People Kill: God Doesn’t Care: Part Two

Following yet another mass shooting in the US of A, with all the predictable and understandable gut reactions that pour forth, my gut feeling is that nothing of substance will be done since American history, culture and the Constitution rule; gun control isn’t the real issue; things will get worse; people kill (it’s in our genes – deal with it); and it provides another reason why God is an increasing irrelevance in society.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

The Religious Element

I personally find it amazing, even astounding that in the aftermath of a mass murder episode, people flock to churches and pray and hold candlelight prayer vigils, and express total faith in the Almighty the He will look after the slain innocents. I’d of thought people, especially religious people, should be taking to the streets with raised fists screaming in pure rage and outrage against the alleged loving, compassionate, merciful, all-knowing, all-powerful God for standing by on the sidelines and not lifting a godly digit to prevent the tragedy in the first place.

Of course the obvious answer is that God gave us free will, and a person who slaughters the innocent is just exercising God’s free will gift and therefore God is not going to interfere. God does not want to get involved in the petty daily affairs of humankind.

Or, some might suggest that God works in mysterious ways and that the slaughter of the innocents is part of God’s plan, part of the Almighty’s Big Picture which us mortals can’t comprehend. Well, if mass murder is part of God’s plan, do we really want any part of God?

Some suggest that God doesn’t work in mysterious ways and this is just pure and simple another example of God’s wrath. While that would be keeping within God’s actions and reactions in the Old Testament, I somehow find it hard to believe that God would need to employ a middleman. Further, by employing a middleman, God would lose the benefit of letting all and sundry know that He was pissed off and this was an example of His wrath. So, sorry ‘bout that Westboro Baptist Church but God did not ‘send the shooter’ as per one of your favourite phrases – this time or ever. We do not need God’s help to kill.

Some, especially the extreme Right Wing Fundamentalists, suggest that humans have turned their back on God and therefore God has turned His back on us. That sort of spitting the dummy doesn’t quite ring true with those godly attributes of compassion, etc. I mean a child might in a hissy fit turn their back on Mum & Dad, but Mum & Dad aren’t as likely to reciprocate.

Of course the final answer as to why God ignores us, and allows extreme evil, is that there is no God in the first damn place, and this (mass murder of the innocents) is just part of that evidence.

In conclusion, in one sense, such mass murder episodes are in a strange way ‘good news’ stories for they should re-re-re-reinforce the concept that, sorry Virginia, there is no God, or if there is He does not give a DAMN about the sorry affairs of mankind. He does not want to get His godly hands dirty. So all the vigils, and all the prayers, and all the church attendances, all of which may be psychological comforting responses, in the long and short term, well these actions are absolutely meaningless and a waste of time, effort, energy and tears. Ultimately, it amounts to another nail in God’s coffin. 

P.S. - In a Darwinian sense, when you have a global population of over seven billion and increasing, well, life is cheap. The mass shooting of millions in one day would be of no lasting consequence to the human species; just the opposite, it might improve things – slightly.

People Kill: God Doesn’t Care: Part One

Following yet another mass shooting in the US of A, with all the predictable and understandable gut reactions that pour forth, my gut feeling is that nothing of substance will be done since American history, culture and the Constitution rule; gun control isn’t the real issue; things will get worse; people kill (it’s in our genes – deal with it); and it provides another reason why God is an increasing irrelevance in society.

One undesirable cultural phenomena, often witnessed in the United States, though hardly the exclusive property of the US of A, is the fairly indiscriminate and outright random killings of innocents that the killer has some apparent, albeit impersonal, grudge against. The most recent in a long line of case histories involved the Sandy Hook Elementary School at Newtown, Connecticut (December 2012). However, I don’t want to get into specific cases, nor dwell on the human element as experienced by those most intimately involved, friends, family, and authority figures like the police who have to deal with the situation. Rather, I’m going to focus on the broader issues, two of which are always present in the aftermath. There’s the human element, and often the related gun control issues, and there’s the religious element, an often focus being why does God allow evil and why do people seemingly ignore this facet?

The Human Element

People kill. We’re very good at it. That we are killing machines seems to be hardwired into our neural networks. Why is probably irrelevant, but no doubt can be traced back to our early hominid ancestors and the days of nature red in tooth and claw and that famous summation of biological evolution – survival of the fittest – kill or be killed - or in more modern phraseology, shoot first and ask questions later. Is there any human on this planet over the age of five who hasn’t secretly wished to bash somebody’s head in to a brain dead pulp? If so, the numbers are probably so low as to be statistically meaningless.

