Ask a Christian to describe heaven and they will say you are up on the clouds with God. You are there with all your (Christian) relatives, and Jesus is there, and everything is perfect, forever. After a minute or two they will run out of things to say. But ask them about hell and they can go on and on about it. There are demons, and people getting tortured, and souls drowning lakes of fire. Every hellish torment that can be thought of has been thought of and elaborated upon, ad nauseam. But we don’t ever hear too much about what goes on in heaven.

What the hell is heaven for anyway? A reward for being a good person? Isn’t that its own reward? If I don’t believe in heaven but I’m still a good person doesn’t that make me a better person than someone who is a good person just because they want a reward? Or, if you are only a good person because you don’t want to get punished for being a bad person aren’t you already a bad person?

Not that it matters because heaven is chock full of bad people. Any rapist, child abuser, murderer, or cereal killer who is given a Bible in prison and then decides to give his soul to Jesus is forgiven and allowed into heaven. David “the son of Sam” Berkowitz who murdered 6 people with a .44 magnum, and Jeffrey Dahmer who raped, murdered, dismembered, and ate 17 young men are just two examples of the people you can look forward to hanging out with for eternity in heaven.

I don’t understand how Jesus can forgive all sins (except the unforgivable sin) and yet his father is incapable of forgiving Adam and Eve? If God could just forgive them for eating that apple then there would be no need for Jesus to die for anyone’s sins. And if God could just forgive the people who don’t believe in him there would be no need for hell. But I digress.

So what is heaven?

Heaven is a shiny object the church holds in front of the poor so they stay in their place. Don’t worry about wealth. Give us your money. Trust us, your reward is in heaven. (It looks like the church has had their reward already. And then some.)

They use the promise of riches in heaven to keep the poor from striving for a better life on earth. In fact they make it seem like it’s actually better to be poor. One of Jesus’ most famous lines says, Matthew 19:23-24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples. “Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to get into heaven.” Meanwhile the Pope sits in his castle on his golden throne, thus proving that Jesus’ CEO on earth is truly the king of the hypocrites.

Priests and preachers make promises of heaven, but they don’t specifically say what heaven is. They say there are “treasures” and “rewards” waiting for you in the afterlife, and then they just let you fill in the blanks. (This is a classic NLP technique. Politicians do it all the time when they use vague words like “change”, and “great”.) They use emotionally charged words and then they let you give the words meaning, which makes those words all the more meaningful to you.

But what does the Bible actually tell us about heaven?

Most of the mentions of heaven in the Bible are in reference to “heaven and earth”. It’s either that, or they speak of heaven as where the father is, (or should I say where the father art?) And of course they refer to it as a kingdom, “the Kingdom of Heaven”. Heaven is apparently some sort of cosmic monarchy, or North Korea in the sky.

Occasionally the Bible does actually say something about heaven itself. In Matthew 13:1 it says, “Heaven is like a man who sows good seed in his field.” As a gardener, I could get into a heaven like that. But I don’t think I could enjoy it if I knew that there was another place where demons were eternally torturing people who did not believe in my garden.

Here are some other metaphorical examples of what Jesus says heaven is like. Heaven is a nice loaf of bread. Heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. Heaven is like a landowner going out to hire workers for his vineyard. Heaven is like a king throwing a wedding banquet for his son.

Am I the only one who notices that there is nothing heavenly about any of that? Those are all things that people could do on earth. Those are all things rich people do.

So let me get this straight. A rich man can’t get into heaven, so you should give all your money away (preferably to the church) and live a life of poverty, then when you die in squalor you get to go to heaven and hang out with a king, and he makes you rich? How does that make any sense?

And if heaven is so great why do Christians cry when their friends or family members die. They weep and wail and moan, but shouldn’t they be celebrating? Even if your teenage son somehow dies in his sleep doesn’t that just mean that God has taken your little angel up to heaven early? Doesn’t that just mean that your young son got an express ticket to the best place in the universe? Didn’t his early death spare him a life of having to stay in God’s good graces? Doesn’t his premature death mean less earthly temptations and chances that he might have gone to hell? Isn’t he better off dead at a young age? Doesn’t he just get to spend even more time in heaven?

And if heaven is so great why wouldn’t you just kill yourself to get there as soon as possible? Oh that’s right, because suicide is a sin that keeps you out of the heaven you are so desperately waiting to get into. Even euthanasia is a sin. You have to suffer in poverty and pain as long as possible, only then will God give you riches and everlasting life. Because if all the poor people the church has convinced are going to be rich in heaven killed themselves to go to heaven to collect their reward, there would be no one left on earth to give money to the men who run the church. And those guys aren’t about to get real jobs.

They are like sleazy timeshare salesmen selling you the deed to land that they don’t even own. (Following Yahweh’s example of giving the Promised Land to the Jews even though it belonged to someone else.) Heaven is just another broken promised land, and the church is like a sub-prime mortgage lender to the afterlife.

Really, what proof is there that heaven exists at all? None. So why forsake your happiness in this life for happiness in one that doesn’t exist?

But for the sake of argument let’s pretend that the afterlife really does exist (which is basically what people who believe in heaven do anyway.) Lets say you’ve passed the big test and you have made it to heaven. Now what? What do people do in heaven? Ok they sit at the right hand of God, and then what? They just stare at him? Seriously. What goes on in heaven? Do you smugly watch people burning in hell for fun? Do you still have to read the Bible?

Are there levels of heaven? When you get to heaven do you get a chance to hang out with God himself? Do only saints and popes get to hang with the big man on a regular basis, or does any average Joe get to hang with the cool kids on cloud 9? Is Mary hounded by paparazzi up there? Does everyone crowd around taking selfies with Jesus? Or are the A-listers in the VIP room behind velvet ropes?

What are you supposed to do for all eternity? There is no death, or reincarnation, or progress to be made. No growth to be had. You are just there at the end of the line. Then what? Isn’t that rather empty? Doesn’t anything for eternity become unbearable? Isn’t that the point of death in the first place? Doesn’t death give our lives meaning by imbuing them with preciousness? Doesn’t the inevitable end inspire us to appreciate what is here and now because it won’t be here forever? It sure does for me.

And if heaven truly awaits us in the afterlife then where are we now? What is this world our souls have been born into? Is reality really just a test? Because in the biblical story of creation it doesn’t say, “God created heaven and earth just to fuck with people”. (Although in retrospect that is pretty much all that he has done.) Is the entire universe just a reality TV show for God where people get kicked off the island into a pit of eternal fire?

If heaven is like they say it is, if heaven is just sitting around listening to Christian music and kissing Gods ass until the end of time, it just sounds like church forever. That sounds like hell to me.

Sometimes I think the world has gone to hell already, and that it is the people who believe in heaven who have made it that way.

But for the most part I spend my life living in my version of heaven, right here, right now. I love my life. I love this planet. I cherish my friends and family. I love to learn and grow. I am grateful for nature, and I am constantly in awe of the universe. Heaven is my body. Heaven is my garden. Heaven is my cat (mostly). Heaven is my life. Truly heaven is on earth.

And hell is too. That is the whole point. We make this place what it is with our perception of it. Heaven is a belief, and your beliefs are in your head.

Honestly I don’t really care if you believe in heaven. If you believe there is an afterlife that’s fine with me. If it comforts you or makes you happy I hope it brings you peace and that you enjoy it.

What I think is utterly contemptible bullshit is when your being in heaven is contingent upon my being eternally tortured for not believing in your God.

And I would just like to end by saying, for the record… I would rather spend eternity burning in hell than waste a lifetime worshiping the God who created it.

I have willfully committed the one sin that will not be forgiven by God, ever.

That’s right. According to the Bible I am destined for damnation no matter what I do, or what anyone does on my behalf, because I have committed “the unforgivable sin”. (Cue the thunder and lightning)

Many Christians don’t even know that there is such a sin. You might think it’s murder but it’s not. Actually it seems that the God of the Bible loves killing people and having people kill, just as long as it is in his name. So what is this unforgivable sin I have committed? Allow me to set the scene…

There I was at age 10 or 11. My mother, who was in a newly born-again phase, dragged me to a big Christian event at the L.A. Convention Center. I don’t remember what exactly it was for, or who was doing the preaching, but I do remember what the sermon was about. The preacher was practically foaming at the mouth telling thousands of people about the one sin that will never be forgiven. He was saying that if you committed this sin not only would you go to hell when you died, you would also start to go insane for the rest of your life because of your state of gracelessness. He even said you would probably end up pulling out your own hair due to the sheer living-hellish agony of it all. I clearly remember him saying this stuff. Thankfully, even as a child I was smart enough (ironically, due in part to the excellent education my mother blessed me with) to know this was all bullshit. Nonetheless I found myself interested in what the punch line of this joke was, and I waited with everybody else to see what this one unforgivable sin might be.

Then he told us. He quoted Matthew 12:31-32 “And so I tell you, every kind of sin and slander can be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come”

As a kid I thought to myself “Really?! That’s it? That’s the worst thing you could ever do?” Then I immediately said in my head “I blaspheme the Holy Spirit of the Bible. I think its bullshit.” I waited to see if I would go insane and start tearing my hair out, but the only hellish thing that happened to me was that I had to sit through the rest of the sermon.

Lets take a closer look at this quote from Jesus “Mr. Forgiveness” Christ to see just how hideously insidious it is. “Any kind of sin and slander can be forgiven but blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven”. Basically that says in no uncertain terms that any dark, demented, downright evil thing you can think of doing will be forgiven (because after all these are the sins that Jesus had to die for, so why not make ‘em dooszies?!), but if you simply say to yourself or someone else that the Holy Spirit in the Bible is a bunch of crap you will go to straight to hell. Period. The second line says, “Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven either in this age or the age to come.” This statement, which is essentially a repetitive rewording of the first statement, says clearly that if someone expresses contempt for Jesus Christ they can be forgiven, but if they ever talk shit about the Holy Spirit they are instantly damned forever.

