Tuesday, June 17, 2008

What do you have faith in?

All three of the Abrahamic faiths; Judaism, Christianity and Islam insist on conformity of its members to very select texts. Even the varying interpretation of those very texts can be disputed within a single religion, for instance, the split between the Shi'ite and Sunn'ite sects in Islam.

CASE does not understand why an omniscient God would leave his special teachings to us in a vague form, such as in the Torah, Bible and Koran. Surely, he would have been aware of the potential splits between his own followers resulting from his medium of choice: ignorant dung sweepers, goat herders and woodworkers.

Surely it would be easier for God to just announce his existence, without need for invitation, to an entire world audience or to every individual without needing to go through preachers. God, if he existed, could just turn up today and say "Hey dudes, I created you, whats happening?". Being an omniscient being God would have been able to forsee that his message which was handed to a holy goat herder, dung sweeper or carpenter would have only been transferred to Gods creation through preachers. Why preachers? After all, preachers are human (at least on a genetic level), wouldn't God realise through his omniscience that they could and would make mistakes?

Preachers base their entire philosophy and right to proclaim this and that from their personal faith. Recent CASE studies show that almost 5% of all preachers are actually being honest in this regard. The other 95% of course, are in it for the money. But let us put aside the Benny Hinn school of preaching tradition and focus on the issue of faith and the message of God. The 5% of preachers that honestly believe what they are saying are speaking from faith. When asked to produce evidence of their God they usually cannot provide any. This is too bad, CASE funds have been used to construct the new Penn & Teller Pre-memorial Centre for Forensic Examination of Deitic Materials located in Bogota, Columbia. The cost of the facility was approximately 2.5 million dollars.



However, as we have not been provided with any physical evidence of God's existence CASE shall now convert the building into the CASE Penn & Teller Pre-memorial Diety Reaching Under Ground Lab. DRUG Lab will be involved in manufacturing various materials to help us reach deities using the usual ancient means. We also expect DRUG Lab to make a tidy profit for our group this year.



Who knew all that equipment would be useful?

To return to the point, CASE notes that if God exists as described by theists then why does he want us to believe in him and yet give us no evidence for his existence other than ancient manuscripts from third and fourth hand accounts of events that happened to ignorant people two or three millenia ago? The argument is rather perverse, that this God character wants to test your faith, give you no opportunity to use your intellect and the penalty is eternal damnation if you get it wrong.

It seems to CASE that God is not testing your faith in him at all. God can only be testing your willingness to believe the words of past generations. There is no other available way to have knowledge of God and his 'absolute' code of morality unless you have faith in the past generations 'holy texts'. By necessity the faith in your ancestors link is essential in the chain.

Does anyone actually believe that God would test you solely on your belief in the words of your ancestors? What if your ancestors got the message wrong?

So, now we know what God is testing, let us examine for any alternative. Past generations may not have wanted their moral strictures to be assauged by their children - hey presto - faith appears and the self-repeating inculcation of descendents is possible. Of course, Exodus 20: 12 makes this explicit: "Honour your father and mother, that your days be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you".

Theists bind themselves to the 'holy texts' and as a result are restricted in thought to that of previous generations. Is that not what DNA does? Does not the selfish gene allow for exact replication between generations in 99.9 percent of reproduction in order to provide the next generation with the same prospects of survival? Mutations occur in DNA and in social development, but only on an infrequent basis. Does anyone deny that Christianity and Islam are more successful than its parent Judaism? Surely this is a result of the new characteristics, or mutations, from the parent. Would either Christianity or Islam have been born without the parent?

CASE understands that religion can only be passed onto future generations through the publication of Holy Texts. Accordingly, CASE has now released its policy document, BURNING BIBLES, FLAMING KORANS: Find out how to make Holy Books useful which outlines all of the possible methods of using Holy Books as fuel sources in your home, office and even your car.


The CASE 5000 deluxe has excellent fuel efficiency at 12kms per Bible. Koranic conversions available.

2 comments:

Preacher Sean said...

LOL!! "95% of course, are in it for the money." You must not know very many preachers:)

Moni said...

First time reading this blog, thanks for sharing.