Hi John, Sounds like a rational analysis to me. I do not mind the concept of a diety but why must he take attendance and make us pay to be a member of the club?
Had a lovely singing voice, too, I hear. Also, the guy could play football like no one you’ve ever seen. Bethlehem won, like, 3 World Cups back in the day cause of ’em.
YES! Thank you… if you don’t think about it too long, or place it under a microscope… it does doesn’t it!? Just shut-up, sit-down, and DO as “He” says and stop asking so many great questions!!! 😀 😉
It was “good” for about 10 minutes. He made man shortly thereafter and was disappointed in His Creation shortly after that. Disappointed in Himself? Bad Creator, bad!
No Christian perspective yet on your three year old meme? Hum. Perhaps most know already it’s disingenuous. That it’s a half-baked half-truth not worth their time. Me? I’m all yours.
The world stands under the shadow of destruction. Were it not for God’s love for us in Jesus, we would face that same end. God, however, is the Creator, the Life-giver, and the Joy-bringer. The goal of his holiness is not destruction, but redemption. The goal of his righteousness is not anger, but salvation. Jesus came to our world, a world hell-bent for destruction, and placed God’s stamp of grace upon it. He came to reverse the powers of decay, death, and destruction and put in their place permanence, life, and salvation. Jesus is God’s great reminder to us that he not only loves us, but that he also has only good and glorious intentions for our lives.
Already did. In 2013 as Nate and 2014 as Bobby. We had no post Easter 2015…
It is not a Biblically correct statement, but you already know that. God exists as three beings. You don’t really need a sermon teaching about the three aspects of God, sure you already know it.
“God sacrificed himself to himself, to save humanity from himself.”
Me, the Biblical version:
“God sent his son, his word, to be a living sacrifice, a new blood covenant.
So that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”
“As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior.” John 3:14-17
John, did you come up with the quote? It is quite brilliant and made quite an impression on me when first I read it (on your blog, of course).
Jesus’s parables being free market paradigms? WTF? Healing the sick (for free!), feeding the hungry (for free!), turning the other cheek, not blaming loose women, telling people to pray in private, whoa … sure sounds like conservative doctrine to me!
These people just keep making shit up out of thin air and expect to be taken seriously.
Btw John, on a sidenote, on the Smithsonian Channel — I’m POSITIVE you get that channel in São Paulo, Brasil 😉 — this month appropriately, there are two very good documentaries airing. 1) Bible Hunters with Dr. Jeff Rose hosting, and 2) The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife with Dr. Karen King. Here are 2 links to the shows:
What I found utterly fascinating about Dr. Jeff Rose’s show was how THOROUGHLY he covered the human “Canonization” of the modern bible and the 1-on-1 interviews with both secular paleographers, archaeologists, etc, and Xian clerics, scholars, etc. The way Dr. Rose also presented all the well known NON-canonical scriptures — two or three of which dated back to the 2nd century CE!!! — should seriously challenge any hardcore (intelligent) Xian Fundamentalist! The 2 episodes are very very well done. I highly recommend watching Bible Hunters — I’ve watched twice already. Dr. King’s documentary aires March 30th.
We don’t get it, but those links are great, and they have the episodes there! It’d be fantastic if someone like Colourstorm could watch that, but as is their way, these hardcore apologists avoid critiques (and scholarship in general) like the plague.
The reason I always enjoy highly qualified/licensed scholarship & science on this matter, any & all religions/faiths, is because “TIME” is most certainly an ally of science & incessant examination! That same “time” is absolutely the enemy of faiths, religions, myths, and of course… osterich-head-in-the-sand psychological denial. 😀
ColorStorm will sadly never believe in human intellect — well, except his own 😉 — but he does (did?) have a friend I was able to meet (theancients) who showed common courtesy to me as well as basic logical conversation; so perhaps there IS hope for some. ❤
Endnote — Remember my post on the 2013 film "Her“? I just realized that like the character Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) we are absolutely capable of creating a person or entity (bible? myths?) as deserving of worshipped, sacred, loved… that like the AI character Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) DOESN’T EVEN EXIST… well, except in our own head & pathology!!! 😮
I love the way broadsides are exchanged in these blogs—always throwing experts and ‘authorities’ at each other, as if enough of them could eventually break down walls and carry the day.
Nice theory, but it is invalid. It’s false. It’s … it’s … delusional.
Victory will go to whoever can get the other to think along the same lines—think, and for themselves, internally.
The only ‘argument’ that stands a chance is rationality, and the only appeal that stands a chance is the Eternal Free Lunch. My money at present goes on Free Lunch, be it twanging the harp or drunkenly scruffing the houris, for ever.
