ringo writes:
The Flood story might tell you that God will save you if you trust in Him. Or it might tell you that you have to build your own ark. What it should NOT tell you is that it really happened.
When I realized we were supposed to believe the fairy tales we were being told in Sunday School with comics and coloring books , I read the Bible through for the first time.
My dad was a union steward, so my first thought was that our contract wasn't worth the paper it was written on, since the Boss could just tear it up, and often did.
I read about the second Job Junior and wondered how he slept at night. Perhaps he'd never heard of double-or-nothing.
I decided the Bible was a collection of fables with no connection to any nonhuman power. I'd seen enough real world by then to know the cruelty and betrayal in it smelled entirely human.
I was disinvited to Sunday School. The minister told me I should go home and think about whether or not I wanted to burn in Hell forever. I told him that if God and the elite partied in Heaven while billions of people were tortured forever, I wanted no part of it. I thought he was going to hit me, for he was a Godly man.
I still feel that way. Tormenting my brothers and sisters is a deal-breaker.
"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
-Terence