God's Conversation with Job

under_believer

So I'm still stuck on the JW email spam train, and my Mom sends me this Powerpoint with a horrible, horrible presentation with Job 38 set to a bunch of pictures of the Universe and whatnot. You know the passage, it's all "WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I CREATED THE EARTH, YOU INSIGNIFICANT GNAT". And the point, I guess, is to show that God is all powerful and awesome.

It kinda made me sick. Never, even when I was a faithful JW, did I find God's response appropriate. So I wrote one that I think fits the facts just a bit better. For your reading pleasure (or not) I present it here:

Hey Job, yeah, about your sons and daughters? The ones you loved so much? That you used to set on your knee and read stories to at night and so forth? Light of your life, yadda yadda, whole nine yards? Yeah, I went ahead and let Satan kill them because I was trying to win a point in a debate. Also gave you that agonizing, revolting skin condition and stole all your livestock. Good luck inducing any fellow humans to come within 10 feet of you because you STINK, man.

I mean, Satan actually said that you only worship me because I blessed you with stuff. I know this isn't true because--. Well. I know everything, it's that whole omniscience thing? Right? So I guess it would have been easier to just snap my Fingers and erase any traces of Satan's existence, or just say 'Well no Satan, not so much" or something, hell, I guess I could have just ignored him, cause he's an ASSHOLE and everyone knows it. But you have to admit there's a certain poetic justice to all this stuff 'happening' to a guy whose name means 'persecuted.' LOL! Amirite? Job? Buddy? Seriously, he was all like "God, Job is only worshiping you because he's blessed." And I was all "This again? Nuh-uh." And he goes "Care to put 20 bucks on it?" He was TOTALLY calling me out! So I said "You're on, bitch!"

Oh and thanks for not cursing me and, well, dying. If I were in your place I think I'd be kinda pissed, what with all that business of me allowing a malevolent being to simultaneously murder every single one of your children. And steal all your shit. And give you... jeez I dunno even what that is called but it looks fucking nasty. Is that actual green pus? 'God giveth and God taketh away,' hey, thanks, that's pretty catchy, I'ma have to remember that. Might make a good Psalm. Oh, never mind, it's something that happens later.

Tell you what, I would feel kinda guilty about this, except I DON'T HAVE TO. It's a decent gig, Supreme Dietyhood. Or as I told Gabriel the other day, "being God means never having to say you're sorry."

Don't worry about the kids, we'll get you new ones that are better. That Bilhah was ugly, the schnozz on her was enormous. And let's face it, Boaz was kind of a dick. Tell you what, I'll bless the fruit of your loins and your wife's womb and you guys crank out another seven sons and three daughters. I KNOW, THE NUMEROLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE! Yeah, you might want to wait for those boils to clear up before you try puttin' the moves on her though. Side point: Did she actually say "Curse God and die?" Rhetorical question. Omniscient, remember? WTF is that about? Too bad Satan didn't kill off that harpy instead of your kids, dude, amirite? Coulda hooked you up with a 19-year-old stone cold HOTTIE with no sexual inhibitions whatsoEVER. But yeah you're kinda stuck with her, I have that whole integrity of marriage thing going on you know? I mean copulating through a hole in the sheet is better than nothing, right? Just wait for the sun to go down, you're golden.

Aight peace out guy, I gotta go have a teenager sold into slavery and unfairly put in jail for about a million years so I can eventually have the descendants of my main man Abraham enslaved by technologically and culturally superior Egyptians and, coupla thousand years down the road, basically ethnically cleansed over and over and over again until the end of time. Well I mean they will deserve it! Not like I NEED to have a reason!

BabaYaga

Are you going to set this one to Powerpoint?

loosie

being God means never having to say you're sorry."

OMG coffe came outta my nose. You need to reply back to the email with this. its hilarious.

bluecanary

I LOL'd.

Cadellin

You're right, God's final speech to Job is troubling. The issue raised thematically is, of course, the question of justice and while God has no hesitation defending his justice in other parts of the Bible (Psalms, for instance), that doesn't happen here. Instead, as Jack Miles points out in his book, "God, A Biography," "The deity rises to his full majestic stature, drawing the robes of creation around him and regally changes the subject." You might find his treatment of the God of Job rather gratifying.

Miles also asserts that Job catches on, he's not fooled. The traditional translation of Job's response, "now my eye sees thee, therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes," is, according to Miles, a mistranslation, since "myself" was added to LXX as the object for the transitive verb "despise". He proposes that what Job feels sorry for isn't himself but humanity, and that a more accurate translation might be "Now that my eyes have seen you, I shudder with sorrow for mortal clay."

keyser soze

ROTFLMAO! Actually, a far more accurate analysis.

PSacramento

There are indeed many parts in the OT that makes us thanks full for the New Covenant, LOL !
I have never been a fan of the whole "end justifies the menas" that seems to prevail in the OT.

We do need to remember for WHOM the OT was written and the Hebrews were quite a treat as people, lets not forget that they feared and worshipped a "jealous" and what seems to be spiteful God, but when Jesus comes around with Love, the kill him.

Hmmm....maybe there is somethign there ;)

Fadeout

Good stuff. So true, and full of lulz.

Basically, the WT religion emphasizes the point that as humans, our reason is imperfect and untrustworthy. They make us doubt and even discard our mental capabilities on the basis that 1) We have no right to decide things for ourselves and 2) We are incapable of doing so anyway.

The WT didn't make this up; it's in the Bible, no more evident than in Job. God performs actions that by any human standard are unequivocally immoral, even evil. And Job, as a rational person, calls God out on this fact, claiming, 'What you've done to me is unjust.'

And God responds, 'You tiny little puke, who do you think you are to question me? I determine what's right around here. My justification? I'm older, bigger and more powerful than you.'

Natural human ethics are quashed according to the ever-changing whims of this Supreme Bully. Fear God!

Farkel

No one neglected to mention that Job's misery and the deaths of all those he loved and loss of possessions it took a lifetime to earn was caused over a BET God made. So now, with all his myriad of other faults and evil, God is also a gambler!

God makes a bet. God wins the bet, but Job would have been screwed anyway, whether God won or lost His bet.

The supreme stupidity of that story was that any decent God would have known in advance how Job would have reacted to those dire circumstances, so no bet was really necessary. Same thing is true with the bit about telling Abraham he had to carve up his son Isaac and sacrifice him to what amounts to be the "God From Hell".

If God it not capable of knowing the outcome of such things in advance, it's time to upgrade to a better God. I can find dozens of human derelicts and even human criminals who have tons more compassion and would offer more merciful justice than "Bible God" does.

Farkel

BurnTheShips

Job is a morality play, not a proper historical story. While Job was probably a real person of great patience who suffered calamity, and there may be other kernels of truth in the story relating to the other characters, the main purpose is to teach a moral lesson like a parable or a fable. Most of the book other than the introduction and conclusion is written as a poem. Anyone read Aesop's fables as a child? The purpose of those is to teach a moral lesson. Ever watch a fictionalization of a real historical character like Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun? Same principle. Moses is supposed to have written the book of Job, but the story was already ancient by his time.

BTS

God's Conversation with Job

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