Month: November 2021

Giving Thanks

~ AlienCG ~ Leave a comment

I have a list on my Twitter account (@AlienBiblical) where I keep an eye on apologists, dime store preachers, and a certain ark replica owner. I stayed away from the list during this long weekend because I don’t need to read these holier-than-thou types asking how somebody who doesn’t believe in their variations of God can possibly celebrate Thanksgiving. I can. I do. I don’t see Thanksgiving as a religious holiday since it is, in the United States, a civic holiday. I don’t need to believe in the God of the Bible or any other gods in order to be thankful.

I’m thankful for my girlfriend who is a wonderful, supportive partner through thick and thin. She’ll deny all of this, but it’s all true.

I’m thank for my family who are also supportive, loving, caring, and helpful. I can never repay them for all that they’ve done for me over the years.

I’m thankful for my job, which I absolutely love doing. I have a great boss who respects my feedback when it comes to my work environment. Also, I work by myself, which is my kind of job.

I’m thankful for those people who respect those around them. I have to assure to myself that they are in the majority.

I’m thankful for a great many things too numerous to mention here. And I want to thank all of you who have taken the time to read this and the rest of my blog. It’s a labor of something that I’m doing here, but I’m not sure what.

I would like to wish all of you a Happy Holiday season, and I will be back to posting the Bible study next week.

Site Update and Message

~ AlienCG ~ Leave a comment

Sorry for the lack of posts this past week. It was fully my intention to get a Saturday Sermon up on either Saturday or Sunday, but Saturday I got sidetracked when I was able to get my COVID booster and then came home to do a smaller home repair (attic railing was about go kaput) and just lost track of time. Sunday, I spent the day wondering where purple made noise, yes that’s supposed to sound like nonsense because unlike COVID shot #1, COVID shot #2, and the flu shot, COVID booster told me to sit on the couch and drift in and out of coherence. Still, though, worth the weird feelings. I highly encourage getting boosted (or just getting your COVID vaccine if that’s the case).

I did a religion themed podcast over on the Illuminati Social Cub with friend and In Your Earholes co-host, Oliver Rockside. We discussed the differences between the US and Canada when it comes to public-facing displays of religion. It’s Episode 37: Border Signs. It’s a fun, casual conversation about how people tend to wear their religion on their sleeves in the US while it’s a more personal thing in Canada.

Finally, I want to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving. Make sure to give thank for all of those around you who have helped you and supported you through these surreal times. I, for one, am thankful for my family, my girlfriend, and all of you who have supported me in my blogging adventure. I thank you all and I will be back to writing as soon as my immune system is well-oiled, virus killing machine.

Leviticus Chapter 11

~ AlienCG ~ 1 Comment

I am back after a much needed break.

I thought I was going to skate through Leviticus by just doing reaction posts to the verses that are normally quoted from this book. However, I found that this chapter is actually interesting in that it shows how people observed the natural world and made inferences.

This chapter deals with clean and unclean foods. God is setting down the rules of what is good to eat and what isn’t. Animals with divided hooves and cleft-footed and chew the cud are considered clean. Camels are unclean because they do not have split hooves. The rock badger and the hare are both named as unclean because they chew the cud, but they don’t have split hooves. Let’s stick a pin in that and come back to it. Finally, in this section, pigs have split hooves, but they don’t chew the cud, so they are unclean.

OK, back to that pin. Rock badgers and hares do not chew the cud, but they are coprophages which means that they eat their own poop, which is kind of along the same lines as chewing the cud. These animals, though, are herbivores. By the way, in talking to my girlfriend about this chapter, we both wondered if badgers were even native to that area. The rock badger is. I can understand the pig being on this list since they are omnivores and tend to eat anything and everything. Eating pork in those days without cooking it through and through would have resulted in some nasty parasites.

Then we move into sea life. Only those things that have fins and scales may be eaten. That means fish, plain and simple. If it doesn’t have fins and scales, it shall not be eaten. That means no shrimp cocktail, surf and turf, oysters on the half shell, or calamari.

Again, this makes some sense. Crustaceans like shrimp, prawns, and lobsters are bottom feeders and eat the waste of the other sea life. Bivalves like oysters, clams, and mussels are filter feeders which is much the same. Naturally, it seemed like a bad idea to eat things that ate other things’ waste. But they’re so, so good.

