The Parable Paradox - Jesus Deliberately Misdirects

 

Maybe my first parable should be about your planning ahead next time...

        After reading the bible or hearing a sermon about Jesus, have you ever wondered why he spoke in so many parables rather than just speaking directly about matters that affected something as serious as an immortal soul and the life to come? You’d think he’d want to be as precise, unambiguous, and crystal clear on this issue as he could be. So why all the puffery, misdirection, and charades in the parables when it could have been so simple with a direct message?  

The Bible offers few clues as to why Jesus couldn’t plainly say what needed to be said. For starters, the bible is not exactly a good source for anything given its own dubious history. (Don’t bother asking Christians what it says in the very first, original bible. There isn’t one. The earliest complete bible dates only from the 600s and is reputedly in a vault beneath the Vatican. How do the faithful know what the first bible said?)  

So, are the stories in the bible recording times when Jesus was trying to entertain those who were listening, or did he have some other darker purpose in mind with his parable ploy?  

According to Mark:4 verses 11-12 “He (Jesus) said to them, unto you is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God, but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables. That seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear, and not understand lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.” 

That sounds like the function of Jesus’ parables was to confuse. He was speaking to his disciples, telling them THEY are given to know what God wants. If others listen in and try to divine the message, well, screw them. They may see and hear it, but they won’t perceive or understand it. Jesus wants them kept ignorant. They can’t be converted and forgiven their sins by direct message. They must filter it out through a multi-layered parable that was MEANT to confuse and ultimately damn them. And it’s THEIR fault if they fail. 

Apparently, Jesus didn’t want a large group of Christians gathered in Heaven when it was all over. He wanted to baffle the audience via the parable so most of them would end up in hell. The parable was Jesus’ misdirect into the everlasting fire, and he KNEW it was. Why would anyone worship such a monster? 

John 3:16 Corrected

       Jesus spoke in code or in riddles as sort of a “this is a wheat separated from chaff test” for his followers - to see if any could decipher them. If they couldn’t, well, Jesus literally didn’t give a damn if they failed. That was the whole point of the parables. They were an early manifestation of what satirist George Elliott wrote in his piece about Calvinists who claimed to be “the elect”: “We’re the Lord’s elected few, let all the rest be damned. There’s room enough in Hell for you. We don’t want Heaven crammed!”  

Would you have learned spelling, math or a foreign language if it was taught to you only via parable and it was up to you to discern the reality of those subjects? Would you have known where to turn for an answer? Would being given ambiguous information repeatedly have motivated you to seek greater answers?  

This is what the Bible teaches about Jesus and his reliance on parables. It is useless information. No one needs to follow such a deranged and bizarre cult as Christianity. 

Parables are fairy tales. They are stories meant to entertain little children. They have no place being presented as truth and the perfect repository of knowledge, information, and instruction. 

Insanity meets Insanity in the Orlando Sentinel

Insanity - The dictionary describes it as a relatively permanent disorder of the mind, state or condition of being insane; a defect of reason as a result of mental illness, such that according to the law, [the defendant] does not know what he or she is doing or that it is wrong.

Keep that in mind when you read the Opinion column in the Orlando Sentinel on February 9, 2016 written by Pat McFarland, a member of the Orlando Sentinel Advisory Board. Her letter is titled “Learn to Recognize Insanity and Face your Fears with Faith”. What she is suggesting is facing insanity with another form of insanity.

After listing several issues that reflect insanity on the part of the perpetrators…from the woman in Las Vegas who used her car to drive over and kill people on the city's sidewalk, more soldiers killed in Afghanistan, and Climate Change denial to a 12 year old being gunned down by Cleveland Ohio police, a retched wealthy teen who’s affluence blinded him to right from wrong as he killed four people, spending more to incarcerate people than educate them, and Donald Trump’s latest blathering…she goes completely off the track by then quoting from the bible as a stab at Trump. Quoting from a book that promotes genocide (you know...the flood, the destruction of the Amalekites and Midianites, etc.), slavery, talking serpents and donkeys, and a blood sacrifice as an effective method of salvation is not just wrong, it is delusional, a mental illness, and it defends a being who appears to not know right from wrong.

