Religion is out of date

So here’s ole YHWH, the Alzheimer god, forgetting what he said from one book to another.

The earth lasts forever:
-Psalm 78:69, “He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth that he established forever.”
-Ecclesiastes 1:4, “One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but the earth abides forever.”
The earth lasts forever, not:
-II Peter 3:10, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
-Revelation 21:1, “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.”

And here he is forgetting what he said from one chapter to another.
Jeremiah 3:12, “For I am merciful, saith the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever.”
Jeremiah 17:4, “Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn forever.” How can his anger be forever if his anger isn’t forever?

And showing that the apple does not fall far from the tree, YHWH’s boy, JC, seems to be similarly absent-minded.
Hide it under a bushel? No!
Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
Hide it under a bushel? Yes!
Matthew 6:1, “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.”

And he seems to be confused about his job description too.
John 9:39, Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world,”
John 12:47, “For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it.”

And ya gotta wonder if the YHWH/JC family didn’t have some ‘issues’.
Love yer bro
1 John 4:20, If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates (μιση) his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”
Love yer bro, not
Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate (μισει) his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.

And finally, here’s a question that ought to bug anyone who still thinks YHWH is such a great guy.
Around the time Jesus was born, Herod ordered the murder of innocent children (Matthew 2:16)
In the time of Moses, God killed the firstborn of every household in Egypt(Exodus 11:4-5).
How is God morally different from King Herod?

There are enough contradictions, examples of monstrous behavior by god and followers, and the like to fill a book. In fact they do fill a book; the bible. This series has just highlighted a small sampling. I’m going to leave off this series here. Hope y’all found it useful, fun, instructive, etc.

- LeoPardus

“If there be any mistake in the Bible, there may well be a thousand. If there be one falsehood in that book, it did not come from the God of truth.”  —  John Wesley   (July 24, 1776)

Just one John? I think I found a few… hundred.

Now do y’all remember from Sunday school what Judas did with his thirty pieces of silver? If you’re not sure, that’s OK, ’cause neither is the Holy Spirit who inspired the authors of Holy Writ. Judas may have
Thrown the reward money into the temple.
Matthew 27:5 – ”After he threw the money into the temple he went away and hanged himself.”
OR
Bought a field with the money.
Acts 1:18 – ”With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong.”

Oh. That’s a contradiction, not a falsehood? Ah. Well then how about this.

Do badgers chew cud? The Bible says, “Yeah.” … twice
Leviticus 11:6 — “The coney [hyrax or rock badger], though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you. The rabbit, though it chews the cud, does not have a split hoof; it is unclean for you.”
Deuteronomy 14:6-7 – “You may eat any animal that has a split hoof divided in two and that chews the cud. However, of those that chew the cud or that have a split hoof completely divided you may not eat the camel, the rabbit or the coney [hyrax or rock badger]. Although they chew the cud, they do not have a split hoof; they are ceremonially unclean for you.”)

Would it be different if Jesus made the mistake or contradiction?  OK. How about these two from the same Bible book?
John 8:14 — “Jesus answered and said unto them, though I bear record [marturia] of myself, yet my record [marturia] IS TRUE.”
John 5:31 – ”If I bear witness [marturia] of myself, my witness [marturia] IS NOT TRUE.”
(Marturia means “bear witness” or “testify”, and it’s the same word used in both verses above.)

Want another ‘in the same book’ contradiction by the late JC?
Matthew 5:16 – “let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”
Matthew 6:1 – “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heave.”

And now for the big contest; see if you can guess:

Is it God, or is it Satan, or is it BibleGodDevil?
(or maybe it’s ManBearPig.)
II Samuel 24:1 says that the Lord incited David to take a census of Israel.
I Chronicles 21:1 says that Satan incited David to take a census of Israel.
Which do you think it was?

