August 31, 2009, 8:10 am by dc-agape.

John Chapter 9

This passage is one story.  It starts the healing of a blind man.  It includes the question of who was responsible for this man’s blindness.  The largest portion is about “the Jews” questioning a Jew about this healing.  It ends with Jesus meeting the man who was blind later, after the man had suffered interrogation and humiliation at the hands of “the Jews”.

Here is the verse that eliminates “Original Sin”, yet all Christians still believe in some form of this popular Tradition of Man.  Blindness, being an imperfection in Jewish traditions was a punishment bestowed on one generation for the sins of the previous generation.  Yet here Jesus is claiming that this man was not born blind because of sin.  No the reason this particular man was born blind was so that Jesus could heal him!  First, we see YHYH manipulating DNA to make himself look like a super-hero.  This is similar to a man starting a fire so he can then “save” the inhabitants of the burning house!  This is without a doubt a sign that YHWH does interfere with freewill, when it pleases him.  This then makes him no different than the Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse gods.

But what is worse is that this man, with the DNA that YHWH manipulated, was tortured by “the Jews”.  I mean tortured because a simple citizen being brought before the ruling council of Israel must have been extremely nerve-wreaking.  And not only was the man himself so treated, but his parents were dragged into the fiasco as well.  We know that they were terrified:

John 9:22 His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for already the Jews had decided that anyone who acknowledged that Jesus was the Christ would be put out of the synagogue.

So in the act of healing a man that YHWH purposely made blind, three people are terrorized by the leading religious leaders of the day.  The man, who was blind, was insulted and thrown out of the synagogue (most like ex-communicated).

When Jesus finds him later, of course the man who was blind has nothing to lose by following the man that made him see.  He could no longer be abstained of sin in the synagogue, yet he knew that he would not receive the blessing of YHWH during his lifetime because of Jesus’ healing!  His only option was to believe that Jesus was truly divine.  Wow, what freewill he had.

Jesus uses this experience to also teach about “spiritual blindness”.  Even though the man was thrown out of the synagogue, the Pharisees were nearby and overheard the conversation between the man who was blind man and Jesus. 

Here is an interesting verse:

John 9:41 Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim that you can see, your guilt remains.”

This single verse explains much about who will make it to heaven and who will go to hell.  Those who claim to understand YHWH are with sin, not those of us who are “blind”!  So actually by the spreading of the “Good News” Christians are dooming people to hell.  Yet today’s Christian wants to spread the “Word” as far as possible, but not insure that those who hear it understand it.  Wow, you do realize that this is exactly the same thing that happened in Iraq?  We invaded the country with enough fire power to dispose a tyrant, but we did not bring enough man-power to ensure democracy.  Christians do the exact same thing today.  They quickly go on missionary trips to “save souls for Christ” yet do not teach the new converts the intricate details of how to be disciples of Jesus.  They open the “spiritual eyes” of the “sinner” yet do not ensure that the new converts are going to remain saved.  Even here in the US, the true Christian continues to whine “they aren’t real Christians”.  But they do nothing to correct these people that are going to hell!  It is not the un-believer that needs to be saved…it is the false Christians who need to be saved.  The real Christians have missed the mark, “sinned”, by not recognizing this simple fact.

As an Atheist, I am glad that I am spiritually blind!  This adds an entire new dimension to Pascal’s wager.  In fact, it makes Pascal’s wager false!  For living life as if YHWH exists, yet not “seeing”, will cause the one who wagers to bear the guilt.  For the one who wagers that YHWH does not exist, we remain “blind” and carry no guilt.  This turns out that Pascal’s wager dooms many more to hell and to heaven.

Posted in Gospel of John, Pascal's Wager, Traditions of Men, Freewill, Readings | Print | 12 Comments »

February 18, 2009, 10:31 pm by dc-agape.

