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A Compilation of Biblical Nonsense by Barbara G. Walker

BIBLE MORALITY (compiled by Barbara Walker, author of Man Made God.)

Barbara asked me to add that this is from the King James Bible, as modern-day evangelicals have expurgated much of the really stupid and hostile quotations.

This compilation is incontrovertible, conspicuous proof that the Bible is a book written by idiots for idiots.

Read on, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried. As always, comments are encouraged and welcome.

Rich

1. KILLING. (As in "Thou shalt not"???)

The biblical god personally kills a total of 371,186 people, not counting his slaughter of every living thing in Genesis 7. The biblical god also orders the killing of a total of 1,862,265.

Gen. 22:2 - God accepts human sacrifices (including that of Jesus, later).

Ex. 12:29 - God kills all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.

Ex. 15:3 - God is a god of war.

Ex. 21:15,17 - Anyone who strikes or curses a parent must be killed.

Ex. 22:18 - Every witch must be killed.

Ex. 22:19,20 - You must kill anyone who "lieth with a beast," or who

worships any god other than Yahweh.

Ex. 31:15 - Anyone who works on the Sabbath must be killed.

Lev. 20:10,13,27 - You must kill adulterers, homosexuals, wizards, and

spirit mediums.

Lev. 21:9 - Any priest's daughter who fornicates must be burned alive.

Lev. 24:16 - Blasphemers must be killed.

Deut. 3:4 - God is pleased that his warriors destroyed 60 cities.

Deut. 7:16 - You must kill all the people God delivers into your hands, and

"thine eye shall have no pity upon them."

Deut. 13:5 - Any prophet or "dreamer of dreams," who serves another

god, must be killed.

Deut. 13:6-9 - If your brother, son, daughter, wife, or friend tempts you to

worship other gods, "thou shalt surely kill him."

Deut. 13:15 - If the people of any city worship other gods, you must

slaughter them all, including their cattle.

Deut. 17:5 - Any man or woman who worships other deities of sun, moon,

or stars must be stoned to death.

Deut. 18:20 - False prophets must be killed.

Deut. 20:16,17 - God commands complete destruction of all Hittites,

Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and "thou

shalt save alive nothing that breatheth."

Deut. 22:21 - A bride found not to be a virgin must be stoned to death.

Deut. 22:22 - Adulterers must be killed,

Deut. 22: 23,24 - A girl who is raped within city limits, and fails to cry out,

must be killed.

Deut. 28:22-27 - If you don't obey God's commandments, he will punish

you with consumption, fever, extreme burning, blasting, mildew,

hemorrhoids, the scab, the itch, the botch of Egypt, etc., etc.

Josh. 6:21 - God's warriors destroyed Jericho and killed every man,

woman, child, and domestic animal.

Josh. 8:25 - God's warriors killed 12,000 people in the city of Ai.

Josh. 19:47 - The children of Dan wanted more room, so they destroyed

the whole population of Leshen and took their territory.

Judges 1:17,18 - Judah and Simeon utterly destroyed the populations of

Zephath, Gaza, Askelon and Ekron.

Judges 11:39 - In accord with God's law, Jephthah was forced to burn his virgin daughter to death as a sacrifice.

Judges 15:15 - God enables Samson to kill 1,000 men with the jawbone

of an ass.

Judges 20:46 - At Gibeah, Benjamin's men killed 25,000 people and

burned every town.

1 Sam. 6:19 - God kills 50,070 people for trying to peek into the Ark.

1 Sam. 15:3 - God commands the destruction of Amalek: "Slay both men

and women, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass."

2 Sam. 6:7 - God kills Uzzah for touching the Ark, even though he was

trying to save it from falling off its oxcart.

1 Kings 18:40 - God commands the slaughter of "prophets of Baal".

1 Kings 20:35 - Because a man didn't "obey the voice of the Lord," a lion

was sent to kill him.

2 Kings 2:24 - God sent bears to tear apart 42 children for making fun of

` Elisha's bald head.

2 Kings 10:25 - God commands the killing of a multitude in the temple of

Baal.

2 Kings 19:35 - God's angel killed 185,000 Assyrians in a single night.

1 Chron. 21:14 - God kills 70,000 Israelites with a pestilence.

2 Chron. 15:13 - Any man or woman who refuses to "seek the Lord God

of Israel" must be killed.

Job 1 - God arranges the killing of Job's children, servants, and animals.

Isa. 13:16 - God promises that all the Babylonians' children will be

"dashed to pieces before their eyes;" their wives will be raped.

Isa. 46:7 - God says "I create evil."

Jer. 48:10 - Killing for God is mandatory; God curses anyone who

"keepeth back his sword from blood."

Jer. 50:21 - God commands that the people of Merathaim and Pekod be

"utterly destroyed."