Lets put this in perspective. The sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not on par with murder or rape, it is far worse because all other sins no matter how bad will be forgiven. There are clearly two kinds of sin. One group of sins involves taking action; the act of murder, or the act of rape etc., (which can never be undone), but in the eyes of God the worst sin is a sin of words. The unforgiveable sin is a thought crime. That fact alone should tell you where the God’s priorities lie.

Murder, the intentional taking of another human life is the greatest blasphemy that I can imagine, but the Holy Spirit of the Bible forgives that sin without flinching. However, if for some reason someone says “The Holy Spirit of the Bible can choke on a bag of foreskins”, even if that person immediately changes their mind, apologizes, falls back in love with the Holy Spirit, and dedicates every second of the rest of their life to spreading the gospel, that person will still burn in hell forever no matter what.

And just in case you think that perhaps the passage the preacher quoted was a fluke or a misquote, just in case you still think that your precious little Jesus and company would never hold a grudge like that, here is another verse in the gospel according to Mark that says pretty much the same thing. Mark 3:28-29 “Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”

Again, we are told that all manner of sinister actions will be forgiven, but if someone says something that the Holy Spirit of the Bible doesn’t like then they instantly get a one-way ticket on a hellbound train.

I know all this stuff I’m telling you about the unpardonable sin may seem repetitive, but if you think I’m the one being repetitive lets look at yet another verse in the Bible that says the same thing. This time in Luke 12:8-10 “I tell you, whoever publicly acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever disowns me before others will be disowned before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”

This statement is “recorded” in three separate gospels of the New Testament. Clearly Jesus, or rather the committee that compiled and edited the immutable word of God (wink wink nudge nudge) must really want you to know that cursing or denying the Holy Spirit’s supposed holiness just once will lead to eternal damnation. So you’d better watch out!

To be safe lets be clear about what exactly the definition of “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” is.

First of all the definition of blasphemy is: the act of speaking sacrilegiously; showing contempt or lack of reverence for god or sacred things; profane talk.

OK that’s pretty straightforward, but what the heck is the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is one third of the Holy Trinity. “What’s the Holy Trinity?” you ask. Well it’s the Father (Yahweh), the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. (Notice the complete lack of feminine essence in the triune godhead). Each of the three aspects of the Trinity are supposedly co-present, and co-substantial in a shared existence. What this means is that somehow each member of the Trinity is in themselves fully God.

According to the Bible the Holy Spirit is self-existent, immutable, omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. The Holy Spirit is intelligent, can make decisions and has feelings. It, or rather he was involved in the creation, the incarnation, and the resurrection. It is the Holy Spirit that convicts people of sin, and reveals Christ to unbelievers. He spiritually baptizes people into the family of Christ, he “indwells Himself in the believer”, and he enables people to confess Christ as Lord. He is sometimes thought of as God’s active force.

But hang on a minute. Yahweh said a lot of things in the Old Testament. He was never at a loss for words, and he sure wasn’t afraid to let everyone know what was on his mind. For example the very first commandment states, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”. Throughout the Old Testament God quite clearly makes it a point to let everyone know that he insists on his megalomaniacal monotheism being the only game in town. He never spoke about his schizophrenia. He never said anything about the Holy Spirit being a separate and equal entity within him, and he never mentioned the Trinity. Why is that?

Maybe its because the concept of the Holy Spirit as a divine persona equal in substance and stature to the Father and the Son was decided upon at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381. Here, as with the decision in AD 324 to make December 25th Jesus’ birthday, we see once again how church doctrine is just being made-up by humans hundreds of years after the supposed life of Jesus. The word “trinity” isn’t even in the Bible! (Neither is the word “bible” by the way). These misogynistic power-hungry men chose to add the concept of the Holy Spirit to Christianity, and just like that the Trinity was born. Think about that! Look it up for yourself. I’m not making this up. In fact they made it up. These men wrote something down and claimed that it was the word of God. Yahweh and Jesus were then demoted to sharing equal thirds of Godhood by the stroke of a pen. That seems pretty blasphemous to me, (if you’re into caring about that sort of thing).

All I did was say I thought the Holy Spirit of the Bible was bullshit, and because of this barely blasphemous statement I got cast into perdition for all time. Ultimately, I have nothing left to lose so why not go all the way? Fuck the Bible and its so-called Holy Spirit! Fuck any God that forgives rape and murder but can’t take a little critical thinking. As far as I’m concerned any Holy Sprit who won’t forgive someone for offending or rejecting him even once can’t be all that holy in the first place. Seriously, if the Holy Spirit of the Bible is such a vindictive insecure asshole then fuck him sideways. If God cant take a little blasphemy what kind of God is he anyway? “You can’t have any other gods but me! Anyone who doesn’t like me can go to straight to hell, forever!” What a douche.

My unforgivable sin that I committed all those years ago (and the one I just committed) is considered by Jesus to be by far the worst sin imaginable. Every other sin will be forgiven but the one I just committed by simply typing out my contemptuous rejection of the Bible’s so-called Holy Spirit. If I ate your family alive before your eyes over the course of a weekend and then I raped you to death, and then I continued to do that to other people every weekend for the rest of my life, as long as at some point before I die I choose to accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and let him die for the sins I have committed, I will be forgiven, and I will see all of my victims in heaven. But If I just say something like “The Bible and the Holy Spirit are bullshit”, I’m assed out forever.

To me the only Holy Spirit is the universe itself. There is no Trinity, there is only Infinity. And even if for some reason someone did say “fuck the universe” I don’t believe that the universe would hold a grudge against them for eternity.

On the other hand, the God of the Bible gets so butthurt if you talk shit about his Holy Spirit that he instantly turns his back on you forever. So don’t bother praying for my soul because your supposedly all-loving and all-forgiving God doesn’t care. I could cure cancer and end all wars, but I will still burn in hell because I have committed the eternal sin. No matter what I do I am damned…

…damned glad I’m not a Christian.

Someone left a comment on one of my articles that said, “Morgan, I’m praying for your soul”.

First of all, there is nothing wrong with my soul thank you very much.

And what exactly is praying for my soul supposed to do? Do you really think that if you wish hard enough to your imaginary friend that I will suddenly lose my faculties of reason and take a big ol’ swig of the Christian Kool-Aid? Do you really think if you petition your God hard enough that I will somehow start to believe in Santa Christ, or Jesus Claus?

I’m sure if you asked the person who left the comment they would say they wrote it with love in their heart. Maybe they did, and maybe their self-righteous religion has blinded them to their ignorant arrogance, (or is it their arrogant ignorance?)

Either way, here are some of the presuppositions in the sentence “I’m praying for your soul”. First, it implies that you disapprove of my soul, which needs fixing. Second, it assumes that you have the ability to ask God to do things for you. And third, it says that you feel the need to use your special powers of God manipulation to get the creator of heaven and Earth to change the way I am because you don’t like it. I could go on, but I think The Tweet Of God said it best when he said: “I’m praying for your soul” is just an evangelical’s way of saying, “fuck you”.

If you’re so holy, if you have a direct line to God why don’t you just pray for my soul and not tell me (and the internet) about it? It seems to me like you just think you’re better than me and you want to publicly rub your pious disdain in my face.

And as long as we are talking about prayer, I have some more questions. You have probably been praying to your God for years and years begging him for world peace, how has that worked out for you?

What if an even more devout Christian than you prays to the same God asking that your prayer doesn’t work on me? Does their prayer cancel out yours?

Why do Christian athletes only thank God when they win? Would an all-Christian team only win if they prayed harder than they practiced? And how could God possibly give a shit if someone hits a home run or not? Athletes point to the sky when they make a great play. Why don’t they point to the sky and wag their finger when they fumble? It seems like God has a really great set up going on. People only give him credit for the good things that happen, and blame themselves when bad things happen.

Bad things happen to Christians and freethinkers alike. Earthquakes destroy both churches and universities. Why doesn’t God make any noticeable effort to look out for his beloved followers? Why doesn’t he protect the people with whom he is in constant contact? (Well, constant one-way contact that is) And why would anyone pray to God for help after a natural disaster that God made happen in the first place?

If God has a “plan” then why pray at all? Seriously. He’s God. Don’t you think he knows more about what is best for you than you do? Don’t you think that your omniscient God already knows what you want? Don’t you trust God to give you what you deserve? Do you think that if you nag him hard enough he will change his mind?

Does God listen to every single person’s prayers all the time? Does he sit there in Heaven getting berated with the complaints and requests of his followers every second of every day? That sounds like Hell. As if he doesn’t have enough to do already. You know, like running the universe and giving children Leukemia. Now he has to sit there and basically get his knee mail in-box blown up 24/7? “Dear God please let me do good in my presentation at work today.” “Dear God let me win the lottery.” “Dear God please let my doctor be successful in removing the tumor you gave me.”

And honestly, how many of those prayers does he actually get around to answering? Oh wait, he doesn’t really answer them per se. He works in “mysterious ways” which is perhaps the ultimate cop-out. Your confirmation bias keeps you from noticing all the times God did not answer your prayers. Kind of like how gambling addicts don’t talk about their losses. God’s response to your prayers is really more a matter of you interpreting the facts in hindsight. How convenient.

In addition to all of the other reasons I could point out which prove that someone praying for my soul is presumptuous and preposterous, it is also pointless. Again, let me make it perfectly clear. Even if prayer actually did work, and even if you really could ask God/Santa for things ‘cuz you’ve been good, your prayer on my soul’s behalf would still be utterly pointless, because I have committed The Unforgivable Sin…

The story of the Tower of Babel is another incredibly short one. It is only 9 lines long, so I will go over it in its entirety.

The story of the fall of the tower of Babel is meant to explain why there are different languages in the world. After all, since we are all descended from Noah after the flood we should all be speaking the same language. So what happened?

Well, according to the Bible, God happened. He didn’t like the idea of a humanity that spoke one language and could work together to build great things. So he destroyed their tower, confused their speech, and scattered them across the earth.

This story is a prime example of God keeping humans down. But I am getting ahead of myself.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the story of The Tower Of Babel.

