Continue reading »]]> I haven’t been around much lately.

Things have conspired to turn my attentions in quite unexpected ways for the foreseeable, and NonStamping in general is simply not shaping up as quite as much of a week-to-week focus for me in 2013.

I’ve not been as active a blogger as I’d anticipated being between videos, but now I find myself pretty much withdrawing for what looks like a decent hiatus. I’ve tried to get OFF the NSC bandwagon several times over the years, aware that it’s often something of an ever-present distraction, and even a drain on my time, but I have inevitably been drawn back again and again to refute the latest idiocy that comes across my monitor or out of my headphones; but recently, as proud and happy as I am with what I’ve made on Youtube,  the whole atheism thing has organically begun to seem like something that I have done my dash on and needn’t be around for now.

A lot of fast-moving big changes re work/career stuff have been happening this year which I enthusiastically want to give time to. Also I’ve just had my first research publication come off the press (a project on second language acquisition) in a small local journal, to very mixed reviews amongst the six or seven people who have (and ever will) actually read it, but now I have several avenues to take that side of things down, having gone to the enormous effort involved in getting such activities off the ground throughout 2012.

Also; a pregnant wife due to deliver our first later in the year. I think I overheard someone once saying something about children taking up some of one’s free time? Or something?

So – I think I’ve got ample reasons to wind back my NonStampCollecting presence for the time being. The channel gets several thousand views a day without me doing anything, so I’m happily still “around” and spreading my take on the whole topic. (One of the things I love about the internet.) But I do think that blogs and Facebook pages left sitting around un-updated look ugly and unprofessional, and I much prefer to tidy up loose ends, so that’s what I’m doing.

I’ve just canned my Facebook page (which you’ve probably never seen or heard of because I never promoted it, because after I’d gone to the effort of setting it up, it turned out that I couldn’t use it like a regular ‘personal’ account anyway, and it was completely useless),…

I’ve hardly touched Twitter this year,…

...and this will be my final post on FreeThoughtBlogs.

I’m just not the prolific blogger I thought I would be as I was setting things up last year, I anticipate that I’m going to be even less prolific this coming year, the the point of… say…. close to zero output, and I just don’t like leaving things around that aren’t as active and alive as they ought to be. I’ve organized with Ed to take my blog offline soon.

This ends part one of this post, now onto part two. Watch for the switch.

I’m aware that many will want to gloat that in “leaving FTB”, I will have proven to all and sundry that all those rumors about FTB are true, and that I got the hell out of there because I couldn’t take the cult-like behaviour any more, and that I’d been wrong all along and the anti-FTBers had been right all along after all… etc.

OK, let’s deal with this right away. And yes, I’m going to take my time and have some fun with this. As I sit here writing this post, the section you’re about to read gets bigger and bigger on every read-through – and I’m letting it. I think it’s a good way to wrap up my FTB experience. I held back on this since starting my blog, because I didn’t want my blog to be about my blog. And now I can finally use some of those screen-shots I took!

Let me say, for the first and last time on this issue, that the only rabidly dogmatic crazies I ever came across upon setting up this blog at this particular site, were the anti-FTBers.

I never had any problems whatsoever with any of the folks who blog here. Never. I was never pressured to toe any particular line, I was never encouraged to take a particular stance on any particular issue, I was never given cause to be concerned about being ‘reviewed’ or edited,…I was only ever invited to write anything I liked about anything I liked. Those were the terms given to me on the way in, and nothing ever, ever changed.

The ‘backlash’ that came at me after I accepted Kylie S’s invitation (on behalf of those at FTB who decide these things) to have a blog set up for me here began slowly, gradually rose over a few days, and then stayed at an unbelievable pitch for literally months. Suddenly I was being accused of every criticism that was being thrown at PZ Myers, Jennifer McCreight, Greta Christina, or even Rebecca Watson. (I’d heard of two of these people before joining, and had regularly read one of them; albeit not for a few years.) Suddenly, in the eyes of many, I had become a staunch, outspoken advocate NOT ONLY of man-hating radical militant feminism, but also of Atheism+, and I had people DEMANDING that I retract everything I’d ever said promoting both of those, taking me to task for the unforgivable crimes of the moderators at some Atheism+ forum, and composing long, strongly-worded messages detailing to me the philosophical and practical problems of Atheism+.

All of this prompted me, after a few weeks, to find out what Atheism+ was.

I read about it, said ‘meh’, and haven’t looked again.

My impression of Atheism+ is that it was a simple idea, fairly well stated in its ‘manifesto’, on whoever’s blog it went up on, and then, obviously, pretty badly promoted, executed, and managed. It was obviously a flop from whatever angle you look at it, and if everybody had paid as much attention to it as I did, and have, instead of squealing about it for months and months and months and months, and months, it would have gone the way of the dodo.

I simply cannot overstate the BACKLASH that I received over Atheism+ during the several weeks before I took the time to find out what it was. Think about that for a second.

Then there were the countless messages and emails informing me of what the management structure of FTB was like, who was in charge, what happened on the backchannel, who pulled the strings, what bloggers were and weren’t allowed to do, the methods of surveillance used by FTB ‘leaders’ to monitor the online activity of the bloggers (on and off FTB)… these things just went ON and ON and ON.

Meanwhile, I was actually ON the backchannel, witnessing not only NONE of what was being described to me daily by hysterical know-it-alls in messages and comments, but witnessing instead the polar opposite. A very cordial, very democratic, at times very light-hearted discourse – so cordial and congenial, in fact, that I didn’t actually feel all that comfortable participating in it! I’ve always been a lone-wolf on this Atheism thing, and suddenly, confronted by a mutually-supportive ‘network’ of like-minded writers and thinkers, I slowly came to realize that I kind of preferred being on my own and I never really joined many of the conversations on the back-channel. Simply not my cup of tea, despite it being very positive, constructive, and friendly. All the while I’m being told repeatedly, from what felt like every angle, that I had been tricked into joining a cult that was going to attempt to control my thoughts, and abuse my popularity on Youtube to implement their feminism-based agenda. It was like I was living in two different worlds at once.

Some of these anti-FTBers make 911-Truthers look like Ph.D geniuses. Sorry, it’s just the fucking truth.

FreeThoughtBlogs, it turns out, means different things to different people. To me, it meant a site that hosted about 35 bloggers all writing independently on a range of topics based around a common thread of secularism. To its critics, it means PZ Myers and two or three others. They don’t like PZ Myers and those two or three others, and therefore FreeThoughtBlogs is entirely, irreconcilably, bad. I often asked my critics to name, without looking online, as many of the 35 bloggers at FTB that they could. Guess how that went among people who had characterized the entire site as “PZ”, or even better – and this happened ALL the time -  as “Rebecca Watson”, who has never even blogged at FTB!!