How could Ms.McFarland have such a firm grip on the baffling events (or as she calls them, the madhouse, where disordered minds exist…an insane asylum) happening around the world, and then quote from one of the most baffling and insane books ever written as a way to face down her fears over what all the insanity represents? She claims she is “helped by the bountiful love and compassion that God allows all of us to receive daily”. How does she know just WHERE that comes from?  She indicates it’s the same God whose “bountiful love” created a place called hell to send us to if we don’t love him back enough, a compassionate God who, according to the Genesis account of Noah and the flood, drowned virtually EVERY LIVING THING in the world…toddlers and babies, all the animals, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, even the plants. What did any or all of those do to offend God? Only an absolute lunatic with a complete defect in reasoning…the very definition of insanity…could do that. Yet, it's that very same vile monster that Ms. McFarland says is filled with “bountiful love” for us. By threatening us with hell? That’s what a terrorist does. Do as I say or I’ll throw you into a lake of fire and leave you there FOREVER! By allowing the torture, slaughter and supposed death of his son in order to forgive us for being exactly as He designed us? Why resort to this kind of insanity when he could just forgive us. Or, when Adam and Eve are in the garden, don’t put the tree you don’t want them to touch where they can find it? How hard would that have been, especially given God KNEW what was going to happen but allowed it anyway, knowing 99.99999999...% of all the people who ever existed will end up in hell? That sounds like someone with a permanent mental disorder. It’s insanity on a universal scale. And it can all be laid at the feet of the being Pat McFarland says we should call on in order to face our fears. That beast sounds like something to fear far more than the stupidly insane things people do every day on this planet.

The Big Difference

                What does the future hold? How does one's vision of the future impact the way they live their life? Beliefs influence how one reacts and how they interact with others. Belief systems seem to boil down to one of two types of world views.

                One system sees a better tomorrow with true human harmony being a reachable goal, even though it may still be distant today. It will be a time when people can, and will, work with each other and find a just, lasting, and symbiotic way to make life better for all who exist here. If we can cooperate in space, at the far reaches of the planet, in technology, health care, finances, and communication; then we can equally cooperate in human progress and in human understanding. We all have more in common than we have that differentiates us. There isn’t a short term solution. It will require a long term commitment on our part. However, we have proven that we have the capability, the reasoning, and the desire to make things better, for ourselves and for those around us. Wouldn’t it be nice if it turned out we’re all only separated by something like the six degrees of Kevin Bacon?

                The other belief dictates that mankind is naturally evil and sinful. In this country, the predominant belief system is christianity, but it could just as easily apply to islam or judaism. Those who follow the christian belief hope, pray, and work for the biblical Armageddon to happen in their lifetime. They believe Jesus will then come tearing out of the sky to save some of the remaining human beings who will live for a thousand years with Jesus in control of Earth. Finally, for reasons not very clear, the devil (a supernatural being who was thrown into a pit when Jesus came back) will be let loose to destroy things on Earth again. And then, everyone who ever lived on this planet will be tried by God where a vast majority of them will be judged unworthy of anything but damnation, and thrown in a lake of fire for all eternity.

                Does this sound like the design of an intelligent supernatural being that transcends time and space?  Yet, this is the love and mercy of the Christian god, according to their bible, and it is the core of the Christian belief. Defenders of Christianity will try to explain that god doesn’t send people to hell (or the lake of fire); they send themselves to hell (or the lake of fire). Really? Is it any different than this scenario?

The Robber says                                                                               God says

“Give me your money, or I’ll shoot you!”                                   “Worship me, or burn in hell forever!”

People have free will.                                                                    People have free will.                   

They can choose to obey the robber's                                       They can choose to obey God's
commands, or not.                                                                        commands, or not.

So Robbers do not kill people.                                                  So God does not send people to hell.

People choose to die by                                                               People send themselves there, by         
choosing to disobey the robber.                                                choosing to disobey god.
               

Would you excuse and pardon the robber for murdering his victim in this case?

            But the ultimate problem is this; the Christian sees a bleak future that requires a supernatural event to change it, but they don’t explain how or why it will happen as they claim, except to repeat passages from their bible, as if that clarifies everything. You just have to believe, you just have to have faith, you just have to worship their god and trust that he will make everything right.

                The offer to worship the Christian god is not a choice, it is an ultimatum. The whole idea is based on a threat. That’s what terrorists do. That’s what the recent christmas holiday represents; not the birth of a child, but the birth of a method to threaten you with unimaginable horror. In its most concise form, it is ‘Worship me or go to hell forever’ which is no different than pointing a loaded gun at your head and saying “Do as I say, or I’ll pull this trigger.”

