Boat on a mountaintop?

There was a program on National Geographic about a ten-member team that is about to climb Turkey's tallest mountain in search of what they believe to be Noah's Ark.  It was in interesting program giving the pros and cons about whether or not this may actually may be the remains of Noah’s boat.

It got me thinking for a minute and reminded me of the movie Evan Almighty with Steve Carell about a reluctant boat maker.  This might be somewhat of a rant but it is not meant to be . . . just the crazy thoughts of times long ago.

Is this the way the creator of the universe works?

God makes everything.  But He can't make a boat?

That's proof He/She/It is very powerful indeed.  God is the culmination of all knowledge, forgiveness and love.  I think that's a nice definition we can all agree on.  So You then decide to make some poor, lowly human build a ship out of wood to save two of every animal from a flood You are creating to punish a wicked world?  Did that really make sense at the time?

Why not just make them all drop dead at once?

Or, better yet how about just the wicked ones?  Why kill off all those nice animals too?  What did they do?  I could possibly see that crazy monkey who ate the woman’s face off or even the tiger who tried to eat Roy of “Zigfield and Roy” fame in Las Vegas yeas ago.

When it comes to divine punishments, God uses a shotgun approach . . .

But people will say, "It was a lesson in faith."

That's always the answer.  God makes the world, everything in it, the stars, the moon, the other galaxies, but a flood will take care of the people who are not playing nice.  And just to make sure who's on the team, He commands one poor schmuck to prove his loyalty by building a boat in his back yard thus losing the respect of his community and having everyone think he is nuts.

In my neighborhood everyone would be calling the Municipality of Anchorage to see if there is a building permit, a SWPPP (Storm Water Prevention Pollution Plan) for all of the coming water and probably the cops because I’m sure building something that big will violate the noise ordinances or work hour laws.

Is that our definition of faith?

I just don't get it.

Another story . . .

How about Job?  He was a good man who believed in God and led a good life. One day the devil comes over to hang with God, and says, "I bet I can turn Job against you."

God, that truly forgiving, compassionate Old Testament deity that He is says, "I'll take that bet!"

And that's what it was, a bet.

First Job gets sores, then all his children are killed, and then he loses his wives.  But he never renounces his good friend God.

After the devil loses the bet, God gets him new wives.
That's nice.  It's good to see that God sees women as disposable objects that can be handed out as prizes.  Such was the way of the Old Testament and sometimes even in our current day for some societies.

My favorite is Abraham.

You know this guy. Three world religions trace their roots to Abraham.

God is having a low self-esteem day and commands Abraham to bring his son up the mountain and kill him as a sacrifice.

Three religions call this guy their father but if he did that today we would be watching his trial on CNN.

Think about that for a second.

You hear a voice in your head that you identify as God telling you to kill your child?

Don't we call that crazy?

It seems that all of religion could have been stopped by a few pills and some therapy.  We’re giving that to many of our school children right now.

I would like to think that if you or I ever heard a voice in our head that commanded to “kill my child”; we would not instantly report to our friends or the police, "God gave me a mission!"

I do not think that is what God had in mind.

Just my thoughts, what’s yours?

Ice