January 31, 2009, 2:59 pm by dc-agape.

Mark Chapter 4:1-34

The parables that Jesus uses in these verses are his attempt to describe the Kingdom of God.  He uses four parables in this attempt to explain the Kingdom.  When read with the “god bias” these verses sound so good.  How it is our fault to not believe, how YHWH tries to grow a garden from our souls.  But there is an underlying message that you can only see if you suspend the “god bias”.

It is starts in verse 3 and continues to verse 8.  It is a little long so check it out here.  This is the greatly honored “Parable of the Sower”.  Jesus uses it to describe four types of people: those who do not accept, those who burn out, those that are overwhelmed by the world, and those that are saved.  But there is one verse that needs to be look at much closer than Jesus did:

Mark 4:4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.

What farmer would scatter their seed randomly?  Only a fool would take the risk of losing seed to the birds, to rocky soil, and to a thorn patch.  But this is exactly how YHWH spreads his “Kingdom”.  He allows some to be taken by Satan.  He allows some to burn out.  He allows some to be overtaken by the world.  And it is worse than that…he foolishly spreads the seed in a way that we do not have a choice.  We do not choose to be the seed on the path…that is where he places us.  So this parable is one more example of predestination.

Another verse in this parable that requires more examination is:

Mark 4:11-12 He told them, “This secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you.  But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that, “’they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding: otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!’”

Even Jesus butchers the bible.  The actual translation is:

Isaiah 6:9-10 He said, “go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes.  Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”

The prophet Isaiah was told to turn the people’s eyes, ears, and hearts so they would be callous and not be saved.  YHWH commanded this prophet to insure that the Israelites would not be healed!  And Jesus twists this verse to make it seem like we have a chose.  When you combine these two verses, correctly translated to English, you see three possibilities.  One, is that YHWH does make people’s hearts calloused.  Or, another, is that Jesus did not even know the verses of the Torah correctly.  The final possibility is that Jesus purposely twisting the verse he knew to some purpose.  These last two possibilities leave you wondering about Jesus’ divinity.  The first possibility leaves you wondering about a “loving” YHWH.

The parable of “the lamp on a stand” has some interesting ideas as well.  It truly applies to “the Truth”. 

Mark 4:22 For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.

Isn’t this just the way it should be.  In a social species we can’t keep lies, the higher the lie the more likely it will destroy our society.  Religion and governmental lies are the worst.  And just as Jesus says we must uncover all the hidden and concealed information.

He also gives good advice here:

Mark 4:24-25 “Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued, “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.”

This clearly translates into two ideas: “Don’t trust everything you hear, no matter who tells you it” and “Use it or lose it”!  Both of these ideas need to be used by us every day.  But the TrueChristians™ needs to think about this even more.  They trust what they hear without using logic and trust without using discriminating what is true and what is fantasy.

The other two parables are similar in vain.  Part of it is the random scattering of the saved in with the rest of us.  Another is how once he has chosen a person they will grow to be a tall tree.  John Mark finishes by telling how Jesus would not tell the people the meaning of the parables, but would let the disciples in on the hidden secret.  This just happens to be direct violation of Mark 4:22 (see above).

So what we see here is how the kingdom of God is filled with people that YHWH chooses. That Jesus knows some profound concepts of living in society.  And finally, that Jesus himself does not follow his own teachings!  Jesus kept secrets from the masses, right after telling the masses that the hidden was meant to be disclosed and the concealed brought out in the open!

Posted in kingdom of God, Gospel of Mark, Freewill, Readings | Print | No Comments »

January 31, 2009, 11:15 am by dc-agape.

Atheism means different things to each person.  For those who have only heard, second hand, Atheism can be a “very scary” word.  For those of us who live the Atheist life and walk the Atheist path it is a wonderful thing.  Even though Atheism is “the lack of belief in a god” (or gods or even all supernatural beings), many forms of the word are thrown around.  As the link above mentions, many thought patterns lead to the Atheist life.  I will be starting a series of posts on the positive aspects of Atheism.  Some of these aspects are: hope, joy, freedom (from religious guilt, from narrow mindedness, from dogmatic structure), awe, and love.  To many my last sentence will make no sense, which is because of religious indoctrination!  One more thing Atheists are free from.

