Dogs, Pigs & Apostates

APOSTATE OR TRUTH-SEEKING ADVENTURER?
To Christians, an apostate is one who leaves the faith, perhaps because they were never really "saved" to begin with, and ventures out into the cesspool of the dirty reality of life. In early Christianity, apostasy must have been a frequently occurring event, as the tiny religion was viewed as a cult by the surrounding culture. Thus, there were many warnings against leaving the faith, such as chapter 2 of 2nd Peter in the Christian Bible's New Testament (all quoted verses on this page are from the New International Version - NIV):

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. ² Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. ³ In their greed these teachers will exploit you with fabricated stories. Their condemnation has long been hanging over them, and their destruction has not been sleeping.

⁴ For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment; ⁵ if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others; ⁶ if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly; ⁷ and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless ⁸ (for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— ⁹ if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment. ¹⁰ This is especially true of those who follow the corrupt desire of the flesh and despise authority.
Bold and arrogant, they are not afraid to heap abuse on celestial beings; ¹¹ yet even angels, although they are stronger and more powerful, do not heap abuse on such beings when bringing judgment on them from the Lord. ¹² But these people blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like unreasoning animals, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like animals they too will perish.
¹³ They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. ¹⁴ With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood! ¹⁵ They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Bezer, who loved the wages of wickedness. ¹⁶ But he was rebuked for his wrongdoing by a donkey—an animal without speech—who spoke with a human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.
¹⁷ These people are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. ¹⁸ For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of the flesh, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. ¹⁹ They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” ²⁰ If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and are overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. ²¹ It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. ²² Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed returns to her wallowing in the mud.”

Another set of warnings can be found in Hebrews chapter 2:

¹² See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. ¹³ But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. ¹⁴ We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end. ¹⁵ As has just been said:

“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion.”^[c]

¹⁶ Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? ¹⁷ And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness? ¹⁸ And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? ¹⁹ So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

FEARLESS FREEDOM AFTER MANY YEARS OF BONDAGE
Evangelical Christians are probably supposing that I'm trembling in my boots at the sight of the verses. Alas, nothing of the sort!

Why do I have no fear in the face of such warnings? Because the Christian worldview is based on several false presuppositions:

- Only Christians are going to Heaven

 

- Christians have a monopoly on truth, reality, spirituality and ethics

 

- Everyone who's not a Christian is a drunken, lustful, hardhearted, unbelieving, depraved, fake-story-fabricating, ungodly, bold and arrogant, Hell-bound, animal-like, carousing, pleasure-worshipping, unreasonable, seductive, lost, enslaved dog who's returning to his vomit, a just-washed pig turning back to the mud.

Well, let's turn this view on its head:

- I love self-discipline and high moral standards

- I'm a loving husband, father, son and brother who works hard, is responsible, and seeks to "love my neighbour as myself"

- Tomorrow I'm planning to go out with another agnostic to help feed some poor people, giving a "hand up" not a "hand out"

- I will continue to seek the truth about our Western society, about spirituality, and the nature of reality

I don't know if I'll make it to Heaven, if there is one, but I sure as Hell aim to bring a little Heaven to the earth, in the here and now.

ARE CHRISTIANS THE MORAL PEOPLE THEY CLAIM TO BE?

Christians? Well, let's take a quick look at their moral standards:

 

- Wiped out 80+ million indigenous people living in the Americas, and many millions more in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and other European colonies

 

- Supported George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and other Satanists as they destroyed Iraq. I work with Iraqis every day in my job, and often hear about their sad stories. WMDs? The only WMDs were in the lying mouths of motherwackers like Bush, Blair and friends.

 

- Are the most Mammon-worshipping, money-loving, pro-capitalists that the planet has ever seen

 

- Have provided the ideology ("have dominion" in Genesis 1) to totally destroy Mother Nature, and continue doing it through Christian-backed lobby groups such as Wise Use in the USA, and Stephen Harper's anti-environment, pro-Golden-Calf-worshipping Evangelicals in Canada

- Are afraid to REALLY research and explore truth, because they're afraid that their Sacred Cow of an "error-free" Bible, or their own corrupt and contradictory history might be exposed. Therefore, much like the Jehovah's Witnesses they criticise, Evangelicals and other Christians don't read many authors who are not in their religious camp, because . . .

- The entire planet is divided into the Good Guys - Evangelicals, of course - and the Bad Guys - the rest of us, called "Unbelievers".

THE TRUTH ABOUT DOGS AND PIGS

 

You Christians say that this happy agnostic is really an apostate, a reprobate, a lost soul, a dog returning to his vomit and a washed pig turning back to the mud?

LISTEN: Dogs and pigs are noble creatures, much better than ideologically-steeped Bad Guys who promote the genocide and marginalisation of poor people, and themselves live in luxury. The only god you worship is the God of Money and Violence, while you pretend, with your fake pieties to have high moral standards. Global warming, pollution, 3rd world poverty, the ongoing destruction of natives and their cultures, and trillions spent on weapons of war, and brick and mortar temples to your gods, are all the result of your direct participation in the fuck-up of Mother Nature and the people, or your guilty silence when it's all happening right in front of your faces!

 

You Evangelicals and Catholics want to have Heaven on earth in the here and now, while making life a living Hell for others.

 

Here's a Bible verse thrown back in your face, religiosos!:

¹ Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. ² Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. ³ Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. ⁴ Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. ⁵ You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. ⁶ You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you. (James 5:1-5 NIV)

I could go on and on, but I won't bore all my readers.

Till next post!

For truth, justice and love that contains no BS,