Do as I say, not as I do!

If you took the time to read the bible from cover to cover as I have done, the first thing you will notice is the recurring theme which is the title of this post. In the end, it all boils down to obedience; from mans first test in the garden of Eden to his final breath on this earth. But according to the scriptures there is a catch to all of this. Just like the traffic cops instructions at the intersection supersedes the written traffic laws, so does God's direct commands supersede his written laws. There are many examples of this in the scriptures so I will only demonstrate a few.

The next rule requires that you don't ask any questions just do what "God" commands of you even if it makes no sense to you at the time.  Job when he was going through his trials received a pretty good tongue lashing from his god for asking to many questions. This admonishment lasted from chapters 38 to 42 where the deity asked Job a bunch of impossible questions and pretty much established his authority over mankind. Job then repented was supposedly restored before the site of God and rewarded for his faithfulness.

I know that these stories are myths but I am just trying to briefly establish my first too points regarding these two main themes that are prevalent throughout the entire scriptures. The first example of do as I say and not as I do is the following: Exodus 20:13 'You shall not kill.' That is the sixth of the ten commandments. But look what good old God commands them to do later on to the Midianites: Numbers 31:7,9 ⁷ They made war on Midian, as Yahweh had ordered Moses, and put every male to death.⁹ The Israelites took the Midianite women and their little ones captive and carried off all their cattle, all their flocks and all their goods as booty.

I am convinced that it's passages like this one and many others in the scriptures that motivated the various inquisitions. The Churches biggest threat was Islam and so they fought for power and control of  the world through military might and the subjugation of its people through fear and intimidation through the forced acceptance of myths through pain of death if you refused.

The next example of the first theme was the famous story of Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice his son to the Lord to demonstrate to God his absolute loyalty and obedience. Although the Lord did not let him go through with it at the very last moment, he was rewarded for his loyalty. Christians try to brush this off as just a test of Abraham's faithfulness to God, but test or not he was willing to kill his child for the Lord. If this was a true story which I completely doubt it was, then that poor kid must have been traumatized for the rest of his life.

Finally, in the ten commandments God says in Exodus 20:3,4  ³ 'You shall have no other gods to rival me.⁴ 'You shall not make yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the waters under the earth. Yet later on in the scriptures he commands Moses in Numbers 21:8,9 ⁸ and Yahweh replied, 'Make a fiery serpent and raise it as a standard. Anyone who is bitten and looks at it will survive.'⁹ Moses then made a serpent out of bronze and raised it as a standard, and anyone who was bitten by a serpent and looked at the bronze serpent survived.

This was done to stay a plague of poisonous serpents that the good Lord himself started! There are many similar stories in the bible in the O.T. as well as in the N.T. that illustrate what I have spoken of in this post. To me this is all the more reason to not believe, much less worship such a cruel and merciless tyrant that is the biblical God.

It's funny how we as a species tend to forget all the good an individual has done in his life for one single act of evil. But when it comes to God he can do no wrong no matter how evil his acts or deeds this is just another one of the many Christian double standards.