Archive for September, 2010

I am the Lord Your God, Useless but Demanding.


God told me you're an asshole and wrote it right here!

As verbose as I tend to be, I’m reluctant to admit that the following discussion of the Ten Commandments could be boiled down to a simple sentence.  ”I am the Lord your God. Thou shall not piss me off.” In fact, this adequately sums up the essence of the entire Old Testament. Being a lowly Boilermaker and having been steeped in a culture of sexual one-up-man-ship for years, I think I prefer the crude vernacular for the displeasure of God by the mere act of being human. ”Piss God off, and he’ll rip your dick off.”  Of course, that’d be for those of you who currently have one. If not, I’m sure that there are other crucial anatomical items you’d miss greatly, so ladies, don’t think you’re off the hook here.  Let’s just see them inscribe that on a monument and place it in front of a courthouse.

In all honestly, I think either of those two statements sums up these first four commandments so well that those of you without much time on your hands could skip the rest of this post and await the next one. The details are tedious, and it may be easier on your delicate little constitutions not to read my wrath-filled scribbling. If you’re insufficiently alarmed to back off now, consider yourself warned. So stock up on your favorite headache remedy, and let’s press on.

These first four bits of written goodness and charm are the God commandments, those glorifying the almighty because sometimes, as we all know, being omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent just isn’t enough. Every so often the Lord of the Universe needs something more, abject obedience for instance. Isn’t that funny though, the most powerful being in all of creation (and I use the term metaphorically), infinitely wise and endlessly loving, undefeatable and relentless, the indefatigable all-thing needs to protect his feelings with the first four of the ten most important laws in existence? Really?  Exactly what part of omnipotence doesn’t he understand? The very word implies that you need nothing and no one. To throughly mangle the wisdom in Jerry Maguire, you complete yourself. You are all-powerful, completely self-contained, both the unstoppable force and the immovable object, the end all and the be all, both the butter and the bread, the peanut butter and the jelly, yet it bothers you when someone says your name in vain, a painful stab through your oh-so-perfect heart. Goddamn it all!  I swear merely thinking about religion gives me a headache. Someday I’ll learn to take my own advice.  Yeah, yeah, I know!  Not bloody likely!

Let me get another couple of Tylenol and we’ll dip into the nitty-gritty of God’s law.

All in all, the God commandments are the most useless and nonsensical of the lot.  I know many theists today say that these laws are not to protect God but to keep us close to him and therefore away from harming each other.  I’m sure you’ve heard variations on the theme where if you have the Lord in the very depths of your heart,  you’re incapable of or at least unlikely to sin unto others.  These are the ideas I had hammered into my head by, amongst others, the Catholic church and Curly Thornton, the traveling evangelist my parents were enthralled with in my youth who cast invisible demons out of writhing and screaming people, lonely people who for the first time were the center of attention. Keep God utmost in your heart and you’ll find yourself unable to sin against others.  I wonder what the Incas and the Aztecs  would have thought of this, or the African slaves, or the Native Americans, or the Arawaks of Hispanola, or any other extinct or oppressed group here.  Having been ridden down by Yahweh-hearted Christians, they’d have a decidedly different point of view.  Historically, putting God first has never kept his followers from murdering millions and taking their stuff.  In fact, it has generally given people a rational for doing the very things it supposed to protect against.  God Commandments = Fail!

Commandment number one. Obviously, this is the supreme commandment taking up the coveted first spot on the roster, the big kahuna, the alpha law. This is Optimus Prime in a written form. And what does it say? What bit of incredible wisdom does the proclamation hand down to mankind? Don’t rape women? A prohibition against child molestation? The scientific method? The germ theory of disease, perhaps? Tsk, tsk, you naive little ones. Those mere “human” ideas aren’t important enough to be number one. Hell, they’re not even listed at all. As we have said, Commandment Uno has nothing to do with protecting people. It protects God… and God’s little helper, of course. Don’t forget about him. He most certainly hasn’t.

Moses is unquestionably an evil genius of the first caliber. As humans, we always tend to discount the genius of selfishness, to belittle its intelligence as if we cannot stand to acknowledge any virtue in our enemies. This is a mistake.  The genius of evil is real.  Moses’ command of the art of manipulation is unparalleled in his time and perhaps, even today. As a cult leader, he planned his strategy well, and it has been incredibly effective. He maintained an iron control over a people using nothing but fear, superstition and his unbendable will. These God commandments do nothing more than protect Moses’ position at the very peak of Hebrew society. He’s the only speaker for God, therefore, he is protected when his God is protected. Like I said, frakking Genius! Damn, if he’d only put that to good use.

