ACTS OF THE APOSTATES : JESUS' CONVERSION

Meanwhile Jesus was still breathing out murderous threats as he rode his high horse towards Jerusalem. Suddenly a bright light flashed before his eyes and he fell to the ground blinded. 
He heard a voice of science and reason say, " Jesus, Jesus, why are you persecuting the human race ?"
Jesus wept, " Who is it that speaks ? "
Dawkins in excelsis, " I am the voice of reality and humane ethics, but my Facebook friends call me Richard Dawkins "
Jesus, " What is it you want with me ?"
Dawkins, " I have come to free the captives, to heal the sick, to save people from the damnable doctrine of hell & raise levels of consciousness. Now go to the nearby village of Skeptic ink network and you will be met by a man by the name John W. Loftus who will lead you into old & new truths, as best we know them.
Jesus to his disciples, " Did you hear the voice ?"
Jesus disciples, " No, we had our head stuck in the sand lest we would hear anything troubling "
Jesus, " The voice of reason appeared to me and told me to go to Skeptic ink, take me there, please "
So it was that Jesus came to the village of Skeptic ink where he wept and covered himself with sack cloth and ashes. Very early the next morning Jesus heard a knock at the door.
John Loftus, " Behold I stand at the door and knock, who ever opens, I will come in and explain to them why i became an atheist "
Jesus, " Who's there ?"
John Loftus, " John Loftus "
Jesus, " John Loftus who ? "
John Loftus, " John Loftus who has enough reasons to blow your butts to kingdom come "
Jesus went and rolled the door aside
Jesus, " Heal me lord, for I am blind and dumb and my arguments are lame "
And John proceeded to explain to Jesus all that was written in " Why evolution is true " and Jesus' faith was tested & found wanting by OTF. At that moment something like blinkers fell from Jesus' eyes & he repented of his ignorance.
Jesus, " I see the light, No longer will I worship paper idols nor glorify ignorance. Does this mean that I won't have to hang and suffer there on the cross ? "
John Loftus, " Yes, isn't it wonderous. It would be for nothing to die like that. Now go and check out SIN, maximize people's well being & minimize their suffering "
And from that day Jesus went on a sea voyage round the Mediterranean, spreading the good news that there probably is no God or hell etc so relax and make the most your one shot at life.
All who heard him were amazed and said, " Isn't this the man who caused havoc in the world with his deluded threats, yet here he is clothed and in his right mind "
 After being ship wrecked several times Jesus walked upon England's green and pleasant land where he confessed SIN to Justin Brierley. Justin instantly messaged everyone in the British isles. Great was the rejoicing among those who were saved and Their numbers were added to daily. 
And they all lived happier ever after.

Alias Paul : Nothing shall separate us from the love of God through Christ who suffered for us in the heavenly realm.
Alias Jesus : I am that Christ
Alias Paul : How can you be the Christ ? Humans aren't God !
Alias Jesus: I was fathered by the Holy Spirit and a virgin, God incarnate, according to Isaiah 7v14
Alias Paul: No way, you are kidding, that verse in Isaiah refers to a young woman. Get away from me I never knew you
Alias Jesus: Oh but you did know me. You fell before me when I knocked you off your high horse and when the scales had fallen from your eyes you worshipped me as Lord.
Alias Paul: Surely there is an error in your memory ?
Alias Jesus : Cataracts seem to have grown over you eyes. Repent, Worship me here, NOW, or be damned.
Alias Paul: Nothing shall separate us from the love of God so I don't know what bleeding Jesus is bleating on about.
Alias Jesus : Whoever believes that my Nasty Intolerant Version bible is The 100% inerrant version of reality can be my eternal bride but whoever so much as pokes a semi colon, let alone a word, will gnash their teeth in eternal torment.
Alias Paul: Nothing shall separate us from the love of God except trying to get to heaven by observing the O.T. laws.
Alias Jesus : Matt 5v20 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be least in heaven. Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the Phartisees you will not get to heaven. Matt 19v17, If you want to enter life obey the commandments
Alias Paul: Fool. It is by grace that we are saved, not by works cognitive or physical. (Eph 2v8, Rom 11v6) Anyone who is bound as a slave to the law will die by it. ( Gal 3v10 , Rom 3v21)
Alias Jesus: Anyone who calls me fool will be in danger of the fires of hell
Alias Paul: Well to be more specific, I think what you are saying is foolish. I know, lets test everything. He who has the biggest penis shall be anointed as the mouth piece of God.
Alias Jesus: My ass, you fool, ( 2 Cor 11v21 ). No marriage for you in heaven, ( Mark 12v25 )
Alias Paul: Your texts seem like they were written by Balaam's ass, they're misanthropic and make it sound like you had no penis.
Alias John ( 1 Jn 4v1 ): Whoever does not acknowledge Jesus was the Christ in the flesh shall be damned
Alias Paul : Johnny don't try to make a cunti us. It is obvious that God & his Christ were only ever in the heavenlies. 1 Tim 4v10, God is the saviour of all men
Alias Jesus:Whoever believes I am the son has eternal life, but whoever rejects me will not see life. ( John 3v36 ) John 14v6 NO one come so the father except through me
Alias Paul: When I get to heaven I'm going to walk all over you
Alias Jesus: You should be so lucky
Alias Paul: You make so brave while hiding behind your quill and ink but I'll use my squid to squirt ink on you, squirt
Alias Jesus: Turn the other cheek
Alias Paul: You turn a fine line in cheek, high jacking my religion and trying to turn it back to Judaism. My Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

Alias Jesus: Luke 13v51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth ? No, I tell you, division. Luke 12v46 I will cut you to pieces and beat you with many blows
Alias Paul: What happened to "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you ?"