Genesis 11:1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.

This is of course not true. The world never spoke one language, certainly not around 2200 BC when this story is meant to take place. (Remember this a newly post-flood world, so according to the Bible everyone is related to Noah and speaks the language of Noah, which I suppose is Hebrew.)

Historically we know there were many different cultures across the world around 2200 BC. I will not waste too much time pointing out things like the fact that when the Tower of Babel was supposedly built the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh had already been written in Sumerian, or that the Great Pyramid was already hundreds of years old and the Egyptians were in their 6^th dynasty.

But you don’t need history or “facts” to tell you that people never spoke just one language. All you need is the Bible. In true Biblical fashion it contradicts itself. In the previous chapter it mentions three times that there are different languages spoken in different nations before the Tower of Babel was even built. Genesis 10:5 By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue after their families, in their nations. Genesis 10:20 These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues in their countries, and their nations. And just 2 lines before the line where the Bible says that all men spoke the same language is this line, Genesis 10:31 These are the sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues in their land, after their nations.

So again, according to the previous chapter in the Bible the first line of this story is not true. But for the sake of deconstructing this destructive narrative lets pretend that it is true. Lets assume that a couple hundred years after the great flood wiped out all of human civilization everyone on the planet spoke the same language. Now what?

Genesis 11:2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.

Ok, so the people journeyed from the east and found a place to live.

Genesis 11:3 And they said one to another, “Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar”.

Rather than simply stacking stones to build structures the people have discovered how to bake bricks, and they used slime (or tar) for mortar. Here we see mention of the fact that humanity’s building capabilities had evolved. They were using some form of science to build things faster, stronger, and better. So far so good. Then what?

Genesis 11:4 And they said, “Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”

And now we see this group of united humans has decided to take their knowledge and build a city. They even challenge themselves to build a tower that might “reach unto heaven”. They say they want to make a name for themselves. They want to leave a legacy. And not only that they want to build this tower not for the purposes of dethroning God as we are led to believe, rather they wanted to build a city with a tower so they wouldn’t be “scattered abroad upon the face of the earth”. (Remember that phrase for later) These people set forth to use their (God given?) abilities to build a spectacular feat of engineering for the purposes of engendering civic pride, and further uniting an already united humanity. Sounds good to me.

Genesis 11:5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

Oh shit. Here it comes…

Genesis 11:6 And the LORD said, “Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.”

I can see the builders of the tower saying, “Oh hey, thanks God! Thank you for noticing that we are “one”. We really are you know? It wasn’t easy, but we found a way to unify, and it feels really good to have you recognize our integrity as a people. We are really excited to build this city, and we are really looking forward to building this tower. It will really challenge us. It will put our skills to the test and further bond us as a people. But of course you knew that. And I guess we never really thought about it to that extent but now that you mention it, you’re right we can do anything we put our minds to. It is so inspiring to have you tell us that in your opinion we will not be restrained from anything we can imagine. And I gotta say, it feels great to hear all this from you God. We were kind of afraid you might be upset for some reason. I mean, after all you are the same God that killed everyone (and everything) on the planet a couple hundred years ago because you were displeased with them. We are so relieved that you like us. What’s that? You have more to say? Oh…OK…”

Genesis 11:7 “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

Alright, lets get the big one out of the way first. Who the fuck is God talking to?! Yet again he refers to an “us”. In the creation story he said, “Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness”. Then in the story of Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit he said “Behold the man is become one of US.” And now, we have him saying to someone “Let US go down there and confound their speech”. Yahweh is the king of contradiction. He says time and time again that there is only one God, but he is always speaking off camera to another God. It’s insane.

And now lets talk about the really big one. The fact that in this line of the Bible God conspires (with someone else) to come to Earth and confound peoples language so they cannot understand each other. How fucked up is that?

Think about that for a second. Humanity was united and doing good things. It does not say in this story that they were building the tower as a big middle finger to God. It does not say that they were building the world’s tallest brothel. They were simply building the biggest thing they could think of in order to create a monument that would attest to their culture, and make a name for themselves. BUT God sees that as a threat. Bigtime. God gets so scared that he immediately enlists the help of someone else in order to put an end to humanity’s progress. (He couldn’t do it alone, from heaven? He had to get help and do it in person?) This group of people, (his people) were united and capable of doing anything they were inspired to do, and quite simply God decides that he ain’t havin’ that shit. So he comes down to earth to make a mess.

Genesis 11:8 So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

The “LORD” confuses everyone’s language and they have to stop building not just the tower, but the city itself. And notice that he doesn’t mess things up by destroying the tower. That is what you would expect from Yahweh. Fire and brimstone from the sky. Maybe a lightning bolt or an earthquake that destroys the tower. But this time God doesn’t destroy anything in the physical world. This time God destroys something in humanity’s mind. God destroys their language. Having a common language, and the ability to clearly understand, and be clearly understood, that was the real threat to God’s “heaven”.

This is perhaps the worst example of divide and conquer in history. God makes it so that people cannot understand one another. It would be real hard to continue building the tallest tower in the world when you show up to work one day and all of the sudden you are speaking Slovakian and your coworker is speaking Swahili.

But of course the tower was the symbolic manifestation of the culture’s unity, so no tower also means no community. It was the power of the human mind that was capable of uniting in community and bringing its dreams to life, that is what God wanted to destroy, not the tower itself.

There is only one more line in this 9-line story.

Genesis 11:9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

He brought chaos and uncertainty to humanity. He divided not just our bodies but also our minds.

And then, to add insult to injury, he scatters the people all across the face of the earth. Here we see the tower builders’ greatest nightmare come true. They wanted to get together and build something great that would bring them closer as a people so they wouldn’t be scattered all over the globe. So what does God do? Divide them on the deepest level, and scatter them across the globe. Thanks dick!

There is no mention in this story that the tower builders were arrogantly trying to dethrone God with their tower. The story does not say that the people were wicked like in Sodom and Gomorrah. So why stop the tower from being built? Did God really think that if they built a tower tall enough it would reach heaven? Is God that stupid? No, heaven was in no danger of being scraped by this ancient skyscraper. And God knew that. So then what was the problem?

The problem was that we were a threat to God. Or more to the point, God thought we were a threat to God. And God just couldn’t have that. So he scrambled our tongues, and we have been misunderstanding each other ever since.

By his own admission God is the author of confusion. And not only that but by confounding humanities language God ensured the fact that his very own word of God (aka the Bible) would be mistranslated and misinterpreted from that day forward. If God really wanted us to know his word then why did he confound our language.

God didn’t want us to live forever by eating from the Tree of Life, and he clearly didn’t want us to communicate clearly with one another, so he shattered humanity’s collective consciousness into thousands of pieces. God is beginning to sound more and more like the devil to me (not that I believe in him either).

Over thousands of years this story has been translated thousands of times, thanks entirely to the events in this story. This story is so short you could write it twice on a cocktail napkin, but the true lesson here cannot be understated. (Perhaps that is why I have written 1,879 words about a story that only consists of 235)

In this simple story we see the world that God truly wants for us. The existence Yahweh conspires to damn humanity to is one of confused hamstrung subservience. The God of the Bible does not love us. He fucking fears us.

Everyone knows about the 10 Commandments, but not many people know that those are just 10 of the 613 commandments that God gives in the Old Testament.

These Biblical laws are also sometimes called the laws of Moses. According to the Chabad website “several great Jewish scholars” compiled this list. (Keep that in mind as we go through this)

One of the foremost medieval Jewish philosophers was Maimonides. Somewhere in the 1100’s he compiled and ordered these 613 commandments into one master list containing all of God’s rules for his chosen people that are found in the Bible.

Warning: Some of these are just awful. I will go over as many as I can tolerate.

1 To know there is a God. (OK.)

2 Not to even think that other gods exist besides him. (You lost me there. Now we are talking about a thought crime. And what would it really matter to God anyway? Why is Yahweh so insecure? Besides he says things like, “Let us make man in our own image”. Not only that, the first commandment says, “Thou shalt have no other God but me”, so according to God there are other gods besides him.)

3 To know that God is one. (OK. But it sure conflicts with the trinity)

4 To love God. (OK.)

5 To fear God. (You lost me there again. “Fear the thing you love” is the 5^th commandment?)

10 Not to try the lord unduly. (So does this mean that we normally bother God, but we shouldn’t do it too hard?)

17 Not to embarrass others. (Good stuff.)

18 Not to oppress the weak. (Unless they are Palestinian.)

20 Not to take revenge. (The Lord is quite an admittedly vengeful God. But don’t take my word for it. Nahum 1:2 God is Jealous, and the LORD revengeth, and is furious: the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.)

21 Not to bare a grudge. (Like the one God has held on all of humanity since the whole Garden of Eden thing.)

31 Not to make human forms even for decorative purposes. (No statue of liberty, no Greek statues, and no crucifixes. I assume this applies to anatomical models as well. How ridiculous.)

33 To burn a city that has turned to idol worship. (Sounds vengeful to me. But I suppose it’s Ok. God did it so why shouldn’t they?)

37 Not to love the idolater. (If you say so)

38 Not to cease hating the idolater (Holy shit! Not to cease hating? Wow! This is just a hateful doctrine. Quite literally. And remember that an idolater may be someone with a statue of David, or Buddha, a bronze sculpture of a horse or an eagle, or even a  Star Wars action figure.)

39 Not to save the idolater. (Let ‘em suffer. Nice.)

40 Not to refrain from incriminating the idolater. (This is a double negative way of saying “talk shit about people you don’t like”.)

51 Not to bow down before a smooth stone. (???)

53 To destroy idols and their accessories (Remember, this includes pretty much everything that is not in the Jewish faith.)

54 Not to derive benefit from idols and their accessories (Because I’m sure if the Jews came across a 5-ton golden statue of a bull they would just melt it down and throw it in the garbage. They wouldn’t benefit from it.)