An utter inability to look objectively at a situation and evaluate it based on what one actually observes through rudimentary investigation – from people who accuse FTB of “hive-mind”.

I asked my critics, a few times, how many of the bloggers at FTB were supportive of Atheism+. I’m still waiting for an answer to those sort of meaningful, practically valuable, thoughtful questions – the kind of questions that I oughtn’t to have had to ask – the kind of questions that might burst bubbles of irrational thinking.

What I’m saying here, is that my involvement at FTB highlighted something that I had simply not anticipated after four active years in internet atheism. That is, an enormously disappointing irrationality, paranoia, and lack of critical thinking within our ranks. The atheist community, for want of a better term, around Youtube, it turns out, is populated by some seriously irrational unthinking people. One would expect that to be present in any group of people, fair enough. But the EXTENT to which it came at me was eye-opening and very disturbing. I can only hope that something happens to change that.

An enormous number of ‘skeptical’ and ‘rational’ people showed that they were willing to swallow whatever line they were fed without evaluating it or investigating it at all. A rumor spreads about the FTB backchannel, and that becomes unquestionable truth. An “enemy” is named, and a witch-hunt begins. PZ Myers got cooties – and suddenly so did EVERYONE within a few clicks of him. “Eeewwwwww!!!! You’ve got cootieeeeeeeees!!!!”

Friends, how sad to say it, but irrationality, dogmatism, and uncritical thinking needs to be dealt with in the online skeptical rational community. There’s way too much of that shit going around.

Disagree with whomever you like, but do it for good reason. Speak out against ideas you disagree with, but do it with reference to actual checkable facts – and cite your sources.

And as simple as it seems: Don’t read people whom you don’t want to read. Nobody would ever have heard of Rebecca Watson if her critics hadn’t LOST THEIR SHIT, and gone and made websites, Twitter accounts, Youtube channels, and blogs in honor of demonizing her! Same goes for this otherwise tiny, insignificant proposal called Atheism+. Some ban-happy forum moderators banned you and a million of your friends? Well – there’s a forum that isn’t going to survive, so shut the fuck up about it and go and have a cup of tea! Be an adult – stand your ground and keep your integrity. Don’t start a fucking website bitching about how harshly you were treated by some faceless ban-happy dickhead on some forum!

And for heaven’s sake – if you don’t like PZ Myers, don’t read him either! Been banned by him? Well whoopdy-friggin-doo! You didn’t like what he had to say anyway, obviously! But don’t then assume, and spread the irrational idea, that 34 others publishing independently on the same website are going to think exactly like him! And don’t say that “FreeThought” is a misnomer and that hive-mind is rampant throughout the site if you haven’t even read more than two or three of the fucking bloggers writing there, and instead just take everyone else’s word for it! Fuck! THINK!

Ahhhh. That felt good.

I will say this in closing: my first ever input into the atheism feminism fracas:

I have never had much of an interest in feminism despite my undergraduate degree in English and Cultural Studies, but as a 21st century somewhat enlightened guy with a mother, a sister, and a wife, (and 50% odds on having a daughter before too long!) I’m all for gender equality, inclusiveness, women’s safety, and equal opportunity, and that’s that. How such issues ever became the point of division amongst atheists is not only confusing, but troubling, and I have no qualms in saying that both sides of the cat-fight ought to have conducted themselves better at every turn. It should never have escalated to the shit-storm it became. That’s why I stayed out of it. It has been undignified and embarrassing from the start, and I wish those taking an active position on it would do a better job of it. Many of them are embarrassing themselves and the rest of us. I hope both sides can see that it’s not only the “other” side who is at fault, and I hope that it gets well and truly sorted out very soon. I advocate a loud and vocal third side – the “Guys, knock this shit off. We’ve got bigger fish to fry” side. I repeat, this issue is an embarrassment to our movement, and the fault is not solely on either side.

UPDATE: I’ve had a bit of a response from this passage above, that I’d like to address. I can see what critics are saying here, so allow me to elaborate and clarify.

What I’m talking about here, as far as fault not only being on one side, has mainly to do with diplomacy and effective communication. Even when one is firmly on the right side of an issue, such as when defending gender equality, fairness, safety and inclusiveness, failing to effectively communicate what you’ve got to say, and instead pissing people off, blocking them, banning them, insulting them, and prolonging the enmity is really destructive to your cause. How did those ideals come to be so controversial? I don’t know why that side of this argument has been so difficult to sell. It ought to have been a no-brainer, and the fracas ought to have been over pretty much immediately after it began. How the side championing those principles came to be so virulently hated is really cause for a collective “WTF?!”. It could have, and should have, been argued a lot better. Atheism and secularism ought not be embarrassed by having this as an “issue” hanging over our heads.

If you can’t sell water to a man walking out of a desert, and can’t sell pretty basic ubiquitous 21st-century ideals to do with gender equality to a crowd that prides itself on being progressive and enlightened, then your approach and methodology is all wrong. Whatever that wrong is- that’s what I’m critical of on the pro-equality (and dare I say) feminist side of the fight. It’s not their stance or their case, it’s simply to do with the presentation of the argument, or counter-argument or whatever it was. 

Be the side that can act diplomatically. Take the high road and sell your approach as the more attractive and sensible one, if that’s what you actually think it is.  Appeal to the nobler ideals of the ‘enemy’, rather than kicking the shit out of them the first chance you get. It ought to have been done better, and I think it definitely could have been. I think something really must have been fucked up for this issue to fester for so long. It should have been put away quickly, so lots of people somewhere were obviously screwing things up.

And disagree with me too, that’s fine, and it’s simply not my argument and I’m getting the fuck out of here anyway! I never ever would have paid it any attention if it weren’t for the fact that I was constantly being tarred with being on a radical fringe of one side of an argument that i would never have voluntarily entered. I’m saying my final, parting 2c worth and walking away. If you think that indeed all the blame lies on only one side of this, then OK, have fun with that, see you later sometime on youtube or something, whatever, it’s really not my issue. And be pissed at me for leaving it like that too if you want. No correspondence will be entered into, because it’s essentially not my issue and never was. I got dragged into it and embarrassed by it like a lot of people. I may have come out and said things earlier if I didn’t think that doing so would simply tar me even further by aligning me with certain people who were simply not doing a very good job of confronting the issue cool-headedly, diplomatically, or effectively- no matter whether they were on the right side of it.

So: all I’m saying: separate to the anti-FTB insanity, the feminism thing wasn’t handled particularly effectively by those with a more defensible stance. I hope it fixes itself up nicely very soon and that we can all forget it ever happened. That won’t happen until things calm down, idiotic minorities are healthily ignored, and broader points of agreement are recognised.

