I feel like I'm just writing summaries of all the crazy stories. I still haven't found anything that I want to incorporate into my life.
Genesis 20 - Abraham and Sarah move to a new region and Abraham introduces his wife Sarah as his sister, again. He clearly didn't learn that lying wasn't a good thing the first time. Abimelech, the king of the new area took Sarah as his wife. In Geneses 20:3 God comes to Abimelech in a dream and says to him "You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman." God also closed up every womb in Abimelech's household because of Sarah. Once again, God doesn't punish the liar Abraham. The only thing I learn from this is that God plays favorite.
In Genesis 21 Abraham and Sarah finally have a kid. At this point Abraham is one hundred years old. They name him Isaac. Sarah gets jealous of Hagar's kid, the one she told her to have with he husband Abraham. So Abraham sends Hagar on her way with some food and water. More strong family values here. Abraham, God's favorite, has a kid out of wedlock then kicks her out. This is more of an example of a dead beat dad.
Speaking of bad dad stories, Abraham and God, the so called heavenly father, both take it to another level in Genesis 22. In Genesis 22:2 God said "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering." WTF!!! Then Abraham says ok and has Isaac carry the wood that is going to be used to sacrifice him up the mountain. Isaac asks where the lamb for the burnt offering is and Abraham, the perpetual liar, tells him that God will provide the lamb. Abraham gets the altar set up with Isaac on it, and he is ready to sacrifice his son. Only then does an angel come down and tells him not to. Yuck Yuck Yuck. I hope parents are not reading this story to their children. Kids should know that if anybody, but especially a parent, says they are talking to God and He says that the kid needs to be sacrificed they should RUN and scream and kick and bite. Don't go along with the craziness. Also, what is with this loving God asking Abraham to prove his love by killing his kid?
Monday, June 20, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's Family
When I said tomorrow in my last post I meant three tomorrows :).
The Sodom and Gomorrah story was not what I was expecting. The way people talk about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah I thought the story would read something like the following:
The people in Sodom and Gomorrah were all about butt sex and that is it. They didn't farm or work or eat or sleep it was just sodomy all the time. Then God came down and said "no more sodomy, it is an abomination!" The people didn't listen, they kept up their non stop sodomy. Then God destroyed the city. (If I had heard somebody say what I just wrote six months to a year ago I would have had to do a massive mental "delete delete" purge - thanks a lot Mike, Shane and others that contributed to my desensitization :P)
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot and his family is so much stranger than what I wrote above.
In Geneses 18 the Lord tells Abraham that he is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (S and G). Then they have a really long discussion about how many righteous people it would take to save the cities. Abraham starts with fifty, will the Lord save S and G for the sake of fifty people? Yes. Then Abraham keeps dropping the amount, five less than fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, and finally ten. The Lord will not destroy S and G if there are ten righteous people there.
In Genesis 19 two angels show up in Sodom. Lot greets them and invites them to stay the night at his place. They respond that they will be sleeping in the town square but Lot convinces them to go to his house. After they eat dinner every man in Sodom, all of them, young and old, show up outside Lot's house. Genesis 19:5 - They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." And if you think that is strange verse 6 will blow your mind. Genesis 19:6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said "No, my friends don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughers who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protetion of my roof." Seriously? Don't take the ANGELS??? I would think the angels could handle things for themseleves. Take his virgin daughters instead. I love that he points out that the angels are under the protection of his roof but has no problem offering up his daughters to be gang raped. Aren't his daughters also under the protection his roof? Also, after the next story I have some serious doubts about his daughters virginity.
The angels finally jump in and strike all the men outside with blindness and tell Lot to take his family and get out of there. It's a bit disturbing that the only family that is good enough for saving is Lot's family. As they were fleeing the city Lot asks the angels if he can go to the city of Zoar because he can't hack it in the mountains. They agree, he can go to Zoar. On the way out of the city Lot's wife looks back and she becomes a pillar of salt. The Lord rained down burning sulfur on S and G. Burning sulfer seems like a creepy way to exterminate a city.
At this point Lot and his two daugters are living in a cave somewhere outside of Zoar. His daughters were either freakishly horny, baby hungry, just plain insane or some combination of the three because the oldest daughter has the idea to get Lot (her dad) super drunk and sleep with him to preserve their family line. So she does and the next night so does her little sister. They both become pregnant. I have several questions about this story. What do the kids call Lot? Dad or grandpa? Why thier dad? Why not sneak out and seduce someone in Zoar? How did Lot get so drunk that he didn't recognize his daughters but was still able to keep it up? How did his virgin daughters know how to have sex with their drunk father? How fertile was this old guy, impregnating two women on the first try, on consecutive nights? I'm also concerned that God decided that this family was the one to save from S and G.
Personally I think that incestual rape of your father is immoral. I also think that non incestual intimate relationships between two consenting adults regardless of their gender is fine. I know Christians think that the S and G story is all about how homosexuality is sooo bad that God destroyed the entire city. I don't understand how they completely miss the last part of the chapter with Lot and his super dysfunctional family.
The Sodom and Gomorrah story was not what I was expecting. The way people talk about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah I thought the story would read something like the following:
The people in Sodom and Gomorrah were all about butt sex and that is it. They didn't farm or work or eat or sleep it was just sodomy all the time. Then God came down and said "no more sodomy, it is an abomination!" The people didn't listen, they kept up their non stop sodomy. Then God destroyed the city. (If I had heard somebody say what I just wrote six months to a year ago I would have had to do a massive mental "delete delete" purge - thanks a lot Mike, Shane and others that contributed to my desensitization :P)
The story of Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot and his family is so much stranger than what I wrote above.
In Geneses 18 the Lord tells Abraham that he is going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (S and G). Then they have a really long discussion about how many righteous people it would take to save the cities. Abraham starts with fifty, will the Lord save S and G for the sake of fifty people? Yes. Then Abraham keeps dropping the amount, five less than fifty, forty, thirty, twenty, and finally ten. The Lord will not destroy S and G if there are ten righteous people there.
In Genesis 19 two angels show up in Sodom. Lot greets them and invites them to stay the night at his place. They respond that they will be sleeping in the town square but Lot convinces them to go to his house. After they eat dinner every man in Sodom, all of them, young and old, show up outside Lot's house. Genesis 19:5 - They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." And if you think that is strange verse 6 will blow your mind. Genesis 19:6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said "No, my friends don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughers who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protetion of my roof." Seriously? Don't take the ANGELS??? I would think the angels could handle things for themseleves. Take his virgin daughters instead. I love that he points out that the angels are under the protection of his roof but has no problem offering up his daughters to be gang raped. Aren't his daughters also under the protection his roof? Also, after the next story I have some serious doubts about his daughters virginity.
The angels finally jump in and strike all the men outside with blindness and tell Lot to take his family and get out of there. It's a bit disturbing that the only family that is good enough for saving is Lot's family. As they were fleeing the city Lot asks the angels if he can go to the city of Zoar because he can't hack it in the mountains. They agree, he can go to Zoar. On the way out of the city Lot's wife looks back and she becomes a pillar of salt. The Lord rained down burning sulfur on S and G. Burning sulfer seems like a creepy way to exterminate a city.
At this point Lot and his two daugters are living in a cave somewhere outside of Zoar. His daughters were either freakishly horny, baby hungry, just plain insane or some combination of the three because the oldest daughter has the idea to get Lot (her dad) super drunk and sleep with him to preserve their family line. So she does and the next night so does her little sister. They both become pregnant. I have several questions about this story. What do the kids call Lot? Dad or grandpa? Why thier dad? Why not sneak out and seduce someone in Zoar? How did Lot get so drunk that he didn't recognize his daughters but was still able to keep it up? How did his virgin daughters know how to have sex with their drunk father? How fertile was this old guy, impregnating two women on the first try, on consecutive nights? I'm also concerned that God decided that this family was the one to save from S and G.
Personally I think that incestual rape of your father is immoral. I also think that non incestual intimate relationships between two consenting adults regardless of their gender is fine. I know Christians think that the S and G story is all about how homosexuality is sooo bad that God destroyed the entire city. I don't understand how they completely miss the last part of the chapter with Lot and his super dysfunctional family.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Genesis 10 - 17
Okay, so a continuation of yesterday's post so I can get caught up on this blogging.
- Genesis 10 Some parents name their children after people in the Bible but they are missing some great names. Why be boring and stick to the basics, Adam, Noah, Isaac, Jacob, etc. Genesis 10 has several stellar examples of awesome overlooked names like: Gomer, Magog, Kittim, Cush, Ham, Put, and Nimrod. Especially Nimrod, according to Genesis 10:8 Nimrod grew to be a mighty warrior, sounds like a perfect name for a baby boy :)
- Genesis 11 The tower of Babel - I don't get this chapter at all. People were trying to build a tower to heaven and the Lord decided that if everyone was speaking the same language "then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." Then Lord confused their language so they would not understand each other and scattered them all over the earth. So is God worried that if humans have good communication skills we can outsmart him and build our way to heaven? Looks like I have been a little hard on the communication department at the university. I'm biased towards engineering but after reading Genesis 11 it sounds like they are not only learning to take on the world they might have the key to taking on God.
- Genesis 12 - 25 The Story of Abraham - At the beginning of this story his name is Abram but God changes it to Abraham, also his wife's name was Sarai but God changes it to Sarah. Abraham also has a weird thing with introducing his wife as his sister because she is sooo beautiful that everyone is going to kill him to get to her. This causes lots of problems. Pharaoh takes her to be his wife, then the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh. What? I think the Lord should inflict Abraham with a serious disease or with more common sense. Once Pharaoh realizes what's going on he tells Abraham to take his wife and get outta there. Sounds like Pharaoh is a decent guy and Abraham is tricky tricky.
- Back to the multiply/fruitful/replenish business. So far Abraham and Sarah are childless but in Genesis 13:16 the Lord tells Abraham "I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted" Great, that's a freakish amount of people :/ To drive this point further in Genesis 15:5 the Lord says "Look up at the heavens and count the stars-if indeed you can count them...So shall your offspring be." Astronomers think there are between 10 sextillion and 1 septillion stars in the universe, my guess is that is far beyond the carrying capacity of this planet.
- To seal the "you will have a freakish amount of descendents" deal God asks Abraham to bring him "a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." Then Abraham cuts them in two and arranges the halves opposite each other. That sounds so messy and unneccessary.
- Genesis 16 - Sarah is getting inpatient for a kid. She decided to have her husband sleep with her maidservent Hagar (a great example of strong family values). Hagar gets pregnant and then an angel of the Lord tells her that her child will be a "wild donkey of a man." Not sure if that sounds like a party or a trainwreck.
- Genesis 17 - When Abraham was 99 years old. The Lord comes and tells him he will have a kid in a year but the catch is him and every male that's around him must get circumsized. I bet that Abraham and God were very very unpopular that day. I can understand circumsizing babies but as an adult it sounds awful, and I'm guessing anesthesia was not used.
Well, that's all for tonight. Tomorrow is Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot and his crazy rapist daughters, Isaac and his child abusing father, Jacob with an awful dating example and Rebekah an example of what a mother/mother-in-law should not be.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Slacker Pants!
I'm a pretty big slacker pants. I have been reading just not blogging. So far there hasn't been much "useful" stuff in the bible, to be fair I haven't finished Genesis yet, maybe the good stuff comes later. I am suprised just how all over the place the crazy stuff is. I was expecting to have to search for the really bizarre stories but they are everywhere. I am also beginning to see why Christians are so into having lots and lots of children. "Be fruitful" is everywhere and being infertile is major and some sort of twisted punishment from God.
I am going to do a quick list of things that I have marked up so far:
I am going to do a quick list of things that I have marked up so far:
- Genesis 1:1- 2:3 This is the Creation story. Much shorter than I expected. I was expecting more detail. I personally think that the Great Story is much better at telling the Creation Story, Scott Sampson has an interesting essay on this that can be found at http://www.scottsampson.net/index.php?page=education (and I think that Scott Sampson aka Dr. Hot is amazing)
- Genesis 2:18 - The Lord God said "It's not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." - A "helper suitable for HIM"!! why not a fantastic EQUAL team mate?! That's what I want, an equal, somebody who is fantastic (not suitable) for me and that I am fantastic for. I think helper is fine as long as it goes both ways.
- Genesis 3 This is the "fall of man" chapter. There is a serious lack of accountability, Adam is a sissy pants and blames Eve. Eve is crazy and talks with a serpent then blames the talking snake. Then I get to Genesis 3:16 - To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." Yuck, yuck, yuck. Childbirth is punishment, and God made it worse for all women because one listened to a talking snake? Once again, "he will rule over you" really doesn't sit well with me. I don't want to rule over anyone but I will be treated like an equal. Right after verse 16 there is a great one in 17. The Lord God says to Adam "Because you listened to your wife" and then the Lord curses Adam. I agree it wasn't a great idea to listen to a woman who thinks she is talking to a snake but cursing a man for listening to his wife is not a great precedent to set.
- Genesis 5 WOW! Dudes in this chapter lived forever and had kids when they were crazy old. Adam lived 930 years, Seth became a father at 105 and died at 912... seriously the whole chapter is a list of how old (very very old) guys were when they had kids and when they died.
- Genesis 6-9 These chapters are the story of Noah and the flood. This is not the cutesy animals go two by two onto a big boat story that I was originally led to believe. I love animals, I am horrified that in this story God drowns them, he drowns kittens and puppies and babies, KITTENS! I think that people that torture (or drown) animals are serial killers in training. God skips the training part and goes for torturing animals and mass murder all at once! Genesis 6:5 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth..."I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth...for I am grieved that I have made them." I get the feeling that God is throwing a temper tantrum here. It seems like a toddler that builds a lego castle, stubs her toe on it and decides DESTRUCTION is the only answer. Did you know it wasn't two of every animal? Nope, it's only two of every unclean animal, it was seven of clean animals and birds. After the flood and when Noah was back on dry ground first thing he does is sacrifice burnt offerings, yup he sacrificed some of the birds and clean animals (no wonder he needed seven of those, some to reproduce and some to burn). As if all this wasn't crazy enough in Chapter 9 I learned the real purpose for rainbows. I would write it all out but this cartoon sums it up nicely. Basically it's a reminder to God that He made a covenant that he will not kill us all by flood again. Why Mr. Knows Everything needs a reminder not to kill us is beyond me.
I have read twenty more chapters but have more to write than I thought and I need some sleep. I will update more tomorrow.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Summer Project
To celebrate the (not so) end of the world, I have decided to read the bible.
Seeing how nothing exciting happened today, the "guarantee" seems a little off. In fact, a lot seems off in that book. I have heard that people search the bible to answer all of life's questions, big and small. I am not sure what awful questions you could possible ask that the answer is found in Psalm 137:9 (KJV) "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
The bible is the world's best seller with about six billion copies published. I've never read it, I used to flip through it when I was bored in church meetings and remember finding lots of crazy verses, but always hoped I was reading them out of context. I think it's time to read it. I would like to finish the entire thing before school starts again in August but that might be too aggressive.
My main goal in reading the bible is to see how people can actually apply it in their daily lives. There are so many stories that I find morally questionable and sometimes reprehensible. I also want to understand some of the allusions see if god really hates fags and figs.
I'm going to be reading the New International Version but will check out the King James Version and maybe some others from time to time. I got the Life Application Study Bible. I invite anyone to read along with me.
Seeing how nothing exciting happened today, the "guarantee" seems a little off. In fact, a lot seems off in that book. I have heard that people search the bible to answer all of life's questions, big and small. I am not sure what awful questions you could possible ask that the answer is found in Psalm 137:9 (KJV) "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
The bible is the world's best seller with about six billion copies published. I've never read it, I used to flip through it when I was bored in church meetings and remember finding lots of crazy verses, but always hoped I was reading them out of context. I think it's time to read it. I would like to finish the entire thing before school starts again in August but that might be too aggressive.
My main goal in reading the bible is to see how people can actually apply it in their daily lives. There are so many stories that I find morally questionable and sometimes reprehensible. I also want to understand some of the allusions see if god really hates fags and figs.
I'm going to be reading the New International Version but will check out the King James Version and maybe some others from time to time. I got the Life Application Study Bible. I invite anyone to read along with me.
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