“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before Me.”

So we now know that the most important rule in the entire universe is that God is God and don’t even try to raise to any first chair status one of those lesser gods who seem to be lying about in great abundance. Thou art God’s bitches now. Thou shall not be bitches to any other God! Yahweh demands complete loyalty in his prostitutes.  He’s a firm-handed pimp.

The truth is that this notion wearies me. If God were real, why not simply come down every Tuesday (Or any other day. Our schedule’s pretty open) and walk about talking with those people his followers claim he adores. After a few weeks of that, it’d be a simple matter of believing in him. Following him? Well, that’s a separate entity entirely, but at least you could believe in him. In every religion on Earth, why does the onus of belief and faith always fall on us, the mere mortal. For the lack-of-God’s-love, will someone tell me with the multitude of gods who are claimed to exist why none of them ever take any responsibility here. Why is it alway some deity-based fashion statement to be mysterious and invisible? Without exception, gods demand so much of us and give so little of themselves.  Why is faith a virtue?  What logical reason could there be?

In commandment number two, we have a further prohibition against making idols. Not only are you not to raise any existing other Gods before Yahweh, you can’t make any in your workshops either so Aaron, put down the Goddamned Skilsaw, and step away from that Golden Calf!  Is the great and powerful Oz really concerned with some powerless carving of a goat, or man or ox?  Or is Moses just keeping all of the power and influence exactly where he wants it, namely, in his own hands.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

This commandment comes before murder or rape or child molestation. Oh wait, those last two aren’t even commandments, are they? Does this mean it’s more of a crime to carve a fertility goddess to carry in your pocket that it is to brutally rape innocent women? Biblically, the answer to that would be… yes. Sigh.

You also have to be fascinated by the injustice of carrying out divine retribution on the children of sinners.  If I worship another God or let’s say for the sake of argument, none, then not only will I suffer the wrath of God, but so will my great-great grandchildren.  Wow!  Now there’s a system of justice we can all get behind, don’t ya think?.  Children of murderers should be… murdered?  Children of rapists should be… ?  This is just sick!   C’mon people!  These bits of “judiciousness” are the source of all western law?  WTF??

Number three.

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.”

I have only one thing to say here.  Is there truly a way of using the name of a nonexistent deity that is not in vain?  By scientific standards any prayer to the great and powerful Yahweh is completely and utterly useless, hence in vain.  God cannot be happy about all these useless callings on his name, and by the Bible’s own writings, he will not leave unpunished any who do so.  In my very humble point of view, Christians who call their God’s name to no avail more than anyone else on the planet are in big trouble.  It’s not going to be a Rapture.  It’ll be an apocalypse!

Last and likely least of the God Commandments is the one protecting the Sabbath.

“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

Because God rested on the seventh day, we must also.  As I write this, on a Sunday no less, I’m struck by the irony of it all.  There are so many nonsensical ideas to wander through with this single paragraph.  What does an omnipotent being do when he rests anyway?  The question may sound absurd but think about it some more.  Perfection and omnipotence means you’re never weary or tired. You can create stuff with mere thoughts alone.  So what did God do when he rested?  Sit around and stare at shit all day?  Take a hot bath and revel in his greatness?  Nap? If I’d created the universe in six days, I’d be shit-assed exhausted and need some rest!  But then again, I’m hardly omnipotent.  Just ask my wife!  On second thought, never mind.  No sense getting her started there.

The truth is that very concept of perfection and omnipotence stands strong against the necessity of a creator.  Ask yourself how “Perfection” fucked up so bad as to create us, genital warts and Paul Anka in the same day?  What in the hell was he thinking?  If I’d screwed up that bad, I’d take a day of rest also, but I’d hardly demand everyone else do it.  I’d try very hard keep the whole sordid affair quiet.

So do we have an answer to the mystery of why omnipotence demands obedience? To read the Bible, you’d have to say because he can! Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? Yes, Virginia! It sure the hell seems that way.

