Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts

Friday, December 20, 2013

Signs Jesus is Coming Soon

And HOW Long Have the Religiously Afflicted Been Claiming This?


 Loads and loads of people over roughly the last couple of thousand years have tried to predict when the supposed second arrival of Jesus Christ will take place. Do you ever wonder what the Bible has to say about this? Let's check it out, shall we?

 Matthew 24:36, "But no one knows of that day and hour, not even the angels of heaven, but my Father only."
Sooo...when it comes to the above verse what I would like to know is how in the freaky-doo can GOD know when Jesus will return but Jesus Himself will NOT know. How does this work? Isn't Jesus supposed to be God? Wouldn't Jesus be all-knowing? If Jesus is all-knowing then...uhmmm...wouldn't He know the details of His scheduled return to planet earth? Some translations of this verse even say that the Son does not know. Lovely. Why not confuse the fuck out of your followers, right? Give 'em something juicy to argue over for centuries. Wonderful. Anyways, the point made here with this verse is that no one is supposed to know. Considering that...why the fuck believers continue to make predictions as to when Jesus will come back is curious. Even when people say, "We don't know when, but soon," that is STILL making a prediction. 


Matthew 23:34,"Most certainly I tell you, this generation will not pass away, until all these things are accomplished."

Here we have an apparent blunder by the Son of God Himself, and why more Christians don't pay closer attention is interesting. Those who DO pay attention have all sorts of ways to explain away this divine SNAFU, right? In verse 36 of this same chapter Jesus says only GOD knows when the return will be and that even the Son (that would be Jesus) does not know. Hummm. But...here in this verse Jesus clearly makes a prediction as to when the return will be. He says the present generation will not pass away until all of these things have happened. For many Christians, when this obvious Jesus-flub is pointed out they claim that Jesus was referring to the present generation of Man that fell from the Garden of Eden. Of course, ask them about any other generation of Man that fell from the Garden of Eden and they look at you like you are crazy. Seriously. Ask them. Why would the term "present generation" be used unless there is some kind of reference to a past and a future generation? That was explained to me as the past generation was Man before he fell and the future generation is the one that will live eternally with God in heaven. Thus, when Jesus referred to the present generation He really meant all of mankind that is fallen which then means Jesus could come back whenever He freaking wants to and still be correct. Clever. Well, looks like they got all of that horseshit covered.


Matthew 16:28, "Most certainly I tell you, there are some standing here who will in no way taste of death, until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom."

Now here is yet another interesting verse, right? Jesus says that there were some there in His presence who would not die until they saw the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom. Sure. Jesus isn't back and all of those mofos who were standing around are all dead...LONG dead, right? This was explained to me a couple of ways one being that Jesus was referring to no taste of death since they lived eternally in the Holy Spirit or some crazy hodgepodge of religious dogma, and the other that Jesus was referring to His transformation and ascension into the big blue sky to be with Big Poppa. Whatever. What explanations have you heard?


Sooo...what about those people who wish to insist that Jesus said there would be signs of His return? Well, let's take a peek into the Bible for info on that as well, hummm? 

Mark 13:22, "For there will arise false christs and false prophets, and will show signs and wonders, that they may lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones."

In the above verse people are warned about false messiahs and prophets makings signs that are not real signs, right? Sooo...all of these crazies who swear by whomever they swear that they have received or seen a real sign really should consider this, right? What is hilariously funny is each of these truly believe they are the one with the real signs while everyone else is false. Good stuff! By the way...if the chosen ones can be led astray how in the fuckey-doo are they the chosen ones?


Acts 2:19, "I will show wonders in the sky above, and signs on the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and billows of smoke."

In this verse is where the real lunatics of religion find their foothold to claim that just about any natural disaster is a freaking sign from God that Jesus is just around the corner. Sounds like God is trying to rip off on nature by counting on people not realizing it is nature they are viewing and not the fairy tale power of the Bible's God.


Luke 21:25, "There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars; and on the earth anxiety of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the waves; "

Oh, look. Here God is ripping nature off again when it comes to power and awe and things that appear to the unlearned to be miracles but are really normal. Oh, and the reference to the anxiety of nations is equally stupid, right? When hasn't there been some nation or nations on earth squabbling, hummm? There is always someone fighting someone else over something. Even if all of the nations of the earth decided to quit fighting you could probably accurately bet that the countries of the Middle East would opt to continue fighting. Sooo...this anxiety of the nations thing is retarded and absolutely no big revelation of any type.


