A short rant which has been building for a few days:
Anyone who has suffered through a good ole’ Biblical upbringing has been inundated with stories about the great God Fearing Patriarchs of the Old Testament. “Great” men such as Noah, Abraham, Lot and so on are held up as examples of good pious men who worshiped their lord. But, when you actually read the Bible, you have to ask yourself: “Who in the Hell are these preachers and Sunday school teachers talking about?” The men I’ve read about are as bad, if not worse, than many of those people we often hear referred to as evil, scum, or just plain horrible.
If I were to get on the television and talk about how ‘John Doe’ had condemned his grandson to be the slave of the boy’s uncles because of something the boy’s father did, and his uncles took advantage of the offer, the child would be taken into protective custody and the men involved would be imprisoned. But, what if I told you that John Doe was actually Noah of Noah’s Ark fame. (Genesis 9:21-27) Would it all be Ok then? For believers the answer is : Yes.
What if I told you that ‘John Doe’ had married his half-sister and had a son with her, and pimped her out twice; had sex with the maid, got her pregnant, told his wife to beat her, and then threw her and her child out into the desert; extorted money from political figures in a protection racket, mutilated all of his servants, tried to kill his son, actively promoted slavery and the beating of slaves, and had his son marry his brother’s granddaughter. People would be screaming for this man’s head on a pike, unless of course the man’s real name was Abraham–which it is. (Genesis 9-24)
Then we have Lot, whose sister married his uncle, Abraham’s brother. Lot, we’re told, was such a righteous and pious man that God spared him from a fiery holocaust which killed an untold number of children and infants. The same Lot who after losing his wife, got drunk and impregnated his two virginal daughters. (Genesis 19:30-38)
And, this is just the first few chapters of the first book of the Bible. I haven’t even scratched the surface. Consider David who gets a man killed so he can have his wife, among many other godly actions. Or, Sampson who killed a temple full of people because they didn’t like his god.
Then we have the master of chaos, the God-Father. This guy lies to his kids, then throws them out of their home when they find out he was lying. He routinely kills, or hurts children when he gets mad, in fact one of his favorite past times is genocide. He manipulates people to do things he doesn’t like then, kills, or tortures them for it. He tortures a man who truly respects him to prove a point. Allows his followers to be slaves for hundreds of years at a time. Let’s his admirers be raped, tortured, killed and ridiculed to teach them lessons. Has his son killed. Destroys an entire planet. And then expects everyone to believes that he is so wonderful and loving. Then there’s the issue that there isn’t one single piece of verifiable evidence that the guy even exists, yet mountains of evidence that his Holy Book is a collection of contradictory, plagiarized, mistake riddled Bronze and Iron Age fairy tales.
If I were to tell someone who had never heard of this god about him they wouldn’t believe for a second that people were stupid enough to still believe in him, much less worship him. Nor, would that person believe that the men above were held up as role models for young children.
But, unfortunately, that person would be wrong on both accounts. Praise be to God.
Arguing for Atheism 