysterious catch all idea that "it is according to God's plan" or a part of the secret counsel of God, among those hidden things.

The question I'm referring to is this: Why a Second Coming of Jesus?

I'm going to go out on limb and stake my soul to this theory: The reason for the Christian doctrines of the Second Coming and the Resurrection of Jesus is simply that his ministry was a complete failure.

Jesus, according to the biblical gospels, waltzed onto the world stage - a very small stage in the middle east - announcing that "the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand" (Mark 1:15), and then he in fairly short order managed to get himself executed by an unamused Roman government.

Jesus' audience was made up of those Jewish believers who were well-versed in Messianic prophecy and knew all about the kingdom promises proclaimed by Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and the other prophets (as well as in a rather large body of apocalyptic writings, such as the books of Enoch).

Whatever enthusiasm Jesus managed to muster - and there was some, although it is hard to miss the fact that he died fairly abandoned and without large throngs of protesting followers - should have died for all time when he was taken down from the cross and entombed.

That should have been it.

The heralded kingdom did not come, the Messianic prophecies were not fulfilled, the world was not transformed with peace and justice and righteousness, and the oppressive Roman Empire was still in control.

However, there were some who evidently were invigorated by Jesus' ministry and quite naturally loath to give up the dream of a restoration of the kingdom of Israel to its prior (and even a prophesied greater) glory.

From that seed sprang the ideas that Jesus did not remain dead but was restored to life by God and the kingdom still lay ahead and would be realized at Jesus the Messiah's Second Coming. The scriptures were combed for clues of these new ideas, the message was reinterpreted, and a new ideal was born.

Actually, the reinterpreted message was really a legion of messages, each vying for recognition as orthodoxy. The once antagonistic Roman Empire later became the Jesus people's chief benefactor when it elevated Christianity to the official religion of the empire and set about to define just what the orthodox faith was. (And faith it was and is, because the evidence is lacking.)

The rest, as they say, is history.

People look for a Second Coming of Jesus today because they follow the tradition of a postponed hope. People believe because they want to believe. The believe because they like to have hope.

Now it so happens that the majority of Christians don't take Harold Camping seriously. Only Camping's followers take Camping seriously. And it remains to be seen how many of them will wise up and renounce their misplaced hope and how many will reinterpret it.

Some of us study the history of Christianity and arrive at the conclusion that it is all a misplaced hope based on faulty premises. There I stand.

The End Is Ever Near

Believers in God are always looking at the world around them and telling us that God is warning us with signs of his impending judgment. Without the least qualm or concern about appearing idiotic they confidently tell us such things as:

Thus, even at its very commencement, birth hastens to its close; thus, whatever is now born degenerates with the old age of the world itself; so that no one ought to wonder that everything begins to fail in the world, when the whole world itself is already in process of failing, and in its end.

Moreover, that wars continue frequently to prevail, that death and famine accumulate anxiety, that health is shattered by raging diseases, that the human race is wasted by the desolation of pestilence, know that this was foretold; that evils should be multiplied in the last times, and that misfortunes should be varied; and that as the day of judgment is now drawing near, the censure of an indignant God should be more and more aroused for the scourging of the human race.

No, those aren't the words of radio preacher Harold Camping warning us yet again about the arrival of Judgment Day on Saturday.

In fact, these words were written nearly eighteen hundred years ago by Cyprian, bishop of Carthage and Christian martyr (in his Treatise 5).

Yes, human nature has always sucked and the world has always been a less than totally friendly place for humans. Oh, and God evidently has always been long-sufferingly sick of us and ready to pull the plug.

The New Testament writers constantly made the claim that they were writing in the last times and last days. Maybe it is understandable that Cyprian - coming along some century and a half later - might think the end was at hand.

But what it does it say about the modern apocalypticists?

At what point will it finally be admitted that Jesus and his apostles were just wrong?

Answer: Never - so long as there is a profit to be turned in keeping these failed prophecies alive.

Of Computers And Dreams Of Immortality

Physicist Stephen Hawking probably hasn't gained many new fans with his recent comment about Heaven:

I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven of afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people who are afraid of the dark.

Most folks don't appreciate being told they are childish.

I do like the analogy of the brain as a computer. It's good but not perfect. Our brains take in an almost unbelievable amount of data, computes it, and spits out its assessment of things: our own personal outlook.

My father was bedeviled by strokes and resultant brain damage in the final years of his life. His computer didn't work very well. Nearly half of the time it barely worked at all. He was prone to visual and auditory hallucinations, so he had a difficult time distinguishing reality from the freakish dream world he spent so much time inhabiting. My dad's hard drive had been severely damaged.