Why do believers look for signs of anything anyways, hummm? If they are so protected by their God and so favored by Him and so blessed...what the fuck are they worried about? When Jesus gets here, He gets here, right? Why toil over it, why worry, why scare the shit out of yourselves wondering whether or not you are going to meet God's standard, hummm? If God is everywhere wouldn't everywhere and everything be a sign for believers? Go on that and be happy about it. If not, why try to make some kind of holy sign out of every damn thing that happens? That is so stupid. Besides, in Luke 11:29 didn't Jesus admonish those who sought signs, "When the multitudes were gathering together to him, he began to say, "This is an evil generation. It seeks after a sign. No sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah, the prophet."

If you are a believer you shouldn't need any kind of sign because you already believe. With your whole heart at that. If you are a believer looking for or seeking or claiming to have discovered a sign or anything of the like you need to know you have a problem. There is something wrong with your faith from within you. You should not be seeking signs and trying to interpret crazy shit. Just do your divine duty and believe. You do not need to pop about on street corners and pubs and wherever claiming the signs of the times are here. Don't you understand that if people do not believe as you do they do not care, do not give a shit, do not believe in any second coming or first coming for that matter, and most certainly are not seeking signs? Sometimes non-believers might say, "Show me a sign," but that is just a way to try to break it to you demented people who believe this crapola that there are no signs, you have no signs, cannot make any signs, and should be holding signs reading "Disillusioned with Promises of Perfection."

Now, onto some videos.

 This is delicious fun! Sooo...this guy has a dream with Bill Nye the Science Guy, and has interpreted this dream to mean that Jesus' return is nigh? Wonderfully hilarious! What is the deal with filming this important message in your car, buddy?


 Dude, you people are idiots. Do you know of or have you ever heard of such things as minerals and gasses and natural phenomenon that can change the color of water to a reddish color? Why are you fucktards pretending that there are no explanations for this? You aren't scaring anyone but yourselves, you know this, right? A geo-scientist will know what is going on and sure as hell won't be scared...and the really great thing is you do not have to be such a person to know why the water is turning this color. By the way, it has nothing to do with Jesus or God.


 The sun and the moon do not act weird, you dumb twat. They cannot act or make decisions to do anything considered an act. The sun and the moon are part of the natural processes of this solar system, galaxy, and universe. Close your Bible and go get a milkshake.


 It is a goddamn sunset, you bastard. A SUNSET. Yes, is it beautiful, but this beauty should NEVER be distorted to be some kind of validation for your delusions and deficient faith.


 There have been soooo many people who for soooo long have said again and again that the signs of their times point to this Jesus fellow returning. This man's claims are nothing new at all. The disciples in the Bible thought the same damn thing. Hello.


 Haahah!! Here we have Santa Clause's younger brother making his own claims about Jesus' return while trying to sell a few DVDs at the same time.


 Dude, you totally fucked up your van. Did Jesus tell you to do that?


 Sooo...according to this video God wants to talk to you. Really? If God wants to chat with someone He can do it Himself and not through someone else. He is God and can do anything, right? So, this should not be a problem. If God wants to talk to people He can do it in person and NOT through someone.


 Natural...planet...processes. Got it?


 Yikes. So many Christians come across like they are the only ones in the universe who, if they believe in something fervently enough, whatever it is they believe in (no matter how fucking screwy) must be absolutely true.


 One day closer to being committed to an insane asylum...yay!!


 I guess this idiot has never heard of astronomy? Does he know what a star is? Does he know how light travels? Does he know why something in the sky would look like this? Does he bother to try to find out why before he jumps up and says it is a sign of Jesus coming back?


 You ding dongs say this with every single war. Even the people in the Bible said this in regards to the war that was occurring during their time in the New Testament. Get a new story, damn.


 This is a burning bush? WTF? You have never seen it happen before so it MUST be Jesus? Hah!!


 They're clouds, asshole. Clouds.


Holy shit. This man should go back to sleep because he looks so very, VERY tired I actually feel concerned for him. Geeze, buddy...please lay back down. And probably you should worry about this Jesus thing far less because I bet that isn't helping you sleep.


 Jesus wants you to be ready with oil? Say...is He a member of O.P.E.C. or anything like that?


 If God kept His promises Israel would not be in the pickles it is in, and neither  would they be in such a teeny little country, you know?


 Ahhh...signs that the delusions are far-reaching. Isn't that great?


Sooo...if people are believing in Jesus just so they will not be left behind...that is NOT believing for the sake of faith, is it?


Time is short? You do realize this has been said here and there for the last, oh, almost two thousand years? Whose time are you going by, whose watch? It doesn't matter whether or not you think time is short, honey. All that matters is that there is truth and plenty of it. And guess what? Your fairy tale ramblings of a divine zombie peeking around the corner just ready to spring on man is a crock of shit. Sorry to break it to you, but the truth does not consist of crocks of shit, nor has it ever.

