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From: loren@moonzappa.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich)
Newsgroups: alt.sex
Subject: My Posting on Bible Wrongs Again...
Message-ID: <44741@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 17 Jan 90 02:27:14 GMT
Sender: usenet@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: loren@moonzappa.llnl.gov (Loren Petrich)
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lines: 198


	Here it is, back by popular demand, by posting on Bible
Wrongs. Or, should I say, the Bible's Satanic Verses? I've added to it
a bit since last time. I put together this list because I get really
burned up when I see all the conservative "moralists" denounce what
supposedly does not live up to their "standards" -- while looking the
other way at _anything_ in their own sacred book -- the Bible. I hope
that this takes at least a little bit of wind out of their sails...
(metaphorically, of course!) Here goes:

	I think that it would be helpful to consider how the Bible
bangers would react to much of the contents of the Bible, if they
judged the Bible by the same standard that they judge other books.

Nudity -- In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were naked.

"Indecent exposure" -- When Noah drank some wine, he got drunk and let
his "nakedness" (King James translation) show. God cursed Noah's son
Ham because Ham had gotten a sight of that, while Noah's other two
sons did not.

Sexual exploitation(?) -- Lot wants to protect two of God's angels
from some troublesome, lecherous men. He says, in effect, "You may
have my daughters, but you can't have them."

Dirty dancing(?) -- David watching Bathsheba bathe.

Possible bad example -- David wanting Bathsheba and getting her
husband Uriah killed; in all fairness, the prophet Nathan made him
repent of this tacky action.

Sexual suggestiveness -- the Song of Solomon [it has actually been
banned as pornographic when printed separately from the Bible]

Petulance -- Elisha cursing the children who taunted him about his
baldness [we are told that two bears came and killed 42 of them] and
Jesus Christ cursing a certain fig tree because it wasn't in season
for figs [we are told that it died the next day]. His throwing of the
moneychangers out of the Temple may also qualify.

Glorification of alcohol consumption -- Jesus Christ miraculously
turning water into wine.

Pacifism -- Isaiah's prophecy that the lion will someday lie down with
the lamb, and Jesus Christ's teaching that one must love one's enemies
and turn the other cheek.

Anti-materialism -- Jesus Christ's assertions that material wealth is
fundamentally worthless, that "one cannot serve both God and money",
that the love of money is the root of all evil, the one ought to "sell
everything one has and give the money to the poor", and "a camel [or
rope] is more likely to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich
man is to enter the Kingdom of God."

Anti-business -- Jesus Christ driving the moneychangers from the
Temple at Jerusalem. His anti-materialism may also qualify.

Anti-family -- It is possible that Jesus Christ never married. He was
a wandering religious prophet, living off the charity of his friends
and followers. There is no mention of his wife, if he had been
married; the poor woman (if there ever was such a one) seems ignored.
However, we hear little of other men's wives, so that might not be
terribly unusual. He even went so far as to say that he was going to
break up everybody's families, and that if you loved your family more
than him, you were not worthy of him. He may not have been completely
anti-family; he was supposedly willing to conjure up wine for a
wedding feast, at which he was a "guest." However, about his mother,
he said, "Woman, what do I have to do with you?"

Opposition to moral condemnation -- Jesus Christ said that one should
not pass judgment on others, and that one should not call people
insulting names.

Opposition of displays of piety -- Jesus Christ said that you should
not try to impress other people with how pious you are by praying in
public and looking sad while fasting. This constitutes rejection of
official prayers, such as mandated prayers in schools.

Ethical relativism -- in the Book of Ecclesiastes, we find that there
is a time to do one thing and a time to do just the opposite.

Food prohibitions -- Leviticus prohibits pork and shellfish. Also says
that rabbits are OK because they are ruminants, and that of
four-legged animals, grasshoppers are OK. [Actually, rabbits do not
ruminate and grasshoppers have six legs]

Must grow a beard -- Leviticus prohibits the "rounding of the corners
of one's beard" -- that is, shaving.