Anyway, that’s my rant, and a hell of a farewell, I think! And I’m probably not going to hang around to defend any of it or respond to much response.

Thanks to my overlords here, ie Rebecca Watson and Josef Stalin, for making my time at FTB pleasant and telling me what to think, always.

And to everyone else, don’t think that you’ve seen the last of me. I’ll still be checking my Youtube inbox and popping up here and there. Life outside of NonStamping is getting a lot more engaging, and those five or six half-baked scripts that are in my “Works In Progress” folder are going to have to sit there fomenting for just a while longer.

This post, and this NSC blog itself, will self-destruct in a few days or weeks or something.

All the best

NSC

Continue reading »]]> Today I received a message from Ray and Kirk’s organisation.

Continue reading »]]> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MFmC6BD1B4

You help me out by ‘liking’ it on youtube, (by clicking here), and even commenting there rather than here. But don’t let me stop you either way.

The script is below the fold, but here is the description box (subject to updates):

Whether you’re a believer or non-believer, when confronting bible slavery, don’t let anyone throw up this ridiculous smokescreen that says that the slavery instituted in the old testament was so completely different to, say, pre-civil war US slavery. The usual tactic is to throw facts and rules about Israelite indentured servitude around, to throw you off the scent of a Yahweh-mandated form of slavery EVERY BIT as bad as anything we’ve seen in recent centuries. This line of argument is so prevalent that I’m confused as to whether its proponents actually believe it or not; but either way, this video is my attempt to inject a bit of reality into this very important area of discussion.
The god of the bible mandated oppressive life-long slavery of foreigners – pretty much a concise description of one of the worst forms of human rights abuses the world has ever had to grapple with. It’s as simple as that.
No, I don’t hate God for mandating slavery, and no I don’t believe that God is evil for mandating slavery. I don’t believe that THIS god, the absurd god of the bible, is even extant, let alone worthy of any adjectives beyond that! This god’s inhumane and ridiculously cruel commands say nothing about the god that they are ascribed to, simply because they are so obviously ascribed to a god by the men in whose image this god was made.
Deal with it folks; your god is the brainchild of some particularly awful humans. The bible simply and clearly gets this very easy human rights question utterly wrong.
Abandon it, and keep looking for answers. You’ll be ever so glad you did.

Thanks to those who responded to my blog post requesting help with reading materials. Special thanks to Dr. B Cargill for valuable guidance in the final stages of writing, and for the “job creators” line!

Amongst other sources I used:

Avalos, H. (2011) “Slavery, Abolitionism and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship: Reflections about Ethical Deflections”
Accessed Dec 2012 at http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/ava358013.shtml#sdfootnote12sym

Copan, P. (2011) “Does the Old Testament Endorse Slavery? An Overview”. Enrichment, Spring 2011

Jewish Virtual Library. (2008) “Slavery: Biblical Law”
Accessed January 2012 at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0018_0_18703.html

Path Of The Beagle (blog) has an informative series on Bible slavery, starting here:

http://pathofthebeagle.com/2011/09/10/invitation-to-a-dialog-on-biblical-slavery/

Unbelievable? Episode: “Does the Bible condone slavery?” 19 June, 2010.
Debate: David Instone-Brewer, vs. Bob Price. Moderator: Justin Brierley
Accessed and available via iTunes podcast.

Deem, R (2011) “Does God Approve of Slavery According to the Bible?”

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/slavery_bible.html

Section 1 of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution reads:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

I had to leave out “male and female” in my recounting of Lev 25:45-47; I had a gag about Yahweh being an equal-opportunity enslaver but it got taken out along the way, and it flowed within the video much better with that left out.

NonStampCollector blog:

http://www.freethoughtblogs/nonstampcollector

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/nonstampnsc

Back up your hard drive with the same web-based automatic upload system that I’ve been using for three years:

http://www.backblaze.com/partner/af3049

 

Script:

And as you can see, they are going to be stealing from each other, lying, being cruel, even hating each other and killing each other. This whole fall from grace is worse than we expected, Lord,

What about haircuts?

Lord?

The hair on the side of their heads, and their beards, do they end up cutting that.

Well – I’ll check,… uh yes,

GRRR Why did I make the fruit of that tree so deliciously tempting?. No no, that’s not on, I want that banned. (leviticus 19.27) If I’d known,….

Yes, Lord, a ban on cutting the hair on the side of the head,

moving on, Lord it seems that this sinful nature messes them up so bad that they abuse children in some cases,..<<<

Do they wear clothes made of wool and linen woven together?

Pause

Well, do they?

Yes,

Right. That too. Absolute ban on that, (Deuteronomy 22:11) can we direct you towards the things that we think you need to be equally clear on,.

Yeah I heard you, killing each other, stealing, sitting on a chair that a menstruating woman’s been sitting on (Lev 15:19-23)

Well, those first two, yes are you going to prohibit them.

Yes, (Ex 20:13-15)

<insert> good, well<<<

And tattoos as well. No tattoos! “I am the Lord!” (Lev 19:28)

You hate oppression and cruelty and stealing, just as much as tattoos, right?

Yes!!

Well thank goodness for that, because we’ve got something that you need to look at then.

What are they doing?

Well, slavery, Lord,

Slavery, eh?

Yes, on a massive scale, it begins right away (Gen 9:25) and looking at the projections, it seems that some of the larger and more powerful civilizations that arise think that it’s OK to forcibly take literally millions of people from the continent of Africa and make them work for them and practically build their nations for them.

Hmmmm..

Yeah, humans actually steal their fellow humans, and deprive them of all liberty and dignity for their entire life.

They’re captured, shackled, often branded, and crammed into boats, and shipped overseas where they’re sold and literally worked to death.

Children are born into slavery and live out their entire lives as slaves, not knowing a single day of freedom.

Africans you said?

Well yeah, Africa is going to take the brunt of this, lord in the long term,.

You need to set a clear example of your compassion here Lord, it’s very simple. (2 Chron 30:9)

Mm hmmm.

You love righteousness and justice, right Lord? (Ps 33:5) It’s just about the worst violation of those imaginable.

Right. Well lets do it then. Let’s get this absolutely right, once and for all.

Great! I sure am glad to hear you’re on board with that.. etc

Well, it’s really up to you as far as the wording goes, do you want a “Do not” commandment or a “You must not” commandment?

Huh?

Well so far you’ve got  “Do not invoke the names of other gods, (Ex 23:13 NIV), “Do not allow a sorceress to live” (Ex 22:18 NIV), both of those are very unambiguous, So we could have “Do not own another person as property”, or do you want “You must not own another person as property” like you have “You must not eat any fat or any blood’? (Lev 3:17 NIV)

Hang on,..,…

I’d go with “you must not”, it’s kinda stronger, don’t you think?

