God is a dope

What did Israel do wrong to so upset God according to Ezekiel?

Surprisingly there is a lack of specifics by Ezekiel, leaving you with the feeling like a wife saying you know what you did wrong and I don't have to tell you. The few specifics are done in an allegory and not stating this is why God was punishing Israel.

• Worshipping different pagan gods
• Pride
• Facing the east with their back to the Temple
• Filling the land with violence
• Filing the land with injustice
• Not following God's laws and decrees
• Conforming to the standards of the nation surrounding them
• Rebelling
• False prophets saying things will be OK
• Women sewing magic charms on their wrist and making veils of various lengths
• Killing people who should have lived and letting people live who should have been killed
• Eating at mountain shrines
• Oppressing the poor and needy
• Robbery
• Not returning what was pledged to return
• Usury and excessive interest
• Failing to keep the Sabbath holy

But what does the God of Ezekiel offer as a punishment to these things they have done? To send armies to starve them, rape them, destroy their towns, to bring disease upon them and to scatter them.

Exactly how does that help the poor and needy?

Exactly how does that help the person who was robbed or hurt?

How can you tell a mugger from God? Was it God who sent someone to rob you or was it someone just robbing you?

This God is a dope.

Definitive proof there is a God

The book of Ezekiel makes an amazing claim. It repeats 76 times that you will know that there is a God and specifically the God Ezekiel knows. Well, this is quite outstanding and THE book to read. Some say it is faith, but Ezekiel makes it quite clear that he knows God and you will know as well.

Ezekiel writes God will inflict punishment Himself on Jerusalem because they have worshipped idols. It will be so bad that it has never happened before and will never happen again. The disaster will be so bad fathers will eat their children and children will eat their fathers. He will scatter the Jews. A third of the people will die of a plague or perish by famine. A third will fall by sword. The other third will be scattered to the winds and followed by the sword. (ed note: We know that stuff like this has happened. World War II only should be enough evidence - Biblical prophecy fail again).

Ezekiel 7:5-9

This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Disaster! An unheard-of disaster is coming. The end has come! The end has come! It has roused itself against you. It has come! Doom has come upon you—you who dwell in the land. The time has come, the day is near; there is panic, not joy, upon the mountains. I am about to pour out my wrath on you and spend my anger against you; I will judge you according to your conduct and repay you for all your detestable practices. I will not look on you with pity or spare you; I will repay you in accordance with your conduct and the detestable practices among you. Then you will know that it is I the LORD who strikes the blow.

To summarize all the things God will do so that you, dear reader, will KNOW THAT HE IS GOD are these things:

• War
• Famine
• Plague
• Hailstorms
• Violent Winds
• Torrential rains
• Earthquakes
• Sending wild beasts who will eat all the children and make this place desolate

Why does he have to use a third hand medium to punish? Why not come down himself? Why does he use another nation to punish Israel? (Then later he punishes the other nation for thinking they were above Israel)

Doesn't that sh*t happen all the time anywat? I should write a Bible book and predict such things. Boy, this prophesizing is far easier than it looks.

Anyway, science has dismissed these. We know why disease happens, micro-organisms and can get a vaccine or anti-biotic to destroy them. So, is that nullifying God's intended punishment? We understand our earth is not entire stable and how the tectonic plates shifting causes earthquakes. We know the fault lines and generally where earthquakes are likely to happen. Does God move people to these areas when he gets ready to punish them? The lightning rod controls the bolts from destroying a building and channels the energy into the ground. Could God have foreseen that? He must have been quite frustrated when Ben Franklin and Václav Prokop Diviš discovered it. We know war happens because men are religious. We know famine occurs because of poor agriculture, disorganized governments, poverty and war. We know that winds are caused by the Sun heating the earth and the hot air rising from the land. A hailstone is a product of the updrafts and down drafts that develop inside the cumulonimbus clouds of a thunderstorm, where supercooled water droplets exist. Maybe the definite proof is the wild beast eating children. This truly is a God of Love.

Ezekiel's flip-flop

Ezekiel cannot make up his mind regarding why his God kills people. He originally hears from the voice in his head it is because they don't behave.

First the righteous will live

Ezekiel 18:4-9

For every living soul belongs to me, the father as well as the son—both alike belong to me. The soul who sins is the one who will die.

“Suppose there is a righteous man who does what is just and right.

He does not eat at the mountain shrines or look to the idols of the house of Israel.

He does not defile his neighbor’s wife or lie with a woman during her period.

He does not oppress anyone, but returns what he took in pledge for a loan.

He does not commit robbery but gives his food to the hungry and provides clothing for the naked.

He does not lend at usury or take excessive interest.

He withholds his hand from doing wrong and judges fairly between man and man.

He follows my decrees and faithfully keeps my laws.

That man is righteous; he will surely live, declares the Sovereign LORD.

This is a couple chapter argument. It repeats itself regarding the above guy's son doing the opposite and how he will be punished. Then it flips the argument supposing the son does good and the father does not. Then only the father is punished. Why is the argument made? Because heretofore the Bible is fairly repetitive on children suffering the sins of their fathers. So, Ezekiel contradicts God's Word in the prior books of the Bible.