Flat-earthism [I guess this is science, not morality, but...] -- Jesus
Christ was invited up a mountain where he could see "all the kingdoms
of the world." Where was this mountain? And is it possible to see all
of our planet's inhabited land area from one spot unless the Earth was
flat?

Extreme punishments -- the Old Testament states that adultery is to be
punished by stoning to death [a penalty still used in Iran].

Violence -- the Bible has almost too many examples to mention. The
crucifixion of Jesus Christ is especially gory.

Genocide -- In the earlier books of the Old Testament, we learn that
the Israelites were supposed to slaughter conquered peoples. Samuel
faulted King Saul for allowing some enemy sheep and cattle to live.
Elsewhere, they are told to kill all the men and married women, but
that they can keep for themselves all the unmarried women who have not
been to bed with any man.

Involvements with evil spirits -- Jesus Christ drove out demons
several times, and even allowed some demons to enter the Gadarene
Swine. These unfortunate pigs then proceeded to stampede into a nearby
lake.

Acceptance of slavery -- All of the Bible takes slavery for granted,
and states that slaves should simply obey their masters. The only
concession in the opposite direction is that masters should be good to
their slaves.

Rejection of democracy -- Nowhere in the Bible is an elected
leadership featured. The only theory of government featured is the
Divine Right of Kings. It is somewhat surprising that the Bible
bangers have not denounced the American Constitution as an act of
rebellion against God, since it traces ultimate authority to "we the
people" instead of God. Though the Declaration of Independence does
mention a God (though not necessarily the one in the Bible), it seems
to treat government as a purely human invention, with no direct
connection to any deity.

Jesus Christ's Sabbath-Breaking -- Jesus Christ said that it was OK to
pluck grain on the Sabbath if one was really hungry, commenting that
"the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." Also, he
worked some miraculous cures on the Sabbath. These actions are
contrary to one of the Ten Commandments, as some contemporary critics
of his noticed.

Not all Bible bangers pride themselves on reactionary opinions,
however. Some have pretentions to "progressive" or less reactionary
ones. The Bible is deficient even there.

Extreme sexism -- St. Paul said that women should be silent in church
and that women should submit to men in the same way that men submit to
God.

Insensitivity to other religions -- In the Bible, all religious
practice other than the worship of Yahweh are labeled "idolatry", the
worshipping of statues and the like, ignoring the possibility that
they may only be symbolic of deities. This is the exact same sort of
thing that the Bible bangers charge when they themselves are
criticized.

Religious intolerance and persecution -- Vilification of "idolatry"
certainly qualifies. Also qualifying may well be calls for the death
penalty for having a "familiar spirit" and for witchcraft.

Anthropomorphism -- the God of the Bible is persistently described in
anthropomorphic terms; he (note the male pronoun) is described as
having an abundance of human emotions and "hands" and "feet". He is
also described as having "walked" in the Garden of Eden and having a
"throne" to sit on. The more sophisticated kind of theologians have
maintained that these anthropomorphisms are essentially a mental
crutch for the purpose of picturing the otherwise
difficult-to-picture, but there is no statement of that hypothesis
anywhere in the Bible.

And I'm sure that the Bible bangers would despise Jesus Christ if he
appeared outside the Bible. For one thing, they would consider it
self-evident truth that he was homosexual, meaning, of course, that he
was not a "real man." [Sorry if I insult net.gay-people, but that is
just a stereotype] And they would say that a lot of the Bible ought to
be banned -- if they judged it by the same standards as they do
everything else.

I know that this sounds like a flame, and I can expect to be flamed on
the ground that I am misinterpreting the Bible, but I just had to post
this. I hope that this is a good list of things for all us
net.heathens to use against the Bible bangers.

Many of the deficiencies that I have pointed out are not confined to
the Bible. Sexism and slavery were almost universally taken for
granted before the last couple of centuries. Democracies were rare
before modern times, even counting ancient Greek semi-democracy. Human
history has been riddled with violence. On the subject of extreme
punishments, crucifixion is not mentioned in the Old Testament but was
a Roman punishment. Theological anthropomorphism has been all too
common.

What should I call this list? Perhaps a list of Biblical "Satanic Verses."

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