Category Archives: Holy Spirit

No God and the Domino Effect

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This a response to Don Camp’s comment on my post The Evil of Christianity, in which he tries to isolate ‘the crux’ of our disagreement about the Faith.

You start, Don, from the assumption that there is a God. I, on the other hand, have considered the evidence and concluded that in all probability there isn’t one. Certainly not the Christian God. There may be a god out there somewhere that has no interest in human beings and their affairs, though I doubt it. As far as we humans are concerned such a deity is as good as non-existent, being entirely hypothetical. If it is out there, it certainly won’t be offended at my saying so.

Once I realised some years ago that a personal God did not exist a number of other things followed (or rather, collapsed):

No God means no Son of God or God Incarnate, no Saviour or Christ.

No God means no resurrection (which Paul makes clear was a work of God).

No God means no Holy Spirit.

No Holy Spirit means no regeneration of individuals to become new creations in God (you only have to look at Christians today to see this is the case.)

No God means no grand Salvation plan.

No God means no Heaven, no Final Judgement, no Kingdom of Heaven of Earth, no Eternal Life.

No God means the universe can’t have been created by him.

No God means no manipulation of evolution, no intervention in human history and no prophecy of things to come.

No God means that the world would be just as we find it: messy, beautiful, dangerous, turbulent, indifferent.

No God means prophecy is man-made and comes to pass at no greater rate than chance allows (i.e. practically zero.)

No God means conversations with ‘him’, revelations from him and visions of him are all imagined, generated by and within the human brain, which works in mysterious ways.

No God means no God-given morality. Morality is, as you say, culturally determined and so may and does change over time. (You can see this in the Bible itself where morality supposedly handed down by God for all time evolves throughout the Old Testament and into the new.)

No God means there is neither Sin nor Righteousness. These are religious concepts. The whole spectrum of human behaviour, from destructive to altruistic, is demonstrated by believers and non-believers alike.

No God means assertions like ‘the issue turns on what I perceive as good for me versus what God declares is good for me’ are illusory. What is good for you is what you have worked out, even if you think God had a hand in it. A supernatural being who doesn’t exist cannot be responsible for your well-being, though your church and the bible undoubtedly contributed to your conditioning.

No God means individuals must work out their own meaning and purpose. Some do, some don’t, as you observe, Don. This is as true of believers as it is for non-believers. Many atheists have managed it, or not, without having it imposed by religion. And despite what you say, Christianity is a religion. It is the epitome of religion.

No God means none of the Abrahamic religions are true and therefore Christianity and its ‘holy’ book, being based on an invalid premise, must be false. Most of the posts on this here blog are about demonstrating this fact.

No God means all gods are man-made, not all gods except one.

The crux of the matter is you believe in God while I see how unlikely it is that there is one. I’d agree with you if I could, Don, but then we’d both be wrong.

Christmas Quiz!

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See how you do in this year’s Christmas Quiz. Most of the questions are related to subjects we’ve discussed during the year.

  1. Which of the events listed are literary realisations of so-called prophecies from Jewish scripture?

a) The virgin conception and birth

b) Bethlehem as Jesus’ birth place

c) Herod’s massacre of the Innocents

d) The ‘Holy Family’s’ flight into Egypt 

  1. Which of the events listed are metaphorical?

a) God’s insemination of Mary with Holy Semen

b) Pregnant Mary visiting Elizabeth, herself pregnant with the child she’d christen ‘John The Baptist’ (sarcasm, for those who can’t tell)

c) The visit of the shepherds with their symbolic gifts

d) The visit of the magi with their symbolic gifts

  1. Which of the events listed are sentimental and/or dramatic invention on the part of the gospel writers?

a) The archangel Gabriel visiting Mary

b) Joseph’s dream convincing him Mary hadn’t been sleeping around behind his back

c) The no room at the inn scenario

d) Jesus being laid in a manger

  1. Which of the events listed are historical fact?

a) The Roman census that entailed pregnant women trailing off to their husband’s ancestral home

b) The angelic host appearing unto shepherds

c) The Star of Bethlehem hovering over Jesus’ place of birth / home

d) Jesus’ birth occur during the reign of Herod the Great (died 4 BCE) and while Quirinius was governor of Syria (appointed 6 CE)