The theists love to file this entire group of questions under the “mysterious ways” heading, but goddamn it all over again, that drawer is getting full. You can’t just continue to shove every cussed bit of nonsense that you stridently claim is reality into some sort of password-protected file and then insist further that all of humanity is incapable of understanding it, and shouldn’t even try. Shake your head all you want, but isn’t this the very essence central to every belief system based on utter garbage. As human beings we are lowly and small with brains only capable of higher thought when we can get them to disengage from the ever present quest for sex. Even so, we are fully capable of eventually understanding any legitimate series of patterns or factors to any equation. True, it’s often only after years of painful and exhausting work. It may even take decades or centuries, but we will get it. What we are not able to comprehend in any amount of time is the type of manufactured nonsense so prevalent in most religions. This is not because they are too difficult, not by far. It’s an illegitimate pattern, one manufactured that leads no where. Patterns like this are a door but only one that’s painted on the wall, a window to a fantasy landscape. We can’t find answers to the riddles of religion because there are none, only a couple of layers of cracked and peeling paint. You can’t peel back the layers surrounding the mystery for once you tear off the first few flakes, nothing remains. Religion is a vulgar mural not a livable landscape, a crude sculpture not a viable world, yet millions look on this manufactured view and demand that we all believe it rather than reality.

I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Theists see the world how they want to see it rather than how it actually is.

Quite frankly, in a world tottering on the brink, this scares the hell out of me!

2010
09/19
CATEGORY
Atheism
Bible study
Exodus
Myth
Religion
Young Earth Creationism
28 comments

I’ve Seen the Wizard! Wizards actually, and a Godless Goddess. A review of Project 42 Freethinking Convention.


We're such bastards!

Yesterday, my 12 year old son, my nephew and I drove the 189 straight and flat miles to Fargo, North Dakota to attend the first annual ( I sincerely hope) Project 42 freethinkers convention.  I must tell you, by the unholy shit of Darwin people, we had a blast.  For the first time in my 43 years of existence, I felt I was among like-minded people, someone who, if not like me, at least thinks in the same general direction.  I know that sounds overly dramatic, but I have been swimming against the local current for a long time.  Many of you cannot understand the rarity of free-thought among people of Bismarck, ND, people I love but none-the-less. For example, we spent about two hours one day hanging posters in every grocery store and coffee shop in Bismarck and still not a single Bismarck atheist showed up.  Not one.  WTF!  There were atheists from a dozen microscopic ND towns, but any  from our fair capital?  No! Sigh! At any rate, the convention was well-organized and attended, in fact, was so well attended the room was packed to capacity.  The venue was small but comfortable, and the speakers lined up were of excellent quality.  I was so impressed.

The first up was August Berkshire.  His presentation on what it means to be atheist was funny and to the point with many facts and personal witticisms mixed together so well that the information flowed flawlessly.  This was a well polished presentation and a great opener for the rest.  Mr. Berkshire laid out a magnificent primer on atheism and the attendant arguments.  He would be a great one to call on to promote atheism to those who are unfamiliar with the concept. He lays out our case very well and you’ll find his site here. At noon, we three went to lunch with Mr. Berkshire and had some great conversation.  I admire his knowledge and wit, not to mention his ability to chow down plate after plate of chinese food, an ability close to a fat guy’s heart.

Second came Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Her presentation focused on the women’s rights movement and the prevalence of free-thinkers in their ranks.  She based her talk on her book Women Without Superstition : No Gods – No Masters, a book I tried to buy, but all those selfish and godless atheists before me had purchased every last copy.  Evolutionary altruism my ass!  This was not a funny  or humorous talk, but it was quite informative.  It emphasizes well the fact that freethinkers have led nearly every revolution of human progress, and theism has generally opposed us.  We have repeatedly pulled the world into the light.  In short, we rock man!

Third came Dan Barker, former evangelical preacher and current co-president of the FFRF along with Ms. Gaylor.  His talked focused on what the FFRF has done in the past and what its current battles are including the fight over the National Day of Prayer.  This was fascinating, but the truly great part of this was his journey from  an evangelical preacher to atheist and the mindset of each.  He clears up any misconception people may have about the fundamentalist not really believing.  He and they believed, absolutely.  He just moved on and they remained mired in the same old superstition.  Why though?  What a great question.  I feel a strong need to understand this.  To further this, I purchased his book, Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists, and I promise to review it later.  Time, time, I need more time!