Yeah I think so. There’s not much chance of misinterpretation there.

Yeah but ‘Do not’ is more of an imperative.

Hold on, hold on….

Lord?

Well the owning people aspect of it I don’t mind so much.,… Were there other aspects of it that you were concerned about?,…

Well, lord the idea of owning people as property is probably a good place to start when abolishing slavery. dont you think?

Hold on Who’s Abolishing anything?

Lord you abolished cross-dressing a minute ago, (Deut 22:5) don’t you think that slavery is equally detestable?

Hmmm, it’s tricky, isn’t it? Certainly a ‘difficult’ topic,…

Not really, Lord, no.  these sinful fallen humans will outlaw it themselves eventually,   Yeah, Lord, Just command it and it’s done. “You must not buy and sell people”

No, look, again, that aspect in and of itself isn’t so much of a concern, either…

Lord, it’s kinda exactly and totally what we’re talking about.

Look if it’s a runaway slave seeking refuge, that’s obviously different,  (Deut 23:15) but if it’s a fair and square commercial deal,…then….

Lord are you saying that they may buy slaves?

Well,……. it depends on…

It depends?

on what

You mentioned something about the slaves being Africans,…right?

Yes, Lord,…

And they’re taken FROM Africa, to other countries.

Yes, exactly.

Yeah, see the slaves are from a different country. So…

Lord?

Oh, I see, you guys were thinking that the slaves were going to be MY people the Israelites!

What?

No no no! No wonder you’re so confused! Sorry, we’re obviously talking about two different things! No way, my people aren’t allowed to do this to each other?!!?! OK I can see I’m going to have to make this very clear.

Lord?!

Look – Israelites aren’t to rule over each other ruthlessly – Put that down. “You must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly. Your slaves are to come from the nations around you. From them you may buy slaves.” (Lev 25:44)

Lord?!

An Israelite owning another Israelite as a slave wouldn’t be OK! OK THAT is an outrage, obviously! Anyone can see that, That’s what I thought you guys were talking about! They’re only allowed to keep each other in indentured servitude. However bad this “African” slavery thing gets, it’s a totally different thing, see:,

You’re ok with people being made slaves, what,.. for life?

No! No no! After seven years they have to be set free. (Ex 21:2, Deut 15:12)  and provided for with food and wine and even livestock when they go! It’s like a retirement benefit! (Deut 15:13-14) and you’re comparing it to some kind of slavery?!

Oh. What, they can go back to Africa?

Huh? No, I’m not talking about foreign slaves,!!  You’re a bit hung up on this Africa thing. I’m talking about the Israelites, they have to free each other from indentured servitude at the end of six years. They know what it’s like to be held in slavery, they know how oppressive and unjust it is coz of what I’m going to let happen to them in Egypt for four hundred years, so knowingly being that cruel to each other would be absolutely immoral!

Yes, Lord, I get that you’re talking about Israelite indentured servants, but uh What about the foreign slaves then?

Ghghgh, foreign. They’re from different nations, so,…

They stay slaves for life?

><><><No, you’re not listening:, indentured servants go free after six years!. You’re not seeing this clearly, I think you’re trying to put a negative spin on the whole thing by drawing a comparison to some far-off future country keeping slaves from other countries. Israelite indentured servants have to be treated kindly and released at the end of six years

No, lord, foreigners.

What.

Do they get freed? The foreigners that they buy as slaves?

Ghghgh No, you can make them slaves for life. But the Israelites are to be freed, see, it’s a totally different arrangement. You can’t even compare it with slavery. <<<<

You’re mandating lifetime slavery?

Of their fellow Israelites?, No! Absolutely not! It’s a fixed period, Why do you keep- you’re trying to make me look immoral! Why do you keep comparing this to other models of slavery that have nothing to do with this! This is something that they’re just as likely to opt into voluntarily, It’s a totally different thing! (Deut 15:16-17)

What?!

It’s more like a safety net. If they can’t pay their debts, they might opt-in to be someone’s servant for a period of years until they all go free again and all the debts are written off (Deut 15:1)…

Can i just bring you back to these Foreign slaves Lord, being sold into bondage for life,  You seem to be commanding oppressive life-time slavery!

Israelite indentured servitude has nothing to do with that, though. Why are you drawing comparisons between them? This is totally different to that! Don’t you know that if an Israelite kills his indentured servant, he gets the death penalty himself? (Ex 21:20) This is a humane system, the servants aren’t property!!  they’ll be fed and housed by their master, and they have job security! <<<Job creators>>>> And they can buy their freedom! <ref>

Yes, I get that Lord, but the concern we have, if I may, I have from you here, directly from you, I’ll bring it up on the screen here, uh “You may buy slaves. They are to come from the nations around you. You can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly” <do all red refs>

Right, the Israelites must treat each other with kindness and respect. See? I’m a god of love, I respect  <ref>  <<<<

But what we see here pretty much describes the worst and most oppressive and inhumane forms of slavery the world will ever see.

It will be the shame of many nations to have once participated in exactly what you’re outlining.

But the Israelites are NOT to treat each other like that. (Lev 25:43, 46, 53) Again, why are you trying to make me look bad when I’m saying they have to free each other and treat each other humanely?  The Israelites are NOT slaves. They’re indentured servants!

Lord if I may I’d like to voice a concern, and please, just hear me out: that is that if you go with that wording we’ve got here, people might think that buying slaves from other nations, and making them slaves for life was in line with your inherent moral nature.

Well that would be a case of taking my words completely out of context. *^*^*^, No, look, I can blow that argument out of the water, ready? Write this down:

“Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner.” (Ex 22:21)

There, how can anyone now say that I’m ordering anything even remotely cruel.

So you’re abandoning what we’ve got so far up here,…

No, keep that, it’s coming along perfectly.

But it simply contradicts what you’ve got

No, I’d say it “complements” what we’ve got here.

Lord it might be helpful if I describe the characteristics of the slavery that we’re trying to avoid. This is what the humans do, and then themselves abolish as being incredibly cruel.

Their slaves come from the nations around them. From them, people buy slaves. The slaves become their property. They make them slaves for life.

That has nothing to do with what I’ve commanded. The Israelites have to let each other go at the end of six years. It’s totally different.

If I may, Lord, can I read a law that the humans come up with themselves, after the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery becomes too much to bear? I’ve adapted the language slightly in case it appeals to you as something you’d like to command yourself, now at the outset of human history, …

Yeah go on,

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist on Earth” (cf: Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution)

That sounds like a kind of man-made morality, which is obviously inferior to a divine commandment.

But anyway, my commandments for the Israelites are pretty much the same as that. They probably got that law from me anyway. They’re not to keep each other in slavery, they’re only allowed to keep, you know, their slaves in slavery.

Foreigners.

