Christ on David's Throne - Some things are made to last

Do you suppose the chair is magic, or is it more of a symbolic thing?

Back a really long time ago, God decided that David would be the ruler of the Kingdom of Israel. Because the Israelites were God's chosen people, that Kingdom was destined to last forever. After God gave David the throne to the kingdom, the prophet Samuel came to David and said, "When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who shall come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever."

God gives King David "The Throne of Ages"

After the Babylonians embarrassed the Kingdom of Israel with its superior military might and enslaved most of the population, God's chosen people started thinking a lot about the promise of a "forever" kingdom and a messiah, or deliverer. Isaiah promised that sometime in the future, a descendant of David would once again sit upon David's throne. This messiah would usher in a new era of peace and rule forever, and ever, and ever. The end.

Isaiah Prophesies the Advent of Christ

800 years after Isaiah's promise, Jesus was born. The Babylonians weren't in charge of the Israelites anymore. Now it was the Romans who were calling the shots. Everyone wanted a messiah and Jesus was clearly the demigod for the job. You know, being the literal Son of God and all that jazz. Jesus sat on the throne and fixed everything.

Christ Rocks the Throne of David

Well almost everything I guess. I mean, there were a few Jewish rebellions against the Romans, and the Israelites were almost completely wiped off the face of the planet. I mean, only a few survived besides the ones living in other countries. But it's ok, really, because Jesus was still on the throne. After all, God did say Jesus would sit on it, "forever, and ever, and ever." I also heard that Jesus can't ever really die, so the throne sitting really can go on, and on, and on, and on . . . .

Forever and Ever

Moral: having a demigod sit on an antique chair doesn't necessarily prevent genocide.

Ref: 2 Samuel 7:12-16, Isaiah 9:6-7, & Isaiah 16:1-5

Midianite Genocide – Moses makes sure things are done properly

I wonder if Midianite women had a reputation for sexual prowess

You may not remember this, but when Moses fled Egypt to escape the criminal justice system he took refuge in Midian. While he was there he married a young Midianite woman named Zipporah, daughter of Jethro. Given Moses’ past relationship with Midian, it might surprise you to learn that when the Hebrew migration passed near Midian, Jehovah commanded Moses to wipe out the Midianites.

Apparently the Midianites were pretty weak sauce because Moses only sent 12,000 fighting men; 1,000 from each tribe. After the Hebrew heroes finished the long walk to Midian, they wasted no time in killing all the men. Then they took all the women and children captive, gathered up all the livestock and valuables, and burned every building in the country before returning to report to Moses.
 

When Moses received the war report he was furious. He said to the military leaders, “You didn’t kill the women? Are you crazy or just stupid? Don’t you realize that when Jehovah says he wants genocide, he actually wants genocide? Do you want Jehovah to kill us for not following orders?”

Moses immediately launched his plan of remediation. He had his people kill all the male Midianite children and all the women who failed the virginity check, and commanded that all the young virgins be immediately married to their captors.
 

This was a good start, but it wasn’t quite enough for the Lord. Jehovah spoke to Moses again with some additional steps: “Divide all the loot from Midian into two equal parts, divide one part among those who went to Midian to fight, and the other part among those who stayed behind. Then from the fighting men’s half, take one in every 500 young virgins and animals to the temple, along with one in 50 animals and virgins from the half for those who didn’t fight. Then sacrifice all those virgins and animals as a formal apology for not committing genocide properly and give all the looted money to the priest.

 

A total of 32,000 virgin Midianite girls survived the slaughter of their families. Of these, 352 virgins perished over the next several days as sacrifices to the Lord along with almost 9,000 animals. After the money was all collected, it was made into a memorial for the People of Israel.

 

Moral: Jehovah doesn’t like people messing with his genocide

Ref: Numbers 31

Saul Doesn’t Kill All The Animals – It’s the same as witchcraft

You know, because what God says really isn’t all that important anyway

In the first book of Samuel chapter 15, Jehovah told King Saul that he needed to take his army down to Amalek and kill all the men, women, children, babies, oxen, sheep, camels, and asses (1 Samuel 15:3). Saul was very happy to help Jehovah lay down a little more genocide so he gathered together 210,000 fighting men and headed to Amalek. The Hebrew army handily dispatched the Amalekian army and killed all the women, children, and babies before moving on to the livestock.

Here’s the thing though: Saul’s army didn’t kill ALL the animals. The very most healthy and beautiful ones were kept alive so they could be sacrificed to Jehovah. The silly Hebrews figured that since Jehovah was always telling people to kill super attractive animals on stone altars and burn their blood He would like some Amalekian animal blood too. They also took the King of Amalek captive instead of killing him. Jehovah immediately noticed that Saul didn’t do what he was told so He sent his prophet Samuel to have a chat with Saul.

