November 29, 2008, 9:25 am by dc-agape.

Genesis Chapter 4:13 – 26

In Genesis 4:13 Cain recognizes that his punishment seems too great.  His biggest worry is that someone will kill him.  How is that possible only Adam, Eve, and Cain exist!  Not even one woman has been born.  Yet Cain knows that other people might kill him.  YHWH, to insure Cain lives with this punishment, places a mark on Cain.  This mark is to cause vengeance on anyone who kills Cain. 

Here is a side note, Cain leaves Eden for Nod.  Again, here we are with a meaning of a location that YHWH has not preserved.  He seems to do this a lot, yet we are supposed to believe that he has kept the literal interpretation of the Word.  If he can’t keep the physical meaning of locations on this globe, how can we be sure that he has kept the intangible translation of the Word?

Continuing, Cain gets a wife.  We don’t know where she comes from, but we have to agree that she is his sister.  So as a result, YHWH has no problem with incest.  And just imagine what our gene pool would look like with only Adam and Eve’s genes to create 6.5 billion people.  No wonder we are such a messed up society.

Cain has a son and begins to build a city.  To make thing easier for Cain he names both the city and the son the same name.  Real creative isn’t it?  But then we do the same thing (how many cities have a Market St?).    Again we get an interesting side note.  The offspring of Seth (coming up later), are also named similarly to Cain’s offspring.  Now how is this possible, Cain has been banished from the presence of YHWH (and presumably the presence of Adam), but to the 7^th generation both lineages use the same name.  With the lifespan of these men (we’ll get to that soon), the odds of using the same name in the same order is staggeringly small. 

Cain’s descendent Lamech decides to speed things up, he gets 2 wives.  Here we have a side note that says how evil this is:

4:19 married two women. Polygamy entered history. Haughty Lamech, the seventh from Adam in the line of Cain, perhaps sought to attain the benefits of God’s primeval blessing (see 1:28 and note) by his own device—multiplying his wives. Monogamy, however, was the original divine intention (see 2:23–24).

Wait later in this book it’s not only ok but YHWH demands polygamy!  I wish these people (christians) and their god would be consistent!  I know, I know you will claim that they are, but you can’t prove that using the Word!

Well Lamech makes a boost that if Cain was revenged 7 times over, his own revenge would be 77 times greater.  And that’s all there is to that.  He does not provide a method for this revenge.  I mean the man is dead (or gravely wounded), what type of revenge can he have?

A quick switch back 6 generations and we read about the birth of Seth.  Here again Eve praises YHWH for a son, remember she did not do this for the birth of Cain.  So Seth grows up, and marries one of his un-named sisters (presumably he does not marry one of Cain’s un-named daughters).  He also has a son and he names him Enosh.  At this point in time: 

^{Ge 4:26} Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on the name of the LORD.

We see in the last verse men start to do something that Adam, Cain, and Abel were doing from the start.  Since these are the only men on the planet how can they begin to do something that they have already been doing?  Is this another place where YHWH has not been able to keep the literal translation of the Word?

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November 29, 2008, 12:03 am by dc-agape.

Freewill is a question that has plagued the christian religion since the 1^st century.  By the 16^th century, Calvinism was taking hold in Europe.  Martin Luther was not even dead when the first major split in Protestant Christianity occurred.  The question is why does this even schism exist?  Two stories from the New Testament might shine some light on this question.

The first one is simpler than the second and I will start with this.  The conversion of Lydia in Acts chapter 16 is appropriate to the topic of freewill. 

Acts 16:14 One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshipper of God.  The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.

This verse is appropriate because of that last sentence.  Lydia’s heart was opened by YHWH.  She had no choice in the matter, she had no freewill.  Yes, someone could claim that YHWH only opened Lydia’s heart, but Lydia did the rest.  But this misses the point.  If Lydia’s heart was not opened by YHWH then Lydia would not have been saved!  Lydia did not have freewill.

The second story is about Judas is much difficult to see that he did not have freewill.  Let me start with this verse:

^{John 6:37} All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.  ^6:38 for I have come down from heaven no to do my will but to do the will of hum who sent me.  ^6:39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.

