Gwen Shamblin Lara 13: Shut UP You Paper-Thin Chip Licker!

[formergothardite]

I always thought Jacob was the asshole in that story.And Gwen leaves out that Esau had been doing hard manual labor and felt like he was about to pass out from hunger and Jacob denies him any food. This wasn't a "Oh let me sell that blessing for a snack." Plus it sounds like he knew his father wouldn't really give the blessing to Jacob anyway.

[FiveAcres]

48 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I always thought Jacob was the asshole in that story.And Gwen leaves out that Esau had been doing hard manual labor and felt like he was about to pass out from hunger and Jacob denies him any food. This wasn't a "Oh let me sell that blessing for a snack." Plus it sounds like he knew his father wouldn't really give the blessing to Jacob anyway.

The so-called "patriarchs" were really appalling people. 

[throwaway9988]

2 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I always thought Jacob was the asshole in that story.And Gwen leaves out that Esau had been doing hard manual labor and felt like he was about to pass out from hunger and Jacob denies him any food. This wasn't a "Oh let me sell that blessing for a snack." Plus it sounds like he knew his father wouldn't really give the blessing to Jacob anyway.

So Gwen is saying we should let other people starve and simultaneously trick them in order to make them look bad in front of God, and that God’s reaction will be “Wow, look at how much this human wants a relationship with me, therefore I will reward this evil and conniving behavior. Oh, and screw the starving person who got tricked; I know I said blessed are the poor, meek, and pure of heart, but what I really meant was blessed are the tricky, the jealous, and the liars.” Thumbs up, Gwen, you really thought that one through. 

[formergothardite]

1 minute ago, throwaway9988 said:

Thumbs up, Gwen, you really thought that one through. 

Since Gwen is so obsessed with starvation she probably thinks being so hungry you feel like you are about to die is the ideal state to be in. Esau should have just filled up on  a Diet Coke and licked the salt from some of those Fritos they were obviously making in ancient times! 

Of course, Gwen isn't the only one to act like Esau was the bad guy for selling his birthright because he was starving. Most of the pastors I have heard present it have acted like Esau was a fool who gave away his birthright because he was too lazy to get his own food. They do this because Jacob is then later shown to be a "godly" patriarch of the faith and they feel like they can't admit this guy was a con-artist who was willing to stab his brother in the back and lie to his father because he was so power hungry. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

2 hours ago, formergothardite said:

They do this because Jacob is then later shown to be a "godly" patriarch of the faith and they feel like they can't admit this guy was a con-artist who was willing to stab his brother in the back and lie to his father because he was so power hungry

Because most of them ARE Jacob. 

[AmazonGrace]

And what about Jacob and Esau's father? He must have been a really shitty dad if he was only willing to bless one of his kids.

[formergothardite]

Their mother was pretty shitty too. Esau is the least awful person in this story.

[Maggie Mae]

38 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

Their mother was pretty shitty too. Esau is the least awful person in this story.

I never really understood the point of that story, but the next part was the part I tended to focus on anyway. Jacob leaves town and wants to marry Racheal, but her dad is like haha no, you have to marry Leah first. So he works for 7 years, marries the older daughter, and then another 7 years to get the daughter he wanted. No one at any point asks these women if they both want to be married to this 84 year old man. Then he has 12 sons and one daughter and writes Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which was a very bizarre film starring Donny Osmond.  

[HerNameIsBuffy]

12 minutes ago, Maggie Mae said:

I never really understood the point of that story, but the next part was the part I tended to focus on anyway. Jacob leaves town and wants to marry Racheal, but her dad is like haha no, you have to marry Leah first. So he works for 7 years, marries the older daughter, and then another 7 years to get the daughter he wanted. No one at any point asks these women if they both want to be married to this 84 year old man. Then he has 12 sons and one daughter and writes Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which was a very bizarre film starring Donny Osmond.  

Both of those stories confused the heck out of me as a kid.  I didn't understand why wasn't in trouble for cheating his brother the way I would have been...or why any woman would want a man who preferred her sister?  I still have no idea what the moral of those stories was except that people you should be able to trust will completely fuck you over if given the opportunity.

[formergothardite]

13 minutes ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

I still have no idea what the moral of those stories

It is very much a soap opera level of story telling. 

We can learn that lying, manipulation and a complete disregard for your family means you come out on top. And if you want to marry the hot sister you first have to tolerate seven years of the not so hot sister. 

[AmazonGrace]

This is why I am no longer religious. Read more Bible, they said. Read more Bible, you will learn more about  God's will. So I did, and I learned that God is a complete psychopath. All those animal sacrifices he wanted, for no good reason. He won't eat it, he just likes to see people kill animals.  

Read more Bible, they said, you will learn to know God's loving nature. So I read that God got super mad when things didn't go his way and drowned a whole bunch of people that he claimed to love, and tortured animals that had nothing to do with why he was angry. Anger management, anyone? Then he regrets and makes a lot of promises. Look, I'm really sorry, I swear that it'll never happen again, I pinky promise that I won't drown you anymore, look, don't be mad, I got gifts, here's a lovely rainbow for you. A typical abuser.

Read more Bible, they said, you will learn about people of faith. So I read about a dude who heard voices in his head and was like, yeah I gotta kill my kid. And everyone went hooray, what a super good person, he would have murdered his child if the voices in his head didn't tell him to stop at the last moment.

Read more Bible, they said. You will learn more how to be a good person. So I read about David who owned a bunch of slaves and  a bunch of females he used as sex toys in his house.  But it wasn't enough for him, he wanted to fuck another lady and got her husband murdered.

Read more Bible, they said. So I read that if your hometown gets destroyed you must get the hell out of dodge and  don't even think about helping anyone, you  can't feel upset, you can't even look back because God will destroy you for having emotions.

Read more Bible, they said, you will learn more about men and women's place in God's plan. So I read that if someone threatens to rape the male guests in your house you should give your daughters to be raped instead  because it's more godly to rape ladies. 

I have no idea why anyone reads or believes this completely amoral book anymore.

[Marmion]

Oh , this Bible story , of Jacob and Esau , has possible ramifications , by some interpretations , that is even worse , if that's even conceivable , than Gwen's object lesson .  The Bible seems to indicate , according to certain Calvinists anyway , that God favored Jacob , and despised Esau for no particular reason , but rather in accordance with His sovereign will , however arbitrary .  

Quote

It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”[a] 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring. 9 For this was how the promise was stated: “At the appointed time I will return, and Sarah will have a son.”

10 Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. 11 Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purposein election might stand: 12 not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.”[c] 13 Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”[d]

14 What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
    and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[e]

16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[f]18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us?For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[g] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?

22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?

 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+9+%3A6-24&version=NIV  Groups such as the Black Hebrew Israelites believe that this means that God has an unconditional hatred of "Edomites" , i. e. white people , especially red heads .  { https://www.equip.org/article/why-do-1west-hebrew-israelites-call-whites-edomites-and-chinese-moabites/ , https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2008/racist-black-hebrew-israelites-becoming-more-militant }  

Spoiler

 

That's the way the Bible can be twisted , to support not only starvation , but anything some might want to read into it , including racial discrimination .  

[AmazonGrace]

Quote

Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden

This was another passage that is partly responsible for why I'm not religious anymore.

So, the gist of the story is that God has mercy on some random people and hardens the heart of others. I was taught that faith is a gift from God.

And on the last day you get judged based on whether you had faith and whether your heart was hardened. That God decided to begin with.

He could just as well put up a sign that says YOU MUST BE THIS TALL TO HAVE MERCY, and then randomly deny some people growth hormones.

Some loving Father we have, who likes to see some of his kids in eternal bliss and others in eternal torture

[HerNameIsBuffy]

9 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

All those animal sacrifices he wanted, for no good reason. He won't eat it, he just likes to see people kill animals.  

I remember being very upset learning about the Abraham and Isaac thing in either Awana or VBS as a kid.  I couldn't understand why God would ask that and more, why wasn't Abraham punished for being willing to kill his son? 

My mom taught me was that our heavenly father loves us even more than earthly parents could love their kids....and the unconditional love a parent has for a child was more powerful than anything on earth.  So Gods love was something so immense humans couldn't understand.

This story completely turned my mom's version of God on it's head for me.  To me Abraham should have said no to God and protected his son, because a loving God wouldn't ask him to harm an innocent child.  And God wasn't showing his goodness by being all "psyche!" at the last minute, but his cruelty in doing that to both Abraham and Isaac who had to live with knowing his father would have killed him willingly.

I know I asked the ....leader or whomever as I was always in trouble for asking stuff like that, but I do specifically recall asking my mom and telling her if God told Daddy to kill me he would tell God no and protect me.  And that Abraham was a horrible father.

She had no answer and fell back on her old standby that we can't understand God's ways, we just have to trust him.

Well....it horrified me as a child with a less than obedient nature, and as an adult I think it's even worse as the lesson is to blindly follow authority even when you know it's wrong and dangerous.  What the hell kind of lesson is that to teach children?

[Blue]

9 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

Dear Lord. I know I say this a lot about RF, but that is so completely screwed up, both from a traditional theological perspective and an overall perspective.  

Her ability to cherry pick from the Bible and somehow make it about starving yourself in incredible.

[Ozlsn]

1 hour ago, Blue said:

Her ability to cherry pick from the Bible and somehow make it about starving yourself in incredible.

I guess it's no different to other congregations cherry picking to support their main faith, whether that's authoritanarism, socialism or genocide. Bit it still seems like such a bizarre thing to hone in on.

[formergothardite]

2 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

I guess it's no different to other congregations cherry picking to support their main faith, whether that's authoritanarism, socialism or genocide. Bit it still seems like such a bizarre thing to hone in on.

And for this story it isn't actually that hard of a reach. She does have to stretch sometimes to get things to relate to starvation, but like you say, what she is doing is par for the course for most denominations. They pick what they want to believe and then cherry pick and interpret to get what they want out of the Bible. The Bible is pretty darn versatile, anyone can make it say anything. 

Gwen just chose starvation which stands out. 

[formergothardite]

6 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

hardens the heart of others.

Speaking of hardening hearts. Pharaoh. Apparently he was going to let the people go, because God had to "harden his heart" so he would keep them enslaved. So we have a guy who is going to do the right thing, but that apparently that is going against what God had already decided would happen, so free will is stripped away from this guy so he will bend to God's plan. This ends with countless totally innocent people dying. Some of them had to have been children and babies. God tossed those little kids away like they were garbage. Pharaoh's own son died and he can't be to blame, because he was going to do the right thing and God made sure he did the wrong thing. 

No one can claim God is just because he gives free will and people have to choose to reject his "gift" of salvation since he has been shown to strip free will away at a whim. Of course, people will claim God is nicer now, but there isn't any evidence  in the Bible that God decided to change and repent of removing people's free will. And if God is changing, then how can we not know that he hasn't changed for the worse since the New Testament was written? And if he is unchanging, then we are right back to people deciding to do the right thing, but God removing their free will and making them do the wrong thing. 

6 hours ago, HerNameIsBuffy said:

She had no answer and fell back on her old standby that we can't understand God's ways, we just have to trust him.

My mom gave some vague, "God doesn't ask stuff like that anymore" answer, which wasn't super reassuring. I can still see in my head the pictures they used in Sunday School for that story. That is a really terrifying story to tell small children. 

[Marmion]

4 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

My mom gave some vague, "God doesn't ask stuff like that anymore" answer, which wasn't super reassuring. I can still see in my head the pictures they used in Sunday School for that story. That is a really terrifying story to tell small children.

I myself feel that it seems similar to the story of these girls who attempted to kill their friend , as a blood sacrifice to "Slenderman " .  

Spoiler

 

Only thing is that God is supposedly both real , and righteous .  

[Ozlsn]

15 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I always thought Jacob was the asshole in that story.And Gwen leaves out that Esau had been doing hard manual labor and felt like he was about to pass out from hunger and Jacob denies him any food. This wasn't a "Oh let me sell that blessing for a snack." Plus it sounds like he knew his father wouldn't really give the blessing to Jacob anyway.

Man, a Biblical "am I the asshole" thread would be awesome.

