Would you make a human sacrifice to walk again…

Posted by The Guy Who Wrote This

I was privileged yesterday to have had a very lengthy (in the area of four hours) conversation with someone whose ideas are so perfectly opposed to mine that I almost think I hallucinated the whole thing. My only evidence remaining that it happened is that I am in the room with the guy right now, and he seems to recall the conversation… And he also seems to recall that we have almost perfect disagreement on all points, so I feel comfortable at this point with the idea that I actually had this conversation.

To start, I am going to describe this man as the most intelligent Fox News viewer I have ever spoken to (at the least), and certainly is more intelligent than I ever thought a Fox News viewer had the capacity to be. That being said, his grasp of evidence was incredibly skewed, and his tactic of discussion incredibly… Well, he was certainly sincere, but to me it seems his beliefs are quite disingenuous.

When we arrived on the topic of Stem Cell Research and more specifically Embryonic Stem Cell research, it was the choice quote that I made the title of this post that really brought me to a screeching halt. It came down to an argument of joint biology combined with the legendary arithmetic of souls. “A blastocyst,” to his credit he was familiar with what the term, “is a human being just as much as you or me.”

My reply came from the perspective of my motto, to bring more happiness than I take, and I replied “If embryonic stem cell research had even one half of one percent chance to allow even a single quadriplegic to walk, it would be a worthwhile field to study.”

“Would you,” he patiently intoned, “Sacrifice a human being so you could walk again?”

This gave me pause, and I will admit that I was stymied a little. I was not stymied because I thought he had the right of it, but because it was at this moment that the root, the core of the issue to the two of us was different, and I was not sure I had the evidence that I would need to even tell him was my side is let alone have him believe it.

It was only after the conversation, during my later musings and research, that several points began to coalesce in my mind. The first of the points that I believe came to serve my side comes in the form of spontaneous abortion (or, to use the more common term, miscarriage). The National Institutes for Health, an organization in the United States, estimates that over 50% of pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion before the end of the first trimester. Now, given the US birth rate (2014) of 13.62/1000 persons, we can reason that there are some 360,000 or so pregnancies wherein the fetus is killed not by doctors, not be intent, but by the mother’s own body for reasons that are unclear or difficult to study. To rephrase an idea I first heard from Sam Harris, if you are worried about abortion, you should worry about God–surely he is the most prolific abortionist of all.

If we are going to get into the arithmetic of souls, what happens to the souls of these spontaneously miscarried first trimester fetuses? In the Catholic tradition, a soul is imparted at conception, and many other Christian denominations agree. What happens, then, to these 360,000 excess souls? The souls of the children that die less than 90 days after they are conceived? Did God craft that soul in His hands, in His heart, for the purpose of killing it before it had a brain?

I will leave the answer to that question as an exercise to the reader, and move on to my next point.

The cells used in embryonic stem cell research are grown in a petri dish and would not otherwise be implanted in a woman. These embryos, used for medical research on generally the third day of development, are about 150 cells in size and are not recognizable as anything human unless viewed at the level of DNA. If I lined up 1000 microscopes with 1000 different 3 day old embryos in them, you would not be able to find the human among them. If I lined up 2 microscopes, you would not be able to tell the difference. But even then, that isn’t the point.

These embryos serve an incredibly high calling. If you believe they have a soul, then that soul could go to making a person walk. That soul could go to preserving the soul of a young person dying in a burn ward. That soul could go to allowing the blind to see.

If you want to compare it to the story of Jesus, that soul could be described as allowing the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, and may open the very door to allowing the deceased to walk again. (That last one is exaggeration, I just wanted to complete the metaphor.)

I was told by this man that embryonic stem cell research was a worthless field, and that no breakthroughs had come or could come from it. I did not speak to it at the time because I have not followed the field closely, but my original thought was that “Well, of course not much has come from it… It is illegal in the United States, the country where most pharmaceutical research is done.” I have since checked in on it.

At its peak, there were two firms researching embryonic stem cell treatments, and one went under due to lack of investment (no one would invest in it out of fear of legal repercussions, which is sadly very valid). The second, though, has made breakthroughs of incredible importance, and did so on its first attempt on humans. In 2012, ACT (Advanced Cell Technology) performed a clinical trial based on embryonic stem cell research that restored sight to a man with macular degeneration so bad that it had caused blindness. Macular degeneration is a process that is not otherwise reversible, and generally affects all people as they age to varying degrees. This man, blinded, was obviously less lucky — generally you end up with sight degradation, but not complete blindness.

They reversed the macular degeneration. I will type that again, so it is clear. It was reversed. It was not just stopped, resulting in his vision being static; they restored the dead nerves. These are the types or procedures that could restore walking in humans, as nerve regrowth has been a problem with human healing for … Well, as long as medicine has been a thing.

This is the medical field that my partner in discussion said was dead and worthless. This brings me no end to my sadness, as I know there are more people (certainly more in the United States) that think as he does, and fewer who think as I do.

Why has growth in this field been so slow? Well, slow is a bit of a misused word… It is a field that is very young, less than two decades old. And in that two decades, we have restored sight to the blind. Perhaps there is a fear that we are treading upon the toes of miracles, but I believe that if humans can create miracles, we have something akin to obligation to do so. In any case, the reason that growth is so slow is due to staunch religious opposition even to investigating this. I would think that the knowledge that as many as 50% of all pregnancies ending (50% of all fetuses dying) should give you the required perspective to realize that the purpose to which embryos in stem cell research are put is far greater than could possibly be stated merely in words by some small time blogger. The destruction of 10,000 embryos today could save the life of a trillion people over the future of human history, and yet the progress is stymied by the fact that a soul may be destroyed in the process?

This does not seem the fault of doctors or scientists, this seems the kind of thing one should ask God directly. Why would He, in His infinite wisdom, destroy half of the souls he creates before there is something recognizable as a body attached to them? Why would He create a universe where the answer to an infinite number of medical conditions lies at the heart of a cluster of cells so small that a fly could not even see them for standing on them?

God, surely, had the ability to create us with the ability to heal from things such as a break of our spinal cord… But He did not. God, surely, could have placed the answer to these medical issues in a place that would not require the destruction of embryos… But He did not. God, surely, could have told us when a soul is imparted upon a human being… But He did not.

The answers to all of the above questions of great moral weight have never been in the hands of God, but in the hands of men who care more about the suffering of human beings who think and feel than they do about the theological arithmetic of souls. Perhaps there is a soul imparted at conception, but if there is God spared no word in the Bible to that effect. Perhaps the souls of children are subject to different laws than the souls of adults, for surely they cannot have given God any cause to punish them aside from their original sin… But a strict reading of original sin means they go to hell. If the souls of destroyed embryos go to hell, surely the question should be raised to God why it is He who destroys half of all souls before they have the ability to see, to think, to breath, even to feel.

And what if those souls go to heaven? We are then given to wonder why anyone would want to stop stem cell research when the outcomes would be 100% positive? A soul goes to heaven, and an additional soul is spared from pain, given sight, given the ability to walk. Everybody wins!

You end up with an odd question, if you probe the depths of this too deeply. What does the soul of a cluster of 150 cells look like? When it goes to heaven, does it have a personality? Does it have the ability to feel? If it goes to hell, what is it that arrives in hell? Are Satan’s floors littered with 150 cell souls, so small he does not even realize they have arrived? How does one torture these souls? To step on them would do nothing according to any physics we know. To throw them in fire eternal, where the flame never quenches and the worm never dies, even that would do nothing — for the cells have no nervous system.

Does God impart upon them the soul of their fully developed selves? Does God give to them an adult soul, only to snuff half of those souls out? If so, what is wrong with your God? Why would anyone worship such a being? If the souls of these dead embryos go to heaven, then perhaps there is some mercy in your God, but if they do not, if these souls go to hell as punishment for Adam’s original sin, I would not worship such an evil God under threat of eternal hellfire. Such a tyrant the world has never known; the death of six million Jews? God has snuffed out one hundred thousand times more than that, even before they saw the light of day, drew their first breath. If He sent that number to hell, if He crafted those souls to the purpose of the Pit of Hellfire, He does not deserve worship. He deserves war.

These are all idle speculations, of course — there is no theological evidence either way, to know what happens to these souls. God did not see fit to tell us. Does that not worry you, if you believe in the soul at conception? Does God have something to hide?

I believe in the goodness of most human beings. There are evil among us, but they are not the majority.

I believe that the humans who work in stem cell research are not murderers, but men and women with the goal of alleviating suffering, of curing the sick, of giving the blind to see and the lame to walk. I would worship these humans more readily than I would worship a God who crafts souls only to snuff them out before the mother knows she is pregnant. Unless those souls get a free ride to Heaven, of course — if they do, I will give your God a passing grade. It is pointless, mind, that He would create a soul, place it in an embryo, snuff it out, and recall it to Himself in under 8 weeks, mind — an act of futility, almost a waste of effort, but as I have been told, His ways are mysterious, His plans inscrutable.

After you have read this, tell me in the comments, please. Tell me what it is that has you in opposition of embryonic stem cell research. Tell me what it is in your faith that sees the suffering of a blind man, the suffering of a quadriplegic, the suffering of all those around you, and says “No, I will stand in opposition of helping those people.”

I do not see it, I cannot understand it, and it is in this arena that the darkness of your beliefs snuffs out so much of the light of your religion to me. I cannot see the love of it. I cannot see the glory of it. I cannot see the Hand of your God in it.

Best Friends with God

Posted by The Guy Who Wrote This

The below contains some straw man arguments; it is not because I am intentionally doing so, it is more because as soon as a Christian hears an atheist speak of their religion, the conversation ends. I would like to speak with someone about my concerns below; I am not irreligious because I want to be, I am irreligious because no one seems to want to answer my questions and religion has left me adrift–but atheism took me in with open arms.

I have many Christian friends of various faiths, some nondenominational, some Anglican, some Catholic… I have one Muslim friend, and several atheist friends. I have one friend whose own personal religion would be impossible to describe without at least three textbooks, some art supplies, and a team of interpretive dancers. I am not going in the direction you might think I am going in with this; what I am saying is that, despite the fact that we may disagree on questions of ultimate meaning, we all have personalities that are otherwise very compatible. If my Christian friends were of the intolerant kind, I would be deprived of great friendships for my latent atheism (and, if they would permit me to say so, I think they would be deprived of a very eccentric friend in me).

