Sifting the People of Israel – How gathering gets done

I bet it would be nice to be a descendent of Israel. Then you wouldn’t have to pass through the sieve and fall to the earth.

In the last days, Jehovah plans to spend a great deal of effort collecting the people of Israel from among the people of Earth. According to Amos 9:9, Jehovah is going to use a giant sieve and none from the house of Israel will pass through to fall upon the earth. 

  

Once they are safely segregated from the population, Jehovah will kill the unrighteous ones so their evil won’t contaminate the rest of the population. Once that’s done, the rest will be given a great mission. They will build cities, plant vineyards, drink wine, plant fruit trees, and eat fruit.

Here’s the thing though: if you remember, most of the children of Israel live inside the Earth.

A Hebrew Family Living Inside the Earth (not to scale)

If Jehovah’s job is done after the sieving and the wholesale slaughter, those who survive the process must have a huge task remaining. They need to find the entrance to the hollow earth and rejoin their brethren.

The Jews Rejoin their Hebrew Brethren (not to scale)

Moral: there is a good chance you will pass through the sieve and fall to the earth.

Ref: Amos 9:9-15

Comparison of the “Mightiest” – Wine, the king, and women

I wish I could make up competitions that would make me rich

One day three of King Darius of Persia’s guards got together and hatched themselves a plan. They decided to each write a sentence and present them to the king for judging. They decided that whoever had the wisest sentence would be rewarded by the king with purple clothes, a gold cup, a gold bed, a chariot with gold bridles, a linen headscarf, a necklace, and become an honorary member of Darius’ family. I have no idea why the guards were so sure the king was going to participate in their game, or reward them so handsomely; but for whatever reason, the king decided to play along.

The first guard wrote, “Wine is the strongest;” the second wrote, “The king is strongest;” and the third wrote, “Women are strongest: but above all things Truth beareth away victory.”

The king read the sentences and called together just about every royal person and every politician in the known world to help him judge the sentences. The guard with the sentence about wine was the first to plead his case. 



Wine

O ye men, how exceeding strong is wine! It causeth all men to err that drink it: it maketh the mind of the king and of the fatherless child to be all one; of the bondman and of the freeman, of the poor man and of the rich: it turneth also every thought into jollity and mirth, so that a man remembereth neither sorrow nor debt: and it maketh every heart rich, so that a man remembereth neither king nor governor; and it maketh to speak all things by talents: and when they are in their cups, they forget their love both to friends and brethren, and a little after draw out swords: but when they are from the wine, they remember not what they have done.  O ye men, is not wine the strongest, that enforceth to do thus?

The guard that wrote of the king’s strength spoke second.

 

The King

O ye men, do not men excel in strength that bear rule over sea and land and all things in them? But yet the king is more mighty: for he is lord of all these things, and hath dominion over them; and whatsoever he commandeth them they do. If he bid them make war the one against the other, they do it: if he send them out against the enemies, they go, and break down mountains walls and towers. They slay and are slain, and transgress not the king's commandment: if they get the victory, they bring all to the king, as well the spoil, as all things else.


Likewise for those that are no soldiers, and have not to do with wars, but use husbundry, when they have reaped again that which they had sown, they bring it to the king, and compel one another to pay tribute unto the king. And yet he is but one man: if he command to kill, they kill; if he command to spare, they spare; If he command to smite, they smite; if he command to make desolate, they make desolate; if he command to build, they build; If he command to cut down, they cut down; if he command to plant, they plant.

So all his people and his armies obey him: furthermore he lieth down, he eateth and drinketh, and taketh his rest: and these keep watch round about him, neither may any one depart, and do his own business, neither disobey they him in any thing. O ye men, how should not the king be mightiest, when in such sort he is obeyed?

Finally the guard that was so keen on women and truth got his turn.




Silver Favorites
Lawrence Alma-Tadema
1903

O ye men, it is not the great king, nor the multitude of men, neither is it wine, that excelleth; who is it then that ruleth them, or hath the lordship over them? are they not women? Women have borne the king and all the people that bear rule by sea and land. Even of them came they: and they nourished them up that planted the vineyards, from whence the wine cometh. These also make garments for men; these bring glory unto men; and without women cannot men be. 





Hylas and the Water Nymphs
Henrietta Rae - 1909

Yea, and if men have gathered together gold and silver, or any other goodly thing, do they not love a woman which is comely in favour and beauty? And letting all those things go, do they not gape, and even with open mouth fix their eyes fast on her; and have not all men more desire unto her than unto silver or gold, or any goodly thing whatsoever? A man leaveth his own father that brought him up, and his own country, and cleaveth unto his wife. He sticketh not to spend his life with his wife. and remembereth neither father, nor mother, nor country. By this also ye must know that women have dominion over you: do ye not labour and toil, and give and bring all to the woman? 



The Spring
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
1820-56

Yea, a man taketh his sword, and goeth his way to rob and to steal, to sail upon the sea and upon rivers; And looketh upon a lion, and goeth in the darkness; and when he hath stolen, spoiled, and robbed, he bringeth it to his love. Wherefore a man loveth his wife better than father or mother. Yea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes. Many also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for women.

And now do ye not believe me? Is not the king great in his power? Do not all regions fear to touch him? Yet did I see him and Apame the king's concubine, the daughter of the admirable Bartacus, sitting at the right hand of the king, and taking the crown from the king's head, and setting it upon her own head; she also struck the king with her left hand. And yet for all this the king gaped and gazed upon her with open mouth: if she laughed upon him, he laughed also: but if she took any displeasure at him, the king was fain to flatter, that she might be reconciled to him again. O ye men, how can it be but women should be strong, seeing they do thus?



The Birth of Venus
William Adolphe Bouguereau
1879

O ye men, are not women strong? great is the earth, high is the heaven, swift is the sun in his course, for he compasseth the heavens round about, and fetcheth his course again to his own place in one day. Is he not great that maketh these things? Therefore great is the truth, and stronger than all things. All the earth crieth upon the truth, and the heaven blesseth it: all works shake and tremble at it, and with it is no unrighteous thing. Wine is wicked, the king is wicked, women are wicked, all the children of men are wicked, and such are all their wicked works; and there is no truth in them; in their unrighteousness also they shall perish. As for the truth, it endureth, and is always strong; it liveth and conquereth for evermore. With her there is no accepting of persons or rewards; but she doeth the things that are just, and refraineth from all unjust and wicked things; and all men do well like of her works. Neither in her judgment is any unrighteousness; and she is the strength, kingdom, power, and majesty, of all ages. Blessed be the God of truth.



The Nymphaeum - William Adolphe Bouguereau - 1878

The king was completely overcome by the third guard’s display of wisdom and immediately promised to make that guard his cousin and give him anything he wanted.

Moral: the longer you talk, the more likely you are to get rich.

Ref: 1 Esdras 3-5

Mystery Babylon – The mother of harlots

When you want to disparage someone’s character, simply associate him/her with prostitution

One day, long ago, Jehovah was faced with the challenge of getting St. John the Revelator to understand that secularism was fated to spread across the globe. Being perfect, Jehovah came up with a perfect way to do this. He sent an angel and used imagery.

The angel said, “Come here John. I need to show you the great whore that sitteth upon many waters. She is a very busy woman so we had better hurry. All the kings of earth have sex with her and everyone on earth gets drunk from the wine that leaks out of her during sexual intercourse. It sounds odd, I know; but you’ll understand once you see her.”

The angel carried John out, deeper and deeper into the wilderness until they saw her.

John wrote that the woman was sitting on a red monster with seven heads and ten horns. She was wearing a purple dress with a red sash and had a gold cup in her hand. The cup was full of sin and the “filth” of all the illicit sex.


 

Rampant Secularism is a hot chick riding a red dinosaur

 

The woman had writing on her forehead that said:

MYSTERY, babylon the great

the mother of HARLOTS

and of abominations of the earth

John noticed the woman was a little tipsy from drinking human blood, shed by those who die in the service of Christ. Of course, the strangest thing of all was: that woman was HOT!



Scarlett Johansson - Not rapmant secularism, but still hot



Moral: secularism is a hot slut that leaks wine during sex.

Ref: Revelation 17:1-6




Kate Upton - Also not secularism, and also hot

 

Amos – Telling it like it is since 766 BC

Whenever someone tells you that Jehovah is going to fuck you up, PAY ATTENTION!

Amos ended up in the Bible because he loved telling the future. He even accurately predicted how Jehovah was going to kick Israel’s ass for being complacent. Here’s how it went: Amos said, “Woe unto them that are at ease in Zion” (Amos 6:1 KJV) and assured them they would either be taken captive or killed “very soon.”

That may seem kinda harsh but there were a ton of problems with the Israelites back in those days. For example: some of the Hebrews had ivory couches and were able to enjoy fresh lamb and veal. Some of them were making music and dancing, just like when David was king! Some of them had the gall to drink wine out of bowls! Even the harshest of Jehovah’s critics has to admit that’s some really disturbing shit.

