I have an old friend who grew up JW in my original congregation and is now on his latest wife. Unlike the somewhat religious ambivalence of his previous wives, this one he says is right on par with his religious view. Which is very conservative Christian.
Lately, his wife posted on Facebook about the horrible things in the world and the roll media takes in desensitizing us. Then blah, blah, blah, Jesus and the Bible.
WHAT THE F???? The F'ing Bible and religion was the first thing to desensitize me at a very young age.
I lived through the heyday of the slasher flick and while I may have gotten progressively less shocked by blood and gore, I almost always rooted for the innocents against the bad guys Jason, Freddie, Michael Myers, etc. At least until the plots became so bad, you almost hoped the killer would put an end to the screen time of the poorly written characters. But it was still all fiction.
What really desensitized me happened years earlier. The Fricking Bible this woman is touting.
To start off with, the equivalent of a kid stealing a cookie from the cookie jar condemned all people on earth to death and pain and suffering. It's like a parent catching their kid stealing a cookie and kicking them out of their house and cutting off their health insurance so that the first time anything happens to them, they suffer and could die. For a fricking cookie? But we were taught that was fair punishment. Because fair didn't matter, only appeasing the tyrant in the sky.
Later, we get to the flood where god wipes out everybody but 8 people using this half-assed scheme involving moving all the animals onto a boat. Rather than sending an angel or two to just wipe out the bad people. Also killing plant life which ancients didn't see as breathing so didn't think of them dying. Plot hole in a made-up story...
But he killed EVERYBODY but 8 people. And we're supposed to be OK with that just because they didn't believe some old guy building a boat. For all we knew, god was going to save everybody in a flying saucer in 1997 when the Hale-Bopp comet came around and we were supposed to commit suicide with the Heavens Gate cult. But we didn't because we don't believe crazy BS. Just because these ancient people didn't believe in some crazy BS, they deserved to die? And we believed it. We believed everybody was bad except Noah and his family. And they all deserved death. Even the children. Even the fetuses in the womb that right-to-life people claim are so important. That everybody was either good or evil. No in-between. Everybody who didn't believe a flood was coming was evil and deserved death. And we were supposed to be OK with that.
This Noah, who was such a great guy, The pissy old drunk got shitfaced and naked (probably masturbating), then Ham finds him naked and tells his two brothers who walk backwards and cover him without looking. Almost a year with 8 people on a boat and now modesty is an issue??? Nothing about him overindulging in wine. Nothing about why he was naked. Then this guy god thought was fit enough to save, curses his grandson. His grandson? What? Why? What did his grandson do? Ham was the one who found him passed out naked - through no fault of Ham - that was all on Noah. Yet Noah was the good guy and we just accept that Ham was bad and it was OK for Noah to curse Ham's son.
Then we get to things like Moses. Despite historical evidence that is devoid of the remnants millions of people would leave behind wandering in the desert and evidence that says the Jews were probably descendants of Egyptians and not of Abraham, let's assume the Bible was right. God wants his people let go. This is kind of between God and Pharaoh. Yet, ALL of the Egyptians suffer. This is like all of the farmers who suffer because Trump decides to have a trade war with China. What did the farmers do? What did the farmers want? At least Trump was voted in. Pharaohs weren't even elected. What did the average Egyptian have to do with a particular Pharaoh being in charge or the decisions he made? Yet they're all going to get punished with rivers of blood, frogs, having their farm animals and firstborn children die???? WTF??? And we were all desensitized to it. Because they weren't Jews and/or worshiped a different god, they deserved to suffer and their children deserved death. Their animals deserved to die. Even though they had no say as to what Pharaoh decided.
For that matter, Pharaoh had no say either. Read the account. Every time he decided to change his mind and let the Israelites go, God hardened his heart to make the Israelites stay. Which resulted in what? Resulted in more pain, more suffering for Egyptians and ultimately the death of the firstborn children. Super unfair. Super unjust. Super uncaring for a god of love. Yet, we just went along with it because we were desensitized to the pain and suffering of those who aren't on the side we're on. The other. Go Jews, go Christians. Suffering by anybody else? Sure, OK. No biggie.
If God can harden Pharaoh's heart, are we saying God isn't powerful enough to lighten his heart so that he'd let the Israelites go at the first request by Moses? No plagues, no suffering? But that's not a good story. No. As readers of the bible, we wanted that suffering. Now who's desensitized?
And then, when her husband, my old JW friend posts things about how Mexicans coming into our country deserve horrible conditions in cages, who's the one who'd desensitized? Who's the one that doesn't want to hear the words of Jesus himself of Love Thy Neighbor?
We were trained to hate the other by a book that seethes with that theme. And this woman has the stupidity to point to it as the solution against being desensitized?
Desensitized by the Bible
by jws 8 Replies latest jw friends
-
jws
-
Tenacious
People on this board know me as an ardent Christian but even I will tell you that many parts of the Old Testament make some Quentin Tarantino flicks look like the Wizard of Oz.
-
tiki
I love that rant!! Esp the Noah commentary.....and the getting drunk and "uncovering his nakedness" bit....that never ever added up in my mind on any level. What really was happening.......so it goes...
-
stillin
Good rant, jws! And also a clue as to how the "moral majority" can stand behind such an immoral leadership.
-
smiddy3
And wasn`t it Lot who had sex with not one but two of his daughters over a couple of nights ? INCEST ?
And one who was prone to getting drunk ? If he was that drunk he didn`t know who he was having sex with ?
Was he a drunkard ? An immoral person ? Didn`t care who he had sex with ?
Oh but he was a righteous man ,a man of God.
Yeah right.
But what was the morality of his , Lot`s daughters ? both willing to seduce their father so they could have sex with him ?
Does the end justify the means ?
-
waton
Yesterday's wt daily text. good to discuss with your kids: (to plant a seed) Jer. 15:31, "God has a controversy with the nations, he will put the wicket (and their babies) to the sword. "
Hope the edge is sharper than he mind behind it.
-
Vidiot
The OT has some serious hard-R content.
-
EverApostate
God is a comedian playing to an audience that is too afraid to laugh - Voltaire
That is absolutely true for Bible believers.
Ask any Christian about the absurdity of a talking snake and donkey and the numerous atrocities committed by their god. And see how seriously they defend it
-
SAHS
@“jws”:
Excellent post! You really put things in perspective with regard to the whole idea of the fairness and logic of an “almighty” deity and his dealings with humanity right from the get-go.