60 Not to be superstitious. (That is priceless. What more can I say?)

68 Men must not shave the hair off the sides of their head. (Sounds superstitious to me.)

72 Not to tattoo the skin. (Its my body, I will do what to it. Thank you very much.)

75 To repent and confess wrongdoings (Yes please.)

81 To put a mezuzah on the doorpost. (A mezuzah it the little thingy that Jews have on their front door frame. Again, this seems pretty superstitious to me.)

86 To circumcise all males on the 8^th day after their birth. (Keep your God’s blood-thirsty hands of helpless baby penises! Do I even have to say such a thing?!)

88 Not to do prohibited labor on the 7^th day (Remember, picking up sticks or turning a light switch on or off on a Saturday can get you killed.)

132 The rapist must marry his victim if she is unwed. (You sick sick fucks. Nowhere on this list does it say DON’T RAPE. But when you do you rape some poor woman, you have to keep her. Nice, real nice.)

133 He is never allowed to divorce her. (And how disgusting is it that this poor rape victim is forced to be with the person who raped her for the rest of her life?)

139 Not to have sexual relations with your mother. (OK. I mean if you have to write some rules that might as well be on there. It seems a bit low down on the list to me though.)

155 A man must not have sexual relations with an animal. (I’m with you there.)

162 Not to marry non-Jews (Ahh yes, back to the xenophobia and racism.)

163 Not to let Moabite or Ammonite people into the Jewish people. (Gotta keep that blood pure. Zeig Heil!)

168 Not to offer to God any castrated male animals. (Apparently God likes burnt testicles.)

189 Not to benefit from an ox condemned to be stoned to death. (They were condemning oxen to be stoned to death? For what crimes?)

195 Not to eat mixtures of milk and meat cooked together (Goodbye cheeseburgers.)

215 Not to break oaths or vows. (Finally we are back to sensible rules!)

250 To give charity. (Hey another good one! Things are really turning around here.)

474 Not to rob openly (Another good one. But, “openly”?)

480 Return the lost object (Nice one.)

482 Not to murder. (WOW! This one is waaaayyy down the list.)

495 Not to put a stumbling block before a blind man. (Seriously? The Jews needed to be told that? They had to write that down as a rule? Was that a thing back then?)

501 Not to insult or harm someone with words. (Ahh, a nice civilized rule of society.)

504 Purchase a Hebrew slave in accordance with prescribed laws. (And now we are back to the evil shit again.)

506 Not to work him oppressively. (Remember, this is a Hebrew slave. Don’t work him too oppressively. But your non-Hebrew slaves, you can work them into the ground.)

508 Not to have him do menial slave labor. (Yeah, use your other kind of slaves for that stuff.)

514 Canaanite slaves must work forever unless injured in one of their limbs. (Canaanites are Palestinians. This is just disgusting. These self-righteous scumbags who have a list of 613 commandments from God that are supposedly about how to run a righteous society have “keep Palestinians slaves forever” as one of their commandments. Shame on them.)

534 Not to lend with interest. (Yeah right.)

552 The court must not let the sorcerer live. (So there were sorcerers?)

565 Judges must not accept bribes. (And here we have another sensible law for a society.)

596 Destroy the seven Canaanite nations (God dammit! Now we are back to kosher genocide.)

597 Not to let any of them remain alive (Fuck you Bible, and fuck you Jews who think this is an acceptable law handed down from your almighty God.)

I’m done with this bullshit list. It is mostly superstition and nonsense, but that last one is a justification for ethnic cleansing. Period. Jews complain about how they have been persecuted throughout history. Well maybe it is time that you took a look at yourself. You can’t have “don’t harm someone with words” on the same list of rules for society with “marry your rape victim”! You can’t have “don’t bare a grudge” on a list of commandments that includes “KILL ’EM ALL!”

And if you don’t believe me that modern Jews promote this bullshit, here it is off the Chabad website. Go ahead and scroll down to #597. It’s there. Shamefully there.

http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/756399/jewish/The-613-Commandments.htm

I gotta go take a long shower.

Lets get this out of the way. I am stating for the record that there are some good things in the Bible. The Golden Rule for example. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, aka. “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. Yes, these are good quotes. Yes, I agree with them. But there is a whole lot of other stuff in this supposedly holy book besides the Golden Rule, and to be truly devout you must believe it all.

An ex-girlfriend of mine had evangelical creationist Christian parents. Obviously I thought they were nuts, but in a strange way I also respected them for their literally insane literal interpretation of the Bible. They may have lost touch with reality, but at least they had the guts to go all in. They may have lost their minds, but at least they (unlike most Christians) had the conviction of their beliefs and were committed to going “full retard”.

To me, even worse than the fundamentalist Christians are the cherry pickers. The people who don’t really believe all of the stuff in the Bible but they still claim to be religious. They are the people who say “Well I just like some parts of the Bible and leave the rest. I like the part that says thou shalt not kill, but I ignore that part that says kill gay people. I like the part where it says turn the other cheek, but I ignore the part where the vengeful God slaughters thousands of innocents”

These cherry pickers are also known as Cafeteria Christians. They like to pick and choose as if they were going down the line at a cafeteria. It’s as if all the concepts and laws in the Bible were a buffet, and they are just sliding their tray along, taking what appeals to their tastes, and leaving the things they find distasteful. They want to have the chocolate moose (love one another) but they want to skip the old, grey, greasy, chewy looking steak that has been sitting under the heat lamp for 10 hours (kill gay people). But if this book is truly holy, and if was really written by God himself, then you have to choke it down and swallow it all. If you don’t then you are just cherry picking in the cafeteria.

When someone like me points out the terrible things in the Bible and you say something like “Yeah but, there are good things in the Bible too” you are legitimizing the rape, and genocide. There are other ways to teach someone the Golden Rule without burying it in the middle of a 1000 page book full of racism, slavery and murder.

So many religious people haven’t even read the whole Bible. They believe God wrote one book but they haven’t even bothered to read it all. Probably because they know if they do that they might see that it is mostly bullshit, and they will end up not believing in that crap any more. Then their sky daddy won’t be there to protect them, and they will be responsible for all the bad things they may have done. So they just take some sound bites from the New Testament, or from Psalms and they ignore the rest. Or even worse, they just have someone else read the Bible to them and interpret what it really means for them. And because those preachers want to keep your ass in the pews they are not going to mention all the misogyny, and killing of homosexuals. (Unless they are those “God hates fags” type of churches. Then they will lead with it. And by the way, the Westborough Baptist Church is just full of good Christians doing what the Bible says. Which only goes to show that the Bible is so full of contradictions you can use it to justify anything.)

A big part of why I am trudging through this grim tome quoting chapter and verse is to show people what the Bible actually says. I am tearing the Bible a new asshole by quoting directly from it. And I am not quoting out of context like so many religious people do.

For example Jesus is often quoted as saying “Peace on Earth”, but here is the entire quote from Jesus “The Prince of Peace” Christ. Matthew 10:34 “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword”. Oh shit! That’s a little different huh?

And if you think I am taking that whole line out of context, Jesus goes on to say in the next line Matthew 10:35-37 “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

Here we see the “Lamb of God” clearly saying that not only has he brought his sword, but that he is also here to tear families apart if everyone in them doesn’t believe in him. “Man against father, daughter against mother”, you don’t see that Jesus quote on bumper stickers much. Jesus even goes so far to say that if you love your parents more than you love him you are not worthy of him. This statement is not only shamefully egotistical it is also in direct conflict with his father’s 5^th commandment, which states, “Thou shalt honor thy father and mother”. So which is it, obey the commandment that comes before “thou shalt not kill”, or break the 5th commandment and join Jesus’ fan club?

Many of Jesus’ best lines do not hold up when you look at them in context. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is another great example. Here is that quote in context.

Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

What Jesus is saying is that the “first and great” commandment, the commandment that is above all others, is still the reigning champ, the one… the only… The First Commandment! “You shall have no other gods before me”. Jesus says rule number one is obedience the God of the Old Testament with all thy heart and soul.. And then coming in at a distant second is rule number two, “love thy neighbor”. Loving Yahweh is clearly way more important than loving your neighbor. What does that say about how insecure and needy God is, and how little he cares about us and our well-being?

If you don’t like all the horrific Bible quotes I have been pointing out in this series of articles, if you don’t follow “those” parts of the Bible then you are not following the word of God. It is as simple as that. When you cherry pick the Bible you are in fact proving that it is not the word of God.

You are just finding meaning in stories, which is your right as an intelligent human. If you are just cherry picking in the cafeteria then that means the Bible is just a book like any other. Written by humans.

If you are a believer, when I point out the shitty things in the Bible you have to believe them, because they are in the Bible. When you decide to choose what to believe and what not to believe in the Bible you are in fact proving that you are the one in control of your relationship with “God”. You are the one who decides what you believe. That is the whole point of me writing these articles in the first place. Spiritual empowerment!

Lets face it, Unless you are stoning adulterers, slaughtering Canaanites, and subjugating women you are not following all the lord’s commands. Therefore you are the one deciding where to draw the line. You, not God.

Sifting through the Bible for bits of wisdom and morality is like sifting through shit looking for corn. You know its there but is it really worth it?

I am not saying that the Bible is all bad. There are the occasional life lessons to be had, but they are entrenched in madness. It’s as if there were some motivational speaker you really liked, and you found yourself so inspired by some of the things he says the you decide to read his autobiography. And so you read the book and it has some really great quotes in it but, there is a part in the book where he kills 10 innocent people to win a bet, and it also mentions several times that you should kill all fags.

I would just like to apologize to anyone who was offended by that last statement. Things have gotten dark. I just get excited about words. Words build bridges into unexplored regions, and sometimes I get a little overheated in my desire to shine a light so people can see the darkness. I get fired up because if you want to shine like the sun first you have to burn like it. That was such a powerful lesson for me to learn. As in everything, nature is the best instructor. My advice is to be more like nature. Do not compare yourself to others. If you do so, you are insulting yourself.