During one of his visits to his doctor, I remember the doctor bluntly saying: "Your brain is your soul." That went over Dad's head. It probably would have went over it back in his good old days. He was a Christian believer in God. He didn't think of himself as a brain, but as a ghost-in-the-machine soul inside a physical body.

I doubt if most folks believe in an afterlife because they are childish. It is more likely because our brain-produced sense of self is so deceptively strong. Consciousness is still a hotly debated mystery. But we have this sense of being separate from nature itself. It helps us develop and maintain the idea of personal immortality in some spiritual realm - separate from the physical or material - that represents our true self.

Self preservation is the strongest of our animal instincts, and it is hard indeed to really fathom our own nonexistence. The bonds of human affection are so strong that it is difficult to accept the loss of loved ones. The dead remain in our thoughts and our dreams. Those dreams. Spiritual in nature. Is the dream world real and the physical world the illusion? Some have pondered that.

The closer my dad got to the finish line, the more time he spent in his ethereal dream world. Only he dreamed while he was physically awake. In his brain damaged mind, it was always 1972. Even though "that movie actor" was president, somehow it made perfect sense that that rascal Nixon was also still president. A good portion of the time he had no short term memory to speak of, and it was always now. "Now" as it was twenty years previously. And in his world animals could carry on rational conversations with us and people could float around the room, walk through walls, and squirt out from beneath the bed. The dead were still with us and most of us still alive were either who we were twenty-years previously or doubles of them. And every now and then the old Dad would reemerge with sound mind. Briefly. If he ever detected a contradiction between his dream world and his "normal" world, he never talked about it.

Sometimes computers do weird things.

I don't think Heaven or immortality are the dreams of children afraid of the dark. I believe they are our computer's attempt to maintain the status quo, of being alive and functioning. Sure, I can intellectually grasp the idea of nonexistence and my computer shutting down and totally ceasing to function. I can and do. I just have trouble picturing it. I accept it. I don't embrace it. I don't because I enjoy being alive. It really is all I know. All I will ever be capable of actually knowing.

I agree with Hawkins about human mortality. I just feel no need to be snooty about it.

Hold That Tiger?

Sad. That's the word that comes to mind as I read wise old Benjamin Franklin's response to an acquaintance's manuscript, which evidently attacked the notion of the type of deity that humans should fear displeasing (his entire reply can be read here). He suggests that work should be consigned to the flames, and here is his reasoning:

You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous Life without the Assistance afforded by Religion; you having a clear Perception of the Advantages of Virtue and the Disadvantages of Vice, and possessing a Strength of Resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common Temptations. But think how great a Proportion of Mankind consists of weak and ignorant Men and Women, and of inexperienc'd and inconsiderate Youth of both Sexes, who have need of the Motives of Religion to restrain them from Vice, to support their Virtue, and retain them in the Practice of it till it becomes habitual...I would advise you therefore not to attempt unchaining the Tyger, but to burn this Piece before it is seen by any other Person, whereby you will save yourself a great deal of Mortification from the Enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a good deal of Regret and Repentance. If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it?

Well, I certainly understand where Franklin is coming from. I was reared with the moral foundation of having a Heavenly Father who spied on me and had his recording angel take down my every misdeed. He loved me, but would not hesitate to punish me for my wrong doing. Those who spend a lifetime disobeying his commands would be punished forever in Hell.

Lots of believers in God have proudly confessed to me that it is only that belief that there is a punishing and rewarding God that keeps them on the straight and narrow.

This is the conception of God and religion that bugs me most. This idea that we are but slaves to the deity, put here solely for the purpose of pleasuring him by the acceptance of, even glorying in, the chains of our bondage, our willingness to blindly do his bidding.

If we think so much of God and pleasing him, we naturally will think less of our fellow humans and their comfort.

It seems to me that rearing children in an atmosphere of humanism would only encourage moral behavior - true, practical morality that can be experienced now.

Religion as popularly conceived guarantees conflict with others. It instills an attitude of supremacy in the believers over the unbelievers, or believers in other religions. It would keep us in a state of perpetual childhood, always trying to "behave" for our Heavenly parent while avoiding his punishments when we disobey. Do we really need such an incentive to do the right thing?

The more I think about it, the more I feel that tiger should be unleashed with a whack on the butt to urge it forward.

Or are we really so hopeless, as Franklin suggests?

Church Sign Mystery Message

I was out on Saturday morning running an errand for my mom when I snapped this picture of a church sign along the way.

That's something I always find interesting, those little tidbits of "wisdom" that preachers, deacons, and other church officials decide the public needs to know about.

The sign implores that we remember that "God does not have a Plan B."

Okay. But what exactly does it mean?

