100% PROOF THE BIBLE IS TRUE. BUT REALLY.

That’s right. Throughout history no one has been able to do what I’m about to do: prove the Bible is fucking true.

LOL. But let’s have some fun.

FIRST: WHAT IS TRUE?

It all hinges on this, right?

Is the boy who cried wolf true? This little gem was written by Aesop. But if there was literally a little shepherd boy who literally cried out “wolf!!” multiple times and eventually literally saw an actual wolf and the villagers didn’t come to save him because they thought he was kidding, would it make the story any different, better, or worse?

Who cares, right?

We all know it’s true that it’s not smart to lie all the time because as Aesop said, "people don’t believe liars even when they’re telling the truth”. That’s the point of the story - and what makes it true to us today - not whether it literally happened or not.

It seems to me that the more people focus on the literalness of the Bible they lose the the point of the Bible. In other words, focusing on whether or not some king lived thousands of years ago and killed some other people and then built a city on slave labor usually distracts from the points of the story: as in, you shouldn’t use people when you get in power even though you were once used by others while they were in power. And the people who usually give the least flying fucks about whether any of this stuff literally happened or not, are the people performing miracles today.

So, we’re definitely talking about point of truth here - not literal truth.

SECOND: THE CHARACTERS

At the risk of boring the hell out of myself and everyone who would ever read this, let’s keep things real simple. In the main story of the Bible (some argue the entire thing leads up to this story and carries the impact of that story) there are 2 main characters: Jesus (you may have heard of him) and the Pharisees (you may have heard of them but there’s a lesser chance).

Jesus: yeah, the hero, the main character. He said all kinds of crazy shit, hung out with all kinds of crazy people, got a little crew together, went all over the countryside and did lots of talking - mainly told stories (kinda like the boy who cried wolf) - got lots of people to love him enough they would die for him and got lots of people to hate him enough they would kill him (literally).

Cue… the Pharisees.

Pharisees: yeah, the villains for sure. These are the dudes Jesus is always talking shit to and some of it is downright harsh. “Vipers”, “whitewashed tombs”, and one of my favorites “You travel over land and sea to create one convert but you make them twice the sons of hell you are”. Ouch.

Jesus said all kinds of stuff - but back to the Pharisees. They were the ones who went to church every day. They were the ones that did everything “right”. They were the ones that studied the Bible, judged people for living wrong, and also - real important - they had the power. Yeah, they were basically in bed with the government leaders who carried the swords (and built the crosses for them) and protected them.

THIRD: THE CONFLICT

Alright, so Jesus comes talking to these people going to church every day and studying the Bible and feeling pretty good because they hung out with the government leaders and had lots of power and money and he tells them, basically, that they are fucking idiots who have EVERYTHING wrong.

Yes, everything. (Well 99.9% of things)

Joke is, not to get too far into it because, again, could be pretty boring, Jesus was just another prophet in a long line of prophets (whose words make up a ton of the Torah - the “Bible” of the day and current Old Testament) who were saying, basically, the same things for hundreds of years.

You guys are seriously awful. You get it all wrong. You get some power and then you enslave people, judge people, get all worked up over memorizing some verses and some rules and you FUCKING MISS THE ENTIRE POINT! You’re supposed to love people god damn it, you’re supposed to take care of them, you’re supposed to realize that you’re all connected, that you’re all the same, god even, and this “life” you think is going to come someday because you do everything “right” is right here and now, in front of your face but you can't see it because you’re so damned distracted by being right and better and pleasing god and sucking up to whomever will give you power and money.… and while you’re waiting for that life you’re completely screwing up this one, for yourselves and everyone around you… okay you get it.

If you want verses for of this I’ll happily provide them but I mean just google “woes Pharisees”, or read Amos, or shit, just read any of the Gospels - hard to miss. I mean, unless you’re the majority of Christians today (but I’m getting ahead of myself.)

Just google “the sheep and the goats”.

FOURTH: THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS

This story is bomb. Jesus told it but you’ll rarely hear it in any church because it kinda goes against 99.9% of most things churches spend 99.9% of their time focusing on.

All the people around Jesus were like, Jesus how are we going to know we’re “in”? Tell us! When it’s all over, how do we know if we’re on team Jesus or team Devil?

And Jesus says, well I’ll tell you a little story (again Jesus loved telling stories because stories are powerful and no one worries whether they are literal or not because they are more powerful than that) about people who fed me, clothed me, helped me when I was sick and visited me in jail. That’s my team.

Wait, Jesus was in jail?

Wait.

And Jesus went on with his story, those people that are “in” have some questions… like we all do… when the hell did we do this? You weren’t in jail. And he says, no, no, when you visited “the least of these” you did it to me. And they’re like, that’s dope. Cool.

They didn’t even know what they had done. One could say their left hand didn’t know what their right hand was doing (cue Sermon on the Mount - you can goggle that too.)

And then…

Jesus, in the story, looks at these other people who think they’re all dope because they memorized a bunch of verses and plastered them all over their cars and walls and websites, sung a bunch of songs, made offerings, tithed, and followed all the “rules” (I’m grabbing all of this from other verses - not this specific story - but it works) and Jesus says get the hell outta here you fools. You didn’t do shit: you never invited me in, you never fed me, you never helped. And they’re like what… how could you be in jail… and he’s like you never did these to the “least of these” and you never did them to me - see ya!

FIFTH: THE CONFLICT PART TWO

Okay, so Jesus basically talked so much shit to the Pharisees they were finally like, this dude is ruining us. He’s hanging out with prostitutes, poor people, tax collectors, immigrants, people who have abortions, gays, and lots of other gross, wrong, terrible people and they all love him and he’s acting like he’s their savior or something and he’s doing NOTHING that we’re supposed to do. And also he talks a lot of shit about us and we’re perfect so it probably means he must be a complete disaster - because we, of course, aren’t.

We should probably kill him.

Seriously, we should take this dude out - he’s going to ruin everything for us. (If hanging out with the “wrong” people and saying things about loving people and not hoarding material goods and recommending to generally stop being a dick is ruining you, well that’s a clue of what you’re doing.)

Irony again, they can’t hear the prophet they claim to be waiting for because when he came he didn’t say what the wanted him to say even while the prophet says some people have “ears to hear” and some don’t.

So they buddy up with their government buddies and say, look this guy is talking shit about us, and YOU! He’s saying that you shouldn’t bow to the flag of Rome! He’s basically kneeling during the anthem and not taking his hat off! We can’t have that. And they say, you sure we should kill him? People seem to like this dude and we don’t really want a rebellion - because those are annoying, and we’ll have to kill lots more people and probably end up losing some of our soldiers for your stupid religious wars.

And they’re like whoa! This is not a religious war. You think we should separate church and state or something stupid Caesar? He’s threatening your power (I mean really our power but YOUR power.) We should kill him - in fact, we’ll get all the people to ask you to release a notorious prisoner over this yahoo, just to prove it to you.

So they do. And this government - which is not a beacon of peace and love, the leader basically says “You guys are nut jobs - I don’t really know why you want him dead but I’m washing my hands of this shit. And the Pharisees are like, that’s fine, kill him!

And the villains crucify the hero for talking shit about their religion, their power, their complete and utter mis-understanding of religion (because they couldn’t even understand that he was saying all religion sucks and the entire Torah was saying the same thing) and their absolute lack of spirituality or enlightenment or waking up (as Anthony DeMello puts it). I love DeMello.

SIXTH: TODAY

Okay so that’s the summary of the story. And like the boy who cried wolf, who cares if it literally happened exactly like all of that - is it happening?

Hopefully you’re laughing now.

Look around. Jesus said, with his own words, that the stranger, the criminal, the hungry, the immigrant, the sick, they are him. So Jesus is still around. Before jetting out of here, he also told his crew to be like him - be perfect like him - and say the shit he said. Go turn over tables of churches, go tell these religious leaders they are COMPLETELY missing the point. So we can very safely assume the character of Jesus is most definitely still around.

And the Pharisees - well whomever are the ones that think they have it all figured out, study the Bible, quote verses, judge everyone for doing it wrong and buddy up with government for power and protection - and act like they’re supposed - that’s them. They seem to most definitely still around - and the crowds that love them and follow them like blind sheep also seem to be around.

