God has some amazing love for mankind. Think about it, he gave up his only son so that all mankind could be saved from sin. OK, maybe Jesus didn’t stay dead, after all he was resurrected three days later, but can you imagine giving you own son over to be tortured and ridiculed?To do that for scum bag human beings really does show a great love for them.
I try to fathom God’s love. It has to be so much greater than human love, because what parent would even consider allowing their child to go through what Jesus did for ungrateful, evil toe rags like some of us? Who would do it for guys like Hitler, or Stalin, or Sadam. God did. Amazing love.
Compared to God, our capacity to love must be so minute. We could never obtain the ability to love the way God loves us. The greatest love I can fathom is the love I have for my children. I can’t bear the thought of bad things happening to them. When they are not around, I worry about them. They’ve gone through some tough times in their lives, especially around the time their mother and I split up. I wish I could go back and wipe away the pain and the tears they experienced. When they hurt, I hurt. I want only what’s best for them and I’d do anything for them. I’d give my life for them. I’d go to Hell to save them if it were necessary and I had that option.
To me that’s the greatest love a human being can show to another. It’s as Christ said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” How true is that? Who can argue that? So if a human being could show that type of love to every other human being on the planet, that is nothing compared to the love God has for us. His love is far superior, far more profound than any love a human can experience even for his own children. Amazing love.
Then I see photographs like this horrible one:
I feel so sorry for this poor child. If I was there, I’d do everything I could for that child and I don’t even love that child. But I’m not there. I’m here. And I admit that I am as guilty as any other human being on this planet who is not willing OR ABLE to take action to end this sort of suffering. Let’s face it, I don’t love like God and never will. Neither will any other human being. I don’t even love other people the way I love my kids and even if I could I probably wouldn’t want to give up everything I own to save starving kids in Africa. To me the problem just seems too big for one man to deal with anyway. But then, I don’t love like God. My love is not that amazing, right?
But I can only imagine the horror I would be feeling if that was my own kid in that photograph. I can’t begin to think how devastated, how heartbreaking I would feel knowing that was happening to my own flesh and blood. I would do everything I could if that was my own child in that photograph. I would give up everything I own to help that child.
Heck, I would never have allowed that to happen in the first place. I would have done everything in my power to make sure my child’s needs were taken care of and that everything was good as I could possibly make it for them. That’s what love is all about. It’s about caring for, it’s about meeting the needs of, it’s about doing everything in your power to make that person happy. Love is an ACTION, not just WORDS. Simply claiming to love someone is NOT ENOUGH.
Even knowing that my child was going to go to Heaven when she died, even knowing she is going to live in paradise alongside God, I could not just stand by and watch her suffer like that. I just couldn’t.
So imagine how much more appalling it is for God seeing scenes like this. How heart breaking it must be for him. How much yearning theremust be for God to help this child. Imagine it. Remember his love is so much more profound than any love a human could have.
Amazing love.
But is it?
God does nothing. He stands by and watches without lifting a finger. In fact he wouldn’t even have to lift a finger. All he has to do is speak and all that child’s needs could be met. Every starving child in the world could be saved. In fact, from a word from God, no child should ever get to be in that state at all.
But God does nothing.
So where is this amazing love that Christians and the NT preach about? How can a God with so much greater love than I stand by while his most precious loved ones are stalked by vultures and starving to death. I certainly couldn’t if they were my loved ones, but isn’t God so much more loving and caring than I am and aren’t those starving children so much more precious to him than they are to me? Really??
When it comes to the suffering of children, I cannot possibly blame a God I have trouble believing exists. It would be like me blaming the fairies in my garden for not keeping my lawns trimmed. But either God is an uncaring, apathetic being or he is non-existent. There is no other option for a God who claims to have greater love than even the most loving of humans. Even as a non-believer, I certainly don’t want to think of God as uncaring and apathetic, so the only other conclusion that a rational human being can make is that God does not exist. His lack of actions, (which should come with love, otherwise claims of love are worthless) make that quite obvious.
Let’s face facts. The world is a harsh place. Shit happens. That is why there are children starving in Africa. The NT God does nothing because he is not there to do anything.
Recently I heard an argument from a Christian about how if you wanted proof of God’s existence you needed to keep searching for it, never giving up, because if you keep on looking sooner or later you will find it. He likened it to hunting for buried treasure. He said keep on digging because sooner or later you will find some of that treasure.
