Messiah part 2

Messianic Prophecy number 2:
The Messiah will be a descendant of Abraham and through him everyone on earth will be blessed.
We're going to deal with the second part first, as that comes first in the bible.
"Through him everyone will be blessed."

Genesis 12:3
"I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

This is actually addressed to Abraham, and nowhere does it say that in turn people will be blessed through his descendants. Now maybe we can say it is in a way through him, as people are supposedly blessed by believing in Jesus, and it is supposed that Jesus is descended from Abraham. Since this prophecy is combined, we'll assume this is the case, that the blessing is added only in so far as Jesus is a descendant of Abraham.

"All people on earth will be blessed through you."
First, all people on earth will most certainly not be blessed through Jesus. Ignoring the fact that the majority of humans do not accept him as savior and therefore are not "blessed through him"
can we really say people murdered during the inquisition, in the name of Jesus, were really "blessed by Him?" I think not. I happen to believe that "all people on earth" includes EVERYONE. That's not interpretation, that's linguistic definition.

The other part of this prophecy is from Genesis 18:18
"Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him."

Notice this says nothing at all about the Messiah being his descendant, only that all nations will be blessed through Abraham. So how is this even considered a messianic prophecy?

Now, the supposed fulfillment is from Acts 3:25-26
"And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, 'Through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed.' When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways."

Chapter 3 shows a miracle performed by Peter and John after the crucifixion of Jesus. They give a speech in response to the amazement of the crowd. Before this line, they mention a prophecy that there will be a prophet like Moses who comes to the people, they do NOT mention a savior, though they then make it clear they look at Jesus as being a savior who has come to lead them from their wicked ways.

The biggest problem comes from the fact that Jesus is not, in fact, a descendant of Abraham. Two of the gospels give a lineage, one from Abraham, one from Adam which goes down to Joseph, husband of Mary mother of Jesus. Joseph may have been a descendant of Abraham. Jesus was NOT Joseph's son. Anyone who knows the story of the nativity knows that Mary supposedly became pregnant by the divine act of God, making Jesus the son of God and the son of Mary, but at no time did Joseph play a biological role. Jesus therefore is NOT a descendant of Abraham unless it is through Mary, and nowhere is any argument ever made or any evidence (even a genealogy) given to lead us to believe Mary was a descendant of Abraham. Given that the Jews had a very patriarchal society, descendancy would be tracked only through the male line. This means that Jesus could not possible fulfill this "prophecy" of all people being blessed through Abraham. And if Abraham must be the ancestor of the messiah, Jesus can not be the messiah.

Messiah part 1

Ok, I'm irritated. I originally wrote this post on Jan 9th and for some reason...it's gone. Just gone.
I KNOW it was saved and viewable for at least a couple days (I checked). So what happened to it? No idea. So here I am spending more time redoing it.

Basically the idea was that there are problems with many if not all the so called messianic prophecies that point to Jesus being the messiah. I'm using the list at Clarifying Christianity: http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/m_prophecies.shtml

The first is a "prophecy" stating that the savior would be a descendant of eve:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

My argument is basically that a clear reading of this has nothing at all to do with a messiah and merely portrays future enmity not the position of a savior. I also think that anyone at any time in history could write about future enmity between humans and snakes and there would be a ridiculously high probability that they'd be right. Snakes and humans only rarely get along.

See Messiah part 2 about why Jesus isn't really a descendant of Eve anyway, and thus why this completely fails.

The supposed fulfillment of this prophecy is in Galatians 4:4
"But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law,"
Anyone else have trouble seeing how this even relates?
Reading the rest of the chapter reveals that it's talking about how a child is like a slave, owned by his parents, and that God sent his son to redeem those under the law (Jews only) that they may have their inheritance (heaven) as sons rather than slaves.
So the fulfillment doesn't even relate to the supposed prophecy which doesn't even sound like a prophecy in the first place.

Eugenics

"American society does not do what it should to help severely disabled children and their families."
--Arthur Caplan, MSNBC

My question is why should it? What responsibility does society bear to those who should never reproduce?
I'm firmly of the opinion that if someone has a genetic disorder that can be passed on they should not in any way be aided that might lead to them reproducing and passing on the disorder. All we'll end up doing is creating a human race in which the disorder is ubiquitous. We now have the power to directly influence our evolution through breeding, because we understand how it works and because we as a society have finally accepted that humans are in fact subject to the same laws as the rest of nature.
Animals that are selectively bred can be made stronger or weaker. Some show animals, for instance are uselessly weak and have disorders because they've been selectively inbred for "attractive" traits. While the risk do to far less interference is less in humans, having society cater to the diseased and weak does nothing for the human race as a whole and it's future survivability, while catering to an individual. Society can not cater to an individual over the entirety of our species.

People complain that this is eugenics. Yes it is. We're not breeding out race, or committing genocide. Diversity is GOOD for survival. What is bad is encouraging the survival of known defects and weaknesses that are easily defined.

For example there is a rare genetic disorder that causes a disease called harlequinism, in which the person's skin remains dry, cracks and invites infection. They also produce new skin cells at a rate around 15 times normal, requiring excessively high calorie requirements and non-stop moisturizing treatments to keep from dying from the disease.
Treating these people so that they can live decent lives is fine.
However one family insists that their two daughters, who have the full disease and will pass the genes on to any offspring, should have families of their own. Let them adopt. Why should children be cursed before birth with a disease that not only means a painful, difficult existence, but that they if they in turn have children, will weaken the human genetic code and potentially our species as a whole and it's ability to survive future catastrophe, just so they can fulfill their selfish desire to have their own children.

I don't think there is anything wrong with putting the long-term survival of humanity over all else. While the above is a rare disease, there are many others that are more widespread, and for which people are only now surviving at all because of advances in medical science. While giving them life is one thing, allowing them to essentially spread fatal diseases could in the long term, cause permanent problems for humanity. What if a disaster struck keeping people from getting to moisturizer after a large portion of the population was living with this disease? They would all die of infection within weeks.
Those that live with it know the danger, for instance one of the girls is partially blind because the hardening of her skin on her eyelids caused damage to her eyes. This is not something to risk passing on.

The idea that we can't or shouldn't do what we can to improve the survivability of humanity through careful consideration is a ridiculous and out dated notion based on the idea that humans are somehow different from other animals in such a way that it is "wrong".

Evolution is a FACT and it is possible for both strengths and weaknesses to evolve. Usually, weaknesses disappear, because the bearers die. Now, humans with such weaknesses do not die. They pass on their genes. This is a danger, even if it is a minor one at this time. Refusing to acknowledge it because of unfounded beliefs is insane.
The one ray of hope, however, is in the growing field of genetics where scientists just may be able to manipulate and improve or replace defective genes in humans. I think that alternative means which are less dangerous, like those with known genetic disorders voluntarily choosing not to pass on their defective genetic code, would be much safer, as the consequences of manipulating genes is not yet fully known.

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Note: The link in the comment below is a bit graphic, so take that into consideration before you watch it. It shows a baby who was born with the disease I mention above, Harlequinism. It shows how bad the disease can be.