Sure there is the standard response, but the people of the world do not care for "standard responses" but want a reason in light of the troubles in the world today as to how it relates to their lives in the 21st century.
Armstrongism has always been attracted to the god of violence over the God of grace. It seems like the church has always been attracted to a god that metes of violence and punishment for all that disagree with them. In fact many COG leaders [Meredith, Flurry, Pack, Weinland] want to see the world suffer, by having the world suffer proves them to be right. The want to see "pagan" Christians tortured and killed, they want to see their enemies punished severely. Just look at Malm's tirades against "love."
What Dennis has written is something to think about and perhaps kick start your thinking about what kind of God you believe in - if you do.
Schizo-God?
The Jesus of the New Testament loves little children and reminds the adults in his crowds that unless they become like little children, they shall never see the Kingdom of God. In the New Testament, Jesus blesses little children and chides the adults who try to run interference between him and them. Jesus even raises children from the dead in compassion for them and their grieving parents.In Church I learned to sing, "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world."
I also learned to sing that "Jesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong. They are weak but he is strong."
I also learned, over the years, that we were only talking about the Jesus of the New Testament, minus the Book of Revelation and a few other rather threatening comments by Apostles in the name of Jesus, towards humans contained in various books of the New Testament. Since most Christian churches teach that Jesus is God and "the God of the Old Testament," we do have wonder what brought about Jesus' own repentance over the hideous things that He, as God in the Old Testament, is recorded to have done.
The New Testament clearly teaches that Jesus, somehow, is considered to have been God in eternal reality before he was Jesus in the flesh.
John 8:56 "Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he
saw it and was glad."
57 "You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, "and you
have seen Abraham!"
58 "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I
am!"
1 Corinthians 8:6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things
came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom all things came and through whom we live.
Philippians 2:5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God
something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being
made in human likeness.
Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all
creation.
16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were
created by him and for him.
17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
These are among a few of the New Testament scriptures that equate the man Jesus of the New Testament with being God of the Old, Creator and Sustainer of all things from the beginning. So by default, this would be both the Jesus who first killed with abandon "all the little children of the world" who got in Israel's way, including the women, unborn babies and animals on most occasions, and the Jesus of the New Testament who simply loved all the little children of the world, red and yellow, black and white. They are precious in his sight." Truly a God in the flesh that had changed a lot.
The Jesus of the Book of Revelation goes back to his people killing ways. The Jesus of Revelation wipes out whole swaths of humanity who get in his way and the in the way of his chosen ones. He drips in blood and loves to have it so. Run children run!!! A familiar Old Testament theme. Why does God or Jesus never hold seminars on their existence and plan for humans that we can all attend without all the drama and slaughter to get us all to obey? Oh well, I'm not God, that's for sure. There is a way that seems right to me, but my ways don't count.
Some would argue that Jesus was God the Son, the second part of a three God Trinity, that is really only one God and that God the Father God was responsible for this slaughter. It is one God in three aspects, which is hooey but the New Testament Jesus would never have understood it either. If Jesus was the Lord of the Old Testament, he certainly has morphed into a nice guy since then. The God of the Old Testament was one cruel man, woman, child, suckling and animal killing freak. The Sabbath School song of the God of the Old Testament would have been, "Jesus hates the little children, all the children of the world. If they ain't from Israel, He will send them all to hell. Hacking-whacking all the children of the world," instead of the Sunday School one we know so well evidently.
Let's take a look at how Jesus , as God the Son perhaps, treated all the children of the world back in the Old Testament
Jericho is destroyed by Jesus as God:
Let's take a look at how Jesus , as God the Son perhaps, treated all the children of the world back in the Old Testament
Jericho is destroyed by Jesus as God:
Joshua 6:20,21
Way to go! Jericho was a real estate need that the Israelites had and young men and maidens, old men and children, and let's throw in the animals too, had to go. Butchered all. Jesus loves the little children! Let's keep looking.20 "So the people shouted, and the trumpets were blown. As soon as the
people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people raised a great shout,
and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city,
every man straight before him, and they took the city.