After lunch with Mr. Berkshire, the great P.Z. Myers of Pharyngula fame took the stage.  His talk focused on the natural alliance between atheism and science, and how a firm belief in science must eventually lead to atheism.  Looking at the 93% of members of the Academy of Sciences who are atheist or agnostic, it’s hard to argue the point.  Myers then went on to relate that great science is asking great questions and focused on how real science must work on very small questions and rarely make cognitive leaps that alter everything.  He outlines his own work on the development of grasshopper brains and how the big questions must be answered incrementally; a vast series of small steps will add up to big leaps. This part of the presentation should be required viewing in our schools.  Perhaps, a real understanding of how science works could begin to diffuse through the culture and combat the growing scientific apathy so prevalent there.  P. Z. was a humble and funny presenter with a serious knowledge of whatever topic he faced.  Obviously, he would be a terrible opponent in a debate.  Outside of the presentation, however, I was surprised at how quiet and humble he was, mostly just hovering about the back of the room enjoying the spectacle.  He seemed almost shy, so shy in fact, I was reluctant to approach him for a picture.  I overcame it, of course.  I mean, c’mon!  It’s P. Z. Myers for a lack-of-Christ’s-sake, who wouldn’t.

On the opposite of the shy scale was the last speaker, Brian Keith Dalton aka Mr. Deity.  I’m going to tell you people that for all of the bumbling of his fictional creation, this man’s razor sharp wit could easily slice an opponent to ribbons.  Thankfully, his witticisms were always aimed at either encouraging conversation or making a point, but the intelligence behind them was apparent.  What impressed me most was his sheer knowledge of history and science. This man is incredibly well read and can present that knowledge quickly and easily and in a hilarious manner.  The focus of his talk was the progress civilization has made since religion started to fade into the background some 500 years ago.  To paraphrase him: the Christians had a thousand years to make the world a better place, a thousand years when they were in absolute control.  We call that period the dark ages.  It’s now time we freethinkers step up and claim credit for the work we have done improving the world.  The presentation and he were brilliant.

The day ended with a round table question-and-answer period with everyone participating.  This went on for an hour and a half, at least, and would have continued longer had the organizers not kept it on schedule.

Overall, I must admit that this was one of the better experiences of my life.  I don’t mean to sound so melodramatic here, but this infused me with new purpose and energy, a resolve to ratchet up the work I do both here and other places.  We’ll definitely be returning for next year’s convention, and to those of you who have never been to an event like this, I urge you to go.  Too many of us feel like some lone wolf prowling the very edges of society, but affairs like this show you that we may be rare, but we are not alone.

And now the pictures.

Mr. Barker

Mr. Berkshire

P. Z. and me. I'm the cute one.

Ms. Gaylor and myself. She's the cute one.

Mr. Deity, my son, and myself. My son's the cute one.

How many Atheists does it take to get the projector working. Uh... I don't know, but You pick the cute one.

2010
09/19
CATEGORY
Atheism
10 comments

I’m Off to See the Wizard! Well, P.Z. Myers Actually.


Damn! I knew there was more to it!

Tomorrow, my son and I will be traveling to Fargo to attend the Project 42 Freethinkers Convention.  The speakers include both P. Z. Myers of Pharyngula and Brian Keith Dalton of Mr. Deity fame.  Dan Barker, Annie Laurie Gaylor and August Berkshire  will also be speaking.  I don’t mean to slight these last three, but Myers and Dalton have been heroes of mine for a while now, thus I am very excited.

This event is my first ever atheist conference (I’m blushing like a virgin on her wedding night), but overall, it should be a ball.  If by some off chance any readers of Babs are there, I’d be ecstatic to meet you, and I do mean ecstatic.  If  me breaking down and crying while hugging you fiercely will make you a bit uncomfortable, please inform me ahead of time, and I’ll try to restrain myself.  Maybe I’ll even manage it.  Self control’s never been my strong suit, but you never know.

We’ll have to leave about five in the AM to get there, but it’s a price I’m willing to pay for good skeptical conversation.  Those of you who live in more cosmopolitan areas are unlikely to understand, but as much as I love North Dakota and her people, we are the back-end of the world when it comes to non-religious activity.   And by back-end I mean the end shit comes out of… just in case your were wondering.  Uh… sorry for the visual.

At any rate, this conference will be unique in my experience.  I’ll let you know how it went.

2010
09/17
CATEGORY
Atheism
4 comments

The Ten Commandments — Thou Shall Not Think!


"The lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen...," breaking sounds..., "uh, ten, ten commandments!"

Exodus, chapter 20.