So, let’s talk about our relationship with God; I don’t care whether or not you believe in Him, I don’t, but even then my nonbelief could be framed in terms of my relationship with the idea of God.

My relationship with God, my not believing in His existence (or, at the very minimum, my not believing in the existence of the Christian God) could be seen in a fairly negative light. If He exists, I suppose it could be said that I have a fairly dim view of him. But let’s talk about your relationship with Him, theoretical straw man who doesn’t like to talk to me!

How would you describe your relationship with God? Do you love Him? Does He love you? Before you answer “Yes, and yes!” I would like you to step back and think very hard about the reason you are answering the way you do. I would like for you to give me examples from the Bible that show God’s love for you. I will not permit things such as God saying I love you, as words are fickle and can mean many things. God says He is Just and slow to anger, but it was very, very, very shortly before saying this very thing that He said “They built a golden calf. I have chosen my people poorly. I will kill them all.” (Exodus 32:9-10, 34:6)

So please, let us let God’s actions speak for Him, and tell me why you think He loves you. I am going to disqualify a couple of things that I know you will mention, and if you manage to requalify them by evidence that’s ok–but it had better be pretty good.

First, sending His only begotten Son to redeem our Sins. This seems great, as I have been told many times “Sins must be punished,” but you are using this as a “Get out of Jail Free” card; ‘I don’t have to go to hell because Jesus died for my sins.’ This is odd to me, as Jesus did not die (or rather, it was a temporary condition) and then, if Jesus did, how do you justify this? God can forgive your sins now, because Jesus died? Is that the condition for your God’s love? That something dies? Is that love?

“I am sorry, dear wife, that I have cheated on you.”

“Oh, well, if you kill our son I will forgive you.”

No, this does not indicate love. If our God was a God of “boundless” love, of “unconditional” love, of “unconditional” forgiveness, as I’ve been told colloquially, where is the evidence of that? It sounds to me like the bound of His love is “sinning even one time,” like the condition of His love is “kill something in my name, and make it good,” like the condition of His forgiveness is “recognizing that I killed something awesome.” The things i have just mentioned are bounds and conditions that completely and logically prove that God has conditions and bounds.

So how would we describe this relationship, then? I would say we have, or rather you have, a friendship with God. Not just a friendship, but a best friendship. You can tell Him anything, because He already knows your secrets.But you can disagree with His views on the universe and still be friends with Him; Moses did, and Abraham did. “What what what?” you say, “Moses and Abraham disagreed with God? But I must take His will in the most literal and binding sense!”

In Exodus 32, God says “I am going to smite the Israelites and start over.”

Moses replies “No, don’t do that. How could you even think of doing that? No, let’s go and work with them, maybe only kill a few of them.” (Well, 3000 of them ended up being the death toll of Moses’ judgement of the Israelites, which admittedly is far more merciful than God tends to be. Exodus 32:27-28)

“But Jesus blotted all of that out! He preached love and tolerance and acceptance!” Yes, he did, to a degree… But he certainly did not blot out the Old Testament’s draconian rules and commandments of sacrifice (Matthew 5:17-20). Jesus may have preached a more tolerant version of the Old Testament, he still thought that sacrificing lambs and doves was a requirement for the forgiveness of sin. If you want to use Jesus as an example of God’s love, I fear you are teaching not Jesus but Paul. I am perfectly willing to admit that Paul taught a doctrine of love, but Paul was but a man writing letters to people containing his version of morality, and I fear that using him as an example of God’s love gives my column more points than it does yours. Paul became a force for love and tolerance, though prior to his conversion to Christianity, he was a draconian acolyte, killing Christians wherever he found them.

“But Paul is a story of redemption, of a man who realized he was in the wrong and came back to the light of Christ!” What you have to remember is that Paul was preaching Paul’s own brand of Christianity; the gospels were not formalized back then, it was mostly oral, and until the second and third centuries there were so many different views of Christianity, so many different gospels, that the two biggest forces in the history of the young Christian Church, Paul (Saul of Tarsus) and James, the brother of Jesus, whom they call the Christ (Quoted from the Jewish historian Josephus), may have engaged in fisticuffs on the temple stairs (Reza Aslan, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth)

So again, show me something that indicates God’s unbounded love through action, not through Paul’s letters, or God himself saying “I totally love you in an unbounded way. Now turn around while I annihilate this city. Also, I am slow to anger, but please forget that I wanted to wipe out the Israelites (again) two chapters ago, and that it was a human who had to remind me of the covenant I made with Abraham.”

The good thing about being friends with God is that you can disagree with Him but still like Him. I think that would be a much healthier religion, personally. I know that isn’t what your current relationship with Him is, but consider it.

I do not want you and God to break up, I just want you to communicate and work through your problems. This teenaged crush you have on Him (OH EM GEE He is like… SO PERFECT! I can’t even tell you how perfect He is! YOU HAVE TO LOVE HIM TOO!) is not helping anyone. So figure some things out between the two of you, because it makes me sad that you let God emotionally abuse you so much, and yet you still come to His defense.

Let Him defend Himself. Let God’s actions defend God. If God is all that, why should you have to defend Him at all? A perfect, timeless God should have been able to make an unambiguous book that speaks through the ages and across languages, and if that is what the Bible is, let me read it and come to my own conclusions. If the Bible is perfect, I’m sure we’ll all agree in the end… Right?

The Real Ten Commandments

Posted by The Guy Who Wrote This

This will be a short post, and I will have something of full length forthcoming for the day, but I just thought I would mention it. In Exodus chapter 34, God writes ten commandments on stone tablets. Hurray, right? There is something that popular culture got right!

NOPE!

According to Exodus 34 (and I will cite verse to make sure no one calls me dishonest), the below are the ten commandments. The punishment for breaking any one of the following commandments is that you, your kids, your grandkids, and your great grandkids go to hell (Exodus 34:7)

Commandment One: Thou shalt kill the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and do not forge any contracts or alliances with them. You will destroy their altars to their gods. Only worship me. (Exodus 34:10-14)

Alright, commandment one is somewhat familiar, if a little wordier. Since all of the peoples God commands killed are extinct, the only part left is “Thou shalt have no gods before me,” which is the familiar first commandment.

Commandment Two: Thou shalt not make any idols of worship. (Exodus 34:17)

Again, we are still on familiar ground.

Commandment Three: Celebrate the Passover feast, and make really sure the bread is unlevened. SERIOUSLY! NO YEAST! (Exodus 34:18)

Commandment Four: The first offspring of every womb belongs to me. For the firstborn of every donkey, sacrifice a lamb. If you don’t sacrifice a lamb, break the donkey’s neck (for some reason). For the firstborn son, sacrifice a lamb. (Exodus 34:19-20)

Don’t know why God hates donkeys, but there you go. There is no provision for what happens if you don’t sacrifice a lamb for your firstborn son, but if we use extrapolation…

Commandment Five: No one is to appear before God without a sacrifice prepared. (Exodus 34:20)

Well, that does seem consistent with the personality of the Old Testament God.

Commandment Six: Keep holy the Sabbath. Do no work, light no light, do not start any fires. (Exodus 34:21)

We’ve moved a commandment, but you might recognize this from the original ten you learned.

Commandment Seven: There is to be a festival of the harvest, and you are to sacrifice your first harvest of wheat to God. (Exodus 34:22-25)

Commandment Eight: When you make a sacrifice to me, make REALLY SURE none of it has any yeast. Or looks at yeast. Or has been in the presence of yeast. Did I mention I hate yeast? Because yeah, I hate yeast. (Exodus 34:25)

Commandment Nine: Sacrifice the first fruits of any soil to God. (Exodus 34:26)

This one seems a duplicate, but it seems God really had a point to make here, and He was going to get it across.

Commandment Ten: Thou shalt not cook a young goat in its mother’s milk. (Exodus 34:26)

Yup, that is commandment ten.

Exodus 34:27:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

So there you go. These are the Ten Commandments that were chiseled in stone.

These are the moral teachings of the covenant of God.

Just thought you should know.

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 6

Posted by The Guy Who Wrote This

As we walk towards the finale of the epic tale of Exodus, Moses is dragging gigantic slabs of rock down a mountain, the tablets having been inscribed by the Finger of God Himself with every rule He could think of.

Meanwhile, at base camp:

“Hey Aaron, we were all just wondering,” a nervous looking Israelite was fidgeting as he spoke. “Moses has been gone for like… Weeks. Do you suppose he just made all of that God stuff up? And I mean… Like… Now, I am just spitballing here… We need to have gods. We can’t live without them. Now, since he made that God up, we don’t want to believe in Him any more. What say you make up a god for us?”

Aaron looked thoughtful. “You know what? You’re right, he probably made it all up and isn’t coming back. Gather up all that gold we stole from the Egyptians, let’s melt it down and make us a god.”

Aaron collected all of the gold and jewelery from the Israelites and melted it into a cast he apparently had handy of a calf. From it he made a golden calf.

“There you go, Israelites! Against all evidence, and ignoring the fact that I obviously just made this calf in front of you a few minutes ago, this is the god that rescued us from Egypt!” Aaron flung his arms wide in a gesture indicating the glory of the golden calf. (Seriously, Exodus 32:1-4)

“And since this is our new god, let’s offer it some burnt sacrifices! Since we aren’t following Moses’ stupid God that he totally made up any more, these bulls aren’t doing anything useful anyway!” So they made an altar in front of the calf and sacrificed some stuff to it, because why not?

Then, for the first time in 40 days, the omniscient God looked down the mountain that Moses was slowly descending. “Oh what the hell! You’ve been up here for what? A few weeks? They said they’d worship me forever out of fear! How could they turn so quickly? I am going to smite them so hard”

Moses let the gigantic slabs fall to the ground, and spun on God. “Oh no you don’t. No. You don’t get to ruin my life, then mess with my family and me for over forty years then just smite them. You put so much effort into saving them, why would you waste that? And you promised Abraham that his descendants would number as the stars, and what would everyone say if God just went around breaking promises?”