People kill. Again, we’re very good at it. And so now and again someone with a gun(s) goes off the deep end and lots of innocents die (or are seriously wounded but pull through even though the intention was for them to snuff it). Whenever one of these mass killing events ensues, especially in the US of A, there will be the inevitable outcry for tougher gun control measures. There will also be the inevitable outcome of keeping the status quo. It’s not easy to change the American Constitution which gives Americans the right to bear arms! American history and culture reinforce that right. Gun control isn’t the issue though that’s the gut reaction, but gun control just ain’t going to happen. But even if it does, even if not one private citizen in the US of A had a gun, so what? If I wish to kill someone indiscriminately or at random, I’m not going to be stopped just because I don’t have a gun. It’s a trite but accurate phrase that “guns don’t kill, people kill”.

How can I kill thee, let me count the ways. Well there are still knives, bows and arrows, swords, and spears. Eliminate those, well I can throw rocks or bang you over the head with a brick. No rocks, no bricks; well I can choke you to death. Maybe I have access to hand grenades, sticks of dynamite, Molotov cocktails, or have the know-how to make homemade bombs or make nerve gas or otherwise employ poisons effectively. Clubs, like baseball bats, are pretty effective too since they can clobber more than just a baseball. I can always drive my car into a crowd at high speed, and cars are unlikely to be banned just because their drivers can employ them to kill. If you really want to go out with a bang rent a fully fuelled plane and crash it into a crowded sports stadium. Then there’s arson via the humble match. No, eliminating guns is not going to end the slaughter of the innocents. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

People kill. We love it. You’d probably be hard pressed to pick up any general history text of any nation and not find, somewhere between the covers, at least one killing contained therein, and truth be known, probably lots of them. Recall all those human sacrifices made to the Aztec gods – slicing open the chest and ripping the heart out kills just as effectively as a gun. Closer to American hearts and minds, once upon a time it was peachy keen to slaughter the Native Americans including women, children and infants, as in “the only good Indian is a dead Indian”. Afro-Americans fared only slightly better. 

We almost tend to make cultural ‘heroes’ of those who kill, from Billy the Kid to Captain Kidd, Jesse James to Ned Kelly (Australian), Doc Holiday to Bonnie & Clyde, even villains like John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, and Jack the Ripper have acquired a certain mythological aura that surrounds them. The passing of time has a way of softening their impact. If you source though the histories of all nations that list could be extended a thousand-fold.

The total number of biographies of the bad guys (and gals), killers and serial killers, the gangsters, the outlaws, the pirates, the assassins, even famous celebrities who were murdered, would fill up the entire shelf space of many a good sized public library. There’s just something about the cold blooded killer that appeals to our genetic makeup.

Our works of fiction are full of human slaughter and not just war novels and westerns. There’s that whole genre of slasher films aimed usually at the teenagers.  We love a whodunit murder mystery and those with a ‘license to kill’ like the ever popular 007. Cop and P.I. TV shows do well; even courtroom dramas which usually feature a murder trial. The Bible (another work of fiction) contains more blood and guts and gore and slaughter of the innocents per page than the most graphic of novels, and you’ll find murder ranging from Shakespeare, Homer and even unto operas – there’s a least one murder in each of Richard Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” quartet of ‘musical dramas’. 

                                                                                                            

And if we get tired of humans killing humans, there are always aliens and monsters on the rampage to satisfy the bloodlust.

I forget exactly the number now, but a study was made of the number of fictional murders shown on make-believe TV shows but the end result was alarming. We are graphically exposed day-in-and-day-out to humans killing humans, and not just on the evening TV news, though that too of course.

I fail to see why people get all worked up over the mass slaughter of, say, 30 innocents. What they are worked up about is the fact that one person killed 30 people, not that 30 people were killed. I’m sure that everyday, in everyway, in the US of A, even a lot more than 30 people are murdered, but hardly a headline, apart from the local murder mentioned in the local rag, gives note to the daily 30 killed by 30 others. But if one individual does murder 30 people at one go, then its global headlines and hundreds of human interest stories follow. In either case it’s the same number of innocent people dead, so why does one rate a massive outpouring of soul searching and the other rates barely a whimper of concern? Is there really anything different in principle between killing 30 or the one? Murder is murder; mass murder is still murder.

And what of that other mass slaughter? It’s what humans do best, not only killing other humans but innocent animals, especially animals, for no reason. A ‘sportsman’ hunter kills 30 deer; a ‘sportsman’ fisherman kills 30 fish. If anything, the ‘sportsman’ gets a pat on the back for his skill.

Speaking of skill, doesn’t the military award marksmanship medals for such gunmanship skills? What about sportsmen (and women) in competition up through and including the Olympic Games for their shooting skills in not only marksmanship with a gun, but say in archery. We reward those who can shoot, and in a manner of speaking, shoot to kill (by hitting the bullseye).