If you noticed my writing style just changed a bit it back there it’s because all of the italicized lines in the paragraph above were all quotes from someone else. He was a very motivational speaker, and he is a household name. This person was actually baptized a Roman Catholic. He took communion. He was even an altar boy. His name was Adolph Hitler.

Anyone can cherry pick anything. And when it comes to the Bible I am not the one picking cherries by pointing out the evil parts. Cafeteria Christians are, by choosing what to believe and what not to believe. Things like “turn the other cheek” are the cherries. They are cherries deep inside a mountain of shit. I am not cherry picking, I am pointing out the giant pile of shit the cherries are buried in. There is enough shit in the Bible to kill you. Do not eat it or it will consume you. Thoroughly wash anything you get from it. It is toxic. It may be cherry flavored, but it’s still shit.

And I can hear all the Christians now. They are saying, “But Christianity is better than Judaism because the New Testament is more evolved. It doesn’t have all the genocide and rape.” That is the ultimate form of cherry picking! These Christians just ignore the whole first half of the Bible. Well most of it. They still believe in fairy tales like Noah’s ark, and Adam and Eve.

The New Testament is called the New Testament because it references itself against the Old Testament. Without the Old Testament there is no New Testament. The Old Testament gives the New Testament street cred. The New Testament uses the Old Testament to position itself as some sort of revelation. The whole point is that Jesus was the messiah of the Jewish religion documented in the Old Testament. Jesus makes reference to the Old Testament all the time. He practically uses it as a resume. “You know that messiah you are all waiting for, that’s me. Oh and God is totally my dad. No big deal.”

The funny part is that the Jews disagree. They are still waiting for their messiah. Meanwhile the Christians continue to promote the Judeo/Yahweh myth for them. The fact is there is no Christianity without Judaism. So stop pretending that the Old Testament doesn’t count.

Either this book is the word of God, or it is not. Either this book was divinely inspired and is the holiest book on the planet, or it is a collection of short stories and laws meant to control people thousands of years ago.

You do not get to cherry pick from the book God wrote and still think of it as a book God wrote. If you think the Bible is just a book that you can edit your favorite parts out of then it’s just that, just a book. So take some lines out of the Bible and leave the rest on the shelf, or even better in the trash. Stop believing that it is anything other than Middle Eastern socio-political mythology. Take what lessons there are and move on. Find another cherry tree to pick.

As far as I am concerned there is only one cherry worth picking in Bible. There are only 3 words worth remembering from that entire book. There is only one soundbite I choose to believe and live my life by. That line is… “Love one another”.

The rest is bullshit.

This is the story of Cain and Abel. Or more to the point this is the story of the first murder. According to the Bible, of the first two people born to humanity one was murdered and one was a murderer. This is the regard that the Bible holds humanity in. This dark tale of jealousy and rage basically sets the tone for the rest of the Bible. This is a very short story so I will go through it line by line.

But first a little back-story. Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve. You remember them, the very first two people on Earth. God kicked them out of the Garden of Eden for eating the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In addition to being banished from eternal paradise, God decided that Eve, and therefore all women, should experience pain in childbirth (God actually says, “In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children”. What an asshole!), and God also tells Eve that she, and therefore all women, are to be subservient to men. Adam gets off pretty easy in comparison. He, and therefore all men, will have to labor hard to get food to grow from the ground. And then after cursing all of humanity because two people did something he didn’t like, God gives Adam and Eve the boot. And now we pick up our story at the beginning of the 4^th chapter in the Bible.

Genesis 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

“Knew” is a biblical euphemism for sex. The fact that they would use a euphemism for the act of sexual intercourse only goes to show the sexual repression embedded throughout the Bible. What could possibly be wrong with saying Adam had sex with Eve? But no, Adam “knew” Eve. Did Eve “know” Adam, or was this a one-way affair? It is ridiculous that this is the first mention of sex in the Bible and the writer (God?) feels the need to avoid the subject. Uggggh, anyway, Eve bares a son and names him Cain. Cain is the first true human, born of humans. Eve is so excited she exclaims “I have gotten a man from the LORD”. I point this out because soon we shall see just what kind of man the “LORD” has given her.

Genesis 4:2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

The Bible, fearing that is might have gone too far with its scintillating description of sex in the last line now chooses to gloss over the subject all together. And because there is no mention of Adam and Eve having sex to create Abel, it is unclear whether Cain and Abel were twins or not. If they were twins you’d think the Bible would just mention it. The Bible specifically mentions that Esau and Jacob were twins. (We will get to their terrible story another time)

In this line we also learn that the younger brother Abel was a shepherd, and the older brother Cain was a farmer. It seems like we missed a rather large portion of these two children’s upbringing. We go from they are born to here are their occupations. And I would like to point out that Eve does not exclaim like she did with Cain that God has given her another man.

Genesis 4:3-4 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering.

Ok. Here is where things start to take a turn for the worse. Eventually Cain brings an offering to God. (Why Cain or anyone in that family would feel the need to give offerings to the jerk of a God who kicked them out of paradise on trumped-up charges is not explained) Cain is a farmer and so his offering to God is one of “the fruit of the ground” aka fruits and vegetables.

Then Abel Brings his offering to God, and since Abel is a shepherd is offerings are “the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof”. I thought firstlings would be the little baby lambs because firstlings sounds like such a cute word, but they are in fact the first-born, which means these would be full-grown sheep (and the fat thereof). And the LORD makes it a point to respect Abel and his offering of flesh and blood. I wonder how exactly does God express his respect? Is Abel there slaughtering sheep and God actually says “Hey Abel. Great job killing those animals for me. Here, have some of my respect”? Does God give him a big thumb’s up from the clouds?

And then comes the big moment when God snubs Cain and his offering. Genesis 4:5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

Again, here we see this asshole of a God starting trouble that doesn’t need to be there. What is so wrong with offering “the fruits of the ground” to God? Didn’t God make fruits and vegetables? In fact, according to his own accounts he made plants before he made animals and people. It seems like they would be pretty worthy of respect. But God is clearly not a vegetarian. Quite the opposite. He somehow has no respect for Farmer Cain’s offering. What the fuck does God have against vegetables? Vegetables that he created?! This lack of respect pisses off Cain very much. An omnipotent and omniscient God would know that by disrespecting Cain in this manner it would send him into a potentially murderous rage. And if that weren’t enough God rubs Cain’s face in it.

Genesis 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

First of all dickhead, aren’t you supposed to be God? What’s with all the questions? I don’t have to be God to know why he Cain is “wroth”. You basically shat on his offering and now he is upset. God knows exactly what he has done and why Cain’s countenance has fallen. Yet he cruelly toys with Cain by asking these questions.

And then God makes things even worse. He scolds Cain for not being good enough. (Remember this is how God is treating the very first two humans born on the planet immediately after the very first religious ceremony in his honor! Playing favorites and setting them against each other. Sound familiar?)

In Genesis 4:6 God tells Cain “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”

Wow! That is some bull-ass-shit. God tells Cain that if he does well then, and only then, will God accept him. Again, what is so wrong with fruits and vegetables? This is the very first religious ceremony and there have been no rules laid down by this twisted God describing the way he wants his sacrifices made. Able was a shepherd and so he offered animals, and Cain was a farmer and so he offered fruits and vegetables. Is God saying that the way to do well is to not be a farmer? Is God saying that the only offerings he likes include blood and death? God is basically telling Cain that in order for him to be happy with an offering something must die.

And then God goes on to say that “If thou doest not well then sin lieth at the door”. So if I do wrong by offering fruits and vegetables to God then now all of the sudden “sin” is waiting for me on my doorstep, and “he” (apparently Sin has a penis) desires to get unto me, but I should rule over him? This is God telling Cain that if he offends God (with a fruit salad or maybe some broccoli) then he will be setting himself up for being taken over by the sin that is crouching at his doorstep like a wild animal. God also warns Cain that this animal of sin really desires to take Cain over, and then God gives the meager advice in half a sentence that says Cain should control his desire for sin.

Apparently God is not a very good teacher because Cain kills Abel in the very next line.

Genesis 4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

And thee you have it. The first murder ever. Totally instigated by, and inspired by God. It happened as a result of two brothers taking part in the first worship of Yahweh, and it ended with one of them being driven to kill the other. God blatantly disrespected Cain’s offering (remember we are talking about fucking fruits and vegetables here) and Cain got upset. Then God says that if you do bad then sin is waiting at your doorstep. God basically plants the idea to murder his brother in Cain’s head. He says when you do bad you will be tempted to do even worse things. And then almost as an after thought he says “oh, but you should rule over sin.” So what is the next thing Cain does after his very first conversation with God? He kills his baby brother. (And keep in mind he did not just kill his brother, he killed 25% of the people living on Earth.)

What did they talk about in the field before Cain rose up and slew Abel? This is not mentioned. Nor is it mentioned how Cain actually murdered his brother. Maybe he stabbed him in the eye with a carrot. All we know is that Cain killed his little brother in a fit of jealous rage because God played favorites.

Genesis 4:9 And the LORD said unto Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother”? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?

Again with the questions. How is it that this all-powerful, all-knowing God doesn’t know exactly what happened? There are only 4 people in the universe, did he lose track of them? It’s not like they were spread out all over the planet. This is just God playing dumb so he can torment Cain some more and watch him squirm.

Then Cain comes back with the first snappy retort in history, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Zing! Apparently sin breeds sarcasm too.

And then this omniscient God has yet another question for Cain. Genesis 4:10 And he said, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.”

God knows goddamned well what Cain has done. First of all he instigated it, and second of all he is fucking God! So why ask Cain what he has done? Maybe God just wants to get his rocks off by hearing Cain say it. And how is it that God can hear the voice of Abel’s blood crying to him from the ground (apparently Cain buried Abel), but God didn’t know that Abel was getting murdered in the first place? And why is God even upset? Isn’t Cain just giving God the kind of offering he asked for? Cain just wanted to be accepted by God, and God said the only way that he could to do it was to forget those stupid fruits and vegetables and offer a sacrifice with blood and death. So why not make the first human sacrifice and kill your brother? (And I should point out that there is no mention of where Adam and Eve while all of this is happening).

