...and Shrimp Eat Plankton
Evan Gillick
Undergraduate/Spanish
...and Shrimp Eat Plankton
I would like to commend Mr. Van Teuteberg for defending our dear Lord and Savior in his “Hypocrites Eat Shrimp” article; for as we all know, God is omnipotent but just can't seem to defend himself against the slander of those ungodly atheists trying to make the Bible look ridiculous. What do those guys want anyway? Equal rights for everyone, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation? That is clearly not what GOD wants, and anyone who has read the Bible should know that.
Certainly equality sounds like a great idea, but that is a lie being created by sinful man-made governments. Only a government under the One True God® and managed by True Christians™ can possibly hope to create a better world. Unfortunately, we are backpedaling the tricycle of the Holy Spirit, GOD, and Jesus down a slippery slope of unrighteous heathenry. Look at slavery for example. In accordance with God's Holy Word, the United States of God Bless America had legal slavery until 1865. Slavery was not the problem, and the Bible clearly supports slavery. The Bible even says you can beat a slave to within an inch of his life, but as long as he is alive after two days you're in the clear! “When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. Exodus 21:20-21. As you can see, the problem is not slavery itself, but failure to follow the Bible's decrees with regards to slavery. Slaves should never have been killed by their owners, just horribly maimed, and the owners should have followed all of the Bible's teachings regarding their hard-earned human property. As a nation, we are not yet ready to re-embrace slavery as God intended it; and indeed, other sinful nations would try to stop us from reinstating it. This is further proof of our imperfect nature that only the blood of Christ LORD Jesus can fix. If anyone is interested in helping the cause, contact your local chapter of the KKK: a youth-friendly Christian group, for those of you who may not be familiar.
Anything that seems wrong in the Bible can easily be explained away. Let's take the book of Leviticus for example. In chapter 15, verses 20-22, God has this to say about menstruation: “And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean: every thing also that she sitteth upon shall be unclean. And whosoever toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even. And whosoever toucheth any thing that she sat upon shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.” God wrote these laws because menstruation smells horrible, and the people lacked any means with which to clean their furniture of its stench. This law no longer applies because God was waiting for the perfect time in which he would introduce not only Playtex and Tampax, but also the perfect cleaning solution as introduced by his prophet Billy Mays.
I was confused by Mr. Van Teuteberg's reference to the Ten Commandments. As any True Christian™ knows, there were actually two sets of Ten Comandments, one in Exodus 20, and the other in Exodus 34. Moses, who was probably pretty tired from carving...err...I mean receiving the tablets God carved, accidentally dropped and broke them, so he had to do it all over again. Even though he was supposed to have the same set as the first one, there are apparent differences. Whereas one tells us not to covet, the other one tells us not to boil a baby goat in its mother's milk. Maybe this oversight was caused by the scribes who translated and copied the Bible throughout the centuries....but wait... shouldn't they have been divinely guided too? Since Mr. Van Teuteberg is such a good defender of the faith, here is a list of 295 contradictions we wouldn't expect to see in a work that is of divine origin: http://www.reasonproject.org/bibleContra_big.pdf. Please address these issues one-by-one whilst we watch you stammer the words “but...but...but” and deny these contradictions exist. Go ahead and blame translation issues et al, but if the Bible is the perfect word of a perfect being, I expect no less than perfection. If a supernatural being uses natural agents to carry out his will, I expect those natural agents to get it 100% right. No Christian should claim it is the word of God and then blame human error for every verse or interpretation one doesn't personally agree with.
God is perfect, the definition of morality...so then who am I to question His wisdom when he had Joshua slaughter men, women, children, cattle, sheep, and donkeys? Who am I to question why a perfect being would have a “chosen people” he has go around conquering others? Who am I to question why a perfect being would kill innocent babies in a great flood? Who am I to question why a god would be incapable of forgiveness without a blood sacrifice? Who am I to question why a god would want us to follow him yet provide no evidence of his existence outside of hearsay and stories and faith?
Truth is not subjectively interpreted. There is no grand schism dividing people who believe that the sense of smell is derived from the nose, and others who believe that we smell with our ears. There are no people who believe shoes are designed to be worn on an erect penis instead of a foot. Two people reading from the same digital watch at the same moment will always read the same time. No one gathers to discuss the meaning or truth of the shoe, the nose, or the watch; it is objectively verifiable. However, with the Bible and other religious texts, we have something that is upheld as being “absolutely true” yet is always subjectively interpreted. There are over 34,000 sects of Christianity, each with their own version of God's perfect word. Who am I supposed to believe? Mr. Van Teuteberg?
