The
Biblical God Is A Strange Dude
by Rob Cottignies
The Holy Bible is full of narratives, many of which are
meant to guide readers toward wholesome living.
But some of its stories are just… odd.
Although God is always just and good, he has definitely
been vain, indifferent, and even successfully tempted.
Anyone, regardless of religious affiliation, should be
at least mildly alarmed by these tales, which show the lord who works in
mysterious ways is also kind of a weirdo.
*ABRAHAM*
In Genesis 12, God instructs a pious guy named Abraham
(formerly called Abram) to pack up and move to an undisclosed location. Abraham
obeys without question and establishes Canaan, an important founding point for Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam.
Ten chapters later, God orders Abraham to kill his son
Isaac for no obvious reason. Abraham is understandably hesitant but decides to
go ahead with the plan because God is just and good.
Before murdering his son, Abraham must convince him to
hike for three days up a mountain, where he would incapacitate the boy.
With Isaac tied helplessly to a rock, his father raises a dagger.
A split-second before he thrusts the blade into his defenseless son’s
body, an angel appears and tells him not to do it because God was only testing
his loyalty.
In current times, God would have texted Abraham
something like, ‘OMG DONT KILL UR SON I WAS JK LOL’.
God then provides a ram for Abraham to sacrifice because
going through all that with no death to show for it would be ridiculous.
Had God stepped back to see that the man who obediently
uprooted his whole life for him was already loyal, this heart-wrenching test
done in the name of vanity could have been avoided.
*LOT*
Between Abraham’s introduction and attempted filicide,
we meet his nephew Lot, a devout man who lives with his wife and two daughters in
the sinful city of Sodom.
God, who is just and good, plans to destroy Sodom and the
neighboring Gomorrah. Before that happens, Abraham convinces him to spare Lot
and his family.
Lot is told about his impending evacuation by two visitors,
who rouse attention from the city’s men so much that a large crowd of them
forms outside the house and demands to rape the guests.
(Told ya the city was sinful.)
Instead of allowing that to happen, Lot boldly offers
his young daughters to the mob, which becomes insulted and enraged. Before any harm
can be done, the visitors (who are actually magical angels) save the day by
making every person in the mob blind.
The angels tell the Lot family to vacate Sodom quickly,
but they refuse and must be forcibly removed. Also, they leave without the
daughters’ boyfriends, who think the whole thing is a hoax.
Upon leaving, the family’s only instruction is to not
turn around and watch the cities get obliterated. However, Lot’s wife (who has
no known name) gets naturally intrigued by the commotion behind them, looks
back, and is immediately turned into a pillar of salt.
(It has been argued that the people of Sodom learned
about the visitors because she asked neighbors for extra salt, hence the
curious punishment.)
To be fair, the angels did say not to turn
around.
But that is not all…
Lot and his daughters go to a place called Zoar then seek shelter in a cave.
Even though they just came from a city full of people, Lot's daughters are somehow convinced they are the last people on Earth. As most people would not do, they get their father drunk and take turns raping him to get pregnant.
Keep in mind that God, who is just and good, has time
to transform a woman into seasoning for being intrigued by explosions but is
too busy to stop her daughters from raping her widower.
If there is a moral to this rape-minded story, it is unknown
to me.
(pronounced
with a long O as if it is spelled Jobe)
Job’s story is arguably the least-understood part of
the Old Testament, puzzling in superficial and philosophical ways.
In the Book of Job, we meet Job, another virtuous guy who
is doomed for reasons beyond his control.
Job is a healthy man with a large family full of good
people and a profitable farm which sustains them and others in a land called Uz-
a place not mentioned in any other part of the Bible.
One day, God is boasting about Job’s devotion to him.
Satan- who is not yet the devil- claims Job will denounce God if the good
things in his life are taken away. God accepts the challenge and tells Satan he
can do anything to Job’s life short of physical harm.
Satan uses this God-given power to kill Job’s children,
servants, and livestock. Again, God, who is just and good, permits this to
happen.
But Job does not denounce God for his new-found misfortune.
Whiny as ever, Satan then complains about not being
allowed to injure Job, so God authorizes that as well because he is still
just and good.
Satan puts boils (small, painful lumps) all over Job’s
body, causing him so much misery that his wife and friends encourage him to
give up and die.
Still, Job praises God.
After winning the wager-less bet, God praises Job’s
piety by giving him twice as many animals and servants as he lost and a bunch
of beautiful daughters.
If the beings who create a horrible situation give a version
of what things used to be like afterwards, does that justify it?
…
So yeah, God is a strange
guy.
Whether these events
happened or not, their seemingly pointless descriptions should give you
nightmares.
In addition to these
things, God sends bears to murder 42 children for poking fun at a bald guy
named Elisha (2 Kings 2) and spends three days making the universe in the dark
even though he is obviously able to create light (Genesis 1).
…
A well-rounded belief
system includes recognizing the good, the bad, and the strange.
If you accept these
stories, perhaps you should look in the mirror to see another weirdo.
Just be a good person.
And stay on God’s good side. Remember, he did these things to people he liked!
Many thanks to these websites for assisting in my
research: google.com, britannica.com, jwa.org, biblegateway.com, gizmodo.com
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