“Uuuuuugggghhhhhhhhhh. Fine. But you just wait until I tell you the new rules. Those slabs you are carrying down the mountain? Those will practically be invisible beside the paper it will take to write out my new rules.” God crossed His arms in a huff and wandered off to smite something that Moses wouldn’t complain about. He mumbled as He turned “Stupid people don’t realize the amount of awesome they are constantly rejecting.”

Moses turned around and dragged the slabs to near the bottom of the Mountain when he saw that everyone was celebrating in front of a golden calf, just like God had said. Realizing that the Israelites were completely undermining all of his effort, he got so angry that he threw the tablets down the mountain, shattering them that God Himself had written. “Oh, oh, oh hohoho. You know what? I am going to smite some of these idiots myself. I am tired of this crap!”

Moses ran the rest of the way down the mountain, through the people, and poured oil all over the golden calf. He then started the calf on fire, and kicked it over and it smashed (as gold is wont to do) then made the Israelites powder the statue and he shouted “You drink it! YOU DRINK YOUR SHAME! IDIOTS! And you, Aaron! What the hell, man? YOU’VE TALKED TO GOD YOURSELF! You know how He is! What did they do to you, that you actually made this god for them?!”

“Well,” Aaron was staring at his shoes and drinking his burning gold-oil water. “They asked me to make a god, so like… What was I gonna do? Say no? So I made them a god. Well, really, it made itself. You know. With magic. It’s kind of hard to explain.” (Exodus 32:22-24)

Moses was struck dumb momentarily, and Aaron thought he could actually see something break in Moses. Moses turned around and walked to the altar of the Golden Calf. He turned and looked at the people, all in rapt silence looking at him.

“Whoever believes in God, come over here.” Only one group followed him, the Levites.

“Ok, so God wanted to smite everyone, and I thought, you know… How bad could it be? But you know what? This is stupid. This is all stupid. So grab some swords, and kill all of the Israelites in the valley except the Levites. Just… Smite them. As hard as you can. Maybe seeing some wanton destruction in His name will keep God from smiting some random tribe.” The Levites grabbed swords from the armory, and like a giant living lawnmower they killed everyone, their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers who were not of the tribe of Levi.

As this wanton destruction happened, Moses climbed back up Mount Sinai to talk to God.

“Hey Moses, saw what you did back there. I like it. I like your style. Hey, though, just for good measure I am going to strike all of the Israelites with a plague, so they remember how awesome and merciful I am. Should put the fear back into them, too. It worked so well last time!”

Moses just shrugged and said “Sounds good.”

Good looked at Moses with something that could have been concern, but probably wasn’t. “Hey buddy, you ok?”

“M’fine. Go plague some stuff. I have to go rethink my life.”

“Cool, cool. Oh, by the way, you may be my chosen people, or whatever, but I’m done helping you directly. Seriously, I have almost killed all of you so many times, I’ve just decided to be hands off going forward. You guys don’t deserve to be in my awesome presence anyway.” And for the first time in forty years, Moses felt a sliver of hope that he may yet know something like happiness in his life.

“Oh, but before I go, we have to remake those slabs you broke. I mean, I could put them back together… But I’d prefer if you came back up Mount Sinai. Don’t worry, I’ll still do the writing, but you have to make the slabs. Bring them up the mountain with you tomorrow! That’ll cheer you up!”

Moses had regrets about ever having been optimistic, but the next day chiseled out some slabs of stone and dragged them up the mountain.

When Moses got to the top, God was waiting. “Heeey buddy! Have I mentioned how awesome and merciful and compassionate and slow to anger I am lately? Because I am all of those things. But if you break even one of my rules, I swear upon my own name, I will send you to hell, and your kids to hell, and their kids to hell, and their kids’ kids to hell. COMPASSION! Am I doing this right?” (Seriously. Exodus 34:6. In fact, I think I made it make God sound even more merciful than the Bible version does.)

“Anyway, as part of how merciful and compassionate I am, I feel like now is the time to remind you to go to the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and kill them. Kill them so dead. Like… Turbo dead. Is that a thing? Turbo death? I feel like I should make that a thing. Man, I’m awesome. Turbo-death. So awesome. Hey, I just remembered. When was the last time you had a seven day long party in my name? You should do that. Do that each time you annihilate an entire people in my name. Just so I know you know how awesome I am. AND NO YEAST (Yup, came up again, Exodus 34:25). I hate yeast. It is so… So not awesome. Also, don’t know if I mentioned this recently, but make sure not to cook a young goat in its mother’s milk. That’s important. (Exodus 34:26)

“Anyway, stone slabs are ready. Get dragging. Also, I turned you into a nightlight; isn’t that hilarious? You should probably wear a veil for the rest of your life, or people will make fun of you for glowing. (Exodus 34:33) Have fun, you rascals!”

Moses dragged the slabs down the mountain, and showed them to the Israelites. He also made sure that the Israelites built the box God wanted, and set up a tent with the patterns exactly how God wanted them, because even though God is slow to anger, Moses knew that God would smite them all if the patterns weren’t exactly right. After all of the work was right, Moses made sure to inspect every inch of every piece of the box and of the tent and of the furniture in the tent, before even telling God that it was done. And when he was done inspecting, he inspected again, because he was not going to bargain for the lives of 2 million people again, especially when they didn’t deserve it, and when he himself had ordered thousands of them smited.

For the rest of eternity, the Israelites were blessed with the opportunity to carry a box weighing thousands of pounds with them wherever they went.

The End

What a nice story, am I right?!

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 5

Posted by The Guy Who Wrote This

When we last left Moses, he was writing down strange and onerous rules pertaining to justice, mercy, and the moral way of living (as punishment for backtalk to God). I won’t list all of the rules in this summary (you can find them in my previous blog posting, The Laws of Morality), but suffice it to say, God was probably just messing with Moses just to see what happens. After Moses had delivered the laws to the Israelites, they said they would happily follow them to avoid pissing God off because they saw what he did to Egypt and they are not as stupid as Pharaoh.

God was just giddy to see the look of fear and terror in His beloved playthings… I mean people. He came down onto Mount Sinai again, and called out to Moses, “Hey buddy, come back up here. Bring Aaron with you, I like him, and bring like… Seventy elders or whatever. I want witnesses. But only Moses comes close, the rest get to watch from a distance.”

“Are you asking me to pick out 70 elders to come up the mountain but still not come close to them just so you can watch 70 elders climb a mountain?” Moses asked sardonically.

“… No. Shut up. Bring the elders. Oh, but before you come up, I need you to be cleansed. So here’s how you are going to cleanse yourselves; you are going to sacrifice twelve bulls, one for each of the tribes with you, and collect all their blood, then take half of it and pour it on yourselves. Then you’ll be clean! Then you can come up the mountain.”

Moses heaved a heavy breath and went to gather twelve bulls, built twelve altars, and made sure he had twelve very large bowls to collect all the blood. He then engaged in the slaughter according to what God had said, because at this point this was probably one of the least frustrating things God had asked them to do, aside from the fact that there was a lot of meat there, and they weren’t allowed to eat it.

Then Moses, Aaron, and the seventy elders climbed Mount Sinai and saw God sitting at the top. Moses was frankly surprised they the elders weren’t killed by God for some reason (no, seriously, Exodus 24:11). Once they got to the top, God told Moses to come up further, away from the elders, and He’d write the Laws of the Covenant on stone tablets for Moses to take down to the Israelites.

When Moses arrived at the foot of the throne of God, he really wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Maybe that he’d get stone tablets quickly? But he wasn’t so lucky.

“Heeey Moses! How’s things with you? Having fun being the caretaker? Hey, I’m gonna spend some time writing these tablets, why don’t you make yourself comfortable?” God cheerfully began carving stones at about the same speed Moses could have.

“I’m… Well,” Moses replied unsurely. “How long are we talking here? How long will I be sitting alone with you?”

“Oh,” God said, then looked at the stones around him thoughtfully. “I should be done in about forty days. But hey, we get to hang out for forty days! I arranged it like this, because I am awesome, and I knew you’d want to hang out with me after being stuck with all those other boring people for so long!”

“I can’t even describe how I feel right now, God. You have no idea.” And so began forty days and forty nights of Moses hanging out with God.

After the forty days, before God sent Moses down Mount Sinai, He decided to drop the bombshell. “Hey buddy, these forty days have been awesome! Thanks for hanging out. But hey, I feel like the Israelites haven’t been sacrificing to me all that much since you came up here, so here’s what you’ll tell them to sacrifice to me when you get down there: I like gold, silver, and bronze, so those are good. Ummmm… Blue, purple, and scarlet string.”

“What?”

“I like those colors. So yeah. Blue, purple, and scarlet. That’s important. Some goat hair would be nice. Make sure you burn it, though.”

“But that will smell awful!”

“Hahahaha! It sure will! Where was I? Goat hair. Right. Ram leather, but only the stuff that has been dyed red. I’d like some acacia wood, too. That stuff is great for medicine.”

“But if you burn it, you lose all of the medicinal parts…”

“I KNOW! It’ll be hilarious. Stop interrupting. Spice-scented olive oil, and any gems you have. Then you’re gonna build an insulated box for me to stay in so I can ride along with you guys.”

“An insulated box? Insulated against what?”

“I have this bad habit of accidentally killing people whenever my mind wanders. If you build the box according to these plans, there is only a minimal chance you’ll all be killed for being too close to me! Aren’t I awesome?!”

“Uhhh… Why does the box have to be made almost entirely out of gold?”

“It will be SUPER SHINY! It’ll blind anyone who looks at it! Won’t that be hilarious? And gold is like super heavy. I wanna watch you guys carry it around, everywhere, for the rest of forever. I mean, you guys would never lose something as important as this, right?”

Moses decided to keep all of the future questions to himself.