Does it mean God is so bumbling and shortsighted that he doesn't plan for contingencies?

The Bible tells us that in the days of Noah, God "repented" that he had made man and so decided to destroy everyone but Noah and his immediate family. To me that sounds like a Plan B.

But at the same time, the Bible also tells that God knows all his works from the beginning (Acts 15:18). Hard to square with incidences like the above, but indicative of why He doesn't have, nor even need, a Plan B.

Actually, the holiness Church I was raised in, quite Arminian in its theology, taught that God has a "perfect will" and a "permissive will." It was all a bit confusing, but more in line with the Old Testament God and his tendency to be emotional - as displayed by bursts of anger and fits of jealousy. That was the God that Lot and Moses tried to bargain with, that Jonah argued with, that Job attempted to debate the problem of pain with.

When I got older and gravitated towards the Baptist churches, I found out more about Calvin's God, with their emphasis on the Apostle Paul's writings. At the same time, I moved mostly in "freewill Baptist" circles, who felt that what they called "hyper-Calvinism" was heresy.

So it really is all very confusing. And as I speak with the rank and file Christians I know, God seems to be understood more in a "freewill" light. God is more or less open and has to work his plan out around man's free will.

Or maybe this church sign means something else entirely.

Maybe it means that God has only one plan of salvation, no other way to get to Heaven, and the implication being that we should crowd into our local church (preferably, I suppose, your local Baptist Church) and get the details. Perhaps the way the Apostle Paul explained it:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved...How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Taken from Romans chapter 10, NIV.)

That is God's Plan A. There is no other way, according to the Bible. As Peter spoke about Jesus in his sermon on the day of Pentecost:

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, NIV).

But what about all those humans who died never having had the benefit of a Christian preacher? Don't ask.

Yes, I like those church signs. They make me think. But mainly they remind me how glad I am to be free of it all and able to think for myself, without reference to God's Plan.

The End Is Near For Harold Camping

Forget for a moment his May 21, 2011 Judgment Day prediction (which, by the way, is this coming Saturday). Almost two months to the day later, on July 19, Christian radio broadcaster and date-setter Harold Camping will turn 90 years old.

He was wrong in his 1994 end of the world prediction and will be wrong again this year. He left a smidgen of wiggle room in his prior prediction, none that I see for this current one. This one is as sure as the Word of God, the Bible, from which he claims to arrive at his calculations - at least that is what he expresses.

What infinitesimal credibility he may have salvaged from his previous debacle will surely be shot after this one. "I miscalculated" may have worked once. The second time will prove him undeniably wrong in his basic ideas.

His calculations, long, rambling, and boring (at least to me), are based on certain suppositions that are far from undeniable. His starting point - that Jesus was crucified on April 1, 33 AD - is hardly carved in stone. But on top of that, his Biblical numerology - that the number 5 means atonement, 10 represents completeness, 17 stands for heaven - is built on sheer guesswork. In all this he seems no more enlightened than the pyramidologists who measure the Great Pyramid and attempt to chart the history of the world from their calculations.

At nearly 90 years of age there surely isn't enough time left for him to change what ought to be his epitaph: I was a nut.

Growing up in a fundamentalist Church, I was "treated" to frequent discourses on the "signs of the times," which are and have been down through history a staple of these types of churches. The end was always near, Jesus was ever "at the door,"

We used to sing a song that began with a thought lifted from Jesus, "Why worry about tomorrow?" The chorus was

for the next hand you shake might be the hand of the savior,
the next step you take could be on streets of purest gold,
your next meal could be the marriage supper,
and the next touch you feel, he could be blessing your soul

How I hated that song! How I hated those sermons. How I hated the entire notion that I had the misfortune of being born in the "last days."

I would never grow up. I would never have the chance to build and enjoy a life here on earth - which I did then and still do find unbelievably beautiful. Why did it have to end?, I wondered.

Now I am in my fifties and getting a bit jaded by it all, especially by those who have so little regard for this life that they spend their time encouraging others to look beyond it.

Statistically speaking the world should end for Camping before it does me - but no man knows the day nor the hour! The world will end for all of us eventually, when we breath our last of it. But May 21, 2011 holds no particular threat for the majority of us. But for Camping it is the beginning of another round of embarrassment for his faulty biblical interpretation.

His end is near, so maybe it won't be that big of a deal. This is his last hurrah and there won't be time to recover and launch another. Still, it will be interesting to see how he deals with this latest failure.

As for me, I quit worrying about this stuff years and years ago. "Live for today" is my motto.

God Takes Mike Huckabee Out Of Presidential Race For 2012

The GOP (formerly the Grand Old Party, now God's Own Party) now has one less would-be theocrat in the presidential race for 2012. And God gets the praise, at least according to this Financial Times report on Mike Huckabee's public announcement via his TV show about his decision not to run:

“The decision is not a financial or economic one, it’s a spiritual one,” he said. “I had inexplicable inner peace. All the factors said ‘go’, and my heart says ‘no’,” he added. He initiated a “prayer chain” to help him decide whether or not to run for the presidency last week.

A prayer chain to decide whether or not one should run for president ... good grief!

This type of God talk and public piety is mainstream among Republican leaders of today. And not just the vapid Ceremonial Deism of times past, but instead this idea that God is working through them personally.

A person who thinks God is telling them to run for president, in my opinion, is too likely once elected to think God is telling them to do other things - like invade sovereign nations by waging "righteous" wars or get the government out of all aspects of our lives except for the mandating of God's laws.

On the matter of governing our nation, I'm more than willing to gamble on purely human judgment.

Pistol Packin' Savior

Okay, it seems everybody has a mental image of what Jesus of Nazareth was really like. Mine - as I've written about many times of my blog - is that of a Jewish apocalyptic preacher. A fair reading of the synoptic gospels - the closest thing we have to "official" biographies of him - give the picture of a man not so much concerned about the minutiae of the daily grind, things like holding down a job, caring for a family, planning for the future, working towards better, more efficient government, etc. And there was a logical reason for that: he expected the world to end in the first century, at which time God would establish his kingdom on earth.

If you listened only to modern politicians - of both major parties, I would add - you would think that Jesus was a believer in democracy, a champion of the common man, and a campaigner for "the rights of man." And if you listen to the modern conservatives, you would think he was conservative in politics.

I especially got a kick out of this letter-to-the editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel, under the title Jesus would use a firearm if need be. It was written in response to an earlier essay by J. David Buckwalter, Would Jesus Reject Firearms?

While I recommend you follow those links and read both items, for those short on time to do that I'll include the bottom lines. First, Buckwalter's:

Whether divine or human, Jesus would certainly counsel us to reject guns, embrace nonviolence and turn the other cheek. Thus, can a citizen's decision to carry guns be compatible with any sincere belief in Jesus?

Yes indeed, if there is to be a second coming, then we must choose to become it.

And then here is the gist of Mr. Teal's response:

In his April 23 Citizen’s Voice, J. David Buckwalter makes a claim that Jesus would certainly counsel us to reject firearms, but would He really? A firearm can be used to assault or defend. It is not evil, even if the person wielding it is. I believe Jesus would counsel against violence, but as a human being living in a world full of evil men, he understood the need for self-defense. When Jesus was arrested in the garden, Peter drew his sword and cut off a man’s ear. Jesus admonished him and put an end to the violence, but it is clear that at least one of his disciples went armed. Jesus was not against weapons; he was against violence. Sometimes in order for violence to be overcome, the use of a weapon is required.

Go back and read those last two sentences again. Is that not enough to make you want to lean back in your chair and roar with laughter, and then maybe take a big swill of your drink in order to soothe your laugh-roughened throat? That's what I did.

Of course what Mr. Teal didn't mention are the words of Jesus that were spoken to Peter when he admonished him for using his sword: "Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword" (Matt. 26:52).

The biggest ha-ha to me in this whole thing is the idea that Jesus can be plucked from his place and time and inserted into modern political debates.

Does the world really need a pistol packin' savior?

I don't think so.

So You Think Jesus Is The Better Deal?

The orthodox Christian view is that God is manifested in three distinct persons, the Father, the Son (Jesus), and The Holy Ghost (or Spirit). This is formally known as the doctrine of the Trinity: that God is truly one divine being, but three in number of persons making up that unity each owning the title of God. I won't try to explain that because it can't be done. I shouldn't feel bad because the best theologians have trouble explaining it and usually just admit at the onset that it is a divine mystery. (Can even omnipotence make 1+1+1 = 1 a truthful mathematical statement?) Yet orthodox Christians still insist they are monotheists (believers in one God)!

But a bigger embarrassment for them is the way their Trinitarianism plays against the popular theology that Jesus is the "human face of God." The popular idea is that Jesus and love are virtual synonyms. That Jesus represents a kindlier picture of God. I don't get that from reading the New Testament, especially the accounts of Jesus' ministry. I've devoted several posts to exploding that misconception - which should be obvious to everyone familiar with the "blood and guts" God of the Old Testament and Trinitarian idea that Jesus is God. And as the above cartoon, which quotes the Bible, makes clear: Jesus and his Father ARE one.

(Note: Looking beyond the orthodox position, not all Christians now or in antiquity were Trinitarians, failing to recognize the inconsistencies.)

Make No Mistake: I Am Not A God-Basher

Well, shut my mouth and call me a fool!

Another Bible Belt theologian lets loose on us ornery unbelievers in this letter-to-the editor:

It never fails that we see the God bashers come forward after any tragedy, as was the case with the letter "Why wouldn't he prevent tragedy?" (Your Views) in Saturday's paper. It happens after severe storms, personal tragedies, school shootings, etc.

The question is always raised by the very people looking to remove God from every area of life. They want it both ways -- leave us, God, but protect us from tragedy. How foolish is this?

With the fall of creation came trials and persecution along with it. This is the greatest tragedy of all. Followers of Christ know this life comes with persecution, trials, adversity and even death. From this, no one is exempt. However, we have the promises of God's protection. We also know that our promise is not in this life, but eternal life -- the only one that truly matters.

I wonder if this pastor considers Job one of us infamous "God-bashers"? I'm sure just about everyone who thinks about the matter - believer or doubter - has to wonder why this alleged God doesn't do more to prevent evil.

At least Job had the benefit of a personal non-answer. All we get are these mindless pronouncements from bullsh*t merchants.

God could put the whole matter to rest by putting in a personal appearance in his own behalf and just telling us how things really are. What's hard about that?

Personally, I resent the suggestion that I'm being inconsistent or that I want God out of all areas of life. I've looked and looked for God. Have spent a lifetime doing it. All I find are excuses for his absenteeism from his followers, and, really, it gets tiresome after a while. They tell us we have to have faith. All we ask is "why?"

This pastor tells us "our promise is not in this life, but in eternal life...." How convenient. We are expected to extend credit to God in this life by selling our souls to him in return for the hope of reward in the next life.

What's wrong with that picture?

Is this pastor not sharp enough to see that "the fall of creation" explains absolutely nothing? It exposes his whole enterprise for the sham it is. Yes, this is the tired old free will defense. God created and pronounced his creation good and then we humans came along and screwed everything up by exercising our free will.

So why would the new creation be any different? Will not free will ruin things again? The Bible tells God had a rebellion in Heaven when one of his archangels revolted and took others along with him. Free will was the reason. Then, not having learned his lesson, God tried again with man. And again free will loused it all up.

Now here is the truth of the matter. It isn't God that I and other doubters are bashing. No, our target are folks like this pastor - who have a vested financial interest in defending their concept of God. They know that. They know they are our real targets. And they are counting on keeping the fearful and ignorant in line with their vain threats and empty promises.

I guess they think it beats working for a living.

Nautural Or Supernatural?

When all is said and done and both sides considered, I wonder why so many find supernatural reasoning superior to naturalistic reasoning.

My local newspaper regularly features this phenomenon on their letters page. Here are two examples from this week.

Ever wonder how the concept of an all-powerful and loving God can be consistent with this vale of suffering?

One letter writer offered this (go here and read Trouble sometimes turns people to God):

Re: “Why would a good God allow trouble, pain, grief and loss in our lives?” (“Faith and Fury,” May 2).

Trouble often turns us to God, both in prayer and to His Word. Many people have discovered that to know Jesus in a personal way has transformed their lives.

It's fair to say that this has the opposite effect on many of us.

Then there is that recent symbol of evil, the recently deleted Osama bin Laden. How does he fit in with God's plan? According to another letter writer, that's also easy to explain from a supernatural vantage point (go here and read Pray that God enlightens enemies):

It is good that the evil instigated by this terrorist leader is ended. But God did not create “evil humans.” What caused an Arabian infant to become a hated killer? He was born no more evil than you or me. I believe that the Evil One used him, and he failed to resist. Perhaps he believed that what he did was necessary! Recall that one of Christianity’s greatest leaders, Paul, was once Saul of Tarsus, who terrorized the early Church.

Could it be Satan?!

Doesn't it just seem likely that if the cosmos were truly part of some supernatural outworking of intelligence it would be more tidy and sensible? Just asking.

I can only say that Sagan made sense when he observed, "These are some of the things that hydrogen atoms do given fifteen billion years of cosmic evolution." Or as it has been popularly paraphrased: Sh*t happens!

A Used Bookstore Find I'm Just Now Getting Around To

Sometime back, not even sure how far back, I picked up a copy of a book edited by Mahatma Gandhi's grandson, the peace activist Dr. Arun Gandhi. He has visited our area on several occasions and I suspect during those visits he pushed his book World Without Violence (subtitled: Can Gandhi's Vision Become Reality?). A copy in mint condition showed up in a used bookstore I frequent and I picked it up for a couple of reasons. One, I'm a peacenik at heart, increasingly so the older I get. The longer I've lived, the more suffering, pain and death I've witnessed, the closer I get to the end of my journey and with the realization of the briefness of life, the more seriously I take the concept of nonviolence.

