Why can’t we all just get along?

The late great George Carlin, one of my all time favorite comedians, used to do a bit about growing up Catholic. He would relate a lot of his experiences many of them as things that just didn’t make sense to him. After all that’s really what comedians do. They talk about things that don’t make sense and share with their audience the wrongness of things. And that wrongness makes us laugh. It is literally what humor is.

 

But sometimes once the laughter dies down and you’ve had some time to think about things you realize things don’t have to be that way. Part of making the world a better place is about first observing that something is wrong with it. And then doing our best to make it right. The particular conversation that he has about the Bible that has stuck with me the most is about the ten commandments.

 

He would go down the list a few times and each time he would show how one commandment was similar to one or two others. He would then say if the commandment in question was already covered somewhere else there was no need for redundancy and  it could be removed. It was very well done. At the end he would have just one or two commandments and decided that they could be summed up by one simple all encompassing commandment.

What is that one commandment?  Click here to read on and find out. As an apology and a quick word of warning, there is an expletive used in the commandment. But it is not my word. It is part of Mr. Carlin’s bit and really does help to sum up the whole thing.

Do as thou wilt pt2

Sure, homosexuality is a sin but so are all of those other things. What’s that saying again? Oh yeah, let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Measuring them just by their actions and the directions in their own book, few if any Christians have any right to say anything about what anyone else
is doing, other than to observe that the other person is ALSO not following the Bible.

Now let’s talk about those Christians that just want to follow the New Testament. After all if you’ve read both it almost seems like the Old Testament and New Testament God are two different guys. The Old is full of fire and brimstone and punishment. The New is a more loving understanding God. Who wouldn’t want to just skip the icky part?

But is that really okay? I mean wouldn’t that be like if your Dad handed you a list of chores that he wanted done and it was two pages long and you just decided to do the second page because it was shorter? But it’s okay though right? You did the whole second list, every item on it.

Yeah, that really didn’t work when I was a kid. Though I tried it a few times just to be sure. Click here to read on and see Jesus’s summary of the word of God.

Do as thou wilt pt1

Today I want to talk about intolerance and ignorance. There is a great deal of it in the world and it comes from people around the world that follow many different religions. From what I have seen the biggest amount of intolerance comes from Christian and Islamic teachings.  I am not as familiar with Islam. So for now the discussion will primarily revolve around Christianity.

 

During the time that I was a Jehovah’s Witness, and indeed for several years afterwards, I spent many hours reading and cross-referencing passages in the Bible. I have read it from cover to cover and have a better memory of and understanding of it than most people that I have met and talked to.

 

There are Christians, a great many of them in fact, who believe that if you are not following the whole Book down to every last letter and detail that you are not a true follower of God and that you are going to end up in a not so pleasant place after you die. Most of those people have no idea what is in their Bible, at least not anymore than whatever their local preacher tells them on Sunday.

Don’t think that’s true? Click here to read on and see.