God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (47 page)
Read God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible Online
Authors: CJ Werleman
The second stanza of the opening of Romans indicates that the church in Rome had been established for a number of years as Paul writes that he had planned many times to visit his Christian brothers in Rome, but had been prevented so for reasons not disclosed. However, whatever difficulties he had faced in his efforts in returning to Rome had been dealt with, and this letter forewarns his planned visit.
“
I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong – that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you but have been prevented from doing so until now, in order that I may harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.” (Romans 11-13 NIV)
A clever marketer was Paul. Unlike the Gospels, whose audiences were the Jews, Paul was writing mostly to a Gentile audience and in his first piece of religious remodelling he ‘chops’ the circumcision covenant by edifying that heaven is not just a destination for Jews but also for the uncircumcised. Straight off the bat, Paul has over ruled what Jesus had said in Matthew regarding non-Jews, as he made it perfectly clear to his twelve disciples that the word of God is to be preached only to the circumcised crew. Jesus said:
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Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go only among the lost tribe of Israel.” (Matthew 10:5 NIV)
His explanation and denouncement of this Old Testament belief, is somewhat ‘wishy-washy’ and a blatant attempt to make the rules up as he goes. Paul fumbles to explain why it was that Abraham was directed by God to mutilate his and his family’s genitals, so as to seal the covenant between the two, whilst Gentile believers need not do the same and that the promise of eternal life comes now from faith and obedience alone.
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Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised?” (Romans 2:25-26 NIV)
Circumcision and the law are not mutually exclusive. If one isn’t circumcised, he is in violation of God’s laws, so what does it matter if he breaks another? He is already a law-breaker. Thus this attempt to divorce circumcision from God’s law is nothing more than a populist penis gimmick to promote Christianity to a wider audience.
Aware that he will be cornered into providing an explanation of all Mosaic laws, laws that the philosophy loving Greeks found repugnant, especially animal sacrifice that the Romans found archaic, Paul made a daring but tactically brilliant move to declare all of God’s laws irrelevant in the pursuit of righteousness, on the sole proviso that one believed Jesus Christ to be the son of God:
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Therefore no-one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin… This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” (Romans 3:20-22 NIV)
Paul wastes no time in turning on the flames of fear in his letter in an effort to embolden the believers and recruit the naysayers, as he launches straight in with a list of actions that will ensure God’s wrath:
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The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godless and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” (Romans 1:18 NIV)
Interestingly, whilst Jesus made no reference or mention of homosexuality in any of the passages of the Gospels, Paul sees it fit to single out their immorality on numerous occasions, making him arguably the world’s first human-form homophobe!
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Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.” (Romans 1:26-27 NIV)
Once again, the ignorance of 1
st
century man is evident in this passage. An ignorance we can forgive the writer, Paul, however. But why should we forgive those intolerant and hostile towards homosexuality in the 21
st
century because of their belief in this scientifically flawed and ancient text? We shouldn’t! Quite clearly, homosexuality is prevalent throughout the animal kingdom. In fact in a 1999 review by researcher Bruce Baghemihl, it was proven that nearly 1500 species, ranging from primates to gut worms, engage in homosexual behavior. According to Baghemihl:
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The animal kingdom does it with much greater sexual diversity – including homosexual, bisexual and non-reproductive sex – than the scientific community at large have previously been willing to accept.”
Religious fundamentalist groups across the world will continue to cover their eyes and shut their ears to these facts because they fundamentally contradict and then call into question the validity or relevancy of their texts. Thus, providing the religious with another segment of mankind to direct its God-inspired, hateful wrath towards.
Paul continues to denounce all non-believers in a vengeful tone:
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They (non-believers) have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.” (Romans 1:29-32 NIV)
Not only is this passage full of vim and verve but confirmation that the ideals of Christianity are no less barbaric or more enlightened than its Judeo foundations. Note, also, the twisted irony of what Paul says immediately following this virtual proclamation of war against non-believers, when he writes in the next chapter:
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For whatever point you judge others, you are condemning yourself.” (Romans 2:1 NIV)
In one breath he has judged the non-followers of his faith for a litany of alleged sins, then in the next he tells us not to judge others. If this is a little piece of ironic wit on Paul’s behalf then I applaud him, but if he wrote this with ‘straight-talk’ intent then it is even funnier.
