While looking through my Bible the other day, I ran across a phrase I had seen before and questioned. I questioned it so because of how ambiguous it was and the fact that one could very easily see it two separate ways. I’m not saying contradictions and confusion aren’t common in the Bible, but this section in particular made me wonder.

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor,  Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

(Isaiah 9:6 NIV)

Now I see this as being read in two different ways. One from a Christian view and one from a Jewish view. I would guess most(if not al) Christians would read this as a prophecy for the coming birth of Christ. Couldn’t somebody just as easily interpret this as simply a new king of Israel to unite and deliver them? This type of thing was pretty common in the surrounding text. I guess my point is that a work like the Bible is so open to interpretation because of the way it is written. Guess that happens when you have a story written by many different authors across different continents over a long period of time though. Some people would assert that I am grasping at straws here, but I disagree. It is all too common for small things like this to cause great disputes among the believers. There are people blowing each other up due to a disagreement in the meaning of phrases in a collection of stories written long ago. If there was a God, why won’t He just pop in and straighten things out? Throughout the Bible, God has no problem talking with people and making His will crystal clear. Sure it destroys that whole faith principle, but wouldn’t it be worth it to help His people? How do you feel this passage reads? Doesn’t it seem weird that so many things in the Bible seem so prone to easy distortion? I guess I’ll conclude with another fun little bit from the Book of Isaiah:

¹⁵ Whoever is captured will be thrust through;
all who are caught will fall by the sword.

¹⁶ Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes;
their houses will be looted and their wives ravished.

(Isaiah 13:15-16 NIV)

I just find it strange that such a loving God is also such a malevolent dictator. There are plenty of good passages you can find about baby killing, looting, pillaging and the raping of wives. Damn this is beginning to sound like a tale of piracy.

This is one of MANY things that just makes me angry. I always overhear things like “Oh we are rasing her Christian”, “this is a Jewish child”. Absolutely bullshit. How the fuck can you decide what a young child is going to think? It just isn’t right. I’m not saying that “atheist child” is alright either. I abhor all forms of indoctrination. Religious/spiritual beliefs aren’t something most people decide lightly and everybody should have a choice. Ideally, I would have children raised Agnostic and when they are old enough let them decide for themselves. Then again, one of the Church’s last weapons is the indoctrination of young children. Religion can act as a bleach that destroys the faculties of logic and reason before they are even developed. Luckily I wasn’t forced to believe anything by my parents. I came to all the conclusions I hold true by myself. It’s only natural for a child to believe all that an adult says, except with Jesus children are never told its make believe like Santa or the Tooth Fairy.

The advertisement put out by the Humanists recently, sums up what exactly what I think. I’d love to see that graphic on some buses in my city.

So what are you?

Did you know that many holidays Christians claim for themselves are actually a mishmash of old Pagan beliefs? It’s a common practice for religions to take parts of the previous religion and combine and intertwine it with the new to make converting easier.Infact, most of these so called Christian Holidays or “Holy Days” date back to the reign of Constantine.

Constantine was a sun-worshipper. I imagine much like the even older Egyptian beliefs with Horus. He had a so called “Christ like experience” and wanted to use these religions to unite the kingdom. He essentially took some ancient pagan feasts and celebrations and tacked on some good old Christian names. A pagan can see the feasts are still there making the conversion to Christianity that much easier.

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