Even the New Testament claims that it's main story was started by 13 illiterate peasants, one of whom was suffering delusions of grandeur. So maybe they told the story and no educated person would have anything to do with it but some even less educated people were convinced by it -- and slowly it grew among the fearful & gullible ( because they weren't aware of the wider history of the ancient near east, or of science etc.) After some years it became difficult to check it's claims ?

Is it more likely that an impossible resurrection, " miracle " happened or that someone lied ?

Which of theses options is correct

1. Romans 8v38 Nothing shall separate us from the love of God except thinking that
(A) resurrection is impossible ? (B) resurrection is an every day event ?
2. Nothing shall separate us from the love of God except thinking life on Earth is
(A) over 6000 years old (B) under 3.5 billion years old
3 Nothing shall separate us from the love of God except thinking life on Earth
(A) appeared instantaneously as we see it today
(B) started with very simple organic life forms and very gradually became more varied & complex by mutation & natural selection 
4 Nothing shall separate us from the love of God but it's a bit academic if there is no supernatural realm
5 Nothing shall separate us from the love of God which is a pity because I wouldn't want to be with being which damned most of humanity for thinking anything except the party line.
6 Psalm 103v3 The Lord forgives all your sins except
(A) Thinking the Lord is a fantasy invented by witchdoctors (B) Thinking that the Lord has more sins of omission & mission than any other human.
7 Be sure your sins will find you out, is true in the case of the creation week which is obviously a lie, since we are fairly sure life started 3.5 billion years ago.

Dear Jesus,
Forgive me that I think you probably never existed and that the Bible stories are mostly fictional like Shakespeare plays. Forgive me that I think there probably is no supernatural realm or God, that most of the Bible ideas are primitive mumbo jumbo and potentially detrimental to mental health. Forgive me that I think biblegod is the one most worthy of a hell for sins of omission because only a cosmic god could have controlled human fertility to prevent the world population rising above a sustainable 2 billion, and have prevented illness, disease etc Forgive me that I think the idea of letting people suffer after death is unethical. Also I forgive you for thinking that I need to be forgiven for thinking what is decent and true. Ramen

Well maybe that about covers it, or have i missed a few things ?

At any rate maybe forgiveness is a red herring ? Maybe it is more about focus and talking about things in caring way, specific to action or idea, proportionate, not exaggerating, not generalizing ( except for comic effect ).
Why shouldn’t someone say, ” I will always be angry about that thing you did, when I think about it, but i plan to focus on my favourite things so that the things that pained me are forgotten. “

Dear Jesus,
Please forgive God for creating so much coal, oil and gas that run away global warming was likely when most of it was burned by humans trying to make their life tolerable in the short term. Please forgive God for not creating enough uranium ore to keep civilization going for millions of years instead of running out somewhere around 2075. Please forgive God for not telling humans about the risks of getting on the fossil fuel runaway minetrain and for not telling us how to make renewable technology 2000 years ago. Mind you wasn’t that something you could have done ? So maybe you sinned ? In which case are you fucked ? I suppose that could explain why you never returned ? Are you in hell ? Worrying, but probably not since it was just a Greek myth. By the way how come you didn’t tell us the origin of your ideas ? Hey don’t worry Jesus, I’ll forgive you for not telling us the truth about the history of religion. It’s not your fault that you were scarcely literate and maybe didn’t have access to the information about where your ideas came from. But please forgive the ministers who did know and didn’t tell their congregations because they were afraid of getting the sack from zealots in the midst. Well lets face it anyone could have gone to the library to study all the points of view. But please forgive the editors who censored so many books, t.v programmes, films radio shows from all skeptical freethought content.
But also pass on my thanks to your father for putting enough fossil fuel to allow us to explore the planet and solar system to discover that the bible & alsoran & book of mormon etc are a mixture of mostly primitive guesses, wildly mistaken ideas, propoganda, theological psychological warfare, warped, twisted, misleading etc.
Thank be that cosmic god is a failed hypothesis and may our communal management system be based on science & reason

With the writings of the new atheists, there is no hope that religious myth is true, only despair for priests too shortsighted to see the big picture.
Abrahamic religion is only a couple of pages in the BIG BOOK OF EVOLUTION.
Once you recognize the Bible / Koran as primitive guesses it becomes funny fiction.
Science is good because it’s theories can evolve and scientists can look with amusement at the prototype ideas. Folk who worship paperidols are too afraid to do the same with theological theories.
The Bible is some of the best evidence that there is no supernatural realm because it’s claims don’t match testable reality.

I always thought that Christianity was a nightmare scenario which i clung to out of fear of being damned, so to discover that the plot is wildly improbable is a great relief to me.

When I was a teenager I was gripped with fears about the supernatural realm imagined in the Bible. I thought you had to hold to the winning set of ideas or you’d go to a hell. I had an uncle who was a minister and asked, ” How not to fear ?”. His response was, ” What you fear comes upon you “. At the time I gave that credence but years later I now would reply, ” What you fear can’t come upon you if it isn’t real and you are aware of the reasons to think it isn’t real. ” I don’t have those fears any more .
My uncle was convinced he was going to a happy ever but i was caught up in the dark side of Christianity. There is no verse in the Bible which says, ” Whoever says this magic prayer, X, is guaranteed signed into heaven .” instead what you get is, ” Not all who call me lord will be saved ” Christianity is psychological warfare with dangerous undercurrents. How can anyone be happy with the idea that most of humanity is damned ? It is arrogant & selfish to think you are going to heaven for thinking lies are true and making vile threats against everyone else.
If the supernatural realm of Abrahamic religions does not exist then that whole burden of worries disappears.
In any case any truly loving god would either take people to a happy ever after or let them become extinct. It isn’t ethical to let people suffer after death and not possible without an immortal part.
Premier christian radio show ” Unbelievable ? ” hosted by Justin Brierley has educational debates looking at most points of view. It is more interesting to be aware of the fuller debate.

            Francis Collins & Kenneth Miller are christians who favour  theistic evolution.
             " Why evolution is true " is a superb overview on the subject,  by Jerry A. Coyne .
 Also Richard Dawkins deals with the Paley's watch argument in " The Blind watch maker "
  Robert M. Price & Ed Suominen show the spectrum of views to evolution in , " Evolving out of Eden, christian responses to evolution "

I think it is more likely that life on earth formed by a billion little steps up a stairway than one giant leap up a cliff of instantaneous creation.  The question is could it have happened just by natural selection or did it need some tinkering ? It does seem nearly incredible that it could have done so unaided, but then there is no other theory and anyway how would a God evolve ?

If you find a watch lying out in the heath you would think that it had formed not instantaneously by magic but by a manufacturing process. In fact you might guess that there had been more primitive designs of watch before hand. The designs could be said to have undergone a sort of evolution where the organism doing the natural selection was humans. Also the components had developed in quite separate spheres and were adapted to exist in a sort of symbiosis with each other.
    Interesting to  read about possible pathway of evolution of
chloroplasts on wikipedia.
Chloroplasts are considered to have originated from cyanobacteria through endosymbiosis—when a eukaryotic cell engulfed a photosynthesizing cyanobacterium which remained and became a permanent resident in the cell.

Parody on  " Wide wide as the ocean " , see  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krQcDfnWpW0

Wide wide as the atlantic
2000 miles wider than it used to be
130 million years ago
It wasn't there to see

I though now a human
Back then my ancestors were lemuriform
Paleontology teaches me
Things that can set me free
From religious fantasy

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 Parody on " If I was a butterfly /  If I was a fish in the sea "

My ancestors were like fish in the sea
They wiggled about and giggled with glee
But natural selection drew some onto land
Their fossilized limbs are fossilized in sand

More recently my nth grandfather was an ape
but this was before video tape
So I'm just glad I can watch HD

We I've got a brain, and I've got a smile
So I don't put up with religious vile
And give thanks I'm free from the god of  VD (Very Deluded )



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Parody on  BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC
" My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord "

My eyes have seen the folly of believing in a god
less likely a reality than a priestly fraud
if you don't want to be fooled
you need to be well schooled
by comparing all the information

glorification of studpidity, glorification of stupidity, glorification of stupidity
That is religious creed.

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Don't let mohammed make a monkey out of you
or he'll make you an exhibit in his primate zoo
he'll blind fooled you by putting a bag over your head
and spin you around so much your brain will act like dead

but if you read all sides you can avoid being caught out
You needn't join the gang with the illiterate clout
Study science and reason to find the civilized way
Don't get cut short in war, instead have fun whay hay
.

Parody on a primitive old chorus
" The wise man built his house upon the rock " youtube/watch?v=dkNOcr5iHP4

THE WISE MAN STUDIES THE FOSSILS IN THE ROCKS
The wise thing to do is look at fossils in the rocks
The clever thing to do is study fossils in the rocks
And watch as religious myth tumbles down

Cause life is older than 6000 years old
Cause life is more like 3.5 billion years old
Cause life evolved by natural selection as Darwin told
So there are errors in the bible mould

In fact I think the bible authors had very little clue
Their guesses are held together by a paranoid sort of glue
If you only read their ideas you could end up in a stew
Don't let the ministers feed off of you

I think Jesus maybe never lived at all
And some folk along the way have told stories tall
No Exodus or Nazareth or revelation
Mostly primitive theillogical ammunition

But I guess there might be a few good ideas in there
Like how it is ok to drink wine & beer
And I guess you'd also find the golden rule in there
But hell is myth. To be quite clear.

So do yourself a favour and read, " Why evolution is true "
See, " Rise of the continents " on BBC2
History of physics, astronomy, geology will help
See the magic of reality.

