The Bible Series: Examining the Truth: Part 2

"The Wickedness of Mankind"

Sometimes it amazes me that God could have been so cruel. It is a big contradiction that a supposed very loving God would stoop so low. I do not assume that these articles I am publishing will make me any friends. Quite the opposite actually. I grew up Catholic. As such, I have heard it said a couple times that I do not believe in God because I was raised Catholic. Is that true? I would imagine so. It was the very strict Catholic prayer rituals and various other "rules" that first made me start to ask questions. In addition, the fact that I was inquisitive was frowned upon and that in particular got me more curious. I thought to myself, "why is the fact that I am wondering about these things a problem? Why is gaining more knowledge something that I should not seek?"

There is a lot about God that I will explore during this series of articles. I am not yet sure how far this will go. How many articles will I write and how far into the Bible will they go? Right now I am just playing it all as it comes. The one thing that I have always had a problem with in the Bible is the outright cruelness of God. God has always been touted as a loving God, a forgiving God. So that being the case why should he be so mean?

Noah

"When mankind had spread all over the world, and girls were being born, some of the supernatural beings saw that these girls were beautiful, so they took the ones they liked. Then the Lord said, "I will not allow people to live forever; they are mortal. From now on they will live no longer than 120 years." In those days and even later there were giants on the Earth who were descendants of human women and the supernatural beings. They were the great heroes and famous men of long ago.

When the Lord saw how wicked everyone on earth was and how evil their thoughts were all the time, he was sorry that he ever made them and put them on the earth. He was so filled with regret that he said, "I will wipe out these people I have created, and also the animals and the birds because I am sorry that I made any of them." But the Lord was pleased with Noah.

So.. the entire world, that he created, had turned to evil. God was very displeased with the thoughts of the people. So is this to say that 100% of the people that inhabited the world were evil and deserved to die? The children too? How evil could the children have been? Maybe it was that God knew they would grow to be evil and that there was no chance they would ever be good? I find this very hard to swallow.

What about the rest of it? Before this portion of the story the Bible talks about the descendants of Adam and Eve. It goes on to describe who beget who and how old they were when they died. For anyone who is familiar with the Bible it is no surprise that the people back then lived until about 600-900 years old! Well.. that too is hard to believe. But, I suppose scientifically that could be possible. So I will leave that one alone. However, the supposed supernatural beings that roamed the earth, where did they come from? The Bible never describes where they come from before the point in which it mentions them. Who were these supernatural beings? Why did they decide to take all the beautiful women?

So all of his creations, from the people to the animals and even  the supernatural beings.. they were all so evil that they deserved to die. This hardly seems like the forgiving God that I was told about as a child. I could go on a murderous spree killing hundreds and if I truly repented and asked for forgiveness I would get it. Yet everyone else on earth needed to be wiped from the face of the planet? 

Many of the stories in the Bible seem to me to be written by people who had nothing better to do with their time. I know that is not the case, but it seems like that could have been a feasible answer. I have always said that the Bible, well, religion for that matter, is humanities explanation of where we came from before anybody had a clue about the truth. When a society exists and does not know of it's origins it leaves a big empty hole in the middle of their souls. People need to have some sort of reason for being who they are and they need to believe and understand that reasoning. Hence the Bible and the story of God.

Noah was meant to be our salvation. God loved Noah because in a time of evil he was the one person who deserved to be saved. See this too does not make sense. This is one area where I believe the people who made up the stories of God made a mistake. The world was evil and the people in it did not deserve to live. So God wiped them out. All the animals, the people, the birds and the fish... everything. Everything except Noah and his family. Given that Noah was God's one "good guy" he was instructed to build a boat with which to save his family and the animals so they could reproduce and repopulate the planet.  Again, we are treated to Gods strange ways because he tells Noah to also bring 7 pairs of "ritually clean" animals.

What is a "ritually clean" animal? Well, as far as I can tell these are the animals that are fit for sacrifice. This is another problem that I have always had with religion. Why is it necessary to sacrifice a perfectly good animal to God? What does he get out of it? Seriously. This is yet another example of why the Bible was made up by man. Only humans would think it necessary to sacrifice an animal to a God. This practice goes back eons. People have always thought it a good idea to kill an animal as an offering to their God. Why? I have no idea what significance this plays in a religion. But it seems odd that followers of God would also require it to be done. Even stranger that God himself would ask that it be done. Wouldn't you say?

