I've forgotten more than most people learn in a lifetime
Suppose the headline was “Town denies a Christian church…”
Just saying – just saying! – replace the word Muslim with Christian in this statement and tell me that people wouldn’t be flippin’ out yelling “WAR ON RELIGION!!!!”
“A Georgia town has rejected a request from a neighborhood Islamic group for the right to rent a local retail space for worship services, frustrating local Muslims looking for a place to pray and sparking debate over the definition of religious freedom.”
Yet another of the many reasons I <3 science:
By studying infrared images taken by NASA satellites, Sarah Parcak and her team from the University of Alabama at Birmingham identified the suspected pyramids in Tanis, Egypt. The ancient city, abandoned centuries ago, is famous as the fictional home of the Lost Ark from the Indiana Jones movies. Satellite images also showed other lost structures, like tombstones and houses, buried for thousands of years.
via Possible Pyramids Discovered From Space : NPR.
There’s a big blue box. It’s bigger on the inside than the outside. It can go anywhere in space and time, sometimes where it is supposed to go. Something will go wrong, and there’s some bloke called The Doctor who’ll make it all right because he’s awesome. Now sit down, shut up and watch Blink.
via Neil Gaiman’s Perfect Introduction To Doctor Who For New Viewers – Bleeding Cool.
I started this project in April 2010. I finished in December of that same year. Eight full months dedicated to reading the New Testament and then writing down my thoughts for the world to see.
I have to admit that I have come away with a slightly different view of Christianity. It was very enlightening to read through the entire story of Christ starting from Jesus’s birth. It was illuminating to see how the stories and legends grew, how the ministry of Christ changed those around him, and how Christ’s message was changed after his death.
I have more reverence for Christianity now than when I first started this project.That is pretty humbling for me. I always thought I am open-minded when it comes to any religion. I didn’t realize, though, that I was letting my view of Christianity be influenced by others.
There are so many people who use Christianity as an excuse to judge others, to justify discrimination and abuse of others, to try to force their own beliefs on the world in the name of Christ. There are a surprising number of people in the world who are more than willing to twist Christ’s teachings and ministry to suit their own purposes. I allowed my view to be distorted by such people, and that made me very biased against Christianity.
So it has been refreshing to see the core of the religion. To see what Christianity was about when it first started. I still don’t believe in Christ’s divinity, but see him as one of this world’s greatest teachers and philosophers. I think that his gospel spread love and hope and tolerance and understanding throughout the world. The world is all the better because of Jesus.However, once you get past the gospels and Acts of the Apostles, you see that Christ’s message is corrupted almost immediately after his death. I read Paul’s letters as a complete distortion of Christ’s teachings and message. I truly believe that Paul never stopped being a Pharisee, but instead took the “if you can’t beat them, join them” mindset.
Paul created the story that Jesus saved him and appointed Saul to be one of his chosen few. Paul used this story to work his way into the new Christian church, and to move up to one of the top leadership positions in the church. Once established there, Paul then started steering the religion right back towards his Pharisee roots.
There is a major difference – almost as start as the difference between day and night – between the first half of the New Testament – mostly dealing with Christ’s life, death and resurrection – and the last half. Most of the last half are letters from Paul, stating how people should behave in their daily lives. How they should act, how they should dress, what they should do with their own bodies. Throughout, Paul continually tried to establish his own credibility.
And it worked! Thousands of years later, Paul is enshrined in the New Testament as one of the main voices of Christianity.
On the plus side, Paul gives me a lot to rant about. Good thing, too: aside from rants, there was basically nothing to write about in Paul’s letters.
Be that as it may.
I will leave you with my advice: if you choose to read the New Testament yourself, read the four Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and then skip to Revelation. Skip the entire body of epistles – those written by Paul as well as the minor letters written by Peter, James, et al.
The Gospels allow you to see exactly what Christ taught, mostly in his own words. That is what Jesus wanted people to follow. Read these, and then see how different Christ’s message is from what Christianity turned out to be. I think you’ll be surprised at the difference.
Read Acts of the Apostles because of its entertainment value. Acts is truly one of the best novels I’ve ever read. Peter’s travels, Paul’s arrests and escapes, Paul’s thrilling adventures at sea, Paul’s court room battles against a government that clearly wants him dead, and the finale as Paul faces a future of promise and uncertainty. The story is immaculately plotted and wonderfully crafted. Luke was one hell of an author, and Acts holds up as one of history’s greatest action/adventure stories.
