Off-Topic Friday: The Queen

So after the president and his wife visited England and apparently breached protocol when they met with the queen, I just have to ask: Who the fuck cares?

Honestly, it makes no fucking difference whether this woman is offended or not.  None.  She is a figurehead.  She is a relic of a useless tradition.  Who cares that we gave her an iPod?  You know what she gave the Obamas?  A painting of herself and Prince Charles.  You want to talk awful gifts, that’s where you start.  Who wants a painting of two ugly people?  I don’t.

But even more than the gift thing, a bunch of people have been getting on Michelle Obama for touching the queen’s back.  And again, I don’t see the big deal.  I mean really, can she not be touched?  Does she decay with a human touch on her clothing?  And even if she did, who would miss her?  The UK would go on.  They’d be fine.  She doesn’t even do anything.

I just can’t see why any of this matters to anybody who doesn’t have to fill 24 hours on a cable news station.

Haggai and Chinese People

Summary: God tells his prophet Haggai to order his people to build a new Temple. They start work on it, and it’s not as good as the old one. That’s it.

So, this really isn’t going to have a lot to do with the book of Haggai. I’ve been having enough trouble with the last few books, and honestly, this one is so short that it would probably be hard to come up with something even if it wasn’t going over well-worn territory. I mean, we get it: God wants people to do something, then they do it. God is unhappy, so he hurts their crop production and sends droughts, which somehow convinces the people of Jerusalem to build a new temple.

Okay, fine. But I do want to know one thing: what was going on in China (If you want, you can substitute the Japanese or the Native Americans or any civilization which had no contact with Judaism, but we’re going to focus on China here)?

This is a serious question. Didn’t they have droughts and years with bad crop production in China? Remember, anything bad that happens is due to God’s direct intervention, as he mentions here:

“My people, why should you be living in well-built houses while my Temple is in ruins? Don’t you see what is happening to you? You have planted much grain, but have harvested very little. You have food to eat, but not enough to make you full. You have wine to drink, but not enough to get you drunk on! You have clothing, but not enough to keep you warm. And the working man cannot earn enough to live on. Can’t you see why this has happened…You hoped for large harvests, but they turned out to be small. And when you brought the harvest home, I blew it away. Why did I do that? Because my Temple lies in ruins while every one of you is busy working on his own house. That is why there is no rain and nothing can grow. I have brought drought on the land – on its hills, grainfields, vineyards, and olive orchards – on every crop the ground produces, on everything you try to grow.” (Hg. 1.4-11)

So, as that (possibly unnecessarily long) quote shows, God directly interferes with the workings of society when they are displeasing him. But more than that, his interference is supposed to be proof of their disobedience. Which brings us to China. Now, this book took place in 520 BC, hundreds of years before China was fully unified (and before it had any reason to be called China), but there were smaller kingdoms, one of which (the Zhou) had already developed the concept of the Mandate of Heaven – the concept that the ruler was on the throne by divine right, but if he made mistakes, then he was no longer blessed by heaven and should be removed by the people.

So let’s say China was humming along, with a few good years of crop production and rivers that flowed approximately the same amount year after year. Then the next year, there’s something wrong. There’s just not nearly as much water as there was before. Fields are going without irrigation. People are starving.

Here’s what the Bible would say: there’s a reason. I mean, it would have to say that, right? If you’re claiming that this drought in Israel is caused by a lack of piousness, it would raise questions if that drought in China wasn’t. Questions like, “Does this mean I can get out of this whole divine retribution thing by moving?” Or, “What if droughts are just things that happen naturally and have nothing to do with God’s attitude toward our lack of a temple?” And these are questions that it’d be a little hard to answer, so the priests would probably just say it’s all part of God’s unknowable and perfect plan, and you shouldn’t question it.