Christians have been double crossed by cross eyed priests but I think deep down they realize they are holding onto error. Here is a song that makes a lot more sense from an atheistic perspective

DON'T BUILD YOUR HOUSE ON THE SANDY LAND
Don't build your house on the shore
bits might look kind of nice but you'll have to build it twice
Yes you'll have to build your house once more ( on reality )

You'd better build your house on evolution
To the origins of life it is our best solution
Fiction may come and go
But science can make your brain glow.

DON'T BUILD YOUR HOUSE ON THE SANDY LAND
Don't build your life on bible fiction
bits might look kind of nice but could fill your head with lice
Unless you read John Loftus' books in addition

You'd better read Jerry Coyne's book on evolution
To the evidence of WHY? it is a superb solution
Fiction may come and go
But peace from atheism you can know

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--4relah_Ow , Carine Donze channel.

RERevillations

And I saw Jesus sitting on his throne in the new Jerusalem. His blonde hair flowed beneath his tin helmet. In his right hand was a pyrite goblet of blood red new wine, in his left a titanium sword. His robes were whitewashed spotless. A dozen people knelt licking his feet, another stood serving him pieces of bread made from freshly ground bones. He glanced over his balcony at the crucifixes covering the fields below, they stretched in rows into the distance , like vine yards, to the top of the hill.
Jesus : " I love the smell of blood in the morning & the dawn chorus of agony is indeed music to my ears "
" Have mercy on us Lord " came a cry from close by
Jesus looked down on them, It was Pilate on the cross nearby
Jesus : " What is it now Pilate ? Why must you trouble me ? How many millions of times have I told you it is hopeless, your fate is sealed "
Pilate: " What have I done to deserve this ? "
Jesus : " You persecuted me, you made me suffer on the cross"
Pilate : " No, I never met you, I never gave an order for you to be crucified. Anyway having all these people on crosses is infinitely worse than anything the Romans ever did, it is inhuman "
Jesus : " I warned them they needed to do stuff " 
Pilate: " It wasn't clear what they needed to do. No human could do something deserving Infinite punishment, what good does this achieve ? Why did the angels not prevent crime ? "
Jesus, " I'm weary of this, I wash my hands of you "
Herod, " Pilate speaks truth, and if you will not spare me from this cross either then at least hear this truth, I never ordered a slaughter of the children of Bethlehem, there must be some mistake "
Jesus: " My records say you did "
Man from Luke 23v39 : " You said you were the Christ and saved yourself but what about us. It would be kinder to let us become extinct. What sort of Christ would perpetuate this ? "
Man from Luke 23v42 takes a break from foot licking : " He saved me, you missed your chance, "
Girl cries out from her cross : " What about me Jesus, I lived a decent life, just let me rest in peace "
Jesus : " You never believed the Bible "
Girl : " I tried to find out what was real, true & live by what is ethical.. I just listened to the scientific consensus about how the world operated , The Bible mostly looked like primitive guesses, the Bible quoted you as saying things which were not true. Your failure to criticize unethical ideas or false statements in the O.T. meant you didn't sound like I expected a god to sound "
Satan from his cross : " Have mercy of her Jesus , if you believe that the mercy is a virtue ? "
Jesus : " Why should i listen to you ? "
Satan : " I am only speaking truth to power. Rom 13v10 said " Love does no harm to it's neighbour. You are not acting by that principle or the golden rule ""
Jesus : " That was on Earth while I had humbled myself and taken on a meek and lowly form. But now you see me as I truly am, with all the glory of the Father. I am not bound by such precepts, anyway someone else wrote that stuff "
Satan : " What about forgive that you be forgiven, do not condemn, do not murder. What about 1 Cor 13v5, " love does not keep a record of wrongs " . I thought 1 John 4v8 claimed God was love ? Does this look like the out working of love ? "
Jesus : " Who are you to speak to me ? Get behind me Satan "
Satan, " Isn't truth independent of the messenger ? Didn't Matthew 24v35 say, ' Heaven and earth will pass away but your words will never pass away ' . Your words look like a web of contradictions "
At that moment a spot appeared on Jesus robes and the bread in his hand turned to maggot infested flesh, the wine to blood. Jesus scraped at the spot on his robes, " Out damn spot out, out, will these robes never be clean " But the spot grew and grew into a swirling vortex. dragging Jesus in.
Jesus : " Help, Save me, servants, save me , if you value your eternal life "
Feet lickers and others : " You promised us a Goldilocks zone, but this seems like a perpetual nightmare. If all things were possible why did you choose things to be this way ? It has been unbearable for us to see our kith and kin suffering on these crosses for eons. Perhaps it is for the best that oblivion beckons.
It hasn't been worth it. "
Then there was a sound like rushing waters and the last of Jesus disappeared down his throne
The case was closed
Everyone else went to rest in peace

THE END.

In the POG bible the greatest sin is burning fossil fuel.
Noah warns people that they must not burn coal or POG will have to flood the world to bury the fossil fuel so deep that it can't be burned.

