Leonard Nimoy - boldly gone where every man before him has gone. R.I.P.

Leonard Nimoy - boldly gone where every man before him has gone. R.I.P.

I enjoyed the Star Trek series. 

Quite a few of the Bible stories work better with a space aliens explanation, [It would be funny to do a Star Trek/Bible mash up ] eg;

Jesus praying in garden of Gethsemane could have been him actually speaking into a starfleet communicator, asking for help

Luke 23v44, Darkness over Jerusalem was like star ship Enterprise low overhead blocking out sun

Figures looking like Star Wars White Imperial guard stormtroopers beamed down in Matt 27v52-53 to try to find Jesus but are too late to prevent crucifiction. However they do locate him & use a stun ray to knock out Roman soldiers guarding the tomb (Matt 28v4) then beam Jesus up to Enterprise for Emergency Room treatment. After a couple of days recuperation Jesus beams back down to appear among the disciples in a locked room ( Luke 24v36) 

Finally Jesus gets beamed up to  star ship Enterprise in Acts 1v9

1 Kings 18v38 story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal a space ship uses lazer beams to set the altar wood on fire

Later Elijah was obviously abducted by aliens or taken up in Buck Rogers rocket ship:
2 Kings 2v11 It happened, as they still went on, and talked, that behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.

Moses take 2

Moses take 2
And Moses did come down from the mountain a second time
This time with two blank tablets of stone
And the people said unto Moses,
"What's with the blank tablets Moses ? Did you forget your chisel or has God's lazer printer malfunctioned ?"
And Moses said unto the people,
"Well no matter what I would write you would twist the meaning to make it say whatever you wanted it to say, so I figured, "Sod it they can use science and reason to get by as best they can." You can know the reasons for and against on each issue but it often comes down to personal circumstances. Also there are the unknowns to factor in. Life is a game of chances. Besides what God said to me didn't make much sense and I'm wondering if I'm kidding myself about his existence anyway"
And the people replied,
"Thank God you've seen the light, it's just common sense that if you make to  damage someone else's stuff that they are going to defend it. Besides your first attempt at 10 commandments wasn't that much different from the 42 negative confessions on the Papyrus of Ani. The Egyptians knew that stuff long ago"

Acts 17v24 "God made the world and EVERYTHING IN IT"

Rev 1v8 claims the Lord God is “Almighty”
Matt 19v26 has Jesus say that “with God all things are possible”

James 4v17 says, “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins”

So then what excuse could an all powerful God have for not preventing the suffering on Earth ? The O.T. claims God intervened many times to do real stuff on Earth. A God who could see what was going on and who had the ability to do something about it but who stood idly by would have sinned, according to James 4v17
Often humans have the desire to alleviate or prevent suffering but lack the means to do so, we have an excuse.

Think of all the things a perfect loving God could have done to prevent suffering down through the ages but didn’t do.

Even giving the knowledge of germ theory would have helped prevent suffering yet Matthew 15 does not have Jesus show any appreciation of germ theory. Jesus could have said to the Pharisees and teachers of the law, “I agree that it is important to wash your hands in boiled water (cooled) before eating or helping with child birth or injuries, that would be quite a good tradition. What goes into your mouth can make you ill and giving food contaminated with e-coli could cause permanent damage to peoples health. We do have a duty of care to others.”

Romans 10v13 saysm,” Love does no harm.” but is contradicted by
Acts 17v24 which claims that “God made the world and EVERYTHING IN IT.” Oops that verse should have blamed Satan for making the pathogens.

An imagined Almighty God who played a part in the evolution of life on Earth could have influenced the genetic make up of insects to make it impossible for them to be vectors of the pathogens which harm humans or to cause the extinction of insects such as mosquitoes or parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus

The theory of evolution by natural selection suggests that each surviving species of mammal has kept just ahead of the parasites and harmful bacteria, predators etc which would cause the extinction of the species. There is a constant struggle for survival. Maybe it is surprising that life can be as good as it is.

Humans now have the knowledge to give ourselves an increased edge. With the benefit of modern technology we can dramatically lengthen our life and have far less pain & illness. However if we enter a post antibiotic age or if agri-chemicals become less effective due to resistant weeds & diseases then we could lose some advances.

At any rate an imagined real cosmic God should be able to do infinite miracles to ensure 100% health from 0-70 years old then instantaneous death without suffering but we do not see this. Why not if Jesus had won a victory over sin and death ? Why not even for ‘the chosen ones’ ? Because the scripture writers were misreading their experiences & just making stuff up.

RAPTURE RUPTURED

Matthew 24 and Luke 17 have been used as a starting point for many further exaggerated fearsome stories of end times rapture but when read in detail and compared to modern knowledge of our solar system & galaxy beyond the gospel tales look like primitive guesswork & fantasy.

"The paper back apocalypse, how the Christian church was left behind" by Robert M. Price is worth reading. It examines the whole genre of both Christian and secular rapture fiction. 

Matt 24v29 says the sun will be darkened but how could that happen ? It is estimated to be good for billions of years yet

Matt 24v29 says the moon will not give its light but the moon only reflects sunlight and has no light  of its own

Matthew 24v28-29 says at the coming of the Son of Man stars will fall from the sky.
Well since it is impossible for stars to fall to Earth I guess we won't get to v30 with the Son of Man coming on the clouds.

What does Matt 24v31 mean," the angels will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" does it mean there are other civilizations spread through the galaxies of the universe or that Jesus thought heaven was just above our sky ? A trumpet call isn't going to travel very far, certainly not outwith our atmosphere and wouldn't they have been better with mobile phones to text the elect ?

Matthew 24v34 has Jesus say his generation would certainly not pass away until all these things have happened but his generation did pass away and those things never happened.

Matthew 24v35 says heaven and earth will pass away; well this is not so good for those hoping for a happy ever after in heaven. Does heaven mean sky ? Did the authors think the sky & heaven were the self same thing ?

Matthew 24v37 has Jesus talk about Noah as if it was a literal event but science has shown it was very probably a myth - both the Ark and a global flood

On p126 of Robert Price's 'The paperback apocalypse' ,"It is common to see Matthew 24v40-41,("Then two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left.Two women will be grinding at the mill;one is taken and one is left" Cf Luke 17v34) pressed into service as a mention of the Rapture. But Robinson is right: given the context, in which the eschatological catastrophe is compared to Noah's flood and the whelming of Sodom, the one "taken" must be the one destroyed, the one "left" the lucky survivor. See also Genesis 7v23,"He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the ground, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark." Luke had the disciples ask for clarification:"Where Lord?" Luke has Jesus answer,"Where the body is, there the vultures will circle" Luke 17v37

It could be embarrassing if it was the other way round and the man in bed, Luke 17v34, was raptured at an inconvenient moment & appeared in the next second before God in heaven. I wonder if there would be a 10 minute warning.
TalkOrigins website shows that the Noah's flood story is probably a myth.

Luke 17v29 says fire and sulphur rained down on Sodom from heaven but why didn't they say it was a pyroclastic flow from a volcano? What is the closest volcano to Israel ? Is it the Nabro stratovolcano in the Southern Red Sea Region of Eritrea whose only known eruption was in 2011 or is it Santorini near Crete? Does 'sulphur raining down' even mean anything, what would that look like ? = they were making stuff up.

Website "Amazing Bible discoveries" article,' Sulfur and ash from Gomorrah' makes claims about finding sulfur balls near the Dead sea. How did they come to be there ?

Yet another fantasy: In Ezekiel 47:8-9 there is a specific prophecy that the Dead sea will ".. be healed and made fresh", becoming a normal lake capable of supporting swarms of living creatures and large numbers of fish as a result of a river flowing from a Temple in Jerusalem. v10 Fishermen will stand on the banks between EnGedi to En Eglaim and spread their nets. Is there even a dry valley which slopes from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea ?

Matthew 24v51 has Jesus tell a tale about the master killing the servant who beat his fellow servants and threatens the servant will still weep and gnash his teeth after death. However this would mean that the master had behaved worse than the servant. There servant only beat people but the master murdered people and tortured them, for what ?