Job 1-4

The Facts (Chapter number: Verse)

1:2 - Job had seven sons and three daughters.
1:4 - His sons used to go and hold feasts in one another houses in turn; and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them.
1:13 - Job was visited by a messenger on a night that the sons and the daughters were eating and drinking wine.
1:18-19 - While the messenger was still speaking another one came and said, "Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house, and suddenly a great wind came across the desert, struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young people, and they are dead; I alone have escaped to tell."
1:21 - Job tore his clothes and shaved his head and said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord."

2:9-10 - Job's wife said, "Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God and die." But he said to her, "You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

3:10-12 - "because [the stars] did not shut the doors of my mother's womb, and hide trouble from my eyes. Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire. Why were there knees to receive me or breasts for me to suck?"

Job 4 - No mention of any women.

My Comments

Sorry, Job, but I'm with your "foolish" wife on this one. I've never understood this story. How is this supposed to make me see Job as some sort of righteous man or God as loving? Job just looks like a dumb ass who thinks abuse is love and God looks like a douchebag because he lets Satan go down and completely destroy Job's life. Yeah yeah, I know in the end Job gets rewarded for being continually loyal to this asshole of a deity despite his entire life being ruined. But how does this help the lives lost just because God thought it'd be fun to test him? They died all because God wanted to have a dick measuring contest with Satan.

Yeah, I can totally feel the love.

And why can't Job be angry and upset that his kids are killed by God? Why can't a child be upset with their parent when their parent meddles with their life or denies them something? I would make a comparison to a child being angry when a parent denied them something harmful (like putting a metal bracelet in the wall socket to make "fireworks") but I think that would really be offensive to good parents everywhere. Nothing God is allowing to be done to Job is redeeming in the slightest. And yet, we do not begrudge the child's anger when his parents tell him to not play with the wall socket. Even when that anger is completely unjustified not many parents will punish a child because it's upset that it didn't get it's way. They won't be happy about the anger directed at them, sure, but the child's anger isn't a sin against the parent.

God, on the other hand, slaughters all of Job's children and Job isn't allowed to say any ill word about God or what God has done. Job HAS to accept this because to do otherwise would apparently mean he doesn't really love God.

Think about that. That child may be angry at his parents but does that automatically mean that the child doesn't love them? I know I've said horrible things to my parents in my life, many things I wish I could take back, but I still love them and I don't think they ever thought I really hated them. In the heat of the moment people will say a lot of shit to each other even when the smallest thing happens. Teenagers say they hate their parents when their curfew is 10pm instead of midnight. Toddlers scream when their parents won't get them a lollipop. It's the way children work.

Of course this isn't the case with all parents. Some parents are very vindictive to their children when the child lashes out at them. They would be more God-like, in this case, assuming just because their child is angry right now means that that child never loved them. And some parents rightfully deserved to be hated for things they have done to their children.

But if human kind's relationship with God is supposed to be some sort of idyllic parent/child relationship, I would expect it to look more like the understanding relationship between parent and child I gave as an example. If God created us he knows how our psychology works. And if God is all knowing he would know that a moment of rage does not equal an eternity of hatred.

But like I said before, any comparison of God I make to a parent/child relationship you would find around you does a great disservice to the vast majority of parents on this planet.

The only way to compare God to any living person is to create a complete sociopath who managed somewhere along the line to have children. Like say a parent allowed their child to pick out a few pets at the pound, to take them home, then feed them and raise them all on their own, and then one day, years later, that parent lets their neighbor come over and and slaughter all of the pets outside. THAT would be more like what God has done here.

I would not expect any person, normal or not, to be okay with this.

Yet God does ask you to be okay with this. God comes into the house, let's you know that your much loved pets have been killed by your neighbor, and expects you to say, "God's will be done. The Lord gives and the Lord takes, so we must take the good with the bad."

I'm sorry, but I call bullshit.

Wednesday: More Job

I hope this made some sense. I may go back and look through it when I have more time, but I'm still recovering from the holiday and am trying to get most of this out at work. :\