In this post I want to explore the aspect of Hope.  Most TrueChristians™ do not believe that an Atheist can have much hope.  They could not be further from the truth.  We have many hopes: in the future, in individual selves, in humanity, in science, and in numbers (I explain that in a little bit).  We do not all have the same hopes, but ask an Atheist what type of hope they have and you will find that it is part of their personal outlook on life.

We have hope in the future, even if is only for equality.  To a Christian this may seem silly, only because being the majority (in the US) gives them the right to believe that everyone is being treated fairly.  Trina Hoaks at Friendly Atheist gives a good example of the hope that Atheist have of having equality.  To verify this, ask a gay or lesbian if they have equality!  You can even ask an African-American, many Mexican-Americans, or even anyone with Asian descent, the concept of equality is only felt by the majority.  Here in the US that would be the Caucasian Christian (male). 

Our hope for the future has multiple facets to it.  We hope for better education for our future generations.  One post from a number of years ago ends with a fierce example of this hope.  The court room battles over education are a sign of our hopes: PA, TX, and Kansas.  Equal access to education for the masses is extremely important, but we must recognize that people have different skills.  There is a difference between education and training.  I personally hope that one day we will personalize education for each individual.  Mass education leaves something to be desired.  The weaker “book” students get “left behind” while the stronger “book” students get bored.

Another form of hope that we have is in peace here on Earth.  Since Atheist know that we only have one life (all of us), almost all of us believe that human life is worth saving.  I will not use the word sacred, because that is too weak a word for what most Atheists believe about the value of all human life.  We hope that everyone will live a fruitful, happy, contented life with many joys and few sorrows.  To achieve this goal, Atheists understand that reason must be the driving force for society.  The religious divisiveness must end and the wars that religion has started must end.  But for this to happen we must have better education (see above).

Many of us Atheist do place our hope in science, and for good reason.  Yes, atrocities have been carried out due to science (sometimes in the name of science).  But look around you, even the plants that you see have been affected by science…fertilizers (hopefully you are not surrounded by nuclear waste or fall-out).  The cars, the phones, the window in front of you…all science.  The medicine you and your family took for any number of illnesses…all science.  Using the past as a predictor of the future, science will only make our lives more enjoyable, more full-filling, and more worthwhile.  Yes, we run the risk of annihilation with science.  To eliminate this risk we must have removed the risk of religious wars and better education for the masses. 

Posted in Atheism, State of Mind, Becoming an atheist, Introduction | Print | 1 Comment »

January 31, 2009, 10:43 am by dc-agape.

I have activated a virus when I looked for the Scopes Trial in PA.  Here is what any search now displays:

Search Results

1.     Wikipedia 

This site may harm your computer.
A free encyclopedia with millions of articles contributed collaboratively using Wiki software, in dozens of languages.

www.wikipedia.org/ - Similar pages 

2.     Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This site may harm your computer.
Dec 30, 2008 … Reference desk — Serving as virtual librarians, Wikipedia volunteers tackle your questions on a wide range of subjects. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page - Similar pages

3.     Wikipedia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This site may harm your computer.
Wikipedia’s 12 million articles (2.7 million in English) have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world, and almost all of its articles …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia - Similar pages
More results from en.wikipedia.org »

Isn’t this the funniest thing you have ever seen.  I take it someone did not like my blog site.  I wonder who the coward was!  The few people who have commented have been very cordial.  And I have both enjoyed responding and have been as cordial as well.I am not surprised that a coward would use such an attempt to stop something that is so antithetic to their own point of view.  But I certainly expected to get flaming comments before this happened!  But there is no doubt that the search for the PA scopes trial is what activated this “problem”. 

As all of you know, I source my data from web searches.  I use Google substansially while preparing a post.I find this very humourous and will look forward to see if anyone will take responsibility.  Since that is lacking in the Christian religion, I doubt that anyone will admit to it.  And I am sure that someone feels that their religion gives them the right to do this!

Posted in State of Mind, Introduction | Print | 2 Comments »