The book of Job

The book of Job was one of the most difficult books for me to read and understand. It was terribly hard to sit there and try to understand why Job went through what he did.
I recommend reading Job, even to non believers, it's just so old and very poetic.
What you have to understand when reading about Job, was that God did not punish Job, it was Satan. God took away his protection from Job, but Satan did the work.
The book of Job starts off when Satan appears to God and God boasts about Job's goodness.
Satan asks God for permission to torment Job and God lets him, but does not let him take the life of Job.
Sadly Job curses the day he was born, comparing life and death to light and darkness. He wishes that his birth had been shrouded in darkness and wishes he never born. Well all would have done the same I'm sure if we suffered as much as he did.
The book of Job explores some of the most profound questions humans ask about their lives, and it is extremely well written.
The interaction between Job and his friends illustrates the painful irony of his situation.
Our knowledge that Job’s punishment is the result of a bet between God and Satan contrasts with Job’s confusion and his friends lecturing, as they try to understand why Job is being punished.
Jobs friends said that it is because Job must have commited and evil act.
Why did God allow this to happen to Job?

God allowed it because he knew what his grace had accomplished in Job, and that it would be a great encouragement and instruction to His people for all time.
Which brings me to the point that:

We are supposed to learn from Job, just what God was showing Satan,
God allowed Satan to see that Job's faithfulness was not for material or physical comfort, but was a real faith.
We can better understand what "real faith" is, after we finnish the book of Job.
Job was refined through the trial, and in the end learned remarkable things about God, things that no one else could learn.
I would say that Job teaches us that there is alot more going on than just what we ourselves can see in our lives, and that God does in fact oversee it all for his own glory.

This post was inspired by a previous post called Of Contradictions, free will and just plain craziness

From Johnnydragon

Essentially, I feel that there is little point or productivity to my contribution. Having been a devout Christian myself, I can attest that there is no way to change the mind of a Christian. Even if I were to inrrefutably prove Creation without Intelligent Design (of course I can't do so 100%) and the lack of existence of God, none of you would accept it. Instead verses would be quoted on how Christians must not be fooled by the crafty words that are inspired by Satan. I suspect that others would simply ignore it and use the convenience of things like faith or God's omniscience. Why do I feel this way? Again, much is to do with having been Christian, however you can examine this very blog for more evidence. I have posted an in-depth article with many valid points about the faith, to which only Patrick responded essentially in agreement (see "Of Contradictions, Free Will and Just Plain Craziness"). I had also stated that if the verse about women speaking in the church was meant as specific to a certain time, then we would have to accept that anything in the bible is not applicable anymore. One can't pick and choose what to believe, or it is impossible to consider the word to be of a divine God. And yet, those were the responses that people provided, proving yet again that what I say would be ignored. Other related things are the contradicitons which I sent a link to in one posting. There were countless examples of parts of the bible which did not agree with one another, and yet no one said anything to it.

I wish everyone the best that has stayed, but I can only be involved in such things when I know my points will be acknowledged.

1 Corinthians 14:33 [NASB] for God is not a God of cnconfusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.
Titus 3:9 [KJV} But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.


*Posted with permission of the author.

Contradictions

Do you believe in Satan?
Do you believe that God is all powerful?

If your answer was yes to both questions, I'm interested to see how you reconcile the two. Consider the properties of both entities when making your determinations, if you're so inclined.

Religion Dying?

So I was watching TV, looking at the super bowl highlights, for some reason I was watching Fox (dunno why) When they did this news story about how some churches in the states decided that there were going to be too few people coming to mass on superbowl sunday, so they shut the church down that week. That's great, that means that society's views are starting to overrule religion. Just great.

Now, i'm not a church goer myself, don't exactly believe in it, because I believe that god is everywhere, and with you 24/7. I believe that mass isn't completely bad myself tho, it's just I don't think that praying once a week will somehow make you "righteous" or "utterly holy". Having the belief when you're in your darkest hour and looking to god when you have nowhere else to look is the true believing.

Church has become an excuse to sin. Plain and simple.

What is the real message?

In response to a post I want to add some things that I find wrong about what Thomas Ash presents to you.
The post is HERE
Now, I want to start with only one, because each of the quotes cannot be explained without so much going into it, I will add more later as we go along.
So I begin with addressing this:

"[The Jews] both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets,and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men." 1 Thessalonians 2:15

Firstly i'm not too sure what he is trying to suggest there, but could he be suggesting that Jesus hates Jews? Well guess what......................... Jesus himself was a Jew.


So lets look at the book of Thessalonians message here in more detail:

Paul was addressing the Church in Thessalonia, sending them a letter to praise them for their commitment to the faith. And mentioned that the Jews, killed Jesus, because they were infact Jews who killed him. He did not say that "all Jews" are contrary to all men and did not say what would happen to them, if they would be bannished to hell or anything. His friend and Lord had been killed, what would you say? Do you think you would have said better than Paul?
Paul was a human being.

(don't take it from me, look it all up for yourself)

Now lets look at what the message is to EVERYONE (and he addresses every human as a sinner, not just Jews)

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16

KEY words are that God so loved the "world" meaning everyone, and also "whoever" believes in him should not perish. I do not see where he excludes the Jews.

Lets quote Jesus:
"Blessed are those who Mourn, for they shall be comforted."

"Blessed are those who Hunger and Thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied"

"Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called Sons (and Daughters) of God."

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven"

"I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" Luke 5:32

“Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.”

"Why do you call me good? No one is good, but God alone" Luke 18:19

"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. "

"LOVE ONE ANOTHER!"
John 15:12



So with just a few quotes, what do you make of Jesus message?

I can't give you everything in one post, so for now I will leave you with this, make of the Bible message what you will, but I encourage you not to only take one persons word as your answer, but to look up all avenues and come to your very own conclusion.

Bring it

I'm righteous enough to fight you because I want to.

I'm *so* holy that if you misstep, I'll smite you.

Santa Clause is watching, and so am I.
God's my author. Why do you think you found me here?

I constantly have to face the evidence that what I find here on this planet is evidence of God's intent. God wanted this for me. So when I come flying out of the bushes, teeth bared, believe me, God wanted that for you.

What kind of story are you?

Disgustipated Part 1

Title: Disgustipated
Artist: TOOL

And the angel of the Lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. And took me on high, and higher still, until we moved through the spaces betwixt the air itself.

And he brought me into a vast farmland of our own Midwest. And as we descended, cries of impending doom arose from the soil. One thousand, nay, a million voices full of fear! And terror possessed me then.

And I begged:
“Angel of the Lord! What Are these tortured screams?” and the angel said unto me: “these are the cries of the carrots. The cries of the carrot! You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day, and To Them,
it is
the holocaust.”

And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat with the tears of one million
Terrified brothers and roared: "Hear me now! I have seen the light! They have a consciousness! They have a life! They have a soul. Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses. Save our brothers. Can I get an Amen? Can I get a hallelujah? Thank you, Jesus."

More Shocking Statements From The Bible

*Please note that this has been taken from Thomas Ash from his research website: http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground I just thought it was interesting and it saved me some work.

"[The Jews] both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets,and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men." 1 Thessalonians 2:15

"Stone disobedient children" (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)

1 Timothy 2:15 says only women who have children will be spared hell
Men are worth more than women - Leviticus 27:1-7 actually provides dollar comparisons!

"Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, Or a man that is brokenfooted [sic] , brokenhanded [sic], Or crookbackt [sic], or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken; No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God." (Leviticus 21:17-21)

Men aren't allowed to trim their beards or shave their heads (Leviticus 21:5)
Wearing clothes intended for the opposite sex is forbidden (presumably making today's unisex clothing 'abonimable'):
"The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God" (Deuteronomy 22:5)

Clothing made of more than one type of fabric (e.g. nylon stockings) fare no better:
"Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee" (Leviticus 19:19).

The Bible says that the sole reason God created women in the first place was to provide company and service to men (1 Corinthians 11:9)

Matthew 13:10-14 says that Jesus doesn't want everyone to understand what he's saying, so he speaks in parables to his disciples and most of the rest will go to hell. According to Revelation, only 144,000 souls can enter heaven (it probably sounded like a bigger number at the time than it does now...)

"When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and seeth among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails; and she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and remain in thine house . . . And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money, thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her" (Deuteronomy 21:10-14)

"If a man also lieth with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Leviticus 20:13)
Premarital sex is punished by burning the woman alive according to Leviticus 21:9

Leviticus 25:44 tells Jews to enslave surrounding tribes

"And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money" (Exodus 21:20-21).

