The Logical Atheist

The more closely I read the Tanakh (the Pentateuch, Hebrew Bible, or Five Books of Moses), the more clearly I see the power agenda behind it. (Let's remember that these books are the foundation of the three Abrahamic religions.) Without this perspective, it is hard to understand what these books are really about; the catalog of stories, divine punishments, and commandments simply makes no sense. Why would a perfect, all-powerful, and benevolent deity do such horrible things while making such unreasonable demands on a group of "chosen" people? In fact, why is there a chosen people at all? Why is the message, whatever it is, not intended for a universal audience? We can arrive at a better answer if we think of the Israelites as a cult in which most people are subservient and from which a minority, an elite or priestly class, benefits. Cults are always vulnerable to defection and disintegration as members of the subservient majority, especially in a rising generation, begin ...

I can think of only two reasons to read the Bible(s), namely, to: be entertained; see how gullible mankind can be.  Good storytelling? Nope.  Good moral lessons? Not a chance.  History? Fuggedaboutit. We're talking about books full of stories that are evil, vicious, or just downright silly. It's just one long collection of sketch or movie ideas for Monty Python.

If you're looking for an informative, entertaining, irreverent, and even hilarious look at the the Bible, I highly recommend Friendly Atheist's YouTube series "Everything Wrong with...."  (Hemant Mehta has a website too.) As you'll see, just about every line is absurd and uproariously funny -- the book could have been written by the Monty Python gang. It looks like Mehta started a year ago and is just now getting to the end of Genesis. I've watch a few at random and found them brilliant, not to mention educational. He cleaves to the text with the help of good graphics while offering brief droll comments that are always well put. I now plan to watch them all in order. If you want a good sample, see the one on Genesis 19 , where we learn about Sodom and Gomorrah, poor Lot, his doomed wife, and his scheming incestuous daughters. You will have a laugh and go back for more, I'm sure.

You've got to wonder about an allegedly all-good and all-powerful God who: boasts about how jealous (insecure) he is; smote ancient Hebrew priests for burning the wrong incense; struck down a non-priest for helping to steady the about-to-be-dropped Ark of the Covenant; made "unclean" animals the eating of which is forbidden; singled out one indistinguishable group of Canaanites from others; forbade his name from to be spoken; demands that people rest on a particular day (forbidding such restful things as smoking); wanted animals sacrificed to him and their blood sprinkled around a grand temple in precisely prescribed ways (and maybe still does); requires unquestioning obedience even if he tells you to kill your child; drowned virtually every living thing on earth in a fit of pique; created people knowing full well what they will do -- meaning they had no choice but to do it -- and then punished them for doing it; directed his favored group of Canaanites to annihilate othe...

The highest dignity of the human race consists in the practice of an exalted virtue, in the exercise of a fine sympathetic benevolence, in reciprocating our feelings and affections, in promoting the justice and order of society, in relieving the unfortunate and supporting the cause of truth, in diminishing evil and augmenting good; in short, in promoting universally the science, the virtue, and happiness of the world. There is, however, no possibility of faithfully performing these duties while under the shackles of Jewish and Christian superstition. The remedy consists in a return to nature, and in elevating our views and conceptions above those theological absurdities which have degraded man to a level with the beast, and taught him to respect his civil and ecclesiastical tyrants as beings of a higher order, or celestial messengers from a vindictive and revengeful God. --Elihu Palmer (1764-1806),  Principles of Nature; o...

In the "Old Testament", national and individual justice is disregarded, and God is made the accomplice of crimes which human nature abhors. The maxims of the "New Testament" are a perversion of all correct principles in a code of moral virtue. The whole system is calculated to take man out of himself, to destroy his confidence in his own energies, to debase his faculties, vitiate his social affections, and brutalize the most useful qualities of human existence.  --Elihu Palmer (1764-1806),  Principles of Nature; or, A Development of  the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery Among the Human Species  

The cursory survey [herein] that has been taken of the immoral precepts and principles contained "in the Old and New Testament", clearly proves that these books are not of divine origin. The God of the Jews and Christians, according to their own description, is a changeable, passionate, angry, unjust, and revengeful being; infuriate in his wrath, capricious in his conduct, and destitute, in many respects, of those sublime and immutable properties which really belong to the Preserver of the universe. The characters spoken of in the scriptures, as the favourites of Heaven, such as Moses, Joshua, David, Solomon, Jesus, and Paul, are none of them good moral characters; it is not probable, therefore, that they were selected by the Creator as the organs of celestial communication. --Elihu Palmer (1764-1806), Principles of Nature; or, A Development of  the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery Among the Human Species

To charge the Creator of the world with such a violation of all justice [as seen in the Old Testament's conquest story], with such a dereliction of every humane sentiment, is to deprive him of all his moral perfections, and to make him equal in villany to Moses and Joshua, or any of the eminent murderers whose names have been recorded in the bloody history of the human race. It is strange to observe, that in reasoning upon theological subjects, men are disposed to abandon the correct ground of moral decision, and contend that those actions which would be unjust in man, would nevertheless be just when performed by the Creator. This is a mode of reasoning that perverts all the faculties of our existence, destroys the moral excellence of Deity, and overturns the foundation of principle. In all beings that are intelligent, moral principle is the same; and God has no more right to violate it, than any other being. He is essentially bound by the properties of his existence, and his chara...