…and temporary residents living among them. And members of their clans. And the people whose cities they want to invade. (Deut 20:10-11) <ref>  And I like that bit about bequeathing the slaves to their children as inherited property. Put that in too, up there somewhere.  But I need to make it absolutely clear that Israelites aren’t to do this to each other, because that’d be cruel and I’d never allow it.

I think that’s good now, lets leave it as it is there, Was there anything else you wanted to get my opinion on?

Well, the only other thing was,..  Uhh. Genocide.

Hmmmm!?

You’re going to be very clearly against wiping entire people’s from the face of the earth, right?

(1 Sam 15:2-3)

Hmmmm,… It’s tricky, isn’t it?

Continue reading »]]> Yeah, geocentrism.

I wasn’t aware that that was much of a thing, either. But a new youtube channel, CoolHardLogic, is making some fantastic videos about it, debunking it, and I gotta tell you – watching him do it turns out to be a great way to learn a thing or two about the many wonderful things that very clever people know about the universe and stuff. My eyebrows keep going up and down while I watch this amazing space science.

Today, episode three of this series came out, but I’ll start you off at the beginning. Here’s episode one. Check out the rest and sub for more if you want.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyRJZbNmC7U

Continue reading »]]> I’ll try to keep this quick.

I’m looking for information about bible slavery. Particularly old-testament slavery.

In every discussion I’ve heard of late on this topic, the apologists’ argument seems to centre around how old testament slavery was vastly different to, say, southern US antebellum slavery – it involved fixed terms of seven years, it was humanitarian in that an injured slave was to be released, and a slave-owner that killed a slave was to receive the death-penalty for doing so, etc etc. There are a lot of differences, there’s no doubt about that. But….. it doesn’t seem to be to be telling the whole story.

The problem, for me, and the information I’m looking for, is based around the fact that I think, really, that they’re throwing up a curtain with this, and talking only about the way Israelites were to treat EACH OTHER in such an indentured servitude arrangement. Apologists can go on and on about that, with loads of biblical references to back them up.

All from Leviticus:

¹⁴ “‘If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other….

²⁵ “‘If one of your fellow Israelites becomes poor and sells some of their property,….

³⁵ “‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you,….

³⁹ “‘If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and sell themselves to you, do not make them work as slaves….

The offensive part of Leviticus, though, does not have to do with Israelite slaves. In fact, that last quote there is, I think, very telling. I don’t know the Hebrew well enough to know what word has been translated as “slaves” there, but if it’s the same word as is translated into this NIV passage, then I think we have a red flag.

⁴⁴ “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.⁴⁵ You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. ⁴⁶ You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Surely by including this passage, the author of Leviticus is singling out the Israelites for ONE set of human rights, and foreigners for another. These foreigners CAN be made slaves for life, and bequeathed as property – just don’t do that to EACH OTHER!

I think you know where I’m going with this, but I’ve spent the last two hours looking for some kind of scholarly writing dealing with this, and google scholar doesn’t seem to want to help me. I’m looking for something that takes into account the difference in treatment between Israeli “indentured servants”, as apologists never tire of calling them; and foreign slaves, who are basically fucked for life, or so it seems in verses 44-46. Very much like southern-US antebellum slaves. It certainly has some nasty overtones, doesn’t it?

Can anyone point me towards some good writing that deals specifically with this contrast? It must be out there somewhere. Again, yes, I have things to say in video form about this, and I don’t want to screw anything up. I need a proper understanding of this and some good citations to boot.

I’d be in your debt if you could help me out by hitting me up with a link or two.

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Continue reading »]]> I’ve been learning so much about Paul this year. Things that never ever occurred to me as a believer, and which I’ve never heard any believer address, are, like a lot of things, common knowledge to the biblical scholarship community. (Well, – the basis of a common knowledge upon which debate rages as to the details and ramifications, but… you get the point. Nothing is unanimous in scholarship.)

I’m fascinated by what I’m becoming aware of about the differences between Paul’s Christianity, ie that which became dominant, and some other early versions. It’s an interesting matter of context. Of course, as atheists, we are often accused of taking the scriptures out of context and misrepresenting them or misinterpreting them. Well, if what I’ve been reading has any merit, and it apparently does, it turns out I’m guilty as charged, and have been ever since I was a believer, and even before that.

The context within which Paul wrote many all of his epistles, is one in which vastly different versions of Jesus-belief were fighting for supremacy. Particularly, a fight was raging over whether a Gentile needed to become a Jew, and partake in all the Jewish rituals and ‘initiations’ (those pertaining to foreskins and sharp implements, for example, to put it bluntly,… OUCH!) before he could be saved in Jesus. Paul said no, faith alone was adequate without “works”. Yes, the faith/works debate, (in which the book of James has long been seen to take a contradictory view to that of Paul) is more about whether you can keep your foreskin and eat certain meats, than whether you can earn your way into heaven by being nice. It’s an argument about how Jewishly you need to act. THAT’s what was meant by ‘works’. We know that, because degrees of adherence to the Jewish laws and traditions was one of the main things that separated the early sects.

Paul was apparently having a hard time convincing his followers to accept his view and reject the views of other groups, such as that which later came to be known as the Ebionites; who were WAY Jewish and kept all the customs and laws alive. Who else? Well,… yes, the Ebionites, whom you probably have not heard, and… Peter, James the brother of Jesus, and the other original 11 Apostles, whom you might have; who, it seems, didn’t quite see things the same way that Paul did. There was a very long and very heated dispute between them. I’ve found recently that reading Paul’s letters with that context in mind really has them making a lot more sense. They are suddenly about something real: a historically verified battle of ideas that we know took place. I’ve had The letter to the Galatians, particularly, really jump off the page at me, reading it through the lens of a proper historical context.

Here are some wonderful excerpts from a book I’ve been reading this year, Bart Ehrman’s “Lost Christianities”. (Interesting, and telling, that my spell-checker doesn’t recognize the second word of that title).

According to Paul, a person is made right with God only by faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection, not by following any of the deeds prescribed by the Jewish Law. And this applies to both Jews and Gentiles. Since Jesus alone is the way of salvation, then anyone who tries to follow the Law in order to be right with God has misunderstood the gospel and probably lost his or her salvation (Gal 1:6-9, 5:4)…

…Paul fired off a white hot anger letter in response to his “Judaizing” opponents in Galatia, in which he went on the attack against these “false teachers”, who, in his judgement, had corrupted the true gospel of Christ and stood accursed before God. This letter, of course, made it into the new Testament, and so most people simply take it at face value: Paul’s opponents were corrupters of the gospel and accursed by God…. One of our greatest losses is a written response from one of them. But if any such reply was made, it has disappeared for ever. One should always bear in mind that in this very letter of Galatians Paul indicates that he confronted Peter over just such issues (Gal. 2:11-14). He disagreed, that is, even with Jesus’ closest disciple on the matter. What would Peter have said in response? Regrettably, once again, we can never know, since all we have is Paul’s version.

