1. The Story of Doubting Thomas
John 20:24-29
24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.
25 The other disciples therefore said unto him, We have seen the Lord. But he said unto them, Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.
26 And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you.
27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.
28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.
29 Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.
A
friend of mine once pointed out this passage of the Bible to me. Why
was Thomas rewarded with special treatment in the realm of evidence to
the resurrected Jesus? This last verse of course sums up the false
notion that blind faith is a virtue unlike what it actually is -
accepting something without sufficient evidence. Think about this:
Thomas required physical evidence that Jesus had risen from the dead
(nail holes left in his hand and spear hole in his side). So isn't this
unfair? Why was the Son of God giving special treatment to one man in
human history? The rest of human kind, thousands of years later, are
forced by an omniscient God to take the claim that Jesus is the
resurrected Lord and Savior on blind faith... at the very least (they
were not there to feel the holes in Jesus' hand and side as Thomas was)
But that was then I suppose, and this is now. How convenient to say,
"God works in mysterious ways" these days. He doesn't work miracles
quite like he did in the days of the Bible. Where's the fire from heaven
like the story of Baal vs. Yahweh in the Old Testament? God doesn't work so openly these days.
All
I know is it seems drastically unfair to set up a set of rules
for one human being (Thomas) and another for the rest of humanity
thousands of years later. If one is to come to Christianity by evidence
(as Christian writer Lee Strobel suggests is possible) then the game is
rigged, clearly. Some may say it is a combination of both the head and the heart that leads you to a "saving knowledge" of Jesus Christ.
However if the head is involved that means evidence and the game is
rigged. Thomas gets his evidence, the rest of us have to take the gospel
writers' word for it. So what's left? Faith ... the heart part. Jesus
and you FEEL like best friends now that you accepted him into your
heart. Subjective experience is all fine and dandy but it means nothing
in way of evidence and good luck convincing me that the Muslim,
Scientologist, or Satan worshiper doesn't also "feel" something when
they pray or have special revelations here and there just as Jesus gave
you as a Christian. So it's all about the heart and it's all about faith
which of course is personal thus useless in getting at objective Truth.
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This brings me to my second problem with Christian logic:
2. The Problem of Hell
I
was taught as a small child that if I didn't get saved by Jesus I was
going to burn for all eternity in the Lake of Fire. This is probably the
cause of my 75 conversions growing up. With every scary "End Times"
rapture video or scary hellfire and brimstone revival sermon I walked
away with a fresh new "just in case" salvation experience. Scare tactics
works in people, especially small children. I would have nightmares of
not actually being "saved" and God at the judgement gate saying "Go away
from me, I never knew you." and casting me into Hell. I can picture the
demons now grabbing at my legs as I start to burn. I remember Sunday
school teachers telling me as a child that the hell in fire was the
hottest of fire. It was a white fire. A fire that never was quenched.
In
Luke 16 we see a story of the rich man and Lazarus. If you read this
story you see that the rich man's sins are simply for being rich. A
topic constantly brought up in the New Testament by Jesus that somehow
has escaped the most faithful Christian Republicans in this country. Tax
cuts on the rich?! Heavens, no! What a terrible evil, liberal thing to
consider! ... So just for being rich and letting a beggar like Lazarus
eat crumbs as they fell from his table the rich man in this story is
tortured forever in Hades. He begs Abraham, who is in heaven next to
Lazarus, to have Lazarus dip his finger in water and drop it on his
tongue; this way he may, for just an instant, be relieved from the agony
of burning forever. Abraham gives all kinds of excuses. Due to the
crazy impenetrable barrier between them he is unable too. The rich man
begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to warn his brothers about this
terrible Lake of Fire so that they will be saved. Abraham argues that
they don't need a zombie to warn them Moses and the prophets are clearly
enough to convince anyone out there (except doubting Thomas of course)
to live a righteous life (which apparently means be poor?)
Ignoring
the absurdity that there is oxygen in heaven (water) and in
hell (fire), ignoring the fact that any "benevolent" God who would send
his creation to eternal fire is clearly psychotic (the punishment being
quite excessive), and ignoring the fact that no one in their right mind
would EVER choose this eternal torment, we don't need to reason much
further. The evidence of course is completely non-existent when it comes
to hell, but furthermore it's insulting to think that some of my
friends expect me to burn forever and aren't doing anything about it.
Some in fact would rather not talk about religion while they apparently
believe that I will burn forever as an atheist. These people are simply
not dogmatic about hell. They will say they are, but they aren't. Or
else they don't actually love me or think of me as a friend. Can there
be any other way around this?
Thinking
that no one would ever choose to go to hell we arrive at the problem of
hell to begin with. It's the oldest trick in the book. It's merely a
bit of ancient folklore to scare society into servitude. Servitude
towards the Jewish God, Yahweh. When you think of it that way, it seems
almost ridiculous that I would need to blog about something so archaic
and nonsensical in 2013. Why would God set up the rules like this? And why on
earth would God be so vague about this Lake of Fire? Can we really arrive at any other
conclusion other than that God is sick and likes to mess with our heads?
Why did God put those fossil bones that show the earth is billions of
years old and humans are just another species of ape that evolved like
every other living creature? He did it because he is apparently some
trickster God (as Bill Hicks has said). He likes to play these mind games with his creation. The truth of the Christian God is contrary to evidence. Good luck! He's fucking with our heads
trying to throw us off the correct path of his Holy Book. So God gives
us zero evidence of hell, while tribe people are born in the heart of
the South American jungle who will live and die without hearing about
hell? Why so allusive with something so goddamn important -- such as
eternal burning in a fucking lake of fire?!
Oh I know why...
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