Posts Tagged “God”

I have been reading many debates between irreligious and religious people concerning the argument of intelligent design. These debates, from what i have seen, are endless, because neither side has the sufficient arguments in order to finish off the other. And so, these debates go on, but with the religious side always having a moral advantage, because of the incapability of the others to disproof their claims. Before i start explaining further, it should be noted that when i’m referring to “religious” i mean the supporters of the three dominant religions: christianity, islamism and judaism. Since i live in a christian environment, i shall use the word “christianity” as a key-word for all three religions.

(more…)

Welcome! If you're new here, before you open your mail program to fire up a nasty email, you may want to first read our FAQ to avoid being ignored. If you like the content, we hope you will to subscribe to our RSS feed. Stay open minded!
If you don't like the content of this website on the other hand, kindly fuck off.

Friedrich Nietzsche wrote in his “Thus spoke Zarathustra” that “God is dead! And we have killed him!”. While I admire very much Nietzsche’s philosophy, I think we should dig even further into this matter. We never put a finger on God, our hands are clean! God committed suicide ! He’s dead, by his hand!

I won’t bother with the Old Testament, when he was just a tribal god, similar to so many others, and “inspired” by the other gods “who didn’t exist”. Let the Jews worry about that. I’m talking about when he was “promoted” to a universal god, for all human beings. Suddenly he changed his old ways and decided to use other methods. He appeared to us in the form of a bastard son and made his new rules heard. Now the whole human race became his “chosen ones” and bloodshed , mass exterminations and crushing the infidels were no longer required. Suddenly he spoke of love, peace and tolerance between people.

Jesus (as he is portrayed in the Bible) appears as a peaceful, passive being, devoid of any pride or ego. He asks us to love our neighbour, to love our fellow humans how we love ourselves and to grant permanent forgiveness to those who hate, hurt or do us wrong, no matter how much wrong. We always have to forgive and never resist when we are attacked, insulted or beaten.
Also, the rules about chastity are even more tightened. Now, not only sex before marriage or cheating on your partner is sinful, but even looking at someone of the opposite sex and secretly desiring him/her will be treated as a deadly sin. The same will be said about verbally insulting someone and calling them “fools”. This is God’s new ideology that we must follow in order to achieve eternal happiness. This ideology brought by Jesus is more than just an ideology. This is what God represents. This is God.

But then we see how God inflicts wounds on himself when, just chapters after he told us not to call people “fools” he does so himself. He goes even further when he attacks the merchants selling things in the temples. His passivity and friendly attitude suddenly changes, and doing so he put another nail in his own coffin. If Jesus was the wisest man alive, why didn’t he use his infinite wisdom in order to peacefully convince the limited minded merchants to leave the temple ?
Tolerance is abandoned again when he calls those who do not listen to his teachings “vipers and vermin “. Where has “love thy neighbour” gone? Surely no one speaks this way to his neighbour when he loves him, right ? Even when he does something wrong. But Jesus seals his fate, as God, when he calls for eternal punishment in hell for the infidels, who do not follow him. Rightful and goodhearted actions are deemed nothing without faith in Christ. Without this faith, we all go to hell. This is the moment God renders his ideology obsolete. This is when God committed suicide. He is the one who asks for unlimited forgiveness, but he is also the one that offers unlimited punishment for limited sins done during a pathetic lifetime of few years that don’t even matter in the whole context of history.
It is obvious that God cannot follow his own rules. His words are contradicted either by other words or by his actions. If one who does not follow these rules deserves eternal death and God himself cannot follow them, he sentences himself to death: He commits suicide. We are innocent. As such, his ideology is rendered pointless and useless to us.

But even after his suicide, God still has followers. They call themselves “Christians”. but what is a Christian ? Nietzsche wrote in “The Antichrist” that the only Christian in human history died on the cross. Again, I go even further and say there was never such thing as Christian, since no one ever followed the rules required by the suicidal god to achieve this title. If we go on the streets and ask 1000 people the question “what is a Christian and what does it take to be one?”, it is guaranteed that we will get exactly 1000 definitions. The truth is that after God committed suicide, the people performed an autopsy on him and dissected him, each taking a part, the one that suits him/her best. We will find out that some don’t consider sex before marriage or sexual lust a sin at all. When we bring to them the lines quoted above, they either say that they are not important or they are just a figure of speech. To some, who consider themselves fundamentalists, they don’t find anything wrong in rejecting atheists and people who don’t believe what they believe. Or, why don’t we try hitting one of these Christians in the face. Will they be real Christians and turn the other cheek, while, perhaps trying to talk to us rationally, or will they do like a “mere human” would and hit back?

Also, who actually believes in this shallow, senseless emotion called “love for everybody”? Do you really think someone actually experiences this “love” for everyone in the world ? No! Some of them might have the guts to say something like this. But they are just words. They couldn’t care less if 2 blocks away there was a car accident and some people died. But what about loving Christ more than your wife/girlfriend/mother/father etcetera? Does anyone even think of Christ when they are with someone they love? Christian teachings are very incompatible with human personality, that’s why no one can follow them. Like I said, the only thing Christians can do is take God apart and reassemble him in the way they choose.

Let’s face it, for every “Christian” there is a Jesus who fits their own interests and interpretation. There are orthodox Christians, catholic Christians, protestant Christians, Jehova’s Witness Christians, and another million kinds of Christians, but no actual Christian. There never has been.

In the previous installment of this series I ended at the destruction of Sodom. The rest of Genesis contains some stories about the descendants of Abraham down to Jacob, father of twelve sons who would later become the fathers of the twelve Israeli tribes living in Egypt that would later find themselves enslaved: Prepair for the book of Exodus.

However, before we enter Moses, I’d like to write out some general conclusions I have made from reading Genesis. These mainly concern the biblical god (”God”). Although Christians often portray him as an altruist, the god I’ve read about is definitely not. He appoints Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as his servants and demands they act like it if they want the Lord to help them. We’ll see the same kind of egoism in Exodus, but that’s for later. The thing I was annoyed with the most in Genesis is that right in the first book it is made clear that one is not to question the Lord. The stories of the Flood and Abraham almost sacrificing his son illustrate this very well. Noach and Abraham never stop to think about the motives of this authority figure. Questioning authority is a cornerstone in skeptical freethinking. I will also note that God will make damn sure that he gets his fix of destruction while still upholding a forgiving and good-willed façade. God: “I will not utterly destroy a city if just ONE of its inhabitants is innocent of crimes I will not disclose! … Quick, Job, get out so I can destroy the city!”

Enter Moses
I’m sure you’ve heard the story. The pharao has commanded all first-borns to be killed, but Moses’ mother hides her baby in a basket along the bank of the Nile. The pharao’s daughter takes little Moses in and so he is able to grow up. After killing an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew he flees to Midian where he is taken in by Reuel/Jethro and is given Zipporah, one of Jethro’s daughters, as his wife. Some time passes before god has satisfied his sadistic needs and decided it’s time to free “his people” - meaning those unlucky enough to have born in one of the Israeli tribes, having to undergo genital mutilation after birth - and Moses is appointed his side-kick. Moses fears he lacks charismatic skills and God agrees and commends Aaron to join his brother Moses. Moses, his wife Zipporah and his children travel to Egypt. Along the way, the famous foreskin incident takes place, in which Moses is saved from God’s wrath by his son’s foreskin.

Exodus 4:24-26
At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met {Moses} and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched {Moses’} feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. So the LORD let him alone.

Magic and God’s sick hunger for death
Instead of sitting down and talking like adults, Moses and Aaron are sent by God to show off some magic in the hopes of impressing the pharaoh. It becomes clear freeing the Israeli slaves is not the main objective for God: He simply feel likes showing of his mad skillz (Exodus 6:3-4). And so the show begins. God starts off with his weak staff-into-snake routine the pharaoh’s sorcerers (yes, that’s what it says!) are able to replicate. The water-into-blood routine was likewise equalled by the pharaoh’s magicians. The same happens for the plague of frogs. Finally God brought something new into his act, and transformed the dust into gnats through his proxies Moses and Aaron. Still, the pharaoh didn’t let the Israeli people go. Flies ensued and boils that plagued men and cattle alike. The pharaoh began to understand he was no match for God, but God made sure he could continue his sadistic act until the very end by preventing the pharaoh let the people go (Exodus 9:12).

And so God enjoyed himself greatly, raining hail down on Egypt. “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD.” God says in Exodus 10:1-2. The heavenly maniac hasn’t performed his biggest act yet, and among the locusts and darkness he makes sure the pharaoh doesn’t spoil it (Exodus 10:20, 10:27, 11:10). Having made sure it would get this far, God now feels it is time to bring out the fireworks, and kills off all the innocent people who happened to have been the first to leave the womb. God breaks his spell of the pharaoh’s mind and the Israelites are free to go.