Then again, on a serious note, while some religious groups clearly do some good for the disadvantaged the harm done by the followers of a God (or two) massively outweighs that good.
Madame Clinton seems greatly inspired to be the first woman President of the USA. Wish I could live long enough to see the first secular humanist President of this fine Nation. Same wish applies to an English Prime Minister!
What a strange species we are. Long live our fabulous dogs!
The bunny, dammit. In earlier times the hare dancing in the fields was a sign of spring, and because no-one could find a hare’s nest they ended up thinking that hares hatched from eggs which they kept well hidden. (Not too hard to see where the great Easter Egg Hunt came from …)
Humans created hell? No, you silly goose … only God could do that. Did that. Think about, 0′ rational person—in the beginning all was void and darkness lay on the face of the deep, and then God popped up and created everything; the sun, moon, stars, planets, earthworms, paperclips, nails, spiders, Arks, and (SFX: drum roll, please) The Debbil and Hell.
And even before He created Himself and sundries He knew He was gonna do it and what it would all mean.
(My bet is that wee fellow was bored; and there ain’t nothin’ worse than a bored omnipotent, I tell ya!)
As for humans creating Hell, well, yes … but only on a small scale, localised. It takes a real Almighty Compassionate loving merciful Divine to create a full-scale Hell. Boom boom!
Hi John,
Yeah, in a way.
I live in a place that is filled with parks and beaches, yet until I went to work for the Parks Dept., I never knew most of them existed. Why?
When I was a young father, my first child (a bookworm) was encouraged to go out for a local baseball team. He was about 10. I would come home from work and take him to the games, and I would sit in the stands and read. Occasionally I would glance up while the kid awkwardly stumbled around in the outfield. I never did anything to help that kid. Why?
I could go on… My grandfather was an alcoholic and spent all his money on drinking, so my father grew up very poor. He hated his father for that, and vowed he would never be like that. So he became a workaholic instead, owned his own business, smoked 3 packs of Pall Mall’s a day, and died when I was nine. He left behind a 44-year old wife and five kids. Another ship-wrecked family. Why?
We can blame God for it all. But the single thing He did to contribute to the mess we call human life was that he gave us free will. He valued that above everything else–so much so that He knew billions of people would live and die so that some of them (nobody really knows how many) would long for, and seek something better than this broken world. I read something this morning that I never understood before. In Proverbs 3:6, it says, “In all your ways, acknowledge (God), and He will make your paths straight.” For the past 30 years, I have understood “acknowledge” to mean “accept” (publicly), as in recognize. But the Hebrew word is yada, which as I discovered actually means “to know, to experience, the action of getting to know.” In the Old Testament period, God did not send anyone to “hell”as we know it today – a place of fire. Actually, the Bible teaches that the spirits of the dead originally were sorted into two places based upon some standard of behavior (this is similar to ancient Greek and Norse thinking). The two groups basically were kept in these holding cells, waiting for an event to take place which would release them. Christian teaching is that “hell” in a metaphysical sense is a separation from God, an experience of lonliness, meaningless, and despair. In a physical sense, the only current inhabitants of hell are the angelic beings who were chained there after they did something that God (for humanity’s sake) just could not allow to go on. However, in Revelation 20:11-15, the Bible says that after every last living human is given the opportunity to seek after (and find) God, all the dead will be judged and some will indeed be put into hell.
In the mean time, we–you and I–will go on making the corners of the world where we live more like heaven or more like hell.
Best regards to you, my friend,
Rich
Cheers Rich, as Thomas Malthus said, it is man’s duty to work against evil.
It, however, seems you’re talking about humans and our capacity to create less-than-pleasant circumstances for ourselves and others. This is not Hell. Hell was “created” for Satan.
(Matthew 25:41) “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
And Yhwh alone, so the story goes, is the only one who can judge someone and cast them into this place:
(Luke 12:5) “But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!”
The meme, therefore, is perfectly accurate.
Thankfully though, shall I be cast into this pit I know I’ll be doing much better than those who “ascend” into heaven, because apart form the company being much, much better in Hell, it’s also less hot than heaven.
The math just doesn’t lie.
Heaven, according to Isaiah 30:26, is where “the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold as the light of seven days.” Taken as read, Heaven receives from the moon as much radiation as the earth does from the sun, and in addition 49 times more, meaning fifty times in all. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourth power law for radiation [(H/E)4 = 50 where E is the absolute temperature of the earth 300°K (273+27)] gives the temperature of H (Heaven) as 525°C. Hell, according to Revelations 21:8 is where the “fearful and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” Now here’s the fun part. A lake of molten brimstone (sulfur) means that its temperature must be at or below its boiling point, 444.6°C. Above that point and it’d be a vapor, not a lake. Heaven (525°C) is therefore hotter than Hell (<444.6°C).