God looked thoughtful for a second. “Here, have some more plans. One for a bitchin’ tent that you are to put the box in. I don’t want a standard tent, and remember how I mentioned blue, purple, and scarlet? The tent had better be those colors! And I’ll need priests! Can’t have a solid worshiping without priests, right? But how will they know that these priests serve the most bitchin’ God of all time? Hmmm…” There was a brief pause before God continued. “Make the robes out of blue, purple, and scarlet, of course. But the best priest will need a bejeweled breastplate. We don’t want people thinking I am worshiped by peasants, right? How will they know how awesome I am if my priests are boring assholes?

“I think that about covers how they look. But how will I know they are serious about the position? Well, how about this. Have them sacrifice a bull to me, but remove its internal organs and burn those as sacrifice to me, and haul the rest of the body out and burn it in the wilderness. Eheheheh, that corpse is gonna be so hard to carry.

“Also, we’re just warming up. Take two rams and sacrifice them to me. Cut up the first one and cook it, but you can’t eat it. It is mine. The second one, take its blood and mix it with oil, then smear it on Aaron. Actually, you know what? Cover Aaron’s sons with it, too. Yeah, gotta know Aaron is serious about being a priest.”

Moses looked up at God for a moment, setting down the plans for the box. “You haven’t asked him to be a priest yet. How do you know he will even be sort of serious about it?”

God looked at Moses quizzically, “Wouldn’t anyone want to be a priest for such a bitchin’ religion? Wait, I get it! You’re jealous! You wanna be my High Priest. But you don’t have to be, you’re my boi! That’s like… Way better! The High Priest will barely ever get to talk to me! Haven’t we had such awesome conversations?! That’s what I thought.”

Moses again sighed heavily and looked back at the plans for the box.

“Also, bread. Lots of bread. But NO YEAST. You’ll make two different kinds of bread for this. One of the breads will be baked with olive oil mixed in. BUT NO YEAST. The other one will just be brushed with olive oil. ALSO NO YEAST! Did I mention I don’t like yeast? Because yeast is awful. Hell, I’d go as far as to say yeast is me-damned. Me-damned yeast. Hate that stuff.

“Anyway, once you have the bread, give it to Aaron and his sons, and have them wave the bread at me. (Author’s note: What? Seriously, what? Exodus 29:24-26) Then, burn it. Burn all that bread. I want to taste it in the air.

“Now, this is just on day one. For the next six days, sacrifice a bull each day.”

Moses didn’t even look up this time. “How many bulls do you think we have?”

“Psh, you think I care? I like burned bull, and that’s what you are going to keep burning. It’ll be awesome. Also, you think you are going to run out of bulls? Wait for this next one!

“Every day for the rest of eternity I want you to sacrifice two lambs. They have to be exactly one year old, so you’d better be calving those sheep every day. Also, wine. Lambs love wine. Sacrifice the lamb with wine.

“Anyway, I think that about covers it. As long as you do this stuff, I will be your God. But if you ever stop these sacrifices, you bitches are on your own. (Exodus 29:45-46)

“Now, this next part is important. I don’t know how many of you there are, so take a census. Also, for every person, take a ransom to ensure their good health (seriously, God blackmails them with plague threats in Exodus 30:12, and asks for protection money). The ransom price is one half a shekel. Also, I want to know how much the people like me, so no one is allowed to pay for anyone else. The poor have to provide their own ransom money! (Exodus 30:15) Use this money for the upkeep of my bitchin’ box. See? I’ve thought of everything. Aren’t I awesome?!

“Now, you guys smell a little funny, so I need you to make a huuuuuuuuuge basin of perfume. Literally enough to last for the rest of eternity, because anyone who makes any more of the perfume as per the recipe I am giving you will be SMOTE. Seriously, dead and sent to hell. This perfume is serious business. Also, only use it on the priests, because they are the only ones who can come even close to me. The rest of the smelly peasants just aren’t allowed nearby.

“And now the most important commandment I will ever give you. No work allowed on Saturday. If you, or anyone, or any of their animals, work on Saturday, even to lift a finger, wash, or whatever, kill them, and I’ll make sure their stay in hell is eternal and horrible.”

God then handed Moses the stone tablets that contained not just the ten commandments, but all of the Jewish rules, because it would be hilarious to watch a 90 year old man drag around gigantic slabs of rock.

—-

I think Part 6 will be the last part of Exodus, then I can return to my regularly scheduled updates.

But seriously, this section was ten straight chapters of God making rules. I tried to capture the highlights, but seriously. The specificity is amazing in there for just the smallest things. There’s bread recipes, and rules for the patterns in the tent where they are supposed to store the ark, and rules for the smallest details in the lid of the ark. I am sorry, I really didn’t know how to capture any of this section but also make it funny. There’s just nothing interesting there, for ten straight chapters, except for the fact that the reason that God hasn’t talked to anyone since Jesus was around is because we stopped sacrificing the lambs (probably). So I guess that makes sense.

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 4

Posted by The Guy Who Wrote This

As we enter into the final chapters in the saga of the Ten Commandments, the Israelites have left the desert they were wandering around in for forty years. God is juuuust about ready to give them the land He promised them, but He needs to play one last joke.

The caravan of Israelites was attacked by the nation of Amalek (God didn’t let the Israelites take the shortcut because they might get into a fight with the Philistines, but after they’d been wandering for forty years and a few months, what were they gonna do? Go back to Egypt? Psh, no one would even have been alive there at this point except whatever it is that has a very strict diet of frog corpses.). Moses, caretaker of the Israelites, told Joshua to grab all the men in fighting shape he could find and take them to face the enemy army. God… God will help us defeat the Amalekites!

So Moses carried the staff that had worked the miracles of God to the top of a hill, and looked over the battle, and God said “Hey, Moses. I’ll help Joshua win the fight, but you gotta do something for me.”

“Ok,” Moses replied with a heavy tone of trepidation. “What can I do to earn your help?”

Moses thought he heard a chuckle. “You gotta… Here’s what you gotta do. You gotta hold that staff over your head! See? Not so bad!”

So Moses raised the Staff of God over his head, and the tides of the battle began to turn in the favor of the Israelites, but the battle was long and hard fought.

“Hey Moses… You’ve got to be… What? Almost 90 now? You gettin’ tired? Maybe you should ask for help holding that staff up! Better not let it drop! You’ll lose the fight if you drop your staff!” (Seriously. Exodus 17:11. I wanted to write God as a character who was a teenager, but I feel like the original author of the Bible wrote him as a child far better than I could. Again, what do I learn from this? That they win the fight as long as Moses holds the staff up? WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING? Why did anyone even want that in the Bible?)

Moses, elderly and worn down by the harsh years in the desert living only on rain-bread, felt his arms tire and the staff slipped below the crown of his head, and instantly the battle surged in favor of the Amalekites. Moses called for the help of Aaron and Hur, who held his arms up, knowing that if he dropped his arms too far they would all surely perish.

“Psh. That’s no fun. Since you are asking for help, I’ll make sure this battle lasts all the way until night. You’ll be stuck that way for hours.” And so it was that the battle ran until sunset, Aaron and Hur holding the Staff of God, in Moses’ hands, over the head of Moses. When they had won, God said “Man, aren’t I awesome? I am so awesome, you have to write down how you won that fight, and make sure it is mostly just about how awesome I am. In fact, as soon as you write it down, go show it to Joshua, makes sure he knows he only won the fight because I helped.”

Before he even voiced the question, he began to regret it. “But God,” Moses intoned, “Joshua was out there fighting for at least 36 hours (Exodus 17:9, 12), thousands of our men are dead. Don’t you think they could have some credit?”

“Again with the whining! You know what? Fine. Mention his name. He can have some glory, but make sure everyone knows he only won because I was helping. MAKE SURE THEY KNOW THAT!” (Exodus 17:14. I don’t… I don’t even know where to begin with this one. I think it stands on its own. Hell, go read Exodus 17, SUPER short chapter, and tell me if I have in any way mistaken God’s personality in this summary.)

After the battle, Moses got to see his family. Jethro, his father in law, ran up to him, “Hey man! I heard about everything God did, with the plagues on Egypt, and rescuing you, and feeding you, and giving you water! Those are some amazing miracles, man! And then I heard you were going to get wiped out by the Amelekites, and God totally won that battle for you! Man, God is so amazing, hey! I’ve got a bunch of really young, unblemished lambs. Let’s go sacrifice some lambs and have a party in God’s honor, eh? Man, our God is an awesome God, isn’t He?!”

Moses stood staring, dumbstruck. “You know what? Sure. Sure, God is awesome. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go sit and judge some Israelites for being dicks. You go sacrifice some lambs. He’ll like that.” Moses turned and walked away, and returned to his duties of being caretaker for the Israelites. From dawn until dusk, people brought cases in front of him, and he sat in judgment, making sure to fill the role of caretaker so that God was happy.

After Jethro was done throwing a bitchin’ party for God, he came back to Moses. “Hey man, why are you sitting here alone, doing like ten people’s worth of work?”

Moses mumbled “S’long as I’m talking to people, God leaves me alone.”

“Hm? Sorry Moses, didn’t catch that…”

“Oh, sorry. God has appointed me as the agent of His will. All these people come to me asking what God wants. For some reason, God will talk to me whenever (and as soon as) I am alone, but He won’t share a single word with any of the rest of the Israelites.”

“Ah,” Jethro replied. “Look, I get that God has made you very important, but what about this. What say you teach the people what God wants, then appoint others to judge the simple cases?”

Then that happened, because it seemed like a smart thing to do.

Then God said to Moses, “Hey Moses. I know you’re having a tough time, and the people don’t like you, so here’s what I’mma do for you. I am going to come down to Earth and talk to you in front of everyone, then they’ll know that you’re my boi! So before they see me, here’s what you gotta tell them. First, tell them they are my chosen people, and because they are chosen I am going to put just a ridiculous amount of incredibly cumbersome rules on them that I don’t put on anyone else. I wanna see their face when you tell them that! Then, tell them they aren’t allowed to have sex or masturbate for three whole days before they see me talking to you. That part is important. Then bring them to Mount Sinai, but they aren’t allowed to come up the mountain. If they try to come up the mountain, kill them. Kill them so hard.”

Moses said nothing, but turned and gathered the people and delivered the message. When three days had passed, God came down in a cloud on the top of Mount Sinai, and called Moses to him.

