"Who was/is Jehovah? A being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious, jealous and unjust.
"Who was Abraham? An insane Barbarian patriarch who married his sister, denied his wife, and seduced her handmaid, who drove one child into desert to starve and made preparation to butcher the other"
Who was Jacob? Another patriarch, who won God's love by deceiving his father, cheating his uncle, robbing his brother, practicing bigamy with two of his cousins, and committing fornication with two of his housemaids.
Who was Moses? A model of meekness; a man who boasted of his own humility; a man who murdered an Egyptian and hid his body in the sand; a man who exterminated whole nations to secure the spoils of war, a man who butchered in cold blood thousands of captive widows, a man who tore dimpled babes from the breasts of dying mothers and put them to a cruel death; a man who made orphans of thirty-two thousand innocent girls, and turned sixteen thousand of them over to the brutal lusts of a savage soldiery.
Who was David? "A man after God's own heart." A vulgar braggadocio, using language to a woman the mere quoting of which would send me to prison; a traitor, desiring to lead an enemy's troops against his own countrymen; a thief and robber, plundering the country on every side; a liar, uttering wholesale falsehoods to screen himself from justice; a red-handed butcher, torturing and slaughtering thousands of men, women, and children, making them pass through burning brick-kilns, carving them up with saws and axes, and tearing them into pieces under harrows of iron; a polygamist, with a harem of wives and concubines; a drunken debauchee, dancing half-naked before the maids of his household; a lecherous old libertine, abducting and ravishing the wife of a faithful soldier; a murderer, having his faithful soldier put to death after desolating his home; a hoary-headed fiend, foaming with vengeance on his dying bed, demanding with his last breath the deaths of two aged men, one of whom had most contributed to make his kingdom what it was, the other a man to whom he had promised protection.
Noah gets drunk and exposes himself to his son (Ham). (Gen. 9:20-23)
King David also vulgarly exposes himself to a crowd. (2 Samuel 6:20)
David possibly has a love affair with Jonathan. (1 Samuel 18-20)
"Wise" and "moral" King Solomon has "seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines." (1 Kings 11:3)
Cannibalism, rape, mutilation, murder--these are neverending themes of the book that forms the moral basis of many societies.
But wait, blind believers may cry, that is the Old Testament. The New Testament reveals a loving God. So, we might respond, the "infallible" God changes halfway through the story, eh? Perhaps he got sick of himself and decided to reform his evil ways? Hmmm. Some God. Besides, we won't even go into the atrocities of the New Testament, such as constant exhortations for slaves to obey their masters in all ways, or followers to cut off their nuts for the Lord, or women to be submissive to their husbands, etc., or even the whole concept of cannibalistic ritual somehow being "spiritual" or that the torture and crucifixion of a "scapegod" somehow redeems the rest of us. But don't believe me--read your Bible! If you can stomach it.... Be sure to check with your pastor first, though, to make sure it's got a PG rating.
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