Wealth, Charity, Poverty and Oddity

Matthew 26

⁶While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, ⁷a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

⁸When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. "Why this waste?" they asked. ⁹"This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor."

¹⁰Aware of this, Jesus said to them, "Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. ¹¹The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. ¹²When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. ¹³I tell you the truth, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her."

Found this on Wikipedia. It's very interesting. Jesus felt this woman was incredibly important. Why? Because she was honoring him, is my guess. Jesus was only here for a short time, so perfuming his body for burial was necessary.

I can sort of get that, in some sense. Not so much the part about why it was superior to feeding the poor. Well, yes, actually. Jesus could feed the poor by breaking food apart into many pieces. Jesus could feed the poor by blessing them so that they will be fed somehow. And, Jesus could feed the poor by, well, commanding his servants to sell their possessions and feed the poor.

But, when we look to Luke 18...

22And when Jesus heard it, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."

This seems likely to be why his disciples complained about the perfume. Jesus had commanded thusly and they understood that. So, why the exception in the case of the woman?

Perhaps because Jesus simply needed to be prepared for death. But why would an all-powerful and all-loving God, come in the flesh to save our souls, care about perfume on his corpse?

Treating dead bodies with chemicals seems to be an important and age-old human tradition. During this time period, it was perhaps better understood why perfuming was appropriate. This may have been a hint toward his resurrection, as well.

In any case, we have here a teaching about expensive valuables being sold and the money given to the poor. However, in honoring Christ, an exception is made wherein it is more righteous to honor he who will not always be with you, rather than serving the poor, who will always be.

This presents some interesting issues. First off, does it mean that even though we are to give to the poor, it is never going to put an end to poverty? Wouldn't ending all poverty be best? Or, perhaps ending all richness would be best? The rich, after all, are unlikely to get into Heaven, and are not perfect in deed for as long as they will not give up their wealth in God's name:

24Jesus looking at him said, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God! 25For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

I always wonder how Republicans can be so duped by the religious right-wingers as to believe that capitalism and the extravagant wealth that comes from it are good, and that taxing them heavily is wrong (despite what we know about taxes) while socialism is bad. I'm not a socialist myself, but I would think if I believed in Christ, I would have a certain amount of respect for the view, if still not sharing it.

The poor will always be with you, and the rich must give away their possessions. Interesting cultural landscape this seems to describe.

One thing I'd like to point out here, which I think is pivotal, is this idea that the use of valuables, of niceties, of extravagance, in honoring Christ; specifically, wherein you are to help the poor, but it is less important than honoring Christ with your possessions. What does this sound like?

The Pope, bless his heart, helps the poor by living in a castle. The history of Catholicism, which, like it or not, is part and parcel to the history of Christianity (that and 1500 years of poor people who had never read the Bible, then some Protestants near the end) is laden with the bilking of the poor, the hoarding of wealth, the depriving of education and liberty, and the exalting of holy men who we "will not always have". The poor are perpetuated by superstition, ignorance and religious authority. To this day, dirtbags fleece people in the name of God while preaching to be fighting poverty. They, too live in extravagance.

If you are a Christian, and this doesn't upset you - make you want to fight to put an end to it - I have no respect for you. If Jesus were real, this is one of the guys he would have thrown out of the temple.

Yeah... think about it.

Belief in Belief

Do I go too far? Do I not go far enough?

I talk, sometimes to myself. I talk, until even I get tired of hearing it. What are we social animals if we do not talk? And do we not stand to gain so much by seeking to know? Talking is our tool to exchange ideas. I talk, because I seek to know.

I know what I know. I know what I don't know. If someone knows something I don't, I want to know. If I know something they don't, why the hell don't they want to know?

Religion is a presumption of knowledge without possession of knowledge. A certainty without certainty. A faith in faith. A belief in belief.

Why do I oppose it? Because I make sense of what I see. If I see problems, I address them. What could be more important than filtering out misconceptions and developing a more accurate understanding of reality?

To believe in God, one must believe that belief is an ideal state. If one were to determine that belief were not an ideal state, they would attempt to establish factual certainty instead.

If we are here to love God, and God would have us believe in him, rather than know factually of him, then it can be determined that our purpose is belief, not knowledge. Knowledge may serve a purpose in this process, but it is secondary to faith.

Take the example of children. Jesus repeatedly advises us to be like children: not necessarily knowing, but trusting all the same. Adhering to an authority. Being led. This is not negative in this context. It is positive. Just like children don't understand the ways of adults, adults don't understand God. We are not meant to. We cannot.

So, why is this? What is the importance of believing in an invisible God rather than knowing an apparent God? They say God is evidenced by the world around us. What would a world not created by God look like? Chaos? Suffering? Imperfection? We see it now. Is this because we sinned? Wouldn't God know what would happen to this world if we sinned? He created it intricately and all-knowingly.