As anyone familiar with the continuing battle over the separation of church and state knows, there is one thing from the Old Testament that Christians consider absolutely fundamental to today’s lawful society, the Ten Commandments.  This set of divine restrictions is considered by many of the sects to be the heart of all law in the western world.  Without them, the world would spiral out of control and doom the very essence of civilization itself. At any courthouse or government building in the world, the lack of these strictures simply begs people to commit atrocities. If humanity would ever dare to forgo the guiding hand of these ten immutable laws, the world would descend into the blackened abyss, and abominations would soon follow, brother killing brother, husband oppressing wife, rape and war, floods and famine, dogs and cat living together, Holy shit, Batman, we’re screwed. In other words, complete chaos.  We’d better not risk it people.  There’s little sense in playing with fire of this magnitude. For a lack-of-Christ-sake, just look what’s at stake!  Damn you!

Yeah… Hmm… Hey wait just a goddamned minute.  Let’s think about this.  As an even casual reader of history knows, time and time again humanity plunged into these degeneracies often holding the banner of God’s word high as they rode down all those uncounted multitudes.  Exactly what symbol were they carrying as they mangled their way through the Aztecs and Inca empires?  What legal statutes did they hold supreme as they enslaved and conquered vast stretches of Africa, the Americas, and Australia?  When brother fought brother in the American or English civil wars, what ten principles were they heeding as they bayoneted and shot each other a with such vicious abandon?    Thou shall not kill???

My ass!

Simply using history, one could argue the poor efficacy of this “vital’ document in controlling our baser instincts.  Come on people!  Have you ever genuinely read this Decalogue of human restriction?  I mean really read it? The entire first four are all for the glory of a jealous God.  Well, you may think that he gets four, but at least we get the other six.  Not quite, for it’s a bit deeper than that.  Are you aware that those first four cover 34 lines of my translation, 34 lines telling us to put God above all else or he will crush both you and you descendants. Moses made damn sure that he and his “God”  were well represented, here. In contrast, the succeeding six Commandments use up only 13 lines.  13???  A baker’s dozen lines of poor prose are the entire basis for all western law?  Honestly?  C’mon people!  They’re mere afterthoughts rather than anything serious.  Thou shall not covet thy neighbors donkey?  Are you frakking kidding?  This ranks above slavery and child molestation, wife beating and rape,  torture and oppression?  What kind of frakked up world do we live in if these are the ten most important commands?

Distinguished against their predecessors, Hammurabi’s codes written a millennium before, the Ten Commandments come out as a rather pathetic imitation.  Though, it is true, there are more rules and restrictions throughout the rest of the book and perhaps these need to be taken as a whole, these are the ones they al want in every classroom. A lack-of-God-knows that every six year old in kindergarden  is in serious danger of coveting his neighbors wife.  When we finally reach the end of Exodus, ( Is it just me or is it taking a really long time to get through this?) I think it may behoove us to do a rough comparison between the two more complete sets of laws Hammurabi’s and Moses’.  We’ll see who comes out lacking.

Furthermore, most people aren’t aware of this, but there isn’t even an agreement on which ten are the actual commandments.  Some groups combine certain commandments to make their ten, while other groups combine different ones.  Here, look at this table from Wikipedia.

There are many disagreements even as to the numbering, and you all know what the Young Earth Creationists taught us about any disagreements among the experts when they were arguing against evolution — disagreement means the entire theory is invalid. Right?  Hmm…  They just may be on to something there.

At any rate, we are going to go into these in some depth over the next two posts.  First, we’ll cover the God Commandments, the first four according to the fundies.  After that we’ll get into the purely human restrictions against ass-coveting and others.  This, my fine friends, is going to be a ball.

Just don’t be looking covetously at my ass, I mean, donkey!

Ah, hell!  I’ve changed my mind.  Go right ahead.

2010
09/12
CATEGORY
Atheism
Bible study
Exodus
Religion
Young Earth Creationism
29 comments

Book Review — Doubt: A History


As we have been doing some science or skeptical book reviews lately, I think it is fitting to introduce the Yokohama Mama, Amy.  Amy has been a long time commenter and the creator of the Yokohamamama in which she blogs abut being a mom in Japan.  Her comments are always witty, funny and to the point.  She is also wonderfully read and fiercely intelligent.  Perhaps, if everyone encourages her, she will throw us a few more great book reviews in the future.  Without further ado, Amy.

Doubt:  A History    (Jennifer Michael Hecht)

So, this whole Atheist Doubt thing– it’s just a fad, right?  A few scientists—-Darwin, Einstein, Stephen Hawking, a few others.  And a bunch of cranks like Hitchens after 9/11—that’s all, right?

Not so.  Not even remotely.

Historian and poet Jennifer Michael Hecht takes anyone who cares to on a fantastic journey through the History of Doubt.  From the early Greek doubters in the 6th century BCE down to the present day, she traces the history of skepticism, inquiry, and doubt.  From the Pre-Socratics and the Epicureans, to Job and the author of Ecclesiastes, to the Jains and the Buddhists, Cicero and Lucretius, doubt among medieval Christians and Muslims, the Renaissance and the re-flowering of doubt with the aid of the printing press.  The reader is taken through the minds of Voltaire, Diderot, Spinoza, Hume, Thomas Paine, Ben Franklin, and what Einstein meant when he said “God doesn’t play dice with the Universe”.

She writes lucidly and often humorously, putting the obscure and the well-known into historical and philosophical context.  None of these thinkers was doing their thinking in a vacuum—they all stood “on the shoulders of giants”, both for their scientific understanding, and in their doubt.  As I read, I literally felt my back straighten, my chin lift.  I felt as though I, too, stood in the company of giants.  Socrates.  Lucretius.  Koheleth.  Hypatia.  Marcus Aurelius.  Avicenna.  William of Occam.  Erasmus.  Voltaire.  Spinoza.  Jefferson.  Paine.  Twain.  It makes me think of that hymn they sing in the Episcopal Church about saints coming from all kinds of different backgrounds with the refrain “…and I want to be one, too”.  Only I’d rather be a skeptic—they really were saints and martyrs in the search for Truth.

The most relevant, and probably interesting, chapter for readers of BABS is Chapter 2:  “Smacking the Temple  600BCE—1CE (Doubt and the Ancient Jews).” In it, we get a solid, coherent description of who the  heck the Maccabees were, the Saducees, the Pharisees, and the huge influence of Hellenization on the Jews and what came out of the synthesis of ideas from those cultures. In particular, Hecht shines an ultraviolet light on Job and Ecclesiastes, exposing the patterns of doubt in those books without denying their religious nature.

“[This chapter addresses]…two sections of the Hebrew Bible, each one a pinnacle of the human expression of doubt.  The first of these is the Book of Job, probably written just before the Hellenistic period;  the second is Ecclesiastes, probably written right in the thick of the Hellenistic Age.  The doubt in these two books feels very different; one is a howl for justice, the other a soulful wink and a shrug.  They are responding to two different versions of Judaism.  Yet despite important differences, they both have the same central problem:  the world is cruel and good people suffer.”

(Doubt:  A History/ p.45)

We Doubters get to keep the most lyrical books of the bible and chuck the rest—not a bad deal.

So who ought to break out the plastic for this book (or at least go to the library and demand that they buy it)?  Anyone who enjoys history, for starters (yeah, KK, I’m talkin’ about you).  Hecht is an accomplished historian, and highly readable to boot.  Also, anyone who has recently (or not so recently) come to the conclusion that the religion they were brought up in is bunk, and is actively looking to see if there are others out there who think that, too.   Boy, are there—you may not be able to put this book down.  Finally, any skeptic who wants a book to share with believing friends or family members (if you’re up to that point in the conversation).  Hecht’s tone is straightforward, but never vitriolic.  If you have a believing friend or relative with whom you can debate good-naturedly, this would be a good book to offer in trade the next time they ask you to read the bible (or C.S. Lewis).

I’ll end with one more quote that speaks to why this book needed to be written:

“The only thing…doubters really need that believers have, is a sense that people like themselves have always been around, that they are part of a grand history.  I hope it is clear now that doubt has such a history of its own, and that to be a doubter is a great old allegiance, deserving quiet respect and open pride.”

(Doubt:  A History/p.494)

p.s.—anyone out there who has already read this, please comment about your favorite bits/thoughts about “Doubt”!

p.p.s—do you think Hecht is a Hermione fan and named it after “Hogwarts:  A History”? :

2010
09/07
CATEGORY
Atheism
Religion
Reviews
26 comments

Then Moses Created God in His Own Image, and He Looked Upon Him saw He Was Baddass!


A little fire plus a little smoke equals one God. Sigh!

Exodus 19.

The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you and may also believe in you forever.” Then Moses told the words of the people to the Lord.  The Lord also said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments; and let them be ready for the third day, for on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

Ooh! God’s coming! God’s coming! Wash your face. Comb your hair. Our lord who has drug our asses through the stinking desert for three months is at last going to come down and show himself. Wash between your toes!  For the love of God, wash between your toes.  Goddamn anyone who doesn’t.  Think Yahweh will actually descend? Yeah? Well, maybe not as much as you’d think.

