Rodney Ohebsion

Religion and Atheism

The Bible opens with, "In the beginning." That's thw beginning of the first line. "In the beginning..." In Hebrew, that's also the name of the Bible's first book. In the Beginning. Someone chose to give it that title. I'll bet he was trying to set up an Abbott and Costello routine.

"Where's the part about Joseph?" "In the Beginning." "I read the beginning. It's about the Creation and Adam. Where's Joseph?" "The middle." "The middle?" "Yeah." "So if I flip a Bible open to the middle, I'll find Joseph?" "No. I meant In the Beginning. Stay there. And go to the middle." "How can I stay there and go to the middle? Where's Joseph? The middle, or the beginning?" "The middle." "So Joseph is in the middle of the Bible?" "No. In the Beginning. The first book of the Bible. In the Beginning. Stay there. And go to the middle. Joseph is in the middle. Of the first book. In the Beginning. Go to the middle, and you'll find him."

According to the Bible, in the beginning, God created the universe. As in light, a sky, water, land, plants, a sun, a moon, stars, birds, fish, insects, animals, and finally, human beings. (I guess God likes variety.) He did all of that in six days. After waiting seven years to get the necessary permits.

And everything God created was good--from light to human beings. A few days later, however, human beings lost some of their goodness.

There were a few fruit trees for mankind to choose from. The Bible doesn't mention what fruits were on the trees. But as soon as the apple industry came across a copy of the Bible, they started a PR campaign to convince us that they were apples. The pear industry missed the boat on that one. And that's why we eat 20 times as many apples as pears.

Anyways, God gave people one rule. He pointed to one of the trees, and told them not to eat from it. That’s it. And what did they do? They ate from that tree. (I guess human beings like variety, too.)

God was mad at man, and considered hitting the reset button and starting all over. But instead of killing us, he punished us. Our days of free room and board were over.

The Bible doesn't really mention much about the next millenium or two. But apparently, human beings lost more of their goodness. "Do unto others" wasn't very popular back then.

So God did a little remodeling. And he dropped off Noah and his family in Turkey.

A few hundred years later, God decided to choose a man named Abram. Make that Abraham.

Abraham was chosen. But we don't know why God chose him. Why did God choose Abraham?

How many people were on the planet back then? 30 million according to Wikipedia. And God chose Abraham. Why? Is it because of something he did?

I hope Abraham wasn't some modern day celebrity type. "You're on a reality show now. You're going to be the most famous person in the world. And get $1 million per episode. Why? We don't know."

That's not what God did with Abraham. I don't think. Or maybe He did. Maybe Abraham was part of the first reality show ever. But I doubt it.

Who else was around back then? There had to be some pretty interesting characters around 2000 BC. What were they doing? Did God go through them individually. "No--not this guy. Not this guy. Not this ugy. Abraham? Yes. I'll go with him. Abraham. He's my guy.

I don't know. What is it around Abrham? That's a tough one. Is a reverend or rabbi allowed to say he doesn't know something like that?

"Why did God choose Abraham? ... I don't know. Does anyone have any theories? Anyone? What do you guys think? I'd kind of like to know myself."

What did Abraham say? I don't recall him saying anything like, "Why me? What did I do? What's so great about me?"

Why did God choose Abraham? Is it because Abraham looked Jewish?

Is that why? I don't know.

I don't think my congregation's going to be happy with my sermon.

"Why did God choose Abraham? ... I don't know. Maybe he looked at Abraham and thought, 'You know what? This guy looks Jewish. I'll go with him.'"

I don't think that's going to make me an in-demand rabbi. I'm not going to get $1 million a year for that. That's how much the highest paid rabbis in the world get. $1 million a year. For about 60 sermons. Their sermons are the feature. Let's say they get $600,000 for the sermons, and $400,000 for everything else. $600,000 for 60 sermons. That's $10,000 a piece."

When a rabbi like that finishes one of his sermons, do people in the congregation think, "Was that worth ten thousand dollars? I don;t know. I'd pay three thousand. Five thousand tops." Or maybe sometimes it's the opposite. "That was quite a sermon. Ten thousand dollars? That was worth at least thirty grand. We're getting a bargain."

Is that what happens? I don't know. I also don't know why God chose Abraham. In my sermon, I presented the "he looks Jewish" theory. But I don't think my congregation is going to pay me the $10,000 for that.

Can I at least have $1,000?

I'm going to negotiate with my congregation. I don't have a contract with them. That's how they work. They pay me per sermon. I deliver a sermon, and they pay me. I usually get about $1,000. I'm not a good rabbi--but I'm a fantastic negotiator.

I'm a much better negotiator than Abraham. And he promised to give Abraham's decendants some land. But just to make things interesting, I sent them to Egypt and made them wait a while.

I then led my people out of Egypt and gave them a few hundred laws, like don't worship any other gods, don't misuse my holy name, honor your parents (unless, of course, they tell you to worship other gods), the Professor and Mary Anne. And after making my chosen people wait in the desert for a few decades, I gave them a chunk of land about the size of New Jersey.

And all in all, I’d say they had a pretty good time there. But they ended up worshipping other gods (I tried to tell them I was jealous, but they just wouldn’t listen), and I more or less brought their kingdom to an end.