Of all the superstitions of mankind, this insanity about the "sacred Sabbath" is the most absurd. The idea of feeling it a duty to be solemn and sad one-seventh of the time! To think that we can please an infinite being by staying in some dark and sombre room, instead of walking in the perfumed fields! Why should God hate to see a man happy? Why should it excite his wrath to see a family in the woods, by some babbling stream, talking, laughing and loving? Nature works on that "sacred" day. The earth turns, the rivers run, the trees grow, buds burst into flower, and birds fill the air with song. Why should we look sad, and think about death, and hear about hell? Why should that day be filled with gloom instead of joy?   A poor mechanic, working all the week in dust and noise, needs a day of rest and joy, a day to visit stream and wood—a day to live with wife and child; a day in which to laugh at care, and gather hope and strength for toils to come. And his weary wife...

Another except from Robert G. Ingersoll's "Some Mistakes of Moses" : Let us understand this. An honest finite being uses the best words, in his judgment, to convey his meaning. This is the best he can do, because he cannot certainly know the exact effect of his words on others. But an infinite being must know not only the real meaning of the words, but the exact meaning they will convey to every reader and hearer. He must know every meaning that they are capable of conveying to every mind. He must also know what explanations must be made to prevent misconception. If an infinite being cannot, in making a revelation to man, use such words that every person to whom a revelation is essential will understand distinctly what that revelation is, then a revelation from God through the instrumentality of language is impossible, or it is not essential that all should understand it correctly. It may be urged that millions have not the capacity to understand a revelation, although ex...

We continue with Robert G. Ingersoll's "Some Mistakes of Moses" : We are next informed by Moses that "God of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters;" and that "God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." What did the writer mean by the word firmament? Theologians now tell us that he meant an "expanse." This will not do. How could an expanse divide the waters from the waters, so that the waters above the expanse would not fall into and mingle with the waters below the expanse? The truth is that Moses regarded the firmament as a solid affair. It was where God lived, and where water was kept. It was for this reason that they used to pray for rain. They supposed that some angel could with a lever raise a gate and let out the quantity of moisture desired. It was with the water from this firmament that the world was drowned when the windows of heave...

Robert G. Ingersoll's "Some Mistakes in Moses" goes on: In the time of Moses, it was perfectly safe for him to write an account of the creation of the world. He had simply to put in form the crude notions of the people. At that time, no other Jew could have written a better account. Upon that subject he felt at liberty to give his imagination full play. There was no one who could authoritatively contradict anything he might say. It was substantially the same story that had been imprinted in curious characters upon the clay records of Babylon, the gigantic monuments of Egypt, and the gloomy temples of India. In those days there was an almost infinite difference between the educated and ignorant. The people were controlled almost entirely by signs and wonders. By the lever of fear, priests moved the world. The sacred records were made and kept, and altered by them. The people could not read, and looked upon one who could, as almost a god. In our day it is hard to conceive ...

More from freethinker Robert G. Ingersoll's "Some Mistakes of Moses" : Let us account for all we see by the facts we know. If there are things for which we cannot account, let us wait for light. To account for anything by supernatural agencies is, in fact to say that we do not know. Theology is not what we know about God, but what we do not know about Nature. In order to increase our respect for the Bible, it became necessary for the priests to exalt and extol that book, and at the same time to decry and belittle the reasoning powers of man. The whole power of the pulpit has been used for hundreds of years to destroy the confidence of man in himself—to induce him to distrust his own powers of thought, to believe that he was wholly unable to decide any question for himself, and that all human virtue consists in faith and obedience. The church has said, "Believe, and obey! If you reason, you will become an unbeliever, and unbelievers will be lost. If you disobey, you w...

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-99), known "The Great Agnostic," was a remarkable polymath and popular orator at time when, as Wikipedia puts it, "oratory was public entertainment": He spoke on every subject, from Shakespeare to Reconstruction, but his most popular subjects were agnosticism and the sanctity and refuge of the family. He committed his speeches to memory although they were sometimes more than three hours long.   Many of Ingersoll's speeches advocated freethought and humanism, and often ridiculed religious belief. For this the press often attacked him, but neither his opinions nor the negative press could stop his increasing popularity. During Ingersoll's greatest fame, audiences would pay $1 or more to hear him speak, a considerable sum for that time. Many of his speeches were collected and published in book form. In his 1879 preface to the publication of  "Some Mistakes of Moses,"  Ingersoll said: For many years I have regarded the Pentat...

A religion is simply a cult that's accumulated enough years under its belt to be thought respectable. But if you dare to venture back to the origins, you'll see the markings of a cult every time. For example, here's Deuteronomy, chapter 7 , from the Jewish Publication Society's translation of the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible , which contains the Five Books of Moses and 19 other books (Judges, the various prophets, Kings, etc). Pay special attention to the God-authorized genocide of the inhabitants of Canaan, the animosity toward religious freedom of non-Israelites, the separatism, and the issue of chosenness. ( HaShem is Hebrew for Lord . G-d is how Orthodox Jews spell God ; in that way, should a document be destroyed, the word God would not be destroyed.) 1 When HaShem thy G-d shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite,...

There is no need that I should go through the whole Pentateuch. If anyone pays attention to the way in which all the histories and precepts in these five books are set down promiscuously and without order, with no regard for dates; and further, how the same story is often repeated, sometimes in a different version, he will easily, I say, discern that all the materials were promiscuously collected and heaped together, in order that they might at some subsequent time be more readily examined and reduced to order. Not only these five books, but also the narratives contained in the remaining seven, going down to the destruction of the city [Jerusalem], are compiled in the same way. For who does not see that in Judges ii:6 a new historian is being quoted, who had also written of the deeds of Joshua, and that his words are simply copied? For after our historian has stated in the last chapter of the book of Joshua that Joshua died and was buried, and has promised, in the first chapter of Judg...

I think that the best way to disabuse folks of their belief in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam would be to have them read the Hebrew Bible very closely . Unbelievable! It's enough to put anyone off religion.

The Bible. Or as I like to call it: Apocrypha of miracles.