Surely, it would sooner or later occur to the souls of even the most zealous of believers that an eternity spent telling their god how bloody marvellous he/she/it is is only another form of hell.
In the song 'Amazing Grace' (beautiful tune; moronic lyrics) the following lines appear:
"When we've been there ten thousand years,
bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
than when we first begun."
They could have substituted "billion" for "thousand" with no loss either of scansion or
theological correctness.
Surely, it would sooner or later occur to the souls of even the most zealous of believers
that an eternity spent telling their
god how bloody marvellous he/she/it is is only another form of hell.
According to my very limited understanding of genetics, the male of species has an xy
sex-chromosome while the female has an xx sex-chromosome.
A virgin birth, one that occurs without a father, can thus only produce
a female child because no y-chromosomes are available.
So how did the presumably male Jesus Christ acquire his xy sex-chromosome?
(I wouldn't think
that ghosts, no matter how holy, could be that deeply involved in the
basic mechanics of human reproduction.)
One hypothesis has it that Mary, having been raped and impregnated by a Roman soldier,
was driven insane by the fear of what would
become of herself and her child (given that time and that culture, death by stoning would
seem highly probable).
She was able to convince first herself and then her husband that her pregnancy was
divinely inspired. The child JC became inculcated with this belief.
It would have been driven into him day and night throughout his (largely undocumented)
childhood.
He was highly intelligent and was able to
take it from there. So obsessed was he with maintaining his mother's fiction, he might
well, in later times, have been seen as being clinically insane.
BTW, Matthew 13:55 refers to the four brothers as well as an unspecified number of sisters
of the 'carpenter's son.
So, how come his mother is still a 'virgin'?
"The Revelation of Jesus Christ,
which God gave unto him,
to shew unto his servants
things which must shortly come to pass;...."
This was written more than 1500 years ago; far beyond any reasonable definition of
the word 'shortly'.
Which means that the entire book is sheer hogwash!
Wishful nonsense!
'Religious fiction'
(comparable to today's 'science fiction') appealing to popular hopes
for the downfall
of the Roman Empire.
Which, btw, eventually came about, but in bits and pieces, in a perfectly natural fashion,
without any of those theological bells and whistles that were foretold by old St.J.
"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has;
it never comes to the aid of spiritual things,
but - more frequently than not - struggles against
the divine Word, treating with contempt all that
emanates from God."
The following put-down of Copernicus (also from Table Talk), I found in
Daniel J. Boorstin's book: "The Discoverers" (Random House, New York. 1983. p.302)
"An upstart astrologer, This fool wishes to reverse the entire
science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua
commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."
And may the light of reason shine upon you too!
If you want to send us any questions, comments or advice,
you can do so Right Here or later at:
rjbw@shaw.ca
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