"You Worship an Evil God"
Offline Well, I finally finished up the rough draft of my pamphlet, "You Worship an Evil God," which I announced in another thread. For those of you who don't know, this is a brief, six-sided pamphlet looking at the god of the bible, to be stashed at churches, in bibles, song books, etc. I'm not completely satisfied with it yet, so I'd love some constructive criticism. One of the problems is that there is simply so much cruelty and injustice in the bible that it was hard to decide what goes in. Because of this and a lack of space, the pamphlet is somewhat limited in the amount of material it can cover, so several topics have been left out, and heavy alterations will probably be avoided. Here it is, have at it.
You Worship an Evil God
A brief examination of the god of the Bible
Quotes taken from the New Revised Standard Version
You probably consider yourself an intelligent, moral person, and you are probably right. When fanatical Muslim terrorists carry out Holy War on western civilization, or when African tribes attempt all-out genocide on neighboring tribes, you don’t make up excuses for them, or hope that they have a good reason for their actions. When children are abused or murdered, when girls are raped, when injustice appears in the judicial system - you don’t jump to the defense of the offender. You know the difference between right and wrong.
Here’s a list of things you would probably agree are horrible, evil things, regardless of the situation:
Genocide
Rape
Enslavement
Murder of children and babies
Racism
Torture
Cruelty towards animals
The problem is, if you believe what’s written in the Old Testament, you have to come up with excuses for these kinds of things, or hope that there was a good reason for them, because they are all contained within the Old Testament, and they were all encouraged, endorsed, or carried out by your God. If Christianity is true, then Judaism was true at one point. But you don’t worship an evil god, do you?
No one in their right mind would try to justify Hitler’s slaughter of the Jews, nor would anyone claim that his plans for the future were good. Looking at the methods he used, anyone can see his ideology was horribly flawed.
Looking back now on the Old Testament, we find that the Jews were anything but innocent, and in fact carried out genocide and mass slaughter on several occasions, with orders from God. When at war, God seems to delight in destroying everything that breaths, including children.
“…in each town we utterly destroyed men, women, and children. We left not a single survivor.”
DT 2:34
“Then they devoted to destruction by the edge of the sword all in the city, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys.”
JS 6:21 (Well, they spared the whores)
“So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings; he left no one remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.”
JS 10:40
Is the murder of children ever justifiable? Little children would not remember their slain societies sufficiently to rise up in vengeance years later, as some have suggested. And what did the animals do wrong? Were the societies around Israel back then really so wicked? How evil would they have to be? Are the societies of today any better? Anyone doing these things today would be decried as a monster, no matter how much divine support they claimed. Our critical eye should not go blind when looking at our own beliefs.
As we look further, we find that God did occasionally spare a few people in times of war: young virgin girls. Why? You know why, and it’s disgusting.
“This is what you shall do; every male and every woman that has lain with a male you shall devote to destruction.’ And they found among the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man and brought them to the camp at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan.”
JG 21:11-12
“Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known a man by sleeping with him. But all the young girls who have not known a man by sleeping with him, keep alive for yourselves.”
NU 31:17-18
“The booty remaining from the spoil that the troops had taken totaled six hundred seventy-five thousand sheep, seventy-two thousand oxen, sixty-one thousand donkeys, and thirty-two thousand persons in all, women who had not known a man by sleeping with him.”
NU 31:32-35
32,000 virgins? What could the Israelites want with so many? And how was it determined who had “lain with a male?” Women in the Bible are counted as property alongside sheep, oxen, and donkeys. If the idea of hundreds of sweaty men running throughout a city, slashing little boys, slaughtering the elderly and the handicapped, and forcibly looking up the skirts of all the women does not disgust and horrify you, you probably worship and praise the evil god that ordered these atrocities. There is no excuse for such malevolence, no situation that could possibly demand the merciless slaughter of little children, or the murder of helpless people.
Overwhelmingly, the god of the Old Testament is a god of war, not of peace:
“The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name.”
EX 15:3
He is jealous,
“For the Lord your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.” DT 4:24
Vengeful,
“For the Lord has a day of vengeance,
a year of vindication by Zion’s cause.” IS 34:8
And angry.
“He let loose on them his fierce anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels.” PS 78:49
He is the source of suffering,
“I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe; I the Lord do all these things.”
IS 45:7
And deceives people in order to destroy them:
“For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion, leading them to believe what is false, so that all who have not believed the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness will be condemned.”
2TH 2:11-12
“If a prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the Lord, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.” EZ 14:9
These are not characteristics to be praised, nor is such a character worthy of worship. Any person behaving this way would be outcast, hated, and probably in jail.
If a child were to be murdered for being disobedient today, you would not say to yourself, “ah, justice has been done.” Anyone that would think such a thing shouldn’t have kids. But under the Law of the Old Testament, people could be put to death for almost anything.
Disobedient children: EX.21:15, 17, Lev.20:9
People of other religions: EX.22:20, DT 13:6-10
“Witches“: EX.22:18
People who work on Saturday: EX.31:14-15, EX.35:2
Rape victims who aren’t loud enough: DT.22:23-24
Blasphemers: Lev.20:13
And many others.
Even at the very beginning of the Bible we find a horrible injustice: The entire human race is damned because of two people’s ignorance. Yes, ignorance; Before eating of the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil,” the couple could not have known that it was wrong to disobey God, nor to obey the serpent. Not only that, the prohibition against the tree was given to Adam before Eve was created. After they eat from this tree, they are cast out of Eden so that they cannot eat from the “Tree of Life,” and God puts a guard up to keep them from it, which he just as easily could have done with the first tree, and prevented the pain and suffering of mankind, the need for salvation, and the crucifixion of Jesus. This is the first and most blatant example of God punishing descendants for the actions of their ancestors, and the next is not far off:
“And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. …When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan; lowest of slaves shall he be to his brothers.”
GE 9:22, 24-25
Why would an intelligent, loving god create males with a foreskin, and then require them to chop it off? What kind of sick mind would come up with such a disgusting practice? Abram is even told to cut off his own: GE 17:11. Only a sadistic, evil god would demand such a thing, and no, there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that circumcision has any health benefits whatsoever. There is, however, plenty to the contrary.
How could an all-loving god demand the needless killing and burning of animals? Apparently this barbaric practice was important to God, as he devotes, in disgusting detail, the first nine chapters of Leviticus to the subject.
Seeing how much God values human life, it’s not surprising to see that he also endorses human sacrifice:
“And Jephthah made a vow to the Lord, and said, “If you will give the Ammonites into my hand, then whoever comes out of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return victorious from the Ammonites, shall be the Lord’s, to be offered up by me as a burnt offering.” JG 11:30-31
Reading further, we find that his daughter was the first to come out, and he sacrificed her as he had promised to God. Remember those 32,000 virgins? Thirty-two of them were given as “tribute to the Lord” in NU 31:25-40, and in LE 27:28-29, we find instructions for animal and human sacrifice.
What kind of sense does the sacrifice of Jesus make? How can God sacrifice himself to himself? And how can an almighty, eternal god sacrifice something at all? The whole concept is nonsense, and only makes God into a sadomasochist, if nothing else. The Bible is full of brutality and injustice. If you believe what it says, it is safe to say you worship an evil god.
There it is. Please tear apart.
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Very, very good points. Very well written. You should print a bunch up (or maybe convert it to PDA format or equivalent?)
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Very nicely written. I notice the theists aren't lining up to respond.
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Books about atheism
I wonder why ?........... haha
nicely done. it's a pretty impressive argument, even without the additional info you didn't have room for.
www.derekneibarger.com http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=djneibarger "all postures of submission and surrender should be part of our prehistory." -christopher hitchens
Well done.
Now all you have to do is get theists to read it!
My personal fave is Malichi 2:3
"Behold I will corupt your seed and spread DUNG upon your faces"
Even if one were to prove that an omi (powerfull) being existed there would be absoultly no way I would worship such a being.
"I can do anything I want"
Yea, I guess you can, inlcuding sitting on your ass while children starve to death or get raped.
"I'll punish the purp"
But what good does that do the child WHILE IT IS HAPPENING?
"It's a test"
FOR WHO? THE KID, THE PARENTS?
"God works in mysterious ways"
FINE, when he feels like giving me an explination besides "I can do what I want" or "I dont have to explain myself to you" or "You just wouldnt understand", then maybe I'll listen.
But that would be like waiting for a pink unicorn explaining to me why I have bubbles in my beer.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Haha, thanks everyone. A few things I wanted to add were 2 Kings 2:23-24, where little children call Elisha the prophet "bald head," so god sends two she-bears to kill 42 of the kids. Another one was Malachi 2:3, like you said, which is just awesome. In Judges 1:6, a man gets his thumbs and big toes cut off by the Israelites, and in 1 Samuel 18:25, king Saul wants David to go to war and bring back 100 amputated Canaanite foreskins (he brings 200). There are a number of other great passages I could've thrown in there had I more space. It really is amazing how people just love this book when it's so full of horrible, cruel, sadistic stories.
Keep in mind though, this is the rough draft, so I might be making changes, and when I'm satisfied with it, I'll make it into a PDF file or something so people can print them out and stick them in bibles and all that.
Do You Worship an Evil God?
That's really good, but I'd add a little to the concluding paragraph to point out that not only is god sacrificing himself to himself, but that he is doing it in order to change a law which he invented to prevent himself from sending as many people to the hell which he created.
"This is the real world, stupid." - Charlie Brooker
"It is necessary to be bold. Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think." - Thomas Paine
I'm not sure I follow what you mean. Are you saying that, before Jesus, only Jews went to heaven? If so, that's not what the majority of christians would say, if they know anything about their religion, and for a couple of reasons.
First, there's the idea of "Abraham's Bosom," which is essentially purgatory. Before Jesus, everyone went to Abe's bosom instead of heaven or hell, to wait for Jesus to come, and then they would decide whether or not to follow him. In fact that's where many people say Jesus was during the three days he was dead - preaching to the deceased in Abraham's Bosom. Also, there's Romans 2:13-15 -
"(For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.
For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves:
Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another;"
This implies that non Jews could be good and get into heaven, although they weren't Jews, and many people take this as being valid for non christians as well. There are also many people (my parents' church for example), that combine the ideas of Abraham's Bosom and Romans 2, believing that good people before Jesus went to Abraham's Bosom to await the arrival of Jesus to let them into heaven, and bad people just went straight to hell.
Is that what you mean, or did I just completely miss what you were trying to say?
Do You Worship an Evil God?
I'll respond.
I appreciate the effort, but as usual, you're creating a sort of caricature of Christians and Christianity for the purpose of refuting, rather than going to any sort of source.
Quite frankly, an increasingly small amount of Christians actually believe the Bible to be perfect and God-breathed, and rightly so - it's full of contradiction, absurdity, and inconsistency (though certainly not to the extent that some here would say). I haven't viewed the Bible as anything more than the words of some of God's people for over half a decade. I subject it to the same scrutiny that I would when I read Homer or Plato in the original language. Probably quite a bit more scrutiny actually, given the potentially harrowing consequences of the truth of the contents of the Bible.
To attribute all of this cruelty and injustice to God rather than the author of the particular book in question exposes a serious lack of any sort of real Biblical study on your part. But I mean, if you plan on planting them in conservative churches (who are filled with people who may even study the Bible less than you do), you may very well fool a great deal of people. Not me though.
I was thinking you could try to word it to show how ridiculous the idea is of the two being the same and sacrificing oneself to oneself because it's somehow needed to change something an (apparently) all-powerful being could have done easily without all the melodrama. I wasn't thinking that deeply into it. Just a suggestion.
"This is the real world, stupid." - Charlie Brooker
"It is necessary to be bold. Some people can be reasoned into sense, and others must be shocked into it. Say a bold thing that will stagger them, and they will begin to think." - Thomas Paine
The difference between Plato and Homer is that no sane person takes their stories as being anything but metaphore.
Which proves our point that when the theist is faced with a story in their book that doesnt reflect kindly on the deity it POOF magically becomes metaphore because litterally believing it would make the god a monster.
I dont see how they pick and chose what is litteral and metaphorical. If god CAN do what he wants and burn you forever for not kissing his rear, I dont see how spreading dung in one's face or allowing millions of men women and children to choke to death on water would be impossible. To me even if such a being didnt cause it, it certainly shows a lack of compassion and severe cruelty for not preventing it.
We dont believe this guff anyway. But we simply critize the cherry picking they do to justify such a being. If we are to pretend for argument's sake that such a being exists:
1. He didnt cause it.....Ok, but he didnt stop it either which makes him cruel and then he blames his creation for his own inaction(IF WE ARE GOING TO PRETEND AN ALL POWERFULL BEING EXISTS)
Do not equate Plato and Homer to the bible. No sane person tries to pass Plato or Homer's works off as anthing but liturature in history. Christians, Muslims and Jews however, do try to pass their hocus pocus magical comic books off as real history books.
Now if they want to say that the writers of the bible are part of history that is all they can say, just like J.K. Rolland is a real writer who wrote a real fictional work called Harry Potter.
But if they are going to say "this is just a story" but "that isn't" I could care less. Cherry picking is cherry picking and they are cherry picking because they dont like our criticism.
Muslims arnt getting rivers of milk and wine or 72 virgins in an afterlife, ghosts dont knock up girls, dead flesh doesnt come back to life after rigor mortis and Harry Potter doesnt fly around on a broom.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Sorry, but I'm not trying to 'fool' anyone, just pointing out what is in the bible. I stated a couple of times that if you believe what the bible says you worship an evil god. Your watered down, nonbiblical god is not the character portrayed in the Old Testament, and hence my pamphlet does not apply to you. I state that on the first page.
Also, I have met few christians that know the bible better than I do. Most people I've met that call themselves christians have read anything beyond John 3:16 and the ten commandments. I used to be a fundy, and I know what they say. I have done lots of study, and that's one reason I became an atheist, because the bible is so obviously human; its origins, its development, and its canonization. My pamphlet addresses the god of the bible, not yours.
Gotcha. You're exactly right, that would be good to go in there too, but the problem really is physical space on the paper! That was kind of the idea towards the end of the last page, and I wish I had more space to expound on each of the questions I posed at the end, as well as point out your point more explicitly. I'll see what I can do though.
Do You Worship an Evil God?
But see, here's where I think you're building up these caricatures of Christians for the purpose of easily knocking them down - straw men, if you will.
I never said that my God wasn't the God of the Bible. For all intents and purposes, he is. I've just come to believe that the Bible is first and foremost a collection of accounts which chronicle how different people defined God over a period of several hundred years, not the be-all end-all objective authority on the matter. I worship the same God that Moses did, it's just that our collective understanding of God has evolved over the millenia. Unfortunately, what I call intellectual and spiritual evolution, quite a few Christians still call heresy.
So, I'm still not entirely certain as to what exactly you're trying to acheive. You've set the parameters so narrowly that it's almost impossible to critique your pamphlet. On the one hand, you're in essence only allowing those who really don't have the biblical knowledge necessary to defend themselves (i.e. literalists) respond, but on the other hand, those of us who have taken a more sensible approach to biblical study, we worship a watered down god who is not the God of the bible.
So...congrats, I guess?
This is starting to remind of the debate between Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens, haha.
Most christians I've met or know are either completely ignorant of or simply ignore the horrible stuff in the bible. One passage I love bringing up is 2 Kings 2:23-24, where some little boys call Elisha 'baldy' and he sics two bears on them in the name of the Lord, killing forty-two kids. A lot of people just don't realize this stuff is in there, and when it is pointed out to them, they either say "Oh my gosh! That's awful!" or they try to defend it. I've come across more people that try to defend it and rationalize it away than those that are apalled. People generally hold the bible up as the best book ever written, full of good morals and stories, and sometimes even as the source of morals. If people begin seeing what horrible, unjustifiable cruelty is in the book, they may begin questioning their beliefs, which is exactly what I want them to do.
Also, I'm not exactly posting this for argument from christians, but from atheists and other people who think some parts could be improved or swapped out, etc. I certainly don't mind your comments, I just don't see how my pamphlet applies to you when you don't believe these things are of god. I see no way of telling what parts of the bible you should choose to believe and what to deny; it's entirely a matter of opinion. If the consequences of belief or nonbelief are so dire, God should have seen to it that the bible was written perfectly and remained that way. Otherwise, we're all screwed. What I think many people do, perhaps you as well, is come up with some subjective idea of what god is like, and then base what to believe off that. This is simply flawed. Like Brian said above, it's just cherry-picking, and nothing more.
Do You Worship an Evil God?
Totally fantastic. You write in a very straightforward, convincing way. I'm not a Bible guy, so I don't know about the quotes, but it certainly sounds like what I've heard about the Bible. Great pamphlet!
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