         5. What do the answers to questions 1-4 tell us about the rest of the      gospel stories?

a) They’re equally fanciful

b) They’re all metaphorical

c) They’re invented, largely based on ancient Jewish scripture

d) There’s nothing historical about them either

        6. What do the answers to questions 1-5 tell us about those who believe these stories to be factual and true?

a) They’re gullible

b) They’ve switched off their critical faculties

c) They believe whatever they’re told

d) They feel compelled to argue that all of the fanciful stories about Jesus are true

 

Answers:

  1. Which of the events listed are literary realisations of so-called prophecies from Jewish scripture?

All of them are based on what Matthew found in Jewish scripture and shoe-horned into his Jesus fantasy.

  1. Which of the events listed are metaphorical?

All of them. You don’t think such blatantly symbolic events really happened, do you?

  1. Which of the events listed are sentimental and/or dramatic invention on the part of the gospel writers?

Oh come on, what else could they be?

  1. Which of the events listed are historical fact?

None of them.

  1. What do the answers to questions 1-4 tell us about the rest of the gospel stories?

They tell us the gospel writers – Matthew and Luke as far as the Christmas stories are concerned – were more than happy to invent stuff for metaphorical purposes and to make it look like prophecy was being fulfilled when it wasn’t. If they were prepared to do this for the Nativity them why not for all of their other stories, the resurrection included?

  1. What do the answers to questions 1-5 tell us about those who believe these stories to be factual and true?

Yup, they’re all of those things. And they won’t be happy till they’ve inflicted their damn fool views on you too.

So how’d you do? Well done to everyone who got full marks. Try to do better next time the rest of you. It really wasn’t hard.

A very merry Christmas to both my readers. See you on the other side.

Mr J: The Defence

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Unfortunately, Mr J is unable to speak for himself so I have taken it upon myself to defend him. I’m going to prove to you he exists and that he loves us all.

The first thing I want to mention is how he created the Earth and everything in it in six days, about six thousand years ago. Or possibly not. It’s might’ve been billion years ago and it might have taken a very long time. Mr J would like to keep his options open.

In any case, he eventually created human beings, either on the sixth day or billions of years later. He quite probably controlled evolution to get to them, killing off billions of other creatures along the way just so humans could emerge. Some might say this was pretty heartless but it’s the only way natural selection could produce Mr J’s favoured creation. All a bit hit and miss, but Mr J knew what he was doing. I read it in a Richard Dawkins book some time.

Anyway, once humans appeared they managed to upset Mr J in some silly, insignificant way, so that he had to come up with a whole series of complicated plans to bring them into line.

The first plan was, admittedly, not all that great. It was necessary though. He drowned the lot of them, every man, woman and child, except for one old drunkard and his family. Needless to say the humans that came along after them weren’t any better than the ones who’d come before. No surprise there! Mr J rightly blamed the humans themselves for the shortcomings he’d built into them. That and the demons with their boss, Satan, whom he’d thoughtfully made right back at the start of the six days. Or maybe it was during the billions of years when he was creating everything by process.

Er… moving swiftly on, his second plan was that he’d just concentrate on one special group. He picked, for reasons best known to himself, a small, nomadic desert tribe. He demanded of those who had them that they should slice the tops off their penises. Weird, I know, but other tribes were doing it and Mr J thought if it was good enough for them and their fertility deities then it was good enough for his besties too. They also had to obey all 613 of the rules he would make up as he went along. This was to set a moral example to his Chosen People so naturally included instructions on how to beat their slaves, how to stone people to death and how to massacre their neighbours. Needless to say, despite how reasonable Mr J’s terms were, the useless humans couldn’t manage to comply with them. He was more than pissed. He let other tribes brutalise them, had them turn on each other and sent them into exile. But still they didn’t learn. You might think he’d have done better offering some encouragement, a little bit of positive enforcement, but you’d be wrong. Mr J always knows best.

The time rolled round for another half-arsed plan. This time Mr J sent a Figment Of His Imagination down to the Earth so the friends for whom he’d set such a good example while punishing them endlessly, could engineer his death. Or maybe it was the Romans who did it. Whatever, the story got around that after his execution this Figment had come back to life, which meant all sort of marvellous things would happen, including a complete reboot of the Earth. The old deal with its dick-docking and interminable lists of rules was over. There was a new deal now: believe it and you’d live forever: don’t and you’d boil forever in a fiery pit while demons tortured you for eternity.

Soon after this (because a thousand years is like a day to him), Mr J became something of a recluse. He removed himself from time and space – no more walking in gardens and masquerading as a burning bush – he would become… transcendent! He also announced, in a revelation to some churchy types, that he wanted, henceforth, to identify as a threesome. He insisted he be called ‘Daddy’, ‘Sonny’ and ‘Friendly Ghost’ all at the same time. It was a mystery why he…

Hang on. I just can’t go on with this. I mean, I know I’m supposed to be defending Mr J but when you see it written down like this, none of it makes sense. None at all. It’s rubbish and if this is what Mr J is all about, he can’t be defended. Not by anyone with half a brain anyway, and I like to think I have at least that. Mr J will just have to defend himself or, failing that, get someone without any critical faculties at all to do it for him.

My Gay Demon

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I am demon possessed. I know this for a certainty because Christians all over the Internet tell me. I am gay therefore I am possessed by a demon. Maybe more than one, I don’t know.

I’ve been trying to get in touch with my inner demon but he’s been keeping schtum. I assume he’s a him given he’s a demon of gayness, but again who knows. I’ve enquired in the deepest, darkest recesses of my mind and have searched my heart (though if I’m honest I wasn’t really sure how to do this) and can’t find him anywhere.

I was going to ask him why, if he’s a demon and therefore a real nasty piece of work from the pit of hell, why he’s led me to a happy and loving relationship with Dennis, one that has taken each of us from loneliness and depression to peace and contentment. I just didn’t know demons were so… well, so positive and creative. I always thought they were destructive and devious, like C. S. Lewis’s Screwtape. I think mine must be shy and more like Casper the Holy Ghost.

Alternatively, maybe there’s no such thing as demons, invisible evil super-beings who can’t be detected in any way. In my ‘worldview’ anything that’s invisible, undetectable and is a figment of rather dim-witted people’s imaginations is a being that doesn’t exist.

But then maybe that’s just me.

  And science.

    And every other academic discipline.

       And rationality.

         And reality.

It’s possible, after all, that a book written thousands of years ago by ignorant religious zealots trumps all of that.

Sowing seeds

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The early church had multiple problems, many of which Paul and other New Testament writers refer to. Any reasonable person would have taken these problems as a sign that the faith they were pushing really didn’t work; didn’t produce new creations powered by a holy spirit. Some, including a number of the very earliest followers (Matthew 28.17), were leaving the church, disappointed and disillusioned. How were leading figures in the cult to explain this? Having supposedly encountered the supernatural Jesus these people were now having doubts that he was real and were turning their backs on him. This shouldn’t have been happening!

The writer of 1 John accounts for the departure of those who had come to their senses by suggesting they were never really true believers:

They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. (1 John 2:19)

It’s significant that the writer of this letter doesn’t allude to Jesus’ parable about the sower of the seeds from Matthew 13. Not one of the letter writers in the New Testament who address the problem of defections does so. This can only be because none of them knew of it when they were writing decades after it was supposedly told. The reason they don’t mention it is because it had yet to be written.

The parable of the sower is Matthew’s attempt to have Jesus address the problem of those who fell away from the cult. Matthew’s explanation is it’s because the good news – the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom on Earth – only takes root in the spiritually astute. Others, who might initially accept the gospel, are like stony ground on which birds gobble up the seed. They are those who allow the cares of this world – metaphorical weeds – to choke the message before it can flourish.

It’s a very colourful explanation designed to reassure those persisting in the faith that they are the favoured, while those who have defected have fallen prey to the shallow soil, birds and weeds. It’s neat and it gives reassurance and encouragement to remaining cultists.

Jesus could not possibly have known what was to become of his ‘church’ and the (non)arrival of God’s Kingdom – his good news – following his death. The parable was created for him, or more specifically, as Matthew makes abundantly clear in 13:11-12, for devotees of the early cult decades later. What it emphatically is not, is a story originally delivered by Jesus.

But Is It True?

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We can argue till Kingdom come (i.e. forever) about whether or not this or that Bible verse is meant to be taken literally or metaphorically (God couldn’t make himself clearer?) and whether a particular author was an eyewitness or not, but the bottom line is, ‘Is what the Bible says True?’ Nothing else matters. If it is true, then it’s claims must be accepted. It would be extremely foolish to disregard them. If not, if the Bible is one big lie, then we must consign it to the dustbin of history.

Is it true that whatever a believer prays for, God will provide? Jesus says so several times:

If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer (Matthew 21:22).

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son (John 14:13).

Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you (John 16.23).

No, its not true. We don’t see ‘whatever’ and ‘everything’ being granted even when Christians pray ‘in accordance with God’s will’ as they like to qualify these promises.

Is it true that whatever a believer gives will be returned to him until it overflows (Luke 6:38)? While this is the foundation for the prosperity gospel movement it is patently untrue. Untrue symbolically too; if you give of yourself in God’s service you will be rewarded excessively? Just ask all those burnt-out ministers.

Is it true that with sufficient faith believers can uplift mountains and throw them in the sea (Matthew 21:21)? Obviously not, not even when this hyperbolic promise is interpreted figuratively. Christians can’t resolve their problems, work miracles or bring about radical change more than anyone else, and certainly not by ‘faith’.

Is it true that God looks after those he has chosen, to the extent he knows the number of hairs on their heads (Matt 10:29-30)? Evidently not. It didn’t work this way for Jewish people in the holocaust, it doesn’t work for the 10,000 children who die everyday of hunger and it doesn’t work for Christians, who fair no better than anyone else in life’s calamities.

Is it true that Jesus was born in Bethlehem under a wandering star? No. This is a myth constructed from older stories.

Is it true Jesus walked on water, turned water into wine and raised the dead? Or is it more likely these ‘miracles’ were created for him, ‘signs’ from Jewish scripture designed to present him as the anticipated Messiah? This is the more likely explanation. A man called Iesous did not really perform supernatural feats.

Is it true Jesus rose from the dead after three days and nights? No. While Mark (10.33-34) and Matthew (12:40) claim this was going to happen, they don’t even pretend that it did. Friday evening till Sunday morning is 36 hours, not three days and nights.

Is it true his disciples and lady friends saw Jesus risen from the dead? We don’t know; the accounts of them doing so were written forty and more years after the supposed event by people who weren’t there. The only eye-witness account of a risen-Jesus sighting is Paul’s and he admits it was in his head. So probably the answer is no: it’s not true people saw a resurrected physical body.

Is it true gospel Jesus existed? With his story made up from existing myths and mystical visions, it’s highly unlikely. So no.

Is it true Jesus sends those he’s saved to heaven when they die? The Bible doesn’t say he does; it claims he would be coming from heaven himself, in the time of those who were writing about him, to initiate God’s kingdom on Earth. So, no and no again; its not true he came down from heaven, in the time of those who were writing about him, to initiate God’s kingdom on Earth.

Is it true, that by believing in something akin to magic, people can rise from the dead? No. Believing a secret formula does not enable anyone to escape death. There is no evidence anyone has resurrected after being fully, properly dead because they believed something. There is no evidence anyone has resurrected from the dead ever.

Is it true that believing in Jesus makes people into new creations? No more than many other experiences in life. Does it make for better people – more righteous, more moral, more loving? Evidence from the Bible itself suggests not, as does the appalling behaviour of some Christians today.

Is it true that the spirit of this long-dead first-century itinerant Jewish preacher lives inside people today (John 14:17)? No, it’s not. There is no evidence that dead people, or celestial super-beings from some other plane, inhabit the living. Many believers are embarrassed to acknowledge even the possibility.

