Jason Rimbaud

That's so funny, even though you describe them all clearly and wonderfully, I always thought Harper and Bell should be Japanese.

Chapter Maine Mase (spelled wrong but I can't be arsed to check the spelling) and Chapter Bell. That dynamic between Carey, Harper, Bell is just fascinating. Captivated By Kai is a prequel of sorts of my story Christmas In Glacier Bay, and will be the third story set in that world. I am almost ready to start posting Time Stood Still, second story set in Glacier Bay. I will be looking for editors and beta readers very soon.

All My Dreams Pass Before My Eyes inspired me to write a story called Captivated By Kai. You wrote a scene I desperately wished you would've explored further. But it was such a small footnote in your overall story so its understandable why you didn't expound on it. But that scene stuck in my mind and I obsessed over it for almost a year until I just sat down and made that idea the driving plot device in my story. So when I get around to posting it, you have all the credit, or the blame. J

The author's prose is somehow folksy, along with the character names, paints a picture of backwoods country folk. But the author is also really good at describing the male part that sticks out, so there's that. Plus a character does things with a hairbrush so more brownie points. Thus far I'm really enjoying the story. I also had to google had to pronounce Thayer, never heard or saw that name before. Don't like it, sounds English but I learned it's French. Still don't like, it's stems from someones occupation, a Tailor. But then Thayer is the one with the hairbrush so I like the character. You have me all over the place with this story. And I'm a bit mad that I didn't notice the story is in process as opposed to complete. I hate waiting for the new chapters, but I will. J (the unhelpful commenter) PS: I just realized you wrote the other story I really liked, now it all makes sense.

Kind of had a sudden flashback to school and being unprepared for a quiz! Bad Myr! J

I've always felt John Smith was too on the nose to be Cottontail's real name. So I'm not so sure Hearst or Wencel are their middle names. As of this chapter, we don't know if in fact John Smith is Cottontail. But seeing as there aren't many characters in this story, I'm inclined to think John Smith is in fact Cottontail. I'm sure the author has a plan, and I'm all in, but I wonder why the secrecy of his identity. I can see keeping it from Jaime but why keep it from the audience. How many talking parts are there, six or seven, it's not like it's a whodunit, the secrecy thing for secrecy sake is annoying. I think we can all surmise why Cottontail's name is Hearst. I never heard of Wencel as a name, so I did a bit of googling. I only found one promising reference, David Wencel, who adapted the Lord of The Rings graphic novel. Not sure who is the inspiration for Wencel, but it's fun to go down rabbit holes in search of the truth. (See what I did there) Angus said this was a different kind of show, normally they don't film the bumpers until after they shot the show and the story becomes more clear during the editing process. Beware Jaime, they are not your friend. J

Not much happening by way of education really, though having a strategy before hand is a really smart idea. Editors of reality shows will try to create scenarios to drive up the drama, and yes they can be blocked by giving evasive answers or duplicitous responses. The down side to behavior like that is you get less screen time and an uneven presentation which will do the opposite from what Jamie is wanting, exposure as a musician. The best reality personalities, stay true to themselves, they just turn the volume up to eleven for the filming. I can't wait to get out of Jamie's apartment so we can get some answers. J

So I just discovered drown today via the forum and based on my interaction there, I decided to dip my toe into this story. FULL DISCLOSURE: You might not want me for a reader as I tend to be very tongue-n-cheek in my comments. But on the other side, I only comment on stories I like. I don't like werewolf stories, I am partial to vampires, but I am not on team edward, my vampires don't sparkle thank you. But as I said, I was so taken with drown's demeanor in the forums I put aside my aversion to werewolf tales and figured I'd dip my toe into Oregon In The Fall. PS I don't like Oregon in the fall or summer, winter, or spring. Last joke about Oregon I'll make in this comment. I like the protagonists voice, Grey(Gray), reminds me of a stranger in a strange land kind of vibe. He's fresh into the "big city", like Oregon has big cities, (already broke my promise, opps) and is a bit overwhelmed by the new sights, sounds, smells. I could imagine if I was a being with heightened smell, a big city would be a bit overwhelming. And I love the casual way Grey said, there is a bit of magic under all the human smells. Leave me questioning what type of story we are going to get here. Grey stumbles into the Lunar Haven, a Bed & Breakfast owned by a woman named Claire. Grey notices a boy, around his age, cleaning tables across the room. Not only does he see the boy, he can smell him, which I guess distracts him long enough to be punched in the head without his werewolf senses going off. Very quickly, we find out table cleaning guy's name is Dave, and he's the brother of Claire. And just happens to be a caring person that helps Grey to a room where we find out Grey won't be making any werebabies anytime soon, as he seems to be smitten by Dave. Not a bunch of things happen in this first chapter, but we get hints of werewolves, some kind of magic, Claire's B&B business might be in some kind of trouble, Dave is hot and smells really nice, and Grey doesn't have the best "spidey senses" of werewolves. I'm not in the position to be able to binge anything right now, but I have bookmarked this story and will easily, happily, readily move onto chapter two the first chance I get. Like many others have already commented, hard to believe this is your first "published" story. I really liked it. Thank you for sharing it.

Can I play devils advocate for a minute, everyone is assuming Angus and Arthur are predatory, when thus far in the narrative, all we have is Cottontails word that Jamie should be careful. Everyone else seems to be either indifferent to the proposition of a reality show or for it. What if Cottontail is the antagonist of this little tale? And he just wants to keep Jamie and his magic cock for himself? J (the confused one)

Poor Jamie, he doesn't know that he doesn't control the edit to those reality shows. The editors can make someone be a prick or mouse, and it just depends on what footage they use and in what order. They will make you out to be whatever they want you to be. I am reminded from the show Survivor, one of the contestants, was portrayed throughout the show as one of the biggest villains in Survivor history, after the game was over, the host asked how did it feel to be a villain, and the dude said, "I didn't know I was a villain until I watched the show back. I thought I was just playing the game. I want the footage of CottonTail banging Jamie, bunny mask and all. J

So this story is starting to make me feel exactly like I did when I was watching LOST for the first time a few years ago. And full disclosure, I loved LOST by the time the credits rolled on the final season. I am feeling right now like I am watching season three of LOST. I'm all for the cat & mouse between our beloved Rabbit and Jamie. And this is the first time in this story where I actually felt a connection with Jamie. I think it's no surprise that my favorite character in this (cotton)tale is the Rabbit. In this chapter, Jamie comes off as a giving lover, wanting to please his partners and a bit manipulative as he interrogated our Rabbit while edging the poor bunny. But nothing really happens except his balls get emptied. I'm in the story for the long haul, I love the characters, I love the writing style, and I'll even put up with Michael and Claire to see how this plays out. Can't wait for the next one J

Oh no, you don't get to casually mention something and then brush it off! I know you are the author and I'm down to go on this ride. But fucking ketchup on pizza???!!!!!! What fresh hell is this? Where I'm from, this would get a bunny beat! 😛

Wow, It was my impression that his streaming porn was for money, and his first love was music. Otherwise why would he stay with the Mitches when they weren't really making any money or fame? I never got the impression he was looking for fame. Maybe I missed somethings, I do happen to devour the newest chapter in a frenzy, maybe I should go back and re-read things at a more leisurely pace. I was trying to hold off on that until you are finished but if I'm that far off in my understanding, its time to go back and see what I missed. Thank you for this wonderfully layered tale of a rabbit. J

Seeing as I know someone who was on a popular reality cooking show, there is not a lot of money in reality TV, unless you are the producer or creator of the show. If your show is popular, money can be made from public appearances. and in some cases endorsement deals. When it was all said and done, he actually lost money because he had to quit his job to compete. I hope the loss of revenue from Jamie's streaming show doesn't land him in financial woes If something is too good to be true, it normally is. J

It wouldn't take much to go back, move a few paragraphs around, add a bit more dialogue in place of the info dump in the first chapter regarding the friends and their "issues". That would tighten up the narrative and make the driving issues, growing up and moving on all the more impactful when you hit them with the gut punch of Eric and Jeremy breaking up. Anyway, that's just my editor hat talking. Because like I said, I really liked this story a lot. Thank you for sharing I want to read another one on my day off. Your stories, the two I've read thus far, are such a different take on familiar themes that I'm excited to see what else you give us.

This story had so much meat on the bone. It reads almost autobiographical in emotion. I don't believe it was ever stated but this feels like post college when life really starts kicking, not quite full adults but boys on the cusp of becoming men. Jermey picking up Eric's uneasiness, rationalizing those fears away, almost optimistically, wonderful emotion throughout that particular storyline. A few scenes where you could have shown a bit more (through interaction between characters) and told a bit less (internal dialogue) but overall a really wonderful slice of life when heartbreak is the only path forward. I really liked this one. J

This is the first anything I've read by you, and I won't bring up the different tenses as someone else already pointed it out. The writing, descriptions, and characters were all well written and I understand where you were going with this sweet tale between two lovers. There are things I could pick on but they don't take away from the story so I will say I enjoyed this and will check out other stories as I do like your voice. Good job!

