The Reasoner's Lament               5/4/2023

I once believed what people said about the Lord and such,
But I have paid attention, too, and they don’t know that much.
The preacher preaches everything that’s in the Bible’s true,
But I can tell you, now, my friend, that he’s deluded too.

Chorus
Look up and tell me, now, what do you see?
I see the sun in the sky
And at night, all I see are the moon and the stars
There are no flying angels on high
So believe what you’re told and you won’t have to think
You won’t have to trouble your brain
Just repeat what they tell you have to believe
And you can sleep well once again

People say they are sure of just what they believe,
But ask a question they don’t know and they get up and leave.
If all your faith is all that sure, why do you evade
The simplest question put to you in every case I’ve made?

Chorus
Look up and tell me, now, what do you see?
I see the sun in the sky
And at night, all I see are the moon and the stars
There are no flying angels on high
So believe what you’re told and you won’t have to think
You won’t have to trouble your brain
Just repeat what they tell you have to believe
And you can sleep well once again

So, you can use the brain you’ve had inside your head since birth
And try to seek a reason that will pay for all that it’s worth
You can wish upon a star and your wish might just come true
But I don’t know why I have the need to explain this stuff to you

Chorus
Look up and tell me, now, what do you see?
I see the sun in the sky
And at night, all I see are the moon and the stars
There are no flying angels on high
So believe what you’re told and you won’t have to think
You won’t have to trouble your brain
Just repeat what they tell you have to believe
And you can sleep well once again

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Stories: a Christian Bible and a Jewish Magazine that Make for Bad Religion

Image
"Here I stand: I can do no otherwise: God help me!" -M. Luther image: Wikipedia This post has evolved, over a number of weeks, into a morass of a critique, taking on two venerable and very different foundational literary establishments, the King James Bible and the popular religious press.  It might seem quite unwieldy to make critical judgments about these two things in the same place at the same time but read on, perhaps the focus will sharpen.  We will tiptoe around theology and scholarship, in hopes that we trample neither but that our own footsteps are rightly placed between those two towering hedges. Since my most recent post,  (https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1797607806021886628/3655238780916104218), regarding the mistranslation of a verse in Isaiah which caused a theological storm of invectives, lies, accusations, and a highly un-Christian (at least in the name) level of violence which would seem to be quite excessive until we consider that the question raised
Read more

Who Wrote the Bible Anyway?

Image
  Image: Our Savior Lutheran Church I suppose that most of us who attended Sunday School or Hebrew School as children at some point wondered who actually wrote the books that were compiled into what we refer to as The Bible.  I do not remember much about what we were taught but have a vague recollection that we were taught that Moses wrote the Old Testament, that the disciples, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the Gospels, and the Apostle Paul wrote the Epistles.  It was pretty simple.   Image:  Amazon There were many Bible-story books and some pretty good stories.  None of the chronology or geography came into the picture, however.  It seems that the adults did not think it was important or more likely that they had no idea about these things. If you start asking too many questions, Sunday School teachers get very nervous.  I suppose I was an adult when I first seriously asked myself who actually wrote these books and how they were put together. The answers were enlightening. For t
Read more
Image
This post contains the preface to the book I am working on.  I will publish other parts as we go.  AL L comments are appreciated. Please note that I do not defend nor debate my opinions.     When I was in the fifth grade, a girl named Norma sat next to me in band.   She was the only other tenor sax player in the grade school band, so we were probably destined to become either friends or enemies.   A cautious friendship/rivalry began to emerge since we were not comfortable with those other two choices.   We fought like brothers and sisters but we never really meant to be mean and we truly had mutual respect and affection.   There was nothing especially remarkable about Norma.   She was pretty, thin, and loud, and at that age, all knees and elbows and teeth.   The most distinguishing thing about her in my mind was that she was Jewish.   Far a ten-year-old Alabama boy who, in 1959, had been transported from the less-than-modern thinking of my home state of Alabama to an experimental
Read more