Cain murdering his brother almost seems like a logical conclusion based on God’s insane behavior thus far. It is almost as if God wanted him to do it all along. He set the whole thing up, and he watched his little pets turn on each other. Just like when God set the trap for Adam and Eve. He must have known that this would happen, and yet he pretends that he is disappointed in his creation.

And so yet again, God curses the second man on the planet. Genesis 4:11-12 “And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.”

Hey God, if you end up cursing everyone you make, then it might be time for you to take a look at yourself. What’s the common denominator here? Just sayin’. And notice how God curses Cain (the son of Adam) with the same curse he cursed Adam with, namely that his working of the land should be a huge pain in the ass. God also adds that Cain shall be a fugitive and a vagabond. This is also similar to God kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, that they might wander the earth and toil in sorrow.

Cain replies in Genesis 4:13-14 And Cain said unto the LORD,” My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.”

 Um, wait a minute, Cain is afraid that everyone that findeth him shall slay him, but the only two other people on the planet are his mom and dad. Who is Cain so afraid of? His parents might be pissed but I doubt they would kill him. Especially since they are on God’s shit list already. So who is this “every one” that Cain thinks will slay him?

That question is never answered, but God does take it into consideration, and in the next line of this twisted story the story gets even more twisted. Genesis 4:15 And the LORD said unto him, “Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold”. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

Ok. Now that is just sending mixed messages. Big time. Cain murders his brother whom God respected, and is punished by having to be a fugitive and a vagabond. Cain complains that his punishment is not fair because everyone else will kill him. And God’s response is to put a mark of protection on Cain and promise to avenge his death seven fold?! How does that even make a bit of sense? And what about avenging Abel’s death? Wasn’t Abel the one that pleased God? Doesn’t giving God an offering that he respects warrant any justice whatsoever? It is as if God never cared about Abel at all.

God has just decided to not only guard this murderer, but he also swears to kill seven people if someone kills Cain. I used to think that the “Mark of Cain” was a disgraceful thing, but it isn’t. It basically means you are a “made guy” in Yahweh’s mafia. People won’t mess with you because they know if they do then God will take out their whole family.

And then finally it says in Genesis 4:16 And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

And that is the story of Cain and Abel. This is just the second story in the Bible, but you can already see what a sick manipulative scumbag God is. He really seems more like the Devil if you think about it.

But wait there is one more huge piece of nonsense to add to this shit sandwich. Here is the very next line in the Bible.

Genesis 4:17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

HIS WIFE?!?!?! Where the hell did this wife come from? There were no other people on the planet except his mother and father. So did Cain have sex with his mother? Is Cain’s son actually his younger brother? And if not, then where did this woman come from?! If anything, this woman would have to be his sister many years down the line, since the only people around to make babies were his parents. Cain was sent out to wander the earth as punishment for murdering his brother, and the very next thing the Bible tells us is that he has met a woman, married her, and had a kid? Come on Bible! Do yourself a favor and make a little sense.

Seriously.

The rest of the chapter is full of Cain’s (and therefore Adam and Eve’s) lineage. Remember this is the same lineage that Fundamentalist Christians use to determine the “true” age of the universe. They just add up all the ages of all the people in the Bible, and that’s that. Genius! Why didn’t Steven Hawking think of that?

So Cain’s son (by his mysterious wife, possibly his mother, possibly his sister) was named Enoch. Unto Enoch was born the son Irad. (Again there is no mention of God making any more women up to this point, so maybe they are all still banging Eve.) Irad begat Mehujael, Mehujael begat Methusael, and Methusael begat Lamech. Still no mention of God creating other women whatsoever. (Eve has been a busy girl I guess).

It is worth noting here that Lamech is Noah’s father. Yes that Noah. (It is interesting to note that according to the Bible only 8 generations had passed between Adam and Noah and yet society was so evil that God decided to kill everyone with a flood and start over.) It also says that Lamech took himself two wives. He is the first in a long line of polygamists in the Bible. But hang on, where did these other women come from?! Even if Eve had been pumping out all of these babies where did this other woman come from? There is no mention of anyone bearing a daughter whatsoever? Why does the Bible hate women so much that it doesn’t even bother to mention where they come from? Why is it just men who beget sons, and somehow take wives out of nowhere?

The only woman they mention being created is Eve and she is the one God blames for everything going wrong. And now seven generations later we have mention of two other women Adah and Zillah.

Then later in the chapter Lamech admits to killing a young man (for unknown reasons), but then he professes that since God would avenge Cain seven fold, then God will surely avenge him seventy seven times over. Genesis 4:24 If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold. What a sick world these people live in.

The chapter ends with Adam and Eve showing up again and quickly popping out another son, Seth. Genesis 4:25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

And that’s it. That’s the second story in the Bible. So what is the moral of the story here? God hates vegetables. God loves blood sacrifices. God protects and avenges murderers. Oh, and women just appear out of nowhere.

I am going to make this one as quick as possible because it sickens me that almost half of this country believes the Bible is factually correct. I know there is no reasoning with “faith” so I will be as brief as I can in my overview of one of the most ridiculous things I can think of, a literal interpretation of the Bible.

The Bible is just a book. God did not write it! (I can’t believe I even have to say that) The Biblical account of creation is a myth. And as myths go, it is as good as any other explanation for the way things are. But to take this fiction as fact is simply wrong. It is the worst kind of willful ignorance.

It pains me to say that there is actually something called Young Earth Creationism. Young Earth Creationists are religious people who believe the universe, and the Earth, and people, and everything were all created by an act of God less than 10,000 years ago. Supposedly, according to a recent poll, around 40% of Americans believe in Young Earth Creationism. (Which explains a lot about America)

Young Earth Creationists reject every scientific theory that does not agree with a literal reading of the Bible. (This hurts my brain to think about.) They reject science and rational thought because of a book that was written four thousand years ago.

If the Bible, the word of God, was written in 100-foot letters carved into the side of a mountain with lightning bolts and signed by God himself, then maybe I could see putting some faith into the literal interpretation of this book. But the undeniable fact is that these American creationists are reading a book in English that has been translated from language to language over a period of two thousand years. There are a lot of unbelievable miracles in the Bible, but the Bible these creationists are reading actually being the exact translation of the word of God passed down through 20 centuries is the least believable miracle of them all.

And yet this compilation of hearsay that has a documented history of being edited over and over by humans is taken as the exact word of God. And not only that, every piece of science or reality that goes against this literal interpretation is rejected.

So what does creation science consist of? Here is a prime example. They just added up all the ages of all the people in the Bible and counted backwards to figure out the date for the creation of the universe. They came up with a date somewhere between 4000 BC and 5500 BC. Their proof of this theory consists entirely of one book telling them so. And they are so wrong, so very wrong. Science tells us that the universe is around 14 billion years old. Creationists are wrong by six orders of magnitude. That is a factor of a million times. They are one million times wrong, but do they care? Heck no! They just double-down on stupid because of blind faith in a book. (It is funny that these anti-intellectuals worship a book.)

These hideous idiots reject virtually every field of science (except simple addition which they use to add up the ages of all the people in the Bible). They believe every science that does not agree with a literal interpretation of the Bible is wrong. (How insane is that?!) They reject the sciences of Astronomy, Archeology, Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry, Cosmology, Genetics, Geology, Ecology, Optics, Paleontology, Physics and Zoology just to name a handful. They believe that all of these sciences, which agree with each other, are actually conspiring to hide the truth that the Bible holds all the true answers to everything. (And I thought I was a conspiracy theorist.)

Here are some of the things these people think are true. Correction. These people do not think, and they are proud of it. Here are some of the things these people believe are true.

– They believe there is no such thing as evolution. Well then, if selective breeding cannot change character traits over time then please explain dachshunds. First there were wolves then there were dachshunds. How did that happen? Oh, and lets not forget Noah. What about him, you ask? Well, if after the flood everyone on earth was dead except Noah and his family, and if we assume (unlike creationists) that Noah looked like a Middle Eastern guy, then why don’t we all look like Noah? Explain Africans and Asians and Europeans without using the theory of evolution.

– They believe carbon dating is not real. They reject the sciences of physics and chemistry, because they do not fit into their story. And yet they use the same physics and chemistry they so arrogantly reject whenever they use a computer, or drive a car. There is an archeological site that has recently been unearthed in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe. It is the oldest known stone circle in the world. It predates Stonehenge by 6000 years. It has been carbon dated to around 11,500 years ago. This site alone disproves everything creationists believe about the universe. (It calls into question everything traditional archaeologists think about civilization as well) It is proof that they are wrong. But do creationists change their paradigm like science is being forced to? No. They just shut their eyes and stick their head in the sand of the Promised Land.

– They believe men thousands of years ago lived to be nearly 1000 years old. The genealogies of Genesis record the line of descent from Adam through Noah to Abraham. Young Earth Creationists interpret these genealogies literally, including the old ages of many of the central characters in Genesis. For example, according to the Bible Adam died at 930 years old, Noah lived to be 950 years old, and Methuselah lived to be 969 years old.

– They believe that the story of Noah’s ark really happened. They believe a 600-year-old man built a 500-foot long boat, and then gathered two of every species of animal on the planet (including dinosaurs) and brought them on the ark with him. And remember, there is no such thing as evolution so he had to get every single species of animal on the planet right now. I have already written extensively on this ridiculous story. Please read my article Noah’s Ark for more.

– They believe dinosaurs and humans coexisted. Dinosaurs went bye-bye 65 million years ago. But creationists believe there is no such thing as 65 million years ago. Homo Sapiens first appeared around 200,000 years ago. However, according to the Bible the concept of 200,000 years ago is impossible so the creationists have to make sense of the fossil record by deciding that humans and dinosaurs coexisted. Not only that, they go so far as to believe that humans domesticated dinosaurs. The picture below of a saddle on a triceratops is from the Creation Museum, in Kentucky. Keep in mind that this is not a ride at a Chuck E. Cheese’s, this is not something you put a quarter in and let your kid jiggle around on, this is someone’s mixed up idea of “Creation Science”. This is what they really believe really happened based on a literal interpretation of the Bible.

