MY SERMON ON THE MOUNT 2011

Hopefully there will be no fists flying in today's religious discussion. I got a little ticked off this morning in Dr. Levy's class where he was showing this DVD that appeared to be selling as some "product" like you'd find on an info-mercial for some nutrition product or kitchen aid. Dr. Levy went on and on about how wonderful Jesus was and how he died for our sins and was going to turn the whole class into Church or something. I kind of resent all these staged promotions that talk about how there is a God or Jesus shaped hole in all of us that can only be filled by Jesus.

Basically what I'd like to do is review the "seven deadly phrases" or whatever, that a Christian should never use because the words are like kryptonite to the Faith. I'll start with the one Dr. Levy used on me this morning. He said one shouldn't engage in "wishful thinking" or "Magical thinking". What they mean is that you should never look to God for anything, despite all the protestations as to how great and forgiving he is. Another term Christians should never use is the term "manipulative" because this is really the pot calling the kettle black. They live and breathe manipulation every day of their lives. Another is to label someone a hypocrite, although Christians have gotten a little smarter about this one now. You know my saying about this is that "The Church does not Contain hypocrites; it IS hypocracy". Another term you may hear used as "false humility". This is usually used in sermons about the early days of King Saul when he had doubts about his worthiness to be chosen. Of course there is nothing "false" about this. False humility is parading it around like a trophy you show off on Sunday mornings from the pulpet. You know what they say "A person who really is humble doesn't like to talk about it". In my case if I say something like "I believe that the innocent should not be made to atone for sins of the guilty" this is called False Humility. For instance suppose there is a corporate crook who is responsable for the deaths of millions of people and some jury (probably not in this country) has the balls to render the Death Penalty, does it make sense for some guy to go out and hire a homeless wino and promise him all the liquor he can consume if he will agree to give up his life". No, that's silly; that isn't justice. Another term is to label someone obsessed with religion or obsessive about it. A variation on this theme is "Using religion as a drug". This comes off as super stupid because it's a well known fact that "religion is the opiate of the people". Some other terms that should be used with extreme caution is "Don't assotiate with the wrong people". OK. But tell that to God. God palled around with Satan in the early chapters of Job in the Bible. We are informed even in exorcisums "Don't enter into a dialog with Satan - only give him direct commands". And yet here God not only dialogs with Satan but takes advice from him on how to do his job. How many of you executives out there would appreciate it if some underling told you how to do your job? You wouldn't have it. I rest my case. Another term that should be used with the greatest caution is "Total depravity". Any kind of depravity is bad. "Depravity" is a strong word. But Total Depravity has to be the worst. That means for instance to use a geographic analogy that if you aim a dart at a target but you're not sure where the target is and told repeatedly "you are wrong" and you go, "is it HERE - - is it over HERE - - and no matter where you point you are informed that you are no closser and no further. In other words even with the best of intentions - - a "totally depraved" person is incapable of helping himself. It goes back to the old addage, "If everything is a sin - - then Nothing is a sin". Think about that one. OK, we are done with part one of this.

I would now like to restate the three ultimate Unanswerable questions about God and Creation. The first of which is Why did God even Create the Universe". We know from Genisis that God himself said he regretted that he had made Man. Theologians tells us that God is and always has been a fully actuallized being. That means he can never learn anything new or every improve himself or increase his sense of "actualization" by creating something. Since the Universe is referred to by Christians as being so Evil some even say Satan is running it now- - - so why did God bother? Some may well balk at this whole line of discussion. But the reason they do so is because they don't really believe the Theologians when they say "God can't get any Gooder". This is because they vicariously see themselves as a part of God's ego and so are personally insulted when their god is insulted. I won't do that. I make God defend himself. The middle part of the question is "Why did God allow man to fall to Satan in the Garden of Eden, and spread evil throughout the race and the planet. You can't use the excuse of Free Will for this. So I invoke the example of the loving father. A father, if he saw his five year old son getting a little too close to a steep cliff, perhaps venturing the guard rail, a father would pull him back and adminish him of the danger- and he wouldn't be worried about the child's loss of "Free Will" because he knows that the Dead don't have ANY free will. A rat in a laboritory has a better chance as Free Will than Man, whose fate was decided "from the foundation of the Earth". That's in Revelation. Keep in mind that God was JUST as aware of the consequences BEFORE man did the act as he was Afterwards. With a rat there might be an 85% chance of expected pattern of behavior. But God knew to a "metaphysical certitude" that Man would fall. And finally, once man fell, why not just wipe out the whole species and start over. It's silly to say "He wanted to give man another chance". But we know "chance" isn't a part of God's play-book. We have already established that God will kill men when he gets ticked off enough at them. Now we are only arguing about how many die. Is it a few tens of thousands of people consigned to eternity in Hell- - or Billions.

I'd just like to close with this. Satan as I define him is really God. God is an all powerful and determinate being who doesn't admit morality (in any form we know it) to come into his decision process. This fact alone will explain everything on this page. Satan as such is "God as he really exists". So when this Satan-god challenges the contrived and romantisized God of the Christians, the latter will always lose, is Satan is of a mind to press the point. And the thing is Satan doesn't even have to lie to do all sorts of damage. He can do that just using the Truth. Why not just give up now because no matter how much evidence against the Faith Satan piles on you, he's probably god a bucket of stuff in reserve just waiting to be used. I hope I haven't ruined your day. It would be nice is things were different, but from where I view things, they aren't. I'm not saying we shouldn't be thankful for the good things we have. We should. But to think we somehow "earned" these things by being super religious or "tight" with God, to me is delusional thinking.