Is The Christian God Of The Bible Moral? Part Four: The Exodus Hoax An InDepth Look At Morality From An Atheist Perspective Written By: Jason Rimbaud I remember as a young child hearing the story of how Yahweh freed his chosen people from the evil Egyptians. It was so exciting to hear about god performing all these miracles to prove to Pharaoh that he was the I AM THE I AM. And he had all the power to free his chosen people and lead them to a land filled with milk and honey. It was always told from the perspective of how wonderful and powerful god was to free over a million Israelites from bondage. But as I grew older and started reading the bible for myself and not just listening to what my pastor told me, I began to understand what I was reading and there was a bit more to the story than I originally thought. And that story was horrifying. The story of the Exodus was one of the main reasons I stopped believing that the christian god was moral and one I should be worshiping. THE EXODUS So we begin our story in Exodus chapter one. And for this story, I will be using the NIV version. So remember the Hebrews had been in Egypt since Joseph had been sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, where he rose in prominence in Pharaoh’s court. Then during a famine, Joseph brought his family into Egypt where they flourished for generations. They apparently lived side by side with Egyptians and everything was great until long after Joseph died, when a new Pharaoh came into power. Now the bible never says what this Pharaoh’s name is, but through historical documents it is believed to be Ramses II. Though that is only speculation as none of the hieroglyphs in Egypt mention any of the events described in the Exodus story. So this new Pharaoh, the father of Ramses II, who knew not Joseph, looked around at all the Israelites that had infiltrated his kingdom. And when he realized these uber violent people were so numerous he feared they would side with Egypt’s many enemies and work to overthrow him. So he came up with a plan to make them his slaves before they could reproduce so much they would become more numerous than Egyptians. At this time in history, in the entire land of Egypt, there were somewhere between 3 to 5 million Egyptians. Considering scholars say about 1 million Hebrews were supposed to be freed for their Exodus, that fear wasn’t that far off. So Pharaoh put them to work building cities for his empire. But the meaner he was to those poor Israelites, they more they fucked and popped out babies. So even being enslaved did not stop their reproductive tendencies, Pharaoh came up with a new plan. We pick up the narrative in Exodus 1:15, “The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, whose names were Shiphrah and Puah 16: “When you are helping the Hebrew women during childbirth on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a boy, kill him, but if its a girl, let her live.” The bible leads us to believe that the Hebrews were so numerous that Pharaoh was fearful of them, yet they only had two midwives for all those Hebrews. Doubtful, but I’ll play along. 17: The midwives, however, feared god and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do, so they let the boys live The bible repeatedly says things like this, feared god, what does that even mean? Does that mean the god these Hebrew’s served was a petty, vengeful god that they did not want to anger due to the repercussions he would inflict upon them? Sounds like a good and moral god to me. And I’m not sure Pharaoh understood how babies are made. Because if he’s murdering all the male children, and one of those slips through, that boy could still impregnate a lot of girls. Just having one a day could possibly yield 365 new Hebrews in one year alone. However, if you kill all the girl babies, and one of them slips through, they could only pop out one Hebrew a year no matter how many times they get seeded. And knowing what I know of boys, if there were no girls to impregnate, they’d just start fucking each other and the Hebrews would eventually die out anyway. So after a period of time and the Pharaoh notices that there seems to be a lot of male babies shitting all over the bricks for his new towns, he summons the midwives back to him. 18: “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?” 19: The midwives answered Pharaoh, Hebrew woman are not like Egyptian women, they are vigorous and give birth before the midwives arrive 20: So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous 21: And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own So god rewarded the midwives for lying to Pharaoh. So much for number 9 and not lying. And he gave them families of their own, so why didn’t they kill their male children? I’ve lost the thread. 22: Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people, “Every Hebrew boy that is born you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live” So even in their slavery, those Israelites just kept fucking away. No matter how much work those Egyptians threw their way, they’d get home with enough energy to throw a bone into their wives. Maybe making bricks all day made them horny, all that hot mud...hands mixing mud into molds…gross. The bible doesn’t really say how long a period of time this murderous infanticide continued. All it really says is one day a Levite woman popped out a male child, as the bible states, a fine child, so this woman hid the baby for three months. But for some reason, after three months she could no longer hide him, so she put it in a basket and left it amongst the reeds of the Nile river. And then out of some morbid curiosity, she sent the infant's older sister to see what horrible incident might befall the child from a distance. I’m assuming the Nile had crocodiles, hippos, all manner of birds, leaving the baby amongst the reeds was almost a fate worse than chucking the baby in the river. But logic, and the writers had to have a miraculous event for their soon to be hero. This was a much needed device to prove that this child was saved by god. It came to pass that on that very day, the Pharaoh’s daughter went to the river to bathe, apparently the Pharaoh’s palace and the slave quarters were across from one another. The daughter saw a basket floating in the reeds and sent a servant to fetch it. Much to her surprise it was a Hebrew male baby that her father had been hell bent on murdering for who knows how long. So she decides to keep it. Don’t think too long about what would happen if Pharaoh’s daughter suddenly had a Hebrew baby running around the palace and Pharaoh started asking questions. Pharaoh’s daughter sees the baby’s sister lurking about and calls the girl over. The sister offers to get a Hebrew woman to nurse for Pharaoh’s daughter. Of course Pharaoh’s daughter says yes, and I’ll pay you, so the sister runs and fetches her mother to be the nursemaid. Now I’m sure there was an Egyptian nursemaid that would happily do the daughter of Pharaoh a favor but let’s forget about that logic. Instead, Pharaoh’s daughter gives the baby back to its original mother and says to feed this child that I shall name Moses because I drew him out of the river. Well, technically the servant plucked the child from the river but why let semantics ruin a good origin story. The bible doesn’t say how long the mother got to keep her son before she gave it away like one would give an animal away. It had to have been long enough so Moses was old enough to understand that he was actually a Hebrew and not Egyptian. Maybe it was because he looked like every other Hebrew, or maybe because his mother told him all about his heritage, or maybe Pharaoh’s daughter told him about his miraculous birth. So the passage of time is a bit fuzzy. But the bible does pick up the story conveniently at the same time that Moses commits his first murder. Exodus 2:11, “One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hewbrew, one of his own people 12: Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. So according to biblical scholars, at the time of this murder, Moses was forty years old. So he had been living in Pharaoh’s house, learning how to be a prince, warfare, political maneuvers, and who knows what else was taught to Egyptian royalty for forty years. Why did it take him so long to decide that murder was the best option? You can’t tell me this was the first time he visited the work site in forty years, he had to have known his Hebrew brethren were being abused before now. 13: The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? 14: The man said, Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, What I did must have become known So Moses was shocked that when an Egyptian disappeared on the job site, that a few questions were asked. And why was he surprised that other Hebrews were talking about the Egyptian prince that murdered someone to stop a Hebrew from getting abused. 15: When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. So Pharaoh, one of the mightiest rulers in the world at this time, couldn’t find a forty year old man that only ran away some 300 miles. A man can walk 300 miles in six or seven days. And if you search by chariot, a mode of transportation that can get up to 40 miles per hour, you can cover a lot more ground than if you were walking. So Pharaoh searched for this man and through all these searches, it was never known that a Levite man suddenly appeared in Midian one day. Not a single person mentioned that fact, oh by the way, a stranger appeared the other day and sat right over there by that well. And after a bit, some girls came down to water their sheep and some Egyptians were harassing them and this stranger chased them away. And then the priest gave this stranger his daughter as a reward. I wonder if we are to believe that Moses, a prince of Egypt, was unmarried at 40 years old. Or when he fled Egypt, did he just abandon his family? The bible conveniently leaves out some 35 years of Moses’ life. I guess they didn’t want to include family abandonment in their god freed the slaves story. In my religious upbringing, we all had the idea in our heads that Moses was an impulsive young man who in a fit of rage killed the Egyptian by accident. All the story books depict him in that manner and as a young man, the movies portrayed him in this manner as well. But the reality is Moses was an old man, skilled at life, who murdered someone in cold blood. Looks like number 6 just bit the dust. I am constantly amazed at the lengths apologists will go to warp events to fit into their modern morality. We can’t have our hero, chosen by god to be the mouthpiece for all of Israel to be a murderer, we’ll just portray him as a young man who killed someone by accident. And he felt really sorry about it and he had to flee for his life. His wife, Zipporah, after some time, pops out a baby boy who is named Gershom, meaning I have become a foreigner in a foreign land. And for a time Moses is happy herding sheep around the desert and banging his gifted wife. In verse 23: During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. 24: God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25: So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them. Not sure why in the two hundred years or so of slavery that the moans and groans of the Israelites didn’t bother god before but it’s nice to know that after some 400 years, god remembered that he made a pact with Abraham. For all the time Moses was off playing house with his wife, the Israelites continued to fuck like crazy, popping out babies left and right. They took the bible’s instruction to be fruitful and multiply to heart. And though birth control was known at this time, the Ancient Hebrew tradition was not to use it. They believed that semen is a gift from god, a view I hold as well, semen is the gift that keeps on giving. So male contraception was not allowed, though the bible mentions coitus interruptus in Genesis 38:9. Another little moral tale we can talk about. In Genesis 38, Judah, one of the founders of the twelve Israelite tribes by the way, had a run in with his merciful, just, moral god. If you read Genesis 38, in just ten verses, god murders two of Judah’s sons. One of them is murdered, because Judah instructed him to sleep with the wife of his dead brother, who was murdered by god for some reason. When Judah’s son refuses to get her preggers, when he was fucking her he pulled out and spilled his semen on the ground. Genesis 38:10 states, “What he did was wicked in the LORD’s sight, so the LORD put him to death also.” Let that be a lesson to all of you that explode on your stomach while watching the Real Housewives of Ancient Hebrews. Stop spilling and wasting your seed, semen should only be for popping out another baby you can brainwash into worshiping this merciful, just, moral god. Back to those pesky Israelites bitching about how god promised to be with them always. But for some 400 hundred years, god must have been busy sulking somewhere because he was like a deadbeat father, nowhere to be found. But something must have reminded him that he had chosen these people. It wasn’t when Pharaoh was drowning Hebrew boy babies left right and center, or when they were being beaten by harsh task maskers. When that was going on he couldn’t be bothered. But something made him turn his gaze over to Egypt and suddenly he felt some good ole fashion revenge was in order. That was something he could get behind. Exodus chapter three takes up the narrative, Moses was out in the middle of the desert tending to some sheep when he saw a bush that was on fire but did not burn up. And we’ll overlook that Moses was in the middle of a desert, following some stupid sheep around, probably a bit dehydrated, maybe a touch of sunstroke, but no, there really was a bush that didn’t burn and had magical powers that relayed messages from god. Okay Mose. So god tells him he has seen the misery of the Israelites and decided to liberate them. He basically said that after 400 years, their suffering was harshing his buzz and he could no longer ignore it. He then proceeds to reiterate he will bring those Hebrews into a good and spacious land, a land that flows with milk and honey. But god failed to mention it was also the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites. And by the way, for you to have this land I promised you, you are going to have to murder hundreds of thousands of people along the way. So another time number 6th is ignored followed closely by number 7. And if you are wondering what it means for a land to flow with milk and honey, it basically means an abundance of nourishment and rich food. Though the Hebrew writers weren’t the first ones to use such terminology. A very similar term first appears in the ancient Ugaritic text referring to the Canaanite god, Baal. Just another example how the Ancient Hebrew writers stole phrases, saying, gods, creation myths from other people. Then the writers set up gods name, because remember, until this time, Yahweh, hasn’t really been established yet as the Hebrew god. The name in Exodus is I Am The Am I. I am because I say I am, yep, that’s logical. And totally something sheepherders would think sounds smart and godlike. Moses doesn’t like god’s plan at all and tries to worm his way out of being the spokesperson for I Am The I Am. Remember, he’s still wanted for murder back in Egypt. But that little fact doesn’t stop god, nope, he says go and tell the elders of Israel that I am the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For 400 years, the Hebrews have been telling anyone that would listen that they are chosen people of this god. So by simply telling the elders this, they will automatically accept this old man murderer Moses. Hey god, they will never believe me. I was raised an Egyptian, for forty years I kept them in bondage, you should send someone else. Don’t worry Mose, just tell them I’m this god they already believe in. They’re only slaves, they’ll believe anything you tell them. It's not hard to fulfill prophecies when you know the history. Then after Moses kind of agrees, he tells him to go to Egypt, and take the Hebrews on a three day journey into the wilderness to offer a blood sacrifice to the LORD our god. Yahweh really needed to have blood spilled in his name because he’s a bloodthirsty savage. Or it was because humans who invented god were bloodthirsty and since everyone else around them was doing blood sacrifices, they just adopted the same practices. At least they weren’y sacrificing children to their god, like other people, they only murdered innocent animals, they were so cosmopolitan. This next bit is important so I will pick up from the bible in verse 19: But I know the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. 20: So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that he will let you go. 21: And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed towards this people, so that when you leave, you will not go empty handed. 