His eye is on the sparrow - a really fishy story!

The synoptic Gospels are essentially collections of various materials attributed to a first-century Jewish itinerant by name of Jeshua, or Joshua, or more commonly known as Jesus.  It is very unlikely that this Jesus was an historical figure, but was created by one or more writers to satisfy the need of the early church to put flesh and blood on their savior, the Christ.

Cf. Earl Doherty's "Jesus: Neither God nor Man."

This becomes quite clear if one reads the Gospel of Luke, chapters 9 through 18. In this section, the Jesus figure wanders about meeting various people and groups and issuing a variety of proclamations and judgments, many of which make no sense at all.

For example, in Luke 12:4-5, the itinerant is quoted as saying (with no context): "To you who are my friends I say: Do not fear those who kill the body and after that have nothing more they can do. I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Believe me, he is the one to fear."

What could that possibly mean? Is he referring to Yahweh, the god of Hebrew tradition? Yahweh certainly killed enough people in his heyday!

But the ensuing verse is the one I'm focusing on in this essay. It seems the Jesus figure is still talking to "his friends" and he says "Are not sparrows five for twopence? And yet not one of them is overlooked by God. More than that, even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Have no fear; you are worth more that any number of sparrows."

It goes without saying that this is a silly saying; especially to someone who has gone bald. Which hairs are numbered, the ones lost or the ones still clinging to the scalp? And the implication that God gives a flip about sparrows and takes care of sparrows is ludicrous.

In Arkansas over the past few days, "3,000 birds mysteriously dropped dead from the sky."

Not only so, but "An estimated 100,000 dead drum fish are floating along a 20-mile stretch of the Arkansas River and washing up on the river's banks near the town of Ozark..."


The fact that pious Christians continue to praise their god in the face of incontrovertible evidence he/she/it just doesn't give a damn is quite mind-boggling.

This god does not care about sparrows, nor fish, nor humans. Every day, millions of humans die horrible deaths from disease, hunger, medical malpractice, accident, etc. and no god intervenes to save them or ease their suffering.

Yet, Christians (and Jews and Muslims) prattle on in their houses of worship about how god's "eye is on the sparrow," so how much more he cares for you. Not true. And to hold such convictions in spite of all the evidence to the contrary reinforces the truth that no one is as blind as the one who refuses to see.

The idea that there is a personal god who cares about you and me and the rest of the world is one of the biggest religious hoaxes ever perpetrated on the human race!

His eye is not on the sparrow; nor the drum fish in Arkansas; nor you or me.

So enjoy your life and do the best you can.  As the song goes, "Imagine there's no heaven..." and live your life to the fullest.