Tag Archives: Bible

Random Quotes 5: Sam Harris #RandomQuotes

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…the Bible and the Koran both contain mountains of life-destroying gibberish…

Sam Harris, “The End of Faith” p. 23

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Why Is God Obsessed With Hair?

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God Almighty, the Alpha and Omega, the Omniscient, the Omnipotent Creator, the Exceedingly Beneficent, the Gentle, the Boundless, He Who Is Able To Do Anything, the Supremely Exalted, the Lord of Majesty and Generosity, the Owner of All Sovereignty, &c.

Those titles (and many more) are His, and nobody can doubt their accuracy (for it is written).

So here’s a question for the religious amongst us, given God’s undoubted perfection:

Why is God the Magnificent and Super Duper Excellent (etc.) so obsessed with… hair?

Sikhs can’t cut their hair. To protect it, they wrap it in a turban. And they grow their beards their whole life. If you’re a woman and really want to show how holy you are, you too can wear a turban!

Muslim men also must display a beard. But shaving off the ‘tache is fine. Conversely, Muslim women need to cover their head hair, and any beard they grow is irrelevant to the glorification of God. Male hair = good, female hair = bad??

Christians have to cover their hair in church — but only the women!

Jewish men grow beards, like Muslims, and Jewish women must cover their hair in Synogogue, like Christians. But Hasidic Jewish women shave their hair off and put on a wig. Jewish men must grow curly, long sideburns. They also need to cover their hair! …But only the crown (I think this is more to cover the bald spot).

Rastafarians must mat their hair into dreadlocks. The holiest type is where all of the hair has matted into one long lock.

Aren’t there more pressing moral issues than how to display or conceal one’s hair? Things such as rape (Gen 19:5-8), child abuse (2 Kings 2:23-24), genocide (1 Sam 15:2-8, 15:18-19), oppression of gay people (Lev 20:13), and so on. And grown-ups mutilating the genitals of helpless children, because God commanded them to (Gen 17:10-11).

So again, I ask: given the multiplicity of problems that beset mankind, problems that seem to be on the exponential increase:

Why the hell is God so obsessed with hair?

Over to you, people of God.

© 2015 Bryan A. J. Parry

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After Reading Ecclesiastes 3:19-21 Again (Poem)

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Introduction

This is probably the poem of mine that I am most proud of. It’s riddled with flaws, yes, but I think it has a little merit, too. Either way, I thought I’d like to share it here. I already posted it on my YouTube channel.

It’s my reading of Ecclesiastes 3:19-21 (in the Bible, if you don’t know what I’m going on about) in the light of my Epicurean mindset (as in Epicurus). Like all poems, this one is abandoned not “finished” (that is, I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked until I just stopped and never went back to it).

After Reading Ecclesiastes 3:19-21 Again
by Bryan A. J. Parry

The reason Nature seems to test mankind
With cold and stone-hard stares, and unmoved mind,
Is just to make him see what’s plainly true:
He’s like an animal, nay, is one too.
You don’t believe me? Why then, let’s just think.
As man is born, so is the beast, then blink
Your eyes, and both have died, caught in some snare,
Or else disfigured far beyond repair
So soon thereafter breathe the final breath,
Dispatched to earth, the source of life and death.
So man has no advantage o’er his brother,
As wretched death claims one, he claims the other.

Did I say “wretched”? Actually, it’s worse.
The brilliant mind of man can seem a curse;
Illumination, yes, but searing heat,
So awestruck man performs a wondrous feat:
He stoops, then squints, and fumbles in the gloom,
So hastening through his misery his doom.
But animals, whose brains are dim, live thus:
They flit, they drink, they eat: no sordid fuss.
A man of reason can’t conceal his mirth:
Poor man is heaven-bound, yet beast to earth!?
Kind Nature’s given beasts to simple pleasures.

If only man would use his mind: it measures
Out every thing that he could ever need.
They are: to flit, to drink, to love, to feed.
This recognition of kind Nature’s goal
Produces gladness, elevates man’s soul;
The joy and pleasure transcend mortal frame:
This soaring spirit ills can never tame.

 

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© Bryan A. J. Parry