Of course Jehovah had to take action to deal with all the couch sitting and bowl drinking. Through His prophet Amos Jehovah told the world – well, errr . . . ; I guess He didn’t tell the world really. He just made some anti-social loser write it down and hide it away to be found much later. Anyway, Jehovah promised to make sure those veal-eaters were taken captive FIRST, you know before everyone else was dragged out of Palestine too. Also, any household with ten men in it would be wiped out. Yep the 10 men thing meant you had to die instead of being relocated to Persia.

It’s a damn shame really, if only Jehovah had told the people he was upset, they might have stopped using bowls to drink wine and eating young animals. He may have even convinced some of those “10 men” households to split up. Because dumb old Jehovah would only talk to half-mad losers, nobody got the message and everyone that wasn’t miserable all the time got screwed.

Moral: God may not tell you that you’re in trouble, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t.

Ref: Amos 6

"Ajax and Cassandra"
by Solomon Joseph Solomon, 1886

This story reminded me of the tale of Cassandra from Greek Mythology. Around 1200 BC there was this super hot princess of Troy. Her name was Cassandra. She was so hot that the god Apollo gave her the gift of prophesy. It didn't end there though. Apollo also tried to get it on with Princess Cassandra, but she wanted a ring first. This didn't work for Apollo so he cursed her so that no one would ever believe any of her predictions, or the predictions of her descendants.

This was a bummer for everyone because Cassandra foresaw the fall of Troy to the Greeks. She knew all about the Trojan Horse, the death of Agamemnon, and her own terrible end. Because of the curse no one would listen to her and Troy fell. Cassandra herself was raped by Ajax in the temple of Athena and she was later forced into marriage by Agamemnon and was later killed when Agamemnon's wife and her boyfriend took out both Agamemnon and Cassandra. The wife's boyfriend also made sure Agamemnon and Cassandra's twin sons were killed.

Don't worry though. The bible isn't the only book to borrow from the story of Cassandra. J.K. Rowlings does it too when she identifies Harry's diviniation teacher as the great-great-granddaughter of Cassandra Trelawney in The Order of the Phoenix.

The Babylonian Captivity - Water and pulse

Behold: early pro-vegan literature

Once upon a time, there was a significant Hebrew minority living in Babylon (Iraq). They were there because after hundreds of years of heartache, Jehovah got sick of his chosen people not doing everything he commanded. To punish them for being lame, Jehovah had the Babylonians conquer Israel and take most of the people back to Babylon to live.

Now the King of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar was an OK guy and he had some of the Hebrew youths move to the palace so they could be trained in the ways of courtly life. Well, here’s the thing: one of the things Nebuchadnezzar did for these youths in the palace was provide a daily ration of meat and wine so they would grow strong and wise over the next three years, then they were to be presented to the king.

This all happened before Jesus came on the scene and made wine drinking popular (Jesus was all about wine, all the time), so these kids were operating on the assumption that wine was bad for you, as was indicated by Jehovah in the Torah (see Leviticus 10:9).  Daniel and his buddies Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego decided to abstain from the wine and meat as part of their plan to serve Jehovah’s whims. Daniel had a chat with the head eunuch in charge of feeding the palace trainees and asked for other food options.

The eunuchs all really liked Daniel and would normally do just about anything for him, but the head eunuch was in charge of making sure the youths were well-fed and became strong and he was afraid the king would punish him if some of the youths looked too weak or thin. After hearing this concern Daniel proposed a test to prove Jehovah’s awesomeness. Daniel and his friends would eat only pulse (think of whole-grain porridge and you’ll be close to pulse) and drink only water for 10 days; then they were to be compared with the consumers of meat and wine.

Because Jehovah still didn’t like wine and meat back then, he helped Daniel and his Hebrew friends so after the 10 days, they were fatter and healthier looking than the other youths. The chief eunuch was so happy with these results he took away all the wine and meat and made everyone else eat pulse and drink water too. I’m sure this made Daniel very popular among the youths who had suddenly had their meat and wine taken away.

You would think that was the end, but it’s not! After the three years when the king examined the youths he discovered that the Hebrew youths were way smarter than anyone else. Yay Hebrews! In fact, because these hebrews were so awesome, Daniel eventually worked his way into the position of the ruler of the Babylonian provice and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were put in charge of Babylon's affairs.

Moral: when you pray remember to thank Jesus for liking wine so much that it’s no longer bad to drink. Amen!

Ref: Daniel 1

Wine – The great enigma

You know, alcohol made early civilization possible. Without it, there was nothing safe to drink in urban areas.

