The trick to remember is that God isn’t real and what you’re getting is a long historical composite of shifting social conventions and political beliefs.
Imagine replacing God with The US President, asking “What’s your opinion on black people?”, and then getting an answer that’s cobbled together from every office holder over the last 250 years with the final proclamation “Vote For Me!” in grand unison.
That’s the Bible in a nutshell.
Would I still support a JQA or Lincoln or FDR or Kennedy? Sure. But I can understand if you’re not a fan of Generic President.
In the same way “Generic Abrahamic God” is too much a mixed bag of sugar and shit to stomach
Secular historical explanations for why the god of the Bible is the way he is (and how he’s changed) make so much more sense than the mental gymnastics Christians have to do. Most of the old testament (and plenty of the new testament) descriptions and stories of him are way more characteristic of a tribal deity warring with other tribes’ deities than the omnipotent, omnipresent, benevolent creator of the universe.
There was the world flood, drowning the Egyptian chariots in the Red Sea, the fire and brimstone in Gomorrah and a few other places, turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, the plagues, withholding rain to cause famines, letting Job’s family die of disease just to prove a point…
Mostly it’s not bloody killing except for when lions and bears are involved.
Undoubtedly, a metric shit ton of death and destruction…
But explicitly not a blood god.
Which honestly makes it worse, they’re killing in the name of a god whose whole deal boiled down to “everybody stop killing everybody”.
Theres a small slice of extremists that missed the entire point and devoted their lives to harming people that worship the same God in slightly different ways
how the Hebrew war parties were supposed to collect the foreskins of the men they killed then, I guess?
By no means am I an expert…
But I would be shocked to hear that in the Torah recommended that, or that real life raiding parties often did that.
In the myth it was a certain number from a country they were actively at war against, and taken because only non Jewish men and had one, a scalp could come from anyone, only the invading Philistines had foreskins. But that’s why they wanted them, the easiest way to prove you killed an invading warrior because at the time everyone living in the area had been circumcized at like a week old. (Quick note: it was also meant to be a ridiculous and impossible request to allow David to marry a princess and become King)
But I mean, it almost certainly never happened, just imagine trying to actually separate them and count them, it wouldn’t be an exact science. That’s why I think someone just thought “how could he prove he killed a bunch of warriors” and just rolled with it. Don’t forget this isn’t history, it’s mythology.
From what I know tho, Saul was a pretty shitty King, because every King 3,000 years ago was fucking crazy. Game of Thrones didn’t have shit on real life back then.
They tried to retcon Yahweh, but blood gods are not fit for rehabilitation
The trick to remember is that God isn’t real and what you’re getting is a long historical composite of shifting social conventions and political beliefs.
Imagine replacing God with The US President, asking “What’s your opinion on black people?”, and then getting an answer that’s cobbled together from every office holder over the last 250 years with the final proclamation “Vote For Me!” in grand unison.
That’s the Bible in a nutshell.
Would I still support a JQA or Lincoln or FDR or Kennedy? Sure. But I can understand if you’re not a fan of Generic President.
In the same way “Generic Abrahamic God” is too much a mixed bag of sugar and shit to stomach
Secular historical explanations for why the god of the Bible is the way he is (and how he’s changed) make so much more sense than the mental gymnastics Christians have to do. Most of the old testament (and plenty of the new testament) descriptions and stories of him are way more characteristic of a tribal deity warring with other tribes’ deities than the omnipotent, omnipresent, benevolent creator of the universe.
Why even create the universe if you’re not going to fuck around with it?
I play the sims for the unhinged murder, not simulating work life balance.
Don’t get me wrong, lots of criticisms of the Abrhamic religions are valid…
But they were explicitly not a blood cult.
Like, the foundational myth that they’re built on, that Yahweh commanded Abraham to kill his son but at the last minute granted a “pardon”…
That was so important because a lot of religions back then were doing human sacrifices.
By today’s standards they’re backwards as fuck. But 3-4 thousand years ago that was super progressive.
Also, hell and flames aren’t anywhere in the Bible.
That was made up later to scare people into conforming with the group once Christians became the dominant religion.
This is a handful of cherries. Yahweh has a lot of blood on his hands.
Mostly God doesn’t kill people in bloody ways.
There was the world flood, drowning the Egyptian chariots in the Red Sea, the fire and brimstone in Gomorrah and a few other places, turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt, the plagues, withholding rain to cause famines, letting Job’s family die of disease just to prove a point…
Mostly it’s not bloody killing except for when lions and bears are involved.
Undoubtedly, a metric shit ton of death and destruction…
But explicitly not a blood god.
Which honestly makes it worse, they’re killing in the name of a god whose whole deal boiled down to “everybody stop killing everybody”.
Theres a small slice of extremists that missed the entire point and devoted their lives to harming people that worship the same God in slightly different ways
I mean, we’re just gonna ignore how the Hebrew war parties were supposed to collect the foreskins of the men they killed then, I guess?
What’s he even doing with all those things anyway?
By no means am I an expert…
But I would be shocked to hear that in the Torah recommended that, or that real life raiding parties often did that.
In the myth it was a certain number from a country they were actively at war against, and taken because only non Jewish men and had one, a scalp could come from anyone, only the invading Philistines had foreskins. But that’s why they wanted them, the easiest way to prove you killed an invading warrior because at the time everyone living in the area had been circumcized at like a week old. (Quick note: it was also meant to be a ridiculous and impossible request to allow David to marry a princess and become King)
But I mean, it almost certainly never happened, just imagine trying to actually separate them and count them, it wouldn’t be an exact science. That’s why I think someone just thought “how could he prove he killed a bunch of warriors” and just rolled with it. Don’t forget this isn’t history, it’s mythology.
From what I know tho, Saul was a pretty shitty King, because every King 3,000 years ago was fucking crazy. Game of Thrones didn’t have shit on real life back then.
He was always a god of War
I have no time for them