Haggai and Chinese People

Summary: God tells his prophet Haggai to order his people to build a new Temple. They start work on it, and it’s not as good as the old one. That’s it.

So, this really isn’t going to have a lot to do with the book of Haggai. I’ve been having enough trouble with the last few books, and honestly, this one is so short that it would probably be hard to come up with something even if it wasn’t going over well-worn territory. I mean, we get it: God wants people to do something, then they do it. God is unhappy, so he hurts their crop production and sends droughts, which somehow convinces the people of Jerusalem to build a new temple.

Okay, fine. But I do want to know one thing: what was going on in China (If you want, you can substitute the Japanese or the Native Americans or any civilization which had no contact with Judaism, but we’re going to focus on China here)?

This is a serious question. Didn’t they have droughts and years with bad crop production in China? Remember, anything bad that happens is due to God’s direct intervention, as he mentions here:

“My people, why should you be living in well-built houses while my Temple is in ruins? Don’t you see what is happening to you? You have planted much grain, but have harvested very little. You have food to eat, but not enough to make you full. You have wine to drink, but not enough to get you drunk on! You have clothing, but not enough to keep you warm. And the working man cannot earn enough to live on. Can’t you see why this has happened…You hoped for large harvests, but they turned out to be small. And when you brought the harvest home, I blew it away. Why did I do that? Because my Temple lies in ruins while every one of you is busy working on his own house. That is why there is no rain and nothing can grow. I have brought drought on the land – on its hills, grainfields, vineyards, and olive orchards – on every crop the ground produces, on everything you try to grow.” (Hg. 1.4-11)

So, as that (possibly unnecessarily long) quote shows, God directly interferes with the workings of society when they are displeasing him. But more than that, his interference is supposed to be proof of their disobedience. Which brings us to China. Now, this book took place in 520 BC, hundreds of years before China was fully unified (and before it had any reason to be called China), but there were smaller kingdoms, one of which (the Zhou) had already developed the concept of the Mandate of Heaven – the concept that the ruler was on the throne by divine right, but if he made mistakes, then he was no longer blessed by heaven and should be removed by the people.

So let’s say China was humming along, with a few good years of crop production and rivers that flowed approximately the same amount year after year. Then the next year, there’s something wrong. There’s just not nearly as much water as there was before. Fields are going without irrigation. People are starving.

Here’s what the Bible would say: there’s a reason. I mean, it would have to say that, right? If you’re claiming that this drought in Israel is caused by a lack of piousness, it would raise questions if that drought in China wasn’t. Questions like, “Does this mean I can get out of this whole divine retribution thing by moving?” Or, “What if droughts are just things that happen naturally and have nothing to do with God’s attitude toward our lack of a temple?” And these are questions that it’d be a little hard to answer, so the priests would probably just say it’s all part of God’s unknowable and perfect plan, and you shouldn’t question it.

But then, sometimes Israel would have bad rulers. Sometimes they would be conquered. And why would they be conquered? Because the people fucked up. Because the people were worshiping Baal in Yahweh’s temple, or because the people were just sinning and sinning without repenting. Those rascally people! But when the same thing would happen in China, when the Zhou conquered the Shang and then later Qin Shi Huang conquered the Zhou, it was because the rulers weren’t good enough. Instead of the people being punished, the emperors lost everything.

Of course, neither of these approaches had any proof or any real reason to think they were true beyond “Everyone knows it’s true.” But that will never dissuade a true believer. Someone who feels defined by their faith will never be able to acknowledge any flaws in it or anything wrong with the sacred texts or leaders or basic tenets of their religion, nor will they be able to look at it objectively. So it’s probably useless to point out any of this to them, that it’s possible droughts and floods are unrelated to piousness, that it’s possible there is no connection between Baal and being conquered, or that it’s possible their deeply held beliefs are just kinda silly. It’s probably useless to point out that their conviction is absolutely meaningless – the conviction of the Chinese people in the Mandate of Heaven was strongly ingrained, and it was just as wrong.

I guess the main point here is that it’s impossible to apply the standards of the Bible to the world and believe that the standards are worth having. And it’s impossible to not apply the standards of the Bible to the rest of the world if it’s something that you believe is true. When you try to apply supernatural explanations to ordinary events, you end up in logical trouble. But when your supernatural beliefs depend on those explanations as proof, you’re already in that trouble. So I can’t see a way to reconcile that and keep that belief. But I’m sure there is one. After all, it’s been thousands of years. Someone must have come up with something.

Zephaniah and The Day Of Reckoning

Summary: The LORD tells Zephaniah that there’s some punishin’ coming for the Earth. Jerusalem is on the Earth. But at some point, the LORD will stop punishing (or something).

The first third of Zephaniah concerns just how bad the LORD is gonna kill the shit out of the residents of Earth. He says he’ll kill everyone, including people and animals. And it’s not like the righteous will even be spared:

“The LORD said, ‘I am going to destroy everything on earth, all human beings and animals, birds and fish. I will bring about the downfall of the wicked. I will destroy all mankind, and no survivors will be left. I, the LORD, have spoken.” (1.2-3)

So, not a lot of ambiguity there. Are you alive? Then you’ll get some smitin’. Nothing personal, but sometimes people just have to die. The LORD also promises that no one will remember the priests who served Baal (1.4) and that anyone who worships the sun or moon or stars will be destroyed, along with people who say they’ll worship the LORD but turn to Molech (1.5) and people who refuse to answer the LORD’s call (1.6).

Here’s my question: didn’t you already cover those people? Aren’t they part of everything on earth? Aren’t they part of all human beings and animals? What about all mankind? They’re included in that, right?

Well, of course they are. The point of separating them into different groups isn’t to say they won’t die. The point is just to separate them. The point is to give believers a reason to think of themselves as different from nonbelievers. Because once you do that, once you define a group by how they are unlike you, it becomes much easier to deny their essential humanity. And when that’s done, you don’t even need to justify going to war with them or taking anything they own, be it jewelry, houses, or land. After all, you’re one of God’s people. They’re just a bunch of Baal-worshipping monsters.

