Tag Archives: Bible

Christians’ Favourite Delusion 6: God guides our lives

Posted on by
8

GodGuidesGod, Christians like to tell themselves, has a special plan for the individual believer’s life. This plan involves, amongst other things, directing them towards a specific career, making them successful, guiding them to the person they are to marry and showing them where they should live.

Here, for example, is some ‘guidance’ provided by Bible-Knowledge.com:

Remember – God already has your next new job all set up and planned out for you. All you have to do is simply wait for His timing to bring it to you!

As we might expect, there’s no biblical basis for this fantasy – neither Jesus nor Paul (or any other New Testament writer) mention it, which is why Christian teaching promoting the idea fails, without exception, to reference either of them. Far from being an individually tailored life-plan, God’s agenda, according to Jesus, is the same for everyone: it is to work tirelessly to bring about his Kingdom, loving your neighbour as yourself and God even more (Mark 12.28-34).

And that, once again, is that.

Or not quite, because Jesus goes further. Nothing else, he insists, compares with God’s Kingdom, the pearl of great price next to which everything else is without value or meaning (Matthew 13.45-46). So he demands over and over again that people abandon jobs, homes, spouses and family concerns to seek and work towards the Kingdom (Luke 12.27-37 etc).

Why would he change – reverse even – these priorities, the central core of his ‘earthly ministry’, to direct the careers and prescribe the domestic arrangements of Christians today? Answer: he wouldn’t, demonstrating just how much of a construct of their own imaginations is the Christ that Christians worship, profess to listen to and who, they maintain, guides the minutiae of their lives.

Another problem with Heaven

Posted on by
14

HeavenEndNo Christians met last time’s challenge of showing us where the Bible says they’re going to Heaven when they die. Looks like they won’t be. Who knew.

Let’s say though that, despite the odds, they’re right after all; which of their ever-changing selves will be the one that makes it to ‘the other side’?

Does the Christian who passes away suffering from a dementia that has entirely dissolved his personality, his very self, find himself living for eternity in this condition?

Does a deceased child-convert find herself existing as a perpetual 9 year old?

What about all of those aborted foetuses many Christians feel so strongly about, maintaining that they too have souls; do they remain embryos for their heavenly existence?

Or does God change each arrival into the very best they could have been while on Earth? If he does, and everyone lives in their prime as, say, a permanent 28 year old, how much of who they really were and are survives in Heaven? It doesn’t sound like it can be very much.

Perhaps that’s why inviting dead believers to Heaven to live with him there has never been part of Jesus’ and his Father’s great plan.

Christians’ Favourite Delusions 4: Heaven Awaits

Posted on by
5

Heaven2Quite a few Christians are now following this blog and I’d like to issue them with a challenge: show me where Jesus or the gospel writers or St Paul or any of the New Testament authors promise you that you’ll go to Heaven when you die.

Because, you see, the Bible doesn’t make any such promise.

Jesus was adamant that ‘the righteous’ (he’s not even talking about Christians!) would soon transfer into God’s new Kingdom on Earth. When you say the Lord’s prayer, Christians, this is exactly what you’re asking for: ‘Thy Kingdom come – on Earth as it is Heaven.’ As the former bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, puts it, ‘at no point do the resurrection narratives in the four Gospels say, “Jesus has been raised, therefore we are all going to heaven.” It says that Christ is coming here, to join together the heavens and the Earth in an act of new creation’… in the first century, we might add.

Paul, with a version of Christianity that bears little resemblance to Jesus’ own, doesn’t teach that the believer will go to heaven either. In attempting to explain why the Kingdom is late in arriving – so late, in fact, that Christians were dying without seeing it – he invents the idea that the deceased will be woken up by Jesus when he returns to Earth (1 Thessalonians 4.14-16. And yes, he really did make up as he went along).

And after Paul? It was becoming increasingly apparent to later Christians that Jesus really wasn’t coming back any time soon. So they invented the idea that they would go to be with him. As Bart Ehrman puts it ‘with the passage of time, the apocalyptic notion of the resurrection of the body becomes transformed into the doctrine of the immortality of the soul’. But this is not what Jesus himself promised – and you’d think as ‘the Son of God’ he’d have known how it all worked – it’s not what St Paul taught and it’s not even what the trippy writer of Revelation claims. He too insists that everything is going to happen here on a recreated Earth (Revelation 21).