At the same time, whereas only Paul’s account all his confrontation with Peter and the Judaizing missionaries of Galatia survives, at one time numerous positions were represented… A close reading of our surviving sources shows that one of our Gospels, at least, appears to represent an alternative point of view.

… Matthew’s Gospel is frequently thought of as the most Jewish of the Gospels of the New Testament. This account of Jesus’ life and death goes to extraordinary lengths to highlight the Jewishness of Jesus…. [eg, its opening genealogy]. Time and again it quotes the Jewish scriptures to show that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah sent from the Jewish God in fulfillment of the Jewish scriptures.

[Ehrman quotes, in full, Matthew's (5:17-20) record of Jesus insisting that the Jewish law be kept... "Not the smallest letter or the smallest stroke of a letter will pass away from the Law until all has taken place." Nothing comparable exists in any of the other (less “Jewish”) gospels.]

For Matthew, the entire Jewish Law needs to be kept, down to the smallest letter. The Pharisees, in fact, are blamed not for keeping the Law but for not keeping it well enough. It is worth noting that in this Gospel, when a rich man comes up to Jesus and asks him how to have eternal life, Jesus tells him that if he wants to live eternally he must keep the commandments of the Law (19:17). One might wonder: if the same person approached Paul with the same question 20 years later, what would he have said? Would he have told him to keep the Law? His own writings give a clear answer: decidedly not. (cf. Rom 3:10; Gal 2:15-16).

Ehrman, Bart. 2003 “Lost Christianities”, Oxford University Press. p98-99

How fascinating, that even within the early Christian writings that survived and came to be considered canonical, there is evidence of serious dissent and disagreement. More fascinating, though, is that it is between Paul and Peter, (and perhaps the author or later ‘editor’ of Matthew, too), and that there were such differing, and conflicting ideas about the person and teaching of Jesus. Can you imagine how Peter and the apostles must have felt, being ‘upstaged’, as it was, by some late-comer who never even MET the person they’d followed around for years and were devoting their lives to?

It turns out that the Scriptures themselves, in the case of Paul’s epistles at least, were largely attempts to argue a case in contrast to a very specific “heresy” which is now largely gone, and has been these past 1600 years or so. Amazing to think that the heretics that Paul’s version of Christianity eventually triumphed over were Jesus’ apostles, no less.

They never taught me this in church. Has it been put on the curriculum since I left?

[I’ll be writing more about this. I’ve just started another book, a brand new one hot off the press, called “Jesus and Paul”, by James Tabor, of UNC (Charlotte) . It is almost unputdownable. It is especially interesting in the ways that it slightly deviates from the ideas of Ehrman and others I’ve read and heard on this topic. Wonderful! I have no idea why this fascinates me so much, but oh, how it does.]

I used to read and understand the New Testament as being God’s timeless word and instruction for my own faith. I used to meditate deeply upon passages and even upon the individual words, poring over them meticulously, allowing (I thought) the Holy Spirit to help supernaturally reveal their deeper meanings to me – prayerfully hoping to allow those words to transform me from the inside out into someone fit to partake in the task of furthering God’s kingdom. It turns out, rather, that it was mainly an angry and frustrated Paul venting over a very specific and contemporaneous theological dispute to do with Jewish rituals and foreskins; and boasting that he knew Jesus better than everyone else, because he’d seen him in visions. (The man could very well have been a diagnosable nut-case, but that’s another story.)

Perhaps people who read Paul’s epistles the way I used to ought to be aware of the CONTEXT in which those epistles were written, and not take them OUT OF IT!

Continue reading »]]> I’m going to look at an argument for objective morality that I heard enunciated on a Christian podcast a week or two back. You’ll know it, it’s not new. This time, however, it really got me thinking, and it could be the basis for a talkie-video on NonStampChannel2 some time. Before I put the time into that, though, I need to put it out there and see if there’s something to it that I’m missing, because I’m convinced this is just about the worst argument for a Christian to make. The flaw of this oft-repeated line of reasoning is staring me in the face. It’s so obviously a DREADFUL argument. It appears to me to be so blatantly bad that I’m truly afraid I’m missing something.

Here’s the argument, transcribed almost exactly, so forgive the speaker the stop-start nature of the prose.

What do you think about that example,… the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Does our moral revulsion at those concentration camps, … Is that because there is an objectively real fact about the matter?, that treating people that way is wrong,…?

Say Hitler had won the war, and we now lived in a society where because of that and the propaganda, everyone believed that anti-semitism was good, and gassing Jews was fine, would that mean then that that was simply the morality that we accept?

Is morality simply, at the end of the day, what society thinks about a matter? Or would it still be wrong? Even though nobody thought it was wrong?

Would it actually still be wrong, because we can be wrong about moral facts?

And if that’s the case, does that suggest that there is a moral dimension that isn’t part of our natural world, that somehow transcends it? Could this be the evidence for god…?

Well, let’s investigate that hypothetical scenario. If Hitler had won, and the Jews were all gone, here’s what I think would happen…

Firstly, we wouldn’t condemn Hitler for having done it. That’s part of the analogy, I know, but it’s worth stating again. We would possibly admire him for having done it, if we were brainwashed enough, although that is not necessary for the analogy to hold. At one extreme we’d praise him for it, at the other, we’d just be hush-hush about it with a tacit acceptance. Chances are there’d be a middle-ground between adoration and tacit acceptance that most people would occupy. All, though, as the example specifies, would pretty much be in line with the idea that Hitler had done the right thing.

What we would think, at the very least, is that it had been necessary. That’s the kind of justification that would come out for it, and would be held by just about everyone, even those not necessarily praising Hitler for having done it. We would look back and think, and maintain, that in the case of the early 20th century, things had gotten so bad, or were about to take such a massive turn for the worst, that drastic action had become appropriate, and the genocide had been a viable option, even if not necessarily the only one. For some, it would have been the best option. For others, simply necessary and justified.

If we were all brainwashed by propaganda, as the example mentions, then that propaganda would, again, necessarily, include the idea that the Jews had deserved their genocide. Even if we didn’t share Hitler’s zeal, we would all at least be sitting around saying that yes, there had been extenuating circumstances that had deemed it necessary in that particular case for the Fuhrer to have carried out such an incredible act.

Now, the hypothetical seems to be suggesting, that no matter the propaganda, it would still have been wrong to have carried out the Holocaust. Read it again and check the language. The analogy ends with a kind of suggestion that indeed this is part of the whole moral argument for the evidence for God, as a necessary objective moral law giver. “Would it still be wrong…?” Because, presumably, we all do know that it was wrong. I mean, certainly the world gets along on that assumption.

