Jacob and Esau were twin brothers, the sons of Abraham’s son Isaac and Rebekah, Isaac’s first cousin once removed. Esau, the firstborn, was red and hairy. His brother Jacob was notoriously deceptive; he was pulling Esau’s leg from the day he was born.
Continue reading The Story of Jacob and Esau—It is written: Jesus Christ is the foundation that the church is built on, and no one can lay a foundation other than that one.
It is also written: Peter is the rock that Jesus built his church on.
Continue reading Is Jesus the only foundation the church can have?This is a summary of everything the Bible has to say about angels and demons.
Angels are spirits and flames.
There are at least a hundred million of them. There might even be one for every human.1
Angels never die. That’s why God told a cherub he was mortal. Angels have existed longer than the earth. They don’t get married, which some might take to mean they don’t reproduce. And no, the Bible does not say humans can become angels when they die. It just says we will be like angels.
Angels live in heaven with God. But they can travel back and forth between heaven and earth. They take the stairs.
Sometimes angels refuse to eat humans’ food. And sometimes they don’t. Normally they eat manna, the bread of heaven.
Angels are stronger than humans. That’s why it takes two of them to overcome one man.2 Angels can fly,3 and sometimes they give God a ride.4 They can also stand on water. They have their own language(s) that most humans can’t understand, which is kind of strange considering what their main job is.
Angels deliver messages from God to humans. They also do other things for God, like imprisoning the devil, taking people to heaven or hell, protecting people, freeing people, disabling people, torturing people, killing people, and destroying the world.
Angels have a good sense of morality, and like to see people repent. But that doesn’t necessarily mean angels behave morally. When angels sin, God sends them straight to hell. That’s why there are going to be evil angels running loose in heaven.
Angels are very wise, and they know a lot. They don’t know everything though, so sometimes they might make mistakes. But God trusts them anyway. A guardian cherub apparently once ruled the city of Tyre as king, and he was very wise, but there have been humans who were wiser.
Humans are a little “lower” than angels, but Jesus is superior to the angels. But even Jesus was lower than the angels when he was a human. In the future, superhuman Jesus will take orders from angels, and the angels will be judged by humans.
Not all of them, but at least one angel might be. The Bible doesn’t really make much of a distinction between God and this one angel called “the angel of the Lord“, so maybe they’re one and the same? It does call God an angel a couple of times. Usually angels don’t want to be worshiped, because they are mere servants of God, not gods. But angels don’t always object to people bowing down to them.
The Bible usually describes angels as looking like men. Very awesome young men who glow brightly and wear shiny white clothes. Though sometimes they wear clouds and fire and rainbows and stuff instead. They can have up to six wings. Angels can pass for humans when they want to.
Yes, cherubim look very different. They are fiery creatures with up to four faces (mostly the faces of animals) all around their heads so they never have to turn around. They have at least four wings with hands, gleaming calf-feet, and eyes all over their bodies. They also have big, sparkly, eye-covered, intersecting wheels next to them that move along with them.
Demons are evil spirits; the devil’s angels.
Continue reading All about angels and demonsAfter Pilate asked Jesus if he was the king of the Jews, Jesus stated that his kingdom was not of this world at all; it was “from another place”.
But Jesus contradicts this in one of his parables, in which a man tells his harvesters to pull the weeds out of his field before harvesting the wheat. This represents Jesus sending angels to weed all the evil people out of his kingdom at “the end of the age”.
If pulling the weeds out of the field represents taking the evil people out of Jesus’s kingdom, that kingdom must be represented by the field (or part of it). And what did Jesus say the field represents? The world.1 So Jesus’s kingdom must be in this world.
Continue reading Is Jesus’s kingdom of this world?Abraham’s nephew Lot was a righteous man. He lived in the city of Sodom, where nearly everyone was so wicked that God decided to kill them all.1 So God sent two angels (who looked like men) to Sodom. Lot met them and convinced them to spend the night at his house.
Continue reading The Story of Sodom and Gomorrah—Several prophecies in the Bible mention a future event called “the day of the Lord”. Here’s what we know about that day: On the day of the Lord, the sun and moon will be darkened, and the heavens and earth will be destroyed. Jesus will return in between those two events, after the sun and moon have already been darkened, but while the heavens and earth still exist. And when Jesus returns, his dead followers will be resurrected. So those things all happen on the same day.
Another future event is mentioned in the last few chapters of the Bible. It says after many apocalyptic disasters occur, the devil will be temporarily locked up and the world will get a break for a thousand years, before the world truly ends. But when will the day of the Lord occur, relative to the thousand years?
Continue reading Will the day of the Lord be at the beginning or the end of the thousand years?In this post, I’ll be listing the 40 atheist songs that I’ve judged to be the best, based on several factors including cleverness and relevance to the topic.
