Paper Monster

Part One

“My enemies turn back;

they stumble and perish before you.

For you have upheld my right and my cause,

sitting enthroned as the righteous judge.

You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked;

you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.

Endless ruin has overtaken my enemies,

you have uprooted their cities;

even the memory of them has perished.”

(Psalms 9:3-6, NIV)

            There are many reasons that I am no longer a Christian. Mostly, it is the anthropomorphic version of God that I have discovered in the Judeo-Christian tradition. I have a huge issue with placing human characteristics on something unknown and unknowable. You can talk about God’s love all you want but in The Bible, both the Old Testament deity Yahweh and his son Jesus from the New Testament can, at times, seem more like our adversary than our saviour. On paper, God comes across rather human. Sometimes he is more monster than man. It’s not surprising to anyone who can read that God is supposed to be human, mortal or whatever you want to call this mess. When we learn that “God created mankind in his own image” (Genesis 1:27, NIV), we must examine the character of a God who is limited to humanity. It might be blasphemous to say, but there is no way in hell you’ll find me bowing to the feet of a mere mortal, regardless of the powers it may possess. When all I need to do is read scripture to witness God punish, condemn and murder, then we have a serious problem.

            Just because Ted Bundy loved his mother doesn’t make him any less of a monster. The same implication goes for the Judeo-Christian-Islamic fiend who hides behind concepts like agape love and love your neighbour. This does not appear to be his true nature. Any benevolent and all-loving appearance is just that. Instead he is a savage, small-minded and jealous creature. More man than Master, more deviant than docile, he appears oh so human because he is. This is the catch-22 of almost all religions. The way we portray God has little to do with what we know of our God. The two are not necessarily the same thing. We pick and choose what to believe, what to consider the truth. We have a cumulative interpretation, our own subjective experience with the Divine. We can add volumes of scripture and exegesis, but we only hold to that which serves our own purpose. From the destruction of mankind in Genesis to the Apocalypse brought on by an avenging saviour in Revelation,  this god is defined not just by the words he speaks but also by his actions. It’s clear to me that the “fruits of the spirit” demanded from us in the New Testament are only an expectation of the human beings who actually live on the planet. No deity will ever answer to mere mortals. We are to be better but god is not held to the same standard of conduct. After all, when you’re in charge, you can do anything you want. You can act and believe anything you want. You can even be a monster, all the while pandering to the minions with ideas like grace and mercy and forgiveness. Yes, within the pages of scripture there lies a gentler being. You can find it if you look. It rests, however, on the bones of all those that this god has sought out and destroyed. It would be a challenge for me to hold myself accountable to a beast that kills children, condones stoning and instigates genocide. It’s all on paper, so it is easy to find this monster. All you have to do is read.

  

           The god of the Old Testament loves the smell of burning meat. Particularly throughout the Torah, this very human sense is attributed to Yahweh, the war god. Over and over again, we are informed just how much god loves the smell of flesh set ablaze. He had Noah build him an altar for burnt offerings, then “The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma” (Genesis 8:21, NIV). Throughout the books of Exodus (especially chapter 29) and Leviticus (especially chapter 3), the same theme returns again and again. A smell of flesh is not this god’s only proclivity. He is a jealous, petty child who has to get what he wants or mankind can suffer his wrath. God gets angry. Apparently, he gets so angry that he decides to destroy all humans, animals, all life on the planet. He plans on drowning them one and all. God tells Noah, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them” (Genesis 6:7, NIV). In fact, God informs  Noah that he will “bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish (Genesis 6:17, NIV). When the deed is done, only Noah and those with him on the Ark survive. This is not some understandable judgment. From newborn babies to spiders, God wipes everything off the face of the planet. All are lost. These do not strike me as the actions of a loving God. Even the babies are destroyed. Seems like something a monster would do.

            On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 58 others at the Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. No one publicly cheered for the massacre. I heard nothing about how the shooter was justified because the victims were all queer. Abominations or not, people were horrified that this creature attacked so many, all because of their sexual identity. Of course, when God did it, it was just fine. To this day, people still validate the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah  because of the immorality in homosexuality. It was god after all, who “sent down burning sulphur ...out of the heavens” (Genesis 19:24, NIV). Whether god destroyed the two cities for the sin of inhospitality or the sin of homosexuality, he kills everyone. Every man, every woman, every child (from infant to newborn) is punished for the sins of the few (regardless of what those sins were). Like with Noah, he spares the “just and righteous,” the family of Lot. This excessive, unnecessary and violent encounter strikes me as something Hitler would do. It’s funny how we vilify one person for their behaviour yet we worship God for exhibiting the very same behaviour.

            God says, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis 22:2, NIV). Abraham follows god’s instruction to the letter. He shows his love for god through submission and the willingness to murder his own child. Only a sick and twisted control freak would command something like this. It just smells of human. Just before the deed is done, god changes his mind and provides a goat to sacrifice instead. It’s just like a mortal to chicken out just before the throat is slit. Whether by flood or by fire, god exacts his wrath and contempt for man throughout the Old Testament. Isaac on a meat rack aside, these acts are considered valid just because god says that they are. Few ever question the nature that this deity exhibits. They use the New Testament as a justification but it too holds much to give me great pause. I guess you have to ask yourself, what would modern man think of a father who goes to sacrifice his child at god’s request? If this story was from a non-canonical text, we would be all over the savagery of it. Only a monster would ask, let alone promote, such a thing but since it is Jehovah, it is just fine and dandy.

