2 Timothy 3:16 is not referring to "The Holy Bible"

If the Holy Bible, as we know it today, formed by counsels of men (no women), with agenda of their own, with simple majority votes for what to include and what to discard, were the Scriptures referred to in 2 Timothy 3:16, we would expect that those said Scriptures would make sense.  After all, if the Bible is God-breathed, wouldn't we expect that nothing in those pages would ever contradict itself?

In simple terms, we can declare that a contradiction proves a fallacy.  If a statement about something is true and yet another statement about that something contradicts the first statement, one of those statements must be false.  It doesn't necessarily disprove the something being statemented, but it does prove that the two statements are both false until one of them can be proven true, rejecting the other.

Unfortunately, the Bible cannot, as a single organism, be declared to be contradiction free.  Those who claim it is, are doing themselves a disservice when the time comes to defend their belief system, being that they have to use pretzelified explanations to spelunk through many of their holy book's premises.  If the Bible contradicts itself, then we must reject the Bible as the sole source of truth.  We cannot view it as God's word (I'll explain why, in a bit). 

Does that mean we reject everything from the ancient pages of this book?  Absolutely not!  But it does mean that you can decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong.  You do not have to take the Bible as one organism, but can take away anything you desire from it or nothing at all.  But again, you simply cannot treat it as holy words from an all knowing, all powerful being.  This cannot be true.

Let me explain in six verses:

Malachi 3:6 - For I am the Lord, I do not change...

Hebrews 13:8 - Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

We can use Jesus Christ in this example because, according to John (yes, using the full Bible as a single organism), Jesus was God as God was Jesus.  They both, together, whether they were one or two, transcended all of history, past, present, and future, as God.  Thus, if God does not change and Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever, God simply cannot change.  If God cannot change, then nothing in what is considered his word can say one thing about God and then, somewhere else in that same "Word" say the opposite.  If he cannot change, he cannot change.  Now that we have established the iron-man status of God, let's move on.

Deuteronomy 6:16 - You shall not put the Lord your God to the test...

Luke 4:12 - And Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

Matthew 4:7 - "Jesus said to him, "Again, it is written, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test'."

We have now established that testing God is forbidden.  But what about Malachi?

Malachi 3:10 - "Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need."

Here, we see God telling the Israelites to test him.  Now, it has been argued that God was really just telling them to test him with something good and in Deuteronomy, he was referring to testing him with something evil.  In saying this, the person making the argument misses a key point of logic.

After all, when God tells the Israelites to test him, what exactly is he saying?  Simple.  He is saying, if you give me the tithes you are supposed to give me, as I decreed in my law to you, nothing but good will come of it.  But then, he also tells his people to test him with evil, rob him, don't give him his due tithes, and what will he do?  Curse them.  Not just the individual who isn't tithing, but the whole nation of Israel.

As you can see, God clearly contradicts himself in the Bible, provided you are treating the Bible as an infallible, inerrant, singular organism - the holy and final words of God.

This begs many questions.  What is 2 Timothy 3:16 really referring to?  I have illuminated just one of the many contradictions in the book we know as the Holy Bible.  Is the Holy Bible the Scriptures?  It doesn't appear so.  Then, if not, what of the Bible is true, and what of the Bible is simply fiction, a work of men's minds, attempting to make the best word picture of things not able to be explained by the limited knowledge of their day?  If the Bible is not God's word, can we really stand on any of it as unadulterated truth?  Can we simply use logic and reason and take from the Holy Bible what we desire to live by and nothing more, nothing less?

The Golden Rule is a great example of what I would harvest from the pages of the Bible.  What about loving your enemies?  What about not killing and really not killing.  Take it as common sense, not as an absolute truth from a god who has broken every one of his laws - especially the killing one.  How about giving to others and being sacrificial when people are in need.  Turning the other cheek comes to mind.  What about working your rear end off to be successful?  Many awesome ideas about life can be gleaned from this book's pages.  And yet, many other ideas about life can be discovered in other books, from other people, from culture, from your own brilliant mind.

Think!  Think for yourself.  Grab wisdom and knowledge from every source available to you.  The Bible is an excellent resource for many things.  It is also a miserable failure in many other areas.  Feel free to reject any or all of it.  It isn't infallible.  It's not inerrant.  It isn't God's word.  It can't be. 

Christians Should Love and Accept Homosexuals

The rhetoric of the day from fundamentalist Christianity, the American religious right, and others is that the god of the Bible, whom they serve, hates homosexuality.  Some say that he even hates homosexuals themselves.  They have good reason to.  It says so in the Bible.