The birds that are listed are exactly what one would expect, all scavenger types. Then the directive on insects. All winged insects that walk on all fours are unclean unless they have jointed legs above their feet. I can see some desert dweller picking up a bug and squinting his eyes to see the bug’s legs. Clean insects include locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers. All other insects that have four feet are detestable. Except that insects have six legs.

The rest of the chapter details what one should do if made unclean by any of these animals. Becoming unclean can happen through touching, carrying, maybe even just looking at them (ok, I made that up).

Refuting Apologetics #2

~ AlienCG ~ 2 Comments

Once again the intellectual featherweights at Frank Turek’s Cross Examined tossed me a big, fate softball. The article, Infinite Punishment for Finite Crimes? attempts to make sense of this idea of sending people to hell for eternity for a sin that has an expiration date.

“The assumption underlying the challenge here is that there should be some correlation between how long the offending act took to commit and the punishment that is attached to it.”

After reading this article over a few times, the author seems to be saying that non-believers think this way about crime and punishment. Well, breaking news, Mr. Apologist, I don’t know of any atheist who thinks like this. That’s stupid. My contention is that even the crime of murder is finite in effect and the punishment ends with the perpetrator’s end. The effects of the crime may be felt long after, but we’re talking about the punishment in this case.

The author states that God cannot be victimized, but he does have the right to separate himself from those who rejected him. I won’t argue that God can’t be victimized. To reject God presupposes a relationship with God. I don’t believe in a theistic god of any type. I am aware that there is a character in the Bible known as God and that many apologists refer to him, but I can’t get past the logical contradictions. There is one other line in that paragraph, “We are not chosen at random for such punishment.” Tell that to the Calvinists.

And here is why I do not believe that the God of the Bible exists:

“Though our bodies will die, our souls live on. Let’s consider for a moment what this means: while we may have forgotten many, or even most, of the times that we erred, the times that we hurt others, the times that we did not live up to what was expected; He has not. Each of our sins, each of the times that we chose to act or think in a way we knew violated His perfect will, each of those instances may seem to be the distant past to us, but God is not limited by time.”

We’re human and we make mistakes. To think that the supposed, all-powerful creator of the entire universe cares that I took a penny and didn’t leave one, or I lied when I said that I couldn’t go to a co-worker’s party, tells me that people are in an abusive relationship with their God. Why the fuck would this allegedly amazing entity be bothered by humans being, well, HUMAN? Didn’t he apparently make us this way? I don’t understand how this author can seriously think that this kind of relationship is healthy.

“We have chosen to stand before God, unapologetic, demanding that He accept us just as we are, proud of our lives and our choices. Judge us and find us worthy, we demand. What choice does this leave to a perfectly just judge?”

Perfectly just? This author spent the entire article describing a petty and vindictive judge who set up humanity to fail from his first words to Adam. This is the same “perfectly just” judge who spent most of his time passing down his laws to Moses talking about how build and decorate an altar instead giving us actual, useful laws like don’t rape women and children, be a good steward to this planet, and don’t be a dick to others. Perfectly just, my ass.

Leviticus Chapter 10

~ AlienCG ~ Leave a comment

This chapter starts with Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, prepared censers and made an offering to God. Except that it was “unholy fire” that God had not commanded. So being a reasonable, merciful deity, he immolated the pair because that’s normal. Moses had the charcoal remains removed and told Aaron and his two remaining sons that they were not allowed to mourn or else they would be killed too along with the rest of the congregation.

So because did not demand the offering of the sons, he not only did not accept the offering, but he killed the sons. The Oxford Bible Commentary is of no help in giving a reason behind this story. It’s my opinion that this is nothing more than an allegory that tells priests to obey and follow ritual instructions…or else. However, that’s reading too much into the story when it comes to biblical literalists. I can’t even imagine how they would justify God’s reaction to this story. Anyway, moving along.

8And the LORD spoke to Aaron: 9Drink no wine or strong drink, neither you nor your sons, when you enter the tent of meeting, that you may not die; it is a statute forever throughout your generations.

Bibles, Harper . NRSV Bible with the Apocrypha (p. 234). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

The above verse holds a significance to me and other fans of the TV show M*A*S*H, due to an episode Season 3, “Alcoholics Unanimous”, Father Mulcahy attempts to give a sermon on temperance, but due to being drunk never actually gets past this verse. It’s also why I can’t read the sons’ names without hearing them in William Christopher’s drunk voice. That is my explanation for the picture accompanying this chapter.

The rest of this chapter is about the offerings gone wrong. The goat was burned, but it wasn’t eaten and the blood was spread properly and that meant another sin offering was demanded.