T.L.C.    So, where is all this leading?   

Big D    As I've already told you, I'm setting the stage for you to see a broader picture of  the Crucifixion story -- a perspective  that gives a very different meaning to that story from the one now being so passionately propagated by fundamentalist Christian leaders.    

T.L.C.    So where did all this start?    

Big D    As you must surely know, almost everything starts with either money or sex.   In this case, it started with sex and turned into being about money, power and control, and today, it's about blindly following antiquated, dysfunctional, obsolete, unprovable  beliefs that have become carved-in-stone-truths  for Fundamental Christianity's true believers.   

T.L.C.    Sex, money, and mindlessness!   As a reporter who specializes in writing human interest stories, that sounds like a story I'd like to write and offer to my readers.   

Big D    Then I shall give you something to write about.

T.L.C.    Am I correct in assuming that you are about to tell me where the conservative Christians got their anti-sexual attitudes and practices?  

Big D    You are.

T.L.C.    Are they based on anything factual, or is it like their unprovable proclamation that life-begins-at-conception? *** ps-51-1

Big D    Their anti-sex position is based on a belief, which is based on a personal proclamation, which is based on a belief, which is based on a belief, which is based on the story of Eve and Adam as written in the Christian Bible.   Anti-sex was written into church theology by Saint Augustine, around 400 A.D.

T.L.C.    Beliefs, proclamations, more beliefs, a saint?   Sort this out please.

Big D    OK.   The present day, fundamentalist Christian Leaders  are against sex based on their belief in the anti-sexual, Christian theology.

            The anti-sexual Christian theology was a proclamation [a declaration of personal belief] of Saint Augustine.   Saint Augustine based his proclamation on his personal belief that humanity is inherently evil.   That’s called “Original Sin.”

T.L.C.    And where did Original Sin come from?

Big D    The belief that man is inherently evil is Augustine’s interpretation of the story in Chapter Three of Genesis in the Christian Bible.

T.L.C.    And briefly, that story is. . . ?

Big D    One of your long-dead ancestors ate a piece of fruit; therefore, you and every other human being on the entire planet are evil.

T.L.C.    There’s got to be more to it than that!

Big D    Well, yes.   God said don’t eat any fruit off this particular tree, and Eve took a bite out of the fruit from the off-limits tree.

T.L.C.    And...?

Big D    And what?   That’s it?

T.L.C.    Can’t be!   You left out one of the beliefs between Saint Augustine's  proclamation and Eve and Adam.

Big D    Well, now that you mention it, there are three beliefs in that part.   I actually left out two.   Here they are.   One, Augustine believed that the only way to counter Original Sin was through God’s grace, and two, he believed that the only way to get God’s grace was to avoid sex.

T.L.C.    So God made folks with strong, compulsive, sexual desires and then said that the best people were those who don’t have sex.

Big D    Yup.

T.L.C.    Are you sure it was God who created this?

Big D    You're right, God didn't create this.   It’s actually Saint Augustine’s personal beliefs that were transformed into Christian church doctrine.   And it’s now what the Christian fundamentalists preach today  as if it were the truth.   They tell their followers that the more you suffer, the closer you are to God.

T.L.C.    Sounds to me like they have it exactly backwards.

Big D    Well, if you were standing on your head, which direction would be up?

T.L.C.    So you’ve just mentioned a rather long chain of beliefs.   What if some of them are wrong?

Big D    Then the foundation crumbles and the whole anti-sexual house of cards comes tumbling down.

T.L.C.    So the fundamentalist Christian anti-sex stance is based on this whole string of beliefs, proclamations, and assumptions?

Big D    That’s correct.   Another way to say that is:

               “Here are the assumptions upon which I base my facts.”

T.L.C.    What does that mean?

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         .Eve Forbidden Fruit.         ...   .3

Big D    It means that a conclusion is a fact only if the assumptions upon which it is based are true.   When a conclusion is based on a belief only and when the conclusion has no factual evidence to support it, then that conclusion is also only a belief.

T.L.C.    That's a bit confusing.   Can you give me an example?

Big D    Sure.   I'll use three of Augustine's own assumptions,

              1)  "Humans are inherently evil because Eve ate fruit from 
                     the forbidden tree,"

              2)   "The more you suffer the closer you are to God."  and

               3) The only way to obtain God's grace is to avoid having sex.”

            There is no evidence to support any of these assumptions.   Thus any conclusions based on these assumptions are also only assumptions.   For example the conclusion that "sex for anything but making babies is evil"  is only an another un-provable assumption.