22: Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians. These few verses are important for two reasons. One, god knows that the Pharaoh is not going to let the people go. He knows he’s going to have to go all cavemen shit on them. And two, he’s going to allow the Hebrews to steal from their neighbors and the neighbors are going to be happy to have it happen. He’s going to make sure they are happy, he has that power. Sadly that power doesn’t work on Pharaoh, just on the neighbors of the Hebrews. Why Egyptians and Hebrews are living side by side is rather odd, slaves don’t normally live amongst their masters. Moses is now back to trying to convince god to choose someone else. So god gives him three superpowers to convince Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go. Remember, right up there, god says they aren’t going to relent until I show my mighty hand. And so he gives Moses the ability to turn a staff into a snake, he can make his hand become leperous at will, and he can turn water into blood. Moses still doesn’t agree, he knows those superpowers are stupid just as I do. That’s the best you can come up with? And only a bunch of dumb sheepherders could ever believe in magic staffs, transmogrify, and sleight of hand. He’s all powerful all right. But that’s the average christian, they believe in this shit. So Moses says I can’t talk good, so god gives him a brother, A-a-ron to speak for him. Where the hell was his brother? Did he follow Moses to Midian? Why didn’t he get tossed in the river? Did his mother hide him as well? Was he better than Moses and she hid him all the way up to adulthood and just tossed Moses aside? Talking about mother liking him best. Well god, I can’t go to Egypt, I’m a wanted man because of the whole, murder thing. Don’t you worry, everyone who wanted you dead are now themselves dead. So god waited until everyone who knew Moses was dead. That’s a narrow scope of powers right there, I can’t free the slaves without murdering a bunch of people and I can turn your hand leperous and change water into blood. Magic. Go get my people free. In chapter four we again see the bloodthirsty side of god emerge. Verse 21: The LORD said to Moses, When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. 22: Then say to Pharaoh, This is what the LORD says, Israel is my firstborn son 23: and I told you, Let my son go, so he may worship me. But you refused to let him go so I will kill your firstborn son 24: At a lodging place on the way, the LORD met Moses and was about to kill him… That took a dark turn. For this series, I am using the NIV bible because It reads better. But why was god about to kill Moses? Up to this point in the story, Moses was doing everything god wanted him to do. I guess it was Wednesday and god hadn’t killed anyone in a few days and was starting to get the itch I guess. I read multiple versions and all say the same thing, god was going to kill Moses because... 25: But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me she said 26: So the LORD let him alone. Apparently god doesn’t care what type of blood sacrifice he gets, he just needs that sweet sweet blood to flow, even if it comes from an infant's dick. So I guess we have Zipporah to thank for my parents allowing the snipping off the tip of my dick. PS: for all of you campaigning to stop circumcision, fuck you. Uncut dicks are ugly and they smell weird. So circumcision started when god commanded Abraham to cut off his tip as a sign of dedication to the covenant. Why wasn’t Moses’ kid already circumcised? Who knows, plot. But I guess god has always wanted blood. Chapter Five is a bunch of repeating motifs, let my people go. Who the hell is your god and why should I listen to him? Pharaoh has a tantrum and stops giving the Hebrews straw to make their little bricks and orders them to gather their own straw but they have to make the same number of bricks each day despite the lack of straw. The Hebrews complain that Moses has made it harder with his talk of freedom while god seems to be oblivious. Maybe he was still high from all that infant’s blood from the other day. This is what great storytellers do, they amp up the conflict right. Now they have to make the same number of bricks but they don’t have the supplies, so when god actually frees them, it will seem even more miraculous. Let’s keep building the tension. Let’s make it so horrible on those poor Israelites that future generations won’t even think twice about not believing. This is a not so subtle form of control. Exodus 6:1 Then the LORD said to Moses, Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh. Because my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country. This is narcissism at its textbook definition. Yahweh is so insecure he had to prove his existence to a people that can never be included in the covenant of Abraham. Remember the one that a fictional god chose the Hebrews to be the special ones. The rest of chapter 6 is trying to prove Moses’ lineage. They had to show that he was indeed connected to one of the twelve tribes of Israel. And since most archeologists don’t even believe this story is real, this entire chapter only serves to prove their guy is related to that guy which proves the divine influence. When you are trying desperately to justify one of the most brutal acts of genocide, you will do anything to relay those events in the best possible light. By tracing Moses’ heritage back to Abraham, that gives you the divine “right” to go into Canaan and slaughter everyone. Because they are the chosen people and Cannan is the promised land promised by an all powerful god that delivered them from slavery. See, we aren’t really monsters, we are just following our god’s whims. Archeologists also tend to believe that the Israelites had always been in Canaan, and the stories are nothing really but stories and probably never happened even close as depicted in the bible. Don’t forget, for most of Egypt and Israel’s contact, Egypt ruled over Israel. One of the reason’s in the 18th dynasty for Egypt’s wealth, is because many Israel cities were paying them tribute. Chapter 7:3 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. 4: But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt by great judgements. 5: And the Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD, when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them 6: And Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded them, so did they 7: And Moses was fourscore years old, and Aaron fourscore and three years old, when they spake unto Pharaoh For those of you that don’t know how old a score is, it’s twenty years. So Moses was 80 years old, and A-A-ron was 83. And notice for the second time, the writers purposefully go out of their way to say that god will harden Pharaoh’s heart. God is going to make sure Pharaoh does not let the people go, because god wants to stretch forth his hand and wreck some shit. And in case you are mansplaining that god wants to teach Egypt a lesson so they will never bother the Israelites again, in less than two hundred years, Israel will be completely ruled by Egypt and right after that it will be the Babylonians, then the Persians, then Alexander, then the Romans. And before that, it was the Summarians who ruled everything. At this point in history, Israel isn’t even a nation yet, and when they do become a nation, they won’t be ruling themselves for long. So the writers, who are making this story up, are just as bloodthirsty as their supposed god. Chapter Seven continues, Moses goes to Pharaoh, he says let em go, Pharaoh says na, so Moses throws his staff on the ground and it turns into a snake. Pharaoh calls his own magicians and they throw down their staff and they too become snakes. Superpower number one is matched by Pharaoh. It really doesn’t matter that the writers say Moses staff ate the other snakes, Pharaoh didn’t let em go. Verse 13, again god hardened Pharaoh’s heart, this is the third time. Pharaoh was circling around the idea of letting them go but god made sure he didn’t, why, because god wasn’t done inflicting destruction on the Egyptians. Maybe it was all those years they spent as slaves, and god wanted revenge. Though since he was god, he could have stopped them from ever becoming slaves but where is the fun in that. So being that Yahweh is a kind, loving, moral god, instead of reaching forth his hand and changing Pharaoh’s mind, he decided the best course of action is to inflict plagues on Egypt instead. This way he can kill a maximum number of people to try to cure his ever raging bloodlust. THE FIRST PLAGUE: WATER TO BLOOD EXODUS 7:14-25 The rest of the chapter is rather repetitive, basically Moses tells Pharaoh let my people go, Pharaoh gives him the finger, so A-a-ron waves his magic staff over the waters, the rivers, the ponds, the baths, and all the water is turned to blood. God took away all the drinking water in the middle of the desert for seven days. How many people died in that little miracle? The human body can barely make it three days without water and he took it for seven days. And everything in the water died, so all the fish, alligators, piranhas, I don’t know what else lives in the water but all the birds would be affected, the cattle, oxen, dogs, pigs, sheep. This little vendetta is really starting to take a toll on these poor Egyptians. And apparently he’s just getting warmed up. I like the fact that god didn’t decide to punish Pharaoh, instead he decided to punish all the other innocent people who lived in the land. The Nile river flowed a long way, so everyone downstream was affected as well, what about all those who weren’t Egyptian. Yea, god is a dick. Why isn’t that the end of the Egyptians? If there is no water, everyone would die. Why didn’t the water stay blood until everyone was dead? Then the Israelites could plunder everything and just walk out. Because god likes to hurt people, so we are onto plague number too. THE SECOND PLAGUE: FROGS? EXODUS 8:1-15 Chapter Eight has Moses going back to Pharaoh, supposedly after seven full days without water. Pharaoh still doesn’t relent, so does that mean god turned back on the water? I don’t know and the bible doesn’t say. Now god said I’m going to infest your entire land with frogs. A-a-ron stretched forth his hand over the river (I guess god turned the water back on), and frogs came everywhere. Then Pharaoh had his magicians do the same thing, and they brought frogs. And instead of getting an epic frog war, Pharaoh says remove the frogs and I’ll let the people go. Moses says give me a timeframe and Pharaoh says tomorrow. Moses goes back after the frogs are gone and Pharaoh says, fuck you, and then hardened his heart. This is the fourth hardened heart statement, we can only attribute two to god and two possibly to a diet with high levels of cholesterol. Maybe Pharaoh was having a bunch of mini strokes and A-a-ron was taking advantage. THE THIRD PLAGUE: GNATS EXODUS 8:16-19 Okay, so the threat level of the plague’s seemed to be lessening the further we go. Turning water into blood, evil, frogs, beside the noise and the pooping, not so much. A-a-ron stretched forth his hand and all the dust in the land became gnats. That’s a lot of gnats. But this time, Pharaoh’s magicians could not replicate this horrible scary feat. Once again, Pharaoh hardened his heart. I think any normal sane person, after the suffering his land and people had to endure to this god of Israel, would have said get the fuck out and take your dick of a god with you. But this is a made up story so the writer had to keep building the tension. THE FOURTH PLAGUE: LORD OF THE FLIES EXODUS 8:20-32 So this is where the story differs. This time Moses is asking Pharaoh to allow the children of Israel to journey into the desert where they will make sacrifices to Yahweh. He’s not asking to let his people all the way go, just go for three days so their sacrifices wouldn’t anger the Egyptians. He further explains that for this particular plague, flies would consume all of Egypt, all it’s citizens, its animals, but in Goshen, where the Israelites dwelled, it would be blissfully fly free. Does this mean that for the first three plagues, the children of Israel suffered through them as well as the Egyptians? Once the flies are doing their fly thing, and Pharaoh sees that Goshen has no flies, he relents, orders Moses to take his people and make his sacrifice. So Moses has A-a-ron turn off the plague of flies and then Pharaoh, you guessed it, hardened his heart and says I don’t think so. THE FIFTH PLAGUE: LIVESTOCK (or what I’d like to say, innocent bystanders) EXODUS 9:1-7 If there is one thing we know about Yahweh, he fucking hates animals. Remember we already discussed if a man fucks an animal, both of them should be put to death. And now, he attacks all the Egyptian livestock, horses, camels, donkeys, cattle, sheep, and goats, by giving them all a plague. But to the Israelites livestock, they are spared somehow. The bible says in verse 6, that all the animals died. All of them died. Not sure how many survived the whole no water for a week, but all of them died. After investigating that none of the Israelites animals had died, Pharaoh didn’t harden his heart, instead he just had an unyielding heart. Little different, I guess the writer saw the repetition and wanted to say it another way. THE SIXTH PLAGUE: BOILS EXODUS 9:8-12 Now god is getting serious. He’s already killed all the animals in the land, who knows how many people all the way down the Nile, but now he figures boils are the next best thing. A step up from gnats and flies, not as drastic as killing all the animals, but inconveniently painful. Exodus 9:9 It will become fine dust over the whole land of Egypt, and festering boils will break out on people and animals throughout the land. The people I can understand, but I feel like I am kicking a dead horse, see what I did there?, but why punish the animals with boils? And I thought all the animals were dead already? I can’t believe the bible has a contradiction, I am gobsmacked. Pharaoh’s magicians tried to duplicate the boils but couldn’t stand because of all the boils they had on their body. So once again, god hardened Pharaoh’s heart according to verse 12. That’s three v three. Many christian apologists offer as an explanation why god doesn’t come down today and reveal himself to the world, humanity would no longer have free will to serve him. But from the beginning of this story, god purposefully took away the Pharaoh’s free will at least three times in the story, maybe six times. Luckily the bible is infallible and has zero contradictions. THE SEVENTH PLAGUE: HAIL EXODUS 9:13-35 This plague is rather long, almost an entire chapter. And there are several verses that directly impact our pending question, is this god a moral god. So I will be quoting more than I have previously. So forgive me but I think it’s important as this story is the foundation for Jewish, Christian, and Islamic religions. Without this Exodus story, do we even get to either of those three basically ruling the world? 13: Then the LORD said to Moses, Get up early in the morning, confront Pharaoh and say to him, This is what the LORD, the god of the Hebrews says, Let my people go, so that they may worship me 14: or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you and against your officials and your people, so you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. 15: For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. 16: But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth. 17 You still set yourself against my people and will not let them go 18 Therefore, at this time tomorrow I will send the worst hailstorm that has ever fallen on Egypt, from the day it was founded til now 19 Give an order now to bring your livestock and everything you have in the field to a place of shelter, because the hail will fall on every person and animal that has not been brought in and is still out in the field and they will die. 20 Those officials of Pharaoh who feared the word of the LORD hurried to bring their slaves and their livestock inside 21 But those who ignored the word of the LORD left their slaves and livestock in the field I guess in this plague, god was feeling a bit peckish, maybe from all those deaths of the animals the plague before, so he warned everyone. But not before he said I could’ve wiped you off the face of the earth, but I didn’t. Hello, already in this tale how many people and animals have already died. All the animals in the land have died twice already. Not to mention the people from lack of water, having no food to eat because the damn frogs ate everything, the disease that must have spreaded due to all those animal carcasses rotting in the desert sun. Like this way was any better than killing them all out right. I guess they wouldn’t have suffered first and they also wouldn’t have known that Yahweh was the author of their destruction. And god really needs the wicked to know he’s the one punishing them. 25 Throughout Egypt hail struck everything in the fields, both people and animals; it beat down everything growing in the fields and stripped every tree 26 The only place it did not hail was the land of Goshen, where the Israelites were. 27 Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron, This time I have sinned, he said to them. The LORD is in the right and I and my people are in the wrong So I have a problem with the word sin. At this point in the story, Pharaoh hasn’t technically done anything wrong. He won’t let his property go having a burning man in the desert. As was the custom of the day, your slaves were your property to do with as you will. If anyone sinned it was those pesky bitchy Israelites. Because Ephesians 6:1 Slaves obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of god from your heart. I know that’s from the New Testament but since Jesus said he came not to change the law but to fulfill it, what’s right is right and since god doesn’t change, the Israelites were wrong. How’d you like that bit of mental gymnastics right there? So verse 28 Pharaoh is pleading with Moses, your god has beat us into submission. So Moses said I will stop this from happening even though I know you are about to fuck me again. But remember, all your animals are dead again, and all the people god bashed in the head won’t be coming back, you really should reconsider. It is even told that the flax and barley was destroyed though not the wheat and spelt (whatever the fuck that is). 