Exodus 21:7-10 says men can sell their daughters into slavery

Jews, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists and everyone else who is not Christian will all go to hell "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:18)

"Censuses are immoral - and God killed 70,000 innocent counted Jews to punish David for counting them... "And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel, And David said to Joab and to the rulers of the people, Go, number Israel from Beersheba even to Dan; and bring the number of them to me, that I may know it. . . . And God was displeased with this thing; therefore he smote Israel. . . . So the Lord sent pestilence upon Israel: and there fell of Israel seventy thousand men" (1 Chronicles 21:1-14).

God killed every living thing in Soddom and Gomorrah for engaging homosexual acts in Genesis 19:24-25

Sexual immorality merits an eternity in flames, according to Jude 1:7

Where the Hell is Patrick?

Wow.
What a confusing mishmash with the article I just read where Johnny quotes an article and Carmel responds with more material.

It's
HERE.

I feel I should address this.

The article Johnny presented was just pointing out what many of us already know--the church changes what the "truth is and has always been" in order to keep up with the prevaling opinions of our times. I don't think Johnny Dragon was saying anything initally about whether God really exists or not, or anybody's position on God existing or not, from this article.

However it appears Jragon does attempt to say something like this along those lines with

but there would seem to be a contradiction in that statement combined with one stating that evolution has more credence than Intelligent Design

where the "statement" he referenced here was

church decided to praise the U.S. for NOT teaching Intelligent Design

I see no contradiction, Johnny. There isn't one. However, I can appreciate that you weren't making a full-out assertion with the disclaiming "there would seem"..

"Yeppers, Billy Bob, ehe ehe ehe. It's a seemer! Better run tell ma and chain up dem hogs!"
--Hillbilly Jim's reaction to Mark 5:13

I don't know if they mean intelligent design entirely, or just the fable of 6 days to create the planet etc. Basically, I think its time for any church to get serious and drop the Adam and Eve BS so we can all move on to the real business of what are we even doing here now?

I maintain that evolution IS intelligent design. This propensity of life to improve and grow certainly says something about the intentions of any possible author. And I think the harmony of physics and nature suggest a brilliance not inherent in purposefully-inert existence.

Evolution is obviously what any conceivable God wanted us to realise. Your reaction to what people say about that illustrates something. No matter what anyone said about it, where does being a cog in God's machine put you? It puts me into the beautiful whole, as I could hope it puts you all. It's nice here. It means I'm immortal. In time and space, I will always be here, in this time, making these actions; whether 10 minutes have passed, or 10 million years, the time and space I am composed of is eternal. I will always be alive in my time.

So how long can you make excuses for giving into superstition? Give up your instinct, because the truth is we have none. You have all been inaugurated into the race by your race. Nobody arrived here independently. So how can you trust what you are, given what you've seen about the authors of all your known history? You think you should buy into fictions that result from fears with birthplaces that are thousands of miles and thousands of years from here? I certainly hope that's not what an education gave you.

Also, I wasn't able to find anything stretchy about what Carmel said by the stretchy comment itself. But, as any yogist or tennis player knows, it's good to be flexible. And stretching itself is not a point against you unless someone able comes along and comprpises you with that fact.

Carmel had 3 assertions. I believe she presented and held her ground more than sufficiently in point one, the central one in my opinion. As well, point 3 was an accurate summary of what Johnny's article was stating.

I couldn't read #2 properly. It's broken or something:

2. The Catholic Church does not think that there is more evidence in evolution that intelligent Design because it says so in the official documents, which are the true Church beliefs.

So, Carmel, since you concluded your involvement in that post with the phrase "I hope some other reader got something out of it" I wanted to let you know that I had, indeed.


I read the post after that one, inspired by that one, and I was DElighted to see not one comment. I enjoyed the post itself. The church is slick! Hey! They'll sell you your own soul!

I don't know why I got up to post this, but I'm going back to bed now. I can't imagine I won't have more to say on something else later.

This One's Just For Carmel

Turns out you've been sinning this whole time:

"As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church. Did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only people it has reached?" 1 Cor. 14:33b-36 NIV

Now I know there will be arguments about how this was meant to be specific to the time, or different interpretations of what it meant. However, should anyone choose that road to refute this, you are opening a whole new door. A thought process that indicates we can pick and choose what to believe from the bible or interpret as fits our needs. If the bible is open to interpretation, then you must allow that rule for all aspects.

