David Against the World

First Samuel 17 ~ Second Samuel 2

A Philistine, Goliath (who is huge) challenges Israel. David goes to fight him with permission from Saul. David shoots a rock at him with a sling and then kills him with Goliath's own sword. The army wins the Philistines. David and Jonathan (Saul's son) becomes friends.

Soon, when Saul starts worrying that David will take his place of king, he keeps sending David to wars, always to return with victory. When Saul tries to kill David diretly, David runs away. While Saul was searching for David, David had the chance of killing Saul in his sleep, but doesn't. When Saul wakes up, he sees what he has done wrong.

Saul gets told by Samuel that he is to die with his sons the next day. While David fought some Philistines and won, Saul's sons were killed by the Philistines in their own war. Saul suicides. David and his people mourned for all of them. Then David goes to Hebron where he is blessed as a king. Meanwhile, Abner and Ish-bosheth were ruling the other side of the Jordan River.


In the fight between David and Goliath, I think it had much more meaning than just how you would be better off believing in God. It also shows that sometimes the small can win the big, that the young can win the old, and so on. Don't underestimate prairie dogs just because they are small and cute. They can kill you.

When David had the chance of killing Saul, he said:
"Behold, this day thine eyes have seen how that the LORD had delivered thee to day into mine hand in the cave: and some bade me kill thee: but mine eye spared thee; and I said, I will not put forth mine hand against my lord; for he is the LORD’S anointed." (First Samuel 24:10)
Something about how he didn't kill him, for he was chosen as a king from God in the first place. Since God had already regretted having Saul as king and wanted another, killing Saul wouldn't have been much. Actually, I think it would have saved Jonathan too. Well, too bad.

It's cool how David goes through all this trouble (although, typically, he overcomes it all and goes on to his next trouble). It's like as if David is the hero of our comic book, and it's him against the rest of the world. I'm just saying.

Reward for the Sinned

Job 11~42

Job keeps claiming himself as righteous before his three friends. Then Elihu appears. He tells Job that it is only God whom decides whether he s righteous or not, and that what he has said is questioning God. Also, he points out that the friends have done wrong too, for they have condemned Job, yet with no answers. Elihu does his long persuading, until God summons a whirlwind and strikes Job with many questions. Job finds what he has done wrong and prays to God for his sin. Job and his friends make an offering to God, who accepts it happily. Job's skin got back to normal, and soon, all his belongings came back. More kids, more animals, etc.


This was not like any other story. At least all the others were kind of linked with each other. The story continued from where it left off. This was different. This was more of a 'once upon a time' thing. I think Job is just a short story to give us the lesson of how religious beliefs were God-based and not human-based.

This was one long book. It wasn't all that particularly long compared to other books, just that most of it were conversations that sort of kept talking about the same thing over and over again. But whatever.

Elihu is a really good persuader. I learned about persuading methods in school, so this was somewhat interesting. Well, not really. You see, I'm sleepy. But he really used well-combined words to convince both Job and his friends of the concept of right and wrong. This can be seen in
mostly anything he says. Here's an example: "Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God’s?" (Job 35:2)

Although Job sinned, he didn't curse God in the end. Just claimed himself as righteous. Right. Job gets rewarded in the end. Happy ending. Woohoo. But then, I start wondering: What happened to Satan? After chapter two, I never saw him again. What is he up to now, I wonder.

Job is too Talkative

Job 1~10

Job is a wealthy guy who is very loyal to god. One day, Satan comes over to God and says that Job will surely curse God if he were to take away all his property. To test Job, all his animals, servants, house, and children were all killed. Yet, Job remained loyal to God. Then, Satan gave Job soars all over the body. His three friends (Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar) came to Job to mourn with him and all that stuff. They soon talk about how Job must have made a sin, or else God wouldn't have punished him. Blah blah blah.

First point to make. Satan has actually appeared for the first time (as far as I know)! Another thing to note was here:
"Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them." (Job 1:6)
What do they mean by 'sons of God' here? Are they referring to angels? People? Jesus maybe? Logically, it wouldn't be people or Jesus, so it would be angels. But then, the word 'angel' did not appear even once in Genesis and Exodus.

I was amazed at Job's loyalty towards God. If they killed my sons, took my animals, and all those stuff Job had gone through, I would have lost all hope and would have started to beg to God or something like that. If not that, I would have had a 'oh-whatever-screw-God' kind of attitude. I'm just lucky it didn't happen to me.

Most of the text in Job were conversations between Job and his friends, so it was sort of boring. More boring than most other things I have read. But whatever. It's a famous story and one of those classic-must-be-read kind of thing.

But seriously. Stop talking so much. [sad face]

Is it All Coincidence?

Exodus 3~20

Moses sees a bush on fire, though not burning. There he talks with God abut how he was chosen to save his people in Egypt. He meets Aaron and goe to Egypt. They ask to take their people as well as their property and animals. The pharaoh doesn't listen, does he? They made the river into blood, summoned frogs, fleas, lice, and flies. Then he killed their animals, gave skin disease, sent storms, grasshoppers, and even blocked the sun. The pharaoh still didn't agree. So God kills all the non-Israelite peoples' oldest son, including that of the pharoah. Finally they are set free.

The people follow the cloud and the fire, until they get to the Red Sea, which they cannot cross. Moreover, the Egyptian army was coming towards them from behind. Now the super-famous story. Moses splits the water, creating a path.

Now hold it right there.
Remember how I said before that the Noah's Ark might be true? There was a similar story in Gilgamesh, and as it happens, in the story of Deucalion and Pyrrha (from Greek mythology) as well. What I'm trying to say that these things might have been history. So, the story of Moses splitting the sea might have been history too. There's actually a scientific theory that this might have been possible at the time. They might have just simply crossed the sea when it was low tide, and it came back on high tide.
If this is true, the following quote, "But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left." (Exodus 14:26), is either false or exaggerated. I'm just saying. Oh, by the way, that semicolon is part of the quote, so do not castrate me for the sake of all that is pretty and pretty.


Back to the story. They cross, and while the Egyptian army is still crossing the sea, the sea reunites, drowning them. God constantly saves them (despite their frequent disbelief), by providing them water, birds, bread, victory in fights, etc.

Moses then goes up the mountain to meet God, where he is to be given the Ten Commandments.


As said before, this could have been all coincidence. Egypt could have been going through a drought and an eclipse, you know? If all these stuff were true, it would be something big. However, it's not all that probable, right?

This is where you can like seriously see God's forgivingness. The people start whining, God does something to convince them and forgives them. Repeat action. I guess God really loves Moses. If continued to be read, they constantly go back to their default setting of doubting, resulting in punishment. Actually, due to God's punishments, Moses never even made it to the promised land. Too bad. He was too busy taking care of the people.

If you noticed, I keep making points that lead to that the stories in the Bible are not acts of God. Well, I'm just saying that because it's interesting, you know? I'm Christian, so I do believe that. I just somehow try to have it make sense when matched together with another piece, so that we can all be right and we all live happily ever after.


So yeah. Cool.
TEEHEE

Fight with God

Genesis 22~35

God tells Abraham to offer Isaac, his only son, as sacrifice. Just as he is about to kill his son on the top of the mountain, an angel orders him to stop, and says that since Abraham was loyal to God, he is blessed by him.

Many years later, Abraham orders a servant to find a wife for Isaac. He finds Rebekah. She marries Isaac, having fallen in love with other at first glance. Rebekah soon bears twins. Jacob and Esau were born. Esau became a hunter, and Jacob became a plain man. Esau was the older brother. Isaac loved Esau, but Rebekah lover Jacob. One day, Esau gave away his birthright for bread and pottage of lentiles. (Haha, what the fudge.) One day, after Isaac had gone blind, Isaac told Esau to bring him some food, and then he were to bless him. Not wanting this, Rebekah called Jacob, made food, gave it to him, and told him to take it to Isaac, so that he could be blessed instead. Jacob runs away to Haran. He stays there twenty years with two wives and twelve sons.

