Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I have many theories about religion, mainly Christianity. They all basically go against the common belief and turn things upside down (and sometimes rightside out). So, gather around children, and let me tell you one of them...

What if Lucifer isn't such a bad guy? What if all the scripture regarding him has been greatly distorted? Thinks could have been changed, and others could have been left out. I have many thinkings about this, but the one I'm about to tell y'all is the biggest smack in the face to the church, so of course, I has to post it!

Here it is: What if god isn't the loving father figure he is? The old testament makes him out as quite the bully. What if Statan (Lucifer, whatever) was a freedom fighter of sorts? What if he, and his band of cohorts, decided to rise against this vengeful god and try to bring peace of the heavens and the Earth? But they failed, and were sent down to Hell as punishment. Hell, not being a place for the wicked, but for those who defy God's every whim.

So, instead of Satan being the eternal boogy man that the popular belief of him as, is merely a fallen angel who stood up against a truly evil deity?

Another theory I have is that Satan is merely is other side of the coin. Like Zeus and Hades, twin rulers of the universe.

I can go on and on. This stuff is like fan fiction to me, since I don't take it at all seriously, I can think up anything I want!

_________________

That theory is kinda...plausible. It does seem like that is possible. Although religions will rebuke that theory, it does make sense. There are multiple parts of the old and new testament that were left out. Maybe they were cut because that said that Satan was not the evil person that he is....maybe.

_________________

Your first theory is a bit of a stretch, and it demonstrates to me satisfactorily that you've never read the Bible. The Old Testament does not make God out to be a bully of any sort. The Bible continually tells us that we have a God who loves and cares about his creation deeply.


Your second theory is wacky, too, but it has a little more merit in the fact that it has been discussed by many philosophers throughout the ages. The philosophical term assigned to that school of thought is "Dualism" (or "Ditheism"). As for the tenacity of such a theory, the Bible is very clear that God is sovereign over all of creation, and since the Devil is a created being, he is not an equal antithesis of God, but a lesser creature with no real power other than that which God grants him.

EDIT: Heh... You might get along well with this guy.

You are obviously no Old Testament scholar. Take it from someone who has actually studied the texts (and in the original Hebrew), the OT does not make God out to be a bully of any sort. Pay attention to how many times the phrase, "And his mercy endures forever" occurs. Or consider the God who, although he would have been entirely just to destroy the people who betrayed them, continued to send them promises of redemption and restoration. The OT portrays God as a loving father who disciplines his people, just as an earthly father who disciplines his children because he wants what's best for them. Before making such an uninformed statement as this, you might actually want to read the Old Testament.

What's more, this is the same God who took upon himself the form of human weakness so that he could prove his love for humanity by sacrificing his own life.

As for the whole Satan thing, the accounts of him in the OT are rare. The first is the story of how he destroyed the peace and tranquility of Eden by deceiving the first people into betraying God. The second is one in which he tries to destroy the relationship between God and his loyal servant Job. Oh yeah. Satan's a freedom fighter alright, right up there with Charles Manson and Timothy McVeigh.

_________________

Again, I don't belive in Satan, I'm just making up a story "what if?" Everything in the Bible is bologna to me, it was all written by man. I'm just writing the sequel to it

_________________

Does this mean your playing "Devil's Advocate"? (pun intended)

_________________

I guess you can say that. It's kind of disturbing how people can interpret some verses in the bible as literal fact, while others as metaphors. There's no guide to the bible, so who's to say one thing is symbolism and another isn't? Like the whole Jesus walking on water and replicating bread things... not to mention the whole "rising from the dead" thing...

_________________

Now as with man writing the bible, well, I wouldn't quite say that. More "writing" than writing, quotation marks emphasized.
I'll try to summarize the working of theomatics- theomatics is, in essence, the proof that God wrote the Bible. Through man's hand, yes but it was his doing.
In the Hebrew and Greek alphabets, every letter has a designated number. They didn't use Arabic numbers (0, 1, 2, 3 etc.) and instead used the letters to mark numbers, like the Romans(i.e. MCMXLVIII) except earlier. Let's say it's our alphabet; the numbers go lke A = 1, B = 2, C = 3....J = 10, K = 20, L = 30.....S = 100, T = 200. So you want the number 223, you put the word SKC (it was skc feet). So the Hebrews- their first letter was a 1, second letter a 2, etc. Hence you can use those letters/words for numbers. Now you can still take any word and turn it into a number. It = 209(9 + 200), was = 601(500+1+100), skc = 223, feet = 216(6+5+5+200). You can get the numerical value of a phrase by just adding them up.
Now, with the Bible in the original Hebrew, you find something interesting. A verse mentions that they caught 153 fish. Then in other spots in the Bible, the phrase values of many phrases that include "fish" ("multitude of fishes", "fishers of men") are in multiples of 153. Hence the hidden number values of words and phrases refer back to the stated context. That's like saying "javelin WR" and the number total being 323, which is the world record for javelin throw (javelin is not 323 though). Only four examples are listed online, atlhough the book has many more- I think there are even verses referring to evil that have number values of 666. Aside from having phrases that reinforce the number, you got repetitions of phrases. 90% of the words/phrases referring to Satan in the New Testament have a multiple of 276. Lots of the stuff with "tree" and/or "life" are in multiples of 24.
The probability of this kind of thing happening with this consistency is unbelieveable. Let's say we wrote Hebrew stuff. It'd be relatively random, although if we wrote 10,000 words it might bring up a few things, maybe 5 interesting occurrences. So give a thousand people writing 10,000 words, and on average it'll be 5- anywhere from 0 to 20. So they did that with the Bible, randomizing the numbers (A= 9, J = 50, so on) of the letters instead of the original system. Checked it for such special occurances. Tried it with different random numbers. Over and over. The only time that the special occurrences spiked? The real Bible.
Thing is, youo can be within 2 of the number and still count. So for the number 276 and its multiples, you can be 2758 or 2762 to count for a 2760. That's how the software worked. Either way, the random combinations iddn't come anywhere close to registering as many hits as the actual Bible. Now you got 2758, 2759, 2760, 2761, 2762. If you assume it's a hit (2758-2762) then you got 5 numbers to choose from and a 20% chance of getting each one. The way the Bible went, well, there were twice as many 2759/2761(±1) as 2758/2762 (±2) and cleanly over 20%(didn't say) for direct hits. It's like throwing a 6-sided die 1000 times and getting 600 3s or 4s and 350 2s and 5s.
http://theomatics.com/theomatics/home.html
Site's sort of hard to understand, hence my summary. If you want to read deeper go ahead.

_________________
"No, no, no. You gotta get those rings... INSIDE the bottle!"
I'm just an old timer who lurks on occasion. Even in 2020, at least.

So there's a pattern, that doesn't prove god wrote it. The Romans made geometrically perfect buildings on a grand scale without computers, same as the Egyptians. So don't try to pull that bible code nonsense on me...

_________________

Visible geometrics and hidden codes behind text are two different things. Anyone in wide open space with a few primitive tools and some manpower can build "geometrically perfect" buildings. The question is, how many people can write that much stuff and have so much of it relate in such a way? Take a team of thousand people, give them 20 years and they're not going to write something more than 300 words long that is true, makes sense, and at the same time has hidden numerical values that repeat and refer to something stated. Who can do that? Only a mighty God!

_________________
"No, no, no. You gotta get those rings... INSIDE the bottle!"
I'm just an old timer who lurks on occasion. Even in 2020, at least.

Or maybe the whole thing is purely coincidence? You ever think of that? There are many ways to explain something, a lot of which we haven't even thunk up yet. But with all the contradictions in the bible, I don't think a "perfect god" would have put them in there...

And in the event god is real, and god did write the bible, I wouldn't worship him/her/it anyway. Not with all the blatant evils it condones...

_________________

Contradictions? Considering that you believe that the OT teaches an angry, bully God, I doubt your credentials to comment on this, Dr. Zaius. Also, if you've never read "The Fall of the House of Usher," I don't think you'd do a very good job of writing "TFOFTOH 2". So, given your apparent lack of knowledge of the biblical writings and Christian theology, what makes you think you could write a halfway decent sequal to the Bible?

As for so-called "theomatics," I wouldn't put too much stock in that. Numbers often have a symbolic meaning, but that doesn't mean that they mathematically prove much of anything. The "Bible Code" is utter nonsense (in fact, my Hebrew professor argued that it is actually a complex fraud). I'd suggest that you deal with the face-value of the text instead.

_________________

Well, I may not be able to cite direct examples due to my not having read the actual thing... but the main one I know if is Christianity is all about "love and forgiveness" yet it not only condones, but lays down GUIDELINES for a whole mess of atrocities...

BEHOLD!

http://www.thebricktestament.com/

(it containes it's own warnings for each story. NOT PG!)

Oh, and I still stand on my claim that god is portrayed as a bully in the OT. Just because it says he loves mankind, I don't think destroying cities, wiping out mankind, and turning that lady into salt JUST FOR LOOKING BACK makes him at all a 'loving god'...

_________________

You keep talking about "atrocities" like its some kind of mantra. This coming from a guy who, in another thread, argued for the systematic execution of elderly adults (what you called youth-in-Asia). I hardly think you are qualified to judge the Christian Church in this matter.

And I still stand by my claim that you don't have a clue what you're talking about when you say it. Just because you can make a claim doesn't mean you are in any way qualified to do so. Saying, "Moby Dick was a shark," does not make you a Melville scholar by any stretch of the imagination.

_________________

When did I say I wanted to do that? All I said I wanted euthensized were retards and vegetables... that hardly compares to condoning stoning your kid to death for disagreeing with you, or murdering your neighbors for believing in something different than you...

_________________

Nice choice of terms. "Retards and vegetables." You know, someday you might end up in a dementia ward yourself. I certainly hope you don't mind people treating you like a retard or a vegetable. Again, this attitude hardly puts you in any kind of position to be passing judgment on anyone.

_________________

I'd prefer death over that kind of life actually...

And I don't care if you think I can't pass judgment, I can and I will. I know Christians today aren't like that, at least not the moderate ones, but I can still point out the total hypocrisy within the bible. Jesus was an ok guy, I think his antics have been greatly exacterared though. But everything else regarding Christianity is complete bullplop.

Also, another funny thing, if Jesus was alive today, the Christian-right would call him a dirty hippy liberal. Long hair, unshaven, preaching love and forgiveness, kind of the polar opposite of fanatics like Jerry Fallwell and the like...

_________________

Okay, fine for you. But that does not give you the right to rob others of their right to life.


You're probably right about that.


Not if you don't know what it actually says.

_________________

Um, I just did. All those passages, reenacted in lego form. Kind of goes against the notion that Christianity is about "love and forgivness"...

I'm sure if I actually read the thing, I'd find more. But I don't care to read olden English. If they "modernize" the bible, then I'll give it a go...

_________________

Or if you really wanted to have some fun, you could try Hebrew and Greek. That's how I was taught to read it. Seriously, though, you could just use one of the modern translations, like the English Standard Version or the popular New International Version.

I will comment on this: the Bible does not teach us to simply ignore injustice, if that's what you mean by it not being all about "love and forgiveness". At times, criminals are to be punished, and armies raised to fight wars to protect the innocent and punish the wicked. This never changed. I personally find it interesting that Jesus seemed so interested in showing mercy to Roman soldiers. Jesus himself even said once, "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." We are, at times, to fight for the cause of justice, and that has not changed.

As for that whole thing about killing children. The Torah does not say that you can simply kill a child for not eating his vegetables (besides, you'd pretty much have to be insane to do such a thing, anyway). However, if parents could not control their children, and those children became a danger to the community, they were to be killed. It was a matter of public safety, much like with inner city gang violence. But to know this, you'd have to understand more than just a single verse or two of the Bible. The Bible sets strict codes of law, but it also encouraged mercy in the ways those laws were to be carried out. To you, this looks like a contradiction. But to someone like me who has studied this and understands some things about ancient Near-Eastern culture, this was just the way things worked for them.

_________________

I don't think believing in a different god (or not believing in any god) being homosexual, cutting your hair, or eating meat on a Friday would make them a "danger to the community"... well, not in a logical sense. They wouldn't be like the Crips or Bloods, but they would challenge the set standard of thinking... which I suppose was a "danger" in those days...

_________________

I know of no regulation in Scripture regarding the cutting of hair. There was a VOLUNTARY VOW (Nazarite) that said something about that, but it was not expected of the whole community, only those who took the vow and became something similar to modern day monks.


I know of no regulation in Scripture regarding the eating of meat on Friday. Where did you get this one from, the Leggo Bible?


Ah, now here's the problem! If you actually read any of the Old Testament, you'd know that this actually did become a danger to the community. Do you know anything about ancient Near Eastern religious practices, specifically those of ancient Canaan prior to the Israelite occupation (circa 1440 bc)? Sacrificing children to Dagon and whatnot? What's more, the True God had the right to expect his people to worship him alone because he alone rescued them from slavery. If the same people he rescued began to worship another god, it constitutes an act of betrayal, just like if your wife left you to sleep with another man. The truth is that God does punish those who turn against him. This does not make him the evil one, not when it is those who turn against him that commit betrayal and rebellion. In short, he has the right to expect all human beings to worship him, including yourself. For someone who does not believe in God, this might sound like mere theological wrangling. But for those of us who worship the true God, this is not mere trivia, but a matter of life and death. But I don't think it's a very good idea to pass judgment on the God of Scripture just because he actually does punish evil.

_________________

Dr. Zaius,
I beleve you are mistaken when you say there are many contradictions in the bible. The only contridictions in the bible are when you dont read it in context. In Proverbs it says don't anwser a fool according to his folley, (meaning don't anwser a fool with a foolish anwser). In the very next verse it says, anwser a fool according to his folley,(meaning to anwser a fool with logic and wisdom.)

_________________

It's my band! please listen

Didymus, looks up that stuff from the brick testament. it was all taken directly out of the bible, and recreated with legos for comedic effect...

Now, onto your rant on your justification for murdering people who belive in something different. Just because there were a few religions that believed in human sacrifice, regardless if someone within the community didn't believe in THAT one, they were still a danger? Most pagan religions focused on life, not death. Unfortunately, they were all demonized so the general public would feel no remorse when they were tortured and publicly executed... a trait that I see has survived to this very day. Looks like you have no right to judge ME for advocating mercy killing, 'eh buddy? This kind of crap is just what I'm ranting about, you actually believe that genocide is justified if those being murdered are "betraying god".

_________________

The Bible never justifies murder. I'm not even sure where you get that idea. I made the assumption (and I probably shouldn't have) that you got it from the wars Israel fought prior to occupying Canaan. God commanded the Israelites to kill the Canaanites because of their abominations. He also gave specific laws regarding religious practices among Israel, but that is a matter of civil justice, not murder as you put it. But still, considering that God had rescued Israel from Egypt and established a covenant with him, he has the right to dictate to them what practices he wants from them.

Of course, I keep asking myself the question, "Why do I have to justify God to a person who believes in systematic execution of the disabled?" I don't think you're in any moral position to pass judgment on God or his servants, since you have no respect for human life yourself.

_________________

The bible never justifies murder? I've shown you examples where it does! Read the passages in the Brick Testament, THEY'RE ALL IN THE BIBLE!

But why do you have to justify yourself and your evil god to me, when I believe that some people shouldn't have to live lives of eternal dependency? Seem like you're afraid to take a good look at yourself, and the things you think you stand for. You, good sir, are the one with poor morals. You think because you help people, you have somehow better than someone like me. I'm not the one who tries to defend the horrible actions of a deity and his/her/its servants. You say that since god freed the Jews from Egypt, they're forever in god's dept? What about people who WEREN'T enslaved by the Egyptians? How are they subject to god's will? Human civilization has been around for a very long time, seems kind of fishy that the Christian/Jewish god would have taken such a long time to make his/her/its presents, and laws, known...

_________________

I'm not the one that's afraid here, Zaius. I know the Bible, the REAL BIBLE. You know, the PRINTED ONE, not the comic book version?

You haven't shown me any examples of justified murder at all. All you did was link to a web page and claim that that proves your point. You haven't proven anything except your own ignorance. Heck, you didn't even link to any specific stories, just to the web site. Here's a hint: try citing the Bible itself for once, you know, book, chapter, verse. That might give me some clue at to what the crap you're talking about.

Let me put it to you this way: would you go into a hospital and presume to argue medicine with a doctor? Then why do you think you are in any way qualified to argue theology with a trained theologian? I have dedicated my life to the study of Sacred Scripture. I hold two degrees in biblical studies, a Bachelor of the Arts and a Master of Divinity. I have studied the original languages, Hebrew and Greek, so that I can better apprehend these texts. What's more, I have dedicated my life to LIVING out the precepts of these texts. You on the other hand, use an online comic starring Leggo characters! Where is your scholarship? Where is your discipline? What exactly have you dedicated your life to?

So, the next time you happen to wander into a hospital, pick a random doctor and argue with his next diagnosis. And when he wants to know why you feel qualified to contradict him, show him an online comic starring Weebles or something.

It comes down to this, Zaius: (1) I actually know the Bible, and you don't, and (2) you really don't have any moral high ground on which to stand in order to pass judgment on either God, the Scriptures, or God's church. You argue from ignorance, just like on that one thread in which you demonstrated your lack of knowledge concerning medieval history.

But as a Bible scholar, I know that the Bible never justifies murder, not even for religious reasons. By claiming that it does, and failing to cite specific examples, you only demonstrate your own ignorance.

I do feel I need to point out one more thing: the notion of COVENANT. God did give specific regulations regarding the religious practices of the Israelites. And they agreed to them. This is called a Covenant, and agreement between two parties. When you take a loan out at the bank, you sign a contract. If you fail to live up to your end of the bargain, you lose you house, car, or whatever it is you put up for collateral. When God rescued the Israelites from Egypt, they made a covenant with him to worship only him. If they break that contract (which they did at several times in their history), the whole nation suffered the consequences. This was why it was imperative that the Israelites continue to live by God's religious code: they agreed to do so, and failing to do so put the whole nation in jeopardy. That was why it was against the law for Israelites to worship other gods, and why the punishments for them were strict: it was a violation of an agreement they had made with Him. And what was this regulation? That they take Saturday off. HOW HORRIBLE! GOD ACTUALLY WANTS PEOPLE TO TAKE A DAY OFF ONCE A WEEK!

But because you rely on an online comic instead of reading the actual printed Word, you missed that whole concept of Covenant, and then passed judgment on God, when all he did was keep his end of the bargain in a contract he established with a certain people in a certain time.

The fact is, the Israelites deserved worse than what they got. Because of their constant failure to keep up their end of the contract, God would have been entirely justified to destroy them all (just as he would have been entirely justified to destroy all mankind for rebelling against him). Instead, he punished them only temporarily by having them sent into exile in Babylon. But even then, he promised to bring them back after 70 years, and sure enough, 70 years later, the Israelites were back in their homeland, better and stronger than before. What's more, some 400 years afterward, this selfsame God entered into his world as a child of that nation and promised redemption for the whole world. While the whole world was alienated from him, he took the first steps to reconcile the whole world to himself. This is why all human beings owe the true God allegiance and worship: (1) he created them in his own image, (2) he continually provides them with all that they need in life, and (3) when they had rebelled and betrayed him, he still worked to reconcile them, even at the cost of his own suffering and death. You claim that God justifies murder, and yet it was mankind who murdered him. But even this was part of his plan. His own sacrifice, his own death, was the means by which he did reconcile the world to himself.

So here's my question to you, Zaius: why is it that you rage and shake your fist at this God? And don't give me none of that historical crap: people rarely feel as strongly as you do about things that happen in prior generations. Your hatred of God has to be motivated by something, and I'm pretty sure it's not some intellectual exercise on your part.

_________________

"Or maybe the whole thing is purely coincidence? You ever think of that?"

(And, on the side, it seems you didnt' even read through anyway. It was tested with many other sets of random numbers, and none of those came a bit close to putting up as many sensible passages. If it was coincidence, then it would have as many sensible passages as the other random combinations)

Reading the brick testament is like taking a random sentence and cutting out words of it.

FOUR score and seven years ago our fathers brouGht forth on this
continent A new nation, conceived in libertY and dedicated to the
proposition that all MEN are created equal. Now we ARE ENGAGED in
a great...
"four gay men are engaged." Bottom line is, you better earnestly read the real thing before making a basis, or just don't bother.

_________________
"No, no, no. You gotta get those rings... INSIDE the bottle!"
I'm just an old timer who lurks on occasion. Even in 2020, at least.

Alright, fine. Here it is, no BS. I hate religion because I think it's for fools. When I see or hear people praising some imaginary deity, I become disgusted. I have a genuine hatred for Christianity. There's not much reasoning behind it, I just hate it. I have no real reason to, I've never been abused by a clergyman, I've never had any horrible happening in my life to "ask god why this happened". I just grew out of it. Much like I did with Santa Clause or the tooth fairy. Except, mature people don't still believe in Santa or the Tooth Fairy, but they do still believe in god. You can say I'm no different than racists who hate on races and homosexuals, but there's a difference, you can't choose your race, or sexual preference, BUT YOU CAN CHOOSE WHAT YOU BELIVE! I see them as ignorant fools, living a fantasy. I'll admit, having that kind of mind set must make things seem better. You don't have to worry or think, you just pretend that there is some loving father figure who'll take care of you if you do things right. I don't need that though. I'm not an optimist, I'm a realist, and in many cases, a pessimist. Another reason why I hate Christianity, is how in recent years it's been taking over. right-wing fanatics with god on their lips are hell-bent on telling everyone how to live. All the social progress we've had in the past 40 years will be for naught if these self-appointed defenders or "moral values" have their way.

And try reading the Brick Testament, it cites WHOLE sentences. The reason I didn't cite any specific ones is because there are so many. You want another one that's not as cartoonish? Try this...
http://www.detzner.com/frmdikpt.htm
Doesn't have as many passages, but it's not in legos, so maybe you'll find less reason to dismiss it...

As for your so called "expertise", I DON'T CARE! Because unlike doctors, YOUR LIFE'S WORK IS MEANINGLESS! Ooh, happy fun story time with Didymus! That was a nice story about the Israelis, now tell me the one about the giant egg man and how he collapsed from his sitting position on top a high wall-like structure! But since he forsaken the holy lord by defying his all mighty whims, god punished the egg man by making the righteous king's men too stupid to reassemble him (thus their reasoning for trying to use horses to revive the poor egg man)

You make me sick. I'm sure if there was stories in the news of a new fanatical group, the Christian version of the Taliban of sorts, brutally murdering gays and Jews and basically anyone who isn't a good, god-fearing Christian, you would say "good for them, for they are doing god's work."...

_________________

Well I certainly appreciate your honesty now, Zaius. You are willing to admit that your own arguments are essentially based on your emotional reaction to something you don't understand and probably never will.

As for my life's work, I'll let God himself, as well as the residents I serve at LSS, determine the value of my life's work.


You obviously don't know me at all, Zaius, and that's sad to me. You have let your own prejudices blind you.

Just a warning, though. You have the symptoms of a classic martyr complex. You deliberately insult and alienate people, then get angry when they actually disagree with you. For example, on another thread, you accused Buz of mocking you. He didn't mock you; he only provided an answer to your post. It was in fact, you, who were mocking him. In fact, a mod had to correct you on that. Just keep that in mind.

_________________