Of Contradictions, Free Will, and Just Plain Craziness

Today I will present some fallacies from within the bible. Since the “defending science” argument seems ineffective to some, I’ll try a new approach. I had considered discussing biblical contradictions, but that is quite a lengthy topic as there are very many. I didn’t feel like researching all of that as it would take me years. Instead, I would invite anyone interested to view this link: http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/ash-biblecontradictions.shtml Here you will find a list of contradictions from within the bible, compiled by a college student. Examples would be different accounts of the order of creation (Genesis 1 and 2 conflict in the order it happened), Jesus’ genealogy (there are two different accounts of who Joseph’s father was), or the final words of Jesus (again, there are different accounts of what he said). These should prove helpful in showing that the bible is inconsistent and hence not the work of a perfect God. But now on to some of my own observances.

One thing that always stood out to me, in the bible, was that God seemed to take away our free will and condemn us by his own accord. For example, 1 Kings 22:21-23 reads: “Finally, a spirit came forward, stood before the Lord and said, ‘I will entice him.’ ‘By what means?’ the Lord asked. ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets,’ he said. ‘You will succeed in enticing him,’ said the Lord. ‘Go and do it’ ‘So now the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you.’” Here we can see that God intentionally sent a “lying spirit” to deceive prophets. Let’s examine a more popular account now. Romans 9:17-18 says: "For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, "For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth." So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires." This is in reference to the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. After God has sent plagues on the Pharaoh for keeping the Israelites in slavery, Pharaoh agreed to let them go. However here’s what happened: Exodus 9:12 “But the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron, Just as the Lord had said to Moses.” This continues to happen with every plague that God sends on the Egyptians. Pharaoh continues to allow the Israelites to go after the horrors of each plague, but God keeps hardening the heart of Pharaoh so that he changes his mind. This is hardly a fair act on the part of God and most definitely shows that God does not allow free will. Instead he chooses who will and will not follow him. Let’s continue.

I will not quote all of the first book of Job here as it’s a lot of typing I don’t care to do. But for confirmation of the story I’m about to present, you can find it there. Basically some angels were presenting themselves to God and Satan decides to come along too. God asks why Satan came (or from where) and Satan responds by saying that he’s been going around and checking things out on the planet. God asks if Satan saw Job who was pretty damn righteous in the eyes of God. Satan says that it’s no wonder Job is so righteous since God has protected and blessed him. So God says to go ahead and beat the shit out Job, but not kill him. That should show Satan that Job really is righteous because God believes that Job won’t speak out against him despite the torture of Satan. So sure enough Satan throws poverty, disease, pain and death of loved ones at Job who pretty much lives up to what God said by not cursing his name. Afterwards, God rewards Job with even more that he had to start with. So what’s wrong with this picture? Well, we can see that God was actually tempted by Satan to the point where he allowed Satan to torture one of his followers! Hardly free will on the part of Job, and hardly fair on the part of an alleged loving God. I can’t blame God though, if I had that kind of power, I’d be fucking with people too.

I feel that it’s not fair for an omniscient God to judge any of us. If he created us with full knowledge of how we’d turn out, then he has predestined us to hell. He created Satan, and obviously knew from the start that he’d end up as the Prince of Hell. So is that fair to Satan? What about us? He created Adam and Eve knowing that they’d sin and cause the downfall of mankind. Again, if he knew this, why did he do it? Why give us the gift of life only to be condemned to an eternal hell? Obviously we make the choice to sin against God, but it is God who made us and with the knowledge that we would eventually sin. The reality is, God gets a kick out of the conflict or he would never have done it in the first place.

Let’s also consider the council of Nicea. Essentially, there were very many versions of Christianity after the death of Jesus. All of these systems had differing views on things. In fact, many of them actually followed the brother of Jesus, James, as the savior. With all these contradictions and inconsistencies, a world council was called with the head of the differing Christian sects. The goal was to come to a universal agreement of which books were considered correct and alleviate the confusion among the masses. So, a human council decided on our behalf what was legit and what wasn’t. This is what makes up the New Testament as we know it today. The other texts are referred to as the Gnostics. Having read some of them, I can see why they were not included. There’s a lot of really crazy supernatural stuff that happens in them. None the less, that is how the Christian belief of today was decided. Based on this, one must question the accuracy of the new testament since it was man who assembled it amongst confusion. Just because this council decided what was true and what wasn’t, doesn’t make it any truer.

Fun Facts About God/Jesus:

-God likes the smell of burning flesh. Genesis 8:20-21

-God gets jealous of inanimate objects Deuteronomy 32:21

-Jesus is anti-marriage 1 Corinthians 7:7 Matthew 19:10

-Jesus doesn’t care about pigs’ lives Mark 5:13

-Jesus says we have Superman-like powers Mark 11:22