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.  They shall surely be put to death. - Leviticus 20:13

Other passages in the New Testament section of the Bible condemn homosexuality, as well, even stating that you will not be able to get into heaven if you're gay (We won't mention drunkards, idolators, adulturers, fornicators, thieves, etc.  You're all going to hell too.)

So, the logical conclusion for a Christian is to say that god hates homosexuals, wants them dead, and even better, the issue is reiterated in the New Testament, validating the issue.

I would argue that you are wrong - dead wrong. 

First of all, as society progresses, our understanding of humanity changes.  We no longer look at an alcoholic as someone who should be cast out of society.  We help them.  But let us look at an argument that was a big deal back in the early 19th century.

At that time in history, many nations, including the whole continent of Europe had abolished the terrible practice of slavery.  If they hadn't abolished it, they had scaled back the practice.  In Britain, the home country was slave free whereas the empire still allowed it.  Much was said in the halls of parliament about abolishing slavery throughout the empire.  It would take many years for this to actually happen, but happen it did.

In America, by the 1830's, many politicians and upstanding citizens had spoken out against slavery and had branded it a "peculiar practice".  This incensed many slave owners and their apologists came out of the woodwork, claiming that slavery was ordained by god himself.  Not only was it ordained by god, but it was good and right.  They had much in the way of proof from the pages of Scripture.

Many passages in Genesis speak of the ownership of slaves as a foregone conclusion.  God even blessed the actions of those slaves that did exactly what their master told them to do - as in the story of Abraham and his servant who went after Rebekah.  Isaac was given many slaves, male and female, so that god could make him the envy of his enemies.

In Leviticus 25, the same God who demanded that homosexuals be killed (the same homosexuals who Paul said could not get into heaven), made it a rule that the Israelites could buy slaves from the surrounding nations.  Israelites could not be slaves.  After the slaves were purchased, God called them property and even sanctioned the bequeathing of said slaves to the sons of the slave owner.  This practice would continue forever, or at least until the slaves died.  At the very end of his rules, god says that the Israelites could not own Israelites.  He ends this rule by saying, "but you can't rule over your own kin ruthlessly."  It would seem that this was a sanction to rule over those who were NOT their kin, ruthlessly.

Solomon made all non-Israelite men, slaves, to do hard labor for his great kingdom while making all Israelite men higher class soldiers.  In fact, the Bible, the inspired word of God, says that they are slaves to this day. 

We can look at it in another way too.  Throughout the Old Testament, hundreds of times, God refers to people who do his bidding as "my servants."  Even the human/God relationship is master/slave. 

Books of the New Testament also refer to slaves as if it is normal.  1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:28.  Pay special attention to Ephesian 6:5-9.  Paul gives very special instructions to slaves and masters and how they are to treat one another. 

There is much more in the Bible about slavery than there is about homosexuality.  In fact, most of the verses that are referenced in the New Testament that people claim have something to do with homosexuality simply don't.  They are hyper-interpreted to inject this "sin" into the text when many other things could be read into it.

These slavery passages propped up the arguments of the apologists for slavery in those times, but ultimately, they lost.  They lost to the common understanding of the worth of human life in those days.  Prominent abolitionists also made arguments from the same holy text, claiming that, though slavery was sanctioned by God, it shouldn't be practiced today.  They had to go through plenty of theological pretzels to get to that conclusion, but it was still successful.  Slavery was abolished and is no longer a part of America. 

But, keep this in mind.  Slavery is also thundered against from the pulpit.  It is now viewed as a sin.  Holding human beings against their will and everything else that goes along with the practice.  Slavery is spit at, condemned, verbally fought against, and products manufactured by virtual slaves are boycotted from every ministerial pulpit in America.  Then, the condemnation of homosexuals is heavily preached, as well, in many circles of religion.

Why?  Why is slavery, sanctioned by God, re-sanctioned by Paul with rules for doing it right, and spoken of many many times more than homosexuality, a serious problem, while homosexuality - spoken of only a few times, the sentence for which was death, unable to get to heaven because of the practice - is condemned?

Homosexuals are just as human as slaves were.  We abolished the practice of human abuse called "slavery" due to our common understanding of the worth of mankind.  In fact, we poked our finger in God's and Paul's eye to make the argument to do so.  In the same way, we can now abolish the practice of the human abuse of rejecting, ostracizing, and condemning homosexuals.  We have rejected God's words - correctly - about slavery.  We can now - correctly - ignore what the Bible says about homosexuality.

Are you with me?