                I choose to believe in a very different future for the human race. I do not, for example, believe we’re on auto-pilot destined for total destruction, nor do I believe a supernatural event will occur that will resolve, temporarily, the apparently ghastly conditions we humans have created on Earth. I am certain that humans, with all their flaws and faults, will continue to progress and build toward a better future. There will be set backs and miscues, but we are aiming in the right direction. As long as we don't get sidetracked by allowing religion, ANY religion, to divert our course, we will continue to lay down the building blocks that will lead to a much grander and more equitable future for us and our descendants.

  It’s time for the human race to rise above these two thousand year old superstitions, and throw off the fear, the belief in a forsaken future, and faith in an unseen, unknowable supernatural force. We no longer need to be scared of the 'monster under the bed', because it was never there to begin with; nor do we need magical, invisible friends whom we converse one-sidely with (in prayer). The bible was written as a means of controlling people. In it, we’re condemned as being inherently sinful by the very being that, it is claimed, authored the bible, and we owe that being our lives in perpetuity. Of course, the message of the bible is then touted as the only salvation available, again according to that supernatural being that supposedly authored it. When other religions try to use the same argument with their own holy book, do you believe their claims are true?

The future is far too important to leave to interpretations that are no different from reading Tarot cards, tea leaves, or the entrails of a slaughtered sheep. I choose the vision that does not treat human beings as unworthy and must ultimately be saved by an undefinable supernatural source. We are superior to that and our eventual growth away from religion will only make our lives and our future that much better. The day when humankind’s belief in the supernatural is just a quaint memory, and a footnote in a history book, can’t come soon enough.

Religion - the original sin.

Religion is the original sin. It is the sin of willful ignorance and credulity. Just as the fairy tale of the Garden of Eden relates, religion, as practiced across most of the United States, and in many countries around the world, makes a virtue of believing the ridiculous, and a sin of enjoying life.

Belief is the path of least resistant. Disbelief requires a much more concerted effort. It is easier to believe than to question and doubt. Believing means you just accept and follow. American historian James Harvey Robinson wisely wrote ‘Few of us take the pains to study the origins of our convictions; indeed, we have a natural repugnance to so doing. We like to continue to believe what we have been accustomed to accept as true, and the resentment aroused when doubt is cast upon any of our assumptions leads us to seek every manner of excuse for clinging to them. The result is that most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already have.’ And as the great Carl Sagan noted ‘You cannot convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it is based on a deep-seated need to believe.'

Why do people have a need to believe something without evidence? Most beliefs were instilled when they were toddlers and were too young to question. As the Jesuits are fond of saying ‘Give me the child for seven years and I will give you the man.’ What they mean is, it is accepted that a person’s belief system evolves within a child’s infancy and that a Jesuit upbringing would make the adult a confirmed holy zealot. Not to put too fine a point on it but that is religious indoctrination. If religion were true, it would not need to indoctrinate. Its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. If something is true and correct, why would it need to be hammered into the brains of defenseless children? Many who do this claim this is what god wants.

Believing in god is not a choice; it’s an ultimatum. You must believe in him or burn in hell forever. This is totalitarianism in its purest form. It’s using fear as its recruiting tool. Reaching your goals through fear is called terrorism.

Some ask ‘what is the harm in religion?’ Simple enough. It is because your belief guides your actions, and that’s what makes religion so dangerous. Faith or belief in an after-life is the single greatest cause of suffering and stupidity inflicted upon humans, by humans, for several reasons.

First, it allows religious leaders to control people by offering hope in the next life, promising rewards, threatening punishment, even sentencing eternal damnation. When a non-believer expresses their views, they are endorsing a position that there is no evidence for belief in any gods. But when a christian or a muslim expresses their view, they are endorsing a belief dictating that people who do not believe as they do deserve to spend an eternity being tortured with fire. Yet non-belief is the position that is considered 'offensive.' Why is it a sin not to believe without evidence when the greater sin is the credulity generated by religion itself? And please don't insist that 'it's not about religion, it's about a relationship with god'...that's the same as saying it's not about sex, it's about putting a penis in a vagina.