Really?! It is like going to Disneyland and deciding to believe that it is a natural history museum. “I believe that elephants really can fly! I don’t care what science says because I saw it in my favorite movie, so it has to be true!”

If humans and dinosaurs coexisted it means that Noah would have had to have dinosaurs on the ark. One time I asked a creationist how Noah would be able to get all the dinosaurs on the ark, and he had no answer. But he told me that he would ask his pastor and get back to me. (Here we see the heartbreaking truth that these imbeciles are unable to think for themselves anymore) To his credit he did get back to me with his pastor’s answer, which he got from the Creation Science Research Center. Here it is, “Noah only needed to bring baby dinosaurs on the ark. Then he could fit them all on there.” This is just another example of how hard these people will think in order to not think.

– They believe the earth is flat. In the Bible it says that the Earth is fixed and immovable. 1 Chronicles 16:30 Fear before him, all the earth: the world also shall be stable, that it be not moved. That’s all the proof I need, so fuck you astronomy!

– They believe the Bible is historically accurate. Not only that, they believe it is written by God himself. It figuratively blows my mind they take this book literally. And again, to me the greatest miracle of them all must surely be that after thousands of years of translation after translation, through version after version, the word of God is still exactly it was first spoken. (Side note: If your Bible has the word “version” on the cover, then it’s not the immutable word of God) How could they have so much faith in a book that was written by hundreds of men thousands of years ago?

How frightened must they be at the thought of having to think for themselves that they would just give up all rational thinking and accept that all the answers to everything are in the Bible? 2+2 = the Bible. When was the Grand Canyon formed? The Bible. How old is the universe? The Bible. And if the answers don’t fit the narrative then the answers are wrong.

There is nothing they can point to in the Bible that refutes science. They can only say that they believe what they want to believe, and so they do. They are afraid to evolve and so they don’t. In fact it is as if they have devolved. They are living in the dark ages, but with cell phones. It all goes to show the power of belief. It can set a mind free, or it can turn someone’s brain into mush.

I could go on, but I can feel myself getting less intelligent with every word.

Does science have all the answers? No. And science, good science, does not claim to. Science and rational thought know that things change. Scientists know that new facts emerge which cause paradigms to shift. That is how science works. You can’t just say that the universe in 6000 years old because you read it in a book. (I can’t believe I even have to say that as well)

Creationists have intentionally lost touch with reality. This is a mental illness. (A fundamental illness if you will) They have severed ties with the real world and have succumbed to the spell of a 4000-year-old book. I bet most of these people havn’t even actually read the book they believe God wrote from cover to cover. They have meekly and merely had sound bites from it read to them, and interpreted for them.

In a sad way it doesn’t even surprise me that these people believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. It doesn’t surprise me that religious people could become so confused, because I am constantly amazed by the fact that there are “rational” Christians who believe in science yet still believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, died for their sins, and came back from the dead. How much farther is it really to go from virgin birth to the universe started with page one of the Bible? Creationism is just taking religionism to it’s (ill)logical conclusion. These people will believe anything.

Just because you believe something doesn’t make it true.

The story of creation in the Bible is just that, a story. It is a myth. And as myths go it is pretty good up to the whole forbidden fruit thing.

Once upon a time, there was a first cause that made the universe. Call it whatever you want and it is pretty hard to argue with. Something made something somehow. Anything past that is perhaps not ours to know. So we make up stories.

In the Bible God spoke the world into being. In other creation myths the universe came from an egg (china), or severed limbs (Norse), or from masturbation, (Egypt). They are all myths. They are stories we tell ourselves to make sense of things we can’t understand. Things like the beginning of the universe.

This creation myth doesn’t say why God created everything or what he was doing before it all started. This myth gives no purpose for creation, and in that respect I respect it. It does not fill itself with the all too human failings of a jealous, and murderous God. It is metaphysical folklore. For a myth it’s not bad at all, but it must not be mistaken (mythtaken) for the truth.

And now, let us begin…

Day 1. There is darkness in a formless watery void. Somehow the “spirit of God” is there as well. God utters the familiar phrase “Let there be light”, and there was light. God sees the light he has divided from the darkness, and decides that it is good. Then the Bible says “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” (How could there be a day if there were no stars or planets?)

Day 2. God creates the firmament in the midst of the waters. He calls this firmament Heaven. Here is where it gets a little confusing. Genesis 1:7-8 says And God made the firmament and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

So if the firmament is Heaven I can understand how there would be waters below the firmament/Heaven, but it says that there are “waters above the firmament” as well. That means there are waters above heaven. I’m not sure what to make of that. I’m also not sure how two days have passed when there are no stars or planets.

Day 3. God Makes the dry land appear and calls it Earth. He gathers the waters and calls them Seas, and he sees that they are good.

He also creates plant life. In Genesis 1:11 it says And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. As a gardener I am all about this. So far this God is A-OK in my book. If all he did was create water, and Earth and Heaven and plants I would have no problems with him, but alas this is not exactly the behavior he is known for.

Day 4. God puts lights in the heaven to divide day from night. God makes a greater light to rule the day, aka the Sun, and a lesser light to rule the night, aka the Moon. (Again, to me this is as good as any myth about the creation of the universe, the sun and moon. It must not be confused with a factual account of the way things went down, but it is a pretty good myth as myths go.)

God also creates the stars and seasons and years and days. (4 days in and God finally invents days?! How does that work? And how is it that God created plants on the third day but he created the sun on the 4^th day. How could plants live by photosynthesis if there was no Sun?)

Day 5. God creates animals that live in the water, and in the air. Genesis 1:21 says And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. I am pleased to see that the first animals the Bible mentions are “great whales”. I would imagine that many, if not most of the people in the desert 4000 years ago would never have come in contact with a whale. Nowadays we get to see pictures and videos and go to museums, but how would Joe Mesopotamia even know what a whale was? I don’t know. I just thought it was interesting that the Bible would mention whales first.

Again, if all the God of the Bible did was make plants and whales and birds and stars and planets I would be all about Him. But it isn’t and so I’m not.

Day 6. God creates land animals, and everything that creepeth on the earth. (the Bible is big on things that creepeth)

Oh, and God makes man (yay for us!). Genesis 1:26 And God said, ”Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” (Seriously, I gotta start working “creepeth” into conversations)

There are two tings worth noting in that last passage. First of all, I thought there was only supposed to be one God. The God of the Bible is famous for his singularity. Yahweh is known for being the God of monotheism, so who are the “us” he mentions when he says “Let us make man in our image”?

The second thing worth noting here is that in this passage God grants man “dominion” over all the animals of the sea, sky and land. Here we begin to see how man detaches himself from the natural world. Here we see the beginnings of man treating the animal kingdom with disrespect. Here is the beginning factory farms and cosmetic testing. Here is the Biblical justification for over-fishing and animal cruelty.

And God also creates woman. Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Here in one line God creates men and women. He then blesses them and tells them to be fruitful and multiply. Wow! I just now noticed the embedded command in the phrase “be fruitful”. The first thing God tells man and woman is to be fruitful, and then later in the garden of Eden he tells them to not eat the fruit. But in their heads they are thinking he said to be fruitful (fruit full!) and so they make themselves full of fruit because God told them too. It’s so obvious now! But I digress. God tells man and woman to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. (Sound’s great to me). He also tells them to subdue and have dominion over the earth and the animals. (A slippery slope to say the least)

God explains to man and woman that the plants and animals are for food. And then he sits back and looks at everything he had made and sees that it was good. (And I have to agree. I am a big fan of nature and the universe and I am grateful to them for being “bigger than me”.)

And “Thus the heavens and the Earth were finished”.

Day 7. God rested. (Would God really need to rest? If he is all-powerful and omnipotent why did he need to rest? What would happen to him if he didn’t rest? Would he pull a muscle or get sick? Would God get chronic fatigue syndrome? Could he burn out his adrenals? Why would an all-powerful God need to take a break? Yes you just created everything in one metaphorical week but come on, you’re God.

Regardless, This is actually one of the best parts of the Bible because God hasn’t done anything horrible yet. This is just a mythological account of something coming from nothing, and I am cool with that. Nobody knows what happened so go ahead and make up a story about it. That’s what humans do. Everything after the creation, everything from original sin to the crucifixion, nearly everything in the Bible after this first chapter is objectionable, but this story is pure. It has no dogma. It has no rules, or agenda, and it doesn’t demand that you worship it. It is just the mythical folklore of the Jew’s God creating the world. If it ended here it would be as good as any other creation myth. But as we all know the 7^th day was the last good day in the universe. Because on the 8^th day God started messing with humans and things went south quick.

But first, in true Biblical style, the Bible immediately repeats itself and contradicts itself at the same time. Yes, three lines into chapter 2 of the Bible it gives yet another account of the creation. One that is markedly different from the first.

The second account of creation doesn’t bother counting the days. It just says what God did. God created Heaven, earth, plants, and then water. Then he creates man. Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Again, as far as myths go I am fine with all of this. My problem is when people take these accounts to be factual.

Then God places the man he created in the Garden of Eden. God creates every tree for man to eat from, but there are two trees that are specifically mentioned. One is the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil. We all know about that tree. And then there is the other tree. The Tree of Life. This Tree of life is only mentioned in passing a couple times but it is apparent that God does not want man to eat from the Tree of life. Why? In Genesis 3:22 God says to someone else (who can it be if there is only one God?!) “Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” Who is God talking to? And why doesn’t he want us to live forever?

But I am getting ahead of myself. So, God has created heaven, earth, plants, water, man, a garden, and magical trees (The tree of Life, and the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil) It is also worth noting here that by God’s own admission it was then that he created evil. He created good and he created evil. I repeat, he created evil. Him. He is the one. He did it. So how could anyone but him be responsible for all the evil things that have ever been or ever will be? How could he blame anyone else for being evil when he created evil in the first place? (And in Eve’s defense I’d just like to point out that he created evil before he created woman.)