And when the conflict happens today - it does every day - the Pharisees are STILL killing Jesus.

Every damn day.

SEVENTH: WHAT ABOUT?

I can hear the rebuttals to this because I was a pastor for 10 years (before leaving the job and the religion) and heard rebutalls every week - with people bringing print outs of quotes and sending me transcribed emails of things I’ve said.

I can hear them: this little article thing is garbage and liberal and coming from a socialist, woke, perspective that is the worst thing in the world. It is evil. It is what Jesus talked about with the sheep in wolves clothing and don’t listen to this because it’s heresy.

The crazy thing is that for every rebuttal it only enforces the point more. The rebuttals are just more proof that the story is still happening. Not the rebuttals to me, but the rebuttals to the points of Jesus.

The rebuttals are basically word for almost freaking word (allowing for thousands of years of interpretations and languages and shit). So, those rebuttal people can’t be trusted, because the story says they’re wrong and it spells out exactly how they respond to “truth” that could set them free…. but they don’t want to be free.

And this is where things get kinda sad.

Because there were some Pharisees who listened to Jesus and went and visited him at night because they didn’t want to piss off their buddies and in those conversations is where the old John 3:16 at football games comes out. Jesus is talking to a religious powerful leader who is listening and starting to believe he might just have been completely wrong the whole time.

He was willing to say “Shit, what if this religion I’ve been following and leading isn’t what I thought it was?”

And he got free.

Back to those that aren’t.

How do the masses learn to desire their oppression as though it was their liberation? Killer quote from Spinoza. One kind of prophet (the easy prophet) tells the enslaved they can be free. Another kind of prophet (the harder one) tells the free they are actually enslaved. Killer quote form Rohr.

And there are a million more quotes like this because the Jesus characters (Buddha, Mohammed, and the whole list of mystery lovers (many of whom are scientists who don't even believe in god - yeah this really pisses off Pharisees) they’ve been saying it to the enslaved Pharisees (the people who love power and telling people what to do under the guise of religion and being god’s police officers) since the beginning of time.

The whole time.

Your truth is enslaving you - like it always has - because it’s NOT TRUE. You’re deceived like you’ve always been because you hate all the verses like “If you don’t have love, you have nothing” and “even the demons believe”. Yeah you’re still missing the point and enslaved and it’s sad because you’re killing the Jesus message today and the representatives of him everywhere.

And you’re completely missing out on everything you think you’re getting - although deep inside you kinda know it.

Like they did.

We always hate what we most fear in ourselves and they hated this guy because he was hi-lighting facts about themselves that they didn’t want to look at - and if they shut him up, they didn’t have to look at themselves anymore, because that’s the scariest thing in the world to do.

EIGHTH: SO….

This really should have ended with seven because seven is a perfect, holy, number and that would have been cool but oh well.

So….

What’s your point Ryan? I should read the Bible? I should accept Jesus? I should believe you?

LOL.

All I can say is this: it would be really tempting to end all of this by pointing out all the idiot Pharisees and how much they suck and how great we are who don’t suck and who don't act like them.

But, that would kinda be a Pharisee thing to do.

So, instead, I wrote all of this only so I could look at myself in the mirror and say “Yo, Ryan, where do you act like these fuckers? What rules do you think you follow to earn something? What groups do you love to look down to make yourself feel better? What “beliefs” are all the rage in your head own so that you don’t have to actually get your hands dirty with an actual human?”

But, also to make myself feel better, because, to be completely honest, these Christian nut-balls drive me absolutely insane, and get me really angry, and make me want to throw something or punch someone and then I remember, if the Bible is true, there are no stories about people who were assholes - even to assholes - really getting very far in life. And I’ve been a Pharisee and, trust me, it doesn’t get anyone very far either.

So, be kind. Be vulnerable. Have empathy. And as someone once said the 3 hardest things to do as a human are:

Return love for hate
Include the excluded
Admit you were wrong

Do all of that. That’s what I’m trying to do.

Because, there are all kinds of stories and examples and encouragements of those in the Bible too. Those people find life in the Bible and we all know the Bible is true so it must be true today too.