34 When Pharaoh saw that the rain and hail and thunder had stopped, he sinned again, he and his officials hardened their hearts. 35 So Pharaoh’s heart was hard and he would not let the Israelites go, just as the LORD had said through Moses. And I could stop right here and my point would be proven. If god already knew before the very first plague that Pharaoh would hardened his arteries, then why all these plagues in the first place unless it was to cause as much damage as godly possible. He killed animals, fish, birds, people, who knows how many already and the worst of the worst hasn’t happened yet. The christian god of the bible has no morals, no sense of right or wrong, only vengeance and blood lust. Or the writers of this fairy tale had the morals of savages. To be fair, everyone had the same morals back then. It’s not like I’m picking on the Hebrew writers. They were no worse than any of their contemporaries. But remember, christians deem this book to be true, and that god is somehow moral. His wanton destruction of animals, needless cost of human lives, and catlateral damage to all living along the Nile is reprehensible. And it was all to prove that he has a bigger dick than Amun-Ra. Though to be more accurate, he was whipping out his dick not at Amun-Ra, but probably Hapi (god of the Nile) and/or Khnum (guardian of the Nile) since most of the plagues dealt directly with the Nile. But we’re only on number seven and the worst is yet to come. For those keeping score, 3 v 5 Can you imagine being an Egyptian in the furthest reaches of Egypt, like on the edge of the empire. You have experienced all these plagues and have no idea why or that there is a contest of wills between Pharaoh and god happening at the capital. All you know there was no water for a weak, frogs overran your house, you got gnats, then flies descended on your and your family, all your livestock was murdered from an unknown pestilence, you woke up with boils on your dick and now hail falls down and kills all your animals (again) and your two kids who were playing in the fields. THE EIGHTH PLAGUE: LOCASTS EXODUS 10:1-20 I’m only going to quote two verses from this plague. 1 Then the LORD said to Moses, Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these signs of mine among them Again this plague is locusts, a form of grasshopper that eats every living plant, tree, shrub, tiny animals, bugs, they are particularly nasty. And the bible says they covered the ground throughout all the land of Egypt eating everything that was left, basically everything that survived the hail storm. Not only seeing the sky black with swarms of locusts, but they ate everything, this would result in hundreds of thousands of people starving to death. And god knew it would not get him the desired result. no result. Matter of fact he boasts that he’s only doing this so the children of Israel will know how much of a bastard he can be and that they should never forget that. 20 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go. Fuck you christian god, right in the neck. 5 v 5 THE NINTH PLAGUE: DARKNESS EXODUS 10:21-29 21 Then the LORD said to Moses, Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness spreads over Egypt–darkness that can be fel 22 So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky and total darkness covered all Egypt for three day 23 No one could see anyone else or move about for three days. Yet all the Israelites had light in the places where they lived 24 The Pharaoh summoned Moses and said, Go, worship the LORD, even your women and children may go with you, only leave your flocks and herds behind 27 But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he was not willing to let them go 6 v 5 for those who are counting. Let’s not even get into the physics of how darkness could happen in one place but not in another for three days. Pharaoh relented, he said take your kin, your livestock, go worship your god. But god took away the man’s free will because he needed to kill just a few more hundred thousand. He wasn’t done proving his specialness quite yet to his chosen people. For some reason Yahweh has always come off as a very insecure god. It’s like he constantly needs people praising him, telling him how awesome he is and when you don’t praise him every moment of every day, he sulks like a child and smites you off the face of the earth. He might not have wanted to wipe Egypt off the face of the planet, but if you logically follow the results of all these plagues, Egypt should be doomed never to recover. But we all know that Egypt survived, and in a few hundred years, took over Israel again so god murdered all those people and animals for nothing. I can only imagine living in a world, in ancient times, when Rabbis would tell these tales and all the good Hebrews get little god-boners at the thought of all that death and destruction. I guess your god takes on the attributes of it’s worshipers, so the Ancient Hebrews must have been some blood thirsty killers. They were forever killing everyone and everything throughout their entire culture. Whether or not they gave credit to this Yahweh or not, they are the ones that did the killing. I am really tired of writing about all this pointless death. But we have one more left and it’s a doozy. THE FINAL PLAGUE: KILLING OF ALL FIRST BORN MALE CHILDREN EXODUS 11:1-10 This is the shortest chapter in Exodus, and the entire chapter deals with what god wants Moses to say to Pharaoh. The important part comes in verse 5: Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. What is truly horrifying about this verse, I get it, kill the firstborn of Egyptians, they are the one keeping you slaves, but to kill the firstborn of the female slaves as well, and the animals, though how in the fuck could there be any animals left in all of Egypt. Yes, the Ancient Hebrews who wrote this story, they knew the audience. The audience was this blood thirsty, they believed in this story about the big bad Egyptians getting their just desserts from this god protector. I’m sure when the common person heard this story their hearts swelled with pride and they felt some kind of national pride. It’s barbaric to kill the slaves, who had nothing at all to do with keeping the Israelites inside Egyptian borders. But god just bought a new sword and he really wanted to try it out to see just how many people he could kill in a single night. 10: Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country. This chapter closed with yet another tampering with free will. I know this must be repetitive reading this but I want you to really understand the depths of this bastard. As he is orchestrating a mass murder, he goes out of his way to harden Pharaoh’s heart. To ensure that he would have to go through with his dastardly scheme of murdering innocent children. I think we have moved on from is the christian god, a moral god, and into the realm of fantasy. You must understand the Hebrew writers who probably combined five or six different Moses stories into one narrative for the Torah, they knew their audience. They knew the Hebrews would settle for nothing less than a persecution complex that lasts until this very day. All throughout the bible, it states over and over again, that everyone is against them and only god can save them from the entire world. The famous sermon on the mount, Jesus says that over and over, if life is hard, Satan is coming after you for believing, pushing this narrative of persecution that we hear today. Christians constantly say they are under attack when they can’t spew their hatred and bigotry to the masses. And it all started with the Exodus story and the expectation that if you just follow Yahweh, he will deliver you. The next two chapters deal with the Passover feast, a celebration once a year that commemorates the mass murder of Egyptians. They still do the passover feast, they eat their bread, tell of the time when they dripped blood over their door and the angel of death passed them to kill Egyptians, slaves, animals. Just the imagery alone is disturbing, Yahweh is as blood thirsty as they come, Egypt will be swimming in blood and yet he demands more blood over the door. So in place of killing Hebrews, to be spared they still had to offer blood in the form of animals. This is just more killing in a story that has an insane amount of killing. who had to slaughter animals to get the blood to put over the door, more killing in a story that is nothing but killing. Exodus 12:21 Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb I guess baby sheeps taste better than adults sheeps. Exodus 12:29 At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well. Now it’s not just the slaves, but the prisoners as well. One of the things I had not mentioned, but during the passover instructions, god commanded them to also offer up to him the firstborn of animals every passover, so the slaughter can continue year after year. And is it every firstborn? So an old man, who was the firstborn, did he die, as well as his firstborn? If that is the case, a boatload of people died that night because god hardened Pharaoh’s heart. Exodus 12:37 & 41 38 The Israelites journeyed from Rameses to Sukkoth. There were about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. (so about 1,200,000 million Hebrews left Egypt 40 Now the length of time the Israelite people lived in Egypt was 430 years So after god’s blood lust was fulfilled, and he sat lazily with a belly full of blood, the Hebrews gathered their flocks, livestocks, and the silver, gold, clothing, they “borrowed” from their Egyptian neighbors, they took off into the desert, six hundred thousand men, so easily over a million people took off into the sunset. I do find it an interesting fact, that in this forty year Exodus, it is estimated that over a million Hebrews die in the desert wanderings. Of course the bible says they wandered until the entire generation that fled Egypt was dead, punishment for their lack of faith and for worshiping a golden calf. I will touch on this later in the series. Exodus 13 is more instructions on how to kill animals in remembrance of killing Egyptians. And when the narrative finally picks up after they left Egypt, there is an interesting verse. 17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. (remember they are on their way to Canaan, only 480 miles away) For God said, If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt These chosen people, who had just been freed after 300 years of slavery, seen 10 miraculous plagues, saw animals wiped out numerous times, finally on their way to a land that was promised to them over 400 years earlier, might stick with this divine being for longer than a day before they rebelled. Passages like this makes one realize this story never happened and was written as an origin story for their religion. And we actually don’t know what the contemporary people thought of the Torah, though some scholars and in particular Judaism scholars did not believe they took the Torah literally. Instead they looked to it for moral guidance, (I think I am kicking that door down rather easily), behavior traditions rather than historic document. That would make sense to me, as the evidence supporting this event is thin at best and non-existant for most. Yet even if they did think of this as a guidebook on how to be good Hebrews, it doesn’t forgive that the moral systems they were learning could never come from a divine god as it is corrupt at its core. Thus written by men, brainwashing an entire people to think and behave in a certain manner they thought was righteous, just, moral, and divinely entitled. Oh fuck, I’m not even finished with the story yet, there are a few more hardened hearts and about 1.5 million more people to murder before we reach the end. I soldier on so you don’t have too. Exodus 14 1 Then the LORD said to Moses 2 Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon 3 Pharaoh will think, The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert 4 And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD. So the Israelites did this The christian god of the bible, after already killing hundreds of thousands of people, ruining Egypt for years after 10 horrific plagues, still needed fucking attention from a group of people that he never chose, never wanted to choose, and wouldn’t allow into his embrace anyway, couldn’t let them be. Pharaoh already relented, god had won. But he’s like, I don’t think this group of people who have already acknowledged my superiority learned that lesson quite good enough. I need to ensure that they never forget who their fucking with and from now until eternity they will let my people alone. They learned, for about 150 years, then they forgot and kicked the shit out of Yahweh and his people and ruled over them. 9 The Egyptians–all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots, (bible says 600), horsemen and troops–-pursued the Israelites and overtook them as they camped by the sea near Pi Hahiroth, opposite of Baal Zephon The bible is a bit vague as to how many Egyptians pursued the Israelites. But I know if I was chasing 1.2 million Hebrews into the desert, I’d have a force big enough to recapture them and escort them back. Our best guess of the total Egyptian population during this timeframe is between 3 million and 5 million, so 350,000 soldiers seems like a reasonable number of an army that could have been fielded. Though it would be rather hard to supply that large a force seems like a reasonable number So who knows, let’s say for argument's sake, Pharaoh’s army was 350,000, that would be hard enough to keep supplied. All we do know is when Mose dropped his hand, the waters came rushing down and drowned man and animal alike. This would have been the death nail into their proverbial coffin if the events of the Exodus really happened like the bible describes. When scholars say there is not any evidence of these events in the historical record, a good portion of that assumption is because Egypt grew in political power and amassed a great deal of wealth during this period. Egypt was also known to not be keen on slaves, the modern thought being skilled workers constructed their cities, monuments, and pyramids as opposed to forced labor. As this is an in depth look at morality, I will not get into the evidence either for or against this story from being accurate or true. Though I think the case was made rather easily by just reading the texts. This was probably based on several real events that had been passed down orally for hundreds of years before someone sat down and decided to make sense out of all of them which is why you get the weird chapters of just repeating narrative. You have to remember that for a time, even Israel worshiped several different gods alongside Yahweh. There are passages in the bible where prophets would get angry and Hebrews worshiping other gods, seemingly turning their back on I AM THE I AM. It’s no wonder that Rabbi’s needed to keep the Hebrews on the right track, and that is where the Torah came into play, which is also why Yahweh is portrayed as such a monster. Fear is a strong tool to keep the populace in line. As a propaganda tool, the bible is the most successful book ever written. Israel and Palestine are still fighting to this very day because Palastians are descendants of the Amalekites that god promised to fight against from generation to generation in Exodus 17. And if you don’t think that’s the basis for hatred between the two peoples you are fooling yourself. For continuing murder thousands of years later, the bible is the book that keeps on giving. We end our great Exodus story with an amazing 1.2 million more deaths by the hand of Yahweh. And this time, it was the very people he chose to protect. Because of their wondering how they were to be fed and watered in the desert, because they chose to make a golden calf to honor god, he cursed them to wander around the desert for 40 years so that every Hebrew that came out of Egypt would be dead before they made it to the promised land. To bring it back to would you kill 210,000 to save a million, Yahweh killed a million to save a million and then decided to kill the million he saved. I have made myself sick realizing that anyone who claims the christian god of the bible is a moral god, is just doing mental gymnastics because it makes them feel good about what happens after they die. I just spent the last two months researching this story and had many conversations with theists, atheists, and agnostics about the morality of the Exodus. If we based our modern morality and ethics on the christian god of the bible, our world would be a lot more violent, more suffering, and all out war as we take whatever we wish from our neighbors. I’ll leave you all with just a few more questions to ponder. Should we believe the bible to be the divine inspired word of god? If so, with all the immorality inside its pages, if it is divine, is it a good blueprint for us to follow when it comes to deciding our own morality? Should we even give a shit about the christian god of the bible, especially if it's true? The final count where god took away free will—8 v 5