Then God made some Rivers in Eden and named them Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates (yes that Euphrates). He tells man where to find gold, and bdellium (used for incense), and onyx. (for what purposes he does not mention).

Then it is here that this myth loses me. It is here that God tells Adam that he must never eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, because if he does then that day he will surely die. (This turns out to be a lie because according to the Bible Adam does eat the forbidden fruit and lives another 900 years). It is at this early stage in the creation of the universe that God sets his trap for humanity. It is as if he wants to have a reason to kick them out of the Garden of Eden so he can keep the Tree of Life all to himself. But again I digress.

Then after forbidding Adam from eating from the Tree of Knowledge, God sees that Adam is lonely, and that “it is not good that man should be alone.” So what does he do? Create woman? No. In this account of creation God creates man then he creates animals. Then God presents Adam with all the animals, and Adam names them all. But eventually God realizes that even with all these animals to keep Adam company “there was not found an help meet for him”. (A help meet is a helpmate)

So then God causes Adam to sleep and he pulls a rib out of Adam, and from this rib he fashions woman. Why is it that God created the entire universe out of nothing but he needs Adam’s rib to create one more thing? Perhaps to let women know that they come from man and not directly from God like men do. And remember ladies, God created man, then animals, then woman in that order. Know your place.

So there were our man and woman, naked and unashamed in the Garden of Eden. And that is pretty much the end of the second creation account. Because the very next line is where the magical talking snake convinces Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and it is all down hill from there.

This account is remarkably different from the first account. In the previous account man and woman were created simultaneously on day 6 after God created animals on day 5. In this account God creates man, then he creates animals then he creates woman. We are only 2 pages into the Bible and already it can’t keep its story straight.

The first account of creation is fine by me. It is a good myth. The second account is where the bullshit creepeth in. The second account is where the rules come in. It’s where the threats from God come in. This is where God begins to show his true colors and sets the tone for the rest of the Bible.

These are myths. And taken as such they are fine. Even the second account is just a story. One with presuppositions about God and women that I do not care for, but still it is just a story.

To me the fact that people in 2017 actually believe this is really how the universe, and the Earth, and plants and animals, and man and woman were created is as astounding as it is dumbfounding.

A lot of people think that in order for me to feel so strongly about religion that I must have been raised religious and I am rebelling against it. That is not the case at all. I wasn’t raised with a shred of religion. (Well, actually for a few years in the 80’s my mom got “born again” and tried to bring me along, but I wasn’t having it.) The fact that I have never been religious doesn’t mean I can’t speak out against religion, in the same way that I have never been a slave, but I can still think slavery is wrong.

I also wasn’t raised to be atheist. We just didn’t talk about religion and that was that. We still celebrated Christmas and Easter when I was a little kid but not in a religious sense. It was more of a presents and candy thing. I see now that those holidays have a deeper darker meaning, and I have not celebrated them since I was a child.

And I would like to point out that while I am opposed to theism, I do not identify myself as an “atheist”. I choose to define myself by what I am. I am a free thinker.

I choose not to label myself, or identify myself by what I don’t believe. I do not say that I am an azeusist, or an aodinist, or an asantaclausist, because all of these things are taken for granted by the fact that I am a rational and reasonable human living in the 21st century.

I would never rape a woman. That doesn’t mean that every time I meet a woman I have to tell her I’m an arapist. I am not a racist, that doesn’t mean that when I meet a black person I have to tell them I am an aniggerist. And just because I am a freethinking human living in the present that doesn’t mean that I have to say I am an atheist.

But how do I know so much about the Bible? I went to catholic school for 7 years, from 6-12^th grade. From an early age I was highly intelligent and had a problem with authority. This made me a bit of a discipline case by the time I got to junior high so my mom sent me to a Catholic school (Saint Monica’s) to get a good education and keep me out of trouble (drugs, gangs, etc.)

Then I moved in with my dad for high school, and I ended up going to another Catholic school (Notre Dame) because they had a very good football team and an excellent academic program (and also to keep me out of trouble).

I stayed out of trouble for the most part. Nothing bad ever happened to me at those schools. No priests touched me in an untoward manner, and no one ever hit me with a ruler. But they did try to get me to believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins. They tried for 7 years, but to no avail.

The funniest part about going to Catholic school (other than the sisters who took male names like Sister Steven, or Sister Christopher) was the fact that the science classroom where they taught us biology was right across the hall from the room where they taught us about virgin birth and coming back from the dead. This contradiction was of course lost on them.

The most disturbing part of going to catholic school was the fact that there were (and I’m sure still are) crucifixes in every room. Not crosses mind you, Crucifixes. Crucifixes with a gaunt, freshly tortured Christ dying on them. Nails through the hands and feet, crown of thorns, hound dog eyes, the whole shebang. In every room.

Even as an 11-year-old kid I knew that shit was just wrong, so I maintained my purity of essence despite the efforts of the adults around me to convert me to their morbidly perverse worldview. We had religion class every day, and I asked questions the teachers couldn’t answer with anything other than “faith”, (which is the religious version of your parent telling you to do something “because I said so, that’s why”). I went to mass, and I paid attention. I learned and I remembered. Even back then I thought to myself “know thy enemy”. I studied the Bible for years, and now I know more about the Bible than most religious people. And that is a big part of why I am doing this, because I know what I am talking about, and it is time to speak my peace about this violent and bigoted book.

In these articles I am not just complaining about religion, and poking fun at believers. Its too easy and not very clever to just say, “Your beliefs are retarded”. I am putting years of study to good use. I am quoting chapter and verse. I am quite literally making a case against the Bible. I am using the word of God to condemn the God of the Bible, (and the men who wrote it). The quotes, and stories and rules, I am pulling out of the Bible are preposterous or offensive to any thinking person. The sexist, racist, genocidal statements that I am shining a light on are quoted directly from the Bible. If you don’t like them then pick a better favorite book.

And if after taking a good hard look at what the Bible actually says you still insist on following these dark fantasies to the grave, that’s fine. It’s your life. But keep it out of society. I don’t care if you believe Star Wars really happened and that Obi Wan Kenobi died for your sins. Believe whatever the fuck you want. I don’t care just as long as you keep it out of the schools and the government. (And I also think it should extend to not using your beliefs to abuse, mutilate, or endanger your children in any way. For example circumcising infants, or denying your children proper medical care because of God’s plan).

I am doing this to shine a light on all the dark parts of the Bible that religious people willfully ignore. I am here to point out all of the ridiculous and disgusting shit in your supposedly holy scripture. I want to show Christians and Jews (most of whom haven’t even read the Bible) what they really believe, because by saying “well there’s some good stuff in there too” they are legitimizing the rape and genocide, and presuppositions of original sin. (And if you are wondering why I am not critiquing the Koran, it is because I have not studied the Koran)

The stories in the Bible are just myths. They are myths about betrayal, and murder, and jealousy, and rage, and rape, and misogyny, and racism, and slavery, and love, and fear, and hatred, and blood, and genocide, and damnation, and salvation from a God who damned you in the first place. Can’t we as a people come up with a better metaphor for life than this? Can’t we find meaning without this nonsense?

Our lives are determined by our narratives. Our worldview, (and therefore the world we view) is formed by our metaphors and by the stories we tell ourselves. So choose your stories well. Find a better one than one that says you are a mistake God made. Choose a better story than one that says you are guilty because God killed himself.

The truth is you don’t have to assume there is a heaven and hell in order to be inspired to be a good person. And besides, as a Tweet from @TheGoodGodAbove so aptly put it, “If the threat of eternal damnation is the only thing keeping you from being a shitty person, you’re already a shitty person.” You don’t have to assume we are born sinners in order to strive to be a better person. And you don’t have to believe that God crucified himself out of love for you in order for you to love yourself.

My intention here is not to make fun of the Bible, but to make light of it. I am using humor (dare I say wit?) to shine a light on this dark dark book. I am doing this so that any semi-religious or “non-practicing” people can extinguish that shred of doubt inside them that says, “you should believe this stuff because your parents did”. There is a reason they cram this stuff into kids’ heads when they are too young to have developed a critical faculty, and I want you to be able to make an informed decision as an adult whether or not to buy into this Bronze Age fairytale. Because the fact is that if you were raised religious, you never really had a choice.

I am doing this because I see religion as the biggest source of limiting beliefs on the planet. It creates deep-seated guilt and fear that plagues people for their entire lives. It has done (and continues to do) far more harm than good, and anything good that religion does do can be done without religion if people were just nice to one another.

It is time for society to wake up.

The Bible is just a book! It’s certainly not a “good book”, and like most things that are written by committee its not even written well. It is a scattered and contradictory collection of 2 to 4 thousand year old folklore and hearsay upon hearsay.

Religion is just a meme. Judeo-Christianity is a mind virus and I am the vaccine. Well, actually I am just a spiritual health care professional. Reason and free thought are the vaccine. Logic, and the courage to be present in the universe we live in are the cure to this Middle Eastern disease that has spread like a pandemic across the globe.

It has not been easy for me to revisit and reveal the depravity in such a barbaric book. It is infuriating and depressing to research and write about how this book has afflicted history up until this very day, but if I can help just one person wake up then this will all be worth it.

I am clearly very passionate about this. If I did not enjoy this so much I would not keep doing it. I jokingly set out to write an article a day for 40 days in protest of religion, and in protest of giving up things for Lent. The funny part is that it turns out I have given up a lot of things for Lent this year. These articles have pretty much taken over my life. They take me hours a day to research and write. This “40 days of Rage of Reason” has truly ended up being quite an ordeal. One that I will gladly see through to the end. (Unless of course Satan comes to me in the next 20 days and offers me “all of the kingdoms of the world”, because I think I might take him up on it.)

Still, I can’t believe that I am only half way through “the wilderness”. It guess that whole “40 days is symbolic of a long time” thing really is true after all.