But look again at the picture I was painting there. Doesn’t it look familiar? Making excuses for genocide? Pointing out its necessity? It should be very familiar: It is comprised of exactly the kind of responses that Christians give when challenged on the Old Testament genocides.

Yes, they (very mostly) say: genocide is bad. Objectivity bad. Absolutely immoral. It’s just that in this case, the case of the Israelites entering the promised land, genocide was actually moral and morally necessary. It has to be viewed in the correct context to be correctly understood morally.

For a bible-believer, genocide is one of those things that are objectively immoral, yet OK, depending on the circumstances.

In the hypothetical Hitler analogy, we would all be excusing the use of the gas chambers. In the Old Testament case, believers excuse the use of swords and arrows and knives against innocent women and children. (William Fuckwit Lane Craig goes as far as to suggest that we should feel sorry for the soldiers who had to carry out the murders.)

In the hypothetical Hitler analogy, we would all be excusing the millions and millions and millions of deaths as having been justified and necessary. In the Old Testament case, believers excuse the hundreds of thousands of deaths, (at a time when the world population was orders of magnitude smaller, and before World War II weaponry technology), as having been specially justified and necessary.

The example attempts to point out the ludicrousness and moral repugnance of a position in which possibly excusing the Holocaust even becomes an option, and talks about the ‘brainwashing’ that would be necessary to get a population to think that way.

Christianity: you are, and always have been, in that ludicrous and morally repugnant position on the question of genocide. You ARE that ‘brainwashed’ population.

Allow me to rephrase a section of the example slightly to demonstrate:

Say the Israelites had won the promised-land wars, and we now lived in a society where because of that and the propaganda, everyone believed that destroying all those nations had been good, and that “utterly destroying everything that breathed” (see Joshua 10:40, for example) had been fine, would that mean then that that was simply the morality that we accept?

Is morality simply, at the end of the day, what society thinks about a matter? Or would it still be wrong? Even though nobody thought it was wrong?

The Hitler analogy is designed to shock us into realising that viewing morality as not objective could potentially lead us towards making enormous errors of moral judgement, were morality  to come to be viewed as ‘what society thinks about a matter’. And it goes straight for the jackpot: the most evil act within living memory, because everybody agrees: anyone who would excuse or justify that act is sick. What Christians bringing up this issue and this example fail to realise is that with a Christian view of objective morality, you are forced to do exactly the thing that you’re suggesting would make someone appear to be a brainwashed sicko at complete odds with civilised society.

You can’t imagine living in a world in which genocide could be considered moral, and you make up an analogy pointing out how misguided excusing such a massive slaughter would be, yet in the next breath, you will excuse genocide carried out by an Old Testament hero (probably Joshua) who was simply Hitler with a different ideology and less effective weaponry!

And rather than deal with the incredible inconsistency at the heart of the Christian worldview, you are so much more comfortable turning the table and laying the problem at the feet of those who do not accept even that God exists, deflecting any light away from the fact that your god doesn’t condemn it as immoral, but instead orders it and actively assists in its being carried out. The exact thing that you’re bringing up as the best possible example of a hideously immoral act, that someone could only get wrong if they were brainwashed!

I’m calling bullshit on this. I’m calling bullshit on someone challenging the basis of the morality of a secular society, when the example they use to illustrate immorality is something that they’d justify as having once been holy and sacred!

Especially as your next step is, usually, to challenge us secularists to name the standard by which we’re judging the morality of the acts mentioned in the bible. After all, we’re just atheists who don’t have a basis for yeah, bah blah blah heard it all before. Well, I can tell you this: Whatever basis we have for calling out the Hitler-like acts of the Old Testament genocidal warlords, it’s a better and more reliable standard than the one you’re using: You’re using the bible, and the morality inherent in the bible, to judge the morality of the bible.

WELL WHAT THE FUCK GOOD IS THAT?

How can you not see the circular reasoning and invalidity of this line of reasoning?

How can you not see that condemning genocide does not play in the favour of a Christian view of objective morality? You worship a god that ordered and encouraged kings and military leaders to do things that Hitler, in a way, simply perfected. And then say that this god is the basis of objective morality, and that getting this point wrong could lead to people coming to think that genocide would be OK?!

This is utter insanity! What the fuck am I missing here?

Continue reading »]]> I love the Internet. It allows me to be a student of Yale University.

Well, that is to say that I’ve been making my way through a series of lectures by Dale Martin, of Yale University, on early New Testament history, available for free on iTunesU. Yep, I may as well be sitting in the lecture theater with all the rich kids.

I’ve been fascinated by Bart Ehrman’s (of ‘Misquoting Jesus’ fame) work for a while. It is fascinating to learn what scholars have been thinking about the NT for centuries. (Spoiler: we don’t really have a fucking clue exactly what the original gospels and epistles would have said. We can track all the changes and alterations back and back and back until we hit this cloud – a few decades right at the beginning – the texts of which we don’t have, and variations coming out of the cloud on different paths, but no idea which variation was earliest or closest to the intended meaning of the author). Anyway, I’ll have my more-than-a-year-in-the-making video about it up hopefully this month. To that end, I’ve been reading a little beyond Ehrman only, as one does, and spoiler alert: it turns out he’s not making it up. Several other scholars (that is to say, all of them) have known this for centuries.

In the meantime, Dale Martin is lots of fun, as well as being, obviously, a serious scholar who knows more than I could ever hope to learn in one lifetime (and I do hope to learn a fair bit of it). He  started his semester at Yale by giving his students a pop-quiz. Ten questions, yes or no, to test their knowledge of the bible.

Give it a shot! I confess to only scoring 8 correct of the ten. Scribble somewhere your ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for the following ten questions, and the answers are beneath the ‘fold’.

Does the bible contain the following teachings, stories, or sayings…?:

1) The immaculate conception.

2) This quote: “Loves bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

3) The story of three wise men, or kings, who visited the baby Jesus.

4) This quote: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”

5) The doctrine of the trinity

6) Jesus saying of Peter “Upon this rock I will build my church.”

7) Peter founded the church in Rome.

8) After his death, Jesus appeared to his disciples in Jerusalem.

9) After his death, Jesus appeared to his disciples in Galilee.

10) Peter was martyred by being crucified upside down.

Answers below.

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

ANSWERS:

1) Immaculate conception: No. That’s refers to Mary’s conception, and is a Catholic tradition only. Not scriptural.

2) Love bears…Yes, 1 Cor 13.

3) Three wise men: No. This is only a tradition, with no scriptural basis. It arose because the bible mentions three gifts, and it was assumed that there were three people, each bringing one.

4) From each…, to each…: No. That was Marx.