Thank you for commenting, when I re-read this piece I cringe. Not because of how poorly it's written, it is, and not because of all the formatting issues I run into when posting to GA, it drove me to drink. It's about the subject matter, it is no longer something I struggle with not like when I wrote it back in 1996. If I were to write this story today, it would have a different ending. For what it is, it will be here for me to look back at and wonder when I was ever so naive. J

You might be right... I think Cottontail has a good chance at being John Smith. But John Smith is too on the nose to be a real name. If Jamie denounced his family name, Cottontail could have done the same thing distancing from the name Hearst. And tame isn't the word I'd use for this chapter.

No one is going to mention that Cottontails brother calls him Hearst?! J

Is The Christian God Of The Bible Moral? Part Three: The Danger of Morality From A Book An InDepth Look At Morality From An Atheist Perspective Written By: Jason Rimbaud Would you kill 70,000 soldiers with one push of a button to save 1,000,000 soldiers? With a single push of a button, 70,000 soldiers die, burned out of existence as if they were never there. And you were personally responsible for every single one of them perishing. But the caveat is, you would also be responsible for over 1,000,000 soldiers saved. What would you do if you were faced with this seemingly impossible choice? Maybe the pendulum of your moral compass swings closer to “not sure I want to kill anyone but to save more lives”. Would you kill 70,000 civilians with one push of a button to save 1,000,000 soldiers? Maybe your moral compass swings back to the center and then towards “I don’t think that is a fair choice at all”. Would you kill 70,000 civilians with one push of a button to save 1,000,000 lives, lives on both sides, soldiers and civilians? Are the choices getting easier or harder? This isn’t a hypothetical question either. With a single push of a button, men, women, children, grandparents, animals, birds, fish, insects, gone in a blink of an eye. And many in the world saw it as completely justified because it saved so many lives. To the loved ones that survived, who witnessed first hand the devastation that was the result of a single push of a button, it was an act of cowardice, of hubris, of war crimes. And then when those same loved ones started dying slowly, painfully over the next year from radiation poisoning and other health related issues that accompanied the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, that initial 70,000 turned into 210,000, dead. Would you press a button to be the author of all that death? Could you live with yourself knowing that you killed more people in an instant then had ever died before? I was talking to a friend of mine about this series and we somehow ended up at this point in time during World War II. It really doesn’t surprise me, it is one of our favorite topics to discuss/debate/argue. And at one point of the conversation, he mentioned that World War II was a war as much about racism as it was about land expansion. And it got me thinking along those lines and I started to see some parallels between World War II and the question is god moral. Hitler was a christian and had a deep seated hatred for the Jews. Hitler idolized Carl Lueger and once said he was the greatest German mayor of all time. Lueger was overtly anti semitic and Hitler learned about the Jews and how they were an aberration of christianity and needed to be removed from the earth. In context, Jews had been persecuted throughout Europe long before Hitler came into power. Largely due to the fact that Europe was predominantly christian and the Jews killed christ. This was a deep seated hatred going all the way back to biblical days. Many christians thought that ideology even if they did not go to the extremes Hitler did. Because as early as 1941, the Allies were getting reports of the treatment of the Jews. They either did not believe just how bad it really was or couldn’t envision the scope that was inflicted on this particular race. It wasn’t until late 1944 when some of these camps were liberated and then in 1945 when all of them were liberated did we learn the awful truth about the horrors the Germans did on the Jews. And this was all based on religious principles and when those principles go unchecked, one could do a lot of damage in god’s name. For those holocaust deniers, claiming the number is way too high, missed the point completely. The fact that any amount of Jew’s were killed simply because they were Jews, German Jews, or any other type, is gross enough. Simply put, human beings were killed because they did not fit the mold of the christian ideology of the day. Religion can make good people, the Germans, do some pretty bad things. In a good portion of the propaganda that came out about the war in Europe, a lot was said how we must defeat Hitler. We weren’t saying we had to defeat Germany, we put Hitler on the pedestal and said if we can knock him off, the rest of Germany would go back to normal. America really never hated the German people. In December of 1937, the Japanese were ready to launch probably the worst single attack on a city in either World War II. I’m not saying what we are about to discuss overshadows what the Germans did to the Jews. But in a single city, in six weeks time, the Japanese were definitely going to throw their proverbial hat in the ring to give the German’s a run for the title of douchiest act in modern history. Japan harbored deep resentment of Western influence in Asia. With UK, American, and Russian colonies in Asia, Japan felt that Asia should be run by Asians. Of course, the Japanese believed they should be the ones in charge. The slogan Asia for Asians should have been a rallying cry for all Asians, but the Japanese would prove to be worse than any western occupier, a lot worse. The Japanese could have accomplished what they truly wanted was Asia free from Western influence if they would have treated other Asians as equals. Fortunately for the world, they did not treat them as good as dogs. The Samurai lived by a code called Bushido, the way of the warrior. But in the early 1900’s that code of honor and morals was perverted by a new Bushido code, honor above surrender, it is better to be a corpse than a prisoner. There are reports of Japanese soldiers being captured and begging to be allowed to commit suicide rather than to live with the shame of being captured. This was the mentality of the entire population. Well it was after the Emperor watched all his advisors who argued for coexistence with the West be murdered by the warmongers of the Imperial Army. The Japanese people used this perverted Bushido code, their belief that the Emperor was one step removed from divinity, and their steadfast belief they were the rightful rulers of all Asia to move into China and teach those Communist loving “brothers” what it meant to be a true Asian. In 1937, after what could only be described as a terror campaign, the Japanese marched across China murdering entire villages and killing any Chinese prisoners they captured. By the time they reached the city of Nanking, the army was tired, a bit hungry, and pissed off about their brothers in arms that had died thus far into the campaign and then fought for several days in intense fighting as the defenders tried to fight them off. Once the Chinese soldiers withdrew, but not before they ordered the citizens to resist until the last man, Japanese flooded into the town where they went on a six week rampage, burning down almost the entire town, killing anyone they deemed to be Chinese soldiers enmasse, and a lot of civilian males thought to be soldiers who had taken off their uniforms to escape the carnage, and raping over 20,000 women, little girls, elderly women, and even infants in some cases. Once the soldiers were done raping the woman, they usually killed them. Sevearl reports say that many women after being gangraped so violently actually died. Those soldiers fucked someone literally to death. And the leaders of the Army, who failed to prevent and refused to do anything to try to stop it, would later be charged with war crimes and put to death, but the head guy, Prince Asaka, was pardoned due to his connections to the royal family. Other military leaders responsible were never tried as they committed ritualized suicide. Some reports that once the carnage was over, over 200,000 Chinese citizens were dead, and anywhere from 20,000 to 80,000 women were raped. This is disputed today by Japanese historians who claim it wasn’t near as bad as the propaganda claimed while still acknowledging the mistakes Japan made during the war. But Tillman Durdin, a long time foreign correspondent for the New York Times witnessed first hand the atrocities committed by the Japanese in Nanking. Even as he fled the capital, Durdin witnessed some 200 Chinese soldiers being executed en masse by Japanese troops. The culture, fueled by the fascists Generals and Admirals, created a religion around the Emperor and the perverted Bushido code. The Emperor was not considered to be a supernatural being but rather a descendent of the gods, giving him quasi divinity. The populace of Japan had been so brainwashed into this new religion, they would happily die for the Emperor and for the honor of Japan. The danger of giving up oneself to an idea, the acceptance to deviate from the acceptable moral code of the day, results in an entire people losing their mind. The Germans fueled their hatred and racism through the prism of christianity while the Japanese used their hatred and racism through the prism of ancestors, honor, and the Emperor. Two different approaches to religion yet both groups did almost the exact same thing. By the time Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, their Armed Forces had been fighting the Chinese for almost ten years, ran into the Russians a few times, and had vastly superior tactics, weapons of war, and some of the best pilots in the war. In China, they would train new recruits how to bayonet enemy soldiers by using Chinese prisoners as dummies. They would take pictures of themselves beheading prisoners with their Samurai swords, they would literally murdered thousands of Chinese soldiers rather than take them prisoner. They were fierce fighters who refused to surrender, and believed it was better to die than to be captured. I know I am over-simplifying the Japanese culture but that was what the Allied forces were facing in the Pacific. So when Colonel Paul Tibbets Jr took off in a B-29 bomber he named Enola Gay, after his mother, and headed towards mainland Japan in the early morning hours of August 6th, 1945, he was faced with the dilemma that started this whole third part. And in that point of history, no one had ever dropped an atomic bomb on any living target, much less a civilian target. So Tibbets received that distinction at 8:16am when he reported back that Little Boy was away. At 8:16, kids would be going off to school, fathers would be heading into work, mothers would be doing the breakfast dishes, dog would be doing what they do, shitting in the yard, it was almost as if they wanted to do maximum damage. In the first moment, in the initial blast, 70,000 lives were eradicated. In the first four days, another 50,000 would die either from radiation sickness, or injuries they received during the blast or the panic that ensued right after, or the fires that consumed the city. Three days later, Major Thomas Sweeney would drop another bomb, this time on Nagasaki. Another 100,000 dead. But unlike Tibbets, Sweeney had read the reports of the devastation at Hiroshima, he read the reports about the radiation poisoning, he knew full well the destruction he was about to inflict on another civilian target. He understood the direct ramifications for the innocent lives that were on the wrong side of the bomb before he pushed the button. That takes a different kind of person to have that responsibility and still complete his mission. Tibbets and Sweeney had heard about the rape of Nanking. They heard from Marines that the Japanese would rather die than surrender. They heard from the Navy Captains that Japanese pilots would load their planes up with explosives then dive bomb onto the deck of ships. The medics told them about wounded Japanese soldiers, rigged with explosives, who would cry out for help and when the Allied medic approached, the soldier would blow both of them up. They saw the photos Japanese soldiers had taken of themselves beheading Allied soldiers. Death before dishonor right, how do you fight against that type of soldier? In one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific, on a small little island with no real strategic value for either the Japanese or the Allies, Peleliu, over 10,000 Japanese troops died because they employed a tactic called delay and bleed. Inflict so much damage on the enemy they just give up the will to fight. On Peleliu, only 202 prisoners were captured, out of that, only 19 were soldiers. The entire garrison died defending an island that wasn’t worth the blood they poured into it. Tibbets and Sweeney understood the type of war the Japanese were waging. Make the cost of conquering them so high the Allies would just call a truce and they would be able to keep all the land they took in the initial phase of the war. Tibbets and Sweeney, armed with all this knowledge, also knew the staggering amount of Allied life it would cost if they were to invade mainland Japan. Over 100,000 Allied troops dead in the Pacific, 240,000 wounded, 20,000 prisoners captured, and they knew what the Japanese did to prisoners so you could add that to the total of dead. Maybe 210,000 dead wasn’t that high a price when you look at the alternative. Then you have those like Admiral Nimitz, who believed the Japanese were already on their knees due to the naval blockade and conventional bombing they were already doing. By no means a supporter of the atomic, admitted the bomb hastened the end of the war but it was no means the “reason” they surrendered. It is believed by many historians that Russia entering the Pacific