I have lost count of the number of Christians who have come along to my website and berated me for not reading the Bible. But it's so dull and obviously full of nonsense that I can't manage it for long. However I tried again yesterday and found that it is in fact HILARIOUS. The joke is of course on those people that believe it.
I decided to start at the beginning and managed the first five chapters before I was rolling around the floor in hysterics. I suggest you try the same experiment.
In the beginning. Hilarious. This God is later talked about as being all powerful, all wise, all knowing, all loving and yet here he is in total void (or is it all water? That bit is very unclear) and from his perfect alpha-and-omeganess decides that something is missing. Can you credit it? A being who always has been suddenly gets a notion to try something new. Crazy. But the ancient Hebrews didn't talk about that infinity stuff, you have to remember they did not even have the concept of zero, they start counting from one. So starting with one makes perfect sense. (Just like a universe expanding out of a singularity, which the Christian fundamentalists ridicule as absurd).
Then the classic create light and find that it is good. Good for what? Good for seeing the rest of the nothing? Or is it water? Then a little later he creates the sun to rule the light. Yes, well, that joke is so old that I skipped over and read on.
The next line that cracked me up was "he made the stars also." So there we have it, the rest of the universe created in a sub-clause. More hilarious stuff follows but I will skip forward to the bit about the serpent. Many Christians will tell you that this was an allegorical tale about the devil tempting man. But that is simply transparently not the case. This was a smart-ass beast (presumably then with legs) talking to the then unnamed Eve BEHIND GOD'S BACK. God doesn't know the score. He walks along later and has to ask what happened. This is the same God who now listens to the prayers of all mankind and knows the innermost secrets of over six billion hearts? Poor biology is common in Christian teaching, strange that God never told a single one of his multitudinous prophets anything they didn't already know, such as hearts don't think or feel, the earth is round, very much bigger than they imagined and gentiles are people too.
And then there was this fascinating verse:
Genesis 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
What is that about? One of us? Like one of us gods, the immortals? That is fascinating. And how can that concept square with the monotheism this anthology of mythology goes on to talk about? But when you think about it this Judeo-Christian stuff is not monotheistic at all. There is a whole host of immortals; various species of angel and devil in some never quite cogently defined limbo category of being.
All that just in the first three chapters. But the biggest joke of all is that people who believe this stuff are supposed to be better people than those who don't. The biggest lie of them all. If you swear on this book of balderdash you are assumed to be telling the truth. Only by grasping this fabulous fable can you be seen as a true witness. Only by accepting this fantasy tale can you be a good person. Only by doing good in order to go to heaven can you be seen as upright and moral; those who do the right thing because it is the right thing are the infidels who will be tossed into the fiery furnace.
It is time atheists asserted our case a bit stronger and stopped all that Satan and pentangle stuff and nonsense. Atheism is rational and moral, say it loud and say it proud.
Jesus is a dead man (probably, although he is more of a myth than Robin Hood). God never was and never will be. The problems of this world are our problems. Praying and sitting around thinking about things are equally useless activities. We must accept that however much it would be nice if there was a God to bring justice after death and right the wrongs of this world the evidence is against it and we should come together to achieve the goals of humanity ourselves. Those that want to pray can do so, but don't expect prayer to help, only action will help.
Martin
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“The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.” |
Very good! Here is some Bible humor of a different sort: HUMOR IN THE BIBLEEdgar PearlsteinMaybe the bible is intended to be a joke book! It's full of fun. (Do you remember that God "ribbed" Adam?) To appreciate some of it, though, you have to imagine yourself and your companions as the bible- days equivalent of a group of racist, sexist, good-old-boys hanging out at the general store: Abraham was a sly old fellow.When he went to Egypt he spread word that his beautiful young wife, Sarah, was actually his sister. This led the Pharaoh to give Abraham lots of gifts, as part of his wooing of Sarah. Poor Pharaoh got punished by God for taking Sarah, but he was really an innocent victim of Abraham's lying. When Pharaoh found out about the deception, he didn't kill Abraham; he merely sent him and Sarah away and didn't even take back the gifts! (Genesis 12:12-20) The scam worked so well that Abraham pulled it again with another king, Abimelich, (Genesis 20), who was sucker enough to give Abraham still more wealth (Genesis 20:14). Honest Abe! Abraham must have told his son Isaac about all this, for Isaac pulled almost the same stunt (Genesis 26:6-14), apparently with the same Abimelich, who must have been a real dunce. Abraham dickered with God about how many righteous people in Sodom it would take to justify sparing it. (Genesis 18:22-32) This has to be the first recorded case of what is now pejoratively called "Jewing-down". But it didn't work. When Lot was a very old man, he had sex with his daughters on two succesive nights, and both daughters became pregnant (Genesis 19:31-38). According to the Bible, Lot was a "righteous man" (2 Peter 