So the choice for you today, Christians, is whether you believe ‘God’s Word’ where, for once,  Jesus and Paul say much the same thing, or you go along with those later, post-biblical believers with their altogether different idea of what happens when we die.

Of course, you opt for the latter – even you have doubts that the Kingdom will come at this late stage – instead of facing the fact that when we die, we are just that: dead.

Ehrman D. Bart (2009) Jesus Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions of the Bible. Harper Collins: New York, page 266.

Multiplicity

Posted on by
2

MultiJesus

Ever see the film Multiplicity starring Michael Keaton as Doug, a man who clones multiple copies of himself? There’s a perfectionist Doug, a slob Doug, a macho Doug, a gay Doug, a romantic Doug… you get the picture. If you haven’t seen the film, you should. Or you could read the Bible for much the same experience.

It’s the original Mulitiplicity, with Jesus as the Michael Keaton character. There’s a Jewish Messiah Jesus, a demanding zealot Jesus, a Greek god-man Jesus, an intangible spirit Jesus and, just like in the movie, having so many clones about leads only to trouble and hilarious consequences. Well, maybe not so much the hilarious consequences, but certainly trouble.

Christians really have time for only one these Biblical Jesuses, the superhero creation of ‘Saint’ Paul’s who goes by the name – the title, no less – of ‘the Christ.’ This Greek god-man makes few demands of his adherents – he does everything for them – and provides them with a free-pass to Heaven (though Paul neglects to mention this particular super-power – you’ll search in vain for promises of Heaven in Paul’s writing.) Supernatural Christ Jesus always proves a better option than the earthy Jesus of the synoptic gospels because ‘gaining a right standing with God’ is a far easier game to play than serving others.

Synoptic Gospel Jesus preaches the coming of the God’s kingdom on Earth in the first century; tells his followers they should sell all they have to give to the poor; commands them to love their enemies and pray for those who persecute them. He insists they should lend without expectation of any return, cut off body parts that offend them and attend to the log in their own eye rather the speck in their neighbours’. No wonder Christians have no time for Gospel Jesus! He’s far too demanding, far too radical, like the super-perfectionist Doug in the film. Oh, they’ll protest they really do believe in Gospel Jesus, but if they did, we would see them doing all the things he tells them they should. And we don’t.

The demanding, Gospel Jesus loses out too to Ephemeral Mystic Jesus, the Jesus found in John’s gospel, the one who just can’t stop talking about himself. Then there’s Avenging King Jesus of the psychedelic nightmare that is Revelation. He’s the one who’s going to come back to Earth at some point (allegedly) to massacre his enemies.

It’s impossible to tell which of the multiple Jesuses is the ‘real’ one. Maybe it’s none of those in the Bible – move over Christ Jesus, Gospel Jesus, Mystic Jesus, Avenging King Jesus; the only Jesus Christians are really interested in is the one of their own making. The one they say lives in their hearts and who once, apparently, lived in mine. This is the best Jesus of all because he can be whatever you want him to be.

Maybe, in the end though, none of the Jesuses, not even the one Christians imagine lives inside them, is real. They’re all just imaginative interpretations of a long-dead, charismatic zealot whose mission went badly awry. And if the Bible hasn’t got a grip on what its central figure is really all about – Jewish Messiah, Greek Christ, intangible spirit – then what else is it confused and wrong about?

New series: Christians’ favourite delusions!

Posted on by
Reply

Number 1. My version of Christianity is the only true version

GodHates

It’s very easy for the believer to convince himself that his particular set of beliefs is the Absolute Truth and that this Truth needs defending from the ‘man-centred’ philosophies and heresies that threaten his false security. He is compelled to declare to the ever-contracting walls of his make-shift reality, ‘there’s only one Truth: mine!’

There are 34,000 different, distinct churches, groups and sects within Christianity, all claiming that they alone possess the absolute Truth. Their insistence that only their doctrines are based on ‘inerrant’ scripture demonstrates just how imprecise and wide-open to interpretation ‘God’s Word’ is. Take a look at Possessing The Treasure, Apprising Ministries and Slaughter Of The Sheep for a flavour of the delicious in-fighting. And don’t forget the Westboro Baptist Church, whose repellant views I’ve added to the picture above. These are, according to the church’s website, all Biblically based.

To the outsider, all Christian groups – from evangelicals and Roman Catholics, to Methodists and Baptists – differ very little. They all believe fantastic, unsubstantiated ideas so that their arguments between themselves are no different from disputes about whether the tooth-fairy wears a pink dress or a green one. What they don’t seem to realise is that it’s irrelevant what she wears when she doesn’t exist.

