Casting Out Demons – Easier than it seems

Turns out the only real requirement to cast out devils is a reluctance to say bad stuff about Jesus

One day while Jesus was walking from Galilee to Capernaum his apostles spent hours arguing about something. When they got indoors Jesus asked his bros what they had been discussing. Nobody answered because they were embarrassed. You see, they were arguing about which apostle held the highest rank.

Because Jesus was super magic (or because he overheard) he knew what was up and in true cryptic fashion said, “If any man desire to be first, the same shall be last of all, and servant of all.” Then because Jesus had ADD he jumped topics. He grabbed a little kid and said, “Whosoever shall receive one of such children in my name, receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me, receiveth not me, but him that sent me.”

I figure this all means that a king serves his people and Jesus’ boss is a little kid. I know most people think Jesus was trying to say that if you are nice to little kids you are really being nice to God. Let me clarify the quote a little: receive children and you receive me, but not really me, really you have just received my boss. If you take out the nonsense about “you receive me, just kidding,” you are left with “be nice to kids because they sent me to Earth.”

All this nonsense about serving and being nice to kids was driving the Apostle John crazy because he had something huge to get into the open. He said, “Jesus. We saw some guy the other day that was using your name to cast out devils, but he wasn’t one of your followers. We’d never even seen him before. This was obviously total bullcrap so he told him to knock it off.”

Ok, start paying attention now. This is the big teaching moment for today.

Jesus said, “Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.” That’s right, Jesus told his religious leaders to not harass people who use the word “Jesus” and do good stuff, even if they aren’t actually Christians. The reason behind Jesus’ thinking is great too. Nobody could ever use the word “Jesus” when they perform an exorcism AND say mean things about Christ.

Moral: anyone can perform miracles if they use the name of Christ, even if they aren’t a Christian. Good thing too. If exorcism wasn’t so easy we would probably need mental institutions (insane asylums) or some other way to lock up people who don’t exhibit “normal” behavior.

Ref: Mark 9:33-40

Dragons and Isaiah – Awesome

Everything is better with dragons!





The Book

August 2, 1979 was a great day in American history. On that day a speculative natural history titled “The Flight of Dragons” was published. It was written by Peter Dickinson and fully illustrated by Wayne Anderson. It argued that flying dragons really existed and were responsible for the widespread tales of dragons throughout the cultures of the world. They were super modified dinosaurs that used hydrochloric acid to dissolve rapidly growing bone to produce hydrogen. They filled up like balloons and floated around. This ability to fly developed as a survival mechanism. They breathed fire by expelling the highly flammable hydrogen through their mouths as a necessity because they produced it quite rapidly. There are no remains of any dragon because the chemical reaction to produce the hydrogen had highly corrosive byproducts and a dragon’s body would simply dissolve after death.



The Film

 In 1982 the information from the book and the plot from the 1976 book “The Dragon and the George” were combined into an animated feature with the title “The Flight of Dragons.” The film focused strongly on the loss of magic from the world as it was replaced by logic and science. In the final showdown between the protagonist Peter Dickinson (played by John Ritter) and the evil wizard Ommadon (played by James Earl Jones), Peter used a discussion of logic and science to completely destroy Ommadon. As of 21 May 2013 you can watch this scene on youtube.

Now pay attention! This is the part where the bible starts to come in.


Ommadon: “I can do anything. Test me. Do you want me to reach up and pluck down the Sun?”

Peter: “You can’t do that.”

Ommadon: “Why? Why, you insect? Why?”

Peter: “Seven heads and each one a simpleton. Don’t you know what you reach for isn’t in that position anymore?”

Ommadon: “The Sun is the Sun. I can see where it is.”

Peter: “Where it was pipsqueak. Any schoolboy knows that light travels at 186,300 miles per second. What you see is the Sun’s position eight and a half minutes ago.”

Ommadon: “No magic but mine can move the Sun. I command it.”

Peter: “Not magic gas-head, mathematics.”



The Inspiration for the Plot

The book of Isaiah tells us that once upon a time, King Hezekiah was really sick and was about to die. He was smart though, and prayed to Yahweh for a return to health. Yahweh sent Isaiah to tell Hezekiah that he wasn’t going to die from his sickness. Yahweh was going to add 15 years to his life and as an added bonus Yahweh would keep the Assyrians from conquering Jerusalem. To prove to Hezekiah that he was telling the truth, Yahweh made the Sun move back 10 degrees in the sky.

You see, no magic but Yahweh’s can move the Sun. Of course because we now know that the earth revolves around the sun, rather than the Sun revolving around the Earth, so Jahweh wasn’t really moving the Sun anyway. He quickly reversed the Earth’s rotation, and then let it return to normal.

This is how cool Yahweh is: The Earth turns at 1,070 miles per hour. Its velocity was reversed instantaneously for a total velocity change of 2,140 miles per hour and nobody on the planet felt it. Then it spun backward for 700 miles and reversed velocity again. Yahweh is so good at damping momentum that the only way anyone could tell Yahweh was jacking with the Earth was by watching a sundial. Awesome!

Moral: no magic but Yahweh’s can move the sun.

Ref: Isaiah 38: 1-8

Adam and Eve – Do you know the real story?

Today is the 104^th bible story. That’s one year of twice a week. Congratulations to me!

Back in the days when the Earth was new, there was a young man named Adam and a young woman named Eve who lived in a garden paradise created for them by God. It was just the two of them of course, and if you only ever have one person to talk to and you never have to do any work, you might get pretty bored; eventually. I mean, there was no celebrity gossip column 6,000 years ago. They didn’t even have Ricki Lake OR Guiding Light.

I’m sure when the serpent suddenly started talking to Eve she was thrilled to talk to someone that was interested in saying anything other than: "I bet you wish you could pee standing up," "Be careful when you squat so the pee doesn’t end up running down your legs," or "I sure bet you wish we had a way to make toilet paper" (it turns out that Adam was kinda a jerk).

So, after introducing himself to Eve, the snake said, “So, what gives here? Do you just wander around all day eating fruit off trees?” Eve said, “Pretty much. We just have to be careful to not eat anything off the tree right in the center of the garden. God says it’s poisonous and if we eat it we will die.” The snake laughed and said, “You actually believe that? God is so full of shit. He doesn’t want you to eat that fruit because it will make you smart. Perhaps even smart enough to invent toilet paper, or indoor plumbing.”

This sounded pretty awesome to Eve so she chowed right down on some of the magic fruit and became super smart. Then, because she already thought Adam was a vulgar ape, she gave him some of the fruit in the hope that more knowledge would help him reform his behavior and make him a better conversationalist. Adam ate it and the only thing that occurred to him was the idea that women MUST be covered at all times. He immediately made Eve cover up and explained that Men have no control over themselves and if they see bare flesh on a female they will be compelled to rape her. As we all know, everyone in the bible was all about blaming the victim in the case of sexual assault.

Pretty soon afterward, God came to visit the garden. When he saw that Eve was wearing a burka made out of leaves, he asked Adam what was going on. Adam immediately panicked and said, “It’s not my fault. This ‘woman’ creature you made for me tricked me into eating the forbidden fruit and it made me afraid of female skin. It’s your fault really!” God turned to Eve and said, “Is this true?” Because Eve was a morally superior creature she simply said, “Yes. After the snake told me the fruit would make me smart enough to make toilet paper, I couldn’t wait to eat some.”

God called the snake and said, “Snake, because you told Eve about the smart-making fruit I am going to take away your legs and I will instill fear of you into the heart of every single descendant of Eve. They will try to kill your kind anytime they see one of you, until the end of time.” Then God kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden and made Eve a fancy new burka out of animal skins.

 

Notes:

Many people believe the serpent in the Garden of Eden was Satan. I find this patently absurd. The idea of “Satan” didn’t enter into Jewish writing until AFTER the Babylonian Exile started in the early sixth century BC. Incidentally, this is when the concepts of “heaven” and “hell” showed up as well. Of course the serpent in Genesis was just a really clever talking snake, exactly as described in Genesis 3:1. The other crazy belief I run into a lot is that the “original sin” was vaginal intercourse (thank you Roman Catholic Church).

Let me explain: Right after Eve was made from Adam’s rib, the bible says: “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Genesis 2:23-24, KJV) I don’t know how you imaging Adam “cleaving” unto Eve or how they became “one flesh,” but for me it definitely involves the bump ugly. Seeing as how all this “cleaving” and “one fleshing” was going on before the incident with the snake, I propose sex didn’t get the young lovebirds kicked out of the garden. Instead, it was Adam forcing Eve to wear clothes.

Moral: naked is better

Ref: Genesis 2-3