In I Samuel 16:14, we read that “an evil spirit from the Lord” troubled King Saul.
Wow. God sends evil spirits. Would anyone really want to worship a God who sends evil spirits to trouble people? Would you like it if he sent one of his evil spirits to trouble you?

Do you believe that God creates evil, as the Bible states?
Isaiah 45:7 — “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” If you believe this, why do you worship Him?

Sounds like “God” has a massive, cosmic case of the worst bipolar disorder ever.

- LeoPardus

Folks tend to think of the Bible as the go-to source for family values. Seems the Bible is a bit confounding on this topic though.

The Bible says Lot was a righteous man.
II Peter 2:7, “he [God] rescued Lot, a righteous man,”
But
The Bible also says that Lot got drunk, had sex with his own daughters, and got them both pregnant.
Genesis 19:33-36, “That night they got their father to drink wine, and the older daughter went in and lay with him. He was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. The next day the older daughter said to the younger, “Last night I lay with my father. Let’s get him to drink wine again tonight, and you go in and lie with him so we can preserve our family line through our father.” So they got their father to drink wine that night also, and the younger daughter went and lay with him. Again he was not aware of it when she lay down or when she got up. So both of Lot’s daughters became pregnant by their father.”

Now some friends of mine from the South of the U.S. like to make jokes along these lines, but honestly, if any man did this with his daughters, would anyone call him a righteous man?

Enough incest. How about looking instead at attainder?

Exodus 20:5 says that God will punish a child for his father’s sin, “for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,”.
But
Ezekiel 18:20 says he won’t, “The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son.”

Lot’s sons would probably have hope that latter passage was right.  Oh wait, Lot was righteous… or was he?  I’m confused.

And now just to add to the confusion; the Bible tells us:

Gloat:
Psalm 58:10 — “The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.”
Gloat not:
Proverbs 24:17 — “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice,“

The law can convert us:
Psalm 19:7 — “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul”
The law can convert us not:
Romans 8:3 — “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son”

- LeoPardus

There seems to be some confusion among the divinely inspired authors of the Bible. Maybe God can’t remember exactly who he met face to face, and who he didn’t, and who he killed.  I know I have trouble keeping those things sorted out sometimes.

Has anyone seen God face to face?
Yes.
Genesis 32:30 — “Jacob said, ‘I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.’”
Exodus 33:11 –”The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.”
No
Exodus 33:20 – “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”
John 1:18 — “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”
I John 4:12 — “No man hath seen God at any time.”

Another element of divine confusion seems to be the classic “I love them all”, “I love them all not” dilemma. Perhaps one can imagine the deity plucking petals off one of heaven’s daisies.
I want them all saved
1 Timothy 2:3-4 — “God our Saviour; who will have all men to be saved.”
2 Peter 3:9 — “The Lord is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
I want them damned
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 — “God shall send them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned.

That last one leads us to wonder:
Does God lie?
Of course not
Numbers 23:19 — “God is not a man, that he should lie.”
1 Samuel 15:29 — “He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man.”
Titus 1:2 — “The hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time.”
Hebrews 6:18 — “It is impossible for God to lie.”
But on the other hand
Jeremiah 4:10 — “Sovereign LORD, how completely you have deceived this people.”
Jeremiah 20:7 — “O LORD, you deceived me, and I was deceived.”
2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 –”God shall send them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned.”

Man that last one is nasty. First he creates them; then he sets up standards; then he MAKES THEM fail those standards; then he condemns them to eternal torment.  If that isn’t the ultimate ‘kid frying ants with a magnifying glass’….

- LeoPardus

Mathematical contradictions. Gotta love ‘em.  You’d think the almighty creator of all (including math presumably) could get his earthly scribes to do simple math correctly.

Not that such things as flat-out, numerical errors will ever stop a true believer from staying the course.

Gen 11:26 – Terah was 70 years old when his son Abram was born.
Gen 11:32 – Terah was 205 years old when he died (making Abram 135 at the time).
Gen 12:4  – Abram was 75 when he left Haran.
Acts 7:4 –This was after Terah died.
Thus, Terah could have been no more than 145 when he died.