The bottom line is that while most of us are restrained most of the time from acting out our primeval instincts by the laws of the land, each and every one of us can snap; some more readily than others, but snap nonetheless. Perhaps the really amazing thing is that the slaughter of the innocents is as at a low a level as it is. And though this sounds cruel, in the time it takes one person to snuff out 30 lives, another 30 are born. In a nation of 300 million, if 30 are murdered, well that’s a drop in the ocean, but in the real world, the world of nature red in tooth and claw, that sort of ratio wouldn’t cause Mother Nature to bat a proverbial eyebrow, and aren’t humans part of that real world (although we’d probably deny it, since we think we’re something special, like something special in the eyes of God). In the cosmic scheme of things, an elephant stepping on an ant hill, while a tragedy for the ants concerned, is of no consequence for the overall survival of the ant species.

So what’s going to happen? Nothing is going to happen except things will get worse! With every passing day there are more and more people – more and more chances for a massacre of the innocent to come to pass. With every passing day, more and more instruments that have lethal powers are manufactured. Even if there come to pass legal ways of preventing the two trends from interacting, there are always the illegal ways and means, and if history is any guide, what Lola wants, Lola gets, even if Lola has to beg, borrow or steal.

To be continued…

The Bible: Something’s Screwy Somewhere: Part One

Multi-millions around the world accept the Bible as the literal word of God, and as such it cannot be in error. However, an examination of Biblical texts strongly suggests, to those with open minds, that error, or as I like to phrase things “something’s screwy somewhere”, abounds.

I know I probably shouldn’t pick on God and the Bible as often as I do, but, you know, it’s so damn easy it’s like taking candy from a baby. God sure leads with His chin. Anyway, if I haven’t been struck down by lightning by now, I probably won’t be, so here goes another round. As per usual, all references are from the King James Version (KJV) of the so-called “Word of God”.

Biblical Close Encounters

Way more people have had a close encounter with the Loch Ness Monster than all the various Biblical characters put together have had with respect to an up-close-and-personal chinwag with the Almighty. If you put faith in ancient Greece mythology, way more mortals had a close encounter – a very close encounter – with Zeus, than ever conversed with God.

In The Biblical Beginning: Genesis

Genesis 1:24-25 tells us God created the terrestrial animals (cattle, beasts, creeping things). Man was then created in Genesis 1:26-27. In Genesis 2:7, God created man (as in the first male), and then the beasts, etc. in Genesis 2:18-19. So which came first the human or the animal?

God says (Genesis 2:17; Genesis 3:3) that if you eat of the forbidden fruit that contained the knowledge of good-and-evil (the Bible never mentions it being an apple by the way) you will kick the bucket, immediately if not sooner. Adam and Eve however had a taste of that good-and-evil brand of snack food (Genesis 3:6), and guess what, like the serpent said (Genesis 3:4); thou both survived and didn’t kick the bucket. So, God was telling fibs! In fact, Adam lived to a ripe old age of 930 years (Genesis 5:5), doing his fruitful and multiplying bit long after tasting the forbidden fruit. So God indeed cried ‘wolf’. In God we trust? I think not.

And does that serpent who lurked in the Garden of Eden know something we don’t, that in fact there is not a god, but gods (plural). Check out the wisdom of the serpent in Genesis 3:5. Polytheism rules, OK? In fact, later on down the track in Exodus, and in other Biblical books, God says the same thing – there are indeed other gods.

Sarah’s age according to Genesis 17:17 was 90 years old when she gives birth to Isaac; Genesis 23:1 records her age as 127 years old at time of death. That should be in the “Guinness Book of World Records” as well as “Ripley’s Believe It or Not”. 

You all know the story of Noah’s Ark and the Biblical Flood and how the animals (every living thing of all flesh) went in two by two, male and female (Genesis 6:19-20; Genesis 7:8-9 and 7:14-15) But in Genesis 7:2-3, clean animals go in sevens, male and female, ditto the fowls of the air, but unclean beasts only go in pairs, male and female. Something’s screwy somewhere when the Bible can’t get the story straight and consistent in one lone chapter.

What age do you expect to live to? If you believe in Genesis 6:3, you’ll live until you’re 120 years old! And here I thought threescore and ten years was the Biblical norm – well I was wrong. I still have another fifty-five years of paying taxes to go, not five. That’s not 120 maximum by the way, but 120 years minimum (since a lot of Biblical characters, like Adam, lived way beyond that). Anyway, 120 years it is. That’s God’s promise. But in reality, sigh, that’s just another of God’s fibs. So if you don’t, live to be 120, you know who to bellyache too!

Genesis 4:17 makes mention of Cain’s wife. Where did she come from?

Then you have that Towel of Babel tale. But it wasn’t just God who went down to confound the language of the builders so that no one would understand anyone else. There is a mysterious, and anomalous other(s), noted in Genesis 11:7 as “let us go down” and do the dirty deed. Who is that “us”? Who knows?