            Regarding the anti-sexual stance preached by the fundamentalist Christian leaders, the gap between what they preach and the foundations that their preachings are based upon is filled with several  [often unspoken]  make-believe stories.   It’s like building a two-story house and leaving out the first floor.

T.L.C.    I get it.   To use your building analogy, you're saying that their beliefs, proclamations, and assumptions are the building's foundation stones, and those stones must be true, factual, accurate, and complete in order to support the top of the building, which  contain their proclamations about the nature of God, the nature of man, and the nature of the universe.

Big D    And also all their anti-evolution, anti-abortion, anti-stem-cell-research, and  anti-sex proclamations.   

T.L.C.    So  life is not what the followers of Christianity  have been led to believe it is by those who claim to know.   

Big D    Yup.   The ultra-conservative Christian leaders have their proclamations stacked on top of a rather tall house of beliefs, and assumptions.   In addition to the three assumptions of Saint Augustine that I just mentioned, Eve and Adam must have actually eaten a forbidden fruit or have done whatever that metaphor symbolizes.   God must have been angry and punished them.   And, here’s the kicker.   God must be a sadistic, unforgiving, hypocritical, greedy, angry, stupid, lying son of a bitch.   

T.L.C.    Wait! Wait a minute.   What’s with this slanderous talk about God?   Where does that come in?

Big D    Well, just look for one short minute at what’s going on here.   God set this whole thing up didn’t He?

T.L.C.    I guess so.

.God Is A Hypocrite.         .The God of Christianity is a Hypocrite  ...4

Big D    What do you mean, you guess so?    It was God who created heaven and Earth.   Or did I miss something?

T.L.C.    Well, that’s how the story’s told.

Big D    So, if the creation story in the Christian Bible literally is true, then God’s the one responsible for creating Original Sin, isn’t He?

T.L.C.    I suppose so.

Big D    Suppose so!   Get real Stoney.   Who, according to the Christian Bible, is the creator of everything?

T.L.C.    God.

Big D    Then who is the creator of original sin?

T.L.C.    God.

Big D    Well then, it can only be that God is a sadistic, unforgiving, hypocritical, greedy, angry, stupid, lying son of a bitch.

T.L.C.    That’s no way to talk about God.   God will get angry at us for talking like that.   We’re supposed to fear Him, worship Him and tell him how wonderful He is.   Lightning could strike us down at any moment.

Big D    That’s the ultra-conservative Christian belief about God you’re talking about and not God Him/Her/Itself.   The Sons of God I know think this whole anti-sex thing is rather laughable.   And besides, if the ultimate, Source-of-All Creation [God]  is such an egomaniac that He needs our worship and adoration and is such a shmuck that He gets pissed over a little humor, then we’re all in deep trouble.***ps-51-1a    

T.L.C.    OK, tell me why you called God all those vile names.

Big D    Well, to start with, only a sadistic son of a bitch would lay guilt, shame, and punishment on billions of people who had absolutely nothing to do with eating that fruit.   According to the ultra-conservative version of Christian Theology, all these billions of people weren’t even created when this so-called-crime was committed.   

T.L.C.    Because Eve ate a piece of fruit, God is now, thousands of years later, still creating everyone evil?

Big D    Yep! That’s the story.   Wouldn’t you think after all the thousands and thousands of years, any God worthy of the name would be willing to forgive and forget? — to let bygones be bygones?   Nope!   Not this spiteful pit viper.   He holds the absolute record for holding onto the longest grudge in all of creation.

            And talk about hypocrites!   This slime ball preaches forgiveness.   He even sends His own flesh and blood kid right down here to Earth to preach to all of you about being forgiving.   In the Bible, He stresses forgiveness.   Here's just one example.   Do you recall this line in a prayer to God:  "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us."  

T.L.C.    Of course!  That's from The Lord's Prayer.

Big D    Which is at the heart of Christianity.   So, here's God himself telling us to forgive everyone,  "turn the other cheek."    "Judge not"  and all that other kind of good guy stuff.    

            And all the while, the hypocritical horse’s ass sits up there on that lily white cloud of his and holds a grudge since the very beginning of creation.   That must be the record for the most blatant hypocrisy of all time.

           And also, that must have been one hell of a fruit.   Just think, to top all this off, the greedy pig has a whole damned tree full of fruit.   And besides, He’s all-powerful.   He can create a million more trees full of the same kind of fruit, and yet this selfish bastard can’t spare just one bite from just one fruit from just one tree.

T.L.C.    You forgot lying.

Big D     Oh yeah. I’m getting a little carried away here.   This God claims to be forgiving.   He says, “Pray to Me for forgiveness, and I’ll forgive you.”   Well, He sure is lying about that.   If He won’t forgive and forget just one bite out of just one little piece of one fruit, He’s certainly not forgiving.  He's a lying lizard!   Just think for a moment about all those poor, un-forgiven, former Catholics He has burning in hell for eating meat on Friday.   And what other transgressions has He professed to forgive and is still secretly and grudgingly holding onto?   You’d better cover your ass when this clown’s around.

            And did you ever wonder what kind of God would put a forbidden tree right there under Eve’s nose?   Everyone knows women are curious creatures.   You ever seen women in a shopping mall?   They go around looking at things, touching things.   And this stupid son of a bitch puts a forbidden-fruit tree right there in the middle of an "Eden shopping mall."   What did the dumb clod  expect?

           And then there’s the little deal with Adam.   If Adam was like any guy, today, with a lick of love in his heart, he'd have wanted to please his woman.   So here Adam doing as any man would do who has a loving woman in his life, he does  almost anything to please her.   So for nothing more than loving and pleasing Eve, Adam gets the death penalty and also gets his complete ass kicked clear out of Paradise.   Talk about the punishment not fitting the crime, whew!

          And not only that, if this God-character was going to get pissed if someone touched His precious tree, wouldn’t you think He’d have been smart enough to put the freekin’ tree someplace else, unless of course, the whole thing was a maniacal setup of a manipulating sadist which it almost certainly was.  

T.L.C.    Now you're claiming the God wants humans to suffer.    

Big D    Wake up, Stoney.   It's not me!   It's the evidence!  Just look at the evidence.   This so-called loving God must be the world's greatest master of producing pain and misery.   The evidence clearly tells anybody with a lick of common sense and the courage to look at the facts that God must have intentionally set up this whole forbidden fruit thing. 

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T.L.C.    Why do you say that?

Big D    Because this con artist, who has gall enough to claim himself to be a loving, forgiving God, also claims to be all knowing -- He claims to know ahead of time what someone’s going to do.   So He obviously knew way ahead of time that Eve was going to take a bite out of that forbidden fruit.   Talk about entrapment? Wow!   What a psycho screw-up this God is!

T.L.C.    Are you sure you're talking about God, here?   This so-called-God sounds to me more like a carnival con man.

Big D    Well to use an old cliché, "I certainly wouldn't  buy a used car from him."  

T.L.C.    Is there anything else?

Big D    Are you kidding!   There’s plenty more.     

Here’s still another part of the con job that this jack-jerk was pulling.   What did he tell Eve about the consequences of eating that stupid fruit?   There's no indication in the Bible that He told her anything about the tree.   According to the Genesis story,  He told Adam not to eat from a particular tree, but he told Adam before Eve was even created.   So we don't know for sure what, if anything, God told Eve about this particular tree, and we don't know who and what the snake is and where it came from and how it got to be evil.

T.L.C.    Why do you say that?

Big D    Because, according to Genesis, God claimed that everything He made was good.   And then out of nowhere this evil-snake character pops into the picture.   So according to God's own words, the snake is good and then we find out that the snake is not good.   

T.L.C.    What's your point, here?  

Big D    The point is that you cannot trust God to tell you the truth.

T.L.C.    Sounds like things are getting a bit confusing here.

Big D    Indeed, they are.   Stoney, do you know what God told Adam about the tree?

T.L.C.     “…in the day that you shall eat of it, you shall surely die.” [Gen 2:17]

Big D    And so here’s where the world’s first, recorded lies-of-omission come in.   God didn’t tell either Eve or Adam that if they ate the fruit they’d also become like God, himself.   All he said was that if they ate the fruit they’d surely die.   He also withheld the knowledge that He’s got another tree hidden somewhere that if Eve and Adam find it and also eat it’s fruit they not only be  like the Gods, [ Gods plural] they would  live forever.***ps-51-5    

T.L.C.     Let me see if I've got this right.   God created Eve and Adam as innocent being with eternal life.   They eat a piece of fruit which  give them some special knowledge, but it also condemns them to death.   God's got death-antidote tree hidden somewhere in the garden.   And to become God-like and live forever all Eve and Adam had to do was eat from both trees.   

Big D    That’s what The Good Book says. ***ps-51-5a    This God-character plunks a death-sentence tree right under Eve’s nose and He’s got a second save-their-lives tree hidden some place that neither Eve nor Adam  know about.   And so, when Eve and Adam eat the deadly fruit, just like he already knows there going to do, how does this sadistic, son of a bitch respond?   Does he give them the fruit from the anti-dote tree and save their lives?   Not this murderous slime ball.   He heaps all kinds of grief and misery onto them and then kicks them out of the garden, condemns them to live in pain, and then let’s them die a slow death.***ps-51-6        

            And not only that, He’s obviously lied again.   He originally said, “in the day that you shall eat of it, you shall surely die.”***ps-51-7           Well if “day” means a Monday, Tuesday kind of day, then He’s a freekin’ liar.

T.L.C.    Why do you say that?

Big D    Because Adam lived for 930 years. ***ps-51-8      

T.L.C.    And what else?

Big D    There's still the unanswered question of what was it that Eve and Adam actually ate.   If, as some claim, that the forbidden fruit was actually "the knowledge of the difference between good and evil," then perhaps God should eat a bushel  of those fruits himself.   From his behavior, one could easily conclude that God, Himself, does not yet know the difference.   In a world where love, care, compassion, forgiveness, consideration for others, consistency, predictability, and dependability are valued human characteristics in any close relationship, the God of the Christian Bible ranks between F- and  zero.  

T.L.C.    Anything else?

Big D    Yeah, sex!   With all this begetting business in the Bible, do you suppose the real God did a little begetting of his own?    How do you think the real God created Jesus and all his other kids?

T.L.C.    He created Jesus through Mary.

Big D    Not if you believe the Bible.

T.L.C.    What do you mean?

Big D    The Bible says God sent His son to Earth, and you can’t send something that doesn’t exist, so Jesus must have been created prior to getting sent here, and He must have been  in heaven  [or some other place]  prior to coming to Earth.   

T.L.C.    Como on, Bid D, your splitting hairs here.  You're reading between the lines and making things up.   

Big D    Is it accurate to say you can't send something that doesn't exist?  

T.L.C.    Yes.   

Big D    Then what's the problem?  

T.L.C.    Your interpretation is extremely literal, surly the writers of the Bible used the word "send" as a figure of speech  and didn't intend a literal meaning.   

Big D    Stoney, it is not I who has declared the Bible is the literal word of God; it's the fundamentalist Christian leaders.   And as you've probably already figured out, the Bible is either the literal truth  or it's an historical treaties of its times and was intended to be read with symbols, metaphors and teaching stories.   It's one way  or the other, and it can't be both.   

T.L.C.    So the fundamentalist Christians, by declaring it literal, they must interpret everything literal.   

Big D    Yes.

T.L.C.    Why can't there be an exception?  

Big D    Because if you see one line or even one word  as anything but literal, then that opens the way to question the literalness of other words or passages.  You'd open the entire Bible to interpretation.  And you'd end up with  even more religious chaos than we already have, right now.

T.L.C.    But choosing to read the Bible as literal is, itself,  an interpretation.    It's a choice, it's one of two options.    

Big D    I know.   Ain't life just a bitch, some times.  Can we get back to Mary and her baby?  

T.L.C.    Ok.

Big D    If you look for the implications in this line, you'll likely  ask, "If Mary was not creating Jesus in her womb, what was she creating?"   Was she obviously creating a physical body, but she wasn't creating  Jesus.    Several Biblical  passages, such as Ecclesiastes 11:5, and John 13:3 reinforce the conclusion that Jesus was not the physical body that He used while here on Earth -- that Jesus was a spirit being -- a being  like He who sent Him -- a being like God.

"As you do not know how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of the woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.”   (Ecclesiastes 11:5  rsv)

"And no one hath ascended into heaven, but he that [has not first] descended out of heaven, [even] the Son of man, who is in heaven.  (John 3:13,  kjv)

           And when Jesus said,  "I and my father are one,"  He was not referring to his physical body.   

T.L.C.    So the phrase "God sent His son to Earth"  supports the conclusions of those who believe in reincarnation?***ps-51-4^

Big D     It does.    

T.L.C.    So, once  again, the fundamentalist leaders seem to be off the mark.

Big D     Do you find that surprising?   

T.L.C.    No.

Big D     Stoney, did you know that  God’s got a whole bunch of other kids?

T.L.C.    Jesus had siblings.   Where did they come from?

Big D     From God.

T.L.C.    If God’s the father, then who’s the mother?

Big D    Don’t know about the mothers, but paternity’s listed right in the Bible.   It says that the sons of God came to Earth and had sex with the sexually attractive Earth women, and the Earth women had babies.  [Genesis 6:2 & 6:4]

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