So we have this event at some point in the future which separates the virtuous believers from the blasphemous heathens. Now, many different religions have many different ways the world is supposed to end. But then, they kinda have to. If religion is born of a search for answers, you as a religious leader (congratulations, blog reader – you have been promoted to a religious leader) have no choice but to claim your religion has every answer. So yes, of course you know how the world began. And yes, of course you know what pleases your totally real god. And yes, of course you know how the world ends. And do you see those unbelievers across the street? Those Molech-loving Canaanite motherfuckers! They have to be destroyed. It’s God’s will.

So you know what the event it – you know just how hard the divine fuzz (apparently I still think it is 1967) is gonna come down on you, but just when is this going to happen? How much more life do you have to endure before you finally get to show everyone just how right your doomsday prediction is? Well, good news! It’s coming soon. It’s always coming soon (except to the Mayans, I guess). “The day when the LORD will sit in judgment is near; so be silent in his presence.” (1.7)

After all, what use is a prediction of impending apocalypse if it’s not impending really really fast? You’ll never convince anyone of the urgency of their religious conversion by promising that if they don’t convert, their great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren are going to be totally fucked. “The great day of the LORD is near – very near and coming fast! That day will be bitter, for even the bravest soldiers will cry out in despair!” (1.14) Translation: GET THE FUCK ON IT, PEOPLE. THE CLOCK IS TICKING.

Because in addition to showing people just how different they are from their neighbors, the end of the world is of course used to scare people. And it’s always been true and it always will be true that scared people will believe fucking anything. All you have to do is promise that if they do exactly what you say, they’ll be okay. All you have to do is reassure them that they didn’t do anything wrong, and that of course there’s an answer, and of course you know what it is, and they’ll be all yours. And then you can get them to do whatever you want.

And what are these new scared believers supposed to do, anyway? Why, nothing much! They just need to live their lives by what was, at the time, conventional morality, and also worship this god instead of their old one(s). As long as you worship the LORD, nothing bad will happen to you, despite the words of earlier in this book, which is a really short book and you would think someone would have made a connection there and done some editing so it isn’t so blatantly contradictory, and you’ll be fine. Better than fine, in fact:

“Sing and shout for joy, people of Israel!
Rejoice with all your heart, Jerusalem!
The LORD has stopped your punishment;
he has removed all your enemies.
The LORD, the king of Israel, is with you;
there is no reason now to be afraid.” (3.14-15)

Lucky break, huh? Just by believing in this guy and going to his temple and worshiping him, your life will be saved! Man, it’s a good thing that the creator and all-powerful ruler of the universe is so easy to bribe, or you’d be totally fucked. And sure, that religion down the street probably says the same things about the end of the world and believing in their god being the only way to live, but they’re just a bunch of heathen unbelievers. After all, it’s right there in your Bible. They’re different than you. And when God kills them, they’ll have had their chance.

And really, they’ll have it coming.

Habakkuk and God’s Anger

Summary: This guy Habakkuk asks God why he’s put these cruel jackass Babylonians in power.  God says that the unrighteous will get judged in their own good time, and he has no intention of being nice about it.  Then Habakkuk does this prayer about how totally awesome the LORD is.

Here are some things that, according to Habakkuk, make God angry: making your family rich with what you took by violence  then having the temerity to try to make your own home safe from harm and danger (2.9), founding a city on crime and building it up on murder (2.12), making your neighbor stagger as if they were drunk (2.15), maybe cutting down the forests of Lebanon (2.17), murder and violence against the people of the world and its cities (2.17), worshipping idols (2.18), maybe the rivers and the sea (3.8), and probably that the wicked have a leader who has made God’s chosen people not free (3.13).

Here are the things that Habakkuk says that God does when he’s angry: killing those who are evil (2.4), forcing conquerors into debt and paying interest on that debt (2.7, and I guess that either the chosen people are only disallowed from collecting interest from each other or God knows they will never win a battle so it will be a nonissue), forcing conquerors to tremble in the presence of newly arrived enemies (2.7), being plundered (2.8), having all the work of conquered people (presumably slaves) going up in flames, being covered with shame instead of honor and made to drink and stagger (2.16), being cut down like the forests of Lebanon and terrified by animals (2.17), bringing lightning (3.4) and disease and death (3.5), forcing nations to tremble and shattering mountains and sinking hills into the ground (3.6), splitting the earth with lightning (3.9), causing rain and high winds (3.10), forcing the sun and moon to stand still (3.11), trampling nations (3.12), and striking down the leader of the wicked and his followers (3.13).

And now that we’re all clear on the causes and repercussions of God’s anger, I have to say I’m not impressed.  I’m so not impressed that I can’t even see the point of including this book in the Bible (take that, Council of Nicaea!).  Because really, applying the tiniest bit of thought or logic to God’s message just ends up ruining it.  Of the things that make God angry, three were clearly done by the Israelites (2.9, 2.17, 2.18).  Of his punishments, many of them (2.4, 2.7, 2.8, 3.12, 3.13) are just things that happen when you lose a war, and most of the rest are randomly occurring natural disasters.

And that’s really the thing about consigning events to the all-encompassing category of God’s anger.  It’s totally arbitrary and you can do it however you want and no one will ever be able to prove you wrong.  Don’t like the way your neighbor won’t lend you a knife?  Neither does God!  And see how his roof needs to be redone?  There’s your proof!

It all comes back to the thing that I keep talking about in the Bible – people trying to come up with a higher authority to justify the attitudes they already have.  Because there is no correlation between how often God-angering actions are taken and how often Godly punishments are handed out, but a lot of religious people don’t seem to think that way.  And this isn’t just evident in the crazy preacher who’ll say God hated New Orleans because of all the gays, or the people who take the Bible as literal truth, or the Westboro Baptist nuts.  The big place you see this, the really really monumentally huge one, is the concept of hell.

