God Hates You, Hate Him Back: Making Sense of The Bible (9 page)

Significantly, once again an event of dramatic proportions whereby there is not a single recorded word in Egyptian history that even hints or implies that any of the above ever occurred. Whilst this is yet another fable, it does make for a fantastic film plot.

After the implausible God driven escape from the Egyptians, Moses led the Israelites on a directionless meandering path through barren middle-eastern wasteland for the next forty years. Yes, forty long years, of moving from camp to camp in search of some real estate that would foster livestock and crops. Where was God in this entire period of Jewish ‘walkabout’? God doesn’t even utter a whisper. Was he taking a deserved forty-year nap whilst his chosen people suffered all kinds of hardships, such as thirst and starvation? The plagues, the baby killing and the parting of the Red Sea must be exhausting work, but surely a long weekend to recover would suffice? Forty years seems a tad extreme, even to the most ardent teamster.

Eventually, the Israelites began to complain and quarrel with Moses, demanding that he find them water to drink. Moses tells them that they should not put God to the test and that he will be there for them when they really need him. But this third-party explanation did not satisfy the whining Israelites and they grumbled,

These Israelites sure were a thankless bunch and it is astonishing that they still whined to Moses and to God even after God had performed miracles to lead them out of Egypt; then parted an ocean so that they would be spared a gruesome death at the hands of the Egyptian swords. Not only were they thankless but they were now ready to turn on Moses, their prophet from God, with threats of stoning him:

God answers Moses’ gripe and instructs him to lead some of the tribe elders to a rock at a town called Horeb. Once there, God gives Moses a little ‘heads up’ and says that upon striking the rock with his magic staff (which had previously turned into a snake and parted a sea) water would come out of it.

The quantity of water from the rock was inadequate to replenish an entire tribe, but provided another demonstration from God that he was on their side and looking out for them.

Awhile later, the Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at a town called Rephidim. Moses ordered Joshua to lead the men, whilst he, Aaron and Hur went to the top of a hill that overlooked the battlefield. What comes next is truly a laugh!

This would make a hilarious Saturday Night Live comedy parody, picturing a tired old sports coach having his hands held up above him so that his team could win a football game. “Hey Moses, for Christ’s sake we are behind on the scoreboard, keep your fucking arms in the air or the Patriots are going to take the division!”

The final paragraph of this passage is one that many conservative Jews have tragically interpreted as God’s will to destroy the Palestinians, believing that they are the descendents of the Amalekites.

Let us ignore the obvious flaw in the title of this story, that being there is no Mount Sinai nor has there ever been such a location. So, notwithstanding this immediate irreconcilable component of the fable of the Ten Commandments, let us at least examine what this story predicates.

According to the Old Testament, the Israelites had camped themselves at the bottom of this mythical mountain for some time, before God called to Moses from the mountain top:

Playing favorites again? Surely, God would have the foresight to envision what pain and suffering words like this would foreshadow for thousands of years to come. Revisiting Sam Harris for a moment,

Why would God want to divide mankind rather than unite? After all, did he not make all of us in his own image as claimed earlier in Genesis? Just further proof that the origin of the Bible is man-constructed and not the word, or inspired word, of a super-intellectual being. And as well-known American political activist Anne Lamott stated:

Moses tells the people that God will soon lay out some instructions to him and that they should prepare themselves by washing their clothes and abstaining from sex. On the morning of the third day, after Moses had spoken:

God commands Moses to leave the people at the bottom of the mountain, whilst he alone is to ascend to meet God. My cynical mind can’t help but smell a rat here! Why is it that throughout all religious history God never speaks to any more than one or two people at a time? Why can’t he ever speak to all of us, like equals, so that we can all be sure that he is real and not be vulnerable to the manipulations and fraud of others? The needless suffering caused by religious conflict would cease immediately if only God addressed all of us one time and clearly enough so that we can replay it on youtube.com

With Aaron by Moses’ side, God issued his ten commandments, which are to form the moral code for man’s ethical conduct on earth:

Surely he could have, would have produced something a little more profound and inspirational than the ten he proclaimed. Any person with even a teaspoon of intellectual honesty will have difficulty defending the claim that the Ten Commandments can only be that of dim-witted man rather than an entity of the highest intellectual enlightenment. Notwithstanding the fact that civilizations such as China, India and Egypt had written legal codes, containing prohibitions against murder, theft, adultery and fraud, thousands of years before the Israelites fled into the desert.

The first four commandments are simply a reminder of who’s boss, and depict a God that suffers the human emotion of petty jealousy, namely of other gods. This is interesting in itself as it reveals an argument that even God acknowledges, the presence of peers, which is at odds and inconsistent with the entirety of the Bible. I find it particularly clever that Christopher Hitchens has nicknamed the first four commandments as that of “maniacal throat-clearing”. A dictum that plainly forewarns that you better worship me alone or watch out! Interesting, is the second commandment, in which God promises to condemn up to four generations of a sinner’s descendents. This throws out the claim that all children are born without sin and further suggests that no matter how righteous your Judeo-Christian life should be, all will matter for naught if your great-great-grandfather believed in a sun god, and thus you are surely doomed.

The fifth goes without saying. A majority of mammals respect or show a sense of endearment towards their mother, father or both. However, God does not stipulate any reciprocal respect or honor of thy children in return. Parents are commanded, in later chapters, to stone their children to death should they blaspheme (Deuteronomy). This, at the very least, contravenes the 6
^th
commandment.

The sixth through ninth ‘shall nots’ are self-evident for any functioning society to progress on a day to day basis and the tenth commandment is a promise that you will be condemned for committing a thought crime, for envying your neighbor’s property. Any supporter of capitalism would admit that if it were not for envy, progress, advancement and commercial gain would never be possible, thus this is a stupid command. Does this mean that advertising agencies or marketing managers are agents of Satan? These commandments more than anything else provide substantive proof that these laws did not originate from a profound being of enlightenment but rather from misogynistic, barbaric, Bronze-age man, as women are lumped alongside a donkey on a man’s personal balance sheet as property. Thus as man’s property he is free to sell them for a profit.

It must be said that the Ten Commandments provided God, if he were true, a real opportunity to proclaim his wisdom, understanding and insight that would ensure human solidarity for ad infinitum. But he squandered it with proclamations of petty jealousy and the omission of a number of truly wicked acts that have stained our human existence. There is no mention of rape, child abuse, racism and slavery to name but a few examples. Instead, God tells us not to steal, but we are yet to find any civilization, past or present, that believes stealing from one another to be a pretty good thing. Duh! Further, there is certainly no condemnation of genocide because that comes later when God inspires the whole wiping out of cities and civilizations.

Interestingly, an often-neglected fact is that the Ten Commandments are just the start of what are actually 613 commandments from God to Moses, as written in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Others include:

This suggests that the Israelites were actually having sex with their goats or God wouldn’t have any reason to create this law.

Does this mean all is forgiven if you gave the kidnapee away free of charge?

God then goes into granular detail when it comes to property law, with dozens of specific laws for some very specific agricultural concerns: