Category Archives: Christianity’s failure to deliver

Here Be Dragons

Posted on by
Reply 
dragonChrist The White does battle with the dragon of Revelation 12

Over on Answers in Genesis, one of Ken Ham’s drones is arguing for the existence of dragons. They are, he or she tells us triumphantly, mentioned in the Bible, so they must really have existed.

As we already know, the Bible has more than its fair share of nonsense, but to insist it provides evidence of mythical creatures is to take its credibility to a new low. Don’t Christians care they do this to their magic book? After all, their faith relies almost entirely on the Bible, alongside their own emotional responses to it (no kiddin’, they say this is ‘the Holy Spirit’.)

Christians spend so much time arguing for the Bible’s daftest excesses – the world being created in six days, Jesus returning soon, homosexuality being just the worst sin ever and now dragons – that they haven’t any time left to read what it has to say about how they should be living their lives.

You mean forgiving others, feeding the hungry, giving everything away, not judging (in case you’re judged in return), being compassionate, going the extra mile, turning the other cheek, giving to all who ask and blessing your enemies is in the Bible? Jeez, I never knew.

Yeah, but it’s all secondary to dragons and damning others. ‘By their fruits shall ye know them,’ says Jesus of his followers in Matthew 7.16-20. Turns out there’s no fruit, just a wide assortment of nuts.

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 27: The Bible Is The Ultimate Authority On All Things

Posted on by
Reply

Biblereader* Mark Twain

Since writing my posts about the Bible, I’ve stumbled across a few assertions out in Blogland that the Bible is the ‘ultimate authority’ on some subject or other. ‘The ultimate authority on the issue of homosexuality is the Bible’ says Tim Brown, while Marsha West claims ‘the Bible’s the final authority in all matters of faith’ and the snappily titled ‘Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention’ insists that ‘as Christians we must affirm our commitment to divine revelation, the written Word of God— the Bible—as our ultimate authority base.’ 

You might wonder how a book, written largely by bronze and iron-age tribesmen and first-century zealots who thought their world was going to end any day soon, could produce anything authoritative. Especially when these men (and they were all men) get it wrong about –

How the world was created. Genesis 1 tells us how Yahweh formed the Earth pretty much as it is today. In this made up explanation, light, night & day and plant life all precede the creation of the sun, and the order in which animal life appears is completely wrong.

How humans came into being… as fully formed adults. No messy evolution here. Moreover, woman is created from man, even though all foetuses are female to begin with and male comes always from female.

How the world got to be the mess it’s in. Sin, apparently; this first couple fucked the whole thing up. There was no death before they ate some fruit. After, there was.Move along. No understanding of evolution here.

How old the Earth is. The Bible’s genealogies imply the Earth is now 6000 years old or thereabouts. Actually it’s about 4.5 billion, but that doesn’t stop Ken Ham and other wingnuts insisting it can’t be, because, you know, the Bible.

How important the Israelites were. They weren’t; they were a relatively obscure and insignificant tribe. Their only ‘achievement’ seems to have been creating the idea of there being only one God, and even that took time to develop. Little of what the Torah/Old Testament claims for them has been supported by archaeological and other evidence, and much has been soundly refuted.

How the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. There is no evidence at all that they were. Moses and the whole of the ‘let my people go’ story appear to be complete fabrication.

How the world really works. According to Bible animals can sometimes talk (Genesis 3.1; Numbers 22. 23-30); humans once lived to be well over a hundred years old (Genesis 7.6;, 23.1 etc); the sun goes round Earth (Ecclesiastes 1.5); the sun can be stopped in the sky (Joshua 10.12-13); the Earth is flat (Isaiah 40.22 etc); Heaven is in the sky (Psalm 103.11 etc) and Hell is under the Earth (Psalm 63.9 etc)

How God’s Kingdom was going to come to the Earth in the first century. You’ve probably spotted that it didn’t. Yet the belief that it would drove both Jesus and Paul, and accounts for the very existence of Christianity (see previous posts). How wrong can you get?