When put this way (which is an excellent way), god sounds a tad, um, confused.
But not just that.
He sent his only, beloved son to be tormented, tortured, and killed in a horrendous manner to save us — from himself. That kind of generosity overwhelms. Really.
Yet Christians somehow do believe so — that this was an act of self(!)-sacrifice on god’s part.
As if that wasn’t enough, he expects us to celebrate that killing and worship his son’s battered body — still hanging on the cross, no relief there — because that’s just how loving he is.
I don’t want to jump to any clinical conclusions, but this god sounds kinda like a narcissistic psychopath.
(To think of it, there are good reasons why Trump should see himself as god-like.)
Speaking of god and politicians, you do know that Ted Cruz has been ordained by god to be President to welcome in the Second coming of Christ during the impending apocalypse. Google the word Republican, and the words Bat Shit Crazy come up.
I know. His father’s been out there telling everyone. That’s quite a job description to fill: Needed, leader to assist in the annihilation of the Earth and all living things.
So … He (She? They?) created Itself, then created the universe; so that gillions of years later It could sacrifice Itself (painfully—isn’t this masochism?) in order ro save its creative masterpiece fro the fate it already knews before the Creation …
If you want to attach photos and things you need something like Photobucket where you put the pics and copy that URL. Don’t worry, I only discovered that through Victoria teaching me.
Psalm 75:7 It is God alone who judges; he decides who will rise and who will fall.
Luke 12:5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
And I’m afraid humans cannot create, so hell (where the judged “fall”) is the physical product of the God mentioned above. Colossians 1:16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
Therefore:
God sacrificed himself
to himself
to save humanity from himself.
Good morning, John
I just read something that made me think of you. Hope this is finding that you and yours are well this morning. Referring back to your April 9th reply to me, Let me say first that I am impressed and very pleased with your knowledge of the Bible. If I may, I would like to address each of your points individually.
Matthew 25:41 – That’s a good point that I had forgotten about. However, the only current inhabitants are the devil’s “angels,” who I referred to. For the present time, Satan himself is not in hell, but is “roaming” around on the earth.
Luke 12:5 – Again, you are right in that Yahweh is the Judge of all the earth. My point was nuanced, in that our actions on the earth determine the course of our lives, the course of our society, and our ultimate destiny.
Regarding Isaiah 30:26, I don’t see any reference to heaven at all.
Let me say this: Christianity is not, ultimately about the Bible. Back in the 1700’s there was a fellow named Jonathan Edwards. I consider him a personal hero for many reasons. He was one of the smartest men of his generation, and even today is held to be one of the greatest theologians of all time. For a time he was the pastor of a church, but his congregation fired him. He spent time among the native americans and his son-in-law, David Brainerd (also a hero of mine) died an early death as a missionary to the local native american tribes in his area. Edwards was offered a position as the president of Princeton, but died an early death before taking up the position. Jonathan Edwards is the man who began what we call today “the Great Awakening,” a genuine move of the Holy Spirit among the Calvinists of New England. It lasted a short time, but had an incredible impact. However, within a short time the doctrinalists of the time went after him, and drove him out. In reaction against him, they turned to “Unitarianism,” a religion based upon Christianity, but without Christ as the Son of God. The rejection of Edwards and the Spirit who led him was the beginning of a lot of the serious wrongs that are America today. Out of Unitarianism came Transcendentalism, and Emerson, and Self-Reliance, and Manifest Destiny–the single greatest delusion that led to the slaughter of thousands upon thousands of the very people Edwards and Brainerd had tried to help.
The Bible says two things that are coming to mind as I write: Matthew 12: 31, where Jesus said, “I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgive.” And Acts 7:51, where Stephen said, “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit!”
John, my friend, the Scripture verses I read this morning that made me think of you are 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11
“They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the truth.”
I am praying that somehow you will find me to be a credible witness to the things I have seen and experienced.
I remain, as always, your dear friend….
If God is everywhere, then He has to be as big as the universe. There’s only one universe (uni means one, no?) so God is the universe.
Bugger, now I am confused. This is worse than pondering who the hell Big G was talking to when He said “Let there be light” (and suddenly you could see for miles) …
I don’t bother too much these days. I mostly let sleeping dogs lie, neither Christians nor Jews faze me too much but if I had and descendants I’d be terrified of Islam.
