Two for Tuesday

So now that I have gotten my rant against FF out of the way I would like to touch on a socio-religious subject.

This weekend I was talking with a close personal friend and during the conversation we touched on Christian Sunday School topics (don't ask me how we got to that). As we were talking we realized that there is much contained in the Bible that children are kept blissfully ignorant of, intentionally or not, until they are indoctrinated enough to gloss over these shady facts. I believe there are two reasons behind this.

The first reason seems obvious. Any parent who takes their child to Sunday School each week has certain expectations. These expectations include their child knowing all the "classic" Bible stories like Adam and Eve, Noah, Moses, the birth of Jesus, the many miracles of Jesus, the Easter story, you get the picture. In some faiths it is even expected to admonition and to a certain extent frighten children with stories of fire and brimstone like Jonah and Daniel and even parts of Revelations.

Parental expectations do not extend to telling young children about the part in the story of Lot where Lot offers up his virginal daughters to a mob of rapists in order to protect guests in his household.(Genesis Ch. 19) They would also be less likely to take their children to Sunday school if their children learned how, after God led the Israelites out of the desert after 40 years of wandering he commanded them to kill every man, woman, and child among the Canaanites and destroy all of their temples and sacred places. (Dueteronomy Ch. 7 & 12)

The second reason is an attempt to "preserve the faith". I don't know if this is entirely intentional since many of the people perpetuating this system have themselves been brainwashed into blindly believing the doctrine they are taught. The lessons seem to start with the very basics of "God is good" and "God is everywhere" which are not so bad taken by themselves but are very difficult to establish if I child is learning the many atrocities that are outlined in the Bible that God appears to have either overlooked or openly endorsed. Things ramp up into ideas like "God is just" and all that that entails such as a system of reward and punishment based on actions and even thoughts centered around a black and white image of right and wrong. The absolute nature of this statement means that, in order for that to be true, you must make the leap to "God is always right". The problem is not with these statements alone but with their overlay with organized religion.

With time these statements morph as God becomes equivalent to the church thus: "the church is good", "the church is just", and "the church is always right". I'm sure the church would also attempt to be everywhere and see everything if it could, but this is not possible on our dimensional plane. It is this blind following that has resulted in the Crusades and other holy wars over the centuries.

We need more intelligent Christians in the world who can separate the concept of church from the root of their faith which should be God and Jesus Christ.