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Saturday, October 26, 2013

How DOES God Win?


I Samuel 17:47 says, "...and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give you into our hand.”
Sooo...what does this verse mean? If you are a Christian what have you been taught that this verse means?

 I was taught that this verse in part explained the saying, "The LORD works in mysterious ways." In other words, whatever the will of God is when it comes to winning and losing the fact remains that the LORD always wins. The paradox is that sometimes it is difficult to see the victory that already exists, or, even more difficult to refrain from labeling the loss of a situation as an indicator of God failing to win.

 What the LORD/God calls a win is not always evident to man. It is a mystery to us why God has already won every battle and defeated Satan, it is a mystery to us why bad things happen to good people, it is a mystery to us how God always wins yet never so much as lifts a sword or tosses a spear.

 Sooo...the LORD never raises a sword or a spear...and still wins? Let's take a peek into the Bible and find out how it is possible for God to always win.

 Genesis 11:6-9
6 "Look!" he said. "The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them!

 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

 8 So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.

 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

Not all situations of winning and losing have to do with war. Sometimes it is just a matter of whether or not God is going to allow people to go about their lives peaceably. When God leaves people alone...great. Everyone wins. When God decides to stick His nose where it does not belong...man loses every time.

And what about the above verses? Where is the winning and losing? The losing is where God purposely throws the people into confusion, causing the people to disperse/disband. Man is the loser here, which by default makes God the winner. Sooo...here we have established that God has used CONFUSION to win.


Exodus 4:21
21 And the LORD told Moses, "When you arrive back in Egypt, go to Pharaoh and perform all the miracles I have empowered you to do. But I will harden his heart so he will refuse to let the people go.

This here is a very interesting, very telling verse when it comes to understanding how God tricks people into thinking they have any real power to begin with. God tells Moses to go and show Pharaoh all of these great wonders, actions that are supposed to convince Pharaoh to let the people of Israel go, right? Wrong. God has given all of these powers to Moses and they mean absolutely squat because God has purposely hardened Pharaoh's heart. Sooo, here we have established that God wins by interfering with a person's free will.

Exodus 7:3-4
3 But I will harden Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt.

4 Even then Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you. So I will bring down my fist on Egypt. Then I will rescue my forces--my people, the Israelites--from the land of Egypt with great acts of judgment.

Oh, look! Three cheers for God being consistent in continuing to harden Pharaoh's heart. Sooo...here in this case we see that God still presses for a win by interfering with or removing a person's free will altogether.

Exodus 7:13-14
13 Still Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.

14 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go.
Please. As if God didn't know what the hell was going on. Here, God gets demerits for playing dumb, but does get kudos for His enduring consistency to win by hijacking man's free will.

Exodus 8:19
19 Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the LORD had said.

 Sooo...here we have a slightly different version of God taking someone's free will hostage, right? How so? Read the verse. It says Pharaoh would not listen due to the hardening of his heart deafening his ears to what people around him were saying. The choice to listen to any one message or person is a power that must remain with the individual. That does not happen here.

Exodus 8:29
29 Moses answered, "As soon as I leave you, I will pray to the LORD, and tomorrow the swarms of flies will disappear from you and your officials and all your people. But I am warning you, Pharaoh, don't lie to us again and refuse to let the people go to sacrifice to the LORD."
Don't lie to us again? Pharaoh ISN'T lying because Pharaoh ISN'T making the choice to refuse to let the people go. God is doing that. Does Moses suffer from some kind of memory disorder? Does he not recall God informing him that God was going to harden Pharaoh's heart? Moses knows damn well what God is doing. It is Pharaoh who is the clueless one in this situation and that isn't even by his own choice but by God's bullshit fighting tactics. Sooo...here we have an interesting element added to God's bag of winning tricks: make the person you are against look like a liar when they are really not a liar. Pharaoh is not the one lying here. This little twisted game of pretend makes both God and Moses liars.

Exodus 10:1
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Return to Pharaoh and make your demands again. I have made him and his officials stubborn so I can display my miraculous signs among them.

 Wow. Sooo...now God is going to include Pharaoh's officials in His twisted game of 'Let's Steal Someone's Free Will'. Why does God do this? Was robbing Pharaoh of HIS choice not enough? Is it because the officials are starting to realize something is wrong with Pharaoh and he would normally never react in this manner? Here we have God winning not just by taking the power of choice from one person...but from many. God obviously give a shit about the needs of the many or the needs of the few. His concern is the needs of the One.

Exodus 10:20
20 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go.

 Geeze...how many times is God going to use this one tactic?

Exodus 10:27
27 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let them go.