Let’s just think about the concept of hell here for a second: God, who loves you, has judged some crime of yours to be so severe that you will be tortured for all eternity.  All eternity.  Forever.  The entire timeline of human existence will be a speck of nothingness compared to the time that you are tortured.  And why? For what?  What is accomplished by being tortured for such an unimaginably long time?  Well, nothing.  When we weak mortal fallible humans imprison someone, we don’t actually do it solely for punishment.  In fact, out of all the reasons that we do put people in jail, pure punishment is at the bottom of the list.  It’s not close to deterrence or rehabilitation, even as flawed as those systems are.

But rehabilitation and deterrence are completely impossible in hell.  You’re dead; there is no purpose for making someone afraid of committing crimes, and if you really want someone to become a better person, then an infinite amount of torture is probably not the way to go (especially if you are, let’s say, all-powerful and all-knowing and an almighty deity and could make it happen by snapping your fingers, assuming you have fingers).

And when it comes to deterring people, you need to make them sure that, you know, you exist.  And if you’ll recall that a lot of the things people go to hell for involve a lack of belief, that seems like it probably isn’t a well-thought-out plan.  In fact, according to Christians, lack of belief is the one exact thing that you would go to hell for because you can theoretically be forgiven for anything else.  So if it’s deterrence, it would almost entirely be administered to the only people who could not be deterred by that method.  I think we can eliminate that one.

And then there’s removing these sinners from heavenly society for the sake of that society.  But that doesn’t really make sense.  We’re talking about heaven here, not some small town easily seduced by a charming stranger.  You can’t change heaven, because there’s no reason that God would create a heaven that would change.

So what’s left?  Punishment.  And why punish?  Because you’re angry.  Punishment in itself doesn’t accomplish anything in the real world.  You don’t make a kid sit in the corner after breaking something  because you’re feeling spiteful or angry; you do it so he’ll learn not to shatter some glass.  And of course we’re just like children to God (or maybe pets), so why punish us for no reason?  We’ll never learn, we’ll never change, no one will avoid being corrupted, and all you’re doing is exposing someone to pointless suffering.

The whole concept is ridiculous.  Just like the notion of God’s anger.

Nahum and Common Humanity

Summary: God is angry with Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. Nineveh gets destroyed.  There is a poem about that.  Everyone seems pretty happy with its destruction.

“Nineveh, are you any better than Thebes, the capital of Egypt?  She too had a river to protect her like a wall – the Nile was her defense.  She ruled Sudan and Egypt, there was no limit to her power. Libya was her ally.  Yet the people of Thebes were carried off into exile.  At every street corner their children were beaten to death.  Their leading men were carried off in chains and divided among their captors.” (Nh 3.8-10)

The very fact that these verses were (apparently) written without any ironic intent is remarkable.  I mean, Israel had a river (the Jordan). Israel had a kingdom.  Israel had allies.  The people of Israel were carried off into exile.  Israelite children died.  Israelite men became slaves.  This all happened to Israel.  And it was all used as proof that God was testing their faith.

Well, why couldn’t Osiris have been testing the faith of Egypt?  Why wasn’t Baal testing the faith of Canaan back when Israel came by?  And why couldn’t the Assyrian gods have been testing the faith of his people when that empire fell?

Because this isn’t their book, of course.  That’s the only real reason.  The truth is that empires fall.  All empires everywhere eventually die out (And to the scores of ultra-right wing Americans who I’m sure read this site because it is exactly the sort of thing they would enjoy, relax.  I’m sure America will last forever).  And when they do, stronger nations take advantage of them and allies desert them and people leave.  It’s the way of the world.

But that explanation isn’t good enough for the Bible.  It can’t just happen unplanned like a teenage pregnancy.  And the problem with saying that God causes all empires to rise and fall is that eventually, God’s favored empire will fall.  What do you say then?  Well, you make something up.  You rail against sin and corruption (not to say those are bad things to rail against), and ignore historical trends, and your people find themselves shocked when their empire falls just like every one that preceded it.

If there’s been one theme to this whole blog/project/whatever (aside from “I’m not very good at updating on time”), it’s that I see most people and religions as essentially the same.  As much as they might have different customs or beliefs, the experiences of religion are pretty similar: a desire to believe in something more than this life, the experience of feeling something when you get together with a like-minded group, and the profound overwhelming sense that this is right.  Despite the fact that some religions promote the worship of graven images, and some want to kill you for worshipping graven images, the religious feeling itself is no different between any cultures (I have no evidence for this, by the way, other than vague recollections of things people in various faiths have said).

And it is exactly this commonality that the Bible denies.  It is exactly these similarities that they Bible says applies to everyone else.  This is the “No, I’m really special” line of thought.  And it’s always wrong.  Because everyone thinks they’re the special one.  When someone else gets a speeding ticket, they had it coming for going too fast, but I had somewhere to be, and that cop just didn’t understand!  And when other empires fall – any other empires anywhere – it’s because they didn’t believe in the right deity, but when my empire falls, it’s not my deity that’s the problem, it’s me!  I just wasn’t a good enough believer!

But it doesn’t work that way.  You don’t get to apply one set of standards to everyone else, then turn around and apply a totally different set of standards to yourself.  If an empire falls, it means either that they worshipped the wrong god, or that they worshipped the right god incorrectly.  But you can’t say that it could mean either of those, depending on which empire you’re talking about.  And the reason is very simple: everyone thinks that a different set of standards applies to them, and you cannot allow the accident of your birthplace to determine the absolute truth about the world.

An idea is no good unless it’s clearly, universally true.  An idea is no good unless Chinese people who have never heard of Christianity accept it wholeheartedly, without suffering through a (let’s say Boxer) rebellion that tears apart their country.  An idea is no good unless Hindus can see it’s the plain truth, despite hearing about Ganesh and Vishnu all their lives.  An idea is no good if it has to resort to bribes to get you to believe it and threats to make you stay with it.  An idea is no good unless a case for it can be made to anyone in the world by anyone in the world.