THAT, my friend, is where the threat really lies.
Not at all. A full blown science-denying Creationist is now VP in the US. Literally, Pence believes the earth is 5,000 years old. That is as dangerous, if not more,to our species progress than some illiterate ISIS git who’s only thinking about getting laid in heaven. That little dickhead is not wifully ignorant. He’s just ignorant… and that can be cured.
thesuperstitiousnakedape.wordpress.com 
What a nice fella for doing this, eh?
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And perfectly logical
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Hi John, Sounds like a rational analysis to me. I do not mind the concept of a diety but why must he take attendance and make us pay to be a member of the club?
Have a great weekend…..chuq
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but why must he take attendance and make us pay to be a member of the club?
Lawns don’t mow themselves, you know.
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LOL have a good one
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You too, my friend.
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😉
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But lawns do grow themselves.
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Don’t cut themselves
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Bu then what we would we do without easter sales & egg hunts? Thank ya’ Jeezuz.
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That’s Republican Jesus! As Conservapedia founder’s Andy Schlafly said, “most of Jesus’ parables were free market parables.”
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which goes to show just how desperate humans are to claim some magical beastie agrees with them and only them.
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Real Jesus was a Ayn-greed is a virtue-Rand Conservative.
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Had a lovely singing voice, too, I hear. Also, the guy could play football like no one you’ve ever seen. Bethlehem won, like, 3 World Cups back in the day cause of ’em.
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Perfect!
But they’ll never “get it” because they don’t want to
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I roll this one out every year at Easter, so maybe one day, after enough repetition, they’ll get it 😉
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A good and truthful saying can’t be “rolled out” enough John. 🙂
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Whaaaaaat!!!? Are you being funny John!? That is absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt… sound, perfect theology!!! 😀
Here, let me prove it to you… the Earth is round, yes? Therefore, this Xian theology is right! 😛
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Sounds legit 😉
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YES! Thank you… if you don’t think about it too long, or place it under a microscope… it does doesn’t it!? Just shut-up, sit-down, and DO as “He” says and stop asking so many great questions!!! 😀 😉
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It’s Easter and that means it’s time for my favorite atheist hallucination.
In the atheist alternate universe, any hallucination is possible, after all.
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In the Many Worlds hypothesis, SOM, you are, in one world at least, correct. In another, you’re the successful breeder of Push-me—Pull-yous’.
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Just a ploy to distract us from christianitys’ archrival – the all-giving Easter Bunny.
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For He made the world, and it was good.
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It was “good” for about 10 minutes. He made man shortly thereafter and was disappointed in His Creation shortly after that. Disappointed in Himself? Bad Creator, bad!
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It got 157 comments in 2013. You and the Monkey had a good discussion until the Monkey devolved in a haze of whiskey.
It got 233 comments in 2014. I especially like the exchange between you, Bobby and SOM. Is Bobby the Monkeys little brother? Hum.
Good luck with it this year John.
Happy Easter everyone!
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Oh please, are you now telling me you’re SOM, too?
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No, not SOM. Read it again.
No Christian perspective yet on your three year old meme? Hum. Perhaps most know already it’s disingenuous. That it’s a half-baked half-truth not worth their time. Me? I’m all yours.
The world stands under the shadow of destruction. Were it not for God’s love for us in Jesus, we would face that same end. God, however, is the Creator, the Life-giver, and the Joy-bringer. The goal of his holiness is not destruction, but redemption. The goal of his righteousness is not anger, but salvation. Jesus came to our world, a world hell-bent for destruction, and placed God’s stamp of grace upon it. He came to reverse the powers of decay, death, and destruction and put in their place permanence, life, and salvation. Jesus is God’s great reminder to us that he not only loves us, but that he also has only good and glorious intentions for our lives.
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That it’s a half-baked half-truth not worth their time.
Dismantle it if you think there’s fault anywhere there in those ten words. I’d be happy to review your efforts.
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Already did. In 2013 as Nate and 2014 as Bobby. We had no post Easter 2015…
It is not a Biblically correct statement, but you already know that. God exists as three beings. You don’t really need a sermon teaching about the three aspects of God, sure you already know it.
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Three in one, one in three. An aseitic being, yes? Therefore, the meme is correct.
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oops.
You, the twisted version:
“God sacrificed himself to himself, to save humanity from himself.”
Me, the Biblical version:
“God sent his son, his word, to be a living sacrifice, a new blood covenant.
So that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”
“As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the desert, in the same way the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior.” John 3:14-17
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“God sent his son, his word, to be a living sacrifice, a new blood covenant.
