Searching for God, Oh! Part 2

The rabbit that is pulled out of the hat the most often is the magic of "free will." 20 school children are shot and God is silent. Why? People had free will. It's the excuse for every occasion that cannot be explained when God should have intervened but was silent. Interestingly, in the Bible, God gave free will way back in the story of Adam and Eve, yet tells Abraham years later to kill his son, manages wars and even participates on the ground in one, and comes down from the heavens very close to Moses and friends. He seemed to violate the free will argument right from the start, yet, now that we look for evidence of God, there is only toast.

Searching for God, Oh! Part 1

I have been asked so many times "Did someone hurt you and that's why you shy away from the Church?" And I have been told that I must be "searching, yearning, lost, depressed, angry . . . " It occurs to me that it is necessary to the Fundamentalist Christian storyline that I have some "need"; so that it can be fixed by becoming a Christian. I must be needy and broken in order to be saved. They try very hard to bring down happy people. Have a great and happy day everyone!

Kapparot Could Be Changed - By Using Change - Instead of Chickens

In the next few days, streets in upstate New York will be filled with dying chickens, as many of the non-inquisitive Jewish people will purchase a chicken, pick the chicken up in the manner shown below – by pinching its wings together - and swing the terrified chicken around their heads 3 times in order to absorb their sins. The reason I say non-inquisitive is because nowhere in the Torah or Talmud does it mention this practice. Now that the person is totally sinless and the chicken is filled with sin, it will be chopped up in front of the family to then given to the poor. A few rabbis are requesting better treatment of the chickens as in the article below. How will that be enforced? Better treatment means not breeding them for the Kapparot in the first place. Why not swing money in a kerchief instead? Seriously, look at picture– how is this good treatment of chickens? http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Mistreating-a-chicken-during-kapparot-would-be-a-mitzvah-through-a-sin-says-Lau-325104

Comparing and Combining Pagan and Christian Floors (or How I Amuse Myself on Saturday Instead of Vacuuming)

According to the Mesopotamians, the floors of Heaven each are constructed from a different stone. If you read the Bible at Exodus 24:9-10, the God of Israel is standing on a floor but not where he can be touched by Moses and others who climbed a mountain to be near him. In fact, the God of Israel is standing on a blue sapphire brick floor. This is repeated in Ezekiel 1:26-28 and Ezekiel 10:1. Could the blue sapphire floor be a lower level of Heaven? There are other gods, Anu and Igigi who are on stone floors of the upper and middle Heavens. The goddess Inanna (1500 B.C.) traveled through seven gates to get to the Underworld from Heaven (all above the earth, never touching the earth), so there is further evidence for layers of Heaven. The once huge and powerful Mesopotamian god Marduk (circa 3,000 B.C. -1,000 B.C.) may share the same floor with the God of Israel, because it is written that Marduk’s blue stone floor is visible when we look up and see the blue sky. Anyway, the floors are very good news for those going to Heaven, because you will have something more solid to stand on than clouds. It only makes sense that it would take something solid like a stone floor to support those heavy pearly gates; clouds do not seem like they would hold much weight. Most Bible versions, such as the King James version, call the floors Sapphire, but the New International Version calls the floors Lapis-Lazuli. What? Which is correct? I thought the Bible was the inspired word of God. Did God have his floors recently remodeled with Lapis Lazuli, or is this a mistake? It turns out that the stone used the most in ancient times (although both were present) was Lapis Lazuli, and many people in ancient times mistakenly called the Lapis Lazuli stone by the name of the gem, Sapphire. You would think God would have corrected the people and said, “I know you all call this rock on my brick floor Sapphire, but it is actually Lapis Lazuli.” You see, we have two very different substances here: Sapphires are made of corundum and the blue color comes from a bit of titanium and iron in it. Lapis Lazuli is a rock made of Lazurite, a silicate mineral, with sodalite lending blue color; and which often occurs as a result of contact metamorphism around intrusive igneous rocks. Oh, my, metamorphism and igneous words, they sound old, don’t they? We must ignore such talk if we are to believe the Bible literally. So, we will just say that the rock floors should be called Lapis Lazuli in the Bible, and that Heaven most likely has many floors of stone. *Some Foundation for these Heavenly Floor Notes came from Horowitz, Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography.

Jesus - Use Your Words!

How often have you heard a mother scold a tyke in the grocery store, pleading, “Use your words! You aren’t using your words!” Inadequate verbal expression seems to be a general failure of most societies, even within the most influential groups. It is dismaying that politicians send young men and women into battle because they call other countries “enemies,” or are not good enough with words to have peaceful and fruitful discussions. Worse yet is a Savior who could not convince all people that he was a Savior by his words, and had to perform tiny miracles (that had already been enacted by others and those original miracles happened to be written in Kings of the Septuagint by the time the authors of the New Testament were writing their stories). Anyway, the miracles still were not impressive enough for world-wide conversion to the new philosophy, soon to be religion called Christianity. Jesus was not given the gift of gab; sometimes sullen, sometimes condescending, often like a spoiled brat when dealing with his mother, and quite humorless; so he decided (or it was pre-decided) that he off himself by getting crucified, with a secondary purpose that it would be the ultimate sacrifice so that God would need no more blood from animals. Of course, animal sacrifice continued for some time after that and continues to this day in some other cultures, so once again, Jesus failed. Even with the “ultimate sacrifice,” 2000 years after Jesus supposedly died only 1/3 of the world is Christian and those numbers are decreasing. Jesus could have stayed alive and walked around his entire life, influencing people, but he did not choose to “use his words,” which is one of the first lessons we teach preschool aged children. Instead, Jesus believed a bloody violent killing/suicide was the way to be the best role model he could be. (I'm having a bit of trouble with my old computer and had to put this into HTML version.)