While talking to some of my analytical chemistry research group members I had the oddest experience.  Having grown up in the Deep South, I was exposed (and baptized) as both a Southern Baptist and a Presbyterian.  When I moved to Hawai’i, I joined what was called the Oahu Church of Christ (I’m slightly confused because of internal strife) but now it is called the Honolulu International Church of Christ.  From these experiences, I had until recently felt that my knowledge of the Bible was quite strong.  Low and behold, I find out that the Protestant Holy Bible and the Jewish Holy Bible have the same Old Testament.  The Catholic Bible’s Old Testament has additional Books.  Between a split in the Church of Christ and the International Church of Christ (which was never supposed to happen, Holy Spirit and all that mumbo jumbo) and this new information about the split in the “Holy Book” format, I am certainly glad to be a happily gay Atheist!  No one can possibly understand the earth shattering, mind blowing experience this has caused…Pascal’s Wager (alone) has just moved one step closer to proving Atheism is the correct philosophy! 

Readers must understand that the concept of both the “Church” and the “Holy Bible” being split into two distinct subgroups is overwhelmingly convincing that no supernatural being is in charge of “Christianity”.  No excuse can explain that the Catholics use one “Holy Book” and the Protestants use a different “Holy Book”.  But more extreme is that the “Church (the Kingdom of God)” has split! 

Due to these “revelations” I will be adding a book called “The Apocrypha: An American Translation” translated by Edgar J Goodspeed printed by Vintage Books, New York, New York, 1959.   I do not want to miss the chance to read what “Christians” of past eras might have believed were god inspired writings.  And yes, the concept that Christianity has changed over the millennia is part of my personal experiment.  I want to explore these changes to the Unchangeable Word of God.

Posted in Pascal's Wager, Word of God, kingdom of God, State of Mind, Introduction | Print | 7 Comments »

February 4, 2009, 11:25 am by dc-agape.

I have been receiving some very interesting comments on my Pascal’s Wager post.  The most interesting part is that all of them have been in Russian and come from the same IP address, yet the writing style seems to indicate numerous individual.

The latest one is quite long and requires additional space to address, so I am making a post out of the response.

Hoaratix,

Your wording is rather difficult to translate, but here is my attempt using iGoogle:

You’re kidding … 21 at the yard, really there is nothing worthy of attention, as the Encyclopedia.  My Dear, that’s no snow vgordah, it is also the theme and story, review the topic.  I look at the mail, I send does not understand that, I do not know who, so much debris, it can and should be, but not in the diary.  I understand this is a diary of your soul.  We have the right to choose – use.  And there is no useless information.

My response to the parts that make sense…it is true that only the Encyclopedia makes sense, it is the information collected from the “natural” world.  Even the “supernatural” is only described from the “natural” perspective.  Part of that does not translate well, but the part about this being my “diary of my soul” is one way of looking at, except that Atheists do not have “souls”.  Part of my blog is an attempt at to describe the journey to becoming an Atheist.  But the other part of my blog is about reading the Holy Scriptures of the Abrahamic religions (yes, it will include the Quran). 

Your 2^nd to last sentence seem to point to a belief in freewill.  From a TrueChristian™ interpretation of the Word of God, this is not possible, check out my posts on Freewill to see what the Bible says about humanity’s freewill.

I will agree with you on the last sentence, there is no useless information.  But all information must be tested for its value.  If I tell you that there are invisible pink unicorns (IPUs) that control the world, would you believe me?  But the information about these IPU’s in useful, because it is sarcasms at organized religion.

Remember that numerous times the Bible clearly tells the followers of Jesus to weigh all the teachings.  Here are two examples:

1^st Co I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.

John 7:24 Stop judging by mere appearance, and make a right judgment.

So even though there is “no useless information”, some information is more valuable than others.

Posted in Pascal's Wager, State of Mind, Becoming an atheist, Introduction | Print | No Comments »

January 24, 2009, 10:09 am by dc-agape.

