Currently Listening To the Extreme By Vanilla Ice Ice Ice Baby see related

Gentiles: the other, other white meat...

The phrase "I'll slap you like a red-headed step child" is probably one of my favorite phrases. Of all time. While I am not a step child, I am red-headed and tend to be a smart-arse, and therefore provoke many slaps. But I still like this phrase. How does this relate to Genesis? It doesn't really, but let me try to wrangle some kind of analogy out of this anyway.

In many of the stories in the Bible, the eldest son in a family usually gets a pretty raw deal, while the younger son ends up coming up trumps. Let me explain:

• Cain and Abel - Abel is slain for jealousy, but Cain, the eldest, is banished and cursed.
• Ishmael and Isaac - Isaac becomes the father of Judah. Ishmael, the eldest, is cursed to have people hate his line forever, and people call his mom a whore.
• Esau and Jacob - Esau is born covered in more hair than Chewbacca, ends up trading his birthright to Jacob for stew. Owned.
• 10 older brothers and Joseph - they throw him in a well, he becomes Grand-Pu'baah of Egypt.
• Every eldest child in Egypt during passover and every not oldest child - oldest one gets long-kiss goodnight from wrathful spirit of death.
• Older brothers and David - they are professional soldiers, he is a shepherd. Ends up killing the equivalent of the Green Mile guy with a sling while his brothers quail in terror.

I'm sure there are more examples of this, but there're two more very important examples that affect us as Christians today. Firstly, the Jews are the original "eldest son" in the Bible. God's chosen people, picked before all others to be the bearers of God's word, and the race which bore the Savior. The story of the Bible speaks about the failing of the Jews to uphold the Law and recognize the Savior that they should've been expecting for thousands of years. In the same way, the Gentiles are the "second sons" of God, who came to be accepted alongside the Jews.

Second, the ultimate example is Christ himself. While Jesus was not a scumbag like some of the elder brothers in the above examples, He did end up with the short end up the stick (so to speak), bearing the weight of sin for the entire world on His shoulders. And who is the younger brother in this situation? Am I speaking of James, or some other unnamed sibling? No. I'm speaking of you and me, and every follower of Christ. Through his sacrifice, we become co-heirs, the red-headed step children, elevated to the same level as the perfect savior.

~Your one and only Helmut~

PS: I understand this is a somewhat rough comparison. Feel free to tear holes in my argument in the comments section. If you do, my professor gives me extra credit, so help a brother out...

Currently Listening Black Holes and Revelations By Muse Knights of Cydonia see related

Abraham's Faith

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Currently Listening Led Zeppelin III By Led Zeppelin see related

Millenial Midrash

In Jewish tradition, the Torah is considered the Law. Christians would probably agree, for the most part, with the authority of the Torah to instruct our lives. However, over the years, Jewish scholars have added foot-notes, reflections, explanations, analogies and additional informative information to the Torah to "fill in the gaps" left in scripture. This extra information is known as the Midrash, and is an integral part of the Jewish tradition; in most cases, the Midrash is considered as inspired as the Law itself.

To a dyed-in-the-wool Church of Christer like myself, this seems like a one-way ticket to a sulphur strait-jacket in the level of hell usually reserved for homosexuals and Democrats. To even think that common notes written by mere men (and men only) are on the same authoritative level as God's holy scripture is abhorrent. How glad I am that we as Christians aren't nearly as blind as those crazy Jews. I was happy in my little world of condemnation of those that murdered Christ: then I went to Mardels.

This store is the one-stop-shop for the Christian Midrash. Thousands upon thousands of books, audio-books, flannel graphs, DVD's and really, really awful apparel that we use to fill in the gaps. I mean, Paul's letters are good, but they don't give me 7 easy steps for personal financial success. Simply reading the scriptures is boring; having the amazing dramatic writing skill of Max Lucado making us cry in the preface is really entertaining. I want books on the 7 easy steps to understanding women, 5 easy steps to being a godly gossiper, 4 things every Christian should know about homosexuals, and 99 scriptural reasons to not vote for Hillary Clinton. Seriously, most of the books in that place are ridiculous. Sure, some Biblical concepts are easier to understand when grouped together, or explained in modern terms, but I think seeing the entire Bible as a tapestry of meaning is much more valuable.

Oh yeah, shirts with crappy pop-culture rip-off trendy sayings like "iPray" are retarded. If you're reading this and happen to be a Christian shirt designer, please stop making them. Thanks.

~Your one and only Helmut~

edit: I posted this on Thursday and accidentally tagged it as private. My bad...

Currently Listening Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace By Foo Fighters see related

Confounded Curses

It is interesting to observe the way we as Christians choose to pick apart the Bible. Consistently and accurately applying scripture has never really been our strong point. We choose to bind and unbind ourselves based on our own moral and ethical ideals first, and then try to twist scripture into conformity. For example, most Christians today would not use scriptural evidence to justify slavery (although it has been used for that purpose in the past), but they would use scripture to justify the differing levels of status between men and women; both of which were typically period cultural customs.

This goes back to the account of the fall of Man, when Adam and Eve sinned and ate the forbidden fruit. God punished them by throwing them from the garden, and by cursing them for the rest of time. For Adam, He cursed the ground, and bade him to toil in the dust for his sustenance, and eventually, condemned him to physical death. For Eve, He cursed her to have greatly increased pain in childbirth and that she would desire man and he would rule over her. In the case of most of these curses, civilization has tried to lessen, if not eliminate, the impact of these curses. For men, we have greatly improved our mastery over the Earth through farming techniques and technology. Advances in medicine have also pushed back the dates of our deaths. For women, the epidural and other practices have limited the pain in childbirth to a chemically induced walk-in-the-park (ok, maybe not...). Interestingly, the second female curse has not only persisted, it has become one of the central tenets of the Church of Christ's doctrine. For years, we have perpetuated man's "rule" over women, pointing back to this very curse as the model of God's perfect relationship. "God wants man to rule over women, he said so in Genesis 3:16".

But God never intended for man to rule over women. The sin from the fruit ruined the relationship between man and woman, in the same way it ruined the relationship between humans and God. It was not the perfect blueprint for godly relationships. And while our faith dictates that we must work within our given culture, it implores us to improve culture. While the relationship between slaves and owners was addressed in the New Testament, it was never something God wanted. In the same way, man's "rule" over women is a curse, and not a design.

~Your one and only Helmut~

Currently Listening At War with the Mystics By The Flaming Lips Fanatical see related

The Nature of Abstract Discussion

It seems to me that when people discuss ideas and concepts that are abstract in nature, the concepts must conform to some discernible system of understanding and logic. For example, if I was to speculate on the nature of God, I would have to make a number of assumptions in order to continue.

#1: God has a nature that is discernible, and we have authoritative information at our disposal concerning Him in the Bible.

Please note that belief in God's existence is not even one of my presuppositions. Although I personally believe in God, one doesn't need to acknowledge that in order to continue. If I was discussing themes from "The Lord of the Rings" I would consider the texts themselves to be authoritative. Someone who had never even heard of the concept of a god could still engage in competent discourse, provided they based their assumptions on an authoritative source and accept that the material is understandable. In this case, we must base our understanding of God on the Bible, and we must accept that whatever the Bible says about God is true, regardless of whether we think the Bible is inspired, or simply a man-made document. It is the subject of discussion. So, when discussing or arguing about God's actions, relationships and possible rationale and nature, we cannot discount the Bible as a source.

This is how not to discuss the topic:

Person A: "I think God created humans because he loves us, and not simply to glorify himself. I think he loves all humans, and not just those that love him. I believe that because of verses like John 3:16, 1 Corinthians 13 and Matthew 23:37."

Person B: "God hates people. The Bible isn't even real!!!1!"

Persona A: "You cannot say that God hates people if you don't accept that the Bible is real. You can't make any comments about God if you don't share any presuppositions."

Person B: "How do you know??! That's just your opinion"

*** Person A sets mode: +b Person B*!*@*.*

*** Person B has been kicked by Person A (n00b. go back to #poor-philosophy)

If one discussion member doesn't base their points on a set of accepted principles, their argument is completely invalid. Again, actual acceptance of the validity of scripture is not required to discuss scripture. However, for the purposes of argument, acceptance of the authority of scripture is paramount. Anything else is futility.

~ Your one and only Helmut ~

PS: If you understood the last two lines of the "discussion", you should get our more :(