The Logical Atheist

The Hebrew prophets are often portrayed as the voices of justice and compassion in opposition to the corrupt kings of Judah and the Children of Israel. But is that really accurate? My reading (so far) detects no focus on justice and compassion. Yes, there is a rare sentence about widows, orphans, and poor people, but those read like something a later editor added. ("This could use a mention of widows and orphans here.") And I see no evidence that the prophets were disturbed by the fact the Ten Commandments say bupkis along this line: "Thou shalt look after widows, orphans, and poor people." (This is not to endorse altruist ethics or the commandment/submission framework of Judaism and its derivatives. I prefer instead the rational egoist Greek philosophical tradition.) So what are the prophets actually upset about? They are upset that the kings and the Children of Israel have consistently disobeyed Yahweh. How so? By worshiping other Canaanite gods, like Baal and Ash...

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart." --H. L. Mencken, Minority Report: H. L. Mencken's Notebooks , 1956.

"Where is the grave-yard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a day when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter to-day? And what of Huitzilopochtli? In one year–and it is no more than five hundred years ago–50,000 youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest. Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation that she carried on with the sun. When he frowned, his father, the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with 10,000 gallons of human blood. But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Allen G. Thurman. Once the peer of Al...

"The Old Testament, as everyone who has looked into it is aware, drips with blood; there is, indeed, no more bloody chronicle in all the literature of the world. Half of the hemorrhage is supplied by the goyim  who angered Yahweh by flouting His Chosen People, and the other half issues from living creatures who went down to death that He might be suitably nourished and kept in good humour. Yahweh's revelations to Moses commanded an almost continuous butchery, as we learn from the Book of Numbers." --H. L. Mencken, Treatise on the Gods , 1930

Is God jealous or tolerant, vengeful or forgiving, a harsh and haughty monarch or a loving father? It is possible to answer these questions any way you choose, and to find revelation to support you. --H. L. Mencken, Treatise on the Gods , 1930

"Every religion of any consequence, indeed, teaches that all the rest are insane, immoral and against God. Usually it is not hard to prove it." --H. L. Mencken, Treatise on the Gods , 1930

The book of Joshua 24:1-28 neatly summarizes the essence of the Hebrew Bible. (Emphasis added.) And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers; and they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, and the father of Nachor: and they served other gods. And I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac. And I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau: and I gave unto Esau mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt. I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt, according to that which I did among them: and afterward I brought you out. And I brought your fathers out of Egypt: and ye came unto th...