These verses make it very clear that Judas was either given to Jesus by YHWH or he was not.  He, just like Lydia, did not have a choice.  This of course leads to another dilemma.  Did Jesus have 12 disciples or did he not?  Jesus repeats this twice concept twice.  These verses can be applied to all humanity, not just the disciples in the 1^st century. 

But another problem arises.  The story of Jesus’ betrayal leads to another situation of freewill.  We know that Jesus knew about his betrayal, see Mathew 26:20, before he could have been told.  We also know how he knows this…Mark 14:21.  Odd that we do not know the exact verse that Jesus is referencing, but that is for another post.  One of his “12” had to betray Jesus; otherwise the crucifixion would not have been carried out.  This leads to the question: did any of the disciples have freewill?

Let me bring one more to finish this topic.  Jesus knows that Peter will deny him three times.

Luke 22:34 Jesus answered, “I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me.”

If Jesus knows that this will occur, then Peter also has no choice.  I will finish this post with this:  three people in the New Testament did not have freewill.  One is a simple believer, Lydia, one is the betrayer, Judas, and one is the cornerstone of the church, Peter.  If these three did not have freewill, can any of us have freewill?  In the first and second posts I used specific people; I will finish this topic with a third post about what the Word says about freewill.

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November 27, 2008, 7:32 am by dc-agape.

Thankfulness is one of those qualities that christian claim atheists do not have the capacity to feel.  I am sure that many atheists are looking at and posting what they are thankful for on this day.  Contrary to that opinion, we atheist have nearly all the same things to be thankful for as the christians.  In this post I will let you know some of the things that I am thankful for the most.

First, even though some of you may think this not worthy, I am truly thankful for the love of science that my parents, my brother, and Star Trek instilled in me at an early age.  Both of my parents believed that learning was important.  Even though this did not specify chemistry, this allowed me to explore all the aspects of school with some degree of interest.  Chemistry just happens to make sense to me, and yes to many of you that makes me a freak!  My only sibling is an older brother, and as older siblings do have either a positive or negative impact on the other siblings, my brother also influenced me.  If your old enough to remember not having cable (here in the US) or having only one television without a remote, you will know that only the strongest have power over what is on television.  Well it was my brother who exposed me to Star Trek, Dr Who, and Monty Python.  Even though MP does not contribute to my love of science, it may be responsible, in part, for my atheism.  Star Trek was, without a doubt, responsible for both my love of chemistry and my atheism.  So yes, I am thankful for both my family and for the love of chemistry that they gave to me (even if unknowingly).

Second, I am thankful for the 8 years I spent in Hawaii.  This is the place where I became an adult.  I learned that what I was taught as a child was colored by cultural influences.  In Hawaii, I was exposed for the first time to a blue state mentality and to the closest thing to a non-christian majority.  Until I was 18 I lived in the Bible Belt, so this was an eye-opening experience.  I began to see things from other peoples perceptive.  I also had the pleasure of not having to worry about what my family would think about what I was doing.  As a result, I learned who I was and I learned to accept who I was.  Family can be the biggest reason for any one not to learn this lesson.  And yes, Hawaii is beautiful, and I will always treasure the experiences of seeing Mother Nature at her best! 

Third, I am thankful for the friends that I have made in the last 7 years.  Three friends from Philadelphia have impacted my life more than many from other places.  Rarely, have I been able to keep in-touch with friends after moving away.  But these three friends have not only kept in touch I have visited them on a number of occasions since moving to Tennessee to get my PhD.  Barb had recently requested my presence as part of her wedding party, if that tells you what my relationship with her is like.  Josh is flying down from Philly to spend Thanksgiving with me here in Knoxville, which should give you some idea of our friendship.  And Lisa, well she’s the one responsible for me being here in the first place.  It was her that I made the promise to that if I could find a PhD program, which was related to my interests in chiral chromatographic purification of pharmaceuticals, I would get my PhD there.  Well, UTK is the not quite that but Prof Guiochon has allowed me to pursue that topic.  I am truly thankful for the friends that I have been able to keep over the years.  I am also thankful for those friends that I am making right now here at UTK, but I will leave that for another post.