The second thing that made this book interesting to me is the fact that it was personally signed by Arun Gandhi. It is personalized to "Paul and Linda and David & Mike" - I suspect parents and their children - and contains the following thought:

The vision can become a reality if we all work to make it happen.


Yes, it can, but it won't because it just isn't in human nature to overcome on a consistent basis our animal instincts. We can't even agree that eliminating violence is a worthy goal.

I've read several of the essays and keep this book on my bedside table for before-I-turn-off-the-light reading.

It seems to me from my preliminary perusal to be simplistic at times and preachy at others. Dreamers can always be criticized by us realists. But it seems our individual uniqueness is our ultimate undoing.

I could be happy if the majority of us would embrace the idea of nonviolence.

I've Been Invited To Leave This Country And Move To The Middle East

And so has everyone else who was troubled by those rejoicing in bin Laden's death, according to this letter-to-the-editor found in one of my local papers and which can be read on this page by scrolling down to Bin Laden's death cause for celebration.

There we are told:

That man was pure 100 percent evil. He could not be bargained with. He could not be reasoned with. He felt no remorse or guilt for anything he did (including killing innocent women and children), and he would have never stopped, ever, until every American was dead.

If you do not like the way Americans are celebrating the death of that monster, why don’t you go live in the Middle East?

My thought is that this letter writer might be more at home there with his eye-for-an-eye ethic and mentality.

Actually, his description of Osama (minus the wanting to kill every American, which was never stated as his objective - although I doubt Mr. Walter is well enough informed to realize that) sounds more like the God of the Abrahamic faith, from which springs the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

That's the sad thing. The followers of this God often end up behaving very much like him.

In fact, according to the text of Osama bin Laden's "Letter to America," his was a religiously motivated battle against us. He did not seek the death of every American, but the withdrawal of America from Muslim lands and concerns. He called on Americans to join "in the religion of Unification of God."

Of course we have declined that invitation and will continue to decline it, because, after all, we have our own ideas about the subject.

It's too easy simply to call someone pure evil. Even Hitler liked dogs. And even Hitler claimed that his bloody "struggle" was "in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator" (Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, chapter 2).

For me to rejoice in the killing of Osama would be to buy into the idea that our nation is pure goodness and above the evil of these religious frays. Our unwavering support for the nation of Israel, despite any atrocities they commit, is proof of our own national hypocrisy. And this is one of the reasons that many of the Muslim nations have problems with us. Our nation's own religious leaders would tell us that supporting Israel is the godly, biblical thing to do:

Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:

And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. (God speaking to Abraham in Genesis chapter 12.)

The potential for real evil exists among those who think they are acting in accordance with God's will and thus are above the puny logic of mere humans. I needn't relocate to the Middle East in order to be a part of that scene. It's right here as well. It's just about everywhere.

Message From God?

Often I get accused of misrepresenting God or at least misrepresenting the Christian view of Him. Here is a little column - actually more like a rant - I found in the Nashville newspaper The Tennessean. And it is written by a Christian, for Christians:

Christians, what have we become?

Every day brings another storm — another flood — another earthquake — another tsunami — another disaster — another war — more disease — more drought — more depravity — more beatings — more deaths –more thievery — more injustice — more perversion — more lies and deceit — ever increasing in frequency and severity.

What will it take for us to once again fear God, believe and repent in humility and faith?

The world is spinning out of control and starving for answers to the issues of life while go-along-to-get-along Christians in all their biblical ignorance and apathy exchange flattery and praise for one another with hearts and mouths full of silly songs, sayings and slogans from serpentine salesmen that haven’t the power to save anyone.

Well, I certainly wish you guys and gals would get it together so the rest of us can live in safety and security!

But seriously....

The writer, Paul Proctor, goes on to ask "what is our just and holy God saying to us right now?"

May I suggest an answer?

Nothing. Maybe nothing at all.

Maybe we humans should all lock arms and work together in order to meet the challenges of nature and life, and not waste time and effort seeking assistance and guidance from the beyond the skies.

Just a thought.

Freedom Of Religion Bible Belt-Style

A local pastor has written to the editorial page of the Chattanooga Times Free Press to make known his concerns about the construction of an area Islamic Center. Well, first, he was perturbed because this was front page news, especially since the recent tornado devastation and stories of "heroes giving of the themselves" are still plentiful.

You would think the religious-minded would appreciate religion getting on the front page of a newspaper anywhere in this atheistic, secular humanist nation of ours, right?