2:8), and the excuse for his committing incest was that he was so drunk at the times that he didn't know what he was doing. Performing sexually while very old and dead drunk? If you believe that, you'll believe anything. A girl gets raped, and because she is too stunned to cry out, is herself punished. (Deuteronomy 22:24) (A big "hee-hee" for the male chauvinists.) David wanted to have Saul's daughter for a wife. Saul demanded as payment a hundred Philistine foreskins. David instead got him two hundred. (1 Samuel 18:25-27). Gross! David, a really horny character, got a peek at Bathsheba bathing herself, and had the hots for her. But she was already married to Uriah. So David arranged to have her husband sent off to war and get killed, in order that he, David, could have her. Now that's worth a couple of snickers, but it gets even better: God didn't like that, so he punished David by having all his wives raped in public! (II Samuel 11:2-12:12). A real knee-slapper! Did God MOON Moses? Look it up! (Exodus 33:23) Judah had sex with his daughter-in-law, thinking she was a whore. When he later found out who she was, he wanted her to be burned to death. But she outsmarted him by proving that it was he who was the "John". (Genesis 38:13-27). So here was a case where the woman outsmarted the man. Who said those bible-day boys couldn't laugh at themselves? Ruth, upon Naomi's instructions, sidled up to Boas at night in order to gain favors. (giggle) Another case where a woman gets the better of a man. (Ruth 3:3-18) Jesus preached that we should give to the poor. But he dismissed that idea when his own comfort was at stake, with the wisecrack "The poor you will always have with you." (Mark 14:7, Matthew 26:11, John 12:8) It's always a good guffaw to see a hypocrite exposed, and it's doubly funny when that person is so fond of calling other people hypocrites. Jesus was hungry, and came upon a fig tree. (Matthew 21:18-20, Mark 11:12-21) Unfortunately, there wasn't any fruit on the tree, since it was the wrong time of the year. Jesus got so furious that he cursed the tree! Can you picture that? (The tree up and died, but there is no indication that the curse lasted unto the tenth generation, as sometimes happened with biblical curses.) |
You are wrong about the foreskins. Not gross. One gross, two score and sixteen, yea verily. Is it true that for all the stories set in Egypt the Bible never mentions a single word about pyramids or the sphinx? Very odd. |
Now here is a very typically Christian response.
> Jesus is a dead man (probably, although he is more of a myth than Robin Hood). How sad you believe this. Jesus is God. He has risen from the grave to conquer death and sin. But idiots like you, the Bible calls idiots like you fools, don't get the full picture you only go on what you know because, obviously, you know it all. Well in fact you know nothing!!! First there is more documented evidence of a person called Jesus (who incidentally claimed to be the Christ) than any other person up to 100 years ago. Not only did the disciples keep a record, the Romans including Pilate kept official records, the Greeks kept records, the Jews, the Pharisees, the People, The scribes etc etc etc. I think you get the picture. Jesus was a real man. I find it pathetic that you read 5 chapters of a 2000+ page book and think you are an expert, qualified to teach people that God does not exist. Sad. Maybe if you read the Bible without judgement you may see that this is a cleverly written book and could not have been written out of the will of men. There are so many cross references running throughout the Bible that it would have been impossible for men, especially in those days, to have written this from their own minds. A what of the prophecies? People spoke the word of the Lord and the things they spoke of came true. Some prophecies were written 100's of years before they happened. Maybe you should get yourself a study bible in modern English like the NIV (or maybe you should start out with a Children's Bible). I suggest if you are going to slander the Bible that you had better be sure that there is no God, no Son or no Holy Spirit. Because if you're wrong, and let's face it, we're all wrong sometimes, then you stand in a very bad place and a lot of terror, pure horror, is headed your way. And what if you are wrong... what if you walk out of your house tomorrow only to be run over by a drunk driver, where would you be? No where? Dead? Finished? Then what makes you any better than Hitler or David Koresh or Jeffery Dalmher or the Son of Sam or Genghis Khan or....? So you might live until you are 60, 70 or even 80. But what if you die tomorrow... or today? Will you be ready to face your maker? And stand judgement? I leave the ball in your court and before you throw it back maybe you should look at it... then look at it some more... then decide if you really want to throw it back. Cause there is a God. And He abhors the ways of the world. And His judgement is coming. No False Gods |
Thank you for your hilarious contribution. For a few moments I almost thought you were serious. But I don't think even a fundie would seriously expect somebody to believe that Jesus was a better documented historical figure than Henry VIII, Abraham Lincoln or even Queen Victoria. I didn't even say I didn't believe he existed, just that he is a heavily mythologized character. Jesus the Man, Jesus the Myth
The rant about David Koresh was also a bit of an easy open goal that I will not bother to shoot at. How can you take somebody seriously who claims to hear the voice of God? Come off it, I know Christian fundamentalists are stupid but I'm not that gullible, it was a wind-up, right? One part did cause me to think though, that bit about the children's Bible, strange idea, frightening concept, in more enlightened days to come such things as children's Bibles and toy guns will only be found in museums. Martin |
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