So, A rich guy dies and goes to hell and a poor guy goes to heaven.
Why? because the rich guy was rich and the poor guy was poor. At least that's the only information we get from the parable.
The rich guy also seems like a nice guy, trying to warn his family of the horrors that await.
This line seems to say 'Forgive those who do wrong against you only if the they say are sorry.' I'm I mis-interpreting this?
17:3 Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
Jesus tells us we don't have to be gracious to others (and he seems to endorse slavery).
17:7 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?
17:8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?
17:9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.
17:10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.
Jesus is a little disappointed that only one leper in ten thanked him for being cured. I would be too.
The Son of Man tells us that we won't see the end of the world coming. Just like humans before the flood and the good folks in Sodom, we'll be happily going along with our daily lives when all hell breaks loose. maybe literally.
I think Jesus' message is clear, 'Eat, drink, go shopping and be merry because today could be your last."
I found this nugget very interesting;
18:20 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother.
Jesus list five commandments of the ten. Which ones? The ones that have nothing to do with god.
Jesus was a Humanist!!!
19:30-37 repeats the story of Jesus taking something that doesn't belong to him, breaking a commandment that HE JUST SAID we should keep!
I'll also again point out that Jesus is deliberately and consciously fulfilling the known prophesies.
'This is what the OT prophets said would happen, therefore, that's what I'm going to do.' Hardly a sign of divinity.
Damn, one more longish book. Can you guess what it's about?
I love this line;
1:15 And I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction.
Can you believe that there is reference to Santa n the Holy Bible? It's true! Zechariah prophesied Santa Claus over a thousand years before he came to be. You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried!
2:6 Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north...
And the fact that it comes up in our reading JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS?!?! There is no way that is a coincidence!
Zechariah eats peyote and writes several more chapters on his visits with angels, God, Joshua, The BRANCH and a flying roll. They all have something profound to say.
Chapter 8 gives us some nice, encouraging words fro God. He gets sentimental after a few beers;
8:3 Thus saith the LORD; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the LORD of hosts the holy mountain.
8:4 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age.
8:5 And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.
This is an odd prophesy. Anyone know who the ten men are supposed to be?
8:22 Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the LORD.
8:23 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.
God admits he's punishing the innocent;
10:3 Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds, and I punished the goats
Once again the future is foretold!
14:12 And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth.
The last part of Zechariah is apocalypse, end of the world stuff but it falls pretty flat in my eyes.
The ultimate fish story. But what a poorly thought out one. I didn't like the ridiculous means used to finally get Jonah to Nineveh. See Idiot Plot
On the bright side, God is happy with the results and doesn't kill anyone. This makes Jonah sad.
God calls Jonah to be a prophet but Jonah has a very human reaction. He freaks out and runs away and jumps on a ship!
The LORD has ways to deal with deserters though. God creates a mighty storm and Jonah does the noble thing and has himself thrown overboard to save others from a wicked storm. Right into the mouth of a whale. Like Jesus, it takes him three days to return to the world.
Once out of the 'fish', Jonah goes to Nineveh, preaches about the city's destruction in 40 days and to his surprise, everyone from the king to the peasants listen to him! God puts the pin back in his holy hand grenade. But, Jonah seems disappointed. Why?
On the bright side, this little girl does a perfect job of telling the story!
The book of Daniel is all about dreams and their interpretations. This post is about as confused as his prophesies.
Daniel and some friends are made slaves of Nebuchadnezzar and have their names changed.
Slave Daniel asks God to save his hide by helping him interput Nebuchadnezzar's bad dream.
Daniel's interpretation is convoluted and a pretty generic answer, sort of like today's psychics.
Even so, the king is so impressed that he worships the jewish god and makes Daniel a ruler;
2:46 Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him.
2:47 The king answered unto Daniel, and said, Of a truth it is, that your God is a God of gods, and a Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing thou couldest reveal this secret.
But in the next chapter ol' Nebu gets mad because the Jews won't worship his god and idol
and throws them into a burning, fiery furnace, but they are unscathed!!! And to top it off, the Son of God is walking around in the furnace with them!
3:25 He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
What else could the king do but convert to Judaism. Again.
3:29 Therefore I make a decree, That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort.
But, God causes Nebbie to go nuts and lives like a wild animal in the woods for (a year? Not really sure on the exact timeframe) before returning to the throne. You think this would have been mentioned somewhere else other then the Bible but I can't find it.
Daniel repeats his dream interpretation act almost to the letter with king Belshazzar and is again rewarded. But that doesn't stop him from being thrown to the lions by Belshazzar's confederates.
6:10-24 is the story of Daniel in the lions den. Once again I'm shocked that such a quick story has gained such notoriety, even outside the christian community. The gruesome end of the guilty parties (and their families) is never mentioned of course.
The dreams and interpretations continue thru-out the book. Daniel meets several angels.
As per Daniels first predication, a string of kings comes and goes. Nebuchadnezzar even writes a chapter!
The second half of the book turns grim and we get some proto revelations. End of the world stuff.
It goes into great detail on the happenings but it's still middle-east centric, which is odd because the world is so much bigger now.
When reading it, I got the feeling that the author thought the end times would occur with-in his lifetime, but Daniel is ultimately noncommittal as to when God will put and end to his failed experiment.
More Gog bashing. They have so many weapons that it'll take seven years to destroy them all!