I. C.

The REAL Story of Rudolph

Once, there was a group of Christian reindeer.  These reindeer did everything for God – everything!  Their whole existence was made up of pulling the weight of the kingdom for God – their taskmaster.

Not only were these reindeer focused on doing what was right, but they looked the part, as well.  Their hair was always trimmed perfectly.  Not a wisp was out of place.  Their horns were filed down to perfectly rounded points.  Hooves were trimmed and the shoes were gleaming – every day – and didn’t show any part of the bottoms of their feet.  These reindeer’s noses were always wiped and they were careful not to lift their tails for fear of causing other reindeer to begin the rutting process.  When they chewed their cud, these reindeer made sure to keep their lips closed and not speak a word until they had swallowed every last…er…glob.

The same couldn’t be said for a certain other reindeer.  His name was Rudolph.  He could never get anything right.  His hair went all over the place and was never laid nicely against his hide.  His horns hadn’t been trimmed in months, maybe even years, and came to dangerously sharp points on some of the ends, while the other ends were split or cracked off.  His hooves had a bit of deer toe fungus on them and his shoes showed signs of an attempt at being shined, but had some rust spots on them.  They didn’t fit right either.  One of them was hanging by a loose nail and the back left shoe was missing entirely. 

Rudolph would chew his cud with abandon, enjoying every last bit of the digestive process.  He figured, “If I get to eat today, I might as well enjoy the hell out of it!”  That’s another thing.  He had a foul mouth AND he would lift his tail to air out his rear on many an occasion.

Rudolph thought he was happy, except for one thing – nobody liked him.  They wouldn’t hang out with him during their free time when they didn’t have to help God out.  Rudolph was ignored and, when he asked if he could hang, they shoved him away and said mean things about how he looked and acted. 

Rudolph had a hard time understanding why they did this.  Sure, he didn’t look as nice, but he worked so much harder for God than the other reindeer.  He not only worked harder, but he was happy doing it.  All the other reindeer grumbled and complained every second of their workday.  Rudolph was loud and boisterously happy – increasing the others’ disdain.

One day, he was fed up with it and cleaned up his act.  He brushed his hair so it lay perfectly on his hide.  Trimmed the hair to perfection.  He filed his horns to rounded points.  Then, he went out and spent his life savings on a new pair of shoes, shined them up, and put them on.  They fit perfectly.  He taught himself to chew with his mouth closed and didn’t lift his tail – ever.  He even went out and bought some drugs to kill the toe fungus.  Everything the other reindeer did to look good, he did better.

And they noticed.  Rudolph’s transformation had taken a few days and had stuck for already two weeks.  The other reindeer had never noticed his hard work before and now saw it more than ever.  They were shocked!  Here, this little Rudolph had always been such a horrible Christian and now – now! – he was really getting it!

They made Rudolph their leader, let him into their circle, and everything was good.

But Rudolph was no longer happy.

THE END

Satan and the Problem of Deceit

I was a Christian once - someone who believed in Jesus Christ.  My transformation into a sort of deist has been forming over a period of ten years and has increased in pace in the last eighteen months.  What brought me to my current theological understanding of life was the slogging through millions of questions where there was no good answer and then moving forward to the next question where I discovered something of the same conclusion.

The fact that there was no good answer is not a conclusion in itself.  It just displays the nature of philosophy and theology in general.  We cannot see what we are wont to believe in and thus must take a bite out of a thing called "faith".  I am convinced this "faith" is decidedly personal.

It didn't used to be that way.

Growing up in an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church that leaned heavily on Bill Gothard's ultra-legalistic Institute in Basic Life Principles, I was taught that there was only one correct way to think and believe.  Faith was clearly established in the inerrant and infallible text of the Holy Bible.  The fact that hundreds, even thousands of other factions and groups used that exact same holy book, coming to different conclusions - at times, diametrically opposed - did not matter in the least. 

They were wrong.  Everyone else was wrong.  We held the keys to true righteousness.  After all, the way was narrow and tough, unlike the easy, wide way that led to ultimate destruction.

Faith was not personal at all.  It was supposed to be and was preached from many a pulpit as such.  But it was a cookie cutter faith.  You were expected to adhere to exact principles and formulas in order to have the kind of faith that provided you with guaranteed eternal security.  Any slight deviation from this faith was cause for concern for everyone who caught wind of the manifestations of your backsliding.

The worst offense of all was questioning.

It wasn't the questioning that was the problem.  Questioning was simply the symptom of a much deeper issue.  Just the fact that you were curious about the "maybe this isn't all it is cracked up to be" caused those around you to issue the warning:

"Satan is a master deceiver and you are allowing him to deceive you by questioning".