Read Revelation for the pure mind-trip. If you’ve ever wondered what a drug-induced hallucinative trip is like, Revelation will show you. Armies of angels. Locusts with scorpion tails. Seas of blood. Seven-headed dragons. Talking eagles. It’s a hoot, an epic fantasy on the lines of Pink Floyd’s The Wall or Tolkiens fantasy world.
With that, my dear readers, I am calling this project completed. I hope that you have enjoyed this series. I welcome your comments – positive and negative alike. Comment below, or contact me directly.
– Michael Fierro, 12/31/2010
New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.
Those of you who read my last entry will realize that we have reached the end of the New Testament. For better or worse, this project is just about finished. I started reading and reviewing the New Testament in April 7th of this year (2010) and I will put a capstone on this project this coming Tuesday, December 28th, 2010. Just in time to ring in the new year!
I am going to take a break from now through the end of Christmas weekend. I think I’ve earned a break after 8 months of this. [grin]
Until then, Happy Holidays! Enjoy this time of the year. I truly believe it is the most wonderful time of the year. No matter how much that song is overplayed.
Speaking of songs, here’s one for you to use to help enjoy the holiday.
New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.
We have arrived at the end of the universe, at the end of all things, and the creation of the new Heaven. At the end of Chapter 19, Christ led heaven to a final, climactic battle with the armies of evil. The White Rider trampled all enemies, and banished both the Beast and the Anti-Christ to the lake of fire.
One might wonder what is there left to do? Evil is vanquished. Doesn’t that mean that good has won, and the story is now over?
About the only complaint I had about the Lord of the Rings movies regarded The Return of the King. The last, oh, half-hour or so was a series of endings. The battles had been fought, Sauron had been defeated, Mordor was no more. But there was scene after scene with someone saying goodbye, or someone heading off across the sea, or of someone claiming their power. All of which could’ve been edited down to a 5-minute montage.
The end of Revelation is pretty much exactly like that. Only without Orlando Bloom.
An angel from heaven comes down to earth and captures Satan. He throws the serpent into the bottomless pit, then seals and locks the pit. The dragon must stay in that pit for a thousand years, giving him no power over the nations. However, at the end of the thousand years, he will be set free.
After the serpent is captured, John sees thrones set up. Those who sat on the thrones were given authority to judge the living and the dead. However, that is neither here nor there since it isn’t mentioned again.
John then saw the souls of those martyred in the name of Christ. These had continued to worship Christ in the face of mortal peril, they rejected the beast and did not receive the mark. These souls were resurrected and were able to rule with Christ for the thousand years that Satan was imprisoned. This is the First Resurrection.
After the thousand years, Satan was released from prison. He set out and gathered another army of nations to make war against the armies of God. This time, Satan took the assembled armies to the “beloved” city. That was a bad move: God rained down fire on the army, burning them all to a crisp. Satan was once again captured, but this time was thrown into the lake of fire to join the beast and the false prophet. The three will be tortured there forever.
Finally, with his enemies defeated and the earth and heaven destroyed, God took his throne. Death, Hades and the sea had to surrender the dead they held. Everyone who had ever died were raised and brought before the throne. Books were opened for each person, and that person was judged according to their works. Anyone worthy had their name recorded in The Book of Life. Once the judgement was done, those whose name wasn’t in the Book of Life were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death, the eternal death.
John saw a new, Utopian earth and heaven. God lived among man. There was no more death, no more grief or crying or pain. Nothing unclean would be allowed in, no one who’d do destestable things or would tell lies. There’s only the righteous and God.
Here’s where being a non-believer changes one’s perceptions. For a Christian, the new Heaven and Earth are their ultimate goal. They want to be in the new Holy City living with God/Christ forever. On the other hand, I can’t help but think this would be boring. I could live with not dying, of course. But I wouldn’t want to spend eternity with people who all act and think the same way, worshiping a god who just destroyed all of humanity along with the universe.
If there’s no suffering, who is going to write the great works of literature? If there’s no pain, who is going to create new musical masterpieces? How can there be joy, if there’s never any sorrow? Who can enjoy light if there isn’t dark to differentiate?
Nope, this vision of the afterlife is not palatable to me at all.
But I digress…
The book closes with John coming back to his present. Both the angel and Jesus say that Christ will be returning “soon.” The angel warns John not to seal up this prophecy, because the time is near for the Lord to return. “Let the one who does what is evil continue to do evil, and let the filthy person continue to be filthy, and the righteous person continue to do what is right, and the holy person continue to be holy.”
John wraps up the book – and the New Testament – by inviting Jesus to return. “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!”
Amen!
Up next: Time for goodbyes
New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.