And the Israelites are going to be burying bodies for seven months!
God must like the Gog (he/them/it) more than his 'chosen people' because the Gog get buried. Lately, when God has had his own people murdered he just leaves their bodies out to rot and get eaten by the animals.
God hasn't yet come up with idea of turning the other cheek and the doing unto others slogan;
39:10 ... and they shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saith the Lord GOD.
Chapter 40-42 is officially the lamest part in the bible. Ezekiel eats some peyote and meets a robot that measures things! I kept reading, waiting for something interesting to happen but it never did. You thought the description for the original temple was boring? Ha! I give you permission to skip this shit.
There is an important aspect to this chapter though. The prophesy of the man with the shiny metal ass would be fulfilled in 1999.
Things get a little better in chapter 43 when God shows up in person to give more details on the house.
He points out, like Monty Hall, that Israel can own this house for the low, low price of their obedience and subjugation. He also wants them to start cooking for the LORD again.
34:7 And the unicorns shall come down with them...
We haven't heard from the unicorns in a while. I found this explanation of biblical unicorns pretty interesting.
Dragons and Satyrs come to visit also.
35:8 seems to be the antithesis to AC/DC's Highway to Hell
Other then that, nothing really stood out for me. How about you?
I reread the entire book after reading the great comments from Abbie and Andy in the previous post.
Abbie's interpretation makes the most sense to me, that it's a wedding song, sung between the bride, groom and chorus.
Andy, I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that it's "a metaphor for Christ's love for his church". Perhaps you could give some samples from the text that would indicate this line of thinking.
The text is very colorful and bright and uses some great euphemisms for body parts and sex!
Again, lots of good thoughts and messages but I have to once again disagree with the author.
7:3 Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better.
Having lost a good friend recently to cancer I, my family and friends greatly benefitted from sharing pleasant, fun memories. It was better to share in the joy of someones life then to be maudlin about his death.
This is another great piece of wisdom;
7:19 Wisdom strengtheneth the wise more than ten mighty men which are in the city
Unfortunately, it's followed by this downer;
7:20 For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.
And later;
9:3 This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
Always with the negative waves...
The author also seems to think death is final. Just a little contradiction from Jesus's upcoming messages about living happily ever after in heaven.
9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
Speaking of contradictions, this author seem to vasilate between "eat, drink and be merry" and "sorrow is better then laughter." Is this another case of multiple authors being combined?
Regardless of your beliefs, this should make you sick to your stomach. Hell should exist just so these sick fucks can spend eternity suffering for what they did because of their twisted belief.
I know that 99.9% of Christians would never consider this anything but horrifying and repugnant, but that someone can interput the same Bible that we are reading right now makes me (again) question how anyone can believe that a god that cared about us would allow this to happen to an innocent child.
The sad fact is there are sick people that do sick things, no gods or devils needed.
Christianity says obey. Christianity says submit. Christianity worships authority. Women and children are to submit to the will of the father of the family, just as he is to submit to the grand phantasmal patriarch. Christianity is about never questioning; about not thinking critically; about worshipping; about accepting holy writ. It is about knitting elaborate straitjackets for the mind, cheerfully putting them on yourself, and then making sure your children are burdened with the same restraints, all in the name of perpetuating a hateful and limited ideology.
Yes, the Pearls are extremists who cinch the straitjacket more tightly and more brutally than most, and I do not regard most Christians as even endorsing the evil they promote (although, with over 650,000 copies of their book sold, the Pearls’ ideas are apparently a rather popular subset of Christianity) — but still, this isn’t an aberration, a wild notion grafted onto a benevolent faith. It’s part of faith itself, that people are raised to value belief in and obedience to the holy strong man.
Your children are not your followers or your servants or slavish little echoes of yourself. They are your responsibility, and your job is to raise them to be free and independent and, most of all, to be themselves. We are not sinners in the hands of a <insert random adjective here> god, and this whole idea that there is a hierarchical chain of authority is demeaning and destructive. We are fractious and creative and unique and wild and interesting, and when you force children into this restrictive mold of subservience, you diminish their humanity.
One of the most interesting things I've read so far comes at 3:19-3:22. The author clearly states that the beasts of the earth and man will share the same fate. That both will return to dust and that he/we can't know that there is an after life.
His philosophy? Enjoy life while you're here. Sounds like an Atheist to me!
Between Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the Bible seems to be turning into a more positive book. Quite the change from the killing and mayhem of the first half of the Old Testament.
Why the change? I think it's because God has had no direct input for the last several books. Humans seem to be very pleasant when he's not around! ;-)
Psalm 136 may be the first ever call and response song! Ain't no people like the chosen people! Say yeah! (yeah!)
We get another group of psalms praising God's great doings from the past.
137:9 sounds creepy. Another reference to killing children?
138:7-8 has a psalm 23 feel to it, doesn't it?
139:22 I hate them with perfect hatred*
*You can find anything on the internet! Everything is connected to everything else. I was sure that some death metal band would have picked up on this line and was looking for a link when I found this! You don't have to watch all of it (or any of it).
Evidently, several levels of the game Doom are taken from the Book of Psalms. Try using that factoid in your next conversation!
This came up in comments so I thought I'd post it in it's own space.
We're getting way ahead of ourselves though. We won't be reading the NT until September.
Anyway, I hope this clears up any questions you had.
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