My Bible is Better than Your Bible

Maybe it’s the three espresso’s or the beautiful pre-dawn sky or even the gentle cool breeze before another warm day but something is bringing out the sparkle in today. OK. Let’s admit it – those are all magnificent reasons to be having a good day – but when you receive the following book in your mailbox, you just know the day is going to get a whole lot better…

Great Holiday reading – for the whole family!

If you get a chance to grab a copy of this book, settle down in a comfy chair and just revel in the depth to which we modern humans will go to prove that we, as a society,  have not advanced one iota in the last 2,000 years. How is this proved? Let us count the ways…

1. The book references laws of the United States. How about a very loud “HELLO?!!” This book has turned up in a letterbox in Perth, Western Australia… Why do we care about changes to US laws and ideals on any one particular day of religious worship over another? To help those who may be geographically challenged… here’s a map of the world as we know it today (please note : the actual world is a spherical globe. This is an illustration only).
   

   Far enough to be different

   Notice that we don’t even share the same side of the planet? That’s an awful lot of room for differences to be gently ignored.

   

   A fun read on a quiet day – but can anyone truly believe this shit?

2. The book is an interpretation of bibilical prophecy, and was written in 1980. The full text is on this site. The opening page recounts the carnage of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre. Uhmm… are we changing the interpretation to suit the times here? A bit like the tales of Nostradamus (whose prophecies seem to have been left alone for a while now), the year 2000 computer glitch and other folk tales. Remember the horrific phrase Y2K? Here in Perth, retail stores sold out of camping equipment, torches and bottled water as folk bunkered down to prepare for the descent into chaos when society fell apart and aeroplanes fell out of the sky because computers couldn’t count past 1999. Then there was the Mayan long term calendar predicting the end of the world for 2012. No, wait… We haven’t passed that one yet. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Until 2013, at least.
3. Arguments relying on the self-referential fallacy are a little too primitive for a developed society. You cannot prove that a religious text is true by referencing back to the religious text. Being able to quote this line or that phrase and paragraph verbatim may show a high level of study on your part but it is not going to prove your point. The National Sunday Law book uses biblical references ad nauseum to prove a particular interpretation of bibilical prophecy. However, nothing in it is proven outside of the narrow reference of the Bible. An interesting interpretation of the self-referential argument is shown in this site, which almost reads as a fascinating evolutionary refutation study guide.
4. Religious intolerance is one of the most primitive forms of thinking. “I am right and you are wrong” works when we are dealing with measurable and independently verfiable subjects but fails abysmally when applied to belief and faith. The National Sunday Law is a nasty piece of work in this regard… Have a look at how the “other” religion (Catholic) is discussed..
   

   oh, i get it… the Pope is the bad guy…

5. Joy in the pain and suffering of others. This is sickening. Pure, unadulterated hate, carefully filtered through a sieve of self-righteousness and burning with voyeuristic sadism. It is similar to the recollections of a few of the children who were part of the Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes experiment – they found that they actually enjoyed being able to persecute the blue eyed/brown eyed people. And if it isn’t enjoyment in the fate of others then it can be attributed to the relief at not having to share the fate of others. Either way, not a good look in a modern, thinking society.

My wrathful, vengeful, spiteful, vindictive, sadistic God is a Good God. Whether you sit back and suggest the Bible (or any other religious text) is just a collection of parables and stories to help guide us on how to live – or some other dismissive approach – you cannot gloss over the point that the Christian God is not a Good God.

A Good God does not use torture, torment and suffering

So my Bible is better than your Bible, and my interpretations are better than your interpretations. mmm… Interesting. Ever wondered how any updates from the mouth of God will be delivered in a bookless world? Perhaps on a USB memory stick? Wait a moment… that’s off-topic, and gist for another day. Three espresso’s will do that.

Of course, there will be all sorts of refutations that can be tossed into this theological pudding, and perhaps even a few that would succeed in ridiculing this ridiculing of ridiculous thinking. But you’d have to have a lot of faith to believe that.