And that’s exactly the problem with this book.  The thoughts and ideas within it are designed to appeal to one specific group of people.  The morals in the book are what the Israelites needed when they were acting up.  And the theories of existence that the book says are true and indisputable are based in discredited ideas held by men who lived in Israel.  It’s not universal truth.  It’s a series of myths written down thousands of years ago, passed on as fact, and believed as absolute truth.

When I said before that people are the same no matter where they are in the world, that was largely true.  But it’s also true that people are pretty much the same no matter when they lived.  There haven’t been any evolutionary advances in humanity in the last couple thousand years to make us believe any less in comforting myths or resort any less to an irrational religion.  In a way, it’s comforting to know that I am connected to people throughout history in exactly the same way I’m connected to people now, with similar needs and desires, and similar hopes and fears.

But considering how many dark chapters of history there have been, in another, more accurate way, it’s really not comforting at all.

Micah and Empty Words

Summary: Through his prophet Micah, God promises rewards for the faithful, punishment for the disobedient, and a brighter future for Israel.  Also, he promises that Israel is totally doomed if they don’t stop fucking up.

My favorite line from the entire Bible is in Numbers.  The LORD talks to this guy Balaam and gives him a message.  Here’s part of the message:

“I foresee that Israel’s future

Will bring her no misfortune or trouble.” (Nm. 23.21)

Nailed it!

And that brings us to the predictions in Micah.  And there are several: the corrupt leaders of Israel will pay for their sins, God will change the world so that everyone lives in peace, the people of Israel will return from exile, they will have a ruler from Bethlehem, and that God will bring salvation to the people of Israel who remain faithful.

But we’ve heard all this before (maybe not the Bethlehem thing).  There’s always better times around the corner, and there’s always a wonderful and merciful God who cares deeply about every person, and there’s always promises of justice meted out from above upon a sinful populace.

But why believe it?  It’s never happened, at least not without people doing any of these things.  When corrupt leaders go down, people are responsible.  The world has never known peace, when the chosen people of Israel returned to their Promised Land, it was other nations of the world who put them there (and that’s going great, by the way).  I admittedly haven’t read the Jesus part of the Bible yet, but my understanding is that while he was alive he didn’t really rule over anything so much as impart love and Godliness upon the people he converted, so the Bethlehem thing is still pretty much unproven.  And promises about salvation are just plain empty.

The reason I say they’re empty is that there’s no way to prove whether they happened.  It’s the old “Russell’s Teapot” thing that us nonbelievers use – if I say there’s a tiny teapot orbiting the sun between Earth and Mars, it’s up to me to prove it.  If you say there’s a God, it’s up to you to prove it.  And if you say that some people experience salvation and some don’t, then that’s also up to you.  Saying that they did without any corroborating evidence is just a way to brag about how powerful your religion is without having to witness any of your religion’s power.

In the end, those words are just as empty as a bunch of bad predictions.  And what it all comes back to – what everything in this book comes back to – is that this is a book written by men doing their best to understand the world.  And as much as I approve of attempts to understand the world – I am a big fan of science, after all – we do not need to settle for their best attempts.  We have new best attempts, and they are much better.

And despite what some of the religious folks want you (and me) to believe, these empty words are the difference between science and religion.  Religion expects you to unquestioningly and dogmatically believe in unprovable assertions and then to rationalize away when there is any evidence to the contrary.  Dinosaur bones?  God’s testing our faith!  Science is about questioning and finding the truth.  Scientists have no problem abandoning an idea when they find evidence that it is not true.  For example, back in the late 1800s, the common school of thought was that there was this thing called the luminiferous ether that filled all space and was necessary for light to move through.  When an experiment disproved this idea, it was abandoned.  Scientists had to find a new theory to explain the properties of light, and Einstein (ever heard of him?) came up with relativity.

Do you think that hardcore Muslims or fundamentalist Christians or Orthodox Jews would have been able to do that?  Or would they have stuck with the old explanation against all reasonable science because the new one was confusing and complicated?  Would they have sided with the evidence or their pretty words?  I think we all know because we see people do it every day – we see people claim silly things like that the speed of light is changing, or that there’s no evidence for evolution.

Apparently, when I talk about empty words, I’m talking about words so divorced from reality that they cause people who believe them to lose their grip on reality.  They’re words so hollow that for them to make sense, the entirety of reality needs to be reorganized.  This is far worse than just saying the sun revolves around the earth.  This is a redefinition of the way the universe works.  This is a corruption of the entire human thought process.

This is crazy, but in a way that’s socially acceptable.  This is approved insanity.  And that’s the craziest thing of all.

Some other notes…

• In 6.8, Micah says “No, the LORD has told us what is good.  What he requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God.”  To be honest, I don’t think that’s all he requires.  He requires constant credit for any good thing that someone does.  He requires animal sacrifices and offerings of money.  He requires the Israelites to obey many laws and commandments (this is not to pass judgment on whether those laws are just, just to point out they exist).  That’s much more than showing love and doing what is just and living in humble fellowship.  That’s devoting your life to someone who’s not devoting his life to you.  If there was a religion that told people to take all of that energy and pour it into improving the world and making it a better place, into helping the poor without condescendingly telling them “You will inherit the earth one day,” to actually improve their living conditions and make people believe that yes, you alone can make a difference if you really want to be someone great, that’s a religion I could get behind.
• The only real problem with that is there really couldn’t be any money in it.  So it would never grow.  Oh well.

Jonah and Bad Messengers

Summary: The LORD tells his prophet Jonah to go to Nineveh and speak out against it; Jonah responds by getting on a boat going in the opposite direction.  When God throws some nasty weather on the ship, the other sailors throw Jonah overboard and he is swallowed by a fish.  Jonah lives in there, repents before God, and goes to Nineveh to warn them that their wickedness will end up in the destruction of the city.  The people of Nineveh change their ways, and the city and people are saved.