There is a simple problem with this factual statement.

First, we cannot see Satan.  There is no proof that he exists.  We cannot see God.  There is no proof that he exists either.  We have no possibility of establishing that every single word in the Holy Bible was written through the hands of men by God himself.  Even if this were the case, the contradictions and paradoxical natures of much of the theology within its pages would steer any logically thinking individual to a conclusion that seems quite obvious - we just don't know about what we should know.

Since we don't know what we should know, being that there are many interpretations for each of the thousands of verses in the Bible, there is no foundation from which to be deceived.  To say otherwise is to claim that it is possible to have the correct interpretation of all questions that can be answered from Christianity's holy book.  This is a tall task for any reasonable person to conclude as fact.

So, if we have no clue, but only the best ideas of God from the hands of mere men and women, like you and me, faith is decidedly personal and there is absolutely no possibility that we can be deceived.

The Stars Always Amaze Me

UPDATE 3/18/2012 2:28P CST:  When I wrote this post on June 29, 2012, I still believed in some sort of God - just not the god of the Bible. Since then, I have left that belief altogether and have become an undefined agnostic.  Regardless, enjoy the post by looking at the world through the innocent eyes of a child.

I love things that are bigger than I am.  Things that boggle my mind.  Things that the experts can explain, but my simple mind sees only God.


Tonight, getting home from Nature Camp, where my sister, who has a degree as a Naturalist (no, that doesn't mean she did her thesis in a nudist colony) took care of my six squirts while my wife and I went on a date, the kids had to go right to bed.  Everyone fell asleep immediately - except Frederic - Juaca Baby, as I call him.


Frederic has a tough time going to sleep.  He loves to get out of bed and play, helping his little brother out of bed and keeping him awake well into the night.  Sometimes, he'll sneak downstairs and find our various hiding spots where the candy is stored and have a ball.  Other times, he'll find any container that can hold liquid and make concoctions out of water and anything else that can go in water, which is, well....anything.  We have thrown away more moldy something-or-others than Kleenex from a month of family colds.


Tonight was no different.  Frederic got to come downstairs and sit in his chair and enjoy the hustle and bustle of my bride and I, sitting around chatting, blogging, and staring at each others smokin' hot bodies.  Ok, maybe a stretch, but hers is most definitely so.  Mine....I'm starting to sag in all the wrong places.  In truth, we were actually cleaning and waiting for one of my wife's friends to come for the weekend.


While cleaning, I took the garbage out and happened to glance at the dark, moonless sky.  I was taken aback at the beauty.  Stars were everywhere.  Bright ones, surrounded by hundreds of dim ones, providing a perfect backdrop for satellites orbiting by.  I rushed in to grab Fred.


We went out in the driveway, folded up his train blankie, and laid down, our bare backs against the smoothish concrete.  For an hour, we played games like, who could find the biggest triangle. (I won that one by cheating.  I picked three stars from each horizon.).  Or, who could find the perfect square.


Fred was fascinated by the bright stars.  Two satellites glided past in a similar orbit going different directions.  A small plane flew overhead with red and green lights on the under-wing tips, bright whites flashing in even intervals, and a yellow incandescent-ish light on the tail.  The engine sped up as it neared the runway approach out of town and disappeared over the tree line.  A star blinked in my peripheral vision and yet could only be seen by the both of us if we kept flitting our eyes past it, never really looking directly at its position.  In the distance, a brighter satellite flew by - maybe a high altitude plane.


As always happens when I stare at the stars, I couldn't get my mind off of wandering into thinking how small and insignificant I was.  The conversation with Fred (6) turned to God.  As any six year old, he spoke confidently of God's enormous size.  How God could bridge the distance between us and the millions of miles in between, to the nearest star.  How God's head was bigger than the whole world and all the worlds in the sun.  How his arms could reach out and push two stars together.


I listened with intense interest, interjecting once, and getting thoroughly rejected, because his older sister, Laura, had told him it was true.  So I listened.  When he was done, I spoke of my understanding of God, His Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Very simple.  No complexities.  He didn't care.  The stars were his image of God at the moment and explained perfectly what he knew of Him.


I realized right then and there that I was free.  I was free to tell my son what I knew of God without the guilty feeling that I needed to convert him then and there.  I didn't need to push my son to believe what I knew of God.  He would get there.  God, in His time, would reveal Himself to Fred.


We got up and went inside.  Inside the house that God was too big to fit his nose into and yet, as Fred said, lived inside of anyway.  He went to bed happy and fell asleep.