When he is going back, he finds out that Esau is coming this way. He prays to god and sends presents to him. That night, someone appears before Jacob. Now here, it gets interesting. It makes you say 'what the fudge'.

I was just reading, and just out of nowhere, starts a wrestling match:
"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day." (Book of Genesis 32:24) Just like that. Wow. It's totally possible to wrestle all night, right? It gets weirder.

"Let me go, for the day breaketh." (Genesis 32:26) says God. I see no reason for you to stop wrestling. I mean, you wrestled all night, right?
"And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." (Genesis 32:26) says Jacob, against what he said. Right.

God then asks Jacob's name, and then says,
"Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." (Genesis 32:28)

What the fudge? God deides to call him Israel just like that.

So Jacob meets with Esau, and he is not mad. They have a happy ending. He gets a son called Benjamin. Then, he goes to his father, Isaac, and all is forgiven. Isaac dies at age 180.



Let's start with Esau's birthright. What the? You don't just go give away your birthright for food. That's like giving away your virginity away for money. In other words, it's like being a prostitute. Esau was like a prostitute. Uh-huh. Right. Never mind.

The post is called 'Fight with God', because that part was particularly interesting, or let's just say, weird. You don't just wrestle all night just like that. That part was just all nonsense. There was a quote that I didn't put, which was:
"Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank." (Genesis 32:32)
Yeah, of course. Right. That's not a good reason though.

Anyways, I'm sorry if something that I said had offended anyone. I didn't mean to. I just wrote whatever that came to my mind.

Human Default Settings: Evil

Noah's sons soon multiplied.

♠ Increased genetic disorders
♠ Fluctuating facial asymmetry
♠ Lower birth rate
♠ Higher infant mortality
♠ Slower growth rate
♠ Smaller adult size
♠ Loss of immune system function

These are some of the results of inbreeding. Is this why we live less these days and the people in Genesis lives over a few hundred years?


Anyways, people soon think that they can be superior to God. They started building a city so high that they would prove the previous. God decides to make different languages so that they wouldn't be able to communicate. The city was never completed. The people all separated. It is told that the people who went towards the East started eating raw fish and got funny looking eyes. Just kidding.

This is taking to long. Let me speed up. Abram and Sarai go to Egypt, but are soon kicked out. They go to Canaan, where he separates with Lot. God says something about that he will have as many sons. Abram marries Hagar and gets a son: Ishmael.

God visits Abram. (Sarai is now Sarah. Abram is Abraham) He says that Sarai will soon have a son. Anyways, he says that he will destroy Sodom for the people their were sinful (if that's a word). If there's ten righteous people he will forgive all of Sodom. Yet, there were only four: Lot and his family. They run away from Soom with Lot and his family while Sodom burns behind them. Lot's wife becomes salt for not listening to the angels who told them to not look back at Sodom.

Sarah has her son as promised. He is called Isaac. Due to fights between Hagar and Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael are sent out. On the verge of death from lack of water, God helps Hagar and Ishmael. Ishmael soon marries an Egyptian woman and becomes the leaer of a tribe.


Chapters ten through twenty-one were interesting. First of all, it explained the spread of people and the formation of languages. It was weird that the story of Babel, which is famous to represent the evil of humans, was not more than a few verses.

It was kind of sad when Hagar, along with Ishmael, were sort of kicked out. It wasn't all that fair, since Ishmael was Abraham's first son. Well, as they say. Life ain't fair. But whatever, they get a happy ending.

Another interesting thing I foundout as that God usually didn't punish someone directly, or at least, not everyone. As seen from the following quote, "And the LORD plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife." (Book of Genesis, Ch.12 - 17), he plagued the Pharoah's house. In Babel, the language was changed. Why didn't he just use his psychic powers and kill the bad people? The conclusion that I got was that although humans may be 'evil', God still loves them. In the case of Sodom, Lot was saved for being 'righteous', and in the flood before, Noah was saved.