How Little Yaw Became Yahweh

If you enjoy puzzling parts of the Bible, check out Isaiah 27:1 which shows God, who has traveled down to earth to slay a sea monster.  God makes sure he kills only the female, because there were supposed to be two sea monsters, male and female, and he didn’t want a baby sea monster, so he killed the female and first cut her in two and then chopped her up to feed to the Jewish men in the wilderness. (In some parts of the Bible God gives the pieces to animals, in other explanations he gives the pieces to the wandering people.  I always wonder about the men perpetually wandering in the wilderness in the Bible.)  

Anyway, God kills the sea monster, but why?  What was it doing that was so bad?  Eating fish?  Mermaids?  An occasional fisherman who falls overboard? Where was this sea monster?  I hope not on the Sea of Galilee because that is really a lake, not deserving of all the wild sea tales.   People did believe a sea monster caused waves and there are people in the present who believe that one sea monster can cause an entire tsunami.  I just wonder why God didn’t leave the sea monster for humans to kill as he left everything else for humans to take care of all these years? 

Since God had just created the entire Cosmos with billions of stars and galaxies and black holes and all the cool stuff, slaying a sea monster is an unnecessary show of power.  But Baal , the Egyptian God slayed a sea monster in 1400 B.C., and Marduk, the Mesopotamian God also killed a sea monster, so it makes sense Yahweh would kill one too.  Whatever happened to Marduk the God anyway?  Never heard of him!  Here is his myth:  the storm god Marduk defeats the sea monster Tiamat and creates the earth and sky by cleaving her corpse in two. Sound familiar to the biblical passage about Yahweh’s military might? “Was it not you who split Rahab in half, who pierced the dragon through?”

Previous to that time, Baal, some other gods, and earlier forms of Yahweh (Yahwi and Yaw, names for a storm and river god) were part of the group of gods believed in by the polythestic people of that time.  The language of “twisting sea monster” that is in the Bible in Isaiah 27:1 is taken from the Baal tale - Canaanite texts, in which Baal defeats a dragon-like monster named Lotan: “You will crush Leviathan the fleeing serpent; you will consume the twisting serpent, the mighty one with seven heads.”

Other serpent tales:  In 3000 B.C. in Sumerian iconography depicting the myth of the god Ninurta overcoming the seven headed serpent; inUgaritic texts Lotan is given the epithets "wriggling serpent" and "mighty one with the seven heads."

God really became popular and blossomed when ancient tablets with pictures gave way to progress, and writing supplies such as paper-like materials and ink filled pages with alphabetical letters.  Then, for some reason, Yahweh really spoke to people.

Verbal Attacks on Vegans

A Facebook friend seems to have a great problem with people being vegan.  Anyone else can post medical articles supporting their particular problems, or diets they like, in response to the threads started by this FB friend.  But her threads are a ploy to get an argument going when a vegan posts a suggestion, and she responds with a vengeance, stating that “you have no business telling others what to eat.  “Eating is personal, and I will not be told on my page what to eat.”  When a vegan posts about how most Americans eat way too much fat and protein, and Americans’ health is horrible compared to other countries with our obesity levels skyrocketing, she always counters with, “There is no typical American diet” and then talks about “hungry children” in America.  Speaking about hungry children does not discount the obesity problem, but she likes to end her thread with a lecture, a mention about hunger and virtual applause from her meat-eating fans.

Hunger is one of her issues, and I also agree it is of utmost importance, but I pointed out that people can help animals by cutting down on meat and dairy, and while those people are snacking, they can be online, helping solve world hunger or any other issue.  It is never a “humans against animals” choice of which to help.  Both can be helped. 

My words thus far have fallen on deaf ears and also on ears of people who love to call names and taunt the vegan.  So far I have been called “Holier than thou” (on an atheist site) and “smarmy.”  I am always careful with my choice of words and do not tell people how they must eat – I usually say that I find an article credible and try to explain that because most people are not familiar with a very low fat, vegan diet and its health benefits, I think the article could be enjoyable for them to read.  The responses to my carefully worded statements are always hateful, and my article not appreciated at all (and usually not read).  

I cannot figure out how to get people to realize that even poor American children speak our language and stand a chance at being able to say to someone, “I am hungry.”  Adults can ask for help.  Animals are hidden away and are the true slaves of our era; abused, no, downright tortured for the entire short lives, and then painfully killed.  They are locked away so that they can be more easily hidden from our thoughts; a shameful practice of a “civilized society.” 

Yet people think that I have no right to suggest that our world needs to change.  They shout (as loud as a person can shout while typing) that they have the right to eat whatever they want, and that those nasty vegans always moralize: as if that is a bad thing to talk about making moral choices.  I just do not understand the hatred, especially from atheists, who criticize Christians for closing their ears and eyes to reality. 

I realize I am going against what people like and love, eating what they were raised with and what gives them comfort, happiness and pleasure.  Vegan foods also give the same feelings and one more feeling can be added:  pride.

I do not have a tidy ending to this blog post, but am just writing so that the next time I am drawn into a conversation, I will have a clear idea of what barriers I have, so perhaps I can find a way to explain better or break through barriers; and find a way for meat eaters to work with vegans (by eating even a little less meat and dairy) in order to make a collective effort – enough to shut down the factory farms.