Okay, I’m done making excuses to myself (I hope).  Back to regular posting.  You can tell I’m out of practice because that summary would usually be two sentences long.

The story of Jonah in the fish (usually referred to as a whale) is pretty well-known.  He disobeys God, and he gets punished.  Then he gets vomited up and does God’s will.  Fine.

But there is something that comes next.  And it really shows that Jonah is an amazing self-centered colossal dick.  Hit it, quote machine (the city is saved in chapter 3, and this is the beginning of chapter 4):

“Jonah was very unhappy about this and became angry.  So he prayed, ‘LORD, didn’t I say before I left home that this is just what you would do?  That’s why I did my best to run away to Spain!  I knew that you are a loving and merciful God, always patient, always kind, and always ready to change your mind and not punish.  Now then, LORD, let me die.  I am better off dead than alive.'” (4.1-3)

There comes a point in some books when you just have to tell a character that he’s whining and to stop being such a bitch.  And that time in the Bible is now.  So, Jonah, you are fucking whining and you need to stop being such a goddamn bitch.  You have nothing to sulk about.  You believe in God and he told you to go save a city from sinfulness and you did.  Great job.  Really.  That was phenomenal.  You did good work.  You should be proud.

But you’re not proud, are you, you self-centered asshole?  Oh no, you have to just go and fucking sulk.  “I knew you wouldn’t do it!”  Congratulations, asshole.  Of course, God knew that you’d be a fucking bitch and he didn’t go whining to anyone about that shit, did he?  Did you think about that?  No, you didn’t, because you were too busy creating some shitty drama about yourself where you want to die for some reason.  Seriously Jonah, get the fuck over it.

Of course, what this really comes down to is God’s amazing ability to constantly pick the worst people in the world to carry out his will and spread his message.  I mean, sure Moses and Joshua were the Perfect Boys, and David always repented for his sins (like sending a guy to die so David could marry the widow), but besides them there’s been some piss-poor divine decision making.  There’s Solomon, who kicked off a long line of rulers who had no problem with Baal being a big god for Israel.  There’s Saul, who was a massive asshole who God ACTUALLY REGRETTED (Hello, my name is Internet Trend Of Excessive Capitalization So As To Get My Point Across More Clearly Though Probably Not More Effectively, and it is good to meet you) making the first king of Israel.  There’s crazy Ezekiel and there’s Samson the moron and there’s Elisha who had 42 kids killed for calling him bald and there’s a long line of prophets who all seems to say the same thing, which means they were all either copying each other or totally useless (except for Daniel, who probably didn’t do any of what he’s described as doing).

If these are the best the Chosen People have to offer, then I have to question why they were even chosen in the first place.  Were there seriously no people in the entire world who would have sane and charismatic people who could effectively communicate such an important message?  Why fuck around with these guys?  And if these aren’t the best people for the job, why the fuck not?  Either way, these guys being chosen by God has to be either a massive fuck-up or a lie.

If you’re saying that these guys needed to be chosen to learn lessons and be better people, I say bullshit.  Fuck these guys.  There’s tons of people out there who are exactly like them who learn nothing and die.  If this book is even remotely true, if there is any reason to read it beyond raw curiosity (of which I remain unconvinced), then there’s a great way to fix the problem: Get some competent motherfucking people to spread this motherfucking message.  This isn’t rocket science, though if it were rocket science I would still expect God to be fucking perfect at it because he’s God and that’s how he’s defined.

I mean, how many times can one single guy bitch about something and get a personal answer from God?  David and Job and Moses and Joshua and Jonah all got it so easy because they got a direct answer.  Unsatisfying or unpleasant as it may be (and the only reason Jonah would find his answer to be either of those things is that he is, as has already been mentioned, a bitch), they know they have the answer.  That answer helps them on their correct path to do whatever God wants, and they live happily ever after in a land of puppies and chocolate unicorns.  But the thing is – it doesn’t help the rest of us.  That message doesn’t get to the Israelites or anyone else who needs it.  And that message is worthless if the messenger can’t get it out, the way almost none of them can.  In the end, that falls on God.  God should know better.  God should pick better.  And it’s just one more logical problem with this whole damn book.

Obadiah and The Bible

Summary: God will punish Edom for being a bunch of sinners and hating on Israel.  Then God will judge all the nations of the world.  Then Israel will have victory!  That’s what he promises, anyway.

Those fucking lazy assholes.

Where the fuck do they get off writing practically fucking nothing and calling it a book?  One chapter.  Twenty one verses.  And that’s a book.  So lazy.  So worthless.

And it would be one thing if the book had something new to say.  I’ve been reading about prophets talk about God’s vengeful judgment on ancient sinners for about a month now, and honestly I’m a little tired of it.

Actually, no.  I’m fucking sick of it.  I’m fucking sick of this brainwashing bullshit and I’m fucking sick of it being accepted as truth and I’m fucking sick of hearing how much some asshole in the fucking sky loves me and I’m fucking sick of people telling me this book – this shitty book – is the key to the ultimate truth about the universe.  I’m sick of how these fucking assholes sit around saying shit that they heard other people say about God’s anger and wrath and try to pass it off as if they have the gift of prophecy.  I’m sick of hearing about the horrible consequences of sinning and which cities God wants to smite and how if only they’d come back to him – those fools! -he could love them again and everything would be perfect.

And since I’m being honest here, I’d like to guess why it is that all these chapters about prophets are so similar: it’s really hard to be a prophet.  I mean, imagine you’re some dude back in the seventh century BC and you think you’re a prophet.  “Oh neat,” you think.  “I can talk to God. Take that, everyone else!”  But wait!  There’s a problem!  Your predictions don’t seem any more likely to come true than the predictions made by some schmuck who lives down the street.  So what do you do?

