Jesonian–Troubling (Part 1)… July 1st, 2017

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(3355)

“Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.”

These are the words of Jesus.

But you see, there’s my problem. Believing in Jesus is simpler for me. It’s believing in God that itches my brain.

You see, God has a lot of history–thirty-nine books of Old Testament, filled with murder, mayhem, racism and contradictions–before we arrive at the doorstep of the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth, where Jesus emerges and begins to speak to the world.

Every once in a while, I’m sitting in a room by myself and a sudden gust of realization sweeps in and blows my mind.

God?? What in the hell am I thinking? How could there be a God?

And this isn’t because there are bad things happening–it’s just that the stories told about this god are similar to the Greek mythology concerning Zeus. All at once, I am inundated with feelings of foolishness and slowly, bitterness jumps into my heart, mocking me for following such ancient tales.

Sometimes the Holy Bible reads like a Grimm fairy tale, full of witches, warlocks and little boys and girls threatened because they’re on their way to grandma’s house.

But then I pause. Why? It’s the chimpanzee.

Although I believe that science is the favorite hobby of the Father in Heaven, the order in the Universe, even in the midst of chaos, and the fact that human beings exist, hearkens to the presence of a Universal Creator. Feel free to try to deteriorate the human spirit, soul and intellect, and place it side-by-side with the animals–but if any one of us spent a week trying to reason, infiltrate and dine with chimpanzees (supposedly our closest relative) we would quickly return to the human race with newfound appreciation.

I’m sorry–animals are animals and people are people. There’s a huge gap. Somebody–did you hear me?–somebody put that gap there.

On the other hand, upon spending several weeks with the chimpanzees of theology, I am equally as baffled by the fact that for some inexplicable reason, they want to blur the God of Judaism with the person of Jesus.

So if the proclamation is, God is Jesus–I’m there, and the spiritual evolution from God and the devil playing poker with Job’s soul, to “love your neighbor as yourself” was needed and makes complete sense.

But if Jesus is God, I really have to include stories from the old volume, which are absolutely implausible, without merit and of no benefit to any creature on heaven or Earth.

It is troubling.

Without being accusatory, may I suggest that all of us, to some degree, are turmoiled by this mish-mash and collision of meaningless facts being thrown together into one book called the Bible and then dubbed “Holy.”

If you will allow me, over the next couple of weeks, I would like to deal with this troubling situation–because to a certain degree, all an atheist has to say to any Christian is, “Really???” and we are immediately defensive.

Because we possess our own doubts.

So doubts be damned and discussion begun, I will see you next week.

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Populie: We’re Only Human… November 26, 2014

 Jonathots Daily Blog

(2425)

A mite of monkey

A little lion

A bit of bird

A teaspoon of turtle

A cup of camel

A dab of dog

A pinch of perch

And a dash of dinosaur.

Human beings. That’s who we are.

We are the storage warehouse–the culmination of all evolution–and the art museum for the Creator’s masterpieces.

Yet “we’re human” is used as an excuse instead of a motivation.

Politics loves the populie, “we’re only human,” because it provides an adequate excuse for the latest scandal.

Entertainment extols the virtue of our limitations so as to look on the darker side of our appetites, providing for a more venial outlook on our progress as a species.

And of course, religion feels the need to make us look as weak as possible in an attempt to maintain the strength of the Almighty.

We get sucked up in it.

We begin to believe that we are just part of the animal kingdom, even though Jesus jokingly, tongue in cheek, told the disciples they were worth “many sparrows.”

If we do gain a moment’s breath of spirituality, we’re encouraged to seek false humility in our attempt to worship God instead of seeking the “Christ in us,” which is the hope of glorious things happening.

Here are three things about human beings. I would ask you to place them deep in your memory banks and make sure, the next time you’re feeling sorry for yourself, that you recall these ample axioms:

1. We are created in God’s image.

If you’re an atheist, you are still aware that going into business with what you perceive to be your nearest relative, the chimpanzee, would certainly make for a failed project. We are unique by creation. If you do not believe in such a thing, we at least are unique by design.

2. We can feel, pray, think and do our way into or out of any difficulty.

There is no other species which has ever lived on earth with that quartet of possibilities.

3. We can choose to love.

Other animals mate, have bonds, maintain connections through offspring, but never really get the choice of loving.

These three things, combined, grant us an inner aura of divine nature, which can either be tapped or drained. The choice is yours.

But do not allow yourself to become part of a culture which, in an attempt to do away with God and personal responsibility, degrades the human being down to the level of porpoise instead of uplifting us to purpose. 

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling.

*****

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G-16: Monkey Angels … March 21, 2014

Jonathots Daily Blog  

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It takes billions of years to evolve billions of years.

Therefore, it stands to reason that following billions of years, billions of things probably happened.

Yes, in the culmination of billions of years, the universe was birthed–with a tiny little baby planet called Earth, occupied by a bizarre diversity of flora and fauna, sharing one common concern: survival.