            The Judeo-Christian god is a boastful and arrogant beast. Just as Moses thinks that all is lost, Yahweh decides to help in the most convincing way. Moses relays to Pharaoh that god will “send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth” (Exodus 9 14, NIV). In no uncertain terms. he proclaims “I will ... smite Egypt with all my wonders” (Exodus 3:20, NIV). He seems to constantly need validation. He ravages Egypt, killing thousands, including the firstborn son of any Egyptian. He even sends Moses to Ramses with the message that god did such things so that “you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord” (Exodus 10 1-2, NIV). The Lord struck down so many that “there was not a house without someone dead” (Exodus 12:30, NIV). The mass slaughter of so many at the hands of one being should bring much condemnation, unless you’re reading the Old Testament. It is very hard to imagine human beings doing this to each other, then again, god has been telling us to do it for years. He is justified because he is god. One can hide behind a “shadow of death” but killing children is never justified, especially from God.

            Who else but the biblical god could be so cruel? What can one expect from a god of war? After all, “The Lord is a warrior,” (Exodus 15:3, NIV). Judging from the actions god takes in the Old Testament, this “god of war” is more a military killing machine than the Host of Hosts. He has no problem conscripting soldiers that we later call “men of god.” He uses angels like they are weapons of mass destruction. God even sends his special forces against an army while they sleep, leaving thousands dead. We see that “the angel of the Lord went out and put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. When the people got up the next morning - there were all the dead bodies” (2 Kings 19:35, NIV). Joshua is god’s general. He follows instruction well. God sends Joshua into Hebron to “smote it with the edge of the sword ... and all the cities... and all the souls that were therein.” Like a good solider would, “he left none remaining" (Deuteronomy 10:36-37, NIV). From Samson to King David, the Old Testament is riddled with men willing to follow this god at any cost. Its seems more like fear following to me; this god gets pissed off (Deuteronomy 1:36-37). On paper. this god can also be a  huge hypocrite. On one page, we are instructed that “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13, NIV). On the very next page, he contradicts his own law by conditioning  the punishment played against offenders of this law. It is made clear that we are to “take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise” (Exodus 21:23b-25, NIV). I guess Yahweh didn’t realize that an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.

            The God of Abraham and Moses seems particularly human when it comes to his ego. He threatens his people, demanding, “Do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14, NIV). I just assumed jealousy was left to our very human frailty, yet we are once again menaced by this god because of how he feels. We learn that in modern days, 4 billion people are instantly doomed for not holding to the biblical god. It is clear, “Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord must be destroyed” (Exodus 22:20, NIV). So that’s every Buddhist, every Muslim, every non-Christian, anyone on the planet who doesn’t believe in the Judeo-Christian standard can kiss their butt goodbye. The entire body of the Old Testament seems to surround this god demanding that we recognize him and only him.  Every time we do something wrong, god threatens to kill us. If we fail to observe the Sabbath, we are in much trouble. Not knowing whether to observe on Friday or Saturday or Sunday really seems irrelevant considering the cost for failing to do so. We must “Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it is to be put to death; those who do any work on that day must be cut off from their people” (Exodus 31:14, NIV). Like with any good tyrant, if you break the rules, you are executed. If you curse, or tell off your parents, you are to “be put to death” (Exodus 21:17, NIV). At one point (Leviticus), god threatens to kill someone on every other line. I had always imagined God was above such human failings. I believed He was a God of Love. The god of my father is more a god of death than anything else. As least, on paper.

           

            Despite the millions of people lost to the wrath of the Lord, there is no action more insane then when god orders people be burnt to death. Those people who have stolen from Israel have also stolen from Jehovah. Apparently, hiding the goods from your heist is a terminal condition. In fact, “The one who has stolen what was set apart for destruction will himself be burned with fire, along with everything he has, for he has broken the covenant of the Lord and has done a horrible thing in Israel” (Joshua 7:15, NIV). Of course, if you look deep enough into scripture, you can find very human characteristics placed on a very monstrous entity. While burning the flesh off a person seems a savage thing to do, it holds little to god’s order that as punishment men will be made to kill their brother, then feed on their body. For God’s sake, where does one draw the line between a god and that monster?

“By the wrath of the Lord Almighty

the land will be scorched

and the people will be fuel for the fire;

they will not spare one another.

On the right they will devour,

but still be hungry;

on the left they will eat,

but not be satisfied.

Each will feed on the flesh of their own offspring.”

(Isaiah 9:19-20, NIV)

Photos

http://www.ethikmainz.de/impressum/

http://www.faithgateway.com/what-happened-old-testament-sermons/#.WUggo-vytEY

http://www.teachingcollegeenglish.com/2011/10/01/swccl-spinoza-and-literary-criticism/

Sources

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2014/07/god-loves-the-smell-of-burning-flesh-human-sacrifice-in-the-bible/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh