post-christian

There is an ever increasing group of people who after  studying the bible in the Hebrew and Greek for many many years, identify themselves as  post-christian, some of them believe with all the love of Jesus that if Jesus were around today he himself would identify himself as post-christian.

We are not among those who are going to go around and swing infants by their heels and dash thier heads against the rocks .

I know many of my Christian friends forget to remember that hell is much worse than having your chidren’s heads spattered against the rocks before your very eyes, let alone torturing them and worse where even worms growing out of their eyes is part of this Hell. No, Hell is worse, and many also forget to remember that they as Christians do believe in a God who has a place for children and others called Hell.

We who identify ourselves as post-christian define ‘gawd’, (for lack of a better word) who is most possibly, probably, almost certainly, ‘creator’, (though of some of the group know that’s not how it goes), none the less,  we all agree:  ‘gawd’ is not separate or punitive.

All the children need not fear.

Smile

there is no

Hell

lose some friends

In the beginning, man created God in his own image.

 

Highest Paid Corporate Executive: Larry Ellison

I saw an article in the San Francisco Chronicle that Larry Ellison of Oracle Corporation had the highest salary over the past ten years. He earned over $1.84 billion.  Unlike most of us  who pay 6.2 % of each and every dollar we earn for Social Security taxes, Larry paid less than zero point zero, zero, zero, zero, three, five, seven, two percent (0.00003572 %. ) for Social Security taxes.  If everybody paid 6.2% like the rest of us, there would be no upcoming Social Security disaster.

Copernicus

The Science Of Copernicus: Fools Fooling Fools?

In the beginning, religion controlled science for religion controlled everything including life itself. Copernicus (1473-1543) was in his day, a Canon of the church, he was an insider moving in high places, he also knew the position his church had on the punishment for blasphemers and heretics.

He was given a manuscript to translate from the Latin (which he did as a regular thing in his life). It was an an early draft of an instruction booklet for the Inqusition dealing with ‘inquisitees’ and specifically given to him perhaps to remind him what to say out loud in public and what not to say? It was subsequently published in 1578, and it made know the purpose of the inquisitorial penalties … “quoniam punito non refertur primo & per se in correctionem $ bonum eius qui punitur, sed in bonum publicum ut alij terreantur, & a malis committendis avocentur. Translated from the Latin it says: … “for punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit’. (Directorium 137)

Being on the inside, Copernicus was in a pickle, he knew what he knew about the movement of the earth and stars and he knew what happens to blasphemers and heretics. Copernicus was as much as saying that the bible was wrong, the church was wrong, and the earth was not the center of the universe. The sun, let alone the universe,  did not  move around the earth. Believing this out loud was punishable by death, and for a couple hundred years, thousands of believers and non believers alike were killed for this, and other beliefs.

The religions of their day decided who would be King and who would be Nobleman, who would be serf, who would live and who would die; They all had a happy, satisfying and proud tradition of killing those who did not go to their church/temple/mosque, and also oft times decided the very moment when death would come, enthusiastically using its own mighty hand to accomplish its own end.

The three most common religions of the day told the slave to be a slave, and the serf/peasant to be happy they weren’t a slave like the other guy. You are an illiterate ignorant simpleton, a fool, (this is not an insult, just a name for the unlearned), and it further promised all the slaves, serfs, working men and fools everywhere, a stupendously wonderful reward in heaven, so much more great than anything earth could ever offer. Belief naturally followed for some and unnaturally followed for others: What after all, was the real choice here? To go against the religious leaders would be to deprive yourself of food and shelter in this life, and the promise of relief and reward in the next. They did as they were told to do.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. The three most influential religions of the day believe this is true, as it is in accord with the bible in genisis 1:1. They all fervently believe with all their heart, that which is declared in the same chapter, in verses four to seven that (paraphrasing), god created the earth on the fourth day, and on the next day, the fifth day, he created our sun along with the all the other 3,000 stars visible at any one time on the clearest moonless night to the naked eye. (Only stars above the 6th magnitude can be seen unaided by a person with 20/20 vision). They ignorantly and obstinately hung on to the teaching that the earth was the exact center of the universe and every light in the night sky revolved around us.

Little did they know that the earth is but a tiny rock spinning about a thousand miles an hour on its axis, while traveling about 66,000 miles an hour around the sun,  as our sun travels about 383,000 miles an hour around our Milky Way galaxy (which takes about 225 million years) while the galaxy itself is traveling an astounding 1.3 million miles an hour. Little did they know (and perhaps still don’t know) about quasars that are traveling at about 603 million miles an hour (nine tenths the speed of light).

What is what it appears to be? The concrete in a four lane highway appears to most people as a quite solid thing, when in fact it is just like the stars in the sky; a bunch of circles (atoms) going in circles around other circles with allot of empty space between them. As my Dad said, “believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear”. In other words find out for yourself …stop believing and regurgitating what others say, and say it for yourself.

Politicians

Perhaps a newly created “test” could be administered to all who want to represent the people. This test would measure ‘civility’. Those who are not civil, cannot qualify to run for any office.

CIVIL: polite, not rude; marked by satisfactory (or especially minimal) adherence to social usages and sufficient but not noteworthy consideration for others; Civil often suggests little more than the avoidance of overt rudeness.

If you don’t know the other person, or don’t like them, you could still decide to be civil. Perhaps this person was one of the unfortunates who had not a Mother’s love to teach what we, in the old days, called “manners”. Choose to look at such a one  not as pitiful, but pitiable, and as such, unqualified to be an elected public servant.