I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
Isaiah 45:7
Some interpretations reference the word "evil" as calamity. This is Isaiah, a major prophet in the Old Testament stating that God says he creates evil/calamity. The book of Job is a book about the calamities brought about by Satan with God's permission upon God's "faithful" servant.
Anyone who tells you that "blessings" are from God and evil/calamity is not does not know their bible.
The prophets were extreme voices claiming to hear from and speak God's words. They were always men and usually lived to put the "fear" of God into the hebrew people. Modern day preachers, priests, and prophets are well supported by their followers and claim to speak for God and uniquely hear messages from God. Joseph Smith of the mormon church and various other cults comes to mind. They have a large followings and enjoy a respect for their proclamations. Modern day christianity has a dearth of end-time doomsday prophets (Tim LaHaye comes to mind, as does John Haggee) who make a killing off God's promise to "kill off" humankind in "the last days". My life has become so much more peaceful and hopeful since I quit listening to those fools who wish today was their last day on planet earth. The pentagon is quite capable to ending life on planet earth without any help from a supreme being. They will do so with the blessings of the current doomsday prophets. All God's people will say "amen" up to their children's last breath of clean air and last drink of clean water. God is going to give the "faithful" a "new" heaven and a "new" earth, which will be all the more necessary after this one is totally depleted and ruined by global corporate greed. A new heaven and a new earth is a convenient fantasy while we destroy what is left of the oceans, rivers and forests.
Showing posts with label calamity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label calamity. Show all posts
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
The book of Job
"My anger burns against you and your two friends,because, unlike my servant Job, you have not told the truth about God." (Job Chapter 42 verse 1)
The book of Job is thought to be the oldest story in the bible predating Genesis. A google search of the book of Job will produce pages and pages of theologians attempting to explain a God who uses Job to prove a point to Satan. Job loses everything except his life. He loses his children, his servants, his animals, his wealth, and his health. By all accounts, modern believers are completely absorbed by this very ancient story and believe it tells the truth about God. If modern man were able to excavate an ancient manuscript and decipher it, would we ascribe to the ancient and primitive text infallibility and inerrancy and accept it as telling the truth about God? No. We would put it in a museum and not think twice about applying it to modern beliefs, but the book of Job is accepted as the gospel truth about an ancient god that controls calamity and "blessings". Modern believers even go a step further and use the ancient text as proof that god is intimately involved in every good thing that happens to them and every bad thing that happens to them. Job 1:21 The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord. The ancient man Job ascribed that the Lord gave him everything and that the Lord could take everything away. This puts god as the source of everything good and everything bad all at once. I simply fail to see why modern man with knowledge of science and medicine finds this comforting. When bad things happen we can either blame god or satan (who permits satan), and when believers are experiencing "blessings"...god gets the credit as well. I simply have come to see Job as a very ancient man with a very ancient view of deity. Job does not have the goods on god and neither do all the theologians who have written reams about the ascribed diety in this ancient book. No one alive today knows any more about God than Job claimed to. Preoccupation with deity seems to me to be preventing a needed preoccupation with science, technology and preservation of humanity and the planet.
The book of Job is thought to be the oldest story in the bible predating Genesis. A google search of the book of Job will produce pages and pages of theologians attempting to explain a God who uses Job to prove a point to Satan. Job loses everything except his life. He loses his children, his servants, his animals, his wealth, and his health. By all accounts, modern believers are completely absorbed by this very ancient story and believe it tells the truth about God. If modern man were able to excavate an ancient manuscript and decipher it, would we ascribe to the ancient and primitive text infallibility and inerrancy and accept it as telling the truth about God? No. We would put it in a museum and not think twice about applying it to modern beliefs, but the book of Job is accepted as the gospel truth about an ancient god that controls calamity and "blessings". Modern believers even go a step further and use the ancient text as proof that god is intimately involved in every good thing that happens to them and every bad thing that happens to them. Job 1:21 The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord. The ancient man Job ascribed that the Lord gave him everything and that the Lord could take everything away. This puts god as the source of everything good and everything bad all at once. I simply fail to see why modern man with knowledge of science and medicine finds this comforting. When bad things happen we can either blame god or satan (who permits satan), and when believers are experiencing "blessings"...god gets the credit as well. I simply have come to see Job as a very ancient man with a very ancient view of deity. Job does not have the goods on god and neither do all the theologians who have written reams about the ascribed diety in this ancient book. No one alive today knows any more about God than Job claimed to. Preoccupation with deity seems to me to be preventing a needed preoccupation with science, technology and preservation of humanity and the planet.
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