Former Believer

"Reading the bible is the quickest way to become an atheist." -Penn Jillette

BITCHES BE CRAZY: Genesis, Chapter 16

SYNOPSIS

Sarai, Abram’s wife, is unable to have children, so she gives Abram one of her Egyptian servants (one that they got while Abram prostituted her out to the Pharaoh?), Hagar, so that he may have a son. She gives her to him as a wife.

Abram sleeps with Hagar and she becomes pregnant. She then “began to treat her mistress Sarai with contempt.”

Sarai then gets mad at Abram for this, saying “It’s all your fault! Now this ervant of mine is pregnant, and she despises me, though I myself gave her the privilege of sleeping with you. The Lord will make you pay for doing this to me!”

Abram tells her that she is her servant and to do with her what she will. Sarai treats her harshly and Hagar runs away.

An angel finds her and asks what she’s doing. She tells him that she’s running away. He tells her to “return to [her] mistress and submit to her authority.” He tells her that she will have an abundance of descendants. He instructs her to name her son Ishmael because God has heard about her misery. He then tells her that her son will be wild and “he will live at odds with the rest of his brothers.”

So Hagar goes back, has the kid, and Abram names him Ishmael.

QUESTIONS

Seriously, what the hell happened in this chapter? Sarai gets pissed at Abram because her servant, whom she gave to Abram to bear a child, is now mad because she’s still a servant even though she’s Abram’s wife? What did she think was going to happen, they would all live happily ever after?

The further we get into the bible the more and more I dislike this god. He sends out an angel to comfort Hagar (who is in this situation only because of Sarai and Abram) and tells her to go back and submit to her master? But don’t worry, because she’ll have lots of descendants and her son is going to be a wild child. How is that comforting? This chapter does nothing but promote slavery and using women as objects. Two things I cannot stand by and accept from a God I am supposed to serve.

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Genesis, Chapter 15

SYNOPSIS

God tells Abram that he will protect him and blesses him. Abram tells God that it does not matter because he does not have any sons, and all of his wealth will go to one of his servants. God tells him that he will give him offspring that outnumber the visible stars in the sky.

Abram believes him and God blesses him. Abram then doubts God, so God tells him to bring him “a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.” Abram kills them all gruesomely, goes to sleep and sees “a terrifying vision of darkness and horror.” 

God tells him that Abram’s descendants will be slaves for 400 years, then they will be successful, though Abram will life a happy, long life.

God tells Abram that he has given his descendants the land all the way to the border of Egypt. He then lists all the tribes that already live in this land.

QUESTIONS

The first thing I noticed was Abram’s doubt, even after he believed in God. God had to prove it to Abram. The means of which seem completely unnecessary. Why does God need animals of specific ages to be slaughtered in his name? This only seems to be yet another example of how barbaric God is.

The second thing that bothers me about this is that God freely gives land away, even though others have already been settled upon it. (It is worthy to note that the Egyptians, who have completely different Gods and ceremonies, are descendants of Noah. How did all of these different religions come to be?) How can a kind and loving God which people are taught do this? Why also make generations of people suffer? What is the point? God does not seem to think things through very well, or at least very fairly.

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Genesis, Chapter 14

SYNOPSIS

There is a large war between kings of the region. Lot ends up being captured and all of his wealth is stolen.

Abram finds out and plans a sneak attack, rescues him and returns all the goods on the condition that a share of the goods be given to his allies.

QUESTIONS

There are two things that stuck out to me about this chapter. The first that is in the list of goods, women come between possessions and captives. Again, the sexism in the bible is overwhelming and deeply concerning.

I get frustrated when people brush this off saying that “we know now” or that it’s not something that their church doesn’t teach. Bullshit. If your church instructs you to read the Holy Bible and use it as a guide, then you cannot pick and choose what you want to take from it. If it is a holy text, as you claim, all of it must be holy-not just the parts that are convenient to you.

