What Happens With A Proper Exegesis? Exit, Jesus.
22 July 2007 by KA
“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” – Isaac Asimov
“So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can’t rearrange the universe.” – Isaac Asimov, Nightfall
There is no doubt that we’ve all heard that nonsense, the ‘prophecies concerning Jesus’, in various guises in the blogging world.
I’ve pretty much slaughtered this whole nonsense, and torn some Old Testament folderol into confetti. Oh, and lest I forget, I pretty much trashed the entire New Testament, in accordance with the book’s own rules. (For those interested in my amateur exegesis that lead me to where I’m at today, my personal ‘trilogy’ that grants some insight can be found at one, two and three – but be forewarned: they’re somewhat on the long-winded side, but I fancy them entertaining.)
These would be mind-boggling feats, except that
A. It’s been done before, and
B. it’s fairly easy, for anyone with any sort of a critical mind. (I mean, really! Christians snort and scoff at others, yet don’t realize that their miserable little fairy tales are just as outrageous.)
And the patterns are fairly predictable. We hear about the ‘odds’ about these alleged ‘prophecies’ coming true, yet we’re criticized when we point out how these allusions are taken completely out of context. Then the claim is that we’re the ones who are quote-mining (talk about Tu Quoque!).
And for my efforts, I’ve been deemed ‘evil’. I must confess, my favorite is the old ‘retreat behind the trilemma‘ tactic (which is, of course, easily debunked by adding a fourth option: LEGEND). This is usually a tactic used when the ‘logic’ of the elocutor is sliced to ribbons by the audience (that is to say, when a creationist comes into an atheist blog and starts babbling in tongues, claiming the world’s only X amount of years old, you know the drill).
Religion seems to be a form of voluntary hemispherectomy – a form of voluntary lobotomy where logic is disabled, and the naturalistic fallacy (or a form thereof) is engaged.
It is to weep, sometimes.
It is a world of wonder we live in: there is no need for supernatural fairy tales to awe us into submission. The universe is a wild, wooly place indeed. Chock full of mysteries, replete with content enough to fill our lives and eyes. Who then requires a divine hand to stir the pot?
Not I.
Till the next post, then.
22 July 2007, on 3:31 am
[...] What Happens With A Proper Exegesis? Exit, Jesus. “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” – Isaac Asimov “So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. … [...]
22 July 2007, on 3:39 am
I agree. I look at pictures of nebula, planets, stars, etc and want to know how they formed not by whom. Religion was formed with the same idea in mind. However, it eventually became static and unchanging. The tools we now have allow us to “see” the universe in a much more refined light. Our ancestors needed gods to fill in the gaps. We do not.
22 July 2007, on 4:31 am
This is a report by a reporter, William Lobdell at LA Times, formerly a sucker who discovered that he was a sucker and didn’t want it anymore.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-me-lostfaith21jul21,1,6552887,full.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage&ctrack=1&cset=true
“IN the summer of 2005, I reported from a Multnomah County, Ore., courtroom on the story of an unemployed mother — impregnated by a seminary student 13 years earlier — who was trying to get increased child support for her sickly 12-year-old son.
The boy’s father, Father Arturo Uribe, took the witness stand. The priest had never seen or talked with his son. He even had trouble properly pronouncing the kid’s name. Uribe confidently offered the court a simple reason as to why he couldn’t pay more than $323 a month in child support.
“The only thing I own are my clothes,” he told the judge.
His defense — orchestrated by a razor-sharp attorney paid for by his religious order — boiled down to this: I’m a Roman Catholic priest, I’ve taken a vow of poverty, and child-support laws can’t touch me.
The boy’s mother, Stephanie Collopy, couldn’t afford a lawyer. She stumbled badly acting as her own attorney. It went on for three hours.
“It didn’t look that great,” Stephanie said afterward, wiping tears from her eyes. “It didn’t sound that great … but at least I stood up for myself.”
The judge ruled in the favor of Uribe, then pastor of a large parish in Whittier. After the hearing, when the priest’s attorney discovered I had been there, she ran back into the courtroom and unsuccessfully tried to get the judge to seal the case. I could see why the priest’s lawyer would try to cover it up. People would be shocked at how callously the church dealt with a priest’s illegitimate son who needed money for food and medicine.
My problem was that none of that surprised me anymore.
As I walked into the long twilight of a Portland summer evening, I felt used up and numb.
My soul, for lack of a better term, had lost faith long ago — probably around the time I stopped going to church. My brain, which had been in denial, had finally caught up.
Clearly, I saw now that belief in God, no matter how grounded, requires at some point a leap of faith. Either you have the gift of faith or you don’t. It’s not a choice. It can’t be willed into existence. And there’s no faking it if you’re honest about the state of your soul.