Whose “absolute truth” should I believe? The “absolute truth” of the Christian Bible? Or the Islamic Qur'an? Or the Mahabharata's Bhagavad Gita, or the Vedas or Upanishads? The Zoroastrian's Avesta? The Sikh's Adi Granth? The fourteen Purvas of Jainism? The Book of Mormon? Scientology's Dianetics? Honestly if I was being forced to pick a book to be brainwashed into believing, it would be the Bahá'í Faith's Kitáb-i-Íqán and Kitáb-i-Aqdas because as far as religion is concerned it is fairly progressive, (except for its stance on homosexuality, among other things.) Forget cherry-picking of Bible verses, why is it that people cherry-pick the book itself? Has anyone even bothered to look at other people's religious ideas before becoming so dead-set on their own? But I guess we can't explore other faiths. Doing so just may have the side effects of humility and tolerance; the gravest of mortal sins...plus we may just go straight to hell for trading our own set of myths with another.
I invite any True Christians™ to stone me to death to prove their faith, in which case we will also prove that your “word of God” will never be taken seriously by any court of law, and with good reason. We will also prove (as if we hadn't already) that religious zealotry is the express-lane to violence and hatred. But didn't Jesus say, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone?” Actually, no he didn't. This was added by a scribe centuries later. So go ahead and grab that stone. Christians are currently killing homosexuals in Uganda, child witches in Nigeria, and abortion doctors in the United States of Christian America, so why haven't you killed me yet?
If you've decided that killing me is not in anyone's best interest, or you lack the faith to do so, or you disagree with the “kill the unbelievers” interpretation of the Bible, I invite you to explore the Bahá'í Faith, whose basic teachings can be read at: http://info.bahai.org/bahaullah-basic-teachings.html. That little bubble of belief you live in may just burst, and you can start approaching your life rationally and live happily with the finite time you have. If you are currently out looking for the right rock to throw, a nice blow to my head should do the trick; after all, it is not nearly as thick as yours.
Sources:
1. Van Teuteberg, Matt. Hypocrites Eat Shrimp.” The Flipside, Vol. 7, Issue 8.
2. The “Holy” Bible
3. http://www.reasonproject.org/bibleContra_big.pdf
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/video/2007/dec/09/video
5. http://info.bahai.org/bahaullah-basic-teachings.html
Undergraduate/Spanish
...and Shrimp Eat Plankton
I would like to commend Mr. Van Teuteberg for defending our dear Lord and Savior in his “Hypocrites Eat Shrimp” article; for as we all know, God is omnipotent but just can't seem to defend himself against the slander of those ungodly atheists trying to make the Bible look ridiculous. What do those guys want anyway? Equal rights for everyone, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation? That is clearly not what GOD wants, and anyone who has read the Bible should know that.
Certainly equality sounds like a great idea, but that is a lie being created by sinful man-made governments. Only a government under the One True God® and managed by True Christians™ can possibly hope to create a better world. Unfortunately, we are backpedaling the tricycle of the Holy Spirit, GOD, and Jesus down a slippery slope of unrighteous heathenry. Look at slavery for example. In accordance with God's Holy Word, the United States of God Bless America had legal slavery until 1865. Slavery was not the problem, and the Bible clearly supports slavery. The Bible even says you can beat a slave to within an inch of his life, but as long as he is alive after two days you're in the clear! “When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. Exodus 21:20-21. As you can see, the problem is not slavery itself, but failure to follow the Bible's decrees with regards to slavery. Slaves should never have been killed by their owners, just horribly maimed, and the owners should have followed all of the Bible's teachings regarding their hard-earned human property. As a nation, we are not yet ready to re-embrace slavery as God intended it; and indeed, other sinful nations would try to stop us from reinstating it. This is further proof of our imperfect nature that only the blood of Christ LORD Jesus can fix. If anyone is interested in helping the cause, contact your local chapter of the KKK: a youth-friendly Christian group, for those of you who may not be familiar.
Anything that seems wrong in the Bible can easily be explained away. Let's take the book of Leviticus for example. In chapter 15, verses 20-22, God has this to say about menstruation: “And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean: every thing also that she sitteth upon shall be unclean. And whosoever toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even. And whosoever toucheth any thing that she sat upon shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even.” God wrote these laws because menstruation smells horrible, and the people lacked any means with which to clean their furniture of its stench. This law no longer applies because God was waiting for the perfect time in which he would introduce not only Playtex and Tampax, but also the perfect cleaning solution as introduced by his prophet Billy Mays.
