Reading the Bible,
Part 6
It’s time to finish the Old Testament!
Fortunately, Ezekiel was the last book with more than twenty chapters. Most of
the rest of the books contain more prophets telling people that they’re wicked
and that God is going to hurt them if they don’t act right. I’ve talked about
that plenty so here is the new stuff:
Kings
with Short Memories:
The book of Daniel is supposed to take
place during the exile in Babylon. The introduction is that Jewish youths Daniel,
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were assigned to the palace of Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar as wise men in training. King Neb had a strange dream and wanted
his magicians, astrologers, wise men, etc. to interpret it. To ensure that only
REAL magically-knowledgeable people could answer, King Neb refused to say what
the dream even was. With God’s help, Daniel was able to recount and interpret
the dream. In doing so, King Neb recognized Daniel’s God as the real true god
and made Daniel one of the highest-ranking people in the country. Then King Neb
immediately forgot all of that and ordered everyone to worship a gold statue.
Daniel's three cohorts refused to do that. So King Neb threw them into a
furnace. However, God protected the three from the flames. In doing so, King
Neb recognized Daniel’s God as the real true god and promoted the three. Then
King Neb immediately forgot all of that and narrates a story about how he
ignored God, so God kicked him out of the kingdom to live with animals for a
long time and then he learned to respect God and was restored as king. So for
the third time King Neb recognized Daniel’s God as the real true god.
Then everybody forgot about all that during
the rule of Neb's son, King Belshazzar. A disembodied hand appeared at a dinner
party and wrote something on the wall. Daniel showed up and said that it meant
the king was going to die. Daniel was rewarded by being promoted to the third
most powerful man in the country and King Belsh died
that night. So everybody again saw the power of Daniel's God, which was quickly
forgotten by new King Darius, who commanded that people could only pray to the
king himself. Of course, Daniel violated this by praying to God. The punishment
was for Daniel to be thrown to lions. However, God protected Daniel from the
lions and King Darius recognized Daniel’s God as the real true god and
commanded his kingdom to worship Daniel's God. As a bonus, he threw Daniel's
enemies' to the lions along with their wives and children and they were all
crushed instantly!
So that's five miracles where you would
expect more people to remember and respect God. It never happens. What a
ridiculous fiction. It's lunacy that people present these stories to their
children as facts. I even had to perform a musical about the furnace story at
my parent's church when I was a kid. I still remember the music!: “Shadrach! What kind of name is
that? Meshach! Who has a name like that? Shadrach, Meshach! Abednego! Whoa! Oh,
no!” “It isn't hot (Whew!) in the furnace, man. It isn't hot (Sss!) in the furnace, man. It isn't hot in the furnace,
man, this furnace is cool. Yes, it's cool (Ah!) in the furnace, man. Yes, it's
cool (Ooh!) in the furnace, man. Yes it's cool in the furnace, man this furnace
is cool. It's cool.”
Big
Fish:
The story of Jonah is another Bible story
frequently told to children. It’s about a prophet that tries to flee an
assignment to heckle a city about how wicked it is and how God is going to
destroy it. Jonah’s boat gets caught in some rough ocean, he gets swallowed by
a big fish, he is thrown up onto land, and he finally agrees to go tell the
city that it’s going to be destroyed in forty days. Remarkably, the people
actually listen. Everyone from the king to the animals put on a sackcloth,
refrained from food and water, and cried for mercy. And God saw their
repentance and decided not to destroy them. Well that’s nice. But it makes me
wonder, what if false prophets did that all over the region all of the time?
Hey Nineveh, some guy said you’re wicked again. Bring out the sackcloth! Hey
Samaria, you need to repent. You should stop eating! Hey Jerusalem, it’s
Tuesday. Let’s spend a few hours begging God not to kill us! What a horrible
waste of productivity and happiness.
Summary:
As I’ve said before, the Bible makes a lot
of sense when you think of its religion as a method to protect tribalism.
Everything that God says or does is meant to promote social order, promote unit
cohesion, glorify the leaders, glorify the tribe, remove people with undesired
behavior, hurt the morale of enemies, etc. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense
to think that the creator of the universe chose a little group of desert people
to favor and demanded that they perform certain rituals and murder their way
into controlling a little piece of the Earth. That’s retarded. I won’t
apologize for being offensive because I’m not exaggerating. That belief is so
completely stupid that anyone over twelve years old that believes it is
retarded. But alas, most people don’t even care. Religious people don’t care
about the truth; they care about the truthiness. They care about the camaraderie
with their friends and neighbors. They care about the joy of people accepting them,
agreeing with them, and validating them. They care about having a community
that cares when they have trouble in their life. It’s possible to obtain all of
that without religion, but it doesn’t happen quickly or easily. Sometimes I don’t
even blame people for taking the easy route in life and finding peace and
acceptance in religion. But if you want reality, pay attention to cause and
effect.