So that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”
Or be punished in a place of eternal torment.
Now it’s more accurate.
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That reply is a tell.
I was right when I said you already know…everyone hates consequences.
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Don’t confuse a story with reality.
I see, though, you’re admitting the meme is airtight.
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Watching the Monkey at his tricks again….interesting his perspective how it be.
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Yea John, it’s airtight.
Your the man and will always be the man. ;-p
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“Jesus came to our world, a world hell-bent for destruction, and placed God’s stamp of grace upon it.”
So the question is…..are we better off today than we were 2,000 years ago ?
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John, did you come up with the quote? It is quite brilliant and made quite an impression on me when first I read it (on your blog, of course).
Jesus’s parables being free market paradigms? WTF? Healing the sick (for free!), feeding the hungry (for free!), turning the other cheek, not blaming loose women, telling people to pray in private, whoa … sure sounds like conservative doctrine to me!
These people just keep making shit up out of thin air and expect to be taken seriously.
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That’s my wording, but I seriously doubt it’s original to me. You see variations everywhere.
Jesus was a free marketer! Go to Conservapedia and see for yourself.
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And you got SOM out from under his rock! You are amazing!
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On Saturday morning’s the nurses give him some free time 😉
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I’m sure you meant to say prison guards.
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Special prison, for special people 😉
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What if the Buddhists are right and Jesus didn’t have a soul? Then God really fucked up.
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Quite a colossal oversight 🙂
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If the Buddhists are right, then Jesus really was fucked. There was no god to begin with
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It was still bad karma to shag that Mary Magdalene via the back door, so to speak.
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There is that story John writes of the adulterous woman, even Jeebus didn’t throw a stone. We can only guess why
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Jesus did not let the crowd to throw stones because he was pro-gun?
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Hahaha. Oh boy, I have never thought of it in this line
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Bwahahaha!
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Btw John, on a sidenote, on the Smithsonian Channel — I’m POSITIVE you get that channel in São Paulo, Brasil 😉 — this month appropriately, there are two very good documentaries airing. 1) Bible Hunters with Dr. Jeff Rose hosting, and 2) The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife with Dr. Karen King. Here are 2 links to the shows:
http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/bible-hunters/1003347
http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife/0/3365413
What I found utterly fascinating about Dr. Jeff Rose’s show was how THOROUGHLY he covered the human “Canonization” of the modern bible and the 1-on-1 interviews with both secular paleographers, archaeologists, etc, and Xian clerics, scholars, etc. The way Dr. Rose also presented all the well known NON-canonical scriptures — two or three of which dated back to the 2nd century CE!!! — should seriously challenge any hardcore (intelligent) Xian Fundamentalist! The 2 episodes are very very well done. I highly recommend watching Bible Hunters — I’ve watched twice already. Dr. King’s documentary aires March 30th.
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We don’t get it, but those links are great, and they have the episodes there! It’d be fantastic if someone like Colourstorm could watch that, but as is their way, these hardcore apologists avoid critiques (and scholarship in general) like the plague.
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Indeed.
The reason I always enjoy highly qualified/licensed scholarship & science on this matter, any & all religions/faiths, is because “TIME” is most certainly an ally of science & incessant examination! That same “time” is absolutely the enemy of faiths, religions, myths, and of course… osterich-head-in-the-sand psychological denial. 😀
ColorStorm will sadly never believe in human intellect — well, except his own 😉 — but he does (did?) have a friend I was able to meet (theancients) who showed common courtesy to me as well as basic logical conversation; so perhaps there IS hope for some. ❤
Endnote — Remember my post on the 2013 film "Her“? I just realized that like the character Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) we are absolutely capable of creating a person or entity (bible? myths?) as deserving of worshipped, sacred, loved… that like the AI character Samantha (Scarlett Johansson) DOESN’T EVEN EXIST… well, except in our own head & pathology!!! 😮
Would you agree Sir? 😉
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I love the way broadsides are exchanged in these blogs—always throwing experts and ‘authorities’ at each other, as if enough of them could eventually break down walls and carry the day.
Nice theory, but it is invalid. It’s false. It’s … it’s … delusional.
Victory will go to whoever can get the other to think along the same lines—think, and for themselves, internally.
The only ‘argument’ that stands a chance is rationality, and the only appeal that stands a chance is the Eternal Free Lunch. My money at present goes on Free Lunch, be it twanging the harp or drunkenly scruffing the houris, for ever.
Any ideas?
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Grand thing, don’t you agree. He would have killed all of us
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Awesome
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Going to repeat what I probably wrote a year ago. That is that I wouldn’t want to be part of any religion that would want me as a member.