But then, sometimes Israel would have bad rulers. Sometimes they would be conquered. And why would they be conquered? Because the people fucked up. Because the people were worshiping Baal in Yahweh’s temple, or because the people were just sinning and sinning without repenting. Those rascally people! But when the same thing would happen in China, when the Zhou conquered the Shang and then later Qin Shi Huang conquered the Zhou, it was because the rulers weren’t good enough. Instead of the people being punished, the emperors lost everything.

Of course, neither of these approaches had any proof or any real reason to think they were true beyond “Everyone knows it’s true.” But that will never dissuade a true believer. Someone who feels defined by their faith will never be able to acknowledge any flaws in it or anything wrong with the sacred texts or leaders or basic tenets of their religion, nor will they be able to look at it objectively. So it’s probably useless to point out any of this to them, that it’s possible droughts and floods are unrelated to piousness, that it’s possible there is no connection between Baal and being conquered, or that it’s possible their deeply held beliefs are just kinda silly. It’s probably useless to point out that their conviction is absolutely meaningless – the conviction of the Chinese people in the Mandate of Heaven was strongly ingrained, and it was just as wrong.

I guess the main point here is that it’s impossible to apply the standards of the Bible to the world and believe that the standards are worth having. And it’s impossible to not apply the standards of the Bible to the rest of the world if it’s something that you believe is true. When you try to apply supernatural explanations to ordinary events, you end up in logical trouble. But when your supernatural beliefs depend on those explanations as proof, you’re already in that trouble. So I can’t see a way to reconcile that and keep that belief. But I’m sure there is one. After all, it’s been thousands of years. Someone must have come up with something.

Off-Topic Friday: Hugh Hefner

Look, I totally get wanting to have multiple hot young girlfriends.  Really, I do.  It’s a dream that many of us share.

But if you’re going to do that, if you already have that sweet gig going, why would you only date girls who all look the exact same?  I mean, we all love dumb blondes with big tits, but come on.  Why even have more than one of them?  Why not go for a redhead or an Asian girl or something?  Hugh, you’re a white guy.  You love Asian girls.  That’s just a scientific fact.

Here’s what this is like to me: Maybe one day when you were a kid, your parents said “You can have three desserts!”  Yay!  Three desserts!  Delightful!

So the first one you choose is strawberry ice cream.  Who doesn’t love strawberry ice cream?  There you go, option number one!  What a great pick.

Then, looking at the rest of your options, at cakes and pies and cookies and anything you want, you say, “You know, I want another scoop of strawberry ice cream.”

What the hell are you doing, kid?  This makes no sense.  You can eat anything you want.  Why are you going for the same thing?  You better pick a better third dessert.

But you don’t, of course.  You pick a third scoop of strawberry ice cream.

You could have carrot cake or pumpkin pie or a fruit tart or chocolate mousse or something, Hugh.  You don’t have to eat only strawberry ice cream.

Zephaniah and The Day Of Reckoning

Summary: The LORD tells Zephaniah that there’s some punishin’ coming for the Earth. Jerusalem is on the Earth. But at some point, the LORD will stop punishing (or something).

The first third of Zephaniah concerns just how bad the LORD is gonna kill the shit out of the residents of Earth. He says he’ll kill everyone, including people and animals. And it’s not like the righteous will even be spared:

“The LORD said, ‘I am going to destroy everything on earth, all human beings and animals, birds and fish. I will bring about the downfall of the wicked. I will destroy all mankind, and no survivors will be left. I, the LORD, have spoken.” (1.2-3)

So, not a lot of ambiguity there. Are you alive? Then you’ll get some smitin’. Nothing personal, but sometimes people just have to die. The LORD also promises that no one will remember the priests who served Baal (1.4) and that anyone who worships the sun or moon or stars will be destroyed, along with people who say they’ll worship the LORD but turn to Molech (1.5) and people who refuse to answer the LORD’s call (1.6).

Here’s my question: didn’t you already cover those people? Aren’t they part of everything on earth? Aren’t they part of all human beings and animals? What about all mankind? They’re included in that, right?