theater, now that Germany had surrendered in May 1945, was the real catalyst for ending the war. The Russia the Japanese faced and defeated a few times in 1940 and 1941, was not the Russia they faced in 1945. The Russians basically ran over the Japanese army with not much difficulty. Before the bomb was dropped, Japan had already sued for peace but walked away from the negotiating table because they did not get what they wanted yet. The dropping of Fat Man and Little Boy left a scar on the nations of the world. Many called it immoral, some wanted to prosecute us for war crimes because we didn't drop it on military targets, others thought it was just too horrible a weapon to ever use again. Many involved with either the inventing, construction, planning, or dropping the bomb, regretted their part in developing the atomic bomb. For Tibbets, he would go to his grave calling the very idea he did something immoral as “hogwash” and claimed to never have regretted it for a single moment as he believed it saved countless lives. In 1995, Sweeney, when asked in an interview if he regretted dropping the bomb, “If you saw what they did to our people, you would never ask that question. He would also say that Truman was right in dropping the bomb. In his memoir, Wars End: An Eyewitness Account of America’s Last Atomic Mission, Sweeney would recalled visiting the town of Nagasaki a few days after the surrender with Tibbets, he wrote, “I took no pride or pleasure then, nor do I take any now, in the brutality of war, whether suffered by my people or those of another nation. Every life is precious. But I felt no remorse or guilt that I had bombed the city where I stood. The true vessel of remorse and guilt belonged to the Japanese nation, which could and should call to account the warlords who so willingly offered up their own people to achieve their visions of greatness.” What can you say to that? Remember the propaganda was all about how we had to stop Hitler? The propaganda regarding the Japanese was a bit different. We didn’t attack their Emperor Hirohido, or the Admiralty, we attacked their entire race. We called them monkeys, or sub-human, vicious, murderers who had to be stopped at all cost. We portrayed them as sneaky, with slanted eyes and big teeth. We called them “japs”, “nips”, “yellow man”, “monkeys”, “slants”, “gooks, we hated the entire Japanese culture and wanted to destroy them for what they had done during the war. We didn’t single out one instead we hated as a group. Remember that bombing raid we did with Tibbets? One of the worst propaganda films I have ever seen stars Cary Grant called Destination Tokyo. It’s a fictionalized version of a submarine Captain (Grant), who sneaks an observer on mainland Japan to gather intelligence for military targets for the first American air raid on Japan after Pearl Harbor. It is so hard to watch due to the language on how they portray the Japanese. And to see Cary Grant called them “nips” and the way he describes them as basically being subhuman with no decency. The hatred for the Japanese was so strong, we rounded up about 120,000 Japanese immigrants from the West Coast, 70,000 of whom were American citizens and put them in what we called relocation camps. They were overcrowded, surrounded by barbed wire, and were not allowed to leave under force of armed guards. All of those people lost all their rights, their businesses, money, property, houses, and they had no legal right to appeal. It wasn’t until 1945 when the Supreme Court ruled the camps to be disbanded. It wasn’t until 1988 that any attempt at apology or reparations were offered to those we punished for being Japanese. This was the cultural environment Tibbets and Sweeney were thrust into when they had to drop the bomb. Neither man would know just how right they were in dropping the bomb. Over 2,000,000 Japanese citizens had already died by August 1945 largely because they believed they would lose honor by surrendering. Not having to invade Japan did save millions of lives, because they would not have surrendered and would have made the Allies pay for every inch they took. Just like they did on that worthless Island in the Pacific. Where is your pendulum leaning towards now? And for anyone that questions how do we know they wouldn’t have surrendered, because the second to last Japanese soldier still fighting World War II, Lieutenant Hiroo Onoda, didn’t surrender until 1974. A full twenty-nine years after the cease fire was ordered by the Emperor. He had been waging his own personal war in the Philippine Island where he had racked up a kill count of 50 dead and over a 100 wounded. When he was told the war had been over, shown Japanese papers, he believed it to be a lie by the Allied. Because if Japan had lost, there shouldn’t have been a Japanese paper because he grew up in the culture that they would fight until the very last Japanese died. It wasn’t until they had to fly Onoda’s commanding officer, the one that sent him there and instructed him to never surrender, over to convince the man the war was really over before the man surrendered to authorities. And he wasn’t the last, just the most famous because he wrote a book. In 1944, on the Island of Saipan, Allied troops witnessed a banzai charge where nearly 4,000 Japanese soldiers charged their lines and fought to the death. They were following the last orders of their commander, Lieutenant General Yoshisugu Saito, who have called for this all out surprise attack in the honor of the Emperor before commiting ritual suicide. Allied troops also witnessed a different atrocity when they saw women grabbing children and jumping from cliffs rather than submitting to capture. Okinawa was particularly hellish because nearly one-third of the population died. Ota Masahide, a survivor and Okinawa historian, wrote in an article for the Asia-Pacific Journal in 2014, “that the military distributed hand-grenades to the civilian population as a means to commit suicide with loved ones. Those that survived the grenades worried about being alive and found other ways to kill themselves with other weapons such as scythes, razor blades, ropes, rocks, and sticks. Military propaganda had warned the civilian population that if they were captured the Americans would torture, rape, and murder them.” “As the mayhem unfolded, they found all sorts of ways to kill…Men bashed their wives and parents bashed their children, young people killed the elderly and the strong killed the weak. What they felt in common was the belief that they were doing this out of love and compassion.” Another survivor Kinjo Shigeaki, who took 20 years before he spoke about his experience, identified three factors that created this mentality, “The ideology of obedience to the Emperor, the presence of the Imperial Japanese Army, and being on an island with no way to escape.” “Back in those days, 100 million Japanese citizens were supposedly being prepared to fight to the very last man, everyone was prepared for death. The doctrine of total obedience to the Emperor emphasized death and made light of life. The willingness to die for the Emperor on a faraway island resulted in a whole new sense of identity.” This is a perfect example of what happens when anyone blindly follows along with a moral code that might actually go against your better judgement. When 100 million people is willing to die for “their god”, and will happily do anything that “god” tells them to do, even if its against their own self interest, you have things like the raping of Nanking, the murder of millions of Jews, the bombing of a civilian city with an atomic bomb. Right after the call for surrender went out to the Japanese, as many as 5,000 Japanese soldiers refused the order. Many of them died of starvation due to lack of supplies. But they would rather die than ever face dishonor. This was the world Tibbets and Sweeney inhabited when they dropped the bomb. How does any of this pertain to the topic I proposed? It’s an example how blind faith and strict adherence to anything can result in dire consequences for all involved. Because the question I posed might be answered in many different ways depending on who you ask. For many, that answer can only be a resounding yes. After all, god sent his only son, jesus, down to live among us, teach us, show us how to live a proper moral life. Then that son was put to death on a cross, to abolish all the sins of everyone who had lived up to that point, and for everyone who would ever live after that. On the surface, that does sound like a moral god. But when you actually take the time to read the bible, that sentiment falls apart rather quickly. Because in Genesis 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the sixth day. Let’s not worry about the creation myth. Let’s focus on the part where god made everything in the universe and saw that it was very good. Considering what happens next, I believe god’s definition of very good differs greatly from mine. Because his very good creation, the one he made in his very own image, has some chit and some chat with a serpent and eats from the one tree god had forbidden them to eat from, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So Eve eats from the tree, gives some to Adam, then suddenly, in Genesis 3:22 And the LORD God said, The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever. I’ve read that passage maybe a hundred times in my life. And it wasn’t until right now, at this seventh re-write, that I realized god said, man has become like one of us. If there is only one god, who is the us he is referring to? Maybe the trinity and he was speaking to his other parts? Or maybe it was Yahweh’s wife, Asherah? Or maybe this part was written before the Hebrews fully switched to monotheism. Anyway, god finds out they ate from the tree because when he’s walking amongst the garden one day, Adam and Eve are embarrassed to come out of the bushes because they were naked. So they covered their dirty bits with leaves. Apparently having knowledge of good and evil means that you have the understanding that being naked is wrong…somehow. Did that mean that god walked around naked? I wonder if he was cut or uncut? Probably uncut, he reminds me of a person that would just demand that his people lose 80% sensitivity in their cocks while he continued to enjoy the full sexual experience. He seems to be so obsessed with sex I can totally see this happening. Or maybe he was preparing for the future when his chosen people fucked so many animals he had to write two different laws about animal fucking. Maybe if they could enjoy the full experience, they’d never stop fucking those sheep. The bible doesn’t say but you know those sheepherders were some sheep fuckers too. So his creation, the people he made in his own image, knew good from evil. What knowledge did they have before? Were they just blind idiots, mindless and did whatever god told them to do? Because he saw they were good until they knew right from wrong, then they were…bad? To put it another way, maybe they started thinking for themselves and we all know from reading the bible, god hates it when people start thinking for themselves. As Hulk once said, puny god. Genesis 3:16 To the woman he said, I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Every time men get involved with anything relating to women’s rights or bodily autonomy, they fuck it up. This is mansplaining away why women have pain when a ten pound human shoots out a girl’s hoo haa, ripping her from “V” to A”, not because some idiot creation from a rib of a boy seven thousand years ago ate a damn piece of fruit. And if this was true, god’s a dick, punishing every woman who ever lived because one person made a mistake. That’s not a puny god, that’s a petty god, spiteful and childish. You broke my toy, so I’m going to break your toys and all your children’s toys for the rest of time. This single verse is the beginning of the misogynistic trend women are relegated to by men throughout the entire bible. It starts right here with the christian god of the bible. And it gets worse. Don’t believe me, I’ll show you. The early christians, had an interesting view of the role women could occupy in the church. In 1 Corinthians 11:7 A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man 8 For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; 9 neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. So all you men, next time your wife starts giving you shit, point out this verse, she was created for you and you have every right to tell her to shut the fuck up! Don’t believe me, I’ll prove it. In 1 Timothy 2:11 A woman should learn in quietness and full submission 12 I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet 13 For Adam was formed first, then Eve 14 And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became the sinner 15 But woman will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith, love and holiness with proprietary So even a thousand or so years later, god’s curse is still plaguing all those descendants of Eve. But luckily, all those deceived women can still be saved if they get knocked up and pop out another kid to brainwash into serving god. I really could go on but then I’d run out of jokes. But just as your mom used to say, women should be seen and not heard. On a side note, in my church when I was growing up, women still weren’t allowed to be over men in any capacity. And this was the reasoning all women should be subservient to men. The only “job” women could have, was teaching Sunday School, and leading the choir, playing instruments, but a man was always the worship leader. Facts. Genesis 3:17 To Adam he said, Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat from it, cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the day of your life So Eve does something, god curses her and every woman that ever lived. Adam does the same exact thing, god curses the ground. I guess the big takeaway from the concept of original sin, men, never listen to your wives. So god cursed everyone, the serpent, who forevermore had to crawl on its belly, Eve enjoyed bleeding once a month and ruining her “V” to “A”, and Adam became a farmer. Think about it in the