My first response was that I had been digging for that treasure for more than 30 years. I said that at first I thought I had really found some treasure, but then years later I realized that I had simply polished up some scrap metal that I had found and that I had discovered nothing of any real value at all.
It got me thinking some more though and it became clear to me that this is exactly what Christians do. They hunt for that hidden treasure and when they find something that looks like it could be treasure they quickly polish it up and put it on display. They say, “Hey look, I found this treasure”. And sometimes it really does look like treasure, but if you look at it a little more closely you see that it is indeed simply scrap metal.
One of the things about Christians, and I have seen this many times throughout my life, through the many denominations I have been part of and the people I have met, is that they are so desperate to find some of this treasure they will accept anything they find. They want to believe it’s treasure and won’t admit that it’s scrap metal. They polish it and polish to make it look good. But in reality it’s still worthless.
In fact it was this sort of polishing that became so clear to me the last time I attended church regularly and it was a moment when I realized for sure that Christianity was one big delusion. I saw a classic example of “polishing” going on by church leaders, talking about a recent crusade they went on around the city where I live. Here they were talking about the treasure they had uncovered. They were so excited about this treasure, but no matter how hard I looked at it, or tried to imagine otherwise, all I could do was stare incredulously, seeing only scrap metal. Others around me seemed excited about the treasure and it occurred to me right then and there that I was once one of these people. In fact I was once one of the leaders standing up the front praising God for the treasure they had uncovered. It was an eye-opening experience and it was then that I realized that these people were no different to any other Christian. They just wanted so much to see proof of God in their lives.
Part of the reason why Christians cannot see that the treasure they have is just junk polished up is because they are wearing their Christian spectacles, the spectacles that you have to wear if you want to see God in things. It was my decision to remove my Christian specs and look at Christianity without a bias that allowed me to recognize the scrap metal for what it was.
As someone who has diligently sought the lord and trusted in the lord almost all his life (40 years), I can say the truth of the matter is there is no treasure to find and that you can search all you like, but all you will find is bits of junk that you can polish and dress up to look fancy. No matter how expensive or shiny it looks, that’s all there is.
One of the things that first started to open my eyes about the bullshit of Christianity was joining a direct marketing company. This one was an Australian one called Omegatrend (a lot like Amway) I saw so many similarities between that and the church that it disturbed me. I saw Omegatrend as simply being a secular version of Christianity. That in turn made me open my eyes and begin to consider that Christianity perhaps wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Here are the similarities between Christianity and Direct Marketing:
·In DM your main task is to go out and promote the business to get more members. In C your main task is to go out and preach the gospel to get more converts.
·In DM you need to attend the meetings and listen to the tapes to stay focused. In C you have to attend the meetings and read the bible and pray to stay focused.
·In DM you attend business meetings in churches and a speaker preaches about how great the business is and what it can do for you. In C you attend meetings in churches and a speaker preaches about how great Jesus is and what he can do for you.
·In DM you think positive. In C you have faith.
·In DM negative thinking can bring you down. In C, the devil’s words bring you down.
·In DM your up-line promises to be there to help you, but in reality they’re only looking out for their own business and are only interested in you if you’re doing well. In C God promises to be there to help you, but in reality he has better things to do and is not interested in you at all.
·In DM you fake it till you make it. In C you fake it and hope that people think you made it.
·In DM you are told only the basics at the beginning and they seem great. But then after you’ve been with it for a while you find out it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and it’s all about manipulating people to make it rich. In C you are told only the basics at the beginning and they seem great. But after you’ve been with it for a while and really studied your bible, you find out it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and it’s all about manipulating people to make them conform.
·In DM they say all you have to do is recruit a few people and you’re on your way to Presidential Club, but in reality there’s so much more work involved. In C they say all you have to do is repent and you’re on your way to Heaven, but in reality there’s so much more work involved.
·DM gets more and more complicated the more you learn about it. C gets more and more confusing the more you learn about it.
·In DM you learn all the answers to the questions so you can convince anyone of anything. In C you learn all the answers to the questions so you can convince yourself of anything.
·In DM you pump all your spare time and money into the business to make it work for you. In C you pump all your spare time and money into the church to make it work for your pastor.
