lurking 13: whose side are you on?
Some Christian bloggers say the weirdest things. So weird, it’s difficult to tell whether they’re arguing for or against their god God. Take this selection from the work of 6 days/6000 years/66 books:
The story of Noah who built the ark to save his family from the flood is a proof that every single family matters to God.
That’s got to be sarcasm: every single family matters except for the millions that were drowned. In truth, one family mattered to the god God in this story of the global genocide of every other family in existence.
The flood was God’s judgement on sinful people, but He saved one family, instead of destroying them with the rest.
The rest were a mistake best slaughtered. A mistake made by an omnipotent, omniscient, perfect being. So, even though the god God made the big mistake in his imperfect creation, and in the full knowledge it was coming, it makes sense that everyone would deserve to be destroyed in his righteous judgement. It was their fault.
There was nothing to prevent God from destroying all people and creating humans afresh (it is interesting that God never added any new kinds of life after the six days of creation).
What an interesting point! Having made this colossal mistake in creating humans he was so disgusted with he wanted to kill them all and could only find one worth saving, the god God bumbled on by letting more disappointing, worthless and badly behaved humans breed and live more disgustingly sinful lifestyles, just to make himself more disappointed, angry and sad. Any superbeing with half a brain would have scrapped the prototype and built an improved version.
Seriously, I’ve lost all respect for this god God: not a smart inventor, not a nice inventor and, just possibly, not a real inventor.
“Having made this colossal mistake in creating humans he was so disgusted with he wanted to kill them all and could only find one worth saving, the god God bumbled on by letting more disappointing, worthless and badly behaved humans breed and live more disgustingly sinful lifestyles, just to make himself more disappointed, angry and sad.”
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was written by Douglas Adams.
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Thank you! I’m not sure if it was a compliment to me personally, but I’ll take what I can get. 🙂
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It’s the best compliment i can give.
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Oh come on, the duck’s pretty stunning!
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I have a fond spot for ducks… But you already have too many photo junkies complimenting you for your shots. I’m trying to balance the equation a bit.
Are you voting for Independence? I heard on the BBC last night that if you do then North England might split off, too. See what you’re starting up there? The complete collapse of the United Kingdom.
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I still haven’t decided. I’m more ‘no’ because I don’t think nationalism is healthy but I could go ‘yes’ if British politics disgust me sufficiently before the vote.
I’m reading a bizarre conversation on Catholic Truth where a recent convert is being congratulated but then questioned about whether the priest used vegetable or olive oil because if it was vegetable oil he’s going to hell. Wow. I want to do a post, but … it’s just … too … very, extremely weird.
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You know, you have a great niche here; finding all the crazies and bundling them together in a neat little basket.
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The duck is gorgeous, but the rhetorical three at the end is gorgeouser.
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Oh thank you! I’ve never received such high praise from you in all my blogging life. You might just overtake Ark here …
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I must do a post on Noah, about why the stories do not vitiate my religion entirely…
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Nice pic. I find ducks more interesting than religion.
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Isn’t it gorgeous? Given we don’t generally eat cute and cuddly animals, it’s astounding that people are still happy to murder such lovely ducks.
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My mother did a mean duckling bigarade. I’m sick at the thought of it now. We are so hypocritical about what we eat. Cute duck, cute lamb, yummy dead animals on plate. One thing less on my conscience there.
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“Why should I allow that same god to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown his own?”
— Bertrand Russell —
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Ooh, that’s a good quote!
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The last paragraph is excellent. Never thought about it like this. He has wiped the slate clean and went straight ahead and screwed up all over. And I echo John’s comment.
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Glad you enjoyed it! You can write cheeky stuff if you want. I can take it. 😎
I love that your creationist SA friend gave such a fresh perspective on Noah.
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Why? Credit where credit is Jew, yes? Noah complaints from The Ark, I assure you.
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Boom boom. Throw a Led Zeppelin song title in there and it’s a classic. 😕
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Violet, I have no idea what that poor, perfectly gorgeous duck did to you, to have deserved such a horrendous context?☺
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You’re right, I should have found a dirty, ugly and sinful duck that deserved a premeditated drowning. I’ll try to find more appropriate matches in the future, thanks for pointing that out. 😀
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May I suggest a tasty, smoked, hanging, SINFUL, CONDEMNED AND EXECUTED Peking duck?
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Oh no, poor little ducky!
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OK, I understand your compassion for the “little ducks”…
Make it big, and dripping of unhealthy fats…
☺
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Wow wow Violet. One for that amazing shot of that beautiful duck and one for the post. I couldn’t have said it any better. As someone who used to believe in that ‘god’ of theirs I can honestly say that letting go of those false beliefs was a total relief and I’ve never been happier. As for his ‘followers’ that made my life a living hell, it was definitely no loss to see them go – after I chased them out of my house of course. I must have looked like the devil incarnate or something because they were scared out of their wits but I am sure it was a statue of some stone cold god they saw behind me that really scared the bejesus out of them. 😛
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“As someone who used to believe in that ‘god’ of theirs I can honestly say that letting go of those false beliefs was a total relief and I’ve never been happier.”
Couldn’t agree more, Sonel.
“As for his ‘followers’ that made my life a living hell, it was definitely no loss to see them go”
Hear, hear.
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Thanks Victoria. Kindred spirits for sure. 😀
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Thanks Sonel, I’m glad the photo is proving so popular – I’ve got a whole series of ducks to go so the charm might wear off soon. I didn’t realise you’d had a bad religious experience as well, at least the stone cold god is now providing you with some comfort. 😮 (having so much fun with these!)
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Oh, the charm of you posting your stunning shots will never wear off Violet and those ducks are totally adorable. 😀
Believe me hon, at some stage I was suicidal. To grow up in a family where you have a depressed and abusive mother, verbal abusive and alcoholic stepdad, alcoholic and abusive father and verbal abusive stepmom and all their kids that blames you for everything that happens to them, the church and most of those people was way too much. I thought and believed I was the worst person in the world and didn’t deserve anything and they as god fearing people were supposed to help me up and motivate me. Not try to break me down to the point where I didn’t want to live with myself anymore. Not even my family could break me so why the hell would I allow them to do that? So I did what I always did. I stood up for myself because I had two little kids that needed me. They didn’t ask for that. And that was the best thing I ever did and since then I do what’s best for me and my little family and anyone that tries to mess with us, gets my bad side. 😀
Oh, not only the stone cold god. There’s you and Victoria and all my other lovely blogfriends that I am so grateful for. Thanks! The best I could ever ask for. 😀 ❤
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Sonel, we are sorry about your terrible experiences as a child and in addition your bad experience with the church. We would like to remind you though, that there is a difference between what the Bible teaches and what people in churches do. We live in a fallen world, and people, even serious believers, become entrenched in human traditions, and forget to love their neighbour who attends church. Blessings.
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All I could think of when i saw that duck was, “a l’orange!“
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😆 Nooooo! They’re way to beautiful to eat Arch. Shame on you! 😀
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Bwahahahahaha!
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😛 Rather have this. 😆
🌯
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Well, you are what you eat — “Quack, Moo, Cluck, Oink, Baa, Meow!”
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Whahahahaha! Yeah, that’s true. I only do the Moo, Cluck and Oink. No Quack and definitely NOT Meow! 😆
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“Well, you are what you eat”
Well, you should talk — you jambalaya crustacean
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I don’t know what sounds most crustaceans make, but I could swear I heard a teeny scream when I dropped a lobster in a pot of boiling water, but that didn’t stop me from reaching for the butter – yum! A bit like Ark’s “Eeeeeek!” actually.
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I’ve never figured out what the big deal is about lobster. It’s mostly tasteless and you need lots of butter to make it worth your while.
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Was it a mistake for the United States to bomb the mass murdering Nazis and Imperial Japanese back to the Stone Age?
Or do you think Hitler, Tojo and their cultures of death would have been better suited to an atheist teach-in?
The Bible is very clear about why God destroyed most of the human race in a flood, Genesis 6:5-6:
“5 And now God found that earth was full of men’s iniquities, and that the whole frame of their thought was set continually on evil; 6 and he repented of having made men on the earth at all.[3] So, smitten with grief to the depths of his heart,”
“Men’s iniquities” means murder, rape, pillage, torture, sadism; all the things witnessed in the Nazi, Imperial Japanese and concurrently in the atheist regime that was terrorizing Russia.
And notice verse 6:
“So, smitten with grief to the depths of his heart,”
Would you not feel grief if your son had grown up to be a mass murdering, sadistic rapist who sliced of people’s heads just for the pleasure of it (yes, that’s what Imperial Japanese soldiers did as they rampaged through Asia during the 1930’s and 40’s).
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Sounds horrible. One wonders why the drowning wasn’t more specifically targeted in that case. Are you praying for another genocide for all the bad people?
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Wisp,
The Bible passage says, “earth was full of men’s iniquity.”
So just as targeted tax cuts don’t do any good to stimulate an economy, neither would targeting a specific part of a world “full of men’s iniquity.”
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Interesting (and telling) SillinessOfMind, that you’ve chosen to ignore my comment entirely.
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In fact, I’d rather hoped we’d get a long, involved (and likely heated) discussion of Noah going – I have SO much to share —
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No he just thinks god’s American. Or America is god. One or the other.
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Oh, SillinessOfMind, hasn’t it dawned on you yet how deluded you have become?
The biblical flood was simply a plagiarism of the real flood that occurred 300 years earlier, in Shurrapak, Iraq, in 2900 BCE, when the Euphrates river overflowed it’s banks to the depth of 22.5 ft, or 15 cubits (the same 15 cubits the Bible tells us water covered the highest mountains), and covered an area of about 3 counties. The king of Shurrapak, Zisudra, escaped on a trading barge loaded with cotton, cattle and beer (oh my!).
Years later, an anonymous author wrote what – as far as I know – was the first work of fiction (for you atheists, the Bible came much later –), called, “The Epic of Gilgamesh.” In this, the king – in this instance, named Utinapishtim – sent out doves to see if the land was dry. When they disemb-arked, Ut made a sacrifice, around which the gods gathered as they, “smelled the sweet savor.”
In the Bible, Noah sends out doves and later makes a sacrifice, at which his god, “smelled the sweet savor.”
I smell a plagiarist!
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Sorry – typo – the king of Shurapak was Ziusudra, not Zisudra. Mea culpa.
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@ Silenceofmind, just in case you did not know this, but the US did not “…bomb the mass murdering Nazis and Imperial Japanese back to the Stone Age…”
The means to stop the war were limited to the technology of the day. Was your god at war whith humanity, when he supposedly decided to drwon all people exept one family? The allied recognized the inhumanity of their actions of bombing and the collateral damage, but what else could they do? It has been a long conversation about wether the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary measures and for example, if the bombing of Dresden was actually a war crime. It is humane to ponder these decisions. Drowning all of humanity sounds not only inhumane “war crime”, but also like the god that alledgedly was responsible for it had a very limited set of tools at hand. It really does not sound like the work of an omnipotent creator force. Rather like a very limited and andropomorphic god.
The difference between the Allied forces and the Fascists was not only, that the Allied won, but also that the Fascists would not have even stopped to question their right to do genosides, while the Allied were very concerned about the ethical reprecussions of their actions. That is what being the underdog early on, often does to you. But the Biblical god is your basic Fascist, in that it draws the justification of it’s actions from who is acting and not from what is being done. That is, at least according to many if “his” adherents.
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Well said!
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I really appreciate the story of Noah and the ark, Violet. I guess I can empathize with the idea of God being like an artist working with a medium that just will not cooperate. I myself frequently dismantle projects, tear up stories, demolish everything and start over. God is like an artist, as far as being our Creator.
There’s been a few times in my life when I have seriously wondered if the human race was even worth bothering with, like when studying the holocaust or listening to somebody’s horror story. I don’t wonder at all about why God sent the flood, I’m more impressed by the fact that God has shown such a steadfast love for us.
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Do you not think it would have been more sensible to improve the prototype post-flood in that case? Why continue with the same flawed design, making new conscious beings, if it brings so much misery to the creator and the people living through horror stories? It just doesn’t quite add up. According to the story, he didn’t tear up his work of art and start again afresh, he tore it up and did it again.
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That you think a god who is touted as having omni abilities would will perfect beings and not attain this end is beyond me.
That you think this is how to show love demonstrates in my view one who is no longer reasonable.
That you think the third cow was sinful and was best drowned because a few people had displeased their maker is abhorrent.
That you can justify such madness shocks me!
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Only a primitive mind — one who’s lost their mind — could reason that genocide is acceptable, prosocial behavior.
Let’s see — daddy is unhappy that children who don’t obey him.
Solution — kill ’em — but first, make sure they suffer, children, women and men.
Symptoms of a psychopath:
* Antisocial behavior which is inadequately motivated and poorly planned
* Poor judgment and failure to learn from experience.
* Pathological egocentricity
* Conning, manipulative, deceitful
* Lack of any true insight; inability to see oneself as others do.
* Lack of remorse or guilt
* Callousness and lack of empathy
* Prone to boredom; thrill-seeking
* Parasitic lifestyle
* Poor behavioral controls
* Failure to accept responsibility for own actions
Excellent post, Violet.
.
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Thanks Victoria! You’re right, it’s really strange that Christians (and formerly us!) accept that global genocide could be a reasonable action. It does just show you how worryingly malleable the human mind is. Psychopath indeed.
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“Only a primitive mind — one who’s lost their mind — could reason that genocide is acceptable, prosocial behavior.”
Indeed, and primitive human minds have been committing genocide for centuries. The first step they usually take is to remove God from the equation, Stalin, Hitler, Mao..
God however, is not a human and therefore not a primitive mind.
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— Adolph Hitler —
— Adolf Hitler —
April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordat of 1933.
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Wrong.
“The Lord said to Moses, “Take vengeance on the Midianites for the Israelites. After that, you will be gathered to your people.”
So Moses said to the people, “Arm some of your men to go to war against the Midianites so that they may carry out the Lord’s vengeance on them.”