Exodus 20:4-6 - the third commandment of the 10 commandments

“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand [generations] of those who love me and keep my commandments."

Ezekiel repeats the righteous will surely live.

Ezekiel 18:19-20

“Yet you ask, ‘Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?’ Since the son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The soul who sins is the one who will die. The son will not share the guilt of the father, nor will the father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against him."

Then Ezekiel flip-flops. God will destroy the righteous

Ezekiel 21:1-5

Then this message came to me from the LORD: “Son of man, turn and face Jerusalem and prophesy against Israel and her sanctuaries. Tell her, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am your enemy, O Israel, and I am about to unsheath my sword to destroy your people—the righteous and the wicked alike. Yes, I will cut off both the righteous and the wicked! I will draw my sword against everyone in the land from south to north. Everyone in the world will know that I am the LORD. My sword is in my hand, and it will not return to its sheath until its work is finished.’

Apparently, Ezekiel just could not defend his concept of God very well. He was hoping to scare people straight and some must have done so. However, cause and effect didn't work as he thought. So God must be on a different plan or rather life didn't show him clear evidence of what this voice in his head was telling him he said f*ck it, "You ALL are going to DIE"

God's Ego Problem

Ezekiel speaks for God (snicker) saying God was ready to kick the sh*t out of His chosen people but then became concerned about what others might think.

Ezekiel 20:21-22

But the children [Israel] rebelled against me: They did not follow my decrees, they were not careful to keep my laws—although the man who obeys them will live by them and they desecarated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and spend my anger against them in the desert. But I withheld my hand, and for the sake of my name I did what would keep it from being profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out.

Ezekiel 36:22-23

Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you have gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them. Then the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Sovereign LORD, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes.

God is rubber and you are glue

The Bible has a real image problem with it's concept of God. After Ezekiel's long tirades against God's chosen people he has to make a statement like, "I am rubber and you are glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you".

Ezekiel 18:25-29

“Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, O house of Israel: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? If a righteous man turns from his righteousness and commits sin, he will die for it; because of the sin he has committed he will die. But if a wicked man turns away from the wickedness he has committed and does what is just and right, he will save his life. Because he considers all the offenses he has committed and turns away from them, he will surely live; he will not die. Yet the house of Israel says, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, O house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust?"

God needs to go to therapy

God's methodology doesn't work. Mr. Perfect Plan. Create a perfect couple who will fail. Then berate them, scold them for doing so. He keeps repeating this insane behavior expecting different results. He punishes his people and even murders them and yet they still fail to follow. Hello? Wake up, your Righteous Dudeness. It ain't working. Somehow Ezekiel doesn't point this out to God or could it be that Ezekiel is the dysfunctional person using God to control others? Hmmm.......

Ezekiel 3 (written about 593 B.C. for bible believers)

God tells Ezekiel to say to the people of Israel (triangulation anyone?) who are not listening. "I am not sending you to a foreign people whose language you cannot understand. No, I am not sending you to people with strange and difficult speech. If I did, they would listen".

Uh, God why don't you talk to the people who will listen? Are you thick?

God continues "But the people of Israel won't listen to you any more than they listen to Me! For the whole lot of them are hard-hearted and stubborn. But look, I have made you as obstinate and hard-hearted as they are. I have made your forehead as hard as the hardest rock! So, don't be afraid of them or fear their angry looks, even though they are rebels."

So instead of making Ezekiel's head as tough as a rock why doesn't he make his people soft and robotic? It really sounds like a major set up. He picked people who would not listen to him over a people who would. Doesn't that sound like a dysfunctional person?

Ezekiel 11 - (written about 592 B.C. for bible believers) the promised return of the people to the holy land after being killed, starved and scattered.

“They will return to it and remove all its vile images and detestable idols. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. They will be my people, and I will be their God."

Oy Gavalt ! This designer really takes the long route. Create them, beat the crap out of them because they won't listen. Then change them to behave. How horrible to the His chosen people.

Background:

The Northern Kingdom of Israel has been hauled off to Assyria (722–721 B.C.) because of their sins and the Southern Kingdom, Judah, is in the queue to be hauled away to Babylon. Ezekiel with a number of Jews were taken in 597 B.C. Finally, the Babylonians laid siege to Jerusalem in 588, and in July, 586, the walls were breached and the city plundered. On Aug. 14, 586, the city and temple were burned.

Wordle - The Book of Ezekiel

Click on the picture below and check out the most significant words in the book of Ezekiel, one of the books of the Old Testament.



Luke 6:45
Jesus said: The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.

They say that God is Love. Ezekiel didn't use that word even once. He does use

• Detestable 43 times
• Wicked 41 times
• Wrath 34 times
• Desolate 29 times
• Destroy 24 times
• Anger 22 times
• Doom 5 times

After reading his book these are adjectives I would use about Ezekiel:

• angry
• unimaginative
• tedious
• needlessly verbose
• boring
• judgmental
• controlling

Over the next few days I will present Ezekiel, a real fundie example, a Pat Robertson favorite. Hmmm...I might use the above adjectives about him as well.