"Not only does the existence of this God provide an adequate and logically necessary explanation for the physical universe, but also provides a basis for absolute morality as well."
"Absolute morality", Greg??!!--LOL!!!
"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon rather than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. I sincerely detest it as I detest all things cruel."
home.inu.net
"...Killing, much of it nothing more than senseless murder, is just business as usual in the Bible, euphemistically known as the "Good Book ." The unvarnished truth is that killing, or the threat of killing, most of it totally irrational, occurs unabated throughout the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. In about half the versions I consulted the word "kill" in the sixth commandment (Ex. 20:13) has been changed to "murder." This amounts to a significant revision. Kill is an umbrella term covering all cases, whereas murder is more narrowly defined. Forbidding murder creates much less of a problem for the Bible believer, hence the change. This revision helps them, of course, but they are by no means off the hook. Need I remind them that Moses, a man after God's own heart, was a murderer (Ex.2:12) never brought to justice for his crime. However, God, himself, is the most notorious murderer of them all.
Biblical killing begins early in Genesis when Cain, the first born son of Adam and Eve, murdered his younger brother Abel. But why would Cain do such a thing, you ask? Well, it seems that when Cain, a tiller of the soil, and Abel, a keeper of the flocks, dutifully brought their offerings to God, he accepted Abel's but for some unexplained reason spurned Cain's. As a result, Cain, in a fit of uncontrollable jealousy, slew Abel (Gen. 4:8). Now strictly speaking one would have to acknowledge Cain's culpability in this matter. But shouldn't God, who is said to be omniscient as well as omnipotent, bear part of the blame? After all didn't he set the whole thing up with an irresponsible act of petty partiality?
Consider the story of the great flood (Genesis 7), the most appallingly inhumane record of murder and genocide in history. If we are to take this story seriously, and many Christians do in spite of its obvious absurdity, it must be recognized that, except for Noah and his immediate family, God deliberately murdered every man, woman and child on earth including fetuses some of whom doubtless were viable. He also wiped out practically all of the animals to say nothing of plant and insect life. Fresh water aquatic life all apparently got off scot free.
The story of the tenth plague (Ex.11 and 12) is perhaps the most shameful in this book of shame. In it God calls Moses aside and tells him that, "About midnight I will go into the midst of Egypt. All of the firstborn of Egypt will die, from the first born of Pharaoh (don't forget that Moses grew up under the care and protection of Pharaoh's court) even to the firstborn of the maidservant who is behind the millstones and all the firstborn of the beasts" (Ex.11:4-5).
In addition to this story's general repugnance, deliberately specifying such individuals as the maidservant underscores God's indiscriminate cruelty since she could have in no way influenced Pharaoh's policy toward the Israelites. Also, why take it out on the beasts? But while the Israelites dined securely behind their blood-smeared doors, God went about the business of murdering all of the firstborn of Egypt (Ex.12:29). It should be noted that Egyptian history of this period makes no mention of such a traumatic event or anything else recorded in the Book of Exodus. This, and other evidence, has lead Bible scholars to declare the Book of Exodus to be fiction and nothing more.
Genesis 19:26 ~ Because he disapproved of their lifestyle, God murdered all of the people in Sodom and Gomorrah except Lot and his family. He whimsically turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt simply because she couldn't resist a natural impulse - looking back.
Genesis 38:7 ~ Er, Judah's first born, was wicked in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord murdered him.
Genesis 38:8-10 ~ Because he refused to impregnate his widowed sister-in-law, God murdered Onan.
Exodus 19:12 ~ Whosoever toucheth Mount Sinai shall be killed. How about the traveler who didn't know one mountain from another?
Exodus 22:18 ~ Thou shall not suffer a witch to live. This one little sentence lead to the execution of thousands of innocent women most of whom were old, indigent and defenseless.
Exodus 22:19 ~ The man who lieth with a beast shall be killed. This one would probably do away with almost all farm boys.
Exodus 31:15 ~ Whoever does any work on the Sabbath will be killed. Would anyone care to see this one enforced?