Paul then moves forward with a little ‘carrot and stick’ motivational prose, warning death and destruction to those who fail to obey the laws of God, whilst offering the promise of eternal life to the obedient.
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Because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath… To those who by persisting in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.” (Romans 2:5-7 NIV)
And so that we are all crystal clear on our innate wickedness, Paul reminds us that we, humans, are born in sin, filth and wretchedness and only belief in Jesus as the son of God can wash away our figuratively slime-covered bodies:
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I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” (Romans 7:18 NIV)
Thankfully, according to Paul, we can wash away our loathing for ourselves by accepting that:
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Righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” (Romans 3:22 NIV)
It is Paul who introduces us to the concept of vicarious redemption through Jesus Christ, the repugnant concept that our sins against others can be atoned by saying “sorry” to an unhurt or unaffected third-party. A dead one at that! Bearing in mind that this concept doesn’t even receive the credit for being original. It’s merely an adaptation of the old theme of human sacrifice, practised by countless civilizations at one time or another to redeem their respective and collective sins or errs. It’s from whence the term ‘scapegoating’ originates. Tribes would saddle a goat with its wrong doings before sending the goat out into the wilderness to inevitably die of thirst or starvation, so that the tribe would be cleansed or purified of its sins.
What should trouble ‘modern day’ Christians is the philosophical conundrum Paul unwittingly makes here; he claims Jesus was God in human form and he sacrificed himself to atone for the ‘Original sin’ of Adam eating the forbidden fruit. But if modern theists want to dismiss the Genesis story rightfully as a fairy tale then that means God had himself killed for a make-believe sin committed by a person who never existed. Comprende?
Therefore, one is unable to be a Christian without believing in the Adam and Eve story. Or you are worshipping a guy that killed himself in vain. We call people that do that INSANE! Why would God need to kill himself morphed as his Son to forgive Adam’s sin? Why not just forgive it? It’s just so stupid and completely illogical. Further, Paul asserts that we are all sinners, but if we believe in Jesus then at the point of our deaths, we will journey to him in the afterlife.
It is the sadomasochistic writings of Paul that contend God incarnated himself in human form as Jesus Christ; his torture and death an atonement for all of our sins. Not only the sins that we may or may not have personally committed in the past but also the sins we may execute in the future. This is a rather ass-backwards mandate, don’t you think? This is God we are talking about so why not just forgive all our sins and rationalize them as human nature? Why does God deem it appropriate to ensure the brutal crucifixion of his son to prove this point?
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We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him in his death, we will certainly be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” (Romans 6:4-7 NIV)
To reinforce this point, or more like ram it home, Paul drenches this teaching with a large dose of guilt. Leading his readers to believe that we are indeed wretched beings and only redemption in the afterlife through believing the resurrection true will atone for our earthly sins. The mental trauma of guilt that has been inflicted on billions of people throughout the last two millennia begins in these passages:
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It is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is the sin living in me that does it… What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 7:17-25 NIV)
So, not only does God have a bizarre way of displaying his love and affection but also he wants you to always bear in mind what low worthless scum you truly are. I guess so that you will keep turning up to Church on Sunday to show your appreciation.
This really is a vile premise and an immoral teaching that forces believers to believe they are nothing but depraved animals obedient to animalistic urges only, unless they bow down to the memory of a dead eccentric preacher. This is how all cults form and sustain their membership, through convincing you that you are nothing but scum, and a ticket to a waiting spacecraft awards those that submit to the power of the unseen and unproven. This is mental disintegration and far from teaching humans to love themselves which is irrefutably a mentally healthy state of mind.
I personally rate the passages that relate to the concept of pre-destination to be in my top five – “Wow, are Christians going to be pissed when they learn this” – list. This argument on its own
proves god to be the creator of evil
.
More often than not, Church leaders claim that evil exists because God gave man free will. The assertion being that God gave us free will because he didn’t want us to behave like robots, but with free will comes both good and evil. Evil, the root of those who suffer from weak faith, results in an inevitable fall into temptation thus submitting to Satan’s devilish plan with the execution of evil deeds. We are led to believe that through faith and in obedience to God we can overcome the dark forces lurking beneath that wrestle for control of our soul. This is a
bogus
claim! I cannot find any passage that directly states such anywhere in the Bible, whereas I can point to several passages that say the complete opposite in irrefutable black and white, such as: