The first was about the story of Abraham and Issac, pretty famous story about a dad who is ordered to kill his son by god and just before he does the deed god jumps out from behind the bushes and says, "just kiddin'" it's the old testament version of Punk'ed but luckily without Ashton Kutcher. Here's one of my favorite bits.
Consider the following: if you had a young child and a god, or an angel, told you, in no uncertain terms, and with no possibility of it being merely a dream or hallucination, to sacrifice — to kill — that child of yours, what would you do?Theists, here — at least, the more fundamentalist ones, who believe that nothing is important in life except pleasing God — would say that they would kill their child, without hesitation. Because, to them, morality is obeying God, nothing more.
But suppose that it wasn’t God at all, but that you lived under a dictatorship, and it was the cruel dictator General Fang who ordered you to kill your child in front of him, to prove your loyalty to him and to the State. Or else.
What would you do? And, more importantly, what would you think of General Fang’s moral standing?
Theres more and the finish is close to a happy ending but I'd feel bad stealing the guys entire post so if you like that go check it out over at Way Of The Mind.
Ha ok after reading this one I realize that the one I just talked about is a spin off of this one from Atheist Revolution. Over all I'm a big fan of Vjack, but this isn't one of my favorite posts by him, its a bit disjointed, I know its odd criticism coming from the Rambler but thats my opinion and if you didn't want my opinion then what are you doing here? Any way his rant was about the same bible story. So I'm not going to quote it here. This will be funny on PA because there will possible be three posts on the same subject. So had better add something to make it worthwhile.....
I was going to give other examples of things that christians view as great deeds by god that are actually horrible, but I don't know too many bible stories. How about Noah's Ark, every little kids knows this one because its got animals. Kids don't worry about the moral of the story they worry about how they fit 300,000 different types of beetles on the ark along with all the elephants, lions, tigers and bears oh my. Plus they must have had a huge aquarium for all the fresh water fish, oh and if incest is wrong how did everyone come from that one family? So those are the simple problems with the story itself. Then there is the big problem of the morality of commiting a genocide that puts the hitler, stalin, pol-pot, and every other mass murderer to shame. I mean according to the story god kills every living creature on land save for one boat (although I suppose other boats probably survived too). And this is seen as gods mercy for allowing anyone to live. So should we praise hitler for not killing all the jews?How about David and Goliath. Um actually I don't think this is a moral story so much as guy little guy takes down big guy. If you want to call it a moral to keep going in the face of great odds then fine its a moral story and not a bad one.
Sodom and Gomorrah, its like spring break all year, until some dude decided to rain fire and brimstone on the town. Another act of terrorism we see as being great. Then the one family that gets to leave has the one person who's actually human and turns to see what is happening, so what's her punishment for such an act? She gets turned into a pillar of salt. I'll give him that at least god was still creative in those days. But what kind of message is that to the world? Do as I say or I will destroy entire cities innocents and all, isn't that what Saddam was Hanged for? (I recently learned from a cute English teacher that hung is the wrong word, oh dammit hold back on the inappropriate comment)
Thats all the bible stories I can come up with right now. Two are quite immoral and one's alright, still ends in violence rather than something reasonable but sometimes violence is unavoidable so we can let that slide. So if we include Abraham then the bible is rockin' about a 25% morality rate. But of course that's not the best sample size. others have actually tried to figure out how much of the bible is good or evil, I just don't remember their numbers.
Peace out, and remember no matter what that old book says, genocide is bad.
3 comments:
i feel like so often you have these great posts that make me think, but come to no actual conclusions. maybe that's the sign of good thinking, that it's not easily concluded. i know that i have faith, and yet i agree that so many stories of the bible lack any morality as i understand the term. it's good to have faith, but it's not good to be completely unquestioning and go along with anything, even if it's wrong. i remember when i first encountered the theory that abraham actually failed his test - that he should have said no to killing his son. and that his failure is the reason God never speaks to him after that (he only speaks to isaac). interesting stuff, really.
I personally don't have faith, but I have no issue with those who do, so long as they know what they believe in. Most people I know I would consider semi-religious. They believe in a god of some sort, they think theres a heaven and that if they lead a good life then they will get to that heaven. How can I take issue with that? what I do take issue with is those who claim the bible is the literal truth and use it as justification for hatred, persecution, and violence. What gets me even more heated yet is the folks who make those claims then admit they have never read most of the bible. Also people who try to push their religion into politics. That will get me going too.
As for not having conclusions. I'd like to be pompous and say that its because I want people to come to their own conclusions, that its always intentional, but its not, I'm not that arrogant anyway. I don't always have my own conclusions, I'm usually full of doubt about the world, I just say whatever I'm thinking at the time. Sometime I'm write sometimes I'm wrong, and when it comes to religion it always comes down to matters of opinion, no one can usually prove anything.
Anyway I'm glad your enjoying my little site. I've been keeping up with your too, although I don't think I've commented lately. Most of the time others have already said what I'm thinking so I don't bother.
Peace.
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