The second thing is something I hear so often, especially be raised in the south: “And blessed be God Most High, who has helped you conquer your enemies.” Why does God need to be thanked when Abram did all the work?

When I was in my teens I was a part of the church’s band for youth masses. We had weekly practices, but on top of that I practiced at home as well. I cannot speak for the other band members, but the most common thing I heard was “thank the Lord for the beautiful music that we’ve heard.” What did God do? I’m the one who studied and worked hard to make sure I sounded good. “God gave you the talent and skill to blah blah…” Bullshit I say! The talent and skill came from hours of practice. If God had just said, “And let there be talent” I would gladly thank him.

I can even remember thinking this way while I was still in church, though probably not as harsh. The thought probably wasn’t even completely realized, I just remember thinking something was off. Most of my memories from the church were like that. Let’s thank God for that too, or I’d never be writing this post.

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Genesis, Chapter 13

SYNOPSIS

Abram and Lot leave Egypt. We learn that Abram is very rich. They go back to the first altar that Abram made and settle there. There were already people here, however, so there was not enough room for everyone.

Lot decides to leave to a place near Sodom while Abram stays. We learn that the people of Sodom are especially wicked.

God tells Abram that he is going to bless him with an uncountable number of offspring, and that he will give him all the land he can see.

Abram moves to Hebron and built an alter for God.

QUESTIONS

My question is one that I forgot to mention last chapter. Where are all the people coming from? If the flood killed everyone, then how did the Egyptians come about? Also, why is God just giving land away, even though people are already living there? No wonder people claim that it’s ok for them to take lands from people.

Abram Prostitutes His Wife: Genesis, Chapter 12

SYNOPSIS

God tells Abram to “leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s house” and go to the holy land that he will tell him. “All the families of the earth will be blessed through [Abram].”

So he takes his wife, Lot, his livestock, and all the people who had joined his household (presumably slaves), and arrived in Canaan. God then tells him that he will give this land, which is already inhabited, to his offspring. Abram and his family then move on toward the Negev.

But there was a famine there so they go to Egypt. Before they do, Abram tells his wife, who is beautiful, that she needs to act like his sister. Otherwise they will kill him and take her for their own.

When they get there everyone acts just as Abram had predicted. The Pharaoh takes her into his harem, and gives Abram many gifts for her: sheep, cattle, donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

Then God sends a plague upon the Pharaoh’s household because of this. The Pharaoh, understandably upset, kicks them out of Egypt under armed guard with all of their belongings.

QUESTIONS

The first thing that really bothers me is that God promises to give already inhabited land to Abram’s descendants. The only thing I can hope is that the Canaanites get their own place, hopefully because they chose to leave on their own. But seeing how this story has gone so far, I don’t have my hopes up.

Then we have Abram, the much celebrated figure of three major religions today. Though I am not surprised, I am extremely disappointed that he prostitutes his wife like this. I also am concerned, though not surprised, that male and female servants rank somewhere between donkeys and camels.

The thing that really gets me, though, is that God punishes the Pharaoh for this. Why send a plague to him? Abram is the one who lied to him. Why not send a plague to Abram? Why harm innocent people in the Pharaoh’s household? Did Abram get to keep all of the things the Pharaoh gave him?

What about Sarai, Abram’s wife? What about her story? How does she feel being treated as property? Probably the same as every woman during that time.

Really I’m just excited for the “kind and loving” God that I’ve heard so much about.

——-

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God is a Jealous Asshole: Genesis, Chapter 11

SYNOPSIS
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away the whole world spoke the same language. They decide to come together and build a large city with a great tower in order to bring everyone together and keep them from separating.

God saw this and said

“If they can accomplish this when they have just begun to take advantage of their common language and political unity, just think of what they will do later. Nothing will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and give them different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.”

This caused the people to scatter, and stop building the great city, and giving it its name.

The bible then gives the history of Shem’s family. It stops at Terah and his three sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

Haran has a son, Lot, and two daughters, Milcah and Iscah. Haran dies at a young age, before his father. Abram marries Sarai, who is not able to have children. Nahor marries his niece, Milcah. They all moved to the village of Haran.