Fourth, I am thankful for the opportunities that are available to us in this country and in this century.  Without both, I would not be getting my PhD in chemistry at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville with Prof. Guiochon.  UTK has its problems, no doubt, but the opportunity to do the research of my choice with one of the top doctors in the field, is an overwhelming experience.  The cost of living here has got to be one of the best in the nation.  Working with Prof Guiochon in chromatography is indescribable (in later post I will get into this).  So yes, an atheist can be thankful for living in a country where we are the most hated minority.  But that is what makes living in the US something to be thankful for, we can live here, we can say what we want, and we only have to look over our shoulders in fear of the christian majority’s bigotry every once in a while.

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November 23, 2008, 7:19 am by dc-agape.

     Today I want to start something that is much more difficult than reading the Word of God.  I want to also explore topics in the Word.  The reading of Genesis chapter 15 YHWH gives Abram a vision to Abram about the future.  This concept that YHWH knows the future brings up an interesting topic…freewill and predestination.  If an omnipotent, omnipresent YHWH exists can mankind have freewill?  I will look into the Word and see what other verses relate to our “freewill”.  I will be breaking this up into three parts.  The first part will be about specific people that did not have freewill in the Word.  The second part will be specific verses that indicate that we, all of us, do not have freewill. 

I will start with the Pharaoh of Egypt in Moses’ time.  Let’s look at this verse:

^{Exodus 10:1} Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them ^10:2that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord.”

In this verse YHWH hardened the hearts of the Pharaoh and his officials.  This is the first official reference to YHWH purposely manipulating men’s hearts.  The Pharaoh did not have freewill; he was a puppet to YHWH.  To make matters worse YHWH then punishes the whole nation of Egypt for his own act of hardening Pharaoh’s heart.  Christians, this is your loving god, one who can manipulate a leaders heart for one purpose…to kill innocent bystanders (the people of Egypt)!

     Yes, christians, I know that your argument is that YHWH has the right to do this, or he needed to do this, or he just wanted to do this, and as a result it’s OK.  But it is not OK!  YHWH has the power to manipulate human hearts to acts of sin!  And he uses this ability with horrible consequences.  In this case he plagues the Egyptian with polluted waters, frogs, gnats, flies, death of livestock, boils, hail, locust, darkness, and finally killing the all firstborn children.  This is not the act of a loving creator; this is the act of a vile, hateful, monster!

     Another story from the Word about YHWH manipulating human freewill is in this verse:

^{Joshua 11:20} for it was the Lord himself who hardened their (the Hivites) hearts to wage war against Israel, so that he might destroy them totally, exterminating them without mercy, as the Lord had commanded Moses.

With the concept of these people already being separated from YHWH, “exterminating them without mercy” is beyond cruel.  It is not these peoples responsibility for the war against Israel, no; YHWH has chosen to force them to wage war.  The outcome of the war with Israel was total annihilation, and then burning in hell for eternity.  What a guy!  If this is love, no thank you!

     I also want to look at Saul.  In Samuel 9:15-16 YHWH chooses Saul to be the first King of Israel.  That’s one thing, YHWH chose Saul because he was the son of a “man of standing” and Saul was an impressive young man without (1^st Samuel 9:1-2).  So after YHWH chose Saul to be king, he also chose to give Saul and evil spirit:

^{1st Samuel 16:14} Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.

Now this evil spirit, from YHWH, (and sorry it was not controlled by YHWH it was YHWH’s evil spirit) did much more than punish Saul.  In fact it is the evil spirit of YHWH that makes Saul throw a spear at David to kill him (1^st Samuel 19:9).  Saul did not have freewill, in becoming king, or freewill in the acts that the evil spirit of YHWH forced him to do.  Here again is an example of YHWH manipulating human’s for his own design.  This is not the act of a supreme being who wants all people to love and adore him through individual freewill!