The one thing that all dissenting groups do appear to agree on, however, is that the more demanding and unpalatable aspects of Jesus’ teaching should be ignored. Instead of trashing each other, Christians might set about selling all they have and giving to the poor, just like their leader told them to. That, and not petty doctrinal squabbles loosely based on books of the Bible, many of which we know to be forged, would be real Christian living.

Throwing stones

Posted on by
1

WomanNew laws in Putin’s Russia have seen a wave of persecution directed at gay people. Christian websites have been quick to condemn the torture, beatings and murders that have taken place in recent weeks, pointing out that this isn’t the way to treat others (Matthew 7.12) or to show love for one’s neighbour (Mark 12.31) or to support a minority group (Matthew 25.45).

Oops. I interrupt this post for a reality check.

Needless to say, no Christian website has done this. Some have come out in support of Russia’s punitive new laws, because – well – God hates all that gay stuff, and, as we know, the odd Bible verse that grumbles about it trumps anything Jesus had to say about being nice to each another. Other Christian sites have ignored the subject entirely.

Our very own Christian Voice, while avoiding any mention of the Russian situation, has posted yet another anti-gay piece. Two thirds of their posts are on the subject, because this is what ‘the gospel’ is really all about. Upset that same-sex marriage is now law – even though they prayed really, really hard to the baby Jesus to stop it – Stephen Green’s sidekick, Robin (had to be really) points out that our bodies matter and, though it will come as some surprise to them, gay people don’t understand this.

You can read the full thing here, where you’ll note C.V. tries to avoid the word ‘gay’ and always puts inverted commas around same-sex ‘marriage’; pathetic doesn’t even begin to describe it .

I’ve attempted to comment on the article on the Christian Voice site, but so insecure are the dynamic duo in their faith, they can’t bring themselves to publish dissenting views. So here, with some slight amendment, are the points I made:

Oh, if only those pesky homosexuals were more like heterosexuals – always monogamous, faithful and never divorcing or remarrying.

If only all gay people were Christians, then the morality you espouse – but which not all Christians live by – might apply to them. As it is, it doesn’t.

If only they could have an encounter with Jesus then they’d be cured of their same-sex attraction.

If only there was some proof of this magical cure or that homosexuals need to be ‘cured’ in the first place.

If only gay people could be celibate, because that worked out so well for the Catholic Church.

If only they’d marry a person of the opposite sex and involve them in living a lie.

These are the options. So what is it you want homosexuals to do, Robin?

What indeed? I suspect he and the other Christians who rant about gay people would be happy only if they disappeared from the face of the Earth or if the great Jehovah were to smite them out of existence. What so many Christians seem unable to do is accept and show the love to their gay brothers and sisters that Jesus demands of them.

Why I could never be a Christian

Posted on by
Reply

RidiculousIn Through The Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll has the White Queen boast that in her youth she could believe ‘six impossible things before breakfast’. Pfa! Only six? Today’s Christian can beat that with ease, and not only before breakfast!

To be a Christian you must accept through faith, and contrary to the evidence, that:

  • there is a reality above and beyond nature wherein exist angels, archangels, devils, demons, principalities (whatever they are), spirits (holy and otherwise) and God himself;

  • virgins can conceive and give birth;

  • a man who died 2,000 years ago is still alive;

  • this man could, when he lived, defy gravity; control the weather; sweat blood; reanimate corpses (his own included); pass through solid objects and project himself into space;

  • an intangible part of everyone survives death;

  • believing in a magic formula (‘Christ died for me’ or similar) leads to eternal life;

  • after death, believers will live again in an improved copy of the body they had when alive;

  • God reversed the laws on which the universe operates to make all of this possible, because he wanted to sacrifice a part of himself to himself;

  • he can do this because he is God;

  • he prompted men to explain his plan in a special book;

  • all you have to do to live forever is believe this book is true.

In addition to ‘essential’ beliefs like these, there are still more that Christians choose to accept on faith, add-ons that Christians are invited to see as the underpinning of ‘important’ doctrines. While not absolutely crucial, they are recommended as a means of adhering to (uncorroborated) biblical truth. Consequently, we find Christians who believe that:

  • God created the universe 6,000 years ago (because this is the time-scale that can be calculated from the Bible’s genealogies);

  • dinosaurs and humans co-existed (because this must be the case if the creation stories in Genesis are literally true);

  • evolution didn’t happen; God created the Earth and everything on it in just six days.

