Conchobar

Seriously, the most outrageous, repugnant, and disgusting immorality, debauchery, cruelty, and injustice ever put into print is in the Christian Bible. Mein Kampf seems like a Boy Scout Manual by comparison. Ironically all three books have religious themes.

In both Mein Kampf and the Bible, attribution is made to God as approving the many atrocities. Even Hitler implied in saying he was doing God's work that God commanded him to destroy the Jews. Much the same occurs in the Bible's O.T. many passages in which God orders the Israelite Storm Troopers and Infantry Panzers to go into Canaanite towns to slaughter men, women, children, babies, infants, occasionally rip open pregnant women, and keep young virgin girls as sex slaves (for yourselves.)

No worse book has ever been written. I attack it sometimes with humour. The Author of God on Trial is quite serious. His critical analysis of the Bible makes one realise its major failing. It does not value morality over dogma. It does not praise good or condemn evil. It does not compel compassion or ban cruelty. I read the Bible to challenge my own views like any good sceptic. However that failed. It reinforced my doubt 1000 fold. Try reading God on Trial.

Moral values are loudly attributed by Christians to their God and their Bible. Biblical morality is not only debatable; it may be an oxymoron. Morality is a product of evolution itself. Early hominids lived in social groups. Certain behaviours proved to be detrimental (murder, rape, child molestation, theft, lying, and cheating.) And those hominids and humans who did this one or more times would be exiled, banished, or executed. This tended to eliminate those with tendencies for that behaviour from the genetic pool. Genes code for human anatomy, cognitive abilities, and moral behaviour. So in general the weak moral genes tended to be eliminated. Recessive ones would still pop up at predictable intervals.

History shows how the savagery of earlier man was improved by social and moral evolution. Religion adopted the Ten Commandments. The last 6 are based on intuitive inhibition of such immoral behaviours as killing, rape, molestation, theft, and lying. The commandments did not come from a hypothetical god. They came from Moses himself and his intuition or “inner voice.” All religions tend to make bad behaviours sinful. It is good that it does. It reinforces the evolutionary intuitive morality already in the brain’s hard-wiring. We usually go one step further by making laws to further limit the commission of bad or harmful behaviours.

To those of you who believe in God, I am granting you that religion may have some positive effects on morality. However, too often religion becomes perverted as noted in Deuteronomy, Exodus, I-II Samuel, I-II Chronicles, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joshua, and the immoral Noah’s Flood in Genesis 7-8.

Conchobar

Conchobar

As the supposed punishment for raping a virgin, the rapist pervert is required to buy the victim from her father and marry her. Rape victims were forced to marry their rapists.

UNHOLY BIBLE SANCTIONS RAPE.

Deut. 22:28-29 "If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold of her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the MAN THAT LAY WITH HER shall give unto the damsel's father fifty she-kels of silver and she SHALL be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days."

GOD COMMITS OR ORDERS VARIOUS ATROCITIES INCLUDING GENOCIDE AND THE MURDER OF CHILDREN.

I Samuel 15:3 "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and WOMAN, INFANT, AND SUCKLING, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

Numbers 31:17 "Now therefore kill EVERY MALE AMONG THE LITTLE ONES, and kill EVERY WOMAN that hath known man by lying with him."

Numbers 31:18 "But of the WOMEN CHILDREN that have not known a man by lying with him, KEEP ALIVE for yourselves." (GENOCIDE, INFANTICIDE, SEX SLAVES, AND PAEDOPHILIA.)

Isaiah 13:15-16 "Everyone that is found shall be thrust through, and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword. THEIR CHILDREN ALSO SHALL BE DASHED TO PIECES BEFORE THEIR EYES; their houses shall be spoiled, and their WIVES RAVISHED."

Deuteronomy 2:34 "And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the LITTLE ONES, of every city, we left NONE to remain."

Deuteronomy 3:6-7 "and we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon king of Hesbon, utterly destroying the men, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN, of every city. But all the cattle, and the spoil of the cities we took for a prey to ourselves."

Ezekiel 9:5-6 "...Go ye after him through the city, and smite; let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids, and LITTLE CHILDREN, and woman..."

Hosea 13:16 "Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God; they shall fall by the sword; their infants shall be dashed into pieces, and THEIR WOMEN WITH CHILD SHALL BE RIPPED UP."

See infanticide-genocide also in Deut. 20:16-17, Joshua 6:2, Joshua 6:21, Joshua 8:25, and Deut. 12:2-3.

Actually God sends a killer angel to kill the first born in Egypt (human and non-human). The injustice is that each attack on Egypt is excused after God "hardens Pharaoh's heart." He altered Pharaoh's will to resist so that God could inflict more suffering and death, to show his glory. (I.e. showing off.)

God does immoral things. If there is any moral objectivity, the Bible is a book of lies. If infanticide is good because God orders it, then morality is purely arbitrary not absolute. It depends on God's capriciousness and emotional lability. (i.e. insanity.)

"No one has seen God at any time" vs. "Moses saw God face to face")."

2 Enoch 22:1-4, (the longer recession) "I saw the view of the face of the Lord, like iron made burning hot in a fire and brought out, and it emits sparks and is incandescent. Thus even I saw the face of the Lord. But the face of the Lord is not to be talked about, it is so very marvellous and supremely awesome and supremely frightening. And who am I to give an account of the incomprehensible being of the Lord, and of his face, so extremely strange and indescribable? And how many are his commands, and his multiple voice, and the Lord's throne, supremely great and not made by hands, and the choir stalls all around him, the cherubim and the seraphim armies, and their never-silent singing. Who can give an account of his beautiful appearance, never changing and indescribable, and his great glory? And I fell down flat and did obeisance to the Lord."

"The Trinity is, logically speaking, nonsense."

Think of it as a man with three hands named "Father," "Son," and "Holy Spirit."

To be fair, nobody has solved this enigmatic idea. The idea is that there is one god but three persons or personalities. I compare it to multiple personality syndromes in humans. Logically it is difficult to defend otherwise 3=1, 1=3. Manifestations or personalities make some sense. But Tertullian who invented it in the 2nd century never really explained it well. He knew Egyptian Trinity from the Wall murals of the Holy of Holies in the Temple at Luxor. They had a Father (Atum), Son (Aten or Horus virgin born), and Holy Spirit (Kneph or Ra). Kneph apparently means Holy Spirit in ancient Coptic, 4000 years ago. However, the Egyptian Father-Son-Holy Spirit were gods in their own right, 3=3. The names may well have been "borrowed" by Tertullian and Athanasius.

"But "original sin" is the claim that God punished all future generations for the actions of Adam and Eve, which would be inconsistent with the belief that God is fair and just."


By natural intuitive sense of Justice that is programmed into all of us. Innocent people should not suffer for the sins of an ancestor. Would it be fair for 2000 IRA assassins to target you because a genaeologist found you to be the 15 great granddaughter of the evil Oliver Cromwell who murdered 3 million Irish men, women, and children?

"Or let's leave the details of Christianity out entirely; the idea of there being an omnipotent, omniscient, all-good deity is inconsistent with reality."

Can God make a boulder too heavy for him to lift? Can God commit suicide? Can God make a square circle? Or a cubical sphere? Can God make 2+2= minus 7? God is loving and omnipotent, and a baby is born with an inoperable brain tumour, suffering horrid headaches, convulsing, vomiting, developing paralysis, but suffering for 6 years of a slow agonising death. The baby suffers and dies. That means either (a) God is omnipotent but uncaring and unloving about suffering children to miraculously cure the child. (b) God cares deeply but lacks the power to cure medulloblastomas and is not omnipotent.

"but an all-good God would never allow disease or natural disaster if he was able to prevent it. "

Read Genesis 3. Among other things, "cursed is the ground" because of the fall of man.

Please take no personal offence, but that is rather cold-hearted. If Adam and Eve sinned, no matter what the sin, is it just that sentient, feeling, non-human animals should die like the zebra being ripped apart and eaten alive by a pack of hyenas. Is it just for God to create parasitic worms to travel in the blood of children in Africa to the brain and liver, and (gross!) eyeballs? The parasitic worm eats the living tissues as the child dies? Is that because Adam sinned, so God in a temper tantrum made all living things on the "ground" suffer?

I hope my response was not offensive to you. It is just a discussion. Your ideas are held by most Christians, sometimes they forget the origin of these verses I quote. You probably wonder about the Book of Enoch, it is a Jewish scripture older than the New Testament and for (I suppose) obvious reasons rejected by the Catholic Church in 325 AD for inclusion into the compilation of the Bible. BTW, all modern Christians are Catholics by dogma with only trivial variants. (Not JW's, Unitarians, or Mormons.)

Conchobar

Conchobar

The Bible and Islamo-Christianity are not only false religions, they are forms of the most malignant anti-female hateful bigotry. I cannot understand women wanting to belong to such a despicable mythology that so obviously hates them. It is obviously not God. Assume that God is not a monster or my view that the Christian God is imaginary. The woman hating prophets and the mentally ill Paul of Tarsus were the evil wankers. They perpetrated the greatest crime against humanity in history prior to Hitler. I find it so disgusting that I get angry. Paul was crazy but I have no sympathy for him. He was criminally insane. His perversion of the teaching of Jesus was the greatest betrayal in history.

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Conchobar

Conchobar

“But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth” (Deuteronomy 20:16).

“Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city [of nonbelievers] with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword” (1 Samuel 13:15).

“And that day Joshua took Makkedah, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof he utterly destroyed, them, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain: and he did to the king of Makkedah as he did unto the king of Jerico. Then Joshua passed from Makkedah, and all Israel with him, unto Libnah, and fought against Libnah: And the Lord delivered it also, and the king thereof, into the hand of Israel: and he smote it with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were therein; he let none remain in it” (Joshua 10:29-30).

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass” (1 Samuel 15:3).

“And Amaziah said to the man of God, But what shall we do for the hundred talents which I have given to the army of Israel? And the man of God answered, The Lord is able to give thee much more than this. . . . And Amaziah strengthened himself . . . and smote the children of Seir ten thousand. And other ten thousand left alive did the children of Judah carry away captive, and brought them unto the top of the rock, and cast them down from the top of the rock, that they all were broken in pieces” (2 Chronicles 25:9-12).

“And they burnt the city with fire, and all that was therein: only the silver, and the gold, and the vessels of brass and of iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the Lord”(Joshua 6:24).

“But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man, or him that stooped for age: he gave them all into his hand” (2 Chronicles 36:16-17).

“And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them” (Deuteronomy 7:2).

“And David commanded his young men, and they slew them, and cut off their hands and their feet, and hanged them up over the pool in Hebron” (2 Samuel 4:12).

“For Joshua drew not his hand back, wherewith he stretched out the spear, until he had utterly destroyed all the inhabitants of Ai. . . . And Joshua burnt Ai, and made it an heap for ever, even a desolation unto this day. And the king of Ai he hanged on a tree until eventide” (Joshua 8:26-29).

“But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses. The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea: That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same” (Psalms 68:21-23).

“When thou shalt besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, thou shalt not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an axe against them: for thou mayeth eat of them, and thou shalt not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man’s life) to employ them in the siege” (Deuteronomy 20:19).

“And when the Lord thy God hath delivered [a city] into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself” (Deuteronomy 20:13-14).

“And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males. . . . And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods” (Numbers 31:7-9).


Conchobar

keyser_soze

Talk about preaching to the choir

Doctor X

"And as the Lord said, 'Love thy neighbor . . . unless he's Turkish in which case, kill the bastard!'"

--Richard IV, embarking on Crusades
Blackadder

--J.D.

Toto

The OP may be referring to this book:

GOD ON TRIAL 2000: The Indictment of God for Crimes Against Job by Stuart C. Goldberg or

God on Trial

or some other book?

Madkins007

I've heard all this before in other forums (what do you guys do, all subscribe to the same Bible bashing newsletter? ;-))

I am reluctant to re-enter this particular debate since I know no one on either side will change their minds about it, but let me ask a few questions.

1. In the times in question, life was quite different than it is now in our rich, leisurely world. Is it fair to judge them based on our standards (many of which we have had for only a generation or so)?

Example: Vanquished enemies. WE would offer them assistance to help rebuild and then try to influence their development in our favor- but that takes a huge pool of resources and power to accomplish. If you cannot enslave them (as this is immoral as well according to people nowadays), what DO you do to them? The women and children are going to be supported by who? And, being a relatively small group, is it wise to leave embittered remnants of your enemies around?

For that matter, considering that some of the standards of ethics being used ARE both recent and culturally biased, is it even fair to assume they ARE standards?

2. Why do WE get to define God's morals? Assuming there is a god, can the creation limit or define the creator? Isn't there just some off chance that we just do not understand God (or, god forbid, are not as omniscent as he is?)

Related to this- as humans (and especially as Americans) we tend to take the very short view- immediate action, immediate gratification. Isn't there some chance that God is working on a different scale of time and distance- you know... 'thinking globally, acting locally'.

3. In some cases, what is quoted in the Bible is a record of what happened (or is going to happen, in the case of prophecies), not a record of God's pleasure in it.

4. Just because we do not understand something does not make it wrong. You (and I) don't understand the Trinity, for example, but neither do we understand how asprain works, why a healthy pancreas 'decides' to stop producing insulin, or any of a hundred other things that happen and no one can explain why. Heck- accordingot lengthy debates on www.thestraightdope.com no one is sure why shower curtains suck inwards during your shower! (Note- I personally do not hold to the traditional teaching of the Trinity, I'm just using this as an example.)

Devilnaut

"I read the Bible to challenge my own views like any good sceptic. However that failed. It reinforced my doubt 1000 fold. Try reading God on Trial."

And christians who read it reinforce their views. I guess we see what we want to see sometimes.

But you and me are above all that... right?

Vinnie

This thread is the exact reason I made my biblicalerrancy flash presentation.

http://www.after-hourz.net/biblicalerrancy.html

There is some really stupid and repugnant stuff inside the Bble! One wonders why we have to put "Excplicit Lyrics" on records but not "Explicit Content" labels on the Bible?? I can bring forth a bunch of stories and verses I wouldn't want my children reading.

Vinnie