QUESTIONS

The further into Genesis, the worse God looks. He is clearly a jealous asshole. He destroys the people he created because they were not living up to his expectations (which he did not tell them). Now they are working together in prosperity, so he gets worried and causes them to suddenly speak different languages and then run off to different parts of the world.

This chapter helps me see that without God, humanity would be a lot better off. Look at us before God made it impossible to work together. We were working in unity with each other. God then decides to split us up and make it even harder to get along and see each other as equals. This is also ignoring the fact that different languages happen because language is constantly changing as its culture changes, especially when a people move from one place to the next.

Then we have the long tedious list of descendants, which is followed by the weird explanation of the family of Terah. Although since there had to be a lot of incest to get us to this point, I guess marrying your dead brother’s daughter isn’t so weird after all.

But I’m still wondering where we would be if God didn’t mess things up and let us work together in peace.

——-

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Genesis, Chapter Ten

SYNOPSIS

This chapter is just a long list of the descendants of Japheth, Ham and Shem.Things of note:

  • Descendants of Japheth took to the water and became seafaring people
  • Nimrod, a descendant of Ham, was a great hunter and built the foundation for his empire in Babylonia.
  • Peleg, “division,” was named so because languages separated during his lifetime.

QUESTIONS

Really there aren’t a whole lot of questions here, other than the plausibility of three brothers populating the entire planet. Which I won’t get into.

Noah the Asshole: Genesis, Chapter Nine

SYNOPSIS

God blesses Noah and his sons and tells them that they are the masters of all the animals, whom are now afraid of man.

God, for the first time, mentions that murder is forbidden. The punishment for murder is murder.

God promises never to send another flood that will kill anyone. “I have placed my rainbow in the clouds.” …so that God will remember his covenant with man and with “everything that lives.”

The bible then talks about Noah and his children. “From these three sons of Noah came all the people now scattered across the earth.”

Then Noah gets drunk after working in a vineyard and passes out naked in front of his tent. His son, Ham, saw this and went and told his brothers. They grabbed a robe and covered him, taking special care not to look at him. Noah finds out what happened when he wakes up and curses the Canaanites, the children of Canaan, who was the son of Ham. The bible states that Canaan will be the servant to Shem and Japheth, and Canaan’s descendants will be the servants to the descendants of Shem and Japheth. 

Noah lived to be 950.

QUESTIONS

We have discussed the flood enough, so let’s skip on to the rainbow. First, rainbows are the product of light refracting and reflecting with water droplets in the air. This does not take away from their beauty, it just means that this would have happened before God made his promise. Second, God states twice that the rainbow will serve as a reminder to him not to kill everyone on the earth. Why does an omniscient god need to be reminded not to kill everyone and everything that he created? That’s not a god I want to believe in, and certainly not the loving god I was taught in Sunday school.

Next, we move on to the ridiculous story of Noah the Asshole. What right does Noah have to curse all of the descendants of Ham? What was Noah doing naked in the field anyway? Also, God blesses them all when they get off the boat, so what right does he have to curse them? What kind of father does that to his son anyway? On a point of clarity, Noah curses the Canaanites: the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham. Why punish them? Even if Canaan had sons at this point, why blame even the unborn for something their grandfather did? What the hell did he do anyway?

“Hey Shem and Japheth,” Ham said to his brothers. “Dad drank too much and is passed out in the fields. What should we do?”

“Le gasp!” cried Shem and Japheth, “We must cover him! Be careful not to gaze upon his naked body!”

Hours pass and Noah awakes from his drunken unconsciousness.

“Huh… Wha… Where am I?” Noah slurred, wiping off drool from his face.

“Father,” fawned Shem and Japheth, “you were asleep in the fields without your garments. Ham found you, but we clothed you to make sure your dignity was preserved. Surely we are the blessed children!”