Samuel showed up at the Hebrew army camp and Saul rushed over to tell him how wonderfully the genocide went, praise the lord, and all that. Samuel looked around and said, “Um, so what’s with all the sheep and oxen then?” Saul very patiently explained how after the army finished killing the babies, they were super happy and wanted to kill some of the pretty animals and feed Jehovah the blood. You know, to repay Jehovah’s kindness in letting them kill all those babies.

Samuel was clearly annoyed that Saul didn’t even seem to understand how he failed to do what Jehovah wanted. Samuel carefully controlled himself and said, “Saul, do you really think Jehovah would rather have burnt animal blood than have people do what He says? Listen stupid, Jehovah ALWAYS wants obedience first. If you don’t do exactly what Jehovah says you are guilty of rebellion against God, which is exactly the same bad as being a witch!”

Saul didn’t like the sound of that and said, “Oh no! I have sinned! Please forgive me so I can return to the worship of my god.” Of course that was too little too late and Samuel simple said, “Because you rejected your God’s will, you have now been rejected from being king!” Then Samuel demanded to see the king of Amalek and cut him up into little pieces.

Saul and Samuel never saw each other after that, and Jehovah said He was sorry He ever made Saul king.

Moral: if you don’t kill ALL the animals, you’ll make God regret giving you the responsibility to commit genocide.

Ref: 1 Samuel 15

The Invasion Really Gets Going – So much death . . .

 So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate? – King Theoden

After Jericho, Ai, and Beth-el were destroyed, the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, and the king of Eglon created a last great alliance to stand against the might of the Hebrew invasion.

In fact, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men was formed in 3430 of the Second Age in response to the threat of conquest by the Dark Lord Joshua. It was the greatest military alliance involving the free peoples of Middle Earth. The Alliance marched on Mordor, intent on the destruction of Barad-dûr itself. When the Alliance reached the gates of Mordor a huge host of orcs poured out to meet them. Some historians say this host of orcs numbered more than a million individuals.

The Last Alliance trying to fight off Joshua's horde of orcs

The Lord of the Rings presented a narrative in which Isuldur used his father’s broken sword to cut off Joshua’s finger, separating Joshua’s soul from the One Ring. Unfortunately this was not the case. What really happened was the destruction of the Last Alliance and the execution of its leaders. Joshua’s host defeated them in a pitched battle, and then Jehovah rained down rocks from heaven to take out the survivors.

After all this death, Joshua and his host went around to all the now undefended city-states who participated in the Alliance and burned them to the ground after slaughtering the woman and children.

Sadly, that still wasn’t the end. After the Alliance failed, the remaining free nations combined what force they had left to protect themselves. Of course that didn’t work either. This time was different though. When Joshua’s host was going around killing everyone and destroying the cities, they kept the riches and cattle for themselves.

Moral: even the Dark Lord Sauron eventually stops destroying wealth.

Ref: Joshua 10 & 11

The Invasion Hits a Snag – Not all is well in Zion

It’s Jehovah’s way to kill a bunch of non-involved people when somebody sins

After wiping Jericho off the face of the Earth, Joshua sent a couple of guys to check out Ai. The spies returned and said, “Um, there’s like nobody in Ai. You should only spend like, two or three thousand guys to eliminate them so not everyone is inconvenienced by the trip.” This sounded good to Joshua so it was done.

Everything was going really well until the people from Ai tried to stop the Hebrews. This totally threw off God’s Warriors who had no experience with actual combat. Naturally they fled and while they were running away the soldiers from Ai managed to kill 36 of them.

When Joshua heard his men had not only run from the enemy, but had also suffered losses of 1.2% he was completely beside himself. He fell down in the dirt and cried all day. Eventually Joshua asked Jehovah why He had bothered to free the Hebrews from Egypt if He was just going to let them all be killed in Palestine! Jehovah was quick to answer saying, “Look, I’m not really trying to kill all of you, but here’s the deal. Someone took some stuff from Jericho after I told you to tell them to not do that.”

Joshua immediately set about trying to rectify the situation. He ordered a survey of every man and every tent to find the offender. Eventually it was determined that a Jew named Achan took a set of clothes and a bunch of money. Joshua told Achan that because he was causing trouble, Jehovah was going to cause him some trouble. Then the people of God threw rocks at Achan until he was dead. Just to be sure, they incinerated him too.

