Showing posts with label joe e. holman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label joe e. holman. Show all posts

5 Obviously False References in the Bible

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As the ages march on, it is a delight to find fewer attending churches and more making time to sit around doing other, more enjoyable things come Sunday. But even while classes full of growing students are satiated in going to their professors for answers instead of their priests, the age-old debate on the existence of God / validity of [insert religion here] somehow still rages on. The question should by now be settled, but those states where the collective IQ hasn’t exceeded 57 still have people who are clinging tightly to mom and dad’s hard-shell faith to define us.

However, it is a breath of fresh air to know that the seeds of doubt are first planted, not by scholarship or by secular parenting, but by common sense questions and healthy brains at work. Below are 5 biblical mentions that are in that camp known as “It don’t take no gosh-darn edjamucations to see this ain’t right.” Some things in God’s holy book are wrong simply because they defy any real level of sense. We begin the countdown with...

Used Goods

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It's been two months since I herniated disks L4 and L5 in my lower back. I’ve always had a great back until that one unfortunate day—3/18/09. I was cleaning out a shed when I went to hoist a heavy box of books. They were books I had in storage from my preaching days, incidentally. I knew right when I did it that things were not going to be good. I drove home barely mobile, and four hours later, if the house had been on fire, I wouldn’t have been able to leave. Family had to tend to me some of the time. I’m doing much better today, having been nursed back to health on plenty of strong painkillers, muscle relaxants, and prolonged bed rest after a brief hospital stay. Word to the wise—don’t lift wrong!

Having briefly mentioned the experience in my discussion forums, our token Christian debater Noel Cookman made the remark that God wasn’t responsible for making bad human bodies because he only “made” Adam and Eve in a perfect state. I love it when Christians make this statement. It’s the ultimate pass-off for the poor design of our bodies. Adam and Eve were perfect. The rest of us just weren’t fortunate enough to be Adam or Eve.

The remains of Adam and Eve we don't have, and if we had them preserved, we'd know it (they'd have no navels, for starters). We would also find genetic perfection (no arthritis, no hemorrhoids, no cancer, nothing that comes from time and the breakdown of genetic coding).

Strangely enough, not one fossilized human being has ever been unearthed that a creationist will point to in support of the “Adam and Eve were perfect” position. They have no problem showing off Darwinism’s many “shortcomings,” but they can’t make a case of their own. This is because every human specimen we have ever found doesn't fit what they would want to hold up and say: “This is an antediluvian body. Look how well-designed it is, atheists!” Every human specimen we ever found had to get put into that ever thickening Post-diluvian file to explain poor health and rickets, shortness and mass deformities due to lack of salt, and the affects of having no medicine and general malnutrition.

Adam supposedly lived 930 years—and no, you can't divide those years down into lesser “years” to make them closer to our “normal” age range. You can try, but you come up with all sorts of absurdities. For instance, if 1 year in the first few chapters of Genesis represents 6 months of our standard year, then the problem doesn't go away because you have 900+ year-old people (half of that is 450—still way out of the ballpark for a human being). Or, if 1 year in the Bible is the equivalent of 3 months of our time, then Kenan who lived 70 years and then had his first child (Genesis 5:12-14) really had his first child at age 23, but didn't die until he was covered in cobwebs at the ripe old age of 298. Even sea turtles don’t live that long! But let's say that a single Genesis year equals only 1 of our months. That means Kenan was not even 6 years old when he had his first son Mahalalel. Still won’t work. We seem to be fighting the tides here.

Our problem is that the smelly genocidal scribblers who wrote Genesis believed that the patriarchs lived lives of great length compared to our own. This is seen to be false when we consider that life spans are longer now than they have ever been, and as stated, we have not one fossilized example to counter this claim. What significance does this have? It means Genesis is wrong and that there were no long-lived patriarchs. But if you believe the Bible, you have to believe that eating forbidden fruit was what destroyed our immortality and later our health.

Because of “the fall of man” we all suffer from weak, piss-poor genetics. These Jehovah-made genetics break down, allowing us to get things like cancer and Brittle Bone Disease. And many Christian crazies buy into the idea that our minds are “fallen” along with our crappy bodies. This is why, we are told, that we don't all see the “truth” that Jesus Christ is the light of God unto salvation. It's because our minds have been ruined by the fall. If it weren't for that, we would have a world full of Christian apologists! Perish the goddamn thought!!!

But maybe the Christians are wrong in their thinking that we are just suffering from “bad” genetics. Maybe God purposely allowed bad backs that lack structural support to remind us when we lift wrong that we are a sinful race, spiritually depraved and worthy of hell. Some still believe that. Our grandparents and great grandparents certainly believed that and would say that.

Maybe God actually created/allowed physical defects to be, as well as mental defects, like retardation and schizophrenia and borderline personality disorders, as some theologians tell us. Maybe Jeebuz had other reasons for these quirky creations. Maybe God created retards because he knew that most of us would be overqualified to work as store greeters or mascots or those people who ring bells and stand in Santa suits, staring off into space, or who stand in traffic in the heat selling newspapers and flowers. You could say that God had to create mental hard drives with lesser capacity so that those lowly occupations could be filled. Doesn't God give us all talents of different kinds?

But in all seriousness, we can't say that. No one with an IQ above 67 can say that bad backs happened because our ancestors sinned or that the mentally defective are merely people of “different talents.” No one can say these things with a straight face, not today.

What does make sense is to say that God is like my old boss Stan. Now Stan owned an advertising company in South Texas for a while and he bought a company car for us new from a Dodge dealership at a very discounted rate. The car was great for the first 50,000 hard-driven miles, but soon the warranty was up, and it began to have problems. In just a few short years, Stan was getting back-talked by every employee around the water cooler because he was just too damn cheap to flip the bill for a new one that could stay out of the shop for longer than 3 days.

That's how God is—too cheap to manage the successful up-keep of our bodies and keep us free from death, debilitating diseases, and crippling conditions. God once did the equivalent of buying new cars, but he's been a cheapskate ever since. Things have only been downhill from there. He supposedly did a good job with Adam and Eve, and the patriarchs got to feel some of that. But we aren't so lucky.

With the possible exception of Jack LaLane, God hasn't sprung for a single solitary machine of quality since ancient times. That means we're all used goods. God's a cheapskate, and nobody really likes a cheapskate except other cheapskates—in this case, theologians and apologists who are responsible for justifying Jeebuz’s thriftiness.

So instead of healing our diseases and giving us good bodies, what does God give us? He gives us the Bible to tell us just how much he loves us and how he used to be willing to make bodies that put ours to a crying shame and would make Lou Ferrigno want to hide in the bushes. And better than that, he gives us theologians and apologists to come up with reasons why God made window-smooching retards and bad backs. Lame!

Time for more Vicodin. Thanks for reading.

(JH)

God Tolerates Slavery

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Pastor Kenneth Rodriguez, Senior Pastor at Nations United Cathedral of Faith in Times Square, has been a leading voice in the charismatic community against the atrocious practice of human trafficking for the past 15 years. The 37-year-old pastor’s work has centered on places like Asia and Africa, places where human trafficking is a major issue. “Slavery, in principle, is unbiblical.” says Pastor. “To enslave another human being created in God's image is a sin like murder. It violates the Golden Rule and is an affront to decency.” Sounds like something right in line with what any other man of God today would give an “amen” to.

The surprise didn't come until a correspondence began between Pastor Kenneth and a nine-year-old girl from Beijing named Kaitlin. Kaitlin was abducted and forced to serve as a sex slave a year and a half ago. Cunningly gaining email access, she reached out for help from Pastor Kenneth. Pastor Kenneth's advice to her became the focus of a firestorm of criticism. He didn’t help her escape, and he didn’t encourage her to seek help. What he did is considered by most to be unthinkable and criminal. He told her to break off contact with him and to live as a slave like she was!

“I told little Kaitlin to live as a slave and to do what her captors want her to do and to be obedient in all things as the scriptures teach servants should do. Ephesians 6:5 is abundantly clear, ‘Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.’ I Peter 2:18 says, ‘Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.’ It doesn't say for the slaves to run away or to rebel or to call the law to set them free. No, it tells slaves to submit to their masters, even to harsh masters. That's what little Kaitlin is having to do for the monsters who abducted her. I hate that she is being used as a sex slave by Hong Kong business men on their down time. She will without a doubt get diseases and suffer crushing emotional trauma from her experiences, but God’s word is God’s word. It has been like this for countless centuries.”

Being aware of the controversy his words brought on, Pastor Kenneth made clear, “I am not justifying slavery. God is going to judge those wicked slaveholders. But God's words on how to handle the situation are not hard to understand. God says if you are a slave, you are to abide in the calling wherein you are called (I Corinthians 7:21, 24). I am praying for little Kaitlin. She is worshipping the Lord in her heart in between having to service men. All we can do is support her and encourage her. It is the Bible that tolerates slavery, and sadly, there are times when we must as well. When Kaitlin is being mounted from her backside by a sinning, lust-driven client of her owners, she will reflect on Jesus Christ and to how his back bore the scars and the cross for her sake. And who knows…maybe Kaitlin will lead those lost slave-owners to Christ? I believe God has a plan for everything.”

When asked if it bothers him that his words have become the target of attack, Rodriguez said, “Maybe a little. I've long been a big opponent of slavery and an advocate for human rights, and so it hurts me that those who have followed my preaching for years would not know where I stand. But I am speaking where the Bible speaks. God takes every nation from where they are in their knowledge of his word. God allowed polygamy and he is still, in some places, allowing slavery. By having a multitude of slave laws in the Bible, God is telling us he wants those who are unfortunate enough to be slaves to be good at it for Christ’s sake and to serve well. There are even instructions in Exodus on how to sell one's daughter into slavery (Exodus 21:7-11).”

When asked if he had any final comments, Pastor stated, “Yes, I think all these pastors who keep accusing me of justifying slavery need to read the Bible again. Maybe they will learn something about God's character.”

(JH)