 Apparently lots and lots of times, right?

Exodus 11:10
10 Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land.

 Do you think God would use this tactic against you...maybe to teach you some fantastic lesson or two?

Exodus 12:36
36 And the LORD had given the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they let them have what they asked. Thus they plundered the Egyptians.

 Holy shit! Now God has gone far beyond just bamboozling Pharaoh and his advisors. Here God robs an entire people of their minds/their power of choice. And WHY does He do this? So that on the way out of Egypt the people of God can rob the Egyptians of their valuables. How is THAT for a divine tactic to win?

Exodus 14:17
17 And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen.

 Ahhh...so it is NOT enough that God has used terrible tactics to win and get His people out of Egypt, to rob the Egyptians, and to leave in victory. No, this is not enough of a win. God wants a GREATER win so more people will be strangled by fear and choose to believe in Him. Sooo...what does God do? Again, God wins by taking a person's power to choose. The Pharaoh and his army have no choice but to follow the people of God. Lovely.

Exodus 14:24-25
24 And in the morning watch the LORD in the pillar of fire and of cloud looked down on the Egyptian forces and threw the Egyptian forces into a panic,

 That's right...God DID take your freedom of choice, but He does have a nice parting gift for you as He decimates you in a great victory:PANIC. God loves using panic and does it quite often in the Old Testament.

 25 clogging their chariot wheels so that they drove heavily. And the Egyptians said, “Let us flee from before Israel, for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians.”

 If only the Egyptians knew that the LORD fights for no one other than Himself.

Numbers 11:1
1 Soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the LORD heard everything they said. Then the LORD's anger blazed against them, and he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some of the people in the outskirts of the camp.

 Sooo...the people are upset and have complaints. Instead of talking with the people and fixing things, God wins the argument by BURNING some of the people to death.

Numbers 21:3
3 And the LORD heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called Hormah.

 See, when God's people win it isn't because God is so great and mighty and full of love and peace. No. They are not victorious in the true sense of victory where justice and truth win. Here the victory comes because God made it impossible for them to lose by simply giving the Canaanites over. Nice. 

Numbers 21:34-35
34 But the LORD said to Moses, “Do not fear him, for I have given him into your hand, and all his people, and his land. And you shall do to him as you did to Sihon king of the Amorites, who lived at Heshbon.”

 Is it just me or does it seem like God loves to simply hand people over to great destruction?

Deuteronomy 7:2
2 When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy.

 Ahh, here we have yet another way God wins: SHOW NO MERCY.

Deuteronomy 7:19
19 the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, the wonders, the mighty hand, and the outstretched arm, by which the LORD your God brought you out. So will the LORD your God do to all the peoples of whom you are afraid.

 Really? Where was this mighty hand for the people of God during WWII? Just wondering. Is that another ones of those God wins in mysterious ways things?

Deuteronomy 7:23
23 But the LORD your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion, until they are destroyed.

 Oh look, the LORD also wins by throwing people into confusion. Remember...this is NOT their own confusion because GOD put that confusion there.

Joshua 11:8
8 And the LORD gave them into the hand of Israel, who struck them and chased them as far as Great Sidon and Misrephoth-maim, and eastward as far as the Valley of Mizpeh. And they struck them until he left none remaining.

 You know what this is? God takes a bunch of people who are on their own property, says "Here you are!" to His own people as He orders the original inhabitants driven out and killed, then when His people kill everyone who was originally there says, "You win." Actually He really means, "I win," but you get the picture.

Joshua 11:20
20 For it was the LORD’s doing to harden their hearts that they should come against Israel in battle, in order that they should be devoted to destruction and should receive no mercy but be destroyed, just as the LORD commanded Moses.

 Oh yeah, here we have verification of God purposely making people choose war in order that God win.

Judges 4:15
15 When Barak attacked, the LORD threw Sisera and all his chariots and warriors into a panic. Sisera leaped down from his chariot and escaped on foot.

 God loves reusing and reusing and reusing His various tricks to win. Here? That old bugaboo PANIC.

Judges 9:23
23 And God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem, and the leaders of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech,

 Look here! God is not above using black magic to win. If you did this in modern times what would it be called, hum? Black magic. Sending an evil spirit to someone? Black magic. This is your God. This is how He wins. And this is only a FEW of the verses like this that are in the Bible.
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Friday, June 29, 2012


"Turkey Broth for the Spirit: Confessions of a Born Again Atheist"



Provided below is a short sample:




Turkey Broth for the Spirit: Confessions of a Born-Again Atheist



　
By
Ester Lighthorse
Copyright 2012 by Ester Lighthorse
　
　
Author’s Note:
This book is not a work of fiction, and it is not a work merely based on true facts here and there with a good peppering of artistic license. It is written exactly as I experienced it. I have, however, changed the names of the people involved, and even the names of a few places. I did so out of respect for private lives and identities.
　
　
For the thrill of thinking.
For my parents, who taught me how to think.
　
　
　
Turkey Broth for the Spirit: Confessions of a Born Again Atheist
　
Chapter 1

Jesus Loves Me This I know

     I can recall with perfect accuracy the moment I began to think there were holes in the argument for God. I cannot say the same in regards to when I started to believe in God in the first place.

