Marty’s photo of the day #4607: At this time of year, I often think about my born-again Christian father and the arguments we used to have. He was the kind of Christian that believed the Bible was the literal word of his god. That, of course, meant that the Bible had to be either written by his god or with the guidance of his god. Otherwise, the Bible was simply written by primitive men—who would have thought firecrackers were magical—who created a god to explain things that were beyond their scientific knowledge.
But here’s the thing: Since by definition a god is perfect, then any book that god wrote or guided the writing of would have to be perfect too. The Bible, however, is full of contradictions and scientific inaccuracies. My Dad always claimed the Bible was “perfect,” but all one need do is look at the book of Genesis to see that it isn’t:
Genesis 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Genesis 2:22: And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
As anyone can plainly see, women were created two different ways at two different times. Obviously the profession of editor didn’t exist at the time those primitive men tried to explain the world!
So from the very beginning, faith requires one to put on blinders and ignore what is right in front of them. You can say, “Well, what does it hurt?” I could provide a huge list, but here’s the important one for today. Once Christians put on blinders, they can be easily manipulated. This has been demonstrated time and time again as the Republican Party has harnessed a majority of white Christian Americans to do their bidding. And the worst of that bidding is Donald Trump!
Today’s photo: Yesterday I wrote about Catholic Churches declaring bankruptcy to get out of paying for child sexual abuses by their priests. I photographed this huge work made from precious metals inside a church in Madrid, Spain. I wonder how many Catholic Church bankruptcies it would cover?