Leviticus 20:10 ~ Adulterers shall be put to death. This would include a lot of preachers I've heard about.
Leviticus 20:13 ~ If a man lieth with another man as with a woman, they shall both be killed. This one justifies homophobia.
Leviticus 20:16 ~ The woman who mates with a beast shall be killed. What if the woman turns out to be mentally ill?
Leviticus 20:27 ~ A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones. When combined with Exodus 22:18 (see above) this passage condones and confirms the lynch mob mentality.
Leviticus 24:16 ~ And whoever blasphemes the name of the Lord shall surely be put to death. All the congregation shall certainly stone him, the stranger as well as him who is born in the land. When he blasphemes the name of the Lord, he shall be put to death. This passage violates our first amendment guarantee of freedom of expression.
Leviticus 24:21 ~ He that killeth a man shall be killed. This passage is used by Bible believers to justify capital punishment.
Numbers 1:51 ~ Any layman approaching the tabernacle will be killed. Note that no exception is made for the blind.
Numbers 5 ~ Of all the deplorable attitudes toward women found in the Bible, none is more flagrantly sexist than is the "test" for unfaithful wives. When a husband "suspects" his wife of being unfaithful, he brings her to the temple where she is required to drink "holy water" mixed with sweepings from the temple floor. This concoction is know as "the bitter water that brings a curse." If she is guilty the curse will cause her "belly to swell and her thigh to rot" (vs:19-22). But no such test is required of men who are suspected of having been unfaithful to their wives.
Numbers 16:31-35 ~ As a penalty for daring to question Moses' leadership, two men, Dathan and Abiram along with their wives, children, servants and other followers (250 in all) were either buried alive or burned to death. Here again innocent victims are pointlessly and cruelly murdered.
Numbers 21:5-6 ~ The Lord sent fiery serpents to bit the people because they complained. As a result, some of them died. Only a sick control freak would do an awful thing like that?
Numbers 31:1-18 ~ The Lord tells Moses to "take full vengeance" upon the Midianites. So, the Israelites dutifully made war on them killing all of the men. However, they took the women and children captive. Now, when Moses and the chief priest, Eleazar saw this they were livid. Moses said to them, "Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves." Here God not only breaks commandment number six, thou shalt not kill, he also breaks number ten, thou shalt not commit adultery. Surely some of the Israelite soldiers were married men with families of their own.
Deuteronomy 13:6-9 ~ "If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend secretly entices you, saying, 'Let us go and serve other gods,' which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall you pity him, nor spare him or conceal him; but you shall surely kill him." Here God recommends murdering family members and friends over religious disagreements.
Deuteronomy 21:18-21 ~ When a son is disobedient and will not obey his parents or pay attention when they punish him, then his parents shall bring him out to the town gate. There they shall say to the town elders, "Our son is disobedient and will not obey us." Then the men of the town shall stone him to death. Today, there wouldn't be enough rocks.
In Deuteronomy 28, beginning with verse 15 God gives a detailed description of what the Israelites can expect to happen in the event they do not obey his commandants. In verse 49 he threatens to bring a fierce nation against them which will "show no favor." The results, set forth in graphic detail in verses 53 through 57, are too horrible to describe because they include cannibalism. Only a madman would perpetrate such an awful fate on anyone, let alone his chosen people?
Joshua 7:18-25 ~ Consider the sad story of Achan and his family. Now it seems that before the fall of Jericho, Joshua declared that all the spoil taken there should be given to the Lord. In spite of this order Achan, one of Joshua's soldiers, secreted away a garment, some silver and some gold. Afterward Joshua tried to take the city of Ai. He failed and many of his soldiers were slain. Joshua sought for an excuse for his defeat and discovered Achan's indiscretion. Thereupon Joshua took Achan along with his sons and his daughters, his oxen and his sheep and had them stoned to death. Perhaps Achan deserved it, but what had his sons and daughters or the oxen and sheep done to deserve such a cruel fate? Why didn't God step in and save these innocent victims?
Judges 11:29-39 ~ While Jepthah, commander of the Israelite army, was on his way to make war against the Ammonites he made a vow to the Lord, "If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, Then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering." Jephthah successfully defeated Ammon, but when he returned home the first one to greet him was his beautiful young daughter. Jepthah was indeed between a rock and a hard place. But in the end he did what he felt that he had to do. He murdered her. Why didn't God pull one of those last minute interventions like he did when Abraham was about to murder Isaac (Genesis 22:12)? The only answer is that in addition to being petty and cruel, God is also capricious, arbitrary and inconsistent. He is a sadist.
In I Samuel 6:19, it is recorded that in a fit of pique God slew 50,070 men simply for "looking into the ark of the Lord." What a detestable tyrant!
I Samuel 15 tells the story of the massacre of the Amalekite people. It seems that God was ticked off at them for something their ancestors had allegedly done several hundred years earlier. So he sent the prophet Samuel to command King Saul to "Go and smite the Amalek. Slay men, women, and infants, oxen and sheep, camel and ass." Saul then proceeded to wipe out all of the Amalekites. Besides breaking the sixth commandment, didn't God commit what could only be called genocide? This is an outrageously immoral act which exceeds the atrocity of the Nazi holocaust. After all, many Jews survived Hitler.
I Samuel 18:27 ~ David, with God's permission, slew two hundred Philistine men in order to obtain the number of foreskins necessary to purchase Saul's daughter to be his wife. This one speaks for itself.
Now take the famous story of the adulterous relationship between King David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11). This illicit love story has supplied the grist for quite a few successful novels, movies, and TV shows. In them, however, the real atrocity, the one committed by God, is conveniently overlooked. God, in a display of his infinite mercy, did forgive David both for committing adultery and for sending Uriah, Bathsheba's husband, to certain death on the battlefield. But at the same time God made it clear that David would pay a price for his sin. The child, conceived during his tryst with Bathsheba, would die. So, God "punished" David by murdering an innocent baby. The baby, it says in 2 Sam 12:15-18, suffered for seven days before it died. Shouldn't God be condemned for such a cruel act? The irony is that in letting David off while killing the baby God not only committed a senseless act of murder, he actually broke his own laws. In Lev. 20:10 it says adulterers will be killed for their action; in Deut. 24:16 and repeated in Ezekiel 18:20 it says children will not be punished for the sins of their parents.
David offends God again by taking a census (2 Samuel 24). So what does God do to "punish David?" He sends a pestilence killing 70,000 men (v15). WOW, talk about innocent victims!
Consider the story of King Ahab and his unlucky associates as recorded in First and Second Kings. It seems that Ahab provoked the Lord by taking as one of his wives Jezebel, a Sidonian and a worshiper of Ball (1 Kings 16:31). Soon thereafter Ahab was killed in battle. However, instead of going back home Jezebel remained in Jezreel proselytizing unwary Israelites. The Lord ( to say nothing of the local rabbis) was furious. So with the help of the prophet Elisha, God conspired to have Jehu usurp the throne from Ahab's son, Ahaziah (2 Kings 9:3). According to God's instructions, Jehu (2 Kings 9:7-8) was to slaughter the whole house of Ahab, especially Jezebel. First, Jehu murdered Jezebel as instructed. Next, God demanded that Ahab's sons, all seventy of them, be beheaded, which they were (2 Kings 10:6-7). Not satisfied with that, Jehu proceeded to slaughter everybody in the house of Ahab including leaders, friends and priests until there were no survivors. He then went on to massacre forty-two of Ahaziah's (no relation to Ahab) relatives because he perceived them to be pro-Ahab (2 Kings 10:14). Following that he put on a little show for Jehonadab by killing all of Ahab's followers in Sameria. But Jehu was not finished. By way of lies, deception and trickery he managed to assemble all of the worshipers of Ball in the temple where he proceeded to murder them. So, what did God think of this senseless orgy of killing? Well, in 2 Kings 10:30 he said to Jehu, "Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel."
