Many Christians today believe that when they sing a hymn of praise God is up in Heaven listening and enjoying himself. In this way music is much like the smell of burning flesh that, in Old Testament animal sacrifices, God was also pleased with. God enjoys being worshiped so much that worshiping any other deity will get you sent straight to Hell.
You see God, much like a vain and insecure girlfriend, is very jealous. In fact not only does God admit that he is jealous in Exodus 34:14 but Jealous is actually his NAME. Exodus 20:5, a few chapters earlier, God again admits he’s jealous. This is also the verse where he claims that he will visit the sins of the Father’s onto the sons until the fourth generation.
So he’s jealous enough to punish anyone serving another deity and vengeful enough to punish the sins of a Father by bringing down wrath on future generations. So one has to wonder… Where are the qualities that are worthy of praise exactly? How insecure is this guy that he needs constant worship and must brutally punish any defectors to other faiths?
In Revelations 4 there is talk of four living creatures which continuously bow down and worship God. In fact that is all they seem to do is Worship. Revelations 4:6-9
“… In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. 7The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. 8Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." 9Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever …“
This can’t be right can it? According to Christians this is the same God who sent the Israelites to slaughter the Amalekite children. The same one who drowned thousands of innocent children in the Great Flood and decided to punish the first born in Egypt instead of the Pharaoh who was actually to blame.
This is the same deity who’s best plan to save humanity was to get his own son to become a man and perform miracles before being brutally killed as a sacrifice for humanity’s sin BUT leave no evidence behind and require people to believe the story without any evidence in order to be saved. My point - The God of the Bible deserves no praise. He’s a bumbling, angry, jealous tyrant who is repeatedly described as jealous and sitting on a throne with a crown. This regal personification no doubt came in handy when European Kings wanted to claim divine right to rule.
I have established throughout the posts of this blog that Yahweh is anything BUT deserving of praise and yet he demands it by not only outlawing other religions but also outlawing graven images. Along with requiring praise OR ELSE the God of the Bible also sets up plenty of draconian and immoral rules. You can’t eat certain things, you can’t wear certain types of fabric and all sorts of people deserved to be stoned to death for various offenses. Even working on the Sabbath was punishable by death. But then Jesus breaks that rule in the Gospels. So God can’t even conform to his own rules, even in human form… I guess it makes sense when Romans 2:11 says: “For there is no respect of persons with God.”
So God demands worship and gives us no respect? Or is the King James Version wrong in using the word respect (it is a different word in other translations)… But then if a different word should be used isn’t this a translation error? And that wouldn’t happen in a flawless and infallible book. Fundamentalism doesn’t work, taking the Bible literally doesn’t work.
Yahweh is apparently insecure about the size of his… you know… or maybe he doesn’t have one. That explains why many think Heaven will just be one big praise-fest singing the glories of God… For eternity. Thanks but no thanks.
BONUS POST - NEW AGE NONSENSE
I spend a lot of time picking on the Bible and Biblical Literalism but I’d like to spend a few paragraphs talking about something that is equally invalid as a belief - New Age. New Age beliefs come in all shapes and sizes this is because there is no underlying core belief system here. New Age is a misnomer, what you actually have is a combination of old beliefs put together into new combinations based on what ideas appeal to a person or, as I’ve heard people say, RESONATE. What resonates is basically whatever supernatural elements sound best.
Not a fan of Heaven? No problem, reincarnation works too. Want Heaven anyway? No problem, New Age beliefs are flexible that way. Make up your own version of Heaven if you want. New Age means essentially anything goes. New Age beliefs, I feel, as best summed up by this line of dialogue from the film Ghost Busters:
Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full-trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster, and the theory of Atlantis?
New Age beliefs thrive on pseudoscientific ideas being propagated into pop culture and they also thrive on your laziness in doing research. That is why these ideas are reduced to buzz-words and vague ideas, so that a belief in them can be picked up and put down depending upon your mood. This is becoming very common amongst people who leave mainstream religion behind or never really become in depth. Rather than move toward more secular logic based beliefs they head off toward a fringe of “pick what you like” beliefs.
While certainly preferable to something like fundamentalist Christianity these New Age beliefs have no real basis and reality. Any amount of scientific research will quickly overturn these ideas. Unfortunately the internet has become crowded with sites in support of these pseudoscientific ideas and New Age, unlike atheism, is selling itself at a much faster rate. This is because New Age provides all the positives of a mainstream religion, like a sense of friendship and community as well as the prospect of an after-life, without the negatives - such as church services, obscenely strict moral codes and the chance of eternal punishment.
I think that with time the debate will be won by reason and skepticism but for now the American public, as they lose their mainstream faith, will turn to these fringe concepts for comfort.
The Negative Aspects of New Age -
One of the primary negative aspects of New Age is the fringe belief known as the 2012 Doomsday. While some New Agers reject the event as a Doomsday and claim it will be a time of spiritual ascension thousands of others claim it will be the End of the World. The 2012 Doomsday has become popular within mainstream media as a source for movies, religious propaganda and endless amounts of money made from pseudoscience. The issue here is that con-men are spreading genuine fear about something which has been repeatedly debunked since the early 90s.
You can find more info on 2012 debunked on a great many websites so I won't go into why it's BS here.
See you next week.
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