“Heeeey buddy. Go back down and tell the people that they aren’t allowed to come up the mountain.”

“But I’ve already told them that.”

“What, you think I care? You’re 90, I’m like infinity years old. Get down that mountain and tell them they aren’t allowed on the mountain. Then come back up here. Oh, and bring Aaron. I wanna talk to him, too. But anyone else who comes up? I will smite them so hard.”

(Now, I would like to think the above conversation was my idea, but it comes directly from Exodus 19 16-25. God tells Moses to come up, then go back down to deliver the same message, God tells Moses to do it anyway. In verse 25, you can almost hear the … Disappointment? Exasperation?… of the original writer. Verse 25, in its entirety, reads “So Moses went down and told them.”

I CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!)

And so God came down on the mountain to give Moses the Ten Commandments, with the people of Israel watching, and God looked like a giant storm. Everyone was like “Oh man, no wonder Moses is the only one who talks to God directly. Man, God is scary. Hey, Moses! We don’t want to talk to God directly any more. You can be the caretaker, you’ve got our vote now!”

So Moses walked up to God, and God said “Hah! I gave them a good show, didn’t I? I figure if they fear me, instead of love or respect me, that will definitely make them loyal. That’s how that works, right?! Anyway, now that they are good and afraid of me, make sure they never, ever stray from worshiping me or I’ll…”

“Smite the hell out of them,” Moses interrupted. “Yeah, got it.”

“Hey, no. No finishing my sentences for me!”

“Oh, so you weren’t going to say ‘smite the hell out of them’?”

“Well… I was… But just for that, I am going to increase the amount of sacrificing you have to do to me. So that I know you know how awesome I am. And when you build sacrificial altars, don’t use good supplies. If you use any materials that have been tooled, I’ll make sure you get… Tooled… I don’t really know where I was going with that, but just make sure you only use crappy, round rocks when building an altar. That is important to me for some reason. I don’t have to explain myself to you!” (Exodus 20:24-25)

“Also, make sure the altar is on a hill, but that there are no steps leading up to it. When you are walking up the steps, people could see up your robes, and nobody wants to see 90 year old junk.”

“Won’t they be able to see up my robe if I am walking up a hill anyway?”

“Shut up! No steps! Now get ready to write, I’ve got some of those onerous rules that I was talking about earlier all ready to go. And no complaining.”

Some parts of the Bible just stand on their own as … Weird? Without my even having to inject my own characterizations into it. I still have no idea what to make of Moses holding his hands over his head for the duration of a 36 hour battle. Seriously.

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 3

Posted by The Guy Who Wrote This

The Israelites have been kicked out of Egypt because they have ensured Pharaoh has had a truly bad, truly awful day (largely due to his inability to play poker at even the most basic level). Now that they are free, what lies ’round the bend?

“Hey Moses. Hey. Hey. Hey Moses. Wasn’t that awesome?”

“Yes, God. That was awesome. We are free. And Egypt is in ruins, suffering, diseased, and starving. Thank you.”

“Yeah. Hey, remember. Every year, we are going to have a week long party because of how awesome I am. And you’ll tell your kids that the party is because I am so awesome. Also, this party is not optional. If you do not party, I am gonna be so pissed. And you know what? Maybe some sacrificing is in order. Yeah, for the firstborn, I am gonna need some sacrifices. For every donkey, sacrifice a lamb. If you don’t have a lamb? Break that donkey’s neck. I COMMAND IT! And when your kids are like ‘how come we sacrifice so many lambs,’ tell ’em. Tell ’em that it is because I told you so. Because I am so awesome.”

“Yes, God. We’ll… We’ll make that work. Somehow,” and Moses turned to walk towards the land of the Caananites.

“NO!” God said. “Don’t go the short way. The Phillistines are jerks. We’ll go the long way.”

Moses heaved a sigh. “Alright. We go the long way.”

“One last thing. Remember Joseph? I’m sure you heard of him. He was a cool guy; I liked him. Go get his bones.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Anyway, set up camp once you get to the Red Sea. I’m gonna have Pharaoh come to try and kill you, but wait ’till you see what I have planned. It’s gonna be awesome!”

After walking for some time, the Israelites arrived at the Red Sea, and Pharaoh came after them. When Pharaoh was close enough to be seen, the Israelites cried to Moses thus, “You led us out of slavery to die? The hell is wrong with you?”

Moses looked up at God, and said wearily “You know, God, it would be just… Just so much easier on me if you’d just tell everyone about your plans ahead of time.”

“Stop being a whiny bitch, it’s way more awesome when it’s a surprise! Anyway, tell the people, tell ’em I am gonna protect you. And make sure they are all watching.I want everyone to see this!”

Moses shook his head and shuffled over to a rock overlooking the people. Bracing his body, he threw out his arms and shouted “God is watching over us. Look, look, and watch at the might of God!”

“Hey, Moses. I just had a thought. I am gonna split the Red Sea so you can walk over it. So maybe I shouldn’t have had you set up camp. But still… Splitting the sea, right? That’s pretty awesome, isn’t it? And I am going to make sure Pharaoh follows you, then BLOOOOOSH! Gonna drop a whole sea on him. I’ll bet they’ll talk about how awesome this is for like… 3,000 years!”

“But… But you just had us set up camp. Do you know how long it is going to take us to pack all this stuff up? Do you even care?”

“Hey, stop whining. I’ll buy you time in a way that is as awesome as it is effective. Take a look at the Egyptian army! There’s a pillar of flame all up in their face! BAM! How awesome is that?! Now pack up and get moving, I don’t care how hard you work.”

Moses and the Israelites gathered their belongings, protected by a giant pillar of flame that prevented the Egyptians and Pharaoh from following, and then the Red Sea was split in two. The Israelites crossed the sea on the land, and the flaming pillar died. The Egyptians surged forward, a mighty wave of gold and bronze, down into the chasm of the Red Sea.

Moses looked over his shoulder nervously as he walked towards the far bank. “Hey, God… I don’t mean to complain some more, but the Egyptians are moving pretty fast, hey? Like… Plenty fast enough to catch us.”

“Stop whining! All you do is whine! Fine, I’ll slow them down!” God did as God does, and the ground became wet, and the chariots and horses sank into the mud, slowing their progress. “Happy?”

The Israelites climbed onto the far bank of the Red Sea, looking back as the Egyptian army struggled after them.

“Hey, Moses, make sure everyone is watching! Are they watching, Moses?”

Moses sat down, weary, and replied “Yes, God, they are all watching. It would be hard not to, when an army is still slowly advancing on us. It would still just be fantastic if you would share your plans with everyone instead of just me.”

“Shut up! Watch this!” The waters fell in on the chariots of the Pharaoh, and the army of the Pharaoh, and they all drowned in a crushing torrent, and were never seen again. Some Israelites looked back, and realized that the Egyptians crushed to death by the sea were the lucky ones, as they had found the only possible escape from the starvation, disease, stench, and rot that was now the entire nation of Egypt–but the Israelites then turned and walked, following Moses ’round the bend.

“Hey Moses. Hey, I’m going to give you Canaan, a nation flowing with Milk and Honey. It is gonna be awesome. Hey, I heard milk and honey is actually just the best laxative. It’s gonna be hilari… I mean, you will have lots to eat and won’t suffer!”

Moses just shook his head and walked on. Sometimes, it was just better to let God have his way, and he wished he’d learned that lesson ages ago.

“Hey, don’t be a pouty face. You know what cheers me up when I’m feeling down? Songs. Songs cheer me up when I am feeling down. You should sing a song to me. Make it about how awesome I am. Sing a song about how I killed Pharaoh, I never get tired of that story!”

Moses took a deep, calming breath, and sang a song about how awesome it was that his people had just spent 430 years suffering before God decided to save them from bondage, and about how God left an entire nation in terrible, disease ridden straits, and made sure to mention how awesome God was in at least every verse so that he did not get smote.

Now, the long way to Canaan happened to run through a desert, and the 2 million Israelites could not find any water. They had forgotten that God was with them, and said to Moses “Seriously, it’s like you keep taking us from the edge of death to the next edge of death. At least under Egypt, we knew we’d have food and water, but we have been nearly dead at least once per day since we left. Get us some damn water, or we are going to turn this car around and sacrifice you to God.”

Moses replied “Give me a minute to talk to God. I am sure I can get another miracle out of him.” He walked around until he could find some privacy. “Hey, God? We need water. We need water right now; some of us are going to die of thirst, soon.”

“Oh damn! I forgot! People need to drink! Why didn’t you remind me before you spent three days in a desert? Bro, you are just the worst caretaker. Here, throw this stick in that awful, smelly spring over there. It’ll turn the water clean. Make sure to tell the people I did this for you, and remind them that I am awesome.”

Moses spluttered “But… But… Aren’t you the caretaker? Why am I the caretaker? I told you I didn’t want this job in the first place!”

“What’d I say about all that whining? Now go and give the people water, then get moving. There is lots of space left between you and Canaan, and I don’t see it getting covered. Oh, also tell the people that I am going to give you some laws, and if you break them I am gonna make them just as diseased as Egypt back there. Smelly frog corpses, Moses. So. Many. Frog Corpses.”

Moses shed a single tear, turned, and made the smelly spring run clear so that the Israelites could drink. After they had drank their fill, they moved on into an even larger desert, and wandered there for two months.

“Hey, Moses,” the Israelites said. “We’re out of food, again. And it has been a long time since we had any miracles from God. At least back in Egypt, we didn’t have to worry about whether we’d get a miracle on any given day. And hey, while we’re at it, this gold and silver we stole from Egypt is really heavy, and not very edible. What’s up with that?”

“I think God just likes shiny objects, honestly. But whatever, I’ll go and see if I can get God to miracle us up some food… But I’m going to warn you, he is probably going to put some silly restriction on the miracle for some reason.” So Moses turned, again, to find some privacy to talk with God.

“We need food, to live, and some water wouldn’t hurt. You have had us wandering around in a desert for 2 months, and there isn’t even two months worth of desert here. Have you had us walking around in circles?”