“Yeah, whatever. Ham’s a little bitch. I bet all his grand kids are gonna suck too.” Noah then proceeded to vomit on himself, passing out again.

“Oh joy! Father has placed a curse upon the Canaanites and they will be our slaves!”

“Hey,” said Canaan, “what’s going on in here? What’s wrong with dad?”

“How dare a servant of ours talk as if he is one of us! Bow down before us, Canaan, just as your children will do for ours.”

“Ham, do you know what the fuck is going on?”

“No idea. I think they got into the mushrooms again.”

——-

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Genesis, Chapter Eight

SYNOPSIS

God stops the rains and sends a wind to dry up the lands.

Twelve and half years later the Earth dries up and they are able to leave the boat.

Noah sacrifices the appointed animals and this makes God happy.

God decides that he will not kill everything and everyone again, “even thought people’s thoughts and actions are bent toward evil from childhood.”

QUESTIONS

As with the previous posts, the flood is impossible. The things that interest me in this chapter are the sacrifice and that God spared the people.

Why does God need a sacrifice of animals to please him? What would he do with this?

Why is God mad at the people? He has not given them any moral compass. How are they supposed to know what he wants them to do?

Click here for Genesis, Chapter One.

Have more questions? I’d love to hear them!

Genesis, Chapter Seven

SYNOPSIS

God tells Noah that he alone is the only righteous person in the world.

God commands Noah to take seven pairs approved animals for eating and sacrifice, seven pairs of every bird, and one pair of each of the others. 

God gives him a week to do this before he starts the forty days and forty nights of rain.

“On the 17th day of the second month, the underground waters burst forth on the earth, and the rain fell in mighty torrents from the sky.”

Reiterates again that there were pairs of every kind of animal.

“Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains of the earth, standing more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks. All living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all kinds of small animals, and all the people.”

“…And the water covered the earth for 150 days.”

QUESTIONS

In the last post I pointed you to this article, which I will urge you to go to again. There are so many questions this story leaves unanswered, and the article has a more comprehensive list than I could create here.

I would like to mention one personal story, however. I was talking with one of my very religious friends about Noah’s Ark before I was a confirmed atheist. At this time, I had just started to question stories like this in the bible and had went to him for help. I questioned him about the goodness of a god who could kill every person on the planet save one family. He asked me how I could not see the mercy of this situation.

I was taken aback. Mercy? What mercy? How could a merciful god kill everyone except for eight people? He said that the mercy of God came from his willingness to save just one person.

At the time this baffled me and I was unable to respond with anything intelligent. Now I question how an all-knowing, all-loving god could kill any of his creations, regardless of their actions. I am still curious of this matter, especially since no moral code or instruction has been given to these people yet.

Have more questions? I’d love to hear them!

Click here for Genesis, Chapter One.

Genesis, Chapter Six

SYNOPSIS

Here I will present the first portion of the chapter so you may see it in context.

“When the human population began to grow rapidly on earth, the sons of God saw the beautiful women of the human race and took any they wanted as their wives. Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, they will live no more than 120 years.’

“In those says, and even afterward, giants lived on earth, for whenever the sons of God had intercourse with human women, they gave birth to children who became the heroes mentioned in the legends of old. [Emphasis added.]”

God finds that “all their thoughts were consistently and totally evil. [Emphasis added.]” He becomes “sorry that he ever made them” and plans to destroy everyone.

Noah becomes “the only blameless man living on earth at the time.”

God tells Noah he will destroy everything on the planet.

He tells him to construct a boat:

“Make it 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high. Construct an opening all the way around the boat, 18 inches below the roof. Then put three decks inside the boat-bottom, middle, and upper-and put a door in the side.”

God then tells Noah that he will send a pair of every animal to be kept alive during the flood, as well as seven of each animal to eat and sacrifice. He reminds him to “take enough food for your family and for all the animals.”

“So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.”

