I can kill my children if God tells me to

I wrote a post, yesterday, titled, I Am More Powerful Than God. The point of the post was to say that, since God is supposedly all powerful, all knowing, and present everywhere, being accused of "turning others away from Jesus" with my words was a false accusation. If I am able to best the god with all the myriad omni-characteristics, then I must be more powerful than him.

I'm actually okay with that. The logic of the Bible god is completely ridiculous and I am left incredulously shocked that intelligent people still believe in a glorified Santa Clause or Tooth Fairy.

Enter a young gentleman who I grew up with. We'll call him Tom B. He's half my age and brainwashed into fundamentalist Christianity by his parents and the decades of a carefully constructed apparatus for true believers to be well-versed in apologetics and the "us vs. them" false dichotomy.

Only he doesn't know this. And that's by design. Fundamentalists are taught to view themselves as using superior logic to anyone that may be their detractors. Hell, the Apostle Paul set this up by saying, "The truth of Christ is foolishness to the wise." That's a paraphrase, of course, but you get the point. Anytime you are faced with doubts or a redress of your belief system, you are well within your spirituality gold star chart to reject all arguments as foolishness and Satanic.

Tom's response:

If what you're saying is true, it's a really good thing that the reality of God is not who humans make Him out to be. Because, if that's really who God is than even I would't believe in Him. The thing is, humans can say anything they want about Him. They can attempt to find His flaws and make Him look bad. But in the end we're judging Him by our standards of who we think He is. If you really want to know who He really is read the book He gave us.

My response was two-fold:

First, no. You don't get it both ways. You can't tell me that it is not possible for the human mind to fathom the realities of God, and then in the next breath, tell me that my human mind has the capacity to fathom the realities of God if I only read his book. You get one. Not both.

Then I mentioned Ole' Abe. I told him that I'm morally superior to God, including Abraham, being that I wouldn't kill my kids if some jerk-off told me to, no matter how powerful he thinks he is. I've written about Abraham here, here, and here,

To that, Tom B. responded:

In Abraham's defense. If you made a beautiful wooden chair and placed it in the dinning room nobody in the world can rightly take that chair out and burn it unless you gave them permission, because it's your chair. In the same way God (who made man) gave Abraham the permission to "burn the chair". Of course he wouldn't let it happen because He loves us too much. But since God is the author of all life he has the right to do what He needs to with it.

I especially love the part where he conjectures, "Of course, [God] wouldn't let it happen because He loves us too much." Really? And in the next breath, people like Tom B. will tell you that you're going to burn in hell for eternity - just like the millions, nay billions upon billions of souls before you.

But damn....God loves you.

I fear for his kids. And, being a quiverfull fundie, he'll have a whole gaggle of them.

Note: Oh...and Tom B....I blocked you because I can. Your arguments were stupid and nonsensical. And you attacked me for blocking you by impersonating your brother's account. One day, you'll grow up and realize I'm right. In the meantime, don't have kids.

A Bible Lesson for the Pastor: Bill Gothard Was Blessed by God

My last blog post was a direct copy of a letter I received from an Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) Pastor and my response. But, as I read his letter over and over again, something began to rub me the wrong way. One little phrase he used in there jumped out at me (sort of like the times when you sit in a Bible study and people say that verses jumped out at them, giving them a Eureka, except they never subsequently ran naked, into the street).

The pastor wrote:

[Bill Gothard] is a spiritual "ishmaelite"--Galatians 4:29-31.

Why didn't he capitalize 'Ishmaelite':?...

Now, several things jump out to me here. First, the fact that the pastor didn't capitalize the word 'Ishmaelite.' It could have been an inadvertent mistake, though, both respect and the English language would have dictated that he capitalize the 'I'. But, let's assume it was purposeful.

In Fundamentalist circles, you use a lowercase letter at the beginning of a proper noun to show deference to the real owner of that proper noun.

For example, if you were writing a sentence about the Bible god, you would write it like so:

God rules the world with an iron fist but somehow cannot even stop a righteous farmer from getting caught up in a tornado.

And then, when you are writing about another people's god, you would write it like this.

So god went about the world like a pansy, not being able to do anything, because he had no love. Only one God had love. The One True God.

You get my point. Not capitalizing the first letter of a proper noun is a clear message that you are poking that proper noun in the eye. You have no respect for it. Keep this in mind for later...

But that wasn't this pastor's worst offense:

In truth, this pastor shouldn't take all the blame here. It's a fault of the scriptural message, as espoused by the Apostle Paul, traditionally considered to be the author of Galatians.

The verses the pastor quoted were Galatians 4:29-31:

At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now. But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

IC, what do those verses mean!?...

These verses are referring to the story of Ishmael in Genesis. In Genesis 16, Sarai, the wife of ole' Abe, decided that she wasn't going to have any children, which was a huge deal in those days. So, she did the cultural thing and let her husband have sex with her maid, Hagar. Hagar would then birth the child, Ishmael on Sarai's lap and the son would essentially be hers.

But...