“Hey, hey, hey, what did I say about the whining? And about the food, here’s what I am gonna do. I am going to make it rain bread. Show me another god who can do that, right? There isn’t one! BAM! I’m so awesome. Oh hey, one thing though.” Moses closed his eyes, bracing himself for the conditions on this miracle. “You can only gather as much bread as you will eat. If you gather more bread, the miracles stop, capiche? If you can handle that for six days, then I’ll give you extra bread on the seventh day, because everything should be done in week long cycles, like my parties! And when you tell them about my condition, be sure to remind them how awesome I am, in case they forget.”

Moses opened his eyes and looked skyward. “Ok, I’ll give them the message… But why does it have to come from me? They hate me. They think I have killed them. And why didn’t you give us bread before we were starving to death? Why did you wait so long? Couldn’t you have miracled us up some bread thirty days ago?”

“What did I say about your incessant whining?!”

Moses turned and went to deliver the message. “Hey guys… God said he’d give us some food, just sit tight. And honestly? Please stop getting angry with me. God is the one who has the plan, and who has the power give us food. If you are going to lynch someone, try to lynch God, please? I am just… So tired of this. Anyway, God is going to give us food, but we aren’t allowed to pack extra. I don’t know why, so don’t go asking me. Just… Make sure you don’t store any in your packs, or else the food train stops.”

In the morning, when the bread rain came, many gathered, and some started to fill their packs. Shortly after, their packs were covered in maggots, and smelled of rot.

Moses followed his nose, and raged at those that had gathered too much. “What did I say about storing the food? Look, look at this plague! God said he’d do this, and hasn’t he proven he will follow through on every threat? Are you stupid? Did you forget already what God did to Egypt? HE WILL TOTALLY DO THAT TO US!”

“Oh, as part of the condition of getting food from God, incidentally, we are not allowed to pick up food on the seventh day, even if it is right in front of us and prepared, for some reason. So on Friday, we collect double the food, and on Friday you are allowed to store some. But only enough for Saturday. Please, please, don’t be dense this time. God will seriously ruin us if you don’t follow his command. Remember what happened just a few days ago? With the maggots and rot? Seriously, I just don’t want to put up with Him once He gets in a bad mood.”

When Saturday came, a bunch of Israelites went out to gather food, because if there is one thing that is boundless, it is stupidity and short memory.

God went up to Moses, “Hey, hey, what did I say about Saturday? The hell is wrong with you? Why are you breaking my commandments?”

Moses didn’t know what to say. “But God, I didn’t break any, I told them what you said.”

“Moses, don’t be an idiot. You are the caretaker, you are responsible for everything they do. And, given the sin in your ranks that I am seeing right now, you are going to have just like… the worst afterlife at this rate.”

“What?” Moses was startled.

“Oh, nothing. Don’t worry about it. Hey, I am not going to be making bread rain forever, so you should put some in a jar and keep it. When you show it to people, be all like ‘Hey, this is bread rain. Not every god can make it rain bread. Isn’t God awesome?’ Then tell them how awesome I am for making it rain bread when you were hungry.”

Moses shoved some bread in a jar, and put it in the ark of the covenant, which they apparently have for some reason. (Exodus 16:34)

God fed them rain bread for forty years in the desert before they came to the borders of Canaan. The whole time they spent in the desert, they wandered as God bade them, which raises serious questions about God’s navigational skills. But soon, soon they would be in a land of milk and honey!

We have exited the desert of Sin and the forty years of wandering. This seems a good place to take a break, before we enter the next saga.

It turns out it is harder to make fun of the parts that are in the Ten Commandments movie than I thought it would be, but we are nearing the end of the Ten Commandments saga, and then we can spice it up a little. Just have to hold out for 3 more chapters of Exodus, then we are on the other side of the hump.

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 2

Posted by The Guy Who Wrote This

This one is a little more boring than Part 1, as most are pretty well versed in the plagues, and Part 2 doesn’t go off the rails of the traditional script. But once we’re through Part 2, Part 3 is gonna be a ton of fun (for me).

When we left our intrepid protagonists, Moses and Aaron, Pharaoh had just betrayed them by going back on his word! The plague of flies drove Pharaoh to again promise to set the Israelites free (on the condition that they were only going to go worship their God for a while, then come back), but as soon as the plague was retracted decided that this was a silly thing to do. God had hardened Pharaoh’s heart against the plight of the Israelites, and so nothing could be done to persuade him to let them go. As we enter Exodus chapter 9, God is turning up the dial on plague-craft.

Moses went in front of Pharaoh and told him thus: “Alright, dick move, but you’ve still got a chance. Tomorrow, sometime, our God is going to kill literally all of your cattle, sheep, goats, oxen, camels, and he won’t touch even a single one of the Israelites’. If that doesn’t prove he means business, I don’t know what will.”

Pharaoh, who is probably history’s worst poker player (“He has told me what he has in his hand every time we bet, but this time I’ll be he’s bluffing for sure!”). Protip: God does not bluff. The very next day, the Egyptian food supply became the food supply of the plague of gnats that is probably still flying around there somewhere. And, just like God said, not one of the stock of Israel was killed by whatever unholy disease it is that swept the Egyptian countryside and presumably ruined the livelihood of the Egyptian peasants that had as much control over the Pharaoh as the Israelites did, because they are guilty of the sins of their ruler for some reason. Also, God did not provision for the removal of the frog corpses, so they are bloated and decomposing all over Egypt, as well. Yummy.

Pharaoh, as God knew beforehand, still wouldn’t back down. “OK, he is still playing a perfect game of poker. But he is probably out of cards at this point, and the cattle can’t get any more dead… So no, no the Israelites cannot go.”

Moses thus returns with a handful of soot, and warns them “It’s about to get real ugly. If I throw this soot into the air, you are going to get just… Just the worst boils imaginable, all up in your business, and in your animal’s business. I mean, I know your animals are already dead, but if you bought more they are going to get all full of boils, too.”

“Bullshit,” said Pharaoh, with all the poker sense of … Well, there is no one in the history of the planet that bad at poker.

And so, in a move that surprised no one, BOILS EVERYWHERE! The Egyptian sorcerers at this point could not even stand, as the boils on their feet were so bad that no pressure could be put on them, and obviously the sorcerers could not heal what God hath wrought.

“Alright, alright, alright. Whoever this ‘God’ fellow is, he must be out of cards this time! No dice, you’ve played the last ace up your sleeve. The slaves stay.”

Again, though, we are reminded in Exodus 9:12, “But the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart and he would not listen to Moses and Aaron.” Why did the LORD keep Pharaoh’s heart hard? One presumes just because he still had more plagues. Again, following the chain of events, the plague killing the cattle and the massive outbreaks of horrible boils could have been a result of the massive hills of rotting frogs that had nowhere to go.

So God brings out the big guns. “Alright, it’s time to get serious. I could have killed you all already, but I kept you alive just to show you how far I can go. You wouldn’t let my people go, so I am going to have the greatest hailstorm EVER hit Egypt. I know my slaves will be outside when it comes, but the devastation you see will be all the greater for it! HAH!”

And the hail came, and it killed all the cattle outdoors, and all the slaves outdoors, and all the Egyptians outdoors. It didn’t hail on Goshen, where the slaves lived, but you have to remember that some slaves were still out in the thrall of their masters, and were struck down by a hail that “stripped all of the trees bare.” (Exodus 9:25)

Pharaoh was done with this horrible game of poker. “Alright, you win. I’m terrible at poker. Take your people and get out of here.”

Moses, having learned of Pharaoh’s trickery, said “Alright, once I am out of the city, I will make the hail stop.” He did not stop to think that he would be brutally struck down by this hail on his way out of the city, but apparently neither did the writer for Moses leaves and stops the hail. Then… SURPRISE! Pharaoh’s heart was still hardened by God, and he went back on his word. Again. Because he is very, very, very bad at poker. In fact, this is like Moses showing him a royal flush, and then having Pharaoh bet against him for… Reasons?

“Just so you know, Moses,” God says, “I hardened the heart of Pharaoh so I could smite the crap out of Egypt for one purpose; to give you an awesome story to tell your grandkids about how awesome I am. Remember to tell them about me. OR ELSE.” (Exodus 10:1-2)

So God had another plague ready to go. “Your livestock is dead, and your crops ruined. You are going to have an awful winter; I know it. But here’s the thing; I know you have grain stores. So if you don’t let my people go (and I know you won’t, because I commanded it of your heart), I will send locusts, and they will eat your entire grain store.”

Perhaps better at poker than Pharaoh himself, his advisers said to him “DAMMIT, MAN! Let the damn slaves go! Seriously, we are already ruined. We can’t take another of these plagues!”

Pharaoh, again, says “Alright. You win. Go and worship God, as long as you come back when you are done with your sacrifices. Oh, also, only men can go. Everyone knows gods hate women and children anyway.”

“Hey, hey, hey, you think I am calling down these plagues for funsies? No, we all go, or you get the locusts!” And so it was that locusts came.

And Pharaoh said “Stop it! STOP IT! Ok, you can go. What is wrong with your God? Why does he love punishing us so?!” But as soon as Moses left, God reminds us that he had hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 10:20) so that MORE PLAGUES! Yay!

So then we get what is actually the most tame plague in days; the plague of darkness. Everything was so dark that no one could even move, except the Israelites because they get light. So Pharaoh, AGAIN, says “Take them away, and I am running out of even sort of funny ways to say this because I have said it so many times my face is stuck in a grimace of displeasure! Except leave your flocks and herds behind.”

“But Pharaoh, how can we sacrifice stunning amounts of cattle and sheep to God if we can’t bring our cattle and sheep? Seriously, you have no idea how bloody things are going to get once we start sacrificing.”

“What? No. I said no flocks!”

“It gives us the flocks or it gets the plagues again!”

And again, God hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh said “No dice!!” (Exodus 10:27)

And God said “Ahahahahaha look how mad he is! Isn’t this hilarious?”

Moses replied “Umm… Not really. Millions are going to die of starvation and disease, and I’d like to remind you that it was you who forced Pharaoh to keep the Israelites in bondage.”