Is any of it true? We could play this game all day: taking any of the New Testament’s claims and stories and asking ourselves whether they are true. The answer will be, invariably and demonstrably, no. It takes the closing down of any critical faculties to believe they are, and mental gymnastics to maintain that, even if they’re not literally true, they contain hidden, profound truth. They don’t.

Jesus the No-Hoper

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Jesus – Hope for the World declares the banner outside the church near where I live. I can’t help but wonder about the naivety of the people who came up with the slogan and what it means. What are the possibilities?

‘Peace on Earth, goodwill to all men’ (and maybe women)? If so, the world isn’t showing much of either, certainly none that can be attributed to Jesus and his fractured, fractious and frequently intolerant church.

How about inner peace then, even though that’s a long way from ‘hope for the world.‘ How many Christians exemplify this particular fruit of Spirit? Is this, in the end, all that Jesus offers: the hope of a nice fuzzy feeling inside? Of course, peace of mind can be spirit-generate, though personally I prefer wine. 

Hope of reconciliation with God then. Only if you believe in God in the first place, not to mention ‘sin‘, human sacrifice and magic. If this is the kind of hope Jesus represents, then really, what good is it? 

Possibly the hope of which the banner speaks is the hope the earliest Christians had, of Jesus coming back real soon to slaughter his enemies and set up the Kingdom with, naturally, themselves at the top of the pile? Hasn’t Jesus had two thousand years to deliver this hoped for outcome?  An idea well past its sell-by date, the Kingdom of God on Earth isn’t ever going to materialise, however much ‘hope’ people have.

Maybe, then, it’s a hope of eternal life. The gospel writers have Jesus make such a preposterous offer (e.g. John 10:27-28). If this is what Christians are hoping for they are sadly deluded, and, as Paul puts it, the most pitiable of all people (1 Cor 15:19). No human being outside of myth and comic books has ever lived forever. None ever will.

Hope of heaven? See above. Besides, the Bible really doesn’t offer a place in heaven to anyone. That’s a much later development. It’s a waste of this one and only life to live in the vain hope of something better after death. 

Maybe the hope referred to is hope in hope itself. How futile would that be? Hope is no substitute for food for the hungry, shelter for the destitute, treatment for the sick. 

When I go to the carol service at the church next weekend, I’m confident it will be made clear just what sort of hope Jesus offers the world. If not, I’ll be sure to ask. I’ll let you know.

The Evolution of Jesus II: from Life Giving Spirit to God the Son and beyond.

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A couple of decades after the first visions of a risen Jesus, a Jewish zealot called Saul decided he’d seen him too. He came to imagine a vision he’d had in his head was this same Jesus, who then revealed to Saul – all entirely within his head as he admits – what his death and return from the dead really meant. Paul, as he renamed himself, announced that God had decided Jesus was a good man and returned him to life after his execution. In doing so, God made Jesus his Son (you can read all this poppycock in Romans 1:3-4). Jesus was now a life-giving spirit, the Saviour Christ: 1 Corinthians 15:45. (Maybe though Jesus always had been this; it’s kind of confusing, but in Philippians 2:6-8 Paul seems to think Jesus was some sort of quasi-divine being from the get-go. Take your pick. Whatever.)

Memetic selection ensured the survival and perpetuation of Paul’s bizarre idea, one that was, after all, not unfamiliar to the Hellenised people of the first century. The superstitious embraced and transmitted it without knowing a thing about any itinerant Jewish preacher. 

The next stage of Jesus’ evolution came twenty or so years later, when a believer we now know as Mark decided to write a back story for this Christ. He created his story using Jewish scripture, Paul’s ideas and the rules of the sect to which he belonged. Who knows if Mark believed Jesus had ever been a real person who trudged around Palestine preaching the good news about the end of everything, but in Mark’s story he had him do just that. He decided, crucially, that he wouldn’t have Jesus become God’s adopted son at the time of his spiritual resurrection. Instead, Mark had him become God’s son at his baptism (Mark 1.10-11).