So, this is the world created by a God, who knew it would fall into disrepair because of our sins. He still expected us to see his perfect hand in this imperfection, to the point where we would believe in him without seeing him because of this world, this reality.

Again, what would an imperfect world NOT created by God look like? Terrible disasters? Slaughtered children? Dog-eat-dog survival? Fear? Hate? Confusion? Would it look any different?

This imperfect world is our evidence. These books, these prayers, these songs, these stories, these ideas, these feelings. These are what we make our choice by. Belief, not certainty. Why?

Because we can love him that much more, by trusting without seeing? Why is this true with God, but not with other people? When we look at thousands dying in Haiti, we may frown or sigh. When one child we know suffers or dies, we are devastated, traumatized. We are equipped to care for what we know, what we see. We cannot fathom God the way we cannot fathom Haiti, because we are social and personal animals.

But God has a personal relationship with us, despite a lack of physical interaction. So many questions. Why does the world exist? Why isn't he in it? Why aren't we just minds interacting with him? If this world is so evil, so destined to be evil, why did he create it? How did the world become evil just because man did?

And why is this the better way? Why is believing the better way? We'll love him more? Is this really true?

We'll see.

Prayer Warriors, Zionism and Dissent

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=MgdZgBwMjIc

So, my mom is a prayer warrior. Granted, I don't believe she's part of the movement being described in this video, at least, not wittingly or comprehensively. However, her beliefs definitely match up with it. She thinks Gog and Magog are Russia. She watches Jack Van Impe and his computer-animated wife, Rexella. (Crazy or no, Jack at least gets small nod from me for discouraging the idiocy of Pat Robertson.)

She prays demons out of territories, or strongholds. These, curiously, can be either in someone's behavior, or in a geographical location. My mom prints out lists of Indian burial mounds, because demons can take over these spots. (Those awful savages and their evil spirits, ruining this great country even in death!)

My mom drives around, praying for specific streets. Sometimes she feels strange things, and God calls her to pray them out. She watches the news like a hawk (and watches hawks like they're news, incidentally - she loves spotting birds of prey while driving) to see places she's prayed for, to see if crimes are stopped, or if there are places that she needs to start praying for.

In her mind, she's had too much successes, uncovered too many things, seen too many things resolved with such timing, that she is convinced her powers are real, and that there is no room for coincidence here. She keeps a book of answered prayers. She's got some five thousand of these. Of course, Jesus is known well for his ability to turn 2 and 5 into 5000. A look through the book will reveal things like "meeting went well," "[person x] getting better" and the like.

A few importants points of contention:

1. OBVIOUSLY, things have a way of resolving themselves. Praying for something to go well implies the average life is full of frequent misfortune, disaster and inability to come to terms. While bad things do happen, it's hardly requiring of a miracle for people to hold a business meeting where they discuss business successfully.

2. Human beings have immune systems and the ability to repair damaged organs or tissues, which resolves many of their health problems during a short or medium-term timespan. In other cases, humans require medical help from doctors, specialists, medicine, treatments and regimens. To credit God for one's medical successes is an unfounded notion. Maybe you can attribute that one in a million cancer situation to him, but good luck arguing with the overall statistics.

Seriously, if you give people the choice of the doctor or the witch doctor, you know what they're going to pick, and if you don't, God help you when you get sick. To think that the boom of life expectancy and quality of living in the first world in the past hundred years is simply God's mercy, and not the power of modern medicine, you need to do some serious thinking on the topic.

Even if God were responsible, you can hardly demonstrate this, because people who claim answered prayers are often in the middle of medical treatments. Who can say what cures them? At least the scientific angle can be tested and repeated.

It pains me to even have to say all this. It's so obvious. But, it bears repeating.

Denominations (cults) who refuse their children medical care for religious reasons are murderers. Anyone who prays first and dials 911 second is a fool. Yes, I will stand by that.

3. Perhaps the simplest, and most important point is that, when I asked my mother whether she'd be willing to compare her answered prayers vs her unanswered prayers, she didn't need to give it any thought. "No." I think she said that she's prayed for too many things to keep track of. Of course, she KEEPS TRACK OF the successes.

The level of delusion here is blatant. You cannot simply provide a delicious and hearty loaf of whole grain bread as your proof. The process of separating the wheat from the chaff IS your proof, not the result! That is flat-out doctoring, obscuring, selecting.



...All that being said, I'll reiterate that while people believe some crazy stuff, I'm not under the impression that these evangelicals are directly dangerous in the way that some militias or radicals may be - but, their movement could play a part, even if small, in influencing people to such ends, inadvertently or in the shadows.

