Why Sacrifice?

Why do literalist religions always require a sacrifice of some sort? Where does this come from? I don't have have so many answers here as much as some thinking points I've compiled. If you can add to it then please leave a comment and we'll keep this a work-in-progress. The whole thing has confused me since I was a child and if anyone has any wisdom to share on this issue I'd be grateful.

Before we get started just a bit of a note about where this whole blog post got started. Being in the middle(literally- wrist deep in fur) of shaving my Siamese cat(Little Big Mouth, 20 years old) to help her deal with the heat, pleroma blurted out something which made me pause.

"I am willing to sacrifice my past but not my future."

Shaving a cat naturally made me think of animal sacrifice, something I'm sure Big Mouth did not appreciate. But after I got done royally pissing her off(she likes be shaved, it's the bathing part afterwards she doesn't like) I sat down and wrote this list. These are all the ways literalist religions ask us to sacrifice in order to receive special knowledge or simple acknowledgement as a sane and humble human being so that you should not be sent down to roast in a fiery place when you die:

1. The practice of sacrificing one of your children to the church in service. Even the old royal families still did this up until the middle of last century. One child would go into the military and the other would be given to the church. My guess is that since the church always held such power that the royal family was essentially giving their 'tithe' in this manner while also having a set of eyes and ears inside the church which were related to them.
2. The Old Testament says that Yahweh wanted a sacrifice of a child(but sike! It was really just a test) to see if the father would do it.  Moab really did do it, though; although this time God said that he didn't have to do it. Why the change of heart?
3. Eating and drinking the Host and his blood. He 'sacrificed' his body for you to partake of it. "Do this in remembrance of me" takes on a decidedly cannibalistic theme when you put it in a certain light. This is hylic/psychic magic, coincidentally. The Church has no gnosis. They're big on ritual and low on content.
4. Martyr your body for 'the cause' meanwhile hopefully killing a lot of other people. Because you know, it's all about spreading the word. Nothing spreads like wildfire faster than news of 1) someone cheating on someone 2) an insane fundamentalist killing themselves and a lot of other people or damaging valuable property.  "My religion is better than yours so I am going to kill/hurt you!!!" This loony-toon declaration of love for a deity is just asinine. "Martyrdom was identified early in Church history as "baptism by blood", enabling martyrs who had not been baptized by water to be saved." Wikipedia search: baptism. So because you've been killed for the faith then your own blood acts as a baptismal font? (Why would you have to be baptized in the first place?) This is sickening on many levels, the most appalling one being of course that a person can do many atrocious things in their life and only with their last act be declared a martyr as long as they died "for the faith." I'm all for appreciating a good deed but the crown of 'martyr' is disgusting when taken in that context, especially when it supposedly gets you a lofty place up in Heaven beside the Big Guy with or without dozens of virgins. Being with him again should be it's own reward, not the chance to be known as a martyr.
5. Jesus, or rather God sacrificing his 'first born' son to... himself? Why would God need to go through the physical act of sacrifice? Gnostics generally all have varying belief in this act. We tend not to discuss it too much. But even if you do take the act seriously, why would one person's(divine or not) material body sacrifice placate God enough to then save every person who asked for it afterward? A million people crying for salvation before Christ lived isn't enough but one man's is? Personally, I think that's kinda conceited. The majority of gnostic texts exonerate Jesus' act by saying it wasn't 'what you think it is,' and that is a topic for another blog post.
6. Animal sacrifice. Why would God need a dead animal? And why oh why would he delight in sniffing the wafting aroma of it's burnt carcass? Peace offerings and guilt offerings... what is the point? Why can't you just say you're sorry instead of butchering some poor innocent animal or giving up grain which could be used to feed your belly. Is this what they call 'paying the piper'? Is God the piper to be paid? ... and doesn't that make him a spiritual extortionist? "Give me dead offerings or I'll roast you in Hell." Yep. That's extortion.

After completing my list of horrifying sacrifices deemed necessary for literalist religious acceptance I compiled a list for what I would be willing to sacrifice for my belief in the All/the totality of salvation/pleroma/the Good God, and many other names which I am sure you have heard me use.

1. I am willing to sacrifice untold hours in my day/night to study anything worthy he sends my way, no matter how mundane, silly, bizarre, or mentally/spiritually challenging.
2. I am willing to sacrifice the resentment, anger, sadness, embarrassment, and shame I felt in the past and move on, trusting him to guide me. 
3. I am willing to sacrifice my sleep so that he may tell me ridiculous jokes at 4am, hug me, and send me dreams showing me just how much I am loved or remind me of things I have forgotten, both good and bad.
4. I am willing to sacrifice financial security in the present and future to make sure I'm not partaking in any business ventures which are morally questionable. 
5. I am willing to sacrifice my personal safety in order to stand up and speak up for what is right when not doing so would be easier and safer. 

The Bible's Falacies

Just a short five minute clip of Sam Harris raising some reality(not fundamentalist) based points about how most people gloss over the truly grotesque and illuminate the divine aspects of holy books. I thought he was quite eloquent and right on point, which is why I am sharing this with you here. Even fundamentalists would find offense at this.

I was raised with the exact argument he's speaking of, that the Old Testament was wiped away and no longer relevant once Jesus died for the world. And yet the whole time growing up I always wondered why we kept reading the Old Testament.... still can't figure it out. The smartest thing to do would have been to strip away all the(95% of the Old Testament) newly rejected(as forgery or highly questionable) gospel and only talk about what actually pertains to us now. But those two books are still stuck together in the same binding like they belong together.

The Literal Truth

I don't agree with the last 30 seconds but it's still funnier than heck from an open-minded gnostic perspective. The last round is especially funny because of the sheer number of ways the quotes contradict themselves.

Teaching Children Gnosis?

Oy vey. I had a truly mind blowing moment today.

Long story short(describing incidents spanning over five hours) my oldest stepson tried to shove silly putty down his younger brother's throat and this younger brother sprayed his silly putty wielding brother in the face with extra strength ammonia Windex.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back. I'd had it with the non-stop bickering and whining over everything imaginable. They were having a truly Bad Day. Now eight and ten year olds don't always make the wisest of decisions. I know this. But I really felt the need to teach them the seriousness of what they tried to do. The youngest boy could have choked to death and the oldest could have had damage to his eyes and needed hospitalization.

My knee-jerk reaction after five hours of their tantrums? "Keep it up and I'll make you write two pages front and back of the Ten Commandments!"

*slaps self* What was I thinking?! Why would I want those two precious kids to be indoctrinated any more than they already are by other well meaning family members during Summer Vacation and other Holidays? After shaking my head a few times at my outlandish statement to the boys I resolved to combine the most meaningful aspects of those Commandments into one statement and yes, the boys wrote two pages front and back. I meant business and was tired of their behavior.

The one sentence I had them write was: "Family members honor, protect, and teach one another."

Afterward, my ten year old thanked me for teaching him a lesson, apologized, and hugged me.

Go on. Do that double take. You know you want to. Read the sentence again. It's true. He actually thanked me for explaining just how dangerous his actions were and letting the punishment for it revolve around honoring, protecting, and teaching one another instead of just spanking him and his brother. The above sentence directly contrasts what his actions were, ergo, he sees just how wrong he was. Is he going to do something similar in the future? Absolutely. And we'll talk about it all over again. Such is childhood.

Is outright teaching gnosis to children advisable? Not really. It can't be taught in your stereotypical Sunday School fashion. The basic outline of the gnostic vision of our world and universe is tricky to teach when mainstream religion dominates the family outside your own home. I haven't been able to do it successfully for this reason. They look at me like I have two heads and regurgitate what is crammed in their heads by their birth-mother. One thing I have to give her credit for- she really teaches with consistency. Hellfire this and damnation that. (And have her "lessons" changed their behavior? No. If anything it has gotten ten times worse. When they come home from visits with her we have to break the kids back in to recognizing the house rules and to act like human beings again instead of animals. The longer they're with her the longer this process takes. Turns the house upside down for a month.)

The last resort is, of course, to teach by example. Let life be a child's own professor. Problems come up every day which are wonderful opportunities for us as parents! Gently guide them to see other options and solutions, not just the easiest one. While you are building additional flexibility in your child's mind by doing these exercises you are, in fact, giving them room to grow and come to gnosis when they are ready as adults and on their own terms.

Somebody's running for the office of God...

Gnostics and atheists have one thing in common: appreciation for comedy. And lack of reverence for the deity who created our material world because we see plainly just how jacked up it is. We hold Him accountable for His mistakes- we don't worship him because of it or make grand assumptions that There Is A Deeper Purpose behind those mistakes, because we know there's not.

When I read the latest blog post of my favorite atheist I knew(blog author Dromedary Hump) I had to share it with you. Keep the convoluted laws of the Old Testament in mind as you read.

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Hump Considers Running For God:
Here's My Resume

Over coffee this morning I was thinking that I have all the necessary qualifications to establish my own godliness, even have people pray to me and worship me. So I have been pulling my resume together. Here’s what I have so far:

June 2007: My eldest son and his wife disobeyed me when I told them not to touch the bowl of dried banana chips. I threw them out of the house and told them they are cursed for life. They didn’t take it well.

September 2007: I decided I didn’t like the way things were going in my town. I blew up the damn which flooded the entire region killing every man, woman, child and animal in the county except for my friend Gary, his wife and child and their three Boston Terriers. They’re the only folks I liked.

January 2008: I convinced this “mentally challenged” guy that unless he killed his own son with an axe that I was going to heap some bad mojo on him. He was just about to lower the boom on the kid, when I stopped him at the last second. I was just testing him. He may have soiled his pants, I know his kid did. It was a hoot.

March 2008: My followers and friends needed some rules, so I came up with my "Top Ten List of Stuff Hump Wants You to Do.” I made sure the first four rules were all about me. Hey, I have a fragile ego.

May 2008 - August 2008: Lots of little things were pissing me off during this period. Maybe it was the heat, maybe I was just cranky, I dunno. Things like folks wearing their damn polyester/cotton blend clothes; people eating lobster with butter and lemon; farmers cross breeding cattle to get more milk production; men giving other men hand jobs, same with women; lots of other stuff like that that had no rhyme or reason … hundreds of them. So I decided those things are illegal around here. I’ve directed my followers to kill those who do the stuff that really irks me. No Damn Gleaning Fields on Thursdays During Baseball Season if you value your life, damn it!!!

November 2008: This big extended family down the road didn’t think much of me and my followers. They practiced some strange ways, ya know? I think they are Asians. Probably pagans. Some of them actually ate lobster salad with mayo on hot dog buns! Disgusting!!

So I told my friends and followers to set their house on fire and kill every one of them; their dogs, cats and farm animals too! I told them it’s ok to make an exception for the little girls. Hey, my friends like ‘em young. I tried to get my friends to wipe out the Town of Bellows Falls, Vermont too, but the town’s two cops had those aluminum meter maid electric carts, so they were too powerful for us.

March 2009: I decided to have another son. Mrs. Hump became hysterical at the idea and threatened me with a knife. I had no idea how to find myself a wife of child bearing age on short notice -- and my inflatable Mary doll wasn’t in any position to reproduce. So I snuck up on some stoner chick, gave her some Ruffies and nailed her. She never knew what happened. Late in December she gave birth to our son. She figured it was a virgin birth. Hey… I wasn’t about to confess to anything, so I let her think that.

January 2010: I was thinking my young bastard son is gay. I wasn’t sure, but he was spending all his free time with this group of a dozen or so effeminate guys with long hair and playing his X-Box. (I’ll admit he has remarkable control of that thing for a 13 month old, damn miraculous!)

So to make him prove his manhood I told him to get himself all worked up and pissed off, and inject some neighbor’s goats with anti-freeze and have them jump off a cliff. He did and they did. Then, to have him prove he’s no pantie waist tree hugger, I told him to kill a pear tree for not having pears on them. He babbled something at first about my being an idiot because there are no pear baring trees in January in New Hampshire. But he killed the tree anyway. He’s a good boy, bit of a smart ass and given to hissy fits though.

Spring 2010: I plan to have my little bastard son tortured to death, to show what a compassionate and caring guy I am to my followers. No doubt he’ll get a little rattled toward the end, but he’s a skinny kid and probably won’t last too long… three or four hours, max. He’s resilient though so who knows -- some defibrillator shocks and he might come back. “CLEAR!!”

***********************************

Here are a few of the funny comments to the blog post so far.

Dannette said...

Dear God. Hump is goin' to hell. The End. Let the outrage begin!

P.S. What is wrong with butter and lemon with lobster? Have I been doing it wrong all these years?

March 1, 2010 1:02 PM

said...

Dannette,
Gasp!!!

Deuteronomy 14:9-10 says:
These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat:
And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you.

Thus, god hates crabs, lobsters, shrimp, clams, etc. Lemon good, Butter good, shell fish.. ABOMMINATION UNTO THE LARD!!!

Now go, my child and sin no more.

March 1, 2010 1:19 PM

zarton said...

Hump,
For one, if you want to be my new god, you're going to have to come up with some pretty good circular argumentation. Secondly, what kind of afterlife benefits do you have?
Here's what I'm looking for in a deity. You're going to have to beat beer volcanoes and a stripper factory just to outdo the FSM, and let me tell you 72 camel toes won't cut it. Also, you're gonna need some chosen people. If I happen to be one of those chosen ones I might consider it (I love feeling better than everyone else).
You might also have to convince me that you have healed my diabetes, and a new guitar would really sweeten the deal, but maybe I am pushing it a little.
zar
p.s. what happens if I say Drome Dammit(!) ?