Well, of course they are. The point of separating them into different groups isn’t to say they won’t die. The point is just to separate them. The point is to give believers a reason to think of themselves as different from nonbelievers. Because once you do that, once you define a group by how they are unlike you, it becomes much easier to deny their essential humanity. And when that’s done, you don’t even need to justify going to war with them or taking anything they own, be it jewelry, houses, or land. After all, you’re one of God’s people. They’re just a bunch of Baal-worshipping monsters.

So we have this event at some point in the future which separates the virtuous believers from the blasphemous heathens. Now, many different religions have many different ways the world is supposed to end. But then, they kinda have to. If religion is born of a search for answers, you as a religious leader (congratulations, blog reader – you have been promoted to a religious leader) have no choice but to claim your religion has every answer. So yes, of course you know how the world began. And yes, of course you know what pleases your totally real god. And yes, of course you know how the world ends. And do you see those unbelievers across the street? Those Molech-loving Canaanite motherfuckers! They have to be destroyed. It’s God’s will.

So you know what the event it – you know just how hard the divine fuzz (apparently I still think it is 1967) is gonna come down on you, but just when is this going to happen? How much more life do you have to endure before you finally get to show everyone just how right your doomsday prediction is? Well, good news! It’s coming soon. It’s always coming soon (except to the Mayans, I guess). “The day when the LORD will sit in judgment is near; so be silent in his presence.” (1.7)

After all, what use is a prediction of impending apocalypse if it’s not impending really really fast? You’ll never convince anyone of the urgency of their religious conversion by promising that if they don’t convert, their great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren are going to be totally fucked. “The great day of the LORD is near – very near and coming fast! That day will be bitter, for even the bravest soldiers will cry out in despair!” (1.14) Translation: GET THE FUCK ON IT, PEOPLE. THE CLOCK IS TICKING.

Because in addition to showing people just how different they are from their neighbors, the end of the world is of course used to scare people. And it’s always been true and it always will be true that scared people will believe fucking anything. All you have to do is promise that if they do exactly what you say, they’ll be okay. All you have to do is reassure them that they didn’t do anything wrong, and that of course there’s an answer, and of course you know what it is, and they’ll be all yours. And then you can get them to do whatever you want.

And what are these new scared believers supposed to do, anyway? Why, nothing much! They just need to live their lives by what was, at the time, conventional morality, and also worship this god instead of their old one(s). As long as you worship the LORD, nothing bad will happen to you, despite the words of earlier in this book, which is a really short book and you would think someone would have made a connection there and done some editing so it isn’t so blatantly contradictory, and you’ll be fine. Better than fine, in fact:

“Sing and shout for joy, people of Israel!
Rejoice with all your heart, Jerusalem!
The LORD has stopped your punishment;
he has removed all your enemies.
The LORD, the king of Israel, is with you;
there is no reason now to be afraid.” (3.14-15)

Lucky break, huh? Just by believing in this guy and going to his temple and worshiping him, your life will be saved! Man, it’s a good thing that the creator and all-powerful ruler of the universe is so easy to bribe, or you’d be totally fucked. And sure, that religion down the street probably says the same things about the end of the world and believing in their god being the only way to live, but they’re just a bunch of heathen unbelievers. After all, it’s right there in your Bible. They’re different than you. And when God kills them, they’ll have had their chance.

And really, they’ll have it coming.

Off-Topic Friday: Financial Channels

(Hey Guys, It’s The Bible: Now with updates!)

So, I was watching The Daily Show on Wednesday and they had a segment on how wrong CNBC was every step of the way about the financial crisis.  I don’t want to transcribe it, so here.

And that got me thinking.  Because people still watch CNBC, right?  It’s not like there have been any consequences to them whatsoever about how they’ve been completely wrong on the only thing they’re expected to know.  Jim Cramer is still supposed to be some genius, and everyone’s ignoring that his advice really wasn’t very good at all.

But none of these financial geniuses can be trusted.  Following their advice doesn’t get you anywhere.  So I hit upon my own brilliant idea: I can start my own financial news network.