This wasn’t quite good enough for the next two cultists who attempted a Jesus narrative. While they plagiarised much of Mark’s story, they changed details and made up more for Jesus to say and do. Importantly, where Mark had avoided suggesting Jesus’ resurrection appearances had occurred in the real world, Matthew and Luke showed no such reticence. Their Jesus(es) showed himself not in visions but in the flesh. It’s likely Matthew at least knew he was creating a symbolic, literary representation of others’ visions.

At the other end of the story, Matthew and Luke invented largely incompatible birth stories for their hero. For Matthew, Jesus was the Messiah from the time he was born, fulfilling all the prophecies Matthew borrowed to create his nativity story (he doesn’t: the Messiah, according to the very ‘prophecies’ Matthew manipulates is not divine but a human warrior).

Luke, on the other hand, is determined to push Jesus’ divinity even back further. For Luke, Jesus became divine when God magically made Mary pregnant; Luke’s Jesus is quite literally God’s son (Luke 1.35). Unfortunately, Mary forgot all about being impregnated by the Holy Semen Spirit later on in Luke’s ridiculous story. Nevertheless, Jesus’ status had evolved again; he’d become God’s son from the very moment of conception.

Even this was not good enough for the next version of the Jesus’ story. The writers of the fourth gospel decide to make him eternal and part of God himself. Plundering Greek philosophy and Paul’s ruminations from Philippians, they declare Jesus the ‘Logos’; the Word or aspect of God responsible for the creation of everything (John 1:1-5). And despite this being as far from an itinerant peasant preacher as it’s possible to be, even more gullible folk came to believe it.

Jesus’ evolution was still not complete, however. The council of Nicaea in 325 decided that Jesus was ‘begotten not made’ (whatever that means) – but couldn’t quite decide whether being the Logos and the Son of God actually made Jesus God Incarnate. It wasn’t until the Council of Constantinople in 381 that a collection of bishops decided Jesus was, after all, officially part of the Godhead. The apocalyptic preacher from the backwoods finally became God the Son, a mere 350 years after he lived (if indeed he did).

Jesus has continued to evolve ever since, becoming all things to all people; a God pliable enough to be whatever his followers want him to be: Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Evangelical, Mormon, fringe cult. He’s evolved into a schizophrenic deity capable of being both meek and mild and bellicose; best buddy and chief executioner; Christian Nationalist, socialist and capitalist, gay and anti-gay, pro-family and anti-family; anti-abortion and pro-gun; environmentalist and iconoclast; the one who promotes a prosperity gospel and the ‘One True God’ known (only) to a select few. Every contradictory manifestation is supported by the Bible, the Church or tradition. Every one is non-existent and ultimately pointless.

That’s some evolution.

Jesus Reveals Himself To Me

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A true story:

I used to have recurrent dream – at least I think it was recurrent; it may just been that when I dreamt it I also dreamt I’d dreamt it before – that I was prevented from getting home by an oversized lion that blocked my path. It did this not by baring its teeth and confronting me, but by simply lying down in front of my garden gate, apparently asleep. I was always afraid to disturb the sleeping lion in case, once awake, it attacked and ate me. Instead, I would gingerly step round it and walk on, away from my house. In a variation of the dream (I think), I’d turn around and head back the way I’d come.

Evidently, the large lion symbolised something, though I couldn’t understand what it was. Perhaps, I thought, it represented my psychic inability to be myself. After all, I experienced this dream before I came out. It was equally possible the lion was the devil, as described in 1 Peter 5:8, and Satan had invaded my dreams, was blocking access to my heavenly home. Maybe it was – shudder – the demon of homosexuality, which I knew existed because Christians said it did, driving me off the straight and narrow.

A then came the moment of revelation! Jesus is referred to as the Lion of Judah in Revelation (5.5), yea, the Kings of Kings who roars like a mighty lion (Amos 3:8). That’s when I realised that my dream lion was Jesus, protecting my eternal salvation and heavenly home from the attacks of the devil and my very own sinful nature! Why else must I take a different path or turn back, which is one meaning of repentance?

Jesus himself, the Lion of Judah, the King of Kings made himself known unto me in this dream, not once but many times. Praise the Lord! In revealing himself, the Risen Jesus was telling me that the only way to salvation was through Him and Him alone. Only He guards the way. How blessed I am to have had His very real presence in my dreams. He truly lives and has appeared to the very least of his followers – me.