God replied “Pfft… You’re no fun. I can hardly get my smite on with you killing my buzz, Buzz Killington. Fine, just one more plague, and I am going to make it a doozy. In fact, I am going to make it so bad that Pharaoh will make you leave and so badass that you will have a feast to remember it by for the rest of eternity! How does that sound for a party?! So here’s the plan; I am going to kill all the firstborn sons of everyone in Egypt, except the Israelites, then you guys can leave Egypt. Also, remember that thing I said about taking everyone’s gold and silver. Don’t forget their gold and silver.” (Seriously, God reminds them to rob the Egyptians blind, and says he’ll make sure the Egyptians are totally ok with it; Exodus 11:2)

“And remember,” God reminds Moses, “I am doing this so that you have cool stories to tell your grandkids. I could have let the Israelites go before all of these plagues, but what fun would that be?” (Exodus 11:9-10)

“Now, it is difficult for me to tell the difference between my chosen people and the Egyptians, so here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna go to all of the Israelites (there’s only… What? A couple million of you? (Exodus 12:37)) and tell them each to prepare a lamb and put its blood on the doorframe. Also, you aren’t just going to cook a lamb, you are going to prepare that lamb, and here’s how you are going to do it: (The below is copied and pasted, because I actually can’t make it more ridiculous than it already is) (Exodus 12:6-11)

6 Take care of them until the fourteenth day of the month, when all the members of the community of Israel must slaughter them at twilight. 7 Then they are to take some of the blood and put it on the sides and tops of the doorframes of the houses where they eat the lambs. 8 That same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs, and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat the meat raw or boiled in water, but roast it over a fire—with the head, legs and internal organs. 10 Do not leave any of it till morning; if some is left till morning, you must burn it. 11 This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste; it is the Lord’s Passover.

“Anyway, once that lamb is properly prepared, and your door marked, that’s how I’ll know you are one of my chosen people! Simple, right?”

And in the back of Moses’ head, surely he must have thought “You know, I am starting to have a few reservations about this plan…”

God interrupted Moses’ thoughts, continuing, “You know, I don’t just want stories told to your grandkids. This is too awesome for stories. Every year, you are going to have a bitchin’ party, and you are going to use it to remind everyone how awesome I am! Also, my parties aren’t just for a day, Moses. My parties last a full week!” (Exodus 12:14-16)

God wanted to show he was serious, so he killed the firstborn even of those in prison, because they didn’t have the good sense to go kill a lamb and paint their prison cell with blood. The shame of it!

After every household in Egypt, save for those of the Israelites, had lost a loved one, Pharaoh summoned Moses. “You win! Get the hell out of Egypt! We never wanted you here anyway! Oh, and when you are praying to your God, put in a good word for me, eh? That’d be cool.” (Exodus 12:32)

So the Israelites packed up and left, but not before taking all of the silver, gold, and clothing from Egypt! (Exodus 12:36)

“Remember,” said God. “You were slaves of Egypt for 430 years. Remember to tell your kids that number when you tell them the story of how awesome I am. 430 years! To the day!” (Exodus 12:40) “Oh, also, when eating the lambs for my bitchin’ party? Make sure ONLY circumcised people eat it. Seriously, check their penises. If they aren’t circumcised, no lamb for them. Hey, hey, are you listening to me? I’m serious here.”

Aaaaand we’re done with the plagues, so here is a good time to conclude part 2. In part 3, we find out that the Israelites have really, really, really, really short memories. I would say goldfish short, but studies have shown that goldfishes can be trained to swim through hoops for food, and they remember that trick longer than the Israelites remember (spoilers).

Part 3 is going to be fun.

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 1

Posted by The Guy Who Wrote This

The Bible is described, by strong Christian believers, as the height of moral teaching. The Golden Rule is touted as one of the greatest pieces of bite-sized wisdom put to paper. Jesus spoke exclusively of love and tolerance of all people. The Bible is, at the very least, inspired by the spirit of God; whether you are a literalist or not, it is a general belief that the things that are in the Bible are there because God wanted them to be.

I know I’ve mentioned before the confused nature of the Old Testament, but I think I need some concrete examples to really drive the point home. Honestly, I felt the need to write this post after I was told to go and read Exodus again–my knowledge of the Bible is, generally speaking, deep, but it is certainly rusty in spots and always in need of updating. So I cracked the book open, and began to read… I am going to give you a paraphrased summary of Exodus, trying to include all of the details of… Well, how weird things get. This won’t be like my usual posts, this will be a combined summary and review, in a very sarcastic style. If you are super familiar with Exodus, maybe you will like the way I paraphrase it, and if your knowledge of Exodus comes almost strictly from The Ten Commandments, maybe you will get a chuckle out of learning what is written in that section of the Bible. Or maybe I am wasting your time. Overall, I am just trying something sort of new here–if it works out, I may make an alternate blog where I paraphrase the Bible in my own irreverent style. Let me know in the comments if that’s something that would interest you.

WARNING: The below is like… SUPER irreverent. If picking apart the Bible will offend you, this is probably not the best thing to read.

One doesn’t have to go very far to start to get an odd picture; in Exodus 2:23-25, the Israelites are slaves of Egypt, and they are not happy about it (why would that be? Slaves are totally justified according to the Bible, as long as they are not Israelite slaves). And so it goes that “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.”

So… God is basically like “Ugh, what are they complaining about? My chosen people are always on about somethi… Oh crap! They’re slaves now? How long has that been going on? And I promised Abraham stuff like this wouldn’t happen! I’d better do something about it!!”

That being said, instead of using his omnipotence to set his people free, he appears before Moses (who, it should be said, is living in self-imposed exile after having murdered an Egyptian. Lucky for Moses, though, there was literally no law for the Jewish people at this time what with how the ten commandments had not yet been written. At least, with how hard some Christians lean on the ten commandments, one would think they are the only laws that matter). Anyway, at this point Moses is married and has a kid, and lives mostly as a shepherd of his father-in-law’s flock of sheep. So, understandably, he’s like “Ummm… Okay… But here’s the thing, I am a shepherd, I am probably not what you are looking for.”

But whatever, this post isn’t just a summary of Exodus, it is only about the weirder parts, and we don’t have long to wait, friends! Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods is another of the commandments that did not exist yet, thankfully, as through the will of the LORD, the Israelites are compelled to take, as they leave Egypt, the clothes and food and silver and gold of their neighbors. Well, isn’t that nice?

Exodus chapter 4 is rife with examples about how the LORD, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, seems to have little idea what He is doing. First, he transforms a staff into a snake, and says “There. That’ll show ’em that I am God!”

Moses is like “That’s cool, bro, but what if it doesn’t?”

God follows: “You know what, maybe you’re right. Hey, put your hand into your cloak. BAM! Leprosy. Then put it back again! HEALED! There you go, miracles. Miracles will teach them that I am God! But if they still don’t believe you for some reason, take some river water and I’ll turn it into blood. Yeah, yeah this time that’ll definitely show them!”

Moses, full of excuses, complains that he doesn’t know how to speak real gud bruh. God tells them that he is the one who makes men speak or makes them mute, deaf or hear, blind or see (in case you needed reminding that God is the source of all good and the source of all suffering), so Moses should get his ass in line and do as he’s told.

This next bit is fairly well known, so I won’t belabor it, but it bears mention. “Perform these miracles in front of Pharaoh, but I will harden his heart so he won’t let your people go.” Wait. What? Why? Why would that, in any case, be a good thing to do? What purpose does it serve? I have my own personal theories; God was feeling a bit restless, and just wanted to smite some people but wanted an excuse. If Pharaoh didn’t let His people go (and God obviously knew he wouldn’t because He made the choice for Pharaoh. I am sure there is something about free will in there…), he would have his excuse to get up with the smiting! In fact, before Moses ever gets to Egypt, God actually confirms that very thing; “You would not let my people go, and Israel is my Son, so I will smite your first-born son!” And that, before Pharaoh even knew Moses was coming, was decided; without even having a reason, the firstborn son of all of Egypt was going to die.

Now things come off the rails a little bit; no one talks about this part, and it is absent from Charlton Heston’s legendary portrayal of Moses.

On the way back to Egypt, God sees Moses on the road. He is still angry at Moses for talking back to Him, so He goes and wants to kill Moses, that little complaining son of a… But while God was getting ready to kill him, Moses’ wife circumcises their son and … Rubs… the foreskin… On Moses’ feet? And for some reason, God is like “Well, can’t kill him now. Damn.” (Seriously, Exodus 4:24-26. Again, WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO LEARN FROM THIS?!)

Now, God’s action have an unintended side effect (unintended…? Isn’t He omniscient?). Pharaoh is bitter that Moses came to make the slaves stop working, so he basically doubles their labor and has them whipped EXTRA HARD if they fail to meet quota. Boy, sure am glad God is looking out for His people at this point, eh? Things are even worse for the Jewish people at the beginning of Exodus 5 than before God set to have them set free! In fact, the Israelites pray to God to judge Moses and Aaron (they blame the two upstarts for their increased burden and suffering, and want God to smite them. Little do they know, this was God’s plan all along! Why? WHO KNOWS!). Moses then shouts at God “Seriously, dude! What is going on here?! Now people hate us! In fact, right now, this is all your fault!” (Exodus 5:22-23)

But the funny thing is, at the beginning of Exodus 6, God says “All is going according to plan. Now I’m gonna really ruin Pharaoh’s day, and then he will let my people go! Just sit back and watch the show; and by sit back, I mean go in front of Pharaoh and say what I tell you to say. And stop being a little bitch about it.” (Exodus 6:1-12)

In Exodus 7, after Moses and Aaron have performed the miracle of changing a staff into a snake, Pharaoh is like “Yeah, that snake is cool and all, but my men can do the same thing. No dice; the Jewish people will stay slaves.”

God says to Moses “See? I told you he’d say that! I told you Pharaoh would say that exact thing, aren’t I AWESOME?!” (Exodus 7:14) Seemingly, Moses and Aaron forgot that God actually forced Pharaoh into that exact reaction, so it’s less awesome and more “I’m pulling the puppet strings, so of course it all goes to plan.”