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That’ts an interesting reversal.
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They all want you, Paul. Warts, loose shedding fur, fleas and all—they want you.
Without your membership dollars they would collapse …
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Then again, on a serious note, while some religious groups clearly do some good for the disadvantaged the harm done by the followers of a God (or two) massively outweighs that good.
Madame Clinton seems greatly inspired to be the first woman President of the USA. Wish I could live long enough to see the first secular humanist President of this fine Nation. Same wish applies to an English Prime Minister!
What a strange species we are. Long live our fabulous dogs!
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Clement Attlee was an atheist.
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John, you have mentioned that fact before. I should have remembered.
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Here’s a good list of secular leaders from around the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atheists_in_politics_and_law
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Great link. I can feel a blog post coming up!
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So, God must be both a sadist and a masochist? What a pervert!
BTW, what came first… the chicken or the Easter egg?
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So, God must be both a sadist and a masochist
That sounds awfully like The Owner of All Infernal Names.
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What came first, you ask?
The bunny, dammit. In earlier times the hare dancing in the fields was a sign of spring, and because no-one could find a hare’s nest they ended up thinking that hares hatched from eggs which they kept well hidden. (Not too hard to see where the great Easter Egg Hunt came from …)
Sure beats nailing gods to crosses …
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Where did the different colored Easter eggs tradition come from?
BTW, the lady bunny thinks that the gentleman bunny came first too.
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Nope, to save us from ourselves. Happy Easter!
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Hi Sam
So humans created Hell?
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Humans created hell? No, you silly goose … only God could do that. Did that. Think about, 0′ rational person—in the beginning all was void and darkness lay on the face of the deep, and then God popped up and created everything; the sun, moon, stars, planets, earthworms, paperclips, nails, spiders, Arks, and (SFX: drum roll, please) The Debbil and Hell.
And even before He created Himself and sundries He knew He was gonna do it and what it would all mean.
(My bet is that wee fellow was bored; and there ain’t nothin’ worse than a bored omnipotent, I tell ya!)
As for humans creating Hell, well, yes … but only on a small scale, localised. It takes a real Almighty Compassionate loving merciful Divine to create a full-scale Hell. Boom boom!
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Hi John,
Yeah, in a way.
I live in a place that is filled with parks and beaches, yet until I went to work for the Parks Dept., I never knew most of them existed. Why?
When I was a young father, my first child (a bookworm) was encouraged to go out for a local baseball team. He was about 10. I would come home from work and take him to the games, and I would sit in the stands and read. Occasionally I would glance up while the kid awkwardly stumbled around in the outfield. I never did anything to help that kid. Why?
I could go on… My grandfather was an alcoholic and spent all his money on drinking, so my father grew up very poor. He hated his father for that, and vowed he would never be like that. So he became a workaholic instead, owned his own business, smoked 3 packs of Pall Mall’s a day, and died when I was nine. He left behind a 44-year old wife and five kids. Another ship-wrecked family. Why?
We can blame God for it all. But the single thing He did to contribute to the mess we call human life was that he gave us free will. He valued that above everything else–so much so that He knew billions of people would live and die so that some of them (nobody really knows how many) would long for, and seek something better than this broken world. I read something this morning that I never understood before. In Proverbs 3:6, it says, “In all your ways, acknowledge (God), and He will make your paths straight.” For the past 30 years, I have understood “acknowledge” to mean “accept” (publicly), as in recognize. But the Hebrew word is yada, which as I discovered actually means “to know, to experience, the action of getting to know.” In the Old Testament period, God did not send anyone to “hell”as we know it today – a place of fire. Actually, the Bible teaches that the spirits of the dead originally were sorted into two places based upon some standard of behavior (this is similar to ancient Greek and Norse thinking). The two groups basically were kept in these holding cells, waiting for an event to take place which would release them. Christian teaching is that “hell” in a metaphysical sense is a separation from God, an experience of lonliness, meaningless, and despair. In a physical sense, the only current inhabitants of hell are the angelic beings who were chained there after they did something that God (for humanity’s sake) just could not allow to go on. However, in Revelation 20:11-15, the Bible says that after every last living human is given the opportunity to seek after (and find) God, all the dead will be judged and some will indeed be put into hell.
In the mean time, we–you and I–will go on making the corners of the world where we live more like heaven or more like hell.
Best regards to you, my friend,
Rich
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Cheers Rich, as Thomas Malthus said, it is man’s duty to work against evil.
It, however, seems you’re talking about humans and our capacity to create less-than-pleasant circumstances for ourselves and others. This is not Hell. Hell was “created” for Satan.