Jonah goes to Nineveh to tell them to stop using coal and switch to biofuel and unless they do this then sea levels will rise and they will be flooded again. Fortunately the people repent and cover themselves with the ashes from the fireplace.. { is sack cloth & ashes the bible's subconscious realization that burning coal is a mistake ? }

Exodus 3, And Moses saw a bright light coming from a cave . He went in to investigate and saw what looked like a tungsten filament burning brilliantly bright yet not burning up.  POG, " Moses this is an electric light powered by wind and solar power, bring a couple of slates and I will laser etch a design on them for you ". And when POG was finished he also gave Moses these commandments
Deuteronomy 5 " Thou shalt not burn coal / oil. Built wind & solar power , thou shalt not build internal combustion engines. If you travel use horse power, sail across the oceans with wind, accept your fate "
 When Moses came down from the mountain top he saw that the Israelites were burning coals to Molech [ Lev 18v21, 2Chr 28v3 ]. He threw water on their fire, ground up the coal, put it in water and made them drink it.
POG Numbers 14v32 While the Israelites were in the Siberian desert, at -30 C, a man was found burning coal to keep warm, so eco warrior Moses commanded he be stoned to death.
Numbers 15v3&7 " Offer steak offerings on woodsmoke as a sweet aroma to POG "

1 King 18 And  Elijah found the prophets of Baal [ who denied the prophecy of global warming ]
about to light their coal fires. So Elijah challenged them to a test. He set up his woodburning stove next to their coal fire and poured water on each fuel.  " Now we will see which fuel is approved, call out to your god to light the fire " They prayed and wept but nothing happened. Then Elijah called out, " POG show which fuel you approve of."  Then his wood burning stove sparked alight and gave off a great heat.

John 8v3, The Pharisees brought a woman caught burning coal in her fireplace before Jesus, " Teacher the law of Moses  we must not burn coal and he set a precedent of death penalty for this crime, what do you say ". Then Jesus bent down and wrote in the ash around his wood burning stove. " If anyone of you does not lease methane into the atmosphere, let him throw the first stone ". And they all went away, those who ate baked bean first. And Jesus said, " Then neither do I condemn you, go but install a biomass system, I can sell you one for $1 million. "
But Satan replied " No don't believe it, you can have it all, syngas is the way forward, by syntrolysis using a ruthenium catalyst you can have fun now and a fun future, but let the old skeletons in the underworld lie in piece "
(see YT, IdahoNationalLab, synthetic fuel )

Jesus: unless you turn from using fossil fuels  hell fires then your world will meet a Hadean end with [ Rev 20v10 ] sulphuric acidic oceans devoid of life and since 50% of atmospheric oxygen comes from the phyto plankton the oxygen will be reduced to levels that cannot support mammals.

Rev 1v14 I saw someone like the son of man, and his eyes were blazing biomass fire

But the chosen ones who have a clean / non reeking lum will leave to build a new Jerusalem on Mars. [ This would only work if Mars was a habitable Earth like planet, unfortunately we get there only to find it is about as much use as the Sahara desert, so much for ID ]

Major snag is again, why wouldn't a real god just switch people off directly ? Why wouldn't he just let the human race die off with Adam & Eve? Why bother saving even Noah & family ? A god who wanted long term survival of species biodiversity wouldn't have let homo sapiens come into existence. Why not just explain how to live sustainably & reveal the technology to do it. How about a religious person giving a design to remove carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere ?
How would it be possible to raise atmospheric CO2 levels by burning coal formed from plants which were all growing 6000 years ago ? Why does anyone think that the Bible is anything more than primitive guesses ?

This world looks like God isn’t working. This is possibly because God is under the delusion that there is no God, he thinks he is a primate unable to do anything to help the situation on Earth. If only he could snap out of it & believe in himself, then he would realize that he has supernatural powers he could use to save the planet from global warming and ocean acidification. Maybe that would include controlling the fertility of each human on earth to limit birth rate to average 2 children per woman and he could even switch off adults who are suffering senility or severe pain at an appropriate moment. He might even rise to the challenge of preventing murder, abuse, disease and illness.

The O.T. authors sometimes imagined that God was using foreign armies to teach the jewish folk a lesson or some other mysterious end.. What good did God use WWII for ? Out of all the millions who died he didn't manage to snuff out the first people in Congo who were carrying HIV.

Maybe there is a Primordial Ooze God, POG, whose main aim is to return humans to apemen ? POG is the consciousness of the natural world. POG realized that human progress would lead to self destruction. It wanted to prevent hominids gaining the extra intelligence [ Gen 2v17 ], realizing the destruction that exponential population explosion could do, POG tried to limit this by cursing the ground with weeds [ Gen 3v17 ], POG tried to frustrate his development [ Babel, Gen 11 ] , POG caused people to be deranged and appointed them as priests to mislead people, it gave mumbo jumbo scriptures to fuel wars, it keeps causing mutations to pest & diseases so that they can build resistance to medicine & agro chemicals. POG is the personification of organic life trying to fight back against humans for the survival of the rest life on Earth.

 BiblePOG could have said, "  Thou shalt not burn coal / oil.  Grow coppice woodland for fuel. If you travel use horse power, sail across the oceans with wind, accept your fate "

I think Jesus got his wires crossed.

Or maybe it was just bible authors who got their thinking crossed, or were they cross-eyed ?

Yes it is important to hold to the truth / reality therefore admit that the Bible plot is mostly fiction. Yes it is important to live ethically therefore admit the idea of hell is unethical.