There can be no other explanation for my dream experience.

Can there?

Ring-a-ding-ding

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Don has responded to my challenge that I set him in the last post. His full response is in the comments section but I’m going to address what he says here:

It is not the fine points of doctrine but the essential points of doctrine that John is talking about…

Really, Don? Where does John say this? Certainly not in the following verse which you cite. Be honest, you just made it up.

This issue rose when you proposed that the Book of Mormon could just as easily by received as scripture as the Bible.

Well, not quite. I asked you why you are not a Mormon, given that the Book of Mormon has, superficially at least, as much credibility as the Bible, perhaps more, given its supposed origin and the eye-witnesses who affirmed its creation. (I’m not a believer in its baloney, just as I’m not in the Bible’s.)   

When I read BoM I do not find a Jesus that is like the Jesus of the Bible. That is sufficient to reject it. I don’t have to worry about baptisms or temples or anything else. If Jesus in the BoM is not the Jesus of the Bible, nothing else matters.

The same is true of the Ken Hams, Douglas Wilsons, and Dillon Awes and Neil Robinsons. If they proclaim a Jesus who is not the Jesus of the Bible, what they have to say about creation, women, homosexuality, or the return of the Lord makes no difference. If they agree with the Bible about Jesus, then we might get down to using out God-given ability to read and interpret. And we might differ. And that won’t matter. Wherever we land on these issues, they are far less important than who Jesus is.

And here we hit some real problems.

You fudge around the issue of whether you agree with the preachers and teachers I quoted, eventually implying that you don’t. (Don’t you get tired of being the only one in step, Don?) You insist that interpretations of Bible verses and the claims Christians make must always be measured against Jesus. But which Jesus is this, Don? The one in your imagination: the meek and mild Mr. Nice Guy that you’ve constructed in your head from a lifetime of conditioning and cherry-picking the Bible? Because if we compare the Jesus in the gospels and the version of him that supposedly inspired Paul and the other NT writers, we find the prattling and general ignorance of Awes, Ham and Wilson matches up perfectly.

For example, Jesus – the man who reputedly said ‘love your enemies’ – tells us what he’d like to do to his own enemies:

But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me. (Luke 19.27)

And according to Revelation 9, he’ll do just this when he returns with his sword in his mouth. He will unleash plagues of locusts to torment and torture non-believers. However,

(those) not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.

Later, while the Son of Man watches on, these poor souls get trampled to death:

The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath.  They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia. (Revelation 14.19-20)

Not hard to see how Ames can justify what he’d like to see done to LGBT+ people, is it. Murderous-Jesus endorses him.

(I know Don, these are among ‘the fine points of doctrine’ your anointed lie-detector doesn’t work on, so you ignore them. Alas, crackpots like Awes do not.)

What about Ham’s contention that dinosaurs and humans co-existed? He’s made a career, not to mention an ark, out of believing such crap. Does your cuddly-Jesus endorse him? Why, yes, he does. He believed in a literal Adam and Eve and a six day creation (Mark 10.6). If he’d have known about dinosaurs, which of course he didn’t, he would have had to fit them into this scenario, just like Ham does.

And how about Jesus’ views of women? While he side-lines them in his pronouncements about divorce (also Mark 10) he consistently ‘reveals’ to Paul and other NT writers that women must submit in all things. The word and its derivatives occur in almost all the passages that discuss women – ‘submit’ and ‘submission’. Easy to see how Wilson believes this applies to sex as well as every other context. Unless of course the Jesus in your head has told you differently. 

So there we have it. Any extremist, despicable view can be justified by appeal to Jesus. To say these differences don’t matter because only Jesus matters is laughably disingenuous. Jesus supports any and all claims made in his name. To paraphrase Paul, he is all things to all men. 

As for me, I’m always careful when discussing Jesus to quote the gospels, as I do above, and where relevant other parts of NT. I realise you don’t like this, because I don’t have your imaginary supernatural radar, but I’m happy to show Jesus in his true light and use his own words to condemn him.