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Saturday, August 16, 2014

More Bible Thoughts

Continuing my review of the bible - I am still in Exodus.

God is a major jerk. He sent Moses to plea for the release of the Jews from Pharaoh but then "hardened Pharaoh's heart" preventing him from releasing the Jews. What this means is that God deliberately forced the hands of Pharaoh for the sole reason of reigning terror, plague, and vengeance down upon the Egyptians. Had God simply let Pharaoh decide on his own the Jews might have been released without the various plagues raining upon the land.

God is unforgiving and cruel for anyone does pretty much anything wrong shall be stoned to death
God is also a misogynist for women may be stoned to death based on the accusation of a single person; Men require at least two people to accuse. This means that the bible assumes that women's value is so low that the opposing word of a single person is all that is needed to put them to death; but, that a conspiracy of at least two people is needed to execute a man.

God outlines that it is ok to have slaves. This is a form of evil. It is also not only accepted, but expected, for people to view those of another land or race as inferior to their own. This, too, is evil.

[Note - the above was written shortly after consuming the passages.... the below was written from the notes several months later. There are bound to be misrecollections represented]

For some reason I took the note that "Aaron married another Levite" which means it must be a contradiction to something somewhere else.... but I cannot recall what or where.

The book has a tremendous volume of the number seven. Why?

The book has a prohibition against shaving one's head; which appears to have evolved in interpretation into the modern Hasidic Jew hairstyle requirements.

Accusers must be willing to throw the first stone in a stoning which, to me, seems a reasonable requirement. If someone if making false claims then the murder of the other party is entirely their doing.


Financial requirements are outlined in this book:
One must forgive debts to anyone of one's own race After seven years


The King shall not acquire too much wealth nor shall he acquire too large of an army.


Take care of the poor and widows

All three of these should be brought forth to anyone who is rich and in a position of authority that claims to live by the word of the bible.

The Lord has strong opinions on how to treat the lands and towns of those who are evil:
Towns or states that do evil in the eyes of the Lord must be eradicated and never rebuilt.


Plunder from evil towns is to be burnt in the center of town and never taken home

Yet the Lord preaches genocide against all Nonbelievers if they are in the land that the Lord's people want; which, to me, is pretty evil. Perhaps that is why the promised land was promised to be overflowing crops and yet that is not the reality of Israel. It is also stated that aliens are less important than people Of the Lord; meaning that foreigners have, literally, less value. These concepts are also pretty intrinsically evil.

Additionally it is outlined that the Lord gives the words to the prophets. If what they say does not come true then they are not his words. Those claiming to have the words from me falsely are to be put to death; those stating the word of other gods are to be put to death.
Couple that with the directive of "do not deviate from instructions" and there is a situation in which every clergy member who ever made a false prediction of anything must be killed as a false prophet.

The book outlines an extensive health code for food:
No pork. No shellfish. No birds of prey. No insects. No carrion.

How often do we see the no pork and no shellfish rules followed with vast protests surrounding anyone who consumes either of these types of food? Why are these explicit rules so easily ignored when others rules, mentioned only as often, are held to so strongly?


There are some serious property restrictions laid forth:
Firstborn is to be sacrificed to the Lord of all livestock.
Some of the people of the Lord are never allowed to own any property Nor are their children or their children's children ever; these are a specific clan.

Yet, with all of the capital punishment outlined it is explicitly stated that there shall be no human sacrifice. 



Thou shall never return to Egypt seems to be a good recommendation based on how the chosen people were treated... and given how that country is today it still seems a wise idea. 

An odd note, that fits no where else, is that sculptures are not allowed. This is interpreted to mean cast idols but it really seems to explicitly mean ALL sculptures are not allowed. It seems such an arbitrary prohibition.



You will one day forget what God did for your ancestors do not then become wicked


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