For my fellow atheists that are not familiar with the story of Exodus in the bible I will give you a quick and brief synopsis of the most ridiculous elements of this story. The first thing God wanted to do was to introduce himself to his people through Moses. Why he did not do this personally is beyond me, and only illustrates even further the mythological origin of this and similar stories.
The next thing he wanted to do was send Moses to Egypt on his behalf to demand that he free his "chosen people" from slavery. Of course Pharaoh did not have a snow balls chance in hell of doing this because according to Exodus 11:10
"And Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh: and the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, so that he would not let the children of Israel go out of his land." Because God had the need to show off as usual he did so at the expense of Pharaoh and the Egyptians.
After God finally obliterates most of Egypt with various plagues and even the murder of every first born son in Egypt and the firstborn livestock and cattle in the land Pharaoh decided to let the Hebrews go. What most people don't know is that God had them roaming the desert for 40 years and that most of the original followers died in the desert. And the reason the bible gives for this is that God was tired with their constant complaining and lack of faith.
So according to the biblical narrative he killed over a million of his followers for complaints and disobedience. What a great father we have in heaven!! When the Hebrews finally reached the so called promised land on the other side of the Red Sea they were not told till then that they had to slaughter and dispossess all of the current inhabitants of the land. It's funny how the bible teaches that we were made in God's image, but when we act like him we were punished or murdered by the good Lord himself in the O. T.
Along the way every little offense was punishable by death, courtesy of God himself. He killed his so called chosen people by the thousands, and they followed him because they feared him. Fear is an important component of religious beliefs today, without it and its consequences (hell) no one would have a reason to accept these ridiculous beliefs in the first place. The people of the O.T. were terrified of being smitten with death all the time.
Torment in the afterlife is in and of itself more fearful than physical death itself, and the bible makes sure that you know this. The theme of fearing the Lord is carried out throughout the N.T. as well, just read Matthew 10:28 "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
Without fear or the promise of eternal joy and happiness to those that are faithful and obedient to the word of the Lord Christianity as a whole loses its bite. The thing that religious folks don't seem to see is how irrational and unhealthy this fear is. Death is a very natural and imminent event that no living organism on this planet can escape. So, my view regarding death is that you should not fear the inevitable.
Another excellent post! This really bothers me, knowing that we have a majority of grown adults who are living in such fear of hell they cannot even see that they are continually being force fed a bunch of bullshit lies.
ReplyDeleteThe term cognitive dissonance doesn't do them justice, it's way beyond that. Those TV evangels, my mom watches Jimmy Swaggard every day sitting there crying and sniffing for baby jebus and you know damn well he just had his finger stuck up some girls ass...lol
More seriously, Exodus and that damned bible god, you know the Hebrews were oppressed for more than 400 years before Moses was summonsed to duty, I mean look at all the thousands of precious Hebrews who where horribly tortured before god finally got off his lame ass to do something about it. Then he decides to tease Pharaoh to damned near death and send in the plagues, but before all the fireworks begins, god gets sidelined a bit and decides to fuck with Moses and kill his ass just for funzies,(no doubt god saw Moses masturbating in the bushes along the way) but Zipporah, Zippo as she was better known, cuts off her sons foreskin and tosses it at gods feet or tosses it somewhere and god spares Moses life Ex. 4:25
ReplyDeleteNow everything is back in the groove so Moses and Aaron head back to Pharaoh, and you know damned well Pharaoh just lets them walk right in, interrupting his kingly duties.
So god hardens people hearts, and that's the reason atheists cannot believe in god, he hardens their hearts!
So before long god will kill all the first born atheist babies, call me a prophet, I just can't help myself.
And it goes on to unleavened bread and they paint the doors overhead with blood and god is a jealous god, so he has them to construct a ark of the covenant girded with layers of gold and horns and lace and holy christ in hell what a bunch pure layered bullshit fantasy friggin nonsense.
I just can't go on any more! I can't force myself to believe in such idiotic nonsense!!!
I am just finishing a review of the book of Exodus. It's in Croatian so I will not post a link here. You didn't mention, firstborn slaying, Moses ordering murder of brothers and sons when the tribe of Levi killed 3000 people according to the bible), mana from the sky (whatever that was)... and ten plagues... and slaves... and... Oh, so much bullshit... I am really enjoying reading it!!
ReplyDeleteYep, the bible is purely a work of fiction, not intended to be taken seriously, nor literally, it was written for entertainment purposes only.
ReplyDeletenot to take the side of the religion, but yes, life was harsh in those days. punishing people with misfortune, woe and death, hardening the heart of a Pharoah resulting in death and pestilence for his own people just to prove a point to another people, and commanding them to kill off another people yet to take their land, would have been consistent with the idea of what a God would do. life was harsh, the gods were cruel.
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