When I first started searching for atheist music, I found that a lot of the lists people have made were full of songs that really had little to nothing to do with atheism, which made it hard to find actual atheist songs. A song isn’t an atheist song just because it’s about science. A song isn’t necessarily an atheist song even if it mentions atheism or has a vaguely anti-religious sounding title.
In my list, I am only including songs that actually have lyrics that (favorably) discuss atheism (or closely related topics such as criticism of religion, arguments for and against the existence of God, and rejection of supernatural beliefs). I may occasionally include a song that isn’t exactly an atheist song if it’s close enough to being one, and it’s good enough in other ways to make up for the slight lack of relevance. But the further a song is from really being an atheist song, the less likely it is to make it onto this list.
Continue reading The top 40 best atheist songsThe Bible claims that all children are disciplined by their fathers. But according to the Bible, that’s not true.
Continue reading Do all fathers discipline their children?The Bible describes sex between two men as a wicked, detestable, vile, outrageous, shameful sin.1 It says any men who do this have to be killed, and will not be allowed into the kingdom of God.
I’m pretty sure it does. Some people say the Bible isn’t as anti-gay as it seems, but I’m not convinced.
Some say the law against gay male sex can’t be about gay sex in general because that’s too private for the law to be enforceable, since there aren’t likely to be multiple witnesses. So they say that law must really only be about public acts of temple prostitution. But by that logic, you would have to conclude that none of the Bible’s rules about sex apply to acts done in private. Not even the laws that specifically say nobody else is around. I doubt that’s what was intended.
Some say Paul was only specifically condemning the practice of pederasty, but that’s not what he said. The word he used translates literally to “man-bed”. Why wouldn’t he use a word that specified boys or teenagers, if that was what he meant? And nobody thought it was wrong for adults to have sex with teenagers back then, so even if Paul was talking about pederasty, the age issue is probably not the part he would have objected to.
Some say the Bible implies that if you’re a man who sleeps with men or a woman who grinds with women, you have a 50% chance of being raptured into heaven, while for the rest of us who try to enter through the straight gate, the chance of being saved is much lower. But does the Bible actually say those people who are being taken are going to heaven? According to one of Jesus’s parables, the first people who will be taken away at the end of the age will be sinners being taken to hell.
There are more passages in the Bible that could be seen as vaguely pro-gay,2 but interpreting them that way is a bit of a stretch, especially considering how much more straightforward and clear the other passages are that say gays must be killed, etc.
What’s so bad about homosexuality, that it would deserve that kind of punishment? Nothing at all, as far as I can tell. I haven’t heard any good reasons to think gay sex is immoral. I’ve heard some bad ones though…
Continue reading Homosexuality in the BibleThe Bible says people should get married, have kids, and get their kids married, so they can have kids too. If you’re engaged, don’t break up; go ahead and enjoy your married life. The Bible encourages widows to marry again. Marriage isn’t a sin; it’s a way to avoid being tempted to have immoral sex. Only a hypocritical, demonic, conscience-impaired, lying heretic would say people shouldn’t get married.
God clearly wants people to get married. He established the practice of marriage because it was not good for a man to be alone. God helps people find people to marry. He commands people to get married. When people are hesitant to get married, God tells them to go ahead. He rewards people for getting married, and for letting other people get married.
God is fine with people marrying anyone they want, as long as they don’t marry someone he doesn’t want them to marry, like a divorced person or a contemptible woman. He’ll let you marry a prisoner of war if you want to.
There are situations where God says people must get married. If a man has a brother and a wife but no son when he dies, his brother is required to marry the widow. Refusing this duty would be shameful. And if a man rapes a virgin who isn’t engaged, they have to be married for life.
Noah, Job, Abraham, Lot, and David were all known for their righteousness, and they all had wives. Quite a lot of wives in the case of David, who never did anything wrong in his life. God described Jerusalem and Israel as his own wives. If God is married (or wants us to think of him that way), that must be a good example to follow, since everything God does is right.
The Bible says if you’re not married or engaged, it’s good to stay that way. And if you are engaged, the best thing to do is to break up. Marriage is a distraction that makes it harder to please God. Those who marry will face many troubles, while those who remain unmarried will be happier. So the best thing to do is to follow Paul’s example and stay unmarried and celibate. You should treat other people as brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers, and you wouldn’t marry your brother, sister, mother, or father, would you?
When the disciples of Jesus found out that he didn’t approve of divorce, they said in that case, it was best not to get married in the first place. Jesus agreed that it’s best for people to be celibate if they can manage it. Jesus thinks celibate people are superior, and he will give them special treatment and honor in the end times. In his kingdom, there will be no marriage. So if you’re a Christian, you’d better not get married, or you will break your dedication to Christ and bring judgment on yourself.
Continue reading Should people get married?