In fact, to be perfectly honest, the entirety of Genesis is one big anomaly from start to finish.

Other Biblical Contradictions

Now where exactly did Aaron, kid brother of Moses, kick the bucket? If you believe Numbers 33:39, Aaron died, at 123 years of age, at Mount Hor. On the other hand, if you believe Deuteronomy 10:6, Aaron died and was buried at Mosera. They certainly didn’t employ fact-checkers back in those days.

Who provoked David to number Israel? Well, according to 1 Chronicles 21:1, it was Satan. But, let’s not give the devil his due quite so fast, because in 2 Samuel 24:1, it was the LORD Himself who did the deed! There’s never a good editor around when you need one.

How many brat kids did Michal, the daughter of Saul have? Well, 2 Samuel 6:23 said she was barren until the day she died. No descendents did she have. But, do not despair for her, because in 2 Samuel 21:8 she gave birth to a total of five strapping boys. Someone (Samuel?) didn’t study enough maths to distinguish zero units from five units.

God says that Jesus preaches peace unto the children of Israel in Acts 10:36. But, Jesus counters that in Matthew 10:34 with his sword overriding any purpose he might have regarding peace on earth. Jesus makes crystal clear that “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth”.

But the biggest contradiction of all is God’s commandment “Thou shall not kill” when not only does God kill again, and again, and again, and again (the Biblical Flood; Sodom & Gomorrah; the Tenth Plague; the drowning of Pharaoh’s army, etc.), but instructs others to kill on His behalf, like in Exodus 32:27 (kill them all) or Deuteronomy 20:17 (destroy them: kill, kill, kill).

So much for the infallible so-called “Word of God”, but then I’m sure that if God decreed that three plus seven equalled a bakers dozen, that His good flock would accept that too without question.

The Source of All Evil

Who is responsible for evil? Is it because Adam and Eve did a naughty and got the heave-ho from paradise for their troubles? Is it because of Satan? Are the fallen angels responsible? No. Who is responsible for evil? God is responsible for creating evil and He admits it. Just check out Isaiah 45:7. So, if there is evil in this world, don’t blame anyone other than the Almighty. Whodunit - The Lord, that’s whodunit!

Biblical Unicorns

The Bible lends credibility to the existence of unicorns, mentioning them nine times over in the KJV.

The Angle on Angels

These are multi-thousands of images from stained glass church windows, to artworks and sculptures, to Christmas cards that show Biblical angels with two wings. I’m damned if I can find any reference in the Bible (KJV at least) that describe angels with two wings - something’s screwy somewhere.

The Bible’s Sir Joseph

Joseph was ‘knighted’ for services rendered unto ancient Egypt, well unto the pharaoh for Joseph had a talent interpreting dreams, especially the pharaoh’s dreams. This really impressed the pharaoh.

Genesis 41: 39-46 notes that Joseph, at age 30, was anointed by the pharaoh at be basically his second in command and ruler over all the land of Egypt

Genesis 45:26: Joseph is governor over all the land of Egypt.

Now Joseph dies at 110 years of age (nice going, though a decade less than expected!) at Genesis 50:26, and is embalmed and buried in Egypt. So Joseph was a very important person in ancient Egypt for about 80 years.

But when we come to Exodus 1:8, we have a new king (pharaoh) of Egypt “which knew not Joseph”. WTF? Obviously the new pharaoh could not have known Joseph personally, since Joseph was dead, but to not even know the name, the famous Joseph, who must have had all manner of texts written about him and monuments and a grave site and so on and so forth. That’s an anomaly. It’s like a new President of the United States (POTUS) who never heard of the existence of a previous POTUS, any previous POTUS.

The latter pharaoh (whoever he was) can probably be excused however for his faulty memory seeing as how to this very day no ancient records, documents, hieroglyphs, stele, far less a tomb has ever verified there being a Biblical Joseph in Egypt full stop.

By the Rivers of Babylon

If God smote Sodom and Gomorrah for being wicked and sinful (Genesis 13:13; Genesis 18:20), why did He not smite Babylon? Despite a lot of godly huffing and puffing in Isaiah and Jeremiah (Isaiah 13:19 and Jeremiah 25:12 & Jeremiah Chapters 50 & 51) that seems to suggest Babylon will cop what Sodom and Gomorrah copped, it was left to the Persians, then the Greeks, and finally the desert to take care of and bury wicked Babylon (which virtually became synonymous with all things evil in the Bible). Maybe that was God’s master plan all along, but it sure was the longwinded way of doing things. If God had been consistent, He would have given Babylon the Sodom and Gomorrah treatment directly. Of course if God were really a fag-hater, He would have smote ancient Greece too and dealt with those upstart Greek deities to boot who weren’t exactly Mr. & Mrs. Purity.

To be continued…