Why I Can’t Believe in the ‘Lord Jesus Christ’: 2. Demons, demons everywhere

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They tell you all you need to do is accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour. But it’s not true. You also have to accept on faith all sorts of peripheral nonsense. Nonsense like demons. And the ever-present malevolent Force that will pressurise you into misbehaving and compromising your commitment to the Lord. This Force is ‘The Enemy’, a.k.a. Satan or the Devil, and leading Christians astray is its/his principal occupation. The Enemy and his minions, the demons, are everywhere! All over the internet for a start, mainly on Christian sites. While the Church of Lucifer has an online presence, it’s Christians who love the bad guys the most.

According to some, Satan and his demons are in charge of this reality (though it could be God who’s got the whole world in his hands.) When they’re not attacking true believers, demons are doing their damnedest to bring America to its knees, mainly through ‘The Homosexual Agenda‘™ and abortion rights.

Perhaps it’s possible to ignore this aspect of the faith and still be a Christian, but to do so is to disregard the significant presence the devil and his demons have in the New Testament. Jesus himself has a cosy chat with Satan during his time in the wilderness, or so Matthew 4.1-11 would have us believe. Throughout the synoptic gospels, Jesus speaks very much as if he believes Satan to be an actual being, not merely a metaphorical personification of evil (eg: Luke 11:14-26). He also exorcises a significant number of individuals possessed by demons.

Steve Hayes on Triablogue blithely suggests that ‘when friends and relatives brought people to Jesus to be exorcized, that reflects their diagnosis, not his. They think the individual is possessed – which doesn’t imply that Jesus always shared their suspicions.’ But of course it does; to imply he was God and therefore would have known better is to impose a perspective that had yet to develop when the synoptic gospels were written – that, and a modern sensibility onto a first-century conditioned mind. If Jesus didn’t regard those brought to him to be possessed by demons, he would have said so. He is quick enough to correct his disciples elsewhere when they ascribe the wrong reasons to the causes of illness (John 9.1-3). Inventing ways to excuse Jesus’ ignorance is to avoid what the text clearly indicates; Jesus believed in demons. When he diagnoses a disturbed mind himself he doesn’t hesitate to conclude they are involved; he even engages in conversation with them (Luke 8.30-35).

We know now, and have known for some time, that illness and mental conditions are not caused by demons. We know too that same-sex relationships are not Satanic. There are no supernatural forces trying to debase America. There are no supernatural forces, full stop. It follows that Jesus’ mission couldn’t have been to magically defeat the devil by dying on the cross (Hebrew 2.14); his supposed sacrifice couldn’t have been the beginning of the end of the devil’s reign (Romans 16.20). Neither can there be any of the spiritual warfare against ‘powers and principalities’ of the air that dimwitted Christians imagine themselves to be engaged in (Ephesians 6.12).

Christianity is nothing without its imagined adversaries. With them it is nothing more than a superstition, which its founders ignorantly subscribed to and worked hard to perpetuate. Christians are about the same business today.

As for me, I cannot believe in a ‘Lord Jesus Christ’ who was so primitive, so uneducated and so ignorant he regarded Satan and his demonic forces to be real.

 

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The Christian blog that knows better than Jesus

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The superior intellects at Triablogue responded to my comment (see previous post below) by telling me they’d already dealt with the claim that Jesus believed the arrival of the Son of Man/the End of the Age/the Final Judgement and God’s Kingdom on Earth were imminent.

They directed me to one of their articles, Misdating the Second Coming, which argues that neither Jesus nor Paul really believed the end was nigh and that the texts which suggest they were need to be interpreted carefully (i.e. to get round what they clearly say to make them say something else.)

I can’t find any other instance of Triablogue contributors proposing that Jesus didn’t really say what the gospels have him say. They don’t dispute, for example, the so-called great commission in Matthew 28.19 (‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit‘) even though, with its Trinitarian formulation, Jesus almost certainly didn’t say it. Instead, the know-alls at Triablogue  reserve their hedging for the prophecies that patently failed to materialise, on the basis that Jesus couldn’t possibly have been wrong so he must have meant something else.

I’ve written several posts under the banner Making Excuses for Jesus, on the varied and feeble attempts Christians make to get round the fact the synoptic gospels consistently have Jesus say the Kingdom of God, and all that accompanies it, are just around the corner. His early followers all believed this and his eschatological pronouncements are recorded in all of the earliest texts. Mark’s gospel includes his prophecies about the Son of Man while Matthew and Luke include material not found in Mark from their ‘M’ and ‘L’ (oral?) sources that warn it is the ‘eleventh hour’. The entire thrust of the synoptic gospels is that the Kingdom is about to arrive and therefore people need to be prepared for it: ‘The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the good news’ (Mark 1.15).

The sayings gospel ‘Q’, which predates Mark and was probably in circulation only a few years after Jesus died, preserves several Son of Man sayings; he would be appearing soon to kick-start the Kingdom. Paul, writing decades before the gospels, tells his readers to expect the Second Coming – the Son of Man having become Jesus himself – while he and they are still alive (Thessalonians 4.14-15). Likewise, the anonymous writer of Hebrews believed he lived in the ‘last days’ (1.1-2) while the nutjob who concocted Revelation claimed he was quoting the Risen Jesus promising he would ‘surely come quickly’ (22.20). The imminence of God’s Kingdom on Earth is the consistent message of the New Testament.