Secondly, it negates the immediacy and value of human life right here and now. Believing in life-after-death makes the assumption that people don't really die; they just go on to a spiritual life. This subconsciously legitimizes capital punishment and the death penalty, territorial wars, religious wars, turf wars, gang wars, terrorist attacks, ethnic cleansing, murder, suicide cults, political assassination. People aren't really dying; they're just continuing on in another stage of existence.

Third, it allows people to postpone action in this life (whether humane or humanitarian) in favor of the life yet to come, allowing for political and religious boundaries, derision and division, separatism and succession. Hence, we still have global hunger, border skirmishes, illiteracy, disease, poverty and pestilence, all because the problems of this world are ultimately deemed unimportant when measured against the life yet to come.

Fourth, it offers people hope for a solution to their problems at some future date and enables them to not make a conscious effort to make the necessary changes, or do the necessary work now. It allows them to postpone taking responsibility for their own lives or education (since god will enlighten them and fix everything once they get to heaven). It permits them to sit on their hands in ignorance and inertia while life passes them by.

And fifth, it legitimizes the use of persecution and torture in the name of saving souls for the after-life. This was the justification for the Inquisition. A 1578 handbook for inquisitors spelled out the purpose of inquisitorial penalties: "for punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit." The evils they would commit...means the inquisitors projected into the future what they thought would happen and tortured accordingly. This allowed them to make up whatever they wanted. In other words, the only purpose was to scare people into submission to the church and its teachings. It still is. Believe or be damned. Or more simply 'Turn or burn'!

Religion is the belief in ideas that are, by definition, unproven and without evidence. That is why it is called faith…and faith does not give you answers, it just stops your from asking questions. Faith is the firm belief in something for which no proof exists - you simply want it to be true. It is wishful thinking. The ability to perceive the existence of God does not infer the existence of God. Belief in something is not proof that it is real, it does not equal fact. Nothing is true or false just because we wish or desire it to be so. Most people understand this when confronting other religions and cults, just not their own.

The most disturbing thing about religion is that it is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of preaching hate, bigotry, ignorance, superstition and intolerance. Just witness the outcry against homosexuality. Certain people need to stop using Jesus and god as an excuse for being narrow-minded, bigoted jerks!

Personally, I choose to live by these words: Above all things, truth…Not belief, not faith, not religion, not god nor gods, not patriotism, not ideology, not hopes, not dreams, not reward, not comfort, but truth….for better or for worse, truth.

This post is a compilation of some of the best arguments against theism and religion I have come across. I have simply assembled them into what I think is a fitting tribute to their wisdom.

                                                                        Blinded by religion

A hell of a thing for graduation...forays into stupidity by Oklahoma school officials

When I first read it, I thought ‘they’ve got to be joking’! Because the word ‘hell’ was used in a graduation speech last May, an Oklahoma high school valedictorian has had her diploma held for ransom.

Kaitlin Nootbaar (above at her graduation),  who maintained a 4.0 GPA at Prague High School was told by school officials that because she used the word ‘hell’ in her speech, she would not receive the diploma until she wrote an apology. Who this was supposed to assuage, they didn’t say. Nor does it appear anyone was offended by her remark. So whose feathers got ruffled and how will this make amends?

In her remarks to the assembly, which had been inspired by a comparable speech from "Eclipse: The Twilight Saga", Ms. Nootbaar described how annoying it was to be constantly asked what she wants to do after graduation. She then responded "How the hell do I know? I've changed my mind so many times."

In the version she submitted to the school for approval, "hell" was "heck." But at graduation, "hell" was the word that came out. And now, the school valedictorian is being chastised by school officials for simply stating how she felt.

What the hell?

Why was it so offensive, especially in the context with which she used it? Did she offend God by simply stating she didn’t know what ‘the hell’ she would do after graduation? Is saying hell considered blasphemous? Did a large segment of the audience gasp and walk out, or try to shout her down? Do you, the reader, feel offended, distressed and, maybe a little less faithful because she used a common word to indicate being a teen who is perplexed due to no clear picture of her future? How can people in the 21^st century be so narrow-minded, easily offended, and ignorant?

Naturally the school declined to comment on the matter, Prague schools Superintendent Rick Martin stating it was “confidential and we cannot publicly say anything about it,"  in a release to TV station KFOR.

For Rick Martin, I have this to ask, ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’