Disturbing Passages in Holy Books

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Here is a more cogent video that explains some of the "antichrist" verses.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjj_5DK-rU4

Although the video above would be more useful for trolling certain politicians' facebook pages.

Please look up Genesis 38, the story of Judah and Tamar (ancestors of Jesus)

I did, but after about 27 verses there were too many characters for me to follow the plot any more. Especially when their names are so foreign. Still, I picked up a few things from the little I read.

They were very big on giving widows away to new hubbies so that they could have sons, weren't they? I guess it was so they wouldn't starve to death, and to generate more workers to provide for the elderly and women who were non-productive mouths to feed. Not quite sure why women couldn't work for themselves (not necessarily prostitution) in ancient Jewish society.

I see there's the usual anti-Canaanite racism thing going on.

I also see a lot of superstitious references to their god zapping people - one for undisclosed crimes, another for failing to inseminate the bride they forced on him. Or was it because he used the withdrawal method of contraception, trying to have fun without the penalty of new kids to provide for?

Odd lot, those old Jewish folks. I see Judah was going to burn that woman for becoming a single parent, but he relented when it came out that he was the dad. So capital punishment for "sins of the flesh" was fine, but not if it involved hypocrisy? I hate to indulge in chronological snobbery, but I'm glad we live in more enlightened times. Maybe there were strong circumstantial reasons why their laws were so draconian and mixed up.

I’m glad the book of Deuteronomy addresses the following scenario. I had questions about this very topic:

Deuteronomy 25:11-12:

One phrase that bothers me is "spare the rod and spoil the child" This gave anyone carte-blanche to beat the fxxk out of anyone that was supposedly inferior to them. To illustrate how this permeated into society was a phrase from the movie The Red Badge of Courage; not the one with John Boy Walton but the one that came out in the 50s. It showed a bunch of men sitting around the campfire and an older man (I guess this was viewed as wise) said "you've got to beat your wife, kids and dogs once a day whether they need it or not"

^ That’s one of the things that really made me start questioning religion. My parents were very harsh with physical punishment and thought it was right/justified because of certain scriptures in the Bible. When I was quite young, I couldn’t rid myself of the notion that it was wrong. It became even more apparent to me when I saw other children being abused when I was a teenager. We have access to research and evidence these days which demonstrate the harm that corporal punishment causes, and yet, people continue to abuse children because they place what God supposedly endorses above anything else. It’s f*****g disturbing.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 29 Mar 2024, 10:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

Absolutely. I was continually urged not to scrutinize or question. If I had doubts, I was supposed to read the Bible, religious publications, and to pray. I was actively taught to practice thought-stopping techniques. I can understand why. There’s no way my former beliefs could hold up to any scrutiny. I was supposed to distrust everything else because they believed 1 John 5:19 which says: “We know that we are God’s children and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.” Since Satan was in current control of the world ( ), I was supposed to be wary of everything except their specific brand of Christianity. Only believe something if it aligns with our beliefs. Keep in mind 1 Peter 5:8: “Discipline yourselves; keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.”

Sure, I was raised in a cult, but it’s easy to see why religion causes so many problems when many view holy books as the word of God.

While I disapprove of capital punishment, the following scripture is especially concerning given the silly rules that are in the book of Deuteronomy:

“As for anyone who presumes to disobey the priest appointed to minister there to the Lord your God, or the judge, that person shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel” (Deuteronomy 17:12).

There’s also an impressive list of threats regarding any disobedience at Deuteronomy 28:15-68.

Blind obedience was the gold standard.

I will start off by saying I was raised in the south (and currently live) The church I attended was built before the Civil War and had what was called a slave gallery. This was a small area with just 2 pews built up high in a little area behind the congregation (I imagine so the congregation wouldn't have to see them) The only ones that could see them was the minister and the choir. The church (without saying so) by having this little room built into the church said it was OK to own slaves. (I guess the church believed in equal opportunity guilt trips). I decided then that I didn't want to be part of any belief system that said it was OK to own other human beings and used their (supposedly) guide book (Bible) that justified this type of behavior.


P.S.: I can't quote verses as I refuse to have such a book in my house. The Bible I had I turned into a Jeffersonian
Bible
The church is still there today; the slave gallery is a monument?

There are a lot of awful pro-slavery scriptures in the Bible. The worst passage, in my opinion, is Exodus 21:20-21: “When a slaveowner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment, for the slave is the owner’s property.”

I quoted it before in this thread, but it seems relevant to do it again.

I hate to sound like a chronological snob, but I'm glad modern morality has moved on from that kind of thing. Not that it definitely meant what it seemed to mean - I've seen interpretations suggesting the punishment was cutting off the palm of the hand or shaving off the pubic hair. Would the real version of the Word Of God please stand up and make unambiguous sense?

But help is at hand. This modern interpretation reveals that the woman's sole objective in such a scenario would in every case have been to render the man permanently unable to father children and that she only protected her hubbie at all because she wanted to selfishly hang onto his material support.

https://redeemingculture.com/life/theol ... my-2511-12

Quite how David Atwell knows all this, he doesn't explain very well, except to say that the original Hebrew word for "seizing" has connotations of malicious intent. Unfortunately he doesn't say what the Hebrew word is, which makes it even more difficult to check that particular claim than it otherwise would be. And it looks like he's plucked the rest of his apologetic out of thin air.