God, however, is unpredictably fickle. After assuring Jehu that by murdering the entire royal family of Israel he had done the right thing, God turned on him for, of all things, murdering the entire royal family of Israel, the very thing he had been ordered to do. In Hosea 1:4 God vows to avenge the blood of Jezreel upon the house of Jehu. What an outrageous flip-flop!
Second Kings 2:23-25 records another senseless act of slaughter - this time against children. It seems that as Elisha, one of Israel's most venerated prophets, was on his way to Bethel a group of children began to mock him. "Go up thou bald head...Go up thou bald head," they shouted. This infuriated Elisha. So, he turned and cursed them in the name of the Lord whereupon two bears came out of the nearby forest and tore apart forty-two of the children. Satisfied that his dignity had been sufficiently restored, Elisha continued on his way.
Second Kings 6:28-29 records a clear case of cannibalism. During the siege of Samaria the king kills and eats his own son and demands that others do likewise.
Psalm 2:1-7 is the passage cited by fundamentalist, right wing Christian activists as justifying their zeal to replace the U. S. Constitution with biblical law thereby turning the USA into a repressive theocracy.
In Psalm 137:9 infanticide is highly recommended. In swearing to get their revenge against Babylon, the defeated Isralites are told, "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones."
God reveals to Ezekiel in a vision what he will do to the Israelites if they disobey him (Ezek. 9:5-6). First, he will recruit a bunch of cut-throats and have them, "Go through the city . . . and strike; do not let your eyes have pity, and do not spare. Slay old men, young men, maidens, little children and women, . . ." And some people actually worship this sadist!
The story of Daniel in the lion's den (Daniel 6:10-24) is repeated regularly in all Christian churches, especially in the Sunday schools. In this story King Darius was informed by certain of his followers that Daniel had been caught worshiping a god other than that of the Babylonians. Because this was a capital offense, Daniel was cast into a den of lions. But God protected him. When King Darius saw what had happened he was so impressed that he decided it was time for a little reverse justice. He ordered that those who had informed on Daniel be thrown into the lion's den along with their wives and children. What had the wives and children done to deserve this awful fate? Shouldn't God have intervened since it was all his fault?
Jesus, whom many Christians claim to be synonymous with God, not only demanded that certain people be killed, he actually volunteered to do the killing - of children, no less. In Luke 19:27 Jesus said to the crowd at Zacchaeus' house, "Bring my enemies here and slay them in my presence." In chapter 2 of The Book of Revelation, Jesus, this man of infinite love, expresses an almost psychopathic hatred of Jezebel, whom he never knew personally. In verse 23 he says, "I will kill her children."
Another indication of Jesus' true character can be found in Matthew 15:21-28. Here a Canaanite (non-Jewish) woman beseeched him to save her daughter who was "cruelly demon-possessed." Despite his pious endorsement of the "Golden Rule" (Mt. 7:12, Luke 6:31), Jesus at first callously ignored her. When his disciples intervened on her behalf, he contemptuously refered to her as a "dog" and reminded them that he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Only after much pleading and groveling by the distraught mother, did Jesus reluctantly relent.
In some instances Jesus made highly irresponsible, even reckless, suggestions to his followers. In Matthew 19:12 he gives tacit approval to castration. In that wonderful Sermon on the Mount he openly advocates self mutilation by recommending that "if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and if thy right hand offend thee, cut off" (Matthew 5:29-30). I wonder how many sick, deluded Bible believers have taken these ill-considered recommendations seriously?
The above citations are by no means a complete catalogue of Bible atrocities. However, they should be sufficient to cause any Bible-believing Christian to have some sobering second thoughts regarding his or her commitment that book of horrors and to the god who allegedly inspired it. To acknowledge the Bible as the source of human morality is to condone genocide, rape, incest, hatred, deceit, bigamy, lying, slavery, and the degradation of women because that is what that book is all about.
I close with a quote from Tom Paine's The Age of Reason: "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon rather than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. I sincerely detest it as I detest all things cruel."" |