Sitting in a park across the street from the courthouse, I called my wife on a cellphone. I told her I was putting in for a new beat at the paper.”
Of course we suspect that almost all preachers are faking it.
22 July 2007, on 11:11 am
Gee…I haven’t been to Choich on Sunday for many a decade.
Thanks, ‘pastor’ KA, for digging into your masterfully wrought archives…erm…
“Nice Dusting”?
You’ve certainly ‘offered up’ some tasty morsels for our Sunday consumption…in my case…when my brain manages to reach a more reasonably lucent state.
What’s that?…Wishful thinking?
[OK...I just rolled out of bed...("Nice rolling"?)...and I'm only on my foist cup of java.]
It IS incredible, in my opinion, how enormously much time and human energy has been wasted on all the Bronze Age drivel that has had such a strangle hold on so many human minds. Of course, we must include the other various monstrous, bullshit fabrications…such as the Q’uran…in the list.
What a different world this might have been, had the dillusionals who conceived all that crap, had never seen the light of day…or at least…had not captured any attention from the other equally ignorant dillusionals.
Yeah, indeed…much more awakening…worldwide…is sorely needed!
22 July 2007, on 6:32 pm
Question of Judaism: KA, in your post on debunking the NT in 500 words or less, you mention the Sunday/Sabbath vs. the traditional sabbath (sabat of the hebrews).
Have they ever been wrong on what day of the week it is? Has xianity and judaism been in-synch on calendars since time immemorial? I ask because the Julian calendar was thrown out and the Gregorian was adopted, in 1582. At the same time, they adjusted the days to get back in-ynch with the seasons. (They hadn’t adopted the leap year model until then.) So when they switched (on October 5, 1582; the next day was October 14, 1582), they threw away ten days. Which is not seven days!
I know that the Jewish calendar is far older than ours. However, the xian Sabbath begins our week; theirs ends their week – yet they’re only 24 hours apart. Were they once farther apart? Or did a natural cycle bring us in-synch and they’ve purposely stayed that way?
But that doesn’t make sense! The Sabbath is inviolable; it’s always the seventh day – Gord’s Day-off! Gord’s NASCAR! Gord’s College-Football! And Gord doesn’t lift a finger – he has slaves to change the channel and bring him heavenly brewski-s…
Man, why can’t the xians see how full of hocus-pocus this whole thing is?
I’ve got a headache. If you’ll excuse me…
22 July 2007, on 9:08 pm
An interesting question, Naomi.
Answers.com answers it thusly:
Note that the Jews have a different calendar as opposed to the Romans.
I note that in Israel, some Jewish sects get angry if folks drive on Saturday, & there’ve been skirmishes.
Somebody, somewhere, is telling someone how to live in accordance w/their religion.
Obnoxious.
22 July 2007, on 9:51 pm
What debunks the claims of the Bible and Christianity (and by extension Judaism) for me is the way the god described therein utilizes such Rube Goldberg methods to achieve its ends.
22 July 2007, on 10:59 pm
KA, but here’s MY point: does the Jewish calendar make up for Leap Year and, if so, how does that square with a seven-day week if you allow for an eighth day every fourth year? But if you anally stay with a seven-day week, and tell the rest of the world “fuck you – YOU’RE wrong!”…
Not that this is a big deal. But I say it illustrates again and again the Gold Medal Mental Gymno-contortions that are needed to prop up their bullshit!
If the Sabbath is every seventh day, then they should stick to it – or STFU!
22 July 2007, on 11:02 pm
Oops!
And doesn’t that anger their Yahweh? Maybe he’s supporting the Palestinians, out of spite. We do know he’s big on “gotchas”…
22 July 2007, on 11:27 pm
“…and that’s how Anal Retention was born!”
OR maybe…ala the Pythons:
“Earth?…
Thy name is Bonkerdom!”
23 July 2007, on 1:15 am
Naomi,
“Gold Medal Mental Gymno-contortions” aren’t needed to justify their belief – ignorance of all the issues you discussed seems more like the cause of the glaring inconsistencies. Life is much easier if you’re not bothered by complexities like how the Sabbath relates to the changes in the calendar or why Noah woud put dinosaurs on the ark or why the terrorists hate us. “It’s all just God’s grand design. He works in mysterious ways. Get over it.” Seems to be the train of thought.
23 July 2007, on 1:21 am
Naomi:
This is somewhat off the beaten path, but the Jewish calendar doesn’t use leap years: the Gregorian calendar was constructed in such a way that Easter would fall upon a specific day. This was a contrivance of xtian Rome.
Look at a calendar: the beginning of each week is Sunday, the end is Saturday.
& said sabbath IS on a specific day – it’s all in the way you count.
The xtians switched it about, in Judaism, Sabbath is actually on Friday.