In any case, God wasn’t ready to stop plagueing and smiting yet, so Pharaoh’s heart was still hardened (By God. I can’t overstate that.), especially since Pharaoh’s own sorcerer’s were also able to turn water into blood… Which actually raised a question to me; if pagans could change water into other liquids, why is it considered such a miracle that Jesus was able to change water into wine? Sounds like that’s the kind of thing that just happened regularly back then. Weird.

And again, in Exodus 8, God sort of acts like a child with a stink bomb. “Tell Pharaoh this… Heheheh… Tell him, if he doesn’t let my people go (and he won’t, I made sure of it!) I will cover everything in Egypt with frogs! EVERYTHING! Aren’t I awesome?” (Exodus 8:1-6) But guess what? Egyptian sorcerers ALSO made frogs come out of nowhere, again kind of making God’s power seem not so great if Egyptian sorcerers can do the exact same thing that God said, previously, “Will make them believe in me!”

Oddly, though, even though Pharaoh’s sorcerers created even more frogs, Pharaoh could not make the frogs go away; in verse 8 he begs Moses and Aaron to click undo! One would think that his level of blackmail would be enough for God; soften Pharaoh’s heart, and let the people go! But no, God wasn’t done having His fun with the people of Egypt yet; He could have freed his people at this point (I mean, the Nile smelled like rot, and there were piles of rotting frog corpses at this point; living in Egypt had to be pretty awful, whether slave or not, and made all the worse for being a slave). NOPE! LOCUSTS! That’s what we need. More locusts! Now, if you are fighting for the historicity of this (even though the evidence that any of this happened is nearly nonexistent), I have a theory. Flies came to eat of the rotting river Nile, the frogs came to kill the flies, the frogs died of various causes, and then the insects came to clean up the frogs (including gnats, flies, and locusts). BAM! Chain of events. Maybe God didn’t let His own people go yet because once this chain of miracles was started, he just shouted “THERE’S NO BRAKES ON THE CRAZY TRAIN!” and sat back to laugh?

Interestingly enough, this is where God starts to do things that Pharaoh’s sorcerers could not; he turns all of the dust in Egypt into gnats. One may recall that Egypt is both very large and very dusty. Pharaoh told his sorcerers to do this, though one wonders, if all of the dust was gone already, what were the sorcerers trying to turn into gnats? Whatever, they fail. BAM! Score one for God! I think it is worth reminding you, now, that these plagues affected everyone in Egypt. Including his own people. God was never big on targeted destruction, He just goes whole hog in everything He does.

So we’ve got snake staves, river of blood, frogs, and gnats so far. But you know what? It is time for God to start targeting people; after all, if His plagues affected the Israelites as well as the Egyptians, how could they prove that the plagues came from God? So after four miracles, and three major plagues, God says “Incoming flies! And this time, I won’t plague my own people! I AM A GOD OF LOVE!” And so flies came. (Exodus 8:22-24)

And at this, Pharaoh said again “Okokokok, you win. You can sacrifice to your God, but do it here. No reason to leave Egypt to worship, right?”

Moses replies with some level of self-awareness; “Look, our sacrifices are actually pretty nasty, not gonna lie. They are gonna gross you out so badly that Egyptians will probably stone us. Let us head out to the wilderness to make our sacrifices so we don’t gross you out. We won’t run away from your horribly oppressive slavery. We promise.”

“Ugh, fiiiiiine,” replies Pharaoh with all of the honesty of a teenaged girl. “You can. Just don’t go far.”

“Oh, cool beans! But this time, Pharaoh, no funny stuff! If you say we can go, let us go. For realsies!”

“You can trust me, Moses!”

SURPRISE! Pharaoh goes back on his word as soon as the flies left. One thinks an omniscient God would train Moses as a negotiator at least well enough to only pay out on their blackmail price after the Israelites have left Egypt? “The flies stay until my people have left?” No? alright, fine. Take the flies away such that Pharaoh can say “GOTCHA AGAIN!”

This is getting pretty long, and we are only just entering into Chapter 9. I am going to post this as part 1 and continue on with the weirdness and the plot twists of the book of Exodus in part 2!

Thanks for reading, and let me know in the comments if this is entertainment or just unfunny, offensive drivel.

A Confused Narrative

Posted by The Guy Who Wrote This

Something crossed my mind yesterday, for reasons I can neither explain nor fully understand. I have never been entirely comfortable with the idea of the Old Testament Yahweh, and have certainly levied many criticisms of Him and His supposed omniscience, but all of my words are seemingly cast aside by the counter argument of “progressive revelation.”

Progressive revelation is, for all intents and purposes, boiled down to the idea that God gave us His Holy Word (capitalizing those three words in a row feels wrong, somehow) in pieces for various reasons; we weren’t able to understand it, or the time wasn’t right, so He waited. I think this is nicely encapsulated by the disparity between the commandments of Moses stating that divorce can be granted via proper papers (Deuteronomy 24) as opposed to Jesus specifically saying “Hey guys, I know Moses said you could get a divorce, and I know my Dad more or less said that was cool, but you know what? Not cool.” (Slightly paraphrased from Matthew 19:1-9.) That seems an odd thing for an omniscient deity with strict rules and laws to do, for Jesus explicitly said “They could get a divorce because their hearts were hard.” Does God seem like the kind of deity to allow for something along the lines of “Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh… Their marriages aren’t working out well, so I’ll let them have divorces. But only temporarily.” No, God is generally pretty clear in His explicit (and timeless) rules. At least, insofar as I am able to understand Him/them.

You know what, though? That is small potatoes. That is a blip on the radar so small that it passes by unnoticed by the gaze of ten thousand watching eyes in comparison to the nearly blinding idea that I had never considered until yesterday. It is so obvious, why had it not occurred to me? It is so obvious, yet why is it that I get only sparse Google results when considering it on a larger scale? It is so large as to cover the entire screen of our metaphorical radar, and perhaps that is why so few notice it.

Why did an omniscient, timeless God have a Chosen People at all? In the Old Testament, the Jews are the chosen and beloved, they are commanded on more than one occasion to kill all the men, women, and children (except the female virgin children for… reasons… [Numbers 31:17-18]), kill the animals and crops, to make the land as though no one had ever lived there before the Jews. When they were slaves under Pharaoh (historicity aside), He performed amazing shows of force, and freed them, His people, from the lash and chains of slavery. Historically, there were other slaves at the time; God did not save them, only the Jews (this is an important distinction). God set aside land for His chosen people, though it is odd that an omniscient God chose such contested land (there are places the Jews could call home that would result in far fewer deaths, then and now). As far as the Prophets, the narrative in the Old Testament seems to indicate that the Messiah would come to save the “lost lambs of the tribe of Israel,” a phrase translated to mean “The Jews.” In other words, as far as the Old Testament prophets were concerned, the Messiah was coming to save them, not the world. This makes sense, in the grand scheme of things; God has shown a remarkable level of callousness to all people and races who were not Jewish; personally I find it odd that He, in His omniscience, would often show Himself to and have direct conversations with people of His own chosen race… Then punish other races for not worshiping Him. This seems a heavy handed approach, as other peoples would have had no reason to worship Him or know he existed, as He had not frequently spoken to (and presumably dislocated the hip of [go read Genesis 32. If that wasn’t written under the effects of hallucinogens, I don’t know of any way it could possibly have been inspired]) their leaders. Hey, speaking of Genesis 32, Jacob (whose hip has been dislocated by God) seems … Well, it is an odd chapter, for Jacob is wrestling with a man who comes out of NOWHERE (verse 23? No man. Verse 24: Jacob was wrestling with a guy. Verse 25: wrestling guy decides he can’t win, dislocates Jacob’s hip. Verse 27: RANDOM GUY WAS CLEARLY GOD!). That summary bears some explanation: in verse 25, the man (who later turns out to be God) decides he can’t win. Omniscient, all-powerful God cannot beat Jacob in a wrestling match on even footing, so He uses magic to dislocate Jacob’s hip. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO LEARN FROM THIS?!

Got side tracked there. Anyway, yeah, God only talks to Jews, Jews are His chosen, and He will smite anyone who gets in the way of His chosen (sometimes). I mean, he actually makes His chosen do the smiting at His command, AFTER He commands that “thou shalt not kill.”

Then… Jesus! Chosen people? WHO CARES ABOUT THE CHOSEN PEOPLE! I am here to save everyone! Gentile and Jew, as many a popular hymn reiterate! Now, I know you might be bitter because my Dad commanded that your forefathers be killed and your virgin children taken as slaves, but HE CHANGED HIS MIND! Rejoice, all people! Rejoice!

My question, and the whole point of the post, is this: Why did God have a chosen people at all if He planned to eventually reveal Himself as the savior of all people? Why did He smite so many people, if He eventually planned to save their descendents? Were their forefathers just born at the wrong time? Was God just cranky that day (read: that several hundred years)? Why would a timeless God smite so many, only to save them later? Those are the actions of someone who can’t decide what they want, not the actions of someone who has a timeless, eternal plan. Like God is making it up as He goes along. Oh, I know the Bible says “Jesus was there from the foundations of the world,” (the Gospel of John, though to me the evidence of that is dubious, and the wording unclear at best), but that seems more like someone who trips into a somersault, bounces up, and says “I meant to do that!” This whole situation reeks of that same level of excuse to me; I chose a people, it didn’t work out, so then I chose ALL PEOPLE! Then, like the aforementioned person who tripped, we are informed “And that was how I meant to do it all along.”

I won’t lie, if someone broke into my house, and killed my dogs and raped my wife, and took my children, and then told me “You are alive because I have chosen you!” I would not be like “Truly, you are an awesome person, great in mercy, and Just in decision!” I’d be like “Oh what the f*** dude, the cops are on their way, and I hope you share a cell with the biggest, most rape-happy prisoner in the supermax.”

And yet here we are, and it was when I was very young that I learned the jubilant tune of “Our God is an Awesome God,” and it is only now that I consider just how odd it is that He commanded the killing of so many, then proclaimed eternal, unconditional love for all. You say the word “unconditional”, but I do not think it means what you think it means.

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Best Friends with God

The Real Ten Commandments

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 6

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 5

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 4

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 3

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 2

Do as I… What Was I Talking About Again? Part 1

A Confused Narrative