I was confused by Mr. Van Teuteberg's reference to the Ten Commandments. As any True Christian™ knows, there were actually two sets of Ten Comandments, one in Exodus 20, and the other in Exodus 34. Moses, who was probably pretty tired from carving...err...I mean receiving the tablets God carved, accidentally dropped and broke them, so he had to do it all over again. Even though he was supposed to have the same set as the first one, there are apparent differences. Whereas one tells us not to covet, the other one tells us not to boil a baby goat in its mother's milk. Maybe this oversight was caused by the scribes who translated and copied the Bible throughout the centuries....but wait... shouldn't they have been divinely guided too? Since Mr. Van Teuteberg is such a good defender of the faith, here is a list of 295 contradictions we wouldn't expect to see in a work that is of divine origin: http://www.reasonproject.org/bibleContra_big.pdf. Please address these issues one-by-one whilst we watch you stammer the words “but...but...but” and deny these contradictions exist. Go ahead and blame translation issues et al, but if the Bible is the perfect word of a perfect being, I expect no less than perfection. If a supernatural being uses natural agents to carry out his will, I expect those natural agents to get it 100% right. No Christian should claim it is the word of God and then blame human error for every verse or interpretation one doesn't personally agree with.
God is perfect, the definition of morality...so then who am I to question His wisdom when he had Joshua slaughter men, women, children, cattle, sheep, and donkeys? Who am I to question why a perfect being would have a “chosen people” he has go around conquering others? Who am I to question why a perfect being would kill innocent babies in a great flood? Who am I to question why a god would be incapable of forgiveness without a blood sacrifice? Who am I to question why a god would want us to follow him yet provide no evidence of his existence outside of hearsay and stories and faith?
Truth is not subjectively interpreted. There is no grand schism dividing people who believe that the sense of smell is derived from the nose, and others who believe that we smell with our ears. There are no people who believe shoes are designed to be worn on an erect penis instead of a foot. Two people reading from the same digital watch at the same moment will always read the same time. No one gathers to discuss the meaning or truth of the shoe, the nose, or the watch; it is objectively verifiable. However, with the Bible and other religious texts, we have something that is upheld as being “absolutely true” yet is always subjectively interpreted. There are over 34,000 sects of Christianity, each with their own version of God's perfect word. Who am I supposed to believe? Mr. Van Teuteberg?
Whose “absolute truth” should I believe? The “absolute truth” of the Christian Bible? Or the Islamic Qur'an? Or the Mahabharata's Bhagavad Gita, or the Vedas or Upanishads? The Zoroastrian's Avesta? The Sikh's Adi Granth? The fourteen Purvas of Jainism? The Book of Mormon? Scientology's Dianetics? Honestly if I was being forced to pick a book to be brainwashed into believing, it would be the Bahá'í Faith's Kitáb-i-Íqán and Kitáb-i-Aqdas because as far as religion is concerned it is fairly progressive, (except for its stance on homosexuality, among other things.) Forget cherry-picking of Bible verses, why is it that people cherry-pick the book itself? Has anyone even bothered to look at other people's religious ideas before becoming so dead-set on their own? But I guess we can't explore other faiths. Doing so just may have the side effects of humility and tolerance; the gravest of mortal sins...plus we may just go straight to hell for trading our own set of myths with another.
I invite any True Christians™ to stone me to death to prove their faith, in which case we will also prove that your “word of God” will never be taken seriously by any court of law, and with good reason. We will also prove (as if we hadn't already) that religious zealotry is the express-lane to violence and hatred. But didn't Jesus say, “let he who is without sin cast the first stone?” Actually, no he didn't. This was added by a scribe centuries later. So go ahead and grab that stone. Christians are currently killing homosexuals in Uganda, child witches in Nigeria, and abortion doctors in the United States of Christian America, so why haven't you killed me yet?
If you've decided that killing me is not in anyone's best interest, or you lack the faith to do so, or you disagree with the “kill the unbelievers” interpretation of the Bible, I invite you to explore the Bahá'í Faith, whose basic teachings can be read at: http://info.bahai.org/bahaullah-basic-teachings.html. That little bubble of belief you live in may just burst, and you can start approaching your life rationally and live happily with the finite time you have. If you are currently out looking for the right rock to throw, a nice blow to my head should do the trick; after all, it is not nearly as thick as yours.
Sources:
1. Van Teuteberg, Matt. Hypocrites Eat Shrimp.” The Flipside, Vol. 7, Issue 8.
2. The “Holy” Bible
3. http://www.reasonproject.org/bibleContra_big.pdf
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/video/2007/dec/09/video
5. http://info.bahai.org/bahaullah-basic-teachings.html