·In DM most people come in all fired up, but pack it in after a few months because it’s too hard and it doesn’t work. In C most people come in all fired up, but pack it in after a few months because it’s too hard and it doesn’t work.
·They say anyone can succeed in DM, but in reality it takes someone who can twist people around their finger. They say anyone can be a great Christian, but in reality it takes someone who can twist scripture so it makes sense to them.
I wonder if Jesus direct marketed his carpentry business?
I used to love the story of Gideon and how he overcame the Midianites with only 300 men. I fully believed that with God on your side 300 men was more than enough to take on the thousands and thousands of enemy soldiers. I also believed that 300 men making as much noise as possible could scare such an army. I was also inspired by the story of Gideon laying out the fleeces so that he could be sure God really was talking to him. It’s funny how Christians look upon that now as an example of a lack of faith and that we should never lay fleeces as it’s like testing God. However, God seemed quite happy to prove to Gideon that he existed with signs and wonders. It’s funny that the God who is supposed to be the same today, tomorrow and yesterday doesn’t like to give signs in this day and age.
Let’s look at the story with critical eyes, after all the word of God should be able to stand up to scrutiny. Without my rose coloured Christian glasses on, I can see quite a few issues.
1)The numbers of the Midians and the camels they rode on was innumerable. In Verse 5 of Chapter 6 it tells us this. Well we have to be sceptical about this for a start. It may have been a huge army, but not that huge. Ok, let’s give the writer of this story the benefit of the doubt. There were so many it was difficult to count. We can’t criticize the author for not being exact on numbers.
Or can we?
The bible, according to many Christians is the irrefutable, inerrant word of God. He guided the hands of the writers; he made sure everything he wanted in the bible was put there. So why wasn’t God able to give this writer the exact number? After all, he knows the number stars in the sky and has even given them all names:
He determines the number of the stars. he gives to all of them their names
So why not the number of Midianites? Something doesn’t add up here, no pun intended.
If you believe the bible is only the inspired word of God and the numbers come from the writers themselves and not God, then that’s fine, but for those Christians who believe otherwise, this is a serious problem for the accuracy of the bible.
2)When Gideon first met the Angel of God, he wanted some kind of proof he was who he said he was. In verse 20, the Angel then gets him to jump through hoops by getting him to put out meat and bread on a rock and pour broth on them. The Angel then sets it on fire with the end of his staff.
Surely, there was some far simpler way to prove he was the Angel of God and without having to do tricks (which a good trickster, would be able to do anyway). Also, don’t forget that back in those times, magicians could do some neat things, so if I were Gideon, I’d expect something much more remarkable than that!
3)Later in the chapter comes the story of the fleeces. Gideon, not satisfied with the previous sign (and fair enough too) sets out fleeces with conditions on what state they should be in the morning. God graciously does exactly what he wants – in fact, he does it twice, because Gideon still wasn’t convinced with the first fleece. (And once again, I don’t blame him.)
Funny how Gideon is allowed to test God, but it’s so frowned upon for us today.
But finally, Gideon believes God is behind him so agrees to lead an invasion against the Midianites.
4)In Chapter 7, God complains that Gideon’s army is too large and sends many of the soldiers home, so that they won’t take credit for it when the Israelis overcome the Midianites. God wants them to know without a doubt that he was the one who wiped them out. Of course, there is no explanation as to why God doesn’t just go and smite them dead without Gideon’s army going in, which when you think about it would leave no doubt that God was the one that did it. It also begs the question of why in many other bible stories God doesn’t demand they cut their numbers down to just a handful of soldiers.
5)God’s certainly lives up to his reputation of working in mysterious ways here with how he goes about selecting the 300 men he wants for this particular battle. Perhaps God was very bored and wanted some entertainment, because it’s almost like he decided to have his own little competition. It’s almost like The Apprentice or Survivor with a series of events to eliminate the excess baggage. One has to wonder why he didn’t just point out the men he wanted.
The most absurd elimination round was to get them all to drink water from a water hole and those who knelt to drink were eliminated, while those who lapped it up like a dog went to the final 300. Perhaps it’s just a cultural thing, or maybe the evolutionist have it right when they say we evolved from animals, but since when did a human being drink water by lapping it up like a dog? I’m still yet to see anyone do that for more than just a laugh. But yet exactly 300 of Gideon’s remaining men drank that way. I can’t help but wonder whether God knew they were a bunch of loonies and figured that if they got wiped out by the Midianites it would be no great loss.
6)Now comes the most remarkable part of Gideon’s story, where his 300 men surround the Midianite camp armed with only trumpets and pitchers (verse 18 & 21). But before we get to the final act of the story, ask yourself one question. If the number of Midianites and camels were innumerable, how on Earth could 300 men surround the camp? Even if they were spread out about a hundred metres apart, it’s doubtful they would be able to make enough noise to scare such a huge multitude of people.
Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt though. Let’s say that they hoped to make the Midianites think there were three hundred armies coming in at them from every direction. That would certainly scare them enough to create massive confusion.
But the trumpets, smashed pitchers, and raised torches did not cause any confusion at all amongst the Midianites. Not at all. No, because in verse 22, God is the one who sets the sword of one Midianite against the other. So Gideon and his army really had nothing to do with it at all. God caused them to kill each other.
Why didn’t God just do that in the first place? Why not cause an Earthquake or send loud thunder all around the camp or some other act that would be capable of causing confusion. Why involve Gideon and his 300 Israeli Idol finalists?
One may argue that God requires an act of faith from his people before he acts, which seems like a good argument, but in this story he is given full credit for the end result, which means all the blowing of trumpets and smashing of pitchers was in vain.
One could argue that the confusion and the turning of sword against sword were two separate events. God used his top 300 to cause confusion and then he himself took advantage of it and turned the Midianites against each other. But then one would have to ask why God needed that confusion to begin with. Isn’t he all-powerful?
On the other hand, one could argue that back in biblical days God was given credit (and was held responsible) for all the significant things that happened on Earth. In reality (assuming this event really did happen) Gideon’s army were the ones who caused the Midianites to turn on each other, not God.
7)Probably the biggest issue to come out of this story is that God violates the free-will of the Midianites by making them set sword against one another. As Christians we are taught that God will never force you do anything. This is why he allows evil people to commit atrocities, but doesn’t force them to stop. This story shows a clear case of God breaking his sacredly held rule, so it seems we have a contradiction here in the nature of God once more. Or at the very least he has changed his nature since this event took place.
In conclusion:
The entire story is nonsensical. It makes no sense for God to make everyone jump through hoops and play silly games just to decide who gets to go scare the shit out of the Midianites. Even as a test of faith (which by the way Gidion failed several times), it’s going overboard. And after all that effort it was still God who did all the work in the end, but only after violating all those Midianite soldier’s free wills.
If we are to take this as a true story we have to believe A – that God is an idiot, B – that God violates free will and C - that the selection of the 300 and the surrounding of the Midianite army was all a pointless exercise.
This is clearly a made-up or severely exaggerated story, written by a mediocre story teller who was not able to seal up all the plot holes. Thus it should not be taken seriously and should definitely not be considered literal history.
Check out what Brother Marty of Ex-Christian.net did when the Jehovah’s Witnesses visited his house! I love it, and I can’t wait to try this myself! - Jeff
I am so elated right now I actually had to calm down a bit before I wrote this first sentence. You see, I’ve been waiting about 4 years to do this, and just 30 minutes ago I finally got the chance. I finally got to fuck with a jehovah’s witness not with insults (well, I threw a few in there) but with their own fucking holy book. Anyone familiar with my blogs knows I was brainwashed in a church/school until I was 15; I know my friggin’ bible, and I’m mad as hell about it!
So I saw these 2 young girls dressed conservatively and looking a little out of place walking a few doors down from my folks house this morning with an older man. Needless to say, I know this M.O., and I high tailed it around the block and into my parent’s house to lie and wait. I burst in the door and as luck would have it, my mom was sitting at the desk right by the front door! Her being there to witness this would only be a bonus!
I ran into my old bedroom, which has become what Audra and I refer to as the “family archives” (basically just a large bookshelf filled with everything that we do not have room for at our house, along with books of our folks) and grab my childhood bible. It contains about 15 years of research into biblical fallacies, contradictions, and absurdities. I then go out to the garage and grab moms bottle of lemon-scented bleach. On my way back into the house I stop in the kitchen and get a clear drinking glass out of the cupboard and then head back to the front door, all the while explaining to her that some JW are about to knock on the door.