One day when Jesus was feeling especially picked on he chose to chastise his audience (Matt 11:16-19). He had this to say: “You people are like a bunch of kids in the marketplace who complain to their friends saying ‘We played music for you, but you didn’t dance; we complained and you didn’t feel bad for us.’ When John was preaching in the desert he didn’t feast or drink wine and y’all said he was possessed by a devil. When I showed up feasting and drinking wine, y’all said that I’m a glutton and a drunk; that I’m friends with sinners and tax collectors.”

Of course the reason educated people harassed Jesus for drinking was the strong scriptural condemnation of alcohol. According to the Old Testament abstaining from wine makes you smart, wine takes away the heart, and wine causes you to commit wicked acts. Because of this, drinking wine was consistently forbidden by God and his prophets.

Jesus was all about the wine though. His first public miracle was to turn water into wine, he commanded his followers to drink wine so they would be able to remember him, and after his death, his disciples taught that drinking wine was a good thing: e.g. 1 Timothy 5:23 “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities (KJV).”

Too bad they didn’t have Mary Jane back in the day, or I’m pretty sure Jesus would have endorsed that too: the damn hippie.

Yahweh burns Aaron’s sons – In which we learn Yahweh is a dick

Why is Jesus always going on about wine, if Yahweh thinks it’s bad?

Once upon a time the Hebrew people were wandering through the wilderness of Southwest Asia after leaving Egypt. While they were out there Yahweh told Aaron (Moses’ brother) to kill a calf and a ram and offer them to the Lord. Yahweh also told Aaron to command the people of Israel to kill a baby goat, a calf, a lamb, a bullock, and a ram and offer them to the Lord.

So everyone gathered together in a huge mob with the animals. Aaron killed the animals, collected their blood in big bowls, took out their innards and washed them, and collected the fat. Then Aaron took the hides, bones, and meat and took them outside the camp and burned them. Once that was finished, Aaron sprinkled the blood on an altar and burned it. Then he put all the guts on the altar and burned them. Finally he put the fat on the altar and burned it.

Yahweh was so happy about all the burning stuff he appeared to the people of Israel like a great big ball of glorious light. Then, according to the Bible, fire shot out of him and consumed the offerings on the altar.  While it seems really reasonable that a big ball of fire would appear floating in the air and shoot down a finger of flame to burn stuff I find this passage confusing. The bible says Aaron burned all the stuff, then after Aaron was done burning stuff, Yahweh showed up to burn the stuff. Did Aaron just not do a good job or what?

Now we get to the point of this story: two of Aaron’s sons (Nadab and Abihu) decided to pray to Yahweh later. They remembered from the whole ball of fire trick that Yahweh liked burning stuff, so they took their incense burners, put incense in them, lit it and offered the burning incense to the Lord. Of course Yahweh was furious because these dumb sons of Aaron made a burnt offering without being told. To punish them Yahweh shot out fire from himself to completely destroy Nadab and Abihu. Turns out they were right about Yahweh liking to burn stuff. They were just confused about what He likes to burn.

Then Yahweh told Aaron and his other sons they were not allowed to mourn the deaths of Nadab and Abihu and he told them to not drink wine. You see, people that do magic in the name of Yahweh can’t drink wine so they will always be able to tell the difference between clean and unclean (here’s lookin’ at you Jesus, ya damn drunk).

Ref: Leviticus 9-10

Jesus + water = wine: keeping your priorities straight

This makes me wonder if Jesus + turd = gold nugget

Jesus’ mother Mary was on the Volunteer Special Event Planning Committee of her local congregation, so when one of the young women of the congregation got married Mary ended up doing a big chunk of the planning. Now, you need to understand that when God was rolling Mary’s character he rolled an eight in intelligence, a five in wisdom, and a charisma of 20. This meant Mary could make a really poor decisions like those that led to her getting knocked up by the toothless assistant swine-herd AFTER she was engaged to Joseph, but have the charisma to claim she was still a virgin and pull it off.

This also meant that she only ordered about 1/5^th of the wine a wedding party normally uses. Once the wine ran out she ran off to find Jesus and said, “Jesus, they ran out of wine at the party. Fix it; pretty please?” Jesus didn’t like being used like a convenience store so he said, “Listen Woman. I have nothing to do with you. Besides, I don’t want to start doing public magic yet!”