21 Then they utterly destroyed ALL in the city, both men and women,
young and old, oxen, sheep, and asses"
The Kingdom of Sihon destroyed by Jesus as God.
So here we have Jesus as God killing all the humans but now allowing the sparing of the cattle for booty. This topic of booty is going to get even better as Israelite men become discouraged over killing everything in site, including the babes. It seems the rules of engagement changed as the women got better looking, but the children always got the axe.Deuteronomy 2: 33-3533 "And the LORD our God gave him over to us; and we defeated him and
his sons and all his people.
34 And we captured all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed
every city, men, women, and children; we left none remaining;
35 only the cattle we took as spoil for ourselves, with the booty of
the cities which we captured."
Now it gets better.
Deuteronomy 20: 10-17Here's a deal that Jesus God of the Old Testament offers during war. Surrender and you can be our slaves and do forced hard labor for us forever. If you don't surrender, then all the men get the axe, but new rules for women and children. Now the children go into forced labor, no doubt and the women get kept to enjoy! Shake your booty!! The rules are a changin!
10 "When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of
peace to it.
11 And if its answer to you is peace and it opens to you, then all the
people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall
serve you.
12 But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then
you shall besiege it.
13 And when the LORD your God gives it into your hand you shall put all
its males to the sword,
14 but the women and the little ones, the cattle, and everything else
in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourselves; and
you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has
given you."
Numbers 31:14-1814 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains
over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of
Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and
there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.
17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every
woman that hath known man by lying with him.
18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with
him, keep alive for yourselves.
We have to assume here that Moses is speaking for Jesus and passing on the ways of God to the men of Israel. He's a bit ticked that he's caught the men not killing all the women as instructed and so Moses says, with Jesus, Lover of little children's permission, to kill all the "little ones," and the non-virgin women. How one figures this out I guess we don't even want to know. At any rate, good news! The guys can keep the virgins for themselves as sex partners! Yeah Jesus, lover of all the children of the world! With grateful hearts, no doubt, they can now kill and have great sex with the booty. We have to assume the term "women children" means little virgin girls. Ewwww... Oh well, these are Jesus God of the Old Testament's rules of how we "suffer the little the children to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of heaven," at this time in history, so NO arguing.
It seems that the God of the Old Testament, Jesus before his incarnation was not so much against abortion as long as the fetus had actually been born first and started life as someone's dear child. There are scriptures of commands to kill women with child, but I spare you. I don't think there was any discussion in these times as to when life began. It was all about when and how to end it if it got in the way of the progress of God's chosen people.
Even in the New Testament, where Mary, mother of baby Jesus is told to flee before Herod kills all the children under two years old, she just leaves town with Jesus saying nothing! Do these people not know how to warn their neighbors! Did Mary saunter out of town with baby Jesus singing, "I know something you don't know..Have a nice last Sabbath." I guess only your own Bible babies are important and others can just go fish.
Not very pleasant stuff. Somewhere along the line, Jesus changed from a killer without conscience to a lover of little children, commanding his disciples to " forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Perhaps the story of Jesus coming to John the Baptist for baptism unto repentance has meaning after all.
Christians puzzle over this as the perfect Jesus of the New Testament would never need to repent of anything to be baptized of John. So as the texts evolve, we see that it finally ends up that Jesus was not really baptized for his sins unto repentance but merely did it for our example of what WE should do. I never killed thousands however. From Mark to John, one can see the evolution of the text and how this embarrassment of anyone thinking that Jesus had to repent of anything and be baptized for his sins was dealt with.
But maybe Jesus knew (I don't personally believe he thought he was God in the Flesh) something about his own past? Perhaps being the merciless infant, child and woman killer as God of the Old Testament, got to him after all. Of course, I am being a bit theologically off here and a bit tongue in cheek, but maybe Jesus as God did feel a need to repent so as to be able to explain the change in his past behaviors. There is no record of anyone in the early church asking him or the Apostles about this change from killer God to Jesus loves all the children of the world God. Perhaps he said, "ask me that again and I'll kill ya." End of discussion.
This Jesus God of the Old Testament might explain a few things that seem pretty common in our modern era. Killing old men, women and children has not changed much in the land of the Israelites. I think the armies that once got to keep the booty still get to feel women and children are fair game when it comes to killing what gets in the way of their progress and real estate needs. In the same way, Christians with certain leanings seem to forget the Jesus of the New Testament Gospels and revert to the Jesus of the Old or at best the Jesus of the Book of Revelation to conquer in his name, those pagans who get in their "Go ye therefore into all the world" way. So there is a God for every taste and need it seems yet today.
Actually it's pretty darn difficult to explain why the Bible is the "best book ever written," when in fact it is one of the most violent, repulsive, clannish, cultish and bloody books ever written. The rules of engagement never favored the innocent and certainly not the non-Israelite, and we would have to admit that if indeed the Jesus of the New Testament was the "God of the Old Testament" before he came on the human scene, he has changed a lot in the text and in his behaviors. Perhaps endless war and killing does that to a God.
It seems that the God of the Old Testament, Jesus before his incarnation was not so much against abortion as long as the fetus had actually been born first and started life as someone's dear child. There are scriptures of commands to kill women with child, but I spare you. I don't think there was any discussion in these times as to when life began. It was all about when and how to end it if it got in the way of the progress of God's chosen people.
Even in the New Testament, where Mary, mother of baby Jesus is told to flee before Herod kills all the children under two years old, she just leaves town with Jesus saying nothing! Do these people not know how to warn their neighbors! Did Mary saunter out of town with baby Jesus singing, "I know something you don't know..Have a nice last Sabbath." I guess only your own Bible babies are important and others can just go fish.
Not very pleasant stuff. Somewhere along the line, Jesus changed from a killer without conscience to a lover of little children, commanding his disciples to " forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Perhaps the story of Jesus coming to John the Baptist for baptism unto repentance has meaning after all.
Christians puzzle over this as the perfect Jesus of the New Testament would never need to repent of anything to be baptized of John. So as the texts evolve, we see that it finally ends up that Jesus was not really baptized for his sins unto repentance but merely did it for our example of what WE should do. I never killed thousands however. From Mark to John, one can see the evolution of the text and how this embarrassment of anyone thinking that Jesus had to repent of anything and be baptized for his sins was dealt with.
But maybe Jesus knew (I don't personally believe he thought he was God in the Flesh) something about his own past? Perhaps being the merciless infant, child and woman killer as God of the Old Testament, got to him after all. Of course, I am being a bit theologically off here and a bit tongue in cheek, but maybe Jesus as God did feel a need to repent so as to be able to explain the change in his past behaviors. There is no record of anyone in the early church asking him or the Apostles about this change from killer God to Jesus loves all the children of the world God. Perhaps he said, "ask me that again and I'll kill ya." End of discussion.
This Jesus God of the Old Testament might explain a few things that seem pretty common in our modern era. Killing old men, women and children has not changed much in the land of the Israelites. I think the armies that once got to keep the booty still get to feel women and children are fair game when it comes to killing what gets in the way of their progress and real estate needs. In the same way, Christians with certain leanings seem to forget the Jesus of the New Testament Gospels and revert to the Jesus of the Old or at best the Jesus of the Book of Revelation to conquer in his name, those pagans who get in their "Go ye therefore into all the world" way. So there is a God for every taste and need it seems yet today.
Actually it's pretty darn difficult to explain why the Bible is the "best book ever written," when in fact it is one of the most violent, repulsive, clannish, cultish and bloody books ever written. The rules of engagement never favored the innocent and certainly not the non-Israelite, and we would have to admit that if indeed the Jesus of the New Testament was the "God of the Old Testament" before he came on the human scene, he has changed a lot in the text and in his behaviors. Perhaps endless war and killing does that to a God.
Be nice if it did this to humans.
Dennis, you have depicted the dilemma so vividly and very accurately.
ReplyDeleteThese differences you've pointed out so expertly between the personalities of these two beings is the main major reason why I had no choice but to look outside of the Bible for important beliefs regarding the Christian or most all organized religion with which I am familiar. This just cannot be true!
Still within Christianity, I believe, there is at least one other option to the idea that Christ was/is the God of the OT.
One version taught by some churches is that Christ was/is "The Great Angel" being one of the many son's of God (angels). Supposedly he was selected by God from among all the other son's of God to be elevated to this high position (The Great Angel, Angel of the Host, etc.) as per Heb. 1:8&9 plus Phil. 2:5-9, and is sometimes thought to be the angel, Michael. All of this happening early on before the creation of the physical earth and humanity.
Beyond the many excellent examples you've already listed, The Great Angel had many responsibilities often involving punishment. One such occasion would have been to slay all of the first born in Egypt where the household had failed to place the blood of a lamb on the doorpost on that first Passover night. There are many additional instances where this angel does not act anything like the Christ who appears in the NT after allowing himself to be "emptied" and then to be born as a human baby, and on and on with this 2nd kinder personality.
But even this version is not very helpful. It only gives God The Father some distance from the violence.
Then some believe that Christ never existed until his human birth - radical unitarianism, I believe it's called.
At this point, I am considering that this world was created by a being known as the Demiurge as depicted in Sethian and other Gnosticisms. I must admit that I haven't gotten far enough along in this study to form any firm convictions. There is a wide range of possibilities once we move to extra-Biblical literature. I've added a general definition below from Wikipedia.org.
Just a possibility, which doesn't sound nearly so diabolical as what we've been told.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge
The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics. Although a fashioner, the demiurge is not quite the creator figure in the familiar monotheistic sense;[dubious – discuss] both the demiurge itself and the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are considered either uncreated and eternal, or the product of some other being, depending on the system.
The word demiurge is an English word from a Latinized form of the Greek δημιουργός, dēmiourgos, literally "public worker", and which was originally a common noun meaning "craftsman" or "artisan", but gradually it came to mean "producer" and eventually "creator". The philosophical usage and the proper noun derives from Plato's Timaeus, written circa 360 BC, in which the demiurge is presented as the creator of the universe. This is accordingly the definition of the demiurge in the Platonic (ca. 310 BC-90 BC) and Middle Platonic (ca. 90 BC-300 AD) philosophical traditions. In the various branches of the Neoplatonic school (third century onwards), the demiurge is the fashioner of the real, perceptible world, and of the Ideas, but (in most neoplatonic systems) is still not itself "the One". In the arch-dualist ideology of the various Gnostic systems, the material universe is evil while the non-material world is good. Accordingly, the demiurge is malevolent.
Fantastic article Dennis!
ReplyDelete"Actually it's pretty darn difficult to explain why the Bible is the "best book ever written," when in fact it is one of the most violent, repulsive, clannish, cultish and bloody books ever written.
Truer words were never spoken!
Reality: I don't know how to comment on what might be or how a Jesus could be a god or an Angel.
ReplyDeleteIf we step back and realize everything we have about all this is written in books by men we don't know, we never met and can't possibly know their real motives, where they got their ideas from or even their mental state.
I have pointed out in other places that if we examine one such as Ezekiel and his behaviours, in our time we can easily come up with the diagnosis of schizophrenic.
Even the Apostle Paul shows classic signs of either schizophrenia or temporal lobe epiliepsy if the accounts are to be believed. Voices in the head taunting and challenging plus the bright lights that no one else sees or the voice no one else hears are classic signs and symptoms.
Occaams Razor tells us that the most simple answer is usually the correct one. Rather than wade through painful hebrew words, stories, ideas and mythologies, it would state that such men had mental illnesses we recognize today.
One at least understanding the signs and symptoms as well as duration and outcome of an epileptic seizure could dazzle a crowd by commanding it to stop and for the person to return from such painful contractions, clenching and such, which occurs in about 20 minutes. Bingo...demon caster outer.
To be frank, I do not know who or what Jesus was or is. I was not there and all I have is a 3000 year old story and a 1800 year old book that is a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy o...f a.....c....oooo....py. I have no idea what was actually originally said and no one else does either. I really have no idea what really happened even more since the story is written by the winners, or at least the priests and wanna be's who got to have their say.
I'm personally not sure some of the key OT players even existed. I doubt the reality of the first 11 chapters of Genesis big time and see no evidence in reality for the story of the Exodus as stated.
I don't know who or what Jesus really was. I can't prove to myself that he rose from the dead as a God when that is such a common mythology of the day and of course I was not there. I simply can't tell myself "that's because it's by faith." I don't think like that. Faith , I have found, is what one fills in with until the facts present themselves.
I am not trying to be a smart ass. I am not endeavoring to be a scoffer. I simply don't function well reading a very old copy of a copy and saying , "this is how all of life is and I better believe it or burn forever in hell, or get annilated, whatever.
At times, I feel more sincere in still wanting to know the truth than those who spend their lives locked in a very small box claiming already to have found it...send it in...
Dennis,
ReplyDeleteI'm in total agreement with you.
As you brought out, we know of a fact that the Bible text has been interpolated, redacted and translated ad nauseam. This fact alone should have been enough to cause me to place that 'good book' out of consideration long, long ago in the search for true words from God.
Wow! I never even thought about how easy the casting out of demons could work with epilepsy. You are so right - since the attack lasts for a brief period of time, the exorcist would appear to have had success.
Good job, Dennis. I really can't add anything to what you've presented -- so well.
ReplyDeleteGood comments too.
What is consistently head-shakeable about these "'God' is too human to really be 'God'," pieces is that the author doesn't try to see things from the Creator's perspective.
ReplyDeleteIf you are a father with a grown or nearly grown son, you know how frustrating it can be trying to bring him to responsible manhood.
You know this kid through and through, and even though you know he is probably going to screw up, you still give him the chance (over and over?). Nevertheless, hope against hope, you also prepare for the contingency of yet another 'failure to learn' from the last mistake, to lessen his fall.
Then he falls, and you are not surprised, yet you are still angry that you were right again and he screwed up again, just like you knew he would.
When you get angry, perhaps surprising yourself, you are still amazed that you KNEW what he would do as you struggle to CHANGE his perception so he can succeed. And you are only a human being with such insight into your own flesh-and-blood, made in your image.
Is it any different with Our Creator? We're His sons, made in His image, after His likeness, designed by Him, every thought pattern known by Him.
Of course He knows what we will do, just like you did your son. He gives you chance after chance and you mess up most often, just like you did your son, and when you mess up, guess what - He gets angry that you didn't follow His instructions, just as you did your son.
Give the Creator a break, you self-idolizing hypocrites!
He is Elohim, but He has a spiritual, compassionate heart which feels everything which our stony hearts can only lightly sample under the right circumstances.
You can make every humanly reasonable argument in the world to show that the Creator is not the way you think a creator should be (proud and arrogant mortal, aren't we all?).
Why not give it the benefit of the doubt and figure that He knows what He is doing and that you really don't. Then you will be fractionally as wise as Solomon who did the same.
In His Image,
ReplyDeleteThe entity responsible for the universe has no need for humanity to "give Him a break".
It sounds to me as though you are fashioning your God after your own imagination, and attributing Him with humanlike emotion. This form may be true of Yaldabaoth (if he may be the physical creator/former of this world) but The God doesn't need to have a crying spell.