     My parents both became Born-Again Christians while I was yet still an infant. The way that my mother tells me the story is moving to me in many respects. I find it is a story of determination in the face of rapt destituteness, a story that begins with two young parents searching for some kind of ‘completeness’ that they knew they needed, yet did not know how to acquire.

     It was the late summer of 1974, and my newlywed parents had been invited to attend a thanksgiving feast. This was not the feast of Thanksgiving most popularly associated with the month of November, no. It was a pot-luck feast where everyone brought something to eat. Then after there had occurred a good amount of eating and conversation the gospel was preached.

     My parents were quite young at the time, only out of high school for a year and a half. They had married, much to the chagrin of relatives on both sides of the family, and after I was born seemed to face a barrage of trouble from every direction. My father had trouble finding and keeping employment, and while my mother did her best to help there was still never enough. At one point, having no other choice for accommodations, they lived on the Native American reservation of my father’s tribe in relative poverty. The proverbial family plate was full of overwhelming responsibilities.

     Upon arriving at the meeting hall of the church’s thanksgiving feast event my parents were welcomed with warmth, compassion, and genuine friendliness. After enjoying the vast array of foods the gospel portion of the evening began. A man named Willie stood and began to illuminate the hearts of all those in the gathered group with the Word of God and the gospel of Jesus. It was not a message of hellfire and damnation. It was not a message of forsaking society in an effort to earn some type of spiritual brownie button. It was not a message urging people to believe in God and accept Jesus into their hearts so that they could be better than anyone else or more deserving than anyone else. It was a message of peace, hope, freedom, and love from God.

     Considering the life situation of my parents this message of peace and hope and freedom and love was exactly what they needed. Someone, not just any someone but the someone of all someones, cared about them and their dire circumstances. God cared. He cared about whether or not my parents had something to eat and a place to sleep. He cared about the employment situation and the money troubles. He cared about the mounting stresses and the deluge of life wrinkle after wrinkle. All of these things struck a cord within the hearts of my mother and father, for in a time of great trial and need someone wonderful and infinitely powerful gave them everything. For my parents it was especially relieving and comforting that someone gave a damn about them.

     When Willie was finished preaching the gospel he asked if there was anyone in the audience who would like to receive Jesus into their heart and start to live their life for God. My parents both stood, tears in their eyes, and prayed and received Jesus into their hearts. Of course they knew full well that doing so would not instantly remove their troubles. Receiving Jesus had nothing to do with magically making anything better, but it did mean that not only would God help them through each day, they would not have to worry what each new day would bring because God would take care of it.

     Perhaps there is at least a modicum of truth to be found in such spiritual reasoning. Don’t worry about everything. The only thing you need to be concerned with is the day that you are living. Tomorrow, well, tomorrow will be dealt with…tomorrow. When you concern and worry yourself with more than just the day you are living you put too much pressure on yourself and those around you, and when that happens you get over-worked, over-stressed, and in definite need of someone to help you when it seems you cannot help yourself.

     It reminds me of the poem called “Footprints” where the individual in the poem sees one set of prints in the sand and wonders why God left them? God had not left them, but rather had carried them through the rough spots; that was why there was only one set of footprints. It is true that an excessive amount of worry on the part of any individual will have a negative effect on the life and life situations of the worried individual. Actions taken to reduce the worry and stress are often an excellent step to take in order for an individual to improve their quality of life from their mental state to their physical and spiritual states. For many people the belief in God is a great balancing tool in their lives. God brings happiness to many people, at least they say He does. I am inclined to believe many individuals who say that their belief in God helps them in their day to day living…even though I do not believe the same as they believe spiritually. Understand, though, that my inclination to believe that belief in God does help some people is not an admission, assertion, claim, statement, or anything of the like that God actually exists. I do not believe or think that God exists.

     It has been openly claimed by many, many individuals that God makes them happy. And what does the Bible say about happiness? Proverbs 15:16 says, “A merry heart is just like medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.” I do believe that this is true, that happiness within a person has a way of making that person stronger, better suited in many respects to deal with many negative issues with a clearer perspective and a deeper sense of grace. However, I do not think that in order to experience true happiness a person must believe in God. I think the key to happiness, at least one of the keys, is an ability and compunction to shake worry from the self.

