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Religion See other Religion Articles Title: God’s Terrible Law that Judeo-Christians Break God’s Terrible Law that Judeo-Christians Break Charles E. Carlson Oct 14, 2006 What if there does happen to be a God, and what if He did give us a Book containing His words guided by His ever-present spirit to be used as a life guide? Then what could be more vile in His sight than for His very words to be changed in order to justify evil acts? Celebrity Christians accept, and loudly proclaim that the Bible contains the spirit led words of God, but they freely alter the words to make it conform to their own interests. So flagrant are these abuses that I wonder if they believe the words, or if they even believe in the God they proclaim so loudly... maybe they think they are also gods and His book is a tool for their self-promotion. Perhaps these mega church "Christians" think rewriting scripture is not an important sin; else God would have warned them not to do it. These celebrity bible scrabble players are wrong; He did warn us that bending his word is probably as bad as murder in his eyes; many who call themselves by His name did not listen. Christian Right politicians (one is running for Governor of my state) are often the Mr. Nice Guys you have been waiting to vote for. My candidate is raising a big, beautiful family, opposes unhealthy living practices, is pro-life for unborn children, goes to church three times a week, and publicly is polite, respectful and Christ like. In addition, he works for James Dobson, mentions God a lot, and lets us know he is following Him in his every move. What more could we ask as our Governor? There is one problem, and it keeps coming up with Christian celebrities; their mindless support of the serial wars in the Middle East is a piece of the bible puzzle that does not fit, no matter how hard you cram and stomp it in place. Our loving and caring candidates and Christian Right congressmen are all for the war in Iraq, and they think the Israeli occupation of the land of Palestine is justified because of what the Philistines did to Sampson, if for no other reason. It's here that I find a troubling note of inconsistency that needs explaining. How can a loving family man and father, who is 100% pro-life for every unborn child, be pro-war? How can he favor wars against little people like the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Lebanese women and their children, and against the tiny sliver of land called Gaza? Killing all these people is an unthinkable paradox for a pro-life "Christian." When you allow yourself to really think about the life and death issue, the inconsistency becomes too great to ignore. How can this warm, logical sounding person find war so acceptable? In every other way my wannabe Governor seems to want what I want; he does not hate Mexicans but wants to protect our property by protecting our citizens against out of control immigration. He thinks boys should marry girls and visa versa; he does not want homosexuals teaching kids in public schools how to live; he wants to give the unborn a chance to live; and he wants "frugal government for a change." He asserts that each of these positions is "God's way"... and I agree with him and with his patriotism. But... Does Pro-war equal Pro-Life? No way! What kind of "Christianity" where "literal Bible believers" see nothing wrong with slaughtering and starving whole populations, including women and other people's children? How do they justify it scripturally? Can they even be called "Christians" and be so callously indifferent to the lives of other people? The answer is, whatever they call themselves they are not following Christ. No Christian Zionist, by whatever name he calls himself, can justify killing a single child in faraway places with bombs. Since they cannot justify it by man's logic, they bend God's words to justify it for them, while still declaring the Bible is the literal word of God. If you ask our candidate for Governor, and million trained like him, he will tell you three or four biblical reasons why God's "future kingdom on earth" (after a "rapture" event to come) requires, even demands, these mass executions that are passed off on us as necessary wars. Revelations 19 is one source of Commonly quoted war apostasy dredged up from the terrible dreams of Disciple John; the prophesy in Ezekiel 37 is another; Jesus' own words are distortion in Matthew 24-25; and the scene in Genesis 12:3 where, according to Christian Zionists, God went into the real estate business giving the entire Mideast to Israel. *1 We are supposed to believe Dry Bones Story in Ezekiel was not what God told Ezekiel told the people, we are expected to accept Jerry Falwell's words that the Prophet was lecturing to the captives in Baghdad about something scheduled to happen three thousand years later. What a bore for the Israeli slaves in Babylon in 583 BC, why didn't God send a prophet with stories relevant to them? He did, and He said so. Your mega church pastor simply alters words to make it come out the way he wants it. Ezekiel is the story of a prophet warning his own kinsmen of what God demanded of them, or else. They were dragged off into slavery because of their abuse of their God's words, and Ezekiel was the messenger sent to revive them. How do we know this? The story explains it, and it makes sense. However, we are told otherwise by our celebrity self-appointed interpreters who say Ezekiel's terrible judgment on Lebanon were prophesies that unfolded in August 2006, when Israel leveled both towns of Sidon and Tyre. Balderdash! Christ's Disciple John recorded a bizarre nightmare in Revelations 19, which is likewise distorted. We are supposed to believe that John's awful vision of wars and slaughter foretells events in our future and had nothing to do with those who were listening to John in the first century. John did not interpret his dream for us, which is why it remains a puzzle. It might be a disguised message that warned those living in his time that the entire city of Jerusalem was about to be sacked. But my Judaized Christian politician is playing biblical scrabble to use those old words to justify wars of his own making in our own time, wars that we are paying for. Hundreds of thousands are dying on account of his words. Like the ancient peoples in Ezekiel's time, we are ignoring our responsibility. These imaginative reinterpretations of scripture are often found in the footnotes of the Scofield Reference Bible. Cyrus I. Scofield was a willing bender of God's words. There is no reason to think he was ever gripped with conscience over what he did, he was more or less a malefactor and a professional liar. Scofield is easier to forgive than Reverend John Hagee, who can see the result of his every act as he mouths them, and keeps on doing it. So we are back to where we began. If there is a God, and if He left a Book for us to follow, why did he not protect the Word with a big warning sign? Why did he not leave a frightening "danger do not tamper" banner on his words? The answer is He did warn us. His Third Commandment states: "Thou shalt not take the name of the lord in vain; the lord will not hold him blameless who takes his name in vain." Another version puts it this way: "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God..." Remember, God (if you believe there is One) put this right behind: "Thou shalt have only One God," so it seems to have been important to him. Thou shalt not kill or steal come much later in the list. When I was a youth I was told this "take the name" Commandment involved random cursing, i.e. using the JC or GD words when you hammer your thunb. We all needed to learn "shucks" or other alternative curses. I never really believed this. I could tell my dad's occasional outbursts were not aimed at God, but at himself. I spent only small time wondering why this pronouncement was so important to rank ahead of "thou shall not kill, steal, adulter, and lie? These last seven or eight commandments are about abuses of our fellow men. The first three are about the abuse of God. One bible dictionary trivializes the Third Commandment: "take God in vain" may include "pointless or insincere oaths." Wrong. There is noting trivial about corrupting Gods word for man's purpose. What clearer example of taking His name in vain than to alter or bend the meaning of His words to prove your own lying and deceptive story? If you think of vain mean for self serving it easy to see why it is near the top of the list along with "thou shall have no other God".... When G.W. Bush suggested God was leading us into Afghanistan and Iraq, what was he doing to God's name? Celebrity leaders who want to support George W. alter God's words in order to justify George W's actions. No wonder God put altering His words near the top of his "Thou shall not" list. Every pastor and priest who falsely claims that "this is God's war" is taking God's name in vain to sell a lie. There is not a word that Jesus spoke that justifies killing a single human child, or woman, or even a brawny and ornery man. What could be more horrible in the sight of a Holy God, who loves good and hates evil, than to see His words distorted in such a way as to encourage, justify and excuse evil acts of violence and war? No one who accepts these distorted words that so completely change the spirit and intent of Christianity can claim to be a Christian. I met a perfect example of evil becoming "Christian Law" last evening while conversing with a powerful young former Marine outside the Promise Keepers extravaganza. Project Strait Gate was there to picket Promise Keepers was, not to be mislead by them. He told me whatever the Israelis do to the "Philistines" is justified by the biblical accounts in the Old Testament where "God told the Israelis to spare no one but to cleanse the land of all." This man firmly believes (or rationalizes) that these Bible stories justify his own acts in Iraq in 1991. There, he told me, he was part of the machine called Desert Storm. What he did tell me I would guess. Unwittingly he fell for the new Marine "kill-kill-kill" line, the "Arab enemy is not really human." He helped assassinate 95,000 totally helpless Iraqis his own age, an entire entrapped army of Iraq's youth in a few days. Then they plowed the evidence under the sands of Kuwait.* Men like this young, proud former Marine must stop accepting encouragement and justification from the Judeo-Christian organizations like Promise Keepers that bend the Bible to tell him his sin of killing was "God's will." He, like all of us, needs God's forgiveness, not self-deception. The time has come to pull down the pastors from their mega church pulpits if they preach these distortions to their congregations. You can do this if you stop supporting them. You will find those who stand by God's firm and real words talking to smaller groups. Find them and support them! It is Jesus' way.
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#1. To: Red Jones (#0)
There is no such thing as a pro war Christian.
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
I just think people don't understand what religion is really about for most people. It's about....SAVING YOUR OWN ASS. That's what it comes down to for most people. They don't know or care what Jesus said, believed or taught. Most of them probably haven't read the Bible, and don't know it except for a few quotations they've been taught to recite. The appeal of religion to the masses comes down to two things: giving them an excuse for their own behavior and a way to deflect their own guilt, and giving them a get out of jail pass right into Heaven, as long as they say they believe in the right thing. That's why there are so many philosophical discordances - because the philosophies don't matter. Most people are just trying to save their asses for the after life.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
Perhaps I'm being overly-cynical. People also practice religion because it gives them something to tell their kids when they ask questions and there are all those holidays to celebrate.
"I woke up in the CRAZY HOUSE."
The recent example of forgiveness the Amish community demonstrated is so far from anything Dobson/Falwell/Bauer/Hagee/Robertson teach, that we almost forgot how real Christians behave.
People practice religion because they are descended from people who practiced religion, i.e. it has been adaptive. The frequent hypocrisy involved is reason's concession to reality and human nature, in which dual in-group/out-group ethics are 100% normal.
They talk the talk and walk the walk. Good for them.
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
Regarding taking God's name in vain. I believe this pertains to taking an oath and using God's name.......such as in swearing to uphold the Constitution, .... so help me God, or as in testifying in court. It is an oath essentially calling on God as witness to your veracity/truthfulness/etc., and when you break the oath, you're bringing disgrace to His name. And it is something He will not tolerate. His name must remain holy. I believe it was in one of Paul's epistles that its said that it is better for you to give your own yes or your own no than to drag God's name into it and not uphold the oath....at least that was what the writer was getting at. These people that try to use the Bible to justify their wars and other obscenities fail to recognize that the O.T. word meanings in the original languages are difficult, if not impossible, to translate word for word (so they use something the translator thinks might be comparable or compatible) and also fail to take into account the customs and various cultures of the times. With their convenient 'pick and choose' attitudes, slavery should be alive and well because it IS IN THE BIBLE! Furthermore, it appears so long as they treated slaves and indentured servants well, it was just fine. And, at the same time, I'm just as irritated with those who will only say that God is love. A box is painted in which to contain God--something He will not allow. These sorts of people go thru their BIble and scratch out words like 'wrath' because it doesn't fit the narrow box they've drawn to put God in.
you very well might be right about that taking the lord's name in vain stuff. I don't really buy the modern interpretation of that either. and I'm irritated too at the people who say 'god is love'. and they are fools not to realize this is a vengeful god. and that we are venge-bait.
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