Many ages ago, well, several years anyway, when this
ancient…what the hell, it was back in the 1980’s & ‘90’s…I was fairly
knowledge about the collection of writings from a myriad of authors, redactors,
editors, copyists, theologians, priests, ministers, rabbis, interpolators, and
other liars, forgers, imposters, and fraudsters known as the Holy Bible, which
is a large part of what made me an atheist.
However, once I woke up to the undeniability of the
indefensibility of the superstition and fiction of its myths and fairy tales, I
promptly said to my self, “Ok, now that you know all this shit in your head is
shit, you can flush your mind and forget all this shit.” To which my self replied, “Well, shit, I’ll
do that, I don’t give a shit anymore.” Forsaking
my former fancy which formed and fortified my faith in the false, I forthwith forged
ahead into fugue.
A couple of decades later, give or take ten years, I found
myself floundering and flailing in a sea of fortune, or should I say
ill-fortune, that left me without a home.
Face-to-face with this foul footing, I took up residence in a rescue
mission, where ever since I’ve been force-fed a feast of fantasy and
fabrication. Also, while enduring the
unbearable assault on my intellect and insufferable insult to my intelligence
through sermon after harangue after exhortation night after night after night,
I’ve become reacquainted with holy writ.
It’s made me a better atheist, and thank God for that.
Had I not found myself in this villainous vexation, I never
would have rediscovered and/or uncovered such gems as 1 Corinthians 15. That’s Chapter
15 to my fellow infidel friends unfamiliar with the fashion of such figures. I fell fully in love with this lovely
locality for it strikes down so many of the fundies’ (for fundamentalists’)
favorite pillars of presumption.
I thought about copying the whole passage here, but the damn
thing is fifty-eight verses long, so forget that. I’ll just randomly go through them as they
come to mind, the treasured features of fantasy, that is. And understand, I’m not speaking from an
empirical, rational point-of-view but from that of a believer or at least of
someone who takes this silliness seriously.
1 Cor. 15:24-26 – Then
cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the
Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he
must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is
death.
First, and most glaringly obvious from the text, is their
conception of the afterlife as beginning immediately after death. For Paul and the rest of the apostolic
church, the dead lay dead in their graves until the great resurrection after
Christ’s second coming, and even then only after he had accomplished everything
else and defeated every other enemy.
Second, is their treasured belief in the Rapture. It is struck down by the same verses involved
above. If there is no general
resurrection until all other things are fulfilled, you can’t very well have a
Rapture of believers before a Great Tribulation.
1 Cor. 15:29 – Else
what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at
all? why are they then baptized for the dead?
Third, is the idea that humans only have until their deaths
to get saved. If one can be baptized
vicariously after death, then it isn’t too late to “get saved and born again”
after dying.
Fourth, is the idea that one can be “saved and born again”
without being baptized. See the above verse
for that.
1 Cor. 15:28 – And when all things shall be subdued unto
him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things
under him, that God may be all in all.
Fifth, is the doctrine of the Trinity and of the Son as
equal to the Father.
Recent re-reading of the Revelation
of St. John the Divine has likewise been a revelation. The fundies know zip about Roman law and zero
about 1st century Judaism.
Their mistaken assumptions about what is clearly not a prophecy but an
allegorical tale are too numerous to deal with here. So I’ll settle for shooting down just two or
three of them.
There is no Rapture in Revelation before the Great
Tribulation. Darby made all that up.
Rev. 19:17-18 – And I
saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all
the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together
unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the
flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of
them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small
and great.
The Marriage Supper of the Lamb clearly refers not to long
banquet tables for the “saved and born again” but to the feast for ravens,
crows, and other carrion birds after the great battle at the end of the Great
Tribulation.
Rev. 20:4-5 – And I
saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I
saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the
word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither
had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived
and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
But the rest of the dead lived not again until
the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.
The first resurrection mentioned after the marriage supper
is for those martyred during the Great Tribulation who resisted the beast and
the false prophet. Presumably the other
martyrs throughout history also got a pass and don’t have to lie around dead
until after the Millennium Reign when the second resurrection will take place.
Rev. 20:11-15 – And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face
the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead,
small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book
was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things
which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in
it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were
judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second
death. And whosoever was not found
written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
The Great White Throne Judgment with which Puritan preachers
perilously panic their forlorn flocks is for all people, not just those who are
not “saved and born again”, and everyone will be judged according to their
works, not whether or not they kissed the Son of God’s divine ass.
In all the Synoptic Gospels, placed in the story as one of
Christ’s major encounters during the week following his triumphant entry on
(the first) Palm Sunday, the Sadducees pose a question to Jesus about
resurrection, in which they did not believe and apparently he did (Matt 22:23-33;
Mark 12:18-27; Luke 20:27-38).
Luke 20:34b-36 – The
children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they which shall
be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead,
neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for
they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children
of the resurrection.
So, the upshot of the whole thing was that Jesus told them
none of the relationships on earth are going to exist in heaven and the
afterlife. That the afterlife is unlike
anything they expect.
While it should be obvious that this strikes down the idea cherished
by fundies that we will be with our families in heaven, that those who died
before us are waiting and we will wait for those coming after, what the
Synoptics have Jesus say in these passages clearly negates that.
This saying also strikes down another fundie claim about the
afterlife, that the angels will be below the resurrected humans. Even Jesus says they will be no more than
equal.
Also, referring back again to 1 Cor. 15, no one’s going to
be in heaven until all humanity is raised from the dead after everything else
is accomplished.
In short, core beliefs of Christians, particularly those of
the fundamentalist variety, no matter how widely held, are not valid even by
their own sacred texts. Not without an
Olympic amount of contortionist rationalization and mental gymnastics can their
beliefs be justified by the Bible.
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