And Yhwh alone, so the story goes, is the only one who can judge someone and cast them into this place:
The meme, therefore, is perfectly accurate.
Thankfully though, shall I be cast into this pit I know I’ll be doing much better than those who “ascend” into heaven, because apart form the company being much, much better in Hell, it’s also less hot than heaven.
The math just doesn’t lie.
Heaven, according to Isaiah 30:26, is where “the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold as the light of seven days.” Taken as read, Heaven receives from the moon as much radiation as the earth does from the sun, and in addition 49 times more, meaning fifty times in all. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann fourth power law for radiation [(H/E)4 = 50 where E is the absolute temperature of the earth 300°K (273+27)] gives the temperature of H (Heaven) as 525°C. Hell, according to Revelations 21:8 is where the “fearful and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” Now here’s the fun part. A lake of molten brimstone (sulfur) means that its temperature must be at or below its boiling point, 444.6°C. Above that point and it’d be a vapor, not a lake. Heaven (525°C) is therefore hotter than Hell (<444.6°C).
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Sorry, Rich.
If God knows all, then He knows what you will do looooong before you Free Will-ly choose (choose?) to do it.
So your doings are pre-ordained by God’s knowledge. Ergo you can only do what God knows thou shalt do, ergo there ain’t no Free Will.
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When put this way (which is an excellent way), god sounds a tad, um, confused.
But not just that.
He sent his only, beloved son to be tormented, tortured, and killed in a horrendous manner to save us — from himself. That kind of generosity overwhelms. Really.
Yet Christians somehow do believe so — that this was an act of self(!)-sacrifice on god’s part.
As if that wasn’t enough, he expects us to celebrate that killing and worship his son’s battered body — still hanging on the cross, no relief there — because that’s just how loving he is.
I don’t want to jump to any clinical conclusions, but this god sounds kinda like a narcissistic psychopath.
(To think of it, there are good reasons why Trump should see himself as god-like.)
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I was waiting to see how you got Trump into that! 🙂
Yeah, the god, God, sure is the kinda’ guy you want to work for.
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He is the best. Tremendously huuge, you know.
And Trump’s book is as good and popular as god’s book. He says so himself. Trump, not god. God has been curiously silent on the matter of Trump.
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That’s cause god is jealous of Trump’s hair.
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LOL! Who wouldn’t be?
Also, his hands.
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Right, those GREAT BIG HANDS!!!
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True. He endorsed everyone else, in the GOP field of course, just not the hair.
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Speaking of god and politicians, you do know that Ted Cruz has been ordained by god to be President to welcome in the Second coming of Christ during the impending apocalypse. Google the word Republican, and the words Bat Shit Crazy come up.
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I know. His father’s been out there telling everyone. That’s quite a job description to fill: Needed, leader to assist in the annihilation of the Earth and all living things.
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P.S. Must also be trust-worthy enough to be in charge of a nuclear arsenal.
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Even god has his limits.
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Bite your tongue, heathen. Veles knows no limits.
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One is tempted to quote Benny in that ‘Mummy’ movie at this point “… as long as I serve him, I am immune.”
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… and 3 days later the sacrifice didn’t even stick.
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It was a bit of cheat, wasn’t it.
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So … He (She? They?) created Itself, then created the universe; so that gillions of years later It could sacrifice Itself (painfully—isn’t this masochism?) in order ro save its creative masterpiece fro the fate it already knews before the Creation …
naaaaaaaah ….
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Don’t. Think. Just. Go. With. It.
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Happy Easter! https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/105433349994534348701/albums/6266151387813629089/6266151387277511794?sqi=109589122473741583717&sqsi=dc01e253-2c76-4a49-8cf0-fb8f9a5a49c9
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Mary, the link isn’t working 😦
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I don’t know how to attach a saved picture or web link. Any suggestions?
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I was able to copy cut and paste.
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I clicked on link that I provided on your page and it worked. Not sure why it’s not for you. It’s from a Google plus account.
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It comes up as Error.
If you want to attach photos and things you need something like Photobucket where you put the pics and copy that URL. Don’t worry, I only discovered that through Victoria teaching me.
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Can try this link. Hopefully it works. Has a special Easter message that I was trying to post.
http://theatheistpig.tumblr.com/
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Ahhh! Perfect 🙂
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The link worked for me too
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Actually Christians believe that God sacrificed himself to humanity to save humanity from itself. Close though…
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Humans didn’t create hell, and it is the god, God, who judges and sentences humans to hell… so the story goes. As such, the meme is perfectly correct.
