14. June 2010 by Frank.

No, I don’t mean the famous oil company, I mean my blood pressure.  It’s gone wild this morning.  I figured a nice brisk early morning two mile walk might help.  It didn’t.  It went even higher.  Crap!

I thought my headache was a bit nastier lately.

Oh well, I could guess there are any number of reasons lately.  Ain’t stress wonderful?

Did you see that my favorite political milf, her air-headedness herself, Ms. Palin, denies she had a boob job?  Why are such things reported as news?  Or how about the Newsweek cover touting “Saint Sarah” on sale at news stands everywhere?  Lisa Miller writes, “To white evangelical women, Sarah Palin is a modern-day prophet, preaching God, flag, and family – while remaking the religious right in her own image.”  That will ruin your blood pressure all by itself.

I once listened to a self proclaimed modern-day prophetess.  I can’t remember this woman’s name but she claimed to be speaking the very words of god.  Her spiel included the words “almighty god” repeated ad nauseum with the emphasis on the wrong syllables, “awl my TEE GAWWWD!”  She fearlessly proclaimed a number of upcoming events god was going to perform.  This was several years ago and nary a single godly event has occurred that she predicted.  By the bible definition she is a false prophet.  I could have told you that while listening to her but our equally fearless male leaders vouched for her that she truly spoke the word of god.

I never heard of this woman before or after she spoke.  I’ve never seen any sign of her online, that’s why I can’t come up with a name.  She faded into obscurity just as fast as she rose from it.  I can only hope the same thing applies to our girl Sarah.

To be fair, Sarah isn’t the only politician who speaks gobbledygook fluently and it isn’t only the Republicans, either.  Sarah just has a way with words that is absolutely breathtaking.

I do think Newsweek is seriously overestimating her popularity with evangelical women.

Since I did use BP in the title, have you noticed that the end of the world whackaloons are trying to fit the oil spill disaster into their end times theology?  Nothing has changed since the 80’s when I first studied these things.  Desperate attempts were made to fit current events into biblical narratives that were so vague you could almost make anything fit with a little creativity.  Back then it was Russia and China invading Israel despite the fact that the bible god didn’t know anything about Russia and China.

It has never ceased to amaze me how the simple words that knowledge will increase in the end times strikes such a resonating chord with this type of christian.  Knowledge will increase seems to me to be a no-brainer.  How can it not increase?  Oh wait a minute, we’re talking the religious right.  Knowledge will decrease is the norm for them.  Oops, my bad.

No child left behind is a perfect example.  Education in this country is being constantly dumbed down because of this policy.  Basically instead of rewarding intelligence we have to lower our standards so that everyone gets to function at the lowest level so no one is left out.  I ran into this sort of thing back when I was in grade school which was a very very long time ago.  In Los Angeles we were learning a second language in 3rd grade.  If you could handle the work you could advance up to higher levels of whatever grade you were in.  Smart kids were actually the popular kids. 

Then we moved back to Michigan.

Smart kids were shunned here.  If you could handle work beyond your level you were out of luck because you couldn’t advance.  You had to stay in the class that functioned at the level of the worst students.  You had to have 4 years of gym class to graduate but only 1 (that’s right, ONE) of science and math.  Something was severely wrong with that and that was back in the 60’s and 70’s.  It’s gotten worse now.  I am privy to information as to how the state education system works and it disturbs me greatly.

Despite a high level of parental involvement in the school district I live in there is also an extremely high level of parental negligence in the community I live in.  I live right next door to the playground so I see more than my fair share of kids.  The thing that bothers me is that I see 2 and 3 year olds playing in the street without an adult anywhere in sight.  A couple of 5 and 6 year olds tried to burn down my shed after busting the walls in and it was only 6 inches away from my house.  These are the future of our country.

I often wonder how anyone can take the Sarah Palins of the world seriously but all I have to do is look around me.  The ignorant masses are all over the place.  They’re not only ignorant, they’re proud of it.  And their lack of parenting is raising a whole new generation devoid of common sense.

Wow, ranting is hard work.  It’s making my head hurt more as I type.  Being a curmudgeon should be easy, all you gotta do is be grouchy and opinionated.  That should be perfectly natural to me.

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3. April 2010 by Frank.

I began my christian walk on Easter Sunday in 1980.  I was an emotional/mental wreck, literally at the lowest point in my entire life.  I was desperate for change and even though I thought of killing myself, I really didn’t want to go that far.  I had crashed and burned severely because of all the drugs and alcohol I had been indulging in.  I was a mess.

Through a ridiculous series of coincidences I became convinced that god was calling to me, offering me a new life.

Oddly enough, the preacher at the little church I got pulled into wasn’t preaching so much as he was lecturing.  About the Book of Revelations to be specific.  His style appealed to me because it wasn’t like any preaching I had heard when I was younger.  And the subject matter fitted my interest in science fiction, fantasy, and just plain weirdness.  You had world wide devastation, wars, natural disasters, demons, mystical creatures, zombies, and a whole plethora of magical events.  What self respecting, stoned, alcoholic wouldn’t find that cool?

After five weeks of that, I was ready to take the plunge.

Not only did I become a bible reading fool (the entire new testament the first week), I also became obsessed with “the end times” which was really becoming popular.  Hal Lindsay was making headlines and many, many more christian writers were offering up their interpretations of the end of the world.  I found it all fascinating and wasn’t bothered in the least by contradictions, speculations, and cross purposes.  All that wanton destruction and mayhem was really exciting to visualize.

The death of billions of people didn’t faze me.  Cool action scenes were the important thing.

I’m not sure when my interest in that sort of thing started to wane but I know it had to be a few years later.  By then it was becoming obvious all the dire predictions were not coming true.  In fact, none of the predictions were coming true.  So much effort was directed at making current events fit the prophecies.  A real biblical prophet has to have a 100% accuracy rate, 10% to 15% (I’m being overly generous) just doesn’t cut it.

As you may be aware, the world did not end in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, or any time before or after.

Which makes me wonder how this sort of thing is still thriving.  1948 was the major indicator that most agreed on began the countdown to the end.  It’s 62 years later.  That’s a long time for the “final” generation.

There are many other dates in history that were supposed to signal the end.  The Seventh Day Adventists came up with an elaborate doctrine to explain away their misinterpretations back in 1844.  Despite numerous other date setting failures, other denominations keep indulging in the same practice.  Now you have the religious right and the tea baggers carrying on the misguided tradition.

So, for awhile, Easter was a big day for me.  Resurrection Day, I liked to call it.  Easter was actually a pagan term.  Christian use of pagan holidays bothered me.  And the bible gives no command to observe those days like the ancient holy days the Israelites were required to observe.

Now it’s a day my store is closed but it makes no difference because I don’t work on Sundays anyway.  It makes a difference to other folks because it isn’t a paid holiday.  It’s also a day for a family gathering which I am frankly tired of, these people don’t have anything to do with us any other time of the year except holidays even though we all live less than 5 miles apart.

The really obnoxious part is that this is the religious holiday that all the non-religious family members feel compelled to attend church.  Every single one of them in the whole area will be packed tomorrow morning.  More people seem to think god will be impressed if they show up for Easter rather than Christmas.

Once a year whether they need it or not.

Yes, I will be forced to go myself or I will never hear the end of it.  My wife is singing a solo so I have to be there.  Essentially, it isn’t worth weeks of fighting not to go.  I have more than enough stress with buying a new car and the rapidly deteriorating situation with my job.  Our finances are right back in the toilet again, my daughter has been out of work for nearly a year and they are going to move back in with us.  The house is literally falling apart.  I think I can tolerate an hour of church and a family dinner to keep my wife from going apeshit on me for being such a heathen.

I’m sure god will be impressed with my piety.

Just do me a favor.  Send someone around to revive my corpse after this is all over, would you?

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2. June 2009 by Frank.

and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.  (Isaiah 5:20 NIV)

That’s clear enough isn’t it?

Then why is it the extremists, the nut jobs, the fundamentalists seem to want to justify the evil of murder, premeditated murder at that?  I don’t care if you think abortion is murder or not, it matters not to me which side of the fence you’re on.  How can you approve of cold blooded murder?  I’m rather ambivalent about abortion, I wish there was no need for it, but there is.  This doctor wasn’t doing anything illegal.  No, he isn’t some kind of hero.  He’s got more guts than most, they’ve tried to kill him before.  Isn’t it ironic that he was gunned down while serving in a church?

But since when does god need your help in executing his judgment?

The same thing holds true with those who are desperately trying to lessen the impact of the Catholic child abuse scandal in Ireland.  By any rational moral standard this is an abomination of the highest order.  And yet the morons are out in force trying to sugarcoat it, to protect the monsters who performed the abuse.  Even the pope seeks to protect the abusers not the victims.

(2 Timothy 4:3 – 4 KJV)  “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”  This time is already here.  The religious right’s marriage to the far right political world has led it sufficiently astray that evil is being spoken of as good and good as evil.

When peace loving christian sheep are so fearful that they can twist their morals around to the extent they can justify torture to protect themselves, then something has gone seriously wrong with their faith.  The Wolves in sheep’s clothing who lead the right’s fear mongering know exactly what they’re doing.  The terrorists are going to get you, they’re in your back yard right now.  Oh, no!  In the mirror, the terrorist looks just like you!

When murder becomes a justifiable means of accomplishing your political goals, you have become a terrorist.  When you do it because you’re sure god wants you to execute his judgment upon the vile sinners like abortion doctors, then you’ve become a religious fanatic terrorist.  What makes you any better than any of those “Other” people who aren’t like you and don’t share your values?

All these things going on right now should have more moderate and rational christians up in arms.  Your moral high ground has been hijacked.  If your god isn’t powerful enough to protect you on his own then maybe he has more than just feet of clay.

You don’t really believe he uses evil to accomplish good, do you?

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20. January 2009 by Frank.

Within my first six months as a Christian I had read the New Testament several times, I had received the baptism of the holy spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, I had multiple demons of hatred cast out of me, I had seen utter hypocrisy from people who were supposedly leaders of the church, I had been instructed in some truly bizarre “spiritual” teachings, I had witnessed false teaching on a monumental scale, I watched that little church destroy itself over its own teachings, and I saw “spiritually mature” men of god tuck their tails between their legs and run screaming for their mommies. And still I wouldn’t give up.

Just as there are many factions in Christianity (they call them denominations), there were many factions in that church. There were many wannabe leaders amongst the flock. One woman in particular had quite a following which gathered regularly at her house. Booze and drugs were openly involved. The one night I went there the main feature all these great spirit filled people were watching was a particularly gory horror movie. I was more than a little shocked. As I left, I added this to my list of things I had been sent to correct.

Another group was the young people. All churches have young peoples groups. This group ranged from very late teens into the early thirties. I eagerly joined it, wanting to belong as desperately as I did. The unofficial old man of the group was a very soft spoken fellow who was of the demon behind every blade of grass persuasion. Get togethers would often become prayer meetings which often would change into what was called house cleaning. That was the business of casting out all those demons that somehow managed to take up residence in all those spirit FILLED believers. (A concept I never fully understood.) Everyone followed his lead and never questioned his perception of all the demons we carried around with us. He was also quite into the idea that everything had a purpose, that everything was part of god’s plan. He was very good at demonstrating how to rationalize every little thing that happened to you to make it of far greater import than it actually had. The group fell apart when he got married and decided he would rather do married things than hang around with all us single losers.

And I continued on thinking that god was showing me all the nonsense so I would seek to find the real truth. (How’s that for rationalizing?)

In the early 80’s a false teaching called “headship” spread like wildfire through quite a few charismatic churches. Supposedly based on Old Testament teachings when Moses divided up the Hebrews to better manage them while roaming in the desert, the pastor and the elders decided that should be the structure of the church. The idea was that each member would be part of a group submitted to a leader. The groups of leaders would be submitted to one of the elders and the elders would be submitted to the pastor. The concept was the everyone had a spiritual “head” for guidance and each would have someone higher up as a head over them with the pastor as the final authority. This is the basis for a cult. Even I could see that.

The chief elder’s wife was thrust into the position of being in charge of the women. She neither wanted nor desired such responsibility. Nor was she qualified, she’s the one who started all the talk behind my back about the divorced girl I mentioned previously. (She wasn’t the only one rebelling, other people were very upset that we were having closed meetings to make this all happen.) She asked to speak one night after the service. Without warning, she lashed out at the pastor and accused him a having a demonic spirit of control.

Imagine that. Accusing your pastor of being demon possessed. Publicly.

The next day, the elders met secretly and dissolved their covenant. This church was big on having a covenant which bound us together in the lord. It was quite amazing that god let them declare it null and void with just a simple vote. Every last one of these bastards took off running, never to be heard of again. These mighty spiritual men of god whose greatest concern was the welfare of their flock shit their pants and ran screaming into the night. It was probably the most disgusting failure of Christianity I had seen to date.

The pastor tried to keep going for a couple more weeks but the damage was far too severe. I stayed with him, I thought a real man of god wouldn’t run just because everything went to hell. So I hung in until the bitter end.

I wasn’t your average Christian from the very beginning. I witnessed more unbelievable bullshit in my first six months than most people see in a lifetime in church. But it did not dissuade me. It startled me and confused me. It convinced me the church (in general) was in serious trouble. My fanaticism, however, overrode my reason. In both the Old and New Testaments, god sends his prophets to correct problems in the church.

Obviously, that was what he wanted me for.

TO BE CONTINUED …..

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26. May 2008 by Frank.

Many atheists refer to the religious as being deluded or having delusions. I know for a fact that I deluded myself quite a bit at various times. But I never thought in terms of most churchgoers being deluded just because they believed. I never considered the whole belief system to be a delusion.

My delusions were more a matter of my trying to decide what god was telling me. One of the first things I ran into was needing an explanation why the church I was saved in destroyed itself so soon afterwards, I felt a compelling need to set things right, to correct all the wrong teachings. So I deluded myself into believing that was my mission from god – I was sent to be a prophet to get the churches back on the right track.

Unfortunately, no one else shared that little bit of insight as to my purpose in life.

I constantly became obsessed with one doctrine or another. I convinced myself of some absurd explanations for why various things would happen to me. Everything has a purpose, everything is a part of god’s plan. Random chance or coincidence were not acceptable explanations.

I believe I went much further overboard than most people. Like I’ve admitted before I’m not compulsive but I am obsessive. One of the main things if not the main thing I became obsessed with was spiritual gifts. Specifically the gifts of communication. I wanted to know what god was saying to me and I was determined to have that knowledge no matter what. Even if I had to make it up myself.

Which is what I finally realized I was doing. I was making decisions and then I was putting words in god’s mouth to support those decisions. When the amount of decisions was far overbalanced on the side of error, I had to admit I was deluding myself. If god was really talking to me, I shouldn’t have been making so many bad choices.

The only good thing about the obsessive side of my character is that my main obsession has always been to find the truth. When I’m wrong (and I’m often very wrong) I eventually admit I’m wrong. I throw out all the baggage I accumulate and start over.

This is why and how I got away from the word of faith movement, the prosperity gospel, the charismatics, the Pentecostals, and even the Baptists despite diving into all of them headfirst with no hesitations. My obsession with the truth stayed with me through the stroke. Even though I could have walked away from religion entirely without the slightest regret or feeling about it of any kind, I wanted to know what happened. I wanted to know how I could have been so wrong.

I wanted to know why god abandoned me.

I will say this about my delusions, they helped me not to panic during the stroke. I thought I had entered into perfect peace, the presence of god. That was my ultimate goal in life so I had absolutely no fear or apprehension. It was bliss. It was wonderful. It was death and I know for a fact that death is nothing to fear.

But my god wasn’t there waiting for me.

He wasn’t there when I came out of it. He wasn’t there the next day, the next week, the next month. He hasn’t shown up in nearly ten years now. I can’t find him in church services. I can’t find him in his word. I couldn’t find him in prayer.

I couldn’t accept the obvious reason – there is no god – so I started re-evaluating my doctrines. I started looking at the bible with the idea that I had misunderstood it somehow. If you read the bible without assuming it is the inerrant word of god, it suddenly becomes clear that all the problems with it aren’t your fault. The errors and contradictions are actually real errors and real contradictions. Only faith blinders make it seem otherwise. Faith says it is the word of god so the faithful must delude themselves into believing that is true.

Which is why there are so many differing doctrines. Which is why one branch hates the other branch. Man makes god in his own image.

So do I believe the religious are deluded? Yes, unfortunately, I do.

Does that make them my enemy? Not really. Not simply because they want to believe in god. Most churches are full of people that need the social connection it provides. The vast majority are satisfied with their weekly gathering, try to live by their shared principles, and go on living in the secular world maybe offended by some of it but not really trying too hard to change it.

There are those, however, who are not content with that level of belief. There are those who want to force everyone to abide by their beliefs and attempt to force the government to pass laws to promote their version of righteousness. These people want power. They want to tell you what you think and believe. And worse than that, they want to teach your children what to think and believe. These people are the enemy. They must be opposed.

To fail to do so would be a delusion of the worst kind.

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7. April 2008 by Frank.

I occasionally go to church to keep peace in the family. A couple of weeks ago for easter was practically a no option, you’re going kind of affair. Back in the day I could find some joy in any worship service no matter how dreary the music or the message. Indeed this church has gotten away from a lot of the old hymns (but not entirely.) They are rather contemporary in musical tastes now although the vast majority of music was contemporary in 1980 in charismatic churches. Now the baptists have discovered it. They even have drums. Unfortunately the drummer doesn’t know how to set the beat. That’s like a major shortcoming in a drummer. You also have older German ladies trying to sing very high notes with that peculiar German inflection that frequently renders such notes flatter than a board. The music often seems designed to rub my nerves raw.

The sermon was “Dialogue with God” which I was pointing out the other day. Obviously this dialogue doesn’t involve actually hearing god speak in any manner that makes coherent sense. If you claim god actually speaks to you in words you can understand good christians everywhere will look at you like you are some deranged psychopath. But if you relate some bizarre event as some kind of sign which you received guidance from, then that’s perfectly understandable and acceptable. Unless you are a practicing pentecostal.

You get words of wisdom and knowledge as well as interpretations of tongues all the time. Never mind that these are almost always exactly what you want to hear for any given situation. Never mind that they are usually so vague and general they could apply to anyone or anything or if they are personally relevant they should be taken with a grain of salt. Never mind that these thing only seem to happen when everybody wants them to happen. Never mind that they also sound suspiciously like something the person speaking would say normally if given the opportunity.

I once listened to a woman speak for an hour and a half, supposedly prophesying. We were informed she was a true prophetess of god. I had never heard of her before or after this appearance (I can’t remember her name for the life of me). Her most prominent characteristic was her pronunciation of “almighty gawwwwd.” She must have said it several dozen times. Anyway, she spoke for a long time supposedly moved by the holy spirit to reveal gods plan for his church that coming year. She droned on and on and on with absolutely no indication of inspiration of any kind. An hour and a half of pure mindless drivel. This was greeted with loud applause and amens and other rites of approval.

Funny thing is, however, the bible says that to be a true prophet of god you have to be 100% accurate. Nothing the woman said ever happened that year or any year thereafter. Now how is it that our spiritually enlightened leadership had no idea she wasn’t really a prophet? Why couldn’t anyone in the congregation get clued in besides me? If this is god speaking, he’s a horrible public speaker.

I spent twenty years of my life trying to listen to god speaking.

I finally realized he wasn’t saying anything.

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