QUESTIONS

I would first like to go back to the article I mentioned in my previous post about the age of man. In that article, it mentions the verse which states that man will live only to be 120. It concludes with

“Isn’t it remarkable how well the biblical record fits together? And isn’t it wonderful that it can be trusted and accepted, without the kind of ‘sleight of hand’ tricks on which its critics have to rely in order to make their false theories attain some degree of respectability?”

It is nice that the author of Genesis happened to mention the age of man again in this chapter, and bring it down to a more reasonable number that 900+, but I would hardly say that the “biblical record fits together” on everything else. And what “sleight of hand tricks” have critics used that theologians have not? I dare say that theologians have applied this tactic more often than critics.

Next I would like to address “the sons of God.” What sons? God had children? Are these the descendents from Adam? No, for Adam was the first human. Are these the people who the sons of Adam married? From the text, we can assume that they are not human for two reasons. First, they are the sons of God, so they must be gods themselves, or at least partially so. Second, they are attracted to the women of the human race. If they were the same species, why specify that they are human? This is not a matter to be taken lightly, for Jesus may have had siblings.

Why, also, does God get impatient with humans because “they are only mortal flesh?” Was it not he who made them this way?

Did giants really walk the earth? Where is the evidence for this? If these are “the heroes mentioned in the legends of old,” does that make the legends real? Are these the Greek legends?

Who are the sons of God?

Why are people being punished for thought crime? Why is he sorry that he made them? If he is omniscient, then would he not have foreseen this outcome?

Can we really believe that there is only one blameless man left on the face of the earth? If so, who is at fault, man or God? At this point, God has given no instruction for how to live properly. All he has done is cursed them for the sins of an ignorant ancestor.

Why does God want to kill the animals? What have they done? Do they have the ability to reason and judge their actions?

This brings us to the ark. There are so many obvious questions that arise to the sound of mind that there is no need to post them here. This article does a good job of briefly explaining some larger questions, such as logistics, gathering animals, implications, and so on.

Lastly, who are the sons of God?

Click here for Genesis, Chapter One.

Have question? I’d love to hear them!

Genesis, Chapter Five

SYNOPSIS

Gives a history of the descendants of Adam. 

  • Adam was 130 when Seth was born. He lived to be 930, having more sons and daughters.
  • Seth was 105 when his son Enosh was born. He lived to be 912, having more sons and daughters.
  • Enosh was 90 when his son Kenan was born. He lived to be 905, having more sons and daughters.
  • Kenan was 70 when his son Mahalalel was born. He lived to be 910, having more sons and daughters.
  • Mahalalel was 65 when his son Jared was born. He lived to be 895, having more sons and daughters.
  • Jared was 162 when his son Enoch was born. He lived to be 962, having more sons and daughters.

The story deviates with Enoch. He has a son, Methuselah, when he was 65. It then says “Enoch lived another 300 years in close fellowship with God” and had more sons and daughters.

“Enoch lived 365 years in all. He enjoyed a close relationship with God throughout his life. Then suddenly, he disappeared because aliens God took him.”

  • Methuselah was 127 when his son Lamech was born. He lived to be 969, having more sons and daughters.
  • Lamech was 182 when his son Noah was born. His is called Noah because “he will bring us relief from the painful labor of farming this ground that the Lord has cursed.” Lamech lives to be 777 (lucky guy), and has more sons and daughters.

When Noah was 500, he had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

QUESTIONS

For this chapter, I have two main questions. 

  1. What happened to Enoch? Why did God take him?
  2. How could people live so impossibly old?

Why would God take Enoch? Why not let him die like everyone else? What was the explanation given to the families? If they were living hundreds of years, surely they would have had the time to jot down details of the event.

This brings me to my second question, how could people live so impossibly old? The most obvious answer to me is that we do not use the same measurement of time as they did. In this ridiculous apologetic, that argument is shot down because the math doesn’t quite work based on a lunar schedule. They do forget to take into account however, that if their unit of time was different, chances are their units of measurement were different too. What did “one” mean to them? Was the math of such an ancient people advanced enough to be reliable thousands of years later? Perhaps this too is an exaggeration, like the creation myth presented earlier in the book.

Or we could alter science to fit the bible, like the aforementioned article suggests:

“…if science is at odds with the Bible, the Scriptures must be ‘corrected’ to fit the scientific data or interpretations. We never are told that science must correct its view, only the reverse—viz., the biblical record must be altered to fit currently prevailing scientific data.”

Click here to go to Genesis, Chapter One.

Have more questions? I’d love to hear them!

Genesis, Chapter Four

SYNOPSIS

Eve and Adam have Cain and Abel.

Abel becomes a shepherd and Cain becomes a farmer.

Cain offers God produce and Abel offers God several sheep.

God accepts Abel’s gift, but not Cain’s.

Cain becomes “very angry and dejected.”

God apologizes and accepts Cain’s gift asks Cain, “Why are you angry?” and then warns him against sin, without telling him what that is or what to do.

Cain then brings Abel to the fields where he kills him.

God confronts him about it and banishes him. He marks him so others will be warned not to kill him.

Cain’s wife becomes pregnant with Enoch. Cain names the city after him.

Enoch has Irad, who has Mehujael, who has Methushael, who has Lamech.

Lamech marries two women, Adah and Zillah, and gives birth to Jabal. They are the first people to live in tents.

Jabal’s brother Jubal becomes the first musician and invents the harp and the flute.

Zillah has Tubal-cain who is the first smith, working with bronze and iron. She also has a little girl, Naamah.

One day Lamech admits to killing “a youth” who attacked and wounded him, and proclaims that “anyone who kills Cain is to be punished seven times, anyone who takes revenge against [him] will be punished seventy-seven times!”

Adam has another son named Seth, who has Enosh. “It was during his lifetime that people first began to worship the Lord.”

QUESTIONS

1. God does not know why Cain gets mad when he accepts Abel’s gift but not his. Is this not proof enough to show that God is not omniscient?

2. Why punish Cain? If he is the first person to murder someone, how could he know the implications? How could he know this is wrong? Why did God not warn him?

3. Where did Cain’s wife come from? Where did all the other women come from? What about the people who would kill Cain (assuming they are not Adam and Eve)? How are all of these people appearing?

4. How can Lamech say that anyone who takes revenge upon him will get punished seventy-seven times? Why is this not mentioned further?

5. Why the %@!& would anyone during Enosh’s lifetime want to worship this God?

Click here to go to Genesis, Chapter One.

Have more questions? I’d love to hear them!

Genesis, Chapter Three

SYNOPSIS

The snake tempts Eve with the apple by telling her that it won’t kill her, and will give her knowledge that God has.

She eats it and gives it to Adam who is with her.

They become self aware and don the famous fig leaves.

God walks around in the garden and can’t find Adam, so he asks them why they are hiding.

Adam blames Eve for giving him the apple.

God curses the snake and makes it crawl on its stomach for the rest of eternity.

God curses woman by giving her painful childbirth and making her subordinate to man.

God curses man by working hard to produce food from the land.

Then God remarks that the people he created could become as he is, if they only eat from the tree of life as well. He then banishes them from the garden of Eden and protects it with a giant, swinging fire sword of death.

QUESTIONS

1. Why did God create the tree of knowledge of good and evil and of life if he did not want humans to eat from it?

2. Why did the snake get punished? He simply said they would not die from eating the fruit, simply gain knowledge. Whereas God told them they would die, which they did not. Why then does the snake get punished?

3. If humans do not know wrong from right at this point, why punish them?

4. Why not make the punishment at least equal for man and woman? Why does woman have to be the servant of man and have hard childbirth?

5. God does not banish them from the garden until after he realizes they could become as he is if they eat from the tree of life. Why is this an afterthought? If God is an omniscient god, then why is this a surprise to him? Why make the trees in the first place?

6. Isn’t a swinging fire sword a little excessive? Couldn’t God just make the tree vanish?

Click here for Genesis, Chapter One.

Have more questions? I’d love to hear them!