  • reality can be changed by the simple expedient of asking God to change it (prayer);

  • God directly controls the weather (omnipotence/divine irritability);

  • Jesus is coming back – with a selection of scenarios available to true believers about what this will be like (the second coming);

  • all unbelievers will be consigned to hell / oblivion / annihilation: again, take your pick (judgement).

There is not one scrap of evidence outside the special book that any of these items of faith are true. None is verifiable, and consequently none has ever been verified (accounts written inter-dependently fifty years after the alleged miracle-man lived don’t count).

There is, on the other hand, overwhelming evidence that virgins don’t conceive; that there is no agency behind the weather and natural disasters; that nothing of an individual’s self survives death and that dead bodies stay dead. This has always been the case and always will be. It was how nature operated two thousand years ago when all of the ‘essential’ items of faith, invented by the kinds of mind that believed earthquakes and floods were deliberate acts of God, were gaining currency.

Though I once did, I can’t subscribe to any of these ridiculously ‘impossible things’ in the vain hope that I might live forever.

Can you?

Jesus Doesn’t Approve of One Man One Woman Marriage

Posted on by
2

WeddingWhat does Jesus really have to say about marriage? It’s not what you think.

It is almost impossible to visit a Christian website these days and not find it making pronouncements about gay marriage, same-sex relationships and the ‘evil’ of homosexuality. Some, like Christian Voice, seem to think that the gospel is about nothing else. Elsewhere, Bishop John Quinn of Minnesota, a celibate, single male and thus an expert in matters matrimonial, writes that ‘from the beginning, the church has taught that marriage is a lifetime relationship between one man and one woman… It is a sacrament, instituted by Jesus Christ to provide the special graces that are needed to live according to God’s law and to give birth to the next generation”. Alas, the bishop doesn’t know his Bible, nor his Lord’s teaching. He is not alone in superimposing his own views of marriage on the Bible; it is a common practice among Christians today.

Should you be inclined to do so, you will once again search in vain either for Jesus ‘instituting’ modern marriage or for the early church promoting it. Those who claim he does usually cite Jesus’ apparent endorsement of Genesis 2.24 from Matthew 19.5-6:

“a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”. So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.

In context, though, Jesus is actually discussing divorce, not marriage, and is making the point that Jewish law permits divorce only because men and women are weak. This prompts the disciples to observe that ‘if such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry’, with which Jesus agrees, adding,

not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the Kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can. 

In other words, Jesus thinks it is better to be sexless than to marry, the better to pursue the interests of God’s Kingdom. He emphasises the point in Luke 20.34-35:

Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age [i.e. that of the Kingdom] and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 

This is even less ambiguous in its denigration of marriage; it is for this world only, for those who will not be part of the Kingdom, who will not survive death. Those who live in anticipation of the Kingdom, who would be resurrected from the dead, will have nothing to do with marriage in this life, as in the next. Far from ‘instituting’ marriage as Bishop Quinn claims, Jesus heralds the end of the institution.

The Kingdom, however, didn’t come when Jesus said it would. Newly formed groups of believers found themselves having to decide what to do about marriage in a world that was lasting longer than he’d promised. Consequently, ‘from the beginning’, the early church’s position was that marriage would do if believers couldn’t manage to control their sexual urges. But, Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 7.8-9, it is better to remain celibate and not to marry at all:

to the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practising self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

While it is true Paul assumes any marriage will be between a man and woman, this is hardly the ringing endorsement of marriage we might expect from the assertions of today’s Christians. For Paul, the leaders of the early church and Jesus himself there was no point to marrying when they lived in the end times. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, 7.28-29:

But if you marry, you do not sin, and if a virgin marries, she does not sin. Yet those who marry will experience distress in this life, and I would spare you that. I mean, brothers and sisters, the appointed time has grown short; from now on, let even those who have wives be as though they had none…

Paul is not sanctioning marriage because he anticipated that any marriage could only be short-lived and traumatic; as he goes on to explain in 1 Corinthians 7.32-34, marriage is little more than a distraction from ‘the affairs of the Lord’. He is not therefore promoting ‘life long’ commitment in the sense Bishop Quinn, Christian Voice’s Stephen Green and Christians who don’t know their Bible claim, because those to whom Paul writes are not, in his view, going to continue in their existing lives for very much longer.

Above all, Jesus and Paul are most definitely not establishing rules for marriage for the rest of time, simply because, for them, there was no ‘rest of time’.