InsantiyB — read the full chapter. You know — where Moses is instructed by your god to kill all married women, men and boys, but keep the girls for themselves —> sex slaves. Oh, and don’t forget to read the part with they steal all the property of the people they slaughtered at the command of your psychopathic god and Moses, and split it between themselves.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+31
So much for the 10 Commandments, eh?
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I know this will comes a surprise to you, but it isn’t called Moses-anity. Christians actually follow Christ. Moses was leading people out of slavery, fleeing bondage.
I don’t know what kind of blissful world you dream of, but in the real world there are wars, killing, power struggles, especially when people are trying to escape the powers that be. People do not sit down politely and engage in mediation and negotiation with their slave owners, nor do they just waltz in and politely reclaim their land. It’s not psychopathic, it’s human nature.
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InsanityB — that is primitive thinking. — that = you.
Do not know that your bible promotes the very things you claim are primitive. Funny how Jesus never condemned slavery. But I suggest you do a little research regarding traumatic brain damage. Any god who promotes war is creating dysfunction. Traumatic brain injuries are the signature wound in war, according the the Department of Defense and Veterans Administration. Here’s what can happen when people sustain prefrontal cortex damage.
Early Brain Damage and Development in Social and Moral Reasoning:
“Children who experience early damage in the prefrontal cortex never completely develop social or moral reasoning. As adults, even on an intellectual level, they cannot refer to such behavior because they have little concept of it. In contrast, individuals with adult-acquired damage are usually aware of proper social and moral conduct, but are unable to apply such behaviors.”
“The patients had problems with violence and resembled “psychopathic individuals, who are characterized by high levels of aggression and antisocial behavior performed without guilt or empathy for their victims,” commented Raymond Dolan of Institute of Neurology in London. Their brains were just not capable of acquiring social and moral knowledge even at a normal level.”
“Researchers at the University of Sweden have found the prefrontal cortex to be precisely the area of the brain that is impaired in murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals who repeatedly re-offend. At the November 1999 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, Asa Bergvall presented findings on their study of violent offenders. The results were quite startling.”
“Unfortunately, the area of the head most vulnerable to injury is also where the most fragile and crucial region of the human brain is located. Behind your forehead lies your prefrontal cortex , the center of your higher-order “executive functions,” as well as home to your social awareness and moral conscience.
“Injury to the prefrontal cortex can affect your most human qualities: the ability to process information and solve problems; to concentrate, remember, and learn. Damage here can lead to personality changes that manifest in impulsive and socially inappropriate behavior, depression, and violence.” http://www.fi.edu/learn/brain/head.html
So what’s up with your god promoting war? Seems to me your god doesn’t know a damn thing about the brain.
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Oh, and btw, every 15 seconds someone sustains a traumatic brain injury in America. It’s the number one cause of death and injury in children. And this just in:
“About half of teens between the ages of 16 and 18 suffered a traumatic brain injury before being locked up in a New York City jail, a new study finds.
Traumatic brain injuries can cause mood and behavior changes that vary depending on the nature of the injury, but often include impulsiveness, emotional volatility, and slowed brain processing speeds. These factors not only contribute the likelihood of individuals ending up in jail; they also affect the proper treatment while there and their likelihood of returning once released.
Two of the most common features of TBI, emotional dysregulation [mood volatility] and processing speed, may be linked to criminal justice involvement as well as problems while in jail,” according to the study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Ohio State University professor John D. Corrigan, a national expert on head injuries, told the Associated Press that inmates with head injuries are more likely to break jailhouse rules, engage in substance abuse, and have difficulty re-entering society after release.
Past studies have suggested that about 60 percent of adults in prison have had a traumatic brain injury — more than seven times that of the general population by some estimates.
This study aimed to assess those rates among juveniles. Behavioral changes are particularly common among those who experience a TBI at a younger age,” Source
Study: http://www.jahonline.org/article/S1054-139X%2813%2900833-1/abstract
That’s just TBI. We’re not even talking the extensive study (Adverse Childhood Experiences) that was done by the CDC which included close to 18,000 subjects. Those who experienced adverse childhood experiences had a greater chance of risky behavior later in life, such as smoking, alcohol and drug abuse, risk for intimate partner violence abuse, Illicit drug use, early initiation of smoking, early initiation of sexual activity, adolescent pregnancy, etc.
Funny your god didn’t know about that, eh? But your god’s solution is to go in and wipe out all of humanity except for one family. Your god’s solution is to go in and cause more brain damage and adverse childhood experiences, including the ramifications of war, while setting his people free.
Brilliant strategy.
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That’s true, and I should really stop banging my head against the computer screen, but then I read some of these comments, and – there it goes again!
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I know the feeling. Ugh. I have little patience for idiocracy, especially when all this information is readily available at our fingertips.
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“reclaim their land“? It wasn’t theirs in the first place, they were a bunch of wandering nomads, without a pot to piss in!
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Now why doesn’t violet have like on comments? I have to reply to this to say I like it 😉
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This post is excellent and I like these closing remarks.
Maybe the believer was making an attempt at sarcasm. There is no other way to interpret those comments. To make such an excuse for such a god, implies the person has abandoned reason altogether.
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It was a particularly bizarre post to find, in among generally bizarre posts from this blog. I did think it must be a joke for a while but I seem to remember commenting and getting such a deadpan, dull reply that I realised it’s for real. Creationist blog though, I suppose the reasoning standards won’t be expected to be very high. 🙄
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Ah yes, indeed that makes sense now. How someone can believe and write such down is beyond me
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“Seriously, I’ve lost all respect for this god God..”
Of course you have. And in your so called objective brain it is perfectly reasonable to assign negative characteristics to something you don’t even believe in.
Tell me, why do you have to keep attempting to justify your disbelief? Why not disbelieve in a loving God? A merciful God?
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Ah you miss the point. The character described in the bible is one that deserves no respect from anyone with half a brain. It is not assigning negative characters to something we have no evidence is, it is making a summary from the book that purports to describe s/h/it.
No, we are not making apologies for disbelief. But even if we were, what is your problem?
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“The character described in the bible is one that deserves no respect from anyone with half a brain.”
You are right and that is why those with half a brain never give him any respect.
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I didn’t realize you’re a blockhead as well. I have nothing more to say to you. It has been nice making your acquaintance
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Love it. I adore these comments when you all get sick of discussing with people who can’t think or reason correctly and you all just say ******** (insert word/s of choice). It does some it up. Not mine to argue or discuss as I know stuff all about it, just mine to observe and wonder.
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I think you agree there are times we must cut the chase, especially when it is headed nowhere.
Do I get an award 🙂 or are they all given out today?
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“Tell me, why do you have to keep attempting to justify your disbelief? Why not disbelieve in a loving God? A merciful God?”
I would be quite happy to do that if the Bible described a loving, merciful god. There is nothing about the god in the Bible that makes sense to me or suggests the people envisaged their god as loving and merciful. I know Christians like to tell each other this is the case, but an open reading of the Bible will tell you otherwise. I don’t even find the idea of a being killing itself out of love to be logical – especially when it knows it’s coming back to life and the sacrifice as for … itself. Sure, the character Jesus said the occasional nice thing about loving and caring for each other, but that’s in no way a unique teaching to him. Can you point me to a story in the Old Testament where the god God is portrayed as anything other than petty, angry and disdainful of the human experience?
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Does rescuing the Israelites by killing the Egyptians count?
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Probably, the Egyptians weren’t worth keeping alive. Have nice holiday, by the way! Hope you bring back lots of photos again.
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Thanks for your good wishes. I hope to pause long enough to take a few shots.
Good day too
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Can we ask where you’re going, Mak? Hopefully, not Rwanda —
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Not Rwanda, though they aren’t fighting at the moment. Congo would be bad.
Am leaving for the UAE
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Interesting choice.
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“Can you point me to a story in the Old Testament…”
Well, starting with the very first book God created the world, Adam and Eve, and a garden to put us in. All this beauty on the planet that we see today was created for us to enjoy. If God were petty, angry, disdainful, he would not have bothered to put Adam to sleep before taking his rib. He could have just ripped it out. He could have just created a barren planet for us to suffer on. He did not have to cover us when sin entered the garden and Adam and Eve hid. In the very first chapters of the bible we are introduced to the kindness of God.
As to Christ dying for us it was a necessary ransom because of the sin that came into the garden. But it was also the act of a kind and merciful God who wanted to empathize with us, to walk in our shoes so to speak, to experience what we experience as people. He came to us as the poorest, the humblest, when He could have been born in the finest palace with all the creature comforts available to Him. He willingly died for us for spiritual reasons, as a sacrifice, a ransom for sin, but also death is part of the human experience. Only a kind and merciful God with an investment in us, an empathy, a compassion, would endure suffering and death to such a degree as He did.
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” If God were petty, angry, disdainful, he would not have bothered to put Adam to sleep before taking his rib. He could have just ripped it out.” No, that would make him a torturing psychopath. You’re playing with me, aren’t you?
“He came to us as the poorest, the humblest, when He could have been born in the finest palace with all the creature comforts available to Him.” If he’d come as a disabled lesbian woman with no access to supernatural powers, you might have a point.
“Only a kind and merciful God with an investment in us, an empathy, a compassion, would endure suffering and death to such a degree as He did.” Lots of people suffer more, and for no reason. Planning and executing your own suffering and death to make a point is, once again, psychopathic. When you don’t actually die and you know you’re not actually going to die, but live forever as the god of all things, it’s meaningless.
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“No, that would make him a torturing psychopath.You’re playing with me, aren’t you?”
You keep trying to tell me He is, which leads me back to how illogical it is spend so much time assigning negative characteristics to a God you do not even believe exists. It’s like a form of cognitive dissonance, if God is not real, then why constantly try to justify your own disbelief? Why not simply refuse to believe in a kind and merciful God instead?
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“Why not simply refuse to believe in a kind and merciful God instead?”
I can understand where you’re coming from with this, as you’ve convinced yourself that the being the Bible can be described in these terms. The problem is that I genuinely don’t see that anything kind or merciful about the god in the Christian traditional as described in the Bible. I don’t believe in any gods, described by anyone, if that helps.
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I had to stop a while from planning for my holiday gateway just to laugh at this. Touche!
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😀
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Pssst — we’re having a party at Ark’s place.
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Cool, thanks! I’ll just pop over. I’m trying to argue with Pink but am lacking in science and just general facts, if you’re interested … 🙂
http://pinkagendist.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/the-terribly-unfortunate-case-of-michael-f-egan-iii-defining-sexual-harassment
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I’ll check it out. If it’s too intense, I’m opting for the party. 😈
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Okay, you didn’t join the last ‘party’ round at Pink’s but I’m so sure you clear up the whole discussion on his more recent post. Go on! Roughseas is too disgusted to engage. 😀
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LOL Violet. Today, I’m in a purple mood, not a pink mood. 😉
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“If God were petty, angry, disdainful, he would not have bothered to put Adam to sleep before taking his rib. He could have just ripped it out.”
You know, I grew up on that crap too, in fact, I recall in a Junior High Biology class, the instructor asked how many ribs humans have – I shot up my hand and told him the answer, and added that women have one more than men, because god took one from men. He just smiled down sadly, and said, “No, they both have the same number of ribs.” Now THAT was a revelation!
“He could have just created a barren planet for us to suffer on.”
Well, considering where he stuck the Jews – his pet people – he may as well have!
“He did not have to cover us when sin entered the garden and Adam and Eve hid.”
Who asked him to?
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Very important question
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I would like to add some knowledge about anatomy to the number of ribs in males and females. The rib is surrounded by the periosteum and it regenerates every time the bone is taken out, but the periosteum is left. As the Creator God must have taken out only the bone to make Eve. He left the periosteum to regenerate another rib. So men and women have the same number of ribs.
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Of course he did —
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If you have time, don’t you want to read about Jonah, who was sent to Nineveh to warn the people? Background of the Assyrians show that they were extremely cruel people. Yet they repented when Jonah warned them of God’s judgement, and the whole city was spared.
It would be interesting to know how much study you have put into understanding the Bible, or are you just parroting all the usual nonsense about God and Jesus found in the blogosphere? A careful, intensive study of all the 66 books of the Bible might prove insightful. To help you we will continue blogging about all these issues. Blessings.
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Lol…reading a few of these byting comments it is clear that reserving the term
dickheadthe term that I don’t use any more should not be gender specific.LikeLike
What a clever on-topic argument! Or wait, was it just a meaningless personal insult based on the fact that you disagree with someone? Surely not. Insanity makes a mean nettle, lemon and ginger wine, so treat her with some respect.
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But she’s mean to all the non-believers! Mean,mean, mean…and she thinks we are all gong to Hell to sit around with Yahweh’s altered ego, Satan, and toast marshmallows while some lessor devil roasts out tootsies.
I don’t like scary ladies like this.
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As opposed to scary WOMEN like me? (sexist language ladies v women etc etc which you clearly don’t understand but we’ll forget that for now, but not for later)
I think dickhead is a great term. I love using male gender specific insults. Nettle lemon and ginger wine sounds totally boring. Unless it is dry and very strong. Is it?
Sorry for sort-of agreeing with Ark here. Not intentional. I’ll try not to do it again so please don’t ban me.
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If I use a term such as woman,( or women) it is merely because the subject IS a woman. ( by the generally accepted biological definition, including bums, bumps and other interesting bits and bobs and small enough feet to fit under the sink to do dishes)
Yes, I could have used the non-specific term,”person”, but I know that the subject of my comment is female. Thus woman. ( and it irks the crap out of some people too, which is a bonus when playing in blogsville 😉 )
Whether such people are ladies ( in the sense of being a bit more refined than a slag, slut, bimbo, or bitch for instance, is not for me to say.)
Isn’t sexism so much fun?
Oh dear, Agreeing With The Ark.
That is apparently a BIG blog no-no.
You will have poor Violet rushing off to find medication and hanging Anti-Ark banners from her spot in Celtland. or teaching her ”lighty” to throw darts at an Ark picture on her dartboard.
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Don’t worry. Me, my demons (Pullman), my Gollum (Tolkien), my Podenco (Spanish hunting dog), oh, not forgetting me, have already prepared our darts.
Sorry, dog is not interested in darts. Just your throat. Go Snowy!!
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Snowy? You a Tintin fan?
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Yes. No.
What else do you call an albino dog? Sooty?
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Killer, Fang, Rocky, Ayou, C’mere, ?
I have a white cat called Uncas.
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“George”?
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Blanco?
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Is that the one whose balls got stuck under your couch? That would make me mean, too, couches are heavy.
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He was OK when I retrieved them and threw them in the air.
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I would imagine THAT propelled him into a backflip!
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He liked it. Let’s just leave it at that.
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You left out, “slattern”.
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Ark, you should read this:
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Sorry….didn’t you see my comment already? lol…Been there ( a while back) got the t shirt. Come on …catch a wake up.
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Haha, hadn’t scrolled to the comments. That’s hilarious!
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“Insanity makes a mean nettle, lemon and ginger wine”
I make a great hemlock, with a twist of lime – she should try it sometime —
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Oooh, lime. Sounds tempting.
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I would imagine THAT propelled him into a backflip!
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“Any superbeing with half a brain would have scrapped the prototype and built an improved version.”
Is that what you think? What if he loved the creation despite it’s constant flaws?
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Who’s ”he”?
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The superbeing.
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Can’t you just FEEL the love?
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I REALLY liked this part:
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The link didn’t work. But as far as your comment I think if you think that your views a bit strange. Being thankful that someone was spared death does not equate to being thankful that someone is killed. At least not to the minds of people who are not desperate to find some way to attack Christianity.
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Thank you for your perceptive comments about God and the flood. What you fail to point out is that the society at that time had become extremely wicked. ‘Every inclination of the thoughts of [their] hearts [were] only evil all the time (Genesis 6:5).’ In such a society, it is mainly the women and children who suffer the most abuse. We have met women who were messed up by their fathers as kids, and it is gruesome, and the damage big.
So we gather you prefer that to God’s judgement after they had had enough time to mend their ways.
It is easy to talk if one comes out of a nice family, and lives in a country where there is law enforcement. We would like you to come and visit our beautiful country, South Africa, and see how long you will survive in some places.
We will post a blog on the whole issue, and invite you to come and read it. Again, we are not cross at you, but please be very careful before condemning God, based on deficient knowledge.
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Remember, your god backed the horrendous regime of Apartheid through organisations like the NGK church preaching disgusting thinly veiled racism to a bunch of screwed-in the head Afrikaaners, many of whom treated their livestock better than their employees.
And what they taught they derived from the bible.
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Neither am I cross at you, Gerard (I assume you’re the one on the left –), but I would suggest that you please be very careful before praising your god, based on deficient knowledge.
I must assume also, and I really don’t like making assumptions, that by choosing the username, “SIXDAYS,” you’re essentially telling us that you are a biblical literalist, that you believe the entire universe was created in only six days, by magic, and further, that it is highly likely that you believe the Bible to be inerrant, completely and totally devoid of mistakes. How am I doing so far?
You’ve independently, or collectively, concluded that the men of the time were wicked, and that it (was) mainly the women and children who suffer(ed) the most abuse. If your magical entity were capable of creating an entire universe in only six days, why would he/she/it feel the need to murder the poor, abused women and children as well, why not simply single out the wicked ones, zap them with a lightening bolt or the SARS virus, and leave the innocent abuse victims alone? Frankly, drowning innocent women and children sounds far more wicked to me, than anything those wicked men could possibly have done to them. Can’t you just imagine all of those innocent children, clinging to rocks, screaming for help that never comes? I can.
When I speak of “deficient knowledge,” Gerard, what I refer to, is the history of Mesopotamia, from which many of the biblical stories originate, and in which, many of the early ones take place. Most biblical experts date the “flood,” as having taken occurred about 2600 BCE, adding together the ages of the descendants of Adam, and I use italics, simply because the biblical flood never happened. Granted, it’s a good story to tell ignorant, superstitious people, in order to control their behavior, much like telling little children that if they don’t behave, the boogey-man will get them, but hardly any more accurate.
Now I WILL grant you, that there was indeed an actual flood, that took place in Mesopotamia, in 2900 BCE – three hundred years earlier – that occurred when, after a six-day downpour (now THERE’S your six days!), the Euphrates River overflowed it’s banks near the ancient Sumerian city of Shuruppak, during the reign of King Ziusudra, and flooded an area about the size of three counties, to a depth of 15 cubits, or 22.5 feet (I have no idea what that is, in meters, I’ll leave you to figure that out for yourself). His Highness escaped the devastation by boarding a trading barge, loaded with cotton, cattle and beer (oh my!), and scooting on down toward what today is the Persian Gulf. Three Sumerian cities – Shuruppak, Uruk, and Kish – were inundated, in what is now southern Iraq, about 125 miles southeast of modern Baghdad.