But it wasn't that simple. Sarai saw that Hagar was pregnant and hated her for it. She went to ole' Abe and lied to him, using romantical words, "You made love to her and she conceived, and now look! She hates me!" Nowhere had it said that Hagar hated Sarai. But, ole' Abe, the stand-up gentleman he was, said, "She's your freaking maid. You deal with her. I just had sex with her for God's sake (literally)."

Oops...don't do that! Your wife is pissed!...

So Sarai was mean to her. Hagar left the camp and was met by an angel that told her that Ishmael would grow up and be a mighty man. He would live amongst his relatives. He would fight with them and they would fight with him. Then she went back to the camp.

But wait! A real son!...

Then, Isaac was born. THIS BOY was the one God had promised ole' Abe. He was actually from Abe's sperm and Sarai's egg. So, he was the correct son. 

Kids will be kids...

One day, the two half-bro lads were having a sibling rivalry. Because God had given Ishmael a mighty hand, he was probably besting Isaac in some game. He began to mock Isaac, as kids do. But it pissed Sarai off. Here was her stepson, whom she had told ole'Abe to drill her maid to birth, being mean to her full-blooded boy.

So, she told Abe to kick him and his ma out of the camp for good. Abe was told by an angel that it was okay, so he did it.

But the angel told him a peculiar thing, and also reiterated this peculiar thing to Hagar later - Ishmael, due to being born of Abraham, was going to be blessed as ole' Abe's seed, and birth a great nation - just like Isaac.

So here's the lesson for the pastor (and for the Apostle Paul, for that matter)...

Ishmael was blessed too. Exactly like Isaac. Sure, Isaac didn't receive the blessing about being awesome, and an enmity in the eyes of all his brethren. But they were both promised a great nation. They were both guaranteed to be blessed because they came from Abraham. A blessing from YOUR GOD! Not some half-assed pseudo-religious blessing, meaningless in the eyes of True Christianity. Nope. A gosh darned equal blessing by the very god that you say blessed Isaac so much so that you have to write 'Ishmael' with a lowercase 'i'.

Sir, you need to capitalize 'Ishmael'.

And the final (worst) lesson...

If, as you say, Bill Gothard was an 'Ishmaelite,' I hate to say it but, he is blessed by your god - and will birth a great nation. Look at his "ministry". He has!

Now, do you see why I view religion as utter poppycock?

Today is Don't Kill Your Child Day

This day is about the story of Abraham, ole' Abe, as I like to call him.  A little voice in his head, or a booming voice in the sky, or a whisper on the wind (a still small voice like Elijah heard), told him to take Isaac up to some hill, slit his throat, and burn him so his god could smell the delicious smell of burning human flesh and...

Who knows why that god would do this.  The story is interpreted ad nauseum that this was a test of ole' Abe's faith, but, REALLY!?

If I were God (and maybe I am), I would have told the bloke to murder his kid and MY test would have been the expectation that he would take his long-nailed index finger, poke it in me eye, and loudly proclaim in King James English for me to "go f*ck myself".

If he didn't, I would have made sure that men knew women were in charge and then killed the gentleman on the spot.

Now don't kill your kids.  If your god tells you to, give him the finger.

In fact, this could be labeled Give God the Finger Day, but that's too controversial, so we'll just label it with the refusal to do what God tells us to do.  Less controversial that way.

My Kind of Righteousness

I don't like much of the god I find in the Old Testament.  There is a lot of death and murder that is undeserved.  The many stories remind me of a jealous two year old fighting over his toys. 

Sure, I understand the theology behind it.  Trust in the Lord and he will bless you.  Don't have any other god's but the god of the Bible.  Among other reasons to not get the ole' sword in the belly.  I just don't buy it.

A reasonable human being would not listen to an imaginary or unseen presence that told him to kill his son.  Today, we would arrest them on the spot and institutionalize them for insanity.  I would argue that that insanity decree would be well deserved.  People do not kill children unless they are evil - even if they claim god told them to, no matter what the Bible says.

And yet, in the Bible, god tells Abraham to kill Isaac.  And when he blindly followed the order, god miraculously saved Isaac by giving Abe a male sheep to kill instead.  I see Abe wiping his brow and letting out a shrill whistle and I see Isaac letting out a loud "WTF!?  Are you kidding me, daddio!  You were going to kill me and you only stopped when god provided an alternative?  I'm out!"

If someone told me to kill my kid, I would call the police.  Actually, I would get it on tape so that the police would have something to work with.  But, since god can't get on tape, it would be easy to conclude that a crazy, nutty order like that would be simply from a loose screw in the brain.  I imagine the person who tells me that to be one with hollow eyes, growing frightening whiskers, male or female.

No, I won't do it.  If god, himself, came down to earth, walked right up to me and ordered me to kill my kid, expecting me to trust him to resurrect the blood of my loins, hoping beyond all hope that he would repeat the crazy Abe exercise and save my kid from sure death just before the knife slit his throat, I would tell him to shove it.  Go find some other idiot who would do something that stupid.  But if he does, I would have him (god) arrested.

And it would be counted to me as righteousness.