Fear is the oldest tool in the book for social and political engineering. Religion knows it intimately: execution, torture, fire and brimstone, all under the veneer of infallible leadership, divine mandates, and benevolent intentions. If some people start pushing for the end times, religious leaders, who may very well believe what they're saying, will see it as a suitable means to cow people into belief.

Religion doesn't simply make people evil. That would be a gross generalization and misuse of words. Dogma, moreover, religious or secular, doesn't simply make people evil. What happens is that dogma dillutes and tints reasoning. People will become more likely to be led down a path that won't make sense; they may attack science in the name of truth, attack freedom in the name of their rights, or attack innocents in the name of righteousness.

And what about these end times? I'm definitely going to need to study the Scoffield Bible at some point. Its influence has become far too large. Its footnotes have become doctrine, their implications dogma. (And what it's interpreting is the zaniest pile of babbling mess this side of North Korea.)

If the human world ends, it's because earth can no longer sustain us, which may or may not, but probably will be our fault. Swearing by an old book that reads like an acid trip is so meaningless. Groups can't even agree on what it means, because it is either symbolic or inane. So, a creature with seven eyes and four wings crawls out of the sea and eats a little book (I'm calling this stuff off the top of my head, so please forgive me if I miscount the number of eyes on a fantasy creature.)

Ugh. Alright. I've said enough about the text, but let's address the consequences of the beliefs. Why do people want to bring Armageddon?

1. It's supposed to happen. Yes, chaos and death are inevitable, so might as well get them over with, because I want to see Jesus.

2. We deserve it. We are filthy and detestable creatures who have gone too far, and it has to happen to us based on our own behavior.

3. It's humane to get it over with now. Every generation that passes will be more and more people, proportionately, going to Hell (by any reasonable evaluation of global religious trends, anyhow.) Let's end the suffering.

I'm not saying all Zionists believe all three of these. Any single one of the three is plenty hurtful on its own. Name anything besides religion, or I suppose some spiteful incarnation of nihilism, which would see such good in the end of the world on an unproven assumption that there's a greater meaning behind it. This is a hurtful view.

This harkens to my Love, II post wherein I talk about the notion that love, as far as I can tell by the Bible, is power, and authoritarianism, and punishment and death. The world must end because of love. What a backwards, stupid claim. (And yes, I'm the one making it, but if my interpretations are wrong, I'd love to know.)

Now that you're all asleep, I'll close by talking about dissenting in regards to Christianity. Is America founded in the godly tradition of dissent?

Well, Hebrews 13:17 tells us: Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Hmm...

So, when those revolutionaries threw all the tea into the harbor and refused to pay their taxes, they were following Christ, right?

Well, Mark 22:18-21 says: But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax."

They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

"Caesar's," they replied.

Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

Wow, how confusing. It's almost as though all the American, Judeo-Christian, capitalistic, free speech, free religion, patriotic rhetoric is a bunch of hypocritical bullshit. But that can't be right, can it?

Oh, friends. It pains us.

But, anyone who claims to be joining a militia to take back their country in the name of The Lord God of Israel, come to earth in flesh as Jesus Christ, is a complete tool who doesn't know how to read, or, if they do, cherry picks what they want to read. God puts leaders in place, including bad ones. Jesus advocated peaceful resistance at times, otherwise no resistance at all.

Look at his Apostles, for crying out loud. They were killed, but they did not kill. They served and they suffered for their service. When Peter cut off the ear of a guard who was trying to take Jesus away, Jesus healed the ear. If Jesus was fine with being carted off to be killed, Jesus is fine with "freedom" being carted off to be killed. He would not have you turn a blade on another man.

Of course, I can't blame people completely, because the Bible is contradictory as well. Matthew 10:34-36 tells us:

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -
a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

Some might be quick to say that this isn't literal, and that Jesus spoke metaphorically. Well, it'd be nice if he would've been more clear. (The reasons why he wasn't are obvious from my perspective, but at any rate.) Look at how Israel used the sword to glorify God and tell me modern day radicals who are itching for religious conflict have zero basis for their views Biblically. The proof is in the pudding, of course, so we'll just have to judge history and current events as they go.

(Interestingly, the word "sword" appears in 406 verses in the NIV Bible. "Love" appears in 697. Nice save. Curiously, here's the final use of each: sword and love, both from the aforementioned, lovely Book of Revelation.)

I'm running out of things to say on the topic, and that's always a good time to think about quitting. At some point I'll get back to Love. It'll be good.

The Bible and Slavery

http://www.evilbible.com/Slavery.htm

This is a nice site, in general. Perhaps a bit inflammatory, but it could be worse. I'm sure I'll talk more about this later.