March 1, 2010 4:27 PM

said...

Holy Mother of ME, Zar!!! ..
You sure make alot of demands.

I'm not even ready to launch my campaign and already you're nailing my hump to the wall.

Remember, once made God, I get that 100 day honeymoon period to get my act together.

March 1, 2010 4:31 PM

Dannette said...

Why did the lard make shellfish if he hates them? I can get why the lard would be into butter, though. I'm all confoozled again.

March 1, 2010 4:45 PM

said...

Hey, why'd he make pigs if he hates them? There's no accounting for the crazy stuff the ancients decided their god hates.

I mean, their god hates people wearing cotton and flax blend garments. What's up with that? Is he worried about the dry cleaning bills?

March 1, 2010 5:21 PM

NewEnglandBob said...

"Remember, once made God, I get that 100 day honeymoon period to get my act together."

Wait-a-hump-damn-minute! 100 days - are those the millennial long days each? Or are the epochal days? Ya know, we ain't gonna wait 'round no 2 billion years while you vacation.

March 1, 2010 6:46 PM

said...

Mixter,
Thanks. You may be Disciple material :)

NEBob...
you and Zar are putting too much pressure on me. I was planning to ease into the deity thing.

As a Camelian Biblical Literalist, the 100 days are of the 24 hour variety. None of that liberal theist "100 days = 2 billion years" crappola for me.

March 1, 2010 7:38 PM

Tracey said...

Amateur. You haven't done that 10 plagues thing yet. And if you want to be my chosen deity, what's in it for me. FSM has a stripper factory, which is alright for dudes and lesbians, but what about us hetero females? What's in it for us? Do I get an endless supply of the Old Spice dude? Eat bonbons and drink cokes all day and still maintain a smokin' hot bod? Seriously. You've only appealed to my sense of fear thus far. What's in it for my sense of greed?

March 2, 2010 9:57 AM

Enrico S said...

In danger is thee who angers The Hump!

How dare one question his Humpness or make demands thereof.

Do ye knoweth not that the Hump works in mysterious ways?

You shall receive that which is right in the Humps eyes.

The Hump is all knowing! The hump reviseth his soul contracts as he wishes. Again, how dare you question!

The Hump knows that which is right for thee.

You are all in danger of eternal damnation, suffering the never ending line of Starbucks! Forever and ever, even for ever and ever.

-------------------
BTW: Lord Hump,
As things go wrong for people, not understanding your infinite wisdom, they will become angry with you when they do not approve of your proscribed outcome to their prayer request. This could lead to a drop in your overall approval rating.

Might I suggest you play the game of good supernatural being / bad supernatural being. Create a new cabinet position and office. The office might be titled: "Sorry All Things Ain't Nice" or SATAN for short. To this office you divert blame when people get pissy about your divine plan.

That's all for now...I'll be back later

March 2, 2010 11:16 AM

Obvious Paradoxes & Contradictions

The Sacrifice of Isaac by Caravaggio

In a discussion on the Atheist Camel's blog, an anonymous commenter made a few deductions which were so perfect I couldn't resist talking about it here.

The Atheist Camel's blog post was called Loving The One You Fear: The Peculiar Christian Dilemma. In it, Dromedary Hump points out the flawed and contradictory relationship literalist Christians have with their God. In essence, this is an abusive relationship.

Anonymous goes even deeper into the paradox saying,

"Do we love abusive parents too? I personally can't stand to read about a parent who abuses their own.

For example, would you build a playground for your kids, and than put a running chainsaw in the center?(garden of Eden).

Would you leave your toddler(s) alone in the neighborhood knowing that a drug pusher was going to try to convince your kids to do something forbidden?(Serpent in said garden).

Would you kill all your kids but one and his immediate family?(Noah).

Imagine two of your kids gave you a present. Would you tell one child how wonderful his present was, and tell the other what a piece of crap HIS present was?(Cain and Able)

How about this..... Your kids are having problems. So you instuct one child(Moses) to tell the other child (Pharaoh)to knock it off, or he will pay. In the mean time, you tell the other child NOT to listen to the first("and he harden the Pharaohs heart). Then, just for kicks you kill all the innocent first born in the second childs village to teach him a lesson!!! Man, that's one terrible dad!!

The last example(of many) is one of my all time favorites. You make a bet with your sworn enemy(Satan) that he can't shake the love of your best behaved child(Job). Your enemy tortures your kid to the point of death, destroys those he loves, and generally is a real terror to him. Well, your kid still loves you, and your enemy is proven wrong. But to what end? All that horror has made absolutly zero difference!! Your enemy is still your enemy, he hasn't changed, but your kid is scarred for life!! What a great parent!!!