Noah Makes A Sacrifice

So it is said in the Bible that when the rains stopped Noah prepared an altar and on the altar he burned one of each of the 7 "ritually clean" animals as a sacrifice to God. God was "pleased" with the smell and then decided that he would never again punish the planet or kill everybody because of what man does. So basically God admits to being wrong. How does an all-knowing deity make a mistake and kill billions of people and then say, "oops! Won't do that again."

So now Noah is tasked with repopulating the earth. One family to bring about a new civilization. Seems a bit difficult if you ask me. Think about how this would have to happen if it was true. Not only would Noah have to get his wife pregnant, but also his daughters too. His sons would have to do the same to their sisters and also their mothers. As a matter of fact, there are various places within the Bible in which incest run rampant. It is a pretty much accepted practice back then. So is having multiple wives. Where did all of this come from. Was it God that told people it was ok to live this way? It must have been since God apparently controlled everything. Maybe they were just following what their father Noah had done.

This is yet another example of the people making the Bible fit their way of life. Of course they were not about to write a book or tell a story that would convince people to stop doing things that they enjoyed. So they wrote the various things into that story. They made it acceptable for people to sleep with family members because that is what was happening then. Imagine if that was how we still lived now.. eww.

It is rather strange to me that people can look at the stories held within the Bible, try to model their lives after its teachings, when a good portion of the book is just so nasty. The book is filled with murder, rape, incest, and supernatural beings. Giants roam the planet because they are the offspring of the human females and the supernatural beings. I can only imagine those being angels. What other supernatural beings could have been around then? Either way, in some cases I think people would have a better chance if they modeled their lives after some other story.. say Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief. After all.. both are just made up stories. At least in the latter no one is having sex with their daughter and killing animals on altars all in the name of God.

The Bible Series: Examining The Truth. Part 1

Part 1 - "The Greatest Story Ever Told"

Follow along with me while I begin a new project. I will look at various stories from within the bible and we will discuss the facts behind the stories. I know for a fact that many times over this same thing has been done and in some cases this might even be the same as beating a dead horse. Still, I want to go through this exercise because among other things this will allow me some insight into some of the themes in common literature as well as our own historical sense of who we are and where we come from. After-all, most of the world believes what is written in these pages. I want to see how people can be fooled so easily. Join me.

The Question: Why would anyone who is capable of rational thought choose to believe in a God who is all-knowing and in utter control of the entire Universe?


I have always had a difficult time coming to grips with the fact that there is a being out there who had, in his infinite wisdom, chose to create the Earth and all of its inhabitants. Then in a stroke of genius decides to for lack of a better word, play with his creations as he did. Take Adam and Eve as just one example. He supposedly created these two and then gives them commands or "suggestions" to do whatever they want except to eat the fruit of one tree. He then tells them the name of that tree: The Tree of Knowledge.

So he is intentionally baiting them to disobey him. Why would he give them the freedom to choose what to do and then give them an order to not touch one thing in this wonderful garden? It is almost as if he is testing them. So, if he created them in his own image why would he need to test them? Did he doubt his creation? If he was all-knowing and wise why would he doubt what he had made? This makes no sense to me.

Ultimately they failed the test, if it was a test. Afterwards he (God) gets mad and then and only then are they ashamed and forced to wear clothes because now they know that they are naked. Before the fruit debacle they were walking around naked because they had either no clue or did not care that they had their junk hanging out. There are all kinds of parrallels drawn from this story to our current (and past) selves. There are way to many to debate here. So let's pick up on another story. Shall we?

We will be going backwards a little bit, back to the very beginning, back to creation. In the beginning there was nothing. The Earth was a dark and desolate place. Well.. sure it was, until it rotated some more and then it became daytime. The bible states that God had created the light. "Let there be light", and there was light and God was pleased with what he saw. So essentially if we are to believe this we must ask ourselves, "what existed before God created the light - the Sun?" Well apparently there was nothing. So let's examine this for a second.