Now, I won’t give good advice because I don’t know how.  But, since nobody else does either, nobody will be able to tell how bad my advice is!  So all I have to do is get my friends to show up and call me a visionary and a maverick and a genius, and I’ll be set.  But of course, nobody would trust the word of some random people, so they can just lie and say that they’re high-powered business executives at Wells Fargo or something.

Bam!  Instant credibility, and suddenly I’ll be trusted without having to provide any proof that what I’m saying is true.  Then, I can just retire to some beach, cash the checks and laugh.

The best part is that no one will check any of the credentials that any of us claim to have.  Because they’re financial networks, and as the Daily Show clip up there proved, they don’t investigate shit.

Habakkuk and God’s Anger

Summary: This guy Habakkuk asks God why he’s put these cruel jackass Babylonians in power.  God says that the unrighteous will get judged in their own good time, and he has no intention of being nice about it.  Then Habakkuk does this prayer about how totally awesome the LORD is.

Here are some things that, according to Habakkuk, make God angry: making your family rich with what you took by violence  then having the temerity to try to make your own home safe from harm and danger (2.9), founding a city on crime and building it up on murder (2.12), making your neighbor stagger as if they were drunk (2.15), maybe cutting down the forests of Lebanon (2.17), murder and violence against the people of the world and its cities (2.17), worshipping idols (2.18), maybe the rivers and the sea (3.8), and probably that the wicked have a leader who has made God’s chosen people not free (3.13).

Here are the things that Habakkuk says that God does when he’s angry: killing those who are evil (2.4), forcing conquerors into debt and paying interest on that debt (2.7, and I guess that either the chosen people are only disallowed from collecting interest from each other or God knows they will never win a battle so it will be a nonissue), forcing conquerors to tremble in the presence of newly arrived enemies (2.7), being plundered (2.8), having all the work of conquered people (presumably slaves) going up in flames, being covered with shame instead of honor and made to drink and stagger (2.16), being cut down like the forests of Lebanon and terrified by animals (2.17), bringing lightning (3.4) and disease and death (3.5), forcing nations to tremble and shattering mountains and sinking hills into the ground (3.6), splitting the earth with lightning (3.9), causing rain and high winds (3.10), forcing the sun and moon to stand still (3.11), trampling nations (3.12), and striking down the leader of the wicked and his followers (3.13).

And now that we’re all clear on the causes and repercussions of God’s anger, I have to say I’m not impressed.  I’m so not impressed that I can’t even see the point of including this book in the Bible (take that, Council of Nicaea!).  Because really, applying the tiniest bit of thought or logic to God’s message just ends up ruining it.  Of the things that make God angry, three were clearly done by the Israelites (2.9, 2.17, 2.18).  Of his punishments, many of them (2.4, 2.7, 2.8, 3.12, 3.13) are just things that happen when you lose a war, and most of the rest are randomly occurring natural disasters.

And that’s really the thing about consigning events to the all-encompassing category of God’s anger.  It’s totally arbitrary and you can do it however you want and no one will ever be able to prove you wrong.  Don’t like the way your neighbor won’t lend you a knife?  Neither does God!  And see how his roof needs to be redone?  There’s your proof!

It all comes back to the thing that I keep talking about in the Bible – people trying to come up with a higher authority to justify the attitudes they already have.  Because there is no correlation between how often God-angering actions are taken and how often Godly punishments are handed out, but a lot of religious people don’t seem to think that way.  And this isn’t just evident in the crazy preacher who’ll say God hated New Orleans because of all the gays, or the people who take the Bible as literal truth, or the Westboro Baptist nuts.  The big place you see this, the really really monumentally huge one, is the concept of hell.