After the whole incident with Achan’s disobedient ways was resolved, Jehovah told Joshua to get back to the business of wiping out Palestinians. Joshua didn’t want to mess up again, so this time he sent 30,000 men to hide around the back of the city of Ai. Then he took a smaller force and pretended to attack the city from the front, then run away.  When the soldiers from Ai and its neighboring city Beth-el saw Joshua and his force running away they gave chase, just like the time before.

This time was different. Once all the fighting men were chasing Joshua, the secret 30,000 took control of Ai and burned it to the ground. With that business concluded Joshua stopped running away and turned to attack and the 30,000 turned their attention to the fight. The men of Ai and Beth-el were quickly wiped out except the king of Ai. Joshua had him hanged from a tree unto death. Then all the women and children from both cities were slaughtered.

Moral: don’t go against God, or his fans will kill you twice.

Ref: Joshua 7 & 8

The Invasion Begins – Jehovah helps the Hebrews wipe out the People of Jericho

Genocide is OK if Jehovah says so

After Joshua and the fighting men of Israel started their track toward Jericho they ran into a little problem. The River Jordan was flooded. This would have been problematic if Jehovah wasn’t so awesome. The army of God was carrying the Ark of the Covenant and as soon as the Ark bearers touched the river water with their feet, the river opened up and the entire army walked across on dry ground. Yay for Jehovah!

The people of Jericho noticed they were being invaded so everyone moved into the city and they closed the gates. At first glance it appeared that Jehovah wasn’t going to get the slaughter he was looking for; I mean, he didn’t even have the Israelites prepare any siege engines or long range weapons. Melee troops aren’t great for attacking fortified positions without some sort of support.

Jehovah had a plan though. He told Joshua to have his people all walk around the city once every day for six days without talking, then on the seventh day they were to walk around the city silently six times and at the end of the seventh circuit they were to shout really loud. The Hebrews did this, and upon the great shout the city’s walls collapsed to the ground. The Hebrew infantry stormed into the city and utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
 

Making noise is sure to destroy enemy fortifications

But not quite: Joshua told his spies that checked out the city in my previous bible story to go get the hooker Rahab and her family and make sure they got out of the city safely. In this way the spies were able to keep their word and Israel’s prostitution workforce was strengthened.

Moral: when committing genocide you should always keep at least one of the harlots.

Ref: Joshua 3 & 6

Noah’s Ark – Easily Believable

You shouldn’t try to argue with God. It’s almost universally fatal.

Back when genocide was an acceptable form of behavior modification, God decided to kill everyone except Noah and his family. Noah had to build a giant boat (Ark) and put two of every kind of unclean animal, male and female, and seven of every clean (i.e. delicious) animal in it. Then there was a huge flood that killed every person and every animal not on the boat. It’s a well-known, faith-promoting story about how awesome god is, and how important it is to follow His rules (Ref: Genesis 6-8).



Animals boarding the Ark; especially the dinosaurs

Many people who love the bible far less than I, try to discredit the entire book by attacking the story of Noah’s Ark. They make crazy claims like, “There isn’t enough space for all the animals” and “The technology of the time was insufficient to build a wood vessel of that size.” If you’re concerned about that sort of stuff, you can now rest at ease, because I am going to prove it’s possible using math. I think math is something we can all agree on. Yay for math!

First: the available cargo volume of the arc

God told Noah to build the Ark 300 cubits by 75 cubits by 30 cubits (Genesis 6:15). Using the standard, accepted conversion for cubits to feet (1 cubit -> 1.5 feet) this gives us 450 feet by 75 feet by 45 feet. If the Ark was a perfect rectangular prism AND Noah used God’s guidelines for the interior dimensions rather than the exterior dimensions, it would have a volume of 1,518,750 cubic feet.

Rectangular Prism

 Of course the Ark wasn’t a rectangular prism. It had curvy corners, and the biblical dimensions are assumed to be exterior. The Ark was probably made of a multi-directional composite wood structure (similar to plywood) about a yard thick at the base to give it the strength to support itself, and got thinner near the top to save on total weight. Then the Ark needed internal structure to keep the humans from living directly with the animals and to keep the animals from ending up in a giant pile at the bottom. This means there were multiple levels with the corresponding support structure and possibly interior walls. Let’s assume all this only represents a 15% loss in total volume, which is probably possible given Noah’s divinely inspired carpentry skills; honed through 600 years of life. This gives us an interior volume of 1,290,940 cubic feet.

