Monthly Archives: July 2014

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Chronicles of YHWH 1: Of Unicorns and Fat Cows

(Note: The “Chronicles of YHWH” series of posts are meant to be a light-hearted take on the bible stories)

On the morning of the fifth day, Angel Gabriel handed YHWH the day’s creation program:

YHWH: “Let’s see: a chambered nautilus, cattle, rhinoceroses, elephants, moccasins, monkeys, hammer heads, unicorns, hyraxes… Wait… why is there a unicorn in this list?”

Gabriel: “It’s a pimped-up horse.”

YHWH: “It’s a horse with a horn in the face. I won’t create that.”

Gabriel: “But the rhinoceros is a fat cow with TWO horns in the face. You seem okay with it.”

YHWH: “I will stick three horns on YOUR face, Gabriel, if you start questioning me.”

Gabriel (Hastily): “That won’t be necessary, Lord. I understand completely: no unicorns”

And that’s why there are no unicorns on earth.

 

N/B: For access to all anecdotes in this series, check out List of all “Chronicles of YHWH” notes.

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random stories from around the world

Some of the things expressed in this post shouldn’t be taken seriously!

Somewhere in Sudan a woman was shot dead in the head for failing to wear a tent. Now Somali is one of the hot places inhabited by men on this side of the Sahara. One wonders how Allah would be so offended at seeing the faces reported to have been created in its image?

On Tuesday, thanks to the Muslims we had a holiday. Can they fast more, not that I care as long as there is a holiday at the end. This part of the post is addressed to those who think Africa is one big country and places like Kenya are cities.We have atheists in this neck of the woods, and no we don’t live in fear of the religious. It is safe to be an atheist here. I think most people are creationists though. So I have these atheist friends we decide to have a meet up. We are not the group with the president :D, so that position is still open for hire. Any successful candidate shall have to pay us.

We resolved among other things, that since the media houses as currently constituted would not help us in furthering our atheist agenda especially of eating christian babies, we will have our own TV station. We have to this end planned to petition all churches to contributed an atheism tax of 10% on all their daily collections. This will go along way in financing our TV programmes and other engagements aimed at making people less religious.

I am introducing a new author, Joe, who, because he is older than I writes so well and because he is slightly tall uses big words a lot more often. Please let us all be up standing and welcome him with a hearty clap. He is such a gentleman, good natured and long time friend. I think even gods would like him.

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You have been found out, you atheist liars!

Yes you and you and you, and this is according to some religious nincompoop who seems to me to have so little between his ears. He charges the atheists with the following;

1. The biggest lie the atheists preach, THERE IS NO GOD.

For one, to a child that is dying, what business would I have telling them there is no god? They may, for example, if they have not been fed religious BS have no idea that such a phantom does exist. I could be wrong, but last I checked, we lacked a belief in the existence of gods. Well once in a while I can say there are no gods and am not peddling a lie. As far as I can tell, none has been shown to exist.

2. Atheists have no open minds

Because they have no room for spirituality- a spirituality based on unsupported and unsupportable ideas. Someone hit me in the head! How would you be expected to be open to an idea that has for its origin fancies and chimeras?

3. Atheists say Christianity teaches men not to think.

The good reader has a few verses he thinks supports his thesis that religion and Christianity to be specific encourages thought. The crime for which Adam and Eve were punished was to eat from the tree of knowledge [of good and bad]. I’m sure for anyone who has the time, it will be hard to find any passages in the bible in praise of doubt, knowledge and true inquiry.

4. Science exists despite religion

This canard, that is without religion science wouldn’t have developed, has been peddled longer than necessary.  That many scientists then and now have been religious is not to say religion made them pursue science. For most if not all, it is the inquisitive mind that drove them. For some, we can say their attempts to find god in nature was always at the back of their minds but I don’t know how far or how true this is.

5. They don’t care if there is or isn’t a god

I will quote the OP on this one.

Deep down inside of everyone’s heart there is a missing element that is always questioning, searching and longing to find God. They may try to ignore it but it still remains there.

How in the name of all that is reasonable would one make such a generalization about people for who he hasn’t walked a mile in their shoes? A desire to find god is not proof of good, not by a mile. And maybe they would want to find god to question s/h/it on the many failures that it is likely responsible it for that matter to kill it.

5 lies atheists tell

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Human evolution and other stories[ links]

Creationists of whatever stripe will not like this story. It has no room for magic or for poofism and it’s an interesting read. Biology is not one of my strengths, if there is anything that the authors of the article have lied about, yours truly may not know.

And for those who will be going to hell, here is what you will be doing there for endless time.