Let’s just think about the concept of hell here for a second: God, who loves you, has judged some crime of yours to be so severe that you will be tortured for all eternity.  All eternity.  Forever.  The entire timeline of human existence will be a speck of nothingness compared to the time that you are tortured.  And why? For what?  What is accomplished by being tortured for such an unimaginably long time?  Well, nothing.  When we weak mortal fallible humans imprison someone, we don’t actually do it solely for punishment.  In fact, out of all the reasons that we do put people in jail, pure punishment is at the bottom of the list.  It’s not close to deterrence or rehabilitation, even as flawed as those systems are.

But rehabilitation and deterrence are completely impossible in hell.  You’re dead; there is no purpose for making someone afraid of committing crimes, and if you really want someone to become a better person, then an infinite amount of torture is probably not the way to go (especially if you are, let’s say, all-powerful and all-knowing and an almighty deity and could make it happen by snapping your fingers, assuming you have fingers).

And when it comes to deterring people, you need to make them sure that, you know, you exist.  And if you’ll recall that a lot of the things people go to hell for involve a lack of belief, that seems like it probably isn’t a well-thought-out plan.  In fact, according to Christians, lack of belief is the one exact thing that you would go to hell for because you can theoretically be forgiven for anything else.  So if it’s deterrence, it would almost entirely be administered to the only people who could not be deterred by that method.  I think we can eliminate that one.

And then there’s removing these sinners from heavenly society for the sake of that society.  But that doesn’t really make sense.  We’re talking about heaven here, not some small town easily seduced by a charming stranger.  You can’t change heaven, because there’s no reason that God would create a heaven that would change.

So what’s left?  Punishment.  And why punish?  Because you’re angry.  Punishment in itself doesn’t accomplish anything in the real world.  You don’t make a kid sit in the corner after breaking something  because you’re feeling spiteful or angry; you do it so he’ll learn not to shatter some glass.  And of course we’re just like children to God (or maybe pets), so why punish us for no reason?  We’ll never learn, we’ll never change, no one will avoid being corrupted, and all you’re doing is exposing someone to pointless suffering.

The whole concept is ridiculous.  Just like the notion of God’s anger.

Gratitude time!

Thanks to A Pleasing Fiveness for the link and the nice words about the site.

Also, I feel like a jerk for not updating very often.

Nahum and Common Humanity

Summary: God is angry with Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. Nineveh gets destroyed.  There is a poem about that.  Everyone seems pretty happy with its destruction.

“Nineveh, are you any better than Thebes, the capital of Egypt?  She too had a river to protect her like a wall – the Nile was her defense.  She ruled Sudan and Egypt, there was no limit to her power. Libya was her ally.  Yet the people of Thebes were carried off into exile.  At every street corner their children were beaten to death.  Their leading men were carried off in chains and divided among their captors.” (Nh 3.8-10)

The very fact that these verses were (apparently) written without any ironic intent is remarkable.  I mean, Israel had a river (the Jordan). Israel had a kingdom.  Israel had allies.  The people of Israel were carried off into exile.  Israelite children died.  Israelite men became slaves.  This all happened to Israel.  And it was all used as proof that God was testing their faith.

Well, why couldn’t Osiris have been testing the faith of Egypt?  Why wasn’t Baal testing the faith of Canaan back when Israel came by?  And why couldn’t the Assyrian gods have been testing the faith of his people when that empire fell?

Because this isn’t their book, of course.  That’s the only real reason.  The truth is that empires fall.  All empires everywhere eventually die out (And to the scores of ultra-right wing Americans who I’m sure read this site because it is exactly the sort of thing they would enjoy, relax.  I’m sure America will last forever).  And when they do, stronger nations take advantage of them and allies desert them and people leave.  It’s the way of the world.

But that explanation isn’t good enough for the Bible.  It can’t just happen unplanned like a teenage pregnancy.  And the problem with saying that God causes all empires to rise and fall is that eventually, God’s favored empire will fall.  What do you say then?  Well, you make something up.  You rail against sin and corruption (not to say those are bad things to rail against), and ignore historical trends, and your people find themselves shocked when their empire falls just like every one that preceded it.