How believers would never ‘perish’ (John 3.16). From the very first convert to the Christians who will die today, every believer has ‘perished’. There is no evidence whatsoever that any of them has been resurrected or that they enjoy eternal life. Like the end of the rainbow, this promise is perpetually out of reach, always somewhere in the future – even though Jesus and Paul were telling their followers 2000 years ago that it was all going to happen real soon.

How Jesus was coming back any minute. See above. Always going to happen just about now. Never does.

And so it goes.

That’s some ‘authority’, I’m sure you’ll agree. The Bible is wrong about practically everything, except when a preacher needs it to support his bigotry and/or prejudices. Then, miraculously, it’s the ultimate authority.

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 26.2: The Bible is the Word of God

Posted on by
2

WritingRight on cue, after my post on the Bible as ‘the Word of God’, Mike Ratcliff over at the intense Possessing the Treasure, posted his own item on the forged 2 Timothy 3.16-17, using it to show how the Bible is truly God’s Word.

You should know that Mike will not be contradicted in any way. You’re wasting your time posting a comment about his ‘exegesis’ of biblical texts because his musings – and there are many, many of them – are without any sort of error. Mike doesn’t make mistakes! He explains in his post how the Bible is ‘inspired, infallible and inerrant’. Many evangelical Christians hold this view of the Bible, which is as mistaken as it is idolatrous.

Infallible literally means ‘incapable of failure’ and ‘trustworthy’, but as I’ve attempted to show in many of my previous posts, the Bible fails in all sorts of ways:

It fails as science. It claims light existed before the sun was created; it claims the sun goes round the Earth, which it thinks is the centre of the universe. It has no idea about the order in which life-forms developed; no idea about evolution; no idea about life-forms that cannot be seen with the naked eye. It describes insects as having four legs and gives animals the power of speech.

It fails morally. It endorses slavery, polygamy, rape, incest, genocide and cruelty to both animal and human life. It denigrates women, children, the disabled and gay people. It prescribes brutal and barbaric punishments for those who infringe its petty laws.

It fails in its promises and prophecies. None of its promises ‘work’, none of its prophecies have come true (except those made after the event they’re meant to be predicting.)

Can something that fails so spectacularly and consistently be considered trustworthy? Yes, say Christians like Mike. No, says anyone capable of a little elementary reasoning.

Inerrant means incapable of error. As if the errors in the ‘failure’ category aren’t enough, the Bible is littered with mistakes and contradictions. The gospels, for example, all have different visitors to the tomb of the supposedly risen Jesus. These visitors are all met by different strangers – one man, two men, angels and their dog, Spot. More importantly, the New Testament can’t decide how a person is saved. Paul’s formula is radically different from Jesus’, and different again from the message Luke puts into his mouth in Acts. In total, there are eight different and conflicting ways to find salvation in the New Testament*.

Inspired literally means ‘breathed out’; Mike Ratcliff and others insist that the Bible is ‘breathed out’ by God. Apparently, he ‘breathed out’ his confused, contradictory message into and through fallible tribesmen, and first-century hallucinatory zealots, causing the former to exaggerate their own importance and success and the latter to create those eight different routes to salvation. He didn’t, however, see fit to give them a clear picture of who Jesus actually was, nor a precise formulation of the so-called Trinity (that fanciful nonsense had to be worked out much later), nor of what would happen to believers after death. He did, though, inspire forgeries and fakes like 2 Timothy and left it forty to a hundred years to prompt four individuals who had never met Jesus to write the muddled tales of his adventures on Earth. He didn’t think it important to preserve the originals of any of the manuscripts he’d inspired, nor did he take steps to prevent them from being altered both deliberately and accidentally throughout the ensuing years**. Perhaps he ‘breathed out’ the alterations and errors too.

The real problem with the inspiration argument is though that it is circular; the Bible ‘proves’ God and God proves the Bible.

No, the Bible is not infallible. Nor is it inerrant, nor inspired. It is an all too human creation, fallible and error-ridden. There is greater consistency and style in the works of Shakespeare than there is in the shambolic collection of books cobbled together as the Bible in 397CE. Those who see it as something more, see what they want see and are wilfully blind to its many failings. God’s Word it isn’t.

 

Notes:

* For the eight (at least) salvation plans in the New Testament see my book, Why Christians Don’t Do What Jesus Tells Them To …And What They Believe Instead, chapter 6.

** For errors, alterations and the non-preservation of any original documents see Bart Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed The Bible And Why.

 

 

 

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 26.1: The Bible is the Word of God

Posted on by
2

IsaiahThe Bible: not so much holy as full of holes.

So much hinges on the fallacy that the Bible is the literal, inerrant Word of God. As the ‘director’ of Christian Voice, Stephen Green, puts it:

We believe the Holy Bible to be the inspired, infallible, written Word of God to whose precepts, given for the good of nations and individuals, all man’s laws must submit.

Try as you might, you will not find the Bible claiming it is the Word of God, capitalised or otherwise. The phrase does appear, without the capital W, but on none of these occasions is the Bible referring to itself.

Christians usually base their conviction that the Bible is the Word of God on a verse in 2 Timothy (3.16):

All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

There are some serious problems with this claim.

Firstly, the ‘scripture’ to which 2 Timothy 3.16 refers cannot be the Bible as we know it today. This was not compiled until about 260 years after these words were written*. At best, the author of 2 Timothy is referring to the first five books of the Bible – the Pentateuch – and maybe, possibly, though we cannot know for certain (you see how tentative it is?) some of the writing he had encountered that was eventually included in the New Testament.

By the same reckoning though, he could equally be referring to books that at one time were considered to be inspired but did not make it into the final 27 books of the New Testament**. This is also why the use of the term ‘the word of God’ in other places in the New Testament cannot be referring to the Bible as a whole. No-one knew when using the phrase in its original context that there was going to be a Bible, let alone one divorced from its Jewish roots.

Secondly, most scholars today are convinced that Paul did not write 2 Timothy, even though it claims that he is its author. There are very good reasons for saying the letter was written between 100-150CE, thirty-six years, at the very least, after Paul’s death in 64CE. In other words, 2 Timothy is a fake, claiming to be written by one person – Paul – when it is in fact the creation of another, taking advantage of the reputation of the more well-known writer.

How far can such a false witness be trusted? Most people in any other context would say not at all. And yet Christians take this forger’s letter to be ‘inspired by God’, just because it says it is. In essence they are saying that God is happy to inspire forgery, and not just in this instance either: none of the ‘pastoral’ letters (1 and 2 Timothy, together with Titus) is written by Paul, even though all of them claim to be. The second letter to the Thessalonians and those to the Ephesians and Colossians are not by him either; 1 and 2 Peter are not by the (illiterate) apostle Peter and the letters of James and Jude, while wanting us to think that they are, are not by Jesus’ brothers***.

In short, and as Bible scholar Bart Ehrman puts it:

Many of the books of the New Testament were written by people who lied about their identity, claiming to be a famous apostle — Peter, Paul or James — knowing full well they were someone else. In modern parlance, that is a lie, and a book written by someone who lies about his identity is a forgery.

Christians do not accept that the Qur’an is the word of God (Allah), nor the book of Mormon, even though both say they are, so why do they take it on trust, from a forged document that was lucky enough to find its way into the New Testament, that it and all other ‘scripture’ is inspired? ‘Faith’, they would tell you; but in this as in many other contexts, it is extremely misguided faith.

 

Notes:

* For the Bible’s late compilation see Charles Freeman (2008) Heretics, Pagans and the Christian State, p42

** For non-canonical texts once considered contenders see Bart Ehrman (2009) Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions of the Bible, chapter 4

*** Forgeries in the New Testament are discussed more fully in Ehrman (2011) Forged: Writing in the Name of God – Why the Bible’s Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are: The pastoral letters – pp96-103; 2 Thessalonians – pp105-108; Ephesians – pp108-112; Colossians – pp112-114; Jude – pp186-188; James – pp192-198. Peter’s illiteracy is noted in the Bible itself (Acts 4.13) and is discussed on pp75-76 of Forged.

UK editions referenced.

 

What would the world look like if Jesus had been right?

Posted on by
Reply

NewEarth

If everything Jesus promised had come true, then:-

Jesus and his twelve mates – or maybe it’s eleven, what with one of them pissing on the parade – would have been running the world for 2,000 years by now (Matthew 24.34 & Matthew 19.28).

