Diabiblical

I haven't posted in a while due to midterms, but during that time, and some time before, there has been something contradicting and repulsive I have noticed in contemporary politics and religion. It doesn't make sense to me, and probably doesn't make sense to numerous other people in the general population. And how could it make sense? What am I talking about? The blatant contradiction and misuse of biblical scriptures to justify and argue for or against anything, no matter if there is an actual problem or not.

I have talked about this in other posts, and usually pointing out where scripture and policies and beliefs differ. For instance, the protests that women should be murdered for having an abortion. Or again, that socialism is "bad" when Jesus was a socialist. Why is there a contradiction between belief and the actual Bible? What is this dissonance between what is said and what the Bible has to say? And with complete contradiction to the Word of God, why do Christians still rally behind the Bible?

I can't exactly explain this phenomenon at this time, but I have given it a name. I call it diabiblical. I have given this word several layers (as any coined word should have). It is partly a contraction of diabolic (meaning "devilish") and biblical. It is also a contraction of dia (meaning "two") and biblical, insinuating that there are two Bibles that is being rallied behind. And with these two main layers of meaning, there are a few other layers that I will leave others to subjectively interpret as they wish, because it's more fun that way. That's not a cop-out, but if I enframe the sub-layers further, then I will tarnish personal subjective meaning that others would create from their own experience. I'd rather people think for themselves (as they should).

I believe that this diabiblical response to nearly everything spawns from several different origins, but one of the main ones is likely to be that many Christians have never read the Bible, except the few passages they had to read in Sunday school. Most Christians I have met have never read the Bible (I do know many who have, but most have not). I have met many Atheists who denounced their faith after reading the Bible. Funny thing is, most people that I know who have read the Bible are actually Atheist. I can't blame them, because the Bible is one terrific book (I use terrific in the double sense of "excellent" and "amazing", but also as "terror" and "horrible").

One of my cousins wrote on his Facebook: "It's a good thing that the Bible doesn't say to kill people, or there would be a lot of dead people around." I pointed out to him that the Bible is filled with "thou shalt utterly destroy" these people or that people, and then questioned if he had ever read the Bible. I occasionally like to say that I want to go read something brutally violent, destructive, horrible, and unjust, and then clarify that I'm going to go read the Bible. (A friend of mine jokingly responded to that once by saying, "That's why it's called the Good Book").

So what's going on here? I think Christianity today has skewed whatever the idea of God is in the wrong direction, and then spoon feeds this diabiblical nonsense to the masses. Could it be that there is new God in town? That suddenly the devil is masquerading as an Angel of Light? (I.e. Lucifer, "the morning light" or "star"). Suddenly to kill and to hate and divide is the work of God, while to unite and love each other (the message of Christ) is the work of the Devil. It's as if Christians want to bring back the God of the Old Testament. The best way to sum up the God of the Old Testament was made by Richard Dawkins, so I will quote it:

"The God of the Old Testament is arguable the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Those of us schooled from infacy in his ways can become desensitized to their horror."

The God of the Old Testament sounds an awful (no pun intended) lot like the God of Westboro Baptist Church (God hates fags!), the Tea Party (miscarriage is murder!), the entire Bible Belt (let's have ourselves a lynchin'!), and so forth. Jesus was such a breath of fresh air after reading the Old Testament. Suddenly there is a character who preaches love, care for the sick and poor, piousness, and more love, and then some more love. Now the God of the Old Testament is being revived. I liked Jesus more than his father.

There is a Christian Gnostic belief that the Old Testament God was actually Satan masquerading as God. I can see that. Especially since I think Christians went back to the Old Testament God, then there must be some sort of return of Satan. So diabolic is the message of the Bible.

"And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light!"
~II Corinthians 11: 14