Well, you predict things that other people have already predicted, of course.  You look at Isaiah and Jeremiah and say, “Yeah, God said that to me too.  He said that Edom, you’re gonna get killed.  How does that feel?  And Israel – oh, Israel!  How God loves you, Israel!  But you have to go back to him!”  And then when your message is rejected just like Ezekiel, you can point to that and say, “This is how God works!”

Easy.  No prophetic talent required.

But you would think, if God was really sending these messages to convince a sinning nation to get back to righteousness, that God would send messages that would work.  I mean, let’s say you’re God and you send a dude, who for the sake of argument we’ll call Obadiah, to espouse your message.  So far, so good, right?  But you’re God, and you can see into the future that his message won’t sink into the thick skulls of his stupid, stupid countrymen.  What do you, as God, do?  And let’s keep in mind that you’re God here so you can do anything.

Well, if you’re the God in the Bible, you decide, “Hey, I did my part!”  And then you just let him keep talking ineffectually.  If you’re a real actual supreme being who wants Obadiah to help obtain an objective, then you probably shouldn’t stop.  If you really want Israel to fall in line, it seems to me that you have many options at your disposal, such as literally anything you can fucking imagine.  Who is this God, anyway?  Why is he such a moron?

Look, I know I keep harping on these same themes.  I know that I keep saying similar things about God’s actions not making sense and the prophets being either lying or crazy, but the Bible keeps bringing me back there.  Because if this book is the literal truth, then none of these people seem worth obeying.  And if it isn’t, then there’s no reason to obey the rules anyway.

I saw a quote from Isaac Asimov (Hey guys, it’s a nerd!) where he said the best argument for atheism is to read the Bible.  And this is the absolute prime example of what he was talking about.  Aside from coming in assuming it is the literal truth and perfect in every way, there is no way to read this book and find a worldview worth subscribing to.  There is no way to objectively look at  it and say, “Fantastic!  I’m going to think that,” unless you were already predisposed to believing it.

This isn’t a knock on people who convert later in life, by the way.  My first essay, on Genesis, is all about how we are all (or at least, I am, but in a way that I think translates to everyone in our culture) constantly indoctrinated about this book being the truth and how we should believe it.  The kind of objectivity that I think I have is more a function of luck and upbringing than anything inherent in me.  If I was born and raised a Baptist in the Deep South (Spoiler alert: I wasn’t), I’d like to think that I would logically come to these same conclusions.  I’d like to think that I’m so right that it would be evident to me no matter what kind of culture I was raised in.

But there’s no way that’s true, of course.  If I was raised in the South, I’d probably be going to megachurches just like everyone else.  I’d probably do that because it’d be expected of me, and over time any resistance I had to the ideas of the church would fade away.  It’d be like God’s Stockholm Syndrome.

I’m glad that’s not me.  But, of course, if it was, and I did go to church regularly and faithfully believe, I’d be glad I wasn’t a heathen.  Life’s funny that way.

Some other notes…

• Does this essay feel like a later-day Simpsons episode to anyone else?  Like, it never settles on one thing it’s about, instead jumping from topic to topic like a frog on napalm lily pads.
• That may be the single greatest simile of all time
• Sorry this took so long.  On the plus side, the price is right!

Amos and Faulty Reasoning

Summary: God talks to his prophet Amos, who he tells of Israel‘s impending doom due to its sinfulness.  Then he says that at some point in the future, he will bring back the descendants of David to rule Israel.

There’s enough faulty logic goin’ on in this book that I’m not sure anyone put any thought into it.  Don’t get me wrong – there’s been plenty of that in the rest of the Bible too (see: attributing failures in battle to an angry deity), but in Amos it really stands out.  And this is not just at the beginning, which is a retread of the pathetic “in ur forin cuntrees distroyen ur sinerz” God that we’ve seen in that last five books (you know I’m bored with this when I’m bring up LOLcats), but really throughout the whole book.

But first, where does bad reasoning come from?  There are two possibilities: bad premises and bad logic.  So, for example, if you said that John McCain will be the next president because he got more electoral votes, that would be a bad premise, because he did not.  If you said that John McCain will be the next president because he was tortured for five years, that would be bad logic, because the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise.

Both these flaws are in clear view in Amos.  In 2.10, God is talking about all he’s done for the Israelites, and he lays this one on them: “I brought you out of Egypt, led you through the desert for forty years, and gave you the land of the Amorites to be your own.”  Now, there are several things wrong with that.  First, Joseph went to Egypt and stayed in Egypt and got a position of power in Egypt, leading to Joseph bringing his family to Egypt, because of God.  So without God, no Egypt.  Then, God got Moses to take the Israelites out of Egypt and when they were just about to enter the promised land, he made them wander for forty years.  So without God, no wandering at all.  Then, when he says he gave them the land, okay sure, that fits.  But now, God is saying that he’s going to take it back.

So what did God even do there?  He increased the suffering of these people at every turn.  He foiled their plans and made them miserable any time it was possible.  He gave them land and then promised to take it away, and then had the fucking gall to opine on how much Israel owed him.  There is literally no part of this that makes sense.  None.  Not even a little.  And yet, a perfect being is the one saying it.  Yeah, that makes sense, doesn’t it?

But that’s just a warm-up.  That’s a throwaway line.  Here’s my absolute favorite God line, which is found in 4.6-12:

“‘I was the one who brought famine to all your cities, yet you did not come back to me.  I kept it from raining when your crops needed it most…Weak with thirst, the people of several cities went to a city where they hoped to find water, but there was not enough to drink.  Still you did not come back to me.

“I sent a scorching wind to dry up your crops.  The locusts ate up all your gardens and vineyards, your fig trees and olive trees.  Still you did not come back to me.

“I sent a plague on you like the one I sent on Egypt.  I killed your young men in battle and took your horses away.  I filled your nostrils with the stink of dead bodies in your cams.  Still you did not come back to me.

“I destroyed some of you as I destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.  Those of you who survived were like a burning stick saved from a fire.  Still you did not come back to me,’ says the LORD.  ‘So then, people of Israel, I am going to punish you!’

Okay, there are so many things so obviously wrong here that I don’t know how to handle this.  Well, let’s try to just parse what he’s saying, shall we (Why am I saying “we” to mean “I”?  That’s stupid)?

“I starved you, but you didn’t love me.  So I brought on a drought, but you didn’t love me.  So I took away all your food and brought on locusts, but you didn’t love me.  So I sent you disease, and made you lose in war, and made you smell death, but you didn’t love me.  Finally, I just straight up killed some of you, like at Sodom and Gomorrah.  But that didn’t work.  So now, you jerks, now you’re really going to get it!”

I mean, it’s just – I, uh, this is, um, you know those SNL skits where Fred Armisen plays that ultra-liberal who can’t get a coherent thought out?  I feel really close to that right now.  Okay, commentary:

I do not think it is possible to say something more fucking retarded than that quote from the Bible.  Like, there is no possible way that you could say something dumber.  If Jessica Simpson had a baby with Forrest Gump, and that baby was repeatedly dropped on its head, even as an infant that baby would look at that quote and say, “Wow, that’s really fucking stupid.”

First, there is no reason to think that will work.  Making people miserable and then taking credit is no way to get worshipped.  People will just figure that since you seem to get off on making others miserable, you’re not worth loving.  Then, you’ll make them miserable.  Self-fulfilling prophecy self-fulfilled!

Second, what could you possibly do that would be worse than that?  There’s not a whole lot you can do to a group of people that’s worse than famine, drought, disease, and war.  Those are just the warning shots.  Save something for the main assault.  If you shoot your wad too early, then it’s pretty much game over.

And third, because those first two things just weren’t enough, if you set the damn fire, the stick wouldn’t be very fucking grateful for you pulling it out of the fire, now would it?  If I hit someone with a golf club, then help him get off the ground, he’s not just gonna forgive me and move on with his life.  He’s gonna be pissed that I hit him in the fucking first place.  If you are God, you should fucking know this.

God, that’s stupid.

God, you’re stupid.

God damn.

Joel and Locusts

Summary: A bunch of locusts descend on Israel as the army of God.  Then God kills them and saves Israel.  Then God says he will bless the Israelites.  The end.

Locusts seem to be a go-to punishment for God.  We all remember that they were one of the big ones that devastated Egypt way back in Exodus, and now he’s hitting Israel with them.  And for what?  Well, the usual: lack of faith, improper praying habits, worshiping Baal (Oh Baal, you rascal!) in God’s totally sweet and tricked out Temple.

But why locusts?  What’s so great about them?  They really don’t even kill themselves; they kill people indirectly by destroying their crops and not allowing them to eat.  Why is that the right way to kill someone?  If you’re God, and you’re going to kill some people who you love because their behavior is disappointing, why would you do it in such a long, drawn-out way?  Why not just hit ’em with a tornado?  You wouldn’t put down a pet by starving it to death, so why should people get that treatment?

Also, there are some things in Joel about the locusts that I have to debate.  In 1.6, it is stated that “their teeth are as sharp as those of a lion.”  How would you know this?  You can’t see a locust’s teeth and then compare it to a lion.  Then in 2.2, in regards to the plague of locusts, it is stated that “There has never been anything like it, and there never will be again.”  First off, there were locusts in Egypt who ate everything.  Second, there have been many plagues of locusts since Biblical times.  Then in 2.4 it is stated that locusts “look like horses; they run like war-horses.”  No, they don’t.  They look like giant black swarms. They also don’t line up (2.5) because they swarm, they don’t climb walls or march (2.7) because they actually fly, and the sun and the moon don’t go dark nor do the stars stop shining (2.10); instead, you just can’t see them because there’s a big swarm of insects in the way.

But when it comes to locusts, are we supposed to believe that every locust plague is due to godlessness?  Or is there some way to tell?  Because there are tons of plagues of locusts that have happened across history, and I’d sure like to know which of them had divine inspiration.  That seems like the sort of thing God would make clear through his prophets, I guess.  But then, it’s pretty hard to know who’s a prophet.  Like I said when I was talking about the book of Ezekiel, if Ezekiel was around today he’d look like some homeless crazy guy shouting to himself on the sidewalk.

But more to the point, you would think God would have a go-to punishment so people would know what was the wrath of God, and what was just unlucky weather patterns and animal behavior.  If you’ll recall, there was some confusion back in 2005 about whether or not Hurricane Katrina was God wreaking his vengeance upon the gays in New Orleans (Pat Robertson said it was; sane people everywhere disagreed).  I mean, I know that we’re not supposed to eat from the Tree of Knowledge and figure shit out, but come on.  The only way we can figure out what God wants or doesn’t want is through clear signals, and we’re not getting any.

Now, that’s not hugely surprising to me, as someone who doesn’t believe in God, but shouldn’t believers ask for more?  Shouldn’t believers expect abortion clinics everywhere to be perpetually destroyed by hailstorms, or for snakes to grow out of Bill Maher’s eyeballs?  Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?

Because instead, all we get are some locusts sometimes when some people are doing things that are baddish.  Of course, we also get locusts elsewhere because sometimes they breed and get hungry and go out and kill things.  And that’s the problem.  The presence of locusts isn’t giving us any information like God apparently wants it to.  When I see locusts, I don’t say, “Oh, God has damned my life of sin!”  I say, “I’ll bet they’re about to eat a bunch of crops” (May be speculation; as far as I can recall I have never encountered locusts).

Basically, if God is punishing us, then we need to know we’re being punished.  So I’m saying that there should be some specific punishment for crimes.  Maybe the lustful can be mauled by Siberian tigers.  That would send a message.  Or, heretics can be electrocuted by their cell phones.  Sure, it’s not physically possible, but it’s not like that should stop God.

A judge who gave out different random punishments for the same crime wouldn’t be much of a judge at all.  Get on it, God.  Show me the error of my ways.