     Since this post is getting so long, I will have two more parts.  The second part will be specific individual’s freewill in the New Testament.  This will include Judas, and Lydia.  The third part will be specific verses that contradict the concept that any human has freewill.

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November 22, 2008, 11:31 am by dc-agape.

Genesis 4:1-12

In this chapter we meet Cain and Abel.  Most people who have any relation to the Jewish, Christian, or Muslim faiths know about the story about these men.  Let’s see if this story is similar to what is actually written in the Word.  To ensure we all know the characters:  Abel is the younger son.

Even gives YHWH all the glory for making her pregnant after having sex with her husband Adam.  I guess now days we must be truly arrogant to understand that pregnancy is the direct result of having sex with a member of the opposite sex.  Notice that she does not repeat the praise to YHWH for the second son.  Interestingly, Eve knows even at birth that her son will have a short live because she names her second son “Meaningless”.  The study notes say this about the name Abel:

^{Gen 4:2} How does she know that he will have a short life?

Next we get to the crux of the story.  Each of the sons has their specialty, Abel takes care of the livestock and Cain takes care of the fruits of the soil.  Cain is the first person to ever offer YHWH sacrifice.  In fact, the way it is written it would seem that Abel only imitates Cain’s offering.  Now a very interesting study note is written in the NIV.  The note speaks about how Cain’s sacrifice is not accepted by YHWH because of Cain’s carelessness, thoughtless offering!  Where does it say in the Word that Cain’s offering to YHWH was anything but the best he could offer????  It does not even look like Abel has ever offered YHWH a sacrifice before Cain gives YHWH his offering.  It would seem, from the Word that Abel had never even thought of sacrifice to YHWH!

Being an arbitrary being that YHWH is, he liked Abel’s offering better!  Can you imagine what your response would be, if you were Cain?  You have been the first person to ever offer sacrifice from your own hard work to YHWH; and he disses you for your brother’s copy of your act!  Well to say the least:

^{Gen 4:4-5} But Abel brought fat portions from some of the first born of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

So YHWH, being all powerful and omnipotent, has to ask Cain why he is angry.  YHWH then goes into a diatribe about doing right and wrong and how sin is waiting for Cain at every opportunity.  YHWH even says that he would have accepted Cain’s offering if it was right!  Cain did nothing wrong, yet he did not do it right.  Worst of all, he was the first person to ever give offering to YHWH, so as a result, he did not even have a manual for the proper way to give offering to YHWH.  He created the practice of sacrifice to YHWH, not his brother Abel.  This is very confusing, and I have not even read the first 11 pages of the Word!

Then we have the part where Cain kills Abel.  It does seem odd to hill his brother, Cain has issues with YHWH, not his brother Abel.  Why kill someone who copies you, instead of the one who is at fault?  I guess the concept of being angry at YHWH was unthinkable.  But any way, this is how Cain deals with the situation. 

After the murder, the omnipotent YHWH stops by to talk to Cain and asks where Abel is.  During this conversation we get the first famous one-liner from the Word:

Gen 4:9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” I don’t know,” he replied.  “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

This time YHWH does know the answer before asking:

Gen 4:10 The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.

Well, YHWH does not like what Cain has done.  So he curses Cain with soil that will not produce (worse than the curse Adam received from the loving YHWH) and Cain was also cursed to be a “restless wanderer”.  Within one life-time the human species has gone from living in a “garden of Eden” to back-breaking work, to the extra special curse that YHWH puts on Cain.

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November 16, 2008, 7:19 am by dc-agape.

     Last night I added a new section to http://www.dc-agape.com/intro.html.  The post gives a little more information about my experiment.

      I have also noticed that an error occurs during comment posting.  I believe I have corrected the problem.

     You might also have notice that I am not splitting up the chapters into more than one post recently.  This is not due to a change in my style.  This is due to the fact that these chapters are just not as complicated as the initial chapters.  At the moment we are in a section of the Word that is mostly a story about Abram and his children.  When we get to the non-story like verses I will again have to start splitting up the chapter posts.

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November 15, 2008, 5:05 am by dc-agape.