Numbers are strange, the logic in rearranging them are sometimes odder than fiction.
23 July 2007, on 1:22 am
Oh, also note that leap years (in olden times) were the only years a woman could propose to a man.
How’s THAT for weird?
23 July 2007, on 2:05 am
Actually, I’m being serious about this “time” thing.
Time is man-made. But it’s logical. When it started, way back, it was just for planting. Later, it became more complex, with charting the sky and building quite sophisticated observatories (given their level of knowledge). From charting the seasons spring and fall (harvest festivals), and days to celebrate in the middle. Then they took those four and made days to celebrate in between, with now eight events. Then came months. Then weeks – and the trouble started, because there had to be one day for starting it (or ending it…); the church used bells and rituals to announce the time for rituals. Lauds, matins, evensong…
Somewhere along the way, they toyed with water clocks and candles that burned the day away.
Finally, clockworks began to be devised. And now they could regulate the day by the hours and minutes. Seconds. Now – nanoseconds! Analong to digital. Atomic clocks.
And throughout all that, the church grabbed days, hours for itself. And like stealing pagan holy days, the church renamed everything. Greedy bastards! Like little children that have no concept of boundaries, they took and took and pretended to give back. But it’s always been conditional – the recipients must observe the glory of…Mother Nature? Nope, she’s been put out to pasture. The father is in charge now, yessirree-bob!
So my little beef about the one day a week that they have co-opted and/or commandeered, which has been tweaked and jiggered and reset and readjusted and moved (throwing away ten days!) – and they behave as though all is as it was and ever shall be!
And it’s a lie.
When is the rapture due? I’m in a hurry to get rid of these clowns!
ChuckA, I feel better now. This stream-of-consciousness is cathartic! Thank you, sir!
23 July 2007, on 2:27 am
Sorry, KA, I seem to have taken this on a tangent. So this will be my last word on time.
I was just reading Black Sun Journal’s Humanist Symposium #5 contribution and ran across more time topics.
Tha Mayan calendar is set to end on June 6, 2012, and bring “the end of time”. 06.06.12 See the symmetry?
But wait – there’s an alernate date: June 20, 2012. “End of time”, yadda-yadda-yadda. 06.20.2012…
Now, if they were using the Julian calendar, the symmetry wouldn’t be there. And the second date is not 10 days after the first one.
Or better yet: Time-Wave-Zero, which hits “an asymptote at exactly December 21, 2012.” 12.21.12 or 12.21.2012
My conclusion is they want to make it a mystical prediction so as to be more woooo – when it’s just man-made time and is useless for predicting, since we’ve changed “time” so many times throughout history…
Okay, I’m done! I’m closing my “mouth”…erm…I’m backing away from the keyboard…
23 July 2007, on 2:48 am
Naomi: “When is the rapture due? I’m in a hurry to get rid of these clowns!”
Your comment somehow brings back memories of the old “Muppet Show”…with a bit of ‘pig’ substituting, of course…
[cue the heavy echo effect]:
“CLOWNS IN SPACE!!!”
23 July 2007, on 3:10 am
Believers do like to cherry pick their scripture as we know. For some, the sabbath is a big deal. But who pays attention to the SABBATH YEAR these days, even though that was a command from the lord too. Leviticus 25.
“1 The LORD said to Moses on Mount Sinai, 2 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘When you enter the land I am going to give you, the land itself must observe a sabbath to the LORD.
3 For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. 4 But in the seventh year the land is to have a sabbath of rest, a sabbath to the LORD. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards.
5 Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest. 6 Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you—for yourself, your manservant and maidservant, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you,
7 as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land. Whatever the land produces may be eaten.”
Why isn’t that command respected today. There is a lot in Leviticus 25, especially about how to handle slaves. Then there is this point.
“35 ” ‘If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. 36 Do not take interest of any kind [a] from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. 37 You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit. 38 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.”
Not really modern capitalism, is it? Not only the sabbath year, but the JUBILEE,
“8 ” ‘Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. 9 Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land.
10 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. 11 The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. 12 For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.”
That one is a bit difficult because presumably you cannot harvest your fields for two years running: the 49th and the 50th years.
Nonetheless, these were the Lord’s commands, as dear as the sabbath day to it. So how come believers choose one, but not the others?
23 July 2007, on 9:20 am
Don’t even get me started on this Mayan Calendar bullshit…
“10 Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.”
That’s rich, liberty as long as you do what gord says…
23 July 2007, on 2:50 pm
Bernarda, to answer your last question in two words:
23 July 2007, on 3:50 pm
My head’s spinning–!
24 July 2007, on 5:35 am
but be forewarned: they’re somewhat on the long-winded side
Not at all!
24 July 2007, on 1:00 pm
The title sounds like a perfect name for a song.