The Hobby Lobby $500 million dollar Bible Museum is to open
today in Washington DC. This is the same
company that fought all the way to the US Supreme Court arguing that based on
the religious beliefs of the owners they should not be required to offer health
insurance that included contraceptives for women employees. They believe contraceptives are a sin. Unbelievably the current conservative Supreme
Court ruled in Hobby Lobby’s favor and exempted them from the federal law
mandating such coverage as part of the Affordable Care Act. Evidently, it is OK to discriminate if you are
a certain flavor of Christian. That is
one of the most moronic and oxymoronic positions I have ever heard. Why not fight providing drugs for HIV to
single people? Premarital sex is a
sin. Why not fight providing mental
health coverage for divorcees? Divorce
is a sin. Why not fight any mental
health coverage because it is caused by the infestation of demons? Nope, the only issue for Hobby Lobby was
contraceptives, which are not even mentioned in the Bible.
Once again, fundamentalists stake out turf that is pure
lunacy.
I remain flabbergasted that people take the Bible
literally. In what state of mind must
one be to argue that if it is in the Bible it is true and believable? First, those folks are clearly in denial of
all the science we have discovered and developed since we started saying “AD”. The earth is not the center of our solar
system or the universe, it took billions of years for earth to evolve,
dinosaurs and humans were never on the planet at the same time, there was no
great flood and no ark could hold the 2 million species present 4,000 years
ago, etc. The Bible is not a science
textbook. The Bible was written by
humans, not God. The Bible wasn’t even “official”
as we know it today until about 400 years AD.
On and on and on. No way can a
thinking person believe this book is somehow literally correct. And, if one can simply say I know these
passages are wrong but I follow these passages, then clearly this is not a holy
work. Can’t have it both ways. I suggest that everyone who believes the
Bible is a literal truth should give up all the other accoutrements science has
provided since 400 AD: cell phones, air
conditioning, automobiles, microwaves, air travel, computers, and on and
on. To be in denial of science should
require the forfeit of the fruits of science.
Meanwhile, opening a museum to outline the history of the
Bible seems OK as long as we all understand this cannot be a holy book because
of all the errors recorded between the covers.
Surely a god would not make so many mistakes. (My favorite boo boo is God supposedly created
all the animals, male and female, but when it came to humans He forgot to make
a female until Adam asked for one. Give
me a break. You must be ribbing me.) So, it is a work of fiction, concocted by
humans and handed down to establish the church as an authority and the threat
of hell as a punishment.
And the Ark Encounter in Tennessee is a fiasco. Though it is run as an amusement park it
seeks tax exempt status as though it was a church. Why does God need to be tax exempt? Meanwhile, the whole format is fiction,
flying directly in the face of known science.
There was no flood. There was no
ark. Both would be impossible. And I find some comfort in knowing it is all
allegory because it describes an incredibly mean and hostile deity willing to
destroy his creation if humans do not do as he asks. Pretty funny since he gave us free will in
the first place. Poppycock and
balderdash.
Millions and millions of dollars have been spent by Zealots
and Pharisees to enshrine their own particular religious beliefs even though
they are clearly false. We should stop
protecting such entities and enterprises.
If we find a flaw in a textbook, we correct it. Not so, evidently, with the Bible. The flaws become sacred and are held in high
regard by people who abandon their brains for the sake of their hearts. And such beliefs will not help us solve the
problems of this century and beyond but will continue to serve as divisive
practices triggering conflict and war.
Please, just let it go.
Spend those millions of dollars on helping people, not extolling your
own particular archaic, non-functional, non-fact-based belief system. Abandon folly for reason.
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