People do Stupid Things

April 21, 2009

Today's Reading: Judges 11-12 and 1 Corinthians 8

I’m sure that you already know this about the human race, but they are pretty stupid. In fact, they do things that are completely nonsensical.

First of all, Gilead slept with a prostitute. That was a dumb thing, yes. What’s worse, is the son of this union, Jephthah, was kicked out of his family for pretty much no reason other than being born.

Second of all, Jephthah makes a promise that really shouldn’t have been made. He asks the Lord for victory, and promises whatever the heck comes out of his door will be sacrificed.

Okay, what happened here to Jephthah and his daughter was a tragedy, but it seems like one of those tragedies that could be easily prevented. Sort of like the guy who slips on a banana peel and accidentally falls into traffic. It just seems like it could be easily prevented. It’s not like it was a car accident or anything.

What in the world was Jephthah hoping for here? Did he have a dog that greeted him every time? Jephthah’s daughter (whose name is never mentioned) was his only child, and would probably be the most likely one to walk out of his door, really.

I hate to be irreverent to Jephthah, but you know the title of the blog. What he did was really stupid.

You want to hear something more stupid? Some people died because they weren’t able to pronounce the word “Shibboleth”. Man, who would have thought that not being able to properly say the “sh” sound could kill you. Not only that, 40,000 people died that day. What the heck?

You want to know what is funny? The New Testament reading says something about how “knowledge” puffs up, love builds up. I believe that this Scripture is referring to how easy it is to build up intelligence and justify doing bad things.

Yes, there is always a way that Christians can be mean to other people. I think the key is to have a lot of smart and a lot less heart. I would imagine that the Christians that had the gaul to pull off the Crusades or the Inquisition thought they were doing the coolest thing.

As I can see, it would appear that we as humans don’t really have much to offer as well as knowledge. This makes me wonder how in the world is capable of doing something nice at all.

Because we really a lot of stupid things really. Look at racism and reality TV. Completely stupid.