If there’s been one theme to this whole blog/project/whatever (aside from “I’m not very good at updating on time”), it’s that I see most people and religions as essentially the same.  As much as they might have different customs or beliefs, the experiences of religion are pretty similar: a desire to believe in something more than this life, the experience of feeling something when you get together with a like-minded group, and the profound overwhelming sense that this is right.  Despite the fact that some religions promote the worship of graven images, and some want to kill you for worshipping graven images, the religious feeling itself is no different between any cultures (I have no evidence for this, by the way, other than vague recollections of things people in various faiths have said).

And it is exactly this commonality that the Bible denies.  It is exactly these similarities that they Bible says applies to everyone else.  This is the “No, I’m really special” line of thought.  And it’s always wrong.  Because everyone thinks they’re the special one.  When someone else gets a speeding ticket, they had it coming for going too fast, but I had somewhere to be, and that cop just didn’t understand!  And when other empires fall – any other empires anywhere – it’s because they didn’t believe in the right deity, but when my empire falls, it’s not my deity that’s the problem, it’s me!  I just wasn’t a good enough believer!

But it doesn’t work that way.  You don’t get to apply one set of standards to everyone else, then turn around and apply a totally different set of standards to yourself.  If an empire falls, it means either that they worshipped the wrong god, or that they worshipped the right god incorrectly.  But you can’t say that it could mean either of those, depending on which empire you’re talking about.  And the reason is very simple: everyone thinks that a different set of standards applies to them, and you cannot allow the accident of your birthplace to determine the absolute truth about the world.

An idea is no good unless it’s clearly, universally true.  An idea is no good unless Chinese people who have never heard of Christianity accept it wholeheartedly, without suffering through a (let’s say Boxer) rebellion that tears apart their country.  An idea is no good unless Hindus can see it’s the plain truth, despite hearing about Ganesh and Vishnu all their lives.  An idea is no good if it has to resort to bribes to get you to believe it and threats to make you stay with it.  An idea is no good unless a case for it can be made to anyone in the world by anyone in the world.

And that’s exactly the problem with this book.  The thoughts and ideas within it are designed to appeal to one specific group of people.  The morals in the book are what the Israelites needed when they were acting up.  And the theories of existence that the book says are true and indisputable are based in discredited ideas held by men who lived in Israel.  It’s not universal truth.  It’s a series of myths written down thousands of years ago, passed on as fact, and believed as absolute truth.

When I said before that people are the same no matter where they are in the world, that was largely true.  But it’s also true that people are pretty much the same no matter when they lived.  There haven’t been any evolutionary advances in humanity in the last couple thousand years to make us believe any less in comforting myths or resort any less to an irrational religion.  In a way, it’s comforting to know that I am connected to people throughout history in exactly the same way I’m connected to people now, with similar needs and desires, and similar hopes and fears.

But considering how many dark chapters of history there have been, in another, more accurate way, it’s really not comforting at all.

Off-Topic Friday: Numb3rs

To be honest, I am not an expert on the television show Numb3rs.  I am vaguely aware that it involves a math genius who solves crimes using math (I refuse to do any research to find out if I am right) and that one of the stars played Mr. Universe in Serenity (So if you were wondering if this was the Internet, there’s your obligatory Firefly/Serenity reference), but I am otherwise in the dark.

However, I feel I can say this with absolute conviction and authority: That’s a stupid title.

I mean, what does putting a 3 in the title really accomplish?  Is that the thing that makes you go, “Oh, numbers must be important”?  Does the title “Numbers” not sufficiently get that across?  Was there some guy in a focus group who said, “Look, it’s good, but what you should do is change the title just enough to make it stupid”?  Or did the marketing people decide that the only way to get people to pay attention to the damn show would be to slightly change its title?

So, as my tiny form of protest, whenever I refer to the show (which is admittedly rare), I take care to pronounce the title “Numb-three-ers.”  Because that’s how it’s spelled, dammit.  And I, for some reason, care.

Off-Topic Friday: My Least Favorite Best Picture Winner At The Oscars

Crash.