Second: the apparent problems

There are currently around 1.2 million known species of animal. There are more than 10,000 different types of birds alone. Unfortunately the vast majority of species are unknown. Typical estimates put the total number at no less than 7 million different species, and some are much higher. Don’t worry though; most species live in the water and Noah only had to take the land types. If 75% or all species live in the water, that only leaves 1,750,000 different species for the Ark and most of these are much, much smaller than one cubic foot. If God was helping to gather and load the animals, and they boarded the Ark day and night at a rate of five seconds per species, it would only take two months.

This all seems like it would be great, were it not for Genesis 6:21, “And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee: and it shall be for food for thee, and for them.” That’s right, Noah had to load food. Noah and the animals lived on the Ark for one year and ten days (Genesis 7:11 and Genesis 8:13). That is a LOT of food. An average horse eats about three tons (6,000 pounds) of food a year. If that’s all alfalfa, two horses would need 1,800 cubic feet of feed, if the alfalfa was compressed into bales. If it was loose, as it would be in Noah’s time, the two horses would need 3,000 cubic feet.

Let’s assume all the animals ate, on average, one pound a year. This would give 1,750,000 pounds of food. At the density of baled alfalfa this is only 175,000 cubic feet. Hey! It still works! Well, maybe not because each animal needs slightly more space that its body actually occupies. They can’t just be all packed in there like sardines or there would be no survival for 375 days. Even intensive pig farming operations need SOME space, and some pretty fancy technology to keep them from overheating in crowded conditions. 1,750,000 different species now seems like a bit of a stretch, especially with God limiting Noah to three levels (Genesis 6:16). This only gives Noah about 90,000 square feet of surface after taking walls and support structure into account, and giving up 5,000 square feet for food storage and the humans. This gives an average of 0.026 square feet (3.7 square inches) of deck per animal, which is probably not enough, and I probably underestimated the amount of food too. Good thing I have the solution, eh?

Third: the solution

If you carefully read Genesis 6:19-20, almost every single English translation calls for two of every kind or sort of animal. Noah didn’t have to take two of all 36 different known species of wild cat. He only had to take two felines. Similarly, he didn’t need to take all the different types of donkey, horse, and zebra; he just needed to take two animals from the family Equidae. Only the birds needed all 10,000 species (see Genesis 7:14). This cuts down on the total number of animals real fast. Also, many of the land based worms, snails and microscopic animals probably didn’t end up on the arc and survived by floating around on debris. Noah didn’t even take the Unicorns (per the Irish Rovers song: The Unicorn).

Of course you may ask, “If Noah didn’t take all the animals we are familiar with on the Ark, how is there so much biodiversity today?” This is easy. Prior to the flood all the land on the planet was in one place, and was relatively flat. Genesis 7:20 says that 15 cubits (22.5 feet) of water covered the hills and “mountains” of Noah’s time. It was five generation later, after Peleg was born, that all the land was violently divided into its current configuration (Genesis 10:25). The high mountains, deep valleys, and isles of the sea were formed at that time.

Note: the New Living Translation of the Bible presents this differently than all the other English translations, which appear to agree with me.

After the kinds of animals were split up into radically different environments, they adapted into their current forms (except the birds, which were all saved on the Ark).

See? It’s easy to explain if you know how.


Note: if you are looking for an entertaining analysis of the Ark story that is less supportive of its veracity, check out Ricky Gervais' stand up bot on Noah's Ark. Here is the youtube video.

Genocide – Ensuring that man does not exercise his agency

Why does Elohim have to be so damn inconsistent?

Revelation chapter 12 talks about a great war in heaven wherein Michael and his Angels fight against a dragon and its angels and cast them out of heaven. That dragon is identified as Satan.

The Mormons teach that everyone who is ever born was first born spiritually in heaven to our heavenly father and one of his polygamous wives. This includes Lucifer and Jesus (who in Mormon lore is the actual son of God in the flesh just like Hercules is the son of Zeus). There was a big council before the world was formed to decide how best to get all God’s spirit children back to heaven. Lucifer proposed a world without choice so everyone could get a body, never sin, then die and be resurrected. That wasn’t what Elohim wanted. Jesus was a good little boy and put forward a plan that worked for Elohim. Everyone would be able to sin but because no unclean thing can enter the presence of God, Jesus would go be the literal son of God, choose to never sin, and then pay for everyone else’s sins so they could go to heaven.

There was a big fight after that where the forces of Jesus and the Forces of Lucifer had it out. Of course Lucifer lost but he took 1/3^rd of the host of heaven with him when he was cast out (hence the 1/3^rd of the stars thing).

Michael and the Dragon

Point of the above story: Elohim wants people to make their own decisions about whether or not to sin. Then they can choose to either repent and take advantage of Jesus’ atonement or go to hell with Lucifer and his 1/3^rd.  I’m not an expert on every religion, but I’m pretty sure the idea that people need to choose for themselves to go to heaven is pretty much true across the board, at least for the Christians anyway.

Problem: In the bible, Elohim works to make it so people don’t choose the bad.

For example: in Exodus chapter 23, Elohim reveals his laws to Moses. This is largely a reiteration of the 10 commandments as found in Exodus 20, but it includes a couple of additional instructions. It’s not good enough to avoid serving different gods, you have to destroy the people who follow those gods. In verses 29-33 Elohim promises to help the Hebrews destroy all the idol worshipers in the Promised Land, and commands them to do it so they can avoid the temptation of idol worship.

Yep, that’s right. God commanded the Israelites to commit genocide so they would not face temptation. So much for allowing people to choose for themselves which gods to serve. Sounds like Elohim and the Mormon version of Lucifer have a lot in common.

God Explains Himself – Why God Tests his People to See if they will worship false gods

Yes, that’s right. God tests you and commits mass murder you if you fail

Deuteronomy Chapter 13 is a very good chapter. It explains a great deal about how God thinks. You see, God is really insecure and really wants people to like him. He doesn’t like fakers though. He hates them. He likes to kill them and their friends.

Jehovah occasionally gives dreamers and false prophets good information. He does this specifically so people will hear these predictions and see them come true. The idea is that people tend to think if a prophet gives good, true, reliable information that prophet must also be right about which god you should worship. However, if you are successfully tricked by Jehovah into following a different god it means you don’t really love Jehovah. This makes Jehovah very, very angry.

When this happens Jehovah says everyone must kill you and kill the false prophet that Jehovah tricked into tricking you. If anyone says something like, “Hey this non-Jehovah prophet made some predictions that came true so his god must be the right one, let’s worship that god now instead of Jehovah,” that person must die. Also any city that produces one of Jehovah’s secret agent false prophets must be completely eradicated. Not just the buildings or the men mind you. All the men, women, children, cattle, and pets must die.

Remember to never fall victim to Jehovah’s trickery or He will not only kill you, but countless other people as well.

You have been warned . . .

Ref: Deuteronomy 13

Balaam Gets Jerked Around by God – How doing what God says gets you killed

Doing my part to spread the Good Word

After the Hebrews left Egypt they started to move toward the land promised by God to Abraham’s descendents. Along the way they destroyed all the civilizations they came across. Now the king of Moab noticed the approach of the blood-thirsty people of God and figured his kingdom was next. Fortunately he knew a skilled wizard named Balaam. He sent some messengers to Balaam with gifts and a request that Balaam curse the Hebrews so they would lose in battle and NOT commit genocide against the Moabites.

After the messengers talked with Balaam, God showed up to put in his two cents. He said, “Hey man. You can’t go cursing my chosen people. You best just be stayin’ at home.” So Balaam is a good little boy and does what God says. After the King of Moab hears about Balaam’s refusal to curse the Hebrews he sends more messengers with more presents. This time when God shows up he says, “Alright man, I guess you should go with the Moabites, but you better not do what they ask. You just better do what I say instead.”

So Balaam gets on his Donkey and starts on his trip. Somehow God must have forgotten that He told Balaam to go because He gets MAD and sends an invisible angel to stop Balaam. Fortunately, Balaam’s donkey is special and can see invisible angels so when the angel blocks the path the donkey won’t walk. Balaam doesn’t know what’s going on so he hits the donkey. The donkey doesn’t think this is very fair so he STARTS TALKING. The donkey says, “Whoa man. Whacha be hittin’ me for?” Of course Balaam doesn’t think it’s weird at all to have a conversation with a donkey so he responds, “Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.” The donkey then says, “Hey now, you know I be a good donkey. I’ve like, never disrespected you before.”

Then God makes it so Balaam can see the angel who says, “Yo, Balaam it’s not nice to hit donkeys, oh and, by the way; God’s mad at you for doing what he told you to do last night.” Balaam doesn’t want God mad at him so he starts to head home. The angel stops him and says, “Ok Balaam. The thing is, now God wants you to go with the Moabites again. Just make sure you do what God tells you at the opportune moment.”

When that moment arrived Balaam was a good boy and blessed the Israelites instead of cursing them. This super awesome blessing from a hedge wizard who talks with God made it so the Israelites could then wipe out all the kingdoms in the region with impunity. Of course Balaam received an appropriate reward for his part in helping God’s people commit genocide. They killed him too.

Ref: Numbers 22 and Numbers 31:8