strictest of terms, that an all powerful god, all knowing god, who just created the entire universe in six fucking days, failed to see that Adam & Eve would end up eating from that damned tree. If he’s all knowing, he had to have known they would do that, and he still put the fucking tree in the garden to tempt them. He still made the serpent that led them to “sinning”. And why does one need a tree that contains all knowledge of good and evil anyway? If god created everything, why the fuck did he create evil? Why didn’t he just forgive Adam and Eve? Or why didn’t he kill them and start from scratch? None of this is logical and only desert dwelling primitives, intellectually speaking, would ever think this was a good story with good outcomes. And why is it wrong to understand the difference between right and wrong? My parents began teaching me right from wrong from the moment I could understand. So if christians today are always preaching about this right and that wrong, why is it okay now to know the difference between the two but not back then? This is just like the story of The Tower Of Babel, when humans are given the knowledge to reason things for themselves, there is no longer a need for a god. And instinctively, the ancient authors of the bible understood that concept. It was the same during the dark ages, where only the priests could read the bible and the common man had to just accept whatever the men in the funny robes said every Sunday. And no one, not god, not the religions of the world, want anyone to think for themselves. That is why they start brainwashing you from birth, that kind of indoctrination is hard to break. So there you have it, the origin story of humanity as laid out by the bible. God creates human, thought he done good, realized he fucked up, refused to admit his mistake, spends the next seven thousand years punishing his creation for rules he made up, rapes a virgin, sends his son to die in a blood magic ritual, offers a solution of forgiveness for everyone, but then offers up zero evidence for anyone to really believe he ever existed, promises he’ll torture anyone that doesn’t believe in him for all eternity, and then becomes the all time champion for hide-n-go-seek. THE TEN COMMANDMENTS Most of us understand that morality is a very complex system of beliefs and there are numerous factors that go into what it means to be moral. But according to a lot of people in Congress, Senate, on local, state, and federal levels, we don’t have to look any further than the bible for the most important moral code the world has ever seen. Of course I’m talking about the Ten Commandments. Not only do they claim that this list is the basis for all laws in America and possibly the entire world, this list is so important to our daily life that they are writing laws to force everyone to post this list in schools. So let’s break down the list shall we and see how it stands up. Thou Shalt Have No Other God’s Before Me So assuming that about 600 million atheists exist around the world, this is less than important. But I have to admit, I don’t put any gods ahead of humans, period, full stop. But this commandment makes me laugh, because christians believe in only one god, so this is kind of pointless to be included. If there’s only one, you can’t really put one before the other. And in keeping with the theme that all laws in America are based on this list, I can’t find a single law that says you can’t worship other gods. I did find something problematic that I’m sure those in Congress and the Senate are going to be trying desperately hard to correct over the next few years, but here in America, we have the right to worship any god we choose. Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image So I really did a deep dive into this one, and the only place I could find that anyone had made a graven image of gold lately, was at the Republican National Committee when they made a gold statue of Trump. But since the Republicans are god’s party, and since the Evangelicals follow Trump like he is the Messiah, I’m sure that graven image was one god overlooked. Right? Also couldn’t find a law anywhere in America where it is unlawful to make a statue, graven or otherwise. Though we are tearing down statues left right and center in certain parts of the country and that has made a lot of Evangelicals pretty upset, so I’m all sorts of confused. Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy god in vain Had to do some research for this one. The very light, almost non-existent research, do not take god’s name uselessly, for example, oh for god’s sake. That’s bad, except it’s not, because god isn’t really a name it’s more of a title. Now if you said, oh for I AM THE I AM sakes, bad. Or you could utter, oh for Yahweh’s sake when you break a nail, that would be in vain. Otherwise, not a single law on the books says you can’t say oh for god’s sake for fucks sake. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy Unless you are Orthodox Jew, working on Sabbat is just another fucking day one can watch football, drink too much, and eat hot wings. (I know Sabbat is on Saturday but the jokes work better for Sunday) Not really a good basis for a commandment. Nor would anyone in America, christian or otherwise, ever stop sports from being on Sunday much less make it illegal. Because everyone in power understands what Roman Emperor’s knew all those thousands of years ago, keep the masses entertained, invested in imaginary contests, so they won’t pay attention to what those in power are actually doing. And yes, every one of you fuckers that support any sports team while our schools are underfunded, people are dying without health care, and drug addicts wander the streets like zombies are all fucking culpable in the decline of our country. Go Mets! Honor thy father and mother Clearly the writers of the bible never met my parents. Because neither of them deserved an ounce of honor. When I went to my fathers tombstone to let it know that I was happy and getting married to the most wonderful boy in the world, I never wished so hard that tombstones talked back. I guess I did show him honor, I didn’t dig his rotting carcass up and light it afire in the middle of the street just so I could piss on it to put out the flames. As for my mother, she’s no picnic either, but that’s another story for another when. And no law says I have to honor my parents. Thou shalt not kill Finally a commandment that we can all get behind. I guess the bible isn’t a complete waste of ink, paper, and ideas. Though if we were honest, we have moved past the simple don’t kill in the last four thousand years. We changed that little, tiny nugget into something that fits our current understanding of how the world works. We know there are different circumstances for unaliving someone. We have at least six different types of murder, each one carrying its own burden of proof. There is a difference in one person setting out to cause harm to another person then say accidentally killing someone. We understand that so we alter the punishment to fit the seriousness of the crime. So even thou shalt not kill isn’t a law we use. The Hebrews killed all the time. And when they did it, it was usually a fucking genocide and ordered by Yahweh. Thou shalt not commit adultery This is another one of those “laws” that Republicans break all the time. And while a few states still have anti-adultery laws on the books, those are rarely enforced as most modern thinkers believe that an adult has the right to do as they please. Though more than likely, the reason adultery laws aren’t really enforced, because more men than women commit it. And while men love telling women what they can or can not do with their own bodies, they’ll never actively hinder themselves from getting a piece of ass. And abortion isn’t even in the bible, that’s just for Evangelicals to keep women as second class citizens. How dare those women have sex for the sheer pleasure and not how god intended for procreation only? Horny women are the worst, right? Thou Shalt Not Steal Oh, so two out of eight thus far as actual laws and dare I say, a good one. Don’t steal other people’s shit. We all share the same space and should be doing everything to help one another out. Unless you are a democrat, then you’ll be helping everyone out whether they want your help or not or even agree with your type of help. Or a Republican who wants you to live exactly like they want you too, otherwise you are persecuting them by being different. Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor Basically means you shouldn’t tell a lie. Probably a good way to live your life but not a law anywhere in the world as far as I know. Our entire justice system is built on whoever is the best liar probably wins. Both of our nominees this time around lied all the time, one more than the other, but both were fucking liars. Trump was just better at it than whatever her name was…see what I did there? Plus, I lie to my neighbor all the time. Especially when they stop me in the hall and ask how I’m doing. I’m great but I have to go do a thing, see you later. All three of those statements are usually a lie but she never catches on and no one is hurt, except maybe god, but I don’t believe in him so we all live in harmony. Thou Shalt Not Covet Definitely not a law. Matter of fact, I would say the success of America is based solely on the idea that we covet what others have. I do know that every influencer owes their success to people coveting them, so that’s another one that has no basis in laws. So that’s it, our list of perfect morals that god felt everyone should live by, matter of fact, when you don’t live by them he kills you. Commit adultery, both the man and the woman should be put to death, make a graven image, death, kill, death, steal, death, god seems to be extremely serious about this list except for the one thou shalt not kill. Out of the ten, the first five have no bearing on the modern human, 7, 9, 10 are probably a good way to live your life but not really moral or immoral. So we have “don’t kill”, and “don’t steal”, most of us really care about those two and the rest is just a bunch of gobbly gook. The Hebrews broke several of these commandments all the time, they made graven images, they worshiped other gods, they killed without remorse, they stole from those they killed, they committed adultery and got rewarded for it. At the beginning of this part, I asked the question how two men who were responsible for more deaths in a morning than any other human in history lived their entire life without a single regret. Both men were devoutly religious and believed the Japanese were sub–human, less in god’s eyes, so whatever they did to them could not be wrong. They didn’t kill Germans like they killed the Japanese. They didn’t put Germans in camps, they wrongfully imprisoned Japanese Americans. Why? Because the Germans were white, christian based, and the Japanese basically worshiped a man. It’s easy to have no remorse in the murder of hundreds of thousands of people if you get your moral code from the bible where it was done all the time That is the single biggest problem I have with the bible, the christian religion, and what it has to say about morality. It is all about us vs them, we are the chosen people and since you aren’t, you are a gentile and deserve whatever we do to you. The bible was the justification for slavery, matter of fact, they gave their slaves a special bible to keep them uneducated, the bible was the justification for the genocide of the indigenous people that lived in America before the whites. The “red man” didn’t even have a soul so the christians felt they didn’t have to keep their word, they could murder them, and none of it mattered because they believed in a different god. We created most of the problems currently facing us in the Middle East because after World War II, we created the Nation of Israel because Jesus Christ could never come back to save us if there was no Israel. We remain a friend to Israel because they have to be a country if Christ is ever going to come back and punish all those fucking Islamists who believe in the wrong god. So we fight wars that don’t have anything to do with us, support Israel in almost anything they do, all in the name of the christian god of the bible. So when I get messages from people claiming it's not fair for me to be so dismissive of the bible and how I should burn in hell for being blasphemes against god, it is that very line of thinking that has caused so much damage to the world. When your religion is too fragile to allow questioning or when its believers claim they are being persecuted for their beliefs in the freest country in the world, there is a fundamental flaw in your religion. And since this nonsensical book gives you your worldview, and you frame your thinking in what would jesus do, and vote with your christian goggles on, based on what a bunch of tent dwelling shepherds who believed the world was created in seven days thought, then I have a big problem with the christian god of the bible. When your reasonless belief in this book affects me, minorities, immigrants, and whether or not there is a war on christmas, then I am going to push back and push back as hard as I can. When does believing in a lie become immoral? It’s an important question. Moral is defined: a person’s standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do If you are getting your morals, the way you affect others because you deem it unacceptable, then the place you got those morals is suspect. I fail to see how any reasonable person could even believe in the christian god based on the history of their religion alone. But then most christians never read the book for themselves, or if they do, they read it from a place of acceptance that everything inside it is good, and true. So I will soldier on in this quest to discover if the god of the christian bible is at least moral. I know I said Part Three was going to be on the Exodus, but as I researched it ballooned to over 14,000 words so I decided to break it up. So consider this as a bonus entry in the series as we continue our quest to find morality in the bible.