2 Kings 24:8 — Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months.
2 Chronicles 36:9 — Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem.

I like this next one. Two, consecutive verses.
Gen 8:4 — And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
Gen 8:5 — And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.

Actually these are all more time errors than math errors. Maybe BibleGod has trouble with that since he “lives outside of time”. (We’ll not bother with the silliness of that concept for now.)

Oh, but here’s a math error for y’all.
1 Kings 7:23 –Then [Solomon] made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to brim. A [rope] of thirty cubits would encircle it completely. 
Hmmm…. Pi = 3 …. That would have made a lot of calculations easier in school.

“There are no contradictions in the Bible.”  How many times have we heard that? Or, for many of us, how many times have we said that? Of course it’s silly. The Bible is chock full of ludicrous and obvious contradictions. So herein commences a series to showcase many of them.  

Y’all ready for all the christians to come screaming in here and give us the “right” interpretation that allows one to turn a blatant contradiction into wonderful, infallible Godspeak? It reminds me of the old saying, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” 

When did Jesus actually ascend into heaven?
Luke Chap. 24 — the day of resurrection
John Chap. 20 — about 8 days after resurrection
Acts Chap. 1 – at least 40 days after resurrection

And now for something completely different, but still a contradiction, here’s a little OT to go with the NT contradiction.

Do you need balls to go to church?
Deut 23:1 – A castrate may not enter the assembly of the Lord.
Isaiah  56:4-5 – Some castrates will receive special rewards.
Matt 19:12 – Men are encouraged to consider making themselves castrates for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

I’ve got so many of these that I think I could dole out 2-3 at a time and get a couple dozen articles still. And my collection is not even close to exhaustive.

Thanks to Russell’s Teapot for all the grins.

As a scientist, I liked this one a lot.

- Save any of his followers from sickness, disaster, disease, or loss of goods or liberty. And this is despite the screaming, fervent, desperate prayers and pleas of his “beloved children”. (What a great father!)

- Heal autoimmune disorders, cancers, genetic defects, paralyzed limbs, lost limbs, dementia, insanity, or even acne. (What a great physician!)

- Show up and convince, scare, bewilder, or just talk to any person, skeptic or seeker, in order to provide them with something to believe in other than wishful thinking. (What a great communicator!)

- Write a treatise that provides clear guidance as to what he is like and what he expects of humanity. (What a great author!)

- Provide his followers with some sensible, logical, convincing, sound, intelligent, ‘non-internally-contradictory information that they can pass on to other humans. (What a great inspirer!)

- Manage to inspire his followers with enough sense, love, information, grace, diplomacy, brotherly love, or humility to keep his church from fragmenting into thousands of squabbling sects. (What a great administrator!)

- Give his church enough unity, sense, inspiration, drive, integrity, or guts to ‘accomplish such good works as to shame people of their slander’, or to ‘withstand the gates of hell’, or to ‘overcome the world’, or to ‘keep the unity of faith’, or to do anything else that he said the church should do. (What a great founder and guide!)

- Do anything. (What a great, all-powerful deity!)

- LeoPardus

I’m putting this old post back up because of some particular individuals who just WILL NOT learn. George, Mel, and Roy: Any article I put up, I will actively monitor you. If you can’t behave, I will delete your crap. I encourage others to do likewise in articles they put up.  These three want to behave like children, let us treat them like children.

The purpose of the de-Conversion site is to be a resource to skeptical, de-converting or former Christians. We are developing a community where we can discuss the struggles, reasons, memoirs, concerns, etc. of those are going through, or have gone through the process of leaving, losing, doubting the faith.

However, while we enjoy discussion and even arguments, recent discussions on the blog are getting entirely out of hand. It’s cluttering up discussions with dross, and it’s pointless. This refers to all the time wasted arguing with individuals whole sole intent is to distract from our purpose on hand and are only asking questions to be contentious. We can have productive conversations with individuals genuinely seeking answers. However, there is a group of individuals who fit into the category of trolls currently on this site.