Ezek. 9:5,6,7 - God calls for purging in Jerusalem: "let not your eye spare,

neither have ye pity: slay utterly old and young, both maids and

little children, and women... fill the courts with the slain."

Ezek. 35:8 - God promises to fill the mountains, hills, valleys and rivers

with slain men.

Nahum 1:2 - God is jealous, full of vengeance and wrath.

Zeph. 1:3 - God threatens to destroy everything, man and beast, birds and fishes.

Zeph. 1:18 - "The whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his

jealousy."

Zeph. 3:6 - God brags that he has destroyed many nations.

Zech. 13:3 - A false prophet must be killed by his father and mother.

2. RAPE

Ex. 21:7,8 - A father may sell his daughter to be a "maidservant" (or sex

slave) who must "please her master."

Num. 31:18 - God orders his warriors to kill every living thing in a

captured city, except the virgin girls, who are to be raped and

turned into sex slaves.

Deut. 21:11,12 - If a warrior likes the look of a female war captive, he

can take her to be one of his "wives."

Deut. 22:28, 29 - A man who rapes a virgin may take her for a wife if he

pays her father 50 shekels of silver. (Yet a bride found not to be a

virgin must be killed - Deut. 22).

Judges 5:30 - The spoils of war include "a damsel or two" for every man.

Judges 21:12, 28 - God's warriors killed all the inhabitants of Jabesh- gilead except for 400 virgin girls, who were taken as slaves.

If there are not enough girls to go around, God's warriors may raid

neighboring towns for more to rape.

3. SLAVERY

Gen. 9:25 - God cursed Ham, son of Noah, with perpetual slavery for the

crime of seeing his father naked. (Ham was formerly considered

the ancestor of all Negroes.)

Ex. 21:4 - A male slave may marry and have children, and may go free after six years; but his family remains the property (or hostages?) of his master.

Ex. 21:7 - A man may sell his daughter as a sex slave.

Ex. 21:20,21 - A man may be punished for beating a male or female slave

to death, but if the victim survives the beating for a few days, then

there is no penalty.

Eph. 6:5 - Paul says slaves must obey their masters "with fear and

trembling."

Titus 2:9 - Paul says slaves must obey and please their masters.

1 Tim. 6:1 - Paul says slaves must "count their masters worthy of all

honor."

4. WAS JESUS ETHICAL?

Matt. 5:28-32 - Jesus says marriage to a divorcee is adultery; and a man who ogles a woman has already committed adultery; and that you must cut off your hand or pluck out your eye if it offends.

Matt. 6:19,34 - Jesus says don't save any money, and don't plan ahead.

Matt. 8:32 - Having no regard for private property, Jesus destroys a herd

of someone else's pigs.

Matt. 10:34 - Jesus says he brings not peace on earth, but "a sword."

Matt. 19:12 - Jesus says the best way for a man to be sure of getting into

heaven is to have himself castrated.

Mark 11:13 - Jesus destroys a fig tree for not bearing figs out of season.

Mark 14:4-7 - Jesus says it is more important to anoint him with precious

ointment than to give to the poor.

Luke 12:47,48 - Jesus says it is permissible to whip slaves.

Luke 14:26 - Jesus says no man can be his disciple unless he hates his

parents, siblings, wife, children, and himself as well.

Luke 19:27 - Jesus says anyone who denies his rulership must be killed.

John 15:6 - Jesus says anyone who doesn't believe in him must be

burned.

Acts 5:5-10 - Ananias and his wife Sapphira were killed for withholding

money from the church.

2 John 1:10,11 - A Christian is forbidden to offer hospitality to a non-

Christian, not even to wish him "Godspeed" on parting.

5. WOMEN IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

1 Cor. 11:3-10 - Women are inferior "because man was not created for woman, but woman was created for man." Every woman "while praying or prophesying" must have her head covered "because of the angels," meaning the spirits (it used to be believed that women's hair attracts spirits).

1 Cor. 14:34,35 - Women must not speak in church. If they want to ask

questions, they must learn from their husbands at home.

Eph. 5:22 - Wives must submit to their husbands as they would to God.

1 Tim. 2:11-14 - A woman must not teach, or hold authority over a man,

but must "learn in silence with all subjection," because "Adam was

not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the

transgression." (So, being gullible is the original sin.)

1 Tim. 5:9 - Paul says the only women acceptable by the council of

elders are devout, monogamous women over the age of sixty.

6. SILLINESS

Gen. 1:11-12 - God made all green plants on the third day of creation,

but neglected to supply the sun (on which both plants and "days"

depend) until the fourth day.

Gen. 6:6,7 - Because a few people displeased him, God "repented"

having made the world, and decided to destroy all life on earth.

