Ok, trying this blogging thing. If nothing else, it should allow for a certain level of mental depressurization. One topic that has been on my mind for some time: religion. Maybe an obvious choice, but this past year I finally decided to actually read the bible (New Living Translation, Tyndale) as research for some fiction I'm working on in the background. Reading it has been enlightening. I'm sure others have tread this path into muddy triteness, but here are some interesting quotes I found:
I'll start with your basic frontier justice:
Exodus 22: Social Responsibility: "a sorceress must not be allowed to live; anyone who has had sexual relations with an animal must be executed, anyone who sacrifices to any god other than the Lord must be destroyed, etc."
Leviticus 20: Punishments for Disobedience: "All who curse their mother or father must be put to death. They are guilty of a capitol offense. If a man commits adultery with another man's wife, both the man and the woman must be put to death...The penalty for homosexual acts is death to both parties."
Ezekiel 5: "Parents will eat their own children, and children will eat their parents." (this one seemed a little extreme, IMO).
And if God punishes you, he's pretty open-minded about who to hold responsible: he often kills off entire cities, including even children, old people, and animals. And if he's really mad, he won't just punish you-- he'll punish your descendents as well. Now those people had it coming. For example:
Isaiah: "14 Everyone in Babylon will run about like a hunted gazelle, like sheep without a shepherd. They will try to find their own people and flee to their own land. 15 Anyone who is captured will be cut down— run through with a sword. 16 Their little children will be dashed to death before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked, and their wives will be raped. 17 "Look, I will stir up the Medes against Babylon. They cannot be tempted by silver or bribed with gold. 18 The attacking armies will shoot down the young men with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for children."
Jeremiah: "25 The LORD has opened his armory and brought out weapons to vent his fury. The terror that falls upon the Babylonians will be the work of the Sovereign LORD of Heaven's Armies. 26 Yes, come against her from distant lands. Break open her granaries. Crush her walls and houses into heaps of rubble. Destroy her completely, and leave nothing! 27 Destroy even her young bulls— it will be terrible for them, too! Slaughter them all!" [yes, the bulls deserved it-- all that coronary-causing cholesterol].
20 "You are my battle-ax and sword," says the LORD. "With you I will shatter nations and destroy many kingdoms. 21 With you I will shatter armies—
destroying the horse and rider, the chariot and charioteer. 22 With you I will shatter men and women, old people and children, young men and maidens. 23 With you I will shatter shepherds and flocks, farmers and oxen, captains and officers."
There's some interesting twisting on the concept of free will:
Joshua 11: Israel Defeats the Northern Kings: "So Joshua conquered the entire region-...No one in this region made peace with the Israelites except the Hivites of Gibeon. All the others were defeated. For the Lord hardened their hearts and caused them to fight the Israelites instead of asking for peace. So they were completely and mercilessly destroyed, as the Lord had commanded Moses."
This situation is repeated often, where someone or some nation or people disobey God or fight God's chosen people *because God made them do that*. This would seem to reduce these people to the status of puppets in the grand scheme of things, with no free will of their own. It's not just that God punishes them, but he punishes them for something he made them do. In the case of Babylon, he uses them to punish Israel, then punishes them for punishing Israel. I'm not sure what the lesson is here, other than hope God doesn't control your fate in the same way- maybe this is why someone loses in most football games...
In general, knowledge is discouraged:
Ecclesiastes: "To increase knowledge only increases sorrow...Everything has already been decided. It was known long ago what each person would be. So there's no use arguing with God about your destiny."
Again with the whole "lack of free will" concept. One benefit of this world view is it may explain W's presidency. He definitely avoided having too much knowledge.
Misogyny is a favorite theme in the bible, and I'm sure others have covered that, so I won't go there. Although I haven't quite finished (I'm in Acts), the central biblical theme seems to be: Fear me, or I'll fuck you up good. But hey, on the plus side, if you're scared shitless and do everything I say (assuming I let you decide what you think and do), you'll lead a blessed life (land of milk and honey and all that). For an all-powerful, omniscient being, the Lord seems to have spent quite a lot of time caring what us mere mortals think and do. He wants to control us (even when he already controls us apparently). I think Jesus sums it up fairly neatly here:
Matthew: 28 Then Jesus said, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light."
What has all this taught me? After actually reading the bible, I can't believe anyone believes the bible was written by anything other than a bunch of men trying to convince others to follow their own mythology for their own ends (power, money, mir). There is seriously some crazy stuff in the bible (I didn't even get into the supernatural-- see Ezekiel for example), and not just a little, but a lot. And a lot of just really bad writing as well. The bible is extremely redundant. I have to assume the vast majority of people either don't read the bible carefully or they just cherry-pick the parts of the bible they want to believe and disregard the rest. A good example of this is Jesus. He's a nice guy right? When I read the part where Jesus says that if you look at a woman with lust, you should put your own eyes out, I was like- wait, Jesus said that? Doesn't Jesus just love and forgive everyone? But here he's telling people to mutilate themselves so they don't go to hell (am I reading this too literally?). Yet despite the bloody acts, the contradictory ideas, the poor, redundant writing, the supernatural craziness, Christianity is pervasive today (as are the other monotheistic religions). And it's not just people attending services in their hometown churches and reading the bible. There are entire universities dedicated to bible study. Christianity has a vast influence over national politics in many countries. I kept wracking my brains. Why? Why?
I hit upon a thesis: the placebo effect. If a doctor gives a patient a sugar pill and says it will cure them, research has shown medical outcomes improve because the patient believes it will cure them. Perhaps the same thing applies to those who pray to the big guy in the sky. If they believe God will make their lives better, it is possible that simply their belief will have an effect. I've heard that religious faith is correlated with longer life and better health, possibly as a result of having a built-in social network, possibly from having less existential stress worrying about why things happen. So I say this to all you fellow atheists out there (Richard Dawkins, this means you)-- stop trying to stop religion. It's not going to go away because the self-delusory benefits are too great. Instead, atheists should be trying to inject some sanity into the mix. If you can't beat it, join it (or at least don't attack it outright). For example, just promoting the idea that the bible was written by fellow, fallible human beings (without questioning the presence of God himself) might open up some much-needed flexibility on the part of Christians (and Muslims, Jews, etc.). Maybe they don't need to take this document quite so seriously, and instead, they could focus on the concepts (some of which *are* worth promoting- love thy neighbor, help the poor, etc.) rather than those tired, bloody words.
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