As we discussed last time, the Hebrews are at the foot of Mount Sinai waiting to meet their God.  Moses, the human e-mail server, carries messages up and down the Mountain for three days telling the Hebrews what is expected of them. First, Moses is to wash and consecrate them, which I still find odd. Apparently, after months of being forced to walk through the desert with little water, the Israelites smell a bit funky. Kind of hard to help that I would think. Why God in his perfection gives a damn, I cannot say. But he does. He doesn’t seem to mind that his chosen people are hungry, tired and filthy when he’s not coming to dinner. I mean, when a worshiper sweats in the desert and there is no God around, does he actually smell?  Hmm? But when God comes to the mountain he likes his bedraggled people to spruce themselves up a bit, to consecrate themselves so-to-speak.

On a more serious note though, God designs his people, you know, the ones he loves above all others, so that they have to go through elaborate cleansing rituals just to see him? WTF? Are they going to burst into flame if they are uncleansed? Drop dead? Evaporate? What? Is Yahweh some sort of medusa turning the unwashed to stone if they look upon him.  Who the hell designs sentient creatures in this fashion?

What’s even more funny is that little soap behind the ears and armpits and some oil on the forehead are going to prevent all that? I know I use this little acronym too often but… WTF???   C’mon people, what possible scientific basis is there for this? What could the physical mechanism possibly be? If this cleansing so powerful should we be seeing advertisements bragging about various detergent’s divinity nullifying powers? Wisk: powerful enough to stop Yahweh’s killing gaze!  Tide: Stops your God from blowing the shit out of you!  (and by blowing, I am referring to the explosive variety, you pervs) I’ve heard it said that this ritual washing is prescient regarding the germ theory of disease, but the truth is that soap was unknown then. Washing was more of a rinsing in a ritualistic form thereby negating most of the benefits we know today.

My favorite part, however, is this.

So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people, and they washed their garments. He said to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.”

Why should they not go near a woman? Well, isn’t it obvious? Girls got cooties, Duh!  Apparently, the Hebrews learned even this earlier than the boys at my alma mater, Center Elementary.  Reading a little more carefully elicits even more moral problems with this passage. Moses goes down to the people and consecrates the people and then tells the people “Don’t go near a woman.” Are women not people? Obviously not here. It’s obvious that the people in this context is to be read as men, and men only. The Bible never says “Don’t go near a man.” This is chauvinism in the same way that the American Declaration of Independence’s famous line “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal,” was not understood to mean either women or blacks. White men only need apply. Like all other documents from the past, terms like “people” and ‘”men” most often refers to only those you want to include, certainly not everyone.  And women?  Pah!  Do they even have souls?  Seriously though, how do women ever follow this so proudly patriarchal oppressor?

I also have always loved the religious propensity to blame men’s lustful natures on the victims of their passion, the women. They get all horned up, but insist that desire is dirty and so hold the objects of their lust to be sinful. Why would they blame themselves for their own faults when there are those weaker than themselves who can shoulder the load.  Quite a system they have worked out there, I think. By this standard, me, a fat bastard, should blame the food and hence the farming industry for making me eat too much. Damn you John Deere. Damn you to hell!

Actually, in regard to this passage, my study Bible does say that this is “Not because sex is sinful but because it may leave the participants ceremonially unclean.” Yeah, that cleared it all right up.  To me this whole idea remains about as sensible as saying that it’s not bad because it’s sinful, it’s just that it’s red.

Even odder than this needing to be clean for God is that before Moses, God just walked around the earth in full sight of everyone. He went and talked to Abraham and Sarah without them spontaneously combusting.  He chatted up Noah, Adam and Eve and they did not implode or walk around as eternal imbeciles for the rest of their lives… Well, maybe Noah with all those damned naked drunken binges, but not the rest.  Who or what turned God into the ultimate visual badass and why?  The answer to this question is, of course, Moses.

The entire consecration idea is nothing more than another recipe or ritual or spell to make a vengeful God love them, much like sacrifices, libations or prayers, and it is nearly as useful. Here’s yet another cultish leadership tip for the aspiring demagogue. Use nonsensical rituals and use it wisely, my young Sith.

I’m also faintly curious as to where three million people find wash water in the desert for all their garments, but we’ve discussed the absurdity of the literal number of Hebrews to the point of nausea. Let’s just move on, for there is some cool stuff ahead.  Like this.

The Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that people will hear when I speak with you and may also believe in you forever.”

If anyone retains any hesitation on Moses being a cult leader, this should put many of their doubts to rest. God does these things so the people will believe in Moses forever.  Not God, Moses. Moses claims that Yahweh so says. Again there are no witnesses because Moses goes to the mountain alone, and God tells him, alone, that he does this so people will believe in Moses forever. Wow! If that isn’t typical cult leadership, I don’t know what is. “I speak for God and he says you’re an asshole, and I’m not!”  Ah yes! That settles everything.

Moses has set himself up as the sole interpreter of the Holy, the one person God will speak to.  Moses has forced himself into the most powerful position in the Hebrew nation on his word and his word alone and possibly a few manufactured miracles, and now he claims that God wants him to be believed in forever. Jim Jones, that psychopathic son of a bitch, had nothing on old Moses.  This good-old-boy knew how to get shit done!  Worship me! I mean God. Oops.

In the words of Homer Simpson, “Damn, I said the loud part quiet and the quiet part loud.”  Sheeit!

God then tells Moses

“You shall set bounds for the people all around, saying, ‘Beware that you do not go up on the mountain or touch the border of it; whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death.  ‘No hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot through; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the ram’s horn sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.”

Now, if this isn’t a curiosity inhibiting action, I don’t know what is.  Do not question!  Do not investigate!  Anyone who even touches the mountain must be put to death, and whatever you do don’t touch him or her who sins.   After all, that curiosity may be contagious and nothing kills a growing cult like curiosity, and we all know what inoculates against too many questions… Fear!  Anyone who may be a little inquisitive as to what Moses has been preparing on the mountain for three days is too damned dangerous to allow to survive.  Kill them. Kill them quickly! And their Dogs!

What is hilarious here is that when God does come to the mountain, he instructs Moses to go down and warn the people not to come near, again!  Here, read for yourselves.  I’m just going to give you the whole shebang.  It’s too fascinating to miss out on.  Exodus 19/18-25.

Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, “Go down, warn the people, so that they do not break through to the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. “Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves, or else the Lord will break out against them.” Moses said to the Lord , “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for You warned us, saying, ‘Set bounds about the mountain and consecrate it.’” Then the Lord said to him, “Go down and come up again,you and Aaron with you; but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord , or He will break forth upon them.” So Moses went down to the people and told them.

Read this carefully. Neither  people nor the priests are to come near the mountain or the Lord will break out upon them. They are repeatedly told this and threatened.  Even when they are allowed to approach the mountain they are never permitted to get too close or God will kick their asses.  Damn, just for coming up the mountain? What the hell is Moses hiding up there?  Hmmm… You do have to wonder.  In the next  chapter, after the Ten Commandments, Exodus 20/ 18-20 says:

All the people perceived the thunder and the lightning flashes and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking; and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood at a distance. Then they said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen; but let not God speak to us, or we will die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid; for God has come in order to test you, and in order that the fear of Him may remain with you, so that you may not sin.”  So the people stood at a distance, while Moses approached the thick cloud where God was.

One begins to suspect that Moses is up to something up on that mountain.  He has got the people so wound up into a religious fervor that they will believe anything he says.

Now, remember that old Yahweh is not going to come down in human form, but why not.  The biblical literalists are always harping on how we were created in God’s image and therefore God has a penis.  Ok. Ok. I harp on that absurdity of that last bit, but if God has a human-like form, what is the reason that he will not show it?  Why come in a cloud of smoke and fire on a distant mountaintop with loud booming noises and trumpets instead of his humanoid form and a real voice?  I know why.  Can you guess?

Simple.  It’s because special effects weren’t nearly so elaborate then as they are now.  Pretty damned difficult to make some giant lordly humanoid stroll off the mountain and hand out plaster replicas of the Ten Commandments.  But Moses and a few select henchman could easily wreathe a mountain in smoke on a calm morning, lighting fires that they had carefully prepared for three days.  Blowing on horns and hammering on drums easily adds the aural effects to the visual spectacle  creating an illusion that would very likely fool a group of primitive desert herders into believing their God was upon them, especially if you have them worked into a fervor ahead of time.  You give David Copperfield the same materials and three days and he could likely make the damned mountain disappear entirely. I’ll bet the people would have actually shit themselves during that.   He’d have had a hard time just controlling the mass suicides after that show.  Whew!

Moses has the people completely under his control now.  They are terrified of both him and his God. He has them in the very same mindset that every cult leader throughout history has tried to instill in it’s followers.  Blind obedience!

Look out! Here comes the Koolaid!

2010
09/04
CATEGORY
Atheism
Bible study
Exodus
Religion
Young Earth Creationism
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