Yes kindness is desirable therefore admit that much of Bible is cruel. Yes loving is nice therefore admit that many ideas in the bible are not love - more like hate.

Interesting Radio 4, " In our time " with Melvyn Bragg 13th June, " Prophecy ". 25 minutes in Bragg questions if there is a conscious fabrication of the Jesus character based on stories from the Old Testament. Justin Meggitt of Cambridge uni. starts by replying " No ", but later admits some scholars have thought it was a possibility that Jesus stories written to fit O.T narrative.

Mona says Mohammad's miracle was the koran. 

Some think anyone could have written that summary of the bible.

In the realm of Control of Substances Hazardous to Health, COSHH, the warning symbol of an irritant or harmful substance has been  X  though really more of a + with each of the lines at 45 degrees.
The warning symbol for a toxic substance is a skull and cross bones.
So maybe the new Globally Harmonized System of hazard pictograms should be employed by requiring
that a  pictogram of a crucifix at 45 degrees with a skeletal jesus be placed on the cover of bibles etc ?

There could also be a warning message, " Toxic ! Caution contains high percentage of fiction "
" Proof not determined ",
FIRST AID MEASURES:
" In the event of ingestion, swallowing:  irrigate with detailed evidence of Theory of evolution by natural selection and other bits of reality. Consult Dr Jerry Coyne "

By the way the new Health Hazard symbol looks like someone who has just swallowed a star of David.

It is possible to compare bible with it's summary,  alsoran, on skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran
Anyone with a reasonable memory who had heard the bible stories could have written the quran, but I guess being illiterate would help.

This world looks like God isn't working. This is possibly because God is under the delusion that he is
a primate unable to do anything to help the situation on Earth. If only he could snap out of the delusion that there is no God and believe in himself then he would realize that he has supernatural powers he could use to
control the fertility of each human on earth to limit birth rate to average 2 children per woman and he could even switch off adults who are suffering senility or severe pain at an appropriate moment. Hell he might even rise to the challenge of preventing murder, abuse, disease and illness.

The O.T. often imagines God using foreign armies to teach the Jewish folk a lesson or achieve some mysterious end but taking HIV as a case study. Think of the millions who died in WWII.  If God was using WWII for some end then how come he failed to use it to wipe out the first few people which HIV
occurred in ?

 Imagine that Deuteronomy 14v8 had made it taboo to eat primates then the human race might have avoided HIV if that message had been preached in Africa. Were there religious groups in Africa who had taboos against eating primates ?
Maybe apes were uncommon in Israel so it just never occurred to eat them.  However would we ever have known that we had avoided HIV ? Deut 14 would need to have said, " Do not eat apes or monkeys because a dire disease / virus might get going in humans & spread round the globe " [ 1 kings 10v22 mentions apes & baboons ]

     Imagine if Hitler had started his deranged  plans in the Congo in 1940, he might have killed the tribe where the first HIV occurred and inadvertently prevented the pandemic of HIV - saving more lives and suffering from HIV than the thousands he murdered.

    Imagine that in 1910 a christian etc had claimed to have a word of knowledge that  3 people in Congo had a deadly new virus and was able to identify them from seeing them in a dream. Then the person was able either to convince them to be celibate or otherwise be quarantined. That would be either a fluke or indication of supernatural, but why wouldn't a god just prevent the mutation of SIV to HIV or switch off the unlucky first person ? or make them unlucky in love ?

     Imagine that religion hadn't impeded science so much & that science had risen earlier so that the danger of a virus like HIV occurring could have been predicted and rules put in place to change the culture in Congo against eating primates.
 Even if the world had taken more concern for preserving biodiversity & supplying the needs of the people in Congo so they weren't driven to eat chimpanzees etc. then HIV might have been prevented ?

   However maybe it was well intentioned anti-malaria injection campaigns which aided HIV ? Or explaining reasons against promiscuity might have prevented the spread ?  It is a mixed picture.

    Religious leaders are unable to do any real good when they are like witchdoctors ignorant of the crux details of reality.

Imagine that NASA noticed a 10 km wide asteroid heading straight for Earth but didn’t have the technology to deflect it quite ready. In this scenario could religious thinking over the past 2000 years be blamed for hindering scientific progress so much that we weren’t in time to save humanity from a Hadean end ?
A smaller asteroid could leave a few survivors trying to pick a living from a ruined planet, wishing that we had all been ready & lamenting that humans hadn’t recognized the scriptures to be primitive guesses.

No doubt before the asteroid hit you would have religious groups saying, ” We told the end was nigh, ” eventually, but they would be unable to magically design or make technology to save us. They would be busy working themselves into a frenzy, offering up a sacrifice of prayer.- useless

On the other hand if humans were still stuck at the 1000 BCE stage of primitive religious thinking, accepting their lot as unalterable fate or waiting for the gods to magically improve quality of life then Homo Sapiens might have had a more long term future. If no industrial revolution had happened & we had the standard of life of 2000 years ago, life expectancy 40 yrs old and population of 1 billion, humanity might have continued for another billion years ? ( barring unlucky asteroid impacts )

Can the human race agree to a management system that uses science & technology to preserve biodiversity and raise quality of life into the distant future ?

In the beginning God watched as the process of evolution formed life on Earth, then on the seven hundred thousand millionth day [ he lost count, it's understandable ] he said, ” Well it’s going to take an almighty effort to cube this sphere to make it good.
I was looking forward to a low maintenance garden where I could chill out in my old age and just enjoy the peace and harmony but instead I can see I am going to have to micro manage all the fucking or at least the fertility of all the humans so that birth rate – death rate imbalance doesn’t lead to a population explosion, degradation of habitat and war. Besides that I’ll have to control the fertility of all the insects which would parasitize humans, pity I didn’t think to tinker with human blood to make it noxious & repellent to all harmful insects. Some more tinkering might have made humans immune to harmful bacteria and viruses too.
Wish I’d tinkered with the spiders to make them more effective at catching mosquitoes & houseflys.
Then the more God thought about the situation the more snags he found on Earth and because he wasn’t too good at positive thinking he got so wound up that his core temperature ignited carbon fusion, causing a run away nuclear fusion and he exploded into a supernova.
And that is why we haven’t seen God around to this very day. RIP

Variation on a theme of Velociraptor by Jerry Coyne

This is a Godosaurus us free workplace.
It has probably been over 13.8 billion years since the last incident.
There have been claims of a Godowarus 3000 years ago leading armies into battle and some talk of a Godwhosawrus from time to time since then but these concepts have evolved into Godosappiyins. Researchers studying the Godowarus genus have now reclassified it under the Godwhowasus.

Some people attempt to worship the Jurassic God but others, who accept the changes evolution makes ,serve a more civilized central management system.

            So anyway, after having sat ever so patiently for 8 thousand million years, doing next to nothing except drinking beer & watching  the universal fruit machine for three cherries in a row, finally a solar system that might be suitable for organic life comes up. So biblegod then spends another thousand million years trying to ping the tiddly wink into the cup,  using every sort of trick of chemistry including a fair bit of lightning & cosmic rays to get RNA up and running. Finally out of pure frustration he picks up asteroids and starts hurling them at Earth along with a fair bit of abuse, " Good for nothing piece of shit ".  The big pointing finger turns from, " It could be you " to " It is ". God shouts, " Hallelujah, I haven't the foggiest what i did but it worked, everyone needs a bit of luck from time to time " Then after another 2 billion years, of lying about idly, he is ready to use his  borosilicate pipette to fertilize the lucky ones with ambrosia nectar.  No sooner does a drop hit the membrane than he hears a tiny crack and watches in horror as the whole picture fractures into a billion splinters. Then a few moments later it dawns on him that not only has he failed to carry out a  Health & Safety risk assessment   but also he now begins to remember a similar disaster in his last universe & had he not been in such a rush of excitement would have consulted his notes  & might not have blown it again. To make matters even worse such was his over confidence in his abilities that he hadn't used insurance. He is so mortified of the whole thing that he can hardly bare to go to work each day and  pulls a sickie, quite typical of the withdrawal model, which is why he wasn't seen around much.

At any rate after another 200,000 years humans manage to teach themselves how to read & write. By this time god is in danger of getting the P45 so he thinks he'd better put in an appearance at work, plus it will be his holidays in a couple of weeks anyway and he won't enjoy them if he is sick rather than having official leave. So then, still smarting with embarrassment & in denial, god tries to minimize the magnitude of his cock up by telling humans that actually it was just a mere weeks work and anyway it was really the fault of this other cowboy subcontractor who didn't follow his COSHH guidelines . It was the fault of humans, don't ask, just cause.

However by this time the humans are adolescents and ask biblegod how come he didn't  follow best practice to which he replies that unless they be like little children they would get what for. But from that moment god diminished in greatness even more in their eyes. Their childhood illusions shattered they just had to face  reality.

An evolutionary perspective maybe sheds light on biblegod. Imagine you had spent 13 thousand million years overseeing the evolution of a universe, 3.5 billion years of life on earth, only to see it go all pear shaped the day after you place a divine spark in a hominid species. No wonder biblegod is pictured sparking lightning from his head, cursing & thundering ," damn " at everyone. I've been a bit like that myself over much less significant events.

What would you be like if you had spent 13 billion years on what started out as your favourite computer game, finally get to the ultimate screen when your wife shouts you for dinner, distracting you, and it's back to square one ? Fuming mad ?

Maybe creationists are like Sisyphus in Tartarus. They haven't studied the detail of the theory of evolution so they see it as a very steep slope which they think a boulder could not roll up, so don't even try. Yet somehow they think the boulder could roll up a cliff ?  This leaves them stuck at the bottom with their boulder, waiting for a lift from a god who never shows up. I suspect if they studied the details they would see a more gradual slope and manage to roll the boulder to the top, breaking free of Tartarus and escaping into the light of reality.

 Prevention is better than cure.
If there were angels, what are they playing at ? Too busy singing to prevent crime ?
See Acts 12v23 which has God able to strike down Herod Agrippa for merely failing to praise God yet God couldn’t strike down Hitler. This makes me think Acts tale is fiction.

How come angels seem no more clever than iron age peasants, otherwise they would have pointed out to whoever wrote the old religious texts that life on earth evolved and that it would be unethical to let people suffer after death.