It is a situation which Nature blindly accepts, but a Creator ponders:

• Is there more than survival?
• Can a creature be brought forth from the jungle and be granted an emotional awareness, a deeper mental capacity and a spiritual yearning?

Monkey angels.

The Creator formed a being which was unwelcome in the arms of Mama Gorilla, and required a bit of rehab in order to hob-nob with the angels–a homey with no natural home.

Human: monkey angels.

A little bit of everything tossed in the crankcase, never quite certain if the engine will actually turn over.

Monkeys are unimpressed and angels are baffled. Are we a joke? A drunken experiment? A paradox? A mystery? Or the pride of the original “Big Banger” Himself?

It certainly explains why we feel insecure. It clarifies our nagging sensation of not belonging. It justifies the search to find ourselves.

It is why our monkey curiosity caused us to choose the wrong tree, leaving our angel abandoned in the jungle, needing the garden. We require both a cage and the freedom of the sky.

The entire creation of monkey angels seems a bit tongue-in-cheek. It is suited to those who have the playfulness of the chimpanzee and the resilience of an archangel.

Monkey angels: more than survival–chasing the banana for further study.

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The Mars and Venus War … July 14, 2013

Jonathots Daily Blog

(1943)

I think it would have to be a really creepy laboratory–moss hanging from the rafters, bats flying by at odd intervals, spider webs and very little light. I mean, if you’re going to create a castle to experiment on how to destroy mankind, you might as well make it ominous and bizarre.

In this hostile environment, you must sit down and draft a hideous plan.

You could simulate the demise of humankind by creating a race war: black against white, red against yellow, brown against tan. But here’s the thing–human sexuality has us falling in love with all sorts of different colors, and eventually, on this little orb called earth, we will probably end up being the color of the dust from which we were created.

Perhaps in your laboratory you could propagate a religious war–where the faithful of one inclination decide to go on a crusade to destroy the infidels of another. But you see, human beings are strange. There are always a few–be they Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, or any other number of faith flavors–who come along and preach brotherhood, goodness, kindness and mercy.

I suppose you could try to use global warming, thermonuclear war, terrorism or some other frightening specter to dispel life from our planetary home. But we always seem to find some ingenious person who comes up with a great idea just in the nick of time–to make a light bulb instead of cursing the darkness.

So I think what I would do in MY sinister arena is promote an ongoing conflict between men and women that is masked by comedy–but at its root is a nasty bit of viciousness which eventually causes the two genders to lose desire for one another, believing the linking to be futile.

Yes. Just convince everybody on earth that men and women are incapable of getting along, and pretty soon you’ll have fifty per cent of the people fighting the other fifty per cent. What a devious stroke of macabre genius!

And then, here is the final unbelievable addition: you’re able to convince EVERYBODY that it’s true, whether they’re conservative or liberal, Christian or Jew, north or south, circumcised or uncircumcised–English muffin or bagel.

Then you can sit back in glee and watch the whole carnival implode on itself as one tiny little Calliope breathes its final notes.

OR … we could realize that God made men and women. He made physical differences so we could pleasure one another and also procreate the planet. Pretty good system. (Please note that God rarely asks us to do anything that improves our situation without giving us pleasure in the process…)

He told both man and women that they had dominion over the earth. He told both of them that they were equally responsible for caretaking the territory. Matter of fact, if you want to follow the theme of the story, woman came from man. How different could she be?

Yet we insist that somehow or another, through the manipulation of our culture, the laziness of our ethics and the backwardness of our theology, that men and women are just hobgoblins to each other.

If you will allow me: God made male and female.

The physical differences between us create the potential for continuing our existence. Yet the Father said “in the kingdom of God, there is neither male or female.” That means when we actually reach out of ourselves to higher thoughts, deeper spirituality and greater understanding, both genders take the same journey.

If you happen to be a Christian, you believe that the promise of your Messiah came through a woman. After all, it was a virgin birth, with some assistance from the Divine but none from Joseph.

The truth is, none of us know exactly what the differences are between men and women because no one has tried to accentuate the similarities. We truthfully spend more time figuring out our commonality with the porpoise and the chimpanzee than we do with Dick and Jane. It not only creates inequality, it fails to energize the potential which exists by the fusion of the two sexes in unity instead of conflict.

So I will not join in.

Any female member of the species who wants to come into my space will be treated as a human being, and the anticipation will be that she can pull her own load and she will be heard in all circumstances. I’m looking for reasons to get along instead of poking holes into the possibility of great fellowship.

So if you want to join this generation’s slide into insanity by negating one another based upon our sexual organs, you can feel free. it’s a very popular idea. But if we’re going to survive, we’re going to need each other–women and men.

And if you believe men are from Mars and women are from Venus, and you’re not prepared to build a space ship–be prepared to have the planet you so adore diminish in beauty, because there aren’t two caretakers.

 

The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity

Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about personal appearances or scheduling an event