There have been some things on my mind lately.  In the religion department.  Someone recently used the phrase “pearly gates” in my presence and it has bugged me ever since.  Putting it down on the Tater usually helps the madness from continuing to circulate through my cranium so here’s the biblical bullshit that’s bothering me.

Streets of Gold & The Pearly Gates - I don’t get this at all.  The King James Bible says  in Revelations 21:21 “And the twelve gates were twelve pearls: every several gate was of one pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass.”

I guess Christians cant count.  It says 12 gates.  Not one gate.  I wonder who makes these gates?  There must be a crew of gate building angels.  

This is what John saw.  He says he saw the city descending from above.  It was shiny and pretty.  

Here’s my problem with that.  Throughout the New Testement Jesus advises his “people” to cast off their earthly possessions to follow him.  He admonishes the rich man and tells him it would be easier for a gigantic water bloated camel to squeeze through the eye of a sewing needle that it would be for a rich man to get into heaven.  

Sucks to be you rich bastard!

If that’s so and in order to be a good Jesus follower it is necessary to survive on only your most basic of needs then what the heck is the purpose of pearly gates and a golden city?  

John also says that in his vision the sea gave up the dead, Hades (how did I ever miss the use of the word Hades in the bible???) gives up its dead and the dead in the earth rise to meet up with their bodies so that they can be judged.  They’re still dead right?  As in the flesh no longer operates properly?

So following my original line of thinking the pearly gates and the city of gold remain useless.   What good is a city to a dead person?  What goes on in this city?  What else is in this city besides golden streets and pearly gates?  Platinum business buildings?  Why would business be necessary in the after life?  Are there houses in this golden city?  If not where do all the dead-reuinited-with-their-bodies people go when they’re tired of walking the streets of gold?  That doesn’t make any sense.  I still see so no reason for a golden city.

Most mind boggling of all is that there ARE gates and in Revelations 21:25  it says “And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day: for there shall be no night there.”  Further on in verse 27 it explains that anybody not on the guest list ain’t getting in no how, no way.

I’m sorry.  Come again?  The gates serve no purpose either?  Shocker that is.  Somehow this is starting to remind me of the Obama administration to come…lots of useless overindulgence.

Back to the pearly gates… So these gates, all 12 of them are permanently lodged open.  What happens if someone manages to sneak in? Do they get thrown over the top of the pearly gates?  Could someone sneak in?  Will that cause a riot in the lake of burning fire?  I can see it now… a rebellious group of protestors crashes the pearly gates and goes on a looting spree; stealing every brick of gold they can get their hands on.  Jealous sinning butt sniffers.

The Flood -Fond childhood bedtime story it is not! Everyone knows the story of Noah’s Ark and 40 days and 40 nights that flooded the earth.  What???

Do you really think the entire earth was flooded?  I don’t believe so.  I believe that the story of Noah was recounted the way it was because the author wrote about life the only way he knew how.  Moses had no idea as to the size of earth.  He certainly didn’t know anything about other people living across the globe from him.  Even Christopher Columbus has more worldly knowledge than Moses, at least he knew the world wasn’t flat.

This post is getting long.

I’ll wind it up with one final thing.

Have you ever read the very end of the bible?  The ending sucks.  1368 pages of condemnation, miracles, adventure, sex, finance, lecturing, advising,  and thought provoking details and it ends by saying those that read and apply the bible as Jesus says to get to enter those pearly gates and those that don’t…well…losers go to hell.

That’s it.  That’s all folks.  There’s no clue as to what we’ll be doing after all this takes place.  No future game plan,  no goal sheet, no checklist.  Most books offer a sneak preview of the next book by giving you a chapter read.  That’s the least Paul could have done.  Instead he ends the most often bought book in the world with, “The grace of our LOrd Jesus Christ be with you all, Amen.”

So far all I”m seeing in biblical bullshit.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 18th, 2009 at 7:42 pm and is filed under Featured Posts, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.