...Then, Mix in 10 Commandments and Stir
This is the second part of my observations of this article on HuffPo.
Ok, I was cooling off, but this bit got me going again:
"The morals and values given to us at Mount Sinai entered our consciousness a mere 3500 years ago."
What values and morals? The ten commandments? Hmm, let's see here. The first three contain nothing but the commands of an unstable and nervous dictator. Oh yeah, and sit on your butt on Sundays or it's off to hell with you. Children are commanded to honor their parents, but not the reverse.
Don't kill anybody, an admirable sentiment that has been explicitly followed by Christians in the centuries following the event, especially during the Renaissance and Reformation (Can you hear my eyes rolling?). I tentatively submit that Pope Alexander VI, Tomás de Torquemada, and John Calvin of Geneva (to name but three) must have considered this one optional.
Next, no adultery, no stealing, no false witness. I'll admit, these three are good, but three out of ten is not even an "F". Finally, don't covet your neighbor's stuff. That's cool and all, but let's not forget that said neighbor's wife and slaves are among the "stuff" one is not supposed to covet. Meh.
I can hear folks accusing me of cherry-picking verses and grumbling about the "same authority." That's fine, but let me deflect that criticism to the author of the article. There are no references to specific verses or... any specifics really.
"It is a rich, multi-layered, multi-faceted, deeply profound work of art."
All well and good, but it is also full of violence, misogyny, and terrifying visions of eternal punishment. Written and edited by men (not women) with a vested interest in using its message to remain in power, the bible is an interesting look back into times when the world was far simpler, less understood, and profoundly terrifying to its inhabitants, not a handbook for democracy (or even polite society).
Just Add the Bible
So I was out wandering our beloved "series of tubes" today over lunch, and I came across this gem. I know, I know, it's from HuffPo. Sorry vjack.
The author thinks there's still reason to believe in god (as if there ever was), and goes on a warm, fuzzy endorsement of the bible, faith in god, then wanders off on a brief history of the last 6-8 million years. WTF?
I guess I could write this off as happy naval-gazing enabled by fifteen hundred years of erosion of Christianity's power and influence as progressive and reasonable people have pulled the worst of its teeth. Never mind the fact that Renaissance Christians would have burned John Lennon at the stake for his comments quoted at the beginning of the article.
However, what really grates on me is that the author doesn't seem to have really read the bible
"The Bible entreats us to be our brother's keeper, to behave like Abraham who questioned God and protested on behalf of others, so that we develop, internalize and practise compassion and empathy."
How nice. The bible also preaches the subjugation of women, condones wholesale genocide and slavery[1], and contains a dreadful description of the fate of unbelievers[2]. Jesus himself loved ranting about the fate of sinners[3]. And was that the same Abraham that was ready to kill his only child because god told him to?
The Bible gives us step by step instructions on how to establish a society that gives equal weight to individual rights and group responsibilities.
WTF?!? Really? Where? Which verses? Now I'm wondering if this little tidbit isn't some sort of clever satire... but no, no, it's the real deal.
The only people with individual rights during the Renascence height of Christianity were Europe's crowned heads, nobility, and the leaders of the Vatican. Everybody else was expected to shut up, pay their taxes and tithes, and worship god. Anybody that got out of line was either exiled or tortuously murdered.
More to follow...
1: Top Ten Worst Bible Passages
2: Revelation 21:8
3: Matthew 13:41
What’s with the title?
Intractable is an adjective describing something as difficult to control or manipulate. It can also mean an individual doing the opposite of what’s he’s told. I think it’s a good descriptor of the atheist movement in the U.S. today. We believe or disbelieve according to reason and logic, regardless of what any religious majority tells us.
Atheos is Greek for atheist, although the original word did not mean what it does today. Socrates, although by no means an atheist in the modern sense, faced criminal charges which led to his execution. One of these was impiety, or disbelief in the gods recognized by the state, and that disbelief in accepted deities is the connotation of the original Greek word [1].
Now nobody is being forced to drink hemlock as a criminal punishment for their atheism today, although I’m sure there are Christian extremists out there who are secretly (wait, no, publicly) pining for such measures, but we can certainly regard Socrates a hero for refusing to abandon his principles of reason and logic in the face of death.
What about the goofy logo? Don’t you know how use capital letters?
Anybody from the online atheist community will recognize the scarlet letter A. For everybody else, it was borrowed from Nathaniel Hawthorn as a badge of shame and stigma and repurposed as a badge of pride.
The strange capitalization is a nod to my information technology background, and I may occasionally post links to humorous IT-related stories. In my opinion, the freedom to dissent is among the most important in a civilized society, and that freedom is largely facilitated by the mad geniuses who brought about the internet. To that end, you’ll find that I’m a rabid supporter of net neutrality, even though the topic isn’t directly related to atheism.
Disclaimer: I will not endorse any operating systems, platforms, programming languages, etc as superior to any other. This is not a Linux vs. Windows forum, and I’ll delete comments in that vein. If that’s what you here for, go away.
1. Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece
Why a blog? Why should I add my lone voice to the cacophony of
noise of the millions of blogs on the internet?
Given that atheists are among the most distrusted and despised
minorities in the U.S, I think that more of us should raise our
voices and work to dispel the myth that all atheists are unpatriotic,
untrustworthy gremlins out to destroy the country. Most of the
non-believers I've known are fine people, and are considerably more
trustworthy than many of the current occupants of the halls of
Congress. In addition, while penning a blog may seem like a small
thing, starting it has already alleviated my feelings of inaction and
resignation to the path that the Christian extremists are trying to
impose upon our country.
Another reason is that it's easy to be an atheist when that
viewpoint goes unchallenged. I've been living comfortably in a
vacuum, free of criticism for years. Very few people know I'm an
atheist, and those are close friends and family who accept me and my
views. I'm hoping that by interacting with people, both believers
and other atheists, that I'll come to understand my own mind a little
better and subject my beliefs and opinions to a little critical
analysis.
I owe a thank-you to vjack of Atheist Revolution; it was vjack's
blog that got me fired up to get out there and write, and this post
that helped me get started.