Ah, and there is his greater point:

The second would be in regard to the acceptance of the Islamic Center in general. Does our nation support freedom of religion? Yes. However, should those who are followers of Christ roll out a red carpet for the proclamation of falsehood? Absolutely not!

Get it? Only the religion of TRUTH should be supported. And according to this narrow - and I must add, biblical - understanding of Christianity, which points to Jesus as "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) and the only "name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" (Acts 4:12), no other religious ideas are welcome.

As the good pastor sums it up:

Having this center being built in our backyards should stir our hearts for heralding the gospel of Jesus Christ, for He alone brings salvation.

So fellow citizens, the truth shall make you "free."

Assorted Nuts. Or: My World, And Welcome To It!

One of my local television stations has an early morning news program that I always listen to as I'm preparing to go to work. They have a Facebook page where locals can sound off about the issues of the day. I've listened to the moral superiority of the locals concerning the demise of Osama bin Laden for the past couple of days and thought I would post some of their non-thoughts from that site here.

The following are comments from various viewers to the question: Do you have more confidence in President Obama after the death of Bin Laden? Their comments are in bold. My observations are in italics.

Unless he was the one who personally organized, planned, led the strike, and pulled the trigger on the lethal round(which like many others I question the validity of the death)... Then no, he gets no bonus to my opinion of him.

Then by parity of reasoning, unless Osama bin Laden actually led the terrorist strikes and pulled the trigger (or flew the planes, etc.) he gets no blame for al-Qaeda acts?

Still no proof about osama and economy is getting worse so NO!!!

I'm making an assumption that might be wrong in this case, but applies to a great many of these right wing conspiracy theorists: unless they can touch, see, or taste, they'll not believe - unless they are talking about religion. As for the economy, the recovery is weak indeed, but hardly invisible to anyone who is following the news.

He is the same idiotic, incompetent thug he was last week or two years ago.

Speaking of idiotic....


I have no confidence in him and never will..But I do know some one who is in control and that is God and I have all confidence in him!!

Hey, wait. Doesn't the Bible tell us:

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God"?

Yes, yes. There it is in Romans 13:1. So didn't God ordain Obama's presidency? Just asking.

And channel 3: you are adding fuel to the fire by bringing up the question.

I wonder what fire this person is talking about?

Obama did not kill Osama! A U.S. Navy Seal did! Obama just happen to Be in office when he was killed! Obama should not get credit for this!

But of course he SHOULD get the blame for the economic decline that started much before he took office, right?

NO! Our country was going to hell in a hand basket when he made office. All he has done is sped up the speed of us getting there!

I would only add that for the majority of the past three decades our presidents have been conservative Republicans. The previous eight years prior to Obama we were led by Republican President George W. Bush. Any connection?

No! He would have coddled him instead of kill him so NO!

"Attempting to debate with a person who has abandoned reason is like giving medicine to the dead." — Thomas Paine.

Well, those were just a few of my favorites. There were also some viewers who expressed confidence in Obama's handling of a difficult job. But most of the folks around here are down on our president.

The easiest thing in the world to do is criticize. The locating and killing (I would have preferred his being captured alive) of Osama had no bearing on my opinion of President Obama. I have disagreed with him on matters from time to time, and would disagree with anyone in the job. But I think the man has done extremely well considering the circumstances he finds himself in. This is a very divided nation. And the loudest segment seems to be the most embarrassing representation of us. There is nothing the president could do to win their approval. But is it too much to ask that these folks at least do a little thinking before they open their loud mouths?

And with that, I think I'm done with politics for a while.

Is Terrorism A Matter Of Perspective?

I don't know. The older I get the more I tend to think of myself as a citizen of the Cosmos rather than just a proud American. The older I get, the more I've seen, the less stomach I have for violence of any kind or the general concept that evil can be fought and conquered with more evil. I have gotten to a point where I am more eager than ever to hear both sides of a story, look at opposing ends of a debate, longing more than ever for universal peace and cooperation.

I have to come to believe that we humans are all part of the same family. Violence against one segment of the family is violence towards all of us. Cruelty cannot conquer cruelty. No amount of patriotism or national pride should allow us to overlook that.

I am reproducing below an editorial that was originally run on August 10, 1945, in the Nippon Times, just after we bombed Hiroshima. This was taken from Jim R. McClellan's book Changing Interpretations of America's Past, pages 322,323. It moved me tremendously when I first read it and still does. I think it will move my readers as well.

