The Logical Atheist

Moses, Mahomet, and Jesus, can lay as little claim to moral merit, or to the character of the benefactors of mankind, as any three men that ever lived upon the face of the earth. They were all of them impostors; two of them notorious murderers in practice, and the other a murderer in principle; and their existence united has, perhaps, cost the human race more blood, and produced more substantial misery, than all the other fanatics of the world.  --Elihu Palmer (1764-1806), Principles of Nature; or, A Development of the Moral Causes of Happiness and Misery Among the Human Species

The New Testament, so far as proof of this kind goes, furnishes us with facts and circumstances which make strongly against the moral character of Jesus. Beside the general duplicity which characterizes his answers to the multitude, he is guilty also of sending his disciples secretly to take and carry away a colt which did not belong either to him or his disciples. The doing of such an act in modern times would be denominated theft, even by pious Christians themselves. He is guilty of sowing the seeds of domestic and national warfare, and declaring that no man could be his disciple without hating his father and his mother; and also that he came not to send peace but a sword. If any man at the present day were to enter society with actions and avowed intentions of this kind, he would be considered as an enemy to moral virtue, and deserving of that punishment which domestic justice and public tranquillity required. It is in vain to applaud the conduct and opinions of Jesus, when the same...

The character of Mahomet is of a savage, military, and tyrannical cast; but he speaks in the name of heaven, and, like Moses, pretends, that his murders, cruelties, and assassinations have been sanctioned by the divinity which he adores. He frequently begins his chapters in the name of the most merciful God; but, in the course of the chapter, is sure to consign to damnation those who do not accede to the system of revelation which he has received from God. "The chosen people of the Most High", under the Jewish dispensation, took the liberty of exercising a principle of indiscriminate extirpation toward all heathen nations; the Mahometans pursued a similar course in the destructive wars wherever they have been engaged, and to which they have been conducted by their fanatic leaders. The Christian world is not a whit behind either of these two grand divisions in the exercise of a censorious and military spirit. The crusades and the domestic quarrels of the Christian church will ...

As we've seen in many previous posts. Yahweh, the god of the Old Testament, or Hebrew Bible, is jealous, needy, angry, paranoid, vengeful, and violent, when he's not dispensing his love to his chosen. He's also exceedingly prickly. If he thinks the Israelites are insufficiently grateful for all he'd done and overhears them complaining , or "murmuring" as it is called, he's apt to smite an entire group unless Moses can talk him down. And this doesn't cover the mass murder and collective punishment of non-Israelites, most of whom are perfectly innocent, according to the text. There are so many stories along these lines that cataloging them would seems an impossible task. Thankfully, we have the Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, whose latest video, "How Many People Did God Kill in the Bible?" is worth watching, at least in part: it is nearly two-and-a-half hours long. Mehta credits Steve Wells's book Drunk With Blood with the legwork.

Numbers 31 :30 And Moses said unto them [two tribes of Israel that didn't want to cross the Jordan River and conquer Canaan]: 'If ye will do this thing: if ye will arm yourselves to go before HaShem [that is, Yahweh] to the war, 21 and every armed man of you will pass over the Jordan before HaShem, until He hath driven out His enemies from before Him, 22 and the land be subdued before HaShem, and ye return afterward; then ye shall be clear before HaShem, and before Israel, and this land shall be unto you for a possession before HaShem. 23 But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against HaShem; and know ye your sin which will find you.

To show fully the immoral character of Moses, it would be necessary to quote almost every chapter in these "holy and inspired" books. Believers in revealed religion, who still believe that Moses was a pious and meek man, ought, once more, to pass in review the conduct and transactions which the Bible has attributed to him.... If there be any member of the Christian church who can believe that God and Moses ever united in the execution of those barbarous decrees and immoral sentiments stated in these books, he must be lost to all clear ideas of justice, and must have abandoned every principle of humanity by which the life of man is to be rendered comfortable and happy. The author of "The Age of Reason", has placed these enormities in a striking point of light, and, with his wonted acuteness of discernment, has presented, in the way of Bishop Watson, difficulties which no Christian bishop will ever be able to surmount. Murder and theft are crimes of so detestable a na...

The causes which have produced personal celebrity are numerous, and diversified by a thousand indescribable shades in their modes of operation. It also sometimes happens that the means of popular exaltation and perpetual fame have been either of a passive or uncontrollable nature. Such is the fact in the present case. Moses and Mahomet were active villains, whose characters cannot be examined without horror and detestation. They were both eminent murderers, and their debaucheries have been signalized by acts of barbarous brutality, of which the love-struck Solomon seems to be more destitute. The military ferocities and immoral decrees of these two "celestial" impostors, have placed upon their characters an indelible stain, which the pretended sanctity of the priesthood can never wipe away!    Believers in Christianity, in reading the history and conduct of Moses, ought to blush for his crimes, and spurn at his blasphemy in attributing these crimes to the God whom he pretended...