God had one more trick up his sleeve, however. By making sure the pharaoh decides to hunt after the Israelites (Exodus 14:4), he can perform one more miracle for the world - a last violent encore to add to the slaughter already committed. He made sure the Israelites didn’t choose the shortest path to the promised land; hell, there wouldn’t be a sea to split along that way! And so, even after the Egyptian slaughter, god’s hunger for death was finally stilled when he drowned the Egyptians after making sure the Israelites were able to traverse the Red Sea.

And returning to my opening paragraph, Exodus accounts again for the fact that God is not altruist at all. As if the gratification of his hunger wasn’t enough, the price for freeing the Hebrew slaves from Egypt was high: God demanded all the firstborn male that would see the light of life thereafter, men and cattle alike, to be his property. This means sacrifice, people. But not to worry, God will make sure you’re kids are fine - for the right price, tha tis. “Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons.” (Exodus 13:13)

Next up in Reading the Bible Part 3: Commandments and laws

Stephen Law has thoroughly pwned the little ignorant theist who was certain he’d proven that god exists. Only he was doing it using circular logic and unargued premises.

I was a bit surprised that this site even existed anymore, as anyone with even a passing familiarity of philosophy or logical arguments can punch holes through the kind of logic employed there. Indeed, the Antichristians took much pleasure in skewering the silly arguments presented therein more than one year ago when it fell to our attention.

Unfortunately back then, Sye (AKA Canuckfish) did not stick around to argue his point, although we’d have certainly been less challenging than a professional philosopher like Stephen. :)

Nevertheless, reading the discussion was…cute. Like watching a 12-year-old trying to play chess against Kasparov. You can’t help but cringe at the bad moves and laugh when the former insists that “moving the rook diagonally is correct”.

Anyway, head over. Have a laugh. Nothing else is going to change anyway since the theist in question seems incapable of comprehension, no matter how excplicitly he’s been proven incorrect.

Perhaps later on Stephen might wish to take on the Crossexamined blokes who seem to employ similar arguments (Logic cannot exist without God). They’re still pathetic in argumentation but there’s more, lets say, “fish to shoot in the barrel” :P

I’ve decided we need some reviews here and there on this site, this is my first one for “Letter to a Christian Nation” by Sam Harris: (more…)

Fred Phelps has released a video on George Carlin.

George Carlin is now in Hell. And it is not relevant that George Carlin boasted that he does not believe in Hell when he lived on earth. He believes in Hell now. Like the rich man that the Lord Jesus told about in Luke 16, who died and in Hell he lifted up his eyes being in torments and he cried, “Lord Abraham have mercy on me, and send Lazarus the beggar on earth, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in flame.” Luke 16:23,24. When told that he could not have a drop of water, forever, though tormented in flames, he begged somebody to rise from the dead  to preach to his kinfolk, thus they also die and come to his place of torment. George Carlin the filthy blasphemer, the obscene pottymouth skeptic, agnostic and profane atheist had nothing but disdain for God and the Bible, all the days of his tragic life is at this minute and and forever writhing and screaming in exquisite pain, pleading for mercy from that God he flipped off while performing for HBO [Luker?]. Carlin made lots of money making fun of god, now he must deal with God face to face forever. The Lord the God repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them, he will not be slapped to them that hateth him, he will repay him to his face. Deut. 7:10.  When Carlin died June the twenty-second, he split hell wide open at once, as it is written, “Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming. It stirreth up the dead for thee. All they shall speak and say unto thee: art thou also become weak as we ‘George Carlin?’ The worm is spread unto thee, and the worms cover thee. Isaiah 14:9,10. Two of his fellow perverts scrambled to report the news, both of whom who will no doubt in due time will join Carlin and his buddies in hell, with the lying propaganda-man Keith Olberman and Jerry Seinfeld. All of these and more are typical anti-Christic American loudmouths and spindoctors! Westboro Baptist Church exists to publish Gospel truth and thereby to expose Satanic lies. George Carlin is in hell, deal with it! You will soon join him there, America is doomed! We will picket George Carlin’s funeral.

…Well! Watching that video and attempting to transcribe it certainly unsettled my stomach. It also brought up some interesting points about the extreme right and Fundamentalist ideas.

Sometimes I wonder why Christians can consistently deny the truth and evidence without weakening at all. How can they look at the truth and still believe what they believe? The answer is in Fred Phelp’s words–Christians believe that anything that goes against the Bible was simply put there by Satan to challenge their beliefs, and no matter how true it may seem, it’s still a satanic lie.