     My happiness as a young child was at first seemingly boundless, and while that would with time change I still have many fond memories of feeling so full of happiness and joy that I would sing songs of thanks to Jesus. Many of the songs I would sing were verses taken directly from the books of the Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, and put to catching melodies. Among my favorites was a song that began, “Oh Lord, You have searched me and know me; You know my down-sitting and my uprising. You understand my thought a far off; You compass my path and my lying down.” Another favorite went something like, “Let none that wait on Thee be afraid; Oh, my God! I trust in Thee! Let me not be afraid, let not mine enemies triumph over me.” I would sing these songs over and over or try to play them on my little red harmonica.

     I was too little to consider the meanings of the words I sang. All that mattered to me was that I was singing, and of all the practices of worship taught to me when I was young I loved singing the most. Singing was the number one activity I looked forward to the most whenever my parents went to their religious meetings. It wasn’t just because I had been taught that God wanted people to sing to Him to show praise and thanks. Singing did something to me inside, something wonderful. It always has. To this day, whenever I sing I feel a sense of freedom and limitless joy. The only difference is when I sing now I am not singing for any deity. Now I sing precisely because I love and am drawn to music. And even though my personal spiritual beliefs have changed dramatically I still sing all my favorite church songs as I play my guitar.

     Music has many powers that some people just do not seem to realize. Think of the song that millions of children the world over sing, the song about the wheels on the bus going round and round? By themselves the words mean very little and don’t have much of a grasp on one’s mind. However, put the words to that absurd tune and suddenly you have a musical mantra that evokes squeals of delight from the youngest of children.

     As a child, every Sunday I learned many biblical lessons and verses through song. Whether the song was Jesus Loves the Little Children or Jesus Loves Me, This I know or Some Trust in Chariots and Some in Horses or Silver and Gold Have I None, I learned that I was better and more deserving than those who did not believe in God. Yes. I must put it that way because in reality that is exactly what I was being taught. I was special. Why was I special? I was special because I believed in God and Jesus and because my parents believed in God and Jesus. Somehow I began to understand that believing in God and Jesus meant that I had extra strength for getting through life’s troubles. Conversely, I understood that the strength that people who did not believe in Jesus thought that they had was not real strength. It was really a trick. You see, one of the most common ways that God employed to turn people to Him was to make a person think they were strong in a time of crisis. Then right when they thought they would make it through their trouble God pulled the rug out from underneath them, forcing the person to turn their heart toward God.

      How did I know all this? I learned it through Bible songs that I was told were absolute truth. Your everyday average child would never sit long enough to actually listen to anyone give a sermon or even speak for a few minutes of such things, but the same children could be taught a song that seeded their heart with such ridiculous ideology. Music has a curious way of leaving all sorts of fingerprints of lyrics in a person’s brain. That does not mean it is necessarily a bad thing. I remember most of the Mother Goose songs I learned as a child without negative effect. Hey, Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle and Three Blind Mice and Hot Cross Buns come to mind. Of course, truth be told there is a huge difference between learning religious songs and learning Mother Goose songs. The difference is Mother Goose songs do not encourage children to consider people who believe differently as enemies, to condemn to hell those who would choose to not believe in God, to pray for the undoing of those who would not consider the Holy Bible as the true Word of God, or to be taking the words of the songs absolute truth.

      Can you recall learning nursery rhymes and songs as a small child? If so, perhaps your parents or teacher or someone who taught you the nursery rhymes informed you that the songs were simply for fun and the stories and people and characters in them were make-believe, fake, pretend, not actual, not real. Of course, who would want their child to believe that Mother Goose really did fly through the air on a “very fine gander” whenever she hankered to go for a wander? Or how about Peter Pumpkin-Eater putting his wife in a pumpkin shell after he realized he could not keep her? What about Hey, Diddle, Diddle and the infamous cow jumping over the moon while the dish runs away with spoon? Would you agree with the notion that teaching children that nursery rhymes are real, actual fact would be detrimental to their psychological and mental development? Chances are you would agree, after all, who would want their child to grow up into an adult who truly thinks that an owl stands as a sentinel at the door of Mother Goose’s house, that a spider sat down next to Little Miss Moffet and scared the beejesus out of her as she ate curds and whey, or that there is an old woman who lives in a shoe along with a battalion of children?