All the undesirables – that’s me and, in all probability, you – would’ve been consigned to Hell and the Righteous would’ve been living on the New Earth, working miracles all day long, not getting married, enjoying eternal life and definitely not having sex (Matthew 13.43, Luke 20.34-35, Matthew 25.46, Matthew 13.41-42).

But seeing how none of that has happened yet, what does the world-according-to-Jesus look like while we wait for the Kingdom to arrive?

Well, duh, look around you; this is how it is:

True Believers go around curing the sick, the blind and the lame, just by touching them or using magic saliva. There’s no need for hospitals, medicine, doctors or heath care. Jesus did this sort of thing and he said his followers would too, to an even greater extent. That’s why Christians can even help amputees grow back missing limbs (Mark 16.18 & John 14.12).

By the same principle, True Believers regularly raise the dead. Okay, so there’s not going to be any death in God’s Kingdom on Earth, but it’s a handy power to have all the same (Matthew 10.8).

Hunger is a thing of the past. When anyone feels a bit peckish – an entire continent, say – Christians feed them using whatever scraps they’ve got lying around, like left-over sardines and burnt toast with Jesus’ face on it (Matthew 14.13-21).

True Believers supply everyone with as much wine as they want, too. They simply pour out some water and change it into alcohol with their water-into-wine superpower. If their beneficiaries turn out to be tee-total, the Righteous change it into something else for them, like coffee or Kool-Aid or cyanide. Of course, cyanide is the beverage of choice for God’s Chosen. He makes sure no harm comes to those who imbibe it (John 2.1-11, Mark 16.18).

Christians are regularly to be seen playing with poisonous snakes, because, like Superman they’re practically invulnerable (Mark 16.18).

Transport is transformed in Jesus’ new world too. No need for ships or ferries; Believers travel overseas by walking over seas. Conditions a bit choppy? The Almighty calms things down for them; all they have to do is ask. (Matthew 14.22-33 & Mark 4.35-41).

Mountains getting in the way? They can just be lifted out of the way using the Power of Faith, and thrown into the sea. Or, if that’s likely to cause problems for those out for a stroll on the oceans, the mountains can be rearranged to make a passage through. Very neat and tidy (Mark 11.23-24).

Best of all, True Believers can ask God for anything at all and whatever they ask for he provides. No questions asked. He does it (Matthew 7.7 & 21.22, Mark 11.24 etc).

Thanks to Jesus’ followers, this is how it is in the world, while they wait for God’s Kingdom to arrive. And when it does, it’ll be even better. Hard to imagine it could be any better than it is, I know, but Jesus guarantees it. What a blessing it is to live, here and now, in such a transformed reality.

Except of course we don’t. None of these things happen. Not the miracles, the healings, the living forever. This is not the world we live in, even though Jesus said it would be. His Kingdom didn’t come; his followers don’t do miracles like his (and certainly don’t do better ones); no-one lives forever. They never have and never will.

Instead his Followers spend their time squabbling between themselves, judging others and living – and dying – pretty much the same way we all do.

Funny that.

 

 

 

Christians in denial

Posted on by
Reply

Trial

Deny yourself, deny your parents, deny your family. That’s what Jesus tells his followers they’ve to do. Today’s Christians can do better than that though! They’re in complete denial about everything, especially stuff for which there’s tons of evidence. Believing loads of made-up stuff is more their thing.

So, they deny climate change because God wouldn’t allow it (or something).

They deny that human beings contribute in any way to climate change because it’s not part of God’s plan.

They deny evolution because God created everything (in six days).

They deny how unpleasant, wasteful and cruel evolution is in order to believe that God used it to develop life here on Earth.

They deny that death existed before humans evolved because the Bible says it didn’t.

They want to deny gay people equality because the Bible says marriage is for one man and one woman (it doesn’t).

They seek to deny others their rights, often slanderously and viciously, but expect their ‘right’ to do so to be protected.

They deny that morality has anything to do with the way we treat other people and is really only about sex.

They deny that anyone can be moral or rational without believing in their God.