Tombs, from ancient Egypt, just a stone’s throw away from Baghdad, have been excavated well past the third millennium BCE, and absolutely no silt or any other kind of residue, from a global flood has been found.
A couple of hundred years later, an anonymous author wrote what is probably the very first, extant, work of fiction – and no, the Bible doesn’t count, it hadn’t even been started until after 1000 BCE – entitled, “The Epic of Gilgamesh.” That’s the story of a young man, Gilgamesh, a Sumerian, in search of immortality, and basically details his adventures while on his quest, but near the end, he happens to recall a king who rode out the great flood in a boat, and the gods, impressed with the king’s courage, lifted both him and his wife, and took them to live forever at the ends of the earth – in other words, they would never die, and so our hero goes in search of this immortal pair, hoping to gain their secret to immortality. The author renamed the king, changing Ziusudra to Utanapishtim, and details the flood, through Utanapishtim’s memories. The rain stopped after six days, then Ut sent out ravens and doves, to test for dry land; finally, one dove didn’t return – sound familiar? When Ut finally disemb-arked, he made a sacrifice offering to the gods, who, according to Ut, hovered over the barbeque, or as the author tells us, “The gods smelled the savor, the gods smelled the sweet savor and collected like flies over a sacrifice.”
Amazingly – and quite coincidentally, I’m sure – Noah’s flood was 15 cubits as well, except 15 cubits higher than the highest mountain, which doubtless, would have included Everest – much like the tellers of fish stories, the first liar doesn’t stand a chance!. Noah – again, totally coincidentally, without question – sent out ravens and doves, and upon landing, made a sacrifice. And as difficult as it may be to follow Coleridge’s advice when reading fiction, and “suspend your disbelief,” it HAS to be difficult to read coincidence into the fact that after Noah hit dry land, he made a burnt offering, and Genesis 8:2 tells us, “the Lord smelled the sweet savor“! What are the odds, that two men, writing 2 millennia apart, would come up with the exact same phrases, when discussing two totally different people, and an entirely different set of gods? It just boggles the mind!
To me, there are those who study the Bible, Gerard, and that’s fine, but then there are those who not only study the Bible, but study the story behind the writing of the Bible, and I would suggest that it is those who do only the former, who are in fact possessed of, “deficient knowledge.”
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Thanks for providing inspiration for the post and for popping over to comment. I think Arch covered everything pretty well in his reply. I just wanted to say that I have visited South Africa and did survive (although I had some scary moments) and I’ve also lived in Argentina, as well as visiting various other countries with varying levels of security and extreme poverty, so I don’t think my experiences of life are limited to seeing people having it easy.
I also don’t think the differences in how people behave have anything to do with them needing to ‘mend their ways’ but are down to complex socio-economic issues that include poverty, lack of access to decent education and a severe lack of options and opportunity. It’s insulting and patronising in the extreme to suggest it’s anything to do with a ‘sinful’ nature that would deserve drowning. I am quite cross at you for being so judgemental and blind to the realities of life for many people.
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Well said, Violet. Arch, too. I can literally get sick to my stomach when I read such blatantly illiterate, indoctrinated drivel under the guise of ‘love’.
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Isn’t it odd? Society had become extremely wicked. Why would mere humans look to find constructive ways to improve the lives of all, but the benevolent creator deity could only think of murder? Delusion doesn’t begin to cover it.
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Sadly, their indoctrination, biblical beliefs and self-righteousness cause the very social ills they judge.
Ark wrote:
“Remember, your god backed the horrendous regime of Apartheid through organisations like the NGK church preaching disgusting thinly veiled racism to a bunch of screwed-in the head Afrikaaners, many of whom treated their livestock better than their employees. And what they taught they derived from the bible.”
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I was reminded of an article, “Relying on Human Goodness”, by Margaret Wheatley, whose articles are published in a wide range of professional publications and magazines. She wrote:
“Oppression never occurs between equals. Tyranny always arises from the belief that some people are more human than others. There is no other way to justify inhumane treatment, except to assume that the pain inflicted on the oppressed is not the same as ours.
I saw this clearly in South Africa, after apartheid and during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. In those hearings, white South Africans listened to black mothers grieving the loss of their children to violence, to wives weeping for their tortured husbands, to black maids crying for the children they left behind when they went to work for white families.
As the grief of these women and men became public, many white South Africans, for the first time, saw black South Africans as equally human. In the years of apartheid, they had justified their treatment of blacks by assuming that the suffering of blacks was not equal to theirs. They had assumed they were not fully human.”
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