Deut. 25:11,12 - A woman who seizes a man's genitals, even to defend her husband from an attacker, must have her hand cut off.

James 5:14,15 - Prayer by the elders of the church is the only sure cure

for sickness. (Christian Science, anyone?)

Which Ten Commandments do you prefer? Ex. 20, Ex. 34, Deut. 5, or

Deut. 27?

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Comment by Rich Goss on January 15, 2012 at 10:24am: Fair enough. I've been accused of "coming on too strong" with believers a few times. Let me just remind you that the quote in question is one of many and doesn't mitigate the acerbity of the assertions very much—explicitly or implicitly.

I must admit that Barbara has a much more professional style than I, having background in journalism. I get angry at what Christians and other religious are doing to the world and can’t help but want to hit them over the head with their own beliefs. I was recently in my local “Y” Jacuzzi and got into a discussion with a conventional, attractive, All-American couple. “Do you really believe Eve was created from Adam’s rib?” I finally asked and was astounded by their confident answer, “sure, we do.”

Check out the “endmeme” on Youtube to get an idea why I’m so inimical to believers as I fear a self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to the Book of Revelation.

Barbara’s approach is to dispassionately present the information in the fashion of good journalism without any value judgments. How she ever accomplished this with Man Made God is beyond me because when I finished it, I was pissed. So, if you can take the fact that “god is an embittered, capricious, childish murderer,” with a grain of salt that’s okay. But as a humanist I have a more militant and activist response.

Bye the bye, Man Made God does a great job of explaining the deceit and skullduggery Church leaders employed to amass such wealth and power. Take a look at the wealth and ostentation of the Vatican Library—mostly built on the life savings of the working poor. Read some of my other posts on this blog. It’s enough to get rationalist “mad as hell” as in the movie, Network.

Comment by David Raphael on January 14, 2012 at 12:06pm: yes, sorry, not 'we'; more appropriately I should have used the pronoun 'one'.

Yes, of course, some texts are blatant. And I agree without question that god is an embittered, capricious, childish murderer.

But some texts, such as the one I mentioned, are not written as blatantly as the way they were portrayed in the posting.

The old testament is a no-brainer: Of course god is a mindless thug. I'm more interested in highlighting to Christians the failings of the new testament because this is what they hold on to illustrate that 'god/jesus is (supposedly) love'. They all seem to think that jesus did no wrong. Which is why I'm interested in the passage I mentioned because in terms of literary analysis. It's not as black and white when dealing with parable forms. The simple fact is that Jesus did not explicitly say that "anyone who denies him must be killed". But yes, of course there is a strong intimation.

All I'm saying is that an oversimplification of a text, any text, could get taken apart in debate by both atheists and deists.

Comment by Rich Goss on January 14, 2012 at 10:03am: With all due respect David, I feel you shouldn't say "we" —especially on these boards, as many of us are into rugged individualism (that's what makes us freethinking nonbelievers).

To my mind you're defending the indefensible. What textual ambiguity are you referring to? God says over and over, "Kill the bums". What's ambiguous about it? God is a murdering mafia don; you can't escape it.

How about:

"2 Kings 2:24 - God sent bears to tear apart 42 children for making fun of Elisha's bald head."

Was Elisha bald or not?

Comment by David Raphael on January 14, 2012 at 4:24am: If we are to be effective in our debates with Christians, we need to be careful with how some of these passages are approached and read. There is at least some textual ambiguity in some of them and they have been oversimplified in your posting.

ie:
Luke 19:27 - Jesus says anyone who denies his rulership must be killed.

This is a highly debated passage because Jesus doesn't say this exactly. He says it in the context of a parable, which opens it up to poetic and metaphorical interpretation.

I'm not saying I don't agree with you, because I do, but atheists need to be better prepared to argue these points successfully. If an atheist quoted the passage the way it is written here to a Christian, the Christian would be right in telling the atheist that he wasn't strictly correct.

Comment by Ruth Anthony-Gardner on January 13, 2012 at 10:07pm: Have you shared this with the group Life After Christian Fundamentalism? This would be useful ammunition for those who are bugged by Fundamentalist relatives.

Comment by James M. Martin on January 13, 2012 at 8:27pm: Matt. 19:12 - Jesus says the best way for a man to be sure of getting into

heaven is to have himself castrated.

I wonder if this isn't dramatic truth no Jesus ever existed but was an amalgam of prior deities such as Attis. In order to emulate their Goddess, Cybele (or Kybele), the priests of her cultus march in procession through the streets, castrating themselves and dashing the bleeding membra virilis against the pine tree, sacred to Attis. The Romans were shocked and repulsed by these sights and eventually, by Constantine's time, Father Mithras was the official deity, December 25 being sacred to him.