Above all, don't forget the Xtian mantra "god gave us free will". Yeah, sure he did "love me or burn". That's not free will. Free will would be "believe in me and go to heaven", or "don't believe and go to heaven". They confuse freedom of choice with free will. Sorry, abusers don't give free will."

-- The Serpent Was Right

Book Review

Fabricating Jesus (How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels)
By: Craig A. Evans

I couldn't get through the first six chapters without slamming the book shut in disgust. For having over twenty-five years experience in looking at and translating ancient biblical texts, Mr. Evans' logic is .... I can't find the appropriate word. Appalling. Frightening. Shortsighted. Those are the closest approximations of emotion I could find. Oh, add a thick layer of disdain to that. Yeah. That'll cover it.

The author's grand pronouncement that the scholars who have translated the Nag Hammadi scrolls are dating it incorrectly is quite frankly anti-climactic. Gnostics wax poetic and have always assigned their dialogues with Christ as visions or meetings in the mind. And even more confounding to modern dogmatic Christian scholars, gnostic writers sometimes even refer to each other as Christs. Or sparks. Or a piece of light. Or a million other symbols. If you don't understand the jargon of gnostics it all looks like a twisted mess.

Here's the main idea Mr. Evans attempts to convince his audience: the Old Testament is truly the OLD Testament. The gnostic gospels really belong in the NEW Testament because of their supposed age, if they belong there at all.

We've got a problem, though. When the powers that be in Christiandom met for the first Council of Nicaea(325AD) all the New and Old Testament books were agreed upon and even edited to everyone's satisfaction. You're talking about rewriting and re-interpreting the Word Of God(supposedly). Man rewriting God's Book. It was decided that yes, Jesus was the literal son of God and not some human prophet with a gift for words or even a human baby who came into his divinity at a certain age. The human child was never born from humanity. He was born from God. A study of Arius, one of the priests to be excommunicated during the Council of Nicaea, shows that he was a not-so-quietly-in-the-closet gnostic. The base of truth was there, right in front of Constantine's eyes and for all to see. But it was blasphemous and deemed dangerous for the souls of Christians to contemplate. So naturally Arius was excommunicated and his works were burned. And then he was murdered. Nice touch, that.

My point is that the Old and New Testament books all have such shady history and interpretation that exactly how can one even establish which was written first in the instance of the Old Testaments in relation to the Nag Hammadi collection? Mr. Evan's argument that many of the Nag Hammadi books were either perfect copies of or very close paraphrases of a multitude of passages of books in the Old Testament only proves one thing- there were common themes. How do we know that the Old Testament books weren't copied from the Nag Hammadi books and then filled out with more appropriate fluff to stupefy the masses? Why is it that the Old Testament is sacrosanct and yet everything we find after it simply must be either a) a forgery or b) written after the Old Testament books? Why can't they coexist in peace as a part of history?

This isn't a debate over a chicken and her laid egg. This is an argument over who has edited texts, burned them, murdered people for their "hypocrisy" and then those people who simply want to spread God's love and be left alone. There is a 350 year period when all these books were written(and edited to please the masses) and the Vatican clearly fails when it comes to proving authenticity with Irenaeus as their chief historian.

Mr. Evans placed a very touching preface in his book, detailing how his faith has been changed through his decades of hard work. While others in his field lost their faith his merely shifted in focus. After reading only six chapters of his book I can summarize the author in three words: very polite apologist. While trying to rationalize the New Testament he only succeeds in pointing out his own flaws in deduction by not saying what he should. If you're going to attack the authenticity of one document saying it's "secondary and not primary" then you better be able to coherently discuss the shenanigans which happened while "authenticating" and outright editing the primary. Not talking about it doesn't mean that it didn't exist and you can't sweep it under the rug.

Gnostics don't care if another gnostic believes Jesus was maybe a brighter spark than the rest of us. We don't care if he really walked as a human or was merely a heavenly apparition who lingered thirty-three years. We don't care because we know that it's all about the evolution of gnosis and personal experience with the All. Free thinking at its best. That's why gnostics have a multitude of sects- happily! Literal Christians, however, have big Councils to decide such things and then damn anyone who disagrees. Murder and mayhem have always been dealt out by literal religions. Isn't it funny how exclusive inclusive religions become? They always morph into a society which teaches their children to hate the 'others.'

Doesn't anyone get metaphors anymore? Irenaeus certainly didn't. I think his inner child died too early.