And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” (Gen. 1:22)

This is one of those verses that has been abused many times over to promote the agenda of the Corporate Christian Complex. The Corporate Christian Complex was abusing this verse long before it had evolved into the Corporate Christian Complex. Often cited as God’s command to Adam and Eve, the verse has been used at various times to justify:

• Greed
• Overexpansion
• Overpopulation
• Any reason to mow down the less privileged in the name of progress.

At the hands of Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and their puppet master Pope Benedict, who singlehandedly wants to return the Catholic Church to pre-Vatican II (if not the Middle Ages), this verse has been used to make sure women get pregnant whenever possible.

You see, God hates birth control. How do we know? Genesis 1:22. So any health providers that include birth control are bad, and any government who makes health care providers provide birth control are in league with Lucifer himself.

Lucifer, secular humanists, and Democrats.

Women rights advocates (including my wife Carol) complain that health care shouldn’t cover Viagra if they deny birth control. They forget that Viagra is as Christian as communion wine and tithing. How do we know this? Genesis 1:22. God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply.

I was thinking about this during the most recent round of Republican moves to force women to undergo invasive ultrasound treatments and publicize the names of women who have abortions. I realized that the Bible does have an unwritten exception clause. Time.

Let me explain. As a Baptist Preacher’s Kid (BPK) I learned early on that drinking wine (or anything alcoholic) is a sin. We couldn’t even have wine at the Lord’s supper, which is the BPK form of holy communion. We had to drink grape juice from a glass too tiny for espresso.

But the Bible clearly says Jesus and all of the apostles drank wine. So I asked my Baptist Preacher Dad (BPD) what gives. The answer? Time.

You see, when Jesus was alive they didn’t have grape juice. It always fermented. It wasn’t until Welch invented grape juice that we could enjoy the fruit of the vine without also imbibing alcohol.

Why couldn’t they just drink water, I asked.

The same answer: Time. You see, water was dirty and full of germs. People who drank it got sick. So they were forced to drink wine.

Unfortunately for BPD, I was one of those inquisitive kids who couldn’t let go off a bug once it flew up his ass (which, in my case, was all the time). Why didn’t they boil it like we did in Cub Scouts before they kicked me out because I got the entire den to spray our sodas on our scout master?

It took a moment, but BPD’s are clever. That’s how they justify splitting churches so often. People could boil water at home, but it was too difficult to carry pots and firewood when they traveled. So they carried wine skins instead.

I could have pressed it but there were too many other, more important issues to press, like the Holy Trinity, free will and why David got to marry Bathsheba after they committed adultery and had her husband killed. A marriage without which, I might add, we wouldn’t have had Jesus. (Look it up). These produced far more satisfactory flusters than water and wine.

I was thinking about the Time answer when I was thinking about birth control and I realized it works just as well here. Think about it. When God told us to multiply we didn’t have math. The only way we could multiply was with sex.

In the 21st Century we not only have math, we have calculators on our iPhones. It’s so much easier, and so much less messy, to multiply without sex. So we can now obey God without getting women pregnant.

Get off your high horses, Rick and Newt and Tea Party members. Give women birth control if they want it. Just make sure they download calculator apps to their smart phones. I know that this also undermines the rationale for Viagra, but when have men ever really needed the Bible to rationalize having sex? They can find twenty-seven other perfectly reasonable rationalizations between heart beats.

Besides, now that women have smart phones, they can multiply perfectly well without getting men involved.

Women of America, claim your freedom earned with time. Brandish your calculators and demand birth control if you want it. You can be Christian without babies.

Ironically, when I looked up Genesis 1:22 before writing this blog I realized God never commanded Adam and Eve to multiply. He issues the command to “the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind.” (1:21).

You see, God hadn’t even thought of people yet. That doesn’t happen until Day Six. Now, you might try to argue that people are animals as well. But that would make you an evolutionist. People are special.

Remember, babies came after they got kicked out of the garden of Eden.