They might also have advised that if God could create the whole animal kingdom in 144 hours then it would have been kinder to let Adam & Eve die and restart the human race with no one else doomed – or wipe everyone out in a global flood and make another animal kingdom. Maybe one with all animals vegetarian, only having two offspring and living for 70 healthy years before dying abruptly in their sleep.

How could a god turn a blind eye to all the predation that goes on in the rest of the animal kingdom but when it comes to humans it becomes a crime deserving infinite punishment ?
Maybe due more to psychological warfare by priests than ideas from a tyrant god ?

 I agree with Richard Dawkins' idea that many people have been let down by the education system.
    Maybe it is similar to computers- rubbish data in, rubbish information out.
   I was told at Sunday school that Moses got the first commandments the world had seen. I used to think that there was no way to check up whether it was true or not, because no other writings went back that far .  I never heard anyone challenging that idea. Why did I not check it in an encyclopedia ? I trusted authority figures around me who seemed to respect religion. It is puzzling when professional people seem to assert or accept that stories in the Bible are historically accurate.  I think I could have easily found the information in libraries and book shops if I had boldly searched.
    Why did my school not teach about the ancient Greek philosophers, not even giving a recommended reading list for further study? Why did they not cover the history of law codes ?

There are lots of other interesting things on tv etc to divert attention from finding out about religion.

I think that it would be unethical to let people suffer after death and that we probably have no immortal part anyway so it would not be possible to experience anything after death. I also think that there probably is no cosmic hell and that the idea evolved.

However if people are going to insist that we must think the world started with a seven  24 hour days creation week 6000 years ago otherwise we will go to hell then i say:

I think it is more likely that people will go to hell for thinking that the world started 6000 years ago after being created instantly by magic. Most of the evidence is against it. It doesn't make sense to  think the little steps are impossible but the massive step of instant creation is possible.

If people who deny the truths are in danger of ending up in a hell then the authors of the Genesis creation myths will be the first ones into that hell because the evidence points to an Earth & universe billions of years old which formed as a result of a very gradual process, this means that the authors of Genesis were denying the truth. However they have the excuse of ignorance but what excuse do present day truth deniers have ?

If Jesus said, " I am the way the truth and the life " then you should confess the truth or you will go to hell. Evolution is true therefore you should accept it as true. Maybe people have misinterpreted Genesis, maybe they only meant to say that the world came about in gradual steps but they could only
give a rough category heading to the mega steps. Genesis 2v7 has the mega step of dust to human. However it isn't rocket science to say that since plants grow out of the earth

           Religious myth can be seen as a chapter in the big book of evolution of culture
The evolution of the Bible:  The conglomeration of primitive guesses which form the  bible are  at war with each other.  They are a symbiosis of ideas so much in conflict with each other that is something of a miracle that they can coexist.  Shall we compare them to the flagella motor or use the analogy of  Cymbomonas digesting a cyanobacteria which later became a cloroplast ? Unfortunately their effect is more of the Vibrio cholerae variety , symptoms of delirium are often evident.

                After modern humans had been around for 200,000 years they developed writing and the Jewish scribes recorded a couple of their best guesses as to how life originated. [ Unbeknownst to them some Greeks had better guesses.]  Probably Jewish folk weren't too uptight about their guesses but then at the council of Nicaea a Christian priest had a crafty idea of putting the book of Revelation with it's curse against changing it's text [ Rev 22v19 ] at the end of the Bible. Writing mutations on religious text was maybe as common then as ID currently is to evolution. The organelles of heaven and hades ,acquired from Greek mythology, were added to this mix to act as  magnetic poles to send the thinking into a spinning vortex where anything possible can appear real.  A comparison can be made to the effect of standing on a cliff edge with binoculars blinding out wider reference points and staring at small field of view eg a loon on the lake, dizziness is experienced. Possible result : falling in and drowning

     Fortunately the anti-biotic effect of WEIT and other works containing a high % of reality can cure the patient from their malady. At any rate. removal of two short planks from eye is sure to improve focus allowing patient to notice that Genesis forgets to make god create volcanoes or mountains, though some sinking sand is mentioned in Gen 1v6-9, possible allusions to volcano in Gen 19v24. Yet Gen 7v19 mentions high mountains so that bible literalists  can't claim the mountains formed during or after the Gilgamesh / Noah flood myth imagined to have occurred 2300 BCE.

On the evolution of religious texts by mutations of their code and the natural selection of them according to their ability to lure and frighten Homo Sapiens.

Parody on John 1v1 : In the beginning was the precursor to RNA code. Through evolution all things were made; without evolution nothing was formed that has been formed. Evolution produced
human intelligence. The theory of evolution is a cornerstone idea for humans that gives great solution finding powers. It shows that although the problem might look like an unscalable cliff it might be broken down into micro steps under careful examination.
  The evidence for evolution was always around us but many did not recognise it having been blinkered & lured into exile by the parasitic priests. These priests inhabit shells like hermit crabs which mimic reality. The texture of their shell has enough points corresponding with reality to  fool the unwary prey. They are lured by nectar bribes of promises of a happy ever after with their loved ones, which appeals to their lust, and their investigation of their doubts is paralyzed by spine chilling threats, which act on their fear.