     Considering that, why, why, why would you want your child grow up thinking that an intelligent and supreme being purposely makes bad, horrific, terrible things happen to people just so that they will believe in Him, that a talking snake was able to bamboozle an individual with human intellect to do something they were not supposed to do, that Lot’s daughters seduced and slept with their own father (who was drunk, by the way) in order to produce an heir, or that every human being on this planet is a descendant of Adam and Eve which would mean that there was a helluva lot of incest going on for a very long time?

     Now, of course the songs taught in Sunday schools the world over do not reference incest. At least, they shouldn’t. But the songs that are taught are presented as truth taken from the Bible which is itself presented as absolute truth. By default many of the children will grow up to take everything in the Bible as absolute truth, because it has been pounded into them from the time they are very young and starting with the songs they learn. It is brainwashing, plain and simple. The results?

     Take a look around you. I am not saying that all of the ills of humanity stem from teaching the Bible as truth; a good chunk of them are, however, responsible for contributing to awful behaviors. Maltreatment of gays and lesbians, denial of individual rights based on so-called biblical truth and fact, and social/cultural rifts deriving from the age-old argument My-God-Is-Better-Than-Your-God abound. Disagreements between some religions are so strong that people kill each other. And many of these absurd behaviors are a direct result of people taught from a very young age that they are right and everyone else is wrong. That they have the only truth. That there is only one way to believe inasmuch as love, hope, peace, compassion, grace, mercy, and salvation are concerned.

     Being as though I was a small child I did not know that the religious songs I was being taught could and would encourage some very negative thinking. Even if I had been told there were negative intonations in the wording of the music I would not have known that there was a problem with such thinking anyway. I offered no logical resistance, but rather embraced such stealthily hidden religious ideology wholeheartedly. After all, it was all up to God, right? However God chose to do something it was right because it was God. God had to do whatever He had to do in order to get people to believe in Him. If He had to make sad things happen to someone in order to get them to believe, then it was not really sadness because most people eventually turned to God; God invariably had nothing to do with sadness. Nothing to do with sadness. Nothing to do with sadness. Nothing to do with sadness. I tell you this was beaten into my brain over and over. If a person’s sadness continued that was a clear indicator that they were still not listening to God. If He had to make something bad happen so that people would believe in Him, then it was not really something bad because by believing in God a person avoided hell and that was a good thing since everyone knows that hell is the ultimate in badness. If He had to trick them…well, then it wasn’t trickery. It was God. And didn’t God work in mysterious ways?

     Besides, how was I supposed to know that I was being groomed, if unknowingly to my parents, to become an ego-oriented spiritualist, a person of elitist salvation, a person who for a very long time thought it was okay to condemn people if they did not believe in God?


　
Chapter 2


The Piano Drops


     My parents were regular attendees of the church where they had received Christ and become ‘renewed’ before God. One of the things I distinctly remember about these early years was the amount of joy and happiness I felt emanating from my parents when they met and fellowshipped with other church members. I recall many nights where members would pile into cars and head down to the beach where they would play guitars and sing around a bonfire. Sometimes after an evening gathering members would go to the local Bob’s Big Boy for coffee and desserts. Some of the memories that stick out the most for me are when a whole bunch of us went to the desert and rode dune buggies, went fishing off the rocks of the bay, had gigantic picnics during the summer months, went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and even went grunion hunting.

     I have a pretty good memory and can recall people and situations from as early as when I was only two years old. Even to this day I can do this. When I think back I remember knowing about and believing in God. Of course my parents told me about God, but I do not know at which point I began to believe along with them. Perhaps it is a silly quest for me to try to remember being as though most small children believe everything their parents tell them. This is a natural occurrence. Why wouldn’t I believe in God if I did not even have the concept that it was indeed possible that He did not exist and I did not have to believe in Him? How can a question be asked if the individual(s) do not know the question, or even a set of questions, exists in the first place?

     Without my knowing it God had become a reality for me, a given. I remember that whenever I saw someone hurt I would pray that God would make them better and give them help. Whenever someone was sad because someone died I prayed that God would help to make them happy and not hurt so much in their heart. If I heard the television or the radio say that someone was lost and could not be found I prayed that God would take care of them and help them to not be afraid.

     As I child I understood prayer to be a communication from a person to God, usually one asking for help of some kind, but also utterances of thanks for all blessings received. Prayer was the gift God had given to man so that he might speak directly to God for any reason. I remember being amazed when my mother told me that God could hear you praying even if you were only thinking it and not saying it out loud. She said that sometimes people were in situations where they might not be able to speak out loud, so instead they prayed by thinking about it.

     I was also told that prayer was very special, so special in fact, that if a person was praying they had better mean what they were praying. God did not appreciate prayers of thanks where there was no real gratitude. He did not appreciate prayers asking for someone to get well from illness if the praying individual did not really want the ill person well. Intent was very important when it came to prayer because it either validated thanks and requests for help, or it showed what a liar a person was. If you prayed to God and did not mean it…you were a liar. Worse yet, you were lying to God.