Genesis Chapter 3:20-24

I will continue in the third chapter of Genesis with the 20^th verse.  The sheer arrogance of these next 5 verses requires that I deal with them individually.  First, Adam names Eve.  Notice that she does not pick a name for herself.  YHWH did not name Adam, and it is not recorded in the Word how Adam gets his name.  The first occurrence of the name Adam is in Genesis 2:20.  For some reason Eve is named by Adam, yet remember that in Genesis 1:27 YHWH created both man and woman on the same day!  Misogyny starting from the 3^rd chapter of the first Book of the Word, great!  The Word continues with the meaning of Eve.  Adam gives her the name Eve because she will be the mother of all the living.  I am sure glad she did not become the mother of all the Dead!  Two things strike me as I read this.  Before, when Adam was naming things he had dominion over everything he named, but the study notes in the NIV claim that this “naming” was not with dominion, but instead to memorialize Eve!  One of these days I would love to see the original Hebrew translation to verify that the word used for “naming” could have two different meaning.  The other thing that strikes me is that Eve will be the mother of all the living…what?  She is not the mother of all the living animals, only of the living humans.  It seems just a little arrogant to name someone for being the mother of all the living when humankind is such a small percent of the living organisms on the plant. 

We also know that Adam only had three sons, who birthed the wife’s of Seth and Cain?  Or was this incest?  Don’t you think that we would see this in our genetic make-up?  Only having one source of the X chromosome would be remarkable, but instead we find at least 3.

In the next verse YHWH makes better clothes for Adam and Eve.  Why?  They have already made clothes in Genesis 3:7.  True, the skins are better than the fig leaves, but it seems odd that YHWH helps Adam and Eve, right after he curses them.  Is this like the abusive father, apologizing after beating his family?

YHWH certainly talks to himself a lot (Gen 3:22).  I guess when you are an all-powerful and all alone, one might tend towards babbling to oneself.  He also uses that royal “us” more than an all-loving creator should, he definitely seems hooked on himself.

YHWH banishes Adam and Eve ends this chapter of Genesis.  To insure that mankind does not live forever, YHWH kicks mankind out of the garden and then places a cherubim and a flaming sword at the gates to guard the tree of life.  Does this seem excessive, the tree of life does not exist on this planet, at least not in this dimension!  We know this because there is no Garden of Eden on the planet, we would have found it by now.  Don’t you think that if we found a cherubim and a flaming sword it would increase our curiosity?  Would it not make us more determined to get into the garden?  So YHWH has removed the garden from this planet, yet he still set two guards on it to keep us out.  I wonder where it is.  Maybe one day we will be able to find it, searching all the planets and planetoids out there!

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November 8, 2008, 10:58 pm by dc-agape.

Genesis Chapter 3:14-19

The curses of YHWH are related in the verses.  First, YHWH curses the serpent.  You remember the one Satan used to tempt Eve.  The argument from yesterday still stands.  If the talking serpent was responsible for the deception then punishment was deserved.  But a talking serpent?  I wish all animals could still talk.  Can you imagine the information that we could get from them?  But if the devil somehow took over the serpent’s body and then tempted Eve, why would an omnipotent, omnipresent creator punish a lowly animal for a supernatural being’s trickery?

Next we read the punishment for Eve and all women for eternity.  Interestingly he claims to greatly increase the pains of childbearing.  Does this mean that Eve had already had children?  The Word is strangely silent on this question.  Did Adam and Eve have sex in the Garden?  But YHWH adds that man will rule over woman.  I guess that misogyny is just fine with YHWH!  This is how YHWH puts it:

Gen 3:16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.  Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

Finally, he curses Adam and all men for eternity.  YHWH curses man with the chore of having to work for his food instead of picking it from the vines and trees of the garden.  Now man will toll and fight thorns and thistles.  Before this first sin, man would not die, now man will die and return to the ground from whence YHWH created us.  Well that sums up life as we know to a T.  So here we have an omnipotent, omnipowerful, omnibenevolent god punishing all of mankind for the last 3440 years just for one person’s mistake (that was bound to happen).  What a loving god!

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