In the air attack on Hiroshima Monday morning, the enemy used a new type of bomb of unprecedented power. Not only has the greater part of the city been wiped out, but an extraordinary proportion of the inhabitants have been either killed or wounded. The use of a weapon of such terrifying destructiveness not only commands attention as a matter of a new technique in the conduct of war. More fundamentally and vitally it opens up a most grave and profound moral problem in which the very future of humanity is put at stake....

This was no mere excess committed in the heat of battle. It was an act of premeditated wholesale murder, the deliberate snuffing out of the lives of tens of thousands of innocent civilians who had no chance of protecting themselves in the slightest degree. How deliberate and callous the enemy is in his unprincipled action is proved by the infamous threat of President Truman to use this diabolical weapon on an increasing scale....

How can a human being with any claim to a sense of moral responsibility deliberately let loose an instrument of destruction which can at one stroke annihilate an appalling segment of mankind? This is not war; this is not even murder....This is a crime against God and humanity which strikes at the very basis of human existence....

The crime of the Americans stands out in ghastly repulsiveness all the more for the ironic contradiction it affords to their lying pretensions. For in all their noisy statements, they have always claimed to be the champions of fairness and humanitarianism....

This hypocritical character of the Americans had already been amply demonstrated in the previous bombings of Japanese cities. Strewing explosives and fire bombs indiscriminately over an extensive area, hitting large cities and small towns without distinction, wiping out vast districts which could not be mistaken as being anything but strictly residential in character, burning or blasting to death countless thousands of helpless women and children, and machine-gunning fleeing refugees, the American raiders had already shown how completely they violate in their actual deeds the principles of humanity which they mouth in conspicuous pretense.

But now beside the latest technique of total destruction which the Americans have adopted, their earlier crimes pale into relative insignificance. What more barbarous atrocity can there be than to wipe out at one stroke the population of a whole city without distinction - men, women, and children; the aged, the weak, the infirm; those in positions of authority, and those with no power at all....

For this American outrage against the fundamental moral sense of mankind, Japan must proclaim to the world its protest against the United States, which has made itself the arch-enemy of humanity.

Return Of The Groper Poll: What If Death Is Extinction?

Most people seem to hold some type of belief in life beyond this present one, whether through immortality of the soul, resurrection, or reincarnation.

But what if most of us were convinced that this life is it? One shot at it, no future beyond this.

Looking at things from a strictly naturalistic viewpoint, death seems to be just a part of the overall system.

Only supernaturalism suggests after-death personal survival.

But what difference might it make if everyone accepted the naturalistic view?

Would martyrdom fall out of fashion? Would it cause citizens to weigh the costs of war on an entirely different scale? Would it make us less willing to engage in fueds, petty squabbles, and disputes of all kinds. Would it make us all "seize the day" with fervency?

It is my considered opinion that this life is all there is. I can say it has a big impact on how I view things. It makes me more thoughtful and deliberate in the way I live. It brings new meaning to me for each day I awake. It makes my focus one of stopping to smell the roses constantly along the way.

My question to my readers: What difference would it make to you if you were to become (or if you already are) convinced this life is all there is?


The above is a picture a friend e-mailed me of the tornado that destroyed the city of Ringgold, Georgia, just down the road from me. It is the storm whose edge shook my home with it strong winds, downing many trees and damaging many homes in my neighborhood and just recently giving me pause to consider anew the fragility of life.

Bin Laden Has Been Killed. Now What?

I awoke to the news that our old enemy Osama bin Laden has been killed. Mission accomplished, I suppose some will think.

And now he becomes a martyr to the cause.

Might it have been better had we captured him and put him on trial for his deeds?

They kill, we kill in return, they kill in re-return. The killing continues. The vicious cycle speeds up. This brings nothing to an end, closes no chapter of any book. The war against terror hasn't been won, nor can it be.

Shortly after 9/11 one of my coworkers suggested that Bin Laden should be captured and turned loose in New York City and all the citizens given baseball bats. Justice American style.

More people wanted him dead than captured. Statement now made. Our lust for blood momentarily quenched.

Another ugly aspect of human nature: There is political hay to be made from this ... and it will be. And this will create even more division.

Now let me hasten to add that I'm not grieving over bin Laden's death. But neither am I among those celebrating. I don't celebrate the fact that humans make enemies, kill their enemies, thereby make more enemies, then kill them, ad infinitum.

So bin Laden has been killed and "justice is done," our president tells us.

So now all the killing and warring will end, right?

Most Americans almost seem to think that 9/11 just happened out of the blue. That it was a growth that had no seed or root.

But it did.

Human nature is vile. We not only have an inability to peacefully coexist with each another, we have the ingenuity to organize and not get along on a grand scale.

I've noticed throughout history that fighting fire with fire only brings more flames.

So I don't grieve bin Laden's exit, but neither do I celebrate it.