Mary had known Jesus for a long time so she was used to his disrespectful language and reluctance to help out, but she also knew he would always succumb to social pressure so she said, “Oh, ok. I guess I’ll just go tell everyone that Jesus decided they don’t need any more wine.” Then she whispered to the slaves helping with the party, “Ok, now just do whatever he tells you, even if it seems crazy.”

Jesus knew he was trapped now, so he said, “Fine!” folded his arms, stomped his left food on the ground, pouted just a little, and then called over the slaves. He told them to fill the waterpots with water and take them to the Wedding Planner (WP). Then the WP tasted the water, which was now wine, and called over the groom for a little chat. The WP slapped the groom on the back of the head and said, “Hey, what gives man? I told you yesterday you’re supposed to serve the good wine FIRST, then after everyone is drunk you serve the crappy stuff. You’ve done the exact opposite here, saving the best stuff ‘till now!”

Moral: when Jesus makes wine, He makes really good wine.

Ref: John 2:1-10

The Pentecost – Speaking in Tongues -> baptism

Any time someone tells you that you’re drinking too much, just tell them you’re clearly not drunk. It’s still too early in the day.

A couple of months after Jesus was executed a large group of his followers gathered together for a “mind expanding” experience. Once they got themselves whipped up into a feverish state they started talking all crazy. Because this little gathering was in the middle of the city, in the middle of the day; a crowd of curious onlookers started to gather. It didn’t take long before some numb-nut in the croud shouted out, “Hey look at Jesus’ followers! Their ‘Holy Spirit’ must be making them do that!” Another said, “Yeah, It’s crazy. I can kinda understand what they’re saying though, and I’m from Crete!” “That’s nuts,” said the first, “I’m from Libya and I can understand them too. I think they’re talking about that Jesus guy again!” In fact, this went on for a while with several different nationalities claiming they could understand the garbled speech. 

Finally someone had the guts to call out, “You’re all crazy. These men are clearly drunk! You know Jesus was always making wine from water at parties. I even heard he told his people to drink wine so they could remember him better. I’m sure they’re just performing some sort of wine-fueled religious ceremony.”

When the apostle Peter heard this he decided it was time to get involved in the conversation. He said, “Hey, it’s still way too early in the day for us to be drunk! We’re very clearly being influenced by the holy spirit of God. If you don’t believe me read the scriptures. The prophet Joel said, ‘In the last days God will make people have weird dreams and act crazy.’ Our actions are a warning from God that the world is going to end soon. Hurray and become baptized members of the Church of Jesus so you can go to heaven. Act fast before the world ends and it’s too late.”

Well, this got the attention of the crowd. If people were acting crazy and the world was about to end, they had better get baptized. So 3,000 people got baptized that day, sold all their stuff, and started living in religious communes. Better safe than sorry you know.

Ref: Acts 2

Noah gets Wasted – Never, ever, under any circumstances should you make fun of your dad

Watch me seamlessly transition between past and present tense

So back in the olden days people lived a really long time, like hundreds of years. This seems to lead to sin because you must get really bored of going to church after a few hundred years. In any case, everyone in the whole world was sinning (drinking coffee probably) but good old Noah. So God tells Noah to build a really big boat and put two of every kind of unclean animal and six of every kind of clean animal (i.e. delicious) in there so they can eat them while God is busy committing genocide through drowning and still have enough left over to repopulate the planet.

 

Noah builds the boat, puts the animals in, then he and his family live in there floating around while God floods the earth. No seriously, this works because you see back then all the land was in one place, and after the land split apart the animals evolved a little. That’s why every continent has some kind of large flightless bird: ostrich, emu, penguin, elephant bird, dodo, etc. This way Noah only had to take one kind of cat, which then evolved into all the different kinds we have now. Seriously; don’t laugh.

 

World Map of Endangered Species
http://animals.desktopnexus.com

 

After the flood, one of the first orders of business is to plant a vineyard and make wine. Because all the bowling alleys and golf courses were destroyed in the flood there wasn’t much for an older guy like Noah to do besides sit at home and get wasted. One day when he was passed out drunk on his tent floor naked his son Ham saw him in there and ran to tell his brothers Shem and Japheth about their father’s condition. Well, Shem and Japheth didn’t think this was very funny, so they very carefully went into the tent and without looking at their father, covered him with a blanket.

 

 

When Noah woke up he somehow realized that Ham had disrespected him so he cursed the descendents of Ham to forever be the servants of Shem and Japheth. Several thousand years later, through the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, God let everyone know that Black people are Ham’s descendants so it’s was proper for black people to be the slaves of the white. Good thing God was able to sort that out so slave owners would know black slavery was the will of God.

Ref: Genesis 9:18-28