The lord giveth - Job

I was only going to make a short little joke: The Lord giveth (Biden/Harris victory) and the lord taketh away (over 126,000 new CoVID cases in the U.S. Nov 7th). Yay god? As I went in search of the exact bible quote, I came upon this blog post. It cracked me up even more than the short blurb I initially intended to write, hahaha. I hope Samuel Day doesn't mind too much that I found it so entertaining.

The piece says Job said these words, not god. Now really, we're going to get pendantic over bible stories? Yeah, okay so who wrote down the stuff that Job supposedly said and did? Job didn't write it, he was busy being bald, naked and on his knees (Job 1:20-22). Job was described as "prosperous" but not as "educated" in any of the conflicting texts (Judaism, Islam, Christian bible, Mormons, Baha'i). This story is in a lot of the religious writings, all different of course. The piece writer goes on to say:

First of all, how did all this crazy stuff happen to Job?  Why?  Well, it had nothing to do with God wanting it to happen.  Job chapter 3 tells how “the thing Job greatly feared had come upon him”.  He was living in the Old Covenant, an imperfect system that even God was working to change (which was what Jesus was all about, FYI).  Job was continually offering the same sacrifice over and over out of fear for sins his family might commit.  This was a breach in his faith, it was based in an attitude of fear, and according to how sacrifices worked, this was wrong altogether.

So, Job sinned by making sacrifices to god under a system god had ordained, ordered, commanded (whatever word you want here) but that god was "working to change". Yeahhh, oookaaay in some weird interpretation of English words I don't understand, I guess. For some reason god was "working to change the rules", that he had made, instead of just commanding again? Then god made a bet with Satan that Satan could get Job to curse the lord god. God's only condition was that Satan not kill Job.

But, according to this writer, god wasn't really being... um, uh... obnoxious because... uh... [IDK, reasons]. Job didn't even know Satan existed, apparently, and thought god was doing these awful things (which god *had* been doing, but not the most recent awful stuff?). Writer then jumps about bible chapters (books) Jeremiah, John, Peter to show god (both personas) said good things about himself and his plans for Job, and by extension all humans? And Job repents after talking with god. 

Dude, Sam, I hear Christianese people saying ‘repent’ all the time.  Yeah, but do you know what it means?  It means to change your thinking, to turn around and go the other way.  To “get back to the top” (re=go back, pent (as in penthouse)=top). 

At that point I literally laughed out loud. I had to stop reading. It was just too much, LOL. The twists and turns some people are willing to take to maintain their "belief" in this book of stories boggles my mind. The cognitive dissonance must be deafening... well, I don't know really. Is there any noise involved when you're doing this to yourself; when you're trying to convince yourself of something you know isn't true? I don't know how to force myself believe anything. It must require something I don't have, possibly blind faith. You can justify anything using blind faith. Just ask ISIS.