Book You Could Have Written

According to the Good Book (1 John 1:1-8) Biblical god is the sovereign creator. Biblical God created a venue where he could torture his creation for all time. “The Hell!” you say. You are correct; it is Hell. “I will not fail to punish children and grand children to the third and forth generation for the sins of their parents.” (Exodus 34:7) God like? I don’t really think so but it is Bible like! How many of us, besides my Italian friends, have perfect ancestors? Biblical God told “His people” to invade the Promise Land and kill ALL inhabitants. That would be men, women, children, babies, infants, pregnant hopeful mothers…Take over their wells, wealth, animals, crops? God like? Bible like. According to the well informed teachers and poolroom geniuses God is a loving, caring all-knowing, Hell creating Supreme Being. Loving? Creating angels or whatever (Genesis 6:5) then boiling his creation for all time in sulfuric acid? Loving? I hear constantly what a loving God there is. He may be loving. However, they must be referring to a real God rather than Biblical god. Biblical god creates a lake of burning acid to enable him to torture his creation of all things for all eternity. Does he love to torture his toys? If Biblical god tortures his creation forever with few exceptions, (Many are called. Few are chosen.), then it seems as though Biblical god’s love is either insignificant or meager. We tend to believe that we treat those we love in a decent manner and to torture forever doesn’t connect to Biblical god’s definition of being loving, caring, benevolent... It was time for a little breather so I laid the Good Book aside and wondered how these pious people went about killing the inhabitants of the land that they over ran. I can picture the adults; running across a field while the warriors practiced downing them with razor sharp arrows. But, what about the children, infants and babies? Bash them against rocks? Spear them? Drown… Hold on. I’m not allowed to extend beyond the text. I must just swallow and follow. Biblical God demanded killing all so that is what happened…period! I have discovered that if you are to analyze the Bible you must think inside the box; none of the free lance, on your own stuff is allowed. Just swallow and follow. After reading that, I recalled the people that I listened to define Biblical god as a loving, just god. Amazing! My whole demeanor changed. The swallow and follow attitude was dismissed and replaced by the confusion that only a simple person like I could adopt. I wandered. I wondered. I wiffled. I waffled. I warped. I waded. I waited. Was the declaration of God being loving an obsequious attempt to throw him off of his game and counter his frequent anger, torture, punishment or was it just a case of obsequious unsupported wishful thinking? The one fact that we could count on was the insistence that Biblical God is all knowing. A little exposure verifies that. (Genesis 6:5-7) God is sorry that he created man and fauna. (Numbers 12:8) “How much longer will these people refuse to trust me?” And the grand daddy of them all and many others to boot, (Job 2:3) Biblical god: “You, (Satan), persuaded me to allow you to attack the most faithful man on earth, JOB, for no reason at all…” God like? Bible like! What I didn’t do was close the book and walk away. I decided to be open-minded and study the Good Book and in the process I came to love reading it. I really did and I still do. It will be decades before I get a grip on it but every new reading is a new adventure. I didn’t form a honk if you love Jesus, walk on water promotion and you won’t get one from me. (I threw that last announcement in just to include you after presenting you with ten or more I stuff). Now back to the I stuff again. I am a retired teacher and I’ll try not to read like a stiff retiree. However, like a good teacher should, I sincerely recommend that you read for yourself. You could possibly pride yourself in your accomplishment and get a handle on a philosophy of life, life guidelines and a value structure that will benefit you NOW, and society (Thanks, Jesus, for alerting me to that). Read it with a critical, analytical mind. It will be mentally rewarding and clear away some of the spiritual clouds. The Bible isn’t naked like our wonderful Constitution. It’s…It’s… You have to read it not to believe some of what you thought was “gospel”. No, that does not mean that this is an all out attack on the Bible itself. It is a study of the people of the Bible and their belief system. In fact, some of their strongest statements, backed up by “It’s in the Bible” are not in the Bible. The Bible isn’t laid out so every issue can be resolved or every question answered with an absolute response similar to our Constitution. The Good Book is battered and beat from left and right attacks that are shallow, ridiculous or contorted beyond analytical examination. The Good Book is there. It is what it is. The gnarled, twisted, contorted, zigzagged, censored, improved renditions do little to clarify and all but render the Old Testament useless. The thought of not rejecting the Old Text flaws because of the scribers’ lack of knowledge or a sacred communication breakdown doesn’t make sense when we are supposed to consider holy the text anyway. Probably the most foolish attitude involves insisting that there is no Supreme Being because it is impossible to offer any acceptable evidence that there is one. These are the nonsense people that are equally unable to provide a shred of acceptable evidence to prove that there is not one to cling to. They just do not purchase the superficial, un-profound thinking that “When ever I see a sunset over the water or watch a butterfly in the beautiful blue sky I know that there is a God” type conclusions. I would label myself an agnostic. That sounds kind of sophisticated and what it really means is that I am ignorant. Because I am unable to accept theist or atheist positions and their lack of acceptable supporting evidence to support their positions I remain in Limbo which I also don’t accept. It doesn’t bother me to admit I don’t know. Ignorance has its own comfort zone. Let’s take a very common situation and look at it through a two way window. We will take a look at reality for a moment. I know; not a good thing when trying to unwrap some of Biblical confusion but necessary if one wants to be convincing and convinced. The ignorant, highly successful ending of non-creative, phony politicians is the “God bless America, God bless you and God bless God or feral cats or some other syrupy finality to convince the simple folks that the person doing the blessing is honest, pious, well informed, knows the Bible, is a person of God and is all for the voter. What does the Bible actually say about Blessings? Biblical God blessed Adam and Eve. Adam ended up sweating at hard labor for all of his life. Eve suffered through excruciating delivery at every birth because the pair challomped on a forbidden fruit... That is what happened unless you refuse to accept the Bible as a sacred book scribed by zombatic assigned employees. It is in the Bible (Genesis 3:14-19).