The good news is that the strong criticism that followed in the comments section caused him to admit he was wrong and that he actually knows of no defense for the offending passage. That's pretty rare among Christian apologists in my experience, but he'll never make a top fundamentalist preacher with that kind of honest streak. Poor chap ran out of arguments, in public, and never came back with a new theory. Could it be that some parts of scripture are not the word of a loving god at all, but just the words of a bunch of ancient Jewish leaders trying to terrify their followers into obedience?

That’s hilarious!

While, on rare occasions, apologists can do a fairly competent job with some passages, there’s no way to explain others away, so it’s best to not even try. Some strive to believe that only the good bits are from God, but that seems an awful lot like cherry-picking. Also, one would think that God would be capable of keeping utter s**t out of his Word.

Even if, for argument’s sake, an apologist could successfully prove that the woman had malicious intent in the passage, it doesn’t mean that cutting off her hand is a just punishment. It’s horrific.

I agree it's nasty stuff. They weren't too strong on logical sense either, were they? The slave being simply property didn't justify killing the slave immediately, but if the slave lived a day or two (which is it, 24 or 48 hours? - doesn't bother to specify), the ownership defense suddenly applied. It strikes me that whoever wrote that passage had trouble thinking. Still, I guess that didn't matter to people who saw it as a mistake to "lean on their reason."

I think believers are in a bit of a jam - if they claim cover-to-cover scriptural inerrancy, they have to defend the entire shebang, including the 2 different tales of the death of Judas Iscariot and many other corkers, but if they accept that some of scripture is wrong, then the door is open to individuals chucking out anything they don't personally want in their rules, for possibly selfish reasons. Yet there's no support for officially re-canonising scripture, which might give them a fresh start with a new, benign, unifying doctrine. But imagine the acrimony if they tried. Still, I think setting a social rule-book in stone is probably even worse, even if the book was crystal clear in the first place, and it's far from that in many places.

This is still a problem for some :

Seriously people, stick to using the Book of Psalms as a spellbook like I am doing.

Yes he was a prolific bible-thumper in his old age, and was somewhat literalist about scripture, though strangely not a young-Earthist, because he reckoned that Genesis days may have been much longer than 24 hours apiece, so he had no problem with science showing the world to be several billion years old. Strangely, he missed out there on a great opportunity for undermining Darwin, because without all those billions of years there wouldn't have been time for evolution to get us where we are today. And that enormous timescale isn't just essential to evolution, it would seem to logically guarantee it, because life forms are known to create slightly randomly-mutated progeny and then die, all within an environment of selective pressure. I suppose that's why young-Earth creationists put so much work into their arguments.

He was an interesting chap. It seems his anti-evolution machinations were grounded mostly in his belief that evolution was an unproven theory that was being used to justify a "survival of the fittest" ideology and thus undermine morality. While it's true that some governments have disingenuously cited evolution as an excuse for atrocities, I don't think there's any evidence showing societies that accept evolution behave any less morally than traditional religious societies.

Quite a lot of religionists believe that you can't be a good person without accepting (their brand of) religious doctrine. But there's no evidence for it, and one who thinks it true is necessarily prejudiced against non-theists, which must be at least as bad as the occasional nutjob hijacking Darwin to try to justify declaring open season on the "weak." Sure, scripture tells them to love their enemies, but how capable are humans of feeling genuine equal warmth and extending genuine equal rights towards those they consider inherently immoral and dangerous?

Which reminds me, here's another disturbing passage for the scrapbook:

Luke 6:
39 But I say unto you that ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
40 And if any man will sue thee at the law and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.
41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him two.
42 Give to him that asketh thee; and from him that would borrow of thee, turn not thou away.
43 “Ye have heard that it hath been said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy.’
44 But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you,
45 that ye may be the children of your Father who is in Heaven. For He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
46 For if ye love them that love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same?
47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so?
48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in Heaven is perfect.

I think it would be dangerous to self and others to try to do all that literally, and I'm pretty sure nobody has ever achieved it. Certainly I hope they haven't. Think of the damage a villain could do to a society who were all like that. And think of the guilt the believers must feel for falling so short of the mark. I think there's good in it, but it has to be watered down a lot from its extremist stance. How about:

"Many of us are a bit too quick to get defensive and angry. Try to keep calm and see things for what they are. Sometimes returning unkindness with kindness works out quite well, but healthy self-defense is OK as long as you try not to take it too far. If somebody isn't a threat to you, don't demonise them. And don't forget that you're not expected to get it perfect"

Would a loving deity really want us to meekly tolerate a thoroughly rotten existence in the hope of a brilliant afterlife? Wouldn't that just make the world worse? I hope that if Jesus really did say what Luke reported, it was just his turn of phrase, using exaggeration to achieve emphasis. But it's plausible that whoever wrote that stuff was just trying to keep us down. And in spite of the super-high standards he preached, he wasn't himself above reducing the publicans to a low stereotype.