And what do the cerebral Christians at Triablogue do when confronted with a summary of these facts? They don’t approve my comment, that’s what. I guess that’s all you can do when you really don’t have an answer for why your Savior™ got everything so drastically wrong; dishonestly pretend he didn’t and silence those who show that he did

Why I can’t believe in ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’ (one of many reasons)

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Over on the very smug Christian web-site, Triablogue, which I discovered via Gary’s Escaping Christian Fundamentalism blog, a commenter poses the question, ‘What evidence would it take to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?’ This is the answer I left:

If the Son of Man came back through the clouds with a heavenly host of angels in full view of the tribes of the Earth to judge the nations and separate the righteous from the unrighteous; if this Son of Man then established God’s Kingdom on the Earth for the meek and righteous while consigning the unrighteous to eternal punishment; if he and those he appointed to rule alongside him then reigned over this Kingdom for ever and ever, and if all of this happened within the lifetime of Jesus’ original followers, as he promised and predicted it would, then, and only then, would I be able to believe in him.

After all, this was Jesus’ good news (Luke 4.43). When none of his predictions/prophesies/promises came to pass then, as always happens with failed cults and failed cult leaders, those who followed came up with alternative explanations. They hoped, and no doubt believed, that these would do instead of the original ‘good news’. In many ways they weren’t wrong, given the later success of these interpretations, but these were not the cult’s original message and were no more true than Jesus’ Son of Man/Kingdom of God fantasy.

* * * * * *

Just in case you don’t think Jesus promised all these things here’s a mere sampling of where he does:

The Son of Man coming through the clouds: Mark 13.26

with a heavenly host of angels: Matthew 16.27

in full view of the tribes of the Earth: Matthew 24:30

to judge the nations: Matthew 16.27

and separate the righteous from the unrighteous: Matthew 25.32

The Son of Man establishing God’s Kingdom on the Earth: Matthew 19.28, 25.34

for the meek and righteous: Matthew 5.3

while consigning the unrighteous to eternal punishment: Matthew 25.46

Those he appointed ruling alongside him: Matthew 19.28, Luke 22.30

and reigning over this Kingdom for ever and ever: Matthew 6.13, Revelation 11.15

all of this to happen within the lifetime of Jesus’ original followers, as he promised and predicted it would: Mark 1.15, 9.1, Matthew 10.23, 16.28; 24.34, Luke 9.27 etc

I apologise for the strong language in the picture above, but c’mon, how can Christians reasonably explain the out-and-out failure of all of Jesus’ promises and predictions, while still maintaining he was somehow a manifestation of the God of the Universe?

Pride & Prejudice

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Ken Ham took a swipe at Gay Prides recently on his crackpot Answers in Genesis. He didn’t, for once, harp on at length on about how sinful same-sex everything is (if it’s same sex, it’s sinful) but takes the perspective that because Prides involve the word ‘pride’ they are prideful – and that, my friends, is a sin too! This remarkable insight allows the Hamster to gay bash from a completely different angle, though predictably the result is the same. LGBTQ people are lost in sin, and it’s a double whammy; they don’t just wallow in their sexual sin but in pride too, and, my, how God hates both of those!

In the context of Gay Pride, ‘pride’ doesn’t quite mean what ol’ Kenny thinks it does. He takes his definition from some esoteric evangelical dictionary that defines pride as “both a disposition/attitude and a type of conduct,” which according to Ham boils down to that old chestnut, Rebellion Against God, which, he says epitomises gay people.

As usual, he’s wrong. What Gay Pride represents, in both its public and personal forms, is gay people’s rejection of any shame imposed by others about who they are and their refusal to remain hidden; not so much pride but joy, liberation and self-assertion. I’ve been to one or two Prides myself and these have been their predominant characteristics. They reflect the exhilaration gay people feel about being themselves and escaping from the constrictions of the closet. For many, this can be a long and difficult journey, as it was for me. Gay people have every reason to be pleased with who they are and what they’ve achieved and Gay Prides are a way of declaring this self-acceptance, self-esteem and, yes, love – to their communities, city and the world.

‘Pride’ of this sort is no sin (neither is any other, because there’s no such thing as ‘sin’) but other kinds of pride – say, Donald Trump’s arrogance and bluster – are particularly distasteful. Thank goodness Christians don’t suffer from that sorts of pride!

They don’t for example, think they’re superior to the unsaved and especially to LGBTQ people. if they did, they’d spend their time judging everyone else and finding them lacking. They’d lambast gay folks and suggest they should cured or silenced or even executed. They’d disparage atheists, sceptics and unbelievers at every turn. Thank God Christians don’t demonstrate this sort of pride!