And for all budding parents and teachers, this letter should have been sent to all our teachers and it reminds me of this other letter.

Have a good weekend you all!

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A question for Christians

In the last post where we had questions for theists, the response we received from the only theist who participated was that the bible is a collection of myths [  and we here agree]. We don’t know how many believers agree with the above assessment and how they continue to hold on to the said beliefs. How is it possible to consider the bible myth and still believe in the god it talks about? How is this different from knowing Harry Potter is fiction and believing that Hogwarts is a real place/ school.

With that background, our question comes from a reading of Ezekiel 37:1-10. We ask you to put this questions in light of the ending of Mark where the believers are told they will move mountains, hold venomous snakes and so and consider, too, that with the faith of a mustard seed they can move mountains.

1. Did the animated bones die again?

2. If this god could animate bones, why do we have sick people in hospitals who would appreciate such animation?

3. Does the bible god have ego issues that it had to assuage it by performing such acts of magic?

4. Where did god disappear to? He seems to have stopped leading people in valleys full of bones.

“The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.’ Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army. [Ez 37:1-10]

 

 

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Book reviews

2BRO2B is a bleak book by Kurt Vonnegut where he writes about a future world where man has conquered death. The only deaths arise from freak accidents or volunteers. To prevent a population explosion, there is a cap on the maximum number of people in any given locale. If one has to have a baby, a volunteer to die must also be found. We are then presented with a situation of a man who has had triplets but loves life and doesn’t want any of his relatives to die. I don’t want to spoil the fun, please read the book to find out its ending, besides it’s less than 10 pages on ebook.

In God bless you, Dr. Kevorkian he takes us through a story of his near NDE’s conducted at a state of the art lethal  injection execution facility in Huntsville, Texas. He tells us his first NDE was an accident or else who wouldn’t have set out on such a risky expedition. Dr. Jack Kevorkian is the man who saves his life several times he can’t count. In his several trips, he conducts many interviews with such people as Mary Shelley, Isaac Newton, Hitler, Isaac Asimov, Dr. Mary D. Ainsworth and many others. It is an interesting book, told in very small chapters, if we can call them that. For all friends on summer breaks with nothing to read, this is good reading material.

In Exile and the Kingdom, an anthology by Albert Camus, he writes on several themes, such as justice, infidelity, inhuman working conditions and inability of employees to have their grievances heard, the artist and his life/ tribulations- his problem with fame and so on and one story on religion. It makes for interesting reading.

In The fall, by Albert Camus, he tells the story of a judge-penitent. It is the confession of a former lawyer who I think has lost all his marbles.

In A happy death, Albert Camus’ first novel, he sketches the theme that will later be covered in the Myth of Sisyphus, the Rebel and the Stranger, that is death. In this book he asking if one can die a happy death. It is the story of Mersault, his crimes, his jealousies, his life and eventually his happy death. His struggles to find what it means to live a good life. He wants to die a conscious death.  He writes towards the end of the book

And in Zagreus’ very immobility confronting death he encountered the secret image of his own life. Fever helped him here, and with it, an exultant certainty of sustaining consciousness to the end, of dying with his eyes open.  Zagreus too had had his eyes open that day, and tears had fallen from them. But that was the last weakness of a man who had not had his share of life. Patrice was not afraid of such weakness. In the pounding of his feverish blood, though it failed to reach the limits of his body, he understood that such weakness would not be his. For he had played his part, fashioned his role, perfected man’s one duty, which is only to be happy. [..] Happiness was the fact he had existed.

 

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I have nothing to say

Except to say that it is in bad taste and dishonest for a fellow whom you have given an opportunity to have his views heard accuse me of high handedness. I don’t know what or to whom the question he is talking about is addressed. I am aware, if there are any questions not answered, are those asked by others to him.

For example, he was asked by tildeb to explain how, if he is tending towards agnostic and believing the bible to be myth, why then does he write god and g-d?

I asked, which I haven’t seen any response to, how his being Jewish has any bearing on whether he believes a god exists or not.

He has been asked how does he know that those who take the bible as the inerrant word of a god are wrong since he believes it is a collection of myths and narratives. If these and other questions he was asked have been answered, mea culpa, but if not, it is lame and in bad taste to accuse me of not responding to you. And am certain many more can be found in the thread.

As to moderation, all comments that have more than one link will go to moderation. I had put his comments under moderation and changed that setting when he commented he would not mind writing a response as a guest post. In our last interaction which I mentioned in the thread he couldn’t stop himself from calling me names. It is my blog, and most of those who comment here are my friends. You are not going to either call them or me names and expect that we will not have a problem with it, that would be dreaming.