Growing up in the Southern Baptist and then joining the Oahu Church of Christ, I was exposed to the concept of Pascal’s Wager.  In this link, of Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert), Scott describes much about the concept.  He even points out mathematically that Islam would be the best bet!  In Piers Anthony’s Tarot Series, Piers Anthony comes to the conclusion that only Satan can be the true religion!  But even this is his satire…how can anarchy (Satan worship) be organized!  More will be posted on Piers Anthony’s influence on my becoming an Atheist in later posts.

As I have said before, I was baptized as a Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, and into the Oahu Church of Christ.  I was even a founding “missionary” for the Hilo Church of Christ.  I see that my work as a missionary failed!  The Hilo Church of Christ is now part of the International Christian Church.  Referring to Pascal’s Wager, I wonder which one will make it to heaven!  Remember:

Eph 4:2-6 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Even the church that taught me this has fallen into disunity!  With Pascal’s Wager, alone, any Christian faith would be enough, or as Scott Adam’s points out in his post, Islam.  But when you add Ephesians 4:2-6 you realized that there is only one Body (One Church), one Spirit (One Translation of the Word), and One Baptism.  The so-called “christians” have minimized this verse to the One Hope and ignored the other Ones! 

Pascal’s Wager takes on a new meaning when you apply the Word of God to the wager.  Even if the “god” of the Bible is the “One True God”, how do we know which christian faith to follow?  Catholism is the oldest, maybe it is right.  Maybe Mohammad is the last prophet and Islam is right.  Maybe the NT is a fake and only Judaism is right.  What about those faith healers, are they right?  But maybe it is the fungementalist who want to make the US a theocracy, maybe they are the good ones?  How can a person know that their religion, that most of us were born into, is the right one?  Jumping from Christian sect to sect is no better…we stop either when we find the one that “feels” right or when we settle for the best of the worst! 

In the NT the apostles and some of the disciples could do miracles.  People died for their beliefs.  Today, in the US, christianity is so pervasive that everyone knows the story, but no one knows the score!  Pascal’s Wager cannot be used to “save our soul” because “just believing” is not enough.  The god of the OT is inerrant and unchanging…well guess what, if that is true, then he will only accept one thing.  And that One Thing is not a divided church with 38,000 variations! 

As a gay man, I have been the outsider of each church I have joined.  Each gay person that attempts to be a Christian has more to overcome than any other “sinner”.  There is a stigma that homosexuality is a “worse” sin than any of the others.  But this is not true, and remember these verses are directed at the Christians in the area of Galatia:

Gal 5:19-21 The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.  I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

This verse clearly states that “sin is sin”, none is more “sinful” than any other.  As a result, the litmus test for the True Christian Church is this:  I, or any gay person, am accepted and have all the same rights and privileges of any other member, when everyone knows that I am gay!  In the news today, we can see which denomination are not the True Church.  The Catholics, the Holy Rollers, and the Southern Baptist, all feel that homosexuality is an unforgivable sin.  Even the Episcopal Church struggles with this issue.

So these Pascal’s Wager, Ephesians 4:2-6, Galatians 5:19-21, and the organized “churches” combine to leave the option that the god of the Bible maybe real.  But if this is true, all humanity is doomed to hell.  Not a single human has done as the Bible commands, and we know that breaking the commandments of YHWH will send you to hell!

As a gay Atheist I can easily interpret this situation into one that uses Pascal’s Wager to insure that Atheism is the correct assumption.  A loving god would not leave all of humanity to hell; he would leave markers to follow and a Holy Ghost to guide us.  These markers and this Holy Ghost do not have visible signs in the world today.  If they did, we would have one unified Church that followed the teachings of Jesus and obeyed the Word of God.  All we have is a fractured religion that cherry picks verses from the Bible that do not scare or intimidate their followers.

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Posted in Pascal's Wager, State of Mind, Becoming an atheist, Introduction | Print | 165 Comments »