February 14, 2009, 3:00 pm by dc-agape.

     The first part of chapter 12 is where YHWH makes his promise to Abram.  Part of this promise is a command to leave his father’s home.  Now remember that Terah also left his parents to go to Canaan, but that was after Abram was married to Sarai.  So now YHWH commands Abram to leave Haran and continue to voyage to Canaan.  This really isn’t much of a challenge.  Most of Abram’s family is still in Ur of Chaldeans.  The promise made is to bless Abram and make his name great.  It also includes the promise to bless all mankind through Abram’s offspring.  Since YHWH knows that he will one day have sex with Mary to produce his son, this promise is also a reverence to what will happen in the future.  This is the first verse that indicates that YHWH has no problem with slaves as well.  Read the following verse and see for yourself:

^{Gen 12:5} He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

     The part about the people they had acquired in Haran, indicates slaves.  How many people use the term “acquired” to indicate employees?

     So the place that YHWH directs Abram has a famine.  Don’t you find it amazing that an all-powerful creator would send his minion to a place that has a drought?  It seems to me like bad planning on an omniscient being to choose a place that is prone to famines for his favored people.  The famine causes Abram to go down to Egypt. 

     Here is the first case of lying in the Word that YHWH does not punish.  When Abram gets to Egypt he is worried about his life, he believes that someone might kill him and take his barren, old, but HOT, wife from him.  So this lie gains Abram lots of sheep, cattle, donkeys, menservants, maidservants, and camel.  In fact, instead of punishing Abram for lying, YHWH punishes the Pharaoh’s household for trusting Abram.  So Pharaoh allows Abram keep everything that was given to him on bad faith.  Wow!  I guess when YHWH loves you nothing matters.  You can sin all you want and get stolen goods from it as well!

Posted in Biblical Hotties, Genesis, Readings | Print | 3 Comments »

February 14, 2009, 10:03 am by dc-agape.

The purpose of life has plagued mankind from the beginning of our species.  Christians have “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren (where he makes a living off this concept…truly Christian).  Atheists on the other hand, have been misinterpreted to have no purpose in life.  That could not be farther from the truth.  We have something I would like to call “the reason guided life”.  In that phrase “reason (dictionary.com)” has at least four meanings. 

First, our lives are guided by the “the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences”.  We use our minds to made decisions about what to do in life.  We do not rely on musty old books that have lost most of their original meaning to form conclusions, judgments, or inferences.  We look around the world and base our actions on those conclusions, judgments, and inferences.  We see someone down-on-their -luck and have just as much sympathy for them as the religious person does.  We see war torn areas of the world and seethe with disgust over the minor (usually religious) reasons for those wars.  We see the education of our children as of the greatest importance.  Using our reason, we know that the separation of church and state are critical to the function of our country (the US). 

Second, we use reason as “sound judgment; good sense” to guide our lives.  Good sense tells us that an all loving YHWH cannot exist, because too much pain and suffering are in the world.  By the Christian Bible this is due to one woman’s sin: Eve.  Reason would tell you that one person cannot be responsible for all the suffering in our world.  Good sense would tell you that punishing trillions of human lives for this one mistake is extremely un-loving.  Good sense also guides to understand that prayer is not as effective as action.  In the case of appendicitis…is prayer going to work or is surgery?  And no, common sense does not say do both.  It tells you to have the surgery, some people for extra safety might pray.  But it is the surgery that saves you.

We Atheist also use “normal or sound powers of mind; sanity” to guide our lives.  Sanity is not talking to imaginary voices/people, having delusion of persecution, or believing that a minister has a better grasp on life than you do.  Talking to yourself (from yahoo answers) is usually thought of as one of the first signs of insanity.  And in prayer no one is talking back…you are essentially talking to yourself.  The Christians here in the US have something they call “War on Christmas” and the “homosexual agenda”.  Unfortunately for the Christian, these are delusions of persecution.  I am both an Atheist and a gay man.  If either of the existed I would be on the front lines helping to win the war and get the agenda passed.  Christmas is a pagan holiday from pre-christian religions, Jesus was not even born on Dec 25^th.  The “agenda” failed miserably in CA recently.  If it can’t succeed there…there is no Homosexual agenda.  To believe that the pastor or clergy have a better grasp on YHWH’s will is just insane.  Look at the Catholic pedophile case (from Jan 2008), or closer to home the rate of pastor kids being the worst “sinners” (Preacher’s Kids International).

We also use this definition of reason: “Logic; a premise of an argument”.  Our arguments are based on logic (dictionary.com).  This includes reliability and persuasiveness.  The supernatural has neither of these traits.  YHWH is not reliable…sometimes the “answer is yes and sometimes the answer is no”.  “YHWH works in mysterious ways” is another common phrase used to explain the arbitrariness of events.  Prayer is definitely unreliable (God is Imaginary).

So Atheists do have a guide in life.  And it is a wonderful one.  It gives us something to live for…whether it is our work, our family, exploration, or enjoying life itself.  This guide also gives ethics, but that will be in another post. 

Posted in Atheism, State of Mind | Print | 1 Comment »