They deny that for most of us things are better than they’ve ever been and insist instead that things have only got steadily worse.

They deny the humanity of fellow human beings but believe in fantasy creatures like angels, spirits and demons.

They deny their own humanity, with its corresponding needs and limitations, and insist instead we’re designed to be spiritual creatures.

They deny most of what Jesus taught but tell everyone else they’re sinners.

They deny that Jesus said he’d be back in his disciples’ lifetime, and believe instead he’s still on his way.

They deny death and imagine they’re going to live forever in Heaven instead.

 

Christianity is a religion of negativity. Truth, reality and other people are the casualties of its life-denying efforts at self-preservation.

 

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 23: Jesus shows us how to live

Posted on by
Reply

Doctor

Was JC a great moral teacher?

No, the best things he said – do unto others, love your neighbour – had already been said eons before he came along. Some of the other stuff he came out with was ridiculously impractical – give away all you have; live only for today; turn the other cheek – that his followers have been unable to do from day one.

Did what he said about God turn out to be right?

No. He said God would establish his Kingdom on Earth while the disciples were still alive.

Did he commit himself to long-term responsibility for others and their needs?

Another no.

Did he experience the infirmities and difficulties of old age?

Nope.

Did he suffer from any of the serious illnesses we mere mortals are prone to?

Apparently not.

Did he give over his entire life to raising children or taking care of elderly relatives?

Not that we know of.

Did he have to work each day to earn a living?

No. He sponged off gullible female fans (Luke 8.1-3).

Did he have any understanding of science and of how the world works?

Erm, no. He thought people became ill because of sin and demon possession and that Heaven was in the sky.

Was he interested in anything but his own futile ‘mission’?

Yet another no.

Apart from his last few days did he know suffering, the everyday frustrations of life or the daily struggle to make ends meet?

Not so’s you’d notice.

Did he, in short, know anything of the life as it was lived and is lived by ordinary people?

Emphatically not.

There was nothing marvellous about Jesus. He was out of touch with ordinary people and at loggerheads with those cleverer than he was. He was a failed prophet who was turned into a supernatural being by those who came along afterwards – mainly Paul, who’d never met him – and is worshipped today by those who ignore most of what he said.

 

 

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 22: Jesus is gentle and humble

Posted on by
1

Humble

Without any humility, Jesus boasts in Matthew 11.29 about how gentle and humble he is. Let’s see how he qualifies:

He insists people should love him more than their own families (Matthew 10.37).

He says he’s not a peacemaker but intends creating strife (Luke 12.51).

He claims anyone who doesn’t follow him deserves to be burnt (John 15.6).

He wants the world to be destroyed by fire (Luke 12.49).

He commands people not to call others ‘fools’ (Matthew 5.22) but tells those he doesn’t care for that they’re ‘swine’, ‘dogs’, ‘snakes and vipers’, ‘whitewashed tombs’, and, yes, ‘fools’ (Matthew 7.6; 15.26; 23.33; 23.27; 23.17 & Luke 11.40).

He deliberately speaks in riddles so that people won’t understand him and won’t find forgiveness (Mark 4.12).

He tells his followers to love their enemies but says he’d have his own killed (Luke 19.27 & Matthew 13.41-42).

He endorses slavery and the cruel treatment of slaves (Luke 12.47-48).

He says people would be better off if they cut off their hands, plucked out their eyes and castrated themselves (Mark 9.43-48 & Matthew 19.12).

He endorses the Jewish law that demands the death penalty for those who disrespect their mother and father (Matthew 15:4-7).

He disrespects his mother (Matthew 12.48-49).

He tells people not to get angry but loses his own temper (Matthew 5.22 & Mark 3.5).

He callously kills a herd of pigs and, in a fit of pique, destroys a fig tree (Matthew 8.32 & Matthew 21.19).

He takes a whip to people (John 2.15).

He tells his mates he’ll soon be king of the world and promises them that they’ll rule alongside him (Matthew 19.28).

So, the marks of a gentle, humble man? Or the characteristics of an unpleasant, delusional megalomaniac?

The evidence is in front of you. You decide.

