No Light Reading Here

Trey Smith

Back when I was a young lad, I read the Bible from cover to cover -- all the books of the Old and New Testaments. I certainly didn't read these texts critically because, when you're taught to accept whatever it says like you are reading a cookbook, it is easy to skim over any of the parts that don't fit into your church's worldview!

Here I am nearly 30+ years later repeating the exercise again. This time, however, I am no longer a believer and so the blinders have dropped away completely. As I have remarked before, I can't wait to finish off the OT -- it's driving me a bit bonkers! A good deal of it is like reading about a 6 year old engaging in a never-ending temper tantrum.

"God" bitches and moans about his anger and displeasure ad nauseam. On and on and on and on and on it goes. After a while, covering the same ground time and time again becomes really boring and I can only stomach it in brief snatches of text.

As this blog has evolved, I have gotten to the point in which all the series are written one or more weeks in advance -- some as much as one month in advance. Even my daily posts generally are written between 1 - 3 prior to posting. The only series that I tend to deal with each day is the Tao Bible series.

I have really tried to treat the Tao Bible posts like all the others, but, as mentioned above, I simply can't force myself to read more than a chapter or two of whatever book I'm on. I set blocks of time to continue my OT reading, but I invariably cut it short because my eyes keep glazing over!

It's hard for me to believe that any sentient individual could do much better than I am. It is even harder to fathom that people can honestly read this muck and come away thinking, "God is perfect in all he thinks and does."

This dude is anything but perfect and the text itself makes this point abundantly clear. He has more trouble controlling his emotions and rampant desires than most anyone I know. Even worse, the guy is a world champion whiner.

And people -- including me at one point -- worship him!

What was I thinking!?!