You might be wondering why my title is 'Human Default Settings: Evil'. This is because no matter how good people are (like Noah), they somehow get evil and defy God. It's like as if their default option setting is to be naturally evil, and sooner of later, they go back to that setting. Just like Cain, the corrupt people before the flood, and the people from Sodom.

The First Man?

Down came the god from the sky
And in the short blink of an eye
Created the man, don't know why

My guess would be that he was high

The god went back flying away
The man left behind where he lay
He now was alive, hooray!
So he thanks the god and prays:

Thank you, oh thank you I say
Yet let me say this, if I may
For seeing me naked, you'll pay
Not trying to be mean, but you gay?

Being mad of the words that he said
He punished the man, who dropped dead.


I'm sorry. I was just desperate to write a poem.
I know, I know. I don't have a poetic sense.
Well, that would explain why that god created women.

Love and Punishment

Now reading the Bible. By the way, I'm Christian. Just because I'm Asian doesn't mean I'm a Buddhist or is Hindu.

Simply said, God creates the world in six days and rests on the seventh. Eve, the woman created along with Adam, decided to eat the fruit from the tree that God forbid to eat from, because a serpent persuaded her to. They are kicked out of the Garden of Eden, and they live outside with kids and all. Happy life. Well, until Cain decides to kill Abel. Cain runs off.
In the future, God decides to wipe out all living creatures, including humans. Yet, he tells Noah and his wife to get a pair of each animal to save them. Is this when unicorns went extinct? Anyways, Noah's decendants live happily. Noah dies in the end of chapter nine of the Genesis.

It kind of strikes me weird that God planted the forbidden tree of knowledge in the garden in the first place. Was it to test the newly created humans? If it were me, I would plant it in a secret garden in Russia or something like that. Maybe it was because God trusted them. But why did they act differently? I thought God knew how each person and animal was. I mean, he created them, right? My conclusion is that although he loved and trusted the humans, the snake was a fail in terms of being a pretty and nice earth creature.

God loved Adam and Eve, but then they are punished and sent out of the garden. Their kind were still loved though, until he punished them through sending a supermassive flood. Then, the descendants are loved. If thought very simply, the whole story until now is of love and/or punishment. Weird.

Again, I have to mention the fact that the story of the Noah's Ark is very similar to that of Utnapishtim in the story of Gilgamesh. I guess it's maybe unrelated, since most of what happens before and after are different. Maybe it is the same story, since it was generally in the same region (Middle East, Mesopotamia).

Tree Love!

Don't mind the title. You'll find out soon.
Anyways, I finished the script of Metamorphoses. Fun.


The last story was 'Baucis and Philemon'. Zeus and Hermes decide to go to earth to see how kind the humans were. They weren't. When dressed as beggars (which is the one thing they don't look like they disguised up as in the picture), none of them gave the beggars food or shelter. This was until they went to a hut, where Baucis and Philemon, an old couple, served them with all respect.

In this part, I noticed something about the gods that I noticed throughout the stories. They were given human characteristics and were not much different from us, seeing that they are imperfect and all that stuff. For example, in this story, they doubted that the old couple had realized who they were, showing the same feelings and emotions we non-gods have. In contrast, the Holy Bible states that God created us like his appearance.
Greek mythology = Human-like gods
Bible = God-like humans.
I think there was a word for that, which I don't remember.

So Zeus and Hermes award them by granting them a wish. They wished that they were to live together and die together. Typical noble, not greedy, pure people. I'm kind of ashamed to say this, but I would have wished for money or something like that.

So when the day of their death came, they both became trees as they watched each other. Happy ending. So that is how the title relates with the story. Woohoo!

Anyways, Metamorphoses was a very fun book (or script) to read, and it made me think of many things, one of them being: "Why doesn't anyone believe in these stories as a reliegion or something? Why is it 'mythology', and not a 'belief'?" and stuff like that. Whatever, sorry.

Conclusion:
Trees have feelings. Respect them! Save paper.
NO MORE EXAMS.