It is Easter

And it would be a disservice if we didn’t have something to read during the lockdown. To ensure we are intellectualy engaged, I encourage you to read this short play by Mangasarian. I first posted in 2013 and I don’t think it’s beauty has diminished.

The second is an Easter Homily on the empty tomb. I hope you find both worth your while.

Happy Easter and Happy Holidays everyone. Stay safe.

if we admit

that all that happens is god’s doing, i see no reason why anyone should be punished for doing what god has made them do. Jeff Bohlender in the liked post has written and I quote

God makes us what we are, places us where we are, and operates our operating, even if it still seems to us that we’re “doing” things. Growth in our experience happens when God brings us into conscious enjoyment of Him as the Source and Operator of all existence, of which we all are a part. Growth in faith comes through hearing and believing God, Who gives ears to hear and belief in the heart.

which i think is consistent with omnibenevolence as nothing would stop a god from achieving it ends, ie omnipotence and the said god would know all outcomes- omniscience-. Are religious people ready to accept the conclusions that must be drawn from the premise that everything that happens is god’s will?

This is a case of bad journalism

When these two insist the Country has gone to the dogs because the church, which apparently is the custodian of morality, is sleeping on the job. Can you imagine that! The population census show that the country has a religious population of more than 98%. Are they just nominally religious? I thought it is the people that make the church?

God is using Coronavirus to purge sin

so says this American pastor Rick Wiles.

How to know you are in a cult.

For those of you who read news, you might have heard or read about a serious locust invasion in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia. The last time such a thing occurred in such magnitude was 70 years ago and as I told Modarnicus, those in higher echelons of power have just been talking. For example, here is the former cabinet secretary for agriculture telling Kenyans to take photos for verification.

With that introduction, we come to the juicy part of this post and it is supplied by Cedric who tweeted thus

https://twitter.com/CedricAnami/status/1221861212692021248?s=20

and I wonder how he buttons his shirts! He is telling other sheep to worship not the imaginary god, but the mighty profit of the imaginary god. I think I should move to another country.

I hope to all that is unholy that this is satire.

 

God wants unity in the church

But draws the line at homosexuality or rather on sex. In short, god is concerned more with sex than with economic justice, environmental protections or even racial problems. Just sex.

Lisa writes

Not every issue Christians disagree about is black and white. There are shades of grey and room for differences of opinion concerning some issues (eschatology, politics, Calvinism, Arminianism, expressions of worship, etc.). However, sexuality, homosexuality and the number of genders that exist are settled issues. The Bible clearly teaches homosexuality is a sin. Moreover, God made humans in His image, male and female, only, period. (Genesis 1:27, Leviticus 20:13,1^st Timothy 1:9-11, 1^st Corinthians 6:9).

so go be a good Christian and don’t open a discussion on sexuality.

In thus spoke Zarathustra

Nietzsche is very playful. I think he must have laughed as he wrote the very playful sections of that book.

Take for instance the part where Zarathustra says laughter killed the gods when one of them said there’s no gods but god.

In part four in conversation with the retired pope, Zarathustra says pity for man killed god, that is, god could not stand the man on the cross and died out of pity. In the same place he says

He was a concealed god, addicted to secrecy. Verily, even a son he got himself in a sneaky way. At the door of his faith stands adultery.

Elsewhere he writes about god this

When he was young, this god out of the Orient, he was harsh and vengeful and he built himself a hell to amuse his favorites. Eventually, however, he became old and soft and mellow and pitying, more like a grandfather, but most like a shaky grandmother. Then he sat in his nook by the hearth, wilted, grieving over his weak legs, weary of the world, and one day he choked on his all too great pity.

And finally on love( especially the way Christians and religious people don’t tire to tell us god is love, Zarathustra says

Whoever praises him as a god of love does not have a high enough opinion of love itself. Did this god not want to be a judge too? But the lover loves beyond reward and retribution.

Have yourselves a humorous day, won’t you!

On Christianity

When we hear the ancient bells growling on a Sunday morning we ask ourselves: is it really possible! this for a Jew, crucified 2000 y.a, who said he was God’s son. The proof of such a claim is lacking. Certainly the Christian religion is an antiquity projected into our times from remote prehistory; and the fact that the claim is believed- whereas one is otherwise so strict in examining pretensions- is perhaps the most ancient piece of this heritage. A god who begets children with a mortal woman; a sage who bids men work no more, have no more courts, but look for the signs of the impending end of the world; a justice that accepts the innocent as a vicarious sacrifice; someone who orders his disciples to drink his blood; prayers for miraculous interventions; sins perpetrated against a god, atoned for by a god; fear of a beyond to which death is the portal; the form of the cross as a symbol in a time that no longer knows the ignominy of the cross- how ghoulishly all this touches us, as from the tomb of the primeval past! Can one believe that such things are still believed?

Nietzsche.

On suffering

Mother Teresa while living the high life encouraged the sick in Calcutta to suffer with Jesus or god whatever the case maybe arguing in the process that suffering has redemptive value.

If this argument is taken to its logical conclusion, we should be expected to increase the suffering of those already suffering so that their redemption should be greater. It would, by this logic, be cruel to attempt to reduce the suffering of a neighbour or anyone for that matter.

Question then is, why is this not happening? Is it the case that people don’t think suffering is redemptive or they are afraid to see it to its very logical ends?

Enquiring minds want to know.

i thought were a tolerable lot

But may be not so as revealed in this article. But in defense of my brothers, this problem seem to me to be one caused by those who belong to the peaceful religion.