 

 

Let’s Play Pointless

Posted on by
Reply

statue

If anything underlines the pointlessness of religion it’s the Pope’s declaration this weekend that two of his predecessors are now ‘saints’.

It’s pointless because, according to the Bible, Pope John XXIII and John Paul II (not their real names) were already saints. Yes, truly. According to the Bible all believers are ‘saints’ (Romans 1.7, etc).

Pointless because the two of them are dead and bestowing sainthood on them does not affect their fatal condition in any way.

Pointless because the dead are of even less use than the living.

Pointless because the Catholic church’s many adherents already hold these ex-popes in ridiculously exalted esteem – witness the hundreds who turned out yesterday for Pope Frankie’s saint-making ceremony. It hardly matters that he bestows a further, dubious accolade on them.

Pointless because, when alive, both men presided over an obscenely wealthy organisation whose God directed his followers to sell all they had to give to the poor; an organisation that, during these men’s reigns, repeatedly covered up child sex-abuse by its priests, prohibited the use of condoms in Africa (thus aiding the spread of HIV), denied women control of their own bodies and regarded LGBT people as evil. How ‘saintly’ is that?

Pointless because it’s all dressing-up make-believe anyway.

In other news, a giant crucifix in Italy, erected in honour of Pope John Paul II, collapses and kills a twenty-one year old man. Surely this is a sign of… well, something. Sure to be. Maybe someone can tell us… God? Catholic commentators? Saint John Paul?

 

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 21: Jesus Keeps His Promises

Posted on by
8

Promises

Jesus keeps his promises? Let’s see…

‘I’ll be back while my disciples are still alive’.

For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels… I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom. (Matthew 16:27-28)

Oops. He got that wrong. Two thousand years later and his followers are still waiting. Despite what today’s believers claim, he didn’t say he’d reappear over two thousand years into his future. Safe to assume he’s not going to make it at this late date

‘Anything you ask for will be yours… whatever you ask.’

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

Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, “Be taken up and thrown into the sea”, and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11.24; also Matthew 21.21-22)

Christians hedge round this one by saying God answers prayers in his own time and in his own way. His answer might be ‘no, you can’t have that’. But that’s not what Jesus says. He says ‘Whatever you ask… anything… will be yours.’ What is this if not a false promise?

‘My followers will do even greater miracles than I have.’

Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. (John 14.12-14)

Believers regularly walk on water, turn water into wine, and – slightly less frivolously – raise the dead. Except… no they don’t. It doesn’t happen. They should be doing even more startling things than this too – Jesus promises ‘greater works’ than his – but again, two thousand years on and they haven’t even mastered basic mountain throwing. What a let down. What hokum.

‘You’ll be able to do the impossible.’ 

These signs will accompany those who believe:…. they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. (Mark 16.17)

Which is why, I guess, we have no need of hospitals, because Christians can heal everyone; why members of those fanatical snake-handling churches in America, who take Jesus at his word… erm… regularly die from snake bites. And not even these true believers are crazy enough to drink poison. There’s a limit to how much faith even gullible Christians have in Jesus’ empty words.

‘Don’t bother working or earning a living. God will provide.’

Therefore do not worry, saying, “What will we eat?” or “What will we drink?” or “What will we wear?” For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6.25-7.1)

Yeah, right. His followers recognise how useless this one is too; they do strive to make a living and provide for their families. None of them wait for God to provide because they’d be dead before he got round to it.

‘God will look after your hair (because you’re worth it).’

But even the hairs of your head are all counted… You will be hated by all because of my name. But not a hair of your head will perish. (Luke 12.7 &  21.12-19)

Oh, come on. Now he’s just being silly.

And that’s only a few of them… Jesus’ promises. All as worthless as the proverbial chocolate fire-guard. Christians, of course, know this well. They neither trust in his promises nor demonstrate them in their lives. As it is, how they live is indistinguishable from everyone else; completely devoid of miracles and lacking in any supernatural provision. They tell themselves (and us) that Jesus is special but then disregard most of what he said – and who can blame them from that? Anyone else who made the sort of ludicrous promises Jesus did would be dismissed as a fool and a charlatan. It’s way past time we recognised Jesus as just that.