Here is some basic info on trolls. It shows why they must not be fed.

A troll will post messages, often in response to honest questions, that are intended to upset, disrupt or simply insult the group.

Why do trolls do it?

Most trolls are sad people, living their lonely lives vicariously through those they see as strong and successful. Disrupting a stable internet group gives the illusion of power, just as for a few, stalking a strong person allows them to think they are strong, too.

For trolls, any response is ‘recognition’; they are unable to distinguish between irritation and admiration; their ego grows directly in proportion to the response, regardless of the form or content of that response.

Trolls, rather surprisingly, dispute this, claiming that it’s a game or joke; this merely confirms the diagnosis; how sad do you have to be to find such mind-numbingly trivial timewasting to be funny?

Trolls rarely answer a direct question – they cannot, if asked to justify their twaddle – so they develop a fine line in missing the point.

Trolls are usually sad, lonely folk, with few social skills; they rarely make what most people would consider intelligent conversation.

Jesus is almost always held up as the great, human example of love. He’s supposed to embody all that the Christian should aspire to (WWJD). When a Christian does something mean, unloving, etc, they often say they messed up and need to be more Christ-like. But since I now can look at the Bible objectively -i.e., without filtering it through a set of presuppositions that demand that it must all be (mis)interpreted so that it “looks good”- I see that being angry, hateful, vengeful, even going on the out and out attack, is really being very Christ-like. It’s just the sort of thing Jesus would do.

In fact, according to the gospels, he seems to have had some problems with anger management.

Let’s look at a few situations to see WWJD.

Fig tree withering:

Matt 21:18-19 “Early in the morning, as he was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.”

OR

Mark 11:12-14, 20-21 “The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. ….. In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”

Whip cracking:

John 2:13-16 “When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!”

Name calling:

Matt 23:15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. Matt 23:33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”

Matt 15:25-26 “The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

Of course Jesus was supposed to be God’s son, so he came by his tantrum-prone nature naturally enough. After all BibleGod is a nasty piece of work by any and all meaningful standards.

Just look at these Godly examples:

Killing babies is OK. God supposedly knew the “Slaughter of the Innocents” was coming for centuries and was quite content to just let it happen. (Jer. 31:15)]

Killing babies is totally OK. God killed David and Bathsheba’s baby directly.

Killing babies, and older kids, and adults is all OK. Think of “Korah’s rebellion” or the “Bronze Snake” incident, or the “angel of death over Jerusalem”.

Killing people for minor lies is OK. Think Ananias and Saphira. And then he lets billions of others off the hook. That’s both vicious and capricious.

Killing kids for just being kids is OK. Remember Elijah calling a curse done on teasing children and some bears came out to kill them.

Killing people for just doing their job is OK. Remember Elijah calling down fire on soldiers.

Torturing people forever for temporal infractions is OK. Remember, God sends people to eternal torment if they don’t happen to believe exactly the right religion (and of course the right subsect of that religion).

Ya know, if you go to “Christian counseling” I don’t think you see this sort of Biblical approach to anger management. I mean come on, isn’t it all about WWJD?

- LeoPardus

Previously in this series:

• WWJD Series – Jesus and Family Values

This is just hilariously fun.

In talking with my wife once about my reasons for de-conversion, I set forth some very simple logic about why BibleGod could not be real. I basically said, “If the God of the Bible or Christianity is real, then there are certain, distinct traits about him that we can be sure of. Those traits have obvious and necessary outcomes. We simply need to look for those necessary outcomes. If we don’t find them, we are forced to conclude that the being we are discussing does not exist.”

Knowing the logic of this was unassailable, she derailed it all by saying, “That’s Enlightenment thinking. It’s all human reason as the ultimate. There are more things in the universe than what human reason can deduce.”