[Ozlsn]

I do find it interesting looking at how the concept of God develops through the Bible, and now. From "our tribal God is stronger than your tribal God, nyer nyer!" to "there is only one God and he's ours" to the more common concepts now (yes I am skipping over millennia here, I'm waiting for a system to upload). It always seems odd to me that people like Bro Gary call themselves "Christian" when they are much more enamoured of the Old Testament and the Smiting God You Must Obey Or Die Painfully.

Granted Bro Gary seems to be more into the painful death (actually all the death) parts than most. Gwod at least just wants you to Feel The Growl, and then not act on it, and die skeletally thin (but in nice clothes, preferably with an expensive backdrop).   Gary wants you to suffer painfully while he laughs in your face.

[RFSurvivor_2]

14 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

I have no idea why anyone reads or believes this completely amoral book anymore.

Especially when the bible was "written" by small group of xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic men who didn't understand how rain occurs, I.E The Water Cycle. 

Edited August 28, 2020 by RFSurvivor_2

[formergothardite]

2 hours ago, RFSurvivor_2 said:

Especially when the bible was "written" by small group of xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic men who didn't understand how rain occurs, I.E The Water Cycle. 

College science courses were a bit of a shock after my years of learning biblical science.  Who could have guessed a bunch of people who didn't understand basic things about the Earth would give out terrible scientific information? 

What sort of homeschool curriculum does Gwen push? Doesn't she encourage homeschooling? 

[smittykins]

Don’t they run their own school?  ISTR that from earlier threads.

ETA:  they have a homeschool co-op.

Edited August 28, 2020 by smittykins

[JanasTattooParlor]

20 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

This is why I am no longer religious. Read more Bible, they said. Read more Bible, you will learn more about  God's will. So I did, and I learned that God is a complete psychopath. All those animal sacrifices he wanted, for no good reason. He won't eat it, he just likes to see people kill animals.  

Read more Bible, they said, you will learn to know God's loving nature. So I read that God got super mad when things didn't go his way and drowned a whole bunch of people that he claimed to love, and tortured animals that had nothing to do with why he was angry. Anger management, anyone? Then he regrets and makes a lot of promises. Look, I'm really sorry, I swear that it'll never happen again, I pinky promise that I won't drown you anymore, look, don't be mad, I got gifts, here's a lovely rainbow for you. A typical abuser.

Read more Bible, they said, you will learn about people of faith. So I read about a dude who heard voices in his head and was like, yeah I gotta kill my kid. And everyone went hooray, what a super good person, he would have murdered his child if the voices in his head didn't tell him to stop at the last moment.

Read more Bible, they said. You will learn more how to be a good person. So I read about David who owned a bunch of slaves and  a bunch of females he used as sex toys in his house.  But it wasn't enough for him, he wanted to fuck another lady and got her husband murdered.

Read more Bible, they said. So I read that if your hometown gets destroyed you must get the hell out of dodge and  don't even think about helping anyone, you  can't feel upset, you can't even look back because God will destroy you for having emotions.

Read more Bible, they said, you will learn more about men and women's place in God's plan. So I read that if someone threatens to rape the male guests in your house you should give your daughters to be raped instead  because it's more godly to rape ladies. 

I have no idea why anyone reads or believes this completely amoral book anymore.

This is forever the reason I will never be religious again. The Bible teaches us nothing but that God is cruel and we should all just praise an abuser who is always testing his creations to see if they still believe his crap. I’m going through pre-marital counseling for my wedding and our officiant is a family friend who is Baptist ordained. He gave us homework at our last session to attend church and told my fiancé, who is born and raised Catholic, that it would be romantic to take me to church and that if we’re fighting then we just need to drop to our knees and praise God for each other like that will make the problems go away. I know many of my religious family members say that Jesus washed away all the Old Testament teachings and that we really only need to follow Jesus’s teachings since he was a loving God, but that’s just cherry picking to find the happiest parts of the Bible to bring people into. These are the same people that hate gays because they think that somewhere in the Old Testament it says gay people are bad. So then they’re hypocrites because they say to only look at the loving Jesus from the New Testament but still want to condemn gays like they think it says in the Old Testament.