“Oh no your not…we’re not answering the door, just let them be.” She protested after I explained my plan.
“Well, I am answering the door, “ I returned, “I’ve been waiting years to do this to someone, and I’m not letting it pass by today!”
Instead of protesting further, my mom then asks if the bible really says that. I open up my bible to the appropriate passage and let her read it for herself. At that point she said nothing more. My final step of preparation was to put our dog Zoë in the bathroom so we didn’t need to yell over her barking.
Then the knock on the door.
I almost felt bad doing this, as these were young girls, but they were intruding in my space without invitation, they should expect to be hit with some logic every few houses.
“Hello, do you think there will ever be peace in the world?” she asks right off the bat. I want to say to her, yea, when everybody figures out that religion keeps us divided as a planet and species but I instead need to hook them in a bit to get this to work, so I simply reply, “No, probably not.”
“Well”, she replies, “did you know that we are guaranteed peace if we just follow a fe–”
“Excuse me, I’m sorry to cut you off, but I’m sure you understand that I need to make sure you are a true believer of god before I can listen to your plan for salvation.” I said with my eyes locked directly to hers. This was hard for me to do because I generally get uncomfortable with direct eye contact with people, but I made a conscious effort to only break my gaze with the one girl to lock in with the other one.
“Of course,” she says with a smile and trying to be oh so polite and “professional”.
“So if you could turn to Mark 16:18 you will find jesus tells us how we can tell true believers from false ones.” As they are leafing through their bibles to find Mark I back away from the door a bit and begin to pour some bleach into the drinking glass and continue on.
“True followers of Christ are to be able to drink any poison and not die, so I’d like to offer you both a nice refreshing glass of bleach before we continue this conversation.” I say as I offer the glass to the first girl.
She looks at me like I’m the crazy one. “Oh no, I’m not drinking that.” I make sure to look confused.
“But it’s jesus talking to his disciples…” I plead as she interrupts me.
“Where does it say that again?”
“Mark 16:18. Are you saying that jesus is a liar?”
“NO! Absolutely not!”
“Well, then you must not believe the bible is the word of god.”
“No, that is not what I’m say–”
“Then you should have no qualms about drinking a glass of bleach then, how about you, would you like some?” I ask to the slightly older one standing behind her. She smiles politely and shakes her head without saying a word. As I type this now I feel I should have also quoted jesus’ statement that even those with the faith of a mustard seed will be able to do these feats, and of they are so afraid they must not have any faith, but the adrenaline was pumping through my body at this point and I was just trying hard not to break character just yet.
She began to regroup her thoughts and say something, but I was done at this point, because I knew they weren’t gonna drink the bleach, and it was getting hard for me to fight off the huge smile that was trying to break through. Plus, they were young, no need to drag this out further. I had planted the seed of critical examination into the claims of that book, my job was done at that point. So I interrupted her.
“It seems to me that you shouldn’t be knocking on people’s doors trying to sell something you don’t really believe in yourself, so why don’t you both just go fuck yourselves?” I said with a nice shit eating grin on my face and then slammed the door in their face.
I let out a nice yelp of joy as I’m pouring the bleach back into the bottle and rinsing out the glass and I’m sure they heard it whilst walking away. I put everything back where it belongs and then leave the house to go do what I had originally planned for the morning. As I get on my scooter and head down the block, I see the 2 girls getting into a grey car, so I slow down a bit.
“I’m sorry girls, but I hope one day you learn to think rationally and examine outrageous claims,” and drive away down the street.
I feel so good right now, because it is therapeutic to lash out to these religious freaks as a way to heal from my own freakish schooling. Sure, these poor girls didn’t do anything to me, but they walked up to me uninvited. I find the practice of evangelizing to be disgusting and offensive, and if I went around openly preaching Atheism and telling everyone who wasn’t like me they are wrong I’d expect the same treatment.
But it also feels good to have gotten some young kids thinking. Maybe the go fuck yourself line was too much and shut them off, but the one girl really did seem concerned the bible says to drink poison as a test of faith. No matter what they think of me or my choice of words, they now have that bible verse in their minds. If they are truly honest people, they will begin to ponder this for many, many years to come.
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- Jeff