But after a while, I felt like the market was ripe for a sequel—so I sent my son down to shake things up a bit.

Or did I send myself down?

I’m not sure.

Either way, my son and/or I took the form of a bearded, long-haired man in sandals, and went on a mission preaching to and healing the people, turning water into wine and ice into popsicles, and doing some other things involving reindeer, chocolate eggs, holy water, and communion wafers. I also added a few new laws, like "Do not do unto others as Bill O’Reilly would like to do unto Obama," "Forgive and you will be forgiven (of a sin of equal or lesser value)," "You can’t serve both the Mets and the Yankees; you can’t serve both God and money; you can’t serve both red wine and blue cheese," and "Beware of all false prophets, all fat bearded men in red suits, and all infomercial pitchmen promising $19.99 miracles."

Part Two was hardly anything like Part One—and most people really noticed. In fact, one group was so upset about the changes that it banded together and killed me.

But after a few days, I decided death wasn’t for me—so I rose from the dead, did my thing for a few more weeks, and then relocated uptown and moved back in with my self and my other self.

Amen.

Religious founder. That's not something they cover on career day at school. The world doesn't really present that as an option. "You can be a lawyer, you can be a doctor, you can start a religion." No. They draw some lines--and very few people cross them.

Well--I guess it's because religious founders seldom really make it anywhere in the world. For every one Jesus, Buddha, or Muhammad, there have been quite a few Billy the Prophets. Remember Billy the Prophet? No? That's because his religion was cancelled after the pilot episode. Yeah--the world wasn't ready for a law against using both a fork and a spoon. Billy the Prophet told us to use one or the other. It's in the book of Billeviticus.

Religions are a lot like TV shows and movies. There are a lot of spinoffs, remakes, and sequels.

I’ll bet when the New Testament came out, a lot of people said, “Oh brother. They made a sequel out of that? Like the first one wasn't long enough.” But it went on to become the most popular sequel of all time. Even Lethal Weapon 2 and Terminator 2 aren’t close. I’ll bet Moses wasn't too happy about its popularity. Because they replaced him as the lead, and their revenues went up 20,000%. It didn’t make him look so great. That’s never happened to Will Smith before. I don't think it's going to happen to him. Independence Day II starring Johnny Depp isn't going to gross $100 billion. Imagine Moses calling his agent after The New Testament’s success. “You got anything for me?” “We’re working on it.” “An audition? Anything?” “Mo baby--it’s not looking so great."

I haven't come across too many prequels, though. Has anyone ever tried a prequel to a religion? That could kind of work for Christianity. After all, the Bible skips most of Jesus's life. It covers his birth, the days after his birth, an event when he was twelve--and then it skips to when he was 30.

Nowadays, almost everyone has a Facebook page, or Twitter account, or Blog. Can you imagine what the internet would be like now if it had been invented two thousand years ago?

Jesus would've had a blog that would still be online today. People would've left comments. And in case you don't know, blog comments often __.

Just imagine going to Jesus's blog now and seeing a 2 millenium old comment. One dated July 5, 30 AD. “Nice religion, douchebag. No one's going to follow some loser who can’t even afford sneakers. You and your 12 Apostles are gay.” Jesus would've followed up with a Christian response and ended with, “Even though you seem to hate me, I still love you. Jesus will always love you.” And the other guy would’ve responded, “You're getting gayer and gayer by the minute. I don’t care how many towns you go to. You and the Apostles will never spread the Gospel. The only thing you'll spread is AIDS.”

That guy really would've been a test for Jesus. Jesus might've been tempted to take a different path. “Spread AIDS, huh? That's it. This guy's dead. It won't really be murder. I brought back Lazarus, and now I'm going to kill this guy. Plus one, minus one. One cancels out the other."

It's a good thing the internet wasn't around back then. Jesus might’ve made a few changes to his Gospel. "’Love your neighbor as yourself?’ Uh--that seems a little extreme. How about, 'Love your neighbor. Sort of.'”

Although Jesus's Christian attitude might've converted the guy commenting on his blog. Because there aren't too many Christian-like people on the internet. I've never seen an exchange like “Drop dead, douche.” Reply - “I love you.” We need some sort of a modern internet Jesus. He should go from website to website just like Jesus went from town to town.

Did Jesus really wear sandals? We That's just a rumor floating around. We don't really know that much about him. He might've worn $1,000 Bruno Magli shoes for all we know. We can;t really on 15th hand accounts. THe Bible itself doesn't mention sandals. i think we need a variety of Jesus depictions. I know we have some black Jesuses. That's good--but we need more. We need Jesus wearing Bruno Magli shoes.

A while ago, I came across the Maker’s Diet. It’s a diet that’s based on the Bible. I’m pretty familiar with the Bible. Let’s see. There’s Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Matt, Mark, Luke, John--I don't recall seeing a book of fat loss anywhere. Maybe it's only in the Protestant Bible. King David looked pretty lean. Maybe there are some fat loss tips in Psalms. Psalm 21: " " Jesus was thin, too. What did he do? He starved himself for 40 days and 40 nights, and then he ate some bread and fish. There we go. The Jesus Diet. That’s better than the Maker’s Diet. Jesus is like the Heidi Klum of the Bible. When it comes to thinness.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that there is a Bible-based diet. When it comes to the Bible or dieting, people will use any angle.