Jesus's Family Values

[Originally posted December 10, 2008, and inspired by this Newsweek cover article by Lisa Miller.]

The Biblical patriarchs had as many wives and concubines as they could afford. In fact, polygamy was (and I daresay is) the ideal for People of the Book (and having multiple wives, technically, is polygyny -- "The More You Know"!). Poor people tended toward monogamy solely because they couldn't afford more bitches. (And I use "bitches" in this post only because the Bible treats women on par with female dogs: as a male's property. Hell, only a handful of women in the entire Bible are even bothered to be named. You get maybe a thousand male names from all the chapters/verses regarding all the begetting and begetting and begetting, but essentially no female names. And the begetting was a lot tougher on them.)

I fervently believe traditional marriage must be restored. Still, I'm a modern guy. I bend with the times. I don't think we have to go back to making women chattel. Also, I don't get money mixed up in my relationships. Especially now that I, personally, don't have any to speak of.

Tacks (brass): I want ten wives (starters) who pay for anything and everything I want to do/to have/need/merely want.

But that's me. A real traditionalist.

But I know a lot of people out there are fighting for traditional marriage as taught by Jesus: a union of one man and one woman.

The problem being that Jesus never said, never gave any indication, that this is what marriage is supposed to be. In fact, since Jesus was a Jewish man of his times, he would have been more than OK with polygamy.

Jesus believed the end of the world was at hand. By example, he taught celibacy. He did so, in part, likely because in a nonexistent world a family doesn't need kids to ensure its prosperity. As part of this apocalyptic view, Jesus encouraged people to leave their families to follow him and, generally, not to care about these families because they were earthly things, soon to be rendered unimportant by God's appearance on earth, which he did often say was at hand (as in during his lifetime or shortly thereafter).

So Christians who follow Jesus's actual teaching should desert their families, if they have them, (but not get divorced). And if they don't have families, they shouldn't marry at all.

The family values Christianity currently teaches are the exact opposite of those Jesus taught (in essence: the family has no value whatsoever). Preachers go on and on about the family being the bedrock of civilization.

Such preaching couldn't be more anti-Christian.

If Christian preachers get what they want -- Jesus's family values imposed on America -- the result will be the annihilation of our concept of family.

Personally, I don't need nor want that. I'd be fine, simply, with ten wives.

...At least for starters.

Mixx it!

THE REAL TEN COMMANDMENTS!:

[I got into a hyper-religion-investigating mode yesterday and thought I'd post this instead of my own ranting. And I also promise to get on some other topic after this post.]

From Exodus 34:

1. Behold, I drive out before thee the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee: But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves

2. For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God: Lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they go a-whoring after their gods, and do sacrifice unto their gods, and one call thee, and thou eat of his sacrifice; And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods

3. Thou shalt make thee no molten gods

4. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt

5. All that openeth the matrix is mine; and every firstling among thy cattle, whether ox or sheep, that is male. But the firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb: and if thou redeem him not, then shalt thou break his neck. All the firstborn of thy sons thou shalt redeem. And none shall appear before me empty

6. Six days thou shalt work, but on the seventh day thou shalt rest: in earing time and in harvest thou shalt rest

7. And thou shalt observe the feast of weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year’s end. Thrice in the year shall all your menchildren appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the LORD thy God thrice in the year

8. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning

9. The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring unto the house of the LORD thy God

10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk

There are twenty-one or twenty-three edicts given by god in all, but these are the only ten called "commandments" in the bible. Therefore, these are the ten commandments.

Christians, you'd best start to observe passover! Also, what the hell is with the faithful no longer making sacrifices? God nothing more than the smell of burning animal entrails! Observe the feasts! (Maybe the fact that you do not is the reason god obviously did not keep the promise he makes in this commandment.) On to numbers eight and nine: Get with the freaking sacrificing, you're pissing god off! Finally, keep kosher!

It's good to know that I'll see everyone in hell because they fail to keep the real commandments.

Feel free to blubber and make lame excuses as a way of sliding yourself through the closed pearly gates, but by doing so you're basically saying "god didn't really mean it." But sorry: God meant everything, and literally, in Exodus -- and he killed and ordered to be killed a hell of a lot of people for much much tinier infractions than not keeping the commandments.

We're all lucky we haven't been struck dead already.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Mixx it!