If there was nothing but darkness until he created the light, that would mean that there was no Sun until that point. Science tells us that when our solar system was created, it was created around the Sun. It was our Sun that generated the gravity necessary for the rocks and asteroids to coalesce into larger and larger pieces until finally a planet was formed. Well, multiple planets actually but we are only concerned with one at this point. So we have the Sun and then we have its gravity and eventually we have planets. So with this being a fact of science, I ask you how can God (or anyone for that matter) have observed an already established Earth (with oceans according to the bible) and decided to create light and thereby the Sun? Seems impossible if you ask me.

This is part 1 of the new and ongoing series in which I examine and dissect the so-called "greatest story ever told". Well, it is a story actually. I intend to prove that it is indeed just that, a story. Check back with me won't you?

Putting it out there.

Looking through the available job postings on a couple well respected "blogging" sites is rather depressing. It seems that in order to get a "staff" job writing for someone or working as a ghost writer somewhere requires a lot more than I thought. Looks like I will have to up my game a little here.

In the past I have tried to stay away from some of the personal writing that made blogging popular years ago. I was a bit more comfortable writing about generic topics or about things that I had an interest in and then researched. Lately however writing as an outlet has been a bit more helpful than I had anticipated it would be early on. I never really enjoyed airing my personal laundry on anyone, least of all the world, but sometimes it is a good thing to get it all out. Especially when the only person or thing you are facing is the white screen of a laptop. It is easier to speak my mind to a object that will not squint its eyes at me or make weird noises when I say something surprising.

There is also a sense of a sort of disconnect here. Yes, I know that after I hit "publish" it is "out there". But while I am writing everything, and while I am thinking about what to say I am faced with no response and no embarrassment. It is really easy to get things off your chest when there is nothing stopping you. Only after you have finished saying everything is there any fear of rejection or embarrassment.

Now my dog is whining. Looks like it is time for a morning walk. Hope the world enjoys my anguish for the time being.

Cable and Mobile - Teammates or Adversaries. Part 1

There will always be people who are controlling what others are using. In the 90's the cable companies became giants selling television to the consumer that they could not get anywhere else. Today data is the commodity and the cable companies are still in the game. While they managed to remain a player the mobile companies have made their way into the market and are quickly gaining more and more real estate. With this comes the ever present battles for the money that is attached to all of the various products that they have for the consumer. One such product is not something that you can touch, feel, or even see. Rather it is something that we all use but has very rapidly become one of the most important things in all of our lives today, the data that we all need so much.

DATA Wars

Back when the connections were slow data was not an issue. Nobody needed to worry about their data usage because nobody was able to download anything large enough to matter. Streaming was not a thing back then and companies like Netflix did not exist. Even so, it did not take long for entities such as Netflix to start getting into the game with ideas and business models that did not exist before and with it came a need for a slice of the pie.

Of course the cable companies were not used to people trying to move in on their business because it did not happen all that often. And when it did they were not too worried because they would either win out in court on some trumped up patent lawsuit or they would just crush the competition in other ways. Regardless they remained their own god and really answered to no one. Such was the case when they started putting caps on their bandwidth and using "bandwidth throttling" to control what their customers could use.

When the mobile companies came into the fold it was an entirely different game. The cable companies did not see that they needed to fight with them too much. On the contrary there was an opportunity for an alliance. They could pool their resources and both industries could eat up the consumer. Of course this worked well until the data that consumers used became the biggest need they had and both the cable companies and the mobile companies had the means to sell it to them. This was the start of the DATA Wars.

The ultimate loser in this scenario is the customer. It does not matter how you arrange the players or what they are fighting over. None of it matters because no matter what is going on or how it is working out the consumer losses every time. See, you would think that in our capitalistic society that the customer would be the winner. You would think that the competition between the two entities would spur lower prices and better products. After all, isn't that the model that our markets were founded on? All of these "assumptions" would be correct. That is, if your assuming that things should be this way. The problem is that none of it has happened this way. Both industries have found ways to screw the consumer while fighting the competition. Why? Because the consumer does not have any choices in the matter, because the consumer has shown a dire need for the products, and because the government that is supposed to be the oversight here is not doing anything but allowing the companies to do what they want. So again.. the customer losses every time.