After certain events I would have a hard time arguing against this statement.

As I don't take religion seriously, I approached this subject in the same tongue-n-cheek manner I approach anything, hopefully humorously. And hopefully someone who reads this takes a step back and think about the stories they have believed hook line and sinker without ever taking the time to ask questions. I would agree with your statement regarding ensuring bloodlines. But the virgin thing was also about power, and seeing women as property. If another man has inserted his penis into her, she is beneath me, she is not worthy to have me stick my dick inside her. It was the attitude that a man could stick it to anyone and still be a worthy of a virgin but a woman was less in everyone's eyes. The father had every right to kill his deflowered daughter, as without being a virgin, he could not get money for her. It's way deeper than just ensuring bloodlines. And right or wrong, custom of the day or not, we are talking about young girls being sold as wives to older men, sometimes decades older. This was a messed up society that this christian god not only ordained, but offered laws up to keep this way of life by his followers. Nothing moral about that. I will get into more detail about this topic in a few parts down the line. Thanks for commenting.

In doing my research for this topic, I felt to include El and his kids, did not fit the theme, is the god moral or not. When I tackle my position on why I do not accept the idea of any god much less the christian god of the bible, I will include that piece of trivia that many do not even know about. The greatest thing I discovered some years back, the original Yahweh was the warrior god, the god of vengeance. Though as time went on and the other children of El fell away, Yahweh morphed from a hateful god into more of a loving, forgiving god. I find it so amusing that many christians if not most, who believe whole heartedly in the idea of Jesus christ, yet they never read their own bible outside of what the minister teaches them, and they have no idea of the history of that god or that its based on older myths.