Educated People Need Not Apply

[RichDellaValle]

Adherents to the Christian faith are told that “all Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” Yet, according to Scripture, God created humankind to keep him in ignorance by forbidding him to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. Thus the priests similarly banned human knowledge under penalty of death, a sentence heavily enforced by them or their minions…a forerunner of the Mafia. The ignorance thus decreed they have perpetuated. They have forbidden and derided knowledge, boasted ignorance, and imposed it on humanity ever since.

 

Even Jesus proclaimed that his preachments were not for intelligent persons but were kept only for the childish-minded in verses such as:  “Knowledge puffeth up” (1Cor 8:1). “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God” (1Cor 3:19). “Beware lest any man spoils you through philosophy” (Col 2:8). “If any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant” (1 Cor 14:38). “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding” (Prov. 3:5). “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2Cor 10:5).

 

Not many wise men are called after the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble. One can only imagine an early Church want ad that read, “Ministers wanted…intellectuals need not apply.” Prudent people should be insulted when they read Scriptures such as 1Cor 1:27: “But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;”  1Cor 4:13: “Being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day;”  1Cor 4:9: “For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men;”  and 1Cor 4:10: “We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised.”

 

When a person of any intelligence has read and considered the many contradictions scattered throughout the Bible, so solemnly uttered for our faith, he can better appreciate the subtle significance of the oft-repeated prime qualification for Christian faith and salvation. Jesus himself declares in Matt 18:3: “Except ye ... become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” Luke 18:16: “For of such is the kingdom of heaven!”

 

So why does Christianity require blind stupidity? If it had any validity, it should be able to stand on the ground of common sense. But, of course, people of faith can throw back at me their favorite passage that they hold in reserve to discredit a Bible refuter, and that is 1 Cor. 2:14, which says:  “But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.” In other words, you have to get into a particular mindset, a certain mentality, and then you will see the Bible is true, which is a circular position. They say that if you accept it as true, you’ll see it is true, and if you see it is true, you’ll receive it, sorta like The Stepford Wives or watching zombies marching around bumping into trees; which they did when Jesus was supposedly crucified. Matthew 27:51-54: "And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.  The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised,  and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.  When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

 

My answer is to throw back at them their doctrine of Original Sin, which teaches that all humans start life as natural men with a sinful nature and are born unsaved. How is it likely for anyone to discern the things of the spirit and become “born again” while in this natural state? The only possible answer is that God grants spiritual knowledge through divine intervention – the Holy Ghost (Spirit). That’s equivalent to saying it takes a miracle from God to believe in God or Jesus. If that is the case, then those who are spiritually “undiscerned” and who think themselves to be believers or “born again,” as they prefer to call it, were pre-selected by God to believe in him, and the “saved” had no choice in the matter! In other words, man cannot become saved by his volition by mere belief but only by God’s whim which flies in the face of the Christian doctrine of Free Will and other equally essential doctrines and verses of Scripture. Perhaps millions accepted Jesus of their own volition but were not pre-selected by God. How would one know? What a dilemma, after all, Jesus did say, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him...” (John 6:44). Therein lies the problem with a Bible that makes unconditional statements. Apologists are forced to fabricate exceptions, and none makes sense to a rational mind. 

 

I am so happy now that I've shed all religious nonsense. I regained a sense of self-worth, I am no longer a wretch!

 

To quote Pope Leo X: It has served us well, this myth of Christ. 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

The doctrine of original sin is a self fulfilling prophecy.