Here’s another way of looking at it:
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Christians believe Jesus rescues you from sin (not hell) and sin is a creation of humanity. Therefore, Jesus saved humanity from itself.
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Sorry, Eric
Psalm 75:7 It is God alone who judges; he decides who will rise and who will fall.
Luke 12:5 But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!
And I’m afraid humans cannot create, so hell (where the judged “fall”) is the physical product of the God mentioned above. Colossians 1:16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
Therefore:
God sacrificed himself
to himself
to save humanity from himself.
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John, John, why dost thou persecute me?
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I swear, it’s this big!
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Bwaaahahhahaha!
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“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” ~ H. L Mencken
… and the Donald endeavors to make good on that promise.
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I think it was Ben Carson last week who said something like, “Hey, if it’s a disaster [a trump Presidency], it’ll only be four years.”
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Good morning, John
I just read something that made me think of you. Hope this is finding that you and yours are well this morning. Referring back to your April 9th reply to me, Let me say first that I am impressed and very pleased with your knowledge of the Bible. If I may, I would like to address each of your points individually.
Matthew 25:41 – That’s a good point that I had forgotten about. However, the only current inhabitants are the devil’s “angels,” who I referred to. For the present time, Satan himself is not in hell, but is “roaming” around on the earth.
Luke 12:5 – Again, you are right in that Yahweh is the Judge of all the earth. My point was nuanced, in that our actions on the earth determine the course of our lives, the course of our society, and our ultimate destiny.
Regarding Isaiah 30:26, I don’t see any reference to heaven at all.
Let me say this: Christianity is not, ultimately about the Bible. Back in the 1700’s there was a fellow named Jonathan Edwards. I consider him a personal hero for many reasons. He was one of the smartest men of his generation, and even today is held to be one of the greatest theologians of all time. For a time he was the pastor of a church, but his congregation fired him. He spent time among the native americans and his son-in-law, David Brainerd (also a hero of mine) died an early death as a missionary to the local native american tribes in his area. Edwards was offered a position as the president of Princeton, but died an early death before taking up the position. Jonathan Edwards is the man who began what we call today “the Great Awakening,” a genuine move of the Holy Spirit among the Calvinists of New England. It lasted a short time, but had an incredible impact. However, within a short time the doctrinalists of the time went after him, and drove him out. In reaction against him, they turned to “Unitarianism,” a religion based upon Christianity, but without Christ as the Son of God. The rejection of Edwards and the Spirit who led him was the beginning of a lot of the serious wrongs that are America today. Out of Unitarianism came Transcendentalism, and Emerson, and Self-Reliance, and Manifest Destiny–the single greatest delusion that led to the slaughter of thousands upon thousands of the very people Edwards and Brainerd had tried to help.
The Bible says two things that are coming to mind as I write: Matthew 12: 31, where Jesus said, “I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgive.” And Acts 7:51, where Stephen said, “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers. You always resist the Holy Spirit!”
John, my friend, the Scripture verses I read this morning that made me think of you are 2 Thessalonians 2:10-11
“They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the truth.”
I am praying that somehow you will find me to be a credible witness to the things I have seen and experienced.
I remain, as always, your dear friend….
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Sam, “Satan himself is not in hell, but is “roaming” around on the earth.” Have you seen him? Or is he invisible like your god?
Wow! I’d say Edwards was a pretty special guy … especially considering the fact he broke away from Christian beliefs.
BTW, if some of us that contribute to this blog are under a “powerful delusion,” here’s hoping it never goes away.
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correction “God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe a lie…”
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If God is everywhere, then He has to be as big as the universe. There’s only one universe (uni means one, no?) so God is the universe.
Bugger, now I am confused. This is worse than pondering who the hell Big G was talking to when He said “Let there be light” (and suddenly you could see for miles) …
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In the Veda’s (Hinduism) Perusha, the Cosmic Man, is everything (the uni-verse), but extends ten-finger-lengths further.
I’d like to meet the author of that story.
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I don’t bother too much these days. I mostly let sleeping dogs lie, neither Christians nor Jews faze me too much but if I had and descendants I’d be terrified of Islam.
THAT, my friend, is where the threat really lies.
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Not at all. A full blown science-denying Creationist is now VP in the US. Literally, Pence believes the earth is 5,000 years old. That is as dangerous, if not more,to our species progress than some illiterate ISIS git who’s only thinking about getting laid in heaven. That little dickhead is not wifully ignorant. He’s just ignorant… and that can be cured.
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The answer would be to set the Christians on to the Islamists—and after the dust and feathers settle, sort out any survivors.
In the meantime the Islamic invasions worry me a bit …
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