If you think about it, it’s ingenious, and in my opinion the Church’s sole reason for still existing. The Church and Bible created a near perfect argument to keep those already in their clutches staying there. Because if someone already believes the Church’s lies, they’ll just believe that anything that challenges their beliefs, anything they don’t want to believe, isn’t true for that reason. It stops critical thinking before it begins. Really ingenious–you have to give credit to the intelligence of those who have managed to claw their way out of the Church’s clutches.

Fred Phelp’s frothing speech on hell, torture and blasphemers also brought up a fun little point. Anyone who believes in the idea of ‘hell’ is denying their own belief of an all-loving, omnipotent God. A common argument I hear in response to, ‘If God really loves us, why would he send us to Hell? Especially just because we’ve never heard of him?” is that when we sin, we put ourselves in Satan’s power.

Wait just one second. I thought God was all-powerful. If he’s all powerful, all loving and merciful, no one would go to Hell. Simple as that.

But Christians continue to cling to their narrow-minded beliefs of Hell. You can just hear Fred Phelps relishing the idea of George Carlin roasting in Hell–Fundies are sadistic, to say the least. They enjoy the idea of those who disagree with them enduring eternal torture, and even more so they enjoy putting the image in young and impressionable children.

Family values? Yea right.

It was quite a surprise. At the moment I let the last breath pass my lips, I thought it was the end. Although it scared me that life was all over, I also cherished the moments I have had and looked back one final time and then died with a smile on my face. If I still had control over that carnal container, that smile would have disappeared quickly enough. I was confronted with the fact that I had been wrong, and now I was going to be judged by Him. “Hell” - It sounded much like those annoyed people behind counters who said “Next”. Like many souls before me, two angelic figures stepped forward to drag me away. In the execution of their razzia fiercely I protested.

They told me I could not enter heaven, because I had not accepted Jesus as my saviour. I understood, but how can I be judged for something I didn’t do? Do you put people in jail for not donating money to a good cause? Would you condemn people for not being an active member in a group that vouches for equal rights? They told me I had been warned what would happen if I didn’t do it, and that I still had made the choice not to accept The High One’s son. But how could it have been a choice? If I would have known the claims to be true, it would have been quite stupid of me to neglect it - but it would not have been a choice, but rather a necessity if I didn’t want to go to hell. Pascal’s wager is not about true conviction, but about fake faith opportunism. I had never felt inclined to show any respect for threats, especially those in the like of eternal punishment. What kind of love is that which when unaccepted will result in torture? It is not a choice I was given; it was a threat at gunpoint: Accept or feel the wrath. How can a god who on earhtly planes is praised for his benevolence resort to such dire measures? Does my contribution to humanity through my work as a medical engineer not count in this tribunal? Has my abstinence of violent behaviour not earned me any grants at all? I pretend not to be holy, but black hearted I am certainly not.

What insignificant test is life at all in the light of eternity? Do they think I can not conform to their ways, if ever it came so far that I was willing to sell my soul for entrance to heaven? And how does not being granted acces to heaven equate with torture, fire and brimstone? Have they not heard of the golden middle path? A place to dwell without having to conscript to the Heavenly Reign, and without having to feel the licking flames of the burning lake? Nay, I was quickly answered. What simple-minded dualism is this model for justice, if it can be called justice at all? And now I had a better understanding of the phrase “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”, for He does not care for all the good you have done. Judgement awaits not to review who you are, what you have done, and how you have behaved; but solely on whether you have bent to the will of that high dictator.

At my realisation of the rampant fascism of heaven’s governor, I was proud to find out that every day I had spent on earth I had unknowingly thwarted that mighty tyrant. At the edge of that cliff I had no remorse. They threw me in that fiery pit, and I smiled.

The following essay was originally written 1-15-2006, by Cleric and myself, but we lacked a good place to post it to create serious debate, so it went largely ignored and forgotten for over a year and a half. When the Antichristian Phenomenon webpage opened this week, we knew that we had found a place to post. Since originally writing this, ISoS and I have learned much more. Expect a series of essays from us in the future.

The topics of this essay include corruption of scripture, closed-minded nature of Christian bible study and commentary, an in-depth comparison between Christian and Jewish texts using Genesis 1:1 as a focus, a look into the names of God, and a little bit about Cathars.

Enjoy.

(more…)