Praise the Lord they don’t think they somehow merit living forever! What a relief they don’t think a magic trick of God’s is going to make that possible because, really, they don’t deserve to die; there’s something about them that is worth preserving forever. Thank goodness they can see that this life is all there is and the little bundle of hopes, fears, neuroses and prejudices that make up most of us, don’t really merit unlimited continuation. To think that really would be prideful!

Hallelujah that Christians don’t think the particular brand of mumbo-jumbo they subscribe to is the only one true religion. If they did, they’d spend their time disputing with one another about who’s right and who’s apostate, misguided and deceived by the devil. Praise Lucifer we don’t see pride like this emanating from Christians everywhere!

So, one last message for Kenny and those who put down others, or call them out on their ‘pride’:

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye (Matthew 7.1-5).

And if you think you have removed that log from your own eye – isn’t that just another manifestation of, well… pride?

ChristianSpeak™ for Beginners (part two)

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Last Days: The previous 2,000+ years. The whole Last Days routine is a reflection of the paranioa/relish promoted by the self-righteous since before Jesus arrived with his ‘good news’ that the end was nigh (Mark 1.15 & Matthew 4.17). The Last Days are, in fact, a permanent state of affairs, the result of believers finding that the world just won’t work the way they want it to.

Lifestyle: Homosexuality. Occasionally applied more broadly to refer to any sex outside traditional marriage.

Marriage: The union of one man and one woman for life (even though this is not actually advocated in the Bible) with the right to divorce when the participants want to. Not the formalisation of loving same-sex relationships. What would become of marriage if that were allowed?

New Age: the disparaging term used to describe any wacky spiritual beliefs that are not of Christian origin (see also ‘pot’ and ‘kettle’).

Outpouring (of the Holy Spirit): Euphoria/hysteria.

Pro-life: Anti-abortion

Pro-marriage: Anti-gay

Pro-family: Anti-abortion and anti-gay

The Rapture: The ultimate high. When Jesus first appears in the sky at his second coming he will use his power of mass-levitation to draw his followers up into the air to be with him. Not all Christians are convinced this will happen, however, even though it’s based on an idea of Paul’s in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.

Righteous:

a) Irritable, prone to jealousy, murderous. As God is all of these, it must be what Christians mean when they say he is righteous.

b) Self-induced feelings of superiority, enjoyed by many Christians. Closely related to ‘hypocritical’.

Slain in the Spirit: the compulsion to fall over while in a state of euphoria and attribute this to the Holy Spirit. A favourite trick of faith healers, it has nothing to do with faith or healing.

A Thousand years: Pretty much the same as a day (see 2 Peter 3.8 again).

The World: Not the Earth or its populations as we might normally refer to them, but unredeemed mankind living in godless societies that do not follow Christ or the Christian way. Also known as ‘normality’. Christian use of the term based on verses such as 1 John 2:15-16.

Adapted from my book, Why Christians Don’t Do What Jesus Tells Them To …And What They Believe Instead. (Available here, here and other Amazon oulets.)

ChristianSpeak™ for Beginners (part one)

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Trump3Bible-based values: Judgemental intolerance, arrived at by cherry-picking the bits of the Bible that confirm one’s existing prejudices.

Biblical Exegesis: the neat trick of reinterpreting bits of the Bible – under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, naturally – so they say whatever you want them to say. Perhaps the closest believers come to changing water into wine.

Blessing: a) Feeling good, euphoria. Attributed to God. b) Aspects of a comfortable life. Attributed to God

Born Again: Converting to Christianity, switching off your critical faculties, and imagining you’re having a meaningful relationship with a person who’s been dead for two-thousand years.

A Day: a period of time similar in length to a thousand years (see 2 Peter 3.8)

Family: Opposition to sex outside traditional marriage. Christian organisations with ‘Family’ in their titles, for example the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, and Focus on the Family are dedicated to opposing something they call ‘the homosexual agenda’.

The Flesh: the dictates of the body and the unregenerate or ‘carnal’ mind. It also stands for the life lived by an unsaved person whose existence is determined by ‘baser needs’. Christians, on the other hand, never succumb to the flesh and as a result are known never to eat, experience lust or have sex of any sort. The idea is Paul’s – see Romans 5.24 – and doesn’t sit easily with Jesus’ own enjoyment of eating, drinking and making merry (Matthew 11.19). As disparaged as the flesh is, Christians are promised a new physical body come the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15.53-54).

The Gay Agenda, a.k.a. the homosexual agenda: An invention of right-wing Christians designed to frighten more impressionable brothers and sisters into thinking gay people want to take over the world and make everyone else homosexual too. Overlooking the fact it’s Christians who like to convert and recruit others, this hateful nonsense galvanises opposition to rights for gay people, whose ‘agenda’ is usually the same as everyone else’s; to be treated fairly and get peaceably through the day.

Holy Ghost: The artist formerly known as the Holy Ghost is now, after a recent make-over and re-branding, the Holy Spirit. The shedding of its former association with non-existent entities like apparitions and phantoms – which, of course, it most emphatically is not – produces a concept that’s much more hip for today’s with-it believer.

Adapted from my book, Why Christians Don’t Do What Jesus Tells Them To …And What They Believe Instead. (Available here, here and other Amazon oulets.)

More to come…