Of course the discussion was over then. Once someone takes logic and brains out of the discussion, there are no guidelines to go by. One can make up any specious claims and back it with tradition, “alternate thinking”, appeals to authority, or voodoo.

Of course I knew this was wrong “thinking”, but I needed a bit of time to think it through. Aside from the obvious problem of divorcing the only thinking organ we have in favor of ……..  whatever, the big problem with the “That’s Enlightenment (or Humanist) thinking” approach is that it’s bogus. It’s not Enlightenment thinking. It’s just thinking.

Straightforward logic isn’t something humanity only came upon after the Middle Ages. It’s been around since we first starting hunting and using tools. It doesn’t take a post-Enlightenment, college-educated, westerner to think that way. A caveman could do it.

To illustrate, let’s permit a caveman to do just that.

Ladies and gentlemen; meet Gog.

He’s a caveman. He and his buddy Og have been going around and around about Og’s deity. Let’s listen in as Gog talks about it.

“Uhm. Og say there big person in sky who have lotsa power. Him say, everyday him pray to big person so big person make everything OK for Og.”
“Little while ago, we have big mammoth hunt.”
“Og pray before hunt. Pray big person make hunt go well.”
“We go hunt. No kill mammoth. Tribe go hungry. Some little ones, some old ones die.”
“Me ask Og, ‘Why big person no help with hunt?”
“Og say, ‘Dunno. Maybe tribe bad; do things big person no like.”
“Me say, ‘Big person make little ones die because tribe no please him? That bad. Me no do that. Someone do something bad, I club that person. No club baby. That BAD.”

“Uhg. Og say big person in sky can heal anything.”
“Little while ago, Og family get sick.”
“Og pray for Og’s family to get well when sick. Og’s family die.
“Og also pray for Og’s fingers to grow back (lizard bite them off). Fingers no grow back.”
“Me ask Og, ‘Why family die? Why fingers no grow back?”
“Og say, ‘Dunno. Maybe big person think me need suffer.”
“Me say, ‘You need dead family? You need lost fingers? Me thought you said, big person love you. Me your friend, care about you. Me save your family if can. Me give you new fingers if can. Big person no loving.”

“Uhg. Og say, big person is everywhere, know everything, can do anything.”
“Me ask Og, ‘OK. Have big person do something.”
“Og ask. Many times, Og ask. Big person do nothing.”
“Me ask, ‘Why big person do nothing?”
“Og say, ‘He do things his way. Maybe him do things we no can see, hear, smell, understand.”
“Me say, ‘You ask big person to do things. Him do nothing you can see. How you know he do anything? How you know he even real?”
“Og say, ‘Him just am.”
“Me say, ‘Me think Og have head problem. He no use head.”

“Me have simple caveman brain. Og’s big person never do anything. Never do what Og say big person supposed to do.”
”Uhg. Me think Og’s big person no real. Me think Og little crazy in head.”

Well folks. There you have it. Gog, the pre-Enlightenment caveman managing “Enlightenment thinking”. Just simple, old-fashioned, “cave thinking” really.

It’s easy to figure out there’s no God. Even a caveman can do it.

- LeoPardus

Ray Comfort has been aptly dubbed “The Grandmaster of Christian Ignorance”.  Here are a few choice samples of his utter idocy.

If you would like to see the expanded version,  go to his blog, Atheist Central,  and look on the right side of the page a little ways down.

• If God didn’t exist, the atheist wouldn’t have something to not believe in.

• An atheist is someone who believes that nothing made everything.

• An atheist is someone who pretends that there is no God.

• The human propensity to gullibility is evidenced by evolution’s many believers.

• It is impossible for a Christian to convert to atheism because a Christian is someone who knows God.

• We have men who call themselves scientists, when they should have instead got a job with Disney as “imagineers.”

• School children should have evolution explained to them, so that they can see how unscientific and crazy it is.