Our Backwards Society

Nigella Lawson. Does that name ring a bell with anyone? I have to be honest, until this morning I had no idea who she was either. Never heard the name before. This morning however I read the name on the @Todayshow twitter timeline. They did a report on her because apparently she was banned from flying from London to the US by the Department of Homeland Security. Why did this happen? Was it because she posed a threat to the country? Was she some sort of security risk? Was she accused or convicted of some heinous crime? Actually, none of the above are true. So what did she do wrong that would be a justifiable reason to keep her from being allowed into our country? She admitted in the past to using marijuana and cocaine.

There are probably a hundred or more reasons why this should not even have been possible. Is this happening because someone who has the power to make this restriction possible does not like her? Is it because there is some other rule or law that we, the people are not aware of? How could someone who simply admits to smoking marijuana in the past even be considered dangerous when we have multiple states in the country who allow it both medically and recreationally? It should be obvious to many people within our land that we have various interpretations of what our laws mean and who or what they protect.

There are a lot of things in this world that are wrong with how we live and who we listen to. In many ways the information that we have is tainted. This is true in a very large variety of industries, but I will start with the medical industry because it covers a variety of topics itself. Take for instance e the way that we as a society look at marijuana. Here is something that we have for many years treated as a very dangerous drug when in actuality it is not that dangerous at all. By comparison, caffeine is almost as bad for you as marijuana yet one is considered illegal.

As a matter of fact, let's take a look at the caffeine situation as I call it. I have been perplexed by this for some time now and here is why. We advertise caffeine as a "pick me up". As something that can get you "going" when you are tired or worn out or just otherwise need a boost of some kind. This same methodology has been used for the energy drinks that have hit the market over the last few years as well. When the energy drinks first came onto the scene people were a bit unsure what to make of them. Over the years they have been accepted and the market has even grown tremendously. What do we owe this growth to?

Cocaine was, as most of you should know, legal for some time and even included in soft drinks. Pharmacies sold it and doctors prescribed it commonly. It was used by a great number of people. Then when the government stepped in and decided to make it illegal that all changed. I guess rightfully so. I mean cocaine is a very dangerous drug right? People can and have died from using and basically abusing the drug. So, our government doing what they do best stepped in and said essentially that for the good of the people this drug will no longer be used medically and is illegal in every sense of the word.

So that brings us back to caffeine. Look at the similarities between the two. I wont go through the long list because I'm sure you can use your imagination and figure out how these two drugs are similar. But I will say that they are both stimulants and they both give you a "boost". Now we use caffeine every day. We get a dose of it in our coffee, in certain other drinks, and even in medicine. Bayer aspirin (among others) have amounts of caffeine mixed in with the other active ingredients in their drugs. Ok so where is the problem? The problem in my mind is how we push or advertise the drug and how it then is looked at in our perceptions. 

We advertise caffeine as something to give you a boost. We are basically saying in not so many words that if you want a chemical or artificial pick me up because you are too tired to face the day then drink some coffee. If you need to get up and moving quicker take an energy shot. Give yourself a dose of an artificial stimulant in order to get the desired effect that you are looking for. This is in my mind pretty damn close to how people looked at cocaine in the past and still do. As a way to get a "boost". Now of course the recreational use of the drug is seen differently. I get that. But where is the difference in the marketing of caffeine or other energy inducing drugs that are legal and cocaine? See this is the gray area in our society that we all neglect to face. 

I took a huge detour from the original topic of conversation in this essay. Nigella Lawson and her issues getting into the US. Our views on drugs in this country are so skewed that it is almost laughable. As a matter of fact I am pretty sure most other countries do laugh at us for the way we view most drugs, marijuana especially. This is a drug that is now finally getting some long overdue respect among not just the medical community but in society as well. Most people you know have probably tried it and if they have they might even still be regular smokers. Of course there are a great many scenarios in which smoking marijuana is not advisable. Take trying to find a job for instance. How does smoking a joint in the privacy of your own home get to be a determining factor in whether or not you should be able to hold a job? This makes no sense yet employers continue to fire people for marijuana use. 

There are a lot of things that we need to deal with in our country and I'm sure least of which is any of the topics in this essay. At least that is moist likely the opinion of those opposed to marijuana use. Either way it is something that we need to continue to fight for because there are people who could benefit greatly from its use and the there are those who just want to wind down after a long day. The reasons are many and they are not for me to judge. Point is, it should not be illegal and the day that it becomes legal throughout the country is the day we will have taken a great step forward as a society.