     When my parents began to experience relationship troubles I remember praying to God a lot, everyday. I have some very vivid memories of my father, who was a fairly big man, pushing and shoving my petite mother. One particular instance I remember walking into the kitchen when I heard yelling. My father was slamming my mother up against the wall by the kitchen window over and over and over. He had a talon-grip on my mother’s shoulders and she was crying out as he kept hurting her. My parents had not seen me enter the kitchen and when I cried out to my mother she told me, “It’s okay, baby! Just go back into the living room!” I very clearly remember seeing bruises on my mother from time to time and I worried so much for her safety and her happiness.

     Perhaps such things are strange for a little girl of two. But it did not seem so strange to me then, and I would pray fervently that God would fix my mother and father and whatever between them that was broken. Of course, I may have realized that something was wrong, broken, but I did not understand exactly what it was. I was simply too young to understand. My mother is one of the strongest individuals that I know and now I see how the elements of her faith in God did indeed help her to persevere the trials she faced. But rest assured, my heart still hurts for my mother when I think of this time in her life, our life.

     Consistent relationship problems abounded for my parents by the time I was nearly three. One occasion my father had some friends over and they had had quite a bit to drink. They had become loud and boisterous and somewhere along the line my parents began to argue. Eventually my father and his friends left the house. My mom was upset and after she had cleaned up the mess they had left she took the glass bottles that had held the alcoholic drinks, smashed them up inside of a paper grocery bag, and then delivered the paper sack of smashed glass to the door step of the residence of my father’s friends in an effort to stress the points of what they had done wrong.

      I did not like seeing my father angry and did not like seeing my mother so sad. Because I was such a young child I could not understand why my parents were angry with each other, why they fought. All I knew was that there was a growing blanket of unhappiness. I thought that if I prayed hard enough or long enough that God would make everything better. For a while things did seem to be getting better.

     My mother became pregnant with twins when I was two years old and I recall being very excited about having siblings. The members of the church my parents attended were very generous with the support they offered my parents. Many times we would come home to find bags of groceries that fellow members had left on our doorstep. And while the other church members did extend a helping hand of their own free will I always associated such help with the will of God. If something good and amazing and helpful happened it was because God must have wanted it so.

     Then two different things happened that confused me a little bit about the will of God. The first thing that happened was a plane crash that took place in San Diego, California, near the 805 Freeway and a street called University Avenue. I remember this day well. What actually happened, at least as far as I can remember, was a small plane like a Cessna or something similar clipped the wing of a PSA jetliner. My mother had been cleaning the house and I was staring at my newborn sisters who lay sleeping on the couch. Suddenly there was a huge booming sound. I distinctly recall saying to my mother that it sounded like someone had dropped their piano. A look of fear immediately crossed my mother’s face and she asked my father to go see what it was that had happened. A short while later he had returned, white as a ghost. He said there had been a plane crash in a residential area. I remember he was very disturbed by what he had seen.

     I later asked my mother why God had allowed the plane to crash and kill people and why He did not stop it from happening. She said, “Sometimes there are bad accidents or bad things that happen, things that we do not understand. God has reasons why He lets things happen, even when they are bad things or things that make people sad. The best thing we can do is pray.”

     Even though I was so little, at that point barely three years old, I remember telling my mother that I was praying for the people on the plane who died, that God had been with them when the plane crashed and that He took away their fear of crashing and dying. In the recesses of my mind, however, I still wondered why God had allowed such a horrible thing to happen. And for quite a while after that day I remember thinking about the people who had died in that plane crash…and I couldn’t help but to wonder if they had been afraid when they realized they were going to crash; for some reason I just could not seem to shake the worry that they had been afraid when they realized they were going to die. God and Jesus loved people and I hoped they loved people so much that they took away their fear when scary things happened. Because that was something that God and Jesus were supposed to do, right? Take away fear and make everything a little bit better? Of course this was true! In fact, I learned songs in the church meetings that were about God wiping away tears and taking away fear and hunger and comforting people around the clock, especially in their darkest hour. But what was done, was done and couldn’t undone. The piano dropped as the very first tendrils of a terrible thought sneakily entered my heart: God could be quite mean when He wanted to.



Read the rest of "Turkey Broth for the Spirit: Confessions of a Born Again Atheist" at:
http://www.amazon.com/Turkey-Broth-Spirit-Confessions-ebook/dp/B008FWBYY6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1341031316&sr=8-2&keywords=Turkey+Broth+for+the+Spirit#_

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