Some other notes…

• I’m getting really tired of this format of books in the Bible.  You know, I get it.  Really, I do.  The Israelites sin, God is mad, he promises punishment, he punishes them, then he says, “Okay, that’s enough, hows about you start worshipping me again?”  Maybe the people who wrote the Bible figured that no one would take their book seriously unless they made it really long.  But wait!  They didn’t have any more stories!  Whatever could they do?  Well, they chose to just tell and retell and retell the same damn story over and over.  It’s really annoying.
• I might have been overly picky earlier when I was talking about the book’s description of locusts.  I know that.  But people who insist the Bible is literal truth annoy me, and I feel that inaccuracies should be documented.
• These books have been growing progressively shorter.  Isaiah and Jeremiah were both really long, but since then there’s been a gradual decline.  It makes it hard to find things to talk about.
• How many times did God have to tell Israel that he would judge all the nations, anyway?  I mean, come on, dude.  If they didn’t get it the first time, or the third, or the fifth, they probably just won’t end up getting it.

Hosea and Unfaithfulness

Summary: God talks to the prophet Hosea, drawing out a metaphor between Hosea’s unfaithful wife and the Israelites who are unfaithful to God.  Then he threatens them a whole bunch and asks them to come back to him.

You know, there are times when I don’t have a huge moral problem with someone cheating on their significant other.  Here’s one: when that person’s significant other is unstable, violent, and clearly unsuitable for any human interaction, but also utterly and completely certain to kill the person for leaving him.

And so we arrive at the story of God and the Israelites.

Now, this isn’t my metaphor.  Like I said in the summary, this is the metaphor that God comes up with.  Of course, God also specifically instructs Hosea to marry this woman solely because she will cheat on him and then bear children who will be unfaithful in their own childlike way, but that’s a small detail.  The important thing is that God is encouraging the comparison of his relationship with the Israelites with a real relationship between people.  So let’s go!

(I should note that I’ve talked about something like this before, but I don’t remember where and I don’t think it was the entire point of that post)

In a real relationship, two equals voluntarily enter into a partnership based on compatibility.  In God’s relationship, he is vastly superior to the Israelites, and they know it. Also, the Israelites don’t really have any choice in the matter.  Also, considering how often they go against God’s rules, the Israelites aren’t really all that compatible with him.

And then there’s the little matter of this: Isn’t there a difference between a woman and her lover and a person and the magical intangible being who some crazy guy says is in the sky?  That just seems to be a massive flaw in this metaphor.  Here’s another one: God is making Hosea marry an unfaithful woman so he knows what it’s like.  Who’s making God marry the unfaithful Israelites?  The entire purpose of Hosea doing this is to understand God’s pain, so what is the purpose of God’s pain?  God being God, he must have known beforehand that this would happen, but he still allowed it to happen.  This makes no sense.

Well, that’s a couple points against the metaphor.  But God probably treats his people really well, right?  He doesn’t at all treat the Israelites like an abusive husband, right?  I wouldn’t be asking these questions if he was totally cool, right?

Well, the thing is, if God is the husband to Israel, he is an overcontrolling and abusive asshole.  Here’s God talking about his honeybunny in 7.13: “They are doomed!  They have left me and rebelled against me!  They will be destroyed.  I wanted to save them, but their worship of me was false.”    Here’s the Abusive Husband Translation: “You can’t live without me, baby.  If you leave me, I’ll kill you.”

Here’s God talking in 8.4: “My people chose kings, but they did it on their own.  They appointed leaders, but without my approval.  They took their silver and gold and made idols – for their own destruction.”  Abusive Husband Translation: “How dare you do anything without me?  I thought I was everything to you, and now I find you have other interests?”

12.1-2: “Everything that the people of Israel do from morning to night is useless and destructive…The LORD has an accusation to bring against the people of Judah; he is also going to punish Israel for the way her people act.  He will pay them back for what they have done.”  Abusive Husband Translation: “Do what I say or I’ll kill you.”

God’s actions present a clear pattern of abuse and neglect to his spouse, of selfishness and a lust for power, of extreme passive-agressiveness and emotional neediness to an absurd level.  If God were a regular person and Israel was his put-upon wife, then every advice columnist or marriage advisor in the world would tell them to split up because of how unhealthy the relationship is.  But of course, that’s not the case.  Israel can’t go anywhere for fear of her life.  So of course she’ll be unfaithful.  It’s the only rational choice.

Because what’s the other choice?  To give in to God’s demands and live as his slave, just doing everything he wants without reasons or thought to her own well-being?  14.1: “Return to the LORD your God, people of Israel.  Your sin has made you stumble and fall.  Return to the LORD, and let this prayer be your offering to him: ‘Forgive all our sins and accept our prayer, and we will praise you as we have promised.'”

Abusive Husband Translation: “Do what I say, and I’ll love you again.”  Same old God.  Same old jackass abusive God.

Some other notes…

• In chapters 3 and 4, the women of Israel seem downright giddy to just jump right into prostitution.  Like, Hosea had to buy his wife to keep her from whoring herself out.  Who the fuck are these women who love prostitution so damn much?  Why would they?  Why am I supposed to believe that women would act this way on their own?  This is just so fucking stupid I can’t really handle it.
• In Chapter 10, the LORD laments how Israel hasn’t stopped sinning since that fucked up thing that happened in chapter 10 of Judges, with the woman being raped to death and cut into 12 pieces and stuff.  All I could think was, “Hey, God?  You know what might have helped?  If, as the king, you chose someone who wasn’t fucking evil and crazy like Saul.  That might have been a good way to set Israel on this right path.”
• It seems like the LORD’s definition of love is “Love (n): Doing favors for people who are nice to you.”  Because he gets unbelievably pissed and irrational when anyone says or does anything even slightly out of line, it’s hard to see how he’s a deity worth worshipping.  It’s hard to see what makes him so much better than just a regular guy.  I think I’d be a better god than the pissy asshole in this book.
• That’s right, I said it.