5) Trinity: No. Some would say it is hinted at in scripture, but historically, not. The creeds are as specific as they are about that because of scriptures vagueness on the topic. Also, the scriptural references to it are regarded as very late additions (ie appearing first in copies made decades or centuries after the originals), inserted in response to those who were accusing Christianity of being polytheistic.

6) Upon this rock: Yes.

7) Peter founded church in Rome: No. That’s tradition only.

8) Jesus appeared in Jerusalem: Yes. In Luke and Acts

9) Jesus appeared in Galilee: Yes . In Matthew. Interestingly, it says he appeared only in Galilee.

10) Peter crucified upside down: No. Only a tradition, attested to by many paintings but no scripture.

So, boast! How did you go? Anyone who scores a ten will be given an honorary doctorate from Yale.

The iTunesU series of which I speak is called: Introduction to New Testament History and Literature – Video

EDIT: Or, as a few readers kindly pointed out, you can see them here on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL279CFA55C51E75E0&amp;feature=plcp

Continue reading »]]> I got a message from someone who was very polite and friendly, but who wanted to take me to task for having continually cherry-picked the bible, seeking out all of its ugly bits. “After all,” he (she?) said, and I quote, “you have to admit that the vast majority of the contents of the Bible is of love, forgiveness and justice”…

Here is an expanded version of my response.

________________________________

There’s no doubt that atheists like me go picking out all the revolting aspects of the bible that we were never taught in Sunday school, and that are never heard as adults from the pulpit. I wouldn’t really have any argument with your message except for your saying “you have to admit that the vast majority of the contents of the Bible is of love, forgiveness and justice”. I couldn’t agree less.

The old testament, which is about 7/8 of the bible, is horrendous, and its ethical precepts would be out of place in any but the most backwards, cruel, and barbaric of societies. It’s absolutely not about love and forgiveness, but retribution, anger, jealousy, and violent military conquest. Really, if you were judging the bible by the balance of nice stuff to awful stuff, you could not come to any conclusion other than that it was a ghastly book filled with absolute horror.

In fact, that’s the conclusion that I and many other atheists have come to. It’s a ghastly book filled with absolute horror.

The scale of the horrors it contains and is largely brushed off by apologists and defenders: I mean, striking thousands of babies dead for the sins of a nation’s king? How did the mothers of these babies feel, waking up to find a cold corpse in the cradle? As ‘payback’ for some King’s iniquities, that they had nothing to do with? That’s astonishingly awful!

Or drowning the entire world in a slow miserable death? As punishment for moral ‘corruption’? That’s like punching someone’s teeth out as punishment for being violent!

Or asking David to choose between two or three horrible afflictions that the Lord insists on decimating his nation with? Imagine someone’s tied up a loved one of yours, and you have to choose whether he kills her with a chainsaw, a scalpel, or a power-drill? Well, David had to choose between his nation dying from famine (starvation), certain defeat in war, or a decimating period of pestilence.

Of course, I think it’s fiction, so it would be crazy to be angry at Yahweh, who doesn’t really exist any more than Zeus, or Baal, or Molech. I do, however, find it worthwhile seeking out and pointing out these things, because I believe that the appalling morality of this book has been, and is, clouding the issues of ethics and morality in our society and world, up to today.

It certainly clouds the better judgment of individuals. I see it often. For example, as an atheist, I can utterly, utterly condemn the practice of throwing rocks at people until they die of the injuries caused. Same goes for the punishment of burning living people to death. Even if you support a death penalty, would ANY civilized society choose one of these methods over, say, the electric chair or a lethal injection? We consider those ‘humane’ for good reason, given the alternatives presented by the god of love. Had Yahweh not heard of hanging, which is relatively quick in most cases? Did it absolutely have to be stoning?

Now, I can’t speak for everyone, but generally speaking, a Christian believer, who believes that stoning and burning alive were once the favored punishments of all-loving, all-holy Yahweh, has something that compels them to at least halt somewhat before utterly condemning those practices as being an obscene violation of justice, ethics, or morality. They have to, or else, as they know, they’re describing their god as utterly violating morality in the most revolting way. I’ve tried the experiment often, asking believers on youtube whether or not stoning someone is as bad as, say, committing adultery or telling an egregious lie. Obfuscations abound, and I’m repeatedly amazed that such a thing could even come under question. The usual comeback of “Well you’re an atheist, so you don’t have any basis for your morality” only makes me sigh at what the obfuscation is avoiding- What good is a basis of morality when it can’t guide you towards differentiating between the ‘evil’ of consensual sex outside of marriage, and that of roasting a fellow human being to death with fire?

I can’t think what is is like for people to have such double-think going on. “God is perfect love and perfect justice and perfect forgiveness, way beyond anything that a mere human could come up with, but yes, in the past, He just liked to see non-virgin brides murdered on their fathers’ doorsteps by mobs of angry men pelting her with rocks until her skull was smashed in or she died of massive internal bleeding”.

What did the father of the bride, or the mother, think of Yahweh’s perfect love, justice, and forgiveness, as they buried the violently bruised, still-bleeding corpse of their teenage daughter? Imagine witnessing the scene. Imagine the girl’s screams as those faithful men carried out ‘God’s will’. This might help: Have you ever seen footage of the Taliban cutting someone’s head off in the public square, as I have? Or shooting a woman through the head at point blank range, as she kneels on the ground in front of an audience of spectators? What would you think of a person who defended their idea of ‘justice’? Well, I’ve had stonings and burnings defended by Christians time and time again, as having been ‘appropriate’ in their cultural context.

No, the central representation in the bible about the character of its god is NOT primarily about love and forgiveness and mercy. You have that about 180 degrees wrong. One may as well read Mein Kampf and come away claiming it is a book about equality, tolerance, and peaceful diplomacy.

You’re thinking about that addendum tagged onto the end about the hippy who came up with better, kinder, more humane ideas. But who then also threatened eternal torture in a scalding lake of fire to those who don’t follow him. Ughhh- this obsession with pain, violence, and torturous insanity is inescapable within Judeo-Christianity, even in the new testament. What is it that finally satiates God The Father’s anger over mankind’s sinful nature, after a few thousand years of ritual animal slaughtering not quite cutting it? Of course – an act of violent torture against a perfect god-human. Torture and suffering is like a currency for this god – it even dishes it out unto itself for its own satisfaction.

Absolutely insane.

And to think there are religions out there who have their adherents vow such things as “to not cause harm to any living being”.

Imagine if a God of the universe taught that, and led by example. Wow, what a different world this would be. But look what we’re stuck with instead.

So, to end: Why bring up these obsceneties in videos about the most believed-in god in the world, ever? Because if stoning people and burning them alive can be excused in some ‘contexts’, … then what on Earth can’t be?